The Trouble With Islam (MUST READ! FROM A FORMER RADICAL ISLAMIST)

opinion journal ^ | 04/03/2007 | TAWFIK HAMID

[milwguy]

Not many years ago the brilliant Orientalist, Bernard Lewis, published a short history of the Islamic world's decline, entitled "What Went Wrong?" Astonishingly, there was, among many Western "progressives," a vocal dislike for the title. It is a false premise, these critics protested. They ignored Mr. Lewis's implicit statement that things have been, or could be, right.

But indeed, there is much that is clearly wrong with the Islamic world. Women are stoned to death and undergo clitorectomies. Gays hang from the gallows under the approving eyes of the proponents of Shariah, the legal code of Islam. Sunni and Shia massacre each other daily in Iraq. Palestinian mothers teach 3-year-old boys and girls the ideal of martyrdom. One would expect the orthodox Islamic establishment to evade or dismiss these complaints, but less happily, the non-Muslim priests of enlightenment in the West have come, actively and passively, to the Islamists' defense.

These "progressives" frequently cite the need to examine "root causes." In this they are correct: Terrorism is only the manifestation of a disease and not the disease itself. But the root-causes are quite different from what they think. As a former member of Jemaah Islamiya, a group led by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, I know firsthand that the inhumane teaching in Islamist ideology can transform a young, benevolent mind into that of a terrorist. Without confronting the ideological roots of radical Islam it will be impossible to combat it. While there are many ideological "rootlets" of Islamism, the main tap root has a name--Salafism, or Salafi Islam, a violent, ultra-conservative version of the religion.

[siunevada]

The grave predicament we face in the Islamic world is the virtual lack of approved, theologically rigorous interpretations of Islam that clearly challenge the abusive aspects of Shariah. Unlike Salafism, more liberal branches of Islam, such as Sufism, typically do not provide the essential theological base to nullify the cruel proclamations of their Salafist counterparts. And so, for more than 20 years I have been developing and working to establish a theologically-rigorous Islam that teaches peace.

1400 years and no solid theological base to counter Salafism. That's a problem. Working on it for 20 years. That's a problem. There may, in fact, be no basis within Islam for what he seeks.

[sam_paine]

Plain as the nose on your face.

And yet.

Crickets.

[sam_paine]

It makes sense, though.

We now know what the environment was like in the 30’s during the rise of Nationalist Socialism.

“Leave them be. They’re not hurting anyone...besides the jews and the poles. Don’t bother them, they won’t bother us.”

[betsyross1776]

Woo! this persons head is being sized up for the ax.It must be terrible for the radicals to read something called Islamic truth.But then again they do say they don’t care about this life. They care about the 70 virgins in Where ever they are going. wait until they find out one looks like Helen Thomas, one looks like Janet Reno and many other flaming liberal Bush haters.