by Jamie Glazov<\/p>\n
FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n Frontpage Interview\u2019s guest is\u00a0Raymond Ibrahim<\/a>, associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of\u00a0The Al Qaeda Reader<\/em><\/a>, and editor of FPM\u2019s new section on\u00a0Muslim Persecution of Christians<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Introduction:<\/strong>\u00a0On May 5, Mr. Ibrahim gave a talk on Islam at Everett Community College (EvCC) in Seattle. Months prior, local Muslim groups tried to pressure the college to cancel the talk, right up to the day before the talk, when the notorious Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) launched an aggressive campaign, including writing an\u00a0op-ed<\/a>\u00a0and issuing apress release<\/a>\u00a0demanding that EvCC cancel the talk. The college refused, andmuch<\/a>\u00a0media<\/a>\u00a0attention<\/a>\u00a0followed, including a featured story for\u00a0MSNBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n FP:<\/strong>\u00a0Hello Raymond. Thanks for joining us today.<\/p>\n Ibrahim:<\/strong>\u00a0Hello, Jamie; thanks for having me.<\/p>\n FP:<\/strong>\u00a0A great victory for free speech. Thank you on behalf of us here at Frontpage. Let\u2019s start with how all of this began and why CAIR targeted you.<\/p>\n Ibrahim:<\/strong>\u00a0Back in September 2010, EvCC invited me to come and speak on Islam sometime in early May 2011.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t long before I discovered that there were rumblings in Seattle, specifically by one\u00a0Jaffar (\u201cJeff\u201d) Siddiqui<\/a>, who has a long history of trying to quash free speech on Islam. As early as January he began pressuring the college to cancel my talk including by writing a\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to its president; also in January, the director of CAIR\u2019s Washington chapter,\u00a0Arsalan Bukhari<\/a>, asserted that \u201cInviting Raymond Ibrahim to give an alternative viewpoint on being Muslim is like inviting the KKK to speak about African American history.\u201d Then, the day before my talk, this same Bukhari wrote an\u00a0op-ed<\/a>\u00a0in Seattle\u2019s\u00a0Herald<\/em>\u00a0saying \u201cby inviting a known conspiracy theorist with a history of making unfounded claims about Islam, the college is doing a disservice to the public and risks creating a hostile learning environment for its students\u201d (see Robert Spencer\u2019s dissection of Bukhari\u2019s op-ed\u00a0here<\/a>). Also the day before my talk, CAIR\u2019s main headquarters issued a particularly inciting and accusatory\u00a0press release<\/a>\u00a0that culminated as follows:<\/p>\n By issuing Mr. Ibrahim an invitation, giving him an audience, and in any way providing him a platform, Everett Community College is complicit in inflaming a tinder box of hate and violence against Islam and Muslims, and is abusing its public trust as a federally funded educational institution. Therefore, we urge the College to cease its promotion of bigotry and hate speech by rescinding its invitation to Raymond Ibrahim to speak on campus.<\/p>\n To CAIR\u2019s chagrin, the college\u00a0refused to budge<\/a>, pointing out that my appearance was \u201cconsistent with the belief that students be exposed to a variety of views.\u201d<\/p>\n FP:<\/strong>\u00a0Why do you think CAIR failed to stifle you, though it has succeeded in stifling others?<\/p>\n Ibrahim:<\/strong>\u00a0For starters, CAIR\u2019S most potent weapon \u2014 the eternal cry of \u201cracism!\u201d \u2014 fails with me: though born in the States, I am a native Arabic speaker of Egyptian origin who has lived, sometimes for extended periods of time, in Egypt, where I have family and friends. I also have credentials that far transcend CAIR\u2019s caricatures of me as just another \u201cIslamophic blogger.\u201d Finally, I think that people are getting tired of Islamists always trying to kill freedom of speech \u2014 always crying wolf. For example, if you look at the nearly 3,000 comments on the MSNBC report on my talk, you\u2019ll find that, as \u201cleftist\u201d as MSNBC is, at least half of its readers are against censoring free speech critical of Islam; in more centrist media, the numbers are overwhelmingly larger.<\/p>\n FP:<\/strong>\u00a0How was the turnout, and did you get a sense as to how the audience received your message?<\/p>\n Ibrahim:<\/strong>\u00a0Thanks to CAIR\u2019s trumpeting, turnout was good, with people sitting in the aisles and leaning against the walls.\u00a0 As usual, the majority of the attendees, especially the students, appeared receptive and appreciative of the talk \u2014 or so the many emails I received since would indicate. (Indeed, weeks earlier I spoke at Berkeley University and had two students come and tell me that they had planned on disparaging me, but after listening to my talk, found it to be logical and reasonable.) Of course, you wouldn\u2019t know that from news media such as\u00a0King 5<\/a>\u00a0which distorted the Seattle event by interviewing the two Muslims present at the talk (Sidiqqui himself and a woman in full burqa), while ignoring the many, once again demonstrating the great disconnect between what the media portrays and what the regular people think.<\/p>\n FP:<\/strong>\u00a0How do you respond to the charge that you\u2019re spreading hate?<\/p>\n Ibrahim:<\/strong>\u00a0As I told reporters at the event, I\u2019m just the messenger; the hate exists in the texts that I quote \u2014 texts, I might add, which form the cornerstone for Islamists such as CAIR. Here\u2019s a verse off the top of my head, always being quoted by Islamists: \u201cWe [believers] disown you [non-believers, including family] and what you worship besides Allah. We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us \u2014\u00a0until<\/em>\u00a0you believe in Allah alone\u201d (Koran 60:4). That\u2019s just one of many. Rather than project the hate ingrained in its own worldview onto me and others, if CAIR was sincere, it would admit to and try to \u201creform\u201d the anti-infidel hate that litters its texts.<\/p>\n Arsalan Bukhari only needs to appreciate the significance of his names \u2014 AlpArsalan<\/em>\u00a0was the jihadist chieftain who terrorized the Christian east, and the ultra-authoritative Sahih\u00a0Bukhari<\/em>\u00a0contains 199 references to jihad, all in the context of\u00a0war against non-Muslims<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 to know where the hate stems from.<\/p>\n FP:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you say to those who say you breed mistrust of Muslims, especially by focusing on the doctrine of loyalty and enmity?<\/p>\n Ibrahim:<\/strong>\u00a0I say my primary interest is to ascertain the truth, not its consequences. Rather than be concerned whether \u201cloyalty and enmity\u201d \u2014 or in Arabic\u00a0al-wala\u2019 wa\u2019l bara\u2019<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 breeds mistrust of Muslims, I believe the more critical question is whether this doctrine is true or not. Obviously, if large numbers of Muslims believe they are forbidden from being loyal to non-Muslims, then our problems far transcend breeding mistrust.<\/p>\n FP:<\/strong>\u00a0Did you receive any challenging questions at your talk?<\/p>\n Ibrahim:<\/strong>\u00a0Not really, just the usual lines about how \u201call religions can be interpreted anyway,\u201d \u201cthe Bible is equally as violent as the Koran (a widespread but flawed argument I addressed\u00a0here<\/a>).\u00a0 At one point, a faculty member somberly asked me if what I was saying was true, then why did so many Muslims in America condemn bin Laden (mind you, I had already spent quite a bit of time talking about\u00a0doctrinal deceit<\/a>). Some did not feel my curt response \u2014 that they might simply be lying \u2014 sufficient. So here\u2019s a little known anecdote from the annals of Islamic history to further elaborate:<\/p>\n When Omar, Muhammad\u2019s close companion, was captured by the Quraish, the opponents of Muhammad and Islam, Omar, the future caliph, publicly renounced Muhammad in order to be freed; later, when he told Muhammad what he had done, the prophet was okay with it\u2014\u201cso long as your faith was secure in your heart.\u201d Now, if the righteous caliph Omar can publicly condemn the prophet of Allah to get out of a bind, is it difficult to believe that a Muslim can condemn bin Laden to get out of a bind?<\/p>\n FP:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you say to your Islamist detractors?<\/p>\n Ibrahim:<\/strong>\u00a0First, the grand irony: in January, months before my talk, the same CAIR characters now moaning and groaning because I got to speak \u2014 such as Siddiqui \u2014 spoke at EvCC, despite the fact that many Americans including locals\u00a0protested<\/a>, knowing CAIR\u2019s terrorist links. How telling, then, that the same CAIR that insists on getting its way even when the people protest, screams bloody murder to prevent others from having the same opportunity to speak. In short, CAIR wants the ability to spew lies, while denying others from speaking the truth. That\u2019s all any American needs to know about CAIR.<\/p>\n