Merely being unsupportive of jihadism does not prevent the phenomenon from growing.
Merely being unsupportive of jihadism does not prevent the phenomenon from growing
When faced with the appalling and brutal acts of groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda, the most common response the vast majority of my fellow Muslims offer is ‘they don’t represent me’ or ‘they have been condemned by most Muslims’.
These sentiments may seem laudable on the surface, and in some respects they are, but they also conceal a much deeper problem that helps explain why jihadist ideology seems to be growing in spite of such sentiments being widespread.
Two key points need to be made about this.
Firstly, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter that the vast majority of Muslims oppose jihadism because as long as there is a significant and determined minority of Muslims that are supportive, jihadists will achieve their aims.
The vast majority of Iraqis and Syrians hate ISIS but that did not prevent ISIS from taking over large swathes of those countries and committing large-scale massacres. A majority of Nigerian Muslims oppose Boko Haram but that does not seem to have dented their seemingly unstoppable rise. A majority of Pashtuns oppose the Taliban but they still remain the most potent political and military force in Pashtun regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Hence, merely being unsupportive of jihadism does not prevent the phenomenon from growing and causing widespread chaos and destruction. Nor does it prevent it from becoming a dominant force.
There is a false assumption at work here, namely the notion that as long as the vast majority of Muslims oppose jihadism everything will be fine. Recent history has shown that this assumption is not only false but dangerous.
The second point to be made is that statements such ‘they don’t represent me’ are only useful if they are a precursor to a sustained effort to challenge and undermine jihadism. In my experience, this is rarely the case, in fact, the opposite tends to be true.
Such statements tend to be another way of saying ‘this is none of my business because I don’t agree with them’. By merely declaring jihadists not representative of Muslims at large, many Muslims are in fact refusing to take ownership of the problem and merely performing a PR exercise.
This is the reason why we have not seen any large-scale Muslim led effort to challenge extremist ideology in Europe since 911. Muslims either go into conspiratorial mode or convince themselves that it is not their problem when faced with jihadi excesses.
And yet the very same people will then say they are concerned about Islamophobia and the Palestinian cause because it affects fellow Muslims and that they have concerns about the global Muslim community.
How can one be concerned about the global Muslim community and not want to tackle jihadism which, in the grand scheme of things, has killed far more Muslims that anyone else?
Rather than offering such shallow condemnations, we as Muslims need to stop being solely concerned with the image of Islam and Muslims and recognise that challenging jihadists and associated extremists proactively will do more to rehabilitate the image of Islam than shallow ‘not in my name’ statements.
The greatest threat to Islam and Muslims today is not the US, Israel or India but jihadism and only we can defeat it. The sooner we recognise that the better!
Amjad Khan is a Muslim writer and commentator
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41 Responses to “Why Muslim ‘not in my name’ campaigns are part of the problem”
Ortega
People seem to miss out the fact that Assad also has imams (Sunni and Shia) who justify what he does, and they refer to historical Islamic tradition just like ISIS. Amjad Khan is doing exactly the same thing as these other muslims who are running the “Not in Our Name Campaigns”. They’re just reacting to mainstream media coverage. It’s “politically correct” to condemn ISIS right now.
Ortega
It is inconceivable that friends and family did not know what their men were doing.
Why is it inconceivable? A lot of people seem to have stereotypes of Pakistanis being these very quiet, conservative people who just sit at home all the time when they’re not running their corner shop. These are really out of date stereotypes. All the young Pakistani males I know go clubbing and listen to rap music. In many places in Britain Pakistanis are responsible for the heroine trade and have adopted a “gangsta” lifestyle. A lot of these will be the same people involved in the grooming.
Ortega
Some Muslims justify the nasty verses by claiming that they have a context, but not all Muslims agree.
I’m pretty sure all muslim sects believe that all verses were revealed in a specific context or “occasion for revelation” as they say.
Issam
I guess the 7 Arab Muslim armies along with the US fighting ISIS are not visibly enough for you. Delusional bigot.
Paul
The context of a revelation is rarely if ever made explicit in the Qur’an itself (like for example: ‘In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel’ [ 2 Kings 18:1, Bible – this is historical context]). There is no guide from Allah as to when such and such revelation occurred in Muhammad’s life, and so Muslims take sections of the Qur’an for multiple contexts.
The Hadith were written by men well after the time of Muhammad – the term ‘occasion for revelation’ is just a garbage way of rationalising the Qur’an’s evil words.
When Muhammad tells people to fight the unbeliever – and that those who sit at home not engaging in fighting are inferior (Qur’an 4.95) – he was NOT saying for a particular time and place in history against a particular group of non-Muslims. That is not what the words of the Qur’an say. But rather at any time that Muslims feel that non-Muslims are oppressing them and feel they have the power to fight back.