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Al-Liwaa' Al-Islami, October 21, 1999

[Al Liwaa is a daily Arabic newspaper published in Beirut, Lebanon]

The United States made beyond doubt a strange effort to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries, especially countries of the third world and the Islamic world in particular when it issued last month its report on religious freedom in the world in the frame of the religious freedom law. This law was issued by the American Congress in 1988 after a campaign lead by the Jew Frank Wolf [note: Rep. Wolf is not Jewish] and the Zionist-Christian Arlen Specter.

The report spoke of the state of religion in 119 countries and focused on about thirty countries around the world accusing them openly of some sort of religious persecution against minorities. Most of these were Islamic countries. Besides China came Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The report did not only raise the issue of the Copts in Egypt and some other religions in the Islamic world, but we also found it pointing out in a disgusting way that the Shi'ites are a minority which suffers from persecution at the hand of Sunni Moslems who form the majority in the Islamic world. This is an American attempt to attack the unity of the Islamic nation. We appreciate the attitude of Imam Mohammed Mahdi Shams Al-Din, president of the Islamic Shi'ite Council in Lebanon. He issued a very objective and enlightening statement in response to the report. He refused to accept what was written in the report and asked Shi'ites not to give attention to this report. He said that Western forces (governmental, political and media), connected to intelligence circles, are trying to smash the Arab and Islamic nation and split them into different parties. Shams Al-Din warned the Arabic and Islamic governments of the probable results of the report and of the devastating consequences on the national level in every Arabic and Islamic state. He invited Shi'ite Moslems not to be fooled or affected by this report and not to consider themselves a minority that looks for protection from the American view.{through the American law}.

The great Islamic thinker Dr. Emara explains this attitude and says: "The United Sates wants to legislate for the world. They do this in a way that imposes western concepts and ideas." Dr. Emara adds: "The expression 'minorities' does not exist in the Islamic civilization tradition. Speaking of minorities in the Islamic world is a projection of western concepts on a civilization and a historical reality that did not know this concept. Islam looked at the state in the form of a unit that includes diversity because the Islamic nation knows diversity in religions and languages. Thus, the presence of several religions is perceived by Islam as the original and basic state. This means the concept of ethnicity does not exist in Islam, while the West built its concept of 'minority' based on ethnic concepts. Islam considers this view on ethnicity as a draw back to time of Jahilia [time before Islam]. And since the state of Medina [was founded] in the time of prophet Mohammed there has been diversity in the people of the state."

Dr. Emara points out that Islam is the only religion that recognizes other religions. The faith of Muslim believers is not complete except if they believe in all previous beliefs. That is why the Islamic nation is the only one that permits freedom of belief and performing religious rituals and hallows the sacred.

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November 15 1999, Vol. 43, No. 13