Reply to "Moderate Muslim"

Submitted by Safraz (United States), Oct 15, 2006 at 22:07

Caleb,

With all due respect, my question to you is why have you NOT heard the voices of the moderate Muslims who are speaking up every day against violent extremism in Islam? It's one thing if it wasn't happening, but I see it happening and just being ignored by the mainstream media.

For example, why are fatwas (legal opinions in Islamic law - much like U.S. Supreme Court opinions in American law) issued by bin Laden given so much credence in the media when bin Laden has no legal qualification to issue a fatwa? Why are fatwas, such as the July 28, 2005 fatwa condemning terrorism and opining that the Koran does not support terrorism issued by the Fiqh Council of North America, ignored? Why are condemnations of violence issued by Muslim groups around the world just ignored?

Violence and extremism will always be heard louder than peaceful words - it is the nature of the senationalist in the human being. It is up to intelligent people to sort through that and recognize that the moderate voice is there and should be encouraged. When on the other hand, the American right wing mainstream makes statements grouping all Muslims as enemies of America, it only serves to sideline your moderate Muslim allies and stregthen your enemies. It plays into the hand of the Islamists extremists who want nothing less than a full scale war between Islam and Christianity.

And for the most part, American Muslims are integrated with the population - they don't live in Muslim enclaves like in England (Michigan being the exception). Thus most of us can't do any more than you can to recognize and report back a violent threat from an Isamic extremists because you are just as likely to know then as we are. People who are bent on killing don't go around sharing their plans with anyone - especially not with people who they perceive as moderate Muslim Americans.

I am just as afraid to ride the subway in the morning as you are, and just as afraid to fly as you are. But I also have to deal with the hate coming back from people who I thought were my allies in the fight against this violent ideology of Islamists extremism. In the early Cold War America, the Jews were seen by many as enemies of the state that should not be trusted - anti-semitism was rampant . The same was true of Blacks in America, as many were told to go back where they came from. If America reacts to its own Muslim population in the same way, in about 50 years, it will be remembered by your children and grandchildren with great shame and it will cast a very dark shadow on the light that America has brought to the world for the last 200 years. Keep that in mind.

Safraz.

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