This from American Thinker about what DIDN’T happen:

Ellison shed crocodile tears for a brilliant television sound bite effect–not truth. Matthew Shaffer of National Review reports on the real aftermath of Hamdani’s death on September 11, 2001.

[S]ix weeks after the September 11 attacks – before Hamdani’s remains were identified, which Ellison implies to be the turning point of public perception – Congress signed the PATRIOT Act into law with this line included: “Many Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have acted heroically during the attacks on the United States, including Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old New Yorker of Pakistani descent, who is believed to have gone to the World Trade Center to offer rescue assistance and is now missing.” That is, Hamdani was actually singled out for particular high honors among the thousands of victims of the September 11 attacks.

There’s little evidence of the “rumors” of which Ellison speaks, either. Poke around yourself on Google.

(snip)

You’ll discover two discordant sets of returns: none for sites and news reports accusing Hamdani of being a terrorist, and many thousands of pages honoring him as a hero while claiming that he was “widely accused” of being a terrorist.

(snip)

[H]e was eulogized by the New York Times, had scholarship funds named after him, was honored by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly (both of whom went barefoot to honor Muslim practice) at his funeral, and has been celebrated over and over again by the media.

Ah, but Bloomberg and Kelly, who removed their shoes, didn’t convert to Islam.

…(read more)…

After this appearance on the Bill Maher show, one writer at BigPeace.com points out that the verse Rep. Ellison quotes is now — for all intent and purposes — defunct:

Matthew Shaffer of NRO (as noted here by Ethel Fenig) exposed Keith Ellison’s mendacious taqiyya (Koran-sanctioned Islamic dissimulation) theater during the Congressman’s testimony at Thursday’s Homeland Security Hearings on American Muslim radicalization.

The next day, during a 3/11/11 interview with Bill Maher (on “Real Time With Bill Maher”), responding to Maher’s complaint that, “[Islam] comes from a hate-filled holy book, the Koran, which is taken very literally by its people,” Ellison invoked a deceitfully redacted extract of Koran 5:32, and the ostensible Koranic paean to “tolerance,” verse 2:256.

Ellison’s disingenuous response was predictable.

Following the murderous acts of jihad terrorism committed on September 11, 2001, Ibn Warraq highlighted the tragic irony of many apologists quoting selectively from Koran 5:32, “whoso slays a soul …shall be as if he had slain mankind altogether; and whoso gives life to a soul, shall be as if he has given life to mankind altogether”, attempting to demonstrate that the Koran disapproved of violence and killing. Here is the entire verse (5:32), quoted in full context, with the intimately related verse, Koran 5:33:

(5:32) Therefore We prescribed for the Children of Israel that whoso slays a soul not to retaliate for a soul slain, nor for corruption done in the land, shall be as if he had slain mankind altogether; and whoso gives life to a soul, shall be as if he has given life to mankind altogether. Our Messengers have already come to them with the clear signs; then many of them thereafter commit excesses in the earth. (5:33) This is the recompense of those who fight against God and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement

[For direct comparison see, Mishna, Sanhedrin, IV, 5, “Thus was created a single man, to teach us that every person who loses a single soul, it shall be written about him as if he has lost the entire world, and every person who sustains a single soul, it shall be written, about him as if he has sustained the entire world”]

As Warraq noted, with regard to Koran 5:32/33, ¹

The supposedly noble sentiments are in fact a warning to Jews. [² see these commentaries as well] “Behave, or else” is the message. Far from abjuring violence, these verses aggressively point out that anyone opposing the Prophet will be killed, crucified, mutilated, and banished

Regarding the other pacific sounding verse Congressman Ellison cited, 2:256, it must be contextualized by Muhammad’s bellicose evolution within the Koran itself. But how, exactly? Abrogation is critical to understanding this evolution. Ali ibn Abi Talib—revered by Shiite Muslims and Islam’s 4^th “Rightly Guided” Caliph—is reported to have told a pious Muslim companion, Abdul Rahman

“[C]an you differentiate between abrogating and abrogated verses” Abdul Rahman said, “no.” Thereupon Ali said “Thou art damned and causeth others to be damned.”

The Koran’s “verses of peace,” as cited by Ellison, and many other Muslim and non-Muslim apologists, most notably verse 2:256, “There is no compulsion in religion,” were all abrogated by the so-called verses of the sword. These abrogating verses of the sword recommend beheading or otherwise murdering and mutilating non-Muslims, and Muslim apostates. According to classical Muslim Koranic commentators verse 9:5 (perhaps the most infamous verse of the sword), “Slay the idolators wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush…”, for example, cancels 124 verses that promote patience and toleration. And this doctrine of abrogation, necessitated by the many contradictions which abound in the Koran, originates as putatively taught by Muhammad, himself, at verse 2:106: “Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?”. This verse, in combination with verses* 16:101, 22:52, and 87:6, was elaborated into a formal system of abrogation (naskh in Arabic) by the greatest classical Muslim Koranic scholars and jurists, which entailed (p.72),

…the suppression of a ruling without the suppression of the wording. That is to say, the earlier ruling is still to be found in the Koran, and is still to this day recited in worship, but it no longer has any legal force.

…(read more)…

I brought this up in a discussion with a Muslim in a debate setting and he never got back to me… I wonder why? Here is a small reference to this conversation from another post of mine:

iii. Comparison of Scripture. Some quick facts. Scripture in Islamic tradition is prescriptive. In the Biblical sense it is descriptive. This simple comparison goes a long way to explain why most of the terrorists in the world today are Islamic. Another explanation for this phenomenon is that in the Islamic fundamentalist tradition, verses in their Scripture. I guess the best way to exemplify this is with this final posting in a debate where a Muslim was trying to explain his faith to others. However, I showed him I had an in-depth understanding of his view of his scripture. Here is my response which is cataloged at my site Discussing God:

Kursat,

You see, unlike the Bible, the Qu’ran abrogates its “verses” and depending on what time period they were written (and depending on if the Muslim community was weaker than it was later), these later verses take over in importance (replaced with something “better”) in application for the Muslim.

So, Kursat, is this Sura Meccan? More specifically, is it the fifth and sixth years of the Prophet’s Mission? There is even a period after this in Mecca. After this period was Medina, right?

For those who are not aware of this abrogation (stated in the Qu’ran) and are use to thinking of Scriptures in a “Western” manner, this Sura you gave sounds great. But if one understands the full implications of 2:106 and 16:101. Then this changes the ballgame a bit, doesn’t it Kursat?

Obviously Kursat didn’t return because he was not a moderate Muslim. Moderates look at the Qur’an as descriptive and they reject the idea that these verses in the Qur’an are placed in any chronological importance. THUS, the later verses about Jihad in Islamic fundamentalism DO NOT trump the one’s about peace.

Read more: RPT Discussing Mosques and Men