Jamal Miftah, in an attempt to stand up for moderate Islam, wrote an op-ed in his local Tulsa , OK paper condemning terrorism. Of course, his local Mosque backed him up, right? Nope. They kicked him out, called him anti-Muslim, and made him feel threatened. Then took him to court for defamation.
Jamal, being a good-hearted man, wants to abhor the violence he sees in the name of Islam. The problem? They are inseparable, and he really is being anti-Islam, because he is denying obvious Islamic teaching. Hopefully, he is on his way to realizing that you can’t be a kind, humanistic person and a faithful Muslim. He will soon see that “moderate Muslim” is an oxymoron, and he will have to choose to leave Islam or live as an essentially cultural (i.e. nominal) Muslim who does not really follow the teachings of Mohammed.
Wonder what pissed off his local Imam and his fellow “moderate Muslims” at the Mosque? Here’s some snippets from Miftah’s op-ed piece:
Because of lack of knowledge of Islam, Muslim youth are misguided into believing by the so-called champions of the cause of Islam that the current spate of killings and barbarism, which has no equal in the recent civilized history, is jihad in the name of Islam. They are incited, in the name of Islam, to commit heinous crimes not pardonable by any religion and strictly forbidden in Islam.
Cowards like al-Zawahri and bin Laden are inciting the ignorant and innocent youths to commit suicide bombings to kill innocent civilians including children, women and the elderly, while they hide in spider holes and caves. They never send their own sons and daughters, born out of half a dozen of their wives, to get killed in the name of Islam. They are themselves hypo crites, cowards, thugs and liars. For 12 years they misappropriated aid received from the U.S. and the West to fight Russia. Now they are ensuring smooth flow of petro dollars from Arab countries in the name of jihad against the West.
Even mosques and Islamic institutions in the U.S. and around the world have become tools in their hands and are used for collecting funds for their criminal acts. Half of the funds collected go into the pockets of their local agents and the rest are sent to these thugs.
They are the reason for branding the peaceful religion of Islam as terrorism. The result, therefore, is in the form of Danish cartoons and remarks/reference by the Pope.
I appeal to the Muslim youth in particular and Muslims of the world in general to rise up and start jihad against the killers of humanity and help the civilized world to bring these culprits to justice and prove that Islam is not a religion of hatred and aggression.
I appeal to the Muslim clerics around the world that, rather than issuing empty fatwas condemning suicide bombing, they should issue a fatwa for the death of such scoundrels and barbarians who have taken more than 4,267 lives of innocent people in the name of Islam and have carried out more than 24 terrorist attacks on civilian installations throughout the world. This does not include the chilling number of deaths because of such activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is well over 250,000.
I appeal to al-Zawahri and his band of thugs to hand themselves over to justice and stop spreading evil and killing innocent humans around the world in the name of Islam. Their time is limited and Muslims of the world will soon rise against them to apprehend them and bring them to justice.
Now that is courage. I think Miftah will become disillusioned at the lack of support he gets from the Muslim community. And he may join the growing number of ex-Muslims, who usually end up being hardened anti-religionists or Christians.