Let's Just All Get Along

"Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the Jews people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Adolf Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers."

- Yusuf Al -Qaradawi, 28 Jan. 2009, Al-Jazeera


Since when are religious leaders allowed to incite the killing of another human being and segregate people by choice of faith? In this day and age, I don't get how people can still endorse the Holocaust. This man, who is considered to be the most respected Islamic ideologist in the world, has set Islam back 200 years and give it a bad name. How can Hitler's killing of the Jews be considered 'divine punishment' when neither Hitler, nor the Nazis, represent divinity?

If that's not enough, his blatant criticism of the Shiites being heretics has probably incited civil wars between the Sunnis and the Shiites, both being of the Muslim faith. So, not only he wants the Muslims to hate the Jews, he also wants them to hate other Muslims from different schools of thought. He knows that there are people who hold on to his every word, those mindless fanatics who live without bothering to think for themselves. Thus, whatever he says can have major consequences on the Muslim world, and how Islam is perceived by the outside world.

If there's one thing in common among the Bahrain Uprising, the Cyprus dispute, the Lebanon conflict, the Bosnian war, the Palestinian war, the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the Liberian conflict, the Mindanao unrest in the Philippines, the South Thailand insurgencies and even the great American War on Terror, it is the use of God's name to justify mass murders (and I don't think it's a coincidence that all of the conflicts stated above involve Muslims). Where religion is supposed to guide people and give solutions, it has become the cause of the problems.

I love Islam and have seen its beauty in depth, but the Muslims are the problem. The hypocrisy, the hate and the intolerance. I've never seen more hypocrites than in my country Malaysia, where people judge people for almost everything and where the holier-than-thou attitude is just widespread. It's like everybody's looking around for bigger sinners than they are. Those who pray five times a day would see others as slacking Muslims. Those who don't pray five times a day would say, "At least I still wear the hijab and cover my aurah." Those who don't wear the hijab would say, "There's no use putting on the hijab if the rest of your outfit is body-hugging." But both would agree that people who drink alcohol are worse than them, and people who drink alcohol would say, "Well as long as I don't eat pork." And those who eat pork would say, "Well what's the use of being a devout Muslim and praying 5 times a day and not eating pork if you're doing it just to show off to people that you're a better Muslim. That's riak (bragging) and the Prophet frowns upon that, it's the worst thing ever," and that brings us back to the devout Muslim who prays 5 times a day and who doesn't eat pork and who judges people who don't perform their 5 daily prayers, and so on and so forth.

In the end, everyone finds a bigger sinner than they are and they'll live happily ever after. The vicious cycle of hypocrisy benefits all Muslims.

So in the words of the aptly named band War, "Why can't we be friends?"