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Asked and Answered

By lex, on October 8th, 2008

Robert Spencer has an answer for Sheila Musaji, who asked him, “”What exactly is required to be considered a ‘moderate’ Muslim?”

I eagerly await her response.

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October 8th, 2008 | Tags: | Category: Politics and Culture

5 comments to Asked and Answered

  • Marianne Matthews
    October 8, 2008 at 8:05 pm

    You know, Lex, I’ve been asking that question since 2001. And, as you say, the “moderate Muslims” have been singularly silent. I’ve been waiting for them to protest their violent brethren, to insist that they “go back to the well” so to speak, and explain where the Koran specifically tells them to kill non-Muslims — not just Christians, but all non-Muslims. And then to discuss with said violent Muslims why their interpretations of these words are wrong. In spite of all my searching, I have yet to find any “moderate Muslims” willing to do this.

    Marianne

  • RetRsvMike
    October 9, 2008 at 5:48 am

    i met lots of them…

    in Baghdad. in Umm Qasr.

    we had the best discussions. the phrase that kept getting repeated was “People of the Book”.

    it’s a great ice-breaker when you can rightly claim to be named for an Archangel (and pronounce it correctly in Arabic).

  • Jay Mannix
    October 10, 2008 at 1:54 pm

    Actually, there are two proven ways to behaviorally modify muslims so that they fit neatly into the ‘moderate’ category. One technique involves a measurement of rads, the second, of megatons.

  • Sheila Musaji
    October 11, 2008 at 3:27 pm

    Salaam, Shalom, Peace,

    I have answered Robert Spencer’s questions at http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/robert_spencers_10_points_of_obfuscation/0016815

    God bless,
    Sheila Musaji

  • David Curp
    October 11, 2008 at 6:22 pm

    Dear Ms. Musaji,

    Salaam, Shalom, Peace and pax to you as well. Thank you for your thorough and compelling answers to Robert Spencer’s questions. I found particularly powerful the renunciation of coercion in relation to “apostates”/Muslims who chose to embrace other faiths. This is a real sticking point for many of us about the theory and practice of Islam – as the statement on apostasy you cited acknowledges…

    “Undeniably, the traditional position of Muslim scholars and jurists has been that apostasy [riddah] is punishable by death.”

    Doctrine does develop – take for example a small problem in your post on Catholicism. Since Vatican II the Catholic Church no longer officially requires any kind of written or even verbal commitment from a n0n-Catholic to raise their children Catholic (though it does ask those Catholics seeking to have their marriage blessed in the Church to agree to do “al in their power to raise their children as Christians” – as another section in the link below asserts

    “The couple then needs to work together to resolve their religious differences without either of them being asked to compromise their consciences. This has all been official Catholic procedure since 1970.

    Beyond this, Catholic ecumenical directives emphasize that the church’s primary concern in such marriages is to uphold the strength and stability of the indissoluble marriage union and the family life that flows from it.”
    http://www.marriagepreparation.com/Dietzen1.htm

    (the Church also recognizes the validity of marriages to non-Christians, though it does consider these “natural” and not sacramental marriages). http://www.usccb.org/laity/marriage/marriagefaqs.shtml – point 9 on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also affirms what Fr. Dientz argued about there being no need for non-Catholics to raise their children Catholic.

    This does speak to how recent has been a deepening sense of tolerance and acceptance by Catholics of the imperitives of freedom of conscience (Protestants were not free of their own intolerance of course- as a Protestant I was raised with a deep suspicion of Catholics and many of the real and imagined crimes of Catholics in relation to Protestants were part of my understanding before I learned how to distinguish conflict narratives and myth history from more complicated varieties of history). Still, while I agree with you that there is an element of islamophobia in some critiques of Islam (esp. when people who have never read the Q’aran assume they understand the whole of Islam from perusing the sword verses) I also think that history matters a great deal and you need to engage the history more forcefully. The history of Islam and the way that Muslims have related to Christians in the past (as well as some of the ways that Muslims in other parts of the world continue to relate to Christians) should present as many problems for Muslims as similar Christian actions taken in the name of Christianity raise for Christians. Islam, like Christianity does not exist in a historical vacuum – there are lines of argument, traditions and sensibilities that both faiths inculcate in their adherents that can make seemingly sinister/innocent passages of their scriptures have more force (very few Christians would realize that Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast and the phrase “compel them to come in” would become part of how St. Augustine developed a theological justification for religious persecution that has had a baleful impact on Catholic thought and practice for over a millenium). So I think it is fair to realize that it is not simply islamophobia that informs some concern about Islamic practice, just as not all concern about Catholicism in the U.S. for much of its history was only anti-Catholic bigotry, though there was a good amount of that at its roots.

    If I may quibble about a final point? As an American you do have the capacity to influence the politics of Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries in a small but real way by writing to your congresscritter and participating in public forums, where your faith will give you more street cred. This is not to say that you must do it, particularly if your prudence regards other international issues as more pressing, but I don’t agree that we are as powerless as you imply in the face of injustices, esp. when those injustices are committed in the name of your faith.

    But thank you for a thoughtful and well-argued post. God bless and keep you as well and may your efforts to engage those Muslims who misrepresent Islam and those non-believers you regard as hostile to your faith with charity and intelligence be received by God as as-salihat.

    Salaam,

    David
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