A wary eye. (Muslims).

Anyone who thinks there is one Muslim point of view about the war in Iraq should read the American Muslim. The March-April issue of the St. Louis-based online publication came out before the onset of the war and includes four articles about it.

Founded as a print journal in 1989 in Chicago by Sheila Musaji, the American Muslim in its About Us section says the journal provides "an open forum for the discussion of ideas and issues of concern to Muslims in America from various points of view (based on Qur'an and Sunnah) representing no one school of thought, ethnic group or organization." It calls for putting its emphasis on providing "a balanced, moderate, alternative voice focusing on the spiritual dimension of Islam rather than the more often heard voice of extreme political Islamism."

The newsletters of the local mosques are confined largely to in-house news about their events. Another locally based online publication, Crescentlife.com, addresses social and psychological issues like the role of women.

One article in the American Muslim, by an Iraqiborn American, Zainab Al-Suwaij, supports the invasion. She recounts the terror of having one of her fourth-grade classmates disappear along with her family after the fourth-grader said the wrong thing in class, how, when she met her uncle for the first time after he was in prison for years, she saw his twisted feet, deformed when he was hung by his toes in his cell.

Al-Suwaij argues that the Baath Party has waged war on Iraq since 1968, and that Bush's invasion would end that war by deposing Saddam Hussein.

"Liberated from the weight of Saddam's terror state, Iraqis will regain their humanity, start to speak openly and instinctively organize a civil society." she wrote.

Al-Suwaij is executive director of the American Islamic Congress, an organization that the American Muslim writes is dedicated to building tolerance and civil rights in America.

A piece from the Turkish writer Harun Yahya called "Iraq: How to Avoid a War? Saddam Must Step Down to Save Peace" is not what one might expect from the title. Yahya, believing that the Bush Administration decided long ago to go to war, invokes the Koran and calls for the Iraqi dictator to abdicate to prevent the devastation a war would cause his country. At the same time, however, Yahya invokes Old and New Testament verses to convince Bush to call off the attack. Plus, he lists all the demons that a war could unleash: civil war in Iraq, the break-up of the country, economic devastation in the entire region and a possible backlash leading to a clash of civilizations between the West and the Islamic world.

A statement from the Islamic Council of New England reiterates the same points as Yahya, but adds that the war could bring greater danger to the United States, particularly its Muslims.

"For the Arab and Muslim worlds, such unadulterated warmongering against the Iraqis with a docile acceptance of North Korea's aggressiveness would look like selective racism and a crusade against Islam, respectively. It would serve merely to reinforce the distorted agenda of extremists and reduce our hopes of eradicating the scourge of terrorism," the article reads.

"For Muslim Americans, accustomed to being targeted after the Gulf war, and vilified after 9/11, there is a sense of resignation to the fact that if Bush's war does not pan out as scheduled, they could well face an internment as the Japanese Americans did during World War II," it continues.

But most compelling, in spite of its 20-page length, is a piece from Farish A. Noor. Noor declares that by waging this war, the West would deal itself worse blows than Al Qaeda has done.

"The 'West' here refers to the great Western idea: the belief and understanding that the West represented something that was higher, nobler and more universal than itself. It is the West of the Enlightenment project, the West of Reason and Ethics, the West of international diplomacy and the rule of law. It is the West of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Leibniz, Spinoza and Emmanuel Kant," Noor wrote, adding, "Never again will the world believe that America stands for human rights and dernocracy, for how can one impose a democracy at gun point, and how can one serve the cause of human rights at the end of a bayonet?"

The piece criticizes tendencies within Islam itself for being "too defensive and confrontational," and dates this to 1258 when Hulagu Khan led a Mongol army into Baghdad, brought down the Abbasid Caliphate and raped and slaughtered many of its inhabitants. The Mongols destroyed the famous universities and libraries of Baghdad and with them hundreds of books on science, philosophy, law and the arts and killed or captured thousands of poets, philosophers, scientists, scribes, mystics and artisans, Noor wrote. He argued that the Mongol conquest was the beginning of the end of a golden age of Muslim enlightenment.

"From this all-consuming darkness was born a fear and contempt for the Other, and sure enough this anger and frustration soon found itself expressed in words that were persuasive and beguiling," Noor wrote. Through much of the rest of the piece, Noor argues that this fear and contempt led to many of the worst tendencies within Islamic culture. "Fearful of enemies within and without, we have become our worst enemies."

Noor opposed the invasion of Iraq, but saw it as an opportunity for the Islamic world to "re-orient our struggle and make it a truly universal one that serves humanity as a whole, and to locate ourselves once again at the center of societal advancement and progress. But this can only happen if we reintegrate ourselves into the mainstream of global politics and social currents, and take full advantage of the technological, economic and educational advances we see all around us. We need to use the tools of social science and modern technology so that the message of political Islam can be translated to a wider audience in a way that is inclusive and not divisive.

The May issue includes more about Iraq in the same vein, including one by Khalid Shah called "The Bladder Theory of Power." Shah, an American citizen born in Pakistan who lives in Fenton, uses business writer Peter Lynch's "bladder theory of cash," which says that cash-rich corporations piss away their cash reserves by "diworsefying" into businesses they cannot manage well.

Shah said that in the late 1990s the United States possessed unprecedented military, economic and moral power, and more power in the form of goodwill, but, "We are indeed pissing this power away and will have little to show for in exchange."

He goes on to say that through its "blinding arrogance," the United States ignored the protests of people around the world.

"In a democratic process, sometimes the government does have to take unpopular decisions," Khalid wrote.

"However, there is always engagement of the people in the process, their objections are heard and responded to. In contrast, the U.S. administration acted as if it did not even acknowledge this vehement objection by so many."

Note also that Shah, like other contributors to the American Muslim, used the pronoun when referring to the United States. They identify themselves as patriotic Americans, as do many foreignborn Muslims.

Benjamin Israel, a former employee of the Suburban Journals of St. Louis, is a St. Louis free-lance writer.