It is good that Sid Shahid exposes this whitewash of Islamism, and I hope that his article will be given wide publicity. That said, there is still one major flaw. Shahid writes: “It leaves out any discussion whatsoever of political Islam (Islamism), terrorism, and the root cause of both: militant islamism.” This itself is a whitewash — of Islam, itself. The root cause of political Islam and terrorism are the Koran and the hadith. There is no way to separate “spiritual Islam” from “political Islam” because both of them are firmly anchored in the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad. Sid Shahid cannot take “political Islam” out of Islam no matter how much he would like to do so. Whitewashing Islam will not help us to solve the problem with “political Islam”.
