Each year, some two million Muslims from around the world make a pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca. For some in the West, nothing could be scarier than two million Muslims, all dressed in white, touching their heads to the ground and shouting "Allahu Akbar." Reading the usual pundits, you get the idea that Mecca is a breeding ground of Islamic radicalism.
To figure out if this is true, a group of American researchers surveyed more than 1500 Pakistanis who went on the pilgrimage to Mecca in 2006. They discovered that these men had overcome great obstacles to make the trip. It costs arond $2500 to go to Mecca, and that's three times the annual salary of a typical Pakistani. Still, nearly 140,000 Pakistanis applied to go in 2006. Only 80,000 visas were granted by the Saudi government.
Since the Saudis granted their visas based on lottery, the researchers had the clever idea of comparing the attitudes of those who returned from Mecca to those who didn't get to go. They wanted to see if the pilgrimage to Mecca strengthened or undermined Islamic radicalism. Incredibly, the researchers found that the Pakistanis who went to Mecca returned with attitudes more moderate and less sympathetic to Islamic fanaticism and terrorism.
But isn't Mecca dominated by radical clerics who, when they aren't eating or sleeping, lead chants of "Death to America"? This is the propaganda you hear from groups like memri.org that selectively publish material intended to give an exaggerated picture of the influence of the Muslim radicals. In reality, the overriding theme of the visit to Mecca is the traditional theme of universal Muslim brotherhood.
No surprise: pilgrims returning fro Mecca were 25 percent less likely to hold that different tribes or ethnicities could not live in harmony. Remarkably, pilgrims were also more likely to believe that all religions can co-exist. Moreover, the Pakistanis who went to Mecca were less approving of suicide bombings and other such tactics as the Pakistanis who stayed back.
Call this the Mecca effect. I predicted it in my book The Enemy at Home, in which I argued that America can find common ground with traditional believers and not just anti-Muslim activists like Hirsi Ali. The results of the Mecca effet, and the study cited here, are beautifully outlined in a recent article in the online magazine Slate written by Professor Ray Fisman of Columbia University. You can read the article here.
Yes, I know that the Islamophobes will come back with their regularly-recyled quotations from the Koran about "killing all the infidels" and so on. But equally alarming quotations can also be found in the Old Testament. The important thing is to see how those texts have been interpreted and how people have acted upon them. Muslims have had many empires through the centuries: the Ummayad, the Abassid, the Mughal, the Ottoman, and so on. Tens of millions of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians have lived under Muslim rule. In any Muslim empire was it either policy or practice to systematically kill all the non-Muslims? No.
So we have to learn to think afresh and to take into account real evidence. Prejudice against practicing Muslims and against religious believers in general is rife in certain segments of Western society. But such prejudices should not be the basis of making public policy.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 19)
1. You should preach this to the extremists in your own party and in your own religion. They are the ones that are duped and blinded by their own bigotry. We are attacked by radical Muslims, so we go and invade a Muslim country. Oh, after Afghanistan, any country will do.
If bush was president in 1941, and Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, bush would've invaded Korea. Why not? They're Asian, right? They must've had something to do with it, right?
Dopes.
America's Most Gangsta at 7:42AM on May 30th 2008
2. Still Dinesh, as you say in The Enemy at home; "all Muslims are not terroroists, but all terrorists are Muslims", so I ask: where are the masses of moderate Muslims chanting "we are not like them!"
fanmanaf1 at 7:43AM on May 30th 2008
3. By the way (btw), so nice to hear that you predicted something in your book. Did you (or your hero bush) also predict that Iran would rise up and beat its chest, and hold holocaust-denial conferences, and act like a bully, and threaten nuclear warfare...after we took out sadaam hussein, Iran's greatest rival, and the enemy of our enemy???
I did...as did most first year college history students.
America's Most Gangsta at 7:47AM on May 30th 2008
4. DD "Prejudice against practicing Muslims and against religious believers in general is rife in certain segments of Western society. But such prejudices should not be the basis of making public policy."
So...we should make absolutely sure that everyone can practice whatever religion (or lack thereof) suits them? Or is he trying to say that religion of some sort should be mandated? The polygamist situation almost seems like public policy that is interfering with their religion. It may be hard to know exactly where to draw the line.
Supposed to be hot today, I might be convinced to go out for ice cream on my lunch break. Have a good day everyone, hope you are all in a good mood.
a born atheist at 7:55AM on May 30th 2008
5. For once Dinesh, I have very little to quibble about in this recent posting. Your last paragraph... "So we have to learn to think afresh and to take into account real evidence. Prejudice against practicing Muslims and against religious believers in general is rife in certain segments of Western society. But such prejudices should not be the basis of making public policy."... would have been perfect, were it not for your need to relate this to "religious believers in general". Herein you reveal that your real agenda in commenting on pilgrimage to Mecca sometimes ameliorating hatred of Western Infidels in favor of a more tolerant view was not meant to promote the understanding that only a relatively small percentage of Muslims wish to act on the principal of Jihad, but that somehow this should also apply to "believers" in general.
Only a radical non-believer hates or even bothers to vilify you and your ultraconservative coreligionists. Most of us either don't care that you believe that we are "poor, beknighted fools or followers of Satan", and/or we recognize that you represent a thankfully small percentage of mainstream believers. It is only the radicals in any belief system who support or otherwise countenace agressive and negative behavior towards people of other beliefs (or lack of belief, for that matter). "But such prejudices should not be the basis of making public policy" -DD This is, however, the most important part of your posting and I not only agree with this wholeheartedly, but commend you for having stated it.
Harvey at 8:20AM on May 30th 2008
6. Hold on a second??!! Did DD just poat a blog where he doesnt bash athiests or liberals??
This is a fairly moderate article from someone whos history is of far right-wing thought. I think that my head will explode now.
Now, The quote "not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslims" is one of the stupidest comments I have ever written. DD does not seriously think that all terrorists are muslims does he?
Shining Path, Red Faction, IRA, Timothy McVeigh, North Korea, and many others. The most common definition of terrorism is:
"it is violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating fear"
By that standard, most world governments in the middle east, southeast asia, and africa are terrorists. Americans should get out of the habit of assuming that muslims are so dangerous, when really they are just the most publicised. People are being slaughtered by the thousands in africa every month, yet who rallys for them?
CaptainCack at 8:23AM on May 30th 2008
7. This is in regards to America's dumbest gangster. In 1941 after we were attacked by Japan what did we do? We attack Germany, so using your logic we still attacked the wrong country. What the left fails to see is the bigger picture regarding Islamic terrorism. The general consensus (much of which came from leftist leaders like Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and even Ted Kennedy himself) believes Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The evidence was overwhelming. The left is so eager to accept the general consensus regarding global warming but mysteriously does not regarding Saddam Hussein.
Greg at 8:26AM on May 30th 2008
8. Congratulations Dinesh,
There is very little in this post that I'm able to disagree with! A refreshingly more peaceful post. Did a "Mecca Effect" happen to you?
This reminds me very much of Malcolm X, who before pre-hajj was racist radical, and post-hajj was a civil rights leader (though still disturbingly religious), because of the way he saw men of all races praying as brothers.
Mokele Mbembe at 8:57AM on May 30th 2008
9. DD: This is a fascinating column. I learned something new. Appreciated it very much. Have enjoyed your writings over the years, beginning with your book, "The Catholic Classics" published a while back by Our Sunday Visitor.
Am dismayed, however, by the tone of the some of the comments posted here by others. "America's Most Gangsta," for example, displays gross ignorance of history. In 1941, the U.S. would not have attacked Korea because it was not an independent country but rather a colony under the sway of Imperial Japan. The U.S. defeat of Japan actually liberated Korea from colonialism.
The comment allegedly made by DD about "all terrorists are muslims" has been taken out of context. DD was clearly referring only to those terrorists involved in attacks on the US homeland in recent years ... not to terrorists in general.
Reaganite in NYC at 11:04AM on May 30th 2008
10. DD, says So we have to learn to think afresh and to take into account real evidence. Prejudice against practicing Muslims and against religious believers in general is rife in certain segments of Western society. But such prejudices should not be the basis of making public policy.
I am happy to see you are in line with thinking like Obama on this issue.
Jerry Brown at 9:02AM on May 30th 2008
11. "before pre-hajj"
Whoops, a redundant redundancy.
Mokele Mbembe at 9:02AM on May 30th 2008
12. None of my athiest friends have ever generalized most muslims as "terrorists" but plenty of my Christian and conservative friends have. I keep reminding them that America's biggest home-grown terrorist, Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh was a Christian or at the least, a self-professed Christian. That should be of no surprise, most of America's "heartland where he grew up are Christians and the prisons cells are full of them. Apparently religiousity is not a deterent to crime, as the millions of anti-Jewist Catholics in Nazi-era Germany proved.
To Greg - #7 - plenty of leaders on the right are finally conceding that global warming is real, including Newt Gingrich and Bush himself. For your own intellectual honesty visit the NASA website for articles on the issue, along with time-lasp satellite photos of the Artic ice sheet melting away during the pass few decades.
NewYorker20014 at 9:09AM on May 30th 2008
13. “The U.S. defeat of Japan actually liberated Korea from colonialism.”
Maybe, but I’m fairly certain that was just a lucky side-effect, which we have no right to pat our own backs for. It wasn’t to “spread freedom”.
Mokele Mbembe at 9:14AM on May 30th 2008
14. "The comment allegedly made by DD about "all terrorists are muslims" has been taken out of context. DD was clearly referring only to those terrorists involved in attacks on the US homeland in recent years ... not to terrorists in general."
So, please define the word "All" for us.
Mokele Mbembe at 9:15AM on May 30th 2008
15. I don't think greg is capable of intellectual honesty, or anything intellectual for that matter, after he personally attacked me, for merely stating my views in a non-threatening way. Calling him an asshole would be a waste of my precious time. He believes that because sadaam had WMD, that we should have invaded and occupied Iraq, strengthening Iran, and giving al Qaeda a cause and a chance to regroup in afghanistan. he is dumber than the world's dumbest gangster.
America's Most Gangsta at 9:27AM on May 30th 2008