Friday, November 25, 2011

Selective Hearing of Muslim Voices against Extremism

Good quote:

"A few months ago, Thomas Friedman made the same error in an article If It’s A Muslim Problem It Needs a Muslim Solution in which he said “To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.”

I suppose it all depends on how you define “cleric”, or “fatwa”, or define who is a “major” or significant cleric or religious body, but I certainly cannot agree that Muslims - ordinary Muslims, clerics, scholars, religious bodies, political leaders (Sunni and Shiah) have not spoken up.

We have collected 105 fatwas from Islamic scholars, 75 statements by Islamic Organizations (many of these signed by anywhere from 50 to 500 scholars from around the world), and 142 statements by individual Muslims. These are from 30 countries including: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Britain, Chechnya, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, New Zealand, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, U.S., Yemen."



The American Muslim (TAM)