When lady justice comes, sometimes it is by a path one might not expect.
Dr. Ingrid Mattson a convert to Islam and former President of the Islamic Society of North America, has lost a major libel lawsuit in Canada. What makes this so significant for me is that I was one of her students:
Dr. Ingrid Mattson, former longstanding senior functionary of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), launched her proceeding – judged meritless by The Lawfare Project – against David B. Harris, a lawyer and one of Canada’s leading terrorism experts. But Harris, a recent witness before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee, never relented in his refusal to withdraw a public characterization of Mattson as “radical,” nor would he offer apologies, damages, or costs. This forced Mattson, likely fearing what a full legal-disclosure process would reveal, to give up all her demands. In a stunning reversal, and despite her claim of grave reputational damage, Mattson recently agreed to have the Superior Court of Ontario dismiss her own suit.
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Dr. Mattson was the Islamic Society of North America’s president when her organization was designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful Holy Land Foundationprosecution, which involved allegations of the funding of Hamas, the U.S.- and Canadian-designated terrorist organization. Although neither Mattson nor ISNA were charged in the matter, Mattson’s extensive, longstanding connections with disturbing Islamist individuals and entities, like ISNA and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), have been a source of dismay for counter-terrorism specialists and moderate Muslims alike. Mattson occupies the radical-funded London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College (HUC), Ontario, an affiliate of the University of Western Ontario. Both the creation of the Chair, and Mattson’s appointment to it, caused an uproar.
I studied at Hartford Seminary and graduated in 2010 with my MA in Islamic Studies. Dr. Mattson was a professor while I was there, and she was one of the schools “star” professors there, presiding over the Muslim World journal and the schools MacDonald Center for Islamic Studies.
The MacDonald Center was named in honor of Duncan Black MacDonald, a Scottish Presbytarian minister who brought the discipline of Islamic Studies to Hartford Seminary during the late 19th century and during his tenure transformed the school into both the first school to specialize in Islamic Studies in the USA as well as to make it the center for Protestant missions to the Middle East (the Catholic missions went through one of the religious orders, such as the Franciscans or the Dominicans). That the Muslim World journal was founded in 1911 by the Protestant Rev. Samuel M. Zwemer, who was a prolific writer, scholar, and missionary to Muslims whose zeal for the Gospel was as strong as his eloquent and pointed disdain for Islam and its perverse founder. As you can see, the irony of Dr. Mattson’s position was sickening. Here was a Muslim woman – and Catholic apostate, I add- who was given charge and presided over the continual and fundamental transformation of Hartford Seminary as a school for Protestant missions to the Muslim world and the Journal as the intellectual arm of that same school into a school that would send out Muslim missionaries to convert Christians with the Journal now serving the cause of propagating Islam.
Protestantism was always regarded by the Catholic Church as a heresy. As the great saints and many writers have pointed out, Islam is merely a Christian heresy but a very advanced and indeed the final perfection of that same heresy. Thus one must logically conclude on this reasoning that Protestantism is an early form of Islamization, and in this sense Hartford Seminary had fully completed its journey full heresy unto apostasy from the very same faith it was created to propagate, and the whole journey only took 100 years.
I enjoyed my time at Hartford Seminary, but it was not without difficulty. I was not liked by many professors on account of my views (as I have articulated through my articles here on Shoebat.com), and sometimes I found myself in situations where I was not just regarded as an outcast, but also in potential physical harm from the Muslim students with little to no support from the school, save for a few people. I eventually wrote about my experience for the Academic Questions Journal, which is put out by National Review, where I detailed my experiences. One of those experiences I had involved Dr. Mattson, who I had as professor for a class on reading ancient Islamic texts:
I realized that my beliefs were strongly different from those of the majority of HS students and professors, but I did not fully internalize the extent of it until two incidents occurred in early 2009. It began when I sent a private email to a blogger friend in which I mentioned Dr. Ingrid Mattson, then president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and a professor I had for a class. My email referred to recent events in the news surrounding Dr. Mattson, ISNA, and its indictment by the federal government over terrorism charges.
What happened next I did not expect. My friend published my email online, with neither my knowledge nor my consent. I was not aware of this until I was asked to come to the office of the dean of students. The dean presented me with the email’s text, and I was immediately accused of racism, bigotry, and spreading hatred of Muslims, none of which is true. I maintained my composure, but internally I was furious, because this was the same faculty member to whom I had made appeals after being harassed and discriminated against by fellow students who were Muslim and by professors because of my differing beliefs and opinions. When I asked the dean if he, Dr. Mattson, and I could meet to discuss these accusations, I was told that she was “uncomfortable discussing them with me,” and that no meeting would be possible. I was permanently barred from the MacDonald Center for Islamic Studies and told not to contact Dr. Mattson.
A few weeks after this incident I submitted for review my original master’s thesis, written on the concept of human dignity in Islamic theology. My advisor at the time was a Jewish professor known for his work in interfaith relations with Muslims. About a week later he called and asked to meet with me at the seminary. He began our meeting by repeatedly asking me if I “hate Muslims,” “feel angry towards Muslims,” am “uncomfortable with Islam,” and many other questions. All the questions had the underlying theme of attempting to link my disagreement with Islamic theology in my thesis to a personal hatred of Muslims. I repeatedly explained to him that I do not hate Muslims, and that my views on Islam are borne out of Islamic theological teachings, not personal experience. After two hours of discussion, he returned my thesis to me, looked me in the eye, and said that he could not accept it and that “the Muslims will not accept it.” I asked him to explain his statement, and he told me that I made “the Muslims feel uncomfortable”—although he would not specify who “the Muslims” were.
This incident happened back in 2009. If it were not for the efforts of a current professor and personal friend (whose name I shall not mention) who came to my assistance, it is probable that I would have been expelled for the “crime” of “insulting Islam.”
I remember thinking how ironic this was in light of the fact that I was threatened with bodily harm, I was told that I was the problem. How I saw Muslims of different sects threaten each other with physical harm in class and it was never spoken again, reminiscent of the memory hole from George Orwell’s dystopic novel 1984. How Muslim students openly discriminated against non-Muslim students in how they spoke to and treated them, and not only was it never discussed, but the veneer of “peace” and “tolerance” was promoted at all cost. How Hartford Seminary hired a professor who is still employed there who ‘conincidentally’ translated a 14th century Islamic writing on the merits of murdering monks right after the murder of six Catholic Trappist monks in 1996 at Tibhirine, Algeria, and who also has an open, virulent, and brutally condescending view of Christianity and Christians as well as less-than-orthodox Muslims (I know well, because I had this professor for a class and he and I clashed on more than one occasion over this).
Dr. Mattson’s involvement in Islamic affairs at Hartford Seminary and what was discussed in the article was only the proverbial “tip of the iceberg,” since I had come to know her from personal experience. While what I say solely comes from my experiences alone with her, I recall that it was fascinating to see how deep her ties are in the Muslim community, much more so than is discussed, into many different things and in different ways. Some of these included with businesses, mosques, persons, education, politics, international as well as local incidents. Even so, there is likely still far more which has yet to be revealed.
I am glad to see this, and not because of my experience, but because she is an active, living threat to the existence of the Western world. The only institute she belongs in, in my opinion, is the local penitentiary for treason in the name of Islam against the very society she was born into and the very God she was taught to worship but later exchanged for Allah.