*West underestimates the ‘evil of Islam’*
By Richard Kerbaj
August 21, 2007
THE West was still underestimating the evil of Islam, an influential Muslim
thinker has warned, insisting that Australia and the US have been duped into
believing there is a difference between the religion’s moderate and radical
interpretations.
On a two-week “under the radar” visit to Australia, Syrian-born Wafa Sultan
secretly met both sides of federal politics and Jewish community leaders,
warning them that all Muslims needed to be closely monitored in the West.
In an interview with The Australian, Dr Sultan – who shot to recognition
last year following an interview on al-Jazeera television in which she
attacked Islam and the prophet Mohammed – said Muslims were “brainwashed”
from an early age to believe Western values were evil and that the world
would one day come under the control of Sharia law.
The US-based psychiatrist – who has two fatwas (religious rulings) issued
against her to be killed – warned that Muslims would continue to exploit
freedom of speech in the West to spread their “hate” and attack their
adopted countries, until the Western mind grasped the magnitude of the
Islamic threat.
“You’re fighting someone who is willing to die,” Dr Sultan told The
Australian in an Arabic and English interview. “So you have to understand
this mentality and find ways to face it. (As a Muslim) your mission on this
earth is to fight for Islam and to kill or to be killed. You’re here for
only a short life and once you kill a kafir, or a non-believer, soon you’re
going to be united with your God.”
Dr Sultan, who was brought to Australia by a group called Multi-Net
comprised of Jews and Christians, met senior politicians, including
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Labor
deputy leader Julia Gillard.
Private security was hired for Dr Sultan, who left Australia yesterday, and
state police authorities were also made aware of her movements in the
country.
The organisers of her visit asked the media to not publish anything about
her stay until she had left the country because of security-related
concerns. Dr Sultan said Islam was a “political ideology” that was wrongly
perceived to have a moderate and hardline following.
“That’s why the West has to monitor the majority of Muslims because you
don’t know when they’re ready to be activated. Because they share the same
basic belief, that’s the problem,” said the 50-year-old, who was last year
featured in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the
world.
Dr Sultan, who was raised on Alawite Islamic beliefs before she renounced
her religion, began to question Islam after she witnessed her university
teacher get gunned down by Muslim hardliners in Syria in 1979.
The mother of three, who migrated to the US in 1989, said the West needed to
hold Muslims and their leaders more accountable for the atrocities performed
in the name of Islam if they wanted to win the war on terror.
But while she considered the prophet Mohammed “evil” and said the Koran
needed to be destroyed because it advocated violence against non-believers,
Dr Sultan struggled to articulate her vision for Muslims, whom she said she
was trying to liberate from the shackles of their beliefs.
“I believe the only way is to expose the Muslims to different cultures,
different thoughts, different belief systems,” said Dr Sultan, who is
completing her first book, The Escaped Prisoner: When Allah is a Monster.
“Muslims have been hostages of their own belief systems for 1400 years.
There is no way we can keep the Koran.”
Islamic Terrorism in India 