Well, this clears it all up. Imagine! Radio talk show hosts are spreading misinformation about Islam! Now where would they get the idea that Islam does anything but oppose terror and seek peace? Hmmm. Maybe from people like Osama bin Laden, Omar Bakri, Abu Bakar Bashir, and multitudes of others who proclaim repeatedly that Islam does not oppose terror or seek peace, and whose presentation of Islamic theology justifying violence against unbelievers has never been refuted or condemned by any Islamic authority?
“Muslims oppose terror, seek peace, turnpike sign says,” from the Sun-Sentinel, with thanks to Eric:
Near one of South Florida’s busiest crossroads, a new billboard aims to tell people about the real Islam.
With the American flag visible in the background, the message reads: “Islam Condemns Terrorism, Islam Stands for Peace & Justice, Explore the Qur’ran.”
I doubt that the billboard really misspells “Qur’an.”
The Florida office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations hopes the ad along Florida’s Turnpike near Interstate 595 in Davie will fight the perception that Muslims share the same violent convictions as the Islamic fundamentalists behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks and recent bombings abroad.
“Four years later, one would imagine the incidents of discrimination and harassment against Muslims would diminish. Quite the opposite has happened,” said Altaf Ali, Florida director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The Washington D.C.-based CAIR has recorded almost 300 hate crimes against Florida Muslims since 9-11. Many of the hijackers had lived in South Florida before they boarded the planes they crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
In May, vandals threw a rock through a glass door at the Islamic School of Miami. In June, drivers rammed the school’s gate with a car. Last year, the mosque also reported the scrawling of an expletive and a Nazi swastika on an exterior sign.
If these incidents are actual, they are indeed reprehensible. However, CAIR’s hate crimes reports have been highly questionable.
The number marks a sharp increase from only 12 incidents recorded the year before the terror attacks.
Syed Ali Rahman, a technical analyst in Weston and a member of the executive council of CAIR’s South Florida chapter, said he has not experienced discrimination based on his religion. But he said others encounter it daily. “A lot of it has to do with ignorance and misconceptions perpetuated by radio talk show hosts,” Rahman said.
And of course the supreme irony in all this is that the billboard was put up by CAIR. But no one reading the article would get any idea that CAIR was anything but a neutral civil rights organization. For some illuminating information to the contrary, see here.