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In "A More Islamic Islam" in the Washington Post (thanks to all who sent this in), Geneive Abdo (who wrote a fairly good book a few years back, No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam) carries CAIR's water and touts "charismatic intellectual" Siraj Wahaj, who has said, “If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A small group of self-proclaimed secular Muslims from North America and elsewhere gathered in St. Petersburg recently for what they billed as a new global movement to correct the assumed wrongs of Islam and call for an Islamic Reformation.
The "assumed wrongs of Islam"? As if there is no global jihad, justified by the texts and tenets of Islam. No schoolgirls beheaded in Indonesia. No Dutch filmmakers shot and stabbed to death. No beheadings in Iraq. No churches torched in Nigeria. No Buddhist schoolteachers shot dead in Thailand. All of it done in the name of Islam. And much more besides. Just assumed wrongs, folks. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Across the state in Fort Lauderdale, Muslim leaders from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Washington-based advocacy group whose members the "secular" Muslims claim are radicals, denounced any notion of a Reformation as another attempt by the West to impose its history and philosophy on the Islamic world.
See, it's all just a "claim" by those dastardly "secular" Muslims. No CAIR officials arrested and convicted on terror-related charges. No statements of Islamic supremacism by CAIR operatives. No derivation from Hamas. It's all just a "claim" by "secular" Muslims.
The self-proclaimed secularists represent only a small minority of Muslims. The views among religious Muslims from CAIR more closely reflect the views of the majority, not only in the United States but worldwide. Yet Western media, governments and neoconservative pundits pay more attention to the secular minority....
What outrageous hogwash. Ibrahim Hooper is on television regularly. When was the last time you tuned in to CNN or Fox and saw Ibn Warraq?
The secular Muslim agenda is promoted because these ideas reflect a Western vision for the future of Islam. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, everyone from high-ranking officials in the Bush administration to the author Salman Rushdie has prescribed a preferred remedy for Islam: Reform the faith so it is imbued with Western values -- the privatization of religion, the flourishing of Western-style democracy -- and rulers who are secular, not religious, Muslims. The problem with this prescription is that it is divorced from reality. It is built upon the principle that if Muslims are fed a steady diet of Western influence, they, too, will embrace modernity, secularism and everything else the West has to offer.Consider the facts: Islamic revivalism has spread across the globe in the past 30 years from the Middle East to parts of Africa. In Egypt, it is hard to find a woman on the street who does not wear a headscarf. Islamic political groups and movements are on the rise -- from Hezbollah in Lebanon, to Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Even in the United States, more and more American Muslims, particularly the young, are embracing Islam and religious symbolism in ways their more secular, immigrant parents did not.
I traveled to Florida to serve as the keynote speaker at an annual convention hosted by CAIR. On my way to the event, I spoke with Imam Siraj Wahaj, a charismatic intellectual from the Masjid Al-Taqwa in Brooklyn who has thousands of followers here and abroad. His words summarized the aspirations of mainstream Muslims in the United States and around the globe: "What we need to do is borrow those attributes from the West that we admire and reject those that we don't. That is the wave of the future."
What Genieve Abdo doesn't tell us about Siraj Wahaj
Posted by Robert at March 17, 2007 3:52 PM
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It certainly is no secret that the Kuran itself teaches Muslims to commit first degree murder, as there are literally dozens of passages contained within it that command Muslims to take up arms and slaughter the Jews and other "unbelievers." Such passages are generally held by Muslims to be from al-lah and are thus believed without question. These Kuranic teachings are also the source of most Islamic terrorism and likely always will be.
CAIR as is known to the better-informed members of the public in the United States to be founded by the lobby of Islam that abides by the Kuran to the letter--violence, terror, and all.
CAIR provides a classic illustration of why Islam must never be legal in the civilized nations of the world: it teaches first degree murder without apology.
Posted by: pythagoras![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 17, 2007 4:49 PM
Statement Mundane until one realizes what Imam Siraj Wahaj just stated:
mainstream Muslims in the United States and around the globe: "What we need to do is borrow those attributes from the West that we admire and reject those that we don't. That is the wave of the future."
The attributes which Muslims admire is freedom to storm around on American airlines to sue American airlines to intimidate American passangers to use the American Congress and Justice system to hinder Americans.
The net result is Muslims then will discard Americans to cemetaries as they reject America.
This is fledgeling domestic intellectual terrorism fought on paper and not with bombs to criminalize American culture and it must be outlawed and not empowered.
Posted by: Lame Cherry at March 17, 2007 5:20 PM
Western media and governments pay more attention to the secular minority...WTF? Really, WTF??
For Abdo to write such a thing proves that she's not a person of good will.
Posted by: Dane at March 17, 2007 5:46 PM
Brilliamt stuff
The Dreaded Cambridge Students' Articles of Blasphemy
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
at March 17, 2007 5:51 PM
OT.
Just watched the Communist News Network and apparently Afghanistan is sufferring a Smack blowback. After decades of getting the worlds youth addicted to its only export product - Heroin - its own youth are, tragically becoming addicted to the evil herb - there are about 1 million heroin addicts in Afgahanistan at the moment and rising.
Some may say its poetic justice - others a terrible loss of young potential eh - JIHADIS !!
what goes around comes around!!
at March 17, 2007 6:38 PM
The self-proclaimed secularists represent only a small minority of Muslims. The views among religious Muslims from CAIR more closely reflect the views of the majority, not only in the United States but worldwide.
That is all the reason we need to deport the lot of them.
at March 17, 2007 6:43 PM
Then I ask Ms Abdo: Why would Muslims come here. Let them go back to their hell holes of pakistan and saudi arabia and adhere to the teneants of their so called prophet. They certainly have nothing to offer me and I will not wish to bother them,
However, the fact that a large herd of their co- religionists are bombing, killing, murdering, enslaving, torturing innocent "unbelievers" all around the world. Practice your Islam just don't blow any of it on me. I will not bow to your false prophet. Stay in your part of the world.
Posted by: Briars at March 17, 2007 7:05 PM
I can understand the jihadis dislike of Western values save one: The lazy refusal by so many people to take the time to find out what the Islamic texts actually say. Our ignorance is their strength.
Posted by: jewdog at March 17, 2007 7:05 PM
The article is pretty alarming, so much so that one has to reflect upon the intentions of the editors of the Post. By publishing such a tract, were they attempting to hurt the cause of the anti-Jihad....or help it?
Posted by: Cornelius at March 17, 2007 7:40 PM
Islamic revivalism has spread across the globe in the past 30 years from the Middle East to parts of Africa. In Egypt, it is hard to find a woman on the street who does not wear a headscarf. Islamic political groups and movements are on the rise -- from Hezbollah in Lebanon, to Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Abdo's characterization of what he refers to as "Islamic revivalism" strikes me as an important admission. What shining examples of the vanguard of the religion comes first to his mind and rolls off his pen as the pinnacle, the crux, the central figures of Islamic revival?
Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Three prominent terrorist gangs bound by racist, supremacist violent creeds, agendas and legacies; only Al Qaeda is missing from the list. Oh yes, and thanks for the reminder of how the ladies who don't cover up in Egypt get treated, Abdo, I guess that's also a blazing example of what revival of Islam means...
By identifying these groups with Islamic revivalism, Abdo makes an unmistakable statement about what he believes Islam itself to be. I don't think much more needs to be said about the "assumed wrongs of Islam", he's basically paraded an A-list of cases in point.
Maybe Abdo could bring together a few Hez/Ham/MB luminaries to come up with a great declaration of islamic reform to show the drafters of the St. Petersburg declaration how it's done.
Posted by: Archimedes2 at March 17, 2007 7:46 PM
Imam Siraj: "What we need to do is borrow those attributes from the West that we admire and reject those that we don't. That is the wave of the future."
Yep, isn't that what they've been doing, borrowing the stuff they want from the West, like the Haggia Sophia, for example, Oh and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem? How about Niagara Falls, the Eiffel Tower and NASA? Or the assets of a few Western Banks. Got a shopping list? Mohammed led the charge, with his campaigns to destroy smaller and weaker neighbors ostensibly for no other reason than to take their plunder? Flip over to Islam 101 on this site and text-search "treasure" for some nice examples...
Got a shopping list, Siraj?
As for rejecting "those that we don't", well we all remember what happened to those giant stone "attributes" of the ancient Buddhists in Afghanistan when the Taliban got tired of looking at them...
Posted by: Archimedes2 at March 17, 2007 7:57 PM
Photo and info on Ms Abdo. My guess is she is an IslamoChristian or more likely the product of an Arab-Anglo marriage. With father being Christian Arab. No matter. She will do PR for the Jihad. She has Guggenheim and Ford fellowships up the wazoo. She's on the make and on the take like our D'ishonest Dinesh
http://www.paulagordon.com/shows/abdo/
Posted by: dennisw at March 17, 2007 8:14 PM
Re: Washington Post: CAIR shill slams Secular Islam Summit, backs caliphate supporter
I don't think they realize how close to their end that they are, that their future is about a big as Ibrahim Hooper's little Dougie. Ibrahim is mean for good reason. I've seen his like before. They are all prick-faced prick less wonders. They need to control and dominate women because they are not men.
at March 17, 2007 8:16 PM
From 2001-2002, Ms. Abdo was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. That year, Ms. Abdo also received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim fellowship. Ms. Abdo has also earned research grants from the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Institute of Peace
http://cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu/node/231
Posted by: dennisw at March 17, 2007 8:18 PM
Why is Genevieve Abdo given these fellowships, while Ali Sina, Irfan Khawaja, and so many others, among the heroic apostates who are trying to make sense of Islam, and not to lie about it, and so many others like them, must live by the ir wits?
And what do her grant applications --upon which she apparently spends a good deal of time, and she has become one of those masters at grant-getting (with each grant awarded making the next one easier to get, because every vetting committee assumes that if Applicant X has already gotten grants A, and B, and C, then surely Applicant X is the most worthy recipient of grant D, and the cruel racket, by which merit goes ignored and the slick racketeers rewarded, continues) -- what do they tell us?
Does she say something about "reforming" Islam? Or "helping to interpret Islam to the West" and "the West to Islam" and something else about "my unique qualifications to do so" because "by birth I am a Lebanese Christian" who is "familiar with both the world of Islam and the world of Christainity" or some such predictable grant-getting blague, or as we outside the world of francophonie like to say -- crap.
Stop her. Or at least stop giving her all that money. She's a propagandist of the most obvious sort. And in attacking the Muslim equivalent of Andrei Sakharov and Ida Nudel and Valery Chalidze and Pyotr Yakir and Anatoly Yakobson, in trying as she does to tear down, snapping at their heels like a female Andrey Vyshinsky, or at least some third-level member of the Soviet Union of Writers, denouncing, say, Solzhenitsyn, she deserves contempt, as we compare her lies and nonsense to the free declaration of free men and women at St. Petersburg, Florida, last month.
Look at the words of that Declaration. And look at the faces -- of Ibn Warraq, or Wafa Sultan, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who was not there, but signed) --where have you seen those faces before? You have seen them when you see the face of the Socialist journalist Giacomo Matteotti, beaten to death by Mussonlini's men in 1924, or the faces of the Scholls, brother and sister, in Munich, or the faces of the Russian dissidents. Same thing, always.
And then there are the collaborators, determined to shout down or blacken the names of the bravest and best people. And that is what Genevieve Abdo has just done. And it is she who should be shunned.
Or at the very least, asked to get her money directly from the Saudis, or if one degree of separation is required for form's sake, then from that Saudi-funded Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding" (John Esposito, Director). Yes, let her get her funding there. It will make things more obvious, all way round.
Posted by: Hugh at March 17, 2007 8:46 PM
Imam Siraj Wahaj is a Black Muslim. An American black who defected from Christianity to Muhammadanism. In other words he's a beanie wearing buffoon and the Arab Muslims (the best of people) will joke about him behind his back and call him Abed, our useful idiot to help deceive Americans
Abed Abed Abed
Pix of this bufoon:
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLD_en___US206&q=%22Siraj%20Wahaj%22&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
at March 17, 2007 8:54 PM
Wafa Sultan was at the Islam reform conference. She's a psychologist in LA. She hated Jews until she came here and guess what. Jews helped her get established. Here is her immortal video confrontation with hare brained Mullah on Al-Jazeerah. A must see for newbies
http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1050#
Posted by: dennisw at March 17, 2007 9:07 PM
So, WaPo, which is supposedly a champion of “human rights”, “social justice”, “diversity”, cultural marxism, etc. will no doubt soon be publishing articles about how Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, even atheists, will be welcomed in Mecca and Medina –to visit and or live (?!) and given full and aggressive protection by the government and “non-secular moderate muslim leaders” there as well as in any and all “muslim lands” around the world. How Jews – against whom the “peace loving prophet” committed every crime – including rape, robbery, theft, torture, mutilation, murder, enslavement, GENOCIDE, etc. will be apologized to and their lands and wealth – stolen from them nearly 1400 years ago – will be returned with interest.
Sahih Burkhari, volume 5, book 58, number 148:
“When some of the remaining Jews of Medina agreed to obey a verdict from Sad, Mohammed sent for him. He approached the mosque riding a donkey and Mohammed said, “Stand up for your leader.’ Mohammed then said, ‘Sad, give these people your verdict.’
Sad replied, ‘Their soldiers should be beheaded, and their women and children should become slaves.’
Mohammed, pleased with the verdict, said, ‘You have made a ruling that Allah or a king would approve of.’
Ishaq’s Sira note number 690:
“The captives were taken into Medina, where they dug mass graves in the marketplace. It was a long day, but eight hundred Jews met their death that day. Mohammed and his twelve-year old wife sat and watched the executions the entire day and into the night. The Apostle of Allah had every adult male Jew killed. For every Jewish male, pubic hair was a death sentence. If he had no pubic hair, then he would be raised as a muslim.”
Or about those reparations to Africans – of which 125 million of their ancestors were enslaved, tortured, murdered, raped, mutilated, by same “peaceful non-secular muslims” for over 13 centuries. Same for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and etc., who refused to submit to the “religion of peace.”
WaPo – daily proof that journalism is the world’s oldest profession. Oh, no. That’s another profession that will also do anything for money.
at March 17, 2007 9:10 PM
87. CAIR and CAIR-Canada have, since their inception, been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism. These organizations play a unique role in the terrorist network. They emanate from the notorious HAMAS terrorist organization and like so many of the terrorism facilitating charities named and indicted by the United States government they are engaged in fund raising under the guise of assisting humanitarian causes they are, in reality, a key player in international terrorism. The unique role played by CAIR and CAIR-Canada is to manipulate the legal systems of the United States and Canada in a manner that allows them to silence critics, analysts, commentators, media organizations, and government officials by leveling false charges of discrimination, libel, slander and defamation. In addition, both organizations have actively sought to hamper governmental anti-terrorism efforts by direct propaganda activities aimed at police, first-responders, and intelligence agencies through so-called sensitivity training. Their goal is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police departments and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities.
-This is from the former FBI official John O'Neil's family's lawsuit against CAIR. Mr. O'Neil was murdered on September 11, 2001. This lawsuit has great potebtial to expose CAIR and the apologists, like Abdo, for what they really are.
at March 17, 2007 10:15 PM
Just goes to show you is the "CAIR supports terror" top achieve their goals.
Posted by: The Resistance at March 17, 2007 10:36 PM
CAIR has 32 offices across the United States and more under construction. They know damn well what they are doing -- and they are pushing the United States towards an Islamist government already.
Here's a perfect example of what they love to get involved in - turning American kids against each other and at the same time making Sharia somehow a "sympathetic" element of "Middle Eastern" culture. This is absolute brainwashing and CAIR probably indoctrinates Far Left teachers at every opportunity in order to fulfill this kind of destiny as quickly as possible:
Islamic Glacier Movement in America Alert: Connecticut
Burqas on American girls in high school. Vitriolic anti-Americanism. CAIR walking through the door created by dhimmi teachers and principal. And my comments section became a minefield.
And this is with just 6-7 million Muslims in the USA! The roller coaster ride has barely begun.
Posted by: Foehammer at March 17, 2007 10:59 PM
Here's another of Ms. Abdo's claims:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1004/perspectives.html
PERSPECTIVES:
Catholic Church and Islam
September 22, 2006 Episode no. 1004
"ABERNETHY: But do you feel that there is a connection, that there is something inherent in Islam that condones or encourages violence?
Ms. ABDO: Absolutely not. The Islamic sources in no way condone violence. The militants that we now have become so familiar with that do carry out these acts of violence -- in fact, they are distorting the principles of the faith. And so from the Muslim perspective they ask, for example, "Why isn't Christianity during its periods of violence associated with violence? Why isn't Judaism associated with violence during its periods and its own history?" And this is what was particularly sensitive for Muslims about these remarks.
at March 17, 2007 11:10 PM
Thanks, Dennis W. for the video link. That's a Jihad Watch Instant Classic! ;)
Posted by: Bingo at March 17, 2007 11:29 PM
"Siraj Wahaj, who has said, “If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”
No need to be clever, Mr. Wahaj. Our delusional Western leaders, with the help of our diversity-crazed media and educational institutions, will give you your caliphate, lock stock and barrel.
Sit back and take it easy!
at March 17, 2007 11:42 PM
CALIPHATE SUPPORTERS ARE DOING JUST FINE - THEY ARE WINNING! Americans everywhere are looking with admiration upon Islam, especially the young - and though Christianity teaches that Jesus is Allah, Muslims loving Islam teach that Jesus Christ is not Allah, and many young westerners are just now starting to agree - can any one here see the young going back to Catholicism? Well, I can, but I'm the sort that looks for miracles! If no miracle happens, kill your beloved cultures goodby forever.
Posted by: crux at March 17, 2007 11:51 PM
Uhh...right. "Geneive"... she, not he. Got it. She writes about the joys of theocracy, but doesn't wear the hijab herself. Apparently believes that she'll be permitted to dress like this indefinitely during her stays at her flat in Cairo. I wonder if she's planning to vote Muslim Brotherhood in the upcoming election -- apparently they are rapidly moving up in the polls.
Posted by: Archimedes2 at March 18, 2007 12:27 AM
Imam Siraj Wahaj: "What we need to do is borrow those attributes from the West that we admire and reject those that we don't. That is the wave of the future."
They are already borrowing things they admire from the West. They admire our technology. We make far better weapons - weapons they use to maim and kill more unbelievers and more of their fellow muslims. They admire western power tools, which make far better torture implements than stone knives and axes. And most of all, they admire western camcorders to make their Islamo-snuff videos.
I honestly can't think of anything else they admire about the West. Most of the attributes of the West we infidels consider important, like personal freedoms and human rights, they consider weaknesses.
Posted by: Bad_Attitude_Infidel at March 18, 2007 1:37 AM
Imam Siraj Wahaj: "What we need to do is borrow those attributes from the West that we admire and reject those that we don't. That is the wave of the future."
From my perspective, that is exactly the problem. They don't want to conform to the cultures they choose to live within. They simply want to "borrow" what they like and trash the rest. If anything, they would have us do the conforming.
Siraj Wahaj, who has said, "If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate."
Got it. And I won't soon forget it.
at March 18, 2007 1:52 AM
crux: ..'and though Christianity teaches that Jesus is Allah'.... Since when?
Are you serious? Or am I just missing the plot!
Since when did Christianity teach that Our Lord is the non existent moon god of the ancient Midianites?
Forgive me if it is just my brain being more sluggish than usual but it is rather early in the morning here in the UK!
Posted by: Sencit at March 18, 2007 2:18 AM
Expecting Islam to reform is a quixotic cause since the desire for such a reform calls for qualities ( good will, sense of proportion, aversion to conflict, sense of natural justice and universally accepted values)which Islam has deliberately eradicated in favour of a belief in Muslim supremacism and contempt for the unbeliever and his culture. Any attempt to pressure them to change will be interpreted by them as western supremacism. A multi-faith declaration by Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Confucians, Taoists, Jains, Zoroastrians et al calling for Islam to stop doing what it is doing would at least shut them up on that point, although I doubt if it would alter their attitude in the slightest.
Posted by: wallyUK at March 18, 2007 2:59 AM
Cult members, by their nature, only see the inside of their cult. The world filters through the cult window and a really thorough cult like Islam has a process for internalizing every external construct into cult terms. I believe that arguing with a cult member is pointless. Those attendees at St. Petersburg who've shown the capacity to think outside the Islam cult box are the only followers worth addressing. Until Islamists finds their own way out of the cult, they are lost causes.
Posted by: BrooksImp at March 18, 2007 8:22 AM
sencit ! Allah is also a word that means 'the God' Catholic scholars forming the official position of the Church say that because this "Allah" is one all powerful God, The actual Allah is the actual God - since all Christians believe in a Trinidadian God, Jesus Christ is also, THE ONE GOD. So, without knowing it, the Muslims worship Jesus Christ if you look at it from a strict Christian theological perspective - besides, it makes it easier to convert the Muslims if they see Jesus as the real Allah (remember, the Muslims have long forgot that they are really howling at the moon - and, there is no way to conclusively proof it yet - come on, start calling Him "Allah Jesus" - it pisses
'em off big time!
at March 18, 2007 12:48 PM
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