What is “Islamic”? A Muslim Response to ISIS and The Atlantic

From:  Muslim Matters

COMMENT - That Atlantic article was so shocking and at variance with what I know about Islam I queried an old friend, Dean Ahmad, the founder of the Minaret of Freedom, on the Atlantic article and he responded with links to respected experts on the Koran and the history of Wahhabism, the extreme sect, originating in Saudi Arabia, which gave rise to ISIS.

Dean is also an astrophysicist, careful about facts and accuracy.

The response he sent is by respected academic experts.  I have included their short bios below their names.   The responsive article covers 21 separate points of inaccuracy. 

Daniel Haqiqatjou and Dr. Yasir Qadhi

February 23, 2015

 

Daniel Haqiqatjou was born in Houston, Texas. He attended Harvard University where he majored in Physics and minored in Philosophy. He completed a Masters degree in Philosophy at Tufts University. Haqiqatjou also studies traditional Islamic sciences part-time. He writes and lectures on contemporary issues surrounding Muslims and Modernity.
Dr. Yasir Qadhi has a Bachelors in Hadith and a Masters in Theology from Islamic University of Madinah, and a PhD in Islamic Studies from Yale University. He is an instructor and Dean of Academic Affairs at AlMaghrib, and the Resident Scholar of the Memphis Islamic Center.
 

 Graeme Wood's “What ISIS Really Wants,” published in the March 2015 edition of The Atlantic, has quickly become the most widely read article on the militant group. Indeed, it is becoming the most read article ever published by The Atlantic.

Popular as it is, Wood's essay is deeply flawed and alarmingly tone-deaf – dangerously so. What is so objectionable about Wood's essay is encapsulated in his statement: “The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” While Wood acknowledges that “nearly all” Muslims of the world reject ISIS, ultimately his thesis is that the atrocities committed by the group have a theological basis in Islam. In support of his thesis, Wood cites Princeton academic, Bernard Haykel, who not only agrees that ISIS is “very Islamic,” but even goes so far as to say that those Muslims who denounce ISIS as un-Islamic are either ignorant about Islam or are simply being politically expedient by deliberately whitewashing the legal and historical dimensions of their religion.

By characterizing ISIS as Islamic, Wood and Haykel in effect, if not intent, attribute cruel beheadings, wanton massacre, and all other manner of savagery to Islam. In their minds, such an attribution is neither factually incorrect nor particularly damaging to “nearly all” Muslims who reject ISIS. But are Wood and Haykel too naïve to understand that by making such attributions to Islam, they ipso facto implicate and foment suspicion about all those who subscribe to Islam?  MORE