Unverifiable opinions, evasive answers don't change facts

To The Daily Sun,

I see Mr. Robert Azzi is all in on the restriction on free speech; well, at least as far as it might challenge his presentations on “Ask a Muslim Anything.” Yes, he will answer any question, though I’ve found his answers are often evasive or inaccurate.

Take, for instance, the assertion in the Quran that Muhammad married a six-year-old little girl, then consummated the marriage when she was nine. My personal experience was that he claims modern Muslim scholars believe the writings were misinterpreted, that she was actually 21, because that’s Islamic law, 21. I have to wonder what it was that these “modern scholars” found in the thousand-year-old writings to come to this convenient conclusion? Still, that was as it was written back then.

I must wonder if Mr. Azzi has seen Anni Cyrus’ story on her video on the internet. Ms. Cyrus claims her father sold her when she was nine years old in Iran in marriage to an older man. And she was just one of the nine-year-olds in her school to have that done to them. Why? So her father would assure himself a place in paradise.

Notice I use the word “claim,” readers, because I certainly can’t verify it, but would ask, is her claim any less believable than Mr. Azzi’s claim of modern scholars now saying Muhammad didn’t marry a child?

But that’s what Mr. Azzi does. He throws out many unverifiable opinions as to why a questioner or question is not credible, chief among them comes the terms bigot, racist, Islamophobia, and then the big one, “President Trump.”

Now look, these questions being asked go far back before Donald Trump ever got into politics, so what Mr. Azzi is trying to do is make the questions political in nature rather then moral or educational. Seems to work, too, as so many just accept any plausible answer. That, of course, is because most of his audience has never read anything about Islam in the first place.

Another ploy he used when I attended was, when asked a question about terrorism, he said that 80 percent of terrorism in America was done by white supremacists. You know, I haven’t seen that at all on the news. Really, have readers seen any body counts of the victims of white supremacists or bombs going off, tall buildings crashing down, killing people? Answer is no, because there are no such acts being committed by those he accuses.

On the other hand, hundreds of reported and documented attacks by Islamics are committed every year all over the world. But, as you may now guess, Mr. Azzi challenges these facts because he claims they come from “Islam haters”. Now ask, how does he know they are “haters,” not just record-keepers? Maybe they do hate, but do they hate all Islam, or just the terrorists? Given that between 80 and 90 percent of all lethal terror attacks worldwide are carried out in the name of Islam, should we not be concerned? Should we hide the facts, pretend they are “hate speech” not to be spoken of?

That’s what Mr. Azzi would like, because in the Islamic world, nothing must be said or done critical of Islam or Muhammad. In the Islamic world the meaning of slander is anything a Muslim doesn’t like to hear or see. Doesn’t have to be a lie or wrong just offensive. Like drawing some cartoon images of Muhammad, and we all know what happened to those people.

Steve Earle

Gilford