From Bali to Karachi, and Riyadh to Casablanca, Islamic suicide bombers continue to carve an ever-widening swathe of death and devastation. Bombed, hounded, and evicted from former sanctuaries in Afghanistan, Al-Qaida nevertheless repeatedly demonstrates that it is well and alive. Like angry hornets that have survived the destruction of their nest, its members have spread far and wide. They are now drawing new recruits, and creating new havens. Vastly increased support in Muslim countries after the Iraq war for any organization fighting the United States makes their task easier.

Modern civilization will have to live with terrorism in the years to come, together with the reactions it provokes. This terrible fact cannot be changed. But key questions remain to be answered. What transformed former Islamic allies of the United States into unremittingly militant opposition? Is crushing Al-Qaida the answer? Is it at all possible?

The strong usually feel that a weaker enemy needs only force, not understanding. Indeed, the US establishment views terrorism as a form of incurable mental sickness whose origins and causes are beyond comprehension, and of little real interest. It has therefore chosen the path of exorcism – the violent expulsion of evil spirits from the possessed. This is a doubtful strategy. Medieval exorcists may have derived some satisfaction from their work, but little real success. On the contrary, they vastly increased the numbers of the mentally ill.

If terrorism is indeed a mental illness it must be treated the way scientific medicine begins treating any disease – ask the right questions, record the symptoms, examine the patient’s history, and identify relevant environmental factors.

Is Islam The Problem?

Leaders of the Muslim community in the United States and Europe, imams (prayer leaders) in mosques throughout the world, and even President Bush, have routinely asserted that Islam is a religion of peace which has been hijacked by fanatics. This mantra is heard each time Islamic suicide bombers strike at civilian targets.

This assertion is simply untrue.

Islam – like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or any other religion – is not about peace. Nor is it about war. Every religion is about absolute belief in its own superiority and the divine right to impose its version of truth upon others. In medieval times, both the Crusades and the Jihads were soaked in blood. Today, there are Christian fundamentalists who attack abortion clinics in the United States and kill doctors; Muslim fundamentalists who wage their sectarian wars against each other; Jewish settlers who, holding the Old Testament in one hand and Uzis in the other, burn olive orchards and drive Palestinians off their ancestral land; and Hindus in India who demolish ancient mosques and burn down churches.

At first glance, the Quran – which Muslims accept as the literal and unchangeable word of God – makes it impossible for its followers to be the citizens of a modern, pluralistic state and peacefully coexist with peoples of different faiths. Take, for example, the verse:

O you who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is one of them. [Quran 5:51]
The above became a subject of debate recently on a Pakistani television channel between Mufti Nizamuddin Shamszai and me. Shamszai is a well-known and widely feared mullah who was Osama bin Laden’s confidante, the tutor of Mullah Omar, and whose seminary in Karachi was a focal point of the Taliban movement. When Shamszai quoted the above verse, the anchorperson turned to me and asked whether I still thought it possible for Muslims and Jews to work together as colleagues? Most certainly, I replied, for although I am not well-versed in the nuances of Quranic exegesis yet there are certain irrefutable historical facts.

For example, between the 9th and 13th century, which was the Golden Age of Muslim civilization, Jewish and Christian scholars worked side-by-side with their Muslim counterparts and created new knowledge in the sciences and arts. They were actively encouraged to do by the great caliphs of that time – Harun-al-Rashid, Al-Mamun, and Abd-al-Rahman II. The caliphs were religious, as well as political, leaders and they had sanctioned collaborating with people of any religion.

The point of relating the above episode is that the practice of Islam has often, if not mostly, been at variance with the Quran. This, of course, is no surprise. Although all holy books were written millennia ago and are unchangeable, their followers have moved on. Today’s Judaism is hardly the bloodthirsty Judaism of the Book of Joshua, in which God commands the Israelites to put all Canaanites, even children, to the sword. Nor is today’s Christianity that of 13th century Europe - a time of bloody crusades and inquisitions, when Pope Innocent VIII issued the terrible papal bull that doomed countless women to unspeakable suffering and death – “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”.

By the same token, I would argue that the accurate answer to the primary question – can Islam be made secular, democratic, and pluralistic – is also twofold. Islamic theology will not permit this either now or at any time in the future. But Islamic society may well accept it over a period of time – if the right conditions should somehow come about.

Therefore, we have no option but to delve into the historical experience of the Muslim peoples. We have to understand why today they stand in such sharp contrast with other peoples on this planet.

A Brilliant Past That Vanished

Martians visiting Earth between the 9th and 13th centuries – the Golden Age of Islam – would surely have reported back to headquarters that the only people doing decent work in science, philosophy or medicine were Muslims. Muslims not only preserved ancient learning, they also made substantial innovations.

Science flourished in the Golden Age of Islam because of a strong rationalist and liberal tradition, carried on by a group of Muslim thinkers known as the Mutazilites. To the extent that they were able to dominate over the traditionalists, science and culture flourished. But in the 12th century, Muslim orthodoxy reawakened, spearheaded by the Arab cleric Imam Al-Ghazali. Al-Ghazali championed revelation over reason, predestination over free will. He damned mathematics as being against Islam, an intoxicant of the mind that weakened faith.

Caught in the viselike grip of orthodoxy, Islam eventually choked. The bin Ladens and Mullah Omar’s of antiquity leveled the impressive edifice of Islamic cultural and scientific achievements. It was also the end of tolerance, intellect and science in the Muslim world. The last great Muslim thinker, Abd-al Rahman Ibn Khaldun, belonged to the 14th century.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world moved on. The Renaissance brought an explosion of scientific inquiry in the West. This owed much to translations of Greek works carried out by Arabs and other Muslim contributions. Mercantile capitalism and technological progress drove Western countries – in ways that were often brutal and at times genocidal – to rapidly colonize the Muslim world from Indonesia to Morocco.

The Rise and Fall of Muslim Modernization

It soon became clear, at least to some of the Muslim elites in colonized countries, that they were paying a heavy price for not possessing the analytical tools of modern science and the social and political values of modern culture. Therefore, despite widespread resistance from the orthodox, the logic of modernity found 19th-century Muslim adherents. Modernizers such as Mohammed Abduh and Rashid Rida of Egypt, Sayyed Ahmad Khan of India, and Jamaluddin Afghani (who belonged everywhere), wished to adapt Islam to the times, interpret the Qur’an in ways consistent with modern science, and discard the Hadith (ways of the Prophet) in favor of the Qur’an. Others seized on the modern idea of the nation-state.

When new nation states emerged in the 20th century, not even one of their leaders was a fundamentalist. Turkey's Kemal Ataturk, Algeria's Ahmed Ben Bella, Indonesia's Sukarno, Pakistan's Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Iran's Mohammed Mosaddeq all sought to organize their societies on the basis of secular values. However, Muslim and Arab nationalism, part of a larger anti-colonial nationalist current across the Third World, included the desire to control and use national resources for domestic benefit.

The conflict with Western greed was inevitable. Indeed, America's foes during the 1950's and 1960's were secular nationalists, not fundamentalists. Mossadeq, who opposed Standard Oil's grab at Iran's oil resources, was removed by a CIA coup. Sukarno, accused of being a communist, was removed by US intervention and a resulting bloodbath that consumed about eight hundred thousand lives. Nasser, who had Islamic fundamentalists like Saiyyid Qutb publicly executed, fell foul of the US and Britain after the Suez Crisis. On the other hand, until very recently, America's friends were the sheikhs of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, all of whom practiced highly conservative forms of Islam but were the darlings of Western oil companies.

Pressed from outside, corrupt and incompetent from within, secular Muslim governments proved unable to defend national interests or deliver social justice. For example, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto – Pakistan’s popularly elected prime minister who soundly defeated the mullah’s at the ballot box – coined “Islamic socialism” as the way of emancipating the masses. But obsessed with absolute power, Bhutto frustrated democracy. Such failures left a vacuum that Islamic religious movements grew to fill – in Iran, Pakistan and Sudan, to name a few. The expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon in 1982 paved the way for Hamas to dominate the Palestinian resistance.

The times had begun to change, but what was only a trot changed into a gallop in 1979.

The Genesis of International Jihad

History may well have taken a different course if 1979, the year of the Soviet invasion, had not also been the year for presidential elections in the US. But with Ronald Reagan as the rival candidate, Jimmy Carter could not afford to appear soft on the Soviets. The Administration requested approval for a CIA. covert operation in Afghanistan, and offered Pakistan 400 million dollars in aid, which General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan's military ruler, dismissed as “peanuts” in an astute political move. Suddenly, Afghanistan had become the focal point of American global strategy. Officials like Richard Perle, Assistant Secretary of Defense, saw Afghanistan not as the locale of a harsh and dangerous conflict to be ended but as a place to teach the Russians a lesson. Such “bleeders” became the most influential people in Washington.

Given the highly conservative nature of Afghan society and the spontaneous resistance to the Afghan communist resistance, it did not need a genius to suggest that Islamic international solidarity could be used as a powerful weapon. The task of creating such solidarity fell upon Saudi Arabia, together with other conservative Arab monarchies. The Jihad in Afghanistan provided an excellent outlet for the growing number of militant Sunni activists in Saudi Arabia, and a way to deal with the daily taunts of the Iranian clergy who were now ensconced in power.

Perhaps the most important contribution of the US was to create international linkages and bring in men and material from around the Arab world and beyond. The most hardened and ideologically dedicated men were sought on the logic that they would be the best fighters. Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.

Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and Ahmad Shawqi al-Islambuli were among the first Egyptians to arrive in Afghanistan. Zawahiri was an Egyptian pediatrician who was to become bin Laden’s second-in-command. Islambuli too was a hard-core fundamentalist and brother of Khalid al-Islambuli, who later assassinated Sadat. Both men eventually became top-leaders of the Al-Qaida network.

In 1988 Soviet troops withdrew unconditionally and US-Pakistan-Saudi-Egypt alliance emerged victorious. Four years later the Soviet Union collapsed. Francis Fukuyama’s thesis “The End of History” became wildly popular.

But appearances were illusory, and events over the next two decades were to reveal the true costs of the victory. Even in the mid 1990’s it was clear that the victorious alliance had unwittingly created a dynamic now beyond its control. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States walked away from an Afghanistan in shambles. The Taliban emerged; Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda made Afghanistan their base. September 11 followed.

Learning the Wrong Lessons From 911

Homo sapiens are slow learners, perhaps fatally so.

An impenetrable narcissism prevents most Americans from learning that the world does not share their self-image of a generous, libertarian, humane people whose innocence was injured by a savage attack on its cities. In spite of having fought 28 wars after 1945, maintaining 12 aircraft carrier groups that constantly prowl the oceans, stationing a million soldiers over five continents, and keeping thousands of nuclear weapons, a majority of Americans believes that the US seeks no more than self-defence. The peremptory dismissal of world opinion, contempt for international laws and treaties, and deliberate destruction of the United Nations, characterizes the American mood today.

Shortly after the collapse of the twin towers, George W. Bush rhetorically asked: “Why do they hate us?”. After the Iraq war, that question is still more readily answerable. The daily televised bombardment of Baghdad with cruise missiles and bombs hailing down from the skies, smashed bodies and decapitated children, bombed out hospitals, women and children shot dead at checkpoints manned by the Marines, and the burning of Iraq’s priceless architectural and literary heritage, have added to all older reasons. And each old reason gains new ferocity each time when, with American approval, Ariel Sharon’s bulldozers plow into Palestinian homes and reduce towns like Jenin to rubble.

For its victims, America means invasion, occupation, and humiliation. Inevitably the US has become both a victim of terrorism and its godfather.

But the slowest learners are undoubtedly the world’s Islamists.

Each blow inflicted by America has led Islamists to predict that the pain and humiliation will make all Muslims to close ranks, forget old grudges, purge traitors and renegades from the ranks, and generate a collective rage great enough to take on the power of today's governing civilization. Each time they have been dead wrong.

The fact is that power does not lie in numbers. Nor do large armies and arsenals really matter. What Islamists fail to realize is that the awesome strength of Western civilization springs from accepting the paradigm of science and logic, respecting democratic institutions, allowing value systems to evolve, and boldly challenging dogma without being condemned as blasphemers. They cannot see why the West’s success has anything to do with personal freedom and liberty, artistic and scientific creativity, the compulsive urge to innovate and experiment, or the nursery where such ideas are cultivated – the modern university.

This inability to learn can but lead to the one path – self-defeating and self-harming terrorism. Islamic militant organizations have done far greater harm to Muslims, whose causes they claim to promote, than to those who they battle against. Killing tourists and bombing churches is the work of moral cretins and is not just cowardly and inhumane, but also a strategic disaster. Indeed, fanatical acts can sting and provoke the American colossus but never seriously hurt it.

With so bleak a picture, ours may someday be called the Century of Terror.

Any Reason for Hope?

At the moment, if there is anything at all that can break the cycle of terror and counter-terror, and prevent the dreaded clash of civilizations, it is people of the western world.

Even as Bush’s America wrapped itself in war frenzy, over ten million protested in the streets of London, Washington, Rome, and hundreds of other cities around the globe. They did not succeed in stopping the Iraq war, but they did broadcast an extremely important message. People in Pakistan – and I presume other Muslim countries too – were fascinated and touched by the demonstrations, especially since there was no way in which they could mobilize to do the same. They also saw Christian France bravely taking on the US in the Security Council, the Pope condemning the war as a sin, a beautiful white-American girl, Rachel Corrie, standing in the way of an Israeli bulldozer and being crushed to death, thousands courting arrest in the US, and more.

To be quite honest, I did not think that these overseas protests would have much impact on our mullahs. After all, Pakistanis are born into xenophobia, taught to believe that they are surrounded by enemies, and subjected to horrifically poisonous textbooks in schools. Fortunately, I was wrong. During the Iraq war there has been no repeat of extremist attacks on the Christian community in Pakistan. In previous months, anti-US feeling following the arrest of Al-Qaida members had sometimes translated into murders of Pakistan's terrified and helpless Christian minority.

Ultimately, the only way by which Muslim societies can become democratic, pluralistic, and free from violent extremism, is by going through their own struggles. It cannot be done – as the failure of America’s efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrates – by imposing colonial rule. But is there any reason to believe that indigenous reform is possible? Islam is immutable, but can Muslims change?

Astonishingly, the Muslim country which offers the most hope for reform is a declared member of Bush’s axis-of-evil. Iran has the finest education system in the Muslim world, a population that is culturally more advanced and accepting of modernity than in Arab countries, and young people who abhor the Islamic theocracy that has ruled the country for over two decades. Even though America refused to take notice of the fact, but immediately after 911 nearly 40,000 Iranians came out to the streets in Tehran and lit candles in sympathy with the American people. Contrast that with celebrations held in countries like Pakistan that are declared US allies!

Such are the paradoxes of the world that we live in.

Pervez Hoodbhoy is professor of nuclear and high-energy physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.