Gainesville Florida Leads the Way
By Dr. Basheer A. Khan
Garden Grovr, CA
The aphorism that the best of the laws fail due to bad execution and the bad ones deliver when applied with care was proved right in Gainesville , Florida where the City officials acted wisely by using an unrelated law to deny permit to a local church to burn copies of The Holy Qur’an to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11. The Dove World Outreach Center (DWOC) of Gainesville Florida had given this call to burn copies of Qur’an. The call got wide publicity through Cable News and Social networking sites creating a problem for the city of Gainesville besides creating a challenge to the improving image of the United States in the Muslim world.
While Mayor Craig Lowe of Gainesville was prompt and forthright in condemning this call, his Fire Chief, Gene Prince, denied to DWOC permit to carry on this event under Gainesville burning ordinance that forbids burning of books, newspaper, corrugated cardboard, container board, or office paper to prevent the Dove World Outreach Center from burning the Holy Qur’an. The DWOC seems to be undeterred by this denial of permit and wants to go ahead with the planned event on 9/11. If the City of Gainesville will do anything more to stop this fringe group from committing this act of grave provocation that is bound to hurt the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims around the world other than slapping the threatened fine remains to be seen.
Reasonable people of all faiths have been unequivocal in condemning this decision of DWOC. In the absence of suitable laws this condemnation by the people of reason will have no effect on people who are determined to go ahead with their nefarious plans to achieve their ulterior objectives. In the civilized world we have laws to protect the rights of everything and everyone, but we have no laws to protect the scriptures and prophets from sacrilege by those who don’t believe in them. British laws make an exception, but this is exclusive to the objects related to Christianity. While Europe has mustered consensus to enact legislation on non-issues like head scarf and burqa, it lacks the will to legislate laws against blasphemy. Under the guise of honest disagreement and freedom of speech, blasphemy is getting encouragement and pushing Europe to its barbaric past.
The organized movement to discredit religion is not restricted to anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiments espoused by organizations like DWOC, etc; it also exists against other religions, religious figures and scripture and is aimed at expelling religion from Public Square to promote greed and lascivious lifestyles in society.
In July of 2001, PBS aired a documentary “ Roman Civilization in First Century AD” in which lot of venom was spewed at Jesus (peace be upon him). His miraculous birth , and his claims to link with God were ridiculed. He was acknowledged as an ordinary Jewish preacher who rose to fame by challenging Roman and religious authority of the time. His teachings were unfairly criticized by explanations that were totally out of context. The limit was that this noble prophet of God was branded as a rebel, and a traitor of the Roman Empire .
As a serious student of Qur’an I revere Jesus as much as Muhammad (peace be upon them) for the sacrifices which he and his mother Mary made to save mankind from the malady of faithlessness and greed. It was impossible for me to ignore this blasphemy against him. The professor of history in the department of theology at Harvard , who spearheaded this attack against Jesus and in defense of the Roman Empire to justify the attempted crucifixion in the most devious way, was promptly mailed a letter of protest by me.
Most of the Christians and Jews are unaware that Qur’an has instilled in Muslims the deep love of Jesus and all the prophets of the tribe of Israel by narrating their stories again and again. Our Christian and Jewish brothers are unaware of the fact that Prophet Muhammad SA and Qur’an are the fulfillment of the prophesy made in The Old Testament (Genesis Ch21 V13 and 18, Deuteronomy Ch 18 V 18) and in The New Testament (John Ch 16 V 12 – 14). Muslims have failed in highlighting these facts. How could Muslims do this when the only thing that they know about these scriptures is to respect them as the revealed books and not read them and understand them?
Whatever may be the reason behind 9/11, the Qur’an has nothing to do with it. In fact it was the lack of its proper understanding that has resulted in this. What is needed is to understand the Qur’an in its correct perspective instead of burning it. Consciousness of man has reached a level where it is able to understand that in the war of ideas and ideals all ideas and ideals are essential to compete with each other so that good stands out for its merit by comparison. Those who ban and burn an idea, or espouse one by the force are telling by their actions that they are afraid of losing this war of ideas.
September 11 was a horrible day enacted by those who wanted to create a permanent gulf between religions, peoples and cultures. Acts like burning of the Qur’an are not a befitting way to commemorate this solemn day because it aids these infamous characters in achieving their goal.
God-fearing and peace-loving people of nation states emerging from the demise of The Roman Empire faced immense persecution at the hands of their governments in collusion with the dark forces of “religion”. Inquisition of Galileo and the reform movement of Martin Luther are a legacy of that period. They fled this persecution to reach the safe shores of Americas, but so did their tormentors. They made USA a Judeo-Christian State for name's sake, but shunned God from its public square and private lives.
Tablets of Ten Commandments are out from the premises of Alabama court building. There is a campaign to expunge the word God from the oath of allegiance. Sanctity of marriage is being desecrated against popular will by the judges who want to push back the US to the period of Gomorrah. Competing theory of creation is forced out of the classroom in favor of evolution to shut the young mind from the thought of God so that the morality associated with God consciousness does not impose any restrictions on their unjust desires. Greed of the corporations and The Wall Street is eating away the productive vitality of our honest and hard working workers much against the teachings of Jesus who crusaded against this greed. Devout Christians and Jews are extremely perturbed at the way their values are being vandalized by those that are entrenched in position of authority. Muslims who share these Judeo-Christian values are their natural partner in their endeavor to restore the tenets on which this nation was established. By spreading misinformation and provoking hatred against the Qur’an and the Muslims these forces of greed and immorality are trying to weaken the bond of unity between Jews, Christians and Muslims in this fight between God and Godlessness, between morality and immorality and between greed and justice.
John Adam has said: “ Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other”. With the irreligious people taking control of our institutions it becomes essential that the religious forces of all denominations unite to make the Constitution work for the advancement of moral and religious values not only in the United States of America but in the whole world. And this will be a befitting memory to all the sacrifices made since 9/11.
