Afghan spy agency captures “suicide bombers from Pakistan”

More evidence of support for the jihad in Pakistan. From AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

KABUL - Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said on Tuesday it had arrested three men planning suicide attacks in Kabul, including two from a Pakistan-based cell run by the capital’s Taleban-era deputy police chief.

The two were seized this week while trying to enter the city from neighbouring Logar province, spokesman Sayed Ansari told reporters.

They were part of a Pakistan-based cell organised by Mullah Mohammad Ibrahim Hanifi, who was the deputy police chief of Kabul during the 1996-2001 Taleban regime, he said.

“Mullah Ibrahim Hanifi, who is living in Pakistan, has been organising suicide attacks in southern Afghanistan. The two men we captured were also sent by him,” he said.

A mullah? An Islamic cleric? Doesn't he realize the Qur'an forbids suicide? (He does, of course. He just doesn't regard suicide bombing as suicide per se -- and to this, Muslim moderates have never formulated a response.)

My black Zionist arts

I recently received a series of venomous emails from a prominent moderate Muslim apologist, whose work has appeared at FrontPage magazine and elsewhere, and who makes false charges about this site at his own website. He had accused me of "shameless lies," so I asked him to specify the lies, or retract the charge. He responded: "As for shameless lies, I stand by my assertion, especially after received material in which you claim Muhammad married his daughter in law etc."

This was rather amazing, given the fact that this story is referred to obliquely in the Qur'an (33:37), as well as in Bukhari, Tabari, Tafsir al-Jalalayn, and other sources respected by Muslims. Apparently, my black Zionist arts are more powerful than I thought, for I was able to conjure the story of Muhammad's marriage to his daughter-in-law Zaynab into all these sources. You can read the whole story in my book The Truth About Muhammad.

And tonight I discovered that my Zionist powers of conjuration are even more powerful than that. I was relaxing with an adult beverage and some light reading: non-Muslim Islamic apologist Karen Armstrong's new apologetic, Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time. And lo and behold, on pages 167 and 168, there it was: the story of Muhammad's marriage to his daughter-in-law, Zaynab! Armstrong even acknowledges that "this story has shocked some of Muhammad's Western critics who are used to more ascetic, Christian heroes, but the Muslim sources seem to find nothing untoward in this demonstration of their Prophet's virility."

Victory! My sinister mind-rays have now convinced even Karen Armstrong that this incident actually took place! Oh, the shamelessness of it all! The august professor who sent me the email above has promised a full-length article detailing my "shameless lies," and no doubt he will reveal all the Zionist secrets of mind control that have enabled me to convince millions of Muslims that Muhammad married his daughter-in-law. But until that article appears, I shall carry on, shameless as ever. Perhaps next I will invent, and plant into the minds of Muslims, the idea that a middle-aged Muhammad consummated a marriage with a nine-year-old. Oh, I blush at my own shamelessness! But...it is already working!

'US Only Answer for Middle East,' Says Saudi Envoy

But is he saying this with anything beyond Saudi interests in mind? A CNSNews.com story by Monisha Bansal (thanks to Mackie):

(CNSNews.com) - Voicing support for U.S. involvement in Iraq, the Saudi ambassador to the United States said the U.S. has a important role to play in the Middle East, "whether it wants to or not."

"It is of vital interest to us as well as the United States that Iraq would remain a unified country," said Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Turki al-Faisal.

If Iraq were to be divided on ethnic or sectarian lines, he warned, problems in the country would increase three-fold, and there would be "ethnic cleansing on a massive scale."

Faisal talked about the role the U.S. plays in the region at a conference held by the National Council on U.S. Arab Relations in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

"The United States is the only one who can do the right thing for everybody in the Middle East," Faisal said.

"Not only because of the size and strength of the United States, but because the United States is engaged and enmeshed in our political situation and has been for the last 50 years or so, whether it likes it or not," he said.

But Faisal added that it was in U.S. interests for "peace to reign, so we can turn to more fruitful endeavors."

Stocking stuffers galore from DC Watson

Our old friend D.C. Watson has a store in which he is selling a variety of anti-jihad shirts, stickers, and tschotschkes. Sure, it's early to do your Christmas shopping, but D.C. tells me he is closing the store at the end of November, so now's the time to do your shopping for that special anti-jihadist in your life. This Christmas, give the gift that keeps on giving: the gift of anti-jihad resistance!

Did imam's sermon incite Van Gogh murder?

The mosques have to be monitored. What is being preached in the sermons has to be known. The alternative? Many, many more murders and terror attacks. A provocative story by Barry Thorne and Claire Cavanagh for Radio Netherlands (thanks to Ana):

Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh almost exactly two years ago is serving a life prison sentence, but now questions are being asked about whether the sermon of a Muslim cleric played a role in the crime.

During the ongoing trial of another Dutch terrorism suspect, Samir Azzouz, it's emerged that Imam Fawaz of the as-Sunnah mosque in The Hague gave a sermon condemning Theo van Gogh just a few weeks before his murder. A recording of the sermon exists and in it the imam is heard uttering a curse against the Dutch director for his film Submission, which is critical of Islam. The film had been shown on television shortly before the sermon.

Criminal bastard

In the recording of the sermon, Imam Fawaz calls Theo van Gogh a 'criminal bastard' and beseeches Allah to visit an incurable disease upon the filmmaker. He also condemns former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali who was involved in writing the script for Submission. The imam asks Allah to make Ms Hirsi Ali go blind and give her cancer of the tongue and brain.

What inspiring, moving, loving prayers. Nevertheless, they aren't enough in themselves:

Despite the claims in the recording, Ruud Peters, a professor of Islamic Law doesn't believe the imam's words are incitement to commit murder:

"I have a couple of arguments for that - the most important is that he [Imam Fawaz] says, 'the people who have insulted the Prophet Muhammad should die through the hands of God' - he was very specific in that… he says, 'leave it to God'."

Key witness

Professor Peters was a key expert witness at the trial of Mohammed Bouyeri and was asked to study Bouyeri's writing up until he carried out the murder of Theo van Gogh on 2 November 2004 in Amsterdam.

"I found no clue that [Imam] Fawaz had had any impact on him. On the contrary, we know that already more than a year before he killed Van Gogh, that he… deliberately turned away from the mosques, the […] mosques which are considered to be radical."

The wise, knowledgeable and perceptive Hans Jansen, however, disagrees:

Rhetoric

However, another writer and academic on Islam from Utrecht University, Hans Jansen, believes the sermon went much further than the usual rhetoric heard in Dutch mosques,

"It is simply incitement to violence. I can't judge the legal angles, but somebody who hears this sermon would get very excited and would want to do anything in the cause of Islam."

"I've heard fire and brimstone sermons before, one long speech which builds up tension and when you leave the mosque after having heard such a sermon, especially when you're young, you'll be very excited, almost ready to do anything."

"This sermon is much worse than anything in mosques, certainly worse than anything presented in mosques in the Middle East."

Well, that's debatable. But it is bad.

Suspect and A Setback In Al-Qaeda Anthrax Case

"Using his membership in a prestigious scientific organization to gain access, Rauf traveled through Europe on a quest, officials say, to obtain both anthrax spores and the equipment needed to turn them into highly lethal biological weapons." Wouldn't it be a good idea for such scientific organizations to begin at least attempting to screen prospective members for adherence to the jihad ideology? But of course, no one is considering such measures. To do so would (somehow) constitute "bigotry."

"Suspect and A Setback In Al-Qaeda Anthrax Case: Scientist With Ties To Group Goes Free," by Joby Warrick in the Washington Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

In December 2001, as the investigation into the U.S. anthrax attacks was gathering steam, coalition soldiers in Afghanistan uncovered what appeared to be an important clue: a trail of documents chronicling an attempt by al-Qaeda to create its own anthrax weapon.

The documents told of a singular mission by a scientist named Abdur Rauf, an obscure, middle-aged Pakistani with alleged al-Qaeda sympathies and an advanced degree in microbiology.

Documents seized by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2001 included letters from a Pakistani scientist to al-Qaeda's No. 2 commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The scientist, identified by U.S. and Pakistani officials as Abdur Rauf, traveled through Europe in search of anthrax spores and bioweapons equipment. The result of his work for al-Qaeda remains unclear.

Using his membership in a prestigious scientific organization to gain access, Rauf traveled through Europe on a quest, officials say, to obtain both anthrax spores and the equipment needed to turn them into highly lethal biological weapons. He reported directly to al-Qaeda's No. 2 commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and in one document he appeared to signal a breakthrough.

"I successfully achieved the targets," he wrote cryptically to Zawahiri in a note in 1999.

Precisely what Rauf achieved may never be known with certainty. That's because U.S. officials remain stymied in their nearly five-year quest to bring charges against a man who they say admitted serving as a top consultant to al-Qaeda on anthrax -- a claim that makes him one of a handful of people linked publicly to the group's effort to wage biological warfare against Western targets.

Rauf, 47, has been under scrutiny in Pakistan since he was detained there for questioning in late 2001, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials who agreed to talk about the case for the first time. But officially he remains free, and Pakistan now says it has no grounds for arrest. Last year, in an acknowledgment of the impasse in its four-year joint investigation with Pakistan, the FBI officially put the case on inactive status.

"We will never close the door, but the chances of getting him into the United States are slim to none," said one U.S. intelligence official, who, like others, agreed to discuss the case on the condition that he not be identified by name.

Oh yes, I'm biased

During the last round of the endless Esmay imbroglio, I followed a link from Esmay's site to an anonymous blog that invoked me, gratuitously and without any specific examples of inaccuracies in my writing, in writing about the alleged sins of Little Green Footballs:

To top it off, LGF has become an Internet Book Tour for anti-Muslim viewpoints from non-Muslims (yes, I believe that the head of Jihad Watch can actually present a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community – NOT).

You're right, of course, whoever you are. The head of Jihad Watch cannot actually present a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community. Nor has the head of Jihad Watch ever claimed to present a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community.

If you find someone who presents a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community, you have discovered the elusive unicorn, and out-Diogenesed Diogenes. If you find someone who claims to present a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community, you have found a liar.

In fact, the head of Jihad Watch is biased. Quite spectacularly biased.

The head of Jihad Watch is biased against the proponents of a totalitarian, genocidal ideology that has announced its intention to destroy Western civilization and subjugate all those outside that ideology. The head of Jihad Watch is biased against those who would ignore, deny, or make excuses for the adherents of this totalitarian, genocidal ideology. The head of Jihad Watch is biased against liars and deceivers, and those who abet jihad terrorism in any way.

I agree with the publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, Ralph McGill, who wrote this in 1963: "I believe in being strongly partisan on issues which require a choice. There are some newspapers which are mute and others which carefully engage only editors with chronic laryngitis. But there comes a time in all controversies when one must hit the issue right on the nose or turn tail and die a little."

I agree with William Cobbett, publisher of the colonial-era Federalist newspaper, the Porcupine's Gazette: "To profess impartiality here would be as absurd as to profess it in a war between virtue and vice, good and evil, happiness and misery." Indeed. Impartiality between the jihadists and their victims? No, thank you.

I agree with the New Jersey printer who wrote in 1798, according to Cynthia Crossen in the Wall Street Journal: "The times demand decision: there is a right and a wrong, and the printer, who under the specious name of impartiality jumbles both truth and falsehood into the same paper, is either doubtful of his own judgment or is governed by ulterior motives."

All that said, does that mean that anything I have written here, or in my books, or monographs, or articles, is inaccurate? If you think so, bring it. Bias does not equal inaccuracy, and I stand by what I have written. Attempts to show me wrong have thus far involved unsupported, sweeping generalizations, or outright falsehoods, or ludicrous errors and misrepresentations on the part of the one making the charges.

And one thing all those people who made those charges have in common: they're all biased. It may surprise you to learn, in fact, that bias is universal and inescapable. No one can escape his point of view. The virtue of the early partisan press of the United States was that in those days newsmen owned up to their biases, whereas today those biases are just as strong, but covered over by a profession of objectivity that is as hollow as it is impossible.

Likewise in academia: professors like Omid Safi and Carl Ernst preen and strut in the Emperor's New Clothes of academic objectivity, which they think will hide the fact that they are nothing more and nothing less than shallow and manipulative propagandists.

Not that I mind the bias of the professors. I don't mind it at all. They can't escape it, after all, and just as I ask that my own work be judged on its accuracy or inaccuracy, so I believe theirs should be also. Biases should be noted and held in mind as an interpretative tool, but never used to dismiss anyone's work out of hand. That would be like dismissing the writings of everyone who has a nose on his face. What I despise about Safi and Ernst and their ilk is the sham of their objectivity, but their work is not worthless because of their biases; it is worthless because it is inaccurate and propagandistic -- as I have shown of Safi at Dhimmi Watch and of Ernst (quite briefly) in my new book.

In any case, all those engaged in this new "rightosphere" (whatever that is) crusade against bias in reporting about jihad should beware of placing themselves in an impossible and untenable position.

Oh yes, I'm biased, and so are you. And when it comes to the ideology of jihad and Sharia supremacism, you should be, if you have any moral sense left at all. It is time, in McGill's words, either to hit the issue right on the nose or to turn tail and die a little.

One final word: before you tell me again not to dignify these silly attacks with responses, please note that I am replying not in order to engage in a discussion with those with whom rational discussion has proved impossible, but in order to illustrate certain principles and bring certain truths to light -- principles and truths that are larger than one particular reply to some anonymous sniping blogpost -- for people of good will.

Al-Maliki Lifts Military Checkpoints Around Sadr City

Two joyous fellows

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?

From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday ordered the lifting of joint U.S.-Iraqi military checkpoints around the Shiite militant stronghold of Sadr City and other parts of Baghdad — another apparent move to assert his authority with the Americans and appeal to his Shiite support base.

U.S. officials apparently did not have advance warning of the order to remove the around-the-clock barriers by 5 p.m. Tuesday. A military spokesman, Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, said officers were meeting to "formulate a response to address the prime minister's concerns."

Witnesses said U.S. forces were seen dismantling checkpoints around Sadr City made of sandbags and concrete blocks Tuesday afternoon.

The tightened security had been credited by some for producing a temporary decline in violence, possibly because they curbed the activities of Shiite death squads blamed for waves of sectarian killings of Sunnis.

But a car bomb exploded in the neighborhood on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding five, police said. On Monday, a bombing there killed at least 33 people.

The extra checkpoints were set up last week around Sadr City as U.S. troops launched an intensive search for a missing American soldier and raided homes looking for death squad leaders in the sprawling slum that is home to an overwhelmingly Shiite population of 2.5 million people.

On this day, October 31

Today I suspect that many of you will be dressing in wild and gaudy costumes and indulging in revels to celebrate the anniversary of Reza Pahlavi's declaring himself, on this day in 1980, the rightful heir to the Peacock Throne.

Others will be doing the same thing to honor Martin Luther's 95 Theses, nailed defiantly to the Wittenberg door on this day in 1517, and of which an on-topic version can be found here.

As for me, if it were not for the fact that my heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, or emptied some dull opiate to the drains one minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk, I would tell you that today is also John Keats' birthday. Celebrate his birthday today in honor of the civilization of which his work is a small but luminous component, and commit yourself anew to defending that civilization.

Protest against strike on religious school in Pakistan

"They killed 80 teenagers who were students of the Quran." Yes, and how does that establish in any way that this was not a "terrorist-training facility," as Major General Shaukat Sultan called it?

An update to this story from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

KHAR, Pakistan Pakistan's army spokesman said Tuesday the military used intelligence provided by U.S.-led coalition forces in an air raid that left 80 people dead, while thousands of pro-Taliban tribesmen threatened to send suicide bombers to attack Pakistan forces and execute people found spying for the Americans....

Meanwhile, up to 20,000 people protested Tuesday in Khar, the main town in Pakistan's northwestern tribal Bajur district, claiming innocent students and teachers were killed in the attack. They chanted," "Death to Bush! Death to Musharraf!"

In a fiery speech, local pro-Taliban elder Inayatur Rahman said he has prepared a "squad of suicide bombers" to target Pakistani security forces in the same way that militants are attacking Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"We will carry out these suicide attacks soon," he said, asking the crowd if they approved the idea. The angry mob yelled back in unison, "Yes!"

The rally also adopted a verbal resolution to stone to death anyone found spying for the Pakistan army or U.S. government. Protesters demanded compensation for the families of those killed.

Islamic leaders had called for nationwide protests Tuesday to denounce the air raid in Chingai village, located 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) from Khar near the Afghan border. It was the deadliest-ever military operation launched against suspected militants in the country....

The attack threatened efforts by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to persuade deeply conservative tribespeople to back his government over pro-Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, who enjoy strong support in many semiautonomous regions in northern Pakistan.

The attack also sparked claims of U.S. collusion with Pakistan, with villagers saying fixed-wing drone aircraft were seen flying over the town in the days before the attack, according to the Dawn daily newspaper....

Fears are high that the attack will fan unrest across Pakistan. In the northwestern city of Peshawar, 500 members of a hard-line Islamic group burned an effigy of U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday and denounced Musharraf. A smaller protest was also held in the southern city of Multan.

The unrest caused Britain's Prince Charles, currently in Pakistan, to cancel his planned Tuesday trip to Peshawar, located in the country's northwest.

Many local lawmakers and regional Cabinet ministers resigned in protest over the attack. The planned signing of a peace deal between tribal leaders and the military was also canceled Monday in response to the airstrike....

Pakistan's most influential Islamist political leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, was to lead a convoy of cars Tuesday from the northwestern city of Peshawar to Khar and Chingai, his spokesman, Shahid Shamsi, said.

"They killed 80 teenagers who were students of the Quran," Ahmed told reporters on Monday.

Spencer: Muslim Rape? They Were Asking for It

In the featured article at FrontPage this morning I discuss the al-Hilali controversy (news links in the original):

The Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, has gained international attention this week by saying that women are generally at fault if they are raped. Speaking to a Muslim audience in Sydney, he explained that rape (specifically, zina, sexual activity forbidden under Islamic law -- a word mistranslated in published accounts of the Sheikh’s words as “adultery”) is “90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years.”

Al-Hilali invoked another Islamic scholar in support of his views: “But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, if I came across a rape crime, I would discipline the man and order that the woman be jailed for life. Why would you do this, Rafee? He said because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it. If you get a kilo of meat, and you don’t put it in the fridge or in the pot or in the kitchen but you leave it on a plate in the backyard, and then you have a fight with the neighbour because his cats eat the meat, you’re crazy. Isn’t this true? If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park, or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, then whose fault will it be, the cats, or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the disaster. If the meat was covered the cats wouldn’t roam around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won’t get it. If the woman is in her boudoir, in her house and if she’s wearing the veil and if she shows modesty, disasters don’t happen.”

In the uproar that followed, Muslim leaders in Australia and elsewhere distanced themselves from Al-Hilali. Ali Roude of the New South Wales Islamic Council declared that Al-Hilali had “failed both himself and the Muslim community…As a father, brother and son myself, I take offence at the portrayal of both men and women in the alleged published comments.”

Yet at the same time, Al-Hilali had defenders. Abduljalil Sajid of the Muslim Council of Britain said that al-Hilali’s remarks had been taken out of context, and affirmed that “loose women like prostitutes” encourage immorality in men. As for al-Hilali, Sajid said that “he is a great scholar and he has a great knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence….I respect his views. His intentions are noble in order to make morality and modesty part of our overall society.”

It was also somewhat surprising that Al-Hilali’s remarks generated any uproar at all. After all, the idea that a woman is responsible if she is raped did not originate with him, and this was not the first time it has been enunciated in the West. One notorious example occurred in September 2004 in Denmark, when the mufti Shahid Mehdi of the Islamic Cultural Center in Copenhagen said on the Danish television program Talk to Gode that women who venture outside without a hijab are “asking for rape.”

Australian Muslim moderate leader Tanveer Ahmed acknowledged that “in a large number of Muslim households, young men will be taught that white women are cheap and easy. It is extrapolated to a much bigger scale, for it symbolises for them a moral corruption endemic in free societies, the kind they believe has led to a breakdown in families. Their views have some overlap with social conservatives in general, who see human freedoms, especially with regard to sexuality, as having gone too far.”

Even more significantly, Ahmed conceded that “what Hilali says is consistent with a strict, conservative interpretation of Islam. This remains the fundamental difficulty with Islam's attempts to sit with modernity. As long as Muslims view their religion as sitting above history and culture -- with the Koran as the literal word of God, which in their view makes Islam undebatable -- there will always be Hilalis who can point to certain texts and argue for a social and legal structure consistent with 7th-century Arabia….This is a man who knows the Koran in intimate detail and his views are consistent with a strict reading of the Muslim holy book.”

They are also, unfortunately, consistent with the example of Muhammad, Islam’s prophet, as I show in my new book The Truth About Muhammad. The Qur’an tells men: “And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess” (4:24) -- that is, slave girls who are considered the spoils of war. All too often in Western countries, particularly in Europe’s restive Muslim enclaves, young Muslim men have understood this as permitting the rape of non-Muslim women who venture out uncovered -- in accord with Shahid Mehdi’s statement.

What’s more, in traditional Islamic law rape cannot be established except by the testimony of four male witnesses who saw the act, as stipulated by Qur’an 24:4 and 24:13. Consequently, it is even today virtually impossible to prove rape in lands that follow the dictates of the Sharia. Unscrupulous men can commit rape with impunity: as long as they deny the charge and there are no witnesses, they get off scot-free, because the victim’s account is inadmissible. Even worse, if a woman accuses a man of rape, she may end up incriminating herself. If the required male witnesses can’t be found, the victim’s charge of rape becomes an admission of adultery. That accounts for the grim fact that as many as seventy-five percent of the women in prison in Pakistan are, in fact, behind bars for the crime of being a victim of rape.[i] Several high-profile cases in Nigeria recently have also revolved around rape accusations being turned around by Islamic authorities into charges of fornication, resulting in death sentences that were only modified after international pressure.[ii]

In light of all this, al-Hilali’s remarks should not be surprising -- but they should continue to be cause for concern. For they illustrate the fact that the clash of civilizations isn’t just taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places where the warriors of jihad are fighting today. It is taking place right at home, in Western countries where our deeply-held cultural values are being subjected to an increasingly forthright and assertive challenge. If we do not defend them now, it is those who agree with Sheikh al-Hilali who will determine the mores of the future.

[i] See Sisters in Islam, “Rape, Zina, and Incest,” April 6, 2000, http://www.muslimtents.com/sistersinislam/resources/sdefini.htm.

[ii] See Stephen Faris, “In Nigeria, A Mother Faces Execution,” www.africana.com, January 7, 2002.

14,000 weapons, spare parts given to Iraqi forces missing

13,180 semiautomatic pistols, 751 assault rifles and 99 machine guns. And rocket-propelled grenades. It's likely they'll be seen again, of course, only in the hands of insurgents and death squads. "Audit reveals 14,000 arms given to Iraq are missing," by John Heilprin for AP:

WASHINGTON -- Nearly one of every 25 weapons the military bought for Iraqi security forces is missing, a government audit said Sunday. Many others cannot be repaired because parts or technical manuals are lacking.

[...]

The Pentagon cannot account for 14,030 weapons -- almost 4 percent of the semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons it began supplying to Iraq since the end of 2003, according to a report from the office of the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The missing weapons will not be tracked easily: The Defense Department registered the serial numbers of only about 10,000 of the 370,251 weapons it provided -- less than 3 percent.

The Pentagon spent $133 million on the weapons, and "the capacity of the Iraqi government to provide national security and public order is partly contingent on arming the Iraqi security forces, under the ministries of defense and interior," the report notes. Military officials insisted the weapons either had to be new or never issued to a previous soldier.

By December, the U.S. military had planned to put those weapons in the hands of 325,500 personnel.

Missing from the Defense Department’s inventory books were 13,180 semiautomatic pistols, 751 assault rifles and 99 machine guns, according to an audit requested by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The audit does not make clear at what point the weapons were lost. But it notes that "there could have been undetected losses" before weapons were ever issued to Iraqi security forces -- who also lack many needed spare parts, technical repair manuals and arms maintenance personnel.

Ex-official: Muhammad reveals key to overcoming jihadists

This is likely to cause a firestorm, but of course it is simple common sense to recognize what the enemy invokes as his guiding principle, and learn what can be learned from it. In a sane world, the failure to have done this in the five years since 9/11 would be the cause for the firestorm, not the idea of studying Muhammad in order to understand the jihadists. To this, of course, my work has been dedicated for years.

"Ex-official: Muhammad reveals key to overcoming jihadists: Failure to analyze military plan of 'prophet' hurts U.S. military," from WorldNetDaily.com, with thanks to Doc Washburn:

The Pentagon must study the Muslim prophet Muhammad and his military doctrine to beat the growing number of jihadists, a former senior Pentagon intelligence official warns.

The failure of Pentagon brass to implement a "systematic study" of Muhammad's military doctrine is hurting the U.S. military's effort to control and defeat insurgents and terrorists, complains William Gawthrop, who until recent months headed a key counterintelligence and counterterrorism program set up at the Pentagon after 9/11.

During this year's Ramadan, just ended, U.S. troops suffered another spike in casualties. Ramadan is the Islamic holy month when Muslims believe Muhammad received the Quran, the Muslim scripture, in a divine revelation. Almost 100 GIs have been killed in Iraq this month alone. Attacks on U.S. and other coalition soldiers in Afghanistan also increased during Ramadan.

The U.S. still does not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, says Gawthrop, who recently stepped down as program manager for the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the Defense Department's Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA.

"As late as early 2006, the senior service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader," Gawthrop said. "As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered...."

Gawthrop says jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan are simply following the example of Muhammad, who some 1,400 years ago personally led 27 attacks and sent his armies out 47 additional times against non-Islamic communities averaging about seven operations a year.

He says the Muslim prophet's military doctrine is contained in the Quran and its supplements, and the insurgents and terrorists are using them as their manual of warfare. They are Muhammad's soldiers in the 21st century. Homegrown and freelance terrorists are also following his example, he notes.

"There is evidence to support the contention that sources of terrorism in Islam may reside within the strategic themes of Islam," Gawthrop said. They include "the example of Muhammad, the Quran, the hadiths, Islamic law, the pillars of faith and jihad."

The Muslim sacred books cover all aspects of warfare, from methods and tactics of violence against kafirs to war booty to truces, he says. Even alms-giving is directed toward jihad, which is obligatory for Muslims, who are told by the Quran that "fighting is prescribed for you" (another translation says "warfare is ordained for you").

Gawthrop says the Pentagon needs to develop a broad new strategy to deal with the threat from Islamic terrorists. But to do so, officials must first overcome the political taboo of linking Islamic violence to the religion of Islam, its sacred scripture and the personal example of its revered prophet.

"Muhammad's mindset is a source for terrorism," Gawthrop flatly says.

Dealing with the threat on a tactical and operational level through counterstrikes and capture has proven only marginally successful. Gawthrop and other military leaders want to combat it from a strategic standpoint, using informational warfare, among other things. A critical part of that strategy involves studying Islam, including the Quran and the hadiths, or traditions of Muhammad, and exploiting critical vulnerabilities and controversies within the faith itself.

"The ideological lever has largely been ignored," he said, while the threat from Islamic terrorism and jihadism grows stronger and stronger – now now infecting Great Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, in addition to Thailand, Indonesia (and indirectly Australia), Somalia, Russia and India.

"Today the United States and an increasing number of other governments are beleaguered by an expanding array of states, groups and individuals whose goals, actions and norms are animated by Islamic values," Gawthrop said. "This places the defenders in the unenviable position of having to fight, at the strategic level, against an idea."

How do you attack an idea? By hitting "soft spots" in the Islamic faith that, once exploited, "may induce a deteriorating cascade effect upon the target," Gawthrop says.

"Critical vulnerabilities of the Quran, for example, are that it was uttered by a mortal," Gawthrop said. "Similar vulnerabilities may be found in Muhammad's character."

As the jihad spreads, he says the government eventually will have to get involved in a such a controversial national education campaign, politically incorrect as it may be.

"If the United States, moderate Muslim governments and the non-Muslim world seek to engage ideological adversaries on their own ground," he said, "they will have to develop, use and maintain the full range of capabilities in the ideological component of national power, and address Islam's strategic themes directly."

Gawthrop notes that the Defense Intelligence Agency has produced reports on jihad, but not any detailed reports on Muhammad and his political and military doctrine. The reports discussing jihad include: "Y: The Sources of Islamic Revolutionary Conduct" by Air Force Lt. Col. Stephen P. Lambert and "Islam: The Peaceful Religion in Perpetual War" by the Joint Military Intelligence College.

Gawthrop's analysis appears in the new fall 2006 edition of "The Vanguard," the professional journal of the Military Intelligence Corps Association published out of Fort Huachuca, Ariz., the Army's intelligence headquarters.

Zawahiri Was Target in U.S. Attack on Religious School in Pakistan

An update on this story from Alexis Debat at ABC's Blotter (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Ayman al Zawahiri was the target of a Predator missile attack this morning on a religious school in Pakistan, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.

ABC News has learned the raid was launched after U.S. intelligence received tips and examined Predator reconnaissance indicating that al Qaeda's No. 2 man may have been staying at the school, which is located in the Bajaur region near the village that is thought to be al Qaeda's winter headquarters.

Despite earlier reports that the missiles had been launched by Pakistani military helicopters, Pakistani intelligence sources now tell ABC News that the missiles were fired from a U.S. Predator drone plane.

Between two and five senior al Qaeda militants were killed in the attack, including the mastermind of the airliners plot in the U.K., according to Pakistani intelligence sources.

No word yet on whether or not Zawahiri was killed in the raid, but one Pakistani intelligence source did express doubt that Zawahiri would have been staying in a madrassa, which is an obvious target for strikes against militants. That source, however, did express confidence that Pakistani intelligence is closing in on Zawahiri's location.

Destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas: "The Taliban were the executors, but the masterminds were the Arabs and the Pakistanis"

Now it looks as if the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 in Afghanistan was an act of jihadists from all over. "Bin Laden's prints seen on ruins of Bamiyan Buddhas," by Selim Saheb Ettaba for AFP, with thanks to Fjordman:

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan -- In a huge cavity dug into the side of a cliff, workers search through the rubble to exhume the remains of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan.

At the scene of the crime carried out in 2001 all evidence points to Osama Bin Laden as the mastermind. "This is the terrorism of the Taliban," says Rahim, an official at the work site in front of the empty niche of the biggest of the two statues, one of which stood 55 meters (182 feet) tall and the other 38 meters.

Wearing a hard hat and a mask over his mouth, one of the workers, Rajab, is trying to save the remains of the destruction in which one of his family members played a part. "The Taliban took Ali Reza, one of my relatives, and they suspended him from a cable at the side of the Buddhas. Then they forced him to beat at the statues with an axe and an iron rod," he says. "They took four or five like him, to punish them for having fought against them."

He says that there were Arabs, Pakistanis, and Chechens among the Taliban fanatics who oversaw the demolition of the ancient relics - until then the largest standing Buddhist statues in the world - carried out on the orders of the head of the Taliban regime because they were deemed idolatrous.

One of his colleagues, Abdul Ali, adds: "The Taliban were the executors, but the masterminds were the Arabs and the Pakistanis."

At the nearby village of Sangchaspon, where the government has sent people who once lived in caves dug into the cliff around the Buddhas, two more witnesses give a similar account. "They started with tanks but that did not do much damage so they brought in explosives," says Mirza Hussein, another of the prisoners that the Taliban brought in to destroy the Buddhas.

"There were Arabs and Pakistanis," says Hussein, who was present for all 25 days it took to demolish the statues. As he recalls it, the foreigners "came by helicopter."...

Honeymoon in beautiful Tora Bora!

Tora Bora is 100% safe, says Gul Agha Sherazi. Getting there through Pakistan and Afghanistan might be somewhat less so. "'Come To Tora Bora Caves,'" from Sky News, with thanks to Mackie:

There will soon be a new holiday destination for the most intrepid tourists, according to one newspaper.

Osama bin Laden's infamous Tora Bora caves hideout is reportedly being converted - into a £5.3m holiday resort.

It seems hotels and restaurants are being built on mountains overlooking the al Qaeda leader's secret lair in Afghanistan, says The Sun.

The newspaper quotes a former warlord-turned local governor as saying the area is now completely safe.

Gul Agha Sherazi said: "Tora Bora is world famous - but we want it to be known for tourism, not terrorism," claims the paper.

Bin Laden hid out in the network of caves in 2001 after the Taliban government was ousted.

It is believed he fled after a US bombing blitz.

Despite the fact two journalists have been killed in the area this month, Sherazi apparently insisted: "Tora Bora is 100% safe".

U.S. tries to cut off terrorists' cash flow

"The Middle East is the center of graft and corruption in the universe." Financial Jihad Update from Rowan Scarborough in the Washington Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The U.S. military is not only trying to stop terrorists and arms from leaking into Iraq from Syria and Iran but also another just as dangerous commodity -- cash.

It's the lifeblood of the enemy -- whether they be al Qaeda terrorists, death squads or Sunnis trying to evict American forces and bring back dictator Saddam Hussein -- and U.S. raiders have seized millions of dollars in cash during the conflict.

Military officials point to Syria and its secretive banking system as the main source of Sunni walking-around money, while Iran's Revolutionary Guard funnels money to Shi'ite militias, such as cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

The enemy's money began flowing into Iraq with the start of the insurgency in the summer of 2003, and the shipments are still coming in.

"There are billions coming in," said Daniel Gallington, a former aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "The Middle East is the center of graft and corruption in the universe. It really always has been. The fight in Iraq is about who controls what area is really all about who controls the money."

Read it all.

Truth About Islam's Founder Revealed

Here is another review that has appeared today of my new book The Truth About Muhammad. This one is an erudite and generous perspective from Serge Trifkovic in Human Events. Trifkovic, of course, is the author of two essential books, Sword of the Prophet and Defeating Jihad.

At least since Georgi Plekhanov’s influential essay “The Role of the Individual in History” (1898), the proponents of the Great Man model—initiated in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and famously elaborated by Carlyle—have been on the defensive. For some decades now, the Western academe has been dominated by the upholders of the primacy of the relationships and conflicts between social forces in determining the course of history. Most chairs that count are held by Emeriti who see history as a linear struggle between social classes and their key fractions. Over the past generation the “proletarian” has been replaced by "RaceGenderSexuality" and the “capitalist” by the non-self-hating straight white male, but the dogma that history is determined by social forces has survived the fall of the Wall.

Robert Spencer’s “The Truth About Muhammad” (Regnery, a HUMAN EVENTS sister company) was not written in order to disprove the gnostic notion that history has a comprehensible pattern, a determinate logic and a finite number of possible resolutions or outcomes. But that is, indirectly, what the book achieves. This brief and readable summary of the life and times of the prophet of Islam, derived from eminently orthodox Muslim sources, reveals the centrality of Muhammad not only to Islam-as-religion but also to Islam as a totalitarian ideology, Islam as a geopolitical project, and Islam as a normative moral and legal system devoid of any “natural” foundation.

If we look at the ancient world in the half-millennium after Rome passed her zenith under Trajan and Hadrian, we can discern no “objective” reason why the Arabs should have been more successful than any number of other nomadic warriors—the Cimmerians, or Scythians, or Huns, or Parthians—in making not only spectacular but also enduring conquests, conquests that were not ephemeral but capable of producing imperial edifices and breeding imperial ambitions of breathtaking audacity. They were all crude nomads in search of water and pasture and plunder. They all shared the low labor requirements of pastoralism, leaving most men instantly available for war. Various attempts at a socio-economic explanation of the Arab phenomenon have been made, notably by the late Geoffrey de Ste Croix, but they were but ex post facto rationalizations that undoubtedly would have been applied with equal force to the Thousand-Year Hun Empire had it happened.

It did not, but the Arab one did, and Muhammad— “victorious through terror” —made all the difference. His kinsmen and tribesmen were prone to war by custom and nature, accustomed to living by pillage and the exploitation of settled populations. Theirs was an “expansionism denuded of any concrete objective, brutal, and born of a necessity in its past” (Ibn Warraq), but Muhammad provided a powerful ideological justification for those wars—a justification that was religious in form, global in scope and totalitarian in nature. In the space of a decade, the “warner in the face of a terrific punishment” morphed into a vengeful warlord, slayer of prisoners, murderer of political opponents and exterminator of Jews (chapters 6-9), his every move duly condoned by “revelations” from on high. From Muhammad’s second year in Medina on, Islam combined the dualism of a universal religion and a universal state, and jihad became its instrument for carrying out the faith’s ultimate objective by turning all people into believers. As Spencer explains, Muhammad postulated the fundamental illegitimacy of the existence of non-Islam, and mandates permanent “rejection of the Other” —to use a fashionable term—by every bona fide Muslim as a divine obligation. To a Muslim, Jihad does not necessarily mean permanent fighting, but it does mean a permanent state of war.

Even the cornerstone statement, “there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet,” goes beyond a declaration of monotheism and implies the radical division of the world into two camps. Antagonism toward non-Muslim religions, societies and cultures is certainly not the trait shared by all Muslims, but it is an attitude mandated by Muhammad to all true Muslims and prevalent among most to this day. Thanks to its founder, Islam has emerged as a quasi-religious ideology of cultural and political imperialism that absolutizes the conflict with other than itself, and knows no natural limits to itself.

Muhammad’s actions and words presented by Spencer are frankly shocking by the standards of our time, and punishable by its laws that range from genocide, crimes against humanity and murder to enslavement, rape and child molestation. But even in the context of 7th-Century Arabia, Muhammad’s deeds were often considered repugnant. He had to resort to “revelations” as a means of justifying his actions and suppressing the prevalent moral code of his own society. Attacking caravans in the holy month, taking up arms against one’s kinsmen, slaughtering prisoners, reserving a lion’s share of the booty, murdering people without provocation, violating treaties and indulging one’s sensual passions were also at odds with the moral standards of his Arab contemporaries. Only the ultimate authority could sanction it, and Allah duly obliged him. As an Edwardian author put it in the blunt language allowed in his time, the problem with Muhammad is not that he was a Bedouin, but that he was a morally degenerate Bedouin.

Evidence of His Followers

The title of Spencer’s book is inevitably a misnomer: Its author is well aware that “the truth” about Muhammad is more than we really know about the historical man, and “traditions” are not history. The “truth” that matters to us all, however, and the reason this book is important, is not what verifiably came to pass between 570 and 632 AD in Western Arabia, but what one-fifth of humanity believes to have happened. Ernest Renan’s famous assertion that Islam was “born in the full light of history” (p. 20) is incorrect: “The full light” is but the reflected glimmer of medieval Muslim scholars, men who were believers and, therefore, of necessity, apologists. But the construct completed some two centuries after Muhammad’s death is held by all true Muslims to be not only true but universally and eternally valid as a perfect model of virtue for all time.

As Spencer points out, on its own admission, Islam stands or falls with the person of Muhammad, a deeply flawed man by the standards of his own society, as well as those of the Old and New Testaments, both of which he acknowledged as divine revelation, and even by the new law, of which he claimed to be the divinely appointed medium and custodian. Fourteen centuries later, the problem of Islam, and the problem of the rest of the world with Islam, is not the remarkable career of Muhammad per se, undoubtedly a “great man” in terms of his impact on human history. It is the religion’s claim that the words and acts of its prophet provide the universally valid standard of morality as such, for all time and all men.

Our judgment on Muhammad rests on evidence of his followers and faithful admirers, and those who go into paroxysms of rage over Pope Benedict’s lectures or Danish cartoons can scarcely complain if, even on such evidence, the verdict of the civilized world goes against their prophet. That verdict, once it is passed—and thanks to the courageous people such as Robert Spencer it will be passed—will make the gentle mockery of Muhammad in those cartoons appear as inappropriate tomorrow as it would be inappropriate today to lampoon Hitler for his out-of-wedlock liaison with Fräulein Braun or for his inability to control flatulence.

Dr. Trifkovic is foreign affairs editor of "Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture" and author, most recently, of "Defeating Jihad: How the war on terror may yet be won, in spite of ourselves" (Boston: Regina, 2006).

CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper slippin' and slidin'

Hot and bothered

In the course of a recent interview on MSNBC, Tucker Carlson asked Hooper three pointed questions:

"Would you say that most American Muslims are horrified by the thought that Iran might possess nuclear weapons, or not?"

No clear answer from Hooper.

Do American Muslims believe that this is a "war against Islam"?

A slippery answer from Hooper, suggesting that he himself believes that America is waging a war against Islam.

"Are Muslims more likely to commit acts of terror than members of other faiths?"

A flat no from Hooper, in the face of mountains of evidence. Click on that link. 6,276 Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11. And then, just try to compile a similar list of violent acts committed recently by members of any other faith, in the name of that faith and justified by its core texts, and see how far you get. I'm glad Carlson asked the question, and wish there had been time for an extended discussion of this, and the introduction of some distinctions. Human nature is everywhere the same, but is Islamic teaching inspiring violence today? That is plain to all but those who do not wish to see. Instead of bland denials from Hooper, it would be refreshing to see him offer some constructive way to counter this phenomenon. But apparently that must be left up to the "Islamophobes."

14 Year Old Assyrian Boy Decapitated By Muslim Group

Expect CAIR to denounce this. And don't tell me, "Well, CAIR is an American group, you see, so you can't expect them to denounce atrocities committed outside America." That might have held water before they denounced the ban on headscarves in Tunisia, but it doesn't anymore. If they can denounce that, they can denounce this.

Can't they?

Islamic Tolerance Alert from AINA, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

(AINA) -- According to the Assyrian website ankawa.com, a 14 year old Christian Assyrian boy, Ayad Tariq, from Baqouba, Iraq was decapitated at his work place on October 21.

Ayad Tariq was working his 12 hour shift, maintaining an electric generator, when a group of disguised Muslim insurgents walked in at the beginning of his shift shortly after 6 a.m. and asked him for his ID.

According to another employee who witnessed the events, and who hid when he saw the insurgents approach, the insurgents questioned Ayad after seeing that his ID stated "Christian", asking if he was truly a "Christian sinner." Ayad replied "yes, I am Christian but I am not a sinner." The insurgents quickly said this is a "dirty Christian sinner!" Then they proceeded to each hold one limb, shouting "Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!" while beheading the boy.

Good thing they weren't dirty sinners themselves, eh? And of course, they aren't, not even after they committed this cold-blooded murder. They aren't, that is, according to the Sharia stipulations that a Christian's life is forfeit if he violates the terms of his dhimma -- which they might have thought Ayad Tariq somehow did, perhaps simply by virtue of sharing the religion of the majority of the population of the Great Satan, the invaders of Iraq.

In any case, Islamic law sets a lighter punishment for the killing of a Christian than it does for the killing of a Muslim. The Iranian Sufi Sheikh Tabandeh even defended this in his book-length Islamic critique of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Probably the killers of Ayad Tariq share this view. So it is likely that today they have no fear that they will receive any punishment either on earth or from God.

Islamic Jihad continues launching rockets at southern Israel

The jihad against Israel continues without let-up, while Abbas struts and postures. From Xinhua:

A Palestinian home-made rocket landed in an open area near "a strategic site" in the south of Israel's coastal city of Ashkelon, Israeli Radio quoted Israeli army sources on Monday.

The rocket, fired from northern Gaza Strip, caused slight damages, said the sources, adding the timing of the attack which happened early in the morning has prevented more casualties among workers who were not there at that site.

Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad (Holy War), claimed responsibility. In a statement faxed to the press, the brigades said their fighters launched a medium-range rocket on Ashkelon at about 6:00 a.m.

According to the Israeli sources, situation in Ashkelon city has been relatively quiet recently, but the Palestinian rocket attacks against southern Israel's town of Sderot continued in spite of the ongoing military operations by the Israeli army in Gaza to curb rocket attacks.

Because They Hate

Brigitte Gabriel's review of my new book this morning puts me in mind of her superb new book, which is not to be missed.

Because They Hate is her own harrowing -- beyond harrowing -- story, the story of her childhood in Lebanon, when jihadists sowed mayhem and destruction, keeping the Christian population in terror for years on end. And Brigitte Gabriel is not afraid to draw the necessary conclusions from her experience, as politically incorrect as they may be. Here is a first-hand account of how jihad terrorists destroy lives, and how they plan and hope to do to the entire world what they did to southern Lebanon.

Brigitte Gabriel was able to escape from the physical and psychological nets the jihadists wove, becoming a fervent and articulate defender of Israel and all the nations and peoples that are threatened by jihad terror and supremacism today. If you haven't read her book or heard her speak, do both as soon as you can, and give this book to all those who still need to wake up.

Here are the endorsements, including my own, that appear on the jacket of Because They Hate:

“Brigitte Gabriel eloquently reminds America what is truly at stake in this struggle against terrorism: our families, our way of life, and our hopes. Ms. Gabriel's personal account of her own experience is riveting, compelling and spellbinding. This is a must read for the entire American public . . . This book contains monumental revelations that will shock and disturb you. But it is also a story of an indomitable spirit--Brigitte's-- that will move you.”--Steve Emerson, author of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Amongst Us, Executive Director, the Investigative Project on Terrorism

"A compelling and captivating personal story with a powerful lesson about threats to freedom in our time." --R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-95

“Brigitte Gabriel's story is at once intensely personal and possessing global significance . . . the story of her family and her childhood encapsulates the threat that faces the entire free world today. Brigitte Gabriel's words should be read, and studied carefully, by all the law enforcement and government officials of the West -- as well as by everyone who values freedom.” -- Robert Spencer, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)

“Because They Hate should be read by all to understand radical Islam. Brigitte . . . . This book gives dire warning of what is to come if the democratic and Western world does not take responsible action to protect its people and societies. The United States is the primary target as Islamic Radicalism attempts to spread its worldwide dominance.”-- Paul E. Vallely, Maj. General US Army (Ret.), FOX News Channel Military Analyst, and coauthor of Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

Brigitte Gabriel reviews The Truth About Muhammad

The courageous president of the American Congress for Truth, Brigitte Gabriel -- one of the most passionate and riveting speakers I have ever had the privilege to hear -- has written this review of my new book The Truth About Muhammad in FrontPage this morning:

“Freedom of inquiry and speech, the quest for truth, should not be cowed into silence by violent intimidation or the acceptance of half-truths and propaganda meant to appease freedom’s enemies. One thing is certain: if no one is willing to take such risks, freedom of speech will swiftly become a relic of history.”

These are the words of author Robert Spencer, who is risking his life to educate Westerners about the life of the founder of Islam. He has just come out with a new book, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion. In this biography, Spencer tells the story of the founder of Islam -- a story that many Muslims themselves apparently either do not know about or do not want non-Muslims to hear.

Yet it's strange that any Muslim would react with anger to Spencer's book, since he bases it strictly on Islamic sources, all written by pious and serious Muslims. No critic can rightly say that anything Spencer has said about Muhammad in this book is inaccurate. But the problem Muslims find with it is that Spencer doesn't treat Muhammad as if he were the highest moral standard.

Within the Islamic world, by contrast, Muhammad is considered untouchable. Spencer demonstrates that the Qur’an and Islamic tradition are clear that the Prophet is the supreme example of behavior for Muslims to follow. And today, no hint of criticism of any of his acts or teachings is tolerated.

This stifling of speech is now beginning to affect the West, within which non-Muslims are becoming increasingly frightened to say anything critical about Islam and its founder. Indeed, at even the mildest criticism, either by the Pope or in lightly satirical newspaper cartoons, Islamic nations erupt in a frenzy of blind anger. Furious Muslims take to the streets, burn churches and temples, kill innocent civilians, and threaten violence against the non-Muslim world.

Spencer warns that for the West to be intimidated into silence by this behavior is dangerous. He writes, “to place Muhammad and Islam beyond criticism and even beyond lampooning would be just as dangerous for a free society as the idea that the “Beloved Leader” of North Korea and dialectical materialism is above criticism. Indeed it would be death for a free society.”

Spencer accordingly presents the truth about Islam’s founder clearly. His story is backed up by solid scholarship and research. So the key question becomes: who is the man whom the Qur’an states is “an excellent model of conduct” (33:21)?

Spencer begins by introducing the historical Muhammad as well as the books and writings that make up the religion of Islam. This is crucial for all to understand, because it is not only the Qur’an that influences Muslim opinion, but also accompanying religious literature, including the hadith (traditions of Muhammad recorded by his followers) and the Sira (the biography of Muhammad).

Spencer goes on to explain how Muhammad became a prophet, and how he tried at first to spread his message by peaceful means -- including attempts to convince Jews and Christians that he was a prophet in the line of the Old Testament prophets and Jesus (whom he considered a prophet, not the Son of God). When his efforts failed to bring them, along with the pagan Arabs of his native tribe, into his new religion, he became a warlord -- killing, slaughtering and beheading in order to convert others or to force them to submit to him and to the religion given to him by Allah.

Spencer shows how the Prophet Muhammad, the perfect model for human behavior according to Islam and any professing Muslim, perfected the arts of assassination, deceit and taking booty. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 detail the warrior Muhammad’s battles with pagans, Jews and Christians. He told them that their lives and property would be safe only if they became Muslims. In many places, we can see clearly how he serves today as an example for Muslim behavior: at one point Spencer writes,

“Muhammad addressed them (the Jews) in terms that have become familiar usage for Islamic Jihadists when speaking of Jews today …. ‘You brothers of monkeys, has God disgraced you and brought His vengeance upon you?’ The Qur'an in three places (2:62-65; 5:59-60; and 7:166) says that Allah transformed the Sabbath-breaking Jews into pigs and monkeys.

Jihadists today routinely refer to Jews as "pigs and monkeys" -- not just a term of abuse, but an imitation of the holy prophet's example.

The author also sheds a light on the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, the ten-year truce (Hudna) Muhammad signed with the pagan Quraysh tribe. By breaking this treaty, Muhammad again set a precedent: Muslims can sign a treaty but can break it at anytime, when doing so is to their advantage. The purpose of Hudna is to allow weakened Muslim forces to gather strength to fight again later more effectively. This is an extremely important principle for the West to understand today, since it shows the difference between what we perceive as a cease-fire and what believing Muslims think it is.

Chapter 10 explores in a carefully balanced and restrained manner the personal life of Muhammad, allowing the reader to make his own informed decision based on the facts. Spencer presents frightening facts that call into serious question the wisdom behind the Islamic tradition that has dubbed Muhammad “al-insan al-kamil,” or the Perfect Man: his marriage to a child (which is widely imitated in the Islamic world today), his polygamy, his calls to subjugate Jews and Christians, and more.

Throughout the book, we learn how Muhammad treated women and how his words and actions have inspired generation after generation of Muslim men to look at women as nothing more than property. As Spencer notes,

“The Qur’an likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: ‘Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will’ ” (2:223).

That's bad enough, but there is much more. Spencer’s work details example after example of Muhammad’s teaching about women and how to treat them: beat them if they are disobedient, deny them the right to testify in cases involving sexual crimes, deny their inheritance rights, and deny their rights in numerous ways. And as the historical record has shown, his teachings have sentenced millions of women into a life of oppression, misery and depression.

Readers will learn a great deal from this book, as I did. Spencer also offers constructive suggestions and solutions if we ever want to win this war on Islamofascism. Some of them include:

* Stop insisting that Islam is a religion of peace.

* Initiate a full-scale Manhattan Project to find new energy sources.

* Make Western aid contingent upon renunciation of the Jihad ideology.

* Call upon American Muslim advocacy groups to work against the Jihad ideology.

* Revise immigration policies with the Jihad ideology in view.

This book is a must read for all to understand the roots of radical Islam. It arms non-Muslims and Muslims alike by illuminating what needs to be targeted in order to weaken Islamic extremism and the oxygen which they need to breathe.

Get it and be informed.

Pakistan destroys al-Qaida-linked site

What kind of threats had to be made to Musharraf to get him to agree to this? An AP story by Habibullah Khan:

KHAR, Pakistan - Pakistani troops backed by missile-firing helicopters destroyed a purported al-Qaida-linked training facility in a northwestern tribal area near the Afghan border Monday, officials said. At least 20 people were killed.

The pre-dawn attack targeted a religious school, or madrassa, holding 70-80 militants in Chingai village near Khar, the main town in the Bajur tribal district, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan....

Sultan said the attack targeted terrorists training at the al-Qaida-linked facility, but local leaders said those killed in the raid were innocent civilians.

Among the dead was Liaquat Hussain, a local Islamic cleric who ran the madrassa and is believed to have been sheltering al-Qaida militants, locals said. Several of his aides also died, they said.

The attack came two days after 5,000 pro-Taliban tribesmen held an anti-American rally in the Bajur area near Damadola, a village close to the site of an alleged U.S. missile attack that killed several al-Qaida members and civilians in January.

"We received confirmed intelligence reports that 70-80 militants were hiding in a madrassa used as a terrorist-training facility, which was destroyed by an army strike, led by helicopters," Sultan said....

Siraj ul-Haq, a Cabinet minister from the North West Frontier Province, condemned the attack and announced he would resign from the government in protest.

"This is a very wrong action. The government has launched an attack during the night, which is against Islam and the traditions of the area," ul-Haq told the AP during the funeral. "They (the victims) were not given any warning. This was an unprovoked attack on a madrassa. They were innocent people."...

Ul-Haq, who belongs to the powerful Islamic political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, said protests would be staged throughout the northern tribal region on Tuesday to denounce the attack.

Afghanistan: British troops hide from bombers

There was a time when the British were made of sterner stuff. "British troops hide from bombers," by Michael Smith in the TimesOnline, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BRITISH troops in the two main towns in the southern Afghan province of Helmand have been forced to stay in their barracks by the threat of Taliban suicide bombers.

The decision to keep the troops in their bases follows intelligence that suicide bombers are waiting in the province’s two main towns to attack British troops, said Lieutenant-Colonel Andy Price.

The would-be suicide bombers in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah and in the town of Gereshk were wired up with explosives and waiting for a British convoy. “We have suicide bombers physically walking around in Lashkar Gah and Gereshk looking for us — a lot of them are not locals,” Price said. “More and more they’re following the Iraqi example.”

Price, spokesman for the British forces in Helmand, said there was a “lockdown” of the two British bases. “There is no movement, no soldier, no police or the Afghan army,” he said. “We’re not going out and the Afghan police and army aren’t going out.”

The “lockdown” raises questions about how the Royal Marine commandos who last month replaced British paratroopers in Helmand will provide security to allow reconstruction projects to go ahead.

Lieutenant-General David Richards, the Nato commander in Afghanistan, has said that he wants British troops to withdraw from the northern outposts of Helmand and concentrate on creating safe development zones in Lashkar Gah and Gereshk.

By focusing reconstruction efforts on those two towns, Richards hopes to persuade residents that they are better off without the Taliban. But that will be impossible unless British and Afghan forces can provide security.

Reconstruction won't persuade them of anything. The Taliban argue on Islamic grounds. The British have no response to that. Neither does Hamid Karzai.

Boston Globe reviews two new books on Muhammad

Imagine! Two new books shed light on the Prophet of Islam! The Boston Globe has a review of both:

The path of the prophet
Two new works seek to uncover the man who was Muhammad

By Ilan Stavans | October 29, 2006

Muhammad
By Eliot Weinberger
Verso, 64 pp., $10.95

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time
By Karen Armstrong
HarperCollins/Atlas, 249 pp., $21.95

Muhammad by Eliot Weinberger, Amazon.com Sales Rank at the hour of this writing: #752,092. The publisher calls it "a luminous portrait of the Prophet, in the Islamic tradition....Muhammad is a shimmering, lyrical biography of the Prophet, composed from the words of Muslims throughout the centuries."

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time by Karen Armstrong, Amazon.com sales rank this hour: #6,480. Booklist says of it: "It puts the best face possible on its subject. The Muhammad it projects gave his followers 'a mission: to create a just and decent society, in which all members were treated with respect.'"

Funny thing: I've heard there is a third new book out recently about Muhammad. This hour it is ranked #56 at Amazon. Now, of course the Globe can review any book it wants, and decline to review any book it wants, but I can't help but wonder why the paper would choose to run a review feature on books about Muhammad that deals with two books that have aroused much less reader interest (thus far, to be sure) than a third book on the same subject.

Could it be because Weinberger's and Armstrong's are both hagiographical and that third book isn't? I can't help but wonder.

CLARIFICATION: The salient issue here is obscured somewhat by the fact that I wrote the third book to which I refer above. The issue here is not that my book didn't get a review in the Globe. As I said above, they can review or not review any book they want. This post is about media bias, and the mainstream media's unwillingness to discuss anything that might appear unfavorable to Islam.

UPDATE: Please don't write to Ilan Stavans. It has come to my attention that some of you have done so -- if I had thought to do so I would have asked you not to in the first place. But in any case, he responded quite favorably to one person who emailed, saying: "Thanks for your e-mail. I'd love to see Robert Spencer's book, lathough I don't know if the Globe would be ready for a review." I will see to it that he gets a copy.

Reformist Muslim on "uncovered meat" Sheikh: "This is a man who knows the Koran in intimate detail and his views are consistent with a strict reading of the Muslim holy book"

Al-Hilali Update. Tanveer Ahmed says in The Australian what I get called "Islamophobic" for saying. Is it true if a Muslim says it, but "Islamophobia" if a non-Muslim says it?

As long as Muslims view their religion as sitting above history and culture - with the Koran as the literal word of God, which in their view makes Islam undebatable - there will always be Hilalis who can point to certain texts and argue for a social and legal structure consistent with 7th-century Arabia. Let's not forget that a senior British cleric lavished praise on Hilali in response to this incident, saying Australia was lucky to have him, and suggesting he was "one of the greatest Islamic scholars in the world".

This is a man who knows the Koran in intimate detail and his views are consistent with a strict reading of the Muslim holy book.

And if you believe the Koran is the literal word of God, how is anything other than a strict interpretation appropriate?

All the world's religions have passages that are abhorrent or inappropriate to the modern age. But they were revolutionary in their time and can still inspire us today.

If Islam is seen in its context, as a product of history and not above it, there could be a meaningful debate about whether a version of the religion, inspired by but not chained to its past, can and contribute to modernity and human progress.

The Hilali incident and the loud chorus of his defenders suggest this is still some way off.

Islam challenges secularism in Turkey's east

As I have long noted, any secular, democratic or republican or semi-democratic government in the Islamic world -- indeed, any government that does not fully implement Sharia -- faces mounting pressure from forces that believe that no non-Sharia government has any legitimacy at all. And that is true even in the country that is most often held up as the model and proof that Islam and democracy can coexist (despite the fact that its secularism was established in an atmosphere of war with Islam): Turkey.

"FEATURE-Islam challenges secularism in Turkey's east," by Paul de Bendern for Reuters:

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Oct 30 (Reuters) - In the heartland of Turkey's southeast, plagued by decades of conflict between separatist Kurdish rebels and the state, a new threat to secularism is emerging -- Islamist groups.

Local politicians say these organisations are becoming more active in the poor region that borders Iraq and Syria, and some fear this could fan fundamentalism, especially among young people who have grown up with violence.

As in the rest of predominantly Sunni Muslim Turkey, practising one's religion here long took a backseat to a public espousal of the secularism of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the republic's founder.

However, since the AK Party, which has roots in political Islam, swept to power in 2002, Muslims are now being more open about their faith.

"We feel much freer to practise Islam," said Engin Aydin, a teacher and physics graduate who was selling religious books near Diyarbakir's 11th century Ulu Cami mosque. "It's getting better by the day."

In the southeast's largest city, mosques are welcoming more worshippers, non governmental organisations (NGOs) with a religious overtone are helping the poor and the number of unofficial prayer rooms is on the rise, say politicians and lawyers.

"In every poor neighbourhood, new radical Islamic associations are giving hot food, they have meetings at people's homes. They pay for students to go to school," said Firat Anli, mayor of a district of Diyarbakir and member of the main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP).

"I'm very worried ... I fear they'll become more powerful and could turn to violence like the (Turkish) Hezbollah," he said, referring to a defunct armed group, active in the 1990s.

Egypt moves 5000 security personnel to Gaza border

Tensions rising. From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Egypt on Saturday deployed no less than 5,000 security personnel on the Gaza border, news agencies reported.

Officials in Cairo said the move came in response to reports that Israel planned to intensify action to weed out smuggling tunnels, including bombing them from the air.

Sheik Hilali praises Iraq jihadists

Yes, the "women are like uncovered meat" Sheikh. By Richard Kerbaj in The Australian, with thanks to LGF:

TAJ Din al-Hilali has praised militant jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling them men of the highest order for fighting against coalition forces - which include Australian soldiers - to "liberate" their homelands.

In an interview on Arabic radio two weeks ago, the imam based at Sydney's Lakemba mosque said he was opposed to terror attacks in Madrid, London and New York but strongly endorsed fighters in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the interview, Sheik Hilali pays tribute to Sayyid Qutb, the ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood and intellectual mentor of Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida.

"Jihad of the liberator of Palestine, that's the greatest and cleanest and highest ... jihad which lifts our heads in pride in south Lebanon," Sheik Hilali says in the October 17 interview.

He tells broadcaster Abrahim Zoabi that he endorses jihad for liberation. "We are talking about ... jihad of liberating our land, jihad of Muslim Afghanis in their land - that's jihad.

"Jihad of Iraqi Muslims is jihad, but not when Sunnis and Shias are killing each other - that's not jihad."...

Fitzgerald: Walk back the cat

Walk back the cat.

Walk the cat all the way back to the real problem, which is not the nauseating speech given by Rice, wildly inaccurate and wrong in its every phrase, wrong in its diseased sympathy, wrong in its implied geopolitical calculation.

Whoever crafted this speech with and for her (was Philip Zelikow now coming into his own?) and whoever has been bending the ear of this dutiful student of Kremlinology (who is not particularly adept either at Russian history or Russian language -- her one attempt to use it in public, while in Russia, led to all kinds of mockery, and she won't be repeating that kind of thing) is ignorant about virtually everything that is important to know about this present crisis. But as far as George Bush is concerned, she is a towering intellect. One understands why he may think that.

Nevertheless, this speech reveals that she still hasn't a clue as to what the immutable geopolitics of Islam are about. Indeed, she has demonstrated a belief in various falsehoods: the entire edifice of the Arab rewriting of the history, cadastral and demographic, of the sliver of territory, that of the Mandate for Palestine, intended by the League of Nations for the sole establishment of the Jewish National Home (without prejudice to the "religious and civil rights" of "other communities" but carefully leaving out the phrase "political rights"). She also seems to believe that the local Arabs have abandoned, or soon could abandon, their goal of Jihad against Israel.

They haven't. They won't. They can't. Unless this is grasped, unless the difference between Fatah and Hamas is seen only as one of tactics and facade, between those who like Abbas believe, but only out of necessity, in the Slow Jihad, and Hamas that believes, out of ideological firmness, in Fast Jihad, and unless the impossibility of Muslims ever accepting an Infidel state continuing to exist (whatever its size) on land once possessed by Muslims, then there will no possibility of an intelligent American policy. That is assuming, of course, that the survival of Israel is seen as it should be, as essential to the moral, intellectual, and possibly physical survival of the West. Nothing will come of this nothing.

Grim recognition of the basis of Muslim jurisprudence in regard to all treaties with Infidel lands would not or should not dishearten. If Rice, or Zelikow, or the others who have exhibited for decades a kind of genius in reverse by avoiding coming to grips with clear Islamic texts and doctrines -- does no one in the State Department have a copy of the Qur'an and Hadith? Does no one have a potted summary of the Life of Muhammad, the Perfect Man? Does no one read the Muslim jurisconsults? Does no one have a CD-Rom of the Encyclopedia of Islam? Does no one have the money -- cannot the American government spring for -- a copy or two of Majid Khadduri's "Law of War and Peace in the Law of Islam"? Yes, I know the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost a lot, but you can find a copy on Amazon for about $20, so why not give it the old college try? And then once you have the book, skip a reception or photo opportunity or two, or just napping on the damned plane, and actually start to inform yourselves about the one subject you most need to know: the doctrines, the tenets, the attitudes of Islam. And it is not merely a matter of reading, and re-reading, but of making sense of what one reads, of thoroughly assimilating it, of applying what one reads, or making connections between what one reads -- Islamic history and the present, and the likely future. It means, above all, stopping the grotesque amount of attention given to ways to appease Muslims or to pretend that they can be appeased, and to focus instead outside the Middle East, and especially on present and growing threats to the West, through the instruments of Jihad known as Da'wa and demographic conquest. What will happen to the armories of the Western countries, what will happen to NATO, in thirty years, or twenty, or even ten, if Muslim populations, if adherents of Qur'an and Sunna, continue to grow, and grow more powerful and more demanding, and if Muslims are taken into the security services, and the military, and into the inner sanctums of political power? Anything? Nothing?

That someone of Rice's incapacity, aiding and abetting someone of Bush's incapacity, and whisperingly advised by those of the incapacity that this hideously ill-advised speech demonstrates, dripping as it is with misconceptions, is cause for the greatest alarm. And those who continue to prate, as loyalists to Bush, that "he knows what he is doing," should, at long last, shut up or, still better, distance themselves completely from him and his crew of incapables, beginning but not ending with Rice and her vaporings.

Rice's dangerous delusions

In "Palestinian 'humiliation'?" in the Washington Times (thanks to Doc Washburn), Joel Mowbray speaks truth to power about Condoleeza Rice's appalling myopia and inability or refusal to confront the reality of the jihad ideology:

In a keynote speech earlier this month to the American Task Force on Palestine, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sounded very unlike President Bush on the Middle East, lavishing praise on Palestinians and implicitly attacking Israel.

While the words she chose have invited criticism, much more concerning is that the top U.S. diplomat has the same fundamental misunderstanding of the Middle East that most do, namely that Palestinians are ready to coexist peacefully next to a Jewish state. This conventional diplomatic wisdom, however, ignores the history of the region since the Oslo accords in 1993: The once largely secular Palestinian society has become increasingly Islamic-and deeply radicalized.

Comparing the Palestinian cause to her own civil rights struggle growing up in "segregated Birmingham, Alabama," Miss Rice reminded the activist audience that if she could overcome such tremendous odds to become Secretary of State, Palestinians could achieve their dream of statehood. She based this belief on "the commitment of the Palestinian people to a better future."

Where does Mr. Bush's most loyal and trusted aide find evidence of this "commitment?" She offered none in her speech. Even if she had wanted to, though, such proof is in short supply. Poll after poll has indicated majority Palestinian support for suicide bombings. Even the term used for bombers, "shahids," is one of glorification, the equivalent of calling someone a saint. And whereas children across the world have posters in their room of sports stars or famous artists, Palestinian youths decorate their living space with posters celebrating "shahids."

In view of the radicalization of Palestinian society, the election this year of Hamas seems far less a vote against corruption-as the State Department explained it-and far more a statement of principle. Yet Miss Rice not only defended the election of Hamas but characterized it as an opportunity since "the Palestinian people and the international community can hold Hamas accountable. And Hamas now faces a hard choice that it has always sought to avoid: Either you are a peaceful political party, or a violent terrorist group -- but you cannot be both."

But what about the very real possibility, or even likelihood, that the Palestinian people elected Hamas precisely because it's a "violent terrorist group?" One thing Palestinians are not is stupid. Is it even possible that Palestinians didn't understand that they were electing a "violent terrorist group" with the stated goal of eliminating the Jewish state?

Read it all.

Morocco arrests 14 in ‘terror plot’

Morocco's relatively reformist leadership is, by virtue of its reformist tendencies, not sufficiently Islamic. And so it must be fought. From Reuters, with thanks to DFS:

RABAT: Moroccan authorities are holding 14 people suspected of belonging to a regional radical Islamist group linked to Al Qaeda, government officials said yesterday.

The 14 suspects had planned to carry out an unspecified "terrorist plot" on Morocco, with the help of Al Qaeda-linked foreign fighters who would travel from the Sahel-Sahara region, they said.

Morocco, a staunch US ally in the global fight on terror, has been on alert since 2003 when suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca, the country’s commercial capital.

It has arrested more than 3,000 people since then and broken up more than 50 radical Islamist cells.

But it is the first time that the authorities have announced the arrest of people with suspected links to foreign cells.

"The 14 persons are suspected of being linked to a global terrorist movement which has connections with small groups operating in the Sahel-Sahara region and links with members of a group based on the Algeria-Mali border," an official statement said.

The statement did not name the groups but government officials said the small groups were Islamist cells linked to the main Algerian Islamic rebel Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) faction.

Anti-terrorism police officials in North Africa and Europe have voiced concerns that the GSPC might turn itself into a magnet for radical Islamists in the region, providing them with weapons and military training in lawless areas of the Sahara desert.

The GSPC said in September it had joined Al Qaeda, whose leader Ayman al-Zawhiri urged the Algerian rebel group to become a "bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders".

Fitzgerald: The jig is up -- or it will be

In a statement regarding the Minneapolis Shari’a taxicab dispute that recently came to Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs from the Muslim Brotherhood, "Dr. Habib described the cabbies’ position as 'absurd' and added 'Muslims must respect and comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they live in and be a good example for their fellow citizens.'"

This is akin to the about-face of the imam Hilali in Australia who, having been secretly taped at his mosque making his now-famous remarks about women dressed in non-Muslim fashion as "meat" who deserved whatever they got from inflamed Muslim men (apparently likened, in the somewhat clumsy metaphor, to the beasts that are attracted to that "meat"), and after indignation had been expressed too loudly and consistently to be ignored, pretended he had meant no such thing and apologized for any malentendu. He did the same thing a few years ago after praising the 9.11 attacks as “God’s work.”

And now we have the Muslim Brotherhood telling us the usual nonsense about Muslims who "must respect and comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they live in." But that is not what Muslim websites say. What Muslim websites tell those who ask if they must obey the Infidel laws of Infidel nation-states is that they need do so only now, when Muslims do not yet rule, and only to the extent that those laws do not conflict with the laws of Islam.

Go to any of a hundred Muslim websites. Check out the various Ask Mr. Fatwas and Ask the Imam. Go to www.islamonline.net. Have fun. Find out what Muslims are told to do, and why, and why it is all, in the end, utterly phony. It is phony because they must do whatever they have to do only temporarily, so as to avoid arousing Infidel counter-measures. They must behave this way only until such time as it is too late for those Infidels and their countries (countries carefully left unspecified by Muslims -- for who cares if it is the United States, or Canada, or France or England -- they're all just part of the Lands of the Infidels, part of Dar al-Harb) to awaken to what is happening and defend themselves and their societies.

How much nonsense do Muslim spokesmen and apologists of every kind think that they can continue to get away with, when any Infidel, at a click, can go to any number of Muslim websites and see exactly what is being dispensed as advice to Muslim Believers? How much of this stuff do they think they can permanently hide from the view of Infidels, when at the same time they keep disseminating it far and wide to Muslims?

The jig is up. Or will be. It's a race -- will Infidels rouse themselves from a deep dream of pseudo-peace and "understanding" in time to save not merely themselves but the legacy of the past that they hold in trust -- the legacy that creates, and was created by, that civilization we call "Western"? Or will Muslims practicing taqiyya, and their non-Muslim collaborators win out in the end? Those collaborators, by the way, are an assortment of the bought-and-paid for, the antisemites who, but only because they can do damage to Jews and to Israel, end up making excuses for Islam. Then there is the largest group of all, the merely weak-minded or the merely uninformed, who are too lazy to inform themselves. Of those there are a great many.

Who will win the race? Some Muslims are worried about this, and some are not. Some understand the problem of trying at the same time to disseminate to Muslims in the West the true, the real doctrine, and at the very same time trying to hide that same true, real doctrine from Infidels who might have the gall to eavesdrop upon Muslim-Muslim communications, even when those communications are easily retrieved on Internet sites (even if often in Arabic or Urdu or other relevant languages) or delivered in mosques -- where agents of the Infidel nation-state now dare to observe, and even secretly record, these sinister khutbas.

They worry only about insuring that a sufficient number of Infidels are kept for a sufficient period sufficiently in the dark. So far they are doing fairly well. The Infidels have not yet disappointed them.

But many of those Infidels, and for the same reasons, disappoint us. Stamina, thick skins, self-assurance required.

A Charlie Brown Jihad

Good grief! I mean -- Allahu akbar! Charlie Brown and Linus become mujahedin! Over at the Jawa Report (thanks to Steve).

Rioting "youths" burn hundreds of cars in France

Oddly enough, this AP story actually mentions "Muslims." Perhaps the censor had gone to retrieve his liverwurst sandwich, and this one slipped through. "Rioting youths burn hundreds of cars in France: Authorities upbeat despite violence marking anniversary of ’05 unrest," from AP, with thanks to Andrea:

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France - Marauding youths torched hundreds of vehicles overnight and on Saturday in renewed violence coinciding with the first anniversary of riots that exposed a deep schism between poor North African immigrants and mainstream France.

A group of teenagers set one bus on fire Saturday in the southern French port city of Marseille, seriously wounding a passenger. Three others suffered from smoke inhalation, police said. Two other public buses and 277 vehicles around the country were burned overnight, police said.

Six police were injured and 47 people were arrested, ministry officials said. Still the Interior Ministry described the night as “relative calm,” noting that up to 100 cars are torched by youths in troubled neighborhoods on an average night.

Police had braced for a bigger replay of violence in the poor suburbs predominantly made up of Muslims from former French colonies in Africa. Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the deaths of two teens that ignited three weeks of riots in 2005.

The rioting was fueled by anger at France’s failure to offer equal opportunities to many minorities — especially Arabs and blacks — and France’s 5 million-strong Muslim population.

France’s trouble integrating minorities and the suburban unrest are becoming hot political issues in the campaign for next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The government passed an equal opportunities law this spring and has poured funds into “sensitive” areas, but disenchantment is still pervasive....

Hmm. You mean they've given the rioters money and favorable treatment, and that still hasn't solved the problem? Do you think maybe it springs from the ideology of Islamic supremacism, and not from poverty at all?

“Four guys attacked Bus 346,” said witness Thierry Ange, 19. “They made everyone get off, then they hit a woman and dragged out the bus driver by his tie,” then torched the bus with a gasoline bomb in a bottle, he said.

The blackened remains of another bus burned earlier stood across town. Two armed men had forced passengers off the bus, police said.

Youths also tried to burn a bus in Reims in eastern France, and attackers hurled metal balls at an empty bus in Trappes, west of Paris, the Interior Ministry said.

Scores of police, wielding shields and backed by a helicopter shining its searchlight, swept into a tough housing project in Montfermeil, a town near Clichy-sous-Bois, and several youths responded by throwing stones.

Paris’ transport authority responded to the violence by curtailing bus services in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of the capital, which is home to thousands of immigrants and their French-born children.

And thus Paris slides toward Third World conditions.

The Muslim Brotherhood writes to LGF

To deny this story about their role in the Minneapolis Sharia Cab Controversy. Charles Johnson's comments are apposite: "It’s the standard denial. This comes from the political and public relations wing of the global jihad. No need for them to threaten. When someone in their network goes too far, they’ll back down and pretend they had nothing to do with it. They’re in this for the long haul."

A portion of the letter, via LGF:

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) denied completely any involvement in the current dispute caused by a group of Somali Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, U.S.A, who are refusing to pick up drunk passengers or those carrying alcoholic beverages claiming that Islam prohibits them from driving passengers with Alcohol. Dr. Mohamed Habib, the first Deputy Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood, affirmed that Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do whatsoever with what these Muslim cab drivers believe or view mistakenly as religious decree. Dr. Habib described the cabbies’ position as “absurd” and added “Muslims must respect and comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they live in and be a good example for their fellow citizens”

The question naturally presents itself: is that an unshakeable principle, or a temporary expedient?

"It's a steady, stealthy indoctrination aimed at creating a whole new generation of jihadists. And scandalously, it is unopposed"

It is unopposed not only for the clueless indifference scored in this article. It is unopposed because the vaunted overwhelming majority of moderate Muslims has as yet framed no response to the theological presentations of the jihadists. Only the willfully self-deceived and irredeemably credulous believe that this immense work has already been done.

And Rita Katz is right. It can't be done only by the Bush Administration, and not only because they show no signs of understanding the jihad ideology. It has to be done by those who have moral and intellectual credibility among Muslims -- and yes, this is another virtually insurmountable hurdle, since reformers immediately open themselves to charges from jihadists that they are disloyal Muslims for questioning the literal words of the Qur'an and Muhammad.

"U.S. seen balking at challenge by Islamist Web," by David Morgan for Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is failing to counter Islamist online propaganda that could propel militancy into the next generation, experts say.

From the Middle East, Asia and Europe, Islamists have built an expansive Internet library of sophisticated texts on the ideology that underpins violence against the West and other enemies, analysts and intelligence officials said.

"It's a steady, stealthy indoctrination aimed at creating a whole new generation of jihadists. And scandalously, it is unopposed," said Stephen Ulph, who studies the Islamist Web for the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington think tank.

E-books and online pamphlets, with titles such as "39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad," encourage the growth of home-grown militant cells across the world, including in such Western countries as Canada and Britain, the experts believe.

U.S. intelligence is reluctant to mount an effective counteroffensive by recruiting Islamic experts from overseas to rebut and even ridicule Islamist authors, according to experts and U.S. officials.

"Anything exposing the West as a supporter would destroy Islamic opposition to the jihadis," one intelligence official on condition of anonymity. "We are completely out of luck with the Muslim world, across the board."

Several agencies including the CIA, FBI and the office of U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte are part of a closely guarded effort to monitor the content of Islamist Web sites.

But the program is hampered by stringent security standards that make it hard for intelligence agencies to employ Islamist experts from the Arab world.

"Even if we think we understand elements of the religion, we certainly don't understand elements of their cultural communications," the intelligence official said.

POP JIHAD PROPAGANDA

Others warned that U.S. policy-makers could be making a fatal error by ignoring doctrinal online texts that lay bare the substance of a violent Islamist mind-set.

"In order to be able to fight something, you have first of all to understand what is going on. And I don't think that at this stage they understand it well enough to fight it," said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, which tracks and analyzes international terrorism.

In a presentation this week, Ulph said doctrinal material accounts for 60 percent of Islamist Web content and most texts are in Arabic. But many have begun to reappear in English and other European languages in an apparent appeal to Muslims living in the West.

One of the most popular is the 1,600-page treatise, "Call to Global Islamic Resistance," a comprehensive guide to militant life by al Qaeda ideologue Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri, who was captured in Pakistan a year ago.

The Islamist Web became a center for al Qaeda operational planning, training and fund-raising after the fall of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan.

Thousands of Islamist Web sites have since sprouted, many appealing to disenfranchised Muslim youth with so-called Pop Jihad propaganda that can include films of beheadings and spectacular attacks on U.S. troops in
Iraq.

But Ulph and others, including former intelligence officials, say the future of Islamist militancy depends on the more sophisticated doctrinal material, capable of guiding the life of the committed militant from childhood to martyrdom.

"The focus has been on how these guys use the Internet for fund-raising and operations," said Jarret Brachman of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. "Only recently have we realized there are strategic implications."

Only recently, eh, Brachman? Well, some of us have been trying to tell you for quite some time.

3 Australians, Dane held in Yemen over arms smuggling to aid Somali jihad

All four were studying at al-Iman University in Sanaa, Yemen, a university once suspended by the Supreme Yemeni Council for Universities for overlooking students' academic qualifications (or lack thereof) as long as they could recite 5 excerpts from the Qur'an (no word on which ones).

The Danish suspect is said to be a convert to Islam -- another convert, another alleged "misunderstander" of his new religion. "3 Australians, Dane Held in Yemen Over Arms Smuggling," from AP:

SANAA, 28 October 2006 -- Three Australians and a Dane have been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle weapons to Somalia, a security official said late Thursday.

All four have been studying at the Islamist Iman University, which is run by Sheik Abdul-Majid Al-Zindani. The United States lists Al-Zindani as an Al-Qaeda supporter.

[...]

However, a Danish Foreign Ministry official confirmed the arrest of the Dane but refused to identify him. "All I can say is that a Danish national has been arrested according to our information," said Uffe Wolffheckel of the Foreign Ministry’s Consular Service.

Danish media said the suspect is a 23-year-old male who converted to Islam and moved to Yemen two months ago with his wife and child.

[...]

Yemen is believed to be a frequent route for smuggling arms to Somali factions.

"Women are like uncovered meat" Muslim cleric linked to terror groups

And this has been known for 20 years.

Here is a story about the "uncovered meat" remarks. And here is the same Sheikh saying that 9/11 was God's work.

"Muslim cleric linked with terror groups," by Jim Dickens and Glenn Milne for The Sunday Telegraph, with thanks to LGF:

ASIO warned authorities 20 years ago that Sheik Taj al-Din Al-hilaly could inflame communal violence in Australia.

Court judgments show ASIO initially believed the controversial mufti posed a risk to the community because of his alleged propensity to cause or promote violence.

Shortly after his arrival in Australia as the new imam of Lakemba Mosque in 1982, Sheik Hilaly was also linked with a shadowy terrorist group, Soldiers of God, which is thought to have been involved in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

A group of the same name, also known as Ansar al Islam, is among those listed by the Federal Government as a banned terrorist organisation.

Western governments believe Ansar al Islam has close ideological and operational links with al-Qaeda.

Sheik Hilaly was also alleged to have endorsed suicide bombing, verbally attacked women and preached a highly political message of extremism.

The Sunday Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman writes today that a former intelligence officer said Sheik Hilaly's name first surfaced in a report by one of Australia's most senior intelligence assets in Cairo. The claimed the sheik spent a number of years training in Libya and was sent to Australia to train extremists.

Akerman writes the report was shelved and the agent who sent it believes that a campaign was waged against its contents.

Not surprising, given the campaigns that are waged against those who tell the truth about such matters today.

Al-Qaeda warns Canada

Canada's "fanatic adherence to Christianity"? Are they talking about the Canada that's just north of the United States, or is there some other Canada I don't know about? "Al-Qaeda warns Canada: Quit Afghan mission or endure attack like 9/11, threat says," by Stewart Bell in the National Post, with thanks to LGF:

OTTAWA - An al-Qaeda strategist has warned Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan or face terrorist attacks similar to 9/11, Madrid and the London transit bombings.

The threat, attributed to a member of the al-Qaeda information and strategy committee, condemns Prime Minister Stephen Harper for refusing to pull out of Afghanistan.

It also refers to Canada's "fanatic adherence to Christianity" as well as its purported attempts to "damage the Muslims" and its support for the "Christian Crusade" against al-Qaeda.

"Despite the strong, increasing opposition to spread its forces in the fire of South Afghanistan, it seems that they will not learn the lesson easily," Hossam Abdul Raouf writes.

"They will either be forced to withdraw their forces or face an operation similar to New York, Madrid, London and their sisters, with the help of Allah."

Three years of jihad watching

Three years ago today, in a climate-controlled vault sealed with three feet of concrete, located somewhere in the vicinity of the Jefferson Memorial and the Golden Gate Bridge and accessible only by helicopter and bungee rope, I began Jihad Watch. I hoped to raise general awareness of the nature of the jihad ideology, the activities of jihadists around the world, and the ways in which both of these were being obscured by academic apologists and the mainstream media.

It has been a tumultuous three years. The site has grown considerably, such that we now average over 30,000 unique visitors daily, and about 600,000 to a million hits each day. ("Hits," as far as I understand it, refers to files viewed. If you look at the front page, it's a hit. If you open an article, it's a hit. If you go back to the front page and open up another article, that's two more hits. Hits also multiply if picture files are involved. There are about 20 to 30, or more, hits per person. Some have charged that by noting that we receive about 30 million hits per month, we are claiming 30 million different visitors. That is not in fact the case.)

Largely, I believe, because this site has captured attention, I have spoken about the jihad ideology on the BBC, the VOA, numerous other radio and television outlets, and to audiences all over this country, as well as in Europe and Israel. I've spoken at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry, given presentations to U.S. Central Command and to a Joint Terrorism Task Force group, and also addressed influential fora that I am not at liberty to name. I've given information on jihadist activity to media outlets on which (or in which, as the case may be) I've never appeared personally, including ABC News, the Washington Post, and the O'Reilly Factor. And I've written two books that made the New York Times Bestseller List. All this is personally gratifying, but it is all much more important as an indication that, increasingly, word is getting out. The truth is getting out.

Much of this I attribute to this site. Hugh Fitzgerald and I, with immense help from Marisol Seibold and others over the last three years, have endeavored to present the facts, no matter how politically incorrect and uncomfortable those facts may be. Although there is the expected drumbeat of calumnies and falsehoods about what we stand for and what we are doing, we have also seen that many people of good will have come to respect this site as a trustworthy and reliable source of information and commentary. We offer rational analysis, while those who tell others to slit the throats of their children lecture us about spreading "hate."

Of course, the fog of misinformation and propaganda still blankets the West and largely strangles public discourse about the nature of the jihad threat and what can be done about it. And for that reason, Year Four of The Jihad Watch Era hereby begins.

Fitzgerald: The rationality of "Islamophobia"

From the announcement of this Contest by the "Islamic Human Rights Commission":

What is Islamophobia? A contemporary and emerging form of prejudice Islamophobia can be described as stereotypes, bias or acts of hostility towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general. In addition to individual acts of intolerance and racial profiling, Islamophobia leads to viewing Muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional, systemic and societal level and perceiving their views to be intrinsically problematic, violent or unethical.

And the Awards:

Islamophobia Awards: The Islamophobia Awards is an annual event to acknowledge - through satire, revue and comedy - the worst Islamophobes of that year. Centred around a gala dinner, the 'awards' themsleves are both entertaining and raise awarness of a serious and growing prejudice. Real awards are given to those who have battled against Islamophobia - often against enormous odds.

Note the last sentence in the definition of "Islamophobia":

Islamophobia leads to viewing Muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional, systemic and societal level and perceiving their views to be intrinsically problematic, violent or unethical.

A security threat "greater" than what? Greater than that posed to non-Muslims, by other non-Muslims, in non-Muslims societies? But surely we don't need to know much of anything to know that that is true. After familiarizing yourself with Qur'an, Hadith, and the biography of Muhammad, do you perceive that those who claim to believe that the Qur'an is the uncreated and immutable word of God, and who take Muhammad to be the Perfect Man, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, to hold views that might be described by you as "intrinsically problematic, violent, or unethical"?

Of course you do. Every single person who actually reads the texts, even without waking up to the day's Jihad News from around the world, must if not crazy regard the views that those who call themselves Muslims must be assumed to hold (unless they signal to the outside world that they are not real Believers but merely "cultural Muslims" -- i.e., Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only Muslims) as "intrinsically problematic, violent, or unethical."

And what exactly is "Islamophobia" that it should be discouraged? It is a dislike, or fear, or even hatred, of a belief-system that uncompromisingly divides the world between Believer and Infidel, dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, and demands that the Believers owe their sole loyalty to the umma al-islamiyya, and must work to convert, to kill, or to permanently subjugate all Infidels, reducing them to a state of humiliation and degradation. Is that something of which Infidels are supposed to remain unaware? Or if they do manage to become aware, despite the best efforts of Western governments and media and in academic centers taken over by those dancing to the tune of Arab paymasters and, in many cases, staffed by Muslims and non-Muslims eager to accommodate their Muslim colleagues' every wish, should they not react in some way?

Is not what we mean by "Islamophobia" a completely rational response to the situation? Is it not the fear and dislike of Islam as a belief-system? Given what that belief-system is all about, and given the 1350-year unbroken record of aggression and suppression or murder of non-Muslims and their civilizations, is not such a response rational? The indigenous non-Muslims were almost entirely wiped out from the Middle East, North Africa, from Sassanian (i.e. Zoroastrian) Persia, from Christian Byzantium, from parts of formerly Orthodox areas of the Balkans, from much of Hindu (and Buddhist) India -- in short, everywhere that Islam went, it damaged, and most often thoroughly managed to wipe out, all pre-Islamic and non-Islamic peoples and histoires. In a few places -- in Egypt with the Copts, in Lebanon with the Maronites who retreated to the northern mountains -- non-Muslims held on. Jews came back to Israel to resettle their ancient homeland, often forced to buy land at exorbitant prices from absentee Arab landlords, and after 1948, inheriting the nearly 90% of the land that had passed to the Mandatory authorities from its previous owner, the Ottoman State.

Given what is known of that history, given the cultural and mental impoverishment that Islam brings with it everywhere, why should not Infidels, becoming aware of those tenets and that history, not react with views which others may call "Islamophobia," but which are based on a rational and clear-sighted view of reality?

The word "Islamophobia" is a scare-word like "racism." It by now should scare, or distract, or fool none but those who want to be scared or fooled into silence.

French police official: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists"

Here is a story about the French Intifada that does not shy away from identifying the rioters as Muslims, or noting the jihadist element of the riots: "Ongoing 'intifada' in France has injured 2,500 police in 2006," from the World Tribune.com:

This might have dropped below the radar, but Al Qaida and its allies are literally battling the Crusaders every day in Europe. And so far, Europe isn't doing so well.

"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," said Michel Thoomis, secretary general of the Action Police trade union. "This is not a question of urban violence any more. It is an intifada, with stones and firebombs."

The French Interior Ministry has acknowledged the Muslim uprising. The ministry said more than 2,500 police officers have been injured in 2006. This amounts to at least 14 officers each day.

The battles have been under-reported but alarming to French authorities. Muslim street commanders, who run lucrative drug networks, have organized youngsters in housing projects to ambush police and confront security forces. The response time allows hundreds of Muslims to storm police cars and patrols within minutes.

"You no longer see two or three youths confronting police," Thoomis said. "You see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their comrades free when they are arrested."

France's huge Muslim minority community has come under the influence of agents often influenced and financed by Al Qaida. These agents have recruited Muslim youngsters for urban warfare in which police and government representatives are injured daily.

Not surprisingly, Muslim neighborhoods are becoming autonomous zones, with police and government workers too scared to enter. The police union is demanding the Interior Ministry supply officers with armored cars.

Egyptian police seize one tonne of high explosives

Inner Spiritual Strugglers thwarted in central Sinai. From Reuters:

ISMAILIA, (Reuters) - Egyptian police have recovered nearly one tonne of high explosives hidden in a mountainous area of central Sinai, security sources said on Friday.

The explosives were buried in 13 plastic bags and were discovered by bedouin trackers working for the government, according to the sources, who did not specify the type of explosive.

The area where the discovery was made has been the site of previous shootouts between police and suspects wanted for bombings in Sinai over the past two years.

More than 100 people were killed in bomb attacks in tourist resorts throughout Sinai since October 2004. Egypt has blamed the attacks on an Islamist militant group called al-Tawhid wal Jihad (One God and Jihad).

Vote early and often!

While looking around in the fever swamps of Dean Esmay's site in order to write this post, I discovered here that I have been nominated for "Islamophobe of the Year" by the Islamic Human Rights Commission of the UK.

"Islamophobia" is, in reality, a politically motivated construct designed to deflect attention away from the depredations of jihad terrorists. No one, of course, would have any "phobia" toward Muslims at all were it not for the acts of violence committed daily by Muslims and justified by those who commit them by reference to Islamic teachings. You will note that there is no worldwide "Buddhismophobia" or "Confucianismophobia." Now why is that?

Anyway, I'm in very good company among the international nominees (I'm in the U.S. category). Here are a few of them, along with the taglines from the Islamic Human Rights Commission:

Ehud Olmert For his massacre of the Palestinian and Lebanese people.

King Abdullah of Jordan For his submission to the Israelis and abandoning the Palestinians and Lebanese.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco For his 'so called reforms' aimed at removing Islam from the the Moroccan people.

Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia's Prime Minister) For saying that the war on terror is "something of a godsend" and that Ethiopia is at the "epicenter of terrorism" and "a secular island in the sea of Islam."

Daniel Pipes For his anti-Arab, anti-Islam articles and his campaigns and discrimination against Muslims.

George W Bush For the promoting the phrase 'Islamofascist'

Robert Spencer The author of anti-Islamic books such as ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam’, as well as ‘Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith’. Islam is often vented in hateful websites such as Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch.

John Howard For stating that Muslims migrating to Australia are bringing problems such as jihadist views and conservative attitudes to women not encountered with other immigrant groups.

Ayan Hirsi For trading on a false reputation that she was a victim of Muslim abuse.

Jose Maria Aznar (Former Spanish PM) For his speech on 22 September 2006 at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

Jack Straw For stoking the flames of Islamophobia with his ‘request’ that Muslim women should remove their veils before he graces them with his presence.

John Reid For whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment and continuing his witch hunt against the Muslims.

Melanie Phillips For (amongst others) suggesting that Iran might attack Jerusalem on 22nd August to commemorate Meraj and for writing her book 'Londonistan'.

Tony Blair For everything.

I suspect that George Bush will sweep my category, so I won't be preparing my "I'd like to thank the Academy...You like me! You really like me!" speech, but I am honored to be nominated, as perhaps it suggests that my efforts against global jihad supremacism are making a difference.

An olive branch, or a call to surrender

Last Saturday I received an email from Aziz H. Poonawalla, a blogger at Dean Esmay's site, with the subject line "an olive branch." Mr. Poonawalla was alerting me to a post he had written at Esmay's site entitled "the jihadwatch," which he was characterizing as that olive branch.

When I received the email I was at the Objectivist Conference in Boston, where I spoke along with Daniel Pipes, Flemming Rose (the Danish newspaper editor who published the Muhammad cartoons last year), Professor John Lewis, and others. Then I took off for Norfolk, Virginia, where I gave a half-day introduction to Islamic jihad theology to the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force. After that I went to Dallas, where I spoke to a Lumen Institute group Wednesday night. Only now am I getting a chance to respond -- which I am doing at this late date for two reasons: because I have had many other exchanges with Esmay (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here) and I believe it would be churlish not to respond to what is being characterized as an olive branch, and because it is certain that many people of good will believe the things that Esmay and Mr. Poonawalla apparently believe, and they may find this response helpful.

The funny thing about being a muslim in America is how you often feel like you're sidelined from the debate.

Mr. Poonawalla has no reason to feel sidelined as far as I am concerned. In fact, as I posted here last June, he and I had been enjoying a cordial and mutually respectful email exchange when I asked him politely to explain why he had apparently intended to mislead Dean Esmay's readers into thinking that my Arabic rendering of my own name was erroneous when it wasn't, taking advantage of their ignorance of Arabic to portray me as an ignorant buffoon. Then Mr. Poonawalla grew silent. Esmay, meanwhile, has gleefully referred to me as "Roobart Sbunsar" quite often since then, and apparently Mr. Poonawalla has never taken him aside and explained to him about p's and vowels in Arabic. Sidelined? Only by his own choosing. I would have been happy to continue our exchange, and to post his explanation of the transliteration deception, if he had cared to offer one.

In any case, in his "olive branch" Mr. Poonawalla goes on to praise Dean Esmay (whom he praises for his "jihad," while I am on a "crusade" -- loaded and significant word choices in Mr. Poonawalla's circles), and then comes to this:

Robert Spencer is on a crusade of a similarly noble intent. That is, to identify the rhetoric of the extremists within Islam and put it on naked display. In so doing he provides a benchmark against which other behavior and rhetoric can be compared. The purpose of this is to stand guard against the rise of such similar rhetoric here at home and thus prevent the ideology of bin Laden from gaining a toehold.

However the problem with both of these causes [that is, Esmay's and mine] is that they don't recognize or honor the other.

This reminds me of when Ibrahim Hooper called me a "hatemonger" on MSNBC, and Keith Olbermann told both of us, "Don't call each other hatemongers." Well, I hadn't actually called Hooper a hatemonger. Nor had I ever said one word about Dean Esmay, or even heard of him, very long before he started calling me a liar, an ignoramus, a traitor -- and since then, in carpet-chewing, eye-socket-popping rage, a man without conscience, destined to die unloved and unmourned, and to fry in hell. Among other things.

Now I am told that we don't "honor" each other, and that we should. Search for "Robert Spencer" and "Roobart Sbunsar" at Dean Esmay's site and you will find a rather steady torrent of abuse and assaults on my honesty, my intelligence, my integrity, my patriotism, my good will, and more. In his relentless attacks Esmay has never accorded me even a modicum of simple human courtesy or good will, as he did to Michelle Malkin and Rusty Shackleford when he attacked them (on false pretenses, I should add), and he has transgressed his own self-righteous exhortation never to assume that one knows the motives of one's opponents. Should Dean Esmay and I "honor" one another? That is not up to me.

Because Robert makes no effort to say to his audience of muslims, "they are more alike us than they are different. In fact, they ARE us", his site fills with the most egregious and xenophobic bile. Robert, like Charles Johnson of LGF, prefers to take no responsibility for the contents of his comment threads, but the problem is that his crusade cannot be separated from the miasma that lurkes beneath it. Simply put, the crusade of Jihadwatch becomes, because it has no emphasis on humanizing muslims, a witch hunt.

I don't accept this characterization on many levels. In the first place, Muslims don't need to be "humanized." They are human already. I am not sure what Mr. Poonawalla means when he faults Jihad Watch for having "no emphasis on humanizing muslims." Does he mean that we never post about Muslims doing good? But that is false. Do we decline to cover Muslims fighting against the global jihad? Of course not. As I pointed out to Mr. Poonawalla's fellow Esmay blogger Ali Eteraz here, we frequently cover Muslim activism against Muslim oppression. I noted two posts for Mr. Eteraz: this one from the early days of the site, recounting the travails of a member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, a group that opposes the mullahocracy; and this one about Muslims opposing the Talibanization of Somalia. Search the archives and you'll find many more. Perhaps Mr. Poonawalla would be surprised to see posts like this one, or to learn that Tashbih Sayyed, editor of Muslim World Today, is a member of the Jihad Watch Board of Directors. As I have said from the beginning of Jihad Watch, "any Muslim who renounces the ideologies of jihad and dhimmitude is most welcome to join forces with us." But to my knowledge Dean Esmay has never troubled to tell his readers such things about Jihad Watch.

It also does not help that Robert routinely ascribes the CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology to the faith of Islam. That the extremists use this or that Qur'an verse for their justification is not surprising; but were their holy text the phone directory would they act any differently? Throughout history every holy text - and even some non-holy ones - have been used to justify all manner of evil. Let us be frank about personal responsibility here: the CAUSE of the extremists' actions is their own souls and their own dark ambitions. Not their vision of Shari'a for its own sake, but rather the benefits that they imagine such to accrue to them in this life and the hereafter. THAT is what drives them and it is what has driven their predecesors of all faiths and none throughout history's bloody sweep.

All right. Here we come to the heart of the matter. I am wrong in ascribing "the CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology to the faith of Islam," when in fact, according to Mr. Poonawalla, this ideology could have come from anywhere, even the phone book, and after all, the holy texts of every faith have been used to justify violence.

Yet there seems to be a bit of confusion here. In the first place, it is the "extremists" themselves, not I, who "routinely" ascribe "the CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology to the faith of Islam." I have posted hundreds and hundreds of examples of this in the three years of Jihad Watch, and have many, many times asked moderate Muslims for some compelling Islamic refutation of the jihad theology. None has ever been forthcoming -- even from Mr. Poonawalla, who promised me in those cordial emails some anti-jihad material from Al-Azhar but never quite got around to getting it to me.

With jihadists daily recruiting for their ranks by appealing to the Qur'an and Sunnah, this is a grave and glaring omission. And it is not my doing. For it is not a matter of the jihadists using, in Mr. Poonawalla's words, "this or that Qur'an verse for their justification." Contrary to Esmay's repeated contention that finding justification for the jihad in the Qur'an is a matter of "cherry-picking" a few verses here and there that Muslims otherwise do not understand in a violent way, the jihad in order to establish the supremacy of Sharia is taught not only in the Qur'an, but in the Hadith, in the words and deeds of Muhammad, and by all the schools (madhahib) of Islamic jurisprudence.

Jihadists are well aware of this, and work hard to situate "the CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology" within "the faith of Islam." See, to take just one of many examples, this article I wrote a couple of years ago about a theological exposition by Zarqawi. In it, I wrote this:

Zarqawi’s tape amounts to a direct frontal assault on the glib and still oft-repeated assertion that the 9/11 attacks are condemned by Islam because Islam forbids the killing of innocent civilians. It is urgently to be hoped that all those courageous groups that identify themselves as forces for Muslim moderation...construct responses to Zarqawi that reason from Islamic principles....With this audiotape, Zarqawi has seized the intellectual and theological initiative within the global Islamic community, and reinforced the jihadist claim to represent “pure Islam” — a claim that has proved to be a potent recruitment tool among Muslims worldwide, as well as here in the United States. If moderates do not or cannot take that initiative from him, the consequences could reverberate across the world for decades to come.

Did I write Zarqawi's exposition of Islamic theology? Or any of the other similar writings by jihadists? Did I ask Zarqawi to invoke Muhammad's example when justifying his beheadings in Iraq? With respect, Mr. Poonawalla's focus is misplaced. He is shooting the messenger instead of dealing with the real problem: the Muslims who justify violence by referring to Islamic teachings, not the one who reports on their doing so -- me. He is asking me either to look the other way when they quote the Qur'an and invoke Muhammad, or else to tell people that they are doing so incorrectly.

Well, it is not up to me to say whether they are doing so correctly or incorrectly. I just report that they are doing so, and show the deep roots of their perspective in Islamic theology and sacred texts. That's just reality. It is up to peaceful Muslims to challenge this perspective among Muslims if they do not wish it to prevail.

What's more, Mr. Poonawalla himself acknowledges that jihadists act in view of "the benefits that they imagine such to accrue to them in this life and the hereafter." Now, where did they get the idea that they would receive such benefits? From the Qur'an, of course, which promises Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111), and from Muslim preachers worldwide who invoke that verse and others to justify suicide bombing. Is that not a "CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology" that is derived from and rooted within "the faith of Islam"? I believe it is. What does Mr. Poonawalla propose we do about this? Ignore it? Deny it is happening? I would rather he and other anti-jihadist Muslims confront and refute it, so as to try to discourage Muslims from having recourse to such actions in the future.

The result is that Robert's readers do indeed come to believe - fed upon a diet of one-sided interpretation as they are - that all muslims are the enemy, potentially.

Of course, I have never said that, in fact, but I have noted that the American Muslim community has made no effort to expel jihadist sympathizers from its ranks, and that some who were apparently moderates turned out to be deceivers. There has been no large-scale, organized effort of takfir by American Muslims: takfir is the process of declaring another group of Muslims to be unbelievers because of their heretical views. Why haven't American Muslims done this for Al-Qaeda, or Hamas, or Hizballah? And in the absence of such an effort, what are infidels to do? I look forward to Mr. Poonawalla's explanation of how non-Muslims in America can reliably distinguish between Muslims who sympathize with the jihad, and may someday act on those sympathies, and those who do not.

The only muslims that become non-threats are those that are externally non-muslim and secular.

That's false also. And I repeat: "any Muslim who renounces the ideologies of jihad and dhimmitude is most welcome to join forces with us."

Hence the popularity of the three Goddesses (Manji, Sultan, and Hirsi Ali) in their circles. Muslims such as myself have no margin for error - the slightest misstatement and we are damned, our motives and intentions pre-ordained. And the times we seek to reach out, we are dismissed as practicing taqqiya or decitful. Isn't it profoundly obvious how such alienation is counter to the self-interest of us all?

Esmay has denounced me repeatedly for taking issue with Ali Eteraz in this post. He has taken this as evidence that when Islamic reformers do appear, I condemn them as deceivers. In fact, you will find no such characterization of Ali Eteraz's motives in that post. But I do point out some rather glaring inaccuracies in his presentation. Why? Because if I can see them, knowledgeable Muslims can see even more -- and this attempt at "reform" will founder. I make no apologies for pointing out such things. Serious Muslims know what their religious texts say, and will not be moved by efforts at "reform" that pretend that large portions of those texts do not exist. Reformers should not ignore, but should refute, the jihad ideology. Why is that too much to ask?

The challenge I pose to Robert then is this: to simply acknowledge the fact that his work has attracted a community of hatred, and that is a problem. And not a harmless one, but rather one that genuinely hinders his very own cause.

Well, it's certainly true that CAIR and others have quoted unhinged comments from Jihad Watch -- which indicates that they can't find the "hatred" they're looking for in my own writings, so they have to resort to trying to hold me responsible for intemperate comments here. But as I have said many times, if you think I agree with the comment, provide evidence of that agreement from my own writings. If you can't, then the comment no more reflects on my own positions than do the comments of the many Islamic apologists and jihad apologists who also post comments at Jihad Watch.

But in any case, a "community of hatred"? No. There are angry people who come here, to be sure. But their anger is not without cause. I think that if Mr. Poonawalla and Dean Esmay had scolded Americans in 1943 for speaking in abusive terms about Germans and Japanese, they would not have found as sympathetic a hearing as Esmay does for his "Islamophobia" charges today. And this constant denial and shift of focus -- the blaming of me rather than the jihadists for using the teachings of Muhammad and Islam to justify their actions -- does nothing to assuage that anger. A "community of hatred"? No. A community of patriots, of lovers of Western civilization and human rights, of people who are passionately committed to defending those things.

In any case, comments are, when all is said and done, unmoderated. I don't have time to read most of them, especially these days, but when particularly abusive ones are brought to my attention, I do remove them. Unlike Esmay, who would not allow Jihad Watch commenters to comment in my defense at his site, I believe in freedom of speech, and that the antidote to bad speech is more speech. And I believe that if comments here offend Aziz H. Poonawalla, he should strive all the harder to eradicate the causes of that anger from the American Muslim community and from the umma worldwide.

Meanwhile, however, Esmay continues his attacks, with a screed against unmoderated comments at Little Green Footballs. Perhaps because I am not directly involved, his characteristic wall-climbing, straitjacket-worthy hysteria is not in evidence (if you like that sort of thing, check out his maniacal anti-Christian rantings in the comments field here), but he does make a number of simply false assertions:

The believer in the Taqqiya Libel against Muslims says that any Muslim can be assumed to be lying to you if you're not a Muslim. They further tell you that any Muslim who expresses hatred of terrorism, hatred of political violence, love for America, or love for Freedom is simply a liar. After all, the Koran "directs" them to lie about these things.

But of course the Koran contains no such direction. Taqqiya is only to be invoked in extreme circumstances, so as to avoid bloodshed and horror. Furthermore, Taqqiya is actually rejected by a majority of Muslims worldwide. Indeed, most conservative Muslim scholars say that "taqqiya" is just code-word for "liar" and that lying is never acceptable under Islam.

Of course, the idea that taqiyya means that "any Muslim can be assumed to be lying to you if you're not a Muslim" is absurd, but aside from that, his assertion that "the Koran contains no such direction" is false. For example: commenting on Qur'an 3:28, the great (and quite mainstream) Qur'an commentator Ibn Kathir says this: if believers "in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers," they "are allowed to show friendship outwardly, but never inwardly. For instance, Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda said, 'We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.' Al-Bukhari said that Al-Hasan said, 'The Tuqyah [or taqiyya, the shielding of what is in one's heart] is allowed until the Day of Resurrection.'"

Ibn Kathir, a pious Muslim and a renowned scholar whose work has been revered by Muslims for centuries, believes that the Qur'an allows believers to deceive unbelievers. Dean Esmay says that the Qur'an says no such thing, but gives no actual evidence beyond nameless authorities to support his view. And I'm an evil Islamophobe, repeating the equivalent of the blood libel against the Jews (Esmay makes the equation elsewhere in his post), for quoting an actual Muslim source (and I have many, many others that speak in the same vein) that says deception is acceptable, and pointing out that it is quite possible, and indeed probable, that some Muslims in the world today agree with Ibn Kathir. Get the picture?

Esmay also says that "Nowhere anywhere [sic] in the Koran is suicide bombing endorsed. This is yet another Libel against Muslims."

Call the Pentagon, Dean. You also might want to call in the authors of this detailed defense of suicide bombing on Islamic grounds for a little Islamic instruction.

Aziz H. Poonawalla wrote me again last Monday, saying: "Matoko clearly was mistaken, and I'll post ot that effect later. Also, Dean owes you an apology. Which I will make plain to him." "Matoko" is one of Esmay's favorite attack dogs, who doesn't seem to care how wild or inaccurate her charges are. See here and here, and so much for her. But so far no such post has appeared from Mr. Poonawalla. Instead, Esmay today links to a blogger who calls herself "Isis," who includes a gratuitous swipe at me in a post about how people should and should not talk about Islamic terrorism: "Reading Robert Spencer’s latest book or citing 'the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam' does not make you an Islamic scholar." I do not know "Isis" and had never heard of her before this afternoon, but I repeat the request of her that I have always extended to reasonable people, and even to Dean Esmay: rather than simply sneering, please show me where I'm wrong, and let's discuss these issues in a rational manner. But I know: it is easier to throw stones and set up straw men to knock down than to defend one's own position. So I'm not expecting anything.

Esmay, finally, has been spending quite a bit of time today discussing a Muslim soldier who was killed in Iraq, as if his death proves everything he charges about "Islamophobia." I suggest on the contrary that that soldier's memory would be far better served by an honest discussion by both Muslims and non-Muslims of good will of the elements of Islam that give rise to violence and fanaticism, and positive strategies developed for how both groups can work to neutralize this threat. But good will, it seems, is in short supply these days.

UPDATE: A Jihad Watch reader has notified me that Esmay keeps hammering, saying here: "Ditto idiots like Brian Macker who ran around claiming that no Muslim could be trusted until he entirely repudiated Muhammed and repudiated entire swaths of the Koran, and accused any Muslims who disagreed with his interpretations as being liars. Which is also, interestingly enough, what Robert Spencer does for a living." (Brian Macker is or was a commenter at Esmay's site.) Of course, Esmay would never be able to produce any actual statements I have ever made to back up this characterization of my work, but who cares about accuracy when you can puff your chest out with self-righteous rage? For the record, I do not interpret the Qur'an or any other Islamic texts. Never have, never will. I report on their contents, and on how jihadists use them. I ask moderate Muslims to formulate a reponse to those jihadists. And I will not be intimidated by Esmay's rabid fulminations against me, and repeated attempts at character assassination, into stopping doing so.

Hundreds march in French suburb one year after riots

No hint of the identity of these "youths" beyond their immigrant status. No hint of the fact that they are shouting, as they shouted last year, "Allahu akbar." French Intifada Update from AFP:

Hundreds of people marched in a silent tribute to two teenagers whose death exactly one year ago sent a wave of urban riots surging through France, sparking the country's most serious social crisis in 30 years.

French authorities were on alert for a new flare-up of violence after youth gangs, some carrying handguns, torched -- and in one case hijacked -- three buses near Paris on Wednesday, but police reported no major trouble overnight.

In Clichy-sous-Bois, the poor northeast Paris suburb where the riots erupted on October 27, 2005, around 1,000 people, most of them youngsters, filed quietly Friday morning past the spot where the two boys died.

"Once again, France and the world are watching us," the mayor of Clichy Claude Dilain told the crowd. "We need the calm, dignity and courage that are visible here to prevail. Let us show them who we really are."

"Let's not give anyone cause to point the finger at us," added local association leader Samir Mihi.

Many of the marchers wore white T-shirts printed with the words "Zyed and Bouna, Dead for nothing."

Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traore, 15, both from immigrant families of African descent, were electrocuted as they hid from a police patrol in a power sub-station.

Riots broke out in Clichy that night, quickly spreading to dozens of immigrant-populated suburbs in the Paris region and beyond.

Night after night for three weeks, youth gangs clashed with police, torching more than 10,000 cars and firebombing 300 buildings in around 275 towns, until order was officially restored on November 17.

With the approach of the anniversary, police and local mayors have warned that the conditions that led to the riots remain firmly in place in the poor out-of-town neighbourhoods, plagued by unemployment of 30 to 40 percent.

Nationwide, police were under orders to be vigilant but to keep their presence low-key, to avoid encouraging confrontations with youths, officers told AFP....

Last year's riots -- which led the government to declare a state of emergency, a measure not enacted since the Algerian war half a century earlier -- cast an unforgiving spotlight on France's trouble in integrating its Arab-origin and black communities.

Badly shaken by the crisis, the government promised measures such as an extra 100 million euros (125 million dollars) for local associations, bigger training schemes and a crackdown on racial discrimination for jobs.

Attack by Pakistani jihadists averted in India

"According to the police, Fahaad, a native of Karachi, is a post-graduate in Analytical Chemistry while Mohammad Ali is 9th standard pass from Manshera in Pakistan." A post-graduate in Analytical Chemistry, no doubt driven to jihad by his lack of education and grinding poverty. "Mysore: Two Pakistan militants nabbed," from DHNS, with thanks to Kisan:

MYSORE: The militants who are suspected to be the key functionaries of Al-Badr, a Pakistan-based militant outfit, were on a ‘specific mission’ to create terror in Karnataka, especially in Bangalore.

In a significant breakthrough against terrorism, a special team of Mysore City Police nabbed two Pakistani extremists after a shoot-out on the Outer Ring Road in Vijayanagar Police Station limits at around 12:10 am here on Friday.

The militants who are suspected to be the key functionaries of Al-Badr, a Pakistan-based militant outfit, were on a ‘specific mission’ to create terror in Karnataka, especially in Bangalore.

The militants have been identified as 24-year-old Fahaad (Pakistani identity) alias Nedu Thanni alias Mohammada Koya (Indian identity) and 22-year-old Mohammad Ali (Pakistan identity) alias Hussain alias Jehangir alias Asif Khan (Indian identity).

Acting on a definite information, the 12-member team led by Deputy Commissioner of Police K T Balakrishna intercepted the unsuspecting militant duo who were riding a moped at 12 am at the ring road. Sensing trouble, the militants opened fire at the police party from an AK-47 rifle. The DCP countered firing two rounds from his revolver before the police team overpowered the duo in a 10-minute-long gun-fire.

A police constable was injured on his forehead when a militant assaulted him with his rifle. The militants also suffered minor bruises during a scuffle with the police. The window panes of a police jeep were damaged in the crossfire.

According to the police, Fahaad, a native of Karachi, is a post-graduate in Analytical Chemistry while Mohammad Ali is 9th standard pass from Manshera in Pakistan. Two mobile phones, and a hi-tech satellite-based telephone (duo were speaking directly to militants in Pakistan via satellite) had been seized from them.

UN peacekeepers unlikely to disarm Hizballah: Russia

A Stop-The-Presses Alert from AFP (thanks to Jeffrey Imm): "UN peacekeepers unlikely to disarm Hezbollah: Russia":

MOSCOW - UN peacekeepers deployed in Lebanon are unlikely to be able to disarm the militant group Hezbollah, as required under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Friday, RIA-Novosti reported.

‘Under the UN mandate, one of the main functions of the peacekeepers is to disarm Hezbollah,’ Ivanov was quoted as saying by the state-run news agency. ‘I strongly doubt that the UN will fulfill this task.’

Ivanov said that concern over this aspect of the peacekeepers’ mission was one of the reasons Moscow decided to send a peacekeeping contingent to Lebanon under an accord reached separately with the Lebanese government, instead of under the UN mandate, RIA-Novosti reported.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 requires the Shia militant group Hezbollah, which fought a 34-day war against Israel in July-August, to disarm.

Peacekeepers are instructed to ensure the south Lebanon border area with Israel is ‘free of any armed personnel and weapons other than those of the Lebanese armed forces and UNIFIL (peacekeepers).’

Hezbollah guerrillas have kept a low profile since the resolution, but refused to disarm.

Eerie calm in Baghdad as Al-Qaeda vows victory

Iraqi Jihad Update by Dave Clark for AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BAGHDAD (AFP) - An eerie calm has descended on Baghdad during the weekly day of prayers after a Ramadan of unprecedented bloodshed in Iraq, while US troops scoured the city for a missing soldier.

Reports of violence in the war torn capital dropped in the three days since the end of the Islamic holy month, in part because thousands of US troops are deployed in the city hunting a comrade who was kidnapped by masked gunmen.

Police found the bodies of 11 murder victims on Thursday and overnight, a US military spokeswoman said Friday, a toll considered low by the standards of Baghdad's vicious dirty war between rival Sunni and Shiite death squads.

On Friday, US troops were still manning cordons around the Karrada district, where the soldier was kidnapped on Monday, and on the approaches to Sadr City, the Shiite militia bastion where they fear he is being held.

Meanwhile, with US casualties for the month so far running at their highest level in a year and 24 Iraqi police killed in an insurgent ambush on Thursday, the Al-Qaeda militant group issued a triumphant statement.

"We call on all mujahideen... to support the young Islamic state in Iraq. Weakness has gripped the infidel nations. The first signs of victory can be seen on the horizon," the group said in an Internet statement.

The message, which could not be independently authenticated, was issued in the name of the self-proclaimed Islamic Emirate of Iraq, which was declared on October 15 by a Qaeda-led coalition of Sunni insurgent groups.

[...]

His family report that he was seized from their home by gunmen, and the US military has said that Wednesday's raid was in part following up on a tip that his kidnappers were based in a Sadr City mosque.

Taleban accuse NATO of genocide, vow more attacks

Another pretext is fabricated to stir up rage among Muslims, thereby increasing jihad recruitment tallies. From Reuters, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan - The Taleban accused NATO forces of genocide on Friday after the latest in a series of civilian combat deaths, and said they would step up already rising suicide attacks.

The strict Islamist group’s one-legged military commander, Mullah Dadullah, also denied NATO charges the guerrillas used villagers as human shields in combat against foreign forces.

The warning came as a a provincial official said a bomb had killed at least 14 civilians in the rugged southern province of Uruzgan on Friday.

‘We want to inform the foreign forces and their slaves that their defeat is inevitable in Afghanistan,’ Dadullah told Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location.

‘The Taleban’s mujahideen are ready to fight until death and in the coming days will increase their activities and suicide attacks to such an extent that the infidel forces will not get a chance to rest.

‘The Taleban will not let the the killers of Afghan women and children rest in peace and will continue to target them.’

A review of Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad by Bruce Thornton

Bruce Thornton is a professor of Classics at Cal State Fresno and co-author with Victor Davis Hanson of Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age and author of Greek Ways: How the Greeks Created Western Civilization (Encounter Books). His most recent book is Searching for Joaquin: Myth, Murieta, and History in California (Encounter Books). This review appears at California Republic.

Ambrose Bierce once quipped that war was God’s way of teaching Americans geography. He could have said “teaching us history,” for the enemy is emboldened by our ignorance not just of where he lives but of how he lives, his beliefs and values, and to understand these traditions we must understand their history. Unfortunately, in the current war against Islamic jihad we persist in ignoring the documented history of Islam and its beliefs, accepting instead the spin and propaganda of various propagandists, apologists, and Western useful idiots.

This imperative to know the enemy’s beliefs is particularly important for understanding the jihadists, for Islam is a fiercely traditional faith, one brooking no deviation from the revelation granted to Muhammad and codified in the Koran, Hadith, and the sira or biography of the Prophet. As Robert Spencer shows in his invaluable resource The Truth about Muhammad, in these sources Muhammad is presented as “an excellent model of conduct,” as the Koran puts it, his words and deeds forming the pattern for all pious Muslims to follow. “Muslims,” according to Muqtedar Khan of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, “as a part of religious observance, not only obey, but also seek to emulate and imitate their Prophet in every aspect of life.” The facts of Muhammad’s life, then, are paramount for understanding the beliefs that warrant and validate jihadist terror.

Presenting those facts clearly and fairly is precisely what Spencer accomplishes in his new book. Spencer has been for years a bastion of plain-speaking truth. Through books like Islam Unveiled, Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades), and as director of Jihad Watch, Spencer has courageously presented the simple facts of Islamic history and thought that too many Americans, including some in the current administration, ignore or distort. Spencer’s new book continues this important service of arming us with the facts we need in order to understand an enemy who wants nothing from us other than our conversion, death, or subjection.

Basing his description of Muhammad on the same Islamic sources revered by believers themselves, Spencer paints a portrait of the Prophet unrecognizable to any who have been deceived by the idealizations of apologists like Farida Khanam, whom Spencer quotes as claiming that Muhammad’s “heart was filled with intense love for all humankind irrespective of caste, creed or color,” or the British religious writer Karen Armstrong, who claims that “Muhammad eventually abjured violence and pursued a daring, inspired policy of non-violence that was worthy of Ghandi.” Such fantastic delusions cannot stand up to the relentless quotations and facts Spencer gathers from Islamic sources, all of which show us a Mohammad justifying and practicing violence in the service of the faith he invented.

As Spencer traces Muhammad’s life, we see the behaviors practiced by today’s jihadists, who continually site the Prophet as their justifying model. The arrogant intolerance of any other religion finds its source in Muhammad’s assertion to Muslims, “Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah.” The rationalization of violence by invoking the hostility of unbelievers is also warranted by Muhammad: because of the rejection of him by his tribesmen the Quraysh, Allah “gave permission to His apostle to fight and to protect himself against those who wronged them [Muslims] and treated them badly.” Hence the various offenses fabricated by today’s jihadists to justify their aggression against the West. But Muhammad justifies not just defensive warfare but also violence in the service of the faith: “’Fight them [unbelievers] so that there be no more seduction,’ i.e., until no believer is seduced from his religion. ‘And the religion is God’s,’ i.e. until God alone is worshiped.” We see here the jihadist’s hatred of the West and globalization, whose political freedoms and hedonistic prosperity “seduce” believers from the faith.

As Spencer concludes, “The Qur’an . . . commands much more than defensive warfare: Muslims must fight until ‘the religion is God’s’––that is, until Allah alone is worshipped. Later Islamic law, based on statements of Muhammad, would offer non-Muslims three options: conversion to Islam, subjugation as inferiors under Islamic law, or warfare.” So much for the protestations of tolerance and co-existence constantly peddled by jihad’s Western publicists.

Every aspect of Islamic practice and belief finds its basis in Muhammad’s words and deeds. When Muhammad’s lieutenant Abdullah attacked a Quraysh caravan during a month when fighting was prohibited, Muhammad’s initial displeasure was changed by a “revelation” [i.e. from the angel Gabriel, who dictated the Koran to Mohammad] saying “persecution [i.e. of Muslims] is worse than killing,” and Abdullah was forgiven. “This was a momentous incident,” Spencer concludes, “for it would set a pattern: good became identified with anything that redounded to the benefit of Muslims, and evil with anything that harmed them, without reference to any larger moral standard. Moral absolutes were swept aside in favor of the overarching principle of expediency.”

As Spencer progresses through the Prophet’s life, the evidence for Muhammad’s model as the source of modern jihadist practice becomes overwhelming. The penchant for beheading enemies displayed by jihadists is validated by Muhammad’s decapitation of his enemy Abu Jahl after the battle of Badr against the Quraysh. A “revelation” after the battle codified this practice and linked it to the terrorizing of the enemy that would help Muslims prevail: “’I [Allah] will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.’ This because they contended against Allah and His Messenger: If any contend against Allah and His Messenger, Allah is strict in punishment.” Given that “contend against” can be defined as any activity that “seduces” believers or stands in the way of Muslim interests, the divine justification for the violence and terror perpetrated by jihadists from Indonesia to Africa, Israel to England is obvious.

So too with the practice of making tactical treaties and truces only to break them later. “If thou fearest treachery from any group, throw back (their covenant) to them, (so as to be) on equal terms: for Allah lovest not the treacherous,” a statement also revealing of the double-standard many Muslims take for granted when dealing with non-believers. Armed with this loophole, Muhammad moved against the Banu Qaynuqa, a Jewish tribe who had resisted Islam but with whom Muhammad had a truce. As Muhammad famously said, “War is deceit.” This precedent of deceit is obviously pertinent today, particularly for Palestinian Arab dealings with Israel. We have seen agreement after agreement signed by Arafat and others, only to be violated when circumstances seem to favor force.

The mistreatment of women, polygamy, child-marriage, stoning of adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves, mutilation of enemy corpses, the sentence of death for apostasy, the subjection of dhimmi or Christians and Jews, even the killing of writers who displease the faithful––remember the sentence of death against Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, still in force––all have their precedents in the things Muhammad said and did. And as Spencer documents in his conclusion, this invocation of Muhammad is continually made by the jihadist terrorists themselves, who accurately link their violence to incidents and sayings from the life of Muhammad. To pretend that these devout Muslims are ignorant of their own religion’s traditions or are “hijacking” them is willful blindness.

Perhaps the most important precedent established by Muhammad, however, and one at the root of modern jihadist violence, is the demonization of Christians and Jews. Centuries before the existence of Israel, the actions and words of Muhammad legitimized the hatred of Jews. As Spencer shows, this disdain and resentment reflected the powerful barrier the Jews of western Arabia presented to Muhammad’s new faith and ambitions, not to mention the extent of Muhammad’s borrowings from Jewish scripture and traditions. But the continuing refusal of the Jews to accept that Muhammad was the “seal of the prophets” eventually led to his war against these potent rivals, including the Qurayzah of Medina, 600-700 of whom were beheaded. This hatred was justified by calling the Jews along with the Christians “renegades” who had turned against God and the true faith of their ancestors. Thus throughout the Koran one finds codified an intolerance and hatred of Jews still infecting the Islamic world today. The notion of apologists that Islam offers tolerant accommodation to Jews and Christians is belied by verses in the Koran such as, “Oh ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors,” and in Ibn Ishaq's biography by comments about the Jews such as, “You brothers of monkeys, has God disgraced you and brought His vengeance upon you?”

Given all this evidence, as Spencer writes, “It is nothing short of staggering that the myth of Islamic tolerance could have gained such currency in the teeth of Muhammad’s open contempt and hatred for Jews and Christians, incitements of violence against them, and calls that they be converted or subjugated.” And this historical evidence is ratified by contemporary events that show modern Muslims following to the letter the example of Muhammad, from continuing persecution of Jews and Christians in Muslim lands, to the riots and calls for violence that attended (and validated) the Pope’s quotation of a Byzantine emperor’s observation that violence in the service religion is Islam’s sole innovation.

Spencer concludes with some common-sense suggestions, most importantly demanding that so-called “moderates” condemn jihad and teach against religious intolerance in their schools and mosques. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen, given the power of Muhammad’s example of enmity against unbelievers, and given the arrogant intolerance and unwillingness to compromise that typify too many Muslims. The anxiety about appearing “racist” and the sentimental idealization of the “other” dominating American society make it even more unlikely that any politician will challenge Muslims about the facts of Mohammad’s words and deeds that jihadists today use to justify their actions. Unless we heed people like Robert Spencer, it seems that only another graphic example of jihadist violence within our borders has a chance of teaching us the history of the enemy.

Fitzgerald: The necessity of understanding Islam

In the weeks just after 9.11.2001, the American government still did not understand Islam. It had spent the past fifty years not understanding Islam. It had spent the past fifty years thinking of Islam only as a "bulwark against Communism" and attempting to curry favor with such "staunch allies" as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, while taking an indignant stand against its main allies at Suez (when Nasser might have been, and should have been, knocked right down). It constantly pressured Israel after 1967 to give up the Sinai for worthless guarantees. Later, in the post-1967 world, with all that Kissinger "shuttle diplomacy" and then the Rogers Plan, and then a dozen other plans and schemes, not a single thing was done about the menace of OPEC. Nothing, or close to nothing, has been done to diminish these monstrous revenues in the one-third of a century since 1973.

Nothing has been done to prevent, or even to study or wonder about or question aloud, the policy of permitting the mass settlement of Muslims within the Western countries, a policy of criminal negligence toward all Infidel peoples by all Infidel governments. This policy has been based on sheer laziness and sheer unwillingness to learn enough about Islam, or to listen to the diminishing number of real scholars -- as opposed to Muslim and non-Muslim apologists carefully infiltrating and rising in the ranks of academic and government "experts" and "advisers" on Islam: John Esposito was consulted by the Clinton Administration; Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy by the French government; Tariq Ramadan was appointed to all sorts of E.U. commissions and is even now, in his pseudo-academic post at St. Antony's, "advising" the Blair regime that does not know where to put its feet and hands -- but its opponents promise no better.

Successive Administrations, and therefore the fates of the Americans whom they presume to protect and instruct, relied on all sorts of people of both parties who were equally ignorant of Islam or unwilling to consider the evidence of the their senses or of their minds. (And how many people who have risen to the top of the Washington anthill have the time and the leisure for reading and taking in, and beginning to comprehend, entirely new subjects?) They relied on all those who never understood Islam -- such people as Brzezinski with Carter (not to mention that "Iran" specialist Gary Sick), who masterminded the disaster of abandoning the Shah when he might have been saved. Or they relied on such people as Scowcroft the chocolate soldier and Baker the fixer, or Dennis Ross, merely the most earnestly comical, or comically earnest, of all those in Washington who spent their entire professional lives in the "peace process." What a phrase, what an idea whose time never came, and never could come! With all their absurd and exhausting and frenetic "peace-making," these peacemakers never figured out that the Lesser Jihad against Israel had no solution based on "negotiations" and "treaties."

And of course, the latest avatar of silliness and ignorance is that "two-state solution" that Condoleeza Rice thinks would be a wonderful achievement for the United States, as her remarkable, or rather incredible, speech to some American group "for Palestine" a few weeks ago demonstrated for all who possessed minds that could still be properly horrified. There is still not a hint that anyone in official Washington has ever read a thing about the Law of War and Peace in the Law of Islam. There is no evidence that anyone there has read Majid Khadduri or Robert Spencer or a hundred others who could explain, carefully, the essential role of the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya in Islamic law and practice, and why all treaties between Muslims and Infidels are meant on the Muslim side purely as "truces" and never to be permanent "peace treaties" -- because that would go against all of Islam, implying that some parts of the world could forever remain free from Islam, free to remain Infidel. Such an idea goes against everything in Islam, a belief-system that springs from a desire by the already-conquering Arabs to possess their own faith, one that would both justify and promote their conquest of Christians and Jews (and then Zoroastrians, and then still later Buddhists and Hindus) -- non-Muslim peoples far more advanced, wealthy, and settled peoples than the primitive Arabs who by force seized their lands in the Middle East and North Africa. Islamic theology has not changed in this essential division, so obviously reflected in the terms Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb.

No, one doubts that anyone in Washington has pondered or even heard of the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya, made by Muhammad with the Meccans in 628 A.D. and broken deliberately by him 18 months later. (His breaking of it, by the way, was later held to be an act of magnificent cleverness by Muslims, as Muhammad -- who said that "war is deception" -- proved a master at defeating, by any means, his enemies.) "Pacta Sunt Servanda" is the basis of Western treaty-making, but not of treaty-making in Islam. Every "peace treaty" signed by Muslims with Infidels is meant only as a "truce treaty." But why should Dennis Ross, or Condoleeza Rice, be expected to know about that, any more than they should be expected to know about the concept and definition of the "dhimmi," much less to have read Antoine Fattal's full treatment of the status of non-Muslims according to the Shari'a, the Holy Law of Islam? Why take Islam seriously, when Prince Bandar, and now Prince Al-Turki, offer such generous hospitality at their lavish receptions, and speak so well, so "forthrightly"? Why study ancient treaties when, after all, all kinds of Arab and Muslim leaders keep assuring us that all this business of Islam is just so much nonsense? Rice and the rest can look deep into their eyes, grasp their souls the way Bush grasped the soul of Vladimir Putin -- and see that what they say must be true.

Had the American government been properly prepared on 9.11.2001, it would have contained a sufficient number of people well versed in Islam, who therefore would have remained serenely and calmly comprehending of what had past, was passing, and was to come. Had such people been much in evidence on 9.12.2001, then the American government might have been thinking clearly. It might then have reacted not merely with anger, but with anger that had behind it well-prepared minds lucidly planning. These might have made the government of Pakistan an offer it couldn't refuse -- not about helping to find Osama Bin Laden, but rather on handing over those nuclear weapons it managed to acquire through the thefts and ISI funding of A. Q. Khan, lest its entire economy and country be destroyed (and the Americans, together with India, could do that). Instead, about Khan’s nuclear aid to North Korea and Iran, the Pakistani government announced this past week that it is "truly sorry" and it won't happen again, and by the way, why shouldn't Pakistan now get the same nuclear deal as India? I'll tell you why: because Pakistan is a Muslim state, with Muslim people in control. That's why. One might as well ask why we would not object if Australia acquired nuclear weapons but do object when North Korea does, or why it is necessary and proper for Israel to acquire such weaponry, which is the only thing that will ensure its survival and threatens no Infidel state, but on the other hand, neither "our ally" Egypt, nor "our ally" Saudi Arabia, nor any other Muslim state, can be allowed to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Might as well make that clear, if not say it quite so directly to those who complain. They can be given, rather, to understand.

There is, instead of rational analysis, a sensational aspect to the whole Bin Laden business: the caves, the Saudi plutocrat who becomes a kind of J. Worthwington Foulfellow with his sidekick Ayman al-Zawahiri, and all those solemn "terrorism experts" who, like Peter Bergen, still keep far away from the larger and more important questions but apparently can dine out in the American media and even elsewhere on the fact that they "met Bin Laden" or "travelled in Afghanistan" or "have studied Al Qaeda for years." That should be seen as part of the sensational, quasi-yellow press, and the lowering of standards all way round. Suppose someone knew every detail of Bin Laden's life? Or suppose the American government kills Bin Laden? So what? What does this have to do with the menace of islamization in Western Europe? How does this stop the Saudi-financed campaigns of Da'wa everywhere in the world, even among those who are Muslims (as in Niger, where the syncretistic local version of Islam, with its marabouts and unhijabbed women, has with Saudi money and influence been completely transformed, as has the practice of Islam in many sub-Saharan states)? That Da’wa proceeds, of course, also among Infidels who, out of their economic or psychic unsteadiness, have been correctly identified as ready (the readiness is all) for efforts to convert them. All this helps acquire more recruits, deep behind Infidel -- i.e., enemy -- lines, for the Army of Islam.

The "Hunt for Bin Laden" business (and all those books, and book-tours, by those "experts" who once saw Bin Laden plain) involves the perceived need to obtain the cooperation of the government of Pakistan by cancelling billions of dollars in debts and offering new billions in aid of all kinds. It involves not reading Pakistan the riot act about A. Q. Khan (he should be in American custody, subject to American grilling) and in not threatening complete economic destruction unless those nuclear weapons are given to the Americans "for safe-keeping." (The Pakistani government would not have had to announce this; it might have simply pretended that it still had them, to keep the primitive Muslim masses calm, or as calm as they can be.) All this has been a disaster. It has allowed Musharraf to present himself as something he is not, and Pakistan as something it is not. That misrepresentation continues to play on long-established innocences and dreams about "Islam" as essentially okay and unworrisome, if only the "moderates" can keep control.

And thus we have the fiascos we see all around us, including the fiasco of Iraq, where Bush, who once had an idea, and now that idea has him, still will not relent on his foolish squandering of men's lives, of money, of war materiel. He will not exploit, and certainly is incapable of welcoming, the ethnic and sectarian divisions that sooner or later will explode, and for our sake should explode. What's more, these divisions will have consequences for Shi'a-Sunni relations outside of Iraq, and possibly, if the Kurds get their state, for the relations between non-Arab and Arab Muslims (as with the Berbers in Algeria and in France). All this internecine warfare can only weaken the Camp of Islam. It would be useful for Europeans to observe this warfare, and to draw the necessary conclusions from it.

Within the Bilad al-Kufr, the Lands of the Infidels, there are still very few who comprehend the permanent menace of Islam to most forms of art, to the free and skeptical inquiry necessary for the enterprise of science, to individual rights and to mental freedom, and to all the legal and political institutions and social arrangements and understandings and assumptions upon which the advanced West is based. There is no sense of the peril to that which so many in that Western world, over several millennia of thought and effort, managed to achieve, and to all the artifacts they produced. Those who today call themselves "English" or "French" or "Italians" or "Americans" hold these achievements and artifacts merely in trust, as a legacy in which they have but a life estate. They have a duty to learn about them, and then having learned about to appreciate them, to defend them intelligently -- especially now, when it can be done at very little human cost, because the most effective weapons of the Jihad are the "wealth weapon," campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest.

As has been steadily insisted here for nearly three years, the "wealth weapon" can be countered by taxes on gasoline in the United States that rise in steady increments to far higher, possibly European levels, in taxes on all uses of oil, on subsidies to mass transit, on subsidies and all kinds of encouragement for solar, wind, and other forms of energy, including new ways to burn or to transform coal, and of course nuclear energy -- which should be seen, following the French example, as one of the best ways to diminish reliance on oil. Everything conceivable should be done. Because of the costs involved (and insurance for nuclear plants) governments, including the American government, should participate fully and eagerly. Nonsense about "letting the marketplace" decide will not do. No one said during World War II that the government should not fund the Manhattan Project. The diminishment of the Muslim "oil weapon" is essential. So too is the ending of all the transfers of hundreds of billions of dollars from Infidel peoples (unwillingly) by their governments (all too willing), to Muslim states and groups such as Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and the ineffable "Palestinians" -- about whom a veritable cult of aid has developed, not because the "Palestinians" themselves are worthy, but because of an unexpungable animus toward Israel, an animus that has been carefully cultivated by the Islamintern International and its supporters in the world press. It is used to encourage aid for the "Palestinians" and their quite unnecessary, and utterly phony, "plight."

As for campaigns of Da'wa, they can be constrained at every step, beginning with careful monitoring in prisons, aid to Christian missionary efforts, and the segregating of Muslim prisoners in separate buildings (for "security and administrative -- i.e., halal food and other observances -- purposes). Since black prisoners are a special target, why not employ black African refugees such as Sudanese "lost boys" to speak frequently in prisons about their experiences? Why not introduce the subject of the Arab slave trade and the use of Islam as a vehicle for Arab imperialism (the most successful imperialism in history, as yet not fully comprehended save, so far, by a few)? Why not discuss how the inshallah-fatalism of Islam encourages economic paralysis, and that only the false manna of oil managed to provide any prosperity for Muslims once they no longer had large numbers of non-Muslims within their lands upon which to batten?

As for demographic conquest, that can be halted. As the Infidel peoples wake up, they can not only halt, but reverse the immigration of the past three or four heedless decades, and undo much of what they stupidly permitted to be done. Just as the parents of young children try to "child-proof" their house, by all sorts of measures, so the Lands of the Infidels can be made, not welcoming, but unwelcoming, for the continued practice of Islam and calls for introduction of Sharia provisions in the West. We need not make allowances. We need not yield in the slightest to Muslim demands. We can be quick to detect the campaigns in the press that are designed to render us more susceptible to Islam, to focus only on the most inoffensive of the rituals (i.e., Ramadan) and not on what is written in Qur'an and hadith. Certainly the press has failed completely to deal with the figure of Muhammad and what he did, and what Muslims revere him for -- which is everything he said, and everything he did.

There has as yet been as little action over all this by the American government, paralyzed by Iraq, as there has been in dealing with its false allies -- such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and of course Pakistan.

But it will change. It will change because whatever Bush clings to, in 2008 a new President will have to promise, as Eisenhower promised to "go to Korea" and to end that war, to end promptly the now clearly misguided and wasteful effort in Iraq. It was misguided by March 2004, when the country had been thoroughly scoured for weapons of mass destruction. It is misguided if the goal is to weaken the Camp of Islamic Jihad (i.e., the Camp of Islam). And that should be the goal, whatever vague description of "victory" is in vogue today in Washington. That "victory" has actually never been clearly defined by our confused and confusing President, who cannot allow himself even the possibility of speaking clearly and lucidly on this subject -- for if he did, then his whole edifice built to date would come tumbling down, and in public.

Key trading town falls to Somali jihadists, as forces mass near Baidoa

The Islamic Courts fighters may be positioning themselves to attack the seat of the Somali government, as leverage for, or pending an expected outcome of peace talks scheduled for next week. Somali Jihad Update. "Somalia's Islamists take key town," from the BBC:

Fighters loyal to Somalia's Islamic courts have taken control of a key trading town from the transitional government without bloodshed.

They drove into Sakow on Wednesday evening moving closer to the seat of the interim administration in Baidoa.

Islamists are reported to be massing to the east of Baidoa, where government troops have been seen building defences with the aid of Ethiopian soldiers.

The opposing sides are due to meet in Sudan next week for peace talks.

There's a country that doesn't exactly leap to mind when "peace talks" are mentioned.

[...]

"It was simple because we did not encounter any fighting when we entered the town," Sheikh Hassan Derow, an Islamist commander told AFP news agency.

Residents of the town which is 170km south-west of Baidoa, said pro-government forces fled to the north.

The BBC's East Africa correspondent Adam Mynott says the pressure is building towards a confrontation between the two sides.

But the UIC said it dids not intend to attack the transitional government but would defend itself against Ethiopian forces.

"The Courts' forces are still in their positions to defend the town (Baidoa) against the Ethiopian troops which began to move towards the Courts' forces," leading Islamic Courts offical [sic] Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmad told the BBC.

Developing a pretext: "Defending" Baidoa.

NATO says Taliban using civilians as shields

The Taliban takes a cue from Hizballah, perhaps, in exploiting casualties caused by the use of human shields, a practice banned by the Fourth Geneva Convention (see Article 28). "NATO says Taleban using civilians as shields, as high toll feared," from AFP:

KABUL - The NATO force in Afghanistan Thursday accused the Taleban of using civilians as human shields, as authorities scrambled to verify reports that at least 60 people were killed in military strikes.

The International Security Assistance Force said it could not say how many civilians were killed in a series of operations in the southern province of Kandahar late Tuesday, but was helping Afghan authorities to find out.

ISAF said late Wednesday that 48 Taleban were killed in three engagements, including air strikes, in Kandahar’s Panjwayi area late Tuesday.

However, the chief of Panjwayi district, Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi, said he had reports that about 60 locals were killed in aerial bombing that also destroyed a number of houses.

Deputy director of Kandahar provincial council, Bismellah Afghanmal, put the figure as high as 85, but national authorities could not immediately confirm the local reports, which have in the past been exaggerated.

Asked about civilian casualties, NATO civilian representative Mark Laity said "at the moment we don’t know", adding any that had occurred were deeply regretted.

ISAF took great care to avoid civilian casualties, but the Taleban were mixing themselves among residents when attacked, NATO officials told reporters in the capital, Kabul.

"With insurgents who regard the population as a form of human shield for themselves, it obviously makes life very difficult for us, but it doesn’t stop us making every effort to ensure we minimise any problems," Laity said.

"We know that the public rely on us and expect us to take every care, and if they (civilians) are accidentally killed then it can affect (public) faith in us," he said.

ISAF was working with an Afghan defence ministry team that had been tasked to find out what had happened, he told reporters in Kabul.

"We are helping Afghan leaders there fly over the area to make an assessment," added ISAF spokesman Major Luke Knittig at the same briefing.

The force would also attend a shura (council) being convened in the area to discuss the matter, he said.

A misunderstood religion called Islam

T Thomas wrings his hands in the Business Standard of India over the widespread misunderstanding of Islam: not those committing violence in the name of Islam, mind you, but those who have the audacity to think that Islam may have something to do with inciting violence as a result.

We need to ask, is Islam perhaps a much-misunderstood religion. The 1993 bomb blasts, following the demolition of Babri Masjid, and the more recent July 2006 bomb blasts in Mumbai’s suburban trains have led many people in India to equate aspects of Islam with terrorism. The September 11, 2001, incident in New York turned most of the Western world to that way of thinking. Yet Prophet Mohammed never propagated violence while imparting his teachings. He urged his followers to fast and pray and to give a part of their wealth to charity. Many Muslims carry out these obligations very diligently even today. Muslims revere Jesus Christ as a prophet. According to Islam, Jesus did not die on the Cross and it will be Christ who will return on Judgment Day. In spite of this acknowledgement of Christ in Islam, the Christian West is more anti-Islam than even the Hindus of India, who suffered under Islam for five centuries.

"Prophet Mohammed never propagated violence while imparting his teachings." Except when he did. Get the whole story in my new book, The Truth About Muhammad. A couple of ahadith that T Thomas may have missed:

Narrated Abu Qilaba:

Anas said, "Some people of 'Ukl or 'Uraina tribe came to Medina and its climate did not suit them. So the Prophet ordered them to go to the herd of (Milch) camels and to drink their milk and urine (as a medicine). So they went as directed and after they became healthy, they killed the shepherd of the Prophet and drove away all the camels. The news reached the Prophet early in the morning and he sent (men) in their pursuit and they were captured and brought at noon. He then ordered to cut their hands and feet (and it was done), and their eyes were branded with heated pieces of iron, They were put in 'Al-Harra' and when they asked for water, no water was given to them." Abu Qilaba said, "Those people committed theft and murder, became infidels after embracing Islam and fought against Allah and His Apostle ."

It has been reported from Sulaiman b. Buraid through his father that when the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) appointed anyone as leader of an army or detachment he would especially exhort him to fear Allah and to be good to the Muslims who were with him. He would say: Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war, do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children. When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them....If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them.

There are many, many others like that. You'll find them in the book.

Jihad Watch at Hot Air: The price of apostasy

In this week's Jihad Watch segment at Hot Air, I discuss the implications of the Afghan jihadist demand that apostate Abdul Rahman be returned to Afghanistan in exchange for hostage Gabriele Torsello.

"Thousands" in Somalia enlist for jihad against Ethiopia

An update on this story. "Somali Islamists recruit for jihad against Ethiopia," by Mustafa Haji Abdinur for AFP:

MOGADISHU -- Somali Islamists have begun recruiting thousands of young fighters to fight a jihad against Ethiopia, officials said Wednesday, amid fears of all-out war across the lawless Horn of Africa nation.

A day after claiming to have captured an Ethiopian military officer in fierce weekend battles with a militia allied to Somalia's weak government, the Islamists said that at least 3,000 people had enlisted for combat in the holy war.

Many of the new recruits have signed up in the last two days, since the supreme leader of the powerful Islamist movement announced the start of a threatened jihad against Ethiopian troops alleged in Somalia, officials said.

"We have at least 3,000 young fighters who have now registered to fight the enemy of Allah," a senior official with the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SICS) official said in Mogadishu.

The newcomers, including women, will join what the Islamists claim are tens of thousands of battle-hardened gunmen who seized Mogadishu in June from warlords and now control most of southern and central Somalia.

The Islamic Courts are already making use of their training camps and registration centers:

"We have trained them to fight and that is religious obligation," said Sheikh Abdinur Farah, a senior Islamist commander who runs a jihad recruitment center in Qoryoley, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Mogadishu.

"Ethiopia has made clear its intention: that is a war against us," he said from the town. "So we are calling an open war against Ethiopia and every young fighter is welcome to join the jihad against the Ethiopian invaders."

Ethiopia and the Somali government have repeatedly denied eyewitness accounts of Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia, although Addis Ababa has said several times that it has sent trainers and advisors.

But mainly Christian Ethiopia has vowed to protect itself and the Somali government from the jihadists, whom, together with the transitional government, it accuses of links with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.

[...]

On Monday, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, chief of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) and a hardline cleric designated a "terrorist" by the United States, urged Somalis to take up arms against Ethiopian troops.

Several recruits from Qoryoley Wednesday said that they had been inspired to join the jihad by Aweys' speech in which he vowed that the graves of Ethiopian troops would "be littered everywhere in Somalia."

"I have been looking for somewhere to devote my passion for my religion and country," said 23-year-old Abdullahi Sidow Hassan. "Now that the righteous jihad has started, I have found it. Fadumo Isaq Duale, 20, a female student, echoed that sentiment. "I am ready to die for my religion because it is a religious obligation on every Muslim, be it man or woman," she said. "We have nothing to lose because Ethiopia is violating our religion and our land." Soaring tensions between the Islamists and the government and worsening security in south and central Somalia have forced tens of thousands to flee into neighboring Kenya and added to concerns of widespread conflict.

Taliban expands control in N. Waziristan after truce

The Taliban are solidifying their state-within-a-state in North Waziristan. "Taliban militias take control," by Isambard Wilkinson for the London Daily Telegraph:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Taliban militias in Pakistan have set up offices, introduced taxes and taken control of justice in the tribal agency of North Waziristan, where last month the government signed a peace agreement with militants.

In violation of the agreement, a Taliban shura, or council, distributed pamphlets of its policies while militants patrolled the area's streets. They have already killed numerous "American spies."

A "tax schedule" detailed how businesses are liable for paying charges to the Taliban. Trucks entering the agency will pay for a six-month pass, and gas-pump owners will have to make contributions to the Taliban shura. The taxes were described as a "donation" in the pamphlet.

The deal signed by the government on Sept. 5 stipulated that al Qaeda fighters were to be expelled from North Waziristan, and pro-Taliban militants were not to run a "parallel administration" or take part in fighting against coalition forces across the border. In return, Pakistani forces, who had been fighting local militants over the summer, withdrew from combat. The army retained the right to carry out strikes in the area if militants did not adhere to the deal.

But it was later discovered by Pakistani journalists that the deal was signed with wanted militants and not with tribal elders, as was officially claimed. Pakistani officials hoped the deal would empower tribal elders to control militants in their region, but an estimated 120 of them have been killed in the past year.

After the withdrawal of the army, a power vacuum was filled by mullahs and their long-haired, bearded, weapon-toting militants. According to Pakistani reporters, some of the militants wear badges that read: "Appointed by the office of the Taliban, the mujahedeen of the North Waziristan Agency."

Power is now in the hands of a so-called "mullahcracy" and people who Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf recently dismissed as hashish-smoking thugs who use the Taliban's mantle to coerce locals.

Maulana Abdul Khaliq Haqqani, a member of North Waziristan's Taliban shura, said his followers were abiding by the pact. But he said they still offered "moral support" to those fighting in Afghanistan.

"There is no doubt that we support this jihad against infidels, against these Christians who have invaded a Muslim land," he said.

Instead of crossing from Waziristan, fighters continue to cross into Afghanistan from other areas.

"If you can't go into Afghanistan from Waziristan, you can go from other areas. There are many, many other ways to go," a fighter from North Waziristan told Reuters news agency.

NATO officials in Afghanistan said militant activity has increased 300 percent in the border regions since the pact was signed.

"Youths" torch buses around Paris

The intifada continues in France. And this latest round of bus attacks shows that it is spreading to previously unexpected places. "Youths torch buses around Paris," by Cecile Brisson for AP:

PARIS - Youths forced passengers off three buses and set them on fire overnight in suburban Paris, raising tensions Thursday ahead of the first anniversary of the riots that engulfed France's rundown, heavily immigrant neighborhoods.

No injuries were reported, but worried bus drivers refused to enter some suburbs after dark, and the prime minister urged a swift, stern response.

The riots in October 2005 raged through housing projects in suburbs nationwide, springing in part from anger over entrenched discrimination against immigrants and their French-born children, many of them Muslims from former French colonies in Africa. Despite an influx of funds and promises, disenchantment still thrives in those communities.

About 10 attackers -- five of them with handguns -- stormed a bus in Montreuil east of Paris early Thursday and forced the passengers off, the RATP transport authority said. They then drove off and set the bus on fire.

Late Wednesday, three attackers forced passengers off another bus in Athis-Mons, south of Paris, and tossed a Molotov cocktail inside, police officials said. The driver managed to put out the fire. Elsewhere, between six and 10 youths herded passengers off a bus in the western suburb of Nanterre late Wednesday and set it alight.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the events "should lead to an immediate response."

"We cannot accept the unacceptable," he told reporters in the northern suburb of Cergy-Pontoise. "There will be arrests. ... That is our responsibility."

Villepin also said efforts should be directed to "revitalize" troubled neighborhoods, and repeated the government's insistence that authorities rid France of "lawless zones" where youth gangs operate.

The overnight attacks and recent ambushes on police have raised concern about the changing character of suburban violence, which is seemingly more premeditated than last year's spontaneous outcry and no longer restricted to the housing projects. The use of handguns was unusual -- last year's rioters were armed primarily with crowbars, stones, sticks or gasoline bombs.

Regional authorities said the Nanterre bus line, which passes near Paris' financial district, had not been considered at a high risk of attack. Francois Saglier, director of bus service at the RATP, said the attacks happened "without prior warning and not necessarily in neighborhoods considered difficult."

[...]

The transit authority in the Essonne region south of Paris on Wednesday suspended nighttime bus service for security reasons following "multiple incidents," including a tear gas bomb.

France's inability to better integrate minorities and recent violence against police are becoming major political issues as the campaign heats up for next year's presidential and parliamentary elections.

Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who is considering whether to run for president, said that attacks demonstrate "a desire to kill."

"Some individuals are looking for provocations, and sometimes go further," she said on i-Tele television. She acknowledged people facing unemployment and living in overcrowded housing projects "have trouble finding their place" in society.

Bali bombing pair freed on early release

More evidence of support for the jihad in high places in modern, moderate Indonesia. From AP, with thanks to DFS:

Two Islamic militants jailed for the Bali bombings that killed 202 people were freed yesterday and nine others had their sentences reduced to mark the end of the Islamic fasting month, officials said.

Indonesia traditionally cuts prison terms for inmates who exhibit good behavior on national holidays and the justice ministry said more than 43,000 convicts benefited this time.

But the decision to include convicted terrorists was likely to anger countries that lost citizens in the Oct. 12, 2002, attacks on two crowded nightclubs.

"After what I've survived, to see these people get rewarded ... it's something we Westerners just don't understand," said Australian Peter Hughes, who suffered burns over 54 percent of his body.

Yep.

Pakistani jihadists slam Musharraf, US in Eid sermons

It appears that Musharraf's recent book-tour attempts to present himself as only a reluctant anti-jihadist have not mollified the Islamic hardliners in Pakistan. "Pakistan Islamists slam Musharraf, US in Eid sermons," from AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

ISLAMABAD - President Pervez Musharraf led millions of Pakistanis in prayer on the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Fitr Wednesday, amid calls by Islamic hardliners for his ousting and for the defeat of the United States.

Security was heavy from the capital Islamabad to the southern port city of Karachi as people flocked to mosques and open air services, with thousands of extra police guarding places of worship and commercial areas.

Musharraf and senior officials offered prayers at the giant Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, where he later mixed with the congregation, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said.

In a message issued on the eve of Eid, Musharraf urged Pakistanis to counter terrorists and the “misleading propaganda of those possessing negative tendencies”.

But leading Islamist politician Qazi Hussain Ahmad used his Eid sermon to thousands of people in the eastern city of Lahore to oppose American policies and Musharraf’s support of the US since 2001.

“America and its allies will face defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan.... We will take back our land from American agents,” Ahmad said at the Mansoora complex of his Jamaat-e-Islami fundamentalist party.

Ahmad also said an alleged US threat to bomb Pakistan “back to the Stone Age” unless it backed the invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks was itself “a threat amounting to terrorism”.

Musharraf said in his memoirs published last month that former deputy US secretary of state Richard Armitage gave the warning to Pakistan’s then-head of intelligence in September 2001. Armitage denies the claim.

Meanwhile the founder of Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba Kashmiri militant group, Hafez Mohammad Saeed, called in a separate sermon for “holy war” against anyone who showed aggression towards Islam.

Aggression against Islam, of course, being any defense against the global jihad.

Iran expands uranium enrichment

One will recall that the original deadline was June 29 for Iran to respond to the incentives package proposal, some of which it is apparently receiving anyway in spite of its lack of compliance. Western diplomats said they would expect that response in "weeks, not months." Nearly four months later, nothing has happened.

Well, one thing has: Iran has expanded its capacity to enrich uranium, the very thing it was supposed to stop. "Iran expands controversial nuclear work," by Nasser Karimi, from AP:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has expanded its controversial nuclear work by starting a second cascade of centrifuges to enrich uranium, a semiofficial news agency reported Wednesday

The news came as world powers moved toward introducing a draft resolution in the U.N. Security Council that would impose limited sanctions on Iran because of its refusal to cease enrichment -- a process that can produce material for nuclear power reactors or weapons.

The Iranian Students News Agency quoted an anonymous official Wednesday as saying that Iran had started a second cascade of centrifuges two weeks ago and that "gas will be injected into the cascade during the current week."

"We will exploit the new product from the injection," ISNA quoted the official as saying, meaning that Iran would use the enriched uranium obtained by inserting gas into the centrifuges.

The report could not be immediately corroborated as Iranian officials were on holiday for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Neither the official Islamic Republic News Agency nor state television and radio carried the report by ISNA, an agency that receives state funding via the national universities.

Diplomats in Vienna said this week that Iran has started its second cascade of centrifuges in Natanz. The move violates a resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. watchdog group that has required that Iran cease all enrichment-related activity.

Iran produced a small batch of enriched uranium in February from a cascade of 164 centrifuges at its nuclear plant at Natanz in central Iran. Iran says it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz by the end of this year.

Production of enough uranium to fuel a reactor would require 54,000 centrifuges. Although Iran is nowhere near that goal, its successful operation of more cascades of centrifuges indicates the country is gradually mastering the complexities of producing enriched uranium.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday his country's nuclear capability had increased tenfold despite Western pressure to curb its atomic program.

[...]

The U.S. and its European allies are circulating a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would ban the sale of missile and nuclear technology to Iran and deny the country certain assistance from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there is "no choice" but to pursue sanctions against Iran after Tehran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

[...]

China and Russia, which can veto Security Council resolutions, are reportedly pushing for continued dialogue with Iran instead of punishment.

Online Fatwas Incite Young Muslims to Jihad

For centuries -- notably, although not universally, in central Asia, Eastern Europe, and West Africa -- jihad supremacism for many Muslims lay dormant and even dropped out of the Muslim consciousness. But now jihadists are using chapter and verse of Qur'an and Sunnah to teach their vision of Islam to cultural Muslims. And they are doing so quite often through the Internet.

From MEMRI:

In an article in the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh, columnist Fares bin Hazam reports that both preachers in mosques and online propaganda are inciting young Muslims to wage jihad. [1] An interview with a young Muslim who went to fight in Afghanistan, also in Al-Riyadh, provides first-hand testimony confirming this claim.

The following are excerpts from the article and the interview:
Saudi Columnist: Preachers in Mosques Urge Worshipers to Join the Jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan

Bin Hazam writes in his article: "The business with Afghanistan will never end as long as the 'duty of jihad' continues to live in [our] society, in mosques, in Friday [sermons], and on the Internet...

"After the fall of the Taliban and the subsequent Guantanamo crisis... there was increasing talk about the need to investigate our youth's growing [inclination] towards jihad, and about the need to search for the reasons that motivate them to go to Afghanistan and to other countries...

"The call to investigate these reasons is despicable; it is a tasteless joke. [One might think] that the reasons are unknown, that we are not aware of our situation [and need to conduct an] investigation in order to discover why [our young people] went forth and are still going forth [to wage jihad]... The reasons are obvious. Many of us know them, and there is no need for a scientific study or for any other [kind of study] to reveal them...

"Since the causes are known, do we lack courage to deal with [this problem]? [I believe that] we do. Our lack of courage has been apparent ever since we invented the excuse of 'external [influences],' and began to toy with it and wave it at every opportunity. I do not know where these [external influences] come from, since it was we who sent our young men [to Afghanistan] in the first place, before we ever heard of [these influences] that allegedly come [from outside].

"Some preachers, [namely] those who fear the censor, deceive him by being implicit in their incitement to [wage] jihad in Iraq or Afghanistan. They speak in their sermons about the merits of jihad without mentioning a particular region. They speak in general terms that can be applied to any location, even to our [own] country. During the prayer, the details start to pour in thick and fast: first, [a call to wage jihad] in Palestine, [which serve as] a smokescreen, and then [calls for jihad] in Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya, and finally... the call 'oh Allah, grant them victory everywhere!' 'Everywhere' includes our [own] country... and we say 'amen' after the preacher calls [upon Allah] to help the mujahideen in our [own] country..."

Read it all.

Jihadis turn from Iraq back to Afghanistan

While many Western analysts continue to portray them as a series of nationalist struggles, the jihads in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Iraq and elsewhere continue to attract many fighters from other countries, who wish to participate in jihad in the way of Allah -- jihad fi sabeel Allah. "Jihadis turn from Iraq to Afghanistan: Western forces offer more inviting targets," by Sebastian Rotella in the Chicago Tribune:

PARIS -- The conflict in Iraq is drawing fewer foreign fighters as Muslim extremists aspiring to battle the West turn their attention back to the symbolically important and increasingly violent turf of Afghanistan, European and U.S. anti-terror officials say.

The shift of jihadis to Afghanistan this year suggests that Al Qaeda and its allies, armed with new tactics honed in Iraq, are coming full circle five years after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban mullahs.

Until Sept. 11, 2001, Afghanistan was the land of jihad, hallowed ground where fighters from across the Muslim world helped vanquish the Soviet Union in the 1980s, fought alongside the Taliban in the 1990s and filled terror training camps overseen by Osama bin Laden. Loss of the Afghan sanctuary scattered the networks and sent bin Laden fleeing toward the Pakistani border region, where many anti-terror officials believe he remains.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, jihadis from the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and Europe flocked to confront the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Although foreigners have been a minority in the Iraqi insurgency, militants such as Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi played a major role in spectacular suicide attacks and kidnap-murders.

But insurgent leaders in Iraq are now mainly interested in foreign recruits ready to die in suicide attacks, anti-terror officials say. Moreover, the conflict is dominated by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. In contrast, an accelerating Afghan offensive by the resurgent Taliban offers a clearer battleground and a wealth of targets: U.S. and other NATO troops and the Western-backed government.

As Iraqis have solidified control of their insurgency, the movement of foreign jihadis to Iraq has "significantly declined in recent months," said Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, director of the DST, France's lead counterterror agency.

"There is less need for them in Iraq because there's a need above all for kamikazes, and there are not an infinite number of volunteers," said Bousquet, whose agency works closely with U.S., European and Arab counterparts. "The Iraqi insurgency is now very well organized around Iraqis. Those who want to fight, but not necessarily to die as martyrs, go elsewhere."

Bousquet said anti-terror agents have detected a new flow of militants heading to Afghanistan, where more than 1,000 French soldiers are among the approximately 40,000 foreign troops deployed.

A leap in violence in Afghanistan this year has featured tactics such as suicide and roadside bombings that are trademarks of the insurgency in Iraq, according to Bousquet and other officials. Despite decades of warfare, suicide bombings were rare in Afghanistan. But the number of such attacks has shot up from 6 in 2004 to at least 78 so far this year.

Jihadis from North Africa make the odyssey to Afghanistan through routes that converge in Pakistan, another senior French anti-terror official said.

The Truth About Muhammad: It could be anywhere

I received this email from Jihad Watch reader Paul:

Entering a local Borders outlet tonight, I noticed that front and center on the "New Non-Fiction" table was Karen Armstrong's "Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time." That set me to wondering whether "The Truth About Muhammad" was in stock. I looked in the Religion section and found Armstrong and Emerick's biographies, but not yours. Checking on the store's computer, I found it had been placed in the Middle Eastern History section -- well away from every other book on Muhammad. This was annoying enough to prompt me to take a copy up to the "New Non-Fiction" table and set it right by Armstrong's tome.

Earlier I received a report of another Borders where The Truth About Muhammad was classified in the "Christian fiction" section.

They can hide the book, but they can't hide the truth forever.

Indian PM: "Credible evidence" of Pakistani involvement in 7/11 blasts

Friend and Ally Update: "Credible evidence' of Pak involvement in 7/11 blasts: PM," from ZeeNews.com, with thanks to DFS:

New Delhi, Oct 24: In the midst of a controversy over National Security Advisor M K Narayanan's comments, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said there was "credible evidence" of Pakistani involvement in the July 11 train blasts in Mumbai.

"All I can say is that there is credible evidence", he told reporters who asked him about the comments made by Narayanan that there was "pretty good" but not "clinching" evidence of ISI's involvement while Union Home Secretary V K Duggal spoke of fairly solid evidence.

On the Indo-Pak joint mechanism to fight terrorism, he Said, "it is a trial. We have to experiment... we have to talk as we are not going to war with Pakistan".

Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who will be the new External Affairs Minister, said India will share information with Pakistan regarding the Mumbai blasts and see the response from the other side.

"We will exchange information with Pakistan. After that we have to see how they react," he said.

No doubt with outrage and obfuscation.

Ansar al-Sunnah Celebrates Eid al-Fitr and Calls on Iraq’s Muslims to Support the Mujahideen

Eid Mubarak and Death to the Grandsons of the Monkeys and Pigs from Ansar al-Sunnah! The Qur'an says in three places that Allah changed the Jews who broke the Sabbath into monkeys and pigs: 2:62-65, 5:59-60, and 7:166.

From the SITE Institute, with thanks to James:

Offering congratulations to the Islamic Ummah on the Eid al-Fitr, Ansar al-Sunnah issued a message, today, Monday, October 23, 2006, calling on Iraq’s Muslims to support the Mujahideen. The message asks “all capable Muslims in Iraq…who are able to give, men and women, young men and elderly, Islam needs you, needs all of you, to remove the obstacles from in front of the Tawhid doctrine and defend, worship, and uproot the bad things from the earth.”

Looking at the current events in Iraq, the author sees “a starting point for the Mujahideen toward their goals,” and an “awakening of jihad.” The author claims that jihad is the only way to liberate Iraq from occupying forces. Speaking to those who have not yet joined the jihad, the author asks, “When shall we hear the echo of your strikes, which should follow in the battlefield?”...

On behalf of the Mujahideen, the author asks Allah for revenge “for every Muslim whose blood was spilled by the hands of the grandsons of the monkeys and pigs and their helpers.” The message concludes with a prayer seeking revenge against the occupying forces: “We ask God for our brothers the Mujahideen, support the victory and make us able to hurt Allah’s enemies, for revenge for every Muslim whose blood was spilled by the hands of the grandsons of the monkeys and pigs and their helpers…O God, please grant victory to the worshippers and Mujahideen in Iraq, and everywhere in the Muslim lands.”

Afghanistan: Taliban ask kidnappers to release Italian journalist

You know you're bad off when the Taliban complains that you're giving them a bad image. In any case, they probably find this embarrassing because Torsello is a Muslim. Gabriele Torsello Update: "Afghanistan: Taliban Ask Kidnappers to Release Italian Photojournalist," from AKI:

Lashkar Gah, 24 Oct. (AKI) - The Taliban have called on the kidnappers of the Italian photojournalist Gabriele Torsello to release him saying that it was not fair to avenge Italy by killing the innocent reporter, according to a report on the website of the Pajhwok Afghan News. Speaking from an undisclosed location via telephone on Tuesday, an alleged spokesperson for the Taliban, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, told Pajhwok News that they had tried several times to contact the kidnappers but had not succeeded.

"Kidnappers of the Italian journalist are robbers and they have abducted the journalist for handful money," Ahmadi was quoted as saying in the Pahjwok News story. "We will drag the abductors to court if we find them."

Ahmadi told Pahjwok news that the Taliban had earlier guarded the Italian journalist during his two-day stay in Musa Qala and three-day stay in Sangin districts. The Taliabn spokesperson said Torsello's kidnappers wanted to "defame" the Taliban with such an act.

Torsello, a Christian who converted to Islam, was kidnapped between October 12 and 14 while he was travelling from Lashkar Gah, the capital of the volatile Helmand province to neighbouring Kandahar - the two parts of the country where fighting between insurgents and NATO forces is fiercest.

Italy's defence minister Arturo Parisi has categorically rejected the demands by the kidnappers of the Italian photojournalist to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in order to secure his release.

After initially offering to hand over Torsello in exchange for the return of a Christian convert, Abdul Rahman, who has been granted asylum in Italy, last week the captors - who claim to be Taliban militia but whose identity has not been determined - said if that were not agreed to they would insist on a complete pullout of Italy's 1,800 troops in Afghanistan.

The kidnappers had warned they would kill the journalist by Monday midnight if the Afghan Christian convert Abdul Rahman was not handed over to an Islamic court for trial and Italian soldiers left Afghanistan.

Spencer: Death to the Apostates

At FrontPage this morning I discuss the demand from Afghan jihadists that apostate Abdul Rahman be returned (news links in the original):

An Afghan citizen named Abdul Rahman, you may recall, made international news last spring, when his conversion from Islam to Christianity led to his arrest, with the intention of putting him on trial for apostasy. At that time he was spirited away to safety in Italy. Now jihadists in Afghanistan are demanding his return to Afghanistan in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist, Gabriele Torsello. “We want this issue resolved before the end of Ramadan,” his captors demanded, but no resolution seemed imminent as the holy month drew to a close.

It is safe to say that if Italian authorities agreed to turn over Abdul Rahman to the kidnappers, the convert would almost certainly be killed for his crime of apostasy from Islam. Yet at the time of Abdul Rahman’s arrest, puzzled Western analysts pointed to what they thought were guarantees of freedom of religion and of conscience in the new Afghan Constitution: after all, didn’t the document pledge “respect” for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Didn’t it say, “followers of other religions” were “free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law”?

Indeed it did, but what were the “limits of the provisions of law”? The Constitution itself made the answer abundantly clear: “In Afghanistan,” it stipulated, “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.” It mandated that the President swear an oath to “obey and safeguard the provisions of the sacred religion of Islam,” and only secondarily “to observe the Constitution and other laws of Afghanistan and supervise their implementation.” What’s more, it stated that “the provisions of adherence to the fundamentals of the sacred religion of Islam and the regime of the Islamic Republic cannot be amended.”

Most non-Muslim observers missed the significance of these provisions, and especially the danger they posed to converts like Abdul Rahman and to the freedom of conscience in general. This is understandable, however, since so many Muslims in the West maintained that Islam contained no provision against apostasy. Typical of this was “Leaving Islam is not a capital crime,” a Chicago Tribune article published by M. Cherif Bassiouni, a professor of Law at DePaul University and President of the International Human Rights Law Institute, when Abdul Rahman was arrested. “A Muslim’s conversion to Christianity,” Bassiouni wrote, “is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law, contrary to the claims in the case of Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan.” Several Muslim spokesmen have insisted the same thing to me in radio debates, excoriating me as “Islamophobic” for pointing out that many Islamic texts do indeed call for apostates to be killed.

Yet the idea that the death penalty for apostasy has always been an element of the “fundamentals of the sacred religion of Islam” is something that some Muslims have made no effort to deny or conceal. IslamOnline, a site manned by a team of Islam scholars headed by the internationally influential Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, explains, “if a sane person who has reached puberty voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be punished. In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (or his representative) 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.” And if someone doesn’t wait for a caliph to appear and takes matters into his own hands? Although the killer is to be “disciplined” for “arrogating the caliph’s prerogative and encroaching upon his rights,” there is “no blood money for killing an apostate (or any expiation)” – in other words, no significant punishment for the killer.

These laws are rooted in the words and deeds of Islam’s prophet, as I explain in my new book, The Truth About Muhammad. When he “forced his entry” into Mecca, according to his ninth-century biographer Ibn Sa‘d, “the people embraced Islam willingly or unwillingly” (Ibn Sa‘d, II.168). The Prophet of Islam ordered the Muslims to fight only those individuals or groups who resisted their advance into the city – except for a list of people who were to be killed, even if they had sought sanctuary in the Ka‘bah itself. One of those was Abdullah bin Sa‘d, a former Muslim who at one time had been employed by Muhammad to write down the Qur’anic revelations; but he had subsequently apostatized and returned to the Quraysh. He was found and brought to Muhammad along with his brother, and pleaded with the Prophet of Islam for clemency: “Accept the allegiance of Abdullah, Apostle of Allah!” Abdullah repeated this twice, but Muhammad remained impassive. After Abdullah repeated it a third time, Muhammad accepted.

As soon as Abdullah had left, Muhammad turned to the Muslims who were in the room and asked: “Was not there a wise man among you who would stand up to him when he saw that I had withheld my hand from accepting his allegiance, and kill him?”

The companions, aghast, responded: “We did not know what you had in your heart, Apostle of Allah! Why did you not give us a signal with your eye?”

“It is not advisable,” said the Prophet of Islam, “for a Prophet to play deceptive tricks with the eyes.”

Apostasy from Islam had always been for Muhammad a supreme evil. When he was master of Medina, some livestock herders came to the city and accepted Islam. But they disliked Medina’s climate, so Muhammad gave them some camels and a shepherd; once away from Medina, the herders killed the shepherd, released the camels and renounced Islam. Muhammad had them pursued. When they were caught, he ordered that their hands and feet be amputated (in accord with Qur’an 5:33, which directs that those who cause “corruption in the land” be punished by the amputation of their hands and feet on opposite sides) and their eyes put out with heated iron bars, and that they be left in the desert to die. Their pleas for water, he ordered, must be refused.

The traditions are clear that one of the main reasons that the punishment was so severe was because these men had been Muslims but had “turned renegade.” Muhammad legislated for his community that no Muslim could be put to death except for murder, unlawful sexual intercourse, and apostasy. He said flatly: “If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.”

It stains credulity, in light of all this, that Islamic apologists in the West assert that, in the words of one Ibrahim B. Syed, President of the Islamic Research Foundation International of Louisville, Kentucky, “there is no historical record, which indicates that Muhammad (pbuh) or any of his companions ever sentenced anyone to death for apostasy.” This kind of assertion may be comforting to non-Muslims who would prefer to believe that the capital charges levied against Abdul Rahman were some sort of anomaly. Unfortunately, this claim simply does not accord with the facts of Muhammad’s life. That such assertions pass unchallenged only underscores the need for Westerners to become informed about the actual words and deeds of Muhammad – which make the actions of Islamic states and jihad groups much more intelligible than do the words of Islamic apologists in the West.

The kidnappers’ demand that Abdul Rahman be returned to Afghanistan illustrates the hollowness of the arguments we hear all the time – about how we must support self-proclaimed moderate Muslims like Bassiouni by refraining from noting the flimsiness and weakness of their presentations. While we’re being polite to alleged “reformers,” Muslim hardliners are cheerfully implementing the elements of Islamic law that bemused non-Muslims are nodding their heads and agreeing don’t exist.

It’s good that the Italian government shows no sign that it is considering returning Abdul Rahman to Afghanistan. It would be better if the United States government, on which the Afghan regime depends for its continued survival, called upon the Afghans to drop the Sharia provisions from the nation’s Constitution, and affirm in unequivocal terms freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. For the kidnappers’ action has placed the Afghan government in a peculiar position. What can Afghan officials say? That they don’t want the kidnappers to get hold of Abdul Rahman, because they want to kill him themselves? The kidnappers’ demand is an unpleasant reminder that United States has deposed one Shari'a regime in Afghanistan, that of the Taliban, only to replace it with another. The State Department should call upon the Afghans to seize on the occasion of this demand to call for a searching reevaluation of the role of Islam in Afghan public life. But this, of course, is even less likely to happen than Abdul Rahman’s return to Afghanistan. One certainty is that people will continue to suffer for freedom of conscience in Afghanistan – under the indifferent eye of the U.S. military.

Spencer speaks to Joint Terrorism Task Force

I am in Norfolk, Virginia, today, where I led a half-day workshop on the sources of the jihad ideology for the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Jihadist holiday video calls for jihad and slaughter of "Crusaders"

Eid Mubarak from Al-Qaeda! "Islamist Holiday Video Calls for Jihad and Slaughter of 'Crusaders,'" from MEMRI:

This ten-minute video (http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=M4-006&ak=null ), titled "Rise Up," was posted on Islamist websites on October 22, 2006, and was described as "a gift for 'Eid Al-Fitr." Produced by an individual identified as "Abu Osama" (whose real identity is unknown), it calls on the Muslims to wage jihad against the "Crusaders." A caption in the film explains that Abu Osama produced the film on the occasion of the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq.

The film begins with footage of horsemen under the caption: "O ye who believe! What is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter" (Koran 9:38).

Next, several Al-Qaeda leaders and commanders, including bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, Al-Zarqawi and a number of unidentified young men (who may be field commanders or intended suicide bombers) call upon the Muslims to join the jihad. The following are excerpts:

Al-Zawahiri says: "I urge you, in [the name of] the duty of jihad, which is incumbent upon every Muslim, to hurry and pursue martyrdom in order to kill the Crusaders and the Zionists." An armed individual calls: "[Oh] defenders of the faith, hurry and prepare [for jihad], this is no time for [internal] disagreement." Another individual, sitting under a banner that reads, "Expel the polytheists from the Arabian Peninsula," asks: "Are there no men in this nation?" and a masked individual declares: "Jihad is ancient, and the fate of [all] infidel leaders is one and the same: to be slaughtered."

The video then shows a scene in which a man is beheaded. This is followed by another beheading, even more grisly, in which the severed head is waved in the air.

Taliban plotting attacks in Europe: commander

In revenge for the invasion of Afghanistan. But 9/11, of course, preceded that invasion, and provoked it. So 9/11 was in revenge for something else. And if the West keeps daring to resist the mujahedin, they will find more pretexts for revenge. The only way we could take away their thirst for revenge would be to stop resisting them in any way.

From AFP, with thanks to DFS:

LONDON : Afghan militants are planning to launch deadly attacks on civilians in Europe in revenge for the 2001 invasion by US-led forces, a Taliban commander said on Sky News television on Monday.

Mullah Mohammed Amin said resurgent militants had built up stockpiles of weapons and were bent on vengeance against "the foreign invaders".

The Taliban, overthrown by the invasion, now wanted to export terror to the West, he said.

"It's acceptable to kill ordinary people in Europe because these are the people who have voted in the government," he said.

"They came to our home and attacked our women and children," he added. "The ordinary people of these countries are behind this - so we will not spare them. We will kill them and laugh over them like they are killing us and laughing at us."

Amin said the Taliban was inspired by tactics used by insurgents in Iraq, namely remote-controlled bombs, land mines and suicide bombers.

"They are our best tactic," he said.

Less jihadist sentiment in US than in Europe -- because Muslims are less religious

"We weren't isolated growing up. We were part of the culture," says Hala Kotb. "Religion was important, but not so much that you'd have to cover your head or if you don't pray five times a day, that's it - nothing like that. There were a lot more progressive attitudes." That is a big contrast to the Islamic enclaves in Europe.

This is a major admission -- that more Islam leads to more Islamic violence. And the relatively high levels of assimilation here are indeed encouraging, but "for now" may be the most important words in this report, since assimilation (cf. Maher Hawash) will not ultimately be enough to counteract the effect of the jihadist appeal to the Qur'an and Sunnah when seeking recruits.

"Radical Islam finds US 'sterile ground': Home-grown terror cells are largely missing in action, a contrast to Europe's situation," by Alexandra Marks in The Christian Science Monitor, with thanks to Mackie:

NEW YORK – The Islamist radicalism that inspired young Muslims to attack their own countries - in London, Madrid, and Bali - has not yielded similar incidents in the United States, at least so far.

"Home-grown" terror cells remain a concern of US law officers, who cite several disrupted plots since 9/11. But the suspects' unsophisticated planning and tiny numbers have led some security analysts to conclude that America, for all its imperfections, is not fertile ground for producing jihadist terrorists.

To understand why, experts point to people like Omar Jaber, an AmeriCorps volunteer; Tarek Radwan, a human rights advocate; and Hala Kotb, a consultant on Middle East affairs. They are the face of young Muslim-Americans today - educated, motivated, and integrated into society - and their voices help explain how the nation's history of inclusion has helped to defuse sparks of Islamist extremism.

"American society is more into the whole assimilation aspect of it," says New York-born Mr. Jaber. "In America, it's a lot easier to practice our religion without complications."...

Jaber, the AmeriCorps volunteer, who is studying to become a medical doctor, says he has not experienced anti-Muslim bias. In part, he says, that may be because he doesn't have an accent or look particularly Middle Eastern - his father is Palestinian and his mother Filipino. But he also credits America's melting-pot mentality, as does Ms. Kotb, the Middle East consultant.

"We weren't isolated growing up. We were part of the culture," says Kotb, who grew up outside Washington in a family that inculcated a success ethic. "Religion was important, but not so much that you'd have to cover your head or if you don't pray five times a day, that's it - nothing like that. There were a lot more progressive attitudes" within her local Muslim community.

In mosques in America, it's fairly common for imams to preach assimilation, says Mr. Zogby. That's not as true in Europe, particularly in poorer neighborhoods where sermons can be laced with extremism.

"The success of ... Saudi-inspired religious zealotry in Europe was in large part because the Saudis put up the money to build mosques and pay for imams," says Ian Cuthbertson, a counterterrorism expert at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research. "The American Muslim community was rich enough not to require Saudi money to build its mosques."

In Europe, it's estimated that millions of second- and third-generation Muslims have not been well assimilated in their adopted countries, so have little or no fealty to either the European country they live in or the one their parents were born in. "They are much more susceptible to the Internet, returning jihadist fighters, and extremist imams," says Thomas Sanderson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There's no doubt that Europe has an incubator environment and we have a somewhat sterile environment for radicalism."...

Identifying and tracking home-grown terrorists is a complicated task - one that risks alienating or even infuriating the general Muslim-American citizenry if tactics are seen as unfair....

US foreign policies "in the long term are going to hurt the US," says Mr. Radwan, the human rights activist, who works in Washington. "They, along with the crackdown on Muslim-Americans [by law enforcement], feed a feeling of resentment and the perception that the US acts on the basis of a double standard."

Indeed, America's Muslim community would wage the war on terror differently. According to the 2004 Zogby survey, three-quarters say the best way is for the US to change its foreign policy in the Middle East by recognizing a Palestinian state and being less supportive of Israel....

Give us what we want peacefully, and we won't resort to violence. But of course abandoning Israel would do nothing to end the jihad in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Chechnya, Nigeria, etc. More concessions would have to follow, until there would be nothing more to concede.

That experience leads him to suggest another reason the US hasn't seen European-style homegrown terror cells: the intense scrutiny the FBI has focused on Muslim-Americans. "That is good in the short term, but bad in the long term," he says. "The Bush administration policies feed resentment that ... will stay in the Arab- American psyche for a long time."

In other words, fighting jihad terrorism just leads to more jihad terrorism -- they're in effect saying, Lie down and die, please, Mr. Bush.

Burka-clad woman unchecked at airport

It could have been Osama bin Laden himself, for all authorities knew or cared. Keystone Kops Alert from Eurabia, via the Copenhagen Post, with thanks to Fjordman:

A reporter from daily newspaper B.T. dressed in a burka was able to pass through at Copenhagen's Kastrup Airport without being asked to reveal her face to security personnel.

Burkas are an item of Muslim clothing worn by women and exposing only the hands and eyes of their wearers. B.T.'s female reporter was required only to pull down the outfit's veil past her nose when passing through the security checkpoint.

The reporter flew from Copenhagen to London Stansted airport, where she was required to fully reveal her face to security personnel there - both on the incoming and return flights.

Police acknowledged that the woman should have been checked more thoroughly, but said the incident will not lead to any procedural changes for airport security.

Sure. Why should it? How would procedural changes for airport security address the root causes -- American and Zionist imperialism -- anyway?

(Note for the incurably literal-minded: that last paragraph was sarcastic.)

Spencer on Podcast...and CNN

Part II of the Shire Network News podcast interview with me about The Truth About Muhammad is now available here. And part I is here.

The media blackout on this book, despite its status as a New York Times Bestseller, is near-total. But after all, that is what the Internet is for.

Meanwhile, near-total is not absolutely total. Later on today I'll be taping an appearance on CNN Headline News with Glenn Beck. I believe it will air tonight.

UPDATE: The Beck show will air first at 7pm and then repeat at 9 and midnight, all ET, all on Headline News. That means it’s on at 4, 6 and 9pm Pacific Time. I am scheduled to be the lead interview for the night.

Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah are in contact with the Hidden Imam!

In the Twelver Shi'ism that is the official religion of Iran (and is also held by Hizballah's Nasrallah), the Imam Mahdi, the Imam-i Zaman, the Twelfth Imam, will emerge from his thousand-year occultation at a time of immense crisis and persecution for the Muslims, and will make war against the enemies of Islam, and Islamize the world.

And now: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Nasrallah have established contact with him! His return is imminent!

This comes courtesy Timothy Furnish's excellent new Mahdi Watch: "Nancy Pelosi's Not the Only One Picking Out an Office..."

French police face 'permanent intifada'

More on the jihad in France from Jamey Keaten for Associated Press (thanks to Drew):

EPINAY-SUR-SEINE, France - On a routine call, three unwitting police officers fell into a trap. A car darted out to block their path, and dozens of hooded youths surged out of the darkness to attack them with stones, bats and tear gas before fleeing. One officer was hospitalized, and no arrests made.

The recent ambush was emblematic of what some officers say has become a near-perpetual and increasingly violent conflict between police and gangs in tough, largely immigrant French neighborhoods that were the scene of a three-week paroxysm of rioting last year.

One small police union claims officers are facing a "permanent intifada." Police injuries have risen in the year since the wave of violence.

National police reported 2,458 cases of violence against officers in the first six months of the year, on pace to top the 4,246 cases recorded for all of 2005 and the 3,842 in 2004. Firefighters and rescue workers have also been targeted — and some now receive police escorts in such areas.

On Sunday, a band of about 30 youths, some wearing masks, forced passengers out of a bus in a southern Paris suburb in broad daylight Sunday, set it on fire, then stoned firefighters who came to the rescue, police said. No one was injured. Two people were arrested, one of them a 13-year-old, according to LCI television....

Michel Thooris, head of the small Action Police union, claims that the new violence is taking on an Islamic fundamentalist tinge.

Taking on an Islamic fundamentalist tinge? When did it not have this? They were shouting "Allahu akbar" last year.

"Many youths, many arsonists, many vandals behind the violence do it to cries of 'Allah Akbar' (God is Great) when our police cars are stoned," he said in an interview.

Larger, more mainstream police unions sharply disagree that the suburban unrest has any religious basis. However, they do say that some youth gangs no longer seem content to throw stones or torch cars and instead appear determined to hurt police officers — or worse.

"First, it was a rock here or there. Then it was rocks by the dozen. Now, they're leading operations of an almost military sort to trap us," said Loic Lecouplier, a police union official in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris. "These are acts of war."

Sadio Sylla, an unemployed mother of three, watched the Oct. 13 ambush of the police patrol in Epinay-sur-Seine from her second-floor window. She, other witnesses and police union officials said up to 50 masked youths surged out from behind trees.

One of the three officers needed 30 stitches to his face after being struck by a rock.

The attack was one of at least four gang beatings of police in Parisian suburbs since Sept. 19. Early Friday, a dozen hooded people hurled stones, iron bars and bottles filled with gasoline at two police vehicles in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a flashpoint of last year's riots, said Guillaume Godet, a city hall spokesman. One officer required three stitches to his head.

Minority youths have long complained that police are more heavy-handed in their dealings with them than with whites, demanding their papers and frisking them for no apparent reason.

Such perceived ill-treatment fuels feelings of injustice, as do the difficulties that many youths from immigrant families have finding work.

Distrust and tension thrive. Rumors have flown around some housing projects that police are hoping to use the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends this week, to round up known troublemakers, on the basis that fasting all day will have made the youths weaker and easier to catch.

Police say that suggestion is ludicrous. However, they are on guard ahead of the first anniversary this week of last year's riots. That violence began after two youths who thought police were chasing them hid in a power substation and were electrocuted to death.

Police unions suspect that the recent attacks may be an attempt to spark new riots.

"We are getting the impression these youths want a 'remake' of what happened last year," said Fred Lagache, national secretary of the Alliance police union. "The youths are trying to cause a police error to justify chaos."

Of course they are.

Fears of jihad in Horn of Africa

The Chicago Tribune notices the signs that a full-scale Inner Spiritual Struggle is breaking out in East Africa, as we have been telling you here for quite some time. "Fears of jihad in Horn of Africa: Somali Islamists put neighboring nations on edge," by Laurie Goering in the Tribune:

JOHANNESBURG -- Four months after Islamists seized the Somali capital of Mogadishu, promising a return to order and peace in war-ravaged Somalia, the Horn of Africa country and its neighbors sit at the brink of a new and potentially deadly conflict.

Somali Islamists, furious that Ethiopian troops have crossed the border to support Somalia's Western-backed secular government, have called for jihad against Ethiopia, raising fears that Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, could suffer bombings or other guerrilla attacks.

Ethiopia, the region's military powerhouse, accuses Islamist leaders of terrorist ties and remains determined to deny the movement control of Somalia. It helped Somalia's weak government push the movement out of the southern town of Bur Haqaba, handing the Islamists their first military setback.

With Islamist troops just 60 miles from the government's base in Baidoa, about a thousand Somali refugees a day are streaming over the border into Kenya, fearing new conflict, according to the United Nations.

`Low-intensity war' possible

What's ahead for Somalia is probably "chronic low-intensity war," said Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert at Davidson College in North Carolina. That makes any promises by the Islamists to effectively rebuild the shattered nation hard to fulfill, he said....

UK govt funds moderate Muslim website

The site they're sponsoring is called Radical Middle Way. They're doing to counter the growing jihadist influence among British Muslims, which, as we have pointed out here many times, proceeds by presenting itself as "pure Islam" -- an appeal to which moderates have yet to formulate an effective counter.

One immediate note of caution: the Radical Middle Way features audio of a talk by Hamza Yusuf. That's right, the same Hamza Yusuf who invoked the Treaty of Hudaybiyya that Muhammad opportunistically signed and just as opportunistically broke -- and told his audience: "There are times when you have to live like a sheep in order to live in the future like a lion." Mr. Yusuf, are there times when you have to advocate a Radical Middle Way, only to reveal your leonine nature later?

And another note of caution: Jamal Badawi, who almost made me rich once, is on their list of scholars.

"Al-Qa'eda is winning the war of ideas, says Reid," by Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite in the Telegraph:

John Reid has issued a dire warning that the Government risks losing the "battle of ideas" with al-Qa'eda.

The Home Secretary spoke out at an emergency meeting of ministers and security officials amid an ever-growing threat from home-grown Islamist terror groups.

He called for an urgent but controversial escalation in the propaganda war and said al-Qa'eda's so-called "single extremist narrative" was proving ever more attractive to young British Muslims.

The Government needed to do much more to win the "battle of ideas", Mr Reid said. The meeting came as ministers — including Jack Straw, Ruth Kelly and Phil Woolas — started to take a much more aggressive stance against radical Islam.

Ministers have told The Sunday Telegraph that 30 terror plots are being investigated and that 1,500 young Muslims — many more than previously estimated — are suspects.

A key government weapon in the struggle to win hearts and minds is the decision to fund covertly an Islamic website appealing for moderation. A classic of New Labour terminology, it is called the Radical Middle Way. Government documents disclose that the site is "run as a grassroots initiative by Muslim organisations". However, it has "most of its financial backing from the Foreign Office and Home Office". The site uses video and podcasts to spread an "alternative message" to young Muslims. Some content is available through the iTunes website with no indication that it is effectively an arm of Government.

Around 100,000 CDs promoting moderation have also been funded and distributed free to Muslim students as an "antidote", apparently, to the jihadist CDs circulated at universities and colleges.

Trevor Phillips warns debate on veiling could trigger riots

Stop criticizing that... thing we're not supposed to talk about, lest our words be used to justify violence that political correctness will demand we blame ourselves for. "British watchdog warns on veil debate," by Beth Gardiner from AP:

LONDON - The heated debate over veils that cover the faces of some British Muslim women is growing ugly and could trigger riots, the head of Britain's race relations watchdog warned on Sunday.

Britons are becoming increasingly polarized along racial and religious lines, and if they don't talk respectfully about their differences, tensions could fuel unrest, Commission for Racial Equality chairman Trevor Phillips wrote in The Sunday Times newspaper.

In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television, he said he didn't want Britain to suffer the kind of violence that exploded in the deprived suburbs of Paris a year ago, when disaffected young people, many from immigrant backgrounds, rioted for three weeks.

He warned there could also be a repeat of the rioting in several northern English towns in 2001 caused by racial tensions between white and mainly Muslim south Asian youths.

"Only this time the conflict would be much worse," Phillips wrote in the Times.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said some violent attacks already have occurred against Muslims in the country. He said some women's veils have been forcibly pulled off, mosques set on fire and Muslims beaten by gangs of men.

Any such incidents are reprehensible and are as incompatible with Western civil society as the niqab itself. But they should not be used as blackmail to end this debate, or tar all who object to veiling and other trappings of Sharia with the same brush.

[...]

The issue touches on growing anxieties about Britain's diversity and the alienation of young British Muslims like those who carried out suicide bombings on London's transit system last year, killing themselves and 52 commuters.

Last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair said the country needed to talk about how minority communities could better integrate into the wider society while maintaining their cultural distinctiveness. He called the veil "a mark of separation."

Phillips said he thought Straw's remarks had been polite and respectful, but he worried the debate had since grown ugly and rancorous. The commission he leads was created by law in 1976 to fight discrimination and encourage good race relations.

In the interview with BBC, he said "what should have been a proper conversation between all kinds of British people seems to have turned into a trial of one particular community, and that cannot be right."

Just all of the communities that practice full veiling, Mr. Phillips.

Bomb kills soldier, wounds monks in Thai south

Another "Inner Spiritual Struggle"-related explosion, this time targeting Buddhist monks seeking alms, and the soldiers guarding them. Thai Jihad Update Reuters:

NARATHIWAT, Thailand (Reuters) - A remote-controlled bomb killed a soldier and wounded 11 people in Thailand's Muslim south on Sunday, police said, the latest attack in a separatist insurgency which has killed more than 1,700 since early 2004.

Militants used a mobile phone to detonate a 5-kg (11-lb) bomb hidden in a rubbish bin in the city of Narathiwat as soldiers accompanied five Buddhist monks to protect them as they sought alms, police said.

One soldier died on his way to hospital, while other soldiers, monks and four passers-by were wounded, police said.

The insurgency in the three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat -- an Islamic sultanate until Bangkok annexed the region a century ago -- has shown no sign of abating since a September 19 coup led by a Muslim general overthrew hawkish prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Nevertheless, Surayud Chulanont, the former army chief appointed prime minister by the military, has said he wants a peaceful solution to the violence and offered talks with militant leaders, a policy u-turn from the days of Thaksin.

During an official visit to Jakarta on Saturday, Surayud hailed Indonesia's Aceh peace accord signed in Helsinki last year to end a separatist insurgency which had seen more than 15,000 killed since 1979.

"Indonesia has set a model in solving the conflict in the Aceh province successfully," a Thai government Web site, www.thaigov.go.th, quoted Surayud as telling Indonesian media after meeting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

"The Aceh model is a good example to bring peace to southern Thailand," the Web site reported on Sunday.

And what a fine place that is.

An Islamic TV Channel Expands Its U.S. Audience

I sounded a warning about Bridges TV in December 2004. It looks as if there was every reason to do so. "One religious figure who appeared October 3 said Muslims have a duty to change America and to increase their numbers to 50% of the population from 2%. He recommended that Shariah, or Islamic law, be implemented in American courts."

The MEMRI Report by Steven Stalinsky, via the New York Sun, with thanks to A Girl Scout:

Bridges TV, an American-Islamic TV channel "seeking to improve the image of Muslims in the United States" and to "offer a unique perspective on the Middle East and the war on terrorism," has extended its availability into six states, creating a potential audience of nearly 2 million.

The network's programming includes a mix of entertainment, sports, news, documentaries, and advertisements from companies like Ford, with an emphasis on religious programs.

The channel says it has been endorsed by "top American [Islamic] scholars and community leaders," whose representatives appear on many of its programs, including one called "Prominent Scholars."

Some speakers openly criticize Islamic extremists. An imam from Los Angeles, Sheik Tajuddin Bin Shuaib, appeared on the channel on October 8 and denounced Osama bin Laden and the September 11, 2001, hijackers.

Some guests, however, are extremists. One religious figure who appeared October 3 said Muslims have a duty to change America and to increase their numbers to 50% of the population from 2%. He recommended that Shariah, or Islamic law, be implemented in American courts.

During a roundtable discussion on the Arab-Israeli conflict on October 5, one participant offered a solution: "For the Jews to leave and return to Europe."

Bridges TV aired a speech by the influential Muslim scholar Jamal Badawi on October 4. Mr. Badawi, who teaches Islam throughout North America, gave an interview to the Saudi Gazette on June 24, 2005, in which he raised questions about who was behind the September 11 attacks and suggested that Americans could be behind the car bombings of Iraqi markets.

Every night, Bridges TV shows a news program, "Talking Points." Its guest on October 4 was Imam Mohammad Alo Elahi, whom it described as a leading "interfaith figure." According to his Web site, Imam Elahi was a spiritual leader in Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian navy and also is the leader of "one of the largest mosques in the U.S.," in Dearborn, Mich....

Throughout the day, Bridges TV airs segments of Koranic verses, quite a few of which denounce "unbelievers." One notable verse that aired October 9 praised martyrdom.

Since the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began, the channel has been showing official, Saudi government-controlled Wahhabi sermons from Mecca's holiest mosque, Al-Haram. The sermons stream live via Saudi TV Channel one every day at 4 p.m., and Bridges TV adds its own English subtitles.

An anti-Jewish, anti-Christian sermon from October 5 included the call, "May God destroy them!"...

Bridges TV claims that its "major purpose" is "to build bridges between American Muslims and other Americans." After viewing the channel, I find this highly unlikely.

Yep.

"Arrest Jack Straw"

Jihad Watch News Editor Marisol Seibold has sent me this photo from Ynet News. Note the fury and intrasingence. These women are not interested in the community harmony or mature debate for which Jack Straw called. They are only interested in his surrender to their principles.

Conference: The Jihad Against the West: The Real Threat and the Right Response

Blogging has been light today because I'm out of the office, in Boston for "The Jihad Against the West: The Real Threat and the Right Response," a conference sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute.

I am writing this during an absorbing panel discussion conducted by Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute, Daniel Pipes, and Flemming Rose, culture editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which first published the notorious cartoons of Muhammad. I spoke earlier today, following a magnificent and bracingly politically incorrect address by John Lewis, assistant professor of history at Ashland University, and followed by an excellent talk by Daniel Pipes.

I believe that the addresses will be made available in some format, and will be well worth picking up -- all have been first-rate.

Brook is saying right now that when lives are threatened for speaking freely, the government should protect them. The newspapers that published the Muhammad cartoons should have been protected, and the principles involved defended. Instead, the government punted.

It is refreshing and heartening that we can have this kind of open discussion, despite increasing pressure on freedom of speech in the West. May there be many more.

CAIR discovers that I am not a Muslim

And they're not happy about it. Jihad Watch reader Nancy has alerted me to an "American Muslim News Brief" that contains this gem:

INCITEMENT: ROBERTSON CALLS QURAN 'FRAUDULENT,' SPENCER AGREES - TOP http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/44498.aspx

This refers to an interview I did a few days ago with Pat Robertson, the lone TV host who thus far has dared to discuss my new book The Truth About Muhammad on the air. I will happily go on any show -- Oprah, Al Franken, whatever -- but I have to be invited. Anyway, Robertson asked me during the segment -- I am working from memory -- if I would be willing to say that Muhammad's claim to be receiving divine revelations was fraudulent.

I responded, "Of course." Because after all, I am not a believer in Islam. Robertson's word choice was not politically correct, and it may hurt feelings; indeed, it is not a word I would have chosen. But essentially the only two choices on this question are these: either Muhammad received divine revelations, or he didn't. Non-Muslims do not believe Muhammad was a genuine prophet. That means that they believe that the things that are claimed to be revelations are not genuine revelations -- even if this view is presented with consummate tact and delicacy.

Accordingly, when Robertson asked me this question, I could do nothing but answer the way I did, simply because I am not a Muslim. To present this as "incitement" is, of course, trying to provoke the "hate crimes" that CAIR professes to abhor, but actually uses politically with consummate skill. The idea that someone would be incited to commit violence against Muslims because I stated that I do not believe Muhammad was a prophet is beyond asinine -- but of course it is also part of CAIR's larger attempt to control the national debate about Islam. Not only do they now protest against statements critical of Islam or Muslims, but even against rather simple and mild non-affirmations of Muslim belief by non-Muslims.

And they will keep doing this, because there is no shortage of willing stooges who will happily restrict themselves to an ever narrower sphere of discussion about Islam in order to appease the all-powerful gods of multiculturalism.

Ali Eteraz wants a link

Jihad Watch reader James sent me this yesterday, and I posted it here. Now a blogger named Ali Eteraz, about one of whose writings I wrote here, has posted at Dean Esmay's site saying that the story came from him and he should have been credited.

Actually, I think that's probably true. After all, James sent me this from Esmay's site, so it's possible he saw this there too.

So here's your link, Mr. Eteraz. There is no dark conspiracy going on here; I have no problem linking to your site, and in fact, before you wrote this post, I linked to your site in this post.

This coming from Esmay's site, however, all sorts of dark motives are imputed to me. Eteraz says, "The other reason I find it particularly troubling is that in my post about the letter I added a whole section about how the Iranian activist to whom the website belongs to, patently opposes groups that favor destabilizing the Iranian Government. I even cited to her article in another magazine. These caveats, however, are not present in the JihadWatch post, which is probably well for them, because we know what JihadWatch think of any Muslim government."

Why didn't I link to that or comment on it? Because I didn't see it until this morning. And what is it exactly that we all know about what JW thinks of any Muslim government? Do tell, Mr. Eteraz: what is it that JW thinks of both the Shah and Khomeini, and of Bourguiba and Ataturk as well as Ahmadinejad and the House of Saud? I can't wait to hear. And it would be good of you to back up your assertions with citations from my actual writings, if it isn't too much trouble.

Then Eteraz says:

But why would JihadWatch (or a reader of it) be interested in Muslim activism against Muslim oppression — that would destroy the entire (weak) thesis on which Jihad Watch rests, namely, that all or most Muslims are dangerous.

The slander just keeps coming from the Esmay crowd. Mr. Eteraz, please cite where I have ever said or written that "all or most Muslims are dangerous." Happy hunting. And Jihad Watch doesn't cover Muslim activism against Muslim oppression? Perhaps Mr. Eteraz would be so kind as to explain the presence of posts like this one, which is not newly-minted but dates from 2 months after I started this site, and which recounts the travails of a member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, a group that opposes the mullahocracy. Hmmm. Could that be a Muslim group? Just do a search here and you'll find many more articles about the Iranian opposition -- Muslim activists against Muslim oppression. And recently, we have posted stories about Muslims opposing the Talibanization of Somalia.

Finally, it's interesting to note that while Ali Eteraz is all exercised about not getting a link here, he doesn't seem to have called "Matoko Kusanagi" or Dean Esmay aside and whispered to them that "perfect man" is indeed a perfectly good translation of al-insan al-kamil, or that Adam is not in fact called al-insan al-kamil in the Qur'an. Instead, he seems content to let them think they've caught me in a great error when they're patently wrong, and to fire away with more slanders at me instead.

But as I noted here, truth, accuracy and fairness just don't seem to be in the lexicon of the Esmay crowd, at least when it comes to me and Jihad Watch. I do not think it wise, however, to leave their slanders unanswered, lest people of good will be swayed by them, and that is the reason for this posting.

Ahmadinejad threatens Europe over Israel

More from the Al-Qods Day festivities. "Iran warns of revenge over Israel," from the BBC:

Iran's president has warned that Muslims around the world will take revenge on states which support Israel against the Palestinians. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again questioned the extent of the Holocaust, when German Nazis murdered six million Jews.

Israel was founded on "claims about the Holocaust" for which the Palestinians were paying the price, he told a rally.

He was speaking on Jerusalem Day, when there are large demonstrations in Iran in support of the Palestinians.

BBC Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says the tone of the speech was hardline, even by Mr Ahmadinejad's standards.

Implicit threat

Mr Ahmadinejad called Israel's leaders a "group of terrorists" and appeared to threaten any country that supports it.

"You imposed a group of terrorists... on the region. It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

The "ultimatum" was directed at European states in particular.

"We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbours of the nations in this region," Mr Ahmadinejad said.

"We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt."

'Israeli insecurity'

Mr Ahmadinejad said Israel no longer had any reason to exist and would soon disappear. "This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence. Efforts to stabilise this fake regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed."

Mr Ahmadinejad said: "Even if we assume the Holocaust is true, then why should the Palestinians pay the price for it."

He said millions of Israelis should go back to their countries of origin.

Moderate Jordanian king releases Hamas jihadists

Eid Mubarak and Death to Israel from King Abdullah! "Abdullah releases Hamas activists," from JTA, with thanks to Teri:

King Abdullah II of Jordan released nine Hamas plotters for the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

The nine, among 20 arrested in May in a plot to smuggle Iranian-made arms into Jordan, left prison Thursday in time for the feast holiday that ends the Ramadan month of fasting. Authorities accused the plotters of planning to attack officials of Jordan’s government, which maintains close ties with Israel.

Robert Spencer nailed to the wall!

In "Fish. Barrel. [BLAM!]," blogger Dean Esmay (thanks to James) claims that I have been "nailed to the wall" by one "Matoko Kusanagi," with whom I had an exchange here. (You can find my other exchanges with Esmay here, here, here, here, here and here.) Esmay's post this time is simply more vile name-calling -- as is his wont. The substance this time, such as it is, comes from "Matoko":

I was watching the Obsession youtubes when I heard Robert Spencer make the argument that all muslims must faithfully emulate Muhammed's (SAW) 7th century warlord behavior because Muhammed is al-insan al-kamil, which spencer translates as "the perfect man". Bad translation. al-insan al-kamil actually translates as "complete human". I know this because we were talking about angels and reason and revelation at Eteraz the other night, and Adam is described as al-insan al-kamil in the Qur'an. And we all know Adam wasn't perfect. He ate the apple.

So, I think this translation issue prettymuch torpedos Spencers argument that all muslims are mandated to behave exactly like 7th century warlords....don't you? Ha ha, im just a cyberchicklet and i caught that. Hmmm...wonder what other gaffes i can find?

wow. it just occurred to me that mebbe there is a buncha stuff in Spencer's new book, The Truth about Muhammed that references this botched translation. Anybody read it yet?

OK, let's take this point-by-point:

1. Matoko: "I was watching the Obsession youtubes when I heard Robert Spencer..."

My response: She must have been tuned in to the little voices that speak through her metalwork. I am not in Obsession. Of course, she probably means Islam: What the World Needs to Know, which I am in. A minor point, but this carelessness is indicative of the quality of her entire attack -- which doesn't stop Dean Esmay from falling for it, uh, hook, line, and sinker.

2. Matoko: "I heard Robert Spencer make the argument that all muslims must faithfully emulate Muhammed's (SAW) 7th century warlord behavior because Muhammed is al-insan al-kamil, which spencer translates as 'the perfect man'. Bad translation. al-insan al-kamil actually translates as 'complete human'."

My response: Unfortunately for "Matoko," Spencer is not alone in this. Among the others who translate "al-insan al-kamil" as "the perfect man":

a. Neal Robinson, senior lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Leeds, and author of Islam: A Concise Introduction (Georgetown University Press, 1999).
b. Barbara R. von Schlegell, Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Ursinus College Fellow, Penn Middle East Center.
c. David R. Vishanoff, assistant professor of religious studies, University of Oklahoma.
d. Tamara Albertini, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
e. Muslim Sufi intellectual Fethullah Gülen.
f. Dr. Usman Muhamad Bugaje of the Islam in Africa Organisation (IAO).
g. The Naqshbandi Sufi leader Sheikh Muhammad Hisham al-Kabbani.
h. Islamic preacher Dr. Ahmad Shafaat.
i. Shaykh al Islam Janasheen - Muhaddith Al A'zam Al Hind.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. The evil and moronic Islamophobe Spencer didn't originate this translation: it is a fine translation, and it is used by Islamic scholars, even of the MESA variety, and by Muslim leaders and pious Muslims.

3. Matoko: "I know this because we were talking about angels and reason and revelation at Eteraz the other night, and Adam is described as al-insan al-kamil in the Qur'an. And we all know Adam wasn't perfect.
He ate the apple."

My response: Perhaps Matoko or Eteraz would be so kind as to tell us where in the Qur'an Adam is referred to as "al-insan al-kamil." Adam is mentioned by name in the Qur'an in Suras 2:31, 2:33, 2:34, 2:35, 2:37, 3:33, 3:59, 5:27, 7:11, 7:19, 7:26, 7:27, 7:31, 7:35, 7:172, 17:61, 17:70, 18:50, 19:58, 20:115, 20:116, 20:117, 20:120, 20:121, and 36:60. In none of them is he called "al-insan al-kamil." In 2:30 he is called Allah's "viceregent" -- caliph -- but that's as close as it gets. He is also known as "safiyu'llah," or the chosen one of Allah, but not as al-insan al-kamil.

Probably the confusion arises from the congruence of some aspects of Sufi mysticism, which strongly emphasizes the al-insan al-kamil idea, with Jewish mystical writings about "Adam Kadmon," the primordial man. But in any case, it isn't in the Qur'an.

4. Matoko: "I think this translation issue prettymuch torpedos Spencers argument that all muslims are mandated to behave exactly like 7th century warlords..."

My response: Matoko's point doesn't hold here because I don't claim that Muslims imitate Muhammad solely because he is al-insan al-kamil. Muhammad is called in the Qur'an "uswa hasana" -- an excellent model of conduct (33:21). To be sure, the Qur'an uses the same words in speaking of Abraham (60:4, 60:6), but it also says that Muhammad demonstrates “an exalted standard of character” (68:4), and that “he who obeys the Messenger [Muhammad], obeys Allah” (4:80).

So do Muslims imitate Muhammad? Says Muqtedar Khan of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy: "No religious leader has as much influence on his followers as does Muhammad (Peace be upon him) the last Prophet of Islam….And Muhammad as the final messenger of God enjoys preeminence when it comes to revelation – the Qur’an – and traditions. So much so that the words, deeds and silences (that which he saw and did not forbid) of Muhammad became an independent source of Islamic law. Muslims, as a part of religious observance, not only obey, but also seek to emulate and imitate their Prophet in every aspect of life. Thus Muhammad is the medium as well as a source of the divine law."

To take just one more of zillions of available examples, likewise the renowned Sufi philosopher Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111) declared that “the key to happiness is to follow the sunna and to imitate the Messenger of God in all his coming and going, his movements and rest, in his way of eating, his attitude, his sleep and his talk.”

I guess Khan and al-Ghazali have been listening to that wicked Spencer.

Meanwhile, over at Dean's World this farrago has them crowing. Commenter "Mal" says: "Robert Spencer is certainly free to offer his interpretation of Islam, and I, of course, am free to see his main theme as the reductive, pseudo-intellectual drivel that it is. I say let the man speak. He does more to discredit his own arguments that way than any name calling on your part....I predict that Spencer will always have a die-hard constituency but will eventually be marginalized for his indefensible views."

Very well, sir. Please show me where I am wrong in the above, and I will acknowledge it publicly here. I believe I have just shown my views not to be indefensible at all, and invite you to respond.

Says Dean: "Indeed, should I compile a list of various scriptural and doctrinal points in Judaism, as a person hostile to Judaism, and present them to you as a mass indictment of your entire faith? 'Jimmy the Dhimmi' does this every day. So does Robert Spencer. Would you appreciate that crap? I don't think you would. I can make Judaism look pretty frakking evil if I want to. It wouldn't even be hard."

No, sir, it is not I who do it. It is not I, but jihad terrorists acting in the name of Islam, who make Islam look "pretty frakking evil" every day, and I don't have to try hard at all to find them. I merely report every day on how jihad terrorists invoke the Qur'an and Muhammad's words and deeds to justify their actions. And I have called upon peaceful Muslims to confront these elements of Islam and repudiate them, and to work to try to ensure that they do not inspire violent acts in the future. And for this I will not back down or apologize, no matter how much abuse you heap on my name and my work.

Dean also says: "...just ASK some Muslims what THEY think it means." Well, actually, I have done that, and I think you should do that, Dean. You may be surprised what you hear if you ask Muslims if they think Muhammad provides a normative example for human behavior. You would no doubt be very surprised to find that I begin my book The Truth About Muhammad by showing how both peaceful and violent Muslims invoke Muhammad's example to support their positions. After all, you think I don't believe there are any peaceful Muslims, so I wonder how those pages got into the book.

And finally Matoko says: "how many times have you heard spencer insist that the Qur'an is immutable, revealed, unchangeable, consistent and not open to contextual interpretation? according to spencer himself al-insan al-kamil cannot mean two different things in the same Qur'an."

How many times? Maybe, um, zero? I have never said this, and I challenge her or anyone to demonstrate otherwise. In fact, I have explained many times the contextual interpretation used by many Muslims that abrogates some verses in favor of others. I certainly have never said it is consistent. And I have never come remotely close to saying that "al-insan al-kamil" or anything else can't mean two different things at once.

But I have learned from past experience that truth, accuracy, and fairness are not high on the priorities list of either Dean Esmay or "Matoko." Nevertheless, I offer all this yet again in the first place simply as a defense of the accuracy of my work. Esmay's vicious character assassination is beneath contempt, but at least here I have offered evidence for my positions, clarification of those positions, and evidence that Matoko's conclusions are wrong -- for any reasonable people who may find their arguments compelling.

To sum up: Matoko heard someone on the Eteraz site say something, and she wanted to believe it. She told it to Dean Esmay, and he wanted to believe it. Neither did even the most elementary research, or even a Google search. Now they are celebrating their fish barrel-shooting without a leg to stand on at all, believing what they want to believe in the face of the obvious veneration in which Muslims hold Muhammad -- a veneration of which we were vividly reminded by Cartoon Rage and Pope Rage. But this they do not wish to see, because it does not accord with their view of the world, and of my all-encompassing evil and stupidity.

Fish. Barrel. Blam.

UPDATE: Dean Esmay has sent me this comment he posted on his original article. (You can see what that "Roob" business is all about here.) Here is just a bit of what passes for rational argumentation in Dean's world -- you can see the whole thing at the link. He is mostly berating me for supposedly knowing no Muslims, which is false and in any case something he is in no position to know.

Here's what I predict for you, Roob: you will die alone, unmourned and unloved. And in your last moments on Earth, if you have any conscience at all, you will wonder if your whole purpose on Earth wasn't just to serve as a warning for others about the dangers of hatemongering and rampant stupidity.

You think I've got you wrong? Send me a private email that neither of us will ever reprint under any circumstances. Tell me I how got you wrong, and why I got you wrong.

Otherwise, it's all between you and your Saviour.

I must say I'm taken aback by the open hatred, vile slander, and unhinged personal nature of his remarks toward me. I do not know this man, we have never met, and he obviously knows virtually nothing of my real positions or the nature of my work. Yet he feels free to damn me with positively breathtaking intensity, condemning me to a lonely death and hellfire to boot. And you'll note, there is absolutely nothing, not a syllable, about the substance of my reply above. The facts, it seems, just do not matter for Mr. Dean Esmay.

With this kind of frothing, carpet-chewing, wall-kicking hysteria, and consistent refusal to engage in rational discussion, I do wonder -- again -- why anyone takes this man seriously.

Here, for your reference, is how I responded:

I am consistently astonished by the naked hate and slander you direct toward me.

You better check that "Roobart Sbunsar" business: your friends lied to you: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/011704.php

Meanwhile, you have never acknowledged that Tashbih Sayyed, a Muslim and the editor of Muslim World Today, is a member of the Jihad Watch Board of Directors.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013203.php

But don't let the facts get in the way of your unhinged, scurrilous attacks. They never have before.

Oh, and print this or not as you wish.

Hamas charities thrive despite U.S.-led fund freeze

"There is a lot of money in Hamas." Yes, terrorism is profitable these days. By Joshua Mitnick in The Washington Times (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- A U.S.-led funding squeeze, which has paralyzed the Hamas-led Palestinian government, has had the unintended effect of bolstering the militant group's network of schools, hospitals and alms societies.

Foreign donations, often consisting of cash in suitcases smuggled across the border, have permitted Hamas' vast social-welfare network to thrive, say officials and analysts.

"All charitable organizations affiliated with Hamas are still functioning," said Sheik Yazeeb Khader, an editor of Hamas' West Bank newspaper. He said the charities in Gaza have especially benefited from money "brought across the border and not checked."

For years, while Hamas' military wing dispatched suicide bombers to Israeli cities, the group's civilian wing quietly built up a grass-roots following with its network of Islamic social-welfare organizations.

The charities went far beyond anything established by the secular government of Yasser Arafat and helped give Hamas the support needed to oust Arafat loyalists in January elections and take power in March.

Unable to pay for supplies, government ministries have since ceased to function, and without salaries, civil servants have gone on strike.

The charities, however, openly boast that they continue to get money from Muslim communities in the Persian Gulf, Europe and the United States....

"There is a lot of money in Hamas," said Abdel Nasser Najjar, a columnist for Al Ayyam, a newspaper of the opposition Fatah party.

Muslim teacher in veil row's link to 7/7 bomber

Aishah Azmi, probably

No one thought to ask what she thought of other elements of Islam while they were awarding her a thousand pounds for her hurt feelings.

By Sam Greenhill and Laura Clark in the Daily Mail, with thanks to El Presidente:

The Muslim teacher suspended for refusing to work without her veil is connected to a hardline mosque where the ringleader of the July 7 bombers worshipped, it has emerged.

The family of classroom assistant Aishah Azmi, 24, plays a key role at the fundamentalist Markazi mosque in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire - which was attended by suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan.

Until recently, Miss Azmi's father was joint headmaster of the secondary school attached to the building.

The family are known to worship there and may have encountered Khan before his terrorist act.

However, there is no suggestion that Miss Azmi or anyone in her family have any connection with terrorism.

Of course. But has anyone asked her what she thinks about jihad? Or about the imperative to replace British law with Sharia law?

Paris: Muslim airport workers lose clearances

Of course, they are claiming discrimination. "Muslim airport workers lose clearances," by Jamey Keaten for Associated Press, with thanks to Drew:

PARIS - Authorities at Charles de Gaulle airport have stripped several dozen employees — almost all of them Muslims — of their security badges in a crackdown against terrorism, a government official said Friday.

Four baggage handlers who lost their clearance filed a joint discrimination complaint this week, alleging they had been unfairly associated with terrorism because they are Muslims, their lawyers said. Some had been in their jobs for up to five years.

The baggage handlers and other employees have been barred from secure areas at the airport since February, Jacques Lebrot, an official who oversees the airport, told The Associated Press in an interview.

The cases were "linked to terrorism, of course," he said, adding that the crackdown followed recommendations by France's anti-terrorism coordination unit, UCLAT, as part of an 18-month investigation.

"You don't strip people of their badges for small matters," he said. The crackdown was part of heightened security in France, after terror attacks in Britain, Spain and the United States in recent years.

Lebrot, citing security reasons, declined to say whether the "several dozen" people — he would not specify how many — who lost their badges had been involved in specific plots.

"Mr. X or Y could have been suspected because corresponding facts ... suggested he belonged to a sizable network," Lebrot said, without elaborating. Others could have been stripped of the badges because they were "impressionable and manipulated" by such networks, he said....

In letters from the regional government office, the employees were told that they presented a "significant danger to airport security," or had shown "personal behavior threatening airport security."

Lawyers for those who lost their badges said that under police questioning, they were never told of the reasons they lost their badges — but repeatedly were asked about their religion.

"The link among these people is that either they are Arab — or practice their religion in a normal way," said Eric Moutet, a lawyer for the four employees suing in administrative court. Authorities, he said, "are in essence asking people to prove they are not terrorists."

They "practice their religion in a normal way." Does that mean in a way that Osama bin Laden might consider normal? In a way that accords with mainstream teaching of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, all of which mandate warfare against unbelievers?

A superb introduction to the problem the world faces

Here is a simple, direct, clear, and unflinchingly honest introductory text for those who will not believe, and cannot believe, that the Islamic jihad is either deeply rooted within Islam or poses any serious threat to non-Muslims. In Religion of Peace?, Gregory M. Davis, coproducer of the documentary Islam: What the West Needs to Know, has provided in one volume of reasonable proportions the relevant extracts from the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira (the biography of Muhammad), Islamic jurisprudence, plus evidence that contemporary jihadists read this material and take it very seriously indeed. All this along with a history of jihad warfare and a trenchant analysis of the defects of today's politically correct public discourse, in which even world leaders peddle soothing falsehoods instead of formulating ways to defend Western civilization and the non-Muslim world as a whole against the jihadists who would convert or subjugate us all.

Here are some of the endorsements the book has received, mine among them:

"A fascinating thesis." - William F. Buckley Jr. Founder, National Review

"A valuable, well-argued contribution to the public understanding of Islam...it manages to convey in a short space what the West needs to know about Islam: that its violent aspects are not the result of deviance but of orthodoxy." - Robert Spencer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and The Crusades)

"A very important work at a very important time. Anyone interested in understanding the growing violence on the world scene today must read this book. Its message for America and the West is, `Wake up before it's too late.'" - Gary Bauer, President, American Values

"This book provides a timely reality check to those still inclined to believe in the dichotomy between a "real" Islam and its allegedly aberrant violent fringe. That delusion costs lives and threatens the very existence of those affected by it. The refusal of the elite class to open its eyes to reality and protect Western nations from the threat is the biggest betrayal in history. It reflects a problem of cultural and spiritual decay that is the synthesis of all others." - Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet and Defeating Jihad

6,000 Pakistani Muslims hold anti-Israel rallies

Giant Palestinian and Hizballah flags in Karachi

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: when did we ever see 6,000 Shi'ites demonstrating against Osama bin Laden (or...the Ayatollah Khomeini)? But it's Al-Qods Day, and you know what that means: "Death to Israel! Death to America!"

Even short of an anti-Osama rally, why do those who believe that the overwhelming majority of Muslims abhor jihad violence and are on our side never consider the implications of the fact that pro-America, pro-Israel rallies are hardly a frequent sight in the Islamic world or among Muslims in the West? From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Thousands of Shiite Muslims denounced Israel and the United States in rallies across Pakistan on Friday, demanding the Jewish state hand control of Jerusalem to Muslims.

The rallies in the southern port city of Karachi, in the capital Islamabad and the eastern city of Lahore were held to mark the annual al-Quds Day - or Jerusalem Day - that takes place on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America," about 4,000 people, including 1,000 women, marched through a busy street lined by riot police in Karachi. No violence was reported.

Hundreds of people carried portraits of the late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Hizbullah organization in Lebanon.

Sadr militia takes over Iraqi city of 750,000

"Mahdi Army militiamen have long enjoyed a free rein in Amarah," the article notes. Sadr's militia is just making its control official, with little or no expectation of a meaningful response from Nouri al-Maliki's government. "Shiite militia takes over Iraqi city," from AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Shiite militia run by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized control of a southern Iraqi city on Friday in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by the country's powerful, unofficial armies, witnesses and police said.

Mahdi Army fighters stormed three main police stations Friday morning, residents said, planting explosives that flattened the buildings in Amarah, a city just 30 miles from the Iranian border that was under British command until August, when it was returned to Iraqi government control.

About 800 black-clad militiamen with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were patrolling in commandeered police vehicles, witnesses said. Other fighters set up roadblocks on routes into the city and sound trucks circulated telling residents to stay indoors.

The militiamen later withdrew from their positions and lifted their siege of police headquarters under a temporary truce negotiated with an al-Sadr envoy. It was not clear on Friday afternoon whether security forces had reasserted control over the city or whether the cleric knew about his militia's planned takeover in advance.

The Iraqi army dispatched two companies to Amarah from Basra, the south's largest city. Mohammad al-Alaskari, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said "the situation is still tense."

The events in Amarah -- involving a dispute between the Mahdi Army and local security forces believed controlled by the rival Badr Brigade militia -- highlight the threat of wider violence between rival Shiite factions, who have entrenched themselves among the majority Shiite population and are blamed for killings of rival Sunnis.

Badr, of course, was the site of the first major battle fought by Muslims, led by Muhammad: an attack on a Quraish caravan returning from Syria.

Al-Sadr's envoy, whose identity remains unknown, was due to meet with the provincial governor, the local Mahdi Army commander and al-Sadr's representative in Amarah, a city of 750,000.

Shiite militia violence, mainly against the country's Sunni minority, has ravaged Iraq since February when a Shiite holy place in Samara was blown up. The violence has been on the increase, but this is the first recent fighting that has pitted Shiites against one another on such a scale.

Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, a former Shiite activist, won the top government post last spring thanks in part to the support of al-Sadr, who controls 30 of the 275 seats in the national parliament and five Cabinet posts.

In a sign of al-Sadr's influence, al-Maliki this week ordered the release of one of the young cleric's top lieutenants, Sheik Mazen al-Sa'edi, who was arrested by U.S. troops in Baghdad for alleged links to sectarian death squads. He visited al-Sadr in the holy city of Najaf Wednesday, the day al-Sa'edi was freed.

Mahdi Army militiamen have long enjoyed a free rein in Amarah, the provincial capital of the southern province of Maysan. Militiamen in Amarah often summon local government officials for meetings at their offices. They roam the city with their weapons, manipulate the local police and set up checkpoints at will.

Since British troops left Amarah in August, residents say the militia has been involved in a series of killings, including slayings of merchants suspected of selling alcohol and women alleged to have engaged in behavior deemed immoral by militiamen.

[...]

Fighting broke out Thursday after Qassim al-Tamimi, the provincial head of police intelligence and a leading member of the rival Shiite Badr Brigade militia, was killed by a roadside bomb. In retaliation, his family kidnapped the teenage brother of the Mahdi Army commander in Amarah, Sheik Fadel al-Bahadli, to demand the hand-over of al-Tamimi's killers.

Iran: UN Big 5 'no longer legitimate'

At last the Thug-In-Chief and I agree on something, although no doubt for vastly different reasons: I don't think the UN Security Council, or anything about this corrupt, feeble, and ideologically compromised institution is legitimate. From Deutsche Presse Agentur, with thanks to Mackie:

Teheran (dpa) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday that the United Nations Security Council was no longer legitimate as long as it dominated by the US and Britain.

"All the world knows that the US and Britain are enemies of the Iranian nation and now they sit in the UN Security Council and act as both judge and executioner, but the era of such an order is over," Ahmadinejad said at a pre-Friday prayer sermon at Teheran University.

"This form of UN Security Council is no longer legitimate and neither are its resolutions, nobody would accept such decision-making any more," Ahmadinejad said referring to possible UN sanctions against Iran.

The Truth About Muhammad makes the New York Times Bestseller List

My new book The Truth About Muhammad has made the New York Times Bestseller List (Hardcover Nonfiction) for the week of October 29. It is at #31 on the list.

Thanks to all of you who helped make this happen. I am surprised and pleased to see it on the list, after very sparse national publicity and an unusually high number of canceled interviews even among local shows. Conservative and liberal TV and radio shows, as well as publications, are afraid to discuss this book, but the truth is getting out anyway. Thank you all again.

Al Qaeda ‘building cells in Britain’

More on the British being A-Q's primary target. By Ian Bruce in The Herald, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

A resurgent al Qaeda has made the UK its priority target and is building active service units among disaffected young British Muslims, according to senior intelligence officials.

MI5 also fears the July 7 Tube and bus bombings were "just the beginning" of a rolling campaign aimed at inflicting mass civilian casualties and damaging the economy.

The terror network has also taken a lead from the Provisional IRA, organising followers into self-contained cells to make infiltration by the security services almost impossible.

They believe each cell has a leader, a quartermaster responsible for obtaining bomb-making materials and weapons, and a small number of volunteers drawn mainly from ethnic Pakistani communities concentrated in London, the West Midlands and even Glasgow.

The fact that British citizens make 400,000 trips to and from Pakistan each year to visit family is being used by a radicalised minority to connect with al Qaeda contacts.

Afghan Gunmen Kill Eight Workers Employed at U.S. Military Base

They kill fellow Muslims because they regard them as having effectively apostatized by working for the Americans. From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Gunmen ambushed a car carrying Afghan civilians working on a remote U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan and killed eight of them execution-style, police said Friday.

The ambush victims, who worked for the U.S. military as laborers in the mountainous Korangal area of Kunar province, were killed Thursday while driving home from work, said Abdul Saboor, Kunar's deputy police chief.

Gunmen stopped the workers' car, searched them and took about US$6,000 (euro4,780) before gunning them down, said Salehzai Didar, Kunar's governor. Two workers escaped, he said.

"This was a shocking attack against these poor people," Saboor said.

Saboor did not identify the attackers, other than to describe them as "the enemy."

Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents operate in eastern Afghan regions bordering Pakistan.

Symposium: Convert or Die

Jamie Glazov conducts a FrontPage Symposium on forced conversion in Islam with Mustafa Akyol, David Aikman, Andrew Bostom and me. (Many links in the original.)

Last month, American al-Qaeda operative Adam Gadahn issued a “convert-to-Islam-or-die message to U.S. President George W. Bush, Daniel Pipes, Michael Scheuer, Steve Emerson and Robert Spencer. This attempt at forced conversion to Islam followed the “conversion” at gunpoint of the two kidnapped Fox News reporters Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig.

What exactly was the significance of these events?

On the one hand, these attempts at forced conversion were in clear continuity with Islam’s long history of calling people to convert before waging war on them. But how exactly does this tradition and practise in Islam square with the Qur’an’s verse “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256)? If Gadahn and the kidnappers of the Fox reporters consider themselves Muslims, what was their rationale for their actions in this context? Also: if forced conversion is anti-Islamic, where were, and are, all the Muslims furiously protesting Gadahn’s threats and the treatment of Centanni and Wiig?

To discuss these issues with us today, we are joined by:

Mustafa Akyol, a Muslim journalist and author from Istanbul, Turkey. He has written extensively in the Turkish and international press, including many American publications, about Islam and the current Muslim world. His writings are available at www.thewhitepath.com.

David Aikman, a former senior correspondent and foreign correspondent with Time Magazine, an author (see www.davidaikman.com for his books), and currently writer in residence and associate professor of history (History of Islam, Ages of Revolution) at Patrick Henry College in Purcelville, VA. He recently wrote a column for the Houses of Worship section of the Wall Street Journal on religious conversion in the US and overseas.

Robert Spencer, Director of Jihad Watch who, last month, was offered by Al-Qaeda the same 'invitation to Islam' that Centanni and Wiig received: convert or face the consequences.

and

Andrew Bostom, M.D., M.S. (Providence, RI), an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Renal Diseases of Rhode Island Hospital. He has published articles and commentary on Islam in the Washington Times, National Review, Revue Politique, FrontPage Magazine.com, The American Thinker, Investor’s Business Daily, and other print and online publications. He is the author of The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims.

FP: Mustafa Akyol, David Aikman, Robert Spencer and Andrew Bostom, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.

Mustafa Akyol, let me begin with you. What do you make of the forced conversions of the two Fox journalists and with the Gadahn calls for the conversions of the people he named?

As a Muslim, how do you regard these events?

Akyol: First, greetings to all participants and readers of this symposium. And thanks for having me.

This is an important topic and, as a Muslim, my position is clear: I am absolutely against the concept of forced conversion, which I believe is in opposition to the basic principles of the Qur'an. The verse you mentioned -- “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256) -- is very clear and there are also other ones, such as, "It is the truth from your Lord; so let whoever wishes have faith and whoever wishes be unbeliever." (18:29) There is nothing in the Qur'an which would justify a forced conversion to Islam. Indeed a purely Qur'anic Muslim view should cherish full religious freedom.

However, the post-Qur'anic Islamic literature is not so friendly to religious freedom. The hadiths and the jurists' opinions based on them added a lot of extra rules and regulations due to the political needs of the early Islamic empire. The ban on apostasy was such a post-Qur'anic rule that I think we Muslims should abandon right away. People should have the right to leave Islam and choose other religions if they decide to do so.

However, forced conversion is something that goes even beyond the mainstream post-Qur'anic orthodoxy, whether it is Sunni or Shiite. Although pagan Arabs weren't tolerated and were forced to convert, the Sunni orthodoxy accepted that Christians and Jews (and later, Hindus and Buddhists) had the right to keep their faith by accepting the dhimmi ("protected") status.

Therefore I think the Palestinian militants who forced those two kidnapped Fox News reporters Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig did something terribly wrong. From a purely Qur'anic point of view, that's totally unacceptable. Even from a Sunni Orthodoxy view, that's very hard to justify. It is also stupid: How can you think that you can make someone a sincere Muslim by pointing a gun at him?

Or maybe it was not that stupid. Those militants might have been seeking not a genuine conversion, but a political show. They might have wished to give the message that they are powerful and they can force Westerners to accept what they want, and even transform their identity. In other words, their focus seems not to direct people to what we Muslims believe to be a path to God, but to recruit them into their tribe. This tribal mentality lies beneath much of the assaults against religious freedom in the Muslim world, but it is not what the Qur'an commends.

The al-Qaeda call to American writers like Mr. Spencer seems to be a political show of the same sort. It is in fact a good thing to invite people to Islam from my point of view, but hearing a call to Islam directed to Americans by al-Qaeda, a terrorist organization which has killed thousands of innocent Americans up to now, is like a joke. If they were serious about it, what they should have done was to establish an Islamic cultural center in the Twin Towers -- not to blow them up.

FP: Robert Spencer?

Spencer: While I applaud Mustafa Akyol’s endeavor to construct an Islam free from “hadiths and the jurists' opinions,” unfortunately those traditions and rulings are normative for the overwhelming majority of Muslims worldwide. Since many of these ahadith are attributed to Muhammad himself and are found in hadith collections generally considered reliable by Muslims (such as Bukhari’s), it is extremely difficult to convince orthodox Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims to dismiss them. For them, the ban on apostasy from Islam is not just a “post-Qur'anic rule,” but a supreme evil, as it was regarded, according to many ahadith, by Muhammad himself.

When he was master of Medina, some livestock herders came to the city and accepted Islam. But they disliked Medina’s climate, so Muhammad gave them some camels and a shepherd; once away from Medina, the herders killed the shepherd, released the camels and renounced Islam. Muhammad had them pursued. When they were caught, he ordered that their hands and feet be amputated (in accord with Qur’an 5:33, which directs that those who cause “corruption in the land” be punished by the amputation of their hands and feet on opposite sides) and their eyes put out with heated iron bars, and that they be left in the desert to die. Their pleas for water, he ordered, must be refused (Bukhari 8.82.794-797; 9.83.37).

The traditions are clear that one of the main reasons that the punishment was so severe was because these men had been Muslims but had “turned renegade.” Muhammad legislated for his community that no Muslim could be put to death except for murder, unlawful sexual intercourse, and apostasy (Bukhari 9.83.17). He said flatly: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). These words are obviously taken with utmost seriousness around the Islamic world, as we saw in Afghanistan during the Abdul Rahman case – which was by no means an isolated incident. Some Muslim authorities even argue that, aside from the Hadith, the Qur’an itself mandates death for apostates when it says: “if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them” (4:89).

As for forced conversion, it is likewise unfortunately unclear among Muslims that what happened to Centanni and Wiig was, in Akyol’s optimistic words, “from a purely Qur'anic point of view…totally unacceptable” and “from a Sunni Orthodoxy view…very hard to justify.” Islamic law forbids forced conversion, but in Islamic history this law has all too often been honored in the breach. More significantly, Islamic law regarding the presentation of Islam to non-Muslims manifests a quite different understanding of what constitutes freedom from coercion and freedom of conscience from that which prevails among non-Muslims. Muhammad instructed his followers to call people to Islam before waging war against them – the warfare would follow from their refusal to accept Islam or to enter the Islamic social order as inferiors, required to pay a special tax:

Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya [the tax on non-Muslims specified in Qur’an 9:29]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)

There is therefore an inescapable threat in this “invitation” to accept Islam. Would one who converted to Islam under the threat of war be considered to have converted under duress? By non-Muslim standards, yes, but not according to the view of this Islamic tradition. From the standpoint of the traditional schools of Islamic jurisprudence such a conversion would have resulted from “no compulsion.”

Muhammad reinforced these instructions on many occasions during his prophetic career. Late in his career, he wrote to Heraclius, the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople:

Now then, I invite you to Islam (i.e., surrender to Allah), embrace Islam and you will be safe; embrace Islam and Allah will bestow on you a double reward. But if you reject this invitation of Islam, you shall be responsible for misguiding the peasants (i.e., your nation). (Bukhari, 4.52.191).

Heraclius did not accept Islam, and soon the Byzantines would know well that the warriors of jihad indeed granted no safety to those who rejected their “invitation.”

Muhammad did not limit his veiled threat only to rulers. Another hadith records that on one occasion he emerged from a mosque and told his men, “Let us go to the Jews.” Upon arriving at a nearby Arabian Jewish community, Muhammad told them: “If you embrace Islam, you will be safe. You should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle, and I want to expel you from this land. So, if anyone amongst you owns some property, he is permitted to sell it, otherwise you should know that the Earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle” (Bukhari, 4.53.392). In other words, if you accept Islam, you may keep your land and property, but if not, Muhammad and the Muslims would confiscate it.

Would someone who converted in the face of such a threat be considered to have been forced by Islamic jurists? No – and therein lies the reason why the conversions of Centanni and Wiig could be presented by their captors as uncoerced, in the teeth of the evidence.

This, too, has a foundation in the Qur’an. Sura 9:29 says: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book [that is, Jews and Christians], until they pay the Jizya [a special tax levied only on non-Muslims] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” This verse does not force conversion, but it did in Islamic history become the foundation of an elaborate legal system, the dhimma (to which Akyol refers). This system ensured that non-Muslims would “feel themselves subdued” by mandating a series of humiliating and discriminatory regulations that institutionalized second-class status for non-Muslims in Islamic societies. As the schools of Islamic jurisprudence developed, they constructed upon various ahadith and passages of the Qur’an a legal structure for the treatment of non-Muslims.

The features of this remained remarkably consistent across the centuries, and among all the legal schools. Consider the contemporary Saudi Sheikh Marzouq Salem Al-Ghamdi, who several years ago explained in a sermon the terms in which an Islamic society should tolerate the presence of non-Muslims in its midst:

If the infidels live among the Muslims, in accordance with the conditions set out by the Prophet — there is nothing wrong with it provided they pay Jizya to the Islamic treasury. Other conditions are . . . that they do not renovate a church or a monastery, do not rebuild ones that were destroyed, that they feed for three days any Muslim who passes by their homes . . . that they rise when a Muslim wishes to sit, that they do not imitate Muslims in dress and speech, nor ride horses, nor own swords, nor arm themselves with any kind of weapon; that they do not sell wine, do not show the cross, do not ring church bells, do not raise their voices during prayer, that they shave their hair in front so as to make them easily identifiable, do not incite anyone against the Muslims, and do not strike a Muslim….If they violate these conditions, they have no protection.[i]

In this the Sheikh is merely repeating the classic terms of Islamic jurisprudence for the treatment of non-Muslims in Islamic societies – and he explicitly links these terms to Muhammad’s example. The second-class status for Christians and Jews, mandated by Qur’an 9:29’s stipulation that they “feel themselves subdued,” was first fully articulated by Muhammad’s lieutenant Umar during his caliphate (634 to 644), in terms strikingly similar to those used by Sheikh Marzouq. The Christians making this pact with Umar pledged:

We made a condition on ourselves that we will neither erect in our areas a monastery, church, or a sanctuary for a monk, nor restore any place of worship that needs restoration nor use any of them for the purpose of enmity against Muslims….We will not . . . prevent any of our fellows from embracing Islam, if they choose to do so. We will respect Muslims, move from the places we sit in if they choose to sit in them. We will not imitate their clothing, caps, turbans, sandals, hairstyles, speech, nicknames and title names, or ride on saddles, hang swords on the shoulders, collect weapons of any kind or carry these weapons…. We will not encrypt our stamps in Arabic, or sell liquor. We will have the front of our hair cut, wear our customary clothes wherever we are, wear belts around our waist, refrain from erecting crosses on the outside of our churches and demonstrating them and our books in public in Muslim fairways and markets. We will not sound the bells in our churches, except discreetly, or raise our voices while reciting our holy books inside our churches in the presence of Muslims. . . .

After these and other rules are fully laid out, the agreement concludes: “These are the conditions that we set against ourselves and followers of our religion in return for safety and protection. If we break any of these promises that we set for your benefit against ourselves, then our Dhimmah (promise of protection) is broken and you are allowed to do with us what you are allowed of people of defiance and rebellion.”[ii]

All this does not add up to forced conversion, but many times in Islamic history it has made living as a non-Muslim so burdensome and onerous that conversion to Islam became the only path to a better life. Coerced? Perhaps not. But the line between coercion and free choice is in this case exceedingly fine.

FP: David Aikman?

Aikman: I applaud Mustafa Akyol's denunciation of the forced conversion of Fox newsmen Centanni and Wiig, but I fear that Mr. Akyol's humane disgust with conversion at the end of a gun-barrel is largely because he has benefited from having grown up in modern Turkey, which, since its founding in the 20th century by Attaturk, has been blessed by a secular state and not an Islamic one. If Mr. Akyol were resident in many other Muslim countries around the world, he would at best be repudiated for the un-shariah approach to the issue he expressed in this forum, at worst threatened with physical harm or death.

Mr. Robert Spencer, a specialist on Islamic attitudes in history towards people of non-Islamic faith, has put the case expertly and eloquently that the overwhelming weight of the Islamic tradition in practice has been to subject conquered non-Muslims to unconscionable humiliations in the way they are permitted to practice their faiths, humiliations that amount to coercion to convert to Islam. I certainly have nothing to add to his historical arguments. I think they are very persuasive.

What I do wish to address is what this new, threatening component in the discourse of Islamic militants means for the whole of the human race. It amounts to a war for a totalitarian control not just of its adversaries all over the world, but of the world as a whole. It aspires to coerce the entire world into conversion to Islam or into the humiliating acceptance of "dhimmi" status. In effect, Al Qaeda and all who support it are waging a war not just on the West, not just on the remains of a Christendom almost fatally weakened by political correctness and notions of moral equivalence, but on global civilization itself. Terrorist strikes and plots by advocates of global jihad have been committed or plotted in a variety of countries that makes little sense from the perspective of their various political positions. From England to Indonesia, from Canada to India, from the US to Spain, there have been terrorist plots and outrages, even though in regard to policies towards the Middle East, many of these states have been at odds with each other. But that has not protected them from the jihadist scourge. The reason is that their governments have all shared the view that in the modern world civilized life requires the free movement of commerce and people, of communications and ideas. All of these nations, indeed, except Indonesia, have been signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations in 1948. Even Indonesia, however, is not an officially Islamic state. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration states that "everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, or religion." By extension that has been accepted by signatory states as implying also the freedom of their citizens to change religious belief without penalty or punishment.

In our modern world even those countries still ruled by one-party political systems such as China or Cuba had paid lip-service to the view that freedom of conscience and religious belief is inviolable. China itself has flatly repudiated that period of its recent history when, during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, a nation-wide attempt was made to suppress all manifestations of religious faith. Though China is not fully free by most criteria of political democracy, it is no longer a totalitarian society and has already moved far away from totalitarian state control of all areas of private life. Other countries have problems of pressure on ordinary citizens by adherents of one religion or another not to change religion (India and Sri Lanka, among others) but the overwhelming direction of global civilization is away from religious coercion, not towards it.

It is only in the Islamic world that there is broad sympathy for a point of view that the individual conscience is not a sacred thing at all and does not even belong to the individual, but to the Muslim-controlled community in which the individual is located. This is at odds with the entire direction in which, by overwhelming broad consensus, human civilization as a whole is moving. In effect, Islamic coercion of personal religious conscience is not an example of the "clash of civilizations," but of a war waged by desperate fanatics upon civilization itself. I will leave it to scholars of the early years of Islam to debate whether this war upon the human conscience was the intention of early Islam or not. But that it is the goal of Al Qaeda and practitioners of Islamofascism around the world, there can be no doubt. Mr. Gadahn, the Californian voice of Al Qaeda, may issue his sneering threats to President Bush, or Dr. Daniel Pipes, or to my forum colleague Mr. Robert Spencer and others. But I predict that, when this new totalitarian challenge to global civilization has been overcome, Mr. Gadahn's blustering will be recalled as a historical footnote, like the blusterings after the defeat of Japan during World War 2 of "Tokyo Rose".

Bostom: Mustafa Akyol maintains—citing Koran 2:256— that forced conversion “is in opposition to the basic principles of the Qur'an…There is nothing in the Qur'an which would justify a forced conversion to Islam”. The latter assertion is patently false, and the former is dubious at best, as I will demonstrate. I also object to Mr. Akyol’s invocation of peaceful da’wa (setting up Islamic centers for proselytization) given that there is no reciprocal free marketplace of religious ideas anywhere in the Islamic world, including Turkey. The sad reality is that circa 2006 Islamic proselytization is entirely unidirectional, apparently by design, as Christian missionary activity, for example, is opposed without exception, and often brutally, throughout the Islamic world. But let me make clear—at this critical juncture in history—I cherish Akyol’s unequivocal personal condemnation of forced conversion, despite finding his theological arguments wanting.

Robert Spencer has focused on the hadith and sira, laying out elegantly the coercive elements intrinsic to those foundational Muslim texts which were incorporated permanently into Islamic Law, the Sharia. His illustration of the so-called Pact of Umar, and its modern invocation by Saudi Sheikh Marzouq Salem Al-Ghamdi, provides additional edification. David Aikman highlights a critical and disturbing contemporary phenomenon, noting “…there is broad sympathy for a point of view that the individual conscience is not a sacred thing at all and does not even belong to the individual, but to the Muslim-controlled community in which the individual is located.”. I will expand upon this point in my own reference to the Cairo Declaration of 1990, the so-called Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam.

Although Mustafa Akyol acknowledges the forced conversion of pagans in Arabia, he ignores its Koranic source(s), in particular the timeless war proclamation (the Koran being the “uncreated word of Allah” for Muslims) on generic pagans (not simply Arabian pagans), Koran 9:5, which offers pagans the stark “choice” of conversion or death: “Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.” Thus for the idolatrous Hindus (and the same applies to enormous populations of pagans/animists wherever Muslim jihadist armies encountered them in history, including, sadly, contemporary Sudan) for example, enslaved in vast numbers during the waves of jihad conquests that ravaged the Indian subcontinent for well over a half millennium (beginning at the outset of the 8th century C.E.), the guiding principles of Islamic law regarding their fate —derived from Koran 9:5—were unequivocally coercive. Jihad slavery also contributed substantively to the growth of the Muslim population in India. K.S. Lal elucidates both of these points:

The Hindus who naturally resisted Muslim occupation were considered to be rebels. Besides they were idolaters (mushrik) and could not be accorded the status of Kafirs, of the People of the Book - Christians and Jews… Muslim scriptures and treatises advocated jihad against idolaters for whom the law advocated only Islam or death… The fact was that the Muslim regime was giving [them] a choice between Islam and death only. Those who were killed in battle were dead and gone; but their dependents were made slaves. They ceased to be Hindus; they were made Musalmans in course of time if not immediately after captivity…slave taking in India was the most flourishing and successful [Muslim] missionary activity…Every Sultan, as [a] champion of Islam, considered it a political necessity to plant or raise [the] Muslim population all over India for the Islamization of the country and countering native resistance.

The late Rudi Paret was a seminal 20th century scholar of the Koran, and its exegesis. Paret’s considered analysis of Koran 2:256, puts this verse in the overall context of Koranic injunctions regarding pagans, specifically, and further concludes that 2:256 is a statement of resignation, not a prohibition on forced conversion.

After the community which the Prophet had established had extended its power over the whole of Arabia, the pagan Arabs were forcefully compelled to accept Islam stated more accurately, they had to choose either to accept Islam or death in battle against the superior power of the Muslims (cf. surahs 8:12; 47:4). This regulation was later sanctioned in Islamic law. All this stands in open contradiction to the alleged meaning of the Quranic statement, noted above: la ikraha fi d-dini. The idolaters (mushrikun) were clearly compelled to accept Islam - unless they preferred to let themselves be killed. [Note-Koran 9:5];

In view of these circumstances it makes sense to consider another meaning. Perhaps originally the statement la ikraha fi d-dini did not mean that in matters of religion one ought not to use compulsion against another but that one could not use compulsion against another (through the simple proclamation of religious truth).

Lest one think such coercion applies only to “pagans”, Princeton scholar Patricia Crone makes the cogent argument that coercion may apply during any act of jihad resulting in captivity (i.e., jihad as the institution for extension of Islamic suzerainty, including, for our example, the jihad kidnapping of the two Fox reporters). Dr. Crone, in her recent analysis of the origins and development of Islamic political thought, makes an important nexus between the mass captivity and enslavement of non-Muslims during jihad campaigns, and the prominent role of coercion in these major modalities of Islamization. Following a successful jihad, she notes:

Male captives might be killed or enslaved, whatever their religious affiliation. People of the Book were not protected by Islamic law until they had accepted dhimma. Captives might also be given the choice between Islam and death, or they might pronounce the confession of faith of their own accord to avoid execution: jurists ruled that their change of status was to be accepted even though they had only converted out of fear.

An unapologetic view of Islamic history reveals that forced conversions to Islam are not exceptional—they have been the norm, across three continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—for over 13 centuries. Orders for conversion were decreed under all the early Islamic dynasties—Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, and Mamluks. Additional extensive examples of forced conversion were recorded during the jihad campaigns and rule of the Berber Almoravids and Almohads in North Africa and Spain (11th through 13th centuries), under both Seljuk and Ottoman Turkish rule (the latter until its collapse in the 20th century), the Shi’ite Safavid and Qajar dynasties of Persia/Iran, and during the jihad ravages on the Indian subcontinent, beginning with the early 11th century campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni, and recurring under the Delhi Sultanate, and Moghul dynasty until the collapse of Muslim suzerainty in the 18th century following the British conquest of India.

Moreover, during jihad—even the jihad campaigns of the 20th century [i.e., the jihad genocide of the Armenians during World War I, the Moplah jihad in Southern India [1921], the jihad against the Assyrians of Iraq [early 1930s], the jihads against the Chinese of Indonesia and the Christian Ibo of southern Nigeria in the 1960s, and the jihad against the Christians and Animists of the southern Sudan from 1983 to 2001], the dubious concept (see Paret, above) of “no compulsion” (Koran 2:256; which was cited with tragic irony during the Fox reporters “confessional”!), has always been meaningless. A consistent practice was to enslave populations taken from outside the boundaries of the “Dar al Islam”, where Islamic rule (and Law) prevailed. Inevitably fresh non-Muslim slaves, including children (for example, the infamous devshirme system in Ottoman Turkey, which spanned three centuries and enslaved 500,000 to one million Balkan Christian adolescent males, forcibly converting them to Islam), were Islamized within a generation, their ethnic and linguistic origins erased. Two enduring and important mechanisms for this conversion were concubinage and the slave militias—practices still evident in the contemporary jihad waged by the Arab Muslim Khartoum government against the southern Sudanese Christians and Animists. And Julia Duin reported in early 2002 that murderous jihad terror campaigns—including, prominently, forced conversions to Islam—continued to be waged against the Christians of Indonesia’s Moluccan Islands.

My concern, despite Mr. Akyol’s noble personal views, is that the Muslim ulema know what Paret and Crone have explained is true: there was nothing “Un-Islamic” about the forced conversions of Centanni and Wiig. This is how, in the main, Islam spread in the first place: conquest, forced conversion, concubinage, and enslavement, with the slaves ultimately converting to Islam (their only route to manumission)—followed by the conversion of dhimmis, to escape their own grinding oppression, or during paroxysms of violent persecution of the dhimmis, which also included bouts of forced conversion.

Thus, there has been utter silence on the Centanni-Wiig forced conversions from Muslim clerical and religio-political elites—Sunni and Shi’ite—across the Muslim world. No denunciations, and no formal fatwas have been issued invalidating the forced conversions, or making clear in advance that any Muslim who attacks Centanni and Wiig for not behaving as Muslims “post-conversion”, i.e., for “apostasy”, will be condemned and prosecuted, with full religious sanction. Contrast this silence from those clerical elites who were so quick to denounce factitious Koran flushings, banal Danish cartoons of Muhammad, and just this past week, Pope Benedict’s honest, reasoned critique of the living, genocidal institution of jihad war. I ask Mustafa Akyol why has the same Turkish Religious Affairs Directorate head Ali Bardakoglu, who within hours issued a hair-trigger denunciation of Pope Benedict’s September 12, 2006 Remengsburg lecture, remained mum for weeks now on the forced conversions of Centanni and Wiig, and likely will never publicly denounce their conversions?

The forced conversions of Centanni and Wiig illustrate clearly the basic rejection of freedom of conscience in the Islamic world which derives from Islam’s core texts—Koran, hadith, and sira—is enshrined in Islamic Law, and been applied incessantly throughout the entire history of Islam, into the contemporary era. The pervasiveness of this rejection, even at present, was alluded to by David Aikman, and is perhaps best demonstrated by the Cairo Declaration of 1990. Referring to the Cairo Declaration, the Shari’a-based “Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (UDHRI)”, which subordinates the UN’s own Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Sharia Law, Muslim Senegalese jurist Adama Dieng (while serving as secretary-general to the International Commission of Jurists) declared in 1992 that, the UDHRI,

...gravely threatens the inter-cultural consensus on which the international human rights instruments are based; introduces, in the name of the defense of human rights, an intolerable discrimination against both non-Muslims and women; reveals a deliberately restrictive character in regard to certain fundamental rights and freedoms..; [and] confirms the legitimacy of practices, such as corporal punishment, that attack the integrity and dignity of the human being.

ALL (now 57)member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)—including Turkey—have signed on to this Sharia-based document. And now even the Cairo Declaration appears to have been deemed inadequate to fulfill the global Shari’a-based needs of the 57 OIC states who are considering the establishment of their own international “world court” in order to “…try and condemn all those nations and individuals who have instigated or committed crimes against the Muslims.”

Ultimately, the forced conversions of Centanni and Wiig represent an ominous continuum (clearly accentuated in our era if only by contrast with Western ideals) of Islam’s denial of, and assault upon, basic freedom of conscience.

Akyol: Thanks for the feedback from Mr. Spencer, Mr. Aikman and Mr. Bostom. Let me respond.

First, Mr. Spencer's comment about the attacks against Muslims who "turned renegade" is true, but it also points to an important fact: In the early Muslim state, apostasy became regarded as a crime because it was seen as a rebellion against the state. In other words, the real consideration was political and, by time, this turned into a religious rule as well. This is, of course, a deviation we Muslims should rid ourselves today.

Don't take my word for this, if you will, take a look at what Dr. David Forte, professor of law at Cleveland State University, says on the origin the ban on apostasy in Islam:

“Three institutions have deflected the trajectory of Mohammed's original message: the law, the empire, and the tribe. Let us take apostasy as an example. The Quran condemns the apostate to damnation but imposes no earthly penalty. The death penalty arose later, in the law. It was the traditions of the Prophet, known as the Sunna, developed and codified later during a drive for the Islamicization of the early Islamic empire, that required putting the apostate to death...

The primary justification for the execution of the apostate is that in the early days of Islam, apostasy and treason were in fact synonymous. War was perennial in Arabia. It never stopped. To reject the leader of another tribe, to give up on a coalition, was in effect to go to war against him. There was no such thing as neutrality. There were truces, but there was never a permanent neutrality. It is reported, for example, that immediately after the death of Mohammed, many tribes apostatized. They said in effect, "The leader whom we were following is gone, so let's go back to our own leaders." And they rebelled against Muslim rule. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, ordered such rebels to be killed.

Many scholars argue that the tradition that all apostates had to be killed had its origin during these wars of rebellion and not during Mohammed's time. In fact, many argue that these traditions in which Mohammed affirmed the killing of apostates were apocryphal, made up later to justify what the empire had been doing.”

We Muslims should get rid of those politically needed but religiously irrelevant rules that still persist in the religious texts of Islam. We should also see that the Koran took the conditions of the 7th century Arabia as a given and established just norms according to those conditions. The dhimma was one of them. Based on the Koran (Sura 9:29), and the needs of the Islamic state, Muslim jurist developed the whole idea of what Bat Yeor calls "dhimmitude." She and others criticize this pretty harshly but they should see that the dhimma was just and humane according to the political realities of the seventh century. In Christian Europe, religious minorities were not tolerated at all. In Islamic lands, they were tolerated as second-class citizens.

Europe, and the West, of course progressed since then and embraced the principle of equal citizenship. But this is not alien to the Islamic world, too: The dhimma was abolished by the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1859. (This is long before Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was even born.) Ottomans gave equal citizenship rights to all the Jews and Christians on their land. This was debated and found some support among the "ulema", Islamic scholars of the time. There were many Jewish and Christian parliamentarians in the Ottoman Parliament, which was established by the constitution of 1876, and the Muslim ulema had no problem with that.

Therefore, I don't think that dhimma is a legitimate institution today. Nor is slavery, which is also mentioned in the Koran. But I don't think that because I am a radical secularist, but because I am a Muslim who recognizes the impact of historical conditions in the formation of his religion. And my "humane disgust with conversion at the end of a gun-barrel" does not come from the fact I have been living in a secular state — it is, unfortunately, not truly secular by the way; it is dominant on religious practice — but because I stick to the core principles of Islam. Those principles have been against forced conversion all along. Just one example: When the Ottoman Sultan Yavuz Selim thought of converting the Christians in his empire to Islam, the Sheik-ul Islam (the top ulema that looked over state policies) objected and showed the Koranic verse, "there is no compulsion in religion." The Sultan listened to him. There are of course bad episodes in Islamic history, too, but the general opinion was that forced conversion is unaccepted.

Mr. Bostom has written, "there is no reciprocal free marketplace of religious ideas anywhere in the Islamic world, including Turkey." That's unfortunately true but, if we speak about Turkey, there is an interesting fact worth noting. As I have explained, the lack of religious freedom in Turkey is due to the intolerant nationalism of the secular establishment. Turkey's Muslims themselves have been the victims of the same secular authoritarianism.

Mr. Bostom also quotes the Koranic verse, "slay the idolaters wherever ye find them." Yet he fails to note that this verse addresses a specific group of pagans, who had made a peace treaty with Muslims and then broke that treaty by attacking them. The whole Sura 9 — the only sura in the Koran which does not start with the phrase, "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful" — is about the war conditions on those pagans who broke the treaty and attacked Muslims in the first place.

Later on, when Islamic jurisprudence developed, these war verses were taken to be the norm and other verses, such as, "Fight in the Way of Allah against those who fight you, but do not go beyond the limits" (2:190), which suggest that only defensive wars are allowed, were abandoned by the doctrine of abrogation, which many contemporary Muslims, including myself, reject.

As for the overall assessment of the Koranic chapters on war, I agree with the comment by Dr. Michael Cook, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He says:

"In the Koran, it’s hard to figure out whether the text refers to defensive or offensive warfare. There are certain passages the medieval scholars always cite, saying they show jihad should be offensive. But if you look at the passages carefully, it’s not that obvious. On the basis of the Koran alone you could mount a decent argument for saying offensive jihad is never a duty. In Islamic law, it’s different. From things the prophet said or is said to have said, Islamic law develops the doctrine that it is a duty..."

Thus, on the basis of the Koran, I argue that Islam should bring no "compulsion in religion" and jihad should only be a defensive doctrine; protect yourself if you are attacked. Throughout history not all Muslims have thought acted according to these principles, but this had and still has many different motives behind it. Most "jihad"s in history were actually expansionism for political and economic gains. Yet sometimes people tend to label the most profane acts of violence by nominal Muslims as jihad. I remember, for example, that Mr. Bostom had portrayed the sacking of Thessaloniki in 904 by Muslim pirates as a "jihad campaign," in his long rebuttal against me published again on FPM and which I have responded to.

Spencer: Mustafa Akyol is correct that “in the early Muslim state, apostasy became regarded as a crime because it was seen as a rebellion against the state.” However, when he asserts that “the real consideration was political and, by time, this turned into a religious rule as well,” he seems to be assuming a distinction between the political and religious spheres that never existed in the Islamic world until it was introduced from the West in relatively modern times. This distinction is still strenuously rejected by most Islamic authorities. Because Sharia, including its political and societal aspects, is considered to be the very law of God, all too many Islamic scholars share the view of Tunisian theorist Mohamed Elhachmi Hamdi: “Islam should be the main frame of reference for the constitution and laws of predominantly Muslim countries.” [iii]

Thus Muslims may be unmoved by Akyol’s argument that the death penalty for apostasy be rejected because it was originally instituted on political, not religious grounds. I share his hope that in the future this may provide peaceful Muslims a pathway to rejecting the death penalty for apostasy, but a great deal of work would first have to be done to secure widespread acceptance among Muslims of a Western-style distinction between the sacred and secular spheres – a distinction that, under pressure from jihadists, is in fact in retreat everywhere in the Islamic world today.

Unfortunately, even Dr. Forte’s assertion that “the Quran condemns the apostate to damnation but imposes no earthly penalty” is not assured. As I pointed out above, some Muslim authorities even argue that, aside from the Hadith, the Qur’an itself mandates death for apostates (4:89). Thus I hope that Muslim reformers like Mr. Akyol will succeed in constructing a firm rejection of Qur’anic literalism on this and every other point where jihadists point to the text of the Qur’an to justify violence and the subjugation of infidels. It is true that “the dhimma was abolished by the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1859,” but this was accomplished mainly due to Western pressure, and cultural hangovers of the dhimma continue to plague non-Muslims throughout the Islamic world. Hence I hope that Western awareness of and pressure against the denial of equality of rights for non-Muslims in Muslim countries continues to increase, and again applaud Mr. Akyol for his rejection of such measures. May his influence continue to grow in the Islamic world.

Aikman: I, too, applaud Mr. Akyol's humane interpretation of how Islam should be lived out and how it should co-exist with other faiths. Would that his assertion of this right of religious freedom of conscience, his denunciation of dhimma conditions of non-Muslim faiths, his repudiation of slavery, became the norm throughout the Islamic world. Would that there were 100,000 Mustafa Akyols busily active in reforming Islam, from Bradford, England to Bali, Indonesia.

But there aren't. We are, in fact, left with two dismaying aspects of the global situation in which Muslims on four or five continents are striving either to oppress non-Muslims, or to attain a political situation where they can do so.

The first is that, all of us know fine, upstanding, and honorable Muslim individuals who would no more think of blowing up a bus full of children than we ourselves would. The overwhelming reality, however, is that moderate Muslims like Mr. Akyol seem perpetually drowned out by Islamic mobs all over the world who fasten upon every criticism of their faith in every format – cartoons, to novels, to academic speeches -- from every prominent person as license to go on a violent rampage.

Even when they are not rampaging, Muslim protesters can be counted upon to impose their often ugly religious sentiments on practitioners of other faiths whose leading adherents may have said or written things critical of Islam. There was something close to the manner of Hitler's Brownshirts in the Islamic protesters who barracked with shouted slogans and offensive placards ("May Allah Curse the Pope") innocent church-going Roman Catholics in London outside Westminster Cathedral because of their anger at the words of Pope Benedict XVI.

If Catholic Protesters in Washington similarly harassed Muslims about to enter the Islamic Center with slogans and placards, would there not be a howl of protest throughout the Islamic world? (And not just howls of protest: probably massive property destruction and bodily injury as well). Where are the millions of moderate Muslims anywhere in the world rising up against these new Brownshirts, demanding an apology for the forced conversion of Centanni and Wiig, joining the chorus for an end to the killings in Darfur, Sudan? Where, in short, is the authentic humane center of the Islamic world?

It doesn't appear to exist, or if it does, its voice has not been audible and its protests not visible. Of course there are wonderful Turks, Pakistanis, Malaysians – who knows? – perhaps even Muslim Britons who genuinely desire a global discourse among religions where reason and mutual tolerance prevail. But they seem to be either too busy or too disorganized to make their presence heard. Of course, it may also simply be that they are all simply scared. Muslims who criticize in public fellow-religionists of extremist viewpoint face the ever-present danger of becoming the targets of death-threats.

The second dismaying aspect of the whole issue of Islamic coercion of non-Muslim faiths, of dhimmitude, is that the concept of "humane" doesn't seem to exist today within the closed circle of Islam. "Compassionate" exists. "Merciful" exists. These are two descriptions attributed to Allah in the Koran. But the very concept of "humanity" grew out of a Christianized worldview in which communities, governments, and individuals were thought to have an obligation to be compassionate and merciful as well. Of course, "humanity" quickly became a concept that could stand on its own, without any reference to a religious point of view. Indeed, one may say that "humanity" has risen to an ideal of human conduct that has transcended most secular ideologies. A Cuban Communist and a Texas Republican probably both would agree on what constituted "humanity" when they saw it.

Does the concept of "humanity" have any traction at all today within fervent Islamic communities. Can one imagine Ahmadinejad or Ayman al-Zawahiri using the term?

Probably not. And therein, it seems to me, lies one of the greatest challenges to the possibility that Muslim communities can recognize basic human rights like freedom of conscience and the freedom – Heaven forfend – to be an apostate.

Bostom: The notion that the multiple timeless war proclamations in sura (chapter) 9 of the Koran—once again the “uncreated word of Allah” for Muslims—are somehow circumscribed, or even more fanciful, specific to certain “pagans”, or “Jews”, or “Christians”, is mere apologetic propaganda disproved by the evolution of the jihad as a uniquely Islamic institution in both theory and resultant ugly (but faithfully adherent) historical practice. The classical (and authoritative modern) Koranic commentaries on sura 9 (and other jihad verses in the Koran), and the germane hadith—both requisite to interpreting these verses—in conjunction with the earliest Muslim biographies of Muhammad, clarified these aggressive warlike motifs which the greatest luminaries of Islamic Law formulated (in countless volumes of dry juridical texts) into the living Muslim institution of jihad war. And for more than a millennium pious Muslim historians celebrated the actual conduct of these brutal jihad campaigns—replete with their sanctioned MPED—massacre, pillage, enslavement, and deportation.

The Ottomans were classical jihadists, whatever ahistorical fantasies Mr. Akyol chooses to indulge. Molla Khosrew (d. 1480) was a celebrated writer and Hanafi jurist, who was appointed the Ottoman Shaykh-al-Islam, the leading clerical authority, by Sultan Mehmed II (the 1453 conqueror of Constantinople) in 1469. He wrote authoritative, widely cited legal works, which reiterated these classical views on jihad:

…jihad is a fard al-kifaya, that is, that one must begin the fight against the enemy, even when he [the enemy] may not have taken the initiative to fight, because the Prophet...early on…allowed believers to defend themselves, later, however, he ordered them to take the initiative at certain times of the year, that is, at the end of the haram months, saying, “Kill the idolaters wherever you find them...” (Q9:5).

He finally ordered fighting without limitations, at all times and in all places, saying, “Fight those who do not believe in God, and in the Last Day...”(Q9:29); there are also other [similar] verses on the subject. This shows that it is a fard al-kifaya

The contemporary Turkish scholar of Ottoman history, Halil Inalcik, has emphasized how this conception of jihad—as formulated by Molla Khosrew, and both his predecessors and followers—was a primary motivation for the conquests of the Ottoman Turks

The ideal of gaza, Holy War, was an important factor in the foundation and development of the Ottoman state. Society in the frontier principalities conformed to a particular cultural pattern imbued with the ideal of continuous Holy War and continuous expansion of the Dar ul Islam-the realms of Islam- until they covered the whole world.

Mr. Akyol makes additional ahistorical claims with regard to the ineffectual Tanzimat reforms of the mid-19th century, which (understandably) failed to render non-Muslims “equal” to Muslims, in violation of Shari’a-sanctioned dhimmitude.

A systematic examination of the condition of the Christian rayas was conducted in the 1860s by British consuls stationed throughout the Ottoman Empire, yielding extensive primary source documentary evidence. Britain was then Turkey's most powerful ally, and it was in her strategic interest to see that oppression of the Christians was eliminated, to prevent direct, aggressive Russian or Austrian intervention. On July 22, 1860, Consul James Zohrab sent a lengthy report from Sarajevo to his ambassador in Constantinople, Sir Henry Bulwer, analyzing the administration of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, again, following the 1856 Tanzimat reforms. Referring to the reform efforts, Zohrab states:

The Hatti-humayoun, I can safely say, practically remains a dead letter…while [this] does not extend to permitting the Christians to be treated as they formerly were treated, is so far unbearable and unjust in that it permits the Mussulmans to despoil them with heavy exactions. False imprisonments (imprisonment under false accusation) are of daily occurence. A Christian has but a small chance of exculpating himself when his opponent is a Mussulman (...) Christian evidence, as a rule, is still refused (...)

Edouard Engelhardt made these observations from his detailed analysis of the Tanzimat period, noting that a quarter century after the Crimean War (1853-56), and the second iteration of Tanzimat reforms, the same problems persisted:

Muslim society has not yet broken with the prejudices which make the conquered peoples subordinate…the raya [dhimmis] remain inferior to the Osmanlis; in fact he is not rehabilitated; the fanaticism of the early days has not relented…[even liberal Muslims rejected]…civil and political equality, that is to say, the assimilation of the conquered with the conquerors.

Throughout the Ottoman Empire, particularly within the Balkans, and later Anatolia itself, attempted emancipation of the dhimmi peoples provoked violent, bloody responses against those “infidels” daring to claim equality with local Muslims. The massacres of the Bulgarians (in 1876), and more extensive massacres of the Armenians (1894-96), culminating in a frank jihad genocide against the Armenians during World War I, epitomize these trends. Enforced abrogation of the laws of dhimmitude required the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire. This finally occurred after the Balkan Wars of independence, and during the European Mandate period following World War I.

Despite Mr. Akyol’s protest, jihad piracy is simply a manifestation of the naval razzias characteristic of Islamic imperialism since its emergence in the 7th and 8th centuries. For example, although the Abbasid state (750-1250) “orientalized” the Caliphate, and lacked naval power of any importance, in the west, Muslim forces (i.e., decentralized, “organic formations”), continued the Islamic expansion by maritime warfare. Throughout the 9th and 10th centuries, Berbers and Arabs from Spain and North Africa launched raids along the coastal regions of France, Italy, Sicily, and in the Greek archipelago.

Francisco Gabrieli has described how these naval razzias were concordant with jihad, yet antithetical to the modern rule of law. He also emphasized their capacity for conquest, or, even when “disorganized”, triumphal rapine and destruction:

According to present-day concepts of international relations, such activities amounted to piracy, but they correspond perfectly to jihad, an Islamic religious duty. The conquest of Crete, in the east, and a good portion of the corsair warfare along the Provencal and Italian coasts, in the West, are among the most conspicuous instances of such “private initiative” which contributed to Arab domination in the Mediterranean.

…In the second half of the ninth century, a large number of Saracen (Muslim) raids occurred throughout Southern and Central Italy, but we do not get the impression of their ever having been part of a plan or organized conquest, as Musa’s, Tariq’s, and Asad’s campaigns had been in Spain and Sicily. Their only object seems to have been destruction and looting which was also the object of the armed groups faced by Charles on the Balat ash-Shuhada near Poitiers.

…The no less classical themes of Arabic war poetry, the hamasah sanctified by jihad, ring out in the recollections and boasts of Ibn Hamdis, the Sicilian Abu Firas, who exalts the military successes of Islam on Calabrian soil, the landing of Muslim troops at Reggio and their exploits against the patricians whom they cut to pieces or put to flight.

A proto-typical Muslim naval razzia occurred in 846 when a fleet of Arab jihadists arrived at the mouth of the Tiber, made their way to Rome (p. 421), sacked the city, and carried away from the basilica of St. Peter all of the gold and silver it contained. But perhaps the largest and most infamous of the naval jihad campaigns during this period was the sack and pillage of Thessaloniki in 904. During July, 904, under the command of the Muslim convert Leo of Tripoli, more than ten thousand Cretan Arabs, Syrians, and North Africans briefly sieged, and then captured Thessaloniki, slaughtering and enslaving its inhabitants (some 22,000 slaves were taken), and causing great physical destruction to the city. John Cameniates provided an eyewitness account of these events, recorded in his chronicle. Cameniates, his elderly father, and his brother, taken prisoner while they tried to escape by the ramparts, were spared their lives because they promised their captors a large amount of money. They were marched as prisoners through the city, and thus witnessed the terrible carnage of their fellow townspeople.

Halil Inalcik has placed the 14th century Aegean sea naval razzias of the Turkish maritime emirates in the context of jihad, citing, for example, the chapter of the Dusturname of Enveri concerning the actions of the emirate of Aydin. Elizabeth Zachariadou describes the consternation of contemporary 14th century Latin and Byzantine chroniclers observing the “spectacle” of Turkish emirs, “…who were proud only because they were able to lead their ferocious soldiers” in such predatory attacks. These raids—designed to pillage property and abduct captives for sale in slave markets—although merely ignoble piracy or brigandage from the perspective of the Christian chroniclers, nevertheless, as Zachariadou notes, were,

…for the Muslim Turks, a Holy War (Jihad), a praiseworthy and legitimate occupation, leading directly to Paradise.

Gregory Palamus, a Metropolitan of Thessalonica during the 14th century, wrote this commentary while living as a captive amongst the Turks in 1354, confirming (albeit with astonishment) that indeed the Turks attributed their victories over the Byzantines to their (the Muslims) love of God:

For these impious people, hated by God and infamous, boast of having got the better of the Romans by their love of God…they live by the bow, the sword and debauchery, finding pleasure in taking slaves, devoting themselves to murder, pillage, spoil…and not only do they commit these crimes, but even—what an aberration—they believe that God approves of them. This is what I think of them, now that I know precisely about their way of life.

More than 550 years later, and a continent (and oceans) away, C. Snouck Hurgronje reported (in 1906) that similar acts of jihad piracy were still being performed against non-Muslims (both indigenous populations, and Western traders) by the Muslim Acehnese of the Indonesian archipelago:

From Mohammedanism (which for centuries she [i.e., Aceh] is reputed to have accepted) she really only learnt a large number of dogmas relating to hatred of the infidel without any of their mitigating concomitants; so the Acehnese made a regular business of piracy and man-hunting at the expense of the neighboring non-Mohammedan countries and islands, and considered that they were justified in any act of treachery or violence to European (and latterly to American) traders who came in search of pepper, the staple product of the country. Complaints of robbery and murder on board ships trading in Acehnese parts thus grew to be chronic.

Finally, the Barbary jihad piracy which confronted America soon after our nation was established (i.e., between 1786-1815), was an enduring, formidable enterprise. During the 16th and 17th centuries, as many Europeans were captured, sold, and enslaved by the Barbary corsairs as were West Africans made captive and shipped for plantation labor in the Americas by European slave traders. Robert Davis’ methodical enumeration indicates that between one, and one and one-quarter million white European Christians were enslaved by the Barbary Muslims from 1530 through 1780.

Akyol: Thanks to Mr. Spencer and Mr. Aikman for their good wishes. Yet I have to note that the views I express here are not too heterodox in modern Islamic thought. At least in Turkey, where I live, the synthesis between the Islamic faith and modern values such as individual liberty and democracy are widely accepted and supported by many Muslim intellectuals. In the Arab world, too, there was a "liberal age" -- as the great historian of the Middle East, Albert Hourani, called it -- in which the same synthesis was making progress. However it died out due to several influences. One of them was the introduction of an intolerant, authoritarian and anti-religious version of secularism to the Muslim world, which only strengthened its mirror image, i.e. the Islamist alternative. That type of secularism was mainly a French export, whereas Muslim societies had virtually no experience with the American way of secularism, which am I in favor of.

Anyway, that's another story. As for the Qur'an and apostasy, I disagree with the view that verse 4:89 outlaws apostasy and that's not a universal view among authorities, as Mr. Spencer also accepts.

Mr. Spencer also points out that the religious and the political have been traditionally infused in the Islamic civilization. That observation is correct, but I just say that it does not have to be that way. At the heart of this infusion lies the fact that Prophet Muhammad was not just a religious guide but also a political leader. But modern Muslim intellectuals emphasize the distinction between the two, and argue that while his religious contribution is eternally valid, his political career is "historical," i.e. limited to his milieu. Even in Prophet Muhammad's time, there are cases in which Muslims asked him whether his judgments were based on a revelation from God or his personal assessment. If the latter was the case, Muslims could object to what the Prophet said. I believe that here lies a justification for the separation of politics and religion in Islam. It is true that it has not been the dominant view, but it is possible.

Mr. Aikman notes, "the very concept of "humanity" grew out of a Christianized worldview in which communities, governments, and individuals were thought to have an obligation to be compassionate and merciful as well," whereas, according to him, it is only Allah who is compassionate and merciful in Islam. I disagree. The Koranic verse 24:22 reads:

"Those of you possessing affluence and ample wealth should not make oaths that they will not give to their relatives and the very poor and those who have made left their homes in the way of Allah. They should rather pardon and overlook. Would you not love Allah to forgive you? Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful."

The verse implies that powerful Muslims should take care of others as God does with people. There are many other verses calling Muslims for good morals. Actually they are defined as "those who give (charity) in times of both ease and hardship, those who control their rage and pardon other people; Allah loves the good-doers." (3:134)

Those Muslims who can't "control their rage" at all are doing this not because of the Koran, but despite the Koran.

Mr. Bostom, on the other, by his customary method of episode-mining, tries to convince us how bloody the history of the Islamic civilization is and why this was mainly due to the teachings of Islam. I disagree.

First, of course, the history of virtually all civilizations, including the West, is bloody. I don't need to give detailed accounts of how Crusaders, Conquistadors or modern colonialists massacred natives of all kinds. Islamic civilization has its own history of wars, conquests and massacres to be sure. It is also true that many times Islamic rulers tried to justify their expansionism by referring to the doctrine of jihad. But in most cases, their true motives were deriving from mundane politics and economy.

Just take case of Ottomans, which Mr. Bostom makes great deal of. It is true that the Ottomans conquered many Christian lands and nations. However, they conquered many Muslim lands and nations as well! Actually they started as one among the many Muslim emirates in Anatolia and expanded eastward by taking on all the others one by one. Later on they occupied and annexed the whole Muslim Arabic Middle East and Muslim North Africa. This was not jihad; this was mere empire-building.

And that was very normal at the time. It was an age of empires and the Christian ones were doing exactly the same thing: Launching wars on each other or on Muslims simply to maximize their power.

If we wish to judge these empires, we should not do that by using modern criteria, as Mr. Bostom habitually does, but by using a comparative method. And in that sense, the Ottomans score pretty well in terms of the way they behaved the peoples they have conquered. Forced conversion was almost never the case. According Selim Deringil, a secular Turkish historian:

The Ottoman attitude to conversion is nowhere near as clear as that of the Spanish and Portuguese in South America, or the Russians in their expansion southwards into the Don-Volga region. The “saving of souls” was not an integral part of Ottoman Imperial policy, as it was in the Christian empires. The very basis of the Spanish reconquista was to expel Islam from the Iberian peninsula, and there was to be no formal Spanish equivalent of dhimmi (non-Muslim subject) status for the conquered Muslims.

[In Russia] The official conversion policy was also very brutal, particularly after the appointment of Archbishop Luka Konasevic in 1738: “Methods of extreme brutality were brought to bear: massive destruction of mosques, the kidnapping of Muslim children baptised by force and shut up in schools for converts, even the forced baptism of adults ... the death penalty for Muslim missionaries.”…

... The Ottoman Empire never had a “Propaganda Fide,” or an “Agency for Convert Affairs,” nor did it have any press which was used by the Propaganda Fide to such good effect. It is only late in the Hamidian period (1876–1909) and the subsequent Young Turk period that this picture begins to change.

(Selim Deringil, “There Is No Compulsion in Religion”: On Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire: 1839–18561," Comparative Studies in Society and History (2000), 42: 547-575 Cambridge University Press)

The reason for the change that Deringil points out was the rising nationalism in the crumbling empire, which lead to the tragedy of Armenians, other minorities, and Muslims themselves.

Mr. Bostom also calls Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire, which made Christians and Jews full citizens, "ineffectual." Arguably, they were not. The Ottoman Constitution of 1876 established a limited monarchy all of whose subjects were considered "Osmanli (Ottoman), whatever religion or creed they hold." The constitution further affirmed that "all Osmanli are equal before the law . . . without distinction as to religion."

It is true that these principles were not fully applied in practiced, but the reason was not only bigotry among Muslims as Mr. Bostom would have us believe, but also the non-Muslim subjects of the empire themselves. According to American historian Roderic H. Davison, it is possible to argue that,

... The program of equality between Christian and Muslim in the empire remained largely unrealized not because of bad faith on the part of leading Ottoman statesmen but because many of the Christians wanted it to fail. The demand in Crete was basically for autonomy or union with Greece, not for equality. Other Greeks in the empire wanted the same thing…Serbs wanted not equality but union with the autonomous principality of Serbia. Serbia and Rumania, still within the empire, wanted no sort of equality but national independence…

The ecclesiastical hierarchies that ruled the Christian millet's also opposed equality. Osmanlilik [Ottomanhod] would both decrease their authority and lighten their purses. This was especially true of the Greek Orthodox hierarchy, which had the most extensive prerogatives and by far the largest flock. When the Hatt-i Sherif [Tanzimat Edict] was solemnly read in 1839 and then put back into its red satin pouch it is reported that the Greek Orthodox patriarch, who was present among the notables, said, "Inshallah-God grant that it not be taken out of this bag again." In short, the doctrine of equality faced formidable opposition from Christians of the empire who were leaders in the churches and the nationalist movements…

Davidson also notes,

... Both in 1839 and 1856 the sultan proclaimed that his Christian subjects should be equally privileged to serve in the armed forces along with the Muslims, instead of paying an exemption tax as they had previously done. It soon became obvious that the Christians would rather continue to pay than serve, despite the step toward equality which military service might mean.

(Roderic H. Davison, Turkish Attitudes Concerning Christian-Muslim Equality in the Nineteenth Century, American Historical Review, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Jul., 1954), pp. 844-864)

In other words, the effort by the Ottoman Empire -- a state based on Islamic principles -- to fully abolish the dhimma was resisted to by Christian leaders because they saw the old system more advantageous for their interests. And this means that history is much more complex and puzzling then the Manichean picture drawn by Mr. Bostom about Islam -- in which dhimma-seeking jihadist Muslims always suppress and kill helpless non-Muslims.

What matters to me most about these events is the fact that the Ottoman Empire -- an Islamic state which many Muslims around the world still praise and admire -- gave full citizenship rights to Jews and Christians and accepted the right of apostasy. As early as May 1844, an official Ottoman edict read, “No subject of the Sublime [Ottoman] State shall be forced by anyone to convert to Islam against their wishes.” (Deringil, ibid.)

Unfortunately in some parts of the Muslim world today, especially in Saudi Arabia, the attitude in these matters are much worse. Any religion other than Islam is not simply allowed to exist. As a Muslim serious about his faith, I wholeheartedly denounce such forms of religious tyranny. Islam should be an invitation, not an imposition. If it is imposed, it ceases to be genuine religion at all.

Spencer: The lingering question in the disagreement here between Dr. Bostom and Mr. Akyol is whether when the Ottoman Empire, in Mr. Akyol's words, "gave full citizenship rights to Jews and Christians and accepted the right of apostasy," it was doing so as an Islamic state and based on Islamic principles, or whether it was doing so as an exercise in realpolitik in the face of its own growing weakness and Western pressure. There seems to be little doubt that the Wahhabis of Arabia, beginning even a bit earlier than the period of the reforms in question, began to revolt against Ottoman rule on the basis of the contention that the Ottomans had betrayed their Islamic principles and their role of leadership of the Islamic world.

Whether or not they were correct in this view is an extremely important question, but it is likewise important to note that ultimately the revolt itself indicates that the perception that the Ottomans had betrayed Islam was widespread. It was only compounded by the Tanzimat reforms, whatever their provenance and effectiveness.

Within the imperial court at this time there were a few enlightened statesmen who supported the opening of the Ottoman Empire to Western ideas. With the death of the Western-influenced Grand Vezir Ali Pasha in 1871, however, the Sultan Abdul Aziz was free to pursue a course of reaction, including a reassertion of Islamic principles as over against the Tanzimat reforms and Western influences in general. This only emphasized the precariousness of the reforms in the first place, and shows why, as Mr. Akyol has pointed out, many Christians preferred outright independence to the uncertain halfway house of life in the empire even after the reforms. The Sultan Abdul Hamid II subsequently also pursued a course of Islamic retrenchment which contributed to a great rise in tensions between the Christians of the Empire and their Muslim rulers, culminating ultimately in the exile of the Greeks from Anatolia and, most horrific of all, the Armenian genocide. The Chief Dragoman of the British Embassy at the time of the 1890s massacres reported that their perpetrators "are guided in their general action by the prescriptions of the Sheri [Sharia] law. That law prescribes that if the 'rayah' [dhimmi] Christian attempts, by having recourse to foreign powers, to overstep the privileges allowed to them by their Mussulman masters, and free themselves from their bondage, their lives and property are to be forfeited, and are at the mercy of the Mussulmans" (Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide, Oxford, 1995, p. 147).

Overall, attempts within the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire to abolish the dhimma generally resulted from Western influences (both within and outside the Sublime Porte) and political calculation, not the elaboration of Islamic principles. Many Muslim citizens of the Empire knew this and despised the Porte for it; in several notable incidents, some engaged in savage reassertions of the death penalty for apostasy, and even engaged in forced conversion. A few of these incidents occurred after the Ottoman proscription of forced conversion of 1844, which Mr. Akyol notes. In 1846, Athanasios, a monk and former Muslim, was recognized as an ex-Muslim and murdered for his apostasy. In 1866, a Christian from Crete named George Devoles was captured during a Cretan revolt from Ottoman rule given the choice of conversion to Islam or death; when he refused to convert, he was beheaded. To be sure, these were isolated incidents, not actions of state - but they were the actions of Muslim mobs who were well aware that apostasy from Islam was a capital offense, and that the choice of Islam or death was as old as the prophet Muhammad's directions to offer non-Muslims conversion, the dhimma, or warfare (cf. Sahih Muslim 4294).

The point of all this is only to note that, while I continue to wish Mr. Akyol all success in his reform endeavors, I am afraid that he is likely to face stiff opposition from Muslims who will consider his rejection of punishment for apostasy and of the triple choice of conversion, subjugation, or war as a capitulation to Western ideas and a rejection of Islam. I note this not out of some crabbed glass-half-empty spirit, but because it is important for Westerners, locked as we are in a struggle against global jihadists that is likely to drag on for decades, to have a realistic view of the prospects of the moderate Muslim endeavor in general. The principles that led to the Gadahn convert-or-die videotape, as well as to the forced conversions of Centanni and Wiig, are deeply embedded within Islam, and will not be cast off lightly or easily by Muslims, any more than the Tanzimat reforms were lightly or easily accepted within the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

I agree with Mr. Akyol that "Islam should be an invitation, not an imposition." To make this a reality will require a reshaping and reinvention of Islam on a massive international scale. Accordingly, Western policymakers would be foolish in the extreme to proceed as if this Islam were already a viable reality, or to count on its appearance any time soon. But that doesn't mean that courageous Muslim individuals shouldn't undertake the effort, and for that I again salute Mr. Akyol.

Aikman: Mr. Akyol responds to the issue of the concept of "humanity" within the Islamic tradition by citing sura 24:22 (in Dawood's translation: "Let not the rich and honorable among you swear to withhold their gifts from their kindred, the destitute and those who have fled their homes in the cause of God. Rather let them pardon and forgive. Do you not wish God to forgive you? God is forgiving and merciful." Islam, like all the major faiths, instructs its followers to be forgiving and forbearing. But I maintain my point that at only rare moments historically and at no point in the contemporary world has Islam appealed to values outside of those contained in its own revelation. Islam does not appeal to logic or reason to validate its message. Nor does it appeal to humanity. That is the crux of my point.

It is obvious to any common-sense observer of history and of humanity in general that within Islam there have been noble and humane individuals. The law of averages alone would suggest that this is the case, but there are, of course, instances within Islamic history of great magnanimity being demonstrated. (The conqueror of the Crusaders, Saladdin, 1137-1193 seems to have had a widespread reputation as a man of decency and great humanity). Yet the Koran itself doesn't advocate chivalry towards adversaries in any way at all. In striking contrast both to the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, the Koran has very little to say about treating enemies with mercy and decency. In fact, just the opposite is the standard. For example, there is sura 47:4 ("When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield strike off their heads, and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly.")

My point is that in spite of a glorious period of Islamic philosophy in medieval times, Islamic thought has remained frozen in much of the Muslim world in obscurantism and barbarism for the last few hundred years. (The Taliban in Afghanistan are notorious examples of this). The prevailing view among orthodox Sunni Muslims once the golden age of Islamic philosophy came to an end around the end of the 13th. century was that revelation (i.e. Koranic) always trumped reason. (This is also the point Pope Benedict XVI tried to make about Islam at Regensburg). But revelation – that is, a strictly literalist reading of examples of Mohammed's usually aggressive behavior towards adversaries – also trumped what many have discerned as certain universal principles running through most religions and belief-systems. C.S. Lewis, an orthodox Protestant, referred to it in his book The Abolition of Man by the Chinese word Dao, which, in the Chinese Bible, happens to be the same character used to translate the Greek word logos (the "word" in John's Gospel 1:1). At the risk of oversimplifying Lewis and others, the point is that all major thought systems, including Christianity, seem to have come to a consensus on "humane" behavior that doesn't need to be authenticated by any particular faith's revelation claims. "Humanity," in most of the world today, seems to be a self-evident moral concept. Perhaps this concept did exist at some point in Islamic philosophy. But it certainly seems to be extremely difficult to discern now, or you would not have Muslims all over the world complaining that much of the world seems to regard so many recent Muslim actions as repugnant. Could an Islamic version of Mother Teresa ever exist? One wonders.

Bostom: I will ignore Mr. Akyol’s continued jihad denial--consistent with modern Turkish policy which indoctrinates both the Turkish public and “intelligentsia” to deny the jihad genocide of the Armenians, and is akin to Holocaust denial--confining my responses to his non-sequitur tu quoque arguments about “Christian intolerance” (the forum is on forced conversion to Islam, as sanctioned by Islam in theory and practice), and the reasons for the failure of the Tanzimat reforms.

Speros Vryonis, Jr. has demonstrated convincingly for the period between the 11th and 15th centuries, the existence of cryto-Christianity and neomartyrs were not uncommon phenomena in the Christian territories of Asia Minor conquered by the waves of Seljuk and Ottoman jihad. He cites, for example, a pastoral letter from 1338 addressed to the residents of Nicaea indicating widespread, forcible conversion by the Turks:

And they [Turks] having captured and enslaved many of our own and violently forced them and dragging them along alas! So that they took up their evil and godlessness.

The phenomenon of forcible conversion, including coercive en masse conversions, persisted throughout the 16th century, as discussed by Constantelos in his analysis of neomartyrdom in the Ottoman Empire:

…mass forced conversions were recorded during the caliphates of Selim I (1512-1520),…Selim II (1566-1574), and Murat III (1574-1595). On the occasion of some anniversary, such as the capture of a city, or a national holiday, many rayahs were forced to apostacize. On the day of the circumcision of Mohammed III great numbers of Christians (Albanians, Greeks, Slavs) were forced to convert to Islam.

Reviewing the martyrology of Christians victimized by the Ottomans from the conquest of Constantinople (1453), through the final phases of the Greek War of Independence (1828), Constantelos indicates:

…the Ottoman Turks condemned to death eleven Ecumenical Patriarchs of Constantinople, nearly one hundred bishops, and several thousand priests, deacons, and minks. It is impossible to say with certainty how many men of the cloth were forced to apostasize.

However, the more mundane cases illustrated by Constantelos are of equal significance in revealing the plight of Christians under Ottoman rule, through at least 1867:

Some were accused of insulting the Muslim faith or of throwing something against the wall of a mosque. Others were accused of sexual advances toward a Turk; still others of making a public confession such as “I will become a Turk” without meaning it.

Constantelos concludes:

The story of the neomartyrs indicates that there was no liberty of conscience in the Ottoman Empire and that religious persecution was never absent from the state. Justice was subject to the passions of judges as well as of the crowds, and it was applied with a double standard, lenient for Muslims and harsh for Christians and others. The view that the Ottoman Turks pursued a policy of religious toleration in order to promote a fusion of the Turks with the conquered populations is not sustained by the facts.

Sir Henry Layard, the British archeologist, writer, and diplomat (including postings in Turkey), described this abhorrent spectacle which he witnessed in the heart of Istanbul, during the autumn of 1843, four years after the first failed iteration of the Tanzimat reforms:

An Armenian who had embraced Islamism [i.e., common 19th century usage for Islam] had returned to his former faith. For his apostasy he was condemned to death according to the Mohammedan law. His execution took place, accompanied by details of studied insult and indignity directed against Christianity and Europeans in general. The corpse was exposed in one of the most public and frequented places in Stamboul, and the head, which had been severed from the body, was placed upon it, covered by a European hat. [from, Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Baylonia, London, 1887, pp. 454-55.]

And finally, even the very same modern Ottomanist Roderick Davison (in the very same “Turkish Attitudes Concerning Christian-Muslim Equality in the Nineteenth Century” American Historical Review, 1954, Vol. 59, pp. 848, 855, 859, 864), whom Mr. Akyol quoted approvingly, concedes, that the Tanzimat reforms failed, and offers an explanation that hinges upon on Islamic beliefs intrinsic to the system of dhimmitude:

No genuine equality was ever attained…there remained among the Turks an intense Muslim feeling which could sometimes burst into an open fanaticism…More important than the possibility of fanatic outbursts, however, was the innate attitude of superiority which the Muslim Turk possessed. Islam was for him the true religion. Christianity was only a partial revelation of the truth, which Muhammad finally revealed in full; therefore Christians were not equal to Muslims in possession of truth. Islam was not only a way of worship, it was a way of life as well. It prescribed man’s relations to man, as well as to God, and was the basis for society, for law, and for government. Christians were therefore inevitably considered second-class citizens in the light of religious revelation—as well as by reason of the plain fact that they had been conquered by the Ottomans. This whole Muslim outlook was often summed up in the common term gavur (or kafir), which means ‘unbeliever’ or ‘infidel’, with emotional and quite uncomplimentary overtones. To associate closely or on terms of equality with the gavur was dubious at best. ‘Familiar association with heathens and infidels is forbidden to the people of Islam,’ said Asim, an early nineteenth-century historian, ‘and friendly and intimate intercourse between two parties that are one to another as darkness and light is far from desirable’…The mere idea of equality, especially the anti-defamation clause of 1856, offended the Turks’ inherent sense of the rightness of things. ‘Now we can’t call a gavur a gavur’, it was said, sometimes bitterly, sometimes in matter-of-fact explanation that under the new dispensation the plain truth could no longer be spoken openly. Could reforms be acceptable which forbade calling a spade a spade?...The Turkish mind, conditioned by centuries of Muslim and Ottoman dominance, was not yet ready to accept any absolute equality…Ottoman equality was not attained in the Tanzimat period [i.e., mid to late 19th century, 1839-1876], nor yet after the Young Turk revolution of 1908…

FP: Mustafa Akyol, David Aikman, Robert Spencer and Andrew Bostom, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium.

Notes:

[i] Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “Friday Sermons in Saudi Mosques: Review and Analysis,” MEMRI Special Report No. 10, September 26, 2002. www.memri.org. This undated sermon appeared on the Saudi website www.alminbar.net shortly before the MEMRI translation was made.

[ii] Ibn Kathir, vol. 4, 407.

[iii] Mohamed Elhachmi Hamdi, “Islam and Liberal Democracy: The Limits Of The Western Model,” Journal of Democracy 7.2 (1996), pp. 81-85.

Israel cannot survive: Ahmadinejad

Another genocidal prediction from the Thug-In-Chief. From AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called Israel a "counterfeit and illegitimate regime that cannot survive", in a live broadcast on state television.

"The Zionist regime is counterfeit and illegitimate and cannot survive," he said in a speech to a crowd in the town of Islamshahr in southwestern Tehran.

"The big powers have created this fraud regime and allowed it to commit all kind of crimes to guarantee their interests," he added.

"behead-this-guy"

Jihad Watch reader James has pointed out to me that Amazon.com allows customers to add tag words or phrases to books. Here's one for my book The Truth About Muhammad: "behead-this-guy."

Does Amazon allow death threat tag lines?

UPDATE: As of now, 4:15 AM PDT, the tag has been removed.

"Youths" at it again in France

The intifada continues in France, while the world looks the other way, French authorities are apparently paralyzed, and the media still employs transparent euphemisms rather than ask readers to confront unpleasant realities. "Eight youths arrested for assault on French policemen," from AFP, with thanks to Fjordman:

PARIS, Oct 19, 2006 (AFP) - French police on Thursday arrested eight youths in a tough Paris suburb over the ambush last week of three police officers, one of whom suffered serious facial injuries.

The suspects, aged 17 to 21, identified by their fingerprints, were taken into custody and face possible charges of attempted murder with premeditation over the attack in the southern 'banlieue' of Epinay-sur-Seine, police said.

Friday's incident, in which a police patrol car was set upon by around 30 youths with stones and metal bars, was the third in as many weeks in the Paris area, prompting a chorus of alarm from police unions.

Serious clashes have also occurred at the Les Tartarets estate in Corbeil-Essonnes and at Les Mureaux, in the western Paris outskirts — sparking high profile police raids to root out the suspects.

The pre-dawn operation in Epinay, carried out by plain-clothes officers, was lower key than the previous operations, which critics accused of dangerously fuelling tensions with the local population....

Almost a year after France's suburban riots, sparked on October 27 last year, police have warned the latest attacks could herald a new upsurge of violence in the country's high-immigration, out-of-city estates.

Thousands of cars and hundreds of buildings were torched last year in three weeks of nightly confrontations....

Fitzgerald: Sunnis, Shi'a, Saddam, and Stalin

The English-language daily Tehran Times, quoting political scientist Hassan Nurani, said the influence of the late Imam Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution on the Palestinian cause is very obvious.

The ideas of Imam Khomeini reinforced the Palestinians' determination to liberate their homeland and led to the formation of the Islamic Jihad movement of Palestine, he underlined. – from this Islamic Republic News Agency story

The wrong lesson to draw from this is that there is nothing important dividing Sunni and Shi'a. There is, and there has been for 1350 years, and because of Sunni persecution and murder of Shi'a, Shi'a resentment has grown. Through assorted accidents, the Shi'a in Iran and Iraq, while hardly sharing the same views on everything, do share an interest on protecting themselves from being attacked by or subjugated within Sunni Arab states.

What the story above illustrates is what we already knew: that the Shi'a of Iran are not, pace Gerecht and other admirers of Sistani and "the Shi'a" at My Weekly Standard, less fervent than Sunnis in their opposition to the sliver of a state controlled by Infidels -- Israel. And anti-Infidel fervor, the Islamic Republic of Iran feels, can be used to win the allegiance not of the Sunni Arab rulers, who are suspicious of their attentions, but of the Sunni Arab ruled.

And not only that. Like Muslims generally among non-Muslims in Europe, the Shi'a have been outbreeding the Sunni Arabs in both Iraq (where they were a few decades ago less than half the population, but now constitute 60-65%) and in Lebanon (where the Shi'a now constitute the largest of Lebanon's many groups, with 40% of the population). It is hardly unknown for Sunnis to convert to Shi'a Islam. And recently, apparently out of admiration for the determination and seeming effectiveness of the Islamic Republic of Iran both in its nuclear project and in its championing of the "Palestinian" cause (the Lesser Jihad against Israel), there have been cases of such conversion. This must worry the Ruler of Bahrain; it must worry the Sunnis in Lebanon; it must worry the Saudi government and especially those in charge of the Province of Al-Hasa.

But of course even if the Shi'a of Iran are supporting the largely Sunni "Palestinians," that does not mean that they have made up with the Sunnis, or ever could. Sunni theology is different, and Sunni history is full of anti-Shi'a wars and persecutions.

When it is a matter directly involving Infidels, then Sunni-Shi'a differences do not matter. But when the Infidels can choose to remove themselves, as they could in Iraq, the split between Sunni and Shi'a could be allowed to flourish. Now Israel cannot "remove" itself and should not be forced to, but rather, supported to the hilt in the moral, intellectual, and civilizational interests of the Western world. This support should be seen by every member of the Western world (and by every Christian in the non-Western world) as arising from the West’s very sense of itself and of its own coherence. But in Iraq those Infidel soldiers can and should remove themselves, not out of any desire to placate or appease, or to "cut and run" as the teasing first-graders like to say, but in order to allow the natural divisions within Islam to become still stronger, and to create a permanent fault line between Shi'a and Sunni that will cause tensions, hostilities, and expenditures of men, money, materiel by both the Islamic Republic of Iran and such malevolent Sunni states as Saudi Arabia. It will also require constant attention from both.

There is at least one event that demonstrates clearly that Muslims, being Muslims, will always assume that in the end it is better to trust fellow Muslims than any kind of Infidel. That event took place during the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein was afraid of the Americans bombing his airforce. What did he do? The leader of a country that had attacked, unprovoked, a neighboring Muslim country, Iran, and who had conducted an eight-year war against that same country, Iran, that had just ended three years before, nonetheless chose to move as many of his planes as he safely could to Iran. He chose, that is, to trust the Iranians, even after that eight-year-war, with 80 or more of his planes. He calculated that the Islamic Republic of Iran, much as it might hate him and Iraq, would see the need to help out fellow Muslims.

It turned out he was wrong to have such faith. The Iranians never returned the planes. In this act of touching and misplaced faith, Saddam Hussein showed how deep, even for someone as suspicious as he was, is pan-Muslim loyalty or the sense that in a pinch, a fellow Muslim state not temporarily co-opted by the Infidels will help out another Muslim state. (Saudi Arabia, with its rented lackeys Egypt, and Jordan all supported the American effort against Iraq in 1990-91 because they feared that if Saddam successfully digested Kuwait, he might then move on Saudi Arabia. This "alliance" was misinterpreted in Washington as one of "staunch Arab allies standing with America in fighting aggression against brave little Kuwait").

And Saddam Hussein's trust in fellow-Muslim Iran was akin to the trust shown by his great model, the man he admired most, Joseph Stalin, when Stalin had Molotov sign the pact with Ribbentropp. And though a master of malevolent deceit himself, Stalin was genuinely surprised, genuinely chagrinned, when Hitler, ignoring the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact, invaded Russia in June 1941. Why, he had counted on a fellow mass-murderer and totalitarian dictator to have some loyalties to at least another mass-murder and totalitarian dictator. Something of the same seemed to have passed through Saddam Hussein's perfervid and agitated brain before and during the Gulf War.

And in both cases, the dictators in question were wrong.

Fitzgerald: Tunisia and the Monitoring of Islam

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on the government of Tunisia to respect the religious rights of women in that nation who choose to wear an Islamic headscarf, or "hijab."

Media reports indicate that Tunisian police are stopping women on the streets and asking them to take off their headscarves and to sign a pledge that they will not wear a scarf again. A 1981 Tunisian law prohibits Islamic attire in schools or government offices. -- from this CAIR press release

Tunisia is a police state, but a police state largely dedicated to constraining Islam. It was Bourguiba and his Destour Party who ruled Tunisia at and since independence. Bourguiba was, when it came to treatment of Infidels, far superior than were other Muslim leaders outside of Turkey. But it remains a state where Islam can only be constrained, and it cannot be constrained in all ways.

Of course Tunisia's foreign policy reflects the general unappeasable hostility toward Israel. Indeed, even Abdelwahhab Meddeb, the Tunisian-born student of Islam who has been so keenly critical of Islam, continues to hold violently anti-Israel views -- those views continue to linger among many who no longer remain loyal Muslims, those attitudes are among the last thing to go), and it was in Tunisia that the PLO found its refuge after Beirut.

But the Tunisian government knows, in a way that Western governments do not, that it has to use force -- hence that "Police state" characterization -- if it wishes to keep the outward and visible signs of Islam on the March (such as the Return of the Hijab, a statement that is clearly and aggressively political in nature) from scaring the secular and demoralizing them. The Tunisian police are doing what in Turkey is, or used to be done, by the army: preserving the regime of constraints on Islam. Call it Kemalism in one country, or Bourguibism in another, or call it merely common sense -- in any case, it requires the kinds of measures that soft-hearted and soft-minded Infidels no doubt deplore. Those Infidels do not understand how powerful and menacing and all-encompassing a belief-system Islam is, and how the West has much to learn from the willingness of those in the Islamic world who, in order to keep this Rasputin under the ice, have to keep knocking it down, tying it up, keeping it from emerging yet again.

And those who mention tourism are also not wrong. The Tunisians are not fools. They do not possess oil and gas. They have all sorts and conditions of tourists. Some can safely be escorted to resorts, where gentils-organisateurs will keep them occupied. But should other Western tourists wander around outside those gated-and-guarded resorts, and see those herds of hijabs and the unsmiling faces under them, then Tunisia becomes less attractive to tourists. And of course the sunbathing hedonistic Infidels are likely targets if Islam has its way. Without the strongest of measures, as is understood in Tunisia as in Turkey, but not yet in London or Paris, unless the strongest of measures of all kinds are relentlessly undertaken, then Islam usually has its way.

Muslim states, for the survival of their own regimes, monitor the mosques to make sure, for example, at the khutbas on Friday, the name of the Ruler or Regime is properly invoked. Mosques are well understood to be centers of political life and subversion. In Turkey, Ataturk went further. Not only does the state monitor the mosques, but a central government authority vets, and often writes, the sermons -- making sure that all those phrases that whip people into a frenzy, and that lead so often in some countries to mob attacks on Infidels (where there are Infidels to attack, as Hindus in Bangladesh who make the mistake of being near a mosque when it lets out) are censored. Tunisia, a well-regulated and "secular" state, uses the methods of the police state when necessary, and also monitors those khutbas with great interest. The natural vocabulary of the sermons of Islam is quite different from the sermons of Christianity. Such words as love, mercy, faith, hope, and charity are not exactly common in Qur'an or Hadith. Someone should get out his trusty computer and perform a lexical analysis of key terms in both Bible and Qur'an, and compare, compare, compare.

Shall we bring Democracy to Tunisia too, so that the quasi-enlightened despotism there can be overthrown and something a little more "democratic" can be achieved? What does the Administration that brings "freedom" in the spirit of the Little Engine That Could that brings toys and good things to eat to the boys and girls on the other side of the mountain think of that?

Report: Hizballah used cluster bombs

Little and late. Nor does the report apparently take any notice of the now well-documented fact that Hizballah deliberately operated from civilian areas in order to provoke attacks they could use for propaganda, while Hizballah deliberately targeted Israeli civilians. "Report: Hizbullah used cluster bombs," by Hilary Leila Krieger for the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Rosie:

Human Rights Watch condemned Hizbullah on Thursday for using cluster bombs on an estimated 113 occasions during this summer's war, according to research performed by the NGO's investigators.

Thursday's announcement also repeats earlier criticisms of Israel's firing of what the UN has estimated to be four million cluster bombs and submunitions.

"We are disturbed to discover that not only Israel but also Hizbullah used cluster munitions in their recent conflict, at a time when many countries are turning away from this kind of weapon precisely because of its impact on civilians," said Steve Goose, director of Human Rights Watch's Arms Division.

HRW spoke to people in the Israeli Druse village of Mughar whose family members - civilians - were wounded by Hizbullah's cluster bombing, as well as with Israel Police officials.

The NGO argued that the use of cluster bombs violated international law by not adequately distinguishing between combatants and civilians.

"Use of cluster bombs is never justified in civilian-populated areas because they are inaccurate and unreliable," Goose asserted.

Gerald Steinberg of NGO Watch questioned why it had taken Human Rights Watch three months to discover Hizbullah's tactic when it reported on Israel's use of cluster bombs much earlier.

"By putting out this report at such as late date basically you are saying they don't think it's very important," said Steinberg. "This report on Hizbullah's use of cluster weapons is far too little, far too late to undo the damage they did by one-sided condemnations of Israel over the last three months."

He said that HRW's only comprehensive report on the war had focused on alleged Israeli violations, as had the vast majority of its approximately 30 press releases on the conflict.

Britain 'is main target for al Qaeda terrorists'

You'd think that with all their appalling efforts to do apparently anything to accommodate Muslim sensibilities, they would get a break from Al-Qaeda. What they don't realize is that all that accommodation only emboldens the jihadists. From the Daily Mail, with thanks to Mackie:

Britain has become the main target of al Qaeda, which views the July 7 bombings as the beginning of its campaign in this country, security sources have warned.

Counter-terrorist officials claim the terrorist network has "regrouped" and presents a greater threat than ever before.

According to the officials, al Qaeda has re-established its organisation in Pakistan and is ready to unleash another major attack on Britain.

One security source told the Guardian the organisation saw last year's London bombings as "just the beginning", adding: "Al Qaeda sees the UK as a massive opportunity to cause loss of life and embarrassment to the authorities."

They ought to be embarrassed enough already.

Canadian Muslim part of Somalia's new ruling hardline Muslim group

Many Westerners still believe that the global jihad will founder in the face of the many lures and pleasures of the contemporary relativist materialism that comes from the West. Here is more evidence that that isn't so: a man who forsook Canada in order to live amid the danger and poverty of Somalia, dedicating his life to bringing Islamic law there. "Canadian among Islamists: Toronto man 'key player' with group in Somalia," by Stewart Bell in the National Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

TORONTO - A Somali-Canadian businessman is a "key player" in an emerging armed Islamic group that some describe as Africa's Taliban, sources have told the National Post.

Former Toronto resident Abdullahi Ali Afrah, who goes by the nickname Aspro, holds a senior position in the consultative council of Somalia's hardline Islamic Courts Union.

As second deputy chairman, he reports to Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on Canadian and United Nations lists of designated terrorists and was a founding member of the outlawed terror group Al-Ittihad Al-Islam (AIAI).

Mr. Ali Afrah is one of several members of the Toronto and Ottawa Somali-Canadian communities who have reportedly returned to their homeland and joined the Islamic Courts, either in leadership and support roles or as fighters in armed militias.

Backed by its militias, the Islamic Courts have captured Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and much of the south from clan warlords since June, replacing lawlessness with strict Taliban-like rule....

A native of Mogadishu, Mr. Ali Afrah moved to Toronto in the 1980s and became a Canadian citizen.

Mindanao on highest alert for attack

Philippines Jihad Update from Gulf News: "Britain issues travel warning to Philippines"

Manila: Britain on Tuesday warned that terrorists may be finalising terrorist plots in the Philippines and advised its citizens against traveling to the region.

The advisory came after a series of bombings hit southern Philippines, which police blamed on Al Qaida-linked militants. At least three bombings last week killed more than six people and injured 29 others.

"We believe that terrorists are in the final stages of planning further attacks," a British Embassy advisory said, echoing caution from US and Australian embassies.

It cited possible kidnappings of foreigners in resorts and terrorist attacks against "all forms of public transport: road, rail, sea and air."

Authorities have placed Mindanao under "extreme critical alert" - the highest of a four-step public terror warning.

Police in the capital went on alert Tuesday, with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo urging the public to report suspicious people and activities.

United States stops entry of British Muslim leader

Not long ago a report in Britain criticized the British government for cozying up to "extremists" rather than to "moderate" Muslims. But this is another indication that it is not so easy in Britain to find a "moderate" leader. From Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States barred a British Muslim leader from flying to New York from London on Thursday morning, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said.

The department's Customs and Border Protection section would not elaborate on why Kamal Helbawy, 67, a founding member of the Muslim Association of Britain, was told by airline staff to get off his flight shortly before it was due to leave London.

"The individual was inadmissible to enter the U.S.," said spokeswoman Kelly Klundt. "I can't speak specifically to this case as to why he was inadmissible."

Helbawy was due to speak on a panel on the Muslim Brotherhood, organized by the Center on Law and Security, an independent think tank based at New York University....

She said people could be denied entry for several reasons including improper travel documents, prohibited activities or intent, smuggling of contraband, criminal activity or history, immigration violations and watch list match or national security concerns.

"The U.S. government's action in this case should not be construed as a blanket U.S. policy against Muslim religious leaders. Indeed hundreds of imams from all over the world have visited and continue to visit the United States," Klundt said.

Attacks in Baghdad rose by 22 percent in first three weeks of Ramadan

After all, Ramadan is the "month of jihad." "U.S. says Baghad attacks 'disheartening,'" by Christopher Bodeen for Associated Press:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The two-month-old U.S.-Iraqi bid to crush violence in the Iraqi capital has not met "overall expectations," as attacks in Baghdad rose by 22 percent in the first three weeks of Ramadan, the U.S. military spokesman said Thursday. The spike in bloodshed during the Islamic holy month of fasting was "disheartening" and the Americans were working with Iraqi authorities to "refocus" security measures, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said.

"In Baghdad, Operation Together Forward has made a difference in the focus areas but has not met our overall expectations in sustaining a reduction in the level of violence," Caldwell said at a weekly news briefing.

The gloomy assessment of the operation, which began Aug. 7 with the deployment of an extra 12,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops, was issued at a time of perceived tension between the United States and the nearly five-month-old government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Caldwell said, for example, that U.S. forces had been forced to release Mazin al-Sa'edi, a top organizer in western Baghdad for radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He said al-Sa'edi was set free on the demand of al-Maliki after being detained Wednesday with five aides for suspected involvement in Shiite militant violence....

Spencer on moderate Muslims at Hot Air

On this week's Jihad Watch segment at Hot Air, I discuss the hot water that Canadian Muslims Farzana Hassan Shahid and Tarek Fatah have gotten into with their coreligionists for deviating even slightly from what John Esposito would probably call The Straight Path.

Captured Taleban say they were sent to fight by Pakistani mullahs

Friend and Ally Update from AFP:

BARMAL, Afghanistan - Handcuffed and weary, three confessed Taleban fighters told this week how they crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan to carry out a “jihad” against troops after mullahs said it was their duty as Muslims.

The young men — two Pakistanis and an Afghan — were captured after a fierce five-hour battle in Paktika province Tuesday, just a few kilometres (miles) from the border.

During the battle, 24 of their fellow fighters were killed. The bloodied and broken bodies were later shown to reporters by the Afghan army at a base in Barmal district.

The dead were mostly Afghans but included an Arab, Chechens, Pakistanis, Turks and a man from Yemen, an officer said, citing information from the captured three, identity cards and, in one case, a name on a bullet belt.

“Mullahs in Pakistan were preaching to us that we are obliged to fight jihad in Afghanistan because there are foreign troops — there is an Angriz (British) invasion,” dishevelled Alahuddin told reporters....

Iran's News Agency boasts of Khomeini's influence on "Palestinian resistance"

Shi'ites will never support Sunnis and vice versa, right? Right? The Palestinian struggle is simply nationalist, right? Right?

"Imam Khomeini's influence on Palestinian resistance undeniable, says political analyst," from the Islamic Republic News Agency:

Imam Khomeini's gret influence on supporters of the Palestinian resistance movement can be gleaned from his designation of the last Friday of the month of Ramadan as World Qods Day, reported an Iranian daily quoting a Palestinian thinker on Thursday.

Qods is the Islamic name for Jerusalem. It means the Holy Place or Holy City.

The English-language daily Tehran Times, quoting political scientist Hassan Nurani, said the influence of the late Imam Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution on the Palestinian cause is very obvious.

The ideas of Imam Khomeini reinforced the Palestinians' determination to liberate their homeland and led to the formation of the Islamic Jihad movement of Palestine, he underlined.

The participation of people all over the world in annual Qods day rallies demonstrates very clearly that the occupation of Palestine is not only the concern of the Palestinian nation but the whole Islamic World, Dr Nurani said.

In 1979, the founder of the Islamic Republic, the late Imam Khomeini, designated the last Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan as World Qods Day and called on Muslims worldwide to stage rallies to voice support for the liberation of holy Qods from Israeli occupation forces.

Israel's invasion of Palestine is in fact an "invasion against humanity," Nurani commented.

"The invasion is a violation of the national and religious rights of the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims. In the same way, it is a violation of human rights," the political analyst stated.

Nurani said the threats against Masjid al-Aqsa are not new.

"But with support from the United States and Britain the Zionists claim that their holy shrine (Temple of Solomon) is located in that place and they want to rebuild it," he said.

"I do not think there would be an easy peaceful solution to this problem because the Zionists insist on their claims and declare Qods to be their eternal capital," added the Palestinian expert.

This suggests that Jewish claims to Jerusalem are trumped-up, while Muslims have a stronger claim. Of course, reality is just the opposite. But the brazen assertion of falsehoods is nothing new for the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Jordan Convicts 8 of Plotting Attacks against Americans and Israelis

It is good to see Jordan doing this, even though it means they are giving more ammunition to those who will charge that the Jordanian government has forsaken Islam and thus must be removed. "Jordan Convicts 8 of Plotting Attacks against Americans," from The Media Line:

Jordan's State Security Court has sentenced eight men to prison terms ranging from two to 10 years after convicting them of plotting terror attacks against Americans and Israelis, the daily Jordan Times reports.

The eight were also convicted of preparing attacks against Iraqi police training centers in Jordan. They planned to form 10 terror cells and called themselves A-Taifa Al-Man'soura (The Victorious Sect), according to the prosecution.

Note the means of recruitment:

"Some of the suspects used the Internet to lecture on jihad and the need to fight Israelis and Christians in any part of the world," the charge sheet added.

Ahmadinejad: "I Have a Connection With God, Since God Said That the Infidels Will Have No Way to Harm the Believers"

A man who believes that could try anything. After all, he can't lose. Note also that he ties victory to Islamic fervor -- a recurring theme throughout Islamic history. Islam has no theological or conceptual apparatus to deal with defeat other than regarding it as a sign that one's Islamic commitment was not sufficiently strong. "Iran President Ahmadinejad: 'I Have a Connection With God, Since God Said That the Infidels Will Have No Way to Harm the Believers'; 'We Have [Only] One Step Remaining Before We Attain the Summit of Nuclear Technology'; The West 'Will Not Dare To Attack Us,'" from MEMRI:

...The following are the main points of the Iran News report of Ahmadinejad's Iftar speech:(6)

The Second Islamic Revolution

"...I told you that the second wave of the [1979 Islamic] Revolution has already begun [with my election to the presidency in 2005], and that it is bigger and more terrible than the first..."(7)

The Connection to God and the Anticipated Muslim Victory Over the Infidels

"On the nuclear issue, I have said to my friends on many occasions, 'Don't worry. They [i.e. the Westerners] are only making noise.' But my friends don't believe [me], and say, 'You are connected to some place!' I always say: 'Now the West is disarmed vis-à-vis Iran [on the nuclear issue], and does not know how to end this matter [with us].' But my friends say: 'You are uttering divine words! Then they will laugh at us!'

"Believe [me], legally speaking, and in the eyes of public opinion, we have absolutely succeeded. I say this out of knowledge. Someone asked me: 'So and so said that you have a connection.' I said: 'Yes, I have.' He asked me: 'Really, you have a connection? With whom?' I answered: 'I have a connection with God,' since God said that the infidels will have no way to harm the believers. Well, [but] only if we are believers, because God said: You [will be] the victors. But the same friends say that Ahmadinejad says strange things.

"If we are [really] believers, God will show us victory, and this miracle. Is it necessary today for a female camel to emerge from the heart of the mountain so that my friends will accept the miracle?(8) Wasn't the [Islamic] Revolution [enough of] a miracle? Wasn't the Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] a miracle?... "

[...]

"I say that now, by the grace of God, we have gone most of the way; be confident that they will not dare to attack us."

Read it all.

Jihad Watch: not suitable for airport viewing

This morning I was in an airport, waiting to board a plane to come to speak at Ohio State University, which I just did. My flight was delayed, so I opened up the laptop and began to work. Not too long after I began, however, I was approached by two very kind but unmistakably forceful policemen. They explained that they had been told that I was looking at a website about jihad, and they'd like to ask me a few questions.

Of course I was able to explain to them that I was on their side, and that was the end of the matter. But there were a few things that I did not do:

1. Complain about the profiling of swarthy men with black beards.
2. Whine about discrimination.
3. Claim that law enforcement had obviously declared open season on anti-jihad activists.
4. Threaten to sue.
5. Call the ACLU.

I'm glad I was questioned. It shows someone was on the ball -- obviously there was no way to tell from a glance at my screen that Jihad Watch is part of the anti-jihad resistance. I'm glad that political correctness and fear of "profiling" didn't keep the police from approaching me.

Muslims who may find themselves subjected to extra scrutiny at airports should, if they have nothing to hide and truly abhor jihad terrorism as we are told again and again that they do in overwhelming numbers, likewise cooperate with alacrity with authorities.

And in the airport next time I will find a seat against the wall.

Government doubts threat on NFL stadiums

Even if the threat is empty, it is not issued in vain: it is issued to inspire fear. For that is part of the program of the mujahedin: "Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies..." (Qur'an 8:60). That this is part, if not all, of the motivation in issuing this threat is indicated by the title, "New Attack on America Be Afraid."

An AP story by Lara Jakes Jordan (thanks to LGF):

WASHINGTON - A Web site is claiming that seven NFL football stadiums will be hit with radiological dirty bombs this weekend, but the government on Wednesday expressed doubts about the threat.

The warning, posted Oct. 12, was part of an ongoing Internet conversation titled "New Attack on America Be Afraid." It mentioned NFL stadiums in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Oakland and Cleveland, where games are scheduled for this weekend.

The Homeland Security Department alerted authorities and stadium owners in those cities, as well as the NFL, of the Web message but said the threat was being viewed "with strong skepticism." Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said there was no intelligence that indicated such an attack was imminent, and that the alert was "out of an abundance of caution."

"The department strongly encourages the public to continue to go about their plans, including attending events that involve large public gatherings such as football games," Knocke said.

UPDATE: Jawa Report has discovered that the threats do not come from a jihadist site, as LGF had initially reported.

Former Jammu/Kashmir governor: US, Pakistan invented jihad ideology

In "Out of line: Musharraf Keeps A Wide Gap Between Declarations & Deeds" in The Statesman, Jagmohan, former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir and former Union Minister of Urban Development, Culture and Tourism, feeds the loony conspiracy theorists with the proposition that the jihad -- or more precisely, "an extremely narrow interpretation of Islam" -- is the product of the U.S. and Pakistan. I'm surprised he didn't mention the Zionists, but in any case he rather swiftly contradicts himself.

An extremely narrow interpretation of Islam was formulated and propagated amongst the Afghan Mujahideens by the American and Pakistani policy makers as a part of their war strategy against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The sole objective was to create a fanatic Islamic zeal in the fight against a “godless nation”. Sophisticated weapons, communications equipment and funds were supplied to them in abundance. A similar approach was adopted by Pakistan in causing large-scale subversion and terrorism in Kashmir from 1989 onwards. This approach was virtually abetted, in the earlier phases, by the United States and other European powers by talking more about the “human right violations” than about the primitive savagery of the militants. All this whetted the appetite of the fanatics and they became so highly motivated and resourceful that they attained the capacity to strike anywhere they chose, be it in New York, New Delhi, Madrid, London, Cairo or Bali. Their tentacles are now practically spread all over the world.

Shades of the fiendish Mr. Yaqub cooking up the white race on Madagascar, a staple of Nation of Islam mythology. But here comes the contradiction:

According to a research study (2004) of the London Institute of International Security, about 18,000 potential Islamist terrorists are functioning in about 60 countries, and “there has been a terrifying jump in terrorist incidents ~ 175 in 2003 to 651 in 2004”. Terrorism has become mega-terrorism, and its sponsors have established strong bases for supply of recruits and their indoctrination. Thousands of madrasas have come up. For example, in Pakistan, there were 137 madrasas with a total enrolment of about 20,000 students in 1947. The number of these madrasas has now swelled to about 10,000 and students to about one and half million. In theory, they are meant for providing free religious education, board and lodging to poor students. But, in practice, a large number of them have become vast breeding grounds for orthodoxy, narrow sectarianism and militancy. They promote the culture of jihad and inject fanaticism in young and impressionable souls.

Now wait a minute, Jagmohan. Breeding grounds for "orthodoxy"? Islamic orthodoxy? But if the jihad ideology that fuels terrorism was created by America and Pakistan, and it's an extremely narrow interpretation of Islam, how could it be "orthodoxy"? Wouldn't orthodox Muslims be fighting against it?

In line with the madrasas are special institutions, like Markaz-e-Dawa al Irshad, Muridke, near Lahore. They run a vast publicity and propaganda machine. For example, the above Markaz’s monthly publication Majallah-al-Dawa, has a circulation of over 400,000. Its weekly ~ Jihad Times ~ has over 200,000 buyers. The madrasas and the special institutions are creating an overall environment which breeds religious fanaticism and violence. No wonder, in 2001-02, there were as many as 58 religious political parties and 24 religious militias in Pakistan.

Amazing that this tiny minority of extremists, proponents of a false Islam created by the United States, have become so numerous and powerful.

Former Janjaweed militiaman describes depth of Sudan gov't involvement

"The Janjaweed don’t make decisions. The orders always come from the government." From AFP: "Sudan training, arming and supporting Janjaweed militia"

LONDON - The Sudanese government is supporting the feared Janjaweed militia, which the United States accuses of genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

Citing an interview with a man identified only as ‘Ali’, a former member of the militia who admitted to killing innocent villagers in Darfur, the BBC said that Sudanese soldiers trained Janjaweed militiamen, and that the country’s air force bombed a village before the militia went in to kill villagers.

‘Ali’ served in the militia for two years, and is currently seeking asylum in Britain. The BBC consulted other Darfuri exiles in Britain and presented the interview to a psychologist who studied his interview, all of whom believed him.

‘The people who trained us came from the north, from the government. They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained, they will give us guns and ammunition. We will be split into two groups -- one on horses, one on camels,’ the man told the broadcaster’s evening current affairs programme.

Asked how he knew the men training him were from the government, ‘Ali’ said: ‘They were wearing the uniforms of the military.’

When asked to name the members of the government who were ordering his forces, the man said that one ‘very well known and regular visitor’ was Sudan’s interior minister -- Abdul Rahim Hussein.

‘I tell you one fact. The Janjaweed don’t make decisions. The orders always come from the government,’ the man added.

‘Ali’ said he was involved in more than 50 attacks on villages, and recalls a specific attack on the village of Janga: ‘The (Sudanese government’s) aircraft went ahead of the janjaweed. We saw the smoke, we saw the fire, then we went in.’

The man also admitted that others in his unit raped women in villages that were attacked: ‘Yes, there are many rapes. But they don’t do it in front of others. They take the victim away and rape her.’

Of course they do. Without four witnesses, the victim has no standing under Sharia law.

Presented with the interview, Britain’s International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, who had himself just returned from Sudan, told the BBC: ‘It’s clearly very serious evidence and what I would urge is ... that that information is passed to the International Criminal Court investigators’.

Sudan on Monday announced a plan to disarm the militia, on the same day a human rights report charged that the huge death toll in the region could have been avoided if the world had learned the lessons of Rwanda.

Christian priest killed in Indonesia

More detail on the case recently cited by blogger Rusty in calling for a boycott of Indonesia. "Sulawesi Christian priest killed," from the BBC:

A Christian priest has been shot dead on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, where religious tensions are high after the execution of three Catholic militants. The Rev Irianto Kongkoli was shot in the head while shopping in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province.

[...]

The Rev Kongkoli was buying construction materials at a shop when he was targeted, a spokesman for the provincial government's information bureau said.

"He had finished bargaining for some tiles when someone called him back into the store. When he entered, two shots were fired at the back of his head," Jethan Towakit told Reuters news agency.

Central Sulawesi governor Bandjela Paliudju told reporters he believed the killing may have been linked to last month's executions.

"He was an outspoken priest who many times led Christian protests against the executions," Mr Paliudju said.

A police investigation is underway. "We need to make sure such killings do not happen again," national police chief Gen Sutanto said.

Yes, you do. But will you?

Afghanistan: Kidnappers of Italian journalist demand return of Muslim convert to Christianity

Abdul Rahman, you may recall, converted from Islam to Christianity and was spirited to Italy when Afghanistan's brave new democratic government determined to obey Muhammad's command to kill those who leave Islam (cf. Bukhari 4.52.260). Now jihadists in Afghanistan are demanding his return in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist.

And meanwhile, Islamic apologists in the U.S. blandly claim that Islam has no death penalty for apostasy, and call me "Islamophobic" for pointing out that it actually does (Salam Al-Maryati of MPAC did this to me on the Medved show not long ago, and it has happened elsewhere also). This illustrates the hollowness of the arguments we hear all the time about how we must support self-proclaimed moderate Muslims by refraining from noting the flimsiness and weakness of their presentations. While we're being polite to alleged "reformers," Muslim hardliners are cheerfully implementing the elements of Islamic law that we're nodding our heads and agreeing don't exist.

"Italian's kidnappers set terms for release: website," from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

ROME (AFP) - The kidnappers of an Italian photojournalist in Afghanistan have demanded the return of an Afghan Christian convert living in Italy in exchange for keeping the reporter alive, an Italian online newspaper reported.

The PeaceReporter website said the kidnappers of 36-year-old Gabriele Torsello had made the demand in a telephone call to Italian non-governmental organisation Emergency and had given four days for their demand to be met.

"We want this issue resolved before the end of Ramadan," the PeaceReporter website quoted them as saying. The holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan ends this year on October 24.

Earlier this year Italy granted political asylum to 41-year-old Afghan Abdul Rahman, who faced possible execution under Islamic Sharia law in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity.

Bangladesh: Pro-Israel Muslim writer beaten by mob including government officials

And charged with sedition Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury Update: "Pro-Israeli editor beaten in Bangladesh," by Michael Freund in the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to LGF:

A Muslim journalist facing charges of sedition for advocating ties with Israel was recently attacked and beaten by a crowd in Bangladesh that allegedly included leading officials of the country's ruling party, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, editor of the Weekly Blitz newspaper, an English-language publication based in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, was working in his office on October 5 when nearly 40 people stormed the premises.

The mob beat Choudhury, leaving him with a fractured ankle, and looted cash that was kept in the company safe. Choudhury was briefly hospitalized.

According to a statement appearing on the Web site of the Weekly Blitz, the attackers were led by Helal Khan, international affairs secretary of Jasas, and included Babul Ahmed, Jasas's secretary-general. Jasas is the cultural wing of the ruling Bangladeshi National Party (BNP).

During the assault, Ahmed is said to have shouted at Choudhury, labeling him an "agent of the Jews."

In a photo taken shortly after the incident that was obtained exclusively by the Post, Choudhury can be seen hunched over a table wearing a torn shirt while a Bangladeshi policeman dressed in blue chats with two BNP officials. Both officials took part in the attack.

No arrests were made, and police refused to allow Choudhury to file charges against his attackers.

As the Post first reported last month, Bangladesh is moving forward with plans to try Choudhury on charges of blasphemy, sedition, treason and espionage in connection with his articles critical of Islamic extremism and favorable to Israel.

Paris: Man who sent e-mail death threats to Redeker captured

Redeker death threats update. "Frenchman held," from The News, with thanks to A Girl Scout:

PARIS: French police are holding a man accused of sending a death threat to a philosophy teacher who was forced into hiding after writing an article critical of Islam, justice officials said on Tuesday. Arrested on Monday in the central city of Orleans, the 25-year-old call-centre employee was held for 24 hours by anti-terrorist investigators, who found no evidence he was linked to a terrorist organisation. Remanded in custody, he faces up to five years in jail for “aggravated threats” over a threatening e-mail he sent last month to Robert Redeker, a 52-year-old father of three who teaches in southwestern Toulouse. Though a practising Muslim, the suspect apparently has no links to Islamic extremism, according to police who said he acted alone out of “hatred” for the author.

In America they would be saying that this wasn't an act of terrorism -- he just hated Redeker. This is more fruit of the massive misapprehension of the jihad, a misapprehension under which we must all labor. This man wants to kill Redeker because in his mind Redeker has insulted Islam and Muhammad, which in Islamic law is a capital offense. That makes him a freelance mujahid like Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar. The lack of ties to terror groups means nothing: he has ties to the ideology that fuels terror.

Thailand: jihadists kill nine in wave of shootings

Thai Jihad Update: "Nine killed in wave of shootings in Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat," from Thailand's The Nation, with thnaks to Jeffrey Imm:

The deep South has been rocked by a series of killings attributed to Islamic separatists. Six people were shot dead in four separate attacks in Yala.

In neighbouring Narathiwat a suspected Muslim insurgent shot and killed a married couple, while a local official was killed in Pattani, bringing the day's death toll to nine.

The wave of killings began at 7am in Yala's Bannang Sata district when rubber tapper Amnuay Maneebutr was found shot dead on a roadside. Her injured husband Suan Maneebutr, 47, was taken to hospital with gunshot wounds but later died.

Police said two gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire at the couple with a pistol. The two had been aboard a motorcycle on their way home from work....

New Jerusalem Mufti endorses suicide bombers

A Muslim (named Jihad, incidentally) just called in to the Mark Larson Show and insisted, among other things, that Islam forbids suicide, and thus that suicide bombing was condemned by Islam. Jihad, you might want to have a word with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (who was appointed to the post because he was supposed to be a moderate, replacing a much more inflammatory incumbent, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri).

"New J'lem Mufti endorses suicide bombers: New Grand Mufti of Jerusalem hints that Palestinians have right to resist occupation by any means," by Yaniv Berman in Ynet News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

On October 15, The Media Line news agency conducted an exclusive interview with the newly appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Lands Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein. During the interview the mufti said he endorsed the phenomenon of the suicide bombers, as it was part of the Palestinian people's legitimate resistance.... With a Hamas government on the one hand and an angry US on the other, Abbas could not afford an inflammatory figure sitting in the highest religious post. He decided to appoint Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, manager and imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

'A simple man'

An informed Palestinian source told The Media Line that Hussein was "a simple man, born to a family of humble means." He was chosen by Abbas because of an important quality he had – an ability to avoid controversies. According to the source, Hussein fears to lose all he has gained, and "Abbas knows he will never jeopardize his position."

For three months the new grand mufti followed Abbas' expectations. People who came to listen to him preach on Fridays in Al-Aqsa Mosque never heard him inciting against Israel. His fatwas (religious decrees) also avoided such controversial statements.

Hussein explains that the authority of the grand mufti was wide-ranging.

"We discuss worship, personal issues, economic issues, social issues and political issues – everything which is related to Islam."

Hussein went on to explain that the mufti discusses all aspects of Islam, including politics.

And then he made a surprising comment.

"It is the Palestinian people's right to engage in resistance until the occupation ends. As long as the resistance is legitimate, everything related to it is also legitimate."

Asked to express his view with regard to suicide bombing, the mufti answered: "It is legitimate, of course, as long as it plays a role in the resistance."

Blair: Britain needs debate about Islam

Progress. Up to this point Blair has been certain that Islam had no problems at all, but that there was just this pesky Tiny Minority of Extremists that had hijacked the religion. Now for him to be asking if "Islam" -- not "radical Islam" or "hijacked Islam" -- can come to terms with the modern world is momentous. "Prime minister says Britain needs debate about Islam," from Associated Press, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

LONDON Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday that Britain needed a debate about the position of Muslims, but that the faith also needed to decide how it comes to terms with modernity.

At his monthly news conference, Blair said he supported a local school authority's decision to bar a Muslim woman from working as a teacher while wearing a veil.

He said, however, that should be just one issue in a broader debate about "the relationship between our society and how the Muslim community integrates with our society."

"There's a second issues which is about Islam itself, and how Islam comes to terms with and is comfortable with the modern world," Blair said.

Similar debates, he said, were happening around Europe and in the Muslim world.

Death-Defying Feat

Conservative Book Club Editor Elizabeth Kantor interviews me about The Truth About Muhammad:

You're now the author of several books about Islam. Did your research for The Truth about Muhammad turn up anything new? If readers have already bought The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and tens of thousands of them have), why do should they read this book?

This book differs markedly from The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and my other books in that, instead of focusing on aspects of Islamic history and theology and their use by contemporary mujahedin, it concentrates on the figure of Muhammad himself. In Islamic tradition Muhammad is al-insan al-kamil, the perfect man, and uswa hasana, an excellent model of conduct (Qur’an 33:21). Accordingly it is extraordinarily important for non-Muslims in this age of global jihad violence to understand who Muhammad was and what he taught. So in this new book I explore the earliest Islamic sources about Muhammad in order to illuminate what pious Muslims learn about him, and show how jihadists today invoke his words and deeds to justify their actions.

So what kind of a person was Muhammad?

Muhammad was by all accounts a strong and compelling personality, who inspired magnificent loyalty in those who were close to him. His personal kindness and even gentleness are remembered in glowing terms by some of his closest companions. At the same time, however, he was a warrior who assured his followers that the supreme god, Allah, would reward them if they fought for him. He didn’t just fight in self-defense, but he initiated conflicts, gave instructions for the division of the spoils of war, and fought in many of those battles himself. For Muhammad the political and religious were virtually synonymous: Allah would reward obedience to him in this world with military victory and political power, and he ruled according to laws that he represented as having been revealed by Allah.

How have Muhammad's character and the events of his life shaped Islam as we know it today?

In innumerable ways. Most notoriously, of course, in violence. Muhammad commanded his followers to offer non-Muslims conversion to Islam, subjugation as inferiors within the Islamic social order, or war (cf. Sahih Muslim 4294). We have recently seen Al-Qaeda’s Adam Gadahn and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran extend the invitation to Islam; Gadahn to all Americans and Ahmadinejad to George W. Bush. We should understand that the follow-up to such invitations, in accord with the example of the perfect man, is violence. Moreover, jihad warriors around the world invoke his example. The late Zarqawi exhorted his followers several years ago in these terms: “Is it not time for you to take the path of jihad and carry the sword of the Prophet of prophets?...The Prophet, the most merciful, ordered [his army] to strike the necks of some prisoners in [the battle of] Badr and to kill them....And he set a good example for us.” This kind of statement is common.

Muhammad also has left his mark on Islamic culture in numerous ways: his notorious marriage to the nine-year-old Aisha led the Ayatollah Khomeini to lower the marriageable age of girls in Iran to nine, in imitation of Muhammad’s example. Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old when he was 28. Child marriage is common throughout the Islamic world: aid workers entering Afghan refugee camps in 2002 found that half the second-grade-age girls in those camps were already married.

Meanwhile, false accusations against Aisha brought about the Islamic legal requirement that four male Muslim witnesses must be produced in order to establish a crime of adultery or related indiscretions. In cases of sexual misbehavior, four male witnesses are required to establish the deed—in accord with a revelation that came to Muhammad to exonerate his youthful wife (Qur’an 24:13). And just as Aisha’s own word counted for nothing to establish the falsity of the accusations against her, so to this day Islamic law restricts the validity of a woman’s testimony – particular in cases involving sexual immorality. Says the Qur’an: “Call in two male witnesses from among you, but if two men cannot be found, then one man and two women whom you judge fit to act as witnesses; so that if either of them commit an error, the other will remember” (2:282).

Consequently, it is even today virtually impossible to prove rape in lands that follow the dictates of Islamic law. If a woman accuses a man of rape, she may end up incriminating herself: if the required male witnesses can’t be found, the victim’s charge of rape becomes an admission of adultery. That accounts for the grim fact that, according to the Islamic reformist group Sisters in Islam, as many as seventy-five percent of the women in prison in Pakistan are, in fact, behind bars for the crime of being a victim of rape. Several high-profile cases in Nigeria recently have also revolved around rape accusations being turned around by Islamic authorities into charges of fornication, resulting in death sentences