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Muslim Brotherhood Front Organizations, U.S. and Canada

January 31, 2017

Muslim Brotherhood Front Organizations, U.S. and Canada, Gatestone Institute, Thomas Quiggin, January 31, 2017

(Islamophobia alert: As any fool knows, Islam is the religion of peace and all Muslims are peaceful. Besides, brotherhood should be encouraged, not criminalized. –DM)

It appears possible that a Trump Administration will crack down on Islamist extremist groups in the USA. It also appears probable that this will have a spill-over effect into Canada and Europe through greater attention to border security and issues of funding terrorism. These groups, which have already drawn attention to themselves, may start feeling the heat sooner rather than later.

The 2008 Holy Land Relief terrorism funding criminal trial resulted in multiple convictions and was touted as the one of the largest terrorism financing trials in American history. Expectations were high that the 2008 trial would be followed by further trials involving the listed unindicted co-conspirators such as CAIR USA and the Islamic Society of North America.

However, with the appointment of Eric Holder as the U.S. Attorney General in 2009, all further actions on this file appear to have been frozen. Holder would later speak at a conference supporting one of the unindicted co-conspirators.

It is not clear if the ongoing criminal investigation focuses only on those individuals leading IRFAN at the time of its delisting as a charity and listing as a terrorism entity, or if the investigation also includes those who helped found IRFAN. This may be an important distinction, as the Canada Revenue Agency stated that IRFAN was deliberately created and designed to circumvent Canadian terrorism-funding rules.

It appears possible that the Trump Administration will crack down on Islamist extremist groups in the USA. This would likely have a spill-over effect into Canada and Europe, though greater attention to border security and issues of funding terrorism.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz last week submitted legislation to designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a Terrorist Organization.

Cruz (R-TX) earlier had a bill in the Senate which would not only ban the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. but also three of its front groups: Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) USA, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). These American-based front groups have corresponding chapters or organizations in Canada as well.

Muslim Brotherhood front organizations and their members have an ongoing problem with criminal activity, terrorism-funding activities and overall negative relations with legal authorities. These problems range from being listed as terrorist groups, being charged for weapons possession and an even an arrest for alleged sexual charges involving a 12-year-old girl. Several of the charges are consistent with the extremist nature of the Muslim Brotherhood itself, given its commitment to violent political change. Both criminal investigations and terrorism listings in North America, for instance, have been directly related to terrorism funding for Hamas, itself a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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The emblem of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its founder, Hassan al-Banna.

The future is also uncertain for a variety of groups and individuals related to the criminal trials surrounding the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, formerly known as the Occupied Land Fund. The 2008 criminal trial resulted in multiple convictions and was touted as the one of the largest terrorism financing trials in American history. Expectations were high that the 2008 trial would be followed by further trials involving the listed unindicted co-conspirators such as CAIR USA and the Islamic Society of North America. However, with the appointment of Eric Holder as the Attorney General of the United States in 2009, all further actions on this file appear to have been frozen. Holder would later speak at a conference supporting one of the unindicted co-conspirators. It is not yet clear if the next U.S. Attorney General will direct that the files be re-activated.

CAIR USA has been repeatedly identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front organization. It was listed as a Muslim Brotherhood front organization and as a terrorism entity by the United Arab Emirates in 2014. CAIR USA employees and former employees have a rather dubious history of criminal activity. Among those CAIR USA employees charged with criminal offences or deported have been Randall Ismail Royer (weapons and explosive charges), Bassam Khafagi (bank and visa fraud), Ghassan Elashi (terrorism financing of Hamas), and Nabil Sadoun (deported for ties to terrorist groups). Other members and fund-raisers for CAIR USA have also been charged.

In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation (Project Sapphire) into the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN) continues. IRFAN was one of four Muslim Brotherhood front groups identified during testimony to the Canadian Senate in 2015. The others were Islamic Relief Canada, the Muslim Association of Canada and the National Council of Canadian Muslims, formerly known as CAIR CAN. CAIR CAN, according to the U.S. State Department and a multiplicity of other sources, is the Canadian chapter of CAIR USA.

IRFAN had its charitable status revoked for funding terrorism in 2011 and was subsequently listed as a terrorism entity by the Government of Canada in 2014. It is not clear if the ongoing criminal investigation focuses only on those individuals leading IRFAN at the time of its delisting as a charity and listing as a terrorism entity, or if the investigation also includes those who helped found IRFAN. This may be an important distinction, as the Canada Revenue Agency stated that IRFAN was deliberately created and designed to circumvent Canadian terrorism-funding rules.

Another of the four front groups, the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), also made the news in 2015. At that point, it was alleged that IRFAN continued to received funding from the Muslim Association of Canada even after IRFAN had its charitable status revoked for funding terrorism in 2011. This information came from an RCMP search warrant that was used to raid IRFAN premises in Mississauga and Montreal. In addition to funding issues, the MAC and IRFAN are connected to each other through common board members and their association to Hamas. IRFAN was funding Hamas and the MAC is one of only two organizations outside of Egypt that openly states it is a Muslim Brotherhood adherent group.

The Islamic Society of North America (Canadian Chapter) has also had its problems. Along with a variety of internal fraud issues, the ISNA Development Fund had the charitable status of its “Development Fund” revoked for terrorism funding. The terrorism-funding money in question was sent to the Relief Organization for Kashmiri Muslims (ROKM) with the ultimate aim of supporting Jamaat-e-Islami, widely known as the Muslim Brotherhood’s sister group in south Asia.

The Muslim Student Association

Another group, the Muslim Student Association (MSA) of the United States and Canada was established in January 1963 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign campus. Its creation was the result of Saudi-backed efforts to create a network of international Islamic organizations in order to spread its Wahhabist ideology. It was essentially “an arm of the Saudi-funded, Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Muslim World League.”

The following individuals have all been identified as members of the MSA at a variety universities in Canada. They have all been either charged with terrorism offences or died as suicide bombers at the behest of ISIS:

Ahmed Sayed Khadr from the University of Ottawa. Khadr was killed on October 2, 2003, along with al-Qaeda and Taliban members, in a shootout by Pakistani security forces near the Afghanistan border. An al-Qaeda website profiling “120 Martyrs of Afghanistan” described him as a leader in Bin Laden’s organization and praised him for “tossing his little child [Omar] in the furnace of the battle.”
Chiheb Esseghaier was convicted in 2015 for his role in the attempted bombing of a cross-border VIA Rail train.
Khadar Khalib has been charged with terrorism-related offenses and is believed to have killed in Syria while fighting for ISIS.
Awso Peshdary, born in Ottawa, was arrested in February 2015 as part of operation “Project Servant” by the RCMP Integrated National Security Enforcement Team. He was charged with participation in the activity of a terrorist group.
John “Yahya” Maguire was also born in the Ottawa area, but went off to Syria and become infamous for his ISIS recruiting video. He has also been charged with terrorism offences in absentia.
Youssef Sakhir, Samir Halilovic and Zakria Habibi are/were from Sherbrooke Quebec, but are now listed as missing and believed to be fighting in Syria.
Muhannad al-Farekh, Farid Imam and Maiwand Yar have all had charges laid against them for terrorism-related offences. Their whereabouts are unknown, but they may be in Pakistan.
Calgary suicide bomber Salma Ashrafi was the President of his Muslim Student Association before dying in a suicide bombing in Iraq.

Chiheb Battikh and the Muslim Association of Canada

In December 2012, Chiheb Battikh of Montreal attempted to kidnap the son of a billionaire and hold him for ransom. The Tunisian-Canadian was identified by the Tunis Tribune as being “close to Ennahda” or the Muslim Brotherhood. The French language Journal de Montréal did a five-page story on him following his conviction. Among the issues raised by the paper was Battikh’s long time position on the board of directors for the Muslim Association of Canada as well as his position as the director of education for them. The issue of whether the kidnapping was intended to help fund the new Canadian Institute of Islamic Civilization was raised as well. Battikh had been in charge of that fundraising effort and the project had been in trouble.

The Trump Administration

Some of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s advisors have strong views on the Muslim Brotherhood. Included among these are Walid Phares, who favors banning the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. Other advisors include Frank Gaffney, and Pieter “Pete” Hoekstra, both of whom are well acquainted with Muslim Brotherhood activities

Outlook

A variety of Muslim Brotherhood front groups have drawn attention to themselves through terrorism funding and other forms of alleged criminal behavior. CAIR USA (and others) have also been involved in lawfare — suing critics to silence them. Altogether, this activity and their own allegedly criminal actions have drawn greater attention to them and increased, rather than decreased, the amount of research done on them. With the rising, often Islamist-inspired, violence in Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia, more attention will be drawn to the sources of the extremism that are producing and funding terrorism.

It appears possible that a Trump Administration will crack down on Islamist extremist groups in the USA. It also appears probable that this will have a spill-over effect into Canada and Europe though greater attention to border security and issues of funding terrorism. These groups, which have already drawn attention to themselves, may start feeling the heat sooner rather than later.

Categories: Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, Trump and Islamists
Tags: Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, Trump and Islamists

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Smoking Out Islamists via Extreme Vetting

January 31, 2017

Smoking Out Islamists via Extreme Vetting, Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes, January 28, 2017(?)

(Please see also, A Muslim Reformer Speaks Out About His Battle Against Islamism And PC. — DM)

On January 27, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to implement his proposed “extreme vetting” of those applying for entry visas into the United States. This article by Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes, who has written extensively on the practicality and enforceability of screening for Islamists, is an advance release from the forthcoming Spring 2017 issue of Middle East Quarterly.

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Smoking Them Out (1906), Charles M. Russell.

Donald Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 27 establishing radically new procedures to deal with foreigners who apply to enter the United States.

Building on his earlier notion of “extreme vetting,” the order explains that

to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

This passage raises several questions of translating extreme vetting in practice: How does one distinguish foreigners who “do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles” from those who do? How do government officials figure out “those who would place violent ideologies over American law”? More specifically, given that the new procedures almost exclusively concern the fear of allowing more Islamists into the country, how does one identify them?

I shall argue these are doable tasks and the executive order provides the basis to achieve them. At the same time, they are expensive and time-consuming, demanding great skill. Keeping out Islamists can be done, but not easily.

The Challenge

By Islamists (as opposed to moderate Muslims), I mean those approximately 10-15 percent of Muslims who seek to apply Islamic law (the Shari’a) in its entirety. They want to implement a medieval code that calls (among much else) for restricting women, subjugating non-Muslims, violent jihad, and establishing a caliphate to rule the world.

For many non-Muslims, the rise of Islamism over the past forty years has made Islam synonymous with extremism, turmoil, aggression, and violence. But Islamists, not all Muslims, are the problem; they, not all Muslims, must urgently be excluded from the United States and other Western countries. Not just that, but anti-Islamist Muslims are the key to ending the Islamist surge, as they alone can offer a humane and modern alternative to Islamist obscurantism.

Identifying Islamists is no easy matter, however, as no simple litmus test exists. Clothing can be misleading, as some women wearing hijabs are anti-Islamists, while practicing Muslims can be Zionists; nor does one’s occupation indicate much, as some high-tech engineers are violent Islamists. Likewise, beards, teetotalism, five-times-a-day prayers, and polygyny do not tell about a Muslim’s political outlook. To make matters more confusing, Islamists often dissimulate and pretend to be moderates, while some believers change their views over time.

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In 2001, the Pentagon invited Anwar al-Awlaki to lunch. In 2011, it killed him by a drone strike.

Finally, shades of gray further confuse the issue. As noted by Robert Satloff of The Washington Institute, a 2007 book from the Gallup press, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, based on a poll of over 50,000 Muslims in 10 countries, found that 7 percent of Muslims deem the 9/11 attacks “completely justified,” 13.5 percent consider the attacks completely or “largely justified,” and 36.6 percent consider the attacks completely, largely, or “somewhat justified.” Which of these groups does one define as Islamist and which not?

Faced with these intellectual challenges, American bureaucrats are unsurprisingly incompetent, as I demonstrate in a long blog titled “The U.S. Government’s Poor Record on Islamists.” Islamists have fooled the White House, the departments of Defense, Justice, State, and Treasury, the Congress, many law enforcement agencies and a plethora of municipalities. A few examples:

The Pentagon in 2001 invited Anwar al-Awlaki, the American Islamist it later executed with a drone-launched missile, to lunch.
In 2002, FBI spokesman Bill Carter described the American Muslim Council (AMC) as “the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States” – just two years before the bureau arrested the AMC’s founder and head, Abdurahman Alamoudi, on terrorism-related charges. Alamoudi has now served about half his 23-year prison sentence.
George W. Bush appointed stealth Islamist Khaled Abou El Fadl in 2003 to, of all things, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The White House included staff in 2015 from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in its consultations, despite CAIR’s initial funding by a designated terrorist group, the frequent arrest or deportation of its employees on terrorism charges, a history of deception, and the goal of one of its leaders to make Islam the only accepted religion in America.

Fake-moderates have fooled even me, despite all the attention I devote to this topic. In 2000, I praised a book by Tariq Ramadan; four years later, I argued for his exclusion from the United States. In 2003, I condemned a Republican operative named Kamal Nawash; two years later, I endorsed him. Did they evolve or did my understanding of them change? More than a decade later, I am still unsure.

Uniform Screening Standards

Returning to immigration, this state of confusion points to the need for learning much more about would-be visitors and immigrants. Fortunately, Trump’s executive order, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” signed on Jan. 27, 2017, requires just this. It calls for “Uniform Screening Standards” with the goal of preventing individuals from entering the United States “on a fraudulent basis with the intent to cause harm, or who are at risk of causing harm subsequent to their admission.” The order requires that the uniform screening standard and procedure include such elements as (bolding is mine):

In-person interviews;
A database of identity documents proffered by applicants to ensure that duplicate documents are not used by multiple applicants;
Amended application forms that include questions aimed at identifying fraudulent answers and malicious intent;
A mechanism to ensure that the applicant is who the applicant claims to be;
A process to evaluate the applicant’s likelihood of becoming a positively contributing member of society and the applicant’s ability to make contributions to the national interest; and
A mechanism to assess whether or not the applicant has the intent to commit criminal or terrorist acts after entering the United States.

Elements 1, 3, 5, and 6 permit and demand the procedure outlined in the following analysis. It contains two main components, in-depth research and intensive interviews.

Research

When a person applies for a security clearance, the background checks should involve finding out about his family, friends, associations, employment, memberships, and activities. Agents must probe these for questionable statements, relationships, and actions, as well as anomalies and gaps. When they find something dubious, they must look further into it, always with an eye for trouble. Is access to government secrets more important than access to the country? The immigration process should start with an inquiry into the prospective immigrant and, just as with security clearances, the border services should look for problems.

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Most everyone with strong views at some point vents them on social media.

Also, as with security clearance, this process should have a political dimension: Does the person in question have an outlook consistent with that of the Constitution? Not long ago, only public figures such as intellectuals, activists, and religious figures put their views on the record; but now, thanks to the Internet and its open invitation to everyone to comment in writing or on video in a permanent, public manner, and especially to social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), most everyone with strong views at some point vents them. Such data provides valuably unfiltered views on many critical topics, such as Islam, non-Muslims, women, and violence as a tactic. (Exploiting this resource may seem self-evident but U.S. immigration authorities do not do so, thereby imposing a self-restraint roughly equivalent to the Belgian police choosing not to conduct raids between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.)

In the case of virulent, overt, outspoken jihadis, this research usually suffices to provide evidence to exclude them. Even some non-violent Islamists proudly announce their immoderation. But many Islamists adopt a milder and subtler tone, their goal being to appear moderate so they can enter the country and then impose Shari’a through lawful means. As suggested by some of the examples above, such as Abou El Fadl or CAIR, research often proves inadequate in these instances because cautious Islamists hide their goals and glibly dissimulate. Which brings us to entrance interviews.

Entrance Interviews

Assuming that lawful Islamists routinely hide their true views, an interview is needed before letting them enter the country. Of course, it is voluntary, for no one is forced to apply for immigration, but it also must be very thorough. It should be:

Recorded: With the explicit permission of the person being questioned (“You understand and accept that this interview is being recorded, right?”), the exchange should be visibly videotaped so the proceedings are unambiguously on the record. This makes available the interviewee’s words, tone, speech patterns, facial expressions, and body language for further study. Form as well as substance matters: does the interviewee smile, fidget, blink, make eye contact, repeat, sweat, tremble, tire, need frequent toilet breaks, or otherwise express himself in non-verbal ways?

Polygraph: Even if a lie detector machine does not, in fact, provide useful information, attaching the interviewee to it might induce greater truth-telling.

Under oath: Knowing that falsehoods will be punished, possibly with jail time, is a strong inducement to come clean.

Public: If the candidate knows that his answers to abstract questions (as opposed to personal ones about his life) will be made public, this reduces the chances of deception. For example, asked about belief for the full application of Islamic laws, an Islamist will be less likely to answer falsely in the negative if he knows that his reply will be available for others to watch.

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Look for inconsistency by asking the same thing in different ways. An example: “May a woman show her face in public?” and “Is a male guardian responsible for making sure his women-folk don’t leave the house with faces uncovered?

Multiple: No single question can evince a reply that establishes an Islamist disposition; effective interviewing requires a battery of queries on many topics, from homosexuality to the caliphate. The answers need to be assessed in their totality.

Specific: Vague inquiries along the lines of “Is Islam a religion of peace?”, “Do you condemn terrorism?” “How do you respond to the murder of innocents,” depend too much on one’s definition of words such as peace, terrorism, and innocents to help determine a person’s outlook, and so should be avoided. Instead, questions must be focused and exact: “May Muslims convert out of Islam, whether to join another faith or to become atheists?” “Does a Muslim have the right to renounce Islam?”

Variety in phrasing: For the questions to ferret out the truth means looking for divergence and inconsistency by asking the same question with different words and variant emphases. A sampling: “May a woman show her face in public?” “What punishment do you favor for females who reveal their faces to men not related to them by family?” “Is it the responsibility of the male guardian to make sure his women-folk do not leave the house with faces uncovered?” “Should the government insist on women covering their faces?” “Is society better ordered when women cover their faces?” Any one of the questions can be asked in different ways and expanded with follows-up about the respondent’s line of reasoning or depth of feeling.

Repeated: Questions should be asked again and again over a period of weeks, months, and even longer. This is crucial: lies being much more difficult to remember than truths, the chances of a respondent changing his answers increases with both the volume of questions asked and the time lapse between questionings. Once inconsistencies occur, the questioner can zero in and explore their nature, extent, and import.

The Questions

Guidelines in place, what specific questions might extract useful information?

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Zuhdi Jasser (L) with the author as teammates at a 2012 Intelligence Squared debate in New York City.

The following questions, offered as suggestions to build on, are those of this author but also derive from a number of analysts devoting years of thinking to the topic. Naser Khader, the-then Danish parliamentarian of Syrian Muslim origins, offered an early set of questions in 2002. A year later, this author published a list covering seven subject areas.

Others followed, including the liberal Egyptian Muslim Tarek Heggy, the liberal American Muslims Tashbih Sayyed and Zuhdi Jasser, the ex-Muslim who goes by “Sam Solomon,” a RAND Corporation group, and the analyst Robert Spencer. Of special interest are the queries posed by the German state of Baden-Württemberg dated September 2005 because it is an official document (intended for citizenship, not immigration, but with similar purposes).

Islamic doctrine:

1. May Muslims reinterpret the Koran in light of changes in modern times?

2. May Muslims convert out of Islam, either to join another faith or to be without religion?

3. May banks charge reasonable interest (say 3 percent over inflation) on money?

4. Is taqiya (dissimulation in the name of Islam) legitimate?

Islamic pluralism:

5. May Muslims pick and choose which Islamic regulations to abide by (e.g., drink alcohol but avoid pork)?

6. Is takfir (declaring a Muslim to be an infidel) acceptable?

7. [Asked of Sunnis only:] Are Sufis, Ibadis, and Shi’ites Muslims?

8. Are Muslims who disagree with your practice of Islam infidels (kuffar)?

The state and Islam:

9. What do you think of disestablishing religion, that is, separating mosque and state?

10. When Islamic customs conflict with secular laws (e.g., covering the face for female drivers’ license pictures), which gets priority?

11. Should the state compel prayer?

12. Should the state ban food consumption during Ramadan and penalize transgressors?

13. Should the state punish Muslims who eat pork, drink alcohol, and gamble?

14. Should the state punish adultery?

15. How about homosexuality?

16. Do you favor a mutawwa’ (religious police) as exist in Saudi Arabia?

17. Should the state enforce the criminal punishments of the Shari’a?

18. Should the state be lenient when someone is killed for the sake of family honor?

19. Should governments forbid Muslims from leaving Islam?

Marriage and divorce:

20. Does a husband have the right to hit his wife if she is disobedient?

21. Is it a good idea for men to shut their wives and daughters at home?

22. Do parents have the right to determine whom their children marry?

23. How would you react if a daughter married a non-Muslim man?

24. Is polygyny acceptable?

25. Should a husband have to get a first wife’s approval to marry a second wife? A third? A fourth?

26. Should a wife have equal rights with her husband to initiate a divorce?

27. In the case of divorce, does a wife have rights to child custody?

Female rights:

28. Should Muslim women have equal rights with men (for example, in inheritance shares or court testimony)?

29. Does a woman have the right to dress as she pleases, including showing her hair, arms and legs, so long as her genitalia and breasts are covered?

30. May Muslim women come and go or travel as they please?

31. Do Muslim women have a right to work outside the home or must the wali approve of this??

32. May Muslim women marry non-Muslim men?

33. Should males and females be separated in schools, at work, and socially?

34. Should certain professions be reserved for men or women only? If so, which ones?

35. Do you accept women occupying high governmental offices?

36. In an emergency, would you let yourself be treated by or operated on by a doctor of the opposite gender?

Sexual activity:

37. Does a husband have the right to force his wife to have sex?

38. Is female circumcision part of the Islamic religion?

39. Is stoning a justified punishment for adultery?

40. Do members of a family have the right to kill a woman if they believe she has dishonored them?

41. How would you respond to a child of yours who declares him- or herself a homosexual?

Schools:

42. Should your child learn the history of non-Muslims?

43. Should students be taught that Shari’a is a personal code or that governmental law must be based on it?

44. May your daughter take part in the sports activities, especially swimming lessons, offered by her school?

45. Would you permit your child to take part in school trips, including overnight ones?

46. What would you do if a daughter insisted on going to university?

Criticism of Muslims:

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Denying the Islamic nature of ISIS reveals much about a Muslim.

47. Did Islam spread only through peaceful means?

48. Do you accept the legitimacy of scholarly inquiry into the origins of Islam, even if it casts doubt on the received history?

49. Do you accept that Muslims were responsible for the 9/11 attacks?

50. Is the Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL/Daesh Islamic in nature?

Fighting Islamism:

51. Do you accept enhanced security measures to fight Islamism, even if this might mean extra scrutiny of yourself (for example, at airline security)?

52. When institutions credibly accused of funding jihad are shut down, is this a symptom of anti-Muslim bias?

53. Should Muslims living in the West cooperate with law enforcement?

54. Should they join the military?

55. Is the “war on terror” a war on Islam?

Non-Muslims (in general):

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Praying at the Hindu Temple in Dubai, founded 1958.

56. Do all humans, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious beliefs, deserve equal rights?

57. Should non-Muslims enjoy completely equal civil rights with Muslims?

58. Do you accept the validity of other monotheistic religions?

59. Of polytheistic religions (such as Hinduism)?

60. Are Muslims superior to non-Muslims?

61. Should non-Muslims be subject to Islamic law?

62. Do Muslims have anything to learn from non-Muslims?

63. Can non-Muslims go to paradise?

64. Do you welcome non-Muslims to your house and go to their residences?

Non-Muslims (in Dar al-Islam):

65. May Muslims compel “Peoples of the Book” (i.e., Jews and Christians) to pay extra taxes?

66. May other monotheists build and operate institutions of their faith in Muslim-majority countries?

67. How about polytheists?

68. Should the Saudi government maintain the historic ban on non-Muslims in Mecca and Medina?

69. Should it allow churches to be built for Christian expatriates?

70. Should it stop requiring that all its subjects be Muslim?

Non-Muslims (in Dar al-Harb):

71. Should Muslims fight Jews and Christians until these “feel themselves subdued” (Koran 9:29).

72. Is the enslavement of non-Muslims acceptable?

73. Is it acceptable to arrest individuals who curse the prophet of Islam or burn the Koran?

74. If the state does not act against such deeds, may individual Muslims act?

75. Can one live a fully Muslim life in a country with a mostly non-Muslim government?

76. Should a Muslim accept a legitimate majority non-Muslim government and its laws or work to make Islam supreme?

77. Can a majority non-Muslim government unreservedly win your allegiance?

78. Should Muslims who burn churches or vandalize synagogues be punished?

79. Do you support jihad to spread Islam?

Violence:

80. Do you endorse corporal punishments (mutilation, dismemberment, crucifixion) of criminals?

81. Is beheading an acceptable form of punishment?

82. Is jihad, meaning warfare to expand Muslim rule, acceptable in today’s world?

83. What does it mean when Muslims yell “Allahu Akbar” as they attack?

84. Do you condemn violent organizations such as Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Shabaab, and the Taliban?

Western countries:

85. Are non-Islamic institutions immoral and decadent or can they be moral and virtuous?

86. Do you agree with studies that show non-Muslim countries such as New Zealand to be better living up to the ideals of Islam than Muslim-majority countries?

87. Is Western-style freedom an accomplishment or a form of moral corruption? Why?

88. Do you accept that Western countries are majority-Christian or do you seek to transform them into majority-Muslim countries?

89. Do you accept living in Western countries that are secular or do you seek to have Islamic law rule them?

90. What do you think of Shari’a-police patrolling Muslim-majority neighborhoods in Western countries to enforce Islamic morals?

91. Would you like to see the U.S. Constitution (or its equivalents in other countries) replaced by the Koran?

This interview:

92. In an immigration interview like this, if deceiving the questioner helps Islam, would lying be justified?

93. Why should I trust that you have answered these questions truthfully?

Observations about the Interviews

Beyond helping to decide whom to allow into the country, these questions can also help in other contexts as well, for example in police interrogations or interviews for sensitive employment positions. (The list of Islamists who have penetrated Western security services is a long and painful one.)

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Islamists are hardly the only ones who condemn Israel. Here Jewish Voice for Peace activists protest.

Note the absence of questions about highly charged current issues. That is because Islamist views overlap with non-Islamist outlooks; plenty of non-Islamists agree with Islamists on these topics. Although Leil Leibowitz in contrast sees Israel as “moderate Islam’s real litmus test,” Islamists are hardly the only ones who demand Israel’s elimination and accept Hamas and Hezbollah as legitimate political actors – or believe the Bush administration carried out the 9/11 attacks or hate the United States. Why introduce these ambiguous issues when so many Islam-specific questions (e.g., “Is the enslavement of non-Muslim acceptable?”) have the virtue of far greater clarity?

The interviewing protocol outlined above is extensive, asking many specific questions over a substantial period using different formulations, probing for truth and inconsistencies. It is not quick, easy, or cheap, but requires case officers knowledgeable about the persons being interviewed, the societies they come from, and the Islamic religion; they are somewhat like a police questioner who knows both the accused person and the crime. This is not a casual process. There are no shortcuts.

Criticisms

This procedure raises two criticisms: it is less reliable than Trump’s no-Muslim policy and it is too burdensome for governments to undertake. Both are readily disposed of.

Less reliable: The no-Muslim policy sounds simple to implement but figuring out who is Muslim is a problem in itself (are Ahmadis Muslims?). Further, with such a policy in place, what will stop Muslims from pretending to renounce their religion or to convert to another religion, notably Christianity? These actions would require the same in-depth research and intensive interviews as described above. If anything, because a convert can hide behind his ignorance of his alleged new religion, distinguishing a real convert to Christianity from a fake one is even more difficult than differentiating an Islamist from a moderate Muslim.

Too burdensome: True, the procedure is expensive, slow, and requires skilled practitioners. But this also has the benefit of slowing a process that many, myself included, consider out of control, with too many immigrants entering the country too quickly. Immigrants numbered 5 percent of the population in 1965, 14 percent in 2015, and are projected to make up 18 percent in 2065. This is far too large a number to assimilate into the values of the United States, especially when so many come from outside the West; the above mechanism offers a way to slow it down.

As for those who argue that this sort of inquiry and screening for visa purposes is unlawful; prior legislation for naturalization, for example, required that an applicant be “attached to the principles of the Constitution” and it was repeatedly found to be legal.

Finally, today’s moderate Muslim could become tomorrow’s raging Islamist; or his infant daughter might two decades later become a jihadi. While any immigrant can turn hostile, such changes happen far more often among born Muslims. There is no way to guarantee this from happening but extensive research and interrogations reduce the odds.

Conclusion

Truly to protect the country from Islamists requires a major commitment of talent, resources, and time. But, properly handled, these questions offer a mechanism to separate enemy from friend among Muslims. They also have the benefit of slowing down immigration. Even before Trump became president, if one is to believe CAIR, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) asked questions along the lines of those advocated here (What do you think of the USA? What are your views about jihad? See the appendix for a full listing). With Trump’s endorsement, let us hope this effective “no-Islamists” policy is on its way to becoming systematic.

Appendix

On January 18, 2017, just hours before Donald Trump became president of the United States, the Florida office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed ten complaints with the Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) for questioning Muslim citizens about their religious and political views. Among the questions allegedly asked were:

1. Are you a devout Muslim?

2. Are you Sunni or Shia?

3. What school of thought do you follow?

4. Which Muslim scholars do you follow?

5. What current Muslim scholars do you listen to?

6. Do you pray five times a day?

7. Why do you have a prayer mat in your luggage?

8. Why do you have a Qur’an in your luggage?

9. Have you visited Saudi Arabia?

10. Will you every visit Saudi or Israel?

11. What do you know about the Tableeghi-Jamat?

12. What do you think of the USA?

13. What are your views about Jihad?

14. What mosque do you attend?

15. Do any individuals in your mosque have any extreme/radical views?

16. Does your Imam express extremist views?

17. What are the views of other imams or other community members that give the Friday sermon at your mosque?

18. Do they have extremist views?

19. Have you ever delivered the Friday Prayer? What did you discuss with your community?

20. What are your views regarding [various terrorist organizations]?

21. What social media accounts do you use?

22. What is your Facebook account username?

23. What is your Twitter account username?

24. What is your Instagram account username?

25. What are the names and telephone numbers of parents, relatives, friends?

CAIR also claims a Canadian Muslim was asked by CBP the following questions and then denied entry:

1. Are you Sunni or Shia?

2. Do you think we should allow someone like you to enter our country?

3. How often do you pray?

4. Why did you shave your beard?

5. Which school of thought do you follow?

6. What do you think of America’s foreign policy towards the Muslim world?

7. What do you think of killing non-Muslims?

8. What do you think of [various terrorist groups]?

Finally, CAIR indicates that those questioned “were held between 2 to 8 hours by CBP.”

Categories: "Extreme vetting", Islamic immigration, Islamic integration, Islamic refugees, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamic tolerance, Islamisation, Islamist "democracy", Islamist freedom, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamist threats, Islamist vetting, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: Islamic immigration, Islamic integration, Islamic refugees, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamic tolerance, Islamisation, Islamist "democracy", Islamist freedom, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamist threats, Islamist vetting, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Zuhdi Jasser

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A Muslim Reformer Speaks Out About His Battle Against Islamism And PC

January 30, 2017

A Muslim Reformer Speaks Out About His Battle Against Islamism And PC, The Federalist, Steve Postal, January 30, 2017

dr-jasser

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser stands at the forefront of the Muslim Reform Movement (MRM), which celebrated its first anniversary on December 4, 2016. He and representatives from fourteen other Muslim reform groups formed the MRM, which held its inaugural press conference on December 5, 2015.

There, they announced their two-page declaration of principles that discusses counterterrorism, human rights, and secular governance. In a nod to Martin Luther nailing his 99 theses to the door of the All Saint’s Church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517, several MRM members then taped their principles to the door of the Islamic Center of Washington DC.

The following is an interview with Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, CEO of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) and co-founder of the MRM. Jasser is a physician and former U.S. Navy officer whose parents fled Syria. Jasser agreed to reflect on the MRM’s one-year anniversary, the current battle between reformists and Islamists, and the Syrian Civil War.

The Muslims Working to Reform Islam

Q (Postal): What is the MRM, and what are its main objectives?

A (Jasser): The Muslim Reform Movement is a coalition of diverse Muslim organizations and leaders. We wanted to articulate the versions of Islam that we knew and loved, and that were compatible with modernity. We determined that the clearest way to define ourselves was to create a simple “declaration” of principles and goals. The declaration is a firewall of principles that we as Westerners and “modern Muslims” who believe in freedom, liberty, and universal human rights would not compromise.

Whether it is the rejection of any Islamic state and its identity, any caliphate (a global unification of many Islamic states), or the institutionalization of sharia (Islamic jurisprudence as interpreted by Islamic jurists), our Muslim Reform Movement felt that the only way to truly counter-radicalize Muslims is through an unapologetic defense of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and modern society. Our principles stand in stark contrast to the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights (of 1991) which was based in the interpretations of sharia of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Q: What events spurred the creation of the MRM?

A: While each of us began separate journeys against Islamism after 9/11 (and some even before), it was the Arab Awakening that brought us all together. So-called “secular” military dictatorships across the Muslim majority world have been profoundly suffocating critical inquiry. (I say “so-called” because these dictatorships essentially govern with sharia.)

I would, for example, put Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Syria in this category, though Turkey is a waning democracy cum Islamist dictatorship and Iran is an outright theocracy. Muslims cannot reform their interpretations of Islam under the boots of regimes that manifest interpretations of Islam through blasphemy, apostasy, and treason laws.

The Arab Awakening signaled to Muslims across the world that there was an opportunity for renewed critical thought by the people against the religious establishment and its tyrannical regimes. Unfortunately, since 2011, and perhaps even in the last 1,000 years, the Islamists were far better funded and organized. These opportunities gave way to large-scale violence, war, and chaos rather than heralding reform and modern institutions. Tunisia is thus far perhaps the one exception.

We reformists observed the rise of radical Islam’s attacks against the West since 9/11, and realized that we have a responsibility as Americans, patriotic Westerners, free thinkers, Muslims, and parents to counter and defeat the ideological underpinnings of Islamism.

Q: What accomplishments of the MRM have you seen in the past year? What are its goals?

A: Our greatest accomplishment to date is our declaration. While we are disappointed in the relative silence from most Muslim leaders, we recognize that their avoidance and inability to critique it has also demonstrated that it is on target. Our declaration has also withstood scrutiny from those who have been skeptical of the capacity of Muslims to have modern interpretations of Islam.

Given that we seek to counter a global theo-political establishment, our growth has certainly not been as rapid as we would like, but we are proud of how far we have come in a year.

Our successes as a coalition are highlighted by the successes of each of our respective organizations and leaders. I encourage readers of this interview to look into the works of each of these leaders, and help them make them known. Raheel Raza, Sohail Raza, and Hasan Mahmud with Muslims Facing Tomorrow in Toronto; Imam Usama Hasan with Quilliam Foundation in London; Asra Nomani, journalist and author; Farahnaz Ispahani, former member of Pakistan’s parliament, in Washington DC; Naser Khader in Denmark; myself, Courtney Lonergan, and Arif Humayun with our AIFD in Phoenix; Salma Siddiqui with the Coalition of Progressive Canadian Muslim Organizations in Canada; Tahir Gora, author, journalist, activist, in Toronto, Canada; Tawfik Hamid, Islamic thinker and reformer, Oakton, Virginia, to name a few, have all continued to grow in their programmatic reach.

We had our second annual retreat in Phoenix in October 2016 and expanded our strategic plan for the next few years. In 2017, we hope to see government, academia, media, and the interfaith establishment begin to give reformist Muslims from the MRM an equal seat at the table of any public conversations regarding Muslims and Islam.

On the government front, domestic and foreign policies should be directed by a “liberty doctrine” which engages Muslims positively on the principles embodied in our declaration and refutes those who reject any part or all of the declaration. Homeland security and foreign policy needs to focus more on “countering violent Islamism” rather than the nebulous “countering violent extremism.”

Q: In the MRM’s inaugural press conference, you said American mosques that reject the MRM’s declaration of principles are part of the problem, while those that accept the principles are part of the solution. How many mosques did the MRM approach? Did most of these mosques accept or reject these principles?

A: We spent significant resources on this outreach over a period of ten months. We reached out through snail mail, e-mail, and telephone to over 3,000 mosques and over 500 known public American Muslims. We received only 40-plus rather dismissive responses from our outreach, and sadly less than ten of them were positive. In fact, one mosque in South Carolina left us a vicious voice mail threatening our staff if we contacted them again.

We will continue to persevere with our outreach. On the one hand, we see the open hypocrisy of American Islamist groups effectively working together to sign documents, such as the recent “Open Letter to Donald Trump.” But to get their attention as reformists against Islamism, we face an uphill battle. If it’s grievances against Americans, people quickly sign on to almost anything. But getting people to sign on to an internal honest declaration of reform is like pulling teeth.

I can guess why we had shortcomings in outreach. If we had more funding, we could study this more scientifically. “Muslim” and “Islamic” institutions are often Islamist and thus unlikely to sign on to our declaration. Some estimate that 70-80 percent of Muslim organizations and mosques in the U.S. are die-hard Islamist. However, this needs to be put into an appropriate context. American Muslims, especially Sunni, are not tied to any clergy or organized “mosque” for faith practice or membership so the majority (60-70 percent) of American Muslims do not regularly participate in mosques or established Muslim institutions.

No one knows truly how that majority of Muslims feels about Islamist ideologies. National security is in desperate need of helping us study that. Our MRM is dedicated to creating new Western Muslim institutions outside the mosques and outside the “establishment” Islamist leadership to appeal to Muslims estranged from Islamist political tribalism. We have not been able to effectively reach out to the majority of Muslims because of resources and the absence of effective platforms.

The Muslim Reform Movement Versus Islamism

Q: What are the key differences between Muslim reformers and Muslim Islamists?

A: Reformers reject any Islamic state and its legal apparatus empowered through sharia. Reformers believe that individual Muslims have a right to publicly criticize Muslim thought leaders and their legal interpretations. Islamists believe that democracy is majoritocracy and thus in countries where Muslims are a majority, the national identity should be “Islamic” or “Muslim” and sharia should govern the legal system. Islamists believe that the rights of all citizens come from Islam and the state’s legal system and public discourse should be based upon Islamic precepts and exegesis. They view the mosque and its pulpit as the center of that political movement.

Reformers, however, believe that the rights of all citizens come from God and thus all citizens, Muslim and non-Muslim, are created equal and the legal system and public discourse should be based in reason. Reformers believe rights belong to human beings, not to ideas, while Islamists believe that the legal system should protect certain ideas (like Islam) from public defamation. Islamists believe in some form of a theo-political system domestically, and ultimately globally in some form of caliphate. Reformers believe in secular governance, and reject any and all forms of the Islamic state and the global caliphate.

We at AIFD are currently working on a formal response to the “Letter to Baghdadi” signed by Western Islamists. While it admonishes the head of ISIS, Sheikh Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi for illegitimacy in declaring jihad, establishing an Islamic state and a caliphate among other interpretations of Islamic law by al-Baghdadi, it is also a full-throated defense of an Islamic state, a caliphate, armed jihad, and other Islamist fundamentals that stand in stark contrast to Western secular liberal ideals and universal human rights.

Q: Do you believe the MRM is seeking to reform Islam itself, or Muslim interpretation of Islam? Does such reform require a change in the way Muslims interpret doctrine, or does it require Muslims to adopt humanist values apart from Islam?

A: Your question is the very reason we called this movement the Muslim Reform Movement rather than Islamic reform. If you define Islam as Wahhabi Islam or Salafi Islam, then yes we are reforming that. However if you define Islam as the Islam of the God of Abraham then we believe we are simply modernizing the interpretation to one commensurate with twenty-first century universal principles of human rights.

We understand that many may feel that Islam at its core or at its founding was problematic. But what should matter to the free world is not the origins of Islam but how Muslims are interpreting Islam in the twenty-first century.

We reformists are Muslims who are reforming the interpretation of Islam away from an Islam tied to the political construct of an Islamic state and sharia. Like the Founding Fathers of America, who sought to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s by preventing the establishment of religion by government, we too seek to interpret Islam in a way that separates mosque and state. Just as Muslims can embrace medical, natural, and computer science, we can embrace political science beyond the constructs of the seventh century.

Q: In the last 30 years, Saudi Arabia has spent more than an estimated $100 billion to fund the spread of Wahhabism worldwide (in contrast to the $7 billion the USSR spent spreading communism from 1921 through 1991). How does the MRM hope to compete with these vast Saudi expenditures?

A: That’s the elephant in the room. The West needs a major information program to advance ideas of liberty. The hope is that the free world will take the side of liberty, and theocracies and quasi-theocracies will fall.

Q: You and other members of the MRM have criticized the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the past. CAIR’s vision, mission, and core principles at first glance appear to be liberal and tolerant. What are the MRM’s concerns with CAIR?

A: The MRM believes, of course, that civil rights—chiefly, freedom of speech and religious expression—are cornerstones of our democracy, and we absolutely support efforts to protect these. CAIR can, to the untrained eye, seem to be in support of these principles as well.

However, this Hamas offshoot is hardly a true champion of civil rights. They silence dissidents, and initiate and actively support campaigns targeting LGBT Muslims, ex-Muslims, and more generally all anti-Islamists. Any cursory review of their practices reveals that they are not the progressive element they claim to be. On the contrary, they represent the very worst elements within our community.

They are, in essence, one of the centerpieces of the DC lobby of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC is today’s “neo-caliphate” and it seeks to keep the West on constant ideological defense apologizing for its so-called “Islamophobia.” That defensiveness then prevents us in the West from dealing with the deep ideological cancer of the Islamic state (sharia state) identity movements.

Q: You and other members of the MRM have also criticized the Muslim Brotherhood. There are currently bills in both the House (H.R. 377) and Senate (S. 68) that, if passed, would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Do you support that legislation, and why or why not?

A: Personally, I support the designation of the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. This is a group that has been responsible for the targeting of Christians, Jews, and dissidents, the persecution of minority Muslims, and the abuse, torture, and murder of women, gay people, and other marginalized groups. It has also made significant efforts to export its hateful ideology internationally.

I think we have to be strategic with regards to the global “Ikhawni” or Brotherhood movement. I would compare it in the Cold War to fighting the militant version of communism as embodied in the Soviet threat, versus other versions of communism. Odds are there are links between communist parties and global Soviet sympathies but outlawing “communist parties” would have made counter-ideology and monitoring far more difficult.

Similarly with the Ikhwan, Turkey’s AKP, Tunisia’s Ennahda, and so many other Islamist parties are part of the “Ikhwani” movement. We will never defeat all of their common Islamism by declaring them terror groups. Authoritarian regimes in the Middle East have proven that such designations often serve as arson to the Islamist fire.

Q: What are your thoughts on branding any criticism of Islam as “Islamophobia?” Does such branding have any impact on your reform efforts?

A: I have spoken about this for well over a decade, and invite your readers to look at my and my organization’s discussions of this. While some anti-Muslim bigotry is real, “Islamophobia” is a word often thrown around by Islamists to silence any critical discussion of Islam, Muslims, and—most significantly—the common pathways of radicalization from Islamism.

The obsession some have with “Islamophobia” means that these conversations are censored if not entirely shut down, and reformers like me are maligned, harassed, and threatened not just from within our community, but from those outside of it as well.

Non-Muslims in particular need to learn that it is not bigotry to discuss radicalization. It is bigotry to hate people based on their religion, appearance, gender, sexual orientation, or race. It is not bigotry to want to combat a force—Islamism—that in fact promotes bigotry and violence against all marginalized peoples.

The Syrian Civil War

Q: As an American of Syrian descent, whose parents fled Syria for the United States in the mid 1960s, what if anything do you think the United States should do to resolve the Syrian refugee crisis?

A: America must remain a refuge for the downtrodden and oppressed who share our values. But in order to remain so, we must also remain the safest country in the world, committed to our principles and to promoting them in the world. We are and will always be “the last best hope” for freedom and that “city on a Hill” for those who seek liberty.

I have advocated at great length for a robust vetting system against any and all Islamists, whether violent or nonviolent. I have also advocated for comprehensive integration programs that help new arrivals integrate their Muslim and Arab identities with their identities as American residents and perhaps future citizens.

Q: Are you concerned that the Muslim Brotherhood will rise to power in Syria currently, or in any post-Assad Syria?

A: There is always the concern that an Islamist force will replace a dictatorship, but this question is also often used to advocate for inaction against brutal dictatorships. Further, it is not even the primary question on the table right now, as far as I’m concerned.

Several years ago, this question was used to allow Assad to remain in power. Today, over half a million people are dead, including many of the very reformers and lovers of liberty that could have saved my parents’ homeland from the twin evils of Islamist theocracy and secular fascism.

Make no mistake, Assadists and their Iranian benefactors are the Shia jihadist side of the Islamist coin opposite the Sunni Islamists of ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood. The truth is that whatever emerges first from this genocide may be intensely problematic, and we will have to address that as well. Most revolutions often need multiple iterations before there is ever a chance for liberal democracy. But first, we must address the ongoing genocide.

Q: How do you see the Syrian civil war ending?

A: First, I don’t call this a “civil war.” It is not. It is a conflict wherein the people rose against a dictatorial regime, and that regime responded with genocidal mass rape, torture, and murder, aided by the Russians, Iranians, and global inaction. In the end, Syria could become a more formalized Iranian or Russian proxy, or it could be taken over by radical elements that are anti-Assad, anti-Ba’ath, and anti-Khomeinist. Remember, the Sunni Islamists are fueled and radicalized by their Saudi, Qatari, and Turkish Islamist benefactors.

The only solution to this Shia-Sunni Islamist stalemate is to build a third pathway of secular liberalism and civil society away from all forms of Islamist tyranny. As in the Cold War, the West needs to slowly work with those groups who share our values with a long-term vision rather than futile and ineffective short-term whack-a-mole programs.

The author would like to thank Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser for participating in this interview.

Categories: Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamist Tyrannies, Islamist vetting, Islamists, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Muslim Reform Movement, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamist Tyrannies, Islamist vetting, Islamists, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Muslim Reform Movement, Zuhdi Jasser

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Virginia Church Hosts Lecture on “Islamophobia,” Professor Claims It’s Driven By “Imperialism”

January 28, 2017

Virginia Church Hosts Lecture on “Islamophobia,” Professor Claims It’s Driven By “Imperialism”, Jihad Watch, Andrew Harrod, January 28, 2017

todd-green

“I have lots of relationships with Muslims. They have taught me compassion and peace,” stated Luther College Professor Todd Green during a January 22 presentation at McLean, Virginia’s Lewinsville Presbyterian Church (LPC). Here this self-proclaimed “scholar of Islamophobia” and “anti-Islamophobia activist” reiterated his fantasy that interpersonal relationships with Muslims can refute supposed “Islamophobic” prejudices arising from Western sins like imperialism.

Green, author of the 2015 book The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West, is currently a Franklin Fellow at the United States Department of State, where Green “assesses and analyzes Islamophobia in Europe.” He has had ample opportunity to expound the book’s themes in various appearances in radio (see here, here, and here) and online, as well as public presentations such as at the 2016 Peacestock conference of the leftwing Veterans for Peace. He also writes for left-leaning publications such as the Huffington Post and Sojourners.

Without specific definitions, Green has concluded that “Islamophobia is an irrational fear, hostility, or hatred of Muslims and Islam” and is “one of the most acceptable prejudices in the United States today.” This presents a “cultural racism” in which “Muslims are essentialized; they are treated as a race,” he elaborated at LPC. Nonetheless, he has previously vaguely qualified that critical study of any such posited bigotry “is not an attempt to cut off critical conversations about Islam.”

Green has assessed that “imperialism is one of the main factors driving Islamophobia in the past and in the present,” resulting from historical “imperial tension and imperial competition” between Christians and Muslims. “In the seventh century when Islam came on the scene, it spread very quickly and Islamic empires developed quite quickly,” he has stated, while leaving unmentioned the Islamic supremacist jihad doctrine that propelled such conquests. With shifting power balances between Western and Islamic civilization across the centuries, Islamic empires gave way to the European colonialism that subjugated many Islamic lands.

Westerners colonizing Muslims, Green has argued, realized that “with imperial projects there must be some ‘other’, and this ‘other’ must be demonized and dehumanized in order for the imperial nation to galvanize popular support.” The “neo-imperialism” of rival Cold War superpowers followed European colonialism. Even post-Cold War, “much of U.S. foreign policy is incomprehensible apart from understanding that we are still engaged in the imperial project.”

Casting Muslims as passive victims of Western aggression, Green believes that such stereotypes influence Americans today who “have seen and continue to see Muslims in many parts of the world as obstacles to our imperial ambitions.” In the Huffington Post, he emphasizes the “history of Western interventionism in Muslim-majority contexts, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the U.S. exploitation of energy resources in the Middle East, the legacy of European colonialism.” The oft-debated question “Is ISIS [the Islamic State in Iraq and (Greater) Syria] Islamic?” is merely a “thinly veiled form of Islamophobia intended to heighten our fears of Islam while absolving the U.S. of its own responsibility in contributing to the rise to ISIS.”

“Religion is rarely the driving force behind terrorism,” Green’s article claims, befitting his oft-disproved analysis that socioeconomic disadvantage, not Islamic doctrine, lies behind jihadist violence. At LPC, he described Muslims joining ISIS because of factors like discrimination in Europe or oppression from Middle Eastern dictatorships, just as socioeconomic factors might influence Westerners to join rightwing movements. “White Christians have an empire to hide behind. Many of these young men joining ISIS don’t. When you are politically disenfranchised you will sometimes find other ways to find power.”

In identifying “Islamophobia’s” past and present purveyors, Green resorts to well-worn, hackneyed tropes. He embraces the fraudulent Edward Said’s Orientalism thesis that “knowledge about Islam coming from Orientalism was being distorted by the imperial project.” Past Western Islamic studies served not intellectual inquiry, but rather “knowledge for the sake of control” over Muslims.

Green today castigates “professional Islamophobes” supposedly motivated by pure malice, such as Pamela Geller, Daniel Pipes, Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer, and Geert Wilders. “From the time they wake up in the morning to the time they go to bed at night, their job is to figure out ‘how can I better demonize Muslims today.’” While “Islamophobia” often appears among conservatives, it is “more dangerous in the way it manifests itself among those who claim to be liberal,” such as talk show host Bill Maher, Green noted at LPC. He meanwhile makes the common yet baseless claim that “Islamophobia” forms a well-funded “powerful industry,” while the “anti-Islamophobia side does not pay quite as well” for individuals like him.

Contrastingly, in Green’s estimation Islamic belief seemingly can cause no harm, as he rejects “misconceptions” that “sharia law is somehow incompatible with democracy or with the West.” “The overwhelming majority of Muslims” globally “really are trying to practice their religion that helps them and their fellow human beings flourish,” he has argued. At LPC he added that “I hate the language of ‘radical Islamic terrorism’” and its “simplistic understanding that Islam programs people to be violent.”

Islamic rule past and present thus raises few concerns for Green while he condemns the United States for having supported dictators like Iran’s shah. Like many academics, he whitewashes Islam’s often brutal, subjugated “status of dhimmis or protected minorities” for non-Muslims, stating that “for much of the history of Islam Christians and Jews were protected and lived in peace with Muslims.” Today Americans in the Middle East should “be very consistent when it comes to supporting democratic movements, even if that means risking losing an alliance with an autocratic government,” irrespective of such “democratic” results in 1979 Iran and 2011 Egypt.

More often than not, non-Muslims draw Green’s criticism. Writing in Sojourners, he approved of President Barack Obama’s regurgitation of the common canard that the Crusades were unjustified aggression, not a just war defensive response to jihadist conquests. “Obama did his best at the National Prayer Breakfast in February [2015] to address the legacy of violence carried out in the name of Christianity.” Green also has falsely relativized that the “Bible has its fair share of violent texts” along with the Quran, thereby ignoring fundamental differences between violent verses in these two scriptures.

Green’s Huffington Post writings betray a less than stirring defense of free speech against jihadist censorship. Geller and Spencer’s 2015 Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, where security guards killed two Muslim assailants, merely exemplified “hate rallies that engage in Muslim-bashing under the pretense of defending freedom of speech.” Reviewing Iran’s 1989 blasphemy death sentence for British writer Salman Rushdie, Green mused that “minorities rarely have possessed the same opportunities to shape public opinion as those with political power or cultural capital.” Therefore, “Rushdie and some of his more outspoken supporters adopted a fairly uncritical approach to freedom of expression, assuming at times that this freedom benefits all members of Western societies equally.”

For Green, individual relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims are the antidote to what he has called a “perfect storm of Islamophobia” in a French television interview. He laments supposedly skewed media representations emphasizing Islam’s violence while “there simply are not enough strong relationships in the West between Muslims who are in the minority and the non-Muslim majority.” As one venue for interfaith outreach, he advocates the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)-derived Muslim Students Association (MSA), which he addressed in 2010 at Minnesota’s St. Cloud State University.

One of Green’s book interviewees, Muslim congressman Keith Ellison, currently under fire for his anti-Israel statements and extremists Islamist affiliations, presents for Green the kind of Muslim people should befriend. “If you have a really jaded, negative view of politicians and think that they are intellectually disengaged, you should have a conversation with Keith Ellison, and you will change your mind,” Green has stated about the Minnesota representative. Accordingly, Green’s wife and fellow leftist, Tabita, has written about how he took Luther College students from their Iowa campus on a field trip to Ellison’s Minneapolis mosque, where the radical imam Siraj Wahaj has been a featured speaker. Tabita also noted that the field trip included a visit to the Minnesota chapter of the Hamas-derived Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) “to learn about their civil rights work.”

Green’s tweets round out his Islamist sympathies. In one, he calls the radical, anti-Semitic Woman’s March on Washington organizer Linda Sarsour a “shining star in the battle against racism and bigotry” and therefore “#ImarchwithLinda.” In another, his CAIR and MSA affiliations apparently make him worry that “[d]esignating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist org. will open the door to witch hunts aimed @ Muslim civil liberties groups.”

Yet even Green recognizes that interfaith relations with Muslims are not without their pitfalls. “You want to see a nonstarter happen,” he has indicated in his various appearances, including at LPC, then introduce the subject of “Palestine” between Jews and Muslims. Before tackling such hot topics, he recommends that interfaith groups undertake noncontroversial community projects like Habitat for Humanity homebuilding; “I tend to prefer more organic relationships to evolve,” he has stated. Apparently then, Jewish legal legend Alan Dershowitz should build a house with Ellison before deciding to leave the Democratic Party if he becomes the Democratic National Committee chairman.

Reality belies Green’s “getting to know you” thesis in which individual relationships with Muslims dispel reservations towards Islam that actually come from the faith’s hard facts, not imagined prejudice. Numerous Christians from Muslim-majority countries have impressed upon this author Islam’s oppressive nature towards non-Muslims, even though these individuals lack no opportunity to meet Muslims as Green bemoans in the United States. Likewise Europe’s significantly larger Muslim populations, recently increased by an influx of “refugees,” have done little to improve Islam’s popularity.

The arguments of Green, who by self-admission is by training a student of American and European religious history, not Islamic studies, might impress his fellow leftists as indicated by his largely positive reception at LPC. Paralleling the Obama Administration’s State Department, LPC has made an appeal to “Actively Support the Boycott of Products Made in Israeli Settlements” and is pro-LGBT. Yet individuals like James Lafferty, head of Christians Against Radical Islam (CARI), indicated during audience questions why skepticism is warranted. He recalled a local presentation 25 years ago by Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam once feted as a Muslim “moderate” and later killed in Yemen as an Al Qaeda supporter by a 2011 American drone strike. “He said many times exactly the same words I have heard tonight,” Lafferty noted.

Categories: Crusades, Imperialism, Islam - the religion of peace and tolerance, Islam and Christianity, Islamist organizations, Islamophobia
Tags: Crusades, Imperialism, Islam - the religion of peace and tolerance, Islam and Christianity, Islamist organizations, Islamophobia

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Trump Could Follow Clinton’s Hamas Order In Outlawing Muslim Brotherhood

January 27, 2017

Trump Could Follow Clinton’s Hamas Order In Outlawing Muslim Brotherhood, Counter Jihad, Paul Sperry, January 27, 2017

There is a quick and easy way to designate the Brotherhood as the terrorist organization that it is. Thank Bill Clinton.

Instead of waiting for a bill authorizing a Muslim Brotherhood designation to wend its way through Congress, the State Department could blacklist the Brotherhood directly. All it would take is President Trump signing an executive order.

That’s what happened in January 1995, when President Clinton issued an executive order making it illegal for US funds to support Hamas, following a bus bombing in Tel Aviv and other horrific acts of terrorism carried out by the Palestinian terrorist group. In turn, the State Department officially declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization, making it a felony to provide any material support to Hamas or its related charities and front organizations, and the Treasury Department ordered a freeze on all Hamas banking assets.

While the Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed in other countries, the US has not yet designated the group a terrorist entity or foreign threat, even though it has stated clearly that it supports violent jihad and is dedicated to replacing the US with an Islamic theocracy.

That is expected to change with this administration.

In testimony earlier this month, soon-to-be-confirmed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lumped the Muslim Brotherhood in with terrorist groups ISIS, al-Qaida and Hezbollah. He suggested America’s first priority in dealing with global terrorism must be to first defeat ISIS, then al-Qaida, followed by the Muslim Brotherhood, in that order.

Tillerson stated at his Senate confirmation hearing: “The demise of ISIS would also allow us to increase our attention on other agents of radical Islam like al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and certain elements within Iran.”

Founded more than 80 years ago in Cairo, Egypt, where the “mother group” is based, the Muslim Brotherhood is a secretive Islamist society that gave birth to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and al-Qaida. In fact, it is the ideological catalyst behind the entire global jihadist movement now threatening the West, and its tentacles have reached deep inside the United States.

Before joining al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Anwar al-Awlaki and the Blind Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman were all members of the Brotherhood, known in Arabic as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun. Its credo is: “The Quran is our constitution, Jihad is our way, and death for the glory of Allah is our greatest ambition.” Through both violent and political means, the Brotherhood seeks to impose Sharia — the rule of Islamic law — on the West. It also seeks the overthrow of Middle Eastern nations it views as too secular or close to the West.

As a result of recent violent unrest fomented by the Brotherhood, several Arab nations — including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — have designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, with UAE adding the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Brotherhood front organizations to the terrorist list. Russia has also outlawed the Brotherhood. US investigators have long sought to outlaw the group, complaining that Brotherhood-run mosques, charities and other elements show up in countless US terrorism cases, including the 9/11 attacks.

As former FBI Director Robert Mueller testified before the House Intelligence Committee in 2011, “I can say at the outset that elements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.”

“Its ultimate goal is the creation of a global Islamic State governed by Sharia law,” former federal prosecutor James T. Jacks asserted in a 2008 court filing linking US Brotherhood front groups to terrorism, including moderate-sounding groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust.

“Muslim Brotherhood members first migrated to the United States in the 1960s, where they began their grassroots work on campuses through an organization called the Muslim Students Association,” Jacks explained. “By the mid-1980s, the US-Muslim Brotherhood had grown exponentially, established numerous front organizations, developed a solid hierarchical structure, and received direction from the International Muslim Brotherhood’s General Guide.”

“Hamas was established in 1987 as an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Jacks continued, further outlining the conspiracy. “In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the US-Muslim Brotherhood was controlled by Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood members,” including CAIR’s founders.

Since 9/11, several known US-Muslim Brotherhood leaders — including Sami al-Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi — have been convicted of terrorist activities, with Alamoudi accused by the government of actively raising money for al-Qaida. Others, including CAIR founder Omar Ahmad, have been formally implicated by the government in major terrorism cases.

Some Brotherhood operatives have infiltrated US law enforcement and the military. Ali Mohamed, who emigrated from Egypt to spy for the Brotherhood in America, used his US Special Forces training to assist al-Qaida. Last decade, he pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy for his role in helping plan the al-Qaida bombings of the US embassies in Africa.

White House National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn says the Brotherhood has operated a terrorism-support network in America dating back to the first World Trade Center bombing. “We knew of close operational cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood” in that 1993 attack, he wrote in his 2016 book, “The Field of Fight.”

A Brotherhood manifesto seized by FBI agents during a 2004 raid of a Brotherhood leader’s home in the Washington DC area revealed that the US branch of the Brotherhood seeks the destruction of the US system — “from within.” Chillingly, the document directs Brotherhood members to engage in subversive action against the US:

“The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Investigators believe the Brotherhood conspiracy may involve a network of as many as 2,000 organizations working inside the US to support jihad and subvert the US government. Hard evidence links CAIR, ISNA and many other radical Islamist organizations masquerading as moderate groups — as well as some of the nation’s largest mosques — to this massive infrastructure financed and controlled by the Brotherhood.

Investigators call it an insurgency run by “terrorists in suits,” and the new White House, led by Flynn’s team, is said to want to shut the entire network down.

“It is no accident that radical Islamists in America are pushing very hard and very systematically to gain legal standing for Sharia, and to forbid any and all criticism of Islam,” Flynn said. “These are all steps toward creating an Islamic state right here at home. We have to thwart these efforts.”

Categories: Executive order, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, President Trump, Sharia law, Terrorism, US Congress
Tags: Executive order, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, President Trump, Sharia law, Terrorism, US Congress

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The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America’s Ominous Post-Election Statement

January 24, 2017

The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America’s Ominous Post-Election Statement, Front Page Magazine, Philip Haney, January 23, 2017

(This is a very long and, at times, tedious article. However, it is well worth not only reading but also studying since it gives excellent insights into Islamists and why they despise President Trump’s opposition to “radical Islam” and what he is likely to do to fight it. — DM)

salah-al-sawy

With the unexpected election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President, America has reached an historic crossroads vis-à-vis our domestic and foreign counter-terrorism and immigration policies. As will be seen as we walk through the Roadmap’s text, the AMJA regards the election of President Trump as a disruptive calamity – a potentially devastating setback – in its multi-generational strategy to promote Islam, and relentlessly integrate (not assimilate) the core principles of Shariah law into mainstream American society.

As we work our way through the Roadmap, we will soon discover that it is actually laid on the solid foundation of a crucially important strategic concept that supports the GIM (as authorized by the Muslim Brotherhood). In Arabic, this strategic approach is known as Al-Qaeda Al-Motzema Al-Islamia, while in English, it is known as the Observant (Obedient) Muslim Base.

Yes, Al-Qaeda, the word translated here as ‘base,’ is the same word we commonly associate with Jihadist groups throughout the world. However, in its original meaning, Al-Qaeda is actually a concept, i.e., a ‘base of operations,’ rather than a subversive, violent terrorist organization operating somewhere far away in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.

Remarkably, an overt example of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the American political arena was seen in the January 21, 2017 appearance of Imam Mohamed Magid at an interfaith religious service for President Donald J. Trump.

Mohamed Magid, who is Imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), has also served as both President and Vice-President of ISNA (an HLF co-conspirator which is also closely linked to ADAMS), was scheduled to recite a simple opening prayer. Instead, he went ‘off script’ and recited two verses from the Quran that just happen to reflect concepts included in both the AMJA Roadmap, and in Article 1 of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights (also see Paragraph 4 above).

The two verses (as quoted by Imam Magid at the prayer service) are Quran 49.13: “O humankind, We have created you a single male and female (Adam and Eve) and made you into nations and tribes and communities, that you may know one another. Really, the most honored of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you, and God has all knowledge,” and Quran 30.22: “And among the signs of God is the creation of heaven and earth, and the variation in your languages and your colors. Verily, in that are signs for those who know.”

In addition to co-conspirator ISNA, ADAMS has close ties to several other Muslim Brotherhood front groups, including HLF co-conspirator International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), and the SAFA Trust, which was raided by the FBI after 9/11 because organizations and leaders “in the SAFA Group maintained a financial and ideological relationship with persons and entities with known affiliations to the designated terrorist Groups PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) and HAMAS.”

Incredibly, one of the SAFA Trust’s sub-organizations was the Sterling Charitable Gift Fund, whose 6 primary advisors included Imam Mohamed Magid.

What is the link between all of these groups and the AMJA Roadmap? The link is Imam Magid himself, who in addition to serving as past President and Vice-President of the ISNA, and as Imam of ADAMS, currently serves as AMJA Expert number 26, where he is listed as “Shaykh Mohammad AlMajid, Imam of Adam Center in Virginia.”

Since Imam (Shaykh) Magid is a current member of AMJA, it is very plausible that he deliberately went ‘off script’ at the prayer service, in order to make a public declaration (sound the alarm) to the entire Islamic world, while using his opportunity to speak at a high-profile public forum to reiterate one of the concepts discussed in the Roadmap.

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Introduction

The purpose of this article is to decipher the ominous, but heavily camouflaged language embedded within the English text of a recent scholarly document, published on the website of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), which is entitled Post-Election Statement: Principles and Roadmap(aka the Roadmap).

As a 40-year specialist in the Strategy & Tactics of the Global Islamic Movement (GIM) and founding member of the Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection (retired), my intention is to ‘pull out the threads’ of references in the Shariah-compliant Roadmap that are derived from the Quran and Hadith (and other academic sources), so that the general public sees more clearly that the AMJA is more than a simple ‘home-grown’ American Islamic organization.

Other ‘threads’ (fundamental Islamic doctrines) that are tightly woven into the fabric of the AMJA Roadmap include explicit religious Obligations (Paragraph 3), the Shariah-authorized response to the Oppression of Islamic civil rights (Paragraph 6), Loyalty & Enmity (Paragraph 10), the doctrine of Unity & Brotherhood within the global Islamic community (Paragraph 10), and allusions to the Islamic Revival Movement (Paragraph 13).

Why is the AMJA Roadmap even important? Could a scholarly article written by the leaders of a harmless-sounding American Islamic organization possibly have a corrosive influence on our Constitutionally protected values of Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness?

The answer is: Yes.

With the unexpected election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President, America has reached an historic crossroads vis-à-vis our domestic and foreign counter-terrorism and immigration policies. As will be seen as we walk through the Roadmap’s text, the AMJA regards the election of President Trump as a disruptive calamity – a potentially devastating setback – in its multi-generational strategy to promote Islam, and relentlessly integrate (not assimilate) the core principles of Shariah law into mainstream American society.

As we work our way through the Roadmap, we will soon discover that it is actually laid on the solid foundation of a crucially important strategic concept that supports the GIM (as authorized by the Muslim Brotherhood). In Arabic, this strategic approach is known as Al-Qaeda Al-Motzema Al-Islamia, while in English, it is known as the Observant (Obedient) Muslim Base.

Yes, Al-Qaeda, the word translated here as ‘base,’ is the same word we commonly associate with Jihadist groups throughout the world. However, in its original meaning, Al-Qaeda is actually a concept, i.e., a ‘base of operations,’ rather than a subversive, violent terrorist organization operating somewhere far away in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.

To continue, in order for the GIM to integrate Shariah into a non-Islamic societies (like America), it is essential that an obedient, well-organized Islamic Al-Qaeda (base) first be established, with each member of the community striving to his or her utmost to promote Islam, which in Arabic is called Dawah.

For at least three generations, right here in America, Muslim Brotherhood front groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) have been building up the Al-Qaeda Al-Motzema Al-Islamia.

During this process, what organization has provided the gravitational force – acting as the sun in the center of the Islamic solar system – to the Al-Qaeda Al-Motzema Al-Islamia here in America? Or, what unifying force holds these Muslim Brotherhood planets (organizations) in their respective orbits?

The answer is the AMJA, which maintains an archive of reliable, Shariah-compliant Fatwas needed to assure the Muslim community (and their leaders) that they are all following the correct, straight path of Allah.

Note: For several additional examples of AMJA Fatwas, please see Appendix I – AMJA Fatwas below.

AMJA Background

In English, the AMJA is known as the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America. However, this benign-sounding title is dramatically different, and much more ominous, when translated directly from the Arabic, i.e., the Majama Fuqaha Al-Shariah B’Amrikia (Group of Shariah Specialists in America).

More specifically, the covert use of the term Al-Shariah B’Amrikia (Shariah in America) should send up an immediate ‘red flag.’ After all, haven’t we been reassured repeatedly that Muslims have no intention of implementing Shariah law here in America, and that Shariah poses no threat to our constitutionally protected freedoms? Aren’t those who raise concerns about Shariah routinely branded as bigots, raving conspiracy theorists and dubious Islamophobes?

If there is no intention of implementing Shariah law here in America, then why does the AMJA include the Arabic term Al-Shariah B’Amrikia in its official title and logo? And, if these reassurances are really true, then why are Muslim Brotherhood front groups like CAIR so consistently and vehemently opposed to efforts to pass legislation known as American Laws for American Courts (ALAC)?

In fact, Shariah law does pose a threat to American (and Western) freedoms and values. According to Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, “Islamic civilization, since the time of Prophet Muhammad until now, is firmly founded on the concept of ‘rule of law’ For that reason, the law is published and known, and citizens and courts are expected to uphold it. In addition, Muslim citizens must adhere to Islamic law – Shariah…the disciplines and principles that govern the behavior of a Muslim individual towards his or herself, family, neighbors, community, city, nation and the Muslim polity as a whole, the Ummah.”

The current AMJA leadership structure includes six members of the Leadership Council (aka Majlis Al-Shura, or the Shura Council), nearly all of whom are graduates of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, plus eight Scholars, 46 Experts and 41 Members. Combined together, this roster of 100 Islamic scholars is a Who’s Who of prominent Muslim Brotherhood leaders and Salafi Muslims affiliated with the Global Islamic Movement.

It is also important to recognize that the AMJA is much more than a simple ‘home-grown’ group of American Muslim clergymen. Instead, it is part of a constellation of influential Islamic organizations, such as the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), and the Islamic Research Foundation International (IRFI).

Together, such groups form a global coalition of tightly integrated Muslim scholars known as the Ulema, which gather together periodically for Ijtimah (Consensus) Conferences, where problems that Muslims face in non-Islamic countries are reviewed (more about Ijtimah / Ijtihad is also discussed in Paragraph 10 of the Roadmap).

In turn, these scholars are authorized to issue legal rulings (Fatwa), and to provide guidance to the global Islamic community (Ummah), which are based exclusively on the unalterable authority of Islamic Shariah law – never on the ‘man-made’ U.S. Constitution, let alone state or federal civil law.

Analysis of AMJA Roadmap Text

Note: I use the Sahih International translation of the Quran, which is often (but not always) used by the AMJA scholars. Also, since many words in the Quran (for example, Alamina) can be translated several different ways, I may include additional synonyms. For example, in the case of Alamina, it can be accurately translated as either animals, beasts, created beings, creatures, mankind or men.

Each one of the original 14 paragraphs in the Roadmap has been numbered for clarity and quoted in italics below. After each paragraph is quoted, I provide commentary with highlighted phrases taken from that paragraph of the Roadmap text, along with hyperlinks to the sources.

(1) “In the name of Allah, the Ever-Compassionate, the Ever-Merciful.”

This comes directly from Quran 1.1: “In the name of Allah , the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful.”

(2) “All praise be to Allah alone and may blessings and peace be upon he who was sent as a mercy for all of humanity.”

Also taken directly from Quran 1.2: “[All] praise is [due] to Allah, Lord of the worlds”; it is combined with a phrase from Quran 21.107: “And We have not sent you, except as a mercy to created beings/creatures/humanity/man/mankind/people/worlds.”

In addition, Mohammed is also well known within the Islamic world as ‘the mercy for all humanity,’ as discussed extensively in Prophet Muhammad: A Mercy to Humanity, Part I & Part II.

(3) “No one could possibly be unaware of the political storm that has recently overtaken this country. Some see it as a real threat to the principles of security, freedom, equality, well-being and social justice that form the basis of the American Dream which millions from various ethnic and religious backgrounds seek to achieve. As Muslims are one slice of this society, national and religious obligations demand that they deal with these news events in a way that will protect the nation and its people from any evils, in a manner benefitting all citizens. For this reason, the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America is addressing the Imams, Islamic workers and the entire Muslim community with permanent values that must be emphasized during this stage as well as a number of principles to be used in dealing with these events, what has happened as well as what is expected to happen.”

Political Storm: It is intriguing that no mention is made here of the chaotic aftermath of the Arab Spring, or of the current storms of violence raging across the Middle East and in the Far East. Instead, the election of Donald Trump as President is seen here as a test, or as a trial, storm, and even as a calamity (as in Paragraph 5 below).

Religious Obligations: This is a direct reference to Articles 1(a), 8 & 9 of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, which was drafted and ratified by all 57 members nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which was renamed the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on June 28, 2011. Article 24 of the Declaration states “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shariah,” while Article 25 states “The Islamic Shariah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration.”

Religious Obligation (Obligatory Duty) in Arabic is Fard, i.e., “what the Islamic Lawgiver [Mohammed] strictly requires to be done, and whose obligatory character is proved by definitive evidence. Someone who denies the Fard is considered a disbeliever (Kafir), as he or she is denying what has been ordained by clear-cut and decisive texts.”

Fard is separated in to groups: [1] “Fard Al-Ayn (Individual duty): The group of tasks that are every Muslim is required to perform individually as a duty, such as Salah (Daily Prayer), Hijab (Covering) or the Hajj (Pilgrimage) to Mecca at least once in a lifetime,” and [2] “Fard Al-Kifaya(Sufficiency/Communal duty): The duty which is imposed on the whole Ummah. One is not required to perform it as long as a sufficient number of community members fulfill it.”

Religious Obligation (Fard) is also discussed extensively in the definitive, authorized English translation of Shariah law, known as The Reliance of the Traveller (Umdat Al-Salik).

Entire Muslim Community: This refers to the global Islamic community, i.e., the Ummah aka Nation (as in Nation of Islam)

Permanent Values: This concept is derived from Quran 3.110: You are the best nation produced [as an example] for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah. If only the People of the Scripture had believed, it would have been better for them. Among them are believers, but most of them are defiantly disobedient. The concept of permanent values is also based on Quran 2.41: And believe in what I have sent down confirming that which is [already] with you, and be not the first to disbelieve in it. And do not exchange My signs for a small price, and fear [only] Me.

Permanent Values: For a detailed discussion of this subject, see article by G. A. Parwez entitled Quranic Permanent Values

What Is Expected To Happen: This is a plain and direct call to the Al-Qaeda Al-Motzema Al-Islamia(the Observant Muslim Base) to maintain a heightened state of awareness and engagement, for the purpose of defending Islam from disbelievers.

(4) “Muslims of America are neither guests nor strangers here. Muslims, due to them being descended from humanity’s parents, Adam and Eve, and being created from this earth, are part of the greater family of humanity. They are also citizens here like the other citizens with both rights and responsibilities. This land is ruled by a constitution and the rule of law that protects the rights of all its minorities with due respect at all levels, even though the visceral speech of the recent heated election may have seemed to deny this. We shall adhere to our rights and the rights of other Americans and shall strengthen our bonds with the civil rights organizations, Muslim or non-Muslim. We shall work with them and defend them whenever needed. However, at the same time, we must always fulfill our obligations completely and be active participants in society working to protect the security and well-being of its inhabitants.”

Humanity’s Parents, Adam and Eve: Another allusion derived from Article 1 of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, which reads: All human beings form one family whose members are united by their subordination to Allah and descent from Adam. All men are equal in terms of basic human dignity and basic obligations and responsibilities, without any discrimination on the basis of race, color, language, belief, sex, religion, political affiliation, social status or other considerations. The true religion is the guarantee for enhancing such dignity along the path to human integrity.

This is also a direct allusion to Quran 49.13: “O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.”

Quran Rights And Responsibilities: It is important to reiterate here that the AMJA’s definitions of ‘rights and responsibilities’ are not drawn from the U.S. Constitution & American civil law, but solely from Shariah, and from the Cairo Declaration.

Muslim or non-Muslim: It is intriguing that while the AMJA strictly prohibits American Muslims from working for the FBI, the military, or for U.S. security (and law enforcement) services, because such work could possibly involve “spying on Muslims” (see Appendix I below), it grants specific permission the American Muslim community to work with non-Muslim civil rights organizations, presumably with such ‘allies’ as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), or the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Fulfill Our Obligations: In the last sentence of this paragraph, the Roadmap adds a caveat, reminding Muslims who chose to work with such secular, non-Muslim groups, that “we must always fulfill our obligations completely.” Such obligations would no doubt include Dawah (as discussed above).

Obligations: Also discussed in Paragraph 3 and Paragraph 11

(5) “It is known that patience, perseverance, prudence and discernment are among the most important tools for success and happiness, especially during times of calamities. These are needed to establish one’s position on certainty or, at the very least, the preponderance of the evidence. One’s stance cannot be simply a matter of making proclamations in front of cameras or under the pressure of provocations. The Messenger of Allah told Ashaj Abdul-Qais, ‘You have two qualities that Allah loves: forbearance and deliberateness.’ The Muslim Community must proceed with calmness and clarity and must refer matters to the knowledgeable people who are specialists in the relevant fields. Allah has said, ‘But if they had referred it back to the Messenger or to those of authority among them, then the ones who [can] draw correct conclusions from it would have known about it.’”

During Times Of Calamities: This paragraph introduces a founding concept in Islam, that the Muslim community should always defer to trained scholars whenever calamities arise. This practice is followed to prevent individual Muslims (and entire communities) from violating any provisions of Shariah law.

Calamities: Although the Arabic word for calamity (Sawaba) may also be translated as an affliction, disaster or misfortune, it always implies a direct assault on the community, or the faith, of Islam. Variants of Sawaba occur about 77 times in the Quran, including verse 2.156, which says: “Who, when affliction/disaster/misfortune strikes them, say, ‘Indeed we belong to Allah , and indeed to Him we will return.’”

This very passage was cited in the January 05, 2017 CAIR Texas Executive Director’s Message, which is entitled A New Year For Civil Rights And Political Empowerment.

You Have Two Qualities: This reference is from Al-Bukhari and Muslim, two Hadith sources (the sayings of Mohammed): “The Prophet, praised the delegation of ‘Abd Al-Qays from the Hajar region for their deliberation and tolerance, as he said to Ashajj ‘Abd Al-Qays: ‘You have two characteristics that Allah and His Messenger like: forbearance and deliberation.’”

But If They Had Referred It / Those Of Authority: This passage is found in Quran 4.83: “And when there comes to them information about [public] security or fear, they spread it around. But if they had referred it back to the Messenger or to those of authority among them, then the ones who [can] draw correct conclusions from it would have known about it. And if not for the favor of Allah upon you and His mercy, you would have followed Satan, except for a few.”

Note: The subject of submitting (deferring) to ‘those in authority’ is also reiterated in Paragraph 8 and Paragraph 9.

As also discussed in Paragraph 3, this submission to authority also the Fard (Obligatory Duty) of the Al-Qaeda Al-Motzema Al-Islamia, i.e., the Observant (Obedient) Muslim Base.

(6) “There is no blame upon a country if it does what is needed to protect its interests and security as long as it does not transgress or oppress by denying or violating rights. America, even given its excesses, is still one of the best nations when it comes to protecting human rights and the sanctity of humanity. It is a must upon us that we not over generalize or spread fear. Our dealings with the current events must be wise and objective.”

Transgress Or Oppress: The concepts of fighting or striving (Jihad) against Transgression and Oppression are deeply embedded within the ideology of Islam. The consequences of transgressing the statutes and commandments of Shariah law, or of oppressing (opposing) the efforts of the Islamic community, are severe. For three examples, see Quran 2.190: “Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors,” Quran 21.9: “Then We fulfilled for them the promise, and We saved them and whom We willed and destroyed the transgressors,” and Quran 2.193: “Fight them until there is no [more] Fitnah [oppression] and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah. But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression, except against the oppressors.”

Oppression is also discussed in extensive detail in the Hadith (Bukhari), Volume 4, Section 43.

In 2014, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, wrote to President Barack Obama about his views on the situation in Iraq, Gaza and Palestine, while also commenting about “Muslim oppression at the hands of the West in general and the United States in particular.”

Human Rights: Discussed specifically in Article 23 of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, and in the preamble of the Cairo Declaration, which states: “Agrees to issue the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam that will serve as a general guidance for Member States in the Field of human rights,” and “In contribution to the efforts of mankind to assert human rights, to protect man from exploitation and persecution, and to affirm his freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shariah.”

On January 13, 2016, the Dearborn, MI based American Human Rights Council (AHRC) announced that it had co-signed a petition asking President Obama to commute the sentence of the five Holy Land Foundation (HLF) defendants to time served. The AHRC website states that “Five well- regarded members of the Muslim American community, Mufid Abdulqader, Shukri Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mohammad El-Mezain, and Abdulrahman Odeh, were given unusually lengthy sentences that shocked the American Muslim community for their harshness,” adding that “The Holy Land Foundation case if one of the most traumatic experiences of the American Muslim community. The case sent shock waves through the humanitarian sector worldwide,” said Imad Hamad, AHRC Executive director. “We believe that given the equities, it is in the interest of justice to commute their sentences to time served,” concluded Hamad.

From an Islamic perspective, it appears that sentencing five individuals to prison for material support of Hamas, a globally designated terrorist organization, is a violation of their civil and human rights, which is another form of Fitnah.

(7) “Testing humans with good or evil is how Allah deals with His servants. Whoever sells his faith for this world has suffered a clear loss. The Muslim believes that his religion is the dearest of all things. Any time in which the worldly goods will be accepted in exchange for one’s faith will be a time of ignobility and treachery. The trials and punishments that can come from humans cannot possibly be like that which will come from Allah – and it is only the people of hypocrisy that could ever equate those two. Allah has said, ‘And of the people is he who worships Allah on an edge. If he is touched by good, he is reassured by it; but if he is struck by trial he turns on his face [to the other direction]. He has lost [this] world and the Hereafter. That is what is the manifest loss.’”

Testing / Trials And Punishments: In Arabic, this is known as Fitnah فِتْنَةَ, which occurs 60 times in the Quran. Fitnah is another powerful concept that is woven tightly into the theological fabric of Islam. In fact, Fitnah is the catalyst that leads to outbreaks of violence and chronic terrorism throughout the world. For example, Quran 2.191 says: “And kill [slaughter] them wherever you overtake them and expel them [violently] from wherever they have expelled you, and Fitnah is worse than killing [slaughter]. And do not fight them at Al-Masjid Al-Haram [the Great Mosque in Mecca] until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill [slaughter] them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.”

The concept of Fitnah is a powerful catalyst, leading directly to Jihad, as illustrated in sections Q 1.2(3) and 2.4(4) of Reliance of the Traveller: “The best Jihad is speaking the truth to an unjust ruler.” The word unjust used here is yet another adjective used to describe Fitnah.

Reliance (page 615) also makes the following ominous declaration of Ijtimah (Consensus), effectively shattering the concept of what is known in the West as the self-radicalized ‘Lone Wolf’ (or ‘Known Wolf’, as per Patrick Poole): There is no disagreement among scholars that it is permissible for a single Muslim to attack battle lines of unbelievers headlong and fight them even if he knows he will be killed. But if one knows it will not hurt them at all, such as if a blind man were to hurl himself against them, then it is unlawful. Likewise, if someone who is alone sees a corrupt person with a bottle of wine beside him and a sword in his hand, and he knows that the person will chop his neck if he censures him for drinking, it is not permissible for him to do so, as it would not entail any religious advantage worth giving one’s life for. Such censure is only praiseworthy when one is able to eliminate the wrong and one’s action will produce some benefit.

Sells His Faith / Suffered A Clear Loss are derived from Quran 2.207: “And of the people is he who sells himself, seeking means to the approval of Allah. And Allah is kind to [His] servants,” and from Quran 4.119: “And I will mislead them, and I will arouse in them [sinful] desires, and I will command them so they will slit the ears of cattle, and I will command them so they will change the creation of Allah. And whoever takes Satan as an ally instead of Allah has certainly sustained a clear loss.”

And Of The People: This is taken directly from Quran 22.11: “And of the people is he who worships Allah on an edge. If he is touched by good, he is reassured by it; but if he is struck by trial [Fitnah], he turns on his face [to the other direction]. He has lost [this] world and the Hereafter. That is what is the manifest loss.”

(8) “Islam, with respect to its belief and legal foundations is unalterably fixed. It does not accept any replacement for change. With its branches and rulings, though, it can accommodate people under any time or place. By its legal principles, it is able to absorb changes of time and places and circumstances of necessity and need. However, the law of necessity has its specific legal parameters that one must adhere to. One must refer to the people of knowledge to ensure that the principle is being applied properly. A Muslim must comply with his faith and refer confusing or troublesome matters to the well-grounded scholars. AMJA is of the view that there has yet to occur – and they do not expect to occur – a situation in which one is required to flee with one’s faith, or wherein one is excused from performing some parts of the faith’s teachings.”

Legal Foundations / Legal Principles / Legal Parameters: This is a direct reference to Shariahlaw. As found in section A1.1 of Reliance of the Traveller, “There is no disagreement among the scholars of the Muslims that the source of legal rulings for all the acts of those who are morally responsible is Allah Most Glorious.”

Muslim Brotherhood founder Syed Qutb stated: “There is only one law which ought to be followed, and that is the Sharia.”

Jamaat-e-Islami founder Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi wrote: “Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam regardless of the country or the nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a State on the basis of its own ideology and program.”

Is there any room here for the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence?

Unalterably Fixed / Any Replacement For Change: These two phrases touch the heart of the looming conflict between the certain unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness that have been endowed by our Creator, versus the emphatic declaration that the legal foundations of Islam (Shariah law) are unalterably fixed, and that no replacement for change can ever be accepted.

This is not just AMJA’s position. An August 09, 2012 Pew Research Center survey entitled The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity asked Muslims whether they believe there is only one true way to understand Islam’s teachings, or if multiple interpretations are possible. In 32 of the 39 countries surveyed, well more than half of all Muslims agreed there is only one correct way to understand the teachings of Islam.

Must Comply With His Faith: Alluded to in Quran 2.207: “And of the people is he who sells himself, seeking means to the approval of Allah. And Allah is kind to [His] servants.”

Well-Grounded Scholars: Reinforcing a principle that was first introduced in Paragraph 5, and reiterated in Paragraphs 9 and Paragraph 10 below, section A1.2 of Reliance of the Traveller states: Unaided Intellect Cannot Know Allah’s Rules. The question arises. Is it possible for the mind alone, unaided by Allah’s messengers and revealed scriptures, to know rulings, such that someone not reached by a prophet’s invitation would be able through his own reason to know Allah’s rule concerning his actions? Or is this impossible?

Flee With One’s Faith: This refers to the Hijrah (Migration), another fundamental concept in Islam, with connotations going back 1,400 years, to the founding history of Islam. At this point, the Roadmap introduces the possibility that Muslims in America may have to flee to a safer location, for the sake of their faith. Socially, this is a very provocative (and potentially inflammatory) statement by the AMJA. It engenders immediate animosity and tension, and serves to further alienate and marginalize the Muslim community in America.

Notice also that in this time of crisis, the AMJA is not encouraging Muslims to assimilate into American mainstream culture, but instead advises them to further distance themselves from it, while surrounding themselves with the protective wall of Shariah law, and preparing for the possibility of leaving the country entirely.

For example, in a January 14, 2017 Huffington Post article about a mosque fire in Seattle, CAIR representative Joseph Shoji Lachman included this statement: “Even in a city with as liberal a reputation as Seattle, people of Middle Eastern descent fear for their lives simply because of their appearance and religion.” As discussed in Paragraph 7 above, this is an example of Fitnah, i.e., Muslims living in a hostile, oppressive, non-Islamic culture, where fear becomes a way of life.

Quoting directly from The Significance of the Hijrah by Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph.D., President of the Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc: The significance of Hijrah…is not limited to the Islamic history or to the Muslims. The Hijrah not only reshaped – socially and politically – the Arab Peninsula, but also had its impact on worldwide civilizations. Throughout the history of Islam, the migration was a transitional line between the two major eras, regarding to the message of Islam; the era of Makkah [Mecca] and the era of Madinah. In its essence, this signified a transition from one phase to another, as follows:

Transition from the position of weakness, where the non-believers of Makkah – particularly the people of Quraish – humiliated, tortured and killed Muslims, to the position of strength. This is where Muslims were allowed to defend themselves and were able to defeat their adversaries. Transition, which is most significantly for early Muslims, to the phase in which Islam was not only the act of worship, but a way of life. This was encompassing (surrounding) politics, economy, social interactions and every other aspect of life. This was the first time when Islam was looked upon as a comprehensive religion.

(9) “Both Muslims and non-Muslims bring harm to Islam and Muslims. Muslims do so via ignorance, taking knowledge from the unqualified, blind zealotry, extremism or by betraying Allah, His Messenger and the believers. The non-Muslims harm Islam and Muslims via enmity and hatred, which is also built upon ignorance and intolerance. You should eagerly learn your faith and its regulations. You should fortify your knowledge and understanding via learning from the well-grounded, pious scholars. Then you should be a Muslim whose deeds, above and beyond his speech, are truthful and sincere. You should be an excellent ambassador for your faith. Representing Islam well and displaying its realities is of great importance during these times.”

Well-Grounded, Pious Scholars: First introduced in Paragraph 5 and reiterated in Paragraph 8 andParagraph 10.

Truthful And Sincere: This concept is derived from Quran 9.119: “O you who have believed, fear Allah and be with those who are true (in word and deed).” For more on this subject from a Quranic perspective, see article entitled The Importance and Reward For The One Who Is Honest.

(10) “The time has come to leave off calling to groups and sectarianism and to stop the division and differences. Truly, togetherness is mercy and division is a form of punishment. It is obligatory upon us now, O Muslims, to spread the feelings of mutual love, mercy and compassion in all dealings with all believers, regardless of their divisions that they align with or the paths that they follow in their Dawah efforts. We must leave behind us all forms of fanaticism and bigotry. Instead, we must form the bond of brotherhood upon the Quran and Sunnah. Those two, and nothing else are the basis of our allegiance or disavowing. We should also avoid delving into those heated discussions of matters of Ijtihad (juristic reasoning) and details of the law. The issues concerning which scholars differ based on juristic reasoning or policy are numerous and if every time two Muslims differed with another over such issues they would flee from one another, there would be no sanctity or brotherhood left between any Muslims. We must not drive away and make enemies out of anyone that we could join our hearts with upon the religion and agree with them on the basics of righteousness and piety. This is especially true during this cautious time. Since this principle of understanding is accepted when dealing with people of other faiths, it must even more so be accepted when dealing with people of one’s own faith.”

Division / Bond of Brotherhood: The subject of Division vs. a Unified Brotherhood (thus the name Muslim Brotherhood) is frequently discussed in Islamic theology (Quran & Hadith), as in Quran 3.103: And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided. And remember the favor of Allah upon you – when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together and you became, by His favor, brothers.

This is also another example of the insidious, kaleidoscopic nature of Fitnah, as discussed in more detail under the heading Testing And Trials in Paragraph 7 above.

Those Two, And Nothing Else: Once again, net even the U.S. Constitution and/or Western values of freedom and liberty, are exempt for the dominating influence of Shariah law, as derived from the Quran and Hadith.

Allegiance Or Disavowing: Code words for another deeply embedded Islamic doctrine, known as Al-Wala Wa’l Bara, or the doctrine of Loyalty & Enmity. Other adjectives used as synonyms of Loyalty & Enmity include Enjoin & Forbid, or, as found here in the AMJA Roadmap, Allegiance & Disavowal.

The basis for Loyalty and Enmity, which calls on Muslims to be loyal to one another (even if they dislike each other), is found in Quran 9.71: “The believing men and believing women are allies of one another. They enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and establish prayer and give Zakah[Charity] and obey Allah and His Messenger. Those, Allah will have mercy upon them. Indeed, Allah is Exalted in Might and Wise.” The same concept is reiterated in Quran 8.73: “And those who disbelieved are allies of one another. If you do not do so, there will be Fitnah on earth and great corruption.”

In other words, those who oppose the global (and local) unity of the Islamic brotherhood, and who refuse to enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, are guilty of Fitnah, a serious crime against Islam.

For two additional detailed discussions of this extremely significant topic, see Part 1 & Part 2 of Al‐Wala Wa’l‐Bara, According to the Aqeedah of the Salaf by Shaykh Muhammad Saeed al‐Qahtan. Also see The Doctrine of Loyalty and Disavowal, by Mahmud Dwaikat.

Matters Of Ijtihad: Unified Reasoning, which is derived from the same root verb as Ijtimah(Consensus), is synonymous with a firm reliance on the scholars. This is a major theme of the Roadmap, as already seen in Paragraphs 5, 8 and 9.

(11) “Among the most important of obligations during these days is to open our doors to all sectors of our society and to reach out to the other ethnic and religious groups as well as political movements on both the left and right of the political spectrum. This will be the only way to stop those who deal in hate. The majority of Americans are the best when it comes to dealing with ‘the other.’ We must not allow the ugliness of a few in this society to prevent us from seeing its goodness. The recent election ended in the way that it did for a number of reasons, perhaps most importantly the economic conditions that a large slice of the population is facing. It is not true that racism or rejection of foreigners alone decided this election. Even for those who are afflicted with racist attitudes, the best cure for them is found in Allah’s instruction, ‘Repel [evil] by that [deed] which is better; and thereupon the one whom between you and him is enmity [will become] as though he was a devoted friend.’”

Most Important Of Obligations: Also discussed in Paragraph 3, 4 and 12.

This is a call (and official authorization) for American Muslims to form coalitions with a diversity of ethnic and religious groups, as well as movements on the left and right of the political spectrum. In other words, to start forming new alliances, in as many different arenas as possible, to build a wall of resistance.

Some of the organizations involved in this AMJA-authorized effort to develop common-cause alliances include the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, the Black Lives Matter movement, ANSWER Coalition, the Tides Foundation, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

What overlapping goals does the religion of Islam have with left-wing, progressive groups like these? A concise answer is provided by the anti-Trump protest group #DisruptJ20, which “rejects all forms of domination and oppression [i.e., Fitnah], particularly those based on racism, poverty, gender & sexuality, organizes by consensus, and embraces a diversity of tactics.”

Repel [Evil] By That [Deed]: This is from Quran 41:34: And not equal are the good deed and the bad. Repel [evil] by that [deed] which is better; and thereupon the one whom between you and him is enmity [will become] as though he was a devoted friend.

(12) “From among the most important obligations during this stage is to support those institutions and organizations that serve the Muslim community, such as those interested in defending freedoms, civil rights and political activism, those dedicated to social services and relief, and those dedicated to Dawah, religious instruction and providing religious rulings. It is most unbelievable that there are some who cry over the state of the community and then they are too stingy to donate their time or money to such organizations. Worse than that are those who are even too stingy to pray for them or give them a kind word. But the worst of all are those who seek to destroy such organizations.”

Most Important Of Obligations: Discussed earlier in Paragraph 3, 4 and 11.

During This Stage: We’re now coming to the key take-away messages of the AMJA Roadmap, which is actually describing the Shariah-approved course of action that Muslims in America (or anywhere else) should take whenever calamities, oppression and/or resistance to the ultimate implementation of Shariah law are encountered. This concept – of an allegorical journey (Roadmap) – was first discussed by Sayyid Qutb, one of the founding fathers of the Muslim Brotherhood, in his famous book entitled Milestones.

It is also important to notice the continuity of language used in the AMJA Roadmap, from similar concepts (‘stages’ and ‘oppression’) addressed in Sayyid Qutb’s Milestones, to the terms used in the HLF’s formal name (‘Relief’), while also reflecting language used in the Reliance of the Traveller.

Support Those Institutions And Organizations: Who are these institutions and organizations? The list would include groups such as the American Human Rights Council (AHRC), the Islamic Supreme Council of America (ISCA), Islamic Shura Council of Southern California (ISCSC), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), and the dozens of affiliated organizations named as unindicted co-conspirators in the 2008 federal criminal trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), which proved irrefutably that American Muslim organizations were providing direct financial support to Hamas, twice designated as a Global Terrorist Organization (also see US v Holy Land Foundation, Dallas, TX).

Defending Freedoms, Civil Rights And Political Activism: On January 13, 2017, Executive Director Imad Hamad stated that AHRC “joins its voice to the voices of many in the nongovernmental community who have called on President Obama to commute the sentence of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) defendants to time served.” Mr. Hamad also characterized the five defendants (Mufid Abdulqader, Shukri Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mohammad El-Mezain and Abdulrahman Odeh) as “well-regarded members of the Muslim American community, [who] were given unusually lengthy sentences that shocked the American Muslim community for their harshness.” This is just the most recent salvo in an long-term barrage of disinformation after the five HLF defendants were indicted on July 26, 2004 for financial support of Hamas. For a few other examples, see here (2006), here (2009), here (2010), here (2010), here (2011) and here (2011).

Social Services And Relief: Islamic organizations that are dedicated to social services and relief include are created to comply with Shariah law, as found in Reliance, section H8.7 (page 226): It is obligatory to distribute one’s among eight categories of recipients (meaning that Zakat goes to none besides them), one-eighth of the Zakat to each category. (in the Hanafi school [of Shariah law], it is valid for the giver to distribute his Zakat to all of the categories, some of them, or to confine himself to just one of them).

The eight categories include [1] the Poor, [2] Someone separated from his money, or short of money, [3] Zakat workers dispatched by the Imam, [4] Those whose hearts are to be reconciled, [5] Those purchasing their freedom, [6] Those in debt, [7] Those fighting Jihad for the sake of Allah and [8] Those traveling for the sake of Allah.

Yes, one-eighth of all Zakat must be given directly to those are fighting Jihad, which is the reason why HLF leaders had no problem giving financial aid to Hamas.

Dawah, Religious Instruction And Providing Religious Rulings: This category would include Shariah-promoting organizations such as the AMJA itself, as well as the Fatwa Center of America, the North American Imam’s Federation (NAIT), and the Institute of Islamic Education (IIE), which is part of a network of Islamic schools (Madrassas) operating across America.

The Worst Of All: This critical Islamic concept, i.e., that those who opposes or resist the cause of Islam are the worst of all, is also derived directly from the Quran. For example, see Quran 8.55: Indeed, the worst of all animals/beasts/created beings/creatures/mankind/men in the sight of Allah are those who have disbelieved, and they will not [ever] believe, and Quran 98.6: Indeed, they who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding eternally therein. Those are the worst of all animals/beasts/created beings/creatures/mankind/men.

For more on this subject, see the 2008 QuranicTopics.com article entitled Disbelievers Are The Worst of Creatures.

According to several sources, President Donald Trump intends to support legislation designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. If the effort to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization actually proves successful, America would be following the lead of several other countries who have already designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Also, during his August 15, 2016 speech on fighting terrorism, President Trump said: “[O]ne of my first acts as President will be to establish a Commission on Radical Islam, which will include reformist voices in the Muslim community who will hopefully work with us. We want to build bridges and erase divisions. The goal of the commission will be to identify and explain to the American public the core convictions and beliefs of Radical Islam, to identify the warning signs of radicalization, and to expose the networks in our society that support radicalization.”

On January 10, 2017, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) reintroduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2017 (also see H.R. 3892, which was introduced November 03, 2015). During his January 15, 2017 Senate confirmation hearing, Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson stated that “The demise of ISIS would also allow us to increase our attention on other agents of radical Islam like al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and certain elements within Iran.” This signals that Mr. Tillerson is aware of the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood, and that he will seriously consider implementing the 2017 Terrorist Designation Act.

(13) “No one knows the unseen except Allah. It is possible that an individual hates something while Allah has placed a lot of good for him in it. We must prepare for any possibility while hoping for the best outcomes. Before all of the above, and with all of the above, and after all of the above, one must know that there is no bringer of harm and no bringer of benefit except Allah. Nothing can guard an individual from what he fears greater than the protection of his Lord. Therefore, come with us to revive true piety and renew the spirit of repenting to Allah. Certainly, trials and tribulations are not to be repelled simply by material means alone. Instead, they will be overcome by a sincere turning to Allah, submitting to Him, having good expectations of Him and trusting Him in a beautiful manner. Be mindful of Allah’s commands and He will protect you. Be mindful of Allah’s commands and you will find Him in front of you, guiding you. Increase your remembrance of Allah and you will find Allah with you every step of the way, leading you through fear and to security.”

This concluding paragraph of the Roadmap reiterates all of the key points made throughout the document, and ends with a series of Quranic emphatic exhortations for Muslims in America to put their hope and trust fully in Allah, and in his commands (Shariah).

Knows The Unseen: Quran 6.59: “And with Him are the keys of the unseen; none knows them except Him. And He knows what is on the land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls but that He knows it. And no grain is there within the darknesses of the earth and no moist or dry [thing] but that it is [written] in a clear record.”

Also see a study from the Quran Tafsir Ibn Kathir, entitled The One Who Knows The Unseen Is Allah.

An Individual Hates Something / Placed A Lot Of Good: This statement is derived from Quran 2.216: “Fighting has been enjoined upon you while it is hateful to you. But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not.”

An Individual Hates Something: For further insight, see the July 07, 2010 AbdurRachman.orgarticle by Imam Ibn al Qayyim, entitled And It May Be That You Dislike A Thing Which Is Good For You.

Revive True Piety And Renew The Spirit: This is an allusion to what is known as the Islamic Revival (Renaissance) Movement, which is a worldwide effort to encourage Muslims to return to SalafiIslam, i.e., the original, pure version of Islam practiced by Mohammed and his early followers. Also see this link to Reviving The Islamic Spirit Conventions worldwide, including a major North American venue in Toronto, Canada.

Trials And Tribulations: Another reference to Fitnah, which is also discussed in Paragraph 6, 7 and 8.

Trusting Him In A Beautiful Manner: Derived from Quran 16.125: “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful/good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best.”

Be Mindful Of Allah’s Commands: The entire last sentence derived from a Hadith, which states: “Young man, I will teach you some words. Be mindful of Allah, and He will take care of you. Be mindful of Him, and you shall find Him at your side. If you ask, ask of God. If you need help, seek it from God. Know that if the whole world were to gather together in order to help you, they would not be able to help you except if God had written so.”

In turn, this Hadith is linked to Quran 2.156-157: “Who, when disaster strikes them, say, ‘Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return.’ Those are the ones upon whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy. And it is those who are the [rightly] guided.”

(14) “O Allah, be gentle with Your servants. All praise is due to Allah alone.”

Be Gentle: Derived from Al-Latif, one of the 99 Names of Allah, and from Quran 42.19: “Allah is Gentle/Gracious/Kind/Subtle with His servants; He gives provisions to whom He wills. And He is the Powerful, the Exalted in Might.”

All Praise: Part of the Aqidah (Authentic Creed): All praise is due to Allah, and Allah’s Peace and Blessings be upon His Final Messenger, his pure family, his noble Companions, and all those who follow them with righteousness until the Day of Judgment. Why is this important to a Muslim? Because, according to a publication also entitled The Authentic Creed, “It is evident from texts of the Noble Quran and the Sunnah that a person’s words and deeds will not be accepted unless they emanate from a true creed. If the creed is not authentic, all words and deeds emanating there from are bound to be rejected.”

Conclusion

Much like a storm siren, fire alarm or warning signal, the AMJA Roadmap is meant to be not only a warning of impending danger, but a call to deliberate, responsive action. The concept of sounding a warning is also emphasized many times in the Quran, as in verse 7.63: “Then do you wonder that there has come to you a reminder from your Lord through a man from among you, that he may warn you and that you may fear Allah, so you might receive mercy.”

Thus, if the AMJA expects the American Muslim community not only to take this warning seriously, but to also take appropriate action(s), then perhaps those of us who are not Muslim would be wise to take heed to the warning as well, lest we be caught unprepared.

Now that we have methodically reviewed the Roadmap, a question arises: “How will leaders of the American Muslim community respond (react), if the Trump Administration actually designates the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, thus ‘destroying’ the affiliated institutions and groups that have been endorsed and supported by the AMJA?”

As plainly stated in Paragraph 12 of the Roadmap, those who attempt to shut down the network of organizations that support the American Islamic community are characterized as the “the worst of all.”

Therefore, if we take the Roadmap seriously, we must ask a second question: “What actions (resistance) will the AMJA feel compelled to endorse, if the Designation Act of 2017 effectively bans leaders of Muslim Brotherhood front groups such as CAIR, ISNA and MPAC from any further legal involvement in the arenas of politics, social activism, and law enforcement?”

Remarkably, an overt example of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the American political arena was seen in the January 21, 2017 appearance of Imam Mohamed Magid at an interfaith religious service for President Donald J. Trump.

Mohamed Magid, who is Imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), has also served as both President and Vice-President of ISNA (an HLF co-conspirator which is also closely linked to ADAMS), was scheduled to recite a simple opening prayer. Instead, he went ‘off script’ and recited two verses from the Quran that just happen to reflect concepts included in both the AMJA Roadmap, and in Article 1 of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights (also see Paragraph 4 above).

The two verses (as quoted by Imam Magid at the prayer service) are Quran 49.13: “O humankind, We have created you a single male and female (Adam and Eve) and made you into nations and tribes and communities, that you may know one another. Really, the most honored of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you, and God has all knowledge,” and Quran 30.22: “And among the signs of God is the creation of heaven and earth, and the variation in your languages and your colors. Verily, in that are signs for those who know.”

In addition to co-conspirator ISNA, ADAMS has close ties to several other Muslim Brotherhood front groups, including HLF co-conspirator International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), and the SAFA Trust, which was raided by the FBI after 9/11 because organizations and leaders “in the SAFA Group maintained a financial and ideological relationship with persons and entities with known affiliations to the designated terrorist Groups PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) and HAMAS.”

Incredibly, one of the SAFA Trust’s sub-organizations was the Sterling Charitable Gift Fund, whose 6 primary advisors included Imam Mohamed Magid.

What is the link between all of these groups and the AMJA Roadmap? The link is Imam Magid himself, who in addition to serving as past President and Vice-President of the ISNA, and as Imam of ADAMS, currently serves as AMJA Expert number 26, where he is listed as “Shaykh Mohammad AlMajid, Imam of Adam Center in Virginia.”

Since Imam (Shaykh) Magid is a current member of AMJA, it is very plausible that he deliberately went ‘off script’ at the prayer service, in order to make a public declaration (sound the alarm) to the entire Islamic world, while using his opportunity to speak at a high-profile public forum to reiterate one of the concepts discussed in the Roadmap.

Meanwhile, in a example of simultaneous, overlapping social activism, Hussam Ayloush, who heads the CAIR Los Angeles chapter, compared Trump on Facebook to the proverbial emperor without any clothes, while urging Imam Magid not to “hand him a towel,” while Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR Chicago, said on Facebook that he was “thoroughly disappointed” by Imam Magid’s “unilateral decision” to join the prayer service, which “goes against the consensus of our community’s leadership and grassroots.”

So, if the one-day-old Trump Administration already “goes against the consensus of our community’s leadership and grassroots,” what effect(s) will designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group have on the community’s pro-Jihad sympathizers, both here in America, and in other parts of the world?

Will fellow members of the global Ummah feel compelled to help their oppressed brethren, who are facing calamities/disasters and Fitnah from disbelievers here in America?

Is it even vaguely possible that some may take to heart the admonition found in Quran 8.12, which says: “[Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, ‘I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip’”?

Or, perhaps these aspiring Jihadists would prefer to follow the guidance found in Quran 47.4: “So when you meet those who disbelieve, strike [their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them, then secure their bonds, and either [confer] favor afterwards or ransom [them] until the war lays down its burdens. That [is the command].”

As first reported by Andrew Bostom in March of 2011, AMJA Secretary-General Dr. Salah Al-Sawy was asked by a reader whether “the Islamic missionary effort in the West…[was] to the point where it could take advantage of offensive jihad.”

Then, in a Fatwa published in Arabic on his own website, Dr. Al-Sawy provided the following carefully written endorsement of both offensive and defensive Jihad: “The Islamic community does not possess the strength to engage in offensive jihad at this time. With our current capabilities, we are aspiring toward defensive jihad, and to improve our position with regards to jurisprudence [Shariahlaw] at this stage. But there is a different discussion for each situation. Allah Almighty knows best.”

This is essentially the same tactical approach the AMJA Roadmap is following. In other words, to paraphrase Dr. Al-Sawy’s Fatwa: Since the Islamic community in America does not possess the strength or current capabilities to engage in offensive jihad at this time, it should continue to aspire toward defensive jihad, and strive to improve its position with regards to jurisprudence Shariah law at this stage (as in Sayyid Qutb’s Milestones).

Is my premise just so much hyperbole? Exaggeration? A misunderstanding? Misguided Islamophobia? That remains to be seen.

However, as we move into the Trump Administration, which is expected to be completely antithetical the counter-terrorism and immigration policies of the Obama Administration, this would certainly be an excellent opportunity for the AMJA (and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups like CAIR, ISNA & MPAC) to show America (and the world), once and for all, that Islam really is the Religion of Peace®.

Appendix I – AMJA Fatwas

In April of 2006, AMJA Shariah scholar Dr. Katem Al-Hajj authorized capital punishment for Muslim apostates in America, stating that “as for the Shariah ruling [for apostasy], it is the punishment of killing for the man…as the prophet said: “Whoever a Muslim changes his/her religion, kill him/her,” and his saying “A Muslim`s blood, who testifies that there is no god except Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah, is not made permissible except by three reasons: the life for the life; the married adulterer and the that who abandons his/her religion.”

In June of 2006, Dr. Al-Hajj issued a fatwa reiterating the Shariah-endorsed punishment [Al-Hadd] of stoning for committing adultery: “All praise be to Allah, and may his peace and blessings be on the last and best prophet and messenger, Muhammad. Since you are ashamed and you have repented sincerely, Allah is all forgiving, so don`t lose hope in his mercy and forgiveness. The act you have committed – as you appear to know – is an offensive sin, and it is a form of fornication, as the Prophet indicated…Yet, it is not the absolute Zina [sexual sin] punishable by Al-Hadd (which is stoning in the case of a married man).”

In July of 2007, AMJA scholar Dr. Main Khalid Al-Qudah issued a fatwa sanctioning animosity and hostility (derived from Quran 5.51) toward non-Muslim “Disbelievers” [Kufar]: “Our belief is that Islam is the final divine religion, supersedes all other divine religions, and that all other religions are abrogated by the prophet-hood of Mohammad. In another words; no one has the right to stay on his/her Christianity or Judaism after the prophecy of Mohammad. Based on the above, if any one from the people of scriptures has received the message of Islam clearly, yet, insisted on his belief, then he is – from an Islamic perspective – a disbeliever. Meanwhile, we believe that hellfire is granted for the disbelievers, which include anyone did not believe in the prophet-hood of the messenger that he/she lived during his/her life.”

In November of 2007, Dr. Al-Hajj posted a 23-page fatwa forbidding Muslims in America to work for the FBI, the military, or for U.S. security (and law enforcement) services, because such work could possibly involve “spying on Muslims,” and because Muslim minorities in non-Islamic countries are “subject to man-made laws, which Islamic law [Shariah] does not recognize, either fully or in part..”

This AMJA-authorized prohibition against involvement with law enforcement was on full display in 2011, when CAIR published a poster admonishing Muslims in America to “Build a Wall of Resistance” and “Don’t Talk to the FBI.” The same precedent was expressed again in 2016, when CAIR called on Muslims to openly defy Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers when questioned on travel from Islamic controlled countries by saying, “None of your Damn Business,” and to “agitate Customs Agents by saying Islamic prayers “very loudly” when questioned”

In January of 2009, AMJA Secretary-General Dr. Salah Al-Sawy issued a fatwa on the penalty for blaspheming the prophet Muhammad: “[F]or those scholars who say that repentance of a person who insults Allah or His Messenger shall not accepted, [they] mean that repentance does not lift up the set punishment for cursing and insulting the Prophet, i.e., execution. Because the Prophet is the one who was actually wronged and insulted and he is no longer alive, therefore, he is not alive to practice his right to forgive him [the blasphemer] for what he did. Also, no Muslim is ever is entitled or authorized to forgive on the Prophet’s behalf.”

In January of 2009, Dr. Al-Qudah issued a fatwa on the death penalty for apostasy, stating that “Under the authority of the Muslim state, the People of the Book have the right to stay on their belief without being compelled to embrace Islam. But if one of them has embraced Islam, it would not be acceptable from him to go back to his original religion. The same rule applies to those who are born into Muslim families. According to the Islamic Law, they cannot commit apostasy. Implementing the punishment of killing the apostate is the sole and the exclusive responsibility of the Muslim state (were there any nowadays). Nobody else has the right to implement it.”

Three months later, in April of 2009, Dr. Al-Qudah issued another fatwa on Shariah-endorsed death sentences for apostates, stating that “The fact that there is no compulsion in religion does not negate the other fact that someone who has embrace Islam cannot change his mind afterward and embrace polytheism.”

Categories: 2016 elections, Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, Dept. of Homeland Security, Imam Magid, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, National Prayer Service, President Trump, Sharia law, Trump administration, Trump and Islamists
Tags: Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, Dept. of Homeland Security, Imam Magid, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, National Prayer Service, President Trump, Sharia law, Trump administration, Trump and Islamists

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Where is Suit-Wearing Jihadi Suhail Khan Today?

January 17, 2017

Where is Suit-Wearing Jihadi Suhail Khan Today? Understanding the Threat, January 17, 2017

Prolific suit-wearing jihadi Suhail Khan was in the White House on 9/11. After officials discovered his father was a prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader, he was moved out, but found himself back in the fold in a relatively short amount of time, serving two Secretaries of Transportation in the Bush administration. This gave Suhail Khan a security clearance, access to America’s infrastructure, and a great resume boost.

khan

He continues his war against America as a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood’s movement here.

Khan’s father, Mahboob Khan, founded the Muslim Students Association as well as the Muslim Brotherhood’s largest organization in North America, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ISNA has an annual award entitled the “Mahboob Khan Award,” which should give readers and idea of his influence in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.

mahboob

Mahboob Khan

This would explain why- at the 1999 ISNA conference – Khan said, muslims love death more than non-muslims love life – a common statement heard out of the mouths of ISIS and Al Qaeda jihadis on the battlefield.

He also thanked an praised Al Qaeda financier Abdurahman Alamoudi, who also spoke fondly of Suhail’s father.

alamoudi-jail

Al Qaeda Financier & Close Friend of Suhail Khan – Abdurahman Alamoudi

See the UTT video of Suhail Khan HERE. (Video embedded below. — DM)

Suhail serves on the board of Muflehun with the former President of ISNA (ie a jihadi) Mohamed Magid. The two were deeply involved in the creation of the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council – a Muslim Brotherhood operation to deceive naive Jewish leaders into believing jihadis like Khan and Magid had “come to their senses” and no longer hate Jews or deny the holocaust.

screen-shot-2017-01-16-at-11-51-33-pm-768x1169

Khan also serves with the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE) where Muslim Brotherhood propaganda is supported, encouraged, and directed at a significant level in the United States. IGE’s Board of Advisors includes Muslim Brotherhood stooge John Esposito of Georgetown University, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, President Bush’s Former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes, Ambassador Robert Seiple (Chairman Emeritus), and others.

Suhail Khan continues his work with Republican strategist Grover Norquist, and has been a guest at CPAC, where he is defended by Republicans against those who speak truth about his terrorist ties.

khannorquist

Jihadi Suhail Khan with Grover Norquist

This penetration into our system continues. Suhail Khan is still walking the streets welcome in Republican circles and wreaking havoc in a suit.

Khan is now the Director of External Affairs for Microsoft, which might explain the pro-Muslim add campaign from Microsoft in December 2016.

Categories: Islamist infiltration, Islamist organizations, Islamist terror - justifications, Islamist terrorists, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, Suhail Khan
Tags: Islamist infiltration, Islamist organizations, Islamist terror - justifications, Islamist terrorists, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, Suhail Khan

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1/11/2017 Dr. Jasser’s Letter regarding Senator Sessions post as Attorney General

January 12, 2017

1/11/2017 Dr. Jasser’s Letter regarding Senator Sessions post as Attorney General, American Islamic Forum for Democracy

The Islamists groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (a group formally considered persona-non-grata by the FBI due to their position on HAMAS) protesting his appointment are proof positive that his appointment is the right one for national security and our rule of law in the next administration.

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January 11, 2017

The Honorable Chuck Grassley
Chairman
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
224 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
Ranking Member
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
152 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Members of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Dear Chairman Grassley, Senator Feinstein, and Members of the Committee:

I am writing to you today to ask that you enthusiastically confirm Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General of the United States. I am an American Muslim, former U.S. Naval officer and the son of Syrian political refugees who escaped to the United States in 1966 and instilled in me a love and devotion for the U.S. Constitution, our Bill of Rights and this great nation of ours.

In addition to serving my nation in uniform for 11 years, I have also dedicated my life to countering what many of us Muslims believe to be the root cause of Islamist terror—political Islam or the global identity movements of Islamism. The mission of our American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix, Arizona is to protect the U.S. Constitution, freedom and liberty thought the separation of mosque and state. This has led us to what we believe to the solution to the threat of global Islamism—our diverse, bipartisan led Muslim Reform Movement with Muslim leaders in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

As an American patriot who loves this nation, it saddens me to no end to see American Islamist sympathizers like Mr. Khizr Khan and his bevy of enabling Islamist and partisan organizations falsely malign an honorable appointee for Attorney General not only on behalf of the far left’s political machinery but in the name of American Muslims and the free practice of the faith of Islam that I love. They have no shame in exploiting the appointment of a conservative, extraordinarily well-qualified Senator in order to speak on behalf of Islamists. They are intentionally spreading false fears of the impending victimization of American Muslims in order to derail Sen. Sessions’ appointment. There is no opportunity that Islamists will not exploit or fabricate in order to victimize, segregate, and collectivize Muslims into a single group. Make no mistake. Muslims are an ideologically, diverse community and Mr. Khizr Khan, CAIR and other Islamist grievance groups do not speak for all of us.

In fact I call upon you to look at the very records of this Judiciary committee to witness, in case you missed it, the long overdue “tough love” for Muslim communities that Sen. Sessions articulately defended when I testified in June 2016 to the Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts on “Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism” chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). He said,

“Dr. Jasser, I remember during the Civil Rights days, national TV networks, maybe they were atheist, maybe they were Jewish or whatever, going into churches in the south, sticking a camera in the face of a (white) preacher and asking them, can an African-American, can a black person worship in your church, yes or no? This was a difficult question and it was very tough. But I thought and in retrospect that kind of challenge caused people to realize the position was untenable and could not be defended in public debate. ” (1:53:41-1:57:21 CSPAN Video)

I then responded to him that it is in fact this kind of tough love that refuses to treat Muslim communities and their leaders with a bigotry of low expectations but rather with the respect of genuine equality. Senator Sessions agreed that we Muslim reformers should be given the space to call out the homophobia, anti-Semitism and anti-freedom beliefs of Islamist leaders at mosques and any Islamic institutions.

Sen. Sessions further concluded that,

“the Islamic world and the Muslim religion is a great religion. Millions of people follow its doctrines and don’t believe in these things.” (1:53:41-1:57:21 CSPAN Video)

This is the unvarnished non-partisan truth regarding my last very public interaction with Sen. Sessions on Muslims, Islam, Islamism, national security and religious freedom. I have testified repeatedly to Congress on no less than four occasions in the past five years of the need to shift the U.S. government away from the feckless mission to simply “Counter Violent Extremism (CVE)” to the more accurate mission of “Countering Violent Islamism (CVI)”. Such a move would not mean that we Muslims would ever agree to giving up one iota of our constitutionally protected civil rights. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Public monitoring of non-violent Islamist precursors of violent Islamist terrorists is perfectly appropriate and should be part of the public-private partnerships in honest counter-radicalization programs. It is incumbent upon us in the Muslim communities to reform against the theocratic ideas which radicalize our youth. Sen. Sessions has shown a profound understanding of that need and the fact that the government should not and cannot do that. Again, this is not to suggest any illegal intrusions upon privacy, religious freedom, or the intimidation or shuttering of any mosques that are not advocating imminent acts of violence in violation of the Supreme Court decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio.

I defy anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim, protesting the appointment of Sen. Sessions to find one iota of evidence that his policies and enforcement of the U.S. Constitution and our laws will violate the religious freedoms of Muslims or put us at risk. As I said to Sen. Sessions in the June 2016 hearing, there is no better way for Muslims to melt away any bigotry that may exist than for Americans to see us lead the battle of ideas against the theocratic ideas that radicalize our youth. In fact, I believe Sen. Sessions would be a long overdue refreshingly honest partner with American Muslim communities with regards to the hard work we have yet to do against the radicalizing conveyor belt of political Islam (Islamism). That, in and of itself, uniquely qualifies him for the position.

Indeed the job of Attorney General includes a large portfolio with obviously many other interest groups and communities affected beyond the Muslim communities. I will let others speak to that. But I felt it very important that your committee understand that there are patriotic American Muslims who love our country and our faith and believe that Sen. Sessions will be unwaveringly loyal and true to lady justice. As Byron York recently reminded us, in Sen. Sessions own words when he grilled Attorneys General Reno or Gonzales, he asked them if they will have “the backbone to walk into the Oval Office, pound your fist on the desk and say, ‘Mr. President, you can’t do that.’

The Islamists groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (a group formally considered persona-non-grata by the FBI due to their position on HAMAS) protesting his appointment are proof positive that his appointment is the right one for national security and our rule of law in the next administration.

Sincerely yours,

Zuhdi Jasser, MD
Phoenix, ArizonaPresident, American Islamic Forum for Democracy
Co-Founder, Muslim Reform Movement

Categories: American-Islamic Forum for Democracy, Attorney General, Islamic reformation, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump and Islamists, Trump appointments, U.S. Senate, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: American-Islamic Forum for Democracy, Attorney General, Islamic reformation, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump and Islamists, Trump appointments, U.S. Senate, Zuhdi Jasser

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Victory: Texas judge dismisses Clock Boy’s defamation lawsuit against critics of his “hate crime” hoax

January 10, 2017

Victory: Texas judge dismisses Clock Boy’s defamation lawsuit against critics of his “hate crime” hoax, Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer, January 10, 2017

“During the lengthy hearing, Judge Moore pressed Mohamed’s lawyer, Fort Worth attorney Susan Hutchison, to provide any facts that would suggest that Hanson and the other defendants had said anything false or defamatory about Mohamed or his son during the television broadcasts. After spending a painfully embarrassing 15 minutes flipping through reams of paper, Mohamed’s lawyer was unable to provide any such evidence.”

Islamic supremacists traffic in intimidation in attempting to silence their foes and all critics of jihad terror. Far from being “defamed,” Ahmed Mohamed was showered with adulation from “Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Google co-founder Sergey Brin,” while “Tweets, think pieces and daytime TV segments were dedicated to dissecting how Ahmed’s situation typified racism and Islamaphobia [sic] in America,” and he “visited the Google Science Fair, met with Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir, posed with the queen of Jordan at a United Nations Summit, appeared on the ‘Doctor Oz’ show and last night, made it to the White House.”

Ahmed Mohamed became the darling of the political and media elites and met Obama. He was celebrated everywhere as an innocent victim of “Islamophobia.” He became an international hero. This defamation lawsuit was a naked attempt to continue the intimidation efforts that his clock represented. His clock, which looked like a suitcase bomb, was a strike against the dictum “If you see something, say something”: after Ahmed’s clock, school officials and others will think twice before committing career suicide by questioning suspicious behavior by Muslims. After that, Ahmed and his family moved in for the kill, trying to intimidate people into not even daring to criticize Muslims who engage in these intimidation tactics, for fear of being slapped with a lawsuit.

clockboyandpop

“Victory!,” American Freedom Law Center, January 10, 2017:

Following a nearly three-hour hearing held yesterday in Dallas, Texas, newly appointed District Court Judge Maricela Moore dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Mohamed Mohamed on his own behalf and on behalf of his 15-year old son, Ahmed Mohamed.

Ahmed is better known as “Clock Boy” for bringing a hoax clock bomb to his Irvine, Texas middle school in September 2015 and causing a bomb scare that led to his arrest and suspension from school.

The American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed the motion to dismiss, along with local counsel Pete Rowe, on behalf of the Center for Security Policy (“CSP”) and Jim Hanson, two of the defendants in the defamation case, which also named as defendants the local Fox affiliate, Glenn Beck, and Beck’s production company.

Mohamed had sued Hanson and CSP for statements Hanson had made on Beck’s program about the connection between the Clock Boy hoax bomb affair, the attendant media frenzy created in large part by his father Mohamed, civilization jihad, and the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”), the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas front group in the United States that promotes civilization jihad.

During the hearing, AFLC co-founder and senior counsel David Yerushalmi explained to Judge Moore that the purpose of the lawfare-driven lawsuit was to intimidate into silence those who might comment publicly on the connection between jihad, terrorism, sharia, and Islam. As such, Yerushalmi argued,

“This case is a classic Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation or ‘SLAPP’ case and should be dismissed.”

During the lengthy hearing, Judge Moore pressed Mohamed’s lawyer, Fort Worth attorney Susan Hutchison, to provide any facts that would suggest that Hanson and the other defendants had said anything false or defamatory about Mohamed or his son during the television broadcasts.

After spending a painfully embarrassing 15 minutes flipping through reams of paper, Mohamed’s lawyer was unable to provide any such evidence.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Moore took the matter under advisement but informed the parties that she would rule by the end of the day. Today, the Court published Judge Moore’s ruling dismissing the lawsuit against Hanson and CSP with prejudice.

Upon leaving the courtroom, Yerushalmi explained:

“This lawsuit filed by Clock Boy’s father is yet another example of Islamist lawfare, which is a component of the Muslim Brotherhood’s civilization jihad.”

Yerushalmi further explained that the purpose of such lawsuits, formally labelled Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (“SLAPP”), is to intimidate into silence those who might comment publicly on the connection between jihad, terrorism, sharia, and Islam.

Yerushalmi added:

“The Islamists employ the progressive mainstream media to label any public criticism of a sharia-centric, jihad-driven Islam as ‘Islamophobic,’ and they add fear and financial ruin to the equation by utilizing the legal system to file SLAPP actions,”

Now that the lawsuit has been dismissed, AFLC will petition the court for its legal fees and will seek sanctions against both the plaintiff and his attorney.

Robert Muise, AFLC’s other co-founder and senior counsel, made clear:

“AFLC was formed in large measure to take on Islamists like CAIR who use and abuse the legal system with their cynical form of lawfare to undermine our constitutional liberties—notably free speech. We have confronted these lawsuits across the country in federal and state courts and have defeated CAIR and its minions at every turn. When appropriate, we have won sanctions. This lawsuit will be no different.”

Categories: American Freedom Law Center, CAIR, Clock Boy, Hate crimes, Islamic hoaxes, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, Media and Islam, U.S. courts
Tags: American Freedom Law Center, CAIR, Clock Boy, Hate Crime, Islamist hoaxes, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, Media and Islam, U.S. courts

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When “Peace” Means Capitulation to Islam

January 8, 2017

When “Peace” Means Capitulation to Islam, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, January 8, 2017

(“[W]e do not need to defeat you militarily; we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.” Obama’s America can’t quit because we haven’t started fighting political Islam. We simply continue retreating. Perhaps America will start fighting this month. — DM)

Beyond the electoral map, jihad is already changing the face of Europe’s soft underbelly in different ways: freedom of expression is retreating everywhere from Berlin to Amsterdam, Islamic veils are proliferating, sharia courts work at full speed in many EU capitals, and Jewish communities are fleeing. Muslim reformers are silenced, the assimilation of Muslims is failing, and the Western intelligentsia is already signing letters of capitulation. The latest have been such as the fraudulent resolution at the UN, and UNESCO declaring Jewish holy sites and even the Old City of Jerusalem — the heart of Judaism for nearly 4,000 years and the seat of Christianity for 2000 years — Islamic, despite Islam not even existing historically until in the seventh century, hundreds of years later.

The next “peace conference” in Paris, on January 15, is where 70 nations will probably agree to another UN Security Council vote to establish a Palestinian State, presumably (according to UNSC Resolution 2334) with the Old City of Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish people and sacred to the Christian people, as its capital. It is another terrible sign of the West’s soft capitulation to terror. It is also reminiscent of another “peace conference,” in 1938, when in Munich the Western democracies bowed to Hitler and the Czechoslovak state was mutilated and deprived of defensible borders. Six months later, abandoned by its French and British allies, and bullied by the Nazis, Czechoslovakia was overrun by Germany. Like Israel today, the Czechs in the 1930s were accused of being “disturbers of the peace”. “Peace,” as in the inversions of George Orwell, sometimes means capitulation to Islam.

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“We will win because Americans don’t realize… we do not need to defeat you militarily; we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.” — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the al-Qaeda planners of the 9/11 attacks.

“This Spanish retreat [in 2004] will be perceived as a huge political triumph for Al Qaeda and like-minded Islamic radicals — probably their most important achievement since September 11, 2001.” — James Phillips, Heritage Foundation.

ISIS’s henchmen butchered 90 people at the Bataclan Theater. What did the French government do to avenge them and to destroy the Islamists responsible? Absolutely nothing. The day after an Islamist killed Westerners at a Christmas market in Berlin, no German military flight took off to bomb ISIS.

The next “peace conference” in Paris, on January 15, is where 70 nations will probably agree to another UN Security Council vote, to establish a Palestinian State, presumably with the Old City of Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish people and sacred to the Christian people, as its capital. It is another terrible sign of the West’s soft capitulation to terror.

Like Israel today, the Czechs in the 1930s were accused of being “disturbers of the peace”. “Peace,” as in the inversions of George Orwell — sometimes means capitulation to Islam.

What inspired al-Qaeda to attack the United States, according to one of the terrorists, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who helped plan 9/11?

The American psychologist, James E. Mitchell, who crafted the interrogation program that helped stop terrorist attacks and saved countless lives after 9/11, just published a book, Enhanced Interrogation.

In it, KSM is quoted as saying that al-Qaeda expected the United States to respond to 9/11 as it had to the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut — the United States “turned tail and ran.” In the end, KSM told Mitchell:

“We will win because Americans don’t realize… we do not need to defeat you militarily; we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting. … Eventually, America will expose her neck for us to slaughter.”

That is exactly why Islamists are trying to hit the West’s soft underbelly: the office of the magazine, Charlie Hebdo, restaurants and theaters in Paris, a café in Copenhagen, a promenade in Nice, a church in Normandy and a Christmas market in Berlin. Islamists perfectly understand that the West’s most exposed flank is its home front. The same lifestyle that we defend by words is the main obstacle to the initiative of the defense against Islamists. Islamists have told us in every way, “we love death more than life”, while we in the West love the expectation of life more than life itself.

Anyone who has listened to statements of Osama bin Laden and ISIS’s Abu Bakr al Baghdadi knows that they showed a deep understanding of Europe’s situation by offering “a truce” to any country that would distance itself from the war on terror — or in other words, surrender. Through terror attacks, many jihadists are already proving able to decide the fate of many governments.

Compare what happened in two different countries after the 9/11 attacks.

November 2001: Within two months after the terror attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, the U.S. overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan.

March 2004: Within a month after the terror attacks in Madrid, the Spanish public toppled its conservative government, elected a Socialist one and abandoned the Western military coalition in Iraq. A few days after taking office, Zapatero’s Socialist government withdrew the 1,300 Spanish troops that were deployed to Iraq by the previous conservative government of José Maria Aznar. As James Phillips at the Heritage Foundation explained:

“This Spanish retreat will be perceived as a huge political triumph for Al Qaeda and like-minded Islamic radicals — probably their most important achievement since September 11, 2001.”

In an interview with Time magazine a few months after Iraq’s withdrawal, Zapatero declared that “sexual equality is a lot more effective against terrorism than military strength.” He then promoted the “Alliance of Civilizations,” an initiative calling on the West to negotiate a truce with Islamic terrorists.

The Spanish result was understood in al-Qaeda circles as a monumental victory, and prompted the Islamists’ networks to invest in seeking to influence the outcome of elections elsewhere in the West.

The public relations department of al-Qaeda and ISIS have learned how to talk in a language the soft West can understand.

After Spain, jihadists have been able to determine the fate of another election, in France: President François Hollande, in fact, just announced that he will not stand for re-election in 2017. His presidency was mortally defeated by a campaign of multiple terror attacks that demoralized Hollande’s government and destroyed his political credibility. ISIS’s henchmen butchered 90 people at the Bataclan Theater in Paris. What did the French government do to avenge them and to destroy the Islamists responsible for that carnage? Absolutely nothing — or Raqqa would have been dust.

In December 2016, a new Islamist terror attack may have ordained the future of another European political leader: Angela Merkel. But beyond Merkel’s electoral chances, jihad had already destined the course of Europe’s most important nation when its Chancellor, after 12 people were murdered at a Christmas market in Berlin, said that Germany “is stronger than terrorism.” Merkel refused, however, to show how Germans are stronger than Islamists, such as through changing their policy on migration and multiculturalism. The day after an Islamist killed Westerners at a Christmas market in Berlin, no German military flight took off to bomb ISIS.

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ISIS’s henchmen butchered 90 people at the Bataclan Theater. What did the French government do to avenge them and to destroy the Islamists responsible? Absolutely nothing. The day after an Islamist killed Westerners at a Christmas market in Berlin, no German military flight took off to bomb ISIS. Pictured above: French President François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel chat during a “unity march” of world leaders held in Paris on January 11, 2015, days after Islamist terrorists murdered 17 people in the Paris area. (Image source: AFP video screenshot)

“Many Westerners have accepted the normality of the most sordid attacks,” said the Canadian philosopher, Mathieu Bock-Côté. “We have internalized the presence in our lives of the Islamist violence. We do not know what this war against radical Islam would mean.”

The fate of another European country, Denmark, was decided by Islamists in 2005, when Danish appeasement and impotence dominated the cartoon crisis.

Beyond the electoral map, jihad is already changing the face of Europe’s soft underbelly in different ways: freedom of expression is retreating everywhere from Berlin to Amsterdam, Islamic veils are proliferating, sharia courts work at full speed in many EU capitals, and Jewish communities are fleeing. Muslim reformers are silenced, the assimilation of Muslims is failing, and the Western intelligentsia is already signing letters of capitulation. The latest have been such as the fraudulent resolution at the UN, and UNESCO declaring Jewish holy sites and even the Old City of Jerusalem — the heart of Judaism for nearly 4,000 years and the seat of Christianity for 2000 years — Islamic, despite Islam not even existing historically until in the seventh century, hundreds of years later.

The next “peace conference” in Paris, on January 15, is where 70 nations will probably agree to another UN Security Council vote to establish a Palestinian State, presumably (according to UNSC Resolution 2334) with the Old City of Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish people and sacred to the Christian people, as its capital. It is another terrible sign of the West’s soft capitulation to terror. It is also reminiscent of another “peace conference,” in 1938, when in Munich the Western democracies bowed to Hitler and the Czechoslovak state was mutilated and deprived of defensible borders. Six months later, abandoned by its French and British allies, and bullied by the Nazis, Czechoslovakia was overrun by Germany. Like Israel today, the Czechs in the 1930s were accused of being “disturbers of the peace”. “Peace,” as in the inversions of George Orwell, sometimes means capitulation to Islam.

Categories: Islam - submission, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic terror groups, Islamism, Islamist freedom, Islamist organizations, Islamist threats, Israel, Palestinian state, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution, UN and Israel
Tags: Islam - submission, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic terror groups, Islamism, Islamist freedom, Islamist organizations, Islamist threats, Israel, Palestinian state, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution, UN and Israel

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