Nevertheless, right-wing pundits seem determined to put everything in the context of a Holy War.
What about Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Is she a right-wing pundit too? She received a Saudi-funded Wahabbi education. She says, on the basis of her own experience and the experience of her friends and family, that the Wahabbi strain of Islam, which does teach Holy War and hatred of Christians and Jews, has become a very standard mainstream interpretation of Islam.
You have to remember that you don't have to stretch or do any creative re-interpretations of Islam to teach Holy War. Jihad is a basic command of Islam, and the Koran is chock-full of commands to fight the infidel and to make them submit. It's more the other way - you have to reinterpret the Koran if you don't want to teach Holy War, if you want to teach jihad as only 'inner struggle'.
Some pundits have compared the situation in Islam to a situation where an extreme Christian sect, say Calvanism, had suddenly acquired a billion dollars and spent twenty years funding extreme Calvinist schools all over the world, so that millions of children whose parents were Lutherans, Baptists, etc. would get Calvinist educations. I'd say the belief in "predestination" (a Calvinist belief) would be widespread in such a case, wouldn't you?
The question about belief in Holy War is not what right-wing pundits say about it. The question is what it actually IS at this moment in the Islamic world. There isn't a shred of a doubt that Al Qaeda and those who sympathise with Al Qaeda believe in Holy War. The question is, how many people is that? |
