Critics Target Huckabee Comments on Islam

A fiery debate has ensued from Fox News Host Mike Huckabee’s recent remarks vis-à-vis Islam. Huckabee, responding on his radio program to the recent terror threat from al Qaeda that catalyzed the closing of U.S. embassies around the world, said that it was “politically incorrect” to “say anything unkind about Islam.” He continued:

Can someone explain to me why it is that we tiptoe around a religion that promotes the most murderous mayhem on the planet in their so-called “holiest days?” You know, if you’ve kept up with the Middle East, you know that the most likely time to have an uprising of rock throwing and rioting comes on the day of prayer on Friday. So the Muslims will go to the mosque, and they will have their day of prayer, and they come out of there like uncorked animals — throwing rocks and burning cars.

In the Daily Caller, Qasim Rashid, the Chairman of the Muslim Writers Guild of America, fired back: 

First of all, the idea that “[Islam] promotes the most murderous mayhem on the planet in their so-called ‘holiest-days'” is a bold-faced fabrication . . . On the contrary, the Qur’an admonishes Muslims, “O ye who believe! when the call is made for Prayer on Friday, hasten to the remembrance of Allah, and leave off all business. That is better for you, if you only knew” (62:10). The Qur’an specifically commands Muslims to forget all worldly matters and focus solely on prayer — and certainly not violence — on its holy days.

Huckabee first dehumanizes Muslims, comparing them to animals, and once more provides no reference to support his claim. Had he bothered to read the Qur’an he would have discovered the clear commandment to Muslims upon leaving the mosque, “And when the Prayer is finished, then disperse in the land and seek of Allah’s grace, and remember Allah much, that you may prosper” (62:11).

Finally, I’m shocked at Huckabee’s double standard that argues because violence occurs in a Muslim majority nation, it is Islam’s fault. What would Huckabee think of a nation in which a person is murdered every 17 minutes? A nation with cities that have higher murder rates than war-torn Iraq? Or a nation in which a rape occurs every 6 minutes? A nation in which 1 in 4 women will be raped before graduating college and 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail? A nation in which a violent crime occurs every 26.2 seconds and a property crime occurs every 3.5 seconds? A nation that comprises 5% of the world’s population but a world-leading 25% of the world’s prison population?

This isn’t Syria, or Saudi Arabia, it’s a nation in which more than 70 percent of its citizens identify as Christian. This is the United States of America. And when it comes to America’s “holy days,” a recent U.S. analysis determined that, “Christmas is the deadliest day of the year,” and “More people die in hospital emergency wards, or arrive dead on arrival, on Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day than on any other days of the year.”

Rashid might want to examine his wording a little more closely. For example, the study he cited about 1 in 4 women being raped before graduating college actually said raped or attempted rape. As far as Islamic violence on Fridays , see here,  or here, or here, for starters. The repressive countries that practice sharia do not have American freedoms, treat women extraordinarily badly, and execute people for crimes that would be considered minor in the United States.

No doubt Huckabee’s language was incendiary, but it is no less offensive for someone who makes his home in the United States and has profited by his residence here to claim that the problems in a largely Christian country are the result of Christianity; it seems far more common for the violence of Islamists to be accompanied by calls for jihad or cries of “Allah Akbar” than for the violence in America to be accompanied by any mention of Jesus Christ or Christianity.