Carlos Khalil Guzman is a “revert” to Islam who is now going about the United States, taking pictures of cheerful, fresh-faced, smiling Muslims, each of whom is asked to choose a favorite verse in the Qur’an, or a saying by Muhammad in the Hadith, and to explain why he, or she, has made that particular choice.
So far, [Guzman has] taken 52 portraits across about 26 states. His goal is to take 114 portraits, to symbolize the 114 chapters in the Quran. He hopes to finish the project this year, and later turn the entire series into an interactive traveling art exhibit. He said his sense of urgency to complete the project has been spurred on by reports of increasing levels of hate crimes against American Muslims.
He hopes his audience can come to understand that the challenges faced by Muslims in America are connected to the challenges faced by other marginalized groups.
“What affects one oppressed community in this country affects another oppressed community,” he said.
Are Muslims an “oppressed community” in this country? Where is the evidence for this? In the series of manufactured “hate crimes” used to swell the numbers of the latter? In all the examples of smarmy interfaith outreach where Christians and Jews feel they have to defend Muslims and Islam, but never feel they have an obligation to find out first about what is in the texts of Islam, and what Muslims are routinely taught, and especially how they are taught to regard Infidels? They defend the faith, by taking it on faith. If it is claimed by Guzman that Muslims are “oppressed” in this country, he should offer the evidence. What we see is not oppression but, on the contrary, an unseemly media rush to defend Muslims and Islam, repeating the absurdist mantra that “Islam has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism,” which by now is a fixed formula. Then there is the focus after every attack by Muslim terrorists on the “need to reassure the Muslim community,” in its most treacly version through holding those Interfaith meetings where Christian and Jewish clergymen “stand side-by-side with their Muslim brothers.” And at the same time the coherent critics of Islam, who carefully adduce the textual evidence from Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira to explain Islamic terrorism, are cast into the outer darkness as “Islamophobes” and soon find that both Google and Facebook direct people away from them online. In other words, at every step, far from being “oppressed,” the Muslim community finds itself the recipient of very public uncritical support.
One of Guzman’s photographs is of a student, one Myree Shadi, whose favorite remark by Muhammad may actually never have been uttered by him:
“All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.” – Prophet Muhammad
“This is so important to me not only as a Muslim but also as an Afro-Latina. This states that Islam is against racism and discrimination. All humans are created equal. All that matters to God is the good a person does and the devotion we have for our creator.”
Is it true that in Islam “an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab”? The Arabs certainly behave as if Islam is their gift to civilization, and that they are indeed superior to non-Arabs. After all, the message of Allah was received by an Arab, and in the Arabic language. Muslims are supposed to read, recite, memorize the Qur’an in Arabic, whatever their native language. Five times a day, Muslims turn toward Mecca, in Arabia, to recite, in Arabic, their prayers. Converts to Islam very often take on Arab names. In some countries — e.g., Pakistan — non-Arabs adopt not just Arab names, but a spurious Arab lineage. Pakistan is full of people who identify themselves as “Sayids,” or descendants of the Arab tribe of Muhammad, as a matter of appropriated prestige. Finally, what would or should Myree Shadi, “College Student” in Boston make, or what does Carlos Khalil Guzman himself make, of Anwar Shaikh’s important study, Islam — The Arab Imperialism? Or have they never heard of him, or his book, even though he is known to Muslims from Pakistan to Great Britain, many of whom clamor for the clerics to issue a rebuttal to his book? Curiously, none have apparently felt able to do so. As for the claim that the Arabs do not feel themselves superior to non-Arab Muslims, why have the Arabs in Iraq denied the Muslim Kurds national rights, and killed almost 200,000 of them, without any Arabs in or outside Iraq publicly uttering a syllable of dismay? Why have Arabs in Algeria denied the Berbers cultural rights, and for a long time even tried to prevent them from using the Berber language? Why did Arab Muslims attack, and murder, black African Muslims in Darfur? Doesn’t this have to do with the Arab sense of superiority over non-Arabs?
And is Ms. Shadi sure that Muhammad said that ”an Arab is not superior to a non-Arab”? One Muslim website describes where this apocryphal quote came from: “This comes, supposedly, from Muhammad’s ‘last sermon,’ but no mention of it can be found in the ‘authentic’ hadith collections of Sahih Al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim. It appears to have been disseminated by a Pakistani Islamist named Syed F.H. Faizi in the last century. Because the Pakistanis are ajami (non-Arab) Muslims, they obviously have a motivation to lie about the teachings of Islam with regards to the position of Arabs and non-Arabs. The rigorously authenticated hadiths of Muhammad make it clear that God favors the Arabs over the non-Arabs.”
For example,the famous historian Al-Tabari wrote that “Arabs are the most noble people in lineage, the most prominent, and the best in deeds. We were the first to respond to the call of the Prophet. We are Allah’s helpers and the viziers of His Messenger.”
For many similar quotes about Arabs being superior to all other Muslims, click on the link here.
Another of Guzman’s subjects offers as her favorite remark by Muhammad this Hadith: “Heaven lies under the feet of your mother.”
“This hadith is one of my favorites because it talks about being mindful of our parents.”
Yes, but this verse should be read along with other verses about how to treat your parents. Perhaps this young Muslim does not know what else is written in the Qur’an about being “mindful” of your parents “if they choose unbelief.” Here is 9:23:
“Believers, do not befriend your fathers or your brothers if they choose unbelief in preference to faith. Wrongdoers are those that befriend them.’”
In other words, if your parents are not Muslims but “choose unbelief,” then you are commanded to have nothing more to do with them. They are dead to you. That’s not exactly filial piety or being “mindful of one’s parents.” Its uncompromising harshness and cruelty — to one’s own parents — is terrifying.
Here’s another “favorite verse” of another of Guzman’s subjects, Kenneth Rula:
“And never say of anything, ‘Indeed, I will do that tomorrow,’ without adding, ‘If Allah wills.’ And remember your Lord when you forget and say, ‘Perhaps my Lord will guide me to what is nearer than this to right conduct.’” – Quran 18: 23-24
“This verse, to me, is a significant reminder of Allah (God). Remembering to say ‘inshallah,’ if God wills, before speaking about plans is acknowledgement that as humans, we are not in control of everything.” Kenneth Rula, Louisiana
“Inshallah” is not quite so innocuous a sentiment as is here suggested. It means more than that “we are not in control of everything.” Rather, it is a continuous reminder of the fatalism that Islam encourages. This inshallah-fatalism is the kind of thing that discourages, for example, economic development — for why try hard if, in the end, it is the will or whim of Allah that determines failure or success? It’s also a way of avoiding blame when things go wrong, for it’s “Allah’s will,” and that’s all that need be said.
Fida Ousol, a nursing student in New Jersey, chose as her favorite verses part of the first chapter of the Qur’an, Al-Fatiha:
“In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful. [All] praise is [due] to Allah, Lord of the worlds. The Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful, Sovereign of the Day of Recompense. It is You we worship and You we ask for help. Guide us to the straight path. The path of those upon whom You have bestowed favor, not of those who have evoked [Your] anger or of those who are astray.” – Quran Chapter 1, Verses 1-7
“I chose the verses from the first chapter (Al-Fatiha) of the Quran. These verses remind me of my childhood. My sisters and I would all gather together and we would recite it together or one by one. We were so proud of ourselves when we memorized it and we could see our parents were proud of us too. This surah (chapter) is the first in the Quran and I have always said it in times of fear, when I would think a ghost was in the room or if I was walking home late. I knew Allah (God) was watching and helping me. These words are powerful and they have helped me feel and be protected.”
Of course, neither Fida Osoul, nor Carlos Khalil Guzman, is going to explain that the Al-Fatiha curses the kuffar, for “those who have evoked [your] anger” refers to Jews and “those who are astray” refers to Christians. Perhaps they are unaware of what the authoritative Qur’anic commentators say about this part of the Al-Fatiha, or perhaps they know all too well, and have no intention of volunteering such information.
Bushra Zarin, in South Dakota, finds Muhammad’s words on migration to be his favorite:
“Actions are according to intentions, and everyone will get what was intended. Whoever migrates with an intention for Allah and His messenger, the migration will be for the sake of Allah and His messenger. And whoever migrates for the worldly gain or to marry a woman, then his migration will be for the sake of whatever he migrated for.” – Prophet Muhammad
Though you would likely not know it, if you are a non-Muslim, this “migration for the sake of Allah and His messenger” refers to the Hijra, when Muhammad and his followers moved from Mecca to Medina, in 622 A.D. This was jihad by emigration, the large-scale movement of Muslims into a non-Muslim area, bringing Islam with them, in an effort to win new territories for Islam both by demographic conquest and by conducting Da’wa, the Call to Islam. This, of course, is what is taking place in Europe today, where tens of millions of Muslims now live, having been allowed to settle deep behind what Islam teaches them to regard as enemy lines. And they are conducting Da’wa, finding particular success among prisoners, and others who find that Islam supplies a ready-made band of brothers, offers both a complete regulation of life and explanation of the universe, and sanctions what some might interpret as criminal violence but which can now be interpreted as Islamically justified when the victims are Unbelievers. Crimes of property can be seen as helping oneself to a proleptic Jizyah; sexual assault by Muslims of Infidel women, whose dress and demeanor are of the come-hither sort, are similarly a case of “they deserve what they get.”
Nothing surprising here. Carlos Khalil Guzman offers one more variant of crowd-pleasing Islam, of smiling young Muslims offering sweetness and light, with every Qur’anic verse that deals with Jihad or the Unbelievers simply ignored, and with only the most benevolent bits offered up to us, in what Guzman and his collaborators no doubt think is a good cause: to make us believe that we misunderstand Islam when, for some unfathomable reason — could 31,800 attacks by Muslims since 9/11/2001 have something to do with it? — we allow ourselves to think ill of it. And in the brave new world Muslims and their apologists are — inshallah! — creating, that would never do.
jewdog says
I’d bet that a lot of “reverts” tend to only know Islam superficially, and that they therefore wind up projecting their Judeo-Christian values onto it and turn it into a love-thy-neighbor fictional version. That’s a bad thing because then unsuspecting little flies can be enticed into the Islamic pitcher plant.
Linde Barrera says
To jewdog- I agree with your assessment. And I had a conversation with a 20-something Muslim woman who said to me: “Anyone who hates Islam also hates Muslims.” Yet in Christian thinking there is this saying: “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” I have no problem with anyone hating any religion, but no one should do evil to anyone.
mortimer says
JD is in agreement with Robert Spencer on that. Most Muslims used to assume that the Golden Rule is part of Islam. I have observed that many Muslims are shocked to learn that K.48.29 is the normative rule of Islam. Muslims are required by Al Walaa wal Baraa to hate kufaar ‘for the sake of Allah’, and not because they committed an offense. Kafirs are hated BECAUSE they are kafirs and BECAUSE Allah hates them. Kafirs are hated even if their personal conduct is SAINTLY.
gravenimage says
He *could* be ignorant, Jewdog–but I think it more likely that this is a deliberate whitewash of Islam, which is so common these days.
I wonder about leftists says
Mr. Guzman, have you ever photographed normal citizens who try to live normally, who have built up a Western civilisation, who have been trying to live in peace with each other, who were all of a sudden invaded by people who are lying, beheading, raping, flogging, burning destroying, mutilating young girls,put people in cages and burn or drown them, who have 2 or 3 wives, who threat women like slaves, who command women how to dress, how and what to eat, who are beating up ,western women who don’t dress up like Muslim women, who are so cruel to animals, who name us Kaffirs, who want to kill us, conquer us , I can fill a page. People don’t dear to go out on the streets at night. Muslims take land, they stone people, they drive around through neighbourhoods with their loudspeakers in full blast calling for praying in the mosk ,how they destroyed parts in London, Paris, everywhere, they are taking parts of cities, beat people to a pulp, and you are making photographs of smiling nice Muslims, to show us how they really are? They are not like that, Its a death cult. Kill the Jews, kill the infidels, kill the apostates and they are standing in line to fulfil the killings and they want to die, because they are getting their 72 virgins(not so), but take pictures of old people who are afraid to be raped by gangs or beaten up,or being robbed, then you know who blew it. Nobody is interested in your photo’s now, the Islamophobs have different things to worry about, as we don”t have freedom of speech anymore, in case you haven’t noticed.You need to get realistic.
mortimer says
Guzman proves nothing by photographing Muslims. Here are photos of Happy Nazis. What does a smiling Nazis prove?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUvcmGbtHWA
Max Publius says
There’s a good reason this Guzman is an emotive photographer and not an intellectual writer. He’s a vacuous soundboard for malevolent Islamists using him as a seemingly harmless Muslim spokes-sheep softening up targets with cloy, sappy photos, before later violent jihad.
Robin Banks says
“an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab”
Is this one of this pesky abrogations that are so rife in the quran? Where the oft-quoted peaceful passages do not, in reality, exist whereas the “kill the infidel where you find them” do.
gravenimage says
This is not in the Qur’an at all. Instead, it is a weak Hadith.
DRHazard says
You can find some stuff in the Quran that does not express violence, hatred, misogyny, threats, intolerance, stupidity, untrue “facts”, borrowed and plagiarized verses, approval of slavery, crime and punishment if you look hard enough and take that verse out of context. But what’s left is nothing special an usually is no better than what you might hear from a happy drunk. Squeezing something good our of Chapter 9 is really going to be an exercise in total self-deception. For instance we have the verse:
Quran (9:41) – “Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if ye but knew.”
A Muslim might take this verse and twist it to equate wearing a hijab to be “light-armed” and the striving to mean some sort of spiritual or political struggle. But, of course, any such understanding would have to completely ignore the rest of the chapter, thus engaging in the very same behavior many Muslims constantly whine about, namely taking verses out of context.
Nevertheless everything Muslims do to make their religion look good will be welcome with the open arms of naive, selectively blind, virtue signalling Westerners. Just look at the world tour afforded the childish and factually empty “1001 Muslim Inventions”. Truth is irrelevant to such people, until it’s public voice is heard and the facts become inescapable. We all know what follows; character assassination, name calling, censure, lies, rioting and murder.
Jack Diamond says
Muslim Family Values. Which you will not find in Guzman’s book.
“You will not find any people who believe in Allah and the Last Day loving those who resist Allah and His Messenger, even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers or kindred.” Qur’an 58:22
Believers do not love their parents if they reject Muhammad.
“None of you will have faith till he loves me more than his father,his children, and all mankind.”
–Bukhari v.1 no 14
Muhammad as idol.
A Muslim son should be willing to kill a non-Muslim father for the sake of Muhammad:
According to Ibn Humayd- Salamah- Muhammad b. Ishaq- ‘Asim b. ‘Umar b. Qatadah: ‘Abdallah b. ‘Abdallah b. Ubayy b. Salul came to the Messenger of God and said: “Messenger of God, I have been told that you want to kill ‘Abdallah b. Ubayy because of what has been reported to you concerning him. If you are going to do it, command me to do it and I will bring you his head. By God, al-Khazraj know that there has never been among them a man more dutiful to his father than I. I am afraid that you may order someone else to do it and that he may kill him; and then my soul will not allow me to look on the slayer of ‘Abdallah b. Ubayy walking among the people: I would kill him, killing a believer to avenge an unbeliever, and thereby enter the Fire [of Hell].”
–History of al-Tabari v.8 p.55
Muhammad said, “Kill any Jew that falls into your power.” Shortly afterwards, Muhayyisa b. Masud leapt upon and killed Ibn Sunayna, with whom Muhayyisa had some social and business relations. However, Muhayyisa’s elder brother, not a Muslim at the time, beat the assassin, the younger brother, saying, “You enemy of God, did you kill him when much of the fat on your belly comes from his wealth?” Muhayyisa retorted that if Muhammad had ordered even the elder brother’s assassination, he would have carried it out. The elder was impressed: “By God, a religion which can bring you to this is marvelous!” And he became a Muslim.
–source ibn Ishaq
Muslim brother willing to kill his non-Muslim brother (after killing a family friend and business partner) just because Muhammad might order it.
mortimer says
Carlos Khalil Guzman is trying to whitewash jihad and that is as despicable as whitewashing the Holocaust.
PaulM says
Let me guess, the most popular “hadith” is the one that states that it is quite alright to dry hump babies and little girls until they are fully sexually mature at the ripe old age of 9, just as muhammad did with his 5 year old bride. Then once they are 9 years of age, go right ahead and rape them repeatedly to your heats content. What a vile, filthy, disgusting, fascist group of thugs.
Matthieu Baudin says
“… at every step, far from being ‘oppressed,’ the Muslim community finds itself the recipient of very public uncritical support…”
This is so true and the problem with this uncritical acceptance isn’t just the persecution of outspoken critics and skeptics, it also stands in the way of Islamic reform and colludes with the authoritarianism of traditional Islam and it’s oppression of those who happen to be born into Muslim families and who would otherwise chose to lead modern law abiding lives.
gravenimage says
Hugh Fitzgerald: The Photographer Shows the True Face of Islam (Part 4)
…………………
More Taqiyya.
FYI says
“All mankind is from Adam and Eve..”
That alleged and laughable statement by muhammed tends to be somewhat diminished{..actually it is utterly demolished..}.. when it is remembered that muhammed SOLD BLACK PEOPLE AS SLAVES.
Along with his virulent hatred of the Jews,this does not reflect someone who respected mankind very much.
It appears that muhammed believed that two enslaved black people were equal to one non-black slave.Now there’s racism for you:and it reflects the fact that muhammed clearly felt superior over black people:he SOLD two blacks for the price of one non-black slave!
“allah’s apostle said…sell him to me..and he bought him for TWO BLACK SLAVES”
Yes,that’s right:muhammed bought and sold Black people.
let me repeat that in big print..
Muhammed SOLD TWO BLACK SLAVES FOR ONE NON-BLACK SLAVE
I’ll bet mr guzman or the “afro-Latina” doesn’t know that!
Read it and ..weep…
sahih muslim 3901
sahih bukhari 5:59:512
sahih bukhari 8:73:182
Muhammed the slave trader(in black people) and mass murderer of Jews Ibn Ishaq 464,Ibn sa’d vol 11 93
But never let the facts get in the way of the Truth, eh?
That’s why muslims use these devious tricks to deny the Truth: taqqiya/kitman/muruna/tawriya.
Or as GOD might call it ..”bearing false witness”; a concept,like all of God’s Other Commandments,completely lost on the muslim.
Ed says
Another of Guzman’s subjects offers as her favorite remark by Muhammad this Hadith: “Heaven lies under the feet of your mother.”
Another Hadith has Muhammad saying, “Heaven lies under the shadow of my sword.” How many heavens does Islam have?