This is, of course, how Islamic groups in the U.S. have reacted to every act of violence and every threat that any Muslim has issued in recent years: they've raised fears of a non-existent "backlash" and claimed they're being persecuted, rather than address the root causes of the violence and brutality within their own community. And the bemused, befuddled multiculturalists in the mainstream media go along with it happily, every time.
The Orlando Sentinel has been engaging in a full-scale campaign to discredit Rifqa Bary and her defenders. Pamela Geller skewered a few of their recent propaganda pieces here, here, and here. And here's the Sentinel's latest fresh steaming pile of Rifqa coverage:
"Muslims fear runaway girl's case will fuel religious hatred," by Jeff Kunerth for the Orlando Sentinel, August 31 (thanks to Larry):
From the sidelines, the Muslim community watches the saga of Fathima Rifqa Bary with sadness and weariness.What looks to many Muslims like a family squabble between Muslim parents in Columbus, Ohio, and their runaway daughter in Orlando has become something of a new crusade by evangelical Christians.
Forget about Rifqa's charge that her father threatened to kill her. This was all provoked by the media's favorite whipping boy, "evangelical Christians."
The frustration for many Muslims in Central Florida is that the accusations of one teenage girl who says she fears her father would kill her for becoming a Christian has become a wholesale distortion of their religion."We feel frustrated because this is a family problem of a certain family, and the way it has been portrayed is defaming Islam and giving a way, way negative picture of our religion," said Imam Tariq Rasheed, director of the Islamic Center of Orlando.
See how it works? Father threatens to kill girl, in full accord with Islamic law regarding apostates. Girl flees, and reports what her father said. And suddenly this becomes an act of "defaming Islam." Even if Rifqa's father didn't actually threaten her, there is nothing in the least unbelievable about the charge that he did, in light of the many killings of apostates and threats to their lives that take place frequently in the Islamic world.
Yet if you speak of this, you're "defaming Islam" -- a clever ploy to try to deflect attention away from the killings for apostasy, and from the father's alleged threat, and onto Muslims as being victimized by coverage of all this.
And now the Sentinel explains it all for you, letting Islamic spokesmen correct the alleged errors of Rifqa's defenders:
In their advocacy of the 17-year-old girl, her defenders contend that Bary's fears of being beaten or killed because she converted to Christianity are real. The fundamentalists lobbying the state to allow Bary to remain in Florida cite instances of "honor killings" where women and girls who have shamed their families have been killed."There is a significant population, a growing population, of extremist Muslims who take the Quran quite literally and apply it as they have on this case," said Bary's attorney John Stemberger. "My concern is she is literally a dead girl if she is sent back to Ohio. It's only a matter of time until she disappears into the night."
Quran vs. law
Such a contention is a blatant misrepresentation of Islam, Rasheed said.
"There is not a single verse in the holy Quran that stops a person from exercising the freedom of choosing his or her religion. There is nothing about a punishment if you change your religion," Rasheed said.
Ultimately, even if what Stemberger says were a "blatant misrepresentation of Islam," which it is not, it is irrelevant. For Rifqa's father may have threatened her even if to have done so would have violated the tenets of Islam. The assumption that Mohamed Bary, or anyone, must always and in every instance act in accord with the tenets of his religion is absurd. Rifqa Bary could be in danger from her father whatever Islam teaches. Rasheed is essentially arguing that Islam doesn't teach death for apostasy, and therefore Rifqa is not in danger.
But of course, Rasheed is also lying. The death penalty for apostasy is rooted in two Qur'anic verses, 2:217 and 4:89. Here is 2:217:
They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: "Fighting therein is a grave (offence); but graver is it in the sight of Allah to prevent access to the path of Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members." Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.
What does it mean that the works of those who "turn back from their faith and die in unbelief" will "bear no fruit in this life" as well as in the next? Let's go for an answer to the Tafsir al-Qurtubi, a classic and thoroughly mainstream exegesis of the Qur'an. About 2:217, Qurtubi says this:
Scholars disagree about whether or not apostates are asked to repent. One group say that they are asked to repent and, if they do not, they are killed. Some say they are given an hour and others a month. Others say that they are asked to repent three times, and that is the view of Malik. Al-Hasan said they are asked a hundred times. It is also said that they are killed without being asked to repent.
Did you notice one option that Qurtubi never mentions? That's right: he never says anything like "some say the apostate should not be killed." The only point of contention seems to be how long the Muslim must wait before he kills the apostate.
Meanwhile, 4:89 says this:
They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they). But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.
Thus those who have fled from what is forbidden, i.e., embraced Islam, should be killed if they "turn renegades." The Tafsir al-Jalalayn, another venerable and respected commentary on the Qur'an, explains that a Muslim should not trust these people "until they emigrate in the way of God, a proper emigration that would confirm their belief" -- that is, if they leave their homes to join up with the Muslims. "Then, if they turn away, and remain upon their ways, take them, as captives, and slay them wherever you find them." Here again, no attempt is made, in this Qur'an commentary or any of those that Muslims revere as trustworthy, to explain that this does not actually mean that one should kill the "renegade."
And of course Rasheed speak only about the Qur'an. He never mentions, although he surely must know, that Muhammad said "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him," and that this statement in the Hadith (in which it appears several times) became the foundation for the unanimous verdict of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence: the apostate must be killed.
The article continues:
Though there are Muslim nations where "honor killings" are condoned, it is not for leaving Islam, said Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida. Non-Muslims often confuse "honor killings" with a provision in ancient Islamic law that calls for capital punishment for Muslims who leave the religion. But that law is applied by a court, not by individuals or family members, as is the custom with "honor killings," which usually involve adultery or fornication by unmarried women."They assume the law and the Quran are synonymous, and they are not," Simmons said. "The Quran is not a law book."
No, but there is Islamic law, and a manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).
In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In accord with this, in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."
Fathima Rifqa Bary herself may be confused about the difference between capital punishment under Islamic law and honor killings, Simmons said.Not all Muslim countries operate under Islamic law and not all Muslim countries permit honor killings — just as not all states in America have the death penalty. Sri Lanka, where Bary's parents are from, does not use Islamic law in its judicial system, Simmons said.
So what? Are we to believe that because Sri Lanka doesn't follow Islamic law, that therefore the Barys don't follow it either?
'Islamophobia'The custody battle between Christian evangelicals in Florida and her Muslim parents in Ohio comes at the same time an evangelical church in Gainesville posted a sign that said "Islam is of the Devil" on its property. Several children were sent home the first week of school for wearing T-shirts with that message.
Both cases — equating Islam with evil and contending that Muslims who convert to Christianity will be killed — feed into what Simmons calls "Islamophobia."
Where did anyone get the idea that "Muslims who convert to Christianity will be killed"? Was it really from greasy Islamophobes? Or might it have been from the Muslims who insisted on exactly that (see all my links above)?
"This plays into an irrational sense of fear among people who aren't familiar with the tenets of the faith," she said.The portrayal of violent Muslims who want to kill their daughter and devoted evangelical Christians who want only to save the soul of a innocent child only perpetuates stereotypes of both Muslims and Christians, said Claudia Schippert, associate professor of humanities at the University of Central Florida.
"What is shameful in this entire ordeal is the way in which those who should know better, and who profess quite different values otherwise, are willing to repeat stereotypes and fuel fires of ignorance and violence," she said of the Christians at the center of this controversy.
On Aug. 21, Muslims began their monthlong observance of Ramadan. During Ramadan, Muslims turn inward away from the distractions of the everyday world that, these days, include the tug-of-war over a teenage girl who has placed their religion on trial.
"With other communities, when an individual does something, it's that individual," Rasheed said. "When it's a Muslim, it's Islam that is the motivating factor."
And why might that be?
"The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam." -- Osama bin Laden, October 6, 2002
"We ask to be near to God, we fight you and destroy you and terrorize you. The Jihad in god's cause is a great duty in our religion." -- the 9/11 plotters, December 2008
And so on. In other words, people see Islam as "the motivating factor" in Islamic violence because its perpetrators say that it was the motivating factor.
"The portrayal of violent Muslims who want to kill their daughter and devoted evangelical Christians who want only to save the soul of a innocent child only perpetuates stereotypes of both Muslims and Christians, said Claudia Schippert, associate professor of humanities at the University of Central Florida.
"What is shameful in this entire ordeal is the way in which those who should know better, and who profess quite different values otherwise, are willing to repeat stereotypes and fuel fires of ignorance and violence," she said of the Christians at the center of this controversy."
So it is not the fact of Muslims who have, all over the place, been killing apostates from Islam, not despite what Islam inculcates, but following enthusiastically what Islam inculcates, is what "pereptuates stereotypes."
As for those "devoted evangelical Christians who want only to save the soul of a innocent child" -- actually, I think they were not quite so interested, on this particular occasion, in "saving the soul" of Rifqa Bary as in saving her life, which is a different thing -- why, according to Claudia Schiffert, this kind of behavior is bad for it "perpetuates stereotypes.
So, you evangelical Christians -- stop it, will you. By rescuing Rifqa Bary, you are engaged -- oh, possibly not deliberately, we can't be sure of that -- in the perpetuating of stereotypes. And there can be few things as bad as that.
An idiot, this Claudia Schippert. Every which way.
....the Muslim community watches the saga of Fathima Rifqa Bary with sadness and weariness.
What looks to many Muslims like a family squabble between Muslim parents in Columbus, Ohio, and their runaway daughter in Orlando has become something of a new crusade by evangelical Christians.
Oh, bravo! What an excellent piece of manipulative codswallop!
I particularly enjoyed the 'crusade' reference.
Well played, Mr. Kunerth. You are officially part of the problem.
Those who can comment to the Orlando Sentinel - it seems an Australian can't, I don't have a US zipcode - should be pointing out that had Rifqa converted to Atheism and Rationalism and run away and thrown herself upon the mercy of a member of the Humanist Society, she would be just as much in danger, and just as dead if the Muslims get their hands on her again.
Ditto if she had converted to Buddhism and taken refuge in a Buddhist monastery.
This is not about *what* faith outside of Islam she has chosen. This is about the fact that anyone who leaves Islam for *anything* else, is supposed to be killed, according to the sharia.
Perhaps a prominent US Jewish, Buddhist or Hindu family should step forward and offer to take her in and give her a home, once the court (as it most certainly should) refuses to give her back to her parents and to the Ummah or Muslim mob. *That* offer might upset people's ideas a bit.
distractions of the everyday world that, these days, include the tug-of-war over a teenage girl who has placed their religion on trial....
Teenage girl Rifka Bary is a lioness who had the courage and power to put the vile cult on trial. Good for her!
nabi ZK (pbum)
Mr. Spencer has done an excellent job refuting the vile propaganda that Jeff Kunerth has written for the Orlando Sentinel, but I'd like to add a few words and observations of my own.
The sinister agenda of Mr. Kunerth is already evident in the article's title:
So a young girl flees from her Muslim parents in fear that she will be murdered in accordance with Islamic law's requirement for the execution of apostates and it is Muslims that supposedly fear "religious hatred"?
Kunerth doesn't even try to hide his obvious sympathy with the Muslims and his loathing for evangelical Christians. It is assumed a priori that the Muslims are misunderstood victims and the Christians are nasty, old, bigots looking for confrontation with the Muslims (and note the deliberate use of the word "crusade" in relation to the Christians).
The Muslims throw out a few terms like "distortion" and "defaming" and the Left eats it right up. This hack journalist never bothers to find out if there is any truth to the claim that Islamic law mandates the execution of apostates. The good Imam Rasheed assures him it is all nasty slander and that is good enough for Mr. Kunerth.
It is also important to note that the imam employs the phrase "defaming Islam". We all know what happens to those who "defame" Islam, just ask Theo van Gogh.
[Now I will not get into Rasheed's blatant lies about the punishment via execution for apostasy not being in the Qur'an, as Mr. Spencer and Dr. Andrew Bostom have already put the canard to rest, and thus there is nothing that needs to be added to that aspect of the discussion on my part.]
So an evangelical church, completely unrelated to Ms. Bary and her case, puts up an anti-Islam sign, all evangelical Christians are responsible? The liberal-left doesn't allow for any discussion about the relationship between Islam and jihad terrorism, but it is okay to attack Ms. Bary and her supporters by mentioning a sign at some random church?
Ah, the old "Islamophobia" menace. What a load of ignorant crap. I am quite familiar with the tenets of the Islamic religion and can state with complete certainty that Islamic law, based on the Qur'an and the hadith of Muhammad, makes very clear that apostates from Islam are to be killed. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons is the one who clearly is not familiar with Islamic teachings, or is an outright liar (which I wouldn't discount).
Schippert is yet another of the many idiots that populate the academic professions. If there is any misleading stereotyping being done here it is by people like Schippert and Simmons, who wish to present Christians as hateful bigots and the Muslims as misunderstood victims.
And why is that Mr. Rasheed? Would it be because Islam actually does teach jihad against infidels, the subjugation of Jews and Christians, and the killing of apostates?
As for Jeff Kunerth, he would give Orwell's Ministry of Truth a run for its money. This is a man with a deep hatred for Christianity, such that he willingly parrots propaganda for the stealth jihadists and puts a young girl's life in jeopardy. Kunerth is the intellectual heir of those New York Times journalists that used to deliberately cover up the crimes of the Stalinist Soviet regime. He is truly an evil man.
I have been watching the Orlando Sentinel's
reporting on this from the day this whole
thing started. It has been totally biased
right from the start. Every article they written
should never been allowed in any news section
but should been in the commentary part of the news
paper.Its down right disturbing, if a news paper
can't report on this fair and balanced then you
trust them with the news. Think of how they could
influence a national election or a law or your
rights
Xavier, the attitude displayed by the Orlando Sentinel is perfectly in tune with the liberal-left agenda. The paper is eager to depict evangelical Christians in the worst light possible. This is exactly the same technique used by MSNBC and the NYT when they smear Americans that oppose certain policies of Barack Obama (such as socialised healthcare) or who oppose amnesty for illegal aliens as racists, Klansmen, and brownshirts. Remember, the liberal-left, schooled by the cultural Marxists, hates anything white, Western, and Christian. This Jeff Kunerth is certainly cut from the same cloth as left-wing zealots Keith Olbermann, Paul Krugman, and Maureen Dowd.
DDA,
If you want to jump in on the Orlando Sentinel and stir the pot, just create a "fake" account with and Orlando ZIP code: 32812.
Hope this helps you.
"By rescuing Rifqa Bary, you are engaged -- oh, possibly not deliberately, we can't be sure of that -- in the perpetuating of stereotypes. And there can be few things as bad as that."
From the PC MC Holy Text, chapter 1 verse 100:
"O Ye Who Are Correct: Perpetuating stereotypes is worse than slaughter!"
hose who can comment to the Orlando Sentinel - it seems an Australian can't, I don't have a US zipcode - dumbledoresarmy
You're welcome to use my zipcode-30906. I'm in Georgia, right above Florida.
"O Ye Who Are Correct: Perpetuating stereotypes is worse than slaughter!"
Posted by: Hesperado [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 31, 2009 6:31 PM
But "racism" is the ultimate transgression, so it must be worse than genocide. And everyone who disagrees with liberal orthodoxy is a racist, as are all Conservatives.
Thanks Susan, and boneshack.
I'm thinking that Christians all over the USA (especially Christian youth groups) should be fasting and praying over this one. Jews and persons of other faiths may like to join in, too.
If anyone has a 'contact' (say, a family member) within one of the contemplative Orders, whether Orthodox or Catholic, I think Rifqa's name should be on the list for emergency intercession. Jews - perhaps ask your Chabad people to recite Psalms for her.
Of course, there are lots of others who need our prayers and our advocacy, day in and day out - all the persecuted Christians and apostates and so on, within the Islamic world -
but this is a critical 'test case', that raises a very important question, head on: *are* our western, free-world governments willing to stick their necks out and defend religious freedom, freedom of conscience, when it involves defending the right of a person (and I think 17 years of age is quite old enough to make this choice) to choose to leave Islam without getting killed for it, by Muslims.
If,* in the USA*, a 17 year old girl of Muslim background is NOT free to leave Islam by her own free will, in safety; if the Authorities will, rather, meekly hand her over to her former co-religionists, knowing that she will most likely be murdered out of hand, either on US soil or in Sri Lanka; then freedom of religion, and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit to happiness, is *dead*, in the USA.
This is where the rubber hits the road.
f,* in the USA*, a 17 year old girl of Muslim background is NOT free to leave Islam by her own free will, in safety; if the Authorities will, rather, meekly hand her over to her former co-religionists, knowing that she will most likely be murdered out of hand, either on US soil or in Sri Lanka; then freedom of religion, and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit to happiness, is *dead*, in the USA.
This is where the rubber hits the road.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy
The problem is that so many people absolutely refuse to believe this poor girl and you've seen the propaganda and taqiya put forth by the lying muslim advocacy groups. Our best hope is that the judge is convinced there is a real threat and since he mentioned that there are radical muslims in her area, maybe he knows something about islam. I pray he does.
As you know, the sleazy muslim spokesmen come across as Westernized, sincere, humble, and oh so distressed that there is so much "misunderstanding" of islam. If only people "understood" their benevolent, harmless religion they would never spread malevolent lies about it. It amazes me that the liberals fall for this BS and don't question the lies for a moment! The left-wing apologists crawl out of the woodwork to defend innocent, demure muslims and to trash Christians. It is amazing to witness the media bias in favor of the deceitful, smooth-talking savages. They're a "minority" you know, so they are automatically victims in "racist" America. We need a few more "minority" groups to join the invasion so our political system can completely disenfranchise indigenous citizens. We're close to becoming irrelevant now except for providing the tax revenue the politicians need to give to their precious "minorities".
The way I see it, if there is even the remotest hint of a threat to a child's life, appropriate measures should be taken to protect the child. Rifqa said her father got many e-mails and phone calls from local muslims telling him that HE HAD TO DEAL WITH HIS DAUGHTER. She was sentenced to death by the local islamic mafia and her father was the designated executioner. It would be interesting if some of those messages could be retrieved and posted on the Huffington Post for the Christian-hating, left-wing group thinkers to see, but they aren't interested in discriminating evidence against their heroes; that wouldn't fit their paradigm and might force them to feed their emaciated brains with a bit of critical thinking.
I'm sure they'll all be devastated if Rifqa is returned to her loving parents and turns up dead a week or so later. Should that happen, it won't even be mentioned, much less discussed.
Robert, thanks for the mention of the ISLAM IS OF THE DEVIL sign. This is my church, and you have the details a bit wrong. The sign in front of our church has been up for several weeks. You can go to our website
doveworld.org
for some links to newspaper articles and media video when that happened.
Now we have hit the web again, because school started and several of our students went to school with T shirts saying ISLAM IS OF THE DEVIL on the back and ""I stand in truth with Dove World Outreach Center", followed by, "Jesus answered I am the way and the truth and the life; no one goes to
the Father except through me" on the front.
The elementary schools, middle schools and high schools all reacted, slowly at first, and now most of the students have been detentioned and/or suspended, even when the offensive words (the back) were covered over. We expected this. it is a very liberal town, where everything goes and the University of Florida in King (no other name so glorious, all hail Florida, hail! they sing at football games ... i sing the national anthem just before that, but keep my silence on that one when at the games, which are great fun otherwise.)
.... but we fight on, and in the mean time get the message out.
see doveworld.org
and youtube's braveheartshow
The church should have written the verses from the quran sura 3:54 which says allah is the greatest liar, deceiver, schemer and planner to deceive. Bible said satan the devil is the deceiver of the world.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IS BACK. RUN MUSLIMS GIRLS, RUN.