James W. Jones is Professor of Religion and Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology, at Rutgers University. His book, Blood That Cries Out From the Earth: The Psychology of Religious Terrorism, looks at what makes ordinary people evil. Jones argues that not every adherent of an authoritarian group will turn to violence, and he shows how theories of personality development can explain why certain individuals are easily recruited to perform terrorist acts. In the article below Jones argues that understanding people who turn towards terrorism is the first step to halting their violent acts. Check out Jones’s webpage here.

How much do we really know about terrorism? The short answer is “a lot” and “a very little.” “Terrorism” — as the cliché about one person’s terrorist being another’s freedom fighter suggests — is more often used as an epithet or a bit of propaganda than a category useful for understanding. There is general agreement that terrorism is not an end in itself or a motivation in itself (except perhaps for a few genuinely psychotic individual lone wolves). No movement is only a terrorist movement; its primary character is more likely political, economic, or religious. Terrorism is a tactic, not a basic type of group.

The first step in clarifying this topic of “understanding terrorism” is to become clear about the purpose of our attempts to understand terrorism. Part of the confusion over the understanding of terrorism results from the more basic confusion of not knowing what we want our explanations of terrorism to do for us. Before we undertake to “explain” terrorism, we should be clear as to what we want this “explanation” to accomplish? Many hope that understanding terrorism will help predict future terrorist actions. Others hope that it will help devise effective counter-terrorism strategies. Will a psychological, or political, or military, or religious understanding of religious terrorism aid in those goals?

I know from my work in forensic psychology that predicting violent behavior in any specific case is very, very complicated and very rarely successful. And dramatic acts of violence that change the course of history — the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand that lit the match on the conflagration of World War I, the taking hostage of the American embassy in the Iranian revolution, the 9/11 attack — are rarely predictable. We can list some of the characteristics of religious groups that turn to violence and terror. I have studied some of the themes common to Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist groups that have turned to terror. We can also outline the steps that individuals and groups often go through in becoming committed to violent actions. The NYPD has done exactly that in a recent study. But I remain skeptical that any model will enable us to predict with any certainty when specific individuals or groups may turn to terrorism. There are warning signs we should be aware of. But these are signs, not determinants or predictors.

As for counter-terrorism, it is an important strategic principal that one should know one’s enemy. We succeeded in containing the expansiveness of the former Soviet Union in part because we had a detailed and nuanced understanding of the Soviet system. Understanding some of what is at stake religiously and spiritually for religious groups that engage in terrorism can help devise ways of countering them. So a religious-psychological understanding of religious terrorists’ motivations can be an important part of the response to them.

In the months following 9/11 I often heard demagogues on the radio say that psychologists (like me) who seek to understand the psychology behind religiously motivated violence simply want to “offer the terrorists therapy.” The idea that one must choose either understanding or action — that one cannot do both — is an idea that itself borders on the pathological and represents the kind of dichotomizing that is itself a part of the terrorist mindset. Such dichotomized thinking, wherever it occurs, is a part of the problem and not part of the solution. I worked for two years in the psychology department at a hardcore, maximum security prison. But I never thought of that as a substitute for just and vigorous law enforcement. Understanding an action in no way means excusing it; explaining an action in no way means condoning it.

There is, however, a deeper issue here. Understanding others (even those who will your destruction) can make them more human. It can break down the demonization of the other that some politicians and policy makers feel is necessary in order to combat terrorists. The demonization of the other is a major weapon in the arsenal of the religiously motivated terrorist. Must we resort to the same tactic – which is so costly psychologically and spiritually – in order to oppose terrorism? Or can we counter religiously motivated terrorists without becoming like them?

Mark Gregory Pegg is an Associate Professor of History at Washington University in St. Louis. His most recent book, A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom, looks at a pivotal moment in world history, the world’s first genocide. In the article below Pegg reflects on religious violence today.

It never ceases to amaze me that as religious violence has become an all too familiar fear for great swathes of the world’s population, whether in the supposedly secular West or the supposedly sectarian Middle East, commentators of every political (and religious) stripe piously intone that such horrifically specific violence is always an aberration from the eternal essence of religion. This is nonsense — and it is dangerous nonsense at that.

I’m not arguing that violence is an inherent aspect of religion. Far from it. What I’m arguing is that there’s nothing inherent about religion, one way or the other. Religion is a way of understanding the world, whether in past or in present, and so any explanation (pulpit, soapbox, bar stool) must take into account the specific world that gives a religion meaning at a particular time and place.

The great seductive achievement of religion is the denial of history. This sense of being part of an unchanging tradition, that prayers to God today resemble prayers to Him a millennia ago, that something is wonderfully immune to the burden of time and space, is a comfort. As a historian, though, this essential balm is denied to me; or at least denied to me if I want to try and grasp why murder and bloodshed has been, still is, and always will be, considered by many as the only path to salvation.

Too many recent debates take it for granted that religion is defined as abiding doctrines, perennial philosophies, and timeless ideals. This assumption leads to sterile thought, a historical platitudes, and way too many mindless editorials (and blogs). The fallacy behind it all is that pure principles form the core of every religion and that no matter how many civilizations rise and fall through the millennia, how many prophets come and go, these principles enduringly persist. Weightless, immaterial, untouched by historical contingency, they waft over centuries and societies like loose hot-air balloons. Detecting apparently similar ideas (symbols, gods, a certain way with wives) through time and space is only the beginning of an explanation and not the concluding proof. The past isn’t simply another country, it’s an entirely different universe. At a time when the world is haunted by religiously inspired warfare, religion must be seen as more than floating ideas, more than just ideology with gossamer wings.

Any meditation upon the past that starts with the presumption that some things are universal in humans or in human society — never changing, inert, immobile — is a retreat from historical explanation. At present, though, one thing after another keeps arguing for eternal verities, keeps trying to erode history as a meaningful analytic category (as opposed to a merely entertaining one). It’s unfathomable to me that studies are funded and lauded which argue that there is, say, a pervasive male manner (with other men, with women, with meat) imprinted into masculine genes over a month of prehistoric Sundays. Or that minds always respond in similar ways to tragedy. Or that hereditary behavioral traits impose habits (and occasionally beliefs) from one generation to the next. Or that religion is a primal response to primal fears. Millennia are flattened out, if not totally erased, in essentialism. Historical specificity is either dismissed as irrelevant or seen as epiphenomenal graffiti scratched upon (and so disfiguring) unchanging customs and concepts. Arguing for immutable values from biology is no different to arguing for immutable values from theology — selfish genes, selfish doctrines, they both deny history.

Assuming that why we do what we do, why we think what we think, is somehow or other beyond our control, and that we would be this way in mind and body whether we lived a thousand years ago or right now, forfeits the vitality and distinctiveness of the past to the dead hand of biological determinism, cognitive hotwiring, psychological innateness, liberal pleas for bygone victims, conservative pleas for God-given principles, and amaranthine mush about authenticity. Atheist and believer (and one candidate for high office after another) crowd the same historically meaningless page when it comes to religion, violent or otherwise.

As I wrote A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom, the question of religion and violence was always on my mind. The crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III in 1208 against the count of Toulouse and the heretics apparently infesting his lands between the Garonne and Rhône Rivers (a vast area that is now southern France). From start to finish, it lasted twenty-one years. An ethical obligation to mass murder, a moral imperative to genocide, defined the most holy war from the very beginning. Christians were guaranteed salvation and redemption through slaughtering other Christians.

(By the way, the Albigensian Crusade was not against the Cathars. For more than a century this has been the standard assumption passed on from footnote to footnote, code to code, crystal to crystal, by scholar, novelist, and seeker of hidden knowledge. Unfortunately, this assumption was, still is, and always will be wrong. To a large extent, this enduring historical error is related to what I’m saying about religion and violence.)

The most holy war wasn’t a brutal travesty in the history of Christianity. Quite the contrary. It epitomized the sanguine beauty and bloody savagery of thirteenth-century Christendom, the century of Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, and Louis IX. The threat from heresy and the necessity of eliminating that threat were fundamental in creating the Christ-like world that Innocent III struggled all his life to achieve. The ability to resemble Christ through day-to-day activity, so much so that you really were Him, was the sublime religious phenomenon of the Middle Ages. No other monotheistic religion has celebrated or promoted such a godly imitative ideal amongst ordinary believers. The love of Christ necessitated great and small holocausts between the Garonne and Rhône.

If the specific historical intimacy between religion and violence in the Albigensian Crusade is dismissed or ignored, then the most holy war is incomprehensible. If we dismiss and ignore this intimacy right now, then so much of what’s happening in the world (Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Darfur, Tibet) is incomprehensible too.

Oxford Islamic Studies Online brings together the best current scholarship in the field and promotes accurate and informed understanding of the Islamic world.  Editor-in-Chief John L. Esposito is University Professor of Religion and International Affairs and Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. A past president of the Middle East Studies Association, he is editor-in-chief of the four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of Islam, and the author of numerous books, including What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam, Unholy War, Islam: The Straight Path and The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? He lives in Washington, D.C.  In the article below he reflects upon Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and what it means for Pakistan.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto and its aftermath are an instructive lesson in the checkered history of Pakistan and its critical situation today. Both President Bush and President Musharraf were quick to blame al-Qaeda and other Muslim extremists and to simply place the assassination within the context of the war on global terrorism and the forces opposed to democracy. But as dangerous as these forces are, especially with the growth of Pakistani rather than foreign fighters, this facile single-minded scenario ignores the long-standing conflicting currents in Pakistani politics.

The world will long remember Benazir Bhutto as a modern Muslim woman who served two terms as Pakistan’s first woman Prime Minister: bright, attractive, articulate, talented, courageous, charismatic, an astute politician and political leader who called for a secular democratic Pakistan. Benazir was all of these but – like her father and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and a number of other Pakistani political leaders – she also left a flawed political track record that both reflected and contributed to many of Pakistan’s problems.

Benazir Bhutto was an avowed reformer who in two terms as prime minister brought little substantive reform. She failed to bring major political or social change. Benazir did little for the overwhelming number of poor Pakistanis who live in a feudal society. Asecular Muslim democrat and celebrated feminist, despite election promises, she failed to significantly improve women’s status or reverse Zia ul-Haq’s so-called Islamization policies. Despite her democratic profile, Benazir’s leadership of the PPP and governance as Prime Minister reflected Pakistan’s feudal politics. Her rule was marred by a record of widespread corruption and human rights violations that were severely criticized by international organizations. Like her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she exerted power through an increasingly tough autocratic style, one-person dominance or rule. She declared herself head of the PPP for life, made no provision for leadership from among her many talented party leaders since the PPP was to remain a family legacy as witnessed by the “selection” of her son and husband (long-discredited by his earned reputation for corruption – reflected in his nickname “Mr. 10%” and his imprisonment in Pakistan for 11 years on charges of corruption – and currently under indictment in Europe).

The circumstances surrounding Benazir Bhutto’s assassination highlight the key problems or fault lines of Pakistani politics, problems that have been exacerbated exponentially in a post 9/11 world: a deep seated and unresolved identity problem regarding the relationship of Islam to Pakistani national identity and politics; the role of Islamic parties and movements and their clashes with a westernized elite; and a strong military that has intervened throughout Pakistan’s political history and resulted in more years of military rather than democratic rule, and the role of feudal political leaders.

Although Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founder and first leader, saw Pakistan as a Muslim homeland, his more socio-cultural understanding was not that of many other more “religiously-minded” leaders. Thus, while Pakistan adopted a Western political structure – as Ayub Khan, an early military ruler and modernist, learned when he had to back off his attempt to drop Pakistan’s title as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan – many Pakistanis took Pakistan’s Islamic identity quite literally and seriously. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a secular socialist, would himself turn to Islam after the Pakistan-Bangladesh civil war, in order to build bridges to Arab countries, counter the Jamaat-i-Islami and other religious parties, and reinforce his popular base. However, the appeal to Islam would prove to be a two-edged sword as the Bhutto appointed head of the Army, General Zia ul-Haq, would use Islam to legitimate his coup, the execution of Bhutto, and the “Islamization” of Pakistan. Ironically, years later, Nawaz Sharif would also play the religion card in his political struggles with Benazir Bhutto and the PPP.

Where do we go from here? The Pakistan-U.S. partnership under Parvez Musharraf and George W. Bush has proven a dysfunctional relationship of failed policies. Their joint war on terrorism and promotion of democracy have in fact resulted in a dangerous increase of the former and a threat to the latter. Religious extremism and terrorism have grown in Pakistan; extremists will only benefit from the current crisis. Islamist parties (mainstream and extremists) have increased their electoral clout both in the 2002 elections and subsequently nationally, including control of both the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. Musharraf’s promotion of democracy (as that of the U.S. in Pakistan as in Egypt) has at best been a fig leaf, both in terms of the manipulation of electoral politics and the role of the military. Though Musharraf took off his uniform, Pakistan’s generals remain a powerful and influential force capable of intervening at any moment And regrettably, the tragic death of Benazir Bhutto and the succession of her 19 year old son and father has resulted in a new stage of Bhutto family feudal leadership of the PPP, only this time absent the charisma, talents and experience of Benazir.

Moving forward will require an enlightened leadership that is not apparent in terms of Pakistan’s chief players. Musharraf’s approval ratings are dismal; the PPP is in disarray and lacks strong leadership; Nawaz Sharif, newly returned from eight years in exile, has generated little excitement. Imran Khan could prove to be a popular transitional national political leader but is unlikely to step forward unless Musharraf steps down.

At a time when widespread anti-Americanism (more accurately, opposition to the Bush administration) in Pakistan has become even more entrenched – as it has in many parts of the Muslim and non-Muslim world – one can at least hope for the laying of some groundwork for the emergence of future leaders. Musharraf should begin with the restoration of some semblance of democracy by reconstituting Pakistan’s Supreme Court, guarantee impartial parliamentary elections on February 8, and work more closely with mainstream and political leaders rather than to exploit the current fluid situation and thereby contribute to greater instability. Although unlikely, Musharraf’s credibility and effectiveness would be enhanced if he were to announce his own timetable for stepping down. Pakistan’s stability would be strengthened if Musharraf’s successor as Army head, the American-trained Ashfaq Kayani, were able to harness the leverage of the military not only in strengthening Pakistan’s domestic security but also assure that Musharraf does nothing to taint national elections. Equally important, the U.S., given its political and military power, retains the ability and leverage to play a more constructive role in Pakistan – but that will require not simply looking for another “American candidate” to install as Pakistan’s leader.

In Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification by Christopher Peterson Ph.D and Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D the authors examine good character across history and culture. To read Peterson’s original piece click here. In the excerpt below, which is from the beginning of Character Strengths and Virtues, the authors look at how the traditions of China valued character. By taking in account many cultures and traditions Peterson and Seligman were able to identify the core attributes of character from a global perspective.

China
The two indigenous traditions of China arose contemporaneously in the sixth century B.C.E., and there is argument as to whether they best represent a philosophical, social, or religious system of beliefs. Confucianism, with its emphasis on social criticism and education of the young, became the official state religion by the second century B.C.E. Likewise, early Taoism, though more mystical and esoteric, was a religious-philosophical tradition with its own political exhortations.

Confucian Virtues. The teachings of Confucius (551–479 B.C.E.) are the most influential in the history of Chinese thought and civilization. His moral and political philosophy, with its prescriptive focus on education and leadership, became the official religion of China by the second century B.C.E. and compulsory study for 2,000 years beyond that (Smart, 1999).

His teachings were recorded mainly in the form of aphorisms, most reliably collected in the Analects (Confucius, trans. 1992). His comments on virtue are scattered across the Analects, not presented as a formal catalog. There is, however, a general agreement among scholars that there are four or five central virtues espoused in the tenets of Confucianism: jen (translated variously as humanity or human-heartedness or benevolence), yi (duty or justice or equity), li (etiquette or observance of the rites of ceremonious behavior), zhi (wisdom or perspicacity), and, possibly, xin (truthfulness or sincerity or good faith) (see Cleary, 1992; Do-Dinh, 1969; Haberman, 1998a).

When asked to define humanity (jen), Confucius answered, “Love people” (12:22); when asked to operationalize it, he said “If you want to make a stand, help others make a stand, and if you want to reach your goal, help others reach their goal. Consider yourself and treat others accordingly: this is the method of humanity” (6:29). Scholars have described Confucian humanity as the ideal manifestation of human nature or the attitude of sympathetic concern when dealing with others, but not the selfless love exalted in, say, Christianity; acting with humanity is instrumental in that it brings similar treatment from others (Dawson, 1982; Ivanhoe, 2002).

Humanity is considered the virtue most exalted by Confucius, as throughout the Analects the core sentiment that constitutes humanity permeates and infuses all others. For instance, the Confucian ideal of duty (yi) is not one prescribing humble acquiescence of the many to the undeserving and powerful few; rather, it denotes the mutual respect persons should have in relation to one another, beginning with the familial relationship and extending outward to the state and citizen (Huang, 1997). Put another way, the Confucian notion of justice or duty is not permission for tyranny, as it has often been misinterpreted, but that one is obliged to act honorably and with self-control in all personal affairs rather than with a motive for personal gain: Confucius said, “The nobleminded are clear about duty; little people are clear about profit” (4:16). Dawson (1982), noting the significance in Confucius’s contrast of duty and profit, states, “[Duty’s] original sense seems to have been natural justice, what seemed just to the natural man before concepts like law and ritual were evolved. . . . it is clearly regarded as the ultimate yardstick against which matters of law and ritual must be judged” (p. 52).

The Confucian precept of good etiquette (li) is also best understood as a directive to treat others sensitively: Confucius said, “To master oneself and return to courtesy is humaneness” (12:1). Thus the cultivation of courteousness and deference in one’s everyday behavior is the equivalent of the cultivation of humanity, as manners and deference are concerned more with consideration for another’s feelings than they are with strict adherence to rules and empty ceremonial custom. Confucian wisdom (zhi) is best understood as the functional application of an informed intellect to humanity, justice, and etiquette, while truthfulness (xin) is that which is exemplified by fidelity to the ideals of the four preceding virtues (Cleary, 1992).

Confucius does not explicitly mention temperance, but its importance to the humane life is strongly implied. The importance placed on rites presumably involves a respect for propriety and self-control as much as for humanity. Indeed, in both his personal affairs and the Analects, Confucius advocated modesty and self-control. Though he could have lived quite comfortably in the employ of many a noble, Confucius instead chose the relatively modest life of a teacher; though known as sage Master Kong to his students, Confucius still argued that true humanity was an impossible ideal for most mortals to attain, including himself (7:33–34). In the Analects, he commends as virtuous those who choose to live simply (6:10), refrain from self-aggrandizing boasts (6:14) or extravagance (3:4), and place hard work before reward (6:22).

Another core virtue not explicitly named as of central importance is transcendence. The Chinese did not believe in a divine lawgiver, and Confucius’s philosophical focus was clearly on the secular and rational aspects of human functioning, not the cosmic or spiritual (5:13; 11:12). This is not to say Confucius completely ignored the transcendent or that he relegated it to a nonsignificant role (D. L. Hall & Ames, 1987). For instance, excellence in moral conduct is afforded the status of the transcendent: Confucius invoked heaven when discussing the origin of virtue (7:23) and his reverence for sages whose section i: Background perfect virtue was modeled after the divine (6.17; 16.8; see also Haberman, 1998a).

Taoist Virtues.
The Taoist tradition is the second indigenous one of China. Its creator, Lao-tzu (ca. 570 B.C.E.–?), is said to be a contemporary of Confucius, although there is some debate regarding whether he is one sage or many, and whether the primary work attributed to him, the Tao Te Ching (or The Classic of Tao and Its Virtue; trans. 1963), came much later than he may have lived (A. C. Graham, 1998; Kohn, 1998; Lynn, 1999).

The central tenet is one of transcendence: The Tao, or Way, that governs the heavens and earth is indescribable, unknowable, and even unnameable (Tao Te Ching, trans. 1963, chap. 1). And untranslatable—the Way (its Chinese character depicts a head in motion) refers simultaneously to direction, movement, method, and thought, and so no single word can depict the profundity of its total meaning. Moreover, it is the creator of all things, including virtue (Te), but does not act—the Way is spontaneous and without effort (Cheng, 2000; Wong, 1997).

The text of the Tao Te Ching, however, can be cryptic and mysterious, and thus attempts, particularly Western ones, to interpret its verses can never be definitive (see Clarke, 2000; LaFargue, 1998). Like Confucius, Lao-tzu attempted to use his philosophy to reform rulers and improve society, but the emphasis was not on virtue as social interaction (Cheng, 2000). For instance, in a particularly famous passage, Lao-tzu seems to advise against wisdom, justice, and humanity—the very virtues that Confucius esteemed (as well as what we are arguing are core virtues found even in this tradition):

Reject sageness and abandon knowledge,
The people will benefit a hundredfold.
Reject humanity and abandon justice,
The people will return to filial piety and parental love. (chap. 19)

Of course, no Taoist scholar argues that Lao-tzu was advocating anarchy, or even a society lacking in these things. Rather, it appears that what Lao-tzu believed in most was the virtue of “naturalness” or “spontaneity” (tzu-jan), or that quality of being without effort. Indeed, scholars tend to agree that naturalness is the cardinal virtue of Taoism, with nonaction (wu-wei) as the essential method to realize naturalness in social life (Cheng, 2000; Xiaogan, 1998).

Hence, it is not that Lao-tzu argued that rulers should be unjust but that the most justice comes from reigning without ruling (Xiaogan, 1998) or ruling with naturalness:

The best ruler, the people only know of his existence. . . .
The best ruler is so relaxed, he hardly talks.
when he successfully completes his work,
People all say that for us, it is only natural. (chap. 17, see also chap. 57)

The point is that Lao-tzu esteemed other virtues, but only if they arise from the higher one of spontaneity; later in the Tao Te Ching he explicitly cites as important the virtues of humanity, justice, and propriety, but only after (or in the presence of) this higher one (chap. 38, see also Cheng, 2000).

Likewise, wisdom is espoused in both rulers and commoners, but only if that knowledge is the true sort of the Way, not the superficial sort used for cunning: A sage ruler is “a man of subtlety [but] with deep insight,” (chap. 15); he does not “insist on his own views, thus he has a clear view,” nor does he “justify himself, thus he sees the truth” (chap. 22; see also chaps. 3, 19, 33, 49; and Schwartz, 1994). And temperance, in terms of both humility and restraint from pursuing the false gods of material wealth and privilege, is advocated again and again: “He who becomes arrogant with wealth and power . . . sows the seeds of his own misfortune [chap. 9] . . . he who boasts of his own achievements harms his credibility . . . he who is arrogant experiences no growth in wisdom [chap. 24] . . . he who knows glory, but keeps to humility . . . is sufficient in the eternal virtue [chap. 28].”

In anticipation of Easter, today we are excerpting from Into The Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation by Martin Laird. Laird’s truly beautiful book shows that the Christian tradition of contemplation has its own refined meditation teachings similar to the Hindus and Buddhists. He brings together the ancient wisdom of the Christian East and West to help us find God in the depths of our hearts. May his words help you find peace this Easter, no matter what religion you are.

Parting the Veil: The Illusion of Separation from God

If the doors of perception were cleansed
Everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. – William Blake

A young prisoner cuts himself with a sharp knife to dull emotional pain. ‘As long as I can remember,” he says, “I have had this hurt inside. I can’t get away from it, and sometimes I cut or burn myself so that the pain will be in a different place and on the outside.” Acknowledging this to himself, he decided to approach the Prison Phoenix Trust, whose aim is to address the spiritual needs of prisoners by teaching them how to pray, how to turn their prison cells into monastic cells. After learning how to meditate and practicing it twice a day for several weeks, the young prisoner speaks movingly of what he has learnt. “I just want you to know that after only four weeks of meditating half an hour in the morning and at night, the pain is not so bad, and for the first time in my life, I can see a tiny spark of something within myself that I can like.”

Another prisoner discovers he is becoming more human and realizes in the process, ‘All beings, no matter how reactionary, fearful, dangerous or lost, can open themselves to the sacred within and become free. I have become free even in prison. Prison is the perfect monastery.”

The spiritual liberation of which these prisoners speak is not something they acquired. The dear sense of their testimony is that they discovered, rather than acquired, this “sacred within.” The distinction between acquisition and discovery may seem like hairsplitting, but it is important to see that what the one prisoner calls the “sacred within” did not come from some place outside him. The contemplative discipline of meditation, what I will call in this book contemplative practice, doesn’t acquire anything. In that sense, and an important sense, it is not a technique but a surrendering of deeply imbedded resistances that allows the sacred within gradually to reveal itself as a simple, fundamental fact. Out of this letting go there emerges what St. Paul called our “hidden self”: “may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong” (Eph 3:16). Again, contemplative practice does not produce this “hidden self” but facilitates the falling away of all that obscures it. This voice of the liberated hidden self, the “sacred within,” joins the Psalmist’s, “Oh, Lord, you search me and you know me It was you who created my inmost self. . . . I thank you for the wonder of my being” (Ps 138 (9):1, 13, 14).

Through their experience of interior stillness these prisoners unwittingly have joined a chorus of saints and sages who proclaim by their lives that this God we seek has already found us, already looks out of our own eyes, is already, as St. Augustine famously put it, “closer to me than I am to myself.” “O Beauty ever ancient, ever new,” he continues, “you were within and I was outside myself.”

…Union with God is not something that needs to be acquired but realized. The reality which the term “union” points to (along with a host of other metaphors), is already the case. The unfolding in our lives of this fundamental union is what St. John of the Cross called “the union of likeness.” It is our journey from image to likeness (Gen 1:26).

Acquisition and its strategies obviously have a role in life. It is important to pursue and acquire good nutrition, reasonable health, a just society, basic self-respect, the material means by which to live, and a host of other things. However, they don’t have a real role in the deeper dynamics of life. For example, they play no role in helping us to die or to become aware of God. Dying is all about letting go and letting be, as is the awareness of God.

People who have traveled far along the contemplative path are often aware that the sense of separation from God is itself pasted up out of a mass of thoughts and feelings. When the mind comes into its own stillness and enters the silent land, the sense of separation goes. Union is seen to be the fundamental reality and separateness a highly filtered mental perception. It has nothing whatever to do with the loss of one’s ontological status as a creature of God, nothing to do with becoming an amorphous blob. Quite the opposite, it is the realization this side of death of the fundamental mystery of our existence as the creation of a loving God. “Of you my heart has spoken, ’seek His face’” (Ps 27:8). “For God alone my soul in silence waits” (Ps 62:1,6). “God is your being, and what you are you are in God, but you are not God’s being.” “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Once this depth dimension of life emerges, New Testament resonances, especially with John and Paul, reach the whole world (Ps 19:4). John’s Gospel is well known for its concern for this divine indwelling. “On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you” (Jn 14:20). “May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us.” (Jn 17:21).

…Whatever this “Christ-living-in-me” is, and it is most assuredly not a particular thing, it holds true for each of us. My Christ-self is your Christ-self, our enemy’s Christ-self (2 Cor 10:7). A helpful image to express this sort of thing is a wheel with spokes centered on a single hub. The hub of the wheel is God; we the spokes. Out on the rim of the wheel the spokes are furthest from one another, but at the center, the hub, the spokes are most united to each other. They are a single meeting in the one hub. The image was used in the early church to say something important about that level of life at which we are one with each other and one with God. The more we journey towards the Center the closer we are both to God and to each other. The problem of feeling isolated from both God and others is overcome in the experience of the Center. This journey into God and the profound meeting of others in the inner ground of silence is a single movement. Exterior isolation is overcome in interior communion.

Those who sound alarms regarding the realization of the contemplative path as being anticommunity reveal a shocking ignorance of this simple fact: the personal journey into God is simultaneously ecclesial and all-embracing. This in part is why people who have gone fairly deeply into the contemplative path, become open and vital people (however differently they may live this out). In this depthless depth we are caught up in a unity that grounds, affirms, and embraces all diversity. Communion with God and communion with others are realizations of the same Center. And this Center, according to the ancient definition, is everywhere. “God is that reality whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”

…Some who are tediously metaphysical might worry that all this talk of union with God blurs the distinction between Creator and creation. Far from blurring this distinction it sets it in sharper focus. John’s Gospel says we are the branches and Christ is the vine. (Jn 15:5). The branches are not separate from the vine but one with it. If the branch is cut off, you won’t have a branch, for it soon shrivels away. A branch is a branch insofar as it is one with the vine. From the branch’s perspective it is all vine. Speaking of this transformation of consciousness that marks the moving into awareness of our grounding union with God, Meister Eckhart says, ‘All things become pure God to you, for in all things you see nothing but God.” John of the Cross speaks along similar lines. “It seems to [the soul] that the entire universe is a sea of love in -which it is engulfed, for, conscious of the living point or center of love within itself, it is unable to catch sight of the boundaries of this love.” When life is lived from “the center,” as John of the Cross terms it, all of life seems shot through with God.

We might liken the depths of the human to the sponge in the ocean. The sponge looks without and sees ocean; it looks within and sees ocean. The sponge is immersed in what at the same time flows through it. The sponge would not be a sponge were this not the case. Some call this differentiating union: the more we realize we are one with God the more we become ourselves, just as we are, just as we were created to be. The Creator is outpouring love, the creation, the love outpoured.

Union with God respects all distinctions between creation and Creator and is characterized by awareness of the presence and the transparency of perceived boundaries. When our awareness loosens its arthritic grip to reveal a palm open and soft, awareness is silent and vast in the depths of the present moment. As Meister Eckhart put it, “The eye with which I see God is exactly the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowledge and one love.” John of the Cross expresses the same mystery. “The soul that is united and transformed in God breathes God in God with the same divine breathing with which God, while in her, breathes her in himself.” This is the revelation of stillness.

When our life in God washes onto the shores of perception we see no image or shape, no holy pictures or statues, nothing for thinking mind’s comprehending grip. We know undeniably, like the back of our hand, the silent resounding of a great and flowing vastness that is the core of all. Words cannot express it (2 Cor 12:4). No tongue has sullied it. Such is the impenetrable silence in which we are immersed. Yet this silence cleanses the mind and unbinds the tongue. “I will sing, I will sing your praise. Awake my soul. Awake lyre and harp. I will awake the dawn” (Ps 56:7-8).

Islamofascism

The use of the term “Islamic fascism” and “Islamofascism” by both politicians (including the president of the United States) and publicists in various countries has created a minor storm and led to a search for the origins of the term. I have been among those mentioned in this context in some Arab media and the Wikipedia; this is less than half correct but it is probably true that I was among the first to explore the origins of the term “clerical fascism” and its meaning. In Fascism: Past Present Future (Oxford University Press 1996) I noted that the term “fundamentalism” was imperfect for a variety of reasons, but in the present context it had come to represent a radical, militant fanatical movement trying to impose its beliefs on others by means of force. I also wrote:

Fundamentalism, is not of course, an Islamic monopoly as it can be found in Christianity and Judaism as well as in other religions . In extreme forms it is manifested in political terrorism (such as the antiabortionist murders in the United States, in Kahanism in Israel, in Hindu attacks against Muslims in India.) Fundamentalists have exerted political pressure on secular governments in America, Europe and Asia. But only in the Muslim world have radicals acquired positions of influence and power and are likely to have further successes, from Algeria to Afghanistan, Bangladesh and even beyond.

I see no need to add or subtract to these lines looking at them at perspective of a dozen years.

The term “clerical fascism” is very old. I found it first mentioned in 1922 even before Mussolini’s march on Rome. It referred to a group of Catholic believers in Northern Italy who advocated a synthesis of Catholicism and fascism. A multi volume German language Encyclopedia of Religions published in the 1920s contained an essay entitled “Faszism (sic) and Fundamentalism in the USA” and it argued that political fanaticism fueled religious intolerance, how extreme nationalism and populism went hand in hand with radical religion and how the Ku Klux Klan cooperated with the fundamentalists. Both were based on the same social strata, the poorly educated and discontented looking for primitive and violent solutions.

In later years it was often argued that there could be no lasting understanding between fascism and religion simply because both were holistic weltanschauungen staking claims to the whole human being in all respects. Furthermore, a fascist-religious synthesis was said to be impossible because all varieties of fascism were deeply nationalistic; modern secular nationalism was irrelevant, if not anathema –especially to Islam. However, if Hizb al Tahrir and some other radical Islamic groups rejected nationalism and advocated Khalifat, a Muslim world state, many other militant Islamic groups found it not particularly difficult to combine a fanatical religious belief with militant nationalism (and this is true also for some East European countries). The same is true with regard to the present leaders of Iran who with all their religious fanaticism aim at the domination of the Persian Gulf region (and beyond) not by Islam but by the Persian state—and never made a secret of it.

A German Catholic émigré writer Edgar Alexander (Edgar Alexander Emmerich) published an interesting work in 1937 in Switzerland entitled The Hitler Mythos (which was translated into English and reprinted after World War Two) in which he compared National Socialism with “Mohammedanism” and found similarities between them. Alexander was no Islamic expert, in his book he stressed all along the central importance of hatred and fanaticism in the Nazi movement, the brutality of its repressive policy, its strong appeal to social and national resentments. He referred frequently to Hitler’s “Mohammedanism” but made it clear that this referred only to external organizational forms (whatever this meant), to mass psychological effects and militant fanaticism. Alexander believed that Mohammed’s religion was based on sincere religious fanaticism (combined with political impulses) whereas Hitler’s (political) religion and its fanaticism had different sources. Alexander also quoted in this context Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” to the effect that ideology however truthful and vital was insignificant as long as it was not represented by a fighting movement. In other words –the sword as the means of the propagation of the new religion.

So much about religious and quasi religious impulses. Fascism made certain inroads in the 1930s among secular elements in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. It should be recalled that Haj Amin al Husseini the Mufti of Jerusalem spent the war years as Hitler’s guest in Berlin. But in retrospect there are doubts with regard to the depth of Haj Amin’s religiosity. He requested for instance the bombing of Jerusalem by the German air force. It is unlikely that a truly pious Muslim would have acted this way.

Some general observations about fascism: How much did the various European parties and governments of the 1930 and 1940s which we now call “fascist” have in common? A great deal, they were anti democratic, anti liberal, nationalistic, populist militarist, aggressive, they believed in violence, there was one party and a leader; when in power, propaganda and terror (from above) played a decisive role. But there were also considerable differences between them—Hitler, no doubt, would have emphatically rejected the fascist label—Nazism, as he saw it, was a specifically German phenomenon and despite certain ideological communalities and common interests was quite different from Italian fascism. Later day political scientists have frequently invoked a “fascist minimum” such as the specific features mentioned earlier on. Unless a certain movement shared this minimum of features it would be misleading to call them “fascist”. The debate as to which features are crucial continues to this day.

Thus the Austrian Catholic regime in power from 1934 to the Anschluss in 1938 was often called “clerical fascist” by its enemies, but it was certainly far more Christian than fascist in inspiration. The same is true, for instance to the Slovak regime headed by Monsignor Tiso during World War Two which was authoritarian rather than totalitarian. In Franco’s Spain there was a fascist party but it was one among several political forces and by no means the decisive one. The country was far more similar to an old fashioned military dictatorship than a modern fascist regime. Argentine under Peron was regarded by some political scientists as a a ideal type fascist regime but this assessment never gained wide currency because Peron was far more in the tradition of Latin American caudillos, military dictators of the populist variety, than in the tradition of European fascism.

On the other hand it is not difficult to find strong religious influences among certain Europe fascist movements, not at all in consonance with the pagan influences in Nazism or the anticlericalism of Italian fascism. Romania is a good example, priests took a prominent part in the activities of the Legion of Archangel Michael (later the Iron Guard,) the same is true with regard to the Ustasha regime in Croatia. The fascist Rexists in Belgium were originally the leading Catholic youth movement in that country. Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British fascist group wrote after the war that his movement would have been far more successful if it had been more religious and one could also refer in this context to father Coughlin in the United States (or the Reverend Gerald Smith) who believed in the coexistence of a Christian spiritual revolution and fascism.

In brief, fascism was less monolithic than Communism, there were significant differences in theory and practice from country to country, and coexistence with militant religion was by no means ruled out in principle or in practice.

In their search for the origins of the term “Islamofascism” investigators have relied, not surprisingly on computer search engines which have pointed to two leading students of Islam in this context– the distinguished French Orientalist Maxime Rodinson and the British writer Malise Ruthven. In 1978 in a polemic against some of his leftwing friends such as Foucault who welcomed the revolution in Tehran as a great progressive achievement. Rodinson wrote in Le Monde that far from being left wing in any meaningful sense, movements such as the one headed by Khomeini and the Muslim Brotherhood were predominantly fascist, or to be precise constituted a form of “archaic fascism”. This comparison was picked up on later occasions by several other students of Iran sympathizing with the Iranian opposition, but the Iranian president Khatami also warned of the danger of fascism in his country in a speech in 2001 even though he did not use the term Islamic fascism.

Malise Ruthven, the godson of the famous traveler and Orientalist Freya Stark wrote in an article in the London Daily Independent in 1990 that unlike other non Western religions Islam has found it impossible to institutionalize political divergences: “authoritarian government, not to say Islamic fascism, is the rule rather than the exception from Morocco to Palestine”.

The use of the term “fascism” by both Rodinson and Ruthven is open to criticism. “Archaic fascism” is a contradiction in term, because fascism was a modern form of dictatorship quite distinct from older authoritarian regimes. Ruthven too seemed to be unaware of the difference between authoritarianism and totalitarianism (and the debates on these lines). Ruthven followed up his comments in a number of books on Islamic fundamentalism in later years. Neither Rodinson nor Ruthven could be possibly charged with lack of sympathy for Islam and the Arab world to which they had devoted their life’s work. Both were outspoken anti Zionists and critics of Israeli politics. Rodinson, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia was a Marxist and for many years a member of the Communist party; his autobiography (Souvenirs d’un Marginal, Paris, 2005) conveys an interesting account of his younger years in radical Paris circles.

But computer search engines do not go back very far in time and it is the merit of Martin Kramer to have disinterred a leading textbook of the 1960s Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (1963) by the late Princeton professor Manfred Halpern in which he wrote that the neo Islamic totalitarian movements are essentially fascist movements. They concentrated on mobilizing passion and violence to enlarge the power of their charismatic leader and the solidarity of the movement. I knew Halpern, albeit not very well, and have to confess that I did not pay much attention to his argument at the time; it seemed to me misplaced. To what movements could he refer in 1963 when Gamal Abdul Nasser, a secular dictator repressing the Muslim Brotherhood, was in power in Egypt and his prestige was high throughout the Arab world?.. There were no “Islamic totalitarian movements” in Turkey (except perhaps the secular PanTurks), Iran, or Pakistan at the time True, there were totalitarian and fascist elements in the ideology and the practice of the Muslim Brotherhood with its branches in various Arab countries. The Brotherhood had been quite strong in the late 1940′ and early 50′, but after its repression by Nasser it amounted to very little.. It was only with the fall of Nasser and the breakdown of Arab nationalism and communism that Islamism had its revival. While Halpern’s observations were wrong, (or to be precise not very relevant) at the time they were however to some extent prescient.

How helpful is the “Islamofascism” label at the present time with regard to the radical Islamists? There are striking parallels—the populism, the anti Westernism, the antiliberalism, the antisemitism, its aggressive, expansive, anti humanist character, the interpretation of Islam as both a religion and a totalitarian political-social order which provides answers to all problems of the contemporary world. It could be argued that while it lacks a Fuehrer or a Duce, the supreme clerical leader (such as Khomeini) fulfills a similar role and while there is no political party which has a monopoly, the mosque fulfills a similar function as far as the mobilization of the masses and their indoctrination is concerned.

But at the same time there are differences that should not be overlooked. Fascism was an European phenomenon, dictatorships outside Europe (such as for instance the Japanese regime in the thirties and forties) were bound to develop on different lines according to historical tradition and political conditions. The age of fascism came to an end in 1945. Since then there has been neo-fascism and neo-Nazism which also differ in certain respects from its historical predecessors and models. Radical Islamism could be interpreted as a post fascist movement. But such a label tends to exaggerate the role of its European predecessor and to downplay the specific homegrown, in other words, the Islamist elements. Hitler did not engage in Jihad and he did note want to impose anything like the sharia.

Unfortunately, the fascist label has been used rather indiscriminately in the past; the German Social Democrats were called social fascists by the Communists at one time , Roosevelt and the New Deal were branded as fascist, so were de Gaulle, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, President Bush and a great many other political figures since world war two. Political movements and regimes can be barbarous and genocidal—Pol Pot’s Cambodia might serve as an example, but this does not make them necessarily fascist. It would be much more accurate to define the present Iranian regime as a new (populist) form of oriental despotism than as fascist.

It is one of the ironies of the debate on Islamofascism that some of those who have argued that Islamic fundamentalism is at most a cultural but not a political or military challenge to the West have had fewer hesitations to call Christian fundamentalism in the US and elsewhere at least “potentially fascist”. It is another irony that one of the main arguments against the use of the term has been the allegation that it was deeply offensive to Muslims all over the world especially to Arabs.

But whereas “liberal” or “secular” might cause offense in the Arab world, the term Fascism (al fashiye and al naziye) has never been , nor have Hitler and Mussolini been considered great evildoers. The negative connotation connected with fascism or Nazism are purely Western and have never extended to Asia and Africa and least of all to the Middle East. There are various good reasons to find the term Islamic Fascism wanting and unhelpful but the argument that it might cause offense outside Europe and North America is not among them.

Islamophobia

If Islamic fascism is a dubious term so is, for different reasons, Islamophobia. It was first used in French in the 1980s but did not gain wide currency prior to the publication of a report by the British Runnymede Trust in 1998. This was followed by yet another report in 2004 by the Commission on British Muslims on Islamophobia. The report argued that Islamophobia, the discrimination and persecution of Muslims had become one of the major problems of Western societies. However, the new term soon came under criticism. There was no fear of Islam in any Western country.

Commentators identified eight components which they said define Islamophobia. Above all “Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.” But given the civil war in Iraq between Sunni and Shi’ites in Iraq and the many other conflicts between Muslim believers it will be difficult to find people in the West assuming that Islam is a “monolithic bloc”. The other seven components are not less dubious—such as the belief that Islam is separate and “the other”, that it is aggressive, a political ideology used for political advantage. True, there are people in the West who have reached such conclusions—as the result of reading the books of Sayed Qutb or listening to the speeches of the leaders of Iran who have been preaching precisely these doctrines. Another “component” is based on the complaint of exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society. Such emergence of alternative, separate societies in Europe is undeniable, but it is above all the result of the indoctrination of radical imams preaching “apartheid” as the only way to keep the commandments of their faith.

Islamic radicals too have criticized the term “Islamophobia” albeit for different reasons as an inadequate term. They suggest that a more accurate term would be “anti anti Islamic racism combines the elements of dislike of a religion and active discrimination against the people belonging to that religion.” The political purpose underlying this alternative definition is obvious but it is based on the manifestly absurd assumption of an Islamic race including Muslims from Kosovo, Senegal, Indonesia not to mention converts to Islam in Britain, France and the United States. Against this Muslim radicals have argued that Islamophobia is a new form of racism whereby Muslims are attacked not as as race but as a ethno-religious group, prejudice is no longer based on skin color but on notions of cultural superiority and otherment. This argument is equally feeble but even if it were true, it would still be wrong to use misleading terms (racism, ethnic group) that are clearly not applicable trying to define such prejudice.

If anything there has been indifference and lack of interest outside the Muslim world in Islam as a religion and its believers for a long time; paradoxically, such interest has grown in recent years, more copies of the Koran and books about Islam have been sold than ever before, there have been countless ecumenical dialogs and conferences sponsored by churches and other bodies. It is true that there has been growing fear of terror and those engaging in it, especially since 2001; terrorophobia would be a far more accurate term. There was and is also resentment against extremist movements aiming to impose their religious law and way of life on the rest of society. But this too hardly amounts to Islamophobia.

It is also true, that there has been xenophobia and also attacks against new immigrants at all times in many countries, but these attacks have not been on religious lines. In Germany, to give but one example, immigrants from Black Africa and the Far East have been attacked more often than Muslims, in Russia students from Black Africa and Christians from the Caucasus (Georgians and Armenians) have been attacked at least as often as often as those from Muslim Azerbaidjan. If there has been latent hostility towards Islam India would probably be a better example. But Islamophobia has never been used in the Indian context, hence the suspicion that “Islamophobia” came into being as a public relations stratagem (partly as a counterweight to antisemitism) in the West in which it was expected to have a political impact in view of guilt feelings prevailing in these countries. This is not of course to deny the existence of tensions and conflicts but these were and are mutual and the term “Islamophobia” clearly intended to allocate responsibility and guilt to one side only.

Antisemitism

Antisemitism is in many ways yet another unfortunate term. That there has been hostility towards Jews as a people, a religion, a social or cultural group going back far into history and culminating in the mass murder during world war two is beyond dispute. But what is antisemitism? The term was coined according to many sources in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr, a German writer originally of the far left who later in life moved to the extreme right. (The word was in fact used before and it even appeared in encyclopedias but Marr certainly gave it wide currency as pointed out in my The Changing Face of Antisemitism, Oxford University Press, 2006). But what did it exactly mean? Opposition to semitism, a term taken from the realm of linguistics. Semitic refers to such ancient and extinct languages as Phoenician and Accadian as well as many still widely used, including Arabic and Hebrew. But there is no Semitic religion or people or race and for this reason the use of the term has given rise to endless misunderstandings and deliberate distortion. Hannibal and Jesus Christ were speakers of Semitic languages but the antisemites clearly had nothing against them. Even the most rabid enemies of the Jews were not happy about the use of the term antisemitism; the Nazis did not want to antagonize their well wishers in the Middle East and during world war two Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda gave instructions to use the term as little as possible. Muslim antisemites have routinely argued that they cannot possibly be antisemites because they are themselves Semites.

Since 1945 even confirmed antisemites have distanced themselves from the term using various forms of circumlocution (such as for instance “cosmopolitans” in Stalin’s Russia); sometimes they have done so for legal reasons, (racialism being outlawed in some countries) without however changing their attitude towards Jews. Some quite obviously use “antizionism” as a cover for antijewish attacks, but others have claimed that it is false to paint all critics of Israel with the antisemitic brush.

In brief Islamic fascism, Islamophobia and antisemitism, each in its way, are imprecise terms we could well do without but it is doubtful whether they can be removed from our political lexicon.

Tariq Ramadan, a Research Fellow at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University and the Lokahi Foundation in London is the author of In The Footsteps of the Prophet: The Life of Muhammad and the Spiritual and Ethical Lessons it Teaches which will be released by OUP in 2007.

Ramadan has recently been barred from entering the United States again despite the efforts of the ACLU. Ramadan’s response to this decision was printed in the Washington Post on October 1st and is also available on his website. It is reprinted below with his permission.

For more than two years now, the U.S. government has barred me from entering the United States to pursue an academic career. The reasons have changed over time, and have evolved from defamatory to absurd, but the effect has remained the same: I’ve been kept out.

First, I was told that I could not enter the country because I had endorsed terrorism and violated the USA Patriot Act. It took a lawsuit for the government eventually to abandon this baseless accusation. Later, I reapplied for a visa, twice, only to hear nothing for more than a year. Finally, just 10 days ago, after a federal judge forced the State Department to reconsider my application, U.S. authorities offered a new rationale for turning me away: Between 1998 and 2002, I had contributed small sums of money to a French charity supporting humanitarian work in the Palestinian territories.

I am increasingly convinced that the Bush administration has barred me for a much simpler reason: It doesn’t care for my political views. In recent years, I have publicly criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East, the war in Iraq, the use of torture, secret CIA prisons and other government actions that undermine fundamental civil liberties. And for many years, through my research and writing and speeches, I have called upon Muslims to better understand the principles of their own faith, and have sought to show that one can be Muslim and Western at the same time.

My experience reveals how U.S. authorities seek to suppress dissenting voices and — by excluding people such as me from their country — manipulate political debate in America. Unfortunately, the U.S. government’s paranoia has evolved far beyond a fear of particular individuals and taken on a much more insidious form: the fear of ideas.

In January 2004, I was offered a job at the University of Notre Dame, as a professor of Islamic studies and as Luce professor of religion, conflict and peace-building. I accepted the tenured position enthusiastically and looked forward to joining the academic community in the United States. After the government granted me a work visa, I rented a home in South Bend, Ind., enrolled my children in school there and shipped all of my household belongings. Then, in July, the government notified me that my visa had been revoked. It did not offer a specific explanation, but pointed to a provision of the Patriot Act that applies to people who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorist activity.

The revocation shocked me. I had consistently opposed terrorism in all of its forms, and still do. And, before 2004, I had visited the United States frequently to lecture, attend conferences and meet with other scholars. I had been an invited speaker at conferences or lectures sponsored by Harvard University, Stanford, Princeton and the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Foundation. None of these institutions seemed to consider me a threat to national security.

The U.S. government invited me to apply for a new visa and, with Notre Dame’s help, I did so in October 2004. But after three months passed without a response, I felt I had little choice but to give up my new position and resume my life in Europe. Even so, I never abandoned the effort to clear my name. At the urging of American academic and civic groups, I reapplied for a visa one last time in September 2005, hoping that the government would retract its accusation. Once again, I encountered only silence.

Finally, in January, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and PEN American Center filed a lawsuit on my behalf, challenging the government’s actions. In court, the government’s lawyers admitted that they could establish no connection between me and any terrorist group; the government had merely taken a “prudential” measure by revoking my visa. Even then, the government maintained that the process of reconsidering my visa could take years. The federal court — which issued a ruling recognizing that I have been a vocal critic of terrorism — rejected the indefinite delay. In June, it ordered the government to grant me a visa or explain why it would not do so.

On Sept. 21, the long-awaited explanation arrived. The letter from the U.S. Embassy informed me that my visa application had been denied, and it put an end to the rumors that had circulated since my original visa was revoked. After a lengthy investigation, the State Department cited no evidence of suspicious relationships, no meetings with terrorists, no encouraging or advocacy of terrorism. Instead, the department cited my donation of $940 to two humanitarian organizations (a French group and its Swiss chapter) serving the Palestinian people. I should note that the investigation did not reveal these contributions. As the department acknowledges, I had brought this information to their attention myself, two years earlier, when I had reapplied for a visa.

In its letter, the U.S. Embassy claims that I “reasonably should have known” that the charities in question provided money to Hamas. But my donations were made between December 1998 and July 2002, and the United States did not blacklist the charities until 2003. How should I reasonably have known of their activities before the U.S. government itself knew? I donated to these organizations for the same reason that countless Europeans — and Americans, for that matter — donate to Palestinian causes: not to help fund terrorism, but because I wanted to provide humanitarian aid to people who desperately need it. Yet after two years of investigation, this was the only explanation offered for the denial of my visa. I still find it hard to believe.

What words do I utter and what views do I hold that are dangerous to American ears, so dangerous, in fact, that I should not be allowed to express them on U.S. soil?

I have called upon Western societies to be more open toward Muslims and to regard them as a source of richness, not just of violence or conflict. I have called upon Muslims in the West to reconcile and embrace both their Islamic and Western identities. I have called for the creation of a “New We” based on common citizenship within which Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Muslims and people with no religion can build a pluralistic society. And yes, I believe we all have a right to dissent, to criticize governments and protest undemocratic decisions. It is certainly legitimate for European Muslims and American Muslims to criticize their governments if they find them unjust — and I will continue to do so.

At the same time, I do not stop short of criticizing regimes from Muslim countries. Indeed, the United States is not the only country that rejects me; I am also barred from Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and even my native Egypt. Last month, after a few sentences in a speech by Pope Benedict XVI elicited protests and violence, I published an article noting how some governments in the Muslim world manipulate these imagined crises to suit their political agendas. “When the people are deprived of their basic rights and of their freedom of expression,” I argued, “it costs nothing to allow them to vent their anger over Danish cartoons or the words of the Pontiff.” I was immediately accused of appeasing the enemies of Islam, of being more Western than Muslim.

Today, I live and work in London. From my posts at Oxford University and the Lokahi Foundation, I try to promote cultural understanding and to prevent radicalization within Muslim communities here. Along with many British citizens, I have criticized the country’s new security laws and its support for the war in Iraq. Yet I have never been asked to remain silent as a condition to live or work here. I can express myself freely.

I fear that the United States has grown fearful of ideas. I have learned firsthand that the Bush administration reacts to its critics not by engaging them, but by stigmatizing and excluding them. Will foreign scholars be permitted to enter the United States only if they promise to mute their criticisms of U.S. policy? It saddens me to think of the effect this will have on the free exchange of ideas, on political debate within America, and on our ability to bridge differences across cultures.

Want to learn more? Check out the recent New Yorker article here.

Ramadan begins tomorrow and will last for a month. For an explanation of the holiday we turn to John Esposito’s What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam:

The fourth Pillar of Islam, the Fast of Ramadan, occurs once each year during the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and the month in which the first revelation of the Quran came to Muhammad. During this monthlong fast, Muslims whose health permits must abstain from dawn to sunset from food, drink, and sexual activity. Fasting is a practice common to many religions, sometimes undertaken as penance, sometimes to free us from undue focus on physical needs and appetites. In Islam the discipline of the Ramadan fast is intended to stimulate reflection on human frailty and dependence upon God, focus on spiritual goals and values, and identification with and response to the less fortunate.At dusk the fast is broken with a light meal popularly referred to as breakfast. Families and friends share a special late evening meal together, often including special foods and sweets served only at this time of the year. Many go to the mosque for the evening prayer, followed by special prayers
recited only during Ramadan. Some will recite the entire Quran (one-thirtieth each night of the month) as a special act of piety, and public recitations of the Quran or Sufi chanting can be heard throughout the evening. Families rise before sunrise to take their first meal of the day, which must sustain
them until sunset.

Near the end of Ramadan (the twenty-seventh day) Muslims commemorate the “Night of Power” when Muhammad first received God’s revelation. The month of Ramadan ends with one of the two major Islamic celebrations, the Feast of the Breaking of the Fast, called Eid al-Fitr, which resembles
Christmas in its spirit of joyfulness, special celebrations, and gift giving.