Islam's Ann
Coulter
The Seductive and Blinkered Belligerence of Wafa
Sultan
By Stephen Julius Stein
Recently I was one of about 100 LA Jews invited
to attend a fundraiser for a Jewish organization
that seeks to counteract anti-Israel disinformation
and propaganda. The guest speaker was Wafa Sultan,
the Syrian American woman who in February gave
a now legendary interview on Al Jazeera television,
during which she said that "the Muslims are
the ones who began the clash of civilizations"
and "I don't believe you can reform Islam."
The audience warmly greeted Sultan, a psychiatrist
who immigrated to Southern California in 1989.
One of Time magazine's 100 "pioneers and
heroes," she said she was neither a Christian,
Muslim nor Jew but a secular human being. "I
have 1.3 billion patients," she quipped early
in her remarks, referring to the global Muslim
population. Sultan went on to condemn inhumane
acts committed in God's name, to denounce Islamic
martyrdom and to decry terror as a tool to subjugate
communities. Those statements all made perfect
sense.
Then this provocative voice said something odd:
"Only Arab Muslims can read the Koran properly
because you have to speak Arabic to know what
it means — you cannot translate it."
Any translation is, by definition, interpretation,
and Arabic is no more difficult to accurately
translate than Hebrew. In fact, the Hebrew of
the Bible poses many more formidable translation
problems than Arabic. Are Christians and Jews
who cannot read it ill-equipped to live by its
meanings?
Another surprising remark soon followed: "All
Muslim women — even American ones, though
they won't admit it — are living in a state
of domination." Do they include my friend
Nagwa Eletreby, a Boeing engineer and expert on
cockpit controls, who did not seek her husband's
permission to help me dress the Torah scroll?
Or how about my friend Azima Abdel-Aziz, a New
York University graduate who traveled to Israel
with 15 Jews and 14 other Muslims — and
left her husband at home?
There is no subjugation in the homes of these
and other American Muslim women I know. They are
equal, fully contributing members of their families.
The more Sultan talked, the more evident it became
that progress in the Muslim world was not her
interest. Even more troubling, it was not what
the Jewish audience wanted to hear about. Applause,
even cheers, interrupted her calumnies.
Judea Pearl, an attendee and father of murdered
journalist Daniel Pearl, was one of the few voices
of restraint and nuance heard that afternoon.
In response to Sultan's assertion that the Koran
contains only verses of evil and domination, Pearl
said he understood the book also included "verses
of peace" that proponents of Islam uphold
as the religion's true intent. The Koran's verses
on war and brutality, Pearl contended, were "cultural
baggage," as are similar verses in the Torah.
Unfortunately, his words were drowned out by the
cheers for Sultan's full-court press against Islam
and Muslims.
My disappointment in and disagreement with Sultan
turned into dismay. She never alluded to any healthy,
peaceful Islamic alternative. Why, for example,
didn't this Southern California resident mention
the groundbreaking efforts of the Islamic Center
of Southern California, the leading exemplar of
progressive Muslim American life in the United
States? Why didn't she bring up the New Horizon
School-Pasadena that the center started, the first
Muslim American school honored by the US Department
of Education as a National Blue Ribbon School?
You might wonder why a rabbi is so uneasy about
Sultan's assault on Muslims and Islam. Here's
why: Contrary to practically every mosque in the
US, the Islamic Center has a regulation in its
charter barring funding from foreign countries.
As a result, it is an American institution dedicated
to propagating an American Muslim identity. Maher
and Hassan Hathout are the philosophical and spiritual
pillars of the mosque. They also have been partners
of Wilshire Boulevard Temple rabbis and others
throughout LA for decades.
The Hathouts' mosque has twice endorsed pilgrimages
to Israel and the Palestinian territories, its
members traveling with fellow LA-area Jews and
Christians. It invites Jews to pray with them,
to make music with them, to celebrate Ramadan
with them. This is the mosque whose day school
teaches students about Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur
and Hanukkah alongside lessons in Arabic and the
Koran. Recently, the Islamic Center joined the
food pantry collective of Hope-Net, helping feed
the hungry and homeless.
Make no mistake: I am not an Islamic apologist.
But Sultan's over-the-top, indefensible remarks
at the fundraiser, along with her failure to mention
the important, continuing efforts of the Islamic
Center, insulted all Muslims and Jews in LA and
throughout the nation who are trying to bridge
the cultural gap between the two groups. And that's
one reason why I eventually walked out of the
event.
Here's another: As I experienced the fervor sparked
by Sultan's anti-Muslim tirade and stoked by a
roomful of apparently unsuspecting Jews, I thought:
What if down the street there was a roomful of
Muslims listening to a self-loathing Jew, cheering
her on as she spoke of the evils inherent in the
Torah, in which it is commanded that a child must
be stoned to death if he insults his parents,
in which Israelites are ordered by God to conquer
cities and, in so doing, to kill all women and
children — and this imagined Jew completely
ignored all of what Judaism teaches afterward?
In a world far too often dominated by politicians
imbued with religious fundamentalism of all flavors
— Jewish, Christian, Muslim — we need
the thoughtfulness, self-awareness and subtlety
that comes from progressive religious expression.
We have that in Judaism, in Christianity —
and in Islam, right in our backyard. If only Sultan,
applauded in many quarters yet miscast as a voice
of reason and reform in Islam, were paying attention.
(Stephen Julius Stein is a rabbi at Wilshire Boulevard
Temple, where he also directs inter-religious
programming. Courtesy Los Angeles Times)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
