prasad1
Active member
[video=youtube;2LBYZpP3HVc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LBYZpP3HVc[/video]
The Charlie Hebdo massacre demands that we at last acknowledge that the secular pluralistic democratic world is imperiled by Islamism, the dastardly impostor of Islam.
Painful scenes have transfixed us as we watch in dismay our tongue-tied administration unable to name our nemesis. Owning the narrative is key in any ideological battle, and as President Barack Obama's administration struggles to name our enemy -- oscillating between "radicals," "extremists" and "terrorists" -- Islamism in its variegated forms shows neither fear nor hesitation in declaring war.
In contrast, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi calls a spade a spade. Putting into words what all Muslims have long known, Sisi has confronted clerics at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, appealing for their help in slaying Islamism, the parasitic ideology that imperils the world and Islam.
Islamists -- whether violent as the Islamic State, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Hamas and Hezbollah, or nonviolent as institutional Islamists -- do not represent Islam. By exposing them, Islam is shielded from blame for their heinous acts, an unwanted burden the faith has borne. (Those straitjacketed by politically correct aphorisms struggle to convince us otherwise.) In avoiding the term Islamism, we shelter it within Islam's bosom.
Understanding the Quran as two documents -- a historical account which must be read in the context of its revelation, and a contemporary document agile enough to move through the ages -- I and many other Muslims understand that "jihad of the sword," though mentioned in the Quran, holds no place in our modern world, or in our modern Islam. But distorting jihad is far from the only deception Islamists achieve.
Unless we defend the debate of religion and Islamist ideology, jihadist "prosecutions" of blasphemy will result in more Charlie Hebdos and build not only victories but significant arsenals fueling Islamist ideology, at the expense of weakening our democratic ideals.
Qanta A. Ahmed, author of "In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom," is a 2014 Ford Foundation public voices fellow with the OpEd Project.
Islamism choking freedom everywhere - QANTA A. AHMED - Newsday
The Charlie Hebdo massacre demands that we at last acknowledge that the secular pluralistic democratic world is imperiled by Islamism, the dastardly impostor of Islam.
Painful scenes have transfixed us as we watch in dismay our tongue-tied administration unable to name our nemesis. Owning the narrative is key in any ideological battle, and as President Barack Obama's administration struggles to name our enemy -- oscillating between "radicals," "extremists" and "terrorists" -- Islamism in its variegated forms shows neither fear nor hesitation in declaring war.
In contrast, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi calls a spade a spade. Putting into words what all Muslims have long known, Sisi has confronted clerics at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, appealing for their help in slaying Islamism, the parasitic ideology that imperils the world and Islam.
Islamists -- whether violent as the Islamic State, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Hamas and Hezbollah, or nonviolent as institutional Islamists -- do not represent Islam. By exposing them, Islam is shielded from blame for their heinous acts, an unwanted burden the faith has borne. (Those straitjacketed by politically correct aphorisms struggle to convince us otherwise.) In avoiding the term Islamism, we shelter it within Islam's bosom.
Understanding the Quran as two documents -- a historical account which must be read in the context of its revelation, and a contemporary document agile enough to move through the ages -- I and many other Muslims understand that "jihad of the sword," though mentioned in the Quran, holds no place in our modern world, or in our modern Islam. But distorting jihad is far from the only deception Islamists achieve.
Unless we defend the debate of religion and Islamist ideology, jihadist "prosecutions" of blasphemy will result in more Charlie Hebdos and build not only victories but significant arsenals fueling Islamist ideology, at the expense of weakening our democratic ideals.
Qanta A. Ahmed, author of "In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom," is a 2014 Ford Foundation public voices fellow with the OpEd Project.
Islamism choking freedom everywhere - QANTA A. AHMED - Newsday
