With Hamas and Israel at war as of yesterday, October 7, 2023, one question worth asking is, ‘To what extent is this a religious war?’ Israel is a secular state, though for many Jews it is also a Jewish homeland (Zionism) and a religiously significant land for Judaism. Hamas, as can be seen below, is a political movement that is undifferentiated from Islam. Indeed, Islam itself has no distinction between its religion and its socio-political identity.[1] In the Covenant, one can see an attempt to explain this while also affirming that it allows other religions to exist in its Islamic state. Historically, though not always, Islamic governments have allowed other religions to remain, but under terms of Islamic law relegating their adherents to second class status and by paying a special tax.
The Covenant of
the Islamic Resistance Movement is the Hamas Charter of existence. ‘Hamas’ is an acronym, Harakah-al-Muqāwamah
al-’Islamiyyah, meaning ‘Islamic Resistance Movement.’ The covenant was published 18 August, 1988
and then revised 1 May, 2017. The
revision consists of an introduction, preamble, and 42 articles. The selections of the text quoted below are
from the revision in 2017 that appears online.[2] A few explanatory comments have been added in
the text in square brackets.
The parts of the Covenant that have been selected are those that have some religious reference. Issues with religious significance include: the religious significance of the land of Palestine[3] and of Jerusalem; Palestinian and Zionist identities, including religious identities;[4] and the Palestinian religious cause.
It is extremely painful
to read articles 8, 9 and 17 in light of the horrific attacks of Hamas this past
weekend. Also, the Covenant at points seeks to
draw all Muslims into its more local concerns and address international bodies,
ominously suggesting its plight requires international involvement in their
favour while also dismissing any intervention in their cause (article 32).
The news
presents Hamas’s identity, goals, and war in political terms. When one hears someone on television who has
just killed civilians shout, ‘God is great,’ one has to wonder what reporters
are not mentioning—and why. Western
commentators do whatever they can to assess the news from a secular
perspective, as though religion is not an issue. Militant Islam hardly fits into Western
commitment to the postmodern values of diversity (multiculturalism), equity (in
this case, the privileging of a minority religion in the Western context over against
Christianity), and inclusiveness (tolerance).
Progressive Western governments naively promote tolerance and peaceful
coexistence with religious states committed to their annihilation or
subjection.
Hamas claims in
its Covenant to be religious, committed to values of peace, tolerance, truth, justice,
freedom, and dignity, and opposed to injustice and oppression. In the last two days it has killed, wounded, captured, tortured, and raped
civilians. The awful contradiction it is in
itself is perhaps not something to bother trying to figure out—it is what it
is, after all, and words of a Covenant matter very little.
However, just how it wants us to understand its representation of Islam is a
question that would be worth pursuing. Imagine a Western reporter actually asking such a pertinent question. This is a time for Muslims to step up and explain themselves to the rest
of us. To be sure, there is diversity in Islam, and some will distance themselves from Hamas. Yet, if Hamas is a religious
organization engaged in holy war, would someone defending it please explain the connection between its understanding of Islam and
Hamas’s killing, raping, and torturing civilians?
Quotes Regarding Religion from Hamas’s Covenant of the Islamic Resistance
Movement (2017)
[Introduction]
Praise be to Allah, the Lord of all worlds. May the peace and blessings of
Allah be upon Muhammad, the Master of Messengers and the Leader of the
mujahidin [those involved in jihad, i.e., Islamic ‘striving’ for spiritual perfection, including ‘holy war’], and upon his household and all his companions.
[Preamble]
… Palestine is a land whose status has been elevated
by Islam, a faith that holds it in high esteem, that breathes through it its
spirit and just values and that lays the foundation for the doctrine of
defending and protecting it….
1. The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” is a
Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to
liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is
Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means.
3. Palestine is an Arab Islamic land. It is a
blessed sacred land that has a special place in the heart of every Arab and
every Muslim.
6. The Palestinian people are one people, made up
of all Palestinians, inside and outside of Palestine, irrespective of their
religion, culture or political affiliation.
7. Palestine is at the heart of the Arab and
Islamic Ummah [community] and enjoys a special status. Within Palestine there
exists Jerusalem, whose precincts are blessed by Allah. Palestine is the Holy
Land, which Allah has blessed for humanity. It is the Muslims’ first Qiblah [direction
of prayer] and the destination of the journey performed at night by Prophet
Muhammad, peace be upon him. It is the location from where he ascended to the
upper heavens. It is the birthplace of Jesus Christ [viewed as a prophet in
Islam], peace be upon him. Its soil contains the remains of thousands of
prophets, companions and mujahidin. It is the land of people who
are determined to defend the truth – within Jerusalem and its surroundings –
who are not deterred or intimidated by those who oppose them and by those who
betray them, and they will continue their mission until the Promise of Allah is
fulfilled.
8. By virtue of its justly balanced middle way
and moderate spirit, Islam – for Hamas - provides a comprehensive way of life
and an order that is fit for purpose at all times and in all places. Islam is a
religion of peace and tolerance. It provides an umbrella for the followers of
other creeds and religions who can practice their beliefs in security and
safety. Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a
model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation.
9. Hamas believes that the message of Islam
upholds the values of truth, justice, freedom and dignity and prohibits all
forms of injustice and incriminates oppressors irrespective of their religion,
race, gender or nationality. Islam is against all forms of religious, ethnic or
sectarian extremism and bigotry. It is the religion that inculcates in its
followers the value of standing up to aggression and of supporting the oppressed;
it motivates them to give generously and make sacrifices in defence of their
dignity, their land, their peoples and their holy places.
10. Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine. Its
religious, historic and civilisational status is fundamental to the Arabs,
Muslims and the world at large. Its Islamic and Christian holy places belong
exclusively to the Palestinian people and to the Arab and Islamic Ummah. Not
one stone of Jerusalem can be surrendered or relinquished. The measures
undertaken by the occupiers in Jerusalem, such as Judaisation, settlement
building, and establishing facts on the ground are fundamentally null and void.
11. The blessed al-Aqsa Mosque [built upon the
Israelite temple in Jerusalem] belongs exclusively to our people and our Ummah,
and the occupation has no right to it whatsoever. The occupation’s plots,
measures and attempts to judaize al-Aqsa and divide it are null, void and
illegitimate.
16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the
Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not
wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle
against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who
constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and
illegal entity.
17. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human
being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or
sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism
and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European
history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their
heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers
to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which
has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from
Palestine.
24. The liberation of Palestine is the duty of
the Palestinian people in particular and the duty of the Arab and Islamic Ummah
in general. It is also a humanitarian obligation as necessitated by the
dictates of truth and justice. The agencies working for Palestine, whether
national, Arab, Islamic or humanitarian, complement each other and are
harmonious and not in conflict with each other.
32. Hamas stresses the necessity of maintaining
the independence of Palestinian national decision-making. Outside forces should
not be allowed to intervene. At the same time, Hamas affirms the responsibility
of the Arabs and the Muslims and their duty and role in the liberation of
Palestine from Zionist occupation.
35. Hamas believes that the Palestinian issue is
the central cause for the Arab and Islamic Ummah.
[1] Article 8’s statement that Islam ‘provides a comprehensive way of
life’ makes this point. This article’s
claims for Islam are defensible, despite countless counter-examples of its intolerance,
but the real question is not about what is claimed or what has at times even
been practiced but how Islam allows other
religions to exist in Islamic territories.
[2] Hamas in 2017: The Document in Full, Middle East Eye (2 May, 2017); https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
(accessed 10 August, 2023).
[3] The term ‘Palestine’ was introduced in the 2nd c. AD,
when the land was under Roman rule.
Islam dates from the 7th century AD.
[4] The Covenant, one can see, attempts to distinguish religious
identity from Palestinian and Zionist identities. To this reader, articles 6 and 7 are
obviously contradictory on this point.
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