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Sultan Healthcare-Sultan Healthcare sultandental.com |
Coordinates: 51°28′37″N 3°12′47″W / 51.477°N 3.213°W
Wafa Sultan (Arabic: وفاء سلطان; born 14 June 1958, Baniyas, Syria) is an author and well known critic of Islam.[1] Sultan trained as a psychiatrist in Syria and is a US naturalized citizen.
[edit] Life and careerSultan was born to an Alawi family in Baniyas, Syria.[2][3][4] She resides in Los Angeles, California. She emigrated to the United States in 1989, and is now a naturalized citizen. Sultan has become notable since the September 11, 2001 attacks for her participation in Middle East political debates, with Arabic essays that circulated widely and some television appearances on Al Jazeera and CNN. On February 21, 2006, she took part in Al Jazeera's weekly 45-minute discussion program The Opposite Direction. She spoke from Los Angeles, arguing with host Faisal al-Qassem and with Ibrahim Al-Khouli about Samuel P. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations theory. A six minute composite video of her remarks was subtitled and widely circulated by MEMRI on blogs and through e-mail; The New York Times estimated that it has been seen at least one million times.[5] In this video she criticised Muslims for treating non-Muslims differently, and for not recognizing the accomplishments of Jewish and other members of non-Muslim society while using their wealth and technology. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations responded to this and other MEMRI distributed videos by stating to the Washington Times: "Memri's intent is to find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible." Sultan's latest book, A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of Radical Islam, was released on October 13, 2009. [6] [edit] Political viewsSultan describes her thesis as witnessing "a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose". It has brought her telephone threats,[5] but also praise from reformers. Her comments, especially a pointed criticism that "no Jew has blown himself up in a German restaurant", brought her an invitation to Jerusalem by the American Jewish Congress. Sultan believes that "The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam [is] also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force."[7] In a discussion with Ahmad bin Muhammad, she said: "It was these teachings that distorted this terrorist and killed his humanity".[8] Sultan stated that she was shocked into secularism by the 1979 atrocities committed by Islamic extremists of the Muslim Brotherhood against innocent Syrians, including the machine-gun assassination of her professor, Yusef al Yusef,[9] an ophthalmologist renowned beyond Syria, in her classroom in front of her eyes at the University of Aleppo where she was a medical student. "They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, 'God is great!' " she said. "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god."[10] However, Sultan's account is disputed by Syrians. Adnan Halabi (Pseudonym), a Syrian expatriate who met and got to know the Sultans when they first came to the United States, claimed that the incident took place off-campus, and at a time when Sultan wasn't even around. InFocus contacted the University of Aleppo and spoke to Dr. Riyad Asfari, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, who confirmed Halabi’s account. "Yes, the assassination took place off-campus," he said. Asfari added that no one had ever been killed in a classroom anytime or anywhere at the university. Syrian expatriate Ghada Moezzin, who attended the University of Aleppo in 1979 as a sophomore, told InFocus that she never heard of the assassination. "We would’ve known about the killing if it had happened," she said. "It would have been big news on campus and I do not recall ever hearing about it." Moezzin, who lives in Glendora, California, added that government security was always present around the university given the political climate in Syria at the time. [1] [edit] RecognitionsIn 2006 Wafa Sultan was named in Time Magazine in a list of 100 influential people in the world "whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world."[11][12] Time stated that "Sultan's influence flows from her willingness to express openly critical views on Islamic extremism that are widely shared but rarely aired by other Muslims."[11] [edit] Religious sentimentIn the same Time interview, Sultan described herself as a Muslim who does not adhere to Islam: "I even don't believe in Islam, but I am a Muslim."[11] However, in a recent conference associated with conservative writer and activist David Horowitz, Sultan said:
[edit] References
[edit] BookSultan, Wafa. A God Who Hates, St. Martin's Press, New York (2009) [edit] External links
[edit] Wafa Sultan's articles
[edit] Interviews and speeches
[edit] Opinions
[edit] Critical opinions
Categories: 1958 births | American psychiatrists | Syrian psychiatrists | American writers | Anti-Islam activists | Converts to agnosticism from Islam | Immigrants to the United States | Living people | Naturalized citizens of the United States | People from Damascus | People from Los Angeles, California | Syrian Americans | American agnostics | Syrian writers | Criticism of Islam | Syrian former Muslims | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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