Zhudi Jasser in Boston April 22 - Ford Hall Forum

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser is a terrific,passionate speaker, and he's in Boston tomorrow to speak at the Ford Hall Forum about Islam and America.  Details here:

Modern Islam:

Engaging questions of faith, fanatics, democracy, and reform

Mona Eltahawy, award-winning New York-based journalist and international lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues; Zuhdi Jasser, Founding Member and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), an American Muslim organization advocating for the separation of mosque and state; and Bilal Kaleem, Executive Director of the Muslim American Society of Boston, join moderator James Carroll, Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Suffolk University, recipient of the James Parks Morton Interfaith Award, and Boston Globe columnist, to address the questions facing Islam, America, and democracy in the twenty-first century.

Thursday, April 22, 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Main Function Room, Suffolk University Law School

Open to the public and free.  You may register (no cost) here.

Dr. Jasser is a wonderful speaker, I heard him at a forum at Tufts University some years back.  I highly recommend attending this forum!  Jasser should be quite an antidote to the Muslim American Society strand of Islamism so widespread in our society and media. 

Mona Eltahawy is a journalist/writer, you can read her writings here. She spoke at an earlier Ford Hall Forum about three years ago.  I was disappointed in her speech back then, which can be summarized as "there's no threat by radical Muslims in the US, it's just Islamophobia, the media only covers the angry bearded Muslims, don't worry - be happy." Will we just hear the same old/same old from Mona at Suffolk?

Bilal Kaleem is the face of the Muslim American Society/Islamic Society of Boston here in Boston.  Smart guy (MIT grad), photogenic, courteous and affable, diligently promotes Islam.   Kaleem is able to ignore that the parent organization of the MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, and that one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood's organization in the U.S.is Dr. Jamal Badawi, a trustee of the ISB.  Kaleem's wife, BTW, is the Muslim chaplain at Wellesley College.  The MAS has a strong presence in the Boston area colleges and in the leadership of several Muslim organizations, including mosques in Sharon, Worcester, Lowell and Revere.  

Should be a lively talk! 

Comments

[Winona]

OK, let's see what we've got here: one guy advocating for what can never happen because Islam doesn't recognize any separation between mosque and government (shariah, anybody?); two Muslims doing their dawa with taqiyya and kitman; and the most predictable Christianity-basher at the Boston Glib. Yep, that'll proving enlightening; might even pick up one or two "reverts" for the "faith" in the audience. Pity no one had the common sense and patriotism to invite, oh say, Walid Phares, Wafi Sultan or Robert Spencer, just to add some facts and balance.

[Miss Kelly]

Winona, thanks for the comment. Agreed, the dsicussion would have been way more interesting if Wafa Sultan or Nonie Darwish was invited instead of Eltahaway.

[Maternity nursing gowns]

A world renown professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, Said wrote a highly influential, paradigm shifting book Orientalism [at Amazon.com], which deals with Euro-American imperialism and its distorting influence on the writings of Western scholars about non-Western cultures. Subsequently Said wrote Covering Islam [at Amazon.com], which focuses on how Euro-American scholars and journalists slant what they write about Islam

[Winona]

Maternity nursing gowns: Honey, you are WAAAAAY out in left-field over Said whose dire influence is partly what has produced so much drivel about Islam, along the lines of 'religion of peace hijacked by an itsy-bitsy minority misunderstanding it...' If you want the real deal, look no further than Islam's conquering imperialism ever since Mohammed started out as a warlord and built up his Arabian empire. Western imperialism actually civilized a lot of the globe and did far more good than harm. Islam has been a disaster for every country and people who have been enslaved under it and its sharia.