[a_Turk]

Abdul Cader Asmal is chairman of communications of the Islamic Council.

[stop_fascism]

Perhaps it is articles like this that make some of us hate Muslims. In paticular, the cheap shots against Christianity are annoying. For example:

The final solution was not perpertrated by Christians.

Timothy mcVeigh was not acting as a Christian. In fact, there is growing circumstantial evidence that Oklahoma was another Muslim plot.

Instead of attacking other religions the author should fix his own. One good place to start - stop the imans from preaching hate in mosqes around the world.

[swarthyguy]

The Dangers of the so called moderates:

"confers a special status upon Christians and Jews,"

Leaves out all the rest. That old divide and rule strategy.
Guess the animists of Sudan don't count.

"Sadly for Muslims such relentless stigmatization culminated in the self-fulfilling prophecy of Sept. 11."

WTF? When were muslims stigmatized before September 11, 2001. In fact, the case they put forward how being cultural conservatives was making great headway.
So, of course, all of us are to blame for the rage felt by the hijacker jihadis.

"While the terrorists of Sept. 11 were Muslim, they were deviant Muslims"

Who's a true believer and who's not is a matter for the adherents of the faith and the theologians to decide.
For the rest of us, it's crystal clear.

This is similar to the arguments used by the Left; Sovietism was not the true real communism but a perversion.

More power to TUrkey, but this guy's arguments will raise more hackles than anything else. And bringing up the inquisition is a tired tactic.

[lodwick]

bttt

Happy Birthday Mr.President!

Don't miss this one.

[esopman]

Thank you for posting this. "...paralyzed into inaction by competing emotions..."

Mr. Asmal is profoundly deceived. Not just the maniacal 'religion' he espouses is corrupt, his logic is corrupt.

When confronted with an evil of the magnitude of 9/11, what emotion competing with the raw outrage at the evil could neutralize the appropriate response? Whatever emotion could cause one to: (1) Fail to condemn the act; (2) Be anything less than vigorous and immediate in rooting out the evil; (3) Fail to sympathize with the victims; (4) Fail to condemn ALL who in any way approve...MUST by logical definition be an evil emotion as it does not work against the evil.

Further, he lies. Daniel Pipes, Ph.D., is an extraordinarily sane voice on matters Islamic and has conclusive data showing broad Islamic support for attacks on the 'Great Satan,' the violent manner of the propagation of Islam since the Seventh Century, the militant philosophy revealed in the Hadith, et friggin' cetera forever.

It is going to take another 9/11 before the Fumbling Bureaucrats of Inaction and the media-numbed masses are even close to recognizing the problem and responding appropriately.

Blessings on Freepers Everywhere

[BunnySlippers]

•

[ClearBlueSky]

Crusades 2!! It's a good thing!

[GoMonster]

What muslims must do. Hmmm! How about they all put on a strap bomb and go to desert and Boom!

[FITZ]

a step to develop an international Islamic jurisdictional council.

It might be a good move to make ----because as it it is bin Laden or any terrorist can claim to speak for the Muslims and there's nothing stopping them.

[Let's Roll]

"...tenuous ties ..."? Richard Reid and Jose Padilla? They're MUSLIMS!! How tenuous is that?

[marron]

I made it a point to read the Koran while I was living in Saudi Arabia. There was little there to give me heartburn; much of it was readily recognizable to anyone who is steeped in Judeo-Christian theology; what little I would quibble about, I took in the context of the times and circumstances it was written.

Wahabism, of course, is a different animal.

The events of 9/11 have certainly changed our view of the world. Prior to that date, we were quietly supporting much of what bin Ladin was doing; specifically, we supported the Chechens against the Russians, the Uighars against the Chinese, we were certainly sympathetic to Kurdish calls for independence. We were working with the Taliban to stabilize Afghanistan under their rule.

What a difference a day makes. The Chechens are on their own. The Uighars almost certainly still have our sympathy, but too bad. The Kurds, likewise, have our sympathy, but not if it costs us Turkish support.

9/10 we probably didn't care who won in Kashmir; that is certainly changed.

Old alliances have been revealed to be irrelevant as our paper-allies ran for cover, offered us a couple of patrol boats to cruise the coast of Afghanistan (?), or actively and loudly blamed us for our own misfortune.

In their place a new alliance has emerged: Brits (as always, thank God). Turks. Russians. Indians. When the lead is flying, you look around to see who is standing next to you; thats who your friends are. Sometimes its not the ones you expected.

[beckett]

Like a lot of other Muslim writers I have read since 9-11, Abdul Cader Asmal enjoys attacking the critics of Islam much more than he enjoys attacking Muslim extremists.

He says nothing worthwhile in this column, other than a vague call for an "international Islamic jurisdictional council," which at best, would not become effective for years, possibly decades.

When prominent Muslims like Asmal condemn in no uncertain terms the large numbers of fanatics found throughout the Islamic world, I'll begin to have respect for them. Not before.

[marron]

Somehow this thread has missed the point of the article that spawned it. The author has pointed at the terrorism committed against us, and has made the statement that "that is not who we [muslims] are". It appears to me that his remarks are directed as much to other Muslims as to other Americans.

He is saying something that needs to be said. A virulent form of racism has taken root within Islam, and Muslims need to speak out against it. We have been waiting for someone to do so; in this article, he does.

He doesn't mince words. He calls the terrorists "deviants" and compares them to NAZI's. Which is very much on the mark, as old NAZI propaganda is being recirculated by the Islamo-fascists.

And he does make another valid point. It was not so many years ago that Fascism, and NAZIsm, swept through "christian" Europe, even finding a receptive ear among the British upper class, at least until the war began. Of course, European fascism never claimed to be Christian, and was self-consciously atheistic. Nevertheless, Fascism, and its cousin, Communism, was wildly attractive for a time among secular, non-believing, "ethnic" christians. Europe had to be systematically purged of this evil, and it took some fifty years to do it.

The Islamic world is up to bat, now. It, like Europe of a couple of generations ago, has fallen ill with the Fascist virus, and will have to be confronted, and rid of this evil.

And, as I have said, our allies in this fight are not our allies on paper; our paper allies have proven to be almost useless. Our allies are Israel; Russia; India; Turkey; the Saxon nations; and those Muslims of good will who are willing to stand with us. And those that do all do so at risk to their lives.

[crystalk]

This disgusting article equates Islam with Christianity, and claims falsely that the Nazi atrocities were carried out by "Christians doing the Lord's work."

The Christian ADL ought to sue this leftist rag immediately.

[Mortimer Snavely]

Having negated the premise that the psychopathic individuals who orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks had any legitimacy for their actions in Islam, why then did the ''Muslim leadership'' not condemn the rhetoric before it translated into carnage?

The intuitive response is that as Islam is neither monolithic nor hierarchical - no single person, country, or organization is empowered to speak on its behalf - neither the secular democracy of Turkey or monarchy of Jordan, nor the theocratic republic of Iran or kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Pakistani poet-philosopher Muhammed Iqbal, like Jinnah and the Muslim League, was a student of Kemalism and used Turkey as an example of national development. He postulated a generic Muslim he called Ali, the Muslim "John Doe" who would populate modern Muslim republics and personify their national characters:

Based upon the culture and history with which he is associated, he develops the concept of a person based on the standard of an "Ali", to the extent that the material for developing such a human being in our century allows.

What does the "standard of Ali" mean? It means a human being with an Eastern heart and a Western mind. It means a person who thinks deeply and profoundly.

This ideal is the immediate task confronting Muslim societies which wish to free themselves from tribal law, grinding poverty, and eleventy-starred maniacal nutcase Field-Marshall Fearless Leader types who like to wipe out their populations and promote homicidal-suicidal behavior as a national ideal.

So far, the only country that's been able to pull it off has been Turkey, with Pakistan running a distant second, trying like the blazes to achieve parity with the Turks in developing a national identity which transcends religion and ethnic origin. For an essay on Iqbal, please click here:

Muhammed Iqbal

Howzabout some equivalent essay links about Mustafa Kemal, Kemalism, and the formation of the Turkish national character, there, Abi? Teshekkur edirim.