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Texas Islamic Groups Argue That Internet Speech Should Be Less Protected Than Print, Radio, or Television Speech:

The Texas Court of Appeals disagrees, holding that a Texas statute that gives procedural protection to “electronic or print media” defendants covers Internet journalists on par with print journalists (and reaffirming that the First Amendment does as well). The case is Kaufman v. Islamic Society of Arlington, Texas; Kaufman is the defendant in the underlying libel action, even though his name is listed first in the appeal — the plaintiffs, who made the argument, were Islamic Society of Arlington, Texas, Islamic Center of Irving, DFW Islamic Educational Center, Inc., Dar Elsalam Islamic Center, Al Hedayah Islamic Center, Islamic Association of Tarrant Count, and Muslim American Society of Dallas.

Here’s the core legal issue: A Texas statute allows pretrial appeals of, among other things, an order that

 

denies a motion for summary judgment that is based in whole or in part upon a claim against or defense by a member of the electronic or print media, acting in such capacity, or a person whose communication appears in or is published by the electronic or print media, arising under the free speech or free press clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, or Article I, Section 8, of the Texas Constitution, or Chapter 73.

 

(Other parties generally have to wait until after trial to appeal, which means they have to invest money and time in litigating the case to trial, rather than just being able to appeal the denial of the motion for summary judgment.)

The plaintiffs “assert[ed] that Kaufman cannot be a media defendant under section 51.014(a)(6) because he ‘merely posts to the internet,’ because Front Page Magazine is simply Kaufman’s own internet blog (an assertion that is belied by the affidavits discussed below), and because Kaufman has not demonstrated that he has the training associated with traditional journalism.” Part of their rationale was that “the internet ‘has become a combination of gossip fence, coffee house, back alley, and bathroom stall for the dissemination of gossip, rumor, innuendo, and outright falsehood.’”

The court disagreed; citing various facts about Kaufman and Front Page Magazine, it concluded that

 

(1) Kaufman’s journalistic background and his notoriety outside of the parameters of the article and graphic at issue and (2) Front Page Magazine’s broad readership and its existence as a news/commentary medium that is independent from Kaufman’s articles, are sufficient to qualify Kaufman as a “member of the electronic or print media” and to qualify Front Page Magazine as an electronic or print medium in which Kaufman’s article and graphic appeared.

 

More broadly, it held that “a person who communicates facts or opinions through the internet is entitled to appeal under section 51.014(a)(6) when that person’s communication, under circumstances relating to the character and text of the communication itself, its editorial process, its volume of dissemination, the communicator’s extrinsic notoriety unconnected to the communication, the communicator’s compensation for or professional relationship to making the communication, and other relevant circumstances as the facts may dictate, would otherwise qualify as a communication covered by that section through more traditional electronic or print media.”

The court’s extended explanation of why “electronic media” covers the Internet and not just radio and television strikes me as quite persuasive, though too long and detailed for me to paraphrase here. In fact, I think that any blog with anything beyond a tiny circulation is a member of the “electronic … media,” even if the blogger isn’t a journalist, is unknown outside the blog, and is a solo blogger (so that the blog is not “independent from [his] articles”). The limitations that the court imposes strike me as inapt, not mandated by the text, not sound policy, and too unclear and hard to administer (which is likely to lead to extra litigation and delay). Nonetheless, that only suggests that the Texas court’s decision should have been even broader; certainly the court is right in concluding that Kaufman’s publications, at least, were indeed in the electronic media.

The court then moves on to rule in favor of Kaufman on the merits, holding that his statements weren’t “of and concerning” the plaintiffs and thus not libelous as to them, because the statements pointed only to the Islamic Circle of North America and the Islamic Association of North Texas (which didn’t sue Kaufman). I won’t summarize this detailed discussion here, because it’s pretty tied to the particular facts of this case, and breaks no new legal ground./p>

The interpretation of “electronic or print media” to cover at least the Internet, on the other hand, is pretty important. The Supreme Court has made clear that First Amendment protections cover the Internet as much as other media. (Though the plaintiffs did argue, according to the court of appeals, that Kaufman “is not a media defendant for the purposes of First Amendment protection because he only communicates his articles through the internet (rather than in print or through radio or television),” that was clearly inconsistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s caselaw on the subject.)

But when a statute provides extra protection beyond what the First Amendment requires, the question is how that particular statute is to be interpreted. This should be a pretty important decision both in Texas and, in some measure, in other states that have similar statutory language.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
The truth shall make you free, September 3, 2007

By Robert Billett “Bookworm III” (LA CA USA) – See all my reviews

Daniel Ali tells about his decades-long journey out of Islam, and into Christianity. He was born in a Kurdish Muslim family in Northern Iraq. He grew up under the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein (135) and fled to a refugee camp in Turkey (136). About the plan for his book, Daniel states: “I will explore and expose in depth the tenets of Islam that drove me from the religion.” (27) And at the same time throughout the book he also explains the tenets of Christianity that attracted him. –The book demonstrates Daniel’s courage, because a person who leaves islam “faces death at the hands of any Muslim who discovers him” and he “becomes an apostate worthy of death”. (15) –After “over twenty years of intense research and study of both Christianity and Islam” Daniel became a Christian. (142) — “Out Of Islam” is an interesting and informative read for both Muslims and Christians, and anyone who wants to understand the “why” and “how” of radical Islam.
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Customer Reviews
Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics
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28 Reviews
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47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

Great insight into Islam
I have heard so many arguments from Arab Muslims about how non-Arabic speaking authors are incapable of fully comprehending Islam. On the other hand, all the non-Arabic speaking converts to Islam do so because of deep conviction and understanding of the faith! I am a Christian Arab and I identify with most of what is written in this book. We always hear about the need for Christians to reach out to Muslims but never the other way around. Those who criticize the Crusades ignore the bloody history of the Muslim expansion. As we say in the Middle East “A camel never sees its own hump”

Highly recommended book.
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Published on April 27, 2005 by Barnacca
31 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
a short review
The authors of this book, Daniel Ali and Robert Spencer, are both members of the Christian-Islamic Forum. What you will find in the book is a critique of Islam, Mohammad and the Koran.

Those reading it should understand before they start, that the authors are true to their own faith. The implication is that while they endlessly attack and question Islam, they treat their own Catholic Christian religious beliefs as being revealed truth. The book sets out to show that Islam is a false, dishonest religion and provides an extensive list of misquoted sources to back up its case.

I gave it three stars because it’s the most honest of the books on Islam Mr. Spencer has been associated with, in terms of his agenda.
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Published on September 8, 2005 by Al Steele

47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
Great insight into Islam, April 27, 2005
By Barnacca -

I have heard so many arguments from Arab Muslims about how non-Arabic speaking authors are incapable of fully comprehending Islam. On the other hand, all the non-Arabic speaking converts to Islam do so because of deep conviction and understanding of the faith! I am a Christian Arab and I identify with most of what is written in this book. We always hear about the need for Christians to reach out to Muslims but never the other way around. Those who criticize the Crusades ignore the bloody history of the Muslim expansion. As we say in the Middle East “A camel never sees its own hump”

Highly recommended book.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

Seems honest, well researched, nuanced, December 1, 2004
By Edward U. (NY United States)

People tend to assume that all religions are basically the same. If you stop and think though, it often seems rather that different cults exist at different points along a spectrum extending from very benign, to very destructive, with countless points in between.

Since human rights organizations report that some 51 of the world’s 53 Muslim-majority countries are currently NOT democracies that protect freedom of the press and other civil rights Westerners take for granted, it seems necessary to ask:

Anyone who cares about personal and social freedoms, and sees the current state of Islamic politics, can use this book to make progress in thinking about the nature of Islam. Some experts are more optimistic about Islam than he is (Karen Armstrong, Michael Novak) and any decent person will try to learn about all sides in order to avoid unbalanced or extreme views. But whether or not Ali and Spencer turn out in the long run to have been more right than wrong, this book is intelligent, nuanced, extremely well-researched and certainly worthy of inclusion in any honest study of Islam.

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98 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

Islam: 100 Brief Basics, May 8, 2004
By William Garrison Jr. (Bellevue, WA United States)

In this paperback Daniel Ali (an ex-Muslim) presents brief basics about Islam: the Five Pillars, the Six Articles of Faith, why Muhammad turned against the Jews and Christians, why Muslims believe Jesus is a Muslim, why Muslims believe Jesus was NOT crucified but that a substitute instead took his place, contradictions of alcohol use, why Muslims believe the Jews fictionalized the Bible, why Allah is not the same God of Christians, how Muslims view predestination versus “free will,” where Allah in the Quran permits slavery, the different types of jihad, the virgins(”houris”) who await suicide martyrs, why Mohammad said Jews and Christians cannot live in Arabia, status of women and their veils, what Muslims can expect in Islam’s heaven or “Paradise,” where the anti-Semitic texts are in the Quran, contradictions of similar passages within the Quran — along with other differences between Islam and Christianity.

The citations are informative endnotes. Fundamentalist Muslims won’t like this book because the authors quote specific “ayat” or verses in the Quran, and analyze them in their historical context. This paperback makes for a nice informative “theology background” introduction before reading Ali’s other books on Islam. One does not need to be a Catholic to comprehend the topics discussed in this book.

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107 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

Eye-opening — a profoundly important book, May 29, 2004
By just bein’ Frank (Woodbury, CT)

After Sept. 11, Daniel Ali’s book, “Islam Unveiled,” became very popular. As a Catholic, I was hesitant to read a book that I feared would take Koranic passages out of context and then present them as proof of Islam’s falsity (precisely because this is what many people do to Christianity). A friend lent me this book, however, and assured me that it wasn’t agenda-driven or unreasonable. I noticed that the author, Daniel Ali, is a former Muslim, so I decided to give it a shot and I’m so glad that I did. (I learned more about Islam from this book than I did from my religious studies class!)

Given Islam’s rising popularity and rapid expansion into Western society, we cannot afford to ignore Islam’s claim to be God’s final revelation. Despite our best intentions of tolerance among all religions, we cannot be closed-minded to the possibility that a religion might proclaim untruth — or even injustice. “Inside Islam,” which contrasts Islam’s claims with those of Christianity, is a must-read for all Christians, and Catholics in particular.

Utilizing a highly readable question-and-answer format, the authors draw from a huge base of knowledge of Islamic theology, scholarship and tradition to demonstrate that Islam cannot be what it claims to be. Extensive endnotes provide the reader with the opportunity to cross-examine sources.

You will read how Mohammad’s exposure to Christian heresies distorted his view of Christianity and how these misinterpretations have been incorporated into the Koran — and how they still inform Muslim views of Christians as idolators to this day. (Mohammad, for example, apparently thought that the Trinity was a union of God, Mary, and Jesus — and that God had sexual relations with Mary in order to conceive a son. Mohammad understandably saw this crude idea as unworthy of a perfect God.)

You will read how fundamentalist Muslims can appeal to the Koran and the Hadith to support their ideas about the inferiority of women, the inferiority of Christians and Jews (who are called “apes and swine” in the Koran), and the imperative to fight unbelievers.

You will learn how the conceptions of God, humanity, salvation, and the afterlife radically differ in Islam and Christianity. (I thought these theological contrasts were alone worth the entire price of the book!) You will read about the Koran’s curious “abrogation theory” which attempts to reconcile contradictions in the Koran by insisting that Allah can change his mind about morality and truth.

“Inside Islam” is a profoundly important book. I would recommend it to Catholics, Christians, and even Muslims. To avoid it, assuming that Islam is a “religion of peace” since it is a religion at all, would be myopic. This book’s only agenda is the pursuit of truth. Give it a shot — you’ll be surprised by what you find.

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

Required Reading, December 7, 2007
By Thomas T. Verga (Staunton, VA)

My pastor recommended this book during one of his sunday sermons.
This book does an outstanding job of explaining various aspects of the muslim faith and of the islamic mind set.

The author quotes directly from the Koran and contrasts that with direct quotes from the Bible.

This is neither an in-depth study of Islam, nor a superficial glossing of the subject. It gives good solid information in the time honored method of Question and answer.

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

A very handy guide for all – not only Catholics, August 17, 2008
By Mianfei

{Daniel Ali] has done a very useful service authoring “Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics”.

In this book Daniel Ali answers in a clear and convincing manner one hundred important questions about the Muslim faith, covering such issues as what Muslims claim to believe, contradictions within the Qur’an, the nature of Allah compared to the God of the Bible, and the effects Islamic teaching has had on the culture of Muslim countries over the fourteen centuries since Muhammad’s time.
Daniel Ali’s explanation of important points about what Islam teaches about sin, forgiveness thereof and salvation is also very well-done and most of it is generally ignored by almost all studies of comparative religion. “Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics” shows clearly how Islam supports slavery because people are slaves of Allah (and I know that freeing a slave is apparently punishment according to one verse of the Qur’an).

“Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics” also shows clearly how the Qur’an evolved in ways that most Muslims would consider heretical today, and the role of the Sunnah in authorizing some Muslim teachings that most Westerners would consider unethical at best and which are not found in the Qur’an.

These criticisms, though, do not detract from the undoubted merit of the book, which is superior….simply through being balanced.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

Truth about Islam, The religion of War and Hate, February 20, 2007
By Delawanna (Florida)

All Catholics need to read this book. There was no peace on Mohammed. He was a butcher and a false prophet, nothing more than a warrior king. The only “prophet” not dealing directly with God. The angel in the cave was most likely Lucifer the great deceiver, not Gabriel. Islam will only lead you to the prophet himself who is in the seventh level of hell being tormented forever separated from the true God who is pure love. Jesus stated, “no one comes to the father but through me.”

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26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent Primer on Islam and the Church, March 10, 2004
By Rich Leonardi (Cincinnati, Ohio United States)

Daniel Ali has assembled an informative, well-written and easily accessible guide to understanding how Islam compares to Catholicism.

Organized in a question-and-answer format, the text is broken into digestible sections that allow readers to read or re-read areas of particular interest.

It is the only guide of its kind to be released in decades and deserves a wide readership.

Discerning readers should ignore the smear campaign being conducted by Islamic apologists against this book.

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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent overview, January 1, 2007
By jmd (Australia)

When this book came home from the local bookshop, I thought “not another Islamic apologetic!”

As someone that had read the Koran with a critical eye over 20 years ago, I failed to understand not only how Islam can spread with such disastrous consequences in nations that are, on the whole, so accepting of difference (both western and eastern), but also why so many appear unwilling to look at Islam with the critical mind it deserves. We have a long and positive habit of developing critical attitudes to various sectarian approaches, and this along with all traditions, especially with a large following, deserves to be carefully and broadly assessed.

This book, in many ways, simply shows a fundamental aspect of Islam that our western style of thinking partially blinds us to: not consistency, but obedience; not clarity, but obedience; not truth-seeking, but obedience.

A book I would highly recommend to all, Christians as well as non-Christians… and Muslims silently questioning the content of their own tradition.

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26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

Easy, concise, direct, and brilliantly informative! April 23, 2004
By A Customer

If you want to understand the essence of why so much of the Islamic world is at war with Western Secularism, then you need to understand (A) the Koran, and (B) some history of Mohammed. This book, one of the best I have ever read, is it. It’s short, to the point, objective, and unbelievably informative.

Its author is an expert on the Middle East, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity. Now, don’t let that fact, about the conversion, dissuade you from reading this. Obviously he left Islam because of the conflicts he had with it, but this book is NOT an Islam-bashing book; it’s a very serious Islam-critiquing book. There is no hyperbole, no revenge; just facts.

Also, the title is misleading — you DON’T have to be a Catholic to understand and appreciate this book; you simply have to have *some* ancient history under your belt. In fact, if I had written the book, I would have titled it, “Inside Islam: A Guide for Anyone with a Basic Understanding of Human History.”

Outstanding book, and easy read. I read it in a single afternoon.

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Understanding Islam
INSIDE ISLAM: A GUIDE FOR CATHOLICS: 100 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. By Daniel Ali and co-author Robert Spencer (Ascension Press, P.O. Box 1990, West Chester, Pa. 19380, 2003), 179 pp. PB 11.99.
How it is possible for Catholics, or for anyone else for that matter, to know so little about Islam, what it holds about itself, is something of a mystery. No longer is it simply ignorance or lack of interest about some curious or ancient sect, like Aztec theology. It is not knowing the most growing and, in many ways, dangerous, of religions. One might expect some more detailed guidance from official Catholic sources, particularly as the number of Catholics who have been martyred in Muslim lands in modern times is rather large, but there seems to be a reluctance to spell out in careful detail the basic premises of the Muslim faith. Muslims, on the other hand, take great efforts to proselytize Christians and favorably to compare Islam’s simplicity against Catholicism’s, to them, mind boggling complexity.

Daniel Ali is a convert from Islam and founder of the Christian Islamic Forum. Spencer has written on several aspects of Islam, on its rapid growth, on its notion of holy war. Together, they have understood that there is lacking any real intelligible presentation of Islam that is framed against a specifically Catholic historical and theological background. They present a book that is accurate in understanding Islam, but one that does not shirk unpleasant facts about it or untenable theories. What is particularly useful in this book is a presentation of how Catholicism is so badly understood by Islamic scholars and promoters.

Consider the following random questions found asked and answered in the book: Q. 7, “What is the Koran?” Q. 38. “Why don’t Muslims believe that Jesus died on the Cross?” Q. 68, “Does Allah call all people to embrace Islam?” Q. 79, “Does Islam require all Muslims to join in a jihad against unbelievers?” Q. 92, “Is it true that Christians living in an Islamic state must pay a special tax?” If we have not wondered about such questions, we should begin pretty soon to see their import.

Within Islam, for example, a very complicated theory of what might be called the “two bibles hypothesis” is present. Since Mohammed lived some seven hundred years after Christ and Mohammed is said to be the last prophet, it is necessary to explain, within Muslim terms, how this is possible. There is no mention of Mohammed in the Bible. Moreover, the two basic Christian teachings, about the Trinity in the Godhead and the Incarnation of Christ, a member of this Trinity, is considered blasphemous and to be suppressed. These Christian views are contrary to the teaching about the transcendence and simplicity of Allah. Ali and Spencer question the too easy assumption that Islam and Christianity worship the same God, even though Islam claims and probably has some familiarity with both the Old and New Testaments, in some garbled form. Modern forms of literary criticism make the Koran seem most dubious. Ali and Spencer do not go into the problem of science and the Koran that Stanley Jaki does in his writings on Islam.

To solve the bible problem, it is proposed in Islam that there was an ancient version of the bible in which the Trinity and the Incarnation did not appear. All copies of this early bible were deliberately bought up and destroyed by Christians. Later, Christians concocted a new bible, the one we have now. As the authors point out, this is a preposterous theory, with not a bit of historical or textual evidence to back it. But it is necessary to propose it and hold it as an absolute truth, whatever the evidence, to solve the question of how we get to Mohammed as the only prophet, who was supposedly predicted in the original, but suppressed in all existing bibles.

The authors go into almost every controversial question in Islam. The question and answer format in this case works quite well. The authors take particular effort to explain why Muslims think they have a complaint, historical or theological, against Christians. The background and nature of the controversy are given. The much maligned crusades are actually last-ditch stands of Christian armies which, had they not been successful, would have lost Europe to Islam centuries ago. There were abuses, of course, even of Christians against each other, but the concept of the Crusades was defensive. To picture it otherwise is simply false. Islam expanded primarily by ruthless military means and most often against once Christian lands. Spain is almost the only place where conquering Muslim armies were pushed out of a place once conquered, and that re conquest took seven centuries. The mood in Islam today is not in the direction of rejecting this expansionist past, but in reinvigorating it in modern terms with frank hope of ultimate conquest of the world for Islam.

There are long discussions about the status of women in Islam, almost the only subject we do see something of in the modern press. Muslim divorce laws are detailed, the four divorces, the problem of concubines, women’s inheritances. Slavery in Islam is discussed. Likewise, the status of Jews and Christians in Muslim lands is seen to be one of second class citizenship in almost every Muslim country, with Saudi Arabia the absolute worst. Though there are some Muslim converts to Christianity, they are very few. It is often worth one’s life to try to leave Islam for another religion. In many ways, it is a religion of fear and, even by its own title, of submission. Conversions take place, but mostly from Christianity to Islam. The Christians once in the Middle East get out whenever they can.

Why this book is important is that it takes seriously the need to understand what is wrong with Islam’s concept of the world and its practices. It seeks to engage the theological and practical issues. So long as we are reluctant to do this, Islam will win. We vastly underestimate both how it can be attractive and how it uses its financial and military or terrorist power to expand its dominion. Islam in many of its leading thinkers is not a passive religion. It thinks it is the true and only worldwide religion by right. Much of the political unrest and war in the world today stem from this belief. Not to take it seriously or know its dimensions is a formula of cultural suicide. Ali does something that official Church and political leaders are reluctant even to consider, namely, he examines what Islam says of itself and asks the question, “Is it feasible?” “Is it true?”
This very useful book is as good a place as any to begin to see the dimensions of what will no doubt, as it seems now, be the major problem of the 21st Century.
James V. Schall, S.J.
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.
(Reprinted from the March 2005 issue of HPR)