“Just imagine someone calling you a terrorist and telling you to go home,” Aissa Bensalem, 17, said during the class. “I had one of my friends say that they were scared to come to the masjid because they were afraid that they were going to be shot on.” [sic]
Yes, Aissa has unwittingly used the most apposite verb — “imagine.” For how many such claims by Muslims of being the victims of Infidel hostility, from the microaggressions of a fleeting look of disapproval at a hijab, to physical attacks, have been made up, imagined, to win sympathy? Apparently Aissa Bensalem wasn’t afraid of attending the mosque herself; it was “one of [her] friends.” Had there been other fearful Muslims, she would certainly have mentioned them. And why should we believe her report about her friend’s fear of going to the mosque, given how many dubious claims have been made by Muslims about manifestations of “islamophobia” that turn out out never to have occurred? In the case of microaggressions — e.g., a prolonged stare, an oath muttered under the breath — there is often no way of knowing if such claims are real, or are merely claimed so as to deflect criticism from, and elicit sympathy for, Muslims.
Their mosque underwent an active shooter training just the other week. It’s part of a bigger security plan that has involved conversations with the FBI and local police, according to Mansoor, who said security was beefed up after the mass shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand.
That “active shooter training” is meant to impress on readers the very real physical dangers that Muslims face. You need to remind yourself that attacks by Muslims on non-Muslims far outnumber those on Muslims worldwide; that Christians are the most persecuted (almost entirely by Muslims) minority today; that antisemitism has increased horrifyingly pari passu with the increase in Muslim migrants, and that this phenomenon is even more pronounced in Europe than in the U.S..
But for Mansoor, a cardiologist by trade, a conversation about security is incomplete without talk of “changing the narrative.” After 9/11, he founded the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut to counter the anti-Muslim rhetoric that he says is perpetuated in the media. Years after the terrorist attack, some Americans still see U.S. Muslims as anti-American.
Why, whatever could have caused “some Americans” to “still see U.S. Muslims as anti-American”? What oh what could explain that? 9/11 was so long ago: Reza Mansoor complains that it’s been “years after the terrorist attack,” but some Americans are apparently harboring a quite unnecessary antipathy to Muslims. He refers to 9/11 as “the terrorist attack.” Has he forgotten all the other attacks since then? Could American worries about Islam have something to do with the attacks by Muslims since 9/11, in New York, Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Fort Hood, Little Rock, Orlando, Chattanooga, San Bernardino? And could it be that Americans have also been alarmed by the spectacle of Muslim terrorists in Europe, where they have struck in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris (many times), Lyon, Toulouse, Nice, Montauban, Magnanville, St. Etienne-du-Rouvray, Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Malmö, Helsinki, Turku, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Beslan? Reza Mansoor wants Infidels to forget all that. Sorry, no can do. And from his point of view, what is even more deplorable is the increasing number of non-Muslims who have been educating themselves about Islam, and have been connecting the dots between these many acts of terrorism and what the Islamic texts, especially the Qur’an, inculcate. See, e.g., 3.151, 4:87, 8:12,8:60, 47:4 for verses about “striking terror” in the hearts of Infidels, and Muhammad’s boast in the Hadith that “I have been made victorious through terror.”
Mansoor tells his students that “islamophobia is driven by false information. So he encourages them to be media-savvy and to correct those misconceptions when confronted with them.
”Islamophobia” as a word and as a concept exists only to inhibit or shut down legitimate islamocriticism. We are supposed to believe that all such criticism constitutes an “irrational fear.” Mansoor offers no examples of such “irrational fear” of Islam, nor any examples of “false information” and “misconceptions” about the faith that are circulating. It’s enough, he thinks, that he makes the charge; evidence is not his strong suit.
He wants his students to be “media-savvy” — that is, to learn the art of dissimulation, so useful in correcting “those misconceptions” about Islam that islamophobes harbor. It’s a public relations effort on behalf of a single client — Islam.
“This is your job,” he said. “You are the next generation of Muslims to be able to show that Islamic values and American values are completely compatible.”
What are those American values with which Islamic values “are completely compatible”? It can’t be freedom of religion, for apostates from Islam are to be severely punished, even with death. Muhammad himself said in a hadith: “he who changes his (Islamic) religion, kill him.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari 9:57). Historically, in Muslim societies, non-Muslim People of the Book, that is, Christians and Jews, could continue to remain alive and even practice their religion, as dhimmis, as long as they accepted a set of onerous conditions, most notably payment of the tax known as the Jizyah. Over time, many non-Muslims converted to Islam in order to escape from the dhimmi’s burden. This coercion hardly corresponds to the American value of freedom of religion.
Another American value, perhaps the one most important to maintaining our democracy, is that of freedom of speech. But where, in what Muslim country, is there anything like the American guarantee of freedom of speech? Journalists and others attempting to exercise free speech in Muslim lands are imprisoned (as in Turkey, which has the largest number of jailed journalists in the world), killed (Jamal Khashoggi), or driven into exile (the many Arab journalists now living in London and Paris). The despots of Islam are now, and always have been, hostile to free speech, and over 1,400 years, Islam never developed a culture of promoting and protecting free speech. The worst violations in Muslim lands of the right of free speech are the harsh punishments for “blasphemy” — that is, the perceived mocking of any aspect of Islam, and especially of Muhammad himself, which can result in a death sentence (the murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, the attack on Lars Vilks, the threats to Jyllands-Posten and Molly Norris, the death sentence — commuted — for Asia Bibi). How can Reza Mansoor have the chutzpah to declare that “Islamic values” and “American values” are “completely compatible”?
The equality of the sexes is another American value incompatible with “Islamic values.” In Islam, women are treated as inferior to men. Polygyny is legitimate in Islam; one husband, but many wives, naturally devalues women. So does the rules for divorce: a husband need only repeat the triple-talaq to be instantly divorced; a wife who wants a divorce, however, must return her bride-price or mahr, and provide a reason for the divorce that is deemed acceptable. Qur’an 4:34 declares that men are “superior” to women and must serve as their managers. The same verse gives a Muslim husband the right to “beat” a wife if he even suspects her of disobedience. A Muslim daughter inherits half that of a son. A Muslim woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man. Muhammad explains this last rule in a hadith where he insisted that it is “because of the deficiency in her [woman’s] intelligence.”
Another American value is the legal equality of minorities (this wasn’t always an American value, of course, but it certainly is now), which is enshrined in the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment (invoked against the states) and incorporated in the Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment (invoked against the federal government.) The equal treatment of minorities is not, however, an Islamic value. In Islam, Muslims are the “best of peoples” (3:110) and non-Muslims the “most vile of created beings.” (98:6). Non-Muslims in a Muslim state have restrictions placed on them as to the building of new religious structures or repairs to existing ones, and often they are required to be restrained in their religious observances. They can be punished severely for any attempts to proselytize, though Muslims may freely do so.
In the Islamic world, severe restrictions on freedom of religion and on freedom of speech, the absence of legal equality for women and for non-Muslim minorities, are sufficient to refute Reza Mansoor’s bizarre claim that Islamic and American values are “completely compatible.”
mortimer says
Americans have a culture of challenging people to find out what that person really and Americans expect and demand a valid answer. Do Muslims fully support the US constitution or do they have ‘mental reservations’ about the constitution. Are Muslims sincere Americans or will they support an Islamic revolution to overturn the US constitution and replace it with Sharia law.
https://www.wnd.com/2015/09/poll-most-u-s-muslims-would-trade-constitution-for-shariah/
Poll: Most U.S. Muslims would trade Constitution for Shariah
‘Quran should be highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion’ by Leo Hohmann By Leo Hohmann – Published September 24, 2015 at 10:28pm
Omar Ahmad, a founder of CAIR, told a conference hall packed with California Muslims in July 1998 that Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant.
The reporter paraphrased Ahmad saying, “The Quran … should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”
On April 4, 1993, (Ibrahim) Hooper told a reporter for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”
Hooper appeared on Michael Medved’s radio show in October 2003 and stated: “If Muslims ever become a majority in the United States, it would be safe to assume that they would want to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law, as most Muslims believe that God’s law is superior to man-made law.”
“That would translate into roughly 300,000 Muslims living in the United States who believe that Shariah is ‘The Muslim God Allah’s law that Muslims must follow and impose worldwide by Jihad,'” writes Frank Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy.51 percent of U.S. Muslims prefer Shariah
There are now an estimated 3 million Muslims residing in the United States as citizens or with permanent legal status, and more than 250,000 new Muslim residents enter the U.S. per year as refugees, on work visas and student-based visas, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
A poll commissioned in May 2015 by the Center for Security Policy showed that 51 percent of American Muslims preferred that they should have their own Shariah courts outside of the legal system ruled by the U.S. Constitution. And nearly a quarter believed the use of violent jihad was justified in establishing Shariah.
mortimer says
addendum: Americans have a culture of challenging people to find out what that person really THINKS
pfwag says
Imagine the consequences of someone believing in their crazy prophet who commands them to kill the kafirs (infidels) who will not accept their religion. It’s not “Islamophobia” to be cautious of people who are required to kill you.
PRCS says
A step further.
Challenge them with this:
Islam is an ideology. It cannot physically do anything.
Islamophobia is, then, an irrational fear of an ideology.
Sri Lankan Christians have a rational fear of Islam’s followers.
James Lincoln says
PRCS,
Good points.
Muslims could make a better case, albeit very weak, if they used the term “Muslimophobia” for it is actually irrational to fear every single Muslim.
That being said, many of them should be feared…
PRCS says
True.
Jule Bacal says
The Media that they need to Correct are Imam’s, Clerics, Mosque speakers, Madrass teachers, the QUR’AN. They need to correct the Culture of Religion of Warlord Supremacists.
mortimer says
Dr. Mansoor conflates the criticism of an ideology with prejudice against people.
Mansoor wants to impose Sharia anti-blasphemy law by stealth, by emotional melodrama and by manipulating human rights language.
There is no human right to ensure I never hear something I personally dislike!
Mansoor realizes that Islam cannot be defended by logical discourse so he is trying to silence criticism of it.
– “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
-Evelyn Beatrice Hall writing as S.G. Tallentyre in 1906 (Commonly attributed to Voltaire of whom Hall wrote a biography).
– “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – George Orwell
– “The principle of free thought is not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes, US Supreme Court Justice, in United States v. Schwimmer (1929).
– “Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.” -Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992).
– “The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish.” – Justice Robert H. Jackson, chief prosecutor at the Nuremburg Trials
– “…if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.”
-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859).
WILL DR MANSOOR DEBATE ROBERT SPENCER or IS DR MANSOOR A NAME-CALLING COWARD ??
mortimer says
Dr Mansoor’s students will question their faith when they examine the most common arguments against Islam. That is what happened to former Islamic apologist ‘Brother Ismail’. He found that the common arguments against Islam were VALID. He could not defend the amorality of Mohammed and the Koran.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR7_YQ53lfI
FYI says
It is good when people use Logic and Reason{gifts of the Actual Judeo-Christian God}to figure things out.
It is good if a muslim or former convert to islam figures it out.
It isn’t easy ,given islam’s ludicrous death penalty for apostasy,but it is amazing if someone wises up and leaves islam.
It is delightful to see an ex-muslim woman without the pathetic hijab[a man made invention}!!
The internet is islam’s greatest nemesis:there are muslims in Iran,Indonesia etc who can see they have been scammed by the ‘holy’ men of islam into thinking a pagan Arab god al LAH{“The BEST of deceivers” k3:54}is God.
The Iranians are being subjected to a totalitarian religious ideology that is enslaving them.
Still, there are apologists..
“You are younger today than you will ever be again.Make use of it”
Dr Zakir Naik{mehical doctor}Tweet sept 12
{Was he travelling at some velocity approaching the speed of light or something…?}
Thank God{in a way} for the likes of zakir naik:the islamic equivalent of an own-goal.
A man who once famously said that “I would rather kill myself than commit suicide”;with such islamic wisdom how can us infidels compete?
He’s never going to want to figure it out:he is too busy being a false prophet and islam provides him with the money and cover for it.
gravenimage says
Mortimer wrote:
Dr Mansoor’s students will question their faith when they examine the most common arguments against Islam
………………..
Mortimer, if all Muslims do this then why hasn’t this happened with Dr. Mansoor himself? He has heard the arguments against Islam. and instead of questioning his faith he is preaching that other Muslims lie to Infidels to shut down such questions.
As for Brother Ismail, I have the greatest respect for him. But he is a convert to Islam–many converts to Islam do eventually leave; this is not as often true of those born into this foul creed. Converts to Islam at least in most cases grew up with logic and reason, and sometimes return to it.
mortimer says
“On Bullshit” is a treatise by professional philosopher H. G. Frankfurt (PhD). It became a bestseller.
According to Prof. Harry G. Frankfurt, “bullshit” is a problem focussed on intentions and agenda. Bullshitting, as Frankfurt notes, is not exactly lying, and bullshit remains bullshit whether it’s true or false. The difference lies in the bullshitter’s complete disregard for whether what he’s saying corresponds to facts in the physical world. The bullshitter “does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”
Using Frankfurt’s concept, Dr Mansoor’s claim that Sharia law is ‘completely compatible’ with the ‘American values’ in the US constitution is total ‘bullshit’. We clearly see that Sharia law is, in fact, incompatible with the US constitution and most Muslims in the US believe it is incompatible too. They believe that Sharia law should be imposed to overrule the US constitution.
If Sharia needs to overrule the constitution, then it is not compatible.
Mansoor is agenda-driven, rather than fact-based and so what he says (according to Frankfurt) is ‘bullshit’.
Mansoor wants people to like all Muslims, even if he has to use ‘bullshit’ arguments to do so. Mansoor pays no attention to the fact that Sharia is incompatible with the US constitution.
gravenimage says
+1
Dan says
Why, whatever could have caused “some Americans” to “still see U.S. Muslims as anti-American”?
Maybe because ever year on 9-11 there always seems to be footage of Muslims, world wide, still celebrating the tragedy?
Angemon says
““Just imagine someone calling you a terrorist and telling you to go home,” Aissa Bensalem, 17, said during the class. ”
Just imagine someone looking at your skin colour and calling you a “racist”. “white supremacist”, etc. Or, because you’re male, calling you a “rapist”, “privileged scum”, etc. Of course, this is not a fair comparison – skin colour and gender are not a choice…
Norger says
Just imagine someone slitting an airline stewardess’ throat, highjacking an airliner and flying it into a building….Just imagine a married couple firing automatic weapons into a group of co-workers gathered at a holiday party…Just imagine a man placing a homemade pressure cooker bomb next to a 7 year old boy standing with his family at a marathon finish line….just imagine intentionally driving a truck into a group of pedestrians…. just imagine taking 777 school children hostage, resulting in over 300 children dead….just imagine hundreds of young women murdered by family members for “dishonoring” their family….just imagine an Army doctor intentionally shooting dozens of fellow soldiers….then imagine the perpetrators of all of these monstrous acts proudly proclaim they were acting in the name of their religion……
gravenimage says
*Spot on*.
gravenimage says
At the Islamic Association of Greater Hartford, Young Muslims Coached to Handle the Media (Part 2)
……………………
This is a fine article from Hugh Fitzgerald.
More:
“Just imagine someone calling you a terrorist and telling you to go home,” Aissa Bensalem, 17, said during the class. “I had one of my friends say that they were scared to come to the masjid because they were afraid that they were going to be shot on.” [sic]
……………………
Look what she is doing here–even if this did happen–which is highly questionable–the idea that acknowledging that Islam is violent and expressing an opinion that practitioners of this violent creed do not belong in our civilized lands is a threat of violence is just projection.
More:
But for Mansoor, a cardiologist by trade, a conversation about security is incomplete without talk of “changing the narrative.” After 9/11, he founded the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut to counter the anti-Muslim rhetoric that he says is perpetuated in the media. Years after the terrorist attack, some Americans still see U.S. Muslims as anti-American.
……………………
Gee–how could anyone possibly see those out to violently conquer us anti-American? Bad dhimmis!
And as Hugh Fitzgerald points out, 9/11 was *hardly* the only Jihad terror attack–there have been dozens since, and even more when including the rest of the West, and more still if including attacks that have been foiled by law enforcement.
So “changing the narrative” means lying like a rug to the ‘filthy Infidels’.
More
“This is your job,” he said. “You are the next generation of Muslims to be able to show that Islamic values and American values are completely compatible.”
……………………
What this usually means is that American values are considered to be weak and so easily overwhelmed by Shari’ah. *Ugh*.
UNCLE VLADDI says
Of course. Islam is the religion of hypocrisy.
Battle says
Hugh Fitzgerald hits nail on head. Good.