Islam is in danger (Wash Times Op-Ed)

Wash Times ^ | Sept 21, 2006 | Farid N. Ghadry

[jdm]

The recent brouhaha surrounding Pope Benedict XVI comments on Islam delivered in Germany should give Muslims a pause. Not one that would conjure the recalcitrant attacks that we have seen recently but rather one that would question why such a prominent religious leader would utter these words.

What the Pope said allows me, as a Muslim, to ponder self-examination and not rush into a reaction of condemnation.

Islam, throughout its history, delivered its share of great minds to humanity during times of peace and prosperity. Scientists like Mohammad al-Khawarizmi who invented Algebra and Avicenna who contributed greatly to medicine lived in an era of "political prestige, financial power, and intellectual pursuit with Baghdad as the epicenter" as Saadia Iqbal described it in a National Geographic article. We Muslims, in another era, built our own great and peaceful civilization that ushered the prosperity wished upon any people of any race in any religion.

But Islam of today differs from the Islam of yesterday. Instead of a thriving era of the Abbasids, we are experiencing a terrorist era of Wahhabism.

Wahabbism is an obscure strand of Islam with fanatical followers who remained "out of sight and out of mind" until Saudi Arabia struck it rich with oil. Hungry economies saw it fit to submit to the Wahabbis and their protectors, the al-Saud clan, rather than confront their danger. But this came with a price.

It was oil that financed 15 Saudis to attack the United States on September 11 and it is Wahhabism today that is militarizing Islam. Unlike the prosperous Abbasid era, the Wahhabi era is confrontational, fanatic, and universal because of undue influence by Saudi Arabia...

[Myrddin]

Mohammad was born 635 AD. He was illiterate. He never wrote anything. The koran was, contrary to the lies of Muslim clerics, not written down for hundreds of years later, after Ishaq completed the one and only record of Mohammads life and sayings. You might say it was Ishaq who wrote the Koran. Before that, it was passed along from memory, and we know just how well that works.

I just started reading through Robert Spencer's Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades. He states Muhammad lived from 570 to 632 AD. Lots more to read.

[Lurker]

We Muslims, in another era, built our own great and peaceful civilization

Liar.

L