Texas professor forced out by Muslim students set to fight back

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via A message from the Texas professor who was fired for offending Muslim students – Jihad Watch.

Last December I posted here about Professor Paul Derengowski, who was dismissed from Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas for annoying Muslim students by quoting from Islamic texts. I have just received this message from him:

For the past year I’ve been living under a dark cloud. A cloud that was created one night (November 8, 2011) during a class I was teaching on Islam at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas. Two Muslim students who did not like me answering their questions about their beloved Muhammad and the sources I used to do it, namely the Koran and a Muslim scholar, set forth a campaign orchestrated long before that night ever arrived, to smear me as a person and force me out as a professor. For those interested, you can read more about that night here, as well as indulge yourself with all the firsthand documents, some of which produced by TCC which only contribute to the defamation due to their dubious nature.Today, though, after much hard work and persistence, I’m ready to take this fight to the next level. But, I need your help. Since last December the Thomas More Law Center has been my advocate in all of this. Clearly TCC violated my rights as a professor, but the TMLC could not file the appropriate lawsuit because of a lack of knowing someone locally who could handle the footwork of filing the papers in federal court. Now that has changed.
My request for help is to cover the legal expense. It is an expense to not only safeguard my right to express myself, but an expense that everyone will pay, sooner or later, should they not get involved now, to safeguard their freedom to speak as well.

Therefore, for those interested in helping, I’m including the following PayPal link. No specified amount is designated. I leave that purely up to you. Thank you for your consideration and your generosity.

Prof. Derengowski Legal Fund

You really do have to read Derengowski’s description of events, excerpted below or in full at “Tell them the truth… After all, that’s all I ever tried to do.”:

The accusation that I needed to learn how study, or that my educational pedigree and background were bogus, or that even the personal credentials of those who had written published material from a Muslim perspective, stepped beyond the lines of rational discussion and an effort to reach mutual understanding.  Yet, that is the course that Mohamad Khorchid and Randa Bedair, both admitted members of the Islamic religion, took during the November 8 class period as I attempted to explain the historically verifiable exploits of Islam’s founder, Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Muttalib (aka Muhammad), whereby he ordered the raid of a caravan at Nakhlah which resulted in the death of at least one caravan member, the apprehension of two others, and seizure of “the booty.”  A major problem with the mission, which was ordered to provide financial sustenance to the Muslims who had defected from Mecca to Medina, is that Muhammad’s followers acted on the last day before Ramadan ended, and that was a religious violation in both Arabia and Islam.  Both Mohamad and Randa sarcastically questioned the credibility of the story during the previous lecture, with Randa even claiming she had never heard of such a thing, as well as the Quranic source where Muhammad justified the plunder, even though prior to the lectures on Islam, both were asked out of curiosity how well they thought most Muslims knew their history and doctrine.  They both affirmed “Very well.”  So, I told both Mohamad and Randa that I would get them the sources, which I did, and read them both, verbatim, in class.

According to Dr. Muhammad Husein Haykal, which is a respected Muslim scholar in many circles, who speaks quite favorably of Muhammad, in his book The Life of Muhammad, and one of several Islamic scholars who have reported the same incident, using the same Quranic references as support,1

‘Abdullah ibn Jahsh arrived in Medinah together with the two Quraysh captives and the donkey caravan loaded completely with goods.  He had already earmarked one-fifth of the booty to the Prophet.  But when the Prophet saw them, he said: “I have not instructed you to fight during the holy months.”  He stopped the caravan in its place as well as the two captives ‘Abdullah ibn Jahsh and his companions and, later on, they were further scolded and punished by their fellow Muslims for what they had done.  The Quraysh seized the opportunity to spread the propaganda everywhere that Muhammad and his companions had violated the sanctity of the holy month by having killed, robbed and captured.  The Muslims of Makkah answered that the event had taken place not in the holy months but during the following month of Sha‘ban.  The Jews immediately joined the chorus of Quraysh propaganda with the hope of engaging the Muslims in a war with the Quraysh over a case in which the Muslims were apparently in the wrong according to Arabian custom.  It was then that God revealed the judgment:

It was at this point that I brought out my copy of the Qur’an and read the reference that Haykal, et al, referenced as the revelation that Muhammad supposedly received as justification for the receiving the booty, after all, from Nakhlah.  My copy was published in Saudi Arabia under the auspices and supervision of “Under-Secretariat for Publications and Research Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Da‘wah, and Guidance.”  So, this was not a translation that many Muslims criticize when it comes to Quranic translations; that it was somehow skewed or inaccurate.  In fact, aside from maybe Adullah Yusuf Ali’s rendition of the Qur’an, this translation ranks high for it credibility.  So, starting at Surah 2:216 I read, “Jihad (holy fighting in Allah’s Cause) is ordained for you (Muslims) though you dislike it, and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you.  Allah knows but you do not know.”  Then Haykal quoted 2:217, which was read in its totality,

They ask you concerning fighting in the Sacred Months (i.e. 1st, 7th, 11th and 12th months of the Islamic calendar).  Say, “Fighting therein is a great (transgression) but a greater (transgression) with Allah is to prevent mankind from following the way of Allah, to disbelieve in Him, to prevent access to Al-Masjid Al-Haram (at Makkah), and to drive out its inhabitants, and Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.”  And they will never cease fighting you until they turn you back from your religion (Islamic Monotheism) if they can.  And whosoever of you turns back from his religion and dies as a disbeliever, then his deeds will be lost in this life and in the Hereafter, and they will be the dwellers of the Fire.  They will abide therein forever.

After pointing out that Haykal was not the only Islamic source I possess which reveals the same information on Nahklah and points to the exact same Quranic reference, one would have thought that I had just committed a mortal sin worthy of the death penalty.  For both Mohamad and Randa became combative, accusatory, and irrational, even to the point of discrediting their own holy book.  I needed to learn how to study or my Ph.D. pursuit is totally fallacious if I could not find a better source than Haykal, were their immediate accusations.  A question from Randa asked why I was even focusing on this at all.

When I responded to Randa’s question about relevance, I reminded her that Mohamad was the one who raised the question in the previous class, and that I assured him that I would bring him the references.  Her retort was to accuse me of only being critical of Islam; that I had not been that way of any of the other religions up to that point (which was a bald-faced lie).  Not only had I been critical of Hinduism and Buddhism’s ideas involving circularity in time, reincarnation, and the occult practice of yoga, but we critically analyzed the ideas of sallekhana in Jainism, what I call “free willyism” in Christianity (which included a critical discussion of even my pastor’s practice of the invitation), and the Jews constant rebellion by having the oracles of God, yet failing repeatedly to obey them, resulting in their temporary separation from God as His “chosen people.”  So, for Randa to make such an accusation was so far out of line as to border on ulterior motive for even making it.

The remainder of the lecture amounted to nothing more than one big, constant interruption.  If Mohamad or Randa were not interrupting me with questions and commentary that were either irrelevant or incoherent, they were interrupting others in the class who were trying to ask me questions.  And then when I tried to answer the other student’s questions, then it was more personal accusations.  For instance, one student tried to asked me about the implementation of Shari’a Law, particularly in reference to an article from Reliance of the Traveler, which dealt with dhimmitude.  Before the student could finish asking her question and where and why such a law would be applicable, Mohamad loudly interrupted her in mid-sentence, to which she snapped at him, “Would you please stop interrupting me while I’m trying to ask the professor a question?”  He backed down momentarily, only to continue his bellicose diatribe later.  The bottom line is that neither Mohamad, nor Randa, were going to listen, regardless of the answer and the source of justification for it.  In 20/20 hindsight the whole evening seemed orchestrated for disruption, much like Muslims have done elsewhere to thwart the telling of the truth about their oppressive religion.

At about 8:15 p.m. that evening Mohamad lost total control, jumped up, shouted what others thought was a physical threat to my being after one student gave a second statement of what she thought about Islam, explaining the scariness of Muhammad’s behavior.  Mohamad blurted out “you should be scared.”  His emotional outburst, once again, had to do with a question about his personality change when he arrived at Medina.  Mohamad accused me of not citing authentic material, even though I was quoting directly from the Qur’an as I held it up before the class.

…

To Randa Bedair and Mohamad Khorchid, your actions betray your true characters.  Not only did you act shamefully, despicably, recklessly, and carelessly, you provided the perfect illustration of what happens to those who really and truly follow Islamic principles.  Lying, cheating, and stealing all for the sake of Allah.  Surely you must be proud.  My heart breaks for you.