DC Watson: CAIR's Perpetual Twists & Turns

Longtime Jihad Watch reader DC Watson's latest:

The CAIR Mission Statement declares that "CAIR's mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding."

Fair enough. But let's revisit some statements made by members of this group -- in public and on the record -- about their vision of America, and how they’ve put in practice their mission of "encouraging dialogue, and building coalitions that promote justice and understanding."

Omar M. Ahmad, CAIR's Board Chairman: "Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." (Ahmad began to deny having said this, over five years after it was first reported, but the original reporter sticks by her story.)

Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR spokesman: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

Nihad Awad, CAIR Executive Director: "I am in support of the Hamas movement."

How's that for American patriotism, respect for our Constitution, and tolerance of all religions? Oh, but there's more.

1) Muslim cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman was convicted and is now in prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

CAIR’s response: Despite the vast evidence of Sheikh Omar's guilt presented in the case, CAIR called the conviction a "hate crime" against Muslims.

2) 2001: President Bush orders the closing of a Muslim charity, the Holy Land Foundation, after it was found to be raising money to support Hamas terror attacks.

CAIR’s response: It called Bush's move "unjust" and "disturbing," and circulated a petition exhorting the government to unfreeze HLF assets, claiming "there has been a shift from a war on terrorism to an attack on Islam."

3) Tuesday, February 15th, 2005: Fox’s "Hannity & Colmes" featured Ahmed Bedier, Communications Director for the Florida chapter of CAIR. From the program:

Hannity: "Did you not have a spokesman for your group at one time, a guy by the name of Royer that was on your staff that was convicted?"

Bedier: "I think several years ago we had that individual in our group. And if you're inciting that somehow we're responsible for the actions or behavior of the individuals after they left our organization, that would be similar to somebody that worked for FOX five years ago and then commits a crime and FOX would be responsible for it."

The "guy by the name of Royer" that Hannity asked Bedier about is Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, former CAIR Communications Specialist. He is now serving a 20-year prison term for terrorist plotting.

But did Royer really, as Bedier claimed, commit his terror-related crimes after he left CAIR? Timelines listed in Royer’s indictment, specifically for September 2001, and a news article that demonstrates Royer speaking as a representative of CAIR on September 18, 2001 are on record. His crimes took place at around the same time. (See pages 15-20 of the pdf.)

If Royer’s conviction were an isolated incident, Bedier’s response to Hannity’s question might have had some legitimacy. However, it is by no means isolated:

In September 2003, Bassem K. Khafagi pleaded guilty to charges of visa and bank fraud in federal court in Detroit. At the time of his arrest, Khafagi was Community Affairs director with CAIR.

12/17/2002: Ghassan Elashi, the founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, according to his indictment, was involved in selling technology, goods and commodities to designated terror-sponsoring states.

In July 2004, the Holy Land Foundation, an Islamic charity organization, was shut down by our Government and indicted on charges of providing material support to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. Lo and behold, the name of the Holy Land Foundation’s Chairman of the Board was ... Ghassan Elashi.

Details of all this can be found here. See pages 6-12.

And again, who petitioned the U.S. Government to unfreeze HLF’s assets? Wasn't it CAIR?

(On page 8 of the indictment, incidentally, the name Sheik Ahmed Yassin appears. This is the same individual whom CAIR is on record as labeling an "Islamic religious leader." This is the same "religious leader" who was instrumental in founding the jihad terrorist group Hamas.)

Ghassan Elashi also has an interesting family member. He is the cousin of Nadia Elashi, aka Nadia Marzook, who happens to be the wife of Mousa Abu Marzook, aka Abu Omar, Deputy Chief of the Hamas terrorist organization’s Political Bureau. For details, see:

http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/infocom/uselashi121702sind.pdf (Pp. 6-9)
http://www.4law.co.il/hlf2.htm
http://www.dallasarena.com/t040730cbs11.htm
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13175
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=9981

No matter what side of the political arena we are on, it is of the utmost importance that we always recognize when and from where an enemy is coming at us, retain the ability to turn in their direction -- and relegate the enemy to history.

We would be dishonored if we ever allowed the United States to be brought down from within. Unless, of course, all of the information about CAIR in this column is purely coincidental.

Please keep this information in mind. Be aware: there are foxes in our henhouse, and their removal has become necessary for the good of the country.

Assyrian Christians of Iraq Wanted to Vote But Were Not Allowed

No democracy for dhimmis. From AINA, with thanks to Nicolei:

Mubarak Sliva (58) sits in front of "Muntaka" coffe shop by an old table and drinks tea out of a little glass with his friends Michael and Jacob, He watches Shiites and the Kurds celebrating their election victory which will allow them to rule the country. Again and again Mubarak looks at this but seem like every time he feels like being stabbed in the heart. His friends feel sad also. The "Muntaka" is social center of the city of Qaraqosh located 15 kilometers distance from Mosul. All 30,000 inhabitants are Christian Assyrian who were prevented fom voting during the Iraqi elections."No one heard our voices, we were deprived of our constitutional right as in the Saddam Husseins time, nothing has changed", shouts Mubarak Sliva.

East of Mosul, there are many places where only Christians live but because they wear the typical Arab clothing they are not noticed. Out of the 200,000 Assyrians in the region 90 percent were not allowed to vote. "The large iraqi parties celebrate, and the USA wants to establish democracy in Iraq but the minorites will not be part of it", complained Mubarak Sliva: " not even once any body cared to mention in Baghdad that we were deceived. It was alleged that they did not know what happened. That is a lie. Three weeks ago the American consul from Mosul visited us."

Louis Markus Ayoob (45), the deputy mayor and representative of the electoral committee for Qaraqosh, has testified that it was Kurd's intention to keep Christians from voting.

Turkey: 'Missionaries the new crusaders'

In response to EU requests that Turkey treat its religious minorities more fairly. From the Turkish Daily News, with thanks to Nicolei:

The Religious Affairs Directorate, as a reaction to missionary activities in Turkey and European Union demands for religious expression, has prepared a sermon that will be read on March 11 describing missionaries as the current embodiment of the Crusaders.

The sermon says: “Some powers, afraid of the incredible expansion of Islam, had formed crusading armies to wipe out Muslims. They failed because the Crusaders were fighting a self-confident society whose members believed in justice. The same powers are trying to sever our people's links to Islam because they see it as the biggest obstacle to their domination.....”

Norway: Pro-Israeli Politician Gets Death Threats

From Norwegian Kafir's superb new weblog, Fjordman. Links throughout at the Fjordman site:

Member of Parliament for the rightwing Progress Party, Ulf Erik Knudsen, was accompanied by a bodyguard during a debate arranged by the Immigration Council in the town of Drammen outside Oslo this week. The debate was about whether or not Islam could function as a bridge with Christianity:

He is an internationally certified bodyguard, hired by the party, Knudsen confirms. According to him, both the police and the security services at Parliament have been informed, since MPs for the Progress Party have received a marked increase in the number of death threats recently. Knudsen claims the threats are aggressive, but not specific in nature, saying that ”the next time somebody from the Progress Party takes part in a debate about immigration, the person will be taken care of forever”. – I don’t know for how long I will employ a bodyguard, but it is clear that the security precautions during this fall’s parliamentary elections will be extensive. Usually, it is primarily party leader Carl I. Hagen who gets special protection, but this may now change. Knudsen in particular is exposed to these kinds of threats for other reasons: - I have on many different occasions voiced my support for Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians. Last year this lead to a number of serious threats against my person.

Drammen has one of the highest percentages of Muslim immigrants of any Norwegian city, but being harassed for suspected pro-Israeli opinions isn’t a problem unique to Drammen. A municipally employed teacher in Kristiansand was prevented from wearing a Star of David around his neck. Kristiansand Adult Education Center, where the man works, ruled that the Jewish symbol could be deemed a provocation towards the many Muslim students at the school.

Read it all.

Anti-Americanism in the Turkish Media

Looks as if they'll be a natural for the EU. Note the straightforward Islamic references from the "secular" Turkish media, sounding as strong as anything we have seen from any forthright jihadist. From MEMRI, with thanks to all who sent this in:

"Bush is America's Hitler. Like Hitler, he too has become a curse for the world. If the world's sensible leaders don't unite against Bush to stop him, a great number of people will die because of his ambitions.

"Hitler was very racist. Bush, who is an ally of the Zionists, belongs to the racist philosophy too. The beliefs of Bush's evangelical church coupled with Jewish racism, which exceeds Hitler's, are sufficient proof that the 'Sharon and Bush duo' are militants of the same fanatical philosophy.

"Hitler said that he would establish a new world order if Germany won. Bush is after similar invasions. First he targeted Afghanistan and Iraq. Later he expanded his invasion map to include 22 more Islamic countries where he wants to change the order and the borders. He says that he wants to bring the likes of Karzai and Allawi [to these countries] to power, and in doing so establish his colonial empire....

"Conclusion: It is clear that these developments will finally come to the end that our beloved Prophet [Mohammed] promised us. Our Prophet Lord said: Around the time of 'judgment day' there will be a war between my peoples [Muslim believers] and the Jews. And the Jews will be vanquished.During that war the rocks will speak and say, 'O Muslim, there is a zionist hiding behind me, come and kill him…'" [3]

'The Pervert Enemies of Islam'

In the Islamic daily Milli Gazette, columnist Burhan Bozgeyik wrote: "At the present, the American administration is in the hands of the worst enemies of Islam. Their hate is so deep that no amount of Muslim blood [spilled by them] satisfies them. Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of (Muslim) dead, seem little for them....

In the Turkish business daily Dunya, columnist Dr. Burhan Ozfatura, who is a former mayor of Izmir, wrote: "It is my sincere belief that the USA is the biggest danger for Turkey, today and in the future. At the present the U.S.A. is run by an incompetent, very aggressive, true enemy of Islam, brainwashed with evangelical nonsense, a blood-thirsty team that is a loyal link in Israel's command and control chain."

Putting the fear of God into Holland

A provocative and important story from the Times Online, with thanks to Twostellas:

Not long ago, Holland prided itself as being the most tolerant and welcoming country in Europe for immigrants and asylum seekers. It had the credentials to prove it. So many have settled there, ethnic "minorities" are often in a majority. In the great Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague, the newcomers already outnumber the native Dutch among under-20-year-olds. They will soon be an absolute majority. Although the slump that followed the 1973 oil shock removed the urgent need to recruit labour, the Dutch accepted that the "guest workers" in the country could remain. The policy was to create a multicultural society in which cultural and ethnic differences were accepted and appreciated....

No longer. A sea change has taken place. It was evident after the death last month of a young Dutch Moroccan, identified only as Ali El B. Several hundred Moroccans congregated on the street where a driver had run him over, reversing into him after he had stolen her bag. They had made a shrine on the pavement, with flowers and candles, and there was talk of racism and murder. The crowd set off on a march to pay their respects at a mosque not far away. The boys were in a long gaggle at the front. The girls, neater, were in disciplined ranks at the rear. Some had Moroccan flags draped over their shoulders. They chanted in Arabic for a while, and passers-by looked and scurried on.

The mosque was on the ground floor in a row of old gabled houses, some converted into offices, that looked out over a broad waterway. A racing skiff, a pair, was splashing through the wavelets thrown up by a blustery gale. Television cameramen darted round the crowd as it milled outside the mosque. An elderly Dutchman looked down from his flat at the sea of hoods and scarves and red-and-green flags, with an utterly forlorn expression.

Nobody doubts that Ali El B would once have become a martyred innocent. Now, attempts to portray him like that were sat on fast and hard. The fiercest comment came from Geert Wilders. The hard line this right-wing MP takes on immigrants and terrorists has made him the fastest-rising star in the political firmament.

It has also brought threats of beheading from radical Islamists, so he is now shackled to six bodyguards and has secure lodgings on army bases. "All Moroccan troublemakers should be expelled," Wilders says. "The government wants to expel terrorists. The same process should be used for street terrorists like Ali El B. Detain them, de-naturalise them and deport them." Wilders is a firebrand. Rita Verdonk is the minister for immigration and integration, and a mainstream Conservative. She, too, is implacable. "If the boy hadn't stolen the bag," she says, "he'd be riding around on his scooter today."

Read it all.

Christian Copts of California to Hold Candle Light Vigil TODAY in Santa Monica

A press release from the Christian Copts of California:

Christian Copts of California: Even If It Leads to Cells of Radical Islamists in America, Justice Demands That Jersey City Police Search Every Clue to Find Murderers of Armanious Family

The Armanious family fled Luxor, Egypt to escape Islamist extremists and came to America where they could express their freedom of speech. It wasn't far enough. They have been murdered. Is it religious motivated?

To the Copts, Egyptian Christians - an American community of several hundred thousand, this is old stuff ... it's why they fled Egypt. But here? In America? Are quiet and hidden Islamist extremist cells coming to life in America? These cells, comprised of U.S. citizens - nice guys next door - don't share our love of the First Amendment: freedom of speech, freedom of religion.

Christian Copts of California will hold a candle light vigil on February 27, 5 to 7 PM at the Santa Monica, California pier (Ocean and Colorado) to rouse the Jersey City police to investigate fully every clue of the Armanious murder.

A large turnout of Coptic Christians from all of Southern California is expected.

Contact: Mounir Bishay of the Christian Copts of California, 310-641-3387 or Calcopts@aol.com

'How many more women have to die before this society wakes up?'

Honor killing in Germany. Note the attitudes of the students. Hatin Sürücü update. From The Telegraph, with thanks to EPG:

Shortly before nine o'clock one Monday evening earlier this month, Hatin Sürücü left her five-year-old son asleep in their small apartment in the Tempelhof district of Berlin and made her way to a bus stop in the main Oberlandgarten Strasse. Minutes later, a volley of pistol shots rang out but no one came to help Mrs Sürücü, 23, who was of Turkish origin. A bus driver discovered her body, with multiple wounds to the head and chest, about 40 minutes later and called the police.

Last week, Mrs Sürücü's three brothers, aged 18 to 25, who were arrested six days after the attack, were formally charged with the murder. They have pleaded not guilty and were remanded in custody.

Police are investigating whether Mrs Sürücü was the victim of a so-called "honour killing" after she made the decision to leave the cousin with whom she had been forced into an arranged marriage eight years earlier.

The police said that Mrs Sürücü had frequently complained of being threatened by her brothers.

If they are found guilty, Mrs Sürücü's murder will be the sixth "honour killing" within Berlin's 200,000-strong Muslim community in four months. Shocking as that is, the reactions of some Turkish immigrant children at a school whose main gates are yards from the scene of the shooting has caused even graver concern.

Asked by teachers what they thought of the murder, several 13-year-old pupils are said to have implied that they thought Mrs Sürücü had "earned" her death. "Well, she lived like a German, didn't she?" remarked one. Mrs Sürücü got married in Turkey at the age of 15 but returned with her son to her birthplace, Berlin, more than five years ago.

Minneapolis: Christian Afghan fears for life if deported

Another story showing that the threat of death for those who leave Islam is not a relic of history, but is very real today. And it's a positive development that the appeals court is actually taking this seriously. "Christian Afghan fears for life if deported," from Knight Ridder, with thanks to Twostellas:

Years after his conversion to Christianity, Ahmad Ahmadshah, 43, a Minneapolis cabdriver, explained that moment to a U.S. immigration judge. Ahmadshah described how he had received a Bible from friends in Pakistan and read it in secret at his home near Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1988.

"I read a book, and my heart accepted," Ahmadshah said. "I believe that this is the book that says the truth."

Today, Ahmadshah is convinced that his faith could cost him his life.

He has lived in the United States since 1996, but U.S. immigration authorities are trying to deport him for visa violations - despite evidence that his sister was killed for her Christian faith in 1993 by religious soldiers answering to a warlord still active in Afghanistan.

This month, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made Ahmadshah's deportation less certain. A three-judge panel threw out an order from the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals, which had rejected his application for asylum.

The judges ordered immigration judges to reconsider his case, taking into account how apostates - Muslims who reject Islam - are treated in Afghanistan.

"The murder of Ahmadshah's sister points to a pattern of violence perpetrated against Christian converts and was coupled with a threat directed at Ahmadshah himself," the appeals court wrote.

Integration according to Qaradawi

Sharia alert. From "Integration Tops European Fatwa Council Meeting" in Islam Online, with thanks to Nicolei:

DUBLIN, February 24, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Eminent scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has inaugurated the 14th session of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) with a call for the sizable Muslim minority in Europe to integrate into and contribute to the advancement of society.

“A Muslim should stick to the balanced and moderate Islam. He should be integrated into the society where he lives without violating the rules of Shari`ah,” Sheikh Qaradawi, the head of ECFR, told the opening session on Wednesday, February 23.

Of course, Qaradawi is the famous moderate who recently declared his hope that he would die in jihad warfare.

This is what makes guys like Omid Safi nervous

Anti-dhimmitude at Brandeis. "My problem is not the anti-Zionism or even that many of them are anti-American, but that they are third-rate." Such that they hide behind their degrees in order to avoid unpleasant debate on the facts, eh, Omid?

"A lesson in academic politics," from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to JS:

When the controversy at Columbia University erupted last fall over charges of anti-Israel bias in courses on the Middle East, many American Jews saw the brouhaha as another alarming sign that pro-Arab academics had gained the upper hand in university Middle East studies departments.

Mideast studies had become polemicized, and American Jews sought to ameliorate matters by pushing for the creation of Israel studies chairs and ensuring that courses on the Arab-Israeli conflict were taught by professors sympathetic to Israel.

But where many American Jews saw political bias, Brandeis University president Jehuda Reinharz saw something else: academic mediocrity.

The controversy underscored for Reinharz what had become an endemic problem in the field: Politics had superseded scholarship as a test of who was fit to teach the Middle East, with the result that political indoctrination had replaced research-driven academic inquiry.

"My problem is not the anti-Zionism or even that many of them are anti-American, but that they are third-rate," Reinharz said in a recent interview with the Jerusalem Post at his Brandeis office, referring to university Middle East studies departments. "The quality of the people [in Mideast studies] is unlike any of the qualities we expect in any other field."

Reinharz has set out to change that by creating a new center for Middle East studies at Brandeis, which he hopes will set a much-needed example of academic rigor in the field.

"We need a first-rate center for Middle East studies that is not pro or con anything," Reinharz said.

Amen! And if it were really politically neutral and academically honest, it would have room for an Institute of Dhimmitude Studies and a Center for the Study of Jihad. And more.

Canada: Terrorist returns; Conservative party leader urges Ottawa to consider not playing the dhimmi

What natural right does a man with this kind of record have to enter Canada? "Terrorist returns: Peter MacKay urges Ottawa to consider revoking citizenship," from the National Post, with thanks to Martin:

TORONTO - One of Canada's most notorious terrorist leaders has returned home to Montreal after serving four years in a French prison for his role in an international jihadist network.

Fateh Kamel, a 44-year-old Algerian-Canadian who headed a Montreal-based extremist cell, arrived in Montreal on Jan. 29 aboard an Air France flight, sources told the National Post.

A charismatic shopkeeper who led a double life as the international terrorist operative "Moustapha," Kamel was dubbed the "Islamist Carlos" because of his remarkable exploits around the world.

"I am GIA," he once said in a conversation intercepted by Italian counter-terrorism investigators. GIA is the French acronym for the Algerian Armed Islamic Group. "Killing is easy for me."...

Captured in Jordan in 1999, Kamel was tried in Paris in 2001 and convicted for his involvement with terrorist groups. Although sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, he was released early for good behaviour. He has a Canadian wife and son.

Peter MacKay, the Conservative Party's deputy leader and public safety critic, urged the government to consider revoking Kamel's Canadian citizenship. Canada has used such tactics against Nazi war criminals.

"By all means we should be examining revocation, and certainly there is cause for the Canadian government, for our officials, to examine whether he was truthful at the time of his entry into this country," Mr. MacKay said.

"I have a real problem with us just saying we'll let bygones be bygones. I don't think most Canadians have much comfort level knowing that this convicted terrorist is now back in our country."

Peter MacKay for PM!

UK: Muslim wins right to new tribunal

More British madness: how is it racial discrimination to require a man not to walk off his job at odd hours? From the BBC, with thanks to Twostellas:

An appeals body has allowed a challenge by Mohamed Loke, from Aston in Birmingham, to an earlier employment tribunal's rejection of his claim.

He claimed he was not allowed to pray at his local mosque while he worked at Calthorpe Special School in 2003....

Mr Loke told the earlier hearing he believed he was racially discriminated against because it was every male Muslim's duty to attend Friday prayers.

Calthorpe School caters for children with severe and profound learning difficulties.

The school claimed that on 9 June, 2003, Mr Loke was responsible for one-on-one care for a pupil and was told he could not attend prayers, but did anyway.

Afghani women face misery in Nuristan

Sharia alert: this is what results from Qur'an 4:34, which sanctions wife-beating, and Islam's easy divorce. From IRIN, with thanks to Twostellas:

NURISTAN, 24 February (IRIN) - The wooden hut of Zulaikha, a 45-year-old midwife, remains the only ray of hope for destitute women in the Nuristan valley, in northeastern Nuristan province. Dozens of women gather around Zulaikha, many of them after travelling from snow-capped mountains after a day's journey by foot.

While some come for treatment, others have been severely beaten by their husbands or forced to leave their homes and children. Many women claim that their husbands have sent them back to their parents after coming down with tuberculosis (TB), the province's chief health concern, or that they had become weak as a result of poor nourishment.

"My husband beat me and kicked me out after my sickness [TB] became serious," Bibi Hawa, a 30-year-old housewife, told IRIN, after speaking with Zulaikha, the only literate woman and health worker in Kamdish and Bargmatal districts, with a population of over 100,000.

"He threw me out to take revenge on my father who had received 30 cows as a dowry for my wedding," she exclaimed.

Sharon Says Abbas Must 'Wipe Out' Militant Groups

For a long time in Israel it has looked as if one side was determined to make concessions in exchange for peace, despite the other side's manifest inability and likely unwillingness to secure peace in exchange for those concessions or any other. But here at last Sharon strikes a different, non-dhimmi pose. From Reuters, with thanks to JS:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, responding to a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed four Israelis, said on Sunday new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas must "wipe out" militant groups before peacemaking can resume.

"There will not be any diplomatic progress, I repeat, no diplomatic progress, until the Palestinians take vigorous action to wipe out the terror groups and their infrastructure in the Palestinian Authority's territory," Sharon told his cabinet.

Anti-dhimmitude: Germany shuts down Holocaust-denying jihadist paper

It had a circulation of 10,000 from among that distressingly large tiny minority of extremists. "Germany shuts down Islamist newspaper," from DPA, with thanks to Jeff Lastname:

BERLIN - Germany closed down on Friday a Turkish-language Islamist daily newspaper that has denied the Holocaust.

Interior Minister Otto Schily put a banning order on the Yeni Akit publishing house, which brings out the European edition of Anadoluda Vakit. The title means "the times in Anatolia". Prosecutors have been collecting evidence against the newspaper for months.

The Interior Ministry in Berlin said the closure was ordered because Vakit had incited to ethnic hate. The newspaper had attacked Israel, Jews in general and the fundamentals of western society....

Despite warnings, the newspaper recently ran a letter headed "Hitler was right". In December last year, a member of parliament held up an issue that claimed "There Was No Holocaust" and appealed to the government to ban the paper.

Iraqi students protest day off on Jewish Sabbath

A day off on a dhimmi holiday? No way! And don't miss the part about the hand grenade: they don't even do that at Evander Childs, a famously lethal school located in my old haunts in the Bronx.

"Iraqi students protest day off on Jewish Sabbath," from AP, with thanks to Charles Martel:

It's not that the Iraqis do not want time off - they just want the extra day moved to Thursday.

"We don't want Saturday! It's a Jewish holiday!" students chanted as they marched in protest last week to the governor's office in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

A high-school student pulled out a hand grenade and started waving it, and police fired into the air to disperse the crowd. At least three students reportedly were injured in the ensuing scuffle.

At Baghdad's University of Mustansariyah, a statement issued by a student union believed to be allied with the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr described Saturday as "the Zionist holiday" and said the government order should not be followed.

"We declare a general strike in the University of Mustansariyah to reject this decision and any decision aimed at depriving Iraqis of their identity," the statement said.

When Freedom Gets the Death Sentence

Honor killing in Germany. "I'm not saying you should murder, but Hatin's lifestyle just didn't fit the way traditional Muslims live." From Deutsche Welle, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

On a cold afternoon this week, Hatin Sürücü gazed gravely from a large poster behind a bus stop lined with flowers, cards and candles.

To the people who came to this bleak part of Berlin's Tempelhof district for Tuesday's solemn vigil -- called not by the city's Muslim community but a gay and lesbian organization -- the image of the young woman in a headscarf, a baby in her arms, was familiar from newspapers and television. A few notes at the memorial read, "Hope you get a better deal in your next life," and "Live a life on your own terms."

"It's a scandal," said Ali K, 33. "All Muslims in Berlin should take to the streets to protest." Yasemin, 22, said, "It's horrific. All Hatin was doing was leading her life the way she wanted."

But it was a choice she paid for with her life. On Feb. 7, 23-year-old Hatin Sürücü was gunned down at the aforementioned bus stop. She died on the spot. Shortly afterwards, three of her brothers -- who reportedly had long been threatening her -- were arrested. Investigators suspect it was a so-called "honor killing," given the fact that Sürücü's ultra-conservative Turkish-Kurdish family strongly disapproved of her modern and "un-Islamic" life....

At Berlin's Turkish-dominated neighborhood near Kottbusser Tor in the Kreuzberg district, 17-year-old Erkan, a high school student of Turkish origin, was divided about the issue. "I'm not saying you should murder, but Hatin's lifestyle just didn't fit the way traditional Muslims live," he said.

Bat Ye'or on C-Span tomorrow morning

From C-Span:

On Sunday, February 27 at 7:30 am

Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis
Bat Ye'or

Description: Bat Ye'or talks about her new book, "Eurabia," at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. She looks at the relationship between European and Arab countries since the mid-20th century and argues that Muslims living in Western Europe have significantly influenced their governments' attitudes toward Israel and other countries in the Middle East. During the talk, she also discusses why Turkey should not be allowed into the European Union and addresses the question of European anti-Semitism. Bat Ye'or answers questions from the audience following her remarks.

Turkey: "There is nothing about religious tolerance here"

Stop the presses! Religious intolerance in (gasp) secular Turkey, heir of the illustrious Ottoman Empire! "Santa Claus statue row in Turkey," from the BBC, with thanks to Susan:

Residents of the Turkish province of Antalya have held a rally to denounce the removal of a statue of St Nicholas, commonly known as Santa Claus.

Local authorities replaced the statue of the saint holding a Bible with a plastic Santa-Claus.

The statue was a donation from Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has sent a complaint to the Turkish president....

Despite being a predominantly Muslim country, Turkey is proud of its St Nicholas connection.

Is that so? Then what explains this incident?

The Russian artist who sculpted the statue, Gregory Pototsky, reacted angrily to its removal.

"It is not decent to do such things with gifts. There is nothing about religious tolerance here," he told the Newsru.com web site.

Demre has become a major tourist attraction, with Russians comprising a large part of international holiday-makers in Antalya.

France: LePen's "racial hatred" conviction upheld

It is unfortunate that the only people saying things like this are Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose name is already so closely associated with racism and anti-Semitism. It further obfuscates the fact that Europe is facing an ideological threat, and that the only reason to object to Muslim population growth in Europe is not because Muslims are of a different race from Frenchmen. The court condemns Le Pen simply for noting this population growth; its decision shows that it is the official French view that such growth is benign, and no dissent is tolerated. But the court seems to have said nothing about the Sharia or the possibility of its coming to France with this growing population, and leading to the overhaul of French society and the denial of French history and culture. "Far-right leader’s conviction upheld," from AP, with thanks to Ian:

Le Pen, leader of the National Front party, was ordered to pay a £6900 fine for inciting racial hatred in comments in Le Monde newspaper two years ago.

Le Pen has been convicted of racism or anti-Semitism at least six times.

He blames immigrants, especially those from North Africa, for high unemployment and wants to deport all illegal immigrants.

He wants to deport illegal immigrants? Horror of horrors!

In the interview, Le Pen urged the French to beware of "the day in France when we have 25 million Muslims, not five million" — the estimated population of Muslims in France.

The appeals court in Paris said such comments could incite hatred. "In denouncing such a threat, Jean-Marie Le Pen tends to stir in the reader a feeling of hostility and rejection toward Muslims depicted as dominators," the written ruling stated.

'Insulted by a Jew'

Here is another case of dhimmitude coming to the UK. Islamic law stipulates that a dhimmi who does not behave respectfully toward a Muslim voids his contract of "protection." Riaz Burahee probably thought that 92 threatening phone calls was a perfectly reasonable response to an insult from a Jew. It reminds me of a recent incident in which a Christian church in the U.S. was sending out flyers inviting people to attend. A Muslim called the pastor in hot anger, telling him never to send him such material again -- and repeating again and again that he had "no right" to send him such a thing in the first place. And the church indeed had no right to do so, from the standpoint of the laws of the dhimma, which have become ingrained into Middle Eastern culture and so still frame interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims in many areas.

From SkyNews, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

A Muslim man bombarded synagogues with telephone calls for three days threatening to kill, rape and blow up Jews.

Riaz Burahee, 25, of Edmonton, north London, who has photographs of Osama bin Laden at his home, admitted 10 offences.

Wood Green Crown Court heard Burahee told police he made the calls because he had been insulted by a Jew.

The court heard he had made as many as 92 calls, telling people to leave the building or be bombed.

Burahee, who described himself as a Muslim with strong religious beliefs, said he had no links to terrorism.

Photographs of Bin Laden and militant US civil rights activist Malcolm X were found in his room.

Dutch expel fourth imam in anti-terror offensive

Anti-dhimmitude in Holland. Why aren't other countries doing more of this? From Expatica, with thanks to Nicolei:

AMSTERDAM — A cleric from a Rotterdam mosque has become the fourth imam to be ordered out of the Netherlands, it has been reported.

The fourth man was brought to an airport on Thursday, the biggest selling daily newspaper in the Netherlands, De Telegraaf, reported.

Although he was not named, the newspaper cited "well-informed sources" identifying him as an imam at Iskender Pasa Camii mosque on the Insulindestraat in the Rotterdam district of Bergpolder.

He was being expelled after being found to have provoked hatred and inciting people to jihad or holy war.

Iran girl gets 100 lashes for sex

How did they establish that she consented? This article doesn't say, but it was probably from the testimony of the men involved. Traditional Islamic law disallows a woman's testimony in such a case. From the BBC, with thanks to Kemaste:

A teenage girl and two young men in Iran have been sentenced to lashes for having sex.

The court dismissed the girl's claim that [she] was raped. It said she had sex of her own free will, the official Iran Daily newspaper reported.

The girl was sentenced to 100 lashes because her accusations of rape and kidnap could have landed her partners a death penalty, the Tehran judge said....

The young men in the case were sentenced to 30 and 40 lashes each. ...

Under Iranian law, girls over the age of nine and boys over 16 face the death penalty for crimes such as rape and murder, while capital punishment can be imposed in certain cases of illegal sexual relationships.

Nine year old girls facing the death penalty for rape: do you think they are the perpetrators?

Pakistan: Christian jailed for insulting Koran

The Sharia is not in force anywhere except Saudi Arabia and Iran, you'll hear. Christians enjoy rights equal to those of Muslims in other Muslim countries, you'll hear. Then why are there so many stories like this one?

From IOL.ie, with thanks to Nicolei:

A Pakistani court has convicted and sentenced a Christian man to seven years in prison for insulting Islam’s holy book, the Koran, as he practiced magic, police said today.

A court delivered the ruling on Monday against Bashir Masih, 35, in the town of Chistian, about 90 miles northeast of Multan, a major city in eastern Punjab province, said Haji Nazir Ahmed, a local police official.

Masih was arrested in August last year in the cotton-growing village of Chak 109 Fateh after a Muslim man complained to police that Masih was insulting the Koran by putting his legs on the holy book while he lay in bed at home, Ahmed said.

Ahmed said that after his arrest Masih told police he would place the Koran on his feet and tear out pages from the holy book on which he would write magic spells to put inside amulets that he’d give to fellow Christians.

This doesn't sound to me like anything anyone with the brains God gave a hamster would admit to doing in Pakistan, no matter what the actual facts of the case. This sounds to me more likely to be just another example of the way Christians are victimized by the blasphemy laws, which are so easy for Muslims to use against Christians they for some reason don't like or want around.

Masih was sentenced under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and moved to a jail in the nearby town of Bhawalnagar. He can appeal the sentence....

Under the blasphemy laws, anyone who insults the Koran, Islam or its prophet Muhammad can be punished by death. Throwing the holy book on the ground, touching it with feet or saying derogatory things about it are deemed insulting.

Human rights groups have demanded that the blasphemy laws be abolished. Christian groups allege persecution under the legislation.

Turkish Prime Minister's Lawsuits Draw Cartoonists' Ire

Let them into the EU! Note that Kart has drawn Erdogan's ire (that's right: he has irked the Turk) by noting the encroachment of Islam into public life in this secular state. From the LA Times, with thanks to Nicolei:

ANKARA, Turkey — This nation's best-known political cartoonists gathered in Istanbul on Wednesday to protest legal action taken by the prime minister against artists who criticized him through their work.

Members of the Turkish Cartoonists Assn. accuse Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of trying to stifle free expression even as Turkey is preparing to launch talks to win membership in the European Union.

"We cartoonists have long faced pressure from politicians," Metin Peker, the association's president, said at a news conference.

"Just as we thought those dark days were over, we have been confronted with this."

Peker was referring to a defamation suit filed recently by Erdogan against Musa Kart, a cartoonist for the secular daily newspaper Cumhuriyet. Kart was fined $3,500 by an Ankara court last week on charges of assailing Erdogan's honor in a cartoon that depicted him as a cat enmeshed in a ball of wool.

The work was published by Cumhuriyet in May, when the Turkish leader proposed a legislation that would allow graduates of Islamic clerical training schools to enter secular universities. In the cartoon, Erdogan, who is entangled in yarn labeled for the Islamic religious schools, says: "Do not create tensions. We shall resolve this matter."

Turkish secularists accused the former Islamist leader of doing just what the cartoon figure warned against by trying to increase the role of Islam in public life. The bill was rejected by the country's secularist president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

Give dhimmitude a chance

"Give peace a chance," by James Carroll in the Boston Globe, recounts a Jewish/Christian/Muslim meeting in Jerusalem to stand "against a global holy war."

In Jerusalem this week, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have gathered to examine the ways their own respective theologies -- "I'm saved, and you're not!" -- have sacralized this habit of negation, making it a source of political denigration, even violence. More accurately, we Jews, Christians, and Muslims are searching our traditions for countering sources of affirmation of the "other," precisely as a way of standing against a global holy war.

This is the 18th International Theological Conference at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a long-established gathering of distinguished Jewish and Christian theologians (founded by Rabbi David Hartman and Harvard Divinity School Dean Emeritus Krister Stendahl), which, some years ago expanded to include Islamic religious thinkers.

This year several dozen men and women are arrayed around one large block of tables, about evenly divided among the three traditions, and among Europeans, Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, and others from the Middle East. Notre Dame, Duke, and the University of Arkansas are here; so are Lund, Haifa, Al Quds, and Bethlehem universities. A leading Catholic authority on Thomas Aquinas is here, together with a Protestant expert on Roger Williams, and a major scholar of Jewish political thought. A foremost Muslim-American scholar is here.

When this three-way seminar began a few years ago, the discussions were braced by the local war between Israel and Palestine. That remains, but now the new threat of a "civilizational" war between Islam and "the West" underscores the relevance of otherwise abstract discussions. But even before the "dialogue" begins, the presence at the table of Muslims from Europe and the United States requires an opening up of stereotypes: Are there no Muslims in "the West"? And what about the Palestinians who are Christian? As each group reexamines its attitude toward "the other," the titles of the formal presentations indicate the range of the week's moral and political reckoning:

"Catholic Struggles Toward Full Religious Liberty; Appreciating Vatican II."

"The Earliest Concept of an Islamic State with Non-Muslim Citizens."

"Beyond Bi-Polarity: Shared Civic Discourse of Jews and Non-Jews."

"Roger Williams on Civil Rule and the Religiously Other."

"Building an Islamic Theology of Pluralism: Pre-modern Sources."

"Ways of Peace in Rabbinic Literature."

Such topics might once have seemed impossibly arcane, but not here; not now. Justice for Palestinians, authentic security for Israel -- the very peace of the world are all at stake in such questions. For every person at the table, any temptation to devotional piety is preempted by the acknowledged fact of history, put succinctly by a rabbi; "Religion has never been a source of tolerance. Again and again we must ask, 'Why has there been all this killing in the name of God?' " Instead of glibly honoring the Christian tradition as a source of peace, a Jesuit salutes the civic tolerance made possible by the French Revolution. A Muslim declares simply that the self-aggrandizing of much contemporary Islamic thought represents "a new idolatry." Speakers from all three traditions admit the gap between the shared ideals of compassionate love and the failures of the past and present.

There is more than a whiff of what in Islam Unveiled I term "theological equivalence" in all this. "Shared ideals of compassionate love"? I wonder if James Carroll would be so kind as to show where the ideal of compassionate love for non-Muslims can be found in Islam.

Also, Nicolei observes: "Today, Jews and Christian do not kill their apostates or infidels. Neither do their synagogues or churches teach such doctrines. Nor are there secular laws in nations of Judeo-Christian heritage that punish apostates or laws based on a dhimmi system. Jews and Christians can separate religion from the state; Muslims tenets simply do not allow for such separation. The fact is that Muslims are free to practice Islam, proselyte and build their mosques in the West, while such liberties are restricted or non-existent for non-Muslim religions in Muslim nations -- particularly in the Arabian peninsula." Let's see a seminar deal with all that.

Rangel: Don't Call it 'Islamic Terrorism'

Ranking House Dhimmicrat Charlie Rangel repeats what by now are well-worn pieties re Islam. From NewsMax, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Top House Democrat Charlie Rangel said Tuesday that it was an act of discrimination to label groups like Hezbollah "Islamic terrorists."

Asked about the refusal by some European governments to declare Hezbollah an Islamic terror group, Rangel told WWRL's Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter, "To call it Islamic terror is discriminating, it's bigoted, it is not the right thing to say."

Rangel even questioned whether, in fact, a worldwide Islamic terrorist movement even existed, saying, "We just take for granted that there is an Islamic terror movement because we do have some fanatic people who come from Islamic countries."

The Harlem Democrat complained: "When we had the Ku Klux Klan we didn't call them Baptist terrorists. When Hitler was killing Jews, we didn't call it Christian terrorists."

Now pay attention, Charlie: I'm only going to say this around 10,000 times. The KKK and Hitler could not and did not invoke Christian theology to justify their actions. Islamic jihadists, in contrast, routinely invoke Islamic theology and tradition to justify what they do and recruit new members from the larger Muslim community. Until you and other pols from the President on down understand and acknowledge this, you will simply not be addressing the problem of Islamic terrorism at its roots. But unfortunately, all your denials that it exists are not going to make Islamic terrorism go away.

More schoolbook dhimmitude

I give the history of Muhammad's massacre of the Qurayzah Jews in Onward Muslim Soldiers. But American schoolchildren are learning a somewhat different version. "Module for Teaching Islamic History in Public Schools Unfairly Maligns the Qurayzah Jews," by Andre Rublev at the 6th Column Against Jihad blog:

Due to the exponential growth in demand for information about Islamic history, we cannot ignore the intense competition over what version of events our children will learn. After all, the impact of first impressions on impressionable young minds cannot be underestimated. Well ahead of the game, the Council on Islamic Education has prepared a teaching module for use in public high and middle schools whose sole purpose is to pre-empt all negative impressions relating to Muhammad’s harsh treatment of the Bani Qurayzah following the Battle of the Trench.

The CIE is not a stranger to controversy. William Bennetta of the California-based Textbook League first pointed out the CIE’s pernicious influence over history textbooks used in American schools in both the March-April and July-August 2000 issues of The Textbook Letter [1, 2]. More recently, Gilbert T. Sewall of the American Textbook Council in New York City made similar observations. In his 2003 publication “Islam and the Textbooks” Sewall described the CIE as “a content gatekeeper with virtually unchecked power over publishers” [3]. The CIE is also involved with teacher training and the preparation of supplemental teaching modules. The module in question incorporates the controversial Public Television special “Legacy of a Prophet” and adds insult to injury by going so far as to vilify the hapless Qurayzah.

No account of Muhammad’s time in Medina can inconspicuously gloss over this incident because it is linked to Muhammad’s most important victory over Mecca. The historical setting is referred to as the “Hiraj.” This began when Muhammad and his followers relocated from Mecca to Yathrib in 622 after two rival tribes had asked him to mediate an exhausting civil war. During the following six years, Muhammad sealed important alliances by way of diplomacy and marriage. He also built up the wealth and military prestige of the Muslim community by raiding caravans organized by the Quraysh and by appropriating the property of banished tribes. Yathrib was later re-named “Medina” in Muhammad’s honor.

Consequently, the Quraysh sent forces from Mecca to put an end to Muhammad’s disruption of their trade, culminating in the “Battle of the Trench” in 627. Muhammad’s success in outlasting the siege was a turning point in his rivalry with the leadership of Mecca. By the time of his death in 632 most of the Arab peninsula was consolidated under Islam.

In 622, Medina was also inhabited by three large tribes of Jews; the Bani Nadir, the Bani Qaynuqah, and the Bani Qurayzah. By 627, both the Bani Nadir and the Banu Qaynuqa had been expelled to Khaybar, a region north of Medina. During their final attempt to subdue Medina, the Meccans sent envoys to the Bani Qurayzah hoping to win their support. The Meccans had already obtained the support of the two exiled Jewish tribes now living in Khaybar. Although hesitant at first, the Qurayzah finally sided with the Meccans as the siege dragged on. However, before the Qurayzah could effectively act on their decision the Meccans broke the siege due to foul weather. Well aware of the Qurayzah’s dealings with the Meccans, the Muslims now laid siege to the Qurayzah fortress until they surrendered. Mortally wounded Arab chief Sa'd ibn Muadh was chosen by Muhammad to decide their fate. He ruled that all the men should be killed, and all the women and children be sold into slavery. The next day, between 700 and 900 men of the Bani Qurayzah were beheaded [4, 5].

To present this massacre to American high school students in a more positive light, the CIE module emphasizes the alleged “treachery” of the Qurayzah [6]. Below are no less than seven sentences or phrases from the lesson plan that use the t-word:

1) Title: The Concept of Treason in Comparative Law
2) Overview: This lesson explores the theme of treason.
3) Students should be able to…analyze the issue of treason in the United States Constitution and during the Battle of the Trench.
4) Have students organize into groups and read Student Handout: The Battle of the Trench, which contains background information on the Battle of the Trench, the comments of Professor Firestone on the Bani Qurayzah, and the clause on treason in the third article of the United States Constitution.
5) Why would the siding of the Bani Qurayzah with the Quraysh be seen as treason?
6) Could the definition of treason given in Section 3, Article 3 of the Constitution apply to the actions of the Bani Qurayzah? If so, why?
7) Why do you think treason is punished so severely in U.S. law? Give several reasons.

The authors of this module, Susan Douglass and Aiyub Palmer, are not alone in being so heavy-handed with the unfortunate Qurayzah. In her bestseller “Muhammad” Karen Armstrong points out that, “In the early seventh century, an Arab chief would not be expected to show any mercy to traitors like the Qurayzah” [7]. Armstrong is one of the featured narrators on “Legacy of a Prophet” and a frequent guest on Public Television and National Public Radio.

These charges against the Qurayzah are based on their failure to uphold the principles laid out in Muhammad’s Constitution of Medina, which presumably provided equal rights to both Muslims and Jews. Furthermore, Muhammad had tried to ingratiate himself with the Jews by initially instructing his followers pray facing Jerusalem, but his relations with these tribes were reportedly tense from the start. The Public Television website based on “Legacy of a Prophet” suggests “This was probably a matter of local politics” [4]. But it is difficult to imagine how any group of non-Muslims could feel at ease with a document that acknowledges Muhammad as “God’s apostle.” Since no Jewish account has been recovered, we may never really know their side of the story. The best we can do for now is to follow Muslim accounts leading up to this terrible event to put the Qurayzah’s actions in perspective.

In 624 two Arab poets, an old man and a young mother of five were assassinated in their sleep for insulting the prophet. Most sources agree that the murders of Abu Afak and Asma bint Marwan were carried out with Muhammad’s blessings, even though their poetry only ridicule and satire. In the same year, the Qaynuqah were expelled and Muhammad ordered the assassination of Ka’b Ibn Ashraf, a poet and Nadir chief who was trying to garner up support among the Meccans for deposing Muhammad.

The expulsion of the Qaynuqah started with a picaresque incident at an outdoor market whereby some Qaynuqah youths played a trick on a Muslim girl that exposed her private parts. In the resulting melee, one Muslim and one Jew were killed. Unable or unwilling to resolve this incident peacefully, Muhammad’s forces laid siege to the Qaynuqah until they agreed to leave with little more than their lives.

The expulsion of the Bani Nadir during the next year is even more peculiar. In a case of mistaken identity, Muslims killed two members of the Bani Amir, a Bedouin tribe that had recently formed an alliance with Muhammad. Consequently, Muhammad’s community was obligated to pay blood money to the Amir chief, and Muhammad asked the Nadir to share the costs. The Nadir leadership apparently agreed to this request, but with no explanation, Muhammad cut short his visit to their tribal elders. He later told his companions that the angel Gabriel had revealed to him a plot for his assassination organized by members of the Nadir. Based on this “evidence,” the Nadir were banished under the same conditions of the Qaynuqah that had preceded them [5].

The murder of two poets guilty of “intellectual attack,” the murder of one of their chiefs, and the poor handling of the vulgar incident involving the Qaynuqah gave the Nadir strong motives for eliminating Muhammad. However, motive alone does not make you guilty, and no decent tribunal can accept evidence provided by one man’s “divine revelation.” No doubt the Qurayzah saw the writing on the wall.

It could be argued that Muhammad’s annihilation of this tribe was a matter of self-preservation. After all, had the Qurayzah been merely expelled, they could have later re-grouped with the Qaynuqah and Nadir, who Muhammad’s forces were to confront the next year in Khaybar. In effect, the Qurayzah’s co-existence with the Muslims had become a zero-sum game, but in view of their de-facto second-class status, the Qurayzah’s collaboration with the Meccans could hardly qualify as “treason.” In fact, even the Constitution of Medina’s guarantee of “equal protection” is ambiguous at best. For example, point 15 of this document states that “Believers are friends one to the other to the exclusion of outsiders” [8]. Incredibly, the CIE still finds it appropriate to encourage students to draw an analogy between the Constitution of Medina and the Mayflower Compact [9]!

How do we counter the CIE’s flagrant distortions when most Americans know so little about the early history of Islam? No doubt senators, representatives, and even educators will be reluctant to do their homework on the Qurayzah’s circumstances leading up to the Battle of the Trench. This is not the kind of information that can be reduced to a sound-byte, and the narratives that are easiest to read are usually written by mealy-mouthed Islam apologists. In fact, Karen Armstrong’s “Islam: A Short History” now forms a part of the reading list that General John R. Vines has assigned to his top staff members now serving in Iraq [10]. It is troubling enough that officials who are on the frontline in the War on Terror are relying on the questionable scholarship of this self-described “free-lance monotheist,” whose spiritual disorientation is thoroughly demonstrated in her book’s total surrender to moral relativism [11]. But since American-based Islamist organizations like the CIE are too young to have influenced the general’s secondary education, things could be worse: Try to imagine the reading preferences of a CIE-indoctrinated generation of American leaders. Isn’t it time we gave our representatives some real history lessons?

Notes:

1. http://www.textbookleague.org/111muha.htm
2. http://www.textbookleague.org/113centu.htm
3. http://www.historytextbooks.org/islam.htm
4. http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/ma_jews.shtml
5. Maxime Rodinson “Mohammed” (1971) Pantheon Books, pp 171, 172, 176, 191, 193, 211-213
6. http://www.cie.org/teachers/LessonPlans/Legacy/default1.asp?section=11
7. Karen Armstrong “Muhammad” (1992) Harper’s, p 208
8. http://www.constitution.org/cons/medina/con_medina.htm
9. http://www.cie.org/teachers/LessonPlans/Legacy/default1.asp?section=9
10. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/01/16/international/middleeast/16command.gif
11. http://www.meforum.org/article/115

So if the two-year-old consents...

Yes, Aisha was betrothed to Muhammad when she was six years old, but two years old? Isn't that a bit much even for Pakistani law? Well, no. Note what Rashid Rahman says below. It's not that she's a minor, it's that it's against her will. So if someone slips a piece of candy to the little one and thereby obtains her consent to the marriage, I guess it's ok, once the fine is paid. "Pakistanis Order Betrothal of 2-Year-Old," from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

MULTAN, Pakistan - A tribal council in Pakistan has ordered the betrothal of a 2-year-old girl to a man 40 years older to punish her uncle for an alleged affair with the man's wife, police said Monday.

The council decreed the girl must marry 42-year-old Mohammed Altaf, her uncle's cousin, when she turns 18, police said.

Altaf, a farmer, divorced his 32-year-old wife over her alleged love affair with his 20-year-old cousin, Mohammed Akmal. Akmal, a bachelor and also a farmer, has no children.

Altaf asked tribal elders in the village of Kacha Chohan, about 215 miles west of the city of Multan in Punjab province, to convene a panchayat, or council, on Feb. 15 to arbitrate and propose a punishment. As punishment, the elders ordered the girl's betrothal and ruled Akmal should also pay a $3,800 fine to the husband....

Police chief Maqsoodul Hassan said an investigation has been started into the case involving the 2-year-old girl, but they have made no arrests as no one had filed a complaint....

Rashid Rahman, a lawyer and Multan-based coordinator with the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, condemned the village council's decision.

"These types of panchayats are illegal and nobody has the right to take a decision about a child's life," he said. "This country has its legal system and all decisions should be taken under it."

He said that the betrothal of a minor did not itself break the law, but forcing a woman to marry against her will carried a maximum 14-year jail sentence. Underage marriage is also illegal but is only punishable by a fine.

What's that? You don't believe me about Muhammad and Aisha? Here it is straight from the hadith collection accepted by Muslims as most reliable:

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 58, Number 234:

Narrated Aisha:
The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, "Best wishes and Allah's Blessing and a good luck." Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah's Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age.

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64:

Narrated 'Aisha:
that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).

"The Qu'ran [sic] accepts religious pluralism and sees strength in diversity"

That should be "Qur'an," and that small mistake is a reflection of the general ignorance about Islam that pervades this story from the Montgomery Advertiser, "Entertainment media's Muslims bear little resemblance to reality" (thanks to EPG). Reporter Darryn Simmons seems to have gone to the Masjid Qasim B El-Amin in Montgomery to ask about Fox's "24," and has credulously reported as fact all the half-truths and distortions the people there fed him.

It starts with a red herring:

If they just watch TV and movies, Americans may think that many of those who believe in Islam are Arab terrorists, but local Muslim Ahmad Hasan said most Muslims aren't even of Arab descent.

"That's the most ironic thing," Hasan said. "They portray Arabs as representing the religion, when, in truth, the number of Arabs that are Muslims is a minute percentage."

I guess this is supposed to illustrate the ignorance of the masses, but in this context it isn't even relevant. I myself have pointed out many times that most Muslims worldwide aren't Arabs and most Arabic speakers in the U.S. aren't Muslim, but what of it? How does it show that Fox is way off base? After all, there are Arab Muslims, and Arab Muslim jihadists. It isn't as if the producers of "24" invented the concept. It looks as if the people in the Montgomery mosque want us to regard Arab Muslim jihadists the way we would regard Pennsylvania Amish car bombers.

And from the Ironic Juxtaposition Department:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) took Fox to task about the "24" episode in the publication Broadcasting and Cable.

Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for CAIR, said that the show is "taking everyday American Muslim families and making them suspects ... it's very dangerous and very disturbing."...

Abdullah said he didn't complain to the station, and he isn't surprised to know that other Muslims did not.

"When you complain, it makes you look small," he said. "It naturally bothers us of course, but we don't complain to people about it -- we complain to God."

The reporter doesn't seem to have asked Abdullah whether he thinks CAIR looks small for complaining about "24."

"It doesn't make sense," he said. "Muslims are not like this, and Islam is an excellent religion -- but if a lie is told often enough people begin to think it's the truth."

Ain't it the truth! In fact, here comes a whopper now:

Muslims do not believe in converting people to their religion by force. In fact, the Qu'ran (or Koran) accepts religious pluralism and sees strength in diversity.

Note the language: the "Qu'ran" (sic) accepts "pluralism" and "diversity." Whoever it was at the mosque who told this to Simmons has mastered the art of pushing today's most effective cultural hot buttons. Muslims believe in diversity, you see. Not like those nasty Christians.

But of course, Simmons asked nothing about the humiliations and second-class status mandated for non-Muslims by Islamic law, and rooted in the Qur'an (9:29). "Pluralism"? "Diversity"? "The subject peoples," according to a manual of Islamic law, must "pay the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)" and "are distinguished from Muslims in dress, wearing a wide cloth belt (zunnar); are not greeted with 'as-Salamu 'alaykum' [the traditional Muslim greeting, "Peace be with you"]; must keep to the side of the street; may not build higher than or as high as the Muslims' buildings, though if they acquire a tall house, it is not razed; are forbidden to openly display wine or pork . . . recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals or feastdays; and are forbidden to build new churches." If they violate these terms, the law further stipulates that they can be killed or sold into slavery at the discretion of the Muslim leader. (‘Umdat al-Salik, o11.3, 5.)

Yeah. That's pluralism and diversity, all right. But like virtually every other reporter, he accepted what Muslims told him at face value, without probably even being aware that he might need to employ a bit of critical thinking in this regard.

Israel: The propagandizing press

The propaganda jihad is nowhere more sophisticated or virulent than in Israel. Not only does the Palestinian media fabricate Israeli atrocities; the Israeli media does too. From "Citizens should insist on a fair press" in the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to JS:

A particularly flagrant Israeli example was Ilana Dayan's report on the October 5 shooting of a 13-year-old girl in Gaza by IDF soldiers. Initially, the soldiers claimed to have no idea that Iman al-Hams was a schoolgirl; they merely saw an unidentified Palestinian carrying a backpack near their outpost, where no innocent Palestinian had reason to be, and concluded that it was a bomber coming to attack them.

Later, however, several soldiers accused their company commander of "confirming the kill" – i.e. shooting al-Hams repeatedly at close range, where he could not have avoided seeing that she was a schoolgirl. (The star prosecution witness in the commander's trial has since admitted in court that his "eyewitness" account of this "confirmed kill" was a lie.)

After the "confirmed kill" story broke, Dayan broadcast an investigative report into it on Fact, the acclaimed television news magazine she anchors. The IDF subsequently accused her of having distorted, or even fabricated, parts of the report in a libelous fashion. Most egregiously, the IDF said, she tacked footage of the soldiers celebrating onto the footage of them shooting, so that anyone watching would assume they were celebrating al-Hams' death.

In reality, the celebration footage came from a Rosh Hashana party several weeks earlier – a fact Dayan admitted when confronted.

Tacking unrelated celebration scenes onto the ostensible footage of al-Hams's killing (in reality, the shooting scenes also turned out to be from a different incident) is indeed slanderous fabrication; it implies that the soldiers rejoiced over having killed a schoolgirl.

Yet not only did Dayan pay no price; her media colleagues vigorously defended her right to indulge in such fabrications.

Her boss, program editor Doron Glazer, for instance, dismissed the incident by declaring: "The chief of staff has more important work to do than attacking Fact." And Haaretz columnist Ehud Asheri went even further, writing that Dayan was not guilty of "tendentious and intentional fabrication," because "the celebration scene was shown in the context of the general atmosphere in the company."

In other words, since Dayan believed – rightly or wrongly – that those particular soldiers were capable of celebrating a schoolgirl's death, it was legitimate for her to fabricate footage that showed them doing so when they did not.

French TV Sticks by Discredited Story That Fueled Palestinian Intifada

Despite mounting evidence that it was all a fraud, French journalists are sticking by their Mohammed al-Durra farrago. "French TV Sticks by Story That Fueled Palestinian Intifada," from CNSNews.com, with thanks to JS:

Paris (CNSNews.com) - A French journalist and an independent film producer who saw raw, unedited video of the shooting of a Palestinian boy in 2000 said it's not possible for the boy to have been shot by Israeli soldiers, as a French TV report claimed.

French state television is standing by its claim that the broadcast is authentic. The broadcast purportedly showed 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durra being shot by Israeli soldiers, an event that led to the current Palestinian intifada.

But Denis Jeambar, editor-in-chief of the French news weekly l'Express, and filmmaker Daniel Leconte, a producer and owner of the film company Doc en Stock, say the videocassette is full of staged scenes of faked injuries.

Jeambar and Leconte were allowed by the France 2 network to view an unedited master video cassette of the incident, which took place in September 2000 at Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip. Leconte said he is satisfied that the shooting really happened, but he does not believe the bullets that struck the child could have been fired by Israeli troops.

"The only ones who could hit the child were the Palestinians from their position," Leconte told Cybercast News Service. "If they had been Israeli bullets, they would be very strange bullets because they would have needed to go around the corner."

California: Mosque makeover reflects growing pride

"Towering symbol," from the Pasadena Star News, with thanks to EPG:

Sunday, February 20, 2005 - SAN GABRIEL -- Masjid Gabriel is undergoing a transformation that will add a minaret and domed roof traditional elements of Islamic architecture to the mosque.

But the changes are more than cosmetic.

The renovation also illustrates the changing nature of the American-Muslim identity, mosque leaders say. It reflects the pride Muslims share in their religion, a commitment to rediscover their historic roots and teachings and a desire to ensure Islam is passed to the next generation.

"We are doing this for the children who come here so they can identify themselves with their faith and their symbols,' said Imam Nissar Hai. "We may be immigrants, but they were born here and they have to feel that they belong here and to their faith and this is a symbol of our faith.'...

Even before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks or the war in Iraq, local Muslims said they felt occasional unease during difficult times such as the Islamic Revolution in Iran or the Gulf War.

But Hai said Americans have deepened their understanding of Islam in recent years and understand that most Muslims are not radicals, he said.

Great. Now why didn't the reporter, Marshall Allen, ask a few questions about this mosque's funding, and pick up some of its literature? There's no indication from this article that he looked at what was being taught there -- and plenty of indication that he should have, based on what is being taught in other American mosques.

The demand for new space is driven in part by the mosque's burgeoning children's after- school program. Children study Arabic and the Quran for several hours every Monday through Thursday. The number of students, toddlers to teens, has more than doubled to about 50 in the past two years, Hai said. The increased demand for children's education is partly a result of the Sept. 11 attacks, Hai said. Initially, the mosque's membership declined after the attacks, but then the Muslim community seemed to take them as a wake-up call, he said. The American-Muslim community was feeling comfortable before Sept. 11, and then faced criticism of Islam, Hai said.

"So when you feel under attack you want to go back to your roots,' he said. "It made us stronger.'

"You want to go back to your roots." They study Qur'an for several hours for four days a week. Why don't reporters ask them at such points what they think about the roots of Islam that involve working to impose Sharia rule? Why don't they ask them what they do about the Qur'an's harshness toward non-Muslims and commands to make war against them?

The time is long past for more intelligent reporting on Islamic issues, but we aren't even close to getting it.

Baton Rouge: learning about Islam?

"Learning About Islam," from the Bogalusa Daily News, with thanks to EPG:

FRANKLINTON - "Many of us fear what we don't know," Imam Jehad Mahmoud said yesterday to members and guests of the Franklinton Rotary Club.

Mahmoud, who serves as president of the Islamic Center of Baton Rouge, spoke to the Rotarians yesterday to provide a brief lesson on the foundations of the Islamic faith n and in hopes of putting common myths and misconceptions of the faith to rest.

"If I talk about Islam, I'll be talking about Christianity, I'll be talking about Judaism…" Mahmoud said. "We are all the same."

"The Religion before Allah is Islam: Nor did the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] dissent therefrom except through envy of each other, after knowledge had come to them. But if any deny the Signs of Allah, Allah is swift in calling to account." (Qur'an 3:19)

Mahmoud also addressed a misconception sparked from radical Muslims that eternal salvation is guaranteed by killing an infidel. "No one can be assured he is going to Heaven," and it is considered a blasphemy to state that belief. "The only way for any person to get to Heaven is through God himself."

In addition, Muslims are taught that anyone who commits suicide "will stay in Hellfire for eternity, committing suicide."

"Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth..." (Qur'an 9:111)

"We pray in congregation, with the men in front, and the women in back," Mahmoud explained.

However, it is not because women are seen as inferior to men, he said, but instead it is "out of respect and protection." Because Muslims kneel to the ground during prayer, and "men have weak hearts," the men must always pray in front of the women.

In addition, men cannot "expose anything between the belly button and knees, and women can only expose their hands and face. However, the Muslim dress code is a choice, he said, adding that he's even heard of Muslims who have attended nudist camps.

I believe nudist camps might be out of the question for believing Muslims as well: "And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye Believers! turn ye all together towards Allah, that ye may attain Bliss." (Qur'an 24:31)

CAIR condemns '24'—but it won’t condemn Islamic terrorists

Joel Mowbray at TownHall (thanks to Nicolei) on Fox's dhimmitude and CAIR's inconsistency:

What has Fox’s hit TV show “24” done to prompt TV Guide to report “24 in Hot Water” and Entertainment Weekly to ask, “Has ‘24’ Gone Too Far?”?

Its bad guys are terrorists who are… Muslims. That’s it.

Few of us need reminding that we are not simply waging a war against terror, but against the radical Islam that animates the enemy. The enemy is not coincidentally Muslim, but they are the enemy because their radicalized version of Islam tells them to be. “24,” so far at least, understands that.

An aside: Neither Mowbray nor anyone else has yet produced a non-radicalized version of Islam that is convincing enough on Islamic grounds to neutralize the growth of terrorist movements.

Instead of kudos, though, “24” has courted considerable controversy. Making the most hay has been CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which bills itself as “America's largest Muslim civil liberties group.” A CAIR spokesman complained to Entertainment Weekly, “They are creating a new stereotype.”

What “new” stereotype? Muslims as terrorists? Blame the news for that one. Wait, no, blame the Jihadists the world over who still wish “death to America.” No one, including “24,” is claiming that all Muslims are terrorists, but as “24” Executive Producer Joel Surnow told Entertainment Weekly, “Muslims are the terrorists right now.”

Facts be damned, Fox bowed to CAIR’s scare tactics and agreed to air a public service announcement, with “24” star Kiefer Sutherland directly addressing the camera. Unfortunately, the spot included a line that may not be entirely true: “the American Muslim community stands firmly beside their fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting all forms of terrorism.”

It’s not considered polite to suggest that some American Muslims might not be with us, but there is too much evidence to ignore in the name of political correctness. The radical Islam we are fighting is not found only in places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, but right here inside our borders.

Virtually ignored by the entire mainstream media last week was a groundbreaking 67-page report issued by human rights group Freedom House, which detailed the poisonous contents of Saudi-funded and sponsored materials found in prominent American mosques.

On mosque library shelves were vitriolic Saudi screeds urging Muslims to, among other things, completely dissociate themselves from the “infidel” society, including refusing military service and citizenship. Other materials encourage Muslims to “curse” Jews and Christians, and still others encourage outright violence.

Many, or even most, mosque-goers may not be brainwashed by such bloodthirsty teachings, but is it even possible that such materials could be found in prominent American mosques if the entire Muslim community truly “stood firmly beside their fellow Americans”?

One group of Muslims that has not denounced “all forms of terrorism” is the one that pushed Fox to air the tolerance-touting ad: CAIR.

When four Americans were murdered (and burned, hanged, and mutilated) in Fallujah last year, CAIR pointedly refused to condemn the murders, only saying that mutilations were contrary to Islam—a position almost identical to infamous Fallujah cleric Sheikh Khalid Ahmed.

The Washington Post in November 2001 asked a CAIR spokesman to condemn Hamas or Islamic Jihad. He refused, explaining, “It’s not our job to go around denouncing.” Asked a similar question about Hamas and Hezbollah by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in February 2002, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper called such queries a “game” and added, “We’re not in the business of condemning.”

Worse still, for several months after 9/11, CAIR even refused to condemn Osama bin Laden for the murder of 3,000 Americans.

Veteran fans of “24” know from the three previous seasons that the ultimate enemy might still be off-camera. But all of us know that an organization that refuses to condemn the enemy is the enemy.

The Electronic Gutenberg

A new piece by Wolfgang Bruno:

Works such as ”The Coming of the Book” or "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change" have documented the monumental changes to Europe and Western civilization triggered by the introduction of printed books. Printing, already used in China for centuries, was reinvented in Europe by people like Johann Gutenberg. Its effects were immediate and profound. Perhaps 15 to 20 million copies of different books were printed even before the year 1500. Conservative estimates indicate that at least 150 to­ 200 million books were made in Europe during the 16th century. When Martin Luther put up his Theses in Wittenberg in Germany on 31st October, 1517, within 15 days they had been translated into German and summarised, printed as flysheets and distributed throughout every part of the country. Orders by Rome to burn books made by Luther and other Protestant heretics only served to trigger the curiosity of the masses. Attempts to silence the critics and re-impose strict censorship were futile. Banned books circulated in France in ever greater numbers despite all the regulations forbidding them. The tide of the first mass media revolution could not be held back.

To claim that the invention of the printing press alone created the Christian Reformation would be too simplistic. The Renaissance and a slowly expanding educated audience had created new forces and needs. Political backers such as Frederick the Wise of Saxony saved Luther’s life long enough for him to finish his work. Still, it is hard to see how the Reformation could have taken place in this manner without the printing press. The fates of other critics such as Jan Hus or Giordano Bruno might have been very different had they had Gutenberg’s invention at their disposal. At the very least, the printing press served as an important catalyst for and facilitated changes already underway.

Many have made comparisons between the Islamic world today and Christian Europe in the 16th century. As some like Robert Spencer have suggested, there may be closer analogies to the Wahhabi movement. However, it is possible that in hindsight, modern communication technology such as the Internet may prove a turning point no less crucial to Islam today than the printing press was to Christianity. The global number of Internet users is approaching one billion and growing fast. Now, the Internet may not be the magic vessel for unrestricted freedom of speech as was once hoped for, but it can still retain just enough flexibility to represent a potent challenge to authoritarian regimes and ideologies.

Mass communication and education will lead to contradictory results, and could even be imagined to strengthen Islam. The Islamic Umma, or community, can be viewed as an old-fashioned Arab tribe in its aggressive dealings with outsiders, and the demand of absolute loyalty within the community. With the introduction of Islam, a new “super-tribe” was born, directing Arab tribal aggression outwards instead of inwards, and what ex-Muslim Anwar Shaikh has called the Arab National Movement was created. Later, the Umma was taken to include all Muslims. Although this concept of a global community of Muslims supporting each other against the infidels has always been a central part of the Muslim world view, it has for the most part remained a theoretical construct. With globalization and even the spread of the infidel English language as the world’s lingua franca, Islamic communities across the planet can keep in closer contact than they have ever done before. Islamists immigrants in the West can take advantage of Western freedoms to mount an effective propaganda machine. Individual PC users now have more capacity at their fingertips than NASA had during its first moon launches, and setting up your own website is cheap and easy.

The new technology will give Islam a chance to realize its original aim of global universalism, and thus increase the clashes with the non-Muslim world. The revival of Muslim identity is spreading outside the Middle East, including Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Europe, where religious identity has traditionally not been as strong. This revival has been accompanied by a deepening solidarity among Muslims caught up in separatist struggles in Chechnya, Iraq, Kashmir and southern Thailand. Jihadist groups on the Internet are multiplying, as can be testified by the Internet Haganah. One can argue effectively that the current Islamic tensions have much more to do with long-term communications changes, combined with high birth rates and Saudi petrodollars, than with the policies of any specific countries like the USA or Israel.

Even if new media may in the short run actually assist Islamic extremism, it is conceivable that in the longer run, new media will challenge the very existence of Islam as we know it. The Internet and Muslim exposure to Western society has also created the first organized networks of ex-Muslims in history, the counterpart to the Jihadist websites. These ex-Muslim sites may still be of marginal importance, but it is hard to overestimate the monumental threat they pose to Islamic orthodoxy. Infidels should make use of this combination of ex-Muslims, the Internet and greater Western freedom of speech in a deliberate effort to copy the example of 16th century Europe. We should make a selection of, say, 20 or 30 of the best critical books written about Islam by ex-Muslims and non-Muslims. Pay the authors a substantial amount of money for the manuscripts, or buy the copyrights from whomever owns it. Make sure they understand that they receive a one-time sum in return for sharing their work with humanity. After this, the books in their full length should be made available in English on the Internet, perhaps later in translations into other major languages. From then on, anybody who wants to can freely download, copy, republish and reprint the books. This would trigger a chain reaction, as the printing press did with Luther’s pamphlets. The information would spread around the planet faster than CAIR can say “Islamophobia”. The genie would be out of the bottle, and no amount of intimidation, hacker attacks or “hate speech” lawsuits could return it to the bottle. In combination with funding and support to websites by ex-Muslims and some others like Jihad Watch, we would basically present Islam with a “sink or swim”-ultimatum: Islam will have to reform if it can, or Islam will die. The entire operation would cost some hundreds of millions of dollars, not more than what can be done quietly and unofficially. We can spend this small amount of money on a “Gutenberg Fund”, or we can use hundreds of billions of dollars on defensive measures that will do little to change Islam.

Since Islamists with the murder of Theo van Gogh demonstrated their fear of Western free speech and their desire to curb it, giving them such a hefty dose of it seems like a sweet and fitting reply. This initiative would not mark the end of the struggle, of course, but we would already have won a crucial, if not decisive victory. Christianity was up to the challenge presented by modern education and mass media. It’s time to find out whether Islam is similarly up to the challenge.

Wolfgang Bruno is a European author. He is writing a book about the Internet movement of ex-Muslims. All of Bruno's essays can be republished and reproduced for free by anybody who wants to.

SUNY Oswego tries and fails to ban Muslim speaker with alleged ties to British jihadist group

"SUNY Oswego tries to ban Muslim speaker for" (yes, that's really the headline), from SUNY's Daily Orange, with thanks to Ali Dashti:

Controversy surrounding a Muslim man's suspected connection to terrorists almost prevented funding for the keynote speaker's upcoming lecture on racism.

Abu Yousuf will speak Saturday at the State University of New York at Oswego, but the university's Muslim Student Association, which is sponsoring the event, did not obtain the funding easily.

Some members of SUNY Oswego's Student Association were concerned about claims in an Internet article claiming Yousuf has ties to Al-Muhajiroun, an extremist Islam group that has been linked to terrorist activity in other countries.

Fahad Samad, president of SUNY Oswego's Muslim Student Association, said the claims are false.

"Those are straight-forward lies," Samad said. "Those are accusations."

The Muslim Student Association defended Yousuf at the SUNY Oswego Student Association meeting Tuesday, and after some debate, the SA eventually gave the organization $800 to bring Yousuf to campus, said Alan Hershkowitz, a SUNY Oswego junior and SA senator.

Hershkowitz acknowledged there was initial confusion surrounding the speaker's identity.

"There was some stuff on the Internet about him, but we weren't sure if it was the same person. Abu Yousuf is a common name," he said.

SA passed the funding request because the allegation could not be verified, Hershkowitz said.

OK, which is it? Is the allegation that Abu Yousuf is connected to Al-Muhajiroun a "lie," as Samad says, or is this a case of possible mistaken identity, as Hershkowitz says? It is worth nothing that the original WND article that linked Abu Yousuf with Al-Muhajiroun portrays him as volunteering information about the connection, and also saying that he spoke regularly for the MSA: "Yousuf explained that he speaks at many colleges throughout the New York area, and that most of his speeches are arranged by the MSA." What steps did SUNY really take, if any, to find out whether or not they were dealing with the same person?

Swiss Think-tank Recommends Teaching Islam in Schools

How will helping Muslims adhere to their identity help them integrate into society? Does the Swiss Academy for Development have the first foggiest idea what Islam actually teaches about Muslim interaction with infidel societies? From IslamOnline, with thanks to Ali Dashti:

GENEVA, February 19, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – A Swiss think-tank has recommended teaching Islam in schools as it helps the second and third generation of the Muslim community integrate into society.

The Swiss Academy for Development (SAD) cited in a recent study the success story of teaching Islam in schools in the two cities of Kriens and Ebikon, central Switzerland, in the 2002/03 school year.

“The results of the experience exceeded all expectations and showed a positive feedback,” said the study, released on February 15.

“It can serve as a model for all cities across the country. Such schools encourage Muslim students adhere to their identity as they learn their religion in the languages used in the country,” it added, referring to the four official languages German, French, Italian and Romansch.

Egypt: Christian Fights "Contrived" Criminal Charges

I don't know Shafik Saleh Shafik, but I do know that there are many instances of Coptic Christian girls being kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam -- so many that even Pope Shenouda spoke out against this, despite his keen awareness of the risks involved in doing so. From Compass Direct, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

February 16 (Compass) -- The criminal trial of Egyptian Christian Shafik Saleh Shafik, begun in mid January, has been ordered postponed until February 20 by the presiding judge, who accepted defense petitions to summon key witnesses and police reports related to the case.

As the director of a home for troubled Coptic girls, Shafik faces criminal charges of holding Magda Refaat Gayed, 16, against her will and without her parents’ permission, beating her and attempting to rape her.

The defendant dismisses all the charges as “contrived” attempts to halt his recovery ministry among young Coptic girls, who he says are being enticed to leave their families and convert to Islam.

Magda had escaped from Shafik’s “safe-house” residence for girls in Cairo last September 6, the day after she arrived. Her parents had placed her there under Shafik’s guardianship when the girl was returned home by police, who located her living with an Islamist group two weeks after she had disappeared from home....

Shafik told Compass that he got an anonymous call from someone two weeks ago, asking him to accept into his care a Muslim girl who wanted to convert to Christianity. “This was clearly a set-up,” he said. “The fanatic groups have my phone number, and I sense they are trying to find out where my new safe-house is located.”

Read it all.

Qaradawi endorses death penalty for apostasy

A prominent Muslim writer has criticized non-Muslim critics of Sharia and dhimmitude for claiming that "apostasy from Islam was universally punished by death." And of course, he's right. No law in the history of the world has ever been universally enforced. But what's really disturbing about Islamic apostasy law is that some would like to see it enforced today: including the famous Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who has been hailed as a "reformist" by no less a luminosity than John Esposito.

From "Accusing Muslim Intellectuals of Apostasy," in MEMRI, with thanks to Ali Dashti:

Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi Advocates Implementing the Ridda Death Penalty

In an interview with the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, one of the most prominent clerics in Sunni Islam and among Islamist circles and a spiritual leader for the Muslim Brotherhood movement, discussed the view of modern religious law on carrying out the punishment for ridda, and permitted the murder of free Muslim intellectuals whose views differ from those of Islamist clerics.

Asked, "In Muslim society, has an individual the right to change his religion as he wishes?" Al-Qaradhawi drew a distinction between two types of ridda: "One of the freedoms that Islam does not accept is the freedom of ridda that expands [from the realm of the individual to that of the group] and threatens the social fabric and its foundations. [On the one hand,] there is limited ridda, and [on the other,] there is ridda that expands [from the individual to the group].

"Limited ridda is the ridda of the individual who switches religion and is not interested in others. According to Islam, the punishment for this individual is [Hell] in the world to come…

"But [the other] ridda, which expands [from the individual to the group], is a ridda in which the individual who abandons Islam calls [upon others] to do likewise, [thus creating] a group whose path is not the path of society and whose goal is not the goal of the [Muslim] nation, and whose allegiance is not to the Islamic nation. Such [individuals] endanger the social fabric, and they are like the murtaddoon [apostates], who were fought by [the first Caliph] Abu Bakr together with the Companions of the Prophet [the Sahaba]. Those murtaddoon falsely claimed that they were prophets with the same inspiration as was given to the Prophet Muhammad…"

Asked what the view of the modern Muslim sage should be about the danger of ridda, Al-Qaradhawi replied: "The gravest danger facing the Muslim is the one that threatens his spiritual existence – i.e., that threatens his belief. Therefore, apostasy, or unbelief after having been Muslim, is the gravest danger to society…

"In our generation, Muslim society has been subject to violent invasions and severe attacks aimed at uprooting it, and these were manifested by the invasion of Christian missionaries that began with Western colonialism and is continuing in the Islamic world and among the Islamic communities and minorities [outside the Muslim world] … [and by] the Communist invasion that destroyed entire Muslim countries in Asia and Europe and made every effort to eliminate Islam and remove it ultimately from people's lives … and by the third and worst invasion, the secular invasion that is continuing to this day in the heart of the Islamic world, sometimes openly and sometimes covertly, and which persecutes the true Islam…

"For Muslim society to preserve its existence, it must struggle against ridda from every source and in all forms, and it must not let it spread like wildfire in a field of thorns. This is what Abu Bakr and the companions did when they fought the people of ridda who followed the false prophets… There is no escape from struggling against and restricting the individual ridda so that it will not worsen and its sparks scatter, becoming group ridda… Thus, the Muslim sages agreed that the punishment for the murtadd [who commits ridda ] … is execution…"(3)

In his book 'Islam and Secularism,' Al-Qaradhawi explains: "The Muslim sages agreed unanimously that anyone who denies something that is known in the religion … is an apostate who abandons his religion. The Imam must demand of him to repent, and recant his deviation from the righteous path, or the laws regarding the murtadd will apply to him."

Christian convert killed in Iraq

Among the clearest evidence of the incompatibility of the Sharia with norms of human rights is its denial of freedom of conscience, and death penalty for those who leave Islam. Here is another story showing that that penalty is by no means a thing of the past. It will be interesting to see what happens to Abd al-Salam in a country where there are many who want to see Sharia rule implemented. From AsiaNews, with thanks to Emergency Room:

Zakho (AsiaNews/MEC) – A Christian convert from Islam was killed for his faith. Ziwar Muhammad Isma’il, who worked as a taxi driver in Zakho in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, was shot dead by Abd al-Karim Abd al-Salam at a taxi station early on the morning of February 17.

Abd al-Salam approached Ziwar and told him to return to Islam. When Ziwar refused he opened fire with an automatic rifle.

Abd al-Salam fled but was chased by other taxi drivers who, after apprehending him, turned him over to the police.

Abd al-Salam claims that the prophet Muhammad appeared to him in a dream and told him to kill the Christian.

Ziwar, who converted to Christianity seven years ago, leaves a widow and five children. He had been quite open about his faith even though he had been threatened by his relatives and other Muslims. He had been arrested twice but never charged.

Taslima Nasreen seeks Indian citizenship

How Sharia intransigence causes a brain drain. "Govt looking into Taslima Nasreen's plea," from Rediff.com, with thanks to Fanabba:

Nasreen, who is facing death threat from radical Islamic groups in Bangladesh, has sought Indian citizenship saying her country of origin has 'slammed the doors' on her. Fundamentalist outfits in Bangladesh issued death threat against her in 1994 for her 'blasphemous' writings.