（写在前面：社会主义者和伊斯兰恐惧症患者最大的区别是，社会主义者批评伊斯兰教愚弄人民的教义，而伊斯兰恐惧症患者只仇恨穆斯林。）

OVER THE course of 2006, the attacks on Muslims and the vilification of Islam has been relentless. When Muslims protested the cartoons that caricatured Islam published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, they were denounced for not appreciating Western values of “free speech.” When a United Arab Emirates company was to take over the running of six U.S. ports from a British company in early 2006, the Democrats and Republicans whipped up a xenophobic frenzy. After Hezbollah defeated Israel in the Lebanon war, Bush referred to Hezbollah as an “Islamofascist” organization, and stated that “Islamic fascism” was the biggest threat facing the United States.¹ Tony Blair talked about an “arc of extremism [in a] specifically Muslim version” stretching across the Middle East. Then the Pope suggested that Islam was violent and that “reason” was more at home in the West. British Cabinet Minister Jack Straw advised Muslim women not to wear veils because the practice had “implications of separateness” which creates “parallel communities.” And right behind him came Tony Blair himself, blithely supporting his bigoted minister.

在2006年，对穆斯林的攻击和对伊斯兰教的诽谤是凶狠的。当穆斯林抗议2005年9月在丹麦报纸Jyllands-Posten发表讽刺伊斯兰教的漫画时，他们因为不赞赏西方的“言论自由”而受到谴责。当一家阿拉伯联合酋长国公司从英国公司手中接管了六个美国港口的运作时，民主党和共和党人在2006年初掀起了一场仇外狂热。在真主党在黎巴嫩战争中击败以色列之后，布什将真主党称为“伊斯兰法西斯主义”组织，并称“伊斯兰法西斯主义”是美国面临的最大威胁.托尼布莱尔谈到了“特别是穆斯林版本的极端主义”横跨中东地区。然后，教皇认为伊斯兰教是暴力的，西方的“理性”更多。英国内阁大臣Jack Straw建议穆斯林妇女不要戴面纱，因为这种做法具有“分裂的意义”，造成“平行的社区”。而在他身后的是托尼布莱尔本人，他轻率地支持他的顽固的部长。

In his address to the nation on September 11, 2006, President Bush’s arguments revealed the perverse logic of Islamophobia today:

2006年9月11日，布什总统在全国发表的讲话中揭示了伊斯兰恐惧症的非理性逻辑：

Since the horror of 9/11, we’ve learned a great deal about the enemy. And we have learned that their goal is to build a radical Islamic empire where women are prisoners in their homes, men are beaten for missing prayer meetings, and terrorists have a safe haven to plan and launch attacks on America and other civilized nations. The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation…. This struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it is a struggle for civilization. We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations.²

“自9/11恐怖以来，我们已经对敌人有了很多了解。 我们已经了解到，他们的目标是建立一个激进的伊斯兰帝国，在这里，妇女在家中成为囚犯，男人因错过祷告会而遭到殴打，恐怖分子有安全的避风港来策划和发动对美国和其他文明国家的袭击。 对这个敌人的战争不仅仅是一场军事冲突。 这是21世纪的决定性的思想斗争，是对我们这一代人的号召…… 这场斗争被称为文明之间的冲突。 事实上，这是一场文明之间的斗争。 我们正在努力维持自由国家享有的生活方式。”

The common thread that ties together all these attacks on Islam is a polarized view of the world. On one side are the values of freedom, democracy, rationality, women’s rights, liberty, and civilization; all associated, furthermore, with Christianity. On the other side are a people who are irrational, evil, barbaric, and uncivilized; who hate freedom and democracy and want to create, according to Bush, an Islamic empire stretching from Europe to South East Asia.

将所有这些对伊斯兰教的攻击联系在一起的共同点是对世界的两极分化的视角。 一边是自由，民主，理性，妇女权利，自由和文明的价值观; 所有这些都与基督教有关。 另一边是一个非理性，邪恶，野蛮和不文明的人; 布什认为，他们讨厌自由民主，并希望创造一个从欧洲延伸到东南亚的伊斯兰帝国。

What is striking about this characterization of “the West” and “Islam,” is not only the degree of hyperbole but the fact that it finds resonance within the wider culture. Today, it has become commonplace for media pundits, not only on Fox but also on CNN, to call for the racial profiling of Arabs and Muslims. Hollywood has churned out a steady stream of films that portray Arab Muslims either as terrorists incapable of being reasoned with, or as sheiks and belly-dancers.³ Disney’s Alladin, for instance, begins with a song that describes Arab society in the most stereotypical terms and then concludes: “It’s barbaric, but hey—it’s home.” When the Pope issued a statement expressing regret over Muslim reactions to his comments, but not directly apologizing for equating Islam with violence, a poll found that two-thirds of Americans believed that the Pope had done enough to apologize to Muslims.⁴

对“西方”和“伊斯兰”这些特征的惊人之处不仅在于夸张的程度，而在于它在更广泛的文化中找到共鸣的事实。 今天，媒体专家，不仅是福克斯，还有美国有线电视新闻网（CNN），都呼吁对阿拉伯人和穆斯林进行种族描绘，这已经司空见惯。好莱坞制作了源源不断的电影，将阿拉伯穆斯林描绘成无法被理解的恐怖分子，或者作为酋长和肚皮舞者.3迪士尼的Alladin就是以一首用最刻板的术语描述阿拉伯社会的歌曲开头的。 然后得出结论：“这是野蛮的，但嘿 – 这是家。”当教皇发表声明对穆斯林对他的评论的反应表示遗憾，但没有直接道歉将伊斯兰教与暴力等同起来时，民意调查发现三分之二的美国人相信教皇做得向穆斯林的道歉足够了。

Significant minorities of Americans hold negative views of Islam. In a U.S.A Today/Gallup Poll conducted in late July, 39 percent of Americans admitted to feeling some prejudice against Muslims. About the same percentage favored requiring Muslims, including U.S. citizens, to carry a special ID “as a means of preventing terrorist attacks in the United States.” Nearly one in four—22 percent—said they wouldn’t want to have Muslims as their neighbors.⁵

显著的少数美国人对伊斯兰教持负面看法。在7月下旬举行的美国今日/盖洛普民意调查中，39％的美国人承认对穆斯林产生了一些偏见。 大约相同的百分比倾向于要求穆斯林，包括美国公民，携带一个特殊的身份证“作为防止美国恐怖袭击的手段。”近四分之一到百分之二十二的人表示他们不希望穆斯林成为他们的邻居.5

In short, Islamophobia today has wide resonance. However, these attitudes and ideas are not new, and they were not developed from scratch by the Bush or Blair administrations. Rather, Islamophobia in its current form derives from a body of knowledge known as “Orientalist” thought, which came into being in the late eighteenth century, and it is here we must turn in order to understand the roots of Islamophobia.

简而言之，今天的伊斯兰恐惧症有广泛的共鸣。 然而，这些态度和想法并不新鲜，而且布什或布莱尔政府也没有从头发明这些态度和想法。 相反，目前形式的伊斯兰恐惧症来自于被称为“东方主义”思想的知识体系，这种思想在18世纪后期出现，我们必须在这里转向才能理解伊斯兰恐惧症的根源。

Orientalist roots

东方主义的根源

As Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and other imperial nations embarked on a mission of colonial expansion, they developed ideologies to justify conquest. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, colonizers justified the slaughter and exploitation of the Indians in the New World by arguing that the Indian “savages” were wild animals, idolaters whom God had ordained to be enslaved by Christians.⁶ The enslavement of Africans was similarly justified through the book of Genesis. It was argued that Africans were a cursed people (drawn from the myth of the Curse of Ham or Canaan) whose skin color had blackened to mark the curse. Thus, even after the African slaves converted to Christianity they could be retained as slaves.⁷

随着西班牙，葡萄牙，英国，法国和其他帝国开始殖民扩张的使命，他们发展了意识形态以合法化征服。 在十六和十七世纪，殖民者通过争辩说印度的“野蛮人”是野生动物，上帝所命定的被基督徒所奴役的偶像崇拜者来证明对新世界的印第安人的屠杀和剥削是正当的.6对非洲人的奴役同样如此，通过创世纪的书证明了这一点。 有人认为，非洲人是一个受到诅咒的人（来自汉姆或迦南诅咒的神话），他们的肤色已经变暗以标记诅咒。 因此，即使在非洲奴隶皈依基督教之后，他们也可以被当成奴隶。

The shift from religious to “scientific” justifications took place in the eighteenth century in the context of the Enlightenment and the growth of science. Ethnologists such as Carolus Linnaeus and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach divided human beings into various races with distinct characteristics. Not surprisingly, the logic that flowed from this classification was that white Europeans were superior and other “darker, colored peoples” were both “ugly” and at best “semi-civilized.”⁸ Racism, as an ideology to justify slavery and conquest, grew up around this time.⁹

从宗教到“科学”理由的转变发生在十八世纪的启蒙运动和科学的发展中。 像Carolus Linnaeus和Johann Friedrich Blumenbach这样的民族学家将人类划分为具有鲜明特征的各种种族。 毫不奇怪，从这种分类中产生的逻辑是白欧洲人优越，其他“黑暗，有色人种”都“丑陋”，充其量只是“半文明”.8种族主义作为一种为奴隶制和征服辩护的意识形态， 在这个时间增长.9

In the late nineteenth century, when the British poet Rudyard Kipling wrote “The white man’s burden” he was simply reinforcing an idea that was by then widespread. Kipling wrote of the inherent superiority of the West and their “burden” to civilize and tame the peoples of the East. Characterized as “half devil, half child,” the colonized were seen as both evil/barbaric, but also childlike and therefore in need of protection. Originally published in 1899, Kipling used the subtitle “The United States and the Philippine Islands,” as a way to urge the U.S. to take on the same responsibilities as the British.¹⁰¹¹²

在十九世纪末期，当英国诗人Rudyard Kipling写下“白人的负担”时，他只是强化了一种当时普遍存在的观念。 吉卜林写到了西方的内在优势和他们将东方人民变得文明和驯服的“负担”。 被称为“半恶魔，半孩子”的殖民者被视为邪恶/野蛮，但也是孩子般的，因此需要保护。 吉卜林最初出版于1899年，使用了副标题“美国和菲律宾群岛”作为敦促美国承担与英国同样责任的一种方式.110112

The encounter with the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa took a similar form. When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798 he took with him not only soldiers, but an army of scientists, botanists, biologists, architects, etc. all with the goal of producing a “scientific” survey of the country that was designed for use not by the Egyptians but by the French.¹¹ Various imperial nations commissioned scholars to develop knowledge about what they called the “Orient” in order to better control their subjects.

与中东和北非人民的相遇也采取了类似的形式。 当拿破仑于1798年入侵埃及时，他不仅带来了士兵，还带来了科学家，植物学家，生物学家，建筑师等等，所有人的目标都是对国家进行“科学”调查，证明埃及不是被设计为供埃及人使用的，而是供法国人使用的。11各个帝国都委托学者发展他们所谓的“东方”的知识，以便更好地控制他们的臣民。

The body of Orientalist thought that emerged from this process has a few characteristic features. First, it draws on a “civilizational” view of history—the idea that civilizations come into being, prosper, and then go into decline. Such a view of history assumes that civilizations are distinct entities, which exist in isolation from each other, and which have a core set of values that drive them. Freedom, law, rationality, science, progress, intellectual curiosity, the spirit of invention, and so on, were seen as the core values of the so-called West, thus constructing the West as a unique civilization with its roots in ancient Greece. Every other civilization was then defined in relation to this notion of a superior West. Predictably, the world of Islam was characterized as despotic, static, undemocratic, and rigid.¹²

从这个过程中出现的东方主义思想的主体有一些特征。 首先，它借鉴了历史的“文明”观点 – 文明产生，繁荣，然后进入衰落的观念。 这种历史观假定文明是不同的实体，它们彼此孤立存在，并且具有驱动它们的核心价值观。 自由，法律，理性，科学，进步，求知欲，发明精神等被视为所谓西方的核心价值观，从而将西方建设成为一个源于古希腊的独特文明。 然后，根据这一优越的西方概念来定义其他所有文明。 可以预见的是，伊斯兰世界的特征是专制，静态，不民主和僵化的。

In addition to civilizational theories, the Orientalists drew on the theories of race discussed above that placed European Caucasians at the top of the racial hierarchy and colonized peoples close to the bottom. Maxime Rodinson describes the origin of race-based understandings of Muslims as follows:

除了文明理论之外，东方主义者还借鉴了上面讨论过的种族理论，这种理论将欧洲高加索人置于种族等级的顶端，被殖民的人接近底层 Maxime Rodinson描述了基于种族的对穆斯林的起源的理解下：

The Oriental may always have been characterized as a savage enemy, but during the Middle Ages, he was at least considered on the same level as his European counterpart…. In the nineteenth century, however, he became something quite separate, sealed off in his own specificity, yet worthy of a kind of grudging admiration. This is the origin of the homo islamicus, a notion widely accepted even today.¹³

东方人可能一直被认为是一个野蛮的敌人，但在中世纪，他至少被认为与他的欧洲同行相同…… 然而，在十九世纪，他变得相当分离，以自己的特殊性进行了封闭，但值得一种勉强的赞赏。 这是伊斯兰的起源，即使在今天也被广泛接受。

In sum, Orientalists argue that the West is a dynamic, complex, and ever changing society, while the Orient, and particularly the world of Islam, is static, barbaric, and despotic, and therefore in need of Western intervention to bring about progressive change.

总而言之，东方主义者认为西方是一个充满活力，复杂且不断变化的社会，而东方，特别是伊斯兰世界，是静态的，野蛮的，专制的，因此需要西方的干预才能实现进步的变革。

If these ideas served to justify French and English conquest of the Middle East and North Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they are still very much in vogue today. Books like Rafael Patai’s The Arab Mind, which was used by the U.S. military to devise the torture techniques used in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, are a reassertion of homo islamicus. Modern-day Orientalists like Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington have argued that the conflict between the U.S. and the Middle East is a “clash of civilizations.” According to Huntington, who has done much to popularize this notion, “Western ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state, often have little resonance in Islamic societies.”¹⁴

如果这些想法有助于合理化法国和英国在十八和十九世纪征服中东和北非，那么它们今天仍然非常流行。 像Rafael Patai的“阿拉伯思维”这样的书，被美国军方用来设计在Abu Ghraib和其他地方使用的酷刑技术，是同质化的伊斯兰的重新确立。 像伯纳德·刘易斯和塞缪尔·亨廷顿这样的现代东方主义者认为，美国与中东之间的冲突是“文明的冲突。”亨廷顿说，他已经做了很多来推广这一观念，“西方的个人主义思想，自由主义 ，宪政，人权，平等，自由，法治，民主，自由市场，政教分离，在伊斯兰社会中经常几乎没有共鸣。“14

While these ideas remained on the margins during the 1990s, when the Clinton administration preferred the language of “humanitarian intervention” to justify U.S. imperialism, they have now assumed center stage after 9/11, with both the Republicans and Democrats equally comfortable with this rhetoric. The end result is a political climate in the U.S. where Islamophobic ideas are largely taken for granted. So much so that, as I have argued elsewhere, large sections of the Left have internalized the “clash of civilizations” thesis.¹⁵ When Lewis’s essay on the rise of Islamic “fundamentalism,” “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” was published in the Atlantic Monthly, the cover featured an angry, bearded, turbaned man. In October 2005, when the Progressive ran an article by Sasha Abramsky that internalizes the clash argument, the cover featured a bearded, turbaned man brandishing a scimitar.

虽然这些想法在1990s时仍处于边缘状态，当时克林顿政府倾向于采用“人道主义干预”的语言来证明美国帝国主义的合理性，但他们现在已经成为911事件后的中心舞台，共和党人和民主党人同样对这种言论感到满意。最终的结果是美国的政治气候，其中伊斯兰恐惧症的想法在很大程度上被视为理所当然。 正如我在其他地方所论述的那样，左派中的大部分人内部化了“文明的冲突”理论.15当刘易斯关于伊斯兰“原教旨主义”，“穆斯林愤怒的根源”的崛起的论文发表在 大西洋月刊，封面上有一个生气的，有胡须的，戴头巾的男人。 2005年10月，当进步主义者杂志发表Sasha Abramsky撰写的一篇文章进行内部化冲突论证时，封面上有一个留着胡须，戴头巾的男人挥舞着一把弯刀。

In what follows, I begin by laying out the Marxist approach to religion and then debunk five inter-related myths about Islam and the West that are in play today:

接下来，我首先阐述马克思主义的宗教分析方法，然后揭穿五个关于伊斯兰教和西方相互关联的迷思：

1. Islam is a monolithic religion;

伊斯兰教是一个单一的宗教
2. Islam is a uniquely sexist religion;

伊斯兰教是一种独特的性别歧视宗教;
3. The “Muslim mind” is incapable of rationality and science;

“穆斯林思维”无法兼容理性和科学;
4. Islam is inherently violent;

伊斯兰教本质上就是暴力的;
5. The West spreads democracy, Islam spawns terrorism.

西方传播民主，伊斯兰教产生了恐怖主义。

Marxism and religion

马克思主义和宗教

Historically, Orientalist scholars were philologists, and as philologists, they drew their conclusions about how different societies functioned simply by examining written texts. The Orientalist H.A.R. Gibb, who moved from Oxford to Harvard University in 1955, wrote about the unchanging “Arab mind” based on his readings of classical Islamic texts.¹⁶ Imagine if scholars had similarly attempted to deduce observations about contemporary Catholics based on readings of the New Testament; they would surely have been scoffed at and derided. Yet, when it comes to learning about Muslims and Arabs such research methods are seen as acceptable. Gibb, and others like him, saw no need to gather information about the reality of life in the Middle East or elsewhere before drawing conclusions. Thus, much of their writing is based on distortions of history and reality. In contrast to this, Marxists explain the dynamics of a society, and the role of religion within it, based on actual historical reality. The Marxist method of analysis, historical materialism, looks at the concrete circumstances in which human beings shape, and are shaped by, their conditions of existence.

从历史上看，东方学者是语言学家，作为语言学家，他们通过检查书面文件得出了关于不同社会如何运作的结论。东方主义者H.A.R. Gibb在1955年从牛津大学搬到了哈佛大学，根据他对古典伊斯兰教文本的阅读，写下了不变的“阿拉伯思维”。想象一下，如果学者们同样试图根据新约的读物来推断对当代天主教徒的观察，他们肯定会被嘲笑和讥讽。然而，当谈到了解穆斯林和阿拉伯人时，这种研究方法被认为是可以接受的。Gibb，和其他像他一样的人，在得出结论之前，声称在得出结论前没有必要收集有关中东或其他地方的现实生活的信息。因此，他们的大部分作品都是对历史和现实的歪曲。与此形成对比的是，马克思主义者根据实际的历史现实来解释社会的动态，以及宗教在其中的作用。马克思主义的分析方法，历史唯物主义，着眼于人类塑造和被塑造其存在条件的具体环境。

Marxists have argued that the impetus for religious thought initially emerged from human beings’ relative lack of control over nature, and later, the oppressed condition of the exploited majority. As Frederick Engels notes, “All religion…is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces. In the beginning of history it was the forces of nature which were first so reflected and which in the course of further evolution underwent the most manifold and varied personifications among various peoples.”¹⁷

马克思主义者认为，宗教思想的推动最初源于人类对自然的相对缺乏的控制，以及后来被剥削的多数人的被压迫状态。正如弗雷德里克·恩格斯所指出的那样，“所有宗教……都只不过是人们对那些控制着他们的日常生活的外部力量的思想的奇妙反映，这种反映是地球力量被假设为超自然力量的形式。 在历史的开端，自然力量首先被反映，并且在进一步发展的过程中经历了各种人中最多样的和复杂的人格化。“17

Religion has since played a contradictory role in history. It has functioned as part of the ideological apparatus of ruling classes, and as an ideology of the oppressed. Christianity, for example, emerged as the religion of the oppressed against the exploitation of the Romans. However, once the Roman Empire accepted the religion it was transformed into its opposite; it became a bulwark of the system.¹⁸ Different denominations of Islam have followed similar trajectories, for example Shiism in Iran. Religion’s mass appeal in most cases, however, has not been as a challenge to the status quo, but as a comfort and solace for the oppressed. As the Russian revolutionary Lenin wrote,

从那以后，宗教在历史上发挥了矛盾的作用。 它既是统治阶级的思想器官的一部分，也是被压迫者的意识形态。 例如，基督教成为被压迫者反对罗马人剥削的宗教。 然而，一旦罗马帝国接受了这个宗教，它就会转变为它的对立面; 它成为了制度的堡垒.18伊斯兰教的不同教派也遵循类似的轨迹，例如伊朗的什叶派。 然而，在大多数情况下，宗教的大众吸引力并不是对现状的挑战，而是对被压迫者的安慰和慰藉。 正如俄罗斯革命者列宁所写，

Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labor of others are taught by religion to practice charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven.¹⁹

那些辛勤劳碌和挣扎求生的人，在地上被宗教教导为顺服和有耐心，并被获得天上的赏赐的希望而安慰。 但那些依靠别人的劳动生活的人，在宗教中被教导在地上实践慈善，从而为他们提供了一种非常便宜的方式来合理化他们作为剥削者的整个存在，并以适中的价格出售他们在天堂的幸福。

At various points, religious wars have been fought by various sects. Marxists understand these wars as being motivated not by particular religious differences, but by the class interests represented by the various factions. In his analysis of the Reformation in Germany, Engels writes:

在各个方面，各种教派都在进行宗教战争。 马克思主义者认为这些战争的动机不是出于特定的宗教差异，而是出于各教派所代表的阶级利益。 在他对德国宗教改革的分析中，恩格斯写道：

In the so-called religious wars of the Sixteenth Century, very positive material class-interests were at play, and those wars were class wars just as were the later collisions in England and France. If the class struggles of that time appear to bear religious earmarks, if the interests, requirements and demands of the various classes hid themselves behind a religious screen, it little changes the actual situation, and is to be explained by conditions of the time.²⁰

在所谓的十六世纪宗教战争中，非常积极的物质阶级利益正在发挥作用，而那些战争就像后来的英格兰和法国之间的冲突一样。如果那个阶段的阶级斗争表现出带有宗教色彩，如果各阶级的兴趣，要求和命令隐藏在宗教屏幕背后，那么实际情况几乎没有变化，并且可以用时间条件来解释.20

He goes on to explain that all attacks against feudalism had to confront the Church, and in so doing “all revolutionary, social and political doctrines, necessarily became theological heresies.”²¹ But these were not theological debates in the abstract. Rather they represented the interests of the nascent bourgeois class in their struggle against the feudal monarchy, as well as the more radically inclined artisan and peasant rebels against serfdom. During the German Reformation, peasant leaders, for example, demanded the abolition of serfdom “unless it be shown from the Gospel that we are serfs.” Luther, a defender of property against the peasantry, insisted that those who died fighting rebellious peasants were “true martyrs for God.”²² During the various revolutionary wars, the bourgeoisie was animated by an explicit opposition to religious dogma. However, once in power, the bourgeoisie brought religion back as a bulwark of established order.²³

他接着解释说，所有针对封建主义的攻击都必须面对教会，这样做“所有的革命，社会和政治学说，必然会成为神学异端。”21但这些并不是抽象的神学辩论。 相反，它们代表了新生资产阶级在反对封建君主制的斗争中的利益，以及更加偏向于反对农奴制的工匠和农民反抗者。 例如，在德国宗教改革期间，农民领袖要求废除农奴制“除非从福音中显示我们是农奴。”路德，一个反对农民的财产捍卫者，坚持认为那些与反抗农民战斗的人是“ 真正的上帝的烈士。“22在各种革命战争期间，资产阶级因明确反对宗教教条而变得生气勃勃。 然而，一旦掌权，资产阶级就把宗教带回了既定秩序的堡垒.23

In short, the role of religion in any society is best understood by examining the specific historical conditions that constitute that society. All the major religions of the world have undergone transformations in order to adapt to changing circumstances. In some instances, religion has played a progressive role and in others a reactionary one. In still others, it has simply adapted to new conditions in order to retain its mass appeal.

简而言之，通过研究构成该社会的具体历史条件，可以最好地理解宗教在任何社会中的作用。 世界上所有主要宗教都经历了变革，以适应不断变化的环境。 在某些情况下，宗教起着进步的作用，而在其他情况下则是反动的。 在其他情况下，它只是适应新的条件，以保持其大众吸引力。

Myth 1: Islam is a monolithic religion

迷思1：伊斯兰教是一个单一的宗教

The idea that Islam is a monolithic religion is not only false but functions as the basis for all the other myths. For it is only by denying the diversity of Islamic history and practices that one can then argue that it has certain inherent, unchanging characteristics that render it anti-democratic, violent, backward-looking, etc.

伊斯兰教是一个单一的宗教的想法不仅是错误的，而且是所有其他迷思的基础。 因为它只是否认伊斯兰教的历史和实践的多样性，然后人们可以争辩说它具有某些本质的，不变的特征，使其反民主，暴力，落后等等。

Islam is practiced in dozens of countries around the world. According to U.S. State Department figures, nearly1.5 billion people around the world are Muslims—85 percent are Sunni and 15 percent are Shiites.²⁴ Within these two main denominations, there are many more branches.

伊斯兰教在全世界数十个国家被信奉。 根据美国国务院的数据，世界上有近15亿人是穆斯林 —其中85％是逊尼派，15％是什叶派.24在这两个主要教派中，有更多的分支派别。

There are several countries and regions which have majority Muslim populations, and they span the globe from Indonesia, to Bangladesh, to several central Asian countries, the Middle East, and North Africa. Islam looks very different in each of these regions and countries largely because as the religion spread it adopted the customs and traditions of the people of various lands. Thus, Sufi Islam practiced in Northern India is quite different from Wahabi/Salafi Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, which is in turn different from the type of Shiism practiced in Iran. The claim that Islam is a homogenous and monolithic religion is therefore ludicrous, given the diversity of Islamic practices in nations that run the gamut from secular democracies (such as Indonesia) to dictatorships (such as Saudi Arabia).

有几个国家和地区拥有占主流的穆斯林人口，他们遍布全球，从印度尼西亚到孟加拉国，到几个中亚国家，中东和北非。 伊斯兰教在这些地区和国家中看起来大不相同，主要是因为随着宗教的传播，它采用了各种土地上人民的原本的习俗和传统。 因此，在印度北部实行的苏菲伊斯兰教与在沙特阿拉伯实行的瓦哈比/萨拉菲伊斯兰教有很大的不同，后者与伊朗的实践形式也不同。 鉴于从世俗民主国家（如印度尼西亚）到独裁国家（如沙特阿拉伯）的各个国家的伊斯兰教实践的多样性，伊斯兰教是一个同质化的和单一的宗教的说法因此是荒谬的。

Much of the current Islamophobic rhetoric seeks to demonize Arabs in particular. However, all Muslims are not Arabs, and all Arabs are not Muslims. Arabs are people who speak Arabic, share certain common cultural traditions, and claim a common Arab identity.²⁵ Geographically, the Arab world has traditionally been divided into two parts (east and west of the river Nile): the Maghreb or the West, which includes Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan and so on, and the Mashreq or the East, which includes Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and all the countries to the east up to, but not including, Iran. Because of linguistic and cultural differences, Iranians and Turks are not considered Arabs.

目前大多数伊斯兰恐惧症的言论都试图将阿拉伯人妖魔化。 但是，不是所有穆斯林都是阿拉伯人，不是所有阿拉伯人都是穆斯林。 阿拉伯人讲阿拉伯语，分享某些共同的文化传统，并拥有共同的阿拉伯身份.25从地理上讲，阿拉伯世界传统上分为两部分（尼罗河的东部和西部）：马格里布或西部， 包括摩洛哥，利比亚，阿尔及利亚，突尼斯，苏丹等，以及包括埃及，叙利亚，黎巴嫩和东部所有国家的马什雷克或东部，但不包括伊朗。 由于语言和文化差异，伊朗人和土耳其人不被视为阿拉伯人。

Like all religions, Islam has adapted. Religious texts may be more or less fixed, but the ideas and practices they are made to justify are ever-changing, based on historical transformations that are independent of religious ideology. As Chris Harman notes,

像所有宗教一样，伊斯兰教也适应了。 宗教文本可能或多或少是固定的，但基于独立于宗教意识形态的历史变革，它们合理化的理念和实践是不断变化的。 Chris Harman指出，

Islam is no different to any other religion in these respects. It arose in one context, among a trading community in the towns of 7th century Arabia, in the midst of a society still mainly organized on a tribal basis. It flourished within the succession of great empires carved out by some of those who accepted its doctrines. It persists today as the official ideology of numerous capitalist states (Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, Iran etc), as well as the inspiration of many oppositional movements.

在这些方面，伊斯兰教与任何其他宗教都没有什么不同。 它出现在一个背景下，在7世纪阿拉伯城镇的一个贸易社区中，在一个主要以部落为基础的社会中被组织。 它在一些接受其教义的人所展示的伟大帝国的继承中蓬勃发展。 它今天仍然是许多资本主义国家（沙特阿拉伯，苏丹，巴基斯坦，伊朗等）的官方意识形态，以及许多反对派运动的灵感。

It has been able to survive in such different societies because it has been able to adapt to differing class interests. It has obtained the finance to build its mosques and employ its preachers in turn from the traders of Arabia, the bureaucrats, landowners and merchants of the great empires, and the industrialists of modern capitalism. But at the same time it has gained the allegiance of the mass of people by putting across a message offering consolation to the poor and oppressed. At every point its message has balanced between promising a degree of protection to the oppressed and providing the exploiting classes with protection against any revolutionary overthrow.²⁶

它能够在不同的社会中生存，因为它能够适应不同阶级的利益。 它已经获得了建立其清真寺的资金，并依次从阿拉伯的贸易商，大帝国的官僚，地主和商人以及现代资本主义的工业资本家那里聘请传教士。 但与此同时，它通过传递给穷人和受压迫者安慰的信息，赢得了大众的忠诚。 在每一点上，它的信息在为受压迫者提供一定程度的保护和为剥削阶级提供保护以防止被任何革命推翻之间取得平衡.26

Myth 2: Islam is a uniquely sexist religion

迷思2：伊斯兰教是一种独特的性别歧视宗教

Islam is unique in its sexist approach to women, goes an oft-repeated argument, and therefore, Muslim women need to be rescued by white men in their pith helmets and jodhpurs. This was one of the arguments that the Bush administration used to justify its war on Afghanistan. And more recently, France passed a ban on the hijab (couched as a ban on all religious symbols in schools) and many argued that this would “liberate” Muslim women. The reality is that neither Afghan nor French Muslim women have been liberated by these actions. Today Afghan women are no better off than they were before the war.²⁷ If anything, as the documentary Afghanistan Unveiled captures quite well, in the rural areas conditions have only deteriorated.²⁸ The French ban represents an attack on all visible expressions of Islam, and therefore a restriction of religious rights. It does not represent a step forward for women, which would have entailed allowing women to choose whether or not to wear the hijab.²⁹

伊斯兰教在对女性的性别歧视方面是独一无二的，这经常被反复论证，因此，穆斯林妇女需要在被拥有头盔和马裤的白人救出。 这是布什政府用来合理化其对阿富汗战争的理由之一。 最近，法国通过了对头巾的禁令（这被掩饰为对学校的所有宗教标志的禁令），许多人认为这将“解放”穆斯林女性。事实是，阿富汗和法国的穆斯林女性都没有被这些行动解放出来。 今天，阿富汗女性并没有比战前过得更好.27如果有的话，正如纪录片“阿富汗揭露”所捕获的那样，在农村地区的情况只变得更糟糕。28法国的禁令是对伊斯兰教所有可见表达的攻击， 因此限制了宗教权利。 这并不意味着女性向前迈进了一步，这将使女性能够选择是否戴头巾.29

This argument about women’s liberation has a long history. The British used a similar justification when they invaded and occupied Egypt in 1882. Lord Cromer, who oversaw the occupation, viewed Egyptian society and Islam as follows: “Islam as a social system has been a complete failure…the degradation of women in the East is a canker that begins its destructive work early in childhood, and has eaten into the whole system of Islam.”³⁰ The solution was that Muslims “be persuaded or forced into imbibing the true spirit of Western civilization.”³¹ For Cromer there was no contradiction between championing women’s rights in Egypt while trying to curtail them at home. As a colonial overlord, he was simply deploying arguments that could strengthen Britain’s hold over Egypt. At home in Britain, he was against women’s rights and was a founding member and president of the Men’s League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage. Similarly, while the Bush administration trumpeted women’s liberation in Afghanistan, it has sought to further curtail women’s rights at home.

关于妇女解放的这一论点历史悠久。英国人在1882年入侵和占领埃及时使用了类似的理由进行合理化。监督占领的Lord Cromer认为埃及社会和伊斯兰教如下：“伊斯兰教作为一种社会系统已彻底失败……东方妇女的退化是一个在童年早期开始破坏性工作的溃疡病，并且已经吞噬了伊斯兰教的整个系统。“30解决方案是穆斯林”被说服或被强迫吸收西方文明的真正精神。“31对Cromer来说，在埃及支持女权，同时试图在家中减少女权之间，并不存在矛盾。作为殖民霸主，他只是在部署可以加强英国对埃及的控制的论据。在英国的家中，他反对女性的权利，并且是男子反对妇女选举联盟的创始成员和主席。同样，在布什政府大肆宣传阿富汗女性解放的同时，它还试图进一步限制女性在国内的权利。

Imperialist justifications for war and occupation have always been a sham, but one might still ask if Islam as a religion is uniquely oppressive towards women. After all, women’s rights have been severely curtailed by right-wing Islamist regimes in power, such as that in Afghanistan under the Taliban. All the world’s major religions, however, are sexist. Doesn’t the Christian creation myth tell us that Eve was created out of Adam’s rib? Women who were thought to be witches were burned at the stake, not only in Europe but in the U.S. barely three centuries ago.

帝国主义对战争和占领的合理化一直都是假的，但人们仍然可能会问伊斯兰教是否是一种对妇女具有独特压迫性的宗教。 毕竟，掌权的右翼伊斯兰政权，例如在塔利班统治下的阿富汗政权，严重压制了女性的权利。 然而，世界上所有的主要宗教都是性别歧视的。 基督徒创造神话不是告诉我们夏娃是用亚当的肋骨创造的吗？ 那些被认为是女巫的女性不仅在欧洲而且在不到三个世纪前在美国被焚烧。

Women’s rights are under attack in the U.S. today. Only 13 percent of U.S. counties offer abortion services. Several states have passed laws that allow pharmacists to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions, including the “morning after” pill. At the same time as women’s right to control their bodies has been restricted, the fetus has been granted rights. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act makes it a crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman. These attacks on women’s rights are due in no small part to the influence of the Christian Right on U.S. politics.

今天，美国妇女的权利受到了攻击。 只有13％的美国的县提供堕胎服务。有几个州通过法律允许药剂师拒绝填写避孕药处方，包括“早晨吃药”。 在妇女控制自己身体的权利受到限制的同时，胎儿也获得了权利。 “未出生的暴力受害者法”规定，在袭击孕妇时伤害胎儿是犯罪行为。 这些对妇女权利的攻击在很大程度上归功于基督教右翼对美国政治的影响。

Recently, Nicaragua, a predominantly Catholic country, passed a ban on abortion making no exception even if the woman’s life is in danger. In short, Islam has no monopoly on misogyny. Furthermore, while predominantly Muslim countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia have elected women to the position of head of state, the “enlightened” U.S. has yet to do the same. The dominant religion in any society does not automatically shape social reality, rather religious ideology is itself shaped and reshaped by material factors.

最近，主要人口是天主教徒的国家尼加拉瓜通过了禁止堕胎的禁令，即使妇女的生命处于危险之中也不例外。 简而言之，伊斯兰教没有垄断厌女症。 此外，虽然主要人口是穆斯林的巴基斯坦，孟加拉国和印度尼西亚等国家选举出了女性国家元首，但“开明”的美国尚未做出同样的事情。 任何社会中的主导宗教都不会自动塑造社会现实，而宗教意识形态本身就是由物质因素塑造和重塑的。

There has been much debate about the role of women in Islam. The Koran, like any religious text, is contradictory and lends itself to multiple interpretations. There are passages in the Koran that grant women the same rights as men to divorce and that permit them to own and inherit property, marking a step forward for women in Arabian society at the time.³² There are, however, also passages that condone polygamy and that restrict women’s inheritance rights to only half of what men are entitled to.³³

关于妇女在伊斯兰教中的角色一直存在很多争论。 与任何宗教文本一样，古兰经是矛盾的，有助于多种解释。 古兰经中有一些段落赋予妇女与男子相同的离婚权利，允许她们拥有和继承财产，这标志着当时阿拉伯社会中妇女向前迈出了一步.32但是，也有一些条款宽恕一夫多妻制。 并且将女性的继承权仅限于男性有权获得的一半.33

Scholars like Leila Ahmed and Asma Barlas have argued that Islam is not inherently misogynistic.³⁴ They point to the egalitarian passages in the Koran that suggest equality between men and women. Barlas argues that sexist interpretations of the Koran are a product of particular societies that needed religious authority to justify sexual inequality. Ahmed states that prior to the institutionalization of Islam, women in Arab society participated in warfare and religion and had sexual autonomy. Montgomery Watt even goes so far as to argue that Arab society at the time was predominantly matrilineal.³⁵ However, Maxime Rodinson rejects this analysis stating instead that Arabia is more appropriately described as a patrilineal society where polyandrous practices, combined with substantial social roles for women, prevailed in certain regions.³⁶ The Prophet Muhammad’s first wife Khadija was a wealthy women who at age forty, proposed to the twenty-seven-year-old Muhammad. And while Khadija was Muhammad’s only wife at the time, she had several husbands. After her death, Muhammad practiced polygamy and married several women.

像Leila Ahmed和Asma Barlas这样的学者认为伊斯兰教本身并不是厌恶女性.34他们指出古兰经中的平等主义经文表明了男女平等。Barlas认为，对可兰经的性别歧视解释是特定社会的产物，需要宗教权威来合理化性别不平等。Ahmed说，在伊斯兰教制度化之前，阿拉伯社会中的妇女参与战争和宗教，并享有性自主权。Montgomery Watt 甚至走得更远，认为当时的阿拉伯社会主要是母系.35然而，Maxime Rodinson 拒绝接受这种分析，而是将阿拉伯更恰当地描述为一个父系社会，其中多元化的做法与女性的重大社会角色相结合在某些地区占了上风.36先知穆罕默德的第一任妻子Khadija是一位四十岁的富裕女性，向二十七岁的穆罕默德求婚。虽然Khadija当时是穆罕默德唯一的妻子，但她有几个丈夫。在她去世后，穆罕默德实行一夫多妻制并娶了几个女人。

As Islam spread, it adopted the cultural practices of various empires, including that of the neighboring Persian and the Byzantine empires. Among the Christians who populated the Middle East and the Mediterranean there were more rigid customs associated with women. In the Christian Byzantine Empire, the sexes were segregated, women were not supposed to be to be seen in public, they had to be veiled, and were given only rudimentary education. As the expanding Islamic empire incorporated these regions, it also assimilated these cultural and social practices.³⁷ In short, the particular misogynistic practices that Islam came to adopt were largely inherited from the religious customs of the neighboring–and conquered–Christian and Jewish societies. The significant point here is that sexist attitudes towards women, far from being unique to Islam, were prevalent among Christians and Jews as well.

随着伊斯兰教的传播，它采用了各种帝国的文化习俗，包括邻国波斯帝国和拜占庭帝国的文化习俗。 在居住在中东和地中海的基督徒中，女性的习俗更加严格。 在基督教拜占庭帝国，男女被隔离，女性不应该在公共场合被看见，她们必须被蒙上，并且只接受基本的教育。 随着不断扩大的伊斯兰帝国将这些地区纳入其中，它也同化了这些文化和社会习俗.37简而言之，伊斯兰教所采用的特殊的厌恶女性主义习俗主要是从邻近和被征服的基督教和犹太社会的宗教习俗中继承而来的。 这里的重点是，对于女性的性别歧视态度，远非伊斯兰教独有，在基督徒和犹太人中也很普遍。

However, this was not the first time that the women of this region saw a further curtailment of their rights under Western influence. A similar fate had befallen Egyptian women when the Greeks conquered Egypt around 333 BC.³⁸ In contrast to Greek society, where women led segregated lives, where their prime role was to care for children, and where the law considered a wife to be a “veritable child,” in Egyptian society women, especially upper-class women, had a high status. In the period of the New Kingdom (1570–950 BC), Egyptian women and men were considered equals under the law. Women had the right to inherit property and to own and manage it, marriage laws were egalitarian, women could move freely in society and weren’t secluded. This is not to suggest that sexism didn’t exist. It was still very much a male-dominated society, but the systematic oppression of women of the kind found in Greek society didn’t exist until Greek conquest of Egypt. In fact, the Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that the male “is by nature superior, and the female inferior, and the one rules and the other is ruled.”³⁹ In short, the great “liberal” Western tradition is not only mired in sexism, but as the case of Egypt shows, it has even played a part in curtailing women’s rights in other societies. Moreover, it is crucial to remember that the rights that women do enjoy anywhere in the world today are the result of struggles waged by women (and men) for those rights. It took no less than a hundred years of bitter struggles for women to win the right to vote in the United States.

然而，这并不是该地区的女性第一次在西方影响下进一步削减其权利。当希腊人在公元前333年左右征服埃及时，埃及妇女遭遇了类似的命运.38与希腊社会相比，妇女过着隔离的生活，其主要作用是照顾孩子，法律认为妻子是“名副其实的孩子，“在埃及社会中，女性，特别是上流社会的女性，地位很高。在新王国时期（公元前1570年至公元前950年），根据法律，埃及妇女和男子被视为平等。妇女有权继承财产并拥有和管理财产，婚姻法是平等主义的，妇女可以在社会中自由行动，而不是被隔离。这并不是说性别歧视不存在。它仍然是一个以男性为主导的社会，但在希腊征服埃及之前，对在希腊社会中发现的那种女性的系统性压迫并不存在。事实上，希腊哲学家亚里士多德认为，男性“在本质上是优越的，而女性是劣等的，男人是统治者，女人是被统治的。”39简而言之，伟大的“自由主义”西方传统不仅陷入了性别歧视的境地。但正如埃及的情况所表明的那样，它甚至在削弱其他社会中妇女的权利方面发挥了作用。此外，至关重要的是要记住，妇女在当今世界任何地方享有的权利都是妇女（和男子）为这些权利而斗争的结果。在美国赢得投票权的女性花了不少于一百年时间苦苦斗争。

Myth 3: The “Muslim mind” is incapable of science, rational thinking, and reason

迷思3：“穆斯林思维”无法兼容科学，理性思考和理性

On September 12, 2006, when Pope Benedict XVI gave his now-infamous speech, he equated Catholicism with reason and Islam with violence and the lack of reason. Paraphrasing a fourteenth century Byzantine emperor, he stated that when a religion (like Islam) is spread through violence it goes against reason, and also against nature, for “not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.”⁴⁰ In making this argument, the Pope joined a long line of Orientalists who have argued that reason, rationality, and science are alien to the world of Islam.

2006年9月12日，当教皇本笃十六世发表他现在已经变得臭名昭着的演讲时，他将天主教与理性等同和伊斯兰教等同于暴力和缺乏理性。 他指的是十四世纪的拜占庭皇帝，他指出，当一个宗教（如伊斯兰教）通过暴力传播时，它违背了理性，也违背了自然，因为“不按照理性行事就违背了上帝的本性。”40 在这一论点中，教皇加入了一长串的东方主义者中，他们认为理性，合理和科学对伊斯兰世界来说是陌生的。

Ernest Renan, who championed science and reason, in an essay published in 1883 titled “Islam and Science” stated: “Early Islam and the Arabs who professed it were hostile to scientific and philosophic spirit.”⁴¹ In a lecture at the Sorbonne, he said:

在1883年出版的题为“伊斯兰与科学”的文章中，支持科学和理性的Ernest Renan说：“早期的伊斯兰教和宣扬它的阿拉伯人对科学和哲学精神持敌视态度。”41在Sorbonne大学的一次演讲中，他说：

Anyone with any knowledge of current affairs can see quite clearly the actual inferiority of the Muslim countries, the decadence of the states governed by Islam, the intellectual barrenness of the races that derive their culture and education from that religion alone. All those who have traveled to the East or to Africa have been struck by the totally narrow mind of the true believer, the kind of iron band around his head that closes him off completely from science and him quite incapable of learning anything or opening his mind to any new ideas.⁴²

任何对时事有所了解的人都可以清楚地看到穆斯林国家的实际自卑感，伊斯兰统治的国家的颓废，仅仅从这种宗教中获得文化和教育的种族的智力的贫瘠。 所有前往东方或非洲的人都被真正信徒的完全狭隘的思想所打动，他的头脑周围的铁带使他完全脱离了科学，他完全无法学习任何东西或打开他的思想，接受任何新的想法.42

Today, the so-called debate on whether Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons draws from these arguments. The mainstream media faithfully reproduce the line of the political elites and don’t raise the question of why it is legitimate for the U.S. to police other nations, especially when it is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons. Iran is represented, at best, as a petulant child incapable of responsibly handling nuclear technology, and at worst, a demonic force that must be vanquished. Little time is devoted to shedding light on why Iran, as a rational political actor, might want to acquire nuclear weapons. After all, Iran is surrounded by states that possess nukes such as India, Pakistan, China, Russia, and Israel, not to mention by U.S. bases in Qatar, Iraq, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan, which might have nuclear weapons.

今天，关于是否允许伊朗拥有核武器的所谓的辩论都来自这些论点。主流媒体忠实地再现了政治精英的界限，并没有提出为什么美国干涉其他国家是合法的问题，特别是当它是唯一曾经使用过核武器的国家时。伊朗被当成这样一个代表：最好的情况是，只是一个不适合负责处理核技术的暴力儿童，最坏的情况是，必须被征服的恶魔力量。 没有多少时间可以阐明为什么伊朗作为一个理性的政治行动者可能想要获得核武器。 毕竟，伊朗被拥有核武器的国家所包围，如印度，巴基斯坦，中国，俄罗斯和以色列，更不用说可能拥有核武器的卡塔尔，伊拉克，土耳其，乌兹别克斯坦和阿富汗的美国基地。

There are many ways to debunk this myth about Islam, science, and rationality. I will focus on the hidden history of Islam and science. The important point here is that the West would not have gone through the renaissance had it not been for the contributions made by the Muslim empires.

有很多方法可以揭穿关于伊斯兰教，科学和理性的迷思。 我将重点关注伊斯兰教和科学的被隐藏的历史。 这里重要的一点是，如果没有穆斯林帝国的贡献，西方就不会经历文艺复兴。

After the fall of Rome from the fifth to the tenth century, Europe entered the so-called Dark Ages, a period of scientific, artistic, and cultural decline. During the seventh century, Islam came onto the scene and the Muslim armies established a vast empire that stretched from Central Asia through parts of Europe, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The Muslim rulers of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties (661–1258 AD) recognized the advanced development of the kingdoms and cultures they had conquered and took it upon themselves to assimilate and adopt these cultures. They established libraries and translation centers where the great works of science, medicine, and philosophy, both Eastern and Western, were collected and translated. This age of translation was followed by a period of great creativity when a new generation of Muslim thinkers and scientists built upon this knowledge and made their own contributions.

罗马衰亡之后的五世纪到十世纪，欧洲进入了所谓的黑暗时代，即科学，艺术和文化衰落的时期。 在七世纪，伊斯兰教出现了，穆斯林军队建立了一个庞大的帝国，从中亚延伸到欧洲部分地区，一直延伸到大西洋。 倭马亚和阿拔斯王朝（公元661-1258）的穆斯林统治者认识到他们征服的王国和文化的先进发展，并将其自身吸收并接受这些文化。他们建立了图书馆和翻译中心，收集和翻译了东方和西方的科学，医学和哲学的伟大著作。 当新一代穆斯林思想家和科学家建立在这些知识基础上并做出自己的贡献时，这个翻译时代之后又出现了一段伟大的创造时期。（备注：阿拉伯帝国曾经进行了持续两百年的大翻译运动，将古希腊和罗马的部分著作保留下来，后来这些著作传回欧洲，并成为文艺复兴的基础依据之一。）

The Persian scholar Ibn Sina—known in Western histories as Avicenna—laid the basis for the study of logic, science, philosophy, politics, and medicine. Ibn Rushd systematized Aristotle’s thought so as to introduce rationalism and anti-mysticism to a new audience; but he also went beyond Aristotle to promote rational thought as a virtue in itself. Ibn Rawandi wrote several books questioning the basic principles not only of Christianity and Judaism, but of Islam as well. Ibn Rawandi belonged to the Mu’tazilite sect, who went so far as to question whether the Koran was really a collection of the revelations that Muhammad received from God. They used rationalist thinking, fragments of Greek philosophy, and their own observations to develop theories to explain the physical world.⁴³ In short, science thrived in the world of the Islamic empires.

波斯学者Ibn Sina在西方历史中称为Avicenna，为逻辑学，科学，哲学，政治和医学研究奠定了基础。 Ibn Rushd将亚里士多德的思想系统化了，以便向新的观众介绍理性主义和反神秘主义; 但他也超越了亚里士多德，将理性思想本身作为一种美德。 Ibn Rawandi写了几本书，不仅质疑了基督教和犹太教的基本原则，也质疑伊斯兰教的基本原则。 Ibn Rawandi属于Mu’tazilite教派，他甚至质疑古兰经是否真的是穆罕默德从上帝那里得到的启示的集合。 他们运用理性主义思想，希腊哲学的片段，以及他们自己的观察来发展理论以解释物质世界.43简而言之，科学在伊斯兰帝国的世界中蓬勃发展。

When Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, its renaissance in art, culture, and the sciences drew on this enduring legacy of the past, as European thinkers flocked to the great Muslim libraries to not only re-learn their own history and traditions, but also absorb the further development of these traditions by Muslim thinkers. But this history is either ignored or revised by the Orientalists who present this mythical entity known as the “West” that apparently developed in isolation from the rest of the world.

当欧洲从黑暗时代出现时，它在艺术，文化和科学方面的复兴借鉴了过去的这种持久遗产，欧洲思想家纷纷涌向伟大的穆斯林图书馆，不仅重新学习他们自己的历史和传统，而且吸收了穆斯林思想家对这些传统的进一步发展。 但这一历史要么被东方主义者所忽视或修改，他们提出这个被称为“西方”的神话实体，显然是与世界其他地方隔离开来的。

It is also significant that the Pope in denouncing Islam for lacking reason, fails to bring up the Catholic Church’s hostile opposition to the scientific revolution and to the birth of non-religious and rational ways of understanding the world. The scientific revolution (and the Enlightenment) stood in opposition to Christian dogma and was viewed as a threat by the Church. Scientists who employed reason and rationality to explain the physical world were severely punished. Giordano Bruno, who championed the Copernican system of astronomy, was imprisoned for eight years by the Roman and Venetian Inquisition for refusing to recant his beliefs. He was later burned at the stake. Galileo was similarly brought before the Inquisition and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.

同样重要的是，教皇在缺乏理由的情况下谴责伊斯兰教，未能指出天主教会对科学革命的敌对和反对，以及非宗教的理性方式对世界的理解。 科学革命（和启蒙运动）与基督教教条相对立，被教会视为威胁。 用理性和理性来解释物质世界的科学家受到了严厉的惩罚。 支持哥白尼天文系统的佐丹奴布鲁诺因拒绝放弃他的信仰而被罗马和威尼斯的宗教裁判所监禁了八年。 他后来被烧死了。 伽利略同样被带到宗教裁判所，并在他的余生中被软禁。

The Pope’s speech is deeply rooted in Orientalist myths because he has an interest not only in presenting a particular vision of a rational and enlightened “West,” but also in obscuring Christianity’s history of violence. He thus quoted the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, who said, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”⁴⁴ The great irony of our times is that the Pope, who used to be head of the Vatican office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Inquisition), can denounce the spreading of religion through violence and get away with it.

教皇的讲话深深扎根于东方主义迷思中，因为他不仅对提出理性和开明的“西方”的特定愿景感兴趣，而且还模糊了基督教的暴力史。因此，他引用了拜占庭皇帝Manuel II Paleologus，他说：“告诉我穆罕默德带来的新东西，在那里你会发现只有邪恶和不人道的东西，比如他用剑传播他所传讲的信仰。” 44我们这个时代的巨大讽刺是，曾经是梵蒂冈信仰学会（以前称为宗教裁判所）的梵蒂冈办公室主任的教皇可以谴责宗教通过暴力传播并逍遥法外。

Myth 4: Islam is an inherently violent religion

迷思4：伊斯兰教本质上就是一种暴力宗教

Today, it has become commonplace to argue that Islam is an inherently violent religion and that the growth of political Islam is the logical result of the teachings of the Koran. One of the Danish cartoons featured the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb on this turban. This is nothing if not the visual depiction of the notion that Islam is inherently violent. The term “jihad” is used repeatedly to signify a “holy war” that the East is supposedly waging against the West. Mahmood Mamdani argues against this translation, stating that the term jihad has two meanings. The first, which is the greater jihad, refers to the struggle within oneself and against one’s own weakness. The second, the lesser jihad, is about self-preservation and self-defense and is more appropriately described as a “just war” rather than a “holy war.” Mamdani shows how the “just war” has been “occasional and isolated, marking points of crisis in Islamic history.”⁴⁵

今天，人们普遍认为伊斯兰教是一种本质上的暴力宗教，而政治伊斯兰教的发展是古兰经教义的导致的合乎逻辑的结果。 其中一部丹麦漫画在先知穆罕默德的头巾上画了个炸弹。 如果这不是对伊斯兰教本质上就是暴力的概念的视觉描绘，那这么做就没有任何意义。 “圣战”一词被反复用来表示东方据称正在对抗西方的“圣战”。 Mahmood Mamdani反对这一翻译，指出圣战这个词有两个含义。 第一个是更大的圣战，指的是自我内部的斗争和反对自己的弱点。 第二个，较小的圣战，是关于自我保护和自卫，更恰当地描述为“正义战争”而不是“圣战”.Mamdani表明“正义战争”是如何“偶尔和孤立的， 标志着伊斯兰历史上的危机点。“45

Yet, this is not how the history of Islam is represented by politicians and the media. Instead, Islam is portrayed as a violent and intolerant religion. Thus, Bush routinely refers to the “enemy” as “evil doers” bent on destroying the West through violence and establishing a “radical Islamic empire.” U.S. News and World Report recently featured a historical overview of Islam titled “Spreading the faith: A chronology,” that begins with the birth of Muhammad in 570 and ends with 9/11, thus drawing an unbroken line of continuity between the two events.⁴⁶

然而，这不是政客和媒体代表伊斯兰历史的方式。 相反，伊斯兰教被描绘成一种暴力的和不宽容的宗教。因此，布什经常将“敌人”称为“邪恶的行为者”，他们企图通过暴力摧毁西方并建立一个“极端的伊斯兰帝国”。美国新闻与世界报最近刊登了伊斯兰教的历史概况，题为“传播信仰：一个年代表，从570年穆罕默德的出生开始到9/11结束，从而在两个事件之间画出了一条不间断的连续线.46

These claims are self-serving, and justify a level of violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine on the part of the United States, its allies, and Israel that far surpasses in the scale of killing and devastation anything that small bands of terrorists have inflicted in the United States, Israel, or Europe.

这些主张是用来合理化自身利益的，并合理化了美国，其盟国和以色列在阿富汗，伊拉克，黎巴嫩和巴勒斯坦的暴力程度，而这是远远超过任何小规模的恐怖分子在美国，以色列或欧洲造成的杀戮和破坏的。

I will address this myth in two parts. In this section, I will discuss Christianity’s history of brutality. In the following section, I explain why today’s Islamist movements are not the direct descendants of seventh-century Islam, but are instead the product of contemporary historical conditions.

我将分两部分讨论这个迷思。 在本节中，我将讨论基督教的残暴历史。在下一节中，我将解释为什么今天的伊斯兰运动不是七世纪伊斯兰教的直系后裔，而是当代历史条件的产物。

The claim that Islam was spread through war is indeed accurate. In the two decades after the Prophet’s death in 632 A.D., the Muslim armies defeated the two great neighboring empires, the Byzantine and Persian (Sassanid) empires, conquered large segments of their land, and set up an Islamic empire. The reason why the Muslim armies could defeat these two powerful empires is that constant warfare between the Byzantines and the Persians over the previous century had left the people war-weary. In fact, in some villages the people actually welcomed the Muslim armies. Once in power, and unlike their orthodox Christian counterparts who persecuted heretics and ruled through fear, intimidation, and terror, the Muslim invaders gave people the choice to either convert to Islam or pay a tax.

伊斯兰教通过战争传播的主张确实是准确的。 在先知于公元632年去世后的二十年中，穆斯林军队击败了两个相邻的大帝国，拜占庭和波斯（萨珊）帝国，征服了他们大部分的土地，并建立了一个伊斯兰帝国。 穆斯林军队之所以能击败这两个强大的帝国，是因为上个世纪拜占庭人和波斯人之间不断的战争让人们厌倦战争。事实上，在一些村庄，人们实际上欢迎穆斯林军队。一旦掌权，与正统的基督徒同行不同的是（基督徒迫害异教徒并通过恐惧，恐吓和恐怖来统治），穆斯林入侵者让人们可以选择皈依伊斯兰教或缴纳税款。

While the Pope and his ilk like to harp on Islam’s use of war and violence, they want us to forget Christianity’s own brutal history. Christianity had also risen to dominance through conquest and conversion, first in the Roman world and then in the neighboring areas of Europe, Armenia, Arabia, Eastern Africa and Central Asia.⁴⁷ And the Crusades were yet to come. These religious wars waged by European Christians from the eleventh to the thirteenth century were driven partly by religious fervor to capture Jerusalem, and partly by the desire to loot the wealth of the region.

虽然教皇和他的同僚们喜欢指责伊斯兰教对战争和暴力的使用，但他们希望我们忘记基督教自己的残暴历史。基督教也通过征服和皈依而上升到统治地位，首先是在罗马世界，然后是在欧洲，亚美尼亚，阿拉伯，东非和中亚的邻近地区.47十字军东征尚未到来。 欧洲基督徒从十一世纪到十三世纪发动的这些宗教战争的部分原因是想要夺取耶路撒冷的宗教激情，部分原因是掠夺该地区的财富的欲望。

During the First Crusade of 1099, the crusaders went on a killing spree after taking control of Jerusalem, and murdered almost the entire population of Muslim men, women, and children. The Jews, who fought side by side with the Muslims to defend the city, were not spared either. The crusaders set fire to a synagogue where the Jews were hiding, and made sure that every single Jew burned to death.⁴⁸ The same levels of brutality were seen even during the Third Crusade, when King Richard of England (Richard the Lion-Hearted) beheaded thousands of men in cold blood in full view of their armies after a battle. In contrast, after the Sultan of Egypt, Saladin, successfully retook Jerusalem from the crusaders, acts of vengeance and violence against the crusaders were forbidden, Jews were given state money to rebuild synagogues, and churches were left untouched.⁴⁹ This is consistent with the way in which the Muslim empires treated Christians and Jews. During 500 years of Muslim reign in Jerusalem, from the seventh to the eleventh century, Christian churches were left largely untouched, and Jews were permitted to return and resettle in the area. This harmony was violently interrupted by the Crusades, when the Christian crusaders wreaked havoc in the region, destroyed synagogues and mosques, and killed Jews and Muslims.

在1099年的第一次十字军东征期间，十字军在控制耶路撒冷之后进行了一次杀戮狂潮，并且几乎杀死了所有穆斯林男女和儿童。与穆斯林并肩作战以保卫城市的犹太人也未能幸免。十字军焚烧了犹太人藏匿的犹太教堂，并确保每一个犹太人都被烧死.48即使在第三次十字军东征期间，当英格兰国王理查德（狮心王理查德）也做了同样程度的野蛮行为。在战斗结束后，他们的军队在冷酷的斩首了成千上万的人。相比之下，在埃及苏丹之后，萨拉丁成功地从十字军手中夺回耶路撒冷，禁止对十字军进行复仇和暴力行为，犹太人获得国家资金重建犹太教会堂，教堂保持不动.49这与穆斯林帝国对待基督徒和犹太人的方式是一致的。在耶路撒冷穆斯林统治的500年间，从七世纪到十一世纪，基督教教堂基本上没有被触及，犹太人被允许返回并重新安置在该地区。当基督教十字军在该地区造成严重破坏，毁坏犹太教堂和清真寺，杀害犹太人和穆斯林时，这种和谐被十字军东征暴力打断了。

Christian empires were no less brutal towards their own populations, and the Inquisitions stand out as an example of the incredibly repressive forms that Christian rule took in Europe. The Inquisitions consisted of a series of movements orchestrated by the Catholic Church and Christian orthodoxy to reassert their economic control over Europe. The Spanish Inquisition, for instance, is remembered for its utter brutality, mass torture, and the burning of men and women at the stake. Many Jews and Christians fled Europe to escape the Inquisition and sought a new home under the Muslim Ottoman Empire (1299–1922). Ottoman society was far more tolerant, Jews and Christians lived peacefully and some even attained high positions in the bureaucracy (sometimes through conversion to Islam but at other times even without conversion).⁵⁰

基督教帝国对自己的人民同样残酷，而宗教裁判所也是基督教统治在欧洲所采取的令人难以置信的镇压形式的一个例子。 宗教裁判所包括一系列由天主教会和东正教协调的运动，以重建他们对欧洲的经济控制。 例如，西班牙宗教裁判所因其彻底的野蛮行为，大规模的酷刑以及男人和女人在火刑中的焚烧而被人们记住。 许多犹太人和基督徒逃离欧洲逃离宗教裁判所并在穆斯林的奥斯曼帝国（1299-1922）下寻找新家。 奥斯曼社会更加宽容，犹太人和基督徒和平地生活，有些甚至在官僚机构中占据高位（有时通过皈依伊斯兰教，但有时甚至没有皈依）.50

Today, no sane person would look at this brutal history of Christianity and argue that all Catholics are bloodthirsty fanatics. To my knowledge, no mainstream newspaper or magazine has drawn a straight line between the Crusades and the Holocaust. Yet, when it comes to demonizing Muslims, it would appear that this sort of logic is acceptable.

今天，没有理智的人会看到这种残酷的基督教历史，然后争辩说所有的天主教徒都是嗜血的狂热分子。 据我所知，没有主流报纸或杂志在十字军与大屠杀之间划出一条直线。 然而，当涉及到妖魔化穆斯林时，似乎这种逻辑是可以接受的。

On balance, the history of Christianity is just as violent as, if not more violent than, that of Islam, yet Orientalists have undermined this history and cast Islam as the violent aggressor. The scholarly bigot Bernard Lewis claims, for instance, that

总的来说，基督教的历史与伊斯兰教的历史一样暴力，甚至比伊斯兰教更为暴力，但东方主义者埋葬了这段历史，并将伊斯兰教视为暴力侵略者。 例如，学术上的偏执狂Bernard Lewis 声称：

[t]he struggle between Islam and the West has lasted fourteen centuries. It has consisted of a long series of attacks and counterattacks, jihads and crusades, conquests and reconquests. Today much of the Muslim world is again seized by an intense—and violent—resentment of the West. Suddenly, America has become the archenemy, the incarnation of evil, the diabolic opponent of all that is good…for Muslims.⁵¹

伊斯兰教与西方之间的斗争持续了14个世纪。 它包括一系列的攻击和反击，圣战和十字军东征，征服和重新征服。 今天，穆斯林世界的大部分地区再次被对西方的强烈的和暴力的怨恨所占据。突然之间，对穆斯林来说，美国已经成为大敌，邪恶的化身，一切善良的反对者……

Rewriting history, Lewis argues that Islam is the aggressor, while the West simply responds, whereas in truth “resentment,” to the extent that such a thing exists in the Middle East, is a product of imperialist intervention in the region.

重写历史之后，Lewis认为伊斯兰教是侵略者，而西方只是回应，而实际上“怨恨”，在中东存在这种程度的事物，是帝国主义干预该地区的产物。

Mamdani recently observed that after 9/11, the sales of the Koran rose as Americans sought out the holy book of the Muslims to find an explanation for 9/11. He pointed out that, on the contrary, when the U.S. bombed and destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq, the people of the Middle East didn’t rush off to buy the Bible to look for explanations of U.S. policies. For there are no cultural or religious explanations for these wars. The explanations are historical, political, and economic, but by focusing on religious wars, the peddlers of the “clash of civilizations” thesis insist that we look for cultural explanations instead. This recourse to “culture talk” then takes attention away from the real reasons for U.S. intervention, offering up instead some vague references to transhistorical civilization and cultural rivalries.⁵² There are some in the Middle East who share this view and see U.S. intervention as a cultural and religious war. However, in this they are just as mistaken as their Western counterparts. The U.S. is in Iraq and Afghanistan not to wage a religious war but to assert its control over the region’s strategic resource: oil. This is why Saudi Arabia, whose royal family adheres to the ultra-conservative Wahhabi/Salafi strand of Islam, is an ally of the U.S., while the largely secular Syrian Baathists are not.

Mamdani最近观察到在9/11之后，随着美国人寻找穆斯林的圣书以寻找出对9/11的解释，古兰经的销售量上升了。他指出，恰恰相反的是，当美国轰炸并摧毁阿富汗和伊拉克时，中东人民并没有急于购买圣经以寻求对美国政策的解释。因为这些战争没有文化或宗教解释。解释是历史的，政治的和经济的，但通过关注宗教战争，“文明冲突”论的小贩们坚持认为我们应当寻找文化解释。这种求助于“文化谈话”然后将注意力从美国干预的真正原因上转移开来，提供了对跨文化文明和文化对抗的一些含糊的依据.52中东有一些人赞同这种观点并认为美国的干预是文化和宗教战争。然而，在这方面，他们与西方同行们一样错误。美国在伊拉克和阿富汗并没有发动宗教战争，而是主张控制该地区的战略资源：石油。这就是为什么沙特阿拉伯，其王室坚持伊斯兰教的极端保守的瓦哈比/萨拉菲派，是美国的盟友，而不是大部分世俗化的叙利亚复兴派。（备注：叙利亚复兴派受到部分社会主义的影响，偏左派，后来被老阿萨德政变推翻。）

Myth 5: The West spreads democracy, while Islam spawns terrorism

迷思5：西方传播民主，而伊斯兰教则产生恐怖主义

The classic version of this myth states that Islamic civilization [sic] is not capable of democracy, and it can only produce despotism. Since it is a static and unchanging society, it is the burden of the West to civilize, modernize, and democratize. This “white man’s burden” argument has been used, in different forms and guises, by all the European powers in the past. It is no wonder, then, that today the U.S. too finds it useful, just as it seeks, for the first time, to actually occupy and administer a Middle Eastern country. The Bush administration has insisted again and again that the U.S. is in the Middle East to bring democracy to the people of the region.

这个迷思的经典版本指出，伊斯兰文明[sic]不具备民主的能力，只能产生专制。 由于它是一个静止不变的社会，它是西方负担，西方应当去文明，现代化和民主化它们。过去，所有欧洲大国都以不同的形式和伪装使用了这种“白人的负担”论点。因此，毫无疑问的，今天美国也认为它有用，正如它第一次寻求实际占领和管理一个中东国家一样。 布什政府一再坚持要求美国在中东地区为该地区人民带来了民主。

The reality, needless to say, is quite different from this rhetoric. The U.S. has never had an interest in “bringing democracy” to the people of the Middle East, or to any other people for that matter. If anything, the U.S. has a record of wrecking democratic movements and replacing them with dictatorships.⁵³

不用说，现实与这种修辞完全不同。 美国从来没有兴趣为中东人民或其他任何人“带来民主”。 如果有的话，美国有破坏民主运动并用独裁统治取而代之的记录。53（关于这一点，我博客上有一篇文章进行了总结：被美国推翻的民选政府，支持极权独裁的“民主灯塔”）

After the Second World War, the Middle East and North Africa were rocked by national liberation struggles. Between 1932 and 1962, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria all succeeded in shaking off the hold of their colonial masters (mainly Britain and France). In the wake of these struggles there was a widespread mood for reform and change in region, and new political and social forces emerged. Secular Arab nationalism gained a stronghold, but socialist and communist parties also vied for political influence.

第二次世界大战后，中东和北非受到了民族解放斗争的震撼。 1932年至1962年间，埃及，伊拉克，叙利亚，黎巴嫩，利比亚，摩洛哥，突尼斯和阿尔及利亚都成功地摆脱了殖民主子（主要是英国和法国）的控制。 在这些斗争之后，地区出现了改革和变革的普遍情绪，出现了新的政治和社会力量。 世俗的阿拉伯民族主义获得了一个据点，但社会主义者和共产党也在争夺政治影响力。

U.S.-Middle East policy has been motivated by one chief objective: namely, to control the oil wealth of that region, at any cost. Consequently, U.S. foreign policy has been directed toward preventing the emergence of any government or movement that might threaten its dominance in the region. Thus the U.S. ruling class viewed the emergence of Arab nationalism and socialism as a threat. From the 1950s to the 1970s, U.S. policy in the region was twofold: to minimize the influence of the Soviet Union, and to squash all progressive and leftist challenges to U.S. domination.

美国的中东政策的动机指向一个主要目标：即不惜一切代价控制该地区的石油财富。因此，美国的外交政策旨在防止可能威胁其在该地区的主导地位的任何政府或运动的出现。因此，美国的统治阶级认为阿拉伯民族主义和社会主义的出现是一种威胁。 从1950s到1970s，美国在该地区的政策是双重的：尽量减少苏联的影响，并将所有进步力量和左翼力量挑战压缩到无法挑战美国的统治地位的地步。

It achieved these goals in various ways: it maintained powerful naval forces and military bases in the region. When necessary and where possible it intervened militarily, such as in 1958 when U.S. Marines briefly entered Lebanon to block an attempt by Arab nationalist forces to topple the pro-Western government in power. It propped up dictatorships and repressive regimes such as the Saudi monarchy and funded, trained, and armed the military and security forces of its allies. It also hatched coups to get rid of unfriendly governments. In 1953, the CIA toppled the secular nationalist Mohammed Mossadeg who had been democratically elected to power in Iran in 1951. Mossadeg’s crime was that he nationalized the oil industry. The U.S. then replaced him with Reza Pahlavi, the Shah, who ruled with an iron fist, murdered and tortured tens of thousands of political dissenters, and abolished all political parties but his own.

它以各种方式实现了这些目标：它在该地区保持了强大的海军力量和军事基地。 必要时尽可能进行军事干预，例如1958年美国海军陆战队短暂进入黎巴嫩以阻止阿拉伯民族主义势力推翻亲西方政府的企图。它支持沙特王室等独裁政权和压迫政权，并为其盟国的军事和安全部队提供资金，培训和武装。它还策划政变以摆脱不友好的政府。 1953年，中央情报局推翻了世俗民族主义者穆罕默德·莫萨阿德（Mohammed Mossadeg），他于1951年通过伊朗的民主选举上台。莫撒阿德的罪行在于他将石油工业国有化。然后，美国用沙阿Reza Pahlavi（巴列维）取代了他，他用铁拳统治，谋杀并折磨了成千上万的政治反对者，并废除了除了他自己之外的所有政党。

The strongest challenge to the U.S. was Arab nationalism. Arab nationalists like Gamel Abdel Nasser attempted to unify Arabs across different countries as a way to fight imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism. The program of Arab nationalism rapidly acquired revolutionary overtones in response to militant working-class pressures from below. Nasser, the president of Egypt, went so far as to declare himself an advocate of “Arab socialism.” Although what he meant by socialism was a more or less authoritarian state planning of the economy, or “state capitalism,” even this was too much for the U.S., as it pushed Egypt closer to its Cold War rival, the USSR.⁵⁴

对美国的最大挑战是阿拉伯民族主义。 像Gamel Abdel Nasser（纳赛尔）这样的阿拉伯民族主义者试图将不同国家的阿拉伯人统一起来，作为反抗帝国主义，特别是美国帝国主义的一种方式。 阿拉伯民族主义方案迅速获得革命性的色彩，以应对来自下方的激进的工人阶级的压力。 埃及总统纳赛尔走得很远，甚至宣称自己是“阿拉伯社会主义”的支持者。虽然他所指的社会主义是一个或多或少专制的国家经济计划，或“国家资本主义”，即使这对美国来说也太多了，因为它推动埃及更接近其冷战对手，苏联.54

Thus, the U.S. ruling class used every means necessary to not only block Arab nationalism, but also curtail the influence of various communist and socialist parties. This involved, for instance, aiding governments and right-wing paramilitaries in killing leftists, and in 1963, the CIA supplied the Baathists with the names of Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) members after the Baathists grabbed power in a coup. It involved cultivating Israel as the proxy of the U.S. in the region, particularly after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It also meant supporting and funding Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which the U.S. saw as a bulwark against the Left.

因此，美国统治阶级利用一切必要手段不仅阻止了阿拉伯民族主义，而且还削弱了各种共产党和社会主义政党的影响力。 例如，这涉及帮助政府和右翼准军事人员杀害左翼，并且在1963年，中央情报局在复兴主义者政变夺权后，向复兴主义者提供了伊拉克共产党成员的名字。 它涉及培养以色列作为美国在该地区的代理人，特别是在1967年阿拉伯—以色列战争之后。它还意味着支持和资助伊斯兰组织，例如埃及的穆斯林兄弟会，美国认为这是反对左派的堡垒。（备注：呵呵，看来美国在埃及和在阿富汗做了同样的暴行啊，把伊斯兰原教旨主义势力亲手喂大了。）

If today the main political forces in the Middle East are Islamist parties and organizations, it is in no small part due to U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. played a key role in marginalizing secular and leftist forces, thereby creating the political vacuum that Islamist groups would come to fill. In addition, the U.S. funded, armed, and trained the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight their proxy war against the Soviets in the 1980s. In the process, the U.S. created an army of jihadist fighters who would turn on their patrons once the Soviets were defeated. This turn was to be expected, given that modern Islamist organizations, whether mainstream or right wing, came into being as a means to fight imperialism (first British and French colonialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and then later U.S. imperialism).

如果今天中东的主要政治力量是伊斯兰政党和组织，那在很大程度上要归功于美国的外交政策。美国在使世俗和左翼势力边缘化方面发挥了关键作用，从而创造了伊斯兰组织将要填补的政治真空。此外，美国资助，武装和训练了阿富汗的圣战士队，以便让他们在1980s在对苏联的代理人战争中作战。 在这个过程中，美国创建了一支圣战分子的军队，一旦苏联被击败，他们就会转向他们的保护人。 鉴于现代伊斯兰组织，无论是主流还是右翼组织，都是作为一种对抗帝国主义的手段（19世纪和20世纪初的英国和法国殖民主义，以及后来的美国帝国主义）而出现的转变。

There are also internal factors that explain the rise of political Islam. Arab nationalism, despite its radical rhetoric and promises, had weaknesses and contradictions. Ultimately, it was a movement of the middle classes in the interest of the middle classes. And like their counterparts in many other postcolonial nations, the Arab nationalists failed to deliver economic growth and prosperity for the vast majority of ordinary people, establishing oppressive dictatorships that crushed dissent. The Left in the region, primarily the thoroughly Stalinized communist parties, failed to offer an independent class-based alternative to the nationalists, but rather tailed them uncritically. The ICP, for example, offered support to the nationalist Qasim regime in 1959, even denouncing class struggle as “left-wing extremism,” at the same time that the party was being repressed by the regime.⁵⁵ The failure of nationalist movements, combined with the crushing impact of poverty and the pressures of capitalism, the weakness of the Left, and the support given at times by local ruling classes to Islamic parties have all played a part in strengthening the parties of Islamism.⁵⁶

还有内部因素可以解释政治伊斯兰教的兴起。阿拉伯民族主义尽管有激进的修辞和承诺，却存在弱点和矛盾。终究这是为了中产阶级的利益，这是中产阶级的运动。与许多其他后殖民国家的同行一样，阿拉伯民族主义者未能为绝大多数普通民众带来经济增长和繁荣，并建立了镇压不同意见的压迫性的独裁统治。该地区的左派，主要是完全斯大林化的共产党，未能为民族主义者们提供一个独立的以阶级为基础的替代方案，而是不加批判地将他们排除在外。例如，ICP在1959年为民族主义的卡西姆政权提供了支持，甚至谴责阶级斗争为“左翼极端主义”，同时该政党正在被该政权所压制.55民族主义运动的失败，结合贫困的压力和资本主义的压力，左翼的弱点，以及地方统治阶级有时给予伊斯兰政党的支持，都在加强伊斯兰主义政党方面发挥了作用.56

In short, it is a combination of these pressures—U.S. imperialism, on the one hand, and internal dynamics on the other—that laid the groundwork for the emergence of political Islam. And radical Islamist groups, far from being the direct outgrowth of the teaching of the Prophet in the seventh century, are the products of particular historical conditions.

简而言之，伊斯兰原教旨主义的崛起是这些压力的结合—一方面是美国帝国主义，另一方面是内部动力—这为政治伊斯兰教的出现奠定了基础。 极端的伊斯兰主义团体，远不是七世纪先知教导的直接产物，而是特定历史条件的产物。

Conclusion

总结

Today, the weakness of the Left and the collapse of liberalism in the U.S. has meant that much of the history discussed in this article remains hidden. Many liberals, and some on the left as well, have bought into the clash of civilizations argument. Thus, when liberals went along with Bush’s argument that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to liberate the women of that country, they bought into the racist idea that it is legitimate for the U.S. to “democratize” the Middle East because the people of the region are incapable of doing it themselves. On the flip side of this coin, some antiwar liberals have argued that it is not legitimate for the U.S. to “democratize” the Middle East because “democracy” is an alien concept to the people of the region.

今天，左派的弱点和美国自由主义的崩溃意味着本文所讨论的大部分历史都是被隐藏的。 许多自由主义者，以及一些左派，已经陷入了文明冲突的争论中。 因此，当自由派同意布什关于美国入侵阿富汗以解放该国妇女的论点时，他们接受了种族主义观点，认为美国将中东“民主化”是合法的，因为该地区的人民没有能力自己做。在这个硬币的另一面，一些反战自由主义者认为，美国将中东“民主化”是不合法的，因为“民主”对该地区人民来说是一个陌生的概念。

Confronting Islamophobia and challenging American racism towards the people of the Middle East is an essential precondition for the rebirth of a strong antiwar movement. Thus far, the movement’s inability, or unwillingness, to confront Islamophobia has been one of its biggest weaknesses. And while Bush argues that “the calling of our generation” is to fight “Islamofascism,” we need to assert instead that the calling of our generation is to build an anti-racist antiwar movement that can challenge the attacks on Muslims and Arabs domestically and that can stop U.S. imperialism in its tracks and shape the course of the twenty-first century. Our future, quite literally, depends on building such a movement.

面对伊斯兰恐惧症和挑战针对中东人民的美国种族主义是强大的反战运动重生的重要前提。 到目前为止，运动无法或不愿意面对伊斯兰恐惧症一直是其最大的弱点之一。 虽然布什认为“我们这一代人的呼吁”是为了打击“伊斯兰法西斯主义”，但我们需要说的是，与之相反的是，我们这一代的呼吁是建立一个反种族主义的反战运动，可以挑战对国内穆斯林和阿拉伯人的袭击。这可以阻止美国帝国主义继续作恶，并塑造二十一世纪的历程。从字面上看，我们的未来取决于建立这样的运动。

http://www.isreview.org/issues/52/islamophobia.shtml

Israel is not the only democracy in the Middle East. In fact, it’s not a democracy at all.

以色列不是中东唯一的民主国家。事实上，以色列一点也不民主。

In the eyes of many Israelis and their supporters worldwide — even those who might criticize some of its policies — Israel is, at the end of the day, a benign democratic state, seeking peace with its neighbors, and guaranteeing equality to all its citizens.

在全世界许多以色列人及其支持者的眼中 – 即使是那些可能批评其一些政策的人 – 以色列迄今为止一直是一个温和的民主国家，寻求与邻国的和平，并保证所有公民的平等。

Those who do criticize Israel assume that if anything went wrong in this democracy then it was due to the 1967 war. In this view, the war corrupted an honest and hardworking society by offering easy money in the occupied territories, allowing messianic groups to enter Israeli politics, and above all else turning Israel into an occupying and oppressive entity in the new territories.

那些批评以色列的人认为，如果这场民主出现任何问题，那么这是由1967年的战争导致的。 在这个观点中，战争腐蚀了一个诚实勤劳的社会，在被占领的领土上提供了容易获取的金钱，使救世主团体能够进入以色列的政治，并最重要的是将以色列变成新领土上的一个占领和压迫的实体。

The myth that a democratic Israel ran into trouble in 1967 but still remained a democracy is propagated even by some notable Palestinian and pro-Palestinian scholars — but it has no historical foundation.

“民主的以色列在1967年遇到麻烦但依然保持民主的”，这一神话甚至被一些著名的巴勒斯坦和亲巴勒斯坦学者传播 – 但它没有历史依据。