Itani warned that taking the word “Islam” out of the discussion “makes the conflict appear much less complicated than it is, which in turn makes it easier for Western governments to pursue shallow policies toward jihadist Islamism.” This has been seen so far, he said, by a U.S. strategy that seems to consist largely of air strikes, “
with no thought to the milieu in which [jihadists] operate, as if they are some anomaly from Mars that has nothing to do with the dire state of Muslim civilization.”
The discussion about the state of Muslim civilization is already much more audacious in small pockets of the Middle East than any discussion being had in the United States, including by Muslim-Americans. From a small but growing
trend of
atheism, to Egyptian preachers like Islam al-Buhairi, who openly defy the strict austere interpretation of the Quran, or television
anchors daring enough to call attention to the content of sermons by Saudi preachers, there is no shortage of candid voices on the issue. After a string of attacks against Shiite mosques in the kingdom earlier this year, Saudis even
openly debated the role of clerics in stoking sectarianism with extremist religious rhetoric. Saudi commentator Ibrahim Shaalan tweeted in Arabic, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State,
Daesh, that
the group’s “actions are but an epitome of what we’ve studied in our school curriculum. If the curriculum is sound, then Daesh is right, and if it is wrong, then who bears responsibility?”
