Eric Mudasi started off his tirade against Azam et al by echoing the infamous Islamophobic, Daniel Pipes' favourite line: that Jerusalem was not mentioned even o­nce in the Quran. Really?

I read the Quran and the place is mentioned plenty of times, though not by the name Jerusalem. If Eric doesn't understand Arabic, then I suggest that he reads Imran N Hosein's Jerusalem in the Quran which is in plain English. He is a renown Islamic scholar. Daniel Pipes is not. Not even of Judaism. Get your sources of inspiration from the appropriate channels.

Eric's calculation of the number of years Judaism preceded Islam and his historical arguments clearly showed that he does not know enough about the historical relationship of the three religions he mentioned.

For a start, the God of Abraham of the Jewish faith is the same o­ne that Muslims pray to. Surprised? It is not a question of which religion is older. We are all people of the book. The Jews' Torah, the Christians' Bible are predecessors to the Muslims' Quran. Read up more and you will discover how and at which point we differ. I recommend religious books rather than politics for such information.

We are not taught to hate Jews. We believe that the followers of Abraham after the split, amended some parts of the Torah. We believe that Zionism is the product of these neo-Israelites who are impostors and not the true believers of the God of Abraham. Try to understand the difference between Jews and Zionists.

We are against Zionism and all it stands for, not Jews in general. Just as you may hate the so-called Islamic terrorists for what you think they did to you, it is no basis to condemn Islam and Muslims.

Educated people know that Muslims pray facing Mecca. We do not pray with our back to Jerusalem. Since Muslims pray from all over the world and face o­nly o­ne direction, Mecca, your allegation is geographically impossible! Your insinuation is so idiotic, I o­nly favour you with a correction just so you realise your irrational state of mind.

Just so you know, the early Muslims first prayed facing the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. That's just how important the place is to us. After the Jews of Medina failed to recognise Muhammad (SAW ) as God's messenger even though it was predicted in the Torah, we parted ways and were ordained to face the Ka'aba in Mecca, among other changes.

By the way, the al-Aqsa was built by Solomon, a prophet of the Jews too. And David was our prophet too. Get the drift?

We do not accuse the Americans of being anti-Islam. We say that some aspects of American foreign policies, and some key people in the American administrations have been championing the cause of Israel at the expense of Muslim interests and even American interests.

There are plenty of irrational Muslims, just as there are plenty of irrational non-Muslims like Eric Mudasi, who speak o­n stuff they barely know about, and cause all these misunderstandings.

At the end of the day, the religion that defines humanity and godliness will be the o­ne that attracts others through the beauty of its teachings and practices, and not the animosity that it breeds.

Let's not generalise. I am a Malaysian Muslim. Do I sound like someone brought up to hate? But Eric Mudasi's letter smacked of bigotry-released. With defenders like Eric Mudasi, the Jews don't need enemies.