Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi Replies

Having received a posting via Naomi Ragen (see below), I wrote to my friend Sheikh Palazzi of Rome for his comments.

After three weeks, he has replied.

First is an excerpt from the posting about the book and then Sheikh Palazzi's remarks.

(a)
The book that lifts the veil on the Islamic holy war is entitled "The Legacy of Jihad," and is edited by Andrew G.Bostom.

The book is essentially made up of documents, many of which have been translated for the first time from Arabic or Farsi, or have been reproduced from books of oriental
studies that would be difficult for the general public to find.

The documents range from Mohammed in the seventh century, to the twentieth century. And they include the classic texts on the topic of jihad by Muslim theologians and jurists, accounts of war from ancient and modern witnesses, and analyses of jihad by scholars of varying outlooks.

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(b)

Dear Mr. Medad,

Please, excuse my delay in answering your message, depending of the hundreds of emails which where accumulated in my mailbox during my absence from Rome.

I read the book review in its original Italian version. I know Sandro Magister personally and consider him one of the best journalists we have in Italy, and probably the most skilled journalist in everything pertaining to the Vatican.

I must says that books pertaining to Islam published in the West can be distinguished in three basic categories:

1) Sympathetic literature, where the author only voices his admiration for Islam and minimizes or ignores every possible problematic aspect of the history of Islam or of the contemporary Islamic world; examples of this are the books of Karen Armstrong, John Esposito, etc.

2) Antithetic literature, which is often a reaction to sympathetic one. Everything (or almost everything in Islam is bad) and the appearance and existence of Islam has always be a calamity for the world. It includes the books of Bat Ye'or, Oriana Fallaci and some Christian missionaries.

3) Problematic literature. The author studies the subject of Islam with the same objectivity a scientist should study his subject. He tries to put personal feelings apart and to analyze facts, without ignoring the contribute of Islam to the human civilization and without minimizing the problematic aspects which characterize the history of Islam. These aspects are on the contrary rationally investigated, and possible solutions are also offered. The best example of this are the books of Bernard Lewis and Bernard Henry-Levy.

I think that the notion of "peaceful" by itself is misguiding. A human being can be peaceful in nature, but become violent when his dear ones are threatened, or his basic rights violated. As opposite to "peaceful", "non-violent" as a specific meaning. It includes the Gandhi-like attitude of the one who does not react with violence in any case, not even when others resort to violence against him. Now, asking whether Islam is non-violent or not makes sense, and the answer is clear. It is not, since it permit to counter violence with other violence, i.e. to resort to self defense. As for asking whether Islam is "peaceful" or not, I think it is as meaningless as asking whether Christianity is peaceful or not. There were periods in which Christians lived in peace, and periods in which Muslims lived in peace, and there where period in which both of the were involved in long wars.

For the rest, the arguments to which the author resorts are childish: Islam spread through war? Christianity also spread to war, Buddhism spread in India to war, and Hinduism prevailed again because of anti-Buddhist wars. Jews conquered the Holy Land by waging war against the Seven Nations, are regained their independence by waging wars against the Seleucids. Except for those religions and ideologies which abide by theoretical non-violence, claiming that a certain religion is "peaceful" is a non-sense, and claiming that is not is another non-sense. That is the reason why in most of cases both sympathetic and antithetic literature do not go beyond the level of political or ideological propaganda. Bostom for instance mention the regions which were conquered by Islam in war, but refrain from mentioning other regions in which Islam spread without any war (Somalia, Eritrea, and the whole of South -East Asia). In the same way, Christianity spread to some areas through war, and to some others without any war. He claims that military jihad is a permanent religious obligation in the Islamic legal system, but is not able to cite even a single legal Islamic source about this supposed permanent obligation.

Consequently, I am inclined to suppose that sympathetic and antithetic literature balance each other, and none of them reaches the level of scientificity and contributes either to increase knowledge o to offer solutions for the problems of today's world.

Regards,


Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi