The extreme and often violent Muslim groups that crop up in the world's trouble spots give an incorrect impression of Islam to the West. They worry the majority of traditional Muslims just as much. The few and simple essentials of Islam, says our Islam correspondent, are being obscured by views and actions that are not reflected in the Koran.
One way of putting it is to say that the militant Muslims insist on observances that in many cases are non-Islamic. The militantly Muslim male, for instance, is expected to wear a beard, whether it be the luxuriant growth of Ayatollah Khomeini or the chic, slim-line variety favoured by Saudi Arabia's Sheikh Yamani. Yet there is nothing in the Koran about beards. Of course, in almost all major religions a link seems to have been accepted between hairiness and holiness: only Buddhism has preferred the shaven face. In Islam one explanation offered for not shaving is that it is an imitation of Muhammed, who was bearded. But to imitate the personal characteristics of the Prophet, rather than his spiritual qualities, is a first step towards a Muhammedolatry which he would have been the first to condemn.
For militant Muslim males the most Islamic garb is supposed to be the long flowing robe, which is why it is worn by Islam's men of religion, the ulema, and by many over-zealous western converts, along with the skull cap and turban. The Koran says nothing about the male dress. It is simply an imitation of Arab practice, because Muhammed was an Arab.
But the message of Muhammed is that Islam is a universal faith, valid for all humanity. So anything a believer may do to suggest that Islam has merely a regional character is anti-Islamic.
So too with women's clothing. There has been endless controversy over the interpretation, or rather the misinterpretation, of the verse in the Koran (XXIV, 31) which refers to feminine dress and behaviour:
And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms.
This cannot, by any canon of reason or commonsense, be interpreted to require the wearing of the tentlike chador or the hijab, the headscarf. It was from the Persians that the Arabs borrowed these female fashions, as well as the idea of purdah, or the seclusion of women.
Another practice that also denies Islam's universality is the taking of Arab names by Muslims of all races, especially by converts. This custom is favoured by converts to other faiths, too, who are given Christian, Hindu or even Tibetan Buddhist personal names. The custom is, of course, non-Islamic. There are millions of Indonesian, Turkish and subcontinental Muslims with non-Arab names.
It may be said that these are non-essentials. But even some Koranic injunctions have been interpreted by the new enthusiasts in a non-Islamic way. No sooner had Muslim militants taken control last year of the towns of Tyre and Tripoli in Lebanon than it was decreed, "for the greater glory of Islam", that the weekly day of rest was to be changed from the Christian Sunday to the Muslim Friday. In fact the Koran rejects sabbatarianism and merely says that the midday prayer on Friday has a special communal significance and that work should stop for the time necessary to make attendance at prayer possible.
The Lebanese militants interpreted the Koran correctly in banning the public consumption of alcohol (its semi-clandestine sale is still allowed because Lebanon is multi-religious state). This is certainly a Koranic injunction.
There is no getting round it: a Muslim must be a teetotaller. Equally Koranic are the prohibitions on usury, gambling, eating pork and the making of images. The last of these vetoes is blatantly violated by those two most Islamic states, Iran and Saudi Arabia, with their stamps, official portraits and posters depicting their rulers.
The self-consciously Muslim governments are also most zealous in enforcing the severe seventh-century Arabian punishments for the Koranic crimes of theft, brigandage, adultery and apostasty, although in the Koran there is constant stress on the virtues of repentance and forgiveness, for God is "the compassionate, the merciful". It is the severing of the hands of thieves that, more than anything else, has made militant Islam appear cruel and anachronistic. As for the most horrif-
(article accompanied by photograph of one-legged man standing beside a crutch and cradling in his left hand boy with gun, captioned:
(text of February 15, 1986 The Economist article)
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