Juan Cole, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires (New Texts Out Now)

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Oct 9, 2018 Region
Juan Cole, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires (New Texts Out Now)

Juan Cole, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires (New Texts Out Now)

By : Juan Cole

Juan Cole, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires (New York: Nation Books, 2018).

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? 

Juan Cole (JC): I had long been struck at the importance of ideas about peace, harmony, tolerance, and reconciliation in the Qur’an, which I studied academically as a graduate student and the study of which has been a big part of my life. I felt that at our historical juncture it was important to lay out a historical argument in that regard, and to challenge the myths that have grown up on all sides. While there is a lot of academic writing on the Qur’an now, it is mostly not very accessible to general readers. I wanted this book to be readable and available, which is why I worked with a trade press. 

Since the 11 September 2001 attacks by al-Qa‘ida, I have been beside myself to see the rise both of a virulent sort of Islamophobia in Europe and North America and a series of fringe but threatening extremist movements in the greater Middle East. Both Western Islamophobes and Middle Eastern extremists inaccurately appeal to the text of the Qur’an and to some extent the biography of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632 A.D.) for support for their hatemongering. 

Writing about Muhammad has not been very common in Western universities in recent decades because the field was seized by doubt about what we could know. Most Muslim biographies of the Prophet are late, written beginning 130 years after his death and continuing, in the classical period of Islam, into the ninth century. Doubts had even been cast on how early the Qur’an itself is. Is it like the Gospels, growing up from community memories over time? Because of manuscript discoveries and historical argumentation, the field has largely come around, however, to a conviction that the Qur’an was recited by the Prophet roughly 610-632 (the traditional Muslim dates). I am sanguine that the Qur’an is a primary source for the time of Muhammad, just as the authentic letters of St. Paul are for early Christianity and its Roman context.
A lot of the controversies around Islam come from misinterpreting words.

J:  What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

JC: I trace the conception of peace through the life of the Prophet chronologically. I look at the Qur’an’s rhetorical appeal for peace as an element in its vision of the next life, and as a way of dealing with harassment and persecution. I also address the question of religious tolerance. I argue that the Qur’an promises heaven to all righteous monotheists—Jews, Christians, and even what some have called pagan monotheists, along with the Muslims. 

It has not been common for authors writing about Muhammad and the Qur’an to compare and contrast their themes with those in works of contemporaries. However, I try to bring in Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian literature for comparison. I do think the Qur’an shows Muhammad took the side of Christian Rome against the Sasanian Empire of Iran.

I also pay attention to what the Qur’an means by what it says. A lot of the controversies around Islam come from misinterpreting words. For instance, the Qur’an condemns people it calls kafir, who are described as hostile polytheists (in the 620s this group militarily attacked the Prophet and his followers in Medina from the city of Mecca). I argue that kafir never is deployed to refer to Jews or Christians (“people of Scripture” or “People of the Book”) without qualification. It should be translated “pagan,” not “infidel” or “unbeliever,” as it usually is. The Qur’an considers mainstream Jews and Christians to be, like Muslims, heirs of the righteous monotheism of the Patriarch Abraham.

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

JC: I have written a lot about Islam and Muslim movements, but got drawn by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran into an interest in modern history. Most of my work has concentrated on the period after 1500. So it is a departure for me to go back to the 600s and the very inception of Islam. Still, I co-authored a world history textbook (Global Connections, Cambridge University Press, 2015) and in the course of that work I researched and wrote about the ancient and medieval world. As I said, I was trained in this field as a graduate student and have all along tried to keep up with Islamics, inasmuch as modern movements refer back extensively to scripture and the life of the Prophet. The big departure for me was attempting to put Muhammad’s life in the context of the late Roman Empire and the late Sasanian Empire of Iran, which meant attempting to incorporate the relevant findings of scholars of Late Antiquity (the period roughly 200-700 AD).

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

JC: I hope the book will have a wide audience among the general public—anyone interested in the origins and nature of Islam, whatever their own religious background.  I wrote it to be read, and to be accessible. It will also prove useful to teachers, policymakers, and anyone who wants better to understand Islam. I would be especially pleased if readers of Muslim heritage found it useful.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

JC: I am bringing out a retranslation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam with I. B. Tauris next year. This Persian poetry was loosely translated by Edward FitzGerald in 1859 and gradually went viral. For most of the twentieth century, it was the most famous poem in the world, widely memorized and cited. Its themes were challenging for a Victorian audience. It questioned the meaning of life and the existence of an afterlife. It advised, given that life is short, that we celebrate it with wine, lovers, and song, but that we live unselfishly even so. My retranslation is accompanied by a historical account of where this poetry came from and how it became popular in the Muslim Middle East. I see it as a form of Muslim secularism.

J: If peace is so central to the Qur’an, what explains the verses about war?

JC: The Prophet’s ministry fell in two epochs: his preaching in his home town of Mecca (610-622), and his exile in the nearby city of Yathrib (known as Medina) in 622-632. I argue that Mecca was a sanctuary of peace as understood by the Arabs, where because of the shrine to God, the Kaaba, it was forbidden to conduct violent feuds or raids, or even hunt animals. In Mecca, the Qur’an instructs the faithful to turn the other cheek and respond by praying for “peace” (or “well-being”) for their enemies, withdrawing graciously. 

Once Muhammad and his followers relocated to Medina, the pagans in Mecca decided to come after them to conquer the city, kill or convert the adherents of the new religion, make their women and children captives, and smother the new faith in its cradle. The Qur’an instructs the faithful to defend their community, taking up arms where necessary to repel an invasion. It thus shifts from pacifism to a theory of just war. I argue that its notion of just war is indistinguishable from that of Cicero in the Roman tradition, and not very different from what was argued by church fathers such as Augustine of Hippo and Ambrose of Milan in the Christian Roman Empire after Constantine. The Qur’an only permits defensive battles, however, forbidding an expansionist war of aggression, and insists that that if the Meccan pagans sue for peace, the faithful have to accept an armistice. This position is actually substantially less hawkish than that of the late Augustine. The Qur’an verses permitting and describing these defensive battles have been taken out of context by both Islamophobes and extremists.  For instance, Augustine said that once a battle has been joined, it is legitimate to use tools of deception like ambushes and “fear and compulsion.” The Qur’an says of defending Medina from a Meccan assault at the Battle of Badr (March 624), “Prepare against them whatever you can in the way of force and lines of horse, so as to strike fear into the enemy of God” (The Spoils 8:60). Extremists have incorrectly translated “strike fear” as “terrorize.” The verse is clearly about battlefield tactics, not attacking unarmed civilians, which is forbidden. Islamophobes have also misused this perfectly reasonable instruction for victory in defensive combat to damn Islam, without mentioning that St. Augustine gives the same advice.
Oct 16, 2016 Lebanon
Mandy Turner By :
Mandy Turner

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.