UCLA Law Professor Khaled Abu Al-Fadhl: Muslims in America Should Be Loyal to the US and Not Take Their Oath Lightly

Following are excerpts from an interview with Prof. Khaled Abu Al-Fadhl from UCLA School of Law, which aired on Dream 2 TV on September 12, 2005.

Al-Fadhl: Due to ignorance, neglect, and a lack of understanding of what it means to be a citizen of a democratic society - (Muslims in the US) have, in many cases, allowed people to deliver sermons in their mosques and to publish in their magazines things that, in all honesty, constituted slander and incitement against America.

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My criticism of the Islamic discourse in America stems from the fact that the American has an important question: Is the Muslims who is an American citizen - I'm not talking about those who have immigrant status or visas... Is he really an American citizen who loves America, or does he belong to a fifth column, with loyalties that lie elsewhere, and he is only using America temporarily to accumulate wealth? This is one thing. The second point is that there is a difference between constructive criticism and criticism that is hateful. I can criticize America, but in a way that shows that I want to improve America and its democracy.

Host: Excuse me, before you finish that thought - do you believe that whatever one's origins or original nationality, once he receives American citizenship and decides to live there, he should consider himself an American and place the American interest at the top of his list of priorities?

Al-Fadhl: He takes an oath to be loyal to the country in which he is becoming a citizen, and I say to the Muslims: "Don't take this oath lightly."

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Being loyal to America does not mean that one has to parrot the American government. But one cannot become an American citizen and then say: "By Allah, all the Americans are such-and-such, and this is a Satanic country," and so on... One's way of saying things can either make people listen or make them consider him a foreigner and hate him. The second thing, which is extremely important... I will mention two issues. The Islamic discourse in America still insists on addressing America without knowing it. I talk about this with many of my law students. Muslims in America must read American history, get to know American law and learn about the structure of America. This way they will become twenty times more influential than if their knowledge of America is drawn only from what they read in Egyptian or other newspapers. The second thing is that the Islamic discourse in America suffers from several ailments that immigrated with it. Dictatorship is one example. If you were to go to the Islamic organizations in America you would find that their directors remain in their positions for twenty or thirty years. Such a person may still speak broken English. At the same time, there are generations of Muslims who were born and raised as Muslims (in America), and are more educated than him.