We have just bade farewell to Rajab — the seventh month in the Islamic calendar — and welcomed Shaaban which precedes the eagerly-awaited holy month of Ramadan.
It was during Rajab that the miracles of Al-Isra’a and Al-Meraj occurred — when God took Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, for a journey by night from the Sacred Mosque in Makkah to the Farthest Mosque (Al-Aqsa) in Jerusalem. The month this year came and went while Muslims remained divided and weakened, with other nations plotting against us, just as our Prophet foretold.
Our weakness, powerlessness and continued silence encouraged the tyrants to make their plans for undermining Islam and fighting its followers wherever they might be.
The baldest move yet in this direction was the signing by the American president of Congressional legislation recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Arab and Muslim anger over the move proved to be no more than floating balls of empty air.
We left the fate of Al-Aqsa for the final phase of negotiations, long after the Jews finalized their plots to demolish it and construct their alleged temple on its ruins.
The enemy continues to bar Muslim men younger than 40 from praying at Al-Aqsa and the action goes unchallenged by Muslim countries. It is an action that contravenes the freedom of worship that the terrorist state of Israel claims to guarantee to every one. While the enemy continues its atrocities, we insist on pursuing an imaginary peace that may never come.
The enemies do not stop at this but have found the courage to blaspheme the Prophet’s name with the full knowledge and blessing of the leaders of countries from where the attacks are launched. And what are we doing in response? Nothing. Not even pressing for an official apology and demanding that the individuals involved be punished. A few condemnations did come from a few Muslim organizations but these were disgracefully few considering the gravity of the crime. It is a disgrace seeing such continued silence from Muslim people and their rulers who bear a great responsibility for defending their Prophet and their religion.
Just recently, Pat Robertson insulted Muslims in a television interview on Fox News. This deranged Muslim-hater spewed words of bigotry and hatred, defaming Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, and describing lslam as a “monumental scam” and claimed the Holy Qur’an is “strictly a theft of Jewish theology.” It was a cheap attempt to win Jewish sympathy and money. Robertson said that Islam was the religion of slaves and that Americans who converted to Islam were people who “exhibit insanity.” The American government rewarded this rightist by granting his organization $500,000 as part of a White House drive to finance religious charities.
The American president spends freely and lavishly on these extremist Christian organizations because their members are not regarded as terrorists. But when it comes to the Muslim world and Saudi Arabia in particular, they are ordered to stop providing grants to Islamic charities or bereaved Muslim families on the grounds that these are either terrorists or are helping terrorists. Even schools teaching the Islamic faith, they say, should be denied assistance.
Despite this malicious anti-Muslim campaign and despite the stream of lies against Islam and Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, a few Muslim organizations are fighting back while working to project the true image of Islam. One of them is the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The least that Muslims should do to counter the attacks is to take part in the CAIR Library Project by sponsoring packages of books, videos and audio cassettes about Islam and Muslims which would be distributed all over the United States. We need to train Muslim youth to argue and discuss; they must learn to use logic and reason and be prepared to serve as good preachers and disseminators. — [email protected]
