"Islam is not the problem," insisted Ahmed Bedier, a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Tampa chapter founder. "No one is buying their story," Bedier argued with respect to Islamic claims of BH. He dismissed them as "just another con" whose "ideology comes from nowhere" in a country known for scams.
Bedier's assessment might surprise BH's leader, Abubakar Shekau. Known as "Darul Tawheed," an expert in monotheism, Shekau studied under a cleric and then at Borno State College of Legal and Islamic Studies. A profile also describes Shekau's predecessor, deceased BH founder Mohammed Yusuf, as a "charismatic, well-educated cleric who drove a Mercedes as part of his push for a pure Islamic state in Nigeria."
"We didn't ask if Christianity is the problem" with respect to Uganda's brutal Lord's Resistance Army, Bedier analogized. Yet human rights abuses in Islam's name, especially against women and girls, extend beyond Nigeria. Survey results report the "Arab Spring" had a detrimental impact on women, including the reemergence of child marriage in Syria. Women's rights are also a concern in both European Islamic immigrant communities and in Brunei after its recent introduction of sharia law, including stoning for adulterous women.
BH likewise appeared to CAIR-Maryland Vice President Zainab Chaudry as a "vicious cult." BH's "maniacal and suicidal interpretation of Islam" also drew condemnation from Johari Abdul-Malik, an imam at northern Virginia's Dar al-Hijrah mosque. BH is "madness masquerading as religion," Imam Mahdi Bray agreed, and its crimes violate "core Islamic teachings," said Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) analyst Hoda Elshishtawy.
"We need to unite across all faith lines," Bray said, with ecumenical concern for the kidnapping victims, "until all our girls are brought home."
Bedier and others considered BH violence symptomatic of Nigerian social ills like poverty. Martin Luther King, a "drum major for justice," likewise came to Bray's mind during an interview. King was "standing up for the poor and the oppressed" with jobs and education. Nigerian government response to the kidnappings, meanwhile, reminded Bedier of American "outrage" following official American handling of Hurricane Katrina.
"Education is one of the greatest counter-terrorism programs," said Abdul-Malik. Punning BH's Hausa slang meaning of "Western education is sin [haram]," Hakeem Kareem from the National Council of Nigerian Muslim Organizations called "Western education...Boko Halal" or permitted. Kareem referenced Nigerian Muslim doctors involved in disease eradication.
Other areas of the world, meanwhile, suffer from poverty, such as Haiti, still rebuilding from the 2010 earthquake which killed at least 250,000 people and displaced another 1.5 million. Yet somehow these countries do not devolve into misogynist paradises for "vicious cults."
The presenters rejected any questions about Islam's treatment of women as beyond the event's purview, even though Boko Haram announced plans condemned by the speakers to force its captives into sexual relationships or even "marriages." BH's actions paralleled Islamic doctrine justifying child marriage that had blocked in Nigeria's Muslim-majority northern states from implementing legislation for an 18-year-old age of consent for marriage. By contrast, Nigeria's Christian-majority southern states passed such legislation.
Although Bedier called for Americans to "use our resources for something that is positive," he offered few specifics. He advocated drone use in Nigeria "for surveillance," not combat. Noting that BH sometimes outgunned government forces, Bray suggested that America aid Nigeria with intelligence and the FBI's hostage rescue team along with the United Nations.
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