Something in the morning paper caught my eye, for a couple of reasons. Seems that Ayman Zawahiri, considered to be the #2 guy in Al Qaeda these days, has released an audio recording in which he is threatening attacks against Libya. (Search on "Zawahiri + Libya" and you'll find a number of takes on the story.) Libya? Isn't Libya a predominantly Muslim country? And weren't they a sponsor of international terrorism not that long ago? Yes, and yes. You may remember Pan Am Flight 103, which was blown up in flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all 270 people aboard. After years of denying any responsibility for it, Libya ultimately admitted responsibility and reached a $2.7 billion settlement with the families of the victims. And that's just the highest-profile example of the things Lybia has been involved with.
But an interesting thing happened after Operation Iraqi Freedom took out Saddam Hussein. Suddenly, Moammar Kadafi decided that maybe it wasn't a healthy thing to be associated with terrorism. So in August of 2003, Libya formally renounced terrorism in a letter to the UN Security Council. In 2004, Libya announced that it was unilaterally dismantling its WMD programs. In May of 2006, the U.S. State Department formally rescinded Libya's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, and shortly thereafter restored full diplomatic relations.
That, of course, is what has Zawahiri all twisted up. By improving relations with the "Washington crusaders," Kadafi has become an "enemy of Islam." Abu Laith al Libi, a Libyan Al Qaeda commander who is busy in Afghanistan at the moment, added that Kadafi "is turning Libya into another crusader base."
This is, for all intents and purposes, equivalent to calling for a death sentence upon Kadafi. According to the Sahih al-Bukhari , one of the six major Sunni Hadith collections (the Hadith are oral traditions recounting events in the life of the prophet Muhammad), the prophet was pretty straightforward about people who didn't keep the faith: "Whover changed his Islamic religion, then kill him." And the Qur'an states, "But whoever of you recants and dies an unbeliever, his works shall come to nothing in this world and the next, and they are the companions of the fire for ever." (Qur'an 2:217)
Now, I'm sure that Kadafi considers himself to still be a true believer, but this wouldn't be the first time that Muslims have killed other Muslims whom they believed were not sufficiently militant, or who "betrayed" Islam by aiding someone whom the party of the first part considered to be an enemy. Many have wondered why the citizens of Iraq haven't risen up and helped us throw Al Qaeda out. It's pretty simple: Until the recent troop surge, we would clean up a neighborhood, then when we moved on, the terrorists would come back. If you were a simple shopkeeper or tradesman, and you helped the U.S., the chances were pretty good that you were going to die a gruesome death for it. Even Iraqi leaders who have pretty good security of their own have been targeted, and sometimes killed, for their cooperation: e.g., Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the Sunni Muslim tribal leader who was killed by a bomb on September 14, 2007, 10 days after meeting President Bush in Anbar Province. The fact is that most Iraqis have no confidence that we're not going to just pull up and leave, and they're not yet willing to bet their lives that we won't - particularly when there are so many voices in this country, including those among our political leadership, who want us to do just that.
It's just not easy to be a moderate Muslim. To be sure, the majority of Muslims are not eager to take up the banner of Jihad, but they don't seem particuarly eager to condemn it, either...because it's downright dangerous to do so. The problem is succinctly stated by Ibn Warraq: "There are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate." (Note that "Ibn Warraq" is a pen name - an alias under which the author writes, for the obvious reason that he himself would be a target if his true identity was known.) The Qur'an says what it says. The prophet Muhammad said what he said. And there has never been a repudiation of the militant principles upon which the religion was founded. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Kamal Nawash, a leader of American moderate Muslims, said in an August, 2004, interview that 50% of Muslims worldwide supported the jihad. Bernard Haykel, an associate professor of Islamic studies at New York University, stated during a New York trial in 2005 that "There are a billion plus Muslims in the Arab world, 90 percent of whom support Hamas." A 2004 survey conducted by Pew Research Center in Pakistan revealed that 65% favored Osama bin Laden, 47% believed that Palestinian suicide attacks on Israelis were justified, and 46% believed that attacks on Westerners in Iraq were justified.
Consider the words of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini:
"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them, put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]...Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other psalms and Hadiths urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim."
The problem faced by moderate Muslims is that there are, as Khomeini said, hundreds of passages that Islamic terrorists can point to as justification for their actions. That makes it difficult for the moderates to sell their point of view, because if someone actually goes back to the Qur'an and the Hadiths, and reads what they say, they'll find that they say pretty much what Khomeini, and hundreds of other fundamentalist clerics around the world, claim that they say. Unfortunately, those who point out this structural problem within Islam are quick to be labled "Islamophobes," criticized for "hate speech," and accused of stirring up anti-Muslim prejudice and intolerance. This makes it well-nigh impossible to have the kinds of honest and open conversations about these issues that are essential if they are ever going to be resolved peacefully.
I don't claim to know the answer to how this problem can be resolved. But I'm pretty sure that the answer is not to stick our collective heads in the sand and pretend, for fear of offending someone, that the problem doesn't exist. To make the world better, we must first have a clear understanding of how things really are, not just how we want them to be. To that end, I highly recommend, as additional reading material, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And The Crusades) by Robert Spencer, available at a bookstore near you, or through the link I helpfully provided.
Thanks for listening.
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