As Americans remember and honor the victims of the Islamic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, life reminds us all how vulnerable we really are. On that day, the world we live in appeared an obscure and dull place, filled with pockets of disasters where men are easily the victims.
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The tragic and catastrophic events of September 11, 2001 have affected me tremendously. I felt a temptation to scream and run to the end of the world and say my prayers with unusual earnestness and a heavy heart. I felt like screaming for the overflowing flood of human blood. I felt like screaming for the weary eyes and innocent moans of the victims’ families. I felt apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. And now, as I take up my pen, my hand trembles and my head swims with horror and disbelief at the magnitude of the human devastation. Yet, the world will go on as usual.
During the events of September 11, 2001, Americans stood still and watched the most horrific events unfolding right in front of their eyes. They were very traumatized by the events. Many people came and told the reporters of how they saw the flesh on dead people and they were so scared. Americans watched, prayed and hoped, searching for an answer, a comfort and strength to pass those tumultuous moments. September 11, 2001 proved, unlike anything else in recent American history, that everyday people do extraordinary caring things. September 11th was the day that ordinary people became heroes. Heroes appear when circumstances call upon them. Heroes are those extraordinary people who make sacrifices and become agents of historical and social change.
In perspective, there is nothing inherently wrong with religion. Religion can be a tremendous force for the good. However, when religion, this feeling-based belief, is filled with superstition, intolerance and hatred, then the beholder of that religion embodies those qualities and becomes a veritable menace to the self and to others. Feelings energize actions. Destructive feelings energize destructive actions.
In short, Islam treats its believers as children irrespective of age. An extensive cadre of mullahs, imams and muftis, who themselves are thoroughly indoctrinated, minister to the children. These professional leeches—the mullahs and imams—systematically program the minds of their charges through liberal use of fear, threats of hell, and occasional promises of eternal life of bliss in Allah’s paradise if they be obedient good children.
What we need to do is to learn our lessons from the September 11th tragedy; learn more of the unethical depths to which human beings may fall and how we can prevent such tragedies from happening again. We need to educate ourselves about Islam and its radical dogma and Islamofascisim.
The bottom-line is that the non-Islamic world has a huge problem on its hands—the ever-encroaching Islam. For as long as there are mosques, madrasehs, and Islamic centers; as long as vast cadres of well-paid, highly indoctrinated and strategically placed mullahs and imams; and, as long as there are people who prefer to be treated as children, Islam will flourish anywhere and will pose an existential threat to unbelievers. All the excuses, grievances and reasons given for savagery of the jihadists and Islamofascists are side issues. Islam itself is the problem.
Islam is so radical that even the term “radical” does not adequately depict its true character. The founder of Islam, Muhammad, behaved in extreme ways whenever he could. Early on, in Mecca, among his tribe of Quraish, he was ridiculed as a crazed Poet. Ordinary residents of Mecca scorned him in their habitual way of treating the mentally deranged. What did Muhammad do? He personified meekness itself. He put up with extreme indignities, did not fight back and suffered abuses.
Time was on Muhammad’s side. Before long, he attracted followers, some of whom were men of power and influence, such as Umar, Uthman and Abu Bakr. Then the pendulum swung. The long-suffering meek became the tyrannical avenger. He ordered all the idols in the idolatry of Mecca destroyed, except the one called Allah. Yet, he selected the same name for a non-corporeal deity who commissioned him as his messenger. Then Allah’s messenger, Muhammad, set out to systematically exterminate people he perceived as his tormentors and enemies—Jews of Medina, among others.
The Quran is full of black and white, right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable verses. Men who didn’t convert to Islam were labeled infidels and slaughtered; their women and children were taken along with all their belongings as booty. It was either Islam’s way or the highway. This radicalism is very much in action today.
On the anniversary of September 11th tragedy, we, free Iranian-Americans, express our deepest sympathy to the families of the victims of the September 11th and we condemn, in the strongest terms, the new coalition of Islamofascists, posing as “moderates” who are planning to build a mega mosque over the graves of murdered Americans.
Amil Imani is the author of the book Obama Meets Ahmadinejad.
