Welcoming Muhammad: Abandoning That Which Is Our Own
by Scott P. Richert
In February 2002, Chronicles' associate editor Aaron Wolf and I spent a day
at the Rockford Iqra School, a Muslim academy in Southeast Rockford. I
chronicled the events of that day in "Through a Glass, Darkly," the April
2002 installment of The Rockford Files. The frank expression of admiration
for Osama bin Laden by the chairman of the school (the assistant director of
neonatology at Rockford's largest hospital) and the performance of Muslim
raps about jihad by children as young as six were not what we, or our
readers, expected. The reaction to the article was varied, ranging from
anger-either because of my supposed "intolerance" to Muslims or because of
my perceived evenhandedness-to shock, as readers admitted that they had no
idea that such schools existed in the United States, much less out here, in
the middle of Middle America.
The 43 children enrolled at that time at the Rockford Iqra School are a
small portion of the children at the more than 600 Islamic schools
nationwide. (Some estimates range as high as 1,000.) Today, the U.S. State
Department officially estimates the number of mosques in the United States
at over 1,200, but that is based on a survey conducted in the late 1990's;
unofficial State Department estimates rise as high as 2,000. CNN notes that
nearly 80 percent of those mosques have been built since 1990-after our
first war with Iraq; of the rest, the bulk were built after the Islamic
revolution in Iran.
In both the United States and the world at large, Islam has become the
fastest-growing religion. In 1990, the Census counted 5.27 million Muslims;
today, there are as many as 9 million Muslims in America. Most of that
growth, again, occurred between 1990 and 2002. By 2000, the number of
Muslims worldwide had exceeded the number of Catholics; by 2010, the State
Department estimates that there will be more Muslims in America than there
are Jews, making Islam the second-largest religion in America.
A Zogby poll in August 2000 revealed that almost 78 percent of Muslims in
America are immigrants, most from the Middle East. "Approximately a third of
American Muslims live on the East Coast (32.2%), 25.3% live in the South,
24.3% in the Central/Great Lakes Region, and 18.2% in the West." In other
words, the bulk of the Muslim population is firmly in the heart of Middle
America. Moreover, Muslim population growth in the United States is no
longer driven primarily by immigration but by birthrate. Of the six children
we interviewed extensively at the Rockford Iqra School, only one-a nominal
Christian-had fewer than three siblings. And conversion is also contributing
to the growth of Islam in America; a 2004 Zogby survey found that 20 percent
of American Muslims are converts.
Muslim population growth in the United States has been accompanied by a sea
change in American attitudes toward Islam over the past quarter-century. In
1979, one of the most popular songs on country-music stations began:
Dear Mr. Ayatollah
I know you think we're yella
But you gotta learn you can't blackmail
the good ole U.S.A.
I hope the sand you eat
fills your stomach like our wheat
and you can shove your oil up your only holy place.
The jingoistic lyrics reflected a broad anti-Islamic sentiment brought about
by the storming of the American embassy in Tehran and the taking of 40-some
American hostages, all of whom were eventually returned. In 2001, however,
after the greatest act of foreign terrorism ever committed on American soil,
with over 3,500 dead, our government reacted quickly to try to prevent the
development of similar sentiments, assuring us that true Islam is a
"religion of peace" and that the men who committed and coordinated these
acts are "fundamentalists" or "radicals" or "extremists" or
"Islamists"-anything but good Muslims.
How is this even possible? What kind of society, after enduring the tragedy
of September 11, continues not only to allow the coreligionists of the
September 11 terrorists to flourish within its borders but to invite even
more to cross those borders and take up residence within? The answer is
simple: Only a dying society would accept the presence of such a fifth
column. And only a society with a death wish would take the further step of
praising that fifth column and encouraging its members to remain true to
their religion of war.
In Europe and around the world, America's status as the only remaining
superpower, and especially the Bush administration's willingness to use
military means to achieve its foreign-policy goals, has left many with the
impression that the United States is vibrant and strong. That impression is
mistaken.
Far more important than U.S. military actions and belligerent rhetoric is
the question of how we treat the potential enemy within. The Bush
administration and the American media, in insisting that true Islam is a
"religion of peace," are not simply playing a political game. They are
firmly wedded to the postmodern doctrine of multiculturalism, an ideology
that Pope Benedict XVI has rightly denounced as "an abandonment and denial
of that which is one's own."
In contrast, Muslim leaders in the West hold no such illusions. As Kalim
Siddiqui, the late founder of the Muslim Institute of London and the Muslim
Parliament of Great Britain, writes in his book Stages of Islamic
Revolution, "The West is frightened of Islam not because Islam is any
different now than it was at any time in history; the West is frightened
because its diplomatic and intelligence services and the media are reporting
strong currents of convergence of Muslim political thought and methods of
action in all parts of the world." And, a few pages later, "This terrifies
the West; hence the word 'terrorism' and 'fundamentalism.'"
In the wake of September 11, Muslim schools across the country saw an
upsurge in enrollment; in Rockford, the Iqra school's enrollment rose by
close to 50 percent almost immediately, and it has continued to grow at a
steady pace, attracting Muslim families from across the country to the area.
In the long run, it does not matter whether more parents placed their
children in the school because the events of September 11 somehow made them
more acutely aware of their faith or whether they placed them there out of
genuine concern that their children might be targeted in the wake of
September 11. The effect is the same: More children are receiving the
message of Islam, undiluted by the multicultural virus that afflicts
Americans of European descent.
Even the military might of the United States may give Muslims cause for
hope, because it is so often used in the service of multiculturalism. Islam
claims to rise above nationality, and its ultimate vision is of a world
united in submission to Allah, in which nation-states, as in the Marxist
vision, have withered away. As Chesterton realized at the beginning of the
last century, Islam may well be the ideal religion for the post-Christian
West, because Islam and the modern project have the same ultimate goal-the
destruction of the diversity and richness that flows from the Christian
understanding of the Incarnation and its replacement with an homogenous,
unitary state. As Siddiqui writes: "Once a global Islamic movement acquires
global following and legitimacy, all States whose statehood is predicated on
nationality may be considered under sentence of disintegration and death."
The American-led destruction of such states aids Islam in its struggle, as
does the emerging global culture of Disney, McDonald's, and Microsoft. The
story of John Walker Lindh thus becomes a fable for our time.
This is not an isolated view. Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, a former chairman
of the board of trustees of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, writes in
Muslims in the West: The Message and the Mission that
Islam is the most suitable religion for this land [America]. Had a union
taken place between the two, the history of mankind would have taken a very
different course. On the one side, the unbounded natural resources of
America, the tremendous vitality, resoluteness and enterprise of its people;
on the other, the moderation of Islam, its message of hope and confidence,
its unequalled distinctiveness as the faith of nature, its insistence on the
intrinsic innocence of man. . . . But, Islam is not the faith in America, a
misfortune for this country and the world. The Western world opted for a
religion which insisted on the doctrine of original sin, giving rise to the
worst pessimism and leading man to believe that sin was his destiny. It did
not raise the stature of man, but put the mark of disgrace on his forehead,
persuading him to believe that he needed an "other" to redeem him by
offering atonement for his misdeeds. . . . But now circumstances are taking
a favorable turn. Muslims are migrating to America in a steady stream from
different lands and for different reasons. There is no Islamic country whose
finest young men are not found here. Lastly, a large number of enterprising
people are also coming to it from the country where the Ka'ba is situated.
So-called mainstream Muslim organizations, such as the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, which successfully pressured Boeing to convince
National Review to quit selling Srdja Trifkovic's Sword of the Prophet on
its website, share this rabidly anti-Christian vision of America. Imagine
the outcry if a Christian organization had made a statement similar to the
one uttered by Omar M. Ahmad, chairman of CAIR, in a 1998 interview with the
San Ramon Valley Herald:
Muslim institutions, schools and economic power should be strengthened in
America. Those who stay in America should be open to society without
melting, keeping mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If
you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of
Islam. . . . Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to
become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the
highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.
This is not surprising rhetoric from a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who named
his son Osama and worships at a mosque that, in the 1990's, raised money for
Al Qaeda's second in command. What should be surprising is that CAIR is
viewed by the U.S. government as a legitimate civic organization. Indeed,
the State Department bases its official "Demographic Facts" on Islam in
America on an April 2001 survey entitled "Mosque in America: A National
Portrait," cosponsored by CAIR and the Indiana-based Islamic Society of
North America.
Government support of Islamic organizations in America goes far beyond
accepting their surveys as the gospel truth. A massive article in USA Today
on February 24 recounted the rise of sharia-compliant banks and
mortgage-finance companies, glowingly comparing the head of one such company
to Jimmy Stewart's character in the classic film It's a Wonderful Life.
Rushdi Siddiqui, the director of the Dow Jones Islamic Index Group, told USA
Today that, "Frankly, with 9/11, as with any tragedy, there was a silver
lining. One of the silver linings . . . was a revival by Muslims to look
inward to how they can be more compliant (with the Islamic faith)."
One way is to return to the traditional Muslim ban on interest. This,
however, presents a business-model problem for Muslim mortgage companies. In
order to make any money, they have to sell those mortgages to a
secondary-mortgage marketer. Enter Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-federally
funded mortgage agencies that, one year after September 11, began purchasing
mortgages from Islamic companies, lighting a fire under a market that has
now reached $600 million.
In good Republican fashion, Fannie Mae account manager Colette Porter
characterized the agency's efforts as part of the Bush administration's
encouragement of faith-based initiatives: "Faith-based organizations have
become trusted (financial) advisers in underserved communities," she told
USA Today, begging the question of whether the federal government should be
doing anything at all to help establish a Muslim beachhead in America by
financing the purchase of property.
Those who understand the threat that Islam poses to the United States and
Europe occasionally characterize such policies as selling Muslims the rope
with which to hang us. But our death wish goes well beyond that: The Bush
administration is now buying them the rope. The April 25 issue of U.S. News
& World Report details a classified plan, which the administration has
dubbed "Muslim World Outreach," that "calls for working through third
parties-moderate Muslim nations, foundations, and reform groups-to promote
shared values of democracy, women's rights, and tolerance." "In at least two
dozen countries, Washington has quietly funded Islamic radio and TV shows,
coursework in Muslim schools, Muslim think tanks, political workshops, or
other programs that promote moderate Islam. Federal aid is going to restore
mosques, save ancient Korans, even build Islamic schools."
The Bush administration undoubtedly views the Islamic Saudi Academy in
Fairfax County, Virginia, as another faith-based initiative. In the case of
the ISA, that faith has begun to bear fruit. Built and funded with money
from the government of Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Saudi Academy lies just up
the street from Mount Vernon. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, valedictorian of his class
at the Islamic Saudi Academy, was recently arrested for plotting to
assassinate President Bush. Born in Houston, Ali, after graduating from the
Islamic Saudi Academy, pursued religious studies in Saudi Arabia, where he
joined an Al Qaeda cell in 2001 and where the plot was apparently concocted.
Yet, in late April, while Ali awaited trial, President Bush walked around
his ranch in Texas, holding hands in friendship with Saudi Crown Prince
Abdullah.
Multiculturalism is "an abandonment and denial of that which is one's own,"
and, for Americans of European descent, Christianity is at the center of
what is being abandoned and disavowed. Despite President Bush's profession
of faith, his administration is, like the America it represents, at best
post-Christian, and perhaps anti-Christian. With Christianity on the retreat
in Europe and in America, it is no surprise that insurgent Islam is once
again on the rise. If Americans truly believed in the Faith of their
fathers, how likely is it that there would be an Islamic school in Rockford
or an Islamic academy near Mount Vernon? The presence of these foreign
elements is as much an indication of a failure of nerve on the part of
Christians as is the mosque that has been erected in Rome. Until we abandon
and deny the multiculturalism of our postmodern world, until we rise above
our pathological self-hatred and return to the certainties of tradition and
kinship and soil and memory, our faith will never match theirs in its
intensity, and the Dar al Harb will, gradually but inexorably, be absorbed
into the Dar al Islam.
Note: Scott P. Richert is the executive editor of Chronicles.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Copyright 2005, www.ChroniclesMagazine.org
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/www/Chronicles/2005/October2005/Richert.html
ts
www.answers.org
www.movieguide.org
Addendum: Today's pluralism and multiculturalism says that there is no one
way to truth, no one way to live, no one right way, but pluralism or
multiculturalism is itself a claim of one truth, of one right way.
Therefore, those who spout such pluralism and multiculturalism are being
rationally self-contradictory and hypocritical. Pluralism used to mean
maintaining a level of diversity and freedom, but within one common culture.
Furthermore, if man is not inherently sinful, then we should strive for big
government and big business and big churches. Since, however, man is indeed
terribly sinful from his youth, the power of government, business and
churches must be limited. This truth, of course, is a good definition of
what it means to be truly conservative. It also reflects Protestant ideals
rather than Roman Catholic ones. Regrettably, both the two major political
parties in the U.S. have succumbed to neo-fascist socialism that favors big
government and big business.
.
|
