This page was last updated on October 4, 2016.
Muslim community offers open house, discussion; Nayyar Ahmed - Member, Muslim Writers Guild of America; Beaver County Times; September 22, 2016.
According to his profile on LinkedIn, Mr. Ahmed (NA) is a “Postdoctoral Research Associate at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.” Mr. Ahmed spammed his previous letter to at least three newspapers.
The motto of the Muslim Writers Guild of America (MWGA) is “Waging an Intellectual Jihad of the Pen.” You also need to read the MWGA chairman’s message at the end of this review.
The only previous Ahmed letter I reviewed was “We need to rise above bigotry and hatred.”
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“While I watched the horrid news of a bomb explosion ripping through a street in Manhattan and New Jersey, as member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, I feared the worst and prayed for the affected. To my utter dismay, the suspect was identified as Ahmad Khan Rahami, a U.S. citizen of Afghan descent, moreover a Muslim.”
[RWC] Seriously?
Fortunately, the two Rahami (AKR) bombs that exploded wounded “only” 31.
NA’s previous letter was during the aftermath of this June’s Orlando nightclub murders by Omar Mir Seddique Mateen. Mr. Mateen murdered 49 and wounded another 53.
“Although his motive remains unclear, he may have committed this act as a retaliation to anti-Muslim harassment. However, the Holy Quran disapproves this in Chapter 5 ‘... and let not the enmity of a people incite you to act otherwise than with justice. Be always just, that is nearer to righteousness ...’ (5:9).”
[RWC] Though NA said the murderer’s “motive remains unclear,” NA found one. AKR’s family owns and operates a fried chicken restaurant they want to operate 24/7. According to NJ.com, “After receiving a series of complaints of noise and large crowds gathering late at night, the city passed an ordinance forcing the business to close at 10 pm.” The family sued Elizabeth in 2011, alleging the ordinance was the result of anti-Muslim discrimination and harassment.
“Lets [sic] rid this society from the dangers of hate, extremism and paranoia. As Muslims who care about this country, join us for a weekly ‘Coffee, Cake & True Islam’ initiative, an open house invitation to our local Al-Nur Mosque in Pittsburgh starting Sept. 27 (and every Tuesday) from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., for an informal discussion about religion or other topics.”
[RWC] “Coffee, Cake & True Islam?” Why not bring out the big guns and create a Twitter hashtag?
In my review of NA’s previous letter, I wrote, “I accept ‘lunatics like Omar Mateen do not represent the majority of Muslims who are loyal and peaceful citizens of America,’ for now. That said, if it’s not already happening, we need to see evidence of ‘Muslims who are loyal and peaceful citizens of America’ doing something to stop future Omar Mir Seddique Mateens. Simply making post-massacre statements offering condolences and asserting the Omar Mateens of the world ‘do not represent the majority of Muslims who are loyal and peaceful citizens of America’ won’t cut it.”
I was buoyed a bit after AKR’s arrest when I read reports his father claimed he reported his son to the FBI a couple of years ago. That hope didn’t last long, however. It turns out the father was angry with his son for hitting the father’s wife and stabbing another son. According to ABC News, “Rahami’s father later told the FBI he didn’t mean to suggest his son was a terrorist, but that he was hanging out with ‘undesirables,’ the U.S. official said.”
I’m tired of this “let’s all rise above bigotry and hatred” crap as if non-Muslim Americans are the bad guys and we’re persecuting Muslims.
Okay, did you catch what NA didn’t say? AKR’s father reported his son to the FBI a couple of years ago.
Below is the MWGA chairman’s message as of September 22, 2016.
“In 1852, white Northerners invited a former slave of illegitimate birth to speak about the Fourth of July. What was expected to be a celebration of the North’s abolitionist efforts proved, instead, to be a blistering attack on hypocrisy. During his address, Frederick Douglas [sic] exclaimed:
“‘This Fourth of July is yours, not mine’ … ‘a gross injustice’ … ‘your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery’ …
“As shocking as the address was, the reaction was even more stunning – the crowd erupted in universal applause.
“What happened that day? How did a former slave mesmerize an audience he so harshly criticized?
“With words, nothing more.
“I invite you to employ this same method to revolutionize the perception of Islam in America.
“I invite you to change the game.
“Wassalam,
“Sohaib Awan
“Chairman, Muslim Writers Guild of America (Majlis Ansar Sultan-ul-Qalam USA)
“Department of Sadr, MKA USA (mkausa.org)
[RWC] Though the 19 words (of more than 10,000) the chairman quoted from the Fredrick Douglass speech are true, there’s a reason he didn’t provide a link to the speech.
Throughout the speech Mr. Douglass rightly railed against the state of “the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion.”
Toward the end of that same speech, however, here’s what Mr. Douglass said about the Constitution and “its framers and adopters”: “Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? … Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.” You can read more here.
In fairness, the MWGA chairman isn’t the first to pretend the above paragraph doesn’t exist. For reasons you can guess, you should be aware some sites that purport to show the Douglass speech actually present only cherry-picked excerpts, usually omitting Mr. Douglass’ comments about the Constitution. Liberal use of ellipses (…) and anything less than about 20-8½”x11” pages or less than about 10,386 words are clues. PBS and The Freeman Institute are two examples.
© 2004-2016 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.