UPDATED: Of Muslims, Islam and free speech

Four events over the last two weeks seem to be linked. I'll recap them and you can see how long it takes you to figure out the connection. [Kind of gave it away in the headline, didn't you? Ed.]

Item: Police in Albuquerque NM had their hands full, trying to figure out who was stalking and killing Muslim men. The lamestream press were quick to speculate that the murders were the work of a white supremacist, probably a Trump supporter. Fear struck the hearts of the local Islamic community, and politicians everywhere trumpeted the need for tolerance, and freedom of religion. 

There were not a few red faces -- not from sunburn -- when the coppers arrested Muhammad Syed, 51, a fellow follower of the Prophet. UPDATE ADDED 16/8/22: According to Reuters, Police now believe Shaheen Syed, 21, the son of the prime suspect, may have played a role in the murders.

"We have a free country here – why did he do that?", asked another member of the supposedly tight-knit Muslim community. Turns out Mr Syed was "possibly" infuriated that his daughter married into the "wrong" branch of Islam. Apparently Shia and Sunni Muslims don't mix in America any better than they do in Iraq.

Item: Last Tuseday a Texas jury found Yaser Abdel Said, 65, of Lewisville, guilty of the murder of his daughters, 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said, in a taxi in 2008. Mr Said had evaded arrest for over 12 years following the slayings of his children, which was provoked, defenders said, by the girls' insistence on comporting themselves like other American teens.

Even though the crime was committed in Texas, prosecutors did not pursue the death penalty, so Mr Said received an automatic life sentence. Why was the death penalty not demanded? Perhaps because the killings were, according to Mr Said's religion and culture, a "matter of honour".  

No, those are not the Said girls. They are Asra Abdullah Alsehli, 24, and Amaal Abdullah Alsehli, 23, whose bodies were discovered in their Sydney, Australia, apartment on June 7th.  .

Item: The Alsehli sisters were last in the news five years ago, when they fled from a family holiday by jumping on a plane from Saudi Arabia to Sydney, where they claimed asylum, saying they renounced Islam and had become atheists. Their parents were said to be displeased and begged the girls to come home, but, so far as is known, made no attempts to repatriate them against their will.

When the rent on their apartment went unpaid for three months, the Aussie authorities went for a "welfare check" and found mail piled up outside the door. When they gained entry, they found the two women's bodies, fully clothed, in separate bedroom. There were no signs of forced entry or injury.

Police called their deaths as "suspicious" and "unusual", and are awaiting autopsy and toxicology results to figure out what could have happened. Although the sisters' background, and how they came to be in Australia, were common knowledge, Inspector Knacker said there is "nothing to suggest" their family should be considered suspects. So that's OK then.

Item: We come now to Friday's attack on author Salman Rushdie, as he was preparing to speak at the Chautauqua Institution, near Buffalo NY. Mr Rushdie suffered serious injuries to his neck, throat and liver when he was stabbed repeatedly by a Muslim now identified as Hadi Matar, 24, from Fairfield NJ.

Local police Sergeant Friday said they aren't sure what motivated the attack. Walt will explicate the muddification, and thereby come to the point of this article.

Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding after a fatwa (religious decree) issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini, for the grave sin of airing his "unacceptable views" of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed in his 1988 book The Satanic Verses.

 Mr Rushdie, who was born in India to non-practising Muslims and identifies as an atheist, was declared an apostate, and forced to go underground as a bounty was put on his head. He was granted police protection by the government in the UK, where he was at school and where he made his home, following the murder or attempted murder of his translators and publishers.

Hadi Matar reportetdly supported the Iranian government, which had demanded Rushdie's execution. He reportedly posted a picture of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei on his Facebook page. According to an analysis of Mr Matar's social media footprints, he supports Shia extremism and the goals of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Investigators found pictures of Iranian commander Qassem Solemani, muirdered in 2020, on Mr Matar's cellphone.

Got the picture now, fellas? Can you say "Islamic extremist"? Maybe not, because the real story here is not that the victims and suspects all are (or were) believers in the Religion of Peace, but that the lickspittle media have consistently downplayed, or not reported at all, the religion and ethnicity of those involved. Mustn't stoke the fires of Islamophobia!

The liberal elites, especially the literary types, were quick to decry the attempted murder -- for that's what it was -- of Salman Rushdie as a heinous attack on the freedom of speech which we cherish and which must be protected, yada yada yada. 

That's a bit rich, coming from the likes of Blackie McBlackface, Prime Minister of Canuckistan, who demonstrated his belief in free speech by clamping down on the Freeedom Convoy protesters, whom he called a "fringe minority" who held "unacceptable views". 

It was his government who forced the Canadian House of Commons to pass M-103, a resolution that enjoins the sheeple of Canada from saying anything bad about any religion... but especially Islam. The Dumbocrats, especially the likes of Ilhan Omar, would like to see similar legislation passed by Congress. 

Ms Omar is notorious for her anti-Israel/anti-Semitic rantings, but woe betide anyone who points out that Jews and Christians generally don't go around killing their family members or other co-religionists because of their "unacceptable views".

In our headlong rush to commit what James Burnham called The Suicide of the West (Random House, 1970), we allow followers of the Prophet to preach the triumph of Islam and the extermination of  apostates (like Salman Rushdie and the Alsehli sisters) and infidels (like us!), because to speak ill of Islam or its prophets and leaders is... wait for it... "unacceptable". 

Further reading (and the point of this post): "Don't mention the Muslims!", WWW 14/10/15.

Still more reading (added 16/8/22): "Trudeau, Biden won't name actual threat to Salman Rushdie", by the estimable Rex Murphy, National Post, 16/8/22. Quote: "They ignore radical Islamists in favour of platitudes about free expression."

Another quote: "To listen to Mr. Biden or Mr. Trudeau...he was stabbed for standing up for the generalized idea of 'freedom of expression.' No, he was not. He was stabbed because a fundamentalist strand of Islam and the leaders of Iran regarded his book as a 'blasphemy' for in their words 'insulting the prophet.'"

Rex says it better, but Walt said it first!