Qasim Rashid, an Ahmadi Muslim who is running as a Democrat for the Virginia State Senate, is enraged at the dirty tricks of his opponent, Richard Stuart. “My Republican opponent,” fumed Rashid in a video last week, “is launching anti-Muslim, Islamophobic attacks against me questioning my loyalty to the United States and questioning my ties with terrorism, I mean just the most ridiculous, meritless claims that are imaginable.” What did Stuart do to warrant these charges? Why, the racist, bigoted Islamophobe had the temerity to quote Rashid’s own words.
Rashid, according to WMAL, “posted a screenshot on Twitter of one of the ads paid for by incumbent Richard Stuart’s re-election campaign. It shows a picture of Rashid with a caption ‘QASIM RASHID DOESN’T BELIEVE ISLAMIC TERRORISM EXISTS.’”
Straight out of the Richard Nixon playbook, right? With an unsavory dash of contemporary “Islamophobia.” How low can Stuart go? He is, as far as Qasim Rashid is concerned, a prime example of the anti-Muslim hysteria that has overtaken all too many people in Donald Trump’s America.
But there’s just one catch: Stuart’s claim that Qasim Rashid “doesn’t believe Islamic terrorism exists” is based on the words of none other than the notorious Islamophobe Qasim Rashid. In his own defense, Stuart was able to point to a 2018 tweet in which Rashid declared: “No such thing as Islamic terrorism. Terrorism has no religion.”
Stuart’s campaign manager, Cooper Mohr, accordingly responded to Rashid by compounding his candidate’s dastardliness, and actually had the temerity to claim the defense of the truth: “These ads are based on actual tweets from Rashid and other public statements. We stand by all of our ads and will continue running them.”
The truth? What’s that? Brushing aside Mohr’s defense, Rashid said that Stuart was “fear-mongering” about his Islamic faith. To that, Mohr came back with yet more truth: “Mr. Rashid is crying foul to deflect attention from his radical positions,” Mohr wrote. According to WMAL, “Mohr went on to say none of the ads mention Rashid’s religion, and Stuart’s record shows he supports religious liberty.”
Meanwhile, Rashid “said he will not respond to the ads with counter-attacks but will instead focus on the issues.” Yes, of course. Just pay no attention to Rashid’s countercharges that Stuart was engaging in “anti-Muslim, Islamophobic” attacks and leveling “ridiculous, meritless claims.” Rashid said piously that he was not going to respond, and he is obviously credible.
Note also Rashid’s straw man: he charged Stuart with “questioning my loyalty to the United States and questioning my ties with terrorism,” but there is none of that in Stuart’s ad. All it says is that Rashid doesn’t believe that Islamic terrorism exists, which is what the man actually said.
Rashid’s unhinged and disingenuous response to being quoted is not really any surprise. Qasim Rashid has for years been a professional liar, a one-man cottage industry of deception and hypocrisy. He has whitewashed Muhammad’s support for torture and the reality of jihad violence and Sharia oppression; dissembled about the Qur’an’s sanction of deception of unbelievers; lied about the presence of violent passages in the Qur’an; lied about the Qur’an’s sanction of beating disobedient women; lied about the nature of Sharia; called for limitations on the freedom of speech and expression to outlaw behavior and speech some Muslims may find offensive; and lied about Muhammad’s stance toward the persecution of Christians. He has even blamed Christianity for Islam’s death penalty for blasphemy. He has also claimed that “the teachings of Islam could help us prevent more sexual abuse scandals.”
When challenged about the “facts” he has presented, Qasim Rashid (like virtually all other Islamic supremacists) responds with furious ad hominem contempt, but never answers the refutations of his articles on substantive grounds — because, of course, he cannot do so. Just as he has behaved now toward Richard Stuart. It’s characteristic of the dishonesty that has marked Qasim Rashid’s entire public career that he would sling multiple smears at his opponent and then claim he wasn’t going to respond at all.
If Qasim Rashid is elected to the State Senate in the state of Ralph Northam, he will fit right in.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member