Karen Armstrong talk (MUIS lecture 2007)
The Role of Religion in the New Millennium
Part 2

Arabic tradition was to be belligerent, strike first and impose your values on others. Mohammad tried to promote forbearance and mercy but this was not as popular. He had to fight the people of Mecca because they tried to kill Muslims. The Koran articulates that war is sometimes a necessary evil but must be fought out of self-defense, not belligerence (like World War II). If the enemy asks for peace, no matter how unfavorable the terms are to you, Muslims have to lay down their arms [Ed: This sounds dubious]. As an example, what Mohammad made the Haj with 1000 Muslims, some people tried to slaughter them but they ran into the sanctuary. Mohammad then negotiated with his enemies and accepted their disadvantageous terms though some of his followers were so upset they wanted to mutiny. When they returned to Medina he had a revelation - this was a great victory for Islam because they were filled with the spirit of peace. Violence - even verbal violence - is unreligious.

I wonder if all of her Mohammad stories were from the Koran. Some might be from hadith.

All major World Religions promote compassion and feeling for others. All advocate the Golden Rule. The first to promote it was Confucius in the 5th century BC. Later, a Rabbi living just before Jesus was told by a pagan that he'd convert to Judaism if he could stand on one leg and recite the whole of the Jewish religion. The Rabbi then said: "that which is hurtful to you, do not do to others. All the rest is commentary". Another time, there was a gathering of rabbis and all but one thought that the Golden Rule was the most important part of Judaism; the only dissenter thought "these are the generations of Adam" was more important because is meant the whole human race was one. Benevolence and compassion cannot be confined to your own group; you must love others, even those not of your ethnic group or ideological camp. Buddha said to treat all beings with concern [Ed: Except plants].

I noted that traditionally, the Golden Rule was to apply only to fellow believers and not to those outside the group - this was ascriptive inegalitarianism in action. Even Jesus, commonly cited as an example of open-heartedness, only wanted to preach the Gospel to other Jews; it was St Paul who transmogrified early Christianity into Pauline Christianity with its emphasis on preaching to gentiles. Also, this was not surprising, being a manifestation of a meme promoting reciprocal altruism.

Leviticus talks of how important it is to take care of strangers. You cannot molest strangers, and should love them as you love yourself because you were strangers in Egypt.

I found it extremely bizarre that she chose to quote Leviticus. For someone keen on using "context" to explain away everything people were uncomfortable with, she ignored how Leviticus was chock full of the strangest, most inane and shocking things, and I'm sure she was likewise cherry-picking from many other sources. Furthermore, the Old Testament notion of hospitality includes offering your daughters for the enjoyment of the (male) strangers you host - she conveniently ignored that bit.

"Love" is not a feeling of warm tenderness to strangers. As used in Leviticus, it is a technical, judicial term used in international treatires in the Middle East. 2 Kings who swore to love each other would look out for and support each other, look out for his best interests, be loyal and defend the other.

Jesus said to love your enemies. When Mohammad conquered Mecca he stood at the Kaaba and invited his tribe to enter Islam. He didn't force or compel them. The Koran is absolutely clear about that - there is no compulsion in Islam. All men are from Adam and Adam was from dust.

On the other hand, as Wikipedia writes:

Muhammad and the Jewish tribes of Medina

"After his migration to Medina, Muhammad's attitude towards Christians and Jews changed. Norman Stillman states:

During this fateful time, fraught with tension after the Hidjra [migration to Medina], when Muhammad encountered contradiction, ridicule and rejection from the Jewish scholars in Medina, he came to adopt a radically more negative view of the people of the Book who had received earlier scriptures. This attitude was already evolving in the third Meccan period as the Prophet became more aware of the antipathy between Jews and Christians and the disagreements and strife amongst members of the same religion. The Qur'an at this time claims that it will "relate [correctly] to the Children of Israel most of that about which they differ" ( XXVII, 76).

Jewish opposition "may well have been for political as well as religious reasons". On religious grounds, the Jews were skeptical of the possibility of a non-Jewish prophet, and also had concerns about possible incompatibilities between the Qur'an and their own scriptures. The Qur'an's response regarding the possibility of a non-Jew being a prophet was that Abraham was not a Jew. The Qur'an also claimed that it was "restoring the pure monotheism of Abraham which had been corrupted in various, clearly specified, ways by Jews and Christians". According to Peters, "The Jews also began secretly to connive with Muhammad's enemies in Mecca to overthrow him."

After each major battle with the Medinans, Muhammad accused one of the Jewish tribes of treachery (see Surah 2:100) and attacked it. After Badr and Uhud, the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir, respectively, were expelled "with their families and possessions" from Medina. After the Battle of the Trench in 627, the Muslims accused the Jews of Banu Qurayza of conspiring with the Meccans, then exterminated the male members of the Banu Qurayza. The females and children were sold as slaves.

Two types of explanations are given for Muhammad's treatment of the Jews of Medina: Theological and Political. The theological explanation given by some Arab historians and biographers is that:"the punishment of the Medina Jews, who were invited to convert and refused, perfectly exemplify the Quran's tales of what happened to those who rejected the prophets of old." Others offered a political explanation. F.E. Peters, a western scholar of Islam, states that Muhammad's treatment of Jews of Medina was essentially political being prompted by what Muhammad read as treasonous and not some transgression of the law of God. Peters adds that Muhammad was possibly emboldened by his military successes and also wanted to push his advantage. Economical motivations according to Peters also existed since the poorness of the Meccan migrants was a source of concern for Muhammad. Peters argues that Muhammad's treatment of the Jews of Medina was "quite extraordinary", "matched by nothing in the Qur'an", and is "quite at odds with Muhammad's treatment of the Jews he encountered outside Medina.""

In case the naive objection is raised that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone and so cannot be trusted, contentious and well-trafficked bits (like the above) are always heavily contested and so backed up with citations. I also note that no compulsion in religion doesnt apply to apostates (murtads) or to people other than People of the Book (Jews or Christians).

The Koran is suited to a world which needs pluralism because it accepts and honours other world religions. The Koran says: "Tell the People of the Book - we believe what you believe. Your god and our god is one and the same". I hope I wasn't the only one who picked up on this referring only to people of the book; after all, Mohammad destroyed allthe idols in Mecca except for the Kaaba when he conquered it.

The Sufis have a tradition of tolerance. When in ecstasy, they will cry out that they are neither a Jew nor a Muslim nor a Christian [Ed: Presumably they say nothing about whether they are a pagan]. Do not press forth exclusively and disregard the rest, because God is not confined to one creed; everywhere you turn you see the face of Allah. Everyone praises only what they know. If you only praise your own religion, you blame the belief of others. Ignorance is bad. [Ed: Presumably she forgot the first and most important pillar of Islam: 'There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his Prophet']

In the Hebrew Bible there is a story about Abraham. He was sitting outside his tent and saw 3 strangers. He treated them with hospitlaity and found one of them was his god. The Hebrew word for holy means 'separate' / 'other'. The otherness of the stranger is akin to that of God. It brings us out of our comfort zone and allows us to transcend ourselves.

Religion will help us in the new millennium because of the global face of terrorism and unrest. The Golden Rule is essential for survival. The Golden Rule should be a political/religious force. There is disquiet with economic forces.

Then the Q&A session started.

The first question was rubbish, something about the afterlife and how she'd treat it. She said not to dwell so much on the afterlife, because you should look at your current life. I noted that the raison d'etre of much religion is precisely a preoccupation with improving the conditions of the afterlife.

The second question was that if compassion was the core of religion, why were people not set on it? The answer was that people don't want to practise compassion. They want a weakly uplifting faith, like dilettantes in art and music who dabble but don't want to go all the way because it is agonising. People with compassion can change the world, for example Nelson Mandela who invited his jailer to sit with him and his family at an event after his release.

The next question was that there are calls for moderate Islam and that the only way for it to survive is to change and adapt to modern society. But the person disagreed: Islam instead must go back to its roots of compassion. There is no need to modernise to survive. Compassion is the central emphasis of Islam: it can succeed in converting the political situation in the world.

The answer was that compassion is the only thing to succeed in the modern political context. Sages preached compassion because they were pragmatic. If you are compassionate, and it changes you, it works. If you don't practise the Golden Rule, it is folly and you see the results. I noted that there was a reason why most Saints die horrible deaths.

The subsequent questions were all vocalised by Yaacob Ibrahim who had collected a long series of written questions. It was asked if secularism worked in Europe but not the (I presume she meant Muslim) colonies because in the latter it was forced on them. Can Islam and secularism be compatible? For example Malaysia is a weird implementation of a moderate Islamic state.

She replied that secularism was essential in Europe because of Enlightenment ideals. Politics and religion mixing resulted in disaster. So secularism was essential for modernity because it was deep. Secularism was good not for its ideas but for freeing the economy - if a priest looked over your shoulder you couldn't work well.

I had no idea what she was on about about secularism and economics: she seemed to be spinning a just-so story. The only way I can think of how religion impeded the European economy was usury laws, but there was a region Jewish moneylenders existed and I'm confident eventually an analog to Islamic Banking would've emerged.

She continued that in other parts of the world modernity could take a different course - not just in colonised areas, though colonisation could make modernity harder and delay modernisation. Rapid secularisation was bad because it didn't allow the area to follow its own dynamics and forces. It was not likely to put down roots in people, especially if secularism was lethal. In Iraq, they don't want secularism because when you state secularism they associate it with Saddam Hussein.

I noted that it was presumptuous to reject secularism on behalf of a people - why not ask them (eg The referendum after the Islamic Revolution in Iran)? To say on behalf of a people that they were not ready for secularism was deeply insulting - aren't they capable of deciding such things for themselves? Also, religion should not be imposed on people who were unwilling to accept it (eg Apostates, girls who don't want to wear headscarfs) - communitarianism is well and good if and only if there is a voluntary mechanism of exit from its tyranny.

Secularism has produced failured like Hitler and Stalin. I sighed at the use, once again, of this tired, old, discredited example. The examples of Hitler and Stalin should make us even more eager to reject religion and embrace secularism (in the form of liberal democracy) precisely because Fascism and Communism are like religions in having dubious ideology of questionable provenance (and like fundamentalist religion in sanctioning dissenters, discouraging questioning and imposing ideology on people). Indeed, it is precisely secularism that can protect religion, since it does not privilege any one religion over the others; also when a religion is made dominant it often goes to the dogs so secularism protects dominant religions as well.

It is premature to say that everyone must follow the Western secular model. Religion is better off opposing and challenging the state. The Shiites separated religion and politics as a sacred principle for centuries so the idea of separation of religion was rife in the Muslim world. This is why Khomeini's merging of the two was shocking. Politics is dirty business, and religion advocates the loss of the ego. Politicians do not know this, especially in the democratic world, because they have to get votes and see themselves on TV. I noted that in the non-democratic world, politics was even dirtier and bloodier and politicians had even bigger egos (eg Turkmenbashi and Kim Il Sung who is North Korea's Eternal President despite dying in 1994), so once again I had no idea what she was talking about; she liked to say a lot of things which people instinctively agreed with, but on closer examination found to be false.

Yaacob then interjected that politics was practised different in different parts of the world, and that politics was compassionate in Singapore. The audience then laughed (presumably agreeing with him) and someone else noted that Opposition politicians were treated with a great deal of compassion here.

The next questions were that if people kill your people and perpetrate injustice, can you still be compassionate? If you worship money it is not easy to be compassionate. There is a perception that Islam is stuck in enmity with non-Muslims. How can this perception be corrected?

The answers were that it was easy for her to talk about compassion because she had a privileged life. However, violence breeds violence and destroys your soul. Someone has to break the cycle of violence.