Muslims Stoning Christians in Michigan? Not quite… (Updated)

Earlier this year, I wrote a excruciatingly detailed feature article describing how Wretched TV had deceptively edited footage of some Christian street preachers at the Arabfest in Dearborn, Michigan, in order to portray the Muslims in attendance as violent, bloodthirsty foreigners. I pointed out that the “Christian” preachers were led by Ruban Israel, a notorious street preacher (who was and is not supported by or connected to Wretched TV) who went to the festival specifically to agitate and incite the Muslims. If you look at unedited footage of the event, it’s clear that the “Christians” were inciting Muslims to hate, which, of course, never justifies violence, but it does explain why it happens.

I bring this up because it’s happened again. Ruben Israel returned this year to the Arab Festival and once again incited the festival goers to scream and yell and throw trash. Although Wretched TV did not report the story this year, it was picked up by The Blaze, American Vision, American Thinker, FrontPage Magazine, and other, smaller conservative websites.

Each of these reports has included and cited a YouTube video edited by The United West, a group “dedicated to defending and advancing Western Civilization against the kinetic and cultural onslaught of Shariah Islam.” Good journalism would demand that these sites check their source and consider possible biases, but, for whatever reason, these conservative news sites report on the event as if the video was an accurate representation of what occurred. But it was not. Not at all. Here’s United West’s video:

I wish I had the time and energy to point out every deceptive edit in this video and all the manipulative ways in which this event was reported on, but I don’t. So here’s a short list, and if you’re interested in seeing more, watch the unedited, hour long YouTube video of the incident. Watch carefully. It looks a lot different if you’re paying attention.

FULL ARTICLE (WITH VIDEO) FROM PATHEOS 

Why I Call Myself an ‘Atheist Muslim’

Last week, I had an essay up on HuffPost entitled “An Atheist Muslim’s Perspective on the ‘Root Causes’ of Islamist Jihadism and the Politics of Islamophobia.”

One of the goals of the piece was to emphasize the difference between the criticism of Islam and anti-Muslim bigotry: the first targets an ideology, and the second targets human beings. This is obviously a very significant difference, yet both are frequently lumped under the unfortunate umbrella term, “Islamophobia.”

I highlighted this distinction by describing myself as an “atheist Muslim,” which drew the single most commonly asked question about the piece by both atheist and Muslim readers: “How can you be an atheist and a Muslim at the same time? Isn’t that contradictory?”

Let me explain.

One of the central themes of the essay was that all religious people are selective in their religiosity. This cherry-picking is almost universal, and even inevitable considering the frequency with which contradictions appear in religious texts.

If this selectivity allows people to disregard some of the teachings of their faith, such as the orders to publicly execute non-virginal brides and homosexuals, or behead and mutilate disbelievers, it may not be a bad thing, for obvious reasons — even if it appears intellectually dishonest.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST 

Muslims of America, Christian Action Network square off in NY libel suit over book on terror

ALBANY, N.Y. — A Muslim group is accusing a Christian organization of defamation for publishing a book that accuses the Muslim collective of holding terrorist training in its enclaves.

The Christian Action Network refuses to back down, challenging Muslims of America Inc. to prove the allegations wrong in an upstate New York court.

The Muslim group has a community in Hancock, near Binghamton, N.Y., and others around the U.S. It calls the network’s accusations deliberate and damaging lies.

Attorney Tahirah Amatul-Wadud said the Muslim group is seeking retractions and $18 million in damages, and a halt to further publication of network founder Martin Mawyer’s 2012 book, “Twilight in America: the Untold Story of Terrorist Training Camps Inside America.”

The group’s residential communities are peaceful, Amatul-Wadud said.

“The property upstate has farms; it has gardens; it has buildings for work; it has little stores,” she said. “It’s a community of families and of individuals who are just trying to get by day to day.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE WASHINGTON POST 

Imam: Holocaust denial cannot be Islamic cause

Eight days after Iran held a two-day conference denying the Nazi Holocaust, Washington-area Muslim leaders gathered at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to honor the memory of Jews murdered during the Shoah.

Standing before the eternal flame in the D.C. museum’s Hall of Remembrance, they lit candles to remember Jewish suffering.

Muslims “have to learn from the lessons of history and to commit ourselves, never again,” said Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) in Sterling.

Joining him were American University professor Akbar Ahmed, who helped arrange the visit on Wednesday of last week, museum director Sara Bloomfield, three Holocaust survivors, ADAMS president Rizwan Jaka and representatives from the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Arab American Institute.

Magid, whose father had been a mufti of Sudan, had heard about the Teheran conference on his car radio. He wanted to go beyond condemning the event by organizing a delegation of Muslim leaders to declare their solidarity with Jewish victims.

“No Muslim anywhere has the right to turn Holocaust denial into an Islamic cause,” the Sudanese native said. “I applaud the Jewish community for making sure humanity never forgets how the Nazis murdered Jews, gypsies and disabled people, including more than 1 million children. They set an example for the rest of us on how to make people more aware of horrors like the genocide in Rwanda and slavery.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM WASHINGTON JEWISH WEEK

Iowa Town Named for Muslim Hero Extols Tolerance

ELKADER, Iowa — Amid an expanse of undulating farmland, deep in the steep valley carved by the Turkey River, the town of Elkader sits most of the year in remote obscurity. Population 1,200 and gradually shrinking, it is the seat of a county without a single traffic light.

Improbably enough, this community settled by Germans and Scandinavians, its religious life built around Catholic and Lutheran churches, bears the name of a Muslim hero. Abd el-Kader was renowned in the 19th century for leading Algeria’s fight for independence and protecting non-Muslims from persecution. Even Abraham Lincoln extolled him.

This weekend, for the fifth year in a row, Elkader will welcome a delegation of Arab dignitaries to celebrate this rare lifeline of tolerance, spanning continents and centuries. Coming less than three weeks after the Boston Marathon bombings, which the authorities say were committed by two Muslim brothers, the Abdelkader Education Project’s forum stands more than ever for an affirming encounter between the United States and Islam.

“Our audience is the people who are compassionate already,” said Kathy Garms, 63, a retired human-resources administrator who is the driving force in the Abdelkader project. “But there are so many people who are ignorant or scared or even hateful. We just hope that once they get across the starting line, they will listen.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

Muslim, Christian, Jewish Chefs Cook for Peace in Jerusalem

A group of Muslim, Jewish and Christian chefs from Chefs for Peace, along with American celebrity chef Art Smith, gathered on April 28 in Jerusalem to cook vegetarian dishes for a group of 60 guests, including US diplomats and alumni and students from various universities in the United States.

The ceremony took place in one of the best-known restaurants in Jerusalem, Eucalyptus, owned by award-winning chef Moshe Bassam, who is known for including ingredients mentioned in the Bible in his dishes and for his love of the history behind foods. “Moshe is a living treasure of Israel,” said Smith. “We went to the countryside to pick up wild thyme, asparagus and wild mushrooms [before the event].”

Bassam is not the only person who takes pride in using homegrown herbs and vegetables. “I brought grapes from the [US] South to use in my dish during the weekend,” said Smith.

Each of the five chefs — four from Chefs for Peace plus Smith — prepared their dishes in front their guests. Smith’s dish, not surprisingly, was made of wild mushrooms, grapes and local herbs. Johnny Goric, another chef and the organizer of the event, made a Mediterranean lentil salad.

FULL ARTICLE FROM AL MONITOR

Most Muslims deplore violence. Most think homosexuality is wrong. They sound like Christians

The overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world reject violence.They also hold socially conservative views: 90 per cent think homosexuality is wrong, 84 per cent believe sex outside of marriage is a sin, and 77 per cent think abortion is wrong. Yes, the latest Pew Research could be shrunk to a soundbite: Muslims sound like conservative Christians.

It’s an enlightening survey –  showing just how varied, because widespread, Islam is. Look at the attitudes to polygamy: five per cent of Nigerians think it wrong while 85 per cent of those living in Bosnia-Herzegovina do. Again, more than 70 per cent of Saudis believe an apostate (someone who leaves their Muslim faith) should be executed while only 13 per cent of those in southeastern Europe do.

Talk of “Muslim” attitudes is tricky: a Muslim living in Beirut will have little in common with the mindset of the Muslim in Jedda. Similarly, a Muslim in Mali may harbour exactly the same hostility to gays as a Christian in Memphis. Every faith (and atheism is no exception) has its dark but deep-rooted prejudices – even in “tolerant” Britain. Mehdi Hasan has written about anti-Semitism among Muslims, while Baroness Warsi spoke out about Islamophobia at dinner parties among the bien-pensants. And we all know what secularists think of Christians.

More recently, in an address to the Board of Deputies a fortnight ago, Lady Warsi challenged the Muslim and Jewish communities to face their “wild” stereotypes about one another. Muslims should stop resenting Jewish success. Jews should stop suspecting that every statement against Israel masks an anti-Semitic attack. “To say so, would be like saying that any criticism of the politics of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was anti-Muslim.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK)

Questioning God from a Christian and Muslim perspective

Not long ago Jesse Watters, a correspondent for the Fox News show The O’Reilly Factor, interviewed Spring breakers to expose the “left wing professors and dopey kids spouting left-wing slogans” that infest college campuses. Getting special attention was The University of Akron senior lecturer Christine Wainwright.

Wainwright teaches a class about the major religions in India. A Spring breaker accused her of trying to “convert the entire class to the Muslim religion” and of claiming that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

Even O’Reilly seemed not to give much credence to the mass conversion claim, but he and Watters agreed they needed to dig into this to determine whether a college professor is really claiming that the Christian God and the Muslim God are the same God. O’Reilly quipped that if the claim is true “Allah is going to be offended.”

If they actually do the follow-up they will find out that Wainwright teaches that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. That’s because Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

That is to say both worship the God that (depending on your perspective) was recognized by or revealed to the Israelites as recounted in the Hebrew Bible (which Christians call the Old Testament – ecumenism requires lots of parentheticals.)

Judaism, and its two offspring Christianity and Islam, all embraced firm monotheism at a time when most nations and tribes were polytheistic. Mohammed lived on the Arabian Peninsula among polytheistic tribes and believed his revelation, which became the Qur’an, came from the God of Jews and Christians.

Islam stands in a similar relation to Judaism as Christianity does – a belief in a particular, identified God, coupled with a belief in a new revelation that the parent faith does not necessarily accept as authentic. Muslims and Christians differ, but they differ in their beliefs regarding the nature of the God they each believe in.

Allah is simply the Arabic word for “God,” not a new name for God or a designation of a new God. Muslims don’t really say “there is no God but Allah, they say there is no God but God or no Allah but Allah.

So before we get too kumbaya, let us acknowledge that there are real problems with how Islam is practiced today. We in the West broadly describe that problem as the relationship between the faith and people flying airplanes into buildings.

People can have good faith disagreements about the exact relationship between those two things. But pretending that Islam is a religion wholly alien and different from Christianity is not a good faith disagreement. It is demonstrably wrong and carries with it the unspoken and bad faith corollary that intolerance is so deeply woven into the DNA of Islam that Muslims cannot coexist with nonbelievers.

FULL ARTICLE FROM DAILY LEGAL NEWS 

Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Atheist: Who is Most Likely to Help a Brother Out?

As advertising legend has it, David Ogilvy was on his way to the office one day when a blind homeless person asked him for money. Ogilvy rebuffed him on the money, but he did dispense some ad wisdom perhaps worth more than whatever he had in his wallet. He changed the man’s sign from, “I’m blind, please give me money” to “It is spring and I am blind,” thus changing the conversation. Now, a homeless man seems to have absorbed a similar lesson, presumably without help from any modern-day Don Drapers.

A redditor recently posted an image of a homeless man squatting among his few belongings. Spread out in front of him are nine separate containers, each with signs in front of them declaring a faith, while the man holds up a larger sign that reads, “Which religion cares most about the homeless?” Rather than simply asking for money, this homeless man turned street-level charity into a religious competition, in the form of a theological question. Now, that’s changing the conversation.

 FULL ARTICLE FROM FAST CO-CREATE

Egyptian Activists: Our Religion Is None Of Your Business

Since Egypt’s revolution began, tensions among Egypt’s Muslims and Christians have only increased. Earlier this month, it once again turned deadly. Tit-for-tat killings left three Muslims and at least six Christians dead.

That and other religious violence is prompting a public debate about religious identity in Egypt. One group of young Egyptians wants to remove religious labels from national ID cards.

‘Where The Trouble Starts’

Aalam Wassef, one of those advocates, will gladly tell you he’s a video artist, a musician and a publisher. When it comes to his religion, though, he says it’s none of your business.

That’s the motto of his new campaign, too. Wassef, along with two other Egyptians, is calling on others to cover up their religion on their national ID card and start identifying as human first. They’re spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

One of their videos plays images of a particularly bloody day for Christians last year, when the military — in power at the time — drove over Christian protesters, and state television called on “honorable” Muslims to come out and defend the troops from the Christians. Twenty-seven people were dead by the end of that day.

The lyrics sung to these images are just as chilling: “The racist republic of Egypt, the sectarian republic of Egypt. It’s ingrained on your ID, and this is where the trouble starts.”

“Egypt has a long history of sectarian violence and sectarian issues, which have always been covered up with this narrative of national unity,” Wassef says. “And so it’s a big lie, actually, because there’s a lot of embedded discrimination in the society.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM NPR