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Anwar al-Aulaqi is trying to spread violence in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings. True scholars preach a different message
Last week's tragic incident at Fort Hood has inevitably added to the anxieties felt by US Muslims about how they and their faith are perceived by their fellow citizens. American Muslim organisations are to be commended for their swift action in excoriating the actions of Nidal Malik Hasan and calling for restraint while the authorities properly investigate what factors could have led to the killing spree. As HA Hellyer noted on Cif, there have been previous shooting incidents perpetrated by non-Muslim soldiers in the US army.
The Islamic Society of North America – the largest US Muslim umbrella body – has also launched a special fund for the benefit of the families of the victims of the Fort Hood attacks.
It has to be said, however, that not all Muslims have been appalled by Nidal Hasan's actions. One prominent exception is the Muslim "scholar", Anwar al-Aulaqi. Writing on his blog – which seems no longer accessible – Aulaqi wrote:
Nidal Hasan is a hero ... Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former.
The Muslim organisations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal's operation ... The inconsistency of being a Muslim today and living in America and the west in general reveals the wisdom behind the opinions that call for migration from the west. It is becoming more and more difficult to hold on to Islam in an environment that is becoming more hostile towards Muslims.
Aulaqi is not a marginal figure. He served briefly as an imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia – where he is said to have performed the funeral ceremony for Nidal Hasan's mother in 2001. He was also invited to the UK by several Islamic organisations from the late 1990s onwards.
Friends tell me that at that time Aulaqi's views were far more sensible, with no hint of his later extremism. Indeed, in an interview with National Geographic magazine following the 9/11 attacks September 2001 Aulaqi's responses were notably measured and reasonable.
My friends add that Aulaqi's worldview underwent a radical change following the start of the US war against Iraq in 2003, his subsequent move to Yemen in 2004 and especially his incarceration in jail in 2006 for more than a year, which took place despite no charges being brought against him. Aulaqi came to believe that he had been arrested by the Yemeni authorities on the orders of the US government. During his jailing he was interviewed by FBI agents on a number of topics including the 9/11 attacks.
Just as Aulaqi is using his influence to incite Muslims in the west to violence it is essential that we see continuing efforts by credible Muslim scholars – with far more impressive Islamic learning – to forcefully speak out against indiscriminate violence and in favour of democratic and peaceful engagement. The influential Saudi scholar Salman al-'Awdah – whom I wrote about a couple of years back on Cif – issued a call last month denouncing al-Qaida and its supporters in very strong terms:
Do not attempt to reinterpret the faith so as to justify acts that are clearly and patently evil. In the boldness with which you commit such mortal sins, you engage in crimes far worse in Allah's estimation than those whom you purport to condemn ... I assert, on the basis of certain conviction, that the people who follow that extreme path, if they ever come into power, will bring destruction and ruin to everything. Society, from its civil cohesion, to its family integrity, to its agriculture, would waste away. Those people would foster civil strife and suffer for it in turn.
The key challenge is to convince young people who are vulnerable to al-Qaida's propaganda that politics can be made – and must be made – to work. The alternative is too awful to contemplate.
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