In a paper considering how religious DAESH recruits actually are at Brookings based on captured documents, Andrew Lebovich attributes the notion that violent radicals are motivated by a desire to return to Shariah law to Orientalism. Sadly, “Orientalism” is a catch-all phrase which just means people who aren’t Muslims or, maybe, aren’t Arabs studying Islam or Arabs. When it meant a highly romanticized approach to studying Islam and Arabs, that may have had some value. When it refers to rationalism and empiricism applied to studying Islam and Arabs, it has none.
While I agree with Mr. Lebovich that DAESH recruits are more likely to be motivated by some personal notion of Islam rather than a scholarly view:
For ISIS recruits, a weak knowledge of the Shariah could mean many things. It could and does sometimes mean genuine ignorance of even basic religious precepts, but not always. People join militant movements for a variety of intersecting regions, including
belief, politics, economics, and more. Limited knowledge of an area of Islam traditionally left to dedicated experts says little about the contours of individual religious belief; if anything, it reflects our own projections onto others about modernity and education.
I don’t think that he really appreciates the contours of the situation. The reason that most imams in the United States and Europe are foreign-born and frequently Gulf Arabs is that local Muslim populations don’t have a good enough grasp of classical Arabic to do the job, given the emphasis on the Qur’an and haditha in the original language. Since so many of these imams have been funded by people encouraging Salafism and have been inculcated in very conservative views of Islam it is hardly surprising when these views inform their teaching.
Many of the practices and teachings of DAESH aren’t Qur’anic. “Islam” has been confused with “the way we do things around here”.
That practices like honor killings, female genital mutilation, and the abuse of Christians and Jews persist in the Muslim world aren’t signs of Islam’s strength but of its weakness. It’s under the same pressures as Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism are and DAESH is one of the institutional responses to those pressures.
I think there is a lot of condensation in that linked quote. People’s religious beliefs are not formed around elite esoteric ruminations. Their faith is grounded in personal connections made through stories, ritual observances, traditional days of observance, sacred places, and in terms of theology, first principles, such as the ten commandments, or the golden rule, or the five pillars of Islam.
In the case of Islam, the Prophet’s military struggles against the unbelievers are not matters of special knowledge. The early Islamic conquests are some of the greatest achievements in military history, and their context cannot be hidden under a bushel basket. The Qur’an has a very developed teaching about jihad, illustrated by the Prophet’s example, and his military success, although not without setbacks, glorified his nature and Allah’s favor. People joining a campaign in the spirit of living these hardships and glory are not religiously ignorant. That’s what makes the situation seemingly impossible.
I should note that I focused on jihad, and the linked piece essentially ignores the subject. If our conflicts with Islam were just about illiberal practices in Sharia law, I don’t think it would be that much of an encumbrance on the West.
Generally one’s religious beliefs come from being indoctrinated as a child. (I was baptized as an infant and fed my religion as a fact/truth) Civilization requires individuals with the ability to identify behavior and people who are a threat and have the courage to act.