al-Rashad Update

I finally found the original text (in Arabic, so the translation won't appear for a while). The link to the column only had al-Rashad's picture, not his name, so it took me a while to figure out where I was supposed to look. But it's there, and some of the comments are in English, so I'll post some of the highlights from that right away.

"I totallt agree with you. I can't imagin myself being a Muslim, and what those pepole doing is just killing and killing for no understandable reason. They disfigure Islam as a peacefull religion. They don't belong to us. They are the new (khawareg). We have to do something to save what is left form our image if we really want to go somewhere." - Waddah, USA (De-capitalization mine. I'm unsure about "khawareg," but I'm looks like the root is kh-r-g, suggesting apostates, those who have gone out of Islam).

"Good article. But I can't believe that any intelligent person, much less a TV executive, would claim that 'all terrorists are Muslims.' What were you thinking when you chose this clumsy title? Anyway, I agree with you on the serious problem concerning those self-appointed religious leaders who take bloodshed lightly. Their claims are not consistent with the basics of Islam .." - Abbas, USA

"CNN, North America, just mentioned your article in its Saturday coverageHope many other journalists follow your example in honesty and courageAnd those readers who keep justifying our violence with the Israeli and American injustice excuse better think again about how they can link Sharon's actions to killing those Russian children or the Spanish civilians before them" - Camille-Alexandre, Canada (Joke's on you, Camille. Several Muslim leaders have already blamed the Beslan massacre on the Jews).

"I Agree with you somehow.However, i think it's wrong to say that all terrorists are muslims. How do you define terrorism? and what about state terrorism?American in Iraq, israeli in Palestine, Russian in Chechenia and so on?how do you call this? i want just a name...... TERROSISM isn't it" - Ridha, France (To be fair, Ridha's question, "how do you define terrorism," is a lot trickier than it might look at first glance).

"I agree with you that alot of terrorists today in this world are Muslims. And they do give the wrong impression about Islam to the non-Muslim world, but lets look at the reasons why these Muslims commit such terrorist acts. It is basically because of the injustice we have today in our Islamic world. Our brothers in Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Chechnya and many other parts of the Islamic world. We watch those people die everyday and we do nothing about, and then grows the thought of 'we should do something ' which leads to all this terrorism since nothing else could be done . if we did the right thing from the first place then non of that would have ever happened. but I guess you forgot to write about that Mr.AlrashedOne more point is that you don't have enough knowledgein Islam to attack great Islamic scholars like sheikh Yoseff al-qaradawi even if they are wrong" - Mohammed, ON, Canada (Mohammed doesn't seem to realize that injustice does not inevitably breed terrorism, and therefore terrorisim is not excused by the presence of injustice. "We should do something about it" does not automatically translate into "I'm going to strap a bomb belt onto this fifteen-year-old kid and send him on to a bus").

"Congratulations. I did not read any Arabic article for the last few years because I gave up, All we used to read or hear was justification of terror Our media is to blame,mainly some satellite channels.We must be clear that terror has no justification . We look like a nation commiting suecide .The image of Islam has been badly damaged" - Mona Nablusi, UK (You go, girl. And incidentally, her last name suggests she's from the Israeli city of Nablus. Fancy that).

"Mr. Rashid; thank you for this article, you are absolutely right; many Muslims keep justifying our violence with the western injustice. Muslims have to examine themselves and stop blaming external forces for their misfortunes. They have to fight to change their government’s systems; fight for real democracy, freedom and human right inside their societies. Since Islam is based on these principles, Islam is never based on monarchy system, prophet was not a king. I believe that the problem is inside the Islamic world and not in the west. The western societies did not gain the doctrine of democracy and freedom from the outside, they did not blame any one, but they fought for it inside their societies...they were wise, strong and brave... so why Muslims do not fallow the same path?" Selly Amrane, UK (This author refers to "our violence." It's refreshing to see people taking responsibility like that).

I'll get a translation when I can, as well as a translation of some of the Arabic-language comments. Also, I found an article by Fahmi Hawidi entitled "Muslims are the most terrorized ... and the most deaf to terrorism ... but why?"