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No religious basis for 9/11

The New York City community board endorsed the Cordoba House, a community center and mosque planned for construction near Ground Zero. Significant opposition has emerged against the project. Sarah Palin even weighed in this weekend, tweeting, "Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing."”

Should there be a mosque near Ground Zero?

While opposition to the opening of an Islamic center at Ground Zero is certainly not surprising, it reflects a dismal level of intolerance, bigotry and ignorance that continues to plague our country. To characterize the existence of a place of worship for God-loving, law-abiding Muslim citizens as a 'stab in the heart' to Americans is to presume that 9/11 was a religious attack that exclusively targeted non-Muslims.
I'm sorry Sarah Palin, but 9/11 was an attack against all Americans - including Muslim Americans. Muslim firefighters, lawyers, restaurant waiters, and dozens of other Muslims who worked at the World Trade Center lost their lives on that day. Hundreds of Muslims lost loved ones and millions of Muslims across the country grieved with everyone else on that day and continue to grieve every day that lives are unjustly taken. Sept. 11 was not a religious attack that exclusively targeted one religion, race or ethnicity, but one that stabbed all of our hearts. The victims of 9/11 spanned countless ethnicities, races and religions.

Perhaps the intensity of the opposition to the Islamic center at Ground Zero also reflects the shortcomings of the Muslim American community - our failure to reach out to Americans of other faiths, to educate others about Islam, and to rectify stereotypes and misunderstandings. But this vehement opposition also demonstrates why many Muslim Americans feel intimidated to reach out to others, to speak up on behalf of their faith, and to represent the true nature of Islam. When Muslim Americans are struck with an endless barrage of criticism on the air waves, editorial pages and in the public space, when they are constantly asked to denounce and explain acts of violence that occurred in foreign countries that they can't even point out on a map, when they are constantly asked to justify whether Islam is a peaceful religion that is worthy of equal respect and accommodation, do we really expect Muslim Americans to stand up, represent their faith and reach out to others?

In fact, what I have witnessed is the complete opposite. After 9/11, many Muslims felt the impulse to retreat rather than come out of their enclaves. I have met one too many Muslims who would rather their colleagues not know that they are Muslim. They'd rather give their kids Anglo-Saxon nicknames in public than call out their real, Muslim-sounding names; they would rather go pray in their cars during prayer time than ask for a decent corner at work to pray in for 5 minutes, they would rather take a long lunch break on Fridays than dare request for time to attend the congregational Friday prayer for 30 minutes at noon. These are just simple examples, but they reflect the fact that our post 9/11 environment has not exactly encouraged Muslims to 'come out of the closet' and share their faith with others. Those who have done so seem to be the courageous minority in every community.

Again, while this fierce opposition to the new Islamic center in Ground Zero reflects the shortcomings of our own community, the Muslim American community, it also bases itself on a very flawed and dangerous premise. It espouses the same belief of the terrorists - that there is a religious basis for the attacks of 9/11. While Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri would like us to believe that their actions are divinely sanctioned and religiously ordained, there is no question to anyone who has studied Islam that there is absolutely no basis in Islam for their acts of terror. If one were to search through Islam's primary sources - the Quran and prophetic tradition (hadith) - and all the classical legal texts of Islamic jurists, one could only come to one conclusion: that 9/11 and all acts of terror that inflict violence on innocent people are a violation of Islam.

This is not something that Muslims are contriving to make Islam 'look good.' This is a basic fact known to anyone with any real training in Islamic law, which is why, as one scholar recently pointed out, you never find graduates of Islamic seminaries like al-Azhar or Deoband becoming suicide bombers or terrorists. This is not just a coincidence, but based on the fact that there is no religious justification for acts of violence against civilians.

Bin Laden's war, or the wars of those fighting America in Afghanistan, northern Pakistan or Iraq, cannot be explained by searching the Quran. Those wars can only be analyzed and explained through the lens of political, historic and geographic factors. As political scientist Robert Pape explained in Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terror, military occupation rather than ideology is the primary cause of suicide terrorism, whether it is employed by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka (the perpetrator of the largest number of suicide attacks), secular Palestinian groups in the West Bank or al-Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan or Western states. Pape bases his conclusion on empirical evidence he compiles on every single suicide attack or campaign around the world from 1980 to 2003 (Pape, Robert. Interview with The American Conservative. "The Logic of Suicide Terror." 18 July 2005. http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/jul/18/00017/).

These findings are consistent with Bin Laden's own articulations, who has repeatedly stated in online statements, video broadcasts and media interviews with journalists from all religious backgrounds that his war against the West is driven by what he perceives as the West's aggression, violence and injustice against Muslim lands - Chechnya, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc. The use of religious rhetoric by Bin Laden and others who share his ideology does not change the fact that their underlying motivation is political, not religious.
When pressed by al-Jazeera journalist Taysir al-Alluni on how he could justify the attacks of 9/11 despite Prophet Muhammad's prohibitions against killing civilians, Bin Laden ceased to invoke religious evidence and instead, invoked a politics of reciprocity based on his own logic and ideology. He stated, "It wasn't a children's school! Neither was it a residence...We treat others like they treat us. Those who kill our women and our innocent, we will kill their women and innocent, until they stop doing so" (Lawrence, Bruce. Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden. Trans. James Howarth. London: Verso, 2005, 119).

The Islamic cultural and community center envisioned by Imam Faisal Abdul-Rauf and the organizers in NY will be one step towards reclaiming Islam's true spirit, fostering reconciliation and bridging gaps that

The terrorism we practice is of the commendable kind for it is directed at the tyrants and the aggressors and the enemies of Allah

The enmity between us and the Jews goes far back in time and is deep rooted.

the Messenger of Allah promised us in an authentic prophetic tradition when He said the Hour of Resurrection shall not come before Muslims fight Jews and before Jews hide behind trees and behind rocks.

The use of religious rhetoric by Bin Laden and others who share his ideology does not change the fact that their underlying motivation is political, not religious.

Mr. bin Laden, you have issued a fatwah calling on Muslims to kill Americans where they can, when they can. Is that directed at all Americans, just the American military, just the Americans in Saudi Arabia?
Allah has ordered us to glorify the truth and to defend Muslim land, especially the Arab peninsula ... against the unbelievers. After World War II, the Americans grew more unfair and more oppressive towards people in general and Muslims in particular. ... The Americans started it and retaliation and punishment should be carried out following the principle of reciprocity, especially when women and children are involved. Through history, American has not been known to differentiate between the military and the civilians or between men and women or adults and children. Those who threw atomic bombs and used the weapons of mass destruction against Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the Americans. Can the bombs differentiate between military and women and infants and children? America has no religion that can deter her from exterminating whole peoples. Your position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame. ... We believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in kind. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets, and this is what the fatwah says ... . The fatwah is general (comprehensive) and it includes all those who participate in, or help the Jewish occupiers in killing Muslims.

These findings are consistent with Bin Laden's own articulations, who has repeatedly stated in online statements, video broadcasts and media interviews with journalists from all religious backgrounds that his war against the West is driven by what he perceives as the West's aggression, violence and injustice against Muslim lands - Chechnya, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc. The use of religious rhetoric by Bin Laden and others who share his ideology does not change the fact that their underlying motivation is political, not religious.

This weekend Osama bin Laden released a videotaped speech directed at the American people. He once again took credit for the attacks on September 11, 2001, but for the first time he explained his reasons for planning the attack. He blamed American interference in Middle Eastern countries, beginning with American support for Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, for his decision. He mocked President Bush's supposition about the reason behind the attacks, that the terrorists hated our freedoms. If it's freedom we hate, bin Laden asks, why didn't we attack Sweden? "We fought you because we are free . . . and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours."

shafique wrote:These findings are consistent with Bin Laden's own articulations, who has repeatedly stated in online statements, video broadcasts and media interviews with journalists from all religious backgrounds that his war against the West is driven by what he perceives as the West's aggression, violence and injustice against Muslim lands - Chechnya, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc. The use of religious rhetoric by Bin Laden and others who share his ideology does not change the fact that their underlying motivation is political, not religious.

Should the Cordoba House organization have a right to erect a mosque near Ground Zero? Yes. Is it prudent for the group to pursue that right? I'm not so sure.

This controversy has to be viewed in the context of New York City's 9/11 trauma -- and the context of one uncomfortable truth: 9/11 was a faith-based initiative. The hijackers were operating on strongly, perhaps primarily, religious motivations, and the religion that motivated them was Islam. To be sure, it was Islam as they understood it, and millions of Muslims do not understand their faith in that way. On the other hand, the number of Muslims who do understand their faith as Muhammad Atta did is far from insignificant. What we sometimes call "political Islam" is not a distortion of Islam; it is a particular understanding of Islam that crops up far too frequently to be so casually dismissed.

I'm willing to grant that the Cordoba House organizers have a very different understanding of Islam. For them it may truly be (pardon the politically correct phrase) a religion of peace. But Islam is not always so. (Not that Christianity has clean hands in this regard, not when the Catholic-Protestant war in Northern Ireland, to cite just one example, remains in living memory.)

It's time to acknowledge that the understanding of Islam that made Ground Zero into Ground Zero lies within, not outside, the spectrum of Islam as it is understood and practiced around the world.

In the abstract, Cordoba House has the right to build its mosque. When complete it would probably provide downtown New Yorkers with excellent neighbors. But there's a profound cultural tone-deafness in pursuing this project at this time and in that place.

When pressed by al-Jazeera journalist Taysir al-Alluni on how he could justify the attacks of 9/11 despite Prophet Muhammad's prohibitions against killing civilians, Bin Laden ceased to invoke religious evidence and instead, invoked a politics of reciprocity based on his own logic and ideology. He stated, "It wasn't a children's school! Neither was it a residence...We treat others like they treat us. Those who kill our women and our innocent, we will kill their women and innocent, until they stop doing so" (Lawrence, Bruce. Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden. Trans. James Howarth. London: Verso, 2005, 119).

Impermissibility of killing women and children--and other non-combatants--in war
Answered by Shaykh Gibril F Haddad

Question:
I read that a shaykh said in a taped lecture that: “And the second (matter) is the forbiddance of killing women and children in times of war. But if it is said: ‘ If they (the kuffar) do this to us- meaning that they kill our children and women- Then do we then kill them? The apparent (Thahir) is that it is (permissible) for us to kill their women and children- even if it means that we lose profit/benefit from it (since keeping them alive is a profit/benefit because they become the property of the Muslims); (and killing them in this situation is permissible) due to it threatening the hearts of the enemies and a humiliation for them. And due to the generality of the Statement of Allah: “Then whoever transgresses the prohibition against you, you transgress likewise against him” Al-Baqarah : 194 And to (purposely) destroy property (which could later belong) for the Muslims (by killing them in this case) is nothing strange. And due to this, the baggage, the baggage of the one who steals from the Ghanimah is burned, even though in that, there is the loss of some property of one the fighters." Later on, the Shaykh was asked about the fact that the women being killed are not the ones who killed our women, so is this justice? So he answered: “Then whoever transgresses the prohibition against you, you transgress likewise against him” Al-Baqarah : 194 What is justice? Not at all. They kill our women, we kill their women. This is the justice. It’s not justice to say ‘if they kill our women we won’t kill your women.’ Because this, I notice from this that it has many enormous affects on them” Is this true? Islamically is it legitimate for Muslims during war to kill non-Muslim women and children (non-combatents)? Is it legitimate Islamically to target civilian locations, such as schools, buses, shopping malls? Because many young Muslims today think this is all acceptable and that Islam promotes things such as suicide bombings or killing non-Muslims (journalists or charity workers in Iraq etc) arbitrarily after holding them for "ransom"? Can the respected shaykhs at sunnipath please refer us to scholarly comment on this matter that uses daleel/references? Or if any of the esteemed shaykhs could respond themselves. Also I have asked question in the past but the response always comes back anonymous, could the name of the shaykh replying please be given, just for the sake of knowing who the knowledge is being taken from. JazakAllah khair, for this service, it is priceless, especially for sisters who are unable to obtain scholarly advice or wisdom from elsewhere but books. Wa alaikum as salaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu
Answer:


When the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, came upon the body of a woman in one of his campaigns, he did not say: "This could have been marketable chattel." Rather, he said: "She was not fighting, so why was she killed?"

Therefore, the rationale for not killing non-fighting personnel is exactly that: they are civilian, non-fighting personnel and our rules of warfare prohibit us from targeting them deliberately.

So it is illegitimate for Muslims during war to kill non-Muslim non-combatants including men, let alone women and children. To target them, or civilian locations such as schools, buses, shopping malls is murder.

As for the concept of absolute retaliation in kind, which is being promoted in the name of the verse “Then whoever transgresses the prohibition against you, you transgress likewise against him” al-Baqarah 194, the rest of the verse states: "And be fearful and conscious of Allah, and know full well that Allah is with the Muttaqin."

Allah Most High also says: "O you who believe! Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that you deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is Informed of what you do." (5:8) This shows that taqwa is defined by just conduct in warfare.

So there is a limit to the mimickry of the enemies' trangression and such transgression is not a carte blanche for Muslims to become as bloodthirsty, soulless, animalistic, and savage as the crusaders were in the Twelfth century and as their pagan epigones are today in Iraq and Palestine.

To say "They kill our women, we kill their women. This is the justice" transforms the human person into an expandable commodity whereas Islam gives it an intrinsic value, to the point that we are told we should not even strike the enemy fighter in his face. Such a concept is completely absent from their own rules of war, so is this considered injustice? WAllahu a`lam.

GF Haddad

Bin Laden - states 9/11 was in retaliation for US attacks, Loon version - Islam's at fault.

melika969 wrote:

Bin Laden - states 9/11 was in retaliation for US attacks, Loon version - Islam's at fault.

And who taught them and let them to kill innocent people to take revenge?
ISLAM did!

shafique wrote:In 1972 Japanese terrorists shot up Israel's airport - they were doing so in solidarity with Palestinian groups. The Japanese weren't Muslim - but yet they targeted civilians in an Israeli airport. The reason behind the attack - some sort of retaliation for the killing of Palestinians in Deir Yassin in 1948!

shafique wrote:RC - Pope Urban II call for the crusades was pretty explicit to me - and Bin Laden stating that 9/11 was retaliation for US attacks is pretty explicit too.

shafique wrote:Unless your arguing that the US attacks are religiously motivate, I can't see why the retaliation (which involved killing Muslim civilians too) is motivated by religion.

shafique wrote:Bin Laden says that 9/11 was in retaliation for US killings - not because of the religions of those who were killed (Christian, atheist, Muslim, Jew, Hindu etc).

West is driven by what he perceives as the West's aggression, violence and injustice against Muslim lands - Chechnya, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc.

shafique wrote:One was religously motivated, one was political.

shafique wrote:

melika969 wrote:

Bin Laden - states 9/11 was in retaliation for US attacks, Loon version - Islam's at fault.

And who taught them and let them to kill innocent people to take revenge?
ISLAM did!

Actually, the point near the end of the article is that it was not Islam that Bin Laden used to justify killing of women and children, but the political argument that the US killed innocent women and children so it was justified for him to do the same. This was when he was challenged by the Islamic injunction that forbids such killings.

So, by Laden's own admission - he says it was the US killings of innocent women and children that justified his actions, not Islam.

Sorry, but imagining that he said otherwise won't make it so.

Cheers,
Shafique

Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
World Islamic Front Statement

23 February 1998

Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin
Ayman al-Zawahiri, amir of the Jihad Group in Egypt
Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Egyptian Islamic Group
Shaykh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan
Fazlur Rahman, amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh


Praise be to Allah, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped, Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders.

The Arabian Peninsula has never -- since Allah made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas -- been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.

No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.

Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al- Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al-Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: "As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life."

On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."

This is in addition to the words of Almighty Allah: "And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? -- women and children, whose cry is: 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"

We -- with Allah's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

Almighty Allah said: "O ye who believe, give your response to Allah and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that Allah cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."

Almighty Allah also says: "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things."

Almighty Allah also says: "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."

shafique wrote:Pope Urban II call for the crusades was pretty explicit to me - and Bin Laden stating that 9/11 was retaliation for US attacks is pretty explicit too.

event horizon wrote:

shafique wrote:Pope Urban II call for the crusades was pretty explicit to me - and Bin Laden stating that 9/11 was retaliation for US attacks is pretty explicit too.

What was explicit, exactly ? That the Pope did not cite a single violent verse from the Bible or teaching in Catholicism in his call for the crusades ?

Red Chief wrote:Shafique, you treat Politic too wide at your own benefit. Such way you could explain Crusades by political reasons as well.

Red Chief wrote: Please indicate POLITICAL (not religious) benefits of intervention of Moslem brethren to Chechnya (w/o lame excuses about Saddam, Al Quaeda etc.).

Red Chief wrote:Russia has never been a part of the Western World but actually has been the main enemy of the US and Co.

Red Chief wrote:The only thing that connects this country with the West was the Christian past and Chechen's tribes use it as a political instrument (jihad/gazavad).

Why did Moslems support them financialy and military? It was only due to Moslem solidarity.

shafiqe wrote:HOWEVER, Urban's call was that it was Holy War against the infidels to liberate the Holy Land.

He justified killings of people that weren't Muslim as an act of piety

- when the Crusaders set off, they slaughtered European Jews as acts of piety.

When they reached Palestine they slaughtered Christian villages (because they looked foreign) etc. All was done as a Holy War.

shafique wrote:At that time, most Christians - especially laymen - weren't allowed to read the Bible - the word of the Pope was the word of the Church. Duh!

shafique wrote:All the Jews in Europe that were killed when the crusaders set off - as acts of penance - they weren't killed for their lands etc, they were slaughtered by European Crusaders as a religious act.

I think Pope Urban's misuse of Christianity is indeed against the teachings of Jesus

but he did call for a Holy War against the Muslims - the very charge that is levelled against Bin Laden.)

Epic Fail. Again.

Anyway, I'm glad you now agree that Bin Ladens justification for attacking the US is political. Bravo, we are making progress (even though you have embarrassed yourself by arguing about the Crusades not being a religious war).