Pardon my French!
The shooter’s name was Nasim Eghdam, who anyone would know was Persian.
In fact she turned out to be a Bahai (like me)! Also there are some Persian surnames that are predominantly or disproportionately Bahá’í in origin because Iran adopted surnames in the 20’s/30’s. Eghdam did sound like a Bahá’í surname..
Of course it seems she had some sort of mental illness and I apologise on behalf of our faith (any violence is forbidden). There could have been no justifications for her action and her father did warn the police. Thankfully no one was killed (3 were unfortunately wounded) and it really does seem like mental illness.
I’m really shocked that a Bahá’í could do something like this but I’m sure there are many learning lessons for the community in this (what do we do with isolated believers etc).
Finally Tarek Fatah is a fool and a half. Anyone with common sense would know that this was a Persian name and that Persians won’t do Terrorism in the name of Islam. I’m beside myself with fury at his blatant Islamophobia; not that I’m an apologist for Muslims in any way.
As one can contrast my approach and apology about a Bahá’í shooter (the genuine shame that she brings on the Faith & the sadness that the Faith was not there for her) in contract to the constant defensiveness of Muslims about terrorism done in the name of Islam.
Very sorry that the shooter turned out to be Bahai. I don’t think you need to apologize for her. She was mentally ill (it seems) and her actions don’t reflect on the religion at large. Just like every White Christian doesn’t need to apologize for school shooters.
“Persians won’t do terrorism in the name of Islam”–not sure this is true. There are a lot of Shia Iranians who are quite fundamentalist. After all, there was a threat on Rushdie’s life because of the fatwa. Presumably Iranian Muslims were going to carry out this threat…
But yes Tarek Fatah is a moron. On that we are agreed.
The Iranian government and Shi’ism are intertwined in a way that Sunnism is not. A Shi’ite terrorist is very unlikely since they would have some sort of Iranian backing.
I disagree – all Bahais need to own up and make sure this doesn’t happen again ..
There are nutcases among members of all religions, and the non-religious for that matter, and I see no reason why Bahais, though numerically small, should be any exception. I must admit I know very little about the Bahai faith, although I live in Delhi, where the Lotus temple is a major tourist attraction, and I have visited it quite often.
I think I read that the shooter was described as a headscarf wearing woman. Are Bahai women obligated to wear headscarves, or is it more a cultural thing as they are mostly Persian?
The woman to take off her headscarf in Iran was Tahirih (Qurr-at-Ayn); a Babi.
Bahá’í women definitely do not wear headscarves.
Is this SDutta from Bombay (I know u said Delhi but u would know what I mean if you were him)?
No. Not SDutta from Bombay, whoever you may have in mind. I visited that city only once in my lifetime, for six days, for a good friend’s wedding, a Goan Catholic. That was a culturally enriching experience, I can’t think of anybody else who listens to Bryan Adams or Michael Learns to Rock in the 2010s, but apparently they are huge in Bombay’s Goan community.
By the way, not to nitpick, but there’s a typo in your heading. It should be Tarek Fatah. Farah, of course, is a very common female name and I once had a friend named so.
“Farah, of course, is a very common female name and I once had a friend named so.”
Yes, indeed. Everyone had a friend in Farrah Fawcett. What a lovely human being. 🙂
Bahai rock! Any country with a tenth of a brain should encourage as many Bahai immigrants and travelers to move to and visit their countries.
A question on the wise Tarek Fatah. Does he have any problems that a 3 month continuous silent meditation retreat (such as but not necessarily Vipassana) wouldn’t fix?
Tarek Fatah has lived under the continuous threat of assassination for much of his life. He is a muslim. And while I don’t fully understand and agree with all his interpretations of the Koran, 6 Hadiths, Sira, Shia scriptures . . . I can’t help but love the guy. We share a common love of the land of the Aryans–Iran . . . and their amazing people. And we agree on the Gulf establishment + Deep State GHQ. We agree on freedom for muslims and dialogue with Islamists.
Fatah arrived in Canada in 86 from Saudi. He was the host of a small time canadian cable access show and a self proclaimed “Muslim leader” (apparently you don’t need followers to be a leader). I used to watch his show never — I’ve had enough loser blowhard desi uncles in my life.
For me, his high point was when he publicly donated money to Hezbollah on tv and dared Canada’s attorney general to arrest him. What a clown.
If he was under threat of assassination for all those years, he certainly never showed it. Such bravery.
Ikram, did Fatah support Hezbollah for the sheer fun of poking the Saudi nose?
quote “all Bahais need to own up..”
Disagree! Every person falls under multiple categories. She was a Bahai, A vegan, a female, a youtuber, and so on. Do these groups need to own up too? Any why? Why should a vegan apologize if another person of their category committed violence.
Bahais would need to own up and apologize only if she had killed, or attempted to kill, in the name of her religion, which clearly she didn’t. This is the crucial point you missed. She acted violently due to some anger issues.
We have a very cohesive community and if she was registered in our community (which tbh we don’t know) then we need to ask as to why we didn’t spot these problems etc so that she avoid shaming the Faith..
No. It was about poking the canadian government.
This was back in the early nineties, a quarter century ago. I would check to confirm my recollections, but none of his old tv shows are on the internet.
What is certainly true is that Fatah has had many different incarnations over the past forty years. His current avatar, the Muslim that Hindu extremists love, is quite novel. He used to be a conventional liberal Pakistani-Canadian muslim. See if you can find his article disavowing Irshad Manji for not respecting Palestinians. That one is on the internet. 🙂
Ikram, this seems to be a reasonable article:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/dont-paint-muslim-people-as-nazis/article774078/
Irshad shouldn’t have said muslim complicity with the holocaust when so many brave muslim heroes fought in the Indian Army against the Nazis in freedom’s cause. It is unfair to malign the muslims of Malaysia and Indonesia who resisted Tojo. In general African muslims didn’t support the Nazis who occupied Northern Africa. African muslims generally greeted the Indian Army, American Army and Free French Forces as liberators in 1942 and 1943.
Palestinians were divided with some opposing the Nazis as Tarek mentions. This said many Palestinians fought on the side of the Nazis–which Irshad was right about.
I don’t see the inconsistency in Tarek. Tarek has always opposed the Islamists and extremist Sunnis linked to the ideas of Ibn Taymiyyah. Many conservative nonmuslims around the world use to support Islamists until 2014 or so; many conservatives still do. This is why Tarek opposed and opposes pro Islamist conservatives.
To the degree nonmuslims around the world resisted Islamists or sided with muslims against Islamist it was mostly Liberals [who are very different from post modernists], and post modernists/marxists [who are very different from liberals]. This only started to shift around 2010 when President Obama appeared to make a 180 degree U-turn and started to reach out to Islamists and distancing himself from anti Islamist muslims.
The alliance between post modernists/marxists and Islamists only began after Trump appeared to make anti muslim statements in late 2015. Until recently the post modernists/marxists were at war with the Islamists. Sadly the post modernist strategy of backing Islamists against good muslims has caught on . . . with many liberals and conservatives piling on.
Tarek has adjusted accordingly.
Ikram, what do you think about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah_Ka_Fatwa
Many episodes had between 100 million and 200 million viewers. It was the top ranked TV show in India for part of 2017. Personally I am a huge fan. It has sharply increased dialogue and freedom of thought for muslims around the world. It has also conclusively proved to any nonmuslims bigoted against muslims that large numbers of muslims are willing to stand up for what is right; and that the global muslim reform movement is alive and well.