Jonah Goldberg responds to a reader pontificating on authentic Islam:
It reminds me, I’ve always thought that Western public diplomacy could make a bigger deal about how Islamic radicalism wipes out “dissident,” indigenous, forms of Islam. It would have to be done very carefully, and with the right spokesmen, but I think the more it can be demonstrated that Wahabism or Salafism or Jihadism are foreign as opposed to “authentic” forms of Islam in most parts of the world the easier it would be to communicate that we aren’t at war with all Muslims and the easier it would be to separate potential enemies from allies.
Yeah, but. Here’s the problem. Not only is “Arab Islam” frequently viewed as more normative or historically authentic, because of the Prophet being an Arab, but the BILLIONS of dollars our friends the Saudis have distributed over the years have gone a long way into equating “Arab” with “Waḥḥabî” with “authentic.” It’s a false equation on all sides, I think, but it doesn’t mean they haven’t done a good sales job. The massive underwriting of schools, patronage of mosques, huge funds through foundations, and—let’s not forget—their status as Guardians of the Holy Places (to which all Muslims aspire to make the ḥajj), have gone a long way in convincing a lot of the less-lettered and farthest-flung portions of the Muslim world that theirs is the “purest” Islam. Bad news all around.
Could it be countered? Probably. But it’d have to be an indigenous (-appearing?) Muslim phenomenon out of Istanbul or Samarkand or Cairo or someplace which could not only bring intellectual heft but historical prestige to the ballgame and convince people that the Waḥḥabîs/Salafîs are the bad guys that they’ve historically been perceived to be throughout the Muslim world.
If there is anything more ridiculous than the elected head of the Great Satan asserting what is or is not Islam, it is a Jew doing so. At least Jonah recognizes that his opinion on the matter is irrelevant, although there’s something amusingly ironic about a Jew blaming the spread of a wicked deceit on a wealthy people spending vast sums of money to buy influence.
Since most Jews don’t believe in their own religion, they seem to find it particularly hard to take the faith of others seriously. I’ve found that orthodox Jews are not only less openly contemptuous of “Bible thumpers” than their faithless kin, but they also seem to be far less likely to harbor these bizarre notions of reforming the Muslim religion from the outside.
I don’t think observant or inobservant Jews would like it much if Jerry Falwell and Louis Farrakhan announced that they were launching a program to determine who is an authentic Jew and what authentic Judaism entailed. I know Christians wouldn’t stand for it, not even if it was Billy Graham and the Pope doing it, let alone Abe Foxman. (We certainly don’t think much of atheist pseudo-scholars and their regular pronouncements about the ever-changing historical Jesus.) Does anyone actually believe Muslims are LESS sensitive to this sort of thing?
What’s alarming is that some of the people who publicly endorse this “hearts and minds” strategy of appealing to the “authentic Muslims” in the midst of the Dar al-Islam are in charge of the un-War on not-Islam. Do they similarly believe that WWII could have been averted if only Mr. Chamberlain had explained to the German people that Mr. Hitler was not an “authentic Aryan”?
If the entire religion is false in the first place, as Christians, Jews and inobservant Jews all presumably agree, then the authenticity of the falsehood is totally irrelevant. What does it matter if a large mass of people are enamored of one lie versus two? A debate concerning angels, pins and dancing would be more useful and less dangerous.