The superb Kamala has an excellent piece about a drearily typical whitewash of Islam and jihad that is going on today at the Santa Clara County Office of Education Library Materials Fair, and in all sorts of other places these days as well. “Silicon Valley Reads…a book of lies,” by Kamala, January 22:
About three years ago, I stumbled upon a book called The Muslim Next Door.
Written by Sumbul Ali-Karamali, an American-raised, Stanford-educated
Muslim woman, this book aims to “clear away the misconceptions about
Islam.” The back cover effuses: “What if you could sit down at a kitchen
table with an American Muslim mom and ask anything you wanted about her
faith and religious practice?”After reading the book, I was left with only more questions. The Muslim Next Door
is filled with patently false, wildly misleading, and fully
unsubstantiated claims about the very concerns many Americans have about
Islam. Taking her at her word, that she would be open to answering
questions about Islam, I prepared ten detailed questions regarding
problematic aspects of her book. Perhaps, I thought, these were honest
mistakes or omissions. Perhaps she would acknowledge and address the
flaws in her book. The ten questions can be read here. They cover a wide range of topics, including:
- Ali-Karamali’s
claim that Muhammad had sex with his favorite wife Aisha only when “she
was well past puberty “¦ somewhere between twelve and sixteen,” even
though the most respected scholars of Islam — including one that she
herself calls a “highly respected luminary” — quote Aisha as having said
that her marriage was consummated at age nine.
- Her
claim without citation that Muslims make up 3% of the US population, a
grossly inflated figure in comparison to even the most optimistic
credible estimates.
- Her explanation that one of Islam’s
definitions is “peace,” a falsehood that even the Muslim Student
Association of the University of Southern California labeled the “#1 Misconception” about Islam.
- Her
argument that female genital mutilation and honor killings are
antithetical to Islam, despite mountains of contradictory evidence,
including rulings in an Islamic manual of law certified by Al-Azhar
University in Egypt, which Ali-Karamali herself calls “one of the great
centers for Islamic studies.”At the time, author Robert Spencer was kind enough to post a link to these questions at his web site, Jihad Watch.
I
politely asked Ms. Ali-Karamali several times — via both her publisher
and another mutual contact who assured me that the message was
personally delivered — to respond to the questions. Each time, I got no
response. One person who had read my questions and also wanted some
answers went to one of Ali-Karamali’s numerous promotional San Francisco
Bay Area appearances and asked her, face-to-face, to address these questions:
“I spoke with Karamali following her Commonwealth Club speech
yesterday. She said she’s familiar with this article but that it’s
affiliated with Jihad Watch, which is a hateful organization, so she
won’t answer the questions.”So much for getting the questions
answered. At least, I thought at the time, Ali-Karamali didn’t seem to
be getting increasing levels of exposure — unlike some other truth-challenged apologists for Islam.Fast forward to 2012.
Sumbul Ali-Karamali’s book is about to become the centerpiece of a four-month-long, government-sponsored initiative called “Silicon Valley Reads.”
An annual program in the San Francisco Bay Area, 2012 is the 10th
anniversary, and its sponsors “are celebrating with an outstanding
selection of books and events focused on the theme, ‘Muslim and
American: Two Perspectives.– Ali-Karamali’s three-year-old book is
featured as (ostensibly) one of those perspectives.(The second
“perspective” is delivered from another American Muslim woman, Willow
Wilson, who converted to Islam and wrote a book called The Butterfly Mosque.
While not even an attempt to address non-Muslim concerns about Islam,
Butterfly Mosque’s view of Islam is hardly inconsistent with
Ali-Karamali’s or those of other contemporary apologists for Islam. For
Wilson, the “parts of Shari”a law that were premodern and problematic” were “no more so than the Old Testament. Islam had all the hang-ups, along with all the potential for resolution, of any ancient faith.”
Wilson pins any negative impressions of Sharia on the Wahhabis, a
common response from apologists unwilling to admit to the vast agreement
among Muslim scholars (and Islamic schools of jurisprudence) about the most despicable aspects of Sharia. Wilson also dishes out disdain for “self-righteous” apostates who risk death to leave Islam, denigrating “the Ayaan Hirsi Alis and Wafaa Sultans who had made their fortunes by rejecting Islam.”)Back to Ms. Ali-Karamali, just look at the publicity and exposure that this program will bring her:
- January 25: On-stage interview with columnist Mike Cassidy (mcassidy@mercurynews.com) of the San Jose Mercury News, to be recorded and broadcast on KLIV Radio February 1
- January 31: Guest of the Santa Clara County Office of Education (a government organization) Materials Fair, open to all teachers and school librarians
- February 2: Discussion of her book at the Saratoga Library
- February 12: Discussion of her book at the India Community Center
- February 22: Television interview on CreaTV Channel 30 in San Jose with Janice Edwards (janice@creatvsj.org)
- March 3: On-stage interview with De Anza College President Brian Murphy (murphybrian@deanza.edu)
- March 10: Discussion of her book at the Morgan Hill Library
- March 16: Interview with Dale Bryant (dbryant@svcn.com), Executive Editor of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, at the History Club of Los Gatos
- March 29: Presenting “What I’d like Teachers to Know about Islam and Muslims” at the Santa Clara County Office of Education
- April 29: On-stage interview with columnist Sal Pizarro of the San Jose Mercury News (spizarro@mercurynews.com)