A Reasoned and Articulate View of Islam

Q-News ^ | Hamza Yusuf

[meia]

This article first appeared in Q-News, the Muslim magazine,
www.q-news.com.

On September 11th our lives changed forever. We witnessed an act of aggression that in many ways does not have a parallel in past or present times. There are several elements that make this act unique, from the use of civilian planes as weapons of mass destruction to the attack on the most widely recognised skyscrapers in the world. Nor have we ever witnessed the terrible indictment of Islam as having a part to play in such a heinous crime, writes Hamza Yusuf.

Muslims were seen rejoicing in some parts of the world in a display of what can only be called shamaatatul 'aadai', which is rejoicing at the calamities of ones’ enemies. This is something explicitly prohibited in Islam and was never practiced by the Prophet of Mercy, upon him be prayers and peace. We have seen images since of American flags burning to further arouse the wrath of a nation filled with grief, confusion and anger. Again, Islam prohibits the burning of flags according to the explicit verse, “Do not curse [the idols] of those who call on other than Allah, thus causing them to curse Allah out of animosity [toward you] and without knowledge.” This verse prohibits even the cursing of false gods because of the consequences.  We have also seen image after image of Muslims with beards and turbans, who by all outward means look religious and pious - but are they really?

Unfortunately, the West does not know what every Muslim scholar knows; that the worst enemies of Islam are from within. The worst of these are the khawaarij who delude others by the deeply dyed religious exterior that they project. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said about them, “When you see them pray you will consider your own prayers insignificant. They recite the Quran but it does not exceed the limits of their throat.”  In other words, they don’t understand the true meanings. The outward religious appearance and character of the khawaarij deluded thousands in the past, and continues to delude people today. The Muslims should be aware that despite the khawaarij adherence to certain aspects of Islam, they are extremists of the worst type. 

Our Prophet said, peace be upon him, “Beware of extremism in your religion.”  Islam is the middle way between excess and neglect. Zealots are a plague upon religion. These extremists come in two types. The first is a reactionary extremist who falls far right of a centre-point. Reactionary extremists do not want any pluralism; they view the world in melodramatic, black and white, good and evil terms. They are good and anyone who opposes them is evil. From among the Muslims these are people who ‘excommunicate’ any Muslim who fails to share their interpretations of the Quran. They use takfir and character assassination as a tool for marginalising any criticism directed at them. They are used often by the Western media in order to scare simple people and cause them to believe that Muslims are insane. Unfortunately, our communities provide them with much fuel to fire their incendiary flames. 

The second group are radical extremists, who while they are almost identical with the former group, differ in that they will use violence to further their cause. They are actually worse than the first. They believe like every nefarious secret society before them that ‘the end justifies the means.’ They see any act as acceptable if it will further their ‘cause.’ This is blatantly anti-Islamic for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Islam’s means must reflect its noble ends. Any means that does not embody the core truths and ethics of Islam is not from Islam and thus denounced as aberration. Secondly, Islam is not a secret society of conspirators who no one knows what they are planning. Islam declares openly its aims and objectives and these are recognised by good people everywhere as pure and congruent with their own wisdom and traditions. In the case of many of these extremists even the non-Muslims recognise that no religion of any weight could sanction the taking of innocent lives. The Quran says that the Torah and the Gospel have guidance and light and that the Quran came to fulfil these prior dispensations. Good Christians and Jews who believe in God and live ethically upright lives have no frame of reference for such acts, so how could these acts be from Islam, which confirms what has come before it? 

Thirdly, they are invariably people who have never taken a true spiritual path to God and nor have they studied the humanities. I can almost guarantee that you will not find a scholar of poetry among the whole vile lot of these people. They have no true knowledge of Arabian culture, which is centred in the idea of futuwwa; a word akin to the western word chivalry. The terrorists posing as journalists who killed Ahmad Shah Masuud were cowards of the worst type. Killing themselves was not bravery but stupidity, but killing one’s enemy in such a way is the worst form of treachery and the Arabs have many poems denouncing such type of people. 

Our real situation is this: we Muslims have lost theologically sound understanding of our teaching. Islam has been hijacked by a discourse of anger and the rhetoric of rage. We have allowed for too long our mimbars to become bully pulpits in which people with often recognisable psychopathology use anger - a very powerful emotion - to rile Muslims up, only to leave them feeling bitter and spiteful towards people who in the most part are completely unaware of the conditions in the Muslim world, or the oppressive assaults of some Western countries on Muslim peoples. We have lost our bearings because we have lost our theology. We have almost no theologians in the entire Muslim world. The study of kalaam, once the hallmark of our intellectual tradition, has been reduced to memorizing 144 lines of al-Jawhara and a good commentary to study it, at best.

The reality is we are an Umma that no longer realises that Allah is the power behind all power; that it is Allah who subjugates one people to another; that He gives dominion to whom He pleases and He takes it away from whom He pleases. Our understanding of tawhid has fallen into such disarray that we can no longer introspect when afflictions befall us and then wonder in amazement at why the Americans seem incapable of introspection. Indeed, I personally attended a memorial service in San Francisco with over 30,000 people and the Reverend Amos Brown said in no uncertain terms that America must ask herself what she has done either wittingly or unwittingly to incur the wrath and hate of people around the world. Muslims on the other hand, generally prefer to attack the West as the sole reason for their problems when the truth is we are bankrupt as a religious community and our spiritual bankruptcy has led to our inability to even deliver the message of Islam to Westerners in a time when they were giving us platforms to do so. 

It is ironic that the Western media while producing many vile programs on Islam has also produced and aired material of the highest quality with a high level of accuracy only to be vilified by Muslims because it was not good enough. Where is our media?  Where are our spokespeople?  Where are our scholars? Where are our literary figures?  The truth is we don’t have any - and so instead of looking inward and asking painful questions such as why we don’t have such things and such people, we take the simple way out by attacking people whom Allah tells us will do mean things, say bad things and plot against us. And always when we are warned we are told to be patient, to work for the good, to trust in Allah, to return to Allah, to implement our deen.

Conspiracy or not, we are to blame for the terrible backlash against Muslims. The simple reason is that when a crazy Christian does something terrible, everyone in the West knows it is the actions of a mad man because they have some knowledge of the core beliefs and ethics of Christianity. When a mad Muslim does something evil or foolish they assume it is from the religion of Islam, not because they hate us but because they have never been told by a Muslim what the teachings of Islam are all about.

[cake_crumb]

"Prior to last night I may have at least partially agreed with you. But now I have firsthand evidence. My husband says they were lying like dogs the entire time."

Agreed to, by a person who's spoken to a lot of Muslims personally over the years. They're not all like that, but THESE guys represent the trend. Soon, if Muslims don't start policing their own, they'll ALL be like that.

[swarthyguy]

>>if they're out there, they'd have been posted here. count on it ...

>>>I doubt it. I have been accused of fostering hatred and genocide for posting this one


Why don't you try believing TomKat? Here's some. Then come spew your apologistic, propagandistic garbage that apologises for scumbag throatcutting head slicing jihadis.

Heres one --

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/711843/posts

And another -- The Scorpion's Shadow - Part 1

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/731297/posts

And Part 2

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/739596/posts

[meia]

funny how your tone changed when it dawned on you i might be the enemy, huh ?

You know, I must be dense. I have no idea what you mean by that. Can you clarify?

[tomkat]

you're a smart girl/guy (?) - bet you already know the answer to that ...

[AzJP]

You know God that well? What name for him/her self is used for non-English speaking?

Thank you. We'll read later.

Flying airliners as you say is killing of innocents. Those terrorists I believe drank in a girly bar in Florida. Those activites are all contrary to Muslim. Much as other bad people claim to be religious.

Ryan

[meia]

bet you already know the answer to that ...

No, No, I really don't. Were you implying that I was afraid of you? That I fear having you as an enemy? f that's the case, don't flatter yourself. If I have misunderstood what you meant, please clarify.

[KeyBored]

"I doubt it. I have been accused of fostering hatred and genocide for posting this one."

Can't speak for anyone else, but I for one haven't accused you of fostering hatred or genocide. In fact in my first post to you I thanked you for posting this article.

You may have made a mistake (in your post #1) in comparing fanatical Muslims with fanatical Christians (e.g. Phelps). The sheer numbers make your analogy faulty - there are many more fanatical Muslims (the death to infidels variety) than fanatical Christians. I do understand the point you were trying to make, but I think you had an unintended result of drawing a moral equivalence between the two groups.

Look, the facts are we were ATTACKED - in a very visible way. We were attacked by fanatical Muslims (not Christians, neo-Nazis, feminists, or any other group)- another fact. Now, there may come a time to try to UNDERSTAND these people - in an effort to prevent future September 11's perhaps.

But for now - most people are not in a mood to understand. Articles like this that come from within the Muslim community may be a start.

But they have a way to go to erase the images (we've all seen) of celebration and jubilation by some Muslims on Sept. 11 2001.

[meia]

and you're pretty quick-witted for an apparatchik !

And only on Free Republic can you disagree with the status quo and be called a communist.

[tomkat]

once again, perhaps i should clarify:

if you're sympathetic to the vermin that have attacked us, for whatever reason,
you are my enemy.

if i should happen to be close enough to witness an attempted terrorist attack on my nation,
i will do my best to eradicate the source of same, by whatever means come to hand.

now, that ought to be fairly clear, oughtn't it ?

[ValerieUSA]

Flying airliners is not killing of innocents. Crashing them into buildings is. And the Muslim murderers praised Allah as they killed and died.. just as the Muslim suicide bombers in Israel praise Allah as they murder, and as MILLIONS of Muslims around the world praise Allah when word of these murders reaches them. It's the ultimate Allah worship.

[swarthyguy]

>>Those terrorists I believe drank in a girly bar in Florida.

That old chestnut again. Is that the only thing that makes them non-muslims? Of course they kill 3000+ people and injure thousands others, leaving them physically and emotionally scarred for like and all you can say is that they went to a strip joint.

Stop badmouthing strip joints.

[GeekDejure]

This article is, as usual, 100% total crap !!!

It is simply another example of the Muslim Trojan Horse in action !!!

Believe such trash at your own peril !!!

[LibKill]

The writer sure got one thing right. Those images of palis DANCING IN THE STREETS TO CELEBRATE THE MURDER OF AMERICANS sure did no good for their co-religionists.

I will remember that for a long time, the rest of my life.

[AzJP]

Al Capone embraced Catholicism, as he killed.

Mr. Clinton embraced Christianity, as he lied to his wife.

I cannot believe that bad people prove that their claimed religous is the cause for their evil.

What does God use as his/her name for non-English?

Thank you, Ryan

[tomkat]

your baiting sure does require a lot of clarification.

---

SYLLABICATION:	ap·pa·ra·tchik
PRONUNCIATION:	äp-rächk
NOUN:	Inflected forms: pl. ap·pa·ra·tchiks or ap·pa·ra·tchi·ki (-ch-k) 1. A member of a Communist apparat. 2. An unquestioningly loyal subordinate, especially of a political leader or organization.

---

if i've jumped to an inaccurate conclusion, you have my public apology.
if not, then see above.

anyway, enough.
as much of a delight as all this has been,
the cards are in houston ...

[ValerieUSA]

Capone said, "Praise God" as he shot off his machine gun? Where did you hear that?

Bill Clinton said, "Praise God" as he lied to his wife? (what has that got to do with murder anyway?)
Where did you hear that?

Propaganda is so easy to make up, isn't it?

Thanks for proving my point about these lame attempts at religious equivalency.

[cake_crumb]

"I have been accused of fostering hatred and genocide for posting this one. Most people will avoid trying to present a viewpoint which is opposed to most of the Freeper community when you can expect a reaction such as this."

(**SNORT**) Wiping coffee off chin...HOW OLD ARE YOU?

How can you lecture US in "understanding"....WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN "UNDERSTAND" US?

ROFLOL!

[MissAmericanPie]

Sorry, but I will have to trust my lying eyes and ears. Like the author says himself, Islam is a run away religion with it's adherent's having limited knowledge of it themselves, and that limited knowledge being to kill the infidel.

"Where is our media? Where are our spokespeople? Where are our scholars? Where are our literary figures? The truth is we don’t have any"

Kind of says it all doesn't it. I don't want to understand Islam, I could care less about it. The only thing I need to know about it I know already, those that practise it, either want to kill me themselves, or will applaud those that do.

[justjlb]

Im not here to badmouth strip joints. : ).
However the sad truth is, that behavior, drinking, women, etc is acceptable due to their instruction to fit in, just as it is acceptable to lie until the enemy has been infiltrated enough that you can take over and introduce the "true" (gag) faith of islam. There is a stinking arabic word for it, but I cant remember what it is. I have worked with and known muslims, I thought they were good people. I find myself questioning that now. Thats the whole b*tch of it. Because of what happened on 9/11 I just dont know about the ones I thought were good or moderate or whatever label you want to apply. Its definitely safer to take the approach they all bear watching. or worse.

[inflorida]

Al Capone embraced Catholicism, as he killed.

Mr. Clinton embraced Christianity, as he lied to his wife.

They didn't lie and kill in the name of Christianity. That's the difference...