http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mtapson/2009/06/24/the-whitewashing-of-soraya-m/

” . . . Following Saturday’s screening was a panel discussion, not so much moderated as simply hosted by Iranian novelist Khaled Hosseini, author of the bestselling The Kite Runner, who personally selected the film for the L.A. Film Festival. The panel also included Soraya’s writer-director Cyrus Nowrasteh, starring actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Dr. Reza Aslan, billed as an Islamic scholar.
Heading off any concerns about possible Islam-bashing in the movie, Mr. Nowrasteh noted at the discussion’s outset that Soraya is actually a pro-Muslim film, because it shows how a few hypocrites can hijack a religion for personal reasons, not to mention that the story’s victim is herself Muslim. He went on to discuss his personal attraction to the story and the process of bringing it to the big screen. Ms. Aghdashloo eloquently responded to a couple of questions about her personal passion for the role and for addressing the real-world issue of stoning.

The Q & A was shorter-lived than many including myself would have liked, or at least less focused; one question, for example, was directed to Mr. Hosseini about his novels rather than the movie. But the focus really got blurry when Reza Aslan took the mic.

“Well,” he started, “I guess it’s up to me to put this into some sort of historical context.” If only he had, then people might better understand why the outrage of stoning still exists, and why it exists today only in territories in the grip of Sharia, or Islamic law. Instead Aslan proceeded to so dilute any context at all that people told me at the reception later, which he did not attend, that they either had no idea what he was talking about or simply tuned him out. What he did do, in several obfuscating turns at bat, was utterly whitewash Islam, its prophet Mohammed, and Iranian lawmakers past and present of any responsibility whatsoever for the practice of stoning.
. .
He began by asserting that “many cultures” struggled with the issue of stoning. I nearly interrupted him right there to ask, “Really? Which cultures besides those under the thrall of Sharia law? Do Laplanders stone adulterers? Peruvian Indians? The Watusi? Minnesotans?” Aslan clouded any potential for understanding by claiming that culture, not religion, is responsible.
. . .
The gist of his message was this: not only is religion inseparable from culture, but the words of, say, the Bible or Quran are utterly devoid of meaning in and of themselves, blank slates upon which we impose our own biased interpretations. Thus, to use one of Aslan’s own examples, if you’re a “misogynistic prick,” you’re going to view the Quran through that woman-hating lens and impose your own meaning upon it, regardless of what Mohammed, supposedly transcribing directly from Allah, actually wrote. Hence, Islam and Mohammed are not responsible for their followers’ misinterpretations, their patriarchal culture is.

No one would deny that religion and culture aren’t closely intertwined (though I would argue that religion influences culture more than the other way around), but puh-leeze – it’s beyond absurd to say that there is no substantive difference between Mohammed’s message and Jesus’, that there is no meaning inherent in their words, or that the massive edifices of their religions have not been built, shakily or not, upon the foundations of those words. It’s also disingenuous to suggest that present-day stoning has nothing to do with a seventh-century religious directive. It’s true that stoning is a pre-Islamic practice not mentioned in the Quran; but the tenets of Islam are based not solely on the Quran, but derive also from the hadith, or the tales of Mohammed’s life, and Dr. Aslan neglected to mention that Mohammed does command stoning as a punishment for adultery in the hadith.

Nonie Darwish, the Egyptian-American author of, most recently, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, and someone who knows a thing of two about women under Islam, stood in the audience and challenged Aslan at length about Mohammed and misogyny. He acknowledged one minor, innocuous point, but then dismissed her flatly with “Everything else you said is wrong” and handed the mic back to Mr. Hosseini. Not “That’s a common misconception,” or “Let me quote chapter and verse of the Quran to clarify things.” Just “Wrong.” End of discussion.
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Why are we perpetually asked to LIE about the nature of islam and islamic law in order to be accepable in “polite’ company? Maybe if someone had spoken honestly about such matters in pre-revolutionary Iran, they might have avoided the past 30 years of misogynistic hell.

Can anyone tell me how and why this phenomenon exists?

I had heard through second sources that Resa Aslan was invited to one of the openings of this film to address the audience and that he forthrightly sought to obfuscate and deny the role islamic law plays in such tragedies. I also heard (from the same sources) that the questions of a very knowledgeable and brave woman named Noni Darwish were brushed aside by Mr. Aslan and that Ms. Darwish was shouted down by audience members. Is there any truth to this?

I dream of the day where the evil doers will have no place in this world to carry out their deeds and the only people in prison will be those who deserve to be there.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be willing and able to escape an oppressive life but have no where to go, no border to cross, no road that leads to freedom. I think that most of us in the United States have no idea what that must be like.

Telling the truth does not mean you can’t have or shouldn’t have a human wince at the sight of such terrible punishment. That you averted your eyes for a moemnt does not mean that you turned away from the truth.

I fear those who look, not just with glee at the plight of the women they torure, but for those on our side (supposedly) who stare without comprehension and have no feelings of disgust–and rage against the perpetrators.

Norman