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An enormously important and unfortunately unsurprising piece from Laura Mansfield in WND (thanks to all who sent this in). Mansfield, who speaks Arabic, describes what happened when she sat in on an Arabic-language session in an American mosque. She got an invitation to an English-language session about family values, but arrived early:
I checked the mosque schedule on the Web, and discovered there was going to be an Arabic language session an hour before. So I showed up an hour early. The imam met me at the door, and told me that the presentation didn't start for an hour, and suggested I come back in an hour. Fortunately, I had anticipated this. I explained that since I had quite a bit of reading to do for a class I was taking. "Can I just sit here and read?"He hesitated a moment, then agreed. I sat in the back of the room, with my book open, and made a mental note to remember to turn the pages every so often, as I listened to the speakers in Arabic.
The first speaker was the head of the Muslim Students' Association at the nearby university. Although I missed the beginning of the discussion, I caught up quickly. He was talking about the problems he had encountered on a recent trip, when TSA flagged him for extra screening. He joked about the fact that they had stopped him for extensive screening. He had anticipated that he would be screened and he had filled his carryon luggage with printouts of the Quran from the Internet, and had 15 or 16 CDs labeled in Arabic, and he had a notebook computer with him.
As he expected, he was delayed – he thought it was very amusing that while several TSA personnel were scrutinizing his personal belongings that his classmate from Jordan was able to walk through security, along with his American girlfriend, without any problems whatsoever.
One of the men said, in Arabic: "Blonde Americans are good for something!" Another man advised him to be cautious, since there was an American woman in the room. The imam spoke up and told everyone I didn't speak Arabic.
At that point, another student took the podium. His name was Khaled, and he began to recount his recent trip to New York City. Khaled and three of his companions had gone to New York for several days in January. He told of how uncomfortable his trip up to NYC had been. He felt like he was being watched, and thought he was the victim of racial profiling.
Khaled and his friends were pretty unhappy about it, and while in New York, they came up with a plan to "teach a lesson" to the passengers and crew. You can imagine the story Khaled told. He described how he and his friends whispered to each other on the flight, made simultaneous visits to the restroom, and generally tried to "spook" the other passengers. He laughed when he described how several women were in tears, and one man sitting near him was praying.
The others in the room thought the story was quite amusing, judging from the laughter. The imam stood up and told the group that this was a kind of peaceful civil disobedience that should be encouraged, and commended Khaled and his friends for their efforts.
He pointed out that it was through this kind of civil disobedience that ethnic profiling would fail.
One of the other men, Ahmed from Kuwait, gave a brief account of his friend Eyad, who had finally gone to Iraq. Ahmed was in e-mail contact with Eyad, and hoped by the following week to be able to bring them more information about the state of the "mujahideen" in Iraq.
As the meeting drew to a close, the imam gave a brief speech calling for the protection of Allah on the mujahideen fighting for Islam throughout the world, and reminded everyone that it was their duty as Muslims to continue in the path of jihad, whether it was simple efforts like those of Khaled and his friends, or the actual physical fighting of men like Eyad.
Don't fail to read it all.
Posted by Robert at April 19, 2005 8:14 AM
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I wonder what the response would have been if the author had admitted at the end of the meeting, that they DID understand Arabic.
Posted by: Lanier![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 19, 2005 8:49 AM
Hmmmm. I think Khaled is a liar and is giving himself airs, pretending to be a tough guy. My guess is that he read Terror in
the Skies, Again?. I doubt that people in New York were watching him. I mean, whoo boy, a foreigner in New York is as rare as hen's teeth, right?
He is just paranoid, or wants to be important and was trying to impress his mates.
Don't get me wrong. That everyone was impressed instead of disgusted speaks volumes about their worldview. Twits.
at April 19, 2005 8:51 AM
Sounds like juvie gang members
RICO sedition laws are applicable to dismantaling Islam. It hurts my feeing that rather than hurting hate group memebers feeling the powers that be want to give more ground & make pronouncements of Islams tolerance and peacefull intention without any evidence to back it up
at April 19, 2005 9:22 AM
I guess this is why the Muslim men make women sit "at the back of the bus".
They know ladies are able to see through their bullsh*t if they are allowed to hear it too clearly and begin to analyze it as critically as they do a rash on their baby's bottom or the color of the residue in a diaper.
I give Mansfield a hearty thanks, and hope more women in Islam follow her lead.
Out the little terrorist wannabe s.o.b.'s.
at April 19, 2005 9:53 AM
I think Khaled was BSing too. That kind of behavior on a public carrier, especially an airplane, will get you arrested and interrogated by the FBI. Bravado is part of their gimmic, muslims always try to make themselves "look" bigger than they really are. The last paragraph said it all...continue jihad , be ready to fight, it's your duty... "Thier here"...
Posted by: duh_swami at April 19, 2005 9:55 AM
Good for Laura Mansfield. If the imam isn't a citizen, I hope he gets outed and deported.
Posted by: Kepha at April 19, 2005 10:13 AM
This is by far not uncommon, there have been numerous Arabic speaking people that have attended mosques in America and have heard this same kind of dialogue going on as we all have seen on Jihad Watch.
Posted by: Mackie at April 19, 2005 11:21 AM
There are a number of these mosques operating openly here in Seattle - hundreds of active Jihadis.
The government does nothing.
I could join today, spend a week learning, and be in Saudi before month end.
This is not news.
Posted by: Itai at April 19, 2005 11:21 AM
The tactics used here sound about the same as any scam:
Place a shill or two in the audience and the use the bait and switch technique.
Since all of Islam is a sham, it seems to fit.
And you know there's a sucker born every minute.
at April 19, 2005 11:28 AM
NEWS FLASH
From AFP
Protesters upset British Muslims' pre-election press conference
Radical Muslim protesters disrupted a press conference where leaders of Britain's main Islamic group, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), were discussing the country's May 5 general election.
Some 15 men, most of them in the late teens and early 20s and two of them hiding their faces with headscarves, burst into the event on Tuesday at the Central London Mosque, where the council was unveiling a voting guide for the estimated one million British voters who are Muslims.
Council secretary general Iqbal Sacranie suspended the press conference for 15 minutes as one of the protesters shouted: "We are here to condemn you and your organisation."
The protesters, who said they were from a group called the Saviour Sect, distributed leaflets declaring that leaders from all of Britain's political parties were "shayaateen (devils), crooks, criminals and false gods".
"Voting is an act of apostasy," one organiser in his 20s, who declined to give his name, told AFP.
"Allah is the only legislator; there is no law but his," another man declared.
Please, Tony Blair, open your dhimmi eyes to what is happening in your own city! "A small band of extremists" and "islam is a religion of peace" are becoming tired old soundbites only for the evening news.
at April 19, 2005 11:36 AM
You know what will be really funny when these people are strapping bombs to themselves and blowings themselves up.
Ticking timebombs.
Posted by: Pegcity at April 19, 2005 1:18 PM
The FBI has to start monitoring mosques if they aren't already. I'm sure some agency in the government has to be doing that already. Unless they're idiots.
I agree, the jerk was lying. However, it just shows how stupid and callus these men are. I'm sure they would sing a different tune if they got jerked up and sent to GETMO for a long stay.
Such activity on a plane is clearing illegal. Joking about terrorism in an airport can get you arrested. Practical jokes like the one discribed clearly should be procecuted.
It is amazing. Just when I thought I had reached the highest level of disgust imaginable, some new bit of information about Islam causes my gall to reach new levels.
f.g.
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." —Descartes
Posted by: f.g. at April 19, 2005 1:53 PM
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AND HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER GIVE THEM STRENGTH, WISDOM, SIGHT, AND COURAGE TO STAY THE COURSE TO DESTROY ALL ISLAMIC TERRORIST AND ALL WHO SUPPORT THEM OPEN THE WORLDS EYES TO THEIR THREAT LET NOT THE WORLD BE DECIEVED BY THEM AMEN
PS
NEW POPE??
at April 19, 2005 2:45 PM
"The FBI has to start monitoring mosques if they aren't already..."
Those who go to these Mosque Outreach nights, or to "Muslim-Christian" or "Muslim-Jewish" Dialogues (in the first the wonderful centuries-old friendliness between Islam and its favorite other religion, Christiainity, is stressed; in the second, the wonderful centuries-old friendliness between Islam and its favorite other religion, Judaism, is stressed), or "Dialogue-of-Civilisation" meetings, would do well to go wired, so as to tape the whole evening's session, then to transcribe it, and to compose a kind of Guide to Taqiyya and Tu-Quoque for Infidels. There are, after all, only so many lines of plausible "outreach" and "dialogue" that Muslims can up with.
So don't just monitor these sessions or wait for the F.B.I. to do it. Do it yourselves. If every imam has to worry about his every remark being taped, it may have a salutary effect.
Posted by: Hugh at April 19, 2005 3:46 PM
Hey Shurki,
Didn't you want to post the usual blather about not demonizing islam here? I think it would fit in perfectly with the dichotomy of public friendliness and private disgust indicated above.
Then again, the Quran does say not to take Christians and Jews for friends. I suppose the islamic community described above is merely being 'pious'. And who could blame them for just wanting to get closer to God?
Geoff
Posted by: Geoff at April 19, 2005 4:02 PM
No sources, no verification, no comments from the Mosque staff and somehow, we automatically are able to accept the claims made by Ms. Manfield are true?
Is this site just there to accept whatever story fits in with its premise (i.e: Muslims who actually follow Islam are out to destroy the West aka Conspiracy theory) regardless of the veracity of its sources? Sorry, I don't buy it and I hope that the honest thinkers here don't buy it either.
Posted by: Shukri at April 19, 2005 7:12 PM
Shukri-
Ms. Mansfield's story is rather bland but totally believable.....sorry. There is no mention of bomber money from Osama, just endless Arab male braggadoccio and humor expressed at the expense of terrified airline passengers.
What is it about this story which upsets you, precisely?
at April 19, 2005 8:46 PM
It's funny: she at least is a journalist, rather than an anonymous poster on a website, such as my humble self, or an already proven deceptive poster on the same site - that being Shurki.
You know what I don't buy? This nonsensical story of a drunken merchant from Mecca I heard, who wanders out in the desert, has an epileptic fit, and thinks he sees a "god". Or at least this god's angel (yet another link in the tenous chain); apparently God was too busy to talk to him that day, even though he later claimed to be the last (and most important!) Prophet. This angel tells him that he's god's prophet, that this god made everything (even stellar iron! LOL) and that he should send out a message and make people believe - and that updates are coming.
So, since this god needs believers and/or has to kill people to protect himself from his creations, he's commanded to fight a war against all other faiths (even though his god tells him that they all - well, some of them - worship the SAME god, and even though there's no proof for his god) and make them worship him. Women have to be put in line, and homosexuals have to die, and evil has to be suppressed, even though all of these things came from this 'Allah' guy anyway, or are the absence of him, which means he's still ultimately responsible, but who cares anyway and don't sweat the small stuff. He tells them that the original worshippers of "him" got it all wrong and rewrote some of the books (which books are these? we'll never know, for they also have never been seen). His believers musn't drink alcohol or fornicate with women UNTIL they get to heaven, where, in piety, there will be alcohol and fornicating with women.
Did I get everything? Probably not.
I know that some people thing that even with "no sources, no verification, no comments" we should be "automatically able to accept the claims made by" this epileptic merchant but, sorry, I don't buy it and I hope that the honest thinkers here don't either.
Thanks for commenting. I had a feeling you were going to say that.
Geoff
Posted by: Geoff at April 19, 2005 8:47 PM
maybe this imam was just towing the line...not all holy men are as pious as we'd think...just ask the children who were recieving communion from their molester priests in New England...for all we know he could just be showing up,doing his bit and collecting a check...like most Americans do. ;)
Posted by: anonamustafa at April 19, 2005 9:01 PM
Chapter 2, Verse 1-4. Holy Book of Geoff. LOL
Posted by: Carolyn2 at April 19, 2005 9:10 PM
"Blondes are good for something". Actually, I've found them to be good for a lot of nice things. The same for redheads, etc. I wonder if the American girlfriend was traveling on a week-end. During the week, does her boss -- Robert Mueller -- expect her back at the office in DC? One nevers knows...fill out your After Action Report, sweetie...
Posted by: SCV at April 19, 2005 9:19 PM
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