The Terrorists' Motivation: Islam

[Hemast]

It is now five years since September 11, 2001 - and since that horrific
day we have witnessed numerous additional attacks by Islamic
terrorists against the West. In the face of a seemingly never-ending
supply of suicidal killers, many still do not understand the
motivation of the terrorists. Commentators are eager to offer a bevy
of pseudo-explanations - poverty, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kashmir
etc. - while ignoring the motivation the terrorists themselves openly
proclaim: Islam.

The near silence about the true role of Islam in motivating Islamic
terrorists has two main causes: multiculturalism and religion.
Multiculturalism asserts that all cultures are equal and therefore
none may criticize another; intellectuals and politicians are
therefore reluctant to declare the obvious superiority of Western
culture to Islamic culture. And the strong commitment to religion of
many Americans, especially conservatives, makes them reluctant to
indict a religion as the cause of a massive evil. But if we are to
identify the fundamental cause of the terrorists' actions, we must
understand at least two fundamental premises of the religion they kill
for.

First, Islam, like all religions, rejects reason as a means of gaining
knowledge and guiding action; it holds that all important truths are
grasped by faith in supernatural beings and sacred texts. The Koran
explicitly states that knowledge comes from revelation, not thinking.
(Christianity in pure form entails a similar rejection of reason, but
it has been heavily diluted and secularized since the Renaissance.)
Islam advocates the subordination of every sphere of life to religious
dogma, including the legal system, politics, economics, and family
life; the word "Islam" means literally: submission. The individual is
not supposed to think independently but to selflessly subordinate
himself to the dictates of his religion and its theocratic
representatives. We have seen this before in the West - it was called
the Dark Ages.

Second, as with any religion that seeks converts, a derivative tenet
of Islam is that it should be imposed by force (you cannot convince
someone of the non-rational). The Koran is replete with calls to take
up arms in its name: "fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them
… those who reject our signs we shall soon cast into the fire . .
. those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them;
boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads . . . as to the
deviators, they are the fuel of hell."

These ideas easily lead to fanaticism and terrorism. In fact, what is
often referred to as the "fanaticism" of many Muslims is explicitly
endorsed by their religion. Consider the following characteristics of
religious fanatics. The fanatic demands unquestioning obedience to
religious dogma--so does Islam. The fanatic cannot be reasoned with,
because he rejects reason--so does Islam. The fanatic eagerly embraces
any call to impose his dogma by force on those who will not adopt it
voluntarily--so does Islam.

The terrorists are not "un-Islamic" bandits who have "hijacked a great
religion"; they are consistent and serious followers of their
religion.

It is true that many Muslims who live in the West (like most
Christians) reject religious fanaticism and are law-abiding and even
loyal citizens, but this is because they have accepted some Western
values, including respect for reason, a belief in individual rights,
and the need for a separation between church and state. It is only to
the extent that they depart from their religion - and from a society
that imposes it - that they achieve prosperity, freedom, and peace.

In the last year, there has been more and more of a call for a "War of
Ideas"--an intellectual campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of the
Arab world that will discourage and discredit Islamic terrorism.
Unfortunately, the centerpiece of this campaign so far has been to
appeal to Muslims with claims that Islam is perfectly consistent with
Western ideals, and inconsistent with terrorism. America has, with
little success, groveled to so-called moderate Muslim leaders to
strongly repudiate terrorism. (Those leaders have focused little
energy on damning Islamic fanaticism, and much on the alleged sins of
the U.S. government.) Such a campaign cannot work, since insofar as
these "moderates" accept Islam, they cannot convincingly oppose
violence in its name. A true "War of Ideas" would be one in which we
proclaim loudly and with moral certainty the secular values we stand
for: reason, rights, freedom, material prosperity, and personal
happiness on this earth.