As is typical of mainstream media reports, this report doesn’t mention that Parvez Ahmed is the former national Board chairman of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In any case, it would be refreshing if Beth Reese Cravey had asked Ahmed to explain his statement that the Islamic State’s caliphate is “a silly utopian concept devoid of intellectual logic or jurisprudence.” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi provided a detailed case from the Qur’an and Islamic law for his declaration of a new caliphate. If Ahmed rejects this case on Islamic grounds, he should explain why, or other Muslims will accept al-Baghdadi’s case as valid and join his caliphate.
Also, Ahmed says: “The vast majority of Muslims actually live in democracy and want to live in democracy.” Coming from a man who supports the criminalization of blasphemy, this is a highly questionable statement. Given that that is part of a global push against the freedom of speech by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the ongoing persecution of Christians in Indonesia (which Ahmed would probably classify as a democracy) and the re-Islamization of once-secular Turkey, it is not at all clear that the vast majority of Muslims want to live in a democracy that protects the freedom of speech and equality of rights for non-Muslims.
Note also this: al-Baghdadi “demanded that all Muslims across the world pledge allegiance to him. Such demands are not unusual, Ahmed said, and have been made by Christian and Hindu extremist groups as well.”
Really? In what universe? Where are the Christian and Hindu states declared by Christian and Hindu extremist groups, and demanding the allegiance of Christians and Hindus worldwide?
Ahmed also blames the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood’s attempt to hold power in North Africa: “He linked al-Baghdadi’s current push to the Arab Spring, the movement to spread democracy in the Middle East that was ‘brutally crushed.’ ‘It is actually a sign of their failure … The failure of people’s aspirations,’ he said.” But remember: the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to establish a caliphate also. So Ahmed is saying that because a caliphate was not declared in Egypt, it has been declared in Iraq.
The reporter Beth Reese Cravey, true to form for a mainstream media reporter, just accepts all this uncritically, and doesn’t press him on any of it.
“First Coast Muslim leaders reject Iraq extremists’ call to arms,” by Beth Reese Cravey, Florida Times-Union, July 2, 2014:
A Northeast Florida Muslim leader decried as “silly” an extremist group’s recent call for Muslims worldwide to help build an Islamic state in conquered territory in Iraq and Syria.
Most Muslims will “not react favorably,” said Parvez Ahmed, board member of the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida and an associate professor of finance at the University of North Florida.
“It’s a silly utopian concept devoid of intellectual logic or jurisprudence,” he said. “The vast majority of Muslims actually live in democracy and want to live in democracy.”
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant, this week declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria. He also demanded that all Muslims across the world pledge allegiance to him.
Such demands are not unusual, Ahmed said, and have been made by Christian and Hindu extremist groups as well. He linked al-Baghdadi’s current push to the Arab Spring, the movement to spread democracy in the Middle East that was “brutally crushed.”
“It is actually a sign of their failure … The failure of people’s aspirations,” he said. “Had the Arab Spring succeeded, I don’t think we would see this.”
Alex M. Sivar, a board member for the Istanbul Cultural Center in Jacksonville, agreed.
“We have always been steadfast supporters of peace in Middle East and all around the world and unwavering with our belief that current crisis in that part of the world are fueled and caused by a lack of majority-supported true democratic governance,” he said.
“We believe all terrorists who are calling other Muslims to arm and fight for some foolish claim are disconnected from reality and must be condemned at the strongest means,” he said. Such terrorists may be “soldiers for money and … not represent any Muslim community.”
The Islamic state leader also called for escalated fighting in the holy month of Ramadan, which began on Sunday. But Sivar bemoaned that timing.
“When we needed to be the agents of peace, this is heartbreaking. We hope and pray to God Almighty to bring those who lost their minds and [are] asking others to kill in the name of God to their senses,” he said.
Al-Baghdadi’s group has in a few short years transformed from just an al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq into a transnational military force that has conquered and held a massive chunk of territory. Al-Qaida’s al-Zawahri ejected al-Baghdadi from the terror network earlier this year.
John C. Barile says
So, then–all the pious should accept al-Zawahri’s leadership instead? After all, Muslim aspirations have been “brutally crushed” elsewhere–what’s a good Islamist to do?
John C. Barile says
Ahmed and company won’t take the bait. CAIR, MAS, the Ikhwan crowd–they’re placing their money on a slow jihad, incrementally starting to create a pan-Islamic state in stages. Their initial attempts during the “Arab Spring” brought mixed results. What these stealth jihadists want is a scenario like this: first, an MB takeover of Egypt (foiled for now), then a link-up with allied, preferably adjacent states–federation of Egypt, Libya, and Sudan. That would serve as the core of the Islamic state that they envision. from there, Syria, Lebanon (provided they thwart Shi’a aspirations), same with Iraq; Jordan, most certainly–then the Gulf States and the Magheb, Yemen, and on and on and on . . . .
Gail Griffin says
I love the excitement of this new caliphate. 1400 yes coming down the pike.$ 2.50 says the majority wins. Go Guys.!!!!!! Any takers?
John C. Barile says
I’m in the game. $5 on al-Baghdadi–he’s on a roll.
Kepha says
Indeed, they’re for slow-motion jihad. They know very well that if they went in for fast-motion, it would probably cause a few thousand Charles Martels to come out of the woodwork and follow through on their rout of the Saracen horde by at least a new version of Sykes-Picot, if not of Huleku.
John C. Barile says
Hulegu–I take it that’s the Mongol khan who overthrew the Saracen Arab caliphate whose capital was Baghdad.
John C. Barile says
In spite of the strife it causes and continues, these Western Muslim “spokesmen”–Ikhwan mouthpieces–want to see more trans-border chaos–and the abolition of those borders–as a vehicle and pretext for there future caliphate. They differ from Khalifah Ibrahim al-Baghdadi only in means and timetables. If this putative Caliphate proves to be a likely vehicle for the realization of their shared dreams after all, then they will tack to the wind, and start singing in tune with al-Baghdadi.
John C. Barile says
” . . . As a vehicle and pretext for their future caliphate.” That is, they can then argue that the very chaos they have initiated necessitates a caliphate–they may prefer to style it a Union of Islamic Nations or such. Then they can reinstitute a caliph under its auspices.
CogitoErgoSum says
This establishment of the Caliphate is coming much too early in the grand strategy supported by Mr. Ahmed. The plan was to mesmerize the infidels with the lie that Islam is all about peace, peace, peace……and then hit the fools upside the head with submission, submission, submission. This Islamic State business is going for the jugular much too soon….and is allowing the victim to wake up and pull out the taser. Quick Ahmed…….start singing a lullaby.
John C. Barile says
Do. Lull those kuffar right back to sleep.
jihad3tracker says
Yes, C.E.S., perfectly put. Good show old chap ! ! !
Parvez Ahmed, Ibrahim Hooper, Nihad Awad, Corey Saylor, MY FAVE SECRET- SEDITIONIST KEITH ELLISON, Reza Aslan, scumbag Nathan Lean, Linda Sarsour, and dozens of other Muzzies who hoped to accomplish triumph via stealth jihad are now cursing their own crowd.
And since all of them read every post here on JW, let me say hello to my fave bunch…. The NSA and FBI are of course monitoring every transmission of any sort from all of them.
Maybe someday we will get uncensored versions of the conversations.
Mostly colorful expletives with a bit of inconsequential verbiage, maybe like : “What the f*ck is that assh*le al-Baghdadi doing ??? He is screwing up our sh*t !!! “
Bradamante says
You nailed it.
Clare says
An Asian country recently made a very big deal out of the fact that the two, ‘God’ and ‘allah’, are not interchangeable; specifically, that ‘allah’ is reserved for Mahometans only… not for Christian use. Yet Mahometan Ahmed “prays to God Almighty”. And jihad always asks to kill in the name of “allah”. Is Ahmed rolling out that either are a go for Mahometans’ use?
duh_swami says
One thing Islam teaches is how to shuck and jive those stupid kuffar.
This works well with gullible and ignorant kuffar who talk but don’t read.
But it does not work with kuffar who knows about shucking and jiving, and do not go for it. Of course not going for it makes you a filthy Islamophobe. I take it as a compliment, and always thank whoever calls me that.
mortimer says
HILARIOUS to watch the cognitive dissonance of these JIHADISTS who are now scared that their JIHADISM is being turned on one another!
The CALIPH is the supreme RELIGIOUS and POLITICAL ruler of ALL Muslims. He therefore has a legitimate right to DEMAND the allegiance of all Muslims. If they disobey him, he may kill them.
WHAT A CAN OF WORMS.
Parvez Ahmed is no facing the crisis of Muslims dying in the tens of millions at the hands of other Muslims! What a moronic ideology.
Saudi Arabia caused this problem and it is just if they pay for it.
gravenimage says
Former Board chairman of Hamas-linked CAIR: new caliphate “silly”
………………………….
What Parvez Ahmed means, of course, is that any Caliphate not led by Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood is “silly”.
And notice that even while dismissing it, he describes the Caliphate as “utopian”—whereas any decent Infidel would regard a polity which lines the streets of its major cities *with the heads of their enemies* as profoundly *dystopian*.
If anyone read Muslim Brotherhood Sayeed Qutb’s seminal “Milestones”, you can see that he posits the reestablishment of the Caliphate as one of the first political acts of the Ummah.
The idea that this idea is somehow foreign to Parvez Ahmed is nothing but Taqiyya—he just doesn’t want to acknowledge upstart Al-Bagdadi as the Caliph, that’s all.