In response to Yvonne Ridley's scathing article directed at pop nasheed artists, brother Azhar Usman attempted a response before brother Sami Yusuf. Unlike the other letters I covered between brother Sami and sister Yvonne, brother Azhar's letter was plain…what's the word I'm looking for…um…fluffy (not to be confused with fluffers)? A lot of misinformation on sister Yvonne's conversion story, accusations of extremism, the cliched salafi burnout article (and where is the empirical data to back up any of the statements made in those articles? Oh yeah, there aren't any), an incomplete reading of sister Yvonne's article, and much more silliness. Was he trying to be funny? I hear his comedy shows are pretty good normally.
Anyway, here's his article along with sister Yvonne's much funnier and cutting response. In this case, I'd say from the tone of brother Azhar's article, he had it coming.
