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I didn't fully believe it until Oct 2005 Pakistan earthquake relief humanitarian JTF. Now I believe the vast majority of Muslims truly and deeply hate us.

Muslims, I assume, hate us Christians; and, I assume Muslims hate Homosexuals and Lesbians.

As always, it pays to research the context. This statement was made during an exchange with his GOP rival-who had insinuated a connection between Abdul El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Without going into a long synopsis of that debate, it seems clear to me that what was trying to be conveyed here is a sense that the questioning, or suspicion of this candidate having ties to "terrorist" organizations or ideologies was motivated by "Islamophobia". This was his full comment...

<I quote>
“What frustrates me more is not that you have blatant racism on the part of certain people, but what frustrates me more is in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, is not when bad people speak out but when good people fail to speak out, and what I have not heard is the Republicans on this panel, decisively and swiftly call out this kind of Islamophobia, this kind of racism, in the context that they are wanting to represent the state that has the highest per-capita number of Muslim Americans in the country. Now you may not hate Muslims, but I’ll tell you, Muslims definitely hate you!”
<end quote>

I'm a Christian, and spent some time (about a year) surrounded by quite a few Muslims once. That experience taught me three important facts about Islam. First, it's not all that different from my own faith in that it doesn't "fit" well into the post-modern, Western, humanist world-view ( a fact which seems increasingly ignored by many any time this debate arises). This is also among the many forces creating the division, anger and violence within the world today. Second, Islam is VERY different from my faith in that despite sharing some theological background...it has a widely divergent view of how one achieves and maintains a "righteous" life. Third, I learned that individually, Muslims, just like the adherents of any other faith, can be "selective" in how they interpret and practice religion-and in equally divergent ways whether more "conservative" or "liberal" in that interpretation. In the Christian community, we have a plethora of different, often opposite views on any number of scriptural teachings...and so do Muslims. In that sense, I can no more measure any individual Muslim by Quran (2:191-193), than I can any Christian by I Timothy 3:3.

However, what I ultimately discovered is that whatever commonality, rapport, trust, or even friendship I shared with these men paled before the undeniable fault-line between us. My faith teaches me that the Kingdom of Heaven is not of this earth; it's "subjects" strangers in a strange land while living in it. By contrast, theirs...at least appears...to seek to unify the physical world under Islam...peacefully, perhaps...violently? Well, that depends a great deal on how, when and where resistance is encountered.

It is difficult for me to think otherwise, having had a close associate and friend once say, "Sunflower (my Afghan nick-name-long story), you are helping us, but if you were not...we would be enemies, yes?"