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Soft Pedaling Radical Islam: The New York Times Discovers the MSA

by Steven Emerson
IPT News
February 21, 2008

Neil MacFarquhar's latest paean to radical Islam appeared in Thursday's New York Times, "For Muslim Students, a Debate on Inclusion," in which he praises a known radical leader of the Muslim Students' Association as some kind of moderate. MacFarquhar begins the story with a sweet vignette about Mertaban's alleged moderate bona fides:

Amir Mertaban vividly recalls sitting at his university's recruitment table for the Muslim Students Association a few years ago when an attractive undergraduate flounced up in a decidedly un-Islamic miniskirt, saying "Salamu aleykum," or "Peace be upon you," a standard Arabic greeting, and asked to sign up.
Mr. Mertaban also recalls that his fellow recruiter surveyed the young woman with disdain, arguing later that she should not be admitted because her skirt clearly signaled that she would corrupt the Islamic values of the other members.
"I knew that brother, I knew him very well; he used to smoke weed on a regular basis," said Mr. Mertaban, now 25, who was president of the Muslim student group at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, from 2003 to 2005.
Pointing out the hypocrisy, Mr. Mertaban won the argument that the group could no longer reject potential members based on rigid standards of Islamic practice.

Mertaban the non-hypocritical "moderate," as MacFarquhar would have you believe. Mertaban apparently likes girls in miniskirts – at least enough to not refuse them admission to the MSA.

But what does Mertaban have in store for this flouncing, attractive, be-miniskirted undergrad? Here's what he told an MSA audience at U.C. Berkeley in April 2007:

So you never compromise on your faith. You be confident in every aspect of life. In every aspect of Islam you are confident. Four wives? Yes men are allowed to have four wives within this context.