A Critique of Islamic
Jihad
by jed pensar
PART 1
I come from a typical Christian (Ilonggo) Visayan
family that migrated to Mindanao in the early 1900s for economic
reasons, although I myself have been born and raised in Manila. I have
never harbored any ill-feeling or bias against Muslims until the
following events occurred. One, my aunt got kidnapped by Moros. My
family had to pay a huge amount of ransom in order to secure her
release. Two, the newly married wife of a cousin also got kidnapped.
Something went wrong, and her Moro kidnappers shot her dead. This young
woman was idealistic, bright, pretty, a professional, and totally
innocent. Even as I write these words, my pen trembles at the memory of
the Moros' abominable deed.
Several years passed, and an uncle gave me an English
translation of the Koran. I eagerly read and studied it for I wanted to
understand Islam. I was shocked. Having read the Koran, and being rooted
in the New Testament in my religious beliefs, I am pleasantly stunned at
the truth and beauty of many of the Koran's passages. I am also frankly
appalled and horrified at the implications of jihad and the angry
passages of the Koran. In the following paragraphs, I shall present
historical facts, basic doctrines of the world's major religions, and
citations from sacred scriptures. As mush as possible, in order to avoid
being bogged down in the complexities and complications that theological
debates are notorious for, I shall stick to the basic representative
sacred scriptures of each major world religion. Discussions and
conclusions shall also be presented based on the above, but the reader
should make his or her own conclusions. These two essays are written in
a circular manner, and so the reader ideally has to read quite a bit
into the essays before the conclusions punch in. It is well known that
the Asian mind, of which yours truly is an example, typically thinks in
circles. I am also assuming that you the reader are Christian and that
you have access to a Bible so that you can check out the passages that I
shall cite, in case you are interested, in order to verify the truth;
and that you do not have a Koran. However, you can by all means read
this material even without a Bible; in which case just ignore the
Biblical references cited in the parentheses.
The Koran, the Muslim Holy Scripture (Quran or
Recitation), begins each chapter (sura) with the words "In the name of
God (Allah), the compassionate, the mercifulˇ¦"1 No other statement is
repeated more often in the Koran. Muslim theologians have been
discussing the Koran for centuries, and typically many Islamic
theological theses exist, but off hand, as an outsider who has read the
Koran for the first time and who has not been influenced by any Muslim
theologian and his particular interpretation, my first impression is
this. To surrender (Islam) to the will of God, who is compassionate and
merciful, a Muslim (person surrendering to God) should be compassionate
and merciful. In my disinterested and detached point of view, this is
the main theological thesis of Islam. It says so in the beginning of
every chapter in the Koran.
To get a flavor of the truth and beauty of many of the
Koran's passages, listen to its first chapter, called the Exordium
(Al-Fatiha): "In the name of God the Compassionate the Merciful, Praise
be to God, Lord of Creation, the Compassionate, the Merciful, King of
Judgment day! You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help.
Guide us to the straight path, the path of those whom You have favored,
not of those who have incurred Your wrath, nor of those who have gone
astray."
The Koran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (the
highly praised one), starting about 610 CE until his death in 632 CE in
a series of visual and/or auditory mystical experiences first mediated
by Jibril (the Archangel Gabriel in Christianity). Later God Himself
spoke. An auditory revelation was then rendered by Muhammad into a
recitation (Quran) of God's word. These recitations were collected into
the Quran in about 650 CE (during the time of the 3rd Caliph Uthman).2
In reading the Koran, one can clearly perceive what Muhammad must have
surely sensed: overwhelming wonder, awe, and gratitude at the greatness
and graciousness of God in the always ongoing creation process. All God
has to say is "Be," and it is.
So why is it possible for an Islamic group to kidnap,
rape, kill, and desecrate in the name of religion? Is this the will of
God?
The answer lies in the concept of "jihad" (fighting or
struggle). Jihad is an important Islamic doctrine that allows Muslims to
fight the enemies of the faith, both humans and one's own psyche.2
Physical violence to a person is theologically acceptable if done in
"jihad". The trouble is that "jihad" is a term that can be interpreted
in many ways.
Is jihad compatible with peace (which follows from
compassion and mercy)? Yes! Peace and violence both exist in Islamic
theology, and peace (the favorite greeting in Islamic paradise) prevails
in most cases, but violence (in jihad) is allowable in certain
circumstances.
Thus, the concepts of peace and violence in Islam are
said to be in "tension" (a favorite word of Biblical exegetes).
Admittedly, the above statements may sound offensive.
So will the statements that will follow. Sometimes, truth offends, but
this jihad concept has to be faced squarely and honestly, and pretending
that it does not exist because one is offended or might offend others is
folly.
And Islamic jihad may sound offensive to Christian
ears. Muhammad was a prophet and a mystic, but he was also a political
and military leader, in the tradition of Old Testament prophets.
Muhammad consistently used armed forces in order to achieve his ends.
The following paragraphs are a no-holds barred, distressing, unpleasant,
probably offensive, but necessary summary of the violence of Islamic
jihad in human history. We ought to learn from history. The paragraphs
certainly are not meant to degrade, demean, belittle, or insult the main
theological message of Muhammad, which is Islam - to gratefully submit
to God's will. With respect to submission to God's will, Islam and
Christianity are in complete harmony. Let the Christian reader be
reminded of the Lord's prayer taught to us by the immanent God incarnate
that goes "ˇ¦Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Mt 6:10). And
who can forget such a vigorously expressed message by Christ that "Not
everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father." (See Mt 7:21 and also
Lk 6:46, Mt 26:39, 42, Mk 14:36, Lk 22:42, Jn 6:38, Heb 10:7-10, and so
on.) In addition, submitting oneself to the will of God essentially also
means trusting in His gracious will. Right in its first chapter (see
above), the Koran announces that those who are on the straight path are
on it by God's grace or favor. From this angle, Islam and Christianity
are again in complete harmony. A central Christian doctrine is salvation
by God's grace. (See Mt 11:25-26, 16:13-17, Jn 1:16-17, Rom 3:24,
5:15-21, 11:5-6, 1 Cor 12:3-6, Gal 1:15, Eph 2:5-10, 2 Tim 1:9, Tit
3:4-7, Jm 4:6-7, 1 Pet 5:5, and so on.) The New Testament letters,
inspired by God's Holy Spirit, almost all begin and end with the word
grace, as though the Spirit is making sure that we never forget this:
that it is God who does the saving, not you, and don't you forget
that!
Islam was firmly established in 630 CE at the capture
of Mecca after years of military campaigns that included massacres and
enslavement of opposing peoples including Jewish tribes. [ 622 CE - the
migration of Muhammad and the first Muslims from Mecca to Medina (hiraj)
occasioned by political pressure and threats by non-Muslim Arabs, the
beginning of the Islamic era; 624 CE - defeat of the Quraysh tribe,
Muhammad's own Arabic tribe; 626 CE - defeat of the Jewish al-Nadhir
tribe; 627 CE - successful defense of Medina from attacking Meccan
forces in the famed War of the Ditch; 627 CE - Jewish tribe of Qurayza
massacred, with 800 men beheaded and women and children enslaved; 629 CE
- Khaybar Jews massacred; 630 CE - Mecca taken and converted to Islam. ]
1,2,3 Even as early as this time, Islamic jihad had the propensity to
behead the men (the Koran recommends beheading enemies in the
battlefield) and enslave the women and children of enemy cultures (the
Koran presupposes the legitimacy of taking captives and hostages and
enslaving them, and it also mentions holding captives for ransom), and
massacres were common.
Islam spread throughout the Middle East and North
Africa through the violence of military conquest. After successfully
vanquishing the North African tribes, Arab Muslim forces under the
Umayyad Caliphate in 711 CE subjugated most of Christian Iberia (the
territory of present-day Spain and Portugal) then under the Germanic
Visigoths.3 Their expansion into northwestern Europe was halted in
Poitiers France in 732 CE upon their defeat in battle by the
Christianized Franks under Charles Martel.3 By 715 CE, other Umayyad
Caliphate forces were on their way to an invasion of India.2,3
Successive waves of Muslim invasions followed. By 1027 CE, the Indian
province of Punjab was under Islamic rule.3 The most well-known Islamic
empire in India was the Mughal Empire (1526 - 1761 CE).3 In 1453 CE, the
spiritual center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Constantinople, was
captured by the Muslim Ottoman Turks.3 The forcible subjugation of the
Balkan Christians soon followed (the Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians,
Macedonians, Montenegrins, Albanians, Romanians, Hungarians, and so on).
The westward expansion of the Turks was stopped only at the gates of
Vienna Austria in 1529 CE.3 Only in Indonesia and Malaysia was the
spread of Islam largely peaceful, but it was still significantly helped
by Muslim states.
Everywhere the Muslims went they established
theocracies, societies that did not separate religion and state. Islam
is the state religion. Shariah ("oasis, source of water",4 Islamic laws
based mainly on the Koran and Hadith, the sayings of Muhammad) reigns
across the land.
Conversion to Islam in conquered territories followed
quickly.2,3 People of the Book (Ahl Al-Kitab) - Christians and Jews
whose religion was based on sacred writings - were required to pay a per
capita tax (Jizya) in order to continue existing as protected peoples
(dhimmis) under the "House of Islam" (Dar al-Islam). Thus, the only way
to prevent the impoverishment of your family was to convert to Islam.
Little choice. Other unbelievers (not of the Book) had no choice at all.
Convert to Islam or die. Later, the status of people of the Book was
extended to Zoroastrians and Hindus. The use of state coercion was (is)
normal in the propagation of Islam.
Shariah itself was designed to push unbelievers into
converting to Islam.2,3 The building of new churches or worship places
of non-Islamic religions was prohibited. A Muslim who converted to
another religion was to be executed for apostasy. Slavery was allowed,
and the Muslims preferentially captured and enslaved non-Muslims
("kidnapped" in modern vocabulary). Thus, a person can prevent his
enslavement by converting to Islam. A man of the People of the Book can
marry a Muslim woman, but only if he converts to Islam, and their
children must be raised as Muslims. A woman of the People of the Book
can marry a Muslim man and retain her faith, but their children must be
raised as Muslims. The Koran in many ways exhorts believers to spread
Islam, and history has shown that many serious Muslims have tended to
use coercive means in following such exhortations rather than the one
Koranic passage, that says "there is no compulsion in religion," that
most clearly expresses religious tolerance.
In the Islamic state under Shariah, there is official
state discrimination and even persecution of non-Islamic religions,
designed to pressure people into converting to Islam. This was true in
the past and may still be true today. Allowing traditional Shariah to
prevail unmodified and unchecked over parts of Mindanao will lead to the
discrimination of Christian families who choose not to convert to Islam.
Much as it feels uncomfortable and disturbing, we really have to
seriously consider this theory, which is based on Islamic history
itself.
The typical Christian reader at this point probably
will have no idea of what the above paragraphs fully mean. This is
completely understandable because most Christians are only familiar with
the New Testament, which never mentions converting people to
Christianity by fear or force. However, the concept of coercive
religious conversion does occur in the Old Testament: "And many of the
peoples of the land embraced Judaism, for they were seized with a fear
of the Jews (Es 8:17)." The Koran is similar to the Old Testament in
that it does not hesitate to talk about violence. This really sounds
disturbing, but an extremely fundamentalist believer can always choose
to interpret some passages from the Koran and the Old Testament as
teaching that might is right. If you are a Christian who has a Bible
somewhere around the house but does not have a Koran, and you would like
to get an idea of the use of fear and force in the propagation of
religion, you can check out passages from the Old Testament that talk
about violence. It's hard not to miss them because there are lots of
them. Being a Christian myself, who considers the Old Testament as
divinely inspired, I find myself becoming nervous as I write these
words, but more on this later. Just keep on reading.
Jihad to a large extent has determined the world's
religious map. Until the present, many Muslim groups, often labeled as
"fundamentalist" or "extremist", still adhere to jihad as a means to
propagate religion. However, if one reads history well, jihad has been
the legitimate way of propagating Islam! The Koran is littered with
passages referring to jihad, and there is even a passage that exhorts
believers to make war until God's religion reigns supreme. Muhammad
himself was not averse to waging wars in order to propagate religion.
Jihad is a very important doctrine in Islam and we must face it squarely
and honestly. We must not sidestep the concept of jihad just because we
find its violence offensive, nor tolerate its more violent forms ("jihad
of the sword") for the sake of "freedom of religion" or "autonomy of the
Muslim peoples" or "Muslim-Christian dialogue and reconciliation," or
for the sake of a dishonorable, hypocritical, ephemeral, and fake
"peace."
Christians indeed should regard peaceful Muslims as
brethren inasmuch as both Christianity and Islam profess the Faith of
Abraham in the same monotheistic God. There are many teachings common to
both the Koran and the Bible. The Koran, in harmony with the Jewish and
Christian Decalogue or 10 Commandments, teaches the believer not to
steal, commit adultery, or bear false witness, and to be kind to one's
parents and to pray on the Sabbath (Friday in Islam). Killing a human
being (without a just cause) is like killing the whole of humanity;
saving a human life is like saving the rest of humanity. Female
infanticide, which the pre-Islamic Arabs often practiced, is especially
condemned. Faith in God and His prophet Muhammad, prayer, alms-giving,
and fasting are also emphasized, and these have become pillars of Islam,
along with pilgrimage to the Sacred Mosque that contains the black stone
(Kaba) in Mecca. Both Muslims and Christians should listen to the
following Koranic teachings: Act in justice; do not walk proudly on
earth; do not defame, backbite, mock, spy on one another; avoid
immoderate suspicion, avoid excessive drinking and gambling, avoid
usury; be fair ("Give full measure, when you measure, and weigh them on
even scales. That is fairˇ¦") in your business dealings; take joy in your
wives and children. On the other hand, allowing Muslim individuals,
sects, and organizations that adhere to violent jihad to freely spread
their teachings is something else. One cannot give freedom to a
thought-system (religion or ideology) that is already overtly violent to
freely propagate itself. To tolerate freedom of violence is an absurdity
and the folly of follies. The ancient Israelites knew this well, as
described in the Old Testament, and the world once again learned this
lesson in World War II when the violent ideology of Nazism had to be
stopped. The lessons of Nazism and Stalinism should not be conveniently
forgotten.
To a Christian, the normal historical method by which
Islam propagated, namely through a combination of jihad in order to
politically control a territory and Shariah in order to pressure the
people of a politically controlled territory to embrace Islam, is almost
incomprehensible. It does not even cross the ordinary Christian's mind.
This is because Christianity is normally spread through missionary work,
which places emphasis on the persuasion of the individual by
evangelization. In Christian conversion, there is normally no state
coercion involved and there is individual freedom of choice.
Obviously, this combination of jihad and Shariah is a
very effective method. For example, in less than a hundred years after
the establishment of Islam in Mecca, Islam had already spread throughout
the Middle East, North Africa, and most of the Iberian peninsula. The
only other thought-system to spread even faster is Marxism in the 20th
century. 3 In fact, Marxism employed the very same method of Islam. The
Red Army militarily conquered Czarist Russia and Eastern Europe, and
Marxism was made into the official state ideology, taught in schools and
disseminated in the mass media. Political deviants (the equivalent of
heretics in religion) were imprisoned, banished, or executed. In Asia
(China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia), Marxist armies did the same thing.
Thus, the combination of military conquest and subsequent state coercion
must be the fastest way to spread a thought-system (a religion or
ideology).
It is interesting to note that the Spaniards, who were
controlled or strongly influenced by the Islamic state, also employed
the same method of military conquest and subsequent state coercion in
the 1500s to the 1800s in the Americas and the Philippines. (Consider
this traditional picture. On one side is a group of Spanish soldiers
armed with muskets and Spanish priests armed with crosses. On the other
side is a group of overwhelmed natives being baptized by the priests.
Conversion comes from the barrel of a gun.) Consequently, Roman Rite
Catholic Christianity suddenly became the most widespread religion on
earth. As discussed below, this is not a traditional way by which
Christianity is propagated, but is a phenomenon directly related to the
Muslim conquest of Iberia.
Many of the troubles of the world today stem from the
initial Muslim jihad conquests. Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan are
still in conflict. This is no small matter since both sides may possibly
have nuclear weapons.
Balkan Christians (Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, and so
on), who suffered especially so under Turkish Islamic rule, have
demonstrated time and time again that they have long cultural memories
and still resent the Muslim groups planted by the Ottoman Empire. These
Eastern Orthodox Christians tend to see these Muslim groups left behind
by the retreating Ottomans as "Turks."
The most abominable Turkish practice was the desvirme
system (from the 14th to the 17th century CE).3 Every 5 years, one out
of four boys of Balkan Christian families aged between 10 and 20 years
was legally kidnapped, brought to Istanbul (formerly Constantinople),
and forcibly converted to Islam. Most were trained to do government
administrative work. Some were made into elite soldiers of the Sultan in
the Janissary corps. These Janissaries were an elite infantry unit armed
with muskets and were the most effective fighting arm of the Turkish
army. Many were sent back to the Balkans to maintain Turkish military
rule. Your own apostate son was sent back to beat you to submission.
That must have hurt to the nth degree. Besides this, Christian girls
were often taken to the Sultan's harem. Frankly, this was outright
slavery of the Christian peoples. Justice has never been done for the
Serbs, Greeks, and other Balkan peoples for the centuries they suffered
Turkish depredation. Until the present, the Serbs vent their anger on
the Muslim Albanians and Bosnians who were originally Christian. The
Serbs often contemptuously call them "Turks". The Western powers,
epitomized by the Americans and the English, should try to be aware of
this historical background when dealing with Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks,
and even Russians who more than any other nation caused the fall of the
Turkish Ottoman Empire.
Moreover, the Turks caused one of the greatest
genocides of history.3 In 1915, irked by the Christian Armenians within
the Ottoman Empire, the Turks intentionally deported the whole
population of Turkish Armenia numbering 1,750,000 to Syria and
Mesopotamia, to mainly desert areas in which there was little hope of
survival. In this manner, 600,000 Armenians died, a stunning 1/3 of the
whole Armenian population. This horrific "final solution" to the
Christian Armenian "problem" was consciously imitated by the Nazis one
generation later in response to the Jewish "problem." If you can't
convert them, kill them. Justice has never been done for the Armenians
either, and as a people to this day, they hate the Turks, possibly even
more than the Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgarians (who the Turks at least did
not try to kill off). More recently, the Muslim Indonesians may have
tried to do the same to Christian East Timor, and they have partly
succeeded. Some estimates claim that at least 200,000 East Timorese have
died since the 1976 Indonesian invasion until the present (2000 CE) as a
direct result of Indonesian politico-economic-military action. We should
shudder to think what might have happened had the Australians, who sent
an armed force with U.N. approval to Timor in 1999 in order to stop the
killings, not acted in time or, worse, at all.
The Balkan and Caucasus peoples were much helped
morally and even militarily by their Russian Orthodox co-religionist
brethren who waged a succession of wars against the Ottoman Turks for
400 years,3 nibbling away at the Turkish Empire and draining its
resources over the centuries. The Russian rulers adopted the title of
"Czar", a transliteration of the Roman "Caesar", considering themselves
as the successors to the Caesars' throne in Constantinople. The
Russians' golden goal was the recapture of Constantinople, the seat of
Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In a military campaign from 1912 to 1913,
a Balkan alliance of Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Montenegrins, helped
by the Russians, expelled the Turks from all of Europe except for a
strip of land surrounding Constantinople.3 In fact, one of Russia's
overt aims during World War I was the recapture of Constantinople.3 Not
surprisingly, the Serbs and the Bulgarians tend to see the Russians as
liberators, something the Americans do not seem to comprehend. The
Americans, with a typically chauvinistic and imperialistic attitude,
tend to just think of incorporating these Balkan groups into their
political and economic sphere of influence away from their traditional
enemies, the Russians.
Until now, in the back of the heads of Eastern Orthodox
Christians (which include most of the Balkan and Caucasus peoples and
the Russians) is the fact that their spiritual center, Constantinople
(now Turkish Istanbul), is in the hands of their historical enemy, the
Muslim Turks. If you are Catholic, do not laugh at this. Rome itself was
briefly occupied by Muslim Saracens (probably a combination of Turks and
Arabs), who desecrated many of the sacred Christian places, in 846 CE,
and if they were not driven off by the Italians and had permanently
occupied Rome, you would know how the Eastern Orthodox Christians feel.
The taking of Constantinople was by violent military conquest, and not
through legal negotiation. Suppose that Jews took Mecca, the spiritual
center of Islam, by force of arms today. Is their continuing occupation
of Mecca 600 years into the future in 2600 CE legitimate? Likewise, the
Muslim Turks took Constantinople by force of arms in 1453 CE, almost 600
years ago. Is the present day Turkish occupation of Constantinople
legitimate? Logically, if one says "no" to the first question, one has
to say "no" to the second question as well. It is highly probable that
if another major war were to erupt between Turkey and Russia (or any
other predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian country), Constantinople
will once again be a political issue and a military objective.
Moreover, if you are Protestant, a permanent Islamic
occupation of 9th century Rome 700 years before the Reformation in the
16th century is even less cause for laughter. Missionaries based in Rome
evangelized most of Europe, and it follows that a permanent Islamic
occupation of Rome at such early stage would have warped Christian
history so much that Protestantism most likely would never have come to
existence. Islamic jihad and Shariah probably would have reduced
Christendom to a few isolated communities barely eking out a survival
amidst Islamic theocracies. This can still happen if a super extremist
Islamic sect with a Kharijite or Assassin-like theology (discussed
below) were to take over the world. History has already given us little
bits of warning, and therefore be warned should the big one
approach.
After waging the violent reconquista (reconquest)
against the Muslim Moors for 700 years (they completely succeeded in
driving out the Moors in 1492 CE with the recapture of Grenada), 3 the
Spaniards had become very anti-Islamic. In the Philippines, they once
again met their old enemies, the Muslims, whom they called Moros from
the word "Moors." And so the trouble began here in the Philippines. The
Spaniards passed on their biases to their Christian converts who also
learned to call the Muslims Moros (as though Filipino Muslims are Arabic
Moors!). This bias is alive and well today, and causing trouble. Some
Filipino Muslims have done their share of promoting this bias by waging
jihad on Christians. But remember, it was in jihad that the Moors
conquered Spain, and if we are to be truly truthful, that started the
whole chain of events that troubles Mindanao today.
You see, in the course of the reconquista, the
Spaniards not only had to develop the strongest military force during
their time (in order to be able to drive away the highly civilized
Moors), but had also become economically impoverished. The lure of
economic gains plus the strongest military in the world naturally led
them to conquer Latin America and the Philippines. Furthermore, they
were strongly influenced by the Islamic theocratic state in which they
lived in or were warring with for 700 years, and they adopted it
themselves. The Spaniards knew no other state but the theocracy for 700
years. There was no question of the separation of Church and State in
Latin America and the Philippines. The Spaniards used the Islamic method
of religious propagation - a combination of military conquest and
subsequent state coercion. There is little doubt that if the theocratic
and anti-Islamic Spaniards had also conquered the territory of
present-day Indonesia and Malaysia (instead of the more liberal Dutch
and English), these would have been forced into Catholic Christianity
too. As a corollary, if the Dutch and English had experienced Islamic
jihad and the Islamic theocratic state with its Shariah laws in their
own countries, Indonesia and Malaysia would probably have experienced a
Protestant form of conquista/jihad and Shariah, and would probably have
been converted to Protestant Christianity in short order.
Both Islamic jihad and the Spanish conquests for God
and King explicitly had as their primary objective God first, or
religious propagation, although economic and political gains were
undeniably also of great importance. In contrast, colonization by the
English and Dutch seemed to have been aimed primarily for secular
economic and political gains, although Christian missionaries also went
along the colonizers in order to evangelize.
In Spain itself, the state quickly expelled Muslims and
Jews (who were seen as allies of the Muslims) by the thousands. Near the
end of the reconquista period in 1478 CE, the Spanish state started to
use the terrifying weapon of the "Inquisition" (the benign meaning of
which is "investigate" or "inquire into", but in actuality consisted of
torture of person and confiscation of property for heretics) on the
Muslims and Jews who stayed behind in Christian territory. 2,3 The
Spanish Inquisition was a very cruel and very effective method to force
the Muslims and Jews to convert to Christianity (apparently even more
effective than Shariah in forcing unbelievers to embrace Islam). Soon
there were none left in Spain. Interestingly, the Pope Sixtus IV
himself, upon hearing of its malignant cruelty, tried to curb the
excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, but the Spanish state defied him in
this.2 But then again, after the Spaniards had struggled mightily for
more than 700 years to repel the Muslim Arabs, undeniably a valiant saga
of epic proportions, no person is in the proper position to judge them
for using extremist tactics in claiming Spain back for Christendom. A
theologian sympathetic to the Spaniards can say that judgement belongs
to the Lord (see Mt 7:1-2, Lk 6:37, Rom 2:1, 1 Cor 4:4, Jam 2:13, and so
on).
All these sound offensive to Muslim and even Christian
ears, but if we are to truly comprehend the Mindanao religious problem,
the concept of jihad has to be faced. Pretending that it does not exist
is folly. If the Moors had never conquered Spain in jihad, then Spain in
all probability would have remained an innocuous aggregation of
Latinized Iberian tribes instead of exploding into the Americas and Asia
800 years later as one of the most potent religious-political power the
world has ever known bent on their own type of jihad - to conquer for
God and King.
Muslims have claimed that Christianity is a foreign
religion in Southeast Asia. But so is Islam. The first major world
religion to come to our shores is Buddhism. Even our vocabulary is
replete with Buddhist/Hindu word-concepts (hari-king, dukha-suffering,
guro-teacher, gaba-karma). The polite Filipino habit of bowing and
clasping his or her hands in front as if in prayer (tabi-tabi in
Ilonggo) while passing in between an audience and the show that it is
watching (nowadays usually on television) is very Buddhist. The
Borobudur, the greatest Buddhist monument in the world is in Muslim
Indonesia, built by the Sri-Visayans about 778-850 CE.2,3 The Buddhist
Sri-Visayans flourished from the 7th to the 13th century CE.3 Its
successor empire, the Java and Bali based Majapahit empire (which was
also Hindu influenced), arose in the 13th century and lasted until the
15th century when it eventually lost out to Muslim states.3 The name
"Visaya" comes from the Sri-Visaya empire. "Sri" is merely an Indian
honorific. Present-day Visayans are most likely descendants of
Sri-Visayan citizens who were left behind and isolated after the
dissolution of the empire.
At the time of the Spanish arrival to our shores, Islam
was already well established and was spreading fast. Indeed, the capital
of present-day Philippines, Manila, was ruled by the Muslim Rajah
Soliman, a son-in-law of the Sultan of Borneo. Soliman was named after
Suleyman, the magnificent Kurdish-Turkic ruler who made mincemeat out of
the Christian crusaders. The Spanish conquistador, Miguel Lopez de
Legaspi defeated Soliman in battle in May 19, 1571, thus taking Manila
by force. It is safe to say that if the Spaniards did not arrive, all
Filipinos would be Muslims, like the Malays of Indonesia and Malaysia.
In fact, there would never have been any "Philippines". We probably
would have formed nation-states separately based on tribal affiliations
(as the Europeans did) or joined partly or wholly with other Malays to
the South.
It is so obvious that a Federal Philippines (in a
political-economic-linguistic context, but not in a religious context
that does not separate religion and state and which would just create
more trouble) would be a good "correction" to the artificial boundaries
set up by the Spanish colonialists; and would go a long way to satisfy
the cultural aspirations of the different Filipino ethno-linguistic
groups (including the predominantly Muslim culture groups), and to
promote the economic self-reliance of the peripheral regions.
The theory that we should have been all Muslims without
Spanish colonialism is the bone of contention of the Filipino tribes who
remained Muslim (such as the Maranaos, Maguindanaos, Tausugs, Yakans,
Bajaos, and so on, who were never completely conquered by the
Spaniards). However, as stated above, the Buddhists were clearly here
first. If Muslim Indian and Arabic traders did not arrive, we would all
be Buddhists (like most of mainland Southeast Asia) or Hindus (as the
Bali-Indonesians still are, partly protected as they are by the island
nature of their territory).
Thus, if we are to follow the logic of "the first is to
be followed", we should all be Buddhists. If not Hindus. Interesting,
isn't it?
Karma ("something that is done" or "deed" or "action")
is one of the central doctrines of Hinduism-Buddhism-Jainism, and what
is says is that every event is both a cause and an effect, and thus
every act or thought has consequences which themselves have
consequences. The whole gamut of life and history is one most
complicated web of interlinked causes and consequences.13 "He who digs a
pit falls into it; and a stone comes back upon him who rolls it" (Prv
26:27, Ps: 7:16-17, 35:8, 57:7, Ec 10:8-9, and so on) is how the Bible
succinctly puts it. If we use the karma concept of some of our Buddhist
ancestors (and most or all Filipinos surely have at least one, given the
widespread extent and the long history of the Sri-Visaya in Southeast
Asia), a predominantly Christian Philippines is the karma (gaba in
Visaya) reaped by Islamic jihad in the Iberian peninsula 1300 years ago.
Listen to this thesis. If a concept does not exist, it
cannot be used.
In the uniquely Christian New Testament, there is no
instance of Christian violence with the sole exception of the Apostle
Peter, acting in an understandably human manner, cutting off the right
ear of one of those about to arrest Jesus, for which he was actually
rebuked by Jesus. Jesus then went on to miraculously heal the cut ear.
This incident is a clear statement by Jesus Christ that one cannot do
violence in His name. A Christian does not go to heaven or become a
martyr by killing somebody. If a Christian does violence to another
human being, he does it in self-defense, for the sake of the nation, for
the masses, in the name of justice, for liberty, freedom, and democracy,
for independence and autonomy, as part of police or military work, and
so on, but never in the name of Christ.
No one goes to heaven for the reason that he has killed
another human being. There is no real Christian theological equivalent
to the Islamic jihad. If one studies the great violent predominantly
religious movements of Christian history, they all occurred under the
shadow of an actual Islamic jihad. As mentioned, Spanish conquests
followed their liberation from Islamic invasion and threats. The
Christian crusades (1095 to 1270 CE) 3, with the motto of "God wills
it!", were aimed specifically to establish routes to and retake
Jerusalem from conquering Muslim Turks. Even the violent Russian
expansion, starting in the 16th century, into one of the greatest land
empires of history was justified as the "gathering of Russian lands",3
which started partly as a reaction to the power of invading Muslim
Turkish tribes in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and was intrinsically
linked to the Christian Orthodox dream of recapturing Constantinople
back from the Turks. (This might account for much of the popularity in
Russia of the ongoing war against the Muslim Chechens in the Caucasus;
the Chechens used to be part of the Turkish Ottoman empire. Czarina
Catherine the Great has been reported to have boasted of her soldiers
going off to war against the Turks with smiles on their faces.)
One possible exception is the bloody Thirty Years war
of Europe (1618 - 1648 CE) fought between Catholics and Protestants, 3
but this seems to have been as much of a political power struggle
between secular European states trying to secure their national
identities as much as a religious war. It is also interesting to note
that the religious wars waged on behalf of Christianity mentioned in the
above paragraph all occurred during historical times when church and
state were not separate; and that during its first 300 years and last
300 years when Christianity was (is) mostly separated from the state,
there has not been any major war waged explicitly for the propagation of
Christianity. Today, any Christian who is presented with the facts of
the Thirty Years war can easily state that it was an unChristian war. In
keeping with the New Testament teachings on peace, many Christians now
in fact characteristically denounce the Crusades or the Spanish Sword
and Cross conquests as unChristian. On the other hand, one would be hard
pressed to find in the literature of a Muslim theologian a declaration
of the numerous jihad wars of Muslim expansion as unIslamic. The Koran
even refers to some of the early Islamic wars, including to the ones
wherein Arabic Jews were crushed militarily.
Part 2 >>
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED,
1999-2001
Jed Pensar and Herb Mantawe. Manila,
Philippines.