Yesterday Dartmouth hosted a lecture by Dr. Daniel Pipes and, as predictably as an an angry bull reacts to a red cloth waved in front of its face, those who feel threatened by what Daniel Pipes has to say about the threat of radical Islam went ballistic. Oosman Ansari '03, an executive board member of Al-Nur Muslim Students' Association wrote a knee-jerk opinion piece in The Dartmouth, claiming to "speak for Al-Nur" and advocating censoring Dr. Pipes's opinions in the interest of "building bridges between our diverse racial and spiritual communities in America." The editorial borrowed heavily from a Council on American-Islamic Relations attack on Dr. Pipes which contains entirely fabricated quotes and which Pipes easily refutes on his website. These Pavlovian reactions are sadly all too familiar. The same defamatory comments were leveled against me on these pages this past summer by most of the same individuals. Interestingly enough, I was even accused of plagiarizing Dr. Pipes. Did I advocate attacking Muslims? Not quite.
In one summer column, I exposed literature posted on the Al-Nur website ("Preaching Hatred at Dartmouth," June 29). Although Al-Nur would like us to forget this literature existed, it is recorded for posterity on Internet archive sites. While one can find many controversial quotes attributed to Dr. Pipes, none compare to what I found on the site: "The Messenger of Allah said, 'The Last Hour will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews, until a Jew will hide himself behind a stone or a tree, and the stone and the tree will say, "O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him"' ... In the present-day world, archery has lost its value as it has been replaced by other inventions like tanks, guns, missiles, atom bombs, etc. In the present-day context, the injunction of the Noble Koran to acquire power means manufacturing and possession of all these devices. It is incumbent on the Muslims that they equip themselves with all this material and show no carelessness It is incumbent upon the Muslims to overpower the might and power of the infidels for the glorification of Islam."
While the organization might urge others to "build bridges," these and numerous other hateful passages on Al-Nur's former website suggested a totally different desire on the part of some of their members and are a blatant exercise in hypocrisy.
In the '60s, when a lot of white Southerners were criticized for racist and bigoted violence, their reaction was much like what we witnessed on Thursday in response to Pipes' criticism of radical Islam. Similarly, many Southern whites claimed that those who criticized them were preaching intolerance for Southern white culture. They attacked proponents of desegregation with mob protests and defamatory statements. And instead of joining the critics of bigotry and violence in their noble cause, many otherwise innocent Southerners sided with the bigots. Unfortunately, the same hatred and violence is today encouraged in the name of Islam and we must fight it as vigorously as racism was fought in those days. In order to build a bridge, the mud on the riverbanks must be removed so that a solid foundation can be built lest it collapse and take us all into the abyss.
Verbal assault was not the only tactic of Southern racists and many people lost their lives during the struggle for civil rights because they stood up for what they believed was right. It was thus extremely disconcerting to receive a warning on Wednesday from a watchdog organization that monitors Jihadi websites. Posted on a notorious English language Jihadi message board that offers links to Al-Qaeda literature, speeches and beheading videos was our press release advertising Dr. Pipes's speech and its location. It was put there on Jan. 24 and the man who posted it, "Brother Mujahid," had written the following: "This is about a fourty [sic] minute drive from where I live and about a ten minute drive from where I work. The thoughts going through my head right now..." Other members of the message board urged him to embrace violence. A man called "abuyusuf" wrote, "do it akhi." Another man called "muaskar tadreeb" demanded, "don't hesitate...publish your wassiya [Islamic Will, often released by suicide bombers before their death] here first...la tushaweero a'adan fee qatl yahood wa amricaan [signal the enemy when killing Jews and Americans]."
I forwarded these warnings to the Hanover police and the FBI was notified. I hope this man will be found and watched before he decides to follow up on his friends' recommendations. Regardless of Mr. Ansari's claims, it was for security purposes and not out of fear of a sophomoric and spurious criticism that we delayed publicizing the lecture.
The aforementioned responses to Pipes' visit confirm the verity of Pipes' admonitions about radical Islam. Pipes claims that only a small minority of Muslims are actually militant, has never insisted that Muslims should be interned and urges anyone who posts fabricated quotes by him to try and find them in his actual writing instead of in Islamic defamation literature. Nevertheless, there is nothing to prevent the few who do believe in violent Jihad against Jews and Americans from living amongst us and threatening our societies and our lives. They go to college with us, they work and live minutes away from us. They use their coreligionists as human shields by committing evil deeds in the name of Islam and hoping to deflect criticism by claiming Islamophobia on the part of their critics.
Most Muslims are wonderful people and I am proud to be friends with many of them. When 9/11 happened, I was abroad and I will never forget that it was a Muslim girl who comforted me in my distress at the tragedy. Yet those who would kill and defame to further their triumphalist goals must be stopped, for the sake of our society and for the sake of those Muslims who would have nothing to do with such filth. Obviously, we cannot place all Muslims in internment camps because if we do, our morals will die instead. Therefore both Muslims and non-Muslims must confront the taint of bigotry in modern Islam and eradicate it. When that happens, not even Dr. Pipes will have a problem with Islam and its practitioners.
Whether in the apocalyptical "Last Hour" or at Pipes's lecture last afternoon, if the killing of Jews or Americans is advocated or attempted, we will defend ourselves. Blood libels and death threats have always been a favorite weapon of bigotry against Jews and others. We have been subjected to both of these this week but we refuse to be deterred from doing what we believe is right. When two Jewish college students and an African-American were murdered in the South by white supremacists for their participation in the civil rights movement, they gave their lives for the motto "never again," which they applied to all peoples who are in danger of hatred-driven annihilation. If "Brother Mujahid" decides to act on what was going through his head, so be it. But we will not stop doing what we believe is right and we will by no means go quietly.
