A Muslim Friend of America

“I am one of the supporters of the alliance with America. … I support the strengthening of the alliance with America — military, cultural, and economic alliance — because I believe that the Gulf has no future without this alliance. All the leaders of the … Gulf Cooperation Council have declared that their alliance with America is strategic.”— Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari on Al-Arabiya TV, May 1A leading intellectual from the Arab and Muslim world, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari has a long list of impressive credentials. Not only was he dean of the University of Qatar, he also headed its Islamic law department. His writings frequently appear in leading Arabic newspapers, such as the London daily Asharq Al-Awsat.Mr. Ansari can often be found debating Islamists on the main Arab satellite channels. Fighting “the Arab culture of hatred” is at the heart of his work, most notably his support for revamping Arab school curriculums and purging them of hate.His voice was one of the first from the Arab world denouncing the attacks of September 11, 2001. In an article in the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on December 4, 2001, in what could be considered a laying of the groundwork for the emergence of the Arab reform movement, he asked whether the Arab “satellite channels have the right to broadcast terrorist operations and incitement on the pretext of the ‘principle of freedom for all,’ disseminating hatred in viewers who then undertake harmful acts of stupidity. We must examine our curriculum and evaluate our educational methods. We must re-examine our education and our media. This will be the right beginning for the fight against the culture of terrorism.”Following the release of the September 11 commission report in July 2004, Mr. Ansari wrote in another Al-Hayat article that “The 9/11 Commission depicts the full and accurate picture of the attacks [and] their planning. … No doubt the Americans are going to draw practical lessons from the report in order to prevent the recurrence of their failings. But what about us?”Mr. Ansari went on to criticize Arab intellectuals and leaders for blaming the attacks on Israel, Jews, and America, and called on them to “apologize for their words, mistakes, and for misleading other people now that all the facts have been clarified. … Do we have the courage to criticize ourselves, to admit to our faults, and to apologize?”He asked Arabs also to also draw their own practical lessons from the report. “Why won’t we take the opportunity of the appearance of the 9/11 Commission Report to ponder why destructive violence and a culture of destruction have taken root in our society? Why won’t we take this opportunity to reconsider our educational system, our curricula, including the religious, media, and cultural discourse that causes our youth to live in constant tension with the world?” he wrote.Around the time America began its operations in Afghanistan, Mr. Ansari gave an extensive interview to the Qatari daily Al-Raya in which he supported America’s right to use force against those providing a safe haven for the planners of the September 11 attacks: “It is unfair to name the American response ‘terrorism,’ because by so doing we are confusing the concepts of terrorism and self-defense. … What happened in America is terrorism; the American response is a response to that aggression.”Of the Taliban, he has said: “Any country or group protecting and defending terrorists must be fought, and the world must be saved from their evil. … The time has come to call them to account, and punish them. … We must have the courage to admit that what happened in Afghanistan was the liberation of our Muslim brothers.”When Saddam Hussein was deposed, Mr. Ansari wrote an optimistic message about the future of the Middle East in the Saudi daily Arab News on April 21, 2003: “The Iraqi people brought down the statue of the tyrant who had oppressed them for 35 years. Millions saw the wretched end to one of the most loathsome and bloody regimes in modern history. … There are other nations who have suffered defeat and have risen from its ashes within a single generation.”Earlier this month, Mr. Ansari appeared on Al-Arabiya TV and was asked if he still believed that the American presence in Iraq is legitimate. The former legal educator answered, “It is legitimate and legal” and said it is not in the interests of Iraqis for the Americans to leave now. He added, “Iraq needs the American presence for its stability and defense.”Mr. Ansari is just one of many Arab reformists whom the West should support by all means. To read more about him and others like him, visit www.memri.org/reform.Mr. Stalinsky is the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

A Muslim Friend of America

A Muslim Friend of America

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