Those Who Show Their Good Qualities In Action
“In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.” — Aristotle
Khadija Khan’s article in Gatestone Institute titled “Hero Imams” has become the latest proverbial light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel story in regard to the modern-day bane of Islamic terrorism. Khan writes: “More than 60 Islamic leaders and imams — from France, Belgium, Britain, Tunisia, and of different Islamic faiths — in a move that may be unprecedented, are touring Europe to denounce Islamic terrorism and to pay homage to the victims of terror in Europe by visiting many of the sites of terror attacks.”
When I first noticed the story, or should I say the title, I was momentarily encouraged. When was the last time anyone heard of imams – more than 60 imams! – publicly condemning Islamic jihadists for their terrorism and savage zeal? Unprecedented. We have heard only from those who are encouraging and “radicalizing” Muslim youth. Pro-jihad icons such as Anjem Choudary and Linda Sarsour we hear from far too often, the former boasting that the West will someday be ruled by a caliphate and subject to sharia law, the later shamelessly proclaiming jihad against America’s President Trump.
There is a Jewish proverb which states that, “A little folly outweighs much wisdom and honour.” Choudary and Sarsour represent the irreversible destruction (read folly) Islam the religion has obtruded on the world, especially on the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The “hero imams,” conversely, represent the almost undiscernible measure of humaneness and sanity adverted in Islam’s tumultuous history. Regardless of all the sophistry and apologetics presently employed in defense of this religion, the Islamic jihadists continue to obstruct the efforts of the “hero imams” as they seek to engender “the trust of those in the West who are justifiably angry about the recent wave of terrorist attacks in United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Israel, Germany, the United States and across much of the world.” Sadly, to date, especially for the Muslims who bear the brunt of this injurious ideology, the good of Islam is far outweighed by the bad.
It’s immensely ironic to read in the newspapers about Muslim clerics reporting “hate crimes” to the police. This is a particular group of religious who revel, shamelessly, in denigrating Jews for being Jews and the State of Israel for its very existence in the Middle East. There was a report in the Montreal Gazette this past July 17 about the Jordanian Sheikh Muhammad ibn Musa Al Nasr proclaiming that the Jews were “the worst of mankind” and that he hoped that Muslims would “slaughter them on Judgement Day.” In a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, it was reported that an Egyptian-born American Muslim preacher, Ammar Shahin, gave a sermon at the Islamic Center of Davis California during which he reminded his audience, according to the Post, that “all Muslims, not only Palestinians or Syrians, will be called upon to kill all the Jews…” According to Mr. Shahin, who holds a B.A. in Islamic studies and is presently “an instructor of the Zidani Islamic Institute which teaches Sunni Islam to the West,” this slaughter will also take place on Judgement Day. He is passionate, as he related to his audience in the same sermon, that Al-Aqsa Mosque be liberated from the “filth of the Jews.” Apparently even a B.A. in Islamic studies doesn’t teach Muslim clerics to comprehend the common principle that hate begets hate.
Maybe Emerson was right: “People who know how to act are never preachers.” I’m now convinced that the more than 60 imams who are apparently publicly denouncing Islamic terrorism are too little and too late. They are a barely audible and emasculated voice compared to the far greater number of Islamic clerics who are either silent on the issue of terrorism or, even worse, like Linda Sarsour and Anjem Choudary, are boisterously advocating its utilization for Islam’s religiously desired end, namely universal rule. Those who “preach” violence against Jews and Christians, especially while living comfortably, courtesy of Western democracies, should not be surprised or offended when they are refused the honour and rewards meted out and falling to others who have a reputation for showing their good qualities in action. And opposing those Muslim clerics who counsel their congregants and their children that they should hate me and my children simply because we are not Muslim is not a crime.
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