Understanding Muslim Decline: A Perspective

Cartoon Protests and Muslim Decline by Husain Haqqani
February 28, 2006
http://futureofmuslimworld.com/research/id.18/corner_detail.asp

THE RIOTS IGNITED BY THE DANISH NEWSPAPER Jyllands-Posten ’s derogatory images of Prophet Mohammed have escalated into violent protests that are no longer aimed at the offending newspaper or even against its homeland, Denmark . Attacks by protestors in several Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Indonesia , against American and other western interests as well as Christian churches indicate that the cause of the protests is something other than spontaneous outrage at an insult to Islam’s prophet.

Jyllands-Posten ’s editors justified their cartoons on grounds of freedom of expression, a position supported by many Europeans and some Americans. But others, such as Edward Miller writing in New York ’s Jewish Week , argued that the controversy was “a question of respect, not freedom.” According to Miller, “Freedom of expression theoretically protects the right of a non-Jew to desecrate a Torah scroll. Yet we would all view freedom of expression as a hollow defense to such a vile act.”

At the heart of Muslim street violence, however, is the frustration of the world’s Muslims over their steady decline for three centuries that has coincided with the rise of the West’s military, economic and intellectual prowess. Religious riots might seem like a common feature in the Muslim world today but in the era of their global ascendancy, Muslims did not riot to protest non-Muslim insults against Islam or its Prophet.

There is no historic record of random attacks against non-Muslim targets in retaliation for a non-Muslim insulting Prophet Mohammed though there are many books derogatory towards Islam’s Prophet from the era of Islam’s great empires. Muslims under the Ottomans, for example, did not attacks non-Muslim envoys — the medieval equivalent of today’s embassies — or churches upon hearing of European sacrilege against their religion.

Clearly, violent responses to perceived injury are not integral to Islam. A religion is what its followers make it and Muslims opting for violence have chosen to paint their faith as being prone to anger and susceptible to violence. But like Jewish and Christian scriptures, Islam’s sacred texts speak of divine retribution as well as of God’s mercy. References to Holy war are interspersed with exhortations to charity, kindness towards others and respect for life.

Every chapter of the Quran begins with the words, “In the name of Allah (God), the most compassionate, the most merciful,” encouraging believers to practice mercy over retribution. Prophet Mohammed is referred to as “ Rehmatul-lil-Alameen ” or “the one bringing compassion for all worlds.” After announcing his prophethood, Prophet Mohammed prayed for those who insulted or opposed him. In one famous episode, he went to inquire about the health of an old woman in Mecca who threw garbage on him every day after she failed to show up for her daily insult. Such compassion won converts to Islam and contributed to the faith’s expansion.

But since the seventeenth century, Muslims have consistently lost their pre-eminence to western nations. Frustration with their inability to succeed in the competition between nations has led some Muslims to seek symbolic victories. The momentary triumph of burning another country’s flag or setting on fire a western business or embassy building is a poor but widespread substitute for global success that eludes the modern world’s 1.4 billion Muslims. Violent protest represents the lower rung of the ladder of rage —t errorism is its higher form.

Islamists and authoritarian Muslim rulers both have a vested interest in continuously fanning the flames of Muslim victimhood, based on real or perceived grievances in an era of general Muslim decline. For Islamists, wrath against the west is the basis for their claim to the support of Muslim masses. For authoritarian rulers, religious protest is the means of diverting attention away from political and economic failures. For example, the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) account for one-fifth of the world's population but their combined GDP is less than the GDP of France.

The 22 Arab countries, including the oil-exporting Gulf States , account for a combined GDP less than that of Spain alone. A little less than half of the world's Muslim population is illiterate. The number of books published in the Arab world, with more than 250 million people, is less than the titles printed every year in Greek, which is the language of only 16 million people.

Although a thousand years ago, Muslims led the world in the field of science and mathematics, they are noticeably absent from the list of recent inventors or innovators in science and technology. To make matters worse, only a handful of Muslim majority countries fulfill the criteria for freedom set by the independent group Freedom House. Mainstream discourse among Muslims blames everyone else but themselves for this situation. The image of an ascendant west belittling Islam with the view to eliminate it serves as a convenient excuse for the Ummah ’s weaknesses.

Few Muslims would have heard about Jyllands-Posten ’s offending cartoons, published last September, if Islamist activists had not publicized them worldwide for greater effect.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has pointed towards the role of Syria and Iran in exacerbating the violence over a less known Danish newspaper’s insult to Muslims. The Syrians, who normally do not allow protesters to congregate in Damascus , allowed an unusually large demonstration that ended with the torching of the Danish embassy. But the rulers in Teheran and Damascus are not the only ones taking advantage of the offending cartoons and the fervor generated by their publication among a section of Muslims. Several authoritarian Muslim regimes allied with the United States have also used the opportunity to create the impression that their masses are unruly fanatics who cannot be controlled except with an iron hand.

That is the only explanation for the ease with which violent demonstrators in the Pakistani city of Lahore controlled the streets for a day, burning western businesses and attacking cars at random. Egypt , too, allowed angry demonstrations although it normally does not allow its citizens to publicly express their sentiments. After putting down the orchestrated violence, the Mubarak and Musharraf regimes will most likely tell the U.S. to tone down its rhetoric about democratizing the Muslim world. Democracy, they will argue, would only bring Islamists chosen by angry anti-western mobs into power.

But the wave of anger in the Muslim world of the last few days provides justification for greater democracy, not less. Only when the Muslim world embraces freedom of expression will it be able to recognize the value of that freedom even for those who offend Muslim sensibilities. Only in a free democratic environment will the world’s Muslims be able to debate the causes of their powerlessness, which causes them greater anger than any specific action on the part of Islam’s western detractors.