Zuhdi Jasser, a favorite ‘expert’ on Fox News, is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant who cloaks himself in the mantle of faithfulness to Islam while at the same time virulently attacking mainstream Islamic principles, Muslim scholars and rights groups.
He is part of a burgeoning industry that sees some truly amazing and quite frankly twilight zone-ish alignments and affiliations. In this alignment one can view Ultra-Zionists, Neo-Conservative war mongers, racists, Christian Dominionist’s of the Jesus Camp variety, so called ‘ex-Muslims’ and ‘ex-terrorists’ all working for the cause of delegitimizing Muslims and pushing a right wing agenda.
Zuhdi Jasser has chosen to align himself with these radicals and demagogues. He admits that he “is not an expert in Koranic Arabic, or Sharia”[1] but he has no problem in casting aside the legacy of fourteen hundred years of Muslim scholarly work and striving that brought about principles in interpretation of primary texts and in effect makes the claim that any Muslim can interpret the Koran as they wish. While Islam permits and promotes personal reflection, it warns against the kind of anarchy Zuhdi is favoring. Unscholarly whimsical interpretation is exactly what Bin Laden and his ilk have done with the Koran.
This is not the most insidious aspect to Zuhdi’s project. Take a closer look at who he works for and you will see the reality of what he is propagating. In the winter 2008 volume of Middle East Quarterly, he contributes an article entitled “Exposing the Flying Imam’s” about the case of 6 Imams who were taken off a plane and detained for hours because of the discomfort felt by some passengers who saw them praying.
What is the Middle East Quarterly? Well suffice it to say that it is founded by “Daniel Pipes and edited by Michael Rubin.“[2] Daniel Pipes, probably the most famous Islamophobe has been quoted saying such gems as, “Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene….All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.,”[3] and “In its long history of immigration, the United States has never encountered so violence-prone and radicalized a community as the Muslims who have arrived since 1965.”[4]
The list of racist and anti-Muslim quotes can run into the hundreds and it is no hidden secret that Daniel Pipes agenda is strictly communitarian and partisan, as he says, “I worry very much from the Jewish point of view that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims…will present true dangers to American Jews.”(emphasis mine)[5] This is the sort of paranoia and suspicion that drives every waking moment for Daniel Pipes, yet this is the ‘democrat’ that Zuhdi the ‘defender of Islam’ and Muslims works with and supports.
Zuhdi, as you cash in those checks for speaking engagements, TV appearances and donations to your “American Islamic Forum for Democracy” (which should be renamed “American Islamic Forum for Israel”) remember that American Muslims do not need or want leadership such as yours.
A leadership that aligns itself with Islamophobes such as Pipes, that supports the ill-advised occupation of Iraq, allegiance to the Republican party, unquestioned support for the State of Israel at our national expense, and a less then serious effort to engage the corpus of Islamic scholarship is one that we can do without.
Zuhdi, thanks but no thanks.
References:
[1]. (“Which Islam? Whose Islam? All Muslims own interpretation of the Quran, Part II,” 7/12/07)
[2]. http://www.meforum.org/meq/
[3]. (“The Muslims are coming! The Muslims cre coming! – growth of Muslimphobia”, 11/19/90)
[4]. (“No Muslim American Terrorists?,” FrontPageMag,12/12/05)
[5]. (Speaking before the American Jewish Congress, 9/21/01)
May 15, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I hate this guy too. He has a dubious and suspicious record and has established himself as a reference fore the anti-Islamic (or anti-Islamist as he likes to say) media.
May 19, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Anonymous,
Word you hit it on the head. This guy is so clearly dubious. He is linked to Daniel Pipes! This whole “Islamist” that these wanna be lame reformers try to pull is nothing but pure joke and a cover to just fight Islam and Muslims who have a political vision.
October 4, 2008 at 12:40 am
Wow, I had no idea he wrote for Family SEcurity Matters. A rightist pro settler suing me for libel (unsuccessfuly) writes for them too. Birds of a feather.
His rejection of Islamic authority is also weird. There were Jewish mystics who did this sort of thing because they viewed rabbinic authorities as hostile to their theology. But I’ve never heard of someone doing this for political reasons as Jasser does.
October 5, 2008 at 7:04 am
Hi mtakbar!
If you check out his 990’s for his “charity” there aren’t any earnings. You can get them by using Guidestar. I find this ODD, he does all these speaking engagements using his charity’s name and some of them HAVE to be paid engagements yet he’s not running the money through the charity. Isn’t there something odd about that?
October 5, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Peace Richard,
It is a pleasure to have you here and thank you for that great article you wrote once again. It will be interesting to see what happens when Third Jihad comes out.
Yes, aside from his troubling alliances and employers the thing that gives away his credibility is his inability to engage with any substance on Islamic scholarship or authority.
For one who claims to be a “reformer” this smacks of a lack of seriousness and sincerity, and it’s clear that it is as you state for “political reasons.”
In our history there have been mystics, scholars, philosopher’s as well who have opposed the establishment for theological reasons. More Muslims need to learn and understand this history because it will go a long way in the renewal of Islamic societies and perhaps add to the creative imaginative capacity of Muslims.
-MT
October 5, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Peace Robin,
Thank you for that valuable hat tip and it is very odd that he it seems is not running the earning’s from speaking engagements through his charity.
Will definitely check it out.
-MT
October 6, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Very nice. There is an entire industry of frauds and puppet Muslims doing the bidding of Islamophobes and the pro-Israeli lobby.
Tawfik Hamid is another one, who totally disregards 14 centuries of scholarship and sells his deen for a cheap prices.
October 9, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Salaam Br.Dawud,
JAK. I have heard of this character T. Hamid, and he has stated some remarkable and outlandish things. While claiming he is Muslim, and a Muslim “reformer”, he says:
He was asked by Orla Barry on her radio show:
Are you religious now?
TH: Not much. I believe in God, the Creator. If I am asked what is my religion I say I am Muslim by birth, Christian by spirit, Jew by heart and above all I am a human being.
He also blames Muslims for Islamophobia.
-MT
October 14, 2008 at 10:18 am
Hello. I just watched the online version of Third Jihad and I wonder how come this guy Jasser – and so many others like him who warn of what they describe as a grave threat of Islamic terrorism in the US – don’t seem to feel so threatened themselves. They insist that they oppose only radical Islam but in reality they are trying to incite the Christian-Jewish majority to attack Islam as a whole — and they become famous and probably make a good living from that.
May 4, 2009 at 3:43 pm
You can refute him and his motives, but you can’t refute the evidence he uses in his film. Those of you who would transform the US to be under sharia law beware of what you attempt. Remember, there are more guns in the hands of the American people than there are American people. We had to defend our rights against England. Islam will face the same thing. As Emproror Hirohito prophetically said:
“Awake a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
America may be asleep today, but not for long. It may be too late for the EU, they are largely unarmed, but not the US.
May 24, 2009 at 3:53 am
lol. This page is the first result of “Zuhdi Jasser” on Google! Great work exposing the racist that he and his industry are.
May 26, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Wow – John Q. American seems to have internet access in the cave that he’s holed up in with his militia! I’m impressed… Well, I guess if Osama can do it. Birds of a feather.
June 4, 2009 at 12:19 am
Salaam,
Zuhdi Jasser is totally outside loop. He characterizes the conflict with Al-Qaeda (which he conflates with Islamism)as being similar to the Cold War, though the “clash of civilizations” thesis has been debunked. He seems intent on ruining Obama’s bid for diplomacy in the Muslim world.
Zuhdi just wrote an article attacking Al-Azhar university, saying it is “a primary example of an Islamist institution which is one of the world’s primary sources of supremacist Islamist and salafist ideology.” Note that Zuhdi uses vauge, nebulous terms like “Islamist” and “Salafist,” even though there is no agreed upon definition of these terms, as if there is no difference between the progressive “Salafi” Muhammad Abduh or the terrorist “Salafi” Osama bin Laden. They’re simply boogey men terms. Like you said, a less than serious effort to engage Islamic scholarship.
Not only Islamic scholarship, but Western scholarship on Islam as well. Zuhdi doesn’t seem to care about recent Gallup Polls conducted by Dr. John Esposito which reveal global Muslim opinions. That scientific study and poll debunked a lot of stereotypes which Zuhdi seems intent on spreading.
August 27, 2009 at 5:54 am
AIFD = Zionist front.
November 10, 2009 at 10:31 pm
[…] job by MT Akbar on […]
November 15, 2010 at 11:58 am
Abu Hurairah reported that the messenger of Allah s.a.w said: “Hasten the good works before the advent of tribulations like pieces of dark night. A man will get up a believer in the morning and end the day as an unbeliever, or end his day a believer and get up an unbeliever next morning, selling his religion for a share of this world.” (Muslim)
It’s a real shame he considers him self muslim, or maybe a bigger shame is he does not know what Islam is. Do the american people actually believe his views and the AIFD and there supporters are that of Islam and the Muslim people.
May 13, 2011 at 12:03 am
It is a cheap way to become famous i.e. being traitor to your own religion. how pathetic!
July 26, 2011 at 3:55 am
It really irks me when he makes claims about American Muslims wanting to instate Sharia Law into our governments. No, we don’t! And under Sharia Law, we are actually obligated to follow the Laws of the Land on which we live. Many of the Constitution’s values coincide with Islamic values, anyway. But I really got annoyed when I found out this guy admitted to not having much knowledge on Sharia! He’s just like any other ignorant person basing their opinions of Sharia on Saudi’s version–which obviously is no where near real Sharia.
I also strongly dislike that he continuously uses the dictatorships as legitimate examples of Muslim countries. Does he not realize what every other Muslim knows-that these regimes were put into power by us (the West)? Heck, we created Saddam, we created OBL, we fully supported and trained the Taliban just a couple decades ago.
February 6, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Well said. Thank you.