By Fiyaz Mughal

Islam’s history contains some glorious periods, spanning Andalusia, Baghdad and the seats of learning and art that they created. I am proud to be attached by birth to this part of our cultural heritage.

However, over my life I have come to understand that Islam initially grew from a zealous desire to spread the faith out of Arabia and across parts of Africa and the Middle East. Like any religion, it has its bloody history.

Muslims have never seriously debated the really hard questions, such as whether Islam’s supremacy over other beliefs is simply based on man-made legitimacy and power, rather than being divinely ordained. This also goes for other faiths, primarily Christianity, which, like Islam, has its own violent past.

Over time, I have come to realise that much of the life of Prophet Muhammad was never documented. It was orally transmitted, potentially subjected to embellishment; it was around 80 to 100 years before anything was actually chronicled.

Much of the Sunnah (the traditions and practices of Muhammad) may well have changed over time as they were recorded. In fact, how much of the Islam that people practise today resembles the Islam of Prophet Muhammad is a question that needs to be asked. Few Muslims dare to do so.

There needs to come a time when Muslims who want to see a progressive interpretation of their faith hold to account the failings within Islam.

There are many difficult issues to reflect upon. Islam’s early history with Jewish communities in Arabia was at different points positive and friendly — and bloodthirsty. Sunni Islam’s history with the Shia sect is also deeply disturbing, with the schism leading to what can only be called a genocidal attempt to wipe out the Shia community, including the targeting of women and children.

Islam is becoming increasingly irrelevant to many people in the modern world. What must also not be dismissed is how Islamist antisemitism and ignorance of the Holocaust has become endemic in parts of Muslim communities across the globe.

Conspiracy theories about Jewish power travel from Cairo to Islamabad and then back into the UK, while casual comments about the murder of Jews in alleyways of such cities go unchecked. It is as though, while some Muslims talk about Islam being a “religion of peace”, they are often willing to overlook fantasies of brutalising Jews.

This split within their own minds shows that there is a multi-generational challenge in countering antisemitism within Muslim communities.

Given that there are nearly 1.8 billion Muslims across the globe, that is a lot of minds to change if, for example, even just 20 per cent of them think this way.

Take for example, Dr Rizwan Mustafa, whom the Jewish Chronicle has highlighted recently. He is the founding chair of the West Midlands branch of the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP), and was discussed in the recent Prevent review by William Shawcross.

The JC revealed how a probe has been launched into Dr Mustafa, given that he is in charge of recruiting new recruits into the force. He is alleged to have shared content describing Jews as “filth”.

How has it come to be that Islam, which is fundamentally based on Judaism, has seen so many of its followers relish and wallow in Jew hatred? How has it become the “new norm” that antisemitism is virulently alive and spreading in so many Muslim majority countries

When I ask fellow Muslims why this is the case, denial is the usual response.

While modern-day developments such as the Abraham Accords open up new opportunities between Arab Muslim majority countries and Israel, I hope there comes a time when Muslims in those countries ask the questions that I have dared to ask.

The conclusion that I have come to is that Muhammad was a man of courage, vision, drive, leadership and determinism. He was indeed remarkable and Islamic history has brought much to civilisation and enhanced many parts of our collective lives.

Yet, he was also pragmatic, willing to go to war, to pressurise and defeat people with the sword. He also enjoyed the company of women, much like men of his time. In today’s moral framework, some elements are troubling, but looking at history through a modern lens is unfair.

Unless many Muslims stop acting as if their history smells of roses, we will never see the reality of what Muhammad’s life and teachings really were. Tough, kind, brutal and, sometimes, at stark odds with what we think and choose to believe.

Credits:

Fiyaz Mughal is the founder of Muslims Against Antisemitism.

This blog was first published by The Jewish Chronicle, 9 March 2023.