Terror in an Age of Faith - Roy Allan B Tolentino

Much has been made of the necessity to understand Islam in the world after 9/11. Suddenly, the Western world realized that a sizeable chunk of the population subscribed to a world-view that appeared to be totally different from theirs. There was a sudden urgency to learn more about this world-view, and there was a great demand for experts in the field. To be perfectly honest, even my presence as a Catholic scholar in ICRS could be understood along those lines.

While this urgency has died down in the intervening years, this phenomenon has, on the other hand, obscured the fact that Islam is not new; Islam has been part of the world for centuries and will be for the foreseeable future. Thus, when Western-influenced scholars suddenly seize the opportunity to study this “emerging” religion, it seems honestly rather funny. The dialogue between Islam and Western secular culture (whatever that is) has been going on for some time now, despite occasional fits and many awkward pauses. While Islam constantly takes Western secularism to task for its “anti-religious” world-view, religion has never really been erased from world culture.

If we accept, then, that secularism has not stifled the discourse of religion completely, and that we have never really left the “age of faith,” then an important aspect of the dialogue between religion and culture is the dialogue within religions. If Indonesia is any indicator, the sheer plurality of Islam demands that this internal dialogue continues. Just the Indonesian reaction to 9/11 displays the tension within religion: “In Indonesia, home of the world’s largest Islamic population, reactions to 9/11 and subsequent strikes against Afghanistan were perhaps the most polarized in the region... Megawati was torn between, on the one hand, using the opportunity of the US-led anti-terrorist drive to gain international support and approval of Jakarta’s own battle with armed separatists in Aceh and Irian Jaya, and, on the other hand, keeping her distance from the USA in order not to give political ammunition to the moderate and radical Islamic organizations which constitute the most potent opposition to her government.” (Putzel 2003:177)

What has emerged, in my view, is not so much a revival of faith in an age of terror, but a necessity to understand terror in an age of faith. Terrorism is not so much a climate or a characteristic of an age, but a tool used by those who see no possibility of dialogue. To resort to terror, then, is to deny the dialogue that takes place between religions and within religions. Terrorism, while born of ressentiment, implies an ossification of religion, a stasis of faith. It is the task of religion to ensure that the internal and external discourses continue, to make room for difference and to mediate when those differences threaten to divide us. In Indonesia, I am glad to have seen that dialogue in play, although, of course, there is still much to be done. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr says, this dialogue enjoins Muslims “to make use of this intellectual and spiritual heritage to find a modus vivendi with Christianity and Judaism, and to present a version of Islam to the world that can live with the contemporary world without submitting itself to the follies of the world in which we live.” (Nasr 2008:74) The dynamism of faith will outlast the expediency of terror.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. “Religion in a Time of Anxiety” in Part of the Problem, Part of the Solution: Religion Today and Tomorrow. Ed. Arvind Sharma. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2008.
Putzel, James. "Political Islam in Southeast Asia and the US-Philippine Alliance" in Global Responses to Terrorism: 9/11, Afghanistan and Beyond. Ed. Mary Buckley and Rick Fawn. London: Routledge, 2003.