From: Joe Zychik <jzychik@via.net>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 15:36:55 +0800
To: Alan Horowitz <alanh@infi.net>
Subject: Re: Online Zakat Payment: Religious tithe.
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960216050049.007358fc@via.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 08:59 PM 2/15/96 -0500, you wrote:
>On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, Sean Gabb wrote:
>
>> where Islam is concerned, there 
>> are so many individuals behaving badly that we are justified in thinking 
>> the whole religion a force for bad.
>
>> But the fact is that most Moslems 
>> venerate old men in beards, who think that anyone who disagrees 
>> with them about God should be put to death, that a woman with a 
>> clitoris is a kind of devil, and that Western classical music is evil.
>
>
>    And your travels in the Islamic world consist of?   And you 
>personally know how many Muslims?  And you have read how much Islamic 
>sources?

Below is an article from today's Zychik Chronicle, that is very, very
relevant to this post:


(New York Times) "I didn't know enough Arabic to lead the prayer and was
still a student of the Koran," said Isak-El M. Pasha. A plumber at the time,
he was appointed the inman of the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque in Harlem. The
appointment was given to him by the dying inman, Ali Rashid.
He cried that night and "submitted to the 'will of Allah.'" The orthodox
Sunni Muslim sect he was to lead had broken with Louis Farakhaan in the
70's. By 1993, when Mr. Pasha took over, membership had dwindled down to
700. At one time this had been the temple where Malcolm X had preached his
most fiery sermons! But the break with Farakhaan almost caused the Mosque to
be foreclosed on.
Today the Mosque has 8,000 members and Mr. Pasha is "being called Harlem's
new spokesman." Mr. Pasha's rise in the Black community establishes that
most Blacks don't like racism. Here's a few quotes of his: "We have as much
racism practiced among us as black people as any racism that has been
practiced upon us by other groups." When he invited the white Mayor of New
York City to speak at the mosque he was criticized by radical black racists.
His response: "Sometimes leadership in Harlem treats African-Americans like
children. . Like if some white man talks to us we're going to be lead back
into slavery. We have a constituency and I'm obligated to bring those they
elect to them."
Finally, a comment that is sure to drive Bill-Racist-Clinton and
Janet-makes-you-feel-sorry-for-Parkinson's-disease-Reno up the wall: "Islam
won't accept racism and won't allow Muslims to practice it."
Let's call Mr. Pasha a True Muslim.

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jz