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August 13, 2009
M. Zuhdi Jasser: A Muslim Who Gets It
It's easy to become depressed when it seems that so few Muslims are willing to take a public stand against the jihadists who seek a resurrection of the caliphate and the spread of Islamic law. It's all very fine to denounce terrorism, but what I'm really interested in are Muslims who will denounce groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
But there are true reformers, and I've profiled many of them on this blog. Of all of them Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy , is perhaps the one who is the most effective. He is articulate and outspoken, and gets a reasonable amount of attention from the press.
Time and again on this blog I've said that the best way to combat radicalism is to support reform minded Muslims. Muslims deserve a religion that is not dominated by a radical jihadist element just as much as they deserve civil liberties in Muslim countries.
Today he had a letter to the editor in The Washington Times taking President Obama and his top homeland security and counterterrorism official, John Brennan, to task for his idiotic statement the other day that we mustn't use "jihad" and "War on Terror," but only that "at war with al Qaeda." Here it is:
According to John Brennan, head of the White House's homeland security office, the war on terrorism is over. From now on, the administration will never use terms like "jihadists" and "global war" because doing so, as Mr. Brennan said, "risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve." He insisted that the U.S. is at "war with al Qaeda" ("U.S. no longer at war with 'terrorism' ," Page 1, Friday).
Could we be more blind? Acts of terror are rooted in the aspirations of Islamists to create an Islamic state and impose their version of Shariah law.As a devout Muslim who, like many others across the world, is dedicated to fighting Islamism and its radical offshoots, I believe there is nothing more dangerous to our security in the long term than the leader of the free world remaining in categorical denial about the essence of this ever-so-real contest of ideas.
Al Qaeda had nothing to do with the string of radical Islamists arrested across the country -- from North Carolina to New York, Oregon and New Jersey (to name but a few) -- in the last year alone. The only thing these radicals have in common is their belief in a militant version of political Islam.
I certainly can understand the concern of making this a clash of religions, but that should not lead to outright misinformation. There is a civil war happening within the Muslim consciousness -- between those who advocate for the Islamic state (Islamists) and those who believe in secular liberal democracies.
It certainly is not the role of any administration to determine who are "good" and "bad" jihadists. Not calling them exactly what they call themselves makes the White House the arbiter of who is and who is not a Muslim. This avoidance behavior allows American Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood's front groups in Washington, to continue to deny their responsibility to lead the Islamic reform effort against Islamism and its role in radicalization -- the real existential threat to the West.
The last administration used a term far too vague, labeling the tactic of terror as the enemy rather than the ideology of militant Islamism. Now we have swung the other way, targeting a single group that is but one manifestation of a global movement. The movement radicalizes Muslims and remains an ever-present danger to our citizenry and it should be identified as such.
M. ZUHDI JASSER
President
American Islamic Forum for Democracy
Phoenix AZ
Posted by Tom at August 13, 2009 9:30 PM
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Comments
I didn't hear about this new terminology being used but it doesn't surprise me any. He makes these concessions and thinks that makes a difference. It doesn't but I doubt it will phase Obama any.
Thanks for your visit to my place and your comment. Hope to see you again. Great blog you have here! I am not very familiar with a lot of what is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq and I look forward to reading more of your posts!
Posted by: Jennifer at August 13, 2009 11:51 PM
Some "counter-jihadists" I know do not trust Dr. Zuhdi Jasser. The possibility of taqiyya always exists, I guess.
But I've never found a reason to doubt his sincerity, even though he calls himself "a devout Muslim."
A couple of other Muslim reformers: Irshad Manji and Dr. Tawfik Hamid. I've interviewed the latter and, as far as I could tell, found him sincere.
Dr. Stephen Schwartz, an American convert to Sufi Islam, is another. He and CAIR have tangled.
Posted by: Always On Watch at August 16, 2009 8:42 AM
Taqiyya means lying to promote Islamism and the jihad, which is the opposite of what Zuhdi Jasser is doing.
I've profiled Irshad Manji, but not Tawfik Hamid or Stephen Schwartz. Thank you for their names, and I'll look them up.
Posted by: Tom the Redhunter at August 16, 2009 8:32 PM
