Posted on 10/16/2001 1:36:59 PM PDT by MoJo2001
In the name of Allah, the most Benevolent and the Most Merciful. May this memo find you in the shade of Islam enjoying the mercy, the protection and the grace of Allah.
I am writing this memo to you all with the explicit purpose of inviting you to lead the American Muslim community in soul searching, reflection and reassessment.
What happened on September 11th in New York and Washington DC will forever remain a horrible scar on the history of Islam and humanity. No matter how much we condemn it, and point to the Quran and the Sunnah to argue that Islam forbids the killing of innocent people, the fact remains that the perpetrators of this crime against humanity have indicated that their actions are sanctioned by Islamic values.
The fact that even now several Muslim scholars and thousands of Muslims defend the accused is indicative that not all Muslims believe that the attacks are unIslamic. This is truly sad.
Even if it were true that Israel and the US are enemies of the Muslim World, wonder what is preventing them from unleashing their nuclear arsenal against Muslims, a response that mercilessly murders thousands of innocent people, including hundreds of Muslims is absolutely indefensible. If anywhere in your hearts there is any sympathy or understanding with those who committed this act, I invite you to ask yourself this question, would Muhammad (pbuh) sanction such an act?
While encouraging Muslims to struggle against injustice (Al Quran 4:135), Allah also imposes strict rules of engagement. He says in unequivocal terms that to kill an innocent being is like killing entire humanity (Al Quran 5:32). He also encourages Muslims to forgive Jews and Christians if they have committed injustices against us (Al Quran 2:109, 3:159, 5:85).
Muslims, including American Muslims have been practicing hypocrisy on a grand scale. They protest against the discriminatory practices of Israel but are silent against the discriminatory practices in Muslim states. In the Gulf one can see how laws and even salaries are based on ethnic origin. This is racism, but we never hear of Muslims protesting against them at International fora.
The Israeli occupation of Palestine is perhaps central to Muslim grievance against the West. While acknowledging that, I must remind you that Israel treats its one million Arab citizens with greater respect and dignity than most Arab nations treat their citizens. Today Palestinian refugees can settle and become citizens of the United States but in spite of all the tall rhetoric of the Arab world and Quranic injunctions (24:22) no Muslim country except Jordan extends this support to them.
While we loudly and consistently condemn Israel for its ill treatment of Palestinians we are silent when Muslim regimes abuse the rights of Muslims and slaughter thousands of them. Remember Saddam and his use of chemical weapons against Muslims (Kurds)?. Remember Pakistani army’s excesses against Muslims (Bengalis)?. Remember the Mujahideen of Afghanistan and their mutual slaughter? Have we ever condemned them for their excesses? Have we demanded international intervention or retribution against them? Do you know how the Saudis treat their minority Shiis? Have we protested the violation of their rights? But we all are eager to condemn Israel; not because we care for rights and lives of the Palestinians, we don’t. We condemn Israel because we hate “them".
Muslims love to live in the US but also love to hate it. Many openly claim that the US is a terrorist state but they continue to live in it. Their decision to live here is testimony that they would rather live here than anywhere else. As an Indian Muslim, I know for sure that nowhere on earth, including India, will I get the same sense of dignity and respect that I have received in the US. No Muslim country will treat me as well as the US has. If what happened on september 11th had happened in India, the biggest democracy, thousands of Muslims would have been slaughterred in riots on mere suspicion and there would be another slaughter after confirmation. But in the US, bigotry and xenophobia has been kept in check by media and leaders. In many places hundreds of Americans have gathered around Islamic centers in symbolic gestures of protection and embrace of American Muslims. In many cities Christian congregations have started wearing hijab to identify with fellow Muslim women. In patience and in tolerance ordinary Americans have demonstrated their extraordinary virtues.
It is time that we acknowledge that the freedoms we enjoy in the US are more desirable to us than superficial solidarity with the Muslim World. If you disagree than prove it by packing your bags and going to whichever Muslim country you identify with. If you do not leave and do not acknowledge that you would rather live here than anywhere else, know that you are being hypocritical.
It is time that we faced these hypocritical practices and struggled to transcend them. It is time that American Muslim leaders fought to purify their own lot.
For over a decade we have watched as Muslims in the name of Islam have committed violence against other Muslims and other peoples. We have always found a way to reconcile the vast distance between Islamic values and Muslim practices by pointing out to the injustices committed upon Muslims by others. The point however is this – our belief in Islam and commitment to Islamic values is not contingent on the moral conduct of the US or Israel. And as Muslims can we condone such inhuman and senseless waste of life in the name of Islam?
The biggest victims of hate filled politics as embodied in the actions of several Muslim militias all over the world are Muslims themselves. Hate is the extreme form of intolerance and when individuals and groups succumb to it they can do nothing constructive. Militias like the Taliban have allowed their hate for the West to override their obligation to pursue the welfare of their people and as a result of their actions not only have thousands of innocent people died in America, but thousands of people will die in the Muslim World.
Already, half a million Afghans have had to leave their homes and their country. The war has not yet begun. It will only get worst. Hamas and Islamic Jihad may kill a few Jews, women and children included, with their suicide bombs and temporarily satisfy their lust for Jewish blood, but thousands of Palestinians then pay the price for their actions.
The culture of hate and killing is tearing away at the moral fabric of the Muslim society. We are more focused on “the other” and have completely forgotten our duty to Allah. In pursuit of the inferior jihad we have sacrificed the superior jihad.
Islamic resurgence, the cherished ideals of which pursued the ultimate goal of a universally just and moral society has been hijacked by hate and call for murder and mayhem. If Binladen were an individual then we would have no problem. But unfortunately Binladen has become a phenomenon -- a cancer eating away at the morality of our youth, and undermining the spiritual health of our future.
Today the century old Islamic revival is in jeopardy because we have allowed insanity to prevail over our better judgment. Yes, the US has played a hand in the creation of Binladen and the Taliban, but it is we who have allowed them to grow and gain such a foothold. It is our duty to police our world. It is our responsibility to prevent people from abusing Islam. It is our job to ensure that Islam is not misrepresented. We should have made sure that what happened on Sept. 11th should never have happened.
It is time the leaders of the American Muslim community woke up and realized that there is more to life than competing with the American Jewish lobby for power over US foreign policy. Islam is not about defeating Jews or conquering Jerusalem. It is about mercy, about virtue, about sacrifice and about duty. Above all it is the pursuit of moral perfection. Nothing can be further away from moral perfection than the wanton slaughter of thousands of unsuspecting innocent people.
I hope that we will now rededicate our lives and our institutions to the search for harmony, peace and tolerance. Let us be prepared to suffer injustice rather than commit injustices. After all it is we who carry the divine burden of Islam and not others. We have to be morally better, more forgiving, more sacrificing than others, if we wish to convince the world about the truth of our message. We cannot even be equal to others in virtue, we must excel.
It is time for soul searching. How can the message of Muhammad (pbuh) who was sent as mercy to mankind become a source of horror and fear? How can Islam inspire thousands of youth to dedicate their lives to killing others? We are supposed to invite people to Islam not murder them.
The worst exhibition of Islam happened on our turf. We must take first responsibility to undo the evil it has manifest. This is our mandate, our burden and also our opportunity.
[al-Baqarah 2:177.41] It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces to the East and the West; but righteous is he who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and the angels and the Scripture and the prophets; and giveth wealth, for love of Him, to kinsfolk and to orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and to those who ask, and to set slaves free; and observeth proper worship and payeth the poor-due. And those who keep their treaty when they make one, and the patient in tribulation and adversity and time of stress. Such are they who are sincere. Such are the God-fearing.
The point is that for every selection of hateful quotes from the Quran, somebody else can make a selection of highly ethical and spiritual ones. Any book that could nurture a religion for 1300 years is bound to be complicated. The question is where the people who follow it locate its center of gravity. This man obviously sees the center of gravity of the Quran somewhere else than bin Laden does.
That's related to Barak's question about whether this man is an "Islamic Spong." Because I am a Christian, I believe that God will see to it that the Christian message as He intends it will always be around. But apart from divine intervention, a religion is basically what its followers say it is. If worldwide Islam could be persuaded to take passages like the one I cited as the central ones, then that is what Islam would be. Sufi Muslims read the Quran very differently from Wahhabis, but it has nothing to do with being "liberal." They just locate the center in a different place.
Who among you was around FR last summer, when the servers bogged down under the strain of a surge in membership, and we were forced to "do without" for an entire week?
The improvements that John Robinson has made to the software and functionality, including the search engine--not to mention the "bump lists," have really opened the site up as a research tool.
You are not wrong.
Ping.
Shalom
I admit to not being an historian. I know a smattering of world history, but there are many who know much more than I. If you are one of them, then please provide a little support for the above comment.
I am aware of the Crusades. I condemn them outright as being much of what you have clamed. But I do not believe they went on for the better part of 1600 years. I am aware of the Inquisition, but that also was not for the better part of 1600 years.
I know the Church lent its support to black slavery. That wasn't about converting people, but even if I grant you that issue I don't think it was for the better part of 1600 years.
I fear that this is much like the "More people have died in the name of G-d than for any other reason," myth. It is true that the Church is not above reproach. But I submit that, for most of her history, she has attempted to win converts by discussion and persuasion as Jesus did. If you have some actual details I am more than willing to be corrected.
Shalom.
It happened to me a lot before I found the "Archives" menu item. Should have been obvious, but it wasn't.
Shalom.
I'm not claiming that Islam has no problems - only that it's complicated. I don't really think that the mass execution of app. a billion Muslims is an option, so we'd better hope that it has the resources to develop peacefully.
Learn about the Sufi. The western press believes that too much religion is always dangerous so they present the Sufi Muslims in places like Uzbekistan as "less fervent." But that's baloney - they just interpret Islam in a very different way. Here is an interesting article: Sufism in Russia Today - shows how Sufi forms of Islam have been a barrier to Wahhabi radicalism.
One of the most outspoken anti-Islamist Muslim leaders in the US is Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council, head of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order in the United States. He made enemies by publically exposing the Wahhabist penetration of American Islam several years ago.
My bottom line is this: Muslims aren't going to disappear. And if you tell people they are vicious no-goods long enough, it'll become a badge of identity and they'll embrace it. So I want to put the best construction I can on Islam, because I think that the more humanely Muslims can interpret their religion, the better for me and my country and everybody.
Should'a stuck with the bolded paragraph.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry over that statement. The author is either unaware of the Qu'ran Surah 5 verse 51, or he is lying. Regardless the statement is untrue. This guy must be blind to the wanton slaughtering of Christians worldwide [Iraq and East Timor just to name 2] by his moslem brothers who are seeking perfection and mercy.--Give me a break.
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