Islam & Mafia....Similar?
Finally, we will consider what accounts for these many
similarities between Islam and the mafia, including from an historical
perspective.
1.
Allah and Muhammad/Godfather and Underboss
The padrino
of larger mafia organizations and families—literally, the “godfather” or “boss
of bosses”—has absolute control over his subordinates and is often greatly
feared by them for his ruthlessness. He has an “underboss,” a right-hand
man who issues his orders and enforces his will. The godfather himself is
often inaccessible; mafia members need to go through the underboss or other
high ranking associates.
Compare this
with the relationship between Allah and his “messenger” Muhammad (in Arabic,
Muhammad is most commonly referred to as al-rasul, “the messenger”).
Unlike the Judeo-Christian God—a personal God, a Father, that according to
Christ is to be communed with directly (Matt 6:9)—Islam’s god, Allah, is
unreachable, unknowable, untouchable. Like the godfather, he is
inaccessible. His orders are revealed by his messenger, Muhammad.
If the
Judeo-Christian God calls on the faithful to “come now, let us reason together”
(Isaiah 1:18), Allah says “Do not ask questions about things that, if made
known to you, would only pain you” (Koran 5:101). Just follow orders.
2. A
“Piece of the Action”
The
godfather and his underboss always get a “piece of the action”—a “cut”—of all
spoils acquired by their subordinates.
So do Allah
and his messenger, Muhammad. Koran 8:41 informs Muslims that “one-fifth
of all war-booty you acquire goes to Allah and the messenger” (followed by
Muhammad’s family and finally the needy).
3.
Assassinations
The
godfather, through his underboss, regularly sends mafia men to make “hits”—to
assassinate—those deemed enemies of the family.
So did Allah
and his messenger. One example: A non-Muslim poet, Ka‘b ibn Ashraf, insulted Muhammad, prompting the
latter to exclaim, “Who will kill this man who has hurt Allah and his
messenger?” A young Muslim named Ibn Maslama volunteered on condition that to
get close enough to assassinate Ka‘b he be allowed to lie to the poet.
Allah’s
messenger agreed. Ibn Maslama traveled to Ka‘b and began to
denigrate Islam and Muhammad until his disaffection became so convincing that
the poet took him into his confidence. Soon thereafter, Ibn Maslama appeared
with another Muslim and, while Ka‘b’s guard was down, slaughtered the poet,
bringing his head to Muhammad to the usual triumphant cries of “Allahu Akbar!”
4.
Circumstance is Everything
While the
mafia adheres to a general code of conduct, the godfather issues more fluid
orders according to circumstances.
This is
reminiscent of the entire “revelation” of the Koran, where later
verses/commands contradict earlier verses/commands, depending on circumstances
(known in Islamic jurisprudence as al-nāsikh wal-mansūkh, or the doctrine of abrogation).
Thus,
whereas Allah supposedly told the prophet that “there is no compulsion in
religion” (Koran 2:256), once the messenger grew strong enough, Allah
issued new revelations calling for all-out war/jihad till Islam became supreme
(Koran 8:39, 9:5, 9:29, etc.).
While other
religions and scriptures may have contradictions, only Islam rationalizes them
through abrogation—that is, by giving prominence to later verses which are seen
as the “latest” decision of the deity.
5.
Clan Loyalty
Loyalty is
fundamental in the mafia. Following elaborate rituals of blood oaths,
mafia members are expected to maintain absolute loyalty to the family, on pain
of death.
Similarly,
mafia members are expected always to be available for the family—“even
if your wife is about to give birth,” as one of the mafia’s “ten
commandments” puts it—and to defend the godfather and his honor, even if it
costs their lives.
Compare this
to the widespread violence and upheavals that occur whenever Allah or his
prophet is offended—whenever non-Muslim “infidels” blaspheme them. Or, as
Bill Maher put it: “Its’ the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will
f***ing kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write
the wrong book.”
Islam’s
“Loyalty and Enmity” doctrine (al-wala’ wa’l bara’)—which calls on Muslims
to be loyal to one another even if they dislike each other—is especially
illustrative. Koran 9:71 declares that “The believing [Muslim] men and
believing [Muslim] women are allies of one another” (see also 8:72-75).
And according to Muhammad, “A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim.
He neither oppresses him nor humiliates him nor looks down upon him…. All
things of a Muslim are inviolable for his brother in faith: his blood, his
wealth, and his honor”—precisely those three things that mafia members respect
among each other. This is why Muslims like U.S. Army Major Nidal
Hassan, whose “worst nightmare” was to be deployed to fight
fellow Muslims, often lash out.)
6. Death
to Traitors
Once a
fledging mafia member takes the oath of loyalty to the mafia—including the
Omertà code of silence and secrecy—trying to leave the “family” is seen as a
betrayal and punishable by death. Any family member, great or
small, is given authority to kill the traitor, the “turncoat.”
Compare this
to Islam. To be born to a Muslim father immediately makes the newborn a
Muslim—there are no oaths to be taken, much less any choice in the
matter. And, according to Islamic law, if born Muslims at any point
in their lives choose to leave Islam, they are deemed “apostates”—traitors—and
punished including by death. Any zealous Muslim, not just the
authorities, is justified in killing the apostate (hence why Muslim families
that kill apostate children are rarely if ever prosecuted).
In the words of Muhammad—the messenger (“underboss”) of
Allah (“godfather”): “Whoever leaves his Islamic faith, kill him.”
7. Distrust
and Dislike of “Outsiders”
Aside from
loyalty to the family, mafia members are also expected not to befriend or
freely associate with “outsiders”—who by nature are not to be trusted, as they
are not of the “family”—unless such a “friendship” helps advance the family’s
position.
Similarly,
the second half of the doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity—the enmity (al-bara’)—calls
on Muslims to maintain distance from and bear enmity for all non-Muslims, or
“infidels.”
Thus Koran
5:51 warns Muslims against “taking the Jews and Christians as friends and
allies … whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he is surely one
of them.” According to the mainstream Islamic exegesis of al-Tabari, Koran 5:51
means that the Muslim who “allies with them [non-Muslims] and enables them
against the believers, that same one is a member of their faith and community,”
that is, a defector, an apostate, an enemy.
Similar
scriptures include Koran 4:89, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23, and 58:22; the latter simply
states that true Muslims do not befriend non-Muslims—“even if they be their
fathers, sons, brothers, or kin.” Koran 60:1 declares, “O you who believe! Do
not take my enemy and your enemy [non-believers] for friends: would you offer
them love while they deny what has come to you of the truth [i.e., while they
deny Islam]?” And Koran 4:144 declares “O you who believe! Do not take the
infidels as allies instead of the believers. Do you wish to give Allah
[“godfather”] a clear case against yourselves?”
8.
Deception and Dissimulation
As
mentioned, close relations to non-mafia individuals that prove advantageous to
the family (for example, collaboration with a “crooked cop”) are permissible—as
long as the mafia keeps a safe distance, keeps the outsider at arm’s length.
Compare this
to Koran 3:28 which commands “believers not to take infidels for friends and
allies instead of believers… unless you but guard yourselves against them,
taking precautions.” According to the standard Koran commentary of Tabari,
“taking precautions” means:
If you
[Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims’] authority, fearing for yourselves,
behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for
them … [but know that] Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on
intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers—except when
infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act
friendly towards them while preserving their religion.
After
interpreting Koran 3:28 as meaning that Muslims may “protect” themselves
“through outward show” when under non-Muslim authority, Ibn Kathir, perhaps
Islam’s most celebrated exegete, quotes Islam’s prophet
(“underboss”) saying: “Truly, we smile to the faces of some people, while
our hearts curse them.”
Similarly, a
few years ago, Sheikh Muhammad Hassan—a leading Salafi cleric in Egypt—asserted on live television that, while Muslims
should never smile to the faces of non-Muslims, they should smile, however
insincerely, if so doing helps empower Islam, especially in the context of da‘wa.
The idea of
hating “outsiders” is apparently so ingrained in Islam that another leading
Salafi cleric, Dr. Yasser al-Burhami, insists that, while Muslim men may marry
Christian and Jewish women, they must hate them in their heart—and show them
that they hate them in the hopes that they convert to the “family” of Islam.
(For more on
the doctrine of “Loyalty and Enmity,” including references to the exegetical
sources quoted above, see al-Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman Zawahiri’s comprehensive
treatise by that name in The Al Qaeda Reader, pgs. 63-115.)
9. “An
Offer You Can’t Refuse”
Although the
novel-turned-movie, The Godfather, is fictitious, it also captures much
of the mafia’s modus operandi. Consider, for example, that most famous of
lines—“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse”—spoken
by the Godfather to one of his “godsons,” an aspiring actor and singer.
After being turned down by a studio director for a role that he desperately
wanted, the godson turned to his Godfather for aid.
As the movie
progresses, it becomes clear that the offer that can’t be refused consists of
nothing less than violence and death threats: after the Godfather’s messenger
to the director asking that the actor be given the role is again rejected, the
director awakens the next morning to find the bloodied and decapitated head of
his favorite stallion in bed with him. The godson subsequently gets the
movie role.
Throughout
the context of the entire Godfather trilogy (which captures well the
mafia’s approach to business) making someone “an offer they can’t refuse” means
“do as I say or suffer the consequences,” possibly death.
Compare this
to Islam’s threefold choice. On Muhammad’s orders, whenever Muslims conquer a territory in
the name of Islam, its non-Muslim inhabitants are given three choices: 1) convert
to Islam (“join the family”), 2) keep your religious identity but pay tribute (jizya,
see below) and live as an “outsider,” a subjugated dhimmi or 3)
execution.
Throughout
history, converting to Islam has been an “offer” that countless non-Muslims could
not refuse. In fact, this “offer” is responsible for transforming much of
the Middle East and North Africa, which were Christian-majority in the 7th
century when the jihad burst forth from Arabia, into the “Muslim world.”
Like the
mafia, then, Islam’s offer to conquered non-Muslims (“outsiders”) is basically
“join our ‘family,’ help us and we will help you; refuse and we hurt you.”
10.
The “Protection” Racket
Once the
mafia takes over a territory, one of the primary ways it profits is by
collecting “protection money” from its inhabitants. While the protection
racket has several aspects, one in particular is akin to an Islamic practice:
coercing people in the mafia’s territory to pay money for “protection,”
ostensibly against outside elements; in fact, the protection bought is from the
mafia itself—that is, extortion money, or pizzo. Potential “clients” who
refuse to pay for the mafia’s “protection” often have their property vandalized
and are routinely threatened and harassed.
Compare the
collection of pizzo with the Islamic concept of jizya: The
word jizya appears in Koran 9:29: “Fight those among the People of the
Book [Christians and Jews] who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor
forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of
truth, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel
themselves subdued (emphasis added).”
In the hadith, the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad—in our
analogy, the “underboss”—regularly calls on Muslims to demand jizya from
non-Muslims: “If they refuse to accept Islam,” said the prophet, “demand
from them the jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold
off your hands. If they refuse to pay jizya, seek Allah’s help and fight
them.”
The root
meaning of the Arabic word “jizya” is simply to “repay” or “recompense,”
basically to “compensate” for something. According to the Hans
Wehr Dictionary, the standard Arabic-English dictionary, jizya is
something that “takes the place” of something else, or “serves instead.”
Simply put,
conquered non-Muslims were to purchase their lives, which were
otherwise forfeit to their Muslim conquerors, with money. As one medieval
jurist succinctly puts it, “their lives and their possessions are only
protected by reason of payment of jizya” (Crucified Again, p. 22).
And to top
it off, just as the mafia rationalizes its collection of “protection money” by
portraying it as money that buys mafia protection against “outsiders”—when, as
mentioned, the money/tribute serves only to protect the client from the mafia
itself—so too do Islam’s apologists portray the collection of jizya
as money meant to buy Muslim protection from outsiders, when in fact the
money/jizya buys protection from Muslims themselves.
Conclusion:
Mafia—What’s In a Word?
What
accounts for all these similarities between Islam and the mafia? One clue
is found in the fact that the very word “mafia,” which means “hostility
to the law, boldness,” is derived from an Arabic word, mahya, which in translation means “bragging,
boasting, bravado, and swaggering.”
This
etymology is a reminder that Sicily, birthplace of the mafia, was under
Arab/Islamic domination for over 200 years. Aside from a borrowed
etymology, could some of the mafia’s modus operandi also have been borrowed
from Islam? Isolated on their island, could native Sicilians have
co-opted the techniques of social controls that they had lived under and
learned from their former overlords—albeit without their Islamic veneer?
The mafia is
not the only historical example of a non-Muslim criminal organization to be
influenced by Islam. For example, the Thuggees — whence we get the word “thug”
— were a brotherhood of allied bandits and assassins who waylaid and savagely
murdered travelers in India, often by first feigning friendship. Although they
were later associated with the Hindu cult of Kali, the original Thuggees were
all Muslim. As late as the 19th century, a large number of Thuggees
captured and convicted by the British were Muslim.
The
similarities are clear: Along with assassinating his opponents, including, as
seen, through treachery, Muhammad also personally engaged in banditry,
ransacking the caravans of enemy tribes.
And if the
words “mafia” and “thug” have Arabic/Islamic etymologies, the words
“assassinate” and “assassin” are derived from a Medieval Islamic sect: the Hashashin, who pioneered the use of political
assassination—with promises of a hedonistic paradise for the
assassin who almost certainly died—in the name of Islam.
At any rate,
when HBO personality Bill Maher recently proclaimed that Islam is “the only
religion that acts like the mafia, that will f***ing kill you if you say the
wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book,” he was barely
touching on the similarities between the mafia and other criminal
organizations, and Islam.
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/ten-ways-the-mafia-and-islam-are-similar/
