Dissection of an Islamophobic hoax

Ginny yesterday linked to a plainly inauthentic story detailing the life of someone called “Ann” who made the mistake of marrying a rather nasty man from Syria. The story, Ann’s Story: My Life with a Muslim Man, was published at MichNews, which as a commenter on Ginny’s blog notes, is not a reliable news source, but a “conservative” propaganda site, among other things, “Pro Judeo-Christian”, and against so-called “Liberal Media Bias”.

The most obvious clanger in this report is that the man insisted on calling their son “Abu”. Abu is a prefix, meaning father, not a name in itself. It appears in names, as in Abu Bakr, or in patronyms, as in Abu Hamza or Abu Muhammad. Sometimes, particularly among non-Arabs, you find people whose names are in fact patronyms. I once knew a Bengali called Abu Sa’eed, and I asked him what his real name was. He told me that was his real name.

It’s just not believable that a man would name his half-American son with an unusual Arabic name, and not let the wife know what it meant. If this is indeed the case, then what right does she have to publicly attack him without finding out what the name actually means? But the more likely explanation is that this person is lying.

The second problem with this story is that it fulfils a stereotype of an Arab who sweeps a white woman off her feet, then marries her and turns cold and nasty. This stereotype has appeared in more than a few women’s magazine sob stories. Literally everything about this husband is nasty. He is dishonest from the start (except about his green-card status, that is, with which ‘Ann’ is happy to help him); he is lazy, he is a bad father, he is work-shy, he is a thief, he is stupid and illiterate, he despises women. And later on, we get this breath-taking claim:

About two years ago he made me an offer. He was going to visit his family and asked if I could watch over his shop and that he would pay me. I decided to do it for the money. When he got back he did not pay me. He said the income tax that I got was my payment. I also found out he was wife-hunting to boot. After that encounter, I keep as far away from him as possible. He is full of lies—just an evil man.

Like, since when has anyone other than the government been getting income tax? Did MichNews make this gibberish up, or do they just have incredibly bad (or non-existent) quality control on what they publish? They have not even bothered to tidy up this article’s grammatical and punctuation errors – for example, what is “cobra insurance”? If “cobra” is a company, it should have at least one capital letter.

The man is apparently a “faithful Muslim” besides apparently being a thoroughly nasty piece of work. The implication is made numerous times that most or all Muslim men are like this:

Please be aware that there are many women who I have encountered that have suffered because they got involved with a Muslim man. I got out and I want all women to be aware of these horrible; lying; abusive; so-called-god-fearing men. …

Please, if you are involved with one of these guys think twice—don’t waste your time.

To these people, of course, a good Muslim does not have to be a decent individual; he just has to fit what they think of as religiously correct. This man may well do his five daily prayers, but someone has whispered to him that he does not need to act honourably when he is dealing with a non-Muslim. The old saw about Arabs or Muslims regarding women as “unclean” is used here also:

Once, I accidentally brushed up against Ahmed during Ramadan and he said I made him dirty because women were unclean. He also told me that his father had told him that women had half a brain and were not to be trusted. This comes from a man that can not read or write.

The bit about “women having half a brain” (the fictional husband’s father’s opinion) has nothing to do with the “unclean” bit, other than adding effect. The latter may be based on some truth, namely that according to some authorities (particularly the Shafi’i school), when two people of the opposite sex who are not blood-related touch each other, their wudhu is nullified – that is, they have to make their ablution again before they can pray or touch a copy of the Qur’an. This applies to the man and the woman; it’s not to do with women being unclean. We don’t consider women unclean.

This guy is a stereotypical nasty, feckless Arab. I’m sure nasty, feckless men with no respect for anyone exist in Syria just as they exist in a lot of countries. It certainly doesn’t mean that a serial liar can be a good Muslim, or that Islam condones this guy’s behaviour. This article is nothing more than a shoddy piece of racist propaganda.