February 6, 2007, - 3:58 pm

Apology to My Readers: A Pakistani Muslim I DON’T Dig

By Debbie Schlussel
On Friday, a reader sent me a link to an article by an allegedly “moderate” Muslim, Ahmer Muzammil, on the Pakistani website, Chowk.
Friday is always a particularly busy day for me, especially in the winter because the Jewish Sabbath starts early (at sundown). While that is no excuse at all, I quickly looked over Muzammil’s article, reading the excellent first paragraph intently and merely skimming over the rest, as with some of his other articles.
I mistakenly recommended Muzammil as “A Pakistani Muslim I Dig” and posted links to his work, calling him a “moderate.” As reader “JBarSimson” pointed out in a comment, this man is no moderate and his hateful work is not worthy of recommendation by me. I made a mistake. And I have since removed the post.
As a result of my haste, I missed the full point of Muzammil’s writings, which is that he still hates Israel, America, etc., and is not the moderate he seemed at the beginning of the piece. This is a lesson to me, which I should have learned by now, about how “haste makes waste.” And I am certainly not immune to that fact. It’s also a lesson we’ve all learned time and again: that so-called “moderate” Muslims are generally not moderate at all when you actually read closely what they are saying.
My credibility is important, and I usually read every word very intently before I recommend or post something. This was one of those lapses, and I apologize.
I screwed up. Mea culpa.




Tags: , ,


10 Responses

No worries, Deb, You’re forgiven. At least you’re able to come cleanand admit your hasty mistakes. In the meantime, we’re all still holding our breath, awaiting for that retraction by Dan Rather-biased and his “fake, but accurate” account of the Bush AF National Guard Docs from 2004.

Yiddish Steel on February 6, 2007 at 4:57 pm

Ain’t no such thing as a moderate muzlum (I know I used 2 negatives in a sentence). Muzlums are taught to lie, parse, distort, qualify, deceive, split hairs and engage in relativisms and half-truths.
It’s against their religious cult to be honest with the infidel.
Never trust a muzlum.

Thee_Bruno on February 6, 2007 at 5:03 pm

Hi Deb.
Well… we all do that. I read some of the guy’s other writings and was kinda wondering what made you think he was so moderate.
All too often, Muslims argue how best to kill Americans (and/or Jews). The ones who want to kill us now are called “radicals”. The ones who want to kills us later are called “moderates”.
I think you once said it best. Actually, I think you’ve said it several times. The term “moderate Muslim” is a very abused term in the news media.
Sometimes I think the term “moderate Muslim” is an oxymoron.

There is NO Santa Claus on February 6, 2007 at 5:07 pm

Hi Debbie,
This is exactly why you have credibility, because you will acknowledge a mistake. Who doesn’t make that kind of mistake when they are busy. I know I have!
Thanks!

CarpeDiem on February 6, 2007 at 6:09 pm

A good lesson in “Buyer Beware”, “seeing the forest for the trees”, etc.

Jeremiah on February 6, 2007 at 9:20 pm

To call him a moderate moslem would actually be insulting to him and his radical throat-slitting cronies but that serves him right. The kind of digging I would do for him is his grave. Debbie,your credibilty is still important to us. Everyone tends to screw up with their data base once in a while. Although I’m not suprised that he vented out is hatred towards “dhimmis” in his work. Let him worry about his immunity to his blog if its digestable.

Jew Chick on February 6, 2007 at 9:52 pm

If you go by what the news people say, a Muslim can claim to be “moderate” by saying “I still want to kill Jews, but it’s not politically expedient right now.”
I guess as opposed to, “I want to kill Jews all the time.”

Dan on February 6, 2007 at 11:26 pm

Don’t worry about it, Debbie, nobody’s perfect(although I was convinced you would prove that age old maxim wrong :-)).

Witch-king of Angmar on February 7, 2007 at 2:55 am

Honesty in journalism, hard to come by these days. Well said. Keep up the good work, fighting the good fight.

JBarsimson on February 7, 2007 at 1:27 pm

Dear Debbie, I sincerely believe that you really need to dig in more in order to conclude whether someone is a moderate or radical. As far as Muzzamil is concerned, I will just quote a few words from one of his articles for you “Believe in one GOD, Offer your prayers, give charity, be socially responsible, raise your voice against injustice and in favor of the oppressed regardless of the religion of the oppressed, be fair in all your matters, be nice to your wife, siblings, kids, parents and to your neighbors regardless of neighbor’s religion, STAY HUMBLE, that’s a big one! Prophet peace be upon him said ‘Whoever has an ounce of pride won’t even smell paradise’. And most of all just do the best you”
The link to the article is: http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?162348
I am not defending him nor am I denying what you said. I would just want all of us, irrespective of our religious, cultural and racial backgrounds to be a little bit more understanding.
Obviously we are all mentally conditioned to hear what we like to hear or what our superiors wants us to hear, but God has given every muslim, jew, christian, atheist, agnostic, etc etc something called ‘intellect’ which we should try to use before judging anyone or before drawing conclusions in haste.
It is very easy to generalize, it is even more easy to put one of those lables various people use for muslims, americans, jews and others or the next person we meet in a street, but it takes time, patience, courage, quiet a bit of intellect and a lot more than just the common sense to really get to know someone.
Better is to love than fear, an uncle of mine said. We don’t ask you to love us. But do not let your fear of the fear, or your fear of the unknown blind you.
What I read here was as horrible and painful as it was untrue.

Irfan on June 22, 2008 at 4:57 pm

Leave a Reply

* denotes required field