Selling Islam in America
Jan/Feb 2003 Editorial
by Elwood McQuaid
The one-year commemoration of the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon spawned a huge irony.
While Americans and masses of people the world over held solemn
gatherings to mourn the loss of more than three thousand innocent lives
and renounce international terrorism, Islam was enjoying a coup of
sorts in the United States.
For days surrounding the commemoration, the airwaves and print media
bombarded us with programs and articles promoting the virtues of Islam,
and the networks featured Muslims and their apologists in a favorable
light.
Although the interviewers obviously didn’t know enough about the
subject to ask the right questions, they were well prepared not to ask
the wrong ones. They carefully avoided queries that would expose the
dark side of the religion. Much of what was said was either misleading,
false, or tilted heavily toward being pro-Muslim propaganda.
When asked about the true meaning of jihad, the answers were pat
responses. We were told that jihad does not mean conquest by the sword
or spilling the blood of one’s infidel enemies; nor does the Qur’an
sanction or imply such a concept. To devout Muslims, so the line went,
jihad represents "the inner struggle of the heart to achieve inward
peace and personal purity," nothing more; and the Muslim holy book is
essentially a volume promoting love, peace, and brotherhood.
Then there was the matter of Islam touted as a pluralist religion.
This malarkey is an easy sell in the West because religious pluralism
is basic to democracies like the United States. By and large,
Americans, including Christians, are naïve and uninformed about where
much of the rest of the world draws the line on religious tolerance.
This fact is particularly true of Islamic states.
Another prominent ingredient in these benign conversations was the
idea that the Saddam Husseins and Osama bin Ladens of the world are
hijacking Islam. The vast majority of Muslims were purported to be
negatively typecast by the actions of a few bad apples and were
collectively wringing their hands in anguish over these miscreant
troublemakers.
In the mix was the subtle implication that those who happened to see
things otherwise and dare express themselves are intolerable bigots who
practice the kind of prejudice and hate-mongering that are totally out
of step with 21st-century, politically correct behavior.
The Questions No One Asked
No one is saying that all Muslims are terrorists or bent on world
conquest. No doubt many Muslims do, indeed, want to live in peace with
their neighbors. And people who know the world of Islam well understand
that many innocent Muslims are persecuted, victimized, and even killed
by other Islamists.
However, if the Qur’an is all about love and jihad is simply a
matter of an inner personal struggle for peace and purity, why are
hundreds of thousands of Christians being slain by Muslims waging jihad
(Holy War) and professing to be motivated by the Qur’an, which they say
encourages their actions? Contemporary examples run in the millions.
Here’s just a sample:
In Indonesia, some 200,000 deaths resulted in jihad violence in East
Timor. Christians have been pursued, and massacred, and their churches
burned down by jihadists. . . . The death toll in these violent attacks
is over 10,000, while an additional 8,000 Christians have been forcibly
converted to Islam.1
These slaughtered or mutilated Christians had no one to speak or ask
questions on their behalf in the media commotion surrounding September
11.
If Islam is pluralistic (it is, in truth, absolutist), why do most
Muslim countries have zero tolerance for Christians and Jews? Saudi
Arabia is a prime illustration. There, all citizens must be Muslims. No
churches are allowed; publicly displaying Christian symbols can get you
arrested; and Muslims converting to Christianity can be executed.
Furthermore, why would an Islamic scholar argue for the
incompatibility of Islam with non-Muslim systems? He said, "There can
be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic religion and
non-Islamic social and political institutions. . . When the Islamic
movement is strong enough it must take power and create an Islamic
republic."2 Islam has accomplished this very feat in other places—in
the Sudan, for example.
And if Islam has been "hijacked" by maverick bands of off-brand
radicals, why hasn’t there been an outcry from the abused
Muslim-American community? It is well known that terror cells operate
in or near some of the mosques in this country. It is also a fact that
diatribes against Israeli and American authorities, much like those
churned out by Muslim mullahs in the Middle East, spew with regularity
from lecterns in the mosques of America. It would appear logical that
if radicals have hijacked Islam, mainstream Muslims would be leading
the posse to track down, expose, and excommunicate the misfits from
among their peace-seeking Muslim brothers and sisters. Doing so would
be in their best interest.
Christians, in fact, have done so with the likes of the Ku Klux
Klan, Racist Christian Identity movement, and violent Aryan Nations
that corrupted everything Christian and American. The issue is not
complex. If Muslims want to live here (they are doing so in the
millions) and be peace-loving American citizens, they should be held to
the same standards of conduct as the rest of us. And why should they,
or we, expect anything different?
Endnotes
1 "Culture of Hate," Bat Yeor, National Review Online, August 2, 2002, [www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-yeor080202.asp].
2 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1997, p.269.