a few notes I made whilst watching the video.
Starts off with a huge pile of annoying rhetoric, no actual substance. She calls Islam a backwards religion, which it isn't possible to argue with as everyone defines "backwards" in any way they want to. She gives no reasons for why Islam is "backwards." My own view is that Islam is the way forwards, and that disbelief and/or polytheism bring us closer to the times of ignorance and chaos before the time of prophet Muhammed (saw). I'm not going to put forward any reason for why that is the case, after all Wafa Sultan didn't, so why do I need to? ...
She talks about Islam violating human rights. Human rights is subjective, but still Islam is actually very much in agreeance with the modern western perception of human rights so I won't argue about that. Islam was actually in much more conflict with outside perceptions of what human rights were, when it was revealed, compared to today.
She gives no examples of how Islam violates human rights, other than saying that Islam treats women "like beasts." Now she doesn't actually give any examples of this (there aren't any anyway), so I guess I won't bother talking about the common myths people attribute to Islam and women. Islam does not mistreat women.
Of course, treating someone like a "beast" is very subjective as well. Someone from an upbringing where women walk around fully dressed and where flirting isn't as common as it is here, might come here and think that women are being treated like sexual objects, and that this is a disgusting and extremely disrespectful practice.
She then makes a ****** misquote from the prophet (saw). Of course, once the prophet (saw) is in a battle he is going to keep fighting until the other side either give up and start believing in God, or they are taken prisoner, or they die (and Islam treats prisoners of war very well, look it up). Nobody is going to walk into a battle half-heartedly. However, that doesn't mean he went around fighting with every disbeliever who walked in front of him. In fact, he was extraordinarily patient with the people around him. Islam only allows fighting in certain circumstances. Initially, Muhammed (saw) went through a long period of violent persecution to which he made no reply, just took it and felt upset that people were so aggressive towards the message. Throughout his life, he was extremely sorrowful that the non muslims were so stubborn in their resistance to Islam, he wanted what he thought was best for them. He would become very upset about this and pray to God that they stopped rebelling and took up Islam. Sometimes he would be hesitant to speak to people about Islam because he was afraid they would insult it and, by doing so, incur punishment from Allah. But at the same time, he had to do what Allah ordered him to do, and if Allah wanted him to spread the message, he would have to do this even though he didn't expect positive response. The Qur'an makes reference to this behaviour of the prophet (saw), of course in the end the response became very positive.
As I've mentioned earlier as well, Islam is not hostile to other religions. We are told that if people want peace, we should keep to peace. It's only when they don't want peace, as was usually the case back in these times, that war can sometimes be justified. The people whom the muslims fought with early on, all of them wanted to fight and were at war with the muslims. Those who desired peace with the muslims were left alone, and could live side by side with muslims if they so wished (very few did, but there were some).
She goes on to give more rhetoric based on this misquote from the Qur'an. She claims that muslims refer to people of other faiths as "apes and monkey" and "people who incur the wrath of Allah." The Qur'an never does this. Here is where the Qur'an refers to people whom incur the wrath of Allah, it's in the very first chapter:
"Thee do we serve and Thee do we beseech for help.Keep us on the right path.The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favors. Not (the path) of those upon whom Thy wrath is brought down, nor of those who go astray. " (Shakir translation, sura 1 verses 5-7)
To me, that looks like a general statement, not really referring to anyone in particular. Blatant misquote? Yes.
"people of the Book," which is something else she goes on and on about, is simply referring to people who believe in some book which God revealed in times before us. It's actually almost a compliment, it's acknowledging that the books they believe in were also revealed by God, it's not insulting them in any way. Of course it wasn't a singular book, the Qur'an makes reference to the Taurah AND Gospel in the same verse sometimes, acknowledging that they are separate books. It also indicates that there were revelations before these books as well. There is no point in pedantically saying "oh don't say people of the Book, they have many books." Obviously an attempt at more rhetoric.
She then returns to the misquotes, and tries to claim that these are examples of Islam insulting other religions. Islam does forbid muslims from insulting people of other religions until our religion has been insulted. Then, we have a choice of whether or not we want to insult back. The main reason for this is that if a muslim insults someone else's religion, they will probably insult our religion back. When they do this, they increase their amount of sin, and as it was forbidden for the muslim to do this, the muslim also increases his amount of sin.
She then claims that Islam tries to force itself on others. As has been mentioned earlier in the thread by 118, muslims believe that there is no compulsion in religion. And there is that quote which I put in too, which indicates that there may be people of other religions who are also accepted as submitting to Allah, so obviously we need to be very careful about how we speak to them:
Sura 2 Verse 62:
Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.
She then chucks in more rhetoric about how she thinks Jews are better than muslims. She says "we have not seen a single Jew" do so-and-so... surely there is at least one?
Actually, I think there is probably a lot more than one, it's just rhetoric. She then generalises about muslims again, then finishes off by indirectly telling muslims that they should become more Western before asking for any respect.
Now I remember reading in another forum that think this woman is very clever and articulate well she isn’t she is dump who is out of her depth. To be wholly honest with you, I'm just not seeing it. Based on my first impressions from her ****** speech.
