The Danish Embassy was attacked yesterday by a
suicide bomber, killing eight and wounding twenty-four according to initial reports. There has not been a statement of
responsiblity yet, but it is a relatively safe bet that the Embassy was targeted due to the decision by Danish newspapers to reprint offensive cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammed (
PBUH).
The sad thing, beyond the loss of life, is the logic that has led some people to perpetrate acts like this: "Some Westerners say that Islam is a backward and violent religion and have assaulted the character of our Prophet. In retaliation for this vile behavior of saying that we have a violent religion, I will blow up the Danish Embassy, myself, and a host of innocent bystanders, many of whom may be Muslim." Of course, this is a sick and twisted minority that in no way represents the vast community of Muslims and their interpretation of Islam. Yet, when such things happen, i.e. these senseless acts of violence, people do not pour into the streets in condemnation in the way that they condemned the original cartoons, or the movie "
Fitna," or the teacher in Sudan who named a teddy bear "
Mohammed." The Muslim community (the Ummah) must realize that the people who are doing the most damage to their religion are not the crack-pot Westerners like
Geert Wilders, but the extremist Muslims who provide these critics with so much fuel. If there were no suicide bombers like the one in Pakistan, there would be much less criticism of Islam in the West. I know that the religion and how people choose to interpret it and use it politically are two very different things, but Muslims must rise up to defend their religion against the people within their community who corrupt it and tarnish its image as vocally, if not more vocally than they defend the religion against outside critics.
In my travels, I have talked to a large number of people from a variety of countries and backgrounds. Most have been kind and helpful. Many have engaged me in conversation about their religion, regional politics, and my country's foreign policy. All too often, when I have attempted to face this criticism by finding a middle ground where we can admit that both sides have faults and can do much, much more to improve relations, this middle ground is refused. One of my Arab Muslim friends told me that, even from within the community, when he advocates coming to this middle ground and condemning evils in the the Arab and Islamic world as vocally as the evils found in the West, he has often been shouted down and labeled as a traitor.
The rhetorical extremes taken by clerics and editorial commentators, the hate-filled and scholarship-light books and articles available, the spitting-angry demonstrations, and the violence that a minority perpetrate in the name of Islam are all far more damaging to the
Ummah than any Western cartoon, or movie, or book could ever be. Why doesn't the
Ummah condemn these things inside their community as loudly they do the silly outside influences that really do them no harm? Why do people play into the hands of critics by providing them with more hatred, vitriol, and violence?
