A person who goes by the name of Ali Sina has assembled an intriguing group of interrelated websites, including islamexposed.com, rationalthinking.humanists.net and the apparent granddaddy, faithfreedom.org, all of which are virulently anti-Islam sites purporting to be published by disillusioned ex-Muslims. Enter faithfreedom.com, whose mission statement basically introduces it as an attempt to counter the "defamatory" nature of Mr. Sina's site(s).
This is all rather entertaining, not to mention informative, even though the whole mess seems to have sprung up in an attempt to capitalize on the post-9/11 interest in Islam. But while my general sympathies would ordinarily tend to lie, I must say, with Mr. Sina's position, my brief perusal of some of his essays leaves me less than impressed. For example, Mr. Sina examines this now fairly well-known hadith:
Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Number 6985:
Narrated AbuHurayrah:
"Allah's Apostle (peace_be_upon_him) said: The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews."
Mr. Sina's critique:
The ridiculous nature of this passage is so laughable, it is not even worth commenting on, but since so many idiots believe this nonsense I will make a few observations. Trees and stones do not have vocal cords, lungs and a brain, so the above verse does not even merit metaphoric assumptions. But the irony is that the author has these stones and trees taking sides in this war, in this case they will not only talk but for some strange reason they will side with the Jews. NOTE: The nature and depth of Muslim hatred towards the Jews should be clear once more.
Leaving aside the last sentence, it's really Mr. Sina's scholarly analysis that's laughable -- especially since he seems to have entirely missed the point by confusing which "side" the inanimate objects end up "taking" in this battle. Moreover, however much I may agree with the points he's ultimately trying to make, I continue to believe that a more respectful tone is called for when discussing matters of faith. Many people take this stuff very seriously.
On the other hand, Mr. Sina takes several good shots at the myth of "peaceful Islam" before lapsing into some pretty harsh ad hominem attacks on the Prophet himself. (For the myth itself in a rather restrained form, check out ff.com's version.) This battle could eventually shape up to be interesting but, at the moment, most of ff.com is still under construction. In the meantime, a lively exchange has been underway at ff.org between Ali and a persistent detractor who's trying to convince him to shut down his site(s). Stay tuned...
