ISNA is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. "Islamic Group Honors Religious Left," by Mark D. Tooley for the Christian Post (thanks to DFS):
At its recent convention in Chicago, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) honored the National Council of Churches’ top interfaith official with its “Interfaith Unity Award.”Undoubtedly, the award was well deserved! The NCC, like most of the Religious Left, defends or accommodates radical Islam, even as it denounces “fundamentalist” Christianity and condemns Israel. Despite the Religious Left’s support for liberal social causes like same-sex unions and abortion rights, it prefers the supporters of Islamic “Sharia” law to Christians or Jews who might sometimes vote Republican.
“You are doing the will of God,” gushed NCC Associate General Secretary for Interfaith Relations Shanta Premawardhana. “You are the ones upholding faith and serving humanity. You are my sisters and brothers.” ISNA says over 40,000 of its Islamic supporters attended its annual convention.
The award inscription read: "Islamic Society of North America presents Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana, a fellow activist for peace, justice and reconciliation, a 'Christian believer' as described in Qur'an (3:113) in recognition of his tireless contribution to advancing inter-religious dialogue and partnership, with our prayers for a continued demonstration of energy, understanding and commitment."
Here is Qur'an 3:113: "Not all of them are alike: Of the People of the Book are a portion that stand (For the right): They rehearse the Signs of Allah all night long, and they prostrate themselves in adoration."
The Signs of Allah. That's ayat in Arabic. It refers to the verses -- ayat -- of the Qur'an. Ibn Kathir says in explaining this verse that "there are believers and also criminals among the People of the Book," and that the believers among them "implement the Book of Allah, adhere to His Law and follow His Prophet Muhammad." In other words, they become Muslims. The Rev. Dr. Premawardhana must be so proud.
Oh, he's doing even more than "rehearsing [reading over and over] the ayat" and "prostrating himself in adoration." He's keenly interested in preventing Infidels in this country from reading anything, finding out anything, that might conceivably open their eyes to the texts and tenets of Islam. Why, he has even been warning publicly against people reading a book, written by the University of London professor, and well-known historian of the Middle East, Ephraim Karsh, about "Islamic Imperialism."
Here is a news item about the censorious, and censor-loving, outwardly all sweet-reason and interfaith piety, inwardly a menace to free thought and free speech and people learning about, and then coming to their senses about, Islam, NCC Associate General Secretary for Interfaith Relations Shanta Premawardhana. For he knows. And presumably those who back him know. Islam is good, fundamentally good. Those who, such as Wafa Sultan, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or Ibn Warraq, who were born into Islam but do not agree, have written terrible things, according to Shanta Premawardhana, and of course those terrible things must be suppressed, must not be read, for if read they might lead to certain thoughts, and further investigation, and a further "misunderstanding" of Islam which, god knows, is becoming far too "misunderstood" what with the bombs and attacks and manifestoes everywhere, what with the revelations at the Holy Land Foundation trial, what with "The Dhimmi" and "Islam and Dhimmitude" and "The Truth About Muhammad" and "The Legacy of Jihad" and Antoine Fattal and Joseph Schacht and C. Snouck Hurgronje and Henri Lammens and K. S. Lal and W. H. S. Gairdner, and St. Clair Tisdall and Samuel Zwemer. And would the last three, all Christian clergymen, be admitted into today's WCC? Would their books be allowed to be published if Shanta Premawardhana, and all the little shanta premawardhans, had their sweetly sinister, terminally naive, or worse, way?
Come to think of it, has Shanta Premawardhana read any of the works of the great Western scholars (or Hindu ones, for that matter) of Islam? He hasn't? Has he read, has he allowed himself to read, and to ponder, Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Infidel" or Ibn Warraq's "Why I Am Not a Muslim" or Anwar Shaikh's "Islam the Arab National Religion" or Ali Dashti's "Twenty-Three Years"? Has he permitted himself the mental freedom to read Wafa Sultan's articles, and will he read her forthcoming book, or will he move heaven and earth, in the World Council of Churches (where there is a lot less heaven, and a lot more earth), to make sure that his charges, spiritual and temporal, those whom he would wish to guide, never read, never hear about, those and many other books, for fear that they, like the book by Ephraim Karsh he warns darkly against, might learn something about Islam that they would not un-learn, and that worries him?
Why has Shanta Premawardhana become such a Defender of the Faith -- that faith being Islam? Does he have a vested mental interest in believing that All Religions Want the Same Thing and There Can Be No Exceptions To This Rule, lest his little mental and emotional apple-cart be overturned? And we couldn't have that. That would never do.
Last weekend, both the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun had feature articles about the ISNA Elementary School in Mississauga, Ontario.
http://www.thestar.com/article/259330
"...ISNA Elementary in Mississauga, with 260 students, is one of the private, religious schools that hopes to be a part of the public system, as proposed by the Ontario Conservatives should they win the October election"
"...ISNA Elementary School, the first organized Islamic elementary school in Canada and possibly North America, was established by the Islamic Society of North America (Canada) but is now run by a separate charity under the society. It purchased its building, on a leafy subdivision street, from the Peel public board for about $500,000 in 1982..."
Sidebar article:
"Key issues for Islamic schools
"Would ISNA Elementary School like public funding? Yes.
"...Minutes of religious teaching per day: 20 minutes of prayer daily, plus Islamic and Qur'an classes several times each week...
"...Size of community: 37 Islamic schools in Ontario with 4,000 students"
This is from 2005:
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Byfield_Ted/2005/11/12/1304431.html
"Ontario's decision not to throw the power of the state behind Sharia law as a means of resolving Muslim family disputes has exposed a deep division in the Canadian Islamic community, and focused attention in particular on the stylish Canadian headquarters of the Islamic Society of North America in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga.
"The move to recognize Sharia law in tribunals set up under the Ontario Arbitration Act was strongly supported by the ISNA, which organized a protest, brandishing the slogan: 'No Islamophobia, racism or Islam-bashing.'"
[The reporter then discusses ISNA's nice office building.]
"The question arose: Where did the money come from to build it?
"There were two answers.
"According to the ISNA's own website, it came from the Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia. According to the official spokesman of the ISNA in Toronto, it did not. A report of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations tended to support the website.
"The council found Saudi Arabia has spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding 210 Islamic centres and 1,359 mosques around the world, including three in Canada..."
Greetings:
Congratulations to the Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana, but I was really rooting for that female priest who was both a Christian and a Muslim.
Praise from a true believer Muslim is an insult.
From the Rev. Dr. Premawardhana's web site ( http://www.geocities.com/shantap_2000/) - "For the past 14 years I was the pastor of Ellis Avenue Church:
Celebrating Diversity,
Building Community in Christ,
located in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago."
"Celebrating diversity" does not include ignoring unsettling and unpleasant facts. This is particularly the case with a Christian involved in inter-faith dialogue with Muslims, what part has light with darkness, etc.?
This lunacy is not limited to certain sections of the Christian community, I have also wittnesed it within the Jewish community. I attended a presentation by Raphael Israeli on the realities of Islam some months ago, and his most hostile detractors were religious Jews who were involved in inter-faith dialogue with the local Muslims.
There is a wilfull blindness in our western societies, it is very disturbing.
Regarding Hugh's post above...
" in the World Council of Churches (where there is a lot less heaven, and a lot more earth)"
... I can only answer Amen.
6"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.
21"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
6"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.
That almost sounds like Prophecy.. take that whatever way you will.