I asked the question just a few days ago: have you ever noticed that Islamic supremacist spokesmen in the U.S., including those who claim to be “moderate,” are generally arrogant, foul-mouthed creeps whose idea of a discussion is to hurl adolescent insults? A few years back the Islamic supremacist pseudo-moderate and media darling Reza Aslan demonstrated this vividly when he sent me a series of emails full of abuse more worthy of a sixth-grade playground than what one would expect from the serious academic he claims to be.
I got such a kick out of them, and out of his ridiculous attempts to distance himself from them by claiming that they were automated, that I posted them as a free verse poem to go into the literary anthology that he was hawking at the time.
Now a Jihad Watch reader has asked Aslan about them. Aslan first tries to deflect the question by trotting out the same old tired smears (SPLC! ADL!), and then lies outright by claiming I sent him “about hundred abusive emails” — and yet he produces none of the emails, because he can’t, because they don’t exist.
The reader is right: the abuse is unworthy of what one would and should expect from a scholar of Aslan’s stature. But that’s just the thing: Aslan doesn’t hold his academic position because of the quality of his scholarship. The guy is completely out of his depth — witness his basic grammatical errors below, and astounding errors of fact such as his claim that Turkey is the second most populous Muslim country (it’s actually the seventh most populous, in terms of Muslim population). Aslan is lionized and respected because he holds the proper politically correct opinions: contempt for America, hatred for Israel, and endless justification for Islamic supremacists and jihadists. In our debased age, an immature mediocrity like Reza Aslan can rise very high, as long as he tells the Leftist elites what they want to hear.
You can read the emails that the reader is asking Aslan about here.
1. Reader to Aslan:
Dear Mr Aslan
I was interested to read on Jihadwatch that you are able to send personalised insulting automatic responses to people who email. Is that correct?
thanks
2. Aslan to reader:
From: Reza Aslan <aslanmedia@mac.com>
Sent: Saturday, 6 April 2013, 15:29
Subject: Re: automated responseAnd I assume you trust what you read on a site that’s run by a man labeled a hate group leader by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.
Sent from my iPhone
3. Reader to Aslan:
Thanks Dr Aslan
I try not to take everything on trust. I don’t know anything about these two organisations you name, so I can’t go by what they say.
But it does seem unlikely that a scholar like yourself should have descended to such crude abuse that Robert Spencer quotes. Did he make them up?
On the other hand, it is surely quite unbelievable that those abusive emails (if they exist) were generated by some personalised automatic system. Surely we do not have the technology to do this!
That is what interested me. Do you think that Spencer made up the reply from your associate Roshi?
thanks again
4. Aslan to reader:
From: Reza Aslan <aslanmedia@mac.com>
Sent: Sunday, 7 April 2013, 13:22
Subject: Re: automated responseAll you need to know about Robert Spencer and his cohort Pamela Geller is that the Anti-Defamation League labels them anti-Semitic, the SPLC labels them an official hate organization, and the US Trademark organization has refused to acknowledge their organization because it labels it as racist. But they’ve still made millions spreading hate and lies. There’s really nothing more to say.
Sent from my iPhone
5. Reader to Aslan:
Thanks
As I said, I don’t know anything about these organisations you cite (I am British), so I cannot judge on the basis of what they say.
With respect, I don’t think you answered my questions
Did Spencer make up the abusive emails that he says you sent him?
Do you think he made up the email that he says Roshi sent him, and which described the abusive emails as ‘automated’
Please remember I am a bit of an outsider in this, and want to make an objective assessment. This whole business is intriguing, and, as a truth-lover, I would like to see the truth come out.
Thanks and best wishes
6. Aslan to reader:
From: Reza Aslan <aslanmedia@mac.com>
Sent: Sunday, 7 April 2013, 21:03
Subject: Re: automated responseI have no idea what he has on his site bc I refuse to visit it. I don’t know why anybody would. what i know is that he sent me about hundred abusive emails so in order to make him stop I and my staff began making fun of him. spencer is a clown and clown’s are meant to be laughed at.
7. Reader to Aslan:
Thanks Dr Aslan
Oh I see
So you are saying that you did actually send him the abusive emails and that you or your associate made up the ‘automated’ tag as a joke.
May I say that, considering your academic qualifications and scholarship, those abusive emails you sent were far below what most educated people would expect.
Perhaps you would say that the abusive emails that he sent you would justify such a tasteless and crude response. I would disagree, thinking that scholars should never descend to the language of the gutter. Nevertheless, to satisfy my curiosity and the interests of justice, perhaps you could send me a sample of the abusive emails you say he sent you? There is a wider audience that should be aware of what Mr Spencer is up to.
By the way, I hope you don’t mind me pointing out that the plural of ‘clown’ is ‘clowns’ with no apostrophe. Apostrophes are never added to plurals.
Best regards
The reader shouldn’t expect too much of Reza Aslan. He was just imitating Muhammad, the “excellent example” of conduct according to the Qur’an (33:21). Consider these hadiths (thanks to Sam Shamoun):
Ubayy b. Ka’b told that he heard God’s messenger say, “If anyone proudly asserts his descent in the manner of the pre-Islamic people, tell him to bite his father’s penis, and do not use a euphemism.” It is transmitted in Sarah [sic] as-sunna. (Mishkat Al Masabih, English Translation With Explanatory Notes By Dr. James Robson [Sh. Muhammad Ashraf Publishers, Booksellers & Exporters, Lahore, Pakistan, Reprinted 1994], Volume II, Book XXIV — General Behaviour, Chapter XIII. Boasting and Party-Spirit, p. 1021)
And:
“Then ‘Urwah said: “Muhammad, tell me: if you extirpate your tribesmen, have you ever heard of any of the Arabs who destroyed his own race before you? And if the contrary comes to pass, by God I see both prominent people and rabble who are likely to flee and leave you.” Abu Bakr said, “Go suck the clitoris of al-Lat!” — al-Lat was the idol of Thaqif, which they used to worship — “Would we flee and leave him?” (The History of al-Tabari — The Victory of Islam, translated by Michael Fishbein [State University of New York Press (SUNY), Albany 1997], Volume VIII (8), p. 76)
And in the words of Abu Bakr As-Sideeq to ‘Urwah: “Suck Al-Lat’s clitoris!” — there is a permissibility of speaking plainly the name of the private parts if there is some benefit to be gained thereby, just as he [Muhammad] permitted a plain response to the one who made the claims of the Jahiliyyah (i.e. claims of tribal superiority), by saying: “Bite your father’s penis!” And for every situation there is a (fitting) saying. (Provisions for the Hereafter (Mukhtasar Zad Al-Ma’ad), by Imam Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyyah, summarized by Imam Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab At-Tamimi [Darussalam Publishers & Distributors, First Edition: September 2003], Chapter. Regarding the Story of Al-Hudaibiyyah, p. 383; source; words within brackets ours)
As for Aslan’s charges themselves, Aslan consistently uses the SPLC and ADL to avoid having to respond to the real charges I have brought against him (see below) and to dodge debate with me. But as Juvenal (not juvenile — that’s Aslan) said, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The Southern Poverty Law Center, while it may have once done good work against racism, has now degenerated into a well-heeled propaganda machine that smears conservatives for cash and is an integral part of the ongoing Leftist effort to demonize and destroy those who oppose them by labeling them “hate groups.” The SPLC richly deserves its place on AFDI’s Threats to Freedom Index. See the new takedown of them here.
And regarding the Anti-Defamation League, Aslan is lying: the ADL didn’t label us anti-Semitic, but “Islamophobic.” Charles Jacobs and Ilya Feoktistov said (thanks to Pamela Geller) that the ADL “has adopted a policy, consistent with the progressive agenda, not to speak up much about the global tsunami of Muslim anti-Semitism, but instead to campaign against ‘Islamophobia.’ This while FBI statistics show that hate crimes against Jews in America are five times the number of hate crimes against Muslims.” ADL leader Abraham Foxman’s “policy has led the ADL to stand with people and organizations whose mission it is to defame and harm Jews. To defend its policy of ‘outreach,’ the Anti-Defamation League vigorously defames as ‘bigots’ citizens who question radical Islamists’ true aims.”
As for the trademark, that’s just more political correctness — rendered bitterly ironic by the tenacity with which many Egyptians are currently resisting Islamization. We just filed a Notice of Appeal today. It says that we are using the word “Islamization” to refer to attempts to “‘[t]o cause to conform to Islamic law or precepts’ (as defined at Dictionary.com) and ‘[m]ake subject to Islamic law: to cause people, institutions, or countries to follow Islamic law’ (as defined at Encarta.com).” That’s what they’re fighting in Egypt these days, but we can’t fight it here.
Remember also: far from being a “moderate,” Aslan is an Islamic supremacist who is a Board member of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). NIAC has been established in court as a front group for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Aslan is an enemy of the freedom of speech, having called for the vandalism of our AFDI ads.
Aslan has tried to pass off Iran’s genocidally-minded President Ahmadinejad as a liberal reformer and has called on the U.S. Government to negotiate with Ahmadinejad himself, as well as with Hamas — that is, with two of the most barbaric, genocide-minded and murderous adherents of Sharia. Aslan has even praised the jihad terror group Hizballah as “the most dynamic political and social organization in Lebanon,” as well as the anti-Semitic, misogynist, Islamic supremacist Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated in its own words, according to a captured internal document, to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.” Aslan wrote: “The Muslim Brotherhood will have a significant role to play in post-Mubarak Egypt. And that is good thing.” He has not revised this view despite the Muslim Brotherhood regime’s increasing authoritarianism and brutality toward its opponents, or its escalating persecution of Egyptian Christians.
UPDATE: David Yerushalmi writes in with yet another refutation of another Aslan lie: “The USPTO did NOT label your organization racist or bigoted. It simply ruled, incorrectly, that the trademark would insult Muslims who understood (incorrectly) that you wished to ‘stop’ peaceful Muslims/Islam versus political sharia driven Islam (i.e., Islamisation).”