Download Islam, Violence, and the Ambivalence of the Scripture

Islam, Violence, and the Ambivalence of the Scripture
A response to Chaiwat Satha-Anand’s “Barangsiapa Memelihara Kehidupan...”1
Azis Anwar Fachrudin
Graduate student at the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS),
Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Yogyakarta
E-mail: [email protected]
The book by Chaiwat Satha-Anand entitled “Barangsiapa Memelihara
Kehidupan...” (Indonesian for “If Anyone Saves a Life...”; henceforth, BMK) was
published in conjuction with his visit to Indonesia in October 2015 to deliver the
9th Nurcholish Madjid Memorial Lecture (NMML) at PUSAD Paramadina, Jakarta,
and CRCS, UGM, Yogyakarta. It consists of a number of essays dealing with, as the
subtitle of the book suggests, “nonviolence and Islamic imperatives.” This subtitle
gives a sense that the book seeks to propose theological arguments for nonviolent
Islam. Satha-Anand writes that the book is “about finding nonviolent alternatives
based on Islamic imperatives and prophetic examples to conduct politics
nonviolently” (BMK, p. 4). Many parts of the book are, thus, filled with Quranic
verses and stories and quotes cited from the prophetic traditions which, according
to his interpretation, support the idea of nonviolent Islam.
While I very much appreciate Satha-Anand’s efforts to advocate such an
idea and I really share his intention to find nonviolent interpretations of Islam, the
way he constructs theological arguments is, however, not rigorous enough,
especially given the very fact that the position of scripture (both the Quran and the
hadiths) toward violence and peace is ambiguous and multi-faceted; a position
which in turn brings about complexities of interpretation. This article, thus, is
intended as a (generally critical but appreciative) response to Satha-Anand’s ideas
on nonviolent Islam as explained in the book. I shall discuss, first, violence in the
scripture, both the Quran and the prophetic traditions, to show the multi-faceted
ways violence is presented there and some difficulties in interpreting them.
The book along with its pages mentioned in this article refers to that published in
Indonesian language by Pusat Studi Agama dan Demokrasi (PUSAD), Yayasan Wakaf Paramadina in
cooperation with The Ford Foundation, Jakarta, October 2015; editors: Ihsan Ali-Fauzi, Rizal
Panggabean, and Irsyad Rafsadi; translators: Taufik Adnan Amal, Pradewi Tri Chatami, and Irsyad
Rafsadi. The book can be freely downloaded here: http://www.paramadinapusad.or.id/pustaka/barangsiapa-memelihara-kehidupan-esai-esai-tentang-nirkekerasan-dankewajiban-islam. The English Quranic translations in this article are from the Sahih International
version as read on the website http://quran.com/; the hadith translations being from the website
http://sunnah.com/. In writing this article, I thank Gregory Vanderbilt, my lecturer at CRCS, UGM,
for his comments and editing of complex sentences and dictions.
1
1
Second, I shall draw several points which, I think, should be taken into
consideration in dealing with the scripture and Islamic teachings on violence. In
the end, I shall point out that, besides proposing nonviolent interpretations of
Islam, more attention in the discussion must be given to the ways the perpetrators
of violence interpret their reality.
Violence in the Quran
First premise about the Islamic scripture I want to convey in the beginning
of this discussion is that however much we may want to pursue nonviolent Islam, it
is very difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate conclusively that the scripture
always endorses nonviolent actions in the struggle againts oppression and
injustice, let alone “pacifism” in the Christian sense. Instead, the Quran has many
verses which contain the word “kill” (q-t-l) along with its derivations, including
qital, which means battle or warfare (sometimes translated as “fighting”, but the
original word has a physical sense of killing). The word sometimes appears as an
imperative:“uqtul”, “kill!”. Moreover, the Quran explicitly provides certain
conditions in which killing is permitted or even encouraged.
Among these verses is the one which is often quoted to show that Islam
highly values human lives from which Satha-Anand derives the title of his book
(Surah al-Ma’idah, c. 5, v. 32), which states that when one saves a life “it is as if one
has saved the lives of all mankind.” This makes sense if we look at the previous
verse narrating the story of Abel and Cain in which, we can infer, killing Abel can
be seen as tantamount to killing the potentials of his descendants. However, the
sentence that comes immediately before the sentence “if anyone saves life...” is
often understood, as in the traditional interpretation, as permitting killing for
retributive punishment for those who have committed murder or corruption in the
land (bi ghairi nafs aw fasad fil-ard). (This is why Muslims find it difficult to oppose
the death penalty, since in the Islamic tradition there is a concept of qisas or lex
talionis, a concept that is not unique to nor originally from Islam. For some, this
concept of qisas may also negate the Gandhian notion of “an eye for an eye will
make the whole world blind”.) Further, the next verse (i.e verse 5:33) has more to
say about killing:
“Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger
and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or
crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that
they be exiled from the land.”
Thus, the Quran contains verses that can be read to justify killing by some Muslims
who consider an enemy to have waged war against Allah and His Messenger. In
this regard, I argue that in dealing with this kind of verse, what is sometimes more
2
important is not about the scriptural justifications themselves but rather how the
perpetrators of violence interpret their reality and consider the enemies they are
facing. I will come to this later.
Other verses cited by Satha-Anand also present a more problematic
interpretation than he offers when considered in context. For example, he cites the
Quran (2:190 & 2:193, in BMK pp. 35, 36 & 85) to show that Islam forbids Muslims
from transgressing the limits (la ta’tadu) when they are at war, and the war must
be only for the sake of resisting oppression and injustice. Sometimes this is called
the defensive jihad. However, the verse (2:191) between the two verses he cites
(i.e. 2:190 & 2:193) is, once again, about killing:
“And kill them wherever you find them and expell them from wherever they
have expelled you, and fitnah (tumult and oppression) is worse than killing;
and do not fight them at al-Masjid al-Haram until they fight you there; but if
they fight you, then kill them; such is the recompense of the disbelievers.”
Besides this verse, the similar sentence (i.e. “kill them wherever you find them”)
can also be found in the verses 4:89, 4:91, and 9:5. In this respect, we can trace
every verse in the Quran that contains such sentences; and not only killing but also
other forms of violence such as crucifixion, cutting off hand, beheading, etc.—some
of them are in the story of past prophets, and some are in the context of Prophet
Muhammad and his companions dealing with mushrikun (usually referring to
Meccan polytheists) and kafirun (usually translated as disbelievers). There are
many such verses in the Quran, and some call them “ayat al-qital” or verses of
fighting/war.2 This very existence of ayat al-qital is prone to be utilized by some
Muslims to justify their violent actions. For example, when the Islamic State (in
Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS), gave only three options for Iraqi Christians—embracing
Islam, paying a per capita tax called jizya, or death —they based their justification
on, among others, verse 9:29 which says,
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden
which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, not acknowledge the
religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay
the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
Many Muslims would argue that those verses must be put into their
contexts, or the Medinan context as a whole, recognizing that the first Muslims
were persecuted in Mecca and had to leave their homes and even families and
migrate to Medina where their forces became strong enoughto fight the Meccan
paganists for the sake of justice. This is clearly stated in the Quran (22:39-40):
“Permission to fight is granted to those upon whom war is made, because they are
2 For a compilation of such verses see, for example, Muhammad ‘Imarah, Al-Islam wa al-Harb
al-Diniyyah (Cairo: Maktabah al-Shorouk al-Dauliyah, 2004), pp. 95-117.
3
oppressed... that is those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of
right...” Going to war is not only permitted, but even encouraged, as the Quran
(2:216) says, “Fighting is prescribed for you, even though it be hateful to you; but it
may well be that you have something that is in fact good for you.” Another
interpretation would say that those “violent verses” must be seen in the light of the
“merciful verses” (ayat al-rahma), such as that Prophet Muhammad was sent as a
mercy for all creatures (v. 21:107). Some Muslims argue, then, that there is a
hierarchy of verses in the Quran in which certain verses are universally relevant
(thawabit) and others are relevant only in limited conditions (mutaghayyirat). Or,
through another way of interpretation, Muslims would contend that those verses
are no longer applicable to this contemporary context in which the world is
organized through modern concepts such as human rights, democracy, nationstates, and so on; concepts that were not known by the early Muslims.
There is nothing objectionable in these ways of interpretation—and I share
the same ideas with them—but, since we cannot neglect or ignore the existence of
the ayat al-qital, we cannot say that the Quran promotes nonviolence and/or
condemns violence. What we can say is that, at best, the Quran justifies the use of
violence but limits it to certain contexts and well-defined circumstances, that is,
among others, to fight injustice and oppression.
Violence in the prophetic traditions
What prevails in the Quran as elaborated above also prevails in the hadiths
or prophetic traditions: deliberate uses of violence happened during the time of
the Prophet, and they are too obvious to be denied. This matters very much,
especially when Satha-Anand tries to construct nonviolent Islam based on
prophetic examples ( see BMK, chapters VII & VIII).
The first noteworthy point is that Muhammad is not like Buddha or Jesus
because Muhammad was leading wars, perhaps more than twenty wars in his
lifetime. In addition, he dispatched military expeditions at least thirty-eight times,
according to one count, and as many as seventy according to another. Most Muslim
historians agree that the reports as narrated in the classical sirahs are generally
authentic, the Prophet was certainly involved in nine wars—Badr, Uhud, Khandaq,
the Qurayza massacre, Mustaliq, Khaybar, Fath Makka, Hunain, and Taif—all of
which happened during an eight year period from 2 AH to 9 AH. The total number
of victims from Muslims and their enemies reached more than a thousand people.
Yet this amount will be reduced significantly if the number in the case of Bani
Qurayza massacre, which was said to amount to 700 people, is considered
inauthentic. Therefore, some scholars, such as Muhammad al-Ghazali, for example,
4
have determined that the number of victims in the wars led by Muhammad during
his prophetic ministry was “only” around 200-300 people.3
These data of violence are clearly greater in number compared to the two
examples of Prophet Muhammad cited by Satha-Anand to argue for nonviolent
Islam, that is, (1) the 35-year-old Muhammad’s way of doing arbitrage following
the Meccan tribal conflicts concerning who deserved to put the black stone (alhajar al-aswad) on the Ka’ba (BMK, pp. 65-67); and (2) the example of
Muhammad’s forgiveness or amnesty to Meccan people in the aftermath of Fath
Makka (BMK, pp. 68-69). Here, Satha-Anand’s first example is from before
Muhammad’s prophetic ministry began, and the second, while a good example of
his merciful deeds, came despite the Prophet’s initial intention to wage war. It was
only when the Meccan people wanted no more war that the Prophet gave amnesty
to all people except for around 3 persons who were executed. Therefore, it is hard
to promote nonviolent Islam with evidence from the Prophet’s life by pointing to
these two examples while neglecting those wars that happened during the life of,
and were even led by, the Prophet himself.
By showing these facts I do not intend, however, to say that the Prophet
promoted violence. Rather, what I want to argue is that, based on these evidence,
we cannot say that the Prophet regarded violence as something inherently
unislamic. In fact, the Prophet, whose deeds are to be emulated by Muslims, was
leading several wars. Furthermore, this seeming acceptance of violence is not only
found in the Prophet’s deeds, but also in his sayings. One hadith narrated in Sahih
al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim (the two most authentic books of hadith according to
Sunni Muslims) says, “Surely, the gates of Paradise are under the shades of swords”
(Inna abwab ‘l-jannah tahta dhilal ‘l-suyuf). Another hadith narrated in the same
two sources says,
“I have been commanded (by Allah) to fight [umirtu an uqatila] people until
they testify that there is no true god except Allah, and that Muhammad is the
Messenger of Allah, and perform salat and pay zakat. If they do so, they will
have protection of their blood and property from me except when justified by
Islam, and then account is left to Allah.”
This latter hadith is quite famous and known even among beginner-level students
of hadith as it is cited among the forty Hadiths of al-Nawawi (al-Arba’in alNawawiyyah). Doesn’t this hadith, at least if seen at a glance, encourage fighting?
3 In taking all these data, I rely on M. Quraish Shihab, Membaca Sirah Nabi Muhammad
(Reading the Sirah of the Prophet Muhammad), Jakarta: Lentera Hati, 2011, pp. 1028-1031. For a
brief but deep elaboration on this topic of the Prophet’s wars, see Novriantoni Kahar, “Dulu, Muslim
Perdana Berperang demi Kebebasan Beragama” (In the Past, Early Muslims Fought for Religious
Freedom), http://islamlib.com/kajian/dulu-muslim-perdana-berperang-demi-kebebasanberagama/, accessed October 22, 2015.
5
And there are tens of thousands of hadiths compared to one book of the Quran, so
the potential for finding, say, “violent hadiths” is much higher than in the Quran,
but I do not want to cite many of them here so as to not make this essay much
longer.4 And Muslims may contend, once again, in dealing with the so-called
“violent hadiths” that those wars led by, and those sayings stated by, the Prophet
Muhammad must be put in their own context, or in the whole context in which the
Prophet lived, i.e. the context of the 7th-century Arabian tribal society in which
there were not yet such modern ideas as nation-states and the rule of law. This
may be the case, but my first point here, as I said earlier, is to show that what we
can say at best is that the scripture sometimes justifies the use of violence, though
only under limited contexts so that it does not see violence per se as inherently
wrong. Here, thus, lie the challenges for those advocating nonviolent Islam: how
can we deligitimize the use of violence based on Islamic teachings (universally, or
at least in today’s context of 21st century) which are fraught with violent accounts?
The second point I want to argue by showing all these evidences from the
scripture (both the Quran and hadiths) is that in dealing with the scripture we face
complexities as well as, to some extent, even contradictions. Particularly in
addressing issues like Islam and violence, we find the scripture ambiguous: it
contains “verses of fighting (ayat al-qital)” and “violent hadiths” on one hand and
“verses of mercy (ayat al-rahma)” and “peaceful hadiths” on the other hand.
Among the verses of mercy is Q. 3:19 which says,
“So by mercy of Allah, [O Muhammad], you were lenient with them. And if you
had been rude and harsh in heart, they would have disbanded from about you.
So pardon them and ask forgiveness for them and consult them in the matter.
And among the peaceful hadiths are “He who is not merciful to people Allah will
not be merciful to him” (man la yarham al-nas la yarhamhu-Llah, narrated by both
al-Bukhari and Muslim) and “O people, spread peace, feed people, strengthen the
ties of kinship, and be in prayer when others are asleep, you will enter Jannah in
peace” (Ayyuha al-nas, afshu ‘l-salam wa at’imu ‘l-ta’am wasilu ‘l-arham wa sallu wa
‘l-nas niyam tadkhulu ‘l-jannah bi salam, narrated by at-Tirmidhi). What must be
taken into account is, then, how to deal with these seemingly contradictory
verses/hadiths? The thing is that we have to seek to, if possible, harmonize or
reconcile all of them so as to not to fall into a cherrypicking way of interpretation,
citing favored verses that support our intention or wish. This would be like what
happens with those Muslims doing violence in the name of Islam, as they pick the
violent parts of the scripture. Satha-Anand appears to be doing almost the same
thing: in general he takes into consideration the peaceful parts of the scripture,
since he advocates nonviolent Islam, and explains away the parts that do not fit.
4
See again Muhammad ‘Imarah, Al-Islam wa al-Harb al-Diniyyah, pp. 118-132.
6
The ambivalence of the scripture
My third point: given those facts, and especially when we regard those two
contradictory stances as equal before the scripture, we can say that, even with the
same verses, it is possible to come up with both peaceful interpretations and
violent interpretations. The scripture is—here I agree with Reza Aslan—simply
malleable: it can be stretched or bent into different ways of interpretations
depending on the inclination of the interpreters. And this fact that we can justify
both violent and peaceful actions from the same scripture is what I call “the
ambivalence of the scripture”—a term inspired by Scott Appleby’s The
Ambivalence of the Sacred (a book that has become a classic in the study field of
religious violence) which argues that religion as a human response to “the sacred”
has a power leading to a driving passion that can be used in service of both
violence and peace.5 I consider the same case to prevail as well to the scripture,
especially in the monotheist traditions in which scriptures play a central role. The
verse being an inspiration for Satha-Anand’s book title (i.e. Q. 5:32) is a good
example. As I said earlier, both violence and peace can be derived from this exact
same verse: if one places emphasis on the second sentence, as the title of SathaAnand’s book does (“if anyone saves a life...”), it appears to be advocating
nonviolence but if one stresses the first sentence (i.e. killing one life is equated
with killing all mankind except when retributive punishment is necessary for those
committing murder or corruption in the land), the verse appears to be promoting
violence. This “ambivalence” stems from the very nature of the scripture itself.
Islamic religious scriptures were mostly written in the medieval era so that , in
order to bridge the historical gap, readers and interpreters must reconstruct the
precise context in which certain verses were revealed. Also, they are not written
systematically: religious scriptures are not like the present-day constitutions of
modern states, so that they are more prone to mutliple and even contradicting
interpretations. More importantly, justifications from the scripture, whether for
violence or peace, can make certain actions have religious meanings—this is the
case that happens to the sacred, as Appleby elaborates in his book: religious
militancy works when one considers one’s own actions, either violent or peaceful,
as being inspired and/or commanded by “the sacred”.6
See R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), p. 11. Appleby says, “Both the extremist and the
peacemaker are militants. Both types “go to extremes” of self-sacrifice in devotion to the sacred;
both claim to be “radical”, or rooted in and renewing the fundamental truths of their religious
traditions.”
6 Appleby’s idea of the ambivalence of the sacred is influenced, among other, by Rudolf Otto’s
idea of the holy as mysterium tremendum et fascinans: it can evoke both terrible and dread
fascination. Cavanaugh rephrases it well by saying: “The sacred projects a numinous quality that
evokes extraordinary feelings in the devout. The feeling of the numinous may be a ‘gentel tide’ or
‘thrillingly vibrant,’ or it may erupt suddently into ‘the strangest excitement’ and ‘intoxicated
5
7
Muslim scholars have been long preoccupied in finding a way to harmonize
those apparently contradicting accounts of the scripture—and this is still far from
addressing the discourse on how to reconcile Islamic teachings with modernity
and contemporary problems. The noteworthy is that—and this is my fourth
point—while Satha-Anand seeks to find interpretations based on Islamic teachings
to promote nonviolence, the question dealt with by many—if not most—Muslim
scholars is not “what is the best means of resistance promoted by Islam (violence
or nonviolence)?”, but rather “when is violence Islamically legitimate and
illegitimate?” These questions are different in both assumptions and implications.
While the former is meant to deligitimize either violence or nonviolence, the latter
already implies that violence can sometimes be legitimate, if not necessary. The
usual response to the latter question is that even though Islam permits the use of
violence under certain circumstances, it forbids aggression (or offensive jihad, say
some); and that the objective of both violent and nonviolent resistance must
always be only to achieve justice and peace.7 Violence may sometimes be
justifiable to end violence, and it is only legitimate as the last resort, or when
justice and peace cannot be reached though nonviolent means. Here, probably the
more proper question is, once again, not “whether nonviolence is promoted by
Islam” but rather “when violence is Islamically (il)legitimate”. In other words, what
matters is not about violence or nonviolence but rather the justifications behind
violent acts. Based on this standard, thus, Islam cannot be considered a pacifist
religion. Also, the question heavily debated in recent decades “whether Islam is a
religion of peace should be rethought because it assumes that peace is inherently
good, while sometimes there is a peace (in the sense of the absence of violence)
that preserves injustice. Suppose if we are now living in today’s Gaza or Syria in
which the oppressors are using rockets and drones; or, if this example is too far
away, suppose when Indonesians were under colonialism; can/must we always
frenzy’. It has ‘wild,’ ‘demonic,’ and ‘barbaric’ forms than can lead either to ‘grisly horror’ or
‘something beautiful’... The two-sided power of the feeling of the numinous and the inability to
capture the sacred with human faculties of reason accounts for the fundamental ambivalence of
religion.” See William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2009), h. 45. In the last chapter of his book (BMK, c. IX), Satha-Anand echoes the similar idea
while discussing “the sacred in the mirror”; and he then concludes in the end: “A preferred political
project for Muslims’ engagement in politics should be characterized by an awareness of
participating in a Divine Reality without losing the ability to raise pertinent questions about the
self, the others and the world, while freeing the self from being consumed by the fire of the sacred
with the right distance.”
7 See, for example, the arguments of the Muslim scholars whom Abu-Nimer calls “scholars of
the war and peace group” in Mohammed Abu-Nimer, “A Framework for Nonviolence and
Peacebuilding in Islam”, Journal of Law and Religion, vol. 15, no. 1/2 (2000-2001), pp. 217-265.
Here I have to admit that I am inclined to those “scholars of the war and peace group”. Satha-Anand
seems to be in the same group as Abu-Nimer (and they are citing each other); thus, the responses in
this article are for Abu-Nimer as well.
8
use nonviolent means of resistance?8 I argue, thus, that the question should be
shifted from “whether Islam is a religon of peace” to “how Islam deals with both
violence and injustice and turns them into both peace and justice.”
Religionizing conflicts
As to the way Satha-Anand constructs the arguments for his advocacy of
nonviolent Islam, what I want to suggest here is that, instead of picking the
‘peaceful’ parts of the scripture, what is more important is to address the ‘violent’
parts of the scripture that are prone to be utilized by some Muslims to justify their
violent actions. This is more important because it is necessary for reaching the
addressees to whom Satha-Anand’s ideas are directed. Besides, scriptural
justifications matter when it comes to the phenomenon called “religious violence”:
scriptural justifications form a necessary—though not sufficient—ingredient in
causing acts of violence. They are necessary, because without scriptural
justifications it is difficult—if not impossible—to ‘sacralize’ or legitimize through
religion an action. But scriptural justifications are not sufficient as the cause of
violence. And this is what, I think, is lacking elaboration in Satha-Anand’s book:
what is needed is a deeper engagement with the question of how the perpetrators
of violence interpret the reality they are facing so that, based on their
interpretation, they then sacralize their actions and make them have religious
meanings. What I mean by “interpretation of reality” includes how the
perpetrators of violence perceive the problems of the world in which they live and
how they ‘sacralize’ their violent actions they regard as necessary and a religious
imperative to overcome such problems. The surrounding circumstances are very
often what makes the perpetrators of violence eventually look for the scriptural
justifications, not the reverse. One may not be violent though one is intolerant or
has an exclusivist view of religion as long as the environment in which one lives
makes low the possibility of doing violence. Therefore, the conditions where the
potential of the emergence of violence is high is at question; a question which may
be more important than the question on Islamic teachings of violence and peace as
discussed above.
Some examples of violence in the name of Islam as provided by SathaAnand in the book are actually showing that case, though they are generally
analyzed for the purpose of delegitimizing (i. e. considering as unislamic) the
violent means the perpetrators choose. Such a move is good but not sufficient as
we need to pay attention to the context in which they feel compelled to do violence
8 Recently in Indonesia, October 22 has just been declared by President Joko Widodo as
National Santri Day for commemorating, among others, the Jihad Resolution issued by Hadratussheikh Hasyim Asy’ari and other clerics of Nahdlatul Ulama in Oct 22, 1945. The resolution was for
santris (Islamic boarding school or pesantren students) to engage in a battle against the Allied
Forces that wanted to recolonize Indonesia.
9
and, more importantly, to the role of religion (Islam, particularly) in making such
violence more deadly. In his book (BMK, pp. 9-10), Satha-Anand gives the example
of Anwar Haddam of Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) who, when asked about
his violence directed at the government, said, “We don’t find any other solution; we
are still open for dialogue to find a peaceful solution, but we don’t have any other
choice.” Another example is the case of Muntassir Al-Zayat of the Egyptian AlGamaa Al-Islamiyah and Al-Jihad who claimed that his violence was in reaction to
the government’s repression. Other examples elaborated more deeply in BMK
chapter V include the cases of Usama Bin Laden, Muhammad Abdul Salam Faraj
and Khalid Islambouli (sponsor and executor, respectively, of the assasination of
Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat), Mahmud Abuhalima (perpetrator in the 1993
WTC bombing), and Abdul Aziz Rantisi (one of the founders of Hamas). SathaAnand cites the last two cases from Mark Juergensmeyer’s Terror in the Mind of
God, another book that has become a classic in the study of “religious violence”.9
Through the way those perpetrators and/or “political entrepeneurs” of
violence perceive the reality they are facing and justify their violent acts, we can
understand that they basically see themselves as either being treated unjustly by
an ‘oppressive’ and/or ‘secular’ government or being at war, a condition where
violence is justifiable according to them. In the case of Salam Faraj who wrote a
book entitled Al-Faridha al-Gha’iba (“Neglected Duty”in Juergensmeyer’s analysis)
and Khalid Islambouli, both consider their government to have been bertraying
Islam by making peace treaties with the Israel. This consideration renders the
Egyptian government infidel so that it is worth fighting and, more importantly,
must be prioritized as a “near enemy” over the Jewish disbelievers who are “far
enemies”. In delegitimizing the violent means both Faraj and Islambouli chose,
Satha-Anand relies on two Saudi clerics, Abdul Aziz Bin Baaz and Ibn Uthaimin,
who declared those in rebellion against legitimate governments as kharijites while
saying that suicide bombing is prohibited (haram) and that disobedience and/or
rebellion against government are justified only when—as stated in a hadith
narrated by both al-Bukhari and Muslim—“in case of evident infidelity” (“illa an
taraw kufran bawahan”; BMK, pp. 123-130).10 The case of Mahmud Abuhalima
shows that he did the bombing to send a ‘message’ to the U.S. government that the
See chapter IV, “Islam’s Neglected Duty” in Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of
Religious Violence (California: University of California Press, 2000), pp. 60-83.
10 I feel at odds with the way Satha-Anand refers to both Bin Baaz and Ibn Uthaimin for three
reasons. First, Bin Baaz and Ibn Uthaimin’s arguments can actually support the acts of Faraj and
Islambouli, because the problem is not the theological justification, but rather the reason why both
Faraj and Islambouli considered the Egyptian government to have exemplified the “evident
infidelity”. Second, both Bin Baaz and Ibn Uthaimin are ideologues of the so-called “Wahhabism”,
which is notoriously known as providing theological basis for ‘terrorist’ acts in the name of Islam
over the last decades. Third, I wish Satha-Anand would recognize how these kinds of theological
arguments of both Bin Baaz and Ibn Uthaimin support—and thus delegitimize those rebelling
against—the Saudi regime.
9
10
US has advocated secularism, the marginalization of religion and, more
importantly, support for Israel. The case of Abdul Aziz Rantisi suggests that he
considered the Israeli government to have been killing Palestinians and waging
war against Islam and, more importantly, that he believed because both Israelites
and Palestinians are at war, violence is justifiable, even directed at non-combatants
(according to him, there is no such disctinction between combatants and noncombatants at war). Further, Rantisi regarded the Israelites as colonializers and
that he and his fellow Palestinians are victims. Rantisi, then, considered bombing
as a “moral lesson” needed for Israelites to be able to feel what Palestinians have
felt.
In analyzing those cases, Satha-Anand is good at pointing to the fact that
those ‘terrorists’ made rational calculations or had understandable reasons as to
why they chose violent means. In that point, he is different from those who argue
that those ‘terrorists’ are merely irrational or even evil. While Satha-Anand is good
as well in showing fertile pre-conditions to the emergence of violence (such as war,
oppression, colonialism, etc.), I argue that more attention is needed to the ways
perpetrators ‘sanctify’ their violence based on religious justifications. Here I share
an assumption of the “constructivist” views of religious violence, that is, religion
has a power to escalate conflicts, to make conflicts more deadly, since religion has
a unique element of going beyond worldly things, and is thus divisive and prone to
violence.11 This echoes the notion famously known from Mark Juergensmeyer:
“cosmic war”, that is, a battle between good and evil coming out of divine,
metaphysical war, but enacted in this-worldly affairs; and the perpetrators portray
themselves to be representing God’s will in eradicating those evil forces.
In line with that view, religion has a power to divide people into friends and
enemies, good and evil, us and them. And when religion is involved in war, it will
be very deadly as a result of combination of two things. First, war provides a
reason to be violent. As Juergensmeyer points out, “War suggests an all-or-nothing
struggle against an enemy whom one assumes to be determined to destroy.”12 War
erects the dichotomy between we versus they, good versus evil, truth versus
There has been a long debate on whether religion can cause violence. And referring to
classification made by Hasenclever and Rittberger, those engaged in the debate can basically be
categorized into three camps: (1) “primordialists”, which contend that religion should be seen as an
independent variable in violence; (2) “instrumentalists”, which insist that religion in violence is
only utilized in rethoric but has no real, objective role, and that the basic conflict is actually nonreligious; and (3) “constructivists”, which seem to be a synthesis of the two former categorization:
they acknowledge that the origin of conflict is socioeconomic decay and/or political injustice, but
religion can play strong role and amplify the conflict—thus, religon becomes an intervening
variable. For further discussion, see Andreas Hasenclever and Volker Rittberger, “Does Religion
Make a Difference?: Theoretical Approaches to the Impact of Faith on Political Conflict,” Journal of
International Studies (Millenium Publishing House: 2000), vol. 29. no.3. pp. 641-674.
12 Terror in the Mind of God, p. 148.
11
11
falsehood. Second, religion being involved makes the all-or-nothing war much
worse as religion provides justification for “satanization” of the other—while in
dealing with Satan, no negotiation, nor compromise, and only eradication. In short,
religion elevates even a mundane battle into “cosmic war”, as Juergensmeyer says,
“Though religious ideas do not initially provoke the conflicts... the play an
important role. The conditions that lead to conflict are typically matters of
social and political identity—what makes individuals cohere as a community
and how they are defined... At some point in the conflict, however, usually at a
time of frustration and desperation, the political and ideological contest
becomes ‘religionized’. Then what was primarily a worldly struggle takes on
the aura of sacred conflict.”13
That is an element of religion worth taking into consideration when we
discuss the link between theological basis and “religious violence” (or violence in
the name of religion). The keyword here is “satanization”. Particularly in the case
of Islam, the previous discussion of scriptural justifications plays a significant role
in providing a basis for “satanization” to work (remember the abovementioned
example of the Quranic verse 5:33). Satha-Anand has made a great effort to
promote a counter interpretation of the violent narratives and to find nonviolent
alternatives of Islamic teachings, despite the above critiques. The next task is, then,
to move from interpretations of the “violent verses/hadiths” to how to treat those
“violent verses/hadiths” so that their instrumentalization to ‘satanize’ the
‘unproper’ other can be deligitimized. As I said earlier, very often, what comes first
are conflicts which have nothing to do with religion; religious justifications come
later. In this respect, religion may be seen as being utilized to mobilize—and, in
some cases, brainwash—people. This utilization is possible because, once again,
religion provides theological bases (mostly derived from the scripture) to divide
those engaged in a conflict, which in turn forms a fertile ground of satanization—
this may constitute the phenomenon of what some people today call “takfir-ism”.
Counter-interpretations, thus, functions as a ‘weapon’ to cut the link
between the theological justifications and satanization. What remains at question,
then, is whether these counter-interpretations, which have been advocated to
some extent by Satha-Anand, will win the discourse in the Muslim world. Aside
from the political structure of today’s Muslim world, the winner will be partly
determined by the strength of the arguments.
13 Mark Juergensmeyer, Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State from
Christian Militias to al-Qaeda (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), p. 23. I cite this
passage from William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, p. 35.
12
________________________________________________
Bibliography
Abu-Nimer, Mohammed. 2000-2001. “A Framework for Nonviolence and
Peacebuilding in Islam”, Journal of Law and Religion, vol. 15, no. 1/2.
Cavanaugh, William T. 2009. The Myth of Religious Violence. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Hasenclever, Andreas and Rittberger, Volker. 2000. “Does Religion Make a
Difference?: Theoretical Approaches to the Impact of Faith on
Political Conflict,” Journal of International Studies. Millenium
Publishing House, vol. 29. no.3.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2008. Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular
State from Christian Militias to al-Qaeda. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
_________________ 2000. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious
Violence. California: University of California Press.
Kahar, Novriantoni. 2015. “Dulu, Muslim Perdana Berperang demi Kebebasan
Beragama” <http://islamlib.com/kajian/dulu-muslim-perdanaberperang-demi-kebebasan-beragama/>
Satha-Anand, Chaiwat. 2015. “Barangsiapa Memelihara Kehidupan...: Esai-esai
tentang Nirkekerasan dan Kewajiban Islam. Jakarta: PUSAD
Paramadina.
Scott Appleby, R. Scott. 2000. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and
Reconciliation. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Shihab, M. Quraish. 2011. Membaca Sirah Nabi Muhammad Saw dalam Sorotan AlQur’an dan Hadits-Hadits Shahih. Jakarta: Lentera Hati.
13