UPDATE April 13: Nabeel Hashmi is either disingenuous or misinformed. His organization’s website (http://umaine.edu/msa/) acknowledges that it is part of the national MSA and the national MSA website lists (http://msanational.org/2012-2013-affiliated-chapters-list/) his organization as an affiliated chapter. Thanks to Cultural Jihad via Creeping Sharia for the info.
——–
UPDATE: Nabeel Hashmi has contacted me; he says that his chapter of the MSA is an independent group and has no affiliation with the MSA national, which is a Muslim Brotherhood organization.
—–
Events like this one happen all the time all over the country, and no one ever points out that the Muslim Students Association is a Muslim Brotherhood group. The Muslim Students Association was established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. In “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991, the MSA is listed as one of the Brotherhood’s allied organizations. And the memorandum explains that the Brotherhood’s agenda in the U.S. is subversive: the Muslim Brothers “must understand that their work in America is 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 God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Anyway, if Nabeel Hashmi really wants to “break” the “misconception” that “terrorism is mainly associated with Islam,” he should direct his efforts toward fighting against the jihadist understanding of Islam within Muslim communities, and working toward a genuine rejection of the literal meaning of the martial exhortations of the Qur’an, not retailing soothing nonsense to non-Muslims. But that is a road we have been down many, many times before.
“Islamic Center open house to feature speakers on Islam and terroism [sic],” by Judy Harrison for the Bangor Daily News, March 21:
ORONO, Maine “” A California marriage and family counselor will outline the “Psychology of a Terrorist” at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, March 23, at the annual open house at the Islamic Center of Maine, 151 Park St.
Yassir Fazaga of Mission Viejo, Calif., will talk about what factors, including religion, shape a terrorist. He also will discuss “Misconceptions About Islam” at 9 a.m. Friday, March 22, at the Wells Conference Center at the University of Maine.
The programs are sponsored jointly by the University of Maine Muslim Students” Association and the Orono mosque.
Fazaga was invited to speak in Maine after officers in the Muslim student group heard him lecture last year at a national conference.
“In this country, terrorism is mainly associated with Islam,” Nabeel Hashmi, 20-year-old president of the Muslim Students” Association, said Wednesday. “We want to break that misconception.”
Hashmi, who graduated from Bangor High School, said that the student group and members of the mosque were looking for a “hot topic” that would be relevant and entice people to attend the event.
Vice President Abdulraheem Sbayi, 20, of Lincoln said the Muslim Students” Association is partnering with the Honors College in an effort to broaden students” education and to bring more cross-cultural involvement to the Orono campus.
“There are many misconceptions about Islam, but a lot of them are minor details,” Hashmi said. “There is a lot of mixing between religion and culture. We want to be able to help students separate the religious form the cultural. It is also important to have a more intellectual discourse about Islam.”…
“There is a lot of mixing between religion and culture.” This suggests a common practice from Islamic apologists in the U.S.: to ascribe any negative aspect of Sharia — the mistreatment of women, the oppression of non-Muslims — to “culture.” The idea that after centuries of Islam, the culture of countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are not thoroughly suffused with Islam is absurd, but credulous non-Muslims fall for this line anyway. In reality, as we have illustrated many times here, the second-class status of women and non-Muslims is embedded deeply within Sharia. But instead of confronting that, these “moderates” are much more likely to obfuscate it.