How clueless and compromised are this country’s moneyed Leftist elites? This clueless and compromised:
“The 2013 Tanenbaum Awards Honor New York Times Bestselling Author and Activist Reza Aslan and Philanthropic Leader FJC,” PRWeb, April 29:
New York — The Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding will honor New York Times bestselling author Reza Aslan and FJC, A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds, at the 2013 Tanenbaum Award Ceremony, Tuesday, May 21 at 6:30 pm at The Plaza Hotel.
The Tanenbaum Award Ceremony, with entertainment featuring NCIS: Los Angeles series regular Barrett Foa and Broadway’s Ivan Rutherford, are open to the public. To purchase tickets and for more information about the Tanenbaum Awards, visit TanenbaumSpecialEvents.org or call 212.967.7707, x112.
“We are excited to honor both FJC and Reza,” said Joyce S. Dubensky, CEO of Tanenbaum. “All of Reza’s accomplishments–from his books, to his media efforts, to his activism and interfaith work–share a theme. All inform, build bridges of respect and enable greater understanding of Islam and religious extremism. Similarly, FJC is an innovator that creates opportunities in philanthropy and for charities that are building a better world for all of us.”
Tanenbaum will present Aslan with the Media Bridge-Builder Award and FJC with the inaugural Philanthropic Bridge-Builder Award.
The Media Bridge-Builder Award is presented to journalists and media personalities whose work focuses public attention on issues of human rights and intergroup relations.
“We are particularly excited about honoring Reza,” says Dubensky. “He is tackling hard issues and does it in a way that allows people to listen and learn. And that’s both unusual and critical if we are to achieve mutual respect.”
No one could be more laughably inappropriate as a recipient of this award than Reza Aslan. 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.
Dubensky says that his works “inform” about Islam. Here is how informative they are, courtesy Jihad Watch reader Traeh:
How Reza Aslan whitewashes Muhammad’s caravan raids
First, notice how Aslan, on pages 82 and 83 of his book No god but God, makes Muhammad’s caravan raids look bloodless:
In pre-Islamic Arabia, caravan raiding was a legitimate means for small clans to benefit from the wealth of larger ones. It was in no way considered stealing, and as long as no violence occurred and no blood was shed, there was no need for retribution. The raiding party would quickly descend on a caravan — usually at its rear — and carry off whatever they could get their hands on before being discovered. These periodic raids were certainly a nuisance for the caravan leaders, but in general they were considered part of the innate hazards of transporting large amounts of goods through a vast and unprotected desert.
Though small and sporadic at first, Muhammad’s raids not only provided the Ummah with desperately needed income, they also effectively disrupted the trade flowing in and out of Mecca…
Why does Reza Aslan make no mention of what core Islamic texts say about those raids, for example, what happened at Nakhla, where for the first time Muslims succeeded in finding a caravan to target? See page 287 (425 in the Arabic) of the earliest Muslim biography of Muhammad:
They [the Muslim raiders] encouraged each other, and decided to kill as many as they could of them and take what they had. Waqid [one of the Muslim raiders] shot Amr bin al-Hadrami [one of the caravan’s leaders] with an arrow and killed him…
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How Reza Aslan misleads about Muhammad’s marriage to 9-year-old Aisha
Notice how Aslan, on pages 64 and 65 of his book No god but God claims that Muhammad did not consummate his marriage to Aisha when she was 9:
…Aisha…was nine years old when betrothed to the Prophet…And while Muhammad’s union with a nine-year-old girl may be shocking to our modern sensibilities, his betrothal to Aisha was just that: a betrothal. Aisha did not consummate her marriage to Muhammad until after reaching puberty…
Why doesn’t Aslan mention what the core Islamic texts tell us?
From Sahih al-Bukhari, the most canonical hadith collection:
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64:
Narrated ‘Aisha:
that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 65:
Narrated ‘Aisha:
that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old. Hisham said: I have been informed that ‘Aisha remained with the Prophet for nine years (i.e. till his death).”
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88:
Narrated ‘Ursa:
The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with ‘Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 58, Number 236:
Narrated Hisham’s father:
Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married ‘Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed [sic] that marriage when she was nine years old.
Dubensky also says that Aslan’s works promote “respect.” I doubt that she is aware that toward those he hates, Aslan behaves like an obnoxious, immature and sexually conflicted frat boy who’s had a few too many to drink. On the other hand, I doubt it would matter to her, because she would probably agree with him that those who do not share their world view or goals deserve no respect.
And by the way, I do mean “moneyed Leftist elites”: ticket packages for this event start at $350 and climb as high as $50,000. And they will rake it in, too, all the while whining about the supposedly well-heeled “Islamophobia industry.” It is indicative of how people like Reza Aslan, laden with spurious honors and pocketing huge ill-gotten sums to lull adoring marks to sleep all over the country and the world, are aware that they are propagating lies: even though they have all the money and all the power, they are desperately afraid of a few truth-tellers who have neither their resources nor their reach. They are afraid to debate us or discuss our assertions honestly; instead, they instantly resort to smears and lies. They know that even without money and their bully pulpits, we show them up for what they are, and can topple their ugly little empires with a word. And so, in their fear and rage, they do all they can to defame and destroy us.