Jihad (gee-HAAD)

There has been talk lately of outlawing Islam in the United States (half of you who are reading this right now probably just pumped your fist in the air and said, “damn right!”).  It seems Americans feel that Muslims and people or Arabic ethnicity have committed the vast majority of terrorist threats and acts occurring in or at our country since 2001.  As a result, people who look “Middle Eastern” are often subjected to profiling the likes of which haven’t been seen in this country since the pre-civil rights sixties.

But let’s be bothered by the facts here for a minute.  The Washington Post tells us that, “…in 2011, 30 percent of terror suspects were Arab; 25 percent were white; and 15 percent were African-American.”  That’s only 5% more than people of European descent, or “whites” as they are so often mislabeled (white is a color, not an ethnicity, but it’s the only one we as a country are comfortable with erroneously labeling).

Nevertheless, Americans perceive Muslims as a threat.  Is it right?  Of course it isn’t.  But it’s real.  Too often we get so caught up in the political correctness of a thing, or the perception of a thing, or how we believe a thing should be, that we don’t deal with the reality of a thing.  Problems can’t be wished away.

Let’s look more closely at the problem that is terrorism and the non-problem that is Islam:

Here is some information about the word/concept of “Jihad from the website islamicsupremecouncil.org:

·      Jihad is not a violent concept.  It is not, 'a declaration of war against other religions;'
·      Jihad as a word means, 'struggling or striving;'
·      Jihad can refer to '…internal as well as external efforts to be a good Muslims or believer, as well as working to inform people about the faith of Islam.'

The site goes on to specify that a military jihad (also known as the “lesser” jihad) can be required to protect the faith against others, but that it can “…be performed using anything from legal, diplomatic and economic to political means.”  If there is no peaceful alternative, Islam “…allows the use of force, but there are strict rules of engagement. Innocents - such as women, children, or invalids - must never be harmed, and any peaceful overtures from the enemy must be accepted.”

So fundamentally, terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the splinter group of extremists he founded, Al Qaeda, are not fighting for any known Islamic “greater cause.”  When they attacked the United States on September 11, 2001 and killed 2, 977 people, only 55 victims were “military” personnel; the rest were civilians, including, as the Islamic scholars say must never be harmed, “…women, children, and invalids.”

Terrorists are exceedingly fond of saying that they want to give the United States a taste of their own medicine, or that they want the citizens of the United States to feel the terror that their people feel, etc. This does not align with Islamic law.  The United States is not an Islamic theocracy, and therefore doesn’t have to abide by the Islamic laws.  Bin Laden and his fellow faux Islamic Holy War-Makers, however, do have to follow those rules, or else— and follow me here— they are not fighting a holy war in the name of Allah!  Mister bin Laden and his cronies needed to read up a bit more on the religion in whose name they profess to be “crusading.”

Predictably, it is the minority who wears the badge of “the squeaky wheel.” The minority in this case being the ones who believe their responsibility under the declaration of “jihad” is to kill all infidels.  I have to believe that this is the case— that the majority of practitioners of Islam are not like this— that just the radical fringe elements practice violence.  And of course, they (the radicals) get all of the media.  Let’s face it, as they used to say in professional wrestling, red is green in the media-centric universe; nothing like a few dead infidels killed in the name of Allah to make the headlines.

So how do we fix it, short of outlawing Islam in America?  As usual, the cure needs to come from the inside, the effects of that cure will them ripple to the outside.  The “silent majority” needs to start speaking out, needs to start grabbing the headlines away from the radicals.  The passive practitioners need to wrest the wheel away from the violent ones, and show Americans that they really are “ok,” that they really are non-violent.

Is it fair?  No, of course not.  It’s no more fair to the majority of Muslims who are truly peace-loving, decent practitioners of Islam than it was fair for all of the assumptions and jokes to have been made about Catholic clergy in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal that broke a few years ago.  But it is realistic, it is the real world.  If Muslims in this country ever want to be granted equal footing, then they must speak up—  their voices must be louder than the exploding voices of their minority counterpoint.

© Ray Cattie