I did read that.
Funny thing is - this guy was advocating for muslims.
Now I’m sure it’s possible he ticked off this kid in a religious issue - but it’s also possible this kid simply didn’t have the academic chops to move further on with his dissertation.
The professor was hired to do a job and this student was assigned to him.
I don’t think we know enough yet to accuse the victim of somehow bringing this on himself.
The perp is no “kid” — and given the background of this victim and the killer’s deformed/deranged ideology - it was bound to happen and will happen again and again.
http://www.billwarnerpi.com/2009/12/muslm-abdulsalam-al-zahrani-has-been.html
It may have had to do with his dissertation, although the thing that makes me wonder is the field that he and the professor were in. Possibly a more “philosophical” dispute may have been part of it.
However, I posted yesterday that foreign born Muslims make terrible students. Everyone I have known who has worked with them at the university level says they don’t study and they attempt to intimidate or even bribe professors into giving them good grades; they’re also famous for trying to hire other people else to take their tests. Maybe that’s what higher education is like in their native lands, but it doesn’t work here.
Yes, and the blame it on the victim part comes from the professor's very western belief that that activity would be beneficial and appreciated.
Kind of like the woman who kept a chimpanzee as a pet and believed that treating it like her kid would make it act like a juvenile human; worked until the monkey tried to eat a neighbor who'd bought into the idea.
It's hard for me to be too concerned for American hikers who stray from a war zone into a fanatically anti-west islamic state and bemoan their capture and imprisonment. Hard to feel too sorry for yachtsmen plying pirate infested waters when the pirates round them up and take their toys.
In short;
Dumb actions beget sorry endings. And,
Just because you believe it, don't expect the other guy to do the same.
I'm assuming that the good professor believed that his class contributed to warm fuzzyness because attendees would learn that all major religions profess very similar core values; if we are all looking for the same thing, we can all get along...right?
Christians and Jews can buy into that so far as each other are concerned, I know of no Asian belief system today that would fall outside of the same pattern. Islam, however, does not fit, and will not fit, because it was never intended to "fit".
(You can put a monkey in a high chair and point out that it didn't fall out...but don't pretend it 'fits'.)
The professor believed that his tolerant western bias was accepted and embraced by all his students. The grad student interpreted comparative religions as a means of gaining status for his religion and degrading others, I'd guess that he simply reacted the way he'd been taught before he ever signed up for college.
I'd also guess that he will never understand why civilized people don't encourage that kind of response.
(at least they have not done so prior to this convenient "learning experience", things could still change...)