Why do you kill?
Jürgen Todenhöfer
8. The Muslims must champion a progressive and tolerant Islam, as did their prophet Muhammad. They must strip terrorism of its religious mask.
Not only the West, but also the Muslim world needs to change its behavior in a fundamental way. While retaining their religious identity, moderate Muslims must show more courage in standing up for freedom and the rule of law; for a political and economic system that fosters individual talent rather than stifling it; for the full and equal rights of men and women; for real freedom of religion also for Jews and Christians - for a tolerant progressive and modern understanding of the teachings of Islam. The many millions of Muslims living in the West could play an important part in this process.
Muslims must interpret the fascinating message of their prophet Muhammad for the modern world and continue with the social reforms he risked his life for. They must throw the pre-Islamic ballast overboard that is impeding a renaissance of Islamic civilization. They must create an educated elite that can lead the Muslim world successfully into the third millennium. Muhammad, market economy, and modernity can fit together very well.
Unlike many Muslim politicians of our day, Muhammad was not a reactionary. Unlike them, he did not long to be transported back 1,400 years. He was a bold, forward-looking egalitarian revolutionary, who had the courage to break the bounds of tradition. His Islam was not a religion of stasis or regression, but of renewal and new departures. Even a little of this great reformer's dynamism would do the Muslim world a lot of good - a world that at least in part is submerged in fatalism and self-pity.
Muhammad fought passionately for social change. He stood up for the poor and the weak and - to the annoyance of many of his male followers - for a massive improvement in the rights of women, who in pre-Islamic times in almost all cultures enjoyed virtually no rights at all. Men who oppress women may not claim to have the backing of Muhammad or the Qur'an.
Muhammad was - like our Jewish forefathers Abraham, Moses and King Solomon, who according to the Bible had a thousand wives and concubines - married to several women, one of whom was Jewish and another Christian. They both remained true to their religion. Muhammad warned his followers: "Whoever wrongs a Jew or a Christian, will have to face me on the Day of Judgment." It would be good if some Muslim extremists took the prophet's wise words to heart.
Muhammad was neither a fanatic nor an extremist. He wanted to tell the polytheist Arabs of his day about the God of the Jews and the Christians - in authentic, pure form. The Qur'an is in part a wonderful re-telling of the central messages of the Bible: "And before this, was the Book of Moses as a guide and a mercy: And this Book confirms (it) in the Arabic tongue" (Surah 46:12). For Muslims, the Qur'an is the "Newest Testament."
Muhammad repeatedly proclaimed that Jesus would rise again before the Last Judgment: "How happy you will be when the son of Mary descends to you." Jesus and Mary are described in the Qur'an with great love as "signs for all peoples" (Surah 21:91). The Qur'an also treats the great Jewish prophets, especially Moses, as role models "A Muslim who does not believe in Muhammad's precursors Moses and Jesus is not a Muslim" (Mahmoud Zakzouk).
Today's terrorism is an absurd distortion of Muhammad's teachings. It is a crime against Islam. Islam means submission to God and peace. The Muslim world may not permit its great and proud religion, with its ethos of humanity and justice, to be sullied by raging terrorists whose hearts and minds are filled with hatred.
Nobody has caused greater damage to the standing of Islam in the course of its history, which spans almost fourteen centuries, than terrorists pretending to be Muslims. The Muslim world must rip the religious mask from the face of the terrorists.