Wafa Sultan

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Wafa Sultan on Al Jazeera February 2006
Wafa Sultan on Al Jazeera February 2006

Wafa Sultan (Arabic: وفاء سلطان) (born 1958, Baniyas, Syria) is a secular Muslim activist [1] and vocal critic of Islam.


Contents

[edit] Career

Sultan is a Syrian-American psychiatrist (from an Alawi family). She resides in Los Angeles, California.

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-Qasim and with Dr. 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 is scolding Muslims for treating non-Muslims differently and for not recognizing the accomplishments of non-Muslim society, while using its wealth and technology.

   
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The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam (is) also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force. [1]
   
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The New York Times estimated that the video of her appearance was viewed at least one million times as it spread via weblogs and e-mail. Her thesis, described as witnessing "a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose", has brought her telephone threats,[2] 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 Tel Aviv, Israel by the American Jewish Congress.

Sultan revealed to the Times that she is working on a book to be called The Escaped Prisoner: When God Is a Monster, and says 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, Dr. 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."

Recently, she sat in on a free-speech discussion at the University of Southern California, organized by the Ayn Rand Institute with Yaron Brook and Daniel Pipes as speakers.

[edit] Life

Sultan and her husband David emigrated to the U.S. in 1989, and both are now naturalized citizens.

[edit] Awards and recognitions

In 2006 Wafa Sultan was named on Time Magazine in a list of 100 influential people in the world "whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world" .[2] The Time Magazine 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." [3]

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[edit] See also

[edit] Sources

  1. ^ Wafa on Danish Television
  2. ^ John M. Broder. "For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats", The New York Times, March 11, 2006. Retrieved on March 11, 2006.

[edit] Interviews and speeches

[edit] Opinions

[edit] Photos

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