We are not on the ‘straight path’

DEAR councillor Yagyah Adams.

You say I am not a scholar and what right do I have to speak. Well, the marry-the-rapist law, female genital mutilation, honour killings, other misogynistic laws, certain tribal laws, etc, were inserted into the Fiqh (Islamic Law) via the Usul (principle of jurisprudence) called Urf (custom) by who else but the Ulema (scholars).

You say I need a mandate from the community to speak. God gave me that mandate when He said “Read” (Qur’an 96.1) which also means to think and to speak. You ask God daily in your prayers to “guide us to the straight path” (Qur’an 1.6).

Then you say I am arrogant when I say the Muslims don’t know where the straight path is. A contradiction.

The fact that we Muslims are 1.6 billion strong, control a huge strategic land mass, own 70% of the world’s oil reserves and we are still unable to protect our women and children and provide jobs to the suffering millions show we are not on the straight path.

You say I am a self-hating Muslim, then the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) must have been the biggest self-hating Muslim when he said: “There shall come a time when you (the Muslims) will be numerous, but will be like foam on the sea, easily blown away.”

You say my knowledge of history is suspicious, but have not contradicted any of the facts I have provided to bolster my argument that we Muslims were the greatest and most successful colonial power on earth.

You say I despise the Africans, but tell me how criticism of ANC corruption and ineptitude translates to racism. You say I am a naive admirer of the West after I said the Muslims mass migrate to the West because of superior employment, infrastructure, health and education opportunities there.

You say I have no community credentials. Ask the 3 000 children and their parents whom I have educated in my high school from 1986 to 2004 at great personal sacrifice. And I started the first Islamic party in South Africa in 1992, the forerunner of the existing crop of Islamic parties after receiving threatening phone calls, rotten tomatoes thrown on my stoep and public vilification.

Anything else?