Sheikh Khalid Yasin

August 2, 2005 8:20 AM

Sheikh Khalid Yasin grew up as a Christian in the United States but converted to Islam under the influence of Malcolm X. Last week he was interviewed (Video) by Australia's 60 Minutes. Yasin's claims—Muslims should not attend university because it's a "gateway for deviation", homosexuality is punishable by death, and Muslims cannot truly befriend non-Muslims—have caused controversy among LGBT groups & moderate Muslims, yet despite his naysayers, Yasin does not lack for a following in Australia, and is frequently honored as a guest speaker & VIP around the world. The LA Times has more on US-born extremists.
posted by jenleigh (17 comments total)

Poor jenleigh: you're stuck between a nerd fight. I feel for you.
posted by Rothko at 8:37 AM on August 2, 2005

controversy among LGBT groups

Controversy among LGBT groups????

Never!
posted by dios at 8:39 AM on August 2, 2005

meanwhile, back in Jesusland....

John Cleary Any Reporter: "So ultimately the Sharia Bible should become the law of the land?"

Khalid Yasin Any Republican: "Exactly. It has to be. I mean, who is the best lawgiver? Who is the best legislator: the designer, the author, the creator or the human beings who themselves are subjected to that law? It has to be." (n.b. verbatim)
posted by three blind mice at 8:49 AM on August 2, 2005

FWIW, I'd be interested in reading more about US-born extremists who actually commit terrorist acts, like Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and Eric Rudolph. Understanding what motivates these people to murder in the name of right-wing extremism would be a lot more useful to securing the country than sending non-Christian dark-skinned people to Gitmo.
posted by Rothko at 9:08 AM on August 2, 2005

Like Abu Bakar Bashir, Yasin is seeking a more expansive application of Shari'a Law in Australia, his new home:

"If you don’t have a people that is governed by Sharia, then you have a lawless people ... If we look at the evolution of the Sharia experiment in Nigeria for instance. It’s just a wonderful, phenomenal experience. It has brought about some sweeping changes, balances, within the society, regulations in terms of moral practices and so many things."

posted by jenleigh at 9:08 AM on August 2, 2005

Hey, I've got an idea, let's give even more widespread attention to extremists. Let's put them on TV, interview them for articles, write books and movies about them. We can treat them like they are mainstream or representative of a majority of people and eventually we can even have 24 hour news networks that show nothing but these guys arguing each other over any issue we can think of as if they were actually experts and not whack-job extremists.

How else are these guys supposed to gain power and following without attention?
posted by Pollomacho at 9:22 AM on August 2, 2005

yet another religious conversion under the influence of X
posted by nervousfritz at 9:57 AM on August 2, 2005

pollomacho: au contraire (assuming no intended irony).

the more these pieces of shit get exposed to the sun, the sooner they will dry up under the light of exposure.
posted by reality at 10:13 AM on August 2, 2005

Sounds kinda like Billy Grahm Jrs. mirror cousin. Too bad we can't have a real life "celebrity deathmatch" between religious bozos.
posted by buzzman at 10:17 AM on August 2, 2005

the more these pieces of shit get exposed to the sun, the sooner they will dry up under the light of exposure

Yeah, that seems to have worked really well so far. Giving Paris Hilton a TV show really succeeded in getting her over being an attention whore too.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:37 AM on August 2, 2005

Hey, I've got an idea, let's give even more widespread attention to extremists. Let's put them on TV, interview them for articles, write books and movies about them

I wanted to argue with that and suggest that actually it is very important to read these interviews with radicals and wannabe bombers in order understand how this is all a battle internal to Islam, or some other clever comment like that, but I suspect you have a very good point. They do seem to relish the media attention, because it does make them look like they're mainstream representative leaders of hundreds of millions. Well, I guess the non-whackjobs are just too boring to make the news.

Besides, I know I'm shallow, but I'm afraid my Islamic-terror-related coverage attention resources have all been used up in July. It's at the level where I'm craving for another Michael Jackson trial or even a repeat of Live8. And I know I'm not the only one.

So I have just started a sort of ramadan-in-reverse whereby I will endeavour to avoid any and all Islamic-terror-related coverage for forty days. It's going to be hard but I'm determined to make it.
posted by funambulist at 10:39 AM on August 2, 2005

You consistently crack me up, nervousfritz.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:52 AM on August 2, 2005

Sad so sad, I'm muslim and I feel very sad seeing all the media giving such coverage to muslim extremist and no one to muslims (I don't say moderate, because a muslim is by definition moderate). So the only picture that those who don't know about Islam is just those extremist, and this tend to act like extremist against muslims and then made extremist out of them.

Very sad :(

PS : sorry for my bad english!
posted by zouhair at 11:53 AM on August 2, 2005

My question would be:

Did Yasin learn his extremist fundamentalism views while growing up a Christian or did he adopt them after conversion to Islam?
Either way, he's a wack job that just hates liberalism and human rights, you know, kinda like just about any right wing fundie nut with a media megaphone in the US today.
posted by nofundy at 12:57 PM on August 2, 2005

Shuddup dios.
posted by nlindstrom at 1:52 PM on August 2, 2005

zouhair, welcome. Your English is fine. Please post more.
posted by mono blanco at 1:40 AM on August 3, 2005

Thanks mono blanco

I found that article.

I found that it covers really the views of many mulims and arabs, and if you read between the lines, you can see that those that are democrat and moderate in muslims are getting it hard to stay this way. :( SAD
posted by zouhair at 7:28 AM on August 3, 2005