Short and Controversial
Dec. 30th, 2006 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdA few months ago I went to a lecture at Little House in Menlo Park on Islam, given by an American Islamic organization whose goal of the moment was to try to reduce anti-Islamic feelings in the US by spreading the word of what a lovely peaceful, giving religion Islam is. They gave me a DVD on the life of Muhammad, which I saved till Christmas week to watch, since I'm just ironic that way.
Turned out to be a PBS production, extremely well photographed with lots of location shots and lots of close-up interviews with American Muslims, a large percentage of them converts, and Islamic scholars.
It was made very soon after 9/11, and its goal was to tell America that the terrorists were breaking Islamic law by doing what they did, and not to fear women in those distinctive head wrappings.
At the end of the movie, they show an Islamic woman making a speech in a mosque, explaining how she and her co-religionists had been going to churches and temples to try to allay the fears of Americans regarding the Muslims in our midst. She implied that it was not working, and wondered out loud what more they could possibly do.
What more you can do, lady, is take your message to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Libya, etc. and tell them Islam forbids acts of terror. Because it's not American Muslims who are the terrorists. And if anyone could stop anti-American terror from Islamic extremists, it would be other Muslims.
Turned out to be a PBS production, extremely well photographed with lots of location shots and lots of close-up interviews with American Muslims, a large percentage of them converts, and Islamic scholars.
It was made very soon after 9/11, and its goal was to tell America that the terrorists were breaking Islamic law by doing what they did, and not to fear women in those distinctive head wrappings.
At the end of the movie, they show an Islamic woman making a speech in a mosque, explaining how she and her co-religionists had been going to churches and temples to try to allay the fears of Americans regarding the Muslims in our midst. She implied that it was not working, and wondered out loud what more they could possibly do.
What more you can do, lady, is take your message to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Libya, etc. and tell them Islam forbids acts of terror. Because it's not American Muslims who are the terrorists. And if anyone could stop anti-American terror from Islamic extremists, it would be other Muslims.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}