Ebrahim Eboo Patel... Is the most perfct form of disguised Islamists. He really follows Islam, by the rate he lies. In Islam it is an honor to lie, the so called Al Taqyia. The history he tells all about his grandmother and her kindness...Sounds pretty much as cheap latin soup opera, with lots of cheap drama, for the intention of manipulation (No Patel- I"m not against Latins..I'm one of them- Habyby). Only his kind buys it and when I say kind, I do not say Muslims. There are excellent muslims such as Abdull Pallazi and Arabs for Israel. For your surprise, Patel is not one of them. He turn up side down who is the evil and who is the angel. No apologoes for the extermination of infidels in Kashmir or about the contestation of any "humanity" in Hamass. The major sign of his hidden agenda agsinst the west is his support for CAIR. BTW, he defends Almontasser as if the female was an angel. LIAR. When the shirt for the intifada came, she did nothing. When Jewish Arabic teachers applied no one was admitted, only the muslims arab speakers. There is so much to speak about Patel. He is an apologist for terrorists but he does that poorly. Only stupid ones believe him and not for a considerable time. Just wondering if he got his PHD in such an "area" b/c he could not do any decently or any better in engineering or in the medical field. You know...PHD in society related to religion. How far ones may contest against that due to its relativism and subjectivism and of course, his so fair interpretation underlined by his freedom of speech. Those in addition to how much support Islamists and Wahhabist give to these "scholarships" in exchange of favors alike. What a "genius"....A PHB that gossips worse than an old fashioned servant in the kitchen.

"...On 07-15-2008 Patel used ABC to denigrate Daniel Pipes. When addressing Daniel Pipes, Patel states "rumor that Daniel Pipes has nurtured through an essay on his Web site”. It is deplorable that A PhD cannot get basic facts right. Ones wonder why Patel is a partner for CAIR (founded by Hamas supporters -seeking to overthrow Constitutional government in the US and replace it with an Islamist theocracy using our own Constitution as protection), and what’s the role of ABC and other oportunists and Islamists in blindly supporting Ebrahim Eboo Patel."...

for Georgia Son Responses to your questions:
1.Does Islam allow for the separation of church and state? YES WE DON'T HAVE CHURCHES. But it depends what you mean by "Islam" and "the State"... I am not trying to avoid your question but these terms have evolved in meaning since the seventh century, nationalism and colonial occupations etc etc. This has to be a longer conversation but basically yes Islam can be adapted to a pluralistic society.

2.Does Islam allow for the full legal equality of women?

YES equal in justice and rights but not in an identical way to men. Again, there are plenty of careful reformers. Fund them!

3.Does Islam allow for religious pluralism? For example, if a Muslim male married a Christian female...

This happens all over the world all the time! No religious leaders (including in judaism and most christian sects) like to see folks leaving the fold. A family having two religions is not simple but can be compared to speaking two languages.

But what needs to happen is a definition of Islam that is based on the spirit of the Quran and the essentials of faith-- not on rote and literal minded readins. Being a Muslim would mean maintaining virtues and a love of God not wearing a hijab or not. But we also have to work patiently with the orthodox in all faiths.

4.What does Islam say (according to the above authoritative voices) should be the fate of heretics? ...what do the authoritative voices of Islam say should be his fate?

Look up ISNA's Horizon Magazine this year--an excellent scholarly article. The issue is if the "heretic" makes him or herself a danger-- then one may treat them as such.

5.Does Islam allow for the publication of a scholarly book alleging that Mohammad was a fraud?

IE Salman Rushie stuff? Many Muslim leaders would get their knickers in a twist. But as Muslims it is better for them to embody Mohammed's forebearance-- when angry people threw garbage on him, he forgave them.

(Alternatively, instead of imagining these questions posed to the authoritative voices of Islam, imagine the question is, “What would Islamic textbooks used in the teaching of Muslim students in America say in answer to the following questions?”)

Of course Debbie Almontaser's text books were Department of Education textbooks--standard issue-- just to remind us all. For more on this whole case(you have made some real errors in your understanding of the Khalil Gibran school issue) please see www.kgia.wordpress.com

Great article. Like many on the far right,Pipes does not care about facts if they get in the way of his agenda. With his campus watch and other witch hunt tactics, he takes things out of context, conflates and misreads. This is the rigid and extreme ideology we do NOT need in the next administration!

One notes that Pipes targets "progressive" and moderate and visible Muslims, not those few that may have dangerous views and interpretations. If you target moderates you will have no one to work with-- but perhaps all the better for the "clash of civilizations" and the business of fear.

The Truth about Eboo Patel

I attended the Interfaith Youth Core conference in October of 2007. This conference was lead by Eboo Patel, and I was very excited about it. That is, until the political agenda became very clear. The conference centered on the superiority of Islam.
Every "interfaith" group or event carried this message. The keynote speaker was an Islamic convert, the interfaith prayer room was covered with Islamic prayer rugs, the keynote professors, one a Muslim convert, from the University of Chicago, claimed that there was no such thing or threat of "Islamofascism"
Eboo's opening address talked about the faith line. He created this idea that there were 2 types of people, interfaith and fundamentalists.
The implied message was that anyone who disagreed with Eboo and the conference agenda was a fundamentalist.
The last event I attended was a panel of Jewish activists that were facilitating meetings with leaders of Hamas. To portray any of these leaders as "spiritual" guides with only a hard-line approach, is simply lies. No one questioned any of these programs because they were under this facade of "interfaith."
I found the entire event very disturbing. The next month, I received Eboo's journal, "The Review of Faith and International Politics." Same agenda. The topics included the weakness of Zionism, convincing Evangelicals not to support Israel, and extremism in Judaism.
Patel even has blog post denouncing Ayaa Hirsi Ali as a money-grubbing capitalist! Well, at least she escaped the "infidel" charge. Quite a step up. Women are now not allowed to question Islam because they want to make money through the medium of selling books.
Daniel Pipes is a scholar who is highlighting the true activities of "moderates" to allow the public to decide. In the USA we have transparency, and if you want to call that a smear, I am truly questioning which side you are on, Mr. Patel.

IBRAHIM MAHFOUZ Re. your May 8, 2008 11:57 AM posting:

Are you aware the Ottoman caliphate was abolished on March 3, 1924? That's 84 years ago. Therefore, assuming the average age for development of political consciousness to be around 16 years of age, for your assertion that "The older generations (of Muslims) are not as enthusiastic about that prospect (living under Sharia law) as the younger ones because they are more aware of the impact the last Ottoman Caliphate had upon the Muslims in general and the Arabs in particular." to be correct, it would require the existence of a generation of centenarians. I would suggest it is more likely that as most people grow older, having experienced the vagaries of life they tend to see things less as in black or white and more in shades of gray. More simply put, if it's their son who steals a bicycle, they are less likely to accept having his hand cut off under Sharia law.

As regards the Ottoman Caliphate, in the 84 years since they abolished it, the Turks have gone on to create a flourishing multi-party democracy and have separated religion and state. In fact, even the Islam practiced in Turkey today is by and large moderate and flexible (like everywhere else occasionally there are some misguided zealots, but they are the exception to the rule). I would refer you to the following interesting article which appeared in the press only a few days ago:

The question is, if the Ottoman Caliphate was at the heart of all the problems the Arab states had for over 500 years as your posting seems to suggest, what have the Arab states done in the last 84 years to improve themselves? How many are true democracies and how many continue to be ruled by kings, sheiks, emirs and other despots? How many of these countries claiming to be democracies continues to oppress their own people (ex. Egypt)? How many have officially separated religion from the state?

It is easy to blame others for one's own ills, but the Arabs were no less colonizers than any other major civilization. When the Islamic African Moors occupied the Iberian Peninsula starting in 711 AD, it was almost six centuries before the Ottoman Empire came into existence. Before holding others responsible for their plight, one should look at one's own self.

Uzma Ahmad says:
“The word "Islam" means "peace’”
Wrong! It means submission.
He says:
“My religion taught me to love others”
Wrong again. It exhorted the Believers to fight those who do not believe in the message of their prophet.
He says:
“My religion taught me to love others and be tolerant“
He must be talking about a religion other than Islam. Islam is the most intolerant religion in the whole world

Ted Baines says:
“I find the burkha and hijab obscene because they are imposed on women through an alleged ruling by an alleged god named Allah.”

The vast majority of women I know who veil their faces in public, and I know many, are doing the environment in general and men in particular a great favor. Trust me.

KMAN says:
“Forty percent of Muslims between aged 16 to 24 said they would prefer to live under Sharia law in the UK, compared to only 17 percent of those over 55.”

You need to add that those who call for adopting the Sharia laws are implicitly demanding the resurrection of the Caliphate. The older generations are not as enthusiastic about that prospect as the younger ones because they are more aware of the impact the last Ottoman Caliphate had upon the Muslims in general and the Arabs in particular.
Below is a snapshot of that phenomenon presented here as a public service.

The Turkish Caliphate that went down the tube during World War I, ruled all the Arab states and parts of Eastern Europe for over 500 years. What has that caliphate accomplished for its subjects? It taxed them back into the Stone Age to support the lavish lifestyle of its Caliphs and their cronies. It used their children as cannon fodder in the Sultans’ endless wars of aggression. They were colonists of the worst type since they were more primitive than their subjects. They took out and never put in. They went as far as cut down fruit trees from the plains of Palestine and Egypt and hills of Syria and Lebanon to fuel their trains. That was happening when the West was moving from the Exploration Age into the Colonization Age into Religious Reformation, into the Age of Enlightment and the Industrial Revolution. The Greeks, Serbs and Christian Lebanese revolted against the Turkish misrule but none of the Muslims, Arabs and non-Arabs, had. Because the Muslim believe or made to believe that raising a hand against the Sultan is equivalent to fighting against their prophet. Those same people revolted against the French and British at least three times within thirty years span in accordance with their prophet‘s exhortations “Not to allow a non-believer have authority over a believer“. You never hear Muslim subjects blame the Caliphate and its Sharia laws for any of their ills, yet are quick at blaming all their shortcomings on the West in general and Britain and France in particular. Those two powers, who colonized the Arab countries for only a decade or two after liberating them from 500 years of subjugation and humiliation at the hands of ruthless and ignorant hordes, had, at least, opened them up to the rest of the world, built their present day infrastructure and tried to teach them build modern states with modern institutions. What had the Turkish Caliphate ever given its subjects; both Arabs and non-Arabs besides grief and destitution? I don’t know which is worse; this half millennium scourge called Turkish Caliphate or someone’s yearning for its return. Why would any man in his right mind wants the return of a Caliphate? The Turks themselves do not want its return despite its many obvious rewards for them as plundering colonizers. Those who yearn for the days of Turkish subjugation and exploitation are doing so simply because they are of the mindset that believes the Turks ”ruled” according to Allah’s “Divine” law. i.e. Sharia; a code derived mostly from the Muslims’ holy book, the Koran, and the tradition of their prophet. Both are anchored in the nomad culture of 7th Century Arabia and to a large degree the Sharia laws perpetuates that culture.That is why they seem to move around a cycle and are heading nowhere.

The problem for an average person like me is that I look at the European Union and the problems they are having with the immigration of so many Muslims. Their call for "sharia" law, and other changes in the way the governments work in the EU, their apparent lack of desire (or ability) to do as immigrants have done for generations, integrate themselves into their new society, and finally, their terrorist attacks on their own countries, makes one wonder is any of them can be trusted. In a sense, my fear is that they are going to do anything they can to CHANGE EUROPE to what they want it to be, and that WILL NOT happen in the US.

When I see writers murdered for their writings and cartoonists vilified for their cartoons, and riots because somebody says something the Muslims don't like. Where are the so-called "real" Muslims when these things happen? They are hiding and afraid to say anything, and until Muslims stand up to the bigots and terrorists who are Muslims, DO NOT ASK me to take on the issue. They can clean their own house before they ask me to clean mine.

I do not agree with Daniel Pipes in many of his rants, BUT look at the Middle East, look at Europe, look at parts of Asia, and I say "NOT HERE, NOT IN THE US".

The problem is not with Mr. Pipes and his ilk (such as the people who yak about the "Jewish conspiracy," the "Black Church," the "Liberals," etc.). These people are spreading lies and it's obvious with a moment's thought.

The problem is that the moment's thought doesn't happen. The problem is the millions of Americans who don't bother to expend the effort to think critically and who swallow this tripe and repeat it. Why do we do this? Because it's easier to blame Someone Else. Because there is some comfort in having someone to blame about why my life doesn't live up to the American Dream, why my earning power has steadily lost ground for the past 40 years, why I feel less safe and less secure, why I fear the future.

If I can blame Muslims or Jews or blacks or Mexicans or terrorists, I don't have to accept my responsibility for my contribution to my problems. I don't have to admit that I have been hoodwinked into electing people who serve the interests of the already rich and powerful and not the interests of the middle class and the folks who earn even less. I don't have to admit that the American Dream has been tarnished from within by the very people who have benefitted the most.

I am a first generation American of Pakistani descent. I have always been proud to be a Muslim in America because Islam is so consistent with the values and principles on which America was founded. My religion taught me to love others, help the oppressed, be humble,
be grateful, be tolerant, and above all promote peace. Peace in the home, peace in the neighborhood, peace in society, peace in the world. The word "Islam" means "peace" and that is what a Muslim should strive for in all aspects of life. People like Mr. Pipes are bringing the intolerance that has existed in extremist Islamic countries for years to America. This is what Muslims, like my parents tried to escape when they immigrated to the United States.

"Common sense:
Not all muslins are terrorist but all terrorist are muslins!"

So Timothy McVeigh and his white supremist cohorts are/were Muslims?

How about the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who bombed London many times and even killed one of the Queen's in-laws? Muslims?

Basque separatists fighting for independence from Spain?

This one doesn't even pass the laugh test. Learn some history.

Not all muslins are terrorist but all terrorist are muslins!

That's better. Here comes Halozcel, Donttypelies already. Only waiting for Arif, A Kafir, Ibrahim Mahfouz et al. Let's hear you out and more. We're all ears. It only takes a scratch.

Cheers
"J"

Muslims smear themselves and need no help.

Watch a Muslim woman in the US wearing the burkha or the hijab as she flaunts these ridiculous costumes at non-Muslims as if daring them, knowing fully well that the laws here give the right to wear the stifling dress. I find the burkha and hijab obscene because they are imposed on women through an alleged ruling by an alleged god named Allah. A woman in burkha in the 90 degree heat does not evoke respect, it evokes derision. Why do Muslims not allow non-Muslim women to wear shorts in teh stifling heat in most Muslim countries.

Then one cannot forget the riots over the Muhammad cartoons and a remark, a truthful remark, by the Pope about Muhammad. More riots and protests, more killing of Muslims by Muslims. These riots did more to smear Muslims than anything non-Muslims can or could do.

Then there are the Islamic laws. One classic example is the Islamic financing which is based on "profit sharing" which is nothing more than interest in another form.

Then take the apartheid practiced in Saudi Arabia in Mecca and Medina, a issue that Eboo refuses to address.

No . Mr. Patel non-Muslims do not smear Muslims. Muslims smear Muslims.

Dear NAT, When I wrote ' When you are in Rome live like a Roman' I quoted an English idiom. But I fear I bungled the words. Just now I checked up the net and it says 'When in Rome do as the Romans'. Either way I think I did convey the meaning. It only means that you should adapt yourselves to the life wherever you are living instead of sticking out like a sore thump. ( Please don't ask me whether I have sore thump. I don't have. Otherwisse I won't be typing this.) What I mean is that Muslims should adapt themselves to wherever they are as all others are doing. Don't go to McDonald and ask for "halal" sandwich. If only ham is there it is better to start eating it.
PS. I did not know that in the present day Rome all those beastly things are there.

No one has to smear muslims. They do a very good job of it themselves.

Who smears Muslims ?

The latest news from Malaysia,

Malaysian women should get *written permission* from their masters/husbands or dads if they travel abroad alone.
For example,if a sukut paper trader businesswoman intends to visit Dubai,she has to get a written permission from her master.

Dear Readers,
Without golden and silver coins,so-called *islamic banking and financial services* can not be spoken.Besides,*Reeba* had been prohibited in islam,not Bank interest.
It is not reasonable to compare Bank Muamalat with Citibank or HSBC

Your last statement exposes why Pipes and others have a valid point. In this time of religious war, (and that's what it is) it's America against some crazy Muslims. If your "very clear" statement had read, I am for AN AMERICA where people from all backgrounds live in equality, I could agree with you. But to put everyone in some amorphous mass is exactly why I don't trust you.

Scepticus--

About living like Romans: The Romans, you SHOULD recall, practiced slavery, denied rights to women, and had gladiators fight to the death in order to entertain the masses.

And you think that this sort of thing should be condoned. I dare you to deny it.

When you are in Rome live like Romans. One should leave the religious beliefs in their house and when you step out of your house one should be just another another human being.
It is not necessary to ask the cafeteria to prepare a special food. Take whatever is available or prepare onself.
I remember to have read that in a prestigious institution some hours has been allotted to the Muslims. In my opinion it is not proper.

One should try to integrate with the society you are living with not to show too much of unwanted exhibition of a skewed individuality.

Mr. Patel once more takes off the shelf a bunch of abstract multicultural cliches designed to obscure, not clarify, the issue at hand. Yes, America is a tolerant society. No, that does not mean we must tolerate every special interest group or fanatic that washes up on our shores. I have a distinct feeling that Mr. Patel has not told the whole story. What about Ms. Almontaser's ties to that pro-Islamist extremist T-shirt? What curriculum does she intend to teach in her school, apart from Arabic? Is the curriculum publicly available?

Muslims simply cannot be compared to any other minority or immigrant group in America. Muslims are unique and Islam is unique. None of the other immigrant groups arrived armed with a desert-based religion locked in a 7th Century time warp.

Mr. Patel is being intellectually dishonest when he bases his argument on abstract multicultural cliches. What we must first of all do when considering issues like this is to look at the conditions in Muslim countries. Look at the empirical evidence of what Islam leads to. Look at the religious bigotry, the intolerance of other religions, the callous overt discrimination against women, the lack of civil liberties, and the repressive regimes. Then tell me how any rational human being could say we should treat Muslims the same as any other minority group. Or tell we Americans that we should welcome with open arms and complete tolerance the people who practice a religion that produces the above evils.

Reform and enlightenment in Muslim countries, not multicultural nonsense from the likes of Mr. Patel, would do wonders to make Americans more tolerant of Islam.

Of course, Mr. Patel himself demonstrates every day that Muslims like himself just do not get it, just don't understand what America is all about. He shows that by his refusal to engage the participants in this forum in dialogue. He is good at dishing out his one-sided views but hides behind cyberspace anonymity rather than meet his critics head-on. In short, he clearly reflects the close-minded culture from which he comes. Mr.Patel and the King of Saudi Arabia obviously have the same approach to dissenting viewpoints.

This attitude, Mr. Patel, is what makes many of us wary of allowing too many Muslims in or of giving them free rein to propagate their ideas--which are so alien to the spirit of America.

Here is my standard response to people like Mr. Patel:
What would the most authoritative voices of Islam say in answer to the five questions posed below. That is, don't give me your personal viewpoint. I want you to tell us what the most authoritative voices of orthodox Islam would say.

Here are the questions:
1.Does Islam allow for the separation of church and state?
2.Does Islam allow for the full legal equality of women?
3.Does Islam allow for religious pluralism? For example, if a Muslim male married a Christian female, would the husband and wife be able to say to their children, “We will attend the mosque on Friday and the church on Sunday and consider ourselves a bi-religious family. When each of you is 18 years old, you will be free to choose. You can continue our bilateral approach; or, you can choose one religion over the other; or, you can choose another religion altogether.”
4.What does Islam say (according to the above authoritative voices) should be the fate of heretics? For example, if a member of the Egyptian soccer team got up tomorrow morning and announced he was converting from Islam to Christianity and changing his name from Mohammad Ali to Cassius Clay, what do the authoritative voices of Islam say should be his fate?
5.Does Islam allow for the publication of a scholarly book alleging that Mohammad was a fraud?

(Alternatively, instead of imagining these questions posed to the authoritative voices of Islam, imagine the question is, “What would Islamic textbooks used in the teaching of Muslim students in America say in answer to the following questions?”)

The answers to these questions will reveal whether there is some debate among Muslims over the future of their religion. Or whether even orthodox Islam can be accommodated to a Western liberal, pluralistic society.

Forty percent of Muslims between aged 16 to 24 said they would prefer to live under sharia law in the UK, compared to only 17 percent of those over 55. Thirty-six percent of the younger group said a Muslim who converted to another religion should be "punished by death," while only 19 percent of the older group agreed.

The perefence for sharia in the younger UK muslims is very disturbing - I wonder how the same poll would read in the US?

come on patel. calling nelson mendela a terrorist is just like calling zionists nazis.

nelson mendela is a terrorist -- didn't you know?

how can i analyze, comment on and even challenge the statement that "nelson mendela is a terrorist"?

i'm just an american, sorry.

seriously, is nelson mendela really a terrorist?

Hello Mr. Eboo Patel:)

Not much use piping up on Pipes too much. But, why not.

Well, you can tell Mr. Daniel Pipes that Islamic banking and financial services is the "silent jihad" or "soft jihad" for Muslims to take over the whole world and impose an Islamic caliphate and Shariah everywhere from Peoria to Pyong Pyang.

You can tell Mr. Daniel Pipes to put Citibank and HSBC on his list too, as "jihadist dissumulating" organisations. This should keep him really busy writing, writing, writing about the new approaches, tactics, techniques, strategies of the "other side" to undermined civilisation as we know it.

As for Mr. Daniel Pipes asking whether Muslims "..are they on our side or are they on the other side?” Well, he puts Muslims on the "other side" in all his essays. But, we are not petty-minded about him echoing President Bush, "Either you are with us, or are against us". He spoke glowingly and proudly of his Judeo-Christian heritage and civilisation. Bravo to him for knowing which side's he on and what his heritage is.

All the same, we are only to happy to lend a hand and infuse our funds to help keep the "other side" afloat so the "other side" will not sink economically, and sunk the whole world with them while they do use some of the funds for ways to harm and kill some on the "other side". We are most willing to sacrifice some of us at "this other side" for the peace of mind, benefit, and security of the "other side".

We will continue to derive pleasure on what Mr.Daniel Pipes said about the "other side". All three of us who have heard of him but not really care for what he said so far away. After all, he is merely talking to those on the "other side" about those of the "other side".

Do I want to laugh or cry? Laugh of course. Daniel Pipes has become a fanatic he is so against. And for quite a while now too. Never have taken what Daniel Pipes said and do seriously. Of people on the "other side", I do take what the Pope said and do, or did not do, seriously. If and when I heard what the Pope said. Oh yes, POTUS too, especially when he spoke and seek to act unilaterally in my region to "bring freedom and democracy" to me.

Well, never mind. Everyone got their own pipe dreams that becomes nightmares for others and themselves too.

Cheers
"J"

Arlene: We're still waiting for you to back up your fightin words. Where's the beef, baby? Otherwise, I'm going to have to conclude that you was just being ornery messin with that muslim school marm ...

In case you missed my earlier message to you yesterday (May 7, 6:45 PM) because of all the other frustrated folk, here it is again -

"Arlene: with regard to the assertion in your previous posting that (Debbie) 'Almontaser MADE A STATEMENT SUPPORTING A HAMAS-LED TERROR MOVEMENT (intafada)', please provide us with the exact statement and reference it (where it was quoted).

That way we can all judge for ourselves. Otherwise I would have to say you are all hat and no cattle darlin'

http://www.freethinker.co.uk/2008/02/27/laughing-religion-off-the-planet-an-interview-with-pat-condell/

Anybody who hasn't heard Pat Condell's patter can hear it at the above. He is very funny. Even Spiderman will laugh.

Alex David suggested that one way the Muslims need to do to improve their 'acceptance' in the larger society is:

.............. begin by doing charitable works not just for other muslims but for everyone in their larger community.

This suggestion makes lots of sense, especially doing charitable work for EVERYONE in the community.

Alex David suggested that one way the Muslims need to do to improve their 'acceptance' in the larger society is:

.............. begin by doing charitable works not just for other muslims but for everyone in their larger community.

This suggestion makes lots of sense, especially doing charitable work for EVERYONE in the community.

Not only Muslims are smeared; Arabs are too. Whether iraqia, syrians etc are arabs is of no importance in today's world.

the meaning of Arab is akin to the meaning of American; it is an identity that subsumes other identities.

There are no 'TRUE' or 'AUTHENTIC' ethnic group; it is a false assumption

Not only Muslims are smeared; Arabs are too. Whether iraqia, syrians etc are arabs is of no importance in today's world.

the meaning of Arab is akin to the meaning of American; it is an identity that subsumes other identities.

There are no 'TRUE' or 'AUTHENTIC' ethnic group; it is a false assumption

Patel requests tolerance. Fine, we are a tolerant country. Were we not, we would have arrested and deported every last Muslim after 9/11. U.S. Muslims were largely silent on the events of 9/11. A few expressed opposition to the crime, but a surprising number said nothing. The Mosque of New York condoned the acts of terrorism, which resulted in its imam getting kicked out of the country.

Patel, if you truly want Muslims not to be smeared, you might start by admitting that some Muslims behave very, very badly and you do not condone their behavior. Unfortunately, people's patience with Muslims is at a low point these days and probably the majority of non-Muslims in the U.S. don't want to be lectured on tolerance right now.

Patel, one last point: visit Egypt and write a column in the local paper advising the Muslim Brotherhood to adopt more tolerant language in its charter. Visit Gaza and West Bank and tell the Arabs there to stop portraying Jews as blood sucking monsters in their children's schoolbooks. Go to Iran and tell their great leader to stop denying the Holocaust happened. Oh, and put some flowers on the grave of that UNWRA headmaster in Gaza who was a bombmaster by night.

If you can survive all of these experiences, then come back and write us another column about how we should be tolerant of Muslims becoming schoolmasters.

Hey Somali, chill. There are filters on these blogs . Don't take it so personally or start swinging your sword at some unseen infidel.

Just rewrite your blog a different way and keep trying until you figure out what the word or words filtered are.

Muslims have "smeared" themselves with the blood of their terror victims and very little outrage from "mainstream" Muslims and their clergy.

Your article acts like there is no attempt by radical Muslim and Arab organizations to impose religion on a secular culture, and strip people of their individualism. Islam mostly from the Arab world is the most intolerant and restrictive form of life on the planet, making life a sin and death in the service of Allah a virtue. Your cute little attempt to link Nelson Mandela and "Debbie" into your story, as if she is being "oppressed" in America falls short of the mark. The treatment of women in the Arab world is nothing more than indentured slavery under the cover of duty to Allah, something overlooked in your appeal to social justice.

R.S.Newark says:
"Surely, I can't be the only person who knows that Khalil Gibran is not arabic, nor was he Muslim...doesn't anyone know that Gibran was a Lebanese Christian. How can anyone with intelligence name a Muslim school after a Lebanese Christain?"

Of all Arab speaking people who originated in Africa and the Middle East, only those who hail from the Arabian Peninsula are true Arabs. The others are Arabised people; people who adopted the Arabic culture, language and many the Arab religion of Islam. Khalil Gibran is no more or less Arab than any of those whose roots are in the Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The present day people of Lebanon are the descendents of the Phoenicians as the people of Syria are Arameans and the Iraqis are descendents of the Babylonians etc.

Smear Muslims? Wouldn’t dream of it – as long as they behave in a civilized manner. I don’t think it counts as “smearing” to call a barbarian a barbarian.

Smear Islam? How do you smear an ideology that responds with such enthusiastic violence to even the barest suggestion that its followers take a step or two into the twenty-first century with the rest of us? It appears to smear itself. Religion of peace, my arse.

"Smearing Muslims" is the title of this harangue. But considering that 9/11, bombings of innocents, beheadings, floggings, and other assorted atrocities are committed by Muslims invoking an Islamic justification, is the reason why Muslims are smeared. It is not reason enough to smear every Muslim, but given the volume and diversity of atrocities committed by Muslim populations world wide, why should the rest of the world's population not feel beset by Muslim horrors.

There are millions upon millions of good Muslims, but there are also substantial numbers of young Muslim men ready to pillage, bomb, kill, maim, etc. in the name of Islam, and the good Muslims do not raise their voices loud enough in unequivocal condemnation.

If Catholics, Buddhists, or Hindus did something on a similar scale using religious justifications, they and their religion certainly would be condemned, and deservedly so.

Daniel Pipes is clear and simple one of the most prominent bigots in America. That he holds the title of 'professor' is a blot on the country's academia, since his scholarship is mostly composed of hatred, untruths and crackpot ideology.

Daniel Pipes is clear and simple one of the most prominent bigots in America. That he holds the title of 'professor' is a blot on the country's academia, since his scholarship is mostly composed of hatred, untruths and crackpot ideology.

Arlene's response to DZ still consists of generalities.

Arlene: with regard to the assertion in your previous posting that "(Debbie) Almontaser MADE A STATEMENT SUPPORTING A HAMAS-LED TERROR MOVEMENT (intafada)", please provide us with the exact statement and reference it (where it was quoted).

That way we can all judge for ourselves. Otherwise I would have to say you are all hat and no cattle darlin'

There is MUCH more to the story about the NYC Arabic-English school than what Eboo Patel wrote in this article. Read Pipes' side of the story before you swallow the hook Patel is using as a lure.

EBOO PATEL,

What exactly DO MEAN BY MUTUAL LOYALTY ?

DZ,

When I said that "it's obvious what you are" I wasn't referring to your religion. I was referring to the extremist and hateful language that you repeatedly use. It comes right of the Hamas propaganda play book.

Extremism, violence, hate. Look at yourself.

DZ wrote: "...You don't have a clue about me, and you've demonstrated clearly that you don't even know the history of the thing you support.".

I love it when stupidity is unveiled so eloquently.

Arlene, if you're going to post here, get used to people calling you on your obvious ignorance.

Craig

Arlene:

I just reread your post. Don't you dare impute your hatred and racism to me. I oppose all violence including that by Israel and Hamas and whoever else. So, what are you? An ethnic cleansing supporting, war crime supporting, torture supporting bozo trying to confer your hate onto other people? You don't have a clue about me, and you've demonstrated clearly that you don't even know the history of the thing you support.

Quinn:

From what I can tell, no, Debbie Almontaser never made a statement in support of Hamas. If you believe she did, show me the evidence. I can't find it.

Arlene:

More pathetic nonsense. The first intifada ran from 1987-1993. The second one strated in September, 2000. Both were initiated by the PLO. After Israel began its brutal retaliation against stone throwers and others in 2000, then, and only then, did Hamas and the others take part. I hold no book for Hamas, certainly not Islamic Jihad, but your fact-free argument is pure BS.

You have no idea about me. I'm a Jew and quite content to be.

DZ,

It's obvious where you're coming from and what you are.

"Intafada" is the term widely used to refer to the Palestinian terrorist violence that was initiated in Sept., 2000. It has been executed by several groups including Hamas, the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades (Fatah) and Islamic Jihad. It has been targeted at unarmed civilians.

Those who support such violence and hatred, such as you, should be ashamed of themselves.

DZ : Well, DZ did she make make the statement or not? Arelene's point is she made it on behalf of Hamas. Hamas does not collect funds on behalf of endangered butterflies.

It’s unfortunate that ideologues like Daniel Pipe hold so much weight in our society.
I’d like to say that I hope everyone joins your side, Eboo, but what I really hope is that one day we live in a world where there are no sides at all!

Arlene:

That is some of the most pathetic bigoted drivel that I've read in a while. Intifada means uprising. It is not a movement, it was two separate sets of activity against Israeli ethnic cleansing and repression. It had nothing to do with Hamas. The intifadas were PLO sponsored, not Hamas. It would be nice if you had even one fact before you pontificate.

Again, the fatal flaw of this article is that Patel purposely omits the core cause of the controversy: Almontaser MADE A STATEMENT SUPPORTING A HAMAS-LED TERROR MOVEMENT (intafada). It was NOT that she simply was working in a place where intafada t-shirts were made.

I would love to hear Patel try to refute it. It's a fact. It does not fit into Patel's anti-Muslim theme so he left it out. This is a bogus article.

that's the point rs newark- it's not a muslim school- it's an arabic language school.
the lebanese people speak arabic, and consider themselves to be mostly arabs.
but lebanon has been so overrun by so many different groups so many times-
arab does not equal muslim.
and muslim does not equal arab- (the muslim world is only 18% arabic)

Surely, I can't be the only person who knows that Kahil Gibran is not arabic, nor was he Muslim...doesn't anyone know that Gibran was a Lebenese christian. How can anyone with intelligence name a Muslim school after a lebenese christain?

SOMALI said:

In fact, in North America, I find it very peculiar that minorities are SOOOOOOO hard on each other while being easy on the white guy. I see black, Indian, Chinese cops all the time who PLAY tougher than the white guy. And they get tough on their fellow minorities in order to impress the white guy!!!

Somali, many minorities - not all - being SOOOOOO hard on each other while being the perfectly wonderful person to the whites, being the paragon of virtue and generosity towards the whites while being mean to their own, is prevalent in all Western countries. Picking up the worst in their host country and practicing it in a worse manner on their own people...is their idea of adaptation and survival.

You don't know how Mr Patel treats other Indians or minorities. Hold your opinions until you do. New migrants tend to suffer more acutely from the problem. Mr Patel is born in the US.

Mr Patel has nothing to do with your comments disappearing. It has to do with the technology playing up. No person is filtering your comments.

Next column should expose the smearing of Catholics by Dear Sally Quinn.

The Facts:

From Wikipedia:

"Guerrilla activities
In 1961, Mandela became the leader of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated as Spear of the Nation, also abbreviated as MK), which he co-founded. He coordinated a sabotage campaign against military and government targets, and made plans for a possible guerrilla war if sabotage failed to end apartheid. A few decades later, MK did wage a guerrilla war against the regime, especially during the 1980s, in which many civilians were killed. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad, and arranged for paramilitary training, visiting various African governments."

Conclusion: At one time, Mandela was to be watched as a possible terrorist threat. No more!! A State Department oversight by keeping him on a watch list. This and nothing more.

The important issue: Islam and its "fems":

The "fems" aka the flaws, errors, muck and stench of Islam for your perusal:

1. Belief in "pretty/ugly wingie thingies".

2. Belief that an hallucinating, illiterate Arab did actually talk to the "pretty Gabriel" in the hot "Gabe" cave and therein received the warmongering and anti-female words and resultant laws now listed in the koran.

3 That Shiites are less than human or Sunnis are less than human depending on what Islamic cult you belong to.

4. That Islam is perfect and the koran inherently condones no sin even though the 24/7, 800 year-old blood feud between Sunnis and Shiites gives significant credence that greed, hate, suicides, assassinations, maiming, and murder are condoned by the koran. Having multiple wives also gives significant credence to the sins of rape, adultery, lust and polygamy. The condoned treatment of these wives gives credence that the koran allows the sins of hatred, anger and greed.

Ms. Almontaser is a Muslim so called moderate by some but still a Muslim thereby she suffers from the "fems" and from the Three B Syndrome i.e. Bred, Born and Brainwashed in Islam. And with these problems, the Mayor of NYC was correct in removing her as the principal of a tax-supported institution.

Daniel Pipes is a neocon,
90% of the neocons are jewish americans - Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith ... -
They support the hegemony of israel by any means possible, even if that means pitting the US against all arab countries to bleed each other to death. If meocon's plans succeed the only winner is going to be CHINA the next superpower.
It is in the best interest of US to expand muslim americans public role to counter the neocons, who have one thing in mind - apartheid
israel's free hand in ethnic cleansing of palestinians -

Very well-written post. I particularly find the Nelson Mandela part to be surprising, yet synonymous with so much happening in our would of unfortunate misunderstanding, ignorance, and bigotry.

"In understanding, all walls shall fall down"

Patel writes: "On this side, no one gets smeared for their ethnicity or language or religion."

Have you ever made a count of the number of passages in your holy book that you must either ignore, or attempt to explain away with much hoop-jumping, in order to both maintain this attitude and sleep at night?

Your next article should be about that count.

I live in New York city and followed the Almontaser story closely. It is absolutely astonishing that Patel could write such an article and not even mention the central fact: Almontaser defended a terror movement called the intafada - led by Hamas and responsible for the murder and maiming of thousands. She also is affiliated with Muslim organizations which condone, if not support, terrorism. These facts stoked the fears and concerns of many, many people and led to the rightful rejection of Altmontaser by the city.

The last thing we taxpayers want is to support a curriculum and school which will train future Arab terrorists. Mr. Patel get your facts straight. Your article is meant to mislead. The problem was Altmontaser herself and not Daniel Pipes or anyone else.

Asim : You are one funny dude. The same bigotry you decry against Arabs and Muslims you now attempt to foster against Jews and Israel. Pipes an Israeli agent!; USS Liberty ! Tell us about Arab terror cells in the US and the USS Stark and USS Cole!. If you desire Muslims to be extended the hand of tolerance; Muslims must practice it in kind.

pipes is an israeli agent and his loyalty is to no one except to the racist apartheid militaristic jewish theocracy;the objective of his polemics,propagnada and haterd campiagns against Muslims is clear:drive annd deepen the wedge between Arabs/Muslims and America for the benefit of the apaertheid theorcracy;even Natinyaho said no party in the world benefited from 911 and the IRaq war as israel did.

American and israeli interests are mutually excusive:rememebr Jonathan Polard the spy, and recently Ben Kadish the spy, the israeli bombing of USS Liberty and the murder of some forty of its officers in full day light in 1967...and the war fought in Iraq on behalf of israel and its supporters with American lives and tresaure...the billions of US taxpayers' money and handouts to israel to murder and occuppy Palestinians...

perhaps pipes might still have a trickle of decency to immigrate to his beloved apartheid jewish theocracy..he is certainly not needed in the land of the free...

Geert Wilders for President of the World

Unfortunately there are idiots and bigots in every environment.

Unfortunately there are idiots and bigots in every environment.

All this natter does not effect Islam, which is the word of god just like Judism or christianity. Its the people who each religion refers to as the "hypocrits" that say they believe but practice otherwise, it is they that give the religions of one god a bad name. Bad people of any faith can not be called under any of these religion. Their work is the work of the devil - to work every second to smear the work of god. All will be bought to the attention of mankind I think very soon!

This is horrible. Are you laughing at me Mr Patel? Why did you publish my complaint instead of the comment I sent you?

I will never read your stuff again. I cannot believe that you find my comment more HORRID THAN THE MASSACRES OF MUSLIMS EVERYWHERE. I think you are a poseur, a pretender, like my daughter calls hypocrites!!. I used to take you seriously. But I think you write just to satisfy your ego. You don't do it Lilaahii Taaala!!

I will never read your garbage again!!

Amazing how you can distort by leaving out context. First, the school and Ms. Almontaser are closed affiliated with groups that have been convicted of funding terrorist organizations. Second, the school refuses to let anyone review the cirriculum. Third, the school refuses to let anyone review the books. Fourth, Ms Almontaser supported the terror group when selling shirts that said "NY Intifada" right after 9/11.

What conclusion are people supposed to draw? All of the other language focused schools are open and transparent this one was not. I haven't seen a lot of French or Chineese blowing up buildings in NY or around the world. No one else is setting fires and committing mass murder over a cartoon.

People have a right to be suspicious and Muslims have earned that suspicion. When we see Muslims turning in co-religionists for terrorist activities, they will be respected.

Mr. patel. I don't understand why you are holding a comment I sent to you. I don't like the fact that you are playing the role of a censor. Why should you hold my comment weithout publishing it? Was it offensive? To whom?

I find a lot of the posts here from white people very offensive. I am a Muslim and I believe I have every right to get angry at gthe way my fellow Muslims are treated. I f you censor my anger and you at the same time post the rants of a racist white man who hates Mulsims, I finsd this very ironic.

And this is not the first time a non-white writer has tried to censor the comments of another non-white. In fact, in North America, I find it very peculiar that minorities are SOOOOOOO hard on each other while being easy on the white guy. I see black, Indian, Chinese cops all the time who PLAY tougher than the white guy. And they get tough on their fellow minorities in order to impress the white guy!!!

I hope you are not playing this game. IF YOU DON'T POST THE COMMENT I SENT YOU EARLIER, CONSIDER ME YOUR EX-READER. I WILL NEVER READ YOUR STUFF AGAIN. IT IS USELESS TO ME.

Mr. patel. I don't understand why you are holding a comment I sent to you. I don't like the fact that you are playing the role of a censor. Why should you hold my comment weithout publishing it? Was it offensive? To whom?

I find a lot of the posts here from white people very offensive. I am a Muslim and I believe I have every right to get angry at gthe way my fellow Muslims are treated. I f you censor my anger and you at the same time post the rants of a racist white man who hates Mulsims, I finsd this very ironic.

And this is not the first time a non-white writer has tried to censor the comments of another non-white. In fact, in North America, I find it very peculiar that minorities are SOOOOOOO hard on each other while being easy on the white guy. I see black, Indian, Chinese cops all the time who PLAY tougher than the white guy. And they get tough on their fellow minorities in order to impress the white guy!!!

I hope you are not playing this game. IF YOU DON'T POST THE COMMENT I SENT YOU EARLIER, CONSIDER ME YOUR EX-READER. I WILL NEVER READ YOUR STUFF AGAIN. IT USELESS TO ME.

Eboo, Eboo, Eboo,

That's all well and good, but you need to realize that belief in "pretty wingie-thingees" won't help. Until the Koran is "de-flawed", no one is safe!!

Thank you, Eboo, for restoring the dignity we deserve in this conversation on race/religion in the US.

Seneca was right when he said that "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." Well Stated

The story of God is as old as humanity itself and every schmuck can talk about. One doesn’t have to be scholar to talk about God. One has look around the world today and read past history on how cruel the story. In fact there are no Gods, but even if there are, they have nothing to do with us. We are responsible for our actions. We will either destroy mother earth and humanity or new society and humanity (Republic-Plato). For as long as human beings produces weapons they will find a way or excuse to use them and we are witness to that.

You are all common beings with no self knowledge to center you, so you have to follow, defend or smear mindlessly other common beings that act as your lords. Just consider this to come to conclusion about these religions and the God they are talking about- All three major religions claim that the earth is flat and we know that it’s not. So did God miss the point and had no knowledge or religion is a man made story. I believe the second will hold truth.

People side with others only because they don’t have their own. When it comes to God and religion, I’m on no ones side. I trust my knowledge about God/religions and the history. Please Stop Taking Sides. Even if there is a judgment day (which I don’t believe) no one will be on your side you are on your own.

Unfortunatley, Muslims will be unfairly targeted for some time, and are easy pickings for someone like Daniel Pipes. Whenever they gather together in some type of group, they will create a certain amount of fear in others. The balance between the amount of time they spend with their own group versus the larger community is percieved to be highly skewed. The same goes for the amount of emotional investments in their interior lives. Mr. Patel must know this by just looking at Indian American associations. There are almost no Indian muslims as members of these groups, but all other religions (not just Hindus) are well represented. Why? To use a common metaphor in India "the Muslims prefer the dates of Arabia to the mangoes of India" and this metaphor holds true generally for wherever you find a muslim community. Muslims who wish to engage with the larger society in which they live and make it a better place for all, like Eboo Patel, are few and far between. Also, it is generally felt that muslim organizations are too prone to being subverted for not so innocent causes, and this perception on the part of the larger society will be a long term problem for the muslim community unless they take active measures to change that. One simple suggestion is begin by doing charitable works not just for other muslims but for everyone in their larger community.

well boo boy just hates facts about islam and blocks them all the time.

Patel wrote: "I am for a world where people from all backgrounds – Muslim and Jewish, American and Arab, black and white, men and women, gay and straight – live in equal dignity and mutual loyalty."

Then I suggest you start writing in other parts of the world where freedom of religion is curtailed or completely denied, where "gays do not exist", where women are second class citizens. America is the wrong place to look for those attitudes and laws.

As for smearing Islam, I think the extreme islamists have done that on their own and I see little from moderate Muslims to explain why the islamists are wrong. I have heard much "understanding". As another poster pointed out, no one in America cared about Islam or Muslims, their eating habits, their dress, etc, until 911.

You should be writing your words to those in countries where discrimination is the law, a civil and religious law, not here in America where it is against the law. America is not the enemy of Islam. Islam is its own enemy. Its time Muslims responded to the hijacking of their religion by their extremist brethern. If they don't then Islam is doomed, and Muslims will only have themselves to blame for allowing their faith to become so violent.

Thanks, Mr. Harris, for publishing an essay ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT TO THE BULK OF THE ARTICLE. But no surprise, most of the moronic comments on here share that very irrelevance. Fine, Islam is a terrorist religion which is backwards in all ways, great, fine and dandy, you've repeated that ad nauseum many times already, please beat the drum in at least a slightly different way for goodness sake. In any case what do you have to say about the likes of Pipes et al? Clearly, nothing productive. If you're going to blame ALL the problems that occur in the region come to be known as the "muslim world" then clearly christianity, hinduism, and indeed atheism, have a lot to account for as well. But blaming all the problems in their respective spheres of dominance world on those faiths would be rightfully stupid , something you, as a supposed Neuroscience doctoral candidate would understand in a more nuanced fashion.

But perhaps the thing I enjoy the most from people like Harris, Hitches, Pipes, Ali, and co. is their voluminous doomsday banter about the spread of fundamentalist Islam and the grave threat supposed Islamofascism presents. For all this talk, they present very little in the way of solutions. Spencer talks about limiting muslim immigration, curtailing muslim civil rights, proposals also found among Hirsi Ali's notions and the right-wing of the Europe, ironic in that it was those very politicos which drover her out of Europe, and the proposals of her right-wing colleagues which will bar people like her from seeking supposed salvation from that barbaric and brutal Islam. So what do you propose Mr. Harris? Do you want to destroy Islam? Ban the Koran? Curtail Muslim civil rights? and how would you even go about adminstering your solutions?

I think American Muslims have to fear more from Islamic terrorists than a guy named Pipes.

And Americans do not need Pipes to make them scared of Islam: they can just read any newspaper or watch CNN to see the world events.

Equality, compassion, diversity is urgently needed more in Saudi Arabia and all intolerant Islamic nations than here at home.

Few people in America gave a glance to Muslims before 9/11. Our awakening to this faith occurred on that day. 9/11 defines Islam in America.

Non-Muslim Americans have no responsibility to seek out the truth about Islam. Muslims bear the whole and complete responsibility to show the world the truth about Islam.

When Muslims stop rioting over cartoons and start rioting over the way that OBL has smeared Islam THEN non-Muslim Americans may begin to even consider changing our oppinion of Islam.

"Daniel Pipes told The New York Times, referring to Muslims: '… are they on our side or are they on the other side?'"

One might also ask this of adherents of other religions. Are Catholics on our side or on the side of the Pope? Are Jews on our side, or on the side of Israel? The Catholic Church harbors child molesters and supports illegal aliens. Israel attacks US naval vessels (USS Liberty), and generally makes life difficult for us in the strategic Middle East with its slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Yet to ask the question of these groups, even when they blindly adhere to foreign powers, is to invite the most obscene smears. And then to be ignored.

Why Muslims be any different than Jews or Catholics? Why should not they put their faith ahead of loyalty to America? Why no such outrage when American evangelicals openly proclaim loyalty to Israel trumps loyalty to America?

Because they have a lobby. Muslims do not.

Robert: Calling Pipes a "scholar" on the Middle East is like calling Cheney a "scholar" on intelligence analysis. Scholars are objective. Pipes is a polemicist. As for a "right" to be school principal, the "right" at issue is religious freedom for Ms. Almontaser. Not the "right" of the gov't to discriminate on the grounds of religion. And what's wrong with those t-shirts? That they didn't say "Israel Uber Alles"? What if Ms. Almonaster wore a "Remember the USS Liberty" shirt? She'd have been gone in a NY minute.

Anonymous: First, I loved your book, "The End of Faith." And agreed with most it.

You state that "The point is that only the Muslim community is combustible in this way." But in a religious way, or in a political way where the local Establishment (such as a US-supported dictator) uses religion (Islam) to distract the public from other matters? This whole affair proves Seneca was right when he said that "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." All these despots (Mubarak, etc) use Islam as a means of keeping the rabble in line, just as some of our politicians do.

You state that "my first book, The End of Faith, almost did not get published for fear of offending the sensibilities of (probably non-reading) religious fanatics." Congratulations. You join the ranks of those attacked for violating political correctness, such as Dr. Norman Finkelstein. The Univ. of Calif. Press, the publisher of his book, "Beyond Chutzpah," was the subject of an attack by supporters of Israel and pressured not to publish "Beyond Chutzpah" because it criticized Israel. So you're not the only author in that boat. And how much of the pressure on Norton was from Muslims as opposed to Christians?

"Only Muslims hound and hunt and murder their apostates, infidels, and critics in the 21st century." Not correct. Hindus in India murder Christian missionaries, burn churches, and use gov't to suppress other religions. The murder of thousands of Muslims in the Gujarat pogroms was only the latest example.

Is Islam a religion of peace? Yup, just as much as Judaism and Christianity. To single out Islam gives other religions more credit than they deserve.

Nativson;

You say Islam is alive and well.
I agree its alive.
But it is sick, not well.
Sick and getting sicker
with supernaturalitis, violentitis,
and infantilitis.
By the end of the century it will be dead
from stupiditis.
The world moves on.
Stupidity stands still.

Hi Andrew.

I also liked the Sam Harris piece, but then he's always interesting, and has great insight.

Yes I do believe Islam is Islam's worst enemy. But Muslims themselves just don't get it.
Islam criticizes everyone but their own.
Just like catholics only more violent.

Christians and Moslems with their fantasy beliefs have caused enough problems.Sit down and shut up.

Christians and Moslems with their fantasy beliefs have caused enough problems.Sit down and shut up.

Meg. Enjoyed your comments. Agree wholeheartedly.

Richard Dunne. Ditto.

Best thing I've read here is the essay by Sam (the man) Harris at the bottom. Thanks to anonymous for posting it. Nothing short of brilliant.

Others don't have to smear Islam. Islam smears itself.
Nothing and no-one has smeared Islam as much as Islam has smeared itself from 9/11 to London, Glasgow, and Madrid, not to mention the Teddy Bear named Moe, the Danish cartoons, women's rights,the stoning of rape victims, female circumcision,et cetra, et cetra, et cetra.

Islam has the intellectual veracity of astrology, witchcraft, and sorcery;and one needs to be indoctrinated from the cradle in order to accept its mindless supernatural claptrap.

Daniel Pipes is insignificant. Like David Dukes, a fringe bigot riding the coattails of Dick Chaney and his crowd. Muslims have nothing to fear from Pipes. He is a non-threat, a nothing really. Islam is alive and well, and being moved along by a higher power. Takbir!!

Daniel Pipes is insignificant. Like David Dukes, a fringe bigot riding the coattails of Dick Chaney and his crowd. Muslims have nothing to fear from Pipes. He is a non-threat, a nothing really. Islam is alive and well, and being moved along by a higher power. Takbir!!

A phobia is an irrational fear, or a morbid and abnormal fear.

Islamophobia is not really a phobia in these terms.

It is a rational fully justified fear based on actual horrors, from beheadings to holocausts; from cartoon hysterics to fatwas.

It resembles the Christianity of hundreds of years ago when it too brutally slaughtered non believers, and demanded that the whole world follow its teachings, however preposterous and irrational.

But Christianity eventually had to get in line, and changed from nasty to nice in order to survive
the Enlightenment.

Will Islam ever change from nasty to nice? I don't think so. Without the nasties we might never have heard of Islam.

Good article! Its time someone exposed intellecual thugs like Daniel Pipes.

Well, there is no shortages of Pipes.

So where do the piples of this world point.

1. Mexico -- just in the last few years the public has been instructed to trash the people. Notice that the folks that our now part of the U.S. for Mexico are beginning to exert big time influence.

2. China -- well, we gotta have them, there's a lot of them, hell, a threat. It was Mattel, it was China.

3. Arab world -- well, in the U.S., aside from the "war on terror" it is the time for Arab Americans to make their move -- it's not oil, it's time: enough generations have been here where the guy in the Armani suit with the Ivy League education is Arab-American. There are some powerful forces that do not want a change in focus in the Middle East.

In the movies, Arabs have the role that American Indians had when I was a kid. Damn savages will ride in a circle around the wagons, scaring our women and children, till we shoot them all dead. You know, they think they are going to "The Happy Hunting Ground".

China, we all know that our disastrous wars and ridiculous economic policies have left us weak, so we got to be scared of them -- multiple like those damn Mexicans.

And Then: Do you know we are actually building a wall. A wall, folks, are we out of our fricking minds.

Firstly, you understate Almontaser's connection to AWAAM, the group that made the "Intifada" T-shirts. They were at that time housed and sponsored by her Yemeni American Association. Almontaser's failure to repudiate them and their T-shirt showed her to be unfit to be a school principal in NYC. While I concede that the first amendment ensures AWAAM's right to distribute and wear the T-shirt, it does not give Almontaser a right to be a public school principal; that is at the discretion of the tax payers through our elected public servants.

Secondly, Daniel Pipes does not earn his living by making Americans scared of their Muslim neighbors. He earns his living as a middle east scholar who has the courage to confront jihadists and their apologists.

Firstly, you understate Almontaser's connection to AWAAM, the group that made the "Intifada" T-shirts. They were at that time housed and sponsored by her Yemeni American Association. Almontaser's failure to repudiate them and their T-shirt showed her to be unfit to be a school principal in NYC. While I concede that the first amendment ensures AWAAM's right to distribute and wear the T-shirt, it does not give Almontaser a right to be a public school principal; that is at the discretion of the tax payers through our elected public servants.

Secondly, Daniel Pipes does not earn his living by making Americans scared of their Muslim neighbors. He earns his living as a middle east scholar who has the courage to confront jihadists and their apologists.

Firstly, you understate Almontaser's connection to AWAAM, the group that made the "Intifada" T-shirts. They were at that time housed and sponsored by her Yemeni American Association. Almontaser's failure to repudiate them and their T-shirt showed her to be unfit to be a school principal in NYC. While I concede that the first amendment ensures AWAAM's right to distribute and wear the T-shirt, it does not give Almontaser a right to be a public school principal; that is at the discretion of the tax payers through our elected public servants.

Secondly, Daniel Pipes does not earn his living by making Americans scared of their Muslim neighbors. He earns his living as a middle east scholar who has the courage to confront jihadists and their apologists.

Islam has been a great recruiting poster for Atheism. Eversince 9/11 Atheists have awakened from their slumber and are now vocal and involved everywhere. Atheist books are best sellers now, thanks to Muslims. The whole nonbelieving anti-supernaturalists are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore.

Religion is the ancient attempt to make sense of the world, the cosmos and existence. We know now that our ancestors got it all wrong. The supernatural is simply our inner imaginings and has no basis in reality.

Time to dump religion before religion (especially Islam) dumps US.

Anonymous, I'm not even going to try to debate your narrow-minded point of view. It's people like you and your colleagues that reinforce stereotypes about Muslims and Islam. It's only a small percentage of "Muslims" (they think they're being faithful. I, along with most others, say otherwise.) that are what you describe. People like Almontaser are not the exception to the rule. Pipes' slandering is illegal and just plain immoral. He's filled with nothing but hatred and hot air.

People frequently cite a single event (9/11) or cherry pick the words of a few extremists in order to further a racist agenda.

It's the categorical nature of the denunciations that betray the intent behind the words.

Mr Patel;

You seem like a nice intelligent young man, but don't you see...childhood religious indoctrination trumps I.Q. and education? The college educated young men who destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11 demonstrate the truth of this. Despite their educations, they still believed in the nonsense of a Sky-God and eternal life...just like you and other indoctrinated individuals. And they were just doing God's work.

When Mark Twain saw how dumb the other man's religion was, he took a long look at his own religion and suspected that it was too.

Twain comes across as much smarter than you. He looked at religions and saw they were all absurd.

Almontaser wanted to start a school where children of different faiths could come together to learn Arabic. This opportunity is rarely found Arab countries today.

My fiancé is Coptic, and we want any children in our future to learn Arabic. He escaped horrible persecution in Egypt; no safe way to learn Arabic as a Christian there! We could send our kids to the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, but somehow we feel that they won't be welcome...

Almontaser's vision is exactly the setting where we would want our children to learn Arabic. Why are people like Pipes trying to take that valuable learning opportunity away? My fiancé came to this country to leave intolerance behind; why is he finding it here, too?

Almontaser wanted to start a school where children of different faiths could come together to learn Arabic. This opportunity is rarely found Arab countries today.

My fiancé is Coptic, and we want any children in our future to learn Arabic. He escaped horrible persecution in Egypt; no safe way to learn Arabic as a Christian there! We could send our kids to the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, but somehow we feel that they won't be welcome...

Almontaser's vision is exactly the setting where we would want our children to learn Arabic. Why are people like Pipes trying to take that valuable learning opportunity away? My fiancé came to this country to leave intolerance behind; why is he finding it here, too?

I would like to say a lot of negative things about Islam, but I'm scared to criticize the religion of peace in case I get blown up or stabbed.
So I'll just say I wish the religion of peace would quietly go away and never come back.
One day I think it WILL go away. People today are educated beyond ancient superstitions. Superstitions are bad enough on their own; but when mixed with the violence of Islam it's a toxic mix that could end all our lives.

How are any of these comments relevant? The point of the article was that people, based on limited understanding of Islam, Muslims etc, make a living by projecting their ignorance and predetermined beliefs to the exception seeking the truth. Daniel Pipes has done this for a long time. Many others have as well.

They give anecdotal evidence rigged with terms such as Madrasa and Jihad to get like-minded people to agree and to convince those who do not have the time or ability to do their own investigation. Daniel Pipes is an ideologue, not a true investigator.

How are any of these comments relevant? The point of the article was that people, based on limited understanding of Islam, Muslims etc, make a living by projecting their ignorance and predetermined beliefs to the exception seeking the truth. Daniel Pipes has done this for a long time. Many others have as well.

They give anecdotal evidence rigged with terms such as Madrasa and Jihad to get like-minded people to agree and to convince those who do not have the time or ability to do their own investigation. Daniel Pipes is an ideologue, not a true investigator.

Geert Wilders, conservative Dutch politician and provocateur, has become the latest projectile in the world's most important culture war: the zero-sum conflict between civil society and traditional Islam. Wilders, who lives under perpetual armed guard due to death threats, recently released a 15 minute film entitled Fitna ("strife" in Arabic) over the internet. The film has been deemed offensive because it juxtaposes images of Muslim violence with passages from the Qur'an. Given that the perpetrators of such violence regularly cite these same passages as justification for their actions, merely depicting this connection in a film would seem uncontroversial. Controversial or not, one surely would expect politicians and journalists in every free society to strenuously defend Wilders' right to make such a film. But then one would be living on another planet, a planet where people do not happily repudiate their most basic freedoms in the name of "religious sensitivity."

Witness the free world's response to Fitna: The Dutch government sought to ban the film outright, and European Union foreign ministers publicly condemned it, as did UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Dutch television refused to air Fitna unedited. When Wilders declared his intention to release the film over the internet, his U.S. web-host, Network Solutions, took his website offline.

Into the breach stepped Liveleak, a British video-sharing website, which finally aired the film on March 27th. It received over 3 million views in the first 24 hours. The next day, however, Liveleak removed Fitna from its servers, having been terrorized into self-censorship by threats to its staff. But the film had spread too far on the internet to be suppressed (and Liveleak, after taking further security measures, has since reinstated it on its site as well).

Of course, there were immediate calls for a boycott of Dutch products throughout the Muslim world. In response, Dutch corporations placed ads in countries like Indonesia, denouncing the film in self-defense. Several Muslim countries blocked YouTube and other video-sharing sites in an effort to keep Wilders' blasphemy from penetrating the minds of their citizens. There have also been isolated protests and attacks on embassies, and ubiquitous demands for Wilders' murder. In Afghanistan, women in burqas could be seen burning the Dutch flag; the Taliban carried out at least two revenge attacks on Dutch troops, resulting in five Dutch casualties; and security concerns have caused the Netherlands to close its embassy in Kabul. It must be said, however, that nothing has yet occurred to rival the ferocious response to the Danish cartoons.

Meanwhile Kurt Westergaard, one of the Danish cartoonists, threatened to sue Wilders for copyright infringement, as Wilders used his drawing of a bomb-laden Muhammad without permission. Westergaard has lived in hiding since 2006 due to death threats of his own, so the Danish Union of Journalists volunteered to file this lawsuit on his behalf. Admittedly, there is something amusing about one hunted man, unable to venture out in public for fear of being killed by religious lunatics, threatening to sue another man in the same predicament over a copyright violation. But it is understandable that Westergaard wouldn't want to be repeatedly hurled at the enemy without his consent. Westergaard is an extraordinarily courageous man whose life has been ruined both by religious fanaticism and the free world's submission to it. In February, the Danish government arrested three Muslims who seemed poised to murder him. Other Danes unfortunate enough to have been born with the name "Kurt Westergaard" have had to take steps to escape being murdered in his place. (Wilder's has since removed the cartoon from the official version of Fitna.)

Wilders, like Westergaard and the other Danish cartoonists, has been widely vilified for "seeking to inflame" the Muslim community. Even if this had been his intention, this criticism represents an almost supernatural coincidence of moral blindness and political imprudence. The point is not (and will never be) that some free person spoke, or wrote, or illustrated in such a manner as to inflame the Muslim community. The point is that only the Muslim community is combustible in this way. The controversy over Fitna, like all such controversies, renders one fact about our world especially salient: Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence.

There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for "racism" and "Islamophobia."

Our capitulations in the face of these threats have had what is often called "a chilling effect" on our exercise of free speech. I have, in my own small way, experienced this chill first hand. First, and most important, my friend and colleague Ayaan Hirsi Ali happens to be among the hunted. Because of the failure of Western governments to make it safe for people to speak openly about the problem of Islam, I and others must raise a mountain of private funds to help pay for her round-the-clock protection. The problem is not, as is often alleged, that governments cannot afford to protect every person who speaks out against Muslim intolerance. The problem is that so few people do speak out. If there were ten thousand Ayaan Hirsi Ali's, the risk to each would be radically reduced.

As for infringements of my own speech, my first book, The End of Faith, almost did not get published for fear of offending the sensibilities of (probably non-reading) religious fanatics. W.W. Norton, which did publish the book, was widely seen as taking a risk--one probably attenuated by the fact that I am an equal-opportunity offender critical of all religious faith. However, when it came time to make final edits to the galleys of The End of Faith, many of the people I had thanked by name in my acknowledgments (including my agent at the time and my editor at Norton) independently asked to have their names removed from the book. Their concerns were explicitly for their personal safety. Given our shamefully ineffectual response to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, their concerns were perfectly understandable.

Nature, arguably the most influential scientific journal on the planet, recently published a lengthy whitewash of Islam (Z. Sardar "Beyond the troubled relationship." Nature 448, 131-133; 2007). The author began, as though atop a minaret, by simply declaring the religion of Islam to be "intrinsically rational." He then went on to argue, amid a highly idiosyncratic reading of history and theology, that this rational religion's current wallowing in the violent depths of unreason can be fully ascribed to the legacy of colonialism. After some negotiation, Nature also agreed to publish a brief response from me. What readers of my letter to the editor could not know, however, was that it was only published after perfectly factual sentences deemed offensive to Islam were expunged. I understood the editors' concerns at the time: not only did they have Britain's suffocating libel laws to worry about, but Muslim physicians and engineers in the UK had just revealed a penchant for suicide bombing. I was grateful that Nature published my letter at all.

In a thrillingly ironic turn of events, a shorter version of the very essay you are now reading was originally commissioned by the opinion page of Washington Post and then rejected because it was deemed too critical of Islam. Please note, this essay was destined for the opinion page of the paper, which had solicited my response to the controversy over Wilders' film. The irony of its rejection seemed entirely lost on the Post, which responded to my subsequent expression of amazement by offering to pay me a "kill fee." I declined.

I could list other examples of encounters with editors and publishers, as can many writers, all illustrating a single fact: While it remains taboo to criticize religious faith in general, it is considered especially unwise to criticize Islam. Only Muslims hound and hunt and murder their apostates, infidels, and critics in the 21st century. There are, to be sure, reasons why this is so. Some of these reasons have to do with accidents of history and geopolitics, but others can be directly traced to doctrines sanctifying violence which are unique to Islam.

A point of comparison: The controversy of over Fitna was immediately followed by ubiquitous media coverage of a scandal involving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). In Texas, police raided an FLDS compound and took hundreds of women and underage girls into custody to spare them the continued, sacramental predations of their menfolk. While mainstream Mormonism is now granted the deference accorded to all major religions in the United States, its fundamentalist branch, with its commitment to polygamy, spousal abuse, forced marriage, child brides (and, therefore, child rape) is often portrayed in the press as a depraved cult. But one could easily argue that Islam, considered both in the aggregate and in terms of its most negative instances, is far more despicable than fundamentalist Mormonism. The Muslim world can match the FLDS sin for sin--Muslims commonly practice polygamy, forced-marriage (often between underage girls and older men), and wife-beating--but add to these indiscretions the surpassing evils of honor killing, female "circumcision," widespread support for terrorism, a pornographic fascination with videos showing the butchery of infidels and apostates, a vibrant form of anti-semitism that is explicitly genocidal in its aspirations, and an aptitude for producing children's books and television programs which exalt suicide-bombing and depict Jews as "apes and pigs."

Any honest comparison between these two faiths reveals a bizarre double standard in our treatment of religion. We can openly celebrate the marginalization of FLDS men and the rescue of their women and children. But, leaving aside the practical and political impossibility of doing so, could we even allow ourselves to contemplate liberating the women and children of traditional Islam?

What about all the civil, freedom-loving, moderate Muslims who are just as appalled by Muslim intolerance as I am? No doubt millions of men and women fit this description, but vocal moderates are very difficult to find. Wherever "moderate Islam" does announce itself, one often discovers frank Islamism lurking just a euphemism or two beneath the surface. The subterfuge is rendered all but invisible to the general public by political correctness, wishful thinking, and "white guilt." This is where we find sinister people successfully posing as "moderates"--people like Tariq Ramadan who, while lionized by liberal Europeans as the epitome of cosmopolitan Islam, cannot bring himself to actually condemn honor killing in round terms (he recommends that the practice be suspended, pending further study). Moderation is also attributed to groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamist public relations firm posing as a civil-rights lobby.

Even when one finds a true voice of Muslim moderation, it often seems distinguished by a lack of candor above all things. Take someone like Reza Aslan, author of No God But God: I debated Aslan for Book TV on the general subject of religion and modernity. During the course of our debate, I had a few unkind words to say about the Muslim Brotherhood. While admitting that there is a difference between the Brotherhood and a full-blown jihadist organization like al Qaeda, I said that their ideology was "close enough" to be of concern. Aslan responded with a grandiose, ad hominem attack saying, "that indicates the profound unsophistication that you have about this region. You could not be more wrong" and claiming that I'd taken my view of Islam from "Fox News." Such maneuvers, coming from a polished, Iranian-born scholar of Islam carry the weight of authority, especially in front of an audience of people who are desperate to believe the threat of Islam has been grossly exaggerated. The problem, however, is that the credo of the Muslim Brotherhood actually happens to be "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

The connection between the doctrine of Islam and Islamist violence is simply not open to dispute. It's not that critics of religion like myself speculate that such a connection might exist: the point is that Islamists themselves acknowledge and demonstrate this connection at every opportunity and to deny it is to retreat within a fantasy world of political correctness and religious apology. Many western scholars, like the much admired Karen Armstrong, appear to live in just such a place. All of their talk about how benign Islam "really" is, and about how the problem of fundamentalism exists in all religions, only obfuscates what may be the most pressing issue of our time: Islam, as it is currently understood and practiced by vast numbers of the world's Muslims, is antithetical to civil society. A recent poll showed that thirty-six percent of British Muslims (ages 16-24) believe that a person should be killed for leaving the faith. Sixty-eight percent of British Muslims feel that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted, and seventy-eight percent think that the Danish cartoonists should have been brought to justice. And these are British Muslims.

Occasionally, however, a lone voice can be heard acknowledging the obvious. Hassan Butt wrote in the Guardian:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy. By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

It is astounding how infrequently one hears such candor among the public voices of "moderate" Islam. This is what we owe the true moderates of the Muslim world: we must hold their co-religionists to the same standards of civility and reasonableness that we take for granted in all other people. Only our willingness to openly criticize Islam for its all-too-obvious failings can make it safe for Muslim moderates, secularists, apostates--and, indeed, women--to rise up and reform their faith.

And if anyone in this debate can be credibly accused of racism, it is the western apologists and "multiculturalists" who deem Arabs and Muslims too immature to shoulder the responsibilities of civil discourse. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali has pointed out, there is a calamitous form of "affirmative action" at work, especially in western Europe, where Muslim immigrants are systematically exempted from western standards of moral order in the name of paying "respect" to the glaring pathologies in their culture. Hirsi Ali has also observed that there is a quasi-racist double-think on display whenever western powers trumpet that "Islam is peace," all the while taking heroic measures to guard against the next occasion when the barbarians run amok in response to a film, cartoon, opera, novel, beauty pageant--or the mere naming of a teddy bear.

Have you seen the Danish cartoons that so roiled the Muslim world? Probably not, as their publication was suppressed by almost every newspaper, magazine, and television station in the United States. Given their volcanic reception--hundreds of thousands of Muslims rioted, hundreds of people were killed--their sheer banality should have rendered these drawings extraordinarily newsworthy. One magazine which did print them, Free Inquiry (for which I am proud to have written), had its stock banned from every Borders and Waldenbooks in the country. These are precisely the sorts of capitulations that we must avoid in the future.

The lesson we should draw from the Fitna controversy is that we need more criticism of Islam, not less. Let it come down in such torrents that not even the most deluded Islamist could conceive of containing it. As Ibn Warraq, author of the revelatory Why I Am Not a Muslim, said in response to recent events:

It is perverse for the western media to lament the lack of an Islamic reformation and willfully ignore works such as Wilders' film, Fitna. How do they think reformation will come about if not with criticism? There is no such right as 'the right not to be offended; indeed, I am deeply offended by the contents of the Koran, with its overt hatred of Christians, Jews, apostates, non-believers, homosexuals but cannot demand its suppression.

It is time we recognized that those who claim the "right not to be offended" have also announced their hatred of civil society.

Muhammad spoke clearly about what Islam is about. No one needs to smear Islam:

"I have been ordered by God to fight with people till they bear testimony to the fact that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is his messenger, and that they establish prayer and pay Zakat (money). If they do it, their blood and their property are safe from me" (see Bukhari Vol. I, p. 13).