By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
Are we in a religious war with ISIL? Or ISIS, if you prefer. (From what I can tell, the acronyms may be used interchangeably, even if there may be different implications in referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, rather than the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.) President Obama never used the term religious war in his speech on September 11. Indeed, he went out of his way to make clear that there is no religious motive behind his call for military action against ISIL, stating emphatically that “ISIL is not Islamic.” But that does not close the question.
We can start with the concession that a conflict does not become a religious war merely because the forces fighting each other are of different religions. I can remember trying to point that out to my colleagues on the faculty of the high school where I taught for many years when the topic of the fighting in Northern Ireland would come up. People would say things such as, “How can they kill each other over which version of Christianity they practice?”
My response was always one version or another of “They don’t.” It is true that those who backed the Provisional IRA in its effort to unite Ireland were overwhelmingly Catholic; and that those who were determined to keep the six counties of Ulster within the United Kingdom were overwhelmingly Protestant.
But the goal of both sides had nothing to do with religion. If the supporters of the IRA agreed to convert en masse to Protestantism, the unionists would not have laid down their arms and called for unity with the rest of Ireland. And it would not have mattered in the least to the IRA and their supporters if the unionists became fervent Catholics; Irish nationalists would not have started waving the Union Jack.
For there to be a religious war, at least one of the sides in the conflict must be motivated by what they are convinced is a religious obligation to establish dominion over nonbelievers. The other side may also be motivated by a sense of moral obligation, but not necessarily; it may be acting only in self-defense. That dominion may include a conversion of the nonbelievers, but not always. Often it is sufficient that the conquered nonbelievers accept a rule of law established by the conquerors.
Even though the Obama administration will not use the term in reference to our military campaign against ISIL, it is a struggle that fits the definition of a religious war. Remember, both sides do not have to agree that they are fighting for religious motives. It is sufficient that one side is acting to achieve that end. And ISIL is, whether we like it or not. They do not equivocate about that. There have been Muslims working for that goal since the days of Mohammed.
The Obama administration can continue to avoid references to a “religious war” being waged by “Muslim extremists.” There may be strategic reasons for that decision, concerns, for example, about how the use of those terms might affect potential Arab allies. But that does not mean that we should ignore the manner in which ISIL’s campaign is but the latest in a long line of wars waged by Muslims to spread Islam. The truth matters.
The record is clear. The first wars fought by Muslims were those that broke out upon the death of Mohammed, somewhere around AD 632. The goal was to spread Islam throughout the Mediterranean world. The Muslims succeeded in establishing Islam’s control over the Levant, Asia Minor, north Africa, and Spain. Muslim armies invaded Italy around 900, establishing an emirate in Sicily. Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, whereupon the Christian basilica Sancta Sophia was converted to a mosque. The goal was always the same: establish Sharia law, a system of law regulating politics, economics, criminal codes, and even personal matters in accordance with teachings in the Koran. The Muslims were not seeking raw materials and trade routes; they were not motivated by race or ethnic interests. Their goal was to do what they believed was the will of Allah.
There is a great deal of myth and fable interwoven in the stories of Charles Martel, Roland, and El Cid, but they became popular in Europe because they captured the imagination of Christians who remembered the stakes when they were under attack by armies determined to spread Muslim control throughout Europe. It took a determined effort by Ferdinand and Isabella to drive the Muslims from Spain in the late 15th century and end Sharia law in that part of Europe.
Equally memorialized in the memory of Europe’s Christians was the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, where a coalition of European Catholic navies defeated the fleet of the Ottoman Turks in a naval battle off the coast of western Greece. The victory halted the expansion of Islam into the European side of the Mediterranean. Many Catholic school children in the first half of the 20th century would have read G.K. Chesterton’s ode to the Catholic victors under Don John of Austria in his poem Lepanto. A few stanzas follow:
Vivat Hispania!/ Domino Gloria!/ Don John of Austria/ Has set his people free!/ Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath/ (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)/ And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,/ Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,/ And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade. . . ./ (But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
The pattern continued in following centuries. The Muslims continued their drive to expand their control with conquests of Greece, the Balkans, and Hungary. They were on the verge of conquering Vienna itself in 1683, and well may have succeeded if not for the resistance of Polish, Austrian, and German Hapsburg troops under the leadership of Polish king John Sobieski.
Wherever the Muslims achieved victory, the pattern was always the same. The Sultan established a network of local governors or pashas who established courts where there was little or no separation between religious and secular spheres. It is the pattern we see in modern Iran where the imams, the Shi’ite Muslim religious leaders, exert more authority than the secular and military leaders of the country’s government.
It is what ISIL seeks to do in the lands it conquers. If makes no difference if we not describe it as a religious war. They do. That is what they mean when they talk of “establishing a modern caliphate.” Here’s the Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition: “Caliphate, the political-religious state comprising the Muslim community and the lands and peoples under its dominion in the centuries following the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Ruled by a caliph (Arabic khalifah, ‘successor’), who held temporal and sometimes a degree of spiritual authority.”
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