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,

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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,

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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.

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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.

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Is that 'code' for "Ok I admit I can't find a single point she made in the article"?

Anyway I'll leave you to your little anti-Islam bash, and I'll allow Rabbi Stephen Stein to finish off the response to Mrs. Sultan.

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Read the rest here

I don't know about that Jordan, he regularly makes me smile, so that is a positive.

Abu, the points she makes are valid, and the reply from the Rabbi included the line about the korans talk of war as cultural baggage.

How do you respond to that point?

You seem quite cowardly in your approach to defending what you claim is perfection delivered directly from god.

You posted his response, as a reasoned reply to someone you disagree with, but then denigrate his opinions as being less valid than yours because his religion is different.

There must be a name for such blinding arrogance, for such blinding ignorance.

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I posted his criticisms of someone, and therefore I must adopt his views about everything? How so?

I did not denigrate anything, I merely pointed out he's a scholar of Judaism, and his opinions are probably quite fine for adherents of Judaism, that's denigration?

mozza, you're not doing a lot to convince me you're a sane rational participant in any discussion I'm engaged in with you.

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Why would you believe that the bits he left were the word of God, and the bits he took out were a trick from Satan?

If Satan was capable of tricking your prophet once, how do we know that he was not ultimately tricked into creating a false book of evil, instead of a divine book of good?

To many an outside, impartial, observer, there is a great deal of contradiction, and promotion of evil concepts in your supposed holy book.

The verses of the Qur'an which deal with violence are no different to the articles in the Geneva convention that deal with violence. Do you believe in those? Or the articles of the Australian constitution that deal with the defense of the Australian nation, agree with those?

Do they encourage the victor to occupy the land, take all the possessions and either force the locals out or turn them into slaves?

If you can show any bits that were taken out, and any single manuscript that shows there were other 'bits' originally in there, then I'll accept your deluded ideas.

Wasn't there some bloke who removed bits because they were a bit too extreme?

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I didn't mean to imply they reached the same outcome/ruling about different issues. Merely that the Qur'aanic verses dealing with war/violence are injuctions addressing a nation and their head of state, not individuals and inciting them to commit individual acts of violence, as the opponents of Islam usually like to imply.

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Only instance i know of someone removing something, is an American who tried to remove two verses that didn't conform to his magic number 19.

There are several complete manuscripts in Turkey, Uzbekistan, Britain and other places that testify to fidelity of the circulated text of the Qur'an we have today.

What 'some bloke' does, doesn't impact the slightest on the consistency of the Qur'an.

It is far easier to refuse rational analysis, than accept what you have been indoctrinated to believe is not the whole truth, isn't it Abu?

Here is an article about some historical scholars who have begun the work of subjecting the koran to critical analysis.
As time goes by, we will gain a better, and more realistic appreciation of just how the koran came into being.
They have a funny bit about the virgins in heaven actually being 'white raisins', there are going to be some disappointed jihadists up there, rotflmao.
http://www.corkscrew-balloon.com/02/03/1bkk/04b.html

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Well if some anti-Islamic European 'scholar' said it, then it must be true right? Because we all know fundamentalist jihadist Muslim Arabs would have no idea about their own language, would they?

I'm not even fluent in Arabic, yet I can see quite clearly the error  in his claims, too bad his audience are not so discerning when it comes to scrutinising evidences.

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حور العين (hoor al-ayin) is only one phrase that's used to describe the maidens of paradise. And yes it's not literally maiden of paradise, but other phrases like أزواج مطهوة (azwaaj mutahhara) which literally means 'pure/pristine spouses' and there are other phrases that make it all too clear what it's referring to.

Btw hoor can have the meaning of white, not white raisin and he even mentioned that earlier, then later claims an Arabic dictionary lists it as white raisin, this guy really has no idea what he's on about. And it's quite amusing that he's trying to use another language (Aramaic) to translate the Qur'an. Kind of like me trying to use Romanian to translate the Magna Carta for you

I shouldn't have really expected anything more from you anyway. I've yet to see you actually provide a well researched argument.

For a more detailed rebuttal, see this mpac response.

Not fluent in Arabic?
How the hell do you read the koran then?

It cannot be translated, and even scholars fluent in arabic find a fair proportion unitelligible, so how does an ignorant aussie kid become a koranic expert.

Wait I know.

You did not even read the article right through, but dismissed it as propaganda because it does not fit in with your indoctrination.
Quite the scholar aren't you?

I didn't know you could get white raisins. What are they like?

Great rebuttal Abu, if we find any 1300 year old greek documents we will just send them to Joe at the fish and chip shop to translate, or maybe someone like you, who had a summer vacation on mykonos and picked up a little.
We certainly would hold their opinion above that of a professor who specialises in the translation of such texts wouldn't we?

Escape, escape now, you could be going to the footy, going out with nice girls, surfing, fishing, basically enjoying your life.
Even though you have been brainwashed into denying it, what you do today, IS YOUR LIFE. You can be good, and kind, and productive, and still live your life, instead of denigrating it to the role of being your entrance exam for heaven.
Any god worth going to heaven for is going to respect all men of decency who live their lives to the fullest, and you do not need any religious doctrine to do that, a kind heart will suffice.

A little circuitous isn't it Abu?

If I need to be muslim to understand the koran, and I need to understand the koran to become muslim, we are back with that damn chicken and egg again.

Do you think only a muslim could understand the koran?
I think you are confusing understanding, with accepting the mythology that is packaged with it.

I thought it was you who said non-muslim academics were biased against Islam, and therefore unreliable.

So if we have the top professor in his field commenting on his area of expertise, we should dismiss it unless we have a muslim viewpoint to compare it to, irrespective of the credentials of the muslim commentator.

Apart from being disrespectful to the objectivity which most academics hold dear, it would only make sense if both were relatively equal in experience and qualifications.

The 3 page article which questions the korans mythical origins did have contributions from muslims, but once again we see them discounted as not real muslims, because they stray from the tenet that the koran must not be questioned.

Can you really not see how having an ideology based on a text which you refuse to even allow others to question would bring your credibility into question, far more than the scholars who are just trying to expand our knowledge and understanding?

abu_rashid wrote on Aug 6^th, 2008 at 9:22pm:

Reform to what?

jordan484 wrote on Aug 12^th, 2008 at 5:25pm:


It's a good read though. My German and Swiss friends particularly love the arguments.

I found the book 'Infidel' by Ayaan Hirsi Ali thought provoking and inspiring.

it is a moderate religion that is portrayed by mainstream media as evil

Could you give some examples?

 



'interesting also that those that leave rarely do so without having a grudge to bare, or slander and deformation.'

Speaking for myself, yes.....I left with a grudge (for poorer choice of word).......righteous indignation is more to the point. When my child was sexually abused by a church member and I was ordered to keep quiet for HIS protection.......then I was expelled from the church for warning other parents..........after the police were told by the elders that HE was being watched.........well, I'm out of there. And if you mean defamation, yes, I was.......by being expelled for gross sin! ie: protecting other kids.mmmmm go figure.

opinion, opinion, opinion........WHERES YOURS....im getting real sick of this...

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Lol. Imp. Is that like an all emcompassing disclaimer or something - "I've said my general opinion right the very first post. If in doubt see first post." That shouldn't disqualify you from voicing your opinions on specifics.

I note that you've also said "i rarely write yarns as long as this as all it really gets is a flippant sentence in reply..." and yet, most of your posts are flippant replies and/or links without any comment.

Good on you for speaking up Bliss.
It must take a lot of guts to go against a strong group dynamic, where your own ideas are always brought into question.

Any group who cannot accept a critical evaluation of it's own actions, does seem to be trying to suppress the truth.

I guess the Elders view their own words as God's will to which you are "sinning" against it. That's a little pretentious of them and frankly not that surprising for a religious cult.

I hope that you and your family have come out of the experience unscathed. One hears of stories of people needing to be de-programmed with they've escaped.

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I can certainly identify with that sentiment.