Is Falwell To Be Blamed For Calling Muhammad Terrorist?

By: Ali Sina 

The Executive Board of the (U.S.) National Council of Churches voted unanimously to "condemn and repudiate" the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s statements on CBS-TV’s "60 Minutes" about Islam and its founder Muhammad, saying Falwell’s statements endangered the lives of Christians around the world. The Board said:

''His statements about Islam and the Prophet Muhammed are not only factually untrue and offensive, but are dangerous to the national security of every nation where Christians and Muslims are seeking a peaceful relationship.''

The irony of this declaration is self-evident. Why a statement made by a preacher anywhere should endanger the lives of Christians around the world? Let us assume that Rev. Falwell’s statements about the Prophet Muhammad are “not factual untrue and offensive”, should this be the ground for endangering the lives of the Christians around the world? 

When the National Endowment of Arts exhibited, Serrano’s sacrilegious, so-called art, showing Jesus in a bottle of urine, in New York City, the Christians were offended, but they never endangered anyone’s life. People are allowed to criticize Jesus and say whatever they want to say about him, or for that matter, about the founders of any religion. Why is it that only when someone says something against Muhammad or Islam lives should be endangered? 

What Falwell said was not factually untrue. Muhammad did things that by today’s standard would be seen as acts of terrorism. He raided towns without any previous warning, killed unarmed men who had gone to the fields and markets after their daily business, captured their wives and children and distributed the younger women among his soldiers while always keeping the prettiest ones for himself and having sex with them in the same day he murdered their fathers, husbands and loved ones. These are not fables but historic facts recorded and preserved by Muslims themselves. See for example the capture of Kheibar.

It is obvious that Falwell’s comments, calling Muhammad a terrorist are inflammatory and will put at risk the lives of thousands of Christian missionaries and humanitarian aid workers, as well as their Christian partners abroad. Yet they are not “shockingly uninformed” as NCC claims. These are facts readily available to anyone who cares to read the Quran and the Hadith, the main sacred writings of Islam.

Many freethinkers in Islamic countries have known these facts for centuries yet they never dared to denounce Islam publicly because they knew it would have meant their assured death. Those who were less cautious paid the price of calling a spade a spade with their lives. The question is whether we should perpetuate this lie and allow a terrorist ideology flourish and breed more terrorists because they intimidate us. If today we dare not tell the truth because we fear retribution, what would we do tomorrow when the number of Muslims grows through excessive breeding and by converting our youth through their deceitful and aggressive proselytism?  By protecting Islam are we not sacrificing the truth? By safeguarding the “Muslim sensibilities” aren’t we endangering freedom of speech? Which one is the greatest evil of all? 

“A Christian leader from the Christian Conference of Asia - among guests at the NCC Executive Board meeting -reported that in retaliation for Falwell's words, a militant Islamic group attacked a Christian hospital in Pakistan overnight. And the Associated Press reported this afternoon that thousands of Muslims in India's Jammu-Kashmir state demonstrated in the streets today to protest Falwell's remarks.” Reported Boston.com. Also the state radio of Islamic Republic of Iran quoted Ayatollah Hossein Nuri-Hamedani calling on Muslims "not to stay silently seated in the face of such insults and propaganda". This is tantamount to a fatwa, a religious ruling binding upon Muslim to rise for Jihad or kill someone as in the case of Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa to assassinate Salman Rushdie in 1989. 

But we should not forget that such calls to make Jihad against the Kafirs, and orders to assassinate those who sacrilege Islam are not new phenomena. This has been the way Muslims have dealt with those who oppose their views since the time of the Prophet himself. There is virtually not a single day that somewhere in the planet someone does not become a victim of Islamic terrorism.

Sooner or later the world must face the bitter truth that behind Islamic terrorism is the Islamic ideology. That Islam and terrorism are inseparable as are Nazism and violence. The assumption that by appeasement, the Muslims can be won over and they would eventually change their values to accept the Western values of tolerance is a foolhardy belief.