Interfaith according to Karen Armstrong

Quest for peace

By: Jacqueline Ann Surin, Husna Yusop and Dorothy Teoh (Thu, 28 Jun 2007)

To neo-conservatives, she's an "apologist for Muslims". But to some Muslims, she's unqualified to speak about Islam because she's not Muslim. Malaysia, on its part, has banned three of her books. That's not stopping religious historian, author and commentator Karen Armstrong from promoting interfaith dialogue and understanding through her books and lectures. The former Catholic nun, most famous for her book A History of God, speaks to JACQUELINE ANN SURIN, HUSNA YUSOP and DOROTHY TEOH while on a visit to Malaysia as a speaker for a Wisma Putra conference and a youth dialogue earlier this month.
theSun: We understand this is your first visit to the region, and your first ever to Malaysia?

Armstrong: Yes, that's right.

What kinds of questions about religion have you been posed here, that have been common questions that have been raised for you in the West?

Well, most of them really are much the same about the nature of religion, and the place of belief in religion. Why religious people are not compassionate when all the religions teach us about compassion. That kind of thing.

Would you say that of all the major religions of the world, Islam is currently the most misunderstood?

Yes, I would.

How did this happen, you think?

Well, the West has found it always very difficult to understand Islam. Islamaphobia dates right back to the time of the Crusades when we tended to project worries about our own behaviour unto Islam.

And so, it was in the West at a time when the Crusaders were fighting a brutal holy war against Muslims in the middle East that they said that Islam was a violent religion of the sword, projecting their worry and anxiety about their own unreligious behaviour unto the Muslims. And that's been a common pattern. The Muslims, and the Jews, became the shadow self of Europe. The opposite of everything we thought we might be or hoped we weren't.

And recently, the terrorist attacks committed in the name of Islam have tended to confirm that view.

Seeing as this misunderstanding about Islam is so historically rooted, what ways can we employ to correct this misrepresentation?

Well, I think what would be helpful would be if Muslims undertook a counter-offensive, and started to project the peaceful image of Islam more energetically. Trying to find a more imaginative and creative way of expressing this.

You can't just take it for granted that people will see that (the peaceful image of Islam). You need to display it, if you like, as spectacularly as the terrorists have demonstrated something inaccurate about Islam.

I think I read in one of your interviews, you suggested that Muslims should actually march down the streets of New York, saying 'Muslims for Peace'.

Yes, that's right. And that was after 9/11 when I suggested that American Muslims organise a march going down to the World Trade Centre. That sort of thing. It's for you to decide how to do it. But, I think, some such initiative would be helpful.

Sept 11 was a milestone of sorts in that it reinforced the common Western assumption that Islam is a violent religion. It's been six years since Sept 11. Do you think enough has been done to repair the damage done to the image of Islam?

No.

No? And the hostility towards Islam, in the West, is still as evident today as it was before?

Yes. Because there have been other events since Sept 11. There have been the Bali bombings, there've been the London bombings, there've been the Danish cartoons with the violent Muslim riposte there.

And on both sides, the relationship between Islam and the West is being forged by extremists. In the Danish cartoon crisis, the secularists who were publishing those cartoons again and again and again were secular fundamentalists who were aggressively pushing free speech 'in your face', as it were.

And certainly on the other side, the Muslims who were tearing down embassies and resorting to violence were also extremists. Polls taken during this crisis showed that 97% of the Muslim youth questioned, for example, even though they were offended by the cartoons, were horrified by the violence.

And similarly, Danes who were questioned at the same time were supportive of the ideal of free speech but were very distressed that the cartoons had created this crisis and had given this degree of offence.

Thus, all you heard about in the press were the extremes. And I think the media bears a responsibility here. After all, Muslims going peacefully along to pray at the mosque isn't really news.

No. It doesn't make the headlines.

It doesn't make the headlines. And the media does tend to thrive on the more dramatic forms of events.

So, on both sides, you have extremists hogging the headlines, and in a way, framing the debate.

Yes. The middle ground gets left out.

And their voice is not heard...

Is not heard.

...in the public discourse.

No, it isn't. So, therefore, it would be good if peaceable Muslims could find some ways of capturing media attention.

Hence, coming back to your suggestion about the need to be more imaginative and creative?

Yes.

Have you seen examples of how groups have been creative or imaginative?

Not really, not in this field. But other people may have.

Is it because with religion, it's particularly difficult to talk about it in the public sphere, when religion and faith for a lot of people, is a very private matter?

I don't think it's just a matter of talking about it. I think it's a matter of demonstrating it in some way. In events like the march I suggested. That kind of thing.

In one interview that you did for your book Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, you said that the Prophet 'must be one of the greatest genuises the world has ever known, both spiritually and politically, yet he was also a genius at humanity'. Do you think enough people - Muslims and non-Muslims - understand that today?

I think there's a lot of ignorance about the Prophet in the West. And that's why I wrote my book. It was for Western people.

Originally, my objective was to talk about the Prophet's life in a way that Western people could understand. But the behaviour of the Prophet could, for example, give Muslims some idea of how to deal with this problem of apostacy that you have here at the moment.

The Prophet wanted there to be no compulsion in religion. When one of his companions converted back to Christianity, for example, the Prophet accepted it; there was no question of putting the man to death.

There is also the famous story about him standing up respectfully when the body of a Jew was being taken out to burial in Medina.

But unfortunately, there is a tendency, especially when people feel under attack, for those who feel particularly threatened, to become hardline.

Maybe the situation is different because at that time during the Prophet's time, their original religion was not Islam. So, they converted to Islam and then they converted out of the religion. But in Malaysia, Malays are born Muslims. So, maybe the situation is different.

I'm sure there's a difference. But the question I was asked was do Muslims understand the humanity of the Prophet. And the Quran says quite clearly there must be no compulsion in religion. No coercion. People must not be forced against their will. So, that's something for people to consider, too, I think.

So, in our country, where most of us believe that Muslim apostates should be sentenced to death, what do you think about that?

I think it's upsetting. As I said, I don't think this was the sort of way the Prophet behaved. That was the question I was asked.

So, it would then suggest, just from this little bit of conversation that we've had, that Muslims themselves maybe do not understand the genius that Muhammad was.

Unfortunately, in most religions, very few are able to live up to their founders, who were men and women of spiritual genuis.

I don't think many Christians live up to Jesus. Many Buddhists are unable to live up to the Buddha.

Because these were figures of towering spirituality and insight, and most of us cannot reach this extraordinary standard. They are models, archetypal figures for us to imitate, and we always fall short.

Ok, related to that whole discussion about apostacy, in Malaysia, the punishment for apostacy can range from a fine or enforced rehabilitation right up to death, even though death hasn't yet been enforced. Why do you think Muslims have this kind of reaction when one of them chooses to leave the faith? Just because it's very clear in the Quran, as you've said already, that there is no compulsion in religion, and nowhere in the Quran does it stipulate that death is the punishment for apostacy and you would think that for something as drastic as that, it would be clearly stated in the Quran.

Yes.

So, why this kind of adverse reaction, and it's not just in Malaysia, obviously. It's happening in other Muslim countries as well. Leaving the faith is seen as something which is criminal even.

And I think this came in long after Muhammad had died. This would also have been true in pre-modern Europe, too. If you had apostatised from Christianity in the Middle Ages, you would have been punished and ostracised, too.

Similarly, in early modern Europe, if you were the 'wrong kind' of Christian, you would be very likely to be put to death. Christ would have been appalled at such behaviour.

But in a medieval polity, when religious allegiance was identical with allegiance to the state, apostacy became treason, punishable by death. But in a more secular world, that's more difficult to understand.

So, do you see this period where there are a lot of acts of violence that suggest that Muslims feel very threatened, do you see this as just part of a process (to grapple with modernity)?

No, I don't think we can ever say that deliberate violence is just part of a process. That suggests that people have no free will about committing these atrocities. That's clearly not the case.

But we have to remember that our modernity has been very violent. We are killers. As a species, we kill. We kill each other. And our superior technology has enabled us to kill with unprecedented efficiency and on a scale that was unimaginable hitherto.

Between 1914 and 1945, 70 million people died in Europe as a result of armed conflict. We've also created nuclear weapons that would enable us to wipe out the entire human race.

We've killed in concentration camps in unprecedented numbers. Violence has permeated all kinds of spheres. There's violence at a football match, for example. The United States is a very violent country, where it is too easy to buy guns, so we have seen these terrible school shootings.

So, we shouldn't be surprised that violence has also permeated religion, especially in regions which have been given over, for decades, to armed conflict. In the Middle East, for example, there has been almost continuous war and conflict for almost a century. And so, too, in Afghanistan, which was the theatre of a cold war battle, and then was just abandoned to become a lawless place ruled by warlords.

If you are born in Gaza, you will see tanks on the street every day, soldiers with guns, suicide bombings, houses being demolished by bulldozers and people carted off to jail. Such violence will infect everything - your dreams, your fantasies, ambitions, and relationships. In such regions, religion gets sucked into the conflict and becomes a part of the problem.

You've often been accused by the West for being 'an apologist for Muslims'. How do you respond to such criticisms?

Well, first of all, I'd say that people who say that need to understand the English Language. An 'apologist' is not someone who apologises in our sense. An 'apologia' is a rational explanation and an 'apologist' is somebody who gives a rational explanation of an event or a phenomenon.

At a time like ours, when there is so much irrational bigotry around, I think that is an important corrective to give a reasoned explanation of the religion of Islam, which is so often misrepresented.

People who object to my work are usually offended because they have an ingrained view of what Islam is, and they don't like hearing that undermined in any way. That is because hostility towards Islam is so central a part of the Western identity: we've long used Islam as a kind of foil against which we measure ourselves.

So when this negative image of Islam is undermined in any way, people get upset because they feel that their own identity is in peril. It is also true that many of the people who make these accusations are hand-in-glove with the neo-conservative administration in Washington which have a particular political agenda and it suits them very well to say that Islam is a violent and dreadful religion.

And your books then become a counterweight to the demonisation of Islam.

That's it, yes. Like John Esposito's books do in the same way.

He's banned here as well, by the way. (Esposito's What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam is banned in Malaysia under the Printing Presses and Publications Act).

I know, I know [laughs].

So, you're in good company.

I know I'm in good company [laughs].

Ok, but at the same time, you're a white woman who is a kafir who writes authoritatively on Islam.

Excuse me, I'm not a kafir. Jews and Christians are people of the Book, and are not kafirs. It is inaccurate and unQuranic to say that they are kafirun. I would describe myself as a hanif.

Which is...?

In the Quran, a hanif is one of the followers of Abraham, people who surrendered to God before Jews, Muslims and Christians formed separate sects.

But do you get called a white woman who isn't a Muslim and what right do you have to write about Islam?

Oh, yes. Somebody said that the other night at the conference (the International Conference on Islam and the West: Bridging the Gap from June 15 to 16, organised by the Foreign Ministry's Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations) [chuckles].

I heard about that. And what is your response to that?

Well, I think Islam is a religion, a phenomenon that anybody can study. Why shouldn't I study it just because I'm not a Muslim?

I study Buddhism. The Dalai Lama doesn't tell me I mustn't write about the Buddha. I've written about Confucius. Leading Confucians are quite happy with what I've said about Confucius.

You teach rabbis.

I teach rabbis.

And you're not a practising Jew.

And they like it that I write about Judaism, and understand Judaism because the discussions I have with them, say about Christianity, are therefore more pertinent.

The only way we're going to make any progress in this distressing conflict is if we learn about one another.

And, frankly, I wouldn't have to do this if Muslims did more to explain their faith. It is exhausting to be continually on the road; right now, I have a bad cough and cold, which I caught on the plane coming over to Malaysia, and I could now be sitting happily at home, writing about quite different topics. Believe me, I have other things I'd rather do, you know.

So, it would be great if some of you people would also go on the road and do this instead of leaving it to people like me and John Esposito [laughs].

So, if the gentleman the other night wouldn't mind doing a little more work to propagate a more peaceful image of Islam himself, then John and I could happily retire! [laughs]

But do you think this kind of labelling - on one hand you have the neo-cons calling you an 'apologist for Muslims' and then on the other hand, you have Muslims saying 'What right do you have to write about Islam?' - do you think this kind of labelling is a way to exclude certain voices from the public discourse?

Yes, I do. And it's also very much against building bridges. How do we build bridges unless people on both sides learn about each other?

And, it is only fair to note that Muslims in the West have told me that they've only been able to teach their children Islam because of my books. These children are Westerners, who have grown up in the United States or Britain and they don't approach the text in the same way as their parents did in, say, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. They can't respond to the story of the Prophet when it is told in the traditional way. It doesn't speak to them because they have absorbed other norms. So because I am a Westerner, writing about Islam, Muslims tell me that my books have enabled them to teach these young people.

Now, if these young people then also could start writing books about the Prophet, or about Islam, and thus spread the good word, then again, there would be no need for me to do all this. I wrote my book about the Prophet (Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, 1992) way back at the time of the Salman Rushdie crisis. (Editor's note: Rushdie's 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, sparked of Muslim protests who deemed it blashphemous and led to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa the following year calling for his death. Several attempts were made to murder Rushdie and he had to go into hiding under police guard. Rushdie's recent knighting by the British government has led to renewed condemnation and death threats from some Muslim states and groups.)

When the fatwa was issued against him?

Yes, because I was horrified by the way that British liberals, in order to defend Rushdie's right to publish what he chose, segued from a criticism of the fatwa to an out and out denunciation of Islam itself. And it seemed to me wrong to defend a liberal principle by evoking a medieval bigotry.

So, I wrote my book about Muhammad initially for my own countrymen. (Editor's note: Armstrong put aside writing A History of God when the fatwa was issued against Rushdie in order to write Muhammad).

And if Muslims did this and were able to speak and write in an idiom that the West could understand, then I wouldn't need to do it.

The Malaysian government has banned three of your books - A History of God, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet and The Battle for God for apparently being "detrimental to peace and harmony" in Malaysia.

[laughs]

What are your thoughts on this, and have you been banned anywhere else in the world?

There are people who would love to ban me, such as the neo-conservatives Daniel Pipes or Robert Spencer in the United States. I've also had threatening letters from secularists in Britain for writing positively about religion in general, and Islam in particular.

I can't think that I've actually been banned anywhere else but I may well have been. But this seems ridiculous. I cannot see how these books are in any way detrimental to peace. They're all about promoting peace and harmony, and banning things is simply not helpful.

Do you think religion is necessary in this day and age?

Yes. Because people are religious. People are going to be religious whether the pundits or the intellectuals think it's necessary or not.

In the same way, there are always going to be people who are dancers, singers or poets.

In the middle of the 20th century, it was generally assumed that secularism was the coming ideology. And that never again would religion play a major role in world events. But now, there has been a massive religious revival in almost every part of the world, showing that secularism has not fulfilled all the promises that it made.

Of the major religions - Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism - which do you think provides the most liberating messages of peace, justice and compassion?

They all do. They all do it in their own distinctive way. I don't see any of these world religions as better than any of the others. Each has its own particular genius and each its own particular vulnerabilities.

So, where do you think we can find the common ground to build interfaith understanding and help to reduce ongoing conflict?

When you ask that, what do you mean? 'Where can we...?' Who is we?

'We' as in people. Humanity. Or adherents of the various religions.

I think there are various political problems that are fuelling this division. I think that is crucial. And I think that a lot of the terrorism, for example, is motivated by politics rather than by reading the Quran. I don't think people read the Quran and say I must go and bomb a London bus. They decide to bomb a London bus because of politics, because in Iraq, Palestine, all these outstanding issues, and then pick out a few verses in the Quran which they see as justifying their action. That's how it works. This is politics rather than religion.

So, where can we start to build a common understanding?

In religious terms, I think, by stressing the elements that we have in common. The religions all have in common a preoccupation with compassion. They all teach that it is essential to feel with the other, to look out for others, to love the stranger, to honour the foreigner.

When Muhammad conquered Mecca and invited the Quraish to enter Islam, he stood beside the Kaabah and said, 'O Quraish, God is calling you from the chauvinism of jahiliyyah with its pride in ancestors. But all men come from Adam and Adam came from dust.'

He was thus insisting that the human race is one single family and that none of us has much to be proud of.

And then he quoted God's words in the Quran: 'O people, we have formed you from a male and a female and formed you into tribes and nations so that you may know one another.' Not so that you may convert one another, or terrorise one another, or conquer one another, or colonise one another, or kill one another, but so that you may reach beyond tribal bonds and know one another.

I think that in its appreciation of other faiths and its inspired pluralism, the Quran has a headstart on many of the other scriptures, for promoting a more pluralistic vision of the world.

But that is not what we are seeing now.

No.

When you talk about finding a room for the others in our minds, how do you build a common understanding if they can't even find room for the other?

Yes, but not everybody is like that. The world is divided into those who find the new pluralism inspiring and helpful and those who find it a threat.

And there is a division in all the religions, not just in Islam, on this matter, as I have said earlier. And it is no good saying, 'Well, people must be forced to become pluralistic!' because that will make them even more tense and worried.

The thing to do is gently to proceed forward. Those who have adopted this more pluralistic vision - and many Muslims have done so - must proceed with bridge building but they must also learn to appreciate the fears and anxieties that underline the more hardline approach. Because when people feel threatened and under attack, coercion will only make them more extreme.

You were a Catholic nun for seven years before you left the convent, and you described yourself as being disillusioned and depressed, and you wanted nothing to do with religion for a long time after that. What was it about Catholicism or religion that you found objectionable?

It wasn't kind.

It wasn't kind?

Yes. And I think that the most important thing is compassion, is to be kind, and the religion that doesn't project kindness, the Quran is always talking about kindness, friendliness.

So is the Bible.

So is the Bible. 'Do not address the People of the Book except in the most kindly manner.' Instead of fulminating about them for daring to mention a word about Islam, speak in a kindly manner.

And I think, unless religious people exude kindness they have not understood their religion. ... I met the Dalai Lama about 18 months ago. And he said, my religion is kindness. That's it. To be kind at every moment of your life, endlessly, all day and every day, becoming an image of gentleness and openness.

That is what religion is about because it forces you to reach out towards the other - out of your own selfishness. Compassion requires you to put yourself in the place of the other. And if a religion can't do that and becomes cruel and aggressive instead, then, it has failed, I think.

So you didn't experience this kindness when you were a nun at the convent?

No, I didn't. I have written all about that.

Ya, in your biography.

It's not banned yet so you can read that one [laughs].

[Laughs] Not yet anyway, we never know.

Yes. Let's keep quiet about it [laughs].

Final question, how would you describe your religious beliefs today, if you still subscribe to any?

I think 'belief' - I'm sorry to be pedantic about terms - but I think we spend far too much time troubling about belief. This is a special problem for Christians.

But the Quran doesn't talk much about believing things. It talks about doing things. Look at the five pillars of Islam - going on the hajj, fasting in Ramadan, praying, doing things. And Jesus didn't talk much about believing things. It was about being good, being kind, being thoughtful to others.

It's only since the 18th century, and that in the West, that faith has been acquainted with believing, accepting certain propositions, certain ideas, certain theological opinions.

The word 'belief' in English originally comes from the Middle English word 'beleven', which means to love.

And 'credo', the Latin for 'I believe', comes from the Latin 'cor do', (meaning) 'I give my heart.' And similarly, when Jesus says, 'You must have faith in the New Testament', the Greek word is 'pistis' which also means commitment, giving your heart to something. Not accepting certain ideas.

The Quran makes it quite clear that the kafirs had the right beliefs. As God says to Muhammad, 'If you ask them who created the world, they will certainly say, Allah.' The kafirun understood the theology. The problem was that they were not doing anything about it. They were not accepting the fact that they were creatures, owing everything to God, and behaved as though they were the centre of the world.

So, I think that we spend far too much time saying, 'What do you believe?'

Beliefs make no sense unless you put them into practice. Religious doctrines, religious teachings are a summons to action. And it is only when you put them into practice that you realise their truth. The Quran won't be true to you, unless you answer its call to justice, to doing good in society, to fasting and praying. When you do these things, then you discover that the Quran has meaning.

But if you just read it as though it were an article in the newspaper, without in anyway letting it affect your behaviour, it will remain something distant and something that you can argue about but it won't become a vibrant truth in your life and heart.

And similarly, in Christianity. The New Testament is all about following Jesus, instead of being preoccupied with such questions as, 'Is Jesus the Son of God or not?' How do we prove this? Do I believe it? In the New Testament, St Paul quotes an early Christian hymn which says that Jesus was created in the image of God, but that he did not hold on to this. But he became a humble person, emptying himself of his self-importance, and even accepted a horrible death. And because of this acceptance and self-emptying, God raised him up to a very high level. Christians often claim that this text proves that from a very early date in their history the early church believed that Jesus was the incarnate son of God.

But that is not what the text is about: it is a call to action. Paul introduces this teaching by, saying 'You must have the same mind as Christ Jesus. You must empty yourself of your self-importance.' If you don't do this, you won't understand the meaning of the story of Jesus. It won't be a truth to you. You have to be self-effacing, making others more important than yourself. Again, the emphasis is on kindness. And unless you do this, you won't understand the truth about Jesus.

So, I am not fixated on the idea of belief. The Quran dismisses many of these orthodox doctrines as zannah - self-indulgent guesswork, about matters that nobody can prove one way or the other. Why quarrel about them as the Jews and Chrstians did? It makes people quarrelsome, sectarian and unkind.

Nobody has the last word on God. Buddhism has no time for beliefs. The Buddha had a monk who kept on pestering him about whether there was a God or not and who had created the world; had the world been created in time or had it always existed? As a result, this monk

wasn't getting along with his meditation and his ethical practice because he was too busy worrying about these abstruse metaphysical issues. The Buddha told him he was like a man who'd been shot with a poisoned arrow, but who refused to have any medical treatment until he found out the name of the person who shot him and what village he came from. And, the Buddha concluded, you'll die before you get this perfectly useless information.

These things are fascinating and we can while away many happy hours discussing these absorbing questions but they won't help you. Suppose you actually succeed in discovering who created the world - what difference would it make to your life?

So, the point of Buddhism was to behave differently. Only then would a Buddhist understand the nature of Nirvana.

So it is best to concentrate not on believing things but on doing things. My prayer is my study. When I am at home, I spend the whole day immersing myself in sacred texts. And very often, as I said yesterday, when I am studying these things, I get moments of transcendence and awe and wonder and uplift.

Thus study is for me a form of spirituality that is easier than meditation and yoga, which I have never been able to do.

And as for behaviour, I try to put the Golden Rule - do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you - into practice all day and every day, as Confucius advised his pupils. That is the essence of religion and it's a full time job. And so, I try to concentrate on that.