UPDATES(2) | Florida Pastor Terry Jones Calls Off Quran Burning on September 11th

UPDATE:

• “We will definitely not burn the Quran,” the Rev. Terry Jones told NBC's “Today” on Saturday “Not today, not ever.”
• “Pastor” rethinking after “finding out” there isn't a deal to move Park 51. How is it related by the way???
• Kudos to AP for NOT giving the Quran burning event more coverage than necessary!
• Humorous video added – see below

A friend of mine came to me two days ago asking me for my thoughts on the Park 51 project to which I replied back asking him what he thought of the National Quran burning day project. He said, neither I nor anybody in my church support such actions, this is not a reflection of our religion. I smiled back and said… aaah, now you know how it feels!

For the last few weeks, the media has been all over Pastor Terry Jones from the Dove World Outreach Center after he announced his intent to burn Qurans on September 11th 2010. Many people disagreed and were angry with Jones including the US Attorney General Eric Holder and General Petraeus who said that such an action would lead in to violence in the Muslim world.

ISNA, ICNA, and CAIR have been sending out emails asking people to be cautious of any similar acts throughout America.

Finally today, CNN announced that he called the whole thing off and my first reply was…chicken!

He claimed that the Imam of Park51 announced that he is going to move the project from lower Manhattan but Park51 has denied that via twitter.

Anyway…I am happy this saga is over. I am going to celebrate Eid in more peace now alhamdulillah.

From Ify Okoye:

I just could not get worked up about this whole controversy. As I walked into class yesterday, one of my classmates said she had been thinking about me while watching the news about the planned Quran burning and thought to herself that “Man, I'm sure Ify must be mad about this.” But I surprised her when I said I wasn't and saw it as a free speech issue that didn't really affect me. And I asked her, “Would you be mad if someone said they wanted to burn the Bible?” She paused, not sure of her response but eventually offered a “No, not really.”

Allah has guaranteed in his book that he will protect it and one oddball pastor burning the Quran should not disturb the barakah and peace we've felt in the month of Ramadan, the month of the Quran, or dampen our plans for a joyous Eid this weekend, insha'Allah. However, I am thankful that the plan has been called off to spare us from having to witness scenes of angry demonstrations and/or violence. And how strange it is to see some of the same people like Sarah Palin who oppose the building of Park51 being forced to denounce the plan to burn the Quran. The displays of support from a wide spectrum of voices from the Vatican and other faith leaders to President Obama (no equivocating about the “wisdom” here) is heartening especially coming so soon after the prominent absence of moral courage and principled debate in the Park51 controversy.

What does offend me deeply is how this issue like the South Park cartoons or the movie Submission or Rushdie's book and other similar insensitive or inflammatory behavior or work is presented by some Muslims, the media and public officials as a “we should not do this or we might offend Muslims who will then go crazy and become terrorists and kill innocent people” argument. Muslims are no more prone to violence than others and can and should be required to be deeply rational beings accountable for our own behavior.

See this video: (Obama addressing this issue before it was called off)

Free Curaans to burn??