15 Mar A Stinging Rebuke of Radical Islam
Thankfully, we are beginning to see some Arab moderates openly challenge radical Islam. The most potent example comes, from all places, Al Jazeera televison. They had the temerity last month to broadcast one of the sharpest televised rebukes of radical Islam issued by an Arab in Arabic in recent memory. Admittedly, the critic, Dr. Wafa Sultan, is now an Arab American. Admittedly, she is no longer a practicing Muslim. (She renounced her faith after witnessing Muslim Brotherhood terrorists assassinate her medical school professor in Syria). But like a million others, listen to her words. And like so many others, be relieved that at least someone is rising to the occasion.
I should emphasize that I do not agree with everything Sultan says. In particular, I wish she had made a sharp distinction between peace-loving Islam and radical Islam. (As one thoughtful Sultan critic put it, “[d]oes the good doctor not realize that simply because some Muslims horribly twist the faith of Islam for evil ends, it does not follow that the whole faith of Islam is evil?”) I wish Sultan would have laced her challenge of radical Islam with praise and hope for a moderate Muslim world. And I wish Sultan continued to embrace the message of Islam for her voice to have its maximum impact. How many more in the Muslim world would listen if the messenger was not an “infidel” and “heretic.”
But the larger point is the world needs this type of courage. Islam and the Arab world desperately need this debate. And radical Islam needs this rebuke.
You can see the Al Jazeera broadcast of Wafa Sultan here and the full transcript is here. The New York Times profile of Sultan is here. Here is a taste of her stinging rebuke:
“The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings….
When the Muslims divided the people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war. In order to start this war, they must reexamine their Islamic books and curricula, which are full of calls for takfir and fighting the infidels….
The Jews have come from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people…. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results.”
Oh, and the response from radical Islam? Predictable. Numerous death threats on her voice mail. Somewhere in Los Angeles today a courageous Arab woman reportedly is in hiding, fearing for her life.
Yes, it is too bad there are no thoughtful, faithful, progressive Muslim voices these days, unless of course you count Queen Rania of Jordan, Shirin Ebadi, Asra Q. Nomani, Ghada Jamshir, Fatema Mernissi, Asma Jahangir, Reza Aslan, Khaled Abou Al-Fadl, Amina Wadud, M. A. Muqtedar Khan, Abdolkarim Soroush, Yousef Sanei, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Ahmad Ghabel, Feisal Abdul Rauf, Irshad Manji, Mohsen Kadivar, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Javed Ahmed Ghamdi, Pervez Hoodbhoy, and my undergrad imam Yahya Hindi. Apparently one or two Muslims have even spoken out against terrorism:
http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php. Who knew?
. . . Omid Safi, Farid Esack, Fazlur Rahman . . .
Adil, I think you are missing the point. Of course there are thousands (perhaps millions) of moderate Muslims who oppose radical Islam. But to the Western eye, there is a timidity about many moderate Muslims who refuse to express the necessary outrage at Islamic extremism. Where is the courage of political leaders in the Middle East to stand up to Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial? Where is the courage of moderate Muslim leaders to vote against a nuclear Iran at the IAEA? Where is outrage in the Muslim world when people die and are threatened with death because of the simple act of drawing a cartoon? I’m sure there is frustration and anger among moderate Muslims at radical Islam. I’m sure they are dumb-struck at how extremism is embarrassing their faith. But if there is real outrage, real courage, real outspoken criticism of Islamic extremism, why has it only barely penetrated the Western media? Why, at a time when the barriers to information are at historic lows, do we not hear the message of moderate leaders expressing outrage at the extremism? Believe me, it is not because we are not listening for it, hoping to hear it. The next time Ahmadinejad threatens… Read more »
Roger, Most of the individuals I mentioned have written books available in English which you can order on Amazon, and the others have made oral and written statements easily available online. If their message has not been disseminated by the Western press, perhaps that says more about the Western press than about progressive voices in the Muslim world. But there is a deeper point here, which is the following: An internal dialogue among Muslims about the future of their faith and soceities is just that, an internal dialogue between members of a community. That dialogue is conducted for their ears, not for those of others, though as I mentioned it is simple enough to eavesdrop. Muslims speak to Western audiences and to one another, but often not at the same time, for two reasons. First, a group which feels embattled and under siege will not wish to air its laundry in public. Frank discussion is inhibited when self-criticism will be seized upon to validate negative stereotypes held by outsiders. (This is probably the best way to understand the controversy surrounding Bill Cosby’s recent foray into social criticism). Second, the last thing progressive Muslims need is for their ideological opposites to… Read more »
The link to the WP article is through the word “piece”, in case it’s hard to make out.
One would have thought it appropriate for you, as an academic commentator, to point out the basic oversight in Wafa Sultan’s assertion that “We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people…. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies.”
This ignores, of course, everything from Deir Yassin and other massacres of Palestinian civilians by Israeli paramilitary and military factions in 1948 to the impunity claimed by Israeli military personnel in disproportionate or undiscriminating attacks in the occupied territories. This is not to suggest that either is right or that Sultan does not have a point – which she does – but to emphasise that such oversights open such comments to charges of ignorance, at best, if not bias.