Those who in the name of Islam plan and carry out terror attacks and those who support and shelter them commit two great wrongs. The first and greater is to utterly distort the teachings of the Qur’an that man’s mission in this world is to make life more productive, spiritually and materially. Osama Bin Laden and his deluded followers offer only hate and destruction. The world has heard nothing from them about how they will help Muslims improve their lives, nothing about the quest for knowledge, nothing about the creativity and the building that marked Islamic civilization from its early days — in the Abbassid Empire in Baghdad and its rival, the Omayyad Empire in Spain, in particular. Instead, all they offer is an unrelenting campaign of butchery that destroys both Muslims and non-Muslims and offer nothing whatsoever constructive, only blood, chaos and tears.
And the second great wrong may have very far-reaching implications for decent Muslims everywhere. In London, as in part in Madrid, the bombers who followed Al-Qaeda’s orders to destroy had originally been welcomed as immigrants or refugees. In the case of the four young Pakistanis in the first wave of attacks, they were born into a tolerant multicultural British society which offered them freedom to protest government actions with which they violently disagreed. (One million Britons marched in London angry at their country’s role in the invasion of Iraq.) The second wave of attackers is from the Horn of Africa and had been given refuge and even citizenship by the British.
The rules of hospitality are a cornerstone of Islamic civilization and apply as much to the guest as to his host. Such wicked abuse of their welcome by the British bombers is utterly reprehensible. But unfortunately their crime goes further. Their betrayal of the British is also a betrayal of all British Muslims on whose heads they have brought odium and suspicion.
In Australia, a radical cleric, Sheikh Mohammed Omran, has just praised Bin Laden and blamed the London bombings on US agents. This has produced calls for the man’s expulsion; a Muslim member of the Victorian State Parliament, Adem Somyurek, has said the man should leave Australia. Such an angry reaction is understandable because Omran’s statement bodes ill for the many Muslims from around the world to whom Australia has given a home. How much longer might it be before formerly welcoming countries begin to discriminate against Muslim immigrants? And once that point is reached, would not the angry focus turn to Muslims who have already made their homes in new countries?
It is for this reason that moderate Muslims around the world must now become “immoderate,” not just in their condemnation of Al-Qaeda’s evil, but in their pursuit and eradication of Bin Laden’s people hiding in their midst. The initial anger and horror at what these deluded fools are doing, ostensibly in their name, must now be channeled into positive action to root them out and root out also the evil men who train and direct them in their wicked deeds.
