| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Jihad Watch | Robert Spencer | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog |  |
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CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Thursday claiming that a Wyoming State Penitentiary policy restricting prisoners' mealtimes violates the constitutional rights of two Muslim inmates….At issue is an alleged "20-minute rule" requiring inmates to eat their meals within 20 minutes after the food is delivered to a cell or common dining area, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit seeks for the inmates to be exempted from the rule because it forces them to choose between eating and practicing their religion. -- from this news article
The principle of American constitutional law that has been applied n cases where, it is claimed, the free exercise of religion has been infringed, is that of "reasonable accommodation." And in the case law, what is "reasonable accommodation" in turn requires an analysis of the state interest involved. The smooth functioning of prisons would be compromised, and an administrative headache created if such a claim were to stand, so that "20 minutes" would have to be lengthened. If it were lengthened, then no doubt it would have to be lengthened for all prisoners, for if it weren’t, a great many prisoners might -- and this is a worry -- start to claim that they, too, were Muslims. They might even decide to convert, since it takes nothing but a phrase, in order to obtain such a benefit, and then, having done so lightheartedly, find that "you know, there really is something to this Islam." It's a very dangerous thing to give in on.
That is the case law. A few years ago there was an attempt to deal with this situation by statute, the so-called RULIPA (which google). It tries to accommodate religion in such areas as land use and institutional -- including prison -- practices. How this case might be decided under RULIPA, how RULIPA relates to the prior case law or might if the case came to the Court, is unclear. And here one must put one's faith in the common sense of the Court, but it would be a Court whose members are no more acquainted with Islam than are most of our leaders.
Of course, this all begs the question: is Islam a religion in the sense in which the Framers understood that word, and as we today in the West understand that word? It is much more than a religion. It is a politics. It is a geopolitics. It is a program for, and justification of, world conquest for Islam and for Muslims. That can be found, quite easily, in the texts. Those who keep refusing to examine those texts, or examining the totalitarian nature of Islam, with its system of Total Regulation, and its justification for the mistreatment of all Unbelievers, or Infidels, have the responsibility to learn all this. This needs to be understood by those in Congress who pass such a statute as RULIPA, and by judges, including of course those on the Supreme Court.
Islam presents an unprecedented challenge, both to American jurisprudence, and to American society -- and to all Western states, and societies. A challenge and, if rightly understood, a danger that will not disappear, because it is based on texts that are regarded as uncreated and immutable, and the literal word of God. Every Muslim is, or is supposed to be, a literalist, and those who are not and who maintain silence about the nature of Islam are only encouraging unwariness on the part of naive Infidels. Thus they themselves are participating, even if they would not see it that way, in the Jihad whose instruments include Da'wa, and also a worldwide propaganda campaign of steady misinformation. So far, that propaganda campaign has been working, for it appeals, in many ways, to all kinds of fashionable tendencies -- the deep unexamined belief in the wonders of "diversity," the deep Family-Of-Man sentimentalism that insists "all people are the same the whole world over" and its bomfoggish corollary, "all religions mean the same thing" or "we all worship the same God."
If examined with care, by the well-prepared, all of this crumbles into dust. But who, nowadays, is used to examining anything? And how many, nowadays, can be included in the list of the "well-prepared"?
Posted by Hugh at April 11, 2008 6:48 AM
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I remember sitting there, almost in a crouch, trying to wolf down as much chow as I could in the least amount of time possible.
Above and behind me stood large, seemingly angry men who evidently took great pleasure in yelling at me and my fellow-travelers about how worthless we all were, and how they would delight to kick our nary asses at once if we dared to savor the taste of that food... we could do that later.
Our sole mission in life in those few moments was to choke down that chow and get the hell back outside so they could pound us into the dirt with repetitious, nasty, sweaty work and instruction the meaning of which we could not always appreciate.
Twenty minutes? What we wouldn't have given for an entire twenty minutes of peace and rest from our tortuous toil.
But we, both men and women, sucked it up and let the US Army break us and make us into soldiers. Or Marines. Or Sailors. Or Airmen.
And that, among many others, is the difference between us and them.
They are pussies. We are not.
Posted by: undaunted![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 11, 2008 9:31 AM
American Civil Liberties Union - uh, guys - there will be no America, if you keep turning into dhimmis.
Posted by: tanstaafl at April 11, 2008 11:46 AM
tanstaafl said
American Civil Liberties Union - uh, guys - there will be no America, if you keep turning into dhimmis.
Posted by: tanstaafl at April 11, 2008 11:46 AM
_________________
um, tanstaafl, I think that's what they've been shooting for for quite a while now.
Posted by: eve_anne_gelical at April 11, 2008 1:08 PM
As may be observed by even a cursory read of such Kuranic verse as the Surah 9.5, Islamic doctrine prescribes, legitimizes (and practices) first degree murder. Muslim "scholars" can obscure this reality all they want behind the usual veils of esoteric Islamic "context" it makes no difference as it is totally obvious to anyone who invetigates the link between Islam and acts of terrorism.
The western democracies have been mislabelling Islamic violence "terrorism." Islamic acts of violence are mostly Islamic doctrine put into practice.
Islam from a legalistic standpoint SHOULD BE ILLEGAL in the United States since it openly violates clear-cut US LAWS. Islam routinely incites acts of violence against "unbelievers."
Americans have no business "accommodating" Islam. Since when is suicide a legitimate option? Islam is a threat to human American lives that is second to none. It violates our laws. Period.
It is really THAT simple.
Posted by: pythagoras at April 11, 2008 2:43 PM
Yea, what pythagoras said.
Posted by: undaunted at April 11, 2008 3:35 PM
I'd punish their frivolous griping by making it 15 minutes instead.
Prisoners forfeit their normal constitutional rights when they commit crimes, and shouldn't get anything but basic medical care, basic housing, basic food, and then paying back society for their violations by working.
They shouldn't have the time or energy left after hard labor for this level of vapid, soft jihad nonsense.
at April 11, 2008 8:52 PM
Islam is not so much a religion as a political movement operating under the camouflage of religion. Indeed,it is not so much 'religion' which is the issue in these matters as s u p e r s t i t i o n and, until our courts and politicians understand the difference between religion and superstition, we shall continue to have these problems.
The time has come to nail the lie that Muslims are the 'lost cousins' of Jews and Christians in the great Abrahamic family of faith. Islam is, in essence, a twisted form of Arabic paganism. Allah is one of the pagan deities of ancient Arabia. A 'god' who demands rituals from his worshipers and who is easily offended and threatens chastisement for the failure to perform those rituals is a pagan deity being no resemblance whatsoever to the God of the Jews and Christians
Posted by: LondonBorn&Bred at April 12, 2008 5:45 AM
ACTION Alert! PETITION - Say NO to Shariah Complaint Finance
================
The Jihad is progressing on every front and infiltrating the West and as you know they are now infiltrating our financial institutions with "Shariah Complaint Finance"
This will have deadly consequences to our already fragile economy, jeopardize our security and democracy.
Please sign the Petition below and have it up on your website.
I cannot believe that Standard & Poors is one of the Sponsors of this Islamic Finance Conference!
We need to collect thousands of signatures which we will then send onto SEC, Dept of Justice, FBI, CSP, US Treasury Dept and any and all other relevant agencies.
Thank you
Linda Randall www.ACTforAmerica.org
Say NO to Shariah Complaint Finance! Petition http://www.petitiononline.com/qxyz1108/petition.html, -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jihad Comes to Wall Street
"Sharia finance" does exactly what it promises, financing the spread of sharia — and terror.
By Alex Alexiev
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjBhMTM5MTlmN2YzNzE0MmFkOTg2OGYxNWM2MGNiNTQ
If you’ve seen Geert Wilders’s film Fitna, you may not have noticed a single headline amongst all the bombings, beheadings, and earnest expressions of Islam’s eventual world domination: Halal-fund: investments for Muslims. But the investment vehicles referenced are an essential part of radical Islam’s efforts to insinuate itself into Western societies in order to destroy them from within. And Wall Street, barely out of the woods from its disastrous run-in with sub-prime mortgages — and having lost one of its historic investment houses, Bear Stearns, in the process — is now chasing the very kind of “sharia finance” against which Wilders's movie warns, a business line that may eventually wind up being even more calamitous than the subprime-mortgage fiasco.
For the growing army of its acolytes, who salivate at the prospect of tens of billions of dollars in transaction fees from the burgeoning industry, sharia-compliant finance is seen as little more than a cuddly Islamic version of socially conscious investment — with ethical strictures forbidding usury and sin industries, and emphasizing charity. Indeed, a conference on the subject last Fall co-sponsored by the Wall Street Journal was titled just that: “Islamic Ethical Investment.” According to this rosy interpretation, sharia finance is a windfall for capital markets — allowing Wall Street to skim some foam off the ocean of petrodollar liquidity in the Middle East, and put it to good use.
Other interpretations are possible, of course. Critics see sharia finance as a massive subversion campaign by radical Islam designed to legitimize sharia in the West, to undermine our markets, and ultimately to imperil our free-enterprise system and national security — all the while exposing banks to financial risks that make the sub-prime fiasco look like a walk in the park. For its proponents and ideological enablers — such as the well known suicide-bombing advocate, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi — sharia finance is nothing less than “Jihad with money.” As al-Qaradawi explains, “God has ordered us to fight enemies with our lives and with our money.” Unfortunately for Wall Street, it’s hard to argue with the good sheikh on that score. Far from being a guide to ethical investment, sharia finance is indistinguishable from sharia itself.
Sharia is a reactionary-to-the-core medieval Islamic doctrine that claims control over every aspect of every Muslim’s life. It imposes such “ethical” mandates on Muslims as the obligation to discriminate against women and non-Muslims; to kill homosexuals, adulterers, and apostates; to establish and maintain Muslim rule around the world; and to carry out violent offensive jihad against infidels. Notably, for those Muslims who cannot engage in physical jihad using force of arms, sharia requires that they support jihad financially. This is what sharia finance is all about.
Far from being a legitimate investment vehicle, sharia finance facilitates religiously sanctioned support for terrorist organizations — as well as providing radical Islamists with highly paid sinecures as sharia-finance board advisors in the sanctum sanctorum of capitalism, all the while that they are pursuing a subversive campaign to destroy it.
Predictably, none of this is even remotely disclosed by any of the dozens of Western banks promoting sharia finance today, which obviously exposes them to huge non-disclosure risks ranging from fraudulent misrepresentation, to material support for terrorism.
Consider the board chairman of the Dow Jones Islamic Index (IMANX), one Mufti Taqi Usmani. Mr. Usmani is widely reputed to be one of the world’s top experts on sharia finance. Whatever his stockpicking abilities may be, they are dwarfed by his jihadist credentials. A key executive of Pakistan’s prominent Deobandi jihadist factory, the madrassa Darul Karoom Karachi (currently headed by his brother, Rafi Usmani), Taqi Usmani has openly advocated jihad by Muslims in the West, and just last month again publicly endorsed suicide bombing and the Taliban.
Since sharia-finance funds like the IMANX may invest in companies that are not completely halal — that derive their profit from interest or other sharia-prohibited activities — returns on investment in those companies must be purified by donating a portion of that ROI to charity. More often than not, it is people like Usmani who are paid lucratively to sit on sharia-finance boards in order to determine what charities will receive the sharia-finance institutions’ donations — and it’s a fair bet that the March of Dimes is not among them.
IMANX itself is owned and operated by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), an organization listed as an un-indicted co-conspirator by the Department of Justice in a recent terrorism-finance trial, and the proprietor of hundreds of radical mosques and Islamic institutions in the U.S., including some that have been closed down by the government as criminal enterprises.
The chairman of both NAIT and IMANX, Bassam Osman, has been the top executive of terrorist-funding organizations like the Quranic Literacy Institute (suspected financiers of Hamas whose assets were seized by the U.S. in 1998) and the Islamic Academy of Florida (founded by Sami al-Arian, a convicted financier of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist criminal enterprise), and is a board member of other un-indicted co-conspirators like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Is Dow Jones aware of all this? Is Rupert Murdoch? And if they are not, shouldn’t they be?
The IMANX marketing slogan is “Markets Fluctuate. Principles Don’t.” Judging by the ideological principles of those involved in its leadership, that is precisely what Wall Street — and the West — should fear.
The legitimization of sharia in the West and its gradual imposition in Muslim communities and beyond is a key objective of sharia finance, and there is no doubt it has already made huge strides. Indeed, the precedent of legal sharia-finance transactions was used by the hapless archbishop of Canterbury to buttress his argument that introducing sharia in the United Kingdom was unavoidable.
Given the reality of malignant Islamism now spreading into our own capital markets to the loud cheers of the same Wall Street masters of the universe who gave us sub-prime mortgage securitization, Americans have a right to ask: Where are the U.S. Treasury Department and the SEC, whose job it is to protect our markets? Given the outright fraudulent misrepresentation of the potential liabilities of sharia-finance funds under existing regulations, they should get involved soon.
— Alex Alexiev is vice president for research at the Center for Security Policy.
WHAT IS SHARIAH LAW AND FINANCE?
WHAT IS SHARIAH LAW?
Understanding Shariah law is integral to understanding the dangers of Shariah-compliant finance. Shariah law is Islamic law dating back to the 9th century and is today the law of the land in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and the law under which the Taliban operates. However, with a current population of 1.5 billion Muslims, this translates to a huge pool of Jihadist recruits and supporters - a base of approximately 150 - 225 million Muslims.
Shariah law authorities, some of whom are now being paid handsomely by Barclays, Dow Jones, Standard & Poors, HSBC, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Deutschebank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Credit Suisse and others have the power to dictate Shariah compliance as deemed by "scholarly consensus" on matters of finance, family, penal law, apostasy, and war. Examples of authoritarian Shariah law include: requirement of women to obtain permission from husbands for daily freedoms; beating of disobedient woman and girls; execution of homosexuals; engagement of polygamy and forced child marriages; the testimony of four male witnesses to prove rape; honor killings of those, principally women, who have dishonored the family; death to apostate Muslims who chose to leave Islam; inferior status of non-Muslims, and capital punishment for those "slander Islam."
ISLAMIC FINANCE - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
National Security and Financial Risks: Islamists are attempting to impose Shariah Compliant Finance (SCF) on Western institutions to use our own financial strengths against us. The most serious problem with SCF is that it legitimates and institutionalizes Shariah law (i.e., Islamic law), a theo-political- legal doctrine violently opposed to Western values. With $1 -$2 trillion petrodollars annually looking for an investment home, blind exuberance is driving financial institutions to adopt SCF, without even a minimal baseline for legal compliance. This willful blindness, and lack of both transparency and due diligence may cause SCF to be the next sub-prime crisis, but this time with deadly consequences.
Legal Risks: Western financial institutions which adopt SCF may have criminal and civil exposure to claims of aiding and abetting sedition and the material support of terrorism, securities fraud, consumer fraud, racketeering, and antitrust violations, as well as exposure to tort claims for sedition and terrorism, and for the violation of internationally recognized norms of the law of nations.
Terror Financing Mechanism: SCF as monitored by paid Shariah law advisors to U.S. banking institutions must "purify" certain return on investment (ROI) dollars that do not meet Shariah law standards. This money must be donated to Islamic charities - including some that promote Jihad and support suicide bombing. Investment disclosures state that these profits can be as high as 6% of profits of investments. With $800 billion already in SCF assets, the potential for billions of dollars to be siphoned off for terrorism is real. This would be a serious criminal violation of U.S. law.
Consider this example: Shariah Mutual Funds promote themselves as "ethical funds." To be Shariah-compliant, they donate "tainted" revenues to Shariah-compliant "charities." A post 9-11 U.S. investor in a Shariah-compliant "ethical investment" is not told that Shariah law also requires imposing Shariah as U.S. law, execution of gays and female apartheid. Is he a victim of consumer fraud? Is this same post 9-11 investor unwittingly funding terror? The government has shut down the three largest Shariah-compliant charities in the U.S. - the Holy Land Foundation, Benevolence International Foundation, and the Global Relief Foundation - after proving they funded terrorist organizations. The American taxpayer deserves answers to these questions. The Center for Security Policy (CSP) is meeting directly with members of Congress, U.S. regulatory agencies and Wall Street financial institutions in order to ensure the enforcement of existing U.S. laws on sedition, disclosure, material support of terrorism, and money-laundering. CSP is committed to revealing the civil liability and criminal exposure of Shariah law and Shariah-compliant finance.
Below is a list of Shariah Finance compliant banks. One must come to the conclusion, this is an ever greater threat than Jihadists in America. If our government doesn't take action soon, then our inconvenient "recession" will look like a stroll in the park. In an effort to combat terrorism my family has decided to pull a considerable sum of money and close accounts of the newest Shariah compliant bank Wachovia. We will not have our funds in institutions that support Islamic Terrorism. Become aware of banks and banking institutions that support Shariah law and Finance. By closing accounts you have in those institutions, you will know that you are NOT supporting terrorism against our own people and friends. Note the institutions below to see if you are currently supporting terrorism!
Shariah Compliant Banks
Asset Acceptance Capital Corporation
Aviva Plc
AXA
Barclays PLC
BNP Paribas Group
Citibank, N.A.
Credit Agricole, S.A.
Deutsche Bank AG
Dow Jones & Company Inc.
Equity Insurance Group Limited
Goldman Sachs Group
HBOS plc
HSBC Holdings plc
INVESCO Perpetual
Julius Baer Group
Maersk Logistics
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
Morgan Stanley
NYSE Euronext
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
at April 12, 2008 11:41 PM
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