Recently in dawah Category

• Massage parlours (which often function as de facto brothels)

• Karaoke bars (with alcohol, music with sexually explicit lyrics, and sometimes much more)

• Chinese restaurants (serving pork, other 'non halal' food, and alcohol)
  

KUALA LUMPUR: The Federal Territory of Islamic Religious Council will build a house for Muslim converts so they can learn more about Islam.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom said the house, the first of its kind in Malaysia, would be used to guide converts towards strengthening their character.

“We will provide them a syllabus on obligatory prayers, reading the Quran and expose them to fasting,” he said here yesterday.

Jamil said the house costing RM15mil [USD$5 million] would be built in Sentul and was expected to be completed within two years. - Bernama

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is The Anti-Jihadist, a counter-jihad writer, activist and critic of Islam who resides in a majority Muslim country. He writes under a pseudonym for reasons that do not need to be explained. His work can also be found at Jihad Watch, Infidel Bloggers Alliance and Pedestrian Infidel.

FP: Welcome The Anti-Jihadist to Frontpage Interview.

I would like to talk to you today about the Muslim persecution of Christians in Malaysia. But first, tell us a bit about your background and how you arrived to being who you are.

The Anti-Jihadist: In order to protect my identity, I’d rather not get into too many specifics about my background, for reasons I hope you and your readers understand. Suffice it to say that I grew up in a middle class, educated family where the discussion of politics and other ‘sensitive’ topics was encouraged. I grew to appreciate and then embrace this intellectual sort of freedom.

As I grew older, I began to notice differences between what I heard the government say or what was taught in school, and what was really happening in the world, but I learned to keep such thoughts to myself in order to get along. Then 9-11 happened and it turned the world upside down, my own perception of it in particular. I wanted to be surprised that Muslims had carried out mass murder explicitly in the name of Islam, but I wasn’t. Another shock for me was when I found out that the Muslims — jihadists, Al Qaeda members and others — who planned the attacks in New York and Washington had had a big planned meeting right here in Kuala Lumpur (the capital and biggest city in Malaysia) in early 2000. And the conspiracy theories about 9-11, the increased appearance of anti-Semitic diatribes in Malaysian bookshops (one tome by Henry Ford is popular here) were things that I simply could not turn a blind eye to anymore. Lastly, Malaysian terrorist Azahari Husin had his hero’s sendoff near Kuala Lumpur in 2005, and about the same time the Malaysian Christian convert Lina Joy was told by this nation’s highest court that she was not allowed to become a Christian, despite the fact that religious freedom is supposedly guaranteed by Malaysia’s constitution. By then, I could no longer hold back my pent-up disgust and outrage at what was happening.

FP: So you turned your back on Islam?

TAJ: I don’t want your readers to have the impression that I am now or ever was a Muslim. While I am not a Muslim, I have indeed been asked to become one, on more than one occasion and with varying degrees of seriousness. ‘Dawah’, or Islamic prosetylization, is never too far away in Malaysia.

Deciding that Islam as an ideology (and not Muslims per se) was my enemy was a personal Rubicon for me, a step that, once taken, could never be retracted. I understood how serious this was, from my own studies of Islam, from my knowledge of what’s happened to other critics of Islam, and from the repeated warnings here in Malaysia regarding ‘insults’ to Islam — i.e. being too truthful about it.  And the pointed Malaysian warnings about being ‘respectful’ of all religions (‘respect’ for Islam is all the government here really cares about) make it very clear that criticism of Islam is a big, big red line that should never be crossed.  Furthermore, in Malaysia it’s quite legal for anyone to be arrested and held indefinitely without charge, trial or access to legal council.  It’s a law called the ‘Internal Security Act’ or ‘ISA’ for short and it’s positively medieval. ISA is one of the reasons that you rarely hear criticism of Islam from anyone in this country, in public and even in private, no matter how outrageous things get.

So around late 2005, when I made my fateful personal decision to take up the cause of counter-jihad, to oppose Islam, I told very, very few people. Thankfully, my significant other, a former Muslima, who has known since the beginning, has fully supported me. I have a very small circle of close friends with whom I’ve shared my views, my articles, and so on.

Beyond that, I’ve told no one–not my family, my colleagues, acquaintances and most of my friends. My counter-jihad writing and work are secrets that I’ve been compelled to keep in order to ensure my continued survival.  And it is a wearisome burden, I can assure you. My writing and my political views has, in essence, forced me to live a double life. Beyond my trusted circle I cannot afford to tell anyone about what I know, or my writing, or about what others in the counter-jihad are saying. So there has been a personal toll–I’ve had to become paranoid, and always watchful about what I say around others. But I’ve never considered going back to what I was before. I can’t and I won’t.

FP: Share with us what is happening to Christians in your country.

As CAIR's press release from the other day demonstrates, Islam gets a lot of mileage out of its appropriation of Jesus. One does not need to be a Christian to see that. But while Islamic apologists accuse us right and left of "cherry-picking" verses out of the Qur'an and taking them "out of context," the verses selected by CAIR do just that. Among others:

"Say: 'We believe in God and the revelation given to us and to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and it is to Him that we surrender ourselves'" (2:136).

Another verse in the Quran states: "Behold! The angels said: 'O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him. His name will be Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and in (the company of) those nearest to God'" (3:45).

Those selections deliberately and knowingly present a half-truth -- one that has been useful for Islam's cause both in proselytizing and in its claims for public consumption of being a peaceful religion. In both cases, apologists and dawah-peddlers depend on listeners who don't know better to project the Jesus they know onto those carefully selected Qur'anic verses.

And in too many cases, Islamic proselytizers have the element of surprise on their side when those who have otherwise well founded misgivings about Islam's intentions do not know about Jesus in Islam, or have heard an oversimplified version that slick apologists can deflect with deceptive use of chapter and verse. Those people are vulnerable to being won over by the half-truths of Islamic dawah.

Remaining uninformed about the content of Islamic teachings is not an option, if we are to defend our way of life.

In prior reporting about the reaction to Mike Huckabee's objections to allowing Islamic worship in designated Christian worship spaces, we have quoted Islamic texts that help fill in the rest of the story. Here, again, is a handy summary with additional sources and useful commentary on the "other" Jesus in Islam, whom apologists can't tell you about up front.

"DURIE: Stop opening churches to Muslims," by Rev. Mark Durie for the Washington Times, February 23 (thanks to Observer):

Last week, Fox News posted a report that Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tenn., and Aldersgate United Methodist Church near Alexandria, Va., have made their church buildings available to Muslims to use as places of worship.

Critics of these outreach initiatives, such as Mike Huckabee, have been accused of ignorance. However, the contents of Muslim prayers and teachings about Isa, the Islamic Jesus, give reasonable grounds for churches to reject such arrangements.

A prominent element in Islamic daily prayers is the recitation of Al-Fatihah (the Opening), the first chapter of the Koran. Often described as a blessing, Al-Fatihah has a sting in its tail. After introductory praises, the final sentence of Al-Fatihah is a request for guidance “in the straight path” of Allah’s blessed ones, not the path “of those against whom You are wrathful, nor of those who are astray.”

Who are the ones who are said to be under Allah’s wrath or to have gone astray from his straight path? According to the revered commentator Ibn Kathir, Muhammad himself gave the answer: “Those who have earned the anger are the Jews, and those who are led astray are the Christians.”

Al-Fatihah is as central to Islamic devotion as the Lord’s Prayer is to Christians: It is recited at least 17 times a day as part of daily Muslim prayers. Yet according to Muhammad himself, this prayer, which is on the lips of every pious Muslim day and night, castigates Christians as misguided and Jews as objects of Allah’s wrath.

Another good reason for churches not to host Muslim worship, paradoxically, is their veneration of Isa, the Islamic Jesus.

Muslims venerate Jesus, but as a Muslim prophet. In the pages of the Koran, the disciples of the Muslim Jesus declare, “We are Muslims” (Sura 5:111). The Islamic Jesus is not the Christian Son of God, the divine suffering Savior who died on the cross for the sins of the world.

Certainly there are some similarities between Isa of the Koran and Jesus of the Gospels. The Koran calls Jesus “al-Masih” - the Messiah - and both figures are said to have been born of a virgin, to have performed miracles of healing and to have raised the dead. Yet here the similarities end. Isa of the Koran was not crucified and did not die but was raised up by Allah (Sura 4:157-158).

It is in Muhammad’s vision of the end times that the role of the Muslim Jesus comes into sharp focus. Muhammad taught that when Isa returns, he “will fight for the cause of Islam. He will break the cross, kill pigs, and abolish the poll tax. Allah will destroy all religions except Islam” (Sunan Abu Dawud 27:4310).

What can the apologists say to that? They will almost certainly try to throw Abu Dawud under the bus as an unreliable hadith. In the pecking order of ahadith, "Sahih" ahadith -- "sound, reliable" ones -- are so designated for having reliable provenance, and often repeat narrations about the same event to corroborate their authenticity. And Sahih Bukhari corroborates this narration from Abu Dawud several times (003.034.425, 003.043.656, 004.055.657).

Not that apologists won't try to throw Bukhari under the bus after Abu Dawud. When its appalling contents come under the scrutiny of non-Muslims, "Sahih" suddenly and magically becomes rather... "Squishih."

What does this saying mean? The cross is a symbol of Christianity. Breaking the cross means abolishing Christianity. According to Islamic law, the poll tax, or jizya, buys protection of the lives and property of Christians (and Jews). Abolishing this tax will mean that jihad will be restarted against Christians and no more protection shall be afforded to those who do not submit to Islam.

The Egyptian jurist Ahmad ibn Naqib stated in his compendium of Shariah, “The Reliance of the Traveller,” that the toleration of Christians living under Islamic law only applies “before the final descent of Jesus. … After his final coming, nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for taking the poll tax is only effective until Jesus’ descent … for he will rule by the law of Muhammad … as a follower of our Prophet” (translation by Nuh Ha Mim Keller, pages 603-4).

In this end-times scenario, the Islamic Jesus becomes the ultimate destroyer of Christianity, when, by his sword, he compels all followers of the Christ of the Gospels to become Muslims and live in accordance with the Shariah of Muhammad.

Churches should not welcome into their buildings the veneration of Isa the Islamic Jesus, who, as a true Muslim, is intended to bring about the final, violent destruction of Christianity. By all means, let Christians show kindness to their Muslim neighbors, but the sentiments embedded in Islamic daily prayers, which curse Jews as the target of Allah’s wrath and Christians for going astray, can have no place in a Christian church - even if recited in the cadences of classical Arabic.

Pamela Geller, who is interviewed in this article, comments on it here: "The American people are sick of being deceived and misled. Stop talking, start acting. Let's see Muslim supremacist groups lay down their arms against those of us who are exposing and reporting on jihad, and instead take up the fight against the jihadist 'fringe' that is at war with the West. Why is Geller or Spencer their target? Why aren't the Muslim 'extremists' their target? This is all about the Ground Zero victory mosque. Notice how they all close ranks and make it about 'Islamophobia,' when everyone knows it is a deeply offensive, deliberately provocative act. Opposition to the mosque is not 'Islamophobia,' it's 'Islamorealism' (hat tip to Spencer, who coined that term years ago)."

Indeed I did, and thank you, and I'm glad to see it is getting wider currency lately.

"Mosques Open Their Doors to Neighbors in Effort to Win Over Skeptics," by Lauren Green for Fox News, October 22:

The prayers, the Koran and the people. They're the three things Muslims would like Americans to know about.

To counter negative stereotypes, Muslim leaders nationwide are flinging open the doors to their mosques, hoping to present a positive image of Islam.

"The main thing is to open the doors and to share with people, to clarify who we are so people have no fears, so we can develop stronger relationships overall," says Imam Al-Amin Abdul Latif of the Islamic Leadership Council of New York. [...]

The neighborly hospitality is certainly part of the effort, but its fundamental impetus is to combat widespread opposition to building an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. And it's a hard task, indeed. A Fox News Opinion Dynamics Poll shows 61 percent - other polls put the figure as high as 70 percent -- oppose building a mosque so close to the site of the worst terror attack on U.S. soil, an attack that was perpetrated by Muslim extremists.

Dr. Hafiz Rehman, who hosted the Long Island event, says, "On 9/11 the planes were hijacked and the religion was hijacked. We want to build close to there so people know Muslims are mainstream Americans also."

It will be an uphill battle.

Pamela Geller, head of Stop Islamization of America, sees a sinister purpose behind the open-house PR campaign: "Dawa, proselytizing to Islam, bringing people to Islam to convert," she says.

"This is not about sensitivity. There has not been one instance that they reconsidered Ground Zero Mosque.... I don't think the American people need an education. I think that the Islamic supremacists need some sensitivity training."...

Indeed. The accommodation is always one-sided. The concessions are always from one side. Yet no one seems to notice, or care.

The Islamic Circle of North America has been named in "a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends" by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is bent on waging "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

They say they want to encourage dialogue via these billboards. Great. I'll start. The billboard says that Islam is "the way of life of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus & Muhammad." That is a reflection of the Islamic supremacist notion, rooted in the Qur'an (3:67, 5:116, 9:30, etc.), that the Biblical prophets taught Islam, and their messages were corrupted by their followers to create what we know of today as Judaism and Christianity. In this view, Judaism and Christianity have no legitimacy whatsoever: they are renegade, twisted, hijacked versions of the original Islam.

So my question is: How does ICNA hope to encourage dialogue by making a declaration at the outset that Judaism and Christianity are false, renegade religions? Wouldn't it be more likely to encourage dialogue if ICNA, instead of simply trying to convert people to Islam (which is really what this call to "dialogue" is all about), acknowledged the supremacist aspects of some Islamic texts and teachings, and offered a way forward for Muslims that would blunt the potential of those supremacist texts and teachings to incite believers to hatred and violence?

That is always way too much to ask. But if this call to "dialogue" were genuine, it would be merely Step One.

"Billboards going up to promote Islam," by Bob Von Sternberg for the Star Tribune, December 15 (thanks to Block Ness):

Hoping to encourage interfaith dialogue, an Islamic organization will unveil a pair of billboards in Minneapolis this week.

The Minnesota chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America plans to unveil the billboards Friday, the eve of the Islamic New Year.

The billboards will be located along Hiawatha Avenue in south Minneapolis and Central Avenue on the north side.

They are part of a nationwide multimedia campaign that also includes placing posters on buses and subways in other big cities.

The billboards will display a toll-free telephone number where people can get answers to questions about Islam, as well as obtain free copies of the Qur'an and other Islamic literature.

"Got Questions? Get Answers," the billboard states.

In a prepared statement, the campaign's organizers are quoted as saying, "Islam is often a misunderstood religion, leading some to hold bias view of Islam with discrimination and suspicion of Muslims. This ad campaign will provide an opportunity for the people of Twin Cities to take a fresh and positive look at Islam."

We've covered the dawah buses that appeared in various cities a few months ago, but has anyone seen anything like this white truck? In "A Different Kind of Ice Cream," November 23, the estimable Baldilocks recalls a strange visitor to her Los Angeles neighborhood:

[...] At midday, I was in the back of the house in my office--blogging, of course. At some point, a noise entered my consciousness. It was a voice, a tinned one and, as I listened I became aware of three things: that the voice was male, that it was coming out of a bullhorn and that it was repeating the same phrase over and over again. However, I could not make out the words at first. [...]

The voice was coming from speakers attached to the type of truck that is sometimes used by ice cream vendors. The truck was spotlessly clean and gleaming white except for the design on the side: the huge blood-red star-and-crescent symbol of Islam.

The occupant had been exhorting the residents of this neighborhood using a two-sentence phrase, most of which I have blocked out of my memory. But I do remember one part and, really, it's the only relevant part. The occupant was advising us to...

"Embrace Islam."

By the time I gained the presence of mind to grab a camera, the gleaming white truck had moved on. I haven't seen it since.

From the time that it came to light the Major Nidal Malik Hasan basically warned the FBI and the Army of what he was--if not of what he was about to do--I've been thinking of that "ice cream" truck and what that particular vendor was selling. Aren't Jihadis required to warn their infidel foes and invite them to convert before any attack?

"Embrace Islam," he said. Left unspoken was the alternative.

Read it all.

In "...as al-Zawahiri Tries to Boost Jihadi Morale" at Global Terrorism Analysis, Stephen Ulph lays out evidence that Zawahri is trying to combat low spirits among his troops. The archterrorist also has a few harsh words for Muslims who are not aiding the jihad.

An extended audio statement from Ayman al-Zawahiri, believed to have been made in mid-September, was posted on December 9 on the al-Safinat jihadi forum (http://202.71.102.108/~alsafnat/vb). Under the rubric "Four years on since the attacks on New York and Washington," and dated Sha'ban 1426 (September 2005), the 48-minute tape was produced by al-Sahab Media Productions, an organization that has come to be known as al-Qaeda's video production company. The statement is worth examining in detail since, amid the rhetoric of denunciation and challenge, it reveals much about the present state of morale within the al-Qaeda organization.

The presentation, entitled Mu'awwiqat al-Jihad (Obstacles to Jihad), is provided with English subtitles and is hence intended for the widest possible circulation. It starts off in a buoyant tone: "I wish to speak to you about the victory that, with Allah's permission, is imminent; for a simple reason, that the key to victory is in our hands." Subsequently, however, the tone shifts, indicating some exasperation at the lack of the "final push" required to ensure the success of the jihad, outlining that "the primary cause of defeat is in ourselves." As if to counter a mood of despondency, al-Zawahiri underlines how the jihad has already achieved successes. In Iraq, he maintains, the resistance "stabs America every day and makes it scream and search feverishly for a way out of its predicament there." And in Israel, "were it not for the mujahideen's confrontation of Israel and its agents (our rulers) Israel would have now expanded to many times its current size." The mujahideen have also, he asserts, effectively defended Islam from the "puppet rulers," under whom "the corruption would have worsened and they would have sought to eradicate Islam."...

For all the bullish talk of triumph, the message of al-Zawahiri's address appears equally crafted as a last-minute appeal for support to help prevent the defeat of the mujahideen. "The key to victory is in our hands," he states, "and in turn, the primary cause of defeat is in ourselves." This part of the message is particularly noteworthy, in that the reproach and call for jihad contradict the image of success he maintains the jihad has already achieved. Al-Zawahiri gives his diagnosis for the problems besetting the jihad: "The first battle we must win is our battle with ourselves, our battle with out weakness and helplessness and clinging to the earth; our preference for small gains." He then goes on to encourage the mujahideen by belittling the enemy as having little else but technology on their side, and "driven only by fear and desire; in the field they don't make a stand in any honest encounter." At root of the problem of the lack of victory is Muslims' "fear and ignorance of fighting" and their "submission to [the regimes'] terrorism and intimidation." Al-Zawahiri then develops this theme on the disastrous passivity of the Muslims; taking the example of the assassination of Anwar al-Sadat by Khalid al-Islambouli, he notes how everyone subsequently abandoned them to their fate and contented themselves with "passive praise." Another example is Saudi Arabia, where Muslims who called for reform were "left to fight alone" and (in a probable reference to the penitent Saudi jihadi shaykhs) "some callers to reform relapsed and turned around to stab their brothers, the Mujahideen, in their backs."

Al-Zawahiri appears genuinely exasperated at the lack of enthusiasm in the Muslim community for the rigors of jihad and the ability of the broader community to content itself with the war of words. He scoffs, from his position out there on the front line in the hills, at the armchair commentators. "If each one of us wants to turn into a debater, analyst, and specialist who dresses in elegant clothes, attends seminars and appears on screen, then returns to his house safe from the tyranny of the Crusaders and their agents, then there is no hope for deliverance."...

Recall, immediately following the London bombings of July, all the tough talk from the Blair government? The promises to crack down on extremist mosques which incubated the hatred that directly led to the deaths of dozens of Britons? Well, forget all that, from the AP:

The British government Thursday dropped a key part of the anti-terrorism legislation proposed after the deadly July 7 suicide bombings on London's transit system, abandoning its effort to let police shut down extremist mosques.

The plan, introduced a month after four suspected suicide bombers killed 52 bus and Underground passengers, had been criticized by police and religious organizations.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said in a written statement to the House of Commons that he was dropping the proposal "although we will keep the matter under review."

The proposal would have given police powers to temporarily close places of worship being used by extremists. The trustee or owner would then be served with an order to halt radical activity.

The Home Office spokesman said 66 people and organizations had responded to a consultation on the proposal, and most were opposed.

The Association of Chief Police Officers also opposed the idea, saying it risked alienating ordinary Muslims and driving extremism underground.

The Rev. Graham Sparkes of the Baptist Union of Great Britain said Baptists had suffered persecution and imprisonment in the past in their efforts to "secure control over what was preached, where it could be preached, and who could preach."

"Al-Qaeda leader on tape," from the Herald Sun, with thanks to JE:

OSAMA bin Laden has called for more suicide bombings in his first video appearance in more than a year.

The video, yet to be proved authentic, was dropped off on Tuesday at a news agency in the Afghan city of Kandahar....

Pajhwok says the 30-minute video shows bin Laden with Taliban commander Mullah Dadollah.

The pair warn that al-Qaeda has secured "new defence weapons", which analysts believe may be anti-aircraft missiles to fire at commercial airlines.

Bin Laden allegedly says: "We have unwavering faith in God. Now that we have acquired new weapons, we will defeat the enemy the way we defeated the Russians.

"Only Muslims have the courage to carry out suicide attacks."

And the religious justification for doing so (cf. Qur'an 9:111).

I'm glad the Jerusalem Post is noting this, but it is a bit late. I have only been saying this publicly for about three and a half years, and it has only been six years since Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani testified the same thing before a State Department Open Forum.

Mainstream US Muslim organizations are heavily influenced by Saudi-funded extremists, according to Yehudit Barsky, an expert on terrorism at the American Jewish Committee.

Worse still, Barsky told The Jerusalem Post last week, these "extremist organizations continue to claim the mantle of leadership" over American Islam.

The power of the extremist Wahhabi form of Islam in the United States was created with generous Saudi financing of American Muslim communities over the past few decades. Over 80 percent of the mosques in the United States "have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence," Barsky said.

Before the 1970s, she explained, "Muslim immigrants who came to the United States would build a store-front mosque somewhere. Then, since the 1970s, the Saudis have been approaching these mosques and telling them it wasn't proper for the glory of Islam to build such small mosques."

For many Muslims, it seemed the Saudis were offering a free mosque. However, Barsky believes for each mosque they invested in, the Saudis sent along their own imam (teacher-cleric).

"These [immigrants] were not interested in this [Wahhabi] ideology, and suddenly they have a Saudi imam coming in and telling them they're not praying properly and not practicing Shari'a [Islamic law] properly." This Saudi strategy was being carried out "all over the world, from America to Bangladesh," with the Saudis investing $70-80 billion in the endeavor over three decades.

Will earthquake aid really win over Pakistani hearts and minds? This article, "For Devout Pakistani Muslims, Aid Muddles Loyalties," from the New York Times (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist), suggests that it does win over those who are not politicized, but that jihadists and their sympathizers are unswayed -- as I observed about the tsunami relief effort in this article.

This highlights another problem that I have often noted: that peaceful Muslims are susceptible to being politicized by jihadists, thereby rendering hearts and minds initiatives void. Continued protestations that Islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked, and refusals to look squarely at the ways jihadists use Islamic theology and tradition to justify their actions and recruit, only exacerbate the vulnerability of non-politicized Muslims by cutting the ground out from under anyone who would oppose this jihadist activity in any effective way. No one can fix a problem when they will not even admit that it is a problem.

BASSIAN, Pakistan, Oct. 24 - Asmat Ali Janbaz's explanation for the American military helicopters flying over this isolated mountain valley last Thursday afternoon was familiar.

Mr. Janbaz, who lives in the area and who describes himself as an Islamic hard-liner, contended that the Americans were not ferrying injured earthquake victims to safety; instead, they were secretly establishing an American military base in northern Pakistan to encircle China.

"This is the mission!" he declared triumphantly. "Not to help the people of Pakistan."

Yet after Mr. Janbaz departed, something extraordinary happened. Here in a mountainous corner of northern Pakistan long thought to be a center for militant training camps and religious conservatism, three men dismissed his theory and heartily praised the United States for aiding victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake, which killed more than 53,000 Pakistanis.

"People don't believe such things; people only believe in what they are seeing," said Manzur Hussain, a 36-year-old hospital worker whose brother, sister and two sons died in the earthquake. "People who give them aid, they respect them."

While it is too early to reach firm conclusions, anecdotal interviews with earthquake survivors in this picturesque mountain district, known as Mansehra, suggest that American assistance may be improving Pakistanis' perceptions of the United States - an image that has been overwhelmingly negative here since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq....

Muhammad Farid, a homeopathic doctor in the devastated town of Balakot, said he still deeply disagreed with the American invasion of Iraq and other policies. But the dispatch to Pakistan of 14 American military helicopters and more than 20 foreign search and rescue teams surprised him.

"It has changed our opinion about the United States," he said, adding that hard-line clerics' descriptions of debauched foreigners have proved untrue. "They have been accusing all these people of spreading immorality, but these are the people who came to save our lives."

Pakistani officials and political analysts cautioned that any relief-related change in perceptions would be limited. The international aid may sway the perceptions of moderate Pakistanis, particularly well-educated city dwellers, they said, but it is unlikely to sway the country's small core of militants who support Al Qaeda.

"Even if paradise is delivered to them, they'll keep abusing us, the Americans and the Jews," said a close aide to President Pervez Musharraf, a military ruler and religious moderate who has survived at least three assassination attempts from suspected Islamic militants. "This is going to take a long time."

Islamists are also doing their best to aid earthquake victims and curry support, and in an unknown number of cases, succeeding....

Al Qaeda, whose senior leaders are thought to be hiding several hundred miles to the southwest along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, also joined in. In a videotaped message released on Sunday, the group's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, urged Muslims to help earthquake victims.

"I call on all Muslims in general, and I call on all Islamic humanitarian associations in particular, to move to Pakistan to provide help to their Pakistani brothers, and that they do it quickly," Agence France-Presse reported him as saying. "All of us know the vicious American war on Muslim humanitarian work."

Mr. Janbaz, the self-described hard-liner, echoed those sentiments in an interview in Bassian, a village just outside Balakot. He painted the American relief effort in sinister terms and identified himself as a member of the Movement to Enforce the Law of Shariah, a banned militant group that dispatched volunteers to fight American forces in Afghanistan in 2001.

But he appeared to have few takers around Balakot, a riverside town of 150,000 people that appears to have suffered most of the 13,285 deaths in the Mansehra district....

Hugh Fitzgerald touches in today's Daily Hugh on the problem of recruitment of moderate Muslims for the jihad, and of course it is something I have emphasized repeatedly: self-proclaimed peaceful and moderate Muslims have made no effort to separate themselves from jihadists, and many times here at Jihad Watch we have chronicled the adventures of moderate Muslims who suddenly turned out to be...immoderate. Probably when they were at work at their dentistry office in Kfar Manda, these two appeared to be upstanding citizens, having carved out a good, prosperous place for themselves in Israeli society. But appearances, once again, were deceiving.

From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Kemaste:

Two Israeli Arab dentists from the Galilee were arrested on suspicion of helping Hamas plan bombings in Israel, security sources revealed Sunday.

The two were identified as Nazmi Hassin, 35, and A'salam Zeidan. They were arrested in September, but news of the arrest was under a gag order until last night.

According to security sources, the pair had studied dentistry in Romania in the 1990s. After being recruited into Hamas they even underwent espionage training in Turkey, linked up with a handler and carried out missions for Hamas once they returned home.

Hassin, 35, from Nazareth, told interrogators that he was trained in surveillance, intelligence collecting, encryption and clandestine activity. The training was held during a five-day period in Istanbul. Plans to send him to Iran for military training fell through because he only had an Israeli passport.

Once back in his Galilee village, Hassin helped recruit Zeidan, his partner at their dentistry office in Kfar Manda. He also passed on the names of at least three other Israeli Arabs to his Hamas contact for potential recruitment.

Zeidan, 36, told his interrogators he agreed to find safe houses for Hamas members transporting "the goods." In 1999, Zeidan traveled to Turkey for training with Hamas, that included learning how to obtain fertilizer used for making explosives, bomb assembly and transmitting orders via e-mail accounts. He also served as a courier for Hamas and delivered money to a Hamas member in Nazareth. In 2002, Zeidan met with a Hamas agent in Saudi Arabia and agreed to scout out potential crowded bombing sites in Tel Aviv. Hassin aided Zeidan in maintaining contact with their Hamas handler.

And what is the message the portly cleric wishes to convey? Why the glorification and urging of jihad, of course. From the Times Online:

THE exiled radical Islamist cleric Omar Bakri Mohammad is continuing to reach his followers in Britain through websites and internet chatrooms. After a period of silence that came after Bakri Mohammad’s decision to leave Britain for Lebanon to avoid the threat of arrest and deportation, his followers have re-emerged online.

They have been detected using a chatroom labelled “Muslims in the UK” to deliver lectures that deliberately challenge proposals in the Terrorism Bill to outlaw the glorification of terrorist acts.

The nature of the material suggests that Bakri Mohammad’s movement is prepared to be more explicit in its preachings and teachings.

In one session a man calling himself Mizaan, who spoke with an English accent, said: “We should all of us glorify terrorism and we should incite religious hatred.

“Don’t worry, it’s not illegal for us to say that the Mujahidin on 9/11 were the magnificent 19, and it’s not illegal for us to say that Mohammad Sidique Khan (July 7 ringleader) and the four on 7/7, that they were the fantastic four.”

Speaking animatedly, Mizaan stated that the world was divided into two camps — Islam and kuffar — which would always be at war. He repeatedly urged his listeners to take part in that war.

He said that he was in contact with Bakri Mohammad. but it was not possible to determine from where in the world the lecture was being broadcast.

The chatroom appeared on the Paltalk internet network which is run by a New York-based company. In January The Times revealed that Bakri Mohammad used the same network to declare Britain a “land of war” and encourage his followers to join al-Qaeda.

He's a moderate imam who lied about jail time he served for assault and about having been caught with a false French passport. Imagine what he would have done if he hadn't been so moderate. From The Gazette, with thanks to RG:

The imam of Montreal's largest North African mosque shocked his followers yesterday when he told them Canada wants to deport him for lying to get into the country as a refugee in 1997 and lying again to become a permanent resident in 1999.

Admitting he concealed information about jail time he served in France for assault in 1995, as well as having been caught with a false French passport in 1996, Said Jaziri vowed to stay at the Al-Qods mosque until he's deported....

"I'm a very moderate imam," Jaziri, 38, clad all in white, said in French under the gaze of more than 100 Muslim men who had come for Friday afternoon prayers at the mosque on Belanger St. near Iberville St.

"I'm staying here until expulsion - nowhere else," he vowed, as journalists invited for a hastily called news conference listened in, interrupted by people in the crowd declaring their faith in their spiritual leader....

Jaziri was in the news last month when he proposed using government subsidies to build a $20-million grand mosque for Montreal's rapidly growing Muslim population, an idea quickly rejected by Montreal's city administration.

The Ba'athists employ jihad rhetoric, just as Saddam himself did when he was in power. From AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Nicosia - Saddam Hussein's ousted Ba'ath party called on supporters in Iraq to step up attacks on US and Iraqi forces as his trial starts today, according to an Internet statement....

"This illegal trial will turn a new page for the Jihad (holy war) of the Iraqi armed resistance ... organised for the long run by our companion and leader," it said.

An Islamic Television update. From the Arab News:

Muslims should create, develop and make use of the media properly and reasonably, according to S.G.P. Jafry, president of Jafry Communications of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada.

“The system of messengers is a long-established and well-known tradition. The media is a powerful messenger, and Muslims must earn to use it effectively, especially post-Sept. 11,” Jafry told Arab News yesterday.

He explained that Sept. 11 had opened up more opportunities for the Muslim media. “It has created an environment for the reception of ideas. Questions are being asked, which must be answered in a studied and reasoned manner.”

Jafry said that in the present environment, it was the duty of Muslims to use the media to build bridges of understanding. “The media should concentrate on explaining what Islam really is. For example, when we say that we believe in all the Prophets, it breaks the ice, and helps to remove several mental blocks, and clear some ignorance and misunderstandings,” he added.

Speaking of his company, Jafry explained: “We are a national broadcaster presenting three TV programs — two on cable in Toronto, London (Ontario) and Ottawa and one national all over Canada using CTS — Christian Television Station and Vision TV Network. We are pioneers of Indo-Pak entertainment, having begun in 1969, mainly presenting radio programs. In 1978, we began television programs.”

Jafry Communications also supplies Islamic TV programs to Bridges TV in the United States. “Keys to the Qur’an,” which is prepared from material provided by the Saudi government, is on TV three times a day. Another program, “Calls of the Minaret,” is featured twice a week.

Jafry pointed out that Islam is a full set of rules for mankind’s benefit. He said that the Holy Qur’an speaks of two kinds of duties — duties toward the Creator and duties toward man or society, with a major emphasis on the latter.

“The problem is that we do not give enough attention to our duties toward man. Post-Sept. 11 this has become important and we must explain and show how much importance Islam attaches to the betterment of, and service to, mankind. We have begun producing information, such as the rights of neighbors (including non-Muslims), duties toward parents, looking after the community (which includes non-Muslims) honesty in dealings, why four wives, and so on,” Jafry said.

“In other words, we try to explain to Muslims and non-Muslims what Islam is."

"School that nurtured the Islamic call to arms," from The Australian, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

The Islamic school in Tenggulun has some of the most notorious alumni in the world, having been a place of learning, preaching and refuge to many of the key protagonists in the October 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people.

Today, it has 150 students from all over the far-reaching archipelago and, according to its founder Muhammed Khozin, he teaches his students to do with words what his brothers chose to do with bombs.

The students The Australian met there yesterday quizzed this reporter about his religious beliefs and debated the issue of whether the holy trinity in Christianity was false. They muttered among themselves about whether I was really a reporter or an Australian intelligence agent....

Welcome to the breeding ground of radical Islam in Indonesia. It started with Jemaah Islamiah spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir's Ngruki school in Solo, Central Java, and has spread into other pesantren across the country....

Khozin, as well as being one of the school's founders, is the brother of three of the 2002 Bali bombers, Ali Gufron, known as Mukhlas, Amrozi and Ali Imron, who all attended and taught at the school.

As head of one of Indonesia's most notorious families, he is keen to distance his community from the second Bali bombings, which he says are "different" to the first. His brand of Islam, he says, is different. He says the community has moved on and does not want to be linked to the new "tragedy".

But to Khozin, there is no difference in his ideology and his brothers'. The difference is in how they chose to act on their anger at Westerners flaunting their liberal values. He refers to the non-Muslim community as Kaffir Dhimmi, the name the prophet Mohammed gave to the non-Muslim communities. He says it is the responsibility of Muslims to fight this group by convincing them to behave with respect towards their Muslim neighbours.

He says the fight should not be "physical" but a fight with words.

Khozin does not believe that Westerners and Muslims can live side by side while Westerners continue to believe, for example, in allowing women to wear bikinis at the beach and to drink alcohol.

It is a "morality war" brought on by Australians and Westerners in general refusing to respect his culture.

This is another species of the kind of talk that clouds men's minds. Liberals tend to think that if American foreign policy were adjusted, there would be peace with the Islamic world. Some conservatives tend to think that if American immorality were reined in, there would be peace with the Islamic world. Both are tempted to wax rhapsodic about statements like Khozin's "morality war" appellation, which plays into the assumptions of both Left and Right. However, the general ignorance of Islam in the West leads all too many analysts on both the Left and the Right to breeze right past his statement about dhimmis. They don't realize that Khozin and his ilk will not acquiesce to peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims if America were suddenly to become moral (by their lights) and isolationist. Rather, Khozin and Co. would continue to believe that Allah was commanding them, after the example of Muhammad, to offer unbelievers conversion, subjugation, or death (cf. Sahih Muslim 4294). And that tripartite offer doesn't hinge on any behavior of the infidels at all. It is an offer that must be made to them simply because they are infidels.

He said his school "prepares the student to make sure foreigners do not do that in Indonesia". You only have to talk to his son, 19-year-old Afif, to know that the young people coming through the Islamic schooling system take that message to heart and maybe even beyond.

He says Bali will not be safe from terrorism until Australians and other Westerners visiting there behave in a way that is respectful of Muslim culture. Ask Afif what he wants to do when he grows up, the answer is simple: "Fight for Islam."

Then comes some wishful thinking from The Australian:

This is probably best interpreted as youthful spirit and not a declaration of jihad but his commitment is to ending what he sees as a Western corruption of his country. It shows that with such a hardline philosophy on what is and what is not acceptable, it is a fine line between fighting with words and fighting with bombs.

While Afif's uncles, Mukhlas -- the commander of the 2002 bombings -- and Amrozi, who played a key role procuring most of the equipment they needed, are facing the death penalty, he doesn't view what they did as wrong because they scared away many Westerners. He considers the Muslims who died as martyrs; he says the Westerners who died are not his concern because they were unbelievers.

As part of its consideration of the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act, about which I wrote here and here, the Senate will finally get around to looking into the Freedom House report on Saudi hate literature in American mosques, which was only issued last January. From the New York Sun, with thanks to Ruth King:

WASHINGTON - The American government is demanding that Saudi Arabia account for its distribution of hate material to American mosques, as the State Department pressed Saudi officials for answers last week and as the Senate later this month plans to investigate the propagation of radical Wahhabism on American shores.

The flurry of activity comes months after a report from the Center for Religious Freedom discovered that dozens of mosques in major cities across the country, including New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, were distributing documents, bearing the seal of the government of Saudi Arabia, that incite Muslims to acts of violence and promote hatred of Jews and Christians.

A Washington-based group that is part of the human rights organization Freedom House, the Center for Religious Freedom also found during its yearlong study that the Saudi-produced materials describe democracy and America as un-Islamic. They instruct recent Muslim immigrants to consider Americans as enemies and the materials urge new arrivals to use their time here as preparation for jihad. The documents also promote the version of Islam officially embraced by Saudi government and several of the September 11, 2001, hijackers, Wahhabism, as the only authentic Islam.

In response to the Freedom House report and as part of the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005 sponsored by Senator Specter, a Republican of Pennsylvania, the Judiciary Committee - of which Senator Specter is chairman - will be holding hearings into the hate materials on October 25, a spokesman for the senator, William Reynolds, said yesterday.

The Accountability Act, introduced in June, says its purpose is "to halt Saudi support for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other way aid and abet terrorism, and to secure fully Saudi cooperation in the investigation of terrorist incidents." The legislation is highly critical of the House of Saud for its support of terrorist activity and cites the January Freedom House report as evidence of the kingdom's complicity in the spread of radical Islamist ideology. As part of the Accountability Act, Senator Specter has in the past held Judiciary Committee hearings into Saudi financing of terrorism and Saudi Arabia's role in injecting ideology into textbooks for Palestinian Arab schoolchildren.

"To qualify for any of the jobs, a person has to be someone who 'seeks the guidance of God.'" In a larger sense this is actually nothing new. "Al-Qa'ida Recruits Through the Internet," from The Media Line, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

Al-Qa'ida has recently begun to recruit members to the organization through the Internet, reports the London-based daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat. Among the posts needed to be filled, are: an editor for Jihadist announcements in Iraq – both in audio and in video; an editor for TV video clips published through satellite stations; and an editor for written announcements in Arabic and English.

The wanted ads can be found on a website affiliated with Al-Qa'ida. The site said its public relations division will e-mail those who would like to apply for the jobs once they make the initial connection.

Al-Qa'ida did not specify what the salaries would be. It did state, however, that "Each Muslim has to know that he does not possess his time. His time belongs to the raped [Islamic] nation, whose blood was spilled without revenge."

To qualify for any of the jobs, a person has to be someone who "seeks the guidance of God."

It has become apparent this week that poor Karen Hughes has an impossible job. Wherever in the Muslim world she goes, Ms. Hughes is derided by extremists and “moderates” alike, who view most of her statements as little more than Zionist propaganda. Along the way, she is forced to defend policies which have already been thoroughly demonized by newspapers, Al-Jazeera, government officials, and religious leaders alike. Therefore, I’m reticent to criticize her, but her trip to Saudi Arabia has been absolutely shameful, according to Pakistan’s Daily Star:

US envoy Karen Hughes said on Tuesday Washington had privately discussed the issue of hate literature in American mosques with the Saudi government and asked for their help in getting rid it.

Hughes, whose job as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy is to counter the negative US image among Muslims and explain President George W Bush’s policies, brought the subject up publicly in a meeting with Saudi journalists.

But she did not discuss it - nor other human rights issues - in a meeting later with Saudi King Abdullah. “I hope you will find room to respect people of different faith and different faith traditions,” Hughes said at a luncheon with Saudi media.

“We are concerned that literature has been found in American mosques that has a message that is not tolerant and we hope the people of Saudi Arabia will work with us as we try to deal with this issue.”

Saudi hate literature in American mosques? It can’t be! Of course, as Jihadwatch and others have frequently reported in the past, the Saudi government has been fully complicit in spreading literature which calls for - among other things - murdering Christians and Jews.

US ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Oberwetter said Hughes was the first top Bush administration official to talk publicly in the kingdom about the anti-Christian, anti-Semitic material, which some human rights groups say has been sanctioned by the Saudi government.

Hallelujah, someone actually “talked” about the hate literature within Saudi borders! What progress!

“We’ve been raising the issue privately,” Hughes told reporters traveling with her to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. “One of my jobs is to raise issues in, I hope, a respectful way to help other countries understand American values.”

Hughes said she had never met Abdullah before and that they only “talked on personal terms”. “In a follow up meeting, I would feel very comfortable raising those issues,” she said.

Why wait, Ms. Hughes? Could the “personal” issues you saw fit to discuss with Abdullah really be more pressing than the fact that his government continues to produce and propagate hate literature? Again, no one should expect much from Ms. Hughes’ tour, but the American people deserve better than the quiet equivocation on display thus far.