Are You A Heretic?

Simon Vouet, 'Father Time Overcome by Love, Hope and Beauty', 1627, Museo del Prado, Madrid

 

SCROLL DOWN FOR MARCH 11TH UPDATE

Following are excerpts from an interview with Arab-American psychologist Wafa Sultan. I love this woman, she is brilliant. There have not been any Muslim men thus far who have matched her explanation of the differences between our cultures in such a succinct way:

"The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them....Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies....We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant.....The Jews have came from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling."

In fact I find in my experience it has been the women of Islam that have been the most vocal in this entire saga. Don't miss clicking on the screen-shot to view the entire video.

Wafa Sultan: "The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.
[...]
Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?

Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.
[...]
Host: Who came up with the concept of a clash of civilizations? Was it not Samuel Huntington? It was not Bin Laden. I would like to discuss this issue, if you don't mind...

Wafa Sultan: The Muslims are the ones who began using this expression. The Muslims are the ones who began the clash of civilizations. The Prophet of Islam said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and His Messenger." When the Muslims divided the people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war. In order to start this war, they must reexamine their Islamic books and curricula, which are full of calls for takfir and fighting the infidels.

My colleague has said that he never offends other people's beliefs. What civilization on the face of this earth allows him to call other people by names that they did not choose for themselves? Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma, another time he calls them the "People of the Book," and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians "those who incur Allah's wrath." Who told you that they are "People of the Book"? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them "those who incur Allah's wrath," or "those who have gone astray," and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?

I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others' right to believe in it.

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: Are you a heretic?

Wafa Sultan: You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural...

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran...

Wafa Sultan: These are personal matters that do not concern you.
[...]
Wafa Sultan: Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people's beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe hat the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.
[...]
Wafa Sultan: The Jews have came from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results.

The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."

The interview was aired this week on Al-Jazeera TV, and brought to you by Memri.

QUICK UPDATE March 11th: MSM  picks up on the brave Dr. Sultan's interview, and briefs us on the subsequent serious threats to her life. Check Kim Priestap @ Wizbang, Tom Maguire who is a darling for giving me the credit, More @ Michelle Malkin,  Roger L. Simon, Big Lizards, In the Bullpen, Althouse, Dr. Sanity, Power Line, Secular Blasphemy, Instapundit, American Future, and Ali Speaks, a great new find.

Back to today we have this from Mark Steyn, who tells us that after Theo van Gogh's murder, anti-semitic violence in Europe is growing, with the MSM largely attempting to ignore, and more importantly deny the existence of the problem:

In five years' time, how many Jews will be living in France? Two years ago, a 23-year-old Paris disc jockey called Sebastien Selam was heading off to work from his parents' apartment when he was jumped in the parking garage by his Muslim neighbor Adel. Selam's throat was slit twice, to the point of near-decapitation; his face was ripped off with a fork; and his eyes were gouged out. Adel climbed the stairs of the apartment house dripping blood and yelling, "I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven."

Is that an gripping story? You'd think so. Particularly when, in the same city, on the same night, a Jewish woman was brutally murdered in the presence of her daughter by another Muslim. You've got the making of a mini-trend there, and the media love trends.

Yet no major French newspaper carried the story.

This month, there was another murder. Ilan Halimi,[excellent link added by me] also 23, also Jewish, was found by a railway track outside Paris with burns and knife wounds all over his body. He died en route to the hospital, having been held prisoner, hooded and naked, and brutally tortured for almost three weeks by a gang that had demanded half a million dollars from his family. Can you take a wild guess at the particular identity of the gang? During the ransom phone calls, his uncle reported that they were made to listen to Ilan's screams as he was being burned while his torturers read out verses from the Quran.
[...]
Islam claims universal jurisdiction and always has. The only difference is that they're now acting upon it. The signature act of the new age was the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran: Even hostile states generally respect the convention that diplomatic missions are the sovereign territory of their respective countries. Tehran then advanced to claiming jurisdiction over the citizens of sovereign states and killing them -- as it did to Salman Rushdie's translators and publishers. Now in the cartoon jihad and other episodes, the restraints of Islamic law are being extended piecemeal to the advanced world, by intimidation and violence but also by the usual cooing promotion of a spurious multicultural "respect" by Bill Clinton, the United Church of Canada, European foreign ministers, etc.

The I'd-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing-in-perfect-harmonee crowd have always spoken favorably of one-worldism. From the op-ed pages of Jutland newspapers to les banlieues of Paris, the Pan-Islamists are getting on with it.

Ed Morrissey quite rightly points out: "The West cannot negotiate with Radical Islam, either for "respect" or for peaceful co-existence. They do not want our respect -- they want our submission. And the price for our survival, on their terms, is the Jews."

The Anchoress: "We need to see the moderates - we need to be able to keep them out of our line of fire and accept their help in this ongoing struggle."

Fausta has more on multicultural respect, and leads us to these really disturbing photos (via Siggy)

Scott @ Powerline has more on the European attitudes towards Iran and Israel, pointing out that "the United States has a debt of honor to settle with Iran's odious president."

Glenn Reynolds, Dr. Sanity, The Volokh Conspiracy, Blue Star Chronicles, Daily Pundit, The Real Ugly American, Betsy's Page, Tel-Chai Nation, Say Anything, have more comments on Steyn's article today.

UPDATE: "Tens of thousands of demonstrators, including ministers and politicians of all stripes, joined in a show of force against racism and anti-Semitism on Sunday, marching through the French capital after the torture and killing of Parisian Jew Ilan Halimi."

Powerline has the photos. Via Ed Driscoll, Roger Simon has more, and points us to an important must read article by Nidra Poller @ IsraPundit:

No longer able to deny or play down the racial motive, the investigation is entering a new phase. One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang, who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture.

Michelle Malkin on Ilan's funeral in Paris: "May he rest in peace."

Indeed.

Comments

[RL]

Amen.

[Liquid]

Oh yeah, Wafa has always been outspoken and said it the way it is. Thanks so much for sharing this video clip Alexandra.

I remember reading about her on Spencer's site and how she asks the tough questions that many muslims will not address like why when Saddam was killing their fellow muslims for all those years that they looked the other way in silence...

Wafa Sultan says, "Can you explain these phenomena, which took place in Arab countries? Was all this revenge on America or Israel? Or were they merely to satisfy bestial wild instincts aroused in them by religious teachings, which incite to rejection of the other, to the killing of the other, and to the denial of the other. When Saddam Hussein buried 300,000 Shiites and Kurds alive, we did not hear a single Muslim protesting. Your silence served to acknowledge the legitimacy of these killings, didn't it?..."
DhimmiWatch

You know, part of keeping the islamic woman suppressed, I bet is because the men know once the muslim woman truly gets freedom to speak out, that she will expose many of the horrific dark things within their society. One of their biggest obstacle is to keep their victims and critics silent like Mariwan Halabjayi Which you can read about HERE

[RL]

"Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi

"Lipstick Jihad" by Azadeh Moaveni

"To See and See Again" by Tara Bahrampour

a couple of interesting and well-written books concerning
islamic-society; from the perspective of strong, thoughtful,
and very-intelligent women. highly-reccomended, especially
if you are interested in modern Iranology.

Golda Maier said it best when she stated that if the Arab
muslims loved their own children as strongly as they hate
the Jews, then there wouldn't be an arab-Israeli conflict
in the world.

[RL]

i forgot to mention that all three of the lady authors that
are mentioned in the above posting are "heretics".
heh-heh, "heretics".
(this has something to do with boldly sticking-up one's
manicured and nail-polished middle-finger at "sharia law".
heh-heh-heh)

: )

[weekenderman]

It's interesting the thoughts RL comes up with after a morning of church worship . . . middle fingers and all, I mean!

[RL]

Jeff ("weekenderman"),

my worship of the Living God is not limited to a one-hour
session of: ccm, a feel-good sermonette, and a couple of brief
prayers in a "seeker-sensitive" dispensational church on
Sunday morning.
(Please read, think about, & memorize, Romans 12:1-3)

i also urge you to please carefully read and seriously think-
about/reflect upon the very helpful content in,

fischtank.com/book/12step.cfm

and

"What's So Amazing About Grace ?" by Philip Yancey
(rumorsofanotherworld.com)

You will be blessed by God if you do.

Peace & Blessings, RL

Ephesians 2:8-9
1 Corinthians 15:10

Sola Gratia.

ps. i'm sorry if you woke up on the wrong-side of the bed
this morning, and your Joy tank is on empty.

The "Twelve Steps" (fischtank.com) will bless and help you,
and i will pray for you.

Please remember,

maxlucado.com/inam/

Thank you and God bless you and yours.

SDG

[Edd]

Ms. Von Maltzan, thank you for your this post today and letting me here Wafa Sultan’s interview. Yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend who is modest in his approach to the Middle East and the current Cartoon riots. I am not modest and hold some very strong opinions when it involves the sovereignty of the United States and just how Western society must handle the World of Islam.

It is good to see Ms. Walfin Sultan talk against the Muslim’s desire to convert the World to Islam. In my opinion if Muslims cannot then their desire is the destruction of all civilization. It is with this thought that I cannot understand the MSN’s action on our newest threat since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. We have replaced the fear of Communism with the fear of The Nation of Islam.

[MarcH]

OK Alexandra, I assume that "Love" is the cupid figure. Which lady is "Hope" and which is "Beauty"?

Is "Beauty" the one who is playfully smacking Father Time with the grappling hook or the other one, hardly wearing any clothes and pulling on a big chunk of his hair?

Inquiring minds want to know.

You'll have to admit that it's not the sort of thing you see every day.

[Kathy K]

MarcH - best guess is that Love is the one with the grappling hook (see 'Cupid' and arrows).
Also because that puts them in left-to-right order. (Interesting that neither of us seems to have any doubts as to which one is Hope...).

Thank whoever you thank for Wafa Sultan and those like her.

I'd like to respectfully disagree with Ed, however. " "The West cannot negotiate with Radical Islam, either for "respect" or for peaceful co-existence. They do not want our respect -- they want our submission. And the price for our survival, on their terms, is the Jews." Not so - or, more accurately, not just.
The price for our survival is our freedom to reject Islam and worship as we will - or not worship at all. Israel is the front line there - at the moment - but they aren't the only price we'd be asked to pay - not by a LONG shot.

[Nasty_Ninety]

She is a very brave woman, much like Farag Foda was a very brave man. They slaughtered Farag Foda, they will slaughter anyone who is sensible, rational, and recognizes that Islam has contributed only war to the world. I am certain she knows what is at stake here.

[east_girl]

hello,

i have a question... how can i reach Wafa's email. i would like to ask her some questions. Does she have web site or something like that?

sincerely,
east_girl

[freedom]

For East Girl:

You should try Annaqed. Wafa Sultan is a contributor.

http://www.annaqed.com/

[Goerge D.]

FEMINISM = ZIONISM = COMMUNISM = SATANISM .

MEMRI is the abbreviation for Middle East Media Research Institute, a pro-Israel organization with headquarters in Washington DC and its Media Centre in Israel - "...
a non-profit in Washington DC that specializes in translating and circulating mainly Arab-language materials, selected to display the Arab world in a poor light, to the advantage of Israel."

FULL ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT TRANSLATION AL- JAZEERA here : Ehttp://aqoul.com/images/wafa_sultan.pdf

The MEMRI debate was very much truncated, and the full debate had the scholar for the most part patronizing her, and not taking her seriously.

Her arguments were just too childesh to take seriously, and the audiacity of her facile questioning for the most part seemed like trolling rather than engaging in debate.

The showing for the scholar was hardly as bad as MEMRI makes it look...

This may enlighten you about their organisation .......
Fake Saddam Interview Put Out By MEMRI : SF Bay Area Indymedia

"A knowledgeable US government official has informed "Iraq News" that the 'remarkable' interview with Saddam Hussein, published by MEMRI TV, is almost certainly a hoax." Read More:

Did you not wonder if it was a debate, why was Wafa Sultan doing all the gibber-gabbering? Where are the responses from the two (2) Muslim
participants in the debate? Why were they not given the opportunity to have the same air-time to respond to this woman? The way the video clip
was going on-and-off so many times, isn't it obvious to you that the debate was one-sided and had been edited! Some debate!!!

Wafa's statements are a flagrant distortion of the truth. When it comes to terrorism Wafa is totally wrong in sugarcoating Jewish history. She
fudges her claims here because Israeli authors Avi Shlaim, Tom Segev, Ilan Pappé and Benny Morris have written comprehensive and
well-researched books about Israel's history and the major role terrorism had in it

MEMRI has published translated and heavily edited portions of the exchange. Since the full translation was made in an attempt to reduce any misinformation or ignorant postulation, and hope that the full transcript speaks accurately for itself

MISLEADING M.E.M.R.I. : obviously, we don't know why the people @ m.e.m.r.i. chose to translate the term mulhidah (the term ibrahim al-khouly used to ask wafa sultan if she is one) as "heretic" and not "atheist".
the term for "apostate" (the punishment for which could be death) is murtadd/murtaddah. and it is highly unlikely that ibrahim al-khouly, being a professor @ al-azhar, mistakenly used the word mulhidah when ACTUALLY he wanted to say murtaddah.

as for al-khouly's answer - the m.e.m.r.i translation was almost right with the phrase "there is no point in rebuking you", but the term 'atb means "rebuke" in the sense of "censure, blame, reproof, reprimand" and here it is clear that his argument is: if you're an atheist, then i cannot say anything if you curse islam, the prophet, the qur'an. he implies that atheists are outside islam and islam has no say over them. it'd be different if wafa sultan had self-identified as a believing muslim - in that case, insulting the religion, the prophet, the qur'an would be a different matter and he (ibrahim al-khouly) would have the right to censure/reprimand/rebuke her.
in short, his answer is almost the EXACT OPPOSITE of a "death fatwa".

1. Two questions: Is it fair for MEMRI to disseminate such a biased perspective? And will all the websites i saw propagating the false-death-fatwa meme publish retractions? Or is it just ok for that false meme to pass into urban myth.

2. The most interesting thing i read that Al-Khouly said was, "so, in order to become a progressive like you, muslims must become secular, must renounce our faith..." How many Christians and Jews here are prepared to renounce their faith to become progressives? That is not a rhetorical question. Transhumanism is soon going to force exactly that kind of choice for western religionists.

Anyone with a 3rd grade history lesson would have told you she was completely wrong. Proto-Zionist’s in Palestine and Europe have blown up anyone or anything that challenged the establishment of a Zionist safe haven. The Bask have had a long war with Spain (which is still alive and well), the Tamil tigers have had more suicide bombings than all other nations combined including the ones in occupied Palestine. The illegal occupation of Iraq and Vietnam by the United Hates of America are nothing compared to the massacres of Pawnee, Lakota, and 300 other Native American nations and cultures over a time span of 400 years. Oh and by the way I’ll stay away from the enslavement, rape, and killing of over one hundred million Africans just so you don’t say I am playing the race card. And let us not forget the most recent tragedy of all the war casualties of WWI and WWII. You racist ethnocentric xenophobes make me sick. Anyone who wants to preserve their way of life or practice their beliefs or culture is not a threat to you it is you who are a threat to them. The Anglo-Yiddish a.k.a. Ashkenazi and Anglo-Saxon war machines are well know for their long running campaigns and treaty breakings.

[michelle]

Wafa Sultan’s Lies already Refuted :
http://www.answering-christianity.com/bassam_zawadi/wafa_sultan.htm

[Alexandra]

"You racist ethnocentric xenophobes make me sick. Anyone who wants to preserve their way of life or practice their beliefs or culture is not a threat to you it is you who are a threat to them."

I think you must have me confused with a liberal idiot who is going to let you insult me in my own space and leave this anti-Semitic babble of yours on do you George/Michelle? Hahahaaha you have to be kidding me...I think you got lost somewhere between Atrios....and Al-Jazeera, yes of course I will surely take their translation as the word of Allah, or should I say the, ahem, word of law.

I love Wafa Sultan, I just wish there were more of her around, and a lot less of you. But then I don't need to worry, your own Shari'a loving friends will see to that. By the way go and read my post "The Myth Of Palestine Part II" you will enjoy that immensely.