I get a letter from a woman who wants to have an intellectual discussion with me. She lets me know that she was born in America and that aweful American men and the Christian culture are the reason she chose to convert to the Moslem religion. I try to tell her that her freedom will be squashed in the repressive Moslem culture. I advise her to try another religion so that she'll have a better life. Then the "intellectual" flies off the handle and must have spent all last night and today writing stuff to justify her choice to join a mysogynist culture. Cool. She doesn't want to be saved. But she then reverts to what control freaks do when they can't win an argument on its merits, they resort to ad hominem attacks and insults. Too bad, she seemed like someone I could talk to at first. Hell, I was buttering her up telling her how smart she is.
But all her spewing at me doesn't change a single thing: it's not what you say, it's what you do. The Moslem culture doesn't act like Mormon missionaries when they take off to foreign lands. Mormons build roads, wells, farms, and spread the word of Christ with kindness towards all. America has many similar organizations such as World Vision that send missions off to the poorer parts of the world to help them. The most worthless organization is the United Nations. You can read about that off the Freedom page's International Organizations page. The Moslem culture does the opposite of the Christian outreach programs. It goes around the world killing and repressing whole countries. Their method of "helping" others around the world involves chickenshit methods like blowing up innocent civilians with bombs in the South Pacific, kidnapping nurses and cutting off their heads in the Philippines, and committing genocide in the Sudan against not only Christians but also fellow Moslems. Oh I forgot to mention, in the Sudan the Arabian Moslems are racists who kill the southern Black Moslems. Yeah, this chick must just love the world outreach programs that her brothers in the Islamic culture promote. Peace through murder.
So here in all her brilliant glory is Brenda who calls herself Aqila and my responses.
In the first part of the e-mails, which I haven't bothered to straighten up very much, we introduce each other. Where this really gets interesting and hot is further down the page. I've put her hottest e-mail in red and my cooler analysis in maroon. The next day she spent hours and hours fuming and writing me several e-mails trying to show me watagoosiam. Instead she goes for the throat with a lie filled website filled with Nazi's and WWII terrorized Jews. She is doing this for pain's sake. Frankly, as I'll add later, I thanked her for the images which I'll use in other parts of the website for emphasis.
What it shows however is that her intention from the start was to attempt to dominate me through subterfuge. My aim was to free her from the oppressive Islamic mysogynistic culture. In other words, we were at cross purposes from the start.
Are you aware (and I'm sure you are) that there are several disturbing links that have nothing at all to do with "art" associated with your web page?
Specifically,
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/radiical.htm
"Citing passages from the Hadith, the collected sayings of Muhammad, the Caners note that, by his own account, the founder of Islam was often possessed by Satan. The phrase "Satanic Verses" refers to words that Muhammad first claimed had come from God, but which he later concluded were spoken by Satan.
Muhammad married 11 women, kept two others as concubines and recommended wife-beating (but only as a last resort!). His third wife was 6 years old when he married her and 9 when he consummated the marriage.
To say that Muhammad was a demon-possessed pedophile is not an attack. It's a fact."
There are other links, such as,
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/moslem.htm
AMERICAN MOSLEM TERRORISTS: These are mostly followers of the racist black "Muslim" Louis Farrakhan's lies. These violent fools are being archived separately from the international terrorists below.
Aside from painting a totally distorted picture of Islam, Prophet Muhammad, and muslims (which you spell "moslem") worldwide, you seem mostly interested in demonizing Islam and its followers. Interesting is your description of the followers of Louis Farrakhan as "violent fools", when it was racist violence committed against blacks in the U.S. that led to the government-sanctioned cult of the Nation of Islam (masonic sufis who have achieved no legitimacy and are viewed as heretics by the larger muslim community). You see, they believe, like the christians, that God became incarnate in the flesh in the person of a white man, and there is no basis for this folly in the teaching of Islam.
As a true believing muslim women, I sympathize with you and invite you to serious dialogue between a christian and a former christian-now-muslim, if you can agree to leave hatred and bigotry out of the discussion and discuss theology and ethics. I leave this invitation open to you and will be happy to discuss Islam and Christianity with you earnestly at any time. You see, Prophet Muhammad suffered many indignities and threats upon his life during his life time and the religion that he introduced to the world expanded and grew inspite of this to become the world's second largest and fastest growing religion. I can certainly do my part as a humble servant of God and seeker of truth to listen to someone who has expressed viscerous hatred and animosity toward muslims.
I leave you with the greeting of peace in the tradition of Islam (whose root word is "peace") and hope to hear again from you soon.
Wa salaam,
'Aqila (means "intelligent, noble woman")
P.S. I'm no man's chattel (unlike women in America until the 20th century, and I'm proud to wear my hijab).
Visit AMWA Net info portal for muslim women at http://www.amwanet.org
Greetings Aqila: Noble and intelligent woman, Interesting name. It reminds me of the latin name for the flower Columbine called Aquilegia, meaning "eagle's claw" referring to the long and lovely spurs on the rear of the complex flowers. Are you an American and if so what was your name before you changed it? Bob
----- Original Message ----- From: AMWA Information To: Bob Schatan, RN Sent: 12/24/2004 8:28:50 AM Subject: Re: Your Papillon Art Website
It's listed at the end of this email, " 'Aqila ", and means "noble, intelligent woman" in arabic.
--- "Bob Schatan, RN" <papillonart@earthlink.net> wrote:
From: "Bob Schatan, RN" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:05:29 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
To: info@amwanet.org
Subject: Re: Your Papillon Art Website
Greetings, First of all, what is your name? BobYes, I am american, and my name before changing it legally was "Brenda". And Brenda is still my first and given name. Brenda, by the way is scandanavian in origin and means "fire brand". Also equally appropriate.
--- "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net> wrote:
From: "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 06:25:43 -0800
To: "AMWA Information" <info@amwanet.org>
Subject: Re: Your Papillon Art WebsiteGreetings Aqila, I've given your replies a great deal of thought as to how to approach them. You are obviously a very intelligent woman and deserve more time than I have available to give to you. Let me tell you of my own religious experience. I was born and raised on Catalina Island by non-religious Jewish parents. We were the only Jewish family on the island and all my friends were primarily Catholic Mexicans and various other Christian based faiths.
My grandparents came to the island on the high holy days and performed the rituals but we didn't understand the significance or the historical aspects of what they were doing. My parents were neutral but my best friend's mom treated me like her own son and I gained my social graces from his family. As youngsters my friend Steve and I considered ourselves atheists. We operated on logic and could argue literally for hours which you'd rather be attacked by; a bear or a lion, for example. Just the same I got beat up at home, beat up at school, couldn't get a date because I was the nerd, and I was obviously very gifted.
I read about one book a day from the age of about 7 or 8, 2/3 science and 1/3 science fiction. I was also incredibly busy hiking on the island, collecting everything collectible, sending letters around the world to pen pals and the biggest regret, which I still have to this day, is that I wish I didn't have to sleep. There is simply so much that I'm curious about. But religion wasn't a driving force in my life.
In my first years of college the Campus Crusade for Christ and Jews for Jesus knocked on my door over and over. I'd invite them in just to try to shake their faith so intensely that I could get them to lose it and become the empty vessel that I was. I am sorry to say that I succeeded on occasion. Judaism was as foreign to me as the Moslem religion was. At Cal Poly U. Pomona I studied frequently with Moslem guys from all over the middle east and they invited me along with them. I never told them of my Jewish heritage however. They were studying various aspects of petroleum technology, I was studying chemistry, physics, biology as related to the Animal Science/Ag specialty the school is well known for. I kept in contact with some of them after they went home.
A young guy was so excited after Jimmy Carter helped throw the Shah of Iran from power and the Ayatollah Kohmeini took over. I didn't hear from him for a couple months so I wrote a letter to him. It was answered by his family. Tallal had been killed because he had studied in America. At the time it made no sense. What a wonderful intelligent hard working kid Tallal was. Why did the Moslem government take him away one evening and murder him? I can easily remember him and could probably draw you a picture of him. It hurt. I didn't connect the dots yet because the New Media, of which my website is a small part, was decades away.
The horrible truth about the Moslem activities was being carefully managed and censored by the mainstream media. There is not a single mention anywhere that Sirhan Sirhan was a moslem. And time after time after time, murder after murder after murder the truth was carefully managed so as not to offend the rest of the moslem world that our oil came from. But it really didn't matter, the moslem countries used their oil weapon against us again and again. But it would be more decades until it became apparent to me what was really going on.
In the meantime I had a series of roommates that were religious and they were happy. I was not happy. After the Navy and while working in the ICU's at UCLA Med Center my own self hatred revealed itself. I found a good therapist and found out how I turned all my anger at my parents and other abusers inward. I am too gentle, I try never to hurt others and would rather absorb pain than react to it.
Gently and over time the therapy began to heal me and it opened me to another saving grace, that of God. My relationship with God is not related to a standard religion. I personally have never belonged to a specific religion. I've gone to Temple, Church, and the mountains and gardens and found God everywhere. God inhabits my work as a Registered Nurse. God inhabits my intensely flower filled gardens. God inhabits me. I rarely ask God for anything. Most of the time I simply thank God for the unexpected things he let's me experience.
Since I am a "show me" believer God has physically shown me in unmistakably physical events that defy rational explanation. This has happened far more times than I can remember. It has nothing to do with the fact that I've always had very strong, though erratic, ESP. Animals feel it someway from me and come to me which surprises the owners repeatedly. I was always that way, very close to the wild animals, especially birds.
To bring you up to the present now let me present this to you. I like honesty, I like peace, I like health, I like good people. And I think most religions are a force for good. The Moslem "religion" however is not honest, peaceful, healthy, good and it is definitely not a force for good. The Freedom of America allows people to make bad decisions just as easily as good ones. Your embracement of the Moslem culture is a vile decision.
Rather than try to go into the Surah's one by one that order you to murder me I would rather have you educate yourself by reading from my website. There is a wealth of information to be had by people who have expressed their ideas far more ably than I and can clearly show you the fallacy of your thinking. In addition to the admittedly nauseating but truthful articles about Islam I am going to give you the URL's for a couple other very important sections of my website. These deal with people such as yourself who have been indoctrinated rather than educated in your youth. Your politically correct defense of the Moslem religion is typical of someone who gets told the truth, such as the horrendous way the Moslem culture treats YOU, A WOMAN, means that you must twist your thinking into knots trying to find ways to justify the lies you just presented to me in your e-mails.
I feel from your writing that you have an open mind and a willingness to expose yourself to knowledge. Nothing would please me more than to have you peruse the knowledge available on this website. That is the very essence of why I work on it regularly. Thousands and thousands of people come here to gain insight and knowledge. I wish you to become a brilliant and liberated asset to America, a free woman in a wonderful world. I've been all over the world and there is absolutely no place I'd rather live than here.
And I will tell you from experience that the Moslem countries I've visited are the armpits of the world. I've visited cannibal villages and felt safer than I did in Cairo. They are quieter, much cleaner, and the natives were more friendly by far. A popular tourist destination in Saudi Arabia are the chopping squares where they chop off hands, feet, heads, crush people with rocks, especially gays, shoot them, and so forth.
And I sure that you approve of the widespread custom of dumping gasoline on a Moslem wife's head and lighting her up because she argued with her husband. Don't believe me, it happened last year in Michigan, if memory serves. The mosques you attend are frequently meeting places for the flunkies of society who take the chip on their shoulders and use terrorism to push other people around. Your mullahs preach hatred against ME! I AM ONE OF THE PEOPLE YOU SHOULD HATE according to your Madrassas!
And what have I ever done to you? And what has ANY Jew ever done to a Moslem to cause them to want to murder them all? But on the other hand, what has anyone of any other religion ever done to merit murder by Moslems? Your chosen religion has never, ever sought to co-exist peacefully with ANY others. Hell, the Moslems in Sudan are killing the Moslems in the southern part of the country because they happen to be BLACK Moslems. Name a country in the world with Moslems and I'll show you example of Moslem hatred and terrorist acts. In the Philippines they chopped off the heads of nurses who were Catholics. In East Timur they chased natives through forests with machine guns killing the natives before fleeing back to their Moslem Indonesia. In Africa they kill anyone who isn't Moslem whether they offer to convert or not. And rape the women and the children. And in Holland if anybody says an unkind thing such as the truth about how Moslems treated Moslem women in Holland the author of the movie is killed with a note stuck on a knife in his chest. I guess a letter to the Editor just wouldn't suffice for your peaceful society, would it?
Remember, YOU ARE A WOMAN; you are not chattel. In the Moslem culture of Sharia Law, you wouldn't be able to communicate with me. You'd be severely punished for doing so. Sharia Law=Taliban Law. Wahabism, my poor mislead young lady, means that your life of Freedom as you know it, would stop, end, finis. In the Moslem culture IT'S A MAN'S WORLD! The police would slap you around for complaining to them that your husband beat you. Such insolence as complaining!
And tell us how you'd travel anywhere. How about to buy some groceries. It's common in Islamic countries for the woman to ONLY GO OUT OF THE HOUSE WITH A MALE RELATIVE. To do otherwise, even for medical care for your own child, would be to risk severe beating by the Conformity Police. There is an article on this website where in Saudi Arabia a couple dozen schoolgirls were locked inside a building on fire because the police wouldn't let them out. The reason, the little girls didn't have head scarves. So the reason the little children were burned to death is that burning to death was preferable to insulting Mohammad and Allah by escaping without their stupid headscarves! But of course, the article doesn't include that every single one of those precious young girls had had to have their genitals mutilated by unskilled filthy but religious airheads. I'm sure that is just what you'd want for your own little girl someday. Clitorectomy is what you'd order up to celebrate your little girl's first week of life! Frequently they also remove the labia on the girl infants. It makes circumcision look like nothing.
But boy babies on the other hand have nothing happen to them and soon they are ordering their own mothers around backed up by their macho man father. You sure know how to pick a religion to worship, Aqila. There has never been any other religion in the history of the Earth with so sick a set of principles. You worship an illiterate murdering lying pedophile and wish to inculcate into your life the severe limits that the Moslem religion places on you.
Why not make it simpler for yourself. Wait outside a federal penitentiary until some burly asshole comes out and have a date with someone who will lock you in the house, beat you, keep you away from fun things and friends, order you around and slap you if you raise your voice above a, "Yes, master." Cook for him, get raped by him, bear him children where the girls are looked upon as a burden to be sold off and the boy toddler is your superior and you've just landed in Moslem Nirvana.
IT'S REAL, GET THAT INTO YOUR POLITICALLY CORRECT SKULL!!! Join ANY OTHER RELIGION and you will flourish and grow.
I wish you sincerely a life filled with love and freedom. That is why I've spent so much time writing this.
Here are the URL's for you to peruse.
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/radiical.htm
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/warlinks.htm
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/slavery.htm
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/educatio.htmBob Schatan, RN
----- Original Message ----- From: AMWA Information To: papillonart@earthlink.net Sent: 12/26/2004 12:33:58 PM Subject: Re: FW: Re: Your Papillon Art Website
Greetings again, Bob,
Just replying to your other message, same response in case you didn't get the other two emails. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
The qur'an, like all religious texts, is a book that must be read in context. There is no single passage in the torah, injil, qur'an or bible that can be read singularly and interpreted out of context with any hope of achieving correct understanding of that passage. For instance, there are passages in Leviticus that when read singularly imply that all women are unclean and inferior to men. There are other passages from the torah which describe all non-jews as "goyem", a term that does not merely designate the non-jew, but an inferior social status in jewish society. Perhaps you could enlighten me on the use of this term as well in the context of our discussion.
The references you make to the alleged injunction upon muslims to "kill all jews" needs specific clarification, so let us start with the specific qur'anic passages by chapter and verse to which you are referring. In general, I can state unequivocably that this is a generalization taken completely out of context with regard to the related historical precedents occuring at the time the verses were revealed with regard to events that are predicted to occur in the future. Please note also (as I'm sure you are already aware) that Muhammad (saws) has been historically documented by mohamedists and orientalists to be a functional illiterate who could neither read nor write arabic; therefore he could not have presented these verses as forgeries of his own making, and at best could only recite them. To the point, it is highly unlikely that a functional illiterate could command the high classical dialect of the most skilled arabic poets of the time in the manner and tense which is customary of the qur'an.
In summary, there is no global injunction upon muslims to kill any one simply based upon their ethnicity, and more specifically, if they are not actively engaged in war. God says in the qur'an time and time again for the muslim to use "restraint" and to honor the treaties made with the pagans (idolators). This hardly sounds like a blanket injunction to kill anyone who is not committing acts of aggression against the muslims.
Again, we can certainly examine specific verses more closely and begin a exegesis (tafsir) of those passages as part of our discussion.
'Aqila
--- "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net> wrote:
From: "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 01:38:48 -0800
To: "BRENDA AQILA AMWA Information" <info@amwanet.org>
Subject: FW: Re: Your Papillon Art Website
----- Original Message -----From: Bob Schatan To: AMWA Information Sent: 12/26/2004 1:31:53 AM Subject: Re: Your Papillon Art Website
Greetings Brenda Aqila noble, intelligent woman fire brand, So we meet and are well met. Let us proceed to a discussion on your ideas regarding your adopted religion. My entire family heritage is Jewish. In addition they are mostly gifted high achievers all the way down the history going back to Poland, Lithuania and Russia. During World War II most of my ancestors died in concentration camps or were simply killed off. My name is rare and everyone around the world with it is a relative. The results of my families efforts result in the employment of thousands of families celebrating every religion. They influence the finance of large countries from within governments as ministers. Some are liberals, one is a known Communist in Central America. We all have one thing in common. Your religion says that you are duty bound to kill every one of us. Could we discuss this problem, please? Bob----- Original Message ----- From: AMWA Information To: papillonart@earthlink.net Sent: 12/28/2004 8:52:28 AM Subject: Re: Your Disappointing Reply
Well, Bob (and you still failed to explain the meaning of your name as well as the proper pronounciation), I began reading your email believing you were attempting to boost my level of trust and confidence in you through personal disclosure. Much to my dismay, this sophomoric approach was quickly pursued by an insulting, hate-filled tirade against the religion of Islam. You mentioned that you deliberated greatly before replying to my last email. Unfortunately, you failed miserably in your attempt at discussion and dialogue and seem more interested in hijacking the discussion toward your point of view. This discussion (if it can be called that), needs to adher to certain ethnical principals and not be based on biased misinterpretations if you want to get to the truth. We are, again, discussing Islam as a religion, not the people that say they follow it (that's yet a whole different matter).
2. You quite contritely fail to realize that I have lived Islam, studied it and made an informed decision to become muslim after doing so, not after being visited by some unseen holy spirit and feigning idiotically-emotional spiritual rapture. Islam was a rational choice for me, one made with reason based upon my experiences as a "free woman" in a western society which holds so little regard for womanhood that it values women as physical objects of gratitification with less-important minds: A world that said until 1920, a woman was the property of her husband, legal "chattel", to be counted with his belongings and slaves. A world that says a woman is more likely to be raped by her close family intimates than a stranger and suffer silently in shame. A world that says a pregnant woman is most likely to be murdered by her own husband than a stranger. A world that says that the more wealth at stake the more likely a woman will be killed rather than divorced by her affluent husband when the marriage fails. A world that says bible-believing christians, rape, murder, molest children, commit incest and adultery, sell drugs, and routinely break the commandments more frequently than do qur'an-believing muslims.
Yes, this is the world I saw growing up as a "free woman" in America, a world for which christianity and the established church seemed totally inept and incapable of addressing the social problems facing women and the world today. I went searching for answers, first during my confirmation in the episcopal church, only to be rebuked by the priest and told to just blindly follow. Disinterested in mimicking rituals, I began exploring other religions, catholicism, etc., and then began reading the qur'an. I immediately knew that all I had been searching for was contained in that precious book, and after some careful examination of islamic tenets and beliefs, I converted to Islam. I thank God and praise God daily for bringing me to this path of truth in a world engulfed in darkness, and for not sealing my heart and mind to the glorious mercy of his love.
3. As for you, sir, where shall we begin? There is absolutely nothing at your putrid website that interests me in the least. Plainly put, it's disgusting. Your perspective and dilemma could best be described with the "half-full" analogy. You say the glass is half empty (negative pessimist), I say it is half full (positive optimist), so does your "truth" negate my knowledge? Ponder this fact. Your website is a grotesque concatenation of misinterpretations, hatred, and lies, surtured together in frankenstein fashion to form an abomination that could at best only be viewed as evil. I pity the poor souls that venture into the trap of lies you have woven in your vain and pitiless attempt at defamation, but pity your soul more because it is trapped inside a place of hatred, ignorance and bigotry for which only God can fashion its escape. And when God abandons a person, who shall they have for a helper?
4. Bob, my religion is not evil, my religion is not vile, my religion does not teach hatred of jews or any other group for that matter, but it DOES teach very vehemently to hate the wrong doer, the liar, the thief, the one that blasphemes and lies against God, and those who create evil and mischief on earth. So, irregardless of religion, should you find yourself in this category, you will indeed be hated, whether you are jew, muslim, or gentile. Consider these facts.
5. You apparently believe that you have a superior interpretation of facts and events that enables you to accuse others of lying when they relate known historical facts to you. This state of mind is sociopathically delusional. I would strongly, strongly recommend... that is... if you are truly a man of peace and integrity and you value what's left of your sanity, that you seek some professional psychological counseling to help you sort out all the conflict and hatred you seem to have amassed against Islam and muslims (you seem unable to extricate one from the other which is the key indicator that you need help).
6. You mentioned Sirhan Sirhan... the idiotic paid assassin that killed Bobby Kennedy. You can't really be that daffy to not be able to see this picture clearly (hired assassin, what did Bobby Kennedy ever do to muslims.. .give me a break! So, was Oswald hired to kill Kennedy by the muslims? And what about Ruby? Was this all some kind of islamist conspiracy?!). Another indicator that you need help is that you seem eager and willing to blame Islam and muslims for every unsavory act that gets recalled into your historical memory of recent events. If you don't get help, you are well on your way (and your website indicates this) to acting out some sociopathic behavior and becoming the next Timothy McVeigh.
Blaming Islam for the actions of disaffected (often bribed and paid off) muslims is like blaming the whole white race for slavery, all germans for the jewish holocaust, or christianity for the burning crosses and lynchings of the Klan. Again, you must extricate interpretive extremism from the basic tenets of any religion, as religion is indeed open to (mis)interpretation by those that follow it (you being a perfect example).
7. I'm sorry you have such a fragmented and misinformed view of Islam and shar'iah. It amazes me how you believe you could begin to fathom the breadth and depth of islamic jurisprudence without being an islamic jurist. Are you similarly proficient in judaic law or for that matter, any other legal system? You people, the self-appointed enemies of Islam, will find that you will be increasingly confronted with the islamic intelligensia and academically elite, people like me, who will drown your miserable misrepresentations in a sea of knowledge and truth taken from your OWN schools. I again invite you to send me just one chapter, one verse that you wish to discuss and let us begin our exegesis and analysis. Let truth bring light from darkness.
8. I know this is a frightening concept for you to contemplate, that your pitiful attempts to destroy this great religion will be terminated with knowledge from your own scholars, but it will be so, because God has placed his loving seal of protection on this knowledge, and truth will destroy falsehood..
9. The story of your deceased friend Tallal (if it is true, and I highly suspect it isn't) is one of thousands killed by the Savak and other strong-armed factions that dominate the oppressive regimes imposed on the muslim world. The entire muslim world today is suffering under the jack-booted ideology of western-controlled dictatorships and protectorates, manipulated by financial subsidies and set asides (interesting you should mention Egypt, one the top recipients of US aid in exchange for control of the Canal). More likely Tallal was killed (if he was killed at all) for some other offense that involved the Savak (Iranian intelligence). You surely will never know the reasons why, and you certainly do dishonor to his memory by attacking his religion.
One of my greatest sources of inspiration, Dr. Ali Shariati, a gifted iranian ph.D in Sociolgy, was also killed by the Savak. Having been educated in the finest schools in Europe, he returned to Iran to empower and enlighten the youth with a new islamic vision. For this reason, his brilliant life was ended and he was murdered. Knowledge is indeed power. Rest assured, in the wake of his legacy, there will be more muslim social scientists, physicists, engineers, and intellectuals whom God will allow to rise in this world inspite of the murderous efforts of the Savak, Mossad, and others paid to oppress the muslim people. Simply put, the best efforts of the enemies of Islam, whether they are traitors dressed as mullahs and ayatollahs feigning allegiance to God and his prophets, or whether they sit cowardly behind computer screens spewing hatred as you do, will all fail in the end.
I find it interesting you mentioned Egypt but not Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or any of the fastest growing economic centers in the gulf region in your "arm pit" scenario. I'm sure the ghettos of Warsaw looked much like pig swills, too, but consider the underlying reasons. Again, you are blinded by bigotry and hatred.
The invitation is still open to you for discussion of islamic/judeo-christian ethics if you so choose. Please don't bother replying with more hate-filled tirades. In closing, I invite you to visit http://quran.al-islam.com and read until your heart's content the english translation of the qur'an. Read all you can and may God grant you with understanding to let the light of truth enter your heart, and may He release you from the grip of SATAN. May your soul know the peace and mercy of Islam and the forgiveness of God, the almighty, master of this world and the next.
Wa salaam,
Greetings Aqila, Sheath your swords, Shiva. The ad hominem attacks on me by you are unnecessary. Your attacks on my website are without substance as well. If you have a problem with the information then please, by all means, direct your tirades against the authors of the articles. You would do as much good attacking your local library. I simply archive articles available on the Internet and organize them into subjects.
By sophomoric you refer to me as childish or pretentious. Frankly, I felt the information would help give you a sense that I am coming from a nativist point of view. I take in information from a variety of sources and come to my own decisions.
When I studied with my Moslem friends we talked of how they hated the Shah and his wife. They told me of relatives being jailed for political reasons. However they liked the fact that women in Iran were widely educated in many subjects and were allowed to work in professions of their choosing; a very pro-woman approach in a Moslem country. The advent of Sharia law reversed everything. Very soon after we saw Moslem's killing Moslems in their ridiculous 8 year war between Saddam Insane and Iran's Mullahs.
One of the most incredible things I ever heard changed my thinking about the Moslem Mullahs. This was when they took children by the thousands and ran them over minefields laid by the Iraqis to clear paths. Then they sent "human waves" to do nothing but use up Iraqi ammunition. Saddam switched to using poison gas against his Moslem brothers. In the end about a million people died for nothing. But the horror of using children, precious innocents, as cannon fodder profoundly changed my way of thinking about the Moslem religious leaders. Again, this was decades before the Internet and the advent of the spread of unfiltered information about everything.
Your second sentence is entirely emotional in content. As I read it you have reversed the facts on western society with the well known Moslem mysogyny. Contritely implies that I said what I said in the form of an apology. This is puzzling to me. There is no apology implied or overt in the discussion. Perhaps you could clarify what you meant. I worked over 5 years in a County Jail as a RN and am very familiar with the American jurisprudence system and I am versed in psychology to some extent as well. None of your assertions regarding American culture are sustainable. However, the impression I get by your vehement blaming of American men of cruelty towards women leads me to wonder if you have suffered some injustice at the hands of men close to you. Blaming a population that will not seek retribution is a means of minimizing the pain you feel. In psychology we call it "transferrence" and it's common among among abused women. My impression is that you are justifying your misandry in an unhealthy manner.
By far, the most oppressive society towards women is the Moslem culture. That you should pursue and apply your brilliant mind to such a oppressive culture to me appears psychologically bizarre. You said such terrible things about Christian men in your second paragraph that you know are untrue that it reveals an inner conflict with yourself. That you choose to deny the very same thing in the Moslem culture represents intense denial of the facts. Denial is used to protect oneself from terrible pain. I feel that you are suffering some terrible trauma by what you've said to this point.
Please, let's not be over florid in discussing this subject: "path of truth in a world engulfed in darkness, and for not sealing my heart and mind to the glorious mercy of his love." sounds very trite for a woman of your calibre. In your paragraph I added a 3. to to identify it. You impune my website with lots of emotion but no facts. Please discuss facts and leave God out of it. God loves both of us; enough said. "irregardless" as you use it is poor English. Here is what dictionary.com says:
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
I've added a 4. to the fourth area I will consider. "my religion is not evil, my religion is not vile, my religion does not teach hatred of jews." Evil is doing bad things to others. I suppose Mohammed's admonition that beating wives isn't evil but I consider it so. You may not consider the mutilation of a girl infant's sex organs to be vile but I do. And frankly, you are grossly ignorant of your own religion if you maintain and actually believe that the Koran does not preach to kill Jews and others of the book wherever you find them. Again, you are demonstrating denial, a frank psychological condition of self protection from the truth.
I've added a 5. to the fifth area I will consider. "sociopathically delusional" first of all is nonstandard as a description in psychology. A sociopath by definition is a person lacking conscience. Delusional refers to a belief in a fixed idea regardless of reality. I've had hundreds of people under my nursing care with these conditions. Your use of them towards me is meant to belittle and demean me. The reason that I am discussing these subjects with you is that I truly care about your future. That, by definition, reveals that I have a conscience. I am not delusional either by definition. Please refrain from using terms you are unfamiliar with. Remember, the goal here is to help you fulfill a promising future free of the constraints of an oppressive culture.
I've added a 6. to the next subject I will consider. Sirhan Sirhan was enraged by Bobby Kennedy's speech indicating he would support Israel in the face of the extremely belligerent Moslem countries around it promising to kill its citizens and/or drive them into the sea. The rest of your statements in 6. are your attempt to avoid discussing the facts regarding JFK's murderer. Your attempts to insult me indicate that you would rather use an ad hominem approach to winning an arguement than to try to win it with facts. In our future discussions, please use facts and refrain from trying to demean me which is pointless. Incidentally, I missed completely in the text who it was that paid Sirhan Sirhan. Could please educate me on this historical fact?
I've added a 7. to the next paragraph I will consider. "You people, the self-appointed enemies of Islam, will find that you will be increasingly confronted with the islamic intelligensia and academically elite, people like me, who will drown your miserable misrepresentations in a sea of knowledge and truth taken from your OWN schools."
Let me try to put what you've so grandiosly tried to say into simple English. "You enemies of Moslem's religion will confront smart people like me." Now isn't that a lot easier to say? I'll consider myself confronted by you.
That you consider yourself elite, the holder of a sea of knowledge and truth, a member of a mysterious intelligensia all sounds like the same balderdash spewed by the old leaders of the Soviet Union. Let me address you, "Glorious comrade, we of the Islamic faith, revered by God above all others, will sermonize on the Mount Olympus the Great Ode's of Knowledge, Golden Rain will shower us, Praise be to Allah, and our Pagan miserable stupid putrid sputtering nonsense enemies will boil in a sea of manure." You see, I can come up with garbage just like you can. Did you ever hear the term in college: KISS? It stands for Keep It Simple Stupid.
I have added an 8. to the next item I will consider. "truth will destroy falsehood" AMEN, SISTER!
I have added a 9. to the next subject I will consider. Savak was dismantled immediately when the Shah of Iran was overthrown by the Ayatollahs. It's members either fled the country or were caught and executed by the Ayatollah's own "jack booted thugs" as you put it. As with any dictatorship they killed anyone with an education because they would be a danger to the dictatorship. Your command of Iranian history needs some brushing up. You follow up with more implications that Savak killed your friend but you doubt that my friend was killed by Savak's successor, the Islamic dictatorship's murderous police. The glaring contradiction in your two paragraphs needs to be addressed in your following e-mail to me.
Now please, I have to get some sleep so I can care for my patients tomorrow.
When you write me please avoid the sufferingly long self aggrandizing rubbish you wasted time describing how wonderful you and your religion are.
I completely respect religions that promote wholesome family life and economic and political freedom, particularly for women.
And try to avoid insulting me and my website. It demeans you.
Let's get into some meaty discussions of facts and forget the emotions.
Thanks, Bob
'Aqila
--- "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net> wrote:
From: "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 02:22:56 -0800
To: "AMWA Information" <info@amwanet.org>
Subject: Re: FW: Re: Your Papillon Art WebsiteYour email was deleted without being read because it was so ridiculously nonsensical.
Please present your passages for discussion, and we will proceed, or don't bother writing again.
'Aqila
I've concluded that you are not interested at all in dialogue and discussion. You, like so many other delusional idiots, think you are on some kind of messianic mission to make muslims (a word you continuously continue to misspell) see the light of day with your twisted "truths".
Yes, I did scan over your last attempt at sanity, and found it to be more of your disorganized mental throw-up (yes, and you can take that as an insult, as it was intended).
I have no time to waste raising my temper with an idiot like you. Most of what you wrote came across as the words of a rambling fool. I won't wax sophomoric about your intellect because it truly is beneath me to comment on you benign stupidity. I only regret believing that dialogue was possible with some one so obviously filled with hate.
You are incapable of having a salient, rational conversation with anyone that you so greatly detest, hence anyone muslim. I wouldn't except a purse of diamonds from you after your insulting remarks, let alone religious advice. You claim to want to free me. This is more evidence that you need professional counseling. Who are you and by what right do you claim such authority. This is in itself a grand delusion that you believe you must "free" anyone because of their religious belief. Try freeing yourself from ignorance.
I hope you get exactly that which you are seeking: the opportunity to wage spiritual warfare with those very "moslem" psychopaths you seem to know so well. And no, I'm not in denial about anything regarding my religion. I opened my communication with you on the grounds of examining that which you believe is Islam. Why, four emails later, have you failed to take advantage of this opportunity? This is indeed a wanton display of chicanery and dishonesty. You're wasting your time here because I see through all your tricks. There are thousands like me, Bob, who chose Islam over everything else you people have conjured up and call "religion". Many are professional women who have married muslim men and are enjoying peaceful and fulfilling lives (Do women marry men if they are misandric? You're twisted logic is just plain laughable).
God knows, there are certainly enough crazy people like you in every denomination. My only wish is that you would all just go to a distant planet where you can carry out your wild messianic visions on each other and leave the rest of the peaceful world alone.
Do take the time to actually read the qur'an if you want the truth at the link I provided (not the adulterated versions and interpretations you want to believe are true). Thre are countless other links that are available that will give you the authentic qur'an, not the self-serving translations that are being circulated by the enemies of Islam.
In closing, if you should chose not to take advantage of my offer to you to have serious dialogue on the grounds I mentioned, know that you will be remembered by me only as a disgraced jew, the bain of all honest, God-fearing jewish people who are trying hard to rescue their religion from the grips of neofascism, hatred, and religious bigotry. God help them and reward them for their efforts. God help you if you don't abandon your campaign of hatred.
Regards,
'Aqila
Visit AMWA Net info portal for muslim women at http://www.amwanet.org
why else would you both proofreading someone else's email?
... don't bother proofreading this one. You clearly get my drift inspite of the errors and transpositions
--- AMWA Information <info@amwanet.org> wrote:
From: AMWA Information <info@amwanet.org>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 06:20:32 -0800 (PST)
To: papillonart@earthlink.net
Subject: Your Last Opportunity
Do I make you feel inadequate? Why else would you bother proofreading my email? Frequently my brain can't keep up with my fingers. I think pretty fast, but not as fast as I type.
Hint: Don't bother proofreading my every word. You clearly get my drift inspite of the errors
Following is some pretty damning evidence that it is you that is steeped in denial.. about relations between muslims and jews and this mandate for muslims to kill all jews that you believe exists in the muslim world. Here's a some very interesting web sites and a picture (see below) of quite a different sort. The picture is worth 1,000 words about the relations between jews and muslims. Do you deny this picture and the efforts of jews and muslims working for peace?
Take it in, savor it, and feel its ambience. Notice you don't see anyone slitting another's throat and taking hostages. This is just one example... as I'm sure you've heard of the Tikkun community, Satmar, and countless others who have abandoned hate for understanding.
You should familiarize yourself with the works of these good jewish people and abandon your mission of hate. Study your own religious heritage rather than picking bones in another man's grave yard and perhaps you may see that peace is the way, not war and hatred (that is if you still consider yourself to be a jew.. you sound more like a christian zionist).
I love my religion and the beauty of peace with God. You and no one else can shake this kind of faith. Find your own peace (you obviously have none or you wouldn't waste so much time with an agenda of hate). I admire the work of these groups and their struggle and have a lot of respect for these decent people. You should be so similarly disposed.
May my glass always be "half full". Regards.
http://www.nkusa.org/
http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/teitelbaum.htm
http://hasidicnews.com/Satmar.shtml
http://www.tikkun.org/
Some interesting information you might want to know... since you claim jewish polish ancestry.
"One Cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Poland"
Izaak Greenbaum -- head of Jewish Agency Rescue Committee
February 18, 1943
Does the name "Greenbaum" sound familiar to you? It should, it is clearly german and it is clearly jewish. Greenbaum was a zionist who could give a farthing about what happened to Europe's jews, YOUR ANCESTORS. He, like most zionists, had their eye on the prize.. a jewish state and homeland, borne on the skeletons of thousands massacred in the name of nazi eugenics.
Look at the faces of these poor, starving people, your countrymen, in the pictures below. Tell me that you believe all this is just a lie. This is what the zionist jews thought of your ancestors, exterminated like garbage in nazi concentration camps and considered to be inferior to the aryan race (you need to do some reading on social darwanism and eugenics to understand what happened here... you owe it to your ancestors and to yourself to know the truth and come out of this fog of denial you seem to be vexed with). http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/antisemitism/holocaust/index.cfm
The Brutal Zionist Role in the Holocaust
The price of Zionism:
The Brutal Zionist Role in the Holocaust
The price of Zionism: "If I am asked, "Could you give from the UJA moneys to rescue Jews, 'I say, NO! and I say again NO!" Izaak Greenbaum -- head of Jewish Agency Rescue Committee
February 18, 1943 Addressed to the Zionist Executive Council.
One Cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Poland"
....Izaak Greenbaum
Zionism in the Age of the Dictators
The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or they will not
Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, made this Zionist policy very explicit:
The hopes of Europe’s six million Jews are centered on emigration. I was asked: “Can you bring six million Jews to Palestine?†I replied, “No.†... From the depths of the tragedy I want to save ... young people [for Palestine]. The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or they will not. They are dust, economic and moral dust in a cruel world ... Only the branch of the young shall survive. They have to accept it.
Chaim Weizmann reporting to the Zionist Congress in 1937 on his testimony before the Peel Commission in London, July 1937. Cited in Yahya, p. 55.Ben Gurion informed a meeting of Labor Zionists in Great Britain in 1938: "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Israel, then I opt for the second alternative." Ibid., p.149.
As late as 1943, while the Jews of Europe were being exterminated in their millions, the U.S. Congress proposed to set up a commission to "study" the problem. Rabbi Stephen Wise, who was the principal American spokesperson for Zionism, came to Washington to testify against the rescue bill because it would divert attention from the colonization of Palestine.
This is the same Rabbi Wise who, in 1938, in his capacity as leader of the American Jewish Congress, wrote a letter in which he opposed any change in U.S. immigrationlaws which would enable Jews to find refuge. He stated:
"It may interest you to know that some weeks ago the representatives of all the leading Jewish organizations met in conference ... It was decided that no Jewish organizationwould, at this time, sponsor a bill which would in any way alter the immigration laws."
Exaggerated Stories of Starvation?? You decide...
Salli Mayer: “. . . what is happening in Poland are exaggerated stories. . . the way of the Ost Yuden. . .always asking for money.
©2004, True Torah Jews, 183 Wilson St., PMB 162, Brooklyn, NY 11211
Visit AMWA Net info portal for muslim women at http://www.amwanet.org
Your polish ancestors... begging in the streets of Poland for food and shelter during WWII... considered not worth saving by the architects of zionism. Only today are they able to request aliyah/repatriation to Israel, after more than half a century of the existence of the jewish state.
Wake up and realize you've been DUPED.
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/antisemitism/holocaust/index.cfmLet's address your accusation that Muhammad (saws) was a pedophile. I know this is the "smoking gun" that the enemies of Islam like to brandish, so let's get right to it:
Excerpts taken from your site
Muhammad married 11 women, kept two others as concubines and recommended wife-beating (but only as a last resort!). His third wife was 6 years old when he married her and 9 when he consummated the marriage.
To say that Muhammad was a demon-possessed pedophile is not an attack. It's a fact."
Refutation:
Using present-day standards to defame a man that lived more than 1,400 years ago opens all religions, not just Islam, to similar scrutiny, as you will see later in this email. By definition, a "pedophile", using today's definition is "one who is sexually attracted to a child." The definition, however, does not elaborate on culture standards which determine childhood and adulthood.
If you are an educated person, and I will assume you have a reasonable education since you are a registered nurse, you know that the age of adulthood varies greatly according to cultural customs. Furthermore, females mature at different ages in different parts of the world. Here in the U.S., it is not uncommon for non-white girls to reach menarce as early as age 8. White girls tend to reach menarche much later, at about age 15. We absolutely have no way of knowing when Aisha (raa), Mother of the Faithful, reached menarche, but we can assume it was at that time her marriage was consummated.
If Muhammad had been sexually attracted to a "child" as you claim, why was consumation of the marriage delayed by at least 4 years? Further, if it was the culturally-accepted practice of the time for girls to marry at this age, it was not considered to be deviant sexual behavior, and therefore does not qualify as pedophilia. Furthermore, the sexual history of the Prophet (saws) refutes this claim by your own words, since he was married to at least 11 adult women, and had at least two adult female companions lawful to him (you called them concubbines) in his custody. So, he had lawful sexual relations with no less than 13 adult women, and married one at the age of 5, consummating that marriage some three or four years later. This disqualifies your accusation that Muhammad (saws) was a pedophile, based on the cultural practices of the times, and his known sexual history.
Further, Aisha (raa) went on to translate the daily habits and practices of Muhammad (saws) from which the body of the ahaddith has been obtained from the sirah/life of Muhammad (saws) , of which there are countless hundreds of thousands in various states of authentication. Scholars have devoted their lives to the study and categorization of this knowledge. I doubt that the untrained novice could begin to know which are authentic and which are fake.
The accusation that Muhammad was a "demon-possessed pedophile" has no substantiated basis without evidence of demonic behavior. Aisha (raa) herself, your alleged victim, spoke only kind words of praise for the Holy Prophet. He never beat any of his wives so I'm not really sure just what behavior you are referring to here, unless you believe a man living according to his culture and times who has sex with his lawful wives and companions must be somehow possessed by demons.
More Excerpts from Your Website:
As far as Islam is concerned, pedophilia is a legitimate and recognized principal in Islam. In Islam, pedophilia and rape of children under the guise of marriage of girls from 9 years on is legal and allowed. By 'marrying' a child, Aisha, Mohammad was himself a pedophile. The Islamic promise of accessing heaven for sexual abuse of girls is itself pedophilia
Muhammad the pedophilic false prophet lived a less than holy life. His lust for sex, his affairs with his maids and slave girls, his pedophilic relationship with Aisha a 9-year-old child at the age of 53, his killing sprees, his massacre and the genocide of the Jews, his slave making and trading, his assassination of his opponents, his raids and lootings of the merchant caravans, his burning of the palm plantations, his destroying the water wells, his cursing and invoking evil on his enemies, his revenge on his captured prisoners of war and his hallucinations about having sex with his wives when he actually did not, disqualify him as a sane person let alone a messenger of God.
An unbiased study of Quran shows that far from being a “miracle†that book is a hoax. Once the Quran is scrutinized with rational thinking, almost every sentence proves to be false. The Quran is replete with scientific heresies, historic blunders, mathematical mistakes, logical absurdities, grammatical errors and ethical fallacies. Could possibly the author of this Universe be as ignorant as it appears to be in the Quran? - Read more from www.faithfreedom.org
"Islam is a religion of peace". This is what our politically correct politicians keep telling us. But what is politically correct is not necessarily correct. The truth is that Islam is not a religion of peace. It is a religion of hate, of terror and of war. " Name: Arab Watch, E-Mail: muhammad@porker.comDate/Time: August 19, 2003 at 8:00 AM, Subject: pedophilia is a legitimate and recognized principal in Islam
More Refutations:
The return address for the "poster" of this information, "muhammad@porker.com", is the domain for a pornographic website.Bob's Note: Oops, just caught Brenda in a fib. I put the above address into google.com and it came back as the DC Reigstry, definitely NOT a pornographic website! The actual URL for the quote above is http://dcregistry.com/forums/religion/messages/2011.html. But it sure pissed off Brenda Aqila.
Sex is a normal and natural part of the human experience in islamic life, within lawful bounds. It is not a forbidden taboo as it has been presented in christianity, either as "original sin" upon women, or as something that should be avoided and limited. Healthy men and women are encouraged to marry and enjoy their lawful relation with each other. Men are allowed 4 wives if they are able to support them, though most prefer just one. Prior to Islam, there was not only no limitation on the number of wives a man could marry or who he could marry (mothers and daughters, etc.) there was also no age limitation on the age of betrothal.
Islam did not invent polygyny, nor did it set the age of lawful marriage (you will not see any such reference in the qur'an). It did, however, clearly state who a man could marry, who he shouldn't marry, and how many women he could marry. Exceptions were granted to Muhammad (saws) by God which were not granted to any other man, and this was not to quell his "lust". Lust is not the driving force behind polygyny: polygyny provides for the maintenance and care of woman who would normally be abandoned in a patriarchial society (hence why Muhammad (saws) had 11 wives):
If you believe Muhammad (saws) was a violent, demon-possessed pedophile, what say you regarding Moses, his predecessor? Does the following strike you as the ravings of a mad-man or man of God? (and I saw this knowing full well that the rabbinical writings of the cohens included forgeries and inventions against God to the degree that it lost all resemblance to the word of God). Note that he clearly states the virgin "young girls" may be kept as war booty, but the women who have slept with a man (sexually mature) must be killed. No distinction was made regarding the age of the girls. Was Moses a pedophile?
Numbers 31 - "Vengeance on the Midianites"
http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?book_id=4&chapter=31&version=31
15 "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. 16 "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. 19 "All of you who have killed anyone or touched anyone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives. 20Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood."
Further Refutations Found in Mishnaic (rabbinical) Law:
The basis for these rulings is the following Mishnaic passage of Tractate Niddah which held that intercourse and marriage was legal with a female "three years and one day old":
A girl three years and one day old is betrothed by intercourse. "A girl three years old may be betrothed through an act of sexual intercourse," the words of R. Meir. And sages say, "Three years and one day old." And if a Levir has had intercourse with her, he has acquired her. And they are liable on her account because of the law prohibiting intercourse with a married woman. And she imparts uncleanness to him who has intercourse with her when she is menstruating to convey uncleanness to the lower as to the upper layer. If she was married to a priest, she eats heave offering. If one of those who are unfit for marriage has intercourse with her, he has rendered her unfit to marry into the priesthood. If one of all those who are forbidden in the Torah to have intercourse with her did so, they are put to death on her account. But she is free of responsibility.
If she is younger than that age, intercourse with her is like putting a finger in the eye.
(Mishnah Niddah 5:4) [134]
[134] J. Neusner, The Talmud of Babylonia. A complete outline, Part IV. The Division of Holy Things. B. Number 37. 1995, 704.
Final Refutation:
Religious matters aside, the age of childhood and sexual consent varies greatly even today from country to country. In Spain and democratic South Korea, the age of consent for females is "13". In Puerto Rico, Serbia, and most of eastern europe, the age of consent for females is "14". In most of South America, the Virgin Islands, the Carribean, and some parts of the Middle East, the age of consent for males is "12". http://www.ageofconsent.com/ageofconsent.htm In all cases, by current U.S. law, a "child" is consenting to sex, not an adult, if they are under the age of "18". Is this, also, pedophilia? Or is pedophilia subjective, based on the physical maturity of the "child"?
Pedophilia, sexually-deviant behavior with a legal "child" (under 18) appears to be largely defined by changing cultural norms and is highly subjective. The evidence seems to indicate through time that the latter is definitely true, rendering your accusations spurious at best.
Regards.
Visit AMWA Net info portal for muslim women at http://www.amwanet.orgFrom: "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:53:30 -0800
To: "AMWA Information" <info@amwanet.org>
Subject: RE: Zionists Didn't Care About Poland's Jews ARE YOU MAD AT ME?
Greetings Brenda, Thank you for the images of the Holocaust. I will add them to my website. But I'm curious. Here you present to me images of a Nazi atheist culture. Why do you present this to me? I thought you promoted the Moslem goodness and wished to have an intellectual discussion with me. Let's talk about the good things that the Moslem culture does all over the world to promote peace. I'm waiting for your reply. BobFrom: AMWA Information <info@amwanet.org>
Because I want you to wake up, study your heritage, and learn the truth about why so many of your people died. A picture speaks a thousand words. Don't be the unwilling dupe of zionism. Study the impact social darwanism had on early nazi doctrine. Learn how Francis Galton's theory of eugenics spread like wildfire as the means to achieve racial superiority in a changing world. Learn how our own government sterilized poor white people for more than 45 years and locked them away in institutions for the "feeble minded" in its state-run eugenics programs. Open your eyes and know peace.
--- "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net> wrote:
From: "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:07:54 -0800
To: "AMWA Information" <info@amwanet.org>
Subject: RE: Pedophiles
Greetings Brenda, The website you said is pornographic is the DC Registry, the URL is http://dcregistry.com/forums/religion/messages/2011.html It's just a forum for people to post their messages. Please, let's not try to add pornography to the serious subject of the goodness of Islam. BobActually, I was going to reply to mohammad@porker.com, but decided in usual fashion to check the url (www.porker.com). It is a disgusting disgraceful porn site of chubby women masturbating and performing sex acts. The word "porker" itself is a misogynistic reference to women.
Anyways, Bob, I respect you as a jew, and hope you get involved or at least learn about some of those hassidic groups I mentioned. These people are giving their lifes blood to restore judaism to a place of dignity and to keep the world from hating jews because of zionism. I intend to have more dialogue and contact with these groups in 2005 as I feel as a muslim it's my duty to show this is the way of God-fearing people.. the way of peace and tolerance. I recommend, especially given your background, that you find out more about these people and get involved with them. Especially, you should read "The Holocaust Victims Accuse". I'm sure you'll be crying afterwards. I know I was. Also, if you get a chance, visit http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/protests/acco2004.cfm and look at the pictures there that show how the israeli police manhandled and tossed around a group of hassidic worshippers who did not want an archaelogical dig to excavate a jewish burial ground. The pictures are sickening (old men manhandled by strong young men, hats removed, choke holds.. you get the picture).
My point here is that each and every religious book contains stories of horrible violence and unimaginable terror. God is not made to sound like Barney, the purple dinosaur in any of the 3 holy books. I found the writings, however, of the bible to be particularly incomprehensible especially with regard to the status of women. I found the writings with regard to women from the first part of the Torah to be too granularly focused on sex. The qur'an at least made sense to me.
Let me know just where you would like us to begin, and we can proceed.
Regards,Jewish friend, Bob (I feel at the moment you are more friend that foe, so don't disappoint me),
I must challenge you on your assumption that nazism and jewish zionism are some how one in the same, and that the jewish zionists who turned their backs on their own people during WWII were in fact just victims of nazi culture. My contention to you is that the jewish zionists were opportunists par excellence, and seized upon the eugenics fervor sweeping Europe during the formation of the nazi doctrine to push forward the ideal of a jewish state. The jews trapped in the ghettos of Europe could have found safe haven in England, the U.S. and other friendly countries if the keepers of the cofers of jewish aid had been so inclined. But they weren't. The knew that the carnage and misery of their people would reach unimaginable proportions, women and children burned and mutiliated and their corpses tossed aside with the bodies of the old and feeble like garbage, but they didn't care. They cared more about the vision of the future, the future of Ertz Israel.
What a barbaric and heidous thought! But it was not limited to the zionist mind. Europe had been primed toward forward-thinking strategies focused on the future since the age of Enlightenment, when people became rather irreligious and put God aside, looking instead at science to explain and give the world meaning. These intellectuals created social theories that laid the foundation for the kinds of social policies that discarded the weak and economically disadvantaged members of society as "unfit", "feeble" and "genetically inferior". The whole body of science of the mind evolved from primitive studies of aptitude based on the shape of someone's skull (phrenology) to the traits of ones parents (i.e., a dullard will produce a dullard). You certainly know about some of these things as a nurse and have come across them in your studies. But little did you know that these ideas led to religiously-justified wars in which millions perished (WWI and WWII) and the epic of the jewish holocaust.
I started this as a short email which has become much longer than intended, so please forgive me, and let me get to the point. Consider if you will the reality and not the perception that Hitler himself was a self-described devout catholic. This negates your description of the nazi regime as an "atheist culture" (see highlighted text below).
My great hope here, Bob, is that people of all faiths will realize the hideous way in which religion has been used by evil men, the enemies of God, to create evil on earth and that they will stop the killing in the name of God and start living what's left of this life in peace:
Hitler's belief in his "divine annoitment", evidence of his sociopathic mentality (sounds frighteningly much like statements made by some of our leaders today):
Mein Kampf: "Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's Work."
Hitler, at a Nazi Christmas celebration in 1926: "Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews ... The work that Christ started but could not finish, I -- Adolf Hitler -- will conclude."
Hitler, at a Reichstag speech in 1938: "I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord's work."
Hitler regarded himself as a Catholic until he died. "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so," he told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals, in 1941.
Did The Catholic Church Denounce Hitler?
No. As in the days of the Inquisition and today's massacres in the muslim world, they silently condoned the slaughter of the jews during WWII. One author, Ann Nicole Gaylor, notes, "There was really no reason for Hitler to doubt his good standing as a Catholic. The Catholic press in Germany was eager to curry his favor, and the princes of the Catholic Church never asked for his excommunication. Religions encourage their followers to hold authority in unquestioning respect; this is what makes devout religionists such wonderful dupes for dictators.
When Hitler narrowly escaped assassination in Munich in November, 1939, he gave the credit to providence. "Now I am completely content," he exclaimed. "The fact that I left the Burgerbraukeller earlier than usual is a corroboration of Providence's intention to let me reach my goal." Catholic newspapers throughout the Reich echoed this, declaring that it was a miraculous working of providence that had protected their Fuhrer. One cardinal, Michael Faulhaber, sent a telegram instructing that a Te Deum be sung in the cathedral of Munich, "to thank Divine Providence in the name of the archdiocese for the Fuhrer's fortunate escape." The Pope also sent his special personal congratulations.
Later the Pope was to publicly describe Hitler's opposition to Russia as a "highminded gallantry in defense of the foundations of Christian culture." Several German bishops openly supported Hitler's invasion of Russia, calling it a "European crusade." One bishop exhorted all Catholics to fight for "a victory that will allow Europe to breathe freely again and will promise all nations a new future."
Biographer John Toland wrote of Hitler's religion: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of god. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god -- so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty. Himmler was pleased to murder with mercy. He ordered technical experts to devise gas chambers which would eliminate masses of Jews efficiently and 'humanely,' then crowded the victims into boxcars and sent them east to stay in ghettos until the killing centers in Poland were completed."
Jews, of course, were not the only "holy" victims. In Yugoslavia, Hitler installed a Croatian, Ante Pavelic, as his puppet, and Pavelic, a Catholic like Hitler, began extermination of the Serbs, who were Greek Orthodox. One of my relatives by marriage is a Yugoslavian, a Serb, who survived World War II by going "underground" with the advent of Nazism in his country. Out of his immediate family of 17 (this includes his parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and first cousins), only three survived. His mother and sister just disappeared, his mother shortly after being given the opportunity to convert to Catholicism, an offer she refused. The Vatican was not unaware of the massacres conducted in Yugoslavia in the name of Catholicism, but Pope Pius remained diplomatically quiet. In fact, one of his actions was to receive Ante Pavelic in private audience, thereby giving his blessing to this regime. ..... sound familiar??
Visit AMWA Net info portal for muslim women at http://www.amwanet.org
From: "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:42:52 -0800
To: "AMWA Information" <info@amwanet.org>
Subject: RE: The Myth of Nazi Atheism I AM MYSTIFIED AT WHAT YOU ARE SENDING MEGreetings Brenda Aqila,
Your sending me all this Nazi propaganda is not the subject of an intellectual discussion. What happened in the past will be argued by far more literate historians than either of us.
All of the stuff you are sending me has no effect on us in the here and now.
Things have changed greatly since all that terrible stuff happened. Neither of us can bring back the dead. There is no point in fighting about it.
The world that we live in, right now, is the subject of our discussion.
And this world is based on facts, facts, and more facts.
I never claimed to be a great biblical scholar and the trends in my life suggest that it will not be in my destiny to become one either. What I do have is the ability to focus on information and make clear judgements on what that information means. Information is fact based.
Let's continue the discussion on the here and base it on current facts of life as they exist today. Your efforts to sway me against Jews or to doubt my Jewish ancestry don't matter.
I subscribe to the idea that God exists, God affects my life, and that God works in ways I don't understand. I have no formal education in religion but I have nearly 10 years of college behind me. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything because it trained me to think.
I have just as much regard for Hindus as I do for Christians and the Gods of the Aleutian Eskimos. God simply IS.
What is far more relevant to me is that I feel you, an American who was part of the religion that built western free society, abandoned it because of something terrible that happened to you and cast a pall over your future and your regard for yourself. You have a fine mind.
My goal is to continue this discussion with you about your future. I feel you should be free of the terrifying constraints of the mysogynist Moslem religion. I frankly am frightened for you.
Your naturally fiery personality will not sit well in an extremist macho society.
I feel you could live a brilliant life and do much good if you were free of those things. Even atheists don't believe in such cultural mysogyny.
Please forget that I have a Jewish heritage. From now on just consider me a nativist, simply a man who believes in God.
It may help us communicate better.
Bob
Ok. Papillon (emerging butterfly), we shall forget your claims of jewish ancestry. You seem disinterested in researching your own heritage, and that's a pity. For someone who claims ten years of college, you seem amazingly disinterested in the impact of historical events on the future.... how nazism evolved, who supported it, what led to the extermination of most of Europe's jews. If you are so disinterested in events of the past, why dredge up the lifestyle of a prophet from more than 1,400 years ago? That indeed seems to be your focus.
No prize either, Papillon, for your assumption that my conversion to Islam was motivated by some terrible, horrid event in my life. It wasn't. I just got sick and tired of the sacrosanct, self-serving hypocrites in the christian church and their total dettachment from the social problems of the real world (i.e. morality in a box, sitting on a shelf somewhere, without application or practice. What a miserable bunch of fakers, just mimicking words from the bible without ever practicing them.. kinda like what's happening today). This was NOT the way I wanted to worship God and spend the rest of my life.
I'm happy to be a muslim, happy to dress modestly and CHOOSE who sees my beauty, happy to have a loving family and husband AND a successfully academic and professional career, all achieved after my conversion. Yes, I'm just plain happy, and there's nothing you can say or do to change it. I'm not a prisoner of my beliefs, but you seem to be. You seem trapped inside a perception, one that is flawed and incomplete based on some misguided information you've received about women and Islam. I am a woman, and I practice Islam, so I think I know more about these things that you ever could. Fire away (I always liked Pat Benatar. Her name, by the way, is arabic in origin "bin/bint" Atar). What does "Schatan" mean?
Now, back to today, the fruit of yesterday, and the promise of tomorrow. What do you want to discuss about Islam? Be clear and concise, again, and we will proceed. I'm waiting.From: "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:18:42 -0800
To: "AMWA Information" <info@amwanet.org>
Subject: RE: I AM MYSTIFIED BY YOUR APATHY
--- "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net> wrote:
Greetings Brenda Aqila, Nice of you to abandon all that bombastic verbiage in this conversation. I appreciate it.We can now deal with life as it is, not 1,200 or 1,400 years ago.
Why do you seem so Anti-American, first of all? America is a Christian based society. It was founded by America's founding fathers to establish that the rights of man are given by God. This essential part of our society implies that man cannot grant nor take away those rights. That is the basis of our Freedom.
You repeatedly have made statements rejecting as hypocrites those of the Christian faiths. In addition you've sent me missives containing inflamatory atheist governments abusing Jews.
Your Freedom is a gift of the Christian culture.
I am puzzled.
Bob
Now, I'm puzzled. Isn't that the perfect example of a "hypocrite"? Someone that says they believe in one thing, but doesn't practice what they claim to believe?
Lastly, I've spent copious amounts of time trying to see eye-to-eye with you and establish dialogue.This time could have been more rewardingly spent with other jewish people sincere about peace and sincere about brotherhood.
If you really don't want to discuss Islam and its theological principles, I don't believe we have any basis upon which to continue.
You still have not explained what your name means which is also puzzling to me. I begin to seriously suspect your motives.
Let's get to the point, or let's not continue to waste each others time.
Regards.--- "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net> wrote:
From: "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2005 00:51:53 -0800
To: "AMWA Information" <info@amwanet.org>
Subject: RE: I AM MYSTIFIED BY YOUR APATHY
Greetings Brenda Aqila,Here's wishing you a Happy Gregorian New Year.
From what I read your Moslem Lunar based New Year started about 11 days ago. And it seems the Jews have a couple of New Years to figure out. And then you have to add leap months.
It all becomes very complicated based on when the roads were dry enough to get to the lambs and kill some for dinner. Or when the flying fish became available to the ancient Taiwan fishermen. Interesting to read about.
But it becomes even more interesting because they all seem to go to great lengths to adapt themselves to the Gregorian calendar which seems to be just a few hundred years old.
Anyway, Happy New Year to you and yours. May it bring you health and happiness.
Bob
Well, thank you, Bob,
And Happy Gregorian New Year to you, too, and your family, also. My hope for 2005 is for greater understanding.. to bridge the ethnic and cultural divides that separate us and create enmity. That is my true wish.
By the way, our new year doesn't start until February 10. Here's a link to a site that has the islamic calendar ( http://www.moonsighting.com/2005.html ) Muharram is the first month of the islamic year and it's scheduled to begin February 10th.
It's easy to keep track of the end of the islamic year, even on a lunar schedule and without a calendar, because it comes right after the month of the Hajj. There are 12 months, too, on the lunar calendar (the jewish calendar is also lunar, though they do have certain holidays on fixed days). Remember, Ramadan is the 9th month (it's the month when the qur'an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad, and is called the month of the "burning".. the fasting). Ramadan lasted 29 days and ended November 13. Shawwal came after Ramadan (10th month), and we are now in the 11th month of Zhul Qiddah. The last month is Zhul Hijjah (month of the hajj).
Anways, here's an article I read today in the Christian Science Monitor that I thought I'd pass on to you about why some American women convert to Islam. I does a really good job of explaining the "why", as well as the difficulties faced by these women. My family is still christian, though their islamic heritage goes back hundreds of years, so I identify greatly with the difficulties these women face. I remember the years of struggling with my family at holiday times not to season the food with pork, and eventually having to just selectively not feed certain dishes to my children, since they held such low regard for my religious beliefs. Things are better now, and they are a lot more tolerant.
Regards.
http://search.csmonitor.com/search_content/1227/p11s02-ussc.html
US Latinas seek answers in Islam
It surprises many of their friends and family, but some young US Latinas say Islam offers women more respect.
| Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
UNION CITY, N.J. – Jasmine Pinet sits on the steps outside a mosque here, tucking in strands of her burgundy hair beneath a white head scarf, and explaining why she, a young Latina, feels that she has found greater respect as a woman by converting to Islam."They're not gonna say, 'Hey mami, how are you?' " Ms. Pinet says of Muslim men. "Usually they say, 'Hello, sister.' And they don't look at you like a sex object."
While some Latinas her age try to emulate the tight clothes and wiggling hips of stars like Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera, Ms. Pinet and others are adopting a more conservative lifestyle and converting to Islam. At this Union City, N.J., mosque, women account for more than half of the Latino Muslims who attend services here. Nationwide, there are about 40,000 Latino Muslims in the United States, according to the Islamic Society of North America.
Many of the Latina converts say that their belief that women are treated better in Islam was a significant factor in converting. Critics may protest that wearing the veil marks a woman as property, but some Latina converts say they welcome the fact that they are no longer whistled at walking down a street. "People have an innate response that I'm a religious person, and they give [me] more respect," says Jenny Yanez, another Latina Muslim. "You're not judged if you're in fashion or out of fashion."
Other Latina Muslims say they also like the religion's emphasis on fidelity to one's spouse and family.
But for many family members and friends, these conversions come as a surprise - often an unwelcome one. They may know little of Islam other than what they have heard of the Taliban and other extremist groups.
That creates an inaccurate image, insists Leila Ahmed, a professor of women's studies and religion at Harvard University. "It astounds me, the extent to which people think Afghanistan and the Taliban represent women and Islam." What's really going on, she says, is a reshaping of the relationship between women and Islam. "We're in the early stages of a major rethinking of Islam that will open Islam for women. [Muslim scholars] are rereading the core texts of Islam - from the Koran to legal texts - in every possible way."
New views of women and Islam may be more prevalent in countries like the US, where women read the Koran themselves and rely less on patriarchal interpretations.
"I think the women here are asserting more their rights and their privileges," says Zahid Bukhari, director of the American-Muslim Studies Program at George- town University. "
Some Latina Muslims say they harbored stereotypes about Muslim women before deciding to convert, but changed their minds once becoming close friends with a Muslim.
"I always thought, geez, I feel sorry for women who have to wear those veils," says Pinet. Then she met her Muslim boyfriend and began studying the Koran with a group of Muslim women. She says she was impressed with the respect they received.
"A women is respected because she is the mother, she takes care of the children, and she's the one that enforces the rules," Pinet says. "They're the ones who are sacred."
Critics of the decisions of Latinas to convert to Islam say they are adopting a religion just as patriarchical as the Roman Catholic faith that many are leaving behind.
"While it's true the Latino culture tends to be more male-dominated, and there's a tendency toward more machismo, I would venture to say it exists [in Islam] as well," says Edwin Hernandez, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Religion at the University of Notre Dame.
Latinos account for six percent of the 20,000 Muslim conversions in the United States each year, according to a report published by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Anecdotal evidence suggests this number may be rising. But that doesn't mean it's getting any easier for the women who make this choice.
"At first it was anger and then more like sadness," Nylka Vargas says of her parents' reaction when she told them she was converting to Islam and began dressing more conservatively. "They would sometimes feel strange being around me."
Pinet's family has been more accepting, but she too has encountered some resistance in her community. It's as if you've betrayed your own kind," she says.
For some, the cultural differences are the most trying.
"I can't eat pork, I can't wear [form- fitting] clothing, I can't dance in the clubs, I'm not gonna attend church," says Ms. Yanez, who is of Cuban and Spanish descent. "But I keep my language, and there's still things that we do as Latinos that they don't have to change."
Within the Islamic community, Latina Muslims report being warmly received, although language barriers sometimes exist for Latinas who only speak Spanish. There are few Spanish services at mosques and a limited number of Islamic texts in Spanish.
Grassroots organizations specifically for Latino Muslims have been created in recent years. They function in part as an informational resource for new converts and but also as a support group for those who encounter difficulties at home.
Ultimately, Latina Muslims say that time heals the divisions and angst their conversion sometimes causes among friends and family.
"What I had to learn was patience," says Vargas, whose family came to accept her religious beliefs after several years. "Sometimes things are not as we want them."
--- "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net> wrote:
From: "Bob Schatan" <papillonart@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2005 17:58:30 -0800
To: "AMWA Information" <info@amwanet.org>
Subject: RE: Happy Julian New Year
Greetings Brenda Aqila,You're welcome. And I do wish you the best sincerely despite our differences of opinion. The world would be very boring without arguementative individuals. Nobody would progress below the simplicities of knowledge without such spirited discussions.
In a previous note you mentioned your frustration that the discussion seems to be going nowhere. That is not the case actually.
We are just now at a point where substantive discussions can begin without so much of the initial angry dogmatism that infused our earlier communications. Your writing has improved as well.
Islam's history has been the primary historical interest of Professor Stanford Shaw PhD, Distinguished History Professor, UCLA. He is considered one of the world authorities of the Ottoman Empire. He is one of my uncles and also taught at Princeton. He has a lot to say about Christian persecution of Jews in the region of Turkey during the 15th century. They were protected by the Moslem Sultans of the period who encouraged Jews to emigrate from Spain and Northern Europe to settle in the Ottoman Empire, set up businesses and help the economy of the region. There is an interesting forum about the Jews of Turkey which he contributed to: http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/jews-of-turkey.htm
What is interesting about this time was that the Moslem empire's leaders realized how important the Jews were to them and protected them from the Christians during the Crusades. The only other time in history where the Jews were allowed to live in peace and prosper with the protection of a larger society is here in the United States.
My how times have changed. Uncle Stanford was teaching at UCLA while I was a student there and working as a Registered Nurse in the Med Center. Some radical students in his class disagreed with his teaching but couldn't find a way to get him fired or shut him up. They found out where he lived and planted a bomb next to his front door while he was at school. My aunt Ezel was home and their daughter, a second cousin of mine, was sleeping in a bedroom with the windows next to the front door of their suburban home. The bomb exploded about 2 in the afternoon and blew in all the windows throwing glass on my cousin and badly damaging their front door. Bomb investigators tracked it but the attackers weren't caught but left a note promising more of the same if he kept teaching what his research led him to. He packed up his family and taught at Princeton until he returned a few years ago.
These days the Christian community is protecting the the Jews and they are being attacked by Moslems.
You have to understand that these events would color the thinking of any person interested in self preservation.
Islam in my lifetime is a subject of discussion and interest because it is the exact opposite of the situation that exists in Turkey.
Incidentally, last year in Turkey Moslem terrorists broke into a Temple during services and machine gunned 21 Jews to death and injured scores more. What is interesting were the comments by the survivors. They related that the Moslems were speaking Arabic, not Turkish, as they committed mass murder. The Jews don't blame the Turkish nation at all and the Turkish authorities are going to all means possible to protect their Jewish community. Celebrations are being planned for a 500 year recognition of the government and people of Turkey living in harmony with their Jewish minority.
Another bit of interest to you. http://forums.gawaher.com/lofiversion/index.php/t4371.html is a Islamic forum that points out that See's Candy uses Pork Gelatin in it's manufacture.
Most interesting,
Bob
Thanks for those historical tidbits, Bob, as it helps me better understand your perspective. Nonetheless, this does not justify in any way your wholesale hatred of Islam and muslims, anymore than it justifies the hating all southern whites because of the racists terrorism they perpetrated against non-whites for centuries. It simply doesn't wash, and it though I'm sympathetic to these bad experiences you have had, the same could be said about muslims who have sufferend brutally because of jewish zionism, or anti-muslim religious zealotry. Again, it simply doesn't wash.
Your age is another illusive point. In looking at your picture at the web site, you appear to be a man in his late 50's, which would put your academic years in the early 70's, Yet, events you reference and described place your academic years to be in the 80's or some later period. This is somewhat puzzling.
History is to a large degree interpretative. The researcher will most surely find whatever he is seeking based on his agenda, or at best, be able to paint it with his own subjective brush. For instance, to say that at least 6 million jews died in the jewish holocaust is a historical fact; however, to examine the causes behind this event reveals various reasons.
In your last email, you indicated you did not want to discuss history, but wanted to keep the discusson relavent to today's events, yet this discussion seems to be leaning more toward history (i.e. the Ottomon Empire). Keep in mind also that a similar frame of reference regarding the violent nature of religion(s) could be formed about christianity, judaism or any religion based on its bloody past, so I don't see much merit in engaging in historical tit for tat (Moses ordered the genocide of the Canaanites and descendents of the 7 Nations for all time.. that really warms my cockles).
Let's look at those aspects of the islamic belief that you disagree with. There's little I can do to address history.
Regards.Greetings again Brenda Aqila,
It is unusual for me to answer e-mails twice in a day but there is an article that I just came across that you might be interested in from Human Events. It's source URL is: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?print=yes&id=6165
Goodnight again,
Bob
Media Ignore Abuses of Women in Islam
by Robert Spencer
Posted Dec 30, 2004The Christian Science Monitor this week introduces us to an American Latina, Jasmine Pinet, who "has found greater respect as a woman by converting to Islam." Ms. Pinet praises Muslim men for their respect for women: "They're not gonna say, 'Hey mami, how are you?' Usually they say, 'Hello, sister.' And they don't look at you like a sex object." The Monitor reports that there are 40,000 Latin American Muslims in the United States today, and that "many of the Latina converts say that their belief that women are treated better in Islam was a significant factor in converting."
For readers who might find this surprising -- given the burqa, polygamy, the prohibition of women drivers in Saudi Arabia, and other elements of the Islamic record on women that are well known in the West -- the Monitor quotes Leila Ahmed, professor of women's studies and religion at Harvard: "It astounds me, the extent to which people think Afghanistan and the Taliban represent women and Islam." Ahmed says that "we're in the early stages of a major rethinking of Islam that will open Islam for women. [Muslim scholars] are rereading the core texts of Islam -- from the Koran to legal texts -- in every possible way."
But did the Taliban really originate the features of Islam that discriminate against women? Will a "rereading" of the Qur'an and other core texts of Islam really help "open Islam for women"? These are some of the texts that will have to be "reread":
1. The Qur'an likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: "Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will" (2:223);
2. It declares that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man: "Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her" (2:282);
3. It allows men to marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls also: "If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice" (4:3);
4. It rules that a son's inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: "Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children's (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females" (4:11);
5. It tells husbands to beat their disobedient wives: "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them" (4:34).
It will take some creative rereading to blunt the force of these and other Qur'anic passages that mandate second-class status for women and consign all too many women in the Islamic world to the status of mere possessions of their husbands. That last verse has particularly troubling implications. The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences has determined that over nine out of ten Pakistani wives have been struck, beaten, or abused sexually -- for offenses on the order of cooking an unsatisfactory meal. Others were punished for failing to give birth to a male child.
It's unlikely that the Latina women interviewed by the Monitor are unaware of such elements of Islam. The Monitor tells us that before her conversion, Pinet "began studying the Koran with a group of Muslim women." Why, then, didn't the Monitor ask her and the others what they thought of the above verses of the Qur'an? The longer such verses go unquestioned, the longer they will continue to be instruments of oppression for women. The Monitor could have done Muslim women a service by bringing these matters to light, thereby initiating a dialogue about women's rights in Islam -- with the potential to affect salutary change for women who suffer under the constraints of Qur'anic literalism.
But instead, not unexpectedly, the Monitor chose the easy -- and PC -- way out.Copyright © 2004 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
It's now January 8, 2005 and I haven't gotten another e-mail from Brenda Aqila since I sent her the article above that answered her article that she sent me.
If she replies I'll answer and continue the thread. Otherwise it's my assertion that the questions raised in the last article were too much of an affront to her mindset for her to maintain her posture of superiority to the Christian and other cultures.
