Queen Rania: The Face Of Islam We Should be Seeing

A few weeks ago, the media buzzed with pictures of Queen Rania of Jordan consoling the wife of the Jordanian pilot who had been executed by the Islamic State.

Jordan tried to negotiate for the release of the pilot, but recent reports have led the Jordanians to believe that the pilot was executed a month earlier than the Islamic State reported — by being gruesomely burned alive while onlookers video taped the execution.

Since then, the Jordanian government’s response has been quite clear, taking the lead in bombing Islamic State targets in a spectacular display of air power. In a show of grief and solidarity, the family of the pilot and the royal family waited to welcome home the first sorties of aircraft bombing Islamic State targets in Syria.

Last week, one source questioned whether Jordan could keep up this total war in the air for long due to budgetary and supply constraints. But over the weekend, numerous Pentagon and State Department officials were quoted on condition of anonymity that America would not let the Jordanians run out of bombs for as long as they stayed in the fight.

Jordan has long been an ally and a progressive Islamic nation. But this is the face of Islam we should be seeing — both the compassion and comforting of Queen Rania and the bombs falling out of the sky in reaction to the brutality of the Islamic State.

This is their fight, too, with their progressive way of life jeopardized by the radical and fundamentalist interpretations of Islam that the Islamic State imposes. One look at Queen Rania should be enough to tell us that Jordan is leading the way among Islamic countries in moving toward equality.

The Islamic State has made a fundamental error in its strategy, and has incurred the wrath of a very powerful regional government.

The number of Islamic governments against the Islamic State is growing, with both Libya and Egypt entering the fight after 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians were beheaded after being kidnapped in Libya.

Hopefully, Americans see this development for what it is. The moderate Islamic governments are no longer going to tolerate the savagery of the Islamic State in the name of their religion. We can only hope that they stay in the fight for the duration.