Qunfuz

A slightly edited version of this review was published at the National.

In “The Way of the Strangers: Encounters With The Islamic State”, journalist Graeme Wood aligns himself with the orientalist tradition of Bernard Lewis, who warned liberal students against projecting secular frameworks on contemporary Muslim politics. Lewis believed religion, not secular grievance, was the prime motivator of this politics.

This may or may not be true. In any case, the argument has limited explanatory power. It doesn’t explain why Islamism is more in vogue today than in the 1960s, for instance, or why contemporary extremists are destroying the ancient temples which previous generations left unharmed.

Does scripture account for ISIL’s crimes? It’s a fact that the Prophet’s Companions took slaves as war booty. The overwhelming majority of contemporary scholars, considering custom (’urf) and public interest (maslaha) as well as learned precedent, nevertheless see slavery as obsolete, no more relevant to modern warfare than bows and arrows. But ISIL, ignoring these considerations, has proudly revived the practice.

Wood rightly expresses exasperation with Muslim scholars who claim that ISIL’s behaviour has ‘nothing to do with Islam’. It would be equally wrong to claim that American slavery had nothing to do with Christianity (see, for example, 1 Peter 2:18: “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.”) “It is the interpretation,” Wood writes, “not the historical fact itself, that is up for debate.”

His account lacks political (or ‘secular’) context, but still, with hard-boiled humour, it provides a sometimes fascinating journey through some varieties of Islamic interpretation, from hate preaching to gentle quietism.

Read the rest of this entry »