In his haste to cast the first stone, Chuck Asay’s cartoon of July 14, 2005, Asay’s superficial analysis misses the different strain of terrorism demonstrated by Bouyeri and the London bombers.  These are not like the Al Qaeda terrorists who came in from a Muslim country to launch a terrorist attack, but were born and grew up in Holland and Britain.  We do not know exactly what led the London bombers to commit the suicide-murders, any more than we know exactly what drove the Columbine killers to their act of suicide-murders.  We can speculate that it was some suicidal tendencies, misdirected anger, superficial knowledge of Islam, and misdirection from misguided Muslim extremist religious leaders.

Asay depicts Bouyeri, the unrepentant murderer of Theo Van Gogh, saying that “I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and His Prophet”, and suggests that Islamic law is the real reason for acts of terrorism by Muslims, not the conditions of “Conflict, Poverty, Ignorance and Disease”, as suggested by Kofi Annan, the head of the United Nations.

Religious fanatics and extremists resort to their personal, violent, misinterpretation of the laws, and the phenomenon is not limited to Muslims.  Yigal Amir, the Jewish extremist assassin of Yitzhak Rabin, based his actions on a similar misinterpretation of the Jewish law, and was similarly unrepentant and “cold-hearted”.

Excerpts from a CNN news report on Yigal Amir’s trial, Nov. 7, 1995:

TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- The man who confessed to killing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin appeared in court for the first time Monday. Jewish law student Yigal Amir told the judge the assassination was meant to halt the Mideast peace process.

Surrounded by guards and a barrage of journalists, Amir was led into Tel Aviv's main court in the same clothes and black skullcap he wore when he fired the fatal shots Saturday. Amir told Magistrate Dan Arbel that Rabin wanted to "give our country to the Arabs." "We need to be cold-hearted," he said.

Asked where he got his ideas, Yigal Amir told the magistrate that he drew on the Halacha, which is the Jewish legal code. "According to the Halacha, you can kill the enemy," Amir said. "My whole life, I learned Halacha. When you kill in war, it is an act that is allowed."

Asked whether he acted alone, Amir replied: "It was God."

Even as Jewish rabbis would not agree with Yigal Amir’s interpretation of the Jewish legal code, so also Muslim ulema would not agree with Mohammed Bouyeri’s interpretation of the Islamic Sharia.

And it is not only Jews and Muslims who have extremists who commit acts of violence, for example, the “patriotic” Timothy McVeigh whose misinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution led him to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City,  the Sikh guard who killed Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Tamil woman who blew up herself and Rajiv Gandhi, the Hindu fanatic who killed Mahatama Gandhi, the Serb nationalist who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand to trigger World War I, and so on.  And it is not only the Muslims who have misguided religious leaders, here in the United States, we have the leaders of White Christian Supremacist groups who encourage violence against Jews and African-Americans, and in Israel, there are extremist Jewish rabbis who preach violence against Arabs.

Islamic law does not promote terrorism; Islamic law forbids terrorism.  Only seriously confused, misguided, extremist Muslims, and those who want to slander Islam, would deliberately misinterpret and misrepresent it.  The oppressive conditions in Muslim countries are part of the root causes of terrorism;  Kofi Annan has it right, Chuck Asay has it wrong, and we Muslims have the huge responsibility of fixing the problems.