The US commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus believes so. In a statement issued on the third day of protests in Afghanistan in the first week of April on the Qur’ān burning, the General said. “We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the United States who recently burned the Holy Qur’ān,” said the statement issued by military commander Gen. David Petraeus and the top NATO civilian representative in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill.
The statement was not issued on March 20, when a copy of the Qur’ān was burned. It was issued when some 20 people were killed by uncontrolled mobs in Afghanistan. The killing of innocent UN worker is a heinous crime which must be condemned by every Muslim all over the world. The action has nothing to do with the teachings of the Qur’ān or the Sunnah of the Prophet as it was based on anger that is not justified in Islam.
The possibility of some foreign intelligence agencies inciting a mob and instigating a section of them to commit violence cannot be ruled out. However, if the act was instigated by some religious scholars in Afghanistan, then such a leadership should be stripped of its religious authority if they have any. The religious leadership of the Muslim world must stand for the protection of life and dignity of human beings, two of the most essential principles of Shari’ah as defined in the Qur’ān.
However, the question that must be raised is whether Pastor Jones acted alone when his Church burnt a copy of the Qur’ān? Unfortunately, the general is wrong when he said so. First, the general waited for at least two weeks after the event to issue the statement. The interfaith religious leadership of the US and the General as well as the President should have been the first one to condemn this act immediately. If they did not know about the incident, then the blame is on our intelligence gathering agencies who did not do their job properly. If they knew but did not say anything, they are to be blamed for showing insensitivity to the issue.
Our [US] forces are in two Muslim countries as combat troops. Even though we are militarily present in most of the Muslim world. Ironically, none of these countries and their people directly attacked us initially. We went to Iraq to remove weapons of mass destruction that were not there and we are in Afghanistan to target Bin Laden, the main culprit behind the 9/11 attacks on the US. The people in these two countries are unhappy and see us as invaders and aggressors. The use of religious symbols by our armed forces in fighting these wars is seen by many in those countries as part of stealth crusade against Islam and Muslims.
For instance, the use of so-called Jesus rifles by an army unit in Afghanistan speaks of the intentions of many decision makers in the armed forces about this war. Additionally, the support that is often given to right wing evangelists in distributing religious material and converting many uneducated poor Afghanis or Iraqis to Christianity is viewed by many in the Muslim world as an act of war against Islam, despite the repeated claims by the US administration that America is not at war against Islam or Muslims.
Moreover, the burning of the Qur’ān should be seen in the context of what is happening in the US as far as the opposition to the Islamic Shari’ah or the construction of new mosques is concerned. Fifteen of the US states have passed or in the process of passing bills condemning Islamic Shari’ah and making its implementation an offence. In a number of states, demonstrations against Islam and Muslims have become a common day occurrences.
Many Republican national leaders and Christian evangelical leaders are in headlines almost daily denouncing Islam as a devil worshiping faith, or no faith at all. It was an irony that the faith recognises the existence of all religions was questioned for its credentials as a faith in the state of Tennessee when those opposed to the construction of the Masjid challenged Islam as a religion saying that the Muslims believe in a God that is no God.
So when Pastor Jones was burning a copy of the Qur’ān, he was not acting alone, he was acting on behalf of these fanatic groups who want to blame Islam for every ill in their societies. This is exactly the same strategy that many in the Christian Church adopted towards Jews when they described the Jewish community as the Christ killer. For almost 2,000 years the mainstream as well as fringe Christian groups showed their hatred towards Jews by committing acts of discrimination and violence culminating in what is known the holocaust in the Christian Germany.
Now the current Pope has absolved Jews of this allegation. A new enemy is to be found by the fanatics and who else other than Muslims could fill this vacancy in our present times. In order to declare Islam and Muslims as enemies to the West or human civilization, a script has to be written and executed. The script was written by scholars such as Bernard Lewiss and Huntington who in the name of clash of civilizations tried to promote the idea of Islam as a new enemy after the demise of communism, an idea that came into existence much before 9/11.
To say that Pastor Jones is just an individual is to deceive oneself and others. Pastor Jones represents a trend with the Christian church found throughout the history that refuses to acknowledge and accept any other views on divine guidance as genuine or valid. Jones has often argued that the Qur’ān promotes violence and he points out to some 37 verses in the Qur’ān that exhorts the believers in defence of human dignity and religious freedom. However, he ignores the fact that the Bible has over 1,100 verses that deal with murder, genocide, terror, killing and rapes.
We Muslims must not neglect this harsh reality of our country and for this reason we must work at the grassroots levels with the interfaith communities to offer the true teachings of Islam through our actions rather than our words. We must take positions on every issue that we believe in on the basis of our understanding of the divine principles and not on the basis of our prejudices or biases that we too have accumulated throughout the centuries about others.