Tag Archives: Reza Aslan

Why ask for a specific pledge from Muslims?

Molly White has just taken her seat in the Texas House of Representatives and already she’s making noise.

That’s all it is, apparently, from the Republican lawmaker, who wants participants of a Muslim Day event in Austin to declare publicly their allegiance to the United States of America.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/231167-muslim-event-at-texas-capitol-disrupted-by-protestors

I’m still not sure what this is all about, other than to try to stir up anti-Muslim sentiment in Texas — as if it needs stirring up among many Texans.

White posted something on her Facebook page about a Dallas court adhering to — are you ready? — Sharia law, rather than being loyal to the U.S. Constitution, which I’m pretty sure is a secular document.

This is the kind of scare-tactic nonsense we likely can expect to hear from the people’s House, the lower chamber of the Texas Legislature.

White left a note in her Austin office and said she’s asked Muslim leaders to “renounce radical Islam.” Someone needs to tell Rep. White that Muslims in this country and all around the world have been doing precisely that, especially in the wake of the Paris shooting massacre at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. As religious scholar Reza Aslan has noted, if you haven’t heard the outcry, you “aren’t paying attention.”

The Muslim Day is organized as an effort to have the Texas Islamic community meet with legislators. What in the world is so scary about that?

Rep. White needs to take a chill pill and let her fellow Texans speak to their representatives about issues that are important to them.

 

Listen to this fellow Aslan about Muslim reaction

Reza Aslan burst onto the national scene about a year ago when a Fox News Channel talking head tried to goad him into acknowledging that, as a Muslim, he was not qualified to write a book about Jesus Christ.

He told the talking head that she didn’t know what she was talking about and that as a religious scholar who studied all the world’s great religions he was perfectly qualified to write such a book.

Now he tells critics of Islam and the Muslim community that they aren’t paying attention to the outrage being expressed by Islamic fanatics’ acts of terror.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/01/11/reza-aslan-anyone-who-asks-why-muslims-arent-de/202086

Aslan points out in an interview that Muslims have been criticizing these actions not only after the Charlie Hebdo massacre but have been doing so ever since the 9/11 attacks.

Yet we keep hearing from critics, mainly in the right-wing media, that Islamic believers — the actual believers — have been silent in the face of these terror onslaughts.

Aslan said this: “The answer to Islamic violence is Islamic peace. The answer to Islamic bigotry is Islamic pluralism, and so that’s why I put the onus on the Muslim community, but I also recognize that that work is being done, that the voice of condemnation is deafening and if you don’t hear it you’re not listening.”

Let’s start listening to all the voices out there, not just those that are outshouting everyone else.

 

Interview says it all about right-wing media

There is virtually nothing anyone can add to the video linked to this blog post that explains or analyzes completely the utter incompetence of this Fox News Channel interview with a religious scholar.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/is-this-the-most-embarrassing-interview-fox-news-has-ever-do

The interviewer is trying to put words into her subject’s mouth, trying to get him to admit to some kind of anti-Christian bias – which the subject, author and scholar Reza Aslan, says does not exist. He said it many times during the course of this 10-minute segment.

It is a stunning display of attempted “gotcha journalism” from the network that purports to be “fair and balanced.”

I’ll just let the video speak for itself.