The battle for a religion’s heart

In an ideological contest between radicals, populists and moderates, speaking out can still carry a heavy personal cost
在一场于激进分子、民粹主义者与温和派之间进行的意识形态较量中，畅所欲言仍将会付出沉重的个人代价。

WHICH trend will prevail among the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims—violent confrontation or peaceful coexistence? Will Islam aspire to political power, or will more mystical or pietistic versions of the religion win out? People whose job is to wrestle with those questions, be they theologians or strategists, always keep a close eye on Egypt: the home of Sunni Islam’s greatest university, al-Azhar, and the country where political Islam, in many different forms, was incubated.

哪一种趋势将在全世界14亿穆斯林中占据主流，是暴力对抗，还是和平共存？伊斯兰教是将立志于获取政治权力，还是变得更加神秘或虔诚？那些以求解这些问题为己任的人，无论他是神学家还是战略家，都总是在密切关注着埃及：该国既是伊斯兰教逊尼派顶尖学府——爱资哈尔大学（al-Azhar）的所在地，又是五花八门的伊斯兰政治模式孕育而生之国。

And the good news, from Islam-watchers in Egypt, is that the appeal of the most violent kind of Islamist radicalism has been waning for some time. That decline is also noticeable in many neighbouring countries—and indeed in most Muslim places, apart from bloodstained peripheries like Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

从身处埃及的伊斯兰观察家那儿传来的喜讯是：就伊斯兰激进主义中最为暴力的类别而言，其吸引力已经在过去一段时期中日渐式微。在许多邻国（实际上是在除诸如巴基斯坦斯瓦特河谷等血腥边缘地带之外的绝大部分穆斯林地区），这一衰落同样显而易见。

It is not just Osama bin Laden who has been holed up in remote exile. His ideology of global jihad has also retreated. Stung by public disgust with nihilist terror, and seeing the radicals’ failure to consolidate tangible gains, some prominent preachers of endless jihad have repented their ways.

并非只有奥萨马•本•拉登藏身天涯，其关于全球圣战的意识形态也在一并消退。一些无尽圣战的著名鼓吹者在被公众对虚无主义恐怖行径的厌恶所刺痛、并目睹了激进派在巩固实际成果方面的失败后，对自己此前的做法心生悔意。

Jihadist ideology has also been facing what may prove to be bigger threats than those posed by military setbacks or defections. Clerics from the broader ideological mainstream of Islam, where most Muslims put themselves, are condemning nihilist extremism with greater boldness.

圣战主义意识形态也在面对着可能被证明是比军事受挫或背叛所能导致的更大的威胁。来自更广泛的伊斯兰意识形态主流阵营的教士们正在更加大胆地谴责虚无极端主义，而这种主流也为大部分穆斯林所信奉。

Also, at the opposite end of the spectrum, there are Muslim doubters, revisionists and reformers, who have had to mute their voices for fear of being branded apostates. Some of them are again speaking out, though it still takes a lot of courage.
同样，在宗教谱系的另一端，还存在着此前由于担心被打上叛教之名而三缄其口的穆斯林怀疑者、修正者和改革者们。如今，尽管仍需要很大的勇气，但他们中的一部分人已重又直抒其言。

If ultraradicals are in retreat, and bold moderates are finding their voice, that reflects several converging factors. There is a fading of the anxiety, which reached a peak under the Bush administration, that Islam itself was the target of a concerted Western campaign. Barack Obama’s outreach to Muslims, and America’s intent to withdraw from Iraq, have reduced the pressure on clerics to posture as tough defenders of the faith who excuse jihadism. Also, the spread of freer media in some places has emboldened modernisers and exposed a wider public to their thinking.

如果极端激进分子确实正在败退，而勇敢的温和派重新发出了声音，那么这种现象便反映出了几种相互聚合的因素。关于伊斯兰教本身正是西方协同行动之目标的焦虑感曾在布什执政期间达到顶峰，如今却正日渐消散；巴拉克•奥巴马向穆斯林伸出的友谊之手以及美国从伊拉克撤军的打算，也都减轻了为圣战主义开脱的教士们扮演信仰坚定捍卫者这一角色的压力；更加自由的媒体在部分地区的扩展同样鼓舞了现代化派人士，并让更广泛的公众得以接触他们的思想。

The strongest recent critique of global jihadism has come from a figure who is himself controversial in the West: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an 82-year-old Egyptian who lives in Qatar, and a familiar figure, through his broadcasts, to Muslims across the world. He is a canny, theologically conservative populist, whose scathing references to Jews and homosexuals have made him persona non grata in America and, as of 2008, Britain.

近期对于全球圣战主义最强力的批判来自一位本身在西方颇具争议的人物：尤素福•卡拉达维（Yusuf al-Qaradawi），这位82岁高龄的埃及人目前生活在卡塔尔，通过其广播，他成了一位为全球穆斯林所熟知的人物。卡拉达维是一位精明的神学保守派民粹主义者，他对于犹太人和同性恋的尖厉言辞使其在美国成为不受欢迎者，2008年他在英国也获得了同样的待遇。

The range of reactions that Mr Qaradawi evokes is vast. At a meeting of Muslim scholars in Istanbul last month, he was idolised, outshining establishment figures from several countries. People queued to have their photographs taken with him and gushed with delight when he regaled them with songs during a boat trip. But for sceptical Western observers of Islam, his justification of suicide attacks in Israel makes him an odious figure.

卡拉达维所激起的反应千差万别。上月在伊斯坦布尔举行的一次穆斯林学者会议上，他被奉为偶像，其风头甚至盖过了多个国家的权势阶层人物。人们排队与他合影，荡舟游览时他为大家引吭高歌之举也令欢乐之情四溢。但在那些存有怀疑的西方伊斯兰观察家心目中，卡拉达维为发生于以色列的自杀式袭击所作的辩护令他声名狼藉。

The author of scores of books, the sponsor of a popular Islamist website, and the star of religious programming on the Arabic-language al-Jazeera satellite channel, Mr Qaradawi takes full advantage of his scholarly stature and his bully pulpit.

卡拉达维著书数十本，赞助着一家颇具人气的伊斯兰主义网站，还是阿拉伯语半岛电视台卫星频道中的宗教节目明星，他充分利用了自己的学术地位及其得天独厚的布道平台。

In a hefty new book, titled “The Jurisprudence of Jihad”, Mr Qaradawi restates his belief in the right of Muslims to resist “aggression”, and “foreign occupation”. But he castigates al-Qaeda’s notion of global jihad as “a mad declaration of war on the world” that seeks to “drive believers shackled towards paradise”. Repeating his call for a “middle path”, away from either defeatism or destructive zeal, Mr Qaradawi suggests that the best arena for today’s jihad may be the “realm of ideas, media and communication.”

卡拉达维在其新近一本名为《圣战法学》的鸿篇巨著中重申：他相信穆斯林有权抵抗“侵略”与“外国占领”。但他严厉谴责了基地组织关于全球圣战的理念，称其为“向世界疯狂宣战”之举，试图“驱使信徒以负枷之身迈向天国”[注1]。卡拉达维再次谈及他在失败主义与破坏狂热之外、对“中间道路”的呼唤，他提出当今圣战的最佳场所可能是“理念、媒体和交流领域”。

Within Islam, these are not new positions: most mainstream clerics blasted the 9/11 attacks, even as they praised “resistance” in Iraq, Palestine and other conflicts seen as pitting Muslims against alien invaders. But coming from Mr Qaradawi, they put a seal of orthodoxy on the rejection by many ordinary Muslims of all-out worldwide jihadism. Guerrillas inspired by al-Qaeda may fight on in the wilds of Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and Algeria, but in the slums and universities that once supplied fodder for jihad, fashions are trending elsewhere.

在伊斯兰教内部，这种立场并不新鲜：尽管大部分主流教士称颂那些发生在伊拉克、巴勒斯坦以及其他一些被视为令穆斯林与外国侵略者一决高下的冲突中的“抵抗”行为，但他们都会严厉谴责9•11袭击事件。但这些观点既出自卡拉达维之口，就为许多普通穆斯林对世界范围内全面圣战的拒绝打上了正统印记。受基地组织鼓动的游击队也许能在阿富汗、索马里、也门和阿尔及利亚的荒原上作战，但在曾经为圣战提供炮灰的贫民窟与大学中，潮流已然转向。

For some Muslims, the rejection of global jihad has led to a more individualistic, pacifist fundamentalism that emphasises “Islamic” behaviour in everyday life. But personal piety has been growing for a generation, and some are jaded by it; they are looking for new ideas.

对于一部分穆斯林而言，对全球圣战的拒绝已将他们导向了更富个人主义与和平主义色彩的原教旨主义之路，这是一种强调每日生活中“伊斯兰式”行为的思想。但个人敬虔之风已经扩张了一代人的时间，有些人对此感到了厌倦，他们正在寻觅新的观念。

Significant, in this light, is the recent award by Egypt’s culture ministry of a prize to one of the country’s most combative secularist writers, Sayed al-Qimani. The Egyptian authorities would hardly have dared to offer such a prize a decade ago. Beleaguered then by Islamists and a tide of public piety, the ostensibly secular government was prone to posing as a defender of orthodoxy. Book bannings, charges of blasphemy, and death threats against secularists (one of which, against the writer Farag Foda, was carried out by Islamist militants in 1992) all served to silence criticism of the conservative line.

从这一点来看，最近埃及文化部将某奖项颁发给该国最具战斗性的世俗派作家之一的赛义德•齐马里（Sayed al-Qimani）一事可谓意义重大。若是在十年之前，埃及当局几乎不会有勇气授其如此奖励；在那之后，披着世俗外衣的埃及政府受困于伊斯兰主义者和公共敬虔之潮，因此倾向于扮演正统卫士的角色。书籍查禁、亵渎指控以及向世俗派发出死亡威胁（其中针对作家法拉格•福达的威胁于1992年被伊斯兰主义武装分子付诸实施）等手段都被用来打压对保守阵线的批评。

Mr Qimani, the pugnacious son of a provincial cleric, has himself been subjected to death threats, to the point where, fearing for his safety, he publicly repented of his purported sins in 2005, and abandoned writing for some years. Several of his dozen books, most of which are daringly revisionist accounts of early Islamic history, have been banned at al-Azhar’s orders, despite Mr Qimani’s protests that he remains a believer, albeit of a relatively non-doctrinaire sort.

齐马里是位生性好斗的地方教士之子，自己也曾收到过死亡威胁，这令他在2005年出于对自身安全的担忧而就其传闻中的罪行公开忏悔，并一度封笔数年。不顾齐马里关于他仍然是一名信徒（尽管相对缺乏教条色彩）的抗议，其十余部著作中的数本仍在爱资哈尔大学的命令下受到查禁，这些书籍多是对早期伊斯兰历史大胆的修正主义描述。

Predictably, the prize has left Islamists fuming, with several filing lawsuits demanding that it be rescinded. Mr Qimani says his life is once again in danger, after a chorus of denunciations from several different strands of Egyptian Islam, ranging from establishment clergy to radical ones.

不难预见的是，这一奖项令伊斯兰主义者怒不可遏，数人提起诉讼，要求撤销奖励。在多支不同的埃及伊斯兰派系齐声谴责之后，齐马里声称他的生命又一次陷入危险，发出责难的派系从权势阶层的教士到激进派分子不等。

Such threats have worked in the past, most notoriously in the case of Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, a Koranic scholar who fled Egypt after a court decreed him divorced from his wife, on grounds that his revisionist views rendered him an apostate, and therefore ineligible to be married to a Muslim woman. Yet so far the government has stood unusually firm on Mr Qimani’s side, partly because intellectuals have rallied to his defence, but perhaps also in a sign that it senses growing public impatience with the Islamists’ cries of blasphemy. More unusually still, Mr Qimani has been invited to air his views on television, including on one programme where he challenged any cleric to an open debate. None took up the offer.

此前，这类威胁曾有奏效的先例，其中当以纳赛尔•罕默德•阿布•扎伊德（Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid）一案中的情况最富恶名。当时，法院以扎伊德的修正主义观点致使他背叛教义、因此不再有资格与一位穆斯林女子结婚为由，下令其与夫人离婚，这位古兰经学者在判决下达后逃离埃及。然而直到目前为止，政府还是以一种反常的坚定态度站在了齐马里一边，之所以出现这一幕，部分是由于知识分子已经聚集起来为他辩护，不过这也可能反映出了政府对公众情绪有所体察的迹象，公众对于伊斯兰主义者关于亵渎的哭诉正日渐厌烦。然而更为罕见的是，齐马里已经受邀通过电视传播其观点，包括在其中一档节目中齐马里发出挑战，愿与任何一位教士进行公开辩论，不过无人应战。

In a land where pious words saturate airwaves and canonical texts fill bookshelves, the prominence of relatively secular types like Mr Qimani marks a trend.

在一个虔诚话语泛滥媒体、经典文本盈箱充栋的国度中，如齐马里这样相对世俗派人物的突出表现标示出了一种趋势。

Their following may be tiny compared with the adulation enjoyed by Mr Qaradawi. But it may be that on his declared jihad-ground of modern communications, the preacher will be facing not infidel crusaders, but fellow Muslims who want change and refuse to be intimidated.

可能与卡拉达维所受的吹捧相比，这一派的追随者势单力薄。但或许在前者所宣称的现代交流以圣战为纲这一点上，这位传道者所面对的将不是异教征伐者，而是渴望变革、拒受胁迫的穆斯林教友们。

注1：shackle在伊斯兰教语境中象征“不信者”
如“Indeed, We have prepared for the disbelievers chains and shackles and a blaze.” (Quran 76:4)
古兰经第七六章 人
“四：我确已为不信者预备许多铁链　铁圈和火狱”