Hawaii Muslims condemn the ‘Desecration’ of the holy Qur’an

Hawaii Muslims, like our fellow Americans, are deeply shocked, hurt and outraged about the latest admission by the pentagon of the mistreatment of the Holy Qur’an. These widespread violations in U.S. detention facilities worldwide is a disgrace to us as Americans, and we call on everyone to condemn such horrible acts as it goes against the grain of American pluralism and indeed the American spirit of respect for all.
These allegations can only serve to fuel anti-American sentiment, and indeed defeat the bridge-building work with the Muslim world being undertaken by the present Administration in consultation with Muslim Americans.
The stories about mishandling the Qur’an are disturbing because the holy book plays a bigger part in the faith and daily lives of Muslims, in general, than the Bible does to Christians. To us Muslims, the Qur’an holds a place of reverence similar to what Christholds for Christians.

We believe every single word of the Qur’an is a divine utterance. We recite from the Qur’an at least five times a day and it is memorized by Muslims at every stage in their lives. These allegations are painful to me and other Muslims, who share a high regard for Christ, whom we consider a great prophet.

A more transparent inquiry into this sordid affair is needed because vague assurances of a military investigation are insufficient to keep this incident from being used to further harm relations with the Muslim world. We further call on our government to get to the bottom of these horrible atrocities and not to use a few soldiers as the scapegoat as was the case in the Abu Ghraib incidents. The Secretary of Defense bears the ultimate responsibility for the further devastating impact this scandal has had on our nation's image worldwide, for the brutal and humiliating actions of American troops, for the poor handling of the scandal by the military establishment and for fostering an atmosphere in which the traditional rules of war and norms of international law are treated as excess baggage.

We urge the Bush Administration to do what is right and initiate an open probe of the incident, make public its findings and punish those responsible and not to use the lower ranking soldiers as a scape goat.

For more information, please contact Hakim Ouansafi at (808) 478-7788