Pamela Geller Attempts to Make a Point, Muslims Shrug

by Sheila Musaji

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs posted an article today responding to my article on Phyllis Chessler. 

As could be expected she doesn’t understand how I could possibly say anything negative about Chessler’s article.  Geller calls me a “tool of jihad” who is tearing a “truthteller apart” while doing nothing for my sisters.  However, she does not directly address any of the specific points that I made in my article.

Geller attempts to make a point but her logic backfires.  She says ”Who better understands the subjugation demanded of shariah law than a Muslim woman?” I am a Muslim woman, and I would agree with her that I certainly understand shariah law and Islam better than she does (or Phyllis Chessler does), but I don’t think that is the point she was trying to make.

Not in relation to anything that I wrote in my article she brings up the supposed Muslim belief in a dar al Islam, dar al Harb division of the world - repeating this false charge against Islam that is made over and over again by Islamophobes.  If you don’t have something to say make something up is a favored tactic.  Have none of these people ever heard of dar al Hudna (place of truce) or Dar al Ahd (place of treaty) or Dar al Amn (place of safety) and if not, why not.  I for one would consider the United States as Dar al Islam because it is a place where a Muslim can practice his/her religion freely (and that is the basic definition for dar al Islam).  I have never met an American Muslim who thought America fell into the category of dar al Harb, and if there are any they need to immediately leave because they don’t belong here, and according to their belief must do Hijra (migration) to a place of truce, treaty or safety.

Tariq Ramadan is one scholar among many who rejects a “binary separation of the world into dar al-Islam (the abode of Islam) and dar al-harb (the abode of war), since such separation was never mentioned in the Qur’an. He believes that European Muslims could be said to live in dar al-Dawa (space of testimony) in which Muslims are “witnesses before mankind” and are forced to consider the fundamental principles of Islam and take responsibility for their faith. He emphasizes a Muslim’s responsibility to his community, whether it be Islamic or not. He criticizes the ‘us vs. them’ mentality that some Muslims advocate against the West.”

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani sent a fatwa to Muslims in the West in which he said in part: “Muslims have undertaken to obey the laws of the country of their residence and thus they must be faithful to that undertaking”.  It condemned all acts of violence and encouraged imams to keep a watchful eye on what’s going on inside their mosques.  ”Any Muslim man or woman must act in the best interests of his or her country of residence by protecting it from all acts that might put this country in jeopardy.”

The determination to seperate the world into US and THEM seems to be much more prevalent among Christians in the West than among Muslims.

She closes with:  “Meanwhile, these sanctimonious tools, enjoy all the luxurious freedoms that America provides (free to express their seditious opinions, they fail to compute they are not going to like what comes after America).”

Which is puzzling to me as I am an American, born and raised and of course enjoy the freedoms that America provides and wish only to see those freedoms preserved for all Americans.  This is not sedition but patriotism.

I agree with T.O. Shanavas who said in an article on The American Muslim site:  “American Muslims must struggle along with the rest of Americans against any threat from external or internal forces that endanger our re-discovered freedom.  We must struggle for a better America without abridging freedom.  America may not be the perfect utopia of Christians or Muslims, or of anybody else, but it is the most resilient nation in the contemporary world.  Muslim Americans joining hands with the rest of Americans, without impinging on the freedom of others, must strive to make America a greater nation that it is now.  The free Muslims of America know that America and American freedom must be protected and preserved at any cost if Muslims want to practice Islam as each Muslim understands it, not as authoritarians such as monarchs or religious bigots choose to enforce it.  Finally, I thank Allah (sw) for creating America where my faith rules my heart and liberal democracy rules my “meat and blood” without anyone forcing me to conform my Islamic practices to anyone else’s Islam or vice versa.  May God Bless America and help us make it better and freer nation.”