Qasim Rashid is a Pakistani-born American Muslim writer from the Ahmadiyya community. He is the acclaimed author of The Wrong Kind of Muslim: An Untold Story of Persecution & Perseverance
One of Mr. Rashid’s HuffPo pieces is a 2012 review of Geert Wilders’ book Marked for Death
Wilders promises many things in his book, above all that, “we must speak the truth.” Wilders does not fulfill his promises, however, and his disregard for truth is the most astounding. While one opinion editorial cannot possibly respond to an entire book, I illustrate below some of the more grotesque misrepresentations that Wilders proposes. Still, this article is not censorship; read his effort at your leisure.
Wilders’ errors manifest in three manners. First, he misrepresents material secular facts. Next, he makes countless reference-less pejorative accusations against Prophet Muhammad and the Quran. Finally, Wilders repeatedly misrepresents Islamic history, again without references. Though at times he cites legitimate sources like Karen Armstrong and Pew Research, he largely avoids references altogether or actively references anti-Islam hate websites for his most important points. If someone applied Wilders approach to criticize Christianity, they would present KKK members as authentic Christians, Bible-bash with anti-Christian hate websites and fabricate data to show Christianity’s alleged existential threat to humanity.
First, Wilders’ inability to cite basic secular facts accurately indicates the unlikelihood that he can relate complex religious history and dogma properly…
The blurb for the book on Amazon says this:
Terrorists and anti-Islam extremists are both wrong about Islam. Qasim Rashid proves just that in EXTREMIST: A Response to Geert Wilders & Terrorists Everywhere. Rashid debunks extremists head-on, clarifying important issues like Islam’s view on free speech, women’s rights, and Jihad—among many more. He writes for non-Muslims and Muslims alike, asking you to stand for a narrative of moderation, civility, and compassion—and against the extremist narratives of Geert Wilders and all terrorists. Rashid empowers you with a tool extremists don’t have—knowledge of Islam, and invites you to join the fight for tolerance.
Readers who are interested in a non-mainstream Islamic refutation of Geert Wilders may want to take a look at this book.
What I find annoying about this whole Islam debate is that muslims constantly deny the fact that Islam is divided. Yeah, they do! Sunni,Shia,Ahamdiyya,Ibadi… None of this seems to matter to them. It’s always islam,islam,islam, islam this, islam that… Very rarely do they acknowledge the fact that different sects of islam exist and that they differ significantly… ever noticed that?
They differ so much they kill one another over the heads of it.
As for the assertion that this fellow has clarified what islam is all about re. free speech etc – oh aye we can see that by the way the boy and his pals are treated in islamic countries eh.
He sounds like he’s very much in the Islamic mainstream, Ahmadi or not. I sometimes find it difficult to believe that these “moderate” Muslims think that it is so easy to pull the wool over our eyes, to deceive us.
How can this “moderate” Muslim deny the accepted (by Islamic scholars) principle of abrogation, the many Koranic injunctions to kill, subjugate and enslave the non-believers, the authoritative Hadiths calling for the same, the weight of Shariah calling for the same, the example of 1400 years of Islamic history implementing the same when possible and, finally, the example of their prophet, the great exemplar and the first jihadi.
It seems that when Muslims say that red is blue and blue is yellow, Western lefties fall all over themselves in their enthusiasm to agree.
Because that corresponds perfectly with a subjective world view. If you believe the world has changed, it has. If you believe this or that is true or false, it is. This is a common ground between some leftist/statist and religious faiths.
As many point out, there may be a moderate Muslim or two but there is no moderate Islam.
Why read this guy’s book – the above is all you need.
“Because he is an Ahmadi, his point of view is not the same as that of the average Muslim (who is either a Sunni or a Shiite). The Ahmadiyya are severely persecuted in Pakistan, Indonesia, and other parts of South Asia.”
One should supplement this pre-911-esque spasm with information about Ahmadis from Jihad Watch. Spencer has pointed out time and again that Ahmadis happen to be notoriously schizophrenic enablers of the very same Sunni & Shia Muslims who persecute their people:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/05/ahmadi-leaders-kashif-chaudhry-and-qasim-rashid-lie-about-and-defame-defenders-of-ahmadis
http://www.jihadwatch.org/category/ahmadis
Hesperado, accustomed as I am to your relentless disparagement, in this case I must object.
The persecution of Ahmadis by Sunnis is a fact. They are hounded, harassed, assaulted, and murdered by Sunnis (and possibly Shiites) for what is considered their heresy.
This fact does not address the issue of their ideology, which is basically the same as that of other Muslims. I deliberately avoided discussing what beliefs Ahmadiyya subscribe to. Readers may acquaint themselves with such matters at their leisure.
The Ahmadi sect differs from Sunnism and Shiism, but that does not make it more peaceful or compatible with Western Civilization.
Once again you have read emanantions of penumbras into my words which were not there, rather than the plain meaning of what I wrote.
I didn’t say the persecution of the Ahmadis isn’t a fact. I said that fact should be supplemented by the other fact that they carry water for our enemies who not only persecute them, but also want to destroy us. This war our enemy is waging against us is too deadly for us to worry about Stockholm Syndrome schizophrenics who enable their, and our, enemy.
Yes, I agree with you completely.
However, I dislike having my words described as “this pre-911-esque spasm” when they are no such thing.
And you have continued your mind-reading of me in your comment above by describing my “worry[ing] about Stockholm Syndrome schizophrenics”.
I am not at all “worried” about the Ahmadis. If I were, I would say so.
I presented this book and related material in a neutral tone so that new readers would not be repelled by any invective, and so that regular readers could examine the material itself with the minimum of interference. I trust our readers to be able to evaluate material for themselves and make up their own minds about what it all means.
I do not appreciate your attribution of feelings, motives, intentions, and hidden agendas to other people when there is no evidence in their words that they mean anything of the kind. It is unwarranted, rude, offensive, and (in my case) inaccurate.
The problem is precisely the neutral tone. The reader who knows nothing of Ahmadis thus would be left uneducated.
Hesperado —
Then you may educate that person, as you deem necessary. But you may not tell him (and us) what he thinks, feels, believes, assumes, etc., unless he reports such things himself.
To do so is commonly known as “mind-reading”. When employed during a heated discussion, it can (quite understandably) cause anger and resentment, and escalate a tense disagreement into a vitriolic confrontation. It poisons the discourse for those who are willing to make their points factually, in a reasonable manner.
This is why I ask you to exercise self-control and eschew any assertions of what people think and feel unless they give you ample evidence in their own clear reports of their emotions and motivations.
Quasim Rashid’s book might be a rebuttal of Widers’ opinions, however whether or not it’s a refutation is a different question entirely.
Arguments in regard to interpretations of the Quran are essentially a waste of time and probably, a misdirection. The members of the Iranian theocracy, Al Qaeda and ISIS are all good pious Muslims. So are the domestic terrorists in Western nations who plot to attack army bases—true believers one and all.
Geert Wilders a “terrorist”? I must have missed that.
Last year, a group of Ahmadis from the Chino, Calif area came to speak at UC Irvine, where I teach. While they have not been involved in the terror stuff, they do seem to adhere to the teachings of the Koran and Muhammad. They are, however, considered heretics because they believe in a later prophet-Ahmad-hence their name. For this they are persecuted in places like Pakistan, where most of them are centered. While their leader freely explained it to me before the event began, it was never mentioned to the audience in the presentation in chief. I had to drag it out of him during the q and a.
As for the pointed questions regarding sharia, women and Mohammad, they danced all around it just like the mainstream Muslims do.
Below is what I posted at the time with video.
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2013/03/ahmadiya-muslim-event-at-uc-irvine.html
Thanks for the videos Gary.
When 99% of muslims no longer kill in the name of religion, maybe I’d trust muslims. So in about 350 years, maybe?
Several years ago, according to a two-year-long study (it was courageous infiltration, really), about 80% of America’s mosques radicalize their people. See here:
http://www.meforum.org/2931/american-mosques
Made me realize there ARE mosques where the West isn’t villified…
But an eventual “no sharia here” is probably not going to happen. They think they’re in charge of their movement, but – for example – the Iranian birth rate has plummeted.
I take anything this Ahmadi says about Wilders with a grain of salt. HE is the alien to the West, not Wilders. Some nerve that Wilders has, eh? That he would actually care about his own nation and the ongoing colonization of it by aliens. Oh how richly he deserves to be criticized for that by this Ahmadi living among us. /sarc
Extraordinary. The very first sentence of this book is hogwash, ludicrous and factually incorrect Islam-serving propaganda:
“At the dawn of the seventh century in Arabia a lone voice of light emerged from an era of utter darkness”
Well no, in Arabia at that time there was a substantial Jewish population amongst a majority of pagans – who nonetheless also had their own form of religious worship and moral code*. If Judaism wasn’t your cup of tea but you wanted to belong to a monotheistic creed, a few miles across the Red Sea, Coptic Christianity was being practiced, up the Tigris and Euphrates from the Persian Gulf, the Assyrian Orthodox religion was well established. Plenty of light there if you wanted to participate.
Islam was an unnecessary intrusion into Arabia. After a period of local caravan-robbing, deceit, betrayal, murder, rape, enslavement and destruction, the illiterate ( why would God choose an illiterate as his singular and final Messenger?) Mohammed graduated to invading neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Assyria, imposing his new religion at the point of the sword.
*Curiously when Mohammed took a fancy to his adopted son’s wife, ie legally his daughter-in-law, and wished to add her to his stable of wives, this was a taboo relationship deeply frowned upon by the prevailing pagan moral code ( don’t know what their position was on marrying six year olds) Guess what? Mohammed went back to his cave in the desert and God spoke to him again: amidst the big stuff he was imparting to his chosen Messenger, God took time out to address Mohammed’s personal quandary and told him not only was it okay to marry this young woman, he commanded him to do it. How very convenient! You couldn’t invent this stuff if you tried.