'Innocent religion is now a message of hate' by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed

[Guest guest]

'Innocent religion is now a message of hate'

by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Newspaper Sept. 4, 2004

 

It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is

equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all

terrorists are Muslims.

 

The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were

Muslims. The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of the

Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved

in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims, with other Muslims

chosen to be their victims.

 

Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh

and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two airliners

last week were also Muslims.

 

Bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide

bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all

over the world, were Muslim.

 

What a pathetic record. What an abominable " achievement " . Does all

this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture?

 

These images, when put together, or taken separately, are shameful

and degrading. But let us start with putting an end to a history of

denial. Let us acknowledge their reality, instead of denying them

and seeking to justify them with sound and fury signifying nothing.

 

For it would be easy to cure ourselves if we realise the seriousness

of our sickness. Self-cure starts with self-realisation and

confession. We should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full

knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed culture.

 

Let us listen to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Sheikh - the Qatar-based

radical Egyptian cleric - and hear him recite his " fatwa " about the

religious permissibility of killing civilian Americans in Iraq. Let

us contemplate the incident of this religious Sheikh allowing, nay

even calling for, the murder of civilians.

 

This ailing Sheikh, in his last days, with two daughters studying

in " infidel " Britain, soliciting children to kill innocent civilians.

 

How could this Sheikh face the mother of the youthful Nick Berg, who

was slaughtered in Iraq because he wanted to build communication

towers in that ravished country? How can we believe him when he

tells us that Islam is the religion of mercy and peace while he is

turning it into a religion of blood and slaughter?

 

In a different era, we used to consider the extremists, with

nationalist or Leftist leanings, a menace and a source of corruption

because of their adoption of violence as a means of discourse and

their involvement in murder as an easy shortcut to their objectives.

 

At that time, the mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of

religion used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious

sermons were warm behests for a moral order and an ethical life.

 

Then came the Neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent religion,

whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent

necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says

explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a

whole, has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal

war cry.

 

We can't call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own.

 

We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder

civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us,

whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their criminal deeds.

These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image.

 

We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that

terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive

monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.

 

We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous

crimes, without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it ennobling to

re-invent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other

people's sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their

own children to European and American schools and colleges.

 

 

Abdel Rahman al-Rashed is general manager of Al-Arabiya news

channel. Yesterday, his article appeared in the pan-Arabic newspaper

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.