FP's Flagrant Bamboozelery

Foreign Policy's Akbar Ahmed (Jewish fellow, eh?) profiles a slew of American mosques. It's all in service of his thesis that "From tie-dyed hippies to hard-line radicals, they're not all the same -- and they're not what you think." One of the mosques he visited was The Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove, Calif., an establishment he found most "modernist" and welcoming:

Incorporated in 1976, the Islamic Society of Orange County, another example of a modernist mosque, is a large white building with several minarets surrounded by palm trees. The center, which attracts 2,000 to 3,000 worshippers for Friday prayers, is headed by Indian-born Imam Muzammil Siddiqi, a noted scholar and religious leader who presided over an interfaith service at Washington's National Cathedral on then-President George W. Bush's invitation after 9/11. Siddiqi provided us with a neat, clean, and orderly visit. Members of the mosque came up to us enthusiastically, asking how they could help with our survey. While we were received hospitably in most mosques, this one stood out as particularly friendly.

Sceptic that I am, I immediately googled the noted scholar and religious leader's name (which sounded vaguely familiar). Lo and behold, I found this, by Hugh Fitzgerald:

It is forbidden for a Believer to ally with an Infidel against other Believers. The American government should ponder that carefully -- especially the armed services, the diplomatic corps, and the intelligence services. There are people who may be Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only Muslims. There may be those who are bad Muslims, and who can be bribed to work against fellow Muslims. But those, one must assume, will be the exceptions. One must assume that when someone identifies himself as a Believer, he subscribes to the central idea of Islam (after monotheism): the idea that there is one division, and one only, that counts in the world: the division between Believer and Infidel.

This division has clear political implications, as the influential and high-profile Imam Muzammil H. Siddiqi of the Islamic Society of North America reminded us in 2002: “We must not forget that Allah's rules have to be established in all lands..."

And how can one do that when outright military conquest is not possible?

The answer, in the new conditions in which Mr. Siddiqi now finds himself, is clear: "..as Muslims, we should participate in the system to safeguard our interests and try to bring about gradual change..."

In other words, the "friendly" imam belongs to a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot and is committed to the friendlier, stealthier jihad. The "interfaith" jihad. And so it seems is Foreign Policy.