In
the Name of Islam
By Daniel C. Peterson and William J. Hamblin
Quite understandably, the appalling photographs of prisoner
abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison have embarrassed and angered many
in America and beyond. However, the cold-blooded, videotaped
murder of Nick Berg by Islamic extremists has refocused attention
on the nature of the enemy now literally threatening the West.
An aberrant form of Islam has created a nihilistic cult of coercion
and death in the name of one of the world’s greatest religious
traditions.
Obsession with martyrdom via suicide, the intentional individual
and mass murder of civilian noncombatants—these are neither traditional
expressions of Muslim piety nor venerable instruments of Islamic
statecraft. This is not the Islam of the poet Rumi, the theologian
al-Ghazali, the philosopher Avicenna, or the scientist and historian
al-Biruni. This is not the civilization that gave us algebra
and Omar Khayyam and the Taj Mahal. Instead, such practices as
wiring Palestinian children with explosive devices, and sending
innocent Iranian pre-teens (draped pathetically with symbolic
“keys to Paradise” around their necks) to clear minefields with
their bodies, are horrors that great heroes of Islamic history
like Saladin and the Prophet Muhammad himself would have repudiated
as cowardly and immoral. (Muhammad is known, among other things,
for his love of children.) Societies willing, even eager, to
sacrifice their children seem, to put it mildly, profoundly dysfunctional
and self-destructive.
It is essential that murderous thugs like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
and terrorist CEOs like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri
be brought to justice. Terrorism cannot be stopped by mere platitudes
and negotiations, or by ineffectual ruminations about its “root
causes.” Islamist terrorism is implacable in its demands. It
is perceived Western immorality—by which is meant not only materialistic
greed, Hollywood excesses, pornography and promiscuity, and high divorce rates,
but such things as freedom for women and religious liberty—that
infuriates Islamist zealots. It is not so much what we do as
what we are. While much truly merits condemnation in the contemporary
West, we can never negotiate enough away to appease those who
hate the very foundation of our free and diverse Judaeo-Christian
culture.
In the long term, however, the battle against radical Islamism
must be won within Islam itself, by Muslims themselves. In a
very real sense, the primary victim of Islamist extremism is Islam
and Muslims. Outsiders can hope and encourage, and occasionally
help, but non-Muslims cannot do what only Muslims can do.
That is one of the reasons that perceived Muslim silence about
the atrocities of 11 September and numerous other such acts has
been so profoundly depressing for outsiders who wish Islam and
Muslims well. Many have wondered whether their Muslim neighbors
(locally and worldwide) actually tacitly endorse the actions of
al-Qa’ida and related groups. Where is the outrage? Where, frankly,
are the apologies? In the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center, Muslim spokesmen
often seemed more concerned about possible slights to girls wearing
Islamic head scarves than about the fact that nineteen men claiming
to act in the name of God and their common faith had just murdered
3000 innocent civilians in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington
DC.
Change
in the Air
Perhaps the situation is changing, though. Spurred into action
by the murder of Nick Berg, the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR), the most prominent Islamic civil rights and advocacy group
in the United States, has finally launched an online petition drive designed
to disassociate the faith of Islam from the violent acts of extremists
claiming to act in the name of the God of Islam. The petition,
titled “Not in the Name of Islam,” declares: “We, the undersigned,
wish to state clearly that those who commit acts of terror and
murder in the name of Islam are not only destroying innocent lives,
but are also devastating the image of the faith they claim to
represent. No injustice done to Muslims can ever justify the massacre
of innocent people and no act of terror will ever serve the cause
of Islam. We repudiate and disassociate ourselves from any Muslim
group or individual who commits such brutal and un-Islamic acts.
Islam must not be held hostage by the criminal actions of a tiny
minority acting outside both the boundaries of their faith and
the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.”
“CAIR’s petition drive,” the group’s Website explains, “comes
following the videotaped beheading of an American civilian in
Iraq that shocked television viewers worldwide. ‘We hope
this effort will demonstrate once and for all that Muslims in
America and throughout the Islamic world reject violence committed
in the name of Islam,’ said CAIR Board Chairman Omar Ahmad. ‘People
of all faiths must do whatever they can to help end the downward
spiral of mutual hostility and hatred that is engulfing our world.’”
Such an effort, though unfortunately long overdue, is most
welcome. A forthright condemnation, by devout Muslims, of extremist
violence perpetrated in the name of Islam, is both the right thing
to do and absolutely essential to preserve the good name of Islam
against those within the Muslim community who seem determined
to destroy it. Muslims need to sign it in great numbers, and
it needs to be heard loud and strong by people in America and the West generally. As Edmund Burke observed,
“all that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do
nothing.”
The CAIR website can be accessed at:
http://www.cair-net.org/default.asp
The petition drive is discussed on the CAIR Website at:
http://www.cair-net.org/asp/article.asp?id=1071&page=NR
