Answering
his first question in a 2004 presidential debate, Senator John Kerry
explained that America needed to isolate the “radical Islamic
Muslims.”
“I
have a better plan to be able to fight the war on terror by …
beginning to isolate the radical Islamic Muslims, not have them
isolate the United States of America.”
At
first, the statement sounded redundant—even uneducated. A Muslim
is, by definition, a follower of Islam, and is therefore, by
definition, “Islamic.” Saying “Islamic Muslims” was a
lot like saying “American Americans.”
So
was Kerry just being repetitive? Or was his statement perhaps more
telling than even he realized? Are all Muslims “Islamic”? Well,
the truth is, no. Not the good ones, at least.
More
and more, the underlying assumption seems to be that Islam is the
problem. If Islam, as a faith, is in essence radical, the less
“Islamic” something is the better. And thus a “moderate
Muslim”—the much coveted title—is only moderately Muslim, and
therefore only moderately bad. Saying this would be like telling
someone to only be “moderately black” so as not to be too violent.
Saying
“Islamic Muslims” was a lot like saying “American
Americans.” |
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Conversely,
a Muslim who is too “Islamic” is then by definition
“radical”—a “radical Islamic Muslim”—and must be dealt
with (isolated).
In
fact, Mona Mayfield understood these rules well when she defended
her husband—wrongfully accused of participating in the Spain
bombing.
“We
have a Bible in the house. He’s not a fundamentalist—he thought
it was something different and very unique,” Mayfield told the
Associated Press of her husband’s conversion to Islam.
To
prove his innocence, Mayfield tried to downplay her husband’s
commitment to Islam. She even felt the need to justify his
conversion—as if that were his crime.
Mosque
administrator Shahriar Ahmed took a similar approach to defend
Mayfield. “He was seen as a moderate,” Ahmed told reporters.
“Mayfield showed up for the Friday ritual of shedding his shoes,
washing his bare feet and sitting on the carpets to hear services.
He did not, as some devout Muslims do, pray five times a day at the
mosque.”
The
implication here is that Brandon Mayfield’s guilt or innocence was
in some way related to how many times he prayed at the mosque. Ahmed
even went on to assert,
“He was on the less religious side if anything.”
“He
did not, as some devout Muslims do, pray five times a day at
the mosque.” |
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These
“less religious” icons of what an “acceptable” Muslim should
look like can be found all over the media. Irshad Manji, media
entrepreneur and author of The Trouble with Islam, is one of
the most celebrated of these icons. Manji is widely published and
has appeared in all the top media outlets. She even received
Oprah’s Chutzpah Award for “gutsiness.”
Although
Manji refers to herself as a “Muslim refusenik,” the media
refers to her as the model of a “practicing Muslim.” Daniel
Pipes, a board member of the United States Institute of Peace, calls
her a “courageous, moderate, modern Muslim.” But interestingly,
Manji’s ideas have less to do with Islam than Pipes’ ideas have
to do with peace. A Washington Post article describes
Manji’s epiphany about prayer—the cornerstone of the Islamic
faith:
Instead,
she said, she began praying on her own. After washing her feet, arms
and face, she would sit on a velvet rug and turn toward Mecca.
Eventually, she stopped this as well, because she did not want to
fall “into mindless submission and habitual submissiveness.”
Manji
is welcome to her opinion about this practice of 1.5 billion people
worldwide. She is also welcome to abandon any and all of these
practices. But Manji is not simply depicted as an insignificant
woman who decided not to pray. Her personal decision to abandon
central tenants of her faith—so long as that faith is Islam—is
portrayed as a fight for freedom. A fight against tyranny. She
is “courageous” and “gutsy,” a model for other not-too-Islamic
Muslims to follow.
Making
this the model is like asking someone not to be “too black” or
“too Jewish,” as if these were in essence bad or violent, and
anyone who struggled only to be “moderately black” or
“moderately Jewish” was a freedom fighter.
For
example, Manji told the Washington Post, “The violence is
going to happen, then why not risk it happening for the sake of
freedom?”
Yes.
Freedom is good. Manji may have said it better. Kerry may have said
it subtler. But a business management professor at California’s
Imperial Valley College said it truer: “The only way to end
Islamic terrorism is to eliminate the Islamic religion.”
But
regardless of how you say it, one thing is for sure: when it comes
to Islam these days, less is definitely more.
