5: Are you advocating the discarding of jihad

Jawdat Sa'eed has been known to reject violence; he has gone so far as to assert the need of "breaking the sword and discarding weapons...

" he has likened the buying of weapons to "the buying of idols; " in his first book, published more than thirty years ago, he affirmed the need of adopting the "way of thought of Adam's better son." So, is Jawdat Sa'eed advocating the discarding of jihad, which is commonly known to be an enjoined commandment in Islam, even when all the conditions for carrying out jihad are met? Is he urging Muslims to rebel against the command of the Almighty: " Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power (8, 60)?" Is he calling on us to be passive onlookers while the Zionist arsenal grows at rocket rate? Are you asking us to halt the resistance movements against the expansionist, destructive powers?

My brother Abdul-Jabbar is trying here to provoke me concerning violence; he devotes to this the longest of his questions. You ask me to be more articulate and clear than ever about this issue, and it is your right to ask for that. I only hope that I can convey the message in clearer terms than I have done thus far.

When, more than a third of a century back, I wrote my book Ibn Adam's Way of Thought, I was anxious just to have the idea brought to the attention of people, to announce my adoption and promotion of the idea. I had little hope of winning people over to that credo. One of the first titles in that book is 'For Announcement Rather than for Persuasion'. There have been many correspondents who suggested that I change that title and try to convince people with my ideas, that an announcement would not suffice. Such letters reveal the difficulty of the issue, the many doubts related to it. But once this subject is understood, you will rather be amazed on how we failed to understand this idea; it is so in the same way as when men failed to understand that it is not the sun that rotates around us, but that it is we who rotate around the sun.

Let me remind you of the line of poetry quoted by Khatami in Beem Moj. The translator rendered it like this: "You light of wing, he who relishes the breeze, how could you realize the amount of darkness and blundering that afflict us?" Yes, we are in the darkness, and I think that Khatami realizes the significance of the words he is quoting.

As a step towards understanding this issue, we need to tackle the value of predominant ideas, how they block comprehension and obstruct people's hearing and seeing. The Qur'an gives much attention to this situation; it mentions deafness, dumbness and blindness in such verses as "Deaf, dumb and blind, they will not return to the path (2, 18);" it refers to how a predominant idea block understanding in, for instance, the following verse: " Has he made the gods all into one God (Allah)? Truly this is a wonderful thing! … We never heard the like of this among the people of these latter days: this is nothing but a made-up tale! (37, 5-7)."

But though we have the Book (i.e. the Qur'an) in our hands, it is without life, and so does science in our culture lose its effectiveness. This situation is reminiscent of something the Prophet said about the Jews and Christians: "Do not the Jews and Christians have the Bible in their possession, and yet in no way do they benefit from it." The tragic state of the Muslim World is in fact our prime impetus to keep thinking about the Muslims' dilemma: What is it that makes them the biggest losers in all their endeavours among all nations? When I undertook to advocate such ideas my driving power was that I believed in convincing the human mind rather than in subduing it.

Unless we admit that man will give more through persuasion than through intimidation and coercion we would not have started to understand man, nor God the Almighty. Indeed we need to understand three things: (1) God: We do not understand God; it is true of our comprehension of God what the Qur'an says: " But this thought of yours which you entertained concerning your Lord, has brought you to destruction, and now you have become of those utterly lost! (41, 23);" at least, we need to admit that our perception of God is not necessarily the correct one. It is in order here to mention a giant thinker, Ali Shari'ati: he specialized in sociology and comparative religions. When I read his book Man and Islam, I felt him to be an acrobat among handicapped or lame people. He had vision and hearing, and he had profound perception; he also galvanized his reader and sent a spark of fire in his heart with his own faith. He once wrote, quoting Xenophanes: “Every society shapes its god in accordance with its consciousness.” And that is a true fact. To understand God and come to know him, we have to realize that there is no direct access to Him; we can only know Him through His creation, and that leads us to the second thing we need to understand. (2) God's creation, this universe. We need to get acquainted with this universe, and we shall then perceive God's constant laws, constant and yet progressive, in the sense that God creates more things all the time, and the ultimate creation of His has been man, and that is number three; (3) man: man's nervous system is equipped with the capacity to reflect and unveil God's laws, and is capable of controlling.

The above then are three inseparable things we need to know. The world in its totality points to its Lord; it is through the universe that we learn about God. We can learn how God created the camels, mountains, peoples, man, man with the authority he has in the universe. It is so because the universe runs by laws, and man has the resources to unveil those laws, and then to control things.

About mankind we read in the Qur'an: " Mankind was one single nation (2, 213)" – they were created to be one nation, and are still so. In their conviction might is right; that is how history passed, and is still passing. I have the might, therefore I am your Lord, your high Lord. This is one nation, anywhere in the world; even America, the biggest taghoot says: I am your supreme Lord.

So long as might is right, then the law of the jungle is prevailing, and mankind is one nation. Man worshipped and still worships power, and worships him who wields power. The source of conflict is that, since man has a nervous system, and is hence in a position to understand and have control, then he must not be exploited by another party, by a human like himself. I have discussed this subject, and I am still probing. Last year, my book Be like Adam's Son was published and, God willing, I shall write another book bearing the title Break Your Bow.

When I say that buying weapons is equal to buying idols, I say that to give a jolt to the Muslim, and to give a jolt to Man in general. You men can understand each other, and you need not live by the law of the jungle. You need to lay down concepts and rules and laws to cooperate. Man will not be man until he is like Adam's son – we have to understand this and bring it within the understanding of Muslims and people everywhere. It would be helpful to draw our cues from the Messenger, peace be upon him, and the Qur'an – when I refer to the Messenger, I do that on the grounds that he is the representative of prophets and their witness, as we read in the Qur'an: " We have sent you as a Witness, a Bearer of Glad Tidings, and a Warner, and as one who invites to Allah's Grace by His leave, and as a Lamp spreading light (33, 44-45)." What all the prophets taught is one and the same religion, summed up in tawheed (oneness of God), and the discarding of idolatry. As for rituals, these may vary; and as for dealings, they will go on changing across time, though along the solid basis of justice. Now as for tawheed, it also boils down to observing justice – injustice is the cardinal idolatry (in reference to The Qur'an, 31, 13,) and so is idolatry the cardinal injustice.

To establish justice among people is tawheed, the word of impartiality, as expounded in the Qur'an " Come to common terms as between us and you: … that we do not erect, from among ourselves, lords and patrons other than Allah (3, 64)." The word of impartiality is equal to justice – that I hand to you the same as I allow myself to get; and forbid you what I forbid myself. It is certainly being just to deal with you the same as I expect you to deal with me. We read in the Qur'an that a certain prophet said: " I do not wish, in opposition to you, to do that which I forbid you to do (11, 88)." If the other declines to accept justice, then it is I who accept the law of justice; it will not be established by the other. Should it be for the other to enact for me, then he is dominating me. It is I who establish the law, and act on it, unilaterally if necessary. That is what the Messenger, peace be upon him, teaches us – that is the noblest thing that descended from heaven or emerged in the earth.

How can you be a Muslim unless you accept the way of Adam's son? The Messenger accepted the way of Adam's son when he called people to God; some believed and some disbelieved; those who disbelieved tortured those who believed, trying to force them out of the new religion, to compel them to revert to disbelief. During all that period, the Messenger urged: "Have patience, family of Yaser (one of the Muslim families tortured by unbelievers); we shall meet in Paradise." About that the Qur'an commanded: " to hold back their hands from fight and but establish regular prayers (4, 77)." From the first sura (i.e. chapter) revealed, the Qur'an taught a believer that he had to disobey the tyrant, the taghoot who intended to impose his opinion with force. We read in that first sura: " Do you see one who forbids a votary when he turns to pray … Nay, do not obey him: but bow down in adoration (96, 9-19);" we read about a certain historical case of persecution, " And they ill-treated them for no other reason than that they believed in Allah, Exalted in power…Those who persecute the Believers, men and women, and do not turn in repentance … (85, 8-10)." The Prophet himself did not take any action in reaction to those who hurt him. From the first day, as we can see, the Islamic way was to call to truth and be patient to injury.

The same attitude is reported by the Qur'an about each one of the prophets: " Has not the story reached you, O people, of those who went before you? – of the people of Noah, and 'Ad, and Thamud? – and of those who came after them? None knows but Allah. To them came Messengers with Clear Signs; but they put their hands up to their mouths, and said: 'We do deny the mission on which you have been sent, and we are really in suspicious disquieting doubt as to that to which you invite us.' Their Messengers said: 'Is there a doubt about Allah the Creator of the heavens and the earth? It is He Who invites you, in order that He may forgive you your sins and give you respite for a term appointed!' They said: 'Ah! You are no more than human, like ourselves! You wish to turn us away from the gods our fathers used to worship: then bring us some clear authority.' Their Messengers said to them: 'True, we are human like yourselves, but Allah grants His grace to such of His servants as He pleases. It is not for us to bring you an authority except as Allah permits. And on Allah let all men of faith put their trust. We do not have any reason why we should not put our trust on Allah. Indeed He has guided us to the Way we follow. We shall certainly bear with patience all the hurt you may cause us. For those who put their trust should put their trust on Allah.' And the Unbelievers said to their Messengers: 'Be sure we shall drive you out of our land, or you shall return to one religion.' But their Lord inspired this Message to them: 'Verily We shall cause the wrong-doers to perish! And verily We shall cause you to abide in the land, and succeed them. This for such as fear the Time when they shall stand before My tribunal – such as fear the Punishment denounced (14, 9-14)." This debate does not pertain to any one messenger; it represents all messengers and all peoples. In some other contexts, one particular prophet is reported to have engaged in a similar debate; the theme is the same: a call to follow truth, reacting with causing hurt to the caller, expelling from home, and trying to force the callers to revert to the old religion. This much-repeated scenario must be analyzed, to see how the prophets dealt with this recurrent situation.

They dealt with it by offering the word of impartiality: we invite and you invite, and we do not have recourse to bringing hurt or compulsion or ejecting from home. Let him believe who wills, and let him disbelieve who wills; there is no coercion in religion. In the matter of religion and opinion there is no room for compulsion; they may be delivered through persuasion. Let us compete in pleading for our views. Indeed, we shall not resort to using violence or compulsion, even if you resort to them. We shall forbear your injury until people accept us or accept you.

The prophets are here laying down a universal law for religion and the dissemination of opinions; force must be put at bay: no compulsion in religion; violence must be eliminated; no compulsion in religion or politics or opinion: it is rather persuasion and calling with wisdom and good exhortation; it is debate and discussion in a peaceful way. That is the way until change takes place at the social level. That was the example set by Muhammad, peace be upon him. He set the example for the upright (rashed) ummah, a nation that does not take offence against people for their religion or opinions, unless they be the first to resort to injury and compulsion.

And even after the others initiate injury and compulsion, they will not be confronted with injury and compulsion – it is with patience that the upright ummah should respond, until society is converted to the upright way (al-rushd). Once the society has been converted to uprightness, such a society will safeguard people's ideas and creeds from any aggression. Non-believers will have the same right as believers: they can propagate their system, peacefully and with persuasion and kindness. It must be admitted here that Muslims, except for a small minority, do not have the tolerance to give to others the right to propagate their opinions, the same as Muslims do propagate. This is in fact a lack of confidence in the ideas and religion to which they call people. We should concede to others the same right that we give to ourselves, and forbid them only that which we forbid ourselves. Indeed, things will eventually come to that, in spite of all protesting.

The law that will prevail is that expressed in the Qur'anic verse: "For the scum disappears like froth cast out; while that which is for the good of mankind remains on the earth (13, 17)." And even when the society is corrupted, the only course that a Muslim should follow is to call people and try to win them over. Once the society accepts his ideas he is bound to guarantee everybody's right to have their say and then, anyone who declines and wants to dictate his opinion by force, not by persuasion, such a person is resorting to the law of the jungle and the worship of force. The attitude of all the prophets was that of Adam's son (as expressed in the Qur'an: We shall certainly bear with patience all the hurt you may cause us.).

It is in this way that the prophets laid down the foundations for the right democracy. Such democracy is at odds with the modern democracy – the latter has the drawback of legalizing the attack and assassination of tyrants and foreign hostile people. In this the modern democracy is at fault, for society must be converted, in a peaceful way, to whatever faith that appeals to it.

Muslims have in the modern time adopted those democracies and human rights. Human rights as expressed by the prophets focus on duties rather than on rights: it is your duty as a believer to change your society through persuasion and not through coercion. A person who resorts to coercion, and that who reacts by resorting to coercion, both are applying the law of the jungle – in the prophets' language, both are destined to enter the Fire. It is so because both glorify force. This point is one of the most difficult in the whole issue: the prophets did not permit self-resistance if the person in authority hurts you for an opinion that you hold. You invite people to build up a society in which people are not penalized for their opinions.

That is why one of the prophets, Jacob, has the following reply to his people, as recounted in the Qur'an: " The leaders, the arrogant party among his people, said: 'O Shu'aib! We shall certainly drive you out of our city – you and those who believe with you; or else you and they shall have to return to our ways and religion.' He said: 'What! Even though we do detest them? We should indeed invent a lie against Allah, if we returned to your ways after Allah has rescued us therefrom; nor could we by any manner of means return thereto unless it be as in the will and plan of Allah, our Lord. Our Lord can reach out to the utmost recesses of things by His knowledge.' (7, 88-89)."

It is in order to say here that the word 'millah' is a Qur'anic word, and it refers to the model or pattern of society and the values which are set to build the society on that basis. It transpires that the 'millah' of the prophets is categorically unlike the 'millahs' by which the present world lives – it is for this reason that I said above that the Qur'anic expression 'Mankind were one nation' is true of mankind, and they are still one nation, since they believe in changing people's convictions with compulsion. The prophets were sent to protect people's convictions and ideas. It is he who adopts that approach that can invite people to the word of impartiality: that no coercion is allowed in calling people to religion, that we may not take each other for gods, that we assist people in freeing themselves from being enslaved to other humans, and to be the slaves of only the Lord of mankind.

The Muslim World, in all its communities and groups, is obsessed with force. It might be true now that some have begun to see something new looming, most vaguely, other than violence. We must be prompt to call people to reject violence in the dissemination of ideas, and to renounce the politicians who ascend through violence. But how do we renounce them? It is not by killing them or assassinating them – it is by declining to obey them whenever they command something that is a disobedience of God; we renounce them by not supporting them in their having recourse to the law of the jungle. Men believe that they will be exterminated, one and all, should they hold back from obeying the tyrannical ruler, when he commands them to kill Muslims. That is an illusion: when people are convinced of this style of change, it becomes very difficult for the tyrant to put to death even one individual, let alone to put to death a whole nation. That is then the merciful way, the simple and right way for all to follow; it is the least costly of ways, the most fruitful – and yet we remain unmindful of it, we do not promote it, and we do not alert people to it. That indeed is an ugly suppression of God's signs (a reference to The Qur'an, 2, 159 and 174.) If you succeed in getting this way implanted in the minds of people, then women and children can take part: you do not need for this way strong able-bodied young men, or a lot of wealth and weapons. We merely say: we refuse that, and we say it openly, so kill us if you like. That is what the Father of Prophets, Noah, peace be upon him, declared, as the Messenger Muhammad, peace be upon him, was directed to recite his story in the Quran: " Relate to them the story of Noah. Behold! He said to his People: 'O my People, if it be hard on your mind that I should stay with you and commemorate the Signs of Allah – yet I put my trust in Allah. You then get an agreement about your plan and among your Partners, so your plan be not to you dark and dubious. Then pass your sentence on me, and give me no respite,' (10, 71)."

Well, my dear brother Abdul-Jabbar, I address you here as editor-in-chief of the journal Current Islamic Issues, that I do not negate jihad – all I do is to try to show that the jihad as espoused by the Messenger of God is unlike that of the khawarej (the group who fought Ali), and the jihad practiced over the centuries after the period of the Upright Caliphate, from the time of the Umayyads – all Muslims indeed subscribed to that same type of jihad, and so were followers of khawarej. This fact may be easier to comprehend if we perceive that a rule that comes by force will not be a lawful rule, nor an upright (rashed) rule; it will be an oppressive and unjust rule. When you have the upright society, then whoever rises against that society, we should act in the light of the following verse: " If two parties among the Believers fall into a quarrel, you make peace between them: but if one of them transgresses beyond bounds against the other, then you all fight against the one that transgresses until it complies with the command of Allah; but if it complies, then make peace between them with justice, and be fair: for Allah loves those who are fair and just (49, 9)." This applies if the confrontation is between a ruler who came through persuasion and the challenger who seeks to assume power without people's consent. In this case it is the aggressor who must be fought. But should the challenger be rising against another non-upright (baghi) party who is in authority, then it is a jahiliyyah (in the fashion of pre-Islam Arabs) fighting, waged under a false banner. When the situation is like this, the Messenger commands us that we have nothing to do with any of the fighting parties; a number of traditions, concerning the time of chaotic fighting, all command a Muslim to avoid any involvement, to break his sword, and to stay at home. One tradition goes so far as to insist that should his home be broken into under those circumstances, and an armed man threatens to kill him, he should reply with the words of Adam's son [ As reported in the Qur'an: "If you stretch your hand against me, to slay me, it is not for me to stretch my hand against you to slay you: for I do fear Allah, the Cherisher of the Worlds (5, 28);] if the aggressor is intent on killing him, and he is afraid of the shimmer of the sword, let him throw some garment over his face.

I do no have a feeling of self-contradiction; I do not feel that I have annulled jihad. On the contrary, I feel I am in perfect harmony with the traditions of the Messenger, and the behaviour of all the prophets. The Messenger, peace be upon him, was not contradicting himself when he once said: "Three individuals will enter Paradise in reward for one arrow: the workman who made it, the one who carried it, and the one who shot it;" while, in another context he said: "Break your bow, cut its cord, and blunt your sword by striking with it on stones;" "Let him who has sheep drive his sheep in the far-off hills, let him who has camels be with his camels, let him who has a land be in his land." And even when they asked him about one who has nothing of this, he rejoined: "Let him be at his home, and let him be like Adam's [better] son."

Muslims have not, even until now, investigated the problem of the Khawarej. The Khawarej are those people who seek to establish religion through compulsion, and to establish society through compulsion, those who kill persons on account of their convictions. Such issues remain misty, and as I said there has been no study of those problems. Ali, may God grace him with His favour, is quoted to have said: Do not fight the Khawarej after me. If he has been rightly quoted, then the idea is not that what the Khawarej stood for was now legal, but because all the others have adopted the way of the Khawarej. This has actually happened, but things have not been clarified yet.

In all the analyses and philosophies I have read about the legal bases for war, the state and the nations, I have not seen any approach more comprehensible and coherent and feasible than that of the prophets, and that is the approach I am trying to expound here. I hope I could present the issue more clearly, but I feel confident that those who come later to theorize and analyze, Muslim or non-Muslim, will expand the issue and bring it within the capacity of the average man and woman, and then people will cease to be in doubt and perplexity, and they will no longer be desperate of the end of the law of the jungle. Indeed, God has taught His prophets the best of laws, as He makes it clear in the Qur'an: " And no question do they bring to you but We reveal to you the truth and the best explanation thereof (25, 33)." What I have found out in this connection gives me great peace of heart – I feel I can address to the whole world the teaching of the prophets: the word of impartiality, the word of justice, the word of piety (God says about believers: " and made them stick close to the command of self-restraint; and well were they entitled to it and worthy of it (48, 26).")

We call upon the whole world, the philosophers and all advocates of the human rights that we all cooperate to have the right of veto abolished, since it is the gravest corruption. It is the legacy of the Romans, not the legacy of modernism. The right of veto is the major barrier blocking the way of the development of the world. There are minor taghoots, protected by the greater taghoot. It is those advocates of human rights who keep dumb in the face of the gravest mischief, and the worst violation of the rights of man: Are they not ashamed of crusading for the rights of man and of their big claim to democracy? The right of veto, which the whole world accepts, is incompatible with democracy, nor with the rights of man, nor with mankind. It is the biggest hurdle in the way of the world, and it makes all efforts in vain.

They see the straw in the eyes of others, while they fail to see the trunk in their eyes. But must we also keep silent at that heinous state, as if it is fore granted, an inevitable fact of life! Well, that is how things stand; but that must change and must be a thing of the past.

Well, my esteemed brother Abdul-Jabbar, I do not challenge or defy God or His Book. But when huge fortunes are spent on arms, arms that the seller knows when and how he can destroy them, when they become a source of danger for his interests, when such purchase is said to be prepared to defeat the enemy, and when it is said to be in response to God's injunction: " Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power (8, 60)," when things are conceived in this way, I find that we flout God's system, and we do not realize the real sense of the word 'enemy', and, above all, we show our ignorance of the state of things.

The Marines, and all the Americans, were expelled from Lebanon when Lebanon had no army and no government, and when the Lebanese were even killing each other. But, with all that, the Americans and the French were expelled, and Israel withdrew from its siege of Beirut. That was achieved by the Lebanese, the nation fragmented by sectarian conflict. Somalia, too, the hungry and naked nation, succeeded in expelling America and the United Nations, without a regular army, and without the benefit of the usual weaponry of armies. The problem is always not a problem of the multitude, nor of the political leaders – it is a problem of the intellectual leaders. Japan also won its independence without an independence war, without having to kill the Americans, and without losing Japanese lives. The world has changed, and force has no part to play but to create illusions.

But let us turn our eyes to Iraq, a country much larger than either Lebanon or Somalia, being inspected home by home (before the war of March, 2003), for no real security purpose, only for humiliation. It is so because Iraq had a government and a regular army and semi-sophisticated weapons. It is a hoax, a huge farce. It is a system that belongs to the past, an obsolete style. Maybe we are not equipped to understand such things, but it is perhaps easier to see how the Arabs said during the second Gulf War: Forget about Israel and fight Iraq: was that a problem of weapons or a problem of concepts and values and the intra-Arab relationships? So we still ignore such matters and say about Israel that it has a destructive arsenal; and yet we request the destruction of Iraq's destructive weapons, for it poses more peril in our view than Israel's weapons.

My friend, what is all this darkness that prevents us from discussing these issues? Are these things not among the Islamic problems? Why do not we discuss them in earnest and in depth? There are of course certain preconceptions that bar our way, and discourage us from studying those issues. But how high is the price we have to pay, and how valuable the time we are losing!

When some people ask me: Are you advocating the neglect of jihad, which is an enjoined command, even after all its conditions are met? Are Muslims to defy God's command: " Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power (8, 60)," when they say that, I say: Thank God that Muslims begin to realize that there are conditions for jihad; though they still argue over the particular conditions.

When God, the Almighty says: " Let there be no compulsion in religion," He is setting very strict limits on jihad. Indeed, many nations do now practice ' No compulsion in religion ', while Muslims do not practice it. For some other nations, what any one believes is not a reason to fight him; it is only right to fight him if he tries to force others to change their belief. But it is not so with Muslims: indeed, jihad can be rightly waged against Muslims more than any other nation, since it is they who practice coercion against people of different faith, and it is they who let tyrants, taghoots, rule them by force. But what happens in the world is that there is no power that seeks to relieve nations who suffer from coercion; on the contrary war is waged to replace existing coercion with another coercion.

In the sphere of religion, achievement is not measured with the amount of muscle and weapons and destruction; it is measured by sounder and wiser thinking, by helping people, and by relieving them of injustice and coercion.

You quote, my brother Abdul-Jabbar the Qur'anic verse, " Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power (8, 60)," to hint that I am rebelling against God and His commandments. But in the above verse there is indeed a good example of the change. The verse is commanding Muslims to have their horses ready for fighting the enemy, but if someone says that the preparing of horses for jihad is something of the past and is not to be considered nowadays as a force in fighting, would such reasoning be a defying of God and His Book?

Don't you see that Muslims' clinging to material power has blocked their way to understanding? When God says, No compulsion in religion, He is ruling out material power and neutralizing it and invalidating recourse to it as a means to converting people to religion. Do I have to remind you of Issue Four, 1997, of your Current Islamic Issues, which reports a symposium you held concerning the effect of time and place on jurisprudence. Some distinguished scholars in the symposium had interesting ideas concerning the testimony of woman. So do you say that those scholars were rebelling against God and His Book? And if we determine that slavery and all the rules pertaining to it are to be abolished, would that be a canceling of commandments revealed in God's Book? The same question rises concerning the scholars' resolution concerning new aspects of iddat (period of no-remarriage after the death of husband, or divorce.) It is the political things, however, in the Muslim World which deserve reconsideration and fathoming – we need to really explore the domain of leadership and politics as an authority. It is to such things that you refer in your Question 11, when you say that Muhammad Arkoun ridicules those who quote the Qur'an in the course of a debate, on the ground that, "such practice raises the whole range of problems of moving from the mythological to the scientific age;" so how do I judge his attitude? Well, I would say that your observation does not come from a vacuum – your words are really related to something that the Qur'an frequently points out, that people can come to such a state that they no longer can benefit from their hearing and vision, and can degrade to the level of animals. The Qur'an says about such people: " If you call them to guidance, even then they will never accept guidance (18, 57), " and " Say: 'Shall we tell you of those who lose most in respect of their deeds? Those whose efforts have been wasted in this life, while they thought that they were acquiring good by their works, (18, 103-104)." Don't you see how the present-day Muslims hold up posters on which they have written: "Democracy is heretical", and yet they endure life under 'taghoots: dictators', and they long to be themselves taghoots, who compel people to accept religion?

And so, Arkoun's statement is not without justification. It is true that we have not adapted to the changes which have taken place in the world concerning the taghoot worship. Other parts of the world, as Iqbal has pointed out, have ridden themselves of worshipping the taghoot, though they have not yet believed in God – the idea here is that the dictators have disappeared from some parts of the world, people no longer believe in them, but those parts would not like to help other parts of the world rid themselves of their taghoots: they are worried that those other parts should give up their taghoots.

My brother Abdul-Jabbar, God has not sent those people over us haphazardly. It is tragic how idiotic a life we lead, in a way that has brought upon us the world's derision and contempt. When they deal with us they deal with our mythical way of thinking. Is not one who buys an expired commodity a person who lives in a mythical world? When God deplores the practice of those who are incapable of comprehension, such people are so because they do not adapt to a changing world.

God's shari'ah, i.e. law, is justice. Now God does not reveal to people the piecemeal justice that must be applied day by day, as new things come up. The application of justice in detail is the concern of people themselves. Arkoun has for instance written a book entitled: Islamic Thought: A Scientific Reading. The Foreword to that book was written by Hashem Saleh, and the title of that Foreword is: Between the orthodox mentality and the dogmatic mentality. In his article, Hashem Saleh analyzes and dissects the dogmatic frame of mind. Such studies are new, and they use new terminology, and they discuss how man comes to a condition where he becomes incapable of understanding or comprehending.

But we can say that the orthodox and dogmatic mentality is the same as abay'iyyah: patriarch-idolization-and-infallibility discussed in the Qur'an; it is a state in which an individual clings to the conventions and values he has inherited from the ancestors and abolishes the actual reality and abolishes history. They say of the dogmatic person that he is that individual who is required by the objective circumstances to change his attitude, but is incapable of doing so. Well, that applies to us in the Muslim World.

It is for a similar reason that Iqbal said that although Islam emerged before the scientific age, it heralded the scientific age; and so Malik bin Nabi when he says that a person who is ignorant of the things that the twentieth century has added to human knowledge will not utter a word among people but bring on himself disgrace. So, yes, my brother, the Muslim World is sick, in the full sense of the word. And yet, that it is sick does not mean it is incurable.

It is the mythological mentality that is killing people in Algeria and Afghanistan. And having mentioned Afghanistan, it is in order to mention that Sultan Abdul-Hameed said to Al-Afghani (one of the first Muslim thinkers in the modern age): "Why don't you go to Japan and call to Islam there?" And Al-Afghani's retort was: "And what can I say if they say: 'Your people are more in need of calling them to Islam than we are!' " Indeed, the Japanese have been a nation which adapted to the modern world, while we still buy from the modern world its weapons which are outdated, including the nuclear bomb. But what does he who sells us the weapons think of us? He is right to look at us as the seller of blue beads views the superstitious who buy those beads to hang them around their children's necks to ward off the evil eye.

Well, my esteemed sir, do you know what Nicholson said to Khrushchev when the latter said: "Your grandchildren will be communist;"? He replied: "It will not be possible then to impose it on them with compulsion, but by persuasion." You see how America is open to us, and open to rational persuasion, and yet, we still believe that America will not be ours except by the sword. So how to liberate the Muslim, whose mind is paralyzed, who gives no appreciation to thought? How to convey the Muslim to the world of thought? We don't see around us those who can say how the world will be when logic and science are the language! I myself do not find the right words; it is as Moses said, as reported in the Qur'an, "My breast will be straitened. And my speech may not go smoothly, (26, 13)." We are still even unable to announce our disbelief in idols. We are still not liberated, and we do not find the adequate words, to make known what darkness and doubt and ignorance we live in.

Even the Iranians, who stupefied the world with their miraculous revolution have not been able to export their peaceful and popular revolution to other parts or even to their neighbours. No one could have objected to such peaceful revolution, which faced guns with flowers, with roses carried by women and men, when the Shah was expelled without a single charge being short, and the Shah could not find an asylum to take refuge in. The Iranians also failed in showing pride in the peaceful nature of their revolution – they were ashamed of it. But you must stand up as heroes. Don't bow to arrogant intimidation. The Iranians kept silent about that aspect of their revolution, and, in this way, the crooked parties found their chance to condemn Iran, claiming that it backs terrorism, or exports terrorism. Not only did Iran fail to export its miraculous revolution, but the others also failed to appreciate the achievement, failed utterly and absolutely. It is tragic how this happened. The great merit of Iran's revolution is that it is a revolution of the people, and it could be called a woman's revolution. In fact, even the word revolution disfigures the achievement in Iran, since this word is Western. We had better call it a revival of the prophets' way, a resurrection in this age of the struggle of prophets. But this effort will never go west, it will never be in vain. This matchless endeavour is a pioneering one in the Islamic movement.

Is not our failure to appreciate the Iranian prophets-style endeavour proof enough of our mythical superstitious mentality? Lots of people would take the events of Iran to be unique to Iran and to Shi'ite Muslims, as if Iran and the Shi'ites were not human beings, "Nay, you are but men," as the Qur'an says (5, 18). What happened in Iran was realized by laws, laws that are common to all mankind. Today, and while I write these words, I hear on the news of Indonesian revolt against Suharto. Hundreds were burned to death, and the deaths were caused by those who were setting fire to shops, and those who died were trying to rob the shops – they died from the fire or the smoke.

So when will the Muslims learn the meaning of 'the master of martyrs' (a reference to a tradition of the Prophet's, in which he designated as a master of martyrs a believer who was put to death for no other cause but that he spoke the truth to an oppressive ruler,)? When will they appreciate the Iranian phenomenon? The Iranians did not set fire to buildings or shops – they rather challenged the curfew, with resolution and determination. Who will teach Muslims the prophets-style struggle, in which you do not incinerate or rob, in which the Muslim is the safest and the trusted? Where are the scholars?

So is it not right for Arkoun after that to say that those who seek support in a verse from the Qur'an would raise the whole range of the problems of transferring from the mythical age to the scientific age? Would it be right to seek the support from the Qur'an where it says: "It is not fitting for a Messenger that he should have prisoners of war until He has thoroughly subdued the land (8, 67)?" and use this to put to death the prisoners of war, and distribute the women as captives. Yes, that was a just procedure one day, but must it be operative now? God's shai'ah, or law, is justice, and it must evolve to the better, to the more beneficial. The more profitable must abrogate what is less profitable. What those who are learned and specialized think to be more like justice must be the accepted ruling until they find something more in line with justice and more profitable. It seems that Muslims will go on living in great confusion until they can realize that many things have take place and are taking place in history. Those who come after us to solve these problems while come up with new ways and means – without feeling that they are defying God, His Book and His Prophet. They will not feel that they are annulling God's Scripture; on the contrary, they will feel they are glorifying God and His Book and His shari'ah. They will have great peace of mind, and they will feel that they have released themselves from the heavy burdens and the yokes, not that they are rebelling against God and His Messenger.

When some say, are we to stop resistance and give in to our enemy, I don't say we should stop resistance; but I do say if there is another way which is more efficient and profitable and less costly, then we must choose that alternative. How great would it be for Arabs and Muslim to help one another in righteousness and piety, without anyone losing anything, each one of them gaining; all boycotting the enemy and those who back the enemy? When America boycotts a certain Arab or Muslim country, why don't we side firmly with our brethren and challenge America? We must step forward and take our chance, and America will be thwarted, and we shall win. But what is that exceeding callousness and falling into sorcery? We cannot distinguish between the possible and the impossible. Why don't we set the blockade ourselves, instead of the other imposing blockade against us? I might by crazy, but I find such things possible, and our nations will accept with pleasure the consequences of such attitudes. But no one seems to have the ability to discuss these matters; it is as if we are charmed into silence. How many times did America try to impose blockades against Iran, but it failed every time to take any measures against those who held back from observing the blockade. Why can't we consider doing without the American, Canadian or European food products? Why can't we consider the production of a nuclear bomb, when we have the Tigris and Euphrates; we think we are going to die of hunger and lack of medicines. What fallacies and illusions have dominance over the minds! I can't endure the Muslims' attitude towards their enemies! Let anybody who feels like it consider me crazy, but I like to side with Arkoun when he says we are living in the age of myths and marvels. When we can solve our problems without war, and with a believing and human approach, we ignore that, and we choose instead the approach that our enemy longs to see us adopt. Why did Iraq invade Kuwait? Why did it not strike the Israeli reactor? The Israelis did destroy the Iraqi reactor, so why did not Iraq strike the Israelis reactor with its rockets, instead of occupying Kuwait, and drag all the Arabs to side with it? Why are doing with those rockets if we cannot benefit from them? What we doing with our intellects? Where are the thinkers? Should only one country start to perceive things on a scientific basis, which is now a common thing in the world, it can gather around it all the Arabs and Muslims, not by attacking its neighbours with the mythical armed forces, but by saying to its neighbour: "I shall surrender to you my country." A country in which science is understood, and where people have democratic consciousness cannot be ruled by a dictator, and, in the same way, a backward nation cannot enjoy the rule of a democratic ruler. So, what can I say? I quote here what Iqbal said:

I tore my pockets with feeling, and yet you are carefree;

I don't blame you – it is that I am not crazy enough

What Iqbal is saying here is that had he been crazy enough, he would have transmitted madness to the other by infecting him. And that is how I myself feel.

There are so many things that we are incapable of thinking of; but unless we think about those things we shall be offering our enemy, as Garoudi has said, what it wants on a gold platter.

There is an interesting popular fable about an orphan who had a certain man in charge of his money. The man used to keep an account listing all the money spent. One day, the orphan looked over that ledger and noted a sum paid for buying hoofs for camels. So he inquired: Do they make camels wear hoofs like horses? The guardian who managed the money of the orphan said: Well, son, if you can realize that camels do not need hoofs, then please take back your money, for you are now mature.

But the Muslim World is not mature yet. It still accepts to buy hoofs for camels, and it still has its horses, mules, donkeys and camels to fight in the cause of God.

We do not understand the world in which we live. The European Union is a new event in the world. Europe is not being unified by military invasion – this kind of unification is outmoded. The Arab West is asking to join the European Union. So when shall we understand the European Union? It is not being effected through myths, but through science and knowledge. And yet, we cannot understand that, and do not try to spread science and knowledge, but spend the money that we need for science and knowledge on buying weapons! What irony! Who can unravel the disease of the Muslim World? During the First World War, they used to call the Ottoman state 'the sick man', and the War was waged to distribute the legacy of that sick man. But shall we ever understand the charmed world in which we live? Breaking the incantation does not call for war; it only requires knowledge. But I do not feel I possess the ability to convey the knowledge of the new world, and how to adapt to it. So let me stop discussing the problem of violence, war, force and preparing for war.

During the mid-fifties, I was in an Arab country, and I had a friend, a shari'ah judge, who judged among people concerning injuries, money, marriage and divorce. He and I had shallow pseudo-scholarly debates. One day, we were by ourselves, he and I, and he surprised me with a question – he said: "Don't you see, sir, how those disbelievers say that the earth go round? Don't they see that it is the sun that goes round us? I was taken aback, but I restrained myself and said: They are disbelievers, so naturally then can't understand. I felt I was unable to convey to him, then and there, a consciousness of the relevant facts. I had a predicament like that of the minister, whose experience was related by Ibn Khaldoun. That minister was imprisoned with his son, and the son had not seen a horse in his life. So one day, the horse was mentioned, and the child wanted to know what it looked like, and the minister described the horse as vividly as he could. But, at the end of his description, the child asked in his innocence: But tell me, father, does it look like a rat? Maybe the father would have to say, Yes, son, it is like a rat!

Israel is a myth, a scarecrow in which Muslims and Arabs are scared, for they live in the age of myths and miracles. An idol does not have any power of its own – it is we who infuse it with power, when we believe in its power. A mythological conviction is an authority that cannot be pulled apart or undone – otherwise, what scientific explanation, what non-mythical interpretation can we find for forgetting about Israel in the Second Gulf War, and thinking that the problems among Arabs are much more serious than the Israeli ghost. But really, the problems among us are a ghost and a myth: We believed in force, and that blocked all other ways; because we could not see, and will not see in the near future, anything but force to unite Arabs and Muslims. It is from this angle that the invasion of Kuwait appeared logical – logical from the vantage point of the mythical consciousness of the Muslim World.

When Arkoun talks about the myth, he is saying the same thing that Iqbal said – that although Islam appeared in the pre-scientific age, it heralded the scientific age. And even until today, we have not entered the age of science and understanding; we are in the world of magic, of things, and ghosts; but are not yet prepared to enter the world of thoughts and the world of facts.

Who will diagnose our disease? Who can discover the virus that causes this condition of ours? Such questions keep pressing on me. But your question about violence has been the longest, and it is right that my answer should be the longest. Some used to ask me: How do you believe in non-violence? Don't you see how democracy was snatched from the Algerians who succeeded in the elections, but were deprived of enjoying the result of their success; so what alternative can they resort to but violence? And I used to reply that they forgot the Iranian Revolution – the Iranians won without ballot-boxes; they won by facing the soldiers with flowers and roses. But can we ever analyze the two events, the Algerian and the Iranian? We can only say that the events do not come under science, and cannot be explained; what happened was a miracle, outside the laws and science and knowledge. But what is violence achieving for Algeria at this moment? What did people do to face the soldiers in Iran? They did not face him with flowers as a gesture of admiration, but as a form of challenge: they challenged violence with non-violence, the same form adopted by Adam's son. But the Iranians did not show pride in their achievement. Jesus says in the Bible: "Who of you would light a lamp, and then place it under a measure; it must be placed in a high place, so that all people can see it."

The Iranians should have placed their non-violent way in the light, so that all people may be able to see it, but they placed it under a measure, so that we need to grope for it in the darkness, a darkness that is surrounding it on all sides. I feel great pain and regret that such a creative and innovative action, such futuristic and scientific feat be ignored in this way. It should have been displayed in every possible way, to be illustrated with audio-visual media, and brought to the notice of everybody in the world. Like all other endeavours in the Muslim World, this revolution has not received the attention it deserves. Malik bin Nabi once wrote: "That sickly fondness in the Muslim World of force, to which it clings with all its might, has blocked its way to perceiving the value of knowledge and the value of ideas. Ideas indeed are the real treasure of the ummah (the Muslim nation)." He set up Germany as an example: it lost the war, and so it lost all its material world, but its intellectual world was intact, and in this way it was able to rebuild its material world without loss of time. While, Malik adds, in the Muslim World, the intellectual world is in a state of barrenness. That is why it lives in the material world, and has not yet entered the intellectual world.

Well, when Abdul-Jabbar asks me: "Does Jawdat Sa'eed call to an inactivation of jihad, an enjoined command of God, even if all its conditions are met?" I reverse the question and ask: Would Mr. Rifa'ee resort to fighting should all problems be solvable without fighting? What is the meaning of rushd? What is the meaning of democracy? It means that all the parties agree that the political issue will not be resolved with violence. Democracy will not enter a country in which people believe in the validity or necessity of realizing rule through violence. Do we need to remind the reader of what we said above, that belief which is realized with compulsion is not belief, and disbelief that is realized through compulsion is not disbelief?

The world now is the world of the big shots; those big parties cannot solve their problems with violence. This fact is a huge one, but the Muslim World does not appreciate it. In the same way, the members of the world of the small cannot solve their problems with violence. It should be manifest to us that the First and Second Gulf Wars have not solved any problem; they have only brought loss to all fighting parties; only the world of the big has reaped profits from our wars, selling their ware at exorbitant princes. The lesson we need to learn from the two Gulf wars is not to repeat those wars we call jihad in the way of God, which we assume to have fulfilled all the conditions of legitimate jihad.

Can we say further that to conquer America, we need not to attack it with fighting, but to invade it intellectually. I was once asked: "What do you say of America?" I said: "America is calling, Come, take me, convince me and I am yours." But how to convince America? Shall we say to the Americans: "Come, worship our leaders as we worship them?" In fact Islam is still finding its way to all human societies by its inherent persuasiveness, in spite of all our disagreeableness; it is we that repel people from the way of God.

God bless Malik bin Nabi – he used to say: "Water will run downhill, and when it is in the valley, it cannot irrigate the higher levels. When we do not have viable thoughts, and when we do not have solutions for the other world, how can we expect to convert it to our way of thinking? The others solve their problems not with mythical thinking, but with science. If you wish to invade the others at present, what you need is not missiles, but the human being who has more viable ideas, and who does not worship idols.

Let the bones of the Khawarej in their graves take notice that the whole Muslim World has converted to their school of thought, that the conditions for jihad are the same for us as they are for the Khawarej: that you believe you are in the right, and you charge the other with disbelief, even if he happens to be Ali bin Abi Taleb (the Prophet's cousin and the fourth caliph), and then you assassinate him.

So what more can I say? It seems that we are still in need of more wars and blood and pain in order to believe that it is history which teaches people, for, as the saying goes, he is wretched who learns only when the disaster hits him, and he is happy who learns when he sees the disaster hitting another. It seems that people will not learn from what befalls other people; that is why the Qur'an mentions the perishing of many peoples and does not mention that any of the peoples, except for the people of Jonas, learned and therefore were spared perdition. But even so, the sheer multiplicity of disasters will lead people to learn. I hope that two Gulf wars are enough, that we do not need a third one. I hope that the other disasters are enough. Indeed, unless history is recognized as a source of knowledge, we will not escape its punishments, as the Qur'an says: " Such is the chastisement of your Lord when He chastises communities in the midst of their wrong: grievous, indeed, and severe is His chastisement (11, 102)," and " They will not believe in it until they see the grievous penalty (26, 201)." So we will learn.

I do admit that I, and we, do not yet have the words which are equal to the issues we are handling; therefore, I do not blame those who do not understand me. I blame myself first and foremost. We have not yet learnt the telling expression. But things are not so far off; I have a feeling that many Muslim minds begin to mature as a result of all those excruciating pains inflicted on us.