Richard Kerbaj

THE West was still underestimating the evil of Islam, an influential Muslim thinker has warned.

On a two-week "under the radar" visit to Australia, Syrian-born Wafa Sultan secretly met both sides of federal politics and Jewish community leaders, warning them that all Muslims needed to be closely monitored in the West.

He insisted that Australia and the US have been duped into believing there is a difference between the religion's moderate and radical interpretations.

In an interview with The Australian, Dr Sultan -- who shot to recognition last year following an interview on al-Jazeera television in which she attacked Islam and the prophet Mohammed -- said Muslims were "brainwashed" from an early age to believe Western values were evil and that the world would one day come under the control of Sharia law.

The US-based psychiatrist -- who has two fatwas (religious rulings) issued against her to be killed -- warned that Muslims would continue to exploit freedom of speech in the West to spread their "hate" and attack their adopted countries, until the Western mind grasped the magnitude of the Islamic threat.

"You're fighting someone who is willing to die," Dr Sultan told The Australian in an Arabic and English interview. "So you have to understand this mentality and find ways to face it. (As a Muslim) your mission on this earth is to fight for Islam and to kill or to be killed. You're here for only a short life and once you kill a kafir, or a non-believer, soon you're going to be united with your God."

Dr Sultan, who was brought to Australia by a group called Multi-Net comprised of Jews and Christians, met senior politicians, including Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Labor deputy leader Julia Gillard.

Private security was hired for Dr Sultan, who left Australia yesterday, and state police authorities were also made aware of her movements in the country.

The organisers of her visit asked the media to not publish anything about her stay until she had left the country because of security-related concerns. Dr Sultan said Islam was a "political ideology" that was wrongly perceived to have a moderate and hardline following.

"That's why the West has to monitor the majority of Muslims because you don't know when they're ready to be activated. Because they share the same basic belief, that's the problem," said the 50-year-old, who was last year featured in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Dr Sultan, who was raised on Alawite Islamic beliefs before she renounced her religion, began to question Islam after she witnessed her university teacher get gunned down by Muslim hardliners in Syria in 1979.

The mother of three, who migrated to the US in 1989, said the West needed to hold Muslims and their leaders more accountable for the atrocities performed in the name of Islam if they wanted to win the war on terror.

But while she considered the prophet Mohammed "evil" and said the Koran needed to be destroyed because it advocated violence against non-believers, Dr Sultan struggled to articulate her vision for Muslims, whom she said she was trying to liberate from the shackles of their beliefs.

"I believe the only way is to expose the Muslims to different cultures, different thoughts, different belief systems," said Dr Sultan, who is completing her first book, The Escaped Prisoner: When Allah is a Monster.

"Muslims have been hostages of their own belief systems for 1400 years. There is no way we can keep the Koran."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22279722-2702,00.html

The pervading feeling we get from talking to muslims is that they are indeed ideologically bound to the belief that it is their right, and duty, to take over the world.
Religious megalomania of that kind, when supported by extremists who are willing to kill and die to further the struggle for world supremacy is a doctrine that must be rejected out of hand, and no tolerance should be shown to it's adherents on the claimed grounds of religious or cultural freedom.

While we still see young muslims like the ones who post here, evading questions about how far they would be prepared to go to advance/defend Islam, then we must be concerned about what this religion is seeking from it's adherents.
The extremist saudi fundamentalists are funding Islamic teaching all over the world, and they certainly do not present a vision of Islam which any western nation could be comfortable with.

I was going to say, if you could, would you look at what she's saying, rather than who she is....but thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and hope you'd at least try to attack the argument instead of the author. True to form, though. Points for consistency at least.

abu_rashid wrote on Aug 5^th, 2008 at 5:01pm:

Islam in it's current form (and I understand it's only form) and the west cannot co-exist. It's just impossible. And Islam does not want to, it wants to dominate.

She was born and raised a Nusairi (Alawite) not a Muslim.

They are a very deviant sect who branched off from the Shi'a long ago, and today even most Shi'a reject them as outside of Islam.

Their beliefs are largely foreign and strange to most Muslims and in fact they are generally very hostile to Muslims, that's why France insured they were placed in charge of Syria, knowing full well they'd oppress and keep the majority Muslims in check.

That aside, it's completely irrelevant how long someone has been a Muslim. I'm positive there are millions of Muslims in the world who don't know as much about Islam as myself, and I am told this regularly when I converse with my fellow Muslims. Not to say I know a lot, but there's always going to be people born into a religion who don't learn much about it, whilst there will be converts who'll learn vast amounts in amazingly short times. In fact there's probably some non-Muslims who also have more knowledge than some Muslims, simply because they studied more. Knowledge can be attained by anyone who seeks it. Being born into a certain family doesn't always guarantee you'll get any knowledge of any certain subject, so your reasoning, as usual, is flawed.

Either way, she's a non-Muslim, simple and pure, doesn't matter what she was born or raised, it's irrelevant now, she's got no status in Islam at all.

jordan,

Quote:


She didn't really say anything new or profound. "Islam is evil, Muslims are bad, I'm thinking to publish a book, and I know exactly how to get press".

I'm interested what exactly is so profound about what she's said? Apart from the fact it bolsters the West's ideological position? Can you name any signficant intellectual work she's done that would make her stand out as a so called 'thinker'?

If you're just praising her because she's agreed with your position, then that's not very profound.

freediver,

Quote:


Anyone who could be a potential 'intellectual tool' to deploy against the Muslims will always be given this kind of treatment in the West. Doesn't matter if they're an intellectual giant or an intellectual midget, they'll still always get the airtime, for the simple fact of the ideological value of what they're saying.

Please refrain from personal insults.

Quote:


What points? Please quote for me which point she made that you consider so profound.

The article only has about 3 or 4 quotes from her, most of the article is about how she's so great because she's anti-Islamic... and that's about it.

If you can bring a decently written critique against Islam, I'll be the first to rebut it and argue every single minute point it contains, until you've all fallen asleep from boredom, but that article just isn't it.

I think you just googled and googled until you found something anti-Islamic, and couldn't wait to run over here and post it to get the reaction you so much seem to be intoxicated by. Did you even read it first? The fact you still insist it makes points and that she's a 'profound thinker' tends to indicate you didn't.