Muslims should stand up and denounce al-Qaeda: The extremist Wahhabi ideology and the rise of Talibans in Pakistan…
Muslims should stand up and denounce al-Qaeda
The recent wide distribution of a DVD, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, by a New York-based tax-exempt organization has provoked an angry response from Muslims and non-Muslims. Now a second wave of distribution via direct mailings to households in swing states is taking place. The politics of this distribution so close to the presidential election aside, it is the Muslim response to the DVD that raises some interesting and intriguing questions.
There is no denying that the film leaves a residue of bad taste, not only against the perpetrators of violence but also, as I explained in my last column two weeks ago, against the whole body of Islam.
The DVD contends that radical Islam – read Islam – is on the warpath to destroy Western civilization. While one could and should point out the superimposition and juxtaposition of historic images from Nazi Germany with contemporary footage from suicide bombers to equate Islam with Nazism, this is not my purpose here. I want to focus on the Muslim response to such provocation and argue that they could do better than a now-familiar knee-jerk response. To put it bluntly, moderate and peace-loving Muslims are also to blame for the confusion between radical and mainstream Islam.
Anyone with more than a cursory knowledge of Islam knows that Islam, just as other great religions of the world, is not a monolith. It has hundreds of sects and groups based on varying interpretations of Islamic sacred texts and Islamic cultural traditions. So why doesn’t the peaceful majority become enraged and denounce the fanatic murderers who claim to be pious Muslims, but in their deeds and actions are anything but? Why can’t the majority declare them outside the pale of Islam and shut off their oxygen?
A bit of history might explain the reasons.
The roots of present-day Islamic militancy can be traced to 18th-century Arabia when a preacher by the name of Abdul Wahab took the peninsula by storm when he started a revival movement to rid Islam of its cultural trappings and return to the pristine teachings of the eighth century. A political accommodation with Ibn Saud, a tribal chief, resulted in the establishment of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia where the House of Saud ruled the country and all matters religious were left to the followers of Abdul Wahab.
However, somewhere in the course of history, the pristine and sublime turned into a coarse and uncompromising dogma.
Using petrodollars and encouragement by the West, this bizarre mind-set was exported to Pakistan – and many other Muslim countries – and used unabashedly to wage jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Since the majority of Muslims do not subscribe to the extreme Wahhabi philosophy of al-Qaeda, why don’t they stand up in defiance?
Muslims have always taken solace and pride in the mostly hypothetical and metaphysical concept of Ummah, or the worldwide community of believers. This prevents them from declaring other Muslims outside the pale of Islam.
They have been, in all fairness, shouting condemnations of al-Qaeda from the minarets and rooftops and have labeled their actions un-Islamic. But they have not – and they should – cross the threshold and declare them outside the circle of the religion. In this, they are no different than other world religions where there is always hesitation to kick people out.
Another hurdle in the way of such a pronouncement is the lack of a central authority in Sunni Islam. Unlike the Shias, where a strong religious hierarchy speaks for them, the Sunnis have traditionally relied on individual scholars to issue edicts to interpret religion.
A divide between those Muslims who believe Islam is a peaceful religion and can co-exist with other religions and philosophies and those who believe violence is the only way to achieve their objective of dominance is beginning to surface. But it needs to be strengthened.
If the Muslims in the West wish to be understood and respected, and if they wish to counter the toxic propaganda put forth in films like Obsession, then they ought to be doing more than just giving public statements and addressing church groups. They should publicly reject the brand of Islam championed by al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
For a great majority of Muslims in the world, and particularly those living in the West, the al-Qaeda philosophy is a bizarre chimera conceived through the amalgamation of historic grievances, politics, and a selective and self-serving interpretation of religion with an eye toward domination. For their own sakes, Muslims should reject this monster.
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Dr. S. Amjad Hussain is a Toledo surgeon whose column appears every other week in The Blade.
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FALLING TRENDS OF THE GREAT AL-QAIDA “THE EXTREMISTS”
Al-Qaida and its extremist allies are under tremendous pressure in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the global terror network has been weakened elsewhere by popular Muslim disaffection due to its targeting of the community people. In the key countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the group is under serious pressure. While al-Qaida has had some successes over the years, it has also suffered a number of important setbacks recently. Al-Qaida has been weakened by popular Muslim disaffection from its indiscriminate targeting of Muslims in Algeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and elsewhere. The number of imams, clerics and former militants speaking out against the organization is increasing. This is a positive and important story. Pakistani authorities have captured the largest number of al-Qaida and affiliated violent extremist operatives in the world, a demonstration of their commitment to this fight. Pakistani military operations have been aimed at eliminating some of the militant strongholds in the Federally Administered Territories. Al-Qaida has lost many of its leaders and is finding it more difficult to raise money, train recruits, and plan attacks outside of the region. But while al-Qaida is now struggling in some areas, the threat it poses is becoming more widely distributed, more geographically diversified. The rise of affiliated groups, such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (in Yemen) and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, is a new and important development and is also a troubling development. For violent extremism is a common challenge shared by nations across the globe-one that requires vigorous cooperation-and one that the INDIA cannot solve alone, administration has been working to reinvigorate alliances across the board and has reengaged in multilateral organizations concerned with counter terrorism including the UN entities, the G8, and the vast range of regional groups that work on counter terrorism.
In the past eight years, many countries have made great strides in what might be called tactical counter terrorism – taking individual terrorists off the streets, and disrupting cells and their operations.
“But an effective counter terrorism strategy must go beyond this,” It is asserted. “Military power, intelligence operations, and law enforcement efforts alone will not solve the long-term challenge that we face – the threat of violent extremism. Instead, we must look as well to the political, economic, and social factors that terrorist organizations exploit and to the ideology that is their key instrument in pushing vulnerable individuals down the path toward violence,”
BY
ALLAH NOOR
BARC, MUMBAI