I attended Raymond Ibrahim’s lecture at Everett Community College and, frankly, was embarrassed for the college hosting a lecture that was intellectually shoddy at best, and worse, dangerously reinforced widespread fears, ignorance and prejudice toward Islam. (Thursday article, “EvCC hosts controversial author on Islam“).
Islam is the religion of more than a billion people, so seeking understanding and truth about Islamic beliefs is vitally important for our country’s interests and the interests of world peace. Ibrahim claimed to care about truth, but he offered a simplistic and deeply distorted view of Islam.
While ignoring and then dismissing mainstream Islamic teachings, he used a few selected references to Islamic texts to equate what he called “timeless, true Islam” with the goals and strategy of al-Qaida. One the most revealing and shameless moments in the program was when Ibrahim responded to the question, “Why do the vast majority of Islamic scholars condemn al-Qaida?” Ibrahim laughed and said, “That’s easy, they are being deceitful. They are lying to fool non-Muslims.”
Comparing seemingly contradictory texts from the Quran about violence and relations with other religions, Ibrahim consistently argued that the negative, antagonistic texts carried more authority than the numerous texts which advocate loving neighbors, peace and reconciliation. A similar reading of the Bible would paint a very ugly picture of Judaism and Christianity. I doubt that a lecture which did this would be hosted by EvCC.
Hopefully, the two follow-up programs on Thursday and May 26 will help end the Humanities Center series in a positive and responsible way.
Ron Young
Consultant for the National Interreligious Initiative for Peace in the Middle East
Everett
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