Tulsa World: Former Muslim receiving death threats

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Former Muslim receiving death threats
The Tulsa atheist was critical of all religions, including Islam, in a Tulsa World interview.

OSTRACIZED
Sabri Husibi: He says one caller offered his young Muslim wife $10,000 to leave him and return to her native Syria.

By BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer
Published: 10/1/2009 2:29 AM
Last Modified: 10/1/2009 3:59 AM

Sabri Husibi, a former Muslim who is now an atheist, says he has been ostracized and threatened with death since publication of a Tulsa World article Saturday in which he was critical of Islam and all other religions.

The article was written to promote a talk he gave the next day to the Tulsa Atheists organization.

Husibi, who has an unlisted telephone number, said he received about 30 calls Saturday from people who were cursing him, calling him a traitor and threatening him.

Most were foreign-born, Tulsa-area Muslims whom he knows, he said. He also received angry calls from friends and relatives in Syria.

One caller, whom Husibi would not identify, said that if he spoke at the meeting and said anything against Shariah (Islamic law), he would be killed.

Another caller offered Husibi's young Muslim wife $10,000 to leave him and return to her native Syria, he said.

"Someone from Tulsa called my 76-year-old mother in Syria and said, 'You're not going to see your son anymore,' " he said.

His critics' chief objection, he said, was to his statement that the Quran was written by men, not God, and has been changed over the years. They also objected to his comment that al-Qaida is respected by many Muslims.

Bill Dusenberry of the Tulsa Coalition of Reason, of which Tulsa Atheists is a member, said he offered Saturday afternoon to cancel the Sunday talk, but Husibi wanted to go ahead with it.

"It showed a lot of courage," Dusenberry said.

Husibi

said he takes the threats seriously. Before Sunday's talk, Dusenberry notified Tulsa police, who said they would be alert to any possible trouble.

On Tuesday, a clearly shaken Husibi asked that any future articles emphasize that he is not attacking Islam alone but all religions, including "fundamentalist Christians like Timothy McVeigh and fundamentalist Jews who kill Muslim children in the Gaza Strip."

He said Tulsa Muslims are awaiting an apology from him.

"I won't apologize," he said. "I'm not going to be a chicken. This is my right, to give my point of view."

Hussam Albakri, Husibi's second cousin, said he was surprised about the threats "because that's not what our religion teaches us."

Razi Hashmi, executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an Islamic civil-rights organization, said Husibi's comments are protected as free speech.

"He has the right to make them without being threatened," he said.

"Husibi apparently doesn't like all religions," Hashmi said, "and puts them all in the same category. But that doesn't give him the justification to make false assumptions, like saying the Quran has changed over time. That's historically and factually false."

Hashmi also said polls show that very few Muslims around the world support al-Qaida's extremist views.

He said the Quran teaches in chapter 2, verse 256, "Let there be no compulsion in religion."

Sheryl Siddiqui, a spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of Tulsa, said she had received one e-mail about the matter.

"There was no discussion about him at the mosque this week," she said.

Husibi was born and raised in Damascus, Syria, and attended Quran school as a young man.

He became an atheist after years of studying religion and serving as a soldier in the Syrian army during the Lebanon civil war.

He moved to Tulsa 10 years ago at age 35.

Bill Sherman 581-8398
bill.sherman@tulsaworld.com By BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer

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	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/1/2009 10:30:41 AM) A belief in an all powerful being that controls everything in this small speck of the universe is absurd. The bible was written by man to control the masses by way of fear. If you really took the time to investigate and ask questions of what is written in that book, you would see that none of it makes any sense. There is no physical or historical proof of any of the fantastic things that supposedly happened centuries ago. If you think all that stuff is true, you are brainwashed by the clergy and delusional. Atheism does not believe in nothing, it is the rational thinking of inteligent people who will question things that can't possibly be true, based on mythology and superstition from the dark ages. There is no hell, so enjoy your life and quit trying to please a god or gods that could care less about a small speck in the vast universe.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/1/2009 11:00:59 AM) Grammar is the least of our worries, fundamentalist of any religion are the things that we all need to be worried about before we become what our forefathers were trying to avoid, and that is a country run by theocracy based on myth and superstition that will bring on another inquisition.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/1/2009 1:59:34 PM) Back then christianity was a cult like all religions when they started, and all their stories and rituals where gleaned from previous pagan religions just like the new ones today are. Until the printing press only the clergy read the bible or koran and interpreted to suit their best interests to control the masses and make money and become more powerful by becoming the government that ruled.Instilling fear of the unknown and hatred of those who would think differntly is the basis of all wars and hate that is practiced today in the name of god.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/1/2009 2:38:57 PM) yes, because we have freed ourselves from the chains of slavery of dogma. Read the words to Imagine again and you will understand.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/1/2009 6:56:59 PM) I'm glad That I have someone like Bud Green to help explain all that stuff to those too ignorant to look it up and see how their belief is just bs.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/4/2009 1:44:00 PM) exactly, what evidence is there of creationism other that what some guy wrote in a book a few thousand years ago. creationism is and unproven theory. If a god created the entire universe, what is the purpose of all that empty unused space that continues to go on for light years, and we are but one insignificant speck in that vast cosmos. What being would really care what this speck is doing? Evolution speaks for itself scientifically, but creationism is just a pipe dream from some desert dwellers hallucination from lack of water and eating all those catus and mushrooms.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/8/2009 11:10:39 AM) any one who believes all that magical stuff is real is delusional at best. do you also believe in all the other magical stuff like david copperfield does? if you just stop and think about what you are saying you believe in and listen to yourself, you'd laugh at it too.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/8/2009 4:11:49 PM) I have already been there and done that, and have finally concluded in my old age that it is all a bunch of malarkey.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/5/2009 1:03:20 PM) "All interpretations of the Bible that involve supernatural claims or abilities are false." Then you would agree that the entire bible is wrong because there are many claims of supernatural abilities which are there to convince believers and to instill fear of the unknown and supernatural in order to control them.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/5/2009 1:46:01 PM) the beliefs and rituals practiced by today's religions were established thousands of years before the advent of christianity which borrowed all those pagan beliefs and rituals. all based on fear of the unknown which has become more known the more we use science to explain things than to rely on myth and superstition.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/5/2009 1:46:36 PM) belief in a god and religion is an outdated concept.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/6/2009 10:19:07 AM) there is no physical or historical proof of a man god called jesus ever existed. the stories are just a rehash of prior stories of all man gods that ever existed in the minds of those too dumb to realize what reality is. do you also believe all the myth that has ever been written?
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/6/2009 3:24:14 PM) all based on a fantasy propagated by the church that decided in the 6th century what to put in and what to keep out of the bible. anyone can write a story about what they may think have happened, but there is nothing physical or concrete to any of it.
	Report Comment billy8, Sand Springs (10/7/2009 9:55:51 AM) The gospels in the new testament where written 150 years after this so called man-god walked the earth, so first hand knowledge was not used. the council of nicene in the 6th century is where they made the decision to remove many other gospels and stories of the new testament and rewrite the the whole thing. it's all just stories and mythology based on superstition with no proof, all of it was taken from religions that were around for centuries, especially in egypt and the greek and roman myths.
	Report Comment Mar, Tulsa (10/4/2009 6:43:18 PM) Religion should be a personal belief. I won't stuff my religion down your throat and you won't stuff your religion down my throat. I was raised a Catholic, but quit practicing about 12 years ago. I am religious in my own way now.
	Report Comment FUTURE WORLD, Tulsa (10/2/2009 9:23:25 PM) Did he not expect this. His position must be borne through the desire to make money on his atheist beliefs.
	Report Comment zTruth, Tulsa (10/5/2009 7:50:07 AM) This man symbolizes something we value very much in America: religious freedom. In our country, he can choose his own religion or be free from any religion. This freedom is not supported in Islamic countries which often operate under Sharia or Islamic law. I wonder if Americans fully appreciate the magnitude of this freedom. Husibi received death threats which is worrisome but doesn't surprise me based on the strict interpretation of Islam practiced in this city. But why would the Tulsa World publish his picture? His safety may be at risk here. I don't get it. Additionally, all the verses that Proud Muslim suggested reading in the Quran can be countered by verses which reveal Allah's distain for apostacy or its ultimate Islamic supremacy goals. I also believe the four main Sunni Islamic schools of law agree it is a sin to leave Islam. This is a very brave man!
	Report Comment Proud Muslim, Tulsa: Coolest place in the world (almost) (10/1/2009 5:34:08 PM) Not the Islam I know. I hope those who are doing the threatening read up on verses 2:256, 109:06, 18:29, 11:121, 39:41, 42:48, and 16:125. "Why did all this stuff have to come from someplace anyway?" Something can't come from nothing. ; )
	Report Comment Proud Muslim, Tulsa: Coolest place in the world (almost) (10/1/2009 5:35:11 PM) LOL, 'relik, I suppose it makes Basil feel better about himself.
	Report Comment Proud Muslim, Tulsa: Coolest place in the world (almost) (10/1/2009 6:54:30 PM) Admittedly well argued, Bud Green. God is immune to regress because that is the definition of God, that He has no beginning and no end. I'll stick to my theory until something better comes along. ; )
	Report Comment Proud Muslim, Tulsa: Coolest place in the world (almost) (10/2/2009 7:43:12 PM) Can't recall a time I used violence or threats to control someone. You must be generalizing about someone else. ; )
	Report Comment Proud Muslim, Tulsa: Coolest place in the world (almost) (10/3/2009 1:10:37 PM) JackBlackson, I respectfully disagree. I'm no expert on Christianity, but I know it to be a peaceful religion.
	Report Comment Proud Muslim, Tulsa: Coolest place in the world (almost) (10/4/2009 7:37:13 PM) I agree 100%, Mar.
	Report Comment 52favoriteteacher, ex--Broken Arrow Tiger (10/3/2009 5:34:33 PM) FAITH=Forsaking All I Trust Him To forgive others is beyond many of us at times. There is a reason this man has turned away from his God... He became an atheist after years of studying religion and serving as a soldier in the... It would be good to hear the rest of the story...
	Report Comment psychedelikrelik, Tulsa (10/1/2009 1:18:51 PM) Basil's rewriting history again.

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