The enemy, we are told again and again, is not Islam but ‘radical Islam’. There is comfort in that appellation, certainly, but unless and until the West acknowledge that violence is enshrined in the Koran, the soft pillow of such delusions will smother us
lamb shadow smallZuhdi Jasser is a self-proclaimed devout Muslim and, I believe, an all round good guy. He is a medical doctor and a former lieutenant commander in the US Navy. He founded and heads the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He rejects what he calls political Islam. He is a regular media commentator. After the attack in Brussels he correctly pointed out that the problem lies within Islam, as he always does. And again, par for the course, he argued that Islam needs a reformation. At the same time, he expressed “love” for his religion.
I will guess (without too much risk of being wrong): the religion Dr Jasser loves is about moderation, peace and tolerance, and exists separately from the state. But what is his religion? That to me is the mystery. Religions need a scriptural base. Islam has the Koran (the very words of God) and the Sunna and canonical Hadiths (the instructions, doings and reported sayings of Muhammad). I imagine Dr Jasser’s scriptural base is a subset of this Islamic scripture from which all of the nasty bits have been excised. For example, this nasty anti-Semitic bit from the Bukhari Hadith 52:177:
The Hour will not be established until you fight with Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”
Dr Jasser and others of like mind do not express themselves on this point. On this point we hear only platitudes.
