• home
• about
• new
• essays
• AI
• book

Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Sam Harris on Islam and Hamas

A Critical Appraisal

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Sam Harris has long occupied a distinctive position in public debates about religion, violence, and geopolitics. Unlike many liberal critics of Islamism, he does not confine his critique to political extremism but extends it to Islamic doctrine itself. His stance toward Hamas is therefore not episodic or merely reactive to events in Gaza; it is embedded in a broader thesis about the relationship between religious belief and violence. This essay examines the internal coherence, empirical grounding, and political implications of that stance.

1. The Doctrinal Thesis

Harris' central claim is straightforward: certain core doctrines within Islam—when taken seriously—sanction violence against unbelievers and apostates, and jihadist movements such as Hamas are not aberrations but plausible enactments of those doctrines. He distinguishes between Muslims (as people) and Islam (as a system of ideas), but insists that ideas have causal power. In his view, Hamas is not merely a nationalist resistance movement; it is a theologically motivated organization whose charter and rhetoric are saturated with eschatological and scriptural themes.

This approach has two strengths:

• It takes ideology seriously, rather than reducing conflict to socioeconomic grievance.

• It avoids the sentimental liberal reflex of declaring every violent movement a “perversion” of religion.

However, the approach also raises analytical concerns.

2. Doctrinal Essentialism

Harris' critics argue that he treats Islam as a relatively fixed doctrinal essence. While he acknowledges diversity within Muslim societies, his explanatory emphasis consistently returns to scripture—Qur'an, Hadith, and classical jurisprudence. The implication is that the text, if read “plainly,” yields militancy.

This raises a hermeneutic problem: religions are not self-interpreting entities. They are mediated through historical, cultural, and political contexts. The same scriptural corpus has supported quietism, mysticism, empire, reformism, and secular accommodation. To single out violent readings as especially “authentic” risks privileging fundamentalist hermeneutics over others.

Moreover, Harris tends to underplay the feedback loop between geopolitical conditions and theological radicalization. Hamas' ideology is certainly Islamist, but it also emerged from:

• The Israeli�Palestinian conflict

• Failed peace processes

• Regional power struggles

• Socioeconomic instability in Gaza

Reducing its violence primarily to scriptural fidelity risks flattening this multi-causal landscape into a mono-causal narrative centered on belief.

3. Moral Clarity vs. Moral Simplification

In discussions of Hamas, Harris emphasizes moral asymmetry. He argues that liberal democracies, however flawed, do not intentionally target civilians as a matter of policy, whereas Hamas does so as an explicit strategy grounded in martyrdom theology. For him, the moral gulf is categorical.

There is force in this argument. Hamas' October 7 attack, for example, was not merely collateral damage in warfare but deliberate mass killing of civilians. Harris' insistence that intention matters aligns with just war theory and basic moral philosophy.

Yet critics contend that his rhetoric can obscure proportionality and systemic analysis. By focusing almost exclusively on jihadist intent, he risks marginalizing discussions of:

• The humanitarian consequences of prolonged occupation and blockade

• Civilian casualties from state military operations

• The radicalizing effect of asymmetric power dynamics

In other words, moral clarity may slide into moral simplification if structural conditions are treated as morally irrelevant.

4. The Question of Collective Attribution

Harris is careful to state that most Muslims are not extremists. However, he frequently argues that widespread acceptance of problematic doctrines (e.g., blasphemy laws, apostasy penalties, or support for sharia as state law in some polls) indicates a deeper problem within Islamic civilization.

This creates a tension:

• On one hand, he rejects bigotry and insists criticism targets ideas.

• On the other, his framing can be heard as civilizationally diagnostic, implicating Islam as such.

The difficulty lies in distinguishing doctrinal critique from cultural generalization. When critique moves from specific movements (Hamas) to global patterns of Muslim belief, the rhetorical boundary becomes porous.

5. Comparison with Other Religions

Harris' broader thesis holds that religion per se is epistemically dangerous when faith overrides evidence. However, in practice, Islam receives disproportionate scrutiny in his corpus. He argues this is because Islam uniquely retains strong textual endorsement of violence combined with large contemporary populations who take scripture seriously.

The counterargument is twofold:

• Other religious traditions (including Christianity and Judaism) have scriptural violence that has been reinterpreted over time.

• Secular ideologies (e.g., nationalism, Marxism) have also produced mass violence without scriptural warrants.

If violence is a recurrent human phenomenon that attaches itself to metaphysical or political systems alike, the exclusive spotlight on Islamic theology may overstate its explanatory sufficiency.

6. The Free Speech Dimension

Harris positions himself as a defender of open critique against what he sees as liberal reluctance to confront Islamism. He views accusations of “Islamophobia” as frequently weaponized to suppress legitimate doctrinal analysis.

There is merit here: robust public discourse requires the freedom to criticize religious ideas. Yet critics argue that rhetorical framing matters. When critique is persistently adversarial and civilizational in tone, it may inadvertently contribute to social polarization—especially in pluralistic societies where Muslim minorities already face suspicion.

7. Hamas as a Test Case

Hamas provides a concrete test of Harris' thesis. It is undeniably Islamist, explicitly invokes religious justification, and valorizes martyrdom. Harris would argue that this is exactly what one should expect when certain theological premises are taken seriously.

However, even in this case, ideology does not function in a vacuum. Hamas also operates as:

• A political actor in Palestinian governance

• A social service provider

• A proxy in regional power politics (notably Iran)

Thus, while theology is central to its self-understanding, its behavior is entangled with pragmatic political incentives. A comprehensive analysis must integrate both dimensions.

Conclusion: Strengths and Limitations

Sam Harris offers a bracing corrective to analyses that ignore the ideological content of Islamist movements. His insistence that beliefs matter, that texts have consequences, and that moral distinctions are real is philosophically defensible.

However, his framework exhibits three limitations:

• Doctrinal essentialism—privileging literalist readings as normative.

• Mono-causal emphasis—over-weighting theology relative to political context.

• Rhetorical generalization—risking civilizational overreach.

A balanced assessment would acknowledge that Hamas cannot be understood without its Islamist theology—yet also cannot be reduced to it. Ideology and geopolitics co-produce radicalization.

In short, Harris is right that ideas matter. He is less persuasive when he implies that ideas alone suffice to explain complex historical conflicts.