Since 9/11 many Muslims around the world, including those who belong to Muslims Facing Tomorrow in Canada, have been warning our compatriots of the nature of Islamist threat worldwide, of the extent to which Islamism is a virulent ideology of warfare (jihad) and a radical reorientation of Muslim societies to comply with Sharia that repudiates modernity in all its forms. This ideology has brought death and devastation within both the Muslim and non-Muslim world.
Just this year alone we have encountered many examples of this threat: A potential plot for a mass terror attack on a passenger train out of Toronto by two Islamists. Three Canadians (two were Muslim converts) involved in the terrorist attacks on an Algerian gas plant deep inside the Sahara desert. A recent suicide bombing carried out in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, in which a Canadian of Somali origin, and a former student at York University in Toronto, was identified as one of the suicide bombers. Add to these the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Madrid train bombings in 2004 and the homegrown Islamist terrorist attacks on the London public transit system in 2005.
There have also been failed plots, as in the case of the Times Square bombing attempt by Faisal Shahzad, an American resident of Pakistani origin, in May 2010, or the foiled plan of the Toronto 18 to carry out a series of mass terror attacks in southern Ontario in 2006.
The West needs to take seriously the war declared by Islamists against infidels, Zionists, Israelis and Muslims opposed to Islamism.
Islamism is an aberrant strain of Muslim thinking that can be traced back in Arab-Muslim history to the earliest years of Islam. Its defining characteristic is intolerance of others, including Muslims, and glorification of violence as a martyrdom exercise against all who disagree with Islamist renditions of Islam.
As Muslims in Canada, we have repeatedly called upon our fellow Muslims to publicly disavow all relationships with Islamists and Islamism, to repudiate unconditionally the aberrant thinking and teachings of Wahhabism (and its related schools among Sunni Muslims) and Khomeinism and to cooperate—without any hesitation—with law enforcement and security agencies of our home country, Canada.
But our voice will not carry weight unless and until our government, our political parties and politicians at all levels of government—federal, provincial and municipal—take seriously the Islamist threat and denounce Islamism without any inhibition or equivocation.
We cannot any longer afford to allow our mainstream media, our educational institutions and our civil society associations to wallow in political correctness and, intentionally or not, give cover to the Islamists in our midst through public relation exercises, such as inter-faith dialogue.
Moreover, as Muslims, we found ourselves accepted in the West with immense generosity, kindness and without any discrimination by the majority of the population. Many of us carry deep physical and psychological wounds of bigotry and violence directed against us as Muslims by other Muslims driven to fanaticism by Wahhabi and Islamist teachings. As survivors of Muslim violence against Muslims, our gratitude in finding refuge and a new home in Canada and elsewhere in the West is immeasurable.
Only when it becomes certain that the West will not any longer tolerate the preaching and practice of Islamism will we witness increasing numbers of Muslims stepping forward to repudiate those imams and religious leaders in our mosques and mosque-related institutions who have been instrumental in pushing Islamism among Muslim youth and radicalizing them for jihad or mass terrorist operations.
Finally, as Muslims in the West, we want to advise our compatriots that the Muslim world is currently in an upheaval of historic proportion, as Europe once was when Christendom was in transition from the pre-modern to the modern world of liberal and secular values.
In our ongoing outreach to non-Muslims, following our mandate of dialogue and discussion, it’s important that Christian and Jewish communities become aware there’s an ongoing mammoth struggle internal to Muslims. They would do well to support progressive, liberal Muslim voices of freedom without resorting to hate and propaganda. This is important because knee-jerk reactions and visceral outpourings of angst do not solve the problem, but only feed into the Islamists’ agenda that Islamophobia exists. Your support and prayers mean a lot to us.
The internal struggle among Muslims will likely continue over several generations as the Muslim world painfully makes its transition. But the support of the West can be decisive in hastening this transition, and this can only occur when the Western public understands what is at stake and how it can make a positive difference.
The weeding out of Islamism and the Islamist threat lodged inside the West is the essential prerequisite—or first step—in defeating the global warfare or jihad of Islamists, and in helping the Muslim world reconcile itself with modern values of science, democracy and human rights.
