In a post on her personal website, conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel used the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs, who she called a “genius,” to make a wide-ranging attack on Islam and Muslims. Responding to emails she said she's been getting claiming that “Steve Jobs was a Muslim,” Schlussel wrote:
Ever since Jobs announced his resignation from Apple, they sent me the claims. Here's a tip, Muslims: Steve Jobs was a Buddhist.
Yes, technically, according to Islamic law, Jobs would be considered a Muslim, just as Barack Obama would. His biological father was a Syrian graduate student (in the U.S. on a student visa) who impregnated an American Christian grad student. They eventually married, but after Jobs was given up for adoption. The Syrian, Abdulfattah John Jandali, is now, at age 80, Vice President of a Nevada casino, so he's clearly not a religious Muslim. And Jandali never met Jobs nor did he even know Jobs was his son until a few years ago.
Jobs was raised by Paul and Clara Jobs. Steven Jobs was never raised with any connection to Islam, Syria, or Arabs. He never made any connection with or outreach to these groups later in life when he could have and was trying to reconnect with his past. Jobs never made an appearance at a mosque, never cited the Koran, never identified with Islam or Arabia in any way. Never uttered a single sentence or phrase in the lingua franca of their extremist politics.
It's a safe bet that if Steven Jobs had been raised as an Arab Muslim, there would be no Apple. Not even Al-Apple. And a lot of great inventions that made our lives better and more enjoyable would never have happened. Jobs' story is the success of American capitalism. And it's about the kind of innovation and technological spirit that only happens in two countries in the world: the U.S. and Israel. This story would never have happened in Syria, pre- or post-Arab Spring.
Schlussel has a long history of anti-Muslim rhetoric:
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