Muslim history, honor culture and global Islamic jihad by radical Muslims

• published: 30 Jul 2015
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History professor, Dr. Richard Landes teaches us about Muslim history, honor culture, and their global and political impact when Islam comes into contact with other religions and cultures. Richard also discusses the idea of current global jihad by radicals, and the difference between radical Muslims and moderate Muslims. One of the most important things in Muslim culture is to have honor and to keep honor. And if someone loses honor, that honor is restored mostly through acts of vengeance. This differs from much of modern western society, and is often something that people in western society don't quite understand about how Islamic and much of Arab culture is different from that of western society. Muslim culture, which is an honor-shame culture, is one where you have to often shed another person's blood to restore one's honor. In western society, of course, we settle disputes by courts and other forms of discourse. In the west, we are so accustomed to resolving misunderstandings in a civil manner, when we are faced with an enemy like radical and extremist Muslims, whose mentality is right out of the Middle Ages, we are not equipped to understand them because we simply don't believe that someone can seriously think, believe and behave in such ways. Our minds simply struggle with seeing it for what it is. What the people in the west must understand is that Muslims believe that they have a naturally superior religion (in fact the only true religion) and god (Allah) wants Islam to dominate the world. And any form of violence is legitimate to establish and restore the honor of their religion. In the west, the separation of church and state has been a very strong core value, but in Islam, the state exists to uphold the demands of the religion, and Sharia law (Islamic law) is the main law that is practiced. Luckily, the war against extremism can be won in the public sphere, in peoples minds, without the use of violence, and that is what Richard is focusing on. To better understand the cognitive dissonance here, it can be helpful to understand the psychological concept of cognitive ego-centrism. Cognitive ego-centrism is the assumption and projection of your own mindset onto other people. Cognitive ego-centrism comes into play in two ways here. First, there are the westerners who live in a positive society where if someone wins and does well for themselves, it is celebrated. And in Muslim societies, there isn't such a concept. If someone wins or does well for themselves, it is seen as someone else's loss. The same is with solutions to problems or business deals. In the west, it is often about finding solutions where everyone wins. In Muslim culture, it is more of a winner take all situation. Modern civil society depends on us treating each other well, and expect to be treated decently in return. As a result, we tend to project this on other people who don't share this point of view. But in Muslim and Arab culture and society, things are seen as a zero sum game where if one person wins, someone else necessarily loses out. The irony is that they too fall into the cognitive ego-centrism trap where they assume that we think like they do, and that even though the west seems like it wants to find the best outcome for everyone, they are suspicious of it because they feel like the west wants to win out. As a result of this double cognitive ego-centrism, generally, the side playing the zero sum game wins because the other side (the west) doesn't try to grab for themselves more than they feel is fair while they side that feels that there must be only one clear winner tries to grab for themselves as much as possible so that they are a clear winner. An example of what happens when the two cultures meet and have some sort of dispute or disagreement is that the Arab/Muslim side tries to win outright and fully, and is not happy until they get all concessions to go their way. The west, on the other hand, thinks that it didn't do enough if the Arab side is still unhappy, and concedes further. It is a common line of thinking in the west, and especially in liberal circles, that if some group doesn't have it as good as they possibly can or isn't happy, then it is somehow the fault of the west or those liberals, and never the fault of the other group. It almost takes all the thinking and responsibility away from the other group as though they are helpless children, and puts all responsibility solely on the west.