As part of the campaign, the group also is running radio ads from Dec. 24-26 and doing a big push on social media. It has held open houses at different mosques and members are speaking at K-12 schools and universities.
Members of Sabeel Ahmed’s group are speaking to many audiences, including K-12 schoolchildren. Are school boards monitoring these appearances, this early childhood indoctrination? Are school boards, teachers, parents not alarmed? Do they think such propaganda efforts by smiling Muslim apparatchiks, well-versed in taqiyya, should be allowed in public schools, especially among the very young?
He said the group has received about 40 calls from Arizona residents interested in learning more about Islam and the similarities between the different religions.
Similar campaigns are happening in other cities nationwide, he said.
Ahmed said while unity should be celebrated year-round, The Humanitarians chose to launch this campaign in December because people are more spiritual during this time of year. He said Jesus is also a central figure in Christian holidays.
It sounds almost as an afterthought: “Jesus is also a central figure in Christian holidays.” You bet he is.
“We want to let Christians know how much we love, admire and respect Jesus,” Ahmed said.
Of course he does. What better way to reassure Christians about Islam than by Muslims stressing their “love” for Jesus in the Qur’an? Nothing will be said about how Muslims deny that Jesus was the Son of God, and that they regard Christians, for believing that Jesus was divine, as guilty of “shirk” or polytheism.
He said he hopes that once groups see there are more similarities than differences, they can work together to tackle other issues such as poverty, racism, gun violence and extremism.
The “similarities” consist of precisely this: Islam and Christianity are both monotheisms, and both claim to be “abrahamic faiths.” Abraham is seen by Muslims as their forefather, the physical ancestor — father of Ishmael, grandfather of Esau — of the Arab people, while for Christians, Abraham is seen as their spiritual ancestor. They are both “abrahamic faiths,” but in very different ways.
“First we have to do away with the fear of the unknown. Second, we have to educate each other on the commonalities of the faiths. And once we overcome that barrier, we can join together to better humanity,” Ahmed said.
Sounds good. But why stick only to educating about “commonalities”? Why not a free and frank discussion of all the ways Islam is different from, and Muslims contemptuous of, Christianity and Judaism, with which it supposedly has so much in common? That would require going off the interfaith script, and these days, that’s a tall order.
The Rev. Larry Fultz, director of the Arizona Interfaith Movement, said while he was not aware of the campaign, it’s a message he supports.
He said especially during such politically divisive times, celebrating the similarities between different groups is important.
If “celebrating the similarities” by Muslims means deliberately misleading Christians as to what Islam teaches about Christianity and Christians, then such “celebration” is to be deplored, and is not “a message” that the innocent Rev. Larry Fultz, up to his ears in interfaith (mis)understanding, should support. Instead, he might devote some time — he owes it to his flock and to himself — to studying the Qur’an and Hadith. No more pleasing interfaith pieties, please — we’ve had quite enough of that. Only the truth, however disturbing, will do.
“Anything that any group is doing to encourage dialogue, I’m for it. That’s our mission, to find things we have in common,” he said.
No, “finding things we have in common” is not your mission. Your mission is to find out the truth about what Islam inculcates, especially its view of non-Muslims, and the duty to wage Jihad against them — and then to educate your own parishioners. Feel-good support for those who are engaged in Taqiyya is a betrayal of that, your true mission.
Start your study of Islam straight from the scripture’s mouth, Rev. Fultz, by reading Qur’an 2:191-194, 4:89, 8:12, 8:60, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4. These are a handful of the 109 versus that command Believers to engage in violent Jihad, to “smite at the necks” and to “strike terror” in the hearts of the Unbelievers. Then take a look at 4:34, to learn about how a Muslim man may “beat” his disobedient wife. Finally, take a look at Qur’an 3:110, that describes Muslims as the “best of peoples,” and then read Qur’an 98:6, where Unbelievers — that is, all non-Muslims — are described as “the most vile of created beings.” That’s a mere ten verses of the Qur’an, a kind of starter-kit for a self-directed course on Understanding Islam. There’s more, of course, in the Hadith. There’s the story of Muhammad’s consummating his marriage to Aisha when she was nine years old and he was 54. There’s the delight he expressed upon hearing of the murders of three people — Asma bint Marwan, Abu ‘Afak, Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf — who had mocked him. There’s his participation in the slaughter of 600-900 prisoners of the Banu Qurayza. There’s his buying, selling, and trading of slaves. There’s Muhammad’s remark that “War is deceit,” and his famous claim that “I have been made victorious through terror.” It’s a course of study that all ministers, priests, and rabbis should undertake before they make pronouncements about Islam to their flocks. Whereof they do not know, thereof they should not speak. The knowledge about Islam that they acquire through their own study, rather than relying on Muslims eager to present their sanitized version of the faith, should dampen their enthusiasm for those interfaith gatherings — you know the kind — that no matter where they start from, always end up as sly apologetics for Islam.