Just like anyone else
This story is typical of how people who have no idea that the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism even exist view Islam: it’s a trifle exotic, yes, but more sinned against than sinning, you see — for look, they’re just like us! They have cellphones and drink Starbucks coffee! “It’s not about terrorism or hatred. It’s about love.”
And of course, Muslims are just like us — human nature is everywhere the same. But Starbucks coffee, cellphones, and the merry shrieks of children aren’t quite enough to dispel the suspicions aroused by the fact that the Islamic Circle of North America was named in an internal Muslim Brotherhood memorandum in 1991 as one of the organizations involved in a “kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “˜sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Steven Emerson pointed out as long ago as 1997 that “the Islamic Circle of North America (or ICNA) proclaims in writing its support for jihad, or holy war, against the ‘enemies of Islam’; its U.S.-based conferences and publications are replete with the need to support the terrorist regime of the Sudan and the need to support ‘Islamic movements’ in which category they include Hamas and the Islamic Salvation Front among others. ICNA’s hatred of Jews is so fierce that it has taunted Jews with a repetition of what Hitler did to them.”
Just like anyone else? Maybe if “anyone else” is Julius Streicher.
“In Hartford, Thousands Gather To Celebrate Islam,” by Matt Burgard for the Hartford Courant, July 6 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
A woman wearing a burqa sat on a bench Saturday at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, the fabric across her face revealing only her eyes.
If reporter Matt Burgard could see her eyes, then she was wearing a niqab, not a burqa. The burqa covers everything, leaving only a screen to allow the wearer to see out. The niqab covers the face but reveals the eyes.
Next to her, a group of children chatted on cellphones and shrieked merrily over the sound of chanting music calling the assembled masses to prayers.
At the annual Islamic Circle of North America Convention, the traditional mixes easily with the modern.
“We’re just like anyone else, and I think people have a hard time understanding that,” said Sakina Abduss-Salaam, a New Jersey woman who strolled through the convention Saturday wearing a black-and-gold Islamic hijab dress and holding a Starbucks iced coffee.
Abduss-Salaam said she converted to Islam 18 years ago when she met her husband, a Muslim. She said the religion has shaped her life as she and her husband have raised two children and held full-time jobs in a society that sometimes views Muslims with distrust.
“It’s not about terrorism or hatred. It’s about love,” she said. “Being a Muslim is just like being a Christian or a Jewish person. We are all called to treat each other with respect.”
The convention, which has taken place in Hartford for the last four years, is expected to draw more than 15,000 people by the time it winds down later today, said Muhammad Rahman, the convention’s co-chairman.
He said most of those who have shown up this weekend are Muslims from the East Coast stretching from New England to the Carolinas, though many have traveled from Canada and Texas and other far-off points.
“It’s become a very popular family event and that’s what we intended,” Rahman said. “We want to educate our young people about the true meaning of Islam, as well as help overcome a lot of misperceptions on the part of non-Muslims.”…
Ah, yes, those ever-present misperceptions on the part of non-Muslims. Silly non-Muslims! When Muslims shout “Allahu akbar” in the midst of committing murder, they somehow get the idea that Islam has something to do with violence! But fear not: Rahman, and all his friends in the mainstream media (conservative as well as liberal), are working hard to correct that “misperception.” If non-Muslims simply stop speaking about or noticing in any way the Islamic justifications for violence and supremacism that the jihadists are propagating, and insist despite all the evidence to the contrary that Islam is peaceful, those “misperceptions” will finally have been conquered. And we are well on the way already. Have another latte!