Cannibal Reza Aslan has somewhat faded from the public eye since he was fired by CNN and exhorted readers in his last book to take the advice of the oldest and most celebrated self-improvement coach, Satan: “take a lesson from Adam and Eve and eat the forbidden fruit. Do not fear God. You are God.”
But this week, in the midst of the recent media savaging of a group of Kentucky high school students who were accosted by a Native American activist, Reza Aslan called for violence against the student most prominently featured in circulating videos of the incident. When Dinesh D’Souza called him out on it, Aslan doubled down by saying he wanted to assault D’Souza:
Aslan, of course, doesn’t have to worry about getting banned from Twitter any more than does his fellow fascist C.J. Werleman. But Aslan’s tweets show the increasing mainstreaming of violence on the Left. They’re neo-Brownshirts, ready to silence those whom they hate by means of violence, and they’re increasingly open about it. If D’Souza wrote this to Aslan, he would be banned from Twitter and excoriated by Leftists and conservatives alike. But Aslan will continue to be heralded on the increasingly thuggish Left.
This shouldn’t come as any surprise to those who are familiar with Aslan’s rancid public career. That this sinister jihad enabler was ever given a mainstream platform is a dispiriting sign of the times. His show on CNN was devoted to showing other religions as violent and hateful, and Islam as benign and peaceful. Also, Aslan is a Board member of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). NIAC has been established in court as a lobbying group for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Said Michael Rubin: “Jamal Abdi, NIAC’s policy director, now appears to push aside any pretense that NIAC is something other than Iran’s lobby. Speaking at the forthcoming ‘Expose AIPAC’ conference, Abdi is featured on the ‘Training: Constituent Lobbying for Iran’ panel. Oops.” Iranian freedom activist Hassan Daioleslam “documented over a two-year period that NIAC is a front group lobbying on behalf of the Iranian regime.” NIAC had to pay him nearly $200,000 in legal fees after they sued him for defamation over his accusation that they were a front group for the mullahs, and lost. Yet Aslan remains on their Board.
Meanwhile, despite his increasingly obvious Islamic heterodoxy, Aslan remains popular with Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in the U.S.: he has also spoken at events sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, a Brotherhood group, as well as at an event co-sponsored by the Los Angeles chapter of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Doubtless they recognize that he shares their overall agenda.
Not surprisingly, after a trip to Israel he lied about being threatened by Shin Bet.
Aslan is as stupid as he is evil. It’s also worth noting that despite being hailed as a great intellect, Aslan isn’t actually very bright. He has made the ridiculous claim that the idea of resurrection “simply doesn’t exist in Judaism,” despite numerous passages to the contrary in the Hebrew Scriptures. He has also referred to “the reincarnation, which Christianity talks about” — although he later claimed that one was a “typo.” In yet another howler he later insisted was a “typo,” he claimed that the Biblical story of Noah was barely four verses long — which he then corrected to forty, but that was wrong again, as it is 89 verses long.
Aslan has also claimed that the “founding philosophy of the Jesuits” was “the preferential option for the poor,” when in reality, that phrase wasn’t even coined until 1968. He called Turkey the second most populous Muslim country, when it is actually the eighth most populous Muslim country. He thinks Pope Pius XI, who issued the anti-fascist encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, was a fascist. He thinks Marx and Freud “gave birth to the Enlightenment,” when it ended in the late 18th century, before either of them were born. He claims that “the very first thing that Muhammad did was outlaw slavery,” when in fact Muhammad bought slaves, took female captives as sex slaves, and owned slaves until his death. He thinks Ethiopia and Eritrea are in Central Africa.
A “renowned religious scholar” such as Reza Aslan should not make such elementary mistakes. But this is, of course, the man who writes “than” for “then"; apparently thinks the Latin word “et” is an abbreviation; and writes “clown’s” for “clowns.”
Yes, this imbecile is hailed as a great intellectual in the Leftist media.