Who Is Right?

From FoxNews:

A report posted on Islam Watch, a site run by Muslims who oppose intolerant teachings and hatred for unbelievers, exposes a prominent Islamic cleric and lawyer who support extreme punishment for non-Muslims — including killing and rape. A question-and-answer session with Imam Abdul Makin in an East London mosque asks why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters, according to Islam Watch. "Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet," the Imam says, according to the report. "If you don't believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain." The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam's position, saying that all Muslims are innocent. "You are innocent if you are a Muslim," Choudary tells the BBC. "Then you are innocent in the eyes of God. If you are not a Muslim, then you are guilty of not believing in God." Choudary said he would not condemn a Muslim for any action. "As a Muslim, I must support my Muslim brothers and sisters," Choudary said. "I must have hatred to everything that is not Muslim."

On what basis, or on what authority, will voices of moderation in the Muslim community argue against Choudary's exegesis of Islamic teaching? The all-important and frustratingly unresolved question of authority within Islam continues to surface in this debate. Certainly, injunctions to violence in the name of Allah can be discerned in the Koran. How can cooler Muslim heads explain away such conspicuous embarrassments in their holy book? The situation becomes even more sticky when we observe the kind of radicalism found in Choudary. From a Christian point of view, it is deeply embarrassing, scandalous even, that such theological/doctrinal divisions dog our community in the eyes of the world. At least these divisions, however bitter and deep, are hashed out in arena debate and dialogue, not in violent bloodbaths (at least not in contemporary times). And nowhere in Scripture can a citation be offered that gives the earnest believer carte blanche to resort to violence in the name of Christianity. It goes without saying that the same cannot be said of the Koran.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,344409,00.html