Reform-Minded Muslims . . . Discuss How They Seek To Make Their Faith A Good Neighbor

By DEXTER DUGGAN

The frightening dimensions of Islamist radicalism were emphasized when a young suburban mother and father willingly orphaned their baby daughter on December 2 after shooting down the father’s innocent southern California co-workers who’d held a gift shower for the baby.
The slaughter of fellow health-department employees occurred amid Christmas decorations in a conference room in San Bernardino, leaving 14 dead and 21 wounded.
Although it appeared the young couple planned further Islamist-inspired attacks because of the weapons they’d stockpiled, they couldn’t have been surprised that police caught up with them later the same day and killed them in a gun fight when they tried to escape.
Completely by coincidence, the Washington, D.C.-based conservative Heritage Foundation already had planned a panel discussion in the nation’s capital for the following day, December 3, featuring four moderate Muslims seeking to reform their faith.
It featured two men and two women and was titled, “Muslim Voices Against the Islamic State and Islamist Extremism.” They looked like any modern professionals, wearing suits and dresses.
The panel was moderated by pro-life Phoenix physician M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (aifdemocracy.org). The home page of this comprehensive resource proclaims “Uniting the American Spirit” and shows the Statue of Liberty and Muslim crescent superimposed on the organization’s initials, AIFD.
Also participating were Naser Khader, a member of the Parliament of Denmark for the Conservative People’s Party; Farahnaz Ispahani, a former member of the Pakistani Parliament and author of the forthcoming book Purifying the Land of the Pure: Pakistan’s Religious Minorities, and Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and co-director of the Pearl Project, an investigative journalism effort established at Georgetown University.
The Pearl Project is named for Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and decapitated by militants in Pakistan in 2002. The project website explains it took as its model the Arizona Project, an inquiry into the car-bombing murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles in 1976 that drew a number of investigative reporters. Bolles had written about Arizona organized-crime activity.
The Heritage Foundation panel proceeded as planned, while details about the previous day’s attack in San Bernardino still were emerging in news reports. After the four spoke, Jasser expressed prayerful wishes for the victims in that attack and the November 13 Islamist attacks in Paris.
Jasser, wearing an American flag lapel pin, began by thanking the Heritage Foundation for its friendship, then he acknowledged there’s an issue with Islamism that has to be resolved within the faith, “within the House of Islam. . . .
“Islam is at its time in history when it is battling against theocracy,” a battle that has to be won by Muslims themselves, he said.
“How do we inspire a countermovement of ideas?” Jasser asked, saying that Islamism is “certainly not our faith.”
The issue is “certainly about the separation of mosque and state,” he said.
Khader, the member of the Danish Parliament, said Islam can’t be disconnected from the issue of violence because “the Islamic states call themselves that. . . . Let’s get rid of the political correctness and let’s start talking about how we can address this evil.”
Both Jasser and Khader said Christianity had dealt successfully with the issue of having a government theocracy, and now that’s a job for Islam.
In the past, Khader said, “there was lots of wrongdoing in the name of Jesus, but today Christianity is a beautiful house.”
However, Islam is a battered house, Khader said. “It is really not a nice place to be. The House of Islam needs renovation.”
Khader called on all Muslims to speak against jihadis. “We carry a huge responsibility, and our voice has to be loud and clear . . . The Islamic State and all who sympathize with them have to meet condemnation. . . .
“I think we should be inspired by the House of Christianity” in pursuing reform, he said, or else have a collapse of the House of Islam.
Ispahani, the former member of the Pakistani Parliament, said, “Even in Muslim countries, women have come a long ways,” but the Islamist world view “wants women to live by Seventh or Twelfth Century standards,” with their only roles being to bring up children and serve men.
Foundational Islamic literature “is full of statements against the rights of women,” she said.
It’s being asked, Ispahani said, “Where are the Muslim voices who will stand up to the extremists?. . . Here we are, and there are others like us” throughout the U.S. and Western world. “So we’re standing up. Count us, work with us.”
Nomani, the co-director of the Pearl Project, said, “We have all been in the trenches” of the battle for Islam. “We stand here with hope,” and a vision for tomorrow that their children won’t have to inherit today’s problems.
A native of India, Nomani said she learned of pluralism and tolerance in the U.S. She counted herself with “a courageous band of reformers” standing up against violence and for human rights, secular government and free speech.
“Every single one of these people have targets on their backs,” she said. “We face so much pressure within our own community that we live in a modern-day Inquisition. . . .
“We are in a struggle for the future of our world,” Nomani said.
Jasser followed up the next day, December 4, with a presentation at the National Press Club in Washington with other Muslim leaders calling for faith reform.
Three days later, Jasser issued a news release in response to Barack Obama’s Sunday, December 6, address to the nation on recent violent attacks.
In his December 7 release, Jasser said:
“We are pleased with much of what the president had to say, noting that he seems to have shifted from more coddling language to what sounds like a firmer stance against terror. What remains to be seen, however, and what would demonstrate a meaningful and demonstrative shift toward real solutions — is if his engagement of the Muslim community changes….
“We invite the president to begin working with the real reformers and change agents from within the Muslim community, such as those of us who met in Washington, D.C., last week at a summit to craft and announce the launch of the Muslim Reform Movement. . . .
“If President Obama is serious about the need for Muslims to ‘decisively and unequivocally’ reject the ideology fueling terrorism, he will stand with us as allies, recognizing us reformers as the solution to this increasingly dangerous global crisis,” Jasser said.