Muslims Are Condemning Terror, But Who’s Listening?

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&amp...

Muslims Are Condemning Terror, But Who’s Listening?
Linda Heard
July 26, 2005

While discussing last week’s terror attacks on CNN, Sen. Dianne Feinstein appeared to heap blame on Muslim clerics, urging them to issue “fatwa after fatwa denouncing jihad and denouncing terror”. She claimed that mosques have become “enablers” with few leading imams “if any”, saying, “Enough of this. Stop! This is not Islam.” No doubt, Feinstein is well-intentioned but she is also, unfortunately, grossly misinformed.

Last week, some 500 British imams issued a fatwa prohibiting suicide bombing and the killing of innocents, while Sheikh Al-Azhar Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, considered a high authority for the world’s one billion Sunni Muslims, has repeatedly condemned terrorism in all its forms.

Earlier this year, a leading Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Sudeis told pilgrims to Makkah that “faith does not mean killing Muslims or non-Muslims living among us. It does not mean shedding blood, terrorizing or sending body parts flying.”

Muslim groups have also denounced terrorist attacks, including the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which put out a statement condemning the Sharm El-Sheikh blasts thus:

“It is with great sadness and revulsion that we once again witness senseless attacks on innocent civilians. American Muslims condemn these brutal attacks...”

Last year, CAIR launched a petition titled “Not in the Name of Islam” with the intent of distancing the world’s 1.5 billion decent and law-abiding Muslims from the brutal acts of a few fanatics.

In Britain, the Muslim Council “utterly” condemned the acts of terror on the capital’s transport system, adding, “these evil deeds make victims of us all”.

Yet, Feinstein says that “few, if any, leading imams are saying ‘enough of this. Stop. This is not Islam’”, which cannot but lead one to imagine she has spent the last few years in solitary confinement without media access.

And when the good senator asks Muslim clerics “to issue fatwa after fatwa denouncing jihad,” she, once again, displays her ignorance. If Muslim clerics were to denounce “jihad”, they would no longer be considered Muslims let alone Muslim clerics. Jihad or “struggle” is a fundamental of Islam incumbent upon individuals and should not be equated with mindless terrorism in the way Feinstein appears to be doing.

Indeed, two of the highest forms of jihad are ‘Jihad Al-Nafs, which represents an individual’s personal struggle for self-perfection and ‘Jihad Al-Shaytaan’, a person’s internal fight against doubt, corruption and temptation.

Feinstein is certainly referring to the jihad, which requires Muslims to defend their lands and attacks upon their religion, something which US soldiers and their born-again masters apparently believe they are currently doing in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In short, Feinstein doesn’t know what she’s talking about despite her presidency of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and should not be masquerading as a ‘terrorism expert’ on satellite networks.

Instead, she might make better use of her time studying the complexities of the issue and, more importantly, listening to what Muslims are saying as to the real reasons behind the terrorist upsurge, which most insist are political rather than religious.

As David Clark, a former advisor to the Labour government, points out in yesterday’s Guardian, “the moral denunciation of terrorism is psychologically comforting, and, “while it is important to stigmatize terrorism, that in itself offers little prospect of bringing it to an end.

“Do suicide bombers really care what we think of them?” he asks. “Those who indulge in condemnation to the exclusion of everything else have failed to produce a single useful policy prescription, or even the semblance of a coherent analysis, that might equip us to deal more effectively with the threat we face. They have nothing positive to contribute to the debate about what needs to happen next.”

The fact is terrorists aren’t looking toward mainstream Muslim imams as their role models. They have their own deranged mentors, whose rhetoric is unlikely to be dampened down on the urgings of Feinstein or anyone else for that matter.

Those who strap explosives around their waists or leave vehicles set to blow up women, children, holidaymakers and commuters are being used by people who unashamedly distort religion to further political aims.

Unfortunately, by choosing such barbaric methods to draw attention to injustice, terrorists are blinding people who might otherwise condemn the occupations of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya. For instance, the children held hostage and slaughtered at Beslan, only served to discredit the Chechan cause, while the London underground and bus blasts have lured both the American and British publics back onto the ‘war on terror’ bandwagon wherever that may lead us next.

At the same time, Western leaders should admit that their foreign policies are contributing to the growing phenomena instead of burying their heads in the sand, only raising them now and again to speak of “evil ideologies” and the like. Unlike Feinstein who wants to shift the blame onto mosques and imams, leaders should thoroughly investigate the causes of terror and be honest enough to announce their findings to the world, even if they learn that they, too, cannot evade at least some responsibility.

Yes, terrorists who kill innocents must be condemned by all of us. And in the same way, we should surely condemn leaders of the international community for allowing millions of Palestinians to be deprived of their land, freedom and rights for more than half-a-century; for standing by while hundreds of young Muslim men were cold-bloodedly executed in Srebrenica and for ultimately condoning the illegal invasion of Iraq, which everyone knows was waged on a succession of false pretexts.

In order to gain any kind of moral high ground, Western leaders should not only admit their mistakes but apologize for them, starting with the 500,000 Iraqi children who lost their lives due to US-led sanctions on their country, a loss that was termed by a former US Secretary of State as being “worth it”.

If the West were to put its own house in order, terrorists would eventually find no more safe harbors. For what is a terrorist without a cause other than just another crazed and friendless murderer?