Muslim Leaders Still Expect the Mountain to Come to Them

Mohammed’s followers of today must not have got the point of the old legend about Mohammed having to go to the mountain if the mountain wasn’t coming to him. If they had, they wouldn’t be so insistent that any hope of improved relations between Islam and the rest of the world depends on the rest of the world coming to them admitting we’ve been wrong.

I’m referring in part to the the excitement of the area’s Muslims that President-elect Barack Obama will deliver a speech in a major Muslim city. When asked to comment, Islamic leaders respond consistently reflect that such a speech given by Obama will represent the U.S.A. offering either a.) an apology or b.) peace terms.

The Detroit News's Gregg Krupa quotes Chuck Khalil Alawan of the Islamic Center of America as being “euphoric” at the thought. (“Obama report excites Muslims”). “If that in fact does happen, it would be a very significant occasion because the Islamic world, long before 9/11, has viewed the United States more as an antagonist than a friend.”

Am I wrong or does this sound as if Alawi regards 9/11 as a symbol of American antagonism towards Islam? Anyway, Alawi wants to clarify that, even if his brother Muslims were to overlook the wrong we did to them on 9/11, we’ve been antagonizing Islam since long before we let those 19 Middle Eastern jihadists murder 3,000 Americans. Take for instance the time Tripoli was forced to declare war on the United States because President Thomas Jefferson cut off tribute payments!

Then Krupa quotes Asim Khan of the Taweed Center in Farmington Hills, who says that if it’s really true that Obama’s going to speak in a Muslim capital, “then I appreciate the sense of him going out of the way to get things back to normal.”

Back to normal? Like before 9/11? Or before the U.S.S. Cole? Or before Beirut? Or before Tripoli? As Alawi said, long before 9/11 the Islamic world viewed us as antagonists. Viewing nonMuslims as antagonists is normal, if you're a Muslim.

Khan favors this Obama approach because it will “encourage peace-loving people to come forward and basically not let a few people, who the vast majority of Muslims criticize with the strongest possible language, take this religion hostage.”

Even if Khan’s boilerplate about a few people hijacking the religion of peace weren’t worn as thin as off-brand Kleenex, why does it have to be up to the American president, any American president, to do something about Islam’s allegedly hijacked image? Even if it were true that, as Khan says, the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims criticize with the strongest possible language the hijacking of a “few” terrorists, (oh, please) then why not have one--or better yet, all--of the Islamic state and religious leaders give speeches in their capitals denouncing Islamic terror attacks?

But for chutzpah Krupa knows he can always turn to the Islamic House of Wisdom’s Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi. Elahi views Obama’s Muslim apology tour as an “opportunity to set things right. . . . to really correct some of the things that have been wrong in the last decade, which has brought war-mongering and problems that harm international relations.”

Don’t worry, Elahi isn’t about to admit that any of the things that are wrong or need setting right or correcting are on the Islamic side--no, it’s still all America’s fault.

An opinion seconded by Imad Hamad of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee:

It is our American image, and anything we can do to advance it and contribute to a decrease in the anti-American sentiment that has been building over the last several years would be definitely a step in the right direction.

I don't agree that this speech at this time is a step in the right direction. But even if it were, why are we in America the only ones who can take steps to close this gap? The attacks in Mumbai were almost as shocking to the international conscience as those of 9/11, and may do as much as the 9/11 attacks, or even more, to awaken negligent world governments to the dangers of radical Islam, and that taking a soft view on terrorism, as India did, will not protect you.

Probably at no point since 9/11 have more Westerners been less likely to be taken in by that "religion of peace"crap. Of all moments, do Elahi, Hamad, and the rest of these guys seriously believe that this is the time to strike the attitude of, “We're waiting, America. Where's our apology?”

And does Obama think this is the moment to endorse that disastrous symbolism?