Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The Problem of Muslim Leadership
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The Problem of Muslim Leadership
Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2013
Another Islamist terror attack, another round of assurances that it had nothing to do with the religion of peace.
I've seen this before. A Muslim terrorist slays a non-Muslim citizen in the West, and representatives of the Muslim community rush to dissociate themselves and their faith from the horror. After British soldier Lee Rigby was hacked to death last week in Woolwich in south London, Julie Siddiqi, representing the Islamic Society of Britain, quickly stepped before the microphones to attest that all good Muslims were "sickened" by the attack, "just like everyone else."
This happens every time. Muslim men wearing suits and ties, or women wearing stylish headscarves, are sent out to reassure the world that these attacks have no place in real Islam, that they are aberrations and corruptions of the true faith.
But then what to make of Omar Bakri? He too claims to speak for the true faith, though he was unavailable for cameras in England last week because the Islamist group he founded, Al-Muhajiroun, was banned in Britain in 2010. Instead, he talked to the media from Tripoli in northern Lebanon, where he now lives. Michael Adebolajothe accused Woolwich killer who was seen on a video at the scene of the murder, talking to the camera while displaying his bloody hands and a meat cleaverwas Bakri's student a decade ago, before his group was banned. "A quiet man, very shy, asking lots of questions about Islam," Bakri recalled last week. The teacher was impressed to see in the grisly video how far his shy disciple had come, "standing firm, courageous, brave. Not running away."
Bakri also told the press: "The Prophet said an infidel and his killer will not meet in Hell. That's a beautiful saying. May God reward [Adebolajo] for his actions . . . I don't see it as a crime as far as Islam is concerned."
The question requiring an answer at this moment in history is clear: Which group of leaders really speaks for Islam? The officially approved spokesmen for the "Muslim community"? Or the manic street preachers of political Islam, who indoctrinate, encourage and train the killersand then bless their bloodshed?
Click this link to read the rest of this article, in particular its significance with respect to the USA:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323475304578503613890263762.html?mod=djemWMPAsia_h
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Silence is deafening. Non-action is complicity.
Every leader should ask this of themselves. In the case of Islam, the working relationship between the political and religious is paramount to the the ideology. If we are serious in our ambition to defeat Islamic extremist groups, we had best heed Ayaan. There is no more critical thinker about Islam than this powerful voice; her understanding is intellectual as well as personal.
The Buddhists in Myanmar are certainly an exception.
You know it's bad when Buddhists are attacking you.