The great Wafa Sultan is not cowed by threats.
From Ynet, with thanks to Twostellas:
WASHINGTON - Dr. Wafa Sultan recently became a legend. Her two interviews with al-Jazeera, in which she censured Islam and the way in which it inflicts ignorance and alienation on its followers, have made her into a phenomenon: an educated Muslim that demands that the Arab world take its head out of the sand. In a recent interview , the only time I see tears creeping into Dr. Sultan's eyes is when she speaks of her family in a small village in western Syria, two or three hours from northern Beirut. In their eyes, she is a shameful stain on the family, which includes seven brothers and three sisters. Her eldest brother claims that she received a million dollars from the Jews in order to denounce Islam. Her mother, age 74, refuses to speak to her on the telephone.[...]
Her own departure from the Middle Ages was triggered by the murder of her lecturer at the Halab Medical School in 1979. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood murdered eye doctor Prof. Yusef al Yusef because he was an Alawi (like the family of Syrian President Bashar Assad), yelling 'Allah Akbar', shooting into the air, and driving off on a motorcycle.
Dr. Sultan called this the turning point in her life. She started questioning her life and belief system, with her husband, whom she had met at the time. She stopped fasting and praying. Her husband wandered from embassy to embassy trying to get a visa. It took them ten years to get out of Syria.[...]
Eventually, a few weeks before September 11th, a friend suggested that she start her own website. Thus, anneqed.com was born: Meaning "the critic" in Arabic, it contains articles in Arabic and English.
Wafa received several warning phone calls from CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations). At first, she says, they were able to restrain her to a degree, but after September 11th, she knew she could not remain silent. "Today I'm a completely different person. Let them do what they want."
[...]
Dr, Sultan debated Egyptian professor of Islamic Studies Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli, who couldn't keep up with her, asking her again and again "so you're a heretic?" and stating that there was no point in debating with someone who insults the prophet Muhammad and the Quran.
Wafa Sultan said she has received death threats and estimates that someone will try to assassinate her, but she is not prepared to be frightened. "They weren't able to shut my mouth the first time. In February, I took them down again. They won't ever invite me again," she smiles.[...]
She believes that her mission - to "breach the walls of the prison of the Islamic world" – is difficult, but that she has succeeded in making a crack. Now it will be easier for others to come after her, she said.
Wafa told of an e-mail from a Moroccan mulla who said that he had bound her internet article into a book and told his 17 year old son that this was his new Quran. She receives e-mails from Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia. She receives mails from Muslim women cheering her on. Sadly, they always use pseudonyms, because they are afraid.Earlier this week, she received an e-mail from a 23 year old Syrian student who wrote that the government had blocked her website but not her e-mails and asked her to send them via e-mail. "I know that I have a large influence on the Arab world," she said proudly.
When reminded that producer Theo Van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam for similar reasons, she responded: "I lived in fear for 32 years. 32 years of my life were stolen from me by radical Islam. Let them do what they want. I think they'll succeed one day. It's no big deal."
Read it all. Follow the links. Read the other stories. Watch the videos.
"She receives mails from Muslim women cheering her on. Sadly, they always use pseudonyms, because they are afraid."-Robert
This is the foot binding for the mind that is fear.
The bold creative mind is killed by the Islamic belief system. Freedom is the unlimited right to reason with our God given mind and freedom of speech is the unlimited right to express thoughts and opinions based on reason. The first principal of freedom in physical reality is its limitation by the body, by the needs of others, by death, etc. But a free mind-soul implies freedom of movement (liberty) and access to all human thought. Freedom is threatened by license (no limitation outside of reason) and by totalitarian control of the mind via belief-systems that demand that they be treated as fact.
Waffa is a free woman. She represents the unlimited right to reason and to express thoughts and opinions based on reason. She will not let the chains of fear shackle her mind-soul. Not CAIR, not Islam, not any belief-system that demands to be treated as fact will darken her creative mind by fear. I should hope God will be so kind as to make us all like Waffa.
Fear is a terrible thing for the mind-soul. If there is a devil, and the devil has desires, his chief desire is to instill fear into our souls so that our reason becomes crippled. God offers us all goodness where there is no fear. We may reason, we may think, we may use our five senses to understand the mystery of life, be human with God. God does not want our use of reason limited and all non-reason does that as it inspires fear.
Re: "Wafa received several warning phone calls from CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations)".
She got several warning phone calls from the thought-police, the barking and growling dogmas of CAIR.
I have downloaded her videos, have seen them many times, she is truly a great person, her debate with the Egyptian cleric was amazing. She buried him with logic and eloquence.
What an incredible lady! God bless her and also Bridget Gabriel who's new book "Why They Hate" is a must read.
May God protect Wafa Sultan. By God I don't include a phony Allah who was a concoction of Mo's epileptic brain, merely a projection of Muhammad's viciousness and evil.
El-cid, please where did you download the video from it will bw a interesting watch.
Brave and intelligent women dissenters of islam are our best allies.
They will rock and explode the impossible ideology.
Start to tremble Ibrahim.
I am told that in her first Al_Jazeera debate, her Arabic was classical and flawless and her rhetorical style magnificent - one of the reasons her opponent seems so discomfited.
Listen to the lilt of her voice, the gathering weight of her argument pushing on and on. Reason and passion in perfect balance. It is almost poetry - who in the 21st century can speak like that anymore? Can we 'hear' anymore?
To me, Islam has several "Achilles heels,". One of these being truth, another is the "special place"(as in a Jail cell) of Muslim Women.
Demographically they could, in time, eliminate all the Muslims forever.
God willing, of course.
Credit man - I'd like to add "Mohammed's example" and "Mohammed's exalted position" as potential Achillie's heels as well.
Waffa Sultan is a genuine hero. She and Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, the Caner brothers.....etc. are real live heroes. Brigitte Gabriel is also amazing in the face of threats from the headhunters.
Don't miss! This is an excellent video from an interview with Wafa Sultan on Danish TV;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Negt6IzxPTo
Wow! What a courageous woman!
There is so much cowardice and dhimmitude in the West. That's why it is so encouraging to watch women like Wafa Sultan to talk like few Westerners would ever dare.
I wish I could find ten stories like this every day!
This brave lady deserves our respect. Islam can change if more people stand by those who are willing to look at Islam and Muslims and challenge dogma. Christianity has had to examine itself in the past eg the Reformation - hopefully Islam can do the same.
Wafa Sultan is the light of Truth shining in the face of the vampires of Islam.
Her family views her as a "shamefull stain?" I beg to differ. She is a towering evergreen.
Wafa Sultan is a true hero in modern times. There are many more of her type, I believe trapped in violent cultures that abound in some muslim countries, afraid to proclaim the truths that are apparent to so many. Unfortunately the radical Islamist fighters are so miss wired, they are beyond the help of logic, truth and modern beliefs and society. These so called followers of mohammed (spit be upon him) are so willing to die for their perverted world view, that I believe the only solution left is to accommodate them with thrir wish. When the majority of the murdering Jihadist have been removed from this earth, only then will human compassion and progress take place. God bless the combined armed forces of the coalition of the willing in their pursuit to accommodate the wish of the jihadist to die for their cause, preferably in mass with their fellow irrational believers (spit be upon their souls). God bless Wafa, peace be with her forever.