Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch and the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad.There is more.
Frontpage: Robert Spencer, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
I would like to talk to you today about Anthony Weiner’s marriage to his Muslim Brotherhood wife, Huma Abedin.
How is it exactly that a Muslim woman who is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood is married to a Jewish man? Something is not fitting here is it?
Spencer: Jamie, Islamic law prohibits a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man. A Muslim man may marry a non-Muslim woman, but not the other way around. This is yet another manifestation of Islamic supremacism: the idea is that a wife will become a member of her husband’s household, and the children will follow the religion of the father. Thus, Muslim men marrying non-Muslim women ultimately enriches the Islamic community, while the non-Muslim community must forever be made to diminish.
Consequently, when a non-Muslim man begins a relationship with an observant Muslim woman, he is usually pressured to convert to Islam, and such conversion is made a condition of the marriage. Of course, laws are often honored in the breach, and this is not always true. So while we know that Huma Abedin’s parents were devout and observant Muslims — indeed, her father was an imam — we don’t know what exactly is going on with her marriage to Anthony Weiner.
Certainly the most likely scenario is that Weiner did convert to Islam, as Abedin’s mother, a professor in Saudi Arabia, would almost certainly have insisted that he do so. Weiner has made no public statement of this conversion, but since it would almost certainly have cost him politically if he had announced it, this silence is not any indication that he didn’t actually convert.
However, it is also possible, given the recent scandal involving Weiner’s apparently frequent and sexually charged contact with other women, that the rumors that the Abedin/Weiner union is a political marriage of convenience are true. After all, in 2008, Hillary Clinton was running for president. There were widespread insinuations that she was involved in a romantic and/or sexual relationship with Abedin, her ever-present personal assistant. Those whisperings persisted into Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. Abedin’s 2010 marriage to Weiner, at which Bill Clinton presided, put those rumors to rest.
In Islamic law, a Muslim must officiate a marriage ceremony; hence if Bill Clinton was the only one officiating, the marriage was not valid according to Islamic law. Huma Abedin would undoubtedly have known that. Thus, if no Muslim was officiating along with Clinton, Weiner would not have had to convert to Islam, as the whole thing was a charade from the outset, apparently entered into with the full awareness of all parties concerned.
FP: This all seems very strange. What do you personally think is going on?
Spencer: Either Weiner converted to Islam to marry Abedin, and a Muslim was officiating at the ceremony along with Clinton, or the marriage is a sham and Abedin, at very least, is fully aware of that — and probably the others are also. I don’t see any other possibilities.
FP: Sorry, I am a bit confused about the Bill Clinton angle. Isn’t this a bit of a bizarre person to ask to officiate your wedding? One would think that in getting married, you have things like faithfulness and loyalty on your mind, no?
Spencer: Yes, Bill Clinton is a strange choice, indeed — unless the whole point of the union had to do more with the Clinton connection than with faithfulness and loyalty.
FP: According to Islamic Law, Huma Abedin could be killed, right? If the whole thing is not a charade and a trick, it is a bit bizarre that her family, who are Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim Sisterhood operatives, have allowed this and not punished her, no?
Spencer: Yes, Jamie. If the marriage is not a sham, it is exceedingly strange that Huma Abedin’s mother and other Muslim Brotherhood connections would have no problem with it. She is, of course, a high profile individual in the United States, and thus is in a very different situation from that of a woman in Saudi Arabia who might enter into a relationship with a non-Muslim man. In Saudi Arabia, such a woman would almost certainly be murdered; would Brotherhood operatives murder the aide to the Secretary of State for committing the same sin? That is not so clear.
FP: Last year, Walid Shoebat translated the Arabic declarations relative to the validity of the Weiner-Abedin marriage. One publication Shoebat translated was the Al-Marsid newspaper, which reported on the marriage specifically:
“Dr. Anwar Shoeb of the faculty of Islamic law in Kuwait declared that the marriage between Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin is null and void, considering it adultery as confirmed in the Sharia position, prohibiting the marriage of a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim, regardless of whether he is a Jew or a Christian. In this case, he assured the invalidity of the marriage certificate between them.”
Your thoughts on this?
Spencer: Dr. Shoeb is completely correct, of course, from the standpoint of Islamic law. In light of that, it is striking that there is no record anywhere of any Islamic anger about Abedin’s marriage or Hillary Clinton’s connection with her. This lends credence to the possibility that the marriage is a sham, and is known to be a sham among those in the Islamic world who have been responsible for stirring up and manipulating popular anger about other matters, such as the cartoons of Muhammad.
FP: So, just to crystallize the matter then, there is a remote possibility that Abedin is actually being deceptive in her marriage to Weiner to follow Muslim Brotherhood instructions and to infiltrate the U.S. government, correct?
Spencer: Certainly. That is a very real possibility, and it should be investigated. But the only ones who have the means to do so are mainstream media journalists who are either clueless or complicit....