As Patrick Poole points out, Dr. Badari hobnobs with Hamas and terrorists. He is also a participant (board member) of terrorist-founded organizations. I have detailed in previous posts the problems with Hamas. The Hamas charter sets Hamas up as an enemy not only of the United States, but our entire way of life. Hamas institutionalizes violent Jihad.
Should a man be known by the company he keeps? Well, yes. That is not "guilt by association." No one is accusing Dr. Badawi of guilt by personally participating in terrorism. Hobnobbing with terrorists does not make anyone a terrorirst directly. But it makes him a suspicious person and apparently a terrorist sympathizer. A person whose views are suspect. A person whose loyaties are suspect.
Dr. Badawi's views are far outside the mainstream of our American and Canadian culture. Still based upon the links in Patrick's article, I don't think Patrick was quite fair on some issues. For example, the links do not support the charge that Dr. Badawi advocates wife beating. The reference to striking one's wife reads:
As defined by hadith, it is NOT PERMISSIBLE TO STRIKE ANYONE'S FACE, CAUSE ANY BODILY HARM OR EVEN BE HARSH. What the hadith qualified as dharban ghayra mubarrih, or light striking, was interpreted by early jurists as a (symbolic) use of miswak (a small natural toothbrush)! They further qualified permissible "striking" as that which leaves no mark on the body. It is interesting that this latter fourteen-centuries-old qualifier is the criterion used in contemporary American law to separate a light and harmless tap or strike from "abuse" in the legal sense.Now this Islamically permissible symbolic striking is hardly wife-beating. It is male supremacist and misogynist. Where was NOW on this one?
Dr. Badawi approves of polygamy. While antithetical to our American traditions (unless you are a fundamentalist Morman, I suppose), it is hardly subversive, just anti-American culture. Again, NOW is absent.
The links to articles on on suicide bombing and death to apostates yield ambiguous opinions at best. Does approval of suicide bombings apply to taking out non-combatant women and children? Does the treason rational for apostate executions include treason by insulting Islam for having left Islam? We certainly know from examining rhetoric from the violent Jihadists, that Dr. Badawi's stated views would be interpreted by them as consistent with their radical Islam. The statements are sufficiently ambiguous, though, that Dr. Badawi and his supporters could argue the quotes are harmless.
What makes the quotes suspicious is the hobnobbing problem. If Dr. Badawi is going to attend functions that celebrate terrorists and serve on organizations founded by terrorists, we can't be faulted for understanding the ambiguous as intending to support his apparent friends.
The thinking behind Dr. Badawi's invitation to speak at Ohio State is baffling. Are there no Islamic scholars to invite who do not have associations with terrorists or terrorist organizations?
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