MUSLIM WOMAN CALLS VIOLENT ISLAM BARBARIC

Recently, Syrian-American psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan was interviewed by Al Jazeera. Since then, her interview has been viewed on the internet more than a million times and is circulating around the globe via e-mail. She is also receiving death threats for it.  

What Sultan said has shaken the Muslim world. She claims the world has not been seeing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle she believes the forces of violent Islam are destined to lose.  

Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private. When subsequently interviewed by the New York Times (NYT) following her Al Jazeera interview, Sultan compared how differently Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Regarding the Holocaust, she said, "The Jews have come from their tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling."

She continued, "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them." Sultan is, she told the NYT, "working on a book that, if it is published, it's going to turn the Islamic world upside down. I have reached the point that doesn't allow any U-turn. I have no choice. I am questioning every single teaching of our holy book."  

Now an American citizen, Sultan said her mother, who still lives in Syria, is afraid to contact her directly. But she is not afraid. "I have no fear," she told the NYT. "I believe in my message.  It is like a million-mile journey, and I believe I  walked the first and hardest 10 miles". 

Source: Assist News Service