This Is Not Islam

According to the report, there are fifteen thousand Muslims in the U.S. military. These people are going through a kind of psychological crisis. That is: whether they should, after joining the U.S. military, participate in a war against a Muslim country like Iraq or not.

It was reported that an American Muslim named Akbar, who was stationed in Kuwait with the U.S. military, in a state of mental distress, attacked American soldiers with a grenade and killed six of them.

In my view, the choice for American Muslims in this case is not whether they should join the U.S. military and fight against a Muslim country or not. The real choice is simply this: either accept U.S. citizenship or leave America by renouncing that citizenship.

To me, this is a hypocritical (double standard) approach: to accept U.S. citizenship, benefit from its material comforts, and then, when the country faces a national war, refuse to support it.

I do not subscribe to the concept of the Ummah as it is commonly understood among Muslims today. In my view, Muslims are a global community in terms of religion, but in terms of homeland, their loyalties should be with their own country—just as members of other nations, while having a distinct religious identity, still stand with their fellow citizens in national matters. (Diary, 26 March 2003)