T. Belman, Wikipedia opens with “Nonie Darwish (Arabic: ???? ?????; born Nahid Darwish, 1949) is an Egyptian-American writer,[1] founder of Arabs for Israel movement, and is Director of Former Muslims United. Darwish is an outspoken critic of Islam.[1][2] The Southern Poverty Law Center has described her as an anti-Arab[3] and anti-Muslim[4] activist.”
I knew her and published her stuff 15 years ago. I am honoured that she would post such an informed comment.
I think she is much more realistic than Mansur.
Most Muslims who try to distinguish between Islam and Islamism have good intensions, such as Mr. Salim Mansour who describes Islamism as “An ideology fascistic and totalitarian in impulse and action, masquerading as religion.” Meaning that because Islamists are engaged in radical politics and power, then it can’t be a religion, meaning it can’t be Islam. But why not? Every aspect of an Islamist’s beliefs is found in the Koran, Sunnah and all the holy books of Islam. The Islamist did not get his/her ideology outside of Islamic holy books.
Mr. Mansour focuses on Islam as a faith tradition to worship the God of Abraham. But how can Islam be Abrahamic when the Koran/Muhammad commanded Muslims to kill the children of Abraham! Mr. Mansour does mention the multi-dimensional aspect of Islam. But the problem with Islam’s many dimensions is that they are often in conflict with one another. In fact every value that Islam preached has been reversed or violated under certain conditions; that is: Don’t Kill, but its your duty to kill the enemies of Allah; Don’t steal, but you can possess the property of conquered infidels; Don’t lie, but a Muslim is obliged to lie under these conditions….; etc.
Muslim reformers also often criticize Sharia like in this article “Sharia is a human construct, limited and fallible as is any human endeavour stamped by the limitations of the epoch in which it was worked out. Islam, a religion, cannot, therefore, be turned into a handmaiden of politics, or squeezed into a political ideology, or reduced to the restrictions of the Sharia; when this occurs, Islam is turned into Islamism.”
But who said that a religion must not have its own laws to direct/govern behavior of its followers otherwise it cannot be a religion? Nothing wrong with the Ten Commandments, but let us examine what Islam (a self described Abrahamic religion) has done to the Ten Commandments.
600 years after Christianity, Islam emerged not to affirm the Abrahamic ethics but to rebel against them. Islam, and Mohammad himself, violated the Ten Commandments. Mohammad called on his followers to kill and wage a permanent war against the human enemies of Allah, nonMuslims, the Kafir and the Jews. Mohammad himself killed the so called Kafir non-Muslims and took their property and commanded Muslims to do the same. That is called murder and theft. Mohammad and Sharia also permitted lying by Muslims under certain conditions. The God of the Ten Commandments is not Allah and Islam does not believe in loving one’s neighbor if they’re not Muslims. What is left of the Ten Commandments?
The problem with Islamic law (Sharia) is that it’s in violation of the Ten Commandments. That is the real reason why Islam has a problems in the application of its religious laws. That’s why Islam has Islamists and jihadists. The problem with Islam is not because it has laws, every religion does, but it’s what kind of laws, laws that violated and reversed the Ten Commandments. That’s why Muslim societies that follow Sharia end up tyrannical and in conflict with the God of Abraham.
I find it disingenuous when I see reformists defend Islamic contradictions as Multi-Dimensions in Islam and ask the non-Muslim world to deal with it. Tell that to Coptic Christians of Egypt or the Jews of Israel who must deal with all the dimensions of Islam, the good, the bad and the ugly. Every morning they wake up wondering if another missile will hit them from Gaza or will another church be set on fire in Upper Egypt. I can’t imagine all the dimensions a Jew or Christian has to observe in order to live next to or inside a Muslim nation? Will the totality of these Islamic dimensions give us a good, bad or ugly day today?
Living with the conflicting sides, or Multi-Demensional aspects, of Islam is like asking a non-Muslim family to live next to an Islamist family that has multi-dimensional family members; some are neighborly good peaceful while others are bullies, some are honest hardworking while others believe in Jihadi outlook on their non-Muslim neighbors’ property and even life.
What Muslims reformists who want to calm our fears, are telling the world is the bad Muslim Jihadist has nothing to do with the the good peaceful Muslim and the Koran has nothing to do with the bad Islamist jihadist. They are telling us to put us with the Islamist Bully member of the family next door because, you see, the Multi-Dimensional side of Islam does have nice and good people too.
Unfortunately many well meaning Muslims want to eat their cake and have it too by telling us “Islam and Islamism are not one”. What they’re really telling us is to put up with Multi-Demensional side Islam, the good, the bad and the ugly. Muslims have lived with jihadists among them through out history and have defend them, praised them and glorified them openly up to 9/11/01 when the world started asking “What is jihad?” That’s when many Muslim apologists started redefining Islam, jihad and Sharia.
Never under-estimate the benefits the Islamic family gets from the existence of the Islamist bully among them. After 9/11 many Muslims who sand the praises of jihad started getting annoyed and embarrassed by the verses in the Koran praising the jihadist. That’s when the word Islamist was coined to distinguish between Muslims who do jihad and those who don’t. Even though they say they disowned the violent jihadists and call them Islamists, one still finds celebrations when Missiles are directed at Israel. We still see coverup and silence by Muslims in Egypt when churches and Christians are attacked.
The truth is the presence of the jihadist bully in Muslim society does bring the Islamic family power, a bargaining chip when Muslims negotiate with non-Muslims and and even financial gain from the non-Muslim world; we need money to be able to stop the terrorists.
Modern day reformists of Islam will be a lot more credible if they pay more attention to advocating Islamic reforms right at the lion’s den; to Islamic leadership in the Muslim World such as Al Azhar, but instead, Muslim reformers are limiting themselves to reforming Islam only in the eyes of the West.
Nonie Darwish
Nonie.Darwish@gmail.com
Carl Goldberg ‘s comment is also worth reading.
This is just another futile attempt by a civilized, modernized Moslem to retain his identity as a Moslem while rejecting those sacred parts of Islam which call for war against non-Moslems. Of course, Islamism and Islam are not the same. However, Islamism, the ideology of Islamic supremacy and imperialism, is an integral part of Islam. Islamism is a subset of Islam and cannot be separated from Islam. The Islamists always cite those sacred passages in the Koran and the Sunnah which justify their eternal war against non-Moslems to make Islam triumphant over all other religions. Even such good-willed and enlightened Moslems as Mansour cannot deny that those jihadist passages are part of the Koran and Sunnah, nor will he deny that the Koran is Allah’s direct word. That is why he does not even mention, let alone discuss, any of those sacred passages in the Koran and Sunnah which the Islamists use to justify their ideology. In any serious debate between “moderate Moslems” like Mansour and the Islamists, the Islamists will win hands down because they will quote their god in the Koran, and Mansour has no rebuttal.
We always need to distinguish between the religion of Islam, based on the Koran and the Sunnah, and the practice of Islam by Moslems who may or may not practice Islam the way it is supposed to be practiced. That is, there are many Moslems who silently refuse to follow the jihadist commands of their god and their prophet, but they will never stand up and openly reject those commands. We need to understand that a moderate Moslem like Mansour is one who does not follow the jihadist commands of Islam, but he cannot change the unfortunate fact that those sacred jihadist commands exist.
Thank you for publishing Nonie Darwish’s comments on Mansour’s article. I would only question Nonie’s last paragraph: “Modern day reformists of Islam will be a lot more credible if they pay more attention to advocating Islamic reforms right at the lion’s den; to Islamic leadership in the Muslim World such as Al Azhar, …”
Surely, Nonie understands perfectly well that Islam cannot be reformed, and that any Moslem who advocates reform will be considered an apostate because reform of Islam involves reforming the Koran, and that is absolutely forbidden. All Moslems are taught that the Koran is the literal and direct word of Allah, and no mortal slave of Allah dare to question a single word of it.