Posted on 11/30/2008 4:34:05 AM PST by radar101
Watching the terror nightmare unfold in Mumbai over the past three days with me on television, my kids have repeatedly asked me: “Who are these terrorists and why are they doing this?” And every time I wished I could offer them a convincing answer.
What could I tell them? For one, I was equally clueless why these guys had taken over India’s financial and cultural capital and were targeting people who had nothing to do with them and had done nothing to harm them.
For two, I was too ashamed to tell them these guys were ostensibly Muslims and came from a country that was created in the name of Islam.
At work, while my colleagues went about covering the madness in Mumbai and laying out special pages with the images of the incredibly beautiful hotel, Taj, with its Islamic arches and domes, go up in smoke, I find it hard to look my colleagues in the eye.
And this happens all the time. Every time innocents are targeted in the name of Islam around the world, one can’t face one’s non-Muslim friends and colleagues. I feel like burying myself in the ground. Growing up in a religious family, one never thought one would see the day when being a Muslim could be a source of shame.
A distraught friend who has devoted her life to speaking and fighting on behalf of Arabs and Muslims wrote in yesterday saying “I’ve had it with the Arabs and Muslims and Islamic militancy. Forgive me but I am throwing in the towel.”
I couldn’t write back to her but understood her pain. She grew up in Mumbai and is understandably upset.
My friend went on to say: “The Muslims and Islam have a problem and only they can solve it. If they do not, the whole world will turn against them.”
If this is how our most loyal friends feel, imagine the sentiments and reactions of the rest of the world. Can you blame the world if it’s turning against Muslims? What do you expect when not a single day passes without the name of our faith being dragged through the mud by fellow believers around the world?
How many innocents have to die in the name of Islam before Muslim leaders and countries take effective action to deal with the nuts, who are out to destroy us all with their nihilistic cult?
I know that the Muslim leaders including those in the highest echelons of power have lately started speaking out against the extremists.
Darul Uloom Deoband in India, one of the oldest and most respected centres of learning in the Muslim world, issued a fatwa against terrorism at a large gathering of Islamic scholars and leaders in June. Last month, nearly 5,000 scholars backed the edict at a huge congregation in Hyderabad.
The OIC, the organisation of Muslim states, and Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Arab-Islamic world, have of late been equally vehement in condemning these repulsive acts of violence targeting innocents.
Eminent Muslim intellectuals and journalists like Tariq Ramadan, a grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan Al Banna, and India’s MJ Akbar and numerous others too have repeatedly protested this distortion of Islamic teachings and spirit.
These calls of conscience on behalf of mainstream Islam have however proved voices in the wilderness. Clearly, we need to do more to be heard by the world and to stop this shameful victimisation of innocent people in the name of religion.
The great irony of the Mumbai attacks is the killing of Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare and his colleagues. Karkare, a brave and decorated officer investigating the Malegaon blasts and other recent terror attacks that he established to be the handiwork of Hindu extremists, not Muslim groups like SIMI, was killed by the terrorists outside Cama hospital Wednesday night. Obviously, Muslims do not know who their real friends and enemies are. And, pray, why is India increasingly being singled out for this savagery? What do they think this country is? A Hindu country or an anti-Muslim nation?
Do the ignorant dummies repeatedly being sent out on the so-called jihad know that this great country is home to the world’s largest Muslim population? Almost twice the size of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan! India’s greatest superstar is a Muslim, not to mention the countless achievers in other fields.
Why are our friends across the border bent on destroying the whole world with themselves? Is this what Islam and the noble Prophet teach and stand for?
It’s all very well for us to say Islam has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism. We can go on deluding ourselves these psychopaths do not represent us.
However, the world finds it hard to accept this line of argument because it sees the extremists increasingly assert themselves and take the centre-stage while the mainstream Islam remains silent.
The great religion that preaches and celebrates universal brotherhood, equality of men and peace and justice for all has been hijacked by a demented, miniscule minority. And, as my friend says, only Muslims can solve this problem. Only Muslims can confront these anarchists in their midst.
Only they can get their faith freed from the clutches of extremism. This is no time to hide. It’s time to stand up and speak out. For the terrorists will continue to speak on our behalf, until we do not speak up. This is no time for silence. Enough is enough!
For comments and suggestions, please write to:
aijaz@khaleejtimes.com
No no! It’s the Fundie Christians we must worry about. They are the real threat. (/sarc)
The writer said — “If this is how our most loyal friends feel, imagine the sentiments and reactions of the rest of the world. Can you blame the world if it’s turning against Muslims? What do you expect when not a single day passes without the name of our faith being dragged through the mud by fellow believers around the world?
How many innocents have to die in the name of Islam before Muslim leaders and countries take effective action to deal with the nuts, who are out to destroy us all with their nihilistic cult?”
—
Well, what this Muslim writer does not want to face, probably being somewhat “westernized” himself, is that his Islamic religion is a religion of death from its core and its foundation and from its revered (so-called) “prophet”. It’s not a “nihilistic cult” but mainstream Islamic faith.
There are no moderate Muslims. There are only good Muslims (who are terrorists, because they adhere faithfully to the foundational core teachings of Islam) and bad Muslims (who either ignore Islam and are there “in name only”, and will be killed, themselves, by the “good Muslims”).
So, in the end, there will only be left, the “good Muslims” — all terrorists...
At that point, we need to kill all the terrorists to rid the world of this evil and false religion.
Christians used to kill in the name of faith until the Christians got fed up and said “Stop killing in my Lord’s name”.
I will be glad when the Muslim PEOPLE (as I don’t think ALL muslims are murderers) finally say enough is enough and stop killing in my name.
THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN. I am encouraged by this article.
If terrorists follow the commands of the prophet Mohamed and Mohammed's commands are the basis for the religion, then might Islam itself be the source of terrorism?
"Islam better walk the walk"
Not sure I understand. In the Koran the prophet Mohammed states:
It seems, then, that the terrorists are walking the walk and those who wish to cleanse Islam of terrorism are the heretics.
We are very naive in America because we believe all religions teach nearly the same thing.
Allah = Lucifer
When you follow the Prince of Darkness, one should not be suprised that it results in a cult of death, where lying and decent is OK, where death to enemies and followers alike is the rule of the day.
The only solution to Islam is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. In the meantime, we need to fight and resist these poeple. I’m not impressed with some “moderate” muslim whining about his situation and “thinking” that maybe some of them “might” need to start “saying” they denounce only the ones who execute an attack.
This war began in the 600’s - nothing we see today is new or different that Islam as **ever** been. Our problem is that the Western countries, just like 40% of the US, is so scared of their own shadow that they refuse to defend themselves and thereby put all of us at risk.
“Muslim leaders and countries take effective action ...”
Apparently this concerned individual has not been reading what the Muslim leaders (mullahs) have been saying. Mumbai was the action.
Islam is a blood-lust cult for Muslim Butchers. Did I leave anything out?
Quote from the article: “Growing up in a religious family, one never thought one would see the day when being a Muslim could be a source of shame.”
He must not have learned the true history of Muhammad.
Gee, what took you so long. I felt this way back in the early 1990s when Bill Klinton did nothing about the first WTC bombing and before.
Because your religion (as you call it) is a frickin’ DEATH CULT you ignorant bastard!
LLS
According to a UN survey released about a week ago, the average muslim only reads 4 PAGES a year.... not a misprint 4 PAGES. By the way americans read an average of 11 Books a year)
With those stats this write can scribble all day long and it won’t mean a thing. They are Islambies ( I coined it) Zombies for islam that just want to kill, gladly sacrificing their own children to kill innocent people.
At a certain point it is sad to say that a culture will become so defiled that we will have no choice for our actions. Certainly a stat of that kind of a lack of education, in the 21at century is an indicator that we are well on our way.
LLS
Whatever they’re selling, Muslims, I ain’t buyin.
There is only one problem with this approach: it assumes that violent jihad is not a central part of Islam. "Moderate Muslim" is another way of saying "Muslim in name only".
Read the Qur'an and Hadith:
Hadith Volume 4, Book 53, Number 352:Narrated Abu Huraira:Note the bolded part above in hadith 352. The one and only guaranteed way into Muslim paradise is to be killed while fighting in Jihad.Allah's Apostle said, "Allah guarantees him who strives in His Cause and whose motivation for going out is nothing but Jihad in His Cause and belief in His Word, that He will admit him into Paradise (if martyred) or bring him back to his dwelling place, whence he has come out, with what he gains of reward and booty."Also in the Qur'an 9:111:
Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.Note what is said in the Qur'an section above: the bodies and possessions of Muslims are the property of Allah, to be used in Jihad as the price for entry into heaven.Jihad is the major sacrament of the Islamic religion. Take that away, and it all falls apart.
LLS
LLS
Amen!
LLS
No, the killing stopped only when political legitimacy was no longer dependent on religion. When leaders' legitimacy became solely dependent upon winning a popular vote, with the approval of religious leaders no longer being relevant, the religious wars stopped.
One problem with that in the Muslim world: it is CENTRAL to Islam that the political leadership be Muslim.
Moderate islam is radical islams trojan horse.
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