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Posted on 10/17/2001 12:08:47 AM PDT by gcruse

  Nothing to Do With Islam'?

                  By Amir Taheri. Mr. Taheri, an Iranian author
                  and journalist, is editor of the Paris-based
                  Politique Internationale.

                  "This has nothing to do with Islam," British
                  Prime Minister Tony Blair recently told a delegation
                  of Muslims at a meeting at 10 Downing Street,
                  referring to the September 11 attacks against the
                  World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

                  Mr. Blair was echoing a view, popular both in
                  Europe and the U.S., that it is impolite, not to say
                  impolitic, to subject Islam to any criticism. Yet to
                  claim that the attacks had nothing to do with Islam amounts to a whitewash. It is not only disingenuous
                  but also a disservice to Muslims who need, one day, to cast a critical glance at the way their faith is
                  taught, lived and practiced. Even worse, the refusal to subject Islam to rational analysis is a recipe for
                  further fanaticism.

                  Unless we believe those who claim that the September 11 was organized by Israel, we have to assume
                  that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were at least intellectually responsible. And since there is no
                  mechanism for excommunication in Islam, bin Laden and his gang have every right to describe
                  themselves as Muslims.

                  Un-Islamic?

                  But that is not all. Al Qaeda did not materialize out of thin air. Nor have they been operating in a
                  vacuum. Bin Laden belongs to a prominent Yemeni-Saudi family that makes much of its Islamic
                  credentials. He began his militant career in 1984 as a fund-raiser for the Afghans fighting the communist
                  regime in Kabul in the name of Islam. He had offices in a dozen Muslim countries, none of which
                  regarded his activities as un-Islamic. In 1993 bin Laden was divested of his Saudi passport but was
                  warmly welcomed in Sudan where a fundamentalist regime was, and still is, in power. Later, bin Laden
                  was the star of an international conference of Muslim fundamentalists organized in Khartoum by the
                  then-strongman Hassan al-Turabi. He was elected a member of the "Supreme Council," whose task is
                  to promote a radical brand of Islam throughout the world. That gave him the right, not to say the
                  pretext, to call himself a "sheik" and issue religious "fatwas," or edicts. Again, since there is no clerical
                  hierarchy in Islam, there was no reason why bin Laden could not claim such authority.

                  Once bin Laden was forced to leave Sudan (under U.S. pressure), he was welcomed in his ancestral
                  homeland of Yemen, another Muslim country. From there he went to Pakistan, the world's second
                  most populous Muslim nation, where he was welcomed not only by the army but also by virtually all of
                  Pakistan's Islamic parties, which continue to support him. Finally, from Pakistan bin Laden shifted to
                  Afghanistan, where the Taliban had established what they claimed to be "the only truly Islamic
                  government."

                  In November 2000 a 10-day rally was organized in Peshawar in support of bin Laden. More than
                  100,000 people took part, including the representatives of many prominent families from the Arab
                  states of the Persian Gulf plus a Who's Who of Pakistani Islam. It was a strange way of showing that
                  Osama had nothing to with Islam. To say that bin Laden has nothing to do with Islam and Muslims
                  requires a big leap of imagination.

                  When pressed hard, some Muslim leaders admit that bin Laden is "part of Islam" but try to minimize his
                  place. Dalil Boubakeur, a French Muslim leader, says that bin Laden does not represent more than 1%
                  of Muslims. If that is any comfort, that 1% means almost 13 million people.

                  There is more: all but one of the world's last military regimes are in Muslim countries; with the exception
                  of Turkey and Bangladesh there are no real elections in any Muslim country; of the current 30 active
                  conflicts in the world no fewer than 28 concern Muslim governments and/or communities. Two-thirds
                  of the world's political prisoners are held in Muslim countries, who also carry out 80% of all executions
                  each year.

                  Anyone familiar with textbooks in most Muslim countries would know the twisted view of the world
                  they propagate and the hatred they promote. Anyone who follows the media in the Muslim world
                  would know that the verbal version of the September 11 attacks is an almost daily fare. Go to the
                  Internet and check the editorials of virtually any Muslim paper on September 10 and see what they
                  were saying about the West in general and the U.S. in particular. Anyone listening to a sermon in
                  virtually any mosque, including many in the West, would be shocked by the vehemence of the
                  anti-West, especially anti-American, sentiments expressed.

                  State of Denial

                  It is both dishonest and dangerous for Muslims to remain in a state of denial. And yet a state of denial is
                  what we have. When Iran's Khomeinists burned 600 people alive in a cinema, the whitewashers said
                  that it had nothing to do with Islam. When the same gang took the American diplomats hostage in
                  Tehran again the whitewash party insisted that that had nothing to do with Islam. And when the suicide
                  bombings bloodied Beirut we were told that Islam had nothing to do with them.

                  The Muslim world today is full of bigotry, fanaticism, hypocrisy and plain ignorance -- all of which serve
                  as breeding grounds for criminals like bin Laden. The principal victims of these criminals are Muslims,
                  who are prevented from developing a modern political culture without which they cannot reform their
                  societies and rebuild their economies.

                  What I am saying is not meant as critique of Islam as a belief system; that's an issue for theologians and
                  people should be free to believe whatever they like. What is needed is a critique of Islam as an
                  existential reality. The September 11 tragedies should trigger a rethink of the way Muslims live Islam.
                  We should start with condemning those attacks without "ifs " and " buts," shunning the hypocrisy of
                  attempting an arbitrary explanation to impose an impossible justification. Sadly, the way we Muslims
                  live Islam today is a far cry from the way our ancestors lived it in the golden age when Islam was a
                  builder of civilization not a force for repression, terror and destruction.

                  -- From The Wall Street Journal Europe
 

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