Is Islam really nonviolent?

It doesn't take much digging to find out the answer to that is a big NO!

I do not doubt that there are a good number of individual Muslim adherents who interpret their faith and live their lives with a devotion to peace and who abhor the terrorists' tactics. But classifying the whole faith as "peaceful" is a leap of faith when our newspapers report daily atrocities committed in the name of Islam, and Islamic governments do precious little to condemn or counteract such inhumanity.

Sadly, similar inaction by Islamic believers in the face of brutal terror exists in this country. Here's one case in point. In response to the murder of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia, some New Jersey Islamic groups held a rally in Paterson on June 20. American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee president Hesham Mamoud declared at the rally: "Islam does not encourage or condone such acts. Islam does not encourage terrorists." These are encouraging words.

Yet according to an Oct. 31 Bergen Record article, posted on the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's Web site, Paterson (the site of the rally) is home to roughly 20,000 Arab-Americans. As the Home News Tribune reported, the Saturday rally on June 20 attracted a mere 25 people. That is only slightly more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the Islamic population of that city alone.[...]

The other issue I have with the conventional wisdom that "Islam doesn't support terrorism" is that there is a growing body of evidence that significant numbers of Muslim citizens here who do not hold this view.

Terrorism expert Stephen Schwartz testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security in June 2003 that "Shia and other non-Wahhabi Muslim community leaders estimate that 80 percent of American mosques out of a total of ranging between an official estimate of 1,200 and an unofficial number of 4,000 to 6,000 are under Wahhabi control." (Middle East Quarterly, spring 2004).

Wahhabism is the extreme interpretation of Islam that inspires Osama bin Laden and is endorsed in national policy and in generous funding of international Islamic organizations by the Saudi Arabia government.

News reports have indicated that Wahhabi adherents have assumed control of significant mosques in Chicago (Chicago Tribune, Feb. 8), Boston (Boston Herald, March 7), and Morgantown, West Virginia (New York Times, op-ed essay, May 6). In each instance, the mosque became a center to preach hatred against the enemies of Islam, to forcefully advocate for strict observance of Islamic statues regarding dress and relationships between men and women, and to raise money for individuals accused of supporting or engaging in terrorism in Israel or America.

Evidence of such a perspective was in plain view at the graduation ceremony of the University of California in Irvine in June, when a group of Muslim student graduates wore green sashes imprinted with the word "Shahada." Shahada is an Arabic word used in the Muslim world to identify martyrs who die in suicide attacks. (WorldNetDaily, June 17).

But will America and the rest of the world wake up to this threat in time?
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