…but has to make do with snark from CAIR
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah rubs his hands with glee at the thought of a new WND book provoking an immoderate reaction from Muslims:
“If Muslims rioted around the world after a Danish newspaper published a political cartoon making fun of Muhammad, what will they do in response to this?”
Farah is referring to Why We Left Islam, a collection of testimonies from ex-Muslims which is decorated by a medieval Persian portrait of Muhammad, and which argues that terrorism is the “real face” of Islam. Farah quotes CAIR:
“This book is put out by WND Publishing (sic), which promotes hate every day on its extremist anti-Muslim hate site,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR, told the New York Daily News. “The editor is a guy who suggested air-dropping pig’s blood over Afghanistan. There are 7 million American Muslims and over a billion worldwide who love Islam and practice it peaceably on a daily basis.”
So, no calls for the book to be banned or for the authors to be hunted down, but Farah – who is quick to headline this as “U.S Muslims spewing venom” on his front page – makes the best of it:
“CAIR can always be counted upon to make wildly untruthful and reckless claims about others, while maintaining a hypersensitivity about its own concerns…Here, for example, Hooper makes this claim that WND promotes anti-Muslim hate on its site every day, offering only one example – and that one is totally untrue.”
Well, Hooper’s claim is somewhat garbled, but it’s not “wildly” off-base. Probably he was thinking of this late September WND 2001 column, by Paul Sperry:
U.S. forces should start by dropping leaflets over Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, warning residents, in their native Persian tongue, that we’ve enlisted Afghani moles to contaminate their water supplies with pig’s blood.
Sperry – whose Muslims-under-the-bed book Infiltration was recently commended to Christian Zionists at a Jerusalem conference by Retired Lt. Gen William Boykin – sees the Islamic prohibition on pork as a morbid horror rather than as simply a religious taboo, and he claims that “pigs are to Islamic terrorists – such as Osama bin Laden and his henchmen – what kryptonite is to Superman, or what garlic is to Dracula.”
Why We Left Islam is edited by Susan Crimp and Joel Richardson. Crimp is a veteran journalist-biographer, and her past subjects include Joan Collins, Elton John, and the Kennedys; she has also written a book on Mother Teresa, entitled Touched by a Saint. Richardson, meanwhile, is the author of Antichrist: Islam’s Awaited Messiah, which, according to an endorsement from Pastor Reza Safa, “is central to recognizing the fulfilment of Biblical End-Times prophecy in our day and understanding the role that Islam plays in it”; Robert Spencer adds that it’s a “must read”. “Richardson” is apparently a pseudonym due to death threats, although no details are given.
Joseph Farah, of course, has a bit of a problem: we wants us to hate and fear Muslims, but as a Christian dominionist he also despises habits of religious moderation, pluralism, secularism, and respect for reason which would provide a sensible way forward for the Muslim world. Richardson’s Islam-obsessed rehash of the familiar themes of “Last Days” Christian prophecy paperbacks would suggest that he’s just the man to present the stories of ex-Muslims without seriously raising any general criticisms of religion.
UPDATE: Joseph Farah Threatens Libel Action
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