Is the Conflict between Islam and the Western World an Actual Conflict or a Conflict That Exists - Essay Example

Is the conflict between Islam and the Western world an actual conflict or a conflict that exists only in the minds of certain individuals? Introduction Muslims are spread all over the world and 1.2 billion of them are only Arabs forming about 15 %.(Gregorian, 2001) Muslim population will increase to 1.89 billion by 2025 and it will soon exceed the Christian population as predicted by Samuel Huntington. Christians will be a minority in America by 2042 and in Canada by 2023. Christianity which originated as a fellowship in Palestine became a philosophy on moving to Greece. It was institutionalized in Italy and spread throughout Europe as a culture. Finally it transformed into an enterprise in America (Religious Tolerance) Islam is a paradox in that while it means peace and subservience to God, it suppresses females and allows polygamy. The religion of Islam is the source for rules of human conduct and political governance for Islamic nations. Muhammad born in 570 AD established this religion in 610 following an invocation from God as claimed by him. (Landschedidt and Wollny, 2004, p 9) This paper therefore needs analysis of the past events and scholarly arguments to arrive at a conclusion whether the conflict between the two factions is real or it has been only in the minds of few individuals. For the purpose, the essay will investigate the teaching of prophet Muhammad, reasons he adduced for waging war against Christians, what happened after his death, whether his followers took his teachings in proper perspective, why the conflict Muhammad started is still continuing, how the western world responded to the call of Muhammad and if there is any solution in sight. Muhammad, who claimed he was the God’s messenger after Jesus enjoined at the time of his death that there should be no two religions in the Arabian Peninsula alluding to Christianity. According to Muslims, Muhammad is the last of the prophets starting from Adam including Jesus whereas for Christians, Jesus is ‘final redemption for mankind’. And that Muhammad is an impostor to undo the 611 years of history of Christianity. Quran in fact admonishes Christians to embrace monotheism of Abraham and renounce the concept of Trinity while at the same time giving due respect for Jesus as a predecessor to Muhammad. Christianity considers it suicidal to reciprocate the eulogy. Muhammad himself waged war against the Christians and Judas in and around Jerusalem. After his death, Abu Bakr captured Syria. Muhammad’s followers could not win Constantinople true to the prophecy of Muhammad that one third Muslims would be defeated. Afterwards, Muslims shifted towards Mediterranean and made small victories. (Akbar, 2002 39-49) Huntington predicts that 21st century will witness major struggle between Islam and the West across the globe. Islamic nations stretching from Morocco to Indonesia have their origins in Arabia on the eastern hemisphere. The 1300-year old-cultural conflict has seen the fall of Sha of Iran in 1978-79 overthrown by Islamic fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini, Rushdie episode, the gulf-war, Algerian crisis and Bosnian conflict in the recent past. According to Huntington, the disparity between West and Islamic cultures is an ontological truth. (Hafez, Arkoun, Steinbach, and Kenny, 2000 p 3-5) While Judaism of the Jews is the predecessor to Christianity and therefore to some extent Christianity, Muslims did not recognize Jews at all. Christians recognized Judaism because christianly made an incomplete Judaism into a complete religion by replacing it. (Lewis 1994, p 5) A survey of about seventy five groups of different cultural backgrounds all over the world, agrees with Huntington’s thesis of cultural reasons but denounces his argument of democracy as a reason for the clash between Islam and the Western countries. They are strongly in favor of gender and sexual differences rather than democracy as the “cultural fault line” between the two sets of nations. (Inglehart and Norris, 2002, P 1) Fuller (2008) views the conflict in a different perspective. He posits that if there had been no Islam, Christianity would still have dominated the world. And the world still would be like what it is today. Some non-conservatives think that the present “Islamofacissm” is in reality World War III. Fuller questions the argument these things would not have happened, if there had been no Islam. The author says even then, there would have been no harmony with the west which has been in the constant quest for political and economic exploitation. Though it would have posed itself as bringing up the Christian natives of the area, the goal would have undoubtedly been driven by economic reasons for possible sources of wealth across the globe. Even in the case of modern period of oil economy, the Middle Eastern countries would not have welcomed Europeans had they been Christians. The Europeans would have still built and controlled choke points such as Suez Canal. They would have equally tried to resist the colonial dominance as happened in the case of India, China, Vietnam and Africa. French would have still gone into Christian Algeria and Italians into Ethiopia. So it is not Islam that is responsible for what Middle East is today. Taking the case of Palestine, Jews had been persecuted by Christians for more than one thousand years. Hence even if there had been no Islam, Jews would have still opted for a homeland outside Europe, dislodging more than 750,000 Arab natives of Palestine. Fuller is trying to drive home the point that, but for the adventurous streak of the West, things would not have come to such a pass. He says that Islam, on the hand, has unified the Middle East Region creating a universal faith and civilization characterized by good principles of philosophy, arts, and society. Islam has to some extent prevented the ever insatiable thirst of Western imperialism for divide and rule of the Middle East. Even in the case of 9/11 attack, West finds it convenient to put the blame on religion without looking at the long held grievances of Islam characterized by anger at the policies and actions of the U.S. in the region. Islam’s terrorism is not alone. Jewish Guerillas used terrorism against British in the Palestine. Tamil tigers’ pioneering suicide attack was employed to assassinate Indian Prime minister Rajeev Gandhi which led to the continued use of suicide as happened in Athens where Greek terrorists killed U.S. officials. Besides, there is the case of Sikh militancy which assassinated India Gandhi .The list is endless with Macedonians killing Balkans during World War I, IRA against British, guerillas in Vietnam and so on. Recent terrorism history taken from Europol, shows that there were 498 terrorist attacks in the E.U. Of these 424 were by separatists, 55 by left-wing extremists, and 18 by others. Only one was by Islamic terrorists. Fuller argues it is not religious fundamentalism that has been the cause of conflict between the West and Islam. If that had been the case, Islam need not have waited till 2001 to stage the 9/11 attack. Osama Bin Laden’s earlier misgivings were only in respect of Palestine and Americans’ presence in Saudi Arabia (Fuller 2008) The cultural clash notwithstanding, the current wave of Islamic conflict with the Western world permeates from the terrorists who in reality wage an unholy war in the name of Islam. Osama Bin Laden’s father, who was a wealthy construction contractor, was passionate about Arab-Israeli conflict. He wanted to produce as many sons as possible to attack Israel but Osama Bin Laden was the only one of them who grew to fulfill his father’s ambitions by what is known as Jihad. And he did successfully carry out the 9/11 attack. Apart from Arab-Israeli conflict, Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 made him turn a muhajid (warrior of God) and he joined the holy war against the Soviet occupation and mobilized forces to join him in 1984 under the auspices of Pakistan. Bin Laden’s efforts were appreciated both by Saudi Arabia and the United States since the war was against the communist Soviet Union. It was ironic for America to have supported these jihad groups in Egypt, Lebanon, and Iran nurturing ill will against it. Prior to 9/11 attack, Saudi Arabia supported Bin Laden since it was in accordance with Islamic doctrine But Bin Laden has been described by Ahmed Rashid who is an expert on Taliban and al-Queda as not an intellectual nor a person of leadership qualities and always needed mentors to give him feed back on Islam. He returned to Saudi Arabia after the Soviet Union withdrew form Afghanistan in 1989(Esposito (2002, p 1-11) Conclusion The above discussion shows the conflict in three different perspectives. One, religious intolerance by Muslims, second, clash of cultures and third, the hegemony of the Western world for economic gains and world supremacy. Especially after the exit of Soviet Union, they need another enemy to show their supremacy. The prediction that Christianity will soon become a minority in the U.S.based on the current trends shows that Western world is not driven by religious intolerance since the neither the State nor the religious leaders dictate their people’s choices. The two jarring aspects of the conflict for the U.S. are the Arab-Israeli conflict and its habitual interference in the affairs of Arab world mainly to protect its oil and other interests disguised in some form or other. On the other hand, the Islam has shown strident growth throughout the world ever since the birth of Muhammad equally driven by two the factors of religious intolerance and exploitation of other countries for political gain to secure economic wealth. The Muslim rulers until the end of World War have practiced religious intolerance where ever they ruled even beyond the Middle East. In modern times, the religious intolerance is practiced by religious leaders who nurture the growth of terrorists and latter is supported by few military ruled Muslim countries for the selfish ends of their rulers. The modern Kingdoms in the Middle East do not support terrorism. America has learned from its past experiences of wrong policies in Vietnam and Iraq though there are irritant issues such as Arab-Israeli conflict and nuclear proliferation that prompt interferences likes of which will continue to exist as long as the world exists. In view of the globalization and the perception of a united world through the network of the U.N., no nation can misbehave for ever. Itani (2007), of Muslim-Christian parentage based in Lebanon says that conflict between the west and Islam has grown intractably and solution lies in both sides engaging themselves in dialogue respecting each other’s cultures. In this competitive world, tendency for the largest religion is to say that one should love one’s neighbor. The marginalized religion tends to say that God has chosen its followers to carry out his certain commands. In a society where religion is law, the tendency would be to follow God’s commands to straighten out things, as spelt by the Dutch Scholar Professor Jansen, one of the best students of Islamic fundamentalism and radicalism. (Jansen, 1997) Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the present descendant imam of Shiite Ismaili Muslims residing in Berlin says that terrorist attacks are perpetrated by miniscule minority of the global Muslim population, driven by political rather than religious considerations. (dw.world.de, 2004) Islamic Scholar Gudrum Kramer had to say that there were marks left behind by the Western world on the Islamic world by the actions of its men and military and also through the materialism in terms of technology and therefore the conflicts are real. (Spiegel, 2007) Hence a balanced view will be that conflict between Islam and Western world is only in the minds of few individuals considering the vastness of silent majority of Muslims but the threat is real in terms of the magnitude of terrorism. . References Akbar, M.J. 2002, The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity, Routledge, London. Dw.world.de, 12.09.2004, 'There's No Conflict between Islam and Democracy’, viewed 26 October 2008, Esposito L John, 2002 “Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam”, Oxford University Press, US Fuller Graham E., 2008 Foreign Policy, No. 164, January-February Gregorian Vartan, 2001 ‘Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith’ President’s Essay-From the 2001 Annual Report, viewed 26 October 2008, < http://www.carnegie.org/sub/about/pessay/pessay01-low.html> Hafez Kai, Arkoun Mohammed, Steinbach Udo & Kenny Mary Ann, 2000, The Islamic World and the West: An Introduction to Political Cultures and International Relation, Brill: Boston Inglehart Ronald and Norris Pippa, April, 2002, ‘Islam & the West: Testing the Clash of Civilizations ‘Thesis, viewed 26 October 2008, Itani Faysal, April 2007, ‘West- Islam: Opportunities for Peace or Doomed Conflict?’ viewed 26 October 2008, Jansen, Johannes J.G., 1997 The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism N.Y., Cornell University Press, pp ix-xi Landschedidt Dennis and Wollny Stephan, 2004 ‘The Conflict between Western World and Islam’ viewed 26 October 2008, Lewis Bernard, 1994, Islam and the West, Oxford University Press, New York Religious Tolerance, ‘Growth Rate of Christianity and Islam’, viewed 26 October 2008, < http://www.religioustolerance.org/growth_isl_chr.htm> Spiegel, 23 January 2007, ‘What is the real difference? 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