Muslim

It is always reprehensible to mock anyone's religious beliefs, and it is even worse when the mockery is expected to result in violence, injury or death ("Obama defends free speech," Sept. 27). The freedom of speech exercised in the notorious anti-Islamic video "The Innocence of Muslims" is a case in point. It is tantamount to falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, which is impossible to defend as free speech. Yet in some of the Muslim countries where the outcry against the video has been loudest, the notorious anti-Semitic libel known as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is freely sold and published.

For the past few weeks there has been outrage in Muslim countries across the world because of an anti-Islam video posted on YouTube ("Anti-U.S. protests rock Pakistan," Sept. 22). Yet as a 12-year-old Ahmadi Muslim American, I didn't feel angry at America because of the movie. Why should I? President Barack Obama didn't post the video on YouTube, nor did anyone else in the government. I was angry with the man who actually made the video. He was responsible for hurting the feelings off more than a billion Muslims all over the world.

President Barack Obama's rousing defense of American free speech and the First Amendment at the United Nations this week made his country proud. In the context of rioting in the Muslim world over an anti-Islam video, the message was overdue: In a free society, even hateful messages are protected, and placing restrictions on speech helps lead to political oppression. That's not to suggest Americans endorse the video in question and its smears against the Prophet Muhammad. But the proper response to vile, awful messages is not violence, or the threat of violence, but more speech that will, as Mr. Obama observed, "lift up the values of understanding and mutual respect.

I am so proud and excited to have read Zainab Al-Suwaij's op-ed piece "Stand up for our values" (Sept. 24). Ms. Al-Suwaij has great insight and courage to have printed her opinion regarding the behavior of radicals and their attack on the U.S. embassies. Unfortunately, the impression of many Americans is that Muslims are a hate-mongering, angry, primitive group of people. The world only sees the loud violent anger. I hope that Ms. Al-Suwaij's thoughts are taken very seriously and that the women of the Muslim religion support her in her outstanding efforts to educate the world that there are plenty of Muslims who want peace and harmony.

Like op-ed writer Zainab Al-Suwaij ("Moderate Muslims must stand up for their values," Sept. 24) I, too, am an angry Arab Muslim woman Not only that. I am bleeding from inside. On one side, the great prophet of Islam, the mercy for all the worlds and the benefactor of humanity, has been targeted by an extremely crude wave of insults. And on the other hand, a totally aggressive and non-Islamic reaction has been conducted. The real teaching of Islam is to answer this kind of insulting attack by patience and by the pen, not violence.

I agree with the premise of your editorial "Romney has a point" (Sept. 13), that President Barack Obama "failed to explain a core American value" of freedom of speech. However, there was much more lacking in the official administration response. U.S. consulates and embassies are U.S. sovereign territory, so an attack on them, much less the wanton murder of our ambassador, is an act of war. Presidential and State Department responses, therefore, must be framed with this fundamental understanding.

It is about time that Americans stop trying to appease a religion and people who simply will not accept any alternative to Islam ("Understanding Arab anger," Sept. 19). The Muslim holy book, the Quran, and the teachings of Islam are very clear: If you are not with them, you are an infidel. The goal of the Islamic faith is to spread Sharia law to the ends of the earth at all costs. If we get in the way we are expendable. The American way is not compatible with Islam. Freedom of speech, no matter how offensive, is not part of its tradition.

The Obama administration's omnibus answer to why the Middle East (and now much of the Muslim world) is in near open rebellion against the United States: The video did it. The follow-up question no one seems to be asking is: "What if the administration's explanation is true?" White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insists the attacks in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere were a "response not to United States policy, and not to, obviously, the administration, not to the American people," but were rather a spontaneous "response to a video, a film we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting.

A state prisoner pleaded guilty Thursday in the 2006 fatal attack on a popular Sunni Muslim inmate leader at the now-closed Maryland House of Correction. William James Taylor, 42, pleaded guilty in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to second-degree murder. A 25-year sentence will run at the same time as his current life sentence for murder, according to court records. The arrangement does not allow him to return to court to ask a judge to shorten his sentence, a spokeswoman for Anne Arundel County prosecutors said.