... if the movement seeks to be taken seriously and to gain credibility:
A recent spate of arrests of Muslims accused of terrorism in the United States has revealed that many of them were radicalized by militant preaching they found on the Internet.
Now nine influential American Muslim scholars have come together in a YouTube video to repudiate the militants' message. The nine represent a diversity of theological schools within Islam, and several of them have large followings among American Muslim youths.
The video is one indication that American Muslim leaders are increasingly engaging the war of ideas being waged within Islam.
"We need to shepherd our own flock and to say that, theologically, these things are unacceptable," said Imam Suhaib Webb, the educational director for the Muslim American Society, a grass-roots group in Santa Clara, Calif., who is among the nine in the video. "The Prophet Muhammad, when on the battlefield, saw that amongst the enemy there were innocent women and children killed, and he was openly angry. He is prohibiting us from killing the innocent. It is very clear."
Mr. Webb said in an interview on Friday that as a white convert from Oklahoma, he had become deeply alarmed in the past year at the number of converts who had been arrested on charges of planning or carrying out violence in the name of Islam.
In July alone, one American convert in Virginia and another in Alaska who were arrested and accused of having ties to terrorism were both said to have been influenced by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born militant cleric now hiding in Yemen who maintains an active Web site.
Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, who is also in the video, said, "We're hoping that that loner out there who, because of internal turmoil, starts listening to the wrong people, that this message also filters into his ear."
Color me skeptical... but open to the notion that this is the beginning of something needed, something necessary:
H/T Ann Althouse.
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Comments (12)
Where there's a smokescreen... (Below threshold)1. Posted by epador | August 1, 2010 8:44 PM | Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
Where there's a smokescreen, there's an enemy.
1. Posted by epador | August 1, 2010 8:44 PM |
Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
Posted on August 1, 2010 20:44
2. Posted by GarandFan | August 1, 2010 8:47 PM | Score: 7 (7 votes cast)
"this is the beginning of something needed"
For "The Religion of Peace", it's LONG PAST DUE!
2. Posted by GarandFan | August 1, 2010 8:47 PM |
Score: 7 (7 votes cast)
Posted on August 1, 2010 20:47
3. Posted by Frankly B | August 1, 2010 8:48 PM | Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
Certainly welcomed, hopefully effective - but put me firmly in the skeptical camp. This is exactly what an enemy would do, so they have to prove themselves. I'm sure they will be watched closely, or they should be watched closely, anyway.
3. Posted by Frankly B | August 1, 2010 8:48 PM |
Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
Posted on August 1, 2010 20:48
4. Posted by CODEKEYGUY | August 1, 2010 9:24 PM | Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
"Skeptical" doesn't cover it at all. I've become so cynical that I mistrust ANYTHING related to Islam.
These guys have a really hard sell for me to buy in.
4. Posted by CODEKEYGUY | August 1, 2010 9:24 PM |
Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
Posted on August 1, 2010 21:24
5. Posted by LenS | August 1, 2010 9:32 PM | Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
Don't fall for it. At best, these Muslims lack the courage to fight for their faith. At worst, and the most likely option, they are merely following Mohammed's instructions to lie to the enemy until victory can be achieved.
5. Posted by LenS | August 1, 2010 9:32 PM |
Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
Posted on August 1, 2010 21:32
6. Posted by WildWillie | August 1, 2010 10:04 PM | Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
Almost 9 years too late. Should have been done 9/12 2001. It would have encouraged me. ww
6. Posted by WildWillie | August 1, 2010 10:04 PM |
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
Posted on August 1, 2010 22:04
7. Posted by liberalnitemare | August 1, 2010 10:08 PM | Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
Color me unconvinced
7. Posted by liberalnitemare | August 1, 2010 10:08 PM |
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
Posted on August 1, 2010 22:08
8. Posted by 914 | August 1, 2010 11:02 PM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Good luck heading off the next generation of barbaric beheader's scholar's.
B as in B and S as in S.. Remember November and 911
8. Posted by 914 | August 1, 2010 11:02 PM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on August 1, 2010 23:02
9. Posted by JLawson | August 1, 2010 11:11 PM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
They're late. Glad they've showed - but they could have paid a lot more attention to what time it was.
9. Posted by JLawson | August 1, 2010 11:11 PM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on August 1, 2010 23:11
10. Posted by Gmac | August 2, 2010 12:32 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
When the tenets of a religion extol the laws that state any who leave are to be killed and tells them explicitly to lie to non-followers then I question everything they say or do as having a motive related to the tenet that tells them to lie.
To hell with them all.
It's a cult of death with an ultimate goal of total domination.
10. Posted by Gmac | August 2, 2010 12:32 AM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on August 2, 2010 00:32
11. Posted by Jim Addison | August 2, 2010 2:07 AM | Score: 6 (6 votes cast)
You will find more truth in cow manure - and a more pleasant odor, as well.
Now, I don't know about this particular imam, but over the last nine years, ten months, and ten days I have heard many conciliatory and anti-radical statements in English in public from any number of imams who were later found to be saying something quite different within the walls of their mosques or to non-English speaking audiences. It's become tiresome, so my attitude is, "Show me."
When wacko radical Christian sects like the People's Temple or Branch Davidians get violent, their theology is condemned and rejected by mainstream Christians who quickly demonstrate the distortions of Scripture. I don't deny the existence of millions of "moderate" muslims, but in their case they do not refute the radicals because they cannot. It is the moderate muslims who are apostate, just as the radicals say.
Where Jesus not only permitted but commanded his Gospel be spread to the gentiles equally with the Jews, the islamic tradition takes quite a different view of the infidel.
11. Posted by Jim Addison | August 2, 2010 2:07 AM |
Score: 6 (6 votes cast)
Posted on August 2, 2010 02:07
12. Posted by Sheik Yur Bouty | August 2, 2010 12:22 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Rick, et al,
Go back and watch the video from your post on July 21 (http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/07/21/three-things-about-islam-you-didnt-know.php).
Then come back and watch the video in this post.
You can believe one or the other. I don't see how you can believe both.
-syb
12. Posted by Sheik Yur Bouty | August 2, 2010 12:22 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on August 2, 2010 12:22