Hamas-linked CAIR’s Nihad Awad says that we must not call the Islamic State “the Islamic State.” This is because the Islamic State presents Hamas-linked CAIR with a massive problem: for years Awad and his sinister henchmen have been spreading smooth deceptions about Islam in the mainstream media, claiming that only greasy Islamophobes think that any Islamic texts or teachings sanction hatred, violence or supremacism. Then along comes a group calling itself the Islamic State and acting pretty much the way the greasy Islamophobes said that such an entity would act, in accord with Islamic law. So now Hamas-linked CAIR is desperately trying to de-Islamify the Islamic State. Not surprisingly, however, Awad does so here on false pretenses. More comments interspersed below.
“ISIS Is Not Just Un-Islamic, It Is Anti-Islamic,” by Nihad Awad, Time, September 5, 2014 (thanks to Ben):
Despite misappropriating and misusing the name “Islamic State,” ISIS is little more than a criminal gang that attaches itself like a leech to revered symbols of Islam. It exploits counterproductive Western policies driving desperate people into its fold and uses injustices in the Muslim world as a smokescreen to cover its own cruelty.
When ISIS uses the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada, and the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) seal on its flag, it quite literally – and falsely – claims to uphold the banner of Islam. When ISIS says it is establishing a “Caliphate,” an historic term that resonates with Muslims worldwide, it does so to fool those who have experienced nothing but injustice and oppression into believing past glories will be restored.
Unfortunately, the media, political analysts and public officials – really all of us – are unwilling participants in ISIS’s public relations branding campaign.
Every time we refer to ISIS as the “Islamic State,” call its members “jihadists” or in any way grant it the religious legitimacy that it so desperately seeks, we simultaneously boost its brand, tarnish the image of Islam and further marginalize the vast majority of Muslims who are disgusted by the group’s un-Islamic actions.
Step back for a moment and consider just how absurd this demand is. Imagine it’s 2008, and Obama and Hillary Clinton are vying for the Democratic presidential nomination. Imagine that an Obama operative demands that the mainstream media and general public stop referring to Hillary supporters as Democrats, saying that to call them Democrats tarnishes the image of the Democratic Party and marginalizes the vast majority of Democrats who are disgusted by her un-Democratic positions. What do you think the reaction would have been? Would anyone have taken this demand seriously?
Nor does Awad explain how this spectacularly odd situation arose — a group calling itself “the Islamic State” that is not only un-Islamic, but anti-Islamic, even as it professes to be the true embodiment of Islam. What would people think if I said that CAIR was actually not CAIR, and indeed, against CAIR, and that I was really CAIR’s Executive Director, and Jihad Watch was the true CAIR, and Nihad Awad and Ibrahim Hooper and co. were all just imposters and poseurs? People would wonder how such an odd turn of events came about, that a group bearing the name of an organization was not really that organization at all, but was against it. But Awad offers no explanation.
What’s more, Awad here is setting himself up as the pope of Islam, pronouncing takfir on the Islamic State and declaring them non-Muslim. The problem is that they could do the same thing to him. They claim that what they are doing is authentic Islam. So which claim to embody authentic Islam are we to believe — Awad’s or the Islamic State’s? The government and mainstream media, of course, have already opted for Awad’s version and pronounced takfir themselves on the Islamic State, but this choice is based on what they wish is true and hope is true, not on an evaluation of the Islamic texts and teachings in light of the assertions on both sides. And in any case, whatever choice they make will not influence the choice that Muslims worldwide will ultimately make. That will be based on the Islamic case each side makes. Awad makes his here:
Islam prohibits the extremism exhibited by ISIS. An essential part of the faith is moderation.
As the Quran, Islam’s foundational text, states clearly: “We made you to be a community of the middle way, so that (with the example of your lives) you might bear witness to the truth before all mankind.” (Quran, 2:143)
Irrelevant. If the Islamic State is following Islamic law, as it believes itself to be doing, then it doesn’t believe itself to be in violation of this verse.
The Quran also states: “O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, even against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for God can best protect both.” (Quran, 4:35)
Here again, the Islamic State believes itself to be implementing Islamic law, which it identifies with justice. So this verse would not make a member of the Islamic State stop short and reconsider, either.
Literally, jihad means to struggle, strive and exert effort. It is a central and broad Islamic concept that includes struggle against evil inclinations within oneself, struggle to improve the quality of life in society, struggle in the battlefield for self-defense (e.g., having a standing army for national defense), or fighting against tyranny or oppression.
The Islamic State believes itself to be fighting against tyranny and oppression. So Awad still has not said anything that would make any supporter of it think he or she was on the wrong path.
While Islam allows legitimate self defense, it prohibits the killing of non-combatants, even in times of war or conflict. Aggression is never permitted. “And fight in the cause of God those who fight against you, and do not commit aggression. Indeed God does not love those who are aggressors,” (The Quran, 2:190).
The Qur’an also tells Muslims to fight the People of the Book until they “pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29); that verse doesn’t mention anything about fighting only those People of the Book who begin hostilities. So how does that verse fit in with 2:190? Is it really true in Islamic law that “aggression is never permitted”? Many Islamic authorities say no. In his eighth-century biography of Muhammad, Ibn Ishaq explains the contexts of various verses of the Qur’an by saying that Muhammad received revelations about warfare in three stages: first, tolerance; then, defensive warfare; and finally, offensive warfare in order to convert the unbelievers to Islam or make them pay the jizya. Mainstream Qur’an commentaries by Ibn Kathir, Ibn Juzayy, As-Suyuti and others also emphasize that the ninth chapter of the Qur’an, which contains this command to fight the People of the Book, abrogates every peace treaty in the Qur’an. In the modern age, this idea of stages of development in the Qur’an’s teaching on jihad, culminating in offensive warfare to establish the hegemony of Islamic law, has been affirmed by Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb, Pakistani Islamic scholar and politician Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, the Pakistani Brigadier S. K. Malik (author of The Qur’anic Concept of War), Saudi Chief Justice Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid (in his Jihad in the Qur’an and Sunnah), and others. The terrorists of the Islamic State know all this, too, and are unlikely to be moved by Awad’s argument.
And as for the killing of non-combatants, jihadis who believe that it is perfectly acceptable for them to kill innocent non-combatants can point to this hadith: “It is reported on the authority of Sa’b b. Jaththama that the Prophet of Allah (may peace be upon him), when asked about the women and children of the polytheists being killed during the night raid, said: They are from them.” (Sahih Muslim 4321) “They are from them” — i.e., the women and children of the polytheists are from the polytheists and can lawfully be killed.
Extremist Muslims who commit crimes like those carried out by ISIS should be called criminals. We must not legitimize their actions by calling them jihadists.
This is what the purpose of Awad’s piece really is: to intimidate people into prescinding from calling the Islamic State Islamic, so as to preserve their deceptions about Islam, and preserve the complacency they have so carefully fostered among Americans about the jihad threat.
The American Muslim community and Muslim scholars around the world have repudiated and rejected ISIS’s twisted ideology, calling it not just un-Islamic, but “anti-Islamic.”
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the “Muslim U.N.,” said ISIS has “nothing to do with Islam,” and has committed crimes “that cannot be tolerated.”
Along with denying ISIS religious legitimacy and severing its links to revered Islamic symbols and terms, we can deny it a smokescreen for its injustices and stop driving suffering people into its arms by changing our own policies.
Ah, here’s Awad’s second purpose: to try to shore up support for the “moderate” Syrian jihadists — who are at this point not actually separable from the Islamic State that Awad is here ostensibly denouncing.
There would be no ISIS in Syria if we had fully supported the struggle for freedom in that nation since 2011. It was only the political vacuum created by our lack of support for the mainstream opposition to the brutal Syrian regime, and the resulting slaughter of more than 200,000 people and the displacement of millions more, which gave ISIS space to form and grow.
We need to support the mainstream Syrian political and military opposition seeking freedom and democracy. A free and democratic Syria and region is the long-term guarantee for the defeat and marginalization of groups like ISIS.
We also need to support democracy and human rights in Iraq, Egypt, and throughout the region. The fanaticism and barbarism of ISIS and other terror groups is fueled by the brutal repression of dictatorships that are sadly often supported by the United States. Religious fanaticism and political oppression are mirror images of each other and lead to the same bloody results.
For Awad, “democracy and human rights” means the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia.
ISIS was only able to penetrate Iraq because we for too long backed a government that completely marginalized the Sunni Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities. Iraqis who faced being shot at a government checkpoint for being a member of the “wrong” sect found out too late that ISIS was a worse alternative.
I.e., ditch the Shi’ite regime in Baghdad and support the Syrian jihadis.
If we want to stop ISIS, we must deny it any claim to represent Islam and starve it of the fuel of injustice.
It is up to our political leaders to take the lead through a comprehensive international strategy, not in the number of bombs that can be dropped, but in the establishment of the freedom and justice that will spell the end for ISIS and its ilk.
Michael Copeland says
Does Nihad Awad have a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies?
The Caliph does.
mortimer says
Excellent point.
Is Awad more knowledgeable about jihad than Saudi Chief Justice Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid?
In what way, does Awad’s vision of Islam differ from that of the Saudis? Beheadings, hand-choppings, stonings, repression of minorities?
When Awad applies Sharia punishments is ok, but when someone else does it, it’s not ok. But what makes Awad’s version better if they are indistinguishable in theory?
Beckwith says
That’s not what Anjem Choudary says. He makes it clear that terrorism is “part of Islam.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YALvN1IW16c
And this guy:
David Sayre says
You can not “tarnish” a rusted blade.
jihad3tracker says
ISIS squatted beside Nihad Awad’s ear and launched a huge ripe fart.
What we witness now is CAIR’s entire staff rushing to open all of its windows and blame the dog.
So sorry, traitors — your luck has just about run out. Time for massive mopping with bleach and gallons of cheap perfume.
But even those are will not fool anybody — subzero IQ cretins are beginning to understand.
Beagle says
Based on the Jesse Watters segment during O’Reilly even the IS beheading rampage and genocide have not penetrated the subzero IQ cretins in New York. Many of them were poseur knowledgable people critical of Fox News. Actually knowing any news? Not so much.
MacUalraig says
I saw that too, Jesse said something like only the international crowd he talked to had any idea about what’s happening, and the Americans were clueless.
Angemon says
What are we supposed to call them then? The State and the stadists? In a sane society Awad’s suggestion would be laughed off into oblivion, along with his credibility.
Jay Boo says
Every Muslim’s great fear
that they will be “laughed off into oblivion”
Michael Copeland says
Mr. Cameron knows the relevant fact to relate:
It is the “Nothing-to-do-with-Islam” Islamic State.
It’s a terrorist entity, militant entity,
“Poisonous” ideological entity,
Warping and twisting,
Perverting and smearing and
Misunderstanding and misrepresenting,
Extremist and radical rogue of a state.
He says it’s a “so-called” Caliphate,
Why, it can’t be a proper Islamic State.
PRCS says
I enjoy reading your Liberty UK articles.
Myxlplik says
So, in essence Awad wants us to invade ISIS to liberate oppressed Muslims, and he suggests the Muslims there will welcome us with open arms and establish a western style liberal democracy in the name of Islam… because Muslims there are just angry about Saddam and Shias. Well Awad it’s all just getting a little tired now isn’t it.
Ayatrollah says
I’m telling people these days, “I tried to tell you the Muslims are causing problems”. Until recently people thought I was a little crazy.
Now I’m telling them after Isis get a strong foothold they will be coming for us and our friends
jewdog says
His arguments are reminiscent of Communist fellow-travelers who would denounce Communist failures and atrocities and claim that their actions weren’t representative of real Communism. You see, Islam, like Communism, just has to be done correctly, but those pesky Western Infidels keep screwing things up. Islam is this guy’s security blanket.
I think Robert has done a good job here on the doctrinal front, perhaps as good as Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi could do. Let’s face it, IS, love or loath it, is as Islamic as bagels are Jewish.
Don McKellar says
OF COURSE!
LET’S NOT CALL A SPADE A SPADE! LET’S NOT CALL IT BY THE NAME ITS FOLLOWERS USE FOR THEMSELVES! THAT MAKES SENSE! LET’S DO THAT SO THAT THE TRUTH CAN BE OBSCURED AND SO THAT FACTS CAN’T BE SPECIFIED WHEN IT COMES TO THOSE FOLLOWING ISLAM AS EXACTLY AS POSSIBLE!
Typical slimeball Islamic supremacist weasle tactics. Pathetic.
Richie says
You can’t polish a turd
yohannbiimu says
Actually you can. There was an episode on “Mythbusters” about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl7ca_QL5kY
IQ al Rassooli says
For those who believe in the divine, ISIS (ISIL, IS) is God’s FINAL Wake Up call to humanity!
For those who do NOT believe in God, IS is Poetic Justice because literally for the first time since 911 people around the world are at last waking up from their comatose state of mind connecting Terror, Plunder, Death, Destruction, Intolerance, Butchery, Racism, Hatemongering, Warmongering, Misogyny, Stupidity and Nihilism with ISLAM!
Now we need our leaders to Wake UP and address the greatest threat to ALL known freedoms threatened by Sharia
It is NOT impossible that when devastating acts of terror will shortly occur in Europe & USA that we may have serious civil unrest in several countries where ordinary people would have had enough from their witless leaders vis a vis Islam
The writing on the wall is there for ALL to read and time is running out
IQ al Rassooli
Kafir & Proud!
jihad3tracker says
Thanks hugely, IQ, for stating the current reality extremely well —
Jay Boo says
“injustices in the Muslim world ”
This is ‘(Moderate Islam’s)’ code phrase to:
— Not accept responsibility
—- imply a veiled threat as per the Qur’an
If they did not want us to hear ‘Moderate’ Islam’s veiled threat clearly, they would not whisper it just loud enough for us to hear but soft enough to allow for plausible deniability.
Champ says
Hamas-linked CAIR’s Nihad Awad says that we must not call the Islamic State “the Islamic State.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh STOP with the silly games, Nihad Awad! …”we” are not the ones who named IS, Islamic State …THEY DID. So take your lies and your ridiculous complaint to them and see where it gets you …6 feet under, would be my guess.
Michael Copeland says
Islam is very good at tarnishing its own image – all the time.
Champ says
Indeed!
yohannbiimu says
The Quran and the Hadith tarnishes the image of Islam too. Perhaps, Muslims need to find scriptures that are actually peaceful and untarnished.
Ragai Mitry says
Awad says: “Despite misappropriating and misusing the name “Islamic State,” ISIS is little more than a criminal gang that attaches itself like a leech to revered symbols of Islam. It exploits counterproductive Western policies driving desperate people into its fold and uses injustices in the Muslim world as a smokescreen to cover its own cruelty.”
I say: “Despite misappropriating and misusing the name “Religion”, Islam is little more than a creed created by a criminal gang of thieves, rapists and murderers, to leech off the hard labor of others.”
Jay Boo says
Islam’s image is stained not so much from without as from what rots within.
It is not possible to tarnish the filthy core of Islam beneath its image.
IQ al Rassooli says
Jay Boo
In a NUTSHELL:
No one can Insult Islam because it is – based entirely on its own scripture – Beneath CONTEMPT!
IQ al Rassooli
Kafir & Proud!
Jay Boo says
Circular Logic
Brave Young Muslim Woman Leaves Islam And Tells The Truth About Mohammed
“Islam uses merry-go-round circular logic
to pretend that Muhammad is a prophet.”
Kathy Brown says
Awad’s/Hooper’s CAIR, and the butchering murderers of ISIS/Al Qaeda/Hamas/Hezbollah/MSA, etc., are fingers of the same hand.
The murderers are just fine with the taqqiya-talkers and vice-versa. What we call ‘cognitive dissonance’ is mother’s milk to them.
In other words, ‘the truth shall set you free’ is Greek to them.
John C. Barile says
Awad is demonstrably a liar. He tells us not to call the Islamic State “Islamic.” He tells us not to say that IS engages in jihad. Not because they are not Islamic or engaged in jihad, but because IS isn’t Awad’s Islam or Awad’s jihad.
CAIR was founded by Nihad Awad expressly to support HAMAS–the Arabic acronym of the “Islamic Resistance Movement”–a designated terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of thousands. If HAMAS is “Islamic,” and wages “noble struggle”–jihad–that so does the Islamic State. Not a dime’s worth of difference between the two. And Nihad Awad is a lying terrorist facilitator.
John C. Barile says
Correction: THAN, not that.
John C. Barile says
Only–liar that he is–don’t call it “HAMAS.” Call it “SAMAH,” instead. CAIR’s criminals know exactly what I mean.
PeterB says
Here is one of the biggest shifts of blame Muslims propagate, that we in the West “grant ISIS the religious legitimacy that it so desperately seeks, we simultaneously boost its brand, tarnish the image of Islam and further marginalize the vast majority of Muslims who are disgusted by the group’s un-Islamic actions.”
This is a root cause, false premiss that westernized muslims use to distract and derail peoples logic. That what we see and hear ISIS saying and doing has nothing to do with Islam. Even if Islam itself has documented and proven Mohammad basically did the exact thing with his own organized crime ring of marauding land pirates, sexually obsessed slave dealers, and animalistic mafio-religious totalitarian war lords for the exact same reasons.
If they could, Muslims will tell you the sky is red and it is only you and your infidel culture who think it is blue because your eyes are faulty, and you call it blue when it really isn’t. So since you are an infidel, and you have blasphemed because Mohammad said the sky is a red canopy you must either convert, be extorted for Jizya, or die by the sword. “Allah is all merciful and grants you the right to freely choose one of those choices, since no other option is even possible.”
So if Muslims say, the Quran is perfect, and Mohammad is the perfect role model of word and deed, then if that is the basis for killing the men and enslaving the women and stealing all their wealth and technology, then any imperfections will eradicates their false premiss of perfection. This is the is the debate and dialogue we hear MUSLIMS spew out of their mouths and in every Muslim debate they lose, because the fallacy of their arguments are impossible to hide anymore. The Muslim thought process IS FALLACY, and they use violence to silence all the proof of their nefarious, destructive, and bloodthirsty actions, beliefs and insane legal logic.
There is no truth in Islam. Only hate, manipulation, oppression and death.
SallyA says
2014: “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” George Orwell.
John C. Barile says
The world is inverted, Orwellian.
Tradewinds says
“So now Hamas-linked CAIR is desperately trying to de-Islamify the Islamic State.”
Heh! That makes me laugh! Love seeing the goons and thugs of cair squirm like the worms they are!
G179 says
We should also say “neck surgery” instead of beheading, “deep tissue massage” instead of lashes and “weight loss intervention” instead of amputations, so that Islam’s image won’t be tarnished.
ApolloSpeaks says
ISLAM IS THE PERVERSION OF MONOTHEISM
corrupting it with JIHAD!
madly says
It’s always the one, two punch with Muslims anywhere.
1. It’s not fair and they’re big victims (whiners)
2. It’s always always always America’s fault (anyone but themselves).
Edward Cline says
CAIR’s Awad is saying: “I am not the pot calling the kettle black, even though the pot and the kettle are truly black. You misunderstand me. I am saying that we are the gleaming nickel-plated pot of a quality that can be found in the better department stores, and the kettle is actually a dish for dog food. full of camel drool. The pot and the dog food dish are not related.”
Bosch Fawstin says
(Damn, ISIS, you’re making it very hard to keep fooling infidels about Islam, so please forgive us if we call you anti-Islamic) -Stealth jihadists
Unapologetic American says
CAIR/ISNA/HAMAS/Muslim Brotherhood/Hezbollah/Al Queda etc. ALL have a friend in Imam-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama al-Hawaii.
The intelligent among us already know ISIL is already here in the USA as is Al Queda and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Islamic Caliphate of Minnesota ie. Minneapolis/St.Paul had an “apartment explosion” in a unit located over a mosque (terrorist recruiting center) in the Somali dominated section of the city earlier this year just after members of the Muslim Brotherhood (guests of CAIR & ISNA) visited the area.
These unrepentant Muslim Jihadists who entered the USA in NYC were escorted through the airport and were NOT subjected to the same security screening every other traveler has to endure, a perk ordered by their Imam-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama al-Hawaii and his henchmen Commissar Eric ‘My People” Obama and Jihadist sympathizer DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. The fact is the glad-handling didn’t end there, these Morsi-allied Islamic extremists were later welcomed with a reception in The White House by Obama al-Hawaii and his hideous America-hating “wife” MOOCHelle.
One can only imagine what these dangerous Muslims brought into the USA, instructions on/or bomb-making materials and timing devices/detonators no doubt. The fact is the Feds ie, FBI/ATF/DHS and local police have cowed been into “submission” (Hey isn’t that the definition of Islam?) by CAIR/ISNA and their traitorous allies in the current mis-administration. Police have been SILENT, as usual where Muslims are involved, there have been NO updates on the cause of the blast that destroyed the storefront/apartment building and heavily damaged others nearby. If that isn’t bad enough they are still refusing to identify those who died in the blast. Can you say “sleeper cell”?
SpiritOf1683 says
On the contrary, ISIS shows Islam in its true light, and tells us what we can look forward to, should we fall to that death cult.
Henry says
Pity poor Nihad, working for so long to launder Islam, playing the hand of deceptive Jihad to make Islam appear clean and wholesome to the naive infidel – a monumental task it must be said. And now those crude savage brethren of the Islamic State have come along with a much less subtle form of Jihad and are ruining all of Nihad’s work – like pigs jumping up and down in muddy puddles, they’re putting the filth and ruthless , sadistic barbarity back on to Islam! Poor Nihad, he’s going to need an awful lot of soap, and be scrubbing overtime to wash away the stains.
D.C. Watson says
Nihad Awad… 1994… Barry University: “I am in support of the Hamas movement”.
Edward Cline says
Good quotation. That ought to fix his wagon. After all, Hamas hasn’t morphed into the Ladies’ Voting League or Meals on Wheels.
Western Canadian says
I have never been fond of the notion of judging a book by it’s cover…. But some people I have met, observed videos or TV broadcasts of, or even seen pictures of have produced in me a sense of puzzlement, or even a level of revulsion and disgust that is most out of the ordinary for me… And in each case, I have later found the individuals to be involved in the rape of children or women, or other types of very serioius crime…… (And no, having this reaction to a televangelist is a rather common occurence, so it doesn’t count… though it is probably correct).
And from the first time I saw a picture of this lying mouthpiece for (“DON’T)cair(UNLESS YOU ARE A muslim PIG LIKE ME!!!), long before knowing who he was or what he was about….. I had the same sense of revulsion and contempt…. and then I found out who he was and is and what he was and is…. Right again…
el-cid says
I’m surprised he didn’t also claim that ISIS was was Zionist plot.
The only good thing about ISIS is that they are actively educating the West about Islam and what it means.
Those who continue to deny ISIS claims are looking more and more silly to the average person.