pBS Recruiting for Islam

Forget print, go to film. Put together a handsome documentary with an original musical score that presents Islam's prophet Muhammad in the most glowing manner, indeed, as a model of perfection. Round up Muslim and non-Muslim enthusiasts to endorse the nobility and truth of his message. Splice in vignettes of winsome American Muslims testifying to the justice and beauty of their Islamic faith. Then get the U.S. taxpayer to help pay for it.

Show it at prime time on the most high-minded TV network. Oh, and screen it at least once during the holidays, when anyone out of synch with Christmas might be especially susceptible to another religion's appeal.

This is precisely what the producers of "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" have done. In a documentary The Washington Post calls "absorbing, . . . enjoyable and informative," exotic images of the desert and medieval miniatures mix with scenes of New York City and the American flag. Born- and convert-American Muslims speak affectingly about their personal bond to their prophet.

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) will premiere this two-hour documentary across the nation tomorrow night, then repeat it in most areas. The film's largest tranche of funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress that in fiscal 2002 received $350 million in taxpayers' funds.

The heart of the film consists of nine talking heads competing with each other to praise Muhammad the most extravagantly. Not one of them criticizes him.

Some of their efforts are laughable, as when one commentator denies allegations about Muhammad contracting a marriage of convenience with a rich, older woman named Khadija: "He deeply, deeply loved Khadija." Oh, and his many marriages were "an act of faith, not of lust." How could anyone know this?

Other apologetics are more consequential. What Muhammad did for women, viewers learn, was "amazing" - his condemning female infanticide, giving legal rights to wives, permitting divorce and protecting their inheritance rights. But no commentator is so impolite as to note that however admirable this was in the 7th century, Muslim women today suffer widely from genital mutilation, forced marriages, purdah, illiteracy, sexual apartheid, polygamy and honor killings.

The film treats religious beliefs - such as Muhammad's "Night Journey," when the Quran says he went to heaven and entered the divine presence - as historical fact. It presents Muslim wars as only defensive and reluctant, which is simply false. All this smacks of a film shown by missionaries.

Move to the present and the political correctness is stifling. Hostility is said to be "hurled" at American Muslims since 9/11 - but there's no mention about the prior and vastly greater (foreign) Muslim hostility "hurled" at Americans, killing several thousand. The narrator exaggerates the number of American Muslims, overestimates their rate of growth and wrongly terms them the country's "most diverse" religious community.

But these are details. "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" is an outrage on two main counts.

To promote Islam is to promote pedophiles, murder, the right of a gang to take away the free will of a person. Islamics do not believe in religious freedom, and the abuse of women is common place. Muslim countries even sanction the "honor" killings of women if they are even suspected of sex outside of marriage, and they make it an "honor" to kill the women.
In Muslim lands many Muslims want to follow Jesus, but can do so only under the penalty of death. Pray for them, for they want and need our prayers. I know this is true, for I actually know some " Secret Christians", who must hide in order to pray and to worship Jesus Christ, the sinless one. We can not allow our own USA Public Broadcasting to sanction such as this! What has our nation become, so that we can sink so low as to support this evil in any way?
When we uphold such savagery as this, we are no better than the Islamics. Islamics are using the freedom of religion in the USA to puch their diabolical cause.

*PBS has betrayed its viewers by presenting an airbrushed and uncritical
documentary of a topic that has both world historical and contemporary significance.
Its patronizing film might be fine for an Islamic Sunday school class,
but not for a national audience.

I am glad you ("Y2Krap") and others have taken notice of this white-wash-"feel-good"
commercial for Islam.

At the same time, I am glad that PBS...with the sponsorship (payment) by
a whole list of Middle-Eastern surnames (none Israeli, of course) have produced this
film.

It should be shown...and re-shown in every church and synagogue of the United States
and every freedom-loving country of the planet.

I was actually suprised at some of the things that made it into the film.
For example, the imam (in Michigan) remarking that he thought some Muslims actually
felt more freedom to worship as Muslims in the USA...than they had in their Muslim
homelands.
(Hello Mr. Imam...that's because you are in a FREE country based on JUDEO-CHRISTIAN
PRINCIPLES!!! Get a freakin' clue!!!)

And the stories about The Prophet Muhammed.
They left out the unfavorable stuff for the most part, such as "oh, I must have
been demon-possessed when I posited that part of my theology...I'm making a 180-degree
turn from what I previously said!"
OR
The Prophet marrying a 9-year-old female and getting down to bidness.
(if that was in there, I must have been in the kitchen...)

But the one thing that got me was the story about The Prophet not being omniscient.
E.G., in the preparation for one battle, The Prophet is asked by a subordinate
something like "hey, did you get this plan to defend this small waterhole hole
from above or yourself?...
maybe a move to a bigger waterhole and denying it from our enemy in this desert sounds like
a better idea"...to which this "last prophet" says "OK".

What got me about this passage was this:
We might smile at this "WWJD; What Would Jesus Do?" phrase...
but here we have a Last Prophet and his obedient followers aren't asking
"What Would Muhammad Do?"...they are TELLING Muhammad wht to do...and Muhammad,
like any rational, flesh-'n-blood mortal meekly says "OK".

I don't recall any passage of The Gospels of the New Testament where I was getting
a feeling that Jesus was saying "What Would Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, or
the rest of the Twelve do?".
OK, call this a religiously prejudicial, bigoted point of view...but that is the way
I see this "Last Prophet".

Overall, I do give the show decent marks for the latter parts about the life
of Muhammad (at least as most Muslims apparently see it).

Muhammad was apparently wise in the ways of business, warfare, statecraft, and
picking up the babes (including the financial assets of his first wife).....
but a real Last Prophet to eclipse a figure like Jesus?
I don't think so.

"Muhammad, Legacy of A Prophet" and the unblinking Frontline special "Muslims" need to
be shown in ALL Churches, Synagogues, and Schools in the USA.

The world of Islam will soon find their public affairs campaign (e.g., getting terrorism
expert Steven Emerson banned from National Palestinian, er, Public Radio) screeching to a halt.
If not retreating to the middle of the desert...where it belongs.

Defund PBS now!

I thought it was VERY interesting that PBS re-broadcast their Frontline special "Muslims"...
the night after airing the white-wash-ain't-Islam-The-Greatest "Muhammad, Legacy of A Prophet".
My intuition tells me that at least one rational voice at PBS headquarters
(after reviewing the "Muhammad..." special) said "if we don't try to balance this turkey out
we're bound to lose our Congressional funding!" Hence the re-broadcast of "Muslims" the
very next night.

The previously aired "Muslims" was unblinking in showing the dysfunctionality
of most of Islamic/Muslim countries. Even when Muslims that appeared on the special
tried to put forward the view of a "kinder-and-gentler" Islam...there was always a slip-up
that revealed that is just advertizing.

And the "Muslims" show demonstrated that the few sane islands of the Islamic world
(e.g., Turkey) are under attack by the nutburgers that love Osama and Co.
They just don't have any World Trade Center towers in Turkey they can destroy.

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