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Wafa Sultan (Arabic: وفاء سلطان) (born 1958, Damascus, Syria) a Syrian-born American psychiatrist and a controversial critic of Islam.

Life and career

Sultan was born in Damascus to an Alawi family.She resides in Los Angeles, California. She emigrated to the United States in 1989, and is now a naturalized citizen. Sultan has become notable since the September 11, 2001 attacks for her participation in Middle East political debates, with Arabic essays that circulated widely and some television appearances on Al-Jazeera and CNN.

On February 21, 2006, she took part in Al Jazeera's weekly 90-minute discussion program The Opposite Direction. She spoke from Los Angeles, arguing with host Faisal al-Qassem and with Ibrahim Al-Khouli about Samuel P. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations theory. A six minute composite video of her remarks was subtitled and widely circulated by MEMRI on weblogs and through e-mail. In this video she scolded Muslims for treating non-Muslims differently and for not recognizing the accomplishments of non-Muslim society, while using its wealth and technology.

The New York Times estimated that the video of her appearance was viewed at least one million times as it spread via weblogs and email. Sultan revealed to the Times that she is working on a book to be called The Escaped Prisoner: When God Is a Monster.

Political views

Sultan describes her thesis as witnessing "a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose". It has brought her telephone threats, but also praise from reformers. Her comments, especially a pointed criticism that "no Jew has blown himself up in a German restaurant", brought her an invitation to Jerusalem by the American Jewish Congress. If the Jews resisted Hitler would not kill as many Jews, but they kill Palestinians. In Deir Yassin massacre was the killing on April 9, 1948 of between 107 and 120 Palestinian Arabs, predominantly old men, women and children at the village of Deir Yassin (in Hebrew: Dirat HaYasmin) near Jerusalem in the British Mandate of Palestine by an Jewish Terrorist Organizations Irgun-Lehi force. It occurred during the civil war period that preceded the end of the British Mandate when Yishuv forces took the offensive to break the siege of Jerusalem at the beginning of April. Contemporary reports of this event, with their initial estimate of 250 killed, had considerable impact on the conflict,and were a major cause of Arab civilian flight from Palestine.The incident was universally condemned at the time - including by the Haganah command and the Jewish Agency.

Sultan believes that "The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force." In a discussion with Ahmad bin Muhammad, she said: "It was these teachings that distorted this terrorist and killed his humanity".

Sultan stated that she was shocked into secularism by the 1979 atrocities committed by Islamic extremists of the Muslim Brotherhood against innocent Syrian people, including the machine-gun assassination of her professor, Yusef al Yusef, an ophthalmologist renowned beyond Syria, in her classroom in front of her eyes at the University of Aleppo where she was a medical student. "They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, 'God is great!' " she said. "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god." And she found the God lies, Bush.

Riyad Asfari, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Aleppo, stated in an interview that the assassination took place off campus, and that no one had ever been killed anywhere at the university. Asfari's comment was also confirmed by Syrian expatriates Adnan Halabi and Ghada Moezzin. Moezzin, who attended the University of Aleppo in 1979, commented "We would’ve known about the killing if it had happened. It would have been big news on campus and I do not recall ever hearing about it." Moezzin added that government security was always present around the university at the time.

Recognitions

In 2006 Wafa Sultan was named in Time Magazine in a list of 100 influential people in the world "whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world." Time stated that "Sultan's influence flows from her willingness to express openly critical views on Islamic extremism that are widely shared but rarely aired by other Muslims."

Religious sentiment

In the Time Magazine interview, Sultan described herself as a Muslim: "I even don't believe in Islam, but I am a Muslim." However, in a recent conference associated with the controversial conservative writer David Horowitz, Wafa Sultan stated:

"I have decided to fight Islam; please pay attention to my statement; to fight Islam, not the political Islam, not the militant Islam, not the radical Islam, not the Wahhabi Islam, but Islam itself...Islam has never been misunderstood, Islam is the problem....(Muslims) have to realize that they have only two choices: to change or to be crushed."

References

  1. The Syrian Alawite Community - Free Muslims Coalition
  2. For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats - The New York Times
  3. John M. Broder (March 11, 2006). "For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats". The New York Times. Retrieved March 11, 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. LA Psychologist Wafa Sultan Clashes with Algerian Islamist Ahmad bin Muhammad over Islamic Teachings and Terrorism - MemriTV.org
  5. Abdussalam Mohamed, "WAFA SULTAN: Reformist or opportunist?" Southern California InFocus.
  6. ^ Wafa Sulta (time.com), also see Time 100, for 2006 (time.com)
  7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up3yuQDAWKQ

External links

Interviews and speeches

Opinions

Critical opinions

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