I was leaving the US Congress after a discussion about President Bush’s State of the Union address, which I had the privilege of attending the previous night, when I saw her.
She was a beautiful, lovely lady in her early 60s and looked great in her elegant, black and red European-style dress. So was her husband in his classic black suit and red-ribboned hat.
I asked if they would kindly take a group photo with me and a couple of fellow Arab journalists invited by the National Democratic Institute to attend the 110th Congress convention. They happily obliged. Then the lady recognized me. As it turned out, she read and wrote me frequently for years.
After some hesitation, she revealed her screen name. I was surprised! This cute sweet heart was one of my harshest critics who wrote so many anti-Islam, anti-Arab and anti-Saudi comments. I often thought she was actually a man. Women, I reasoned, were not capable of such hate, anger and foul words.
We were thrilled to meet each other in such fashion, and the couple invited me to lunch a day later. I went. And, as I told a concerned American friend later, it was a clash of civilizations!
I found that she is a computer consultant and an intellectual who speaks five European languages. Born in France to a Christian family, she became an opponent of organized religions in her 20s.
She never liked Arabs and Muslims. “Americans and Europeans,” she claimed, “fear Islam, because they know it for what it is: A religion of violence. Your Qur’an and the Prophet instruct you to hate and kill us. I can show you hundreds of passages where you were told to kill, kill, kill non-Muslims!”
It amazed me that she looked like she did believe that. How many would agree with her, I wondered. I knew if I just denied her accusation, she won’t be convinced. And since she is scientific, I decided to use mathematical logic instead.
What is the percentage of devout Muslims, I asked. “Most! You are a dangerously religious people,” she answered.
If so, I reasoned, then most of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world are potential killers.
Just imagine a billion of snipers, mujahedeen and suicide bombers scattered everywhere including here in America, where eight millions Muslims reside — excluding visitors like me. If that was the case, how come your world is not on fire?
She retorted: Then explain why Muslims have killed more people than any followers of any religion in history?
I told her that I don’t blame religions or prophets for the misdeeds of their followers. Otherwise, we would blame Christianity for the millions the Crusaders killed for centuries in the name of Jesus, or the bloody religious wars in Europe, or the Catholic mass killing of Muslims and Jews in Spain during the Inquisition, or the colonizers’ heinous crimes in a world they called primitive and in need of the light of Christianity.
In the last century only, Christian armies caused the death of tens of millions, fifty millions of them in World War II alone. In Ireland and Spain, Christian sects have been killing each others for ages, often in the name of God. In America, radical Christians have hanged and burned natives, blacks and Jews since the discovery of America to recent days.
In Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Palestine, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been killed.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush called his war a crusade, and claimed that he received his directions directly from God. The Evangelical-Zionist alliance that pushed the war agenda are Christians and Jews. Some of US allies in this war showed similar religious motivations and hate for Islam, like the former Italian Prime Minister Silivio Berlusconi.
Muslims did similar killing in the name of Allah in past centuries and today. Sometimes it is legitimate resistance to occupation and other times for political gains under religious banners. Still, even our extremists dare not blame Christianity or any other religion for the crimes of its followers.
It is part of our religion to believe in Christianity and Judaism, Jesus and Moses, the Bible and Torah. On the other hand, your radicals blame Islam, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the Qur’an for the criminality of a few thousands out of 1.3 billion Muslims. It is just not right, not logical and not fair.
My friend wasn’t moved much. But at least I was still welcome as a friend, and not feared as a potential killer!
4 comments:
Dr Batarfi, what about the wahibbists? Don't they teach hatred towards Christians? Bin Laudin was taught to hate as a child in Saudi Arabia. How can the Kingdom allow this to continue? Islam is a religion of peace, I do understand. What is to be done about the wahibs? are they the only Muslims we should fear? I teach my Christian children not to hate, but also to be wary and not trust Muslims, because I can't tell the difference between true Muslims who are good, and extremist wahibs who would stick a knife in their backs if given a chance. How can I tell the difference?
Thank you Dr Batarfi for telling the truth about Christian killings, hate and pogroms against Muslims. It is clear that what the terrorist are doing now is peanuts compared to what was done to the Mulims. And indeed colonialism was the first act of terrorism, and the worst, in this world.
Like wes decker said in his comment, I teach my Muslim children not to hate but to be wary and never to trust christians. I dont hate them myself and some of them are good but I cant forget history and what they are doing now in Iraq, Afganistan, Palestine and elsewhere.
I can not also tell the difference between the extremist Christian who is always looking for Muslim blood and a good one.
wes, not all wahabbists have suicidal or homicidal tendencies.
how do you tell the difference between a fanatical or real christian?
you judge a man or woman by their words and deeds regardless of faith.
i must ask you tho as a parent, how many child rapists and killers in the us have been of arab descent?
if i am not mistaken, and i'm not, most are white and male.
the facts are that you, or your children, are more likely to be killed by lightning; than to be killed by a terrorist act.
your children (and i hate to say this) are more likely to be abused by a close white male relative than being involved in a terrorist incident.
unfortunately, no matter what race or faith, some men are scumbags.
absolute disgusting, deplorable scumbags and no matter what you or i try to do, they will not be moved to become more.
so, the pointed question is....
have you instructed your children to not trust white men also?
please, try to understand, childhood is not a time for fear and, imho, you are transferring your fear onto your children.
i make these comments with humbleness in my heart and i hope you treat them likewise.
mayabubakar
i understand your attitude also.
to try to straddle the fence as i do requires latitude for attrocities on both sides.
currently the onus is on the side of washington to explain their actions and outright lies on their so called "war on teror".
frankly the admin in washington is the foremost exporter of terror we have seen in the world for many years.
saying that, the current attitude is the allowance of the public to accept the governance we have rather than the governance we want.
"...My friend wasn’t moved much. But at least I was still welcome as a friend, and not feared as a potential killer!..."
Khaled, let's get one thing straight: You and I are not friends! We are mere, casual acquaintances. But, I know you well through your writings and because of those, I could never be friends with you.
When I have the time, and the inclination, I shall respond to your untruthful, skewed article above about what was said at our lunch meeting—even though my business partner tells me not to waste my time because you are a classic, misanthropic, misogynistic, rude Muslim supremacist.
In the meantime...
The John Doe Manifesto
By Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Note: Earlier this month, six publicity-seeking imams filed a federal lawsuit against US Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Muslim clerics were removed from their flight last November and questioned for several hours after their suspicious behavior alarmed both passengers and crew members.
Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten reported last week that the imams, advised by the grievance-mongers at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also plan to sue "John Does" -- innocent bystanders who alerted the authorities about their security concerns. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., has introduced legislation to protect John Does who report suspicious behavior from legal liability. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; talk show host Michael Reagan; Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, who heads the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; and Minnesota lawyer Gerry Nolting have all stepped forward to offer free representation to the imams' targets.
____
Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,
You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.
I am John Doe.
I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.
I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.
I am John Doe.
I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.
I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.
I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.
I will act when homeland security officials ask me to "report suspicious activity."
I will embrace my local police department's admonition: "If you see something, say something."
I am John Doe.
I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing "scholars."
I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.
I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.
I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.
I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.
I am John Doe.
I will support law enforcement initiatives to spy on your operatives, cut off your funding and disrupt your murderous conspiracies.
I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.
I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.
I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.
I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderates' clothing. I will not cringe when you shriek about "profiling" or "Islamophobia."
I will put my family's safety above sensitivity. I will put my country above multiculturalism.
I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated.
I am John Doe.
____
Don't you ever forget this, Khaled—the civilized world is watching you! Everyone of you and your Muslim "brothers"—wherever you go in this world are being observed by the other four-fifths of humanity.
With every Islamofascist attack upon innocents, more and more people the world over are compelled to learn the truth about Islam and its imperialistic, hegemonic designs on the world.
In due time, virtually every person on earth will know and comprehend this:
• Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection. http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/009.qmt.html#009.029
Surat Al `Imran, verse 110: "You are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind. Enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had Faith: it were best for them: among them are some who have Faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors";
• Fighting for the Cause of Allah (Jihaad)
The world will read the Qur'an, the ahadith, as well as Islamic history written by Islamic scholars such as al Tabari—and they will know.
When will Muslims begin to question writings such as the above?
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