Muslim opinions differ
 

Muslim opinions differ
triad dateline
Nick Maheras
STAFF WRITER
Triad Muslims offer a variety of opinions about last weekend’s capture of
Saddam Hussein.
Jameel Khalifa, a Pakistani and a member of the Islamic Center of
Greensboro, said the Iraqi dictator’s arrest has been the talk of the
Muslim community.
“Most Muslims that I know were never his supporters,” Khalifa said. “How
can you support someone who is a tyrant and has had so many people killed?”
Saddam’s punishment, he said, is a matter of divine justice.
“Someone who has oppressed people for such a long time, it’s only a natural
part of God’s law that he gets punished for it” Khalifa said. “It was a
fact that he was a tyrant. All tyrants eventually have to pay a price. Many
times, it doesn’t wait for the hereafter, but it comes in this world.”
Khalifa said he would have preferred it not take a war to bring Saddam to
justice.
“The sad part of this is that the whole country had to be destroyed and its
institutions dismantled,” he said. “There may be other tyrants in the world
that may be even worse, but we don’t go after them.”
Badi Ali, president of the Islamic Center of the Triad in Greensboro,
insists the United States does not have the right to humiliate the deposed
dictator.
“What gives a superpower the right to humiliate the president of a nation
and shave his beard?” Ali asked. “Would the American people accept the
humiliation of their president at the hand of occupation forces?”
Shaving a Muslim’s beard is seen in much of the Muslim world as the
ultimate indignity, but Saddam Hussein never wore a beard throughout his
turbulent reign.
Nevertheless, Ali said Muslim antagonism toward the United States’ presence
in Iraq overrules outrage against Saddam.
“These pictures (of captured Saddam) will fire anger in the Arab world,
just like the pictures of Saddam’s sons did,” he said. “I don’t actually
condone Saddam’s actions, but I will never condone an occupation policy.
They (Iraqis) are now, under the occupation, more supportive of Saddam than
before.”
Saddam’s sons, Odai and Qusai, were killed by American troops in a
gunbattle on July 22.
Ali said media pictures of Iraqis celebrating Saddam’s capture do not
accurately represent the average Iraqi.
“I would like to see Saddam actually tried by the Iraqis – not by the
Iraqis who are cooperating with Americans (the governing council), not by
the American agents in Iraq,” he said. “Let the Iraqi people deal with
Saddam. Let them punish their own leader.”
Ali praised Saddam for his resistance to U.S. occupation.
“What makes Saddam an extraordinary leader is that he did not give in, even
after his country had been taken over by 130,000 U.S. troops,” he said. “He
was captured after eight months of resistance.”
Asked why Saddam did not offer any resistance to U.S. troops, Ali said Arab
media reports claim American forces gassed him before his capture.
Erk Erginer of Winston-Salem, a Turk by birth and a Muslim, said many
Muslims are indeed happy Saddam was finally captured, but at what cost,
“I wish we did it without a war,” he said. “(With) Saddam being a tyrant
and a killer, obviously, they’re all happy, but they’re not happy because,
in the process, a lot of innocent people got killed on both sides.”
Erginer said the best option for trying Saddam would be some combination of
international and Iraqi authorities – for example, an international court
with Iraqi justices presiding.
“If it is feasible, that’s a combination I would like,” he said. “But the
United States would be out of it. That way, we can show the world we’re not
doing it for vengeance, we’re doing it for justice.”
Abdul Khalique, imam at the Community Mosque of High Point, would only say
that a “strongman” like Saddam eventually will die and be punished by Allah
for his transgressions.
Nick Maheras can be contacted
at 888-3534 or nmaheras@hpe.com


Nick Maheras
High Point Enterprise
Special Projects
(336) 888-3534
nmaheras@hpe.com