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An American Woman’s Jihad

Feb 14, 2005 7:17 am By Robert Spencer

Does Fidelma O’Leary not know what is in the Qur’an, or does she hope her hearers don’t? From the Cornell Daily Sun, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

“As adults we must each own our own beliefs,” said Prof. Fidelma O’Leary, biology, St. Edward’s University, to a packed auditorium in Goldwin Smith on Friday night. Her lecture, “An American Woman’s Jihad,” detailed her spiritual journey as an Irish-American Muslim.

“Islam [is] a development of the faith that I already had… Islam worked for me and I was completely at peace with my religion. [But it was] a long journey filled with jihad [and] a struggle to surrender my will to the will of God,” said O’Leary, who was raised as a strict Catholic in Ireland before converting to Islam and moving to the United States.

“I was raised in a culture where thinking about religion was taboo. I was a teenager, so naturally I rebelled: I started thinking,” she added. She started to have questions about the religious beliefs and practices she was raised on and she began to study religion.

O’Leary became a “person of faith, searching” for an answer. When she came across the Qur’an, she “fully related to it.”

The transition to Islam was one filled with obstacles for O’Leary. She refers to the rift between herself and her family caused by her religious beliefs as her “first jihad and first painful struggle as a Muslim.”

O’Leary was also featured in the 2003 National Geographic documentary film Inside Mecca, which followed three Muslims from three different continents on their Hajj, their pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. A screening of the film preceded the lecture.

When describing the thought process behind making the documentary, O’Leary said, “at first I didn’t want to do it because I thought it would take from my Hajj. Then I realized that they wanted to gently demolish that stereotype of what a Muslim woman is. I was also really tired of [watching] people who weren’t Muslim get on TV and tell me what it meant to be Muslim and I thought, we need to represent ourselves.”

In terms of her views on other religions, O’Leary said, “there’s beauty in all religions. Islam is a very inclusive path. It never claims exclusive access to God or to paradise.”

All right. I don’t want to spoil the lovefest, but maybe Fidelma O’Leary could explain a few verses of the Qur’an to me? Here they are:

The Religion before Allah is Islam (submission to His Will): Nor did the People of the Book dissent therefrom except through envy of each other, after knowledge had come to them. But if any deny the Signs of Allah, Allah is swift in calling to account. (3:19)

Doesn’t that rule out the possibility that the People of the Book “” i.e., Jews and Christians “” have access to God or Paradise comparable to that of Muslims? Because they “dissent” from “the Religion before Allah.” Also:

If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (All spiritual good). (3:85)

Doesn’t sound very inclusive to me. Can you clear this up, Ms. O’Leary? These are honest questions. However, I didn’t start doing this yesterday, and I have an idea what your response will be, if you happen to see this. You will either make no response at all, either by ignoring the questions totally or by saying, as other Islamic apologists have, that you don’t answer questions from non-Muslims or from people whose credentials you don’t like. If you do answer, you will accuse me of bigotry or “Islamophobia.”

Feel free to prove me wrong, Ms. O’Leary. I am still looking for the Muslim who will engage in honest dialogue without name-calling.

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