American muslim student kills Prof because of book

On Friday December 5, Professor Richard Antoun of the New York State
University in Binghampton was stabbed to death by Abdul Salam Al-Zahrani, a
graduate student at the university. He received his PhD from Harvard
in 1963; He was the
author of a book on Understanding Fundamentalism: Christian, Islamic and
Jewish Movements;

When confronted with such violence, more often than not, both public
authorities and some religious leaders deny that a religious motive was
involved in the violence. The prosecutor of Broome County, New York has
denied that there was a "religious or ethnic" motive for the killing. Public
authorities have done the same in any number of other cases and did so
initially with Major Hasan at Fort Hood, until the evidence became too
overwhelming.



One of the reasons Muslims attack scholars and intellectuals, sometimes with
homicidal acts and at other times by legal stratagems, is to strike fear
into those who have the learning and the communication skills necessary to
examine the whole question of Islam and the other religions honestly and
with accurate information.


This is not because I think
all Muslims are terrorists, but because there is no way of knowing who are
the terrorists until they strike. Unfortunately, the situation has become much worse since 9/11 and
the Second Intifada.