Finally, a Muslim Cry from the Heart
Daniel Pipes
Where are Muslim cries of despair at what is being done in the name of their religion? This has been the great void of recent years, and what has led some non-Muslims to the wrong conclusion that all Muslims are culpable.
Yesterday's Asharq al-Awsat contained a remarkable cri de coeur from Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-‘Arabiya news channel, reprinted today in London's Sunday Telegraph as "Innocent religion is now a message of hate." (The Arabic title is more dramatic: "The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!") The essay deserves reading in full, but here follow excerpts from the beginning and end:
It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. …
We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us, whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their criminal deeds. These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image.
We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.
We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it ennobling to re-invent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to European and American schools and colleges.
Comment: Only when the sentiments of this powerful and moving statement become commonplace will there be real progress in the war against Islamism.
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