Who invents a lie
Against Allah, but we
Are not the ones
To believe in him!
S.23 A.38
I have written a couple of posts about either atheists attacking religion or people espousing one faith deriding another. This verse brings something else to mind though, something even more deplorable - those who profess to be Muslims then misrepresent God's word for their own devices. One might even say that these latter liars create the fodder for the other groups to attack our faith, not that there is always a reason for some people to hate. Of all the affronts to Islam, the betrayal from within is the greatest sin.
I am a novice in my faith, and there is a lot for me to learn. I don't, however, feel or see the things in my study and worship that would motivate me to murder innocent people. As a matter of fact, it seems contrary to most of what I read in the Koran. But I am not saying violence itself is never warranted, that would be foolish and naive. No one of any faith, should allow that faith to be desecrated, or allow themselves to be annihilated in the name of world peace.
How then do we defend our faith? How does a minority fight for its right to exist? How far should the few be pushed by the many until they are allowed to push back? How does a father fight for the rights of his family? When can a mother kill to save the life of her children? When do the members of a just and civilized, democratic society decide to afford the children of the world the simple truths they themselves hold self-evident? These are the questions I ask whenever someone decries terrorism unilaterally, whenever a liberal espouses peace and passive resistance at any cost, whenever someone asks me "why can't those people just learn to live together?" Sometimes I try to take out my mental scales, hoping to weigh the difference between terrorism and state sanctioned genocide - I cannot defend one over the other, as many people in the world seem willing and able to do. I do know there are some acts of violence that cannot be condoned for any reason.
I often find myself bemused by the "rules of war", as if that awful beast is ever tamed that efficiently. If you initiate violence and malice, do you have the right to dictate the response? If you line up sympathy and resources heavily favoring one side, I doubt you can expect the other to stand up in the open and fight "fair." Even worse, you could pretend there is no inequity, much like the zealots who flock to a bullfight, thinking they are seeing a noble and epic battle between man and beast - while the bull is tortured for days before, and practically crippled by the picadors before being presented to the brave matador. Hard to find nobility here, hard to find it anywhere when the scales of justice are permanently skewed. Still, as Muslims, we have been provided guidance for our behavior, direction in the proper means of our own defense. There is no excuse to exploit these guidelines in the name of God.
I arrived in Yemen as a thirty year old liberal, passionately promoting peace. I left with a different perspective. Living and working in a refugee camp for the victims of a thirty-five year civil war in Ethiopia exploded my naive notion of peace. I was shocked to see that these victims of unspeakable violence, were not pacifists, nor did they espouse a love of peace. In their reality, there were wicked and evil men who would not be stopped with docile diplomacy or stern admonishment - they were men of violence who would need to be stopped violently. I understood the efficacy of that.
When we watch these terrible events transpire in the Middle East, we need to understand the untenable positions that many Palestinians, Syrians, and Yemeni find themselves in. That context alone should help us judge their actions, to judge whether or not they are acting within the laws of God. To ignore that context however is tantamount to complicity to commit murder - a crime so many of us unwittingly commit.
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