Hypocrisy and Islamists

Submitted by Ted (United States), Jul 14, 2010 at 02:12

Dear Dr Pipes: It must be instructive to investigate why Islamist organizations like CAIR and Nation of Islam consistently exhibit hypocritical behavior. At the core of all ethics is the principle of reciprocity (or golden rule): don't do to others what you don't want to be done to yoourself. People may or may not always follow this rule but it is always in the back of their minds helping them differentiate between right and wrong and good and bad. The principle of reciprocity also helps people choose between rules when they contradict each other with reciprocity getting precedence over competing standards. Certain interpretations of Islamic law --like treat the believers differently from non-believers and treat women differently from men-- openly support non-reciprocity. Thus, Islamist ethics directly or indirectly states that the law of reciprocity does not universally apply but can be violated under circumstances. Thus, a very difficult decision about when to apply reciprocity and when to sacrifice it suddenly falls into the hands of individual human beings. If it is ok to violate reciprocity once, it may be ok to violate it often! For example, a lot of Islamists around the world may genuinely believe that it is right when a bunch of Arab countries stake a claim on Jerusalem but it is not right when a group of Jews stake a similar claim.

This may be why there is so much hypocrisy present in Islamists' behavior.

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