Bill Maher clashed with Charlie Rose over Islam during an appearance on Rose’s Bloomberg Television program this week. Maher, the host of Real Time on HBO, scoffed at Rose’s numerous attempts to link Islam to Christianity and to try to disavow radical Muslims as representatives of the religion. Rose contended numerous times that “moderate Muslims” do not approve of the actions of radical groups like ISIS. Maher noted Muslims when polled overwhelmingly agree with ideas like killing those who leave Islam and stoning adulters. Rose said the Koran does not teach Muslims to do “these kind of things.” Below is a transcript of their conversation:
BILL MAHER: I saw Howard Dean on TV the other day and he said something along the order, he said the people in ISIS — he said I’m about as Islamic as they are, you know, distancing the vast numbers of Islamic people around the world from them. That’s just not true.
CHARLIE ROSE: It is true.
MAHER: It is not true, Charlie. There is a connecting tissue between —
ROSE: Behind every Muslim is a future member of some radical?
MAHER: Let me finish.
ROSE: I was doing that.
MAHER: There are illiberal beliefs that are held by vast numbers of Muslim people that —
ROSE: A vast number of Christians too.
MAHER: No, that’s not true. Not true. Vast numbers of Christians do not believe that if you leave the Christian religion you should be killed for it. Vast numbers of Christians do not treat women as second class citizens. Vast numbers of Christians —
ROSE: I agree with that —
MAHER: — do not believe if you draw a picture of Jesus Christ you should get killed for it. So yes, does ISIS do Khmer Rouge-like activities where they just kill people indiscriminately who aren’t just like them? Yes. And would most Muslim people in the world do that or condone that? No.
ROSE: No.
MAHER: But most Muslim people in the world do condone violence just for what you think.
ROSE: How do you know that?
MAHER: They do. First of all they say it. They shout it.
ROSE: Vast majorities of Muslims say that?
MAHER: Absolutely. There was a Pew poll in Egypt done a few years ago — 82% said, I think, stoning is the appropriate punishment for adultery. Over 80% thought death was the appropriate punishment for leaving the Muslim religion. I’m sure you know these things.
ROSE: Well I do. But I don’t believe —
MAHER: So to claim that this religion is like other religions is just naive and plain wrong. It is not like other religious. The New York Times pointed out in an op-ed a couple weeks ago that in Saudi Arabia just since August 4th, they think it was, they have beheaded 19 people. Most for non-violent crimes including homosexuality.
ROSE: I know that they cut the hands off the thief.
MAHER: Right, okay, so we’re upset that ISIS is beheading people which we should be upset about but Saudi Arabia does it and they’re our good friends because they have oil. Okay. But they do it too. This is the center of the religion. I’m not saying –
ROSE: But they’re now fighting against ISIS too. They’re joining us in the fight. As is the Emirates. As is Jordan. They are all Muslim countries.
MAHER: Well, they are both fighting ISIS and they are for ISIS.
ROSE: Well, it’s not the government. I mean, some of them —
MAHER: Certainly the governments.
ROSE: It’s a bit like today about Qatar. The big story today in The New York Times about Qatar. And some guy there is supporting, who is a Muslim —
MAHER: But I mean in Mecca where infidels, non-Muslims, are not even allowed in the holy parts of the city. I mean, right there, we don’t have that example in other religions. They do behead people. Now if they were beheading people in Vatican City, which is the equivalent of Mecca, don’t you think there would be a bigger outcry about it? So this is the soft bigotry of low expectations with Muslim people. When they do crazy things and believe crazy things, somehow it’s not talked about nearly as much.
ROSE: Would you come to the table and debate this with a moderate Muslim?
MAHER: Find one, yes. Find one.
ROSE: I promise you I’ll find one.
MAHER: Find a Muslim —
ROSE: I do believe that what we see with ISIS is not representative of —
MAHER: As I said, connecting tissue.
ROSE: — not representative of the Islamic religion. I don’t think the Koran teaches them to do these kinds of things.
MAHER: Well you’re wrong about that. The Koran absolutely has on every page stuff that’s horrible about how the infidels should be treated. But for example again ISIS says that they should perform genital mutilation on all women 11-46. Would most Muslims agree with that? No. Or carry it out? No.
But as Ayaan Hirsi Ali points out, she says —
ROSE: I wouldn’t expect for her to —
MAHER: And she would know better than —
ROSE: Exactly.
MAHER: But can we really say —
ROSE: She’s been a victim.
MAHER: — women are treated equally in the Muslim world? I mean, their testimony in court is very often counted as half. They need permission to leave the house in some places.
ROSE: But a lot of moderate Muslims would say in fact one of the things that we need to modernize is the idea of the way we treat women.
MAHER: But in this country, if you just use the wrong word about women, they go nuts. And all these other countries —
ROSE: As they should.
MAHER: — they’re doing things like making them wear burqas and I hear liberals say things like, ‘they want to.’ They want to. They’ve been brainwashed. It’s like saying a street walker wants to do that.
Categories: Anti-Islam Attitude
Muslim extremism is caused
by (amongst many other things) these things:
i) Not allowing Muslims to follow sharia law
ii) Not allowing the burkha and hijab to be worn in the
workplace
iii) There not being Islamic prayer rooms at every place of
work
iv) Not banning “Islamophobic” movements and individuals such as the
EDL and Liberty GB’s Paul Weston from marching and speaking; a well as not
banning The Satanic Verses, that film on Muhammad, and much
else.
v) Not allowing more Islamic schools
vi) Not allowing more about Islam to be taught in non-Islamic
schools… and so on and so on.
None of 7/7 bombers and British Muslim youths who are in Syria and Iraq are the product of Muslim schools. They are the product of British schooling which is the home of institutional racism with chicken racist native teachers. It is absurd to believe that Muslim schools, Imams and Masajid teach Muslim children anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-western views. It is dangerously deceptive and misleading to address text books and discuss them out of their historical, cultural and linguistic context. It is not wrong to teach children that Jews are committing the same cruelty in Palestine what German did to them before or during Second World War. It is not wrong to teach children that anti-social behaviour, drinking, drugs, homosexuality, sex before marriage, teenage pregnancies and abortions are western values and Islam is against all such sins. This does not mean that Muslim schools teach children to hate
westerners, Jews and homosexuals.
Extremism starts with the NATO clandestine services and the IMF and world of banking. War is profit nothing
more. Don’t send your kids to die for their bank accounts! Traditional British value = racism. NO, Traditional English value = racism. Tories should know there is a diversity in your state! Asian, middle east, other European must be
respected the way they are. The way to stop extremism is to stop invading other countries and supporting US foreign policy, simple as Dave
Thousands of Iraqis dead in Iraq. Thousands of Afghans dead in Afghanistan. Drone Attacks in Yemen and Pakistan, hundreds dead. Maybe that’s a clue perhaps? who did all that? nahhhhhh, its got nothing do with the UK Colonial foreign policy….eh ? Wake up Pal, get a grip, get some reality in ya. Muslim countries (civilians and troops) are the biggest victims of terrorists. I think people should bare that in mind. After Blair and Iraq the swap is so enormous we couldn’t possibly drain it. There’s only one way to deal with extremists, through dialogue. Let me see how things have faired so far, using military intervention – fail. Economic sanctioning against countries who are perceived as threats – fail. Using draconian terror laws – fail. Putting people into prisons without trail or court and thus trying to put fear into a community – fail. May and Gove can talk till the sun dies the only way they will change extremists is by changing the cause of extremism which isn’t religion but
You try invading their lands and stealing their wealth, see if they still meet your definition of ‘peaceful’! But lets not look at the actions of the West and longer term plans for the Muslim world, especially the Mid East, that have been put into action since 9/11, an event the thorough investigation of which was blocked by none other than G.W Bush…why do you think that was? Or is your mind so conditioned with hate that you choose to only look at ‘evidence’ that supports your view of Muslims & Islam!perverse foreign policy which is being cited time and time again but ignored time and time again.
If they really wanted to tackle extremism, which they don’t, they would stop interfering militarily in Islamic countries,
like arming and training extremists to fight in Syria. They would also stop the Islamic fundamentalist gulf states like Saudi Arabia from building and running mosques in Britain, where they are promoting their extremist Wahhabi brand of
nonsense. However, they don’t want to tackle extremism because it divides the country. If we are arguing amongst ourselves about Islamic extremism, then we’re not arguing about how shit the government is and we’re not talking about important things such as climate change. Because it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the world, floods, monsoons, tornadoes, fukushima etc just put a story about some girl getting executed for apostasy or a Nigerian extremist group kidnapping school girls, in their echo chamber newspapers, with F-all context behind it and suddenly all the EDL types come out the woodwork, were arguing about Islam and nobody cares about any of that other important stuff.
The British establishment is wrong in thinking that Imams are to blame for extremism. Imams are not solution to the problem for extremism. Extremism is nothing to do with Imams. Extremism is not created from abroad, it is coming
from within. Britain fails to help Muslim communities feel part of British society. Race trouble is being predicted by the Daily Express, because of an ethnic boom in UK major cities. Muslim communities need imams for the solutions
of their needs and demands in their own native languages. Muslim parents would like to see their children well versed in Standard English and to go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. The fact is that majority of Muslim
children leave schools with low grades because monolingual teachers are not capable to teach Standard English to bilingual Muslim children. A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously
monolingual Brit.
Terrorism and sexual grooming is nothing to do with Masajid, Imams and Muslim schools. Those Muslim youths who have been involved in terrorism and sexual grooming are the product of western education system which makes a man stupid, selfish and corrupt. They find themselves cut off from their cultural heritage, literature and poetry. They suffer from identity crises and I blame British schooling.
IA
http://www.londonschoolofislam…
I’ve listened and read the conversation between Maher and Rose and the first impression that comes to mind is that Maher is very ignorant of Islam, and mixes peoples’s opinion with Islamic teachings, he is not the first and will not be the last either to do so in order to promote his anti Islam feeling. Indeed Bill Islam is not like other religions, that are and were meant for a certain period, Islam is universal and if you do find flaw in Islam its in fact your intelligence that is flawed, and I bet you if you do study Islam with an open mind you’ll end up embracing it like many western very educated people, including a few of the media, women who ended up wearing the veil and yes not by any constraint whatsoever but my mere free choice.
One other thing Bill, no Vatican City is not the equivalent of Makkah (Mecca). Do some research and you’ll find out the difference in everything about both places.
There may have been a Pew poll in Egypt claiming what you advance about adultery and apostasy, the result may be true but do you know that a vast majority of Egyptians are illiterate ? and finally, yes there are a lot of Muslims across the globe who have spoken and are speaking everyday against ISIS and BOKO HARAM but you know there’s no more deaf than he who doesn’t want to hear.
If I have written anything that sounds offensive to you , I’m sorry and I apologise for it as I meant no ofense to you or anybody else and believe me you this is a teaching of Islam.
Bill Maher is one of those Jews who, had he lived in the time of the first Messiah (as) would have joked about him and abused him.
He knows exactly what he is doing, which is why he has a show and given prominence by other media, …
That being said, the folks in Saudi and Iraq and Syria and Somalia and Pakistan, et al, certainly give Maher grist to his mill.