As is typical of mainstream media reports, this report doesn’t mention that Parvez Ahmed is the former national Board chairman of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In any case, it would be refreshing if Beth Reese Cravey had asked Ahmed to explain his statement that the Islamic State’s caliphate is “a silly utopian concept devoid of intellectual logic or jurisprudence.” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi provided a detailed case from the Qur’an and Islamic law for his declaration of a new caliphate. If Ahmed rejects this case on Islamic grounds, he should explain why, or other Muslims will accept al-Baghdadi’s case as valid and join his caliphate.
Also, Ahmed says: “The vast majority of Muslims actually live in democracy and want to live in democracy.” Coming from a man who supports the criminalization of blasphemy, this is a highly questionable statement. Given that that is part of a global push against the freedom of speech by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the ongoing persecution of Christians in Indonesia (which Ahmed would probably classify as a democracy) and the re-Islamization of once-secular Turkey, it is not at all clear that the vast majority of Muslims want to live in a democracy that protects the freedom of speech and equality of rights for non-Muslims.
Note also this: al-Baghdadi “demanded that all Muslims across the world pledge allegiance to him. Such demands are not unusual, Ahmed said, and have been made by Christian and Hindu extremist groups as well.”
Really? In what universe? Where are the Christian and Hindu states declared by Christian and Hindu extremist groups, and demanding the allegiance of Christians and Hindus worldwide?
Ahmed also blames the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood’s attempt to hold power in North Africa: “He linked al-Baghdadi’s current push to the Arab Spring, the movement to spread democracy in the Middle East that was ‘brutally crushed.’ ‘It is actually a sign of their failure … The failure of people’s aspirations,’ he said.” But remember: the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to establish a caliphate also. So Ahmed is saying that because a caliphate was not declared in Egypt, it has been declared in Iraq.
The reporter Beth Reese Cravey, true to form for a mainstream media reporter, just accepts all this uncritically, and doesn’t press him on any of it.
“First Coast Muslim leaders reject Iraq extremists’ call to arms,” by Beth Reese Cravey, Florida Times-Union, July 2, 2014:
A Northeast Florida Muslim leader decried as “silly” an extremist group’s recent call for Muslims worldwide to help build an Islamic state in conquered territory in Iraq and Syria.
Most Muslims will “not react favorably,” said Parvez Ahmed, board member of the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida and an associate professor of finance at the University of North Florida.
“It’s a silly utopian concept devoid of intellectual logic or jurisprudence,” he said. “The vast majority of Muslims actually live in democracy and want to live in democracy.”
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant, this week declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria. He also demanded that all Muslims across the world pledge allegiance to him.
Such demands are not unusual, Ahmed said, and have been made by Christian and Hindu extremist groups as well. He linked al-Baghdadi’s current push to the Arab Spring, the movement to spread democracy in the Middle East that was “brutally crushed.”
“It is actually a sign of their failure … The failure of people’s aspirations,” he said. “Had the Arab Spring succeeded, I don’t think we would see this.”
Alex M. Sivar, a board member for the Istanbul Cultural Center in Jacksonville, agreed.
“We have always been steadfast supporters of peace in Middle East and all around the world and unwavering with our belief that current crisis in that part of the world are fueled and caused by a lack of majority-supported true democratic governance,” he said.
“We believe all terrorists who are calling other Muslims to arm and fight for some foolish claim are disconnected from reality and must be condemned at the strongest means,” he said. Such terrorists may be “soldiers for money and … not represent any Muslim community.”
The Islamic state leader also called for escalated fighting in the holy month of Ramadan, which began on Sunday. But Sivar bemoaned that timing.
“When we needed to be the agents of peace, this is heartbreaking. We hope and pray to God Almighty to bring those who lost their minds and [are] asking others to kill in the name of God to their senses,” he said.
Al-Baghdadi’s group has in a few short years transformed from just an al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq into a transnational military force that has conquered and held a massive chunk of territory. Al-Qaida’s al-Zawahri ejected al-Baghdadi from the terror network earlier this year.