[Vision2020] The Truth about Moderate Islam

[Nicholas Gier]

Dear Visionaries:


Many of you will no doubt see an allusion to Larry Kirkland's recent op.
ed. plea for "truth" in my title.  Read my other columns on Islam at the
link at www.NickGier.com.


Some of you visionaries will remember a debate I had with Mr. Crabtree
about the Islam vs. Christian body count over the centuries.  I believe I
showed that the Christian total, especially if you count (and we should)
the 20 million killed by the Taiping Christians from 1850-1862.


My travel partner and I will soon be in personal contact with many moderate
Muslims, some of the 170 million in India. I will soon be enjoying weather
in the high 70s, low 80s and we will avoid the horrible smog of late
November and December in New Delhi by moving south to the tip of Tamil Nadu.


NG

*THE TRUTH ABOUT MODERATE ISLAM*


After the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, every single
Muslim nation in the world (50 in all) either placed calls to the White
House or sent cables of condolences. All of their leaders stated that such
actions were contrary to Islamic law.

In Tehran a soccer match was halted, and 60,000 Iranians held a moment of
prayer for the victims of 9/11. The president of Azerbaijan, 93 percent
Muslim, declared a national day of mourning. Widely circulated video
footage of Palestinians celebrating in the streets was not connected to
9/11 at all.

Indonesians, citizens of the largest moderate Muslim country at 254
million, live in relative harmony with their small Christian and Hindu
minorities.  On October 12, 2002, Muslim militants set off three bombs in
Bali’s capital city and 202 (mostly foreigners) were killed and 240
wounded.  Three of the bombers were arrested, convicted, and executed by
firing squad.

After Pakistani militants launched a vicious attack on Mumbai in November,
2008, the World Muslim Congress condemned them, thousands of India’s
Muslims marched in the streets, and Mumbai’s imams refused to bury the nine
terrorists who were killed.  The Muslim Political Council of India
requested that the victims of the bombings (mostly non-Muslims) be declared
“martyrs to national integrity.”

On October 13, 2007, 138 Muslim scholars and clerics, representing every
major school of Islamic thought, issued a declaration entitled "A Common
Word between Us and You," challenging Christians to come together with them
in dialogue. The number of Muslim signatories has now risen to over 300.

The phrase “common word” comes from the Qur’an where Allah declares: "O
People of the Scripture! Come to a common word between us and you"
(3:64). Included
in the “People of the Book” are Jews and Christians, and the meaning of the
common is the love of God and love of neighbor. In medieval India many
Muslim rulers recognized Hindus and Buddhists as People of the Book.

The first response to "A Common Word" was from Yale Divinity School, and
hundreds of Christian world leaders have continued to sign the Common World
declaration.  Evangelical Christian Miroslav Volf, the director of Yale’s
Center for Faith and Culture, praised the Muslim statement as “historic,
courageous, and marked by deep insight and generosity of spirit.” The
Evangelical Theological Society sponsored a conference on the Common Word
on November 18, 2009 in New Orleans.

The next major response to the Muslim challenge was a conference at
Cambridge University, which 17 Muslim and 19 Christian theologians attended
October 12-15, 2013. This was the first time that Muslim and Christian
religious leaders had actually sat down and studied each other’s scripture
together, correcting mutual misconceptions in the process.

A 2011 Gallup Poll asked whether it would ever be justified for any person
“to target and kill civilians,” and Muslims were opposed by 89 percent,
while atheists stood at 76 percent, followed by Protestants and Catholics
at 71 percent. Another poll found that only 13 percent of Iranians believed
that Shar’ia should be the law of the land, just slightly more than the 9
percent of Americans who want Biblical law.

A poll of Muslim clerics in America found that only 1 percent of them
followed a literal interpretation of the Qur’an, while 56 percent taught
the most liberal interpretation.  (Far more American pastors take the Bible
literally and recommend social policy based on these strict
interpretations.) Only 13 percent thought that their youth were inclined to
extremist views.  The main concern about their young people was that they
didn’t have enough interest in religion.

This summer the World Muslim Congress wrote an open letter to Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State. It began as follows: “We, the
Moderate Muslims of the world, do hereby call upon you to immediately give
up your unholy, unlawful and ill-conceived ambition to found an Islamic
caliphate by rampaging through villages, towns and cities, brutally
murdering people and forcing the non-Muslims to convert to Islam at gun
point.”

Very odd then that anti-Muslim commentators have complained that moderate
Muslims have not spoken out against the jihadists.  The critics have simply
not been paying attention.

Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for
31.  Read his other columns at the Islam link at www.NickGier.com.
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