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Your letters - posted February 1, 2006

Posted in Q & A on Feb 01, 2006

Posted February 1, 2006

Note to readers: This website update is devoted to the cranks - those grumpy types who exorcise their inner turmoil by denouncing me. Have fun with these letters. I certainly did.

Irshad Manji and Salman Rushdie hawk their updated edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion at the Jerusalem Book Fair.

“one message for u manji… u are nothing but a devil a fuckin devil. please I beg u… Go jump off a cliff, u will do the world a huge favor. u are totally whacko in head and ur existence is a shame to everyone. u just like to bask in ur shortlived fame in the media, supporting the zionists because u can get lots of money from those rich bastards. u dont speak for the Muslims, i read ur book and it is the biggest piece of crap ever. please do not call urself a Muslim. i hope u burn in the deepest fires of hell for leading ppl to such great falsehood. i really feel bad for ur parents, having a devil for a daughter, well not their fault you turned into one. i saw that picture of u with the fucker rushdie and for a second I saw two devils staring out at me. if u wanna sink dont take ppl with u. u target weak Muslims and drag them into hellfire with u. i cannot comprehend what must be happening in ur brain. please kill urself and burninhell u dajjals left hand.” - manjiisabitch

“P.S. ur hair looks terrible with the sharp ends, like ur heart which has thorns in it.”

Irshad replies: May you enjoy the photo of me and Salman Rushdie even more now.
Irshad Manji and Salman Rushdie hawk their updated edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion at the Jerusalem Book Fair.

“Hi, I read a review of your book after my friend kept repeating your propaganda and lies to me… O by the way she is very articulate and is going to be a doctor and she questions everything now, including Islam. I hope you enjoy your life now, make the most of it. Spend all that dirty money you made. Cos you going to hell. I hope allah forgives you. Actually, i dont, i honestly hope that ariel sharon, bush, blair and all them other punks gang bang you in hell. You would love that (actually i think they wont go near you with a barge poll) spend some of that money on plastic surgery love, you need it (bad)” - Akhtar

Irshad replies: Why would a good Muslim boy like you recommend cosmetic surgery to me? Isn’t that promoting decadent Western values?

“Why are you so ugly?” - Ash

Irshad replies: I won’t be after a date with my Zionist plastic surgeon! (See above.) But you know, not everybody thinks I’m a dog…

“I’m a typical muslim male lesbian hater… LOL. Now before you start at me, consider the immense compliment hidden there for you: The hate here (okay, ‘hate’ is a bad word; call it ‘dislike’ not of the person but of the phenomenon)… So the dislike here is basically of the fact that for every lesbian girl, the straight-guy community is deprived of a potentially fantastic soul mate! My hate is actually a sense of loss. And the prettier the woman, the stronger it feels. This statement is basically a round-about way of saying that you are very a good-looking woman. You rock.

Now to the intent of my letter. Your website’s top banner quotes Rumi, the Muslim love poet — a quote very appropriate for the character of your objectives. But what I am interested to know is, have you actually read Rumi? Not a diluted version but the six volumes of the mathnavi? If you have read it, then you are one of the FEW Muslim women I truly admire simply for their choice of literature. Everything else, including your being a Mossad agent, is insignificant. A westernized Rumi fan is, to me, a safer bet on Islam than a Maulvi who has read nothing other than his maddrassah syllabus.” - Asif

Irshad replies: I insisted on being introduced to the original work of Mevlana Rumi in my first year of university. That’s when I took an honours course in Western civilization and realized that it didn’t include the many contributions Muslims have made to Western civ. I was willing to tolerate such superficiality in my high school social studies classes, but not in the academy.

By the way, I disagree that every addition of a lesbo to this world means straight men are deprived of a soul mate… unless, of course, the soul can only be mated with in bed. Surely any lover of Rumi knows that there’s more to passion than that. *Wink*

“Irshad Manji, you are a hateful twit. I challenge you to read this.” - Sarah

The hateful twit replies: Not only have I read the review, Sarah, but I’ve long posted it on my own website. In fact, I’ve posted many screeds condemning me so that people can make up their own minds. That’s what it’s all about: independent thinking, free of ideological dogma. After all, why would you want to be just like George W. Bush?

Assuming you’re different than Bush, I recommend that you read the responses to that review in the muslimwakeup “comment” forum. You’ll discover a healthy debate. Here’s just one entry that challenges your ‘hateful twit’ remark:

“I have to respectfully disagree with such a critique of manji’s book. I dont necessarily agree with Manji’s views but a critique should be an intellectual unbiased one, this one I feel was a little too one-sided and too emotional, charged with religious feelings. Why remind readers that Manji failed to mention “US hypocrisy” or “Western” this or that? The book is about us Muslims, not about the west or the US. Let’s look at ourselves for a moment and stop complaining and blaming the other all the time. We are only victims if we choose to be. Yes the US and the West have and are doing some hypocritical and sometimes unfair deeds, but what about us? What about our conception of Islam, of a “Muslim” society, of our “Muslim values” etc? Do we hold the key to knowledge and righteousness because we are Muslims? And what is Islam? Do we practice it the right way? What is the right way? Should we be preaching to others? Ask yourselves these questions first, and that is what Manji is advocating, a questioning of our values and practices as rational individuals.” - Safwan, Morocco