"Militant" Islam or "True" Islam?

Submitted by Chris Clark (United States), Oct 2, 2002 at 10:30

Mr. Pipes,

I am grateful for your insights and for your straightforward approach in trying to call attention to who the real enemy is in this war. However, I do disagree with you on one point, and that has to do with who the enemy really is.

When the enemy is "militant" Islam, it implies that the enemy is a group of Muslims who deviate from mainstream Islam, that somehow they are on the lunatic fringe, for lack of a better word. Yet upon reading the Muslim standard of living, the Qu'ran, one has to wonder who is truly mainstream. The Qu'ran calls for the killing of those who do not accept Islam, specifically Jews and Christians. Who then is mainstream and who is militant? The Muslim might also suggest that there are as many verses in the Qu'ran that call for peaceful actions; it only proves that the Qu'ran is contradictory at best.

To date, while we have heard from Muslims how they were slaughtered by Christians during the Crusades of years gone by, they also turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the wanton slaughter of Christians by Mohammed and his followers in the same era. While they call for Christian apologies for the Crusades and receive such apologies, there are no apologies forthcoming from Muslims for their bloodshed. Furthermore, may I point out that biblical Christians can categorically condemn the Crusades as being unbiblical, something that is totally out of character with Jesus and the standard of Christianity, the Bible. The same cannot be said of Islam. Mohammed not only called for the death of "infidels" in the Qu'ran, but also participated in the same. In other words, the Crusades were typically "un-Christian;" the same cannot be said of the Muslim equivalent.

It would be rather simple for the Islamic world to show that they are a religion of peace. All they would have to do is to categorically condemn the present day slaughter of Christians; to demand the release of Christians imprisoned in Islamic prisons around the world; to provide for the free worship and movement of Christians in the Islamic world. The continued silence of the Islamic world in the light of these atrocities only provide further proof that those who belong to Al Qaeda may in fact be better defined as "true Muslims" rather than "militant Muslims."

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