Holes in Islamic History

Submitted by Marc Hill (United States), Jan 10, 2005 at 19:06

Good Afternoon

I'm a government employee tasked with teaching Islam and cultural awareness to our soldiers and civilians heading to the Middle East. I never knew there were so many anti-Muslim sites on the internet.

I don't mean to say that just because there are opinions that differ from what a Muslim would say or believe; but some of the information being transmitted by some websites are ridiculous. I don't know if these "scholars" have any linguistical skills, but what they print, and what the Arabic actually says are often two different things.

Soldiers always ask me questions that parallel the information that comes from these type of websites. I can only shrug my shoulders and tell them that I don't know why that type of information is written about Islam.

And I tell them that I grew up with a mother who is a minister, and my knowledge comes from studying the language, my time living in the Middle East, and reading as many things as I can get my hands on about Islam and Muslims.

As I said earlier, I only want to give the best instruction I can to our soldiers who are leaving to protect us.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".