If ICNA represents Muslims, King hearings are justified

I recently came across ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America http://www.icna.com) periodical titled "The Message (March - April 2011)".  I was impressed by its focus on youth especially considering the recent tragic events when Muslim youths have been involved in crimes against the United States.  One article titled "Letter to would be Mujahid" - by Imam Zaid Shakir on page 33 caught my attention.  I was pleased to see that finally ICNA has taken a positive approach and would teach the Muslim youth living in US - how Islam demands that they be loyal and faithful to this country.  But I was saddened (but not surprised) to note that it was totally opposite.  And if Muslims in America choose to belong to such organizations, King hearings are totally justified.  Muslims should cleanup our own house first ...

The summary of the article basically is that you, Muslim youth, should not take part in these Jihads against America because:

• If you do it, American, Indian, and Israeli military will kill more Muslims
• American middle class, which is insecure, will get galvanized and support these wars against Muslims
• Mujahideen cannot win a war against America because they could send nuclear bombs and your AK-47 will not be able to defend against it.
• The networks in Afghanistan are probably CIA created networks anyways
• In your hunt for jihad, you may get trapped in an FBI sting operation like Antonio Martinez or Mahomed Osman - the Somali kid in Oregon.

I was saddened to see that this was the best a Muslim Imam could do to teach Muslim youth that they should stay away from creating unrest in the society that they live in and have pledged allegiance to.  He never mentioned that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said that love of country is part of the faith or that Quran demands that we must follow those who have authority over us, or that creating unrest in the land is never allowed and several verses in Quran demand that.  All this imam said was "Don't try it because you may get caught".  Really! that is the best an Imam can teach? 

Does he teach that "Don't steal because police may catch you?" or "Don't tell a lie because you may have to face the consequences?"  Is that their Islam? - that has absolutely no moral basis.  What if FBI says that henceforth there shall be no sting operations and CIA is abolished.  Would it suddenly become acceptable in the eyes of this imam to join these networks?  

Muslims today have forgotten everything that Islam has taught them and they get excited about the wrong stuff.  What these FBI sting operations should have told them was that something is missing in their mosques and young folks are getting mixed signals and they should have countered with a focused teaching that tells them the positive message - that regardless of if you are successful or not; waging war against America is simply wrong and against the basic teachings of Islam.  You should not do it because Islam demands that you keep your pledge of allegiance to this great nation - and not that you may get caught or that American middle class is naive and stupid and your actions can galvanize them against Islam.

A Muslim is one who leads and does not care about the surroundings.  If whole environment is saying a wrong thing - Muslim should still do the right thing - but sadly these headless organizations do not have the decency, courage, knowledge, and wisdom to teach the real message of Islam.

I am a Muslim and I do not trust that organizations like ICNA are sincere in their condemnation of terrorism - what about one who is a non Muslim.  If ICNA and such organizations are sincere - I have a simple litmus test for them.  Just answer following questions:

1. According to your religion (not local laws); what should be the punishment if someone gives up Islam as their religion.
2. According to your religion (not local laws); what should be the punishment if someone commits blasphemy against our beloved prophet Muhammad (may peace of Allah be on him)
3. According to your religion, what does the pledge of allegiance (a pledge that every naturalized Muslim immigrant has taken) mean according to Islamic principles.

I have posed this simple question to many Muslims who belong to such organizations and they always hide behind "well in America there is freedom of religion so ...." - that is not my question!  If you really believe in such crap like death for an apostate or for a blasphemer; I would be stupid to believe in your answer to #3 as yes.  A person who does not share American values for first two questions would never take the pledge of allegiance to the US seriously and that is the real problem for Muslim youth - not the FBI sting operations.

Then we come to these infamous hearings.  Again the focus should have been to find what is lacking in our mosques.  Are we really teaching the young kids how important is it to be loyal, decent, and good citizen?  How it is immoral to create any type of unrest in the society? No they all get enraged about someone who is holding the hearings on it.  I am not happy about these hearings either but organizations like ICNA and their supporters are the reason for it.

If ICNA represents Muslims in America and Muslims in America choose to participate in its activities and do not try to disband such an organization, then it is the duty of FBI to use any available tool at its disposal to protect the American citizens.  

To know about a real, forward looking, sincere voice about Islam, visit http://www.muslimsforpeace.org/

Addition - 3/20/2011
I found this original article at muslimmatters.org (http://muslimmatters.org/2010/12/16/letter-to-would-be-mujahid-imam-zaid-shakir/).  I put a note on that about this response - next day I was banned from the site!

Addition - 3/20/2011
I found another reference to the article by the author himself at http://www.newislamicdirections.com/nid/articles_comments/answers_to_would-be_mujahids/.  I posted a comment that the site did not publish:

With all due respect, the logic is seriously flawed.  Waging war against America by Americans is wrong because love of country is part of faith, and creating unrest is unislamic, and we need to keep our pledge of allegiance. We cannot hide behind "women and children deaths are wrong" - even killing US military persons is wrong or destroying infrastructure is wrong too.
Muslims need to take a positive stance for loyalty and not hide behind such explanations.
Following is my response to Imam's letter
http://saadahmad.blogspot.com/2011/03/if-icna-represents-muslims-king.htm

Addition - 3/20/2011

To be fair to the author, I also found another writing by him http://www.newislamicdirections.com/nid/articles/responding_to_the_fort_hood_tragedy/ in response to the fort-hood tragedy where he has taken a little better stance that the pledge of allegiance is to be taken seriously but overall it is still below par.  Muslim mosques and imams need to ingrain this value in the children. He still leaves ambiguity by constantly comparing it to American wars elsewhere and also keeps talking of a strategic dimension to his plea for giving up Jihad.  Waging war against America by Muslims is a moral issue - not a strategic one and there must be no ambiguity when conveying such a delicate message to children and young adults.  No amount of injustice done by American forces elsewhere justifies even the tiniest act of creating any type of unrest in America by an American Muslim.  This needs to be the simple unambiguous message.