ISIS is not the only source of subversion of Islam. Of equal lethality are citizens of non-Muslim societies who act on ISIS inspiration to murder their co-citizens. In the name of Islam. A stab in the back for environments which ensured for them freedom of faith. Only, as in Orlando, or San Bernardino, or Fort Hood, to kill in cold blood their protectors.
The choice for lookouts on Islam is immensely stark. It is either from the summit of Muhammad Ali, a world champion, or the gutter of Omar Mateen who killed and maimed more than a hundred of his neighbors at a night club in Florida.
In the world of US presidential campaigning, the choice of lookouts on Islam begins with the summit of Obama. Refusing to label such massacre "Islamic terrorism." And ends with the abyss of Republican presumptive presidential nominee, Trump. Clamoring for walling out all Muslims from entering the US. In the squalor of his ignorance, Trump should know that the creation of fortress America is the very hope of the evil-doers, free at the gates, gaining from American immobility for inflicting maximum harm.
Returning to the comparison between how Muhammad Ali viewed Islam, and how that Orlando thug clothed his criminality in an ISIS garb.
Let us here again recall the meaning of the term "Muslim." In Islamic Law, it is not restricted to the adherents of Islam. It applies to any human being, regardless of any faith, who practices what I could here term: "the subsidiarity of will. The human will is subsidiary to the will of the Creator." The term "infidel" does not mean "non-Muslim." It means a person who has no values. Nor is the term "hold war" an Islamic term. Nor is the expression "killing for the sake of God." Nor is "Allahu Akbar," used by terrorist morons as a battle cry. It is a pledge to the equality of all humans in the eyes of God.
Muhammad Ali, the Afro-American convert, lived that creed of universality. At his funeral on Friday, June 10, held at Louisville, Kentucky, leaders of every faith eulogized him. In him, they had a lookout at the summit. Prayers were read from the palette of every faith which Ali had honored. As in the best traditions of Islamic Law, all of those faiths were his paths to an inner truth.
In the Quran, Ali's conduct conformed to this verse from the Quran: "Indeed God has bought from believers their lives and their wealth, that they shall have the Gardens... a pledge from God made in the Torah, in the Bible, and in the Quran. And who is more true in fulfilling His covenant than God..." (Chapter IX, verse 111).
By contrast, Omar Mateen, the Orlando mass killer, made his pledge, not to Islam, but to ISIS, the proverbial subverter of Islam. Mateen had called 911 to proclaim his allegiance (Baiaa) to ISIS. That was before he, on June 12, stormed that night club to kill in fulfillment of their pledge.
One criminal act, in fact the worst act of mass shooting on US soil in history was soon the occasion for Donald Trump to "appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." Using an oxymoron expression "Islamic terrorism." A vicious linkage between Islam as faith, and terrorism as criminality of which the Muslim world is still the largest target. What compounds Trump's insensitivity is opportuning a massive human tragedy for sordid electioneering ends.
While Ali saw in himself a citizen of America and the world, Mateen saw himself an adherent of a mythical caliphate, soon to be thrown in the dust bin of history.
It is saddening to recall my interviewing of Ali at the UN for the UN Radio during my service for the world organization. His wit, his humor, his cascading torrents of adjectives, were power in action. All within the summitry of his belief in universality.
It is no wonder that Ali's widow, Lonnie, said that "Muhammad indicated that when the end came for him, he wanted to use his life and his death as a teaching moment." And it was.
As for Noor, Mateen's wife, she is said to have driven him to his Orlando target, armed for the kill. Purported to have pleaded with him not to harm anyone. By contrast, Muhammad Ali sought in his new faith, a connection to humanity. As for Omar, he had told his co-workers that he thought martyrdom. None of the Islamic Law standards for martyrdom applied to him.
In Islam, only self-defense is the core of permissible war. It is combat that stops at the borders of an Islamic State under attack. It is also the vehicle for negotiating peace with the adversary, once that adversary is inclined toward peace negotiations. The Quran provides for this rule of post-conflict resolution. "But if they incline to peace, then incline to it, and trust in God. Indeed He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing." (Chapter VIII, verse 6).
But for Mateen, the pretender to martyrdom, the Quran stops him far away from his goal. It says: "We prescribed to the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul, unless it be for retaliation or because of spreading corruption on earth, it would be as if he had killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it would be as if he had saved the life of all mankind." (Chapter V, verse 32).
And where is Mateen from that gentle giant Muhammad Ali?! Mateen's former wife, Ms. Yusufiy had married him in a ceremony in a Florida courthouse in 2009. Following the Orlando massacre, she made revelations about him to the authorities. Referring to an incident of domestic abuse, she said: "He almost killed me. Because he started choking me. And I somehow got out of it and I tried to tackle him."
Where is Mateen from the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad who admonished: "Do not be bad news for your household." The moral here is that your household had nothing to do with whatever bad happened to you outside of your home. So don't even dare return home and take your anger on them.
And aside from attitudes, Islamic Law sees only gender equality. For it has to be read as supplemented by legislated law. Having elevated women from being a mere chattel, and decreed the abandonment of female infanticide, it made marriage a contract. A contract which ensured for the wife economic independence through an agreed dowry in arrears in case of divorce.
It is unfortunate that wahhabism, through enforced separation of women from male public life, had distorted those rules. By his oppressive behavior as a husband, Mateen adhered to rules which do not exist in either Islamic jurisprudence, or Islamic practices.
What a contrast between a world champion who saw in his adopted faith the common bonds between humans everywhere, and a world scumbag, who prided himself on living the gutter values of ISIS. Eulogies for Ali gushed forth on June 10 from a priest, an imam, a rabbi, a monk, former President Clinton, and an indigenous American Indian chief, and a famous comedian.
Through his heinous mass murder, Mateen united the whole world in his condemnation. Even the UN Security Council issued on June 14 a statement of condemnation, proposed by the US, and joined by Russian and Egypt.
Ali's coffin traveled through 20 miles of Louisville, cheered, saluted by thousands of people chanting his name: Ali, Ali, Ali. Ali had scripted his funeral as he had scripted his life. Saw in his leave-taking from this world a chance befitting the inclusiveness of his faith.
From the lookout on Islam through the summit of Muhammad Ali, it is difficult to transition to the lookout on Islam from the gutter of Omar Mateen. For the latter gloried in the debauchery of mass murder in the name of ISIS. An occasion for uniting the fractured Islamophobic tendencies in the US.
As is guaranteed by the US constitution, freedom of faith is a basic precept in Islamic Law. The Quran states:"Say, 'O people, surely there has come to you the truth from your Lord. Whoever is guided, is guided only for his own soul. And whoever goes astray, he is astray only for his soul, and I (meaning the Prophet Muhammad) am not a trustee over you.'" (Chapter II, verse 108).
These are the spiritual links between faith, every kind of faith, and human conduct. Epitomized at its best by Muhammad Ali whose faith was a bridge across all continents!!
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