[BigV]

Christian Science Monitor

Originally Posted by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

The real battle

Haass: If you were to go ahead with the center, and given the larger mission of interfaith dialogue and bridges between faiths that you’ve dedicated so many years to, what sorts of things can you do to heal the rifts that have come about?

Rauf: Let me speak about the larger context. The charge that has been thrown to me since 9/11 is how to improve Muslim-West relations. All of my work since then has been based on doing that.

For many years people have asked, “Where are the moderate Muslims? Where are they? Where are they?” But we moderates couldn’t get any attention. Now that we’ve gotten attention, I’m accused of being immoderate!

In any crisis there is an opportunity. The challenge we have together is how to deploy ourselves in a way that will capitalize on these opportunities within the window of time we have so we can leverage the voice of the moderates – not only to address the causes that have fueled extremism, but enable the moderates to wage a war against the extremists.

Ninety-nine-plus percent of Muslims all over the world, I assure you, absolutely, totally find extremism abhorrent. Let there be no mistake, Islam categorically rejects the killing of innocent people. Terrorists violate the sanctity of human life and corrupt the meaning of our faith. In no way do they represent our religion. And we must not let them define us. Radical extremists would have us believe in a worldwide battle between Muslims and nonMuslims. That idea is false. The real battlefront today is not between Muslims and nonMuslims, but moderates of all faith traditions against the extremists of all faith traditions.

What has been so heartwarming to me (during the crisis over the community center) has been the tidal wave of people all across America who have inundated us with offers of help.

Emphasis mine, but this emphasis should be **everyone's**.