On 25th September 2011, Emir Caner (brother of Ergun), delivered the sermon at Cresset Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina. We must understand that Ergun and Emir Caner are supposedly experts in the field of apologetics to Islam and thus, they know the do's and don’ts when it comes to presenting their faith to Muslims. In fact, these very two brothers are the same people who sat there with John Ankerberg and told the masses that it is of great importance that one does not offend the Muslim.





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However, within this recent sermon, Emir Caner, on no less than three occasions deliberately uttered words of offence directed at Muslims.





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As you just heard above, Emir Caner made the following statements:





1. “I now feel like a love-child between Mr. Clean and a Saudi woman”





To understand this “joke”, we must understand the context. Emir Caner until recently, had a full head of hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Whilst keeping his beard, he now sports the traditional Ergun look of a clean-shaven head as you can see from the following images.





Before:





After:









Mr. Clean is a cleaning product invented by Mr. Linwood Burton, a marine ship cleaning businessman. The logo of this brand is what Emir Caner is referring to; as you can see, Mr. Clean is a cheery bald gentleman who likes to clean:









We now understand that Emir Caner intended to draw a similitude between his new “hairstyle” and that of Mr. Clean’s. But what does he mean when he says that he now feels “like a love-child between Mr. Clean and a Saudi woman”? The only possible “similitude” that he was alluding to was his beard. In essence, Emir is saying that Saudi women have facial hair.









2. “they wouldn’t take me real hunting, I don’t know if it was because I was a former Muslim they wouldn’t put a gun in my hand, not sure why that was”





Here we have Emir implying that Muslims cannot be trusted with guns. By saying this, he is giving in to the typical anti-Islamic media stereotype of Muslims being terrorists; after all, this is what almost all of their followers are taught. He fails to realise the epidemic proportion of gun crime in the US and instead, makes jokes about how we Muslims cannot be trusted with guns. Clearly, he intended to make a light hearted joke to soften the audience before he properly delves into the sermon, but is this kind of a joke really necessary when one seriously looks at the reality of what he is saying?









3. “how is someone whose name is Emir Fethi Caner....how do you suppose I go in to the White County Gun Shop and obtain a weapon? What am I supposed to do, go in there and say ‘i’d like a gun and maybe a pilots licence as well’?”





Similar to the former “joke”, Emir is implying that Muslims are those people who cannot be trusted with guns. To further the insult, he has a dig at the poor families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 atrocities by saying that he may as well ask for a “pilots licence as well”. Although his intention was to mock the Muslims, to “joke” about how simple it is to attain a gun and then specifically mention a pilots licence is just insensitive to say the least; particularly to those affected by the 9/11 attacks. To put it simply, he is saying that Muslims not only are not to be trusted with a gun, but also with a plane.





One may assume that I am taking these “jokes” to heart unnecessarily and yes, I do not blame one for thinking that. But one must also understand that the field within which they work (apologetics to Islam) means that the last thing they would want to do is mock us. And not only mock us with things that we Muslim legitimately believe or adhere to, but to be picking at the media generated stereotype makes it clear that they have no real desire to “save Muslims”. Do you make fun of people who you want to save?





These “jokes” yet again expose the hypocrisy of the Caner brothers and their supposed desire to save the Muslim world. Looking at chapter 16 (Inside the Muslim: Earning A Hearing And Winning A Soul) of their award winning book Unveiling Islam they go on to talk about the aspect of being “well-intentioned and offensive” when delivering the Gospel to Muslims:





“We've all heard of these tales wherein a Christian, motivated to share the gospel with a certain people group or culture, negates his or her witness by somehow OFFENDING the culture, heritages of practices of that group. Although the person is well-intentioned, he or she ruins the opportunity by some oversight or misstatement and must begin again BY APOLOGIZING AND REBUILDING TRUST” (page 223)



