WTF? (picking my jaw up off the floor)... This is either the most astonishingly humanitarian news, or the most intelligent misdirection campaign I've seen from the muslim world. I dare say that a few muslims may garner some respect from me yet. Of course, they would be "westernized" muslims. It is apparent that assimilation, if practiced by muslims in a society, can reflect well on them and the society. I'm very pleased to see this but I won't hold my breath for the rest of the muslim world to come around like this.

שלום

Posted by: Constantinople at January 5, 2006 8:36 AM

It should be no surprise that the group is headed by Muslim women and furthermore, Americans. They must be very removed from Islam since something like this being spearheaded by non-Westernized Muslim men is unheard of.

I wonder how tolerant these women are. Would they be opposed to the Presbyterians converting Pakistani Muslims? I wonder...

Posted by: igor at January 5, 2006 8:37 AM

As long as this effort by a handful of women is taken for what it is -- a handful of women making an effort -- and not a change in the doctrines of Islam, and not to be taken, for the purposes of argument, as a demonstration ("Why just the other day some Pakistani women were raising funds for Christian churches, so don't tell me about Muslim intolerance").

The main thing is not this effort at redress (the Presbyterian Church angle, given the recent behavior of that church, is also worth considering with caution) by a handful of Westernized women who were born into Islam and are trying, despite the texts of Islam, despite its teachings, despite the 1350-year history mistreatment (as we would surely see it) of Infidels (including their own, Hindu ancestors who were converted either forcibly, from outside, or conveted in order to end the unendurable state of dhimmi that non-Muslims in Pakistan would, if no one were looking, certainly have to endure).

Any praise should go to the particular individuals involved, for ignoring or swimming against the stream of Islam.

Is their effort praiseworthy?

Yes.

Does it reflect the tenets and atttiudes and atmospherics of Islam, or does it go against the canonical texts?

No, and Yes.

Would Muhammad, al-insan al-kamil, uswa hasana, approve of their actions or would he approve, do you think, of the attack on the Sangla Hill church?

No, and Yes.

As Larry David of Beetlebung Corner would say:

Curb your enthusiasm.

Posted by: Hugh at January 5, 2006 8:59 AM

Here are details about the fundraising dinner (see http://www.adamscenter.org/Calendar/CalendarEvent.asp?EventID=173):

Details

All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS)

Building Bridges of Peace, Respect, Tolerance, and Harmony

Fundraising Dinner to help Rebuild Churches in Pakistan that were wrongfully destroyed by mobs(Background Below and Supporting Evidence for this effort)

January 21, 2006, at 7:00 pm
ADAMS Center
46903 Sugarland Rd, Sterling, VA 20164

Keynote Speaker:
Ambassador Akbar Ahmed
Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University, Washington DC
Visiting Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Speech By:
Reverend Clark Lobenstine
Executive Director, Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington

Speech By:
Imam Mohamed Magid
Executive Director and Imam, All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS)
Chairperson, Fairfax Faith Communities in Action

Tickets: $100 per person
All ticket sales and funds raised will go directly toward rebuilding efforts.

For more information please contact:
Ms. Rubina M. Bari Ms. Nasim M. Khan Ms. Shabana Z. Syed
703-471-7165 703-689-0306 703-793-6540

Posted by: northernvirginiastan at January 5, 2006 10:51 AM

Best muslims are ones who are the least muslims. Any muslim, knows very well that Islam is a cult of crime and he or she has only two options, either leave islam and to save his/her life present them as the least muslims or more lucrative option of becoming member of the cult. Since these muslimah of US are not of least muslim variety, their intention is to misleed kafirs that Islam is a "RELIGION OF PEACE'.

Posted by: iqbal at January 5, 2006 10:57 AM

PS For more about the ADAMS Center and Imam Mohamed Magid, please visit A Troubling Problem at a Funeral.

No doubt that Grover Norquist arranged to have Imam Mohamed Magid participate at Ronald Reagan's funeral. Pedestrian Infidel has linked Norquest's wife to the ADAMS Center.

Posted by: northernvirginiastan at January 5, 2006 11:10 AM

Mr. Spencer-

Be sure to keep following this.

I would expect the rebuilding to be either prohibited or the efforts to be destroyed once mortar and bricks start raising the ruins.

If the women escape with their heads for this affront to Islam, I will be pleasantly surprised.

But it means very little in the country of the "Islamic Bomb", ultimately, whether a few infidel buidlings are "allowed" to be reconstructed.

They can be blow up when the Musharref government fades, finally.

This is equivalent to being happy that the tiger who ate your first child has permitted you to have another child ...that it can eat later.

Gestures are nice, but until these half-the-worth-of-men females adress the fundamental patriarchal lunacy imbedded within Islam, hope springs about as high as a squeaked pip.

Posted by: profitsbeard at January 5, 2006 11:53 AM

Hugh brings up a good point. This could be taqiyya in order to strengthen the position of Islam. Muslims are allowed to help infidels if it contributes to their da'wa. These women could be da'wists in disguise.

Compare their

"We must take a stand against religious discrimination in all its forms by helping rebuild at least one of the three churches destroyed, so that we may demonstrate to the world that Pakistani Muslims, whether at home or abroad, stand together in tolerance and respect for all people."

to Hugh's

"Why just the other day some Pakistani women were raising funds for Christian churches, so don't tell me about Muslim intolerance."

Looks like PR work for Islam to me. If not, then why did they bring Islam into the whole equation in the first place? Why not just help them because the Christian Pakistanis are human beings too and they sympathize with their suffering above all. It looks like they have something to prove instead.

Posted by: igor at January 5, 2006 11:57 AM

"Keynote Speaker:
Ambassador Akbar Ahmed
Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University, Washington DC
Visiting Fellow, The Brookings Institution"
-- from a posting above

Akbar Ahmed is not to be trusted. Not one bit or whit.

In conversations with someone who, after a family tragedy, became noted for his (vain)efforts to establish a real, as opposed to phony, Muslim-Jewish dialogue, this Akbar Ahmed has denied the importance of the Hadith, dismissing their contents entirely. That of course gets him, and others, conveniently off the hook.

Why? Because the Hadith (and the Sira, which he carefully refrains from mentioning)are, to Infdiels, much clearer in their expressed hatred for non-Muslims. There is nothing of the Quran's sheer incomprehension (20% of the Qur'an, Western scholars repeatedly note, is incomprehensible even to those who understand Arabic of the period -- see the remarks of Christoph Luxenberg), nor the vagueness of much of it, nor the phrases which need a gloss (an untutored Infidel, not well-versed in the meaning given to the phrase "struggle in the path of Allah," might, if he did not pay close attention, not realize that there is much more than the all-important Sura 9 to alarm him).

And in any case, Akbar Ahmed knows perfectly well that hundreds of millions of Muslims take the Hadith to heart, that all over the Islamic world the example of Muhammad in the Sira (Muhammad, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil) and his sayings and doings as recorded in the Hadith, and as those Hadith have been winnowed and assigned levels of "authenticity" (based largely on studies of the isnad-chain) by the most authoritative muhaddithiin, is held up, and that the very word "Sunni" comes from "ahl al-sunnah," the "people of the Sunnah" which is to say, the Believers who follow Qur'an and Sunnah, the Sunnah consisting of the ways, the customs, the beliefs, the example, of Muhammad and the Companions.

And in the same colloquy with that hapless Jewish worker for a "dialogue" with Muslims -- a grasping-at-straws effort -- Akbar Ahmad, the "Ibn Khaldun Professor," had brought to his attention the words of Ibn Khaldun on the necessity and rightness for agressive Jihad, which are included in Andrew Bostom's "The Legacy of Jihad" and, two years before that, could be found by readers in Robert Spencer's "Onward Muslim Soldiers."

And what was the dismissive reaction of Akbar Ahmad, "Ibn Khaldun Professor of Islamic Studies," to being made aware of this view, so clearly expressed by Ibn Khaldun, and easily accessible to Spencer and to Bostom? It was to replay that he had never heard of such sentiments in Ibn Khaldun's writings. And then to further insist that the translation of the original must be faulty.
Translation "incorrect"? The translator of Ibn Khaldun's Maqaddima, in this case, was the tremendously learned scholar, possibly the world's expert on Ibn Khaldun, the late Franz Rosenthal.

There is a good deal more to be said about Akbar Ahmad. Oh, he's amiable, he's plausible. He has a post at Brookings. He gets around. But study carefully his words, what he owns up to about Islam, and what he so craftily continues to deny.

And then ask yourself this question: why are Pakistanis living in America, where they would have every desire to prove themselves and t6o shore up their own position in this sociey, now be raising funds so publicly and noisily for a destroyed church in Pakistan at this moment?

Why did they never speak out before? Christians and Hindus have been under assault in Pakistan, and in Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) since the earliest days of its existence. A few years ago, after one more "blasphemy" charge was levelled at a hapless Christian boy, Bishop John Joseph martyred himself -- in the true, not the Muslim sense -- as a protest against the steay murderous persecution of Christians in Pakistan.

When, and why, did destroyed churches suddenly become a matter of interest to the people involved? Did the fact that news of such things is now reaching the Infidel world, including the largely-Christian United States where these Suddenly Concerned Pakistanis all live, have anything to do with this interest? Could it be based on a realization that the mood is changing in the Infidel world, and that publicity of another sort is needed to protect Muslim standing in this country? And could Akbar Ahmad simply be shoring up his self-proclaimed credentials as a Muslim "moderate" and "truth-teller"-- neither of which, given what is offered above, has yet quite been earned.

And let's see if any of those involved will publish Open Letters to the Pakistani press, or will picket the Pakistani Embassy, demanding greater protection for churches in Pakistan by the only group that can provide it -- the Pakistani government police and army?

And let's see if they make the same kind of efforts for Hindu temples, or bring to the world's attention the attacks in Pakistan (and Bangladesh) on Hindus --when there is not quite the same need to placate Hindus in America as there is to soothe Christian sensibities.

And one more thing.

Why is there no effort by the 140-million Muslims in Pakistan itself, or why hasn't the Pakistani government taken upon itself, the rebuilding of this church?

Haven't the Pakistanis received tens of billions in Infidel (American) aid over the decades? Can't Musharraf spare a little, set aside just a bit, to rebuild that Sangla church destroyed by Muslims?

He can't?

Why not?

Posted by: Hugh at January 5, 2006 12:14 PM

None of this matters until we know where THE MONEY actually goes. So when it can be demonstrated that the money actually went to re-building those churches, then it will amount something more than a mere appearance of genuine charity.

Posted by: American_Palamite at January 5, 2006 2:28 PM

If this is a genuine effort to help rebuild what was destroyed in Pakistan its well and good. But we should all wait and see whether in fact what they intend is accomplished - "the proof of the pudding is in the eating". Otherwise this may be an effort to "pull the wool" over the eyes of the unsuspecting dimmified westerners. I will not myself give much credence to these womens efforts, till I see real results. Remember they are in the west; so they could say anything, words are cheap and we have freedom of speech.

Posted by: faqi at January 5, 2006 3:01 PM

What does bother me about Holocaust Memoralization is that it does in fact trivialize, by wilful exclusion, all of the other "objectionables" that were purposefully liquidated by the NAZI's, and I do recall some Jewish group vehemently objecting to the use of the word Genocide when compounded with the adjectives Armenian and Greek, or even East Timor and Cambodia.

Posted by: Nariz at January 5, 2006 3:14 PM

This is the kind of entry that refutes the scurrilous accusation of Islamophobe that is so commonly directed at Robert Spencer.

Posted by: Cornelius at January 5, 2006 5:36 PM

If this is a genuine effort to help rebuild what was destroyed in Pakistan its well and good. But we should all wait and see whether in fact what they intend is accomplished - "the proof of the pudding is in the eating".

As a lover of puddings, and of drink, I'll drink to that. Yes, this could be taqiyya. But so many Muslims are simply ignorant of their evil ideology that passes for a religion, and, if they are good people, may genuinely, but mistakenly, believe that restoring this church is the right - and the Islamic - thing to do. This does not make the ideology any the less evil. Actions speak louder than words, of course.

Posted by: Interested at January 5, 2006 6:09 PM

I don´t know what to think, it seems good but...

Posted by: Franze at January 5, 2006 7:00 PM

Pure taqiyya.

You watch all the media mileage they get out of this...

Posted by: Mike_W at January 6, 2006 2:03 AM

Here is the real reason for the sudden show of 'passion' of the American Muslims, towards the much persecuted Pakistani Christians.
If you google to 'pakistan christian post',the real reason for these USA Muslims sudden affection to rebuild the burnt churches in Pakistan comes to light: Lahore Arch Bishop Lawrence Salshanha called for a hunger strike of all christians of Sangli Hill district,for the burning of four churches,and houses of Christians by a Islamic Mob of 3000 strong on Nov,12.
The Bishop has warned that if any of these christians die due to hunger strike, he will notify the World Council Of Churches to take action. President Musharaf of Pakistan ,who is reciving billions of free aidmoney for the Pak earth quake relief from mostly christian countries like USA,Europe and Canada,is worried about the impact of this hunger strike and protest.
This sudden act of kindness on the part of the Mislim women of USA,is really a act of Taquiyya- as our churches in America,and Europe are pouring out aid dollors for these heartless people. These muslims fear the aid money will be stopped by these christian countries. This is the real reason of their sudden compassion. The church of Salvation Army around America and Canada collected tents,food,and money for them. But two of the Salvation Army Churces were burnt down in Sangli Hill. WHAT A SHOW OF GRATITUDE!!. Americans-DON'T GET FOOLED.

Posted by: rafia at January 6, 2006 12:58 PM

From what I've heard about Christianity in Pakistan, by the time these ladies finish building that church, they will probably discover they should have built a cemetery instead. It's doubtful the members of that congregation will live long enough to actually worship in it.

And that's not a joke either.

Posted by: pythagoras at January 6, 2006 1:44 PM

Living in the US and trying to impress their Christian neighbors by putting a positive face on their bloody religion is called propoganda. They gain much and lose nothing by this gesture.

While these women are doing an apparently decent thing, it would ony have real meaning if women actually in Pakistan were allowed to do this.

Maybe this will happen and... maybe monkeys might fly out my butt.

Posted by: Provoslavni at January 8, 2006 12:54 AM