Muslims must explain their beliefs to the world

William Page professes, “It is by championing and striving to emulate God’s virtues of graciousness, compassion, beneficence and mercy that what is best in Islam can triumph over what was never part of Islam to begin with.” However, he does not define who or where this God is. The writer claims that, “The ideology of ISIS is clear – it is a perverse distortion of Islam.”

The founder of the ideology of Islam was the Prophet Muhammad. His life is documented in the Hadiths and the Sira. ISIS claims to be well conversant with these and openly proclaims its pride in emulating the Prophet. Islam is the brainchild of Muhammad, not of a god. The god was Muhammad’s invention, to give credence to his ideas. He proclaimed that his ideology came from God.

Surely the only way forward in this issue is for all Muslims, moderate and fundamental, to explain exactly what it is they believe in. They owe it to the world at large and above all to themselves.  The Muslim Brotherhood represented in the US by the Council for Islamic American Relations proclaims its credo as follows: 

“Allah is our goal, the Prophet is our guide, the Koran is our constitution, jihad is our way, and death for the glory of Allah is our greatest ambition.”

It is not a matter of “what is best for Islam”, but what Islam is. Surely the essential fundamental principles of the ideology are laid down. While in Arabic and therefore subject to opinion in translation, to a degree, they are presented in the Koran, the Haddiths and the Sira, and are apparent in its very history the last 14 centuries.

JC Wilcox