Moderate Muslims

As the white snow gently coats the trees on this cold November day, I log onto the New York Times most frequently emailed articles list. I do this just about every morning to keep a top of the hip and happenings in the New York area. But today is different. It’s the day before Thanksgiving, day number 1 of a potential Lalat-ul-Qadr and the day after our first snow fall of the year. Low and behold it’s a different day.

As I begin reading the the list of the top twenty most frequently emailed articles, I see a motif develop.
Most Popular Articles sent by NYTIMES.com readers 11/26/02 1:27 p.m. are as follows:

1. Defusing the Islamic Bomb
2. No more Fanaticism as Usual
3. A Golden Couple Chasing away a Black Cloud.

Now if you go further and read through the articles the central idea is the same: Where are all the moderate Muslims?


I consider myself a moderate Muslim. I believe that the attacks of September 11th were a huge injustice to the world, and were not only a slap in the face to U.S. foreign policy and intelligence, but also to the moderate Muslims. Who are we to sit back and watch our modern religion be chastised?

This month has been quite a difficult month for Muslims around the world. First with the capture of Imam Sumudra the mastermind in the Bali attacks last month, followed by the attacks on Prophet Muhammed in Nigeria, coupled with the Saudi royal couple being accused of laundering money to the 9-11 hijackers, it comes to show that Muslims are under attack once again.

So some of you may say, so what else is new, but it is a shock. In a country where we are bounded to our civil rights, to religion, to press to protest, us Muslims sit back and take what the media has to offer, read it and move on. Where are our voices? Has the evil Ursula stolen our voices and replaced our fins with feet? Of course she has. We are given the freedom to believe in what we want, when we want, how we want it. We are able to speak to whomever, whenever in exchange for our "voices" our " beliefs".

Coming from a family full of opinionated individuals I can’t help but think, what about my opinions? What about what I think? Does anyone care to listen or see my point of view? Is what the media says embedded in gold, or can it be peeled off with paint thinner?

I’ll be honest, for a while I had no opinion. Loyal to my beliefs and silenced by my surroundings, I took the world in and let it sit. If it didn’t affect me personally, it wasn’t worth arguing about because frankly I didn’t have the ammunition to debate back. But now I realize of course it matters. We should and need to have opinions on things. How do we really feel about the Iraq inquiry? Should there be a beauty pageant held in an Islamic country? Are the Saudi’s real royal role models?

Many of us agree with the public and their take on our religion. The 9/11 hijackers did a horrific thing in the name of Islam, but how many of us defend our religion? No where in Islam is that justifiable, but what have we done to combat it? Should there be Muslim representatives at the Miss Universe pageant? Does that go against our beliefs or is it time to change our religion to conform to the changing world?

I know plenty of moderate Muslims. Most of the Muslims I know would consider themselves moderate. Most of us are well-educated and hold good positions in various fields. Ranging from doctors and lawyers, some of us are in finance and engineering. We aren’t any less equipped intellectually to ward off evil misconceptions of our beliefs. We come in contact with people who do not have knowledge of our religion and beliefs and we can and may have the ability to change their misconceptions.

This was the perfect month to act on our beliefs. Out holiest month of the year came just as the Iraq inquiry has began. People are very well aware about the nuclear situation in an Islamic country but aren’t as certain about one of the fundamental components to our religion- Fasting. So why not show them that Muslims can live in the West and take in the benefits of both the West coupled with our beliefs on religion. We can show the world that no, we don’t support terrorism but we do believe in Islam. The two at one point became synonymous. But us, moderate Muslims can distinguish between them.

Now this brings up another point, is there a such thing as a "Moderate Muslim?" That’s a good question because in Islam everything is either black or white, right? Wrong, our interpretation is the gray. Our understanding of the Quran is the gray. Moderation can exist in Islam, because if we follow the religion for what the principles entail us to follow, we can see that Islam was not meant for fundamentalists. The teachers and preachers of Islam tend to focus on the itsy bitsy details and seem to forget the larger picture. Why not get back to the roots, the main five tenants instead of arguing the contents of red skittles?

A simple example. While speaking to a Muslim brother, I was asked if I ate strictly Halal meat. Upon answering no, I do not, he began preaching the necessity of eating strictly Halal food. Being fully aware of his argument I set on to add in the idea of Aley-Kitab, he disputed further. The argument came to a halt when he said "You know, when I was in jail three months ago for two days, I didn’t eat anything because it wasn’t halal." Case and point, he’s worried about his food not being Halal instead of the weed he was caught with in the back of his car. Give me a break. It’s time to get back to the basics of our beliefs and start speaking back to Maureed Dowd, Thomas Friedman and Salman Rushdie.

The moderate Muslims are here, and we should start making a difference, even if it is one date at a time.