Searching for reasons, remedies for radicalism

Assuming there is a consensus on the definition of radical Islam, which is not the case, the question is why this seemingly extreme manifestation at a time when there is broad agreement that Islam is a religion of moderation, compassion and humanitarianism.

More specifically, what turns some into “radical” Muslims all of a sudden when Islam is the first victim of this?

To answer this and to combat radicalism, there is need, first and foremost, of research into the reasons for it.

There is pressing need for a scholarly study of the subject.

I believe that the Muslims who turn radicals believe that Islam is under threat from the West, that the Western civilisation conspires against Islam, wants it weakened and rendered irrelevant.

What they fear most is the impact of Western education and culture on the minds of Muslims.

They also fear military and political alliances with the West, which, they believe, will bring Muslim nations under the West’s hegemony.

This anxiety could be behind the rise of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which regarded the presence of US soldiers and other Western armies on Arab or Muslim soil as desecration. 

Secondly, the “bab al ijtihad” (window of progressive interpretation) in Islam has been closed for centuries.

As things stand now, any attempt or movement to reinterpret the verses of the Koran away from the traditional interpretation is viewed as an assault on pure Islam and a Western design to weaken the precepts of Islam.

A possible third explanation could be the deep conviction that all the malaise of the Muslim nations was designed, orchestrated and executed by the West.

There is a shared conception that the Palestinian conflict, for example, was the making of the West. The sectarian divisions in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are traced to the Sykes-Picot accord between France and Britain after World War I that carved Middle Eastern countries along artificial boundaries, with utter disregard for the ethnic and religious differences among the peoples of the region.

A fourth factor to be considered is the timing of the rise of the so-called radicalism in Islam.

It so happened that this “radicalisation” coincided with certain dramatic and violent uprisings in the Arab and Muslim worlds, starting with the Palestinian conflict and ending with the catastrophic developments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya.

The bloody civil wars in Syria and Iraq in particular have helped them become incubators of radicalism.

The international community ignored the violent internal conflicts in Syria and Iraq for too long, allowing extremists to gain ground.

I believe these circumstances may be the reason for the rise of radical Islam.

If that is true, the next question is why now?

The spread of education and the reduction of illiteracy in the Arab world, coupled with the dissemination of information through modern, sophisticated technology,  has rendered people everywhere more knowledgeable and aware of their grievances and rights.

Once there is a consensus on the genesis of radicalism in Islam, the search for remedies can begin.