Reforming American Muslims by the American Islam 
A. The American Islam and the Other Islam

Islam is really one religion, but it was abandoned and forgotten by Muslims who are divided into many cults; every cult has its own religious tradition. Accordingly, we have two kinds of Islam – the forgotten religion of Islam and the untouchable sacred Islam of those Muslim cults.

The forgotten Islam is what was revealed to the prophet Mohammed in the Quran in its unique Arabic language and writing. The Quranic Arabic language has its special terminology. Reading the Quran according to its terminology will convey Islam as the religion of peace, tolerance, justice and unlimited freedom of speech and belief. There is a connection between American values and this forgotten Islam that can be described as “The American Islam.” This forgotten or “American” Islam, was applied in the time of the prophet Mohammed, but was abandoned when the Arab Muslims established their mighty empire in the Middle Ages.

During their empire, these Muslims invented traditions to respond to the culture of the Middle Ages. The Sunni sect attributed these traditions to God and/or to the prophet Mohammed, the Shiites to the family of the prophet Mohammed [Aal Al Bayt] and the Sufi cult to sacred saints.

To reconcile the contradictions between the Quran and this Muslim tradition, Muslims distorted Quranic meanings to legitimize to their practices. By centuries, these traditions have begun to constitute a new practical religion.

There are three primary cults of Muslims: Sunni, Shiite and Sufi. The Sufi is more peaceful than the Shiite, while Sunni is the most fanatic Muslim cult. The most extreme sect of the Sunni cult is the Hanbali School that formed the current Salafi Wahabi Saudi movement that produced Osama bin Laden.

The Saudi State is responsible for the rising of this fanatic Sunni Wahabi trend all over the Muslim World and inside the Islamic schools, centers and mosques in the U.S and the West. Through Saudi funding and influence, this terrorist Wahabi trend is hijacking the name of Islam and the American freedom of speech and belief, threatening America and all the free world.

The Saudi state has blocked any attempts to reform from inside Islam and as a result the Wahabi fanatic sect has remained reflective of the culture of the Middle Ages. Moreover, those influenced by the Saudi state persecute the free Muslim thinkers struggling to reform the religious Muslim life.

For 25 years, I have struggled against Saudi fanatic influence in Egypt. Coming to the U.S as a political asylee, I find the same Saudi influence inin Sunni Islamic mosques, centers, and schools, most of them controlled by the fanatics who advocate the Wahabi fanatic culture of terrorism.

For example, the official Saudi translation of Al Fateha, the opening of the Quran that is recited 17 times through the daily Muslim prayers, purposely mistranslates the final two verses. Al Fateha says, “Guide us to the straight path. The path of those on whom you have bestowed Your blessing, not of those who earned Your anger, nor of those who went astray." The official Saudi translation comments on these verses, describing the Jews as those who earned the anger of God, and the Christians as those who went astray. This is only one example in this translation that has hundreds of examples of misinterpretation or mistranslation. Thousands copies of this translation are usually distributed in the Islamic centers, schools and mosques in the U.S. to confirm that Christians and Jews are infidels, and according to the Wahabi faith, they should be fought and killed.

B. Two Kinds of Fanatic Muslims

This intentional misrepresentation is one component of the Jihad of the so-called moderate Muslims who pretend to be against the fanatic Muslims. In reality, fanatic Muslims are of two types. The frank people, including Osama bin Laden, explicitly profess their discourse and seek to apply it. Alternatively, hypocritical scholars and leaders claim Islam as the religion of peace in front of non-Muslims, but secretly advocate and support the overt fanatics and terrorists, considering them to be Mujahedeen.

Those hypocritical leaders and scholars are more dangerous than Osama bin Laden because they keep the religious culture of terrorism untouchable, ready to produce thousands of fanatic Muslims like Osama bin Laden. The only way to expose them is to face them from inside their culture, prove their enmity towards Islam and show the stark contradiction between their tradition and Islam by discussing and criticizing their tradition in light of Islam and the Quran.

The two kinds of the fanatic Muslims may tolerate you if you prove Islam as the religion of freedom, tolerance, justice and human rights and as long you do not prove your argument by using only the Quran and neglecting the contradiction between this and what is mentioned in their tradition – a tradition that is still controlling their life.

C. It Is Imperative to Use the American Islam Against the Terrorists

The Soviet Union as an ideological empire collapsed because its communist ideology was defeated from inside by Western culture and the new religion of our time, the human rights culture. The Soviet Union was proven impotent when its ideology became outdated; it collapsed without one bullet giving us the sample of the late dinosaur.

Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, a new enemy confronted the free world: that of the fanatic Muslims and their terrorist culture. They are more powerful and dangerous than the late Soviet Union because they belong to a different culture, have a long history in battling the West, and have religious justifications to fight the West. Just as the Soviet Union had nuclear weapons, the new enemy has human suicide bombers who are obsessed by their religious tradition and eager to destroy the West. They see this as their way to go to Paradise.

The West may kill thousands of Muslim fanatics in the battlefields but these quick victories will certainly produce millions of enemies for the coming decades. The only way to truly defeat them is to fight them peacefully and intellectually from inside their religion and culture.

There are three intellectual and peaceful ways to fight them:

1. By using the secular Western culture. Western institutions can terminate Al Azhar and other Sunni and Shiite foundations, and can attempt use Western culture to inform the public through education, media and mosques rather than allowing Muslim tradition to be the sole source of influence. However, this is equivalent to using the atomic power in fighting them; it will succeed only in strengthening the fanatic trends and increasing their base of followers and partisans. The secular regimes in the Arab and Muslim world once supported a modified Western model, but in response, fanatic trends emerged to defend the homeland Muslim culture against Westernization. It is useless to argue in any Muslim society using Western quotations, because they simply consider the Western scholars infidels and enemies of God. If this is the case, how could you convince any ordinary Muslim to change his mind by this “foreign” culture?

1. By using the so-called moderate Muslim scholars. These hypocritical cultural figures could be employed to reform religious Muslim life, as is currently being implemented in education and mosques. Those hypocrites are more dangerous than the frank fanatics. In this case, the U.S will not control the new kind of war that has emerged, but the hypocrites will. As the most ardent enemies of the West and the U.S, those hypocrites will deceive the U.S and use their power and status against America and the West.

1. By using the American Islam. It is the only way to defeat all of them in this new peaceful intellectual war.

D. That explains why it is imperative to institute an Islamic center to preach the American Islam among American Muslims and to face the Muslim religious terrorist culture

A new center must be established to fight the Wahabi movements peacefully and intellectually from inside the culture itself by using the true and original Islamic values that are the same American values, or the “American Islam.” This will produce a new kind of war; the U.S. can employ the fundamental strategy of facing the Muslim fanatics from inside their culture.

The fanatic Muslims have already infiltrated the American homeland through the Internet, the religious Islamic organizations and their mosques, schools and centers. They use the American right of freedom of speech, belief in recruitment, and funding to wage Jihad against Americans and Jews. Encouraged by the absence of a solid distinction between Islam and the terrorist culture, the fanatic Muslims are hijacking the religion of Islam and the American freedom to prepare a new generation of American Taliban.

Therefore, it is imperative to institute an Islamic Center to struggle against them in an intellectually peaceful way. This “Islamic Reform Center” must use the same tactic of the fanatics, employing their own language and culture inside Muslim schools, centers and mosques in Muslim communities. It is a long intellectual war that will save the lives of millions inside and outside the U.S.

E. Reform the Roots

It is futile to attempt to reform the Islamic schools in the U.S. without reforming their religious Wahabi foundations supported by the Saudi State. Therefore, the Saudis must be placed under great pressure to reform this fanatic Wahabi faith.

This Center can easily put this pressure on the Saudis by two means:

1. Disclosing the untouchable side of the Wahabi Saudi tradition and history and the contradiction between them and Islam through irrefutable proof.
2. Help the victims of the terrorist crime inside the U.S and the West to sue the Saudi State because it insists maintaining its fanatic Wahabi dogma without reform and insists on advocating these positions inside the Islamic centers and mosques in the West and the U.S. Furthermore, it continues to persecute free Muslim thinkers and intimidate them to prevent them from discussing the Wahabi culture. There are tens of thousands of victims of the Wahabi terrorist attacks. Some of them are already suing some Saudi individuals, but on different grounds. The center can help provide evidence to prove the responsibility of the Saudi State. These cases will put great pressure on the Saudi regime even if we lose the cases. The international community plays a crucial role in forcing the Saudi royal family to reform its faith if it intends on keeping it.

F. Americanizing the Muslim Sunni Mosques, Schools and Centers and in the U.S.

To reach these aims, the Islamic Reform Center must:

1. Make a solid distinction between Islam and the Muslim fanatic culture to expose those who advocate and fund terrorism and misuse the name of Islam and the American freedom.
2. Analyzethe religious materials and the discourse of the fanatic Muslims especially in Islamic centers, schools and mosques, on the Internet and in Muslim organizations inside the U.S. to face and terminate the terrorist danger.
3. Recruitfree-minded Muslims to prepare them to be Imams and teachers in the mosques and schools and train some of them to work against fanaticism in the Islamic schools, mosques and Muslim communities inside the U.S. The fanatics are using American mosques and schools to fight America in its homeland. To eliminate this control, the Center should provide these mosques and schools with pro-American moderate Muslims who could defend America in the name of Islam, not by using Islam to fight America.

Expose the other side of fanatic Muslim history and tradition in front of the Muslim community by the American Islam.