A Jihad Watch reader picked up the phone earlier today and called Johnstown, Pennsylvania Imam Fouad ElBayly, who has said that Ayaan Hirsi Ali should be killed. To his surprise, ElBayly picked up the phone. From the reader’s email to me:
I called the number and someone picked up and said hello. I said I was calling with regard to Imam Fouad ElBayly.
The person on the other end said, “Speaking.” (!!!!)
Me: Is this Imam Fouad ElBayly?
ElBayly: Speaking.
Me: I understand that you called for the murder of Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
ElBayly: Oh no no, that was not correct.
Me: I have the quote right here. You said, “She has been identified as one who has defamed the faith. If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death.”
ElBayly: Yes, but that is not my word. That is the call of God.
Me: So you said that.
ElBayly: Before anybody gets into the relations with Islam [I couldn’t type fast enough to type everything he said] … you don’t get into the relationship with Islam […] what Ali did is called corruption on earth. It is worse than murder. She was disturbing the peace. That is not a peaceful life.
Qur’an 5:33 speaks about corruption on earth, or “corruption in the land” as the Muslim translator Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall has it: “The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom.”
ElBayly then started to segue into how he only called for action to be taken against her in another country. I cut him off:
Me: No no no no no. Now YOU listen to ME.
And I said it with righteous passion and plenty of it. Not loudly, but with tremendous passion.
Me: It is ILLEGAL in the state of Pennsylvania to threaten anyone. There is no special distinction for any religion.
I went on telling him about the law, with the same tremendous passionate energy, and then he hung up on me.
I feel pretty sure that I rattled his cage big-time.
I hope so. I hope a prosecutor in Pennsylvania has enough spine to grasp the multicultural third rail and make it clear to Imam Fouad ElBayly that saying that someone should be killed is not something we take lightly in the U.S.