My Conversation With a Radical Muslim Professor-Kaukab Siddique

by Gary Fouse

Kaukab Siddique is a Pakistani-born Muslim professor at Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University. For years, Siddique has been the subject of controversy for his attacks on women, gays, the West, Jews and the state of Israel. His comments have drawn numerous complaints to the university and caused the administration to distance itself from what he has said while affirming his right of free speech,

Last week, he posted an article on his Facebook page entitled, “Manchester or Mosul”, in which he contrasted the victims of Manchester unfavorably with the civilians caught up inn the battle to retake Mosul from ISIS. It was his way of once again attacking the Western powers. I took the opportunity to jump into the comment thread criticizing him. After a couple of exchanges, he cut me off and blocked my access. I then reached out to him at his campus email in order to continue the discussion. At this link, you can read the back and forth I had with him on Islam and its treatment of certain groups, treatment that he concurs with. I think you will find his responses quite illuminating.

Unlike many US-based Islamic leaders, Siddique makes few attempts to hide the aspects of Islam that make it incompatible with Western values of freedom and equality. He denies being anti-semitic because he himself is semitic. Of course, we all know that the term refers to Jews in particular. While denying anti-semitism, however, he rails (even to me) about the Zionist and Jews who do this or that and who are trying to destroy him. He advises me to look and see what the Bible says about homosexuals ignoring the fact that we are not executing them as they are being executed in many Muslim countries. He defends death for apostates and blasphemers as if they are equivalent to the Rosenbergs. When I point out to him that the Rosenbergs betrayed their country- not their religion, he says quite revealingly that Islam is not just a religion, but a state. This is similar to what I heard from Orange County imam Muzammil Siddiqi (no relation) when I questioned him about death for Islamic apostates. He told me then that personally he doesn’t care if someone wants to leave Islam and that scholarly opinion in Islam is divided on the subject. When I pressed him about Muslims who leave the faith and openly criticize it, he then likened it to the Afghans who assisted the Soviets during that war – treason he called it.

And of course, all the horrors and dysfunctions in the Middle East and Muslim world are the fault of America and the West. One wonders why he chose to come and live in America in the first place.

At any rate, once again we are left with this totally undesirable immigrant who has brought his hatreds to this country and espouses them openly. As someone who supports legal immigration (I am married to an immigrant), this is not what we envisioned when we began welcoming immigrants to this country.