I just received this email from a regular reader of Jihad Watch, with whom I have corresponded often in the past:
I am rather upset this wonderful morning in NYC. I arrived this morning at a Catholic retreat sponsored by Pax Christi at the NYU Catholic Center. The retreat was titled “Peacemaking Beyond Ourselves, Beyond Our Borders with Francis and Claire.” It was led by Kevin Queally, TOR. The day was to focus on St. Francis, his outreach to others, including a Muslim Sultan during the Crusades.
As I proceed to look at the literature handed out, I noticed that there was the schedule, complete with the Morning Prayer for all to recite. To my disgust, the very first opening prayer was “Your Holy Names” in God has no religion, adapted from “Salat” by Hazrat. Pir-o-Murchid Inayat Khan of the Islamic tradition!
It starts off rather benign, “Most gracious God, Messiah, and savior of humanity,” blah, blah, blah. But then, it says the following:
“Allow us to recognize You in all your holy names and forms…Let us know you as Abraham…as Jesus, as Muhammad, and in many other names and forms.”
Am I to place Muhammad on the same moral plain as Jesus Christ? Am I not essentially praying to Muhammad?
I don’t see a prayer to Muhammad here, but it does seem from this that in their haste to assume dhimmi status, these people have deified Muhammad (as well as Abraham), thereby guaranteeing that they will not win the friendship, but only the ire, of any pious Muslim.
Then the prayer card Pax Christi handed out had at the top, a title, as follows in descending order the following:
Muslim
Jewish
Christian
______Prayer for Peace
Now forgive me, but assuming I am in a Catholic organization in a Catholic church, why is “Muslim” included at the top of the list? Even simple alphabetizing dictates it should be in the reverse order: Catholic, Jewish, then Muslim. Again, Islam is given a position of supremacy for no obvious reason.
But it gets better. On the tables they were selling shirts with the word “peace” in Arabic first, then Hebrew, then English at the bottom.
But the most insulting thing was a wooden medallion featuring a crescent, a Star of David in the usual position of the Islamic star and a small cross in the very center of the arrangement. Sort of reminds us again that Islam has us in its “embrace,” eh?
The pamphlets were titled as follows: “What families need to know about military recruiting in high schools and colleges”; “Conscientious Objection and the Military”; and “Military Families Speak Out.”
This whole morning seems to have been one big ecumenical fuzzy thinking affair with Muslims swooping in to have us dhimmis promote their agenda.
Oh, but imagine my shock and horror to discover upon going down the stairs to the basement of the NYU Catholic Center, which is I presume a Catholic Church, to find an ISLAMIC CULTURAL CENTER!
It is basically a mosque with prayer rugs and pictures of Mecca and all the rest. It is a fairly large sized room at the foot of the stairs in the Catholic Center. In front were all sorts of Islamic pamphlets, magazines, etc. I picked one up: a magazine called “Aftab.” In it were various articles and poetry related to Islam. Aftab is “An NYU Muslim Student Publication.”
Get a load of this poem by Asad Jawed inside, indicating how much at home NYU Muslims feel with their mosque in the basement of this church:
Iftar At The IC [the Islamic Center in the basement of the Catholic Center]
mix and mingle
make yourself tingle
feel real fine
praise Allah subhanna wa’ ta ala, the devine.
thompson street 238 [This is the address of the NYU Catholic Center]
iftar at the ic, no doubt about it.
midterms, projects, job interviews; everything is a scatter,
and we congregate at sunset, no matter.
maghreb adhaan, admist dunya turbulence,
a moment of sweet solemn silence.
last nite joy tonight greenhouse, tomorrow nite crownfried, nothing for leftovers.
zakaat,tarawih, tahajjud, a month of makeovers.
a month of saum, seeking gardens green,
all preparing for yawmi alddeen.
brothers and sisters, iftar at the ic, all together,
a community, special like no other.But another article, “Muslim Heritage: Al-Andalus” by Dalal Kanan, takes the cake. In addition to the usual nonsense about the marvels of this Muslim utopia, there is this:
The Muslims could not abandon the people who had been living in a state of strife and oppression. The Christians and Jews welcomed this (the invasion led by Tariq bin Ziad) since, as dhimmis, they were allowed to enter the fields of government, science, medicine and literature and were afforded the protection of the state with payment of the jizya tax.
This in the spring 2005 issue of Aftab, in a basement mini mosque/Islamic cultural center at the NYU Catholic Center.
At this point I walked out before the event even started. I could hardly contain my anger at both the NYU Catholic Center and the Pax Christi people who were using their facilities. I intend to demand my money back.
In reference to Muslim Spain, Christians and Jews lived in harmony with Muslims only as inferiors. Historian Kenneth Baxter Wolf notes that the Muslim conquerors imposed new laws “aimed at limiting those aspects of the Christian cult which seemed to compromise the dominant position of Islam.” After enumerating a standard list of the laws restricting dhimmis — no building of new churches, no holding authority over Muslims, distinctive clothing, etc. — he adds: “Aside from such cultic restrictions most of the laws were simply designed to underscore the position of the dimmîs as second-class citizens.” If Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together peaceably and productively only with Christians and Jews relegated by law to second-class citizen status, then al-Andalus has precisely nothing to teach our age about tolerance.
But even worse in all this is the silly New Age syncretism at NYU. They don’t even get Islam right in their anxiety to affirm it. And they clearly have no idea that at least some of the Muslims they are trying so hard to to include in their limp, squishy prayers to Everyone and No One will not appreciate the gesture, but will only take it as a sign of weakness and non-resistance.