Glenn K. Beaton delivers himself of some thoughts on terror and Islam in his article “In An Age of Terror, What Is The Responsibility of Islam,” to be found here.
I remember September 11, 2001. Terrorists hijacked civilian airlines and flew them into the two World Trade towers and the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field after the hijacked passengers heroically overcame their captors.
Late in the day, our phone rang. It was a friend informing us that four of the passengers on the plane flown into the Pentagon were a couple with whom we were friends and their two young daughters.
At that point, I sat on the stairs, buried my head in my hands, and wept — for my friends and for the other 2,992 dead.
So much has happened since. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Boston Marathon massacre. Videos showing men beheaded and women burned alive in cages. Terror in Paris, again and again. It’s horrific savagery committed in the name of Islam.
So are all Muslims terrorists? No.
There are approximately 1.8 billion Muslims in the world — about a quarter of the world population. Even if a million are terrorists (and I’m certain the real number is far fewer), that’s less than one-tenth of 1%.
No one knows how many Muslims there are in the world. Figures offered range from 1 billion to 1.8 billion. Census taking in many Muslim countries is still primitive; in some parts of the Muslim world it is nonexistent. Who knows how many people are being counted as Muslims who have apostatized, but prudently kept it to themselves? Twenty-five percent of Muslims in America are reported to no longer be Believers; are they still being counted, or do they count themselves, for safety’s sake, as Muslims? In reporting the highest current figure for the world’s Muslim population — 1.8 billion — as fact, Beaton is following the example of the triumphalists, who next year will self-confidently tell us there are 2 billion Muslims, or 2.2, or 2.4 billion. They pull these figures from the air. Also not known is how many of the world’s Muslims, if not actual terrorists, are supporters of terrorism, who simply haven’t yet had the chance to take part. How many such people exist? Do you think Beaton is correct when he claims that “less than one-tenth of 1% of the world’s Muslims are terrorists”? Perhaps we need to know another, more significant figure: how many of the world’s Muslims support the use of terror as a weapon? One in four British Muslims support the terror attacks of 7//7/2005 in London. In a Pew Research study on attitudes toward bin Laden, at least 1 in 4 respondents in six Muslim-majority countries had some confidence in him: 24% in Jordan, in Pakistan 38%, in Nigeria 61%.
As to suicide bombings and other violence against civilians, about 28% of Muslims surveyed in 2013 said these attacks are sometimes justified. 46% of Muslims in Bangladesh believe attacks are somewhat or often justified, with 28% in Malaysia, 15% in Iraq, 44% in Jordan, 57% in Egypt, 57% in Afghanistan, and 55% in the Palestinian territories justifying suicide bombings.
Polls taken by Saudi-owned Al Arabiya and Gallup suggested moderate support for the September 11 terrorist attacks within the Arab world, with 36% of Arabs polled by Al Arabiya saying the 9/11 attacks were morally justified. Those are the figures that we should be looking at, rather than the “one-tenth of 1% of Muslims” whom Beaton claims may, at the outside, take part in terrorism.
So is it fair to blame 9/11 on all Muslims? No.
The vast majority of Muslims had nothing whatever to do with 9/11, and were as appalled by it as I was. In fact, a large percentage of today’s Muslims had not even been born on 9/11. Blaming today’s Muslims for 9/11 is like blaming today’s Germans for the Holocaust.
Yes, we understand that the “vast majority” of Muslims did not take part in 9/11 attacks. Not only is it “not fair” to “blame 9/11 on all Muslims,” but no one has done so. Beaton is making up a wild charge, in order to demolish it. However, a disturbing number of Muslims approved of 9/11. As noted just above, 36% of Arabs declared to Arab opinion-poll researchers that 9/11 was morally justified. We don’t blame “today’s Germans” for the Holocaust, but we have a perfect right to be outraged at those among them who minimize or deny or even justify the Holocaust. We are not blaming “today’s Muslims for 9/11,” but we can “blame” those who, whenever they were born, believe that attack to have been morally justified.
One wonders how, incidentally, Mr. Beaton knows that the “vast majority of Muslims…were as appalled” as he was. Even among those Muslims who when polled said they did not think the 9/11 attacks were “morally justified,” there were many who said they “understood” the motivations of the attackers; they were clearly not appalled.
I posted my sentiments about this on Facebook a few weeks ago, and received over 800 comments. Many people disagreed with me. A few expressed raw bigotry, and I was forced to unfriend them. But many others were worth considering.
One would like to have been provided examples of the “raw bigotry” to which Beaton refers. Does he think those who call into question — who criticize — Qur’anic verses and stories in the hadith are guilty of “raw bigotry”? What of those who claim that the command to wage jihad is central to Islam, and they adduce 1,400 years of Jihad as evidence — is that “raw bigotry”?
One point they made is that a disproportionate number of modern terror attacks are by Muslims acting in the name of Islam. That’s true. But it doesn’t take a logician to recognize that this point alone doesn’t go far toward indicting Islam. It’s like saying that because nearly all acts of terror are committed by men, nearly all men are terrorists.
Glenn Beaton’s logic fails here. Islamocritics do maintain, and offer a great deal of evidence, that most terror attacks today are by Muslims acting in the the name of Islam. Beaton does not disagree (“That’s true”). But then he claims this does not “go far toward indicting Islam.” Really? If we look into Islamic texts, we find 109 Qur’anic verses that command Believers to engage in violent warfare against Unbelievers. Do these commands, and among them those that particularly stress the need to “strike terror” in the hearts of Infidels, not constitute a valid indictment of Islam? Has Beaton never read them, or has he read but dismissed them, because they do not fit what he wants to believe about Islam?
Beaton then engages in a mendacious sleight of word: just “because nearly all acts of terror are committed by men,” he says, it would be wrong to claim that “nearly all men are terrorists.” Of course. But who, aside from Beaton, makes that illogical leap? Only Beaton’s straw man would claim, by the same illogic, that “nearly all acts of terror are committed by Muslims” so “nearly all Muslims are terrorists.” The correct version would be this: “nearly all acts of terror are now being committed by Muslims,” so “let us unflinchingly investigate the Islamic texts to see if they help explain that fact.”