"Europe only talks about radical Islam"

January 27th 2015 - In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, I interviewed Mustafa Ceric for ZEIT ONLINE. Ceric is the former Grand Mufti of Bosnia & Herzegovina and one of the most important Muslim scholars in Europe. A German version of this interview was published on January, 14th. 




DIE ZEIT: Mr Ceric, you have condemned the Paris attack in strong terms. You have also called it an attack on innocent journalists. There are a lot of people in the Muslim world who believe these journalists were not innocent, but guilty, because they ridiculed the Prophet Mohammed. What do you say to that?


Mustafa Ceric: I would like to postpone the question of innocence for now. We know from the Sira, the recorded history of his life, that whenever the Prophet was attacked and offended, these offences were not only more hurtful than the ones by Charlie Hebdo – but the Prophet did not issue any death sentences. As Muslims, if we want to express our love for him, we do this in our hearts. Of course, the caricatures are not OK. All Muslims feel embarrassed and uncomfortable about them. If Charlie Hebdo wanted to hurt Muslims, the magazine succeeded. If the magazine wanted to offer some kind of social criticism, if it wanted to make clear, that some Muslims have shortcomings – yes, of course, that is true, too. But my point is: You don't love the prophet and show it with a gun.


DIE ZEIT: Al-Qaida, to give just one example, has always argued that cartoonists have to die, when they ridicule the Prophet, because the Prophet himself set an example when he had Ka'ab bin al-Ashraf killed, who had ridiculed him. Is that wrong?


Mustafa Ceric: I don't accept this argument. These terrorists first decide to do something and then seek for arguments. You know what bothers Muslims more? Charlie Hebdo also ridiculed the Jewish faith, and at least one journalist was ousted for Antisemtitism. We want to know: How are we going to solve this puzzle? Or take Anders Breivik, for example. He killed over 70 people. He said he did it as a Christian. Did the media call him a Christian terrorist?


DIE ZEIT: Nobody denied that Breivik believed he was on a Christian mission.


Mustafa Ceric: Perhaps. But it did not lead to hysteria about Christian terrorism in Europe. Why, for God's sake, are the media always talking about „Islamic terrorism“? This is a double standard. What happened in Paris, is not „Islamic terrorism“. I would like to ask the media in Europa to apologize for using the term „Islamic terrorism“.


DIE ZEIT: So the perpetrators have nothing to do with Islam?


Mustafa Ceric: No, this has nothing to with Islam.


DIE ZEIT: If that is so, why did you sign a letter to the head of the „Islamic state“ terror group together with over 120 Muslim scholars, in which you tried to convince Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that his religious arguments were wrong? Clearly you addressed him as a Muslim!


Mustafa Ceric: There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world! When you talk about Islamic terrorism, you are including all of them. That is a verbal crime. Why do you not do the same with Christian terrorists? Or with Jewish terrorists, like the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin? Did anyone blame Moses for what that man did?


DIE ZEIT: But who is blaming the Prophet Mohammed for what the Paris killers did?


Mustafa Ceric: Everybody is blaming Islam!


DIE ZEIT: I find it confusing that you say the Paris attack has nothing to do with Islam, but argue about Muslim theology with the leader of the IS. So let me ask you: Does Paris have anything to do with Islam or not?


Mustafa Ceric: Does al-Baghdadi have to do with Paris?


DIE ZEIT: We don't know yet, but his school of thought is similar.


Mustafa Ceric: We don't know anything about the school of thought of the Paris attackers. I will put it this way: What happened in Paris is against Islam. And against Muslims! It is not acceptable. It is against the values of freedom, against the European values we all hold.


DIE ZEIT: Across Europe, there is a growing problem with young Muslims who are influenced by Jihadists. If you were to speak to a 17-year-old who is in the process of radicalizing and tells you he wants to kill cartoonists because they have ridiculed the Prophet and because the Prophet himself ordered the killing of Kaa'b bin al-Ashraf – what is your argument against that?


Mustafa Ceric: I would tell him that the Prophet has never killed for revenge or for any offence that he suffered. When the Prophet came to Mecca, he forgave the killers of his uncle Hamza. I would tell him: If you love the Prophet, the Prophet will love you for not killing anyone in his defence. The Prophet doesn't need revenge.


DIE ZEIT: According to the Quran, blasphemy will be punished by Allah after you die. There is no prescribed worldly punishment for blasphemy, correct?


Mustafa Ceric: Correct. And if Islam was the way these terrorists represent it, I don't think I would be a Muslim.


DIE ZEIT: As a scholar and a former grand Mufti, are you in competition with radical preachers in Europe?


Mustafa Ceric: Yes. And we need a broader approach to re-socializing and re-educating those who decide to go and fight in Syria and then come back. They need to understand that they are wrong. But the Muslim institutions are weak, they have little resources and many Imams have little knowledge. We need help by Europe's states to establish strong structures.


DIE ZEIT: Why is the radical theology of the IS and al-Qaeda so attractive?


Mustafa Ceric: Young people tend to be rebellious against established systems, that's one reason. But they are also giving them arguments without telling them about their responsibilities. They turn it into an adventure.


DIE ZEIT: What can be done?


Mustafa Ceric: For one, I believe Europe needs a Grand Mufti. We need a voice to calm down things. Not everybody will accept this office, but it will have an effect. But the European states are hesitant to support this.


DIE ZEIT: Muslims could do something themselves to establish that office...


Mustafa Ceric: But we are weak.


DIE ZEIT: In Germany, Muslim groups often find it very difficult to even agree with one another on a local level and on local issues.


Mustafa Ceric: This process is not easy. We need to structure Islam as an official institution. We need better teachers, better Imams, who are from here and not imported.


DIE ZEIT: But who is doing something about that?


Mustafa Ceric: I am fighting radical Imams every day. But even those who are trying to help are sometimes accused of being radicals. Who is an acceptable Muslim for Europeans? It seems like there is almost no acceptable Muslims for the governments or the media. We can't solve this problem alone. Europe complains about political Islam all the time. But Europe also only talks about political Islam.


DIE ZEIT: Should we distinguish between Islam and Islamism?


Mustafa Ceric: I think these distinctions cause a lot of confusion. The Paris attackers should be called neither. They are rebellious murderers. They don't know anything about Islam.


DIE ZEIT: But radical Muslims are often louder than moderate Muslims. They shape the image of Islam.


Mustafa Ceric: But they are not doing this on behalf of Islam! For me, they are destroyers of civilization.

How to (not) deal with Jihadist propaganda on the Web

October 9th, 2014 - Jihadists may dream about the world as it was in the 7th century on the Arabian Peninsula, but making use of the internet never was a problem for them. They look at it as Godsend. The most democratic of mass media is also the most effective tool for spreading Jihadist propaganda. Is it possible to take this tool away from the Jihadists? 

The short answer, of course, is: No. 

Granted, it has become more difficult for the "Islamic State" in particular to maintain an organized online presence. In June the IS had a Twitter account for every single one of its "provinces", through which the organization spread communiqués, propaganda, pictures and videos. When Twitter shut down these accounts in September, the IS accounts migrated to the Russian Facebook-style Social Media website VK. Two weeks later VK shut these accounts down, too. Until today, the IS hasn't come up with a new, comparable system of accounts. But the material that the group wants to publish still finds it's way. Partly through some of the Jihadist web forums that have performed this function for years now. Partly through other, personal Twitter accounts that are less easy to connect to the IS. And these are just two ways that still work. There are more. They are a bit less obvious now, but if you know what you are looking for and if you are smart enough to change your searching parameters a little, you will find what you are looking for sooner or later. "It's even possible", says Aaron Zelin, a US-based terrorism researcher who also runs the blog jihadology.net for primary-source material, "that they (the Jihadists) might try and create their own platform in the future." 

The EU now seems to be looking into ways to at least minimize the spread of such propaganda. Yesterday, a dinner took place in Luxembourg, to which the parting EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmström had not only invited the EU ministers of interior affairs but also representatives of some of the bigger internet corporations and providers like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. I haven't heard about any results of the meeting yet. But a spokesperson for the Commission told me ahead of the dinner that the aim was to foster dialogue between law enforcement and intelligence agencies on the one side and private internet companies on the other side. The idea was to look at "tools and techniques to respond to terrorist online activities". 

I think it is important to understand that talking to the big internet companies may help to limit the spreading of Terrorist propaganda on mainstream platforms. But it will not help stop it altogether. The example mentioned above illustrates that: You may be able to get official IS accounts off Twitter; but already now many of the videos in question are being uploaded to opaque hosting websites that law enforcement has a very hard time identifying, let alone prosecuting. "It does make sense to talk to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter", says Nico Prucha from the Vienna University. "But the other side would have to be equally well connected in order to effectively limit the flow of propaganda." 

Unfortunately, it isn't. And more than that: It is biased, too, consciously or not. Twitter and YouTube have for years not done very much at all to stem Jihadist propaganda. It was the videos of the murders of US journalists James Foley and Stephen Sotloff that seem to have turned the tide. I tried it: It has become very difficult indeed to find the original full-length videos of their murders on the web. But it is still fairly easy to find the arguably more influential, very glossy and high profile recruiting and propaganda videos "Breaking of the Borders", "Upon the Prophetic Methodology" or "Flames of War". 

The EU, however, seems to also be looking at a second way: Countering the propaganda's content rather than it's publication. Or as Malmström's spokesperson put it to me: a "particular regard to the development of specific counter-narrative initiatives" was to be given at the dinner. 

I personally don't like the notion of "counter-narratives". I know the term has been around for a while. And I understand why it looks like a tempting idea: It seems easy to debunk and de-mistify a a lot of the claims that Jihadists make in their propaganda. But the problem is two-fold. For one, no Western state authorities have any credibility among those that are being targeted by IS propaganda; they would very likely just laugh at such attempts. And secondly: Who would formulate such counter-narratives, based on what authority? Is it, for example, conceivable that the EU lets the world know what a proper interpretation of Koranic verses is and what is not? 

In January 2011 I was at a CT conference in Riyadh, Saudi-Arabia. "Counter-Narratives" were being discussed there, too. In more than just one session. On the second day, I asked the interpreter in his cabin, who was translating between the English and the Arabic, how he rendered the term "counter-narrative" into Arabic. He said he used the word "tashih". Now that means "correction". That's a very different thing from what other people have in mind when they talk about counter-narratives. In Germany, for example, officials tell me that they would like to spread the message that democracy gives everyone the opportunity to play a part in the shaping of a country's policies. I doubt that the Saudis see that as a good counter-narrative. One person's counter-narrative can be very different from another person's counter-narrative. And we have no guarantee that any one of them will work. (In a way, but that's just an aside, the US State department's "Think again, turn away" campaign on Twitter is a kind of counter-narrative initiative. I don't think it is a huge success.) 

Also, I have another, more general problem with the term: I think it is too defensive. Why is "our" narrative the "counter-narrative"? Isn't "theirs"?

So what can we do? I believe we have to accept that Jihadists will be around online for as long as there is a free internet. And in fact, for many researchers and even law enforcement and intelligence agencies, this is an important keyhole through which they can better understand the Jihadists' thinking. 

By this, I am not saying that it is necessarily wrong to try and make it more difficult for Jihadists to gain access to large numbers of people, among them potential sympathizers. But I do say this: Online presence isn't the biggest problem. Even if it were possible to block the Jihadists' access to the internet entirely, they would still be around. In the real world. 

It's a tool. It is not where they live. 

NOTE: This blog post is an extended and somewhat different version of an article I published in this week's edition of DIE ZEIT. If you wish to quote from it, please contact me. 

Schengen Failure?

January 18th 2013 - This is a quick post about a possible failure of the Schengen regime I wrote about a couple of days ago on ZEIT ONLINE. 

According to my research, Saudi Islamist preacher Mohamed al-Arifi managed to visit Germany between Dec 31st 2012 and early January 2013 even though technically there was in place a Schengen-wide travel ban for him. This ban had been demanded and put in effect by Switzerland, where al-Arifi was supposed to speak on December 15th 2012. The ban took effect on December 13th. Switzerland asked for the ban saying that al-Arifi could motivate people to participate in "armed conflict" and could constitute a danger to the security of the country, 

Al-Arifi, however, posted a note on Twitter on Jan 1st 2013 that he was now in Germany and had arrived the day before. Another person posted a picture on Twitter on the same day saying it showed al-Arifi in the Southern German city of Heidelberg. Al-Arifi posted tweets later saying that he had visited people in Mainz and was going to go to Berlin. As a matter of fact he did speak at two mosques in Berlin in the days to follow. 

According to my sources al-Arifi had been granted a Schengen visa prior to December 13th 2012, most likely in preparation of this planned trip to Switzerland. So technically it is possible that the entered Europe legally before the date the ban took effect and then entered Germany via one of the borders with no controls, e.g. with France. This is not very likely though, because some of al-Arifi's Tweets from just before Christmas strongly indicate that he was in Saudi Arabia at that point in time. In that case he would have managed to enter the Schengen area even though it shouldn't have been possible. 

Until now is has apparently not been established how and when he entered Germany. If he entered Germany after December 13th directly (i.e. without passing trough another Schengen state) it would have been a failure on the part of the German authorities not to have stopped him. In the case that he entered Schengen after December 13th and Germany after that through another Schengen state, it would been a failure on the part of that state. 

German politicians of the opposition are now demanding an inquiry. 

Even though al-Arifi is considered a radical and a hardliner, I don't think his entry here compromised security. But I do think the instance may show that the Schengen regime is not as perfect as some say it is. 

Germany's Circumcision Debate // The Backdrop

27th July 2012 - By now, some of you may have noticed that Germany is in the middle of a fully fledged debate on the issue of circumcision, the reason for which was a recently published court decision. As I have some experience with the difficulties of translating judicial issues between languages and judicial cultures, I figured it might be interesting for some of you to have a summary of what actually happened and what it is all about. And also: I think you all should care about this German debate - because it is far from over, and it may have serious repercussions.  (If you read German: Here is my research on the actual case the court decision was based on: http://www.zeit.de/2012/29/Beschneidung)

So first of all, here is what actually happened:

A court in cologne ruled, that a particular doctor (a surgeon by training) had actually committed a crime (causing bodily harm with an instrument) by circumcising a particular 4 year old boy. It should be added, that this decision was taken even though it was clear by testimony of an expert witness that the surgery itself was state of the art.

However, because the doctor couldn't possibly know that he committed a crime, given that no-one had ever been found guilty for circumcising anyone, he was not punished but acquitted.

In his ruling, the judge came to the conclusion that there were two fundamental rights to find a balance between: the child's right to physical integrity vs the parents' right to a) act in what they assume to be the child's best interest and b) their own (and somewhat by extension their child's) right to religious freedom. (It was undisputed that the circumcision in question didn't happen for medical but for religious reasons.) The judge decreed that the first mentioned weighed heavier.

This decision has in itself no consequences beyond the actual case. It is not a general ruling. Any other court in another city may come to another conclusion. (Except that, if another court came to come to the same conclusion, that other surgeon would probably not be acquitted because after the Cologne court's decision and its publicity any doctor could theoretically be assumed to have heard about its outcome.)

The immediate consequence of the publication of the verdict in this particular case was that large parts of the Muslim and Jewish community in Germany heavily criticized it. As I am sure you all know, Jews consider it a indispensable religious duty to circumcise any male newborn on the eight day. Muslims have a bit more freedom to maneuver here - in Germany it is usually done between the 7th and the 10th birthday I am told. But it is "only" considered advisable, not an immediate religious duty. However, most Muslims have their sons circumcised. (As, by the way, so do many parents' from Christian families.)

When I heard about the case, I started some research about how this case came about. Here are my findings in short:

* The kid in question is the some of an Iraqi family who live in East Germany. They knew a woman in Cologne who told them she knew a surgeon of Syrian origin who was known for his good circumcision skills.

* The mother went to Cologne with her son, They met with Dr Omar Kezze, a greed on a date for operation, and Dr Kezze circumcised the 4 year old on a Thursday in Nov 2010. The same evening he went to see the boy, who with his mother was living with their Cologne friend. Everything was fine. Dr Kezze asked the boy to come to his practice again on Saturday at 10 a.m., that is two days later. Just to be sure.

* On that Saturday, at 8 a.m., the boy's mother ran into the street and shouted, in Arabic (this is according to people who have seen the relevant documents which are sealed), that "my son is bleeding". It should be noted that the woman is heavily impaired as far as her eyes are concerned. It should also be noted that she ran into the street in an state that is described in court documents as "confused". I have not met her. I will pass judgment. But from what I understand (and from what another paper actually wrote about her) I assume that we are looking here at some sort of overreaction.

* Apparently an Arabic neighbor in that street heard her - and called the police and an ambulance. The family's host tried to get Dr Kezze to sort everything out, but everything happened very quickly from here on and the mother and the boy were brought to the emergency ward of the University Hospital.

* Here, the mother was asked to explain what happened. She hardly speaks any German. The doctor, according to my research, understood that she said her son had been circumcised "without anesthetics in a private home with a pair of scissors." The hospital alarmed the police who began an investigation.

* The investigation showed that the surgery had in fact been carried out by a surgeon in a practice with anesthetics. However, another doctor in the University Hospital voiced suspicion about the quality of the operation. He later withdrew these suspicions. But that was when the trial had already started.

* The police turned over the results of the investigation to the state attorney. That state attorney had to decide whether or not to charge Dr Kezze. She decided to do so. She also said it was a severe case because an instrument (a scalpel!) had been used.

* The first court acquitted Dr Kezze and said that he had not commuted a crime. The parents' right ti determine weighed heavier than the child's right to physical integrity.

* Said state attorney challenged that verdict and took it to the next higher court - with the known outcome.


So what we are looking at here is a very special case. In my personal opinion, it was not a case that was particularly inviting if you as a state attorney were seeking to make the case that circumcisions are a problem. But it happened none the less.

By now, the German government has made it clear they would like a solution for the obvious problem caused by this decision, namely that Jews and Muslims alike have to fear that they are asking a surgeon to commit a crime if the seek a circumcision for religious reasons. As was to be expected, the debate is heated: A child's right to physical integrity vs "old fashioned" and "outlived" religious duties is a feast for secularists and ultra-liberals.

In the end, it could be that the Supreme Court (Constitutional Court) will have to rule. My sense is that they would, eventually, grant parents the right to decide for a circumcision. Germany, of all countries in the world, simply can't afford to be known as he country where Jews can't live according to their religious duties. But in the mean time, the fight is on. And let me tell you: it really is a fight!

Good night. Y.