Conflating Islam with terrorism is as misleading as saying all Catholics are paedophiles, an eminent scholar of Arab and Islamic studies said this week.
Speaking at a debate organised by the Catholic Union at Notre Dame University in London, Professor Sajjad Rizvi of the University of Exeter spoke about the fear of Islam and how it has been exacerbated by the mainstream media. Addressing a predominantly Catholic audience Professor Rizvi warned that the “Islamophobia industry” likes to “focus on these extreme cases and then to universalise them as the totality of a particular faith”.
“To use a slightly offensive parallel,” he said, “it’s a bit like saying, well the Catholic Church has a serious problem with child abuse … so that means that all Catholics potentially are child abusers.”
The discussion topic – “Should we be scared of Islam?” – was chosen by the Catholic Union, who invited Professor Rizvi to address it. Speaking on the first day of Ramadan, Rizvi said terrorists such as those of Islamic State (IS) had taken Qu’ranic verses out of context and were masking their criminality with religion.
“The sword verse is not talking about Jews and Christians,” he said, referring to sura 9:5 of the Qu’ran that is sometimes used to justify jihad. Sura 9: 5 says, “When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them.” “It’s talking about the people who are considered to be the polytheists of Mecca in a particular context,” suggested Rizvi, “so it doesn’t even apply.”
Rizvi addressed the problem of the collapse of traditional Muslim institutions of authority and said there was a danger that “everyone who thinks they have read a bit and acquired a bit of understanding of texts then thinks they’re qualified to draw very serious lessons from [the Qu’ran] … reading a Qu’ranic verse then deciding they’re going to be used as a basis for killing someone is a pretty grave thing to do,” he said.
Rizvi added that IS is as much a threat to Shia Muslims, like himself, as it is to Christians. He said that when IS entered Mosul in northern Iraq, they put an Arabic ‘N’ on the doors of Christian homes to mark them out and an ‘R’ on the doors of Shia Muslims.
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