Islam, Multiculturalism, and Political Correctness

By Robin G. Jordan

Since the emergence of the brutal self-declared “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria the media has rushed to defend Islam and its practitioners from critics. Yahoo News has published a spate of articles that are not only very sympathetic to North American Muslims but which also come extremely close to recommending their faith to outsiders. They include at least one article equating sharia law with Anglo-Saxon common law and promoting the widespread imposition of sharia law as a solution for political and social instability. The media is peculiarly willing to repeat and amplify the assertion of Islamic organizations that any criticism of Islam and its practitioners is a form of “Islamophobia.” The media has for all intents and purposes become apologists for Islam.

On the other hand, similar treatment is not extended to Christianity and its adherents. Indeed the media include some of the harshest critics of Christians and their faith.

This phenomena, however, is not confined to the media. A Texas high school teacher is facing disciplinary action because he gave his students a handout in which Islam is described as an “ideology of war” and its practitioners as engaging in kidnapping and beheading. He is accused of disseminating false information and promoting hatred of Muslims as well as departing from his particular school district’s official curriculum. See “Houston-area teacher faces punishment over anti-Islam handout” and “Teacher Under Fire for Anti-Muslim Lesson.”

Anyone who has critically read the Quran is cognizant that it contains elements that are open to interpretation as teaching an ideology of relentless war against infidels—Christians, Jews, and the adherents of other religions. The presence of these elements has led scholars to characterize Islam as an imperialistic religion.

Islam’s practitioners have also engaged in kidnapping and beheading throughout its history. The infamous Barbary pirates kidnapped both Muslims and non-Muslims and held them for ransom or sold them as slaves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Barbary pirates were Muslims and saw this practice as consistent with their religion. Muslim Arabs were notorious slavers during the nineteenth century, raiding Black African villages and enslaving their inhabitants. Here again they saw no inconsistency between human trafficking and their religion. In modern-time radical Islamist groups in Africa and the Mideast have also engaged in kidnapping Muslims and non-Muslims and holding them for ransom or selling them as slaves.

The self-declared Islamic State has beheaded a substantial number of people. So has the Shiite militias fighting against that group of Islamist militants. In Saudi Arabia beheading is the prescribed form of capital punishment for a variety of crimes. The Quran contains passages that may be interpreted as sanctioning the practice.

One is prompted to wonder what kind of curriculum that the Texas school district in question has approved if it does not cover these undeniable truths about Islam and its practitioners. Is the school district sanitizing the history, beliefs, and practices of Islam to make its curriculum more politically correct, not offensive or upsetting to Muslims out of the belief that they are at a disadvantage? This would appear to be the case.

We should be more than a little concerned when a school district elevates political correctness and multiculturalism over academic freedom. A school district that offers its students a highly sanitized interpretation of Islam is also not preparing them for the real world.

While the handout may have contained inaccuracies, the handout also appears to have contained information from articles and polls from reliable sources. If any criticism may be leveled at the teacher, it is that he did not put more effort into checking facts and documenting sources. I would add in the teacher’s defense that this is not an easy task when the Internet is the primary source of information due to the volume of information on the Internet and the spottiness of source documentation.

While Muslims in the community may object to the handout because it presents Islam and themselves in a negative light, I must point out that they have the history of their own religion and the teachings of its sects to blame for this state of affairs, as well as the actions of their present-day co-religionists, particularly those who subscribe to extreme forms of Islam.

The concept of religious freedom is alien to Islam and its practitioners. The Quran contains passages that are open to interpretation as requiring Muslims as their religious duty to bring non-Muslims into submission to Allah by every means possible, including the sword. For most of its history Islam has been spread through conquest. Submission to Allah has meant forced conversion to Islam and the imposition of sharia.

Dhimmitude, not tolerance, has been the attitude of Muslims toward Christians and Jews. They have been assigned an inferior status in Islamic society and have been restricted in the practice of their religion. It is the status of a conquered people who are subject to humiliation and spoliation at the hands of their conquerors.

The notion of separation of Church and State is a Western concept and is a relatively recent development. Culture and religion are closely intertwined in Muslim countries. In sharia religious belief and practice and civil, criminal, and military law are combined into one system. Where sharia does not mandate such harsh punishments as amputation, beheading, crucifixion, immurement, stoning, and whipping, it tolerates them. Sharia sanctions or permits such practices as child marriages, honor killings, and slavery and relegates women to an inferior position in Muslim society.

The idea of once a Muslim, always a Muslim is deeply ingrained in Islam. A child of a Muslim parent is viewed as a Muslim even though the child may never have embraced the parent’s faith. Islam has historically prescribed the death penalty for apostasy. Even in the West abandonment of one’s faith or conversion to another faith elicit strong disapproval and ostracism from family, relatives, and other members of the Muslim community. It has in a number of cases resulted in the murder of the Muslim turned apostate.

The catering to Muslim sensitivities in this particular case feeds into the Muslim sense of superiority and entitlement. Islam is no champion of religious pluralism. Muslims view all other religions as corrupt or idolatrous. From their point of view the proper attitude toward their religion and themselves should be one of marked respect and deference.  When this respect and deference has not been forthcoming, the result has in some parts of the world been false accusations of blasphemy and even bloodshed.

In a pluralistic society Muslims and their religion should be open to scrutiny as any other faith and its adherents. Teachers should be free to offer their students a honest appraisal of Islam and its practitioners without being accused of fomenting hatred against Muslims. 

Photo credit: John A. Gillis, The (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) Daily News Journal