Rep. Mike Pompeo Delivers Strong Floor Speech Calling on Imams to Disavow Terrorism/Jihad

An excellent speech by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) on the floor of the House yesterday, where he recounted the series of violent jihad attacks that have taken place since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and highlights the need for Islamic clerics to specifically, and theologically, denounce and refute terror attacks. He also recounted how many of the so-called leading Islamic organizations (meaning of course the Muslim Brotherhood fronts such as CAIR, ISNA, etc) have so far failed to do so convincingly.

This was a daring, and greatly necessary speech, and hats off to Rep. Mike Pompeo.

But alongside insisting that clerics, Islamic legal scholars, and Muslim outreach groups make these denunciations, we must also be mindful that we aren’t snookered by nice-sounding platitudes that have no legal basis in the Sharia, and so carry no weight, or worse, actually mean the opposite of what they seem to mean at first glance.

Denunciations of “terrorism of all kinds”  must be unsatisfactory, while specific denunciations of the doctrines of Jihad would be ideal, particularly if given added weight by recognizing that Islamic understanding of jihad includes specifically warfare against non-believers (Reliance of the Traveller, O.9), and  denunciations of the obligation to provide Zakat (charity) to those conducting Jihad. (Reliance, H 8.17)

After all it does no good to elicit these public comments, if when those speaking say they denounce “terrorism” they mean they denounce “the killing of a Muslim without right,” (Reliance, 0 1.0) which under the Sharia is a crime which calls for obligatory retaliation, and is also in part the justification for  numerous attacks on U.S. and other western troops. Otherwise, while claiming to denounce “terrorism”, Islamic leaders may in fact be denouncing America’s policy of fighting terrorists, just in coded language.

Sadly, perhaps the first test of whether clerics or community leaders are speaking honestly and openly may be the treatment they receive at the hands of more virulent co-religionists. Take for instance the case of Hamed Abdel-Samad, an Islamic studies scholar who has been marked for death for his dream of an Islam, “without sharia or jihad, without gender apartheid.”

That’s exactly the sort of frank speech that we ought to be looking for and that Rep. Pompeo’s speech calls for. In the cases where we receive, we need to be prepared to applaud (and more importantly protect) such speakers.