Is Islam natural, or artificial, to the Muslim people?

(Note: I have fixed up and revised my reply to Ben since first posting it.)

Ben W. writes:

Concerning our emails today in which you pointed out how the Mesopotamian Christian/Jewish culture predated the Islamic one in Iraq, the realization that Islam is not a primal, primitive (as in foundational), original “attribute” of the Middle East (e.g. Iraq), but a derivative, secondary construct imposed on that region has really blown my mind!

All this time I thought we were in conflict with something primitive, native, natural, original, primal, primary. All this time I thought this is what is giving Islamic jihad this terrible force, energy and fury—its human and anthropological primacy in a certain area of the world. As if it were a root force to contend with (such as magnetism in the natural world).

Only to realize today that it is a historically artificial, inhuman construct foisted through violence and treachery on a segment of the world. If only there were a mighty spiritual wind to blow it off our historical pages and liberate those people in a true sense. Like another inhuman construct—Marxism—that eventually imploded under pressure from the West.

Bush should not be honoring this hoax in the White House (Ramadan). Or engaging with the Islamic world as if it were a peer with Western civilization. Like Marxism, it is a lie believed by millions of people, caught in its deception.

LA replies:

Even though the Mideast Christian culture predated the appearance of Islam by many hundreds of years, that does not mean there is nothing primeval about Islam’s relation with the Mideast. Islam began among the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula, and in many ways it is an expression of, and is designed to appeal to, the native, natural, original, primeval qualities of the Arab people. The shame/honor syndrome and murderous tribal rivalries that went on forever were central to the Arab mentality and way of life. Muhammad took these Arab qualities and transmuted them into a single religion with a single god for all the Arab tribes. Instead of being divided into different tribes, with generations-long hatred being directed at some rival tribe which had dishonored one’s own tribe, the Arabs were now joined into one tribe under Allah, and with all non-Muslims now cast as the rival tribe, with the Arabs’ hatred directed at it. Moreover, infinitely ratcheting up the stakes, Muhammad taught that all non-Muslims, not by any hostile act, but simply by failing to believe in Allah and his prophet, were dishonoring and insulting Allah, his Prophet, and the Islamic nation. Take in the significance of this: non-Muslims weren’t just dishonoring some tribe; they were perversely rejecting, insulting, and dishonoring the creator of the universe himself. What punishment could possibly be equal to such a horrible crime? The answer can be found on almost every page of the Koran, with its endless passages filled with sadistic promises of horrible torture for the unbelievers in this life and in the life to come. For a person following the shame-honor syndrome, once he been shamed, the only way to get his honor back is to do terrible things to those who have dishonored him. Now, if the dishonored person is not an ordinary human being but the creator of the universe, how much greater is the fury against the offense and the punishments that must pay for it. This is the root of the homicidally threatening signs held by the Muhammad Cartoon protesters in London last year: IF YOU INSULT ISLAM, WE WILL BEHEAD YOU.

Islam is thus this bizarre paradox: a monotheistic, universal religion being fed by, and feeding, the deepest tribal, warlike, sadistic impulses.

Furthermore, when the Arab Muslims conquered and converted non-Arab peoples, the non-Arabs became culturally Arabized to a large extent and took on many aspects of the Arab’s ethos and mentality. The same thing is happening today with many converts to Islam. Of course it is not true in all cases, but we nevertheless see over and over how when a person becomes a Muslim, or when a nominal or casual Muslim discovers the truth faith, Muhammad’s vengeful warlike mentality and hatred of the unbeliever become a part of his essence. They say there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. But Islam is a perpetual jihad machine that successfully replicates itself century after century.

Far from being non-primeval because it came later than Judaism and Christianity, Islam is in reality a hyped-up, super-empowered, universalized expression of the most primeval human instincts.

Also, to anticipate predictable objections, I am not saying that the above account describes Islam as a totality and all or most Muslims. It describes the jihadist core of Islam, the pulsing heart of Islam, manifesting continually over the centuries, in different places, at different times. Islam may become quiescent for long periods in some countries but its jihadist heart never dies, and it can be re-activated on a moment’s notice. Islam is a spectrum with many frequencies, many degrees of devotion and ardor, many degrees of seriousness or unseriousness about sharia; but all these frequencies are located on the same spectrum. Islam is one.

Ben W. replies:

I had never considered the history of Islam. Probably like most people, I simply assumed Islam to “be there” as a native expression of that region.

Thanks for your explanation that it indeed is primeval. I very much appreciate your depiction of the relationship of originator (Muhammad) to believer (the tribes) and the psychological environment that bound the two together.

I wonder how many people in the West understand the roots of Islam and if they did, would they continue viewing it as a peer to Western civilization (qualitatively speaking)? The popular view is “I’m Christian”, “he’s Islamic” and that’s perfectly natural (nothing unusual) given where either of us comes from. So we “tolerate” this other because he comes from an environment that is the “natural” ground of that religion.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 20, 2007 05:58 PM | Send