Introduction
An Imam is a role somewhat similar to the Priest in Christianity.
I could be an Imam. You could be an Imam. Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s propaganda minister – would probably make a fairly successful Imam. To be an Imam all you have to do is convince the person you’re talking to that you are one. That basically means memorising a bunch of Arabic phrases, putting on a bit of weight, and growing a beard– meeting stereotypes (especially when they have a statistical basis) always helps. Now, you’re going to struggle a little convincing people in highly educated regions, but fortunately for you, most of the Muslim world doesn’t qualify there. Plane ticket to illiterate Northern Pakistan and you’re sorted.
You see, there is no central authority in Islam. There is no certification– imagine there is no bar examination required to be a lawyer. The best part is that once you, with great ease frankly, pull of the Imam title, you gain a highly respected voice. The voice of God himself. God wants……what you interpret the Quran as saying.
I should point out here that very few Muslims, even those that speak modern Arabic, actually understand the Quran’s Ancient Arabic language. Just think how English has changed over the past 1300 years - it would be wrong to say that, just because we may recognise the occasional word, we understand Beowulf in Old English.
I’m sure you can imagine what a system like this allows for. For instance, there’s a fat bearded man wandering around my very own grandmother’s village, chaining six year orphans in his spare time. That is neither a joke nor an exaggeration. You see, there is no state run orphanage system in Pakistan and so he takes them in, and to stop them from running away he chains them in the Mosque gardens like farm animals – in fact he uses the same chain that is used to tie down cows. Apparently he’s a man of Allah. An Imam. Now, it’s not that my grandmother village is filled with uneducated barbarians. There would be a mob if some other villager were to even try such an atrocity. But the Imam is the exception to the rule – to a lot of rules. It seems when they come across his fat figure, their critical reasoning totally stops – like a deer frozen in car headlights. The Imam’s actions are a blind spot to them, a blind spot they don’t even realise is there. And this is all in a relatively prosperous village in the heart of Punjab, Pakistan’s wealthier and more educated region.
I want to make clear that this is not about Islamic scripture, which is relatively arbitrary when trying to explain why terrorism (or even, arguably, kindness) is so entrenched in the modern Muslim world. Do devout Christians try and burn down Las Vagas because it’s the modern Sodom and Gomorrah? Or do they use the passage:
‘Now go and completely destroy the entire Amalekite nation--men, women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys.’ Samuel 15:3
To justify – if you interpret it in particular way – what we can only have nightmares about. Trust me when I say that reaching similarly horrific interpretations with the Quran is significantly harder. Despite this, the Islamic community seems to be the world leader when it comes to religious terrorism. Point being, to look at Scripture as the source, despite it seeming like the apparently obvious one, is to look in the wrong direction. But to look at societal systems, like how a man gets away with chaining orphans in broad daylight, is what I propose as the right one.
The first part of the book will demonstrate to you the weakness of some of the more significant systems being used by the Muslim Community. Like how Muslim’s spend hundreds of hours deluding themselves into thinking they are being educated at Koranic Schools– when in reality they gain little more than you would if you had memorized a African tribal chant (I will of course justify this rather controversial assertion). How this leads to Imam’s holding a monopoly on the word of God for a large portion of the Muslim population. How the above two facts combined with the total lack of certification or centralisation means I could convince a bunch of villagers that God wants them to blow themselves up in the local market.
The word of God, or rather the incentive of gaining Heaven and avoiding Hell, was used by men in the Vatican, by Rome, to chain Europe for well over a thousand years – all without a single soldier. Faith replaced Rome’s legions. So trust me when I say it’s a powerful tool – a tool freely available in the Muslim world to exploit.
In the second part I will try, in my arrogance, to propose a potentially feasible solution to the problem of how to get mass certification and centralisation to happen. Perhaps it will be totally unviable due to one of the hundreds of unconsidered factors becoming significant, but it should at least serve as a seed for others to work upon.
