Many Muslims also welcomed the US president’s display of respect for Islam in his speech and his commitment to a two-state solution for the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Dr M Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), however, had a different take on the speech. Instead of focusing on the president’s praise of Islamic culture, he said he was glad to hear Obama defend the United States against the “stereotype of a self-interested empire”.
But besides that slight approval, Jasser found many faults with the speech. He criticised Obama for giving “naive lip service” to Al Azhar University, the co-sponsor of the speech, which Jasser says has disseminated sharia laws that are “truly anathema” to the human rights ideas the US president was trying to lift up in his speech.
He was also disappointed by Obama's failure to address the “global dangers” of political Islam driven by extremists groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, of which many have received guidance from Al Azhar University.
“If he felt comfortable enough to cite the Koran, then he should have also felt comfortable and clear enough to cite the problems with Islamist ideologies,” said Jasser, who is a devout Muslim American. “The ideological theocratic threat will never go away until it is confronted head on.”
The former US Navy Lieutenant Commander said that Obama should have made stronger statements regarding the US conflict with political Islam, which is a global security risk.
“To speak in Egypt and avoid the topic of political Islam, radical Islamism, and the Muslim Brotherhood was like visiting Moscow in the height of the Cold War and avoiding any mention of the inhumanities of communism and its incompatibility with liberty,” Jasser said.
At the end of his long, mostly critical opinion piece, Jasser applauded the president for “moving forward” and “rebooting” the relationship with Muslims around the world.
“But engagement done in vagaries with the core issues of ideological conflict entirely ignored will ultimately cause more harm than good,” he warned.
He calls on President Obama to stand with Muslims around the world who want to challenge Muslim or Arab fascism and theocracy.
