Choice of Words

Mohamed Elibiary and his associates at Plano based Free and Just want people to stop using the term “Islamic terrorist.” They argue that the phrase is an oxymoron. Terrorism is un-Islamic by definition. They find it offensive that louts like Osama bin Laden justify their brutality in the name of a peaceful faith. For the rest of us to refer to advocates of extreme violence as “Islamic” elevates the brutishness to a level it doesn’t warrant. It also leaves the impression that our war on terror is a war against Islam.

It’s a tough case to make but they do have a point. People who blow up abortion clinics don’t speak for my faith, and certainly not for me, even though I agree that abortion is an abomination. I can understand why peaceful Muslims don’t want others thinking hate mongers fairly represent Islam. Their problem of course is that so many Muslim extremists couch their thuggery in religious themes. It isn’t just the Western press making it appear so. It’s pervasive in the Muslim world. It’s in the speech of prominent Imams and Ayatollahs from Iran to Indonesia. The Arab press positively drips with venom. The discovery of Wahabbi sponsored hate literature in the libraries of American Mosques two years ago didn’t do their image any good either. That sort of thing is almost always evident when we see or read anything concerning Muslims. It is natural that we associate Islam with terrorism. Islam rarely comes up in any other context. What are we supposed to think?

That’s the hard sell. I am no religious scholar and certainly no expert on Islam, though I have been reading quite a lot in the years since September 11th. Nothing I have found suggests that Islam is inherently more violent than Christianity or Judaism. You can find it in all of them if you look to history and you don’t have to look far, but today’s religious zealots are overwhelmingly Muslim if not Islamic (how’s that for parsing words?) I don’t buy the contention that extremists represent only a tiny fraction of the world’s Muslims. There is far too much vituperative and mayhem coming from them for that to be true

I do accept the thrust of Elibiary’s argument though, on several grounds. One is that most Muslims do live in peace with their neighbors most of the time. If all we knew about urban life in the Dallas area came from what we see on the evening news we would have a pretty stilted view of that too, one that those who live here know to be false. Most of us don’t know any Muslims, or don’t know them well. It isn’t reasonable to judge them all by the headlines. I have talked with a few Muslims and though we disagree on many things I believe them to be sincere and responsible citizens.

Elibiary’s best argument is that referring to the radicals as Islamic amounts to accepting the claim that they speak for Islam. It suggests we have bought in to the lie. That’s enough to convince me. I will try to stop referring to terrorists as Islamic. It won’t be easy. Old habits die hard, there are a lot of Muslim zealots around, and they so obviously strike a chord with many of their co-religionists.

It seems to me the real task for Elibiary and others like him is to think clearly about how Islam is currently taught and practiced. Why is the message of hatred so readily accepted by so many Muslims? What can they do about it? Is it really something I can change by choosing my words more carefully? I think not. They have some more work to do.