Islam In Our Midst

"The good men do is oft interred with their bones, but the evil they do lives after them." So wrote William Shakespeare in his play, "Julius Caesar" assigning these words to Marcus Antonius in oration at Julius Caesar's funeral.

So it is, too, with Islam in America after September 11, 2001. Because the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon on that day were perpetrated by Muslims, in the name of Islam, the entire religion became in the collective American mind a categorical and unconditional evil. Forgotten is the fact that the American government declined to call to account the particular Islamic nations from which the terrorists came, i.e. Saudi Arabia and Egypt. These are supposed friends of the United States, and could have easily prevented the tragedy. Instead, hysteric presumption of guilt by association in America has spoiled universally the repute of all Muslims everywhere, good and evil alike.

It is incumbent upon all Americans to remember that Islamic Americans among us still enjoy all the same religious protections and rights under the U.S. Constitution First Amendment which the rest of us enjoy. At the same time, it would be well for all Islamic Americans to eschew as far as possible all association with their foreign co-religionists. Islam under the U.S. Constitution, not Islam under the Shari'ah, must be the watchword for Islamic Americans. The acceptance of foreign Muslim country money to finance construction of mosques and related institutions will cast upon Muslims among us an appearance of being a dangerous domestic "fifth column" of subversion on behalf of foreign Islamic country interests. Indeed, in the Islamic mind, a co-religionist brotherhood supersedes nationalist identities.

How should America respond to the Islamic challenge? While America has no official religion per se, its ruling government institutions and precepts are at least vaguely Christian in philosophical outlook. Americans do "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's", in response to a teaching from Jesus Christ.

Given the overt propensity of foreign Muslims to resort to terrorist violence as their method of choice by which to spread their religious faith, America would be very wise, to close its doors to further immigration from Islamic nations. As a sovereign country, America does not owe the rest of the world a living. By the same token, Islamic Americans have equal legal right of access to mass electronic and print communications media as do other religious groups, to broadcast their message as a peaceful effort to proselytize America to Islam. They might be well-advised that honey attracts more flies than vinegar, and good ideas stand well on their own merit, without any backing of physical force and violence to guarantee their implementation.

All Americans must remember these sage words of Thomas Jefferson: "It is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read."

-Lawrence K. Marsh