Here yet again we see an Islamic scholar explaining to non-Muslims how jihad is essentially a benign concept. Yet for some reason mosques in America don’t seem to be hosting Dr. Mukhtasar Syamsuddin and asking him to explain the same thing to them. For some reason Dr. Mukhtasar Syamsuddin doesn’t seem to be reaching out to Muslim audiences here or abroad to convince potential jihadists that the jihadist groups are getting jihad and Islam wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Fulbright scholar offers glimpse into Muslim world,” by Cathy Spaulding for the Muskogee Phoenix, October 17 (thanks to James):
When Fulbright Scholar Dr. Mukhtasar Syamsuddin discusses the “Muslim World,” he has several different world to discuss.
“The Islamic culture is the only one in the world based on the Koran, but the Muslim culture is a social construct,” he said. “There are Muslim Americans, Muslim Canadians, Muslim Arabs, Muslim Indonesians.”
Syamsuddin, a Muslim Indonesian, will share these worlds with Northeastern State University over the next six weeks through the Fulbright Visiting Specialists Program. Syamsuddin is the first Fulbright Scholar to be hosted by NSU….
Syamsuddin teaches philosophy and philosophy of religion at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia. Theme of his Fulbright visit is “Direct Access to the Muslim World.”…
Syamsuddin said he also will spend his six-week visit clarifying Islamic terms such as “jihad,” which, he said, are misunderstood.
“Jihad is to do your religious commitments truly,” he said. “It does not mean you have to fight against another Muslim or another person. Terrorism is not an expression of jihad.”
I wonder what Dr. Mukhtasar Syamsuddin would say to Anwar al Awlaki to convince him that he was all wrong when he said: “Whenever you see the word terrorism, replace it with the word jihad.”
He said jihad is a misunderstood word “not just in America, but in the Islamic world itself.”
He said Islamic terrorists see unbelievers as the enemy and have tried to kill them.
–But according to Islamic teaching, the unbeliever is not the enemy,” he said. “One Islamic teaching is to keep their life in harmony, not in conflict and not to kill.”
“O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him).” — Koran 9:123