A terrible story: an American man is about to lose his brother to Islam

A terrible story: an American man is about to lose his brother to Islam

James M. (formerly referred to as James M2) is a long-time VFR reader and commenter. The following is posted with his permission.

James M. writes:

I apologize in advance for the rambly nature of this letter. I’m not in a state of mind in which I can take care. I do have a point so I hope you will stick with this until I arrive there.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I was once a liberal. I was a goofball liberal punk rocker in high school, and a goofball liberal metal-head in college. I did a lot of goofball liberal things. It’s difficult for me now to believe that I was once as I was. My memories of myself seem alien to me, as if someone else’s memory has been implanted in my head, and when I think of the past, the contrast between my present experience as I am, and those memories, produces a sort of dissociative shock. So that is a measure of how far I’ve come, how radically I have changed. I know plenty of others have gone through similar transformations, and I of course don’t have to tell you that I didn’t do it by myself.
My progression towards conservatism/traditionalism started, towards the end of my schooling, with a real-life mugging, but that didn’t get me very far. It was years later that a strange chain of internet links led me to VFR, which drew me in, and then simultaneously exploded and reconstructed my reality. Unfortunately, this has happened too fast for me to bring anyone else along.
I hold a dim view of my communication skills; talking and writing clearly can be quite taxing for me. Only recently I realized that this is because I tend to think in shapes (I get paid to think in shapes, in fact). And when I read of a certain political issue or question, the various aspects or view points basically become encrypted or transposed into nebulous three-dimensional shapes, which will interact with one another in boolean operations until they reach some sort of equilibrium, expressed as a single shape that represents, somehow, the answer to the issue at hand. I must then re-assign words to this “thing” before it can come out. Sometimes I don’t have the ability to do so.
That probably sounds totally ridiculous to you, but it is due to this weirdness that I have not done very much evangelizing for this way of being I now subscribe to. I have grown distant from old friends and have not reached out to influence family members as I think I should have. It has been difficult enough for me simply to keep abreast of my own understanding that I haven’t been inclined to expend effort beyond that.
Which brings me to my brother. My brother is basically a younger version of me who never “got mugged.” He is or was a secular humanist liberal type of guy with some libertarian leanings.
For about five years he’s been dating and has recently gotten very serious with a Muslim girl. Her family background has always bothered me as much as you’d expect, but I didn’t know if it would last and I kept telling myself, “Hey, they’re liberal secular humanists who don’t really believe in anything, so the Islam thing isn’t THAT big of a deal.” And she is, honestly, just as sweet as can be. She is like the poster child, the absolute ultimate perfect example of the “moderate Muslim” ideal. Also I always had the impression that her family was more culturally Islamic than actually practicing. Like maybe they go to mosque on some holidays to keep in touch but don’t take it that seriously. She doesn’t wear a headscarf and neither does her mother.
I always thought my brother and his secular bride would get married in a courthouse, but about a month ago we (my family) got the news that if they marry, they would have to marry in the mosque. This upset me quite a bit because I understood that, at least symbolically, he would be joining them, and they would not be losing her. I made the decision that I would not be present. Well, some time has since passed and just this week my brother had the formal (and scary, I’d imagine) talk of marriage with the father. The father insisted that my brother cannot marry his daughter without conversion, and my brother agreed.
Larry, I don’t have the words. Gutted? Shattered? I can’t describe it. I think in a way I’m performing the task of writing this because it prevents me, for a while, from having to stop and feel. My brother is very close to me. He is my best friend in the world and something like this never entered my imagination. (I realize how stupid that makes me sound; he was dating a Muslim!) I know he’s telling himself that it’s all symbolic and he doesn’t really believe in any god so none of it matters. But I know what it means, and that it matters. But I don’t know what to do. I guess it is now incumbent upon me to reach out to him at last and try to convince him … of something.
I don’t even know where to start and I’m so far behind. I never tried because it was too hard and I’ve had my own life going on. So I feel that this is my own fault. Ultimately, I watched my brother leaving me, it was clear for anyone to see, and I never spoke out or tried to pull him back.

LA replies:

James,
Obviously this is an extremely painful situation for you and I’m limited in how I can help you.
There are things you have to tell your brother—what converting to Islam means. That he will be under the power of Islam—which he has already shown that he is, by conceding to his fiancee’s father’s demand that he convert. If the religion doesn’t “really” matter, then why was it necessary for him to convert? Obviously it DOES matter. The children will be raised as Muslims. tell him about the disastrous marriages between non-Muslims and Muslims—for example, Phyllis Chesler, an Americans Jew who married an Afghan man in 1961, thinking he was a Westernized moderate, then he brought her back to Afghanistan where she became a virtual prisoner of the family. She wrote a book about it.
What country do they come from? If there are children born of this marriage, and if there are problems in the marriage, your brother will very likely lose all access to the children as his wife’s relatives will take the children back to their home country. This has happened over and over, though usually the victim in those cases was a Western woman who had been so foolish as to marry a Muslim man.
Does your brother know that under Islamic law it is death sentence for a convert to Islam to leave Islam?
Does he know anything about Islam at all?
As I’m writing these things I can tell how difficult it would be for you to get through to your brother. As you said, you’re not accustomed to discussing these issues, and he’s ignorant of Islam, thinks it doesn’t matter, and just wants to get married. So he wouldn’t listen to you. He might reject you completely if you attempted to persuade him not to marry this woman. However, if he converts and marries her, you’re probably going to lose him as your brother in any case.
There may be organizations or individuals devoted to warning people against such marriages. Such organizations may be online. Contact Phyllis Chesler. (I see there is a Phyllis Chesler Organization.) Ask Wafa Sultan or Brigitte Gabriel for advice.
But at a minimum, you must gather your thoughts and speak to your brother before he makes this terrible mistake.
That’s all I can think of for now.

James M. replies:

Thank you very much for the reply.
I don’t expect you to have all the answers. I just had to vent to someone who was on my side. I will let you know how things go.
Her family is from Bangladesh, and I don’t know how long they have been in the US, or if they still have ties to their home country.
I guess what my brother knows about Islam is whatever he has picked up from having a Muslim girlfriend for 5-6 years. I’m sure he was totally ignorant of the subject before meeting her, so he would have believed anything she told him about it. I went through a large transformation in that same period so I can’t dismiss the idea that he may be well-primed to be an actual full-on believer. His reaction to my wife’s “Israel” T-shirt about a year ago made me realize that he’d been indoctrinated to some degree into Islamic anti-Semitism.
I think the more I say about this the worse I make myself look. Our family was very reserved as far as talking about feelings and personal problems went. There was never much “sharing” going on at my house growing up. So that’s another thing which has kept us from talking about these “heavy” subjects. Things just get left alone until they are too big to ignore.
You may have readers who have family situations like this on the horizon. You can post this if you think this exchange would encourage them to be proactive.

- end of initial entry -

A reader writes:

James,
I’m very sorry to hear about your brother’s impending conversion and marriage. If I may give you some advice, as someone who has gone through a similar (though much less consequential) situation, you may find it to be useful.
It is not certain that he will marry her, and so you must try to persuade him not to, just as you intend. It is critical, first of all, that you feel 100 percent convinced and certain of your position and be able to articulate your reasons clearly and succinctly.
Second, expect him to call you anything from a racist (she’s Bangladeshi, right?) to a bigot to whatever else he can think of. If you’re close to him, he may not resort to this until he is desperate. But if your reasoning is sound and clearly stated, he is likely to become defensive. This is, after all, the love of his life, and regardless of the merit of your reasons, you are telling him to abandon her. He didn’t reason himself into his feelings for her, and he isn’t going to reason himself back out either. You are asking him to allow reason and the truth to trump his feelings, and feelings are to a leftist the only things that are real. Because leftists don’t believe in reason or truth, they think you are asking them to allow phantoms/abstractions or, worse, pathologies trump their reality (i.e. their feelings), which is why they think we are “irrational,” etc. Expect this, and remain calm if it happens.
Third, if he attacks you and accuses you of being motivated by hatred, etc., you must neither back down nor become defensive. This will be hard, but you must tell him that you love him very much. You are prepared to take whatever insults you must, but point out that you personally have nothing to lose or gain by his conversion or marriage. What you are saying to him has nothing to do with you yourself, but with him. You must explain that the only thing motivating you whatsoever is your love for him. You love him so much that you only want what is good and true and right for him and his descendants, even if it costs you right now, in this moment. Even if it costs you your reputation in your family (and it might, if he decides to slander you), it is a cost worth bearing because he means that much to you. Perhaps you are wrong, though you are very sure you are not; but one thing is certain: You love him very much, or else you would have left him to his fate with indifference.
At that point, he may be much more open to hearing what exactly you believe his fate might be.
There are no guarantees, but I have found that doing this re-establishes the trust which the other person believes you have broken by opposing his marriage choice. In my own experience, the person married anyway, and so I failed (though I should say the consequences of my failure were not nearly as serious as yours would be). But, on the other hand, my failure did not cost me personally what I thought it would. My relationship with that person grew deeper, I think in part, because he knew when I said that I love him, I was speaking the truth. He knew that no other motive could have persuaded me to make myself so vulnerable to attacks from him and others.
If your brother ends up marrying the girl, and he might, he will not forget what you have said to him. And when the inevitable problems come—and they will—he will know who loved him enough to tell him the truth. And if he develops any love for the truth during those trials, he will know where to find out more.
My prayers are with you, sir. The Spirit guide you and give you the words to say.

Ed L. writes:

I wonder what James’ parents think of this. Is there the remotest chance that they would tell the brother in no uncertain terms that they will omit him from their wills and terminate the entire relationship with him if he converts to Islam? Ideally, the entire family would be united and firm in such a stance, but it’s almost impossible to imagine or expect that of any contemporary Western people.
I get the distinct impression that James is in a very lonely state of concern about his brother. It sounds as though he’s twisting in the wind on his own, without any like-minded concurrence from the rest of the family. It shouldn’t be that way. Where is sympathy and support when it’s needed?

James M. writes:

Are you aware of any website that has the Koran and the Hadiths indexed specifically for critics of Islam? I need to be able to cite specific quotes (suras or whatever), otherwise I’m not going to get any traction.
My goal is to make sure he fully understands what he is getting into. I’m going to concentrate on the fact that as his more rigid “brethren” gain power and influence over our society, the moderate Muslims like his fiancee’s family will inevitably acquiesce to their demands, falling in line with them. I will point out that he will have to choose a side. I am going to ask him where he will stand and what he will do, perhaps 35 years from now, if my granddaughter is forced to wear the hijab, if his granddaughter is made to undergo FGM, if I am stripped of certain freedoms and made to live officially as a dhimmi, if he wants to leave the faith but cannot under threat of death, etc.
If he sees himself being on their side in these scenarios then he is already lost to me. If he does not think these things can ever come about, I will give him examples of Islam’s ever-growing power in Europe.

LA replies:

There are numerous such sites and they’re not hard to find. I have my own short collection of the “Best” of the Koran.

October 3

Beth M. writes:

To James:
Things to discuss with your brother:
1) Do you really believe in Islam? If not, how do you really feel about going through with a phony conversion process? Do your in-laws understand that you are just converting “for show?” Will you be expected to pretend to have REALLY converted when the grandparents and other older relatives visit? Your wife and her family will be bragging to everyone that you converted to Islam before joining the family. Will this make you feel pathetic? How often will you be bowing down to Mecca? I don’t know where your brother lives, but try to encourage your brother to talk to a priest or pastor who has a lot of experience with pre-marriage counseling. Will the bride agree to go to a 8 to 12 week class run by whatever denomination you and your brother grew up in? A classmate of mine in law school went through the Catholic pre-marriage program with his fiancee, and he said that he was STUNNED by how many issues were brought up in the very structured series of classes that he and his fiancee had never discussed before, even though both of them were “very verbal people.”
2) Have you talked to anybody at the State Department regarding the sort of custody fights that routinely take place when an American divorces somebody from a Muslim country? Do you understand what the legal bills could be like to TRY to get your child returned? Do you understand that the foreign country will ALWAYS rule in favor of its citizens, especially if they are his relatives or if the judge has been offered a bribe?
3) Look on the internet for discussions involving men who have married foreigners. They think that they are getting a woman who is “more traditional” than an American woman, but some of the many surprises include: (a) the woman has legal problems—often immigration related, but not always; (b) the woman’s family sees you as a “resource” for the entire extended family back in the Old Country—an unending stream of relatives will be sleeping on your sofa while they come to America for medical care, dental care, and education at all levels, from elementary to graduate school; (c) you may be put under EXTREME pressure to “help” various relatives immigrate and “qualify” for Social Security pensions and disability payments, and refusal to help out with phony affidavits, etc., will create high levels of family friction and anger, which will spill over into your marriage, even if your wife tells you that she completely understands your refusal to commit perjury; (d) you may be thinking that you will be “head of the family” because you are marrying a “traditional woman,” but you will not be one of the “elders” of the family, and you will be put in your place continually if you refuse to cooperate with achieving the “family goals” as outlined by your bride’s father or grandfather; (e) lots of foreigners don’t really have “nuclear families”—especially if you have a nice house, but even if you don’t, the whole extended family will be trooping in and out of your house any time of the day or night. Does your brother speak Bangladeshi, or whatever language his bride’s family speaks? If he hasn’t learned it in five years of knowing her, he will NEVER learn it. How will he feel when EVERY night when he comes home from work, the whole family, including his kids, is speaking Bangladeshi? It will be like being trapped in a Berlitz total immersion class.
4) I think it might have been in the book, “Not Without My Daughter,” that the woman who married an Iranian (light-years ahead of the Bangladeshis, IMO) first encounters her new father-in-law when she visits Tehran for the first time. He is very sweetly coaxing his littlest daughter, a toddler, to come over to him. She is acting very shy, and stays away, but at length, he gets her to run into his arms. When she does, he takes out a switch from behind his back and beats her with it. When he sees the shock on his new daughter-in-law’s face, he explains to her that if you teach your children to fear you when they are very little, you never have problems with them when they are older.
I was a flight attendant in the early 80s, and knew a number of women who married “Westernized Muslims” and it was inevitably a disaster. I think that if more women could read just this one anecdote, they might think twice about dating Muslims. HUGE culture shock is waiting for your brother at the other end of the honeymoon.
5) Part of the problem in this situation is that James’s brother has been dating this girl for five years, and has probably repeatedly reassured her that they will be getting married at some point, and now he feels honor-bound to follow through on that commitment. But if he never agreed in the early years to eventually convert to Islam as part of the package of getting married (and I’m betting that that was NEVER made explicit by either the bride OR her parents) then he is certainly NOT bound to convert now. It is far better to break off an engagement today than to go through a divorce and custody fight later.
6) This is a delicate question, but I have to wonder why a family devout enough to insist on the religious conversion of the groom prior to marriage would allow their daughter to “date” somebody from another culture and another religion for five solid years? Is James’ brother significantly more successful financially than the bride’s family? Will James’ brother inherit a great deal of property someday?
7) Be prepared to spend a lot of money, and every day of vacation time you earn in Bangladesh, sitting around the kitchen table of your wife’s relatives as they chatter away in a language you don’t understand. While you are there, various friends and relatives will come over and expect you to help them fill out visa applications, polish their English-language resume, or help out with the homework from their high school or college English class. You will also be hit up for money repeatedly during your “vacation” as you are a rich American, and just a small percentage of your income would work wonders for the family members in Bangladesh who haven’t made it to America yet. While you are a captive audience in Auntie’s kitchen, distant relatives will also badger you to death to invite them to stay in your house for a year or two when they immigrate. (Close relatives will not need an invitation—they will just show up.)
8) Right now, your brother’s future children are completely theoretical to him, and it may not trouble him to agree to raise them as Muslims. Later on, when they actually exist, he may find it difficult to give the “correct Muslim answer” when his children ask about death, eternity, etc., because he doesn’t actually believe in Islam. This is where a lot of Christian/Jewish marriages run into trouble, and a marriage between an American free-thinker and a Bangladeshi Muslim woman has a much lower chance of success than a marriage between a Christian and Jew when both have grown up in a thoroughly Americanized social milieu.

Ken Hechtman writes:

To James,
I don’t know you and I don’t know your family but I do know a bit about the convert’s experience so I can tell you about that in general. I’ve known several people, originally atheist or agnostic, who went through a conversion in order to marry into a religious family. Not all became Muslim—as it happened, one became Jewish.
Beth M. asks you to ask your brother:

Do you really believe in Islam? If not, how do you really feel about going through with a phony conversion process? Do your in-laws understand that you are just converting “for show?” Will you be expected to pretend to have REALLY converted when the grandparents and other older relatives visit? Your wife and her family will be bragging to everyone that you converted to Islam before joining the family. Will this make you feel pathetic?

The conflict she describes is key to understanding what your brother will be going through in the next few years.
The typical marriage-convert begins with the idea that he’s just going through a necessary formality that doesn’t mean anything. But then he finds his new extended family and faith community is so warm and welcoming (and Muslims in particular will be especially warm and welcoming to new converts) that he’d really be a complete heel if he was perpetrating a cynical fraud on these good and sincere and generous people. So, his conversion becomes sincere as well. And not only does he decide he really is a Muslim, he decides he’s going to be the best Muslim he can possibly be. This “fanatic period” usually lasts two or three years during which time the convert is unrecognizable and unapproachable. He will dress and talk and act like a 7th century Arab. He may even adopt an Arabic name. There’s no talking to him—he can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. But it doesn’t last forever. Eventually the white-hot intensity cools down. The convert is still a Muslim but he’s a Muslim at room temperature. He’s learned how to compromise and compartmentalize his religion as well as someone who was born and raised in it.
I don’t know for sure that your brother will go through this phase but it’s the way I’d bet. If he does, try to remember that it IS just a phase and he WILL grow out of it.

LA replies:

I think this is hardly comforting. Whatever the specifics of how it works out, whether James’ brother becomes a fanatic Muslim, or just a “moderate” Muslim, James’s brother will be lost to him—and to the West, which of course is Mr. Hechtman’s program, since he wants the West to be overwhelmed and transformed by non-Westerners. What Mr. Hechtman is trying to tell James is that having his brother become a Muslim won’t be that bad. He’s trying to get James to adjust to the Islamized West that he, Ken Hechtman, wants to create, and which he somehow imagines will be in conformity with left-liberalism and its infinite freedom of lifestyle choices.

John Dempsey writes:

I would say to James M.’s brother, who is apparently a non-believer:
First, your fiancée’s father is insisting that you accept Allah and his ways. Are you ready to do this? If so, you must realize that in order for you to have salvation, you are commanded to make war on other people who do not believe in Allah. You must make war on these people and in fact you must commit murder if necessary, possibly by the act of suicide, for the cause of Allah. The target of this command does not exclude your brother, your parents, or your friends. This is the god that you are being asked to worship, a god that commands your death and the murder of others if you are to be saved. And if you somehow come to your senses and reject Allah’s ways after you have converted, you will most surely be targeted for murder yourself.
If you are of a Christian background, it might be pointed out that a Christian’s salvation is assured because God sent his own Son Jesus to die for us. This is the stark difference between Islam and Christianity. Allah commands the making of war on, and the murder of others, for him, in order to be saved. God sent his Son Jesus, who commands us to love others and to have faith in Him, in order that we be saved.
So if you have accepted the fact that you must convert from being a non-believer to being a believer, whom would you rather serve, God or Allah? Or you could simply stay a non-believer and continue serving yourself.
My heart and prayers go out to James M. and his brother.

Dean Ericson writes:

Beth wrote:
“Your wife and her family will be bragging to everyone that you converted to Islam before joining the family. Will this make you feel pathetic? ”
These are the sorts of questions that can work on a man’s doubt. And a modern, liberal man is a man in doubt. He is a sceptic. Choosing the right questions to ask, questions that get under his skin and cause him to look for answers, that make him uncomfortable, can aggravate his uncertainty and undermine his resolve. Doubt!—it’s there, and he’s papering over it with little lies. Rather than beating him over the head with arguments and statements, which will likely only make him dig in and fortify his resolve, ask him questions, gently:

Why doesn’t she change her religion to yours?

Isn’t modern American secular liberalism as good a religion, even better, than Islam?

What are your friends going to think when you tell them you switched your religion to the terrorist religion? And because your woman demanded it.

Why can’t you marry her and just forget the converting stuff?

Are you always going to have to follow where your woman leads in this marriage?

Are you going to get down on your knees and put your butt in the air with a bunch of guys wearing bags and skullcaps? Won’t you feel ridiculous?

Do you really think Allah exists? No? Then why bother? Just for nookie?

Do you want your son brought up as a Muslim in secular, liberal America?

What if you end up getting divorced—aren’t you going to look silly?

Why don’t you wait a year and think about it?

Are you afraid she’ll get mad at you if you wait?

Are you afraid her family will be mad at you?

Why should you care what they think?

Shouldn’t they be the ones who care what you think?

Why don’t you put your foot down and be a man?

Et cetera.

James M. writes:

I want to express my deep gratitude for your reader’s responses to my situation. I’m sorry I can’t reply to each post individually. A great many helpful things have been written which I hadn’t thought of so I have a lot of new angles to incorporate into my strategy. Even if this ends in the worse way, I think this thread will be useful into the future and may prevent similar calamities happening to others.
I’m going to tackle this as quickly as I can, but fortunately, I’m hearing that the actual date is not until sometime next year. I’m guessing my brother has to receive some lessons on Islam and perhaps endure some other sorts of rigmarole before the actual conversion can occur.
I made attempts to contact Phyllis Chesler and Wafa Sultan. I was unable to find contact info for Brigitte Gabriel.

LA replies:

I’m glad to hear there’s some time yet.
I retract my suggestion about contacting Gabriel. She is not a Muslim, but a Lebanese Christian, and so would not likely be knowledgeable in an area like this.

LA writes:

I received the below comment earlier today. At first I didn’t think it was appropriate for posting. But then I thought about it some more, and it occurred to me that there are situations in which a person’s mind is taken over by drug addiction, or by a bizarre religious cult, or, as in this case, by Islam, and he can’t be swayed by reason, and the only way to rescue him is by coercive and sneaky measures, as in some of the “rescue” operations I’ve read about. So, in that spirit, I am posting the comment. To me, it’s not the specifics of the commenter’s suggestions that matter so much as the general idea. His purpose is not to advocate wrong behavior for its own sake (and he specifically warns against doing anything illegal), but to create a situation that will get the girl and the girl’s family to reject James’s brother, so that THEY are the ones who end the engagement, not he. This would have the great advantage of making it unnecessary for James to undertake the very difficult task of persuading his brother not to marry the girl he wants to marry.

FL writes:

My two cents:
Don’t try to reason with the guy. Showing him passages from the Koran will not accomplish anything at all. Reason and love simply do not mix.
The best approach is an appeal to his masculine pride. The guy’s buddies should start teasing him about the conversion and asking if he will have to start wearing an apron or pee sitting down.
If that doesn’t work, you might consider more drastic measures, like hiring a high class call girl to seduce the guy and arranging for the bride to walk in on it or otherwise learn about it. Check to make sure it’s legal though. Or better yet, take the guy out for a few drinks at a strip club and slip some money to one of the girls to give him a very aggressive lap dance. Before you go, call up the club and explain to the manager that you want to take a few pictures for the guy’s bachelor party and make sure it will be okay.
Make sure that the guy is wearing a piece of clothing which the girl will recognize he obtained after their relationship started. Make sure that the girl sees the pics; that her parents see the pics; and they all know they all saw them.
Oh, and make sure it’s legal before you do it.

James M. writes:

Do you think that using shunning is a Christian thing to do in a situation like this? It had occurred to me and was suggested in the thread that he may be convinced if his choice was between losing all contact with his entire existing family, and breaking off the relationship. However, something about that doesn’t seem right. If 10 years from now he decides he wants out, he needs to feel like he can talk to us. Anyhow, convincing my family to stick with it would be a tall order, especially my mother.

October 4

Sophia A. writes:

James hasn’t lost his brother to Islam: he’s lost his brother to youthful lustful folly. I rarely have a good word to say about divorce, but in this case I do.
James: hang tough. Stick to your principles. Be courteous, be controlled, never lose your temper, keep up the moral fight, but don’t be an ass. Make it clear that you disagree with Islam, but that you do not hate your sister-in-law. If anything you feel pity for her that she was born into such an awful “way of life” and that her marriage to a Westerner shows that on some deep level she knows it. (Otherwise, why wouldn’t she marry a fellow Bangladeshi?)
The marriage has a high probability of ending within five years. Your brother sounds young. Have faith that he’ll learn.

Jon W. writes:

Here you will find an index to the more troubling writings in the Koran.

October 6

Vivek G. wreites:

I am a Hindu (follower of Sanatana Dharma), and not a Christian; so please excuse me if some of what I write is not exactly the way a Christian view things regarding Jesus Christ.
I may sound crude but even before you articulate anything for your brother, it should be clear to you, that if your brother indeed converted to Islam, he would be willingly joining evil (knowingly or unknowingly). And you must resolve to be firm on this understanding. You must also try to save your family (sans your brother) by imparting this understanding to them. Please do not give in to weakness in your pursuit of love for your brother. Jesus could love because he was strong (God’s own strength). Only when you are strong yourself, you can love, and also make your loved one strong.
Liberals are sissy and weak, and they glorify and institutionalize this weakness as love, which it is NOT. Muslims are cruel (they would kill their own brother if he left Islam!), and they trumpet it as strength and bravery, and liberals often fall for these. Muslims always make use of this weakness in non-Muslims to their advantage. Your brother himself, whether out of lust (as Sophia pointed out) or out of love (as he may imagine himself to be in), is giving in to weakness. What he too needs is a manly dose of strength. For example. you could tell your brother that he is willingly joining evil, and he being a liberal, this has not surprised you. Ask him if he has done sufficient home work before making a decision; and that he must be a man, feel responsible for his decisions, and then face the consequences. No amount of childish/womanish (Excuse me ladies) sobs would help him later on. Tell him that he would be welcome to seek your help if he ever wanted to be saved from this evil. However he should not take you and/or your family for granted.
And my sincere apologies if I have hurt your feelings in any way. May God make you strong, and give good-wisdom to your brother.

James M. writes:

This is another very helpful response. Thanks to Vivek. I am indebted to your readership.
I received a note from a Louise Vasilakos from Former Muslims United, who said she would pass my request for help along to Wafa Sultan, and that it would be forwarded to people within that organization who specialize in these situations if Wafa Sultan could not help. So that is good.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 02, 2010 01:20 PM | Send

Email entry