You know, the professor we have post-Friday Prayer lunch with asked the same question: What do you mean by tribalism? For my own soul, let me at least give it a try: What I mean is that we elevate the interests of other members, in this case Muslims, over the interests of non-members, no matter how severe the harm is. Thus, we do not use independent measures such as which issue harms people the most and not just Muslims; i.e. there is no collective triage. We make excuses for the violence of other Muslims, but moralize ceaselessly over the violece of others done to us. We are not even handed and have abandoned the Quran as the Criterion. In its place is group membership, i.e. tribalism. Some ethnicities get thier victimhood pushed to the fore while others languish in obscurity. My lunchmate told me that Palestine has a long history behind it; but Kashmir, Tibet and Chinese Turkistan were occupied at around the same time in the late 1940's and are being colonized much more severely than Palestine could ever imagine being. But, Tibetans aren't Muslim; Turkistanis aren't well represented around the world; and Kashmiris just don't committ national suicide often enough to grab our attention.

200 innocent civilians were killed in Mumbai a few days ago. I'm re-posting this old article of mine in response. -Z.

Some of the most successful political movements in the twentieth century have been based upon the principle of non-violence. However, Islamic political movements have remained relatively unaffected by widespread ideological moves towards non-violence, as these were generally developed in non-Muslim contexts; Mahatma Gandhi's peaceful resistance against the British, for example, was never integrated into a Muslim religious framework. In the post 9/11 geopolitical scenario, however, it is important to remember that Islam, like all great religious traditions, contains a fundamental message of peace and tolerance; one which can in fact be developed theologically into a full-blown Muslim theory of non-violence. In examining this issue, first we need to look at particular Qur'anic passages which support non-violence. Then we may try to understand some of the historical reasons why Muslim ideals of non-violence have not been realized.