We must ask why kill Ken Bigley

The Observer | Comment | We must ask why: "Mohammed Atta piloted a plane into the Twin Towers because he felt that, as a believer, he had to strike at a supposed global conspiracy against Muslims. Bin Laden has internationalised the issue. Now activists from Kashmir to Morocco talk of the 'Crusader-Zionist alliance' set on crushing Islam."

This is a good article that helps us to understand more fully what's going on in a way that pushes past cheap and jingoistic slogans. We need apart form any other considerations, to understand how the West is part of the problem without necessarily being totally to blame. There's a reflexivity about it that needs to be borne in mind. Articles like this help us to do that.

I like that in this article there is an attempt to see how while the west has a part to play in creating the problem, it nevertheless doesn't entirely hold the west responsible since there is considerable responsibility left with the perpetrators. But it does bring together the sense that there is a cocktail of drivers, poverty, affront, oppression, the possibility of finding and using certain 'resources' within Islamic foundation documents to justify terrorist acts.

There is some debate about how far these 'resources' represent the true spirit of Islam. Some would say that the Islamists are right: Islam is essentially a violent religion which advocates extreme and brutal measures and dishonesty in certain circumstances whilst others [clearly a majority of Muslims] believe Islam to be basically peaceful and humane. For those of us who are not followers of Muhammed's teachings it is hard to judge and the general rule about interfaith dialogue and relations would lead us to not prescribe which outcome: it is for Muslims to decide what is truest of their faith, though we can obviously say how it might look to us and ask for explanations, just as others may do with Us Christians. But we must be prepared to be told we are wrong in our suppositions or interpretations, and to be prepared to work a little at understaning how issues of hermeneutics and authority might work within, in this case, Islam.

It does look to me as if the advocations of violence within Islamic tradition are well-founded and more authoritative within Islamic sources than I can see supports a more moderate view. So I am awaiting the evidence that shows me how more moderate Muslims handle such matters and how that relates to official teaching in the form of fatwas [for example, has there been any fatwa against Osama Bin Laden?]. It kind of looks like Muslims have the problem of trying to justify humane and non-violent ways from their scriptures whiles Christians tend to have the reverse issue. And all of us are in the boat of trying to relate scriptures which advocate things that appear to be not good in our societies to a notion of what is good that seems independent of any external authority.

I have met humane Muslims who have advocated that, for example, Amina Lawal should not be stoned [when that was an issue] on the basis that adultery needs to be witnessed by two [or was it four] other people and has to be the act itself. Since that was clearly not the case and is rarely going to be the case, it all seems a lot more humane. However, I had to say that my reply was that it seemed a harsh punishment to have on the books for that offence in any case no matter how mitigated it was in practice and theory... there's been no come back on that point.