On October 30, 2000 the Majlis of Ulema of the
Italian Muslim Association
received the following documentation:
From: islaminst-owner@yahoogroups.com
To: info@amislam.com
Subject: Re: [Islamic Institute]
Commentary Magazine (Nov. 1999)
Assalaamu 'alaykum,
Here is a more detailed list of some of the beliefs and statements of W. D. Mohammed, who like Farrakhan, Richard Kalif (aka Rashad Khalifa) and others have deceived many and are enjoying their present lives.
WD Mohammed: The Record Speaks
A Consistent Pattern from 1975 to the Present
1975- Publicly declares himself "the Manifestation of God". "Yes, I myself am an Immaculate Conception. You say, "This man is crazy." No, I’m not crazy… After we explain it to you, you’ll know that I’m not crazy. The world has just been in darkness. I can truthfully say that My physical father was not My father. I have never had a physical father…You say, "Who isyour father?" Speaking in the language of the New Testament, My Father is God…I am the Manifestation of God.… All praise is due to Allah." [1]
1976- Claims he is recipient of divine revelation. "The Book (Bible) says that there is another kind of water (sweet water) which is not salty, that comes from above that is divine revelation. The water that God gives is divine revelation and He reveals it to His prophets."[2] "I am baptizing you with the water that God has given me. It is the water of revelation, of divine knowledge."[3]
1977- Declares Islamic plural marriage forbidden. "The teaching of Muhammad and the teaching of the Qur’an is that "one is better for you if you but knew." No other Prophet did this for the polygamist mankind. It was Prophet Muhammad who worked against polygamy."[4]
1978- Rejects miracles of the prophets "Moses, being pursued by Pharaoh's army, struck the water and the Red Sea parted, so the Book says, and Moses and his people walked across on dry land… Brother and sister, you will never convert intelligent people to religion today with unrealistic symbolical stories like that[5]. Sanctions false prophet Rashad Khalifa. Offers followers "20% discount" on purchase of Khalifa’s works.[6] Endorses Qadiani translation of Quran.[7]
1979- Denies Return of Jesus and proclaims himself, "Masih-Mahdi". "Jesus did his work… he’s not coming back herenever! That’s not the way of God. But his type has to return, another birth like his has to happen, has to happen, to produce his type again. So that his type will be able to see, the lies that have been told concerning his birth. It’s not him but its the same as though he’s the original. I know how Jesus is born because I’ve been born that way! So you can’t tell me how Jesus was born, I’ve been born that way!" "…well then you’re a Prophet; no I’m not, well you’re a Messenger of God, no (laughing) I’m not, well what are you? I am Masih-Mahdi, I am the Christ-Mahdibelieve it or not! … You know, for a long time people have been hoping to fulfill the prophecy. The prophecy of the return of Christ or the return of the son of Mary and the presence of a Mahdi who would bring the religion to its original purity… they’ve been looking for that, it’s here now, what they’ve been looking for is here nowBut can they appreciate it?"1980- Proclaims himself, "the Mujeddid"[8], states, "If you want all the hadiths, then you should leave this community because I’m telling you, right now, I don’t accept all the hadiths. They have made too much trouble and confusion in the Muslim society."[9]
1981-Claims those who desire plural marriage are, "cursed by God."[10] Rules women’s hair is their hijab. "It is believed in the circle of learned scholars in the religion that the hair on women should be covered... Here in our community...we don’t make any big to-do about it. If some woman is seen with her hair uncovered we don’t raise the roof, because I understand that where there is some sex appeal in women’s hair, there is also religious symbolism attached. This symbolism is good but I don’t think we should enforce these laws too fanatically. If we do we might cause people of higher intellect to underestimate our intelligence. They might think we are superstitious or fanatical people and we don’t want them to think that."[11]
1983- Claims Christians need not follow Islam "There are some scholars… I’ve heard some people who call themselves scholars in the religion say recently and I have heard this,… that the scriptures I quote referred to earlier times and later scriptures came and cancelled that. That now if anyone rejects our religion, he doesn’t go to paradise. I disagree. I simply disagree.[12]… I don’t feel that all Christians have to have my religion to improve their lives. I don’t feel that… I feel that some Christians are living very good lives. They have very good morals, they have a good sense of direction and I wouldn’t want to disturb that for them. As long as they are doing well I’d like to see them continue to do well."[13] Compares those who don’t follow him to dogs "The word has come down from heavenfollow Imam W. Deen Muhammad. Either do that or wear the dog collar and eat dog biscuits."[14] Claims "If Jesus had lived to see 40, he would have died to Jesus and become Prophet Muhammad."[15] Claims "The Quran doesn’t say that Prophet Muhammad is a messenger to the angels or Jinn, but to the people… Prophet Muhammad was sent to Naas, not to the Jinn."[16]
1984- Calls for establishing his own school of thought "...we are going to have a school of fiqh and that school is raising up, or growing up right now with the growth of this community, under the leadership of your Imam and my Imam Warith Deen Muhammad. Yes, Imam Warith Deen Muhammad."[17]
1986- Claims "The Muslim community also has a community obligation to serve the best interest of other communities Christian, Jewish and even the Socialist community."[18] Denies existence of Jinn "Muslims do not believe that there are some foreign worlds existing out there somewhere. We don’t believe that there are some foreign creatures sharing space with us. We don’t accept the notion of other creatures in another dimension whose nature is not like ours. We don’t believe that there are creatures who can do things to us but we cannot reach them unless we find some way to plug into their foreign dimension. The real Muslim cannot accept that kind of idea. You cannot work voodoo on a Muslim because the Muslim is not vulnerable to superstition."[19]
1987- Declares "But my position is this in our society, I have learned by experience, so I have differed with shiekhs, I have differed with leaders of Al-Islam, I have learned by experience in this community, that there is no guarantee, that a Muslim marrying a non-Muslim woman is going to have anymore success in bringing these children to Al-Islam, than a woman will be marrying a non-Muslim man... "[20] Declares, "I have no problems with the Pope; I respect him and honor him."[21]
1988- Denies prophetic miracles. "We know that as much as man fears the fire, we know that Mo..Abraham was put in the fire. That not right? Yes, Abraham was put in the fire. And when they looked in the, when the those who put him in the fire came to see how he he was fairing, how he was doing there, whether he was ashes or not, they found him there unaffected. Fire hadn’t touched him, fire hadn’t bothered him a bit. Instead, instead of him experiencing heat, see God made the flame cool on Abraham. (laughter) Now we know that’s metaphorical, that’s symbolic."
1989- Proudly shows off grandchild from marriage of his daughter to a non-Muslim.[22]
1991- Says Muslims should not invite non-Muslims to Islam "We (Muslims) are obligated to seek peaceful co-existence with Christians and people of Faith... the similarities are so much more important that we need not focus on the differences. We see Christians and Jews as people of the Book. We should not ask them to take their shahadah…"[22] Endorses Homosexuals during American Public Radio (APR) interview.[24]
1992- Endorses Farrakhan "I will never denounce him as long as he says he wants to be a Muslim."[25] Declares, "We love our distinction as a people, our racial distinction…we want racial dignity and racial distinction. We want cultural distinction. We want that. Even within Islam we want that. We don’t want to copy the culture of another Muslim…we also stress that we owe an allegiance to the Christian people. Also we have to understand that our religion did not cometo establish itself over everybody else."[26] Speaking at ISNA headquarters "Mohammed says he does not favor intermarriage between indigenous and immigrant Muslims because African-Americans have suffered greatly at the hands of white America, and they need time by themselves as a race for the psychological scars of racism to heal."[27]
1993- Declares all non-Muslims Muslims "If we look at the broad definition for Muslim, we have to say that even though a Christian may be worshipping Jesus the Christ Prophet more than he is worshipping Allah, he or she may be Muslim in their spirit. They may still be Muslim, though the orientation has now dominated their Muslim urge. The person carrying a heavy cross may be a Muslim inwardly. So it is for a Jew, or Communist, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu." [28] Claims Farrakhan ‘does a lot of good’ "Farrakhan respects Islam and he does a lot of good, he is friendly with us and we should be friendly with him."[29] Claims anyone can be recipient of revelation ‘If any revelation I receive, anybody else can get it, just read Qur’an and God will show us revelation if we’re sincere.’[30]
1994- Implies prophethood to Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, calling them, "men of divine wisdom" who predicted the future "in the name of God". [31] Denounces interracial marriage and women’s hijab. "Imam Mohammed said he would not encourage mixed marriages. "Marry your own race and people you are acquainted with."…Covering hair in the mosque for prayer is needed, the Imam explained, but in the public when out shopping it is not a big deal. He noted that a sister can be more seductive with her hair covered than uncovered."[32]
1998- Claims Paradise is on earth. "In the beginning, God put us in paradise and so shall it be in the end," Mohammed said. And, pointing a finger to the sky, he added, "Not necessarily up there."[33]
1999- Celebrates "Savior’s Day" with Farrakhan. "I couldn’t resist coming here knowing that (The Nation of Islam) was observing this day. I haven’t lost my friendship with Minister Farrakhan."[34]
2000- Selected by MAS to lead Washington Area Muslims for Eid Al-Fitr Prayer at DC Armory. Praises Elijah Muhammad in Nation of Islam’s Savior’s Day ‘Family Reunion’. Declares lasting brotherhood with Louis Farrakhan.[35]
Notes:
Wa salaam,[1] See Muhammad Speaks, May 23, 1975, pp. 17-19. His referral to himself as ‘The Manifestation of
God’ has its links to Elijah’s teachings, as Elijah said that ‘after me will come God
himself.’ See Message to the Blackman, p. 306. Thus, W.D. Mohammed labeling himself ‘The
Manifestation of God’, is intended to be understood as ‘a fulfillment of prophecy.’
[2] See Lectures of Emam Muhammad, p. 48.
[3] See The Teachings of W.D. Muhammad, p. 13.
[4] See Bilalian News, July 8, 1977, p. 17. His statement “one is better for you if you but knew” is
baseless. No such Qur’anic verse nor Prophetic hadeeth exists that is even remotely
close to what he claims.
[5] See Lectures of Emam Muhammad, pp. 118-119.
[6] See Bilalian News, April 21, 1978, p. 9.
[7] See Bilalian News, Sept. 8, 1978, p. 6.
[8] See Bilalian News, February 15, 1980, p. 17.
[9] See Bilalian News, February 22, 1980, p. 24.
[10] See Bilalian News, June 26, 1981, p. 18.
[11] See World Muslim News, November 27, 1981, p. S5.
[12] See Religion on the Line, p. 61.
[13] ibid. p. 67.
[14] See A. M. Journal, Mar 2, 1983, p. 23.
[15] See A.M. Journal, July 29, 1983, p. 9.
[16] See A. M. Journal, July 29, 1983, p. 2.
[17] See Challenges that Face Man Today, pp. 34-38.
[18] See Muslim Journal, May 16, 1986, p.2.
[19] See An African American Genesis, p. 9.
[20] See Muslim Journal, October 2, 1987.
[21] See Muslim Journal, November 13, 1987, p. 15.
[22] See Muslim Journal, June 2, 1989, p. 15.
[23] See Muslim Journal, June 28, 1991, p. 5.
[24] Recorded broadcast, September 4, 1991.
[25] See The Washington Times, Feb. 7, 1992, p. A6.
[26] See Muslim Journal, Feb. 28. 1992, p. 24.
[27] See Islamic Horizons, Summer 1992, p. 8.
[28] See Muslim Journal, Sept. 10, 1993, p. 17.
[29] See The Muslim News, May 28, 1993, p. 4.
[30] Recorded statements, May 14, 1993, Manchester, UK.
[31] See Muslim Journal, January 7, 1994, p. 7
[32] See Muslim Journal, June 17, 1994
[33] See Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer-Times, Feb. 16, 1998
[34] Transcript from NOI “Saviour’s Day” Rally, Chicago, February 26, 1999
[35] See Muslim Journal, March 17 & 24, 2000; also The Final Call, March 14 & 21, 2000
Abu-Junayd Al-Hajj Muhammad
Commentary Magazine
November 1999
"How Dare You Defame Islam"
Daniel Pipes
THE PROBLEM began in January 1989. That was when Muslims living in Bradford, England, decided to do something to show their anger about The Satanic Verses, a new novel by the famed writer Salman Rushdie that included passages making fun of the Prophet Muhammad. The Muslims, mostly Pakistani immigrants, purchased a copy of the novel, took it to a public square, attached it to a stake, and set it on fire. Television news showed this auto da fé in scandalized detail, and pictures of the scene were splashed across the British media for days, making it a major topic of discussion throughout the country.
In Pakistan itself, after a month's buildup, an unruly mob of some 10,000 anti-Rushdie protesters took to the streets of the capital city of Islamabad. Marching to the American Cultural Center (a fact significant in itself), they attempted with great energy, but without success, to set the heavily fortified building on fire. Six people died in the violence, and many more were injured.
These events, in turn, caught the attention of Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary ruler of Iran, who took prompt and drastic action on February 14, 1989, he called upon "all zealous Muslims quickly to execute" not just Salman Rushdie as the author of The Satanic Verses but "all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content." This edict led to emergency measures in England to protect Rushdie's person, and to weeks and months of intense debate among the world's politicians and intellectuals about the issues of freedom of speech and blasphemy.
When the dust settled, Khomeini had failed in his specific goal of eliminating Rushdie physically today, over a decade later, the author is once again writing well-received books and accepting literary awards. But if Khomeini did not manage to harm Rushdie, he did accomplish something far more profound he stirred the souls of many Muslims, reviving a sense of confidence in their faith and a strong impatience with any denigration of it, as well as a determination to take the offensive against anyone perceived to be a blasphemer or even a critic. Although Khomeini himself passed from the scene just weeks after issuing his decree, the spirit it engendered is very much alive.
DURING THE decade since 1989, many efforts have been undertaken by the forces of Islamism--otherwise known as Muslim fundamentalism--to silence critics. Ranging from outright violence to more sophisticated but no less effective techniques, they have produced impressive results.
Some early acts of physical intimidation involved the Rushdie case itself. Translators of The Satanic Verses were stabbed and seriously injured in Norway and Italy and, in Japan, murdered. In Turkey, another translator escaped when a fire set in his hotel failed to kill him, but 37 others died in the blaze. Other acts of violence were designed to punish both Muslims and non-Muslims for a variety of alleged offenses.
Egypt alone offers a number of examples. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, a professor of literature who wrote that certain references in the Qur'an to supernatural phenomena should be read as metaphors, found his marriage dissolved by an Egyptian court on the grounds that his writings proved him an apostate. (According to Islamic law, a Muslim woman may not be married to a non-Muslim.) Another case involved the author of a nonconformist essay on Islam he, his publisher, and the book's printer were each sentenced to eight years in jail on the charge of blasphemy. Farag Foda, an Egyptian intellectual who expressed scorn for the Islamist program, was shot and murdered. And Naguib Mahfouz, the elderly and much-celebrated Nobel Prize laureate for literature, was seriously injured in Cairo when an assailant knifed him in the neck, presumably in revenge for an allegorical novel written decades earlier. Nor has the campaign been limited to Muslim-majority countries. Makin Morcos, also an Egyptian, was killed in Australia for criticizing the Islamists' anti-Christian campaign in his native country; Rashad Khalifa, a biochemist from Egypt living in Tucson, Arizona, was stabbed to death in January 1990 to silence his heretical ideas. (A member of Usama bin Laden's gang has been implicated in the latter murder.) Both these incidents sent a chilling message you can run but you cannot hide.
NOR, FINALLY, is the campaign in Western countries limited to violence or threats of violence against Muslims; it also extends to non-Muslims. In some cases, purely private matters may be at issue Jack Briggs, an Englishman, has been on the lam for years, hiding with his wife from her Pakistani family who have vowed to kill both of them (even though they are properly married and even though he converted to Islam to win their approval). Other cases concern publicly expressed views Steven Emerson, a former Senate aide and investigative reporter for U.S. News & World Report, CNN, and other media, received death threats for Jihad in America, his award-winning television documentary that drew on the Islamists' own commercial videos to demonstrate their virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American views and activities.
Emerson told his story to a congressional committee in 1998, and it bears quoting at length
Immediately following the release of Jihad in America, I became the target of radical fundamentalist groups throughout the United States (and internationally) who fiercely denied the existence of "Islamic extremism" and accused me of engaging in an "attack against Islam." For this "transgression," my life has been permanently changed.
Explaining the details of just one incident--to pick among a whole series--will help you understand the changes I have been forced to endure. One morning, in late 1995, I was paged by a federal law-enforcement official. When I returned the call, this official immediately instructed me to head downtown to his office and specifically directed me to take a taxi rather than my car. The urgency in this person's voice was palpable. When I arrived at the office, I was ushered into a room where a group of other law-enforcement officials was waiting. Within minutes, I found out why I had been summoned I was told a group of radical Islamic fundamentalists had been assigned to carry out an assassination of me. An actual hit team had been dispatched from another country to the United States. The squad, according to the available intelligence, was to rendezvous with its American-based colleagues located in several U.S. cities. Compounding the jolt of being told about this threat was an additional piece of information the assassination squad had been successfully able to elude law-enforcement surveillance.
I was told that I had limited choices since I was not a full-time government employee, I was not entitled to 24-hour-a-day police protection. However, I could probably get permission to enter the Witness Security Program under the right circumstances. But the prospect of being spirited away and given a new identity was not acceptable to me--especially since that would afford the terrorists a moral victory in having shut me down. Frankly, however, the alternative option was not that attractive either--being on my own and taking my own chances. And yet that for me was the only effective option.
While Emerson remains doggedly on the trail of Islamists, especially those among them who support terrorism, he has for four years been forced to live at a clandestine address, always watching his movements. Like the case of Rashad Khalifa, murdered in Tucson for his views, the case of Steven Emerson suggests that, despite the Constitution's guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, when it comes to Islam, unapproved thinking can lead to personal danger or even death.
STILL, WERE force the only weapon in the Islam ists' arsenal, their accomplishments would be limited. In the West, at least, violence and physical intimidation can achieve only so much. But, contrary to stereotype, Islamists are hardly all wild-eyed hit men and suicide bombers; in Western countries, many of them are quite at home with computers, well-versed in the latest lobbying techniques, and adept at the game of victimology. Energetic, determined, and skilled, they employ the tools not of physical but rather of intellectual intimidation. Their aim in doing so is to build an inviolate wall around Islam, endowing it with something like the sacrosanct status it enjoys in traditionally Muslim countries.
Islamists of this latter stripe make full use of every recourse available to them in the laws and customs of the Western liberal democracies themselves. A few examples will illustrate. In France, Marcel Lefebvre, a renegade Catholic bishop, was fined nearly $1,000 under French law for declaring that when the Muslim presence in France becomes stronger, "it is your wives, your daughters, your children who will be kidnapped and dragged off to a certain kind of place as they exist in [Morocco]." In Canada, a Christian activist handing out leaflets protesting the Muslim persecution of Christians was accused by Muslim organizations of "inciting hatred," found guilty of breaking Canada's hate-speech laws, and sentenced to 240 hours of community service and six months of probation time in jail. At the United Nations, the decidedly non diplomatic epithets "blasphemy" and "defamation of Islam" have become part of normal discourse, serving as convenient instruments for shutting off discussion of such unpleasant matters as slavery in Sudan or Muslim anti-Semitism.
In the United States, where the concept of freedom of speech is sturdier than elsewhere, the First Amendment still prevents the government itself from fining or jailing anyone for offensive speech. But, relying on the ethos of political correctness that has resulted in such abridgements of First Amendment freedoms as university speech codes and other restrictive practices, Islamists seek to win what sanction they can to censor others. Thus, they have recently sponsored an innocent-sounding Senate resolution entitled "Supporting Religious Tolerance Toward Muslims." This resolution states as a fact that "Muslims have been subjected, simply because of their faith, to acts of discrimination and harassment that all too often have led to hate-inspired violence," and concludes that criticism of Islam, though legal in the strict sense, is morally reprehensible ("the Senate acknowledges that individuals and organizations that foster such intolerance create an atmosphere of hatred and fear that divides the Nation"). Should this resolution pass, and there is every reason to expect that it will, anyone with anything negative to say about Islam or Islamism can expect to be accused of fostering a hate crime.
WHO, IN the American context, is behind this campaign of mental intimidation and of what, in a journalistic context, would be called prior restraint? Among the many candidates, the leading one is surely the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based institution founded in 1994. CAIR presents itself to the world as a standard-issue civil-rights organization, whose mission is to "promote interest and understanding among the general public with regard to Islam and Muslims in North America and conduct educational services."
Sometimes, indeed, this is what CAIR does. In 1997, for example, it protested when an official at a meeting of a board of education in South Carolina said, "Screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims." At other times, it has come to the defense of women who have lost their jobs for insisting on wearing a headscarf, or of men for wearing beards. But these occasional good works serve mostly as a cover for CAIR's real agenda, which appears to be twofold to help the radical organization Hamas in its terror campaign against Israel, and to promote the Islamist program in the United States.
In furtherance of the first goal, CAIR regularly sends out "action alerts" to instigate dozens or even hundreds of protests, many of them vulgar and aggressive, whenever anyone dares to suggest publicly that Hamas or other terrorist networks operate in the United States, or indeed dares to support those who say such things. When Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for the Boston Globe, protested CAIR's almost successful effort to have Steven Emerson blacklisted from National Public Radio, CAIR cranked up its letter-writing campaign ("Dear JEW," went a characteristic missive from a CAIR minion, "How dare you defame Islam. . . . There is enough Muslim-bashing going on, I am sure your resigning will not make a difference to our jewish [sic] media") and, in a bit of raw intimidation, threatened the Globe with legal action.
CAIR's defense of Islamist violence takes other forms as well picketing the Dallas Morning News for revealing the Hamas infrastructure in Texas, launching a campaign against the Tampa Tribune for uncovering the Islamic Jihad network in that city. The group has inveighed against the Journal of the American Medical Association for investigating the medical condition of victims of terrorism, and against a children's magazine, The Weekly Reader's Current Events, for publishing material on international terrorism. CAIR denounced the Atlantic Monthly for publishing an article on Islamist violence in Sudan, and a Senate Subcommittee for holding a hearing on "Foreign Terrorists in America Five Years After the World Trade Center Bombing."
AS FOR its other goal--promoting Islamism in the United States--CAIR focuses on the single tactic of trying to silence those who have anything critical to say about Islam. It attacked the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles for portraying Ayatollah Khomeini as a Hitler-like enemy of Jews, and it went after the Reader's Digest for documenting the repression of Christians in several Muslim countries. When James Jatras, a Senate aide, published in his private capacity a stinging critique of Islam ("a self-evident outgrowth not of the Old and New Covenants but of the darkness of heathen Araby"), CAIR took out a full-page newspaper ad in the Washington Times calling for his dismissal. And when Father Richard John Neuhaus, the distinguished author and editor of First Things, outspokenly condemned contemporary Islam's "resentments and suspicions, alternating with low-grade jihad in the form of the persecution of Christians, international terrorism, and dreams of driving Israel into the sea," CAIR called on the Catholic Church to "investigate" Neuhaus, and its supporters sent a cascade of abusive mail accusing him of being "obviously mentally ill" and "doing the work of Adolf Hitler."
Even lesser provocations than these elicit a barrage of CAIR-inspired letters that can leave writers and editors feeling isolated and under siege. A case in point indirectly involves the Oslo peace process. Beginning in May 1995, Yasir Arafat, having entered into negotiations with Israel, took to defending himself before Arab audiences by alluding cryptically to the treaty of Hudaybiyah, signed by the Prophet Muhammad in 628 c.e. Dusting off their history books, American commentators mostly concluded that, in invoking an agreement signed but then subsequently broken by Muhammad when circumstances changed, Arafat was signaling that he, too, did not really mean to keep his pledge. Arafat's intentions aside, however, it was the suggestion that the Prophet Muhammad had gone back on his word that aroused CAIR's fury. So impassioned was the reaction when Mortimer B. Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, referred in a column to "the doctrine of the prophet Muhammad of making treaties with enemies while he is weak, violating them when he is strong," that the magazine ended up printing not one but two apologies.
A flavor of what CAIR and its network of letter writers were capable of producing on this occasion may be gleaned from the pages of the New Republic, where a similar statement had been made by Yehoshua Porath, an eminent professor of Middle East history at the Hebrew University of Jeru salem. This statement ("Muhammad broke the [Hudaybiya] agreement eighteen months after its conclusion") elicited, according to the magazine's editors, "hundreds of abusive phone calls, letters, and e-mail accusing us of defamation of the Prophet and worse." Among the letters published by the editors, all in their original grammar and spelling, one read
You guys had better watch out, ok? Because this is not going to go on further anymore, ok? You'd better watch out that f*ing Jew . . . tell him where he is coming from, ok? Because you know mother-f*er bastard, mother--his mom is a bastard. ok? He can't talk about Muslim shit and you get your act together . . . all of you. We don't want to hear anymore about this problem, ok? You got that right?
Another was more threatening
The jews from back in history were the ugly decievers and BLOOD SUCKERS. . . . It is importatn that an apology is issued to calm down the MUSLIM all over the world. WE DO NO WANT TO SEE ANOTHER 19 AMERICANS GO A WSAY IN THA LAND OF THE PROPHET ,,, DO WE ??????? !!!!!! I am saying this because the Muslims will never tolerate the actions of the jews agains their religion. And articels like these contribute in the future loss of life of Anmericans all over the Islamic world. . . . We are fed up of filthy jews robbing our lands, and defaming all HOLY concepts we have. Please, save the lives of few Americans by issuing your apology.
Which brings me to my own case. In mid-1999, I published articles in the Los Angeles Times and the National Post (Toronto) emphasizing the distinction between, on the one hand, traditional Muslims who go quietly about their business and ask only to be allowed to practice their faith, and, on the other, radical Islamists with their agenda of transforming society in the image of their beliefs. In reply, CAIR launched fifteen separate attacks on me in the space of two months. Many of these, reaching all the way back to 1983, cited random quotations from articles and books in order to indict me out of my own mouth, or resurrected unflattering appraisals of my work by others. One bulletin attempted to demolish an article I had written about the treaty of Hudaybiya--even though, contrary to other American commentators, I had found that "Muhammad was technically within his rights to abrogate the treaty." The broadside was titled "Daniel Pipes Smears Prophet Muhammad" fighting words for many Muslims.
Reverberating through the Internet, CAIR's attacks were also widely reprinted in Muslim publications, spurring dozens of letters, overwhelmingly negative, to the two newspapers that had carried my articles. One such letter urged me to enroll in sensitivity training (at CAIR, naturally), while others branded me with harsh names ("bigot and racist"), compared me to the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis, or characterized my writings as an "atrocity" filled with "pure poison" and "outright lies." More alarmingly, the letters accused me either of perpetrating a hate crime against Muslims or of promoting and abetting such crimes. And they did not stop short of vague threats "Is Pipes ready to answer the Creator for his hatred or is he a secular humanist . . . ? He will soon find out."
I DO not want to leave the impression that CAIR represents the only opinion to be found in the Muslim community, either here or abroad. Shaykh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, for instance, secretary general of the Italian Muslim Association and director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Muslim Community in Rome, has actually denounced CAIR for falsely claiming to represent the entire Muslim community while in reality being bent on launching "hate campaigns against journalists, Congressmen, Senators, and Muslims who interfere with its [its] true terrorist agenda." What is more, Shaykh Palazzi has commended both me and Steven Emerson for daring to challenge the Islamists; though he does "not agree with [our] attitude toward Islam in particular and with [our] secular worldview in general," nevertheless we are to be lauded for distinguishing "authentic Islam from the counterfeit image presented by the Islamists"--of whom, the Shaykh pointedly concludes, Muslims themselves "are the main victims."
But Shaykh Palazzi is one among only a few voices of reason and sanity. Within the universe of Muslims who speak and write about Islam and its position in the modern world, the Islamists by far have the upper hand. That is not only a great tragedy for Muslims, but a danger to the rest of us. For if the Islamists have their way, any possibility of speaking the truth not only about them but about Islam itself will be foreclosed. Indeed, to a certain extent, as in the near-successful blacklisting of Steven Emerson at National Public Radio, it already has been.
Bernard Lewis, the renowned scholar of Islam and the Middle East, has noted with asperity that whereas, in this Christian country, an English-language biographer of Jesus enjoys total latitude to say what he will and as he will, his counterpart working on a biography of Muhammad must look fearfully over his shoulder every step of the way. About my own writing, one correspondent protested to the National Post "It's is interesting to me as a Muslim American to hear you, a non-Muslim, speaks about Islam as an expert without you first consulting with an American Muslim organization like CAIR for an example, to get their opinion about what you are about to print." In other words, one is perfectly free to voice an opinion about Islam, provided that one has vetted its contents beforehand with the Islamists--roughly the situation that now prevails in Iran.
What the Islamists are demanding, in short, is that the United States take a giant step toward applying within its borders the strictures of Islamic law (the shari`a) itself. A basic premise of that body of law is that no one, and especially no non-Muslim, may openly discuss certain subjects--some of the very subjects, as it happens, that CAIR wishes to render taboo. However absurd this may seem to a casual observer--Muslims, after all, make up, at most, 2 percent of the U.S. population--it is a fact that, when the guard of the democratic majority is let down, determined minorities in pursuit of anti-democratic aims can sometimes get their way.
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum.
His articles in Commentary include "America's Muslims Against America's Jews" (May 1999) and "Salman Rushdie's Delusions, and Ours" (December 1998).
Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community
http://amislam.com
mailto:islam.inst@flashnet.it
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