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.
Er, this is FreeRepublic -- Philistine.com is down the hall.
Ghandi supported the partition of Indian into Muslim and Hindu states, knowing that if would mean the murder of Hindus at the hands of Muslims. Conservative Hindus opposed Ghandi's wreckless politics.
Muslims then proceeded to kill 1 million Hindus during the chaos of partition. Conservative Hindus hated Ghandi for letting this happen. That is why a Hindu assassinated him.
The Indian National Congress ( Political party which was forerunner for freedom movement), did not want a Partioned India. And Ghandi was part of this organisation. The Moslems being the rulers of most parts of the country, before the British took over in the 18th Century, gave second class treatment to the Hindu Population. The Moslems were afraid that a democratic government will give Hindu's the Power and they might use that situation to get even.
With a new country being formed, with a new constitution written, every Religious Minority group was worried about the new tomorrow in a Hindu Majority Country. Ghandi, in his goal to see a Unified India, wanted to make all of them comfortable to live in a unified secular country. He was asking the Hindus to bend over backwards to accomodate the demands of All India Muslim League. Ghandi even offered Muhammad Ali Jinna ( Father of the nation - Pakistan) to be the First Prime Minister of Unified India. But the Muslim League insisted upon a seperate country, and thus the partition and the riots. There were killings on both the Hindu and Moslem side and Ghandi was saddened by the riots and the partition. His dream of a unified country was shattered.
Either the fact that the muslims got a seperate country, Pakistan, for them selves and the remining part, India, remined a secular country thus depriving the Hindus of a country of their own, OR the fact, that the Congress was bending over back wards to accomodate the Moslems in a Unified India, to make them comfortable to live in a secular country, lead the Hindu Fanatics to murder Ghandi. I could be wrong.
I second that. My personal acquaintance (over the years) with a few Muslims aside, I have recently had some growing discomfort with the religion. This message needs to be very widely distributed among American Muslims, so that we can observe the result and judge for ourselves.
That said, I consider equating this fellow to Bishop Spong, as one of the responses did, to be a horrible, unjustified libel (of this fellow, not of Spong!) -- unless it could be proven.
This fellow may be of the ilk of the reformers who helped lead the majority of the Western Christian faith away from the corrupt practices of the earlier Roman church, and others who also steered them clear of the worst of the Calvinists. The Muslim faith (from my meager understanding) has not yet, er, enjoyed such reforms. It is long overdue.
Chee lighten up Stevie, it was a joke....and "one shot one kill" is revered in the American military and sniper community...have a little perspective and respect as our military put their lives on the line for your intellectual freedoms.
Wasn't 'the Church' at that time the Roman Catholic church before Martin Luther and the reformers?
Thanks for posting it.
At least, for now, the PEOPLE of America have severely tempered "Anti-Islamic Hate," (Christian & Jewish American Women escorting women of Islamic faith to stores & Mosques).
The purveyors of hate will soon require that Americans of the Islamic faiths either attack their fellow American Citizens of other faiths--or "stand aside" while their more radical "Islamic Brethren" murder their fellow American Citizens in the name of their "Allah."
The Islamic Scholar quoted in the article "driving" this thread NEEDS TO BE heard & believed by the "Islamic Community" in "The West!"
To keep the Bloodshed to a minimum, the "Taliban," & ALL similar bloodthirsty sects with a "Thirteenth Century understanding" of current Human Endeavor, need a "Reality Check!"
Human Endeavor & Scholarship & Social Maturity is 1,000 years beyond the "Scholarship" of the crackpot "Islamic Scholars" quoted by the Psychopaths attacking us.
Frankly--& sadly--, ANY adherent of the "Islamic Faith" who doesn't NEARLY INSTANTLY disclaim the Psychopaths who murdered 6,000 Innocents in NY is "suspect," & the degree of their "adherence" to "Islam" is a direct measure of my distrust of them.
Either these people TOTALLY REJECT the "Doctrine" of the murderers, & ACTIVELY seek to remove other "assassins" hiding among them (& their "Religious Beliefs"), or they ARE, INDEED, "Part of the problem!" Our Survival as a culture is now at stake; either we "Flush out" these amoral assassins, or we are destroyed by them. This is NOT some "PC" game; this is a fight for the survival of our way of life!
THIS IS "Kill or BE Killed!" We are fighting for our very lives!
Doc
The Enlightenment ended "Christianity by the sword," and allowed it to flourish the way its central figure intended.
Ecumenicalism and tolerance of differing beliefs were born.
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