Mr. Trump thought he found a loophole in the Khizr Khan’s presentation. He looked at Mr. Khan’s wife who stood quietly next to the podium at Democratic Convention while Mr. Khan Spoke. Trump assumed that she is a Hijab wearing Muslim woman and was ‘made’ to stand with her husband like an imbecile wife, so what does she know, ha? He imagined his own misogyny and jumped the gun to attack Muslims, particularly Men.
Ghazala Khan responded exceptionally well, she said, “If he studied the real Islam and Koran, all the ideas he gets from terrorists would change, because terrorism is a different religion.” She is so right; terrorism is indeed a different religion.In this short essay, my approach is condemning the sin and not the sinner. Trump does not have complete information about Muslims or Islam, and he is going by what he has learned from the bad guys. Trump is indeed redeemable and we can prevent him from his sins. I believe the Khan’s took a similar approach towards Republicans. Attacking the GOP would have made me cringe, as it would amount to the same thing as attacking Muslims for the acts of a few, they did the right thing by attacking the GOP’s inaction towards Trump’s awful rhetoric.
To paraphrase Edmund Burke, evil persists because good men do nothing about it. It is time for GOP to speak up. I guess freedom is anathema to the conservatives while conformity is cherished.
The source of Mr.Trump is wrong and baseless just as some of the other candidates. When I met Dr. Ben Carson, I asked him, “Dr. Carson, whatever you said about Muslims is your choice and your right, but you must have read that some place or heard from someone, did you verify it? He backed off, then I offered, “If you have any questions about Islam or Muslims, please call me, at least you will have a cover, you can always say, a Muslim told you that, and this Muslim is fairly well known. You cannot go wrong with him, and you don’t have to alienate your potential voters.” He took my card, but then he went into oblivion.Chuck Todd was going to follow up with Ben Carson, but the need never arose.
Mr. Trump may be innocent, and he has fallen into the same trap. He does not have full information or full picture of Muslims to make a statement about them. What he has learned is from the Terrorists as Mrs. Ghazala Khan said so precisely. I am here to help him if he needs. As a potential president of the United States, I would like him to make decisions based on facts and verifications. If he speaks about Islam or Muslims with advisement from me, he cannot go wrong, and that is one less battle he has to fight.
Mr. Trump needs the right information,and if and when he delivers that no Muslim will cringe and he needs extend the same courtesy to the Blacks, Mexicans, LGBT, Women and Veteran Americans. Why make any one cringe?
Mr. Trump assumed that Muslim women are oppressed and yield to their husbands and don’t have a voice of their own. This is indeed how Muslim women are “perceived” and Trump jumped the gun and questioned Ghazala Khan, why she did not speak? Little did he know that it will backfire.
The more the Pied Piper Trump criticizes, the more he is digging his own grave. He is better off backing down from insulting the Veterans and their Gold Parents.
MYTH ABOUT MUSLIMS
Donald Trump got the Republicans to obey him, including the free thinking Ayn Rand’s follower Paul Ryan. He assumed Muslims are like him towards women. Indeed, he does not know that a majority of Muslim families respect each other’s spouses equally. The misogyny runs in all races, nations and religions – a tiny small percent of men behave the same no matter what faith they belong to or what nation they live in.
The following is a lesson for Mr. Trump about Muslims; this is an abstract from my sermons I deliver at the interfaith marriages.
The Quran says, “Husband and wife are each other’s garments” simply meaning Husband and wife are each other’s covers, clothes, protectors, defenders, listeners, and friends.
It means that husband and wife need mutual support, mutual comfort, and mutual protection. It is also a reference to the fact that spouses are each other’s sanctuary insofar as each covers the others’ shortcomings and preserves his or her privacy; hence the tranquility and harmony.
In Islam, Men and women are deemed full and equitable partners of each other. Love, tranquility, mercy, equity, and kindness are the hallmarks of an ideal marriage.
Indeed, in general God has created all species in pairs and has made one for the other, and when that union takes place, God is the happiest. God is about harmony, and marriage is a step to bring harmony between two people and some even consider it a form of worship.
Once you enjoy the harmony and connection between the two, and when you feel each other’s joy, each other’s pain and apprehension, then neither of you feels alone.
Indeed, when husband and wife are well connected, they speak for each other, and that’s what Khizr Khan did, spoke for Ghazala and Ghazala can equally speak for Khizr Khan, that is not only the culture of Muslims, but of entire humanity.
Mike Ghouse
MuslimSpeaker.com