Islam's Silent Moderates

Ayaan Hirsi Ali in all her glory - and on the op-ed page of the New York Times:

It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.

But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted — and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?

Usually, Muslim groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are quick to defend any affront to the image of Islam. The organization, which represents 57 Muslim states, sent four ambassadors to the leader of my political party in the Netherlands asking him to expel me from Parliament after I gave a newspaper interview in 2003 noting that by Western standards some of the Prophet Muhammad’s behavior would be unconscionable. A few years later, Muslim ambassadors to Denmark protested the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded that their perpetrators be prosecuted.

But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.

I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.

Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: more compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.

Indeed, where are the moderates? Ayaan has found herself to be on the receiving end of the Islamists who seek her death because she dares to question the treatment of women in the Islamic world. She's in need of constant security to protect her against jihadis who wish to murder her because of her apostasy (anyone who doesn't strictly adhere to the precepts of Sharia are considered apostate and subject to death). Highlighting the misogyny that is institutionalized in Islam is a crime worthy of a fatwa - death.

The silence remains deafening.

Honor Worth Defending

Once again, Ayaan Hirsi Ali comes through and shows that she gets it. Defending Salman Rushdie against the calls for his head by the Islamists after the Queen beknighted Rushdie is an honor worth defending.

Westerners have too often shrugged their shoulders at the trashing of their icons - such as when the queen is burned in effigy - by the foot soldiers of tribal barbarism. This perceived weakness makes the foes of the West more ferocious and helps recruit more jihadists.

Instead the West should join together to vigoroulsy defend its symbols and civilization that, with all its flaws, still offers the best life to the most people.

Strident demands for apologies from power holders should be met with stoicism. Not one inch should be given.

Governments like that of Pakistan, which encourage and even stoke the flames, ought to be brought to account instead of coddled. The United States and Britain ought to demand that Pakistan's religious affairs minister, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, resign for saying, in the Pakistani Parliament: "The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the 'sir' title."

With this episode involving Sir Salman, the Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka is absolutely right: It is a fatal mistake for the West to let the forces of intolerance "define the territory of insult." The West must stand its ground.

By knighting Salman Rushdie, the queen has honored the freedom of conscience and creativity cherished in the West, making her a symbol of the essence of our way of life.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Notes Imam's Death Threats Stem From Koranic Interpretation

From John Gibson’s radio show yesterday. Thanks to reader Emma for sending it along. Gibby wants to know what she thinks of Imam Fouad ElBayly telling an interviewer that she deserves to die for defaming Islam. Exactly right, retorts AHA; that’s what the Koran says. The man’s just following his religion. The takeaway: “This imam has been strikingly honest.”

It's tough to rebut Hirsi's logic considering that it's based entirely on the imam's interpretation of the Koran.

The death threats are appropriate because that is what the Koran demands of its adherents. If the imam didn't issue a fatwa for Hirsi's death, he would be acting as an apostate by not carrying out the letter and spirit of the Koran, itself a sin punishable by death.

Islamists In America

The Islamists called for the death of Salman Rushdie for his book the Satanic Verses. Those Islamists were the ruling mullahs in Iran, and their disciples around the world forced Rushdie into hiding and around the clock security.

Well, we've got an Islamist in Pittsburgh, PA, calling for the death of a leading critic of the Islamists, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Go ahead, say anything that comes into your mind -- even if you don't agree with your minister, your priest, your rabbi. Even if you think you're right and they've got it all wrong, as long as you're not making a direct threat to someone, you can disagree or turn your back and walk away to another faith or to no faith at all.

Here, in America, it's OK. In a land of more than 3,000 diverse religions, your right to religious liberty is a guaranteed protection under the First Amendment.

"The key in the U.S. from the beginning has been to make sure all religious groups not only understand freedoms, but connect them to their own commitment," said Charles C. Haynes, senior scholar and director of educational programs at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., and Nashville.

A community debate over religious freedom surfaced in Western Pennsylvania last week when Dutch feminist author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who has lived under the threat of death for denouncing her Muslim upbringing, made an appearance at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

Islamic leaders tried to block the lecture, which was sponsored through an endowment from the Frank J. and Sylvia T. Pasquerilla Lecture Series. They argued that Hirsi Ali's attacks against the Muslim faith in her book, "Infidel," and movie, "Submission," are "poisonous and unjustified" and create dissension in their community.

Although university officials listened to Islamic leaders' concerns, the lecture planned last year took place Tuesday evening under tight security, with no incidents.

Imam Fouad ElBayly, president of the Johnstown Islamic Center, was among those who objected to Hirsi Ali's appearance.

"She has been identified as one who has defamed the faith. If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death," said ElBayly, who came to the U.S. from Egypt in 1976.

Hirsi Ali, an atheist, has been critical of many Muslim beliefs, particularly on subjects of sexual morality, the treatment of women and female genital mutilation. In her essay "The Caged Virgin," she also wrote of punishment, noting that "a Muslim's relationship with God is one of fear."

If you speak ill of Islam, the Islamists demand your death. This is what happened with the cartoon riots, and this happens every day around the world where Islamists seek to force the submission of non-Muslims. They do not tolerate any criticism of their religion, and will engage in violence at even the most obscure slight.

One really has to wonder how is it possible that a religion could have such a thin skin. After all, we don't hear about riots when Arabs repeat age-old blood libels against Jews in Israel. We don't hear about Christians rioting and looting after a Virgin Mary is desecrated with dung or an image of Jesus Christ on a crucifix is submerged in urine.

No, we do hear about Muslims rioting when someone draws cartoons satirizing the violent nature of the Islamists themselves. These cartoons became a self-fulfilling prophesy, and underscored the problems within Islam and those that push the most violent tendencies within the religion.