REPLY to : Pipes explains "How to End Terrorism,"

Submitted by Benjamin Hegeman (United States), Dec 5, 2006 at 10:47

Good morning Daniel

I always read your columns with genuine appreciation and recommend them to many.

Concerning your phrase in email 734: "terrorism by Muslims in the name of Islam"

This phrasing suggests Islamists patently abuse the Islamic faith (i.e. your words that Islamism "does not flow from their religion") to advance non-Islamic (fascists, totalitarian, violent) agendas.

For this observation to be valid, it must at least follow that –among other premises-

• the primary sources of Islam have no such violent teachings

• And … that Islamists are not even authentic religious warriors, let alone practicing religious Muslims

• And ….that the majority of Muslims strongly agree with the above two premises

That no significant Muslim theologian convincingly champions the above in the Islamic ummah (neither today nor in any era of Islamic history); indeed, reformed Muslim theologians invariably loose theological debates in their own ummah circles.

That Islamist ‘Muslims' alone are willing to die for their religious Islamic convictions (unlike moderates, who will not even protest on mass against ‘violence in the name of Islam')

That the so-called ‘silent Muslim majority' rely inordinately on non-Muslims to defend their alleged irenic dogmas in the media

That all Muslims concede that the (saber-rattling) Medina surahs abrogate any divinely-altered teaching of the (suffer-under-persecution) Meccan surahs.

That no compelling global evidence can be marshaled for the ‘Great Hypothesis of Islam-is-Peaceful' while even amateur Islam-watchers can lucidly join the violent dots of the most devout Qur'an-quoting Muslims aka Islamists.

Has me utterly unconvinced by the premise: "terrorism by Muslims in the name of Islam" while the truncated version of the above does: "terrorism by Muslims"

Westerners are at war against soldiers with a belief,

a religious belief,

a violent-interpreted religious belief,

a historical-violent-interpreted religious belief,

an Arabic-historical-violent-interpreted religious belief:

it even has a name: classical Islam.

That not all Muslims have joined the ‘historical violent-interpretation' is no proof that they alone are true Muslims or that they alone speak for true ‘centric Islam' (Who came up with that term, Muslims or non-Muslims?).

The centre of gravity in the ummah is not in opinion polls among Muslims or ‘majority Muslim opinions'; it is their unalterable teaching. Dare we go there?

How to end terrorism? First, go to its own tap root: its primary source teaching.

Question: have you reviewed Muslim scholar, Tawfik Hamid's work: The Roots of Jihad?

Sincerely –and grateful that Americans still allows the hardest debates in the world

Benjamin Hegeman

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