An extraordinary column in the Toronto Sun (thanks to Nooze):
In a recent column, Michael Coren, my colleague here at the Sun, demanded Muslims apologize for wrongs too numerous to list.
Coren is right. I, as a Muslim, apologize without equivocation or reservation for the terrible crimes — small and big — committed by Muslims against non-Muslims and against Muslims, as in Darfur, who are weak and easy prey to those who hold power in the name of Islam.
I imagine, however, Coren is not seeking an apology from a person of Muslim faith such as I, who maintains no rank and cannot speak on behalf of the institutionalized world of Islam.
Like many others who share his frustration and legitimate anger, Coren is asking to hear a contrite voice from within institutionalized Islam — to repent for Muslim misconduct, past and present, that is indefensible by any standard of civility and decency, and seek forgiveness.
But Coren and others might well wait indefinitely for such an apology from those representatives of institutionalized Islam convinced of their own righteousness, even as they are engineers of a civilization’s wreckage and prosper in it by the art of bullying.
Muslims and non-Muslims often point to the fact there is no Vatican in contemporary Islam — no figure like the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury who authoritatively represents the Muslim world….
And here comes a point with extraordinary implications:
Within the Arab Sunni world the Egyptian-born Sheikh Qaradawi, 80, of Qatar, is the face of institutionalized Islam. He is the closest to what might pass for a titular head of Muslims akin to the Pope. Qaradawi’s words, now broadcast by television network al-Jazeerah, are taken as authoritative pronouncements of Islam. He is the “spiritual” leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement formed to repudiate freedom and democracy, and a defender of Islam’s war against the West by any means, including suicide bombings.
For such representatives of institutionalized Islam, all things are political. They are the authoritative guardians of the ideology that in Islam religion and politics are inseparable, and jihad — holy war — is its defining aspect.
Hence, since this institutionalized Islam is at war with the West, for Coren or anyone else to expect an apology from its generals is rather naive.
Well, not naive at all really, given the repeated insistence from Muslim and non-Muslim authorities alike that the overwhelming majority of Muslims abhor jihad violence. But in any case, search for Qaradawi at Jihad Watch and at Dhimmi Watch. Find out what he has said about jihad, about martyrdom-suicide bombings, and about a host of other issues. And reflect for a moment on the implications, if Mansur is correct that he is “the face of institutionalized Islam.”