Muslim Canadian Congress Denounces Violence

Post 11

Yes, more on violence. Are you getting tired? Well, this post is different from the previous ones. I am going to introduce you to a Canadian Muslim organization that opposes and condemns all manner of violence and terrorism. For the name, see title of this post. I will refer to it as MCC, with apologies to that other MCC, namely, world-wide renowned Mennonite Central Committee.

I introduce MCC with a few statements of their own so you know what they are about.

As Muslims we believe in a progressive, liberal, pluralistic, democratic, and secular society where everyone has the freedom of religion.

We believe in the separation of religion and state in all matters of public policy. We feel such a separation is a necessary pre-requisite to building democratic societies, where religious, ethnic, and racial minorities are accepted as equal citizens enjoying full dignity and human rights enunciated in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We believe that fanaticism and extremism within the Muslim community is a major challenge to all of us. We stand opposed to the extremists and will present the more humane and tolerant face of our community.


I introduce MCC not because I agree with all of its philosophy. In fact, I don’t. But I want to let you know that Muslims speak up against violence and terrorism more than many of us realize. The Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC), the world’s largest international body, speaks up against it frequently. I invite you to check out their statements on their own website or go to Volume 8-2 of my Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations and check out the OIC with the help of the Index. But MCC is more local; it is Canadian and proudly so. It has published many articles denouncing violence and terrorism in newspapers and in their own published documents. Please verify this by going to their website.

Below follows a sample of titles of their published documents that will give you a good flavour of how strongly they reject violence and terrorism in all shapes and forms. Here we go:

“MCC Condemns Islamic Extremism”

“Muslims Should Speak out”

“Don’t Be Silenced by Extremists”

“MCC Condemns Burning of Churches in Nigeria and Pakistan”

“No Need for Force, Violence”

“MCC Condemns Bombing in Bumbay as Crime….”

“Muslims Must Denounce Terror Forcefully”

“MCC Condemns Islamic Extremism”

“Muslims Must Speak Out”

“MCC Condemns London Bombing as Barbaric and Cowardly”


I encourage you to go and read at least some of them. If you’ve laboured under the impression that Muslims do not condemn these activities, reading this material should disabuse you of this false impression. You might still argue that Muslims don’t do enough of it. Even MCC President Farsana Hassan has admitted as much: “The near absence of such movements is hurting Muslims more. Their silence in not denouncing acts of terrors as forcefully as they should is consequently exacerbating Islamophobia.” However, I am sure you will find more if you do some surfing on the internet.

Fair is fair. Just thought you would want to have your attention drawn to MCC and their work. It’s just too bad that it is secular Muslims who publish such anti-violent declarations, for there is a built-in contradiction between their embrace of secularism and denunciation of violence. I will address that in the next blog.

The Frequency of Violence by Muslims

Post 10

I am a busy man and hence sometimes make silly mistakes. One of these is that the content of Post 9 should have come at least two posts after this one. Well, consider it a humorous break from the subject of violence. You deserve such a break.

Please refresh your memory re. the closing of post 8. There is this “but….” that needs to be cleared.

Let me be clear once again, that I am writing about violence and terrorism committed by individuals or groups, not by governments or nations. That would be a different story.

Before you read any further, note also that the title of this post is not “The Frequency of Muslim Violence,” but “The Frequency of Violence by Muslims.” I hope you catch the difference. I am not talking here of Muslim or Islamic violence, but of violence committed by individuals or groups who are Muslims. Herewith I am suggesting that this violence does not emerge from core Islam. As per our jurist Verkouteren in Post 3, I have no way of proving that this violence emerges from the bowels of Islam. In the case of violence committed by Christians, I know theirs does not come from core Christianity. On what logical basis would I determine otherwise for Muslims?

Nevertheless, my Muslim friends, that “but….” keeps tugging away at me. I wrote at the end of the last post that violence or threats of violence by Muslims are common these days. If we cannot blame it on their religion, then, what of their culture? Violent Muslims come from many different cultures, including Western cultures where they are in a minority. Unless we could agree that every culture is violent by nature, I would not go there either.

Well, then, what of social class? Can it be said that one social class is more violent than another? I don’t think I want to go there either. For some time, it was argued that terrorists and other violent folk must come from the underprivileged strata of society, but it soon became clear that terrorists are often well heeled and well educated. Another brick wall.

I want to turn elsewhere. First of all, there is the historical fact that the West has over the past centuries treated the Muslim world with disdain and a strong sense of superiority, all the time trying to control and exploit them for their own Western purposes. It is called “colonialism” and “imperialism.” During that period, serious attempts were made to pry Muslims loose from their religion, mostly by the inculcation of secularism through education and the legal system. It almost worked. Muslims did not turn from their religion, but the more they were subjected to secular education, the more secular they became in their thinking about the world of business, science, politics and government, while they often continued to practice the five pillars. The Muslim world went into a spiritual coma, a process that went largely unnoticed by the victim communities.

Then, suddenly Ayatollah Khomeini burst on to the scene with his angry and strident demands for a rejection of secularism and a revival of classical wholistic Islam. The Shah of Iran and all that represented the secular West had to be wiped off the face of the earth, especially from Muslim territories. Khomeini fired the imagination of the dormant Muslim community, stirred up the entire Muslim world and turned them into an indignant umma. I experienced it all in northern Nigeria and have described it in some detail in my series Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations, especially in Volume 2. (You can find it by typing in the appropriate box in
< www.lulu.com >.) Khomeini may have triggered a dynamic that went further than he could foresee or that I approve of, but as I observed it from my Nigerian perch, I could only applaud in principle this awakening of Nigerian Muslims from their stupor and breaking the secular chains that had bound them.

They became angrier than hell, millions of Muslims did. They realized they had been had. They had been tricked and sidelined. A virus had been inserted in the soul of the umma that now needed to be excised. They had swallowed the poison pill of secularism. They went back to their main source, the Qur’an, for renewed inspiration and a new beginning--and in their anger now took it in a very raw and literal sense, for that gave them an excuse to take revenge. Kill the bastards! A, yes, so many verses supported that kind of aggressive action. With joy, glee and enthusiasm they stirred up each other to this new liberating mission. With Allah on their side, history would be on their side as well. They were sure of victory.

And so they proceeded, millions of them. And who can deny that currently most non-governmental violence and terrorism comes from the Muslim side?

In many places it turned pretty ugly for Christians. Where Muslim majorities had at least tolerated Christians, they now became hostile and associated their local Christian neighbours with the hated West. One reads of so many situations where former friendly relations turned sour. Christians are accused of all kinds of crimes without proof in many countries, especially the “crimes” of apostasy and blasphemy. Stories are simply cooked up and the victims taken to court. Even when declared innocent, they feel so threatened by their accusers, they often escape to neighbouring countries. Some of them end up as refugees in the West. My archives are full of such stories. Simply beyond belief and reason. And even if these situations are not officially approved by governments or their agents, they often simply stand by and let it happen. Sometimes they connive with the perpetrators. Churches and Christian properties burnt. Families broken up. Careers cut short. Jobs lost., In Middle Eastern countries where some of the oldest Christian communities have lived in relative peace for centuries, their numbers are fast depleting by Christians escaping to neighbouring countries. They simply cannot take it anymore.

The West has done its thing. Whether Western colonialism was as bad as the Islamizing process of the Middle East and North Africa centuries earlier may be worth a debate. The Muslims are still there and now standing up for themselves. The same cannot be said of the earlier Christians supplanted by Muslims. They have largely vanished, while those remaining live under severe stress.

The time has come to put and end to this spiral of violence. Muslims know that Allah is the Compassionate and Merciful one. He forgives. Does Islam not promote forgiveness and reconciliation? Similarly, the Bible calls upon Christians to forgive. It is here that leaders of both religions must make their influence felt. People like Howitt and Cooper from the previous post are right in calling upon Muslim leaders to apologize. The non-governmental perpetrators of violence of today are mostly Muslims, even if they are not guided by a right understanding of the Qur’an. Their leaders must take a much stronger public stand against violence than they have. Arar seems to be either blind to the violence Muslims commit or he is trying to deny it. Given its widespread nature, that is rather foolish and makes him appear dishonest in my eyes. Arar and other Muslims should realize that the hesitation of the Muslim community at large to openly recognize and acknowledge the widespread violence among them constitutes a serious barrier to the Islamic da’wa or mission in God’s world.

One of these days I will give you a peek at the Nigerian situation where you have two equal majorities of 65 million plus of each of the two religions. That’s a dynamic that calls for a totally unique strategy for reconciliation and moving forward together from the rampant religious violence in that country. For those who are curious, check out the e-book version of my studies as I showed you above.

Violence in/and Religion (2)

Post 3

First, a note. You may notice that these first posts have the same date. The reason is that they have been transferred from another newish blog whose name was giving troubles. So, I opened this new blog and transferred the posts to this one. Originally written on different dates, they are being transferred on one date. Hence, the same date for the first blogs.

I want to pursue the violence issue a bit further. First of all, it is hardly a new question. Already a century ago, a Dutch jurist Verkouteren, discussing the same issue, acknowledged that Christians have all too often been involved in violence of one kind or another. But he argued that such violence can be attributed to religion—in this case, Christianity—only if you can prove that the violence in question has its origin in the teaching of the religion. You would have to prove that this violence logically flows out of the religion, that it is a natural consequence of its principles and that it necessarily had to happen. It was Verkouteren’s strong opinion that “Christians” involved in violence in fact did not apply their religion but denied it. They did not adhere to the laws of Christianity but trampled upon them. None of it derived naturally from the religion itself. It happened in spite of the religion.

The question is once again at the top of the agenda, especially with respect to Islam. Westerners, both Christians and secularists, are all too ready to point an accusing finger at Islam anytime some Muslim (group) has perpetrated an act of violence. All of Islam is blamed for it. True, often lip service will be paid via a quickie acknowledgement that the perpetrator was Islamist or terrorist, but from there on the discussion tends to ignore that distinction and leaves us with the impression that the violence was the direct result of Islam.

That Islamist terrorists are Muslims and claim to be guided by the Qur’an is not the issue. That these are dangerous people and need to be stopped in their tracks is the need of the hour. But are they truly Muslim? They may call themselves “Islamist,” but are they Islamic? There are any number of Muslim scholars who deny them that status. In my book Christians and Muslims: Parameters for Living Together I discuss this issue and quote many Muslim scholars, both from the 2/3W and from the West, who convincingly demonstrate that the violence we are witnessing today is a false application of the Qur’an. Its perpetrators are ignorant of the Islamic rules for interpreting the Qur’an. Though they may be called Fundamentalists, they have wandered far from the Islamic fundamentals. It would be similar to Christians basing their violence on the Old Testament. Both religions have certain established rules by which they interpret their holy books. Ignoring these rules leads to misinterpretation and heresy—and often to violence.

So, here, too, we may have an occasion for applying Verkouteren’s test. Joseph Lumbard, an American Muslim, edited a collection of essays written mainly by Western Muslims under the title Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition. In his introduction, Lumbard writes that the fundamentalist militants “represent a complete break with traditional Islamic teachings—not a conscious development from them or of them. Of all the possible ‘Islams’ one could choose from, these are the least representative of its traditional teachings and classical heritage, for they have no scriptural, historical, or intellectual foundations.”

Violence in/and Religion

Post 2

The question of violence in/and religion is an uppermost question these days. There are any number of people, most of them really quite ignorant of history, especially religious history and its nuances, who love to pile up accusation after accusation of violence against specific religions or religion in general. Most of these people have never bothered to consider or study seriously all the positive contributions religions often have made to their various societies. They dislike religion and are not ready to listen to any defence. Religion is equated with violence throughout history. Punkt. There is no religion without violence.

Of course, I realize that there are also genuine scholars who make the same accusation. They can hardly be accused of ignorance. But it usually does not take a lot of pumping to discover that if they are not driven by ignorance, they are driven by what is called their worldview. That is to say, they, like every one else including yours truly, have committed themselves to a specific set of paradigms through which they regard the entire world and on basis of which they judge and analyze everything. This is, I realize, a huge statement that needs more than simple affirmation, but that will have to wait for a later post. For now I just affirm it and use it as an interpretive tool of what people, including scholars, do with and because of their worldview.

Then there are those who equate violence with a specific religion. In the Western world, many consider Islam the source and perpetrator of violence. Many citizens of the Two-Thirds World, from here on referred to as “2/3W,” in turn accuse the West of violence, usually implicating the West’s traditional religion, Christianity. Muslims, countering the Western charge, often air this accusation.

It would be foolish to deny that religious people have frequently engaged in violence. This is true of Christianity, of Islam, of Sikhs, of Hindus as well as of people who regard themselves as non-religious, the secularists, including Humanists and Marxists. As a Christian, I am shamefully aware of how much violence Christians have inflicted upon each other and on the rest of the world.

Without explaining this terrible reality away, in the next post or two I hope to shed some light on this history. There are some responsible Christian and Muslim perspectives that can help us understand. I hope to have you curious enough to return to the next post.