Jihad versus Hirabah

Enrevanche sent me an email about a Chapomatic article and his own response on the distinction between Jihad (or "holy war", a name for war in the name of religion), and hirabah, which to quote

The term hirabah refers to public terrorism in a war against society and civilization. In legal terminology it is defined as "spreading mischief in the land," but its precise meaning, as defined by Professor Khalid Abou el Fadl, is "killing by stealth and targeting a defenseless victim in a way intended to cause terror in society."

Well, I see the distinction, and the fact that so-called "moderate" islamics are starting to see and acknowledge the distinction is something of a good sign. But it is something to note that Chapomatic's source is something of a fixture in the foreign policy community himself, and while railing against the foreign policy apparachtniks accommodationism, may thus himself be looking for a more accommodationist way than is truly appropriate.



I do not, and can not agree that it is ever appropriate to kill or commit violence in the name of religion. Period. End of Sentence. The whole concept is something that needs to become socially unacceptable worldwide. This may seem like a meme of intolerance on my part, and to a certain extent, it may even be correct. Nonetheless it is no more morally equivalent to the idea of killing or violence in the name of religion than those who resisted Attila the Hun were morally equivalent to him in that they believed in the use of violence to defend themselves against rape, pillage, and vandalism. Had Attila not assaulted the world, there would have been no need and no real desire to use violence against him and his people.



*With this said, I find the concept of differentiating the two, as opposed to not, to be about as acceptable as the Mensheviks - marginally less bad than the Bolsheviks, but still a rotten, poisonous idea at the core. If the choice is that I must accept those who believe hirabah is distinct from jihad, or simply accept jihad as a permanent world idea, I'll take the former. But neither has any component that is desirable, and jihad itself is an abominable idea.*



The idea that it is acceptable to kill, to commit violence, or even to use force in the name of religion is part of what we are fighting here. And I mean nobody should be allowed any kind of illusion that it is acceptable in any way, shape or form. Not Atheists, not Christians, not Hindus, not Buddhists, not Jews, not anybody. (Actually, the Buddhists and especially the Jews have an excellent record of not doing so, at least within a longer time frame than other major religions**.) You can drag your minor children to worship if you so desire, but that's the utter limit of what I'm willing to accept. Faith, by definition, is not subject to proof, scientific evidence, or any such. Faith must come from within, or it ceases to be faith and becomes a straightjacket. If your adult children wish to leave the faith, they must be free to do so and still be members of your society. Anything less takes us back at least to the Thirty Years War, if not all the way to the Dark Ages in europe, where priests and kings all over europe fought over who was to rule and who merely to reign. Every other world religion has come to terms with this philosophically. Islam, which otherwise has many admirable qualities to it, has not. It is this failure which we are fighting right now. When it is remedied, if it is ever remedied, the rest of the (current) terrorist problem will solve itself quickly.



(While I'm talking to their points, I also want to mention in passing the term "splodeydope" which both Chapomatic and Enrevanche use. I generally approve of it. I haven't done any research but seem to recall something about the suicide bomber's genesis in that the original suicide bombers were actually camels, and it was only later that they were replaced by humans for a variety of reasons. But splodeydope conveys contempt, derision, and all of the other suitable connotations, as well as a denotation sufficient unto the task of accurately describing the function. In conversation, I've never been asked to define it by anyone who had previously not encountered it, and I've caused several people to laugh significantly by its use, thus causing me to believe that they had not previously encountered it. I've confirmed it in a couple of cases. So it passes an intuition test as well. And I believe I first remember hearing it in the 1980s or early 1990s, so where LGF may have been instrumental in its spread, it's much older than that)



UPDATE: A Commenter was confused as to what I was saying, and I see why, and so I edited. Original wording of starred paragraph:



With this said, I find the concept of Hirabah to be about as acceptable as the Mensheviks - marginally less bad than the Bolsheviks, but still a rotten, poisonous idea at the core. If the choice is that I must accept those who believe hirabah is distinct from jihad, or simply accept jihad as a permanent world idea, I'll take the former. But neither has any component that is desirable.



**Also added the words "at least within a longer time frame than other major religions" to the succeeding paragraph