Middle East studies in the News

Author Aims To Dispel "Fallacies" About Saudi Islam [on Juan Cole]
Please bury your head in the sand and ignore what the Saudis do

by Raymond Ibrahim
Jihad Watch
March 23, 2009

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/025369.php

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/7126

From the "expert" who found it hard to differentiate between Sarah Palin and Osama bin Laden comes this: an exhortation to not condemn the Saudi government, or the Wahhabi lifestyle, just because most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi.

Fine. But what about the fact that the Saudi government itself -- not the hijackers -- is responsible for condemning a 75 year-old woman to 40 lashes, sentencing a pregnant gang-rape victim to 100 lashes, and is internationally recognized as one of the worst violators of human-rights? How are we to "reconsider" those facts?

"Author Aims To Dispel Fallacies About Saudi Islam," from NPR, March 23 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Morning Edition, March 23, 2009 · Juan Cole, author of Engaging the Muslim World, wants readers to reconsider what they think they know about countries like Saudi Arabia.

It's widely known that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis. Cole, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Michigan, says some people abuse that fact to fuel suspicion of the Saudi government, or of the Saudi strain of Islam known as Wahhabism.

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