Islam on the high seas

Stephen Prothero writes at the Wall Street Journal that we should not neglect the link between Somali piracy and historical Islam:

But according to Boston University’s World Religion Database, the Somali population is 99% Muslim, and the last time the U.S. was menaced by piracy, in the late 18th century, the so-called Barbary pirates of north Africa also operated out of Muslim havens. For those who know something about Muhammad and the origins of Islam, more than coincidence is at work: Religion, it turns out, should be factored into the piracy problem.

[…]

Along with agriculture, herding and trade, the ghazu [bounty raid] was a recognized part of the seventh-century Arabian economy, and those who indulged in it were often celebrated as Robin Hoods of a sort. But the bounty raid was also a national pastime—a sport for turning boys into men. As is the case with piracy today, these earlier raids almost always ended without bloodshed, since any death was sure to bring on a cycle of vendetta killings every tribesman was eager to avoid—a cycle that Somali pirates recently promised to set into motion in response to the killing of pirates by American and French special forces.

Read the full article here.