Archive for the ‘Islamic tolerance’ category

Pope Francis Blasts Europe Over Migrants

May 7, 2016

Pope Francis Blasts Europe Over Migrants, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, May 7, 2016

02

Sigh.

Europe is struggling to live up to the vision of its founders, Pope Francis has said in a powerful speech that asked: “What has happened to you, the Europe of humanism, the champion of human rights, democracy and freedom?”

Speaking as he became the first pope to accept the prestigious Charlemagne prize for his work on behalf of European solidarity, the pontiff called for Europe to reclaim the principles that had been established after the second world war, above all by embracing integration and revamping its economic model to “benefit ordinary people and society as a whole”.

…Founded in 1950 by Dr. Kurt Pfeiffer, the Charlemagne Prize is “the oldest and best-known prize awarded for work done in the service of European unification,” according to the organization’s website.

Kurt Pfeiffer was a Nazi. There are debates about whether he was a reluctant Nazi or not, but he was certainly a member. Rodney Atkinson has spoken about this in the past, I don’t know that I accept the whole thing, but certainly there are valid questions to be raised here.

The Charlemagne Prize. The prize was originally founded by the Nazis, but was then re-founded in 1949 by the efforts of the Aachen textile merchant Kurt Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer, who had previously been a member of the Nazi Party and of five other Nazi organizations, maintained that he had always tended to be a fundamental believer in Europe. And the Charlemagne Prize Society was to be associated with the imperial idea Reichsidee of the Emperor Charlemagne. The post-war image of Charlemagne as unifier of the Christian west was preceded by his Nazi portrayal as a unifier of the German tribes. Charlemagne had been compared with Hitler, his Reich and Greater Germany. This is clearly exemplified by the career of the Aachen professor of philosophy Peter Mennicken, who took over the professorship previously occupied by an expelled Jew, and who after the war had authorized influence over the symbolism of the Charlemagne Prize and the liturgy of its award ceremonies.

But we’ll skip over to the speech about the ideals of the EU’s founders. Some of whom just happened to Nazi-ish.

He expressed his desire for a Europe “where being a migrant is not a crime but a summons to greater commitment on behalf of the dignity of every human being,” and where youth can “breathe the pure air of honesty” in a culture that is “undefiled by the insatiable needs of consumerism.”

“I dream of fa Europe that promotes and protects the rights of everyone, without neglecting its duties towards all,” he said, and voiced his hope for a Europe “of which it will not be said that its commitment to human rights was its last utopia.”

Except you can’t protect the rights of all. Sometimes you have to choose.

You couldn’t protect German sovereignty and Polish sovereignty at the same time. You couldn’t protect German and French civilians at the same time. You had to make choices. You can’t protect Muslim rights to migrate and the right of the Jewish population of Europe not to be terrorized or murdered.

You have to choose. You have to decide between good and evil rather than providing a fuzzy humanistic picture in which evil does not appear to exist except as selfishness in the face of social justice demands. In which evil is not going along with the latest horrible and disastrous scheme executed at your own expense.

Pointing to French statesman Robert Schuman, the Pope echoed his insistence at the birth of the first European Community that the continent couldn’t be built all at once, but “through concrete achievements which first create a ‘de facto solidarity.’”

Schuman was one of Petain’s ministers. Again, like Pfeiffer, his legacy is complex and mixed, but it’s interesting that so many key EU people are so tainted.

The Pope also stressed the importance of cultural integration, rather than merely resettling foreigners geographically, allowing European peoples to overcome “the temptation of falling back on unilateral paradigms and opting for forms of ideological colonization.”

Francis advocated for a culture of dialogue involving “a discipline that enables us to view others as valid dialogue partners, to respect the foreigner, the immigrant and people from different cultures as worthy of being listened to.”

“Today we urgently need to build coalitions that are not only military and economic, but cultural, educational, philosophical and religious,” he said, and encouraged the leaders to arm their people “with the culture of dialogue and encounter.”

How does the culture of dialogue work within Islam? It’s the old “nice doggie” until you find a big enough rock school of dialogue.

And what does cultural integration mean? It seems to involve listening to Muslim migrants, rather than them listening.

To create dignified, well-paying jobs “requires coming up with new, more inclusive and equitable economic models, aimed not at serving the few, but at benefiting ordinary people and society as a whole,” he said.

“It would involve passing from an economy directed at revenue, profiting from speculation and lending at interest, to a social economy that invests in persons by creating jobs and providing training,” he said, adding that “we need to move from a liquid economy prepared to use corruption as a means of obtaining profits to a social economy that guarantees access to land and lodging through labor.”

An economy is based on profit. A social economy is just a welfare state funded by profitability somewhere. Even Communist countries ended up needing to find a profitable venue. China did really well at it. The USSR was terrible at it and collapsed.

In an actual economy, social mobility and dignity may not be perfect, but they are available. A social economy is just feudalism with more buzzwords and depends entirely on the goodwill of insiders. No one has dignity in a social economy. They have no sense of worth. They depend entirely on charity dispensed by political barons which is stolen from the people who have been enslaved and denied the profits of their work.

Pope Francis closed his speech by voicing his dream for “a new European humanism” based on the welcome for foreigners, care for the poor, and respect for human life and dignity.

You can have two out of three. But if you turn Europe into Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, you’ll eventually have none of the above.

Britain? Moderates? How’s That Again?

April 30, 2016

Britain? Moderates? How’s That Again? Gatestone InstituteDouglas Murray, April 30, 2016

♦ A new poll of British Muslims found that a majority hold views with which most British people would disagree. For instance, 52% of British Muslims think that homosexuality should be made illegal. An earlier poll found that 27% of British Muslims have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last year.

♦ Whenever opinion poll results come out, nearly the entire Muslim community, including nearly all Muslims in the media and all self-appointed groups of “Muslim community leaders” try to prove that the poll is a fraud.

♦ If I had always known my “community” harboured such views, and a poll revealing this truth came out, I would be deeply ashamed. But when such polls emerge about the opinions of British Muslims, is that there is never any hint of introspection. There is no shame and no concern, only attack.

♦ If there were indeed a “moderate majority,” when a poll comes out saying that a quarter of your community wants fundamentally to alter the law of the land and live under Sharia, the other 75% would spend their time trying to change the opinions of that quarter. Instead, about 74% of the 75% not in favour of sharia spend their time covering for the 25% and attacking the polling company which discovered them.

One often hears about the “moderate Muslim majority.” ‘After any terrorist attack, politicians tell us that, “The moderate majority of Muslims utterly condemn this.” After any outrage, commentators and pundits spring up to say, “Of course the vast majority of Muslims are moderate.” But is it true? Are the vast majority of Muslims really “moderate”?

A number of factors suggest perhaps not — most obviously the problem repeatedly revealed by opinion polls. Time and again, the results of opinion polls in the Western world, never mind in the Middle East or North Africa, show a quite different picture from the “moderate majority” aquatint.

True, such polls can often show that, for instance, only 27% of British Muslims have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last year. True, that is only between a quarter and a third of British Muslims sympathizing with the blasphemy enforcement squad. On other occasions, such as recently in Britain with a new ICM poll commissioned by Channel 4, they find that a majority of Muslims hold views with which most British people would disagree. So for instance, the recent ICM poll found that 52% of British Muslims think that homosexuality should be made illegal. That’s a striking figure. Not 52% of British Muslims saying homosexuality is “not their cup of tea” or that they are “not entirely on board with gay marriage,” but 52% of British Muslims thinking that homosexuality should be made a crime under the law.

But it is what happens after such polls emerge that the “moderate majority” idea really comes under strain. First, of course, there is always an attempt to put a positive spin on the results. So for instance, when the post-Charlie Hebdo poll came out last year, the BBC (which had commissioned the poll) ran it with the headline, “Most British Muslims ‘oppose Muhammad cartoon reprisals.’” Although true, it is not the most striking aspect of its findings. But it is what happens next that is most revealing and more truly calls into question whether we are really dealing with a “moderate majority” or, more truthfully, with a “moderate minority.” Because whenever the results come out, nearly the entire Muslim community, including nearly all Muslims in the media and all self-appointed groups of “Muslim community leaders,” try to prove that the poll is a fraud. It happened with the release of the ICM poll in the UK, as it has happened with every previous poll. With the exception of only one or two prominent dissident Muslims, every Muslim voice in the media and every Muslim group decided not to concern themselves with the ICM findings, but to try to pull apart the validity, methodology and even ‘motives’ of the poll. This is deeply revealing.

It is worth trying a thought-experiment here. Whatever community you come from, imagine your reaction if a poll like the ICM one on British Muslims had come out about whatever community you feel a part of. Imagine you are a Jew and a poll had come out saying the majority of other Jews in your country want to make being gay a crime. What would your first reaction be? My impression is that most Jews would be deeply embarrassed. Very shortly after that first reaction, you might begin to wonder what could be done to change such a terrible statistic around. It is possible, if you knew nobody of your faith who thought that homosexuality should be criminalized and had never come across this position before (or any previous polling which suggested the same thing) that you might question the credibility and methodology of the poll. But otherwise, you would probably sigh and wonder what could be done to improve things. If you knew the findings to be fairly accurate, why would you try to tear apart the findings?

Likewise, if tomorrow a poll were published of the opinions of white British people of Christian upbringing in the UK, I would take some interest in it. If it revealed that 39% of British Christians believed that wives should always obey their husbands (as the ICM poll showed British Muslims believe) then I would have some worries. If it also found that almost a quarter (23%) of British people of Christian origin wanted areas of the UK to divest themselves of the law of the land and be run instead on some Biblical literalist “take” on the law, I would worry some more.

Of course, neither of these eventualities is remotely likely to arise. But let us say that it did. What would be my reaction? The first would be to hang my head in shame. And I would hang it just that bit lower if the findings came as absolutely no surprise to me. If I had always known my “community” harboured such views, and a poll revealing this truth came out, I would be deeply ashamed that what I had always known was now known by everyone else in the country.

What is most interesting then, when such polls emerge about the opinions of British Muslims, is that there is never, ever, any hint of such introspection. There is no shame and no concern, only attack. If there were indeed a “moderate majority,” then when a poll comes out saying that a quarter of your community wants fundamentally to alter the law of the land and live under Sharia law, the other 75% would spend their time trying to change the opinions of that quarter. Instead, about 74% of the 75% not in favour of sharia spend their time covering for the 25% and attacking the polling company which discovered them. It is a tiny symptom of a much larger problem, the repercussions of which our societies have hardly begun to face.

1568

I Love Islam

April 22, 2016

I Love Islam, Front Page Magazine, Dr. Stephen M. Kirby, April 22, 2016

Islamic schools in US

What Muslim-American children are being taught.

What are Muslim-American children being taught in private Islamic schools?  We can learn about some of it by looking at the I Love Islam series used to teach elementary-level Muslim-American children about Islam.  This series consists of five textbooks, each with a corresponding workbook and teacher/parent guide.  It is published by the Islamic Services Foundation (ISF).  According to the introduction to the series, its purpose is to gradually introduce Muslim students “to the essentials of their faith” by bringing “to light the historic and cultural aspects of Islam.”  And according to the ISF website, the I Love Islam series “is one of the best-selling Islamic curriculums in the US and Canada.”

So what does this series teach?

It’s Palestine, not Israel

When it comes to showing the State of Israel, this series takes two approaches in depicting maps of the Middle East.

In the first approach, the geographical boundaries of the State of Israel are shown, but Israel is not named.  The first example of this is on p. B7 of I Love Islam 1.  Here states such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt are named; but there is no such mention of Israel.  An interesting addition is found when this same map is used again on p. B2 of I Love Islam 2.  On this map, the geographical boundaries of the State of Israel are now labeled “Palestine.”  On p. A24 of I Love Islam 4, there is another map titled “Map of Palestine”; it includes the geographical boundaries of the State of Israel.  This map shows the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, which is labeled “Occupied by Israel”; this is the only mention of Israel on that map.

With the second approach, Israel is mentioned on other maps used in this series.  However, these maps are noticeably different from the maps mentioned above, in that these latter maps have more details and the print can be much smaller.  The nature of these maps is so different from the ones used in the first approach that they appear to have been taken from some type of geography book.  So if one looks closely (a magnifying glass helps), the name “Israel” can be found on the following three maps: I Love Islam 2, p. D13 (a map focusing on Egypt); and I Love Islam 4, pp. F8 and F24 (maps focusing on the African continent).  But the small print and the extensive details on these maps would most likely deter the average elementary school-age student from examining them closely.

So in reality the Muslim-American children are being taught that the State of Israel does not exist.  And, correspondingly, throughout this series the location for the city of Jerusalem is repeatedly stated as being in “Palestine”.[i]

Christians are in the “lowest status”

The Muslim-American children are taught this about Christians:

Many Christians believe that God has three parts:

  1. God the father,
  2. God the son, or Jesus Christ
  3. God the Holy Spirit

In Christianity this is known as the Trinity.  It says that the one God consists of three people.  AstaghfiruAllah![[ii]] This is also a major form of shirk.  As Muslims we know that God is the only Creator of the Universe.  God or Allah does not have a father or a son and cannot be divided into two or three parts.

I Love Islam 5, p. A41

Shirk is the worst sin in Islam.  The Muslim-American children learn that those who commit Shirk fall “from a very high status to the lowest one,” and are “forbidden” to enter Heaven.[iii]  So Christians have fallen to “the lowest status” and are forbidden from entering Heaven.

The Muslim-American children learn that a person who commits Shirk is called a Mushrik.[iv]  And the plural form ofMushrik is Mushrikun, so Christians are Mushrikun.

But why does it matter if Muslim-American children are being taught that Christians are Mushrikun?  Because they are also being taught to learn and practice the teachings of the Koran.[v]  So what does the Koran say about Mushrikun?

Here are some verses dealing with Mushrikun from a popular, authoritative translation of the Koran: Interpretation of The Meanings of the Noble Qur’an:[vi]

9:5 – Muslims are commanded to kill Christians unless the Christians convert to Islam:

Then when the Sacred Months (the 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar) have passed, then kill the Mushrikun wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every ambush.  But if they repent [by rejecting Shirk (polytheism) and accept Islamic Monotheism] and perform As-Salat (the prayers), and give Zakat (obligatory charity), then leave their way free.  Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

9:28 – Christians are impure and forbidden from entering Mecca:

O you who believe (in Allah’s Oneness and in His Messenger Muhammad)!  Verily, the Mushrikun (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah, and in the Message of Muhammad) are Najasun (impure).  So let them not come near Al-Masjid Al-Haram (at Makkah) after this year…

9:33 – Islam will be superior to Christianity, even though the Christians don’t like it.

It is He Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), to make it superior over all religions even though the Mushrikun (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah) hate (it).

9:113 – Muslims are forbidden from asking Allah to forgive Christians who die as Christians:

It is not (proper) for the Prophet and those who believe to ask Allah’s forgiveness for the Mushrikun ((polytheists, idolaters, pagans, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah), even though they be of kin, after it has become clear to them that they are the dwellers of the Fire (because they died in a state of disbelief).

15:94 – Muslims are to shun Christians.

Therefore proclaim openly (Allah’s Message – Islamic Monotheism) that which you are commanded, and turn away from Al-Mushrikun (polytheists, idolaters, and disbelievers).

98:6 – Christians are among the worst of creatures (there is a double-tap here).

Verily, those who disbelieve (in the religion of Islam, the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad) from among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) and Al-Mushrikun, will abide in the fire of Hell.  They are the worst of creatures.

So the I Love Islam series ultimately teaches that Christians commit the worst sin in Islam; they are impure and forbidden from entering Mecca; Muslims are to shun them and not pray for them, but rather are to fight against them; that Christians are among the “worst of creatures”; and Islam is to be superior to Christianity.

The Example of Muhammad

Rasoolullah [Muhammad] was the best Muslim ever, and his job was to show all the Muslims the best way to do things.  If we follow him, we will have a better understanding of how to practice Islam.

I Love Islam 4, p. C19

Throughout this series Muhammad is continuously lauded as the perfect role model to be followed if one wants to become an excellent Muslim.  And it is specifically mentioned that the Sira (Seerah) of Muhammad “is there for us to learn lessons from.”[vii]  The Sira is the authoritative biography of Muhammad, titled The Life of Muhammad (Sirat Rasul Allah).[viii]  Here are some of the examples of Muhammad found in the Sira that “show all the Muslims the best way to do things”:

  1. Muhammad ordered adulterers to be stoned to death – pp. 266-267, 652, and 684.
  2. After a tribe was defeated, Muhammad would distribute some of the captured women and children among the Muslim warriors, and sell others of the captives – pp. 466, 511, and 791, n. 914.
  3. Muhammad possessed and gave away slaves – pp. 499, 511, 576, 593, and 677.
  4. Muhammad supervised the beheading of 600-900 captured Jewish males – p. 464.
  5. Muhammad said that Muslims could beat their wives, “but not with severity” – p. 651.

Children, try your best to be like the Prophet, to think and act like him. This is why it is so important for us to learn the Seerah!

I Love Islam 2, p. B46

Conclusion

Elementary school is where children really start learning about the world around them.  Beliefs and attitudes can be formed that may be difficult or impossible to later change.  This brief overview of the I Love Islam series gives us an insight into what many Muslim-American children are being taught about Israel, Christians, and proper conduct in their lives.  These “essentials” of Islam should not be comforting to non-Muslims.

____________________________


[i]               I Love Islam 1, p. D47; I Love Islam 1, Teacher/Parent Guide, p. 115; I Love Islam 2, p. D28; I Love Islam 3, p. D63; I Love Islam 3, Workbook, Unit D, Chapter 6, Exercise 2; I Love Islam 4, pp. A21 and A24; and I Love Islam 4, Teacher/Parent Guide, p. 24.

[ii]               I seek forgiveness from Allah! – An expression of shame or disapproval.

[iii]              I Love Islam 5, pp. A46 and A48.

[iv]              I Love Islam 5, p. A39.

[v]               I Love Islam 2, p. C7.

[vi]              Interpretation of the Meanings of The Noble Qur’an, trans. Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali (Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Darussalam, 2007).

[vii]             I Love Islam 2, Teacher/Parent Guide, p. 57.

[viii]             Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad (Sirat Rasul Allah), trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2007).

A Muslim view of radical Islam

April 5, 2016

A Muslim view of radical Islam, Washington Times, Mark Christian, April 4, 2016

(Nothing really new or exceptional here beyond that the article is by a former Muslim imam and appeared in a more of less “mainstream” newspaper. — DM)

Eye on IslamIllustration on the core problem with Islam by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

Few issues divide the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates as starkly as their view of Islam. Republican front-runner Donald Trump claims flatly that “Islam hates us” while Sen. Ted Cruz, suggests we should begin patrolling Muslim neighborhoods in search of terrorist plots birthed by “radicalized” Muslims.

Meanwhile, President Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spend an inordinate amount of their time praising Muslim-Americans, citing the enormous contributions they’ve made to our country and way of life. Mrs. Clinton argues that what Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz have said and propose are offensive and “dangerous,” while Mr. Obama refuses to admit that today’s terrorists are in any way motivated by their religion.

At the same time, the Muslim community is deafeningly silent, and the radicals among them couldn’t be happier. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are, in essence, enabling their cause by encouraging us to embrace Islam uncritically while turning a blind eye to the radical jihadists within its ranks. They are helping those who wish to lull us into complacency in the face of the threat they pose.

They reject Mr. Trump’s claim that there is something about Islam that “hates us” without asking whether it might be true, why it might be true and what can be done about it if it is. The Council on American-Islamic Relations says it is because we are Islamophobic, profiling Muslims and discriminating against them socially, politically and economically. These “reasons” play to the leftist sense of guilt, but the question remains: Why the repeated Muslim attacks? Is it because the “radicalized” Muslims are feeling disenfranchised and frustrated by a lack of opportunity? Paris attacker Najim Laachraoui had an engineering degree and the San Bernardino shooter, Syed Farook, held a good job in environmental health. The Chattanooga shooter who, last year, killed five U.S. servicemen, had a degree in electrical engineering. These men didn’t turn to terror because they couldn’t find work or were economically disadvantaged.

It’s time to end the argument about whether some Muslims have hijacked and perverted their faith. That is for the Muslims to work out among themselves. The fact is, these acts are being committed in the name of Allah and unless we understand that, we will never be able to deal with it.

Judeo-Christianity requires us to forgive and to accept responsibility, as we did for the Crusades and the Inquisition. Our inclination is to own up to our past mistakes rather than blame others.

Contrast that with Islam, and what the Koran and the Hadiths teach. When Allah calls on his followers to kill those who will not submit to Islam, does he sound like the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition? When Allah then tells them that killing themselves in acts of murderous barbarity against the infidel is the only path to redemption from the condemnation of sin, does he sound like the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? When Allah demands all of this to ensure his kingdom can be established on earth, does this sound like the God who taught us to “love our enemies”?

Christians and Muslim follow very different religions, and we must not equate one with the other. The men who blew up the airport terminal in Belgium were pictured calmly pushing their bombs through the terminal. They didn’t look particularly evil or nervous. They were devout Muslims, earning redemption in the only way possible.

We are dealing with a dangerous religious and sociopolitical system that won’t vanish just because we pretend it doesn’t exist. Muslims who want to live in peace with their neighbors must deal with their problems through a heartfelt reformation of a religion hostile to non-believers. Jihad is the core element of the Islamic mindset and we are living through a true clash of civilizations.

We will not win if we don’t open our eyes to the reality of who we are facing. While we blame ourselves for what is happening, Muslims are continuing to protect their own, even those who have committed terroristic acts they would never dream of committing themselves. They protect and enable those who are living out their faith according to the Koran. I know because I was once one of them until I walked away from my faith years ago. If I ever return to my native Egypt, I would be killed as an apostate by the followers of this religion of peace.

Muslims hid Osama bin Laden for nearly 10 years. One of the Paris jihadists, Salah Abdeslam, escaped to his home in Brussels where, hiding in plain sight, he eluded arrest for four months. His neighbors had to know he was there, but no one blew his cover.

We are dealing with something more sinister, more devious and much more destructive than restless young men who are treated unfairly; we are dealing with jihadists who are protected by non-militants who believe in their hearts the jihadists are right.

We may not like it, but we have to face the ugly truth: Islam hates us — because Allah tells his followers they must.

Mark Christian is the president and executive director of the Global Faith Institute. A former Muslim Sunni imam, he converted from Islam to Christianity.

The US Mosque Obama Has Chosen For His First Presidential Visit Has Deep Extremist Ties

January 31, 2016

The US Mosque Obama Has Chosen For His First Presidential Visit Has Deep Extremist Ties, Daily Caller, Chuck Ross, January 30, 2016

The Baltimore mosque President Obama has chosen as the first U.S.-based mosque to visit during his presidency has deep ties to extremist elements, including to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The White House announced on Saturday that Obama will visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) on Wednesday. He has visited several mosques overseas as president but has resisted visiting one in the homeland. The purpose of the trip, according to the White House, is to “celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.”

But ISB is a curious choice for Obama’s first domestic visit.

The mosque is a member of a network of mosques controlled by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a Muslim civil rights group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror case. Several executives with that organization were convicted of sending money to aid the terrorist group Hamas.

An imam who served at ISB for a total of 15 years has also been a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood network and has worked for an Islamic relief group that was designated as a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department in 2004.

Mohammad Adam el-Sheikh, who served two stints as ISB’s imam, from 1983 to 1989 and from 1994 to 2003, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan in the 1970s. He also co-founded the Muslim American Society, a Falls Church, Va.-based group that is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

While in Baltimore, el-Sheikh served as a regional director for the Islamic American Relief Agency. That group’s parent organization is the Islamic African Relief Agency, which the Treasury Department says provided funds to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

After leaving Baltimore, el-Sheikh served as imam at the infamous Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church. That mosque has a lengthy roster of known terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. Its imam during much of the 1990s was Mohammed al-Hanooti. He was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people.

Dar al-Hijrah came under the control of Anwar al-Awlaki in 2001. He’s the American al-Qaeda recruiter who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Nov. 2009, is said to have attended the Virginia mosque when al-Awlaki served there. The pair also reportedly exchanged emails. Two of the 9/11 hijackers also attended Dar al-Hijrah during al-Awlaki’s tenure.

El-Sheikh took over at Dar al-Hijrah in Aug. 2003, a little over a year after al-Awlaki left. While there he defended Palestianian suicide bombings against Israel.

“If certain Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves, except through these kinds of means, and their local religious leaders issued fatwas to permit that, then it becomes acceptable as an exceptional rule, but should not be taken as a principle,” he said in 2004, according to a Washington Post article at the time.

As The Post reported Saturday, ISB’s website states that it seeks “to be the anchor of a growing Muslim community with diverse backgrounds, democratically governed, relating to one another with inclusiveness and tolerance, and interacting with neighbors in an Islamic exemplary manner.”

But that desire for tolerance — which President Obama frequently touts as well — does not appear to be a virtue shared by ISB’s resident scholar, Yaseen Shaikh.

A 2013 Youtube video shows Shaikh, who previously served as imam at a mosque in Plano, Tex., speaking out forcefully against homosexuality in Islam.

During an hour long diatribe, Shaikh called homosexuality a psychological disorder that has no place in Islam or society. He also lamented that gay rights groups have “hijacked” political discourse.

“This whole subject of homosexuality in the public sphere…is no longer a religious issue, unfortunately, as much as we want to use the religious card and try to defeat this, now it’s become a politicized issue,” Shaikh says in the video.

“Politicians are highly influenced by people who back them, and we find that these politicians who are calling for gay rights and marriage and supporting gay rights are lobbied and campaigned by gay activists, by gay groups. And they are throwing money at it left and right to gain some acceptance in society, to be considered normal people, to be treated normally.”

Obama is one such politician who has supported gay rights.

“We have to counter the efforts that are taking place elsewhere,” Sheikh says in the video, advising that “if our children are taught that [homosexuality is] okay, we have to teach them it’s not okay.”

The Canadian Temper: A Warning to America

January 30, 2016

The Canadian Temper: A Warning to America, American ThinkerDavid Solway, January 30, 2016

(Should America’s domestic policies be more, or less, like those of Canada? Domestic policies tend to be reflected in foreign policies. We are heading, I think, in the wrong direction. — DM)

The U.S. is clearly heading in the same direction with its national debt swelling exponentially and the inpouring of unvetted “Syrian” migrants exacerbating an already problematic Islamic infiltration. In effect, it’s the same set of cultural attributes, a big spending mentality and an open door policy, of which Canada has long been a shining exemplar. This is why the coming election is perhaps the most critical in U.S. history.

*********************

Canadians have long thought of themselves as morally superior to the supposedly vulgar and abrasive Americans. According to the self-justifying Canadian mythos, we embody a more enlightened and humane outlook on the world. In addition to oil, maple syrup, and lumber, our most valuable export — our gift, we imagine, to our southern neighbors — is our vision of a sustainable and irenic future. Let us examine the most current incarnation of that vision.

Canada is essentially a socialist country, closer to the increasingly decrepit European welfare and statist paradigm than to the (now faltering) classic American model of individual self-reliance. Canada instituted social programs like state-funded medicine relying on major tax hikes long before it became an issue in the U.S., and gambled on multiculturalism as a viable national project, in effect, as a kind of political eschatology. There is no question that the Canadian temper has always been more politically Arcadian than the American.

The current refugee question in particular has become a pivotal and collective expression of this temper, with citizens opening their wallets, hearts, and homes to a migratory influx from the Islamic world. Our self-congratulatory generosity is amply demonstrated in the writings of celebrated Constitutional lawyer Julius Grey. Pontificating in the Montreal Gazette, Grey urges the welcoming of thousands of Syrian migrants as we proceed “to create a society which has, on the one hand, citizens of myriad origins and, on the other, no barriers between them.”

The problem that Grey refuses to confront or even identify is that immigrants and refugees from historically backward, theocratic, anti-Semitic, Sharia-dominated, and terror-sponsoring nations are precisely the ones who are creating “barriers,” such as purpose-built ghettos, no-go zones, closed neighborhoods, special privileges and spaces, an atmosphere of threat, and who have no interest in Western-style “individual autonomy and freedom” — Grey’s chosen vocabulary. Grey is the lawyer for the Muslim-friendly socialist New Democratic Party, but there is not much sunlight between the NDP and the governing Muslim-friendly Liberal Party.

Indeed, in the October 2015 Federal election the Liberals, the NDP and the splinter, reactionary-left Greens ran between them a total of 23 Muslim candidates (the leftist/sovereignist Bloc Québécois fielded two Muslim candidates, raising the combined total to 25 Muslim hopefuls), representing approximately 7 per cent of available parliamentary seats, over twice the Islamic percentage of the population. (The ousted Conservatives fielded only four Muslims.) In the end, the combined electoral seats won by the four left-leaning parties, the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens, clocked in at 71 per cent; the center-right Conservatives polled just 29 per cent. This is the face of Canada today.

During the election campaign, Islam became a prominent issue, with Liberal PM Justin Trudeau claiming that there was no place in his Canada for the previous Conservative government’s “divisive” Islamophobia and exaggerated concern for national security. In his victory speech, Trudeau uttered the inevitable pieties à la Obama: “We beat fear with hope, we beat cynicism with hard work. We beat negative, divisive politics with a positive vision that brings Canadians together.” To a Muslim woman wearing a hijab, he promised “a government that believes deeply in the diversity of this country.”

A perverse illustration of this stupefying attitude comes from the Bank of Nova Scotia (commonly known as Scotiabank), which has welcomed the migrant onslaught with its Welcome Syrians program. (The original webpage featuring large print and colorful graphics now seems to have been scrubbed.) Canada’s third largest bank is offering every Syrian a hundred dollar gift deposit, a $2000 limit unsecured credit card, a free safety deposit box for one year and a $50 unsecured overdraft. Customers who bank at the Scotia and pay monthly fees to maintain their accounts have good reason to feel resentful — unless, of course, they happen to be migrant sympathizers and soft on Islam.

These “Syrians,” not all of whom are Syrians and some of whom are almost surely ISIS jihadists, receive housing, benefits, and gifts without having contributed an iota to the nation’s economy; indeed, they will be a limitless drain on our resources.

The $1.2 billion cost of bringing in these refugees is only the beginning of our fiscal woes. Quoted by the CBC, coordinator Carl Nicholson said “many factors have made the task of housing government-assisted refugees more difficult, including the larger-than expected size of some families that have arrived.” The accompanying photo shows a couple with six toddlers. No wonder the Liberals’ shopworn immigration minister John McCallum has solicited the business community for donations in the amount of $50 million. “I would encourage all Canadians, companies, individuals, communities, to continue to support the effort because we are entering a critical phase,” he said. Darn right on the latter score.

My parents and grandparents, fleeing starving, war-torn Ukraine, worked to the bone to earn a living while contributing through taxes to the national welfare. Many Canadians share the same history, yet they are expected to receive and bankroll a large number of migrants who will take advantage of the innumerable perks that our forebears, who fled famine and civil war and who helped build this country, had never enjoyed or even considered their due.

Richard Butrick cogently argues in an important article for American Thinker that immigrants who came to America in the 19th and early 20th centuries “knew they had to work hard to survive,” at the same time contributing to the nation’s commercial, industrial, and scientific advances. “Immigrants today,” he continues, “know the U.S. is a fail-safe environment,” where they are subsidized and coddled. The so-called “re-energizing” immigration narrative has been superseded by, let’s say, a parasitical model based on muddled sentimentality and false calculations, which Canada has bought into without sober forethought. A country built on welfare migrants is not a country built on hardworking immigrants.

There are some signs that the “Syrian Covenant” is becoming more complicated than originally envisaged, as the initial euphoria for the migrants seems to be waning under an unforgiving reality. I have heard that families that have gloatingly affirmed their “Canadian values” and freely taken Syrians into their homes are petitioning their government for financial help. The City of Ottawa, Canada’s capital, has called for a pause to its hospitality for lack of housing, facilities and funds. Toronto, Vancouver, and Halifax have also asked for a hiatus. The bloom is starting to come off the rose — and the hue off the rose-colored glasses — for many of these fallow enthusiasts. But with further government subventions and the media propaganda blitz saturating what remains of the Canadian mind, the early stages of skepticism and reluctance will probably lead to nothing much.

This is how we do things in Canada. We throw out a Conservative government — itself an anomaly in our political landscape — that steered us safely through the devastating market crash of 2007/8, and objected to Islamic face coverings in citizenship swearing-in ceremonies and to the acceptance of “barbaric” practices in the cultural habits of these new citizens — and bring in a Liberal administration dedicated to increasing the national debt and gradually submerging the country in an effluvium of Muslim migrants and refugees.

The U.S. is clearly heading in the same direction with its national debt swelling exponentially and the inpouring of unvetted “Syrian” migrants exacerbating an already problematic Islamic infiltration. In effect, it’s the same set of cultural attributes, a big spending mentality and an open door policy, of which Canada has long been a shining exemplar. This is why the coming election is perhaps the most critical in U.S. history. A Democrat administration under Billary or Bernie would close the gap between our two countries dramatically. And this is why the candidacies of Donald Trump, for all his flaws, and of the Cruzio amalgam despite the media-generated flap over their eligibility, may determine whether America can return to some degree of sanity and a semblance of its former vitality — or, heaven forfend, become Canada South.

 

Swedish Boy ‘Honor’-Killed; German Trangenders Stoned

January 18, 2016

Swedish Boy ‘Honor’-Killed; German Trangenders Stoned, Clarion Project, Meira Svirsky, January 18, 2016

Swedish-Boy-Honor-Killed-HPArminas Pileckas, 15, who was killed by Ahmed Mustafa Al Haj Ali, 14, who recently arrived in Sweden.

The importation of the culture of honor violence has arrived in Europe with migrants from Islamist countries. Two profoundly disturbing stories in particular are worth noting.

In Sweden, a 15-year old boy was stabbed to death by a 14-year old migrant from Syria on his first day back at school this term. The boy, whose family themselves were immigrants from Lithuania, was reported to have been protecting a young girl from a sexual assault from the Syrian boy in December. It was allegedly not the first time.

In retaliation, the Syrian boy plunged a knife in his back and heart on the first day back at school in January.

The victim’s father angrily related that in Sweden the press was in collusion with the government, saying that, with regards to the migrant problem, “Everything is being kept hidden.”

While the grieving father was not interviewed by the press, Swedish news Aftonbladet interviewed the father of the migrant boy, who claimed that his son was being bullied by the murdered boy. In what was described as a sympathetic interview, the father insisted, “The school did nothing to help him and establish his honor. Instead, my son had to meet this 15-year old every day. It made him very upset.”

Even if this version was correct (it was denied by the boy’s classmates as well as other indicators), killing a classmate is a way to “establish” one’s “honor?”  With no questions asked?

In Germany, immigrants from North Africa were arrested while stoning two transgender individuals near the city’s central train station. A police car fortuitously cruising the area broke up the attack perpetrated by three men, described as between the ages of 16 and 18.

Upon arrest, police reported that the men told them “such persons must be stoned.”

It is unacceptable that the culture of (so-called) “honor” be imported into host countries. The often manifest arguments of cultural relativism by Europeans (see Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker’s comments following mass sexual assaults in her city by migrants on New Year’s Eve) are paltry and lame excuses for the upholding of Western values. Even those who view themselves as the vanguards of human rights (feminists, anti-racism activists, social justice campaigners) shy away from criticism of the “Islamic other.”

While their criticism is eminently forthcoming for Western societies that fail to change fast enough and the way they deem acceptable, when it comes to criticism of human rights abuses inherent in sharia-based societies, they are markedly silent.

The Killing of Farkhunda Video NYTimes com

December 29, 2015

The Killing of Farkhunda Video NYTimes com via You Tube, December 26, 2015

 

The danger of partial no-go zones

December 29, 2015

The danger of partial no-go zones, Washington Times, Daniel Pipes, December 28, 2015

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Partial no-go zones in majority-Muslim areas are a part of the urban landscape from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, with the French government alone counting 751 of them. This shirking of responsibility foreshadows catastrophe and calls for immediate reversal.

I call the bad parts of Europe’s cities partial no-go zones because ordinary people in ordinary clothing at ordinary times can enter and leave them without trouble. But they are no-go zones in the sense that representatives of the state — police especially, but also firefighters, meter-readers, ambulance attendants and social workers — can only enter with massed power for temporary periods of time. If they disobey this basic rule (as I learned first-hand in Marseille), they are likely to be swarmed, insulted, threatened and even attacked.

This situation needs not exist. Host societies can say no to the poor, crime-ridden, violent and rebellious areas emerging in their midst. But if governments need not abdicate control, why do they do so? Because of a fervent, slightly desperate hope to avoid confrontation. Multicultural policies offer the illusion of sidestepping anything that might be construed as “racist” or “Islamophobic.”

This abandonment is no minor aberration but a decision with grave consequences — consequences far deeper than, say, not controlling a crime-ridden American city like East St. Louis. That’s because Muslim quasi-no-go zones fit into a far larger political context, with dual Western and Islamic dimensions.

Western: Avoiding confrontation reflects a deep-seated ambivalence about the value of one’s own civilization and even self-hatred of the white race. The French intellectual Pascal Bruckner noted in his 2006 book “La Tyrannie de la Penitence” (“The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism”) that leftist thinking “can be reduced to mechanical denunciations of the West, emphasizing the latter’s hypocrisy, violence, and abomination.” Europeans preen as “the sick man of the planet” whose greed and false notions of superiority causes every problem in the non-Western world: “The white man has sown grief and ruin wherever he has gone.”

If the deadly triad of imperialism, fascism and racism represent all that the West has to offer, no wonder immigrants to Europe, including Islamists, are treated as superior beings due supine deference. They exploit this by acting badly — drug dealers ruling the roost, a gang raping 1,400 children over a period of 16 years, and promoting violent ideologies — with near-impunity because, after all, the Europeans have only themselves to blame.

Muslim: Partial no-go zones also result from an Islamic drive for exclusion and domination. Mecca and Medina constitute the official, sovereign and eternal Muslim-only zones. For nearly 14 centuries, these two Arabian cities have been formally off-limits to kafirs, who trespass at their peril; a lively literature of non-Muslims who penetrated their holy precincts and lived to tell the tale goes back centuries and continues still today.

Other Islamic no-go zones also exist. Before losing power in 1887, the Muslim rulers of Harar, Somalia, for centuries insisted (in the words of a British officer) on the “the exclusion of all travellers not of the Moslem faith.” In like spirit, women in hijabs scream at non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to make them feel unwelcome and so stay away. In the West, lawful Muslim-only enclaves represent one drive for Muslim autonomy and sovereignty; the Muslims of America organization, with its 15 or so no-go compounds bristling with arms and hostility on private property dotted around the United States, represents another.

Unlike places like East St. Louis, Muslim-majority partial no-go zones have a deeply political and highly ambitious quality to them. Indeed, it is not farfetched to foresee them turning into Muslim autonomous zones applying Islamic law and challenging the authorities. The mix of feeble European governments and a strong Islamic drive for power points to future unrest, crises, breakdown and even civil war.

Some believe it is already too late to avoid this fate. I disagree, but if catastrophe is to be avoided, the job to dismantle all partial no-go zones must be started soon and executed with a swift determination based on a renewed sense of self-worth. Two universal principles should guide European governments: attaining a monopoly of force and applying the same code of law to all citizens.

Domestic peace in Europe and perhaps other regions, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, demands nothing less.

British Universities have Gone Crazy too

December 27, 2015

British Universities have Gone Crazy too. Why? Power Line, John Hinderaker, December 27, 2015

Italian journalist Giulio Menotti documents the madness that has overtaken British universities–a madness that is eerily familiar:

“Rhodes Must Fall” cry the students and professors outside Oxford, many of whom are themselves part of the Rhodes Scholarship group, the program built by the “racist” tycoon to allow foreign students to study at Oxford.

It’s exactly like students at Amherst and Harvard denouncing Jeffrey Amherst and Isaac Royall.

Meanwhile, across the UK, a general air of hostility is spreading against opinions that could cause even only a hint of distress in students, forcing theFinancial Times to publish an editorial: “It is in the interest of universities to maintain a free and fertile academic environment.”

Ditto in the U.S.

Iranian dissident Maryam Lamaze … was attacked and prevented from speaking at many UK colleges, like Goldsmiths and Warwick. Her hymn against religion and for Western free speech “offended” British students of Islamic faith.

At University College in London, a former student, Macer Gifford, was prevented from telling his experience in the ranks of Kurdish fighters committed to battle against the Islamic State. The reason? “In every conflict there are two sides and our college does not want to take sides.”

Should we be anti-ISIS? That’s too close a question for universities in Britain, as in the U.S., to call.

The University of East Anglia has just banned the use of the sombrero, because it is considered hateful towards Hispanic students.

Just like the recent fiasco at Yale. It’s odd, though. Doesn’t every kind of hat originate with one culture or another, and mustn’t all hats therefore be banned? And why stop with hats?

Oxford has canceled a debate on abortion, because women’s organizations had complained about the presence, among the speakers, of “a person without a uterus.” Don’t laugh, it is really happening at the university founded in 1096.

Don’t laugh, because feminists don’t have a sense of humor, either here or in the U.K.

The University of Cardiff has tried to remove the feminist Germaine Greer, “guilty” of not considering women and transsexuals as equals.

Transsexuals, slightly more common than unicorns, have opened up whole new horizons of insanity.

Meanwhile, these British “safe spaces” are used by apologists for Islamist cutthroats who gather support and are affiliated with these universities (“Jihadi John”, the late Isis executioner, was a brilliant student of Westminster).

I hadn’t realized that. Apparently “brilliant” students aren’t what they used to be.

Some days ago, the Telegraph published an article entitled: “The ideology of the ISIS dominates British universities.”

Why are so many students and professors attracted to evil? It was true in the 1930s, too, when German students and professors were among the most enthusiastic supporters of National Socialism, and when Nazis were weirdly popular–as it seems today–on many American campuses.

The same universities that are uncomfortable accommodating heterodox feminists and Islamic dissidents, such as the Queen Mary University of London, allow events under the banner of Islam where women sit separated from men, in accordance with the Sharia or Islamic law, as if they were in Riyadh or Tehran.

Because that’s diversity.

Muslim activist for women’s rights, Maryam Namazie, has been driven away by fanatic Islamists with the approval of the stupid gay militants. In British colleges it was Namazie who needed a “safe space” to deliver her speech, protected by bodyguards….

Much like the treatment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Michelle Malkin here in the United States. And finally:

Meanwhile, British professors, writers, musicians, intellectuals and professionals are busy promoting initiatives to boycott the Jewish State and its professors.

All of this is nauseatingly familiar. My question is: why? Why have British universities gone off the rails in precisely the same ways as American universities? Steve has referred to the “spreading virus” of madness on American campuses, but the virus has apparently replicated itself in England. Why?

I mean the question seriously. Have British students and professors taken inspiration from their American cousins? Or vice versa? Is it because Leftism is an international movement? Do left-wing British professors and students, like their American counterparts, hate the society that sustains them, and does their hatred produce eerily similar symptoms? I don’t know the answer to these questions. But a contagion is loose that transcends, apparently, international boundaries.