Illustration by Ihsan Hammouri
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Big Idea
Talking Can Stop Hate
By Akbar Ahmed, March & April 2007
On a daring trek through the Muslim world, Islamic expert Akbar Ahmed shows how simple conversations can change the minds of even the most radical extremists
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On a bumpy van ride to Deoband, an orthodox Islamic school a few hours from Delhi, India, our host, a young man named Aijaz, is politely discussing murder. “The actions of Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Taliban, even if they kill women and children, are perfectly justified in Islam,” he tells us. His words are startling—even frightening—but this is why we are here: to talk about our differences and, in doing so, to discover our similarities. Aijaz sits in the front seat of our van, looking back at us. Bearded and bespectacled, he’s wearing white linen pants with a long coat and a small white skullcap—the traditional South Asian Muslim dress. Bumping along with me are Hailey Woldt and Frankie Martin, two of my honors students from American University in Washington, D.C., where I’m the chair of Islamic Studies. They’ve taken time off from their academic year to come here—paying for the trip themselves and ignoring the advice of loved ones who begged them not to go.
Hailey is dressed in impeccable Muslim clothes from Pakistan: a white, loose shalwar kameez, and a white scarf to cover her head in the mosque. She asks Aijaz—a Muslim scholar and the author of a book, Jihad and Terrorism—a series of questions, but he deflects the conversation to me. An orthodox Muslim, he is honoring Hailey’s status as a woman and not looking directly at her, which would be a sign of disrespect.
We traveled to talk about our differences and to discover our similarities.
He won’t look at me, Hailey scribbles indignantly on a note she passes to me. She is emerging as a perceptive observer of culture and custom. We would travel to nine countries in the three major regions of Islam—the Middle East, South Asia, and Far East Asia—for two months in 2006, speaking with a wide range of people, from President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan to students and sheiks, and visiting mosques, madrassahs, campuses, and classrooms. Our goal: to change opinions and to better understand Muslim culture—and to show a side of the United States that Muslims rarely see.
Aijaz is now talking about jihad. The prophet Muhammad defined the “greater jihad”—the term jihad is derived from “to strive” in Arabic—as the struggle to elevate ourselves spiritually and morally. It has nothing to do with violence. The “lesser jihad” is the need to defend one’s family and community. In this case, too, action is limited to defense and not aggression. But shocking as it sounds to Hailey and Frankie, Aijaz justifies attacks against Israelis and Americans as self-defense.
The popularity of Aijaz’s book reflects the depth of Muslim outrage around the world. Like many Muslims, Aijaz feels his way of life and his religion are facing an onslaught, militarily and culturally. For Aijaz, bin Laden and the Taliban are the true champions of Islam. And yet, by the time we would leave Delhi, this angry man would undergo a stunning transformation.
Until you’ve visited the Muslim world, it’s hard to grasp the intensity of anti-American feelings. Many of the people we surveyed said they would prefer Saddam Hussein, the most ruthless and vile of dictators, to the Americans in Iraq. When we visited Turkey, the nation’s most popular movie was Valley of the Wolves: Iraq, a crudely anti-American film showing a group of Turkish Rambos on a rampage against “evil” U.S. soldiers.
The complaints we heard were the same as those in Aijaz’s book: Muslims feel persecuted. They see the Iraq war as an attempt to destabilize and pull apart the Middle East. They speak angrily of Muslims imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay and tortured at Abu Ghraib. They resent U.S. support of totalitarian regimes. They feel overwhelmed by Western culture.
Muslims often asked us why the West equates Islam with terrorism, yet these same people often equate Americans with warmongers. As Frankie said, in something of a revelation after an encounter with some students in northern India, “They stereotype us just as we stereotype them.”
This is why we must talk. To provide new perspectives. During our trip, Frankie and Hailey were the first Americans that many people had ever met. The effect was often startling: the stereotypes about Americans were replaced by real people. I spoke often on our trip of the friendships I enjoy with Jews, Christians, and Muslims. I spoke of how inspired I am by my friend Judea Pearl, who lost his only son, reporter Daniel Pearl, in a brutal and senseless killing in Pakistan—and who has used this tragedy as a bridge to reach out to Muslims. And yet few Americans in the Muslim world go beyond their high-security walls to meet merchants or cabdrivers. Imagine the impact if a high-profile American visited an ordinary Muslim at his home. Imagine the cultural and psychological barriers that would vanish.
Think how different the Middle East might be if the Palestinians and the Israelis attempted such understanding. Once friendship develops, everything can change.
We can see into the souls of others only if we take the trouble, and the risk, to visit one another. Only then can change occur. And we saw such change on our trip: in ourselves and in others.
In Damascus, Syria, we visited Sheik Hussam Al-Din Farfour, the head of the Fatah Institute, a well-known Islamic university, to talk with him and members of his faculty. The sheik wore a white turban, and a long black robe over his large frame; he kept a well-trimmed white beard. I asked some questions about Islam, but the conversation became another tedious diatribe against the United States. As we prepared to leave, he invited us for dinner. I tried to think of an excuse for not going—without success—so we turned up at his home the next night. Many of the professors I’d met the day before were there. The sheik seated me in the place of honor in his main living room, and Hailey, who was the only woman present, sat next to me. Soon more guests began to arrive. Many wore long black robes and white turbans signifying their high religious status. What I thought was going to be a long evening took on a different feel as the guests responded to us with such warmth and hospitality.
The sheik invited his guests into the dining room. Enjoying the company and the many Arab dishes, he began to hum, closing his eyes, swaying to the rhythm he tapped on his knees. He sang about the love, beauty, and compassion of the Prophet, and soon the others in the room had the same look of serenity on their faces. It was a side of Islam that Frankie and Hailey had rarely seen on the news back home.
Imagine the impact if a high-profile American visited an ordinary Muslim at his home.
After dinner the sheik escorted us to the courtyard. A chilly wind blew strong as we waited for our car. The sheik, noticing Hailey shiver, sent his son into the house. The young man reappeared with a camel-colored scarf. The sheik raised the scarf, closed his eyes, and said in Arabic: “A blessing for peace and good travels. May you be protected and live a happy life.”
The day before we left Damascus, he met us in private so he could give each of us presents. He gave me one of the most beautiful Korans I have ever seen, a special edition made for President Bashar al-Assad. In it he inscribed words of beauty and encouragement. Hailey was particularly moved by the gifts. “We must approach the world,” she would later write, “not from the position of fear, as I had done before this trip, but from that of love and friendship. If two Americans with their professor can make such a difference, what can a whole nation do with the power of compassion and dialogue?”
No one experienced a more radical change in thinking than Aijaz, the scholar from Deoband who had so forcefully defended Osama bin Laden.
After our initial visit, Aijaz accompanied us for the next week to many of our meetings in Delhi. He had arranged some of these himself, such as a visit to the headquarters of Jamat-i-Islami, the orthodox Islamic party of South Asia. Aijaz listened to my speeches about my American friends, both Jews and Christians. At every forum, he heard me emphasize the need for dialogue and understanding as a Koranic duty. And he would have long conversations with Hailey, Frankie, and Hadia Mubarak, a Brookings Institution research assistant who had joined us. (Although Aijaz was initially reserved about speaking directly with women, he opened up to them after a few days in the field.) These were likely the first Americans he had met, and certainly the first he had spoken with for such long periods of time. He could now put a human face on the “American barbarians.” Here were Americans who listened to his opinions and discussed them. And for my students, here was a thoughtful man who was not the stereotypical “Islamic extremist.”
Toward the end of our visit, Aijaz approached me and said he would like to translate my book Islam Under Siege. This was an astonishing shift for him. The book discusses the need to create trust between societies through dialogue and understanding—a far different theme than that of Aijaz’s book on jihad. He could now relate to Americans and even Israelis because they were ultimately human. His anger and ignorance were checked. And by translating the book, he will spread these ideas over a vast network of madrassahs and mosques. Instead of interpreting jihad as violence, perhaps young people will see it as a peaceful movement to create understanding.
For the United States, understanding Muslims is not a luxury. It is an imperative. There is an intense debate in the Muslim world, and it is unclear which type of Islam will prevail: the more fundamentalist, aggressive type or the more moderate, compassionate type. If the U.S. can support moderate Muslims and strengthen their position, they will eventually succeed.
I came back from my travels aware that the problem may be bigger than I had thought. Yet because of the kind and concerned individuals we met, I was also hopeful. Dialogue is the hope for the future. It will make our world a better place and a safer place.
Akbar Ahmed discusses dialogue and friendship in his new book, Journey Into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization (Brookings Institution Press).
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