I have made a Sunday quiz for you, now that the weather is not worth going out in anyway.
Follow along.
As you have probably read, Abdul El-Sayed has been elected to the Senate for Michigan.
And there is cheering.
In Dearborn, in Hamtramck, in the Muslim associations here at home, in Cairo and in Doha. The Muslim Brotherhood's people sent congratulations the same night. Same with Iran's leader.
There is nothing strange about that in itself.
Everyone cheers when their man wins.
Social Democrats cheer when a Social Democrat wins, because he can now pursue Social Democratic policy. Conservatives cheer for conservative policy. Liberals for liberal. Communists for communism. The cheering and the policy are the same thing, seen from two sides.
So far everything is normal.
Now to what is not.
And this is where the quiz begins, so take a breath and focus before you read on.
El-Sayed has been elected on a programme that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the society Islam prescribes. And therefore the exact opposite of the society wanted by several of those expressing their joy and congratulations over the election.
And it is not a little off.
But. Opposite.
Precisely upside down.
America's largest LGBT organisation, the Human Rights Campaign, has backed him. He has promised to be "a lion for LGBTQ+ rights" in the Senate. He defended trans rights on 60 Minutes in front of the cameras. His platform would guarantee trans people treatment through Medicaid, the public health insurance. Planned Parenthood, America's largest abortion provider, stands behind him.
And that is only the tip.
Look at the rest of what he has sworn to defend.
A society where a Muslim can leave Islam tomorrow, openly, without anyone being allowed to touch him. Where you may draw, mock and ridicule the Prophet, and the only thing that happens is that someone gets angry.
Where the daughter inherits the same as the son, and her word weighs the same in court.
Where she chooses her husband herself, or none, or a woman.
Where sex education at school tells the children about all the rainbow ways one can live.
Where no book stands above legislation, because legislation is made by man, and what Men have made, Men can change.
EVERY SINGLE POINT can be looked up in the Quran and the hadith. And every single point is there with the opposite sign.
It is no coincidence that it is like this.
Because they are two different answers to the same question - who has the last word on Reality?
The society, ours, that El-Sayed has been elected into says - no one.
Everything can be questioned, God included. Everything can be changed, tomorrow included. What a woman is. Laws on sex, food, leaving the faith and so on. Because that is what an election is - we count votes because the answer is not given in advance.
The Quran says the opposite.
The text is eternal and uncreated. Its interpretation was locked a thousand years ago, and it is not up for a vote. What is written in the book cannot be changed by Men, because it was not made by Men.
The one order, ours, lives by asking.
The other, Islam, lives by people stopping.
And then those who believe in the other, Islam, vote in a man who has sworn to defend the first.
And the voters?
In Dearborn, in his own state, Muslim parents shut down school board meetings in 2022 in protest against LGBT books in the school libraries. In Hamtramck, ten kilometres away, a city council made up entirely of Muslims banned the Pride flag on city property. In the middle of Pride month.
The same people voted for him on Tuesday.
So here comes the final "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" question -
How many of them, do you think, are looking forward to more books about two dads coming into the early school years? To the Pride weeks in the schools? To their daughter being able to leave the faith, marry whoever she wants and inherit everything?
Just roughly?
We do not need to guess. Because they have actually said it themselves. Muslim voters in Detroit told Fox News before the election that they are against his position on abortion and LGBT and so on, but are voting for him anyway. Because he gives them "representation".
Notice the word. Not policy.
Representation.
What exactly is it he represents - when it is not the policy they want, do you think?
So when there is cheering in Dearborn and in Doha, it is not over what he will do in the Senate. It cannot be. Because everything he will do in the Senate, they are against.
That is why the question remains, and it is a perfectly ordinary, trivial question anyone can ask themselves over their morning coffee -
What is it, then, that they are cheering about? š¤
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Happy Sunday afternoon, friends.
