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So we have had, apparently, our first terrorist attacks on Canadian soil since the rise of ISIS\/ISIL.\u00a0 Two Canadian soldiers run down in a parking lot, and another shot while standing guard at the Canadian War Memorial, while holding his unloaded rifle (as policy dictated).\u00a0 Two soldiers murdered, both by young men who had been \u2018radicalized\u2019 by the form of Islam practised by the members of the new \u2018Islamic State\u2019.\u00a0 It is curious that the media uses the term \u2018radicalized\u2019, which literally means to \u2018return to the root or the origin\u2019.\u00a0 Are we witnessing here a return of Islam to its original intent in the seventh century, to convert the entire world by fire and sword (or hunting rifle, or moving car)?\u00a0 God rest the souls of the soldiers who died, and their misguided killers.\u00a0 We should step back and consider this situation with clear reason, and how to respond.<\/p>\n
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It makes sense that a religion would want to convert others to its creed.\u00a0 After all, any religion, certain of the truth (or, at least, certain that they are certain of the truth) would naturally want to hand that truth on to others, and free them from their (presumed) false opinions and their (apparent) ignorance.\u00a0 Even the so-called \u2018non-religious\u2019 amongst us do have a kind of religion (see my previous blog of whether religion can be \u2018evil\u2019).\u00a0 Afer all, \u2018religion\u2019 may be defined broadly as \u00a0those principles that guide our conduct and that, as Saint Thomas states, are the \u2018master of our affections\u2019.\u00a0 We all, in some way or other, whether explicitly or impliclitly, want to bring others to our viewpoint, at least those close to us (our children, our friends, and so on).\u00a0\u00a0 There is nothing really wrong with this, so long as reasoned debate and dialogue are the means of conversion, and not coercion and, in the current form of Islam, the threat of a violent death.<\/p>\n
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Is Islam we see in Iraq at present (and its slightly more diluted forms throughout the world) \u2018real\u2019 Islam?\u00a0 Such a question is difficult to answer, for Islam has no Magisterium, no official teaching authority to which one can refer.\u00a0 We have the example of the founder and the early history of the religion, we have the founder\u2019s Suras<\/em> or sayings, collected after his death in their holy book known as the Qu\u2019ran.\u00a0 Many of these sayings are open to various interpretations, but they do imply some level of coercion in converting others to Islam (however one interprets \u2018jihad\u2019).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The main problem in Islam, to which Pope Benedict referred in his 2006 Regensburg address, is that it bifurcates faith and reason.\u00a0 Man cannot question the commands of Allah, and God may indeed ask something of us that is irrational, for his decrees are not open to human understanding.\u00a0 In fact, the distance between man and God in Islam is such that God cannot be referred to as \u2018Father\u2019, one of the principal tenets of Christianity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hence, anyone can really say and do anything in the name of Islam, and justify it as the \u2018will of Allah\u2019, citing various controversial Suras of the Qu\u2019ran to undergird their viewpoint and their\u00a0 actions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although freedom of religion is a principle of modern democracy, the State also has a duty, and a more fundamental one at that, to protect its citizens from the harm of others.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet what do we do as a nation when a whole given creed, in this case \u2018radicalized Islam\u2019, has as its intent the forced submission, and even the destruction, of those who disagree with their principles?\u00a0 Can a religion, or at least a given version of a religion, be outlawed in the interests of safety?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n