Did You Hear What She said About Muslims?
Dr. Wafa Suitan is a Syrian-American psychiatrist, who lives in Southern California. On February 21, 2006, she unfavorably compared Muslim to Jews, out loud, in Arabic, on Al-Jazeera, the most widely-seen Arabic television network on the planet. According to an article written by John M. Broder in the New York Times and rerun in the Daily News, here is what she said.
“The Jews have come from the tragedy (the Holocaust) and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not with their crying and yelling.” She continued, “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.” She concluded, “Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for mankind before they demand that mankind respect them.”
You can only imagine the reaction in the Muslim world. Clerics denounced her as an infidel. One said that she had done Islam more damage than the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Dr. Ibrahim al-Khouli, a professor of religious studies, said she had blasphemed Islam, the prophet Mohammed, and the Koran. She has received numerous death threats.
Who is this lady?! Wafa Suitan grew up in a traditional Muslim family in Syria. Her father was a devout Muslim and she followed her family’s faith into adulthood. She is a psychiatrist, wife, and mother of three children.
How could such a woman come to such conclusions? According to her, her life changed in 1979. She was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At the time, a radical group called the “Muslim Brotherhood” was using terror to undermine the regime of President Hafez Assad. One day, while she was attending class, gunmen from the Muslim Brotherhood bursts into the classroom and killed the professor as she watched. She reported, “They shot hundreds of bullets into him shouting, ‘God is Great!’ At that point, I lost my trust in their God and began to question all our teachings and it has led me to this present point, I had to leave. I had to look for another God.” Now she says she is not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew; she is a “secular human being.”
When I read that story, I had several reactions. She may not be religious, but she is an astute, brave, and courageous woman. If Muslims are opposed to suicide bombings, terrorism, and the killing of innocent people, they should loudly proclaim it. Looking for another God is a great idea. God is not One who says, “Die for me so that you can go to heaven.” He is the One whose Son died for us that we might have eternal life.
© G. Michael Cocoris, 3/13/2006
“The Jews have come from the tragedy (the Holocaust) and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not with their crying and yelling.” She continued, “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.” She concluded, “Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for mankind before they demand that mankind respect them.”
You can only imagine the reaction in the Muslim world. Clerics denounced her as an infidel. One said that she had done Islam more damage than the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Dr. Ibrahim al-Khouli, a professor of religious studies, said she had blasphemed Islam, the prophet Mohammed, and the Koran. She has received numerous death threats.
Who is this lady?! Wafa Suitan grew up in a traditional Muslim family in Syria. Her father was a devout Muslim and she followed her family’s faith into adulthood. She is a psychiatrist, wife, and mother of three children.
How could such a woman come to such conclusions? According to her, her life changed in 1979. She was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At the time, a radical group called the “Muslim Brotherhood” was using terror to undermine the regime of President Hafez Assad. One day, while she was attending class, gunmen from the Muslim Brotherhood bursts into the classroom and killed the professor as she watched. She reported, “They shot hundreds of bullets into him shouting, ‘God is Great!’ At that point, I lost my trust in their God and began to question all our teachings and it has led me to this present point, I had to leave. I had to look for another God.” Now she says she is not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew; she is a “secular human being.”
When I read that story, I had several reactions. She may not be religious, but she is an astute, brave, and courageous woman. If Muslims are opposed to suicide bombings, terrorism, and the killing of innocent people, they should loudly proclaim it. Looking for another God is a great idea. God is not One who says, “Die for me so that you can go to heaven.” He is the One whose Son died for us that we might have eternal life.
© G. Michael Cocoris, 3/13/2006