FOUND - A 'Truly Moderate Muslim' :: Understanding Islam

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February 14, 2006

FOUND - A 'Truly Moderate Muslim'

Topics: Understanding Islam

[M. Zuhdi Jasser was attacked by CAIR-AZ and The Muslim Voice in a three month saga where the group's leadership gathered their own group of self-appointed Muslim activist leaders and imams to express their disdain for the above Steve Benson cartoon which appeared in the Arizona Republic.]

A truly moderate Muslim is one that places his country, America, before the "ummah," and although I have numerous Muslim friends whose friendship I cherish and that I believe to be moderates, this is the very first time I have seen a Muslim be so public and so vocal about supporting America, it's feedoms and protections, while also publically stating, in writing, that there are people in his faith who dream of a new Caliphate, a world ruled by and for Islam. Truly moderate Muslims who dare to speak out, especially if they dare to set aside their own denials that so many of their mosques are being used to indoctrinate an ideology which condones terror, are subject to immediate and prolonged attack by Muslim groups like CAIR (only one of many), who try to portray themselves as just another moderate civil rights group, but are in fact supporters of terrorism!

M. Zuhdi Jasser is the chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix, Ariz., and wrote on February 10 at the NRO, in a piece entitled "Dreams & Realities" - Cartoon problems, that he, a devout moderate Muslim, had just recently been portrayed in the local Muslim newspaper, Arizona Muslim Voice, as a ravenous dog - on the leash of his state newspaper, and devouring an imam. Jasser says that even though being portrayed as a dog is profoundly offensive and hateful in his Middle Eastern culture, there was hardly a ripple of outrage in the local Muslim community, and apparently in the local Muslim community - it's all right to make a vilifying cartoon of him, a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and medical officer, but certainly not one of bin Laden or al-Zawahiri. He has yet to see them publish one cartoon "against the enemies of America in this so-called Muslim newspaper."

Let's take a look at a few key excerpts of what he has to say:

(...) As many this week have said, this is not about cartoons. This all got me thinking about what drives people. I was born in America, raised a Muslim and a conservative. I have long struggled with what it is that makes my own reflexive passions, and my primary mission, so different from those of the mobs and even from so many of my Muslim neighbors in America. What is the fuse that, once ignited, turns normal people into a mob clamoring for Islam and often for blood?

(...) This question leads me to the subject of our dreams. There are some in my faith who dream of a new Caliphate, a world ruled by and for Islam. It is a seductive call to many in my faith, as dreams always are. But it is anathema to me. I do not believe that we were meant to be one thing, because that, in itself, takes away our free will. My dream can only be real if it is only mine -- if it is rooted in the individual success. Once the community or the so-called ummah takes it on as a communal success, it is no longer a dream but an imposition, a violation of freedom and liberty.

(...) My first allegiance is to this country. Without its freedoms and protections, my faith would be something much smaller. That is also why my dream has always been one of a pluralistic, democratic society where all religions and people can feel welcome. Islamists, from the radical to the moderate, would argue that in their dream the will of the majority and the Islamic state become one. What instilled my intense love for the United States from a young age was that our democracy has a Bill of Rights that upholds minorities, prevents oppression by the majority, and keeps religious scripture out of government -- the antithesis of Islamism.

(...) The Muslim mobs we see inflamed are not al-Qaeda, but they are enraged Islamists driven by a fear of losing the ideological world war to the West. They fear the West, which honors the individual first and the community second -- put another way, America first, and the ummah second. They fear more than anything having to compete in a non-theological legislature by the legal merit of the logic of their principles, rather than from behind the corrupt cloak of their theological monopoly on sharia.
(...) I would like to end with my own cartoon. In it, I see all the compassionless theocrats and obscenely rich despots on a ship named al-Titanic leaving the Middle East forever -- and, on the shore, the Muslims, Jews, Christians, and all people of faith joyously dancing in victory for the advent of a new Middle Eastern pluralism. Now, that would be a cartoon worth getting excited about. (the cartoon is at the top of this post)

What is most interesting and telling is that Dr. Jasser has been asking the Muslim Voice's publisher and editor-in-chief, Marwan Ahmad, and his circle of imams and Muslim community activists for years to speak out against radical and evil Muslims in Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Zarqawi, HAMAS and others by name rather than in platitudes. Their response has always been to deflect naming names as being 'un-Islamic.'

Apparently it didn't bother CAIR-Az, and The Muslim Voice - the "moderate Muslim activists," (who share the same office) about being "un-Islamic" in naming of names and "labeling as a "dog" or kelb in the Arabic vernacular not for the ilk of Al Qaeda and the enemies of America but for an activist secular moderate Muslim" - Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser.

For a critical look at what's REALLY going on in U.S. mosques, read "Saudi Venom in U.S. Mosques" by Daniel Pipes

Hat tip - Vinnie at Jawa Report

Posted by Richard at February 14, 2006 7:37 AM

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