Time to take sides

By Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser Published: 10:33 AM 07/27/2010

By Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser

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M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D. is the President and Founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). A devout Muslim, Dr. Jasser founded AIFD in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States as an effort to provide an American Muslim voice advocating for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, and the separation of mosque and state. He is leading the fight to shake the hold that the Muslim Brotherhood and their Network of American Islamist organizations and Mosques have on organized Islam in America. A former Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, Dr. Jasser served 11 years as a medical officer. His tours of duty included Medical Department Head aboard the U.S.S. El Paso which deployed to Somalia during Operation Restore Hope; Chief Resident at Bethesda Naval Hospital; and Staff Internist for the Office of the Attending Physician to the United States Congress. He is a recipient of the Meritorious Service Medal. Dr. Jasser is a nationally recognized expert in the contest of ideas against political Islam and American Islamist organizations. He has spoken at hundreds of national and international events including colleges and universities, places of worship, government venues and many other public functions. On October 1, 2009, Dr. Jasser briefed members of Congress on the threat of Political Islam. He regularly briefs members of the House and Senate congressional anti-terror caucuses. In 2007 and 2008, Dr. Jasser lectured on Islam to deploying officers at the Joint Forces staff college. In 2007, Dr. Jasser was part of a select group that briefed Admiral Mike Mullen on the “Contest of Ideas with the Muslim World.” Dr. Jasser was presented with the 2007 Director’s Community Leadership Award by the Phoenix office of the FBI and was recognized as a “Defender of the Home Front” at the annual Keeper of the Flame Dinner of the Center for Security Policy. Dr. Jasser is one of the moderate, anti-Islamist Muslims featured in the controversial PBS film, Islam v Islamists produced by ABG Films, Inc. in 2007. This film was initially banned from distribution on PBS stations as originally intended in the Crossroads program, but was then aired in a limited distribution to some affiliates. Dr. Jasser was also recently featured in The Third Jihad, produced by PublicScope Films. Dr. Jasser narrates this documentary about the threat of radical Islamism to the West. Dr. Jasser is a respected physician currently in private practice in Phoenix, Arizona specializing in internal medicine and nuclear cardiology. He is the recent Past-President of the Arizona Medical Association.

I ask Rabbi Gurvis to wake up to the threat. I love my faith and yearn for a day that my children can realize an Islam that separates mosque and state and puts the “Islamic state” in the dustbin of history.

Our founding fathers were never afraid to publicly address areas where faith, law, and government intersected. Our revolutionary Establishment Clause came out of that courageous environment. We cannot allow political correctness to trump American security and Islamic reform.

This is not about the religious freedom of Muslims to practice their faith but about needed reform. Only Muslims can bring Islam into modernity. Only Muslims can reform the ideas that led the Imam Anwar Al-Awlakis, Nidal Hasans, and Faisal Shahzads of the world down the slippery slope of anti-Americanism and violent jihad. Only Muslims can counter the sway of toxic transnational ideologies.

Imam Faaruuq is neither leading nor acknowledging that fight. For example, Aafia Siddiqui a former Bostonian turned Al Qaeda operative, was convicted in federal court in February of attempting to murder FBI agents in Afghanistan. Tarek Mehanna of Sudbury was also indicted in October 2009 on terror charges. Imam Faaruuq did not forcefully call for their punishment to the full extent of the law. Instead, he had the temerity to tell WBZ television, “I don’t think they did anything to harm America.” Yet, some remain perplexed as to why many more Muslims are being radicalized?

This is not a war against a generic “violent extremism.” The Islamist problem continues to get exponentially worse because communities like Boston are not addressing the root causes. When a Governor, some rabbis, and other leaders play the religion card while ignoring the entrenched Islamist problem, they put our security in peril. Attorney General Martha Coakley wrongly accepted a $50,000 grant for “sensitivity training” from the ISBCC giving them free reign to anesthetize all of her personnel about the real threat.

The American Muslim predicament is not about violence. It is about the goal of the Islamic state and shar’iah law (Islamism) a goal shared by non-violent Islamists. Islamist organizations are never going to turn around and secularize against their own core mission. We need to do the hard work of finding and promoting Muslim alternatives. Some of us Muslims pray for a day when Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, their progeny, and affiliates are intellectually defeated. That can only happen when the partisan bickering in the U.S. stops and our nation finally takes sides in the global contest between Islamists and liberty-minded Muslims.

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser is the President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (www.aifdemocracy.org) based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and a physician in private practice.

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Tags: Al-Qaeda, Arizona, Deval Patrick, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Islam, Islamic terrorism, Jihad, Martha Coakley, Muslim Brotherhood, Phoenix, Arizona, United States, Religion, United States

Time to take sides

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