112condemning the Islamic State is better than no
fatwa.
Also, I made a point when I encouraged Dr.
Hasan to embark upon this task. I advised him
that the fatwa could not merely condemn. I think
you circulated an interview on CNN in which I
mentioned that I don’t deserve thanks from you or
anyone else for saying that you don’t deserve to die.
That’s how low our bar has sunk. We’ve become
happy to hear a Muslim condemning the Islamic
State, yet even al- Qaeda condemns them. Con-
demning the Islamic State should not be the defi -
nition of a “moderate.” So I advised Dr. Hasan that
the fatwa should go further and place an active re-
sponsibility on Muslims to challenge the ideology
behind the Islamic State, as part of our civic duty
to condemn evil. I argued that Muslims are
now duty bound to challenge this whole idea of
imposing Islam on others, because it’s not just
hurting non- Muslims, it’s hurting Islam and Mus-
lims as well. The fatwa refl ected this view.
The second benefi t is that it provides an escape
clause for somebody who sets out to do something
irresponsible but has last- minute doubts. Let’s keep
in mind that we’re speaking about people for whom
secular, humanistic language simply does not res-
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