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A Call for Islamic Reformation
A fatwa issued against terrorism misses the mark
by Benji Rubin, Northwestern University
The Muslim establishment in America recently issued a fatwa against terrorism. In the past, fatwas, Islamic religious decrees, have been used to call for the murder of “apostate Muslims” (those with intellectual curiosity about their religion and its central book, the Qur’an). However, while this declaration of moderation seems a welcome change in policy, in reality it is merely a distraction from the real problems of radical Islam. Ostensibly, the edict heralds a new willingness within the Muslim community in the United States to condemn violent religious extremism and admit it is a problem within the Islamic world. Unfortunately, it has become abundantly clear that this new fatwa is only about as meaningful as Yasser Arafat’s condemnations of suicide bombings (i.e. not at all).
The fatwa was issued by a group of American Islamic organizations, including the Fiqh Council of North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Officials of both these organizations, according to Steve Emerson, a veteran of counter-terrorism efforts, “have been directly linked to and associated with Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic extremist organizations. One of them is a co-conspirator in a current terrorist case; another previous member was a financier to Al-Qaeda.”
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There are real moderate Muslims in the world. However, when moderate Muslims speak out, they receive death threats from their co-religionists.
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The “fatwa against terrorism” originated from within these well-connected extremist organizations. The edict includes a peaceful selection from the Qur’an that was adapted from the Jewish Talmud: “Whoever kills a person [unjustly]…it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind” (Qur’an, 5:32; Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:1 [22a]; Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a). The fatwa proceeds to say, “all acts of terrorism targeting civilians are haram (forbidden) in Islam.”
What the fatwa neglects to mention is that there is actually a problem with Islam itself. It does not mention how the Qur’an divides the world between Dar al Islam (land of Islam) and Dar al Harb (land of the sword). It does not mention that it is every Muslim’s duty to extend Islamic control until there is no more Dar al Harb and the entire world becomes Dar al Islam. Nor does it point out that “Islam” does not mean “peace,” but rather “submission,” or that while “jihad” could literally mean “internal struggle,” the meaning of “the greater jihad” is unambiguously violent in nature.
There are genuinely moderate Muslims in the world, not disillusioned by radical Islam. However, when moderate Muslims such as Irshad Manji, author of The Trouble With Islam, or the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism speak out, they receive death threats from their co-religionists. Unlike what CAIR or MPAC (the Muslim Public Affairs Committee) would have us believe, the “extremist” or literalist interpretations of the Qur’an are not relegated to a small group of lunatics. Rather, as Irshad Manji eloquently points out, while every major religion has its literalists, only in Islam is literalism mainstream.
Under Islamic Sharia law, pagans who live under Muslim control are required to convert or be killed. Those who practice a monotheistic religion other than Islam must live as second-class citizens, or dhimmi. Christians and Jews, referred to by the Qur’an as the “people of the book,” are relegated to a special category of dhimmi and have limited rights. However, because Muhammad wiped out an entire Jewish community when he encountered it in his wars of conquest, many Islamic scholars have concluded that Jews are too dangerous for Muslims to live with and must be wiped out.
 Perhaps the best sign that the fatwa is a fraud is that it never mentions perhaps the worst problem today with Islam, anti-Semitism. From the Jew-bashing that is broadcast continuously on state television by every Muslim country, and the Palestinian Authority, to the imams’ sermons throughout the Mideast every Friday, which call for outright genocide of the Jews…to “finish what Hitler started.” (For actual clips of this disgusting propaganda, visit memri.org).
In any country where the Protocols of The Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf are not exhibits in Holocaust museums but bestsellers, the lessons of the Holocaust clearly have not been learned. Rather, they’ve been perverted into a new lesson many in the Muslim community’s embrace: Hitler’s problem wasn’t that he was a genocidal dictator who convinced Europeans that the Jews were a danger to the world and must be wiped out, but rather that he didn’t finish “removing” that threat. This blatant misrepresentation of Jewry leaves little room for promise of change within Islam.
Irshad Manji was kicked out of her Madrassa when she was a little girl. The “final straw” that led to her expulsion was not when she challenged her teachers to allow women to pray and study the Qur’an like the men, but when she asked her teacher for proof of the Jewish conspiracy.
Because the fatwa refuses to acknowledge the source in Islam promoting the murdering of Jews and enslavement of Christians, it does very little to fight the intellectual war for the future of Islam. Radical Islam is on the rise today. Its adherents are slaughtering and enslaving non-Muslims in Africa. They are oppressing Christians and women in Egypt and slaughtering them in Algeria. They are attacking Western targets and are rapidly increasing in numbers and power. Currently, there are many places in Europe, parts of Scandinavia for instance, where it is too dangerous for non-Muslims to reside. The moderate voice in the Muslim world is simply being silenced and dominated by a more dangerous, vicious one.
A desirable answer to this problem is to have a reform movement grow and prosper within Islam, which Irshad Manji is trying to do. Every major religion except Islam has had a reform movement, and it is about time that changed, in Manji’s opinion.
Irshad’s mission is called “Project Ijtihad” (see muslim-refusenik.com for more information). It is an attempt to get Islam to look back into history to a relatively short period of time when Islam was a much more open faith and when most Muslims were allowed to question passages of the Qur’an and to openly discuss religion without fear of persecution. This process was called Ijtihad. During this time, Islam was relatively benign—living in peace with its neighbors because the expansionist agenda didn’t fit the open-minded Islam that was being practiced. This would certainly be a wonderful step toward defeating Islamic fundamentalism.
I think of Ms. Manji everyday and hope that she will be successful in her endeavor, but we must be prepared to defeat these ideas with force as well as words. America must defend herself from what could become, with Iranian nukes, an existential threat.
Tom Brokaw wrote a book a few years back about World War II veterans. He called them the “Greatest Generation” since they stood up when called upon, and were willing to sacrifice their lives to defend our freedom. America’s short history has in many ways resembled the much longer history of the Jews. Every Passover we read from the Haggadah that “in every generation, they rise against us to destroy us—but G-d saves us from their hand.” Similarly it is said in America that in every generation there will be evil that will attempt to wipe out the free world. And, in every generation, patriots have stood up and risked their lives to defend it, whether it be Fascism, Nazism, Communism or radical Islam.
As we see from our nation’s history, we are indebted to those who came before us and gave their lives for our freedom. Despite the negativism that pervades the attitudes of many of my fellow young Americans, I am confident that when called to defend our way of life, this generation will rise to the occasion.
Benji Rubin is in his junior year at Northwestern University and is an Economics major.
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