The state of the Muslim Ummah (Community)

With the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful


The State of the Muslim Ummah (Community)


As we look around at the world today, it is almost impossible to escape the feeling that something is tremendously wrong, and out of balance. Never before in our life times have things seemed more chaotic, while at the same time seeming to be orchestrated, shaped and imposed by a power or influence that is extremely dark and negative. Who ever imagined that one day the United States of America would be embroiled in wars whose aims are not to safe guard freedom, nor to address gross injustices or to defend itself from an imminent threat? Who among us would have ever dreamed that the United States of America would one day come to represent an oppressive, and occupying power that has set itself on a collision course with more than 1.5 billion people based upon what they believe. Who among us would ever have believed that the United States of America, a country founded by monotheists seeking a place where they could worship God freely and without fear of government persecution, would one day invade countries and kill people simply because they believe that there is only One God, and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah of Mecca is the last of His prophets, and that a Book called the Qur’an, that was revealed to that illiterate and humble man living in a desert over 1400 years ago, is God’s last Divinely revealed message to mankind. Who would ever believe that the United States of America would become the worldly power used to forcefully impose a New Secular World Order upon God’s earth, the aim of which is to reorder God’s creation, to abolish His laws, and to establish new man made laws whose purpose is to bring mankind into submission to the darkest inclinations of the human soul, which are greed for wealth, violence and lust for kingdom, dominion, and immortality.

A country whose Constitution once guaranteed the rights of all men to
believe in God freely and to express that belief freely openly, has become a country that goes to war and kills people because of what they believe about God, and his message to mankind. What is even more starling and unbelievable is that many Arab and Muslim governments have aligned themselves with these Secularists, and irreligious fanatics in their attempt to reorder the human society and to recreate it according to their laws and desires. They even help to kill and to starve Muslims and our children, looking for power, favors and protection from the godless.

A country whose Constitution was once the gold standard for social contracts that recognized and sought to protect the God given and inalienable rights of all human beings, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is now a country that spends days and weeks and months and years publicly debating whether or not torture works, and whether or not we should adopt and endorse the use of torture, even though it is against our laws, and traditions and is clearly not only illegal, but also immoral. Imagine that one of our country’s faith leaders would submit to that debate, the idea that we are not to contemplate what Jesus would do in a ticking bomb situation, but rather what Jesus would expect us to do and how far he would expect us to go to save innocent lives by torturing people to get information from them. This is the thinking and logic of one of the leaders of a religious organizations that professes the belief that Jesus Christ gave his life on a cross where he was tortured, because he would not forsaken his belief in One God, and in the message that he taught, which was revealed to him by that God. According to this imposters belief, Jesus Christ was tortured an died upon a cross for what he believed, yet he would expect his followers to torture to save lives. This failed logic also ignores the simple truth that you cannot know if someone has information about a ticking bomb unless you already have that same information. Even a lie detector test will fail in a situation where a person is being tortured. The truth is that they are sadist and they enjoy hurting others, especially Muslims.

The logic of that man is not the logic of Jesus, it is the the logic of the Pharisees, who felt that Jesus deserved to be scourged and killed because he refused to submit to their authority, and because he would not compromise his message to the Hebrew people, calling them to repentance for the false worship of men they had adopted after entering a covenant with God to worship him only, and to preserve the Book and the laws that had been revealed to the prophet Moses. Jesus gave hope to those of other tribes saying that God would send them a prophet, and described the prophet Muhammad (sa) who did receive a Divinely revealed and universal message for all of mankind.

This Secular World Order that is advancing like a storm, rumbling across the landscape of God’s earth has a history, and it goes back to the beginning, back to the story of creation where a disobedient entity that felt it had the right and power to challenge God for dominion over God’s creation said to God in rebellion, that he would not bow down to man, but rather should rule mankind because he was created of fire, and man from dust. These are metaphors representing the power to destroy over the power to procreate. It represents the power of fear used to subjugate mankind, in competition with the power of love as an incentive for life and the loyal worship of our Creator. Fire cannot create or give life, it cannot nourish or advance life, and it can only frighten and destroy unless it is controlled by a benevolent spirit that is of greater power. Thus, we have the quintessential battle between good and evil, acted out for us as the battle between Satan, the rebellious entity and Adam, the worldly father of mankind, created of love and dust, life giving and sustaining substances that are more powerful than fear of destruction, and lusts for kingdom and immortality in a darkened soul. So the objective of the rebellious entity is to prevent illumination, because the light shows mankind the pathway to God, our sustainer and source of real power.

Most of us who are familiar with religious texts and ways of thinking, look out at the world and see the fulfillment of prophecies, and those of us who seemingly recognize the times we are living in as the proverbial Last Days, will also realize, or rather remember that such days do not portend the end of the worlds, but rather they portend the coming of a day that the Qur’an says will be a Day that no one can put back, meaning it is Day that is unavoidable, the date for its arrival being fixed and will not be changed.

It is the arrival of this day that those who love God and who trust in Him await with fear, and it is a Day that the wicked and rebellious soul does not recognize, believe in, or fear, and it is this lack of belief or concern for the destination of their souls after death that will be the cause for their punishment and destruction. God told the prophet Muhammad in the Qur’an to remind the wicked of this Day, so they might learn to fear God. It is a day when every soul will be called to account for its violations of Gods laws and sins, and it is a Day where the righteous souls who have born the hardship of struggle towards God in a world wrought with evil, will find its relief, and its salvation.

The Qur’an says the angels will greet the righteous and say this is the promise of God fulfilled, so enter the garden with happiness in security. The righteous will return to the Garden from whence our father Adam was expelled as punishment for his disobedience. God’s promise to illuminate the path for those who desire to worship Him, will be fulfilled and the righteous will inherit the kingdom that Adam was temporarily denied. The Qur’an says those who enter the garden will be dressed in garments of green silk and brocade, and they will wear jewels, and sit upon thrones. The Qur’an says they will be fed the purest of foods and they will drink the most satisfying drinks while enjoying the companionship of the best and most beautiful of God’s creation. By contrast the wicked will be covered with burning tar that will cover their faces and bodies and they will burn until they are completely destroyed only to be reconstituted to be burned and destroyed over and over again. The Qur’an says they will drink a drink of the draining of wounds like puss.

The Muslim Ummah or community of Muslims exists in the world today as a sanctuary for those who believe, and who have the desire to return to the garden and to receive their inheritance and to live in peace in proximity to their Creator. I use the word sanctuary to suggest that within the company of Muslims it is accepted to believe in God, and to worship Him and to love Him, and to serve Him, unlike in the world without God. This ummah, which is not defined by geography or race, or color, but only by belief stretches across God’s earth. There is not a place on earth where there are not Muslims. We can imagine that this is due to the fact that we are carriers of something that no other people possess, and that is the truth, and the last message. What is that message? It is that mankind must repent and return from false worship of idols back to the worship of the One True God, or on the Day of Judgment the rebellious soul will be condemned to hell. It is the knowledge of God, His laws and His way that is the barrier to the complete dominion of God’s earth by the wicked and this is why they are at war with Islam. It is because darkness and light cannot co-exist. God said in the Qur’an that He hurled the truth and knocked the brains out of falsehood and that when truth arrives falsehood perishes because it is the nature of falsehood to perish. Falsehood is an illusion, like the power of Pharaoh, sorcery and illusion, while God’s power is real, perfect and complete, and it will not only destroy the Pharaohs of this world, it will destroy their sorcery and illusions, thereby freeing the human being from enslavement to falsehood and fear.

It is this message, this hope, this salvation that has made Islam the leading system of faith and life in the world. It is this power, this hope and opportunity that has caused Islam to be the fastest growing religion in the world. It is this brotherhood that is providing the comfort and the protection of the believers and it is this brotherhood that is organized to oppose and to defeat the forces of evil that seek to destroy belief in the One True God, and His laws, and to wipe out those who worship Him and Him alone.

The Hajj is a reflection of the state of the Ummat. When we see that it is well organized and orderly, and that the people are there in great numbers, it is the fulfillment of God’s promise to the prophet Muhammad (sa) where he said “Call them to the pilgrimage and they will come…” This is referring to the believing people. The Qur’an says they will come by any way possible, and will be lean on account of the distance and hardship of the journey. This doesn’t only that they are physically under nourished, but rather that they are a people who have traveled from a state of ignorance to truth and they have shed all of the excesses of life that impair the journey, or return to God, such as lusts and greed for anything except God.

The Hajj is the physical and spiritual manifestation of Ummah since it is where we gather in this world as we will, Insha Allah in heaven. We are all the same in dress, all the same in appearance, different only in name and experience and desire and need. We all come to Hajj for repentance, we all come to Hajj seeking nearness to God, seeking brotherhood, seeking peace, seeking forgiveness of sin, and also seeking guidance and restoration of our power. The rituals of Hajj are purifying because this ummah should be pure. We should not be committing sin and violation of God’s laws knowingly and purposefully. We should not be aiding others to carry out sin and to obscure the truth or to destroy and persecute the innocent. We should not be aiding the wicked to destroy God’s laws, or to abolish His order and replace it with a secular world order. We are a sanctuary and our presence should be saving and sustaining the believing people, and God’s earth.

In the Qur’an God cautioned the prophet Muhammad to be careful of the leadership of this Ummat. He told the prophet Muhammad to be careful about who is given authority in the mosques. He commanded the prophet Muhammad to replace the wicked, whose prayers are not answered and whose worship in the mosque is equal to whistling and clapping of hands, with the pure and pious who will strive and fight in the way of God, and not merely give water and creature comforts to pilgrims, and those who attend the mosques. The mosque is the center of Muslim ummat, and it must be kept clean, and it must be pure and it can only be led, and cared for by the righteous servants of God who have achieved proximity to God because God said about these people that he would hear their prayers and make their efforts successful, while he said about the hypocrites and the sinful unrepentant soul that it will be ineffective and all of its efforts would fail.

This ummat is in a perpetual state of Hajj, even when we are not in Mecca we are convening the lesser Hajj every Friday Jummah in the mosques. It is the time for repentance of sins, fellowship and guidance. It is the time for discussion of community affairs and settling disputes and distributing charity and visiting the sick and those who have been imprisoned.

The world is at war with Islam, but we are at peace. They are lying and hiding behind words that only fool people who have no God. The Qur’an says that those who God guides no one can mislead them, and those who God empower, no one can defeat them. The state of this Ummat is strong, yet it can be stronger. In spite of the loss of life and destruction of property, and the continuous attempts at our destruction, the believing people continue the journey, inviting every human being to take sanctuary with us, because God did create this Ummat as a sanctuary for mankind. As they kill millions of Muslims, the numbers of Muslims grow by millions. God says in the Qur’an about those who return to God in such circumstances, that even if they had been at home peacefully sleeping their beds and the time to transcend this life had come, they would have left us. It is only the circumstances of the illusion of their deaths that concern us, because these circumstances were allowed to challenge us and to test our abhorrence for injustice and sin, and mistreatment of the poor and weak. We will not exact justice because it appears that they died. We will exact justice because they were killed unjustly.

The prophet Muhammad (sa) taught us that no one should ever fear treachery from us, or theft from us, or violence and rudeness or offense from us. God told us in the Qur’an to even help the wicked and our enemies towards righteousness and cautioned us not to cause evil by provocation, incitement and misguidance.

It is very sad that Satan has sunk his stinger deep into the heart of the United States and other supposedly great powers and caused them to be used to attempt to wipe out Islam by killing its adherents and destroying their countries while attempting to confiscate our wealth and resources. They will never succeed, but worse and sadder is the fact that the innocent blood spilled has a price and the soul an owner who will demand His right and payment. Who will be able to pay?

We must remove our love and hearts from this world. We must enjoy the blessings of this life and the next, but not in sin. The material things should never mean more to us than salvation and nearness to God and eternal home in paradise. We must remember who we are as an ummat, and our purpose and we must be about this business of ours.

Make the word of God, which is the truth, available to all of mankind by every means except compulsion. Purify the mosques and establish the daily prayers. Attend the Jummah and use this day for all of its special attributes. No longer tolerate that any except the pure and righteous believers have authority over our mosques and our affairs. We must be guided by love, and desire for all of mankind to be spared hardship. We do this with charity, kind speech, personal and communal cleanliness, orderliness and minding our own business. The single should marry, and the married should procreate. Those burdened by vices and sins and addictions should never despair of God’s mercy and we should not cast them out for Satan to devour. Let them be part of the fellowship so long as they do not advertise or openly and promiscuously advocate sin and rebellion. In all of this let us remember that God said in the Qur;an that He has created a sanctuary for mankind so that mankind will be safe from being picked off and snatched away by Satan and the desires. We, this Ummat is that Sanctuary.

Allah bestows peace and blessings on the prophet Muhammad, his family and companions. Allah forgives this Ummat and guides us and blesses us. Oh Master, give us the wisdom and strength to bear the challenges with which you test and purify us and give us the grace to lead and protect the righteous. Make your Ummat a sanctuary for the sick, the poor, the frightened and the weak, and those who are seeking to know you and to worship you and you alone. Bless us with kind hearts and do not curse us to be cold hearted and violent. Make us exemplary to the world and a testament to your power and glory. Temper our anger and lusts for kingdom and immortality and make us accepting of your authority, your Decree, and your law. Make us successful, and give us refuge from the torment of the grave and from the hellfire. Ameen.

The State of the Muslim Ummat (Community)

With the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful





As we look around at the world today, it is almost impossible to escape the feeling that something is tremendously wrong, and out of balance. Never before in our life times have things seemed more chaotic, while at the same time seeming to be orchestrated, shaped and imposed by a power or influence that is extremely dark and negative. Who ever imagined that one day the United States of America would be embroiled in wars whose aims are not to safe guard freedom, nor to address gross injustices or to defend itself from an imminent threat? Who among us would have ever dreamed that the United States of America would one day come to represent an oppressive, and occupying power that has set itself on a collision course with more than 1.5 billion people based upon what they believe. Who among us would ever have believed that the United States of America, a country founded by monotheists seeking a place where they could worship God freely and without fear of government persecution, would one day invade countries and kill people simply because they believe that there is only One God, and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah of Mecca is the last of His prophets, and that a Book called the Qur’an, that was revealed to that illiterate and humble man living in a desert over 1400 years ago, is God’s last Divinely revealed message to mankind. Who would ever believe that the United States of America would become the worldly power used to forcefully impose a New Secular World Order upon God’s earth, the aim of which is to reorder God’s creation, to abolish His laws, and to establish new manmade laws whose purpose is to bring mankind into submission to the darkest inclinations of the human soul, which are greed for wealth, violence and lust for kingdom, dominion, and immortality.

A country whose Constitution once guaranteed the rights of all men to
believe in God freely and to express that belief freely openly, has become a country that goes to war and kills people because of what they believe about God, and his message to mankind. What is even more starling and unbelievable is that many Arab and Muslim governments have aligned themselves with these Secularists, and irreligious fanatics in their attempt to reorder the human society and to recreate it according to their laws and desires. They even help to kill and to starve Muslims and our children, looking for power, favors and protection from the godless.

A country whose Constitution was once the gold standard for social contracts that recognized and sought to protect the God given and inalienable rights of all human beings, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is now a country that spends days and weeks and months and years publicly debating whether or not torture works, and whether or not we should adopt and endorse the use of torture, even though it is against our laws, and traditions and is clearly not only illegal, but also immoral. Imagine that one of our country’s faith leaders would submit to that debate, the idea that we are not to contemplate what Jesus would do in a ticking bomb situation, but rather what Jesus would expect us to do and how far he would expect us to go to save innocent lives by torturing people to get information from them. This is the thinking and logic of one of the leaders of a religious organizations that professes the belief that Jesus Christ gave his life on a cross where he was tortured, because he would not forsaken his belief in One God, and in the message that he taught, which was revealed to him by that God. According to this imposters belief, Jesus Christ was tortured an died upon a cross for what he believed, yet he would expect his followers to torture to save lives. This failed logic also ignores the simple truth that you cannot know if someone has information about a ticking bomb unless you already have that same information. Even a lie detector test will fail in a situation where a person is being tortured. The truth is that they are sadist and they enjoy hurting others, especially Muslims.

The logic of that man is not the logic of Jesus, it is the the logic of the Pharisees, who felt that Jesus deserved to be scourged and killed because he refused to submit to their authority, and because he would not compromise his message to the Hebrew people, calling them to repentance for the false worship of men they had adopted after entering a covenant with God to worship him only, and to preserve the Book and the laws that had been revealed to the prophet Moses. Jesus gave hope to those of other tribes saying that God would send them a prophet, and described the prophet Muhammad (sa) who did receive a Divinely revealed and universal message for all of mankind.

This Secular World Order that is advancing like a storm, rumbling across the landscape of God’s earth has a history, and it goes back to the beginning, back to the story of creation where a disobedient entity that felt it had the right and power to challenge God for dominion over God’s creation said to God in rebellion, that he would not bow down to man, but rather should rule mankind because he was created of fire, and man from dust. These are metaphors representing the power to destroy over the power to procreate. It represents the power of fear used to subjugate mankind, in competition with the power of love as an incentive for life and the loyal worship of our Creator. Fire cannot create or give life, it cannot nourish or advance life, and it can only frighten and destroy unless it is controlled by a benevolent spirit that is of greater power. Thus, we have the quintessential battle between good and evil, acted out for us as the battle between Satan, the rebellious entity and Adam, the worldly father of mankind, created of love and dust, life giving and sustaining substances that are more powerful than fear of destruction, and lusts for kingdom and immortality in a darkened soul. So the objective of the rebellious entity is to prevent illumination, because the light shows mankind the pathway to God, our sustainer and source of real power.

Most of us who are familiar with religious texts and ways of thinking, look out at the world and see the fulfillment of prophecies, and those of us who seemingly recognize the times we are living in as the proverbial Last Days, will also realize, or rather remember that such days do not portend the end of the worlds, but rather they portend the coming of a day that the Qur’an says will be a Day that no one can put back, meaning it is Day that is unavoidable, the date for its arrival being fixed and will not be changed.

It is the arrival of this day that those who love God and who trust in Him await with fear, and it is a Day that the wicked and rebellious soul does not recognize, believe in, or fear, and it is this lack of belief or concern for the destination of their souls after death that will be the cause for their punishment and destruction. God told the prophet Muhammad in the Qur’an to remind the wicked of this Day, so they might learn to fear God. It is a day when every soul will be called to account for its violations of Gods laws and sins, and it is a Day where the righteous souls who have born the hardship of struggle towards God in a world wrought with evil, will find its relief, and its salvation.

The Qur’an says the angels will greet the righteous and say this is the promise of God fulfilled, so enter the garden with happiness in security. The righteous will return to the Garden from whence our father Adam was expelled as punishment for his disobedience. God’s promise to illuminate the path for those who desire to worship Him, will be fulfilled and the righteous will inherit the kingdom that Adam was temporarily denied. The Qur’an says those who enter the garden will be dressed in garments of green silk and brocade, and they will wear jewels, and sit upon thrones. The Qur’an says they will be fed the purest of foods and they will drink the most satisfying drinks while enjoying the companionship of the best and most beautiful of God’s creation. By contrast the wicked will be covered with burning tar that will cover their faces and bodies and they will burn until they are completely destroyed only to be reconstituted to be burned and destroyed over and over again. The Qur’an says they will drink a drink of the draining of wounds like puss.

The Muslim Ummah or community of Muslims exists in the world today as a sanctuary for those who believe, and who have the desire to return to the garden and to receive their inheritance and to live in peace in proximity to their Creator. I use the word sanctuary to suggest that within the company of Muslims it is accepted to believe in God, and to worship Him and to love Him, and to serve Him, unlike in the world without God. This ummah, which is not defined by geography or race, or color, but only by belief stretches across God’s earth. There is not a place on earth where there are not Muslims. We can imagine that this is due to the fact that we are carriers of something that no other people possess, and that is the truth, and the last message. What is that message? It is that mankind must repent and return from false worship of idols back to the worship of the One True God, or on the Day of Judgment the rebellious soul will be condemned to hell. It is the knowledge of God, His laws and His way that is the barrier to the complete dominion of God’s earth by the wicked and this is why they are at war with Islam. It is because darkness and light cannot co-exist. God said in the Qur’an that He hurled the truth and knocked the brains out of falsehood and that when truth arrives falsehood perishes because it is the nature of falsehood to perish. Falsehood is an illusion, like the power of Pharaoh, sorcery and illusion, while God’s power is real, perfect and complete, and it will not only destroy the Pharaohs of this world, it will destroy their sorcery and illusions, thereby freeing the human being from enslavement to falsehood and fear.

It is this message, this hope, this salvation that has made Islam the leading system of faith and life in the world. It is this power, this hope and opportunity that has caused Islam to be the fastest growing religion in the world. It is this brotherhood that is providing the comfort and the protection of the believers and it is this brotherhood that is organized to oppose and to defeat the forces of evil that seek to destroy belief in the One True God, and His laws, and to wipe out those who worship Him and Him alone.

The Hajj is a reflection of the state of the Ummat. When we see that it is well organized and orderly, and that the people are there in great numbers, it is the fulfillment of God’s promise to the prophet Muhammad (sa) where he said “Call them to the pilgrimage and they will come…” This is referring to the believing people. The Qur’an says they will come by any way possible, and will be lean on account of the distance and hardship of the journey. This doesn’t only that they are physically under nourished, but rather that they are a people who have traveled from a state of ignorance to truth and they have shed all of the excesses of life that impair the journey, or return to God, such as lusts and greed for anything except God.

The Hajj is the physical and spiritual manifestation of Ummah since it is where we gather in this world as we will, Insha Allah in heaven. We are all the same in dress, all the same in appearance, different only in name and experience and desire and need. We all come to Hajj for repentance, we all come to Hajj seeking nearness to God, seeking brotherhood, seeking peace, seeking forgiveness of sin, and also seeking guidance and restoration of our power. The rituals of Hajj are purifying because this ummah should be pure. We should not be committing sin and violation of God’s laws knowingly and purposefully. We should not be aiding others to carry out sin and to obscure the truth or to destroy and persecute the innocent. We should not be aiding the wicked to destroy God’s laws, or to abolish His order and replace it with a secular world order. We are a sanctuary and our presence should be saving and sustaining the believing people, and God’s earth.

In the Qur’an God cautioned the prophet Muhammad to be careful of the leadership of this Ummat. He told the prophet Muhammad to be careful about who is given authority in the mosques. He commanded the prophet Muhammad to replace the wicked, whose prayers are not answered and whose worship in the mosque is equal to whistling and clapping of hands, with the pure and pious who will strive and fight in the way of God, and not merely give water and creature comforts to pilgrims, and those who attend the mosques. The mosque is the center of Muslim ummat, and it must be kept clean, and it must be pure and it can only be led, and cared for by the righteous servants of God who have achieved proximity to God because God said about these people that he would hear their prayers and make their efforts successful, while he said about the hypocrites and the sinful unrepentant soul that it will be ineffective and all of its efforts would fail.

This ummat is in a perpetual state of Hajj, even when we are not in Mecca we are convening the lesser Hajj every Friday Jummah in the mosques. It is the time for repentance of sins, fellowship and guidance. It is the time for discussion of community affairs and settling disputes and distributing charity and visiting the sick and those who have been imprisoned.

The world is at war with Islam, but we are at peace. They are lying and hiding behind words that only fool people who have no God. The Qur’an says that those who God guides no one can mislead them, and those who God empower, no one can defeat them. The state of this Ummat is strong, yet it can be stronger. In spite of the loss of life and destruction of property, and the continuous attempts at our destruction, the believing people continue the journey, inviting every human being to take sanctuary with us, because God did create this Ummat as a sanctuary for mankind. As they kill millions of Muslims, the numbers of Muslims grow by millions. God says in the Qur’an about those who return to God in such circumstances, that even if they had been at home peacefully sleeping their beds and the time to transcend this life had come, they would have left us. It is only the circumstances of the illusion of their deaths that concern us, because these circumstances were allowed to challenge us and to test our abhorrence for injustice and sin, and mistreatment of the poor and weak. We will not exact justice because it appears that they died. We will exact justice because they were killed unjustly.

The prophet Muhammad (sa) taught us that no one should ever fear treachery from us, or theft from us, or violence and rudeness or offense from us. God told us in the Qur’an to even help the wicked and our enemies towards righteousness and cautioned us not to cause evil by provocation, incitement and misguidance.

It is very sad that Satan has sunk his stinger deep into the heart of the United States and other supposedly great powers and caused them to be used to attempt to wipe out Islam by killing its adherents and destroying their countries while attempting to confiscate our wealth and resources. They will never succeed, but worse and sadder is the fact that the innocent blood spilled has a price and the soul an owner who will demand His right and payment. Who will be able to pay?

We must remove our love and hearts from this world. We must enjoy the blessings of this life and the next, but not in sin. The material things should never mean more to us than salvation and nearness to God and eternal home in paradise. We must remember who we are as an ummat, and our purpose and we must be about this business of ours.

Make the word of God, which is the truth, available to all of mankind by every means except compulsion. Purify the mosques and establish the daily prayers. Attend the Jummah and use this day for all of its special attributes. No longer tolerate that any except the pure and righteous believers have authority over our mosques and our affairs. We must be guided by love, and desire for all of mankind to be spared hardship. We do this with charity, kind speech, personal and communal cleanliness, orderliness and minding our own business. The single should marry, and the married should procreate. Those burdened by vices and sins and addictions should never despair of God’s mercy and we should not cast them out for Satan to devour. Let them be part of the fellowship so long as they do not advertise or openly and promiscuously advocate sin and rebellion. In all of this let us remember that God said in the Qur;an that He has created a sanctuary for mankind so that mankind will be safe from being picked off and snatched away by Satan and the desires. We, this Ummat is that Sanctuary.

Allah bestows peace and blessings on the prophet Muhammad, his family and companions. Allah forgives this Ummat and guides us and blesses us. Oh Master, give us the wisdom and strength to bear the challenges with which you test and purify us and give us the grace to lead and protect the righteous. Make your Ummat a sanctuary for the sick, the poor, the frightened and the weak, and those who are seeking to know you and to worship you and you alone. Bless us with kind hearts and do not curse us to be cold hearted and violent. Make us exemplary to the world and a testament to your power and glory. Temper our anger and lusts for kingdom and immortality and make us accepting of your authority, your Decree, and your law. Make us successful, and give us refuge from the torment of the grave and from the hellfire. Ameen.

It is time to end Israel's criminal assault on Gaza

As the war rages in Gaza so called “moderate” Muslims and their Arab government counterparts are working feverishly to figure out how to reward Israel for its two weeks of carnage in Gaza. The idea that they should focus on ending Israel’s criminal onslaught is lost on these perhaps well intended, but misguided souls. All they can see is an opportunity for Israel to win, and for Hamas to be defeated. In their confused minds and amoral judgment, Israel may not have been justified in killing so many Gazans; still Hamas had no right to fight back. In fact, as far as many of them are concerned, Hamas has no right to even exist. Keep in mind that there is no record of these same people having ever called for a security force to protect the Palestinians. They have never made an effort to insure that the people of Palestine ever had a defender or a security force dedicated to protecting Palestinian rights and life. Now we know why.

Even if you attempt to bring to their attention the fact that negotiating behind the scenes with Israeli intelligence, and operatives while Palestinian children are being burned to death with white phosphorus, and Israel’s Lieberman is calling for an all out nuclear attack on Gaza, is wrong, they argue that the Palestinians cannot possibly win and so the only solution is to give Israel what it wants with a few concessions for Gaza, like an international pro-Israel peacekeeping force. To mention that Israel should not be rewarded for what it has done and should be stopped makes one an “extremist” in their lopsided view. Their objective is to end the war on Gaza by figuring out what it is that Israel wants, and seeing that Israel gets what it wants, in spite of the fact that what Israel is doing is a monumental crime that demands an international military response, similar to the NATO attack on Serbia that allowed the Bosnians relief from a similar onslaught, carried out against them for similar reasons by the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

The only way to end Israel’s violence is for an international force to engage Israel militarily and force Israel to end its attacks on the people of Gaza. This should happen unless the Arab governments want to be faced with riots and revolutions the likes of which have never been seen in the Arab and Muslim world. As for the rest of the world, it seems reasonable to expect that as we stand by and do nothing while Israel continues to slaughter Palestinians that this will eventually result in all out attacks on Jews outside of Israel. This happened after Ariel Sharon’s massacres in the second intifada, and there is no reason to expect that the killing of Palestine will continue without there being some type of similar response.

There have been suggestions that Israel, fully expecting that at some point the international community, or that Muslims will act, has been threatening a repeat of the Masada. This is perhaps what has moderate Muslim and Arab governments working so hard to give Israel what it wants. It does not matter to them that Palestinians are also human beings with equal rights, and that it is wrong to sacrifice Palestinian life to save the lives of Israelis who are threatening to kill themselves unless the world stands by idly while they are allowed to kill Gaza.

Everyone already knows what happened to the Arab governments and the so called moderate Muslims who legitimize their treason and give them moral and intellectual sanction. We understand why they serve Israel. They have been tamed by the war on terror, which is what Israel and their neoconservative movement predicted. But what happened to the US? We have become an unrecognizable place where racial hatred has taken on new proportions, as has religious extremism and hatred. I guess we can thank the likes of John Hagee, Rod Parsley and Pat Robertson for our country’s flirtation with the dark side. Gone are our days as a beacon of light and hope for underdogs and the teeming masses yearning to be free. Those so called men of God are in fact prophets of hatred and death that have led the US and Israel to this juncture in history. They claim that they are espousing God’s prophecy when they call for nuking Palestine and death to all Palestinians, when in fact they are the mouthpieces for the Satan that has possessed them and driven them, and all of those who follow them, Jews and non Jews to absolute evil and madness.

It is time for the US and Europe to decide what they will do about the Holocaust taking place in Gaza.. The choice is not whether to allow Israel to continue, or to stop Israel’s criminal invasion and war on the people of Gaza. The choice is whether they want to stop it, or if they want the war to expand. The situation we are all in is that simple, and also that tragic.

In defence of Islamic government

If anyone were to ask the average Muslim what the greatest problems are in the Middle East and the rest of the Muslim world, most would likely say that they are political oppression, government corruption, government violence against their citizens, poverty, illiteracy and foreign interference. If you were to ask them to explain what they mean by foreign interference, they will say without ambiguity, US interference in the Muslim world, and most specifically the so-called war on terrorism, which many have come rightfully to believe, is in fact a war on Islam.

This war has engulfed the Muslim world, and in its path it has left not only millions of Muslims dead, it has left hundreds of thousands of children orphaned, created hundreds of thousands of additional refugees and homeless persons, while also increasing numbers of maimed and disabled persons, and people who are suffering from mental illnesses, the result of psychological traumas associated with war, and persistent violence. This is not to mention the vast destruction of infrastructure, and institutions. There is no way to talk about democratic reforms in the Muslim world without first assessing the realities of everyday life for the people, and not only the politics, seeking to determine if democratization is really the solution that is being sought by the people.

In my opinion, too often in the past, Muslim activists sought to understand mostly the tensions created between political groups and governments as they struggle, one against the other for power, excluding almost completely from their analysis, the socio economic realities that are shaping the views of the people, and the people’s responses to their situations. While many will of course support reforms, it may be true that many are not interested in supporting moves towards Western style democracy, since they have realized that democratization may actually mean something far different from what most had believed, and hoped for. This might not only be true for Muslims, but also for the non-Muslims living in predominately Muslim societies. Prior to 9/11 and the US response, Muslims and others living in the Muslim world, were perhaps more intrigued by westernization, because it was masked as modernization. There was a sense that it might be the answer to years of political oppression, corruption and socio-economic failure, economic failure that continues to baffle and frustrate most people, since in spite of the huge stores of natural resources and human resources that characterize the Muslim world, it remains a region that is wrought with some of the world’s worst poverty.

Considering all of this, it might be more appropriate to describe the Muslim thirst for change as a desire to have lives that are normal. In this context, normal means simply to be freed from barriers that prevent people from determining their own destinies. This would require a change not only in political structures, but also cultural, and economic changes. People living in the Muslim world want more, and varied choices, and the freedom to choose their own direction, and also the freedom and resources needed to act to achieve aspirations and desires, what we might call in the US, “the pursuit of happiness.” Without doubt, most people living in Muslim societies will likely say in various ways, that it is not a lack of democratization, where the majority rules a secular liberty society, which is holding the Muslim world in political and socio-economic stasis. What they do say in various ways is that there is a freedom deficit that is behind the lack of intellectual, economic, social and political development in the Muslim world. It seems fair to say, that most believe that with freedom and opportunity, they can change their governments and their destinies in ways that are non-violent, and these changes would result from the expression of their unique personalities, and worldviews as individuals, and also as a people who believe in Qur’an and the Sunnah of the prophet Muhammad (saws).

Those who promote democratization in the Muslim world are also, without doubt pursuing freedom, what they are not pursuing is freedom as we understand it from the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and this is what holds many Muslims back from supporting democracy as a cure-all for what is ailing their societies, along with a growing belief that the democracy being offered to them as Muslims, is not the same democracy once enjoyed in the West. It stands to reason that if the global powers are busy decreasing freedoms and liberty, and increasingly eliminating individual rights in the West, that they are not interested in establishing democracy in the Muslim world, unless the democracy planned for the Muslim world is something quite different than what many once imagined.


Minorities living in the Muslim world are also sure to be reluctant to embrace a system where they are considered minorities, even though one of the primary features touted by democracy activists is the creation of minority rights, protected by a social contract or constitution. If non-Muslims understood what modern Islamic political structures would offer them in a Muslim society, they would, even though they are not Muslims, likely choose the Islamic system over democratization. Unfortunately people may not know the real differences between Islamic politics and democratization, and there is a reason for that. Seldom, if ever do we read comparisons between democratization and Islamization that are honest. The West has described and defined Islamic politics as negative, and as fascism and totalitarianism, to the extent that even Muslims now embrace these false characterizations, and limit themselves in respect to acceptable reforms, to those that are called democratic. They reject almost completely the term, Islamic government, just as they reject the idea of secular government, which is what democracy is, and must be. So great is their repulsion to the words “Islamic government,” that rather than to say Islamic government, the people say they want governments that are structured to conform to the teachings of Qur’an and Sunnah, and laws that conform to the Sharia, which is exactly what an Islamic government seeks to achieve, and exactly what democracy seeks to prevent.






Islamic politics; A Qur’anic View

As a Muslim American, it is sometimes difficult for me to understand completely what many of the secular political activists and analyst who are indigenous to the Muslim world are saying when they promote democracy, and this is especially true when they promote democracy as an alternative to Islamic government in predominately Muslim societies. Previously, when I used to use the words democracy, and democratization, it was to convey the idea of representative, electoral politics as a first step in a larger process of political development. I no longer use either of these words to describe needed reforms in the Muslim world. This is because it has been shown that the powers in the West which are controlling and holding back political development in the Muslim world, are not interested at all in truly representative electoral politics being established there, while such processes are essential to any democratic process, or system of government.

The situations in Algeria, Palestine, and Somalia are clear examples of the lack of interest or desire for real democracy in the Muslim world. In all three of these countries Islamists were elected to power through democratic processes, resulting in the cancellation of the results, and long periods of intense government violence and other measures aimed at wiping out Islamists and their constituencies, and also to kill the democratic impulse and desire for voting among the people. Is this an example of a lack of democracy being a problem, or a lack of freedom?

There is a very strong possibility, that just as the people of the Muslim world have no idea about what Islamic government really is, the Muslim pundits, analysts and activists who are promoting democracy in the Muslim world, may not know what democracy really is, and even worse, they may not have figured out yet that it’s not democracy as it was known in the past in places like France, that is being offered to the Muslim world by the neo-conservatives of the Bush administration, and others in the US and Europe. The US has never been a democracy, and it is not likely that it will ever become a democracy in any real sense. In fact the US is more likely to become a stronger Republic, with a greater emphasis on religious faith and freedom, than previously. So while Muslim democrats are pushing for secular democracies in the Muslim world, US political reformists are agitating for less secular societies that are guided by morals principles, and Judeo-Christian laws. These same powers, the US and France along with Germany and England are also the strongest voices calling for Israel to be recognized as a Jewish Only country, rather than a secular Zionist country, which is what its founder Theodore Hertzl had envisioned. Ironically, as the West is loosing its affection for secular liberal democracy, and in some instances out right rejecting this form of political structuring along with its idealism, and objectives, Muslim democrats are prescribing it as a panacea for the Muslim world.

Islamic government is distinguished from democracy in many important ways. One does not have to mount a rhetorical attack against democracy to illustrate the greater compatibility of Islamic government with Muslim people in Muslim societies. The Qur’an makes many comparisons for us that should be referred to, even in political discussions, since Qur’an is one of the primary sources from which the concept of Islamic government is derived.

Perhaps the first reference in the Qur’an, to Muslims as a unique civilization, distinguished from previously established civilizations by belief rather than race, or ancestry, is found in chapter 2, verses142-143, where it says: “ The fools among the people will say “What has turned them from the Qibla to which they had become accustomed?” Say, “ To God belong the East and the West.” He guides whom He will to a way that is right. Thus have we made you an Ummat (community, society, civilization) justly balanced that you might be witnesses to the nations, and the prophet a witness over you.”

These verses seem to imply that a new community was being formed under the guidance of the prophet Muhammad that would be different, even from the religious communities that had sprung up around other monotheist prophets, which would be the Jewish and Christian communities. The Qibla is the direction to which Muslims turn to pray. For a time, Muslims turned towards Jerusalem to make their communal prayers. They also turned in that direction when praying separately, yet for the purpose of this discussion we are interested only in the communal rites, their meanings, and implications. During that time, the Christians and Jews also held Jerusalem as a sacred place, and so Jerusalem was a symbol of unity among the monotheist sects, since they all followed monotheist prophets who spoke of a continuous line of prophet hood and revelation.

The prophet Muhammad (saws) and his followers had fled religious persecution in Mecca, and relocated to Medina after a brief migration to Abyssinia. It was there that the prophet Muhammad established the first monotheist society. It was a society that was organized and protected by laws shaped by the teachings of the Holy Qur’an, which Muslims believe consists of divinely revealed guidance and commands from God, and not Muhammad. One of the most unique, yet seldom talked about characteristics of this Medina community, is that it was a community consisting of Muslims and non Muslim Christians and Jews of various races. It was neither a racially, or religiously homogeneous community. It was a monotheist community that included people and tribes representing the three primary branches of monotheism. Through mutual agreement to a document crafted by the prophet Muhammad, and agreed upon by all of the tribes of Medina, called the Covenant of Medina, the various tribes organized themselves to protect and to finance the new community. This fact should dispel the idea that Islamic government is a government that is only capable of meeting the needs of Muslims, and that non-Muslims would be second-class, or lower in such societies. It should also dispel the wrong idea that non-Muslim minorities in societies governed by Islamic governments have no rights, or that they would be abused, or mistreated. They all pledged as equals to fight in defense of Medina, and to contribute to communal fund to cover the cost for commonly required services.

The verses of Qur’an go on to say that the direction, or redirection of the focus for prayer has nothing to do with God’s location. Using East and West to symbolize the entire world, the Qur’an says here that God is the owner of the entire world, so we are not to misunderstand the change of Qibla to mean that there are different Gods being worshipped by Muslims, Jews and Christians, but rather we are to understand that the people of the monotheist faiths are all worshipping the same God, no matter where they are, or in which direction they turn to pray. The last verse presented here, verse 143 then completes this transition saying, “Thus have we made of you an Ummat (Islamic civilization) justly balanced,” which can be a reference to the diversity present in the community. It could also be a reference to the Islamic law that would be birthed in this first monotheist society. The laws would be just and balanced, with an eye towards justice and fairness as its main ideological objectives. Of course, this one sentence could also mean both of these things, which is likely. The verse concludes saying, “That you might be witnesses to the nations, and the prophet a witness over you.” How appropriate for a diverse monotheist community to be deemed not only justly balanced, but also an example to the nations. Justice cannot be demonstrated in societies that are racially homogenous, and where everyone is the same economically, or the same color, etc. Justice finds its great challenges in societies that are diverse, since this is where justice takes on the complex qualities that strengthen its capacity to attain and to sustain peace and order, the most important of these qualities being fairness.

There are many verses of the Qur’an that if studied by any sincere person, would make it clear that Islam is not fascism, and that Islamic governments are not fascists’ governments. The various verses of Qur’an also make it clear that women are not less than men and share equal human rights, and some special rights aimed at protecting our femininity, and also our rights to enjoy motherhood without the economic pressures to provide for children financially, unless we desire to do so. Islam also protects our rights to earn money, and to spend or save money as we choose.

If a true and honest contemporary examination of Qur’an in respect to Islamic government was ever conducted, there would be no way for democratization activists to ever say that democracy, which in its most basic form is majority rule, is a superior system to the Islamic government, which is blind to color, class, race, and religion, and emphasizes instead justice and equitable treatment for all people. Add to this the already established Islamic culture, and there is no argument that can be made suggesting that Islamic government represents a form of government that is not compatible with the cultures of the people of that region of the world, whether they are Christians, Muslims or Jews. Whereas in a democracy, majority rule is compulsory, nothing is compulsory in Islam for non-Muslims, and very little is compulsory in respect to choice for Muslims either. The Qur’an says that only on those issues that have already been clearly determined by God, or the prophet Muhammad (saws) can there be no individual, or personal opinion, yet that does not mean that there are any compulsory acts, keeping in mind that compulsory is not the same as obligatory.

For the sake of brevity I will not go beyond this simple and brief demonstration of how grossly Western scholars and pundits have purposefully distorted Islamic politics, and how naïve Muslim democratization activists may be when they discount, and discard Islamic government as a very real and reasonable catalyst for reform in the Muslim world.

In election after election in the Muslim world, the Islamists parties win. The new tactic of the Western powers is to divide the Muslim countries that they cannot dominate naturally with pro-West democratic majorities, thereby creating false majorities in districts, or areas constructed through violent separation, and oppression of Islamists groups and constituencies. They pit the two newly separated areas, one against the other to vie for power, while they provide arms and cash to the ones that promote the Western agenda and that reject the Islamic political agenda, which is basic outside of the unique regional and cultural qualities that it takes on from Muslim country to country, region to region. They oppress, marginalize and even violently attack the Islamists contenders and their constituencies, while they simultaneously call Islamists names like fascists, and terrorists. It is perhaps the most hypocritical and criminal strategy ever employed against the Muslim world, other than Ata Turks secularization of Turkey.

In closing I would like to say something briefly about the freedom deficit in the Muslim world. Muslims are deprived the basic freedoms in their countries that most of the rest of the world enjoys. This is because the US and other Western countries cannot win the hearts and minds of a people that they have acted against as violently and brutally as they have in the so-called war on terrorism. Never has Islam as a religion been so maligned and defamed, and Muslims themselves, killed, illegally detained, massacred, denied basic human rights, tortured and mocked. Since there is very little hope that large pro-Western majorities can be created in enough time for the Western powers to litter Muslim countries with military bases, and for Western corporations to exploit our women and children as cheap labor, they must support totalitarian dictatorships to oppress and to deny basic freedoms, and rights to self-determination. This is also why there must be foreign occupations, to provide these dictators the incentives they need to do the jobs they are paid to do, which is to deprive Muslims of inalienable rights, property ownership, ownership of the means of production, and natural resources. These occupations guarantee that the loyalties of national armies to their people, or governments will not pose a threat to the occupiers overall plan, which is to dominate and to exploit, and never to democratize.

The only way to close this freedom deficit that cripples the Muslim world is for Muslims to liberate themselves from these situations, preferably in ways that non-violent. The answer is not for Muslims to war against one another for non-existent power, unless it becomes necessary for the entire Ummat to call a renegade group, or country into compliance with Islamic law. It is also prohibted for Muslims to act as proxies for non-Muslims against Muslim countries, peoples, interests, etc.

In Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution, he writes masterfully on the strategy that was employed by the secularists of the time to bring about the revolution. First they pitted the Church against the monarchy, both struggling against the other for greater wealth and power, while the secularists, empowered by the paralysis of the two larger powers, fomented a revolution that led to the demise of both the church and the monarchy, and France has been a secular liberal, or socialist democracy every since. There is nothing innately evil in that, especially if you are a secular socialist liberal democrat. My point is that this strategy may still be at work today, fomenting violent revolutions throughout the Muslim world that will create secular liberal democracies where there should be, according to the sentiments of the people, Islamic governments.

Vindicating Islam

Being Muslim in the United States is interesting. It’s very different from being Christian, or Jewish. As a Christian, or a Jew, one can do pretty much anything; good or bad, and no one will attribute it to your religion. As a Muslim, if you do something good, it is assumed that it is because you are not “too” Muslim. On the other hand, if you do something bad, it is said to be exactly because you are Muslim. It’s hard to know whether this is because people in the US don’t feel that Christianity, or Judaism impacts the thinking and behavior of their adherents, or if they believe that Islam employs a special sort of brainwashing technique that every Muslim is subjected to, even if they never attend a mosque, or go to an Islamic school, which is unfortunately true of most Muslims.

Following the attacks on September 11th, quite a bit was written about Islamic schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, even though most of the hijackers supposedly came from Saudi Arabia. A lot was written about Saudi Wahabism, even though it is reported that Osama Bin Laden practiced something called Deobandism, which is said to have actually originated in India, while Al-Qadea’s religious leader is an American Jew named Adam Pearlman who attended Hebrew school. To make sense of these oddities, hoping to understand the impact that we assume education has on Muslim behavior, it would have been helpful, by way of comparison, to also talk about what type of teaching takes place in other schools ran by other religious organizations and sects. In the sixties, when we were trying to figure out what in the world was wrong with African Americans that could lead to riots, we tried to blame it on poor education and poverty, yet ignorance and hunger alone does not cause people to burn down city blocks in their own impoverished neighborhoods. If it did, every major city in the US, and also the rural south, would be on fire, and many Whites, Hispanics, and African Americans would be fanning those flames.

Those who were guiding our post 9/11 discovery of Islam clearly wanted to make an impression, and that impression had nothing to do with fact, and was actually quite a bit of fiction. It was a type of fiction that is malicious. Not only because it led to so much harm to many innocent Muslims and Arabs, and the murders of many non-Muslims who looked like Arabs, but also because it distorted the truth about the beliefs of 1.5 billion human beings with whom we must share a world, in peace. Kind of makes you wonder how and why the idea of perpetual war crept into our national conscience and conversation, along with preemptive strike, and war on terrorism around the same time. It seems that acceptance of any one of these ideas is dependant upon acceptance of the other. For either to become rooted in our national psyche as acceptable, a very formidable enemy must exist, or so we have been told. And so we have the brainchild of Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson, better known as “Islamism.” According to nearly every Zionist pundit writing in our newspapers, or preaching to us after 9/11, “Islamism” is our enemy, and it is what led to 9/11. You are perhaps asking now, what Islamism and Deobandoism, and Wahabism and Adam Pearlman has to do with Islam. The right answer would be nothing the real answer is everything, if you believe the media.

Comparing the technique of Muslim teachers in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Afghanistan, with the techniques employed by Jewish or Christian teachers in Israel, or Rome, might have helped those seeking to understand religious education, that a relationship between religious education and horrendous acts of terrorism is almost non-existent. It may have also helped everyone to understand that religious education is designed to indoctrinate students about how to be righteous according to Books that are said to be Divinely revealed or inspired, and that is why it is usually religious people who send their children to religious schools and not atheists. It is true that “what” is taught is what matters, and not whether it is deemed religious or not, except when you are talking about religious education, and adherents to a particular or any religious faith. So true is this fact, that it is absurd for us to accept that Islam inspired the 9/11 terrorism or any act of terrorism, and more than absurd for us to continue to believe this lie, or to allow those who continue to perpetuate this lie to go unanswered and unchallenged The perpetrators of 9/11 never even went to religious schools. They were not from religious families. They did not expect or seek to die as martyrs as the Muslim bashers and Islamaphobes told us. Instead, they sought to die full of booze, after having spent the previous night at strip joints and with whores.

I mentioned this at a talk that I gave at Columbia University, and after the talk one of the students approached me and said, “what if they thought that by dying as martyrs, they would be forgiven for all of their sins, and so they just had a good time.” Poor child, I thought to myself. He doesn’t understand that people who are taught in religious schools, are not taught that watching naked women swing on poles, drinking booze, and sleeping with whores is a good time. He obviously had not read Emerson’s description of the Islamists mind. Emerson said they hate liberalism, and everything that is part of the Western culture, which is a gross exaggeration. That religious Muslims, like all pious people, abhor sin would have been closer to the truth. Pipes said Islamists are religious fanatics who want to create a paradise on earth, where they eliminate sin and the sinful, another exaggeration, but it at least makes the point that they would not seek nearness to God in whorehouses. It’s as mind boggling as Jews who say that the sole cause for the holocaust was anti-Semitism, even though there were Jewish SS, and Jews who also worked with the Nazis in other ways against their fellow Jews. You can call them self-hating, but you can’t attribute their acts to Judaism, or even Zionism. Similarly, you can call the 9/11 hijackers murdering dogs and cowards, but you can’t call them Muslims, or Islamic, and you cannot blame their behavior on Islam.

It seems that the Muslim organizations, the media and the so-called moderate Muslims have launched another round of Muslim renunciation of terrorism campaign. That’s innocent enough on its face, yet when you think about all of these apologies, you start to wonder if the apologizers don’t secretly feel that perhaps Islam did in some way inspire the behavior of the 9/11 hijackers, and you start worry that all of these apologies might cause others to openly believe the same. Let me take this opportunity to assure everyone that Islam did not inspire 9/11, and to ask Muslim leaders to spare the rest of us the bi-annual ritual of Muslim apology for 9/11. CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, went so far as to send out an e-mail that said, “true Muslims denounce terrorism.” Let me respond by saying that true Muslims also denounce adultery, lying, stealing, and other moral and legal violations of law. Let me add that terrorism is not an Islamic phenomenon. It is an act of violence that is carried out against innocent civilians to achieve political aims. Starving 500,000 innocent children to death, hoping to compel their parents to overthrow a dictator might be included among acts of terrorism, along with 60 years of illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine that has resulted in the murders, displacement and imprisonment of more women and children and other innocent civilians than can be counted. So, if Islam inspired 9/11, who or what inspired the deadly US sanctions against Iraq after the Gulf war, and what inspired the illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine? The answer is that neither, Islam, or Christianity, or Judaism inspired any of these evils, and just as the Church has rightfully refused to apologize for the war in Iraq, and atrocities associated with that war, and Jews have never apologized for the crimes associated with the continued illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine, even though they believe in collective guilt and punishment, and fund the occupation, Muslims should stop taking the blame for 9/11. We should spend our time teaching the truth about Islam and responding to the many lies that have gone unchallenged that seek to link Islam, and Islamic education with terrorism, and that seek to create a relationship between Islam and terrorism that simply does not exist. Most importantly, we must also live our lives in such a way that people come to understand that it’s not our clothes or names, or accents, that make us Muslim. The Qur’an says it is our submission to the Will of God, which is a will of righteousness as understood universally, and not evil. That doesn’t mean that Muslims don’t sin. It means that when we do, we are not practicing Islam, or following Islamic teachings, and that we are uninspired.