I'm offended.

Saima Sheikh of Allen is trying to enlighten the world. She understands all about religions other than her own, and she's going to bring together all those people who are less informed than she in order to educate them. I'll discuss some of what she said later, but I find her general attitude offensive. It's kind of like all these companies that require their employees to go through "diversity training." Have you ever really thought about what that implies? It implies that you are a racist, and you're just too stupid to realize it. So they'll bring in some guy who probably really is a racist to tell you how bigoted you are.

Anyway, Saima is upset with Terry Jones, the Florida nutcase who makes a big production out of burning the Koran. She says, "It's hard to understand how a pastor could burn another religion's scripture. No religion teaches hatred against others. It is the people who have misunderstood or misconstrued its teachings." Uhhhhhh . . . that Koran she's so upset about him burning? It says, “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war,” and “The Believers fight in Allah’s Cause, they slay and are slain, kill and are killed.” Kind of hard to misunderstand or misconstrue that.

She says that if Jones really wanted to know about Islam, he should have held "interfaith dialogues" in his church. I'm pretty sure Jones already knows quite a bit about Islam. I don't agree with him purposely antagonizing those people, but let's face it. Burning a book isn't quite as bad as flying planes into buildings. And if you think it is, there's definitely something wrong with your religion.

Saima says if Jones had held these "dialogues," he would have learned ". . .it is part of a Muslim's faith to believe in all the revealed books like the Gospels and the Torah and to believe in all the prophets and angels." So, Saima, if you believe in "all the books," what do you do when the Bible tells you there is one mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus, and the Koran tells you Mohammed is your link to God? How do you reconcile that? She says Jones would have learned "the exalted status of Mary, mother of Jesus, in the Holy Quran." Sorry, Saima, but that's in direct contradiction to the Bible, and it would only have given Jones more fuel for his fire.

The bottom line is that Saima doesn't appear to be nearly as enlightened as she thinks she is, and her "interfaith dialogues" are offensive.

"We can learn from one another." The Dallas Morning News; April 2, 2011; p. 25A.