In today’s New York Times, John M. Broder offers an interesting profile of Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles who has gained some notoriety—and enmity—for comments she made in an interview on Al Jazeera television last month. An excerpt of Broder’s article, entitled “Muslim’s Blunt Criticism of Islam Draws Threats,� follows:

In the interview…Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.

She said the world’s Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.

Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.

In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private….

Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, “The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.�

She went on, “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.�

She concluded, “Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them….â€?

Dr. Sultan grew up in a large traditional Muslim family in Banias, Syria, a small city on the Mediterranean about a two-hour drive north of Beirut. Her father was a grain trader and a devout Muslim, and she followed the faith’s strictures into adulthood.

But, she said, her life changed in 1979 when she was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At that time, the radical Muslim Brotherhood was using terrorism to try to undermine the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Gunmen of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said.

“They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, ‘God is great!’ � she said. “At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god.�

I cannot help but admire Dr. Sultan’s honesty and courage. The extremism and violence perpetuated not just by the Muslim world but by the Christian world (i.e., US), as well, are unconscionable and must be decried. Millions of innocents are caught in the crossfire. I am put in mind of a quote by the philosopher George Santayana, who a century ago remarked that “fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.� In response to such fanaticism—to which we now bear daily witness—we must redouble our own efforts to promote peace and compassion, to oppose injustice and intolerance, and to stand up and speak out at every turn. It is our right, and it is our obligation.