Debbie Schlussel discovers Muslim Art Museum jihad plot
Posted Oct 21, 2012

Debbie Schlussel discovers Muslim Art Museum jihad plot

by Sheila Musaji


Sometimes it takes awhile to get to researching and responding to these crazy claims about devious Muslim plots simply because there are so many of them.  This one took a few weeks, but is pretty typical.

Debbie Schlussel wrote an article Vote NO on the Islamic Museum Tax whose title got my attention.  I was unaware that there was an Islamic Museum in Detroit, or anywhere else in the U.S. except for the privately funded International Museum of Muslim Cultures in Mississippi.  I was also unaware that there was any religious museum of any faith group that would be publicly funded or eligible for tax support. 

Schlussel says

Sharia fans are finding a way to make you pay taxes in the form of millages to art museums to promote Islam. And whether or not you live in Michigan, you should pay attention to the Detroit Institute of Arts millage vote which is on the ballot in Michigan’s primary, next Tuesday (August 7th). It’s a tax to help pay for expensive Korans and designs featuring the Shehadah, the Islamic oath of martyrdom uttered by Islamic terrorists, just before they murder Westerners.
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), unlike most other museums in North America, has a giant portion dedicated to a permanent and growing Islamic art collection. The collection consists mostly of Korans, expensive Koran pages, and other alleged forms of so-called “art” embracing and promoting Islamic shuras, pronouncements, and religious observances. None of the Koran pages (see photos below) is artistic in any way, shape, or form. They are just Arabic writings promoting Islam, the same Arabic writings that have promoted the mass murder of Non-Muslims for centuries. And here’s a tip: the DIA doesn’t have a Christian art collection. No permanent Jewish art display. No Hindu or Zoroastrian or Wiccan art collections. Just Islam. No other religion has a full-time curator dedicated to promoting its “art” at the DIA. But the DIA has a paid, full-time Islamic art expert on its staff, and she spends all of her time “curating” the collection.

Wow, there is a museum in Michigan has a collection of Islamic art, and no other religious art from any other religious group.  That sounded a little odd, so it seemed like a good idea to check out whether or not any of this was true.

The Detroit Institute of Arts has a webpage about its Arts of Asia and the Islamic World collection.  The intro says At present, the collections of the art of the Ancient Middle East and the Islamic World comprise some 1,300 objects, and the arts of Asia some 2,600 objects. Collecting in these fields began in Detroit in the 1890s, and continues today.  The Asian art collection includes Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, and other religious art.  Obviously, this plot has been a long time coming to fruition since the collection was begun in the 1890s - that’s 122 years that this plot has been hatching, and still the Muslims have only succeeded in forcing the acquisition of half as many art objects as those acquired for the Asian segment of the exhibit.

The museum also has a page about their other permanent collections, and they have special exhibits.  For example, a special exhibit earlier this year on Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus which the museum described as bringing together for the first time many of Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn’s finest paintings, prints and drawings that portray Jesus and events described in the Bible. The exhibition of 64 works includes approximately 52 small, intimate paintings, prints and drawings by Rembrandt and his students that illustrate how Rembrandt broke from traditional 17th-century representations of Jesus.  There was also another special exhibit in the DIA film theater on Jews and baseball: an American love story

Just looking through the permanent exhibits casually,  I found - Guillaume de Marcillat’s The Nativity **,  unknown artist The Lamentation **, and a list of 230 other Christian themed paintings and sculptures ** that are part of the permanent exhibits. 

This is yet another example of the Islamophobe’s penchant for seeing “Jihad” plots everywhere, particularly where they don’t exist.  Everything about this story was wrong. 

The election is over and the tax passed in three counties.  The tax by the way will support all of the museum’s collections, not just the Asian and Islamic World collection.