By
SHELDON KIRSHNER, Staff Reporter (
CJN)
TORONTO ? Though Islamic fundamentalism is riding high today, it may be a thing of the past in the future, an American political commentator and academic said last week.
Daniel Pipes
Calling radical Islam a ?temporary' phenomenon and only ?one version of Islam,? Daniel Pipes suggested it may well be supplant ed by moderate Islam further down the road.
?What appears eternal is transient,? said Pipes, the founder and director of Middle East Forum, a conservative think tank, and Campus Watch, which monitors scholarship on the Middle East.
?Things will change,? he added. ?The wheel will turn.?
Pipes' thesis was disputed by Wafa Sultan, a Muslim born and raised in Syria who immigrated to the United Sta tes in 1989 and is now a naturalized U.S. citizen residing in Los Angeles.
A psychiatrist and author, she claim ed that moderate Islam is merely a ?smoke screen' designed to conceal the radical nature of Islam.
Declaring that Islam is neither moderate nor peaceful, Sultan observed, ?We can't reform Islam, but we can reform Muslims.?
This process has begun and will take a few generations, but only Mus lims can defeat radical Islam, said Sul tan, who has criticized Muslim societies for treating non-Muslim minorities badly and
not recognizing the accomplishments of its Jewish citizens.
Pipes and Sultan made their respective comments at an informal debate March 3 at Shaarei Shomayim Congregation sponsored by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.
Pipes, a scholar who holds a Harvard University PhD in Islamic history and has taught there as well, noted with alarm that some western countries are becoming ?Shariah-law friendly' under the
influence of radical Muslims.
He cited Britain as an example.
Positing ?an alternative' to radical Islam, Pipes said there are ?plenty' of mo d erate Muslims.
He cited Tahir ul-Qadri, a prominent Islamic scholar who recently issued a fatwa urging young Mus lims to reject extremism and notions of ?martyrdom.?
Claiming that many Muslims oppose Sha riah law, Pipes said they need the help of non-Mus lims to resist Islamic encroachments.
?We have to encourage them and say, ?You are the true Muslims.??
Radical Islam is the problem, while moderate Islam is the solution, he went on to say.
?To ignore moderates is to ig nore the only real solution to the prob lem,? said Pipes, who has contributed to the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post.
Quoting an Egyptian Muslim cleric, Pipes likened Islam to the multitude of products in a supermarket. ?You can choose whichever [one] you desire.?
Pipes described the present Muslim period, with its eruptions of radical Is lam, as a bleak one. But he reminded his audience that the Muslim world was a haven for persecuted Jewish refugees
prior to 1945. ?Things may well reverse themselves. Who knows' Things change over time.?
Sultan, who has called herself a Mus lim who does not adhere to Islam, was not as hopeful as Pipes.
Having described Islam as a religion and political ideology, Sultan claimed that its objective, as stated in the Qur'an, is to rule the universe under Shariah law.
?That's the essence of Islam, a theologically driven ideology,? said Sultan, the author of A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of
Radical Islam, published last year.
No less a person than the current prime minister of Turkey, Re cep Tay yip Erdogan, is of the view that the phrase ?moderate Islam' is offensive to Islam.
There is only one brand of Islam, she said, referring to Islamic radicalism.
Surveying the arc of Islamic history, Sultan noted that Muhammad, the prophet, was a ?Jew hater,? and that Jews and Christians could only live in Muslim lands on sufferance, provided they paid
special taxes and recognized the primacy of Islam.
