Atlas Burns

An account of the hatred that is burning the globe

The last few decades have seen rising mercury levels around the world. I am not talking about global warming here. I am talking about the proverbial hate-o-meter. The events of the past month re-affirm this fact. Career Islamophobes have been relentlessly trying to spread hate against Islam. And why wouldn’t they? Inflation is a world-wide phenomenon now and they must make their ends meet by whipping up frenzy and cashing in on it. Money only keeps coming if emotions are high in their line of work. And the bad boys have done it again! This time it is a hilarious movie, titled ‘Innocence of Muslims’, which is going to be their money spinner. At the forefront of these events is the shady character, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, producer of the inaccurate and hopelessly tasteless film. The protests and killings in the Muslim world have given him recognition overnight.

I fail to understand the logic behind all the violence that has engulfed the Muslim world. Nakoula certainly is not the first person to express anti-Muslim ideas. He is just one link in a long chain. And the contents of the movie are nowhere nearly as blasphemous as the comments you find on sites like YouTube. If people want to take up arms over every expression made by misguided individuals, why not start protests for every comment on YouTube or for every post made on anti-Muslim sites? The answer is simple: there are way too many comments and posts on the Internet to merit protests of such scale.

The question that arises here is how do people decide what merits a protest? Is there any criteria or a scale that shows a threshold which, when exceeded, calls for a protest? The answer is NO. A majority of today’s Muslims are nothing but emotional puppets following their own ideologies based on their interpretation of the Word. They do not care what Islam teaches nor do they have the drive to introspect. They are driven by emotion while Islam teaches just the opposite: to control your emotions. And because of their actions, we have our lunatic Islamophobe buddies taking full advantage of such unfortunate (read Libya-like) events!

Islam is not an emotional religion. Being a Muslim, you don’t do something because you ‘feel’ like doing it. You do not worship God because you feel like worshipping Him. You worship because you are commanded by God to worship Him and Him alone. Muslims seem to have forgotten this today. The only thing that drives them is emotion and not a sense of submission to the Almighty. They look up to misguided idealists to lead them and forget that the ideal person to follow is Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) himself! Was the unfortunate incident in Libya inspired by the Prophet’s (pbuh) Hadith? Is it inspired by the Qur’an? Is there any verse or tradition of the Prophet (pbuh) which calls for the killing of innocent human beings? Well, some people (Islamophobes) would say yes to all these questions, but the fact that I am asking them means the answer is an emphatic no. These are the kind of unfortunate incidents that spawn many Nakoulas and inspire Islamophobes and their followers.

Coming to the other side of the story, Islamophobes will be delighted with these events. Muslims did exactly what they were expected to do! This has given Islamophobes the pretext to plan more such antics. For starters, more movies are planned which will, not surprisingly, be heavily biased against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). I do not blame the Islamophobes for this. After all, it is all they have as a source of income. Verses taken out of context guarantee their books sell. No, I do not blame them. Nor do I harbor hatred towards them. In fact, I quite enjoy seeing their ignorance translate into articles on their blogs and websites. They claim to be experts on the Qur’an and the Hadith and dish out such crap in their books and blogs. No wonder they have a reputation of being loons!

Among all the Islamophobes out there, a few frequently catch my attention with their comments on Islam. I have listed a few of them below with some of their choicest comments. I advise you to sit back and enjoy their rants against Islam and Muslims. And don’t forget to have a popcorn tub next to you!

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1.      Pamela Geller: A woman who calls herself ‘The Voice of Reason’

Leading the pack of Islamophobes is this Jewish woman from United States who claims to be the voice of reason. Of course if we agree to that, we will have to agree to all her ravings which include the theory that U.S. President Barack Obama is the lovechild of Malcolm X! Her blog is named Atlas Shrugs. This blog is at the forefront of spreading hatred against Islam. Here are some of her (in)famous comments.

“This is an insult. This is demeaning. This is humiliating that you would build a shrine to the very ideology that inspired the attacks of 9/11. “ 

“As a Jew, I am offended to my core. Muslims have no right to invoke Moses and Abraham. This is a delegitimization of Judaism. It is offensive and vile. And while Jesus is not my guy, the same thing goes for him. It is a delegitimization of Christianity. These are not Muslim prophets. If people want to convert to Islam, goodbye Charlie. But leave my shiz alone. Vultures.”

“…3. Totalitarian symbols such as nazi swastikas, communist hammer and sickles, Islamic star and crescent, UNLESS CLEARLY CROSSED OUT OR DEFACED WITH A STOP SIGN” (sic)

“Nazis adopted the Muslim idea of Jihad – total destruction and complete annihilation in the spirit of a Holy War.”

“And I pray dearly that in the ungodly event that Tehran or its jihadi proxies (Hez’ballah, Hamas etc) target Israel with a nuke, that she retaliate with everything she has at Tehran, Mecca, and Medina.”

“All Muslim Chaplains are Jihadists.”

“Stop the Islamisation of Europe held a rally protest in what can only be described as an Islamic fortress in the heart of Harrow. I strongly urged Jews to attend. Islamic anti-semitism is more poisonous, more dangerous than even Nazism was to the Jews. This promise of Jewish genocide is made “sacred” by Islamic texts.”

“As the leading role the Islamic world played in the Holocaust comes out of the shadows and into the fore, and decent peoples recoil in the repulsion, it is necessary for Islamic media, 'scholars' and asshats-in-residence to rewrite history – as Islam has done so exceedingly and singularly well all throughout history.”

“Not to mention Europe. They exterminated all their Jews, but that wasn’t enough. Those monsters then went on to import the next generation of Jew killers. (This New Hatred Comes from Muslim Immigrants. The Jewish People are Afraid Now)”

2.      Debbie Schlussel: A woman who fights against Nazis and Muslims, who, she thinks, were perpetrators of the Holocaust.

Here is a Jewish woman who is an American attorney, film critic, political commentator, blogger and who thinks Hitler was inspired by the Qur’an! Her writing frequently targets the largely Muslim population of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, which she refers to as 'Dearbornistan'.

“Rot in Hell, Osama Bin Laden. One down, 1.8 billion to go… many of ‘em inside U.S. borders, with the U.S. government at all levels kissing their asses.”

“Get ready to bend over for tens of thousands, possibly tens of millions, of new, mostly Muslim ANOs (Americans in Name Only) (pronounced, ‘Anus’).”

“Romney said that the way he’d stop Islamic extremism and regain Middle East respect for America was by giving Muslims 'more liberty' and 'the dignity of work.' Is this putz for real?! Sadly, yes.”

“This moron (Mitt Romney, Republican Presidential candidate, U.S.) actually still believes the crap we heard since 9/11 about how Muslims are extremists, not because of their hateful, extremist religion, but because they don’t have jobs????”

“The Muslim world is laughing at us that we think this (Osama Bin Laden’s killing) is a big deal, that this will do anything to change the lethal threat Islam and Muslims pose to the West.”

“There is tremendous racism against Black people in the Islamic world, which is why they continue to slaughter Blacks in Sudan. First, the Sudanese Arab Muslims raped, tortured, and slaughtered the Black Christians, and then–when there were almost no Christians left, they began to rape, torture, and slaughter the Black Muslims of Sudan.”

“I guarantee you the many American victims of aliens–specifically the largely third-world, mostly Muslim aliens–who eventually come here, take their jobs, honor kill people, etc. have shed far more than 22,000 tears.”

“It’s Official: No Matter Who Wins Prez Election, Illegal Aliens, Muslims Win”

3.      Robert Spencer: A (Pseudo) Islamic scholar and expert on Islam (with no credentials whatsoever to back his claims)

A Roman Catholic with a Greco-Turkish descent, this self-proclaimed (pseudo) Islamic scholar and expert on Islam(ophobia) is an American author and blogger. He thinks it is fun to be “deliberately combative and provocative.” His blog is named Jihad Watch to keep a tab on ‘Jihadists’ (terrorists, in his dictionary) who, if you believe him, are around 1.7 billion in number.

 “[My work is] dedicated to identifying the causes of jihad terrorism, which of course lead straight back into the Islamic texts. I have therefore called for reform of those texts...”

“The radicals actually do have a stronger theoretical, theological, and legal basis within Islam for what they believe than the moderates do.”

“Stop insisting that Islam is a religion of peace. This is false and falsehoods are never productive.”

“According to Umar, Hafsa, one of Muhammad's wives, had been angering the Prophet by talking back to him. So when Umar learned that Muhammad had divorced all his wives, he was not surprised; he exclaimed: ‘Hafsa is a ruined loser! I expected that would happen some day.’”

Some people can describe him better than me:

"Spencer's readers are carefully steered away from all contact with the Islamic interpretative tradition, which equals or exceeds that of any other religion, because any scholarly knowledge about Islam would expose all his extremist interpretations to ridicule."

- Robert Crane (Ex-Nixon Aide, author)

“The publications of Spencer belong to the class of Islamophobic extremism that is promoted and supported by right-wing organizations, who are perpetuating a type of bigotry similar to anti-Semitism and racial prejudice. They are to be viewed with great suspicion by anyone who wishes to find reliable and scholarly information on the subject of Islam.”

"[Robert Spencer] has no academic training in Islamic studies whatsoever; his M.A. degree was in the field of early Christianity"

- Carl Ernst (Islamic Scholar UNC)

“When it comes to Robert Spencer, scholars of Islamic studies outright dismiss him and his body of work. They call him an unreliable ideologue at best and a divisive bigot at worst.”

- Michael Kruse (Writer St. Petersburg Times)

“Robert Spencer is an extremist, right-wing anti-Muslim rabble rouser.”

- Robert Dreyfuss (Nation Magazine Editor, Contributor to Rolling Stone and Mother Jones)

“Robert Spencer is an anti-Muslim blogger…And yes, I do mean ‘anti-Muslim’ — Spencer long ago crossed the line from simply criticizing radical Islamists to relentlessly demonizing all Muslims. And the bigoted, hateful comments he allows at his website are beyond disgusting.”

- Charles Johnson (Former Ally and Friend of Robert Spencer)

“Robert Spencer, a prolific anti-Islam writer and a leading Islamophobe who is bent on distorting Islam and demonizing Muslims, has persistently argued that violence and terrorism employed by Muslim extremists is rooted in the Qur’an and its message. Spencer calls the Qur’an, a book sacred to Muslim, ‘the jihadists’ Mein Kampf,’ in reference to Hitler’s memoir.”

- Louay M. Safi (Islamic Scholar)

4.      Brigitte Gabriel: A woman who is a leading terrorism expert in the world and who provides information and analysis on the rise of global Islamic terrorism.

An American Christian originally from Lebanon, Brigitte Gabriels says that Islam keeps countries backward and that it teaches terrorism. To promote her views, she founded the ‘American Congress For Truth’ and ‘ACT! for America’ so that others may "fearlessly speak out in defense of America, Israel and Western civilization."

“The degraded state of Arab societies is caused by Islam.”

“The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arab world is the difference between civilization and barbarism. It's the difference between good and evil [applause].... this is what we're witnessing in the Arabic world, they have no soul, they are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call 'Allah' which is very different from the God we believe...”

“In the Muslim world, extreme is mainstream…”

“I was talking about how Palestinian mothers are encouraging their children to go out and blow themselves up to smithereens just to kill Christians and Jews. And it was in that context that I - that I contrasted the difference between Israel and the Arabic world, was the difference between democracy and barbarism.”

“The cancer is called Islamofacism. This ideology is coming out of one source: The Koran.”

5.      Daniel Pipes:  A suave political commentator who thinks anyone who speaks out against Israel is a terrorist.

Mr. Pipes is an American historian, writer and political commentator. He is the founder and director of the Middle East Forum and its Campus Watch project, and editor of its Middle East Quarterly journal.

“We should have a Muhammad cartoon a day.”

“There is a lot of warfare in Islam. There is and there will be warfare. Islam is not peace.”

“Jihad is the drive to conquer lands to bring under Muslim control.”

“The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”

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The list goes on and on and on. There is no end to how much they can throw at Islam and Muslims. I am not going waste valuable time and energy to refute their statements and try to prove what Islam is not. Instead, I will focus on what Islam really is in my next posts.

I will not dissuade you from visiting their blogs and reading their books. By all means, do it. If you are a Muslim, it will only bring you closer to Islam. If you are not a Muslim, you have to see both faces of the coin and judge for yourself which of the two descriptions of Islam is true and accurate. But please make sure that you do not spread hate in the process. 

The Atlas is Burning already!

Afterthoughts:

1. Islamophobia denotes prejudice against, or hatred or irrational fear of, Muslims. The term dates back to the early 1900s, but its modern use originates during the late 1980s or early 1990s.
2. Islamophobia is not a new phenomenon. It existed even in the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Only the term is new.
3. Islamophobia was recognized as a form of intolerance alongside Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism at the "Stockholm International Forum on Combating Intolerance".
4. The conference, attended by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, the OSCE Secretary General Ján Kubis and representatives of the European Union and Council of Europe, adopted a declaration to combat "genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and xenophobia and to combat all forms of racial discrimination and intolerance related to it."

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