Thought for the Week: Combating fanaticism

Michael Gittins reflects on fanaticism and how to combat it

The just and nonaggressive nature of Islam has often been highlighted by commentators. There is much that is true here and the interpretation of ‘jihad’ as the interior struggle against the self to force it into obedience to God accords with the nonviolent tradition of the Ahmadiyya Muslims.

The problem is that if you read right through the Qur’an you can find many verses that are of a threatening nature and that can be seized upon by fanatics. A couple of instances will suffice from the Ahmadiyya 2009 translation of the Qur’an. In chapter 3.86 it states: ‘And whoso seeks a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him, and in the life to come he shall be among the losers.’ In chapter 5.52 the translation says: ‘O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends.’

Of course, much of the writing has historical relevance to the religious struggles going on in the Arabian Peninsula at that time. But the fanatic takes such writing simplistically as having everlasting validity because it is in Holy Writ, and he justifies his aggressive ‘external’ jihad accordingly. The same is true of fanatical Christians. For bloodthirsty threats you need look no further than the Book of Revelation, a book described by the author Karen Armstrong as ‘toxic’ and whose inclusion in the Christian canon was fiercely contested at the time.

How do you combat the fanatic? Arguing from the scriptures seems pointless. A fanatic will merely produce a counter argument. But in Karen Armstrong’s latest book, Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence, she makes it clear that beneath religious violence there is always another seething cause: oppression, alienation, poverty, discrimination and so on. If these factors are dealt with it is probable that much of the steam will be taken out of the fanatic’s cause. This is an expensive and difficult way – but it is where the counter effort needs to be directed.

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