“Islamophobia,” a recent and politically manipulative coinage, is now a crime against humanity. Yet unique among crimes against humanity, it is within the power of its victims to end, or at least to curtail so severely as to make it virtually nonexistent. Here are five ways Muslims can end “Islamophobia”:
1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just “terrorism,” but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people.
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, rather than working toward impose Sharia upon those non-Muslims.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.
“ErdoÄŸan: Islamophobia crime against humanity,” from Today’s Zaman, December 18 (thanks to Maxwell):
Islamophobia is a crime against humanity just like anti-Semitism, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan said, while calling on the international community for recognition of this crime.
Is “Islamophobia” really like anti-Semitism? Let’s see. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forgery. Jews really don’t have a secret plan to control the world. Is concern about Islamic supremacism similarly trumped up? Or does Islam include a political manifestation that teaches world domination?
Don’t take my word for it. Let’s go to Majid Khadduri, an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject, Khadduri says this about jihad:
The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)
Don’t believe Khadduri? Very well. How about Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.
Don’t believe Nyazee, either? How about Iran’s Thug-In-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Of course, he is no Islamic scholar, but he is a devout Muslim, and he learned Islam not from greasy Islamophobes but from…Islamic scholars. And he has said: “Have no doubt… Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.”
Don’t believe Ahmadinejad? How about a Shafi’i manual of Islamic law endorsed by the most prestigious institution in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo? It says that the leader of the Muslims “makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax,” and cites Koran 9:29 in support of this idea: “Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled.” (‘Umdat al-Salik o9.8)
Is concern about this imperialist imperative really “Islamophobia,” akin to the lurid fictions that underlay anti-Semitism? No. Anyone who believes in freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and legal equality for all people should be concerned about this Islamic imperative, which would deny all three, and more besides.
ErdoÄŸan’s remarks came at a meeting with Syrian media held earlier this week, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported. The meeting was apparently held on the occasion of an upcoming official visit by ErdoÄŸan to Damascus, which is scheduled for Tuesday.
“Islam means peace, and it cannot tolerate terrorism. We reject all attempts to link Islam with terrorism,” ErdoÄŸan was quoted as saying by SANA. The agency noted that ErdoÄŸan also called on the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Arab League and all concerned parties to present a unified front to help end Islamophobia.
Of course, he is not referring to Muslims who link Islam with terrorism by justifying acts of terrorism with reference to Islamic teachings.