-- Amil Imani

Cultural Muslims, in the main are a wavering segment who are caught between their imprinted belief in Islam, their disillusionment and problem with many aspects of secular society, and their personal fantasy. These people will continue wavering and reach for any straw to balance themselves. Not an easy task.

A moderate Muslim is not a true Muslim. If in any way and to any extent a person supports Islam or carries out its Stone Age precepts, then he/she is Muslim. In reality, there is no such a thing as a moderate Muslim. There are, however, some moderate people who consider themselves Muslims. These people are not sure who they are. They are in limbo and suffer from an identity crisis. Being a Muslim, no matter how little of a Muslim, gives these vast number of people, many bewildered and overwhelmed by modern life's complexities and contradictions, a kind of refuge.

They yearn for safety, for immortality of the soul if not the body, they want all the pleasures of physical life, yet they want to make sure that they are also providing for life after death by pleasing Allah. So, as you can surmise, this whole thing is extremely complicated. It is a most difficult task to give up the concocted and imaginary life vest that Islam seems to provide for these people. They have nothing else to grab onto. Another religion? Would they accept it? Would it serve them both in this world and the next? Would it relieve their personal existential crisis? These are all tough issues. Most humans need to believe in something.  Something bigger than themselves. Something that would give them, or at least hold the promise of granting them, their wishes at little cost.

Religion of one form or another seems to be the most attractive source for the masses to turn to. Of course, there are other sources. Many to be sure. Yet all exact a price. Becoming a nihilist, for instance, and not believing in anything and leading life on a moment to moment basis is one way to go. A life that is akin to a rudder-less ship that drifts in circles until it sinks. This kind of life is extremely disturbing to the person and may lead him to resort to auxiliary activities such as excessive drinking, use of mind-numbing drugs, sexual promiscuity, and much more.

Yet, for one and all, there is a price to pay. Humans seem to be unable to exist in a psychological and spiritual vacuum. They need to believe in something to maintain a degree of self-sanity and stability. Islam provides a degree of this highly-sought stability-security. For this reason, leaving it altogether, even for the highly educated and a person who knows better is extremely difficult.

Yes, the ultimate litmus test is the complete break from Islam. And for this to happen, in most cases the person needs an alternate "thing" to cling to. There are those who leave Islam, even combat it actively, and claim that they have no need for a substitute security blanket. That may be the case. Yet, closer examination of these people may reveal that they indeed have adopted other kinds of "anchors" to hang on and remain afloat in life.

The free world, rightfully alarmed by ever-varied and escalating assaults of the jihadists, myopically has directed its tentative and haphazard effort at countering them, believing that by so doing it can eliminate their threat and at the same time remain on good terms of live-and-let-live multiculturalism with cultural Muslims. This is a dangerous assumption that, if not abandoned, will likely culminate in an Armageddon-kind of conflagration.

There is virtually no chance of reasoning with the brain-dead jihadists whose eyes are fixed on the promised lush paradise of Allah. It isn’t that they love death, just for the sake of death itself as Muslim leaders such as Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah proclaimed.

Cultural Muslim or any other kind of Muslim who is not a jihadist, please courageously do what is right: Abandon Islam altogether and enlist in the ranks of the free where all members of the human tribe can live in peace and harmony.

In short: I am appealing to cultural Muslims. They hold the key to a peaceful world. They hold the balance of power. Please withdraw from Islam completely, as countless numbers already have, and lend your invaluable support to the free people of the world who are eager to embrace you with open arms.