Should Islam Be Classified as a Religion?

by Rebecca Bynum (February 2011)

The title of my new book, Allah is Dead: Why Islam is Not a Religion, seems to have provoked some controversy. Many people assume I must be overstating the case and have summarily dismissed my thesis without bothering to read the arguments and even attacking a third party for defending it. The U.S. Department of Justice weighed in on the controversy during the Murfreesboro mosque hearings.

There is no question, of course, that Muslims themselves believe Islam to be a religion. And there is equally no question that Islam harnesses the religious impulse. But it can be argued that communism and Nazism likewise harnessed the religious impulse and that millions of people believed in those ideologies with full religious fervor and devotion. The fact of faith alone does not confer the status of religion on an ideology.

When proponents of unlimited mosque construction, for example, cite freedom of religion as their rallying cry, they are forgetting that individual liberty must be balanced by consideration for the welfare of society as a whole. The Constitution protects freedom of religion within certain bounds, but to date there has been no Constitutional definition of what actually constitutes a religion for this purpose. The Founders clearly meant to define religion in a Judeo-Christian context and America has limited religious practices in the past.

It must be acknowledged that the nuclear family is the fundamental structural unit of our civilization and has perhaps been the single social element most conducive to individual happiness and fulfillment. Polygamy is not marriage and should never be allowed protection under the idea of freedom of religion. There is little chance, however, that Islam will be changed to allow it to fit in with normal Western customs the way Mormonism was changed. A brochure distributed by the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, extols the supremacy of polygamy throughout, offering it as a superior lifestyle choice, but nowhere does it even mention that polygamy is illegal in America. It openly advocates breaking the law.

Concerning the definition of religion for First Amendment purposes, many factors need to be taken into account and compared with the Judeo-Christian religious tradition for which the First Amendment was intended. Religion as we have known it has been good for society. It has nurtured morality, strengthened the family, fostered public service and encouraged social harmony. Islam, on the other hand, is self-segregating, fosters ideas of Muslim supremacy and thereby sows seeds of social discord. Even its tradition of charitable giving is solely for the benefit of fellow Muslims and it utterly destroys the family through its adoption of polygamy.

In addition, Islam is the only religion that requires territorial sovereignty – its laws are laws of the land rather than laws of the heart as we are accustomed to finding in religion. In the Western tradition, legality and morality are two different things. In Islam, they are one and the same. And as Muslims press for their laws to become laws of the land, especially by suppressing criticism of Islam, the clash between these two systems of thought will intensify.

If Islam could be reclassified as primarily a social and political ideology, then the Western world would have a powerful tool with which to deal with its spread and could begin the process of containment in the same way the West contained communism, which in the end, seems to be the only realistic option before us with regard to Islam.

If, however, Islam continues to be classified as a religion and given the full protection and benefits religions receive in America, then we will be helpless to contain it and it will grow and spread without limit in Africa, Western Europe and our United States. Though Islam has many religious aspects, many so primitive they have hardly been recognized for what they are, Islam has to be taken as a whole and classified as an entire belief-system.

In fact, I believe Islam to be the duck-billed platypus of belief systems, not all one thing and not all another. It is a combination of religion and politics and one part cannot be separated from the other. That is why Islam cannot remain in the religion category. It must be recognized for what it is.

Of course, Islam is not the only threat to Western civilization and part of the defense of the West must take the form of revitalization of Western ideals including the belief in transcendent value. I have endeavored to offer some analysis and suggestions in this regard as well, particularly on how Jews and Christians might form a closer ideological alliance. Certainly no one will agree with everything in these pages, but certainly the debate needs to take place.


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Rebecca Bynum contributes regularly to The Iconoclast, our Community Blog. Click here to see all her contributions, on which comments are welcome.