It makes me upset to see liberal Muslims teaming up with conservative Americans and Europeans in their journey to achieve their goals.

Actually, both sides are exploiting each other in that journey. The Muslims know that conservatives are happy to give them air-time to voice their concerns about Islam and the conservatives know that having those concerns voiced on their programs bolsters their own arguments.

But I think they are often pointing in two directions. While I will allow for the chance that some “critics of Islam” are actually concerned about the faith and wish for Islam to be followed more peacefully and want to bring Muslims back to true faith, I know that most (I would prefer to say all but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt) conservative commentators are NOT aiming for that goal. They want to have every opportunity to shame and ridicule Musims and defame and disprove Islam.

They see that having someone like Irshad Manji come on would be a great help for their audience to connect the dots (since the news corporations won’t allow them to say what they want to say) and realize that Islam is violent and evil. Notice that she hasn’t really been given a chance to muse about the beauty and future of Islam, her visions of true faith or delve into the reinterpretation of Quran. No, it’s mostly her childhood fights with her father, the death threats against her, complaining that Muslims are so backward and most of them don’t agree with her and so on…

She was on Glenn Beck recently for a full hour (ugh! I had to watch…) and while it was extremely irritating to hear Beck presuming expertise about Islam and, well, everything else (as he always does), I sat through it.

Here’s my copy-paste from transcript and comments. Keep Reading …

I recently watched a lecture by a “famous” “Salafi” shaikh. I’ll not state the speaker’s name but I’m sure some of you will recognize the ideas below.

I reminded myself to listen to the lecture with an open mind — even though I was not personally impressed with him the first time I heard him speak. I still think he made a few valid points in his lecture but the rest was a bit too bothersome to not blog about. Herein I will display many of my previously unspoken opinions and make public my dissent from “orthodoxy”.

The topic of the lecture was gender-related although he didn’t really cover the topic appropriately. He stated that he has a different opinion about the approach to this topic so his lecture was a bit roundabout while he explained his approach. Keep Reading …

I found this really good short movie, from a totally unrelated and random web search that brought me to the website of “Wajid, actor“, who is the star of the film. It starts out slow and it gives you time to think about what’s going to happen next.

My mind thought of at least 4 different endings, all wrong of course. The movie is called “Apu’s Revenge“, check it out. I think it’s worth it and the Rammstein at the end doesn’t hurt.

As if atheists weren’t crazy enough, we now have some that are even crazier. According to Alternet’s recent article, Sam Harris’s Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture, atheists can “believe” (haha) any number of unprovable and wacky things.

I’ve always thought that atheism and theism were two beliefs that were equally illogical and equally closed-minded when it comes to rejecting or accepting other viewpoints. I believe that no one can prove or disprove God, so if you choose either end of the spectrum, you’re just going on faith.

Sam Harris goes on to show just how many strange things are “believable” to a skeptical disbeliever. ESP, reincarnation, torture and yes… killing. Not just killing, but killing in the name of his own beliefs.

His first strange belief: reincarnation is real. Amazingly, he gathered this belief after reading a book, he has no first-hand experience with it. (Sound like something familiar, Sam?)

Harris admits to being won over by accounts of “xenoglossy,” in which people abruptly begin speaking languages they don’t know. Remember the girl in “The Exorcist”? “When a kid starts speaking Bengali, we have no idea scientifically what’s going on.”

My first question (speaking as a fellow skeptic) would be, how did the researchers know that the kid was speaking Bengali? Is it a little unlikely that a (random?) child (under hypnosis?) began speaking Bengali and coincidentally, there just happened to be a Bangladeshi researcher in the room? If, as a later description tells, this particular case involved Ravi Shankar, I wonder if he was the one doing the translating? If so, why was he allowed near the “evidence”? Gotta read the book myself, I suppose.

Second strange belief, that torture is acceptable and it works!

“We know [torture] works. It has worked. It’s just a lie to say that it has never worked,” he says. “Accidentally torturing a few innocent people” is no big deal next to bombing them, he continues. Why sweat it?

His logic fails on this one. Saying “it’s a lie to say it has never worked” belies his presumed rationality. If we go by that standard, we may well say it’s a lie that domestic violence has never “worked”, it’s a lie that genocide never “worked”… etc. What level of “working” do we need to convince a skeptic like Harris? Due to the moral problems with research on torture, I don’t know if there exists any unbiased data on which we could base a “scientific” opinion. Simply, either you’re morally against it, or you’re immoral. :-) And you’ll see below that he actually doesn’t even mind if we bomb some of those innocent people.

Further, if we assume all enemies are lying, which ones do we torture? I know from my own experience that torturing my brother (hitting him or pinning him uncomfortably) never worked. He would either tell me a lie so I’d let him go, whereupon he laughed and ran away or he would yell for our parents in an attempt to scare me away.

I must quote of the great comments on that article:

Let’s put his claim that torture works to the test. In 1690 several people were tortured in Salem, and gave all kinds of evidence that people around them were witches. Maybe Harris’ belief in psychic phenomena will explain how people who had never mentioned this before were suddenly seeing the light, but I gues they were all in on the witch conspiracy. But the people tortured testified that women flew through the air and sickened cows. I guess somewhere between now and 1690 we lost that particular technology.

Yes, torture works. It lets the interrogator hear what he wants to hear, and forces the tortured to tell them what they want to hear. That what the torturer wants to hear might diverge from reality Harris doesn’t seem to understand.

Just because I believe that someone planted a bomb in the Empire State Building doesn’t make it true-especially if I am tearing out his fingernails.

A third, among many irrational and offensive beliefs Harris holds… it’s okay to kill people who don’t agree with him. On reaching such a high level of enlightenment, he has reached a conclusion that some people (namely those with what he determines to be dangerous positions) can be killed. Whether he, himself would do the killing or would rather it be taken care of by an army of rationalists or atheist crusaders, he doesn’t say.

[T]he logic he lays out — that Islam itself is our enemy — invites the reader to feel comfort at the deaths of its believers. He writes: “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.”

Another commenter asks, “is this proposition meant to be one of them?”

I agree, holding such a belief that people who hold another belief are (or may) be ethically killed is a DANGEROUS belief. That’s likely why he’s against Muslims in the first place - they (to him) believe in killing those who disagree. What’s the difference???

I believe that now, we’re in a particular time in the world’s history where it’s time that people stand up for Islam, that people get more aggressive and radical with how they communicate to the West about Islam. I believe I have a calling: to stand up in a new, hard-core, radical way for Allah. If, in the process, I insult a couple of people or offend a couple of people and have to shake it up a little bit, as long as it is in the name of Islam, as Allah wills, so be it!

Just kidding, I modified a quote by Stephen Baldwin, self-professed radical, hard-core Christian. But somehow it’s not as amusing when spoken by a Muslim…

Well I got my first “hate call” — from some delightful idiot who wanted to say: “fuck you, get the fuck out of philly, get the fuck out of this country”

All lowercase because he seemed like the type who wouldn’t be able to find the shift key. This is the kind of thoughtful and constructive message you’d expect from a racist. I hope his “holidays” were extremely unhappy.

Jerry Klein is the token liberal on WMAL and I finally got around to listening to his “Tattoo Their Foreheads” show (download here). Old news, maybe, but gold. He did a great job of exposing bigotry.

Errm… yeah.

I’ve never had a job before. Now, at 23, I can finally put it off no longer. I was sort of set for a life of no-job, no-kids, no-worries… But an opportunity came along and I accepted it.

Since my name is on the website, I guess I can say that I’m working for CAIR, Philadelphia branch…

I had to make my first phone call yesterday. Not just a simple one, but one to a prominent anchor of a very big local news show. I just know I sounded like an idiot although I hope I didn’t. [”This is a child, pretending to be an adult…”]

So now I’m part of the big Muslim conspiracy to take over America. Just kidding. But if it’s “with us or against us” and the “with us” includes people like Glenn Beck and Dennis Prager …

Glenn Beck’s recent show “Exposed: The Extremist Agenda” was disappointing. Obviously — and he prefaced the show admitting this — he has a bias. His bias is that he is a “conservative” and a Christian and he mistrusts and/or is scared of Muslims. Even the pulsing rock and exotic Arabic flute theme music is scary!

He presented the show under the guise of showing Americans what they’re “not seeing”, while his real aim was to get “as many Americans as possible” to come to see things his way, that is, that Muslims are scary and they all want our (and Israel’s) destruction … oh, and vote Republican. He basically visited MEMRI.org and made a show of the clips.

The show could have been so much more than it was… if all of his guests, with the exception of the very last one, were not already in complete agreement with him.

His first segment, showing the hateful and conspiratory clips from the Middle East against the US and Jews, is one-sided. While the clips about the relation between popular sodas and Israel are troubling, Beck’s implicit claim (in this program and others) that most or all Muslims think a certain way is even more so.

Not only this, but I’m sure if someone combed through the US media, we could compile a similar disturbing picture of the West’s opinion about Arabs. In fact, someone has done such a study and even wrote a book, Reel Bad Arabs. I’m sure the subjects of that book are “realistic depictions” to Beck.

His first consultant, Walid Shoebat, ex-Muslim, mentions the frustration of Muslims (Arabs) about being failures while the West seems to be so successful so they blame Israel and the US. I agree with this.

But then Beck mentions that the hate is for our values, freedoms and our liberties. Does that make sense? On one hand, Muslims want to be successful and prominent like the US and on the other, they hate the very things that made us that way? Hmm…

Second consultant: US Ambassador to Israel. Very balanced…

As for the West “not seeing” the hatred from the Middle East - I have no idea where he gets this. Beck brings up Ahmadinejad and his “two faces”. He seems to overlook the very reason that Ahmadinejad was interviewed by CNN and CBS. Maybe Beck missed all the haranguing in his Wallace interview, where he, in fact, DID go on and on about Zionists, Israel and America. He even clearly states: “I will tell you that I fully oppose the behavior of the British and the Americans.” What are we missing?

“If some believe they can keep talking to the Iranian people in the language of threats and aggressiveness, they should know that they are making a bitter mistake.” M. Ahmadinejad

“Our nation is somewhat sad, but we’re angry. There’s a certain level of blood lust, but we won’t let it drive our reaction. We’re steady, clear-eyed and patient, but pretty soon we’ll have to start displaying scalps.” G.W. Bush

Tell me if you know of someone who hasn’t heard or seen a Muslim chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel”… Again, I don’t think anyone missed that.

Next consultant: Benjamin Netanyahu… Former PM of Israel…

Round-up of first segment: Ahmadinejad = Hitler and he wants to bring about another Holocaust, eliminate the Jews and take over the world with an Islamic state. So support Bush and the (upcoming!) war on Iran!

Next up, Suicide Bombers! Beck shows some clips about suicide bombers and families, which he says are designed to incite supporters and instill fear in the rest of us. Every military or militia engages in this kind of propaganda. Look at our own army videos and commercials… Army men on a hill, they haven’t eaten for days but they’re still strong! They’re going to destroy you from their hidden position! The enemy scrambles like ants! Bombed! … The supporters are incited and the others are afraid. Same thing? No?

This is yet another instance of his one-sidedness. He admits (like we all should) that suicide bombings and terror against innocents is wrong, yet he is actually aiming to incite others to support or even carry out, by way of joining the military, a war which undoubtedly will cause the deaths of innocents.

He sees the US (or Israeli) cause and the US (or Israeli) life as much more important and valuable than a Muslim life. One of the videos he shows is of a man who “avenged the blood of Al-Mulawi Nur Muhammad” — unacceptable? I wonder what Beck would say about the June 2006 Israeli attack on Palestine — an attempt to free a kidnapped soldier…

Next consultant: Nonie Darwish, ex-Muslim.

The goal of the videos of suicide bombers is to “excite the media… leapfrog over the military… and appeal directly to the home audience.” says Ralph Peters. Does Peters know that he is currently appearing in one such video?

Ah, the children… Not that I especially care for them, but teaching children to hate anyone is wrong. As for the implicit claim that Arabs or Muslims somehow teach their children to hate more than others, I disagree with that.

Next consultant, Brigitte Gabriel, non-Muslim and apparently anti-Muslim. She “fearlessly” defends America, Israel and Western civilization against Muslims. She makes it okay for a white man like Beck to hate Muslims and Arabs because she’s an Arab. Sort of like having a black friend means you’re not a racist and you can say the n-word.

Here in this show, she gives the basis for my claim of “implicit” hatred and mistrust of ALL Muslims. If you quote from the Qur’an, you are then talking about ALL Muslims. If you quote from the Qur’an saying that Jews and Christians were cursed and turned into apes and pigs, then you cannot say that there are “some good Muslims” unless there are some Muslims who do not believe in Qur’an…

(As for the claim of all Jews or Christians being turned into animals, I don’t agree with this interpretation. The very next verse, 5:61, says: “For, when they [above mentioned] come unto you, they say, ‘We do believe’: whereas, in fact, they come with the resolve to deny the truth, and depart in the same state. But God is fully aware of all that they would conceal.” So pigs and apes are talking? No… A few verses later, 5:66: “if they would but truly observe the Torah and the Gospel and all that has been bestowed from on high upon them by their Sustainer, they would indeed partake of all the blessings of heaven and earth.” That’s funny!)

Beck asks Gabriel why this show took so long to get on the air and she answers: “Because political correctness is killing us.” Way to go, sliding that old PC argument in there. Did I already mention that this show was propaganda for Beck’s ultra-conservatism?

Thank GOD for Aslam Abdullah being invited on the show. This was the kind of thing I was hoping for.

Beck’s interview with Abdullah clearly shows his self-admitted (at least he admits it!) ignorance and bias. He’s surprised that a Muslim would write against terrorism. Abdullah states that everyone he’s talked to has supported him and his article. Beck says that we don’t see Muslims speaking out: he must have overlooked those messages in his very narrow search of the internet. Beck didn’t know about the fatwas against bin Laden and terrorism. Good research, Glenn.

Overall, as I said, the show was disappointing. It was a shallow and severely biased incitement to the US public to help develop fear and hatred of Muslims.

Beck’s last words, showing hopeful clips of scholars and others “speaking out”, is superficial. He spent the better part of an hour making sure we understood that ISLAM is the problem and we need to “grow a backbone” and take care of it. Now at the very, very end of the program, he attempts a little damage control. It didn’t work… Perhaps CNN forced him to do it because his parting words, which dash away all the hopefulness given by the list guest and the short clips, are:

Unfortunately, hearing those sentiments in the United States is as refreshing as it is rare.

But Glenn, I thought you said we weren’t seeing that other side?

If any of you are subscribed to ISNA’s Islamic Horizons magazine, you can find four of my photos from their recent conference inside! I’m very happy to have them printed in such a great magazine.