Moderate Muslims: leave it alone

The Chicago Tribune had a very interesting article about something we’re not hearing much of these days: moderate Muslims.

"Our duty is not to go out and scream and burn buildings," Busool told worshipers at the American Legion Memorial Civic Center, where prayers were held while the Morton Grove mosque is under construction. "We can talk to them in a nice manner about what our prophet means to us."

In stark contrast to angry protests by Muslims worldwide, imams throughout the Chicago area have echoed Busool's words, extolling the Muslim community to respond to ridicule with respect and to educate non-Muslims about Islam.

Muslims attribute the peaceful response to the Danish cartoons to their position as assimilated American citizens whose leaders have developed peaceful channels to fight for the rights of their community. Despite isolated incidents of bigotry, Muslims here say they don't feel the same degree of discrimination as their peers in countries such as Denmark and France.

And unlike Muslims in countries across Asia, American Muslims aren't harboring frustrations against repressive and undemocratic regimes, they say.
… In Chicago, Muslim leaders plan to hold a town hall meeting next week to talk about Islam's view of the prophets, including Jesus and Moses, who are also revered in Islam, and what Muhammad means to Muslims and why Islam prohibits depicting him.
"You want to pick on something, pick on something else," said Musa Qutub, the imam of the Islamic Information Center of America in Prospect Heights. "Don't pick on [God's] messengers."
In Europe, they felt frustrated at being treated as second-class citizens.
Madhat Darwish, 47, said he understood the violent protests in Asian countries, , but he felt that Muslims would have been better off ignoring the Danish cartoons.
"If you leave it alone, the issue will die," he said.

Yes, please, let’s leave this alone. That includes radical Muslims abroad and radical Islamophobes and racists in the U.S. too.