What Does ISIS Really Want? Reconsidering Graeme Wood’s Piece in "The Atlantic"

Man, did I pick a helluva week to decide to start blogging again…..Yesterday, a robust discussion of a new article in The Atlantic filled my inbox with e-mails from a variety of folks on the American Academy of Religion’s Islam listserv.  I had skimmed the article online yesterday, but was asked this morning by a dear friend to offer my comments, so having read the article more in-depth, I have several thoughts.

First of all, it should be said that I claim no credentials as a Muslim theologian.  In fact, from an academic perspective, theology is but a tertiary concern of mine.  “Proper” interpretation of religious texts is less important to me than subjective and personal interpretation and the influence of such on people’s actions.  With that disclaimer, I will not deal with the myriad theological issues brought up by the article.  I do not have the necessary credentials to do so persuasively, and, as a non-Muslim, these would be dicey waters to wade into even if I felt I had something intelligent to contribute.  However, scholarly critiques of ISIS, on theological grounds to exist, as with this open letter to the ISIS leader signed by a number of prominent Islamic scholars.  It should also be added that there have been several critiques of Wood’s article, including this one from the executive director of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).  Another critique includes rebuttals from various scholars of Islam

Second, as a scholar, I cannot make evaluations about the veracity of one’s faith, so I cannot say that ISIS is more or less “Islamic” than any other Muslim group.  I can suggest that this is perhaps an extreme interpretation of Islam, but I can no more judge the sincerity of ISIS than I can the sincerity of the beliefs of Westboro Baptist Church or the Christian Identity movement when it comes to Christianity.  They believe their faith to be genuine, and I am in no position to quarrel with that.

I tend toward the sociological end of the religious scholarship spectrum.  I am far more interested in the multiple moving parts that contribute to the rise of a particular religious stance on an issue than I am on proper textual exegesis.  Thus, it is from a sociological perspective that I find my biggest problem with Wood’s piece.  Wood focuses largely on the theological drive behind ISIS.  However, theology, as with all other things, must be placed in a proper context, and the contexts for apocalyptic movements, of which ISIS could be considered a part, require an understanding of the political, social, and cultural machinations going on contemporaneously.

In many ways, the popularity of ISIS’s millenarian stance reminds me a bit of rise of dispensationalism in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s.  Dispensationalism is an eschatological framework which is premillennial in orientation (meaning Jesus has yet to come back to establish his 1000 year, or millennial, kingdom).  Dispensationalism believes that prior to a 7-year tribulation, all believers will be raptured to heaven, and those “left behind” will suffer at the hands of the Anti-Christ before Jesus comes to establish His kingdom.  Dispensationalism has not been de rigueur for long, compared to other forms of eschatology.  In fact, postmillennialism was the much more widely accepted form of eschatology in the US prior to the Great Depression. 

Postmillennials believe that Christ has already established his kingdom on Earth and that once good triumphs over evil and the message of the Gospel has spread all over the world, Christ will return.  The Social Gospel movement of the late-19^th and early 20^th centuries was very much rooted in postmillennialism.  However, the destruction caused in World War I as well as the extreme economic hardships of the Great Depression caused many to throw up their hands and say, “It’s no use!”  At that point, dispensationalism was able to emerge as the new front-runner of American eschatology.

Dispensationalism took hold because it is much more pessimistic than the revivalist postmillennialism of the Social Gospel movement.  Dispensationalists believe that we are rushing headlong into chaos and as such, we should concern ourselves less with the present time and more with preparing for the end of days.  Because of this, dispensationalists have never really concerned themselves with the threat of nuclear war or environmental catastrophes as those things are merely signs of the times and not something mere mortals can successfully combat. 

In many ways, ISIS’ eschatological bent seems to be on much the same trajectory.  According to ISIS and its supporters, a proper “caliph” (they believe Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to be the 8^th caliph) must be in place and after the 12^th “true” caliph, there will be a final battle against Dajjal, the Muslim anti-Messiah.  In this way, ISIS sees itself as essential to the coming of Armageddon.  With all of the chaos in the Arab world, it is not difficult to understand how this kind of apocalyptic vision might resonate with some.  Like dispensationalists, ISIS has a generally pessimistic view of the world and sees the promise of paradise following the final battle a preferable option.  Furthermore, many fundamentalist movements of all stripes frequently appeal to some sort of apocalyptic future to come precisely because of the promise of future glory even in the face of a world going to hell in a handbasket.

From a tonal perspective, the biggest issue with Wood’s piece is that it suggests that there is one “right” way to interpret Muhammad’s legacy and the Qur’an.  There is not.  Quoted heavily by Wood is Princeton professor Bernard Haykel.  The difficult part of reading any journalistic interpretation of an interview with an academic is trying to ascertain whether the academic was quoted in context.  This is my primary concern with what Dr. Haykel is quoted as saying.  Haykel’s position is presented as one in which “moderate” Muslims hold a watered-down, politically correct version of their faith that ignores many of the earliest dictates of Muhammad and his followers.  However, Haykel is also quoted as saying “[T]hese guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.”  It is difficult for me to reconcile these two approaches.  On the one hand, the way in which Haykel is quoted first suggests that he thinks Islam is an inherently medieval or backwards religion.  On the other hand, suggesting that ISIS has as much legitimacy as others suggests, albeit clumsily, that, as I have previously argued, it is not a scholar’s job to judge the sincerity or legitimacy of belief.  These seem to be two very distinct approaches to evaluating ISIS, but Wood does not attempt to explain the discrepancy.

The fact that Graeme Wood is not an expert in Islam or Islamic societies is glaring in his assessment of ISIS.  He uncritically accepts the word of ISIS sympathizers regarding the truth claims of ISIS without appreciating the problem of interpretation and analysis of a religious tradition.  He also, at times, uses “terrorism” and “jihad” interchangeably despite the fact that the two are very different.  Finally, he discusses “Salafism” without properly defining it or plotting its course.  A number of forms of Salafism are quite conservative.  However, the historical arc of Salafism is quite an interesting one, beginning with Egyptian progressive Muhammad Abduh who believed that the key to Islamic modernism could be found in the practices of the “salafs” or righteous ancestors.  Abduh’s argument was that the prophet Muhammad was a visionary who adapted on the fly to a quickly changing environment and that Muslims should follow that example to adapt to the demands and challenges posed by modernity.  Granted, this view is not the most popular of Salafism in a contemporary context, but it is nevertheless an important aspect of the development of Salafism as an ideology that shows the difficulty of pigeonholing any movement in any religion as one thing or another.

As I have previously argued on this blog, the fact that a majority of the world’s Muslims live outside of the Middle East proper even as a majority of the problems with Islam occur inside the Middle East points directly at the issue of whether Islam or the multiple problems in the Arab world is the real issue here.  Libya, Syria, and Iraq exist in total chaos today.  That kind of environment is ripe for the taking for any group strong enough to exert its will.  While the motivations of ISIS may indeed be religious (and there is no reason to believe they are not), the success of ISIS is not linked except perhaps tangentially to religion; rather, it is linked to poverty, corruption, civil war, and general disenfranchisement.

Despite the faults in Wood’s piece, it is nevertheless an important addition to the marketplace of ideas.  Only through discussion and sometimes spirited debate among scholars, journalists, and others can we begin to appreciate the strength and power of a foe like ISIS and begin the process of weakening it as a movement.

On self-styled “Islam experts”: A Rebuttal

Friday night, in what I can only assume was an attempt to see if my head would explode, one of my colleagues from the OSU Philosophy Department sent me an e-mail containing a link to a YouTube video from a gentleman named Dr. Bill Warner from the Center for the Study of Political Islam.  One might think that given the title of “Doctor” and the official sounding name of his “center” that Dr. Warner has advanced training in Islam or politics or both.  In fact, according to his biography on his website, Dr. Warner has a PhD in math and applied physics.  He is self-taught in Islam which always concerns me because “self-taught” in this case almost always means “I’ve taught myself what I wanted to learn with no self-awareness or appreciation for my own biases.”  That certainly appears to be the situation here.

The video is only 5 minutes, but I’ll do you, gentle readers, a favor and summarize:

Dr. Warner begins by suggesting that Muslims and Muslim apologists (that would be me) dislike talking about jihad and would much rather pivot toward the Crusades and take on Christians behaving badly.  He then explains that he has identified 548 battles in the “jihad” which he has plotted on a map.  The map spans from 632 CE (the death of Muhammad) to 1920 CE (the fall of the Ottoman Empire and end of the era of Muslim empires) and is titled “Destruction of Classical Civilization.”  With no attempt at nuance or political, economic, or military alternative explanations, Dr. Warner characterizes all 548 of these battles as acts of “relentless jihad.”  He states that all of this was war against the “Kafir” and is scandalized that Europeans were enslaved and brought back to the Muslim empires.  He characterizes the Inquisition as Christians “pushing back” against Islamic conquest in Spain and classifies the Crusades as defensive wars to protect Middle Eastern Christians against the persecution of the Muslims who had overtaken their lands.  In an attempt of sorts to be even-handed, he plots all of the major battles of the Crusades, noting that there are many fewer of them.  He concludes by saying that the Crusades ended centuries ago and that jihad is still ongoing.

This video is a prime example of the problem with trying to draw conclusions about anything in a vacuum.  By itself, his argument appears to be quite logical and well thought out.  However, if you dig a little deeper, or zoom out a bit, things start to fall apart.  Let me see if I can bring some context to this discussion.

1.  I am not sure to whom Dr. Warner is referring when he says that Muslims and Muslim apologists don’t like to talk about jihad.  I can, of course, only speak for myself, but I talk about jihad all the time.  It’s one of the foci of my academic study.  However, Dr. Warner, like many other “self-taught” scholars of Islam, ignores the rich, multi-layered history of the term.  The word “jihad” appears exactly twice in the Qur’an.  The more frequently used terms are qital (fighting) or harb (war).  That’s because jihad means all sorts of things aside from fighting and war.  The root (J-H-D) means “to struggle or to strive.”  The Islamic legal term ijtihad which is the use of independent reasoning when interpreting sharia is also derived from this root.  

While it’s undeniable that jihad has a military meaning, it would be inadvisable to assume to that jihad means unrestrained warfare.  In fact, as David Cook notes in his excellent book, Understanding Jihad, from a historical and legal standpoint, jihad embraces the necessity of a competent authority to declare war, announcement of the terms for resolution prior to the commencement of hostilities, respect for non-combatant immunity, respect for prisoners and the dead, and restrictions on the types of weaponry allowed.  In this way, jihad looks quite similar to the Christian just war tradition.  Even many of the “founding fathers” of modern Islamism believed that Muslims were duty bound to respect certain parameters regarding jihad.  Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, believed that because jihad was the most sacred duty of Muslims, it should be undertaken with reverence and caution.  Sayyid Qutb, often called the father of modern jihadism, wrote of jihad in his magnum opus, In the Shade of the Qur’an, arguing that disrespect for non-combatant immunity and the defiling of the dead were barbaric practices that had no place in Islam.  He elsewhere (This Religion of Islam) argued that crops and livestock should not be harmed in the waging of jihad.

2.  On its face, 548 battles of the “jihad” seems like a lot and quite widespread.  However, if one considers the timeline for the “Destruction of Classical Civilization” (632 CE-1920 CE), and divide that time frame (1288 years) by the 548 battles, it averages out to 0.43 battles per year.  In that same time frame, other empires were expanding, often violently, in all parts of the world.  One can’t help but wonder what a similar map of the British Empire might look like for the same time frame.  My guess is the average battles per year would be equal to, if not greater than, 0.43 and in a MUCH bigger geographical area.  However, Dr. Warner did not want to provide such a balanced account, only one that fit his narrative.  Furthermore, he assumes, rather uncritically, that all 548 of these major battles was a battle against the “kafir” or infidel.  This ignores any potential economic, security, or political motivations which were certainly present.  It also ignores the fact that empires throughout Europe were likewise expanding and contracting, sometimes because of religion, sometimes because of economic, security, and political motivations. 

3.  Dr. Warner would like his listeners to believe that the Spanish Inquisition was merely European pushback against the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.  In fact, the situation is, not surprisingly, much more complex than that.  The Arab armies conquered southern Spain in 711.  Some 200 years later, the Caliphate of Cordoba was established and lasted only one century.  However, in that 100 year span, Cordoba became a model of faith and learning as well as interfaith peace and cooperation.  The library boasted nearly a half million volumes, and the city was a hub of intellectual innovation.  However, with the Reconquista (the Spanish attempt to reclaim Iberia) an ever-present threat, Cordoba and the peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians within the city were not long for this world.  Religion infiltrated the warfare on both sides, creating a toxic environment in which both sides claimed to be on the side of God against the infidels.  By the time the Muslims were formally ousted from Iberia in 1492, the Inquisition was well under way.  Under the authority of the Pope as well as the Spanish crown, any Jews or Muslims (but especially Jews) who remained were forced to choose conversion, exile, or death.  Those who converted to Christianity often maintained their previous religious practices in the privacy of their own homes.  They were often treated with suspicion by the ruling authorities and many were arrested and forced to either publicly proclaim their loyalty to the Catholic Church or be turned over to the secular authorities (since the Church can’t kill people) to be executed, typically by burning at the stake.  This was not the only or even the first example of blatant anti-Semitism in Christendom against Jews (kafirs if you will), and it goes completely untouched in Dr. Warner’s treatment of the complex tangle of Islamic interaction with Europe.

4.  Dr. Warner argues that the Crusades were a defensive battle against the persecution of Middle Eastern Christians by Muslims.  This argument, as well as his map of the Crusades and the conclusion he draws from it, is disingenuous at best.  First of all, the map of the Crusades shows many fewer battles in large part because the timeline is MUCH shorter—only about 100 years.  It also neglects the impact of the Crusades against European populations, such as the Rhineland Jews who were slaughtered by the Crusaders on the way to the Holy Land as well as heretical groups like the Cathars in southern France who were victims of the Albigensian Crusade.  Second, the domestic situation in Europe was one of intense rivalry not only among various Catholic kingdoms, but also between the Pope and secular authorities.  The Investiture Controversy occurring nearly simultaneously to the Crusades speaks clearly to this.  The Great Schism, or split of Christendom into the Catholic West and Orthodox East, was also an important factor.  

All of that said, it is true that the Fatimid dynasty of Egypt had, in fact, sacked Jerusalem, set fire to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and was actively preventing pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  However, this sort of disruption was not necessarily uncommon and Europeans had never responded in such a way before.  That suggests that, at the very least, there were some other factors involved in the Crusades, perhaps the ones outlined above.  Third, the behavior of the Crusading armies in Holy Land was quite reprehensible in many ways.  Upon taking Jerusalem, the Crusaders slaughtered everyone they came across (in the name of God and fighting the infidel it should be noted).  This included Muslims, Christians, and Orthodox, or “schismatic,” Christians.  The treatment of the inhabitants of Jerusalem under the Crusaders is starkly contrasted with the treatment of the Crusaders when Saladin recaptured Jerusalem nearly 100 years later.  Saladin showed kindness to the Crusaders, allowing many of them to leave without paying the demanded ransom, then invited Jews and Christians to return to the city for pilgrimage, provided they were unarmed.  Indeed, Saladin is revered in Europe as a model of chivalry and wisdom.  Again, this information somehow fails to make it into Dr. Warner’s quick and simplistic treatment of the Crusades.

5.  Dr. Warner makes mention of the fact that Europeans were enslaved (mostly by the Ottomans) and transported back to the heart of the empire.  He presents this as proof of the uncivilized nature of Muslims.  This critique strikes me as particularly historically tone deaf.  Yes, it’s true.  The Ottomans would take young Balkan boys from their families, raise them with strict military training, and commission them as members of the Ottoman army.  The belief was that a slave army was less likely to revolt as it was dependent on the sultan for survival (this was never really as successful as the Ottomans hoped it would be).  However, to express outrage about this while not acknowledging that Europeans regularly enslaved conquered peoples in Africa, selling them to slave traders who brought them to the United States and elsewhere is particularly specious.

It has now taken me 6 pages in Microsoft Word (double spaced) to refute the simplistic arguments of a single 5-minute YouTube video.  The takeaway here is that there is nothing, not ONE THING, historically, religiously, politically, economically, socially, or culturally that can be explained away quite so neatly or simply.  Religion does not occur in a vacuum.  It is inherently tied up in a variety of other factors, though the mix is quite dynamic and changes from one place (or time) to another.  Islam is blamed for violence in the Arab world, but in other places, Muslims are heavily persecuted, often the name of religion (see: the Rohingya in Myanmar and the conflict in the Central African Republic).  So is Islam the problem or are there other factors at play?  I submit that the latter is more likely the case.  However, given the stunning lack of global awareness or even curiosity about the world around us, many of those nuances are ignored if not outright dismissed.  This kind of Manichean worldview makes it possible for the Islamophobia network to paint a picture of Islam as entirely evil, ignoring that the problem of Islam in the Arab world is intimately connected to political and economic corruption, civil war, and an over-developed security state that tightly controls all forms of expression and dissent.  It also ignores that Arab Muslims are actually a distinct minority (less than one-third) of the global Muslim population.  60% of the worldwide Muslim population resides in Malaysia and Indonesia, which are not countries that often make the news on account of radicalism in the name of Islam.

A wide-angle lens view of the conflicts that confront us in the Arab world acknowledges the centrality of Islam or, at least, one particularly odious interpretation of Islam while also acknowledging that such an interpretation is neither the only interpretation nor, many would argue, the correct one and acknowledging that numerous non-religious factors also play a role in the civil wars in Syria and Libya, the rise of ISIS, and other major conflicts. 

Introducing Dr. Crazy Cat Lady

Some years ago, I got into the blogging game with a blog called “Musing of a Backrow Baptist.”  However, I find that I have outgrown the general premise of that blog and thus, in an attempt to be (somewhat) more grownup and professional, I give you…Dr. Crazy Cat Lady.

First, about the name….I have a PhD in Religion, Politics, and Society from the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University.  I am currently a visiting assistant professor of religious studies (with the occasional foray into the Political Science Department) at my alma mater, Oklahoma State University.  While it took some time to get used to being called “Dr. Wheatley,” I have come to both accept and in many ways embrace it.  

I often tell people that given the sheer number of undergraduates I deal with on a regular basis (662 this year alone—a long story), I have no need for children of my own.  Instead, I have four 4-legged, furry, feline children.  I am regularly chided by friends as being one cat away from being a crazy cat lady.  They might be giving me too much credit as I’m pretty sure I’m already there.  So there you have it—Dr. Crazy Cat Lady…a bit of a renaissance women who can discuss musical theater, college athletics, American politics, animal welfare, and Islam with equal aplomb.  No doubt this blog will touch at various times on all of these issues, but particularly the Islam of it all.

The focus on Islam revolves in many ways around my understanding of my role as professor.  I see my role as three-fold: teacher, academic, and public intellectual.  Being a teacher is about more than imparting information.  It’s about instilling life lessons into college students—attention to detail, the importance of following directions, finding one’s calling, working out one’s own salvation with fear and trembling (and occasionally profanity).  This is my favorite part of the professoriate.  

Next is the egg-head academic part.  This is where research, writing, and publishing come in.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy what I focus on, but this is often an intensely lonely, soul-killing process.  There’s also not much in the way of instant gratification.  Editing, peer review, constant revisions—all of these things take time.  Lots and lots of time.  

Finally, the most important part of my job is the role of public intellectual.  I fell into this role a long time ago.  I was a sophomore at Oklahoma State University when the attacks on 9/11 occurred.  I had just begun immersing myself in the world of Islam and the Middle East, and even then, I found myself doing what I could to counter the false over-generalizations people had of Islam.  Now, with a PhD to my name, I find myself confronted with the responsibility, as one who may be smarter than the average bear, of making sense of a world gone mad.  It’s frustrating, and occasionally infuriating, but it’s also something I find to be vitally important in this world gone mad in which we all live.