Islamophilia and falsification

Not too long ago I discussed the relationship between liberalism and Islam.  More recently I discussed the logic of falsification.  Let’s now combine the themes.  Former federal terrorism prosecutor Andrew McCarthy recently wrote:

Last year, Americans were horrified by the beheadings of three Western journalists by ISIS. American and European politicians could not get to microphones fast enough to insist that these decapitations had nothing to do with Islam.  Yet within the same time frame, the government of Saudi Arabia beheaded eight people for various violations of sharia -- the law that governs Saudi Arabia.

Three weeks before Christmas, a jihadist couple -- an American citizen, the son of Pakistani immigrants, and his Pakistani wife who had been welcomed into our country on a fiancée visa --carried out a jihadist attack in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people.  Our government, as with the case in Fort Hood -- where a jihadist who had infiltrated the Army killed 13 innocents, mostly fellow soldiers -- resisted calling the atrocity a “terrorist attack.”  Why?  Our investigators are good at what they do, and our top officials may be ideological, but they are not stupid.  Why is it that they can’t say two plus two equals four when Islam is involved?

McCarthy’s own answer to his question is that due to a “triumph of willful blindness and political correctness over common sense,” our leaders are “unwilling to deal with the reality of Islam [and] have constructed an Islam of their very own.”  It is, McCarthy thinks, this fantasy Islam that they describe and defend, while ignoring actual, empirical, historical Islam.  Regarding terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” whom McCarthy prosecuted following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, McCarthy writes:

When [Abdel Rahman] said the [Muslim] scriptures command that Muslims strike terror into the hearts of Islam’s enemies… [that] Allah enjoined all Muslims to wage jihad until Islamic law was established throughout the world… [and that] Islam directed Muslims not to take Jews and Christians as their friends, the scriptures backed him up…

[T]he Blind Sheikh’s summons to jihad was rooted in a coherent interpretation of Islamic doctrine.  He was not perverting Islam…

Furthermore, says McCarthy:

Sharia rejects freedom of speech as much as freedom of religion.  It rejects the idea of equal rights between men and women as much as between Muslim and non-Muslim.  It brooks no separation between spiritual life and civil society.  It is a comprehensive framework for human life, dictating matters of government, economy, and combat, along with personal behavior such as contact between the sexes and personal hygiene.  Sharia aims to rule both believers and non-believers, and it affirmatively sanctions jihad in order to do so.

So, McCarthy thinks that in real-world Islam -- as opposed to the imaginary Islam he says politically correct government leaders have constructed -- there is a link between Islamic doctrine on the one hand and, on the other hand, both violence and a rejection of the freedoms taken for granted in modern Western societies.  Is McCarthy right? 

First let’s understand what he isn’t saying.  For one thing, McCarthy writes: 

Habitually, I distinguish between Islam and Muslims.  It is objectively important to do so, but I also have a personal reason: when I began working on national security cases, the Muslims I first encountered were not terrorists.  To the contrary, they were pro-American patriots who helped us infiltrate terror cells, disrupt mass-murder plots, and gather the evidence needed to convict jihadists.  We have an obligation to our national security to understand our enemies; but we also have an obligation to our principles not to convict by association -- not to confound our Islamist enemies with our Muslim allies and fellow citizens.

So, McCarthy is not saying that Muslims in general are terrorists or sympathetic with terrorism.  On the contrary, he acknowledges that many Muslims are firmly opposed to terrorism.  It is not “the people” that are the problem, in McCarthy’s view, but rather “the doctrine.”  But he qualifies this claim too.  He acknowledges that the description of sharia he gives “is not the only construction of Islam,” that “there are multiple ways of construing Islam,” and in particular that “there are ways of interpreting Islam that could make it something other than a call to war.” 

McCarthy’s claim is rather that more violent and illiberal interpretations of Islam, such as the one put forward by Abdel Rahman, are no less plausibly authentic, and indeed have very strong scriptural and legal arguments in their favor -- so much so, in McCarthy’s view, that the more pacific and liberal interpreters “seem to be dancing on the head of a pin.”  Hence, McCarthy concludes, there simply is no basis in fact for the claim that jihadists are “perverting” Islam, or even for the claim that theirs is “not a mainstream interpretation.”  The most one can say is that alternative interpretations are also possible. 

One could, consistently with McCarthy’s basic thesis, go well beyond the qualifications he explicitly makes, and acknowledge that there are many positive aspects to Islam.  For example, we surely ought to admire the genius of Islamic thinkers like Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, and Averroes, and to learn what we can from their works.  There can be no doubt that Islam has produced one of the richest and most durable civilizations of world history.  It is difficult for a devout person of any religion not to be moved by the Muslim call to prayer and the communal piety of the Muslim faithful.  We Catholics can only envy how resistant even non-observant Muslims are to apostasy and heterodoxy (or what counts as heterodoxy by Muslim lights, anyway).  We can and ought to affirm that between Christianity and Islam there is a common ground of Abrahamic and philosophical monotheism (as I have argued here and here). 

But all of that is consistent with McCarthy’s basic claim that there is nevertheless a link between traditional Islamic doctrine on the one hand, and violence and illiberal politics on the other.  Again, is he right?

Many reject such a claim, on the grounds that adherents of other religions, and adherents of no religion at all (as in the case of some atheistic versions of communism), have also sometimes endorsed violence and illiberal politics.  Hence (so the argument goes) there are no grounds for the claim that there is any special connection in the case of Islam.  However, these considerations are hardly sufficient to falsify McCarthy’s position.  For one thing, even if there is a connection between doctrine on the one hand and violence and illiberal politics on the other in the case of other worldviews (as there is with Leninism, for example) it doesn’t follow that there isn’t any special connection in the case of Islam.  Neither McCarthy nor anyone else claims that only Islam, of all worldviews, is especially prone to generate violence, restrictions on freedom, etc.

For another thing, it is superficial merely to note that some Christians (for example) have as a matter of fact resorted to violence, favored restrictions on the freedoms of non-believers, etc.  As I noted in my earlier post on liberalism and Islam, there has from the beginning of Christianity been a clear distinction (even if not always a separation) between the institutions of Church and state, and between the supernatural, heavenly end of human beings and their this-worldly, political ends.  Since the kingdom of God “is not of this world,” there is a clear theoretical basis on which Christian teaching might be implemented without resorting to political or military means.  By contrast, from the beginnings of Islam there has been no distinction between the religious sphere of life on the one hand, and the political and military spheres on the other.  Muhammad was prophet, statesman, and general all rolled into one, and the history of Islam has always reflected this conflation of roles.  Hence there is in Islam an absence of a clear theoretical basis by which the implementation of religious teaching might be separated from any resort to political and military means. 

Hence it is not enough to point to various specific examples of Christians, or Jews, or Buddhists, or whomever, who have committed violent acts, persecuted non-believers, or what have you.  One also has to examine the nature of these various doctrinal systems, so as to see if there is plausibly any essential connection between theory and practice.  And of course, one also needs to consider the frequency of acts of violence, persecution, etc. committed by adherents of one religion compared to those of other religions.  Hence, suppose one could find specific examples of adherents of Jainism who committed acts of violence.  It would be ludicrous to conclude from this that Jainism is as prone to violence as any other religion.  For one thing, one would be hard pressed to find very many (if any) examples of Jain terrorism; and for another thing the centrality of the principle of non-violence to Jainism makes it extremely difficult for any Jain who is so inclined to find in his religion a theoretical rationale for such violence. 

Probably most people would admit that, given its history and the nature of its doctrines, Jainism is plausibly much less likely than other religions are to foster violence, and that this would remain true even if one could find examples here and there of Jains who resorted to violence.  But it would be intellectually dishonest to deny that, by the same token, there might also be a religion that is more likely than other religions are to foster violence, and that this would remain true even if there are many adherents of that religion who reject violence.   That is what McCarthy is claiming to be the case with Islam.

Some parallel examples can elucidate further the nature of McCarthy’s claim.  Consider the thesis that eating foods that are high in sugar or carbohydrates (candy, potato chips, etc.) increases one’s chances of getting cavities.  It would be silly to object to this claim on the grounds that there are many people who eat such foods but who do not get cavities (because they brush their teeth regularly, say); or on the grounds that there are people who get cavities as a result of eating other sorts of food; or on the grounds that there are positive aspects to eating foods high in sugar or carbohydrates (such as the energy boost they provide, or the pleasure they afford).  These points are all true, but they are perfectly compatible with the claim that there is a special causal link between eating such foods and getting cavities.  And we know there is such a link because (a) we find that there is in fact a high correlation (even if not an exceptionless one) between eating such foods and getting cavities, and (b) we can identify specific chemical mechanisms by which such foods can lead to tooth decay. 

Or consider the relationship between smoking and cancer, an example I cited in my recent post on falsification.  It would be ridiculous to deny that there is any special link here, on the grounds that there are many people who smoke but do not get cancer; or on the grounds that many people who don’t smoke also get cancer; or on the grounds that smoking has positive aspects (such as the pleasure and relaxation it affords).  All of this is also true, but it is also all perfectly compatible with the claim that there is a special causal link between smoking and getting cancer.  And we know there is such a link because (a) we find that there is in fact a high correlation (even if not an exceptionless one) between smoking and getting cancer, and (b) we can identify specific physiological mechanisms by which smoking can lead to cancer.  Nor, as I noted in the post on falsification, does a causal link have to be very strong in order to be real.  As I noted there, there is a causal link between syphilis and paresis, even if few people who contract syphilis go on to exhibit paresis. 

Or consider the claim that Protestants tend to know the Bible better than Catholics do.  I’m staunchly Catholic, but I think the claim is probably true, based both on experience and on the fact that it’s just the sort of thing you’d expect to be true given differences between Protestant and Catholic theology.  Like Protestants, Catholics regard the Bible as divinely inspired.  But Catholics also think that there are sources of binding doctrinal authority outside of scripture -- the Fathers of the Church, the decrees of Church councils, the Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisteria of the popes, and so forth.  There’s simply a lot more material that a Catholic feels bound to pay attention to, whereas a Protestant is more likely to think that scripture is all he needs to know.  Naturally, then, Protestants are in general bound to know scripture better than Catholics do, because they are more likely to focus all their attention on it, and it constitutes a much smaller body of literature than what Catholics would say needs to be taken account of.   (By the same token, the Marcionites, who accepted as canonical none of the Old Testament and only parts of the New Testament, may well have known those particular parts better than Protestants do, because they had even less material to focus their attention on.)

Or consider the claim that Quakers and Mennonites are less likely than Catholics to commit terrorist acts.  Again, though I’m Catholic, I think this is bound to be true as well, in light of the fact that Quaker and Mennonite theology is pacifist and Catholic theology is not.  It is just naturally going to be harder for a Quaker or Mennonite to come up with a rationalization for committing some terrorist act given the theological constraints he is committed to.

Now, it would be ridiculous to dismiss these last two claims on the grounds that they must reflect mere “anti-Catholic bigotry.”  Any Catholic who did so could plausibly be accused of oversensitivity and of a failure of objectivity.  Similarly, it would be ridiculous to dismiss the other sample claims considered on the grounds that they must reflect mere “sugarphobic,” “tobaccophobic,” or “syphilisphobic” bigotry.  Anyone who made such bizarre accusations could plausibly be suspected of having some excessive attachment to sugary foods, to tobacco, or to acts of the sort liable to lead to syphilis, an attachment that keeps him from being objective about these things. 

By the same token, it would be ridiculous to dismiss McCarthy’s claim merely on the grounds that it must reflect nothing more than “Islamophobic” “bigotry.”  Indeed, McCarthy could fling an accusation of “Islamophilic bigotry” back at anyone who would make such a claim.  As I pointed out in the post on liberalism and Islam, there are several factors that predispose political liberals too quickly to dismiss the very suggestion that there might be a connection between Islamic doctrine on the one hand and violence and illiberal politics on the other.  For example, the very workability of liberalism as a political project presupposes that what John Rawls called “comprehensive doctrines,” or at least comprehensive doctrines with a large number of adherents, are compatible with basic liberal premises (and thus “reasonable,” as Rawlsian liberals conceive of “reasonableness”). If it turned out there is a “comprehensive doctrine” with a large number of adherents which is simply not compatible with basic liberal premises, that would be a very serious problem for the entire liberal project.  Hence liberals are bound to be reluctant to conclude that there is any such “comprehensive doctrine,” or to look for evidence that might support such a conclusion. 

Then there is the fact that egalitarianism is one of the dogmas of modern liberalism, just as the divinity of Christ is a dogma of Christianity or the divine origin of the Quran is a dogma of Islam.  Many liberals find it almost impossible to understand how even a mildly negative characterization of some religion, culture, or group could be anything but an expression of unreasoning hatred.  Hence epithets like “bigot” play, within liberalism, the same role that words like “heretic” often do within religion.  They are a means of silencing dissenters and sending a warning to anyone even considering dissent from egalitarianism.  The irony is that plugging one’s ears and screaming “Bigot!” at someone who is trying to present a reasoned argument is, of course, itself a kind of bigotry -- perhaps the worst kind, insofar as someone self-righteously in love with the idea that he is the paradigmatic anti-bigot is the least likely of all bigots to see his prejudices for what they are.

Again, see the earlier post on liberalism and Islam for discussion of other aspects of modern liberalism which can predispose many liberals against looking at Islam objectively.  The point for the moment is this.  On the one hand, McCarthy can note that any critic inclined to dismiss his position as mere bigotry should seriously consider that there are reasons why the critic may be himself less objective on the subject at hand than he likes to think he is.  And on the other hand, McCarthy can point to what one finds in Islamic scripture and law, in the history of terrorism during the last few decades, and indeed in the entire history of Islam as evidence in favor of his position.

Of course, that does not by itself demonstrate that McCarthy is right.  But any critic of McCarthy plausibly faces a “falsificationist challenge” of a sort that parallels the falsificationist challenge Antony Flew once raised against theists (a challenge I discussed in the earlier post on the logic of falsification).  Paraphrasing Flew, the challenge might be stated as follows:

What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of your claim that there is no special connection between Islam and terrorism, or between Islam and illiberal politics?

In other words, if evidence of the sort McCarthy cites does not establish his claim, what evidence will the critic admit would establish it?  Unless the critic can offer a serious response to this question, he cannot plausibly claim that it is he rather than McCarthy who is free of prejudice.