Muslims, the West share blame for radicalism

What happened in Paris on Nov. 13 is a tragedy of global proportions. As an American Muslim, I feel deeply disturbed by the devastation caused by radical Islamism globally and by the appalling silence of the Muslim community.

To begin with, there is nothing more insulting to the philosophy of Islam than the Islamic State. It is highly disappointing to see how a group of thugs with no concept of Islam murder innocent civilians in the name of God. As one study reveals, “(a) large number of those involved in terrorism … lack religious literacy and could ... be regarded as religious novices.”

Quran explicitly orders to “take no life, which Allah hath made sacred, except by way of justice and law” (6:151). Religious terrorism – murdering innocent civilians in the name of Islam – is banned in Quran. Thus, the problem of radical Islamism should not be blamed on Islam.

Nevertheless, it is time to admit that the emergence of ISIS happened with the silent approval of many predominantly Muslim countries and communities. For too long the Muslim world has lacked political leadership to ostracize radical Islamists. In fact, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait have provided support to radical Islamists in Iraq and Syria.

Here in the West, when thousands of young Muslims left their homes to fight for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, local Muslim leaders did little to prevent this mass exodus. They failed to work closely with local and national stakeholders to educate and counsel the at-risk youth among their Muslim congregation.

Furthermore, the same Muslim leaders did not reach out to their non-Muslim peers in the communities where they lived to explain that ISIS and radical Islamism were totally opposite of the nature of Islam.

As a result, on one hand Muslims who live in the West have developed marginalized lifestyles not compatible with Western democratic values and, on the other hand, such phenomenon gave rise to Islamophobia among non-Muslims. In such an environment, we have fostered mutual ignorance and fears of the communal other.

But all of us are also guilty for the Paris attacks. And here is why.

Our political leaders in the West have spent billions of dollars on wars in the Middle East with poor understanding of the history and culture of the countries we invaded. We promised to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan, but instead we left behind dysfunctional, failed countries with weak state institutions.

Democracy and peace cannot be built overnight. It took more than 200 years to build our own democracy in the U.S. Yet we mistakenly thought that the Arab Spring revolutions could provide a fast-track to democracy to Muslim nations.

Our foreign policy response to conflicts in the Middle East was short-sighted as we rushed to provide cash and weapons to little-known rebel leaders with questionable political allegiances.

During my graduate research, I studied how financial and military support provided to political entrepreneurs – and ISIS is one such example – helps to escalate the violence instead of solving the conflict. Every violent conflict creates traumatized, marginalized and radicalized individuals who will be ready to fight in the next war.

Today, while we mourn the victims of the Paris attacks, we need to rethink our strategies on war against radical Islamism. We should allocate more funding for interreligious dialogue and educational exchange programs domestically and internationally.

We need to establish policies that will integrate Muslims into our social and political structures. Such policies will help us to identify Muslim leaders who will bring peace and offer reconciliation among global religions.

We should vote for political leaders who do not promise us to build walls, but instead support those who will build bridges between cultures and religions. And we have to prevent Islamophobia on political, communal and personal levels.

ISIS is not a product of divine creation, and its rise does not have to lead to the clash of civilizations. Religious radicalism is a constructed phenomenon rooted in our own political, social and economic failures.

From this point of view, it is not too late to alter the course of our history and channel it into a more peaceful direction. Such an effort will require a multidimensional, collective response on a global level.

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 3:49 AM with the headline "Muslims, the West share blame for radicalism."