Radical Islamists and Terrorism

Open question for Muslims As a western Christian, I struggle to understand the jihad against us. As near as I can tell from reading the Quran, is that the "radical islamists" are literalists. The "book" clearly gives Muslims permission to to kill infidels in Sura II, vs 180. There are other alarming passages throughout the book, but thats the first one that you come upon. All they need to do is justify that we are infidels, and we are as good as dead. I made an analogy before which I will repeat here. The tepid response in the Arab nations for the anti-terrorism effort is due to the close ties between radical and moderate Islam. I feel that Radical Islamists are to the moderates as the Hasidim are to "reform Jews". All Muslims know what the book says literally, so they are loathe to condemn those who follow the literal path. My question to an Arab Muslim is, what do you say about the above? How exactly do YOU separate yourself from the radicals? Reply Wa 'Alaikumus Salaam, First of all, the verse the person has cited has nothing at all to do with fighting or killing disbelievers. Secondly he is guilty, unfortunately as are some Muslims, of taking a verse out of context or alone and making a rule from it that does not necessarily apply. This is common for the ignorant, the untrained or the overzealous. What people are doing very mistakenly these days is rushing out to buy the Qur'aan and after finding specific verses that fit into their pre-concieved notions, latch onto them and leave all other matters aside. What happened to true scholarship? Where is the expertise in the Arabic language or the understanding of the hadeeth and the statements of the scholars? All of this is skipped by the instant experts on Islam these days and it is creating havok. To the point, nowhere in the Qur'aan are Muslims told to just go out and kill infidels. We are commanded to fight in certain circumstances but there is no place that tells us to kill an unbeliever merely for the fact that he or she is one. This is a huge distortion, lie and outright fear mongering for which certain parties are known to indulge in and it is very popular in the media. We consider it extremely irresponsible. Next, indeed there is a parallel between Muslims who follow the Qur'aan and believe in every word as well as the authentic hadeeth and the conflict they have with those socalled "secular" or "moderate" Muslims who do not and the "reform" Jews and the Hasidim to the extent that in these cases one group considers itself to be closely adhering to the religion they both claim to follow and they then look upon the other with disdain. We have been warned of this by Allah Himself in the opening chapter of the Qur'aan and by the Prophet Muhammad (may Allah exalt his mention) in famous hadeeths where he foretold that the Muslims would split into groups or sects and that they would also follow the ways of those who went before them. A great difference
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however is that Jews, Christians and all others are commanded by Allah to follow Islam, the religion of all the prophets and messengers the last of them being Muhammad (may Allah exalt his mention). Additionally, Islamic religious texts are preserved and authenticated, albeit there is the problem of misinterpretation of those texts and the following of desire or whims on the part of some and the misusage of inauthentic texts, whereas neither the original texts of the Torah or the revelation to Jesus (may Allah exalt his mention) are preserved for us in their complete and original forms. Those respective groups of Christians and Jews therefore do not have the benefit of an authoritative authentic text that they can refer to, nor is there any uniformity in the texts that exist while this is not the case with the Qur'aan and the hadeeth which are in the same Arabic language as the day they were revealed. Translations and versions of translations are another matter, but we do not ultimately depend upon those in any way as authoritative references. Muslims are warned NOT to fall into the same errors as the religious communities that came before them among the Christians, Jews and anyone else. Indeed so-called "reform" Jews may see their religion as antiquated or inadequate and thus in need of revision clash with those Jews who want to stick to the Rabbinical texts, the Talmud and the Torah as they have traditionally been handed down or interpreted and the "new" Muslims are in a similar position with regards to the "strict" Muslims who believe in following the Qur'aan and sunnah as much as possible. The big difference is also however, that the very meaning of Muslim is one who submits to the will of the Creator and the Muslims who believe in strict adherence to the Qur'aan and sunnah have a solid base and the shariah is flexible enough if properly understood to account for the many levels of people and their situations. Also Islam is not a nationalistic or ethnic religion that limits its "true adherents" to being born of a Muslim mother for example as do Jews who believe one is not a true Jew unless they are born to a Jewish mother. Every Muslim in his heart and who understands the fundamental basics of his religion, knows clearly what is halaal or haraam because it is clear, therefore you will not find the kind of vehement condemnation of "radicals" from many of them as you may find among irreligious Jews towards their religious "brethren" simply because it is harder to get away with it. It is easier to get away with it (i.e. protests against "strict" adherence) among non-Muslim westerners who have little understanding of religion outside of their own experience and therefore often incorrectly judge the situation of Muslims by incorrectly analogizing it with their own. Only the most distanced from their religion and who consider themselves Muslim by some ethnic link and who are blatantly ignorant and hypocritical would for example try to justify not praying, or drinking alcoholic beverages, or having illicit sex and so on and try to find some sort of religious justification for it and it just won't be accepted among the vast majority of Muslims who even if weak, know inherently that such practices are wrong. So, the game of moderates condemning radicals and the like gains credence only in climates where any Tom, Dick or Ahmed can say anything they please about religion
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even if they have no evidence for it. What is more likely and reasonable may be for Muslims who practice their religion seriously to perhaps condemn what are excesses or neglect among other Muslims according to real Islamic shariah, as opposed to condemnation of others simply because they believe in practicing their religion seriously while others want to play with it. The emergence and spread of religious innovations has given room perhaps for some Muslims to actually try to justify their incorrect practices or lack of practice as having some religious basis, but this is usually easily found out upon investigation and academic examination and such people fall directly under the condemnation of the Prophet (may Allah exalt his mention) when he mentioned those who would split off into sects. That is why you may see, among some claimants to Islam, an effort to re-work the actual foundations of Islamic shariah because they know full well that Islam is very solid and can only be attacked by hammering at its edifice. Such examples are Muslims who try to justify homosexuality or drinking or drugs, sex without marriage or removal of hijab and the like or even those who advocate wanton violence on the other extreme. This strategy will ultimately fail even if it makes some immediate or short-term gains. The Islamic message is by far more universal in scope and not limited to Arabs or any nation. So for the questioner to ask someone as an ARAB Muslim is out of line since no Muslim who understands their religion answers any question about their religion from the basis or race or ethnicity. It is the questioner applying the same type of approach or standard to Muslims that perhaps some Jews apply to themselves and this is anathema to Islam and Muslims who may do it are simply ignorant. Also, the questioner has presumed in his mind what a radical is so before we can fully address that he must define what radical is in his mind. Indeed, for a person who may not adhere to any religion or whose adherence to any particular religion may be 'lukewarm', a Muslim who actually seriously prays five times a day on time in a mosque may be considered radical! For a Muslim woman to believe in wearing hijab may be considered radical! For a Muslim to believe Islam to be the correct religion may be considered radical! So what is his definition? As far as we are concerned, the definition or characterization of a person as a Muslim stops at what Allah and His Messenger have described is the Muslim, the Mumin (believer), the Muhsin (righteous doer of good) and whatever characteristics they prescribe for the adherents to Islam to possess to be considered pleasing to Allah. Therefore, we separate ourselves not from being radical if what we mentioned in the preceding paragraph are the questioner's definitions of radical, but if his or anyone's definition of radical is "to be extreme or extremist" then we indeed separate ourselves from that since our deen is not one of extremes and we have been warned from extremism in the authentic sunnah and the shariah of Islam. Abdul-Qaadir Abdul-Khaaliq