Recently in mosques Category

Cigarette trafficking has been used to fund Hizballah.

"Mosque Leader Charged in Cigarette Smuggling Ring," from IPT News, January 23:

A leader of a South Carolina mosque was among 11 men arrested in a cigarette trafficking and money laundering scheme spanning several states. A 26-count indictment issued in November and unsealed last week accused Nasser Alquza, president of the Central Mosque of Charleston, and others of conspiracy, receiving stolen property, and related charges.

The arrests followed a government sting operation in which Alquza and other defendants allegedly purchased over 6,800 cases of "stolen" Marlboro cigarettes from undercover agents in exchange for over $7.5 million, the indictment said. The proceeds from the "stolen" cigarettes, whose wholesale value was in excess of $15 million, was then laundered through legitimate businesses owned or controlled by the defendants....

The indictment highlighted the illegal sale of cigarettes as a serious problem facing law enforcement. It detailed how criminal enterprises purchased large volumes of cigarettes in states with low cigarette taxes such as North and South Carolina and illegally transported them to states with higher cigarette taxes where they were sold without paying the sales tax for higher profits.

The case is reminiscent of a Hizballah fundraising operation from the 1990s based out of Charlotte, N.C., in which 18 defendants led by Mohamad Hammoud were responsible for the illegal smuggling of more than $8 million worth of cigarettes from North Carolina to Michigan. Profits from the cigarette sales were sent to Hizballah in Lebanon. In 2002, Hammoud was sentenced to 150 years in prison. A judge subsequently reduced Hammoud's sentence to 30 years....

In Human Events I discuss some new allegations that show yet again how willfully blind the Obama Administration's approach to jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism really is:

It is now official U.S. Government policy that Islam has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism, and that therefore any examination of the stated motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists constitutes “Islamophobia” and must be shunned, as well as punished. But new revelations this week from a confessed jihad plotter indicate that this is exactly the opposite policy of what should have been adopted.

A young Muslim named Abdel Hameed Shehadeh recently tried to join the U.S. Army, not out of patriotism but as part of a plan to surprise American soldiers and murder them in the name of Islam and jihad. But he was caught, and began talking; if even some of the information he has given investigators is accurate, he has exposed a jihad network of impressive proportions that should end politically correct self-deception in law enforcement officials’ approach to the problem of jihad terrorism in the United States.

Shedaheh provided the FBI with enough information to fill a 22-page report that is so incriminating to him personally that his lawyers are now trying to suppress it. Those he named would also no doubt like to see his report suppressed. According to the New York Daily News, Shehadeh was “a fount of information.” Among the jihad plotters he named were “Brooklyn teachers of the Islamic orthodoxy Salafism” and Muslims who “delivered pro-jihadist speeches at mosques or ranted in online chat rooms.”

The Islamic advocacy establishment in the U.S. insists that all Muslims in this country happily accept Constitutional freedoms and pluralism, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is a venomous “Islamophobe.” If Shehadeh’s claims are true, however, Salafism, a form of hardline Islam that calls for the imposition of Islamic law in its fullness, including stonings, beheadings, amputations, and warfare against unbelievers, is being preached not just in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran, but also right here in Brooklyn.

And while the politically correct media establishment demands that we accept that mosques in the U.S. are exactly equivalent to churches and synagogues, nothing more, nothing less, Shehadeh claims that pro-jihad sermons are being preached in mosques in the New York area. This isn’t really surprising, despite the fact that it goes against the iron dogma to which the government, the mainstream media and Islamic spokesmen in America all adhere. In 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999, and asserted that 80% of American mosques taught the “extremist ideology.”

There is more.

In FrontPage this morning I discussed the little-noted implications of Abdul Hameed Shehadeh's allegations:

Abdel Hameed Shehadeh wanted to join the U.S. Army so that he could turn and kill American soldiers. Instead, he has exposed a jihad network of impressive proportions that, if his assertions are true, should end the rush toward politically correct self-deception in the way law enforcement officials approach the problem of jihad terrorism in the United States.

The criminal complaint against him says that he “and several other individuals” were being charged “in connection with a plot to travel overseas and wage violent jihad against the United States and other coalition military forces.” Shehadeh had planned to wage this jihad from within the U.S. military: in 2008, he went to a recruiting station in Times Square and attempted to join the Army, so that he could, according to law enforcement officials, get training that he could use “to fight beside fellow Muslims against their enemies, including United States military forces.”

But things didn’t work out that way. Shehadeh got caught, and quickly began cooperating with authorities. He gave FBI agents a lengthy interview that fills a 22-page report that his lawyers are now trying to deep-six: although Shehadeh gave the interview in an attempt to get a better deal for himself, he quickly started worrying about “how much I incriminated myself,” and so now wants the report suppressed.

Those he named no doubt also want his report suppressed. According to the New York Daily News, Shehadeh was “a fount of information.” Among the jihad plotters he mentions in the report are “Brooklyn teachers of the Islamic orthodoxy Salafism” and Muslims who “delivered pro-jihadist speeches at mosques or ranted in online chat rooms.”

Salafism is a form of hardline Islam that calls for the imposition of Islamic law in its fullness, including stonings, beheadings, amputations, and warfare against unbelievers. Salafis just made a strong showing in Egypt’s elections. But in the U.S., the Islamic establishment insists that all Muslims happily accept constitutional freedoms and pluralism, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is a venomous “Islamophobe.” If Shehadeh’s claims are true, however, Salafism is being preached in Brooklyn, and pro-jihad sermons are being preached in mosques in the New York area – and the Islamic establishment claims about the Muslim community in the U.S. are false.

There is more.

In 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999, and asserted that 80% of American mosques taught the "extremist ideology."

Then there was the Center for Religious Freedom's 2005 study, and the Mapping Sharia Project's 2008 study. Each independently showed that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule.

And in the summer of 2011 came another study showing that only 19% of mosques in U.S. don't teach jihad violence and/or Islamic supremacism.

And now here is more on the latter study:

Study Shows U.S. Mosques Repositories of Sharia, Jihad, and Muslim Brotherhood Literature and Preachers

Peer-reviewed study most extensive empirical examination of U.S. mosques to date

December 12, 2011 – New York, New York: A leading international peer-reviewed journal specializing in the empirical study of terrorism has published a study that found that 80% of U.S. mosques provide their worshippers with jihad-style literature promoting the use of violence against non-believers and that the imams in those mosques expressly promote that literature.

The study also found that when a mosque imam or its worshippers were “sharia-adherent,” as measured by certain behaviors in conformity with Islamic law, the mosque was more likely to provide this violent literature and the imam was more likely to promote it.

The abstract for the study summarizes the research findings:

A random survey of 100 representative mosques in the U.S. was conducted to measure the correlation between Sharia adherence and dogma calling for violence against non-believers. Of the 100 mosques surveyed, 51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all. Mosques that presented as Sharia adherent were more likely to feature violence-positive texts on site than were their non-Sharia-adherent counterparts. In 84.5% of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts. The leadership at Sharia-adherent mosques was more likely to recommend that a worshipper study violence-positive texts than leadership at non-Sharia-adherent mosques. Fifty-eight percent of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad. The leadership of mosques that featured violence-positive literature was more likely to invite guest imams who were known to promote violent jihad than was the leadership of mosques that did not feature violence-positive literature on mosque premises.

The study was published in December 2011 by Perspectives on Terrorism, a scholarly international journal of the Terrorism Research Initiative (TRI), a global initiative that seeks to support the international community of terrorism researchers and scholars through the facilitation of collaborative projects and cooperative initiatives. TRI was established in 2007 by scholars from several disciplines in order to provide the global research community with a common tool than can empower them and extend the impact of each participant's research activities.

The mosque study had previously been published by the Middle East Quarterly in September 2011, an academic peer-reviewed journal which specializes on Middle East regional issues. Because of the ground-breaking nature of the study, which brings a rigorous empirical methodology to the question of home-grown jihadists, MEQ granted permission to Perspectives on Terrorism to publish a more extensive analysis of the study’s conception, methodology, and results.

The study’s authors, Professor Mordechai Kedar of Bar Ilan University in Israel and David Yerushalmi, who serves as general counsel to the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., have both published widely on terrorism, Islamic law and its underlying doctrines of jihad and violence against unbelievers.

The study may be accessed here at the Mapping Sharia website.

The study may be accessed here at MEQ.

The study may be accessed here at Perspectives on Terrorism.

Why didn't the Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims throw these people out of their mosques? And why is it that Algeria can admit that jihad terrorists sometimes meet in mosques, but American officials cannot?

"Algeria: 900 mosques, prayer halls shut for 'national security,'" from AKI, November 14 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Algiers (AKI) - The Algerian government last week closed around 900 mosques and prayer halls throughout the country because it says they were used for meetings by suspected Islamic terrorists, Algerian newspaper El-Khabar reported on Monday.

Authorities say they Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was particularly active in the places of worship where meetings among militants took place in secret, the report said.

The prayer halls were opened illegally, El-Khabar said, ignoring laws requiring approval by the Ministry of Religious Affairs before they can be opened.

AQIM grew out of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, and has its roots in an Islamist militia involved in the civil war in the 1990s that cost between 150,000 and 200,000 lives....

The mainstream media has lionized this deadbeat thug, and will no doubt continue to do so. But he continues to show the true, ugly face of the Ground Zero Mosque project. "Mosque developer can't take care of vermin-infested apartment building," by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein for the New York Post, October 23 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The developer who wants to build a $100 million mosque and community center near Ground Zero can’t take care of a rat-ridden apartment building with just 14 units.

Sharif El-Gamal, the main developer behind the mosque, has nearly 400 open violations that he has refused to fix despite a court order. His company owes the city $61,633 in fines, fees and taxes for the property at 1835 Amsterdam Ave.

El-Gamal, a principal in the company that owns the Washington Heights building, is due in court Thursday. If he doesn’t show up, he risks being sent to jail.

He already failed to appear at a Sept. 28 hearing....

More than 150 complaints about the building, including rats, roaches and lack of heat, were logged with the city from July 2010 to May 2011.

The building’s staircase “was obstructed with construction debris, and the fire escapes were also obstructed,” according to legal papers.

There are 366 housing-code violations that the owner hasn’t addressed, according to the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

HPD sued El-Gamal’s company, Washington Heights Holdings II, to fix the problems and reached a consent order in September. It also fined the company $5,550. It’s unclear if any work has been done.

Pamela Geller details the shady history of the shady Islamic supremacist behind the Ground Zero mosque: "This lowlife has defaulted on two bank loans, hasn't paid his back taxes, was busted for prostitution. Gamal not only beats people up and threatens Muslims who speak out against the mosque, but he is also a tax cheat, owing a quarter of a million in taxes while defaulting on not one, but two bank loans. All this while being evicted from his Soho offices for non-payment of rent."

"Con Ed says it will evict Ground Zero mosque unless developer pays $1.7 million in back rent," by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein for the New York Post, October 16 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Pay up or get out.

Con Ed has given the Ground Zero mosque an ultimatum: Pay the $1.7 million you owe in back rent, or we’ll terminate your lease and take back our property....

Park51, which leases the substation from Con Ed, wants the two buildings so it can knock both down and build a $100 million, 15-story community center.

But the plan hit a major obstacle in August when Con Ed raised the rent from $2,750 a month, a rate set in 1972, to $47,437 a month, retroactive to July 31, 2008, The Post has learned....

When the mosque failed to fork over the $1.7 million, the utility fired off a letter demanding the money by Oct. 4 and threatening to evict.

Park51 principals responded with a lawsuit to stop the increase, calling Con Ed’s rent demands “outrageous.”

“Whether it is bowing to political pressure or seeking to retain the valuable premises for itself, Con Ed appears intent on proceeding with its wrongful termination,” argued Sharif El-Gamal, the lead Park51 developer.

Gamal said Con Ed’s move also wipes out his ability to eventually buy the substation building, where the Park51 developers have converted the first floor into a prayer space. They turned the first floor of the adjoining building into a cultural center and recently debuted their first event, a photography exhibit.

The modest space is in sharp contrast to the expansive plans unveiled last year that generated worldwide controversy for their proximity to Ground Zero.

Gamal’s group bought the building at 45-47 Park Place in 2009 for $4.8 million and, at the same time, paid $700,000 for the lease at the substation.

The deal was considered a bargain as the entire property had been on the market for $18 million only a few years earlier.

The lease with Con Ed included an option to buy, which Gamal said in 2010 that he wanted to pursue. If he doesn’t own the Con Ed property, he would have to get any demolition approved by the utility.

After conflicting appraisals of the property by Gamal and Con Ed, it seems both sides came to an agreement this summer.

Court papers show that the appraised price for the Con Ed property is $10.7 million. But Gamal contends Con Ed’s math was faulty when it calculated the rent, saying it owes only $881,519 in back rent and should have to pay $25,875 a month going forward....

Oh, only $881,519! He must be a moderate!

In recent years we have seen mosques used to preach hatred; to spread exhortations to terrorist activity; to house a bomb factory; to store weapons; to disseminate messages from bin Laden; to demand (in the U.S.) that non-Muslims conform to Islamic dietary restrictions; to fire on American troops; to fire upon Indian troops; to train jihadists; and so we know they're places of peace, and anyone who suggests otherwise is a greasy Islamophobe.

"Jihad,Va.: Awlaki may be dead, but his radical American mosque remains," by Paul Sperry in the New York Post, October 9:

The 9/11 imam Anwar al-Awlaki may be dead, but his old mosque is still open for business and remains a dangerous breeding ground for terrorists -- and it’s right in the president’s back yard.

Nothing much has changed since 2002, when Awlaki voluntarily left the pulpit of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in the Washington suburbs of Falls Church, Va.

It maintains the same radical leaders who hired him, and the same owners -- even the same fax number that investigators believe 9/11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh used to send instructions to Awlaki and key hijackers he aided there. An unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, moreover, still leads prayers there. [...]

In 2001, while Awlaki was preparing the hijackers for their martyrdom operation, Abdul-Malik raised the banner of Palestinian jihad, saying it’s within Islamic law to “blow up bridges” and other infrastructure. “You can do all forms of sabotage,” he said at a US conference held by a Hamas front group, while cautioning against killing “innocent” people.

Three years later, a founding mosque member was arrested for allegedly casing the Chesapeake Bay bridge for possible attack. Ismail Elbarasse was released on $1 million bond after Dar Al-Hijrah leaders put up their homes as collateral.

After Awlaki fled the country, Abdul-Malik told me in an interview he saw nothing wrong with Awlaki’s sermons encouraging Muslims to become martyrs.

Martyr in an Islamic context refers to someone who kills and is killed for Allah (cf. Qur'an 9:111).

In other words, he was a "moderate." What else can they say? They can't very well avow that while he was in Virginia, he was preaching jihad and the destruction of the kuffar. But this statement causes other problems, raising yet again the uncomfortable fact that "moderates" can all too easily become "radicalized," even just by picking up a Qur'an. "Slain terrorist was Imam at Washington mosque," by Michael Hernandez for The National, October 2 (thanks to Wimpy):

FALLS CHURCH // Mohmed Kabbach, a street vendor, sat on his collapsible plastic chair outside a mosque near Washington on Friday, waiting for the faithful to finish prayers.

The 47-year-old had not yet heard that Anwar Al Awlaki, one of America's most wanted terrorists, was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.

"Who is Awlaki?" said Mr Kabbach. Al Awlaki was also an imam at the Dar Al Hijrah mosque, in this small town just 10 miles from the capital, from 2001 to 2002.

He "was known for his interfaith outreach, civic engagement and tolerance in the Northern Virginia community", said a statement from the mosque on Friday.

The description differs significantly from the man US authorities called a leading figure in Al Qaeda.

He was alleged to have links to several planned and actual terrorist attacks, including the failed attempt to blow up a transatlantic flight by the "underwear bomber" and the shooting deaths of 13 US soldiers at Fort Hood, both in 2009.

As the faithful left the mosque, they refused to comment on the death.

"We were told not to talk. The media makes this look like a house of terror. We just come here to pray," said one man.

Mosque officials could not be reached for comment.

But in its statement, the mosque was adamant that it does not condone violence or extremism and said that the targeted killing of Al Awlaki raises questions about America's legal framework. "We have rejected the use of extra-judicial assassination of any human being and especially an American citizen, which includes Al Awlaki," the statement said.

Al Awlaki is not the only person associated with Dar Al Hijrah that has cast an unfavourable light on the mosque. Nidal Hassan Malik, the man behind the Fort Hood shooting, attended the mosque in 2001 when Al Awlaki preached there. It is alleged they kept in contact.

The other night I watched a British documentary about the Ground Zero mosque controversy (for which I was interviewed, and in which I appear) that portrayed Sharif El-Gamal as a good-hearted schlub who was trying to do a good deed and ended up getting beset by cynical sharpies like Pamela Geller and me. Anything about his criminal past, his glorification of physical violence, his numerous shady financial dealings? Of course not! That wouldn't fit the narrative! But in reality, the man behind the Islamic supremacist Ground Zero Mosque is an Islamic supremacist thug: "Mosque falls short," by Andrea Peyser in the New York Post, September 26:

“We don’t know what they’re really going to do. They’ve said they wanted to do a lot of things,’’ said a board member who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. Still, he confessed to being weary of the fight.

“It’s been emotionally and physically draining. After the anniversary [of 9/11] passed, I have to distance myself from it.’’

“I don’t trust this guy as far as I can throw him,’’ said another board member, concerned about El-Gamal’s long rap sheet, another thing you’ll never read about in the Times.

El-Gamal has been busted at least seven times since 1990 for DWI and disorderly conduct, and charged with failing to pay more than $200,000 in taxes. Most recently, in 2005, El-Gamal was arrested for assaulting a man who sublet an apartment from his brother, punching the guy and breaking his nose and cheekbone. El-Gamal at first said he didn’t hit the man, but WCBS/Channel 2 discovered records that show El-Gamal conceded “his face could have run into my hand.’’

I tried to talk to El-Gamal and give him a chance to turn me around to the sunny face of Islam. He refused. Can you blame him?...

And the accusations have mosque trustees...outraged. "London mosque accused of links to 'terror' in Pakistan," by Kurt Barling for the BBC, September 22 (thanks to Twostellas):

A south London mosque is at the centre of allegations it helped promote of [sic] acts of terror and hate in Pakistan.

Leaflets circulating in Pakistan calling for the murder of members of the Ahmadi Muslim sect directed readers to a website naming Stockwell Mosque.

The website mentioned on the leaflets in turn advised people with queries to contact the mosque in Stockwell.

Angry trustees at the mosque said its name had been misused and it had no links to the Pakistani organisation.

Trustee Toaha Qureshi said: "We don't have any linkage with this organisation which is promoting hate."

Of course. Who ever heard of a mosque promoting hate? Well, maybe the people in this mosque; or this one; or this one that was used to house a bomb factory; or this one that was used to store weapons; or this one that was used to disseminate messages from bin Laden; or this one that was used to demand (in the U.S.) that non-Muslims conform to Islamic dietary restrictions; or this one that was used to fire on American troops; or this one that was used to fire upon Indian troops; or this one that was used to train jihadists.

Crocodile tears. If El-Gamal were in earnest about allaying people's concerns, he would be talking to 9/11 family members now. And he would have accepted our invitation to come to our forum on the Ground Zero Mosque at CPAC last February. And he would not be aiding and abetting the ongoing campaign of defamation and vilification of opponents of the triumphal mosque at Ground Zero. "GZ Islamic center boss: We blew it," by Erin Calabrese and Tim Perone in the New York Post, September 22:

The controversial Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero opened to the public for the first time last night with a photography exhibit -- as its developer said he regretted not consulting with families of the 9/11 victims earlier.

“We made incredible mistakes,” Sharif El-Gamal said as the Park51 Islamic community center welcomed visitors to an exhibition featuring pictures of New York children of more than 160 ethnicities.

“The biggest mistake we made was not to include 9/11 families,” El-Gamal said.

“We didn’t understand that we had a responsibility to discuss our private project with family members that lost loved ones.”

If you didn't understand it then, you understand it now. And in light of that understanding, you should abandon this project. Yet you are not doing so. Now, why is that? (As if we didn't already know the answer.)

About 150 people attended last night’s exhibit and there were no protests.

They got international press coverage for this sham "opening," which wasn't actually an opening at all, as Muslims have been praying in that building for years, and they have not broken ground on their mosque, as they had originally planned to on September 11, 2011. (Daisy Khan and others affirmed that, but it went down the memory hole when it proved politically damaging.)

And they drew 150 people -- far fewer than those who came from all over the U.S. and Europe and made it past the police mazes and roadblocks on September 11 to attend our AFDI/SIOA 9/11 Freedom Rally, and yet that got no coverage at all. Now, why is that? (As if we didn't already know the answer.)

El-Gamal said he hopes that people who don’t want the center and prayer space so close to where the 9/11 attacks occurred will now see what it’s all about.

“There’s tremendous excitement with this opening,” he said.

“Park51 is about bringing people together.”

Except those who stand in its way, whom they are determined to destroy.

Abu Zar, who has dedicated his life to the study of Islam, somehow succumbs to Islamophobia misrepresentations of his peaceful religion, and calls on Pakistanis in mosques and madrassas not to wage interior spiritual jihad, but armed jihad against the Pakistani government. How very strange. How did greasy Islamophobes get so much influence over Abu Zar and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan?

"Uzbekistan al-Qaida Affiliate Pushes Attacks Against Pakistan," from IPT News, August 30 (thanks to Benedict):

The Mufti of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan [IMZ], a central Asian affiliate of al-Qaida, has called on Pakistani scholars to declare war on the nation's government. In published remarks to Pakistani scholars, the Mufti highlighted how suicide teenage bombers had empowered the movement but the militant scholars had yet to join the fight.

"Our small brothers and youth, his age is 16 … 15 years, he wraps his body and chest with this powder and blows himself up against the malignant cursed Pakistani army. So why don't you Ulema [scholars] speak," asked Abu Zar, Mufti of the Islamic Movement, in his meeting with a group of Pakistani scholars. "Five years ago we began this jihad, so O' Ulema we ask Allah that you be with us, be with the truthful."

According to Abu Zar, the Pakistani and Afghani jihads are a single front against the American-Pakistan government alliance. While the common people have taken up the call of jihad, convincing the scholars has proven more difficult.

"Every year more than one thousand Ulema [scholars] graduate from the Madrassas. But going to the battle, you will only find one Alim [scholar] that is good for the mujahidin," he said. "That's why I ask you, I hope from you to be with the mujahidin, to be with the fighters in combat. And urge your students in your universities, mosques and Madrassas."

In the above video, presidential candidate Herman Cain talks mosques, Sharia and the Muslim Brotherhood (from The Other McCain, with thanks to Pamela Geller).

"The fact that Islam is both a religion and a set of laws, Shariah law. That's the difference between any one of our other traditional religions."

"Herman Cain Says U.S. Communities 'Have the Right' to Ban Mosques," from FoxNews.com, July 17 (thanks to Rand):

Presidential candidate Herman Cain on Sunday defended his opposition to a new mosque in Tennessee, expressing concern about Shariah law and declaring Americans "have the right" to ban mosques in their communities.

Cain, who stirred controversy this year by saying he would be uncomfortable appointing a Muslim to his Cabinet if elected, first expressed concern Thursday about the controversial mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn. That mosque has been the subject of demonstrations and legal challenges in the wake of the controversy over the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" in New York City.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Cain said he came out against the Tennessee mosque after talking to members of that community. He said the site is "hallowed ground" to Murfreesboro residents and that they're concerned about "the intentions of trying to get Shariah law" -- the code governing conduct in Islamic societies.

"It's not just a mosque for religious purposes. This is what the people are objecting to," he said.

Asked whether any community should be able to prohibit a mosque, Cain said they should.

"They have the right to do that. That's not discriminating ... against that particular religion. That is an aspect of them building that mosque that doesn't get talked about," he said.

Cain again argued that residents were objecting to "the fact that Islam is both a religion and a set of laws, Shariah law. That's the difference between any one of our other traditional religions."

But while Cain said he expects the case to come before the Supreme Court, a local judge has allowed the project to go forward.

Cain is taking heat for his comments about Muslims. The [Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations, which accused him of using "bigoted" language with his Cabinet comments, said Sunday that he should "apologize" for his latest remarks.

[Hamas-linked] CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, describing Cain's stance on the Tennessee mosque as a possible "sign of desperation," said other Republican candidates and leaders should also distance themselves from that kind of rhetoric.

"It's incumbent on reasonable people within the Republican Party to come out strongly and repudiate these kinds of un-American unconstitutional views," he said. "It's just so bizarre."

What is bizarre is that these Islamic supremacist unindicted co-conspirators at Hamas-linked CAIR are presented even by Fox as reasonable commentators on news events.

Yet no one would dream of reevaluating the immigration policy that made this possible. Oh, no. That would be "racist." Better to die in a bloody jihad attack than appear "racist." "Somali terror group linked to Al Qaeda 'recruited 21 men in Minnesota,'" from the Daily Mail, July 16:

A Somali terror group has allegedly recruited more than 20 young men from Minnesota to fight against the Ethopian [sic] army.

Details of how a carefully-organised Islamist cell raised money, created fake itineraries and held secret meetings have emerged ahead of the trial of one suspected leader.

Omer Abdi Mohamed, 26, is one of 18 men charged with recruiting young Somalis from Minneapolis to join terror group al-Shabab, which has links to Al Qaeda.

Since 2007, at least 21 men have left Minnesota for Somalia, where they arrived at safehouses and were given AK-47s and weapons training, court documents claim, before fighting Ethiopian troops.

Back in Minnesota, members of the cell raised money for their trip by duping the Somali community into thinking the cash was to give aid to their home country. [...]

The U.S. declared al-Shabab a terrorist organisation in early 2008.

Officials had long suspected the group had ties to Al Qaeda, but it was not confirmed until 2010, when al-Shabab officially aligned itself with the terror group.

According to prosecutors, from September 2007, Mohamed and others conspired to raise money to send men to Somalia so they could oust the Ethiopians with violence.

Others were also recruited to the cause. The group held meetings at mosques and restaurants, and took measures to keep things secretive....

Mosques? Why didn't the Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims rise up and throw them out -- and immediately report them to authorities?

We will fight on. "'Ground Zero Mosque' Clears Legal Hurdle to Build," by Reshma Kirpalani for ABC News, July 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The backers of the controversial "Ground Zero Mosque" have won a court fight clearing the way for them to build the mosque and community center complex two blocks from the site of the 9/11 terror attack.

In a decision on Friday that was made public today, New York State Supreme Justice Paul Feinman dismissed a lawsuit by former firefighter Timothy Brown who argued that New York City was wrong to allow the destruction of a 150-year-old building to make way for the Islamic center.

The ex-firefighter who was among those who responded to the terror attack on the World Trade Center said the old building had been struck by debris during the collapse of the twin towers and was a "living representative of the heroic structures that commemorate the events of that day."

In a 15-page decision Feinman wrote, "Mr. Brown's claim that his ability to commemorate will be injured, is not yet recognized under the law as a concrete injury that can establish standing. Such an injury, although palpable to Brown, is immeasurable by a court."

The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal group which filed the lawsuit on Brown's behalf, said they plan to appeal the ruling.

"This decision fails to give appropriate consideration to first responders and others who risked their lives and lost loved ones on Sept. 11," ACLJ attorney Brett Joshpe said in a statement.

The ACLJ "remain confident that this mosque will never rise above Ground Zero."...

In Human Events this morning, some inconvenient truths:

Last week came new confirmation that mosques in the U.S. aren’t quite holding potluck suppers and teaching civic pieties. A new study has demonstrated that 80% of mosques right in this country are teaching jihad warfare and Islamic supremacism.

Researchers Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi reported in the Summer 2011 issue of Middle East Quarterly about a new survey that found that “51% of mosques had texts that either advocated the use of violence in the pursuit of a Sharia-based political order or advocated violent jihad as a duty that should be of paramount importance to a Muslim.” Another 30% of mosques in the United States “had only texts that were moderately supportive of violence,” while only “19% had no violent texts at all.”

This yet again contradicts the universally held assumption that U.S. mosques are completely benign institutions, in all respects equivalent to churches and synagogues. As long ago as 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department open forum in January 1999 declaring that Islamic supremacists controlled most mosques in America .

“The most dangerous thing that is going on now in these mosques,” Kabbani said, “that has been sent upon these mosques around the United States—like churches they were established by different organizations and that is okay—but the problem with our communities is the extremist ideology. Because they are very active, they took over the mosques, and we can say that they took over more than 80% of the mosques that have been established in the U.S. And there are more than 3,000 mosques in the U.S. So it means that the methodology or ideology of extremists has been spread to 80% of the Muslim population, but not all of them agree with it.”

Terrorism expert Yehudit Barsky affirmed the same thing in 2005, saying that 80% of the mosques in this country “have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence.” The Center for Religious Freedom in 2005 found a massive distribution of hateful jihadist and Islamic supremacist material in mosques in this country. The Mapping Sharia Project’s 2008 study likewise found that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule....

There is more.

In 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999, and asserted that 80% of American mosques taught the "extremist ideology."

Then there was the Center for Religious Freedom's 2005 study, and the Mapping Sharia Project's 2008 study. Each independently showed that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule.

And now comes yet more confirmation that mosques in the U.S. are teaching these things, and again the percentage is remarkably similar: around 80% of mosques are found to be teaching jihad warfare and Islamic supremacism.

This study is extensive and detailed. Look over all the data. Above all, call upon your elected officials and the media to take notice -- at very least, to ask pointed questions from local mosque leaders about the books they're using and what they're teaching in general. Call on them to require honest, verifiable answers.

It is likely, however, that this study, like the three preceding ones that I mentioned above, will be ignored. But don't let that happen. Our freedoms depend on it.

"Shari'a and Violence in American Mosques," by Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi in Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2011:

Works by several respected jurists and scholars from the four major Sunni schools of jurisprudence, dating from the eighth to fourteenth centuries, are all in agreement that violent jihad against non-Muslims is a religious obligation.[19] Such behavior is normative, legally-sanctioned violence not confined to modern writers with a political axe to grind. Nor does its presence in classical Muslim works make it a relic of some medieval past. While Umdat as-Salik (Reliance of the Traveler) may have been compiled in the fourteenth century, al-Azhar University, perhaps the preeminent center of Sunni learning in the world, stated in its 1991 certification of the English translation that the book "conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community."[20] While addressing a host of theological matters and detailed instructions as to how Muslims should order their daily routine to demonstrate piety and commitment to Islam, this certified, authoritative text spends eleven pages expounding on the applicability of jihad as violence directed against non-Muslims, stating for example:

The caliph … makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians … provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax.[21]

The caliph fights all other peoples until they become Muslim … because they are not a people with a book, nor honored as such, and are not permitted to settle with paying the poll tax.[22]

The Fiqh as-Sunna and Tafsir Ibn Kathir are examples of works that were rated "moderate" for purposes of this survey. The former, which focuses primarily on the internal Muslim community, the family, and the individual believer and not on violent jihad, was especially moderate in its endorsement of violence. Relatively speaking, the Fiqh as-Sunna expresses a more restrained view of violent jihad, in that it does not explicitly call for a holy war against the West even though it understands the Western influence on Islamic governments as a force that is destructive to Islam itself.[23]

Nonetheless, such texts do express positive views toward the use of violence against "the other," as expressed in the following:

Ibn Abbas reported that the Prophet, upon whom be peace, said, "The ties of Islam and the principles of the religion are three, and whoever leaves one of them becomes an unbeliever, and his blood becomes lawful: testifying that there is no god except God, the obligatory prayers, and the fast of Ramadan." … Another narration states, "If anyone leaves one of [the three principles], by God he becomes an unbeliever, and no voluntary deeds or recompense will be accepted from him, and his blood and wealth become lawful." This is a clear indication that such a person is to be killed.[24]

Similarly in Tafsir Ibn Kathir:

Perform jihad against the disbelievers with the sword, and be harsh with the hypocrites with words, and this is the jihad performed against them.[25]

The survey's findings, explored in depth below, were that 51 percent of mosques had texts that either advocated the use of violence in the pursuit of a Shari'a-based political order or advocated violent jihad as a duty that should be of paramount importance to a Muslim; 30 percent had only texts that were moderately supportive of violence like the Tafsir Ibn Kathir and Fiqh as-Sunna; 19 percent had no violent texts at all.

Be sure to read it all, and to keep it close at hand as a resource.

What? A mosque? A house of peace? Didn't the Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims at the Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah mosque rise up and tell these al-Qaeda recruiters that they were Misunderstanding the Religion of Peace?

"WikiLeaks: Montreal mosque 'is a top Al Qaeda recruiting zone,'" from the Daily Mail, April 27 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A mosque in Montreal has been ranked in the world’s top nine Al Qaeda recruiting zones and linked to a terror cell planning attacks on Los Angeles airport, new released documents claim.

The WikiLeaks files, written by U.S. military chiefs, list the Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah mosque among nine houses of prayer worldwide considered as a place ‘Al Qaeda members were recruited, facilitated or trained’.

The leaked ‘Matrix of Threat’ documents, designed in the early days of the Guantanamo detention centre to assist intelligence officials, rank the Canadian mosque alongside sites in Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah Mosque in Montreal is considered by the U.S. military to be among places where 'known al-Qaeda members were recruited.'

The mosque, which was also linked to the September 11 attacks, is the only Islamic prayer house in North America listed as a threat in the leaked report.

The classified documents claim the mosque’s former Imam and current Guantanamo inmate, Mohamedou Ould Salahi, was the leader of the Canadian-based Al Qaeda cell.

The Mauritanian man arrived in Montreal from Germany in November 1999 but left Canada after police began to question him about ties to Ahmed Ressam, the so-called ‘Millennium Bomber’ who planned to attack Los Angeles airport and other U.S. targets.

Ressam, an Algerian who lived in Montreal, was arrested at the U.S.-Canada border carrying explosives before he could execute the ‘Millennium plot’.

According to the documents, Salahi met with Ressam four days after arriving in Montreal and had prior knowledge of the plot as well as contact with the extremists planning the attack....

For this, Lord Guthrie will be pilloried as an Islamophobe, and for good measure, a racist. But even those who will denounce due diligence as Islamophobia would have a difficult time avoiding the fact that they not only cannot guarantee any of the scenarios Guthrie describes below will not happen, but that jihadist sympathies are so widespread and internally unchallenged in British mosques that their likelihood is an unacceptable risk. Indeed, the report below shows there are already problems with the congregation at the existing mosque.

There is also the symbolic significance of the mosque and its towering minarets, seeming to throw down a gauntlet at the doorstep of Sandhurst, whose name is synonymous with excellence in Britain's military. Not unlike the Ground Zero mega-mosque, the ostentatious scale and proximity of this structure has all the appearances of a calculated provocation: let us do what we damn well please, or at the very least, we'll accuse you of wanting to commit crimes against humanity.

"Ex-Army chief's fears over plan for mosque next to Sandhurst," by Simon Walters for the Daily Mail, April 10 (thanks to JG):

A former head of the Armed Forces has warned that plans for a mosque overlooking Sandhurst could lead to attacks on the Royal Military Academy.

In a letter, Lord Guthrie says he is worried about the ‘security’ of the two 100ft minarets which will tower over the mosque, 300 yards from the Sandhurst parade ground.

And he is unconvinced by promises from the mosque leaders that it will not fall into the hands of extremists who support a ‘doctrine of hate’.

The letter by Lord Guthrie – who was Chief of the Defence Staff under Tony Blair – was written to the planning inspector chairing an inquiry into the proposed mosque.

The Mail on Sunday, which has obtained the letter, understands that it reflects fears among senior military figures that the minarets could be used by snipers or other terrorists.

Supporters of the mosque say the claim is irresponsible and untrue.

A listed Victorian school building is set to be demolished to make way for the £3 million building. More than 6,500 people have signed a petition to oppose it.

Hundreds of newly commissioned Army officers take to Sandhurst’s parade ground each year for the academy’s passing-out ceremony.

The event attracts senior members of the Royal Family, including the Queen, who was there when her grandson Prince Harry was commissioned in 2006.

British security forces would have to sweep and remain in the minarets for official events. Muslim groups would be quick to spin that as an "occupation," bigotry, profiling, humiliation, and so forth.

Lord Guthrie writes: ‘As a former Sandhurst cadet I must express my grave concern about the wisdom of allowing such a structure to proceed.’ He refers to ‘specific security concern about access to the proposed minarets’ and warns of the danger of the mosque ceasing to be run by ‘responsible individuals’, adding: ‘As has happened in many houses of worship, the nature of mosque management can change over time as moderates are replaced by more extreme elements.’ He says that there would need to be ‘guarantees that the mosque and the worshippers would not advocate a doctrine of hate against our Armed Forces or our country’.

He adds: ‘Past experience suggests that to give such assurances about the nature of the doctrines preached there would be very difficult, if not impossible.

‘For this reason, common sense alone suggests that planning permission should be refused.’

The row over the mosque first flared up last year after the Surrey Bengali Welfare Association requested permission to demolish the disused school they have been using since 1996. In its place, they proposed the new development.

The council rejected the plan, but the mosque supporters took the issue to the public inquiry.

Locals who oppose the project have complained that they feel intimidated by ‘extremist’ elements within the mosque. And the former chairman of the mosque, Luth Ful Karim, is said to have requested police protection after falling out with more hardline worshippers.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that Mr Karim is one of 11 worshippers who last year referred the Bengali Welfare Association to the Charity Commission because of the activities of hardliners. The commission has declined to give a ruling, saying it is an ‘internal matter’ for the association.

A report in 2007 by the Policy Exchange think tank found literature at the existing mosque which advocated Sharia law, polygamy and the repression of women.

The local MP, Education Secretary Michael Gove, has called on mosque supporters to withdraw their plans, saying they were threatening the area’s ‘good community relations’.

Of course their anger is completely justified. Who ever heard of mosques being used to recruit jihad terrorists? In recent years we have seen mosques used to preach hatred; to spread exhortations to terrorist activity; to house a bomb factory; to store weapons; to disseminate messages from bin Laden; to demand (in the U.S.) that non-Muslims conform to Islamic dietary restrictions; to fire on American troops; to fire upon Indian troops; to train jihadists; and so we know they're places of peace, and anyone who suggests otherwise is a greasy Islamophobe.

"Kenya: Imams Deny U.S. Claims On Isiolo Mosques," from The Nation (Nairobi), March 24 (thanks to Twostelas):

Nairobi — Imams and preachers in Isiolo have denied claims that four mosques in the area were used for recruiting youths for al-Shabaab.

Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims Isiolo branch chairman Mohamed Abdikadir led the leaders in condemning the allegations, terming them as falsehoods.

They demanded an immediate apology from the US government and warned against such allegations in future.

"It is unfortunate that US officials can mislead their government and the world by reporting such baseless claims against a religious centre," Mr Abdikadir said.

The chairman wants the US ambassador to Kenya to visit Isiolo to ascertain the truth about such allegations.

"We fear that the government might take action on innocent Kenyans on baseless claims by the foreigners," said Mr Abdikadir.

The leaked cables state that four mosques in Isiolo, Masjid Hidaya, Masjid Taqwa in Bula Odha and two other unnamed mosques located in the county were responsible for recruiting fighters for the militia group....

In New York City, the historic, landmarked high Anglican church of the Incarnation was closed as a parish in the 1970s. Unable to tear the thing down—New Yorkers may not all love God, but they do love old buildings—the Episcopal diocese sold the site to a drug-rehabilitation group, who sold it to a real estate developer, who turned it into The Limelight, one of the nastiest, skankiest sites for public hookups and drug use in the city. (People were regularly busted for having full on intercourse in the rest rooms.) No doubt the more twisted or Christ-haunted of the patrons felt a decadent frisson when they looked up at the stained glass windows of Christ or Mary (helpfully backlit even at night) that gazed down on their twisting and shouting. The one time I reluctantly went to the place (to see a European art rock band, not to hook up or score) I could almost feel the ghosts of upright, hard-working 19th-century Americans who'd saved their pennies to build the place, who'd knelt and prayed, blessed their infants, wept over their dead, in this vast Gothic place that now served as a kaleidoscopic aperture into the death throes of the West. I told a friend who was with me that I felt guilty setting foot in the place, and he said back sunnily: “Would you rather they tore it down? Made it a mosque?” And I didn't know what to say.

I'm happy to report that the Limelight is now dead and buried, and the noble old building is being used for the honorable purpose of selling high-end knickknacks and organic food; so it once again meets the religious needs of New Yorkers. But that question my friend asked me, and the grim experience of one night inside the Limelight, came back to me this week when I read the following report by Samir Khalil Samir of Asia News.

A Muslim group has asked to use the empty churches in France for Muslims to pray in, solving (at the expense of Christians) the traffic problems caused by Muslims who pray in the streets. Fr. Khalial Samir Samir, an expert scholar of Islam, reflects on the embarrassing proposal, calling for Islam in Europe to become more "European" and less "Arab".

In a press release published Friday, March 11, 2011, the "Banlieuses Respect " Collective asked authorities in charge of organization of the Church of France, to place at Muslims’ disposal "empty churches for Friday prayers". Hassan M. Ben Barek, a spokesman for the Collective, said the measure would "prevent Muslims from having to pray on the streets" and being "politicians’ hostages”.

In fact, for several years now, every Friday, alongside dozens of mosques in France, Muslims have blocked the surrounding streets for an hour or two, spreading mats on the roads to pray. In many cases, local authorities close their eyes to this offense, and in some cases the police are there to ensure the safety of those who block the streets. This situation is on the rise in France (for example, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier. Montreuil, Nice, Paris, Puteaux, Strasbourg, Torcy ...). A situation that is found all over the world (Athens, Brussels, Birmingham, Cordova, Moscow, New York ...) and also in Italy (Albenga, Canicattì, Como, Gallarate, Milan, Modena, Moncalieri, Naples, Rome ...). In the Muslim world this phenomenon is present, especially in Egypt. On 10 December, in Lyon, Marine Le Pen (National Front) denounced the Muslims "street prayers", which led to negative reactions towards the Muslim community in France.

Why is there even a prospect of Muslims being granted the use of empty churches? However much decadent multicultural guilt has infused the Church in France, there is no major constituency among that country's bishops to grant this typically arrogant Muslim demand. But it isn't up to the bishops. The history of the Church in France is deeply entwined with the State; medieval bishops relied upon the kings of France to suppress violent heresies like Albigensianism, and support the Church financially. In return, French kings demanded (and got) increasing control over the Church, until by the time of King Louis XIV, the king nominated all the country's bishops—for the pope to rubber stamp. The incestuous relations between Church and State got uglier with the French Revolution, when unarmed priests and helpless nuns became the scapegoats for the rage of the Paris mob. In return, the Church supported attempts to restore the monarchy, and aligned itself with nationalist and reactionary groups—culminating finally in the ugly Dreyfus affair, which pitted liberals and secularists against the army and the Church, centering on the fate of a patriotic Jewish officer falsely accused of spying. Because many churchmen (against the wishes of Pope Leo XIII, who defended Dreyfus) supported Dreyfus' persecution, public opinion swung violently against the Church when he was proven innocent—and the Third Republic used this sentiment to take its revenge against the Church: In 1905, all religious orders were expelled from France, and all Church property seized and put in the custodianship of the State. That's right, the French government owns every Catholic church in France, in the same way Russia's Tsar owned every stick of furniture in the hut of every serf. As a result, if a church isn't being put to use—thanks to the sharp decline in Christian religious practice in France—outsiders can petition the State to let them use it. Sometimes they just seize it, as far-right Traditionalists who follow Abp. Marcel Lefebvre seized a historic parish in Paris, and occupied it until the State decided to grant them full use of the place against the fierce objections of Paris' archbishop.

Why is all this historical background important? Because of the precedent this seizure set. Today, French Muslims are asking “nicely” if they can use underutilized churches for their Friday prayers. Tomorrow they will be gathering outside the churches demanding entry, crying “Islamophobia!” at those who keep them out. And in five years, I predict, they will simply start seizing churches—confident that the flaccid, cowardly authorities will refuse to turn them out.

Rev. Samir offers many objections to this plan for Islamicizing the churches of France:

The March 11 proposal of the Collective, calling on the Church of France, to "provide Muslims empty churches for Friday prayers", is astounding. These "empty churches" are consecrated places and it would never occur to a Christian to use them for anything other than the liturgical ceremonies, or sacred music - an exception that is always possible. It would be unthinkable to use them to celebrate a non-Christian cult.

On the other hand, a church that served as a mosque would have to be re-equipped for the needs of Muslim prayer. Many typically Christian elements would have to be removed and typically Muslim ones added. And above all these "empty churches" are not destined to remain empty, but on the contrary to be occupied as soon as possible by a Christian community or a monastic community, which is happening more and more throughout Europe. Now it seems unlikely that such a place, more or less once converted into a mosque, could be "repossessed" and turned back to church. It would be a great loss for the Muslim community and could lead to much bitterness and religious conflicts. The Christians would then be accused of being Islamophobic, revanchists, disrespectful of Muslim sensitivities, unbrotherly towards them, and so on.

If all this happens, it will fit the pattern of Islamic aggression worldwide and over the centuries: Target and seize the religious sites belonging to another faith, then stake a permanent claim of ownership over it—perhaps with the pretence that it always has been a sacred Muslim site. If the previous owners try to reclaim it, they will be guilty of an anti-Muslim atrocity, and the proper object of terrorist attacks—like Jewish settlers in Samaria, or worshippers at the Western Wall. We can see this ugly pattern going back to the very foundation of of Islam. Thanks to a story of Muhammad's trip to heaven launched from that site, Palestinians claim ownership of the Temple Mount, a site where Jews were worshipping millennia before Muhammad emerged from the desert with his extraordinary claims. Then again, Islam pretends that Abraham and Moses were really Muslims, and that the Jews who claim the site as their own are merely descendants of imposters and forgers who falsified their own holy books to hide all the prophecies of Muhammad.

The same type of Islamic colonialism is underway now in France. There are plenty of gymnasia, wedding halls, and other public spaces where Muslims could happily gather for Friday prayers. The Muslims don't want them; they want the churches. Is anyone asking himself why that is? It is because the Muslims overestimate how important Christianity is to Westerners, and view the capture of churches as a great symbolic victory—just as many viewed the (purely secular, finally futile) invasion of Iraq as a Christian “crusade.” Precisely because the Muslims see it this way, every Westerner should unite to reject such claims—to repel the attempts of Muslims to seize any church or synagogue or Hindu temple and use it as their own. Each victory they win they will regard as irreversible, and each one will spur them on to make more outrageous demands—until at last we do indeed live as dhimmis under their whip.

So back to my first question: Would I rather the ancient churches of France, for all their architectural glory, be turned into mosques, or bulldozed? My own preferences are irrelevant. The men who built these marvels are those whose wishes we should respect—and before they turned them over to the service of Muhammad's desert heresy, men like Abbot Suger would cheerfully have torn them down brick by brick. Almost all the "glories" of Islamic civilization, as Bat Ye'or has exhaustively documented, were built from the reassembled ruins of the cultures Muslims had subjugated and destroyed. Why should we add another stolen jewel to their crown?

It's a Friday afternoon and the world is on the brink, so what better time than now for a Jihad Watch contest? The above photo was snapped by a Jihad Watch operative. Of course, there are many similar mosques all over the world, but this one is to the best of my knowledge the largest one of its kind in the nation in which it is found. If you are the first to name the city in which this particular mosque is found, I will send you one of the few remaining Jihad Watch t-shirts, from back in the halcyon days when the Jihad Watch T-Shirt Factories were still employing thousands and churning out t-shirts twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The remainders, all size XL, now reside in the parts of the Jihad Watch offices not destroyed by flooding (most of the stock that survived the closing of the Factories went down in the floods, but there are a few left).

So where is that mosque? Riyadh? Karachi? Dar es-Salaam? Somewhere else? (This is not a multiple choice question -- the mosque could be anywhere.) And for a t-shirt autographed copy of one of my books, specify what it is the largest example of. Answer in the comments field.

On Sunday Pamela Geller, Pamela Hall, Chris Logan (click on each name for their reports) and I went out to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, where the Muslim American Society, a Muslim Brotherhood organization, is building a mega-mosque on a quiet residential street, in defiance of stop-work orders and the clear wishes of the neighboring community.

The Islamic supremacists and their Leftist dupes were out in force, but were outnumbered and outclassed. As always, we brought the facts, they brought the smears and sloganeering.

Eye on the World has a good report also.

After all, nothing says "Religion of Peace and Tolerance" like claiming someone else's sacred ground as a spoil of war and sticking a mosque on it. It is intended as a permanent exercise in supremacist gloating. This act would only uphold a long tradition of building mosques on sacred sites seized in Islamic conquests, just like the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and the Hagia Sophia, along with innumerable other churches, synagogues, and temples from Spain to India and beyond.

Despite the vague headline about "wars of religion," what follows is a refreshingly complete report. "After the Egyptian Revolution: The Wars of Religion," by Rania Abouzeid for Time, March 10:

The angry, aggressive crowd formed within minutes of my arrival. Dozens of Muslim men, all in ankle-length galabiyas, suddenly came together in the middle of the dusty, dirt path leading to the Church of the Two Martyrs in this poor, mixed Christian-and-Muslim village some 210 kilometers south of Cairo. They were determined to block access to what has become a sectarian sore, a church overrun by Muslim locals and desecrated, an act that has prompted desperate national calls to maintain the inter-religious unity forged in Tahrir Square during the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak.

"Interfaith religious unity" was only a means to an end. That should be becoming clear.

"You can't see it!" a group of men screamed. Several women in full face veils, or niqabs, scurried away, carrying plastic bags of produce. An armored personnel carrier with several soldiers in red berets watched the fracas from further up the road. Closer by, at least a dozen soldiers in flak jackets and helmets marched down an adjacent side street, barring anyone from following them.

"You are not allowed to pass," some of the men in galabiyas yelled at me. "Leave! Leave now!"

"Are you Christian?" another asked.

"What are you going to see?" Mahmoud Mohammad, 30, who appeared to be their spokesman, said. "Destroyed walls and a burnt building?" I told him I wanted to reach the church.

"It's not a church," he said, raising his voice. "It is a meeting place, and we don't want a church here," he added, before grabbing my notebook, ripping out several pages and forcibly marching me out of the village.

The village dispute stems from a romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman in the town. The woman's relatives wanted to "cleanse their honor" of the smear of being with a Christian man, according to local media reports and as well as several of the Muslim men who gathered around me. But when the subject of an honor killing came up, the woman's father refused. He was shot dead by an unidentified assailant and buried on Friday. To date, nobody has been arrested for the murder.

"After Friday prayers some of the youth were angry and still mourning, so they came to the church looking for that filthy Christian," Mohammad said, referring to the youth entangled in the love affair. They didn't find him, but they ransacked the church. "We found wine and books against Islam," Mohammad claimed as other men interrupted to speak of other alleged wrongdoings by their Christian neighbors. "They rape our women!" one yelled. "They overcharge us at their stores!" said another.

It is unclear how many people were killed in Sole as a result of the dispute but after Christians demonstrated in Cairo on Tuesday night against the desecration of the village church, a fight ensued with groups of Muslims, leading to violence, the death of 13 people and 140 wounded.

Tensions between Egypt's majority Muslim population and Christians, who make up about 10% of the country's 80 million people, have simmered for decades. They rose sharply, however, after a church in Alexandria was bombed on New Year's Day. Twenty-one worshippers were killed in the attack. After the State Security Headquarters in Cairo were ransacked over the weekend, documents allegedly emerged that purported that the attack was orchestrated by elements of the government. The authenticity of the documents has not been ascertained, but the contents play into long-held fears of some of Egypt's Christians.

Many of Sole's Christian residents have fled, fearing further violence. Maher Sadiq, 26, isn't one of them. He says many of the town's Christian menfolk are still in the town, defending their homes. Sadiq, who says his house is in the same street as the church, said the remaining Christians were "living in fear." "They've turned the church into a mosque," he said by telephone. "There's a banner in front of it that says 'Al-Ramla Mosque.' They're not letting anyone pass, or go near the church. We will not leave, we're prepared to die here."

More on the potential significance of "Al-Ramla" can be found here.

Aziz Narooz, 27, and Hani Diab, 26, travelled from Sole earlier on Wednesday to join the hundreds of Coptic Christians maintaining a sit-in outside the State Television headquarters. Many are sleeping on blankets spread out on the pavement. Most are carrying large wooden crosses. "People are very scared, some haven't left their homes in days," Narooz said of the remaining Christians in Sole. "They burnt our church, they kicked around the statues of our saints. Our saints!" he repeats. "They tore up the bible and they're still there."

In a bid to defuse rising tensions, the ruling Supreme Military Council pledged on Tuesday to rebuild the church before Easter and punish the perpetrators of the sectarian attacks. A day earlier, the country's new prime minister, Essam Sharaf, joined the protesters, but they refused to speak with him until their demands were met. The Copts want the church rebuilt in its original location, not elsewhere as some officials suggested, and the resignation of the local governor.

The governor refused to rebuild the church on the original site.

But it's obviously about a lot more than a village dispute. Michael Armanios, 20, who was hoarse from chanting outside the State TV building, fears for his future as an Egyptian Christian. "The second article of the Constitution says that Shari'a is the law of the land, that this is a Muslim country. What about us?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper. "Our soldiers don't want to hear us," he said gesturing to the dozens of armed men manning the coiled razorwire near the building. "We want - I need - to have an opinion, I need to feel like I am a complete human being."

"Jesus taught us to be tolerant," said Samih Sameh, 23, who had painted a crescent and a cross on his cheeks, in the red, white and black of the Egyptian flag. "But this is too much. We are here holding crosses, not weapons. Who will defend us?"

The resistance to the American presence in Afghanistan centers on Islam. "Afghan imams wage political battle against U.S.," by Joshua Partlow and Habib Zahori for the Washington Post, February 17 (thanks to Twostellas):

KABUL - For the U.S. government, and for the 100,000 American troops fighting in Afghanistan, the messages delivered last Friday could hardly have been worse.

Under the weathered blue dome of Kabul's largest mosque, a distinguished preacher, Enayatullah Balegh, pledged support for "any plan that can defeat" foreign military forces in Afghanistan, denouncing what he called "the political power of these children of Jews."

Across town, a firebrand imam named Habibullah was even more blunt.

"Let these jackals leave this country," the preacher, who uses only one name, declared of foreign troops. "Let these brothers of monkeys, gorillas and pigs leave this country. The people of Afghanistan should determine their own fate."

The Qur'an calls Jews apes and pigs in three separate places: 2:62-65; 5:59-60; and 7:166.

Every Friday, Afghan clerics wade into the politics of their war-torn country, delivering half-hour sermons that blend Islamic teaching with often-harsh criticism of the U.S. presence. In a country where many lack newspapers, television or Internet access, the mosque lectures represent a powerful forum for influencing opinion.

The raw frustration voiced in these sermons is periodically echoed by President Hamid Karzai in his somewhat more diplomatic criticism of the West. Although cast in tones of prayer and contemplation, the messages from the mosques pose a serious and delicate problem for President Obama's counterinsurgency strategy: how to respect the sacredness of Islam without conceding the propaganda war.

In Afghanistan's mosques, American troops are derided as crusaders and occupiers. Officials with the U.S.-backed government are accused of corruption and deceit. Even in Kabul, the most modern city in an impoverished country, imams regularly denounce American troops and label as stooges their Afghan partners....

Because the Taliban is led by mullahs and seeks followers in part by casting itself as a defender of Islam, other religious leaders in Afghanistan must take the group's views into account. Several said that the Taliban's orthodox interpretation of Islam has flaws and that its reliance on funding and support from Pakistan further discredits the organization. But their arguments against the presence of foreign forces are more categorical....

Note that the Washington Post here admits in passing that the Taliban's interpretation of Islam is orthodox, not a twisted, hijacked version developed by a Tiny Minority of Extremists.

A sense of religious conflict also underlies the criticism. The reason that the insurgency has grown so strong in recent years, said Abdul Bashir Hafif, an imam at a private mosque in a wealthy Kabul neighborhood, is that "Americans are considered to be Christians and Jews."...

The United States has also sought to temper the mullahs' rhetoric. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has spent millions of dollars to fly mullahs to the United States and other countries to meet Muslims outside Afghanistan in the hope of encouraging a more moderate stance. The U.S. military funds mosque refurbishment projects and is partnering with the Afghan religious affairs ministry to facilitate building an electronic database of mosques.

A senior U.S. military official said dozens of mosques in key Afghan districts are used as "command-and-control nodes" for the Taliban, places where fighters can take refuge and stash weapons.

"The Taliban has used that network of mosques to extend their message," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss U.S. intelligence information. "Many, many mosques are directly linked back to the madrassas [in Pakistan] and teachings of the Taliban."

On Feb. 3, Afghan intelligence agents said they had raided a small mosque in a narrow, muddy lane in a Kabul slum. Inside the imam's bedroom, stashed in metal boxes, they found two dozen mines, which they said were intended to blow up Kabul's airport. The disruption of the alleged plot and the arrest of the imam, 23-year-old Abdul Rahman, was a small but significant victory for Afghan authorities.

But by the next day, in his Friday sermon across town, an imam cast suspicion on the arrest.

"Who was he really working for?" Enayatullah Karimi said to dozens gathered at the Ayub Khan Mina mosque. "The Jews and Christians are training some Islamic scholars. They have beards and wear turbans just like us."

"The Jews and Christians are our enemies," Karimi told the crowd. "No doubt about it."

Anger over comment

It was a comment by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) - calling for permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan - that set Habibullah, the firebrand imam, off.

"There are some nut cases with pro-West and pro-infidel ideas who are urging President Karzai to accept the Americans' offer," he said last Friday. "But no matter how well protected these people are in the arms of foreigners, they should know that God will take revenge on them and turn their bones and flesh into dried spiderweb powder."...

And yet no one in the mosque seems to have stopped him and told him that his understanding of the Religion of Peace™ was all wrong, wrong, wrong.

"7/7 inquests: gang ringleader tried to convert schoolboy to Islam," by Duncan Gardham in the Telegraph, February 14:

The leader of the July 7 bombers tried to convert a boy under his care to Islam, the inquest into the bombings has heard.

Mohammed Sidique Khan was working as a learning mentor in a primary school in Beeston, Leeds when he took the pupil under his wing.

The inquest was told about the background of the bombers and how they became radicalised for the first time, starting with Sidique Khan.

He was said to be well liked at Hillside Primary School by parents, staff and pupils and was described as "almost like a father" to those from broken homes.

"One pupil became quite close to him and Khan would take him around to his associates and try to interest him in the Muslim faith," Hugo Keith QC, counsel for the inquest said.

Acting Det Insp Peter Sparks explained how the young man was taken to the Iqra bookshop in Beeston, which Sidique Khan and others used as somewhere to sell Islamic literature, use computers and talk about Islam.

"Khan had tried to persuade [the pupil] on numerous occasions to convert to Islam," DI Sparks said.

The inquest heard later that the child was as young as 11 or 12 when he was told "people will pay for what has been done to Pakistan" along with comments about September 11 during a conversation in Sidique Khan's car[.]...

On another occasion Sidique Khan was asked if he could arrange a speaker for the school to talk about the Koran, but the man talked with such "fervour" that the other staff became concerned.

He was brought up as a Muslim by his father but "turned out to be more religious" than his siblings, according to statements by the family to police.

At Hardy Street mosque, attended by his family, he organised trips for local children and set up activities in the countryside, the inquest heard.

"He was providing mentoring really for the youngsters coming into the mosque," DI Sparks told the hearing. "He was very much looked up to."...

A jihadist, that is. Now gone, but not forgotten, are the many statements Muslims and Islamic groups issued at the outset of this case blaming criticism of Islam for Stockham's attempted attack.

When Stockham was assumed to be a non-Muslim, the conclusion followed without question that he was some kind of Islamophobe driven by alleged "hate speech," where all negative attention directed toward Islam is taken as such. Now that he is on record as a convert to Islam, ideology will be out of the picture in favor of casting Stockham as a garden-variety nutjob.

"Judge order [sic] trial for man in Mich. mosque plot," by Jeff Karoub for the Associated Press, February 11 (thanks to JCB):

DEARBORN, Mich. - A California man accused of plotting to attack a popular Detroit-area mosque was ordered to stand trial Friday after police testified that he had 96 fireworks in his car, including M-80 firecrackers and smoke bombs.

Roger Stockham was arrested Jan. 24 during a traffic stop near the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn. Witnesses said the 63-year-old Vietnam War veteran spoke hours earlier at a bar about setting off an explosion at the mosque.

Dearborn Officer John Kostiuk said the fireworks were found in a paper bag on the front passenger seat of Stockham's Chrysler PT Cruiser. Officer Stanley Chiles, a bomb technician, testified that Stockham's cache included fireworks that are illegal in Michigan and potentially dangerous.

Chiles said the fireworks could have hurt someone, especially if combined with the alcohol and spray paint that officers found in the car and gasoline in the tank.

Judge Mark Somers found probable cause to order a trial on charges of making a false report or threat of terrorism and possessing explosives with an unlawful intent.

His next court date is Feb. 18 in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit.

Stockham of Imperial Beach, Calif., has a history of mental illness. He has been caught during the past three decades for a string of felonies -- from kidnapping his son and attempting to hijack a plane to planting a bomb outside an airport -- and spent time in various prisons and mental health hospitals.

They found him a new defense attorney, after he rejected the first one, saying, "He is a Shi'ite and I am not."

Outside court, defense attorney Matthew Evans said it was "kind of a stretch" to label the fireworks as powerful -- particularly in connection with the gas in the tank and spray paint. He said authorities have exaggerated the threat posed by Stockham and argued that police "don't even have matches" in evidence.

"It just didn't make any sense," he said. "Once you got the guy in custody, all he's got is a bunch of firecrackers he can buy 40 miles south of here."

The judge said it would not be necessary to have the fireworks in the courtroom and denied Evans' request to have police bring them in.

Evans said Stockham was interested in social protest, not attacking the mosque, and intended to spray paint the words "Crazy Horse 18" on or around the building. The phrase refers to a U.S. Apache helicopter involved in a 2007 attack in Iraq that killed a Reuters news photographer and his driver. Classified video of the attack was posted online last year.

Evans said Stockham's anger was directed at the helicopter's pilot and the U.S. government for not doing more to investigate the attack. [...]

Joe Nahhas, a manager at a Detroit restaurant, testified Friday that he called 911 and the FBI after spending time talking to Stockham in his eatery. He said Stockham told him he was typing letters intended for the media on a laptop computer and wanted Nahhas to distribute them after a "big explosion."

"I asked him where -- where's the explosion?" Nahhas said. "He said 'Here, there, the mosque.'"

Nahhas said Stockham spoke of his conversion to Islam after serving in the Vietnam War and learned about the religion from Indonesian mujahedeen, or holy warriors. He called himself a mujahedeen, [sic] which Nahhas said "raised a flag immediately" for him....

Eight Muslim preachers? How is it that they so spectacularly misunderstood their peaceful religion?

"Eight Pakistani Muslim preachers arrested in Burundi on terror suspicions," from ANI, February 8 (thanks to Twostellas):

Bujumbura, Feb 8 : Burundian police have arrested eight Pakistani Muslim preachers in a mosque in the central province of Gitega, according to police and local officials.

"A group of eight people calling themselves Pakistani Muslim preachers arrived two days ago and started holding unauthorised meetings, day and night, in the Bihororo mosque," the Daily Times quoted local official Alexis Manirakiza, as saying.

"Residents became suspicious at the presence of these foreigners in a remote area at a time when there is a terror threat from Somali rebels and they informed the police," he added....

The arrests came less than a week after the US Embassy in Burundi warned its citizens in the central African country that terror organisations, including Somalia's al Qaeda-inspired Shebab, could carry out terror attacks in February....

He is talking about a political revolution, for in Islam traditionally the political is inseparable from the religious. "Top Shia Cleric: Mosques hub of the Islamic Revolution," from the Ahlul Bayt News Agency, February 8 (thanks to Twostellas):

Top Shia cleric in holy city of Qom calls mosques as the birthplace of the Islamic Revolution.

Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Ali Alavi Gorgani in a meeting with the committee members of the mosques recommended to recall the memories of the Islamic Revolution and revalue the Islamic Revolution of Iran.

"We have to know where we gained this revolution and when the revolution conquered" said Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Ali Alavi Gorgani stressing mosques as the place where the turning points of the revolution happened.

Iranian grand jurisprudent said," Uprising of Imam Hossein (AS) was a blessing for our Islamic Revolution. He also started his uprising from mosques, therefore we all owe the victory of the Islamic Revolution to mosques."

He highlighted the necessity of constant communication with the mosques and said," One of the most important points that people need to be noticed about is to keep close to the mosques because whatever we have is a blessing of the mosques."...

They already started distancing themselves from him a few days ago, so this is no surprise. Nor were his statements that got so much negative attention: that true Muslims implement Sharia, apostates should be imprisoned, that Muslims have more of a right to Moses than Jews have, and many more. These are not "extreme" statements. They're just mainstream Islam. The one about imprisoning apostates, rather than killing them, is even "moderate."

Sharif El-Gamal and his Ground Zero mosque henchmen will be hard-pressed to find an imam who doesn't believe these things.

"2nd imam is out at Islamic center near WTC site," by David B. Caruso for Associated Press, February 4 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

A Muslim scholar recently named as the new senior imam at the Islamic center being built near the World Trade Center has parted ways with the project.

Shaykh Abdallah Adhami said Friday in a joint statement with the center's developer that he will no longer serve as a religious adviser to the center.

Adhami says he wants to devote his time to completing a book on the Quran.

Oh, I'm sure that one will be lofty.

The 44-year-old had been announced as the imam at the center last month after the departure of project co-founder Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

His appointment was followed by news reports questioning his views on homosexuality....

Wait for the outrage. Any minute now... Okay, how about now? No?

No, as always, the outrage will continue to be reserved for cartoons, Christian women accused of insulting Muhammad after refusing to convert to Islam, and a Pope accused of "attacking" the entire Ummah at once (like some kind of Bavarian, octogenarian Chuck Norris?) by calling for the repeal of Pakistan's blasphemy laws.

"Militants Use Mosques to Plot Attacks: NDS," from ToloNews, February 3 (thanks to Twostellas):

Insurgents use mosques and other religious centres to plan their attacks against government, a senior official in National Directorate of Security said Thursday.

Insurgent attacks are often planned in mosques and five individuals including two Imams were detained in Kabul in connection with the issue, NDS Spokesperson, Lotfullah Mashal told a news conference.

Organisers of Kabul suicide bombing, who targeted a supermarket in a busy diplomatic area last week, have been identified.

National security forces have recently detained the Imam of a mosque located in 10th district of Kabul along with a religious student from Kandahar over charges of facilitating insurgent activities in the country.

National security forces seized 12 magnetic mines and more than 10 IEDs from the Imam that were kept in the mosque.

They were planning to carry out a series of attacks in Shashdarak, an area near the Presidental palace, and airport roads. During investigations, they confessed having ties with Haqqani network, which is based in Pakistan's tribal belt.

"I'm the Imam of a mosque near Airport Street," the arrested man said.

"Unfortunately, enemy uses sacred places to carry out their attacks. Kabul citizens should not let suspicious people stay in mosques overnight," Mr Mashal said.

Another Imam of a mosque in Pul-e-Charkhi was arrested on charges of plotting militant attacks against government and foreign forces.

They just finished distancing themselves from Rauf after he was exposed as anything but "moderate." That's why they brought in Adhami in the first place. And now they "sought yesterday to distance themselves from Adhami's comments and backpedal on his role in the $100 million project."

Who will be next? Will the thuggish and shady Ground Zero Mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal and his henchmen finally be able to find a plausible "moderate" they can sell successfully to an ignorant and unwitting non-Muslim public? Or will there be an endless stream of imams with unsavory ties to jihadists and Islamic supremacists and histories full of "extreme" statements?

What do you think?

"Outrageous teachings by new GZ mosque big," by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein in the New York Post, January 30 (thanks to Mackie):

The new imam at the Ground Zero mosque and cultural center believes people who are gay were probably abused as children and that people who leave Islam and preach a new religion should be jailed.

Abdallah Adhami's remarks on homosexuals, religious freedom and other topics have brought renewed criticism of the proposed community center and mosque near the World Trade Center site, which purports to be an inclusive organization.

Adhami, in a lecture on the Web site of his nonprofit, Sakeenah, says being gay is a "painful trial" caused by past trauma.

"An enormously overwhelming percentage of people struggle with homosexual feeling because of some form of violent emotional or sexual abuse at some point in their life," he says. "A small, tiny percentage of people are born with a natural inclination that they cannot explain. You find this in the animal kingdom at some level as well."

He says gays must fight this "propensity."...

Adhami also notes that if a Muslim leaves the faith and "preaches their views, they're jailed."

"The only thing you do not have the right to do is spread this conviction, lest you, quote unquote, 'pollute' others," he said when asked to give his personal opinion about apostates....

The organizers of the mosque sought yesterday to distance themselves from Adhami's comments and backpedal on his role in the $100 million project.

The Park51 organization announced earlier this month that he was a "senior adviser" to the effort.

But the Park51 organizers posted on Twitter that Adhami is only an "adviser" and that his views do not reflect those of the project....

Rauf was removed from his position as imam of the Ground Zero Mosque after an apparent dispute with the thuggish developer Sharif El-Gamal. So is he making promises that he can't keep? And why, when he was at the center of the project, did he turn down offers from Donald Trump and others to buy the Ground Zero Mosque site at many times over market value?

"Cleric open to new site for Islamic center," by Jay Tokasz in the Buffalo News, January 29:

The Muslim cleric at the center of a controversial plan to build an Islamic center near ground zero told The Buffalo News on Saturday he would consider another location for the project if a suitable site was offered.

"If someone is willing to offer another site ... I would move," said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who was in Western New York to address concerns about the project. "I would move because my whole life is about improving relationships with people, and once the project is established, it will have an impact."

It was the first time Abdul Rauf appeared to back away from building the center two blocks from where the World Trade Center fell....

Any alternative site would have to be "on par, or even better," than the current proposed site in a former coat store at 51 Park Place in Manhattan, where Abdul Rauf and real estate investor Sharif el-Gamal sought to build a 13-story center.

So far, no such offer has materialized, Abdul Rauf said in an interview with The Buffalo News editorial board.

Abdul Rauf also acknowledged that he and Gamal have different ideas of what the project should be, forcing Abdul Rauf to re-examine whether it was still possible to fulfill his vision for an interfaith center at the Park Place locale.

"Mr. Gamal is more focused on the Islam aspect than on the multifaith aspect of it," said Abdul Rauf. "He came at this from the point of view of wanting to establish an Islamic center."

Gamal has referred to the project as Park51; Rauf describes it as Cordoba House, a reference to a historical period in Cordoba, Spain, about 1,000 years ago when Muslims, Jews, and Christians coexisted and created a prosperous center of intellectual, spiritual, cultural and commercial life.

Whose vision will win out isn't clear. Gamal has a sizable ownership stake in the Park Place property, but Abdul Rauf is well-known internationally among Muslims and is currently on an extended speaking tour to raise interest, and possibly money, for the project....

Kyrgyz authorities are being more realistic about this than their American counterparts. "Kyrgyz Mosques Under Greater Scrutiny As Ties Between Islam, Extremism Emerge," by Daisy Sindelar for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, January 23:

[...] In Kyrgyzstan, where 85 percent of the population is Muslim, many looked to mosques as a place for reconciliation after the summer violence left a bloody divide between the country's ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. Special prayer sessions were held in a number of mosques to bring together members of both communities and call for respect and mutual tolerance.

But mosques have also been viewed with suspicion, with some suggesting they're a breeding ground for extremist groups who may have played a role in the June events and are intent upon further destabilizing the country.

Officials in Bishkek have blamed religious extremists for a recent spate of explosions and other attacks, including a massive bombing that disrupted court proceedings in November and a January 4 firefight that left four law enforcement officers and two alleged militants dead. Interior Minister Zarylbek Rysaliev said in a statement that "a war has been declared on all of us" and that "evil is wearing the mask of a believer."

Marat Imankulov, the deputy chairman of the State Committee for National Security, says that the single greatest security threat facing Kyrgyzstan today is religious extremism promoted by organizations like Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose call for a global Islamic caliphate has deeply unnerved governments in Central Asia despite the group's formal renunciation of violence.

Hizb ut-Tahrir filtered into Kyrgyzstan from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the late 1990s, and is currently banned in Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian states. Imankulov says mosques played a role early on in boosting the group's influence in the south.

"At the beginning, I remember, most of those who got involved with [Hizb ut-Tahrir] were young Uzbek guys, because they were more religious, they went to mosque, and those extremist organizations went after them," Imankulov says.

"They would meet up with them at the mosques on the pretext of needing to teach them more about the canons of Islam, and then at night they would gather together at someone's home to study the Koran and the rules of Islam. And then, like salt and pepper, they would start to sprinkle in extremist dialogue. A lot of people crossed over to extremism in that way."...

Nearly all religious authorities in the country -- including all but the top two members of the Spiritual Board of Kyrgyzstan's Muslims, the country's central religious authority -- will be subjected to special screenings. Efforts will also be made to establish unified supervision over the Islamic charities and other organizations currently operating in the country.

Perhaps most significantly, the authority of the country's grand mufti will be scaled back from chairing all three of the country's top Islamic bodies to just one, the Spiritual Board. The change is meant to diffuse the absolute authority of the grand mufti's post while ensuring that critical decisions, like the appointment of new imams, are still channeled through a single body....

FrontPage mag editor Jamie Glazov discusses the significance of the Ground Zero mosque imam switch on Fox and Friends. Get the full story from Pamela Geller here and here.

Rauf made wild statements like "the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims," as Pamela Geller revealed here. We drew attention to his support for the jihad flotilla against Israel, his refusal to denounce Hamas (yes, he did after a great deal of public pressure), his slums and the disappearance of the money he received from the state of New Jersey to repair them, his tax-dodge one-bedroom apartment that he misrepresented as a mosque regularly attended by 500 people, and more. And clearly the Islamic supremacist organizers of the Ground Zero mega-mosque felt the heat: now Rauf is gone.

But his replacement, Abdullah Adhami, looks to be just as problematic. Is there no one they could find who is absolutely clear of ties to jihad terrorists and/or stealth jihadists? As Pamela details here, Adhami has praised Islamic supremacist imam Siraj Wahhaj: "Siraj Wahhaj is the voice of the spirit of Islam in America and its pride."

Siraj Wahhaj is a big star on the American Muslim speaker circuit. In 1991, he was the first Islamic cleric to give an invocation to the U.S. Congress. However, he has also warned that the United States will fall unless it "accepts the Islamic agenda." He has lamented that "if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate."

In the early 1990s he sponsored talks by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman in mosques in New York City and New Jersey; Rahman was later convicted for conspiring to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, and Wahhaj was designated a "potential unindicted co-conspirator."

"Amid Rift, Imam's Role in Islam Center Is Sharply Cut," by Paul Vitello in the New York Times, January 14:

Long-simmering tensions between co-founders of the proposed Islamic center and mosque near ground zero led to a parting of the ways on Friday that sharply reduced the role of one: the imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, long the project's public face.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf will remain on the board of a planned Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero, but his role in the project was reduced.

Imam Abdallah Adhami will preside at Friday services in a temporary mosque at 51 Park Place, site of a planned Islamic community center, in place of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

The break-up sent ripples of uncertainty through a community of religious and political leaders in New York who rallied last summer to the side of Mr. Abdul Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan, when opponents assailed the plan to build near the site of the 9/11 attacks. Some worried aloud that the curtailed involvement of the couple could cost the project support. Others said the plan would continue to be endorsed by people committed to interfaith dialogue and freedom of religious expression.

The split was announced unilaterally by Mr. Abdul Rauf's partner in the project, Sharif el-Gamal, the real estate investor who owns the former coat store at 51 Park Place where the 13-story center is planned.

In a statement that took Mr. Abdul Rauf by surprise, according to a spokesman for the imam, Mr. Gamal said the imam and his wife would no longer raise money for or speak on behalf of the project, known as Park51, though Mr. Abdul Rauf would remain on its board.

"While Imam Feisal's vision has a global scope and his ideals for the Cordoba movement are truly exceptional, our community in Lower Manhattan is local," said Mr. Gamal, referring to the imam's longstanding work in promoting interfaith understanding. "Our focus is and must remain the residents of Lower Manhattan and the Muslim American community in the greater New York area."...

"There is a disturbing pattern of stonewalling by the City and Mayor's Office in providing information about what's clearly been a politically tainted process from day one." Yes, indeed.

"Legal Group Seeks Injunction to Halt Mosque Near Ground Zero," by Lawrence D. Jones for the Christian Post, January 12 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

NEW YORK - A conservative legal group asked the New York Supreme Court on Tuesday to halt construction of the Islamic cultural center near ground zero.

The American Center for Law and Justice, which represents 9/11 first responder firefighter Tim Brown in a lawsuit against the Park51 project, is seeking an injunction in any demolition and construction at the downtown Manhattan site.

The group alleges that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his office overstepped their legal boundaries in assisting the developers of the $100 million project.

Court filings revealed several emails between Bloomberg's office and the Park51 developers.

In one email, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is spearheading the project, wrote to a commissioner of the Community Affairs Unit in the mayor's office thanking her for drafting a letter to the Lower Manhattan Community Board 1 advocating for the project.

ACLJ counsel Brett Joshpe also asked the court to grant discovery in the case, noting that the mayor's office has not fully responded to the group's Freedom of Information Law request for communications between Bloomberg, the New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the Islamic center's developers.

"There is a disturbing pattern of stonewalling by the City and Mayor's Office in providing information about what's clearly been a politically tainted process from day one," said Josphe in a statement.

"The limited release of documents by the Mayor's Office underscores our concerns."

Filed last August, Brown's lawsuit alleges that the LPC abused its discretion and acted arbitrarily in its deliberations last summer about whether to give landmark status to the building at 45-47 Park Place, which would have made it difficult for Rauf to develop the Islamic center and mosque there. The LPC denied landmark status to the building, located just two blocks from the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The lawsuit names the LPC, the New York City Department of Buildings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the project's developers.

In its request for injunctive relief, ACLJ said it believes destruction of the building is imminent, citing two complaints of unauthorized work without proper permits at the site.

The group also pointed to the developers' application for $5 million in public funding through the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation as an indication that the project is moving forward.

The proposed center is expected to include a mosque, a daycare, gym, an interfaith prayer space, and a 9/11 Memorial cultural center, among other things.

Opponents of the mosque have vocally demanded that the center be moved elsewhere.

Activist Pamela Geller is expected to lead another protest against the mosque next month.

Yes, indeed. Be there on February 3 at 49-51 Chambers Street at 12:45PM.

No, before this controversy, I didn't really know who he was either. It seems that Justin Bieber is a sweet, harmless boy singer who plays upon the heartstrings of tween and teen girls across the Dar al Harb with chipper love songs and winsome smiles. As a middle-aged man, it's just as well that I wasn't fully versed in Bieber's oeuvre; if I knew too much, it might signal that something was wrong with me. I learned about Master Bieber from the teapot-tempest tossed through the careless pen of Andy Sullivan--who's described by the Toronto Sun as "a Brooklyn construction worker who created the 9-11 Hard Hat Pledge under which labourers pledge not to help build the planned mosque and community centre."

It seems that Sullivan read a hoax interview with Bieber, attributed to the girls' fanzine Tiger Beat, which included the following:

Justin Bieber has weighed on the controversy surrounding the so-called "Ground Zero" Mosque. In an interview with Tiger Beat, the pop sensation stressed that freedom of religion is what makes America great, and went on to say that those who oppose the Mosque are motivated by bigotry.

"Muslims should be allowed to build a mosque anywhere they want," the singer said. "Coming from Canada, I'm not used to this level of intolerance, eh."

Bieber went on to say that Muslims are "super cool," Christians are "lame-o-rama," and that the mosque will help "start a dialogue" with all religions about which Justin Bieber song is the most awesome.

"I was like seven when September 11th went down, and frankly I'm surprised people are still going on about it. Move on, already!"

Added the singer, "Everyone needs to just chillax and dance!"

Now, the article was a satire, but Sullivan has a tin ear for the genre. So according to the Sun, Sullivan gave "national interviews about his young children's reaction to the news that their idol, Bieber, was a purported mosque supporter." Informed by the less irony-impaired that the interview was a stunt, Sullivan did the right thing, and said he was sorry: "I offer my most genuine apology to Justin Bieber, his family and fans," Sullivan wrote on his blog. "If I have caused any grief or pain I am terribly sorry."

The whole kerfuffle ended up being covered on CNN, to the glee of the puckish writers at CelebJihad, who concocted the original story.

Why should we be interested in all this? Because of what it says about the climate of opinion. If opposition to the Ground Zero Victory Mosque were indeed the preserve of a tiny contingent of "haters," led by puffed up nonentities like (two-time NY Times bestselling author) Robert Spencer and (author and widely televised commentator) Pamela Geller, with no real constituency... why would it be necessary for Sullivan to apologize? All he was doing was stating that Justin Bieber agreed with the huge majority of Americans, who blithely accept the construction of a mosque on the site of the largest Islamic mass murder in recent history. If most Americans agreed with Bieber's purported sentiments, why would it be libelous for Sullivan to publicize them? Why would Bieber's hotshot lawyers (come on, you know this is what really happened) have twisted Sullivan's arm to the point that he had to publicly apologize?

The only answer is this: 51 percent of Americans surveyed thought the Ground Zero Mosque was the leading news story of 2010, and 61 percent of Americans oppose its construction, because they know what it really amounts to: an endzone dance on 3,000 plus American graves. When Bieber's fans (or more likely, their parents) "learned" that Bieber was on the side of Daisy Khan and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, they went ballistic. They probably looked around the house for Bieber's records so they could burn them--only to learn that the songs were all on iTunes anyway. If opposing the Victory Mosque was such a fringe position, why would it endanger a pop star's career to say that he favored the project?

Bieber's attorneys know the truth about how Americans feel on this subject, and they don't want their innocent client associated with this issue--one way or the other. The satire, which was very clever, put in Bieber's mouth the haughty dismissiveness toward our anger over terrorism that Western appeasers really do display. If Michael Bloomberg had the stones, he might very well say what he thinks about 9/11, and it wouldn't be too much different than "frankly I'm surprised people are still going on about it. Move on, already!"

We are not moving on. We are not jumping up, like browbeaten dhimmis, and moving to the back of the bus. Any politician who supports the Victory Mosque should be targeted with savage attack ads in the next election--sponsored by third party groups (rather than the opposing candidates), with powerful footage of the slaughter enacted that day in the name of Allah. Maybe, if they can obtain the rights, the ads should feature music by... Justin Bieber. Instead of "Never Say Never," he could be asked to sing "Never Again."

Pamela Geller notes: "The release today of documents, emails and various exchanges between Mayor Bloomberg and radical Rauf and his motley crew of Islamic supremacists shows evidence of collusion and inappropriate political support/favoritism of the Ground Zero mega mosque. It's worse than we imagined. Mayor Bloomberg's offices went to extraordinary lengths for the radicals trying to build a mega mosque at Ground Zero -- even writing a letter to the community board for them, newly released documents show....The records of communication between the Office of the Mayor and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf concerning the Cordoba Initiative's proposed Cordoba House project show that the Mayor, on more than one occasion, improperly collaborated with Rauf and co."

Yep. Here is the latest:

"City Hall ghostwrote GZ mosque's letter," by Sally Goldenberg in the New York Post, December 24 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Dozens of e-mails between Mayor Bloomberg's aides and developers of the proposed mosque near Ground Zero reveal a cordial, if not downright cozy, relationship and the length to which a top city staffer went to help the project -- even drafting a letter for the group soliciting support from the community board, and providing the fax number to send it.

In one exchange, Community Affairs Commissioner Nazli Parvizi penned the draft of a letter to be sent by Daisy Khan, a key sponsor of the project known alternately as Cordoba House or Park51, to the chairperson of Community Board 1, Julie Menin, as the panel prepared to vote on its recommendation on the project.

The letter drafted by Parvizi thanked Menin for being open-minded about the plan for a mosque and cultural center -- which by then had become a flashpoint issue around the nation.

Parvizi e-mailed the draft to Khan and her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf -- ending with the salutation, "Best, Daisy," indicating that she actually was preparing Khan's letter to a city agency.

She also included the fax number and mailing address for CB1 -- which ultimately voted in favor of the project in May -- and offered further assistance....

Opponents of the plan were furious.

"The mayor was touting, ironically, government not being involved in religion, and here you have the mayor's staffer assisting in a public-relations campaign on behalf of a mosque and Islamic center," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was a pilot of one of the hijacked planes on 9/11.

"I think this is highly improper."

So do I.