have to introduce ourselves, our Islamic values and principles and we
have to participate fully in this
society for the sake of peace, harmony,
good will and good community, not only for ourselves but for all
Americans.
… It is important to build good families and keep good family ties, but
we must go beyond our own family and treat all people as one family….
Religion is not just some rituals but it is building good conduct and
good morals. It is to care for the poor and needy. It is to love our
neighbors and be good to them….
We must work for justice and harmony among all people. Our vision
must be universal and not parochial….
Justice requires that the wrong should be corrected with right means.
Injustice cannot be removed by another injustice.
Two wrongs do not
make one right and ends do not justify the means.
Dr. Taha Jabir al-Alwani, president of the Graduate School of Islamic and Social
Sciences and president of the Fiqh Council of North America, comments:
Renowned Muslim scholars have made it clear that every Muslim
living in the West, in general, and the US, in particular,
has a role to play
in the process of establishing a better life for all the people living together
as members of the society, regardless of whether they are Muslims or non-
Muslims. Islam urges Muslims to be active and proactive in any society
they reside in…. But being proactive in the society does not mean that a
Muslim has to jeopardize his religious teachings when some policies of
his
government run counter to them; he must champion right and justice
wherever he finds himself and in any post he occupies.
Finally, as in all religions, many Muslims wish to know the views and
judgments of their own religious authorities, but in the end, they make their own
judgments about how to maintain Islamic principles
in Western society and
where compromise is necessary without being harmful. (The pope forbids birth
control, yet Catholic believers in Italy have one of the lowest birthrates in
Europe.) Muslims, in the end, will balance their own common sense against
traditional clerical interpretations. Even more likely, many will simply lead their
own lives and not worry about possible contradictions. Most Muslims do not
accept all clerical
judgments as irrefutable dogma; clerical judgments
furthermore differ. In voting with their feet in coming to the West at all, many
millions clearly believe it is fine to live in non-Muslim countries and will get on
with their Muslim lives there as best they can, learning as they go, integrating
ever more closely with each generation.
This
is not about Islam at all, but about the complex and shifting dynamics of
integration and multiculturalism. And Europeans must accept Muslim culture as
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