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Evidence at Last
Finally, the United States has produced evidence of Osama bin Laden's complicity in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Okay, I admit that the evidence is of poor quality, susceptible to tampering, and accompanied by an inexcusably poor translation, but none of that alters the main point: bin Laden is a villain and it is past time for the Muslim world as a whole to join those of us who have been denouncing his sick perversion of our beautiful religion.
In September, when I called on Muslims to "condemn Osama bin Laden's calls for the murder of civilians whether or not he was involved in planning or funding the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon" in this column (Ahmad 2001), the call was met with public silence and private protestations that "Bin Laden is a good Muslim." Although American Muslims soundly condemn the September 11 attacks, they were in a state of denial as far as Bin Laden's complicity. I am not referring to Bin Laden's alleged role in planning or funding the attacks (which has yet to be proven to a legal certainty), but to his obvious role in instigating them.
Seeing bin Laden's glee at the murder of innocents, American Muslims have properly put their dismay in the record. The Council on American Islamic Relations was disturbed that "Bin Laden seemed to revel in the death and destruction in Washington and New York," and that he "falsely implied that the acts of the hijackers were justified by Islamic beliefs," and that he made the sickening statement that the attacks "benefited Islam greatly." The Muslim Public Affairs Council wrote, "Osama bin Laden's religious rhetoric has nothing to do with the Islam the vast majority of Muslims' practice. Furthermore, his fringe, maniacal interpretations of this peaceful religion do not in any way represent the billion Muslim people around the world."
Why did it take a videotape to convince so many Muslims of bin Laden's alienation from Islamic values? He had made his contempt for Islamic protections of noncombatants manifest since 1998. Why did some good-hearted Muslims insist that he was a good Muslim despite this? Why is it that even now, as Muslims express their horror at his demonic performance (gleefully chuckling over the murder of American civilians, but with not a word nor a tear for the Palestinian civilians for whom he has claimed such sympathy in print) so many of us are still loathe to assert the obvious: Bin Laden is not a good Muslim.
When will we learn that the length of his beard or the location of the hemline on his
jalibiya (gown) does not measure the piety of a man?
Which brings me to the Taliban. I am not one to kick somebody when he's down. Regular readers of this column know that I've been accused of "bashing the Taliban" even when the United States government seemed remarkably unconcerned about their excesses. Now that they are out of power and not likely to come back, I would prefer to let them rest in peace. Alas, I cannot do that. There is an important piece of information about them has come to light about which I had not been aware and which must be made widely known to the Muslim world.
The Taliban did not oppress only women and dissident men: They oppressed little children. Pamela Constable (2001) has described how "little boys were slapped for playing games" like an Afghani children's game of walnut shooting. One teenager's back was permanently damaged from a beating he received for playing cricket. In another case, when two boys in a car laughed at a passing Taliban militiaman, the passengers in the car were all "seized, put in a dark room, tied up and had their feet burned and beaten" (Constable 2001). Muslims who understand how loving and tolerant the Prophet (pbuh) was with children, even extending his prostration in prayers if one chose to straddle his neck while he was in prayer, will understand in what repulsive
bid`a (sin, or transgression) the Taliban have engaged in.
I mention this not to pick on the out-of-power and not-likely-to-return Taliban. I mention it to emphasize that Muslims must decide for once and for all what our religion stands for. This is important because there are those who want to turn the war on terrorism into a war on militant Islam. While warfare against militant extremism of the form promoted by Osama Bin Laden easily wins worldwide support, as it should, there are those who are struggling to turn the awesome military power of the United States against Islamic militancy (Remember, a militant is just someone willing to fight for something. The U.S., obviously, is militant. Pacifists notwithstanding, the important question is not are you willing to fight, but FOR WHAT are you willing to fight?), even when it is for a just cause like battling Israeli occupation with its apartheid and terrorism.
I cannot convince myself that Allah would allow such a perversion of the faith to succeed unless we Muslims have obscured the important distinctions between fighting for justice, as our religion actually teaches, and fighting to impose uncivilized and unIslamic cultural norms on unwilling victims.
"Verily never will God change the condition of a people until they change it themselves [with their own souls]." (Qur`an 13:11, Ali 1988).
References
- Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad 2001, "A War Against Whom?" (9/25)
Islamonline.
- Pamela Constable 2001. "Rural Villagers' Quiet Resistance: Taliban Abuses Were Fought With Humor, Stubbornness,"
Washington Post 12/18, A1.
- Council on American Islamic Relations 2001, "Video Shows Bin Laden's Complicity In 9-11 Attacks," CAIR Press Release (Washington DC: CAIR) 12/13.
- Muslim Public Affairs Council 2001, "MPAC Finds Osama Bin Laden Tape Reprehensible; A Danger to All Muslims," MPACnews release 12/14.
- Abdullah Yusuf Ali 1988, The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary (New York: Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an).
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