Sunday, August 22, 2004

Retraction - Two Faces of Islam

Well, here is the second time I've had to retract a comment, I hope this doesn't become the norm.

Yesterday, I posted an article called The Two faces of Islam in which I quoted an editorial by Mohammed Alo from ToledoMuslims.com and then an article that appeared in The Triangle from Drexel University in which I was using the two ways in which Islam was being presented.

Please note: The Op Ed piece from The Triangle is a fake. That post will now be retracted. My apologies to anyone who read that article and believed it to be true. For details, go to the inner sanctum.

The article from The Triangle was an Op-Ed titled "Convert To Wahhabism Now Lest You Die Infidel Pigs". This article was sent to me some time ago. Frankly, I don't even remember who sent it, but I linked to it and saved it in a folder marked "Islam" for future use. Then, I started researching Islam and Islamic organizations. I started with the information that had been previously sent to me. That's when I saw this article again and decided to use it.

After publishing it, one of my readers, Mike, got a little perturbed and sent an email to the editor asking why they would print such an article. Believe it or not, Mike got an immediate response. According to the newly appointed editor, this Op Ed piece was actually an April fools joke. It was printed in the Triangle's April 2 edition (it's weekly) which is notorious, according to the editor, for printing an April fools edition every year.

Sure enough, upon some editional research at the site, the April 2 edition was obviously an April fools joke as the titles for the other stories include: Single Accident Begins Apocolypse; University Security System, The Eye Of Taki; etc.

After reviewing the information, I thanked the editor Mr. James Mack for his information. I did point out to him that he may want to do some judicial upgrading of that particular webpage as there is not such disclaimer there and the article was being circulated as true (obviously, I bought it). Which he thanked Mike and I in return for pointing out the potential problem to him (of course, there was the disturbing note on his email in which he thought we were members of the FBI...LOL).

So...retracting that story. I'm sure somewhere there is an organization or someone else pushing the Islamist issue in America I could quote, but we'll leave that for later. However, I will put the ToledoMuslims.com article back up because I find their organization very interesting and would be good reading for the rest of us.

My apologies to anyone else who was fooled by this article.

3 comments:

Kat said...

Atually Robert, I was directed to the site by an email from a fellow blog follower.

When I clicked on the webpage, it was just the "editorial" and it did not indicate anything as a "hoax". As a matter of fact, when you click on the home page, the whole website is not a hoax. It's actually the school paper for Drexesl University in PA. However, the April 2 edition was an April fools edition. so, after I was directed to that particular webpage and then looked at the home page for the paper, I was pretty convinced that this was real.

The person that sent it to me, I think was convinced it was real as well. Not trying to play a hoax on me per se, but was hoaxed themselves.

So..you see how things can be taken out of context?

Nas...I'm a double agent doncha know? Both FBI and CIA!

LOL

Anonymous said...

Uh Kat, under present rules of intelligence gathering, you can't talk to yourself.

Mike H.

Kat said...

Gee, Mike..if I can't talk to myself, it's going to awful lonely on those stake outs. LOL