Here is Salim Mansur writing at American Thinker:
The month of Ramadan just begun for Muslims is not merely about the rigors of fasting and prayers, it is also about meditating on man’s responsibility in this world and accountability in the next. One of the most urgent issues for Muslims at the present time is take responsibility for those who commit violence against innocent people in the name of Islam, and unequivocally repudiate them and their theology that defiles Islam and makes a mockery of God’s revelation to Muhammad that first occurred, as tradition records, in the month of Ramadan.
But nearly fifteen years after 9/11 and counting, Muslims in America as elsewhere remain in denial of Islam’s role (or a perverse theological rendition of Islam) in the terrorist violence that spread from the Middle East around the world. This explains in part why any expectation that so-called “moderate” Muslims in sufficient numbers will publicly repudiate their religious compatriots who engage in terrorism as an act of religious obligation, or jihad (holy war), has not materialized yet and likely will not unless there is some significant change in majority American view of Islam that presses upon Muslims.
The emergence of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for the presidential election in November could be the spur for a sufficient number of Muslims, if they have courage and imagination, to break from their past. A Trump presidency might well facilitate the making of an American Islam as an effective counterweight to political Islam, or Islamism, that has been ruinous for Muslims everywhere in modern times.
Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims last December “from entering the United States until our representatives can figure out what is going on” followed the Muslim rampage of terror and murder in San Bernardino, California, on December 2, 2015, and the horrific terrorist attacks several weeks earlier in Paris. This suggestion of Trump at a minimum is a prudent choice in defending Americans against those who wish to do them harm.
There is no sign of Islamist terrorism ebbing in the near future. Instead, in the Arab-Muslim world Islamist terrorism has become a daily occurrence, destroying whatever little remains of a culture and civilization that once rivaled that of ancient Rome and Persia.
Trump’s candidacy offers Muslims in America a rare opportunity to take the stage as American Muslims, and repudiate Islamism publicly and categorically.
But why with Trump?
It is because Trump refuses to coddle Muslims, or Islam, in America. In an interview with Anderson Cooper of CNN during the Republican primaries Trump said, “I think Islam hates us.” He went on to state the war America has been waging since 9/11 is against radical Islam, but it is “very hard to define. It’s very hard to separate. Because you don’t know who’s who.” This leaves an opportunity for Trump to acknowledge difference between Islam and radical Islam, but the onus remains upon Muslims to illustrate that difference by their conduct. Hence, only American Muslims, by renouncing Islamism, might have some credibility in engaging positively with Trump.
Read more: American Thinker
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