Muslims Confront Problem of `Overreaction’ and Violence

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) For most American Muslims, Pope Benedict XVI’s use of a quote by a Byzantine emperor who called the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings “evil and inhuman” _ during a lecture that endorsed interfaith dialogue _ smacked of hypocrisy. Then again, so did the violent reaction of some of their fellow Muslims […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) For most American Muslims, Pope Benedict XVI’s use of a quote by a Byzantine emperor who called the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings “evil and inhuman” _ during a lecture that endorsed interfaith dialogue _ smacked of hypocrisy.

Then again, so did the violent reaction of some of their fellow Muslims overseas, whose attacks against churches and calls for the pope’s head contradict the Muhammad they know, who preached religious tolerance and turning the other cheek.


The pope’s comments revived lingering resentment that erupted earlier this year when European newspapers published less-than-flattering cartoons of Muhammad. At the same time, a second round of violent Muslim reaction seems to confirm for many the image that Muslims see themselves _ and Muhammad _ as immune from criticism.

As the anger and violence subside, Islamic scholars and rank-and-file Muslims find themselves condemning the pope’s comments, but also the reactions of their co-religionists. They say the backlash betrays the teachings of Muhammad, who answered criticism and insults with debate and compassion.

Many Muslim-Americans worry that the peaceful legacy left by their prophet is being lost as Muslims overseas, with their violent reactions, have made criticism of Muhammad taboo. By stifling dialogue with violence, they say, misconceptions of Muhammad as a preacher of violence are allowed to linger rather than being corrected.

“It’s the responsibility of Muslims to be able to take criticism,” said Aamer Hayat, a 30-year-old Muslim lawyer who works in New York. “If we make it a taboo, it’s our own mistake. Islam grew because of critical examination. If we reject critical examination, then in the generations that come after us, Islam will cease to grow.”

Ebrahim Moosa, an Islamic studies professor at Duke University, said Islam’s prophet “has never been immune from criticism,” and even found evidence for it in the Quran.

In one chapter, “The Frown,” God himself reprimands Muhammad for showing impatience with a poor blind man who interrupted the prophet mid-conversation by approaching him to seek knowledge about his revelation.

“Of him (the blind man) was thou unmindful,” God chastises Muhammad. “By no means should it be so.” Muhammad is said to have recognized his impertinence and included the incident in the Quran as an example to followers to be kind to the weak and disadvantaged.


Hayat, the New York lawyer, pointed to a story from Muhammad’s life in which he was run out of town and beaten by a stone-throwing mob. When an angel offers to destroy the town, Muhammad declines, saying he would rather return there to preach.

“Instead of reacting the way Muslims do today, (Muhammad) reacted peacefully,” Hayat said. “He was thinking about future generations.”

That lesson, Muslims say, has been ignored by too many Muslims like Somali imam Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin, who urged his followers to kill whoever offends Muhammad. That call is widely believed to have prompted the murder of a nun in Mogadishu on Sunday (Sept. 17).

If Muhammad were here today, Muslims say, he would mete out a severe punishment against Malin and others who have incited or carried out violence against other faiths.

“Muslims in the modern world very often don’t respect these prophetic traditions, and that is of grave concern to us,” said Ibrahim Ramey, director of the Muslim American Society’s Human and Civil Rights division in Washington. Violent responses, he said, set back efforts to improve Islam’s image.

“It’s always a bad thing when fear overcomes reason and dialogue. And the character of the response in Somalia, the West Bank, Iraq and elsewhere, that pours gasoline on the fire of suspicion and fear of Muslims,” he said.


Moosa, from Duke, agrees.

“Overreaction has become part of a Muslim disease today. Muslims must react to such provocations, but attacks on nuns and sacred places of worship are a clear violation of every Islamic principle,” he said.

Indeed, major Muslim organizations immediately condemned the violent reactions; the Council on American-Islamic Relations, for example, launched a fund-raising drive to repair churches damaged in the West Bank. But Muslims say these actions are ignored by the media because they make for far less gripping news then the violence.

Of course, Muslims are not the only ones who have responded indignantly or violently to perceived insults. In 1988, a French fundamentalist Christian group firebombed a Paris theater that was showing “The Last Temptation of Christ,” injuring 13 people. Angry Christians sent death threats to the director and producers of the 1999 film “Dogma.” Christian Voice, a British evangelical group, published the home addresses and phone numbers of several BBC executives after the network aired “Jerry Springer _ The Opera,” in which Jesus confesses to being “a bit gay.”

As physical attacks against Muslims and mosques in this country increase, and polls show almost 40 percent of Americans endorse the idea that Muslims should carry identification cards, Muslim-Americans worry that the pope’s comments, and Muslim reaction to them, will feed further hatred.

While condemning the violent reactions, Muslims say fellow Americans need to realize that the violence is largely inspired by political frustration and a sense that primarily Christian countries _ and Israel _ are killing and oppressing Muslims.

“The Muslim community … feels that their faith, their identity, as well as their territories are under direct attack by Western and U.S. governments,” said Mohammad Abu-Nimer, director of the Peacebuilding and Development Institute at American University in Washington. “Therefore, the pope’s equating Islam as a religion spread by the sword is perceived as an attempt to justify war against the Muslim world.”


Muzammil Siddiqi, a board member of the Islamic Society of North America and imam at the Islamic Society of Orange County, California, agrees that global turmoil underlies the violent reaction to the Pope’s comments, and said criticisms of Islam in the past seldom, if ever, garnered such reactions.

“We welcome debate. Muslim libraries are filled with books that are critical of Islam,” said Siddiqi. “The attacks that are made today, we can answer them, but we need to do it peacefully, with reason.”

KRE/CM END SACIRBEY

Editors: To obtain a photo of Hayat, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!