According to Aafaq, the dean of student affairs at American International University, Abu Hamza Hijji, responded, writing that Allah the Most Merciful forbids praying for mercy for the non-Muslim dead, or even for the non-Muslim living, and that it is only permitted to pray that they be rightly guided. He added that what happened was a sad occurrence, but that does not give Muslims the right to transgress the laws of Allah the Most Merciful. — from this article
News of this reply, by the Muslim dean at American University, should be spread far and wide.
It will shock many, and it will attract the attention of a great many, for it connects to an event that has, and will receive, a great deal of coverage. Merely pointing out what is the standard Muslim view of not praying for Infidels, when those Infidels have just been murdered, will allow for a discussion of a much larger question. But think of the hypotheticals. Did Muslims pray for the victims of the 9/ll attacks? Of course not (many celebrated, in fact). What if the attacker at Virginia Tech had been a Muslim? Would Muslims then have prayed for those killed? Answer: of course not.
What does this answer from the American University dean point up? (He is no doubt chagrined that an Arabic-speaker was eavesdropping and could write about it, as Mohammed Ibn Guadi has.) It points up how, in Islam, there is a complete division of the world between Believer and Infidel. Until someone is following “the right path,” he has no claim to sympathy or loyalty of any kind. That is owed by Believers only to Believers. There is nothing of the human fellow-feeling that has developed in all other religions, so that one can certainly sympathize with, and help protect, others not of the same faith — see Liviu Librescu, holding the door against the gunman with his body, so his students could escape.
In Islam, loyalty — one’s sole loyalty — is owed to fellow members of the umma al-islamiyya. One does not owe, one is wrong even to think about owing, any true loyalty to Infidels or to an Infidel nation-state. One can go through some motions, when it may be deemed advisable in order to protect and promote Muslim interests — but a good Muslim will never offer even such an outward display save to prevent too much inquiry by Infidels about the doctrines of Islam in a society still run by Infidels.
And Muslim loyalty must always be offered up to this trans-national community. That is why so few Muslims serve in the military — excluding Black Muslims, whose creed and attitudes are not in all respects orthodox (though more and more attempts are made to make it so). There is also a handful of orthodox Muslims who do serve. Surely some are no longer true Muslims, and others are hoping to employ the training and knowledge of military techniques in ways that will or could be used to further Islam. This has been written about on Muslim websites.
Those engaged in the sometimes frustrating and certainly difficult task of convincing Infidels of what Islam inculcates, and above all else, what Islam inculcates about the view Believers must take toward Infidels, should recognize that this offers a revealing view into this world. For the American University”s Muslim dean was simply expressing a view that is central to Islam, a belief-system that originated in the need for conquering Arabs to have an alternative to the faiths of those far richer, more advanced, and above all more numerous peoples, Christians and Jews and then Zoroastrians. It is fascinating that the only person who objected to this perfectly standard Muslim view was a convert (“revert” in Islam, for if we are all born Muslims, we can only “revert” to it) — that is, someone who, as happens carefully with such new converts, did not realize much of what Islam is all about. In manuals of Da’wa, Muslims are told to be careful about revealing everything at once. In a sense, they are mimicking the slow unveiling of the successive revelations. One suspects that they do this because any potential convert, if he or she was given the full truth about Islamic tenets before being accepted hurriedly into the faith while scarcely knowing much more beyond the five pillars of ritual (shehada, zakat, salat, Ramadan, hajj), would reject it. The new converts are then watched over carefully by the imam and others in the mosque, who take it upon themselves to monitor the “progress” of the new convert — with great sympathetic attention, with ostentatious kindnesses, with a “welcoming into the fold” that makes some poor souls so very, very grateful. They have found, they think, At Last the answer to their Spiritual Search.
What this article reveals is nothing new to Muslims or to those non-Muslims who have studied Islam and refuse to lie about it. That leaves out the espositos and armstrongs — of whom there are so many. But it will shock many, and that is a good thing. For in that shocking, other truths may come to light about what Islam teaches, and why it matters that more people know about this, grasp it, sooner rather than later — later, when it is too late.
Finally, what will happen to that dean at American University? Will he be fired or asked to resign? He should be. And if he is not, then the alumni of American University, and the students, should demand it of the administration. For it is clear that had the gunman killed three dozen students at American University, the current Dean would have counseled Muslims that it is wrong to pray for those dead. That should get attention.
And what can that Dean do? Deny that that is the doctrine of Islam? Not at this point.
Make a case about this. Make a huge case.