“What Muslims in
America can do”
Commentary by reformist
Muslim Dr. Zuhdi Jasser
Dear Harold,
Last week we informed you of the outrageous decision by FBI leadership to invite Kifah Mustapha, an imam connected to Hamas, to tour the top-secret National Counter Terrorism Center. As you recall, FBI officials first denied it happened, then finally admitting it happened—but defended the decision.
We encouraged you to contact your Member of Congress to express your concern and insist on an investigation.
Over 7,000 of you did. It’s easy to do—let your voice be heard today!
Step One: Please click here to contact your Member of Congress. This link will take you to our new Contact
Congress page on our website.
Step Two: Please click on the first link titled “FBI now defending inviting Mustapha” in the “Action Alerts”
box found in the middle of the page.
Step Three: This will take you to the letter. Scroll down to fill in your information and click “Send.”
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Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser are too often overlooked. The important column below by Dr. Jasser, which
appeared in the Des Moines Register yesterday, illustrates why current government policies need to change.
Guest column: What the Muslims in America can do
by DR. M. ZUHDI JASSER
Dr. Jasser is the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, based in Phoenix, Ariz. Contact: info@aifdemocracy.org. • October 6, 2010
You may get a hundred different answers from a hundred American Muslims about what it means to be an American Muslim.
The controversial Islamic center near ground zero, while pouring salt in a yet widely open national wound, did begin to awaken
us to the yet unfought war of ideas within the "House of Islam." Many of us reform-minded Muslims have been waging that
war of ideas for most of our adult life, long before 9/11. But time has shown that we cannot wage this battle alone.
It may not seem to matter much for a faith community that is barely 1 percent of the population, but American Muslims carry
an invaluable ability to influence the ideologies of over 1.5 billion Muslims - over a fifth of the world's population.
Until middle America realizes how our national security hangs in the balance of that intellectual war within Islam, our security
will never improve.
The last 12 months have seen the most arrests and attacks of radical Islamists on Americans since 9/11. This was confirmed
to Congress last month by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who also finally acknowledged the growing
homegrown threat of radical Muslims.
Sadly, many of my co-religionists called on by media to speak for American Muslims too often wallow in denial simply
deflecting any responsibility by distancing themselves from radicals or myopically equating Muslim radicals to those of
other faiths. They willfully ignore the main ideological conveyor belt towards radicalism - political Islam.
Most Americans no longer accept these detached irresponsible dismissals from leading American Muslims.
They see so many examples of American Muslim clerics who condemn terror out of one side of their mouth while
deceptively amplifying victimology, Islamophobia, anti-Americanism and morally vacant justifications from the other.
Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, for example, condemned 9/11 in the national media and was hailed as a moderate Muslim while
at the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque of Northern Virginia in 2001. Most, however, refused to look with any critique at his
theo-political ideas - a political Islam with high risk of radicalization. Today, he is one of the greatest threats to America
creating such violent traitors as Nidal Hasan. His sermons and teachings are a clinic on homegrown radicalization and yet
they still fill some Islamic bookstores with no hint of any counter-ideological movement from leading American Muslim organizations. Since so many leading well-financed American Muslim groups are sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood's
deas, they are certainly not going to lead a movement against political Islam and for the separation of mosque and state.
In our conversation at Drake University this week, I hope we focus on the fact that at the center of the growing threat to
our national security is this battle within the House of Islam. American Muslims need to accept and spread the meme that
it is time to get shariah (Islamic law) out of government and bring the ideas of modernity and Enlightenment to the Islamic
faith we love.
We need to take the offense in ending the ideas of jihad, the "ummah" as nation, and the "salafi" dream of returning
everything to the time of the Prophet Muhammad. Until we Muslims take on the responsibility of separating history
from religion and mosque from state, the threat will not dissipate.
Friday, 8 October 2010
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