There was an article in Sunday’s Times about a local Imam, Jawad Khaki, from Kirkland, who was quoted as follows when asked
about his individual responsibility as a Muslim to respond to the radicals: …
“Absolutely, because of the teaching in the Quran: When you kill an innocent
individual, it’s as if you killed the entire humanity; when you save a person’s
life, you saved the entire humanity”…
The point of his article was to say that most
Muslims were peaceful and not extremist, but I noticed the very careful wording
of his reply. He said it was wrong to
kill an innocent person, but what he did not say is, What about a guilty
person? Is it okay to kill them?
Furthermore, does not a statement like that
automatically call up other questions, such as, What are the crimes that, when you
are found guilty, receive the dispensation from God to ignore the First
Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill? Among
those crimes for which God thinks you should be put to death, does the modern,
moderate Muslim include Blasphemy and/or Heresy? Therein lies the rub, as they say, because
here in America, we have decided that Freedom of Speech trumps Blasphemy and
Heresy every time.
It wasn’t always like that here. Back in the days of the Pilgrims, while the
Spanish Inquisition was going on about its campaign of genocide against native
people everywhere, Heresy could get you hanged in the Colonies, and Witchcraft
could get you burned. And even in these
relatively enlightened times in the West, there are still lots of Christians
who fundamentally believe that it’s gonna come to blows at some point, and God
is on their side.
Thoughts are energy, preserved in chemical
reactions inside our brains, and when we remember them and transmit them to
others by talking or writing them down we in effect send that energy out into
the world to join the vast shifting flow of karma, or grace, or whatever your
particular sect calls it. Those thoughts
can take the form of calls for Jihad, spread over the Internet, and set a
person to action that causes innocence to die.
They can take the form of online bullying, and cause an innocent but
fragile person to take their own life.
Perceived or not, all those negative thoughts from those whose minds are
filled with hate are out there everywhere, a dark cloud over everyone.
Fortunately, there are positive things going
on out there, too, that tend to counteract the bad stuff, a dialectical Yin and
Yang of ebb and flow, action and counter-action, life and death. The pendulum swings.
To a person with the ability to reason, it
makes sense that the positive energy in the universe can be deliberately
increased on purpose, by doing positive things like helping other people,
having children, doing good useful work.
Quite often you see volunteers trying to directly save and heal the
victims of the bad stuff right on the scene, as in the refugee camps throughout
the world, the Habitat for Humanity builders.
Education is a positive thing, especially for those to whom it has been
denied. That’s why so many bad men,
whose positions at the top of the food chain are threatened by it fight so hard
to deny it, especially to their women.
So to our local Imam, and to all the others in
the world who write articles and talk on TV about it, I ask for this
favor: Every Time some radical Imam in
Pakistan, or London, or Paris stands in a pulpit and issues a fatwa calling the
faithful to Jihad, would you please, all of you, promptly issue your own fatwa
cancelling the Jihad! Tell your faithful
not to give those bad guys any money or help, and not to go kill anyone.
I’m basing this request on the guess that, if
one Imam can issue a fatwa any time they want, why couldn’t you also? Do Imams have levels, like, say, you gotta be
a Bishop or higher to issue a fatwa? And
if a majority of Muslim priests, just like a majority of Catholic, Bhuddist,
Hindu, Baptist, and any other one you want to name would be glad to do all
jumped on those bad guy fatwas every time they came out, well, you’d think that
would be pretty effective.
And it sounds reasonable to me, like something
a reasonable person would do, and they’d have no reason not to.
So how about it, can you get that fatwa out
pretty soon? While you’re at it, be sure
and tell them that Heresy and Blasphemy are not a big deal anymore, it’s just
people exercising their God-given right to speak their minds, and, if you don’t
like it, their Constitutional right to pick up their arms and blow your shit
away!
Oops, I think I just commited Blasphemy… :-{)}
