In response to the column, “Muslim-Americans fight and die for their country,” most Americans agree that the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving people with mainstream outlooks, values and attitudes who are taking their rightful place in our society like the many waves of immigrants who came before them.
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The concern of some is with political Islam, the extremists, “a radical ideology concocted by hijacking and twisting the peaceful and spiritual faith of Islam for purposes of political hegemony.”
The author of these words is M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a physician in private practice who spoke recently at the University of Florida.
To gain additional insight into the number of Muslims who may hold these extreme views, refer to a book by Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and Prof. John Esposito of Georgetown University. Their book, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, is based on a Gallup Poll, the largest of its kind.
They found that most Muslims admire the West for its democracy and rule of law. Unfortunately, they also found that a radicalized group of 7 percent, some 100 million Muslims around the world, thought that the Sept. 11, 2001, attack “was completely justified; they have a heightened sense of being threatened and dominated by the West.”
How to cope with this radicalized element in a rational and reasonable way is the challenge facing America and other developed nations today. To meet this challenge. Jasser outlined principles for moderate Muslims
For instance, he suggests the rejection of lslamism as a political ideology and the rejection of the Islamic state (Shariah law).
Moderate Muslims would do well to heed Jasser’s principles.
Speak out more “against terrorism and militant Islamists in the U.S. and around the world.”
This can only hasten our path to a more secure and better life together!
R. G. MULLIGAN,
retired,
Jacksonville
