Good. And Now?
It's a hopeful sign. Something good will certainly come of this initiative of Muslim scholars calling for peace and understanding between Islam and Christianity claiming "the very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake". Most certainly. And about time. But what, exactly, does this portend?An acknowledgement that from among their midst, in the name of their religion, a statistically insignificant, but violence-significant cadre of terrorists speak in the name of Islam?
That being so, does this represent a useful first step in battling the odious usurpation of Islam's good name? Has that group of Muslim scholars contemplated a useful alternative first step of confronting and denying the Islamic credentials of fascistic Islamists bent on wreaking terror everywhere in the world?
Is this a feel-good outreach experiment? When what should be implemented is a decisive and determined educational outreach to Muslims to reject fanaticism?
Having done which initially, and putting paid to the promise inherent in their rejection of fundamentalist Islam which has so fervently embraced jihad and the glories of violence, an approach for togetherness might enjoy slightly more resonance with an embattled Western and Christian community.
It's true that finding common cause between the world's most numerous spiritual faiths will make the world a more comfortable place. But there is faith and there is political will, and it's questionable, despite the terrorists' high-jacking of their Islamic precepts of choice that they will stand down any time soon, simply because Islamic scholars have extended a hand of friendship to infidels.
Those moderate Islamic academics will simply be labeled as turncoats, religious pariahs, while Islamist terrorists continue their rampages.
In their letter to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders, the Islamic scholars point out that Islam and Christianity share the tenets of love of God and neighbour as the two most important commandments to be observed. We certainly are aware of the theoretical embrace of this commandment, but it has not been Christianity that has armed itself with vitriol against Islam and sought to exterminate hated vestiges of Western power.
Islamic representatives from Egypt, Palestine, Oman, Jordan, Syria, Bosnia and Russia, some of whom reign high on the Islamic clerical hierarchy are without doubt men of sound faith and good intent. Their overture is well meant. Have they ventured to persuade others of their cloth in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan that they too have an obligation to reject the rigid Islam that views only its God as the true one?
Have they questioned of those others why there is a palpable disdain for and deliberate exclusion of other faiths? Have they enjoined their brethren to embrace all people as brothers and treat them accordingly? When do people of good will move beyond calls to peace and goodwill and transform the words into discernible patterns of behaviour?
The signatories appealing to their Christian brethren claim that "99.9% of Muslims" who follow mainstream schools oppose extremism. It becomes the obligation of that 99.9% to decry extremism, to deny, abhor and reject those who terrorize in the name of the religion they share. At least as loudly and determinedly as the other one percent upholding the religious legitimacy of violent extirpation of perceived enemies.
"In Islam we have had a problem for some time now where the mainstream voices are drowned out by a minority that choose violence", according to Aref Ali Nayed, senior advisor to the Cambridge Interfaith Programme at Cambridge University in Britain. Islam has an avowed problem.
Recognition of a problem is the first step toward attempts at solving it. If a mere one percent of believers, belligerent and violence-prone as they are, promiscuously spread their message of hate and conquest unchallenged, whose responsibility does that become?
posted by Pieface @ Friday, October 12, 2007
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