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Ignorance + bigotry = tragedy !! [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-11-22

I think by now, most people have seen, or heard of, the rant by Mr. Stuart Seldowitz. Mr Sledowitz is a former high ranking career official within the Obama administration.

x this man has been identified: Stuart Seldowitz. He is a career diplomat who has worked at the State Department & served as National Security Advisor under President Obama. I will be providing this information to the authorities. pic.twitter.com/Xj1mD0EV6J — Layla 🪬 (@itslaylas) November 21, 2023

As per the tweet above, Mr. Seldowitz had been doing this for 2 weeks. I don’t know if that claim is accurate, obviously, but there is a 2nd video of Mr Seldowitz with another version of his racist tirade, so he obviously has some practice.

x his harassment of the Halal Cart vendor at 83rd and 2nd ave has been ongoing for two weeks.

NYPD has been called multiple times, local precinct stated that “there is nothing they can do because it is free speech”. pic.twitter.com/6LYL40TTFK — Layla 🪬 (@itslaylas) November 21, 2023

And this 2nd rant is what bothered me enough to write a diary on this. “Mohammad was a child molester”, as per Mr Seldowitz. “It says in the Hadith. Do you read the Hadith? How old was Ayesha when Mohammad married her?”

Now, I am about to launch into a discourse (or a rant, depending on how you take it) that may make me sound like a devout Muslim, so I will offer this caution: I am not a Muslim, and will likely never be one. I am a committed atheist; I have experimented with quite a few religions and have decided that they are not for me.

But if there is one thing that upsets me more than anything else, it is when people combine ignorance and bigotry. And this generally happens only with relatively well-educated people ~ those with fancy degrees from a high-falutin school. According to various sketchy reports from the internet (obviously, I am waiting to see if these hold), Mr. Seldowitz has a PhD in political science from some university in New York. So that would put him within my typecast. And another caution to readers: I also have a PhD from a high-falutin school, so this rant is mostly about people I closely identify with.



In all seriousness, the problem with getting a degree from a high-falutin school is that most people just read enough to support whatever pre-conceived biases they started with. The education just reinforces the bigotry. And then they stop. I also studied Islam, and I also came across that interesting factoid from the Hadiths that Mr. Seldowitz is citing. As per the Hadiths, Muhammad PBUH married Ayesha (who is universally acknowledged to be his favorite wife, and #1 disciple) when she was 6, and had sex with her at age 9. Obviously, this would be problematic today; and it would have been problematic even at Muhammad’s time. This is rape. Case closed...Muhammad was a bad guy, and all of his followers are evil.

Except things are more complicated. I was fortunate to have devout Muslim friends who guided me beyond my initial discovery. So here is the reality

The Hadiths are a set of books documenting the word of Muhammad. By contrast, the Quran documents the word of God, as narrated to Muhammad. Since God has a higher “rank” than Muhammad, you expect the Quran to be better documented (and more accurate) than the Hadiths. The Hadiths were written down about 150 years after the death of Mohammad PBUH. By contrast, the Quran was written down shortly after the death of Mohammad PBUH. For this additional reason, you really expect the Hadiths to be much more unreliable than the Quran. Thus, if there is a discrepancy between the Hadiths and the Quran, a rational person should ask why. According to the Quran, only “consenting adults” can take part in a marriage. So this would mean that Ayesha had to have been an adult when she married Mohammad. Most scholars actually place her at 14 years when she married Mohammad. Now, it is obviously possible that God’s #1 disciple (i.e. Mohammad) was a complete hypocrite and married a girl in violation of God’s command. But that would make Mohammed a child rapist AND a complete hypocrite. And we know he wasn't one. How do we know that Mohammad wasn't a hypocrite? Because there are primary sources on Mohammad’s character that are generally quite favorable on his personality traits. If he was a hypocrite and a child rapist, then it is an absolute guarantee that those primary sources would have mentioned it ~ it would have been quite a propaganda coup for his enemies and put his flock in mortal peril. Mohammad PBUH is an interesting Prophet that way ~ he is the first Prophet for whom we can find primary sources. And you know the best part? Those primary sources were allied Jewish tribes from that area. God, if he/she does exist, has a wicked sense of humor.

But the story is even more complicated, and even more funny.

As it so happens, Ayesha was Muhammad’s favorite wife, and also his most trusted commander. He ordained her as God’s #2 disciple. She was the only one (other than Muhammad) who actually led one of Muhammad’s armies in battle… and won. Muhammad was quite a bit ahead of his time when it comes to women’s rights. But, when Muhammad died, the leadership of the flock went to a man. Mohammad’s son-in-law Ali was chosen as the heir. At some point, an army led by Ayesha faced down an army led by Ali. But they were both in mortal danger from larger enemies, and Ayesha conceded the leadership in the larger interest of the flock. With this, Ayesha was sidelined, and the leadership of the flock remained firmly in the hands of men. 100 years after the fact, the men had a need to rewrite history so as to minimize Ayesha’s place as Muhammad’s favorite disciple and most trusted commander. Hence the story about Ayesha being 6 years old when she married Muhammad.

What is ironic is that Mr. Seldowitz is not the first Islamophobic bigots from a high-falutin university to read the Hadiths and jump to conclusions based on his preconceived biases. The spokeswoman for India’s ruling party made a very similar claim about 2 years back, for instance.

There is plenty to criticize about Islam that would be firmly grounded in actual facts… as there is for any religion. It just bothers me when bigots can't even be bothered to base their bigotry on actual facts.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/22/2207489/-Ignorance-bigotry-tragedy?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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