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LA Times fooled by fatwa

Aug 3, 2005 10:50 am By Robert Spencer

The LA Times doesn’t care about the terror ties of those who issued the recent America fatwa against terrorism. Nor does it care that the statement itself leaves open significant loopholes by not defining who are the “innocent” people that Muslims are forbidden to kill.

Others are fooled, too: I found this article because it is linked at Townhall.com (look under “Also In The News”). I have written repeatedly to Townhall’s Jonathan Garthwaite, asking that Townhall pick up my weekly Human Events column. He has never given me even the courtesy of a reply. Now I am beginning to suspect why.

The Times editorial says:

A broad group of U.S. and Canadian Muslim scholars and religious leaders last week issued a fatwa that is as unequivocally anti-violence as those of Khomeini or Osama bin Laden were pro-murder:

“All acts of terrorism are haram, forbidden by Islam. It is haram, forbidden, to cooperate or associate with “¦ any act of terrorism or violence.” The declaration then went beyond familiar condemnations to demand action: It is the “civic and religious duty of Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of civilians.”…

Unequivocal? What is “terrorism” or “violence” in this context? We can’t take the ordinary understandings for granted when jihadists have denied that they are committing acts of terrorism or random violence. What’s a civilian in this context? What about the London Muslim leader who noted that “civilian” is not a category within Islamic law?

The U.S. and Canadian demand for active Muslim prevention of terrorism is new to most Americans, but a message long stressed by moderate U.S. Muslim groups, including the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. The council, while also focused on Muslim civil rights, is adamant that Muslims in the United States should be robust participants in politics and society. It has offered help to the FBI and other agencies in anti-terrorism efforts.

Here’s an examination of MPAC’s commitment to anti-terror efforts.

Notwithstanding events such as the recent terrorism-related arrests of an imam and his 22-year-old U.S.-born son in Lodi, Calif., Muslims are generally part of the mainstream in the United States. European Muslims are more ghettoized, clustered by country of origin and rejected by or rejecting of the mainstream society. As numerous analyses of Britain’s accused bombers have noted, such outsider status makes angry young people more susceptible to the simplistic message of the worst hard-line fundamentalists. That makes it all the more worthwhile to support Muslims trying to head off the still small rumblings of youthful alienation in the United States.

Sure. But I am not going to stop asking them to clear up serious ambiguities that remain in this fatwa, and to explain their previous activities and associations.

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Filed Under: Moderate Muslims, Taqiyya, United States, Useful idiots


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