Off-topic -- reflections on the Muslim threat

Here are some thoughts on some very vitriolic anti-Muslim messages I've been receiving lately. They are addressed to a person who shall remain unnamed.

Where to begin...? Well, first, I better tell you where I agree with you. You would have to look long and hard in today's world to find a Muslim society that is open and pluralistic. Most of these countries lie in a band extending from North Africa to Central Asia, encompassing the Middle East. These are ancient cultures with long histories of being closed to outsiders (though frequently very hospitable to guests). Their histories are rife with despotism, oppression, and cruelty...going back way before Mohammed. They have no history of human rights or respect for diversity.

It has occurred to me that the suicide bombers, many of whom are virtually children (in the sense of barely out of their teens...if that), may actually be carrying on a modification to the ancient cult of Moloch worship, which famously demanded the sacrifice of children. Thus, the lip service is to Allah, but the religious practice predates Islam by many centuries.

People tend to identify their own culture and values, i.e. those things that make them emotionally and financially comfortable and secure, with their religion. More specifically, they identify forces that threaten their comfort with enemies of God...this is one great area of overlap between conservative America and Islamists, in my opinion.

Contrary to what one of your sources claims, not all Islamization has occurred by the sword. It is true that military conquest has historically been associated with the imposition of the religion of the conquerors. This is true of Muslims, but also of Christians (the Americas, for example). In modern times Islam has made great inroads in many cultures by proselytization.

I believe that Muslims of North Africa and the Middle East also need to come to grips with an inferiority complex. During the middle ages, when the contact and friction between Islam and Christianity was high, Arabic civilization was flowering and Europeans were backward. In fact, when renaissance scholars rediscovered the Greek classics, some of them were only available in translation from the Arabic (the original Greek manuscripts having been lost). As contact waned, the Arab nations remained confident in their total superiority, and they were in for a rude awakening when the modern era dawned. In some quarters a deep resentment over the fact that other cultures have surpassed them in science and economic development has lingered.

It is of some interest to listen to intellectuals from Muslim countries talk about how much they admired the United States during the post-war period of the fifties and sixties.

Just about everybody outside of conservative America (and much smaller conservative factions in some other countries) believe that George W. Bush orchestrated the war against Iraq entirely for his own political purposes. (I believe that is the case). He could not have given a greater gift to Islamists. One commentator I read suggested that the election of Obama greatly increased the risk of a terror attack on the United States, because with Bush the terrorists had "their man" in the White House. No president could have done more to increase the credibility and popularity of Al Qaeda than he did.

Is Islam inherently evil? I suppose that every religion that leads people away from Jesus Christ, that teaches untruths about the nature of God and his relationship with mankind, could be tagged as such...but of course that is not where your commentary was coming from.

I remember observing something back in the 1980s. There were a series of incidents, two of which come readily to mind. The first involved the bombing of Air India. Accusations against Sikh militants soon surfaced. The vociferous response of (self-appointed?) Sikh leadership figures ran along the lines of "This is racism." "How dare you accuse us of being terrorists!" etc. I remember thinking at the time that it would make so much more sense if they had just come out and said that they deplore these heinous acts like all other Canadians, and would fully cooperate with the police in their investigation. A similar event involved accused Ukrainian war criminals (from the Nazi era) several years later.

I was delighted when, in the aftermath of 9/11, a number of Muslim leaders in Canada and around the world made statements condemning the World Trade Centre attacks and promising cooperation with the authorities to fight extremism within their ranks. Sadly, that seems to have gotten lost.

There are, however, many examples of Muslim leaders who are taking, and have taken, the path of peace. I recently read the biography of a Pashtun called Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Muslim colleague of Mahatma Gandhi who led a pacifist independence movement in the Swat valley area of Pakistan. He was harassed and persecuted by the "Christian" British, but he never swayed from his pacifist ways.

The following link http://www.christiantoday.com/article/nigerian.peacemakers.documentary.stirs.hope.for.interfaith.relations/8646.htm tells the story of a Nigerian Pastor & Imam who were bitter enemies, but eventually reconciled and worked for peace. What the article doesn't mention, but I heard an interview with the Pastor (and he was quite explicit), was that the initial peace overtures were made by the Imam.

The link about the mosque in Calgary is another case in point.

The infamous Cordoba Initiative bears mentioning. It's leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is a leading moderate who is attempting to bridge the gaps between mainstream American culture and Islam by building a community centre open to all and including a prayer room. Some American Jewish groups and 9/11 survivors have come out in support. Again, it appears that being a voice of moderation from the Muslim community makes one a target of those who thrive on hatred...from both sides.

All in all, there's enough evidence out there to back up anything you want to believe, if you're selective enough. There are some serious problems with large swaths of the Muslim world, but there are many factors involved and only a much more thoughtful and analytical examination of the facts can hope to identify to what extent these problems are attributable to the religion, and to what extent the religion has become a convenient carrier for other agendas and baggage.