The Rage Game, Putting On The brakes

Of course there are those in denial and that's to be expected. After all, Islam is our universal adapter. All we need to do is preface an action with; "this is for the sake of Allah" or, "this is for Islam", or, "this is in defense of Islam" and it assumes immediate legitimacy irregardless of whether it's fair, Islamic, prudent, or in agreement with the shariah. Since as Muslims, everything we do is ostensibly in the name of Islam, for Islam, for the Muslims, for Allah, in defense of Islam etc., we are never wrong about anything, ever. Perhaps this is how we justify suicide bombings where the innocent (including women and children) are casualties. If the world was unaware how sensitive Muslims are about our Prophet , then our recent response not only erased any ambiguity, it showed how malleable the global Muslim community has become. 

By even the most conservative accounts, we've shown that we are unpredictable, volatile, rage driven, and that a little name calling and scribbling on a piece of paper can stir us into frenzy. People have been attempting to demean and ridicule the Prophet ever since he became a Prophet. When does that warrant a full scale campaign? What are we going to do the next time someone demeans the prophet of Allah? Why was this incident singled out for response when there are numerous incidents of negative references to the Prophet Muhammad all over the place? A couple of years ago a well known television evangelist from California did a whole series of lectures in which he vilified the Prophet much more insidiously than this unknown cartoonist (who we now made famous and probably wealthy from his future book deals). Why wasn't there an outpour of condemnation and rage then? 

Since this issue surfaced, the demeaning images of the Prophet have been reprinted in at least 143 newspapers in 56 countries. In defiance of Muslims umbrage, many media publications have stepped up their parody of not only the Prophet himself but the hypersensitive way that we have responded to the issue. There will always be persons an institutions who will do, say, or write something that we can consider an affront to the dignity of the Prophet especially since we are so adept at interpreting words and events as anti-Islamic. Should Muslims therefore assume a perpetual state of protest? On second thought, that might not be the most efficient use of labor. How about we just appoint a group of people whose job will be to hunt down and protest every insult to the Prophet . That way the rest of the Muslim world can concentrate on other matters.

Whether we care to admit it or not, we're slowly evolving into a people so consumed with self righteousness; rage, indiscipline, and intolerance, we cannot admit that we also make mistakes. Let's grow up folks. Even Adam admitted his mistake and performed a healthy self assessment. To say that we overreacted to the cartoons is not only an understatement, it also raises questions about who we are and what we stand for. Let me see if I got this right. A three month old negative caricature of the Prophet and we take to the streets by the thousands, protest, throw rocks, issue death threats, tear down buildings, blame whole nations and make our angriest and most menacing facial expressions for the cameras. In the process, scores of Muslims are killed, hundreds more injured, countless man hours are expended, and after the dust settles, there is no measurable tangible gain we can claim from the experience.

Ironically, when Muslims bomb Masaajid while people are worshipping in Iraq, or when 400 Muslims killed in the last week alone, there's hardly a whimper! We claim that we must protect and defend the honor of the Prophet . Meanwhile in America alone, Muslims contribute upwards of twenty million dollars per year towards cable and satellite TV industry which broadcasts every imaginable abomination opposed by the Prophet ; homosexuality, pornography, blasphemy, gambling, infidelity, deception, gluttony, you name it, cable's got it. I don't see any mass rush to cancel our cable subscriptions. Bridges TV a Muslim orientated cable station had to almost beg for the marginal support it receives from the Muslim community.

We clamor for tolerance yet we are notoriously intolerant. Discriminate against a Muslim and there is immediate outrage, yet we unabashedly champion nepotism and discrimination within our own organizations, boards, masaajid and Muslim controlled lands. We want inclusion in the world arena yet we cannot stop fighting each other long enough to be create our own alternative industries. We protest the killing of Muslims by the Americans, the British, the French, the Israelis, or any other so-called infidel. However, we are curiously silent about Muslims killing each other. It's like we are saying; hey, don't kill Muslims! Let us kill each other! Don't hate Muslims! We have enough hate not only to hate you, but plenty left over to hate ourselves. Don't disrespect the Prophet ! We can do that ourselves by ignoring the standards of civility, fairness justice to which he commanded us. 

The Muslim motto is becoming; 'you disagree with me, therefore you are my enemy'. Some of us take the mantra it a bit further; 'you disagree with me, therefore I must kill you and your children'. The internet is full of one or another Muslim group, leader or imam condemning the other. Have we simply lost our minds? Somebody turn on the lights! Does it occur to anyone that the Muslims in the world are in a weakened state? There is no doubt that there are many forces confronting the Muslim peoples in this new millennium. Is there some law somewhere that says we have to contribute to our own malaise? Can we call a moratorium on inter-religious conflict between Muslims? Do you think that we can come up with better stratagem our usual blame and complain? We're turning into complainaholics (okay I made the word up). The world's crybabies. 

Holding the western democracies accountable to standards of law, fairness, civil liberty, and inclusion, has merit. Self serving as it may be, there is some merit there. After all, printing the cartoons in the first place was a criminal offence under sections 140 and 266b of the Danish Criminal Code. However, what is the Muslim standard? Do we have one? Of course the unanimous response to this question is; Islam is our standard! This ladies and gentlemen, is my point. If Islamic law, ethics, protocol or to put is bluntly, Quran and Sunna is the standard by which Muslims must be held accountable, are we then obligated to address errant behavior of Muslims done in the name of Islam? I'm not referring to contentious issues about which there is legitimate scholarly disagreement, or even the triangulated fatwas cloaked in ambiguity. What I'm referring to are the incontrovertible standards of behavior, law, civility, honesty, good character which all Muslims or most of us agree are the foundations of our faith. Does corruption, nepotism, racism, bribery, fratricide, inter-religious sectarianism, spousal abuse, issues which as Muslims we are obligated to address? You darn right they are! Does our failure to collectively enforce the Prophetic standard of conduct in government, community, business, and politic, and lifestyles effect our overall condition and standing in the world? What do you think!

90% of Muslims in the West get their news from commercial broadcast networks. We only know what the media tells us, and it seems like our collective responses are so scripted and choreographed, we might as well get paid for it and become members of the screen actors guild. We have threatened boycotts of western products for years, yet our own division and intolerance of each other, prevents us from up with viable alternatives. Every six months or so, some Muslim scholar, organization or politician calls for a boycott of American, British, Israeli or another western countries products. . A recent fatwa from a well known Muslim scholar demanded that Muslims boycott all American Products. I guess that means Chinese products too since a lot of the product sold in American are made in china. While we're at it, lets add Dubai to the list since they will now have a hand in managing several US ports. And aren't we still supposed to be boycotting the French because of the Hijaab ban? I guess we might as well boycott Turkey too since they also ban hijaab. Boycotting Sweden may be tough. I mean, who can compete with IKEA's prices and ingenuity? By the way, who's keeping track of the boycott targets? Where is the list? Can they email Muslim enemy of the week list to my Treo handset? Like to keep track of such things you know. 

If the sum of what we are saying is, 'do not portray Islam in a negative way'. Are we not then responsible for ensuring that we as Muslims do not portray Islam in a negative way? If the answer is no, then we've abdicated responsibility for our own behavior, which to do so is unislamic. If the answer is yes, then the negative portrayals of Islam which we ourselves exhibit, i.e. the killing of innocents and non combatants, collective blaming for individual acts, racism within the Muslim community, rampant corruption, Muslim on Muslim killings, the proliferation of Muslim owned liquor stores, the absence of Muslims in the social services arena, inter-religious intolerance, public mudslinging, and unbridled rage are all issues for which we bear responsibility. In other words, if Joe Abdullah straps a bomb to his shoulder, walks into a grocery store, calls out the name of Allah (Allahu Akbar) and indiscriminately blows himself up along with twenty innocent bystanders who were just out doing a little shopping, and the Muslim community says and does nothing about it, any outsider could reasonably conclude that Joe Abdullah's actions represent Islam. After all, he did it in the name of Islam, and the Muslims didn't do anything about it. In Islamic law, the acquiescence (iqraar) of the Prophet towards an action, essentially sanctions it. Doesn't this rule apply to the rest of us?

No matter how much we try to avoid taking responsibility for our collective actions and behavior, the issue moral responsibility will always come back to bite us, erode any moral capital we have left, and invoke divine consequences upon us, unless we face up to it. We do after all; have a higher authority (Allah) to answer to. Oh yeah, remember Him? Well He's got going anywhere, and guess what? He has standards, and rules that govern behavior. We can't have our cake and eat it too. If we are going to use Islam as our raison de'tre, we must then also accept Islamic standards as governing criteria for our actions. 

When was the last time that Muslims came out and apologized for anything, or admitted that we might be wrong about some of our methods, or choice of priorities, or assumed any responsibility for our condition? I know, even hinting that Muslims could be wrong about anything is risky, and possibly hazardous to one's health. But hey, I'm feeling a little adventurous today. Besides, somebody's gotta say it. No one besides Allah's Prophets (ASA) is immune from occasional lapses in judgment, blunders, mistakes, sins or outright stupidity. If the practices of the Prophet Muhammad serve as any standard for Muslims, as Imam Zaid Shakir adeptly elucidated in a recent article, .hatred, anger, revenge, rage, and puritanical oppression, are not always the best catalysts for action. Anger has its place. However, it wasn't something the Prophet prioritized. On the contrary, he emphasized the contrary. A man came to the Prophet and asked for advice. The Prophet replied: "Do not get angry". The man returned repeatedly and each time the Prophet replied: "do not get angry".