I thought I’d share some happenings coming out of the Middle East that should be filed in the decent folder — which is a welcome respite from all the nasty news we’re accustomed to hearing from the region. It’s about a once-sinister leader of terrorist group Al Jihad (which went on to break off into Al Qaeda) named Dr. Fadl (real name: Sayyid Imam al-Sharif) who essentially became one of the chief instigators of killings in the name of Islamic Jihad by writing an influential – and heavily consequential – book that justifed the mass blood shed that’s enveloped the Middle East and beyond.
In an informative, hopeful piece I just read, Lawrence Wright details how Dr. Fadl, now twenty years after writing his original Islamic doctrine, just wrote a new book denouncing the same violence he originally called for — and in the process, has begun a new discourse on what constitutes the proper behavior of Muslims and how to treat infidels (non-Muslims). From an Egyptian prison, Dr Fadl penned, Rationalizing the Jihadi Action in Egypt and the World. Here’s some decent little nuggets from his new work:
- “We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do that.”
- “There is nothing that invokes the anger of God and His wrath like the unwarranted spilling of blood and wrecking of property.”
- “There is no legal reason for harming people in any way.”
And my personal favorite…
- “On the Day of Judgement, every double-crosser will have a banner up his anus proportionate to his treachery.”
I will let you know that this Dr. Fadl hasn’t totally turned to the decent side — but as Rocky Balboa said at the end of Rocky IV: “If I can be decent, and you can be decent, everyone can be decent!”
