convincing us that there is no problem within Islam that anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim, need address, would formulate programs designed to convince young Muslims that the Islamic State’s understanding of Islam is wrong. But no such programs exist in mosques in the U.S. or anywhere else at this time. Programs of that kind would require Muslim leaders to confront what no one anywhere on the political spectrum seems willing to examine: the Qur’anic roots of the Islamic State’s “extremism.”
Nothing is gained, however, by ignoring and avoiding uncomfortable questions—and meanwhile, the only beneficiary of all this denial is the Islamic State.
But Muslims Have Condemned the Islamic State!
In September 2014, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Fiqh Council of North America held a pressconference in Washington at which they announced with great fanfare that they had refuted the religious ideology of the Islamic State.
They issued a lengthy “open letter” (not, interestingly enough, a fatwa, which would be an actual religious ruling) addressed to the Islamic State’s Caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, explaining how he was misunderstanding Islam. The international media was, predictably, thrilled. 57 But unfortunately, and not surprisingly, there is less to this repudiation of the Islamic State than meets the eye. 58 Even the “moderates” who signed on to this open letter endorsed elements of Islam that most non-Muslim Westerners consider to be “extremist.”
And it will not change the mind of a single jihadi. This letter is not an Islamic case against the Islamic State’s jihad terror that will move Islamic State fighters to lay down their arms, but rather a deceptive piece of propaganda designed to fool gullible non-Muslim Westerners into thinking that the case for “moderate Islam” has been made.
The disingenuous nature of the open letter should have been clear from the outset—from the involvement not only of Hamas-linked CAIR, but also of some of the 126 signers.
These included Professor Mustafa Abu Sway, who holds the Integral Chair for the Study of Imam Ghazali’s Work at al Quds University in Jerusalem—and is a Hamas activist; Dr. Jamal Badawi, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case; Mustafa Ceric, former grand mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who has called for Sharia in Bosnia; Professor Caner Dagli, a venomously hateful Islamic apologist at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, who traffics in Nazi imagery about “unclean” unbelievers; Ali Gomaa, former grand mufti of Egypt, who endorses wife-beating, Hizballah, and the punishment of apostates from Islam; Hamza Yusuf Hanson, founder and director of Zaytuna College, USA, who blamed the West for Muslim riots over a teddy bear named Muhammad; Ed Husain, senior fellow in Middle Eastern Studies for the Council on Foreign Relations, who claimed inSeptember 2014 that seizing British jihadis’ passports so that they couldn’t return to the UK from the Islamic State would only create more jihadis; Muhammad Tahir Al-Qadri, founder of Minhaj-ul-Qur’an International, Pakistan, who drafted Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy law and had already issued a disingenuous and hypocritical Fatwa Against Terrorism; and Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Fiqh Council and former head of the Hamas-linked Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). 59
Hardly names to inspire confidence in the group’s “moderation.”
And sure enough, in the course of their very lengthy open letter, the signatories endorse these six elements of what is usually considered to be “extremist” Islam:
----
NOT THAT THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM
“Fight them until there is no more rebellion and religion is all for Allah.”
—Qur’an 8:39
“Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the enemies of Allah
Nothing is gained, however, by ignoring and avoiding uncomfortable questions—and meanwhile, the only beneficiary of all this denial is the Islamic State.
But Muslims Have Condemned the Islamic State!
In September 2014, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Fiqh Council of North America held a pressconference in Washington at which they announced with great fanfare that they had refuted the religious ideology of the Islamic State.
They issued a lengthy “open letter” (not, interestingly enough, a fatwa, which would be an actual religious ruling) addressed to the Islamic State’s Caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, explaining how he was misunderstanding Islam. The international media was, predictably, thrilled. 57 But unfortunately, and not surprisingly, there is less to this repudiation of the Islamic State than meets the eye. 58 Even the “moderates” who signed on to this open letter endorsed elements of Islam that most non-Muslim Westerners consider to be “extremist.”
And it will not change the mind of a single jihadi. This letter is not an Islamic case against the Islamic State’s jihad terror that will move Islamic State fighters to lay down their arms, but rather a deceptive piece of propaganda designed to fool gullible non-Muslim Westerners into thinking that the case for “moderate Islam” has been made.
The disingenuous nature of the open letter should have been clear from the outset—from the involvement not only of Hamas-linked CAIR, but also of some of the 126 signers.
These included Professor Mustafa Abu Sway, who holds the Integral Chair for the Study of Imam Ghazali’s Work at al Quds University in Jerusalem—and is a Hamas activist; Dr. Jamal Badawi, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case; Mustafa Ceric, former grand mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who has called for Sharia in Bosnia; Professor Caner Dagli, a venomously hateful Islamic apologist at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, who traffics in Nazi imagery about “unclean” unbelievers; Ali Gomaa, former grand mufti of Egypt, who endorses wife-beating, Hizballah, and the punishment of apostates from Islam; Hamza Yusuf Hanson, founder and director of Zaytuna College, USA, who blamed the West for Muslim riots over a teddy bear named Muhammad; Ed Husain, senior fellow in Middle Eastern Studies for the Council on Foreign Relations, who claimed inSeptember 2014 that seizing British jihadis’ passports so that they couldn’t return to the UK from the Islamic State would only create more jihadis; Muhammad Tahir Al-Qadri, founder of Minhaj-ul-Qur’an International, Pakistan, who drafted Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy law and had already issued a disingenuous and hypocritical Fatwa Against Terrorism; and Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Fiqh Council and former head of the Hamas-linked Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). 59
Hardly names to inspire confidence in the group’s “moderation.”
And sure enough, in the course of their very lengthy open letter, the signatories endorse these six elements of what is usually considered to be “extremist” Islam:
----
NOT THAT THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM
“Fight them until there is no more rebellion and religion is all for Allah.”
—Qur’an 8:39
“Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the enemies of Allah
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