Islam And Militarism

As we read Samuel P. Huntington’s classic “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” we noted with some interest the studies of military conflicts involving Islamic peoples or states, given the post 9/11 situation in the world today. Although Huntington’s book was published in 1996, we believe many of the findings reported by him are relevant to today’s global scenario. In the following we essentially reproduce information from a portion of his book (pages 256-265, Touchstone Ed. 1997).

Huntington notes that “….Muslims make up about one-fifth of the world’s population but in the 1990s they have been far more involved in intergroup violence than the people of any other civilization [includes Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Hindu, Chinese, Buddhist, Jewish]. The evidence is overwhelming…”. Huntington cites the data provided below in support of his contention that at least in the 1990s (and likely in the greater part of the 20th century) Muslim countries or people have shown the highest propensity for violence in relation to the conflicts they have engaged in. At least in later part of the 20th century, he cites data (below) indicating that Muslim countries have also shown the highest military force ratios in relationship to their population and wealth. He clarifies that the data does not mean that other civilizations do not indulge in violence (for instance he points out that “…In the past Christians killed fellow Christians and other people in massive numbers…”), but just that Muslim groups and countries engage in disproportionately higher violence.

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1. Ethnopolitical Conflicts, 1993-1994Â

• Source: Ted Robert Gurr, “Peoples Against States: Ethnopolitical Conflict and the Changing World System,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 38 (Sep. 1994), pp. 347-378.Â
  Note: one item in the table below shifted by Huntington to Inter from Intra - the Tibetian-Chinese conflict

• Comments:Â
  • 3X inter-civilizational conflicts involving Muslims compared to other civilizations
  • Conflicts within Islam also higher than within other civilizations
  • West involved in only two inter- and intra-civilizational conflicts at this time
  • Conflicts involving Muslims tended to have heavier casualties. Six wars had estimated casualties >= 200,000 : three were inter-civilizational involving Muslims (Sudan, Bosnia, East Timor), two were intra-civilizational involving Muslims (Somalia, Iraq-Kurds), and one conflict had only non-Muslims (Angola).

* Of which 10 were tribal conflicts in Africa

2. Ethnic Conflicts, 1993

• Source: New York Times, Feb. 7, 1993, pp. 1, 14

• Comments:
  • Nearly 50% of conflicts involved Muslims
  • Two-thirds of inter-civilizational conflicts involved Muslims

* Of which 10 were tribal conflicts in Africa

3. Wars, 1992

• Source: Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1993 (Washington, D.C.: World Priorities, Inc., 1993) pp. 20-22

• Comments:Â
  • 29 wars (defined as conflicts involving >= 1000 deaths/year) identified in 1992
  • 9 out of 12 inter-civilizational conflicts involved Muslims
  • Muslims were fighting more wars than people from any other civilization

4. Militarism of Muslim and Christian countries

• Source: James L. Payne, Why Nations Arm (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 125, 138-139. Muslim and Christian countries are defined here as those in which more than 80% of the population adhere to the defining religion.

• Definitions:

  • Average force ratio = # of military personnel/1000 population

  • Average military effort = force ratio adjusted for country’s wealth

• Comments:

  • Muslim countries had much higher military force ratios and effort indices than other countries (rows 2 and 3 below), and ratios were about 2X those of Christian countries.

  • Christian countries had significantly lower military force ratios and effort indices than other countries (rows 4 and 5 below)

5. Use of violence to resolve conflicts, 1928-1979

• Sources:Â

  • Samuel P. Huntington’s book referenced above, page 258

  • Christopher B. Stone, “Westphalia and Hudaybiyya: A Survey of Islamic Perspectives on the Use of Force as Conflict Management Technique” (unpublished paper, Harvard University), pp. 27-31

  • Jonathan Wilkenfield, Michael Brecher, and Sheila Moser, eds. Crises in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1988-89), II, 15, 161.

• Comments:

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Root causes of violence in Islam?

Although Huntington does not conclusively show the causes leading to the higher propensity for violence in Islamic countries, he lists some possibilities:

(a) Propensity towards violence: Huntington’s view is that the Koran and other statements of Muslim beliefs contain few prohibitions on violence, and that the concept of nonviolence is absent from Muslim doctrine and practice.

(b) Demographic shift, i.e., due to a significant growth in population of Muslim youth in a region, exceeding a certain threshold or next nearest demographic group. Huntington links such trends to many conflicts, and clarifies that a large number of unemployed Muslim males in the age group of 15-30 goes a long way in explaining Muslim conflicts and violence in the 1980s and 1990s.

(c) Difficulty living with(in) other cultures: Huntington says that of the major religions/civilizations, Islam is essentially alone in not separating religion and politics, and as a result, “…Confucians, Buddhists, Hindus, Western Christians, and Orthodox Christians have less difficulty adapting to and living with each other than any one of them has in adapting to and living with Muslims…” The example he cites is how Chinese live as an economically dominant minority in most Southeast Asian nations, and assimilated well into Buddhist Thailand and Catholic Philippines, but are more subject to anti-Chinese riots and/or violence in Muslim Indonesia and Muslim Malaysia.

(d) Absence of a “core” state in Islam: Islam lacks a “dominant center” or state that could play a leading role in moderating or managing conflicts involving Muslims, and one that could act on behalf of Islam.

Finally, he states that the arguments offered by some Muslim supporters that Muslims have been victimized by “anti-Muslim prejudice” and “trapped on reservations converted from their ancestral lands” does not explain conflicts between Muslim majorities and non-Muslim minorities in countries such as Sudan, Egypt, Iran and Indonesia.

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