“Why haven’t Muslim leaders condemned terrorism?” This is the most common question that Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), gets on a daily basis from media and other inquirers. Nearly four years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 Muslim organizations disagree on the best way to battle the perception that they are soft on terrorists who attack in their religion’s name. At issue is the public relations strategy of U.S. Muslim groups. At stake is the way Americans view the world’s second largest religion, with more than 1 billion adherents, as the U.S. wages a global war on terrorism. While groups hone their media relations skills and issue immediate statements in the wake of attacks, lingering criticism remains. Frustrated, an increasing number of Muslim leaders say they will focus more on taking concrete actions to eradicate terrorism from their faith communities than on winning the war of words. In this spirit, the Muslim American Society (MAS), another Washington-based national advocacy organization, on Monday announced a national initiative comprised of seven “action items” intended to eradicate terrorist ideology, extremism and violence from the American Muslim community. The MAS said that it planned to partner with the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations, led by Imam Abu Malik-Johari, to ensure that the message did not get stuck in the media stratosphere of published statements, but reached local Muslims in their area Islamic centers. Muslim leaders insist that despite often-repeated claims on talk radio, they have repeatedly denounced terrorism. In the wake of the July 7 London bombings, a panoply of American Muslim groups responded quickly, with the Muslim Public Affairs Council organizing a press conference within hours, and at least nine major groups, including CAIR, issuing a ream of statements decrying the atrocities. Nevertheless, many Muslim leaders say they fear that their message isn’t getting through to the majority of Americans. “It’s really frustrating, sometimes we get the feeling nobody’s listening,” Hooper said. “We often ask ourselves, what more can we do? Shout from the rooftops? Skywriting?” WORLDWIDE CONCERN Joking aside, Hooper said CAIR is stepping up its “Not in the Name of Islam” campaign, airing public service announcements on television stations nationwide to distance the beliefs of terrorists from mainstream Islam. The group is also considering a wristband or lapel pin campaign to raise awareness of Muslim opposition to terrorist tactics and ideologies. The London bombings happened at a moment when Muslims worldwide were already grappling with how to strengthen a global Islam that is politically and socially moderate, one that leaves no room for terrorism. The day before the bombings, more than 150 Muslim leaders from around the world met in Jordan and issued a statement forbidding any Muslim from being declared an apostate, or traitor to the faith. It was necessary, they said, because insurgents in Iraq have used claims of apostasy to justify the executions of Muslim “infidels.” Despite public statements, some commentators have questioned the seriousness with which worldwide Muslims are approaching the reality of terrorists in their midst, given that the London attackers appear to have been native Britons. “It is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst,” wrote Thomas L. Friedman in the July 8 New York Times. Friedman added that “no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.” U.S. Muslim groups take exception to Friedman’s characterization, arguing that countless U.S. leaders have condemned bin Laden’s actions, and that an official fatwa, or Islamic edict, was issued in March 2005 by the Islamic Commission of Spain. Additionally, leaders worldwide have issued recent fatwas that decry terrorism and its consequences. Britain’s largest Sunni Muslim organization issued a July 17 fatwa calling terrorism a “perverted ideology” and declaring that the London bombers, if proved to be Muslims, would no longer be allowed to consider themselves part of the faith. Days earlier, another group of British imams and scholars condemned the London attacks because civilians were killed. However, that group distinguished between those attacks and suicide bombings carried out for Muslims to “defend themselves from occupiers,” which they said were sometimes justified. These different interpretations point to the difficulty of managing an “international message” for Islam. “Islam is not like the Catholic Church, there is no central authority who can give you one quote. Therefore it is impossible for all Muslims to speak in one voice, just as it is impossible for all Americans to speak in one voice,” said Muqtedar Khan, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, who studies international politics. Some Muslim groups are frustrated with the task that public relations experts refer to as “reputation management.” Mike Paul, a veteran public relations professional in New York City, says that religious communities should present a consistent message that offers concrete historical examples to back up their statements. “People aren’t going to believe you if you just say, ‘These people don’t represent our faith,'” Paul said, “They’re going to say, ‘Show me the truth.'” WORDS AND ACTION Muslim leaders agree that written or spoken statements increasingly feel inadequate against the perception problem facing the community. These leaders say they don’t plan on skipping the step of issuing written condemnations after attacks, but neither do they plan to rest on the laurels of words over actions. “We are past condemnations; that’s not the page we’re on,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, a national civil rights organization that is part of the Muslim American Society (MAS). MAS did issue a statement of condemnation following the London bombing, but Bray said that his group is far more focused on concrete actions aimed at protecting young American Muslims from being “misguided in Islam.” The group has opened eight youth centers nationwide, including locations in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Minneapolis; Cleveland; Dallas and San Diego. They plan to open even more in the future, including centers in Sacramento, Calif.; Los Angeles; Washington; Raleigh, N.C.; Kansas City, Detroit, Seattle and Chicago. The centers provide “wholesome and good” after-school youth programs and summer camps, and are based on the model that is used to combat gang violence in inner cities, Bray said. Additionally, Bray’s organization is providing media training in local Muslim communities, urging each American mosque to have a trained spokesperson to approach the media without “waiting for a crisis” to strike. “We don’t want to do symbolic gestures,” he said, “We want to do things that really affect the policies for our safety.” A consensus has emerged that more needs to be done. M. Zuhdi Jasser, the founder and chairman of the Phoenix-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy, is among the most outspoken. He criticizes his fellow American Muslims, saying that with the privilege of belonging to a worldwide Muslim community comes a charge to root out terrorism and extremism from that community. “If we’re going to get the benefits of this community, then a reciprocal responsibility that we have is to say that this community has been hijacked by barbarous criminals,” he said. Jasser, who served 11 years in the Navy, suggests that more Muslims should serve in the armed forces in order to achieve this goal. “Secure the world — this is part of our civic duty,” he said. “Until we clear out and fix the cancer within our faith community, we’re going to have no credibility,” he added. This report was provided by the Religion News Service

A local Islamic group is aiming to have more than 1,000 Muslims, Christians and Jews rally against terrorism tomorrow in the District. The group Free Muslims Against Terrorism, headed by Kamal Nawash, has organized the ‘March Against Terror,’ which will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. at Freedom Plaza. March organizers said the event is the ‘front line’ in an ideological war against radical Islamic teachings See the full article at this link at the Washington Times website

Converting a tough tone April 25, 2005 Denver Post As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he called other Christian traditions “defective,” boycotted an interfaith prayer for peace and wrote a document blamed for setting back Catholic relations with other religions. As Pope Benedict XVI, he used his first Mass to say he would continue talks with non-Christian religions and do everything in his power to promote Christian unity. “The fact that among the first things Benedict says is he wants to extend his hand in relations with other Christian churches is probably a signal that he knows he is behind the eight ball on this very issue, and similarly of interreligious dialogue,” said Diana Eck, a professor of comparative religions at Harvard University. By all accounts, one of the major challenges facing the new papacy is how the Roman Catholic Church engages an increasingly pluralistic world. Pope John Paul II, who witnessed the Nazi extermination of Jews in his native Poland, extended an olive branch to the Jewish community time and again. He apologized for Catholic misdeeds against Jews, established diplomatic ties with Israel and called Jews “beloved elder brothers.” As the reign of Benedict XVI dawns, it is not Judaism but Islam at the forefront of interreligious issues. Muslims now outnumber Catholics worldwide, the Catholic Church is in fierce competition with Muslims for African converts, and Muslim immigration from North Africa is transforming Europe. While it is too soon to tell how Benedict XVI might approach other faiths and Christian traditions, the questions he will face are well-established: squaring Catholicism’s claim to being the “one true church” with engagement of traditions that take the opposite view; weighing the benefits and limits of dialogue as the chief tool for finding understanding; and dealing with militant Islam. As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger in 2000 issued Dominus Iesus, which insisted on the supremacy of Catholicism and declared all other religions “defective” by comparison. To Ratzinger, the strong tone befitted his intended audience: the bishops of his church, some of whom he believed were being too open to other paths to salvation, said the Rev. James Wiseman, professor of theology and religious studies at the Catholic University of America. That stance was a bit disingenuous, Wiseman said, considering it was not a private communiqu�. “Neither as a cardinal nor as pope is Benedict XVI going to back down on the position that there is a certain fullness of truth in the Catholic faith he doesn’t find elsewhere,” Wiseman said. “That doesn’t mean there is not truth and value in other traditions that is to be affirmed and supported.” “A new chapter” Pope Benedict indicated as much in the softer stance he took in his first Mass. He endorsed further carrying out the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, which brought the church into the modern world. One of Vatican II’s documents supported Christian unity, breaking with the church’s past hostility toward Protestants. That spirit, not that of Dominus Iesus, is what Philip Wogaman, interim president of Denver’s Iliff School of Theology, hopes for in Pope Benedict XVI. “During his tenure as cardinal it’s no secret that many of us were not pleased with his positions he sometimes took,” said Wogaman, a member of the United Methodist Church’s Christian Unity and Interfaith Relations Commission. “But that’s past. He is now Benedictus XVI, and it’s a new chapter.” How the Protestant and Orthodox Christian world responds to the new pontiff’s calls for unity depends on what he means by that, said Michael Cromartie, vice president with the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. Cromartie said Benedict will find enthusiasm if he is proposing dialogue to identify common ground and understand differences. But if the idea is “some sort of massive, universal, unified church,” that would not be welcome, he said. On one hand, evangelical Christians were insulted when Ratzinger used the words “sects” to describe evangelical and Pentecostal churches making inroads in historically Catholic South America. But better that Ratzinger not sugarcoat his beliefs, Cromartie said. “If you really do believe other churches are deficient for strong theological and doctrinal reasons, better then to go ahead and say it and make your case,” said Cromartie, a conservative Episcopalian. “It’s important for people to take each other seriously. The way to do that is to state your true principles.” During a 26-year papacy, John Paul II engaged Muslims in dialogue, expressed sympathy for Palestinians, spoke out against Western materialism and opposed both U.S. wars on Iraq. Ratzinger has taken a more skeptical view of Islam. He has described the faith as being in competition with Catholicism, and he has lamented that Islam’s clarity has inspired believers in a way Christianity in the contemporary West has not. In 1986, Ratzinger skipped an interreligious prayer for peace meeting in Assisi sponsored by John Paul II, in which space for people of other religions was allotted in Catholic churches. More recently Ratzinger has fought predominantly Muslim Turkey’s application to the European Union, saying it would run “counter to history.” Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said Muslims should give the new pope the benefit of the doubt and hopes Benedict will stand against militant Islam. Some commentators say the Catholic Church has been too cautious on that front, in part to protect Christian minorities in Muslim countries. “There is nothing more potent in combating militant and theocratic Islam than nongovernmental religious institutions such as the papacy,” said Jasser, a Phoenix physician. Continuing the dialogue The Vatican office at the forefront of how the church interacts with other religions is the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, headed by Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, a British scholar of Islam. Speaking to reporters in Rome a week before Benedict’s election, Fitzgerald said he did not foresee fundamental changes in how the church deals with Islam, which mostly has concentrated on dialogue. “I don’t think we’re going to go to war,” Fitzgerald said. “The time of the Crusades is over. We are not to use religion in the service of violence.” Fitzgerald said dialogue with Muslims has proved difficult in part because there is no formal Muslim hierarchy. His council instead has engaged in talks with governments in Jordan, Turkey, Iran and Libya. An Islamic-Catholic liaison committee meets annually, though its mostly Arab Muslim membership does not reflect Islam’s worldwide reach. Fitzgerald said that while the question of Islam is important, it must be viewed in the wider context of how the church fits into a pluralistic world. For instance, Fitzgerald cited growing Western interest in Buddhism – not in new converts but in people adopting Buddhist practices to enhance their spiritual lives. “We see that as a challenge: What is it that people are looking for, why is it that they are going to other communities. Isn’t there something we should be doing?” he said. But therein lies another challenge. Before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Ratzinger once called Buddhism a religion for the self-indulgent.

After 9/11 it was generally understood that cultivating moderation throughout the Arab and Muslim world was crucial to winning the war on terrorism. Suddenly, the elusive moderate Muslim was much sought after. But after coming to the disappointing discovery that their numbers were few and far between, many Americans became cynical about their existence. ﾓWhere are the voices raised in protestation?ﾔ they wondered as the crimes of Islamic terrorism stunned the rest of the world. But even as the West comes face to face with the barbarity of Islamism, the disingenuousness of the Arab media, and the conspiracy-theory-driven Muslim masses, voices of reason have begun to emerge from the chaos. That many of them originated in the West is not surprising; only in a political environment friendly to free expression can such voices truly flourish. But even amidst the dictatorships of the Arab world, a brave few have refused to conform. Fed up with the scapegoating ﾖ of Americans, Jews, Christians, and the West ﾖ that passes for governance and journalism in their countries, some Muslims have begun writing their own narratives. They suffer intimidation, harassment, and even attacks at the hands of fellow Muslims, but by refusing to cave in to the extremists, they can perhaps pave the way for future generations to follow. Daniel Pipes, Middle East scholar and Bush appointee to the U.S. Institute of Peace (although often falsely accused of the opposite), routinely gives moderate Muslims and Arabs their due. In his article “Moderate Voices of Islam” Pipes calls attention to such writers and activists because, as he puts it, “Promoting anti-Islamists and weakening Islamists is crucial if a moderate and modern form of Islam is to emerge in the West.” Indeed, it behooves those who wish to advance U.S. victory against Islamic terrorism to highlight such voices. For such a struggle cannot be won on the battlefield alone, but must also be fought ideologically. And in order to do so, reform should be encouraged from within. In the United States, organizations such as CAIR (The Council on American-Islamic Relations), beholden to Wahhabist interests in Saudi Arabia, have for too long set the agenda for American Muslims. Issuing selective condemnations of terrorism or none at all, and opposing every U.S. effort to combat Islamism, these groups are part of the problem, not the solution. In contrast, organizations like the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism and the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) are shaking the foundations of the American Islamic establishment. Not only do these groups renounce Islamic terrorism and the ideology that fuels it, they also express unconditional support for their country ﾖ America, that is. The Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism has become increasingly visible on the national scene, with its spokespersons appearing regularly on Fox News and beyond. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) put on the first Muslim-sponsored ﾓRally Against Terrorﾔ in the country earlier this year in Phoenix, Arizona. Although the turnout wasnﾒt huge and members of CAIR reportedly tried to infiltrate the crowd, AIFD should be commended for its efforts. In his articles for the Arizona Republicﾒs ﾓPlugged Inﾔ weblog, AIFD chairman M. Zuhdi Jasser routinely condemns Islamic terrorism, as well as critiquing Arab journalists who provide backhanded support for Islamism. See the full article online at FrontpageMag.com