Juan Williams has become a victim of the crossfire of a war within Islam, a war among extremists and moderates that is not going well right now for the latter group.
NPR's sudden dismissal of Williams, for his daring to confess to some jitteriness around Muslims who seem foreign, has given Fox News a chance to crow about being the more tolerant media outlet. It's an odd exclamation mark on an extended season of Islamophobia in America.
As an American of Muslim background, I don't feel Williams' candor merited a dismissal, and I don't think NPR helped either its brand or the cause of religious tolerance.
Islamophobia, in one sense, is much like bigotry aimed in the past at Irish and Italians and countless other groups who eventually were integrated nicely into American society, with one key difference: None of those groups had a visible subgroup that claimed to speak for the larger group and which threatened to destroy America and the larger West.
None of those groups had a Faisal Shahzad, threatening to destroy the United States, or a Nidal Malik Hasan, turning on America's own soldiers at Ft. Hood.
In one sense, the closest analogy would be to Japanese-Americans during World War II, who were suspected of loyalty to a motherland that was waging war against the United States. And we know the result wasn't pretty.
This adds urgency to the need for progressive Muslim-Americans to push back against extremists. Groups such as CAIR spend a great deal of time claiming that any discrimination against Muslims is unwarranted. But they could spend a little more time discriminating against the fundamentalists who quietly support the murderous nihilism of the violent extremists.
This battle among Muslim progressives and Muslim "fundos," to use the Pakistani term, is a family affair at heart. I've argued to progressive Muslims that the battle needs to be fought within families, beginning with simple candor on the part of progressives.
Progressives tend to sit quietly at the dinner table when their fundo-fanatic uncle or mother rages about the evils of the West. Then, the progressives may go out to a bar and lead secret lives away from the fundos. The simple truth is that the progressives' self-serving silence has emboldened the fundos to believe that there is a fundo consensus within their own communities, whether they be in Michigan, England or Pakistan -- a fundo consensus that blurs the line between sharia and secular democracy, between ordinary political grievances and violent struggle.
If these fundamentalists realized that there is no consensus even within their own families, they would realize how far they are from imposing their will on the rest of humanity.
But progressives and moderates are shy about this. Most fear the drama that can result. And, since many Muslims hail from shame-bound cultures, they feel special guilt about causing family rifts by revealing their secret open-mindedness.
When I gave a talk about this last summer at a largely Pakistani-American gathering in Washington DC, a well-dressed young man rebutted me. "Confronting our family members is easier said than done for most of us. I don't think it's going to happen. The better way to fight extremism is to offer a pluralistic, progressive education to young people in Pakistan."
I responded that we can't always offer a progressive education in Alabama or Texas, given creationist lobbies here. How then can we count on Pakistanis to offer a progressive education in their own land? Besides, the Najibullah Zaziwon't be affected by future educational approaches in that part of the world.
Time may be running out for moderate Muslim-Americans to avoid the sort of fate that befell so many Japanese-Americans during World War II. Another major attack on American soil may spur ordinary Americans (and especially their opportunistic politicians) to act like cornered animals.
For moderate Muslims, their own way of life is threatened by the extremists in their camp. As such, a bolder and more radical centrism is necessary in response. This is not the time to be timid.
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Rob Asghar’s prescription to address Islamophobia is an intelligent discussion among Muslim-American Groups is excellent and critically required. Ironically Muslims, as a global community, are going backwards. The OIC has rejected the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 2008 as un-Islamic, although each of its articles has been cross referenced to the Qur’an. They have adopted its own Islamic version which focuses on blasphemy and sharia! One shivers how this Islamic version will improve Human Rights in the Muslim world!
Global events that enabled this scale of radicalism in Muslims can be traced in the last 100 years when the Muslim clergy, under a defeatist mindset, developed flawed ideologies to resolve political matters. Sharia was developed on Qur’anic principles of equality, peace and justice in the 9th and 10th century when the global economic base was agrarian. Muslims failed to transition and adopt sharia to the industrial economic base when the global economic base was changed after the industrial revolution.
My book, Connivance by Silence, discusses these issues. The book should be available in a few weeks.
Are you saying that's a core belief in Islam?
Most of us would like to think it's not--and therefore not a matter of "watering down" a belief, but rather or rejecting one.
93% of Muslims surveyed in a Gallup Poll condemned 9/11:
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/02/27/poll-majority-muslims-worldwide-condemn-9-11/
Among the 7% that did support it, cited POLITICS not PIETY for their support.
In other words, terrorism has always been a POLITICAL motivator; not a RELIGIOUS motivator. Claims that the hijackers shouted "Allahu Akbar" were all bogus, as cell phones cannot be used at a cruising altitude of 30,000+ feet, nor can they be used at even 4,000 feet. The black boxes have never been found, so please tell me how it is that people know what the alleged hijackers shouted.
This is a perfect picture of the relationships between religious moderates and fundies of all theist stripes.
Madhab map
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Madhhab_Map2.png
It should also be noted that no one madhab supersedes the other madhahib. They should all be contrasted to the authentic hadith and sunnah and the context needs to be considered.
They declare takfir against you and claim the right to spill your blood as an apostate. Sharia law can be read to uphold their position.
Zawahiri explained all this in his long piece on the doctrine of Enmity and Loyalty in "The Al Qaeda Reader."
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The oft-repeated mistake is to try to understand Islam through the glasses of Western concepts. One small example of it is when the media say things like this: "Members of that mosque...", which is a foreign concept to Islam for attending a mosque does not require any membership. Mosques are open houses of worship and anyone can go there and offer their prayers. Often, most attendees don't even know each other.
That said, what Islam requires is that those who are managing our affairs display noble character traits, such as selflessness, humility, forgiveness, truthfulness, justice, peace, love, etc.
In today's global political environment and set up, it is impossible for anyone with high qualities to survive politically, for today's politics demands that the person is able to make promises he cannot possible keep, display hostility and negative attitude towards his opponents, and other slew of negative qualities.
This is the Shafii law on the qualifications of the Caliph in addition to the qualities you list:
Umdat al salik:
o25.2
(H: The caliphate is a communal obligation (def: c3.2) just as the judgeship is (S: because the Islamic community needs a ruler to uphold the religion, defend the sunna, succor the oppressed from oppressors, fulfill rights, and restore them to whom they belong).)
This is Sharia law requiring all Muslims to seek to establish an Islamic state no matter where they live. This, when combined with other Sharia dicta which command Muslims to dominate all other religions is the backbone of the ideology of those we are at war with--Islamists.
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF A CALIPH
o25.3 (Nawawi:) Among the qualifications of the caliph are that he be:
(a) Muslim (H: so that he may see to the best interests of Islam and the Muslims (K: it being invalid to appoint a non-Muslim (kafir) to authority, even to rule non-Muslims.) [....]
[Other qualifications are that he be adult, sane and free—not a slave. In addition:]
(d) male (K: to be able to devote himself full-time to the task, and to mix with men, the leadership of a woman being invalid because of the rigorously authenticated (sahih) hadith,
“A people that leaves its leadership to a woman will never succeed”); [....]
At the same time when west attack all Muslims and Islam symbols.
Did west spared any of Muslims in their attacks. Did they spared Sufis or Shia Muslims or Sunnis?
On the contrary West do their best to unite Muslims by buring Quran and vandalizing mosques all over the place by humiliating all of them without any exception.
Get a grip, Muslims are not occupying west but west and Jews are occupying Muslim land.
The first gesture from West logically should be to leave Muslim countries and I promise you that there will be no hostilities toward West from Islamic countries.
Muslims do not despise West for their democracies or life style etc, they just want to be left in peace. Muslims are in peace with themselves and with world if they are left alone.
The problem is west does need resources from Muslim countries and do not want to pay the real market price for the resources. The main problem of the world is new colonialism not Islam.
I'm guessing you don't watch the news much.
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Muslims do not occupy Serb land in Kosovo?
"The first gesture from West logically should be to leave Muslim countries and I promise you that there will be no hostilities toward West from Islamic countries."
Bin Laden takes orders from you? You are writing a check you can't honor.
" Muslims do not despise West for their democracies or life style etc, they just want to be left in peace. Muslims are in peace with themselves and with world if they are left alone"
That may be true for you personally, I don't know. Neither sentence is true of most Muslims as proven by the daily slaughter of Muslims by Muslims worldwide.
The hounds of revolution have been loosed in Islam by Muslim revolutionaries and your attempt to ignore that basic fact by retreating to a time when that was not true is doomed to failure. Muslims must recognize what has happened--the Iranian revolution of 1979, the attacks of 9/11 and the many since--and deal with the revolutionaries within their religion. The fact that the West buys Muslim oil is not the problem.
Meanwhile, the West will defend itself from attack by any and all Muslims of whatever persuasion.
We expect moderate Muslims to wake up to the fact that they are in a no-man's land--caught in the crossfire between Muslim revolutionaries and non-Muslims defending themselves.
Islamic law and Muslim scholars indicate that Muslims have to abide by the contracts which they signed with the American government upon legal migration. In exchange for security and protection ( amanah), Muslims have to obey the laws. Shariah mandates this because believers adhere to their contracts and obligations.
Americans who denounce Shariah are also denouncing this binding contractual relationship. And in these Americans' blinding ignorance and imperiousness, the blowback is calculable.
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Very true. A lot depends on one's definition of justice.
Umdat al salik:
Justice
o1.2 The following are not subject to retaliation:
o4.17 There is no indemnity obligatory for killing a non-Muslim at war with Muslims (harbi), someone who has left Islam, someone sentenced to death by stoning (A: for adultery (def: o12)) by virtue of having been convicted in court[...]
Do you agree with that definition?
I believe you have correctly stated the Sharia law on honoring contracts in infidel lands. You fail to mention that the contract is voided if the infidel society interferes in the Muslim immigrant's right to practice Islam in any way.
In the event of interference, the Muslim has the right to request armed assistance from the Umma. This is one of the historical methods of spreading Islam without “offensive” warfare.
This is but one reason why many Americans see Sharia law as a poison pill that we do not want in our country. It guarantees religious conflict somewhere down the road when Muslims inevitably will feel oppressed by the infidel majority.
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Thank you for that. You are 100% correct.
The best that any western democracy can do is use military and law enforcement personnel in a perpetual containment policy. The problem with that is that we live in a world with incredible weaponry - particularly nukes and biological agents, in particular. The consensus among folks who know about this stuff is that sooner or later someone will sneak something very nasty through the borders here or elsewhere, and that there will be an attack that will make 911 look like a walk in the park.
The long term solution has to be for Islam to undergo a reformation similar to what happened to Christianity, and earlier, Judaism. Such a reformation would come about only when a clear majority of Islamic clerics and scholars agreed to redefine their religion so that it gave up the desire for political domination in any society, and embraced instead the humanistic values as defined in the UN Charter on Human Rights.
This would automatically defund terrorists, and provide immeasurable benefits to women, homosexuals, non-Muslim religious and free thinkers all over the world.
This change in mass consciousness is very difficult to accomplish and inevitably encounters tremendous resistance. Those of us who yearn for a saner world need to be supportive of progressive Muslims, who embrace the same core values for society that other progressives do.