I wrote the following article that was posted on the MANA website: Honor Killings and The Bridges TV Tragedy
The article addressed the Bridges tragedy and dismisses the attempts to falsely associate Islam with honor killings. Below is an attack on my article by Daniel Pipes to support his Islamophobic views. I advise you to please read my article linked above before reading Daniel Pipes attack below to get a real perspective. I think after doing so, if you are not convinced of how deceitful and demonizing Daniel Pipes is, you would be. Not only does Daniel Pipes attack and misrepresent what my article is saying on his blog, he does that to other Muslims as well. http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2009/02/bridges-tv-a-wifes-beheading-and-honor-murder.html Mar. 2, 2009 update: In an undated posting on the Muslim Alliance in North America, an Islamist organization headed by Siraj Wahhaj, Nashid Abdul-Khaaliq addresses the topic of "Honor Killings and The Bridges TV Tragedy." He writes: This event, which exposes a well-respected, prominent Muslim as a domestic abuser, who allegedly decapitated his wife, is an Islamophobic scaremonger's dream. … Honor killings are a Middle Eastern cultural phenomenon that is practiced by ignorant Muslims, Christians and others from that region. It pre-dates Islam and is an ugly manifestation that many Islamic, Christian and other organizations are working hard to eradicate. Honor killings are murders by families on family members who are believed to have brought "shame" on the family name. It is usually done by a male member of the family who kills a female relative for "tarnishing" the family image Then follows a 1,600-word elaboration on this theme, distancing Islam from honor killings. Abdul-Khaaliq ends by blaming the West, of course, for honor killings: Colonialism had a big hand to play in this, as admitted to by several documentaries, books and other literature, under colonialism, the British and other western powers encouraged extremism in Al-Islam. They killed out and stifled the voices of true Islam and encouraged cultural and barbaric practices to thrive and be supported. This was a tactic used to destroy Muslim societies and today we see the ugly remnants of that in many Muslim countries To complete the picture, Abdul-Khaaliq urges his audience to Please read "Confessions of a British Spy" to learn more about how thoroughly such work was done within the Islamic world to encourage extremism, bad cultural habits and un-Islamic behavior, being portrayed under the banner of Al-Islam in order to weaken the people and make them better subjects of the colonialists. Ah, that old chestnut – the one that claims the British government of the early 1700s planted a spy named Hempher in Arabia who was the source of the Wahhabi doctrine. For a synopsis of this forgery, see "The Saga of 'Hempher,' Purported British Spy," an extract from my 1996 book, The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy, pp. 211-12. You know that Wahhaj and his colleagues must be a little desperate if they must resort to a counterfeit text to explain away honor killings. Not only does Daniel Pipes misrepresent the message of my essay, he takes my essay and associates it with Imam Siraj and MANA which is totally false. This was an individual work on my behalf using my own research with no consultation or reference to Imam Siraj. Even when you go to Daniel Pipes's links, they do not dispel in anyway the confessions made by Hempher regarding his role and other British spies role in attempting to hijack Islam and lead Muslims to extremism.
