I learned all I need to know about Islam on September 11th! As for Dr Fidelma O'Leary, maybe she should go live in Saudi Arabia as a third class citizen if she thinks the Moon God's cult is so terrific.
Posted on 02/04/2005 6:58:03 PM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
WASHINGTON, February 4 (IslamOnline.net) – Cornell University is to open Islam Awareness Week 2005 with an event entitled “an American Woman’s Jihad” to give non-Muslims and community members opportunity know more about Islam.
The event, due on February 11, comes at a critical time facing Islam worldwide, as many non-Muslims mistakenly believe the Arabic word of Jihad refers solely to a holy war of aggression and violence led by “extremists”.
It would open with a widely-acclaimed National Geographic documentary film “Inside Makkah,” in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall, according to Cornell Chronicle newspaper of the university Thursday, February 3.
The one-hour film follows three Muslims on their pilgrimage to the Al-Masjid Al-Haram mosque in Makkah, called the Sacred Mosque by Muslims.
Spiritual Journey
Following the screening, Fidelma O’Leary, an Irish-American woman and revert to Islam who was one of the pilgrims featured in the film, would talk about her own spiritual journey to Islam.
O’Leary, an associate professor of biology at St. Edward's University, Austin, Texas, will describe her struggle to live as an American Muslim and an academic in modern-day society and how she has coped with her Irish Catholic family’s lack of acceptance of her Muslim beliefs.
She is a co-founder of the Freedom of Faith Foundation, an educational organization that seeks to create a tolerant society where all people can practice their faiths.
The event was thus chosen to shed light on the concept of “jihad,” which most Muslims interpret as an internal spiritual journey involving personal sacrifice, said Wasif Syed, a Ph.D. student in applied physics at Cornell, an organizer of the event.
Many press reports and non Muslims mistakenly consider Jihad a statement of holy assault on foreigners or people of other faiths by what they call “Muslim extremists”.
Women Image
The event is further expected to give a true image of women in Islam, challenging claims of persecution in the west.
With her blond hair, green eyes and Western upbringing, O’Leary, “defies the image” many people have of Muslim women, said Syed.
And “the film takes you into the heartland of Saudi Arabia, to Makkah, and shows you images you don't see on Western television,” he added.
The documentary makers obtained special permission to film at Makkah's Sacred Mosque and the holy “Ka’abah” central to the site.
The black, cube-shaped stone structure is said to have been built as a shrine nearly 4,000 years ago by Prophet Abraham.
Muslims believe that their monotheistic religion had its beginnings at that site. They pray in its direction five times daily and, as Muslims, have a duty to visit it at least once in their lifetimes, Syed explained.
The site is the largest pilgrimage destination in the world and it attracted 2.5 million people this year. Many are overcome with emotion when they reach it because of its religious significance, he added.
Now in its second year, Islam Awareness Week is sponsored by the Muslim Educational and Cultural Association (MECA), a student group, and the Near Eastern Studies Department at Cornell.
It has broad campus support, reflected in the list of attendees, which will include guest of honor Susan Murphy, vice president for student and academic services.
“I am delighted that the Muslim students at Cornell have decided to put on a week of talks, speakers and events related to Islam Awareness Week,” noted Shawkat Toorawa, assistant professor, Near Eastern studies and adviser to MECA.
“Now, perhaps more than ever, the public deserves to learn about Islamic civilization.”
Are they also going to run a Jewish awareness week? How about a Catholic awareness week? What about a Christian awareness week? Maybe a Hindi awareness week?
I thought not.
I learned all I need to know about Islam on September 11th! As for Dr Fidelma O'Leary, maybe she should go live in Saudi Arabia as a third class citizen if she thinks the Moon God's cult is so terrific.
You got that right!
"The event, due on February 11, comes at a critical time facing Islam worldwide, as many non-Muslims mistakenly believe the Arabic word of Jihad refers solely to a holy war of aggression and violence led by “extremists”.
I believe that a lot of muslims have this "mistaken" belief also.
And parents are paying *how* much per year to send their little darlings to this center of higher *mis*-education?
Hard to imagine.
So if some one is a REVERT, then BEFORE they 'get that way', they are to be considered a PRE-VERT????
You hit the nail on the head. I have seen a couple of these women, loosely used term, and all of them are hell bent on torturing their parents. I long for the days when Catholic girls turned Baptist and vice versa. And when you really wanted to get you mother's goat, you didn't polish your silver or clean your kitchen. And when, if you wanted to take rebellion to the max, you sort of quit going to Sunday Church. This latest form of Torture the Parents and Keep them all Stirred up Because they didnt Hug You Enough is sort of sickening.
Sometimems the world just tires me out. I think I understnad why old people don't mind dying. Some days, and I am in my sixties, I just want out.
Hm, in the south there is always one manic depressive and one really hot slut in every family. We consider being a drama queen as normal.
Maybe they should spend their time of "awareness" speaking out against extremism - for a change.
Fidelma O’Leary stands outside the Grand Mosque in the heart of Mecca.
O’Leary, a green-eyed blonde from the United States, was born in Ireland
to a devout Catholic family and converted to Islam while in college.
I think it would be a good thing to have a Muslim awareness week if you could first show videos to the students of Muslim beheading innocent people begging for their lives. Read about the spread of Islam to them with it's never ending list of wars. Show them video of the screaming people jumping from the World Trade Center. Show them pictures of villagers massacred in the Sudan and other African nations for being Christian. Give them quotes from Laskar Jihad which clearly state that their goal is the genocide of Christians. Then let this idiot, Dr. Clueless O'Leary, come out to talk to them.
Odd that Fidelma teaches at a Catholic University.
It's sickening.
Islamists are on a crusade, its time for us to have one too.
What do you think the common opinion of Jerry Falwell is at Cornell? What is it that makes the left fall all over itself trying to put the best face on Islam, with its views on women, abortion, and homosexuality, etc., especially in light of the hostility the left has for the Falwells, Baptists, Catholics etc.? It's just this: despite the idiot featured in this article, they ain't white, and they ain't Western. Ain't white, ain't Western, so they're for 'em. They're particularly for not doing anything that will lessen the flow of Muslim immigrants to the West. Modern leftism is nothing more than a genocide movement against white people and the West, it has almost no other serious component.
Islam, The Alleged Religion of Peace® ( TARP™ )? Click this picture:
That must be your "Stop the world I want to get off" post:) I can't say the world has improved any since the era you mention. What were big acts of childhood (and young adult) rebellion would fail to pass muster today
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