Jihad Watch

Qur'an 4:34: "Good women are obedient...." And it's just downhill from there. The letter and spirit of Qur'an 4:34 open the door for attempting to control women with violence in Muslim households: Allah says you can hit if you feel you need to.

Authorities did not help Shafilea Ahmed. In 2003, she told them: "My parents are going to send me to Pakistan and I'll be married to someone and left there." (The mention of the prospective groom being a cousin is also at the preceding link.)

The problem of forced marriages has since gained greater recognition in the U.K., but a day late and a pound sterling short for Shafiliea, whose body was found dumped months after she died from being "strangled or smothered."

"Parents held over death of Shafilea Ahmed," from BBC News, September 2:

The parents of so-called "honour killing" victim Shafilea Ahmed have been arrested on suspicion of her murder, police sources have said.

Shafilea went missing from her home in Warrington in September 2003, aged 17. Her decomposed body was found in the River Kent in Cumbria in January 2004.

A coroner ruled in 2008 she had been unlawfully killed. No-one has ever been charged with her murder.

Iftikhar, 50, and Faranza Ahmed, 47, were arrested in Warrington earlier.

There is a police presence outside the family home in Great Sankey, Warrington.

Police have previously arrested the couple on suspicion of kidnapping, believing it was a so-called "honour killing", but the Crown Prosecution Service later concluded there was insufficient evidence.

'Vile murder'

Five other family members, from Bradford, were also arrested but never charged.

The family have always denied any involvement in the schoolgirl's murder.

Shafilea went missing on 11 September 2003. She was reported missing by a teacher a week later.

East and South Cumbria Coroner Ian Smith, who presided over Shafilea's inquest, said the teenager suffered a "vile murder".

He said the concept of an arranged marriage was central to Shafilea's death.

A medical expert told the hearing the schoolgirl had been smothered or strangled.

The coroner said he believed she was taken from her home on 11 September 2003 and that she had not run away.

Drunk bleach

The Muslim teenager feared she was being forced into an arranged marriage by her mother and father, the inquest heard.

A few months before she was killed, Shafilea had refused an arranged marriage, and, during a visit to Pakistan to meet a prospective husband, had drunk bleach.

In his evidence to the inquest, Mr Ahmed said an arranged marriage would need the consent of the young people involved.

He said he accepted his daughter's reply of "no way" when a potential suitor was mentioned....

The WSJ asked Anwar Ibrahim, Bernard Lewis, Ed Husain, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Tawfik Hamid and Akbar Ahmed to reflect on the nature that ever-elusive unicorn, moderate Islam."A Symposium: What Is Moderate Islam?," from the Wall Street Journal, September 1 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia's opposition leader, makes this admission:

Skeptics and cynics alike have said that the quest for the moderate Muslim in the 21st century is akin to the search for the Holy Grail. It's not hard to understand why. Terrorist attacks, suicide bombings and the jihadist call for Muslims "to rise up against the oppression of the West" are widespread.

The radical fringe carrying out such actions has sought to dominate the discourse between Islam and the West. In order to do so, they've set out to foment anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. They've also advocated indiscriminate violence as a political strategy. To cap their victory, this abysmal lot uses the cataclysm of 9/11 as a lesson for the so-called enemies of Islam.

Countering this, he invokes the undeniable existence of Muslims who are just trying to live ordinary lives:

These are the Muslims who go about their lives like ordinary people--earning their livings, raising their families, celebrating reunions and praying for security and peace. These are the Muslims who have never carried a pocketknife, let alone explosives intended to destroy buildings. These Muslims are there for us to see, if only we can lift the veil cast on them by the shadowy figures in bomb-laden jackets hell-bent on destruction.

In the end he does not posit the existence of a Moderate Islam, but calls for its creation:

Yet Muslims must do more than just talk about their great intellectual and cultural heritage. We must be at the forefront of those who reject violence and terrorism. And our activism must not end there. The tyrants and oppressive regimes that have been the real impediment to peace and progress in the Muslim world must hear our unanimous condemnation. The ball is in our court.

The renowned scholar Bernard Lewis makes a similar admission:

A form of moderation has been a central part of Islam from the very beginning. True, Muslims are nowhere commanded to love their neighbors, as in the Old Testament, still less their enemies, as in the New Testament. But they are commanded to accept diversity, and this commandment was usually obeyed. The Prophet Muhammad's statement that "difference within my community is part of God's mercy" expressed one of Islam's central ideas, and it is enshrined both in law and usage from the earliest times.

However, he then trots out the familiar claim that historically Muslims were more tolerant than Christians:

This principle created a level of tolerance among Muslims and coexistence between Muslims and others that was unknown in Christendom until after the triumph of secularism. Diversity was legitimate and accepted. Different juristic schools coexisted, often with significant divergences.

Even if this is true, and there is a lot of evidence that it isn't (why were 17 million Jews living in Europe and only one million in the Islamic world at the dawn of the twentieth century?), it establishes nothing. Laws of any kind can and will be relaxed, ignored, and broken. But if they remain on the books, they will likely be enforced again by someone with the will to do so. And so if Islam has no command to love one's neighbor, Muslims will generally not be loving to their neighbors, except when human nature gets the better of what they're taught.

Even after retailing this soothing nonsense, Lewis tells the truth:

For the moment, there does not seem to be much prospect of a moderate Islam in the Muslim world. This is partly because in the prevailing atmosphere the expression of moderate ideas can be dangerous--even life-threatening. Radical groups like al Qaeda and the Taliban, the likes of which in earlier times were at most minor and marginal, have acquired a powerful and even a dominant position.

But for Muslims who seek it, the roots are there, both in the theory and practice of their faith and in their early sacred history.

In that, Lewis contradicts his earlier statement. Practice, yes. Theory, no. As Lewis himself pointed out.

Then Ed Husain, who is just another deceiver, chimes in with a tissue of detours entitled "Don't Call Me Moderate, Call Me Normal":

[...] The Prophet Muhammad warned us against ghuluw, or extremism, in religion. The Quran reinforces the need for qist, or balance. For me, Islam at its essence is the middle way in all matters. This is normative Islam, adhered to by a billion normal Muslims across the globe.

Normative Islam is inherently pluralist. It is supported by 1,000 years of Muslim history in which religious freedom was cherished. The claim, made today by the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia, that they represent God's will expressed through their version of oppressive Shariah law is a modern innovation.

The classical thinking within Islam was to let a thousand flowers bloom. Ours is not a centralized tradition, and Islam's rich diversity is a legacy of our pluralist past.

Nothing about dhimmitude. Nothing about the deprivations, discrimination and harassment suffered by non-Muslims in Islamic societies for centuries. For a corrective, complete with numerous primary source documents showing what actually went on behind the facade of Islam's history of "pluralism," see Bat Ye'or's Islam and Dhimmitude and The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam.

Reuel Marc Gerecht then explains that "moderate Islam is the faith practiced by the parents of my Pakistani British roommate at the University of Edinburgh--and, no doubt, by the great majority of Muslim immigrants to Europe and the United States." They were very nice to him, you see, and were "devout Muslims." He confuses, as do so many, the individual practitioner of the religion with the teachings of the religion itself. Yet people behave in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons; the behavior of any given Muslim no more changes the teachings of Islam than the behavior of a non-practicing Catholic means that the Catholic Church doesn't teach what it teaches.

Only Tawfik Hamid gets to the heart of the matter:

Moderate Islam should be defined as a form of Islam that rejects these violent and discriminatory edicts. Furthermore, it must provide a strong theological refutation for the mainstream Islamic teaching that the Muslim umma (nation) must declare wars against non-Muslim nations, spreading the religion and giving non-Muslims the following options: convert, pay a humiliating tax, or be killed. This violent concept fuels jihadists, who take the teaching literally and accept responsibility for applying it to the modern world.

Moderate Islam must not be passive. It needs to actively reinterpret the violent parts of the religious text rather than simply cherry-picking the peaceful ones. Ignoring, rather than confronting or contextualizing, the violent texts leaves young Muslims vulnerable to such teachings at a later stage in their lives.

Finally, moderate Islam must powerfully reject the barbaric practices of jihadists. Ideally, this would mean Muslims demonstrating en masse all over the world against the violence carried out in the name of their religion.

Moderate Islam must be honest enough to admit that Islam has been used in a violent manner at several stages in history to seek domination over others. Insisting that all acts in Islamic history and all current Shariah teachings are peaceful is a form of deception that makes things worse by failing to acknowledge the existence of the problem.

Ed Husain just above is an example of the tendency Hamid refers to here.

Akbar Ahmed, following Hamid, is smooth but empty. And so after all that, what is moderate Islam? None of these analysts seem to know, or to be able to point to it. One would think that would lead to some rather obvious conclusions for the WSJ, the nation, and the world. But it doesn't.

When in Muslim countries, you must conform your behavior to Islamic mores. When in non-Muslim countries, you must conform your behavior to Islamic mores. "USA Defeats Iran In Basketball, Cheerleaders Cover Up In 'Nod To Islam," by Dan Fogarty in Sports Grid, September 1 (thanks to Twostellas):

USA defeated Iran in basketball today, which comes as a surprise to no one. What may raise a few eyebrows: team dancers were forced to wear long pants in a "nod to Muslim law." [...]

One interesting tidbit that arose from the game: the cheerleaders were forced to cover up.

[In} a nod to the Iranian supporters in Istanbul -- which included minister of sports Ali Saeedlou earlier in the tournament -- dancers were ordered to cover up for their performances during the game. Islam prohibits women from exposing their skin in public, and Iranian officials had turned their backs when the dancers performed in earlier games.

The dancers wore long pants Wednesday.

This isn't the first time basketball was deprived of gyrating women during timeouts and intermissions at the world championships. In both games played by host country Turkey, dancers were forbidden from even coming out on the court. Oh public outcry over lack of sexy basketball dancers in Muslim countries, where are you?!

Right here.

More tendentious, misleading and false information from yet another blinkered ideologue given a platform in a major "news" source. "Five myths about mosques in America," by Edward E. Curtis IV in the Washington Post, August 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

In addition to spawning passionate debates in the public, the news media and the political class, the proposal to build a Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York has revealed widespread misconceptions about the practice of Islam in this country -- and the role of mosques in particular.

1. Mosques are new to this country.

Mosques have been here since the colonial era. A mosque, or masjid, is literally any place where Muslims make salat, the prayer performed in the direction of Mecca; it needn't be a building. One of the first mosques in North American history was on Kent Island, Md.: Between 1731 and 1733, African American Muslim slave and Islamic scholar Job Ben Solomon, a cattle driver, would regularly steal away to the woods there for his prayers -- in spite of a white boy who threw dirt on him as he made his prostrations....

See, folks? Curtis is here semaphoring that Muslims are a victim class, that they always have been, and that opposition to them is racially-based. As for Job Ben Solomon, I suspect that Curtis's source here is a Muslim one, designed to reinforce a sense that Muslims are victims rather than tell actual history. The story is curiously reminiscent of this one about Muhammad:

Narrated 'Abdullah bin Mas'ud:

Once the Prophet was offering prayers at the Ka'ba. Abu Jahl was sitting with some of his companions. One of them said to the others, "Who amongst you will bring the abdominal contents (intestines, etc.) of a camel of Bani so and so and put it on the back of Muhammad, when he prostrates?" The most unfortunate of them got up and brought it. He waited till the Prophet prostrated and then placed it on his back between his shoulders. I was watching but could not do any thing. I wish I had some people with me to hold out against them. They started laughing and falling on one another. Allah's Apostle was in prostration and he did not lift his head up till Fatima (Prophet's daughter) came and threw that (camel's abdominal contents) away from his back. He raised his head and said thrice, "O Allah! Punish Quraish." So it was hard for Abu Jahl and his companions when the Prophet invoked Allah against them as they had a conviction that the prayers and invocations were accepted in this city (Mecca). The Prophet said, "O Allah! Punish Abu Jahl, 'Utba bin Rabi'a, Shaiba bin Rabi'a, Al-Walid bin 'Utba, Umaiya bin Khalaf, and 'Uqba bin Al Mu'it (and he mentioned the seventh whose name I cannot recall). By Allah in Whose Hands my life is, I saw the dead bodies of those persons who were counted by Allah's Apostle in the Qalib (one of the wells) of Badr.

Back to the WaPo. Their second "myth" is really a whopper:

2. Mosques try to spread sharia law in the United States.

In Islam, sharia ("the Way" to God) theoretically governs every human act. But Muslims do not agree on what sharia says; there is no one sharia book of laws. Most mosques in America do not teach Islamic law for a simple reason: It's too complicated for the average believer and even for some imams.

The Saudi, Iranian and Sudanese authorities don't seem to have notable trouble sorting it out. In any case, the idea that Sharia is some complex and nebulous collection of arcana is a myth that is growing increasingly popular as Islamic supremacists try to advance Sharia in the U.S. In reality, "the four Sunni schools of Islamic law, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali, are identical in approximately 75 percent of their legal conclusions..." ('Umdat al-Salik, p. vii). Islamic law regarding the stoning of adulterers, the amputation of the hand for theft, the institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims, is not hard to understand, and is not subject to notable disagreement.

Anyway, what do mosques in America teach? As long ago as January 1999, the Naqshbandi Sufi leader Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani declared in a State Department Open Forum that Islamic supremacists controlled most mosques in America: "The most dangerous thing that is going on now in these mosques," he said, "that has been sent upon these mosques around the United States - like churches they were established by different organizations and that is ok - but the problem with our communities is the extremist ideology. Because they are very active they took over the mosques; and we can say that they took over more than 80% of the mosques that have been established in the US. And there are more than 3000 mosques in the US. So it means that the methodology or ideology of extremism has been spread to 80% of the Muslim population, but not all of them agree with it."

Terrorism expert Yehudit Barsky affirmed the same thing in 2005, saying that 80% of the mosques in this country "have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence." The Center for Religious Freedom found in 2005 a massive distribution of hateful jihadist and Islamic supremacist material in mosques in this country. And in June 2008 federal investigators found that the Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia, despite promises to stop teaching such material, was still using books that advocated that apostates from Islam be executed and that it was permissible for Muslims to kill and seize the property of "polytheists."

WaPo:

Islamic law includes not only the Koran and the Sunna (the traditions of the prophet Muhammad) but also great bodies of arcane legal rulings and pedantic scholarly interpretations. If mosques forced Islamic law upon their congregants, most Muslims would probably leave -- just as most Christians might walk out of the pews if preachers gave sermons exclusively on Saint Augustine, canon law and Greek grammar. Instead, mosques study the Koran and the Sunna and how the principles and stories in those sacred texts apply to their everyday lives....

This is just silly. Christian preachers may convey the substance of what is contained in "Saint Augustine, canon law and Greek grammar" in simplified form in their sermons if they choose to do so. So also may Muslim preachers convey in simplified form the content of Sharia if they so choose. In any case, "if anyone changes his religion, kill him" (a statement of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and a universal among the schools of Islamic law) is not really all that arcane.

4. Mosques are funded by groups and governments unfriendly to the United States.

There certainly have been instances in which foreign funds, especially from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region, have been used to build mosques in the United States. The Saudi royal family, for example, reportedly gave $8 million for the building of the King Fahd Mosque, which was inaugurated in 1998 in Culver City, a Los Angeles suburb.

Apparently the WaPo is admitting here that the Saudi government is unfriendly to the United States.

But the vast majority of mosques are supported by Muslim Americans themselves. Domestic funding reflects the desire of many U.S. Muslims to be independent of overseas influences. Long before Sept. 11, 2001, in the midst of a growing clash of interests between some Muslim-majority nations and the U.S. government -- during the Persian Gulf War, for instance -- Muslim American leaders decided that they must draw primarily from U.S. sources of funding for their projects.

In reality, it is estimated that as many as 80% of mosques in America are Saudi funded.

5. Mosques lead to homegrown terrorism.

To the contrary, mosques have become typical American religious institutions. In addition to worship services, most U.S. mosques hold weekend classes for children, offer charity to the poor, provide counseling services and conduct interfaith programs.

No doubt, some mosques have encouraged radical extremism. Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian sheik who inspired the World Trade Center's first attackers in 1993, operated out of the Al-Salam mosque in Jersey City, N.J. But after the 2001 attacks, such radicalism was largely pushed out of mosques and onto the Internet, mainly because of a renewed commitment among mosque leaders to confront extremism.

There is a danger that as anti-Muslim prejudice increases -- as it has recently in reaction to the proposed community center near Ground Zero -- alienated young Muslims will turn away from the peaceful path advocated by their elders in America's mosques. So far, that has not happened on a large scale.

Through their mosques, U.S. Muslims are embracing the community involvement that is a hallmark of the American experience. In this light, mosques should be welcomed as premier sites of American assimilation, not feared as incubators of terrorist indoctrination.
sion.

All right, so some mosques promote "radical extremism," and some don't, and since some don't, mosques should not be "feared as incubators of terrorist indoctrination," despite the fact that "alienated young Muslims" might "turn away from the peaceful path advocated by their elders in America's mosques" in their rage over "Islamophobia."

Funny how no amount of rage would ever lead me to blow myself up in a crowded restaurant. But that's just me.

More duplicity and deception from this vaunted "moderate." "Questions Raised About Rauf's Nonexistent Mosque," from IPT News, September 1:

The federal government considers the Muslim group founded by Ground Zero Mosque leader Feisal Abdul Rauf to be a tax-exempt church. But federal records show the group obtained that status by claiming to hold prayer services for up to 500 people in a Manhattan apartment building that has no space to hold that many people.

The application for tax exempt status from the American Sufi Muslim Association (ASMA) in 1998 claimed the group had an established place of worship at 201 W. 85th St. in New York. That is a 17-floor apartment building.

The 1998 tax filing, called a 1023 form, is required for any institution that wants to be considered a religious house of worship and therefore exempt from taxation. In the filing, Rauf is identified as ASMA's founder. The application said the group was already operating as a prayer center for between 450 and 500 daily worshipers.

However, a review of the building and real estate records indicates there is nowhere in the building to house that many congregants. ASMA lists its office address as 201 W. 85th St., Apt. 10E on the tax form, while it cites only the building address as its location for prayer services.

The building has apartments only and no public spaces, such as a conference or a board room, to accommodate 450 people. Apartment 10E, building records show, is a one-bedroom apartment with about 800 square feet of living space. In the 1997 incorporation records filed with the state of New York, Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, was named as an ASMA director living at that address.

But when ASMA filed for its church status with the IRS, Khan was no longer listed as a director. Instead, Rauf signed the form that said ASMA's address was the same as Khan's apartment - 201 W. 85^th St., Apt. 10E....

Read it all.

Feisal Abdul Rauf at this point perhaps wishes he had never come up with his slyly all-things-to-all-men triumphalist mosque, and no doubt wishes as well that he had never gotten himself involved with fellow slumlord, the far cruder and more obviously bullying Sharif El-Gamal. Feisal Abdul Rauf has a marvelous ability to personally ingratiate himself with the likes of Mayor Bloomberg, and others who, protected by their vast fortunes or power, are used to the ingratiating, and are unable to distinguish the oily sycophantic creature oozing deep sincerity from the honest underling willing to speak the truth even to such an imperious man, unused to being challenged by any of those under him, as Michael Bloomberg, with his sixteen billion dollars. Why, just imagine someone telling Bill Gates that his business practices left much to be desired, or that much of what the Gates Foundation was supporting wasn't worth supporting, but merely fed his ego.

And what must now pain Feisal Abdul Rauf is the thoroughness of those who have decided to examine his beliefs, by tracking the trail he has left, both orally and in writing, on his Islamic path, fi sabil Allah. What do we know, so far, about Feisal Abdul Rauf? Not who does he know, who has been involved in this project, such as the doubtful Mr. Qadhi, and a dozen others, but what he, Feisal Abdul Rauf, believes in. What does he believe in? To hear some tell it, he's a 100-percent American, flag-waving and deeply loyal to this country. But those people have failed to understand what Feisal Abdul Rauf believes in, and where his loyalties - his sole loyalties - lie. Feisal Abdul Rauf believes devoutly in Islam, and in the Holy Law of Islam, the Shari'a. He believes that Muslims in America are free to promote Islam without fear of the kind of repression that the police-states of Egypt (Feisal Abdul Rauf's native land) and Kuwait (where Feisal Abdul Rauf spent years) impose on those who are Muslims. And they impose it not only on those who are Muslim, but upon those whose political opposition to the rulers necessarily is expressed in terms that make sense to Muslims, the only terms that really make sense to Muslims: to accuse those rulers and those regimes of behaving not "unjustly" or "corruptly," but rather un-Islamically.

In America, with its easygoing tolerance, Muslims such as Feisal Abdul Rauf are free to work, to exploit our hard-won guarantees of individual freedoms - freedoms such as those of speech and conscience that could not for one minute have been developed in the Muslim-ruled lands, and that would not last, for one minute, in this country if Feisal Abdul Rauf were to attain his wish, and the Shari'a, that codification of Islamic law that he finds so thoroughly winning and convincing, were to be imposed.

No worries -- no doubt they mean the mosque (which will of course be called Mandi Bhawaldin 51) to be a gesture of interfaith harmony, reconciliation and peace! Maybe it will even be a community center, with a gym and a swimming pool! "Muslims Resume Building on Christian Graveyard in Pakistan," from Compass Direct News, September 1:

SARGODHA, Pakistan, September 1 (CDN) -- Muslims led by a hard-line cleric on Friday (Aug. 27) resumed building on a Christian cemetery in Mandi Bhawaldin, desecrating more graves in spite of a local government order to halt construction, according to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA).

Radical Muslim cleric Mirza Abdul Ghani had built a mosque on the Christian graveyard off New Rasool Road in Mandi Bhawaldin after allegedly occupying the land 16 years ago, when area Christians were too intimidated to object, said Salamat Zia of APMA.

"No one could object to the construction of the mosque, as it is in the constitution of Pakistan that no religious worship place could be demolished," said Zia. "Therefore all the Christians remained silent then."

The cleric's alleged desecration of more of the graveyard land around the Masjid Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat mosque began three months ago, Zia said.

"This Christian graveyard was earmarked before the Indo-Pakistan partition on Aug. 14, 1947," Zia added, "and their forefathers were buried there." [...]

Khalid Gill, chief organizer of APMA in Punjab Province, said that Muslim leaders threatened Christians who objected to the construction.

"They threatened that in case Christians protested against the resumption of construction they would also carry out a protest rally against Christians, and Muslim clerics said Christians would be responsible for the consequences," Gill said....

Shades of Sharif El-Gamal.

"You're going to hell," said his victim, but it is likely that Salim believes Allah will reward him for his deed. "Ex-bin Laden aide gets life for NY prison stabbing," by Larry Neumeister for Associated Press, August 31:

NEW YORK (AP) -- A former Osama bin Laden aide who stabbed a federal prison guard in the eye was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison after telling the court he's not a terrorist and hearing his victim tell him he will go to hell.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts said Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, 52, deserved a life sentence for his "unusually cruel, brutal" attack in 2000 on guard Louis Pepe at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan. She ordered Salim to pay $4.72 million in restitution to cover the medical expenses for Pepe's continuing rehabilitation.

The stabbing left Pepe brain-damaged and blind in one eye. The sentence caused Pepe's sister, Eileen Trotta, to thrust her fists in the air enthusiastically and to pat Pepe on the back. More than a half-dozen guards who watched the proceeding congratulated a smiling Pepe afterward as he rolled his wheelchair out of court. [...]

Pepe told Salim that he can't walk anymore and it's difficult to talk. He also told Salim that Salim's not going to be a martyr.

"You're going to hell," he said. [...]

Salim spoke in English, saying: "I'm not a criminal. I'm not a terrorist." He said the stabbing occurred on Nov. 1, 2000, as he was trying to get to his defense lawyers to force them out of the case because he believed they were federal agents. He sought a set of keys from Pepe to enter a room where the lawyers were waiting for him.

He sprayed Pepe with hot sauce to blind him before stabbing him in the eye with a sharpened comb he had hidden in his cell in a high-security wing of the federal lockup next to federal court. He has said he intended to stab the lawyers so they could no longer represent him.

At the time, Salim was awaiting trial on a conspiracy charge after his arrest in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. The attacks killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans.

Salim said he requested not to be taken to court Tuesday because he gets beaten by guards whenever he is moved from one prison to another.

Of Pepe, Salim said: "If the victim here wants to take my eye, let him take my eye. If he wants to take my hand, let him take my hand."...

This is in accord with the Qur'anic dictum: "We ordained therein for them: 'Life for life, eye for eye, nose or nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal.' But if any one remits the retaliation by way of charity, it is an act of atonement for himself. And if any fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (No better than) wrong-doers." (5:45)

It just happens that the mysterious gas only appears at girls' schools -- and that the Taliban have been fierce opponents of the education of girls. "Gas Sickened Girls in Afghan Schools," by Rod Nordland for the New York Times, August 31:

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Blood tests have confirmed that a mysterious series of cases of mass sickness at girls' schools across the country over the last two years were caused by a powerful poison gas, an Afghan official said Tuesday. [...]

Many local officials had dismissed the cases as episodes of mass hysteria provoked by acid and arson attacks on schoolgirls by Taliban fighters and others who objected to their education. But the cases have been reported only in girls' schools, or in mixed schools during hours set aside only for girls.

The blood samples taken in the past week from victims in the two new cases -- from 119 girls and four teachers at two schools in Kabul -- are still being analyzed, Dr. Norughli said, but their symptoms were similar to those in the 10 cases where the poisonings were confirmed....

The gassings mostly occurred in areas of the country with large Pashtun populations, where opposition to girls' education has been stronger than elsewhere. The Kart-e-Naw part of the city, where the schools in the newest cases are, is a heavily Pashtun quarter.

Attacks on schools in Afghanistan, particularly girls' schools, have been rife in recent years, with most of them carried out by insurgents. A spokesman for the Ministry of Education, Gul Agha Ahmadi, said 60 schools had been burned down or destroyed so far this year. Cases where acid is thrown on female students are frequent in the south, and occasionally even in Kabul.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, reached by cellphone, said opposition to some girls' education did not mean they would resort to gas attacks.

"We have not and will never take such action against innocent girls," he said.

At the Zabihullah Esmati High School, however, there was little doubt who was to blame.

"There are some people who are always intimidating girls from going to school," said Abida Sadiri, a religion teacher, who also was among those sickened....

And urges punishment for the "invaders." The Thug-In-Chief didn't even offer a word of thanks to Washington for all that the U.S. has done for Iran in Iraq. "Iran welcomes US pullout, urges punishment for Iraq invaders," from AFP, September 1:

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad welcomed the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq but called for punishment of the invaders, state television's Arabic-language Al-Alam channel said on Wednesday.

Ahmadinejad "welcomed the pullout of US forces from Iraq but said that those behind the invasion of this country should be put on trial and punished before an international court," the channel reported.

If US President Barack "Obama wants to do something useful, he should pledge not to interfere in Iraq, take his forces out of Iraq and recognise Iraq's independence and punish criminals," the channel quoted Ahmadinejad as saying in an interview.

"The terrorists use the presence of US forces and their crimes as a pretext. If there are no crimes, they will not have any excuses for extremism and terrorism," the hardline president added....

Trouble for religious minorities in Iraq is on the increase. "Remember religion's role in Iraq," by The Rev'd Canon Dr. Andrew P B White in the Washington Post, August 31 (thanks to AINA):

The withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq is a significant event for the religious communities and those, who like me, serve those communities in Iraq. Even as U.S. troops leave, it is important to know that violence here is on the increase. We are in the midst of war. As I write this, I hear rockets blasting and my people are afraid. By my people I mean Iraqi Christians, but I am involved with all religious groups here: the majority Shia, the smaller Sunni Muslims and all the minority groups.

The minority religious communities here have very little faith in the Iraqi forces; many are actually scared of them. They say "at least with the Americans we could trust them; with the Iraqis we can't." That is a common response among many of the Christians as well. For the small number of Jews in our midst, the situation is even more horrifying. We only have eight Jews left here and one came to me this morning terrified by life now. Her ID badge identifies her as being Jewish. While the Jewish tradition on this land dates back 3,000 years, Jews here are greeted with only suspicion. Every time they are stopped at a checkpoint, they are accused of being a spy; they face abuse and live in fear.

Other minorities also live in fear. Iraq's secular past came at the cost of its evil dictatorship. While it is good that those days are gone, the religion that has taken its place offers little improvement. things [sic] are not as bad as for the Jews but they still live in fear. Whilst in its past Iraq may have appeared very secular it was only that because of its evil dictatorship....

Now, as Sharia continues to be the goal for Sunni and Shi'ite jihad groups, it is worse than ever for the remaining Christians and Jews.

"A few days after Jesus had died on the cross and been buried, his apostles claimed that they had seen and talked with him. They believed that Jesus was indeed the messiah and had risen from the dead, or been resurrected." -- Global History and Geography: The Growth of Civilization, by Henry Brun, Lillian Forman and Herbert Brodsky, Amsco School Publications, Inc., 2008. P. 143

"Muhammad was the messenger of Allah." -- Global History and Geography: The Growth of Civilization, by Henry Brun, Lillian Forman and Herbert Brodsky, Amsco School Publications, Inc., 2008. P. 182

----------

"After the death of Jesus, his followers proclaimed that he had risen from death and had appeared to them. They believed Jesus to be the Messiah (anointed one)..." -- World History by Jackson J. Spielvogel, McGraw Hill Glencoe, 2008. P. 170

"The revelations of Allah (God) to Muhammad are written down in the Quran, or holy book of Islam." -- World History by Jackson J. Spielvogel, McGraw Hill Glencoe, 2008. P. 210

----------

"The authors of the Gospels believed Jesus was the son of God..." -- The Western Heritage Ninth Edition, by Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment and Frank M. Turner, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. P. 161

"[Muhammad] began to receive revelations from the angel Gabriel, who recited God's word to him at irregular intervals." -- The Western Heritage Ninth Edition, by Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment and Frank M. Turner, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. P. 200

Pamela and I respectfully request that those of you who will be attending our protest against the Ground Zero mega mosque bring American flags, not signs. 9 x 12 sized flags. Nothing with big poles: the NYPD won't allow big poles. Please get the word out now.

We will be confiscating signs. It is a solemn day. No signs. FLAGS. Tens of thousands of flags.

Please help us meet the expenses of this massive undertaking. Make your tax-deductible donation here. Supporters from outside the United States can donate through Paypal.

Above all, never give up. Never give in. Freedom forever.

Actually Islamic supremacists are distributing the leaflets, since mainstream Muslims consider the Ahmadis heretics and thus that their lives are forfeit. What's that you were saying about "Islamophobia," Honest Ibe? "Incitement to Murder Muslims in Surrey," by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens in Standpoint, September 1 (thanks to Matt):

A local Surrey newspaper has reported that extremists are disseminating leaflets in the local area, urging Muslims to kill the Ahmadiyya.

From the Surrey Comet:

A police investigation was launched last month, after police saw leaflets being handed out calling on Muslims to murder Qadiyanis, a derogatory term for Ahmadiyya Muslim...

[...]

A teenage Ahmadiyya girl, who did not want to be named, said she was "shaken and scared" after being handed a leaflet written in Urdu saying: "kill a Qadiyani and doors to heaven will be open to you."

Surrey is home to a large Ahmadiyya community, and is also the location of the Baitul Futuh Mosque, the largest Ahmadiyya mosque in the country. It is no coincidence that extremists have targeted this area: they are attempting to sow distrust and sectarian hatred between the Ahmadiyya and other Muslim groups in the hope of creating a similar situation to that of Pakistan, where this small community is regularly persecuted. The terrorist attacks on two of their mosques in Lahore, which killed 80 people, are perhaps the most extreme manifestation of Islamist hatred for these people.

This should be taken as a warning that extremist ideology continues to gain traction in Britain and a reminder that the fates of Pakistan and Britain in this regard are inexorably linked; what happens there will eventually trickle through the many connections that are here in Britain....

Actually it was Islamic jihadists, yet again. You'd think that this sort of thing would lead groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations to be much more concerned with Muslim-on-Muslim jihad violence than with the largely chimerical threat of "Islamophobia." You'd think wrong. "Suicide blasts in Lahore kill 18: Pakistan police," from AFP, September 1 (thanks to Kris):

LAHORE: Three suicide bombers in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore on Wednesday killed 18 people and wounded more than 100 during a Shiite mourning procession, police and rescue officials said.

Pakistan has been hit by a wave of Islamist militant attacks over the past three years which many attribute to Islamabad's alliance with Washington and the US-led war against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The blasts hit exactly at the time of breaking of fast in the ongoing holy month of Ramadan.

"Eighteen people were killed and 143 others wounded in the three suicide attacks," a senior local administration official, Sajjad Bhutta, told AFP....

This is getting so ridiculous, one wonders if Bloomberg himself has something to hide in not wanting the mosque's finances investigated. He is here in effect saying that any group can now call itself a religious organization and then engage in shady financial dealings with impunity. Talk about setting a "terrible precedent."

"Mayor Opposes Examining Islamic Center's Finances," by Sharon Otterman and Colin Moynihan in the New York Times, August 31 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo should not investigate the financing of the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday, reiterating his support for the project.

"I think it's a terrible precedent," he said. "You don't want them investigating donations to religious organizations, and there's no reason for the government to do so."

Mr. Bloomberg made his remarks about the controversial development project, known as Park51, in response to questions about a Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday that found voters in New York State deeply divided, with more than 70 percent of them wanting Mr. Cuomo to investigate the project's financing.

Sticking to what he said were the larger principles at stake, Mayor Bloomberg played down recent reports that the project's main developer, Sharif el-Gamal, has a history of misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct, drunken driving and hiring a prostitute.

"I don't know anything about his personal life," he said, speaking after the opening of a new Italian marketplace in the Flatiron district. "The issue here to me is very simple: The government shouldn't be in the business of telling people who they pray to, where they pray, when they pray. There's an issue of what American values are."...

Resistance to jihad is an arrestable offense in Rotterdam now? What would have happened if the t-shirt had read "Jihad in a Rotterdam street"? In that case, he probably would have been elected head of the town council. "Man Jailed for Delivering T-Shirt at Town Hall," from NIS News, September 1 (thanks to Fjordman):

THE HAGUE, 01/09/10 - A resident of the Rotterdam district of Hillesluis was arrested recently after he sent a t-shirt to the town hall with the text 'No Jihad in a Rotterdam street' printed on it.

The t-shirt was a delivery for Hamit Karakus, the Rotterdam Alderman for Integration. The man wanted to draw attention to threats and intimidation that he says he has been experiencing for three years from his Pakistani neighbours. He wants to remain anonymous due to these threats, according to local broadcaster RTV Rijnmond.

Two hours after the man had delivered a plastic bag with the t-shirt in it, a police mini-bus drove up to his home. He was handcuffed and taken to the police station. There he had to spend the night in custody. The next day he was released with the information that he would not be prosecuted. "I did not get any apology," he stated.

The police say they took action at the request of the town hall's security officers. "The man was known at the town hall because he had already sought contact on more than one occasion with the alderman. That is why they found his action suspicious."

Hamas-linked CAIR is having a press conference today to proclaim Islamic moderation and whine about "Islamophobia." Here is a handy guide to some of the things they are certain not to mention:

CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Nor does he mention that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. Or that several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Or that two of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements. Nor does he mention that CAIR also was involved in the Flying Imams' intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.

CAIR has attempted to intimidate the FBI and JTTF and dictate their choice of speakers, and in doing so retailed numerous false charges, defamation, distortions, and outright lies about me, SIOA, and Pamela Geller.

CAIR has a long record of duplicity and deception. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.

Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to Islamic supremacist and jihad groups. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.

Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:

* Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians
* Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.
* Randall Royer, CAIR's former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.
* Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.
* Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR's co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.

CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

Moderate!

Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's "moderate" facade continues to be exposed as the exercise in deception that it is. He has said of Israel, according to audio revealed by Pamela Geller, that "a one-state solution is...more coherent...than a two-state solution."

By that, of course, he meant a Sharia state with Muslims holding all the political power and Jews relegated to the institutionalized discrimination of dhimmi status. Any doubt of that was dispelled when he said: "In a true peace it is impossible that a purely Jewish state of Palestine can endure. . . . In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority."

Moderate!

Actually it was Islamic jihadists. While Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic advocacy groups in the U.S. are in a fine froth these days about a supposed rise in "Islamophobia," will they say anything about this? (And yes, CAIR has spoken out about events outside the U.S. before.) I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. "Algeria: Gunmen fire on crowded mosque," from AKI, September 1 (thanks to Twostellas):

Algiers, 1 Sept. (AKI) - One person has been killed and at least eight injured when gunmen burst into a mosque during prayers southwest of the Algerian capital of Algiers, local newspaper Ennahar reported.

A large number of people were gathered for Ramadan prayers late on Tuesday when the attackers opened fire on the crowd in the Algerian province of Ain Defla, the report said.

The sheikh guiding the prayers was killed in the incident while some of the wounded were taken to hospital serious condition.

A bloody civil war broke out in Algeria in the 1991 after the government cancelled results that awarded a national election victory to an Islamist party....

You can find them all over the Internet: windy, pseudo-intellectual diatribes purporting to establish that I misunderstand and misrepresent Islamic teaching about jihad. Fairly often I receive emails asking me to answer these farragos, but I think sufficient refutation lies in the obvious fact that so many Muslims worldwide misunderstand Islam in exactly the same way that I do. Ah, but there you go again, say the critics: you're committing "selection bias," emphasizing the views of Islam held by "extremists," and all the bad sections of the Qur'an, in prejudice to all the marvelous moderate Muslims and wonderful passages of the Islamic holy book.

And here indeed is an explanation of jihad from an "extremist," Muhammad Al-Munajjid, a Saudi Wahhabi sheikh. I offer it here because of its closely argued Qur'anic exposition, with an invitation to Muslim "moderates": show where al-Munajjid is wrong on Islamic grounds. The world wants to see you refute the version of Islam of the "extremists." The "extremists," after all, aren't getting their ideas from me, but from the likes of al-Munajjid. So instead of spending all your time trying to prove me wrong, why not spend some time trying to prove them wrong -- if, that is, you really oppose what they're doing? Go ahead. We're watching, and waiting.

"The reason why jihaad is prescribed," from Islam QA (thanks to Axel):

Why do Muslims wage jihad?.

Praise be to Allaah.

Allaah has enjoined jihad for His sake upon the Muslims, for the great benefits that result from that and because of the harm caused by abandoning jihad, some of which are mentioned in Question no. 34830.

Some of the reasons why jihad for the sake of Allaah is prescribed in Islam are as follows:

1 - The main goal of jihad is to make the people worship Allaah alone and to bring them forth from servitude to people to servitude to the Lord of people. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allaah) and (all and every kind of) worship is for Allaah (Alone). But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zaalimoon (the polytheists, and wrong-doers)"

[al-Baqarah 2:193]

"And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism, i.e. worshipping others besides Allaah), and the religion (worship) will all be for Allaah Alone [in the whole of the world]. But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allaah), then certainly, Allaah is All-Seer of what they do"

[al-Anfaal 8:39]

Ibn Jareer said:

So fight them until there is no more shirk, and none is worshipped except Allaah alone with no partner or associate, and trials and calamities, which are disbelief and polytheism, are lifted from the slaves of Allaah on earth, and religion is all for Allaah alone, and so that obedience and worship will be devoted to Him alone and none else.

Ibn Katheer said: Allaah commands us to fight the kuffaar so that there will be no fitnah, i.e., shirk, and the religion will all be for Allaah alone, i.e., the religion of Allaah will prevail over all other religions.

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: ""I have been commanded (by Allaah) to fight the people until they testify that there is no god but Allaah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allaah, and they establish regular prayer and pay zakaah, then if they do that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning will be with Allaah." Narrated by al-Bukhaari (24), Muslim (33).

And he (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "I have been sent just before the Hour with the sword, so that Allaah will be worshipped alone with no partner or associate."

Narrated by Ahmad, 4869; classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Jaami', 2831.

This purpose of jihad was present in the minds of the Sahaabah (may Allaah be pleased with them) during their battles with the enemies of Allaah. Al-Bukhaari (2925) narrated that Jubayr ibn Hayyah said: 'Umar sent people to all the regions to fight the mushrikeen... so 'Umar recruited us and appointed al-Nu'maan ibn Muqarrin to lead us. When we were in the land of the enemy, the representative of Chosroes came out to us with forty thousand troops. An interpreter stood up and said: "Let one of you speak to me." Al-Mugheerah said: "Ask whatever you want." He asked, "Who are you?" He (al-Mugheerah) said: "We are some people from among the Arabs. We used to lead a harsh and miserable life, sucking on animal skins and date stones because of hunger, wearing clothes made of camel and goat hair, worshipping trees and rocks. While we were in this state, the Lord of the heavens and the earth, exalted be His name and glorified be His greatness, sent to us a Prophet from amongst ourselves, whose father and mother we know. Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), commanded us to fight you until you worship Allaah alone or pay the jizyah. Our Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) told us the message from our Lord, that whoever among us is killed will go to Paradise to enjoy delights such as no one has ever seen, and whoever among us is left will become your master."

This is the truth that the Sahaabah and leaders of the Muslims proclaimed in their military campaigns.

Rab'i ibn 'Aamir said, when Rustam the commander of the Persian armies asked him, "Why have you come?": "Allaah has sent us to bring forth whomsoever He wills from the worship of man to the worship of Allaah.

When 'Uqbah ibn Naafi' reached Tangiers, he rode his horse into the water until the water was up to its chest, then he said: "O Allaah, bear witness that I have done my utmost, and were it not for this sea I would have travelled throughout the land fighting those who disbelieve in You, until none is worshipped except You."

2 - Repelling the aggression of those who attack the Muslims.

The scholars are unanimously agreed that repelling the aggression of those who attack the Muslims is fard 'ayn (an individual obligation) upon those who are able to do that.

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"And fight in the way of Allaah those who fight you, but transgress not the limits. Truly, Allaah likes not the transgressors"

[al-Baqarah 2:190]

"Will you not fight a people who have violated their oaths (pagans of Makkah) and intended to expel the Messenger while they did attack you first? Do you fear them? Allaah has more right that you should fear Him if you are believers"

[al-Tawbah 9:13]

3 - Removing fitnah (tribulation)

Fitnah is of different types:

(i) That which is caused by the kuffaar who persecute the Muslims or apply pressure to them to make them give up their religion. Allaah has commanded the Muslims to fight in jihad in order to save those who are weak and oppressed. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"And what is wrong with you that you fight not in the Cause of Allaah, and for those weak, ill-treated and oppressed among men, women, and children, whose cry is: "Our Lord! Rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from You one who will protect, and raise for us from You one who will help"

[al-Nisa' 4:75]

(ii) The fitnah of the kuffaar themselves and their preventing others from hearing and accepting the truth. That is because the kaafir systems corrupt the innate nature and reason of people, and make them get used to worshipping and submitting to things other than Allaah, getting addicted to alcohol, wallowing in the mire of sexual licence, and losing all characteristics of virtue. Whoever is like that can rarely tell truth from falsehood, good from evil, right from wrong. So jihad is prescribed in order to remove those obstacles that prevent people from hearing and accepting the truth and getting to know it.

4 - Protecting the Islamic state from the evil of the kuffaar.

Hence the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) ordered that the leaders of the kuffaar be killed, those who incited the enemies against the Muslims, such as the Jews Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf and Ibn Abi'l-Haqeeq.

Another aspect of jihad is to protect the borders against the kuffaar. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) encouraged that as he said: "Guarding the border for one day for the sake of Allaah is better than this world and everything in it." Al-Bukhaari, 2678.

5 - Frightening the kuffaar, humiliating them and putting them to shame.

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"Fight against them so that Allaah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of a believing people,

And remove the anger of their (believers') hearts. Allaah accepts the repentance of whom He wills. Allaah is All-Knowing, All-Wise"

[al-Tawbah 9:14-15]

"And make ready against them all you can of power, including steeds of war (tanks, planes, missiles, artillery) to threaten the enemy of Allaah and your enemy"
[al-Anfaal 8:60]

Hence it is prescribed to fight in a manner that will strike terror into the heart of the enemy.

Shaykh al-Islam [Ibn Taymiyah - may Allaah have mercy on him] was asked whether it is permissible for a soldier to wear silk or gold or silver when fighting or when the envoys of the enemy come to the Muslims.

He replied:

Praise be to Allaah. With regard to wearing silk in order to frighten the enemy, there are two scholarly views, the more correct of which is that it is allowed. The soldiers of Syria wrote to 'Umar ibn al-Khattaab saying: "When we met the enemy we saw that they had covered their weapons with silk and we found that this struck terror in our hearts." 'Umar wrote back to them saying: "You should cover your weapons as they do." And wearing silk is a kind of showing off, and Allaah likes showing off at the time of fighting, as it is narrated in al-Sunan that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "There is a kind of showing off that Allaah likes, and a kind of showing off that Allaah hates. The showing off that Allaah likes is when a man shows off at the time of war. The kind of showing off that Allaah hates is showing off for the purpose of pride and boasting." On the day of Uhud, Abu Dujaanah al-Ansaari showed off among the ranks, and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "This is a kind of walking that Allaah hates except in this situation." Majmoo' al-Fataawa, 28/17

6 - Exposing the hypocrites

Allaah says (Interpretation of the meaning):

"But when a decisive Soorah (explaining and ordering things) is sent down, and fighting (Jihaad -- holy fighting in Allaah's Cause) is mentioned (i.e. ordained) therein, you will see those in whose hearts is a disease (of hypocrisy) looking at you with a look of one fainting to death"

[Muhammad 47:20]

At times of ease and plenty, the Muslims may be joined by those who seek to make worldly gains, and they do not want to make the word of Allaah prevail over the word of kufr. These people may conceal their real nature from many of the Muslims, and the most effective means of exposing them is jihad, because jihad means sacrificing oneself but these hypocrites are only indulging in hypocrisy in order to save themselves.

Exposing the hypocrites was one of the major purposes that Allaah wanted the believers to achieve on the day of Uhud.

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"Allaah will not leave the believers in the state in which you are now, until He distinguishes the wicked from the good"

[Aal 'Imraan 3:179]

Ibn al-Qayyim said:

This means: Allaah will not leave you in the state in which you are, where the believers are indistinguishable from the hypocrites, until the believers are made distinct from the hypocrites, as they were distinguished by the test on the day of Uhud, and Allaah will not disclose to you the unseen matters by which the one group is distinguished from the other, for they are distinguished from one another in the knowledge of the unseen that He has, but He wants to distinguish them from one another in a clear and visible manner, so that His unseen knowledge will become known and visible.

7 - Purifying the believers of their sins and ridding them thereof

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"And so are the days (good and not so good), that We give to men by turns, that Allaah may test those who believe, and that He may take martyrs from among you. And Allaah likes not the Zaalimoon (polytheists and wrongdoers).

And that Allaah may test (or purify) the believers (from sins) and destroy the disbelievers.

Do you think that you will enter Paradise before Allaah tests those of you who fought (in His Cause) and (also) tests those who are As-Saabiroon (the patient)?"
[Aal 'Imraan 3:140-142]

8 - Acquiring booty

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "I have been sent ahead of the Hour with the sword so that Allaah will be worshipped alone, and my provision has been placed in the shade of my spear, and humiliation has been decreed for those who go against my command, and whoever imitates a people is one of them." Narrated by Ahmad, 4869; Saheeh al-Jaami', 2831.

Al-Haafiz said:

This hadeeth indicates that war booty is permissible for this ummah, and that the provision of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) has been placed in war booty and not in other kinds of earnings. Hence some of the scholars said that it is the best kind of earnings.

Al-Qurtubi said:

Allaah sent provision to His Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) by means of his striving and He made it by means of the best kind of striving which is earning it by means of force and strength.

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) went out for the battle of Badr to meet the caravan of Abu Sufyaan.

Al-Qurtubi said: The fact that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) went out to meet the caravan indicates that it is permissible to take booty because it is a halaal source of income. This refutes Maalik's view that this is makrooh, when he said that this was fighting for worldly gains.

Al-Shawkaani said: Ibn Abi Jamrah said: The scholars of hadeeth are of the view that if the primary motive is to make the word of Allaah supreme, it does not matter what else is also achieved.

9 - Taking martyrs.

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"If a wound (and killing) has touched you, be sure a similar wound (and killing) has touched the others. And so are the days (good and not so good), that We give to men by turns, that Allaah may test those who believe, and that He may take martyrs from among you. And Allaah likes not the Zaalimoon (polytheists and wrongdoers).

And that Allaah may test (or purify) the believers (from sins) and destroy the disbelievers"

[Aal 'Imraan 3:140-141]

Martyrdom is one of the highest statuses before Allaah, and the martyrs are the closest of His slaves to Him. There is no status higher than that of siddeeq apart from martyrdom. Allaah loves to take martyrs from among His slaves, who shed their blood for His love and to earn His pleasure, preferring His pleasure and His love above themselves. There is no way to attain this status except by circumstances that may lead to it such as enemies coming against the Muslims.

This was said by Ibn al-Qayyim in Zaad al-Ma'aad.

This is the great wisdom and those who try to put the Muslims off jihad and make them fear it, and say that jihad is no more than death, and making women widows and children orphans, pale into insignificance.

10 - Ridding the world of corruption.

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"For had it not been that Allaah checks one set of people by means of another, monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, wherein the Name of Allaah is mentioned much would surely, have been pulled down. Verily, Allaah will help those who help His (Cause). Truly, Allaah is All-Strong, All-Mighty"

[al-Hajj 22:40]

"And if Allaah did not check one set of people by means of another, the earth would indeed be full of mischief. But Allaah is full of bounty to the 'Aalameen (mankind, jinn and all that exists)"

[al-Baqarah 2:251]

Muqaatil said:

Were it not that Allaah checked the mushriks by means of the Muslims, the mushriks would have overrun the earth and killed the Muslims and destroyed the mosques.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said in al-Jawaab al-Saheeh, 2/216:

So the kuffar are repelled by means of the Muslims and the worse of the two parties is repelled by the better, just as the Magians (Persians) were repelled by the Christian Byzantines, then the Christians were repelled by the believers of the ummah of Muhammad.

Al-Sa'di said: The world would be corrupted if the kuffaar and evildoers were to prevail.

These are some of the reasons why jihad is prescribed.
We ask Allaah to bring the Muslims back to their religion. May Allaah send blessings and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad.

Given Tony Blair's other pronouncements about Islam, I doubt that he understands it even now. However, in these new statements he does seem to be at least implying that the democracy project in Iraq was foredoomed, as I have argued since early 2003, because of something about Islam. And certainly he is correct that Western leaders' ignorance of Islam will lead them into policy errors. We are still seeing that happen on a more or less daily basis. "Tony Blair: I did not understand Islam at time of 9/11 attacks," from the Telegraph, August 31 (thanks to Twostellas):

The September 11 attacks represented the declaration of war by a new type of enemy, Tony Blair says.

He claims that he quickly realised the implications of the suicide bombers crashing aircraft into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, having heard the news while preparing to deliver a speech to the TUC in Brighton.

Mr Blair says he understood the new war was ideological, but admits that at the time he did not fully understand the history of Islam. He admits he underestimated the "hold of this extremism"....

The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

Eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house -- that's the very definition of the stealth jihad modus operandi. And so it comes as no surprise that the Brotherhood, which knows it can only operate by stealth under the cover of darkness and ignorance, is mightily pleased with Lisa Miller's trashing of the stealth jihad concept in Newsweek. The Brotherhood praises the Newsweek piece here: "Stealth Jihad and Creeping Sharia, truly racist terms," from Ikhwanweb, the Muslim Brotherhood's English website.

Good dhimmi, Lisa!

The agents were there not to investigate, but to protect the mosque and the Muslims. What is Honest Ibe Hooper of Hamas-linked CAIR afraid that they might see or hear? "Muslim leaders debate FBI presence at mosques," by Jerry Markon for the Washington Post, September 1 (thanks to Twostellas):

Muslim leaders are debating the wisdom of inviting FBI agents to mosques to provide protection at a time of rising anti-Muslim rhetoric and debate about the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero.

The issue surfaced Tuesday as word spread of a Nashville mosque's decision to host two FBI agents at a prayer service last Saturday night. The agents discussed the investigation of a fire, suspected to be arson, at a planned mosque in nearby Murfreesboro, a project that has also triggered vehement opposition. The agents then silently observed prayers from the back row.

"I don't think it's really appropriate to station agents in mosques," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. "It has a chilling effect on a house of worship, and we would have concerns that agents would also be gathering information on ordinary worshipers." [...]

Supervisory Special Agent Scott Augenbaum, a spokesman for the FBI's Nashville office, said agents attended the prayer service "because we were invited guests" and to reinforce that "hate crimes and violations of civil rights are very important priorities for the FBI."...

Worth killing for

And the world yawns as this barbarity continues. "Jyllands-Posten's cartoons keep Denmark on the terrorist map," from the Copenhagen Post, August 30 (thanks to Paul):

Terrorist network al-Qaeda has released an official death list, naming nine people who have mocked the prophet Mohammed - three of whom are Danish. The list was published in Inspire, the organisation's first ever English language magazine.

It is now five years since Jyllands-Posten newspaper published their now notorious cartoons of the prophet, but it would seem the terrorist network has not forgotten the incident, as the three people on the list were all involved in the drawings.

They are the newspaper's former editor-in-chief Carsten Juste, its culture editor Flemming Rose, and the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who drew the now infamous picture of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban....

The question in response to these insults and threats ought to be, "So, that's how you keep uppity women in line in the Islamic Republic?" "Iranian insults against Bruni 'unacceptable' - France," from BBC News, August 31:

France has said "insults" in the Iranian media aimed at its first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, are unacceptable.

One state-run newspaper denounced her as a prostitute after she publicly criticised Iran for threatening to stone an Iranian woman to death.

Iran urged its media not to insult foreign dignitaries.

But Kayhan, the paper which made the original comments, went on to call for Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy's death.

In a statement, the French foreign ministry said: "We are letting the Iranian authorities know that the insults put out by the daily newspaper Kayhan and taken up by Iranian websites regarding several French personalities, including Mrs Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, were unacceptable."

'Deserves death'

Ashtiani faces the death sentence after being convicted by an Iranian court of infidelity towards her husband and complicity in his murder.

On Tuesday, Kayhan, which acts as a mouthpiece for Iran's conservative Islamic leadership, reiterated its attack, adding that the Italian-born French first lady deserved to die for supporting her.

"This Italian prostitute's indignation at Kayhan's report came while she has had illegitimate relationships with different people before and after marrying [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy," Kayhan said.

"Reviewing Carla Bruni's records clearly shows why this immoral woman has supported an Iranian woman who has committed adultery, has contributed to the murdering of her husband and has been sentenced to death, and in fact she herself [Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy] deserves death."

Earlier, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, Ramin Mehmanparast, urged the country's media not to insult foreign dignitaries.

"Insulting the officials of other countries and using inappropriate words, this is not approved of by the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.

Death threats = "inappropriate words." This, from a country that put a fatwa on Salman Rushdie's head for nothing other than "inappropriate words." If nothing else, apparently the equation works both ways.

And so he set out plotting to bomb a Bronx synagogue -- because, after all, the Qur'an says that the Jews are the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82). More on this story. "NY temple plot jury hears suspect rant about Jews," by Tom Hays for Associated Press, August 30:

NEW YORK (AP) -- A man accused of plotting to bomb New York synagogues and shoot down military planes ranted against Jews and mused about "taking down" targets in the United States, according to audio tapes played Monday at his federal trial.

The tapes were secretly recorded by a paid informant testifying against James Cromitie and three other men who were arrested in 2009 on their way to the synagogues.

The informant, Shahed Hussain, met Cromitie in 2008 after being sent by the FBI to infiltrate a Newburgh, N.Y., mosque....

A mosque? But...but...wasn't it teaching peace and tolerance?

"Muslims want to take the U.S. down," Cromitie says on one tape played for the jury. "Believe me, we can do it with our regular Muslims here."

Cromitie also bemoans American military ventures in the Middle East.

"What do we do to make it stop?" he says. "We start taking things down here, you understand?"

He adds: "I will kill 10 million (Jews) before I kill one Muslim."

Cromitie, 43, and three men recruited as lookouts - Onta Williams, 34, David Williams, 29, and Laguerre Payen, 28 - have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles to kill U.S. officers and employees.

Prosecutors allege that with Hussain's encouragement, the men hatched the scheme to blow up two synagogues in the Bronx with remote-control bombs. They also wanted to use surface-to-air missiles to shoot down planes at the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, a city north of New York City.

The men obtained what they thought were explosives and a missile system but were actually inert devices supplied by the FBI, prosecutors said. They were arrested on May 20, 2009, when they went to the synagogues to plant the fake bombs.

The defense claims the men were entrapped by Hussain, a 53-year-old Pakistani immigrant who helped the FBI make hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes of the defendants that are the centerpiece of the case.

Of course! Wouldn't anyone, when enticed, start rattling on about killing Jews? Apparently that is the idea that the defense wants the court to buy.

On tape, Hussain advises Cromitie that to be a good Muslim, he can't kill out of anger toward Jews. However, he says, dying for "the cause" of Islam is righteous.

"It must be in jihad," he says.

How long will the political elites ignore the will of the people? "Poll: Most NYers want developers to move mosque," from AP, August 31:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A new poll finds 71 percent of New Yorkers want the developers of an Islamic center and mosque near ground zero to voluntarily move the project.

The Quinnipiac (KWIHN'-uh-pee-ak) University poll released Tuesday finds the same amount of New Yorkers want Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate funding of the project....

The poll finds 53 percent of registered voters feel the Muslim developers shouldn't be allowed to build two blocks from ground zero. About the same percentage of voters say they have a right to....

Please join Pamela Geller and me for our rally against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero on September 11, at 3PM at Park Place and West Broadway in lower Manhattan.

Speakers will include 9/11 family members, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton (via video statement); Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders (LIVE!); journalist Andrew Breitbart (either live or via video stream); NY Senate candidate Gary Berntsen; war hero and NC Congressional candidate Ilario Pantano; nationally syndicated conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher; actress and activist Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady on TV's Brady Bunch); NY Congressional candidate and 9/11 first responder Michael Grimm; Muslim Iranian activist Ray Kafi; Coptic Christian activist Joseph Nassralla; Jordan Sekulow of the ACLJ, other freedom fighters and proud Americans.

September 11 is a solemn day, and rally will be as solemn as the occasion warrants. We will begin with a brief memorial service for the victims of the 9/11 jihad attack. A rabbi and a minister will offer prayers for the victims' families and for our nation.

Some have criticized our decision to hold the rally on September 11 itself. But when we saw that Daisy Khan, one of the leaders of the Park 51/Cordoba Initiative group that is behind the mosque, said that they intended to break ground for the Ground Zero mosque on September 11, 2011, we believed that it was important for us to reclaim the date of September 11 from these deceptive Islamic supremacists. We determined to take a stand to help ensure that that date will forever stand as an occasion of American mourning and American resolve -- not as a commemoration of an Islamic jihad victory.

As befits a solemn rally on a date that should stand forever as a symbol of America's determination to defend freedom and justice, we urge all those planning to attend not to bring inflammatory signs. These can and will be used by the Leftist tools of Islamic supremacism in the media to smear our rally as a gathering of racists and hatemongers. Remember why we are there: to stand for those who fell on that terrible day, and to declare that no victory mosque will deface the site where they fell. Your signs, if you choose to bring any at all, should be positive affirmations of American values, free of obscenities, epithets, gratuitous insults, racial references, and the like. Do not by your signs, your words, or your actions dishonor the dead and give ammunition to the enemies of freedom.

Join us. And when you do, keep in mind where we are, and why we are there.

Our expenses for this are enormous. The staging and video screen for the speakers who will be joining us remotely costs over $12,000 alone. We also have to hire a large number of security guards: our speakers need to be guarded from the proponents of "tolerance" and "multiculturalism." Both of us have received recent, specific death threats from the supporters of the "moderate" Ground Zero mosque. And we need people patrolling through the crowd, ejecting plants and agitators trying to create an incident that the Leftist media can exploit to tar opponents of the mosque as racists and bigots. We need money for posters, fliers, press releases, food and lodging for speakers, and more.

It's a massive undertaking, and we need your help. Our total expenses for this rally could exceed $50,000. Politico is answering Nancy Pelosi's authoritarian, un-American call to investigate opponents of the mosque, and is nosing around our finances -- all they'll discover is that we have no huge donations, and are relying on the support of free Americans to make this rally a reality. Please consider giving $100. If we could find just 500 people who could each give that amount, we would be able to meet most or all of our expenses. If you can't give $100, please give what you can and what you think this cause warrants. Donations to Jihad Watch will be devoted to the mosque rally, and are tax-deductible.

Make your tax-deductible donation here. Supporters from outside the United States can donate through Paypal.

Thank you for your stand for liberty.

But deep down they really, really want peace. "Four killed as terrorists open fire near Kiryat Arba," by Yaakov Katz for the Jerusalem Post, August 31:

Victims, shot while driving, include 2 men, 2 women, one reportedly pregnant; attack comes before Netanyahu and Abbas set to meet in Washington for peace talks.

Four Israelis were killed Tuesday night in a devastating shooting attack in the West Bank believed to have been aimed at torpedoing the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks set to kick off on Wednesday in Washington DC.

The four, from the settlement of Beit Hagai, were driving near the entrance of Kiryat Arba when they came under heavy gunfire. The IDF was investigating two possibilities - that Palestinian terrorists had laid an ambush alongside the road or that the shots were fired from a passing car....

The four were two couples - one aged 25 and the other 40. One of the woman was pregnant. According to eyewitness reports, the terrorists succeeded in hitting the passengers in their initial fire but then approached the car and shot them [sic] occupants at close range....

"Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war...When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them....If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them." -- Muhammad (Sahih Muslim 4294)

Gaddafi invited Europe to accept Islam yesterday. Now he has asked it to pay the jizya. Will he follow through with the third option as well?

"Gaddafi: Europe will 'turn black' unless EU pays Libya £4bn a year," by Nick Squires in the Telegraph, August 31 (thanks to Lazybuddha):

Col Muammar Gaddafi has warned that Europe runs the risk of turning "black" unless the EU pays Libya at least €5 billion (£4.1 billion) a year to block the arrival of illegal immigrants from Africa.

His remarks, made during a controversial three day visit to Italy, were condemned as "unacceptable blackmail" by Italian MPs, who likened the demand to the protection money that mafia gangs demand from businesses....

Jizya is a much more apt analogy.

A month after the Hamas-linked Islamic supremacist hate group CAIR tried to intimidate the FBI into apologizing for inviting me to speak in Virginia some time ago, Politico noticed the story and asked the FBI about it. The FBI, which is on to CAIR, wouldn't throw the wolves any red meat.

"FBI defends invitation to Islam critic," by Ben Smith at Politico, August 31:

The FBI is defending its invitation to a prominent critic of Islam in America, who is also one of the leaders of the fight to stop a downtown Manhattan mosque and Islamic Center.

The Council on American Islamic Relations complained late last month that Robert Spencer, who runs the Jihad Watch site and is co-founder of Stop the Islamization of America, had spoken to the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force, a combination of state, federal, and local law enforcement centered in Norfolk, Virginia. 

Spencer, along with his confrontational stand toward the New York project, has long been at odds with Muslim leaders for alleging  links between American Muslim leaders and extremism. He has also been a critic of the religion of Islam itself, suggesting that the historical Mohammed, for instance, did not exist, and that the portrayal of him in the Qaran [sic] is of a "con man."

Highly compressed and tendentious. A fictional con man? This is what happens when ideologically biased reporters in a hurry try to summarize positions they don't understand.

"Our nation's law enforcement personnel should not receive training from the head of a hate group that seeks to demonize Islam and to prevent American Muslims from exercising their rights as citizens," said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, who also noted that Spencer and blogger Pamela Geller recently published a book subtitled, "The Obama Administration's War on America."

But the chief division for the Norfolk FBI field office, Phil Mann, defended the invitation to Spencer.

"We invite speakers who represent a variety of viewpoints and the special agent in charge of the Norfolk office has invited local Muslim leaders to speak to his staff.  That doesn’t mean we enodrse [sic] our [sic] adopt the view of any particular speaker," Mann said. "Broad knowledge is essential for us to better understand and respond to the threats that we face. Knowledge also helps us defeat ignorance and strengthen relationships with the diverse communites that we serve."  [...]

Spencer responded to a question about CAIR's attack with a link to his own press release on the matter, dismissing CAIR as a "hate group" and citing praise of his work from prominent conservatives. 

Smith doesn't tell his readers, of course, that CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Nor does he mention that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. Or that several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Or that two of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements. Nor does he mention that CAIR also was involved in the Flying Imams' intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.

CAIR's attempt to intimidate the FBI and JTTF and dictate their choice of speakers contained numerous false charges, defamation, distortions, and outright lies about me, SIOA, and Pamela Geller.

CAIR has a long record of duplicity and deception. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.

Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to Islamic supremacist and jihad groups. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.

Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:

* Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians
* Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.
* Randall Royer, CAIR's former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.
* Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.
* Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR's co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.

CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

So I asked Smith why he didn't tell his readers any of this. He responded by saying that he already had told his readers about CAIR, just yesterday, in fact -- and directed me to this piece, which, as you'll see, says nothing about CAIR's Hamas ties or anything else, but instead actually touts CAIR, weirdly, as an "alternative" to Hamas. Smith explained in an email to me: "I understand that you're asking me why I didn't restate the entire case against CAIR, and their response, your response to them, and so on, in my blog item. This is a complaint of a form I get five or ten times a day. I write a blog, and mostly take little bites of stories. I was writing a small item about your appearance -- and your prominence around the mosque issue, and your stance toward obama [sic], make that of modest interest to me, and to readers in general I think, beyond the context of CAIR's complaint -- to speak to the FBI. There are a lot of things I don't write every day, and the history and controversies around CAIR were, indeed, among them."

Every day, or any day. Par for the course for the mainstream media.

Compassion. "90-year-old Saudi to get 100 lashes," from Emirates 24/7, August 31 (thanks to Twostellas):

A 90-year-old Saudi man will be lashed 100 times with the whip after he was convicted of smashing the windscreen of a judge's car to retaliate against a previous verdict against him, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The court in the central town of Taif found the old man guilty of damaging the judge's car while he was preaching at a local mosque during open-air Friday prayers, Sahafaonline Arabic language paper said.

The man told court that he had done so in reprisal for an earlier sentence against him by the judge, the paper said. "The court sentenced the man to 100 lashes and seven days in prison," it added.

This is a political statement as much as a religious one, since Islam has and always has had a political character. Another take on this story. "Europe should convert to Islam: Gaddafi," from AFP, August 31:

ROME: Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi's visit to Rome to mark the second anniversary of a friendship treaty with former coloniser Italy stumbled into controversy on Monday after he said Europe should convert to Islam.

Gaddafi made the comments on Sunday during a lecture to a group of 500 young women hired and paid by an agency to attend his lecture.

"Islam should become the religion of all of Europe," one of the women quoted Gaddafi as saying in the Italian press.

The agency paid the women, mainly students who hire themselves out for advertising of publicity events, 70 or 80 euros (90 or 100 dollars) to attend and said it would not pay girls who gave their names to the press.

It also told them to dress conservatively for the lectures.

About 200 women on Monday gathered at the Libyan cultural centre in Rome to attend a second lecture.

One of the women present said that Gaddafi had said at the gathering that "women are more respected in Libya than in the West" and offered assistance in finding Libyan husbands.

"Islam is the last religion and if we are to have a single faith then it has to be in Mohammed," he said, according to the participant....

Authorities have been treating this as a test, a probe of security. Two questions:

For whom were these two performing a "dry run?"

If and when an attack were to go through at a new site, will we have to suffer through getting a mosque built on that, too? Just asking.

An update on this story. Again, note the vagueness of the headline and of this report, by which we can only assume this is a case of Flying Dutchmen Gone Bad -- wooden shoe bombers, all. "Dutch question 2 men after U.S. flight," from the Associated Press, August 31:

Dutch investigators on Tuesday questioned two men arrested at Amsterdam's airport after U.S. authorities found suspicious items in their checked luggage, including a cellphone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle and a knife and box cutter.

"For relief from occasional jihadist dry-runs." (Pun not particularly intended.)

The pair were arrested Monday morning at Schiphol Airport after getting off a United Airlines flight from Chicago, where their decision to change their flight plans raised flags in the U.S., officials said.

Earlier reports suggested the two men had been charged, but neither has been charged with any offence in the Netherlands, said Martijn Boelhouwer, the national prosecutor's office spokesman.

Edmond Messchaert, a spokesman for the Dutch National Co-ordinator for Counterterrorism, said his agency was aware of the case but would not comment further.

Dutch authorities do not release the names of suspects in criminal investigations and Boelhouwer would not confirm their nationalities. He also declined to say if U.S. authorities had requested their extradition.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said once officials found suspicious items in luggage associated with two passengers on Sunday night's flight, they notified the Dutch authorities.

"The items were not deemed to be dangerous in and of themselves," Kudwa said. She would not identify the passengers.

It is not illegal to carry knives or taped cellphones and watches in checked baggage....

In Human Events this morning, I explore what might be behind Bloomberg's spurious claim of the moral high ground in the debate over the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero:

[...] And in the spring of 2009, Bloomberg opened a news bureau in Abu Dhabi, joining its existing offices not only in Dubai, but in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. And Bloomberg Chairman and Managing Director Peter T. Grauer announced plans to expand Dubai operations still more: "Central to our growth strategy is the doubling of staff strength in Dubai office, our 10th regional hub, from 48 to 100 people within a year.... We will be investing not just in more people but also in infrastructure to support clients in the region."

Grauer revealed that while Bloomberg was taking a bath worldwide, business was booming in the Middle East: "Despite the difficulties faced by the financial sector in the economic turmoil, our terminal sales in the region grew by 2% in the past nine months, when globally we faced a major setback." Khaleej Times reported that "the New York-based company has drawn up a five-year plan that will see it achieving a two-fold increase in revenue from the Middle East region by 2014."

Imagine how quickly that revenue stream would dry up if Bloomberg sided with the people whom Rauf and other leaders of the Ground Zero mosque initiative are busy smearing as "Islamophobes" and "bigots." When his company is doing poorly worldwide except in the Middle East, it couldn't have been hard for Bloomberg to see on which side his bread was buttered.

Business decisions are business decisions. But if Bloomberg was making a business decision when he came out so strongly in favor of the mega-mosque, he would have been more honest, and admirable, if he had just said so. He might even have retained some respectability if he had simply said that his business commitments in the Middle East made for a conflict of interest, and recused himself from the debate over the Ground Zero mega-mosque. But that conflict of interest does make his moral dudgeon over the mosque opponents appear hollow and hypocritical. It isn't easy to be a saint, and it's even harder when the material rewards for striking a saintly pose are as ample as they are for Saint Bloomberg of Brookline.

There is more.

Just your garden-variety Dutchmen gone wrong? Wooden-shoe bombers? No. "ABC News Exclusive: Two Men on United Flight from Chicago Arrested on 'Preparation of a Terrorist Attack' in Amsterdam," by Richard Esposito, Christine Brouwer, and Brian Ross for ABC News, August 30 (thanks to DP111):

Two men taken off a Chicago-to-Amsterdam United Airlines flight in the Netherlands have been charged by Dutch police with "preparation of a terrorist attack," U.S. law enforcement officials tell ABC News.

U.S. officials said the two appeared to be travelling with what were termed "mock bombs" in their luggage. "This was almost certainly a dry run, a test," said one senior law enforcement official.

A spokesman for the Dutch public prosecutor, Ernst Koelman, confirmed the two men were arrested this morning and said "the investigation is ongoing." He said the arrests were made "at the request of American authorities."

The two were allowed to board the flight at O'Hare airport last night despite security concerns surrounding one of them, the officials said.

The men were identified as Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi, of Detroit, MI, and Hezem al Murisi, the officials said. A neighbor of al Soofi told ABC News he is from Yemen.

Airport security screeners in Birmingham, Alabama first stopped al Soofi and referred him to additional screening because of what officials said was his "bulky clothing."

Once in Chicago, officials say they learned al Soofi checked his luggage on a flight to Washington's Dulles airport for connections on flights to Dubai and then Yemen, even though he did not board the flight himself.

Instead, officials say, al Soofi was joined by the second man, Al Murisi, and boarded the United flight from Chicago to Amsterdam.

When Customs and Border officials learned al Soofi was not on the flight from Dulles to Dubai, the plane was ordered to return to the gate so his luggage could be removed. Officials said additional screening found no evidence of explosives.

The two men were detained by Dutch authorities when the United flight landed in Amsterdam, according to the officials.

Said one lawmaker: "If I went to Tripoli to demand that Libyans convert to Christianity, what are the odds that I would return in one piece?"

More on this story. "Italians attack Muammar Gaddafi over Islam comments," by Nick Squires for the Telegraph, August 30:

Italians have reacted with indignation after Muammar Gaddafi lectured 200 young actresses and models on the superiority of Islam, a day after saying that Europeans should all become Muslim.

Silvio Berlusconi's increasingly close relationship with Col Gaddafi is becoming a source of embarrassment for the Italian prime minister, according to opposition MPs and even members of the government.

On Monday, the Libyan leader recruited the women through a modelling agency to join him and Mr Berlusconi, in viewing a photography exhibition at a Rome cultural institute which traced historical links between the two countries.

Telling them that Islam was the "ultimate religion", Gaddafi insisted that "if you want to believe in a single faith then it must be that of Mohammed," according to one of the women who sat through the lecture.

Afterwards the two leaders were due to attend a cavalry school to watch a display of riding involving 30 thoroughbred Berber horses imported specially from Libya, followed by a state dinner.

On Sunday night, during an encounter with 500 young women hired by the same agency, Col Gaddafi handed out copies of the Koran and told them that Europe should convert to Islam.

"If I went to Tripoli to demand that Libyans convert to Christianity, what are the odds that I would return in one piece?" said Rocco Buttiglione, the president of a centre-Right Catholic party, the UDC.

Italy was becoming a "Disneyland"-style theme park for Gaddafi's "senile vanities", said Fare Futuro, a political foundation linked to Gianfranco Fini, a senior government power broker with whom Mr Berlusconi recently had a dramatic falling out.

Rosy Bindi, an MP from the main opposition party, said that the spectacle of hundreds of Italian women being bussed in at Col Gaddafi's whim was a "humiliating violation" of their dignity.

And mighty creepy.

Who's vetting the former inmates for security risks, or jihadist indoctrination while in prison? Or would that also be Islamophobic?

"Muslim extremists plotting to paralyze rail networks during London Olympics," from Asian News International, August 30 (thanks to Twostellas):

London, Aug 30 : Terrorist outfits are plotting a rail mayhem to coincide with the London 2012 Olympics, it has been revealed.

Muslim prisoners are getting calls from terrorist masterminds instructing them to do Trackwork courses so that they use a prison-training scheme to sabotage train networks from the inside, reports the Daily Star.

It has been reported that the jailed extremists are joining NVQ courses run by the training firm Trackwork, which is backed by Network Rail.

They are expected to use their qualification to land jobs maintaining Britain''s railways after their release.

Within a period of six months in 2007, 500 ex-cons started rail jobs and 400 stuck with them.

A 39-year-old inmate, who has been released from Lindholme Prison, claims they see it as a perfect way to infiltrate the system and mount a terror attack.

"Many prisoners have mobile phones. And in the 14 months I was inside I heard six Muslims getting calls from terrorist masterminds instructing them to do Trackwork courses," the paper quoted the inmate as saying.

"I heard the 2012 Olympics talked about. I didn''t hear anything about blowing up trains, but I did hear of plans to halt the network. They thought bringing the network to a standstill would cause more devastation than actually killing people," he added.

The Network Rail said providing jobs to the released inmates was the biggest factor in stopping them re-offending and costing taxpayers billions.

On September 11, 2010, we're going to stand for America.

Don't spit in our face and tell us it's raining. Over seventy percent of Americans oppose the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. We oppose it because it is an insult, an offense to the memories of those who were killed in the name of Islam at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. We oppose it because it will be understood all over the Islamic world as a victory mosque marking that heinous mass-murder nine years ago. And we oppose it because the mosque leaders have an ever-lengthening record of dishonesty -- dishonesty about their intentions, their funding, their support for jihad terrorism, and more.

We oppose the mega-mosque because we believe in the freedom of speech, which the Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has called for restricting. We stand for the freedom of conscience and the equality of rights of all people before the law, which the Sharia that Rauf defends and propagates would deny to free people.

A giant mosque looking down at the cemetery of Ground Zero from the location of a building that was partially destroyed in the 9/11 Islamic jihad attack on America is wrong. It is indecent. The Burlington Coat Factory building, severely damaged when part of one of the 9/11 planes crashed through its roof, is Ground Zero.

On June 6, we organized a protest against the mega-mosque that was attended by 8,000 to 10,000 people. And now we're inviting you to join us again on September 11 at 3PM, at the corner of Park Place and West Broadway in lower Manhattan. We chose September 11 because reports have indicated that the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan said that they would break ground on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks: September 11, 2011.

We will honor the victims and all Americans, and fill Ground Zero with patriots. We will begin with a brief memorial service honoring the victims, and are not starting our rally until the morning memorial services for the victims are concluded.

Our rally will be on September 11 at 3PM in lower Manhattan, at the corner of Park Place and West Broadway.

Speakers will include 9/11 family members, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton; Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders (LIVE!); journalist Andrew Breitbart (either live or via video stream); NY Senate candidate Gary Berntsen; war hero and NC Congressional candidate Ilario Pantano; actress and activist Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady on TV's Brady Bunch); NY Congressional candidate and 9/11 first responder Michael Grimm; Coptic Christian activist Joseph Nassralla; a spokesman for the ACLJ, and other freedom fighters and proud Americans.

Our expenses for this are enormous. The staging and video screen for the speakers who will be joining us remotely costs over $12,000 alone. We also have to hire a large number of security guards: our speakers need to be guarded from the proponents of "tolerance" and "multiculturalism." Both of us have received recent, specific death threats from the supporters of the "moderate" Ground Zero mosque. And we need people patrolling through the crowd, ejecting plants and agitators trying to create an incident that the Leftist media can exploit to tar opponents of the mosque as racists and bigots. We need money for posters, fliers, press releases, food and lodging for speakers, and more.

It's a massive undertaking, and we need your help. Our total expenses for this rally could exceed $50,000. Politico is answering Nancy Pelosi's authoritarian, un-American call to investigate opponents of the mosque, and is nosing around our finances -- all they'll discover is that we have no huge donations, and are relying on the support of free Americans to make this rally a reality. Please consider giving $100. If we could find just 500 people who could each give that amount, we would be able to meet most or all of our expenses. If you can't give $100, please give what you can and what you think this cause warrants. Donations to Jihad Watch will be devoted to the mosque rally, and are tax-deductible.

Make your tax-deductible donation here.

Thank you for your stand for liberty.

Yours in defense of freedom,
Pamela Geller
Robert Spencer