Rippin on 9/11

Courtesy of a commenter. An excerpt:

The question is still, How does Islam become involved in this? Why does Islam have anything to do with this? Or fundamentally, Why is it Islam which groups have used as a vehicle for urging reform or revolution? Mohammed Arkoun, a prominent Muslim writer and intellectual, has argued that the word and abstract concept Islam itself has been appropriated by those who are fighting political battles in a context in which no other ideology is present that will allow for the mobilization of the masses. And certainly the concept of Islam itself is flexible enough to accommodate such use, as is most every other religion also able to absorb such modes of thought. The notions of martyrdom, of the utopian future, of the stark line between good and evil are all such as to support a vision of the world which is focussed upon transformation of society through political action. But what Arkoun notes is that it is the loss of the legitimacy and viability of nationalism, socialism, communism, democracy and so forth as supports for political action that has created a situation in which Islam has had to be used in this way. It is the lack of viable alternatives within the Muslim world itself that has created this rise of what is referred to as "political Islam".

            The question of what does Islam have to do with this is, in the end, meaningless, just as is portraying the conflict as the "crusade" against terrorism or a jihad of Muslims against the West. Abstractions of Islam into the arena of ideological debate are attempts to pose simple answers to complex questions which emerge out of the boundless narratives of human history. As history teaches us, the ingenuity of the human mind to find justifications for its actions on the basis of abstract ideals which it considers authoritative is endless. Muslims are no different than anyone else in that regard. But of course, a movement which has become called political Islam does exist and it involves people who use Islam as an instrument towards certain political ends. Some of those groups are pushed towards more radical means of achieving their ends. This is result of factors within the affected countries in which the balance within the struggle to use the emblem of Islam has tilted towards governments, at least temporarily. That use can be quite limited as in Egypt or all encompassing as in the case of Afghanistan. But in doing so, there is created the space for ever more revolutionary uses of the notion of political Islam, in the absence of any other ideology and in the successful taming of public sentiment by governments in their own use of the Islam as a symbol of identity. In sum, Political Islam is obviously a volatile force, the result of internal community dynamics upon the stage of global politics.