Islam and America on the Killing of Innocent People

On October 29, 2004, a joint declaration by a group of American Imams condemned the targeting of innocent civilians in Iraq, including the kidnapping of more than 150 civilians and murdering roughly one third of them. The joint statement highlights that such actions are in direct contradiction to the teachings of Islam, specifically the following verse of the Qur'an:

'If anyone slays a human being it shall be as though he had slain all mankind, and if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind.' (5:32)

Interestingly, on the same day, the Baltimore Sun quoted a study done by The Lancet, a leading British medical journal, in which it reports more than 100,000 deaths of Iraqi civilians as a result of the American-led invasion. Most of the reported deaths are said to be the result of collapsing buildings, direct bombings, and fatalities caused by burning shrapnel. These numbers exclude the town of Fallujah where fierce fighting has taken place off and on for the last six months. Nevertheless, the Brookings Institution has disputed The Lancet's claim as being too high.

Significantly more innocent Iraqi civilians have died than the combined number of those murdered by "terrorists" and kidnappers, a sum total of, perhaps, 3,000 people. If the actual number of deaths of Iraqi civilians is only 50%, 25%, or even as low as 5% of The Lancet's report, America is still responsible for a greater number of casualties, perhaps on the order of tens of thousands of lives. All of this does not include the untold number of deaths caused by American-led sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s and early 2000s, which, according to some estimates, surpassed one million deaths of infants, sick, and elderly caused by the deprivation of food, clean drinking water, and medicine.

Yet, while American politicians and media repeatedly claim that Muslim Americans have not done enough to condemn and prevent terrorism, yesterday's joint statement by the American Imams released at a Capitol Hill news conference will go largely unreported in the American media. So has any meaningful reporting of The Lancet's study, even if only to refute it. There has been no similar media or political condemnation of the killing of Iraqi civilians by the American-led attack.

If the killing of innocents is wrong, it is wrong for everybody.