Not in God's Name

by Jonathan Sacks

  That is what makes Abrahamic monotheism different from the religions that preceded it. In the ancient world, the pharaohs of Egypt, like the kings of Mesopotamian city states, combined temporal and ecclesiastical power. They were both head of state and head of the religion of the state. They claimed to be, and were seen as being, god made manifest or the child of the gods or the chief intercessor with the gods. They presided over religious rites. But the religion of Abraham was born in a protest against this very phenomenon. Eric Voegelin put it precisely:

  The world of politics is essentially polytheistic in the sense that every centre of power, however small and insignificant it may be, has a tendency to posit itself as an absolute entity in the world, regardless of the simultaneous existence of other centres which deem themselves equally absolute.22

  Polytheism, with its vision of multiple forces and perennial conflict, is compatible with the sacralisation of politics. Monotheism is not.

  Of course, religious history was rarely that simple. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all acquired political power in one form or another. In the biblical age Israel became a kingdom, soon splitting in two. Christianity and Islam both became imperial powers. Eventually, though, there comes a point of crisis when the religion encounters massive change, and an argument develops within the faith itself. Do we respond to change by change? Do we preserve institutions as they are? Do we return to the core message of the faith?

  The argument itself is not the problem. Its resolution is. Having grown accustomed to power, religious leaders become used to getting their way by force. This time, however, there is more than one group claiming to act in the name of religion: the same religion. Force meets force, and the result is the religious equivalent of civil war, with all the bitterness of war and all the uncompromising passion of religion. That is what happened to Judaism in the first century, Christianity in the seventeenth, and Islam today. That is when religion discovers that power has different rules from those that apply in the life of the spirit. Either that, or it destroys itself.

  —

  The most disastrous form of politics associated with the Abrahamic faiths is apocalyptic politics, the politics of the end of days. Apocalypse comes late to the religion of Abraham, possibly from the same source – Zoroastrianism – as did the dualism we explored in chapter 3. It differs fundamentally from classical prophecy. The prophet thought in terms of normal history. Though there may be setbacks and defeats, the people of God, living by the law and love of God, will eventually find that righteousness is rewarded and evil brings about its own defeat. The prophet is the voice of hope.

  Apocalypse, by contrast, is the voice of despair. Normal history has failed to bring about the long-awaited redemption. Evil, far from being an instinct within us that we can conquer, is an independent force, the work of Satan. The universe is framed by the conflict between God and his enemies, and is moving towards a final confrontation that will shake the world to its foundations. The reign of God will be restored, evil will be vanquished, and history with all its vicissitudes and disappointments will come to an end.

  This is the vision that appears in the Hebrew Bible in the book of Daniel. It reappears in several intertestamental works (1 Enoch, 2 Esdras and others) excluded from the biblical canon. As we saw in chapter 3, it was a feature of the Qumran sect, and its classic expression in the New Testament is the book of Revelation. Today it figures centrally in the worldview of ISIS, which views itself as the prime mover of a process that will end in a cosmic battle between the armies of Islam and those of the Crusaders (‘Rome’). The first significant battle will be in Dabiq, Northern Syria – so important is this to the thinking of ISIS that it chose Dabiq as the title of its official online journal. The Caliphate will then expand, conquering vast territories including Istanbul. A false messiah known as Dajjal will appear, inflicting heavy casualties on the Caliphate’s army, until the final battle, and with it the global triumph of Islam, in Jerusalem.23

  Apocalypse is what happens to prophecy when it loses hope, and to politics when it loses patience. Apocalyptic politics is the strange phenomenon of a revolutionary movement whose gaze is firmly fixed on the past. It arises at times of destabilising change, and speaks to those who feel unjustly left behind. Millenarian sects flourished within Judaism in the late Second Temple period, as they did in Christian Europe in the late Middle Ages: the Ranters, Flagellants, Hussites, Anabaptists and others.24 At times of social and religious ferment, they spread like contagion. They hold particular attraction for those who feel alienated, estranged,

  Wandering between two worlds, one dead

  The other powerless to be born.25

  The phenomenon takes secular forms as well. The thinkers of the French and Russian revolutions thought in terms of what the late J.L. Talmon called ‘political messianism’ or ‘totalitarian democracy’.26 There are two ways of applying the Exodus narrative to politics. One (‘exodus politics’) understands that the journey is long and fraught with setbacks. Change in the human heart takes time and is the work of many generations. The other (‘messianic politics’) believes that the destination is close and God is beckoning. ‘Hence the readiness of messianic militants to welcome, even to initiate, the terrors that proceed the last days,’ writes Michael Walzer; ‘hence the strange politics of the worse, the better; and hence the will to sin, to risk any crime for the sake of the end.’27

  Apocalyptic politics is the search for revolution without transformation, change without the slow process of education. It uses power in place of persuasion, daggers instead of debate. It simplifies the issue of truth to the most elemental choice: agree or die. It is the longing for the end of time in the midst of time, the search for redemption now. That is why it suspends the normal rules that restrain people from murdering the innocent. Talmon’s conclusion (and remember that he is speaking about secular creeds) is so powerful that it deserves quotation at length:

  The most important lesson to be drawn from this enquiry is the incompatibility of the idea of an all-embracing and all-solving creed with liberty. The two ideals correspond to the two instincts most deeply embedded in human nature, the yearning for salvation and the love of freedom. To attempt to satisfy both at the same time is bound to result, if not in unmitigated tyranny and serfdom, at least in the monumental hypocrisy and self-deception which are the concomitants of totalitarian democracy. This is the curse on Salvationist creeds: to be born out of the noblest impulses of man, and to degenerate into weapons of tyranny. An exclusive creed cannot admit opposition. It is bound to feel itself surrounded by innumerable enemies. Its believers can never settle down to a normal existence. From this sense of peril arise their continual demands for the protection of orthodoxy by recourse to terror.28

  Apocalyptic politics always fails, because you cannot create eternity in the midst of time, or unity without dissent. It is like Samson in the temple of the Philistines, bringing down the building on his enemies but destroying himself in the process.

  —

  Religion is at its best when it relies on strength of argument and example. It is at its worst when it seeks to impose truth by force. We can trace how this idea was taken up by four different traditions. The first was the great Islamic thinker Ibn Roshd, otherwise known as Averroës (1126–98), who wrote distinguished commentaries on the works of Aristotle. One of the distinguished rabbis of the sixteenth century, Rabbi Judah Loewe of Prague (Maharal, 1525–1609), cites him in one of his own works. Averroës had argued that you should always, when presenting a philosophical argument, cite the views of your opponents. Failure to do so is an implicit acknowledgement of the weakness of your own case. R. Loewe adds:

  [Averroës’] words hold true for religion as well…It is not proper that we despise the words [of our adversaries], but rather we must draw them as close as we can…Therefore it is proper, out of love of reason and knowledge, that you should not summarily reject anything that opposes your own ideas, especially so if your adversary does not
intend merely to provoke you, but rather to declare his beliefs. Even if such beliefs are opposed to your own faith and religion, do not say [to your opponent], ‘Speak not, close your mouth.’ If that happens, there will take place no purification of religion.

  On the contrary, you should, at such times, say, ‘Speak up as much as you want, say whatever you wish, and do not say later that had you been able to speak you would have replied further’…This is the opposite of what some people think, namely, that when you prevent someone from speaking against religion, that strengthens religion. That is not so, because curbing the words of an opponent in religious matters is nothing but the curbing and enfeebling of religion itself…

  When a powerful man seeks out an opponent in order to demonstrate his own strength, he very much wants his opponent to exercise as much power as he can, so that if he defeats him his own victory will be more pronounced. What strength is manifested when the opponent is not permitted to fight?…Hence, one should not silence those who speak against religion…for to do so is an admission of weakness.29

  Several decades later, John Milton made the same point in his defence of free speech, Areopagitica (1644): ‘And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?’

  Two centuries on, John Stuart Mill reiterated the argument in On Liberty (1859):

  But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.30

  It is fascinating to see how in this conversation across seven centuries, first a Muslim, then a Jew, then a Christian, then a secular humanist come together to agree on the importance of free speech and making space for dissent. Greater is the pursuit of truth than the exercise of force.

  Religion acquires influence when it relinquishes power. It is then that it takes its place, not among the rulers but among the ruled, not in the palaces of power but in the real lives of ordinary men and women who become extraordinary when brushed by the wings of eternity. It becomes the voice of the voiceless, the conscience of the community, the perennial reminder that there are moral limits of power and that the task of the state is to serve the people, not the people the state. That is why we remember prophets and continue to be inspired by them, while the names of emperors and tyrants are lost to collective memory. To paraphrase Kierkegaard: ‘When a king dies, his power ends. When a prophet dies, his influence begins.’31 When religion divests itself of power, it is freed from the burden of rearranging the deckchairs on the ship of state and returns to its real task: changing lives.

  Religion – as understood by Abraham and those who followed him – is at its best when it resists the temptation of politics and opts instead for influence. For what it tells us is that civilisations are judged not by power but by their concern for the powerless; not by wealth but by how they treat the poor; not when they seek to become invulnerable but when they care for the vulnerable. Religion is not the voice of those who sit on earthly thrones but of those who, not seeking to wield power, are unafraid to criticise it when it corrupts those who hold it and diminishes those it is held against.

  Elijah was a great prophet. He was ‘zealous’ for God’s honour and bitterly opposed to the false prophets of Baal. He challenged them to a test on Mount Carmel. He won; they lost; the people were persuaded; the false prophets were killed – as convincing a demonstration of religious truth as any in the Bible. But the story (1 Kgs 18–19) does not end there. Summoned by an angel to Mount Horeb, he witnesses an earthquake, a whirlwind and a raging fire. But ‘God was not in’ the earthquake or the wind or the fire. He came to Elijah in a ‘still, small voice’. When religion becomes an earthquake, a whirlwind, a fire, it can no longer hear the still, small voice of God summoning us to freedom.

  14

  Letting Go of Hate

  Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness.

  Martin Luther King1

  I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

  James Arthur Baldwin

  To be free, you have to let go of hate.

  There is an extraordinary moment in the Hebrew Bible, a passage so brief that you hardly notice it, but it may contain the truth most important for the twenty-first century. Here is the scene. Moses has spent forty years leading the Israelites. He has taken them out of slavery in Egypt, through the sea, across the desert and to the brink of the Promised Land. He has been told by God that he will not be allowed to cross the Jordan and enter the land himself. He will die outside, within sight of his destination but not yet there.

  He understands this. It became a principle in Judaism: it is not for you to complete the work but neither are you free to desist from it. When it comes to social transformation, even the greatest cannot live to see the fulfilment of their dreams. For each of us there is a Jordan we will not cross. Once we know this, one thing becomes important above all others. Leave guidance to those who will follow you, for it is they who will continue the work. Be clear. Be focused. Be visionary.

  That is what Moses did. The way the Hebrew Bible tells it, he spent the last month of his life addressing the nation in some of the most visionary speeches ever delivered. They exist today as the book of Deuteronomy. This is the book that contains the great command that defines Judaism as a religion of love: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your might’ (Deut. 6:5). It contains the most important inter-human command: ‘Love the stranger for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt’ (Deut. 10:19). Deuteronomy contains the word ‘love’ more than any other of the Mosaic books.

  That is not surprising. Moses had spoken about love before, most famously in the command, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Lev. 19:18). Abrahamic monotheism was the first moral system to be based not just on justice and reciprocity – do for others what you would like them to do for you – but on love. What is really unexpected is what he says about hate:

  Do not hate an Egyptian, because you were a stranger in his land. (Deut. 23:7)

  This is a very counter-intuitive command. Recall what had happened. The Egyptians had enslaved the Israelites. They had initiated a policy of slow genocide, killing every male Israelite at birth. Moses had begged Pharaoh repeatedly to let the people go and he had refused. Moses also knew that this entire chapter of Israelite history was not accidental or incidental. It was their matrix as a nation, their formative experience. They were commanded to remember it for ever, enacting it once a year on Passover, eating the unleavened bread of affliction and the bitter herbs of slavery. All these, on the face of it, were reasons to hate the Egyptians or at the very least to look back with a sense of grievance, resentment, animosity and pain. Why then did Moses say the opposite? Do not hate them, because you were strangers in their land.

  Because to be free, you have to let go of hate. That is what Moses was saying. If the Israelites continued to hate their erstwhile enemies, Moses would have succeeded in taking the Israelites out of Egypt, but he would have failed to take Egypt out of the Israelites. Mentally, they would still be there, slaves to the past, prisoners of their memories. They would still be in chains, not of metal but of the mind. And chains of the mind are sometimes the worst of all.

  —

  On 7 May 2002, Iqraa, a Saudi Arabian–owned television ch
annel, broadcast an interview that goes to the heart of the subject of this chapter. The programme was called Muslim Woman Magazine, its host was Doaa ’Amer, and she was interviewing a young child:

  ’Amer: What’s your name?

  Child: Basmallah.

  ’Amer: Basmallah, how old are you?

  Child: Three and a half.

  ’Amer: Are you a Muslim?

  Child: Yes.

  ’Amer: Basmallah, are you familiar with the Jews?

  Child: Yes.

  ’Amer: Do you like them?

  Child: No.

  ’Amer: Why don’t you like them?

  Child: Because…

  ’Amer: Because they are what?

  Child: They’re apes and pigs.

  ’Amer: Because they are apes and pigs. Who said they are so?

  Child: Our God.

  ’Amer: Where did he say this?

  Child: In the Qur’an.

  The interviewer concludes: ‘Basmallah, Allah be praised. May our God bless her. No one could wish Allah could give him a more believing girl than she. May Allah bless her and her father and mother. The next generation of children must be true Muslims. We must educate them now while they are still children so that they will be true Muslims.’

  There was a storm after the interview was shown. Yet, as we saw in chapter 4, the world of radical political Islam is awash with hate, above all with antisemitism. Indeed, the people who write most eloquently and critically about this are themselves Muslims, often women. They know that there is something fundamentally wrong about this, that it is not merely destructive but also self-destructive. They also know that this is not the traditional voice of Islam. As chapter 4 made clear, though there are negative verses about Jews in the Qur’an, antisemitism as such has its roots only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the Blood Libel and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were transplanted from Europe to the Middle East.