Is Islam a dangerous religion?

After the fall of Communism in 1989 the Western world needed a new enemy, at least for its NATO defence system. NATO Secretary General Willy Claes in the early 1990s already defined Islam/Muslim terrorism as the new enemy. This increased to worldwide impact after the 9/11 attacks in the USA of 2001. GWOT, the Global War against terrorism became a new emblem for a coalition under leadership of the USA. "It is argued that the US is an informal military-political empire which makes false and exaggerated claims about the threat of Islamic terrorism to justify US intervention in Muslim countries."
BKI, the journal Bijdragen with a very long name, 2020, issue 2/3 (quote her from page 211) has an interesting contribution about 'Security, Islam, and Indonesia' by Aria Nakissa with an 'Anthropological Analysis of Indonesia's Counterterrorism Agency'. Free access through KITLV/Publications.

Nakissa was between 2014-9 repeatedly in Indonesia to study BNPT, Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Terorism, the National Counterterrorism Agency. In contrast to Densus, the armed police squad fighting terrorists, the BNPT is quite open about its structure, strategy and goals. The researcher could talk to former terrorists, was inside several of the most important buildings of BNPT and could write extensively about its threefold programme of protection, counter-radicalization and deradicalization.

Until the bombing in Kuta, Bali, 8 October 2002, the Indonesia police and military were not too keen on Muslim terrorism, but since that attack, which caused 202 deaths, there was an urgent reason for building a national infrastructure, partly following major goals of GWOT. In this article the author is quite critical about elements of this goal: terrorism causes comparatively few deaths. In the 16 years following the Bali bombings it has caused some 20 deaths per year in Indonesia, while AIDS has caused rougly 30,000 deaths per year and smoking 200,000 per year in Indonesia alone! (218).
While Densus has  a hard approach, BNPT, according to Nakissa represents a quite soft approach. It has a Pusat Media Damai, promoting liberal Islam and also attention for local Indonesian rather than Arab-style Islam. It cooperates with NGOs in this field. It supports young Indonesians working as bloggers, has a network of websites and social media accounts.
For those found guilty of terrorist actions it has developed a fourfold programme of 'deradicalization',  starting with identification, going to rehabilitation, re-education and reintegration.
Former terrorists can join these programmes (but only if they survive the hard treatment of Densus which caused at least 121 individuals death in prison between 2007 and 2016).
This detailed study, only summarised shortly above is a very interasting piece of work.
The 2020, 2/3 issue of BKI has many more interesting articles: on the last Dutch colonial war between 1945-1949 (the Dutch Vietnam), on the killings of 1965-6 considered as a genocide on the 'Communist Community' of Indonesia, on Indonesians in China after 1965, trying to continue the Indonesian Communist Party PKI, amidst the cultural revoluation in China itself. And many nice book reviews.

Arius

During the quiet period of the Corona-Crisis (since early March 2020) there is time to read books which are already since long on the shelves. So, I read again Rowan Willimas on Arius, first published in 1987 and I have the second edition of 2001.

For the history of Islam, Arius is quiet important, because many people claim (especially on the Christian side) that Muhammad was a follower of Arius. So, what is truth here?
Arius was born somewhere on the Libyan coast, before 280, perhaps even about 250 or somewhat later. He moved to the greatest town of the East Roman empire, Alexandria in Egypt, and was ordained a priest in 313. It was a turbulent period of the last great persecutions of Christians beginning in 303 under emperor Diocletianus and this only finished in 313. In the western part of the empire the pesecutions were not that serious, but it was different in the eastern sections. Especially emperor Galerius who succeeded to Diocletianus in 305 was a fervent opponent of Christianity. Many Christian from Egypt were taken prisoner and sent to the mines in Palestine or executed. Quite many also became apostates, were willing to offer to the emperor some incense, bribe officials and could continue to lead their lives. But what was the policy about them when the persecutions were over? Some were lenient, others were very hard. Bishop Peter of Alexandria wanted to forgive them, but his opponent Melitius was less lenient and they were not accepted as church members: priests and bishops should be removed from their positions. So, the church of Alxandria was already in conflict at that period (like in other places, like Carthago, where Augustine later worked).
In 318 Arius as a popular priest and gifted serious preacher came in conflict with bishop Alexander of Alexandria, the successor to Peter. The latter gave an interpretation of the book of the Hebrew Bible Proverbs, 8:22-3 about the Wisdom, some kind of figure, designing the world and helping God. In Muslim mysticism this is similar to the Nur Muhammad as the first being to be created in the process of the martabat tujuh, or seven steps towards creation:
Proverbs 8:22. The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old. 
23: I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began.

In the interpretation of Bishop Alexander there was absolute equality between God Creator and Wisdom (= the Word, identified as Jesus the Christ and son of God). Arius argued that as this Hikma, Wisdom or Christ was created and therefore lower in status than the Lord. This was the beginning of a debate that leaded to the Council of Nicea. Arius had two important supporters, both with the name of Eusebius: 1. Eusebius of Nicomedia (a small town close to Istanbul/Constantinople, on the Asian side of the Bosporus); 2. Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine.
The emperor Constantine wanted to have unity in the empire also in the field of religion. Therefore he called for a meeting, a council in Nicea (some 80 km from Constantinople, in the Asian side of what is now Turkey). Arius was condemned. The two bishops with the name of Eusebius signed his condemnation although they still continued support for him. Arius was sent into exile for two years. But in 327 he wrote a milder version, some kind of compromise text between the creed of Nicea and his own opinion and he was again accepted as a leading priest in Alexandria. In 335 his creed was accepted by a great conference of bishops in Jerusalem. Arius died in 336.

In his study the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams makes some important remarks about Arius. First, there were more conflicts than just the doctrinal ones. The were after the persecutions problems about positions of power in the church, now supported by the emperor Constantine. There were also conflicts about houses, money. Second, The whole debate was still in full development and some people held extreme ideas. The time was not yet ripe in 325 to make a good decision about this idea, but for political reasons, the emperor Constantine (not yet baptised as a Christian, but opting for a strong support from the Christians in his policy for his empire). Later in the 4th century the most debated word of homoóusios 'identical in being' was  put aside because it was not in the gospels and in fact quite strange. There was never a unified faction or Arian party, fighting orthodoxy. In fact Arius died in harmony with the church of Alexandria (which was divided over many other issues; Athanasius was five times expelled out of the town).
In the further history there were movement of Unitarians who rejected any idea of a triune God. But never in this book by Rowan Williams any connections is made between Muslims and Arians: Muslims are not mentioned at all in this debate! Wiliams himself seems to have accepted the history of the Christian doctrine and does not fight it.

Kudus

The Corona crisis has given us much time to do things, neglected for a long time. One of these was to read (and admira!) a beautiful book on the Mosque, Minaret and Grave of Sunan Kudus. It is a splendid book, given to us during the visit to the place on a crowded Thursday evening, in October 2019.
 In fact, one of the first book to read again was by Pramoedya: Arus Balik, on the process of islamization of the northcoast of Java, which makesTuban the centre of the epic story.

The book which I read now is on the left side: text by Revianto Budi Santosa and M. Rizal Abdi, pictures by Bambang Tri Atmojo. On the right of it is the English translation of a book by Syafii Maarif, published by Leiden University Press in 2018. The minaret in the centre is the same as on the left copy. However in the Ma'arif book on the fight we see the new dome of the mosque, while in the lift side there is the mosque without the dome from the eastern side, before the dome was added.
 The authgors regret that Ayafii Ma'arif  took his picture of Kudus in order to stress the specifric Islamic Indonesian identity as shown in Kudus, but in the text of his book there is no reference at all to this remarkable structure built about 1550.
The building is in the style of Majapahit architecture, from the last Hindu kings of Central Java. Many of the stories are close to folk religion, many miracles, entertaining  episodes of a glorious past: not the strict rules of the modern Salafi Islam with its emphasis on Arab texts. Of course, the great texts here and the formulaes of the prayer are Arab as well, but this local pride wants to be traditional Indonesian Islam.
Page 119 has picture of the Greek Cross (here not the salib Yunani, but palang Yunani), which we also saw last October

With the elements from Hindu rulers the inter-religious tolerance of very clearly prised. Here it is just an ornament taken from a 'Greek cross''  without firther explanation.