They should also have asked him his opinion of the Imam in Denver, in the mid 80's, who was assassinated after insisting he would continue to let men and women have joint services when he preached. [it was only recently revealed that the killers were attached to an Islamic "charity" affiliated with the Egyptian IB , Zwahiri's launch pad for Al Qaeda]
"Denver imam refuses to affirm loyalty to U.S.
Note how he uses indignation to try to divert the questioner. From "Torkelson: Mosque adapting to its diversity," in the Rocky Mountain News, with thanks to Twostellas:
A local landscaper, a Denver-born consultant, and a kid from Kansas - if you hung around Denver's largest mosque at 2071 S. Parker Road, it's likely you'd bump into them all. They reflect Islam's changing profile from foreign-born faith to American presence.
On Sunday, I found myself in the company of the three - Mohammad Noorzai, Malik Taylor and Ammar Amonette - because I had heard big changes were coming to the mosque, whose formal name is the Colorado Muslim Society. It's a major, influential Islamic center where thousands of Colorado's estimated 15,000 Muslims worship, and where the demographics are changing.
Non-Arabs represent slightly more than half the mosque's members. The fastest growing segments are African Americans, whites and Latinos.
"We're a community that's more diverse than any (American) parish," says Amonette.
Three major firsts reflect the mosque's efforts to adapt.
• Amonette, 45, has been named the society's first American-born imam, or spiritual leader. He's believed to be the only American-born imam to run a major Islamic center in the U.S. His predecessor was the Egyptian-born Ahmed Nabhan, who left in December by "mutual decision."...
Today, with the Mideast aflame, there was one question that I thought many Americans, rightly or wrongly, might want to ask: If America were attacked by terrorists who professed to do it in the name of Islam, whom would you support?
"I can't believe that question - I'm shocked," Amonette, open-mouthed, said. "You don't ask that kind of question of other people."
But Noorzai, the mediator, recognized the question as an opportunity to help Americans understand how Muslims express the values of their faith: "She just wants to shed light on it," he said. "Muslim loyalty - where is it?"
The first loyalty is to Islam's principle of not harming innocent people, ever. "We're going to be on the side that's just and fair," he said.
Note that they didn't give a straight answer."
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2 comments:
As a counterpoint of sorts, here's an extract from a Taranto column from a few weeks ago:
Hezbollah Groupie
One Cecilia Lucas, a graduate student at UC Berkeley, has penned a "love poem for Hizbullah." We kid you not. Here's a sample:
You were born out of death to a life in a cage
Where bombs are not the only reason people die
Fed by the violence of hunger and homelessness
Raised by colonialism
Your heart and your will still grew strong
You scare me
Not just because they tell me to be scared
Not just because they repeat, repeat, repeat
The story of 1983
Begging me to understand
Americans are worth more than Lebanese
We suppose a certain romanticization of nihilistic political violence is a common enough form of adolescent rebellion, though one suspects young Miss Lucas is getting egged on by her professors, many of whom no doubt are liberal baby boomers who never outgrew their own adolescence.
Ah well, the best way to respond to this sort of thing is with mockery, as blogger "Iowahawk," writing under the nom de plume "Omar Walid Muhammed, Chairman, Hezbollah Poetry Club," devastatingly does, in a poem called "I Love You Too, Cecilia Lucas":
You were born in the Valley to a life in a suburban cage
Encino, where mean girls and cheerleaders
Drop bombs of hate on the unpopular girls
Shy poetry club chicks like you
With 1480 SATs and early admission to Berkeley
Fed by the violence and lookism of the dance squad
Raised in a four bedroom colonial
They wouldn't let you wear your Che T-shirt to prom
But your heart and your armpit hair still grew proud and strong
You scare me too
Not just because you have that Code Pink Manson girl freak-vibe
Not just because you repeat, repeat, repeat
All those quotes from your dog-eared volumes of
Chomsky
and Zinn
and Edward Said
Begging me to understand
Can't we just hold each other
Instead of talking, talking, talking
About your Masters thesis?
Iowahawk for Poet Laureate!
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