Commentators who have never cracked open the Koran
authoritatively declare Islam a religion of peace. But these
pundits are not the self-appointed experts Salam Al-Marayati has in
mind when he writes sarcastically, “American talk show hosts,
columnists and political leaders seem lately to have become experts
on Islam, the Arabic language, South Asian politics and Islamic
law.”
Writing in Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times, Al-Marayati,
the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council,
objects to non-Muslims, ignorant of Islam, who define it as a
“violent faith.” Presumably he doesn’t mind if non-Muslims, equally
ignorant of Islam, define it as a peaceful one.
But what if Muslims themselves define Islam as violent? Does he
object to that? After all, powerful Muslim clerics schooled in the
Koran have reached the same conclusion as the non-experts
Al-Marayati criticizes: Islam authorizes violent jihad against the
infidel. Are these Koranic experts wrong? Are they Muslim heretics?
Or are the Muslim heretics those who would explain away the Koran’s
call for jihad?
Most Muslim clerics say that militant Islam is orthodox Islam.
Are they wrong? To say Islam is nonmilitant is to say that most
Muslims don’t understand their own faith. Herein lies a form of
Western arrogance Muslims should consider the most offensive. The
chatter about “reforming Islam” is nothing more than a liberal
exhortation for Muslims to abandon their religion. By “reforming
Islam,” liberal westerners mean taking Islam out of Islam and
replacing it with liberalism.
Many of the same people who call Islam a religion of peace also
call for a reform of Islam. Which raises the question: Why does it
need to be reformed if it is peaceful? What they are really saying
then is, “Islam should be a religion of peace and we will make it
so.” Liberals seek to remake Islam in their own image, just as they
have been trying to pressure Catholicism and traditional Judaism
into exchanging their doctrines for political correctness.
Al-Marayati, even as he denies Islam’s militancy, inadvertently
acknowledges it. He complains that when “Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul D. Wolfowitz praises those he calls ‘moderate’ Muslims, that
in itself marginalizes the people he is promoting.” In other words,
the orthodox Muslim world frowns upon “moderate” Muslims. They see
moderate Muslims as phony Muslims who are surrendering Islamic
orthodoxy for worldly gain. Al-Marayati wants “progressive Muslims
to be listened to in the Muslim world,” implying that that world
isn’t progressive and won’t listen to them if they are perceived as
apostates to the faith. Don’t call us moderate or we won’t be taken
seriously, is a curious request to make if one is arguing that
Islam isn’t militant.
Al-Marayati ends up arguing that America lacks moderation. “When
people like former South Africa President Nelson Mandela declare
that the United States is a threat to world peace, when Europeans
and Canadians have unfavorable attitudes toward the U.S., then
moderation is not just a Muslim problem,” he writes. He also argues
that Islam isn’t violent and then argues that all religions are
violent: “violence inspired by religious ideology is timeless and
afflicts everyone: why not address the issue across the board?
Ireland and the former Yugoslavia come to mind.”
The issue isn’t addressed across the board because most of the
world’s terrorism is coming from the Islamic world. It would be
easier to define Islam as a religion of peace if terrorists who
have taken the name Muhammad weren’t blowing people up. And if
Muslim authorities don’t define Islam as a religion of peace, why
should westerners? They are only repeating the doctrinal
pronouncements about jihad that come from the religious experts of
Al-Marayati’s faith.
