An enterprising American of Muslim heritage has come up with another interesting way of selling the ‘religion of death’ aka Islam to US children. Danny Shakoj has produced a doll called ‘Imam Adam’ which is accompanied by story book that follows Imam Adam on his journey to Mecca. On the way to Mecca the Imam has to solve problems using Islamic theology although the bits of such theology seem to be carefully chosen to avoid the vast amount of nastiness that resides in Islam.

Here’s the American NBC News website with the story of Imam Adam. As is usual policy for this blog, NBC’s words are in italics whereas this blog’s words are in plain text.

NBC News said:

After seeing the success of faith-based children’s toys that have hit toy store shelves in recent years, Danny Shakoj began wondering about what a doll for Muslim children would look like.

Imagine a doll with an angry bearded face and a savage hate filled expression equipped with a bomb belt, a knife and Koran and you’d probably get something more accurate and realistic than Danny Shakoj has created.

“The Islamic faith doesn’t have any type of product like Mensch on a Bench or Elf on a Shelf,” Shakoj told NBC News. “I began thinking, ‘what’s an easy way for children to learn about Islam?’”

How about just saying: ‘Islam is a death cult’ and leaving it at that? Come to think of it there’s no real need for this doll as there are plenty of examples for older children to learn about what Islam really is by pointing to the news reports of Islamic atrocities.

Growing up in New Jersey as the child of Circassian Muslims who immigrated from Syria, Shakoj recalled that there were not many cultural toys or books that reflected his experiences or upbringing.

Maybe that’s because your family moved to a non Muslim country? If you are a minority you cannot expect or assume that the wider culture will reflect your religion or culture.

“We celebrated all of the holidays, we fasted for Ramadan,” he said. “But we didn’t have much for kids to spark much conversation with kids.”

Oh I don’t know. Islam is in the news quite a lot these days although much of this news about Islam isn’t really that suitable for children.

Further research and brainstorming sessions lead Shakoj to create “Adventures of Imam Adam,” a new children’s book he wrote with illustrations by artist Necdet Yilmaz. The book is geared toward children ages 3 and up and follows a Muslim faith leader as he attempts to make the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. The companion plush doll wears traditional Islamic clothing and carries a green backpack with a folded green prayer rug inside.

I can’t help but wonder what will happen when the Imam Adam comes back from Mecca all freshly radicalised? Will Imam Adam acquire a couple of weapons, some explosives and a bride in a black bin bag as accessories, to go with his prayer mat?

In creating his character, Shakoj explains that he wanted to help demystify the faith to young children.

Demystify or sanitise Islam? My guess would be the latter.

A lot of times, religious figures are scary to children. So he’s a young imam going through different adventures to go to Hajj,” Shakoj explained. “He lives in a diversified neighborhood, he plays soccer, he makes his way across a broken bridge and has to deal with crocodiles.”

I don’t recall being scared of the pictures of Moses or the Biblical prophets that adorned the wall of my junior school library. I was fascinated by them and they drew my attention but they were not ‘scary’ to me. Maybe it’s only the Islamic religious figures that are scary to children and let’s be frank here, Islam’s founding ‘prophet’ was not exactly the sort of person you’d want to have on your list of babysitters, what with his penchant for paedophila and murder.

While Imam Adam deals with these very earthly things, Shakoj says the book does so while showing how Adam uses the five pillars of Islam to solve problems. “It touches on things like charity and being kind to the environment,” he said.

They’ve left out the head chopping, the violence, the oppression of non Muslims and the vehement and deep seated Jew hatred of Islam. These are just as much significant manifestations of Islam as are the idea of giving to charity.

“There’s no fun way to teach Islam [right now],” he said.

In that he is correct, but then Islam isn’t exactly a ‘fun’ ideology is it? It’s a death cult that creates abject misery across much of the world both for non Muslims and for Islam’s adherents. Islamic culture is one that, as Winston Churchill once said: ‘paralyses the social development of those who follow it’. Islamic culture is one where women are oppressed and men live a debased harsh life existing only for the brothel in the hereafter which Islam promises men who live by Islamic codes.

I wonder how the Imam Adam doll and the accompanying book will explain away many of the problems that have been created by Islamic culture, such as the fact that the vast majority of countries created or administered by the precepts of Islam are hell holes and charnel houses? How will this friendly looking doll and the companion book, deal with the vast amount of hatred expressed towards others that exists in Islamic spiritual texts?

I look at this doll and I smell taqiyya which is dishonesty in order to promote or protect Islam. This doll will help to teach children both Muslim and non-Muslim, a sanitised version of Islam, a version that has very little to do with the real life Islam as it exists in the world. It will certainly not prepare the Muslim child for the vast amount of violence, hatred and discrimination that the Koran and other Islamic scripture encourages and neither will it help to prepare the non Muslim child to face the ideology of Islam or it’s increasingly violent followers.

Link

Original story from NBC

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/imam-adam-muslim-children-have-cultural-doll-their-own-n781581

The Religion of Peace website (h/t for above story)

http://thereligionofpeace.com/