ISLAM AND VIOLENCE
FROM A GIRARDIAN PERSPECTIVE

Inter-Religious Dialogue Commission of
the Association of Episcopal Conferences of Anglophone West Africa
IRDC-AECAWA, Accra, 7-10 October 2002

In the theme of this Conference, "Religion, violence and peace in West Africa," "religion" (or religious people) is the subject, while "violence and peace" are two opposite directions religion can take. At first sight, we would say that all we have to do is to condemn violence and pursue peace. But if we remember the principle that virtue is found in the middle, we may begin to suspect that, while violence is obviously wrong, there can be an extreme in pursuing peace which also is wrong. There is a word for it: "irenicism". It is going overboard to pursue peace at the expense of justice and truth. My paper on irenicism is "Christology and the challenge of inter-religious dialogue."

This paper will examine the historical hostility between Islam and Christianity from the perspective of René Girard.

René Girard: Who is he?

Who is he and what are his ideas? René Girard is first and foremost a literary critic, being a Professor of French Language, Literature and Civilization at Standford University. From his study of the range of world literature, Girard came up with the theory that sacrifice originated within primitive societies in violent rivalry over ownership or power. This competition, with the violence it generates, is contagious or "mimetic". In other words, one party fights for something not necessarily because it needs it, but because it sees the other party going for it. The consequent civil tension finds a resolution and outlet in punishing a scapegoat, someone defective and marginal to society. The murdered scapegoat is then mythologized into a god-like beneficiary of that society.

René's literary research let him discover the answer to this chain of destruction in the Bible's perspective on violence, and this brought him back to the Catholic Church of his infancy. He states: "If and when the Judeo-Christian deconstruction of mythology [condoning scapegoatism] becomes common knowledge, the whole post-Enlightenment culture of naïve contempt for our Judeo-Christian heritage will crash to the ground... The mimetic theory turns the supposedly 'scientific' basis for religious skepticism into its very opposite. It does not demonstrate the religious truth of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which cannot be done, as we all know, but it does the next best thing: it demonstrates its anthropological truth." (1)

The literary ideas of René Girard, dropped into the world of Biblical studies, theology, sociology and contemporary programs of conflict resolution, have caused such a stir, that a whole society has been formed to study his ideas: The Colloquium on Violence and Religion (COV&R), which has a newsletter, a web site (http://theol.uibk.ac.at/cover/) and an annual conference. Hundreds of scholars in the U.S., Europe and South America have produced a vast amount of literature developing Girardian themes. (2)

All their work is an attempt to harness, exploit, correct, develop or come to terms with the ideas proposed by Girard and his disciples. In spite of their innovative contributions to this new area of religious studies and theology, their work, by their own admission, is highly exploratory and tentative. Their modesty is expressed by Girard himself: "I am still groping toward a more satisfactory understanding. I hope that the younger researchers... will reach some day the goal that keeps eluding me." (3) Apart from Girardian scholars' groping for philosophical moorings, most of them are located in the U.S. and Europe, and they have written little on Africa or Islam.

The meaning of sacrifice

At this point, we have to be more precise about the definition of sacrifice. For Thomas Aquinas, sacrifice is the presentation of a sensible thing to God as a sign of subjection to him as one's Creator and ultimate beatitude. The precise form it takes differs according to the religion one belongs to. (4) It is not necessarily bloody or violent. He quotes St. Augustine: "A true sacrifice is any work done so that we can be joined to God in holy association." (5)

Most passages of the Bible, however, speak of bloody animal sacrifice, and that is what we meet in many of the world's religions. This kind of sacrifice, in Girardian understanding, is a refinement of the formerly prevalent human sacrifice. Sacrifice in the wider sense, as Thomas defines it, can also be a sublimation of violent instincts, their conversion to some virtuous action pleasing to God, involving some cost to oneself.

The Bible and sacrifice

The Bible (and the literature it inspired) is unique in world literature in that it gives voice and hearing to the oppressed. Of course, the Bible resembles the generality of human culture by its considerable glorification of triumph over one's enemies, especially in the Old Testament, but it differs by ascribing this to the justice of God and repudiating personal or ethnic and religious chauvinism. For all its graphic calls for vindication, the Book of Psalms is a singular outpouring of the anguish of the innocent victim and his reliance on God to deliver him. Isaiah's servant songs have the same poignancy, while stressing the non-resistance of the victim. By also transforming the victim into a saviour, they resemble the pattern that Girard finds prevailing in other literature, with the difference that the latter silences the victim and camouflages his murder. This primordial human victim had been replaced by the scapegoat of Leviticus 16. But in Isaiah, as in the first chapters of the Book of Wisdom, the innocent human victim returns, this time in proximate prefiguration of the murder of Jesus, the sacrifice that would end all sacrifices.

While sacrifice is both enjoined and laudably practised in the Old Testament, and the sacrifice of Christ is extolled in Hebrews 10 and Ephesians 5:2, in many passages sacrifice comes under attack. First and foremost is sacrifice offered to alien gods. Secondly, there are the legitimate Temple sacrifices which are rejected because the people who offer them are not sincere and their behaviour is in conflict with God's expectations. (6) The "sacrifice of praise/thanksgiving" of Amos 4:5, Jonah 2:9 and Psalm 50:14,23 is stressed in the New Testament (Rom 12:1; Heb 13:15), along with mercy (Mt 9:13 = 12:7) and obedience (Heb 5:8). The Bible condemns mimesis (imitation) of the dog-eat-dog covetousness of the world, and replaces it with imitation of Christ and of God. "Dying with Christ" involves not only incorporation into the life of grace and the practice of virtue, but a daily martyrdom which culminates in transition from this world, often by enduring violence for the sake of Christ.

The sacrifice of Christ has been the subject of much misunderstanding in the history of theology. Briefly, we must point out that the Father was not demanding Jesus' blood as a satisfaction, offering or redemption payment to appease his anger or satisfy his justice. He was no more hungry for the blood of Jesus than he was for that of goats (Ps 50), and only had a permissive will for the mob action that called for his death. What the Father asked of Jesus was to submit without resistance to those who wanted to slaughter him. That submission to death on the cross, in obedience to the Father, was his sacrifice.

What we can conclude is that sacrifice in the sense of enduring violence can be pleasing to God, but inflicting violence on others cannot be an acceptable sacrifice.

Now we can ask whether there is sacrifice in Islam, what shapes or forms it takes, and how it functions in regulating violence.

How does Islam looks on the sacrifice of previous eras?

To understand how violence is viewed and addressed in Islam, we must first see how it views sacrifice. In Islam there is an awareness that there were sacrifices in previous dispensations. I say "dispensations", because the Qur'ân (3:67) denies that Judaism existed before Moses. Qur'ân 5:27-31 relates the story of the Cain and Abel (unnamed):

Tell them the story of the sons of Adam, when they made an offering. The offering of one was accepted, and that of the other not. The latter said, "I will kill you." The first replied, "God only receives from those who revere him. If you stretch out your hand to kill me, I will not stretch out my hand to kill you. I fear God, the Lord of the worlds. I want you to determine whether I am guilty of crime or you [conjectural; passage unclear], that you may join those who are in the Fire. That is the recompense of the evildoers. So he made up his mind to kill his brother, and did so, thereby joining the losers. Then God sent a crow which scratched the earth to show him how to bury the remains of his brother. He said, "Woe to me! I am unable to do as this bird does, and bury my brother's remains." And he was overtaken by regret.

Here we see reference to an undetermined "offering" and its being received. Then we see mimetic rivalry in full play, with the innocent victim offering no resistance. At-Tantâwî quotes al-Ālûsî for the opinion that Abel would not kill Cain "because such resistance was not legitimate at that time under that law, or because he preferred what was more noble and meritorious, that is, to be killed rather than be a killer." (7) Yet the wish to see his brother in Hell resembles Psalm 109 rather than "Forgive them for they do no know what they are doing." Here is a passage, nevertheless, which can challenge Muslims today.

The story of Abraham and his unnamed son, which most Muslim commentators identify with Ishmael, is next in historical sequence:

When the boy matured enough to go with his Father, Abraham told him, "Son, I see myself in a dream sacrificing you. What do you make of that?" He said, "Father, do what you are commanded to do. You will find me, God willing, one who can endure that. After committing themselves to us, Abraham placed him face down. Then we called him, "O Abraham! You believed in the vision. So we on our part reward those who do good. Certainly this was a glaring test." And we spared him a horrible slaughter, and bequeathed him [descendants?] to the last of men. Peace on Abraham! So we reward those who do good. He is one of our believing servants. (Q 37:103-111)

Here, as in the Biblical version, both the father and the son are called upon to be victims in different ways. They both surrender to the divine test and are spared. It is a rule in the Qur'ân that prophets are not killed, but their career always culminates in their vindication against an unbelieving people. That brings us to the crucifixion of Jesus:

They said, "We killed the Messiah, Jesus Son of Mary, the Messenger of God." But they did not kill him and did not crucify him, but it only appeared so to them. Those who at variance about him are certainly in doubt about the case; they have no knowledge of it and are only following opinions. They certainly did not kill him, but God raised him up to himself. God is powerful and wise. (Q 4:157-158)

Commentaries give all sorts of speculations as to how "it appeared so to them". The point is that, in order to refute the boasting of Jews that they killed Jesus, a theological (revelatory) position is adopted that dismisses all historical evidence and mocks Christian dogma. It is also significant, in reference to Christian self-sacrifice, that many traditions assert that one of the disciples volunteered to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus and died in his place.

Does Islam have sacrifice? (8)

Islamic law prescribes the killing of an animal, usually a ram, at the time of the yearly pilgrimage, and recommends the same after the birth of a child. (9) The Qur'ân gives no hint that the animal or its blood is offered to God. In fact blood, in Islam, is not the sacred element it is in Judaism, but is something unclean. Nevertheless Tradition recommends saying, "Lord, receive [this sacrifice] from us." (10)

The `d al-aâ sacrifice is sometimes associated in Tradition literature not in the Qur'ân with Abraham's accepting to sacrifice his son, but this appears to be a mere footnote to the celebration, and hardly any legal commentary mentions it. Furthermore, although Abraham's sacrifice is said to have been offered in substitution for his son (Q. 37:107), there is no suggestion in the `d al-aâ rites that the animal substitutes for the offerer. Only some modern commentators develop the ideas of substitution (Yusuf Ali) or expiation (Doi).

Nevertheless the popular belief, particularly in Africa, is that an animal is sacrificed as an offering to God to thank him for his blessings and expiate sins.

What really makes the event a sacrifice, however, is the fact that a person slaughters an animal in obedience to God and as a sign of his subjection to him. The crucial Qur'ân verse for interpreting the act is: "It is not their meat nor their blood that reaches God. It is your piety that reaches him" (2:37).

Islamic sacrifice in the wider sense

Coming to sacrifice in the wider sense, Islam is replete with the idea. Muslims are urged to give generously of their wealth for the promotion of Islam. This is construed as a "loan" to God. (11) They are also urged to fight and give their lives, if necessary, to defend the Prophet (e.g. 3:145-146), or to defend "weak men, women and children who pray, 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town of wicked people and give us a representative from you, a defender'" (4:75). Many Muslims endorse suicide bombing as martyrdom in the struggle to implement God's justice. All this is sacrifice in the active sense.

Enduring hardship because of fidelity to God is another Islamic injunction. The Qur'ân decries injustice against the weak, particularly orphans (e.g. 4:127). (Widows are not mentioned with orphans because remarriage is presumed.) It is in this context that usury is condemned (e.g 2:275; 3:130; 4:160). Yet defenceless people (mustadafûn) who deny their faith because of pressure from the powerful will be condemned at the last judgment (4:97-98; 34:31-33; 40:47). There is, however, an exceptive verse: "Those who deny God after believing in him - except one who is forced, while his heart is settled in faith - who open their heart to disbelief, will incur the anger of God and receive a terrible punishment" (16:106). Commenting on this verse, Ibn-Kathîr says that the exception was published for the benefit of one `Umâr ibn-Yâsir, who succumbed under torture. He contrasts this with the example of Bilâl, who under extreme torture would not give up his faith, and quotes the hadîth, "Anyone who changes his religion [from Islam], kill him." He cites the example of a Jew who converted to Islam and then was killed for reverting to Judaism.

Islamic violence from a Girardian perspective

What are the provocations to violence which Muslims face? And how does Islam regulate and channel its people's reactions?

        Within Muslim society

There are, first of all, many forms of injustice between Muslims, from killing, to injury, to theft or exploitation, or verbal injury. The Qur'ân does allow a measured retaliation under the supervision of constituted authority: "A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth..." (Q 5:45). Or a monetary compensation may be demanded. (12) But, in place of this, it urges forgiveness: "Let them forego; let them forgive. Don't they want God to forgive them?" (Qur'ân 24:22; cf 5:45; 16;126; 22:60). There are numerous Hadîths about how Muhammad dissuaded people from exacting their right of retaliation. Here comes into play the traditional Arab virtue of kirâma, an equivalent of Aquinas' "magnanimity", the ability to make grandiose gestures that attract respect and honour.

Cases involving non-Muslims in Islamic territory follow similar regulations, with the difference that non-Muslims generally have half the rights of Muslims.

Muslims commit other offences which are considered infractions of God's rights. These no man can forgive, but the law must take its course and the prescribed Sharî`a penalty be administered. Here is let loose the mob urge to punish a scapegoat, always in fact an ordinary citizen without much influence. Thus cases of adultery are prosecuted to the extent of stoning, unless a flaw of judgement can be found. On a lesser scale, it has been almost an annual event in Sokoto that, as the rainy season is slow to begin, the prostitutes are sent out of town or made to sweep the streets, so that God may relent.

A kind of self-policing and self-censure keeps Muslims from publicly calling into question any aspect of the orthodoxy of the traditional mainstream. Those who step out of line are pressurized to conform, and if they do not they may have to choose exile. The violence among Muslims we witness in Algeria, Pakistan and sometimes in Egypt is that of the ultra-orthodox against the pragmatic, liberal interpretation of Sharî`a by the rulers of these countries, and secondarily against their perceived corruption and injustice. Muslims are brothers to one another (Q 49:10), and may not fight. To justify engaging in armed conflict with another Muslim, one first makes the case that the rulers have apostatized from Islam and thereby have forfeited their right to live. Here is another case where frustration at governmental ineptitude to address poverty and social injustice explodes against a scapegoat, with the supposition that a stricter practice of religion will be the panacea for all social problems.

        Between Muslim and non-Muslim societies

Then there is the situation of the Muslim community versus other non-Muslim peoples. All Muslims will argue for the legitimacy of self-defence, while modern spokesmen repudiate offensive warfare. But classical treatises argue for offensive jihad to conquer the rest of the world for Islam, in other words, the rule of God. Even here, there are many regulations prohibiting excessive and indiscriminate violence. (13)

Between Christianity and Islam there has been a real mimetic rivalry. (14) Their ancestry provides the mythological background. Both take Abraham as their father; yet Islam claims descent from Hagar and Ishmael, while Judaism and Christianity harken back to Sarah and Isaac. The Qur'ân does not have all the Biblical detail on these, especially its preference for Isaac, but it knows that the two wives were rivals and so were their sons, and presumably the nations descended from them. Ibn-Kathîr, commenting on Qur'ân 37:103, blames Jews and Christians for substituting their father Isaac for the Arabs' father Ishmael as the son Abraham was to have sacrificed.

As for substance, each claims to have the correct understanding of God (triune or unitarian) and of Jesus (divine and human or just human). Each presents itself as the perfect way of salvation, the last and fullest revelation and the fulfilment of all other religions. Each wishes to win the whole world to its fold. Each recognizes the validity of the faith of the other's members only to the extent that they have a partial grasp of the full truth that is in one's own religion. And each rejects the other's scriptures, except to the extent that they agree with one's own.

Although Christianity and Islam now are spread everywhere in the world, for a long time they were concentrated in Europe and the Arab world respectively. For centuries there was a strong rivalry between these two empires and civilizations, building up a collective memory of injuries and a negative image of the other which obstructed good relations. Recent Muslim terrorist attacks have revived the fear and siege mentality that Europe had with regard to the Turks up to the battle of Lepanto. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, a clash of civilizations is now envisaged between the free world of the West and the totalitarian world of Islam. (15)

The Muslim view of the West is ambivalent. On the one hand, Muslim countries continue to refer to the West as the land of the Christians (this often tied to the idea that Christianity is alien to the East and to Africa). And presidents of Western countries are looked on as Christian leaders, and sometimes Christian crusaders. This is an image that American politicians, with due accommodation of Jewish sensibilities, subtly cultivate, even while a secular "civil religion" is what they actually practice from Monday to Saturday.

On the other hand, there is considerable Muslim propaganda portraying the West as irreligious and materialist, in need of Muslim evangelization. Meanwhile, the same secular civil religion that dominates the West continues to march over the Muslim world, even though it is disguised in Islamic garb and Muslim leaders pay homage to all the outward symbols of Islam. (16) Muslim apologetics often argues that the present prowess of the West derives from its having borrowed from Arab philosophy and science in the Middle Ages. Therefore, when Muslims today appropriate Western science (and many Trojan-horse philosophical assumptions that go with it), they are simply claiming their birthright.

The Muslim world, which is retarded economically, educationally and politically, yearns — with mimetic rivalry — for the power and prosperity that the West has. Therefore it embraces globalization, even though, because this is under the command of the developed world, its benefits trickle down in an unfair portion. So we see Muslim opposition to the West on several counts:

Terrorist attacks are motivated by these examples of perceived injustice, but the underlying mimetic rivalry is a stronger factor. As we have seen, it is not simply a matter of economic and political inequilibrium, but there is a contest of ideology and faith. Islam claims to be the ultimate formula for success and prosperity in this world and the next. When it does not deliver, that is either because of the sins of Muslims (Deuteronomic theology), or because of the sins of non-Muslims. Muslims must resist their oppression by whatever means possible or, if they do not have the means, endure the situation as a "test" (balâ') from God for as long as he allows it.

For all the popularity of terrorist attacks in the Muslim world, most Muslim governmental leaders realize that these seriously damage the image of Islam and make it more difficult for their countries to develop and find acceptance in the world community.

        Muslim counteraction to violence

After September 11th, many Muslims in the West made declarations condemning the action and asserting that Islam stands for peace. Most of these were unconvincing, because they were mere assertions and did not address and refute the theological reasoning that the terrorists (and a whole aggressive tradition within Islam) used to justify their action.

There are, however, numerous Muslim thinkers who have done more serious and radical rethinking of Islam in relation to the non-Muslim world, for example, Muhammad Talbi, Muhammad Arkoun, Muhammad Sa`id al-Ashmawy, Zainal Abedin, Syed Vahiduddin. (17) These and many others of like mind realise that just as true living Islam is not to be found in state Islam that camouflages a corrupt and despotic secular rule, neither can it be found in the "dâr al-islâm" called for by radicals who conceal their personal tyranny under a man-made fiqh posing as divinely revealed Sharî`a. They call for another kind of fundamentalism which concentrates on the fundamentals of religion and can be applied in a new way in the contemporary world, one that is pluralistic, where people of all religions live together with equal rights.

They also realize that there is a vibrant Christianity that is distinct from the secular (even if Christian painted) Western political and economic systems, and call for cooperation, rather than competition, with it. The Vatican-Muslim coalition at the Cairo women's conference in 1999 was an example of successful cooperation in defending the rights of the unborn. The reception that Pope John-Paul II has been given in his many visits to Muslim centres is evidence that the desire to cooperate rather than compete is strong.

Conclusion

So we can conclude that Islam has a successful mechanism for controlling violence in its appeal to sacrifice the urge for revenge by making a magnanimous act of forgiveness. But it has had only limited success in controlling the violence of those who claim to be fighting for God's rights. Yet there is a significant ground-swell in the Muslim world for a new beginning, for a world that gives full expression to the religious identity and conscience of people in an open pluralistic society, and at the same time practices both commutative and distributive justice in spreading all aspects of human development.

REFERENCES

1. In his concluding essay in William M. Swartley, Violence Renounced: René Girard, Biblical Studies, and Peacemaking (Pandora Press, 2000), 314.

2. Particularly valuable are the works of Raymund Schwager. See his site: http://systheol.uibk.ac.at/schwager/, and his books Must There Be Scapegoats? (Crossroad/Herder & Herder; ISBN: 0824518675, 2000) and Jesus in the Drama of Salvation (Crossroad/Herder & Herder; ISBN: 0824517962; May 1999).

3. Ibid. p. 320.

4. Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 85.

5. In III Sent., dist. 9, q. 1, a. 1.

6. Cf. 1 Sam 15:22; Is 1:11-17; Jer 6:20; 7:21-28; Hos 6:6 (= Mt 9:13 = 12:7); 8:13; 12:11; Amos 5:21-27; Micah 6:6-8; Ps 40:6 (= Heb 10:5); 50; 51; Prov 21:3.

7. At-Tantâwi, at-Tafsîr al-wasît, vol. 5, p. 157.

8. See my "Sacrifice: philosophical, theological and comparative probes," Orita, 20:2 (1988), pp. 127137.

9. Cf. Ibn-abî-Zayd al-Qayrawânî, ar-Risâla, printed with the commentary of Ahmad an-Nafrâwî, al-Fawâkih ad-dawânî, 2 vols. (Cairo: M.B. al-alabî, 1955), ch. 29, and my translation: The Risâla, treatise on Mâlikî law of `Abdallâh ibn-abî-Zayd al-Qayrawânî (922-996), an annotated translation (Minna: Islamic Education Trust, 1992).

10. Ibid.

11. Cf. Qur'ân 2:244-5, 5:12, 57:11,18, 30:39; 57:11,18; 64:17, 17:30.

12. See al-Qayrawânî's Risâla, chapter 37: "Crimes, conviction and punishments".

13. Cf. especially Al-Mâwardî, al-Ahkâm as-sultâniyya (Cairo, 1960) and at-Turtûshî (d. 1126), Sirâj al-mulûk (Cairo: al-Mahmûdiyya Press, 1935).

14. This analysis in Girardian terms, without reference to Girard, can be found in Claude Geffré, "Pour une théologie de la différence - identité, altérité, dialogue," SEDOS, 2001, found at www.sedos.org/french/geffre_1.htm. In part 2, I take issue with this same author for sacrificing truth in his effort to be open to Muslims.

15. Cf. Samuel P. Huntington, The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order (Touchstone Books, 1998).

16. A point repeatedly made by Muhammad Arkoun in his many writings.

17. See the article by Christian Troll, S.J., in this volume, and his Allâhu Akbar as a Central Theme of Religious Conversation with Muslim Believers," Encounter (Rome), February 2001 (No 272), and "Witness Meets Witness: The Church's Mission in the Context of Worldwide Encounter of Christian and Muslim Believers Today," Encounters (Leicester) 43:1 (1998), pp. 15-34.