Muslim's Blunt Criticism of Islam Draws Threats
11 March New York Times - Muslim's Blunt Criticism of Islam Draws Threats by John Broder.
Quote:
Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims.
Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.
In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.
She said the world's Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.
Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.
In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private.
"I believe our people are hostages to our own beliefs and teachings," she said in an interview this week in her home in a Los Angeles suburb...
Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, "The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling."
She went on, "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people."
She concluded, "Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."...
Here is a link to the Al Jazeera interview of Dr. Wafa Sultan via The Middle East Media Research Institute.
Here is a link to an english translation (transcript) of the Al Jazeera interview of Dr. Wafa Sultan via The Middle East Media Research Institute.
Earlier Editorial on Dr. Sultan...
4 March Washington Times - A Fearless Arab American.
Quote:
To judge by her appearances on al Jazeera, Los Angeles psychologist Wafa Sultan is the very definition of fearlessness. Face-to-face with radical Islamists before millions of potentially hostile viewers around the Arab world, Ms. Sultan -- a secular Arab American fluent in Arabic -- does not flinch when called a heretic and a blasphemer. For all we know, she is endangering her life...
"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations," she said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality ... What we see today is not a clash of civilizations."
Turning to her Egyptian interlocutor Mr. Al-Khouli, she asks, "What gives you the right to call [Christians] 'those who incur Allah's wrath,' or 'those who have gone astray,' and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?" Mr. Al-Khouli had previously compared Christians to apes and pigs."...
"Are you a heretic?" Mr. Al-Khouli asks.
"You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural," she responds.
"If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the prophet and the Koran."
"These are personal matters that do not concern you," she says. "Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people's beliefs are not your concern ... Let people have their beliefs."
She then issues an even greater provocation. "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church ... Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."...
