"The religion has been raped"

Fellow grad student Ranti Fitriani gamely negotiates a muddy spring cowpath in Petersham, MA, on a field trip a few years back to test the validity of a Design School landscape project for Carl Steinitz's studio. As we later wrote in a remembrance, Ranti exuded an inner peace that seemed a natural expression of her deeply held Muslim faith . . . What was to have been her second year at Harvard turned out to be her last on earth.  She died in a small plane crash in her native Indonesia that summer.

"I find it rather odd that all the people you refer to in the above article are non-Muslims . . . I'd like to hear what Muslims have to say for themselves," wrote reader Dara recently in comments to a post we had published last year on Dhimmitude -- "the chastened subservience . . . that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians" [definition via Dhimmi Watch].  The point of our post was that certain Islamicists are advocating the use of immigration as a Trojan Horse to expand jihad in foreign lands, specifically Europe.  Dara's comments made us think of Ranti (above photo), the brave and beautiful and good-hearted young Indonesian woman who happened to be the first -- and only (outside of the blogosphere) -- Muslim we ever knew as a friend and colleague:

We never discussed religion but shared many deeply spiritual moments of recognition of the beauty of the New England landscape.

In response to our comments, Dara emailed back about her feelings as an American Muslim of being "separated as some kind of diseased race who are forced into this tiny cycle of perpetual bias and stereotypes which essentially makes their lives in a non-Muslim society miserable":

You knew a Muslim in a different light, away from all the political messiness thrown in our faces by the media . . . you knew a Muslim as a person. What is Islam . . . it is a religion that recognizes Jesus and Moses, and someone new named Mohammed. All three religions worship the same God.

The problem is, politics have become involved in a region rich with resources and equally wealthy with turmoil. But above all this, the true weight of a Muslim is in their faith . . . it instills a way of life. One which ensures a perfect life on Earth as well as in Heaven . . . Or so the book says. The religion has been raped however. The Koran's call for "jihad" or to fight in the name of God, has been translated from "justice" to terror. And people will take one-liners from the Koran, or have a riot with a "mis-translation" and make the religion just that.

I only pray that you take the time to stop and pretend you were a Muslim in this sea of prejudice and turmoil and think, what would you want others to do to reach out to you and your beliefs . . . and you may find that the love you shared for [Ranti] was a love for something she had deep inside her, something you couldn't understand at the time, but will understand later.

What bothers us about jihad and dhimmitude, though -- as we understand them from what we read and see with our eyes -- are their insidious and coercive nature as practiced by the headline grabbers. Not a Ranti or a Dara, but those hate-spewing, vengeful (mostly) men -- imams, self-styled leaders and young recruits -- seemingly obsessed with a grudge dating back 500 years (what Tim Blair calls "fundamentalist Islam's Andalusian problem"). The Dutch were the ones most recently "brought face to face with the disturbing fact that a full-blown jihadist group had grown up in their midst, and that it was locally born and recruited. It was, they say, their own 9/11," reports the London Times [via Dhimmi Watch].

For the three-woman project we worked on with Ranti at the Design School, we had to plan a financially viable Hindu community that would fit -- without compromising its own principles or imposing on its host -- into a traditional central Massachusetts farming village.  One of the other student teams chose an Islamic community for their project.  'Wish we had paid closer attention to how they defined their problem and how they solved it.  How did they handle the contentious issue -- in a quiet rural town -- of loudspeakers on the mosque to announce the call to prayer five times a day,* for example?

Our team's problem was that much easier in that Hindus apparently believe "all religions are true," so we didn't have to rationalize a mission -- covert or otherwise -- to convert our hosts. We are encouraged by Dara's emphasis on common roots among Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but 1. What about other religious traditions? and 2. We are baffled by the Islamicists' constant cry that anyone -- including fellow Muslims -- who doesn't agree with their brand of Islam is an infidel and must be destroyed. The Devil quoting scripture?

*Nowadays, of course, they could turn to their Islamic mobile ilkone i-800's.  Where there's a will -- or better yet, two wills -- there's a way.

Comments

[Teresa]

The problem, as I see it from a non-Muslim perspective, is a matter of trust. What you have is a very small group of people (relatively speaking) who are bent on jihad. Since the pattern has been that these jihadists infiltrate themselves into our society, it's the factor of fear and the unknown that drives people to treat the Muslim community differently.

Yes, it's probable that 99% of Muslims you meet in this world have no wish to kill you because you are different, the problem is the 1% who do wish to do this. And it only takes one guy with a bomb strapped to him to put a real kink in your day.

So, until non-Muslims have the perception that the Muslim community itself is working hard and vigorously to push these people out and turn the situation around, the mistrust will remain. And thus they will be treated differently and viewed with suspicion by many. That's just my perception, and it's probable that it's very different from the view others have.

(and now that I think about it... I think I've just restated what you've posted... oh well, since it was so much typing - I'll let it stand as perhaps some slightly different wording - may help Dara in understanding)

[Sissy Willis]

Not at all, Teresa. As I was reading your comments, I was thinking to myself, why didn't I think of putting it that way? Thanks! :)

[goomp]

Both you and Teresa make the point that it is a small minority of Muslims who are radical, filled with hate and have no tolerance for those who see things in a light different from theirs. It is the human condition. Think Dean frothing at the mouth about our President. Think me, I have no tolerance for "Intellectual Morons". Granted I am not currently recruiting people to murder them, the wish to eliminate those who will not see what is perceived to be correct is a human failing for many. A free society makes it difficult to pursue jihad but not to comprehend its motives.

[Sissy Willis]

Wow! Awesome -- and frightening! -- Goomp. We're going to have to watch you. :)

[Teresa]

Goomp, I think the real problem is the way we non-Muslims perceive Muslims to be handling the problem. (or not handling it as the case may be) The lack of strenuous sanctions and denunciation of those who would murder, is the real stumbling block. It's not that they would do the deed themselves, but the leaders of their community make lukewarm statements about how suicide bombers are really bad... yet I don't see the Muslim councils standing up as a whole and throwing these radicals out on their ear. I don't see congregations rallying to demand this of their religious leaders. (there's been more action taken with regard to the Catholic church's sex scandals than we've seen in the Muslim church and radicals!)

Just think of how this would be viewed if it was a sect of the Catholic church or the Evangelical Church. If the sect was not immediately ex-communicated and denounced the wrath of the country would descend on everyone with ties to the church. Why should it be different for Muslims?

OTOH I think Sissy's right.... we'll need to watch you ;-)

[Miguel]

For many years, I used to think that Allah is the same as the Christian or Jewish God (Jehova, God Father) but the more I know Islamis I'm more and more convinced that they are NOT the same. No way, Allah in the Coran has some antiques and strange and crazy commandments and opinions that make that figment of the Middle Eastern mind not a God but an invention and a mass of backwards and anti-human behavioral patterns. Sorry for being crude, but that's the way it is.

[Jabba the Tutt]

Teresa: "So, until non-Muslims have the perception that the Muslim community itself is working hard and vigorously to push these people out and turn the situation around, the mistrust will remain."

Bingo! I'd put the number at 10%, not 1%.