Religion of Peace?

WESTERN societies—when faced with immigrants who adhere to traditional faiths and customs, and who maintain a suspicion-laden distance between themselves and the surrounding civil order—tend to respond with overtures of friendship. The message relayed to the new communities that have sought protection in the West is one of tolerance and understanding. By showing that we are no threat to them, we hope to ensure that they will be no threat to us. This strategy has worked with Hindus and Jews and the many sects of migrating Christians. But will it work with Muslims? When from the pulpits of the mosques that have been built in our major cities there sounds the call to jihad against the infidel, along with exultant cries of triumph over the recent terrorist atrocities, we might reasonably wonder whether our attempts to live side by side with Islam are doomed to failure.

Its official advocates insist that Islam is a religion of peace—after all, that is the meaning of the word (or, at least, one of its meanings). But the peculiar thing about Islam is that its official advocates have no authority to speak for it. Although each sect has its mosques, there is no such institution as “The Mosque,” to set beside the various Christian churches. Nor is there any human institution whose role is to confer “holy orders” on its members. Muslims who have religious authority—the ‘ulama (“those with knowledge”)— possess it directly from God. And those who take on the function of the imam (“the one who stands in front”), so leading the congregation in prayer, are often self-appointed to this role. Islam lacks the chain of human accountability that stems from the corporate personality of an organized church. Thus the only way to settle the question whether Islam is or is not a religion of peace is to study the actions of individual Muslims, and the text from which their religion derives.

RS

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Roger Scruton

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WESTERN societies—when faced with immigrants who adhere to traditional faiths and customs, and who maintain a suspicion-laden distance between themselves and the surrounding civil order—tend to respond with overtures of friendship. The message relayed to the new communities that have sought protection in the West is one of tolerance and understanding. By showing that we are no threat to them, we hope to ensure that they will be no threat to us. This strategy has worked with Hindus and Jews and the many sects of migrating Christians. But will it work with Muslims? When from the pulpits of the mosques that have been built in our major cities there sounds the call to jihad against the infidel, along with exultant cries of triumph over the recent terrorist atrocities, we might reasonably wonder whether our attempts to live side by side with Islam are doomed to failure.

Its official advocates insist that Islam is a religion of peace—after all, that is the meaning of the word (or, at least, one of its meanings). But the peculiar thing about Islam is that its official advocates have no authority to speak for it. Although each sect has its mosques, there is no such institution as “The Mosque,” to set beside the various Christian churches. Nor is there any human institution whose role is to confer “holy orders” on its members. Muslims who have religious authority—the ‘ulama (“those with knowledge”)— possess it directly from God. And those who take on the function of the imam (“the one who stands in front”), so leading the congregation in prayer, are often self-appointed to this role. Islam lacks the chain of human accountability that stems from the corporate personality of an organized church. Thus the only way to settle the question whether Islam is or is not a religion of peace is to study the actions of individual Muslims, and the text from which their religion derives.