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July 08, 2005
Friedman - a Muslim solution to a Muslim problem.
Every so often Thomas Friedman hits the nail on the head. Today's column is a must read. Out of concern for the fragile sensibilities of the Muslim world, few have been willing to say what many have been thinking. The great bulk of global Islam is notably silent after attacks such as those in London yesterday. Its time to choose side with clarity. Of all people, the world's Muslims are least able to remain silent and neutral on this question.
...either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.
For years now, a distributed group of terrorists have killed and injured Westerners in Muslim countries, Westerners in Western countries, and many, many fellow Muslims in their home countries, all in the name of Islam. Speaking in the last day Tony Blair has said that despite what the bombers claim, this is not a Muslim action. George Bush said as well that this was not a truly Muslin action. Neither of these men are Muslim, so ought we not to direct our questions to the Muslims? It is time to be clear about the religious support for these murders.
There is no good reason to remain quiet; Muslin Londoners ought to be out in the streets at the first opportunity declaring their loyalty to Britain and British society and values, and their antipathy towards this sort of terrorism. That they don't is either a sign that they do support the terrorism, or, more likely, they're frightened of retaliation. So Friedman is correct, it is a civil war, that has spread across the globe.
Posted by Jay on July 8, 2005 at 09:00 PM | Permalink
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Friedman is in error, Muslims keep on condemning all acts of terrorsm. see
1. Friedman Wrong About Muslims Again
http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/friedman-wrong-about-muslims-again-and.html
Friedman Wrong About Muslims Again
Tom Friedman is a Middle East expert who knows a lot about Islam. Why, then, does he keep saying misleading things? He wrote in his latest column, "To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden."
A "fatwa" is simply a considered opinion of a Muslim jurisconsult. Such opinions are numerous. First of all, almost all the major Shiite Grand Ayatollahs have condemned Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. You could say that is easy, since Shiites don't generally like Wahhabis. But they are the leaders of 120 million Muslims (some ten percent of the 1.2 billion). So that is one. Tracking these things down is time-consuming, but this should do:
Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah of Lebanon condemns Osama Bin Laden.
So then what about the Sunni world? The leading moral authority for Sunnis is the rector or Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Seminary/ University in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Azhar is perhaps the world's oldest continuous university and has been since the time of Saladin a major center of Sunni religious authority. The current incumbent is Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi. So what about Tantawi and Bin Laden?
Grand Imam of Al-Azhar seminary, Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, condemns Osamah Bin Laden. And:
The Grand Imam of al-Azhar Seminary, Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, condemns Osamah Bin Laden.
What about Pakistan? Admittedly, it has some clerics who are fans of Bin Laden, or at least who would avoid condemning him. But the allegation Friedman is making is that no major cleric has condemned him. Try this: Prominent Pakistani Cleric Tahir ul Qadri condemns Bin Laden.
I don't personally care for Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He is an old-time Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher who fled to Qatar and now has a perch at al-Jazeera. But he does have some virtues. He is enormously popular among Muslim fundamentalists. And, he absolutely despises Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Al-Qaradawi has repeatedly condemned the latter. He even gave a fatwa that it was a duty of Muslims to fight alongside the US in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda! See also:
Yusuf al-Qaradawi condemns al-Qaeda.
There are also substantial Muslim communities in Europe with leaderships that have explicitly condemned Bin Laden. E.g.:
Spanish Muslim Clerical authorities Issue Fatwa against Osamah Bin Laden. There are on the order of 250,000 Muslims in Spain.
High Mufti of Russian Muslims calls for Extradition of Bin Laden. The Russian Muslim community is about 20 million strong, or 15 percent of Russia's 143 million population, and is growing rapidly, so that in a century Russia may be 50 percent Muslim. So this is not a pro forma thing here.
A good round-up on this sort of issue has been put up by al-Muhajabah.
See also Charles Kurzman's page.
Friedman also does refer to a major conference of Muslim clerics, thinkers and notables wound up just Wednesday that made a powerful statement about religious tolerance and condemned everything Osama Bin Laden stands for. But he seems oddly unaware of the significance of having Grand Ayatollah Sistani, Grand Imam of al-Azhar Seminary Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, and many other great Muslim authorities sign off on this epochal statement of Muslim ecumenism.
The statement forbids one Muslim to declare another "not a Muslim" if the believer adheres to any of the mainstream legal rites of Sunnism and Shiism. The whole basis of al-Qaeda is to call the Muslim leaders of countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Shiites, "not Muslims." The statement also demands that engineers should please stop pretending to issue fatwas, which should be left to trained clerical jurisconsults. This para. is also a slam at Bin Laden.
PS As for Friedman's main point, that Muslims haven't done a good job of fighting jihadi ideology and terrorism, it is bizarre. The Algerian government fought a virtual civil war to put down political Islam, in which over 100,000 persons died. The Egyptians jailed 20,000 or 30,000 radicals for thought crimes and killed 1500 in running street battles in the 1990s and early zeroes. Al-Qaeda can't easily strike in the Middle East precisely because Syria, Egypt, Algeria, etc. have their number and have undertaken massive actions against them. What does Friedman want? And, besides, he is wrong that this is only a Muslim problem. In the global age all problems are everybody's. That's part of flat world, too, Tom.
posted by Juan @ 7/09/2005 06:15:00 AM
Posted by: Mohammad | Jul 9, 2005 9:49:40 PM
Dropped by to see if you wanted to carnival
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/365
Posted by: AJStrata | Jul 19, 2005 11:17:16 AM
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