This issue looks at the latest outrageous claims by Imam Rauf of the Ground Zero Mosque.

SINCE YOU ASKED
Recently, The Wall Street Journal carried an article by Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam of the Ground Zero Mosque. In the article, imam Rauf expressed his desire that people of all faiths would accept his assertion that those who kill innocents in the name of Allah are not true Muslims. He began the article by trying to identify himself with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, who had insisted that Abders Behring Breivik, who committed mass murders in Norway in July, is not a Christian. Rauf tried to link Islam’s supposed love for peace with the Bible by pointing out that the Qur’an forbids the killing of innocents just as the Bible says “Thou shall not kill.” He went on to call for a global coalition of moderates, claiming that all religions had been hijacked by extremists. “At some point,” he said, “we must recognize that the real battlefield in this world is not between Muslims and non-Muslims but between extremists of any stripe and the anti-extremists of all faiths.” Read the brief article. 

AS I SEE IT
In the first place, the Bible doesn’t say “Thou shall not kill.” It says “Thou shall not murder.” The difference is huge. The point, however, is that when someone’s argument is based on a misquote, his entire position is suspect. Let’s continue with it anyway. In the article, he claims, “The Holy Quran says that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind. The problem here is that according to Muslim writings and traditions, there are no innocents, especially in democracies. When the people elect their leaders who make the decisions and write the laws, the people are as guilty as the politicians who consistently violate sharia law, the only law they respect. Imam Rauf actually devised what he called a “sharia index” to measure how well governments complied with sharia law, claiming that governments that don’t practice sharia are “unjust.”

Then there’s his call for religious moderates to rally together to protect themselves from those who really take their faith seriously. Yes, there are nominal Muslims just as there are nominal Christians, but a day will come when American Muslims must decide between their nation and their religion. A recent survey of American Muslims who identified themselves as “moderates” showed that over 50% already consider themselves as Muslims first and Americans second. Add to this the Muslim doctrine of taqiyya, which encourages concealing one’s beliefs and intentions, and we’re left with nothing in the entire article that is believable.

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