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

Muslim prof: “Shenanigans” of “so-called Islamic State” are “harmful to Islam”

Aug 29, 2014 10:13 am By Robert Spencer

farouk_el_baz_bu“Dr. Farouk El-Baz is director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University. He served as science adviser to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt.” In this Boston Herald op-ed, he offers something we have seen before: a Muslim denunciation of the Islamic State that glosses over or ignores altogether the Islamic justifications for the caliphate’s actions. This piece, consequently, will reassure uninformed non-Muslims, but do nothing to prevent a young Muslim from embracing the understanding of Islam that the Islamic State represents.

“El-baz: Dire need for Muslims to lead fight vs. fanaticism,” by Farouk El-baz, Boston Herald, August 29, 2014:

Nothing could be more harmful to Islam than today’s shenanigans of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Vicious attacks on non-Muslims are abhorrent to Islam. The Quran states clearly and unequivocally: “There is no compulsion in religion.” Forcing anyone to pay a tax is going back in history when non-Muslims were not drafted in armies and were asked to pay that “jizya” instead. But, soon after the religion settled, the practice was stopped.

El-baz represents the collection of the jizya as a practice of Muslim governments that was eventually discontinued; notice that he does not mention that it is mandated in the Qur’an itself: “Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).

As such, given Islamic theology about the validity of the Qur’an for all time, it would be hard for El-baz to argue honestly that the collection of the jizya is unacceptable today in all circumstances. Muslim governments did ultimately discontinue the practice, but under Western pressure, not because of some reform in Islamic law. There was no such reform, and consequently Islamic jihad groups consider the abolition of the dhimma illegitimate and the reimposition of the dhimma and collection of the jizya to be part of their core agenda. And that is exactly what the Islamic State has done.

How does Qur’an 9:29 fit together with the idea that “there is no compulsion in religion” (Qur’an 2:256)? The Pakistani Islamic scholar and political activist Syed Abul A’la Maududi (1903-1979) explains that “the simple fact is that according to Islam, non-Muslims have been granted the freedom to stay outside the Islamic fold and to cling to their false, man-made, ways if they so wish.” That heads off any contradiction between 9:29 and 2:256: the “People of the Book” are not compelled to become Muslim, but may choose to submit to the Muslims and pay the jizya, while remaining Jews or Christians or whatever.

I was born and raised in Egypt as part of a conservative Muslim family. My father was a teacher and scholar of Islamic jurisprudence. He was educated at, and became an official of, Azhar, the second oldest university and among the most highly respected religious institutions in the world. Because I was taught the unaltered tenets of Islam, today’s perceptions of it distress me greatly.

Today’s hysterical groups along both sides of the doomed “Sikes-Picot line in the sand” are all young men with guns. It is a deadly combination in a leaderless place. The ISIS threat is not only in its lawlessness, but also in the negative image of Islam that it is leaving in its wake.

Nothing about the human rights abuses, destroyed lives, etc.

Those young men represent a disenfranchised lot with little education and no hope for a better future in their counties of origin. They were radicalized and misled by bitter, self-appointed preachers. Because they felt neglected, forgotten or oppressed they do not consider themselves part of any cohesive social fabric. Thus, they believe that in anarchy they would gain power, respect and a fair share of economic opportunity. Yet, their heinous acts are mistakenly ascribed to Islam by many observers.

The silence of religious leaders regarding this situation is deafening. Nothing in Islam condemns people who adhere to the tenants of Christianity or Judaism. These are specifically noted and protected in the Quran as “people of the book.”

Yes, but as per Qur’an 9:29, quoted above, the “People of the Book” were only “protected” when they paid the jizya “with willing submission” and felt themselves “subdued.” The dhimmis were denied basic rights in the old caliphate, as a constant reminder that they would be punished in this world as well as in the next (cf. Qur’an 3:56) for rejecting Muhammad and Islam. El-baz mentions none of this; rather, he implies that the “People of the Book” enjoy equal rights with Muslims under Sharia. That has never been true and is not true now.

Furthermore, history has no parallel of an “Islamic State.” This is a recent concept that was initiated by the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Has Farouk El-baz never heard of the Umayyad or Abassid caliphates, or the Ottoman Empire? The concept of an Islamic State is as old as Islam itself.

Even in today’s Iran there is no state-sponsored discrimination of people of other religions.

According to the International Federation for Human Rights, in Iran today “religious minorities also face discrimination in addition to being victims of persecution such as through arbitrary detention, extrajudicial executions, destruction of cemeteries and holy places…”

History is replete with examples of Christians and Jews who played significant and highly recognized roles within Islamic civilization. Let us not forget that the commander of the Fatimid army in Egypt, Jawhar Al-Siqilli, hailed from a Christian Byzantine family from Sicily. He built the city of Cairo and the Azhar University in the year 970. Similarly, the great Jewish philosopher Musa Bin Maimun (Maimonides) thrived in Cordoba under Muslim rule in southern Spain. He was duly invited to Cairo and served as chief physician in the court of Saladin until his death in 1204. More recently in Egypt of a century ago, Christians (Copts) and Egyptian Jews played a significant role in the development of the country and led its institutions, prior to the creation of Israel and the revolution of 1952 that followed.

Yes, Christians and Jews played significant and highly recognized roles within Islamic civilization. Their communities even lived in peace — as long as they knew their place. If they forgot their subservient status, they were massacred wholesale, as in the pogrom in Granada in 1066 after a Jew was named to a minor government role.

Clearly, there is a dire need to assure proper education of Muslim youth in the religion. The task should be accomplished by properly trained teachers who are well-versed in the tenets of Islam and their meanings. It is not human to disregard disenfranchised youths. We cannot eradicate them or wish them to disappear. Instead of learning how to use guns, they should be trained for a profession — to put them on a path for a useful life. The fact that some individuals were able to rise within this oppressive system does not mean that it was not oppressive. And Maimonides said: “You know, my brethren, that on account of our sins God has cast us into the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael, who persecute us severely, and who devise ways to harm us and to debase us….No nation has ever done more harm to Israel. None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us. None has been able to reduce us as they have….We have borne their imposed degradation, their lies, and absurdities, which are beyond human power to bear.”

Such an effort should be first and foremost the responsibility of their countries of origin. This should be a major effort by national and multinational organizations. For example, we urgently need serious inputs from the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Organization of Islamic-Majority Countries. Their neglect and silence have gone far beyond the acceptable. It is now time to act with courage and humility to assure a better future.

Certainly it is time for Muslim groups to act, if they sincerely condemn the Islamic State. The sincerity is what is in question.

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Filed Under: Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Jihad doctrine, War is deceit Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Salah says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 10:27 am

    “My father was a teacher and scholar of Islamic jurisprudence. He was educated at, and became an official of, Azhar, the second oldest university and among the most highly respected religious institutions in the world.”

    Guess what they teach at al Azhar university!!!
    http://crossmuslims.blogspot.ca/2014/08/cannibalism-in-islam-taught-at-al-azhar.html

    • Jay Boo says

      Aug 29, 2014 at 10:05 pm

      Guess what they (do not)
      teach at al Azhar university!!!

      “The angel was a devil who came to recite his claim by enticing Muhammad to crawl within a deep dark cave and sign his name.”

    • Huck Folder says

      Aug 30, 2014 at 1:41 am

      Salah: “among the most highly respected religious institutions in the world.”
      By mohammedans?

      “the doomed “Sikes-Picot line in the sand”” [Yikes! it’s Sykes] It may be a bad border, not following natural geographic boundaries, and maybe not conforming with ethnic boundaries, but there has to be SOME logic to it. Easy to draw? But why that use that pejorative construct?*

      “…adhere to the tenants [sic] of Christianity or Judaism” – tenets

      “Organization of Islamic-Majority Countries” not in Google, OIC?

      * This guy is SMART, worked for NASA, and you don’t get professorships from McDonald’s coffee cup stickers. He just loses ALL his intelligence when he descends into superstitious cultism. He probably believes he will get an extra round of virgins (either gender) if he kisses ‘mo’s vagina’.

      O/T
      He is EXACTLY like Prof. Mohamed Elmasry at Waterloo Univ. in Canada – a brilliant electronics engineer (he agrees with that statement). But he wrote some god-awful antisemitic rants while claiming to be the voice of Canada’s moslems, as leader of the Canadian Islamic Congress. He still does.
      Inferiority complex? It’s all ME, ME, ME!

      He appeared on an antisemitic panel at a Burnaby, BC mosque, with Derrick O’Keefe (rabble.ca loser), Greg Felton (Khazar conspiracist) and Khurram Awan (Elmasry sock-puppet). Talked about “sheep-shaggers” in front of children!
      [“Mom, what’s a sheep-shagger?” “Hush son, not in front of your dad!”]

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Elmasry

      “Asked by Michael Coren in an interview [TV] on October 19, 2004 if “…everyone in Israel, irrespective of gender, over the age of 18 is a valid [military] target?”, CIC President Mohamed Elmasry responded, “Yes, I would say.”
      Elmasry later apologized for his remarks, calling them his “biggest mistake” in 30 years of public life and offered his resignation, which was not accepted by the CIC’s board.” [Say’s a lot about both of them!]

      “He also criticized the recent bombing of hotels in Taba, Egypt on the grounds that some of the victims there were not Israelis.”

      “Elmasry has written that Hezbollah “is actually a legitimate Lebanese Shi’a Islam political party organized around a variety of roles and functions, just as are many other political parties.”

      “…the Canadian government should “review its 2002 decision to place Hezbollah and Hamas on its list of banned alleged terrorist organizations” because doing so “is an unconscionable act of hypocrisy and a mockery of justice” since Canada has not placed Israel on the same list.”

      “Regarding the opposition of moderate Muslims to the introduction of Sharia tribunals in Canada, Elmasry wrote that Canadian Muslims should not “make a cause of publicly deriding their religion, badmouthing the Prophet, ridiculing the Qur’an and mounting uninformed crusades to smear their Islamic Law, the Shariah”.”

      “Islam teaches that slaves, who were then the result of wars, [not always] Africans or not, should be treated well and set free as soon as possible…Islam also teaches that slaves can buy their freedom in-kind. Thus many of them excelled to be teachers and even scholars … Islam teaches a slave is a victim of circumstances who should be helped to be free and treated fairly in the mean time. Trading in slaves is a sin.”

      “Elmasry called Robert Mugabe “clumsy” but “no worse than many leaders in the developing world””

      “Why is Stephen Harper so callously indifferent to Omar Khadr’s case? It’s painfully obvious: William Sampson [arrested by the sods] is a white Westerner while his fellow Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr, is brown-skinned and a Muslim.”

      RACIST Elmasry!

  2. Beagle says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 10:29 am

    Hitler’s shenanigans against humanity. Has a ring to it.

    • Uri says

      Aug 29, 2014 at 1:16 pm

      Springtime for Muhammad and ISIS
      The Caliphate is happy and gay!
      We’re marching to a faster pace
      Look out, here comes the master race!
      Springtime for Muhammad and ISIS
      The Muslim have a fine land once more!
      Springtime for Muhammad and ISIS
      Watch out, Europe
      Our SHENANIGANS going on tour!

      • duh_swami says

        Aug 30, 2014 at 8:30 am

        I can believe you are gay alright. The master race huh…Hmmm that would be Jews, wouldn’t it? Those evil Zionists?…Don’t worry little Abu, soon Mahdi will appear along with Isa and Dajjal. Dajjal will stop any marching you may be doing. While we wait for that, I’m going to send more homosexuals to Africa, just to annoy Allah.

  3. Mirren10 says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 10:33 am

    ”Nothing could be more harmful to Islam than today’s shenanigans of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.”

    ”Shenanigans” :-

    1Secret or dishonest activity or manoeuvring:
    ‘the chairman was accused of financial shenanigans’

    1.1Silly or high-spirited behaviour; mischief

    How I **loathe** these Islamic/mohammedan apologists, with their repulsive and offensive euphemisms for unparalleled *evil*.

    There is nothing ‘secret or dishonest’ about the activities of the IS; indeed, they are totally open about their koranic motivation for the horrendous evils they are committing.

    ‘silly or high-spirited behaviour’ ? Well, of course ! How else would one describe lining the streets of Mosul with the severed heads of one’s enemies, rape, murder, torture and theft ?

    The only thing this moron dislikes about the IS, is that he thinks they ‘make islam look bad’. No doubt, if they continue to be the ‘strong horse’, he will enthusiastically champion what they do, find excuses for it, and write articles in their favour.

    What a loathsome little liar.

    • Mirren10 says

      Aug 29, 2014 at 10:37 am

      And what on earth is ‘Remote Sensing’ ??

      • Alarmed Pig Farmer says

        Aug 29, 2014 at 5:43 pm

        And what on earth is ‘Remote Sensing’ ??

        Oh, that’s when college professors look out windows from the top of tall buildings on campus and see what they want to see, America’s inherent badness causing harm, globo-socialism’s promise being realized, the wonders of multiculturalism, things like that.

        The look out and see what they want to see, what they must see. All remote, of course.

        • Mirren10 says

          Aug 30, 2014 at 4:29 am

          🙂 (and sigh). Too true, APF !

      • Huck Folder says

        Aug 30, 2014 at 1:58 am

        I like both Zaaphod’s and APF’s answers. This is not to be confused with ‘Remote viewing’, like the US’s $20 million Stargate Project, occult mind-reading at a distance.

        It’s recording from a space satellite, ‘images’ with radar or lasers or numerous different ‘colors’ of light, some of which our eyes cannot see. You can tell what vegetation or crops are growing, and the state of growth and health, even what is deficient, what kind of fertilizer is required.

        By looking in your own/friends’/competitors’/enemies’ back yards you can tell what harvest they are likely to have, what future price trends will be…

  4. Don McKellar says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 10:37 am

    Shenanigans, indeed. Just another Islamic conman…

    Just watched the British PM’s statement on CNN about the “root cause” of ISIS and all the rest of these groups. Oddly, he sounded just like Israel’s leader in noting they are all driven by the same ideology. And bizarrely, he’s even starting to sound like Robert Spencer in places! I look forward to Jihad Watch’s take and anaylisis on Cameron’s new press conference.

  5. Jaladhi says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 11:05 am

    Shenanigans of Islamic State” – beheadding and murder and rape are just shenanigans. Boy this guy is master of understatements!!

    Why do US universities hire these taqiyya artists to brain wash our kids?/ They should fire all these Muslim professors hired from ME. These brainwashed kids will be leaders of tomorrow and they wouldn’t know the truth about Islam!! This how Muslims are promoting revisionist history!!

    • TH says

      Aug 29, 2014 at 5:02 pm

      Because Saudia Arabia helps finance these universities. Very simple.

    • Alarmed Pig Farmer says

      Aug 30, 2014 at 7:56 am

      Why do US universities hire these taqiyya artists to brain wash our kids?

      Cuz it feels good. Cuz doing that lets them off the hook of having to do the unthinkable: address what Moslems really are. Don’t wanna do that. Can’t do that. Unthinkable. Got to have Unicorns and the Professoriat, and the latter must be diverse, by open requirement.

      Next time you go to McDonalds, keep in mind that Ray Kroc’s widow wrote the checks to bring known Jihad war terror activists… to teach our rich Catholic kids there.

  6. Jaladhi says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 11:20 am

    This professors statement only goes to show all Muslims are liars!!Period.

  7. pongidae rex says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 12:17 pm

    Anytime someone quotes from the Koran to make a point, I stop reading. The Koran directly contradicts itself so many times, in so many ways, you can quote from the Koran to make it sound like the most peaceful religion on earth, or quote from the same book to justify the wholesale rape and slaughter of children. That is, when it is not opaque gibberish. Islam wants to have it both ways and the deviousness by which it pursues this is truely diabolical.

  8. mariam rove says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    Dr. Farouk El-Baz is director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University. He served as science adviser to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt.”

    This is why Egypt is still s…. when it comes to science. M

    • umbra says

      Aug 30, 2014 at 12:21 am

      and not just egypt, but also many other oic states.

  9. bobm says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 1:07 pm

    It is amazing how much B.S. circles around the simple reality that ISLAM is a terrorist horror from hell… .. like a flock of blackbirds they circle in sheets ; ever shapeshifting .. cloaking the simple truth….as most people play the three monkeys… see no evil…etc.

  10. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 4:07 pm

    Nothing could be more harmful to Islam than today’s shenanigans of (the Caliphs)…

    And the monkey business coming from the Taliban, the Mo-Bro-Hood, al-Qaeda and several outfits in operation in the Caucusus, Pakistan, the semi-autonomous province of Xinjiang Uyghur, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the southern Philippines. Nothing could be more harmful to Islam.

    Here’s a test, “professor”: account for the Ko-Ranic commands that have these “insurgents” or “militants” or “radicals” or “fundamentalists” or whatever they’re called. Account for these salient facts that drive all the trouble, explain how these are part of a good thing that is being undercut by shenanigans.

    Explain that, or shut the hell up. Please. I beg you.

  11. ER says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 5:34 pm

    given that (1) polytheists don’t even have the jizya (tax) option (i.e. it’s not true the last ‘whatever’ part about “remaining Jews or Christians or WHATEVER” – polytheists it’s convert or die), and that (2) Quran and islamists teach Jews and Christians CAN but not MUST be treated as polytheists (by arguing that their trust in rabbis or priests is treating them as gods – i.e., shirk – thus no longer monotheists), no Islamists (whether IS, AQ, MB, any of them, can be trusted to not randomly disregard the protection of Jewish and Christian dhimmis, it’s totally random when they decide to pull out the trusting rabbis/priests therefore convert or die verse.

    • bernie says

      Aug 29, 2014 at 8:59 pm

      Good point. Also, by usurping God’s prerogative to judge people in matters of religious faith, and by treating people’s universal ethical components (ie. levels of fairness, industriousness, tolerance, honesty, etc., regardless of religious belief or lack thereof) as unimportant, aren’t the jihadist extremists commmitting shirk as well, by making themselves out to be Gods?

  12. CornHolio says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 5:42 pm

    “The Quran states clearly and unequivocally: “There is no compulsion in religion.” Forcing anyone to pay a tax is going back in history when non-Muslims were not drafted in armies and were asked to pay that “jizya” instead.”

    What a deceptive weasel this Islamic scholar is.

    In just those two lines, he shows his true colors.

    He quotes a chronologically early verse from the Quran, arguing that “no compulsion” is a currently relevant mandate in Islam, and then goes on in his very next line to quote a jizya-paying verse from the FINAL chronological chapter, implying by his “going back in history” that THIS verse is an OLDER and more outdated one.

    He knows of course the order those verses were revealed in, and that newer ones abrogate the older ones, but he’s reasonably confident that no MSNBC anchor will call him out on it.

  13. Kathy Brown says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 9:47 pm

    Hahahahahahahaha Uri! I LOVE IT! ‘The Producers’ is one of my all-time favorite movies, and if anyone here hasn’t seen it? DO SO IMMEDIATELY! But not the remake; the original, with Zero Mostel…

    And Mirren, as always, I adore your posts. You anticipated my question, because as demented as college courses are these days, this one really has that psycho-ward ring to it, ‘Remote Sensing’…

    But I think Alarmed’s definition is more accurate than the other one. Tho’ those thermometers do sound neat! (Indeed: Can I buy one somewhere? I rescue dogs and this would be quite time-saving not to mention…well…).

    Now I’m remotely sensing that, did any jihadis see these posts, they’d be in a lather and beginning to eat their own liver.

  14. David, Thailand says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 10:40 pm

    IS is the best thing that has happened for Islam and Jihad, second only to Mohamed.

    Ironically, now that the West is finally in a position from where it simply cannot ignore IS threats and values, Muslim leaders in concert with our own politicians, academia and liberal media take comfort in packaging its savagery as non-Islamic, thereby further conditioning the ignorant masses into believing Islam is actually a religion of peace.

    You couldn’t make this up, not even in a mad world going proudly madder.

  15. BUTSeriously says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 10:42 pm

    Only one test for Muslims:

    Restore the Balfour and take out the illegal fictional settlement called Jordan, change the name of West Bank back to Samaria, apologize to Jews for calling Muslims as Palestinians – and remove your mosque to Mecca. Christians who support you of these falsehoods also laugh at you when you leave the room.

    The world’s greatest falsehoods and the Holy One cannot abide together.

  16. gravenimage says

    Aug 29, 2014 at 11:24 pm

    Muslim prof: “Shenanigans” of “so-called Islamic State” are “harmful to Islam”
    ………………………….

    “Shenanigans”—you’d think ISIS was out on Hallowe’en night smashing pumpkins, soaping windows, and ringing doorbells and running—instead of committing genocide and selling Infidel girls into sex slavery….

    And never mind the suffering of victims of gang-rape, stonings, and mass beheading in the Islamic State—no, their real crime is that this image is “harmful to Islam”…

    • umbra says

      Aug 30, 2014 at 12:17 am

      The practise of islam is harmful to islam.

  17. No Fear says

    Aug 30, 2014 at 1:30 am

    But …but … doesn’t the leader of ISIS have a PhD in Islamic studies?

  18. FatherJon says

    Aug 30, 2014 at 3:32 am

    ‘Shenanigans’ he calls it! Is that the worst assessment he can make of what is the most brutal regime since Hitler? It’s precisely because these Muslim spokesmen don’t take the killings seriously in the name of their religion, that people look on the entire Islamic community with suspicion.
    FJ

    • paddy says

      Aug 30, 2014 at 7:17 am

      The Khmer Rouge were pretty badass

  19. paddy says

    Aug 30, 2014 at 4:12 am

    ‘Shenanigans’? Don’t you mean Genocide. El Baz, you truly are a Silly Man….sorry, Moron.

  20. No Fear says

    Aug 30, 2014 at 7:06 am

    I simply do not believe this man. He is bewitched by the Quran.

  21. John says

    Aug 30, 2014 at 1:53 pm

    “Muslim governments did ultimately discontinue the practice, but under Western pressure, not because of some reform in Islamic law. ”

    Could someone provide a little more background on this?

    • gravenimage says

      Aug 30, 2014 at 10:29 pm

      John, the Ottoman Empire was pressured by the West in the 19th-century to end the practice of imposing Jizya, as well as seizing Christian children as soldiers and sex-slaves—that is, to dismantle the Devşirme and Janissary systems.

      The Armenian Genocide—which also targeted Assyrian, Greek, Bulgarian, and “Levantine” Christians, as well as Jews; in other words, *all* non-Muslims—broke out soon afterwards.

      I don’t believe this was a coincidence—the basic idea seemed to be that if they couldn’t oppress and humiliate Infidels to the fullest extent, then they would simply slaughter them all.

      They were largely successful, butchering well over a million Infidel victims.

      What we are seeing right now in the Islamic State is the genocide of the descendants of that small remnant who survived the Armenian Genocide—Iraq and Syria were a part of the Ottoman Empire at the time.

      • John says

        Aug 31, 2014 at 8:54 am

        Can you recommend any books on this subject?

  22. abad says

    Aug 30, 2014 at 2:16 pm

    The only, and I mean only, people who give Islam a bad name are Muslims themselves. No one else.

  23. GP says

    Aug 30, 2014 at 11:49 pm

    Muslim prof: “Shenanigans” of “so-called Islamic State” are “harmful to Islam”

    …and IS LAM is harmful to people, all people. Both those who embrace it and those who resist it.

    What do Hamas, Hezbollah, boko haram, al aqsa, al qaeda, ISIL, and ISIS all have in common? IS LAM

  24. Dave J says

    Aug 31, 2014 at 1:05 am

    Anyone who would refer to IS barbarism, murder, rape and wholesale theft as “shenanigans” is automatically a liar and deceiver. He should be fired and expelled to go live in the paradise of the Islamic State.

  25. Michael Greenspan says

    Aug 31, 2014 at 3:11 am

    Just sent a donation.

    FYI this post contains a formatting error. The passage starting “Clearly, there is a dire need”and ending “a path for a useful life.” looks as though Mr. Spencer wrote it, but comes from El-Baz’s column.

    Best wishes.

  26. BC says

    Aug 31, 2014 at 6:55 am

    Shenanigans – an amusing, mischievous, or treacherous prank or other action
    Perhaps the Prof. is unfamiliar with the English language. though he is working in an American university.
    There is no way that the activities of IS can be described as Shenanigans. To do so is to dismiss them lightly

  27. Michael Greenspan says

    Aug 31, 2014 at 2:26 pm

    Sorry, but fixing the previous formatting error has created a new one. The passage starting

    The fact that some individuals were able to rise

    and ending

    which are beyond human power to bear.”

    now appears to be part of El-Baz’s column, but in fact is part of Mr. Spencer’s commentary. It should be un-indented.

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