Waiter, there's a Jihadi in my soup
by George Jonas
National Post
May 5, 2007
"Blessed are the peacemakers," says the Good Book (King James Version) in St. Matthew, chapter 5, verse 9, "for they shall be called the children of God."
I met a child of God in Burlington, Ont., this week, in a television studio of all places. TV studios aren't noted as hangouts for children of God, but there she was on the set of "The Michael Coren Show," kindly inscribing her 2005 book to me. The slim volume, published by Basileia Books, has a cover that features two gun-toting gentlemen, one of whom looks like Osama bin Laden. The title reads Their Jihad? Not My Jihad.
There's no doubt Raheel Raza is a peacemaker. It's evident from virtually every line in her book. The outspoken Muslim feminist (now there's an unenviable task of peacemaking right off the bat) has been promoting interfaith relations ever since she came to this country from Pakistan in 1988, with her husband and two children. She came, as she writes, because "I saw the Islam that I love and venerate was being hijacked with the introduction of a new fundamentalism and the rise of the Taliban." She also writes that "I am shattered when my faith is blamed for the current crisis facing humanity."
It pains Ms. Raza that Islam is associated with people who blow up subway trains and wedding receptions. She's doing her best to rehabilitate her religion in the eyes of the world, without becoming an apologist for fanaticism, sectarianism or repression. She doesn't try to gloss over crimes or even flaws. She cites naivety as her reason for a 2001 visit to her homeland (before 9/11); she went, she writes, "because I naively thought there is still some semblance of sanity left and there would be justice," but found that Pakistan, the land of the pure, as envisaged by its founders, had vanished, and could see "no more Muslims left -- only Shias, Sunnis, Ahmedis, Wahabis, and the Holier-than-Thou." In short, Ms. Raza writes honestly and makes no attempt to whitewash anything.
In an open letter to Osama bin Laden, Ms. Raza explains that "my Jihad is to expose you and people like you, and to prove that you derive your convoluted knowledge of Islam from sources known only to yourself." She contends that "there are two Islams being practised today," the real one being Allah's compassionate and merciful faith as revealed by the Prophet Mohammed, and the other the "militant, extremist, fanatic cult of those who misappropriate religious teachings to justify murder" like bin Laden and his followers.
This may be a bit of wishful thinking -- I suspect Islam, like all religions, contains elements that support mercilessness as well as compassion -- but put that aside. It may be no more difficult for the devil to quote the Koran for his own purposes as it is to quote the Bible, but the fact remains that nice believers quote the good bits and nasty believers quote the bad bits, and while both may be genuine and authoritative, it's still peacemakers like Ms. Raza who are the children of God.
Is she exceptional? Yes, for her courage and for having a way with words. Otherwise, I doubt if Ms. Raza is different from most Muslims in Canada, or possibly most Muslims in the world. My guess is that 99 out of 100 Muslims would be peacemakers by inclination, and if they don't speak out like Ms. Raza it's only because they're too tongue-tied or timid. All the world's grief is caused by the one percenters (to borrow an expression from the Harley-Davidson crowd), but then it's facilitated by the timid and/or tongue-tied extras in history's drama, who cannot or dare not speak out against the villains.
Peacemakers, the children of God, are the protagonists: The heroes who can and do.
Here's the flip side. Whenever I express the view that most Muslims are just as pacific, law-abiding, compassionate, etc., as most followers of other faiths, I'm sure to get some letters asking why, if this is so, doesn't the majority set the tone of the community among Muslims as it does among other groups? The answer is it usually does, but occasionally "one percenters" will make up in intensity for what they lack in numbers, become dominant, and call the tune. In the 21st century, it may become Islam's turn to be temporarily defined by a militant minority as -- say -- Germany or Russia had been temporarily defined by their militant Nazi or communist minorities during the preceding century.
Can a few renegade disciples spoil a great faith? Well, let me offer an analogy (readers who don't like it can substitute their own). "Is there anything wrong with the soup?" asked my grandfather once as he observed my grandmother emptying a large tureen into the sink. "There wasn't," grandmother replied, "until the dog jumped on the table and tasted it."