August 2009 Archives

Obama's strange new respect comes home to roost. "Iraq Ministry Bombers Were Freed by US," from Agence France-Presse, August 31 (thanks to DFS):

The suicide bombers who killed 95 people in devastating attacks at Iraqi government ministries on August 19 were recently released from U.S. custody, a senior interior ministry official said on Sunday.

The truck bombings in Baghdad also wounded 600 people in what was the worst day of violence to hit the country for 18 months, dealing a major blow to the nation's security efforts in the wake of a major pullout of U.S. troops.

"The suicide bomber who blew himself up at the ministry of foreign affairs was released three months ago from Camp Bucca," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity, referring to the U.S. jail near Basra.

"The suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the ministry of finance was also released a few months ago from the same jail."

Since the start of this year 5,236 prisoners have been released from U.S. custody and 1,179 detainees handed over to the government of Iraq, according to figures released on Sunday.

Less than 9,000 prisoners are still in American-run prisons.

"We have no proof that a former detainee was involved in the bombings," a U.S. army spokesman told AFP.

"The government of Iraq is still investigating the attacks, and it would be inappropriate for us to speculate as to who may have been involved while the investigation is ongoing."

The interior ministry official, however, told AFP that 14 suspects had been arrested in the wake of the attacks and that the truck bombs were prepared in southern Baghdad.

"The vast majority of them were released in recent months from Camp Bucca," he said, noting that all of the suspects were from Nineveh and Salaheddin provinces.

"Each of them had a precise role. One was responsible for buying the trucks. One was in charge of making sure they could enter Baghdad. One made sure that the explosives were packed on the trucks and others were the suicide bombers."

The dhimmis, or non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state, according to a manual of Islamic law endorsed by Al-Azhar University in Cairo as reflective of Sunni orthodoxy, "are obliged to comply with Islamic rules that pertain to the safety and indemnity of life, reputation, and property." Among these Islamic rules: they "are forbidden to build new churches" ('Umdat al-Salik o11.5).

"Building a Church is a 'Sin' Against God, Says Egyptian Muslim Council," by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, August 31:

Cairo (AINA) -- A controversial Fatwa (Islamic edict) prohibiting the construction of new churches in Egypt has provoked considerable discussion and spiraled into a crisis, involving the Fatwa Council, Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh, Christian and Muslim religious personalities, and the media. It was also reported on 8/26/2009 that the jurists who issued the Fatwa are under investigation on orders of the Grand Mufti and the Justice Minister.

The Fatwa (Arabic) in question was issued by the Al-Azhar affiliated "Dar el-Eftta" -- Fatwa Council for Islamic interpretations of laws in Islam. It stated "the will of a Muslim towards building a Church is a sin against God, just as if he left his inheritance towards building a nightclub, a gambling casino, or building a barn for rearing pigs, cats or dogs."

It was issued in response to an inquiry sent to the Fatwa Council by Dr. Naguib Gabraeel, President of the Egyptian Union Human Rights Organization (EUHRO), asking its opinion as to what he read in an article written by a prominent writer about what was stated in a textbook taught to third year students, Muslims and Christians, at the Faculty of Law, Cairo University, on Inheritance and execution of wills. Gabraeel's inquiry pertained specifically to a quotation from the textbook "it is forbidden for a person to donate money for what would lead to sin, such as donating in his will money towards build a church, a nightclub, a gambling casino, towards promoting the alcohol industry or for building a barn for rearing pigs, cats or dogs." He went on to inquire "So what is the Shari'a position to what was mentioned especially concerning the will of a Muslim to donate for the building of a church or a monk's cell? If the answer is prohibition, aren't these houses where the name of God is mentioned? Is not Christianity a recognized religion according to the Egyptian constitution? There are also a lot of wealthy Copts and Coptic businessmen who donate towards the building of mosques."

The Fatwa Council replied affirming the correctness of what came in the textbook and issued a Fatwa on September 10, 2008 (document number 1809), which is also published on its official website.

To highlight the reason for this "sin" the Fatwa went on to state: "Salvation in the Christian religion is the belief in Jesus as Lord, where Muslims fundamentally disagree on it. Muslims believe that Issa [Jesus in Arabic] peace be upon him, is a slave of Allah and His Messenger, and that Allah is one. He begets not and He is not begotten and there is none like unto Him. So if it is seen that one sect has deviated from this absolute Monotheism, then according to that person's own religion he is forbidden to donate for the erection of buildings where Allah is not worshiped alone."

According to Mohammed el-Maghrabbi, deputy chief of the Faculty of Law, and author of the controversial textbook, what he wrote is a principle agreed upon by all Islamic jurists. He added that a will, if devoted by a Christian for building a Church, is forbidden and sinful and is considered in Islam as separation from God. So it is also illegal if a non-Muslim wills his inheritance towards building a Church or a Synagogue.

This Fatwa has shocked many as it classified churches with nightclub, gambling casinos, and places for rearing pigs and dogs, which are considered 'unclean' animals according to Islam and Muslims.

Christians were angered and considered it a clear and explicit insult to all Christians. The renowned theologian Reverend Abdelmassih Bassit, Professor at the Coptic Orthodox Clerical Institute, called it "a shocking Fatwa."

Gabraeel called on the government and Al-Azhar to state their position clearly on the building of churches, as well as prayer meetings held in premises even if they were 'unlicensed' as churches.

On August 19, 2009, a delegation from EUHRO, headed by Dr. Gabraeel, paid a visit to Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, who said that the Fatwa was wrong and untrue and that Muslims can make voluntary contributions to build churches, as a church is a house for "worshiping and tolerance" and that "Shari'a does not prevent Muslims from donating to the building of a church, as it is his free money. He also affirmed that Al-Azhar does not object to the "unified law for building places of worship."

Tantawi added that building churches should be left to the Christians and Muslims are not allowed according to Shari'a to interfere in other faiths, "because religion, faith and what a person believes in is a relationship between him and his God." He also called on the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa to hold the five jurists who issued the Fatwa accountable.

Reactions to Tantawi's statements resulted in a crisis in the Islamic circles. Most Muslim leaders criticized him publicly and supported the Fatwa "as being issued by people qualified in Islamic Shari'a law" or "a Muslim should not donate to the building of a church when Christians do not believe in the religion of Mohammed, or him being a prophet."

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa gave the excuse that he never ratified the Fatwa. Nevertheless, his answer was not convincing as it was an official Fatwa issued by the authority headed by him, stamped and signed by five of the Council's jurists. He failed to give an opinion about it.

Less than 24 hours after the EUHRO visit, Grand Sheikh Tantawi backtracked on his statements saying it was a misunderstanding on the part of the EUHRO delegation and the newspapers. He commented that what he meant was for non-Muslims to donate in their wills for church building and reaffirmed that it is forbidden for a person to donate money for the construction of "sinful" places, such as bars and nightclubs....

Rifqa Bary's lawyer John Stemberger just held a press conference and released these two pdfs. One is Rifqa's own statement, and the other details the jihadist ties of the Noor Islamic Center in Columbus, Ohio, the mosque of Rifqa's parents. I was on the conference call, and heard Stemberger make the case that Rifqa's parents attend a mosque with multiple links to jihadists, thus lending credence to her claim that she would be in grave danger if returned to their custody. Rifqa's own affidavit underscores this. Pamela has a transcription over at Atlas Shrugs:

15. I became a Christian on Friday, November 18, 2005 at the Korean United Methodist Church in Columbus, Ohio;

16. I hid my Christian faith from my parents as best as I could and had to sneak around to attend Christian campus meetings, I also hid my Bible at home in various locations;

17. In about 2007 my father discovered a copy of a book entitled the "Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren that I hid in my bedroom. My father had a serious talk with me about the importance of retaining the Islamic blood line in my family but I did not tell him about my conversion;

18. In June of 2009 my father confronted me with several questions about whether I had become a Christian, whether I was baptized, if I was going to church. Out of fear I remained silent;

19. Then my father told me that he received numerous emails and phone calls from the leaders of the Noor Center community who informed him that he needed to deal with this matter immediately;

20. In a fit of anger that I had never seen before in my life, he picked up my lap top, waived it over my head as if to strike me with it and said "if you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me! You are no longer my daughter." I continued to remain silent and then he said to me even more angry then before, I will kill you! Tell me the truth!"

21. On July 17, 2009, my mother confronted me about another Christian book she discovered that I hid in my bedroom. She had just spoken with my father was on the phone who was out of town. She was very upset, in tears, and almost grieving and told me I was going to have to be sent back to Sri Lanka to be dealt with.

Read it all. Pamela also has audio of the press conference, which is remarkable for the exceedingly contentious and leading questions asked by the assembled "journalists." Don't miss it.

This is, of course, how Islamic groups in the U.S. have reacted to every act of violence and every threat that any Muslim has issued in recent years: they've raised fears of a non-existent "backlash" and claimed they're being persecuted, rather than address the root causes of the violence and brutality within their own community. And the bemused, befuddled multiculturalists in the mainstream media go along with it happily, every time.

The Orlando Sentinel has been engaging in a full-scale campaign to discredit Rifqa Bary and her defenders. Pamela Geller skewered a few of their recent propaganda pieces here, here, and here. And here's the Sentinel's latest fresh steaming pile of Rifqa coverage:

"Muslims fear runaway girl's case will fuel religious hatred," by Jeff Kunerth for the Orlando Sentinel, August 31 (thanks to Larry):

From the sidelines, the Muslim community watches the saga of Fathima Rifqa Bary with sadness and weariness.

What looks to many Muslims like a family squabble between Muslim parents in Columbus, Ohio, and their runaway daughter in Orlando has become something of a new crusade by evangelical Christians.

Forget about Rifqa's charge that her father threatened to kill her. This was all provoked by the media's favorite whipping boy, "evangelical Christians."

The frustration for many Muslims in Central Florida is that the accusations of one teenage girl who says she fears her father would kill her for becoming a Christian has become a wholesale distortion of their religion.

"We feel frustrated because this is a family problem of a certain family, and the way it has been portrayed is defaming Islam and giving a way, way negative picture of our religion," said Imam Tariq Rasheed, director of the Islamic Center of Orlando.

See how it works? Father threatens to kill girl, in full accord with Islamic law regarding apostates. Girl flees, and reports what her father said. And suddenly this becomes an act of "defaming Islam." Even if Rifqa's father didn't actually threaten her, there is nothing in the least unbelievable about the charge that he did, in light of the many killings of apostates and threats to their lives that take place frequently in the Islamic world.

Yet if you speak of this, you're "defaming Islam" -- a clever ploy to try to deflect attention away from the killings for apostasy, and from the father's alleged threat, and onto Muslims as being victimized by coverage of all this.

And now the Sentinel explains it all for you, letting Islamic spokesmen correct the alleged errors of Rifqa's defenders:

In their advocacy of the 17-year-old girl, her defenders contend that Bary's fears of being beaten or killed because she converted to Christianity are real. The fundamentalists lobbying the state to allow Bary to remain in Florida cite instances of "honor killings" where women and girls who have shamed their families have been killed.

"There is a significant population, a growing population, of extremist Muslims who take the Quran quite literally and apply it as they have on this case," said Bary's attorney John Stemberger. "My concern is she is literally a dead girl if she is sent back to Ohio. It's only a matter of time until she disappears into the night."

Quran vs. law

Such a contention is a blatant misrepresentation of Islam, Rasheed said.

"There is not a single verse in the holy Quran that stops a person from exercising the freedom of choosing his or her religion. There is nothing about a punishment if you change your religion," Rasheed said.

Ultimately, even if what Stemberger says were a "blatant misrepresentation of Islam," which it is not, it is irrelevant. For Rifqa's father may have threatened her even if to have done so would have violated the tenets of Islam. The assumption that Mohamed Bary, or anyone, must always and in every instance act in accord with the tenets of his religion is absurd. Rifqa Bary could be in danger from her father whatever Islam teaches. Rasheed is essentially arguing that Islam doesn't teach death for apostasy, and therefore Rifqa is not in danger.

But of course, Rasheed is also lying. The death penalty for apostasy is rooted in two Qur'anic verses, 2:217 and 4:89. Here is 2:217:

They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: "Fighting therein is a grave (offence); but graver is it in the sight of Allah to prevent access to the path of Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members." Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.

What does it mean that the works of those who "turn back from their faith and die in unbelief" will "bear no fruit in this life" as well as in the next? Let's go for an answer to the Tafsir al-Qurtubi, a classic and thoroughly mainstream exegesis of the Qur'an. About 2:217, Qurtubi says this:

Scholars disagree about whether or not apostates are asked to repent. One group say that they are asked to repent and, if they do not, they are killed. Some say they are given an hour and others a month. Others say that they are asked to repent three times, and that is the view of Malik. Al-Hasan said they are asked a hundred times. It is also said that they are killed without being asked to repent.

Did you notice one option that Qurtubi never mentions? That's right: he never says anything like "some say the apostate should not be killed." The only point of contention seems to be how long the Muslim must wait before he kills the apostate.

Meanwhile, 4:89 says this:

They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they). But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.

Thus those who have fled from what is forbidden, i.e., embraced Islam, should be killed if they "turn renegades." The Tafsir al-Jalalayn, another venerable and respected commentary on the Qur'an, explains that a Muslim should not trust these people "until they emigrate in the way of God, a proper emigration that would confirm their belief" -- that is, if they leave their homes to join up with the Muslims. "Then, if they turn away, and remain upon their ways, take them, as captives, and slay them wherever you find them." Here again, no attempt is made, in this Qur'an commentary or any of those that Muslims revere as trustworthy, to explain that this does not actually mean that one should kill the "renegade."

And of course Rasheed speak only about the Qur'an. He never mentions, although he surely must know, that Muhammad said "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him," and that this statement in the Hadith (in which it appears several times) became the foundation for the unanimous verdict of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence: the apostate must be killed.

The article continues:

Though there are Muslim nations where "honor killings" are condoned, it is not for leaving Islam, said Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida. Non-Muslims often confuse "honor killings" with a provision in ancient Islamic law that calls for capital punishment for Muslims who leave the religion. But that law is applied by a court, not by individuals or family members, as is the custom with "honor killings," which usually involve adultery or fornication by unmarried women.

"They assume the law and the Quran are synonymous, and they are not," Simmons said. "The Quran is not a law book."

No, but there is Islamic law, and a manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).

In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In accord with this, in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."

Fathima Rifqa Bary herself may be confused about the difference between capital punishment under Islamic law and honor killings, Simmons said.

Not all Muslim countries operate under Islamic law and not all Muslim countries permit honor killings — just as not all states in America have the death penalty. Sri Lanka, where Bary's parents are from, does not use Islamic law in its judicial system, Simmons said.

So what? Are we to believe that because Sri Lanka doesn't follow Islamic law, that therefore the Barys don't follow it either?

'Islamophobia'

The custody battle between Christian evangelicals in Florida and her Muslim parents in Ohio comes at the same time an evangelical church in Gainesville posted a sign that said "Islam is of the Devil" on its property. Several children were sent home the first week of school for wearing T-shirts with that message.

Both cases — equating Islam with evil and contending that Muslims who convert to Christianity will be killed — feed into what Simmons calls "Islamophobia."

Where did anyone get the idea that "Muslims who convert to Christianity will be killed"? Was it really from greasy Islamophobes? Or might it have been from the Muslims who insisted on exactly that (see all my links above)?

"This plays into an irrational sense of fear among people who aren't familiar with the tenets of the faith," she said.

The portrayal of violent Muslims who want to kill their daughter and devoted evangelical Christians who want only to save the soul of a innocent child only perpetuates stereotypes of both Muslims and Christians, said Claudia Schippert, associate professor of humanities at the University of Central Florida.

"What is shameful in this entire ordeal is the way in which those who should know better, and who profess quite different values otherwise, are willing to repeat stereotypes and fuel fires of ignorance and violence," she said of the Christians at the center of this controversy.

On Aug. 21, Muslims began their monthlong observance of Ramadan. During Ramadan, Muslims turn inward away from the distractions of the everyday world that, these days, include the tug-of-war over a teenage girl who has placed their religion on trial.

"With other communities, when an individual does something, it's that individual," Rasheed said. "When it's a Muslim, it's Islam that is the motivating factor."

And why might that be?

"The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam." -- Osama bin Laden, October 6, 2002

"We ask to be near to God, we fight you and destroy you and terrorize you. The Jihad in god's cause is a great duty in our religion." -- the 9/11 plotters, December 2008

And so on. In other words, people see Islam as "the motivating factor" in Islamic violence because its perpetrators say that it was the motivating factor.

UPDATE: It has just come to my attention that school officials say Heather Lawrence lied about this incident (thanks to Sanjay). The larger questions remain.

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"But whether standing up or not, this issue's not about the pledge of allegiance or anything else. This is about bullying and it's about discrimination." So says Ahmed Bedier, who knows a bit about bullying himself.

And he's right: this case is about bullying. But who is doing the bullying, and who is being bullied?

"Patriotism or prejudice? Teen suspended for criticizing Muslim student," by Elizabeth Dinh for ABC Action News (Tampa Bay), August 31 (thanks to herr Oyal):

SPRING HILL, FL -- While showing off her JROTC uniform, 16-year-old Heather Lawrence told us joining the Army is her next big goal, to follow in the footsteps of her father and grandfather.

"Our flag represents everything that our country is," she said.

The teen says an issue over the American flag is why she was written up and handed a five-day suspension from Springstead High School this week for criticizing a Muslim student. Heather says the other girl was sitting down during the Pledge of Allegiance.

"You know, I made a not-so-kind remark, and I do sincerely apologize for referring to the thing on her head because that had nothing to do with it." Heather told us, "But I told her, 'Why don't she act like she's proud to be an American?'"

Despite the open apology to the girl, who wears a hijab, the President of the Tampa/Hillsborough County Human Rights Council says Heather's actions were harmful and the school was right for taking action.

"But whether standing up or not, this issue's not about the pledge of allegiance or anything else." Council President Ahmed Bedier said. "This is about bullying and it's about discrimination."

Bedier says the Muslim student's family contacted him and claims she did stand up for the pledge....

Dhimmitude:

The Muslim student walked away from Heather's confrontation. A school staff member then reported the incident....

“’The problem here, however, is that when it comes to Islamic jihadists, virtually anything short of full capitulation is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting. Any resistance to the jihad agenda is immediately cast as a grievous insult that must be redressed’"

You are partially right, but the mistake you keep making is that these outreach efforts are targeted at Jihadists. They're not, they're targeted at the Muslim world where America's reputation has taken a hit following such stupidity as destroying a secular state (Iraq) which acted as a buffer against religious extremism.

"And because the Qur'an teaches Muslims to distrust Infidels, as they are the "most vile of created beings" (98:6) and will never be satisfied until the Muslims discard Islam (2:120). One is not take them as friends or protectors (3:28; 5:51)."

Here, your reductionist approach, while convenient for the average jwatcher is off the mark. Look first at Afghan perceptions of America which were quite good following the invasion, these started to dip in 2005 when much that was promised to Afghanistan did not materialize (in part because many resources were diverted to Iraq). Second, the situation in the north is different than in the south. This is because the south is Pashtun while the North is a mix of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks etc. perceptions of America are different depending on whether you're a pashtun or not. These people have read the same Koran but react differently to Americans because they are not the same as AQ. -- from a poster critical of Robert Spencer’s comments on Admiral Mullen here

The poster begins with an astonishing take on the invasion of Iraq. He claims that “America's reputation has taken a hit following such stupidity as destroying a secular state (Iraq) which acted as a buffer against religious extremism.”

That statement deserves scrutiny. America’s “reputation” among Muslims has not “taken a hit” because the Americans never did, and never could, stand high in the opinion of any Muslims who take Islam seriously -- and whose contempt and hostility, and sometimes murderous hatred, for non-Muslims has its source in the texts and tenets and attitudes of Islam. It is true that Sunni Arabs are enraged that the Americans replaced Saddam Hussein, but that is not, as the poster claims, because Iraq was a “secular state” and they longed for that “secular” state to remain. Why would the likes of Saudi Arabia regret the passing of a “secular state” in the Middle East? I have explained at tedious length before that the soi-disant “secularism” of the only two Ba’athist regimes -- those in Syria and Iraq -- was skin-deep. In fact, it was merely the camouflage used to disguise, and make palatable, in the case of Syria, a despotism run of, by, and for the Alawites (who make up only 12% of the population). In the case of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, it provided cover for a Sunni Arab despotism, when the Sunni Arabs constitute less than 20% of the population.

The real reason the Sunni Arabs were furious with the United States for its invasion of Iraq was that that invasion, and the subsequent toppling of Saddam Hussein and his entire regime, meant that power had been irrevocably transferred from the Sunni to the Shi’a Arabs in Iraq. That, for Sunni Arabs, is intolerable in and of itself. But it becomes still more infuriating at a time when the Islamic Republic of Iran, a Shi’a state, makes claims to be the most aggressive Muslim state in the Lesser Jihad against Israel and the Greater Jihad against the camp of Infidels and in particular the perceived leader of that camp, the Great Satan, the United States. (For Iranians, however, historical resentments will also give pride of place, surprising to those unfamiliar with the Iranian bestiary, to Great Britain.)

Sure, as soon as you apologize for jihad

"It should be a clear, public and unconditional apology for the offence and harm caused by their newspaper," Yamani said.

I think that he and the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other Muslim groups and spokesmen should issue a clear, public, and unconditional apology for the Muslims who murdered and rioted because of...a cartoon.

"Saudi lawyer seeks apology over Danish Mohammed row," from AFP, August 30 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

COPENHAGEN - A Saudi lawyer has demanded a public apology from a number of Danish dailies that reprinted a controversial cartoon of Prophet Mohammed in February 2008, Danish media reported on Sunday.

The lawyer, identified as Faisal A.Z. Yamani from Jeddah, sent an email to the newspapers that republished the drawing first printed in 2005 and demanded that they print an apology by the end of September, Danish news agency Ritzau reported.

"It should be a clear, public and unconditional apology for the offence and harm caused by their newspaper," Yamani wrote, demanding that the statement appear in the first three pages of the newspaper and in four languages, Danish, French, English and Arabic.

The caricature features Prophet Mohammed's head with a turban designed to look like a bomb with a lit fuse.

It was one of 12 cartoons first published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and which sparked violent protests across the Muslim world in early 2006.

It was reprinted in mid-February 2008 by some 17 newspapers after Danish police foiled an alleged plot to kill the cartoonist, again triggering angry reactions in numerous Muslim countries.

They were angry, mind you, over the reprinting of the Motoon, not over the plot to kill the cartoonist.

And of course, the thuggery is ever present:

Yamani suggested in the email that Danish interests in the Middle East could suffer if an apology was not forthcoming....

My ninth and newest book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, will be out September 21 from Regnery Publishing.

Here are some advance reviews of the new book:

"Robert Spencer incarnates intellectual courage when, all over the world, governments, intellectuals, churches, universities and media crawl under a hegemonic Universal Caliphate‘s New Order. His achievement in the battle for the survival of free speech and dignity of man will remain as a fundamental monument to the love of, and the self-sacrifice for, liberty. In our epoch of intellectual jihadism, this honest book is essential to understand the challenges of the twenty-first century.” — Bat Ye'or, author of Eurabia; The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam; and Islam and Dhimmitude

"Unlike most of today’s self-styled experts, Robert Spencer won’t tell you that ‘slay the idolaters wherever you find them’ really means ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ In The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, Spencer shows once again that he is America’s most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism, insisting that we come to grips with the words behind the ideology that fuels international terror.” — Andrew C. McCarthy, senior fellow at the National Review Institute and author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.

"Meticulous, comprehensive, indispensable. ‘I read the Koran so you don’t have to,’ Spencer writes—but even for those of us who have read the Koran, this is a richly illuminating work.” — Bruce Bawer, author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom and While Europe Slept.

More coming!

There may have been, uh, dry runs for this sort of thing.

"Saudi tightens security to protect oil plants," from GulfNews, August 31 (thanks to Iraq the Model):

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia has tightened security at oil facilities after the country's anti-terror chief, Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, escaped a suicide attack, guards at Abqaiq, the world's biggest oil processing plant, said yesterday....

Al Qaeda, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack and said that the bomber, Abdullah Hassan Taleh Al Asiri, had managed to pass security checkpoints and board a private aircraft, Site Intelligence said yesterday.

A statement posted on jihadist forums by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said Al Asiri passed through checkpoints at Najran airport, near the Yemeni border, and Jeddah airport, the US monitoring service said.

He then boarded Prince Mohammed's private jet with his explosives, according to the statement, which said he finally blew himself up amongst the prince's guards. The site also published a picture of Asiri.

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV said Asiri was a 23-year-old Saudi whose brother Ibrahim was also on the wanted list.

It said the attacker concealed the explosives in his anus, allowing him to evade detection.

The network also quoted an expert as saying that the method of concealment aimed the blast away from the target, while blowing the bomber to bits....

"Rev. Lorenz is then quoted in a local television station report saying that if a Muslim leaves his religion and does not return to Islam in a couple of days, then he must be killed. He claims that someone showed him the verse. There is no such verse, Rev. Lorenz. In every faith, apostasy is shunned but ultimate judgment is left to God, not people." -- Salam al-Marayati

"A Muslim’s conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law." -- M. Cherif Bassiouni

"It becomes really difficult, in light of this information, to persuasively argue that Islamic Law should permit a death penalty for apostasy." -- Ali Eteraz

Uh huh.

Some will say There he goes again, criticizing genuine reformers instead of supporting them.

In reality, I would wholeheartedly support any genuine Muslim reformer. It seems to me that there are two ways to tell a reformer from a deceiver:

1. A reformer will acknowledge the existence of the doctrine that he believes needs reforming, rather than deny its existence. So a reformer will admit that the schools of Islamic jurisprudence unanimously teach the death penalty for apostasy, and will say that that needs to be changed, rather than claiming that Islamic law doesn't mandate death for apostates.

2. A reformer will address those who hold the doctrine he rejects, and try to convince them of its falsity, rather than address those who simply point out that the disputed doctrine is held. So a reformer on Islamic apostasy law will devote his efforts to convincing his fellow Muslims that the law should be changed, rather than spending all his time convincing gullible non-Muslims that there is no death penalty for apostasy in the first place.

Al-Marayati fails on both counts.

Bassiouni has been good on #2, as he did write to the government of Afghanistan in defense of Abdul Rahman, the convert from Islam to Christianity who was arrested and was in fear for his life a few years ago. But he has equivocated and contradicted himself regarding #1, and refused to address or correct the contradiction.

Eteraz, who like al-Marayati and Bassiouni is yet another charming and gracious fellow, comes close on #1, but I've never seen him do anything about #2.

"Somalia: Christian Shot Dead Near Kenya Border: Muslim extremists kill convert from Islam they were monitoring," from Compass Direct, August 22 (thanks to Report on Arrakis):

NAIROBI, Kenya, August 22 (Compass Direct News) – Muslim extremists seeking evidence that a Somali man had converted from Islam to Christianity shot him dead Tuesday morning (Aug. 18) near the Somali border with Kenya, according to underground Christians in the war-torn nation.

Al Shabaab rebels killed 41-year-old Ahmed Matan in Bulahawa, Somalia, according to Abdikadir Abdi Ismael, a former leader of a secret Christian fellowship in Somalia to which Matan belonged. Matan had been a member of the underground church since 2001.

The early morning shooting comes at a time when Islamist groups led by al Shabaab are hunting down converts to Christianity as they seek to establish sharia (Islamic law) throughout Somalia.

Ismael, who fled the area in 2005, said he received a telephone call from Matan two weeks ago in which the convert told him that monitoring by the Islamic extremists kept him from leaving his home and carrying out his small-trade business across the border in Mandera, in eastern Kenya.

“I am afraid for my life – the al Shabaab want to get a proof that I follow the Christian faith,” Matan told Ismael. “They have not been seeing me in the mosque and seem to have realized that I am not part of them.”

Ismael subsequently learned from a member of the underground church who requested anonymity that on Aug. 18 Matan was shot dead as he was about to enter Mandera with a donkey carrying goods for sale such as sugar, batteries and shampoo. He was a father of three, his last child just 3 months old....

Ismael was visibly shaken by the death of his close friend.

“We have been going through difficult times because of choosing to follow Christianity,” Ismael told Compass. “We have lost everything. We even lack words to share our feelings. I have been always on the run from one refugee camp to another. The Muslims have issued a fatwa on me.”...

Yesterday, when I posted this particularly entertaining bit of hate mail, some people asked me to post more. Well, even though there are some regular hate emailers whose emails I never even see, since their messages are programmed to go directly into the Trash file, I still receive plenty -- so here is the Question of the Day from a curious reader in London:

DEAR SIR WHY ARE YOU AND ALL OTHER JEWISH MEN S UGLY WHILE YOUR WOMEN ARE PRITTY

Once again we see the fixation with Jews -- the worst enemies of the Muslims according to Qur'an 5:82. The possibility that the jihad and Islamic supremacism might have aroused some resistance among others (who are standing with the Jews against these things today) doesn't enter their minds.

Medvedev refers to the jihadists' "unorthodox views on Islam," indicating that like his counterparts in the West, he believes that Islam is a Religion of Peace™. Yet the relative peacefulness of the Islam in the Caucasus was a product of cultural accommodation, not theological reform. Medvedev would no doubt be quite surprised -- as surprised as, say, Gordon Brown would be -- to learn that all the mainstream sects and schools of jurisprudence teach warfare against unbelievers in order to subjugate them as inferiors under the rule of Islamic law. "Medvedev turns to Muslim clerics to counter radicals," by Denis Dyomkin for Reuters, August 28 (thanks to Natalie):

SOCHI, Russia, Aug 28 (Reuters) - President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday urged Russia's top Muslim clerics to join forces to stop radical Islamist groups wooing young people in the turbulent North Caucasus.

He proposed a Muslim television channel and controls on access to Islamic education abroad as ways of tackling Islamist insurgency in the region....

A wave of suicide bomb attacks and armed assaults on police and security forces in Chechnya and next-door Ingushetia and Dagestan has marked the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Russia's North Caucasus....

Medvedev backed the idea of confronting radical Islamist propaganda but he indicated the options were limited.

"We cannot force people to give up Internet or close these sites," he said, proposing such alternatives as a television channel to promote mainstream Islam.

"We need to think about finding a channel which would offer teaching and comprehensive explanation of Islam that is traditional for our country," he said without elaborating.

Medvedev also proposed stronger control over young people returning to Russia after studying Islam abroad. Mainstream clerics say many Islamic schools in Arab countries spread radical teachings.

"There indeed must be control," Medvedev said. "Unfortunately these people are returning ... (and) bring back unorthodox views on Islam," he said....

Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a thoroughly unpleasant character with whom I have appeared on many radio shows (on which he invariably likens me to Osama bin Laden, although I have never flown any planes into buildings, beheaded anyone, or exhorted anyone to do so), attacks Rifqa Bary, the seventeen-year-old girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her home and father after he threatened to kill her (as she explains here), and her supporters in a contemptuous, dishonest, condescending and arrogant piece at the Huffington Post, "Rifqa, the Reverand [sic] and Apostasy" (August 18).

Hugh Fitzgerald and Andy Bostom have already weighed in on this utterly contemptible article, but I have a few things to add.

Al-Marayati is intent on impugning Rifqa's own testimony in favor of her father's protestations that he does not intend to kill her -- and indeed, it is her word against his, and the only price we will have to pay if al-Marayati turns out to be wrong is a murdered teenage girl. To support his case, al-Marayati makes essentially two points, both encapsulated in this sentence: "Mohamed Bary allowed his daughter to become a cheerleader and says she can practice any faith she wants -- clearly, he is not a fundamentalist."

His first point is thus that Mohamed Bary, by allowing his daughter to prance around in skimpy cheerleader costumes, clearly was not the sort to insist on the finer points of Islamic law like the death penalty for apostasy (which al-Marayati implies does not exist anyway, so it's hard to see why it would be a feature of "fundamentalism" in the first place). However, honor killing victims in the West have invariably been girls who have been Westernized, adopting Western non-Muslim mores to the growing dismay of their male relatives. Al-Marayati's point is that if Mohamed Bary were a "fundamentalist," he would not have allowed Rifqa to become Westernized in the first place. Real life, however, is not always that simple. Honor killing victims like Amina and Sarah Said in Texas and Aqsa Parvez in Canada appear to been quite Westernized for a considerable period before their relationships with their fathers reached a tipping point, and they were murdered. Rifqa Bary fled before that could happen, but the fact that she was a hijab-less cheerleader indicates nothing. Pamela Geller explains further in responding to the same claim from Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel:

Victims are generally beautiful, Westernized, and dressed in a manner that perhaps Thomas would term “provocative.” Muslim girls who live in the West lead two lives. Amina and Sarah Said, allegedly murdered by their father in Texas on New Year’s Day 2008 for having non-Muslim boyfriends, were honor students, star athletes, soccer players, tennis players, etc. Rifqa was the same way in Ohio before she fled. These girls led double lives. The murder always happens when the family sees they have lost control of the child.

Al-Marayati's second point is that, contrary to Rifqa's own claim, the Qur'an says nothing about killing apostates:

She claims that her parents "love God more than me" and therefore have to perform an honor killing on her. She argues "it's in the Quran". No it's not, sweet little Rifqa. It's not in the Quran. Whoever told you that is either ignorant or a liar. You should look it up yourself before claiming it's in the Quran.

Rev. Lorenz is then quoted in a local television station report saying that if a Muslim leaves his religion and does not return to Islam in a couple of days, then he must be killed. He claims that someone showed him the verse. There is no such verse, Rev. Lorenz. In every faith, apostasy is shunned but ultimate judgment is left to God, not people.

Two things are being confused here: honor killing and the death penalty for apostasy. Honor killing is not discussed directly in the Qur'an, although it is given strong implicit support by 18:74, 80-81, when the mysterious figure known in Islamic tradition as Khidr, traveling with the prophet Moses, kills a young man Moses terms "innocent" (18:74). Khidr explains: "And as for the lad, his parents were believers and we feared lest he should oppress them by rebellion and disbelief. So we desired that their Lord would give them in exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) and closer in affection." The young man is murdered because he is an unbeliever, so that his parents may be given a believing child in exchange. (Why the unbelieving son has to be killed before the believing son can be given to them is not explained.) Thus the precedent is set: a child who is an unbeliever is killed for his unbelief.

The death penalty for apostasy is found more directly in the Qur'an -- Islamic authorities generally root it in two Qur'anic verses, 2:217 and 4:89, as Hugh has noted. Here is 2:217:

They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: "Fighting therein is a grave (offence); but graver is it in the sight of Allah to prevent access to the path of Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members." Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.

What does it mean that the works of those who "turn back from their faith and die in unbelief" will "bear no fruit in this life" as well as in the next? Let's go for an answer to the Tafsir al-Qurtubi, a classic and thoroughly mainstream exegesis of the Qur'an. About 2:217, Qurtubi says this:

Scholars disagree about whether or not apostates are asked to repent. One group say that they are asked to repent and, if they do not, they are killed. Some say they are given an hour and others a month. Others say that they are asked to repent three times, and that is the view of Malik. Al-Hasan said they are asked a hundred times. It is also said that they are killed without being asked to repent.

Did you notice one option that Qurtubi never mentions? That's right: he never says anything like "some say the apostate should not be killed." The only point of contention seems to be how long the Muslim must wait before he kills the apostate.

Meanwhile, 4:89 says this:

They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they). But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.

Thus those who have fled from what is forbidden, i.e., embraced Islam, should be killed if they "turn renegades." The Tafsir al-Jalalayn, another venerable and respected commentary on the Qur'an, explains that a Muslim should not trust these people "until they emigrate in the way of God, a proper emigration that would confirm their belief" -- that is, if they leave their homes to join up with the Muslims. "Then, if they turn away, and remain upon their ways, take them, as captives, and slay them wherever you find them." Here again, no attempt is made, in this Qur'an commentary or any of those that Muslims revere as trustworthy, to explain that this does not actually mean that one should kill the "renegade."

And of course al-Marayati focuses narrowly on Rifqa's statement about the Qur'an. He never mentions, although he surely must know, that Muhammad said "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him," and that this statement in the Hadith (in which it appears several times) became the foundation for the unanimous verdict of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence: the apostate must be killed.

That he does not mention this key point is just one indication that as a witness to Islamic teaching on this (and other) matters, Salam al-Marayati is not to be trusted.

"In an exercise of intellectual honesty it would have been appropriate to link to Salam Al-Marayati's entire column instead of selecting one quote then launch into a rant. It would have been even more appropriate if Al-Marayati's latest column on Rifqa Bary, your most recent 'Let's-Save-the-Muslim-Teen-Girl-From-the-Bloodthirsty-Muslims' poster child (Mmm, it's always teen girls, isn't it?), was included.” -- from a Jihad Watch poster here.

If what I had selected to discuss had been a passage ripped out of a context that endowed it with a meaning different from what it so clearly is, then this charge might, just might, have some validity. But the passage in question, that I chose to hold up for inspection, was not ripped out of such a context. It was, in fact, a perfect example of an attempt to deceive Infidel readers, the readers at the Huffington Post for whom Al-Marayati has such contempt. For he assumes they not only do not know, but will remain so permanently incurious as not to be moved to find out, the relevant contents of the Islamic texts -- Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira -- and the rulings of Muslim jurisconsults. His attempt to wrap-Islam-in-the-flag-of-American-patriotism is absurd, for in Islam Believers are inculcated with the clear idea that they owe their allegiance, their sole allegiance, to Islam, and to fellow members of the Umma.

By Muslim I mean the many True Believers, and not the handful of those who are merely “cultural Muslims” -- that is, those who no longer accept the faith, and refuse to believe much of it, but nonetheless, for obvious reasons (fear or filial piety), do not declare that falling-away. You cannot be a True Muslim and a true patriot who is loyal to the legal and political institutions of whatever Infidel nation-state you happen to live in. You may describe yourself as working for the “betterment” (ah, what a word for Salam Al-Marayati, or whoever helps him with his prose, to use) of that nation-state, but that must mean, if you take Islam to heart (and Salam Al-Marayati certainly does), that you will work to make America a place where Infidel ways, and Infidel obstacles to the spread of Islam -- including the Constitution of the United States, which the spirit and the letter of Shari’a flatly contradict -- are swept aside.

For another example of such a contradiction, at a transnational level, compare carefully the individual rights that are guaranteed -- freedom of speech, freedom of conscience -- in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the “Islamic” version that was concocted in order to offer the world a version that seems to suggest that Muslims, too, believe in similar guarantees. But the Cairo Declaration, as any careful comparison of the two documents will show, substitutes for the most important guarantees of individual rights other, collective rights, and only those that conform to the Shari’a. That means that the most important parts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are, in the Cairo version, now screamingly absent.

A Jihad Watch exclusive from Andrew Bostom, editor of The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, on the Rifqa Bary case:

Last evening I read a particularly illuminating anecdote from Wafa Sultan’s forthcoming book (due out October 13th), A God Who Hates, which provides an irrefragable counterpoint to the taqiya-mongering drivel on Rifqa Bary’s apostasy case recently spewed forth by the cultural jihadist Salam Al-Marayati.

Let me first digress and dispense with Al-Marayati’s crudely unsophisticated taqiya. Yes, despite Al-Maryati’s denial, apostasy is mentioned in the Koran—Koran 4:89 most prominently—and the punishment is death, as noted for example by two of the most important classical Koranic exegetes, Baydawi and Ibn Kathir, in their commentaries on this verse. Al-Maryati’s crude taqiya fully ignores the fact that punishment by death for apostasy from Islam is firmly rooted in all the most holy Muslim texts—both the Koran, and the hadith—as well as the sacred Islamic Law (the Shari’a). Koran 4:89 states, “They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.”

One of the most authoritative Koranic commentators, Baydawi (d. 1315/16) interprets this passage thus: “Whosoever turns back from belief (irtada), openly or secretly, take him and kill him wheresoever ye find him, like any other infidel. Separate yourself from him altogether. Do not accept intercession in his regard.” (cited in Zwemer, The Law of Apostasy in Islam, 1924, pp. 33-34).” Ibn Kathir's (d. 1373) venerated commentary on Koran 4:89 concurs, maintaining that as apostates have manifested their unbelief, they should be punished by death.

These draconian judgments are reiterated in a number of hadith (i.e., collections of the putative words and deeds of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, as compiled by pious transmitters). For example, Muhammad is reported to have said “Kill him who changes his religion” in hadith collections of both Bukhari and Abu Dawud. There is also a consensus by all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (i.e., Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi’i), as well as Shi’ite jurists, that apostates from Islam must be put to death. Averroes (d. 1198), the renowned philosopher and scholar of the natural sciences, who was also an important Maliki jurist, provided this typical Muslim legal opinion on the punishment for apostasy (vol. 2, p. 552): “An apostate...is to be executed by agreement in the case of a man, because of the words of the Prophet, 'Slay those who change their din [religion]'.... Asking the apostate to repent was stipulated as a condition...prior to his execution…”

Even the contemporary (i.e., 1991) Al-Azhar (Cairo) Islamic Research Academy-endorsed Shafi’i manual of Islamic Law, 'Umdat al-Salik (pp. 595-96) states plainly: “Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief (kufr) and the worst.... When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostasizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed. In such a case, it is obligatory...to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed.”

Back to Wafa Sultan’s book which records her exchange with a Muslim woman interlocutor who was an Oxford University graduate. Wafa and her interlocutor engaged in a discussion about the legitimacy and morality of the offensive attributes of Allah encapsulated by some of the “99 names” conferred upon the Muslim deity, uniquely, during Islam’s advent, including notably, “The Imperious,” “The Humiliator,” “The Bringer of Death,” and “The Harmer.” It is this latter appellation that Wafa finds particularly troubling, and she questions why Muslims refuse to confront the negativism implicit in sanctioning the commission of harm by Islam’s God. She understands the typical stated rationale, “They say: ‘When a person believes in God’s ability to harm he will take care not to disobey him, so as to avoid being harmed by him.’” But Wafa believes this kind of broadly internalized rationalization has extracted a terrible toll on Islamic societies, in conjunction with other flawed ethical conceptions, and debased, rather than elevated their moral standards. She makes very cogent arguments in support of her thesis at some length throughout the book, which I will leave to a subsequent discussion, but her attempt to find common ground with a highly educated Muslim woman on the appellation “The Harmer,” captures a very dangerous conundrum Westerners till now appear almost incapable of appreciating.

The exchange and Wafa’s concluding lament bring us back to the question of “apostasy,” and the unacceptable plight of Muslim apostates in our own Western societies, let alone their native Islamic societies.

“…a Muslim reader from London, an Oxford University graduate with whom I conducted an extensive e-mail correspondence…wrote to me on one occasion: ‘Can you deny that God is capable of causing harm? Could he not destroy the universe if he wanted to?’ She continued” ‘What’s wrong with proclaiming his destructive powers? Isn’t this necessary in order to prevent people from crossing the line and disobeying his commands?’

I replied: ‘A father has the ability to harm his child when he disobeys him, but does he do so? Is that the proper way to educate our children not to overstep the boundaries we set for them?’

The Oxford graduate responded: ‘There’s no comparison! The difference between God’s power and that of a human being is much greater than the difference between a father and a son’s.’

I replied: ‘But shouldn’t God’s wisdom, mercy, and love far surpass the wisdom, mercy, and love of a father?’

The exchange turned into a fruitless quarrel at the end of which I heard only the e-mailed shouts of the Oxford graduate as she described me as a misguided unbeliever and apostate deserving only of being put to death.”

So he murdered a few Infidels. Who cares?

Lockerbie Bomber Update: "Lockerbie bomber 'set free for oil,'" by Jason Allardyce for The Sunday Times, August 30 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests....

Short-term short-sighted ones, however, that will ultimately cause Britain great harm.

A choice morsel from this morning's Hate Mail Bag. What is he on about? He is referring to the passages in the Qur'an in which Allah curses Jews and transforms them into monkeys and pigs (2:62-65; 5:59-60; 7:166).

Feel the compassion, feel the mercy:

are you from the tribe that the all mighty turned into monkeys & pigs? if so was your father the monkey and your mother the pig? or the other way round?

you got to admit though that no one on earth has achieved what the holy prophet has achieved?

Oh, I readily admit that!

23 families have been forced to move out of an apartment complex because of one other family, identified only as "Lebanese," that subjected them to "harassment, violence and threats" on a "daily basis," including their children "throwing rocks and spitting at other families in the building’s playground area. When they were told to stop, their parents came down to the playground armed with knives and clubs."

Elisabeth Dreijer Sørensen, a representative of the 23 families, recounts: "Yes, I got a red cross on my door. And later we learned what it means - that we are infidels, and that we're on the death list."

This "Lebanese" family must no doubt be Maronite!

"Denmark: 'All the Danes and Jews must die,'" from Islam In Europe, August 27:

The family in question is Lebanese. There's no mention of their faith, but what do the Jews have to do with this?

More on this story in the Copenhagen Post (in English). The family has meanwhile been moved to a different place in the municipality, out in the countryside, where the nearest neighbor is 200-300 meters away. It's not the first time the family has been moved. The mayor says it's a shame that this Lebanese family is ruining it for all the other well-integrated immigrants in the municipality (DA).

Danish blog Uriasposten presents a transcript of an interview on Danish broadcaster DR. I bring here just a bit of it:

Mads Steffensen, DR host: They had to listen to words and phrases such as racist, whore [..] all the Danes must die, all the Danes and Jews must die. The residents of Belvederevej in Helsingør feel that they live in a war-zone, it's a life of violence, threats and vandalism. There are two blocks, 23 families, and in one apartment there's a Lebanese family.

(..)

Mads Steffensen: The day after the family got a termination notice in a case, which anyways hasn't concluded yet, then you got a greeting, where you live.

Elisabeth Dreijer Sørensen, resident's representative: Yes, I got a red cross on my door. And later we learned what it means - that we are infidels, and that we're on the death list. Yes, the vandalism didn't stop there, because also three cars were scratched, and all four tires were punctured, after they got their notice. But though they've received their notice, they still have three months...

“Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati is the newest blogger for the popular website The Huffington Post. Here is an excerpt from his first blog: ‘As Muslims, when we take an oath of citizenship or allegiance, it is tantamount to making an oath with God: “And be true to your bond with God whenever you bind yourselves by a pledge, and do not break [your] oaths after having [freely] confirmed them and having called upon God to be witness to your good faith: behold, God knows all that you do.” - Quran 16:91. As Muslim Americans, when we take the oath of allegiance to America witnessed by our families and our friends (and now DHS), we must remain true to our word. It is an Islamic obligation to defend what we are taking an oath to, namely the constitution of the United States of America. That does not equate with supporting the policies of the government. Patriotism is not waving the flag or using it to intimidate others; patriotism is love of country, and when we as Muslim Americans see a danger to our country, such as terrorism or xenophobia, or policies that hurt the image and interests of the United States, it is our American and Islamic responsibility to change toward the betterment of America….’” -- From the Huffington Post, which apparently will now regularly include articles by Salam Al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (see the announcement here)

This is the purest taqiyya, or kitman, or combination of both.

Islam teaches -- inculcates, rather -- the notion that Muslims do not owe any allegiance to non-Muslims, not to their countries, not to their institutions, legal and political, not to anything. Within Islam -- uniquely, among world religions -- such a doctrine has arisen, and has been elaborated, and has been written about, one that is based on both the letter and spirit of the Qur'an and on the example of Muhammad, the Model of Conduct (uswa hasana), the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil). See the assurances given the Meccans in the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya.

Look at the false equivalences: “terrorism or xenophobia,” with the first referring to real acts of terror by Muslims, following promptings that are found in the texts of Islam (see the Qur’an, see the Hadith, passim) and the “xenophobia” in question merely being, in this case, not “hatred of foreigners” but, of course, the fear and suspicion of those who are adherents of Islam, a fear and suspicion that are entirely rational, and that are felt most by those who have taken the most time to inform themselves about the texts and tenets and history of Islam.

But...but...they sincerely want peace!

"IAF strikes Gaza smuggling tunnel after Qassam attack," from Haaretz, August 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Israel Air Force planes struck a tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip early Sunday, after Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a Qassam rocket into the western Negev early Saturday.

The rocket hit an open area in the Sdot Negev regional council.

The Palestinian Maan news agency reported on Saturday that the Israel Defense Force fired artillery rounds at gunmen at the central Gaza Strip. No injuries were reported.

The IDF said in response that no such attack took place.

According to the report, the IDF also opened machine-gun fire from vehicles stationed on the border toward nearby central Gaza homes.

The Qassam, fired at around 6 A.M., was one of several military incidents along Israel's boarder with Gaza, coming after months of relative calm.

On Tuesday, Gaza militants fired two mortar shells at the western Negev, which landed near an Israel Defense Forces base...

"I want you to arrange a meeting with the heads of the Five Families. This war stops now."

Oh, the Sunnis hate the Shi'ites,
And the Iranians hate the Saudis,
And the Syrians hate the Iraqis,
And everybody hates the Jews.

But during National Umma Week, National Umma Week,
It's National Everyone-smile-at-one-another-while-our-hearts-curse-them-umma Week.
Be nice to Nasbis and Rafidite dogs who
Are inferior to you.
It's only for a week, so have no fear.
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!

(Apologies to Tom Lehrer)

"Iran calls for regional meeting on Iraq security," from Reuters, August 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

BAGHDAD, Aug 29 (Reuters) - The Iranian foreign minister on Saturday called for Iraq's neighbours to hold a meeting to discuss Iraqi security after Baghdad accused Syria of harbouring the planners of two massive bomb attacks.

Separately, Turkey's foreign minister is to visit Iraq and Syria on Monday to try to soothe relations between the two.

Since 2003, tensions -- prone to flare-ups since around the time Saddam came to power in 1979 -- have centred on charges from Iraq's U.S.-backed government that Syria, estranged from Washington, has allowed insurgents to stream into Iraq.

Iraqi politicians have also lashed out at Saudi Arabia for inciting Sunni Islamist insurgents, a charge the kingdom denies. And while Baghdad's relations with Tehran are cordial, the U.S. military complains that Iran arms and trains Shi'ite militia.

Meanwhile, Iraq's relations with Kuwait to the south are strained as Baghdad chafes at Kuwait's insistence it continue to pay billions of dollars in reparations for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion.

Relations with western neighbour Jordan have been on the mend, and ties with Turkey have taken a noticeable turn for the better in the past year.

"We hope to get the cooperation and approval of all neighbouring countries for this meeting," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters through a translator during a visit to Iraq.

There have been several regional meetings on the conflict in Iraq since the U.S.-led ouster of Saddam in 2003, but Iraq's ties with its neighbours are fragile.

Iraqi officials frequently blame neighbouring countries for the violence that continues to rock the country more than six years after the U.S.-led invasion.

"Maintaining security and stability in Iraq, or losing it, has a direct impact on all of Iraq's neighbouring countries," Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in a statement.

While sectarian slaughter between majority Shi'ites and once dominant Sunnis in Iraq has subsided, bombings attributed to Sunni Islamist groups such as al Qaeda continue as U.S. forces begin to gradually withdraw ahead of an end-2011 deadline. Many in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam which follows a strict brand of the Sunni faith called Wahhabism, see Persian Iran, a Shi'ite Muslim country, as their arch enemy.

Clerics of Saudi Arabia's official hardline school of Islam view Shi'ites as heretics and the government fears Iraq is becoming a satellite of Shi'ite power Iran....

Will the Islamophobia never end?

"Taliban kidnap Christians in Waziristan," from the Pakistan Christian Post, August 29 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Peshawar: August 27, 2009. (PCP) The Taliban of Pakistan have kidnapped 8 Christians in South Waziristan according to reports released by political agent of Waziristan Agency.

The Christian were traveling in a truck from North Waziristan to South Waziristan when Taliban stopped them few miles away from Razmak, where they were living from decades.

The Christian, Hindus and Sikhs have left tribal area when Taliban imposed protection tax on minorities in January 2009. The Sikhs and Christians were allowed to stay in tribal area after paying ’Jizia” but majority left Taliban controlled FATA and migrated to other parts of Pakistan. The Sikhs and Hindus decided to go to India which brought Protection Tax issue in media.

The recent abduction of 8 Christians have created wave of fear among their relatives living in Punjab and NWFP. There was abduction of 7 Christian from a Church in vicinity of Peshawar University but they were released by Taliban Commander Mangal Shah with a deal from government after two days....

Now this will be interesting. Right now Wilders is playing offense: "The PVV leader wants Verhagen to summon the Saudi Arabian ambassador to express his repugnance." But expect the cascade of protests and condemnations -- from both Muslims and dhimmis -- to begin soon. Still, however, this puts those who will condemn Wilders in a peculiar position. If they take issue with his characterization of Muhammad, they will either be excusing the Muslim prophet's marriage to a six-year-old and declining to condemn those Muslims who imitate their prophet by taking child brides, or, if they say that Muhammad didn't actually marry a child, they're in the position of denying evidence that is in the sources Muslims consider most reliable. Yet as this incident with the 80-year-old and his 10-year-old bride demonstrates ("my marriage is not against Shariah," said the codger), many Muslims take that evidence quite seriously.

"Wilders Compares Prophet Mohammed to Pig," from NIS News, August 28 (thanks to Ebonystone):

THE HAGUE, 28/08/09 - Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders has seized on a news report from Saudi Arabia for peppery written questions to the cabinet. In these, he compares the Islamic prophet Mohammed to a pig.

Wilders has requested clarification from Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen on a marriage in Saudi Arabia between an 80 year old man and a 10 year old child. The child had run away from her elderly husband, but was brought back to him by her father, the English-language website Arab News reports based on a Saudi newspaper.

Wilders asks the minister if he shares the view that "this man is behaving like a pig, just like the barbarous Prophet Mohammed, who married the six year old girl Aisha." The PVV leader wants Verhagen to summon the Saudi Arabian ambassador to express his repugnance.

Part One is here, Part Two here, Part Three here, Part Four here, and Part Five here.

On August 21, 2009, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war (allusion-hunters welcome), The Times, that of New York, had an article that ought to have startled. It began thus:

U.S. Officials Get a Taste of Pakistanis’ Anger at America By HELENE COOPER

KARACHI, Pakistan — Judith A. McHale was expecting a contentious session with Ansar Abbasi, a Pakistani journalist known for his harsh criticism of American foreign policy, when she sat down for a one-on-one meeting with him in a hotel conference room in Islamabad on Monday. She got that, and a little bit more.

After Ms. McHale, the Obama administration’s new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, gave her initial polite presentation about building bridges between America and the Muslim world, Mr. Abbasi thanked her politely for meeting with him. Then he told her that he hated her.

“ ‘You should know that we hate all Americans,’ ” Ms. McHale said Mr. Abbasi told her. “ ‘From the bottom of our souls, we hate you.’ ”

Let’s stop right there.

Ansar Abbasi is not some marginal figure, some crank without a following. You can find out all you need to know about him online. He even has his own website. He’s a journalist, and he has seen a little of the outside, non-Muslim world, having received an education at home at private schools that still retain the influence of their non-Muslim founders. (Muslim elites tend to send their own children to schools run by non-Muslims, such as Baghdad College, formerly run by Jesuits from Boston College, and Victoria College (in Egypt), run by Anglicans, and schools run by nuns for girls. And of course there is the American School in Kuwait City, and so on round the Muslim world.

If they are sufficiently lucky, some of those students manage to study or even live in the West. But the amazing thing is that, while they obscurely recognize -- as Ansar Abbasi does -- that things are ordered far better, in every way, in the Western world, they tend to treat this as merely a matter of money (although the Muslims have received twelve trillion dollars since 1973 alone) or of “modern technology.” But why has no “modern technology” -- not one whit -- come from the Muslim lands? Why has nothing at all of cultural significance come from the Muslim lands in the last millennium -- that is, ever since the non-Muslim peoples who had been conquered had been reduced in influence as, usually, in numbers too? They seem never to consider if, just perhaps, the failures of the Muslim lands -- political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures -- are perhaps explained best by reference to Islam itself.

As M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, will tell you, you're a greasy Islamophobe if you think that Islamic law prescribes the death penalty for apostates. Anyone who thinks that must simply be "hate-mongering." In reality, as M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, will tell you, "a Muslim’s conversion to Christianity" -- or, presumably, to anything else -- "is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law."

Great. The only problem is that large numbers of Muslims around the world don't seem to have gotten the message, and seem instead to agree with those greasy Islamophobes.

"Chechen rebels put fatwa on separatist leader living in London for abandoning Islam," from the Daily Mail, August 25 (thanks to Alexandre):

Chechen rebels have today called for prominent separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev to be killed, saying he has abandoned Islam.

Zakayev, who lives in London, represents the moderate wing of the separatist movement and has clashed with radical Islamic insurgents in Russia's southern republic of Chechnya.

An Islamic rebel website said Zakayav had recognised the authority of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of the region.

'Public remarks show that he (Zakayev) has fallen away from Islam,' the website said, adding that Doku Umarov, Chechnya's most wanted separatist leader, was behind the order.

'The court has ruled that the killing of this apostate is a duty for Muslims.' It did not say what court had issued the ruling....

Dear Leader sends Ahmadinejad a care package. "‘N Korean arms for Iran’ seized by UAE," by Simon Kerr and Harvey Morris for the Financial Times, August 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship secretly carrying embargoed North Korean arms to Iran, say diplomats. [...]

The UAE reported the seizure to the UN sanctions committee responsible for vetting the implementation of measures, including an arms embargo, imposed against North Korea under Security Council resolution 1874, according to diplomats in New York. The committee, chaired by Turkey, has made no formal announcement about the case.

A UN diplomat whose country is represented on the sanctions committee said the UAE reported the ship was carrying 10 containers of weapons and related items, including rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition. He said the consignment had been ordered by Iran’s TSS, a company said to be linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and previously subject to international bans on importing weapons-related items.

The vessel, identified by diplomats as the Bahamian-flagged ANL-Australia, has been allowed to leave the UAE after being seized some weeks ago. Diplomats said it was the UAE’s responsibility to dispose of the cargo of weapons found on board. The UN sanctions committee has written to the Iranian and North Korean governments pointing out that the shipment puts them in violation of UN resolution 1874. [...]

The UAE is a hub for goods moving in and out of Iran. Western powers have pressed for greater co-operation from UAE authorities to track shipments and monitor Iranian finances. They have also closed some companies that have been involved in allegedly exporting dual-use materials that could be used for nuclear technology or explosive devices found in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While most focus is on dual-use technology, diplomats said the clampdown on public dissent after Iran’s contested elections had also raised concerns about supplies of arms to state-linked militias.

Odd statement of cause and effect. They certainly should have been concerned about the weapons reaching the Revolutionary Guards and Basijis, as well as Hamas and Hizballah, well before that.

The UAE, a US ally, is also worried about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Indeed. Even the IAEA is coming around on the idea of "military dimensions" to Iran's nuclear program. But will it make anyone move more quickly to halt the program?

Because, you see, after billions to Pakistan, billions to Egypt, billions here and there and everywhere, we haven't been doing enough to show Muslim countries that we are their friends.

"Military chief seeks new plan to woo Muslims," by Thom Shanker for the New York Times (via MSNBC), August 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written a searing critique of government efforts at “strategic communication” with the Muslim world, saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting.

The problem here, however, is that when it comes to Islamic jihadists, virtually anything short of full capitulation is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting. Any resistance to the jihad agenda is immediately cast as a grievous insult that must be redressed.

The critique by the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, comes as the United States is widely believed to be losing ground in the war of ideas against extremist Islamist ideology. The issue is particularly relevant as the Obama administration orders fresh efforts to counter militant propaganda, part of its broader strategy to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,” Admiral Mullen wrote in the critique, an essay to be published Friday by Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal.

“I would argue that most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all,” he wrote. “They are policy and execution problems. Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”...

Maybe. But unfortunately the Admiral, like virtually everyone else in Washington on both sides of the aisle, assumes that the jihadists are merely reacting to actions by the United States. The possibility that they may hate us for reasons of their own that have nothing to do with what we have done or can do doesn't seem to enter anyone's mind. Yet it is precisely that possibility that is suggested again and again by a close examination of the belief system of the jihadists themselves. They believe that they are commanded to fight against us because we are Infidels. If we are arrogant or inconsistent in living up to our own values, that makes for good grievance propaganad fodder, but it is not the root cause of the conflict itself.

He also challenged a popular perception that Al Qaeda operates from primitive hide-outs and still wins the propaganda war against the United States. “The problem isn’t that we are bad at communicating or being outdone by men in caves,” Admiral Mullen wrote. “Most of them aren’t even in caves. The Taliban and Al Qaeda live largely among the people. They intimidate and control and communicate from within, not from the sidelines.”

Soldiers are fighting to suppress the Taliban and win over the Afghan people as President Barack Obama deepens American involvement in Afghanistan.

American messages to counter extremist information campaigns “lack credibility, because we haven’t invested enough in building trust and relationships, and we haven’t always delivered on promises,” he wrote.

And because the Qur'an teaches Muslims to distrust Infidels, as they are the "most vile of created beings" (98:6) and will never be satisfied until the Muslims discard Islam (2:120). One is not take them as friends or protectors (3:28; 5:51).

As a guide, Admiral Mullen cited American efforts at rebuilding Europe after World War II and then containing communism as examples of successes that did not depend on opinion polls or strategic communication plans. He cited more recent military relief missions after natural disasters as continuing that style of successful American efforts overseas.

“That’s the essence of good communication: having the right intent up front and letting our actions speak for themselves,” Admiral Mullen wrote. “We shouldn’t care if people don’t like us. That isn’t the goal. The goal is credibility. And we earn that over time.”...

Yet we have spent billions on Marshall-Plan-like projects in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and they still don't like us. The South African mufti Ebrahim Desai put paid to any good that hearts-and-minds efforts might do a few years ago when he said: "In simple the Kuffaar [unbelievers] can never be trusted for any possible good they do. They have their own interest at heart.”

Mullen says we have to become "better listeners," but I'll bet he isn't listening to that, or taking it into account in any way.

Admiral Mullen did not single out specific government communications programs for criticism, but wrote that “there has been a certain arrogance to our ‘strat comm’ efforts.” He wrote that “good communications runs both ways.”

“It’s not about telling our story,” he stated. “We must also be better listeners.”

The Muslim community “is a subtle world we don’t fully — and don’t always attempt to — understand,” he wrote. “Only through a shared appreciation of the people’s culture, needs and hopes for the future can we hope ourselves to supplant the extremist narrative.”...

I'm all for efforts to understand. But I wonder if he will follow through with them even if they begin to take him to places he doesn't want to go.

What a surprise!

"Pakistan: No Military Campaign Against the Taliban," by Bobby Ghosh for Time, August 28 (thanks to John):

Despite strenuous entreaties by top U.S. officials, Pakistan has abandoned plans to mount a military offensive against the terrorist group responsible for a two-year campaign of suicide bombings across the country. Although the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been in disarray since an Aug. 5 missile strike from a CIA-operated drone killed its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani military has concluded that a ground attack on its strongholds in South Waziristan would be too difficult....

It's for incisive work of this kind that the learned analysts make the big bucks. "Report: Iran nuclear program may have 'military dimensions,'" by Yossi Melman for Haaretz, August 28 (thanks to Alexandre):

A new report commissioned by the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran's nuclear energy program may contain "military dimensions."

In other words, the report states that Iran may be working towards acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. The report was issued just prior to the annual meeting of IAEA member states which is scheduled to convene next month in Vienna.

The report alleges that Iran is refusing the agency's repeated requests for explanations and documentation over its past nuclear activities. Tehran's non-compliance has raised suspicions that it is aiming to attain nuclear weapons.

It has become evident that Iran has confirmed, albeit implicitly, that it carried out experiments in order to test the process known as "detonation," a key stage in the development of nuclear weapons.

In addition, it refused to comment on other activities related to its nuclear program, including "weaponization," one of the final phases in manufacturing nuclear weapons in which fissionable material is installed into the bomb....

This will air Saturday, August 29 at 7PM EDT. From C-Span (thanks to Bill):

The Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs

Robert Spencer

About the Program

From Young America's Foundation's 31st Annual National Conservative Student Conference held in Washington, DC, a talk by Robert Spencer, author of "Stealth Jihad." Includes audience Q&A.

About the Authors

Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch (jihadwatch.org), is the author many books [sic], including the "The Truth About Muhammad" and "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam."

"The war in the tribal areas and Swat is an integral part of the crusade on Muslims across the world." Not that his appeal has anything to do with Islam.

"Qaeda's Zawahri calls for Pakistani jihad," from Reuters, August 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's second-in-command on Friday accused the United States of leading a crusade to turn Pakistan into a divided nation and urged Pakistanis to join in a jihad to resist.

The tape from Ayman al-Zawahri, the second this month, comes after Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a U.S. missile strike on Aug. 5....

"The war in the tribal areas and Swat is an integral part of the crusade on Muslims across the world," Zawahri said in the tape posted on an al Qaeda-linked website.

In the 22-minute video address entitled "Path of Doom" he reiterates comments made in July calling for Pakistanis to wage war against the American "crusaders" and the Pakistani army.

"There is no honour for us except through Jihad," Zawahri said.

"People of Pakistan ... back the jihad and mujahideen with your persons, wealth, opinion, expertise, information and prayers and by exhorting others to help them and preach their message."...

Part One is here, Part Two here, Part Three here, and Part Four here.

Gates spent his speech -- see here -- ignoring the nature of what Muslims learn about Infidels: Americans are Infidels, and the United States is the military leader of the Infidel camp, the Camp that begins, but does not end, with the West. Gates said that the hostility Pakistanis had for the U.S. -- expressed in the survey that found that “64 percent” of Pakistanis saw the United States as an enemy” -- was disturbing but not “surprising.”

Pakistan, pace Gates, is not right to mistrust Americans. But Pakistanis do distrust Americans, even though we have done so much, given so much, to Pakistan, and even though we have ignored over many decades a history of meretriciousness from a recipient of a great deal of aid. Pakistan is considered an "ally" -- yet against the U.S. it has maintained a level and duration of meretriciousness that is possibly without parallel in recent American history. Pakistanis mistrust and will always mistrust Americans because Pakistanis are Muslims, and we are Infidels. They are taught, they are inculcated, in a massive brainwashing that begins very early in childhood and never lets up in societies and states suffused with Islam, to believe that Infidels are always in league with Shaytan (Satan), are the permanent enemies of Muslims, and must be regarded as such. Infidels are the enemies of Muslims in what is a state of permanent war between Believers and Infidels. No Muslim should be fooled by acts of seeming kindness on the part of Infidels. If they are kind, it is only, you see, for deceitful reasons, including the desire to eventually win away Muslims from the only true faith, the Deen that matters, Islam itself.

In 1929 Jews in Hebron were living on land they had "occupied" for 3,000 years. "Remembering the Hebron Massacre: Until 1929, Jews had lived in the city for three millennia," by Jerold S. Auerbach in the Wall Street Journal, August 27 (thanks to Dan):

[...] On Aug. 23-24, 1929, the Jewish community of Hebron was exiled following a horrific pogrom. The tragedy is known as Tarpat, an acronym for its date in the Hebrew calendar.

Until 1929, Jews had lived in Hebron for three millennia. There, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah to bury Sarah. It was the first parcel of land owned by the Jewish people in their promised land. Ever since, religious Jews revered Hebron as the burial site of their matriarchs and patriarchs. Conquered, massacred and expelled over the centuries, Jews always returned to this sacred place.

After 1267, under Muslim rule, no Jews were permitted to pray inside the magnificent enclosure, built by King Herod in the 1st century, that still surrounds the burial caves. But following the expulsion of Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, a small group of religious Jews rebuilt a community of study and prayer in Hebron.

In August 1929, that community was suddenly and brutally attacked. Incited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem—who claimed that Jews were endangering Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—Arab rioters swept through Palestine. In Hebron, the carnage was horrendous.

It began on Friday afternoon when Arabs attacked Jews with clubs and murdered a yeshiva student. The next morning, joined by local villagers, Arabs swarmed through Hebron screaming "Kill the Jews." They broke into the home of Eliezer Dan Slonim, where many Jews had gathered for safety. There they wielded knives and axes to murder 22 innocents. In the Anglo-Palestine Bank, where 23 corpses were discovered, blood covered the tile floor. That day, three children under the age of five were murdered. Teenage girls, their mothers and grandmothers were raped and killed. Rabbis and their students were castrated before they were slain. A surviving yeshiva student recounted that he "had seen greater horrors than Dante in hell."

When the slaughter finally subsided, 67 Jews had been murdered. Three days later, British soldiers evacuated 484 survivors, including 153 children, to Jerusalem. The butchery in Hebron, Zionist and religious officials alleged, was "without equal in the history of the country since the destruction of the Temple." Sir Walter Shaw, chairman of an exhaustive British royal investigation, concluded that "unspeakable atrocities" had occurred. [...]

Hebron Jews are relentlessly vilified as fanatics who illegally occupy someone else's land. As religious Zionists, they are the militant Jewish settlers whom legions of Jewish and non-Jewish critics love to hate. It is seldom noticed that their most serious transgression—settlement in the biblical land of Israel—is the definition of Zionism: the return of Jews to their historic homeland.

The strange thing about this case is that self-proclaimed anti-jihadists who have no trouble recognizing Palestinian "Paliwood" War-Is-Deceit propaganda designed to advance the jihad cause by manufacturing Israeli atrocities, and who even recognize fauxtography generated by the Palestinians, Iran, and others for the same purpose, refuse even to consider the possibility that Muslims could have carried out any deceptive atrocity-manufacturing in the Balkans. Indeed, some even charge that anyone who thinks that Balkan Islamic jihadists carried out any deception at all must be secretly a sympathizer of this genocide-that-never-was.

But that, of course, is a common tactic of both Leftists and jihadists: if you can't refute 'em, defame 'em.

"Srebrenica: More Myth Than Massacre," by Caleb Posner, August 25:

As the saying goes, history is written by the winners. And when it comes to the former Yugoslav peoples, that can readily be described as everybody but the Serbs. So it is unsurprising then that they have been vilified throughout the West, labeled as war criminals and butchers whose unmitigated xenophobia caused the collapse of a great multi-ethnic state and the bloodiest set of wars Europe had witnessed in a half century. Yet much as Joe Biden and other Serbophobic politicians who called for the repeated bombing of Serbia during the Wars of Yugoslav Secession might believe that summary to be accurate, the facts simply do not lend themselves to such a conclusion. This may be no better demonstrated than by looking at Srebrenica, which has long been Exhibit A in the court of world opinion in the case against the Serbs.

Officially, the story goes that around 8000 innocent Bosnian Muslims were, without any provocation, slaughtered indiscriminately by genocidal Serbs with revanchist aims, who were unmoved by the civilian status of their victims, or that the area they attacked was to be a safe haven managed by the unbiased and above reproach United Nations. As far as making a case for the bloody violence the Western allies would unleash on the Serbs, that did the job rather well, as it played to the sympathies of the emotionally-driven masses. Of course, with respect to capturing the truth, the governmental line is rather inadequate.

So what exactly is the truth? Alexander Dorin, a Swiss researcher who just recently sent his book “Srebrenica – The History of Salon Racism” to print in German (Serb and English translations are planned in the future) said in an interview that, “After 14 years of investigating events that took place in Srebrenica in 1995 I can attest there was no genocide over Muslims in that enclave — the myth about the massacre of Muslims was invented by the late Bosnian Muslim war leader Alija Izetbegović and then-U.S. president Bill Clinton.” Questionable as that allegation may sound to many, it is important to recall that the United States actively armed Izetbegović and his ragtag jihadist army during the war, applied pressure on Tudjman’s secessionist Croat government to cease his involvement in the Herzeg-Bosnia land theft, and sought actively to create a Bosniak state where one had not traditionally existed (for the land falls within the bounds of historic Serbia). Much of this, especially the sale of arms, was documented heavily even by the liberal American media at the time. And indeed, once the other factual inaccuracies become apparent, it seems quite evident that there was not a Srebrenica massacre, but rather a military engagement that, like many US operations, involved some inadvertant civilian casualties, that has been mythologized to give political cover to the warmongers that led us into battle on intelligence information more questionable than any ever utilized by the Bush administration.

For instance, the real number of dead bodies uncovered was closer to 2000. Some 3000 names of alleged victims were alive enough to vote in the 1996 elections. And many other dead bodies were found to be from previous gun battles or from non-violent ends more than a decade before the event in question. Still unaddressed though is guilt. Among the 2000 dead discovered were a very large number of soldiers who, under the leadership of jihadist Naser Orić killed some 3000 Serbian civilians beforehand. That raises perhaps the most important point: Srebrenica was not a purposeful slaughter of innocent civilians, but an effort by Serb forces to save the lives of their countrymen from an enemy army that had already spilled ample blood, and which was cowardly seeking refuge in protected civilian areas that were supposed to be unarmed, and therefore demilitarized....

Read it all.

A vile game -- and if they win, their prize could be a dead girl. "Rifqa's Apostasy," by Pamela Geller in Human Events, August 28:

[...] The Orlando Sentinel is busy propagating the statements of Rifqa Bary’s devout Muslim family and the family’s lawyers. CAIR, according to the Jawa Report blog, has “instructed supporters to circulate rumors that Rifqa had been carousing with infidel boys and engaged in acts of immorality.” But it looks awfully bad to keep going after a little girl. So they’re also blaming the American people’s alleged “ignorance of Islam.”

Ahmed M. Rehab, executive director of CAIR, wrote to the Sentinel complaining about the “public’s ignorance of Islamic history, culture and contemporary affairs,” and charging that “Rifqa’s parents are judged not by who they are but by what the pundits say they are."

Does Rehab, whose CAIR organization was in 2007 named an un-indicted co-conspirator in a terrorism funding case, mention the death threat to Rifqa? Or the death penalty for apostasy in Islam? Does he discuss Rifqa’s fears, or the danger Rifqa is in? No. It’s all about “nuance,” “perception,” and “1,400 years of solid civilization by Muslims from China to Spain.” He even says that “7 million American Muslims live among their neighbors in this country as proud, upright citizens,” wildly inflating the Muslim population in the U.S. and ignoring terror activity that has been documented among Muslims here.

And that is only the beginning. Now, a larger context comes into play. Those who question the violent teachings of Muhammad are being painted with the “racist” brush. The objective is to smear those who dare speak the truth and validate, with scholarship and historic evidence, Rifqa Bary’s claims.

On Monday the Daily Kos, the largest left-wing blog on the Internet, went after “anti-Muslim” blogs and pundits. Robert Spencer, best selling author of nine books (his latest is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, ) and renowned scholar on Islam, exposed Kos’s intellectually dishonest argument.

Responding to Kos’ charges of “hate,” Spencer said: “It is not ‘hate’ to report accurately on how Islamic jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence against non-Muslims. Nor is it ‘anti-Muslim’ to do so. If the Kos gang is interested in actual ‘hate,’ they should write about those who kill unbelievers and oppress women in the name of Sharia. It is not ‘hate’ to defend the equality of rights of women with men, freedom of speech, and other rights that are denied under Sharia.”

It is no accident that Kos decided to do a counter jihad smear Monday. You can’t attack a little girl every day and rally supporters. So now it’s time to take down her defenders. Time magazine is trying to do this as well: “Not surprisingly, Rifqa is turning into a cause célèbre. Conservative websites often accused of anti-Muslim agendas, such as the Jawa Report, Atlas Shrugs and WorldNetDaily, have been lighting up over the Rifqa fight. No doubt conservative and anti-U.S. Muslim [sic] will eventually step into the media frenzy.”

Saving a life a young girl’s life is now a “cause célèbre,” which the Times people seem to use as a pejorative. But it must be for all who value freedom....

Yes, it is. Read it all.

Imagine the headline, the international outcry, the outrage, the riots, the panels on "Islamophobia" all over MSNBC -- but relax. None of that will happen. No one will much notice this. But it is useful to keep in mind as a contrast to the cultural elites' quite welcoming attitude toward Islam, despite the jihad and Islamic supremacism. Or maybe because of them.

Live Free Or Not Alert: "Court orders Christian child into government education: 10-year-old's 'vigorous' defense of her faith condemned by judge," by Bob Unruh for World Net Daily, August 28 (thanks to Salt and Light Blog):

A 10-year-old homeschool girl described as "well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level" has been told by a New Hampshire court official to attend a government school because she was too "vigorous" in defense of her Christian faith.

The decision from Marital Master Michael Garner reasoned that the girl's "vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view."

The recommendation was approved by Judge Lucinda V. Sadler, but it is being challenged by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, who said it was "a step too far" for any court.

The ADF confirmed today it has filed motions with the court seeking reconsideration of the order and a stay of the decision sending the 10-year-old student in government-run schools in Meredith, N.H....

Act of war -- unnoticed. "Somali pirates fire at U.S. helicopter, Navy says," by Mike Mount for CNN, August 27 (thanks to Tee Cee):

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pirates holding a Taiwanese-flagged ship off the coast of Somalia fired on a U.S. Navy helicopter Wednesday as the aircraft monitored the ship, the Navy said.

The helicopter was not struck and all crew members were safe after the incident, the Navy said in a news release....

Somali pirates hijacked the M/V Win Far on April 6. Navy officials said the vessel is being used as a "mother ship," or a floating base, to launch attacks on other ships, including the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama. The Alabama was targeted by pirates in an April hijacking that ended with U.S. Navy snipers shooting dead three pirates who were holding the captain of the ship hostage.

According to the Navy's news release Thursday, the flight crew on the SH-60 helicopter "noticed activity" on the ship but could not determine if the pirates had fired at them.

When the helicopter returned to the USS Chancellorsville, a review of its infrared camera showed the aircraft was fired on.

The helicopter did not return fire, according to the release....

The India World Report (thanks to Andrew Bostom) notes a glaring double standard in the Paper of Record:

"2 killings stoke Kashmir rage at Indian force" is a story New York times printed on front page headline and continued to page 6 taking three-fourth of it.

From the political point of view even the Pakistani administration or terrorists could not expect better. Just one example of how wily is the report - "India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir " - this is half truth. Without twist it should read "Pakistan attacked India two times "..each word is crafted against India. However in this article i am just keeping the subject limited to fate of women.

Two women were raped and murdered, which is reprehensible and justice to be served. This two unfortunate deaths made national headlines, paralysed the towns for 50 days by strikes and placed suspension of police personnel and whole state is in a boiling point. Such major protests somehow prove the rarity of such incidents and the full-blown media reports show. The concern of the people and media. So much so it made a headline in nytimes.

Appended below specifics of some recent cases of rape, rape & murder, abduction, & conversion to Islam that happened in Bangladesh ;

Name place date

district
Anguri Biswas Razoir 2. 7. 09 Madaripur
Radharani Halder Shariatpur 27. 6. 09 Dhaka
Koli Goswami Nandail 13. 6. 09 Mymensingh
Mohana Mondal Bangnna 2. 8. 09 Dhaka

unlike those two unfortunate women in kashmir they got very little coverage in media and the living rape victims have become a laughing stock to the majority muslim people. They are far from any sort of justice. On the contrary, the victims and their family members are under constant threat. Such henious crime against women in bangladesh went unreported in world media or even in the indian media. Whereas the death of two kashmiri muslim women caused ripples in the world to get the headline in ny times.

Details of the fates of all four women follow. Read it all.

Mike Tyson, yet another Misunderstander of Islam -- the great statement comes at 1:32. (Thanks to LGF2.)

Ah, the exquisite complexity of Islam eludes yet another Muslim, Kadir T., who somehow gets the Islamophobic idea that he has a religious responsibility to wage war against unbelievers. Will the Islamophobia never end?

"Germany arrests suspect in plot to attack U.S. targets," from CNN, August 28 (thanks to James):

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- German federal prosecutors said Friday they have arrested a man suspected of helping a terrorist cell that allegedly plotted attacks against U.S. troops in Germany.

The U.S. military's Ramstein Air Base is believed to be one of the targets for plotters.

The prosecutor's office identified the man only as "Kadir T.," and said he is a German of Turkish origin.

He is suspected of acquiring a video camera and night-vision equipment for the Islamic Jihad Union group, prosecutors said. The items were allegedly shipped to Waziristan in Pakistan, prosecutors added.

Four men trained by the Islamic Jihad Union are currently on trial in Germany for allegedly plotting attacks against U.S installations in Germany. They are known as the "Sauerland Group."

Three of the men -- two Germans and a Turk -- were arrested in September 2007. They were mixing a massive amount of explosive materials that could have resulted in a strong blast, bigger than the attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, authorities said.

Fritz Gelowicz, Martin Schneider, and Adem Yilmaz are charged with membership in foreign and domestic terrorist groups, preparation of explosives, plotting to murder and plotting to commit a crime using explosives, the court said.

Schneider is also accused of attempted murder, the court said.

The fourth person, identified in German media reports as Attila Selek, is a German citizen of Turkish descent....

Z Street is a new Jewish advocacy organization; it has already shown courage and vision by supporting Rifqa Bary, the girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and now says she is fighting for her life by fleeing from her family after her father threatened to kill her.

THE MEDIA ISN’T INTERESTED WHEN MUSLIM PARENTS MAKE CREDIBLE DEATH THREATS AGAINST THEIR TEENAGE CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY, BUT THEY ‘RELIGIOUSLY’ CONDEMN PRAYER IN SCHOOL AND OTHER NON-MUSLIM RELIGIOUS EXPRESSIONS

On Thursday, September 3, Florida Circuit judge Daniel Dawson will decide whether a 17 year old girl can practice her chosen religion in a safe environment, or if she will be shipped back to her family where she faces imminent danger and possibly murder.

Z STREET, a new Zionist organization committed to opposing terrorism and oppressive Muslim law, stands behind this teenager and supports her decision to both choose her own religion and to choose freedom from harm, even - especially - from her own family.

Rifqa Bary chose to clandestinely practice Christianity approximately four years ago. She kept her religious choice private because she knew her parents, strict Muslims who attend a local mosque just outside of Columbus, Ohio, would never permit her to leave Islam. A former scholar at her parents’ radical mosque, a Hamas cleric, was eventually banned from the United States. Columbus is a suspected nucleus of al Qaeda activity in the United States.

Mosque members informed Rifqa’s parents about her Christianity. Bruises on her arms and other parental abuse - including death threats - led Rifqa to flee her home and run to the security of a church in Florida. While in Florida, Rifqa filed a legal petition to remain there and not be shipped back to Ohio.

Much of this story’s (relatively scarce) media attention has prominently mentioned that the church leader from whom Rifqa sought refuge is an evangelical Christian. Reverand Blake Lorenz was accused by Rifqa’s father of kidnapping and brainwashing his daughter. Lorenz’s church has been called a “fringe cult.”

“The media’s willingness to publicize smears against conservative Christianity, while failing to focus on the centuries-long dictates of Islam which demands converts be killed and which honors those killers, usually family members, is appalling,” said Z STREET co-founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus.

The choice of the Florida court on September 3 is to allow Rifqa to freely and safely practice her chosen religion, or condemn her to return to her family who are strict adherents of a religion that officially considers it an honor for a family member to kill an apostate - someone who chooses a religion other than Islam.

Rifqa recognizes the immensity of the court’s decision: “I want to worship Jesus freely, that’s what I want. I don’t want to die.”

The press has largely ignored this life and death decision which pits Muslim parents against their teenage daughter who chose Christianity over Islam. Islam dictates the parents’ actions - let’s hope judicial sagacity and respect for human life guide the judge’s. And that the love of our country’s First Amendment and respect for International human rights guides the press.

Mad as heck, by golly, and going to court

It's all the same jihad, after all.

Still, there is a verse in the Qur'an that says "Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs in return is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain" (9:111). There is no verse that says "they fight in His cause, and sue and are sued."

"Young Afghan freed from Gitmo to take US to court," from PressTV, August 27 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

The young Afghan Guantanamo detainee who has been recently released from the notorious detention facility intends to sue Washington over his "illegal detention".

The detainee's lawyer said Thursday Mohammed Jawad would sue the US government for holding him behind bars for seven years "without charges".

Jawad, 12 at the time of his detention in 2002, arrived in his hometown earlier this week after he was freed when American judges ruled that he had been coerced into confessing to a crime against US soldiers.

According to the US government account, the detainee had hurled a grenade at a US vehicle in the Afghan capital of Kabul that left injured two American soldiers and their interpreter.

The judge who ordered him released said the government's case was an "outrage" and "full of holes."

Jawad has maintained his innocence and described the case against him as fabricated. "I was an innocent child when they put me in prison."

His lawyers and family members say sleep deprivation and beatings were among the methods of torture he received at Guantanamo....

As long as he didn't get the dreaded...prolonged diapering!

Do you suffer from this malady that is the worst form of terrorism?

Take this simple test. Consult your local Reeducation Camp Supervisor to discuss results. And don't worry. There is a cure. You, too, can learn to love Big Brother.

"Are You An Islamophobe?," by Phyllis Chesler in Pajamas Media, August 26:

Are you an Islamophobe? Here is a simple test.

Lorna Saltzman’s Test

Do you favor equal rights and treatment of women and men?

Do you oppose stoning of women accused of adultery?

Do you favor mandatory education of girls everywhere?

Do you oppose slavery and child prostitution?

Do you support complete freedom of expression and the press?

Do you support the right of an individual to worship in her chosen religion?

Do you oppose government- and mosque-supported anti-Semitic publications, radio, TV and textbooks?

Do you oppose the wearing of burqas in public places, schools and courts?

Do you oppose segregation of the sexes in public places and houses of worship?

Do you oppose the death penalty for non-Muslims and Muslims who convert to another religion?

Do you oppose “honor” killings?

Do you oppose female genital mutilation?

Do you oppose forced sexual relations?

Do you oppose discrimination against homosexuals?

Do you support the right to criticize religion?

Do you oppose polygamy?

Do you oppose child marriage, forced or otherwise?

Do you oppose the quranic mandate to kill non-Muslims and apostates?

Do you oppose the addition of sharia courts to your country’s legal system?

Do you disagree with the quran which asserts the superiority of Islam to all other religions?

If you answered most or all of these affirmatively, you are a vile Islamophobe and deserve to be beheaded as the quran instructs.

If you answered one third or more of them affirmatively, you are a borderline Islamophobe and need to receive brainwashing to become a full-fledged dhimmi.

If you answered a quarter or fewer affirmatively, you need a few private lessons in dhimmitude to scrub yourself clean of those remnants of Islamophobia.

If you answered affirmatively to NONE of these, Congratulations! You are a worthy observant (radical–PC addition) Muslim and have a bright future vilifying Jews, torturing women or, inshallah, becoming a suicide bomber.”

Thank you Lorna for laying it all out.

FYI: Lorna Saltzman has been a environmental writer, lecturer and organizer since the early 1970s and was a candidate for the US Green Party’s presidential nomination in 2004. Her articles on evolution, energy, Green politics and secularism can be found on her website:
www.lornasalzman.com

Not surprisingly, authorities have done nothing. Islamic Tolerance Alert. "Bangladesh: Muslims threaten Catholic women of Dewtola village," by William Gomes for AsiaNews, August 27:

Dhaka (AsiaNews) - Catholic women of the village of Dewtola can no longer go to mass because of continual threats from local Muslims. For the past several weeks tensions have been mounting around the parish of St. Francis Xavier in Golla, Nawabgonj district.

Michael Gomes, a local Catholic leader, tells AsiaNews that "defenceless women and children are being intimidated. Most of the men of the village have emigrated to Europe or moved to Dhaka to find work”.

The threats originate from disputes over the village market where many stalls are run by some of the more than 3 thousand 700 Christians living in the area. Muslim traders want to take possession of them and have already on several occasions tried to use force to expel the non Muslim owners.

Incidents like this arise from the sense of self-importance and entitlement fueled by Qur'anic diatribes against unbelievers (see, in particular: 3:110, 5:59-60, 98:6) and enshrined in the tenets of Sharia.

Already in 2006, for the same reason, a crowd of 200 people attacked the Catholic faithful as they were going to church and destroyed some of their stalls at the market. "Now the climate is back to being that of three years ago - says Gomes - we live in a situation of deep insecurity and despite having alerted the local authorities nothing has happened."

The story is further complicated by the private interest of local politicians. Gomes says that "the local union leader is linked to the Muslims and says that the market can not be the exclusive property of Christians”.

But why? What makes them think they're going to have any inmates who adhere to the Religion of Peace™? Expect the Muslim Council of Britain to take this prison to task for its "Islamophobia" for anticipating that it will have any Muslim inmates at all.

Absurd Britannia Update: "Prison spends £17,000 on footbaths and toilets for Muslims," from the Telegraph, August 27 (thanks to Lazy Buddha):

A prison spent £17,000 on special toilets for foreigners and footbaths for Muslims.

Figures obtained from the Ministry of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act show that the money was spent on two footbaths, a "squat" toilet and a shower area at Canterbury Prison in Kent, which only holds foreign nationals awaiting deportation and has 92 Muslim inmates.

Footbaths are often used by Muslims as they are required to wash their feet before prayer. However, the area is not exclusive to Muslims and can be used by all inmates.

What a relief! I'm sure many grime-footed inmates will want to avail themselves of this boon!

The expenditure was condemned by the TaxPayers' Alliance.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive, said: "It's ridiculous that we are spending so much money on prisoners who should have been deported, rather than kept here as a burden on innocent taxpayers.

"Making basic provision for people's needs is one thing, but there is no reason at all why there should be special toilets installed. If prison doesn't have the perfect toilet facilities for you, then you shouldn't have committed a crime, it isn't meant to be nice."...

Uh, yeah.

The board also stressed no complaints have been received of non-Muslims being denied access to the area.

This is ridiculous. Why would they want to be there in the first place?

Other measures have been taken to accommodate the prison's global population, including a multi-faith area allowing all inmates to practise their religion. Muslim prisoners are permitted one hour's use every Friday for prayers.

Islamic prayer timetables are provided, the Koran is available on request and an Imam is employed for 18 hours a week to carry out generic work and faith duties.

I hope Israel will fund new road signs in Iowa written in Arabic and Hebrew -- no English.

"The development is seen as part of the preparation for a future Palestinian state" -- and yet the aftermath of the Gaza withdrawal only indicates that such a state will simply become a base for more jihad attacks against Israel. But just as the learned analysts didn't care about setting up a Shi'ite satellite of Iran in Iraq, so now they don't care about destroying America's best ally in the Middle East.

"US funding new West Bank road signs written in Arabic and English," from the Jerusalem Post, August 27 (thanks to James):

New road signs in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank will be in Arabic and English, without Hebrew, a US official said Thursday.

Mindy Masonis, spokeswoman for the US Consulate in Jerusalem, said the new signs will be part of a larger program aimed at improving conditions in the West Bank. The development is seen as part of the preparation for a future Palestinian state.

Masonis said no signs are being taken down, but the new ones in the Palestinian areas will be in Arabic and English. The sign project accounts for about $175,000 of a three-year, $20 million U.S. aid project to improve services in the West Bank....

Our good friend and former Jihad Watch writer Raymond Ibrahim appears on Al-Jazeera in these two clips, discussing how Islamic charitable contributions often end up in the hands of Islamic jihadists. And Raymond, with his fine beard, is looking a bit like a guy who ought himself to get carefully searched in an airport!

Only in the 29th paragraph of this story (I haven't reprinted them all here), when Sharia is mentioned, do we learn that this child marriage had anything to with Islam. Yet only when that is acknowledged and confronted will there be any chance for such girls, for only by confronting the root cause can the practice ever be successfully challenged.

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

Nujood Ali Update. "Child bride's nightmare after divorce," by Paula Newton for CNN, August 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

[...] Nujood is very different from the girl we first met nearly two years ago. Then, there was no doubt the 10-year-old was every inch a child. She was the very portrait of innocence: A shy smile, a playful nature and a whimsical giggle.

That picture was very much at odds with the brutal story of abuse she endured as a child bride who fought for a divorce and is now still fighting.

Nujood says she remains relieved and gratified that her act of defiance -- which led to appearances at awards shows and on TV -- had paid off.

The story was supposed to end with the divorce and an innocent but determined girl allowed to fully embrace the childhood she fought so hard to keep.

Instead, there has been no fairytale ending for Nujood....

"I was happy I got divorced but I'm sad about the way it turned out after I went on television," she said adding that she feels like an outcast even among her family and friends.

Nujood was pulled out of school in early 2008 and married off by her own parents to a man she says was old and ugly. And yet, as a wife, Nujood was spared nothing.

"I didn't want to sleep with him but he forced me to, he hit me, insulted me" said Nujood. She said being married and living as a wife at such a young age was sheer torture.

"He hit me."

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them." -- Qur'an 4:34

Nujood described how she was beaten and raped and how, after just a few weeks of marriage, she turned to her family to try to escape the arrangement. But her parents told her they could not protect her, that she belonged to her husband now and had to accept her fate.

CNN tried to obtain comment from Nujood's husband and his family but they declined.

Nujood's parents, like many others in Yemen, struck a social bargain. More than half of all young Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18, many times to older men, some with more than one wife.

It means the girls are no longer a financial or moral burden to their parents. But Nujood's parents say they did not expect Nujood's new husband to demand sex from his child bride.

To escape, Nujood hailed a taxi -- for the first time in her life -- to get across town to the central courthouse where she sat on a bench and demanded to see a judge.

After several hours, a judge finally went to see her. "And he asked me, 'what do you want' and I said 'I want a divorce' and he said 'you're married?' And I said 'yes.'" says Nujood.

Nujood's father and husband were arrested until the divorce hearing, and Nujood was put in the care of Nasser.

Indeed, it seems the judge had heard enough of the abuse to agree with Nujood that she should get her divorce.

But based on the principles of Shariah law, her husband was compensated, not prosecuted. Nujood was ordered to pay him more than $200 -- a huge amount in a country where the United Nations Development Programme says 15.7 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day....

Yet another Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Alert: "Release the Terrorist, Investigate the CIA," by Andy McCarthy at The Corner, August 27:

The Wall Street Jounral [sic] has a terrific editorial this morning on how valuable the CIA interrogation program was in uncovering life-saving intelligence. My favorite paragraph was this one, which gets into the terrorist the mainstream press doesn't want to talk about, Binyam Mohammed (see my column on him, here):

The most revealing portion of the IG report documents the program's results. The CIA's "detention and interrogation of terrorists has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world." That included the identification of Jose Padilla and Binyam Muhammed, who planned to detonate a dirty bomb, and the arrest of previously unknown members of an al Qaeda cell in Karachi, Pakistan, designated to pilot an aircraft attack in the U.S. The information also made the CIA aware of plots to attack the U.S. consulate in Karachi, hijack aircraft to fly into Heathrow, loosen track spikes to derail a U.S. train, blow up U.S. gas stations, fly an airplane into a California building, and cut the lines of suspension bridges in New York.

Though the Journal does not get into it, Binyam Mohammed was released outright by the Obama administration in February. He is now living freely in England. That's our new counterterrorism approach: Release the terrorist who planned mass-murder attacks against U.S. cities but investigate the CIA agents who prevented mass-murder attacks against U.S. cities....

"That is why we must do everything we can to support her and other Muslim girls in danger of honor killing, by building shelters, creating an underground railroad, and supporting their attempts to be free."

In "An Underground Railroad for a Muslim Girl" at FrontPage today (thanks to Ruth King), Jamie Glazov interviews Pamela Geller of AtlasShrugs.com, who has indefatigably investigated the Rifqa Bary case (see her article in the Washington Times today) and called upon all lovers of freedom to defend this poor girl.

FP: The liberal and feminist Left is once again shamelessly silent, not coming to the defense of Fathima Bary. Give us some of your thoughts on this silence.

Geller: I am profoundly anti-feminist because it is a phony movement. It is rooted in Marxism-Leninism, and does not genuinely represent women. It clings to its dogma of multiculturalism, and embraces the leftist ideology du jour, which in our own day is Islam.

They are frauds and liars. High minded leftopathic feminists cloak themselves in self- righteousness and scorn genuine feminists like Sarah Palin. These women call themselves feminists and stand on the mall in DC, righteous in their indignation in defense of late term abortion and the right to kill viable babies (btw, I am pro-choice -- early that is), while turning the other cheek in the face of Islam's misogyny. Rifqa Bary's case is just the latest example of this myopia.

But other people are taking up the slack. Thank goodness for brave, courageous leaders like Florida House majority leader Adam Hasner. Hasner issued a statement in defense of Rifqa Bary. No feminist did.

No surprise there. See, for example, my article in FrontPage, "Feminists Betray Muslim Women," on how the feminist writer Laura Briggs justifies the oppression of Muslim women. See also "Two Women Stoned: Feminists Mum," by David Horowitz, Janet Levy and me; "A Response to Feminists on the Violent Oppression of Women in Islam," by David Horowitz and me; and my article "The Conservative Vanguard of the Feminist Movement" in National Review.

FP: How can we better help Muslim women in our own society who face this oppression?

Geller: By standing up to honor killers, by calling an honor killing an honor killing, and ending the mainstream media's covering up for the Islamic roots of the practice.

When Muslim girls like Rifqa Bary, the most courageous girl in America, see what happened to Amina and Sarah Said, Aqsa Parvez, and so many others, they're forced to live out their sentence in their homemade concentration camps, because they see that there is no escape. If the West will not stand up for its values, its own unalienable rights, then these girls have no chance.

Do you have any idea how many Muslim girls are watching, and watching very closely, the case of Rifqa Bary? She represents their hope of freedom. That's why the Islamists want to kill her. If she succeeds, she will give other Muslim girls hope. That is why we must do everything we can to support her and other Muslim girls in danger of honor killing, by building shelters, creating an underground railroad, and supporting their attempts to be free.

Read it all.

My new book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, is coming September 21 from Regnery Publishing.

What they're saying about the new book:

"Unlike most of today’s self-styled experts, Robert Spencer won’t tell you that ‘slay the idolaters wherever you find them’ really means ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ In The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, Spencer shows once again that he is America’s most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism, insisting that we come to grips with the words behind the ideology that fuels international terror.” — Andrew C. McCarthy, senior fellow at the National Review Institute and author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.

"Meticulous, comprehensive, indispensable. ‘I read the Koran so you don’t have to,’ Spencer writes—but even for those of us who have read the Koran, this is a richly illuminating work.” — Bruce Bawer, author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom and While Europe Slept.

More to come!

No surprise here. According to Islamic law, dhimmis are forbidden to "ring church bells or display crosses," as well as to "recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals and feastdays" ('Umdat al-Salik o11.5).

The only surprise is that anyone is surprised, or that they think this is a feature of "Talibanization," and not of Sharia itself whenever it is fully applied.

"Germ of Talibanization in Marawi and Sulu," an editorial in the Manila Times, August 24 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

[...] That is why many Filipinos were shocked to learn from a privileges speech of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Piumentel Jr., the untiring advocate of federalism (out of concern for the Muslim Filipinos), that in Marawi City and Sulu province it is forbidden to display the cross—the symbol of Christianity—at the top or frontage of buildings, including church spires.

Christians are also proscribed from singing religious hymns. This makes it impossible for Catholics to hold sung High Masses and Protestants to melodiously exclaim their joy at the blessings of Amazing Grace.

Is intolerance toward Christian symbols and hymns in Marawi and Sulu the specter of Talibanization rearing its ugly head? Some Marawi City people are proud of their city being the Philippines’ “lone Islamic City.” They exult over trycyles there that proclaim their being the “Gift of Allah” and not of Jesus. [...]

In "British Lion Muzzled," the featured article at Human Events today, I tell some stories from my recent trip to London -- stories about how Britain is succumbing to Islamic supremacism:

[...] Unrecognized inside the mosques we were able to enter, I was warmly received as a potential convert and laden with books and pamphlets explaining the wonders of Islam -- including, courtesy the Finsbury Park Mosque, a copy of the Koran with illuminating commentary: “The purpose for which the Muslims are required to fight,” we’re told, “is not, as one might think, to compel the unbelievers into embracing Islam.”

Feel better? Don’t. “Rather, its purpose is to put an end to the suzerainty of the unbelievers so that the latter are unable to rule over people. The authority to rule should only be vested in those who follow the Truth Faith; unbelievers who do not follow this True Faith should live in a state of subordination.” So much for liberty and justice for all.

The current state of Britain came most clearly into focus, however, not when we visited the mosques, but when we tried to have dinner. I had an illuminating dinner with a group including the notable British author and freedom fighter Douglas Murray that turned out to offer a bracing introduction to British dhimmitude: the dinner had to be moved at the last minute since the proprietors of the George Restaurant in the aptly-named Isle of Dogs district of London didn’t like us discussing jihad and Islamization on the premises. This was despite the fact that the dinner had been planned to be on-camera and had been cleared with the George in advance.

In fact, when I returned to the George the next night with the producers of the film, we were not allowed entry because the previous night we had been discussing jihad and Islamic supremacism.

Were the proprietors of the George Restaurant hard-line Leftists who viewed jihadists as their allies in the struggle against American imperialism? Or were they frightened by the prospect of the local Muslims, who live in that area in considerable numbers, exacting revenge against the place for daring to host a meeting of the Resistance?

Most likely they were afraid of their own government, which frowns upon those who question the wisdom or viability of the multicultural paradise they are intent upon creating. For when we finally tried to assemble in another place a roundtable of concerned British citizens to discuss the problem of the Islamization of Britain, one by one the British participants dropped out. If they appeared on camera, we were told, the government could and probably would threaten their livelihood.

If the British government makes the stakes too high for its own people to speak publicly against the policies that have brought into Britain thousands of people intent upon destroying the British state and imposing Islamic law, then all is nearly lost.

It’s no wonder that British citizens are turning to noxious racist parties like the BNP: the elites have abandoned them. This is a time for the British people to summon untapped resources of courage, and for the British government to recover its vision. Otherwise all will be lost, and soon.

Read it all.

And why wouldn't everything be smooth? -- except, of course, for the non-Muslims who are inconvenienced and feel discriminated against by the preferential treatment that the J. B. Swift company is giving to its Muslim employees. But those non-Muslims don't dare speak up now. The writing is on the wall. Equality of rights and equality of treatment? Pah! Those are the shibboleths of yesterday's men! Today, we speak of multiculturalism, which means that all cultures are equal, except that some are more equal than others!

"'Everything is smooth', Muslim says of plant working conditions this Ramadan," by Chris Casey for the Greeley Tribune, August 26 (thanks to John):

Muslim workers are on bended knee in prayer. Company officials are on their toes.

The result: A ruckus-free Ramadan.

So far, anyway.

“Everything is smooth now and people are happy and the company is happy,” said Asad Abdi, vice president of the East Africa Community Center in Greeley.

Abdi and Graen Isse, another East Africa Community leader, visited the JBS USA plant on Monday, the first work day of Ramadan, to see how things went at sundown.

That's when Muslims break their daily fast and pause for evening prayers.

“Everyone was saying ‘happy Ramadan, happy Ramadan,'” isse said. “It was very welcoming.”

The company had even put out dates, food customarily eaten to break the fast, for the workers. The Muslims were allowed to leave production lines in shifts and go to prayer rooms — one for men, another for women — for 10-minute breaks.

“The people were working together on the line. They're covering for each other,” Abdi said. “When one person goes to pray, the other covers his place. … If (JBS) knew it would be this easy they wouldn't have had the problems before.”

Last September, things were much different.

Indeed they were.

Part One is here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.

Iraq will turn out to be entirely ungrateful to the Americans. Everything that happens there will show that, when the Shi’a refuse to give away any their power, and the Sunnis refuse to acquiesce in the shift of power from them to the once-despised Shi’a, and both Sunni Arabs and Shi’a Arabs agree only on the need to suppress the claims of the non-Arab Kurds. The Kurds are non-Arabs, and therefore, of course, inferior to the Arabs. The Arabs will deny their claim to autonomy or even to an independence that the Kurds certainly deserve, certainly have earned (ask the American troops who were in Iraq, and who relied always on the Kurds, and never on the Arabs). Yet a Kurdish independent state, if handled rightly, could be a useful tool in weakening both Syria and Iran and, even more importantly, could be a symbol -- to Berbers in Morocco and Algeria for example, or to Muslim black Africans in Darfur -- of a non-Arab Muslim people throwing off the Arab yoke.

Of course the Iraqi Sunnis will blame America, and demand that the Americans remain to “protect them” from the Shi’a. And some of the Shi’a will claim that everything that goes wrong -- the electricity, the water, the oifields, even for god’s sake the goddam decline in date production -- was somehow the fault of the Americans. Of course Iraq will not be made to work. Much of its educated class -- the doctors and engineers and teachers -- were Christians, and the Christians have mostly left. They won’t come back, not now that Saddam Hussein is gone. Saddam kept the mosques and mullahs under a tight reign -- not because he loved Christians but because he used the camouflage of secular Ba’athism to hide the fact of his Sunni, even what might be called his Tikriti, despotism. Now both the Sunnis and the Shi’a, those whom the Christians (e.g. Donny George, former head of the Baghdad Museum) call “the turbans,” have been free to harass the Christians. It makes perfect sense for Arabic-speaking Christians, both Assyrians and Chaldeans, to leave and not come back -- and that has indeed affected the wellbeing of all Iraqis.

Iraq will again turn out to be, sooner or later, exactly what Winston Churchill declared Mesopotamia to be back in the 1920s -- an “ungrateful volcano.”

Why? Well, for example, "under the new law women are no longer required to obey their husbands, instead husbands and wives owe each other loyalty and protection." Oh, and a minimum age of 18 for marriage, which would contradict Muhammad's example -- a "beautiful pattern of conduct," per Qur'an 33:21.

"Mali women's rights bill blocked," by Martin Vogl for BBC News, August 27:

The president of Mali has announced that he is not going to sign the country's new family law, instead returning it to parliament for review.

Muslim groups have been protesting against the law, which gives greater rights to women, ever since parliament adopted it at the start of the month.

President Amadou Toumani Toure said he was sending the law back for the sake of national unity.

Muslim leaders have called the law the work of the devil and against Islam.

More than 90% of Mali's population is Muslim.

Some of the provisions that have proved controversial give more rights to women.

There is no mention in this article of possible criminalization of female genital mutilation, which is rampant in Mali.

For example, under the new law women are no longer required to obey their husbands, instead husbands and wives owe each other loyalty and protection.

Women get greater inheritance rights, and the minimum age for girls to marry in most circumstances is raised to 18.

One of the other key points Muslims have objected to is the fact that marriage is defined as a secular institution.

Tens of thousands have turned out at protests in Bamako in recent weeks and there have been other demonstrations against the law across the country.

It is a political defeat for President Toure, who was a strong backer of the new law.

It has only been the continuing angry protests by Muslim groups that have forced him to send the law back to parliament.

In his statement on national television the president was forced to admit that the population is yet to be convinced by the new code.

"After extensive consultations with the various state institutions, with civil society, with the religious community and the legal profession, I have taken this decision to send the family code for a second reading to ensure calm and a peaceful society, and to obtain the support and understanding of our fellow citizens."

Throwing women under the bus for the sake of stability? Sounds like Afghanistan.

It was clear from his speech that the president also thinks there has been a lot of false information circulating about the code and the government will no doubt also try to address this in the coming weeks.

The head of Mali's High Islamic Council says he was pleased with the president's decision.

Women's groups are heartbroken - they have been trying for more than 10 years to get the law changed.

And yet he, too, missed the memo about Islam as a "religion of peace." Or he just plain "misunderstood" it. Funny how that keeps happening. "Mohamad Jibril, 'mastermind' of the attacks on Jakarta hotels, arrested," by Mathias Hariyadi for Asia News, August 26:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Indonesian security forces have arrested Mohamad Jibril, who is suspected of having masterminded the massacres in Marriott and Ritz Carlton Hotel on 17 July in Jakarta. The arrest was carried out yesterday while the man - also known as Muhamad Ricky Ardhan - was travelling to the house of his father in Pamulang in the regency of South Tangerang, a suburb of the capital.

Police spokesman, inspector Sukarnan Nanan, has not clarified the details of the arrest, carried out by an unidentified commando. "We are awaiting further details about the operation – he added - before we can talk to the press."

Jibril is director of an information portal Arahman.com, a point of reference for the local Islamic community. He apparently has two birth certificates, which bear different places and times. According to the first he was born in the province of South Borneo December 3, 1979, in the second he was born in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara province, on 28 May 1989. The police spokesman added that "he is suspected of collecting funds from abroad" to finance the Islamic extremist movement.

Ar-rahman: "The beneficient," or compassionate, or most gracious. As in Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim (In the name of Allah, the beneficient, the merciful), and hence, one of the 99 names of Allah. Also the title of Sura 55.

Last July it was the site Arahman.com that published the vindication of the attacks on hotels in the capital, behind which there is the hand of the Malaysian terrorist Noordin Moh Top. Fachri Mohamad, one of the closest collaborators of Jibril, denies any wrongdoing, insisting that it is "an baseless accusation to say that it is Jibril behind the bombings”. He adds that the arrest was "an attempt to politicize Islam" and stop the "propaganda [sic!] via the internet" of faith. [...]

A visit to Arahman.com indicates the site is no longer operational.

Investigators have also revealed the name of a Saudi citizen, accused of funding the bomb attacks in Jakarta. This is Mohammad Ali Abdillah, who has lived for a time in a city of the province of West Java, the same city where Ibrohim Boim, or the "florist", the perpetrator of the attacks on the hotels, was born. The funds arrived in Indonesia in June, through the Middle East.

Was he planning to...take a trip to Sri Lanka?

Rifqa Bary Update: "'Apostate' girl's father," by Pamela Geller in the Washington Times, August 27:

[...] Rifqa's parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, signed affidavits declaring themselves indigent. That's why the Florida court appointed a lawyer for the father and a lawyer for the mother. Both their lawyers are being paid by the taxpayers of Florida. Worse still, Aysha and Mohamed Bary's lawyer asked the court for more money at Rifqa's custody hearing last Friday, so that they could wage a campaign to get Rifqa back home -- a campaign involving depositions, legal documents, filings, etc.

Yet in a Dun and Bradstreet report filed by Mr. Bary himself for his business, Bary Gems, he states his business does $237,561 yearly. Mrs. Bary makes high-end bridal gowns (that income may be off the books, but she works every day). It would appear she works for Custom Bridal Veil -- a company owned by a Risana Bary, who works with Mr. Bary at Bary Gems. Risana is apparently Mohamed's wife -- but why is she listed under different names in different places? The questions regarding their honesty are inevitable.

Bary Gems offers some high-ticket items. You can get a genuine blue sapphire for a mere $2,900. And if Mr. Bary dissolved the business in early July, where are the proceeds? Where is the inventory? The Barys owned a gem import business. If they liquidated, they must have had some inventory or orders or cash on hand.

The Barys live in a very affluent neighborhood in Westerville, Ohio, in a house they rent. They're not buying because pious Muslims aren't supposed to take on mortgages -- that would involve usury, and is forbidden in the Koran. [...]

In mid-July her mother went through Rifqa's private things and found her journal. It was then revealed to her mother that Rifqa was a practicing Christian. Mrs. Bary called her husband and alerted him that Rifqa was still practicing Christianity in secret.

Mr. Bary cut his business trip short to return home immediately while Mrs. Bary packed the family's bags to go back to Sri Lanka. Whether Rifqa would have been honor murdered before or after they returned to Sri Lanka is known only to the Barys.

It was very clear that Rifqa's father planned to flee the country with his threatened daughter. According to very recent documentation, Mr. Bary dissolved his business on July 29 -- after Rifqa ran for her life (fearing an honor killing for her apostasy) and was discovered in Florida....

Read it all.

"I was not motivated by a hate for Canada. I am not a lunatic who is hell-bent on the destruction of western civilization."

All right. But are you a thoughtful, devout mujahid who is hell-bent on the destruction of western civilization?

"'Toronto 18' member guilty in bomb plot made 'huge mistake,'" by Trevor Pritchard for the Canadian Press, August 26 (thanks to Block Ness):

BRAMPTON -- The Mississauga man who took part in a conspiracy to blow up prominent landmarks in Toronto's downtown told court yesterday he made "a huge mistake" as his lawyer asked for a two-year prison term for his client.

Saad Khalid, 23, told a Brampton courtroom he accepted responsibility for his role in the domestic terror plot to detonate bombs outside the Toronto Stock Exchange and CSIS headquarters, as well as an unnamed Ontario military base, in 2006.

"NOT A LUNATIC"

Khalid said he wanted people to know his true motives: his "disagreement" with Canada's foreign policy, specifically Afghanistan.

"I was not motivated by a hate for Canada," Khalid read from a prepared speech. "I am not a lunatic who is hell-bent on the destruction of western civilization."

Khalid was arrested in June 2006 while unloading what he and fellow alleged conspirators believed was two tonnes of ammonium nitrate, according to an uncontested statement of facts entered earlier.

One of the members of the so-called Toronto 18, Khalid pleaded guilty in May to one count of participating in a terror plot with the intention of causing an explosion....

Was this an act of abject dhimmitude, not of compassion for a dying man?

"Medical advice on Libyan bomber 'in doubt,'" by David Maddox for The Scotsman, August 26 (thanks to Awake):

JUSTICE secretary Kenny MacAskill was last night under pressure to reveal more details of the medical evidence that led to the release of the Lockerbie bomber, after it emerged that only one doctor was willing to say Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had less than three months to live.

Labour and Conservative politicians have demanded the Scottish Government publish details of the doctor's expertise and qualifications, amid suggestions he or she may not have been a prostate cancer expert.

The parties have also raised questions over whether the doctor was employed by the Libyan government or Megrahi's legal team, which could have influenced the judgment.

The evidence provided by the doctor is crucial as compassionate release under Scots law requires that a prisoner has less than three months to live....

“My marriage is not against Shariah," insisted the randy codger.

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

"Child bride turned over to 80-year-old husband," from Arab News, August 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

AL-LAITH: A 10-year-old bride was returned last Sunday to her 80-year-old husband by her father who discovered her at the home of her aunt with whom she has been hiding for around 10 days.

A local newspaper said the husband, who denies he is 80 in spite of claims by the girl’s family, accused the aunt of meddling in his affairs. “My marriage is not against Shariah. It included the elements of acceptance and response by the father of the bride,” he said.

He added that he had been engaged to his wife’s elder sister and that this broke off as she wanted to continue with her education. “In light of this, her father offered his younger daughter. I was allowed to have a look at her according to Shariah and found her acceptable,” he said.

Maatouq Al-Abdullah, a member of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), said there is no system in place regulating the marriage of young girls, something that he said results in adverse psychological, health and social effects.

“Such marriages are considered a gross violation of charters on the rights of children, which the Kingdom has signed and which set the age of adulthood at 18,” he added.

The mentality underlying honor killing is that even a victim of rape is to blame, for she has sullied the family's honor by engaging in sexual immorality. The fact that it was forced upon her makes no difference at all.

Think this is only something that greasy Islamophobes say?

Think again. We have seen a Muslim rape victim ostracized in India; the charging of a rape victim in Pakistan with adultery; Islamic clerics in Pakistan opposing attempts to end the equating of rape with adultery; a rape victim marrying her attacker in order to avoid being shunned; another rape victim converting to Islam in order to marry her attacker for the same reason; the sentencing of a victim of gang rape in Saudi Arabia to 200 lashes; the sentencing of another victim of gang-rape, a pregnant woman, to 100 lashes; the stoning of a rape victim in Somalia; nine-year-old rape victims in Iran rejected by their families and living on the streets; a Muslim rape victim in India ordered by Islamic clerics to leave her husband; a rape victim in Jordan murdered by her uncle to cleanse the family's honor; and on and on.

And so this poor fellow, having imbibed these attitudes, is raped in prison, and the first thing he thinks is that he, not his attacker, is a "sinner."

"Iran: Officials blame alleged rape victim for his own jailhouse attack," from the Los Angeles Times, August 24 (thanks to James):

Iranian officials interviewed an alleged victim of jailhouse rape at the hands of security personnel. But instead of consoling him, they asked him embarrassing questions and blamed him for the violence.

They said it was the young man's own fault for protesting the results of Iran's June 12 presidential elections, according to a fresh account of the alleged rape published on the website of a prominent reformist politician.

"I asked them why I and others were raped in prison," the young man says he asked two interrogators and a judge who had agreed to hear his story, according to the website of former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi.

One of the three replied, "'When the supreme leader confirmed the election result, everyone should have recognized it."...

He said he was at first humiliated by the experience and suicidal, but was consoled by Karroubi, a cleric, who helped him regain his composure and self-esteem.

"He devoted himself like a psychiatrist to me to convince me that I was innocent," he said, according to the account. "He cited religious examples, and I was finally convinced that when someone is raped with his hands and feet tied is not a sinner and is on the contrary an oppressed."...

Part One is here, and Part Two is here.

We did not “walk away” from Pakistan. The government, that is, the military who essentially have always held power in Pakistan, took and took whatever aid they could cajole out of the Americans, and then always came back for more. They took whatever economic aid they could as well, and that economic aid allowed the “failed state” -- always on the brink of bankruptcy -- of Pakistan to nonetheless not only quietly arrange for stealing nuclear secrets from the West, but pay the enormous costs of the nuclear weapons program that led to the building not of one but of dozens of “Islamic bombs,” as they were proudly called, and not only in Pakistan.

The United States did not “walk away” from Pakistan once the Soviet army had left Afghanistan. The country of Afghanistan was taken over by the Taliban, who were formed by, trained by, supported by, the government of Pakistan. Pakistan also helped the Taliban get back to Afghanistan and seize power once the Soviets had left, and to make that country a hell for its citizens, or for all but those who were the most fanatical Muslims, and to make it a haven for “the Arabs” who arrived, and set up their Al Qaeda camps, and treated the local Afghanis with such contumely. There was no reason at all for the Americans not to “walk away” from Pakistan, for Pakistan completely betrayed the Americans and its own solemn undertakings to them in this case, and then in the case of the long-term betrayal of promise after promise made to the Americans.

King: "You're talking about threatening to kill a guy, threatening to attack his family, threatening to use an electric drill on him — but never doing it. You have that on the one hand — and on the other you have the [interrogator's] attempt to prevent thousands of Americans from being killed" by Islamic jihadists.

Another, and particularly apt, Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Update: "King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they’re on,'" by Ben Smith at Politico, August 25 (thanks to Benedict):

A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.

"It’s bulls***. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense."

"It’s a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he’s lost control of his administration," said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

King, channeling both the sense of outrage and of political opportunity felt in parts of the GOP, defended in detail the interrogation practices — threats to kill a detainee's family, and or to kill a detainee with a power drill — detailed in a CIA inspector general report released yesterday.

"You're talking about threatening to kill a guy, threatening to attack his family, threatening to use an electric drill on him — but never doing it," King said. "You have that on the one hand — and on the other you have the [interrogator's] attempt to prevent thousands of Americans from being killed."...

"Why is it OK to waterboard someone, which causes physical pain, but not threaten someone and not cause pain?" he asked, warning of a "chilling" effect on future CIA behavior.

"You will have thousands of lives that will be lost, and the blood will be on Eric Holder's hands," he said....

"They’ve declared war on the CIA. We should resist and fight back as hard as we can," he said. "It should be a scorched earth policy. ... This isn't just another policy. This goes to the heart of our national defense. We should do whatever we have to do."

Multiculturalism will soon be bringing this kind of fun to the U.S.

"Burqa-clad man armed with gun and axe steals £150,000 designer watches," from the Daily Mail, August 26 (thanks to Dionysios):

Police are searching for a burqa-clad man who helped steal designer watches worth £150,000 in an armed robbery yesterday.

The man and two accomplices, armed with a handgun and an axe, burst into Michael Jones Jewellers on the High Street in Banbury, Oxfordshire, at about 2.20pm.

They threatened four members of staff, a man and three women, with their weapons before making off with Rolex, Cartier and Breitling watches....

The incident is the latest in a spate of 'burqa robberies' where thieves conceal their identity with the full-body garment typically worn by Muslim women....

What? There are no hospitals in Baghdad? Well, Baghdad is a war zone, of course, so maybe he just felt more comfortable going to a calmer place. But do you think a Sunni leader would have opted for Tehran?

Iraq Will Be A Colony of Iran Update: "Iraq Shiite leader Hakim dies in Tehran hospital," by Farhad Pouladi for AFP, August 26 (thanks to James):

TEHRAN — The leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, died in a Tehran hospital on Wednesday aged 60 after a long battle with lung cancer, five months ahead of key parliamentary elections.

"He died a few minutes ago after battling cancer for 28 months," his son Mohsen Hakim told AFP. He and his brother Ammar had been at their father's bedside.

Hakim, a cleric who helped establish an opposition movement in exile in Iran in 1982 to battle Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, returned to Iraq after the US-led invasion of 2003.

His Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council swept Shiite areas in first provincial elections after the invasion but in new elections this January the party suffered major losses to the rival list of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki....

The mother says she never told the Swedish "journalist" that her son's organs had been stolen. And the jihadist's brother says that the family has no evidence that his organs were stolen. But living in the West Bank as they do, even they are starting to believe it.

Aftonbladet Blood Libel Update: "Palestinian family: We didn't say organs taken," by Khaled Abu Toameh in the Jerusalem Post, August 25 (thanks to Benedict):

The family and relatives of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, the Palestinian at the center of the organ-theft story in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, said on Monday that they didn't know if the accusations were true or not.

The family lives in the tiny village of Imatin in the northern West Bank. Ghanem, 19, was killed by IDF soldiers during the first intifada on May 13, 1992.

He was a Fatah activist who was wanted by the IDF for his involvement in violence.

His mother, Sadeeka, said he was shot by an IDF sniper as he walked out of his home. "The bullets hit him directly in the heart," she said.

Ghanem's younger brother, Jalal, said he could not confirm the allegations made by the Swedish newspaper that his brother's organs had been stolen.

"I don't know if this is true," he said. "We don't have any evidence to support this."

Jalal said his brother was evacuated by the IDF in a helicopter and delivered to the family only a few days later.

The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen.

However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians....

Ibrahim Ghanem, a relative of Bilal, said that the family never told the Swedish photographer that Israel had stolen organs from the dead man's body.

"Maybe the journalist reached that conclusion on the basis of the stitches he saw on the body," he said. "But as far as the family is concerned, we don't know if organs were removed from the body because we never performed our own autopsy. All we know is that Bilal's teeth were missing."...

Well, I hate to say I told you so, but...

June 27, 2006: "Of course, Ahmadinejad may be jumping the gun a bit as far as that is concerned, but he is certainly doing all he can to bring into being a Shi'ite client state in Iraq."

September 13, 2006: "Here we see looming in Iraq the Shi'ite client state of Iran that the U.S. has unwittingly helped put into place with its short-sighted democracy project."

October 31, 2006: "Is al-Maliki on the road to creating the Shi'ite client state that the Iranians have been trying to foster in Iraq for quite some time now?"

February 11, 2007: "Iran continues its efforts to create a Shi'ite client state in Iraq."

June 10, 2008: "Or are U.S. troops the main obstacle to Iraq's becoming a full-fledged client state of Iran?"

November 12, 2008: "Very soon now the President of the United States and the President of Iran will sit down, without preconditions, and hash this out, and clear everything up before Iraq turns fully into the Shi'ite client state that the Iranians covet."

July 1, 2009: "Their goal of creating a Shi'ite client state is closer than ever to being realized."

July 30, 2009: "Was this what we have been fighting for in Iraq all these years? An Iranian Shi'ite client state in Baghdad?"

Looks like it. But of course, the learned analysts knew better.

"Behind the Carnage in Baghdad," by David Ignatius in the Washington Post, August 25 (thanks to Kamala):

As security deteriorates in Baghdad, there's a new cause for worry: The head of the U.S.-trained Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) has quit in a long-running quarrel with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- depriving that country of a key leader in the fight against sectarian terrorism.

Gen. Mohammed Shahwani, the head of Iraqi intelligence since 2004, resigned this month because of what he viewed as Maliki's attempts to undermine his service and allow Iranian spies to operate freely. The CIA, which has worked closely with Shahwani since he went into exile in the 1990s and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars training the INIS, was apparently caught by surprise by his departure.

The chaotic conditions in Iraq that triggered Shahwani's resignation are illustrated by several recent events -- each of which suggests that without the backstop of U.S. support, Iraqi authorities are now desperately vulnerable to pressure, especially from neighboring Iran....

Iran's links with Maliki are so close, said this Iraqi intelligence source, that the prime minister uses an Iranian jet with an Iranian crew for his official travel. The Iranians are said to have sent Maliki an offer to help his Dawa Party win at least 49 seats in January's parliamentary elections if Maliki will make changes in his government that Iran wants....

Should the Americans try to restore order? The top Iraqi intelligence source answered sadly that it was probably wiser to "stay out of it and be safe." When pressed about what his country would look like in five years, absent American help, he answered bluntly: "Iraq will be a colony of Iran."

Embarrassingly abject dhimmitude from the man who just days ago was saying that the Koran had "no ethical dimension," was "a depressing book," and was "very one-dimensional," and who even suggested that Muhammad was schizophrenic. If someone wrote that about the Bible and Jesus today, he would be invited to all the best dinner parties and maybe get a nice foundation grant. But say it about the Koran, and unless you have a bit of spine you will soon be bowing and scraping just like this, in the face of the stealth jihadist smear and intimidation machine:

"Sebastian Faulks: The book I really can't put down," by Sebastian Faulks in the Telegraph, August 24:

[...] When, with some excitement, I first read the Koran last year as research for my novel, I confess that I was disappointed by it. Raised as a child on the exciting stories of the Old Testament and inspired by the revolutionary teachings of the New, I had, perhaps naively, expected something comparable. The Koran has lovely passages, some of which inspire my character Farooq in the novel, but I did find it, from a literary point of view, repetitive.

As for whether it is ethically less developed than the New Testament, a Muslim friend put it to me like this: "You must compare like with like. Compare it to the Old Testament."

That is a fair point. I fully accept that the ethical dimension of modern Islam has been provided by generations of scholars and thinkers over many centuries; it was perhaps too much to expect to find it embedded from the word "Go" – to expect, in other words, that the Koran would be two books, two testaments, in one.

While we Judaeo-Christians can take a lot of verbal rough-and-tumble about our human-written scriptures, I know that to Muslims the Koran is different; it is by definition beyond criticism. And if anything I said or was quoted as saying (not always the same thing) offended any Muslim sensibility, I do apologise – and without reservation.

It was never my intention to offend my Muslim friends or readers, and if you read my novel I think you will see how I have shown the positive effects of the Koran on a kind and typical Muslim family. The family son, Hassan, falls in with bad men and is misled. I can't tell you without spoiling the story whether goodness prevails; but if it does, it is considerably due to the love of his devout parents....

Of course, the Prophet Mohammed was the most prodigious of all voice-hearers, and as Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, noted yesterday, he has often been accused of being "possessed". Sometimes the words of the Koran do have a slightly ranting rhythm to them – though this may be due to the translation, and Arabic has a different natural intonation from English.

But to me the idea that anyone could have achieved what the Prophet achieved in military and political – let alone religious – terms while suffering from an acute illness of any kind seems completely absurd. I believe that only a healthy and lucid person could have achieved what he did – and I am very happy to make that belief clear....

Oh, it's crystal clear.

Interesting title, also: "The book I really can't put down." I doubt he means that he finds the Koran so gripping that he can't stop reading it. He means he can't denigrate it. He can't put it down. Even if he wants to. Because he is afraid of the consequences -- either death threats or the opprobrium of polite society that routinely denigrates Christianity but finds Islamorealism "bigoted," or both.

What's that? It isn't going to Hamas? See here and here.

Suicidal Short-Sightedness Update: "UNRWA assistance to Palestinian refugees from Iraq," from ReliefWeb, August 23:

Damascus, 23 August 2009 - The United States Government has contributed US$957,000 toward the Agency's cash assistance programme for Palestinian Iraqi refugees in Damascus, and US$266,000 to complete the reconstruction of the UNRWA Community Development Centre in Yarmouk Camp.

Receiving the generous donation, Dr. Stefania Pace-Shanklin, Acting Deputy Director of UNRWA Affairs in Syria, expressed UNRWA's gratitude. She said, "The U.S. Government is a long-standing supporter of UNRWA and this contribution is further evidence of their commitment to enhancing the human development of Palestinian refugees in Syria. This on-going partnership between UNRWA and the United States enables us to continue investing in projects that improve the lives of Palestine refugees".

The community development centre will cater for 135,700 Palestine refugees, including the most vulnerable groups such as women, the disabled, and Palestinian refugees from Iraq. The centre, supervised by a team of committed volunteers, will focus its energy on providing training to job seekers, implementing income-generation projects, and supporting initiatives targeting the well-being of young people. The cash assistance component will allow UNRWA to continue its relief programme for 2010-2011 that targets the poorest Palestinian Iraqi families. The programme started in November 2007 with funding from UNHCR.

The United States is UNRWA's largest bilateral donor. So far in 2009, the U.S. Government has provided US$186 million to UNRWA's programmes in the region.

But all those Arab states full of jihadists? No problem!

They Sincerely Want Peace Update: "A Jewish state threatens all humanity: Official PA news agency," by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook for Palestinian Media Watch, August 10 (thanks to all who sent this in):

While Israel demands that the PA recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the official Palestinian Authority news agency has responded with a vicious anti-Semitic article stating that a Jewish state (literally "Jewishness of a state") is by definition inherently racist and endangers all humanity.

The PA is accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing of Arabs and Palestinians, and says this policy of the "Jewish state" endangers global security.

In addition, the political editor of the WAFA news agency writes that Israel is waging a war "aimed at eradicating Palestinians, with slogans first, then by practice." He says that Israel aims to eliminate "everything related to Arabism" and replace it with a "racist state" based on Judaism.

He calls upon the international community, which has already banished other racist regimes, to stop the development of this "theocratic regime."

The following is the full article by the political editor of WAFA:

"The Jewish State, or People, or Land is a synonym of the black nightmare of Racism. It is a war waged on us; a new war aimed at eradicating Palestinians, with slogans first, then by practice. Such a practice is the most dangerous in this land's history; Exile, or 'Transfer' and eliminating everything related to the Arabism of this homeland, which has witnessed years of organized transfer of its people. Are we now witnessing our complete, final expulsion?

"We still do not understand, and we have not learned the lesson. We merely repeat our reactions, and every time they escalate their actions, we respond as they [Israelis] want us to respond. Protest alone will not change or influence things, because it is devoid of roots and flows not from a united people, but rather from streams, groups and divided parties... fighting for government that is not worthy of being called government. We are still under occupation; we are still ruled, in every aspect of life: livelihoods, sovereignty, and decision....

"If we do not wake up, perhaps we will be outside of our homeland and without residence.

"The Jewish State is clear in its objectives, even implementation and application. It means eliminating 20 per cent of the Jewish entity's citizens; Arabs and Palestinians. It probably means forcing them out; transferring them.

"Those who are calling for the Jewishness of 'the State' are performing a political act... whose fundamental aim is the complete closure of the right of return. And it is not only the right of return that is being rejected here: Also prohibited is the remaining of the Palestinians who are upon their lands and forbidden houses in the Galilee and in the Triangle and in the Negev and in Jerusalem, as a 'first stage,' and in every place where there are Palestinians.

"In terms of all this, should we expect that they are deliberately trying to violate the inalienable right of return, considered a priority on the negotiations agenda, by the United Nations and its Security Council?

"A Jewish state endangers not only Palestinians, but also the Arab World, and the global security. It is a call for legitimizing a racist entity, built on pure ethnic and theocratic criteria. They apparently think that they are a race, and they want a racist state! All of this doesn't end with the Palestinian issue; it becomes a general [international] matter, which raises the question:

"Will the present international system, with its modernity and development, and after banishing the racist entities, allow the development of a theocratic regime, successor of racist regimes that have disappeared, where anyone who does not recognize it cannot live there?"

[WAFA News Agency, July 27, 2009]

More suicidal short-sightedness. Here is Kadyrov justifying honor killings. "Putin dashes to Chechnya, shows support for Kadyrov," by Dmitry Solovyov for Reuters, August 25 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin visited Russia's restive Chechnya region on Monday, showing support for a local leader accused by rights groups of abuses and demonstrating Moscow's presence in a mainly Muslim region racked by violence.

Central Russian channels showed Prime Minister Putin and Kremlin-backed regional chief Ramzan Kadyrov alighting from a military helicopter at Tsentoroi, the Kadyrov clan's home village in the southeastern Chechen foothills.

Putin launched a second war to crush Chechen rebels in 1999 that gained him widespread popularity and propelled him to the highest office. Violence has flared again in the past months, with attacks by militants seeking an Islamist state in the north Caucasus spreading to neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Surrounded by heavily armed guards in camouflage and with sub-machineguns at the ready, the two men laid a basket of red and white roses at the tombstone of Kadyrov's father, Akhmad, who was killed in a bomb blast in 2004.

"It is thanks to this courageous man that the war ended. He gave his life for Russia and Chechnya," a sombre Putin said, to a roar of helicopter gunships patrolling the area.

Kadyrov faces strong criticism from human rights bodies after kidnappings and killings of human rights and charity activists in Chechnya. He denies any link to killings....

M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Professor Of Etc., writes as follows:

"It is my position that the application of the death penalty for apostasy, meaning a conversion to another faith or a loss of faith, should under no circumstances be subject to criminal sanctions, let alone the death penalty."

This statement, if read as written, is a declaration by M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Prof., Etc., that the "application of the death penalty for apostasy" should "under no circumstances be subject to criminal sanctions" -- meaning, if Muslims carry out a death sentence on apostates from Islam, those Muslims who follow what M. Cherif Bassiouni, Dist. Etc., agrees is the unanimous view of the four schools of Sunni Jurisprudence, they should not be punished, least of all be subject "to the death penalty."

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking he did not really write that, that I have misunderstood. No, I don't think so.

And the main point remains: Islam, the Four Main Schools of Sunni Jurisprudence, prescribe the death penalty for apostates. The fact that M. Cherif Bassiouni, D. Etc. does not agree means nothing, changes nothing about the beliefs of more than a billion people, and M. Cherif Bassiouni knows this. He is substituting his wish, his veiled velleities, for the reality of Islamic doctrine. This he is not entitled to do. This cuts no ice in the Muslim world, and it should come as no relief whatsoever to worried non-Muslims.

After my recent exchange with M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University (see here and here), Jihad Watch reader David initiated the following exchange with the august professor. Did he address David's concerns and answer his questions honestly and adequately? You be the judge.

1. David to M. Cherif Bassiouni:

I read with interest Spencer's report of your exchange on the Islamic penalty for apostasy and your characterization of his scholarship. I am sure I speak for many when I urge you to accept his challenge to debate. I yearn to be disabused of what I now understand to be the mindboggling basic premise of Islam, to wit, the imposition by physical force of a world wide calliphate governed by Sharia law. I believe I also speak for many when I say I would love to believe that Islam does not prescribe this kind of supremacist theocracy. Please help me correct my thinking about the nature of Islam by engaging in debate with Spencer either in person or by published written communications.

2. David to M. Cherif Bassiouni:

You were probably inundated with email as a result of your now public exchange with Mr Spencer so even though I will to be brief I appreciate that a personal response is unlikely. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to follow up my earlier plea from a curious onlooker ( see below). Here is what struck me after reviewing your recent reply to Spencer.

1. You wrote: " Usually persons who have extremist views are beyond the reach of reason, good sense, and good faith."

Is that really grounds to abandon the effort to reason with any and all people who hold opposing points of view even if you think they are extremist? I hope you agree it isn't. Even you must admit that Spencer is not a kook. Your refusal to debate on fundamental Islamic beliefs is disheartening to those like me who day in and day out read about the barbaric terrorism conducted in the name of Islam and desire to learn how this relates to the true nature of Islam.

2. You wrote: "I don’t know what you are up to, why you are doing it, and for whose benefit, but everything I read tells me there is something wrong in conducting such an extremist campaign against Islam and Muslims. What is that intended to accomplish other than radicalization and polarization? Is that in the best interests of relations between Americans who have different faith-belief systems? Is that intended to arouse anti-Islamicism in America for certain political purposes? If any of these are the case then whatever I or anyone else may have to say to you will not have much effect."

Okay, you concede you are not a polemicist, so you are entitled to some leeway in a debate, but if everything you read at jihadwatch.org tells you there is something wrong in what Spencer has written, then why don't you simply identify how it/he is wrong? That was the hope I expressed in my earlier note - that you would say something to disabuse me of my current negative view of Islam. The one and only area in which you did argue specific issues - your defense of his attack on you vis a vis the death penalty for apostasy - is altogether unconvincing (to put it charitably). Sadly, I am left to surmise that you would not be able to dispute Spencer's general views on the true nature of Islam.

3. You wrote: "To the best of my knowledge, I don’t know of any organization having a campaign similar to yours aimed at discrediting a major religion and its followers."

Holy cow! I find this statement incredible especially in view of your noble work with the UN and US State Dept as a special consultant on anti-terrorism. I am not a religious person, but I was born into an American Jewish family so notwithstanding my belief that the god of all three people of the book is nothing more than a make believe friend for grown ups, is it not a fact that Al Qaida prescribes it is the duty of every good Muslim to kill me wherever I am found, behind a rock or otherwise, certainly for as long as non-believers remain in Mecca and/or America supports the state of Israel? What about Hamas, Hezbollah and all the other bedfellows of Al Qaida located throughout the world who not only insist on the elimination of the state of Israel, but all Jews as well? Or does jihadi killing by such organizations not count as discrediting?

It saddens me that you can not help me overcome my current negative views of Islam and the people who practice that belief system. Is there a web site you can recommend where I might be able to educate myself. I sincerely want to learn that Spencer is intellectually dishonest in his description of Islam.

3. M. Cherif Bassiouni to David:

Thank you for your two emails. Because of their concerned tone, I extend to you the courtesy which you deserve, in the following reply.

For reasons which I described in my letter to Mr. Spencer, I do not wish to engage in a debate with him.

As to the question of apostasy, from my perspective, there is not much to debate with anyone other than Muslim scholars who take a different position. In such an event it would be my goal to try to convince them of the merits of my position and thus to make them change their views.

I take the position that a sound interpretation of the Shar’ia leads to the conclusion that apostasy is not a crime punishable on earth and certainly not punishable by the death penalty, unless apostasy is defined as high treason (and has the legal elements of that crime), in which case it would be punishable by death. Almost every country in the world has a law or statute to that effect. We do in the U.S in Title 18 United States Code and in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The mere fact that a person changes his or her religion is not, in my opinion and in the opinion of other contemporary scholars, a crime, let alone a crime punishable by death. Admittedly this was not an interpretation given to apostasy after the death of the Prophet. I and others believe it is incorrect. Just as an example, during the days of the Prophet, one of the Muslim converts who went to Abyssinia, by the name of Jahsh, converted to Christianity there and continued to live with the Abyssinian Christians as well as with the small community of Muslim immigrants. The Prophet never repudiated Jahsh nor declared him to be a criminal. In fact, there was never a case in the practice of the Prophet (the Sunnah) in which the concept of had for apostasy was applied to someone who simply changed his mind on being a Muslim, preferring instead another one of the two other Abrahamic faiths.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have their fundamentalists who interpret holy scriptures in a literal way and who, as a result, come up with interpretations that are either inconsistent with the higher values of their faith-belief systems and/or with contemporary secular human rights standards.

My concern with Mr. Spencer, jihadwatch, and his other writing and speakings, is that it has become a campaign against Islam and that, is my opinion, is reprehensible.

4. David to M. Cherif Bassiouni:

Thank you for your email concerning Islamic law on the penalty for apostasy. I have to confess I am more confused than ever, especially why you opine that Mr Spencer's jihadwatch and his analyses of Islamic law constitute a reprehensible campaign against Islam since you seem to agree with him on the immorality of current Islamic law and you, yourself, wish to reform it.

In the process of setting forth your personal view of what the law should be you admit that, in fact, current Islamic authorities uniformly prescribe the death penalty for apostasy. Don't you agree that any belief system that prescribes death for apostasy rightfully deserves to be condemned? In my unscholarly view, condemnation and derision seem entirely appropriate for a belief system so despicably unethical as to maintain this immoral anachronism as one of it core beliefs.

Your parenthetical qualification of the no death for apostasy rule is inapposite. However apostasy might have been defined in the 7th century no modern definition includes any element of treason as that word is ordinarily defined. Islam is not a nation state with geographical borders. We are talking about religious beliefs, not about betraying one's country. To the extent you attempt to ameliorate the immorality of current Islamic law by drawing historical parallels between apostasy and treason you come across as an apologist for the unethical state of Islamic law, not as a would be reformer.

I agree with you that all religious fundamentalists are, more or less, nutcases who engage mostly in anachronistic thinking that is "inconsistent with the higher values of their faith-belief systems and/or with contemporary secular human rights standards." Unfortunately, the inmates seem to be running all the Islamic institutions. They all appear to be fundamentalists in that (a) they believe their religion is the only correct religion, (b) all "non-believers" must either convert, pay jyzziah, or be slain so that (c) the entire world consists of a single supremacist theocracy governed by Sharia law. Now if you could get your coreligionists to change Islamic law on that score I could overlook some of the other issues like womens' rights.

You have a steep road ahead of you, Mr Bassiouni. If you are sincere in your efforts to lead a reformation in Islamic Law, I suggest you might want to join forces with Mr Spencer rather than mischaracterize his scholarly analysis of the Koran, hadiths, and current schools of Islamic law as simply a reprehensible campaign against Islam. Good luck in your attempts at reformation.

5. M. Cherif Bassiouni to David:

I do not agree that current Islamic law is immoral. My position, and that of many others, is that certain interpretations of it are erroneous, and that is a big difference.

It is my position that the application of the death penalty for apostasy, meaning a conversion to another faith or a loss of faith, should under no circumstances be subject to criminal sanctions, let alone the death penalty. The key point of your position, Mr. Spencer’s, and others, is that because there is an erroneous interpretation of some aspect of the religion, you can then label the entire “belief system so despicably unethical as to maintain this immoral anachronism as one of it [sic] core beliefs.” You would be surprised as to how many similar anachronistic positions are held by believers of Judaism, Christianity, and other faith systems. One does not condemn an entire faith because of some positions which are, as you put it, “anachronistic,” and as I would put it, “incompatible” with fundamental values in Islam.

What I object to in the position of Mr. Spencer and others, including what I read in your email, is an effort to attack Islam as a whole and to denigrate it because of some either extreme or unacceptable views. If that were the case, then each religion and faith system would attract similar attacks and that, too, is not in the spirit of any religion.

Trusting that this answers your question. No reply is necessary, as I think we have run full circle on this issue.

Leftist/Jihadist Alliance Update: "LoonWatch Explores the Underworld of Anti-Muslim Blogging," by Devon Moore at the Daily Kos, August 24:

The anti-Muslim blogosphere is a cesspool of some of the most vile hatred and misinformation on the internet.

It is not "hate" to report accurately on how Islamic jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence against non-Muslims. Nor is it "anti-Muslim" to do so. If the Kos gang is interested in actual "hate," they should write about those who kill unbelievers and oppress women in the name of Sharia. It is not "hate" to defend the equality of rights of women with men, freedom of speech, and other rights that are denied under Sharia.

The anti-Muslims cover a wide spectrum though most can be found slithering in the Right-Wing. They range from academics such as Daniel Pipes, self-declared scholars like Robert Spencer and his JihadWatch, to open racists such as Debbie Schlussel, Pamela Geller and the blog Gates of Vienna.

"Open racists"? When the Left can't argue (which is most of the time), they smear and lie. Schlussel and Geller are freedom fighters, warriors for human rights. Only to a Leftist would that be "racist." They are not open racists or closet racists or any kind of racists.

It should be noted that the anti-Muslim blogosphere is not a monolith, they come from various, mostly conservative backgrounds but are only united by a hatred of Islam and Muslims. So it is no surprise that this bloc has in the past turned on one another. The most glaring feud being the one between Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs) and JihadWatch's Robert Spencer; a feud that broke out over whether or not the anti-Muslims should join forces with European neo-fascists.

Just for the record, the "feud" did not break out over "whether or not the anti-Muslims should join forces with European neo-fascists." It broke out over a couple of weblinks. No one was or is saying that anti-jihadists (which is not the same thing as "anti-Muslims") should join forces with European neo-fascists. The question was whether one could find wanting Johnson's "proof" that certain groups were actually neo-fascist without in turn being defamed as a neo-fascist and racist by Johnson. The answer turned out to be no. But the issue here was never whether anyone should ally with genuine European neo-fascists. Of course no one should.

Various websites have taken up the task of chronicling the exploits and breaking down the hate of the anti-Muslim blogosphere. There is Islamophobia-Watch, Islamophobia.org, and a few others though none seem to be as organized, or updated as their opponents. However, LoonWatch, a site that I have been following since I learned about it over 3 months ago and which I have featured as an editor of the Islam page on Topix is one site that gives the anti-Muslims a run for their money.

For one, they aren't defensive, instead they satirize and poke fun at the lunacy that is Islamophobia such as: blaming every negative piece of news from the Middle East on Islam, calls for nuking Mekka, the stereotypes of the subjugation of covered women, evil Muslim cells lurking around the corner, leftists colluding with Muslim terrorists, etc.

They "satirize and poke fun." In other words, they can't answer the arguments presented (not that I do the things enumerated above in the first place). It's straight out of the Left's playbook. As Alinsky put it in Rules for Radicals, "RULE 5: 'Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.' There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions."

Sorry, no concessions from me.

UPDATE: Infidels Are Cool weighs in.

And of course the answer is, Neverrrr!!!!!!

Our great old friend Raymond Ibrahim, who graced this site with his incisive and illuminating posts last year, responds to a clueless critic in "When Will Westerners Stop Westernizing Islamic Concepts?" at Middle East Quarterly, August 25:

Recently, Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today wrote an article about Muslim zakat, wherein I was referenced as a "critic of Islam." She then followed up with another article titled "Critic questions the aims and ends of Islamic charity," dedicated to examining my views on zakat.

While I appreciate Ms. Grossman's initiative, what especially interests me is that her response exemplifies the problems originally highlighted in my article, "The Dark Side of Zakat: Islamic Charity in Context," which Ms. Grossman takes to task.

I had written: "From what American schoolchildren are being taught by their teachers to what Americans are being told by their presidents, concepts unique to Islam are nowadays almost always 'Westernized.'… [T]his phenomenon has resulted in epistemic (and thus endemic) failures, crippling Americans from objectively understanding some of Islam's more troublesome doctrines."

It is, therefore, a bit ironic that Ms. Grossman's entire article is a testimony to this phenomenon. For starters, even though I indicated Muslims are actually forbidden from bestowing zakat onto non-Muslims, her opening sentence stubbornly describes zakat as a "mandate to be charitable." Surely "charity" that discriminates according to religion cannot be deemed all that "charitable," a word that, in a Western context, is connotative of universal beneficence.

Ms. Grossman is also decided that Muslims engaged in that timeless Islamic phrase fi sabil Allah—most literally, "the path of Allah"—include "anyone from seminary students to imams to missionaries"; conversely, I supposedly read it "as a straight pipeline to violent jihadists."

Fair enough. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to the significance of Islamic terminology, neither her opinion nor mine matters much; how Islam's authoritative schools of jurisprudence (specifically, the four madhahib) have interpreted fi sabil Allah is all that matters. And Islam's juridical rulings are such that fi sabil Allah is synonymous with the concept of violent jihad.

For example, in its section on zakat, the Arabic-English edition of the standard legal text, 'Umdat as-Salik, translates fi sabil Allah as "those fighting for Allah." Next to the index entry for fi sabil Allah, it simply says "see jihad."

The following zakat-related anecdote from Islamic history is further illuminating: After Muhammad's death in 632, several Arab tribes, while still identifying themselves as Muslims, refused to pay zakat, much of which was being used to fund ongoing military operations. Abu Bakr, the first "righteous" caliph, responded by launching the Apostasy Wars, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Arabs. In this context, neither the uses of zakat, nor Abu Bakr's murderous response, seem very "charitable." (Whoever heard of killing people for not being "charitable" enough?)

As a result, the same canon of Islamic law (the Sharia) that unequivocally forbids Muslims from giving zakat (financial assistance) to non-Muslims, advocates giving it to what we call "jihadists." This is a simple fact, played over and over again—not my opinion, nor something that is "open to interpretation."

Ms. Grossman's concluding questions are further indicative of the widespread tendency to recast Muslim concepts into Western terms. She asks the reader: "Do you think believers may support those 'in the path of Allah' in a religious sense, just as Christians might support missionaries evangelizing for Christ? Or do you read that as code for nefarious purposes?"

Aside from the fact that—alas, and once again—what any of us "think" is totally irrelevant, these questions demonstrate the all too common inability to transcend one's own culturally-ingrained notions of right and wrong, ascribing to them a universal pedigree. For just as Ms. Grossman's Western sensibilities inform her that zakat, which has to do with giving money, must always be "charitable," so too do they inform her that funding violence, jihadi or otherwise, must always be "nefarious."

Yet she may be surprised to discover that men such as Osama bin Laden actually see their jihad—yes, with all the death and destruction entailed—as an act of altruism, as an ugly means to a beneficent end (see Koran 2:216), that is, the establishment of Islamic law across the world (which is, incidentally, another Muslim duty). One of the most renowned Muslim clerics and hero of modern day jihadists, Ibn Taymiyya, has written at great length describing jihad as the ultimate expression of "love." And, at any rate, it seems a safe bet that most Muslims will be inclined to adhere to his opinions, i.e., his fatwas, as opposed to Ms. Grossman's casual thoughts on the matter....

It's excellent. Read it all.

My ninth book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, will be available September 22 from Regnery Publishing. (Get info on the first eight here -- make room on your bookshelf, Zawahiri!)

Here is what it says on the back cover:

What does the Koran really say?

It may be the most controversial book in the world. Some see it as a paean to peace, others call it a violent mandate for worldwide Islamic supremacy.

How can one book lead to such dramatically different conclusions? The truth is, not many Westerners know what’s in the Koran, since so few have actually read it—even among the legions of politicians, diplomats, analysts, and editorial writers who vehemently insist that the Koran preaches tolerance.

Now, New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer unveils the mysteries lying behind this powerful book, guiding readers through the controversies surrounding the Koran’s origins and its most contentious passages. Stripping out the obsolete debates, Spencer focuses on the Koran’s decrees toward Jews, Christians, and other Infidels, explaining how they were viewed in Muhammad’s time, what they’ve supposedly done wrong, and most important, what the Koran has in store for them.

And here is an impression from a reader who received an advance copy. I'll be bringing you more of these over the next few days.

"Meticulous, comprehensive, indispensable. ‘I read the Koran so you don’t have to,’ Spencer writes—but even for those of us who have read the Koran, this is a richly illuminating work.” — Bruce Bawer, author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom and While Europe Slept.

The New York Times backhandedly notices that Leftist feminists have failed utterly to speak up for the rights of women in the Islamic world, and that only "conservatives" are doing so. "The Feminist Hawks," by Virginia Heffernan for the New York Times, August 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Hawkish sites that have taken up feminism include Little Green Footballs, Jihad Watch and Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine. On a recent day, the home page of the last featured reports of female prisoners being raped in Iran; prepubescent girls getting married in Gaza; and a possible honor killing by an immigrant in New York. This material is expected to help seal Horowitz’s general case for the war on terror, though he has not yet changed the name of his cause to, say, the war on misogyny.

Well, two out of three ain't bad for the Times. It can't be bothered, after all, to look too closely at those awful "conservatives" and see what they're really about. But despite her error about the third site, Virginia Heffernan is quite right about Jihad Watch and my colleague David Horowitz: we have taken feminists to task more than once not only for their failure to stand up for Muslim women, but for their active excuse-making for the oppression of those women.

See, for example, my article in FrontPage, "Feminists Betray Muslim Women," on how the feminist writer Laura Briggs justifies the oppression of Muslim women.

See also "Two Women Stoned: Feminists Mum," by David Horowitz, Janet Levy and me; "A Response to Feminists on the Violent Oppression of Women in Islam," by David Horowitz and me; and my article "The Conservative Vanguard of the Feminist Movement" in National Review.

Other articles I've written in FrontPage on issues revolving around women's rights in Islam include "Covering Up the Plight of Muslim Women"; "There Must Be Violence Against Women"; "Muhammad Mended His Own Clothes!"; Open Season on Muslim Women"; "Women Are Treated Better in Islam?."

Also there are my articles in Human Events, "Unveiled Women and 'Uncovered Meat'"; "Media Ignore Abuses of Women in Islam."

I also coauthored the monograph "The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam" (available as a pdf here) with my friend Phyllis Chesler, who weighs in on the Times's ridiculous piece here.

In any case, it is very much a war on misogyny, and I am happy to take up the Times's snark and declare that war, here and now. It's a war against those who think they have a divine right to beat women (cf. Qur'an 4:34), and to devalue their testimony as if they're deficient intellectually (cf. Qur'an 2:282), and to treat them as commodities, even allowing for sex with slave girls (cf. Qur'an 4:3).

Is it "hawkish" to stand against such things? Then I am proud to be a hawk.

Democracy on the march. "Afghan vote: 225 claims of irregularities lodged," from Dawn, August 23:

KABUL: Around 225 allegations of irregularities in Afghanistan's elections have been lodged with a complaints investigator, some of which could affect the results, the body said Sunday.

The charges include tampering with ballot boxes for Thursday's presidential and provincial council elections, as well as intimidation of voters, Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) chairman Grant Kippen told reporters.

Others related to violence, failures of supposedly indelible ink meant to prevent people from voting twice and interference in polling, he said....

'We are aware of significant complaints of voting irregularities in provinces that were affected by violence on polling day,' Kippen said, adding that these included the southern province of Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold.

The AP's election coverage emphasizes U.S. fears that less than credible results will sabotage possibilities for a clear winner to invigorate the Afghan economy and confront corruption, drug trafficking, and the Taliban. These all are noble goals, but will the U.S. or the new Afghan administration (after the election is sorted) confront the underlying ideologies -- including those flying under the banner of Islam -- that contribute to or enable corruption, trafficking, economic squalor, and the Taliban?

Also from Dawn:

The US special envoy to Afghanistan said allegations of vote rigging and fraud are to be expected, but observers should wait for the official complaints process to run its course before judging the vote's legitimacy.

'We have disputed elections in the United States. There may be some questions here. That wouldn't surprise me at all. I expect it,' Richard Holbrooke told AP Television News in the western city of Herat. 'But let's not get out ahead of the situation.'

Fine. Let's not get out ahead of the situation. But let's also drop the absurd moral equivalence. On one side, we have controversies surrounding chads, campaign supporters waiving signs at proper distances from polls, and meticulous recounts.

On the other side we have allegations of ballot rigging and stuffing, threats to cut off noses and ears of voters, more threats against female potential voters, and the cutting off of the fingers of at least two women who did vote.

Holbrooke said the US government would wait for rulings from Afghanistan's monitoring bodies – the Independent Election Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission – before trying to judge the legitimacy of the vote. 'The United States and the international community will respect the process set up by Afghanistan itself,' Holbrooke said. He has been in Afghanistan observing the vote, following a trip to Pakistan last week.

Read it all.

"Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews..." -- Qur'an 5:82

Aftonbladet Blood Libel Update. "Stockholm's rabbi: Large Muslim population intimidates local Jews," by Matthew Wagner for the Jerusalem Post, August 24 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

The strong Muslim presence in Stockholm makes the Jewish community there apprehensive about taking a public stand against the recent article in the Aftonbladet tabloid reporting Palestinian claims that IDF soldiers stole body organs from Palestinians, Rabbi Isak Nachman, the spiritual leader of two Orthodox synagogues in the Swedish capital, said on Sunday.

"We want to combat this type of thing, but some Jews here are afraid - there are between 400,000 and 500,000 Muslims out of a population of about nine million," said Nachman, a member of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe.

"There is definitely anxiety and tension, especially at times when Israel is involved in a military operation, like Cast Lead," he said.

Nachman added, however, that there was not a threatening feeling on the streets of Stockholm as a result of the article in Aftonbladet. "I walk around with a kippa and the Chabad rabbi here wears his hat. Muslims don't live in the large Jewish neighborhoods."...

Stockholm's rabbi said that he was particularly disappointed with Sweden's intelligentsia. "There are plenty of educated people who know about the history of blood libels and have remained quiet," he said, adding that this non-action was in line with Sweden's neutral stance during World War II....

Why 9/11? Why not any other of 364 possible days? "Obama's Plan to Desecrate 9/11," by Matthew Vadum in the American Spectator, August 24 (thanks to Christopher):

The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.

This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year's election campaign. The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, but it's not likely many lawmakers thought this meant that day was going to be turned into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing....

On the Aug. 11 call, Yearwood and other leaders kept saying repeatedly that they wanted 9/11 to be used for something "positive," "forward-leaning," and "productive," said a source with knowledge of the teleconference.

The plan is to turn a "day of fear" that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left. In other words, nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.

"They think it needs to be taken back from the right," said the source. "They're taking that day and they're breaking it because it gives Republicans an advantage. To them, that day is a fearful day."...

And of course, there is nothing to be fearful about. The war on terror is over!

"Dino Amor Pareja, the leader of the Rajah Solaiman Movement, a group of Christians who had converted to become Islamic militants..."

Who converted him? Under what influences did he convert? Why did he so misunderstand his brand new peaceful religion?

I keep asking such questions whenever stories come up of converts to Islam being involved in jihad activity, and they come up often. In asking these questions, I am calling the bluff of the mainstream media and the Islamic groups in the West, who insist that we must believe that Islam is a Religion of Peace on pain of charges of "bigotry" and "Islamophobia." And I will keep on calling that bluff until everyone sees through the fog of deception still blankets the West courtesy those Islamic groups and their allies in the media. If Islam is a Religion of Peace, and only "Islamophobes" see it in any other way, why do so many converts to Islam keep getting it so terribly, terribly wrong? And if Islam is not a Religion of Peace, why is so much domestic and foreign policy in the U.S. and Europe based on the assumption that it is and always will be?

"Head of Filipino 'terror' group arrested: police," from AFP, August 25 (thanks to James):

MANILA — Police said Tuesday they had arrested the head of a group of Islamist militants behind a deadly bombing in the Philippines capital, who also plotted attacks against US targets.

Dino Amor Pareja, the leader of the Rajah Solaiman Movement, a group of Christians who had converted to become Islamic militants, was captured at his hideout in the southern city of Marawi on Friday, national police chief Edgardo Verzosa told a news conference.

Verzosa said the US Department of Defense had offered a 90,000-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspect. An unnamed informant received a separate 500,000-peso (10,000-dollar) reward for the arrest, he added.

The police chief described Pareja as a skilled bomb-maker who was trained by Dulmatin and Umar Patek, both Jemaah Islamiyah militants who fled Indonesia to the Philippines to escape prosecution for the deadly 2002 Bali bombings.

Also known as Khalil Pareja, Abu Jihad and Al-Luzoni, the suspect is to stand trial in connection with a 2005 bombing in Manila's financial district that claimed three lives.

He will also be tried for a second blast in the southern port of Zamboanga that wounded 26 people, and a 2005 attack on a Philippine army detachment that left 10 soldiers dead.

The same year Pareja took part in a "failed bombing operation" codenamed "Big Bang" that targeted Manila establishments frequented by Americans and other foreigners, Verzosa said....

"Big Bang," eh? Whew -- at least he isn't a creationist!

(Part One is here.)

Does Robert Gates think it would have been better not to have expressed anger, or otherwise have shown Pakistan that there were limits to the kind of behavior of which it had been guilty for decades? When Congress passed the Pressler Amendment (named after Larry Pressler, of Harvard, Oxford, and the U.S. Senate), it showed itself, not for the first time, and not for the last, more sensible than our executive branch when it comes to dealing with tyrannies. Think of what Senator Henry Jackson accomplished, for example, with the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. Congress continues to do so today when it confronts the Obama Administration on its cruel and stupid policy toward Israel.

For the Obama Administration, not knowing where to put its feet and hands, is trying to curry favor with this or that state full of Muslims by pressuring Israel. It thus reveals that instead of doing anything to bring to an end its incoherent and wasteful policy toward Muslim states, it is continuing that policy. Yet that policy is based on a refusal to grasp the meaning and menace of Islam. Thus Obama continues the Bush Administration’s naïve and stupid policy of trying to diminish, or prevent, a widening of the ethnic and sectarian fissures in Iraq (and there are some similar fissures in Afghanistan), rather than identifying, welcoming, and exploiting those fissures in order to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam and Jihad. No, in the end it will be Congress that will prevent a failed policy that, inherited from Bush, is being continued by the Obama Administration, with the main change being that the Americans have moved from one theatre in the Muslim Multiplex to another, some one thousand miles to the East -- that is, from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Oh, it’s a very big Multiplex.

And there is one more change: the Obama Administration is full of people who do not understand that the war on Israel has no end, and there is no one-state or two-state or n-state “solution” because that war, a Lesser Jihad, will forever be conducted, by whatever means prove effective and available. It has no end, and there is no “solution” to that Lesser Jihad, as there is no “solution” to the worldwide Jihad being waged, in various ways, not all of them through violence, by Muslims against non-Muslims. But the very idea of thinking that everything is a “problem” to which there must be a “solution” is a typically American notion, one that is naïve and dangerous, and that obscures the need for cunning, patience, ruthlessness, and above all, knowledge of how the enemy pursues its goals, and how the forces on one’s own side allow themselves to be fooled, or to be confused, or to constantly misconstrue what is often -- in fact -- utterly obvious. Was it Churchill who once commented on the failure of so many to see “the obvious”?

The indomitable Phyllis Chesler worked tirelessly on the Rifqa Bary case -- here is her joyful summation from last Friday. "Justice in Florida for Rifqa Bary," by Phyllis Chesler in Pajamas Media, August 21:

Breaking News!

The Case Remains in Orlando

Judge Daniel Dawson has just decided that Rifqa Bary’s fate will be decided in his court in Florida. You may read about it here and here. This means that Judge Dawson will hear the case on September 3rd.

It also means that the incredibly brave 17-year-old will remain safe in Florida state custody until that hearing....

Hats off to all the warriors who fought in this battle. First, to Rifqa’s lawyer, Rosa Gonzalez–and Blake and Beverly Lorenz, the pastors who initially sheltered her; to the on-the-ground team of activists and bloggers (Andy Bostom, Brigitte Gabriel, Pamela Geller, Jeffrey Imm, Robert Spencer, Dr. Rusty Shackleford, and Tom Trento) who got the word out; to all the blog readers who sent letters to the Florida Governor; to the experts, such as Nonie Darwish and Wafa Sultan who issued statements; and to those whose Rifqa’s lawyer asked to send letters to the judge (that would be my friend and colleague, Ibn Warraq, and myself).

In addition, my hat’s off to Shackleford’s My Pet Jawa. This enterprising soul sent a “plant” to a CAIR meeting when they were deciding what their media strategy should be.

“According to my source who attended the strategy session, CAIR officials handed out copies of this Orlando Sentinel article and want supporters to push the meme that Christians have brainwashed and abducted this gullible teenage girl. They have also instructed supporters to circulate rumors that Rifqa had been carousing with infidel boys and engaged in acts of immorality. This CAIR strategy takes the focus off the near-universal Islamic legal precepts and Quranic injunctions that demand death for apostates and impugns the character of the innocent girl at the center of this controversy who appears to be in genuine fear for her life if she is returned to her parents.”...

Just imagine this: "JBS has created two chapels for Christian workers inside the plant — one for Roman Catholics and one for Protestants. Also, the company has installed holy water fonts for Roman Catholics that allow workers to anoint themselves with holy water, which is custom on entering the chapel."

Imagine what the outcry would be.

But this -- this is fine!

Stealth Jihad at Swift Update: "JBS, Muslims vow harmony," by Chris Casey in the Greeley Tribune, August 21 (thanks to John):

Just a day before the beginning of Ramadan, the holy month of fast and prayer for Muslims, talks between meatplant workers, union representatives and company officials continued in earnest.

The objective: Avoid a repeat of the showdown at sundown that flared at JBS USA meatpacking plants in Greeley and Grand Island, Neb., last September.

During Ramadan, Muslims don't eat or drink during daylight hours. They break their daily fast after sunset prayers.

Miscommunication about how to handle the religious practices resulted in more than 100 Muslim workers — mostly Somalis, but also other East African refugees who've moved to Greeley in recent years — being fired last September for walking off production lines.

Graen Isse, a Somali who helps operate the East Africa Community Center in Greeley, said he thinks conflicts will be avoided this year.

“We have good communication with the company,” he said. “I don't think it's going to happen. Before, there was no communication at all. The key is communication.”

Unlike last year at this time, JBS has created two prayer rooms for Muslim workers inside the plant — one for men and one for women. Also, the company has installed stations in restrooms that allow workers to thoroughly wash, which is custom before prayers.

Still, some Muslims on the B shift, which runs from late afternoon to late evening and runs into prayers at sundown, have requested a monthlong switch to the daytime A shift to avoid conflicts, Isse said.

“I don't think they're going to move 400 workers to A shift,” Isse said of JBS. “It's hard for them to do.”...

Yes, but now that Swift is in "How high?" mode, so now is the time to press for that.

In "Media Distorts Facts of Threatened Muslim Girl Story" at Newsmax (August 24), Pamela Geller shows how the mainstream media has tried to stack the deck against Rifqa Bary from the beginning:

The Aug. 21 ruling that allowed Rifqa Bary, the teenager who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her Muslim family in fear for her life, to stay in Florida rather than return to her parents, was unexpected. The media shills and Islamic machinery in the United States never expected that Rifqa and the people would prevail upon the powers that be in Florida. So now they are in overdrive.

One egregious example is an almost incomprehensible, misogynist column in the Orlando Sentinel. It is so inaccurate, so misinformed, and so dangerous, that if Rifqa Bary is harmed, “columnist” Mike Thomas could rightly be charged with incitement to violent honor killing. Thomas got nothing right. Not one detail. Further, at no point did he consider Rifqa’s testimony. At no point did he consider the consequences of Rifqa’s testimony. At no point did he consider the risk to Rifqa’s life. [...]

Thomas observes that Rifqa was a cheerleader and says: “Somehow I can’t imagine a Muslim extremist allowing his daughter to wear short skirts and shake pompoms in front of a crowd of infidels.”

Thomas knows nothing of honor killings in the West. Victims are generally beautiful, Westernized, and dressed in a manner that perhaps Thomas would term “provocative.” Muslim girls who live in the West lead two lives. Amina and Sarah Said, allegedly murdered by their father in Texas on New Year’s Day 2008 for having non-Muslim boyfriends, were honor students, star athletes, soccer players, tennis players, etc. Rifqa was the same way in Ohio before she fled. These girls led double lives. The murder always happens when the family sees they have lost control of the child. In the case of Amina and Sarah, the girls ran away. The mother lured them back, and they were both dead less than 24 hours later. Canadian honor killing victim Aqsa Parvez also left her home and was staying with friends when she too was lured back, only to be murdered, allegedly by her father, for refusing to wear the Islamic headscarf.

The fathers cleanse the family of the dishonor of their daughter’s un-Islamic behavior. But Thomas also adds: “I could go through the Old Testament and cherry-pick any number of quotes demanding death for nonbelievers, nonvirgin brides and blasphemers. No Christian I know endorses that, yet it seems every Muslim abides by the darker writings in the faith.” But what difference does that make? Christian and Jews are not killing their daughters and wives to restore their honor. Muslims are.

Most outrageously of all, Thomas decries an “anti-Muslim” bias in the media coverage of Rifqa’s case. In fact, there was an anti-Christian bias. The mainstream media vilified the good Christians who provided sanctuary to Rifqa, who sought only to escape her father’s threat to kill her. The media reported only the parents’ Islamist narrative — giving Rifqa’s story no air time or ink. They repeated the lies over and over again. Folks had to go to YouTube to hear Rifqa in her own words. Why didn’t one media outlet have on an expert or scholar on apostasy in Islam? Why wasn’t Ibn Warraq or Wafa Sultan called? Robert Spencer was nowhere to be seen. Fox called on political pundits and others to explain Rifqa’s case, and they got it wrong. The only responsible expert who weighed in was Frank Gaffney. [...]

Rifqa Bary is the highest value target in America. She should be under 24-hour guard. And she should be given a fair shake in the media.

Read it all.

The canary in the mineshaft. "Stay of Execution," by Frank Gaffney, Jr. at the Center for Security Policy, August 24:

The image of a man convicted of killing 270 Americans and other innocent civilians receiving a hero's welcome last week at an airport in Libya was at once appalling and infuriating. Unless something permanent is done in the near future, however, the culture that promotes such behavior may soon be exulting over the "honor killing" of a young woman in America.

The young woman in question is Rifqa Bary, a seventeen-year-old from a family of Sri Lankan expatriates who are part of a Muslim community near Columbus, Ohio that is dominated by the Noor Islamic Cultural Center. This mosque is renowned for its adherence to the brutally intolerant and repressive theo-political-religious program authoritative Islam calls Shariah. In fact, counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole has described the Noor Center as "the premier source of Islamic extremism" in Central Ohio.

According to Shariah, it is impermissible to leave the faith: Those who convert have engaged in "apostasy," a capital offense. As Ms. Bary says she embraced Christianity four years ago, she is-- in the words of Tom Trento, a formidable anti-Shariah activist who runs the Florida Security Council-- "Dead Girl Walking."

Pamela Geller's terrific web site, AtlasShrugs, reports that Rifqa Bary was brutalized by family members even before they discovered that she had converted. But when the family learned, apparently from others associated with the Noor mosque, that the girl was an apostate, she says her father erupted: "If you have this Jesus in your heart, you're dead to me. You're not my daughter. I will kill you." [...]

What is clear at this point, though, is that Rifqa Bary has received but a stay-- perhaps literally-- of execution. It is a safe bet that the court will be subjected in the coming days to a counter-campaign by her parents' friends and supporters. Already, according to blogger Dr. Rusty Shakelford, a source who infiltrated a strategy session convened by the Muslim Brotherhood associated Council on American Islamic Relations reported that CAIR "handed out copies of [a recent] Orlando Sentinel article [that was critical of Ms. Bary] and want supporters to push the meme that Christians have brainwashed and abducted this gullible teenage girl. They have also instructed supporters to circulate rumors that Rifqa had been carousing with infidel boys and engaged in acts of immorality. [This CAIR strategy takes the focus off the near-universal Islamic legal precepts and Quranic injunctions that demand death for apostates and impugns the character of the innocent girl at the center of this controversy who appears to be in genuine fear for her life if she is returned to her parents.]"

Let us be clear: Rifqa Bary is a proverbial "canary in the mineshaft," a warning to all of us that toxic Shariah is leeching into America. Every effort must be made to ensure that her freedoms-- and, inevitably, ours-- are permanently protected against this deadly assault.

Yes.

Why this was a bad idea. "Failing to learn the Lockerbie lesson," by Laura Rosen Cohen in the National Post, August 24 (thanks to Kathy Shaidle):

[...] The release of the Abdel Basset al-Megrahi indicates to the jihadist world that their scorn for our lifestyle, for our Western values and freedoms is justifiable. Their insistence that our societies are decadent, morally inverted places are perhaps not without merit. If we do not punish the murderers of our own precious children, families and friends, if we do not extinguish the lives of the terrorists, or even incarcerate them, why should they think otherwise? Moreover, if we as a society, voluntarily send these messages of impotence and self-defeat to our enemies, why on earth do we deserve any of our remaining freedoms?

What case can be made for a society that annuls the value of its own citizens’ life and enables their murderers to live freely?

Let the Scottish example be a lesson to us all: the barbarians are at the gate. Instead of reinforcing the walls, we’ve just given them an extra set of keys and told them to make themselves at home. Inevitably, they will.

Over my dead body. Which is just the way they want it, of course!

Jews are stealing organs from Palestinian children and selling them, aren't they? After all, the Swedish paper Aftonbladet said so.

The only problem is, they made it up. Or repeated jihadist propaganda.

"Aftonbladet editor admits: No evidence," from the Jerusalem Post, August 24 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, which caused a media stir in recent days with an article claiming IDF soldiers were harvesting organs from Palestinians, published an editorial on Monday denying Israeli claims.

"I'm not a Nazi," Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin wrote. "I'm not anti-Semitic."

No kidding, really?

Instead, he described himself as "a responsible editor who gave the green light to an article because it raises a few questions." He did note, however, that the paper had no evidence that such horrific practices were being carried out.

On Sunday, Aftonbladet published a follow-up article, defending the offending report written by freelance journalist Donald Bostrom. The second article maintained that the organ-harvesting matter "should be investigated, either to stop the relentless Palestinian rumors, or, if the rumors prove to be true, stop the trade in body parts."

That's a significant retreat, you'll notice, from claiming that it was actually happening.

And yet Bostrum and Helin will probably still continue to enjoy a reputation as responsible journalists.

He's right. Want proof? It's coming in my new book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, which will be available September 22 from Regnery Publishing.

More on this story, now pulled. "Sebastian Faulks: Koran has ‘no ethics,’" from the Sunday Times, August 23:

THE bestselling author Sebastian Faulks has courted controversy by saying the Koran has “no ethical dimension”.

In an interview with today’s Sunday Times Magazine, he added that the Islamic holy scripture was “a depressing book”, was “very one-dimensional” and unlike the Christian New Testament had “no new plan for life”.

Faulks was speaking in advance of the publication of his novel, A Week in December....

“Jesus, unlike Muhammad, had interesting things to say,” Faulks said.

“He proposed a revolutionary way of looking at the world: love your neighbour; love your enemy; the meek shall inherit the earth. Muhammad had nothing to say to the world other than, ‘If you don’t believe in God you will burn for ever’.”

Criticism of the Koran is regarded as blasphemous by Muslims.

No kidding, really?

Seriously, most of the world is walking on eggshells in front of Muslims now, but why, if someone dislikes a book, dislikes its message, should he be afraid or ashamed to say so? Critics of Christianity and the message of the New Testament are legion, and they are neither threatened with death nor smeared as hatemongers. Ideas are ideas. Some are good and some are bad. It is not an act of hate for someone to say that he thinks one set of ideas is not inspiring, or interesting, or morally illuminating. It is done all time, about all kinds of ideas. Only when it comes to the Koran, and to Islam in general, does this evaluation of ideas become some kind of a moral failing, and is classified as an evil act.

The Religion of the Notoriously Thin-Skinned strikes again. There Is No Fun In Islam* Update: "Malaysian Islamic party urges Ramadan ban on concert," from AFP, August 24 (thanks to James):

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia's conservative Islamic party on Monday called for Danish band Michael Learns to Rock to be banned from performing next month, saying it was an insult to Muslims during Ramadan.

Note to AFP: "conservatives" don't generally call for the banning of music concerts or consider them insults, whenever they may happen to be held.

The Pan-Malaysian Islamic party (PAS) has campaigned against several foreign performers, and in 2007 threatened protests which forced US singer Beyonce to scrap a planned concert in Malaysia.

"We are opposing this concert because holding it does not respect Muslims as it is the fasting month of Ramadan, a time for holiness and cleanliness," PAS youth wing chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi told AFP.

"It is an insult to Islam for the government to allow such a concert to take place and we urge all groups to follow our lead in demanding the concert be banned," he said.

The "Michael Learns to Rock -- Eternity Tour 2009" is set to take place at the Genting Highlands resort north of the capital Kuala Lumpur on September 5, according to promoter Star Planet's website.

A spokesman for the company was not immediately available for comment.

Nasrudin said his party would consider "taking action" if the government did not stop the performance but did not specify what form that would take....

No worries. Probably he has in mind just a bit of Interior Spiritual Struggle.

* The Ayatollah Khomeini said that. He must have been some kind of an Islamophobe.

We've received a number of emails pointing out that the link to the Telegraph article featured in yesterday's story about Sebastian Faulks' negative characterization of Muhammad and the Qur'an has disappeared. The link is indeed dead, and a search on "Faulks" at the Telegraph's site yields no replacement link, but only the link to the same article that no longer exists.

Curious, ain't it? Meanwhile, the story is widespread elsewhere in the British press, and we'll continue to cover it as developments warrant.

In "Killing Rifqa" in the American Thinker today, Andrew Bostom discusses how the mainstream media has been consistent in siding against the poor girl:

Rifqa Bary is a 17 year-old Sri Lankan native who was living in New Albany, Ohio (a suburb of Columbus) until recent dramatic events precipitated her flight to Orlando, Florida. An excellent student and High School cheerleader, Rifqa apostasized from Islam, clandestinely practicing Christianity for some 4-years by her account. Hard evidence, i.e., a FaceBook webpage captured by Pamela Geller -- consistently ignored by the media, including Fox News -- clearly documents that she was a professing Christian over two years ago, at any rate.

Geller's singularly tenacious and thorough reporting has provided the chronology and context which elucidates Rifqa Bary's plight. Rifqa was "exposed" as a Christian apostate from Islam by her father's Columbus area mosque -- the Noor Islamic Center, a hotbed of jihadism and Jew- and other infidel hatred. As Bary's August 18 legal petition records,

The child's parents are devout followers of Islam and members of the extreme Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Columbus, Ohio. This is where the internationally known Hamas cleric, Salah Sultan, was the resident scholar before being banned from the United States. Salah Sultan is known as a global terrorist who publicly advocates the killing of Americans and Jews. The largest cell of Al Qaeda operatives was operating from the largest mosque in the Columbus area. Columbus is one of the cities under current investigation concerning the U.S. operations of Al-Qaeda. The child is a target for the radical Muslim community of Columbus, Ohio.

Subjected to paternal abuse (bruises on Rifqa's limbs classmates allegedly brought to the attention of her High School counselor), Rifqa ultimately felt compelled to flee Ohio in July when her father threatened to murder his "apostate" daughter. She found temporary refuge in Orlando, Florida with Reverend Blake Lorenz, pastor of the Orlando-based Global Revolution Church, whom she had met through an online Facebook group. With Lorenz at her side, Rifqa Bary provided this desperate appeal (captured in full on YouTube) during an ~ 6-minute interview with WFTV:

If I had stayed in Ohio, I wouldn't be alive. In 150 generations in family, no one has known Jesus. I am the first -- imagine the honor in killing me? There is great honor in that, because if they love Allah more than me, they have to do it. It's in the Koran. I'm fighting for my life. You guys don't understand. ... I want to worship Jesus freely, that's what I want. I don't want to die.

This past Friday August 21, Orlando Circuit Judge Daniel Dawson's decision granted her the right to remain protected within Florida's foster care system until another hearing is held September 3rd. The mainstream media narrative, in stark contrast to Pamela Geller's hardboiled (while patent) shoe leather reporting, was apparently developed via inept, lazy and uninformed pseudo-investigation, and imbued with an impenetrable "see no Islam" mentality. Hence the repeated media portrayals of Rifqa Bary as a delusional teenage rebel, "brainwashed" to leave her loving middle-American Muslim home by a Florida-based fringe Christian cult. Although Fox News television has at least reported the story, it has also been a (the?) major purveyor of this warped narrative, and its coverage has been devoid of the critical Islamic context -- in legal theory and practice -- regarding apostasy.

Fox News legal analysts -- with the exception of one who hosted a pellucid ~ 4-minute discussion by security expert Frank Gaffney -- have endlessly spoken about "jurisdiction," Florida versus Ohio, yet they appear incurious about the corpus of germane Islamic jurisprudence -- which remains applicable in our era -- sanctioning the killing of apostates. Fox News has ignored moving and informed written public appeals in support of Rifqa Bary by two prominent, remarkably courageous Muslim apostate intellectuals who have sought refuge in America,Nonie Darwish, and Wafa Sultan.

Fox News has also failed to provide its vast audience with the insights of the most authoritative contemporary scholar on apostasy in Islam -- Ibn Warraq, author of the definitive modern work on the subject, Leaving Islam Mr. Warraq is also a refugee from lethal Islamic intolerance now living in America. All three of these individuals -- Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, and Ibn Warraq -- are readily accessible to Fox News, but the media giant has thus far chosen not to interview them and share their views.

Read it all.

WASHINGTON: The Pakistani mistrust over US intentions has ‘some legitimacy’ since the United States has walked away from that country twice in the last three decades, says US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

At a briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday afternoon, Mr Gates conceded that the US needed time to ‘rebuild trust’ with the Pakistani people and to convince them ‘that we are a long-term friend and ally.’

Mr Gates described as disturbing, but not surprising, the results of a survey that only 9 per cent of Pakistanis saw the United States as a partner while 64 per cent looked at it as an enemy.

‘First of all, one of the reasons that the Pakistanis have concerns about us is that we walked away from them twice,’ Mr Gates said. ‘We walked away from them after the Soviets left Afghanistan, and we walked away from them through the 1990s, because of the Pressler amendment.’

Because of such policy changes, Mr Gates said, ‘our military-to-military relations were significantly interrupted’.

Further commenting on the opinion survey, the US defence secretary observed: ‘The Pakistanis probably — and with some legitimacy —question how long are we prepared to stay there? Is the only reason we’re interested in working with the Pakistanis is the war in Afghanistan? Or do we value Pakistan as a partner and an ally independent of the war in Afghanistan?’

Mr Gates then assured the Pakistani people that ‘the latter is the case’ and that the US had a long-term commitment to their country. ‘And I think that the bills on the Hill (the US Congress), to provide multi-year economic assistance to Pakistan, manifest that.’ -- from Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper

This speech by Gates deserves to be widely read and pondered. But not because it is an admirable and intelligent exposition. No, it deserves to be widely read and pondered because it expresses an ignorance and an amazing and perhaps willful misunderstanding of American-Pakistani relations over the past fifty years. In someone who has held as many important positions in Washington as Robert Gates, and who is now the Secretary of Defense at a time when American aid of all kinds has been pouring into Pakistan (some of it hard to discern because it does not show up in the budget as aid), and a tripling of some aid is now being pushed by this Administration, such ignorance and such misunderstanding is unacceptable, intolerable. It ought to be grounds for his dismissal.

But it won’t be, because Gates’ misreading of Pakistan, and his forgetting the most obvious things in the American-Pakistani relationship, are -- that misreading and that forgetting -- characteristic of the Obama Administration’s understanding of relations between this country and a great many Muslim countries. Those countries include not only Pakistan, but “our ally” Saudi Arabia and our “staunch ally” Egypt.

And the explanation for Gates’ folly also explains the larger folly. It helps to explain why American troops are very likely going to continue to remain in Afghanistan, and vast amounts of American aid will continue to be lavished on both Afghanistan and Pakistan when the results of that aid can only be more corruption, more resentment at the Infidel donor of such aid, and in many cases, the diversion of such aid to things that will increase local hostility to Infidels and the ability to inflict damage on those Infidels. The more Afghan villages have electricity, the more likely they will then get televisions and computers that spread the word both of Islam and of militant Islam. American aid helped pay for and even made possible the development (beginning with theft) and then the subsequent production, of nuclear weapons by Pakistan.

Oh, really?

“Bigamy is against the ‘letter and spirit’ of Islam, Indian judge rules,” by Dean Nelson in The Telegraph, August 7:

Bigamy among India's Muslims is against the "letter and spirit" of true Islam, the country's law commission has ruled. The ruling, by one of the country's senior judges, has provoked a wave of anxiety throughout India's secular establishment which has until now been content to let its 150 million Muslims live according to its own system of "personal law".

“Personal law” like this and this? Surely India’s “secular establishment” is aware that the letter and spirit of Islam is fully compatible with democratic values such as equal rights for all regardless of gender or religious affiliation, criminal codes and punishments proportional to the crime, and Jihad as interior spiritual struggle against vice, or waged violently only for defensive purposes.

While bigamy has also been practiced by Hindus, it is more common among Muslims who believed they are justified in taking up to four wives.

"If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice" (The Qur'an, Surah An-Nisa 4:3)

The practice has been widely criticised in a number of court judgments as "cruel", while one judge said there was no difference between a "second wife and a concubine". Justice A.R Lakshmanan, the law commission chairman, and two other panelists, said: "Traditional understanding of Muslim law on bigamy is gravely faulty and conflicts with true Islamic law in letter and spirit."

Good news indeed. Does Justice Lakshmanan provide decisive evidence of this conflict via the letter and spirit of the Qur'an, the life and teachings of Muhammad, the schools of Islamic Jurisprudence, historical precedent, and rulings from respected (even if minority view) scholars so that good Muslims and misunderstanders of Islam can take note and act accordingly?

"It is generally believed that under Muslim law, a husband has an unfettered right to marry again even where his earlier marriage is continuing. "On a closer examination of the relevant provisions of the Koran and other sources of Islamic law, this does not seem to be true," the report said.

Great, but please demonstrate and document how this does not seem to be true.

They said they had submitted their report to the government but stopped short of recommending legal reform because they feared it would cause an "unhealthy controversy" among religious leaders who opposed change.

What could be unhealthy such about reform which not only advances issues significant to gender rights and equality, but also “the ‘true letter and spirit’ of Islam?”

Their concerns were born out by Muslim scholars, who said Islam provided for polygamy on the condition that the man is able to care for each wife financially and honour her physically.

"Polygamy is not mandatory in Islam but there is a provision for taking more than one wife. This provision is bound by pre-conditions that the man has to do justice to all his legal wives both physically as well as economically," said Professor Akhtarul Wasey, Head of Islamic Studies at Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia University.

The Christian Century, perhaps the most popular bi-weekly periodical in liberal Protestant Christianity, during the recent unrest in Iran proposed the first of many steps for rapprochement with that country. Since these views are widespread, this piece is worth revisiting. “Soccer diplomacy,” by the Century editors in Christian Century, July 28:

Iran is a young country: the median age is about 26. Young Iranians, who are connected to the outside world through the Internet and satellite TV, made their presence known in the streets as they protested the outcome of Iran's presidential election. Their campaign against what they view as a rigged election is perhaps the first protest movement driven by cell phones and the electronic messaging system known as Twitter.

Iranian protesters aren’t the only ones utilizing technology.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that the protests rallied only the young. They attracted a broad cross-section of the population, including professionals, especially in urban areas. It would also be a mistake to interpret the protests as a sign of pro-Western or pro-American sentiment. The uprising represents a renewal of the hopes and dreams for freedom and openness that fueled the Islamic revolution of 1979—a revolution that was manipulated by the Ayatollah Khomeini and turned out badly for most Iranians, except for the conservatives who now run the country.

Hopes and dreams for freedom and openness? “Manipulated” by Khomeini? The Iranian quagmire couldn’t be related to rigorously enforced strictures from mainstream Shi’a Islam, could it? If not for sinister “conservatives” (whose Christian, Jewish, secular, and other counterparts strangely fail to display similar draconian measures crushing dissent), Iran would be a veritable Islamic Shangri-la, rivaling the most glorious mythical accounts of Al-Andalus.

And now, the obligatory American foreign policy rebuke:

Since Iran has a justifiable suspicion of intervention by outsiders, especially by the U.S and since Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, and reelected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than to blame internal dissent on outside meddling, President Obama had to speak carefully about events, while voicing concerns about the violent repression of the protesters. It would be unwise for the U.S. to squander the current opportunity to engage Iran, as President Obama has signaled he intends to do—and to some extent has already done. Some analysts think the time is especially ripe for such engagement. The drawdown of U.S. military presence in Iraq, the electoral victory of pro-Western forces in Lebanon, and the U.S. move to engage with Syria all put pressure on Iran to be more receptive to diplomatic overtures.

OK, but what is the evidence this “pressure” is having the desired effect?

What is needed, in addition to political diplomacy, is something like the "ping-pong diplomacy," or cultural exchanges, that the Nixon administration used to engage China in the 1970s. (Given that Iranians are fervent about soccer, perhaps the approach should be called soccer diplomacy.)…

Will Iran be more open than these Islamic Indonesian bombers were with “Christian players” on the UK soccer team?

The Century should be commended for creatively seeking engagement with Iranians on friendly turf. But to whatever extent “soccer diplomacy” is successful at an individual or team level, policymakers must consider the multiple implications in this final admonition:

Through deeper political and cultural exchanges, Americans and Iranians may cultivate what theologian Miroslav Volf calls the necessary capacity for "double vision": the ability not only to see others from our own perspective but also to see the others as they see themselves—and to see ourselves as the others see us.

Given how Ahmadinejad and others who hold power in Iran see themselves and others, this is timely advice indeed.

Free Speech Death Watch Update in Modern, Moderate Malaysia: “Reckless bloggers can be prosecuted,” by R.S.N. Murali in The Malaysian Star, August 18:

KUALA TERENGGANU: Bloggers who incite hatred or harp on sensitive issues like race and religion in their postings can be prosecuted for sedition, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

He said the Government would put in place a mechanism to monitor and prevent seditious content from being displayed on blogs.

While squelching free expression and written political dissent on any issue merits the ire of human rights advocates everywhere, one also wonders how consistently these vague but rhetorically charged accusations will be applied. Will bloggers who criticize Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, secularism, or less popular strands of Islam experience the same indictment as those who address or challenge reigning ideologies?

“The proposed mechanism will not only protect Islam or the Malays but all Malaysians,” he said after attending a state Umno gathering at Batu Burok here yesterday.

Hishammuddin said issues relating to the monarchy, race or religion were sensitive in a plural society like Malaysia and there must be some laws to prevent seditious postings on the Internet.

In what sense is a society “plural” if it actively targets frank discussion of sensitive issues? Such smacks of the ever-prescient repartee concerning the Soviet era:

American: In America, we are free to criticize our president.
Soviet: In Russia, we are free to criticize your president too!

“In the past we didn’t have such problems but with the advent of cyberspace, such seditious postings could probably hurt the feelings of certain communities,” he said.

What about the feelings of bloggers and other dissenters whose freedoms are threatened? Do their feelings not deserve consideration as well?

Hishammuddin delivering his speech during the launch of the Umno leadership programme in Kuala Terengganu Monday.

Hishammuddin said the proposed move was not meant to clamp down or censor the Internet…

Of course not!

… but to maintain the peace and harmony among the people in the country.

“There are a few irresponsible bloggers; I’m not saying all have the tendency to post sensitive issues.

“There should be some boundaries when posting in blogs. Irresponsible bloggers can cause disunity and derail the Malaysia concept,” he said.

And the Malaysian concept is…?

Recently I got an email from one of the most revered and hallowed academic institutions in America, offering help. Intrigued by the prospect that the Middle East Studies Association (or MESA Nostra, as Hugh calls it) may not have the stranglehold on the academic study of Islam and jihad that it endeavors to have, of course I followed up.

Benjamin Green remembers reading about Islam as a boy, perhaps for the first time in a "Kid's World Almanac of Records and Facts," where Islam was said to align closely with Judaism and Christianity. His interest was intensified in graduate school after encountering an otherwise congenial and pleasant American Shi'ite who expressed a desire that, if he had the courage and opportunity, he would kill Salman Rushdie.

This otherwise friendly gentleman followed up with "wouldn't you do the same to someone who insulted the Virgin Mary?" Benjamin responded that Jesus taught him to love and pray for his critics rather than killing them. This encounter helped open Benjamin's eyes to what might obvious to some -- that the content of one's beliefs has practical implications. Different beliefs can lead to vastly different results with potentially devastating consequences.

After teaching religion at the college and university level for several years, Benjamin re-donned his student cap to pursue advanced studies in Islam at one of the world's top universities. He began following Jihad Watch, he tells me, after reading books by our old friend Gregory M. Davis and by me, and he says that he "was attracted to Robert's attempt at 'Islamo-realism.'"

Benjamin is interested in Islam both theoretically and practically, addressing its full range of teaching and practices: good, the bad, and the ugly. He thus supports Islamic reform, including the right of Muslims to abandon Islam without reprisal, and honest and frank engagement with tough issues.

And so I am now pleased to introduce Benjamin Green, a scholar of religion who has taught multiple classes in his field at the university level. An attempted practitioner of Islamo-realism, Benjamin is presently pursuing advanced studies relating to Islam at a place that would surprise you if I named it, and whose officials would be surprised, unpleasantly so, by Benjamin's new side gig. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Background on Al-Awlaki: He was actually born in New Mexico, but is now based in Yemen, following his own preaching that Muslims should leave the sinful U.S. and its wicked democratic process. But he is not any sort of isolationist, having also declared: "We will implement the rule of Allah on earth by the tip of the sword whether the masses like it or not."

"Islamist preacher banned from addressing fundraiser," by Jamie Doward for the Observer, August 24 (thanks to Virgil):

An Islamist preacher has been banned from addressing a major British fundraising event amid claims he backs attacks on UK troops and supports terrorist organisations linked to Al Qaeda.

The revelation that Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based preacher accused of advocating violent jihad, was due to speak via video link at Kensington town hall later this month, has raised fears public buildings are being used for extremism. A spokesman for Kensington and Chelsea council said: "Some of the views expressed by Mr al-Awlaki in the past are not appropriate for broadcast in [council] premises."

The council banned al-Awlaki from speaking only after politicians and anti-extremist groups raised concerns about his appearance at the Cage Prisoners event, which will raise money for Muslims held in Guantánamo Bay.

Could a fundraiser for persecuted Christians go forward on analogous premises in an Islamic country?

Sharia Alert: "The few who came to school wearing jeans were warned that they would be expelled if they did not wear jilbabs."

"The jilbab or expulsion," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, August 24:

Hamas has instructed schoolgirls in the Gaza Strip to wear the jilbab (Islamic long-sleeved dress) and head scarves or face being expelled from school.

The movement has also banned girls from wearing jeans at school.

The latest order follows a similar directive that was issued earlier this month by a local judge requiring all female lawyers who appear in the Gaza Strip's courts to wear the hijab (Islamic head scarf).

The cases are seen in the context of Hamas's efforts to enforce strict Islamic laws throughout the Strip.

Until a few years ago, many Gazan schools endorsed jeans or trousers as an official uniform for girls. But since Hamas seized full control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, schools have come under intense pressure to force girls to dress in accordance with Islamic rules.

A source in the Hamas-controlled Education Ministry said that his ministry's policy was to allow each school administration to decide on the type of clothes students should wear.

According to the source, the ministry decided this year to exempt all students from wearing school uniforms due to the financial crisis in the Gaza Strip.

"Headmasters and headmistresses have been given a green light to decide on what type of clothes the students should wear," the source said. "In many schools, the administrations, in coordination with the families, decided to impose hijabs and jilbabs on girls."

A veteran journalist in the Gaza Strip said that most girls who returned to schools that reopened on Sunday were seen dressed in traditional Islamic clothes.

He noted, for instance, that at the Maghazi Girls Secondary School in the center of the Gaza Strip, "about 95 percent" of the girls showed up wearing jilbabs.

"The few who came to school wearing jeans were warned that they would be expelled if they did not wear jilbabs," the journalist told The Jerusalem Post....

This story is one to watch, given the past reactions and incidents resulting from publications like Rushdie's Satanic Verses, the Danish Muhammad cartoons, The Jewel of Medina (dreadful, but it wasn't literary critics who firebombed the publishing house), and others. "Sebastian Faulks risks Muslim anger after calling Koran the 'rantings of a schizophrenic'," by Lucy Cockcroft for the Telegraph, August 23:

He said the Islamic holy scripture was a "one-dimensional book" that has little literary value, and added that when compared with the Bible its message seemed "barren".

Faulks, who is known for his meticulous research, has recently read a translation of the Koran to help him write his latest novel, A Week in December, to be published in September.

Unlike his previous historical works, such as Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, his new offering is set in contemporary London.

The cast of characters include the wife of Britain's youngest MP, a female Tube driver, a hedge fund manager and a Glasgow-born Islamic terrorist recruit named Hassan al Rashid.

It was during research for al Rashid that he began delving into the Koran, which Muslims believe to be divine guidance passed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel.

In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, Faulks said: "It's a depressing book. It really is. It's just the rantings of a schizophrenic. It's very one-dimensional, and people talk about the beauty of the Arabic and so on, but the English translation I read was, from a literary point of view, very disappointing." [...]

"With the Koran there are no stories. And it has no ethical dimension like the New Testament, no new plan for life."

And in a move that is likely to anger many Muslims, he calls into question the worth of Muhammad.

"Jesus, unlike Muhammad, had interesting things to say. He proposed a revolutionary way of looking at the world: love you neighbour, love your enemy, be kind to people, the meek shall inherit the Earth. Muhammad had nothing to say to the world other than, 'If you don't believe in God you will burn forever.'"

Ajmal Masroor, an imam and spokesman for the Islamic Society for Britain, says he does not recognise Faulks' description of the Koran.

"I could list thousands of scholars, politicians and academics who have given nothing but amazing praise for the Koran, and I am talking about non-Muslims. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Bill Clinton to name just a few.

Jefferson reported to John Jay:

The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

And let's be thorough, and not forget John Quincy Adams or Winston Churchill. The article continues:

"I actually find his comments amusing, not offensive. They sound like the braying of someone who is rather resentful and un-objective, I would like to be able to sit down and have an informed debate about the Koran with him."

He said Faulks' statement runs the risk of stirring religious hatred against Muslims.

"Attacks on Islam are nothing new, but the danger is this will have a "drip, drip" effect.

"People don't seem to understand the consequences of saying things like this could be quite severe. History tells us it can encourage hatred."

Inayat Bunglawala, from the Muslim Council of Britain, said Faulks' view of the Koran was "blinkered".

"The Prophet Muhammad has had many detractors both during his own time and later on who described him as a 'madman' or 'possessed by an evil spirit' and so forth in an effort to drown out his beautiful message," he added.

"Sebastian Faulks should perhaps draw a lesson from the fact that those detractors are all now long forgotten, whereas the Prophet is remembered with love and admiration."...

It always helps when you have a bunch of your detractors whacked. Just ask Asma bint Marwan. Or Abu 'Afak. Or Ka’b bin Ashraf.

"Peshawar is a frequent target." "Three dead in Pakistan city suicide blast: police," from Agence France-Presse, August 23:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Three passers-by were killed and 15 injured Sunday in a suicide bombing in Pakistan’s northwest city of Peshawar triggered by an apparent feud between rival militant groups, police said.

The attacker blew himself up outside the home of a brother of Mubeen Afridi, spokesman for Taleban-linked extremist group Ansar-ul-Islam, who was killed in a remote-controlled blast on Saturday night.

Sunday’s blast struck the residential neighbourhood of Momin in the centre of Peshawar, a hub of militant activity.

‘There was a man who came in Momin town and opened fire on a house,’ senior Peshawar police official Sefwat Ghayour told AFP.

‘There was retaliatory fire from the house, and in the cross-fire, the suicide bomber blew himself up. In the suicide blast, two ladies and one man were killed and 15 are injured. Among the 15 injured, four are children.’

Police officials said that the dead and injured were passers-by, with no one in the targeted home killed.

Afridi was killed along with his driver on Saturday when a remote-controlled bomb exploded in a car in Peshawar. [...]

Peshawar is a frequent target, with at least nine people killed in a suicide attack on the five-star Pearl Continental hotel in early June....

More of the same in the jihad against Thailand. "Soldiers killed in south Thailand," from BBC News, August 23:

Two soldiers have been shot dead and three people injured in a gun attack on an army checkpoint in south Thailand.

The pre-dawn attack, near the southern border of Narathiwat province, has been blamed on Islamist insurgents.

At least 10 rebels are reported to have opened fire on the checkpoint before fleeing in pickup trucks. [...]

Insurgents usually target people they perceive to be collaborating with the Bangkok government - using bomb blasts, beheadings and shootings.

They have also tried to force Buddhist residents from the area, with the aim of ultimately establishing a separate Islamic state.

Quoth Ali, the rightful successor to Muhammad according to the Shi'ites:

"O' ye peoples! Women are deficient in Faith, deficient in shares and deficient in intelligence. As regards the deficiency in their Faith, it is their abstention from prayers and fasting during their menstrual period. As regards deficiency in their intelligence it is because the evidence of two women is equal to that of one man. As for the deficiency of their shares that is because of their share in inheritance being half of men. So beware of the evils of women. Be on your guard even from those of them who are (reportedly) good. Do not obey them even in good things so that they may not attract you to evils." - The Peak of Eloquence, sermon 80.

On the Sunni side of the street (sorry), this quotation is in accord with Bukhari 1.6.301:

The women asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?" He said, "Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?" They replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn't it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?" The women replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her religion."

"Iran Islamists object to women ministers," from Agence France-Presse, August 24:

Iran's conservative clerics have objected to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's decision to include three women in his new cabinet, a report said on Saturday, dealing a blow to the hardliner's bid to secure parliament's nod for his ministerial line-up.

Ahmadinejad named Sousan Keshvaraz, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi and Fatemeh Ajorlou as his ministers respectively of education, health, and welfare and social security in his 21-member cabinet.

"Although it is a new idea to choose women as ministers, there are religious doubts over the abilities of women when it comes to management. This should be considered by the government," Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, the head of the clerics' faction in the 290-member conservative-dominated Iranian parliament was quoted as saying by the conservative daily Tehran Emrouz.

He said the faction will seek the opinion of the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the issue.

Ahmadinejad's proposed cabinet, which boasts 11 new names including the three women, will face a vote of confidence on August 30.

Rahbar said leading Iranian clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi and Grand Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpayghani too wanted Ahmadinejad to reconsider his decision regarding the three women.

The nomination of females to the cabinet marks a first in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic, although in 1997 then reformist president Mohammad Khatami appointed two women among his vice presidents.

In recent years Iranian women have outnumbered men in universities but they still account for only around 15 percent of the official work force.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women have been banned from becoming judges and suffer from legal inequalities with men in marriage, divorce and inheritance.

Defending his decision in a television address on Thursday, Ahmadinejad said the three women were chosen after "close examination."

"I am against belittling women. We have to carve out the way," he said.

Tehran Emrouz said that Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai, the Friday prayer leader of the central city of Isfahan, was also opposed to the decision.

"We hope what the president said about the women ministers is not recognised by parliament," he said.

The objection against women ministers is the latest sign of the tough battle facing Ahmadinejad in securing the parliament's approval for all the names on his cabinet list.

Internationally, he has come under fire from Argentina for nominating Ahmad Vahidi as his defence minister.

In 2007, Interpol distributed to its 187 member countries an Argentine warrant for the arrest of Vahidi, who is wanted in connection with a 1994 anti-Jewish bombing in Buenos Aires which killed 85 people.

The president has already been shaken by the massive street protests against his June re-election, which the opposition movement claims was rigged.

Ahmadinejad further came under fire from his own hardline supporters after he appointed his close relative Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie as his first deputy and refused to sack him despite an order to do so from Khamenei.

Iranian hardliners have not forgiven Rahim Mashaie for his comment made last year that Iran was a friend of the Israeli people.

Iranian media reported Saturday that Rahim Mashaie has been banned from public office for two months for breaching administrative rules.

Iran's conservative wing has also criticised Ahmadinejad for selecting inexperienced officials as ministers in the new cabinet, with many accusing him of choosing those who completely "submit" themselves to him.

"The president wants to be the ruler in sensitive ministries of intelligence, interior, culture, oil and foreign. So he has introduced people whose major quality is that they are yes-men," prominent MP Ali Motahari was quoted as saying by Jomhuri Eslami newspaper.

Cleric Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, who heads a reformist group of Qom seminary scholars, has backed the nomination of women ministers, reformist daily Aftab-e Yazd reported.

"Women have the capability to execute different social activities, including as ministers and in my opinion if women are wise and learned, they can become judges, and even sources of emulation," Tabrizi said.

The women who lost their index fingers were not part of an isolated incident by far, but of a much broader pattern of intimidation. "Intimidation and Fraud Observed in Afghan Election," by Carlotta Gal for the New York Times, August 22:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Reports of fraud and intimidation in Afghanistan’s presidential election continued to mount Saturday, with anecdotal but widespread accounts of ballot-box stuffing, a lack of impartiality among election workers and voters casting ballots for others.

A particular concern was the notably low turnout of women, who election observer organizations said were disproportionately affected by the violence and intimidation. [...]

The reported problems also included voter intimidation, by the Taliban and also by some powerful candidates, in particular local candidates running for provincial council seats. Voter turnout appeared to be low, especially in the volatile south where the Taliban is strongest.

But women voters seemed to have faced disproportionate obstacles, election observer groups said.

Hundreds of polling stations for women (stations throughout the country were segregated to keep men and women from publicly mingling) did not even open in some areas where Taliban influence is high, but women also suffered discrimination and intimidation in some places in central and northern Afghanistan. Female candidates received threats and were largely ignored in news coverage of the elections, the observers said.

“The disproportionate effect