response
Reader comment on item: MAS Official: Bin Laden a "Visionary"
in response to reader comment: Response to Khalilah Sabra

Submitted by Khalilah Sabra, May 9, 2011 14:45

I understand the confusion and doubts that so many Americans may be having about Bin Laden and islam. I would be lying if I were to say that these feelings are completely unreasonable.

Black sheep, the idiom used to describe "an odd or disreputable member deemed undesirable by the group," does not descriptively do justice to the crimes Bin Laden committed. I have no words to illustrate the kinds of penalties he should have suffered. There is not an apology equal to the pain he caused people who were absolutely disconnected to his insane undertakings. immediately following 9/11, the vast majority of religious leadership did not collectively or sufficiently admitted that the influential Saudi was a man that appeared to take pleasure in inflicting pain on others. It was not enough and the message was not as profound as it should have been. Bin Laden's actions were more gruesome than the acts of most serial murderers.

For the last ten years I have worked to make this point clear and have faced a lot of opposition from the same kind of extremist you worry about. The paint me with the same brush is wrong and offensive. I warned leaders of mosques, centers and organizations not to behave reactionary from what might appear to be dispassion. When a man declares war on a nation of innocent people and then gleamingly brags about their deaths, he is twisted and must be denounced in the harshest terms. I wrote an entire book on the subject matter and I was clear that there was more to the problem than just Bin Laden. I wrote about the dangers of young Americans. inside, being brainwashed from those outside. Why has this not been published?Steve Emerson can have it. It is honest and definitive and I have not suppressed my criticism of Muslims who choose denial instead of truth.

It's easier to manipulate the minds of those who really do not know everything that is involved here. It's easier to make you hate me than try to understand me. it's easier to quote me on something that I did not say, instead of what I have said or truly believe. It's easier to say I called OBL a visionary, when I did not. Whenever he saw was demented.

Perhaps one day you will have the opportunity to know the real story and the real words. That day will not come, nor will any lasting solution, until we deal with extremism correctly and with the kind of dialogue I speak about. Don't think because I am a Muslim that I have not been a victim of radicalism. My first experience is when I walked through a shopping center in Peshawar and felt a blow against my backside because I refuse to veil my face. I did not submit to it then and I reject it now. I have lived my life fighting for women who are forced to undergo oppression. You won't read about that either. There are mosque where I have been rejected because of what are defined as my "feminist" views. I am not a feminist, I am a humanist and I do not believe that anyone should be forced to believe or act by compulsion. You won't read about this either.

You know the saying, "The truth sets you free," perhaps that's why you see more printed lies than truth.

Sincerely,

Khalilah Sabra

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