The article, "Somebody Else's Civil War," was written by Michael Scott Doran, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Doran's premise is that the purpose of the attacks of September 11 was to create fear that would lead to actions by other people which would accomplish the desires of the perpetrators of the attacks. And it's his belief that the desire of bin Laden and al Qaeda is to foment a civil war among the Islamic communities that would topple the Saudi leadership and any other pro-American (at least as far as the money goes) Islamist leadership.
Doran's article gives a brief history of the development of fundamentalist Islam, and, for that alone, is worth reading. Alarming, though, were his statements concerning Islamic law — shari`a:
In the view of extremist Salafis, the shari`a is God's thunderous commandment to Muslims, and failure to adopt it constitutes idolatry. By removing God from the realm of law, a domain that He has clearly claimed for Himself alone, human legislation amounts to worshiping a pagan deity. … According to bin Laden, his king adopted "polytheism," which bin Laden defined as the acceptance of "laws fabricated by men … permitting that which God has forbidden." It is the height of human arrogance and irreligion to "share with God in His sole right of sovereignty and making the law."Extremist Salafis, therefore, regard modern Western civilization as a font of evil, spreading idolatry around the globe in the form of secularism.
In every war, each combatant believes that God is on their particular side. Yet, can that be? In this particular case, each combatant is calling the other "evil." It all depends on which piece of rock one is sitting and to which belief system one has chosen to adhere. And each believes that the other should adhere to the first's belief system or be condemned.
Doesn't make for a pleasant world, does it?
There is no grey in the beliefs of fundamentalists (of any stripe), and no free will to speak of. Not now. And yet, Doran writes:
It is worth remembering, in this regard, that the rise of Islam represents a miraculous case of the triumph of human will. With little more than their beliefs to gird them, the Prophet Muhammad and a small number of devoted followers started a movement that brought the most powerful empires [Persian Empire and Byzantium] of their day crashing to the ground..
Step back a bit to the first quote: that only God's laws are to be obeyed, and no other laws to be written because that is idolatry. The article doesn't list exactly what is in the shari`a, but I suspect that we've seen it being applied by the Taliban in Afghanistan in the past five years. (Idolatry. That's what Moses found happening when he came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, according to the Bible. Got so angry he smashed the tablets and had to go back up and ask God for another copy.)
How do fundamentalist Islamists reconcile shari`a as strictly God's law when Mohammed was a very human being, married with children, whose claim is that he listened to an angel speak many words? These became the Q'ran, after he recited the words from his memory and built a band of followers who eventually wrote the words down. And from the Q'ran came the shari`a, the body of Islamic law; at least, that is my admittedly small understanding of the development of Islam.
Neale Donald Walsch in his Conversations with God series of books basically did the same thing, only one better, because he believed he was conversing directly with God, who also spoke to him of God's natural laws, admittedly different from Islamic law. If enough people worked at it, CWG could become a cult, and then a religion, with Walsch as its prophet. We have seen the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) do so with Joseph Smith. One could even say that Christians did so with Jesus. In 150 years, who's to say that CWG wouldn't be just as limiting, by the time it had been run through varied interpretations by other humans?
The greatest evil upon this earth, I believe, has been the invention or the codification of the interpretations of divine will into creeds and religions, courtesy, generally, of the male human mind.
On January 5, the New York Times ran a story (which can be found on the Commondreams.org website) on Arlo Guthrie which caught my eye. He had purchased the deconsecrated church which was the instigation for his song "Alice's Restaurant" back in 1967, has reconsecrated it, and says, "It's a bring your own god church." The article states that "he has long felt that zealotry and fundamentalism are among the biggest dangers facing the world" and is building a ministry as an interfaith church devoted to promoting understanding among religious traditions.
"Bring your own god church" brings me to the point of all this: god is personal; God is personal: God is Personal. And the less we inflict our personal god upon others, the kinder this world might become. Less fearsome. Less fearful. But fundamentalists of any stripe just won't understand that. Because if you don't believe their personal god, then you are better off dead. That equates to greater fear, wouldn't you say? More hurt. And less peace.