TruthBook Religious News Blog

Posted Jan 9, 2010
by Sheila Musaji

The North American Muslim community leadership has been attempting for some time to raise awareness about extremism and the possibility of young people becoming radicalized. Because of the internet and other media radical elements are able to make connections with others across all national lines. Any idiot with a computer is able to connect with others all over the world. Over the past several years there has been a great deal of discussion within the Muslim community on the subject of how best to deal with extremism within the Muslim community, and recently there have been some very encouraging developments which encourage practical steps to counter radicalization - for example, CAIR’s announcement that they plan to set up a website specifically aimed at countering extremist interpretations of the Qur’an, MPAC’s Building Bridges document, ISNA’s statement Against Terrorism and Religious Extremism: Muslim Position and Responsibilities.

This week 20 North American Imams issued a Fatwa Against Terrorists. According to The National Post of Canada: “Syed Soharwardy, an imam at the Al-Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre, who organized the initiative, said yesterday that any attack by foreign elements should also be considered a direct affront to the 10 million Muslims who call either Canada or the United States home. “We want Muslims around the world who would dare to commit terrorism on our soil to know that we stand together with all Canadians and Americans. “We are asking Muslims here not only to condemn terrorism but to also see these events as attacks on themselves.”

Also, this week, on the day that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was arraigned in court there was a rally of about 150 American Muslims and Arabs outside the court. The participants in the rally held signs saying “Not in the name of Islam”, “We are Americans,” and “Islam is Against Terrorism.” According to the Chicago Tribune the rally was organized by Majed Moughni who created a Facebook group called Dearborn Area Community Members to plan the rally.

Prior to the rally, a group of Imams from the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan held a press conference condemning terrorism. You can see video of the rally here and photos of the rally here.

The American Muslim and Arab communities are attempting to whatever they can to make it clear that we reject violence and extremism as solutions to anything. I hope that there will be many more such efforts, just as there have previously been many other efforts. Here are a few of the notable efforts: - Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq put together a statement on Apostasy in Islam in 2007 which was signed by over 100 scholars and activists. - The Sunni Shia Dialogue petition organized by Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid. - a Muslim Intrafaith Code of Honor was developed and publically signed by Sunni and Shia scholars at ISNA in 2007. - The ISNA Statement Against Terrorism and Religious Extremism in 2006 - CAIRs Not In the Name of Islam Petition which received 691,591 signatures in 2004. Fiqh Council of North America Fatwa against terrorism in 2005. You can find an extensive list of fatwas, articles, and statements against extremism and terrorism on The American Muslim site under the heading Muslim Voices Against Extremism and Terrorism.

For the complete article (with many links to video, etc...), please click on "external source."

Labels: extremism, North American Muslims, peace, terrorism

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Television program profiles friendships between Muslims, Baptists

By Bob Allen
Monday, January 04, 2010

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) -- One thing Muslims and Baptists have in common is that they are often identified by their extremists, according to a documentary airing on ABC television stations in January and February.

"Different Books, Common Word" offers an alternative message to both violence by Muslim terrorists around the world and demonizing of Islam by evangelicals in the United States.

The hour-long documentary, produced by a Baptist organization in partnership with the Islamic Society of North America and the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission, instead tells stories of individual Baptists and Muslims motivated to reach out to each other by the mandate of love for neighbor taught by both faiths.

The Baptist Center for Ethics, a free-standing partner organization of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, released the video under the aegis of its website, EthicsDaily.com.

"We hope the documentary provides positive narratives for relationships between Baptists and Muslims, narratives that begin to challenge the negative narratives that dominate American culture," said Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics. He co-produced the movie with EthicsDaily.com's managing editor and media producer, Cliff Vaughn.

Shooting for the video began last January when Parham was invited to Boston for a meeting of about 80 Baptist and Muslim leaders from across the country to discuss repairing a relationship marred by comments from high-profile Baptist leaders portraying Islam as a religion of hate.

Filming lasted through June, featuring interviews with Baptists and Muslims interacting in unlikely places like Columbia, Tenn., where an Islamic center was firebombed in 2008, and the Texas-Louisiana state line, where a Muslim businesswoman and African-American Baptist pastor worked together for hurricane relief.

"Viewers will be surprised to see new stories of respect and partnership that are emerging in the United States between goodwill Muslims and Baptists," said Parham, a former ethicist with the Southern Baptist Convention Christian Life Commission who founded the Nashville, Tenn.,-based Baptist Center for Ethics in 1991. "We hope these stories will begin to replace the negative ones about both Muslims and Baptists."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: Baptist, Bob Allen, extremism, interfaith, Muslims

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Friday, September 21, 2007

Iraqi Prisoners Get Religion From U.S.

The Skinny:
Military Uses Moderate Muslim Clerics To Steer Detainees Away From Al Qaeda
NEW YORK, Sept. 19, 2007

"The battlefield of the mind."

That's where Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, says he's waging his Iraq war these days, according to the Washington Post. And if the weapons in such a war are words, Stone's got quite the arsenal.

The story's ostensibly about the introduction of "religious enlightenment" and other education program for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11. The religious courses are led by moderate Muslim clerics whose teaching "tears apart" the arguments of al Qaeda, such as "Let's kill innocents," Stone said.

The program has been growing, as the surge has swelled the population of Iraqis in U.S. detention from 10,000 last year to 25,000 this year. More than 800 are juveniles.

But what really emerges from the article - a summary of a conference call Stone held from Baghdad with a group of defense bloggers - is a portrait of Stone as a formidable character who's almost as fun to quote as Donald Rumsfeld was.

Stone, who reads Arabic and says he reads the Koran daily, said the new religious training helps U.S. forces pinpoint the hard-core extremists. "I want to know who they are," he said. "They're like rotten eggs, you know, hiding in the Easter basket."

He wants to identify "irreconcilables" and "put them away" in permanent detention facilities. Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and interrogators help distinguish just who the extremists are, he said. And when that doesn't work, there's always the polygraph test, which he uses on detainees who promise they will change to "figure out if they're messing with us ... You're not talking about radicals going to choirboys."

The re-education has been working, in some ways better than the military even hoped. On Sept. 2, there was a religious uprising where some detainees turned on others. "We had a compound of moderates for the first time overtake ... extremists," he said. "Found them, identified them, threw them up against the fence and shaved their frickin' beards off of them ... I mean, that is historic."

Labels: Al-Qaeda, clerics, extremism, Iraq, Islam, religion