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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

The new “Islam For Journalists” whitewashes jihad

Apr 11, 2014 8:25 am By Robert Spencer

islamforjournalistsThe “guide for journalists” about which I previously posted here tells outright lies about Islam, as is detailed below. It says, for example, that “in the Quran, men and women are equal,” when actually it says, “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other…” (4:34) — and in the same verse directs men to beat disobedient women.

“The New ‘Islam For Journalists’ Whitewashes Jihad,” Investor’s Business Daily, April 9 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Political Correctness: “Top academic experts on Islam” have issued new reporting guidelines for newsrooms to improve the “accuracy” of media coverage of Islam. The reference guide is little more than a whitewash.

Titled “Islam for Journalists: A Primer on Covering Muslim Communities in the U.S.,” the digital handbook is anything but accurate, sugarcoating jihad as a “positive” exercise — a “struggle for God.”

“It is inaccurate to use the term simply as a synonym for violence,” claims the guide, published by the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication.

It gets wrong one of the most important public issues of our time.

The 9/11 attacks were conducted in the name of jihad, along with virtually every homegrown act of terror since then. That’s because jihad, according to Islamic law, means to “war against non-Muslims.”

This is made clear in the English translation of the Quran by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, who is cited in the handbook. Ali defines jihad as “warfare,” adding that “believers will either conquer or die as martyrs in the cause.” It would help if the “experts” read their source material.

They also claim, outrageously, that the terrorist group Hamas opposes jihad, and that HIV/AIDS is a bigger threat than terrorism.

Their guide counsels reporters and editors against “amplifying fears of jihad.” Yes, we don’t want to report the obvious truth about what’s motivating the terrorists.

The handbook on Islam can’t even get simple facts straight. On Page 12, under “Fact: Islam is the fastest growing religion in the U.S.,” they say 2.6 million Muslims are in America; on Page 92, they say the number is 6 million to 7 million. Which is it?

Taking cultural relativism to new lows, the guide compares Shariah law — with its beheadings, amputations and scourgings — to Christianity. “Sharia is a religious code for living, in the same way that the Bible offers a moral system for Christians.”

What about Islam’s notorious oppression of women? Surely the feminists of academia wouldn’t gloss over that.

Yet the guide says “in the Quran, men and women are equal” and “men are instructed to support their wives in all respects.”

Right, except when it comes to matters of dress, marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, testimony, travel and most other basic human rights.

The Quran (4:34) instructs husbands to beat their disobedient wives. No mistranslation: Ali confirms “physical correction may be administered,” on Page 195 of his “Meaning of the Holy Quran,” which is featured in a companion video for the guide. Too bad the scholars didn’t bother to read it.

Instead, they left it up to the Council on American-Islamic Relations to interpret it for them so they in turn could “inform” us journalists. The Islamist group is cited as an expert source.

No wonder CAIR is pressuring colleges to stop airing the film “Honor Diaries,” which exposes Islam’s brutality of women. No wonder the journalist guide it blesses reads like 343 pages of Islamist propaganda.

Thanks, we’ll pass.

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Comments

  1. john spielman says

    Apr 11, 2014 at 8:44 am

    Islam is a Satanic doctrine that tries to excuse the inexcusable. If men and women are EQUAL, then why must women stay cloistered inside their homes and allowed out only with a male relative, and if out side must be covered from head to foot with a garbage bag

    • Reality Check says

      Apr 11, 2014 at 9:55 am

      Because Muslim men admitted to themselves a long time ago that Muslim men are animals that can’t control themselves and arrived at the conclusion that women are better off locked at home or guarded by a male relative outside.

      As much as it pains me to say this, I’m beginning to believe that Islam is good for certain races with uncontrollable libido – races that think nothing of pouncing on an unattended woman. I lived in the Arabian Gulf for two years and, trust me, a woman is really better off behind a locked door or with a male on her side. Behind the thin veneer of modernization, there is a 7th-century savageness regarding women. Believe them that they are modern at your peril – as a white European woman, I was incessantly harassed by local animals in all shapes and sizes, asked if I would become their girlfriend and invited to private villas by total strangers.

      No wonder then that Muslim men will not allow their women to go outside without a male attendant – Muslim men know exactly what Muslim men are capable of and do not trust Muslim men the slightest bit. I believe, however, that certain ethnic groups (e.g. Arabs) have a far greater propensity to follow women and this natural propensity was made even worse by Islam’s commandments.

      At the same time, the Arab Christian men I met and worked with were infinitely better than their Arab Muslim counterparts. Which says what? Well, to me, it says that a religion’s moral principles are no doubt a great influence on every individual.

      Just give all those Muslim women in the Middle East the freedom to go out unattended and they’ll be raped by their pious men before you say “knife”. Just give all Saudi women the right to drive and they’ll be raped, too.

      So Islam works for Muslims. If you make them live according to our principles, there won’t be even one Muslim woman intact.

      • john spielman says

        Apr 11, 2014 at 10:41 am

        muslim men are uncontrolable because they are infested with the Satanic spirit of Islam , the same evil spirit that possessed Muhammed!

  2. devonoagon says

    Apr 11, 2014 at 8:46 am

    Ibraham Hooper was trying to do just this the last two nights on Megyn Kelly’s show. Even when confronted with his own words, he tried to make it that he was taken out of context and that these are lies on hate web sites. Good thing Megyn is tough and she wouldn’t let him bully her or whitewash anything. More journalists should stand up and expose these people for what they are.

    • duh_swami says

      Apr 11, 2014 at 8:58 am

      Hooper is so full of taqiyya he is overflowing, like bad plumbing. I’m glad Kelly’s large audience got a good look at Hooper’s performance. He didn’t do Islam any favors.

  3. duh_swami says

    Apr 11, 2014 at 8:52 am

    ‘Struggle for God’…’One, two, three four, what are we struggling for’?

    What they really should be struggling for is relief from the inflictions of Allah.
    But there are formidable obstacles for that. Iblis, dajjal, and jinn will always get in the way. Inner spiritual struggle jihad is recommended, but not defined. No method is provided. Purity is not obtained by studying impurity. It is not obtained by sitting around thinking about your life. It is not obtained by jihad of any type. Praying 5 times a day obviously does not work. if it did, no ‘struggle for ‘god’, would be necessary.

  4. Bradamante says

    Apr 11, 2014 at 9:24 am

    Seeing this pushback gladdens the soul. If only there were more articles like this one out there.

  5. Jay Boo says

    Apr 11, 2014 at 9:27 am

    Reference to:
    —[No wonder CAIR is pressuring colleges to stop airing the film “Honor Diaries,” ][which exposes Islam’s brutality of women. No wonder the journalist guide it ][blesses reads like 343 pages of Islamist propaganda.]
    ===========

    A perfect example of why the anti-jihad should not get bogged down in the simplistic narrative of “all Muslims are evil” and “there is nothing we can do about it” meme.
    The fat Rush Limbaugh blabber mouth approach may be temporarily satisfying as is junk food but it inevitably is self-defeating.
    The Simple-minded (all Muslims are evil) statement does not improve by the adornment of five syllable words or false premise that anyone questioning such logic is trying to redefine and change a fundamentally flawed human being.

    Islam offers a goldmine full of disgrace to be revealed.
    But only if we are not distracted or fall into the trap of being labeled as intolerant bigots in order to discredit or testimony.

    • Defcon 4 says

      Apr 12, 2014 at 3:00 pm

      Pfffffffffft. Yeah, and not all Nazis were bad, after all Hitler was kind to his dogs.

      Can’t identify your enemy? You lose.

  6. Reality Check says

    Apr 11, 2014 at 10:15 am

    That “guide for journalists” should be renamed to “How to Learn to Ignore Common Sense and Un-learn to Do Your Own Reading while Being Told What to Think”. Honestly, what journalist with an ounce of intelligence would agree to be told what to think without double-checking it himself?

  7. Samantha says

    Apr 11, 2014 at 11:33 am

    So, what do journalists who live in Muslim controlled areas, who experience the fighting, the rapes-think? Do they still believe this little white book?

    If you study Islam long enough, and use your critical thinking skills, a person begins to see the lies for what they really are.

  8. gts58 says

    Apr 11, 2014 at 2:46 pm

    Facts are Muslims will not be satisfied until every Jew is erased from the face of the earth. This is what they believe in – it’s who they are! And they will not stop at Jew’s, all non-Muslims (Infidels) will be targeted – there is no end to Islamic insanity. And their numbers are growing on orders from the nutcase Emir’s, Oman’s, Mullah’s, etc. as they advocate defeating the Infidels through the “Womb – not the Bomb” – they are winning with the aid of brain dead Liberals!

  9. Boston Tea Party says

    Apr 12, 2014 at 10:41 am

    “Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.” —G.K. Chesterton

  10. RodSerling says

    Apr 12, 2014 at 1:06 pm

    I recall perusing such “guides” to Islam, written by CAIR-CAN (now NCCM), in my university library. One of them was specifically for journalists. These guides were loaded with the usual tendentious whitewashes.

  11. Kim says

    Apr 13, 2014 at 12:33 am

    Thank you for posting a really good and truthful article about them. There are lots and lots of mosques all across our country. One time, when I was shopping in my towns’ Wal Mart, a true foreign muslim woman who was dressed in the full black garb, she would not take her eyes off of me when I noticed her just standing by a cooler and watching all of the shoppers. My heart almost fell out of my chest because not one of them even knew she was there nor that she was studying them. After a few minutes of staring right back at her, she seemed to get a little nervous and decided to make her way out of the store. Do you think it might have been my natural hunter’s camouflaged jacket and my knowing look that drove her off? A couple did a nasty stare at my relative a few weeks before that, at the same store. Then, a few months after my encounter with the muslim woman, an American gal was on her way out the door of another store, dressed in a sheer bed sheet turned muslim woman garb. I am so tired of them being around and knowing that they are using their mosques as headquarters for the ‘Final Day’ plan. One of them said that, in 2016… Whether that will come to pass then, no way of knowing. And I think it is sad that they are making no-go zones and have written JIHAD on a wall in, I believe it was, Florida where many could see it. Just like Obama, they say one thing but, truth is, they mean the opposite. The Government and other Nazis have been working to get rid of everything non-muslim because they plan to give our country over to them. I heard that they are looking to invite rich investors to drop a few hefty dollars into our nation’s piggy bank. It’s no wonder Obama gets along with them so well, since he speaks their language fluently, likes having them over to the White House, socializes with many socialists and Nazis and makes sure that anything related to Christianity is covered up wherever he and they go.

  12. Henry says

    Apr 14, 2014 at 4:29 pm

    The power we have given to the Muslim nations is coming back to haunt us. We have the means , the technology , but our leaders lack the will to shut down the flow of money to these nations. The stealth invasion we are witnessing comes financed by these nations giving an advantage that only 2 % of the population is impossing their will in all aspects. Is this a democracy? Where the elite politiciones are in bed with these nations bowing to the “God money” .

  13. STEVEN1946 says

    Apr 15, 2014 at 2:44 am

    I only wish the AMERICAN people wake up, finally ignore “political correctness” and realized that we are the lemmings, so bent on trying not to offend that we are being suckered into the same suicidal trek that led to the near demise of the Jews
    under the nazi (small caps by intent) Holocaust. Study the foundation, carefully,
    of sharia (again, lower case intentional) which can be the severist threat against not only us “infidels”, but the entire non-muslum world. Islam, currently is the gravist threat to mankind in history. If you sheeple are weak enough to cower in your imaginery cacoon of percieved security, you’re on your own. We that are prepared to fight to the death, say to you, don’t come crawling to us for help when “authorities” come to your doorstep to eliminate any semblance of your life.

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