Tom Facchine – Minute with a Muslim #256 – On Abrahamic Alliances – A Muslim Response

			If a Christian were to approach us as Muslims with sort of an olive branch and heart constructive
criticism and say, you know, we as people of faith need to be working together Christians and Jews
and Muslims, People of the Book people of Revelation, people who believe in theology and believe in
a monotheistic God, we need to work together. Because there are bigger threats out there. There are
threats that are seeking to eliminate our ability to practice our faith is entirely people in forces
who don't subscribe to any theological position, or at least imagine themselves as not subscribing
to any theological position. And also, as Muslims, we should just put aside our animosity,
		

			supposedly, or alleged animosity towards other faith groups and work together against this common
enemy. I think as Muslims, we can appreciate this olive branch and the sentiment, especially since
we believe as Muslims in personal accountability. And this is something that draws us to the content
and works of many people, people who even aren't simply Muslims, because we believe in taking
account of ourselves and we believe in developing our own individual capacity to act ethically in
the world. And we believe that through that ethical capacity, we are able to transform the world.
However, to reduce everything, the source of our problems as Muslims to the individuals inability to
		

			act ethically, or individual grudges, or even the inability for Muslims to put aside their
grievances, supposedly, with other faith traditions, is a mistake is a mistake that goes against
history and shows an ignorance of politics and is actually indicative of kind of a Christian ethos
not simply in the person, the identity of the person who's speaking but in the overemphasis on the
individual and the relative ignorance of the collective dynamics because as Muslims, our grievances,
and are squabbles with other actors and states, and people are not simply about quote unquote,
trinkets and details, they're issues that go back to life and death, blood, money, land, territory,
		

			colonization, and even beyond all of those things. If that weren't bad enough, the attempt to change
our religion from the outside and to subvert us and undermine our entire way of life. So we can
appreciate the olive branch and the extension of an offer to work together. But we would point out
and respond that it has to be genuine and it has to redress these historical wrongs, especially from
people who set themselves up as spokespeople for Western civilization, there needs to be a
reckoning, if we as Muslims need to have a reckoning with our own sort of suppose it alleged
animosity with other faith traditions, then people who admire and consider themselves acting through
		

			Western civilization need to have a reckoning with their own colonial past and colonial history,
their own imperialism and imposition of a certain way of life on other people largely in the Muslim
world, but also beyond. We also need to be very careful to not assume that every single instance
that claims to be a an initiative of this sort of an Abrahamic alliance of Christians and Jews and
Muslims working together and interfaith initiative, we cannot assume that every single one has been
done in good faith because we've reached a time in history where political actors are contriving and
cooking up such initiatives with a particular intent to whitewash their own tyranny, and not just
		

			their own tyranny, but their own oppression of Muslims and their own initiatives to change the
religion of Islam from the inside. So we would welcome a genuine, honest and sincere Alliance, I
think if it were grounded on mutual respect, if it were grounded on each of us looking internally as
to what we can fix at the individual level, but also having a redress of the collective concerns
that we share as different faith groups as Muslims. If we feel that there has been a knife that's
been plunged into our back the first step is not to talk to us about how we should be fixing
ourselves up or we should be dressing the wound. The first step is to take the knife out of our back