Recently in Poland Category

Are researchers allowed to call Muhammad a paedophile?
by Natalia Mazur
Gazeta Wyborcza, July 2, 2011
Exclusive English translation for Jihad Watch by Grzegorz Kusnierz

Does it behoove an Arabic Studies scholar to criticize Islam? A professor from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań tried, and lost his job.

Muslims praying in a dormitory

Bartłomiej Grysa, PhD, has been teaching the Arabic language at Adam Mickiewicz University. His main field of interest, however, was relations between Christians and Muslims. He believes this was the reason for his being fired. His case was recently described in the “Fronda” magazine.

Grysa has been teaching the Arabic language at the university since 1998. He has been controversial with students. They wrote on the Internet:

“I have no idea what he is doing here," some wondered. "He is anti-Islamic.”

Others disagreed: “Arabic Studies is not, and should not be, a Koranic school.”

“None of us want a Koranic school, but neither an Oriana Fallaci school,” replied the first group.

The dean of the university received a letter about Grysa from the Mufti of the Polish Muslim Religious Association, Tomasz Miśkiewicz. “Students complained that Dr. Grysa offends them during his lectures. Some of them are Muslims; one student is married to a Muslim. We asked the university to investigate the case,” said the press spokesman of the association, Musa Czachorowski.

After four years as an adjunct, Professor Grysa’s contract, like those of all university scholars, could have been extended for another six years. This was, however, not done. “The Mufti’s letter had no direct influence on our employment decision,” emphasized the university’s press spokesperson, Dominika Narożna. She emailed us that “there was no extension of the employment contract due to the fact that the Neophilology Department provided the Dean’s Office with no employment request for the professor”.

The reason? A negative evaluation. Professor Paweł Siwiec, the head of the Arabic Studies Department and Grysa’s superior, in his assessment writes extensively about Grysa's book, Islam – The True Face of the Religion of Peace. Forced conversions to Islam, the stoning of converts out of Islam, and the changing of churches into mosques are described in the book. Siwiec focused on the chapter describing Muhammad’s biography: “Dr. Grysa offends the religious feelings of Muslims by calling the Prophet of Islam a murderer, an assassin, a paedophile and a robber,” he wrote, and emphasized that Grysa is formally a linguist, and that the publication is not connected to his field of study. “From the point of view of the research methodology of the humanities, a border to a scholarly critique is set by a researcher’s language” Narożna says. “Words used by scholars ought to be free from invectives, positive and negative emotions, and an affective vocabulary”.

Recently, the Arabic Studies Department quit co-operation with two other scholars who were writing about the oppression of Christians by Muslims: Professor Michael Abdalla, a founder of the Middle East Christianity Laboratory, and his Ph.D. student. Professor Abdalla was transferred from Arabic Studies to the Linguistics Department, and deprived of his lab.

“If you’re looking for people writing about the Christians of the Middle East, go to Catholic, Church run universities,” suggests Professor Siwiec. He himself has lectured about “Religious minorities in the Arab world,” but he emphasizes that culture studies are not the mainstream of the curriculum. “Arabic studies are linguistic studies. Graduates are supposed to know the language thoroughly,” he explains.

“Knowledge of Middle East Christianity is a vital part of Arabic Studies expertise,” claims Professor Emeritus Krzysztof Kościelniak, an Arabic Studies scholar from the Papal University. “An objective picture of relations between Muslims and Christians in the Middle East is a requirement for a proper dialogue. In Syria, these relations are very good, but unfortunately this is not a rule. When in 1990-2000, two million Christians were killed, Europe remained silent. Not much is done when an Egyptian Copt is killed while praying. Would we remain silent if a European extremist shot a praying Muslim? In a dialogue, both parties should have equal rights,” he emphasizes.

Kościelniak admits that talking about Christians might prove difficult for an Arabic Studies researcher: university departments try to establish co-operation with Arab countries.

Professor Emeritus Kościelniak admits that Dr. Grysa’s book is problematic, due to some parts of it: “Sources confirm that Muhammad had intercourse with a nine-year-old Aisha, but this cannot be understood from today’s perspective. Then we would also have to call Jagiełło a paedophile (a king of Poland, who won one of the biggest battles of the Middle Ages, near Grunwald), since his wife was 12 years old,” he recalls. “If it is true, however, that Dr. Grysa and other people are not allowed to work with students only because of their scholarly interests, then that is worrying. It is also not good to feel offended by every unskillful explanation of a fact.”

“No university can limit access to facts,” admits the philosopher and ethicist Professor Jacek Hołówka admits. “A scholar has a right to moderately, diplomatically and essentially provide arguments confirming his opinion that Muhammad does not deserve the respect he is being paid. A university should be a place for a free debate. Any fact, however, can be presented without judgements, derision, aggression, and epithets."

What does Dr. Grysa himself think about it? “If the Church intervened concerning any scholar, resulting in his losing his job, a great debate would ensue on the violation of the autonomy of the university. When Muslims intervene, however, we are more understanding,” Grysa noted. He expects nothing from AMU any more. “I had a certain chance to return to the university. When I was rejected and called an ideologue, driven by emotions I described the situation to a journalist. But I think that continuing the fight is pointless. I have a feeling that all the university cares about is silence. In fear of attacks by Islamic fundamentalists, reliable study of Islam is being blocked."

"Fundamentalists reacted to the piece, placed on an internet music store website, because it included backing music of an Islamic prayer." Muhammad harbored an intense hostility to music (among other things); hence, this gesture was taken as an insult, and threats of violence predictably ensued.

"Polish Disc Jockey Threatened By Islamic Fundamentalists," from The Outlook, January 17 (thanks to John Doe):

Warsaw, Poland 17 January 2010 - Islamic fundamentalists posted death threats against a Polish disk jockey soon after he published a song that he says was supposed to be a tribute to the Muslim culture.

It started on Christmas Eve.

Jakub Rene Kosik, a 27-year-old DJ from Poland excused himself from the dinner table and checked his Facebook. Word of his newest composition, Mekka, was out. And it was ill-received.

"You messed with Islam," the first message read. "We'll never forgive what you did to our religion," read another. "You played with us, now we'll play with you." "We're everywhere. Forget your international career." By morning he had more than 300 such messages.

Fundamentalists reacted to the piece, placed on an internet music store website, because it included backing music of an Islamic prayer.

"I smiled stupidly and told my girlfriend "I think they want to kill me for this composition". In the first instant, she didn't react. Afterwards she was hysteric," Kosik said.

"I had mixed feelings. My first thought was, "great, publicity". Later I started thinking if I didn't in fact really hurt these people. But my composition was supposed to be a tribute to their culture.

"I'm atheist. But I was raised with respect to different religions and philosophical opinions."

The threats and negative comments, including one from an 8-year-old French boy - "Jakub Rene Kosik - die dog" - resulted in sleepless nights for the artist. He replied to the threats, each one individually, apologized and explained it was never his intention to offend anyone's religious sentiment. But it wasn't until he removed the piece from the sites that the taunts subsided.

Kosik denied accusations of a publicity stunts and said he doesn't feel any more popular and hasn't been invited to any more parties than usual.

"I am bitter that I was treated that way by fundamentalists. And I pity them that they aren't able to see things more liberally," Kosik said....

Richard L. Rubenstein writes in Frontpage:

In the aftermath of the ritualistic near-decapitation of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, as well as the death threats and frivolous “hate-crime” lawsuits directed against honest scholars writing about Islamic extremism, some Muslims and their western sympathizers appear determined to control, by fair means or foul, what is said and written about Islam in the West.

A first-hand example of this trend can be seen in the response to the keynote address I delivered on June 9, 2005 in Krakow, Poland at the Annual Meeting of the Public Administration Theory Network (PAT-Net), an international academic organization, in which I discussed the problems raised by the rapidly increasing number of Muslims in Europe. Some of the immigrants and their European-born descendants have made no secret of the fact that they regard their religion and culture as destined by divine ordinance to transform Europe into a Muslim-dominated imperial realm. Although many have chosen the path of integration, an unknown number have repeatedly stated that they seek to replace the western secular order with a new sacred, absolutist Islamic order...

Such a monumental transformation required the active involvement of senior European officials as documented by Bat Ye’or, an internationally-recognized authority on Euro-Arab relations. She has shown that the Muslim immigration was the result of political decisions taken, more often than not, without public debate, by those same officials and their Arab counterparts in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74.

The purpose of my paper was to analyze the consequences of these decisions not to offer a solution. Of the three respondents to my paper, two academics offered reasonable critiques in a civil manner. The third respondent, Professor Mohamad Al-Khadry of West Virginia University, began by revealing that he had demanded that the program committee withdraw my invitation and apologize to the Muslim community because my speech was “bigoted, racist, hate speech.” He went on to portray me as a racist whose views resembled those of Nazi scholars dealing with Jews.

Disregarding official statistics, Al-Khadry claimed that Muslims constitute only 2% of Europe's population. He complained that I had used “the works of authors and sources who have often been accused of Islamophobia,” as if any apprehension concerning Islam was out of bounds. He spoke contemptuously of Bernard Lewis and dismissed the views of Bassam Tibi of Germany’s Göttingen University and Mahmoud Ayoub of Temple University, both respected Muslim scholars, whom I cited on population issues.

His worst spleen was reserved for Bat Ye’or and MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute). He labeled Bat Ye’or a bigot, a racist, and an “Islamophobe” and attacked MEMRI as a “pro-Israel propagandist website.” Actually, MEMRI makes available in reliable text translation and subtitled streaming video what is really said and written in the mosques and media of the Middle East. MEMRI has often been attacked for its provenance but never successfully for the accuracy of its translations...

Read it all.

The fact that he is of "Algerian origin" makes it quite likely that he is a jihadist. From AFP, with thanks to LGF:

WARSAW, Aug 18 (AFP) - Police have arrested a Frenchman near a gas pumping station in western Poland suspecting he is preparing a terrorist attack, an official from the Polish security services said on Wednesday.

"Michel N., 23, is being investigated for preparing actions which can endanger human life and destroy property," Ewa Socha, the official following the matter at the public prosecutor's office in the western city of Poznan told AFP.

"We had sufficient information at our disposal to be able to arrest him for three months," she told AFP by telephone....

The suspect is of Algerian origin, according to Poland's Fakt newspaper.

He "was arrested Friday while he was cycling around the pumping station at Swarzedz and taking photos of the site," the newspaper said.

According to another newspaper, the Rzeczpospolita, he is suspected of "having prepared the ground to blow up the pumping station".

Even though it only had 51 troops in Iraq, the Philippines has dealt the coalition and the free world a major blow by caving in to terrorist demands and withdrawing them. Not only will they not bring peace to the Philippines or the Middle East, but many more people will be murdered by the terrorists. After all, they have seen that it works. From AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - New online statements by purported militants threatened attacks against three U.S. allies -- Poland, Japan and Bulgaria -- if they don't pull their troops from Iraq, a day after a Filipino hostage was released because the Philippines bowed to insurgents' demands and withdrew its tiny contingent....

The new threats against Poland, Japan and Bulgaria were worrying signs that militants may be emboldened by their success against the Philippines. The United States and other coalition allies had criticized the government for agreeing to withdraw its 51-member contingent to save the life of truck driver Angelo dela Cruz, who was kidnapped two weeks ago.

The same group that kidnapped dela Cruz, the Khaled bin al-Waleed Corps, took aim at Japan. The group is the military wing of Tawhid and Jihad, the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"To the government of Japan: Do what the Philippines has done. By God, nobody will protect you and we are not going to tolerate anybody," said a statement signed by the group. "Lines of cars laden with explosives are awaiting you; we will not stop, God willing."

A Foreign Ministry official in Japan said Wednesday that Tokyo would not pull its 500 troops, sent here for medical and reconstruction duty. Japan refused in April to withdraw after three Japanese were kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents. They were released unharmed....

The veracity of the latest statement could not be determined. A new statement signed Tawhid and Jihad on Wednesday cautioned readers to trust only statements posted on the group's behalf by Abu-Maysara al-Iraqi, the pen name of a frequent contributor to sites known for militant Muslim content. The threat against Japan was not posted by Abu-Maysara al-Iraqi.

While Tawhid and Jihad -- a name referring to the central Islamic tenet of monotheism and to holy war -- has claimed many attacks, it rarely issues threats or warnings. It earlier claimed responsibility for beheading U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il.

An online statement from a previously unknown group that identified itself as al-Qaida's European branch contained threats to carry out deadly attacks in Bulgaria and Poland if the two countries don't withdraw their troops from Iraq.

The statement, signed by the Tawhid Islamic Group, appeared Wednesday on an Islamic Web site known as a clearing house for al-Qaida and groups linked to the terror network. The group identified itself as "al-Qaida in Europe." The authenticity of the statement and the group could not be verified.

The group said Bulgaria and Poland will "pay the price" just like the United States and Spain did, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington and deadly explosions on trains in Madrid in March.

"To the crusader Bulgarian government which is allying itself with the Americans and to the Bulgarian people we demand, for the last time, that you withdraw Bulgarian troops out of Iraq or we swear we will turn Bulgaria into pools of blood if you don't comply," said the statement.

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov said Friday he won't pull out Bulgaria's 480-strong infantry battalion from Iraq. Last week militants threatened to kill two Bulgarian truck drivers in Iraq, while the fate of the second hostage remained unclear.

The group's statement also had a warning to Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka: "Pull your troops out of Iraq or you will hear the sounds of explosions that will hit your country, at the time we choose."...

On Wednesday, Deputy Defense Minister Janusz Zemke said withdrawing troops from Iraq would be a "terrible mistake" that would only encourage terrorism.

I'm glad somebody realizes that. It's too bad Janusz Zemke doesn't work in Manila.

As Polish troops discover chemical weapons in Iraq, Saddam says "This is all a theater by Bush, the criminal."

The timing couldn't be worse for Saddam -- if only the stories were reported together, which is not happening as far as I can see. Instead, Saddam alone, in various dramatic poses of righteous indignation, is everywhere, sounding a good bit like Al Gore or John Kerry -- which may explain the slant of the coverage so far.

I expect that in the coming days we will see more and more stories about Iraqis' nostalgia for the good old days of the Saddam regime, and maybe even puff pieces about how the old guy wasn't so bad after all.

Islamicawakening.com, or As-sahwah.com, is described by those indispensable folks at Internet Haganah as "Salafyist/Jihadist," with a "Pro qaida 'news' and discussion forum, notable participants in which include English Nazi David Myatt, aka Abdul Aziz."

Here's a little something from their discussion boards from earlier this month, which came to my attention tonight:

American bases in Poland

IslamicAwakening.Com Discussion Board: Jihaad: American bases in Poland

By Radoslav Z. on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 06:08 pm: Edit

Known locations of american bases that will be build in Poland: Powidz [airbase], Babie Doly [airbase, naval training camp], Oksywie [main polish naval base]. Good targets!