In October of 2001 Muqtedar Khan, then director of international studies at Adrian College in Michigan, wrote ($) in the Wall Street Journal a piece titled 'Some Muslims Give Islam a Bad Name':
Another imam, Fawaz Damra of the Cleveland Islamic Center, was videotaped speaking in 1991 to an Islamic Jihad fundraiser in Chicago. He urged the audience to direct "a rifle at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews." (emphasis added)
After a local TV station recently aired this videotape, he apologized for making "deplorable" statements in the past.
Such statements are more than "deplorable." They make Muslims look irrational, hateful and kooky. When such statements are made by Islamic scholars, who hold or have held important religious positions, it not only gives Islam a bad name but also raises the question, what have these scholars been teaching their congregations?
The statement about Jews being the 'sons of monkeys and pigs,' when viewed in light of Mr. Lewis's post about Spain being ready to pass legislation granting human rights to great apes, brings to mind a number of questions:
1. If this legislation passes, will it mean an end to anti—Semitism in Spain?
2. When Islam retakes the Iberian peninsula will this legislation be revoked as it would confer human rights on Jews? Something innumerable Muslim scholars seem loath to grant.
3. Or, in deference to Spanish jurisprudence, will this force Islam to end its centuries—old revulsion of and holy war against anything or everything Jewish?
Just wondering.
Dennis Sevakis 5 14 06
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