An article reports an Australian Muslim’s inflammatory comments and debate on Sharia4Australia with an anti-Sharia proponet, PM go and let the muslims take over.
The danger of this inflammatory comment and the scheduled debate is that it will damage the moderate Muslim community. The Sharia4Australia Muslim’s response:
“If it causes a backlash against the Muslims, I can’t help that. This is a necessary debate.”
In my view the danger is not just that this will stir non-Muslim antipathy towards the moderate Muslims but that it will encourage moderate Muslims to consider their own radicalisation. See the comment and following conclusion in, Faith baiting only breeds radicalism.
The accusation of the anti-sharia activists and the fondest hope of Osama bin Laden are identical: that every serious Muslim is a recruit for sedition.
Where is there hope?
So is sharia law compatible with democracy? In the totalitarian version of the Taliban, it cannot be reconciled with pluralism. But if sharia is interpreted as a set of transcendent principles of fairness and justice, applied in a variety of times, places and governmental systems, it more closely resembles the Christian and Jewish idea of social justice.
There is a battle raging for the soul of Islam in non-Islamic nations including Australia and we must be prayerfully and practically supportive of moderate Muslims. Also, Nazir-Ali: Islam and immigration.
In many Islamic nations and Muslim majority countries (like Egypt) the suffering of non-Muslim people questions any notion of Sharia being “interpreted as a set of transcendent principles of fairness and justice” … resembling Christian and Jewish ideas of social justice. See, Iraq and Iran: Cns driven out and the plight of Muslim moderates in these lands, Peace making shot down.
Inflammatory language does just what it says: inflames/ grows/ foments/ increases confrontation and aggression. It does not build the peace of the city (Jeremiah 29:7).
There is learning for us from the Civil Rights era in the USA: Do violent words cause violence? Lessons from the civil rights era.
