There are a number of countries and organizations that actively sponsor dialogue between Islam and the West, a dialogue in which I had been somehow involved for over thirty years or more, until I reached a conclusion that I have been resisting and which has been there facing me and haunting me for years: the bottom-line of this conclusion is that we have been focusing on what is important and but that we have left out the most important issue, which is dialogue among Muslims themselves. I was shocked last week when I read about a shadowy student gang at the Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, accused of murdering, torturing and raping fellow students, and killing professors and administrators, i.e., the worst possible crimes that can ever be committed in the cradle of the world's civilizations. Then I read about the suicide bombing which targeted a university in Islamabad, and which prevailed over the news of the daily terrorist attacks taking place in Muslim countries. I have never fathomed that we would descend to such lows as murdering students, or science and knowledge themselves; in fact, I wrote a very harsh article in reaction but put its publication off for another time because I have learned not to write in anger. Then this week, I also read that a bombing in Baghdad has left hundreds of dead and injured, and that the occupation soldiers have stormed the Haram al-Sharif [Holy Shrine], desecrating its yard and attacking the worshippers there. If the reader wishes, he can turn his television set on with the publication of this article today, and switch it to Al-Arabiya or Al-Jazeera to see for himself the news of the wars of the Muslims against each other, where the news ticker at the bottom of the screen has effectively become an obituary of this nation. Meanwhile, ask any Arab or Muslims, from Morocco to Indonesia, who do they think are the enemies of Arabs and Muslims, and the answer will mostly be: Israel and America. (However, American's image has improved a lot since Barack Obama was elected President). A pollster or otherwise will not hear any Arabs or Muslims, among the other few answers, saying that the enemy of Arabs and Muslims are within. Nonetheless, denying the problem will only mean that it will persist and build up until it threatens the future of our entire nation; but is there a future for this nation anyway? I feel as if we have accepted failure, or defeat, as a way of life, and that we have become like a people that has been afflicted by an earthquake, but where each of whom runs for his life without caring to help others. If Israel, America, the NATO or even Russia and China are the enemy, then how can we ever face this enemy or achieve victory against it when our main concern is the Niqab [veil] and the Hijab [headscarf] or tight jeans, or finding inexistent religious excuses to further oppress women and deny them their rights (the Taliban attack girls' schools, and yet there are those who support this cave mentality outside of Afghanistan). I am writing today about a subject that I know a great deal about, since I have a decades-old experience in reconciling Islam and Christianity in particular, and all religions as well. This started with Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and Prince Hassan, the Jordanian Crown Prince at the time, and then continued with Prince Charles, Prince Turki al-Faysal, then Princess Lulua al-Faisal and Lord Carey who was once the Archbishop of Canterbury. As such, I have attended countless conferences tackling the reconciliation between religions from America to the Gulf, and Turkey and Europe. However, all good intentions collapse on the rocks of reality, which is that the Muslims have many foreign enemies, and all those who deny that are probably collaborators with that enemy. However, their greatest enemy is within, and all those who deny this danger to Islam and Muslims are accomplices to the crime against their religion and nation. We cannot convince Christians, Jews, Buddhists, the Shinto and others that we have peaceful intentions towards them, if we did not have peaceful intentions towards each other in the first place. In Afghanistan, and in the border with Pakistan, the Americans may kill in one raid 25 Muslims, more or less, and in Palestine, the occupation soldiers may murder a woman, a child or an old man on his way to praying in Al-Aqsa mosque; however, hundreds and thousands of Muslims who are being killed day after day, and week after week and month after month, are being murdered by Muslims in terrorist attacks that have gone completely out of control, and against which no one is firmly standing up, or fighting against with the necessary determination, perseverance and strength to completely defeat them. The most painful thing about this subject is that Islamic terrorists are only a small minority among Muslims; yet, the majority of Muslims fail to defeat those hypocritical, and humanely and religious retarded criminal groups who found that killing “Jews and Crusaders” has become difficult, and thus turned to murdering Muslims as an easier target. The situation is difficult, and is on the brink of catastrophe. While I do not call for a halt in the dialogue with other religions, since this is inherently important, I find that all the efforts to reconcile religions will go to waste, if Muslims did not participate as a united and unified group that both obeys the creator and honours the rights of his creatures (especially his [female] creatures). As such, I suggest that we should focus on an Inter-Islamic dialogue first, where success would be the first step of the one thousand mile journey towards achieving success in the other dialogue.
