war before it is a battle with bullets and bombs. Who better to fight the war than Muslim scholars who: 171. • Speak the language and refer to the same evidence and jurisprudential sources • Those who understand the intellectual distortions that led to extremist ideology • Those who can dismantle the misunderstanding and the deviated logic • Who are themselves pinnacles of goodness and mercy to all men and women – whether Muslim or not • Those who uphold the common shared values that both the Islamic and Western civilizations agree to • Those who appreciate that we call all live together with understanding and tolerance”. Sheikh Chowdhury then answered the question “Who are these independent Muslim scholars?”: “They are scholars from the broad spectrum of Muslims possessing authentic religious credentials that support the prevention of terror and extremism. They are not adherents to one specific brand of Islam, belonging to this or that group – rather any scholar and every scholar that supports the prevention of terror and working towards defusing any such tension. For America, 7 years of fighting terror around the world and conflating orthodox Islam with fundamentalism and terrorism – with little progress – truly demonstrates that alienation of key allies in the ideological battle ground is a costly mistake. It is imperative that we avoid this mistake as we look for a fresh strategy to tackling terrorism and its challenges into the future. There should be an active attempt to identify scholars from a broad spectrum of Muslim groups that support the cause.” 172. Sheikh Chowdhury went on to quote an address given by the US Ambassador, Chas W. Freedman Jr to the Pacific Council on International Diplomacy on 4 th October 2007 to the same effect: “We must stop inadvertently undermining the efforts of mainstream Muslims to oppose our common enemies and to expose our common enemies and to expose these enemies as the deranged and immoral fanatics they are. Our ignorant and blundering equation of terrorism with Islam has overshadowed and impeded their efforts to regain control of their own moral space. To help them to do so, we must restore respectful relationships with Muslim scholars and the governments they 39