Moral Relativism?

In a Detroit News article entitled It’s time to eliminate causes of terror Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi today penned something long overdue from the Muslim community:

We, the imams of the Michigan mosques, gathered in Dearborn last week to condemn the recent crime in London and to announce anything harmful to human society is forbidden in Islam. We want everybody to know that al-Qaida is not a spokesman for the 1.2 billion peace-loving Muslims of the world.

We are sick and tired of being called kafirs (infidels) by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

And so they should be. I know I am.

I’m sure they are tired of their co-religionists being slaughtered by Zarqawi as well.

Unfortunately, Imam Elahi is still ensnared by moral relativism and it makes his condemnation much less believable. He asks:

The first question is, how Iraq despite our invasion and our huge military presence became a training center for so-called jihadists, and how the British became bombers?

This ignores the fact that Iraq was a training ground for terrorists prior to our invasion, including Al-Qaeda training camps. It plays lose with the fact that the terrorists call themselves jihadis and it substitutes the word “bomber” for the more accurate “terrorist” in the case of the 7/7 murderers of innocent civilians. It ignores the dozens of Islamofascist attacks that took place prior to the invasions of either Afghanistan or Iraq.

It glides by the idea that the British “bombers” were likely trained in British mosques as was failed shoe bomber Richard Reid, whose Imam, Abu Hamza al Masri, was charged (October ’04) with 16 crimes, including encouraging the murder of non-Muslims, and intent to stir up racial hatred.

By ignoring these inconvenient facts Imam Elahi is able to answer his own questions, which were apparently rhetorical:

Some unthoughtful words by the president and some irresponsible statements by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — combined with the scandals at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo detention center — helped al-Qaida recruit more extremists to its army.

To win the war against terror, force alone is not enough. Honesty and openness come first. The double standard on democracy and human rights doesn’t help.

This is either unwitting ignorance or a thinly veiled attempt to make:

a) some non-specific speech of Bush and Rumsfeld, plus

b) the abuse by a handful – who have been severely punished – at Abu Ghraib, and

c) the non-issue of prisoner treatment at Gitmo

morally equivalent to –

a) Al-Qaeda’s stated intention, i.e., “thoughtful words”, to kill all who disagree with them, including, demonstrably, other Muslims,

b) the beheadings of prisoners, and

c) real torture committed by Muslim extremists

Double standard? The word “standard” doesn’t even enter into it.

Imam Elahi even mentions: “…the 8,000 Muslims who were slaughtered by Bosnian Serbs in 1995”, while not bothering to acknowledge which nation stopped this slaughter.

You’re welcome, Imam, I’m sure.

Finally, there is this anachronistic complaint:

..the murder of Imam Ali in 661 A.D. while he was doing his morning prayer in Kufa, Iraq. Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s cousin, son-in-law and closest disciple, the first man to ever declare his faith in Islam, was killed by a religious extremist as an infidel.

What relevance has this to the present case unless one is wrapping oneself in the aura of the religiously persecuted and simultaneously pointing out how long one can hold a grudge? The imam confirms this interpretation with a gratuitous reference to the “Palestinians”:

As long as Jews can immigrate to Israel by the tens of thousands each year while Palestinians stay hungry and homeless, I am afraid this will contribute to the violence in the Middle East and elsewhere.

To Imam Elahi, Israel’s existence as a Jewish homeland is inextricably bound to the violence of deranged islamists everywhere.

“[A]nything harmful to human society is forbidden in Islam.” – unless it involves Jews, incidents of religious persecution 1400 years old, or beheadings as compared to fiddling with the air conditioning.