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Article

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim

Ali Khan

The shocking tragedies of Paris and Peshawar have only between schools of thought but also internally
reignited questions about who is a Muslim and who within sects, and which in turn lead to additional
is not or who speaks for Islam and who does not. On qualifying labels such as Shi‘ah or Sunni. Within
Facebook and other social media a number of people each of these sub-groups, there are further divisions.
posted something along the lines of the following Here it is important to state that merely reciting the
sentence: shahadah and believing in resurrection does not in
‘If the Taliban/ISIS are Muslim, I am not. If I am a anyway normatively make one a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’
Muslim, then the Taliban/ ISIS are not.’ Muslim and herein lies the rub.
#NotInMyName is an increasingly popular hashtag Over the course of the last fourteen centuries there
on Twitter. Others, following the murder of the French have been multiple ways of being Muslim. All kinds
editor and cartoonists, have not only condemned of people have self-identified as Muslim although
the attack but have also felt the need to distance the their practice has widely differed with some choosing
teachings of ‘Islam’ from the actions of the murderers. to pray and other not, some choosing to be strict
These sentiments are catalysed by not only the adherents of Islamic law and others following their
increasing public association of Islam with militant own understanding. There have been those Muslims
extremists but also because of a justified and deep that people judge to have been bad, indeed to have
sense of anger and horror at the way in which been symbolic of all that is negative about the human
innocent people were killed by terrorists who claimed condition and there have been others who represent
their acts to be inspired out of some kind of true the finest aspects of human civilisation.
loyalty to Islam. As it happens, over the course of In declaring the Taliban, ISIS, or Boko Haram non-
the last 13 years and the war on terror, many of the Muslim, well-intentioned Muslims are actually doing
victims of these terrorists have ended up being other their own cause harm and indeed are doing exactly
Muslims. Indeed in the wake of the Paris attack the what ISIS or the Taliban do in order to justify their own
massacre in Nigeria by Boko Haram claimed almost position. In other words they are doing takfeer or the
2000 lives, mostly of women and children. Therefore, act of declaring someone a non-Muslim. Surely, it is
an important question that needs to be answered accepted that in order to recognize good we must
is: Who is a Muslim and what does being a Muslim also be able to identify bad. This being accepted, it
mean? should be evident that there will inevitably be ‘bad’
It is firstly important to lay out the basic and most Muslims much as there will be ‘bad’ human beings.
widely accepted theological premise that determines It is all too easy to just dismiss the terrorists as non-
whether someone is Muslim. This is the recitation of Muslim but what is much harder to do and what
the shahadah or bearing witness that ‘there is no God some scholars are loathe to do is to take a normative
other than God and that Mohammad is the Prophet position and call them what they are: bad Muslims.
of God’ as well as the belief in al-ma‘ad or the Day of This debate is not new to Islam. The Qur’an gives
Resurrection. Beyond this, there are then a number of the example of some Arabs stating that they profess
fundamental principles or usul al-din, which differ not to believe but they have only submitted but ‘faith

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