"Only Arabs and Muslims can fight the war of ideas within Islam"

The title for my blog today comes from Thomas Friedman's December 16, 2009 article, "www.jihad.com". Friedman begins his article by making a distinction between Afghanistan and online, or "Virtual Afghanistan." Friedman's Virtual Afghanistan stands for the extremist Islamic network that exists on the World Wide Web for spreading their ideas and recruiting new members.

Something I taught in my class was that there is a fitnah (internal struggle) in the Islamic community, between the Muslims who believe that "Islam is a religion of peace," and the Muslims who are violent. No one really knows if or how this struggle will be resolved. In his article, Friedman says, "Only Arabs and Muslims can fight the war of ideas within Islam."

But what I came to realize in my class is that not all Muslims are aware of any struggle going on within Islam. In fact, they seemed blissfully unaware. Most of them held two points to be principles: that Islam is a religion of peace, and that it is the most misunderstood religion in the world. As a result, I believe a non-Muslim can engage in helpful dialogue with Muslims; non-Muslims can be of help in the war of ideas. Ultimately, of course, Friedman is right, only Muslims can choose what the character of their religion will be.

Friedman goes on in his article to propose that most Muslims are silent when it comes to the violent minority's belief that "it is O.K. to not only murder non-Muslims - 'infidels,' who do not submit to Muslim authority - but to murder Muslims as well who will not accept the most rigid Muslim lifestyle."

"How many fatwas [religious rulings]," Friedman questions, "have been issued by the leading bodies of Islam against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda? Very few."

Two out of five letters to the [New York Times] editor disagreed with Friedman's assertion that, for the most part, Muslims are not critical of the extremists among them, however, I agree with Friedman. It seems that there are three possible reasons for Muslim silence on this matter: 1) from simply being unaware, 2) from being afraid of harm coming to them for speaking out, and 3) from tacit agreement with the methods of the extremists.