The God Gene: how Faith is Hardwired into our Genes
These books often follow a reluctant prophet who speaks to God directly. Even then, there were people who were bitterly opposed to slavery and desperately wanted to abolish it, and the first step to abolishing it might be to prevent it from growing. All the wines that appear in the comic are authentic, with Yuko and Shin Kibayashi being passionate wine lovers and even owned a 3,000-bottle collection. In addition to being a spiritual giant, the Dalai Lama is also recognized as the political leader of Tibet. In a similar vein, one could listen to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a populist, pro-Muslim Brotherhood firebrand in Qatar, and mistake him for a religious leader associated with the post-coup order in Egypt when talking in the exact same way about wasatiyya, or centrism.49 Both Qaradawi and Egypt’s grand mufti, for instance, hold forth about fiqh al-awlawiyyat-meaning the jurisprudence of priorities-which denounces the pursuit of minutiae through the extreme literalism of Salafi approaches, thereby missing what are held to be the underlying ethical sensibilities of Islamic law. For instance, Muhammad Abu Faris, once identified as a firebrand in the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood-and indeed someone who spent time in prison after visiting the funeral tent for the former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi-was extremely strident in his denunciations of the Jordanian regime.
Even the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s regime conceded considerable autonomy from state supervision to the Hawzain Najaf, which is made up of leading Shia seminaries and seminarians, so long as it stayed away from political concerns. And even if non-Muslims were able to make it through these complications, it would likely produce few benefits. However, all this does is make religious officials appear to be functionaries of the regime, undermining their standing and hardly serving the interests of those in power. As one Azhari official explained, when he was offered a position it set off a debate among his friends about whether, by accepting, he would be dishonoring those killed in the ruthless suppression of demonstrations in August 2013.45 While he himself seemed loyal to the regime, the social pressure was sufficient to make him reluctant to accept the post. But they also work to discourage and sometimes suppress cultural expressions, religious sentiments, and political and social movements unconnected with violence or extremism. However, with the rise of the Islamic State in 2014, a good deal of the focus shifted to enlisting religious establishments as allies in the effort to counter violent extremism.
Foreign governments, too, view them as potential partners in the fight against Islamic extremism. Hindus view Vedas, Gita, and other texts from the Shastra as canonical scriptures, instead of the Akilam. Though European political systems are more likely to have official religious leaders, they tend to view issues through a domestic prism, understanding church and state issues in the Arab world by using European history and institutions as a reference point. However, in doing so, regimes lose some control and allow their critics space for organizing, sometimes from within the confines of official religious institutions. Existing Arab regimes wish to eliminate radical challengers, but they also work to manage complex overlapping bureaucracies and pious constituencies; patrol public space; regulate, deter, and sometimes repress opposition; and provide a level of material and moral services to citizens. State religious institutions, and the regimes that have some level of oversight and control over them, have limited ideological tools at their disposal to confront radical Islamists. Regimes have more far-reaching goals than combating specific groups, and the tools at their disposal are awkward and of uncertain utility. Alternatively, regimes can be far more intrusive and seek to increase their sway over religion. It is difficult to tell one side from the other-especially because the struggle over religious authority has so many different and shifting sides.
Qaradawi has also been supportive in some instances of suicide bombings and has supported the Muslim Brotherhood in its struggle against the Egyptian regime. Al-Azhar has asserted a right of cultural censorship in Egypt, Jordan’s sharia courts retain the latitude to draft personal status legislation, and the Saudi religious establishment has made the education curriculum one of the most difficult matters for the regime to adjust. That is why the religious establishment is a pillar of the regime. This is one reason why. On the one side, there is a tendency, originally present in polytheism, to anthropomorphize the gods in the hope of placating and controlling them. This curious symbol indicates that there is a loft on the premises that you can sleep in. It is not liberalism or piety that induces regimes to give official institutions a longer leash, but knowledge of the problems that an overabundance of control can bring with it. For those who seek to defeat radical ideologies, aligning with authoritarian regimes and the religious establishments associated with them is a feasible and attractive diplomatic task.