CREEDE HINSHAW: Complexity and simplicity in Islam

A friend forwarded me a rant about Islam that combined a few facts about current events with many personal opinions to draw conclusions shallow and simplistic. But nothing about the current state of Islam is simple.

It is hard to keep the players straight in Islam. Sunni and Shia have contended with each other for centuries. Islam also contains a mystical alternative called Sufi, a very conservative Saudi strain called Wahabism and another conservative strain called Salafism. There are probably many others, but even these are enough to keep me confused.

To understand Islam one needs a working knowledge of geography, too. Islam in the Western World (not to mention Asia) stretches from North Africa through the Middle East and into Central Asia. How many of us know where Yemen sits in relationship to Kuwait or Uzbekistan or Tunisia? Try to explain the factions in Syria/Iraq/Turkey in 25 words or less.

Overlaid onto this geography are people groups (Pashtun, Hazara, Alawite, Kurd, Palestinian, Tuareg and others) who stretch across borders artificially drawn by Western Europeans powers.

Finally there is the daunting difficulty pronouncing most Islamic names. The Muslims seem to love the opposite end of the alphabet, employing lots of q’s and z’s and k’s.

I am currently reading Joshua Hammer’s 2016 account of present day Mali in his irresistibly titled “The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts.” This work of nonfiction has everything: priceless ancient Islamic scrolls as beautiful as the Christian Book of Kells, the nomadic Tuareg people, al-Qaeda and ISIS, the hypnotic Malian music of Tinariwen and Ali Farka Toure, (both which I enjoy on Spotify), the weak Malian government and the increasingly strong radicals, the U.S. ambassador to Mali, our military goals in North Africa, and an educated Malian family man who risks his life to save priceless Arabic manuscripts from destruction by the murderous, fanatic rebels.

One chilling scene from Hammer’s book (page 143) portrays the challenge facing moderate Islam: The radicals rolled into Timbuktu in 2012, taking over the city of 54,000 without firing a shot and sadistically forcing citizens to obey their narrow version of Islam. Gathering the citizens to harangue them, they announced, “We are your new masters. We will be establishing Islam in Timbuktu.”

An imam in the crowd rose to the occasion, confronting these thugs, “How dare you say you’re going to teach us Islam? We were born with Islam. We have had Islam in Timbuktu for one thousand years.”

This scene represents the battle taking place between Islam and the West and Islam and itself. This story is still unfolding. Will the venerable expression of Islam as personified in tolerant Timbuktu be able to successfully withstand the well-armed, drug-running, murderous hijackers of one of their faith? How will the West be involved?

The answers involve more than simplistic emails or catchy political gotchas. Though the conclusion is open-ended, I believe clear-eyed, courageous love will eventually win out over violent fanaticism. That may sound simple, too. But for me it is foundational. Love conquers all.

Email columnist Creede Hinshaw, a retired Methodist minister, at [email protected].