Renegade Cleric Launches Fresh Verbal Attack on U.S.

A US soldier stands guard at a checkpoint at the entrance of the restive town of Fallujah. (AFP)

This news from Fallujah via Scotsman.com. The U.S. Marines, one of world's most feared fighting forces and part of history's most impressively equipped military , could have easily leveled this mosque and this city, but did not.

America hopes restraint will win the battle of hearts and minds. I only hope that Sadr does not mistake our kindness for weakness. U.S. Marines were not meant for dhimmitude.

Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told worshippers at Friday prayers that he will not accept calls to tone down his anti-American rhetoric.

He accused the US of being “the enemy of Islam and Muslims and jihad is the path of my ancestors.”

Al-Sadr made the speech at a mosque in Kufa, a stronghold of his Al-Mahdi army.

American forces are surrounding Najaf, where al-Sadr is based. Tribal leaders and police are holding intensive talks in the city aimed at reducing tensions and preventing an American assault on the city, which is home to one of the shrines holiest to Shiite Muslims.

Lieutenant Colonel Pat White said US forces were holding back to give talks a chance and out of respect for Friday, the Islamic day of prayer.

“We want to show that we respect what that day means to the Islamic world,” White said, adding that forces were closely monitoring speeches that clerics were giving at prayer services.

More Than 100 Dead, 1,000 Wounded in Nigeria Feud

"Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends"

Reuters is quick to deny that religious and ethnic fighting in rural Nigeria has anything to do with religious and ethnic ties.

LAGOS (Reuters) - More than 100 people were believed killed and 1,000 wounded in fresh ethnic and religious fighting in central Nigeria, the Nigerian Red Cross said on Friday.

The death toll from Tuesday's fighting between Muslims and Christians in six remote farming villages on the border between Plateau and Taraba states has been slow to emerge, partly because the telephone lines are not working in Taraba.

Reuters, showing that it has forgotten the Miss World riot, the Kaduna massacres, and the implementation of sharia in Northern Nigeria says:

The Muslim Fulani, who live principally from cattle herding, and the Christian Tarok, who are subsistence farmers, are fighting mainly over land and cattle. Most of the killing is done with large cutlasses and in arson attacks.

'New Sharia law' in Nigeria state

For some reason I don't feel so welcome

Nigeria's Zamfara state has just announced a new set of laws, racheting up implementation of Islamic law, the Sharia.

Officials say blandly that in "phase two" of this implementation, "unauthorised" houses of worship will be closed. What constitutes an "unauthorised" place of worship? Any dhimmi house of prayer? Or those that aren't covered by dhimmi laws — i.e., African animists? Either one is an outrage to the freedoms of conscience and religion, but even the BBC isn't sure of the answer. That suggests that they weren't able to get any clarity about this from Muslim spokesmen. From the BBC, with thanks to "Allah":

All businesses in the state will have to shut down during the five daily Muslim prayers.

The state government also says that all "unauthorised" places of worship will be shut down under "Sharia phase two".

Zamfara was the first Nigerian state to introduce strict Sharia laws in 2000 and thousands turned out to welcome the new measures on Wednesday.

Death sentences

The BBC's Yusuf Sarki Muhammad in the state capital, Gusau, says it is not clear whether churches will be targeted for closure under the new measures.

He says there are many unauthorised places of worship in Zamfara, as elsewhere in Nigeria.

Most other states in the predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria followed Zamfara by introducing Sharia laws.

Thieves have had their hands amputated and several women have been sentenced to death by stoning for having extra-marital sex.

But no death sentences have yet been carried out.

The new laws led to clashes between Christians and Muslims, in which thousands of people died.

Turk held for "honour killing" of raped teen daughter

Another honor killing, this time in Turkey. From Reuters, with thanks to Cathy J. Palmer:

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police have arrested a man and a dozen of his relatives on suspicion of murdering his 14-year-old daughter, a rape victim, to salvage the family's "honour", according to newspaper reports.

Turkey, a candidate for European Union membership, is under pressure from Brussels and from human rights groups, to crack down harder on "honour killings", which involve the murder of women by male relatives for bringing shame on the family name.

Nuran Halitogullari was taken captive and raped late last month by a man while she was going to a market in Istanbul. He kept her prisoner in his home for four days, the papers said.

Police then arrested him and returned Nuran to her parents, but the family decided she must die for "soiling" their name. Her father and 17-year-old brother strangled her with a wire.

They buried her body in a forest and also tried to kill her rapist but he was already in police custody. ...

Experts estimate up to 70 women are murdered annually in honour killings in Turkey, mostly in the conservative [i.e., firmly Islamic], mainly ethnic Kurdish southeast region. Scores of other women take their own lives under pressure or fear of attack.

Turkey's parliament is preparing to strike from the penal code clauses used to reduce sentences for murders committed in the name of honour. It is part of a wider drive to clean up Turkey's human rights record and promote its EU bid.

In another recent case which drew strong Turkish media interest, a 22-year-old woman was shot dead by her two brothers as she lay in a hospital bed in Istanbul recovering from an earlier assassination bid.

Guldunya Toren was killed for having a child outside wedlock after being raped by a cousin in southeastern Turkey.

In a sign of the changing times, Turkey's Muslim preachers recently condemned honour killings and said all forms of murder were a sin in Islam and were forbidden.

That's great. I hope they convince everyone in Turkey. But there is much evidence that this practice is justified on Islamic grounds. Last year Jordan's Parliament rejected a law stiffening penalties for honor killings because Islamic hardliners, according to Al-Jazeera, "said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."

Comedienne maddens Mullah

Shabana Rehman (Aftenposten)

Shabana Rehman picked up Mullah Krekar. By the legs. She was trying to make a satiric point. He called it a "gruesome humiliation." Krekar, the jihadist leader who now resides in Norway, should know: he has done a few grueome things himself.

But what does this strange incident have to do with dhimmitude and jihad? Why, everything. For besides gruesomely humiliating this terrorist, Rehman has violated a fundamental tenet of the jihadists, most memorably expressed by Ayatollah Khomeini: "Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."

From Norway's Aftenposten, with thanks to Jarle Synnevåg and Filtrat:

Norwegian-Pakistani humorist Shabana Rehman pulled a stunt during a public debate with Mullah Krekar, the controversial former leader of the militant group Ansar al-Islam that left the religious man fuming and threatening a lawsuit. Rehman, a popular stand-up comic who specializes in material based on culture collision, picked the mullah up off the ground, an act he called a gruesome humiliation.

The bizarre incident took place during a debate about Krekar's new book, a largely autobiographical work that tries to put his life and beliefs into perspective and give an alternative look at a man constantly embroiled in accusations of terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism.

Rehman, who was born in Karachi but raised in Norway since infancy, is controversial in her own right, constantly creating a stir with comedy material touching on immigration, integration, Muslim conflicts and traditions, feminism and sexual repression. ...

On Tuesday night as the debate was winding to a close, Rehman came on stage and said she wanted to carry out a "satiric test" to find out if Mullah Krekar was as strongly fundamentalist as some of his critics believe. When he approached her, she grabbed him and lifted him up in the air.

Krekar, who said that Rehman picked him up by reaching under his buttocks, became furious, grabbed the microphone and began speaking in Norwegian for the first time that evening.

"I do not have the right to carry her like that, she has no right to carry or touch me. She displays contempt for me. I cannot accept this," Krekar said, and promised to lodge a complaint via his lawyer. He demanded that all photographs of the incident be destroyed.

Rehman, who insists she lifted him by gripping him around the legs ("the only way for a woman 163 centimeters (5'4") to pick up a man that high"), told newspaper VG she also wanted to show that if she could lift him, he could hardly be a danger to national security.

The woman gathered in the audience laughed at the stunt but panel member Lar Gule, secretary general of Norway's Humanist Ethic League protested.

"The audience does not understand what an insult Krekar has been exposed to. This is very, very serious for Krekar, and Rehman especially should understand this," Gule said.

Rehman said she wanted to see if Krekar was as tolerant and relaxed as he claims to be, and admitted that she found his reaction confusing.

Islamic courts get foothold in Canada

Many have pointed out that this is not really that big a deal, and that Sharia courts for private arbitration are no different from courts that judge according to Jewish law, as goes the comparison in this article (thanks to Jeffrey Imm for the link), or any other private, voluntary association.

It is the nature of Sharia that raises questions. The Jewish court, the article tells us, "deals with monetary, business and family disputes, but no criminal matters." But Sharia does deal with criminal matters. Who will decide, then, what elements of Sharia will come under the purview of these courts, and which won't? How will this decision be made? And once made, will it not be subject to revision in the name of multiculturalism, tolerance, and freedom of religion — resulting in an ever wider sphere of influence for Sharia?

Maybe that won't happen. But it would be reassuring to see from Canadian authorities some clear and satisfactory answers to such questions.

Toronto, ON, Apr. 28 (UPI) -- Muslims in the Canadian province of Ontario can soon turn to settling disputes in their own courts, known as sharia, the Washington post reported.

Muslim promoters of sharia arbitration said no cases have yet been decided but the process is set. Islamic leaders created an Islamic Court of Civil Justice last fall and it has chosen arbitrators who have undergone training in sharia and Canadian civil law.

"People can agree to resolve disputes any way acceptable," said Brendan Crawley, a spokesman for the Ontario Attorney General's office said in an interview. He said the arbitration act has a number of safeguards, including the requirement that parties enter into arbitration only on a voluntary basis, and any decisions by arbitrators are subject to court ratification.

Jewish courts, using similar methods, have long been operating in Ontario. Such a court, called a Beit Din, deals with monetary, business and family disputes, but no criminal matters.

Sudan: Islamic law imposed on Khartoum's Southerners

Cecilia Holland (Compass Direct)

Proving once again that to jihadists, tolerance and pluralism only go one way, Muslim officials in Sudan have whipped a Christian girl for not wearing a headscarf. Where now are the Muslim voices that cried out for human rights and religious freedom in France? Why aren't they protesting this kind of thing?

April 28 (Compass) — Sudan’s Islamic regime in Khartoum lashed and fined a young Christian Sudanese woman in mid April for not wearing a headscarf in public in the capital city.

Cecilia John Holland, 27, was given 40 lashes on her back and fined 10,000 Sudanese dinars ($40) by the Sizana Islamic Court in Khartoum on April 14, sources in the capital confirmed to Compass.

A Christian born in southern Sudan, Holland was traveling by minibus to her home in the Khartoum suburb of Haj Yousif on the night of April 13 when she was arrested by a group of 10 public-order policemen, some in uniform and others in plainclothes.

She was just boarding the bus near Badr gardens in Khartoum Two at 9 p.m. when the police apparently spotted her. A police van pulled ahead of the bus, ordering the driver to stop, and Holland was dragged off the bus into the van.

When Holland tried to pull free, protesting that she was a Christian and a southerner, she was struck with a hard blow on the neck and forced into the van. Four other women were already detained there, all wearing scarves, although their attire was tight and revealing.

With temperatures in Khartoum ranging between 100 and 105 degrees F., Holland was wearing modest long sleeves and an ankle-length skirt, but her hair was uncovered.

The police told Holland she was being arrested for not wearing a scarf. No one in Khartoum, “even a non-Muslim,” she was told, was exempt from Islamic bans against wearing improper dress. ...

On the morning of April 14, the accused women were taken to the Sizana Islamic Court. There a policeman swore an oath on the Koran and then read out the charges against Holland and the other women. None of the accused women were allowed to say a word to the court.

According to the police version of Holland’s case, she was accused of “standing near a garden at night” and “not wearing a scarf on her head at 11 p.m.” The police refused to register that she was employed, writing instead that she was “jobless.”

Holland, who holds a diploma in catering from Khartoum Applied Sciences College, is employed as a catering officer for a local non-governmental organization.

Declaring Holland guilty, the Sizana court sentenced her to be lashed 40 times on her back and pay a fine of 10,000 Sudanese dinars. That afternoon, after being whipped and paying the cash penalty, she was released. The fine represented a third of Holland’s monthly salary. ...

Holland’s forced subjection to the restrictions and harsh punishments of Islamic law dramatizes one key issue now deadlocking a year of ongoing peace talks between the National Islamic Front government in Khartoum and the southern leadership of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Earlier this month, the Khartoum government refused to compromise on its insistence that Islamic law govern all Sudanese citizens residing in Khartoum. More than two million non-Muslim southerners live in and around the capital, displaced by the last 20 years of civil war between the African Christian-animist south and the Arab Muslim north.

So far the SPLM’s alternative proposals have been outright rejected, to either establish a separate enclave within the capital for southerners, or subject its non-Muslim Sudanese to the same secular laws to be followed in the south during a six-year period of self-rule.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir claimed on April 13 that southern negotiators had abandoned their demands and agreed to have “only one legislation” in Khartoum. According to an Agence France Press report, Bashir said the compromise came “after we gave them convincing guarantees regarding the cultural and religious diversities among the citizens.”

But a SPLM spokesman denied any such agreement, which would in effect make the south’s non-Muslims “second-class citizens” in the country’s political capital.

"Second-class citizens": i.e., dhimmis.

France allows deported imam back

Bouziane (AFP)

It appears that the attempt to deport wife-beating advocate Imam Abdelkader Bouziane from France has collapsed utterly. But he still may face prosecution.

PARIS, April 28 (AFP) - The French government said Wednesday it would allow an Islamic imam it deported last week back into the country, but warned he faced legal action after making comments endorsing wife-beating.

The decision to permit the return of Abdelkader Bouziane, a 52-year-old Algerian who preached at a mosque in the western city of Lyon, followed a ruling by an administrative tribunal that the deportation was illegal.

Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said France would not oppose Bouziane's return, but added the imam "will have to answer to French justice for his acts and statements" if he does come back from Algeria, where he was sent to a week ago.

Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said Tuesday that intelligence surveillance of Bouziane, who had lived in France for 24 years, showed he "belonged to a movement whose extremist elements justified terrorism."

He said comments Bouziane made to the April issue of Lyon Mag, a local magazine, in which he endorsed wife-beating and declared he was polygamous confirmed the government's decision to go ahead with a February deportation order based on the concern that the imam was a threat to public order.

Bouziane, who adheres to a version of Islam preaching a literal interpretation of the Koran, has already applied for a visa in Algiers, where he was held by Algerian police after arriving, the newspaper Le Parisien reported.

The case has proved an embarrassment to the government, which has deported several other imams in the past months but mainly because they urged a jihad, or holy war, against the West.

An administrative tribunal that reviewed the case after Bouziane's forced departure ruled that the government had acted illegally by not formally charging the imam with any crime and not giving him an opportunity to defend himself.

A second review upheld that verdict, despite the interior ministry supplying newly unclassified intelligence reports purporting to depict Bouziane as a dangerous radical.

Wales: Assembly removes anti-terror posters

While in London there is preferential housing for "Asians," in the Welsh Assembly posters warning people to be watchful for terrorist activity have been removed for fears that they'll offend Muslim sensitivities. From icWales, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

A STORM erupted last night after the National Assembly decided to remove police anti-terrorism posters from its headquarters because they were considered insulting to Muslim women.

Two Plaid Cymru AMs said the posters were unacceptable because they depicted two eyes between a black background that looked like a Muslim head scarf.

But last night Assembly authorities who agreed to remove the posters were accused of 'political correctness gone mad' as it was pointed out that the eyes were not those of a terrorist, but of someone being alert to danger.

The bilingual posters appeared at the Assembly offices in Cardiff Bay over the Easter recess. They carry the South Wales Police logo above a message headed 'Life Savers' that urges people to be vigilant and gives details of a telephone anti-terrorist hotline. AMs saw them when they returned from their break this week.

The poster image also appears on South Wales Police's website.

Plaid Cymru AM Jocelyn Davies complained about the posters at a closed meeting of the business committee yesterday and Deputy Presiding Officer Dr John Marek agreed to put the matter to the house committee. By the end of the afternoon, all the posters which had been put on noticeboards by officers from the police unit stationed at the Assembly had been removed.

Detective Chief Superintendent Geoff Cooper, head of South Wales CID, said, "This is a national poster campaign which has been distributed across the UK by the Metropolitan Police, and South Wales Police has produced a bilingual version which is currently being circulated throughout the force area.

"The posters have been designed to reassure the public and to request their help in reporting anything suspicious to us."

A police source said, "The objection to this poster is very bizarre. So far as we are aware this is the only complaint there has been across the UK.

"The eyes are not supposed to represent a terrorist - they are meant to depict someone who is being alert to the danger of terrorism. That's the whole point of it"

Monmouth Tory AM David Davies said, "It's political correctness gone mad. This poster has been displayed across the UK and nobody else has taken any offence. I think it's absolutely ridiculous and just goes to show that it is often not members of ethnic minority communities who make a fuss, but middle-class white liberals who should know better."

Ms Davies, the Plaid AM for South Wales East, said, "A member of our support staff first saw the poster and decided to take it down. Later my colleague Leanne Wood decided to take down all those she could see. I raised the matter at the end of the business committee because the eyes on the poster clearly look like those of a Muslim woman.

"I appreciate that the message is supposed to be about making people vigilant and that they eyes are meant to depict someone being alert. Nevertheless, at first glance they do look like a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf and the subconscious implication is that she could be a terrorist.

And that, of course, is utterly inconceivable, eh?

Britain: New subsized housing for 'Asians only'

For "Asians," read "Muslims": forty Muslim "elders" are slated to move into this "state-of-the-art London housing block." White pensioners will be excluded. The article makes it clear that this is going to be subsidized housing for Muslims, but the racial angle raises questions. Would a "non-Asian," "white" Muslim be allowed to retire there? Would an "Asian" non-Muslim be admitted?

From the Evening Standard, with thanks to Peter Rockas and Susan:

Race watchdogs have been called in to investigate a state-of-the-art London housing block that is being reserved for Asians only.

The development, which will provide sheltered housing for 40 Muslim "elders" when it opens in the East End this summer, has triggered controversy because white pensioners will be excluded.

The Commission for Racial Equality has now been asked to check whether the Sonali Gardens project breaks the Race Relations Act.

Criticism of the project comes from both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Tories warned today that the block was a form of "segregation" that could be seized on by the British National Party in its bid for votes in the capital, particularly in the East End.

The 40 new homes, together with a day centre, have been built in a joint project by Tower Hamlets council and Circle 33 housing association on the site of an old people's home that catered for all communities.

Three other new sheltered housing blocks in the borough are not earmarked just for Asians.

Critics point out that its specialist services, such as halal meals, Bengali-speaking carers and Islamic praying facilities, could be offered within a mixedrace development. Lib-Dem councillor Janet Ludlow said: "The most important thing is to make sure we are acting legally."

The 1976 Race Relations Act and its 2000 amendment state that a discriminatory service can only be offered if an authority can prove that a specific need is not currently being met.

But a recent council report admitted that the level of need among elderly Bangladeshis was "a hidden need".

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "There would rightly be outrage if a council offered a whites-only housing block.

"I firmly believe that we should look to achieve integration rather than segregation in our society. This is the sort of thoughtless policy that feeds extremism."

Sirajul Islam, lead councillor for social services at Tower Hamlets, said: "We certainly do not advocate segregation in Tower Hamlets.

"But the 'one size fits all' approach to public services is no longer acceptable in 21st century Britain.

"Tower Hamlets is fortunate to have a diverse mix of communities and the council strives to ensure that its services are responsive to the differing and changing needs of its residents."

Texas university scraps "Crusader" mascot

Incarnate Word University's doomed Crusader

The University of the Incarnate Word, a Christian school in San Antonio, Texas, has scrapped its nickname, "Crusaders," and the accompanying mascot. The University's website (thanks to urthshu for the link) has a long and involved explanation for the change, encompassing the history of the Crusades and more. This history, rather predictably, doesn't mention the 450 years of jihads that had overwhelmed Christian lands in the Middle East and North Africa before any Crusade was contemplated.

But ultimately the Crusader name goes down the memory hole at Incarnate Word in an effort to be "culturally and spiritually sensitive" and to avoid litigation:

One of the main reasons for the change, besides the desire to be more culturally and spiritually sensitive, is to avert the potential for future litigation for discrimination and/or harassment. The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division has repeatedly ruled that harassment is itself discrimination. Numerous federal and state rulings have cited the “Hostile Public Accommodations Environment” Harassment Law relative to American Indian mascots and nicknames. The Public Accommodations Law is a civil rights law requiring officials to refrain from offending anyone based on race, religion gender or sexual orientation.

Certainly IWU has every reason to avoid litigation, but it's ironic that they are scrapping the "Crusader" name in an effort to be culturally and spiritually sensitive at a time when the historical enemies of the Crusaders, the mujahedin, are pressing forward aggressively all over the world — with little concern about being culturally or spiritually sensitive to the concerns of their historical and present-day non-Muslim victims. Given today's global climate, one might even have expected (despite the historic sins of the Crusaders, which I do not mean to mitigate) "Crusaders" to start popping up in various places, committed to defending their homes and families from jihad aggression. But instead, even Crusader mascots are rapidly disappearing.

I am not advocating formation of Crusader groups. But I do think that the rush of schools like IWU to disavow any connection to Crusaders is part of a larger tendency to remain in denial about the jihad aggression that threatens so many in the world today, and manifests an acceptance of the Islamic view of history (which has been aggressively thrust upon the West in recent decades) that blames (contrary to the facts of the case) the origin of conflict between Muslims and Christians upon the evil Crusaders.

Burned alive

From The Telegraph, with thanks to Filtrat, a harrowing first-person account of an attempted honor killing:

As a teenager in the West Bank, Soauad became pregnant by a local boy. He 'shamed' Palestinian family condemned her to death and she was set on fire by her brother-in-law. Every year, thousands of women in the Middle East die in 'honour killings'. Souad survived. This is her harrowing story

He came towards me and said, with a smile: "Hi. How goes it?" He was chewing a blade of grass. "I'm going to take care of you."

I hadn't been expecting that. I smiled a little, to thank him, not daring to speak.

Suddenly I felt a cold liquid running over my head; I was on fire. I slapped at my hair. I screamed. My dress billowed out behind me. Was it on fire, too? I smelt the petrol and ran, the hem of my dress getting in the way. Did he run after me? Was he waiting for me to fall so he could watch me go up in flames?

I'm going to die, I thought. That's good. Maybe I'm already dead. It's over, finally.

My name is Souad. My story began almost 25 years ago in my native village in the West Bank, a tiny place, in a region then occupied by the Israelis. If I named my village, I could be in danger, even though I am now thousands of miles away. In my village I am officially dead; if I were to go back today they would try to kill me a second time for the honour of my family. It's the law of the land. It's because I am a woman.

A woman must walk fast, head down, as if counting the number of steps she's taking. She may never stray from her path or look up, for if a man catches her eye, the whole village labels her a charmuta, prostitute. A girl must be married before she can raise her eyes and look straight ahead, or go into a shop, or pluck her eyebrows and wear jewellery. My mother was married at 14. If a girl is still unmarried by that age, the village begins to make fun of her. But a girl must wait her turn in the family to be married. The eldest daughter first, then the others.

Read the whole thing.

UK Sharia alert: Muslim students call for sharia-friendly loans

I hope that interest-free loans, if they are introduced, will be available to non-Muslim students. Otherwise they will be in the position of subsidizing the education of Muslim students out of their own loan payments. From The Guardian, with thanks to Nicolei:

Pressure is mounting on the Department of Education and Skills to provide a Muslim-friendly student loan.

Representatives of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies met with the education secretary, Charles Clarke, last week to discuss the problem, which affects students and their families who believe that taking out a student loan contravenes Islamic sharia law.

The law dictates that Muslims should not pay or receive interest on loans.

However, the Muslim community is split over whether student loans, which incur inflation-only levels of interest, are against sharia law. Student activists say that some Muslims are being asked to break their faith or forgo the opportunity for financial assistance during their studies.

The meeting follows new moves towards providing alternatives to suit Muslim families in the commercial sector. The HSBC bank has set up a Muslim-friendly mortgage and pension scheme which satisfies the demands of sharia law.

Hasan Salim Patel, of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, said representatives were given a clear message from the education secretary that the DFES would consider any alternatives to the traditional student loan which were put before it. ...

A spokesperson for the Department for Education and Skills said: "We appreciate the Muslim position on borrowing. But, it is important to remember that student loans do not incur a real rate of interest and the government does not make any profit out of these loans. The uptake of student loans amongst Muslim students compares favourably with other groups.

"We have no plans to introduce different loans for different groups but we are working closely with the Federation of Student Islamic Societies on other ways forward on this."

Up against fanaticism

A bracing blast of anti-dhimmitude from Phil Lucas, Executive Editor of the Panama City News Herald. (Thanks to David Zohar.)

If straight talk of savagery offends you, if you believe in ethnic and gender diversity but not diversity of thought or if you think there is an acceptable gray area between good and evil, then turn to the funny pages, and take the children, too.

This piece is not for you.

We published pictures Thursday of burnt American corpses hanging from an Iraqi bridge behind a mob of grinning Muslims.

Some readers didn’t like it.

Mothers said it frightened their children. A woman who works with Muslim physicians thought it might offend or endanger them.

Well, we sure don’t want to frighten, offend or endanger anybody, do we? That’s just too much diversity to handle. I mean, somebody might get hurt.

We could fill the newspaper every morning with mobs of fanatical Muslims. They can’t get along with their neighbors on much of the planet: France, Chechnya, Bosnia, Indonesia, Spain, Morocco, India, Tunisia, Somalia, etc. etc. etc. Can anybody name three ongoing world conflicts in which Muslims are not involved? Today, where there is war, there are fanatical Muslims. We might quibble about who started what conflicts, but look at the sheer number of them.

One thing is sure. Muslim killers started the one we are in now when they slaughtered more than 3,000 people, including fellow Muslims, in New York City.

Madeline Albright, the former secretary of state and feckless appeaser who helped get us into this mess, said last week Muslims still resented the Crusades. Well, Madame Albright, if Westerners were not such a forgiving people, we might resent them too.

Let’s recap the Crusades. Muslims invaded Europe and when they reached sufficient numbers they imposed their intolerant religion upon Westerners by force. Christian monarchs drove them back and took the battle to their homeland. The fight lasted a couple of centuries, and we bottled them up for 1,000 years.

Now, a millennium later, Muslims have expanded forth again. Ask France. Ask England. Ask Manhattan. Two-and-a-half years ago fanatical Muslims laid siege to us. We woke up to the obvious. Our president announced it would be a very long war, then took the battle to the Islamic homeland. Sound familiar?

Let’s consider the concept of a “long war.” Last time it was 200 years, give or take.

Anybody catch Lord of the Rings? You know, the good part, the part that wasn’t fiction, the part that drew us to the books and movies because it was the truest part: the titanic struggle between good and evil, between freedom and enslavement, between the individual and the state, between the celebration of life and the worshipping of death.

That’s the fight we are in, and it never ends. It just has peaks and valleys.

There may be a silent majority of peaceful Muslims – some live here – but that did not save 3,000 people in the World Trade Centers, the millions gassed and butchered in the Middle East, the tens of thousands slain in Eastern Europe and Asia, the hundreds blown to bits in the West Bank and Spain, or the four Americans shot, burned and hung like sausage over the Euphrates as a fanatical minority of Muslims did the joyful dance of death.

Maybe we are so tolerant, we are so bent on “diversity,” we are so nonjudgmental, we are so wrapped up in our six-packs and ballgames that our brains have drained to our bulbous behinds. Maybe we’re so addled on Ritalin we wouldn’t know which end of a gun to hold. Maybe we need a new drug advertised on TV every three minutes, one that would help us grow a backbone.

It doesn’t take a Darwin to figure out that in this world the smartest, the fastest, the strongest, and the most committed always win. No exceptions.

Look at your spouse and children. Look at yourself in the mirror. Then look at the pictures from the paper last Thursday. You better look at them. Those are the people out to kill you.

Who do you think will win? You? Or them? Think you can take your ball and go home and they will leave you alone? Read a little history. Start with last week, last month, last year, and every other year back for half a century. Then go back a thousand years. Nobody hides from this fight.

Like it or not, that’s the way it was and that’s the way it is.

But many Americans don’t get it.

That’s why we published those pictures.

If they jarred you off the sofa, if they offended you, if they scared your children and sent you into a rage at mass murderers or heartless editors, then I say, it’s a start.

Dhimmitude in Britain: Muslim women exempt from ID card photos

This is a parody. In Britain, they'll be real.

An outrageous example of British dhimmitude comes from The Guardian, with thanks to Allon Friedman and Jeffrey Imm. Quite aside from the question of whether such cards are justified or desirable, doesn't exempting an entire group from the requirement defeat their whole purpose — as well as create a special privileged class within British society?

Thousands of Muslim women will be exempted from having to show their faces on identity cards as the Government moves to allay fears among British Muslims that the new cards will be used to target them in the 'war on terror'.

As David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, faced attack for not allowing enough debate over the introduction of the first ID cards in Britain since the Second World War, officials made it clear that if Muslim women do not want to reveal their faces in public, that would be respected.

Instead of a photograph, there would be an exemption for certain people, who would only have to give fingerprint and iris-recognition data.

Although the exact type of information held on the card has still to be finalised in negotiation with other industrialised nations, Home Office sources made it clear that they backed the idea.

'We have had constructive discussions with the Muslim community and want to assure them we are sensitive to their points of view,' said a source close to Blunkett.

The Home Secretary moved after representations from the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Officials on the council told The Observer that although they support the idea of identity cards they are concerned that they could be used to persecute ethnic minorities.

'As we have seen with the anti-terror laws and with stop and search, if powers are used in the wrong way they can have the effect of singling out a community for no good reason,' said a legal advisor to the MCB.

'We are not against ID cards as such, but we want to ensure that they are used properly.'

Blunkett will announce tomorrow a £3 billion scheme to introduce identity cards to Britain. Although at first the scheme will be voluntary, the Home Office will argue that the country should move to a compulsory scheme by 2012.

Karen Armstrong deplores good/evil distinction

Armstrong

The egregious Karen Armstrong, whose ahistorical, apologetic whitewashes of militant Islam I discuss in Islam Unveiled, sets up straw man after straw man and knocks them all down in this Chicago Tribune puff piece (thanks to Susan):

Among the biggest misconceptions Westerners have about Islam, she added, is that most Muslims are Arabs, that Muslims are inherently violent and that Muslims have long hated and feared the West.

"Arabs comprise only about 20 percent of the Muslim world," Armstrong said. "It isn't this 'impulsive religion' that is compelling people to do it (violence). This is the result of a troubled region where things have been allowed to fester on and on and on. The Middle East has been in turmoil for (at least) the last 50 years, and Islam, as well as Judaism, has gotten dragged into this unholy mess, sucked into this whirlwind."

Most Muslims aren't Arabs? Duly noted. Anyone with any knowledge of the subject knows that. Muslims are inherently violent? Of course not. But note that Armstrong doesn't deal here or in other writings (at least the ones I've seen) with the texts that radical Muslims use to justify violence against unbelievers. In Islam: A Short History she says the theology of violent jihad was set aside "in practice" — i.e., not in theory. It still remained part of Islamic thought, and has obviously been taken up again by a great many Muslims in the modern age.

The notion that Islam "imposes itself by force and violence and has always been against Christianity -- that is not true at all," she declared.

Right. It's true: forced conversions are forbidden in Islam, although this law has often been broken. But theorists of jihad throughout Islamic history and today have taught that jihad must be fought to establish the hegemony of Sharia — under which Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims will have second-class status as dhimmis. But no mention of any of this from Ms. Armstrong.

On one point, however, Armstrong might not be so tractable: Her disappointment at the language employed by President Bush in the wake of the attacks against the World Trade Center and his chronic use of the words "good" and "evil."

Such labeling "is buying into the same ideology as Osama bin Laden," Armstrong cautioned. "He also divides the world into two camps, into good and evil. You don't want to encourage this kind of polarized thinking. To say that anyone we don't like is 'evil' means we never have to examine our own behavior.

I'm all for being self-critical where self-criticism is called for. But objectively, wasn't 9/11 evil? And wasn't it evil apart from anything the American government, which was not in the WTC that day, may have done or not done? Evidently, Karen Armstrong doesn't think so, but I am unwilling to play these relativist games: the fact is that the mujahedin believe in good and evil too, and they are only going to be emboldened by the sympathy of people like Ms. Armstrong.

Australia: Jailed rapists charge anti-Muslim persecution

Is every investigation of every crime against any Muslim ipso facto anti-Muslim persecution? From the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

It was an act of "great heinousness" - the betrayal of trust in which four brothers and another man brutally gang raped two teenage girls they had befriended a week earlier.

As sexual assault crimes go, this was the worst in its category, Justice Brian Sully told the NSW Supreme Court yesterday.

Even more disturbing was that the brothers maintained their innocence throughout the trial, despite overwhelming evidence, insisting that they were victims of an anti-Muslim conspiracy and a police set-up.

Rehabilitation would be problematic: they were in "total denial" of the offences, according to a psychologist's report quoted by the judge, and had no remorse.

But in what became a test case - they were the first to be convicted and sentenced under new gang rape laws which carry a life sentence - Justice Sully did not impose the maximum penalty. He handed down sentences ranging from 22 years to 10.

The brothers - who can only be identified as MSK, MAK, MRK and MMK - were each convicted of nine counts of aggravated sexual assault in company. Another man, known as RS, was also convicted. He was found hanged in his prison cell last week.

The five lured two girls, known as LS, 17, and HG, 16, back to the brothers' Ashfield family home in the early hours of July 28, 2002. ...

After their sentences were handed down, one said in court: "We did not commit this crime, the crime was committed against us. The police set us up because we are Muslims, your honour."

A man in the public gallery yelled out: "F---in' dickhead."

Outside court, the brothers' father, a doctor, said: "What can I say? I think they are innocent but I don't know, maybe the jury is right, I don't know. I'm so stressed. I have four sons . . . who are like dead people for me now because they will be jailed. What will happen? They will not get an education, nothing. That will be their luck. Everything is decided by God."

New York: Man killed wife for 'honor,' he tells cops

Outside the apartment complex where the Pelteks lived (WHEC)

An honor killing in Scottsville, New York. What was the dishonor? Well, part of it was that his four-year-old daughter had been "sullied" by a gynecological exam. For this she had to be killed. From the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, with thanks to LGF:

April 24, 2004) — Ismail Peltek, who was indicted Friday on charges of second-degree murder in the April 15 slaying of his wife, Hatice Peltek, claimed he attacked his wife and daughters after learning that his brother had molested his wife and his 22-year-old daughter, according to court documents.

Peltek, 41, said he attacked his 4-year-old daughter because she had been “sullied” by a gynecological exam.

”I was concerned that my family’s honor was taken,” he allegedly told investigators. ...

His 39-year-old wife died after being stabbed repeatedly and bludgeoned on the head with a hammer.

His daughters suffered fractured skulls from hammer blows.

”If you had the opportunity to kill the family again, would you?” he was asked by Rochester police Officer Emre Arican, who was brought in to help investigators because he speaks Turkish.

”My female family, yes. My male family, no,” Peltek allegedly replied. ...

So-called “honor killings” of females are common in Turkey and countries of the Middle East, according to UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. UNICEF defines the practice as one “in which men kill female relatives in the name of family ‘honor’ for forced or suspected sexual activity outside marriage, even when they have been victims of rape.”

Loudspeaker call to Islamize America

Nonie Darwish has some excellent observations on the recent decision in Michigan to amend noise ordinances to allow the Muslim call to prayer over loudspeakers:

The Islamist movement in the United States has no intention of expressing sensitivity to the majority Judeo-Christian culture of America. Even 9/11 has not slowed them down, but might even have given more fuel to their cherished dream of seeing America and its government Moslem.

The City Council of Hamtramck, Michigan, gave its preliminary approval to the Bangladeshi al-Islah mosque to carry the Arabic call to prayer five times a day through a loudspeaker. The Moslem call for prayer, in Arabic, says: “Allah is great. I confess that there is no God but Allah. I confess that Mohamed is his messenger. Call for prayer, call for prayer.” This is repeated for two minutes.

Devout Moslems already know when it is time to pray and in this day and age there are certainly other ways to call people for prayers that conforms to noise regulation and respects the wish of the general public not to hear loudspeakers 5 times a day praising a God that is different from theirs and in whose name the terrorists of 9/11 committed their atrocity. How far are we Arab/Moslem Americans going to keep pushing the envelope to test America’s patience? To whose benefit these loudspeakers are being installed? Could the loudspeakers be another sign of an audacious, in-your-face conquest of America to please those who finance these mosques?

Americans are the most tolerant people in the world and it seems that the more tolerant they become, the more they are taken advantage of. How far will our tolerant Judeo-Christian culture be pushed around? And how many times will Christians give the other cheek to prove they love those who despise them?

Arab/Moslem Americans should reciprocate the tolerance and sensitivity to the rest of America. They should not demand from America to tolerate unwelcome loudspeakers even if the politicians in the city council want to please the Arab population for their vote. Mosques in the US should know better because in most Moslem countries, Jewish synagogues and Christian churches are not even permitted to be built, much less promoted via public-address loudspeakers.

At a time when American youth are dying to stabilize Iraq and bring democracy to a Moslem country, the last thing I want to see as an Arab American is my fellow Americans upset at us for forcing Koran read to them through amplifiers.

Mosques all over the Middle East have used and abused loudspeakers to spread not only the call for prayers, but also Friday sermons. In many Arab capitals you can often hear a prayer to destroy the infidels (non-Moslems) and the Jews, the enemies of God, over loudspeakers that are often used as tools of incitement and indoctrination. People in congested and noisy Arab cities such as Cairo often hear 3 or 4 mosque loudspeakers simultaneously since there could be 4 or more mosques in one square mile. The dawn prayer can come as early as 5 am and many Moslems in the Middle East hate it, but are too afraid to say anything about it.

Why is America importing fear, oppression and insensitivity to the American general public? There is a fine line between tolerance and self destruction.

France Suspends Muslim Cleric Deportation

Wife-beating advocate Bouziane doesn't have to leave France — yet, anyway. From AP, with thanks to Susan:

LYON, France (AP) - A French court on Friday temporarily suspended a deportation order that has already led to the expulsion of a Muslim cleric who advocated wife-beating and stoning women.

The suspension was to remain in effect until a hearing on case, expected in a few weeks. The cleric, Abdelkader Bouziane, was deported to Algeria on Wednesday, and it was unclear what effect the ruling of the administrative court in Lyon might have.

Bouziane, 52, preaches at a mosque in the Lyon suburb of Venissieux. He was quoted in the April edition of Lyon Mag as saying a man could beat his wife ``under certain conditions, notably if the woman cheats on her husband.''

He was quoted as saying the Quran, the Muslim holy book, authorizes such punishment - an interpretation rejected by many Muslims.

He also said he was in favor of stoning women for offenses.

The comments drew condemnation from French officials and Muslim leaders and prompted Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin to order Bouziane's immediate expulsion.

The imam was first put on an expulsion list Feb. 26 for disturbing public order, but official said they decided to speed up his case after the remarks were published.

Villepin on Friday said he would give the Lyon court additional information to justify Bouziane's expulsion.

Leading Egyptian Journalist: The Jews are Behind Every Disaster or Terrorist Act

The Jews did it all! 9/11, 3/11, you name it. MEMRI gives us an example of fantastic and paranoid Jew-hatred from an Egyptian government daily:

In an article in the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhouriyya titled 'The Secret Israeli Weapon,' deputy editor Abd Al-Wahhab 'Adas accused the Jews of perpetrating all terrorism throughout the world, including the Madrid bombings. The following are excerpts from the article:(1)

'The Zionist Jews are Behind All the Violent and Terror Operations that have Occurred Everywhere In the World'

"If you want to know the real perpetrator of every disaster or every act of terrorism, look for the Zionist Jews. They are behind all the violent and terror operations that have occurred everywhere in the world. [They do this] first of all in order to slap [the label of the attacks] on the Arabs and Muslims, and second to harm them, distort their image, and represent them to the world as terrorists who endanger innocents. What is even more dangerous is that after every terror operation they perpetrate, they leave a sign, clue, or traces meant to show that the perpetrators are Arab Muslims.

"Their most recent operation was the bombings in Spain. Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes said a videocassette in Arabic was found near one of the Madrid mosques, and in it the military spokesman of the Al-Qa'ida organization took responsibility for these attacks. But [Acebes] repeatedly contradicted [himself] by saying that the credibility of the cassette had not yet been proven... In addition, a van was found next to the Atocha train station in Madrid with traces of explosives and a cassette of the Koran.

"It is obvious that the Jews are the ones who placed these things, in order to prove to the entire world that the Arabs and Muslims are behind the bombings. But because Allah wanted to expose them and their games, the Spanish prime minister declared immediately after the incident that the explosives that were used in these [attacks] were of the same type used by the ETA organization in previous explosions!! This in addition to the U.S. statement that the cassette that was found was not genuine and did not belong to the Al-Qa'ida organization, but had been planted [to implicate] them."

'It Is the Jews, with their Hidden Filthy Hands, Who Play their Part with Expertise In Order to Harm the Arabs and Muslims'

"It is the Jews, with their hidden filthy hands, who play their part with expertise in order to harm the Arabs and Muslims and to intensify hatred towards them. They have experience in this area. All precedents attest to this. Their black history is the best possible proof that hatred toward the Arabs and the Muslims fills their hearts and blinds their eyes. They are behind all troubles, disasters and catastrophes in the world."

The Jews are Behind 9/11

"Actually, it is they who are behind the events of September 11. Proof of this is what was broadcast by the Canadian news agency on September 17 ... that prior to the events the CIA had received a report that the Mossad would carry out an attack operation on American territory, in a new attempt to divert attention from the barbaric Israeli operations against the Palestinian people.

"Further [proof] of this is the news in the American papers at that time, that 4,000 Jews of American origin who worked at the World Trade Center received instructions from the Mossad not to go to work that day.

"We also find a heavy blackout by America regarding the results of the investigations into the September 11 events. So far it has published no conclusions, and has not told us who the real perpetrator of these events is, as revealed by the investigations. Since America knows very well that the Jews and the Mossad are behind these events, it will never declare the results of the investigations. This is so as not to anger its ally Israel and in order to evade the evil of these Jews and of the Zionist lobby that infiltrates and rules the decision-makers in America. In addition, the ongoing blaming of the Arabs and Muslims gives America justification to escalate and develop this wild attack on the Muslims, even though it is an imaginary charge not grounded in reality."

'No One Knows Who the Next Victim of These Zionists will be'

"America used this kind of discredited arguments and justifications as it invaded Iraq, occupied its land, and plundered its resources. The people of Iraq was massacred before the eyes of the world with the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction - and America is the first to know that this claim is completely discredited. Thus, America created its own justification, used it to convince the world, and accomplished its goals.

"Israel is the worst terrorist state in the world. It not only engages in terror in the Palestinian territories but exports it to all the countries of the world. The Mossad plays its terrorist role by means of these bombings everywhere, as it did previously in America. No one knows who the next victim of these Zionists will be.

"Israel is not settling for its barbaric massacres of the Palestinian people or the ongoing annihilation of everything Palestinian... Its crimes are spreading outward so that its hand will reach other innocent peoples. This is with the aim of harming Arabs and Muslims, increasing hatred towards them, and slapping them [with the label of] terrorism, so the world remains preoccupied with terrorism and not with [Israel's] barbaric crimes to eliminate the Palestinian people.

"Terrorism is an Israeli product that Zionism invented in order to establish the State of Israel. Then this state used it [i.e. terrorism] in order to achieve its goals and aspirations to expand and to control the resources in the region. The Mossad carries out larger-scale [terrorism] in order to harm the good name of the Arabs, damage them and Islam, and slapping them [with the label of] terrorism.

"Events prove that Israel was perhaps the first to benefit from the September 11 incidents, and from the incidents that came after it. It planned them, misled the world, and convinced it that it was the Arabs and Muslims who carried it out."

Endnote:
(1) Al-Gumhouriyya (Egypt), March 18, 2004.

Muslim kills sister to uphold 'honor'

Jordanians protest parliament's rejection of honor killings law

Remember, the Jordanian Parliament voted down a bill stiffening penalties for honor-killing. From WND, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

A Muslim Jordanian man stabbed to death his pregnant sister because she married an Egyptian man against the family's wishes.

Investigators arriving at the scene Tuesday said the suspect told them "he killed his sibling to cleanse the family's honor using a kitchen knife," the Jordan Times reported.

The unidentified woman was eight months pregnant when she was killed with 25 stab wounds to different parts of her body, the paper said.

Her death is the fifth "honor killing" in Jordan this year tallied by the Times, which counted 17 last year.

An initial investigation into Tuesday's killing revealed the victim married an Egyptian man one year ago and left for Egypt, but she returned home last week to give birth.

After killing his sister in the family home, the brother called the police and waited for them to come and arrest him.

As WorldNetDaily reported, last September two sisters were hacked to death by their Muslim brothers in Jordan in an "honor killing" that came one day after the country's parliament rejected a bill imposing tougher sentences for the crime.

That same month, a Muslim Kurdish refugee living in the UK was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his 16-year-old daughter because she had started a relationship with a Lebanese Christian boy and had become too "westernized."

An anthropologist's study last year said dozens and probably hundreds of brutal "honor killings" of Palestinian women and girls – most of whom are virtually blameless – annually go unreported.

James Emery says the women "are murdered in their homes, in open fields, and occasionally in public, sometimes before crowds of cheering onlookers."

Muslim Delegations Protest Leaking Of UN Report On Sudan

Shaukat Umer

Instead of being upset about the substance of the report, they seem to be only upset about the leak. From AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

GENEVA (AP)--Muslim countries Thursday protested the leaking of a U.N. report that accused Sudanese forces of raping non-Arab women and girls, bombing civilians and committing other atrocities in what may amount to "crimes against humanity."

"This is a matter of concern to all of us," said Pakistani Ambassador Shaukat Umer in demanding an investigation into who passed the report to reporters.

Umer, who was joined by delegates from Bahrain and Sudan in his protest, noted that Bertrand Ramcharan, the acting U.N. high commissioner for human rights, had denied that the report had been given to the news media by his office.

"The fact remains that this report has been leaked. It has been leaked from somewhere," Umer said. "Since member states apparently do not have this report, it would be reasonable to assume that it has been leaked from the office."

The 13-page report was the latest expression of U.N. alarm about indications that thousands of civilians had been killed and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes following a rebellion in the province.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which has been trying to care for refugees who have reached neighboring Chad, noted as early as last September reports of alleged atrocities in the province.

Ramcharan said he received the report Monday from a team of U.N. experts just back from visiting the refugees and had intended to make it public.

But he said held off because of a last-minute invitation from the Sudanese government for the team to be able to try to verify the allegations by visiting Darfur province.

The team was dispatched Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the invitation was received, and they are already in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, Ramcharan said.

"I have held to the belief that I will not release the document since my team is on the ground and I am sensitive to the security implications of this," he said.

He said, however, he would issue the report immediately if the team encounters "any difficulties on the ground."

Ramcharan said he also held back on the release to give the team an opportunity to look at the situation first hand and to review the document before it became public.

The report, based on interviews with some of the estimated 110,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad earlier this month, was obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

"The mission was able to identify disturbing patterns of massive human rights violations in Darfur, many of which may constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity," it said.

The government has denied that it is responsible for any atrocities.

The report said the atrocities against Africans were being committed by government forces and by Arab militias.

The team originally was supposed to visit to Darfur in connection with the visit to Chad, but the Sudanese government delayed granting permission.

Human rights groups said they were suspicious that the last-minute invitation from the government was part of an attempt to keep the report from coming before the commission before it adjourns its annual six-week session Friday.

"Denying the United Nations access is one of the delaying tactics the Sudanese government is using to pull the wool over the eyes of the international community," said Joanna Weschler of Human Rights Watch.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the commission earlier this month that he had "a deep sense of foreboding" about reports that Arab militia groups, with government backing, were engaged in "ethnic cleansing" against Africans in the province.

The report from the team that went to Chad said the government's campaign to put down a rebellion in a conflict that has intensified since early last year. The rebels have been demanding the government do more for the large, poverty-stricken area.

"There was a remarkable consistency in the witness testimony received by the mission in all places visited and in discussions with refugees who had entered Chad both many months ago and also very recently," the report said.

It said many witnesses said the government was using aircraft to attack villages and towns and that government forces or militias followed up with land attacks.

It said the attacks were often to destroy crops and property, but that there were also frequent reports of killings.

It also said, "a policy of using rape and other serious forms of sexual violence as a weapon of war seems to exist."

"There are consistent reports amongst refugee women from various locations that 'men in uniform' raped and abused women and young girls."

Rape was often committed by more than one man, sometimes in front of the victim's family, it said.

The effect was to cause hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes, it said. It said that, besides the refugees already in Chad, 700,000 people were believed to be homeless in Darfur as a result of the campaign.

The report was obtained as officials from the Sudanese government and two rebel groups met in Chad to discuss a peaceful end to a rebellion.

Canadians condemns Armenian genocide, Turks seethe

And like the good dhimmis they are, the Canadian government is distancing itself from the legislators who recognized the genocide. From the Globe and Mail, with thanks to Mentat:

Ankara — Turkey on Thursday condemned a decision by Canadian legislators to recognize as genocide the mass killing of Armenians during the First World War, accusing Canadian politicians of being “narrow minded.”

Canada's Parliament on Wednesday backed a resolution condemning the actions of Ottoman Turkish forces eight decades ago.

Government members were discouraged from voting for the motion, which was adopted 153-68 in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Paul Martin was absent during the vote.

The motion read: “... this House acknowledges the Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemns this act as a crime against humanity.”

In a written statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Turkey strongly condemned the Canadian Parliament's decision and accused Canadian legislators of blindly “following those with marginal views.”

“Some narrow minded Canadian politicians were not able to understand that such decisions based on ... prejudiced information, will awaken feelings of hatred among people of different [ethnic] roots and disturb social harmony,” the statement said.

It said it was not up to parliaments to “reach conclusions over controversial periods in history” and insisted that the vote would not benefit Armenians in Canada or Armenia.

Canada is the 16th country to label the killings as genocide, a step already taken by Switzerland, France, Argentina and Russia, as well as 11 U.S. state governments.

Armenians say a 1915-1923 campaign to force them out of eastern Turkey amounted to a genocide and some 1.5 million people were killed. The Turkish government rejects the charge of genocide as unfounded and says that while 600,000 Armenians died, 2.5 million Muslims perished in a period of civil unrest.

In 2001, Turkey cancelled millions of dollars worth of defence deals with French companies after legislators in France recognized the genocide.

The statement did not say if Turkey planned similar sanctions but said Canadian politicians would “bear the responsibility for any negative developments the decision will bring.”

The Canadian vote split the ruling Liberal party between backbenchers and cabinet ministers. Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said the Turkish government had warned that recognizing the genocide could have economic consequences and that he wanted to maintain good relations with Turkey.

On Thursday, the Canadian Embassy released a statement in an attempt to distance the government from Wednesday's vote.

“Private member's motions are not binding on the government of Canada,” the statement read.

Anti-dhimmitude in France: Villepin calls on French Muslims to respect human rights and reject terrorism

Villepin

Tough talk from Dominique de Villepin. From Reuters, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

PARIS, France (Reuters) -- France must tackle the issue of training Muslim prayer leaders in a moderate "French Islam" that respects human rights and rejects terrorism, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin says.

Speaking a day after he deported an Algerian imam for saying Islam let husbands beat adulterous wives, Villepin urged the country's prefects Thursday to expel any foreign preacher who advocated violence, hate, racism or abuses of human rights.

Only about 10 percent of imams in France are citizens and about half of all imams in the country speak French, experts say.

Most are imported from Arab countries, where some have been trained in radical Islamist views that clash with France's secular laws.

But mainstream Muslim leaders' calls for help require funds, scarce at a time when France is struggling to cut its huge budget deficit. Their appeals for subsidies also conflict with the country's strict separation of church and state.

"We must face the issue of training imams," Villepin told a meeting of prefects, who oversee the application of government policy in departments across France.

"I ask you to help the Muslim faith get organized better and more quickly so a real French Islam can emerge," he said, adding that training programs would help the official French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) to supervise imams.

Abdelkader Bouziane, 52, who preached in a mosque near Lyon, was packed off to Algiers Wednesday after he told a magazine that Islam allowed the stoning and beating of unfaithful wives.

France expelled another imam last week for preaching radical Islam and defending the Madrid train bombs that killed 191 people.

Zero tolerance

"We will not tolerate any preacher, of any philosophy or religion, who advocates violence, abuse of human rights, hate and racism or who has links to organizations that condone terrorism," Villepin said.

CFCM chairman Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the moderate Grand Mosque of Paris, requested state aid Tuesday to launch a seminary to train imams in a tolerant "French Islam."

The Grand Mosque and a rival group offer some imam training courses, but these are not officially recognized and teach differing versions of Islamic theology.

"The CFCM must tackle the problem of training imams, but the state must also help us with a minimum of financing to create a training institute," Boubakeur said.

Bordeaux imam Mahmoud Doua said prayer leaders in France -- some of whom have no training at all -- needed a modern education. "The ideal would be a university education in both the social sciences and Koranic studies," he said.

Mohammad Kouba, an administrator of the An-Nour mosque near Caen in Normandy, told Reuters his congregation never hired foreign imams because they did not understand life in France.

"We tell our girls to respect French laws on secularism, even if that means they have to take off their headscarves in state schools," he said. "An imam from Saudi Arabia would not tell you to obey a French law."

Muslims in Switzerland fear "witch-hunt"

Muslims in mosque near Geneva

The Swiss government has announced that several Islamic radical groups are operating in Switzerland, including Hamas. Swiss Muslims had an opportunity to say, "We will gladly cooperate with government anti-terror initiatives, as we are just as anxious as non-Muslim Swiss to root terror out of our midst." Instead they are complaining about the prospect of a "witch hunt." From Swissinfo via NZZ Online, with thanks to Nicolei and Alex:

Muslim leaders have expressed fears of a “witch-hunt” against the 300,000-strong community in Switzerland. Their alarm follows government revelations that members of half a dozen militant Islamic groups are operating secretly on Swiss soil.

The Federal Refugee Office on Tuesday confirmed a report in “Le Temps” newspaper that these groups include the Tunisian Islamic Front; Hamas, the Palestinian militant Islamic group; and Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front.

Spokesman Dominique Boillat told swissinfo his department was working closely with the Federal Police Office to monitor the situation.

“We are responsible for asylum seekers and if we suspect that people could be dangerous to the safety of this country then we have to signal this and they will then be placed under surveillance by the police,” he said.

“Sometimes these people have contacts with terrorist groups or they could be contacted here in Switzerland by terrorist groups and later used for arms trafficking.”

Police surveillance

News of a militant presence and police surveillance operations have prompted alarm among Switzerland’s Muslims that the community will now be hounded.

These fears were stoked in January this year when Swiss police arrested eight foreign nationals suspected of links to last May’s terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia.

Hafid Ouardiri, spokesman for Geneva’s Islamic Cultural Foundation, said he was “terrified” that people would mistakenly link Islam with extremism.

“This is beginning to become unbearable,” he said. “People are going to confuse a tiny minority with the great majority of Muslims.”

Similar concerns have been raised by British Muslims following a series of high-profile arrests related to alleged terrorism offences.

Nadia Karmous, the head of the cultural association of Muslim women in Switzerland, said she was astonished to hear that radical groups were active in the country.

“As far as we’re concerned, there is no rise in Islamism, but rather an increase in Islamophobia,” she said.

Witch-hunt

Boillat categorically denied that the authorities themselves were involved in any systematic targeting of Switzerland’s Muslims.

But he admitted that the government had become more sensitive to potential threats in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

“We would like to reassure the Muslim community that there is no witch-hunt by the authorities,” said Boillat.

“The impression the public is getting is that there is a real problem - which there isn’t. We are concerned about a very, very small number of people, and we have the means to control [them].”

Wrong message

Professor Reinhard Schulze, director of the Institute for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Bern, said he believed the situation was being blown out of all proportion.

Schulze maintains that out of a Muslim population of around 300,000, there are only one or two extremists or “Jihadis” likely to be actively in contact with terrorist groups.

He says the majority of those being monitored by the Swiss authorities do not pose a threat.

“These people do not represent a danger to Switzerland, because Switzerland is not a target for these groups,” he explained. “They consider Switzerland a place of refuge and not a place to carry out operations.”

Demonisation

And he sympathised with Muslim leaders who fear a whole community is in danger of being demonised.

“It’s understandable. Even if there are one or two people in contact with terrorist organisations, they are not representative of the Muslim community as a whole. You cannot blame the whole community,” he said.

“My impression is that the officials are exaggerating the situation a bit and maybe contributing to the impression that there is a witch-hunt going on. I can understand why the Muslim community is worried about this.”

Jürg Schertenleib, spokesman for the non-governmental Swiss Refugee Council, takes a similar view. He says the authorities are right to take action where there is a clearly identifiable threat.

But he warned against giving the impression that Switzerland was a hotbed for Islamic fundamentalism.

“We shouldn’t forget that in many other countries the authorities are using the pretext that someone is a terrorist to justify repression,” he said.

Britain: dhimmitude and the dole

Sayful Islam: "When I watched those planes go into the Twin Towers, I felt elated"

The Evening Standard profiles a group of British Muslims from the notorious Al-Muhajiroun, who admire Osama and talk openly about bombing London and the glories of violent jihad — all the while collecting British welfare money. Note that Sayful Islam explains his turn to radicalism by saying, ""I made a decision that I wanted to follow what Islam really said." (Thanks to LGF.)

Four young British Muslims in their twenties - a social worker, an IT specialist, a security guard and a financial adviser - occupy a table at a fast-food chicken restaurant in Luton. Perched on their plastic chairs, wolfing down their dinner, they seem just ordinary young men. Yet out of their mouths pour heated words of revolution.

"As far as I'm concerned, when they bomb London, the bigger the better," says Abdul Haq, the social worker. "I know it's going to happen because Sheikh bin Laden said so. Like Bali, like Turkey, like Madrid - I pray for it, I look forward to the day."

"Pass the brown sauce, brother," says Abu Malaahim, the IT specialist, devouring his chicken and chips.

"I agree with you, brother," says Abu Yusuf, the earnest-looking financial adviser sitting opposite. "I would like to see the Mujahideen coming into London and killing thousands, whether with nuclear weapons or germ warfare. And if they need a safehouse, they can stay in mine - and if they need some fertiliser [for a bomb], I'll tell them where to get it."

His friend, Abu Musa, the security guard, smiles radiantly. "It will be a day of joy for me," he adds, speaking with a slight lisp.

As they talk, a man with a bushy beard, dressed in a jacket emblazoned with the word "Jihad", stands and watches over them, handing around cups of steaming hot coffee. His real name is Ishtiaq Alamgir, but he goes by his adopted name, Sayful Islam, meaning "Sword of Islam". He is the 24-year-old leader of the Luton branch of al-Muhajiroun, an extremist Muslim group with about 800 members countrywide, who regard Osama bin Laden as their hero.

Until recently, nobody took the fanatical beliefs of al-Muhajiroun too seriously, believing that a British-based group so brazenly "out there" could not be involved in something as "underground" as terrorism. The group is led by the exiled Saudi, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, from his base in north London. Yesterday, in a magazine article, Bakri warned that several radical groups are poised to strike in London.

For all its inflammatory rhetoric, al-Muhajiroun has never been linked to actual violence. Yet, with the discovery last month of half-a-tonne of ammonium nitrate fertiliser - the same explosive ingredient used in the Bali and Turkey terror attacks - and with the arrest of eight young British Muslims in London and the South-East, including six in Luton, extremist groups such as al-Muhajiroun are under the spotlight like never before.

Detectives fear that the "enemy within", the homegrown extremists leading apparently normal lives in suburbia, now pose the greatest threat to security in Britain. Sayful and his friends fit this "homegrown" profile: three were born here, two came as young children from Pakistan; all were educated in local Luton schools; and they grew up in families of full employment - one of their fathers is a retired local businessman, two are engineers, and two worked in the local Vauxhall car plant.

The question is: how worried should we be? Is al-Muhajiroun nothing more than a repository for disaffected Muslim youths who have adopted an extreme interpretation of Islam - perhaps to cock a snook at the white establishment - but who are essentially posturing? Or does the group also perform a more sinister function, sucking in alienated young men and brainwashing the more impressionable into becoming future suicide bombers?

Although none of the arrested Muslims - aged 17 to 32 - appear to be current al-Muhajiroun members, rumours have circulated of informal links to the group. Moreover, parents of the arrested men have spoken anxiously of the "radicalising influence" of al-Muhajiroun militants who " corrupt" their children at mosques.

Nowhere has this public confrontation between radicals and moderates been more apparent than in Luton, which has the highest density of Muslims in the South-East - 28,000 out of a total population of 140,000 - and has long been regarded as a hotbed of extremism.

Sayful Islam, for one, is particularly proud of his contribution to Luton's hardline reputation. His exploits include covering the town with " Magnificent 19" posters glorifying the 11 September suicide bombers. "When I joined al-Muhajiroun four years ago, there were five local members," he says. "Now there are more than 50 and hundreds more support us."

The strange thing is that four years ago, Sayful Islam was a jeans-clad student completing his degree in business economics at Middlesex University in Hendon, north London.

The son of a British Rail engineer who came to this country from Pakistan, Sayful grew up in a moderate, middle-class Muslim family in Luton. At the local Denbigh High School, he is remembered as one of the smartest kids, and was selected to attend a science masterclass at Cambridge University. He would go on to marry, have two children and find work as an accountant for the Inland Revenue in Luton. He was thoroughly uninterested in politics.

THEN he met Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad at a local event. Within two years, he had swapped his decently paid job as an accountant for an unpaid one as a political agitator. What turned him into an extremist? And how far is he prepared to go to achieve his aims?

Prior to seeing the group at the fastfood restaurant, Sayful meets me at his semi-detached rented home in Bury Park, Luton's Muslim neighbourhood. He no longer works, even though he is able-bodied, he admits, preferring instead to claim housing benefit and jobseeker's allowance. He smiles sheepishly and says the irony is not lost on him that the British state is supporting him financially, even as he plots to "overthrow it".

"I made a decision that I wanted to follow what Islam really said," Sayful begins, sitting on his sofa in his thowb (a traditional robe) and bare feet. "I went to listen to all the local imams, but I found their portrayal of Islam was too secularised. When I heard Sheikh Omar [the leader] of al-Muhajiroun speak, it was pure Islam, with no compromise. I found that appealing.

"At the same time," continues Sayful, "wars were happening in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan. People were being oppressed simply because they were Muslim. Although I had never experienced racism in the UK, it opened the eyes of a lot of Muslims, including mine."

But it was the events of 11 September that crystallised Sayful's worldview. "When I watched those planes go into the Twin Towers, I felt elated," he says. "That magnificent action split the world into two camps: you were either with Islam and al Qaeda, or with the enemy. I decided to quit my job and commit myself full-time to al-Muhajiroun." Now he does not consider himself British. "I am a Muslim living in Britain, and I give my allegiance only to Allah."

According to Sayful, the aim of al-Muhajiroun ("the immigrants") is nothing less than Khilafah - "the worldwide domination of Islam". The way to achieve this, he says, is by Jihad, led by Bin Laden. "I support him 100 per cent."

Does that support extend to violent acts of terrorism in the UK?

"Yes," he replies, unequivocally. "When a bomb attack happens here, I won't be against it, even if it kills my own children. Islam is clear: Muslims living in lands that are occupied have the right to attack their invaders.

"Britain became a legitimate target when it sent troops to Iraq. But it is against Islam for me to engage personally in acts of terrorism in the UK because I live here. According to Islam, I have a covenant of security with the UK, as long as they allow us Muslims to live here in peace."

HE USES the phrase "covenant of security" constantly. He attempts to explain. "If we want to engage in terrorism, we would have to leave the country," he says. "It is against Islam to do otherwise." Such a course of action, he says, he is not prepared to undertake. This is why, Sayful claims, it is consistent, and not cowardly, for him to espouse the rhetoric of terrorism, the "martyrdom-operations", while simultaneouslylimiting himself to nonviolentactions such as leafletting outside Luton town hall.

He denies any link between al-Muhajiroun and the Muslims arrested in the recent police raids. But, as I later discover at the fastfood restaurant, not everyone attaching themselves, however loosely, to al-Muhajiroun draws the same line. Two members of the group - Abu Yusuf, the financial adviser, and Abu Musa, the security guard - scorn al-Muhajiroun as "too moderate".

"I am freelance," says Abu Yusuf, fixing me with his piercing brown eyes. What does that mean? I ask.

"The difference between us and those two," interjects Abu Malaahim, pointing to Musa and Yusuf, "is that us lot do a verbal thing, [but] those brothers actually want to do a physical thing."

Referring to the latest truce offered by Bin Laden, and Britain's scathing rejection of it, Abu Malaahim adds: "He tried to make a peace deal. When terrorism happens, you will only have yourselves to blame."

How far are you prepared to go? I ask.

"You want to know how far I will go," says Abu Musa, his high-pitched lisp rising an octave. "When Allah said in the Koran 'kill and be killed', that's what I want. I want a martyr operation, where I kill my enemy."

Are you saying, I probe, that you are looking to kill people yourself ? "Yes," Abu Musa says, "to kill and to be killed." He emphasises each word.

What's stopped you doing it? "As you know from watching the news," intones Abu Yusuf, "there are brothers who do leave the country and do it." He is referring to the four Muslims from Luton who died fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the two British Muslims, said to have had ties to al-Muhajiroun, who last April left to become suicide bombers in Israel. "In-shallah [ Godwilling], there will be a time to go."

It is hard to know whether Musa and Yusuf are deadly serious or just pumped full of misguided, youthful bravado. Though I see coldness - even ruthlessness - in their eyes, I sense no malice. Both young men agree, perhaps foolishly, to be quoted using their real names, though they decline photographs - thus illustrating their uncertainty of which way to jump.

Muhammad Sulaiman, president of the Islamic Cultural Society, the largest of the 14 mosques in Luton, dismisses al-Muhajiroun as "verbal diarrhoea".

"They are an extreme Right-wing group - the Muslim version of the BNP," he says disdainfully. "They think Muslims should dominate, just like the BNP thinks whites should dominate. They use Islam as a vehicle to promote their distorted beliefs, particularly to unemployed young bloods who are vulnerable."

ALTHOUGH unemployment in Luton is just six per cent, the rate among Muslim youths is estimated at 25 per cent. "They are no more representative of our Muslim community than the BNP are of the white community."

Sulaiman insists that Sayful Islam and his crew are not welcome at the mosque. He cannot prevent them praying there, but he will never give them a platform. "I've told Sayful to bugger off and ejected him many times," he says brusquely. "Even Sayful's father, who I know well, thinks his son has been brainwashed."

But Sayful and his friends laugh at the idea that they are local pariahs. "The mosques say one thing to the public, and something else to us. Let's just say that the face you see and the face we see are two different faces," says Abdul Haq. "Believe me," adds Musa, "behind closed doors, there are no moderate Muslims."

They also mock the idea that they are attracted to al-Muhajiroun because they have suffered alienation from white society. "Do we look like scum?" they ask. "Do we look illiterate?"

As they call for the bill, Abu Malaahim flicks open his 3G mobile phone and, with a satisfied grin, displays the image, downloaded from the internet, of an American Humvee burning in Iraq.

Abu Yusuf says: "That's nothing. I downloaded the picture of the four burnt Americans hanging from the bridge." It's oneupmanship, al-Muhajiroun style.

Sayful, the only married one in the group, prepares to go home to his wife and children. Before he departs, he says he has a message to deliver.

"I want to warn that the police raids - if repeated - could create a bad situation.

"Islam is not like Christianity, where they turn the other cheek. If they raid our homes, it could lead to the covenant of security being broken.

"Islam allows us to retaliate. That would include" - he tugs his "Jihad" coat tight against the night air - "by violent means."

French eject 'pro-beating' imam

Help wanted: Bouziane's Islamic center in Venissieux

Just this morning I posted a story saying that a French imam, Abdelkader Bouziane, faced legal action for advocating wife-beating. Well, he has been expelled from France. Note that he based his arguments on the Qur'an. From the BBC, with thanks to Filtrat:

A Muslim cleric who advocated the beating of women has been expelled from France, officials have announced.

Algerian-born Abdelkader Bouziane was detained on Tuesday after telling a magazine the Koran backed the beating and stoning of adulterous wives.

Mr Bouziane also expressed hopes that "the entire world becomes Muslim".

The remarks caused an immediate outcry in France, which hosts Western Europe's largest Muslim community - about five million people, mainly of north African origin.

Muslim leaders in France also condemned the imam's remarks, saying Islam did not condone domestic violence.

However, the leader of France's National Council of Muslims warned the French media not to seek to portray all Muslims in the West as fundamentalists, or to stir up anti-Islamic sentiment by seeking out extremist opinion.

Mr Bouziane was prayer leader in Venissieux, near Lyon, and had lived in France for the last 25 years.

He was expelled on Wednesday to his native Algeria, officials said.

The French interior ministry said remarks against human rights, particularly women's rights, could not be tolerated.

The imam told the April issue of Lyon Mag he favoured wife-beating "under certain conditions, especially if the woman cheats on her husband".

He then went on national television to clarify his comments.

He said he had not advocated hitting women on the face, but insisted that the Koran did authorise husbands to beat their wives if they had been unfaithful.

He was also quoted as saying he favoured an Islamic republic in France.

"But not just for France. I want the whole world to become Muslim."

An expulsion order had already been issued in February after the interior ministry deemed his views to be a threat to public order, AFP reported.

The interview confirmed that the decision was correct, the French interior ministry said.

Dhimmitude in Malaysia: Non-Muslim mother denied justice

A critique of a Malaysian child custody ruling that demonstrates the influence of the Sharia (Syariah) there. From Malaysiakini, with thanks to Susan:

The Malaysian Federal Constitution 3(1) states that, ‘Islam is the religion of the Federation; but other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation.

In Shamala Sathyaseelan vs. Muhammad Ridzwan Mogarajah; Mogarajah had converted his two children aged two and three to Islam after his own personal conversion.

Justice Faiza Thamby Chik had referred the case to the Syariah Court and eventually delivers a verdict in favor of the Muslim father. Justice Faiza also claimed that the father had the capacity to convert the children to Islam because:

a) The wife did not challenge his own conversion nor seek a divorce when he converted; and

b) He is the natural father of the said children and a Muslim.

Justice Faiza concluded by claiming that only the Syariah Court has the capacity and expertise to hear this case and therefore, the mother should take her application to the Federal Territory Religious Council.

This is an unwise judgment due to the following points:

a) It is a violation of the basic religious rights of the non-Muslim minority in Malaysia.

b) It contradicts Section 5 of the Guardianship of Infants Act.

c) Malaysia’s ratification of the Convention against All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child is not being observed and practiced by the Malaysian judiciary.

d) It enables a disgruntled father an easy way to gain custody of his children by only converting to Islam.

e) The lack of protection to the non-Muslim female citizen to fight for the legal custody of her children as the non-Muslim mother has no legal locus standi to seek relief under Syariah law.

Islam is a social justice system, but the Malaysian judiciary system, has conveniently denied justice to this non-Muslim mother in her struggle for custody rights. This has created the circumstance of forcing the non-Muslims to accept the judgment of the Syariah Court.

This is not what the Malaysian constitution meant.

In Shamala Sathyaseelan vs. Muhammad Ridzwan Mogarajah case, Justice Faiza failed to recognise:

a) The motives of Mogarajah’s conversion to Islam. If Mogarajah converted purely for child custody, then judgment should take this into consideration.

b)That the custody case of the children should be heard by the court after the parent’s divorce proceedings or before the conversion of Mogarajah to Islam.

c) That the Syariah Court should not be involved in cases that involves inter-faith family law.

d) That although there is no law governing non-Muslim parental and religious rights in Malaysia, the courts need to exercise wisdom and analyse such cases rather than conveniently passing their responsibilities to the Syariah Court.

Andalusian Myth, Eurabian Reality

Inventing the past, and denying the present. A Jihad Watch EXCLUSIVE essay by Bat Ye'or and Andrew G. Bostom:

On Sunday, April 18, 2004, this revealing exchange took place between outgoing Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, and interviewer Chris Wallace of FoxNews:

Chris Wallace: “In the apartment that was blown up, police found a videotape in which the bombers referred to Spain as Andalusia, what it was called by the Muslim Moors before they were driven out in 1492.”

Jose Maria Aznar (through the translator): “So this means that Iraq, for them, was just a pretext. In the eyes of Islamic terrorism, it looks at the West, and Spain is a very special part of this parcel, because they feel that to recover Spain is to get back some of their territory.”

Islamic scholar Mordechai Nisan recently discussed the contention by the founder of the Institute of Islamic Education, M. Amir Ali, that Medieval Spain had actually been "liberated" by Muslim forces, who "deposed its tyrants". Nisan extrapolated this ahistorical narrative line, and pondered:

"Reflecting on March 11, as Muslim terrorism killed 200 and wounded 1,400 in Madrid, one wonders whether one day this event will also not be commemorated as a liberating moment. "

Events surrounding the completion of the new Granada Mosque, which was marked by celebratory announcements July 10, 2003 of a “…return of Islam to Spain”, were also consistent with Nisan's dark musings. At a conference entitled “Islam in Europe” that accompanied the opening of the mosque, disconcerting statements were made by European Muslim leaders. Specifically, the keynote speaker at this conference, Umar Ibrahim Vadillo, a Spanish Muslim leader, encouraged Muslims to cause an economic collapse of Western economies (by ceasing to use Western currencies, and switching to gold dinars), while the German Muslim leader Abu Bakr Rieger told Muslim attendees to avoid adapting their Islamic religious practices to accommodate European (i.e., Western Enlightenment?) values.

Shortly after this event, a Wall Street Journal editorialist in a grossly distorted encomium to Muslim Spain, mentioned the “pan-confessional humanism” of Andalusian Islam, and even asserted: "one could argue that the oft-bewailed missing ‘reformation’ of Islam was under way there until it was aborted by the Inquisition."

María Rosa Menocal, Yale Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, in her 2002 hagiography of Muslim Spain, The Ornament of the World, has further maintained that "the new Islamic polity not only allowed Jews and Christians to survive, but following Qur’anic mandate, by and large protected them."

We believe that reiterating these ahistorical, roseate claims about Muslim Spain abets the contemporary Islamist agenda, and retards the evolution of a liberal, reformed “Euro-Islam” fully compatible with post-Enlightenment Western values.

Iberia (Spain) was conquered in 710-716 AD by Arab tribes originating from northern, central and southern Arabia. Massive Berber and Arab immigration, and the colonization of the Iberian peninsula, followed the conquest. Most churches were converted into mosques. Although the conquest had been planned and conducted jointly with a strong faction of royal Iberian Christian dissidents, including a bishop, it proceeded as a classical jihad with massive pillages, enslavement, deportations and killings.

Toledo, which had first submitted to the Arabs in 711 or 712, revolted in 713. The town was punished by pillage and all the notables had their throats cut. In 730, the Cerdagne (in Septimania, near Barcelona) was ravaged and a bishop burned alive. In the regions under stable Islamic control, Jews and Christians were tolerated as dhimmis - like elsewhere in other Islamic lands - and could not build new churches or synagogues nor restore the old ones. Segregated in special quarters, they had to wear discriminatory clothing. Subjected to heavy taxes, the Christian peasantry formed a servile class attached to the Arab domains; many abandoned their land and fled to the towns. Harsh reprisals with mutilations and crucifixions* would sanction the Mozarab (Christian dhimmis) calls for help from the Christian kings. Moreover, if one dhimmi harmed a Muslim, the whole community would lose its status of protection, leaving it open to pillage, enslavement and arbitrary killing.

By the end of the eighth century, the rulers of North Africa and of Andalusia had introduced Malikism, one of the most rigorous schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and subsequently repressed the other Muslim schools of law. Three quarters of a century ago, at a time when political correctness was not dominating historical publication and discourse, Evariste Lévi-Provençal, the pre-eminent scholar of Andalusia, wrote: "The Muslim Andalusian state thus appears from its earliest origins as the defender and champion of a jealous orthodoxy, more and more ossified in a blind respect for a rigid doctrine, suspecting and condemning in advance the least effort of rational speculation."

The humiliating status imposed on the dhimmis and the confiscation of their land provoked many revolts, punished by massacres, as in Toledo (761, 784-86, 797). After another Toledan revolt in 806, seven hundred inhabitants were executed. Insurrections erupted in Saragossa from 781 to 881, Cordova (805), Merida (805-813, 828 and the following year, and later in 868), and yet again in Toledo (811-819); the insurgents were crucified, as prescribed in Qur’an 5:33*.

The revolt in Cordova of 818 was crushed by three days of massacres and pillage, with 300 notables crucified and 20 000 families expelled. Feuding was endemic in the Andalusian cities between the different sectors of the population: Arab and Berber colonizers, Iberian Muslim converts (Muwalladun) and Christian dhimmis (Mozarabs). There were rarely periods of peace in the Amirate of Cordova (756-912), nor later.

Al-Andalus represented the land of jihad par excellence. Every year, sometimes twice a year, raiding expeditions were sent to ravage the Christian Spanish kingdoms to the north, the Basque regions, or France and the Rhone valley, bringing back booty and slaves. Andalusian corsairs attacked and invaded along the Sicilian and Italian coasts, even as far as the Aegean Islands, looting and burning as they went. Thousands of people were deported to slavery in Andalusia, where the caliph kept a militia of tens of thousand of Christian slaves brought from all parts of Christian Europe (the Saqaliba), and a harem filled with captured Christian women. Society was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, with the Arab tribes at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Berbers who were never recognized as equals, despite their Islamization; lower in the scale came the mullawadun converts and, at the very bottom, the dhimmi Christians and Jews.

The Andalusian Maliki jurist Ibn Abdun (d. 1134) offered these telling legal opinions regarding Jews and Christians in Seville around 1100 C.E.: "No…Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided. It is forbidden to [greet] them with the [expression], ‘Peace be upon you’. In effect, ‘Satan has gained possession of them, and caused them to forget God’s warning. They are the confederates of Satan’s party; Satan’s confederates will surely be the losers!’ (Qur’an 58:19 [modern Dawood translation]). A distinctive sign must be imposed upon them in order that they may be recognized and this will be for them a form of disgrace."

Ibn Abdun also forbade the selling of scientific books to dhimmis, under the pretext that they translated them and attributed them to their co-religionists and bishops. In fact, plagiarism is difficult to prove since whole Jewish and Christian libraries were looted and destroyed. Another prominent Andalusian jurist, Ibn Hazm of Cordoba (d. 1064), wrote that Allah has established the infidels’ ownership of their property merely to provide booty for Muslims.

In Granada, the Jewish viziers Samuel Ibn Naghrela and his son Joseph, who protected the Jewish community, were both assassinated between 1056 to 1066, followed by the annihilation of the Jewish population by the local Muslims. It is estimated that up to five thousand Jews perished in the pogrom by Muslims that accompanied the 1066 assassination. This figure equals or exceeds the number of Jews reportedly killed by the Crusaders during their pillage of the Rhineland, some thirty years later, at the outset of the First Crusade.

The Granada pogrom was likely to have been incited, in part, by the bitter anti-Jewish ode of Abu Ishaq, a well known Muslim jurist and poet of the times, who wrote: "Put them back where they belong and reduce them to the lowest of the low..turn your eyes to other [Muslim] countries and you will find the Jews there are outcast dogs...Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them...They have violated our covenant with them so how can you be held guilty against the violators?"

The Muslim Berber Almohads in Spain and North Africa (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations. This devastation- massacre, captivity, and forced conversion- was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud, and the poet Abraham Ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim “inquisitors” (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators. Maimonides, the renowned philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions, and had to flee Cordoba with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez — disguised as a Muslim — before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt.

Indeed, although Maimonides is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Andalusia, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews: "..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.."

A valid summary assessment of interfaith relationships in Muslim Spain, and the contemporary currents responsible for obfuscating that history, can be found in Richard Fletcher's engaging Moorish Spain. Mr. Fletcher offers these sobering, unassailable observations:

"The witness of those who lived through the horrors of the Berber conquest, of the Andalusian fitnah in the early eleventh century, of the Almoravid invasion- to mention only a few disruptive episodes- must give it [i.e., the roseate view of Muslim Spain] the lie. The simple and verifiable historical truth is that Moorish Spain was more often a land of turmoil than it was of tranquility...Tolerance? Ask the Jews of Granada who were massacred in 1066, or the Christians who were deported by the Almoravids to Morocco in 1126 (like the Moriscos five centuries later)…In the second half of the twentieth century a new agent of obfuscation makes its appearance: the guilt of the liberal conscience, which sees the evils of colonialism- assumed rather than demonstrated-foreshadowed in the Christian conquest of al-Andalus and the persecution of the Moriscos (but not, oddly, in the Moorish conquest and colonization). Stir the mix well together and issue it free to credulous academics and media persons throughout the western world. Then pour it generously over the truth…in the cultural conditions that prevail in the west today the past has to be marketed, and to be successfully marketed it has to be attractively packaged. Medieval Spain in a state of nature lacks wide appeal. Self-indulgent fantasies of glamour...do wonders for sharpening up its image. But Moorish Spain was not a tolerant and enlightened society even in its most cultivated epoch."

The socio-political history of Andalusia was characterized by a particularly oppressive dhimmitude that is completely incompatible with modern notions of equality between individuals, regardless of religious faith. At the dawn of the 21st century, we must insist that Muslims in the West adopt post-Enlightenment societal standards of equality, not "tolerance," abandoning forever their hagiography of the brutal, discriminatory standards practiced by the classical Maliki jurists of "enlightened" Andalusia.

*The Noble Qur'an- Three esteemed translations, online:
Sura 005, Verse 033
YUSUF ALI: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;"
PICKTHAL: "The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an