A Message for Jews and Christians
By John Alden Williams
Professor Emeritus
College of William & Mary at Williamsburg
Virginia

 

ISIS/Daesh with its spurious claim to be the Caliphate, the successor to the Prophet of Islam, threatens Muslims first of all.  It also seeks to sow hatred between them and Christians, believing that an American or European incursion in the Middle East will solidify Muslim warfare against a new Crusade.  It also seeks to carry its terrorist activities to other countries, e.g. Russia and France.   It does not represent Islam:  Muslims have been the first victims of its cruelty and violence.  Muslim nations, Europeans and Americans need to stop their incessant jockeying for advantages in the Middle East, and link hands to eradicate this common threat, immediate as rabid dogs. Francois Hollande is exactly right: it must be destroyed without mercy.  

Christians and Jews need to recognize that Islam and Muslims are not their enemy. Muslims worship the God of Abraham, see Moses as one of the great teachers of humankind mentioned repeatedly in the Qur'an, and follow a law very similar to that of   halakha; certainly influenced by it. 

Muslims refer to Jesus as "the Messiah," and venerate his virgin mother as "purified above all women" ( sic  in Qur'an). Women in particular pray to her as the great model and intercessor (some whom I have met do that every day).

It is cruel to suspect all Muslims as being terrorists, and tragic that some countries want to exclude the Syrian victims of ISIS on the justifiable suspicion that terrorists may have slipped among them.  Even in the US, which has taken in only a few more than 2000 of the Syrian and Iraqi refugees, mostly from camps in Jordan and Lebanon, some people would like to exclude all Muslim immigrants from the Middle East.  This would be quite simply immoral, wrong and contrary to American values.