There is a debate in this thread: Pro Giuliani group co-chair says we should get rid of all Muslims
about whether or not Radical Islam is a tiny minority. I have taken the position that I doubt it’s an underground phenomenon. I am sure the average Muslim gets up and goes to work and comes home to eat dinner with his family like anyone else in any other country, but I am skeptical that radical Islam is in the minority.
The basic argument goes that Muhammad was a conqueror, that he sanctioned violent conversion as a means toward conquest, that his successors did the same, and that it is not an underground phenomenon among Muslims today.
I’d like to see what people have to say.
To be clear, I do not believe we need to round up all Muslims in America concentration camps. It is pointlessly cruel, a violation of our own values, and a waste of money and time. Just to head off any of those accusations. However, I have seen compelling evidence that Muhammad condoned and even encouraged violent conversion, that he preferred non-violent conversion, but that everyone ultimately must submit to Islam.
Here is a good link to a post by Aquila Be where he quotes Surahs and Hadiths in support of the thesis.
Heck, radical fundamentalism is a minority among Christians, but because they’re loudmouthed and attention-seeking, they get a disproportionate amount of press coverage while normal, peaceful Achmed Punchclock just lives out his life quietly.
This has been said before, but bears repeating: There are a billion Muslims. One out of every six human beings on the planet. If most of them were radical fundamentalists, I think the world would be a noticeably different place.
You need to give a definition of radicalism here. Do you mean support for terrorism? Or do you mean specifically violent conversion? Or do you mean radical views alone?
You also seem to be asking two distinct questions:
Do the Koran/Hadiths support/justify radicalism/violent conversion/whatever?
Does Akbar Q. Muslim, today, support radicalism/violent conversion/whatever?
With regard to no. 1, it’s arguable that they do sometimes have violent intent, but pretty much in the same way that the majority of religious texts propose violent acts towards unbelievers/enemies/whoever. To be consistent, if one is to dismiss those of Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity (because one perceives that followers of those faiths “don’t take that stuff seriously these days” or whatever), then one must extend that dismissal to Islam to remain consistent. All or nothing.
With regard to 2., I suspect that the exact data are not available, since your question isn’t fully formed. However, if you want to gauge support for terrorism, then the Pew Global Attitudes Project should help. While some of the figures are shocking on a per-country basis, if you factor in the entire global population of the Muslim world, those expressing support are still in a tiny minority.
Anecdotally speaking, I live in a Muslim area of my city, and have plenty of Muslim friends and acquaintances, in both the UK and in Thailand. There is only one Muslim I’ve known who ever worried me in his attitudes - he was pro-Saddam (who of course was secular) - and thankfully I don’t know him any more. Irish friends of mine who were in Turkey when 9/11 happened reported that people were weeping openly in the streets, and strangers came up to them to apologize, even though they weren’t American, and reassure them that “these people do not represent Islam”. Of the Muslims I know now, I don’t know anyone who attends a mosque regularly, outside of big celebrations; and one of my buddies’ only concession to Ramadan is that he gives up drinking booze.
Really. Even amongst Bin Ladin and the like, the focus seems to be on expeling western influences from currently (or in the case of Israel, recently) Muslim lands. I can’t really think of any serious recent effort by a Muslim group or country to expand the faith to previously non-islamic regions or peoples through conquest.
If belief in that sort of thing is your definition of a “radical” muslim, I’d say they’re a pretty small minority indeed, and that even amongst the ones that do hold such a belief, they don’t seem to be working at it very hard.
Hmm. My first response to this thread was really sarcastic, so I’ve deleted it. Short answer to the question: can you imagine asking an analogous question about Judaism and being taken seriously? The fact that such questions are considered legitimate amongst mainstream Western society today is perhaps Bin Laden’s greatest accomplishment.
Thank you for your response. I think both questions are relevant.
I don’t know that consistency is important because the methods of praxis are relevant. The inerrancy of the Koran seems to be stressed more than the inerrancy of the bible. Also, within Hinduism, there isn’t a central holy text, there are many different sects with their different beliefs. As I understand it the Vedas are the closest thing to the Bible or the Koran in Hinduism, and Hinduism because of its caste system accounts for different commandments for different people. Judaism on the other hand, while it has a clear call to genocide, and recounts the unsuccessful carrying out of that genocide from Exodus to Joshua, does not have an open-ended call for genocide. It lists specific tribes and how to interact with them. The commandments are explicit about time, place and context, unlike Christianity and Islam which are more open-ended with their commandments expiring only at Eschaton.
Well, I think question 2 is also a multi-parter, because it needs to account for both the average populace overall, the average populace in a particular locale, and the relative influence/ability to enact their will of the populace who supports terrorism.
Questions like these need to be asked about all religions. If you would like to start a thread about Judaism in this regard, I’d love to read it. There is no reason not to address the issue openly and honestly. I think you’ll find the attitude less prevalent amongst Jews than amongst Muslims. Jews don’t believe in conversion much, so the question about violent conversion is rather moot. The most analogous is Christianity. It’s sort of interesting how the Multiculturalist narrative has such a totalitarian strain in that it limits what we are allowed to talk about in the name of a sort of naive tolerance. If it turns out that Muslim fundamentalism is the rule rather than exception, it is useful information, if it turns out that it is not, then another decisive blow in the name of cultural tolerance has been struck.
An analogous question about Judaism would refer to stereotypes about Jews: Is avarice and usury in the minority among Jews? might be a good one. Would you expect to be taken seriously with such a question?
No, but I am fine with being charged interest by a cheap jew, I’d rather not be blown up by a suicide bomber. It’s less of an existential issue. You cannot understand modern politics without understanding this question. Jews are disproportionately represented in the world of high finance, but within that they do not behave outside of the norms for a banker or stock broker. The fact that you don’t see Christian, Jewish or Buddhist suicide bombers is quite relevant.
I also regard it unfortunate that we are so afraid of being called anti-semites that we aren’t willing to discuss Jewish culture openly and honestly. On a message board that I post on regularly, the cry of ‘anti-semite’ was such a common occurrence that it’s taken less seriously, and a huge thread about the right of Israel to survive was debated openly and honestly for the first time. I view that as a good thing. I think that Israel has a right to survive, but that it should be open to debate, as should the right of survival of any nation-state. To put it in perspective, that forum’s only automatic banning offense is holocaust denial.
To close this hijack. No topic should go undebated. Particularly one that is at the forefront of our foreign policy.
I do not believe radical Islam is a minority within Islam. If you kneel down 5 times a day you’re doing a lot more than pledging allegience to the flag once a day.
As far as violence goes, if you consider that most peaceful Americans supported the war effort in both Afghanistan and Iraq because of a perceived threat, don’t be surprised when you hear otherwise peaceful muslims who like bin Laden who is struggling for true religion against satanic influences.
Again, a definition problem. Does radical equal devout? The pledge of allegiance is a strange custom, but not a religious one (let’s leave the “under God” thing out of it…) To me, what you’re describing is devotion. Weird to me, but not representative of violent intent or beliefs.
This is a really weird definition of radical, prayer is something that’s supposed to be done by all muslims, doing so doesn’t make them radical, just observant.
It’s like saying all Catholics who receive communion weekly are “radical Catholics”.
And since Catholics will often pray at least 4 times per day (before each meal and before going to bed), then I guess they’re not radical. You have to do something 5 times per day to be radical, if we follow that logic.
As for the OP, he is making a bold assertion with absolutely no facts to back it up.
Look at what happens in countries where the real radicals (al-Qaeda) shows up-- the Afghans really did welcome us as liberators to get rid of the Taliban (and their al Qaeda supporters/collaborators), and the Iraqi Sunnis largely turned against al Qaeda once they got a real taste of that group’s medicine. But that’s about as much thought I’m willing to give this until the OP offers up more to back up the thesis presented in this thread.
An analagous question about Jews might be “How many Jews have parents who cooked them matzah brye?” or “How many Jews are Hassidic?” Or “How many Jews take messianic prophecies as a matter of fact?”
That even asking how prevelant radical Islam has become is cast as analagous to blatantly racist canards is weird.
We can ask “How many Christians are Dominionists?” or “How many Jews are Lubovitchas” or “How many Tamils support the Tigers”. But “How many Muslims support radical Islam” is simply off the table and makes someone look like a bigot? Is there any reason we could ask how many fundamentalist Christians there are but not how many Islamists/Neo-Fundamentalist Muslims?
I would agree that devout is not the same as radical. But we’re also into tricky territory when we tak kabout radical Islam. Islamism and Neo-Fundamentalist Islam are without a doubt prone to radicalism, but neither of them are necessarily radical. Even a devout Islamist might believe in change via the ballot box rather than the bullet. There is also the fact that Islam has not undergone a reformation ever in its history, and many Muslims do in fact believe that the Koran is the literal word of prophecy. But even looking at Islamic fundamentalists doesn’t tell us how they interpret various passages that might justify violence, or whether their religion is a private affair, or what. If fundamentalism is the belief that Islam is not a relative but an absolute set of truths, perhaps radicalism is th belief that those truths justify violence? I’m not sure, but that seems like a rough n’ ready way to go.
The fact that, as folks are often eager to point out, there are a billion Muslims doesn’t simplify matters. If we have a movement that makes up 1% of a billion strong group, we’re looking at a significant number of people. 10%, still a very small minority, becomes a massive number of people.
But the spectrum of belief is tricky, and labels are draped over reality, they don’t inform it. Does a beief in Sharia make one a radical? What if it’s a belief in Sharia if and only if it’s voted in? What if it’s only a belief in democratically established Sharia, but it’s also tied to a belief that women should be forced to be second class citizens upon threat of being brutalized by ‘morality’ police?
Only the most exhaustive, far reaching and longitudinal study would ever begin to give us an accurate picture of the demoraphics of one billion human beings scattered accross dozens of nations, cultures and ethnicities.
As for the general thrust of the OP, I’m not sure anybody really has accurate answers, even taking Pew global polls into account. If the maority of Muslims really were not just fundamentalists but radicals, I think we’d already be well into WW III.
I suppose that talking about whether any nation can or can’t be subjected to genocide and ethnic cleansing is a… question. whether it’s any more important to debate than whether or not we should makes blacks slaves again or whether or not it’s a good idea to turn Iran into a sheet of radioactive glass is up to those who feel the need to advocate such things.
Putting them in the same league as a factual question about demographics is strange, however.
I think support for radical Islam is in a minority among Muslims. However, I think that the minority may be far larger than many people appreciate.
In order to accurately assess the extent to which radical Islam holds sway among the Muslim population, we must first devise a definition of radical Islam. Since Islam is a highly flexible faith with no central authority (unlike, say, the Catholic Church), I would be very surprised if it were possible to construct a totalising definition of radical Islam. We must appreciate up front that we are dealing with a nebulous and amorphous sub category of an already somewhat inchoate religion.
Mehdi Mozaffari, author of “Fatwa: Violence and Discourtesy”, defines radical Islam thusly:
" Islamism is defined as `an Islamic militant, anti-democratic movement, bearing a holistic vision of Islam whose final aim is the restoration of the caliphate"
In the current absence of an alternative definition, I shall proceed on the assumption that Mozaffari’s definition is more accurate than less. However, I think the thread would benefit if we broke his definition down further. I propose, tentatively, the following “working definition” of radical Islam. I would welcome any corrections, abridgements, and/or additions from other posters:
*Radical Islam: The belief that the teachings of Islam can be adapted into a workable political system. Radical Islam urges a return to earlier incarnations of Islam which are necessarily predicated on (but not limited to):
(i) The purging of Western democratic and economic models.
(ii) The implementation of Sharia law.
(iii) A willingness to use and/or support military tactics to achieve the above goals.*
Given this, I think the best way to answer the OP is to break down his initial question into three smaller questions:
How many Muslims agree that Western Democratic and economic models need to be purged from Islamic society?
How many Muslims agree that Sharia law should be the world’s foundational legal & ethical system?
How many Muslims agree that these ends can be justifiably pursued by violent means?
Fortunately, some polling has been done on these issues and I’m sad to say the results are not encouraging. I shall tackle the second and third questions in reverse order. I will not tackle the first because I cannot find the requisite data from what I consider to be reliable sources.
My purpose in doing this is twofold. Firstly, I wish to argue that support for radical Islam, while surely confined to a minority of muslims, is not confined to the vanishingly tiny minority some would have us believe. Secondly, I hope to simply provide a little statistical context for this debate. I hope you find it useful.
How many Muslims agree that violence is justifiable in pursuit of the goals of radical Islam?
In 2002 over 38,000 people participated in a global study conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The results constituted the first publication of its Global Attitudes Project entitled ‘What the World Thinks in 2002’. The study included the following question, posed only to Muslims.
Before I continue, I would like to explain why I bolded the phrase ‘Defend Islam’. I think that it is unfair to equate a desire to defend Islam with a desire to witness the triumph of Islamism. The notion of ‘Defending Islam’ is one which can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. However, I consider it a safe assumption that those who would frequently support Islamic terrorism would, at the very least, be ambivalent to the spread of Islamist theosophy With that in mind, I present the results of the poll:
Now, the last time I used these statistics some posters pointed out that it was unfair to include the ‘Rarely’ column in my subsequent calculations. I’ve thought about this and I agree that these posters were correct. I’m opposed to torture, but I concede that there are rare situations which would awaken the Grand Inquisitor in all of us. Similarly, it is not difficult to concoct bizarre, wildly outlandish situations in which the bombing of civilian targets in defence of Islam may be justified (For instance, if the West were to embark upon a program of mass genocide against all Muslims, regardless of the strength of their religious affiliation, counter attacks against a civilian population may be justified to bring it to a halt).
Consequently, I have ignored all but the ‘Often’ and ‘Sometimes’ columns in the following calculations.
These are the percentages of respondants who answered that suicide attacks against civilian populations were ‘Often’ or ‘Sometimes’ justifiable in defence of Islam.
Lebanon 73%
Ivory Coast 56%
Nigeria 47%
Pakistan 33%
Jordan 42%
Bangladesh 34%
Senegal 28%
Mali 32%
Uganda 29%
Ghana 30%
Indonesia 27%
Tanzania 18%
Turkey 13%
Uzbekistan 7%
I then worked out the Muslim populations of each of the above countries using the figures found on the CIA World Fact Book. As far as I know this is a reputable and accurate source. Then, using the above percentages, I worked out how many Muslims in each country support suicide attacks against civilian targets in defence of Islam either ‘Often’ or ‘Sometimes’.
Lebanon 1690713
Ivory Coast 3530628
Nigeria 31057167
Pakistan 52733889
Jordan 2394643
Bangladesh 54943733
Senegal 3295751
Mali 3454675
Uganda 1053138
Ghana 1031908
Indonesia 54495946
Tanzania 2481206
Turkey 9158117
Uzbekistan 1711251
TOTAL: 223,033,465.
To put these figures into perspective, 14.3% of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims support suicide attacks against civilians in defence of Islam either ‘Often’ or ‘Sometimes’. While this is certainly a minority of all Muslims, it is far from a tiny minority.
Moreover, consider that Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the Palestinian Territories were not included in the poll. It is safe to say that if they had been, Lebanon would have lost its place at the top of this list several times over. I don’t have access to the figures so I won’t speculate as to what the true percentage is, but I would wager that it is actually considerably higher than 14.3%.
If it is indeed true that there is a correlation between those who would either ‘Often’ or ‘Sometimes’ shed, or support the shedding of, civilian blood in defence of Islam and a desire, however mitigated, to see the triumph of Islamism, I contend that a sizeable minority of Muslims support radical Islam.
By way of substantiation, the Pew Poll indicates that 33% of Pakistani Muslims support ‘Often’ or ‘Sometimes’ suicide attacks against civilian populations in defence of Islam. However, according to this poll, the number of people who profess an explicit allegiance to the most high-profile Islamist in the world, Osama Bin Laden, is actually far higher, standing at 46%. By way of comparison, President Musharref trails a distant second with 38%. If this is any indication, it would appear that the Pew statistics can only give us an underestimation of the number of supporters of radical Islam.
On to the second question.
How many Muslims agree that Sharia law should be the world’s foundational legal & ethical system?
The data on this question is rather more straightforward than that for the previous question. According to this poll, 40% of British Muslims would like to see Sharia law introduced to parts of the country. Using the same methodology as for the previous question, this means that 656383 of Britain’s 1640958 Muslims would like to see Sharia introduced to the UK. As a Brit, I find this rather disconcerting as I am aware of the lengths our Government has gone to to successfully integrate Muslim first and second generation immigrants.
This poll (warning: PDF) gives some indication of the support for Sharia law in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt. Respondents were asked for their views of the role of Sharia in their countries legislation. I have used the following key to transcribe the table:
O = Sharia should be the only source of legislation.
A = Sharia should be a source of legislation.
N = Sharia should not be a source of legislation.
DK = Don’t know.
The results are as follows:
O A N DK
Jordan 67 29 1 3
Syria 32 58 5 5
Lebanon 7 38 33 22
Palestine 65 33 1 1
Egypt 58 38 0 4
Using the same methodology as I have previously, I then worked out how many Muslims in those countries believe that Sharia should be either the sole source of legislation or a source of legislation.
Similar data can be dredged from public records for numerous other predominantly Islamic countries, indicating that support for Sharia law is generally rather high among Muslims. As we can see from the above five MENA countries, the majority of each population (excluding Syria) supports the use of Sharia law in full or in part.
Conclusion
I think it is impossible to know with absolute certainty just how widespread support for radical Islam is among Muslims. However, based on my findings I think that we can at least draw two stark conclusions. The first is that, while support for radical Islam is surely in a minority among Muslims, the minority is far from negligible in number. In fact, hundreds of millions of Muslims support the military tactics of the Jihadists, and many millions more support the use of Sharia law as either the sole source or a contributory source of a functioning legal system. The second conclusion is this: If the doctrinal tenets of radical Islam are a problem, then we in the West have a problem.
Disclaimers
I worked out the demographics myself so there may be some errors. Please feel free to check my work and correct me if necessary.
The cite from which I acquired the figures re: support for Sharia in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt displayed their findings in the form of a bar graph which didn’t give exact figures. The percentages and the subsequent demographic extrapolations may be off by 1-2%.
There’s a pretty big difference between the way that question is phrased and the way the OP is phrased. Your question is certainly worthy of discussion. The OP’s question deserves a simple dismissal: the answer to anyone who’s paying attention is a clear no, unless “radical” is defined in a pretty fancy fashion, e.g., Flying Dutchman’s definition.
Nice analysis. I do think, however, that the poll questions leave certain important questions unanswered.
How many of those who support suicide bombing in “defense of Islam” are intent on exporting Islam to other countries? Keep in mind that many of these Islamic countries are run by corrupt and dictatorial or quasi-dictatorial governments. When people are oppressed, they will often support extreme measures-- this is not unique to Islam, and is more an issue of being a human being.
You ask if they want Sharia law to be the world-wide source of law, but the poll only addresses what they think should be done in their own countries.
I think the bigger question we need answered is not how many people see themselves as Islamic activists within their own countries, but how many want to export that Islamic radicalism around the world. It’s quite possible that they just want us westerners to get out of their countries and let them work things out themselves, or to stop supporting what they see as oppressive, dictatorial regimes that don’t have the best interest of their citizens at heart. I would think that a country like Egypt, a real source of international Islamic terrorism, would fall in that category.