Muslim fundamentalism is being blamed for history's worst terrorist attack. ANDREW LAXON searches for the truth about the world's second-biggest religion.
It was the question that kept cropping up in the wake of last week's suicide attacks on New York and Washington: what kind of cause can make a man fly a plane carrying 93 people into the World Trade Center, killing himself and thousands of others?
The obvious answer was Islamic fundamentalism, which provides the ideological foundations for chief suspect Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda (the Base) organisation and many terrorist groups.
This potentially explosive link has disturbed many. Muslim leaders around the world were quick to condemn the attack as against the basic principles of Islam.
Western politicians, including President George W. Bush, agreed and implored their countrymen not to retaliate against local Muslims.
But the problem remains. Rightly or wrongly, Islam is used to justify some of the worst acts of terrorism since the Cold War.
Experts in religion and terrorism believe the religion itself is not to blame. But they warn that a political crisis in the Muslim world has let the faith be hijacked for political purposes by a new breed of fundamentalists.
What is Islam?
The world's second-biggest religion after Christianity has more than a billion followers, known as Muslims, across the globe. They stretch from west Africa through the Middle East to New Zealand's northern neighbour Indonesia, the biggest Muslim nation.
Muslims believe in one God, Allah, whose vision was revealed through the writings of the Koran to the last and greatest of his prophets, Muhammad, born in AD570. Devout Muslims believe the Koran represents the exact words of Allah, just as many Christians believe every word in the Bible comes direct from God.
Muslims come from the same bitterly divided religious family as Jews and Christians. They recognise Abraham, Moses and Jesus as prophets but, unlike Christians, do not recognise Jesus as the son of God.
Like other religions, Islam has divisions and sects with important political undertones. The Shiites dominate Iran, where they have developed a hierarchy of clerical authority, the ayatollahs, roughly similar to Catholicism. In contrast, most Sunni Muslims are like Protestants in stressing individual interpretation of the faith.
What do Muslims believe?
Islam sets out five pillars of faith. Muslims must pledge commitment to the creed (shahada) that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger. They are expected to pray five times daily at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and nightfall, and abstain from food, drink and sex during the holy month of Ramadan, which is determined by the lunar calendar.
They should also give a percentage of their income to the poor and make a pilgrimage (the Haj) to the Grand Mosque at Mecca in Saudi Arabia once in their life if physically and financially capable.
Is Islam opposed to the Western way of life?
Yes, in many ways, but so are some forms of fundamentalist Christianity. Islam forbids alcohol, gambling, homosexuality and sex outside marriage (although men can have up to four wives). It sees no division between religion and the state, and generally frowns on the Western World's emphasis on individual human rights.
Many Muslim countries place heavy restrictions on women, forcing them to completely cover themselves in public, forbidding them to drive and generally subjecting them to their husbands.
The prohibitions have reached an extreme in Afghanistan, where the Taleban regime, which shelters bin Laden, dreams of a society based on the sharia, or Muslim law.
Failure to pray to Mecca five times a day is punishable by jail, drivers are forbidden to give rides to women and all portraits must be destroyed because they promote idolatry. Women are banned from working outside the home, except in hospitals, where they are segregated from men, and girls are not educated.
However Muslim apologists say these measures are a corruption of Islam for political purposes.
Many Western experts agree. Scott Appleby, a historian of religion at Notre Dame University, also argues that Muslim fundamentalists' contempt for countries like the United States is not "because of our Christian faith", as evangelist Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son, told Americans.
"Islamists reject secular modernity, with its pornography, materialism, drug dependency and high divorce rate," Dr Appleby told Newsweek. "They would respect the US much more if we did not separate God from governance - if we were in fact a Christian state."
But isn't there still a long history of religious conflict?
Yes. Islam has been a traditional bogeyman for the West since the so-called Dark Ages when Muslims conquered most of Spain and made it as far as Constantinople (now Istanbul). Christians got their own back in the Crusades, retaking Jerusalem for 200 years and slaughtering 70,000 Muslims by their own estimate.
For this reason, President Bush's careless use of the term "crusade against terrorism" on Monday conjured up all the wrong images among his potential allies in the Middle East.
Does Islam say it is right to kill non-believers?
It depends which part of the Koran you read. Fundamentalists can turn to verses such as "Kill them [unbelievers] wherever you find them". The more enthusiastic can follow up demands that enemies of Allah "should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides".
But there are many other verses preaching tolerance and understanding. One reads: " ... never let your hatred of people who would bar you from the inviolable house of worship [the mosque at Mecca] lead you into the sin of aggression."
Jonathon Swanson, a specialist in terrorism and political studies at Auckland University, says the debate is similar to the arguments in Western countries about literal interpretations of Christianity.
Even most fundamentalist Christians would not advocate literally going back to the laws and social structures prescribed in passages of the Bible. The same, he says, is true for most Muslims, including those who are deeply religious.
Does Islam encourage its followers to fight a holy war?
The idea of a jihad or holy war has been grossly misinterpreted by terrorist groups for political ends, say academics.
The word has many meanings from the personal struggle to control one's passions to the rules of war. "It is not a licence to kill," insists David Little, professor of religion and international affairs at Harvard Divinity School. "Islamic theory largely limits just wars to the defensive."
Not surprisingly, the Taleban's declaration last night of a jihad against the US is already being justified in these terms.
The deputy chairman of the Taleban Council of Ministers, Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhond, said it was unimaginable that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks on America "but the USA and all imperialists in the world, Jews and Christians and their supporters are intending to destroy the Islamic order which has been established at the cost of your blood under this pretext".
Why are Islamic fundamentalists so willing to die for their cause?
Traditionally, Islam reveres its martyrs and the Koran teaches that anyone who dies for the faith goes directly to heaven. There is also a popular belief among some young men that their needs will forever be catered for in paradise by 72 virgins. Sadly for them, this is not promised by the Koran, says Islamic studies professor Mustafa Abu Sway of Al Quds University.
Modern Islamic fundamentalism has extended the idea of martyrdom to include volunteer suicide. Apart from last week's attacks, it was probably seen most graphically in the 1980s war between Iran and Iraq, when thousands of young Iranians with the shahada written on their headgear blew themselves up in Iraqi minefields so their regular Army could cross enemy lines.
Do Muslims support the latest killings?
Not in the West and moderate Arab states. Muslim leaders and Western politicians are going out of their way to emphasise this is not what ordinary Muslims believe.
The American Muslim Political Coordination Council was forthright in its language: "American Muslims utterly condemn what are apparently vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. We join with all Americans in calling for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. No political cause could ever be assisted by such immoral acts."
Anxious to shore up Muslim support abroad and keep the peace at home, President Bush told Muslims yesterday: "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam."
However there is some ambivalence even in Western countries. A poll on one US-based Islamic website yesterday showed a narrow majority - 54 per cent - feeling the response of American Muslims to the terrorist attacks had been measured and effective. However, 10 per cent thought it was out of touch and 35 per cent believed it was apologetic and weak.
In some more politically charged Muslim regions, such as Israel's West Bank, where Palestinians danced in the streets after hearing the news, locals think America got what it deserved.
But is this feeling driven by religion or politics?
"I think it's 90 per cent political and 10 per cent religious," says Auckland University's Jonathon Swanson, who regards modern Islamic fundamentalism as a perversion of true Islam. Overseas commentators agree and point to the failure of moderate Muslim Governments to deal with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism over the past 30 years.
Those countries, such as Egypt and Algeria, have often relied on American support, which has now backfired on them as extremists reject their legitimacy.
The result is a power vacuum in the Muslim world which has provided room for a new wave of terrorists like bin Laden and his supporters in the Taleban.
Map: Opposing forces in the war against terror
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