IN an age dominated by ‘religious terror’, when so many kill in the name of God, it can be difficult for the believer to argue that faith is in fact a moral and ethical force for good. But as British scholar Karen Armstrong vividly illustrates in her masterly work Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence, the “myth of religious violence” needs to be examined in a broader light in order to understand the multiple factors that have, throughout history, fuelled bloodshed in societies.

Indeed, blood has been spilled in the name of religion for millennia. To assume that faith alone — excluding, for example, nationalism or tribalism, which can arouse similar passions — is responsible for most violence on earth, is to take an ahistorical and overly simplistic view. In fact, Armstrong argues that “in religious history, the struggle for peace has been just as important as the holy war”.

Violence, as the author writes, has been “at the heart of social existence”. This is not a justification for bloodshed, but a statement of fact. So, whether it is the ancient agrarian imperial state or the modern industrialised nation state — nations and tribes have gone to war against each other under different pretexts (most often to grab the other’s resources). And unless our social and spiritual evolution dictates otherwise, will continue to be so.

Armstrong’s examination of the history of violence and the role religion has played in this is comprehensive and engaging. She effortlessly weaves between the ancient Ur and the world of the Aryans, working her way down through the centuries to the age of global ‘jihad’. What is particularly commendable is that at no point in this vast journey are there any jumps. In fact, she melds one era fluidly into the other.

As the book illustrates, apart from faith, one of the biggest drivers of violence has been the state, which has shed blood purely for political reasons. For example, when P. Quintilius Varus, the Roman governor of Syria, burned the city of Sepphoris to the ground and reportedly crucified 2,000 Jewish rebels outside Jerusalem, he may have done so in loyalty to Jupiter. But it is more likely he was doing it simply to enforce the Pax Romana. Similarly, Persian emperor Khusrow I promised to “kill every man who persists in insubordination against me — be he a good Zoroastrian, a Jew or a Christian”.

Coming to the relationship between Islam and violence, which is of most interest to us, Armstrong argues that as Muslim polity developed, the Quranic focus on justice was cast aside by the ambitions of the imperial state, particularly illustrated by the ascent of the Umayyads. She writes, “Karbala epitomised the Muslim dilemma. How could Islamic justice be realistically implemented in a belligerent imperial state?” This dilemma haunts us till this day.

Referring to the Crusades — one of the most visible examples of religiously-inspired violence which brought the worlds of Christendom and Islam face to face in confrontation — Armstrong says that many of its participants “would take up their cross to acquire wealth overseas or fiefs for their descendants, as well as fame and prestige”. So while some of the crusaders were indeed fighting for Christ, others had much more earthly goals in mind. Perhaps the same is the condition of many of today’s ‘jihadis’.

It has also become common for many critics to link violence intrinsically to Islam. Yet as Armstrong argues, during the time of Salahuddin, “Jihad [...] had been resurrected not by the inherently violent nature of Islam but by a sustained assault from the West”. Similarly, in today’s circumstances, geopolitical factors have played a major role in shaping transnational Islamist terrorism. The terrorist groups of today — though they couch their rhetoric in religious language — are not products of a classical Islamic ethos per se, but very much of modernity, which “Muslims had a much harsher introduction to”, thanks to the process of Western colonialism.

And while religiously-inspired terrorism is indeed one of the biggest security problems of the modern age, we must not forget that the violence secular nationalism engenders can be just as problematic as militants fighting for a ‘divine’ purpose. Commenting on the Age of Empire, the author says that the “empire was creating a global form of systemic violence, driven not by religion but by the wholly secular values of the market”. At another point she mentions that “secular nationalism seemed to regard the foreigner as fair game,” and that nationalism was the “new faith of the secular age”.

Critics of faith often conveniently overlook the fact that while there are violent tendencies within all belief systems, which have manifested themselves gruesomely throughout history, the nation state — the product of the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment — has just as much (if not more) blood on its hands. Armstrong points out that “in the national wars of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of civilians were firebombed, napalmed or vapourised.” The Great Terror of revolutionary France, as well as the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia — both staunchly anti-religious regimes — also show that faith alone does not have a monopoly over violence.

Coming back to modern Islamist militancy, it can be argued that such religiously-inspired terrorism has more to do with geopolitics than religion. In effect, most militants are fighting against a system that has excluded them, and using terrorism — abominable as it is — to make a point. The postcolonial nation state, ruled by a small, corrupt elite unconnected to the larger public, has failed to give the common man social, economic and political justice. And where there is lack of justice and suppression, extremism will thrive.

Armstrong’s book is essential reading in an age where opinions are formed by what is on Twitter, Facebook, or the hyperactive media. She proves that while religion has been used to unleash violence, faith has also played a role in taming and regulating society’s intrinsic violence. “The problem lies not in the multifaceted activity that we call ‘religion’ but in the violence embedded in our human nature and the nature of the state, which from the start required the forcible subjugation of at least 90 per cent of the population,” she writes.

Turns out religion and matters of the spirit are not the problem after all; unmitigated greed and lust for resources — the hallmarks of selfish and self-centred materialism — may well be the original sin.

The reviewer is a Dawn staffer.

Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (RELIGION)

By Karen Armstrong

Knopf, US

ISBN 978-0307957047

528pp.