Asra Nomani on Fox "News", fear-mongering about Muslims
Hat tip: to all the countless people who sent us tips about Asra Nomani’s lunacy.
Islamophobia is a big business. From pretend-scholars of Islam to pretend-apostates from Islam, it seems like every other person is trying to cash in on the cash cow that is anti-Muslim bigotry. All sorts of opportunists have made six-digit salaries and full-time careers out of Muslim-bashing. So it shouldn’t surprise us that some Muslims would want to get in on the action. And so, I introduce to you one very prominent self-hating loon, namely Asra Nomani.
Nomani has become the “Muslim-for-hire”, selling out her religious community in exchange for fame and money. Like other anti-Muslim bigots, she arose out of obscurity and shot to national prominence by fear-mongering about the Evil Muslims. Now, she has a very steady career out of doing the neo-con bidding. Nomani is very useful to the right wing, as she provides them with the “voice from the inside.” She says the same things as the Islamophobes do, but when she says them, then the Islamophobes can point and say: “Look, even one of their own–a real life Muslim–says the same as we’ve been saying all along!”
This self-hating loon has consistently taken positions that are anti-Muslim. For example, she came to the swift defense of anti-Muslim bigots who opposed the construction of an Islamic cultural center two blocks away from Ground Zero, arguing that “their fears are legitimate.” When Juan Williams stated that he discriminates against people who “look Muslim”, it was none other than Nomani who came to his defense. (One wonders how she’d feel about an old woman being “worried” about a young black man walking towards her on the street? Would Nomani defend a white person admitting being fearful of blacks–and on top of that arguing that it was a justifiable fear?) Notice how she prefaces her statement with “I am Muslim.” Well then, you must automatically be a spokesperson for Muslims everywhere, and whatever you say about Islam and Muslims must be true. You are, after all, a real life Muslim! In fact, Asra Nomani can hardly ever write an article or argue a point without injecting herself into it, such is her self-absorbed nature.
When anti-Muslim bigots began burning the Quran, Nomani couldn’t get herself to say a word against these lovely people. (One wonders how she’d feel if people were burning Torahs? Remember how that ended up in Europe?) Instead, she came out on the side of bigotry once again, writing an article fit for Pamela Geller’s hate site. When right wing bigots need a Muslim voice, who better to do their bidding than Asra Nomani? By so doing, she allows people to say “well, there are Muslims on both sides of the aisle.” She might be one of the only voices chanting anti-Muslim talking points, but HEY A REAL LIFE MUSLIM SAYS WHAT WE’VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG! Suddenly there is an equivalence: “there are Muslims on both sides of the issues!”
Asra Nomani is marketed as a “progressive Muslim” and argues that what “we need [is] an expression of institutional Islam that is moderate, progressive and liberal.” Yet there is absolutely nothing progressive about her. Instead, she actually finds herself agreeing with right wing loons. In the very same article, she states that “the Tea Party activists actually express the sentiments of Muslims such as myself…” She criticizes liberal and progressive Americans like myself, saying:
Liberal and progressive Americans and their organizations have dropped the ball in having a nuanced, intelligent critique of extremist Islamic ideology, currying pluralism points instead in the name of interfaith relations.
So on the one hand, Muslims should be liberals and progressives…And on the other hand, she always is on the side of right wing loons and against real liberals and progressives. Nomani’s so-called “liberalism and progressivism” is akin to colonial feminism. Colonial feminism is when people with no connection to feminism suddenly become indignant about womens’ rights in Foreign-Looking Peoples and Countries. For example, many right wingers in America became the world’s most ardent defenders of womens’ rights when it came to invading and occupying Afghanistan. Those People Over There need to be conquered by Us, so We can show them how to treat women. (Lost on them of course is that they are dropping bombs on the heads of women.)
In the same way, Asra Nomani is far removed from liberalism and progressivism, having no relation to it whatsoever. Womens’ rights is nothing more than a great big stick with which to bash Muslims over the head with. Nomani is, allow me to coin a new term (albeit a cheap rip-off of the previous neologism), a colonial liberalist. Her liberalism and progressivism only comes in the flavor of Muslim-bashing. Her liberalism and progressivism goes into overdrive when it comes to the ultraconservative Saudi Arabia (so does mine), but meanwhile she remains silent when this Goodly Judeo-Christian Beacon of Light Country imprisons and tortures Muslims without charge. Iran’s belligerence is then seen as the Ultimate Evil, but meanwhile our own country’s multiple unjust wars cannot be questioned. When it comes to criticizing Muslims, she dons the mantle of liberalism and progressivism. When liberalism and progressivism would mean standing up for Muslims against right wing nut jobs, she’ll be sure to write a piece chastising Muslims.
As a colonial feminist and colonial liberalist, Asra Nomani provides the U.S. government with the proper environment for it to continue waging endless wars against the Muslim world, and to continue occupying their lands. This is no different than what the colonialists aforetime did. And the Arabs, Africans, and Asians are well aware of it. The British would always find some chump from amongst the natives to chant the colonialist line. Back then they used to shower that chump with gifts, money, and positions of power. In exchange, that person would sell out his own people. Today, the same dynamic exists: Asra Nomani says what they want her to say, and in exchange she gets media appearances on Fox News, sells her books for millions, and gains positions of prestige. (How Yale took her as a fellow amazes me.)
Whilst claiming to be the voice of progressive and liberal Islam, she remains chummy with the right wing nuts who find her ever the useful tool. As a proud progressive myself, I cannot understate the degree of harm that her type of self-hating Muslim-bashing “liberals and progressives” have done. Due to people like her, the term “liberal and progressive” has a negative connotation in the Muslim world. And why shouldn’t this be the case, when all the Muslims have heard from such so-called “liberals and progressives” is how barbaric they are, and how great the West is compared to them? People like her make it harder for true liberals and progressives to market themselves in the Muslim world.
Interesting is the fact that despite saying what they want her to say, many extreme right wing characters hate Muslims to such an extent that they can’t tolerate Asra Nomani because she still refers to herself as a Muslim. And so, the colonial analogy comes full circle: the chumps-for-hire were generally hated by their own people and scorned by the colonialists themselves. This one YouTube conversation between bigcherry99 and bronco200005 is accidentally very insightful:
bigcherry99: asra is a really nice lady, but i cannot believe she hasn’t completely denounced islam. what the hell is wrong with her?
bronco200005: @bigcherry99 well if she denounces islam wat will she be left to milk?? Christianity?? Judaism maybe?? I dnt fink so
I don’t “fink” so either. Her utility is only in that she is a Muslim. That’s what she milks. Her article promoting racial and religious profiling would hardly have gotten such significance had she been another non-Muslim calling for profiling of those Dark-Skinned Bad People. But because she plays (and exploits) the I’m-a-Muslim card, her writings are thus pushed to the forefront.
Career bigot and hate blogger Robert Spencer, who advocated a militant video calling for the genocide of Pakistanis and joined a genocidal Facebook group against Muslims of Turkey, gave high praise of Asra Nomani, saying: “why are voices like this so rare among Muslims in the West?” And he lauds her as “courageous.” She is praised elsewhere on his vitriolic website. Why is it, Ms. Asra Nomani, that one of the world’s leading Islamophobes is praising you so? If you are really a “liberal and progressive” Muslim, why is an extreme right wing website speaking so fondly of you? Is it perhaps because you say the exact same things that they normally do against Muslims?
Thankfully, almost no Muslims are buying what Asra Nomani is selling. Instead, her fans consist of right wing non-Muslims, who love the fact that A REAL LIFE MUSLIM is saying exactly what they say. One article critical of Nomani asked (perhaps rhetorically): “Are her remarks given any more weight or legitimacy by the fact that she herself is Muslim?” The answer to that question is obvious: if she wasn’t a Muslim, nobody would have heard of her. She’d have to get a real job then, or at least struggle for a job in the already saturated I-am-an-ex-Muslim-writing-a-book-against-Islam market.
And so, with the latest anti-Muslim controversy, Nomani once again sides with the voices of bigotry. As many of you know, many Americans are protesting the TSA (Transit Security Administration) and their invasive ways, including “touching [your] junk” and using XXX-ray scanners to see you naked. But as the ever astute Glenn Greenwald (a real liberal and progressive, unlike the right wing loon Asra Nomani) notes:
[The] American People. They’re not angry that the Government had adopted inexcusably invasive and irrational security measures. They’re just angry that, this time, it’s being directed at them — rather than those dark, exotic, foreign-seeming Muslims who deserve it, including their own fellow citizens. And if there were a successful bombing plot against a passenger jet, many of those most vocally objecting now would be leading the way in attacking the Government for not having kept them Safe, and would be demanding even more invasive measures — just directed at those Other People, the Bad Dark People over there.
Asra Nomani, ever the self-hating loon, tries to reassure Good Judeo-Christian Folk that they shouldn’t need to get screened like that, and that it’s better to just target Her People. This then is her “difficult solution” that “we need to consider”, namely “racial and religious profiling.” In other words, the “cop-a-feel strategy” (her words) ought to be used only against Muslims and Muslim-looking peoples.
Her article is full of weak arguments to prove her point. The article starts out with the following introduction (emphasis is mine):
In the wake of yet another Muslim terror plot, we can’t ignore the threat profile any longer–or the solution.
Which “Muslim terror plot” is she referring to? She clarifies in her article:
…the Somali-born teenager arrested Friday night for a reported plot to detonate a car bomb at a packed Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Oregon.
It amazes me that this loon was allowed to blog for Salon.com (which is one of my favorite sites). Another writer for Salon, the epic blogger Glenn Greenwald, wrote an excellent piece about how “the Somali-born teenager” was in fact set up by the FBI:
The FBI successfully thwarts its own Terrorist plot
…The FBI — as they’ve done many times in the past — found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a “Terrorist plot” which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI’s own concoction. Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts — and an uncritical media amplifies — its “success” to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government’s vast surveillance powers — current and future new ones — are necessary.
How Asra Nomani’s conclusion from this entire escapade was that we need to adopt racial and religious profiling against Muslims (an essentially more right wing position than is currently in place, at least officially)–instead of reflecting on the backwards approach of the authorities in combating terrorism–only a self-hating loon could explain! But this indeed is where Nomani misses the mark entirely. Terrorism to her is the fault of “literal interpretations of the Quran” which supposedly sanction “terrorism, militancy, and suicide bombings in the name of Islam.” The Somali-born teenager was ready to kill children because of “literal interpretations of the Quran”, or at least so the argument goes. See!, argues the Islamophobe, even a Muslim herself says that the Quran is to blame for terrorism, militancy, and suicide bombing!
Of course, the reality is that the Quran forbids terrorism, suicide, and targeting of civilians. No literal interpretation of the Quran could justify such things. Neither did traditional Islam ever tolerate such. In fact, ultraconservative traditionalists–including the Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia–have declared terrorist tactics to be strictly prohibited in Islam, a view that is entirely consistent with the Islamic tradition. Contrary to popular misconception, Al-Qaeda types justify such deeds not in the Quran or Islamic tradition, but based on the political situation today, wherein the West (the United States and Israel in specific) invade, occupy, and bomb Muslim countries. Greenwald writes:
Finally, there is, as usual, no discussion whatsoever in media accounts of motive. There are several statements attributed to Mohamud by the Affidavit that should be repellent to any decent person, including complete apathy — even delight — at the prospect that this bomb would kill innocent people, including children. What would drive a 19-year-old American citizen — living in the U.S. since the age of 3 — to that level of sociopathic indifference? He explained it himself in several passages quoted by the FBI, and — if it weren’t for the virtual media blackout of this issue — this line of reasoning would be extremely familiar to Americans by now (para. 45):
Undercover FBI Agent: You know there’s gonna be a lot of children there?
Mohamud: Yeah, I know, that’s what I’m looking for.
Undercover FBI Agent: For kids?
Mohamud: No, just for, in general a huge mass that will, like for them you know to be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays. And then for later to be saying, this was them for you to refrain from killing our children, women . . . . so when they hear all these families were killed in such a city, they’ll say you know what your actions, you know they will stop, you know. And it’s not fair that they should do that to people and not feeling it.
And here’s what he allegedly said in a video he made shortly before he thought he would be detonating the bomb (para. 80):
…For as long as you threaten our security, your people will not remain safe. As your soldiers target civilians, we will not help to do so. Did you think that you could invade a Muslim land, and we would not invade you..
We hear the same exact thing over and over and over from accused Terrorists — that they are attempting to carry out plots in retaliation for past and ongoing American violence against Muslim civilians and to deter such future acts. Here we find one of the great mysteries in American political culture: that the U.S. Government dispatches its military all over the world — invading, occupying, and bombing multiple Muslim countries — torturing them, imprisoning them without charges, shooting them up at checkpoints, sending remote-controlled drones to explode their homes, imposing sanctions that starve hundreds of thousands of children to death — and Americans are then baffled when some Muslims — an amazingly small percentage — harbor anger and vengeance toward them and want to return the violence. And here we also find the greatest myth in American political discourse: that engaging in all of that military aggression somehow constitutes Staying Safe and combating Terrorism — rather than doing more than any single other cause to provoke, sustain and fuel Terrorism.
Even Asra Nomani’s article itself betrays this point, as she quotes Usama bin Ladin as follows (emphasis is mine):
“Our response to the barbaric bombardment against Muslims of Afghanistan and Sudan will be ruthless and violent,” he said in a statement. “All the Islamic world has mobilized to strike a prominent American or Israeli strategic objective, to blow up their airplanes and to seize them.”
Naturally, pointing out the obvious–that nothing promotes Terrorism more than us “invading, occupying, and bombing” their countries–would be anathema to a fake “liberal and progressive” like Asra Nomani. Instead, she’d rather agree with the likes of the Tea Party and other right wing nuts who–even though the United States has killed way more Muslims than “the Muslims” have killed Americans–wonder mysteriously why a few Muslims would want to attack us. It’s much easier to blame The Other for being so violent, and then have a self-hating loon affirm this for them. It is only by removing this key element–our invading, occupying, and bombing their countries–that we can condescendingly discuss what’s wrong with Islam. The truth is, however, that terrorism is directly related to our own foreign policy. As Nomani herself says (except she’s talking about racial and religious profiling):
I know this is an issue of great distress to many people. But I believe that we cannot bury our heads in the sand anymore.
Yes, it does cause great distress to many people that we dare cogitate that we are responsible for our own plight. But I believe that we cannot bury our heads in the sand anymore. How the media completely blacks out the obvious–and how any politician who dares argue this point must be immediately ostracized–is indicative of its truth.
Not only is Asra Nomani’s article ethically repugnant, she deceitfully cites “studies.” She cites the Rand Corporation’s study entitled “Would-Be Warriors.” Only a self-hating loon could read that entire report and only glean the point that she did! In fact, I wrote an article summarizing the Rand Corporation’s findings here:
Rand report: Threat of homegrown jihadism exaggerated, Zero U.S. civilians killed since 9/11
The “threat profile”, as Nomani asserts, is defined as follows by Rand:
[Of the] 83 terrorist attacks in the United States between 9/11 and the end of 2009, only three…were clearly connected with the jihadist cause.
Fifty of the 83 terrorist attacks were committed by environmental extremists and animal rights fanatics, “which account for most of the violence.” Five civilians were killed by the anthrax letters.
The Rand study states:
There are more than 3 million Muslims in the United States, and few more than 100 have joined jihad—about one out of every 30,000—suggesting an American Muslim population that remains hostile to jihadist ideology and its exhortations to violence. A mistrust of American Muslims by other Americans seems misplaced.
Only a self-hating loon could argue that 3 million Muslims should be profiled for the crimes of 100. In fact, the Rand study blasts people like Asra Nomani who fear monger about the “threat profile.” Says Rand:
Public reaction is an essential component of homeland defense. Needless alarm, exaggerated portrayals of the terrorist threat, unrealistic expectations of a risk-free society, and unreasonable demands for absolute protection will only encourage terrorists’ ambitions to make America fibrillate in fear and bankrupt itself with security…Panic is the wrong message to send America’s terrorist foes.
Nomani argues for widened governmental power, including invasive security measures. Yet, the Rand report argues the opposite. As I wrote in that previous article:
Americans have ceded their civil liberties to the government due to the misplaced fear of terrorism. The first group affected by these heavy-handed laws are Muslim Americans, which hampers anti-terrorism efforts by alienating the very community whose cooperation is so necessary. The report declares:
In response, the country has conceded to the authorities broader powers to prevent terrorism. However, one danger of this response is that revelations of abuse or of heavy-handed tactics could easily discredit intelligence operations, provoke public anger, and erode the most effective barrier of all to radicalization: the cooperation of the community.
We argue that the loss of civil liberties and rise in xenophobia have a more significant and longer lasting effect than acts of terrorism.
In any case, the Rand study is an excellent one, and enough to refute loons like Asra Nomani. I urge our readers to read my summary of it as well as the original study.
Asra Nomani writes:
According to a terrorism database at the University of Maryland, which documents 60 attacks against airlines and airports between 1970 and 2007, the last year available, suspects in attacks during the 1970s were tied to the Jewish Defense League, the Black Panthers, the Black September, the National Front for the Liberation of Cuba, Jewish Armed Resistance and the Croatian Freedom Fighters, along with a few other groups.
In each of these groups’ names was a religious or ethnic dimension. For that time, those were the identities that we needed to assess. Today, the threat has changed, and it is primarily coming from Muslims who embrace al Qaeda’s radical brand of Islam.
So, terrorism was before linked to Jews, blacks, and Hispanics in the 1970′s. But now it is linked to Muslims. Hence, we should racially and religiously profile Muslims. OK, so would Asra Nomani have agreed to racially and religiously profiling Jews, blacks, and Hispanics in the 1970′s? (Notice how the “threat profile” is always The Other, never Good Christian White Folks, but Jews, blacks, Hispanics, and now the Evil Muslims!) I suspect Nomani will issue a response to my article, and if she does, then I want a direct yes/no answer from her: would she agree that it would have been the right thing to do at that time to racially and/or religiously profile Jews, blacks, and Hispanics?
But we need not restrict this to a hypothetical in the 1970s. Rather, it can be applied to the situation today. Nomani’s argument is very simple: Muslims are (according to her) the number one terrorists, therefore it makes sense to racially and religiously profile them. Extending that logic, one could easily sanction racial and religious profiling of blacks and Hispanics by police. One could cite studies and statistics just like Asra Nomani did against Muslims. For example,the government released a report which showed that “more than three times as many black people live in prison cells as in college dorms.” And: “The ratio is only slightly better for Hispanics, at 2.7 inmates for every Latino in college housing.” The same study found that the percentage of U.S. inmates that are black is 41%, and the percentage that are black and Hispanic is 60%. The same is the case in the UK, where the Metropolitan Police found that 54% of those who committed street crimes were blacks, 59% of robberies were by blacks, and 67% of gun crimes were by blacks.
One racist website breaks it down for us:
The chilling report by The New Century Foundation, called The Colour of Crime [PDF], shows in unflinching statistical detail, that in the USA:
- Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
- The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
- Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
- Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.
- Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
- Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.
Meanwhile, over here in Our Country the pattern appears to be much the same
- Blacks are 5 times more likely to commit violence against the person.
- Blacks are 4 times ‘more likely’ to commit sexual offences.
- Blacks are fifteen times ‘more likely’ to commit robbery.
- Blacks are over six times ‘more likely’ to commit fraud and forgery.
- Blacks are over twice as likely to commit criminal damage.
- Black are five times ‘more likely’ to commit drugs offences.
This is of course all “threat assessment.” Another racist website argues that we are curtailing the government’s ability to Protect and Keep Us Safe by prohibiting racial profiling of blacks (emphasis is mine):
Data suggest ‘racial profiling’ may have scientific basis
1. African-Americans commit 90% of the approximately 1,700,000 interracial crimes of violence that occur in the United States every year, and are more than 50 times more likely to commit violent crime against whites than vice versa.
Study: blacks commit 90% of interracial crime
2. Blacks are so much more likely than Americans of other races to commit crimes that police may be justified in stopping and questioning them more frequently – just as they stop men more often than women and young people more often than old people.
These are some of the controversial findings of a new think tank report based on extensive cross-analysis of government crime statistics. The study finds that Asians consistently commit the smallest number of crimes, followed by whites. Hispanics commit violent crime at approximately three times the white rate, and blacks are five to eight times more violent. In one of its most startling conclusions the report finds that blacks are as much more violent than whites as men are more violent than women. “This is the painful reality that gives rise to ‘racial profiling,’ “ said Jared Taylor, the report’s author. “Police quickly learn who the bad guys are. When there is a murder they don’t look for little old ladies. They look for young men – unfortunately, they are often justified in looking for young black men.”
Why should you stop my grandma instead of that young black man? Isn’t that wasting resources? Any argument that Nomani and other right wingers make against Muslims in support of racial or religious profiling could be applied even more so to blacks and Hispanics. In fact, violent crime on the streets accounts for a hundreds times more American deaths than from terrorists. So if there is an urgency that must be met–if we simply just cannot avoid racial or religious profiling of terrorists due to the imminent threat–then surely there is an even greater urgency to apply such standards to our domestic police force.
This is Asra Nomani’s logic to justify racial and religious profiling. There is no logical way for her to support the racial and religious profiling of Muslims, and to be against it when it comes to black people and Hispanics. My point here is not to argue for the profiling of blacks and Hispanics. Rather, it is to show that we all immediately have a visceral reaction to the mere thought of this (as we should). But when people on national media routinely suggest the profiling of Muslims, then it’s something that is seriously debated. This proves that although blacks and Hispanics are certainly low on the social totem pole, the Muslims are the absolute lowest.
On the other hand, even passingly mentioning the idea of racially and religiously profiling Jews would be met with absolute shock. Yet, if we were to use Asra Nomani’s logic (and that of the right wing in general), then wouldn’t Iran be justified in racially and religiously profiling Jews in their country? After all, logic dictates that a Jewish guy is much more likely to be an Israeli spy than anyone else. Wouldn’t this be justified in light of the fact that Israel has repeatedly threatened Iran? Shouldn’t national interest trump everything else? So I’m sure we wouldn’t have a problem if the Iranians racially or religiously profiled Jews, right?
Racial and religious profiling is immoral. Our nation had already come to this conclusion. It is sad that Islamophobia has reintroduced this ugly evil. Asra Nomani, like all bigots, has to justify her bigotry with the necessary disclaimer: “I’m not racist, but…” She states:
I realize that in recent years, profiling has become a dirty word, synonymous with prejudice, racism, and bigotry…
Yes, she is correct. It is certainly synonymous with prejudice, racism, and bigotry. Too bad she didn’t stop there. Nomani concludes (emphasis is mine):
We have to choose pragmatism over political correctness, and allow U.S. airports and airlines to do religious and racial profiling.
Pragmatism? Perhaps Asra Nomani is a “racial realist”? Racial realists are just being “pragmatic” when they argue for racially profiling young black men.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with pragmatism, or any desire to actually stop terrorism. Terrorists do not fit one mold, and in fact come in all different shapes, sizes, and races. The Underwear Bomber was a black guy, and so was the recent Somali would-be bomber…Show both pictures to any random person on the street, and see how many of them would recognize them as “Muslim.” On the other hand, most people would see two black guys. Asra Nomani argues not just for religious profiling, but racial profiling. So is she arguing for racial profiling of black people? Or perhaps just young black men? The Underwear Bomber was Nigerian and the Oregon would-be bomber was Somali. Nomani states that “they trace their national or ethnic identity back to specific countries.” So, are we to screen out only Nigerians and Somalis as opposed to other black people? How many people could make that fine distinction? I’m sure there are plenty of black people–born and bred here in the United States–who could pass off as Nigerian or Somali. Should we also profile them?
(Many Islamophobes will chime in that they oppose racial profiling but support religious profiling…Would it then be OK to religiously profile Jews in the 1970′s or for Iran to do so today? The famous line “you-can’t-be-racist-against-Muslims-since-Muslim-is-not-a-race” is debunked by simply asking “would it be OK to discriminate against Jews in a similar fashion?”)
Asra Nomani came to Juan Williams’ defense, arguing that Williams was justified in fearing passengers who wore “Muslim garb.” Yet, Al-Qaeda operatives are told to blend in. They are not dressed in stereotypical “Muslim garb.” Oftentimes, they are as clean-shaven as they come, and wearing Western clothes just like you or I. Does Asra Nomani think that Al-Qaeda cannot recruit blue-eyed blond-haired terrorists? They sure can, and they have.
There are certainly times when we must choose between the ideologically sound choice and the expedient one. Even if that were the case here–even if we had to choose between being racially/religiously equal vs Being Safe–then our moral conscience should choose the former. Even if racial or religious profiling made us safer, we should not opt for that route, since it goes against our moral character. Benjamin Franklin famously said: “The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.”
But in this case, racial and religious profiling of Muslims does not make us safer at all. Andrew Curry wrote an excellent article on Salon.com (why on earth did a great website like Salon.com ever hire a right wing Tea Party sympathizing loon like Asra Nomani!?) on how a recent study found that “such profiling is not only ineffective, it’s counterproductive.” (Not like the proponents of racial and religious profiling actually care about keeping us Safe; if they really did, they would be the first to oppose U.S.-led invasions, occupations, and bombings of Muslim countries.) The article reads:
In a study released on Tuesday, the Open Society Institute — a think tank and democracy-promotion organization funded by billionaire George Soros — argues that racial profiling of Muslims is essentially a public relations tool designed to make people feel safer in the immediate aftermath of a terror attack. After the 2006 bus and subway bombings in London, for example, highly publicized raids on mosques or ID checks in Muslim areas gave the public the impression the police were taking action.
There is also the desire to use racial and religious profiling to single out and blame Muslims. Your people are to blame. And Asra Nomani, the ever eager self-hating loon, chants: my people are to blame for all this. But just because she is Muslim, it does not give her the right to cede Muslim rights to the majority population. She cannot be allowed to speak for all Muslims, no more than Uncle Tom was allowed to speak for black people. Neither should Nomani be thought of as some Muslim “liberal and progressive”, when in fact she has nothing to do with liberals and progressives. Liberals and progressives stand for all minority groups, be they Christians being targeted in Iraq by Muslim extremists or Muslims being targeted by Jewish extremists in Israeli Occupied Territories. We stand up for them not to score cheap political points, nor to reinforce the Team Muhammad vs Team Jesus mentality. The last thing we tolerate is the demonization and singling out of one community, which is what Asra Nomani facilitates. She is not a liberal or progressive Muslim; she is a self-hating loon and self-absorbed opportunist.
This entire “I’m a Muslim, Please Profile Me” nonsense is theatrics. Nomani knows she would be immune from scrutiny due to her fame. Subjecting her fellow Muslims to such treatment–which she herself calls “cop-a-feel strategy” and knows is an outrage to The Real Americans (Good Judeo-Christian White Folks)–this she has no problem with. She has no qualms about selling out her religious community for the fame and money it provides her.
Update #1:
It seems that the last article Asra Nomani wrote for Salon was in 2003. Perhaps she realized that a right wing nut like herself has no reason to write for such a website. In light of the fact that Nomani’s last article on Salon was so many years ago, it might be making much ado about nothing to question that site about this. Nonetheless, I think it might behoove people to message Salon and especially people like Glenn Greenwald to give them a heads up that Asra Nomani does not in any way, shape, or form represent Muslims. This is not to say that a Muslim is not allowed to give a dissenting opinion from the Standard Muslim Line…I’m all for that. But, notice how she seems to use her Religious Affiliation as an immunity card, always making sure that it is known that she is a Real Life Muslim. Furthermore, she posits herself as a representative for Muslims, using such constructs as “The Tea Party activists actually express the sentiments of Muslims such as myself…” A Muslim supporting the Tea Party is as much of a political oddity as a gay black man supporting the Republican party. Ms. Nomani, try making an argument without seeking to validate it with the “I’m-a-Muslim” routine.
Update #2:
Asra Nomani’s support for the right wing Islamophobia machine was highlighted in a previous profile of the loon Wafa Sultan by our very own Garibaldi. Sultan, like Nomani, lives off of the anti-Muslim cash cow–the “I’m a real life (former?) Muslim” canard–and she uses it to deliver speeches and write books declaring Islam a greater threat to civilization than Nazism. Amongst other things, Sultan is friends with and is admired by career Islamophobe Pamela Geller, who she often lectures with. Sultan was seen at a synagogue calling for nuclear strikes on Muslim countries.
Asra Nomani, the so-called “liberal and progressive”, has expressed her deep admiration for Wafa Nuke-the-Muslims Sultan, referring to her as a fellow “bad girl of Islam.” From Garibaldi’s article on Sultan:
Another good example of her (Sultan’s) tale of woe is the profile carried by self-described “bad girl of Islam” Asra Nomani in TIME magazine. Asra Nomani, who can’t pen anything without including herself writes,
I connected with her (Sultan’s) anger and pain. She questioned Islam in 1979, when, she says, she witnessed the murder of a professor by men with alleged ties to the ultraconservative Muslim Brotherhood political group.
One wonders if Nomani was so moved by her “connection” with Sultan that she (and her editors) forgot to fact check whether or not Sultan actually could have witnessed the murder of her professor in her classroom. InFocus, a California based magazine did more thorough research into the matter than TIME in a piece titled Wafa Sultan: Reformist or Opportunist,
As to the claim that her professor (thought to be Yusef Al-Yusef) was gunned down before her eyes in a faculty classroom at the University of Aleppo, Halabi said the incident never took place. “There was a professor who was killed around 1979, that is true, but it was off-campus and Sultan was not even around when it happened,” he added.
InFocus contacted the University of Aleppo and spoke to Dr. Riyad Asfari, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, who confirmed Halabi’s account. “Yes, the assassination took place off-campus,” he said. Dr. Asfari was keen to add that no one had ever been killed in a classroom anytime or anywhere at the university.
Syrian expatriate Ghada Moezzin, who attended the University of Aleppo in 1979 as a sophomore, told InFocus that she never heard of the assassination. “We would’ve known about the killing if it had happened,” she said. “It would have been big news on campus and I do not recall ever hearing about it.” Moezzin, who lives in Glendora, Calif., added that government security was always present around the university given the political climate in Syria at the time.
Update #3:
Anyone read Asra Nomani’s article entitled “My Big Fat Muslim Wedding?” In it, she uses her n=1 experience to stereotype Pakistani men as brutish. A great reply to her silly article was written by G. Willow Wilson:
Asra Nomani’s recent essay in Marie Claire, My Big Fat Muslim Wedding, lays out a scenario that has become familiar to everyone in the post-9/11 world: despairing Muslim woman is forced to choose between her (literally) white knight and a traditional marriage to a boorish, vaguely ominous Muslim man. Losing love to Islam has become as universal a theme as finding love in Paris. It’s the subject of high art, low art and everything in between: Samina Ali’s Madras on Rainy Days springs to mind, as does the much-hyped failed marriage of Princess Meriam Al-Khalifa and Lance Corporal Jason Johnson. The implication of Nomani’s story, like those I’ve just listed, is that there are no decent Muslim men on planet Earth–or, if by some miracle they do exist, they are so difficult to find that it’s not worth the bother. This is the crux of the argument that Shari’a law should be changed to allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, and perhaps the reason even liberal Muslim groups can be defensive and traditionalist when it comes to this point. It is an implicit condemnation of Muslim men everywhere: in the eyes of women, they do not measure up in any way that counts.
Nomani’s complaints about her Muslim ex-husband are indeed cringeworthy: he is cold, withdrawn, childish, and sexually worse than useless. But this litany of failings is not limited to Muslim men–not by a long shot. The story of a passionate woman in a stale marriage is as old as Helen of Troy. The theme is so perennial that without the specter of Islam to dress it up, it’s almost boring. This is a case of cultural amnesia: as soon as a Muslim man enters the picture, women everywhere forget about Thelma and Louise,The Good Girl and The Divorcee, and pretend that sullen oafish husbands are an Islamic phenomenon. If this was really true, poor Shakespeare–along with hundreds of thousands of modern divorce lawyers–would have been out of a career.
Out-marriage is an issue religious groups have been wrestling with for some time. Of course men and women fall in love. Of course it’s not always convenient to their respective cultural and spiritual norms. Out-marriage is of such concern in the Jewish community that its leaders have gone to extraordinary lengths to encourage romantic relationships between young Jews. If they are successful, it is because they are not up against the same barrier: Jewish men are not perceived (by Jewish women or anyone else) as inherently threatening and perverse. In western culture, Muslim men start the marriage process with a handicap–because of the way they are portrayed and the example that is made of them, even Muslim women have begun, consciously or unconsciously, to view them with suspicion.
This puts those of us in healthy Muslim marriages to good Muslim men in a difficult position. On one hand, there is an onus on us to provide a counterexample, and inject a little hope into the grim picture of Islamic marriage. On the other hand, people in happy marriages are usually (and for good reason) unwilling to write about the intimate details of their sexual and domestic lives in magazines. So I will close with the conclusion I’ve come to after years of listening to girlfriends Muslim and non complain about men: the reason Asra Nomani discovered a dirth of eligible Muslim men is the same reason Carrie Bradshaw discovered a dirth of eligible Manhattanite men. The good ones go first, and they go fast. The battle of the sexes–love gained and lost, marriages failed and personalities mistaken–was raging long before the demonization of Muslim men became fashionable. Choosing a spouse with religion in mind is not always a mistake, especially if your heritage and your faith are important parts of who you are. The trick is, as always, to recognize a good thing when you see it–and never mistake the bad for something more.
G. Willow Wilson is author of the Eisner Award-nominated comic book series AIR. Her memoir The Butterfly Mosque is forthcoming from Grove Press.
December 6th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Great article. Is she worth it? Meh I don’t know.
December 6th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Well, the usual suspects seem to be getting a lot of mileage out of her Cynic, best put something out there. Ever thought of joining the Dark Side
?
December 6th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Its about time you took Asra Nomani (a Muslim loon, sad) to task. May Allah guide her.
December 6th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
The biggest threat to american society is Fox News. [snipped] They make money while their channels do the no.1 job of spreading hatred and misinformation.
December 6th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
A Muslim who defends Geller?
?
December 6th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Kudos Danios on another well-written article. I was JUST going to mention Asra Nomani’s (quite frankly) racist article in which she compares the “evil darkie” Asian men to the “handsome and dashing” blond-haired, blue-eyed soldiers, but you already got to it with update #3 so you beat me to the punch there.
I agree with you entirely here. Far be it for me to question ANYONE’S faith, but Asra Nomani seems more like she’s exploiting being an “oppressed Muslimah”. Think about it. She can not only claim experience to give herself authority (“It happened to ME!”) but it also serves to insulate her from claims of racism. Like Pam Geller, she can say she “loves Muslims,” because she couldn’t hate herself. *rolls eyes* In fact, she even goes a step further than self-proclaimed Muslim apostates because she can claim to be a “reformer”.
As you said, there is a strong Orientalist bent to the whole thing. In fact, that even shows up in her article, where she talks about how we Muslims don’t know anything about our own culture while she claims that western authorities (represented by an American soldier of course) know more about it. Yeah, there are plenty of non-Muslims and non-Asians who are very well versed in the region. And there are plenty of kids born here who don’t know about their heritage. But I’ll tell you this, outsiders are still outsiders. They weren’t born and raised in it, they haven’t lived there, and that does make a difference.
Now I’m a pretty liberal Muslim in some ways. I respect diversity and other cultures and religions. I embrace a vibrant, creative and expressive side of Islam. Sure, it offends the Wahhabis, but it’s still Islam. Still has God, the Holy Qur’an, the Prophets, the Ahl ul-Bayt, Ramazan, Eid, Namaz, Roza, everything. That probably isn’t good enough for Ms. Nomani. It seems to me that she is more of a drama queen actively going around looking for things to get upset about and people to annoy. After all, it gets media attention, and maybe even translates into a book deal for her!
If she wants to have a woman leading namaz, that’s fine by me. The Chinese and Minangkabau have been doing that for quite a while now. She’s always welcome to find a new mosque, pursue Islamic scholarship and form her own, or simply try and negotiate. But by all accounts, she’s determined to push her own views on EVERYONE else. It’s kind of like Christian groups that have pushed for gay marriage or the ordination of women. Some Churches were cool with it, others weren’t.
But back to Asra, I think you are right to point out the racism in her rants. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if she was a self-hating Asian (a bit different and distinct from being a self-hating Muslimah). I’ve seen it in many different cultures, usually (but not always) with the first and second generations. They grow up with a very narrow and stunted view of what America really is, and how their families are “oppressing” them. Naturally they lash out by trying to emulate the stereotypes of being a “real American”.
In her case, it would include not wearing Asian clothing like salwar-kameez, not eating naan or curry, not speaking Urdu (or whatever language her family spoke), not observing Eid, not listening to Asian music, not watching Lollywood movies, etc. It would be VERY interesting to know how much her Asian and Muslim identities overlap with her daily life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, not ALL of us follow all the stereotypes all the time. I don’t constantly need to announce that I’m Muslim, and while I have an extensive collection of qawwali CDs and Lollywood flicks, as well as a couple of nice kurtas and amusing t-shirts, that isn’t EVERYTHING in my life. I also like Goth and death metal, crime dramas (I’m half-watching Bones as I write this), Japanese comics and archaeology. Embracing my faith does not magically exclude me from other experiences. But in Ms. Nomani’s case, one wonders how much of her alleged Muslim faith she embraces while outside of the public view. How many Muslim friends does she have? Does she celebrate Eid? How often does she pray?
If you are going to claim the mantle of reformer, I expect your adherence to be much more than mere lip service. Otherwise it makes one suspect you might not be so sincere.
December 6th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about Asra. This is a very good article and, indeed, she is following the tradition of sell-out insiders who sell their religion and community for fame, fortune, and position. It’s disgusting…
December 6th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
tl;dr
December 6th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Also, I think it bears mentioning that Danios mentioned black terrorists like Abdulmutallab and that Somali kid. Proponents of racist profiling seem to be under the impression that Islam is solely an Arab or Middle Eastern faith (if they even make the distinction between “Arabs” and the dozens of other elasticities in the Middle East like Persians, Turks, Kurds, etc). This is reinforced by intentionally racist and Orientalist “scholarship” which often does make these claims, laying the slave trade solely on the feet of foreign Arab traders, talks about an Arab conquest of Africa, and downplays Muslims from other parts of the world.
The fact is that Islam has spread throughout the world, and significant chunks of Africa, Asia and even Eastern Europe has been Muslim majority for centuries, not including more recent converts of all races (and yes, there were “white” Western European converts even if you go back a couple centuries; a significant number of Barbary Corsairs were English or Dutchmen who “turned Turk”). Unfortunately, Wahhabism and other fundamentalist sects have spread everywhere as well, and I suspect that lax or recent converts are more vulnerable to them. After all, when a bearded Arab who fits their image of what a “real” Muslim looks like comes to talk, it gives them an air of credibility.
But yes, there are plenty of blacks – both in Africa and abroad – who no doubt have bought into the fundamentalist bullshit. The thing is, blacks in America are not seen as “foreign”. It’s the myth of the perpetual foreigner. Asians (including Indians, Pakistanis, Afghanis, Iranians and of course Arabs) are generally assumed by the public to be immigrants, even if you are talking second or third generation kids who grew up speaking English and have never been out of the country! Latinos face it too.
On the other hand, blacks and whites both are generally assumed to be “American.” As in, born and raised here. This of course ignores the fact that one has no particular reason to assume someone is an America. After all, a black person is as likely to have been born and bred here in Chicago (or wherever you may live) as to have recently immigrated from Senegal, Nigeria or Ethiopia… Or Haiti, Brazil or Peru. Ditto for white people. There is still immigration from Europe. A European could just as easily be Polish, Irish or Ukrainian.
One of the biggest differences here is that many racists in the US are a little more cautious about anti-black rhetoric. Some might not even be anti-black. They have black friends and co-workers. They don’t hate or fear black people inherently. But they DO hate “Muslims” because they don’t know any Muslims, and base their fears off what the popular media tells them. Others might be racist, but they know to moderate their speech because black interest groups are much more organized, vocal and powerful than similar Arab, Muslim or Asian groups.
Point is, you won’t find many Islamophobes supporting the racial profiling of blacks at airports, because they know the outrage that would spark. It’s much easier to focus on “Arabs,” or at least people who “look Arab”.
December 6th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
@ little robbie boy:
> tl;dr
Funny, that’s the same thing I said about pretty much everything robbie spencer ever wrote. Nothing more than overpriced toilet paper. But then, you claim to be a “scholar” and since you can’t refute all this, it’s easier to ignore it.
December 6th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
I very much doubt she is a muslim. She is just a shameless degenerate who proudly boasts about her sex life in her books ( which no self-respecting muslim would do, because it is haraam to expose your own sins)
She is a joke, and can call herself muslim all she wants, she isn’t fooling any muslims at all. Funny thing is, the moment a person even like her, decides to criticise one of the muslim hating cartel consisting of the likes of Spencer, Geller & co, they’ll turn on them in the blink of an eye
December 6th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Superb article Danios, and thanks for mentioning good ‘ole Garibaldi did a previous profile on this awful woman. She is just a media whore, a la Wafa Stalin Sultan style,
Perhaps the most reassuring part was this, when her allies questioned
“why are voices like this so rare among Muslims in the West?”
Thank God, that even with all our faults today, we still have few who are like her.
Maybe it would be good to focus on her funding, just so that people can learn exactly what she is about. Aubrey Chernick’s funding of Horowitz and Spencer had a hugh impact on the blogosphere.
Keep up the good work.
Do any readers know this Asra woman? Maybe she should come to Loon Watch, and see how well the lies of her allies are exposed. That is to give her the benefit of the doubt, she may well learn and see how riduculous she looks. Unless of course, she is like Wafa Sultan, Spencer, and other Islamophobes and only it it for the money.
December 6th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
I think, Islamically, she might be known as munafiq or hypocrite. I think she’s at that stage but I don’t want to say something too extreme.
Certainly the people at the time of the Prophet that ran to the other side when the going was tough were munafiqs. Anyways, this is one more Muslim Islamophobe ready to sell us out. She thinks that by kissing the feet of Islamophobes she can improve the status of Muslims. Ask Neville Chamberlain how the policy of appeasement worked out.
Great article by the way.
December 6th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Zak,
some excellent points you make, thanks.
about Asra being a self hating Asian, she probably is, and yes, they do exist, you have self hating Chinese, etc.
The problem with these misfits is that they make themselves look like spectacular figures of mirth, buffoons and complete idiots, and rouse nothing but contempt, i’m sure even their allies despise them secretly though openly admitting they like them.
December 6th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
I would caution people from getting high and mighty and pronouncing Ms. Nomani a non-Muslim, she is quite clearly deluded and takes positions that reaffirm the narratives and attacks of the Islamophobic machine. At the heart of it may be an inferiority complex or a wish for Islam to fit the image she wants but it isn’t a good line to go down to call her a non-Muslim, rather what we commenters should focus on is her beliefs, arguments and message. That is what this piece exposes, very nicely I might add as well.
December 6th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
“tl;dr”
You can’t even get past the first paragraph of some of the articles you post. But the problem isn’t just length, but lack of comprehension. Thanks for notifying us with the disclaimer that you didn’t read this article. Too bad you don’t it with the other articles. Perhaps td;du is more appropriate.
December 6th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
“Colonial liberalist”
Just the phrase I’ve been looking for! What better way to describe hypocritical Islamophobes who fight against building mosques in the United Sates but demand that Saudi Arabia allow the construction of churches?
December 6th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Attention whore, nothing more.
December 6th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
^ Poetry
December 6th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
She belongs in the same category as Zuhdi Jasser and Tawfik Hamid. Sickening!
December 6th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
December 6th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
look up tokenism
December 6th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
They should call her Asra No-money. That is why she’s a sellout.
December 6th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Abdullah Ibn Ubay. Abdullah Ibn Ubay. That’s what she is.
December 6th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Asra Nomani wrote about her ex-husband, “We would have rather passionless, perfunctory sex, and then he’d roll over, turn his back to me, and fall asleep.”
Hmmm… Shouldn’t you know about his bedroom performance after living with him for nine months before getting married? Or was it a case of sex-taqiyya that he practiced (a dud who pretended to be a stud for nine months)?
December 6th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Syed, yes, the thing is how stupid are the kind of Americans who will take this woman’s statements seriously,
I mean this is a universal problem, dysfunctional sex, can exist in ANY society, those human functions were there since the beginning of time. Does she think that her ex husband was exclusive somehow that she links this to his religion or country? sheeeeeeeeesh
December 6th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I just completed my first full reading of the Qur’an yesterday, so I’ve gone back to the beginning with the intent to concentrate on memorization of at least some portions. Last night I was working on memorization of the first 12 verses of Sura 2 in the Abdel Haleem English version, so a passage beginning with verse 8 was fresh on my mind when I read this article. I believe verses 8-16 serve as a great evaluation, by God/Gabriel/Muhammad, of people like Asra Nomani (totally in line with those who commented on her at least apparent hypocrisy):
“Some people say, ‘We believe in God and the Last Day’, when really they do not believe. They seek to deceive God and the believers but they only deceive themselves, though they do not realize it. There is a disease in their hearts, to which God has added more: agonizing torment awaits them for their persistent lying. When it is said to them,’Do not cause corruption in the land’, they say, ‘We are only putting things right’, but really they are causing corruption, though they do not realize it. When it is said to them, ‘Believe, as the others believe’,they say, ‘Should we believe as the fools do?’ But they are the fools, though they do not know it. When they meet the believers, they say, ‘We believe’, but when they are alone with their evil ones, they say, ‘We’re really with you; we were only mocking.’ God is mocking them, and allowing them more slack to wander blindly in their insolence. They have bought error in exchange for guidance, so their trade reaps not profit, and they are not rightly guided.”
December 6th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
About time Asra Nomani got the LoonWatch treatment. I’ve exposed her lies for years now, and while colonial feminism is definitely there, I find that it’s more the desi inferiority complex(brown sahib syndrome) which has defined much of Nomani’s life.
Asra’s lies a LOT, from claiming to be direct descendant of Allama Shibli(the renowned Indian Islamic scholar) to blatantly misrepresenting Islam laws, not to mention shamelessly milking Daniel Pearl’s murder for 9 years now. Just like Irshad Manji, she had no interest in Islam and the Muslim community before 9/11. She’s made her living since then putting a “good Moslem” face on Islamophobia, pretending to be the member of a community she never belonged to. She started her “career” back in 2002 by dragging a camera crew to her local masjid trying and to harass and intimidate worshipers with her antics. She had ran for the masjid board and “withdrew” when no one voted for her. Everybody makes mistakes, but Asra refuses to learn and take responsibility from hers, always blaming someone else while pretending to be starry eyed damsel in distress, when in fact she’s a media savvy, middle aged opportunist. More facts on this vile charlatan :
Asra Nomani no kin of Allama Shibli :
http://tinyurl.com/2ekn6zo
Asra and the Tea Party “Moslems” :
http://tinyurl.com/2czv6cq
Asra and media manipulation :
http://tinyurl.com/2eos6je
December 7th, 2010 at 12:40 am
@ Stephen,
Spot on, those verses describe her and others like her perfectly.
December 7th, 2010 at 12:50 am
Uncle Tom. I think thats the name for this vile woman. Great article danios, as always!
December 7th, 2010 at 1:12 am
@Stephen,
Very well said.
If Nomani wants to be profiled, so be it, let the TSA thugs zap her in the body scanner or do the “enhanced” pat down. Given her history, she may not mind being felt up. Loon Watch needs to do a feature on my friend from up north, the punjabi mass of inanity, the marxist, neocon, eager beaver, colonial immigrant, con artist known as Tarek Fatah.
For those unsure about the hazards of The scanning machines, they use the same 100kV X-ray generator as a CT machine or other hospital X-ray machines. To say that in one case the X-rays bounce off the clothing while in the other case they penetrate the body is physical nonsense. The dose is lower than a CT machine because the beam is tightly collimated. In short, they are not safe, especially if you’re a frequent flyer.
December 7th, 2010 at 3:05 am
Thing we should also add M. Zuhdi Jasser to the Uncle tom muslims…
December 7th, 2010 at 5:08 am
Arn’t you happy, folks, that we have given you mindless Mindi 1 and Sir.David {FROST} of Al-Jazeera in exchange?
December 7th, 2010 at 5:43 am
Sir David, and Mindy1 don’t spend their time, blaming their personal problems on their communities you stupid, ignorant, illiterate fool HaramPork, and neither are they media whores, nor do they make a spectacle of themselves like Nomani does
and what do you mean be “we gave” since when did you speak represent any community other than the extreme bigoted retards? How dare you compare
December 7th, 2010 at 8:20 am
@ Dr.M ;Had the Muslims not started the terrorism,the Air Travel was quite civilised and safe.I suggest there should be seperate planes for Mulims piloted by Muslims in one direction only,flying away from the West and never to return.
December 7th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Mr Pork, that’s it, you crossed the line there. Get out and stay out or at the very least apologize for your foul mouth. And you call yourself a Christian, huh, pathetic, lower than pathetic even.
December 7th, 2010 at 8:58 am
WHOA! Porky’s still here?! I remember Garibaldi giving this misogynist his last warning.
December 7th, 2010 at 9:01 am
“Beautiful Muslim Doll :With whores like you around on loon watch,who needs any more whores”
Well, I can’t say that calling somebody a whore is a good thing, so I don’t condone BMD’s use of the word as an insult.
However, pulling the ad hominem is your favorite rhetorical strategy, so I’ve got to call you out on this one. There was a quote by a Roman orator/lawyer, maybe Cicero, that was in my Latin textbook that applies in this situation, that goes something like: “If you have no case, slander the defendant”.
I am very against insulting women by calling them whores because, as any reasonably well-versed Muslim will tell you, slandering a woman’s chastity is a very, very, grave sin in Islam.
Now, I’ll be honest, I’m not a frequent poster on LoonWatch discussion threads, but I need to step in here. You insult somebody because they disagree, but not only any normal run of the mill “dork”, “idiot”, “fool” insult, but call her a whore? The audacity.
Maybe you should have taken a page out of the book you totally vilify. And “…argue with them in the most kindly manner…” (Quran 16:125).
Oh, okay, so let’s not take the Quran’s injunction, because obviously, you have qualms against it. How about Jesus? I must have missed the part of the Bible in which Jesus called the people who plotted against them “whores”. This is something both sides can learn from, to remember to be civil in their debates, but honestly, you instigate most of it, and are the one who seems to endlessly insult those who disagree with you.
“You should have seen your own face in the mirror first”
Oh, the hypocrisy of this statement.
Sparknotes version of my long post: Nobody should be calling others such deep insults. That’ll be hard for you, considering, from experience, that’s your back-up plan for all debates.
December 7th, 2010 at 9:33 am
Fantastic writing again, Danios. This woman only seeks media attention. She sells her own people down the river because she then can get accolades of “courageous”. Funny, I never thought of betrayal as courageous.
She is far worse than the ignorant masses who know nothing about Islam and who speak out of fear of the unknown. Rather, she deliberately feeds fear when she knows better…for what? A few minutes of fame? A few dollars for the sale of a few books?
And halal pork…you are a sad little man. Can you tell me you have nothing better to do than to insult and degrade other people? And even when you are insulted, tell me, why do you degrade yourself instead of turning the other cheek?
December 7th, 2010 at 9:50 am
I am just curious how she could live-in with someone for 9 months without getting to know that the person was dysfunctional. Then she goes to a foreign country to get married, realizes that the stud she’s been sleeping around with for 9 months is a dud, gets divorced and then starts blaming the culture/religion by proxy for her failure.
Oh yes! She also blames the culture/religion for having to ditch her previous boyfriend of 4 years (who by the way offered to convert to Islam for her). She rebelled against her parents and culture/religion to sleep around with a guy – so what was stopping her from getting married to him too. And she starts blaming her commitment phobia on the religion/culture.
Then she started exploiting the murder of Daniel Pearl. But compare her reaction with the dignified response of Judea and Ruth Pearl to the death of their only son. Asra Nomani goes around playing the blame game to cash in on her friendship with Daniel Pearl. Judea and Ruth Pearl have started the Pearl Foundation that promotes interfaith understanding among other things.
So the mosque at Morgantown did not elect her to some office and she starts blaming it on her culture/religion. BTW, its called democracy in action. She acts as if the mosque members were a bunch of misogynistic weirdos – when in fact they had women on their board.
Now she goes around asking Muslims to be profiled. I fly a lot and there not a single time when I could walk through the gates without ‘special screening’. I suspect all Muslims already get profiled to a large extent. Instead of fighting this bias, she comes forward and says, “I am a muslim who wants to be profiled, so profile ALL muslims”! Since when did she become the representative specimen of ALL Muslims? The justification she gives is that, “Muslims already profile other Muslims so it won’t be a big deal if the TSA does it”. Well! Muslims don’t cop-a-feel after they profile do they?
Thanks for getting her on loonwatch! Non-muslims are not the only Islamophobes out there.
December 7th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Haram Pork, i’m not about to do a runner (like Khusboo did) if you call me a whore, it’s a sign of your own low moral code, you’re not man enough to say that to my face, or you’d get one kick somewhere that would ensure that you would never be able to father children again
Abdullah
“Well, I can’t say that calling somebody a whore is a good thing, so I don’t condone BMD’s use of the word as an insult.”
I said “media whore”, I didn’t say “whore”, i use that term for Robert Spencer too, it means those that are in the media who whore themselves for money to lie.
As for Haram Pork, his only response when anyone calls him out for what he is, is to launch personal attacks, and if it’s a female poster, then he uses sexual harrasment, thinking we won’t fight back,
December 7th, 2010 at 10:36 am
BMD, you have Mr Pork in a nutshell, we know exactly what sort of ‘man’ he is, his attitude towards women is especially telling. Yes, the inverted commas are there for a reason Mr Pork.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:00 am
@BMD
Ah, I knew I shouldn’t have taken halal_pork’s words as the complete truth… My apologies. Good “ol’ cut and paste out of context”… gets me (and the public) all the time…
December 7th, 2010 at 11:35 am
HaramPork is a racist idiot buffoon. But we all knew that already.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Interesting piece written 5 years ago by Asra Nomani about Reza Aslan:
http://www.asranomani.com/Writings.aspx
December 7th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
@Kosher Pig,
Wrong as ever in your lame attempts to be relevant, porky. Muslims didn’t “start terrorism,” that’s something your criminal lot have long excelled in from the very beginning. But I have no problem with body scanners as long you get get blasted with ever rad in the EM spectrum, in fact stage 4 cancer would suit you well.
@Abdullah,
I’m no fan of BMD but she is correct in calling Nomani a media whore. I said the same thing last year and with years of evidence to back that up. Asra is a political prostitute(and IMO one in real life given her sexual antics with numerous men by her own admission) who lost the benefit of the doubt long ago. Would anyone defend her if she was a man? I don’t think so. Only an ignorant fool would accept her as credible.
December 7th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
James, I read the article. She was worried that Reza Aslan was going to betray Islam by appeasing the conservatives for ‘political capital’.
Lol.
Reza Aslan is also calling for an Islamic reformation but is careful to not side with the Islamophobes against Muslims. Asra Nomani just wants mo’ money.
December 7th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Right now i think it is prudent to reserve judgement in the case of Asra Nomani so that we will not sound like many salafis, wahabbis, and other extremists by calling her a non-Muslim, a kafir(unbeliever, one who covers up the truth) or murtad(apostate). Although Stephen G. Parker does describe her actions well with his quaranic quotes, highlighting her as a possible munafiq(hypocrite), i will reserve judgement for now until i study the matter more fully.
The words zindiq(free-thinker,free interpreter(someone not qualified to do ijtihad), atheist, heretic and fasiq(sinner) seem also to apply in her case. But maybe i am like the Murji’a who refused to declare someone as an infidel if they professed to be a Muslim, no matter how grave their sins. Although i certainly do not believe that no Muslim will enter into Jahannum, as they did. Perhaps she is nothing more than a neo Mutazili(neo Rationalist) or one of the modern day Ahul al Bid’ah( people of innovation in Religion),the so-called liberal and progressive Muslims.
For now i will say she is very much like the traitorous Dr. Zuhdi Jasser or the infamous Tarekh Fatah, and Irshad Manji. She seems to be a combination of the three.
Zuhdi Jasser in his love for democracy and hatred for Muslim extremism has aligned himself with right-wing extremist non-Muslims( read Islamophobes);people who hate him and believe that the only good Muslims are dead Muslims or ex-Muslims.
Tarekh Fatah in his extreme infatuation of all things Western has advocated such things as same sex marriage,opposes the Cordoba House/Park 51 project, opposes Shari’ah, and calls the desire for an Islamic state “chasing a mirage”, all while condemning Israeli policies against the Palestinians,declaring that it is not Islam that needs to be reformed, yet advocating that Muslims enter modernity by accepting a liberal, secular state as the standard of this “modernity”.
And finally Irshad Manji, that advocate of the ridiculously garbled notion of Islamic feminism, who is willing to look like a Muslim Zionist in order to combat extremism and racism amongst Muslims,and who wishes that we think of her as a mujtahid,though she is not qualified to engage in ijtihad.
All four of them seem to be very confused, seeming to be Muslim in one instance, non-Muslim on other occasions. As a Muslim once warned about making allies of right wing, extremist non Muslims, and this probably applies to right-wing, extremist Muslims as well, don’t get in the pig pen to fight with pigs. You will both get dirty, but only the pig will love it. LOL i guess that one applies to arguing with haram porky here on Loonwatch
In parting, for those who think Islamic feminism is a noble endeavor and believe that a woman who is an unwed mother and advocates sex outside of marriage, thinks hijab is not Islamically mandated, who thinks women should pray next to the men in the masjid,and thinks Muslims should be profiled should be a leading Muslim “reformer” for the ummah, i leave you with this:
Sister Yasmin member of Ask About Islam Editorial Staff.
The question cam from Sarah:On March 18, 2005 Amina Wadud led the first female-led Jumu`ah Prayer. On that day, women took a huge step towards being more like men. But, did we come closer to actualizing our God-given liberation?
Salam, Sarah.
“Thank you for your inspiring question!
Well, answering your question, I can say that I don’t think so.
What we so often forget is that God has honored women by giving them value in relation to God—not in relation to men. But as Western feminism erases God from the scene, there is no standard left but men. As a result, the Western feminist is forced to find her value in relation to a man. And in so doing, she has accepted a faulty assumption. She has accepted that man is the standard, and thus a woman can never be a full human being until she becomes just like a man—the standard.
When a man cut his hair short, she wanted to cut her hair short. When a man joined the army, she wanted to join the army, and so on. She wanted these things for no other reason than because the “standard” had it.
What she didn’t recognize was that God dignifies both men and women in their distinctiveness, not their sameness. And on March 18, Muslim women made the very same mistake.
For 1,400 years, there has been a consensus of scholars that men are to lead Prayer. As a Muslim woman, why does this matter? The one who leads Prayer is not spiritually superior in any way. Something is not better just because a man does it. And leading Prayer is not better just because it is leading. Had it been the role of women or had it been more divine, why wouldn’t the Prophet have asked Lady `A’ishah or Lady Khadijah, or Lady Fatimah—the greatest women of all time—to lead? These women were promised heaven and yet they never led Prayer.
But now, for the first time in 1,400 years, we look at a man leading Prayer and we think, “That’s not fair.” We think so, although God has given no special privilege to the one who leads. The imam is no higher in the eyes of God than the one who prays behind. On the other hand, only a woman can be a mother. And the Creator has given special privilege to a mother. The Prophet taught us that heaven lies at the feet of mothers. But no matter what a man does, he can never be a mother. So why is that not unfair?
When asked who is most deserving of our kind treatment? The Prophet replied “your mother” three times before saying “your father” only once. Isn’t that sexist? No matter what a man does, he will never be able to have the status of a mother.
And yet even when God honors us with something uniquely feminine, we are too busy trying to find our worth in reference to men, to value it or even notice it. We too have accepted men as the standard; so anything uniquely feminine is, by definition, inferior. Being sensitive is an insult, becoming a mother is a degradation. In the battle between stoic rationality (considered masculine) and selfless compassion (considered feminine), rationality reigns supreme.
As soon as we accept that everything a man has and does is better, all that follows is just a knee jerk reaction: if men have it, we want it too. If men pray in the front rows, we assume this is better, so we want to pray in the front rows too. If men lead Prayer, we assume the imam is closer to God, so we want to lead Prayer too. Somewhere along the line, we’ve accepted the notion that having a position of worldly leadership is some indication of one’s position with God.
A Muslim woman does not need to degrade herself in this way. She has God as a standard. She has God to give her value; she doesn’t need a man here.
In fact, in our crusade to follow men, we, as women, never even stopped to examine the possibility that what we have is better for us. In some cases, we even gave up what was higher only to be like men.
Fifty years ago, we saw men leaving the home to work in factories. We were mothers. And yet, we saw men doing it, so we wanted to do it too. Somehow, we considered it women’s liberation to abandon the raising of another human being in order to work on a machine. We accepted that working in a factory was superior to raising the foundation of society—just because a man did it.
Then after working, we were expected to be superhuman—the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect homemaker, and have the perfect career. And while there is nothing wrong, by definition, with a woman having a career, we soon came to realize what we had sacrificed by blindly mimicking men. We watched as our children became strangers, and soon recognized the privilege we’d given up.
And so only now—given the choice—women in the West are choosing to stay home to raise their children. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, only 31 percent of mothers with babies, and 18 percent of mothers with two or more children, are working fulltime. And of those working mothers, a survey conducted by Parenting Magazine in 2000, found that 93 percent of them say they would rather be home with their kids, but are compelled to work due to “financial obligations.” These “obligations” are imposed on women by the gender sameness of the modern West and removed from women by the gender distinctiveness of Islam.
It took women in the West almost a century of experimentation to realize a privilege given to Muslim women 1,400 years ago. Given my privilege as a woman, I only degrade myself by trying to be something I’m not, and in all honesty, don’t want to be—a man. As women, we will never reach true liberation until we stop trying to mimic men and value the beauty in our own God given distinctiveness.
If given a choice between stoic justice and compassion, I choose compassion. And if given a choice between worldly leadership and heaven at my feet, I choose heaven.
I hope my words answer your question. In case you have any comment or you need more about the topic, please don’t hesitate to contact us again. Thank you and please keep in touch.
Salam.”
Allahu A’lam
December 7th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
But I have no problem with body scanners as long you get get blasted with ever rad in the EM spectrum, in fact stage 4 cancer would suit you well.
What a way to top off a thread filled with seathing hatred for some lady most have never heard of, starting with the long, listless tangent in the OP I still have not worked up the patience to begin reading.
Is more proof that this site is nothing more than an Islamic hate/supremacist site needed?
December 7th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
So you haven’t read the article and are instead making groundless claims?
Is more proof that this site is nothing more than an Islamic hate/supremacist site needed?
Wow, you’re slow.
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/11/robert-spencer-of-jihadwatch-becomes-desperate-against-loonwatch/
Speaking of haters, note that on the page linked to you refer to Muslims (without caveat) as “horrible people”.
Projection much?
December 7th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
If JihadBob finds this article too long to read, does that mean he hasn’t read the classic LoonWatch articles that obliterated Robert Spencer’s points:
http://www.loonwatch.com/2009/11/the-churchs-doctrine-of-perpetual-servitude-was-worse-than-dhimmitude/
No wonder he’s still an Islamophobe.
December 7th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
@Geehad bobby said
“What a way to top off a thread filled with seathing hatred for some lady most have never heard of, ”
You’re one to talk about “seething hatred” aren’t you, bobby? You neglected to mention that I was aiming at your sidekick Kosher Pig with that crack about being bombarded with radiation in a body scanner. Lack of reading comprehension or just your usual taquiya? As for Asra Nomani, I know more about her then anyone on this thread, care to pit your “knowledge” vs. mine? No? didn’t think so.
“long, listless tangent in the OP I still have not worked up the patience to begin reading.”
So says the retarded troll known for grasping for straws, yet still unable to cope with the basic facts.
“s more proof that this site is nothing more than an Islamic hate/supremacist site needed?”
More like proof that Islamophobic gutter snipes can’t handle tough questions and having their bigoted agenda exposed. Tell me, as an outsider how do you feel about the human race?
December 7th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
So bob, you are, once again, taking one persons opinion and mild ‘threat’ (it’s not even really a threat, nor are there any threats against Asra Nomani here) and using it to ‘justify’ why you won’t debate this site or read it? Again? You know, I think all of us know the *real* reason, i.e. that your ‘facts’ don’t stand up and you’d get mashed, that’s the truth of it isn’t it?
Oh, and on the topic of threats, for starters the only people who have been throwing around what I call proper death threats are ‘your’ lot, Mr Pork and Miss Manners, you have yet to denounce either of these people BTW, including a threat against myself (not that it bothers me). Your very own website, JihadWatch, has plenty of threats on it *and* is read by less people, i.e. more threats per person on a massive scale. But of course, let’s sweep that all away because you’re running out of ‘excuses’ and oh my do you need them.
And of course, my offer to debate is still open, I await your email: the.strangers.blog@gmail.com
December 7th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Muhammad, Great Post! also, add Tawfik Hamid to the list of traitors.
http://www.tawfikhamid.com/
Way to nitpick Bob. My aren’t you a hypocrite! Why don’t you condemn your fellow loons who actually threatened and insulted women like me and BMD. Go back to your hate site, JihadWatch and condemn all the haters. JC, I don’t know how you keep your cool!
BMD, I didn’t run away;just didn’t want to make things worse. I was rightfully angry and it wasn’t just because of what Porky said. He means nothing to me! I’m happy to be back and I love this site!
December 7th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
“Islamic hate/supremacist site”
lol@bob.
What a loon.
If he keeps repeating it, he thinks his delusion of this being a “hate” site may actually come true. But hey, if one hateful comment by a poster in response to another poster who repeatedly makes the most vile comments makes this a hate site, then I wonder what that makes the spencer and geller sites.
It’s funny. This site attacks individual islamaphobes based on their own actions, hateful rhetoric and dishonesty. The islamaphobes, they attack an entire religion based on the actions of a few. Yet, bob calls this…..a hate site…..
pffft..giving hanukkah and thanksgiving greetings, and posting articles on peace. Some lousy hate site you got here Danios!
December 7th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
I have a few methods that I will willingly share with anyone who wants to know Khushboo
But sometimes I actually don’t know myself :-S
I’m not so sure about Tawfik Hamid though, what’s up with him?
December 7th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Jack, Tawfik is another one of those who think we need to “reform” Islam, not Muslims, but the religion. He believes in secular Islam and is making his tours from city to city including our city twice misinforming other of our religion and dissing the Quran. He has also being in anti-Islam Summit and claims to care about fellow Muslims. He’s making money off his book. Another media who…um…money maker! He’s a neocon’s dream! check this site out!
http://www.304biztips.com/view.php?video=HgEharjBCG8&feature=youtube_gdata_player&title=Ahmed+Bedier+Debates+Fake+Former+Terrorist+Tawfik+Hamid+on+Glenn+Beck
December 7th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
“Go back to your hate site, JihadWatch and condemn all the haters.”
Bob being the valiant internet Crusader that he is, one has to wonder why he doesn’t spend his precious time to seek out actual jihad sites to give them a piece of his mind. I suppose attacking a website filled with muslims, christians, jews, agnostics etc that is dedicated to exposing the irrational islamaphobes and charlatans makes him just as brave…just don’t read some of the articles, nitpick comments, move the goalposts, outright lie and when exposed run with your tail between your legs. Brave crusader!
December 7th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Ah, one of *those* huh? I notice he carries the ‘ex-terrorist’ label as well which is often a give away. Still, I read some of his stuff and some of it is fine, about looking at the Qu’ran as a whole and so on, unless it’s a different Tawfik Hamid I found (the one I had claimed to be a Doctor). I think Stephen G. Parker’s post up there summarizes this sort of person perfectly. I hope you went to his talk in your city and stood up to him
December 8th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Khushboo,
don’t even get me started on Tawfik hamid. He, like Zuhdi Jasse frustrate me to no end. They both seem so confused, sounding very Muslim in one instance, but like apostate Islam hater on another occasion. Their views are so inconsistent as to be incoherent. When will they learn not to ally themselves with those that hate Muslims.
Go to Hamid;s official website and you are immediately confronted with a ridiculous bastardization of something the noble Rumi once said. Hamid twists it and declares ” i am a Muslim by Faith, Christian by the Spirit,a Jew by heart…and above all i am a human being. What irks me most about him is not so much his misguided statements, but three things.
1.His cashing in on the now defunct “ex Muslim/Islamic reformer” card by using the “former terrorist” card. And he has done his media whoring by imitation of the likes of Zuhdi Jasser, Tarek Fatah, Irshad Manji, and Asra Nomani by trying to undermine Islam by playing what i will call the “i hate Islam, so i’m gonna change it, but i’m still Muslim” card.
2.His insistence on his right to have his personal ijtihad be binding on all Muslims, despite his lack of Islamic educational credentials as a mujtahid.
3.His blind white-washing of the illegitimate, Zionist, apartheid state of Israel and it’s crimes. I mean this guy was on Israeli national TV praising Israel and congratulating them on their brutality against Palestinians, calling it necessary and referring to the claim that Israel kills and tortures innocent Arabs and Muslims and rapes Muslim women as an outright, lie belied by the “fact” that millions of Palestinians are clamoring for work in Jewish Israel and that Israel treats them fairly!
Allahu A’lam
December 8th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Dear Friends,
Thanks for the time that you spent discussing the ideas that I’ve presented in my writings. I see that there are many differences of opinion with readers of this site, but, nonetheless, I appreciate the conversation.
It’s interesting to me how often readers of this site use the term “whore” to describe me, and I’m sorry that so many of you feel such anger. I understand that many of these issues from religion to intimacy are sensitive ones.
I would gently say to you that many of the assumptions that are made here are, I understand, an effort by some folks to make sense of ideas with which you don’t agree. Sometimes the truth is a lot less sensational. I’m not self-hating. I’m not gaining riches, and, as a journalist, I can tell you that the “fame” of a TV appearance here or there is most certainly fleeting.
I sincerely care about how Islam expresses itself in the world, and I care about our world. We may differ in opinion, but I would also gently suggest to you that, while anger and insults may be an authentic expression of your frustration, I do wish for all of us a day when we can be in more civil conversation.
If anyone would like to personally write to me, I invite you to do so at asra(a)asranomani.com.
Otherwise, I wish all of you well.
Warmly, Asra
December 9th, 2010 at 11:54 am
More TSA looniness: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11957943
November 13th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
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