Violence in Muslim Nations Not About a Video but About Hatred

By Michael Terheyden
9/20/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

The Muslim people have good reason to be angry, but their anger needs to be directed at the true cause of their suffering: the failure of political and religious leadership and complacency

Although many Muslims do not approve of the violence which has now spread to more than 20 countries since the embassy attacks in Egypt and Libya that left four Americans dead, explosive pressures are clearly building in the Muslim world. This dangerous reality compels us to ask, how can we explain such a "spontaneous" eruption of violence against America over an obscure, 14-minute movie trailer?

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KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) - Although many Muslims do not approve of the violence which has now spread to more than 20 countries since the embassy attacks in Egypt and Libya that left four Americans dead, explosive pressures are clearly building in the Muslim world. This dangerous reality compels us to ask, how can we explain such a "spontaneous" eruption of violence against America over an obscure, 14-minute movie trailer?

First of all, the video is said to be critical of Muhammad and Islam; however, it appears highly dubious that this present round of violence is spontaneous or about a video. After all, the violence broke out on the 11th anniversary of 9-11, about six weeks after the video was posted on You Tube. Yet, Muslim leaders around the world are blaming America and the video. Some of the leaders speaking out publicly are Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the governments of Iran and Pakistan.

For the most part, their comments are very similar. For instance, they blame the United States for the violence because the video was made by a small group of American citizens. Muslim leaders say the video is inhuman and abominable and provokes hatred and hurts the feelings of their people. Now, some want the United States to criminalize criticism against Islam.

The Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, which has no regard for people's feelings or rights, says, "This immoral action [the making of the video] represents the highest degree of aggression against the sublime human right of respecting beliefs, sanctities, and feelings."

In addition, Egypt has officially charged seven Americans involved in the video with insulting the Islamic religion; Iran has vowed to track down the Americans responsible for making the video; and the Taliban has called for Muslims to kill Americans.

Interestingly, it is not uncommon in some of these same countries to find hatred toward Christianity, Judaism and America openly expressed in their newspapers, television programming and school books. There is also the government sanctioned discrimination and persecution of non-Muslims; the burning of Christian churches, homes and businesses; the kidnapping of Christian girls; and the killing of Christians for their faith.

Those who are interested in a more detailed account of the responses coming out of the Muslim world might want to read an article by Robert Spencer posted on Jihad Watch, "Muslim Brotherhood: 'Hurting the feelings of one and a half billion Muslims cannot be tolerated, and the people's anger and fury for their faith is invariably predictable, often unstoppable.'"

I do not know if the information in this video is accurate, or if it is a falsified, hateful attack against Islam. I do know that Islam is one of the major religions of the world, but there is clearly some sort of disconnect here, which brings me back to my original question: How can we explain such an eruption of violence in the Muslim world against America over this obscure movie trailer?

While there is no single explanation, Robert R. Reilly's book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind, offers us a likely explanation for this explosion of violence and hypocritical double talk coming out of the Muslim world. In it he analyzes the rejection of reason and truth within the Muslim world and its relationship to violence, which he traces back to early Islam.

Reilly tells us that there were two competing schools of thought in early Islam, Mutazilitism and Ash'aritism. The Mutazilites engaged in philosophical inquiry. In other words, they used reason to understand their faith and relate it to their experience of the world. However, the Ash'arites won out. Apparently their views best served the interests of the caliph, who did not want his authority or his methods questioned. The Ash'arites rejected reason and the use of philosophy.

The main reason for the rejection had to do with their beliefs about God and reality. For instance, the Ash'arites believed that the oneness of God means that only God exists and everything else is an illusion. They also believed that God is absolute and unlimited pure will and power. Thus, they assumed that all events are caused directly by God and that there are no natural or secondary causes. Consequently, Reilly says the idea of "cause and effect" does not exist in the Muslim mind. They do not see an inner logic to things. Everything is uncertain, unknowable and incomprehensible.

It should not surprise us, then, that Muslim scholars lost interest in philosophy, and it died out, as did the Greek influence on their culture. It also became dangerous to do philosophy. Furthermore, critical thinking was not taught, and ...

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1 - 10 of 10 Comments

robert matzinger
7 months ago
Ths "film" is only an excuse for Islamic extremeist to commit violence againts us wherever they feel they can get away with it. And we have a president who will not hold them accountable for this - and they know it!
Gregory
7 months ago
Fantastic article! this is the honest approach we need: never relenquish the facts and always address the issues, regardless of the all the foul cry of the muslims, radicals and false moderates who want to silence us, with the currupt coward approval of so many of our clueless sold-out politicians.
Kasoy
7 months ago
Very insightful analysis. The next question now is: So what do we do next? The US has no mandate to be in those nations in the first place. Let's stop our Quixotic dream of bringing peace to the whole world. Let's leave those hostile nations alone and let them settle their issues among themselves. Our presence in those countries are only helping the extremists to rally support from the rest of the populace to oust the moderates from power and put in place a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy. Without US presence there (not even a consulate or an embassy), the extremists will have a hard time finding someone to hate and to demonize to justify violents protest and riots in their streets. Let's not waste our resources in those nations. Our resources are best used in our own country to spur capital formation, investment, and economic growth. Our military manpower can be better used to promote peace and order within and along our borders and sea coasts. There will be no more soldiers coming home in caskets. Families of military men and women, no longer separated for months during deployment, can live together in their homes to raise their children.
Paul-Emile Leray
8 months ago
Wonderful article and those in democracies with freedom of speech ought to use it wisely, as this writer did, instead of adding barrels of oil to simmering coals as some in the western world often do through various forms of sensationalistic provocations passed off as journalism and/or an exercise in freedom of speech.
Paul-Emile Leray
Proteios1
8 months ago
Islamists need to put a wall around the middle east and stay there because when they enter the world stage and enter other countries,it's only a matter of time before this type of mockery becomes commonplace. Why? It's disrespect. The world doesn't respect Islamists, their hatred, inciting violence and oppressing men and women. We don't respect them and we have had enough of the violent temper tantrums. Their welcome in most countries has reached the end. We are all sick of it. Go home or grow up.
JoAnn
8 months ago
Don't be surprised if the BLIND SHEIKH is released. He is the terrorist that masterminded the attack on the World Trade Center back in the 90's and is serving a life's sentence for it. All of this was orchestrated. The film has nothing to do with it and I resent the media and the WH insulting my intelligence by pushing that rediculous story. Obama will do the wrong thing for America to appease the Muslim Brotherhood "BROTHERS." He seeded all this and has blood on his hands. He gave them the weapons they are using. America better open their eyes to who this man in the WH is. This is not about red vs. blue, this is about our freedom and this country. You are either going to live in a Republic or something very, very evil. God bless.
Rose
8 months ago
Of course the rioting is NOT the result of a film trailer. The only thing that thrives in Muslim countries is poverty and hate. They don't all have the internet like most of us do. Very few of these people have access to the internet and very few, if any, have seen the video. I believe the riots were planned and coordinated to commemorate 9/11. The time mline shows that the US ambassador was killed before the riots, not as a result of the rioting. Islamists want Israel and the US wiped off the face of the earth. And what does our President do in response to the killing of our ambassador and the burning down of our embassies? He has a film maker arrested. That'll show em Barack! All it shows them is how weak our standing is in the world as a result of this presidents failed foreign apology tour.
Emma
8 months ago
Not to sound paranoid, but why am I getting security warnings now when I log onto this site? Never did before.
vance
8 months ago
The Libyan President already told us that the murder of our Ambassador and his staff and the up risings around the world were pre-planned and premeditated. This U-Tube video has been around for months already. Obama was tipped off ahead of time but did absolutely nothing. Why, because he welcomes all that is happening. Why do I say such a thing? We are told that Obama is the most intelligent thing to shadow the door. OK, let's go with that. An intelligent guy would have taken preemptive action to save the Ambassadors life and informed America of an oncoming terrorist attacks and up risings and told the Muslim world that we will not tolerate any terrorist attacks on our embassies. He would have ordered military deployment to back up his word. In other words, he would have done what Bush did. He would have engaged China over its threat to our ally Japan, like Ronald Reagan, and tell China that we will stand by our friend Japan. Ronald Reagan and Bush 1 & 2 would not leave the Israeli President to go on David Letterman and yuck it up with "Pimp Daddy". "ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS" His actions speak to us that he could care less about this country. Whether Obama is a deliberate enemy of America or an incompetent fool, the results are the same.
DarthJ
8 months ago
Great article! Belloc predicted the return of Christianity's greatest enemy- Islam.

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