Rituals are Not Morality

You know all those Muslims who claim that Bin Laden's version of the faith violates the "real" (the "peaceful") Islam? Dr. Tawfik Hamid explains why that's a bunch of hooey:

It is important to mention that one of the main problems in traditional Islam is that the pillars of the religion [to say Non (sic) G-d other than Allah and Mohamed is the prophet of Allah, the 5 prayers, the obligatory tax (Zakkat), the fasting of Ramadan and the pilgrimage (Haj)] are rituals rather than moral values. In other words, based on the traditional views within Islam, Bin Laden can be a good Muslim because he follows the 5 pillars of Islam. On the contrary, if the pillars of Islam include ‘you shall not commit murder’ or other moral values, Muslims would not have seen people like Bin Laden and the terrorists as real Muslims. The ideology and the religious dogma of the 5 pillars made many Muslims unable to use the transcendent moral truth to judge people like Bin Laden.