Terrorism IS an Islamic Issue, Say Some Muslims

islamic terrorism

While details are still unfolding as to why a California Muslim couple turned to murder, Muslims in the West must step up and admit terrorism is rooted in extremist Islam, according to Muslim panelists.

They criticized major U.S. Muslim groups that lament such tragedies but say their religion is not responsible. They insisted the violence has roots in Islam, and that Islamist political terror is nurtured in Saudi Arabia’s strict Wahhabi branch of the faith.
And they blasted the Obama administration for steadfastly refusing to brand terror as Islamic extremism. President Obama decried the deaths and pledged a thorough investigation of the attack but cautioned against setting blame based on the killers’ Muslim names.
“President Obama simply does not embrace reality,” said Farahnez Ispahani, a former member of the Pakistani Parliament and author of an upcoming book on that Pakistan’s religious minorities.
She mocked the way that the administration responds to attacks. Rather than calling in progressive Muslim leaders in U.S civil society, she said: “They call in imams and they hold an interfaith event and they are all happy.
“But there is no clear ideological campaign to fight ISIS or Islamists,” she said, to a smattering of applause in the audience of about 50 people. Islam has been “hijacked” and people are afraid if they admit it, it will spark Islamophobia, Ispahani said.
“Terror is a Muslim issue, an Islamic issue within the house of Islam,” said M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, “and we must own it” to fight it. He moderated the event held at the Heritage Foundation, which had been planned after the Paris attacks.
“ISIS calls its magazine ‘Inspire.’ How do we inspire a counter movement of ideas so Muslims are inspired by something else, not radicalism? We have to get past the denial that ‘This is not about us’ and ‘We aren’t Muslims like that,” said Jasser, disparaging the majority of U.S. Muslim groups that step out with this approach every time there is a terror attack.
(Within hours of the shootings, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said at a press conference, “The Muslim community stands shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Americans in repudiating any twisted mindset that would claim to justify such sickening acts of violence.”  CAIR announced a candlelight vigil with religious groups in Silver Spring, Md., to be held Friday evening.)

Source: Terrorism is an Islamic Issue, Say Some Muslims – Christian News Headlines

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: