# Please help me rebut this anti-muslim Email. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 8, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391 "2010-06-08T04:14:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/41 "2010-06-08T18:35:22Z")
It’s **Shakes** ’ call to make, of course, whether to report the post to HR. But would it really trigger the guy getting fired? I guess it depends on company policy, but in terms of the bottom line it’s expensive to recruit/hire/train someone new. Wouldn’t a typical HR response be to begin a progressive discipline track… perhaps starting with a verbal warning only, then responding to any repeated offences with written warning [perhaps other stuff] then firing? If progressive discipline is company policy, maybe everyone would win if he was reported - nip it in the bud before it blossoms. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/42 "2010-06-08T19:29:59Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > RE WWII, there were LOTS of Muslims in the all volunteer British Indian Army, from the Punjab, from the Frontier and from the State Forces. > > I am named after a man who was killed in Singapore. Right, thanks Mate. I really should have cited that. In fact the only British Empire areas that had any significant German sympathies were in the Mandate area (although it is kicking in the back of my mind that I read of Indian (or Indo-Pak in modern terms) nationalist contacts with German agents and some added actions, this really highlights that the Mufti of Jerusalem was not a Muslim or an Arab phenomena, but a local reaction (and Wiki provides sources indicating important colleagues and family disagreed with this German approach). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/43 "2010-06-08T20:54:59Z")
How about this: Western civilization wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for Islam. The Muslims were one of the few groups who preserved the knowledge of antiquity through the Middle Ages. For instance, every single copy we have today of Euclid’s _Elements_ was translated from Arabic. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/44 "2010-06-08T22:15:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For instance, every single copy we have today of Euclid’s _Elements_ was translated from Arabic. That’s not true. The first translation into Latin in the middle ages was from an Arabic translation, but most modern English translations come from the Heiberg manuscript, which was Byzantine. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/45 "2010-06-08T22:46:01Z")
Isn’t it the job of HR to determine the severity of this infraction and balance it against the employee’s history and deal with him accordingly? He’s spreading hate. Maybe it didn’t affect you, but that’s what it is, and he’s using company time and company resources to do so. If that gets him fired and has a negative repercussion on him and he has to bust his hateful ass to keep food on the table for his poor little kids, _it would be his own damned fault_. Dealing with this sort of thing is outside of your purview. Report him. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/46 "2010-06-09T03:01:19Z")
Note that reporting something to HR marks the reporting person as a troublemaker as well. It’s unfair, but it happens all the time. You get tagged as someone who complains, and if something even worse happens in the future, you may be taken just a little bit less seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/47 "2010-06-09T03:50:34Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Note that reporting something to HR marks the reporting person as a troublemaker as well. It’s unfair, but it happens all the time. You get tagged as someone who complains, and if something even worse happens in the future, you may be taken just a little bit less seriously. Or the reporting party could manage to make an anonymous report regarding the issue. Regarding “taken less seriously,” I would hope that a corporation large enough to have a human resources deparatment would have such a department staffed by professionals who would realize that not taken something seriously–as in actually looking into the matter–would put the corporation at risk in litigation later brought by the individual not taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/48 "2010-06-09T04:30:49Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Regarding “taken less seriously,” I would hope that a corporation large enough to have a human resources deparatment would have such a department staffed by professionals who would realize that not taken something seriously–as in actually looking into the matter–would put the corporation at risk in litigation later brought by the individual not taken seriously. Agreed. But from that perspective, we’d also hope that this corporation would have a workforce professional enough not to send around race-baiting emails. The trouble comes when those aspirations are not met. I guess all I’m saying is that HR is not your friend; it serves the company. Reporting this guy may be doing the company a favor, but it’s not necessarily doing anything positive for the OP and may even work against him in little ways. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/49 "2010-06-09T06:27:37Z")
The workforce, in toto, isn’t sending out the race-baiting e-mail. One individual is. HR is supposed to address such issues so that the individual (the employee) gets the message that such things aren’t acceptable. Plus, I just plain don’t buy into your “HR is evil” routine. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/50 "2010-06-09T13:09:22Z")
Perhaps one problem with this message is that it does not mention one of the first contacts between the young Republic of the United States of America and the Muslim Barbary Coast States that regularly preyed upon US ships, enslaving captured Americans. According to Wikipedia: "In March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring “concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury”, the ambassador replied: It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once. Such sentiments, by the way, can still be justified by the Koran and are still actively espoused by Muslims living today. I have seen videos of Imams preaching that a Muslim has the right to seize any infidel and either sell him into slavery or kill him. The extensive slavery practised by Muslims in the north of Sudan against the non-Muslims in the south is precisely justified on these grounds. Luckily, the Barbary Wars had a happy ending. The US fought back. Good thing Americans back then didn’t need to grow a pair. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/51 "2010-06-09T13:31:16Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > **Shakes** , I don’t even know you but with just your OP I can determine you’re above this. > > Vote: Turn him into HR and move on. Apart from that, you might also want to just point out to the guy that The Pilgrims weren’t, in fact, the original colonists to come to the continent. I assume he’ll be shocked. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/52 "2010-06-09T13:33:21Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Perhaps one problem with this message is that it does not mention one of the first contacts between the young Republic of the United States of America and the Muslim Barbary Coast States that regularly preyed upon US ships, enslaving captured Americans. According to the Wiki profile, the first contact was the Moroccan Sultan recognising the Americans, which doesn’t quite fit your narrative it would appear. Anyway, one neglects to mention that the warring European powers rather encouraged the pirates to attack said power’s enemies. Part of the American problems was the UK… > [@](#): > > Such sentiments, by the way, can still be justified by the Koran and are still actively espoused by Muslims living today. Eh. So what, there’ nutter Christians who can use the Bible in the same manner. > [@](#): > > I have seen videos of Imams preaching that a Muslim has the right to seize any infidel and either sell him into slavery or kill him. I’m willing to bet that this a colourful fabrication. > [@](#): > > Luckily, the Barbary Wars had a happy ending. The US fought back. Good thing Americans back then didn’t need to grow a pair. Eh? The Americans cut a bunch of deals and paid tribute to certain states. What this has to do with the OP really does escape. ---
**Author:** ![blinkthrice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@blinkthrice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinkthrice)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/53 "2010-06-09T14:05:29Z")
If the e-mail were anti-semetic in nature, would you report it to HR? Honest question. For the record, I wouldn’t report it to HR, I’d confront him personally. Bigots have families to feed too. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/54 "2010-06-09T14:12:31Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > What this has to do with the OP really does escape. I agree with everything up to this point - but it was the interaction of America over the barbary thing that Obama was mentioning in his speech that triggered the bigoted screed in the OP. > [@](#): > > I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.” And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers – Thomas Jefferson – kept in his personal library. The Treaty of Tripoli: > **[Treaty of Tripoli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli)** > > The Treaty of Tripoli (Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary) was signed in 1796. It was the first treaty between the United States and Tripoli (now Libya) to secure commercial shipping rights and protect American ships in the Mediterranean Sea from local Barbary pirates. > It was authored by Joel Barlow, an ardent Jeffersonian republican, and signed in Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and at Algiers (for a third-party witnes... This treaty was basically about the payments the US was willing to make to the Barbary nations for immunity of American ships from attack and slavery. The importance of the treaty is two-fold. It is usually cited for Article 11 - that’s what Obama is doing in his speech - which states as follows: > [@](#): > > Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. Significant stuff. The second significance is that it is, of course, a treaty for the payment of “danegeld”; and it didn’t work - the states involved demanded more cash, and commenced preying on Americans again when they didn’t get it, leading to further warfare. This is perhaps not so happy a precedent for Obama to invoke. Not, of course, that this has anything to do with Muslims in America. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/55 "2010-06-09T14:24:43Z")
Fair enough. I hadn’t followed the American president’s speech, so… ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/56 "2010-06-09T16:02:51Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > Fair enough. I hadn’t followed the American president’s speech, so… Hey, no prob. I just thought the president’s speech a very interesting launch into the history of US-Muslim world relations, which is in fact a topic as old as the US iteslf, much to my surprise - I read a very timely book on that subject (popular history but well-written) whose title escapes me at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/57 "2010-06-09T16:27:54Z")
Wow!! I can’t tell you guys how glad I am I started this thread. The wealth of knowledge on this board amazes me. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/58 "2010-06-09T16:45:06Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Significant stuff. But [possibly erroneous](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli): > [@](#): > > The translation of the Treaty of Tripoli by Barlow has been found faulty, and there is doubt whether Article 11 in the version of the treaty ratified by Congress corresponds to anything of the same purport in the Arabic version.[20] > > ``` > In 1931 Hunter Miller completed a commission by the United States government to analyze United States's treaties and to explain how they function and what they mean to the United States's legal position in relationship with the rest of the world.[21] According to Hunter Miller's notes, "the Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic" and "Article 11... does not exist at all."[16] > > After comparing the United States's version by Barlow with the Arabic and the Italian version, Miller continues by claiming that: > > ``` > > The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point.[16] > > ``` > From this, Miller concludes: "A further and perhaps equal mystery is the fact that since 1797 the Barlow translation has been trustfully and universally accepted as the just equivalent of the Arabic... yet evidence of the erroneous character of the Barlow translation has been in the archives of the Department of State since perhaps 1800 or thereabouts..."[16] It is important to note, though, that as Miller said: > > ``` > > It is to be remembered that the Barlow translation is that which was submitted to the Senate (American State Papers, Foreign Relations, II, 18-19) and which is printed in the Statutes at Large and in treaty collections generally; it is that English text which in the United States has always been deemed the text of the treaty.[16] > > However the Arabic and English texts differ, the Barlow translation (Article 11 included) was the text presented to, read aloud in, and ratified unanimously by the U.S. Senate. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/59 "2010-06-09T17:10:54Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > But [possibly erroneous](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli): I dunno. As you cite states, the version actually ratified by the US has that text in it. I would have thought that the more significant critique would be that article 11 is clearly a bit of puffery designed to make the treaty more acceptable - remembering that the context was to pacify slave-taking Muslim predator nations with a dollop of dollars as ‘danegeld’ (rhyme!) - and so does not really represent any sort of actual official position of the US vis. Islam or religion generally. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391/60 "2010-06-09T17:13:14Z")
Of course, if Obama was so intent on proving how lovey-dovey and close Islam and America are, he could have mentioned that rarely a Friday passes without both America and Israel being significantly mentioned in thousands of Mosques around the world. . . . . .no wait, maybe not!:rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-rebut-this-anti-muslim-email/542391.md?page=4)