About Those Problems

Irshad Manji, writing about the same subject as Victor Davis Hanson in the last post names the problem with Islam right now. That problem is Islam - or rather, the extremist, fundamentalist version of Islam that threatens, bullies and terrorizes its was to power.

On Monday, Pakistan's religious affairs minister said that because Rushdie had blasphemed Islam with provocative literature, it was understandable that angry Muslims would commit suicide bombings over his knighthood.

Members of parliament, as well as the Pakistani Government, amplified the condemnation of Britain, feeding cries of offence to Muslim sensibilities from Europe to Asia.

As a Muslim, you better believe I'm offended - by these absurd reactions.

I'm offended that it is not the first time honours from the West have met with vitriol and violence. In 1979, Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam became the first Muslim to win the Nobel Prize in science. He began his acceptance speech with a verse from the Koran.

Salam's country ought to have celebrated him. Instead, rioters tried to prevent him from re-entering the country. Parliament even declared him a non-Muslim because he belonged to a religious minority. His name continues to be controversial, invoked by state authorities in hushed tones.

I'm offended that every year, there are more women killed in Pakistan for allegedly violating their family's honour than there are detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Muslims have rightly denounced the mistreatment of Gitmo prisoners. But where's our outrage over the murder of many more Muslims at the hands of our own?

I'm offended that in April, mullahs at an extreme mosque in Pakistan issued a fatwa against hugging.

The country's female tourism minister had embraced - or, depending on the account you follow, accepted a congratulatory pat from - her skydiving instructor after she successfully jumped in a French fundraiser for the victims of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. Clerics announced her act of touching another man to be "a great sin" and demanded she be fired.

I'm offended by their fatwa proclaiming that women should stay at home and remain covered at all times.

I'm offended that they've bullied music store owners and video vendors into closing up shop.

I'm offended that the Government tiptoes around their craziness because these clerics threaten suicide attacks if confronted.

I'm offended that on Sunday, at least 35 Muslims in Kabul were blown to bits by other Muslims and on Tuesday, 80 more in Baghdad by Islamic "insurgents", with no official statement from Pakistan to deplore these assaults on fellow believers.

Please read the whole thing. She is a brave woman who dares defy the screaming crazies who the Western media simply accept as the voice of the "Muslim street". Here in the US, people like Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser and Ayaan Hirsi Ali also raise their voices against the extremists. Those few voices are being drowned out because the Western media refuses to apply the same standards in an even-handed manner. They report as straight news the extremist rage and do not even question the assault on free speech.

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  By jpg, Thursday, 21 June , 2007 @ 9:15 am

  The western media looks the other way from and even kowtows to radical Islam because deep down the media people know that the muslim crazies will come after them and cut their heads off if they publish anything derogatory about crazy Islamists. Much easier to write about and offend Christians and Jews who don’t cut off heads when they are offended. Cowards, one and all.

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  By Anthony (Los Angeles), Thursday, 21 June , 2007 @ 3:42 pm

  I used to believe the loonies we’re fighting represented an extremist, almost heretical Islam, while a moderate, peaceful, tolerant Islam was its true face — similar to what Stephen Schwartz argues in his “Two Faces of Islam.”

  But now I wonder. Having read the Koran (and what a tedious read it is) and ibn Ishaq’s biography of Muhammad (written in the 8th-9th century, much closer to the source), having read about the acts of the Prophet in his “Medina phase” and recalling that he is held up as an example of the Perfect Man, I’m coming more and more to think the Salafists and jihadis represent Islam as Muhammad intended, and that moderate Muslims, as we understand “moderate,” aren’t.

  The problem is Islam,itself,I fear.

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  By Chris, Friday, 22 June , 2007 @ 7:41 am

  Only Muslims can change the face of their religion. The only way that outsiders can “reform” Islam is to outlaw it and kill its practitioners.

Other Links to this Post

1. The Jawa Report — Thursday, 21 June , 2007 @ 9:43 am