What Is Wrong With Us
Posted Jul 8, 2005

7-8-2005

With the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful


“What is wrong with us?”


National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW)

Statement on the July 7th, 2005 bombings in London


Anisa Abd el Fattah

Four bombs went off in London July 7, 2005, killing an estimated 40 people and injuring hundreds. It was a horror, and a tragedy. Whoever carried out those vicious acts was wrong. It was textbook terrorism… violence used against innocent, and unsuspecting civilians to compel political outcomes. In Islam, it is prohibited to kill innocent civilians, and especially women and children, and it is prohibited to carry out such crimes in the name of God, or Islam. The Muslim community internationally has an obligation to address this issue, and can no longer ignore the reality that whoever is carrying out these acts of violence in the name of God and Islam is no friend to Muslims, or Islam.


According to news reports a group calling itself European Al-Qadea, or something to that effect claimed responsibility for the bombings. It seems that no one had heard of this group before.


This is a recurring theme. The public begins to relax, and to question the need for draconian anti-terrorism laws. We begin to question the huge security and military budgets, and demand accountability for billions in missing money that was earmarked for Iraq, and to second-guess the war and also the torture, and Qur’an desecration associated with the war. A major Zionist news reporter is jailed for contempt of court, and we learn that one of the contacts suspected of exposing the name of a CIA operative in the same case is a White House employee, and Bolton’s confirmation remains on hold. In England meantime, the people are hot and bothered by the Downing Street Memo, and the war in Iraq is loosing support. Worst of all, it is reported that the BBC aired a program claming that there really is no Al-Qadea, and that it is a manufactured boogey-man. What happens? 4 bombs go off in London, innocent people are killed, and some unknown Muslim group posts on a website that they did it. Up pops Steven Emerson to put it all in perspective for us. The Associated Press reported that Benjamin Netanyahu was in London that day, meeting with others gathered around the G-8 summit. According to the AP, he received a telephone call and was told to stay where he was, and not to return to his hotel so that he wouldn’t be injured by the bombings. Sound familiar? Isn’t it also strange that Al-Qadea, who claims that the motivation for its violence is revenge for injustices suffered by Muslims, always picks economic targets and backdrops for its violence when it attacks in the West, and yet they kill primarily Muslims when they carry out attacks in the East. Does this sound like an “Islamic” group?


Last week nearly 100 innocent Muslims lost their lives to Al-Qadea violence in Iraq, and not a single Muslim American organization issued a condemnation. Is it only cowardly and wrong, an act of terrorism to kill civilians in the United States and London?


There is something wrong with us. We are either confused, or crazy. How can it be that the people who fast 30 days per year, pray five times per day, and initiate every meal with “Bismillah” find ourselves the victims of such an evil charade, and not have any desire to identify this enemy and bring it to justice, and not simply because they bombed London, or New York, but also because they have killed more Muslims, destroyed more Muslim property, stolen Muslim money, damaged the reputation of Islam, and repeatedly blasphemed against God by using his name to justify their crimes.

We need the Islamic clergy to tell bin Laden to call it off. We need to give him, Zarqawi, and all the rest of them a deadline to issue a statement agreeing to end this madness. They don’t have to do anything for my money except stop. Yet, certainly the Ulema know better what is required in Islamic law for a conflict to be deemed over, done, finished, kholos, bes, stop, whatever, or drop the Islamic garb and rhetoric and show your real face. If that doesn’t work, and they keep killing people in Iraq and elsewhere, then we, Muslims need to stop them. We also need to help the coalition of the willing to leave Iraq, and we, Muslims from throughout the world, 1.2 billion people, need to tell the coalition, “Thank You,” and “goodbye” and then get involved with Iraq, and stand it up, brush it off, get it started. Why can’t 55, many oil rich, Muslim countries secure and rebuild Iraq? We need to end our dependency on the US, the UN, Europe and everybody else, and begin to take care of one another, “Knowest thou not that to God belong the dominion of the heaven and earth and besides him you have no neither patron or helper? (2:108). We need to dump the heads of these Muslim nations who are squandering wealth, collaborating with our real enemies, who torture Muslims, who build palaces while children starve to death, and who kill Muslims for the non-Muslim. ” And remember we took your covenant, to this effect, “Shed no blood among you, nor turn your own people from your homes”, and this you solemnly ratified, and to this you can bear witness. After this, it is you, the same people, who slay among yourselves, and banish a party from their homes; assist their enemies against them in guilt and transgression, and if they come to you as captives, you ransom them, though it was not lawful for you to banish them. Is it only a part of the Qur’an that you believe in and do you reject the rest?” (2:84-85).


We must learn how to feed one another, love one another, and protect one another. When the Muslim Ummah is cleansed and healed of years of shirk, lies, violence and manipulation, murder, hate, greed, immorality, and lusts, then, we can go to the outside world and condemn their evil, and call then to justice, and all of the other grandiose talking we like to do, “thus have we made you a community that is just and balanced that you may be a witness to the nations” (2:143). Until then, we need to start acting like people who have sold their lives to God, and rejoice in the bargain we have made, and get busy cleaning up the Muslim world so we can go home and take the riches that God gave us, and use it to save the world, feed the hungry, cure diseases, educate, teach the world about God as we know Him, about a perfect Love, and the future as we see it. If people want to join us in this life’s journey good if they do, and good if they don’t. We need to save our families and friends, and even our enemies from this fire whose fuel are innocent men, and women and children and the aged and the disabled. Who can bear the burden; pay the cost for these lives on the Day of Judgment when they ask, “For what reason were we killed?” Why don’t we fear God? The suffering and death of innocents, caused by so-called Muslims is worse than any injustice, or crime caused by anyone else.

“Help ye one another in righteousness and piety. But help not one another in sin and rancor. Fear God, for God is strict in punishment” (5:2).


We have lots of work to do, and we need to start now. Forgive and move on, “Quite a number of the people of the Book wish that they could turn you back to infidelity after you have believed. (It is) from selfish envy. Forgive and overlook until God accomplishes His purpose for God hath power over all things. And be steadfast in prayer and regular in charity and whatever good you send forth for your souls before you, you will find it with God, for God sees well all that you do. And they say none shall enter Paradise unless he is a Jew, or a Christian. Those are their vain desires. Say, “Produce your proof if you are truthful.” No, whoever submits his or her whole self to God, and is a doer of good, he or she will get their reward with God. On such shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve (2:109-12). Let’s begin anew. We need to help Israel get out of Palestine, and the coalition out of Iraq. Let’s start with ending any and all unjust violence among ourselves, and others, and see where God will lead us from there. I suspect that His promise is true. He said in the Qur’an, “And when they give up hope in everything except God, I will send them a leader.” Are we ready?


“To each is a goal to which God turns him or her (destiny). Then strive together towards all that is good. Wherever you are, God will bring you (the righteous) together. For God has power over all things. From wherever you start forward,” (It doesn’t matter who we are, if we are sinners, good people, bad people, black or white, or red, or yellow, or all of these combined, and it doesn’t matter what religion we are) turn your face toward the sacred mosque!” (We must change our personalities by opening our hearts to God and becoming pure so our hearts will become houses of worship that can sustain an entire world with a pure blood, (nutriment and sustenance) which manifest as our good deeds flowing upon the earth). “That is indeed the truth from God. And God is not unmindful of all that we do” (2: 149).