After Charlie Hebdo Massacre, Muslims Must Reject Violence, and Governments Must Correct Course

By Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

A girl holds a sign during a rally by members of the Muslim community of Madrid outside Madrid’s Atocha train station on January 11, 2015. Photo Credit: Reuters.

For New Yorkers like me, whose mosque was just blocks from the World Trade Center on 9/11, the terrorist attack in Paris this week brought back shuddering memories.

Once again terrorists, saying they were acting in the name of Islam, perpetrated a horrific crime, which has rightly outraged the Western world and smeared the name of the religion I cherish.

It gets harder and harder for me to convince my non-Muslim American friends that these crimes have nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with terrorists trying to enhance their political agenda.

We must not play into the terrorists’ narrative — yet I fear that this is already precisely what is happening. Because a few fanatical terrorists slaughtered the editors of a satirical publication for printing insulting cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad, the French people have taken to the streets, some directly protesting what they see as a violent, repressive religion that they blame for the carnage.

With a large presence of Muslim immigrants in France, the terrorists are counting on the aftermath of the attack to cause the French to crackdown more broadly on Muslims in their country.

“See?” The terrorists will then say. “This is a war between Christians and Muslims, and all true Muslims must join us in our fight.”

The downward spiral will then accelerate. More recruits will head to the Middle East, strengthening terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and ISIS as those groups seek more power in what is becoming a Muslim civil war across the Middle East.

We must not let this happen. While Western powers must track down and punish these terrorists any way they can, we must also smartly combat the terrorists’ narrative.

This requires us to do two things at the same time: First, highlight the fact — and it is a fact — that these attacks violate Islam. Prove that the terrorists are apostates. Second, work to remove the frustrations of Muslim people both in Europe and in the Middle East that are helping to fuel terrorism.

Islamic law says no person can be plaintiff, judge and executioner as these terrorists have made themselves.

The Koran would never condone the idea that lampooning Muhammad should be avenged by murder. It commands us not to insult the values of other people because that would cause others to insult our God. It teaches that libel is a crime, but not a capital crime.

In his lifetime, the Prophet Muhammad himself was mocked and lampooned by his contemporaries. His response was to pray for the mockers. He taught that one responds to a bad act by a good act until the mocker becomes a friend.

At the same time, Islamic law does not allow anyone to wrong another person more than he has been wronged. That means the most one should do to respond to a lampoon is to create a counter lampoon.

I’d urge every Muslim offended by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons to do just that.

And I’d urge every Muslim to issue a categorical condemnation of these murders, as millions already have.

ISIS and Al Qaida claim they want to create a caliphate ruled by sharia law. But what they are actually creating is a perversion of Islam that violates that law.

I believe the Prophet Muhammad would condemn their social and political structure.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, poses at a hotel in Abu Dhabi, August 29, 2010. Photo Credit: Reuters/Leo Hoagland

So why are some Muslims rallying to their cause? Because so many Muslims, in the Middle East and in Western nations, feel marginalized economically and politically.

For generations, their own governments in the Middle East have suppressed them with policies that deny them freedom to grow politically or economically. They are embroiled in endless wars that often see innocents killed with no outcry.

When they flee to the West, they often find themselves marginalized again and viewed with hatred and suspicion. With no place to turn, they are susceptible to the siren song of vicious groups that promise to empower them in a noble cause.

When killers plot or strike, we must do everything we can to stop them and bring them to justice. But eliminating one group of terrorists does nothing to end terrorism. Osama bin Laden is dead. Al Qaeda is alive. And its more violent offshoots are growing.

So I ask my fellow American Muslims to examine your religion; to teach the young its true values; to be aware of the insidious appeals of the extremists that seeps into our homes.

We Muslims must create a counter narrative to combat the extremists’ propaganda. We need to work hand in hand with law enforcement to prevent such crimes. And we must cooperate with other faith and sectarian communities to help solve conflicts throughout the Middle East. We have a big, positive role to play.

But I also call on governments, both Western and Muslim, to understand that policy has consequences; that people cannot be suppressed and marginalized forever; that endless conflict — whether between Israelis and Palestinians or between Sunnis and Shia — will only lead to stronger extremists, more attacks on Westerners and many more dead Muslims.

© Daily News, L.P., (New York) Reprinted With Permission.

Editor’s Note: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the chairman of The Cordoba Initiative, a New York-based organization dedicated to building bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims. The views expressed here are his own.

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