Today's Wall Street Journal has a remarkable story by Peter Waldman, "At a U.S. Mosque, Path of Tolerance Leads to Tumult," about how a Muslim in San Francisco, Souleiman Ghali, lost battle after battle within his mosque and in the courts against more hardline Muslims. It's behind subscription, so I won't quote much, but here are a few telling fragments. One concerns Ghali's firing of an imam from the mosque:
After his firing, the Egyptian-born imam, Safwat Morsy, opened a new mosque in a basement just around the corner from the Islamic Society, in the heart of this city's gritty Tenderloin district. To swelling crowds, the Sheik Safwat has railed against "the traitor criminal Souleiman Ghali" and called for jihad, or holy war, against Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Our killed ones are in paradise and their killed ones are in hell," he told worshipers in 2003, in a sermon that was translated from Arabic for the court case....Beware of "the new American Islam," Sheik Safwat warned followers in the 2003 sermon translated for the court case, "a faith that does not talk about the jihad; a faith that does not talk about the confrontation with tyrants; a faith that does not talk."...
Sheik Safwat, invoking familiar extremist rhetoric for his Sunni listeners, blamed the fall of Iraq on connivance by the "traitor" Shiites and Arab heads of states, whom he branded "agents of treason." The sheik also said he saw the hand of the "sons of Zion," the Jews. With the fall of Baghdad, he said, Israel had "realized" its dominion "from the Nile to the Euphrates."
He praised martyrdom. While the Muslim dead of Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Sudan were in paradise, he said, the infidel dead were burning in hell. "The beacon of the jihad will not be extinguished by the tank and will not be extinguished by the airplanes," he said. "The clash of civilizations and the combat of cultures and the recapture of the land and honor, this is what believers are waiting for."
In another sermon, the sheik adopted the slogan used by the Palestinian political party Hamas to reject Israel's right to exist: "Palestine, from the sea to the river."
First Saturday people, then Sunday people
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2006/06/politically-incorrect-guide-first.html
Anyway, he's in the right place - problem with Ghali is that as a "moderate", if he is at all pro-US, he has no business operating in San Francisco (or for that matter Oakland or Berkeley). Might want to move to Crawford or Waco.
Notice how these imams always urge others to go wage jihad and die while they stay safely hidden in a mosque......
That's a good point Bohemond, why are there old muslims? Old men always talk younger men into doing the dying, it is there way to convince themselves they are not really cowards.
Here comes the backlash!
Wait for it...
Waaaaiiit for it...
Sorry, false alarm.
Go on about your business. Nothing to see here.
BTW, isn't the term "moderate Muslim" an oxymoron?
-Ronin,
Kind of hard to lead the men charging up the hill if one is tripping over one's beard and one's big, black turban keeps slipping forward over one's eyes.
"Allahu ackba..."*zip!*(pause)*distant crack! sound*
lol Eisenhund. I know you realize an imam would never "lead" unless running away is considered bravery and "leading".
I wonder if this story even appeared in any San Francisco news outlets? Because this kind of thing is probably happening quietly in mosques around the country.
A lot of Imams seem to be corpulent puffballs, they know full well they'd make for easy targets. That Sadr fellow, for example, has the girth of at least three average starving Iraqis -- a veritable billboard with which to catch bullets. He's no dummy! Standing behind those erect minarets no doubt makes such Imams feel very virile, while not exposing themselves to genuine crossfire.
Zarqawi also had become a rather wide load before we came a-knocking with some 500 pound bombs.
Well, the good news is that Safwat Morsy (or Mursi) _was_ sacked. He operated in Detroit before going to San Francisco. He gives talks periodically in the SF area. He doesn't seem to be moving around like a "circuit speaker", who would be more likely to be an agent of a terrorist organisation or a state sponsor of terrorism, such as Saudi Arabia. Just another snarling old Egyptian.
"...the good news is that Safwat Morsy (or Mursi) _was_ sacked. He operated in Detroit before going to San Francisco. He gives talks periodically in the SF area."
-- from a posting above
Why is this "good news"? Why is Safwat Morsy, who preaches Jihad as warfare against us, the Infidels, permitted to remain in this country? Why has he not been deported? When will proceedings begin? And if they won't begin, why not?
And then one must ask -- what about those who drank in his hysterical hatred, and couldn't get enough of the elixir of Jihad? Where are they? Why are they still here? On what theory of citizenship or of "tolerance" or of something? There is no need to permit such people to remain, if they are not citizens, and if they have taken an oath of loyalty to uphold the Constitution, it would not be hard to prove that they must have been committing perjury if they are True Believers.
What is the INS doing?
No, no, Ronin. You have it all wrong. It's not "running away", it's "advancing to the rear".
"The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics -- a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam......
(Applause.) "The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of
terrorists...."
(President George W. Bush before a September 20, 2001 Joint Session of Congress and the American people)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/06/MNG5MJ94QA1.DTL&hw=mosque&sn=006&sc=614
I lived in SF for seven years, and the city is lost in a miasma of knee-jerk socialist and multicultural dogma and leftist groupthink. The article above, from SF's biggest newspaper, is a good example of the type of news the majority of this city's people will tolerate. It is a sad situation, because a tolerant place like SF would be the first to be ruined by Islam.
Unfortunately for any Ayatollah Rockan'rollah with a bespinached chinny-chin-chin, the .338 Lapua has a whole lotta "reach".
Kinda hard to do enough retrograde advancement to get out of the way.
Better, and safer, to stink up a mosque and send the Mo-Dogg posse to do the dirty deeds.
People have the freedom to talk about overthrowing the US Government as an abstract idea. The Supreme Court made this kind of distinction a long time ago. The line is drawn when people like these brave and noble Imams actually are advocating jihad against the people of the United States, the government, and attacks on US military forces. Why is this piece of Mohammedan feces not either in Leavenworth or dangling by the neck from the end of new hemp?
I only had time to briefly scan the WSJ article this morning on the way out the door.
In a posting above Hugh asks "What is the INS doing?" Apparently nothing but it is worse than that. This pro-jihad imam, Safwat Morsy, has filed a wrongful discharge civil suite against the mosque that fired him for preaching hatred and violence. No only does he not fear our legal system to stop him from preaching sedition, he is actually using it against "moderate" Muslims to try to get his job back.
Question: How many more countries do we have to invade before this kind of thing will stop? How about if we try invading this one: with some common sense!
Quijybo: "It is a sad situation, because a tolerant place like SF would be the first to be ruined by Islam."
How tolerant are they really? Are they all that tolerant towards Israel? Towards red-state Americans? Towards Republicans? Towards American Christians? No. I didn't think so. They merely celebrate and gloat in their supposed moral superiority by being tolerant towards their enemies. That's how you prove your "liberal bona fides" these days. I don't view that as tolerant. I view it as arrogant and self-righteous.
So, how is it that this "moderate" is a "minority" in his own mosque? I thought we have been told over and over that the dangerous, militant elements of Islam are the minority....
It's past time for all Western governments to stop the b.s. and start giving up the truth. The sooner we confront this threat for real, the better off we'll all be, but of course, we don't seem to be lead by people of substance, courage or wisdom in this Modern Age, do we, so I'm probably asking the impossible.
Caroline,
That is a good point. Maybe I spent so long in SF I started to adhere to the nomenclature. You are quite correct, SF is not tolerant in many important ways. However, I was pretty open about my views, which were far more conservative than most. Sometimes I met with idiots, but I was surprised by the frequency with which I met people who were willing to hear me out on various issues. Then again, I look like, and know how to talk to these people.
Quijybo – The issue of tolerance you’ve raised is really a critical issue, from a psychological POV. The way I see it, because the average US citizen hasn't actually faced a REAL enemy on their own turf, most liberals have come to define their identity (and their moral bona fides) in opposition to what admittedly HAVE been their relatively less "tolerant" fellow citizens. They've had the luxury (and I think that’s surely what it has been by any historical standard - a luxury) - of being so open-minded because they never had to face any real mortal threat. What an incredibly easy way to take the moral high-road they've had. Such an easy way to feel really good about yourself. But because their supposed domestic enemies have never actually constituted a REAL mortal threat to get their adrenaline going, they have descended into a fantasy world in which one could bluster and pound one’s chest supporting various third world revolutionaries while claiming to be so brave in the deluded belief that one’s own government (or red-state Americans or Christian conservatives or Republicans etc) would actually seriously hunt them down for “speaking truth to power”, when the reality is that they’ve largely manufactured this domestic threat in their own bored minds (from a relative, historical perspective). I assume we’re still seeing the residual of that pre–9/11 understanding, especially amongst our west-coast liberals who have been largely insulated from 9/11’s impact.
But now of course they do face a real mortal threat, from a real external enemy, even if they don’t quite realize it yet (many are still pretending that this threat has merely been manufactured by their traditional mortal nemesis, tilting at windmills as they’ve always done). And because this very real mortal threat ALSO happens to be the most intolerant, reactionary force known to mankind, the fight against the global jihad ought to be real no-brainer for the average San-Franciscan, or any American liberal who actually values tolerance.
I figure it's just taking them a little longer to figure this out because old habits die hard and also because they have surrounded themselves with so many friends whose habits also die hard. (I can’t help but think the very obviousness of the threat of the global jihad comes easier to those liberals who might be classified as “loners”). But we’re talking here about people who tend to travel in packs and who are extremely sensitive to being on the "right, PC" side of an issue. Hence I predict that they will be extremely susceptible to the overall tide in Europe vis a vis Islam because for these “pack-like” American liberals who value tolerance above all, Europeans are essentially the “alpha males” who lead the American liberal pack.
But when the tide turns for these folks (following the events in Europe), I think it could turn big-time (a tidal wave) - once they understand that permanent war is a fundamental tenet of Islam ( San-Franciscans HATE war after all). Once they understand that - I think they will come to despise Islam with a passion. Because I don't think they're quite as tolerant or moderate (it takes a certain "immoderation" to march or bike naked through the streets to make your point) as they seem on the surface.
Yes - they ostensibly worship the God of Tolerance. But that also means that once they figure out who is the MOST intolerant – it is a distinct possibility that they could turn their fury against the "Most Intolerant" with a vengeance which might actually surprise the more moderate among us.
"The beacon of the jihad will not be extinguished by the tank and will not be extinguished by the airplanes,"
Pray man Pray...if you pray really really really really hard....maybe allah will stop them right??? Hope springs eternal in the jihadist camp.
Where are the Feds when someone preaches hatred at Americans and others in their so called mosque???
If this had been a Christian preacher preaching wage jihad against the mos would have the Feds, the mos and the ACLU up in arms waging hate crime charges the preacher.
Where has equality and fairness gone to in America???
I haven't been to SFO since the only type of Muslims there were the Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan types preaching post-Islamic Islam. Or, more specifically, a kind of abstract mysticism practically indistinguishable from that of Angelus Silesius, Jakob Boehme, Lao Tzu, Rumi and a host of other "God is Love, Love is all" teachers.
Sounds like the neighborhood has gone to hell since then.
A pity that these demented jihadist scum have infested one of the most beautiful cities on Earth.
They should be driven out of "my city by the bay", lashed with feathered boas and covered in pink silly string, then shipped to Mecca COD.
I would like to read the article in its entirety. If anyone has a link to where it can be read, please post it.
Hugh asks: "Why is Safwat Morsy, who preaches Jihad as warfare against us, the Infidels, permitted to remain in this country? Why has he not been deported? When will proceedings begin? And if they won't begin, why not?"
Unless he is directly inciting his listeners to commit violence, the U.S. Government can't touch him; it's against the law.
Prior to 1990, immigrants could be barred from America (or expelled soon afterward) if they openly advocated totalitarian ideologies. But in 1990, the Immigration and Naturalization Act removed ideology as a basis for exclusion. The rationale for this change is that we should not be able to punish an immigrant for advocating ideas that a U.S. citizen can advocate. If Cindy Sheehan can openly support the Iraqi "resistance" that is terrorizing Iraq and killing Americans, and if Noam Chomsky can meet with Hezbollah and praise their work, then how can we punish an immigrant for doing the same kinds of things?
Caroline, Qibyo, all.
FYI, Liberals such as the SFranciscans, have sat at the knee of conservatives to learn tolerance..with the RNC, the Red States, the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson as an example of tolerance, why would anyone expect better behavior from liberals, than that dished out by conservatives.
The motto for America (and Islamists) "Self Righteous Triumphalism is us"
For every Pat Robertson that blames hurricanes and tornado's on American abandoning Christian Values there is a mullah an imam blaming earthquakes and tsunami's on Muslims abandoning Islamic Values.
Nariz,
You wrote, "For every Pat Robertson that blames hurricanes and tornado's on American abandoning Christian Values there is a mullah an imam blaming earthquakes and tsunami's on Muslims abandoning Islamic Values"
Strictly speaking, you are right about that, but I expect that for every mullah, there is not an equivalent blowhard Christian preacher -- which equivalence seems to be your implied message.
Think about that a little, eh?
Looks like you've been infected with MEV (moral equivalency virus). Congratulations.
Nariz-
There is one Pat Robertson. (And maybe 7 lesser ineffectual clone kooks.)
While here are about 1,000,000 crazy imams, mullahs and ayatollahs.
And the last time anyone beheaded in the name of Pat was...
Oh, right: Never.
Read the Bill of Rights sometime.
You're getting some scrambled signals twixt the medulla and the oblongata.
Or is it intentional?
Nothing new, del. Just about every time Nariz chimes in, it's to toot his leftist horn and denigrate conservatives and Christians.
The kind of person who immediately came to mind as I was reading Caroline's posting above.
The poster Nariz does spread this disease
Of Moral Equivalency and other such sleeze.
Give him a squeeze and off hop the fleas
To reprise with great ease such verminous cheese.
jsla: that made me grin.
jsla: that made me grin.
jsla: that made me grin.
whoops.... sorry
Assalamau Laikum all,
I am very greatly interested in this thread. Positive proof that I am not the only one who notices a difference between muslims in the West and the ME/Pakistan.
This man says Beware of "the new American Islam," Sheik Safwat warned followers in the 2003 sermon translated for the court case, "a faith that does not talk about the jihad;
Ofcourse he is afraid to say that this type of Islam in Britain too & Germany & much of the West.
But ofcourse he is too stupid to define a proper name for them....wuslims.
It is a defining moment I feel that he
HAD TO OPEN NEW PREMESIS TO GET HIS MESSAGE ACROSS.
Ofcourse he got crowds of thousands...peoples love to hear of the original Islam, on the bravery of flea bitten muslims on horseback cutting off the ears & noses of those who looked up on them.....of the glory days.
Two other things are defining too:
1) The man had to come from abroad...he is a muslim.
2) The man (probably) cannot speak English.
This is the very scenario that I outlined to Catgirl...that in 30 years time exactly this kind of man will "ask" her in broken English "why do you not wear your jilbab...and why do you not attend the (mandatory) Arabic classes....and don't look at me like that...Kafur (in a whisper)".
I love it when a predicition comes spot on...so catgirl...who's a troll now? ...WHO's YOUR WOMAN?
This increasing desperate person tries to wrest the wuslim away from back to muslim...before they are permanently "lost".
*I think you will see him touring Britian soon too*.
More like him will come and stupidly you will allow them all in. For the moment some wuslims will turn on a sixpence...GET RID OF HIM, we have thousands like him in Pak.
Islam will dominate in the West...you know it and I know it...but it is better for you to negotiate to retain some of your cultural values with wuslims rather than have doctrine imposed by muslims.
...the ball is in your court...
"Hee-haw, hee-haw, hee-haw."
-Naseem at June 20, 2006 04:12 AM
*Yawn*
Assalamau Laikum americaningermany,
The tone of your post tells me that you look down on musliums/wuslims and the muslima in particular.
If my English is not up to standard (despite having an honours degree from a British Uni) then I apologise. You see although I speak 4 languages, English is not my first.
You say "That person really should give up the obsession"!
My name is Naseem...and it is not an obsession...it is Dawa...I am preaching Allah's holy message to you but the Ahmadi way...without Jihad...because that nonsense is not necessary to bless America with Islam.
What I want is a warm fuzzy peaceful Islam in America. Your godless, faithless peoples will relate to very well to this...the lefties, the pristine teenagers, the PC correct peoples will be right there...1st in line to convert and promote this (Ahmadi) brand of Islam.
So not only will Islam dominate in the West but it will be my brand of it....this is my goal...to educate you that there is a way forward within Islam and for you (or your daughter or granddaughter)to embrace it...Allah is most merciful & just to those who convert.
As to "the people here are never going to see the Muslim point of view".
These are early days my dear...the road is long, it is dusty, and there are fires ahead...but I can only see the objective.
You should know that I am already looking for a successor(s) such that this precious brand of dawa can continue ...whether it takes 3 years (which I have been doing now), 30 years or 300 years of service...it matters not one iota!!!.
I may not be around to see Islamic glory in America...but in the grand scheme of things I am not important...only the dawa... the dawa must continue ...this is Allah's way.
Allah Hafiz
-americaningermany,
Have you ever heard a donkey braying in the distance? Sounds kinda plaintive, angry, confused, demanding, and stupid all at once?
naseems warm and fuzzy islam is an illusion. naseem doesn't envision that islam competing in the marketpkace of ideas. for her it has to outright triumph. and what happens once it triumphs? the party is over. No tolerance of others! its a prescription for disaster. don't be fooled.
Thing is, how long do you let a dog run around, foaming at the mouth, growling at the nice folks, before you do it and everyone else a favor and put a bullet in its brain?
Sorry, Nas. Getting near that time where the followers of Big Al and Mo-Dogg might need to be taken out back behind the woodshed.
*cue the sad music**boy sniffling*...BLAM!
It's better this way...
I'll try to be brave and not shed a tear when all of you mohammedan savages are gone, Nas.
Somehow, I think I'll manage.
Mr Eisenhund,
You are wrong about me ...I am Ahmadi...I am for peace with Islam.
I want to help...there is no need to shoot me or my kind!
I will be watching 3years, 30 years or 300years ...all lis for the good of Allah.
I know exactly what you are, mohammedan.
I don't care about all the little divisions you savages come up with. You're all the same to me.
You're either filthy jihadists or you support them.
In my book, that's enough to deserve a bullet.
You're my enemy, and I will see your cult eradicated one way or another. Either you all renounce it or you all die. I couldn't care less which choice you make, but your barbarian philosophy has to go. There is no longer enough room on this planet for a bunch of medieval mental munchkins with martyr complexes to be tolerated.
naseem, if you want to help, and i assume you do, start thinking of your brand of islam as a prescription for living in the present and stop talking about where it will be in 300 years, Don't you realize that this kind of thinking and talking is what utterly repulses we infidels?
We wouldn't mind you living among us if you truly respected the right of each man to determine and practice his faith according to his or her conscience and would raise your children to think likewise. What i'm getting from you is not that, but that you reject violent jihad in favor of a more subltle peaceful one. that is totally unacceptable.
If you want to help. first learn the meanng of tolerance for yourself, then start teaching tolerance to your fellow muslims and stop trying to convince we non muslims that your intentions are pure.
Most assuredly they are crocodile tears, americaningermany.
"This is the very scenario that I outlined to Catgirl...that in 30 years time exactly this kind of man will "ask" her in broken English "why do you not wear your jilbab...and why do you not attend the (mandatory) Arabic classes....and don't look at me like that...Kafur (in a whisper)".
I cannot see 30 years ahead, but the answer would be the same as it would be today : I have REJECTED Islam, no ifs, ands, or buts. I have chosen to be foever faithful to the Most Holy Trinity as a Christian.
That is my full answer. I would consider Kafur a true badge of honor. Faithful as a Christian until the end.
PS : A correction to one word, "forever".
americaningermany: "Typical. Naseem has some meaningless degree from a British Uni."
No what is typical about Naseem as a Muslim is that she got her education in the west, she has sent her son to be educated in the west - yet she looks forward to the day when Islam has taken over the west and is simply too stupid (I blame Islam here rather than the British uni) to reflect on the irony there. If Islam is so terrific and the societies it creates so marvelous, then why didn't both she and her son stay home and get their educations in Pakistan? Is she such an idiot that she doesn't recognize that if Islam took over the west then it would BE like Pakistan and there would be no place for her and her son to have gotten their first class educations in the first place (the kind of education which apparently allows her to enjoy certain priveleges in Pakistan as a reasonably successful businesswoman who has access to the internet and this site where she can post her triumphalist fantasies)? Never mind. I already know the answer to that question. But I also know where to squarely put the blame for that kind of stupidity. And it ain't on the British educational system.
Wow. Just came across this area and, if you don't mind a little outside perspective, kind of an ugly mood here.
Wonder if anyone reads Thomas Barnett and, if so, what you thought of his take:
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives2/003372.html