Robert Spencer: Anthony Weiner Likely Converted to Islam

FrontPage Magazine interviewed Jihad Watch's Robert Spencer about the percolating controversy over Huma Abedin's familial ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the narratives of the critics has been that such a scenario is the stuff of conspiracy theories. Is it conspiracy theory when three experts on Islam concur that there is strong evidence that Anthony Weiner converted to Islam so he could marry Abedin? The case is further bolstered by the fact that Huma's mother is beyond fundamentalist; she's a card carrying member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Spencer gave an interview to FPM's Jamie Glazov in which he said the following:

Jamie, Islamic law prohibits a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man. A Muslim man may marry a non-Muslim woman, but not the other way around. This is yet another manifestation of Islamic supremacism: the idea is that a wife will become a member of her husband’s household, and the children will follow the religion of the father. Thus, Muslim men marrying non-Muslim women ultimately enriches the Islamic community, while the non-Muslim community must forever be made to diminish.

Consequently, when a non-Muslim man begins a relationship with an observant Muslim woman, he is usually pressured to convert to Islam, and such conversion is made a condition of the marriage. Of course, laws are often honored in the breach, and this is not always true. So while we know that Huma Abedin’s parents were devout and observant Muslims — indeed, her father was an imam — we don’t know what exactly is going on with her marriage to Anthony Weiner.

Certainly the most likely scenario is that Weiner did convert to Islam, as Abedin’s mother, a professor in Saudi Arabia, would almost certainly have insisted that he do so. Weiner has made no public statement of this conversion, but since it would almost certainly have cost him politically if he had announced it, this silence is not any indication that he didn’t actually convert.

This is a huge rebuke to anyone who refers to those who make such a claim as being conspiratorial.

Spencer is not alone. Islamic expert Daniel Pipes also seems to concur that the marriage between Huma and Weiner is worth examining:

June 9, 2011 update: Speaking of non-Muslim men prominent in American politics who marry Muslim women, did Anthony Weiner, born Jewish, convert to Islam to marry Huma Abedin, a Muslim of South Asian origins? According to one account, he has accommodated his pious wife by "giving up drinking and even occasionally fasting in Ramadan." Ben Barrack marshalls evidence to suggest that he did at "Did Weiner Secretly Convert to Islam to Marry a Muslim?"

Regardless of how crazy such a possibility sounds, it's time for critics to look at facts and defer to experts before dismissing this.

Read Spencer's full Interview HERE.