Islam's "Teaching Opportunity" to Define Its True Self -- A Great Religion of Peace and Justice ... or a Cult of "Jihadi MURDERdom"
As the media and Internet remind us daily, there is a continuing element of anger (some earnest, some staged and hyped) and even a smattering of violence across the Muslim World over Pope Benedict's recent quoting of an ancient charge that Islam is a violent "religion of the sword."
Intentionally or not, the Pope has presented Islam with what the distinguished Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahoney in California and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) last month agreed is an historic "teaching opportunity" about itself -- about the "real Islam."
In a spirit of interfaith dialogue (Islam's version of which is called ijtihad), the religion has an opportunity to prove that any such allegations of violence and compulsion in religion are false -- and that Islam is, in fact, the religion of the "peaceful, compassionate, munificent, merciful and just" Allah who is repeatedly so described by the Quran.
Or -- God forbid! -- might we witness the opposite? Might we witness an Islam which does not rise to this opportunity for clear self-definition but is seen as slipping backward into the false definitions and perversions now being perpetrated in Allah's holy name by a pseudo-Islamic ideology of hatred and suicide mass murder, which should be called "The Al Qaeda Apostasy?"
Of course, only Islam itself (rather than a fringe element of its practitioners) can establish whether it remains a peaceful, compassionate and just religion or whether the violent and vengeful cult of al Qaeda is now representing a scary new version of the so-called "Will of Allah."Obviously, Islam alone can prove by word and deed that it has not already been subsumed by al Qaeda-style perversions.
Since any semblance of an accusation that Islam might be inherently violent is being so sharply protested, a far greater outrage should now be erupting within Islam toward those in-house desecrators who are trying to transform that religion into nothing more nor less than a perpetual killing machine of all Christians, all Jews and especially all Muslims who happen to disagree.
This latter diabolic sport of Muslims killing Muslims by the thousands (usually called "sectarian violence") is exactly what is happening in Iraq -- an abomination to Islam but with only moderate and muted objections from all too many of the so-called "moderate" Muslims. .
Clearly, it is not George Bush, Tony Blair or Pope Benedict who are perverting the religion. It is those plainly outside-the-religion deviants (khawarij) who daily sponsor suicide mass murder, perform decapitation by the sword, foment hatred worldwide, issue unauthorized and false fatwas (e.g., UBL's faux fatwas of 1996 and '98) and engage in multiple other forms of violence who are so willfully bringing shame, internal discord (fitna), ill-repute and even an increasingly "fascist" face to Islam.
A Time for Truth-in-Language
That being the case, it is high time for the defenders of authentic Islam to begin waging -- finally, belatedly -- a truly Holy War against these ruthless evildoers, not only as being "un-Islamic" or "non-Islamic" or merely "unacceptable" but condemning them with such far more sufficient Arabic and Islamic words as murtadd (apostasy), kuffr (infidels), istihlal (sin of "playing God"), Hirabah (unholy war), mufsiduun (evildoers, corrupters, mortal sinners), Jahannam (Hellfire), irhab, irhabis (terrorism, terrorists), khawarij (outside-the-religion), abd'al-Shaitan (Servants, Slaves of Satan)
These are very tough words for Muslims to apply to other Muslims. However, as a matter of Islamic precedent, let us recall that the famous Spanish Muslim clerics' fatwa (religious edict) of March 11, 2005 by 41 mostly Sunni clerics condemned Osama bin Laden as an infidel and an apostate and as being guilty of supremely arrogant istihlal -- and therefore a deadly enemy of Islam.
And soon thereafter, the Washington DC-based Free Muslims Coalition Against Terrorism sharply condemned al Qaeda as waging Hirabah (unholy war) by mufsiduun (evildoers) destined, therefore, for Jahannam (Hellfire) and constituting a murtadd (an apostasy) against authentic, Quranic Islam -- again making UBL Allah's deadly enemy.
But even such sharp words and labels and such powerful fatwas and resolutions are not nearly enough. Some truly definitive standard is needed for comparing the true character of Islam on the one hand to the genocidal character and "works" of the self-anointed "Jihadi" evildoers on the other.
The Quran's Blessed "99 Names of Allah"
In this regard, Islamic scholars and jurists might do well to turn to the highly revered "99 Names of Allah" by which Allah has defined Himself in the Quran -- and to find for each of these blessed names the Islamic antonym which best describes the hateful, sinful and apostate nature of the mufsiduun al Qaeda and like-minded killers.
Some of these more obvious antonyms -- which clearly identify the irhabiFasci not as the"Servants of Allah" they falsely claim to be but as the abd' al-Shaitan (Servants or Slaves of Satan) they actually are -- might be the following dozen examples:
Allah, The Compassionate . ...al Qaeda, The Heartless
Allah, The Peace....al Qaeda, The Warmongers
Allah, The Merciful.......... al Qaeda, The Merciless
Allah, The Munificent...&. . al Qaeda, The Selfish
Allah, The Just..al Qaeda, The Unjust
Allah, The Restrainer....al Qaeda, The Transgressors
Allah, The Forgiver&...al Qaeda, The Unforgiving
Allah, The Loving.... al Qaeda, The Haters
Allah, The Giver of Life........al Qaeda, The Assassins
Allah, Acceptor of Repentance.....al Qaeda, The Unrepentant
Allah, The Exalted&...al Qaeda, The Arrogant
Allah, The Light.....al Qaeda, The Darkness
To begin the process, if just one of the major true-to-Islam Ulema (convocation of clerics, scholars and jurists) were to undertake this 99-part comparison, many similar groups and individuals would join in this initiative of self definition.
Some vital elements -- "justice" (al adl') and its multiple features and its many antonyms, for example -- would present enormous challenges. But the effort itself would present the vital opportunity for clarity of identity that surely does not exist today.
Imagine, for instance, collaborative projects by the North American Fiqh Council, the Al Azar University scholars in Egypt, the distinguished Ulema of the "Amman Declaration" in Jordan, the Council of Senior Saudi Clerics in Saudi Arabia, the Fiqh Council of Great Britain and other such bodies worldwide.
What better and more objective way for Islam to "draw a picture" of exactly what it is -- not only on paper but in the hearts, minds and souls of all those faithful Muslims who need to be reminded in every possible detail about who their beloved Allah actually is and who, in stark contrast, the terroristic sinners and corrupters of Islam really are.
The danger, of course, is that this historic interfaith "teaching opportunity" about which Cardinal Mahoney and the MPAC are so reasonably speaking might be corrupted and "hijacked" by the so-called "Jihadi" forces of Hirabah, of Munafiq and of Murtadd.
If what remains of authentic, Quranic Islam were to remain so passive as to allow this to happen, it would have conceded to The Al Qaeda Apostasy the de facto authority for deciding what this religion has now become and will most likely remain -- no matter what it once was and no matter what 99-part picture Allah might once have painted of Himself in the poetic words of the Quran.
The real question now is will the "Real Islam" manage to stand up in clear definition and in proactive defense of what Allah says it is?
Or will Islam allow its plainly apostate enemies to seize control over this last-chance "teaching opportuity" and to re-define Islam in their own murderous image of so-called "Jihadi martyrdom" -- which is, in fact, nothing but "Irhabi MURDERdom?"
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