Imam Yasir Qadhi claims Robert Spencer “fabricated myth” of Muslims “having desires to subjugate” non-Muslims
Yasir Qadhi is an imam in Memphis and is Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute. He is a hafiz — that is, he has memorized the entire Qur’an. He has also called Jews and Christians “filthy” (in accord with Qur’an 9:28) and said: “The life and property of a mushrik [one who worships others besides Allah] holds no value in the state of jihad….which means if they don’t say la illaha illa Allah, their lives and property are halal” — that is, permitted to be taken by the Muslims. Yet despite this open espousal of jihad violence, he has won the admiration of an evangelical Christian preacher, James White. I wrote here about how White is credulously allowing himself to be fooled by Qadhi, and letting the imam peddle egregious falsehoods about Islam to Christian audiences without challenge.
Soon after that post appeared, White and I debated about the nature of Islam — you can listen to the debate here. Meanwhile, White’s dealings with Qadhi have caused a controversy in evangelical circles, with White’s critics accusing him of dangerous naivete, and White accusing them of lack of charity. Qadhi here responds to the controversy on Facebook, deploring the “character assassination and smear campaigns that Mr White has had to endure from some of his fellow Christians.”
Qadhi doesn’t hesitate, however, to engage in character assassination and a smear campaign against me, and White, although he has repeatedly bragged about his Christian charity in engaging Qadhi, once again seems to forget that he has any obligation of charity to anyone else, and duly retweeted the link to Qadhi’s post. In that post, Qadhi gives a textbook example of how Islamic supremacists engage in ad hominem attacks against those whom they hate, as he attempts to discredit me by a lot of name calling (we get “Far Right” three times, “bigot” twice, and “Islamophobic” once), second-hand smears (SPLC! Brevik! All answered here), and assertions that he knows my intentions (he twice claims that I’m just in it for the money, a charge about foes of jihad terror and Sharia oppression that is almost as old as Islam itself, as is attributed to Muhammad himself).
But the one thing that Qadhi never does, and cannot do, is demonstrate that anything I’ve ever said about Islam is false. Meanwhile, plenty of what Qadhi says is false. See below for details.
Many of you are aware that I had a dialogue with James White, a Reformed Baptist minister who has achieved a solid reputation amongst many conservative Christians. (You can find the videos of the debates in the first comment).What most of you are probably not aware is the severe online character assassination and smear campaigns that Mr White has had to endure from some of his fellow Christians, albeit of the Far Right sector of this country….Well, apparently, these Far Right individuals truly believe that Muslims are so dangerous, so evil, so deadly, that the mere fact that Mr. White can sit with us, and essentially humanize us as people who believe in our faith, entails that Mr. White is in fact helping and abetting the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis, Al-Qaeda and other groups (albeit indirectly – he is, according to the analysis of such discerning self-professed intellectuals as Robert Spencer, a ‘useful idiot’).
This is, of course, nonsense, and not just because Qadhi employs the term “Far Right,” a meaningless appellation that the establishment media uses simply to signal that the person to whom it is applied is not to be supported by decent people. The problem is not that White sat down with Qadhi. The problem is that White let Qadhi get away with repeatedly lying through his teeth, unchallenged. I myself would be happy to sit down with Qadhi and engage in a debate or simply discuss salient issues, and “essentially humanize” him as much as his heart desires. We could have, I am sure, an enlightening discussion. However, I am sure he will refuse; he claims that I am dehumanizing him, when actually I am stand willing to have a discussion with him, while I am sure he will refuse to engage on equal terms with a “Far Right” “Islamophobic bigot.” Who is dehumanizing whom?
A few points to make…Islamophobic bigots like Spencer have fabricated this myth of us Muslims (less than 1 % of this land!) having desires to subjugate the rest of the 99 % to our laws and religion. Sadly, many innocent Christians believe these lies, and Spencer continues to profit from that fear…
I fabricated that myth, eh? What immense power Qadhi thinks I have! In reality, the idea that any Muslims in the U.S. wish to subjugate non-Muslims comes from Omar Ahmad, Hamas-linked CAIR’s co-founder and longtime Board chairman, who once said: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” He denies saying those words, but the original reporter still stands by her story. And Hamas-linked CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.” Meanwhile, according to a captured internal document, the Muslim Brotherhood (to which all the major Muslim groups in the US are linked) is dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house….so that it falls, and Allah’s religion is victorious over other religions.” Think that document is inauthentic or unimportant? Think again. Then there is the Washington, DC imam who wants to “establish an Islamic State of America by 2050.”
4- So, essentially, what terrifies Spencer and the Far Right bigots who falsely invoke the noble Prophet Jesus’ name as they spey [sic] hatred is to actually see two very committed people, a Baptist Minister and a Shaykh, agree to disagree, even as they harshly dismiss each other’s faiths and theologies, and argue exclusive salvation for their own faiths. That simple civility – the act of agreeing to disagree – is something that these individuals, wallowing in hate and lies and wanting the rest of us to do the same, simply cannot tolerate….
Hate? Lies? I hereby challenge Qadhi to produce one quotation from me that is “hateful,” and one that is a “lie.” I’ve written 17 books, thousands of articles, and 45,000 blog posts. If I’m really the gargoyle of his imaginings, this should be easy, right?
Yasir Qadhi Yes Arefin you are correct – he and his ilk only hype themselves up amongst their own, and also amongst people who typically are not very educated in anything outside of their own culture and ways. As well, they all profit handsomely from spreading fear and hatred…
Not only is the profitable nature of this enterprise wildly exaggerated, but obviously if someone really wants to “profit handsomely,” the path to doing so is not to tell the truth about Islam, which only ruins one’s reputation and endangers one’s life, but claiming that Islam is a religion of peace: that path gets you to CNN and invited to all the best parties.
In making this charge, Qadhi is simply following the playbook. According to Muhammad’s first biographer, Ibn Ishaq, the first eighty verses of Sura 3 were revealed after a delegation of Christians came from the Yemeni city of Najran. One of the leaders of this delegation was a bishop, Abu Haritha ibn Alqama, who received money, servants, and other favors from “the Christian kings of Byzantium.” Abu Haritha, says Ibn Ishaq, knew that Muhammad was a prophet, but refused to accept him for fear of losing the loot that the Byzantines were lavishing upon him. Throughout Islamic history, Muslims have claimed that non-Muslims with whom they’re engaged in controversies are not motivated by a desire to find the truth, but are deliberately rejecting Islam for financial and/or other gain.
But the venerable character of this libel doesn’t make it any less libelous when Qadhi applies it to me.
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