Can I be prescient or what? Yesterday I wrote:
But bluntly you have to wonder. There is a long tradition of Imams who say “peace” in English and “jihad” in Arabic, when they don’t think we are listening. I wonder what he says when he doesn’t think we are listening?
Well, well, via Memri we learn that he has a slightly different title for his book when it is sold in Indonesia:
Imam Faisal 'Abd Al-Rauf's book What's Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West was published in Indonesian in 2007 with a different title – Seruan Azan Dari Puing WTC: Dakwah Islam di Jantung Amerika Pasca 9/11("The Call of Azan from the Rubble of the World Trade Center: Islamic Da'wa [A.W.: proselytizing] in the Heart of America Post-9/11").
The azan is the muezzin's call to prayer. It consists of a number of sentences repeated several times: "Allahu Akbar," the Shahada (la ilaha illa Allah wa-Muhammad rasoul Allah – "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger") and the phrase "Gather for prayer." It is noteworthy that, in the period of Muslim conquests in the first centuries of Islam, this call was made from newly conquered sites.
Funny that. Meanwhile Christopher Hitchens tells us about what the Imam thought Obama should say about the Iranian election controversy:
[Obama] should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution—to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faquih, that establishes the rule of law.
And then for those of us who don’t know the foreign words, Hitchens explains:
Coyly untranslated here (perhaps for "outreach" purposes), Vilayet-i-faquih is the special term promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to describe the idea that all of Iranian society is under the permanent stewardship (sometimes rendered as guardianship) of the mullahs. Under this dispensation, "the will of the people" is a meaningless expression, because "the people" are the wards and children of the clergy. It is the justification for a clerical supreme leader, whose rule is impervious to elections and who can pick and choose the candidates and, if it comes to that, the results. It is extremely controversial within Shiite Islam. (Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, for example, does not endorse it.) As for those numerous Iranians who are not Shiites, it reminds them yet again that they are not considered to be real citizens of the Islamic Republic.
Now Hitchens doesn’t like the anti-GZM movement, but he has enough integrity to tell the truth as he sees it and let the chips fall where they may. You have to give him credit for that.
(And please as Hitchens is publicly dying will you stop asking him about his atheism? If he wants to chat about it, I am sure he will bring up the subject. Really, its undignified to treat his faith (to use that term loosely) as such a “curiosity.”)
Anyway, back to the ground zero imam, let’s combine that with his old statement about bringing Sharia here:
Throughout my discussions with contemporary Muslim theologians, it is clear an Islamic state can be established in more than just a single form or mold. It can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Sharia that are required to govern. It is known that there are sets of standards that are accepted by [Muslim] scholars to organize the relationships between government and the governed.
Starting to see a trend, here? Now maybe in fairness he supports Iranian style rule, but for it to happen peacefully, or at least with honorable warfare. Which I suppose is an improvement. Or maybe he’s just a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
