During interview yesterday with Andy Bostom by The Blaze’s Ben Weingarten, he was asked the following question concerning Zuhdi Jasser (which I am told he had no foreknowledge of):
Ben Weingarten:
Your basic argument is that, sharia and Islam more broadly, in effect, implement the system that is totalitarian so it’s antithetical to Western liberal society. Majority of Muslim people in the Muslim world, believe strongly in that view of their religion as it is promulgated in their more sacred texts.
When you encounter someone like a Zuhdi Jasser, how does that factor in to your sort of view of the world? Is he an outlier, is he not following the religion piously in effect? What’s your view?
Andy’s response, IMHO, was not only eminently fair, but critical to understanding the profound limitations of what Jasser is doing despite his widespread embrace by “conservatives”.
Andrew Bostom:
Yeah, he’s clearly an outlier. I admire the goal that he wants, but where I think he runs afoul of reality and candor frankly, is that he’s not willing, he’ll never cite the data for example that I just cited to you Ben. It’s disturbing. It would be disturbing to me if I were a Muslim who was very westernized and secularized, and really did want to practice my Islam as a denuded private faith which doesn’t have any of these totalitarian aspects to it. Practice pietistic aspects of it, peacefully and be a good citizen etc..
If he’s confronted with the fact that he really is such an outlier, I think that it creates an almost congitive dissonance, Ben, and I sympathize, but I would appreciate if good western Muslims like him were a little more honests about the scope of the problem.
And even in the United States we’re seeing signs. I mean, these ideas, whether they’re Zuhdi’s ideas or whether they’re ideas of mainstream Islam, obviously cross all borders now, and if we look at polling data for American Muslims, it’s beginning to get alarming. There was polling data released essentially done just to guage who Muslims were going to vote for in 2012. These were polls conducted by Wenzell Associates, and because of their validity they did predict that Muslims were largely voting for Obama, and that turned out to be true.
But then they have some, as far as collecting demographic data and attitudinal data, the asked some very important questions. One of the questions they asked was, should American basically be allowed to criticize Mohamed and Islam, and 58% of Muslims in this country said no. 46% felt that there should be some form of legal punishment for engaging in free speech, criticism of Mohamed and Islam, and 12%, that God that’s still a small number but significant when you’re dealing with this question, 12% actuallt said that blasphemers should suffer the sharia penalty which is being put to death.
About a third wanted the sharia to eventually replace the the U.S. Constitution. Now, those aren’t the numbers you’re getting from the five largest Muslim populations of the world, or from Iran where 77% – 83% respectively. I found that somewhat alraming already in this country, that those attitudes were so wide spread.
What happened afterwards was disturbing. After the interview was posted at the Blaze, Jasser took to mindless, ad hominem attacks on twitter, NOT Bostom. I believe that this kind of childish knee-jerk reaction, tantamount to blowing spit bubbles while sticking one’s indexes in their ears, deserves criticism by all decent and honest people…
Dishonest discourse espoused by driveby activists like @andrewbostom are major liability 2credibility of conservative movt against #jihad
— M. Zuhdi Jasser (@DrZuhdiJasser) February 7, 2015
@andrewbostom rich coming from a guy writing a fictitious review of my book on its release without reading it @diana_west_ @frankgaffney
— M. Zuhdi Jasser (@DrZuhdiJasser) February 7, 2015
@DrZuhdiJasser @diana_west_ @frankgaffney Name ONE “fictitious” element of this blog which was NOT a “review” http://t.co/aNleuI20EI
— Andrew Bostom (@andrewbostom) February 7, 2015
@andrewbostom bizarre from the king of ad hominem attacks whose versions of history chnge daily calling me an “apologist”+”Mo” @back_samuel
— M. Zuhdi Jasser (@DrZuhdiJasser) February 7, 2015
@DrZuhdiJasser @back_samuel You have proven you are incapable of reasoned, factual debate despite being given ample opportunity. No Mas.
— Andrew Bostom (@andrewbostom) February 7, 2015
@shortwave8669 sir I didn’t start this food fight @andrewbostom @back_samuel
— M. Zuhdi Jasser (@DrZuhdiJasser) February 7, 2015
@shortwave8669 conservatives @frankgaffney should be smart to marginalize characters who are a careless liability 2 the movt! @andrewbostom
— M. Zuhdi Jasser (@DrZuhdiJasser) February 7, 2015
Diana West fires back:
@DrZuhdiJasser @frankgaffney Zero mention of @AndrewBostom in that article, so not evidence for your “dishonest” charge. #YouLose
— Diana West (@diana_west_) February 7, 2015
