A Muslim calls on his co-religionists to "wake up." Kamal Nawash may be a voice crying in the wilderness, but American Muslims would do well to heed his words especially the last few paragraphs:
With all the evidence that Islam is facing a crisis, one wonders what it will take for Muslims to realize that those who commit mass murder in the name of Islam are not just a few fringe elements. What will it take for Muslims to realize that we are facing a crisis potentially more deadly than the AIDS epidemic? What will it take for Muslims to realize that there is a large, evil movement that is turning what was a peaceful religion into a death cult?
Will Muslims wake up before it is too late? Or will we continue blaming an imaginary Jewish conspiracy and entities like The Dallas Morning News for all our problems? The blaming of all Muslim problems on others is a cancer that is destroying Muslim society. And it must stop.
Muslims must wake up, look inward and put a stop to many of our religious leaders who spend most of their sermons teaching hatred, intolerance and violent jihad. We should not be afraid to admit that as Muslims we have a problem with violent extremism. We should not be afraid to admit that so many of our religious leaders belong behind bars, and not behind a pulpit.
Only moderate Muslims can challenge and defeat extremist Muslims. We can no longer afford to be silent. If we remain silent to the extremism within our community, then we should not expect anyone to listen to us when we complain of stereotyping and discrimination by non-Muslims. We should not be surprised when the world treats all of us as terrorists. And we should not be surprised when we are profiled at airports.
Simply put, not only do Muslims need to join the war against extremism and terror, we need to take the lead in this war.
It's not unrelated to Nawash's plea to note that the high school valedictorian who has been charged with plotting to assassinate the President was a Muslim citizen of the U.S. who studied in a Saudi madrassa in Virginia, a school which inculcates into its students a bitter hatred for the U.S. and Israel. Where are the moderate Muslims demanding that "schools" like this be shut down?
