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It’s A Global Jihad, Stupid

December 23, 2016

It’s A Global Jihad, Stupid, Huffington Post, Raheel Raza, December 21, 2016

(I was alerted to this article this morning via an e-mail from Dr. Zuhdi Jasser. — DM)

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Now that Donald J. Trump is officially the President-elect of the United States, moderate Muslims like myself are hoping he changes course and refuses to surround himself with radical Muslim advisors, or members of the so-called “Islamophobia Industry” – who actually have the nerve to call real moderate Muslims – like me – an Islamophobe.

The politically correct status quo, and ominous silence on the issue of global jihad, will only give us more terror and mayhem. We need change. Whether that means pausing immigration from terror-producing countries or “extreme vetting” of new immigrants, let’s not be afraid to have the conversation.

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Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a fellow reformist Muslim, has just suggested a new mantra in the fight against terror: “It’s the global jihad, stupid.”

I totally concur, as a moderate Muslim woman who wrote a book on radical Islam, has taken part in various documentaries, penned numerous op-eds on the issue, and toured Pakistan, parts of the Middle East and recently Europe (in fact last week I was in Berlin at the exact spot where the terrorist struck) – all in search for the root causes of radicalization.

What I found is simple: the Islamists are waging a global war – a global jihad – against the West.

We can call it a clash of civilizations; a third world war; we can listen to endless analysis given by so-called experts who cry “racism” or “Islamophobia,” we can disguise the real issue under the umbrella of political correctness, or hide behind a victim ideology – but that does nothing to change the reality.

The reality is: this is a global jihad and its target is the West.

When the radical Islamists tell us it is a jihad, while they are killing us, why are Western governments and media seemingly unable to accept reality for what it is?

The answer to this question is simple, not stupid, if we only take a moment to clear the cobwebs, to get over our Western liberal guilt and take a close hard look at where we are.

Western governments have been taking advice from Muslim advisors who are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. And law enforcement agencies are aligning themselves with organizations that have subversive agendas.

Take a look at Mr. Obama’s invitees to the White House for Ramadan and Eid celebrations – they’re certainly not reformist Muslims. We have Keith Ellison making a run for the DNC. In Europe we see Tariq Ramadan (grandson of Hasan al Banna) posing as a celebrity and a voice for European Muslims, and organizations like CAIR in Canada and USA insist that they speak for all Muslims.

Well; they don’t speak for me. And they don’t speak for the majority of Muslims.
But they do speak to Western leaders and media. Over the past number of years; many bad decisions have been made – based on those whispers-in-the-ear from the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamist apologists. If you ever wonder how bad decisions get made – that’s how.

Now that Donald J. Trump is officially the President-elect of the United States, moderate Muslims like myself are hoping he changes course and refuses to surround himself with radical Muslim advisors, or members of the so-called “Islamophobia Industry” – who actually have the nerve to call real moderate Muslims – like me – an Islamophobe.

The politically correct status quo, and ominous silence on the issue of global jihad, will only give us more terror and mayhem. We need change. Whether that means pausing immigration from terror-producing countries or “extreme vetting” of new immigrants, let’s not be afraid to have the conversation.

Let’s not be afraid to use our common sense. And let’s have the courage to call it what it is:

It’s a global jihad, stupid!

Categories: Islamic jihad, Islamic reformation, Islamic terror groups, Islamists, Media and Islamist terror, President Elect Trump, Trump and Islamists, Zuhdi Jasser
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Dr. Zuhdi Jasser: Fake Hate Crimes Against Muslims Are Actually Hurting Muslims

December 22, 2016

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser: Fake Hate Crimes Against Muslims Are Actually Hurting Muslims, Breitbart, John Hayward, December 22, 2016

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Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and author of A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith, looked at the Berlin terrorist attack from the perspective of an Islamic reformer on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily.

Noting that the “lone wolf” Berlin jihadi is turning out to be a “known wolf” who was under surveillance by German authorities, SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam asked Jasser why more is not being done to thwart Islamist terrorism.

“Because the current axis upon which we focus is violence,” Jasser replied. “Currently all they’re looking for is when these guys get turned on to commit an act of violence, and most of them have no ability to demonstrate that they’re going to be violent.”

“But they are Islamists, they are insurgents,” he argued. “They reject Western systems. They’re very anti-Semitic, anti-Christian. They divide the world into the land of Islam and the land of war. But that ideology is not monitored. All we’re monitoring is trying to figure out when they’re all of a sudden going to become violent, and most of them only demonstrate that a few hours or, at most, a few days, before they commit the act.”

“That’s why we need to start monitoring the public footprint of political Islam, and what is that? It’s the grievance groups that say Muslims are discriminated against and that the West is Islamophobic,” said Jasser. “It’s the anti-Semitism. It’s the misogyny, where women are treated as second-class citizens, and you see them talking about the right to wear the veil, rather than the right for women to have independence and bodily autonomy.”

“All these things that the governments of France and Germany and Britain and the U.S. would perceive as simply shades of theology need to be monitored and looked at in a public footprint perspective. Then you’d be able to say, ‘Oh, these are the guys that could become militarized or operationalized.’ Otherwise, there’s no way to predict it,” he warned. “They’re using such unconventional means now, since ISIS is telling them to use trucks and knives and things that would not be able to be monitored, that we have to be looking at the precursor ideologies – which is the hate for the West, the hate for the system that really is out there.”

“As you know, in the work that I do, I attract most of these barbaric Islamists. Look at the Paris attacks. The Paris attacks occurred in November, and in March, the same cell committed a second act. These guys hid out in Islamist insurgent communities. Not militant communities, but insurgent communities that protected them from the police. That tells you how big the problem is. And this guy now is probably similar. I guarantee you he’s not hiding out in churches or synagogues,” Jasser said.

Kassam spotlighted the recent media frenzy over a Muslim prankster allegedly getting kicked off an airplane, allegedly just because he spoke in Arabic, although he has been called out for staging a hate-crime hoax. Kassam contended there were real acts of discrimination against Muslims, but their number is much smaller than activists and hoaxers claim.

“Does this make it easier or harder for everyday Muslims?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you how much harder it makes it,” Jasser replied. “We, right away, on my Twitter feed and on Facebook, exposed quickly that this guy was a prankster, and obviously, he had been outed as a hoax he had committed in 2014, and was just trying to get attention as a YouTuber. People may say he’s not an Islamist, but this is the first stage, 101 or 201 of Islamism, which is to exploit a non-Muslim society, to exploit its vulnerability – which is the protection of minorities – and then mock it, separate Muslims out of that society into our own consciousness.”

“So what happens is, by mocking it and exploiting it, and then saying. ‘Oh, he was discriminated and kicked off,’ but actually lying about it, not only is it a ‘crying wolf’ phenomenon, where those who may be discriminated against are going to be ignored, but it soaks up the bandwidth of what we should be doing,” he explained.

“I’ve always said, if you want to melt away any fear of Muslims, the best way is for Americans to see us leading the battle against radicals, for Americans to see us basically recognizing that this is a Muslim problem that needs a Muslim solution,” he advised. “Then they’d say, ‘Oh, wait a minute: these are our allies; they’re not our enemies!’ But until we do that, these guys are actually radicalizing our community by telling everyone, ‘Well, make it up or whatever.’”

“Grievances are our biggest problem,” Jasser mused. “The elephant in the room, even from the discussion you and I just had on Berlin, is that our so-called allies – the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, these huge cauldrons of tens and hundreds of millions of Islamists that believe in the Islamic State – want to separate the world into good and evil, Islam being good and the rest being evil. Unless we address that primary theocracy – which is a mentality that secular society is evil, and if you live here, then, well, Americans hate you, et cetera – those types of mentalities can’t be defeated.”

“We have to abandon that and say, ‘You know what? We’re done with the grievance mills. They are corrupt.’ We need to no longer identify as a collective as Muslims, but identify as Americans first. That’s the main core harm that’s happening with these types of wackos,” he said.

Categories: Fake hate crimes, Islamic reformation, Islamist vetting, Islamists in America, Victimology, Zuhdi Jasser
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Top Muslim University Rejects Reform, Stands by ‘Terrorist Curriculum

December 1, 2016

Top Muslim University Rejects Reform, Stands by ‘Terrorist Curriculum, Front Page Magazine, Raymond Ibrahim, December 1, 2016

(Don’t they understand that Islam is the “religion of peace and tolerance?” Perhaps President Obama and Pope Francis, both prominent theologians, should point our their errors. — DM)

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Much of the curriculum of Al Azhar—the Islamic world’s most prestigious university, located in Cairo—is based on Islamic books written in the medieval era or earlier.  These books—histories, biographies of Muhammad, hadith (words and deeds of the latter), tafsirs (Koran exegeses), etc.—are often criticized by more reform-minded Muslims for being too backwards,, teaching things such as unrelenting jihad and hatred for non-Muslims.

During a recent televised interview, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Egypt’s highest authority on Islam and Grand Imam of Al Azhar, was asked about his university’s reliance on these books.  His responses left many reformers disappointed.

Tayeb insisted that all books used by Al Azhar are fine: “Our heritage books are innocent and being abused by those ignorant or indecent among us—and that’s all they can be: either ignorant or indecent.”

Settling the question in such black and white terms completely overlooks the fact that many of these books are indeed loaded with problematic teachings.  It is from these books—in this case, one of the histories of the prophet—that ISIS justifies burning people alive.

He continued his apologia: “Some say, do away with the other, ancillary books of Al Azhar.  Okay, but then how can I understand the Koran and Sunna?”  He explained that if Al Azhar got rid of the other books, every Muslim would be free to interpret the Koran any which way they want—claiming that that’s what ISIS does.  Tayeb even attacked using one’s brain, or reason, to understand the Koran, claiming again that that is what ISIS does.

This was another strange assertion: it is ISIS that most criticizes the free use of the brain, and insists on slavishly following the teachings of those ancillary books—which teach anything from eating the flesh of infidel captives to selling women and children on slave markets.

But the most telling portion of the interview came when Al Azhar’s Grand Imam said:

When they [reformers] say that Al Azhar must change the religious discourse, change the religious discourse, this too is, I mean, I don’t know—a new windmill that just appeared, this “change religious discourse”—what change religious discourse?  Al Azhar doesn’t change religious discourse—Al Azhar proclaims the true religious discourse, which we learned from our elders.

As all Egyptians know, the one man that made the phrase “change religious discourse” famous is President Sisi.  He too has publicly called on Al Azhar to reconsider its usage of ancillary books—most notably on New Year’s Day, 2015—in an effort to change the international image of Islam, from one of war and enmity, to something more tolerant.

Now the highest Muslim authority in Egypt has made clear that Al Azhar never had any intention of changing anything, that the “religious discourse” articulated in the Medieval era—one of hostility and violence for the other, in a word, jihad—is the only “discourse” Muslims can accept.

Anything else is apparently quixotic—“tilting at windmills.”

Categories: Al Azhar University, Islamic reformation, Islamic State, Islamic terror groups, Islamic texts
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Curse Trump or Denounce Political Islam: Which Will It Be?

November 30, 2016

Curse Trump or Denounce Political Islam: Which Will It Be?, Clarion Project, Tahir Gora, November 28, 2016

american-muslims-640_0American Muslims (Illustrative photo: © Reuters)

Sadly, Political Islamists in our major mosques and other Islamic establishments are maneuvering ordinary Muslims’ sentiments against Western societies. 

Until these mosques and organizations in the USA, Canada and elsewhere denounce violent jihad, sharia law, gender inequality, intolerance, the mixing of religion in politics and Political Islam itself, Muslims won’t be able to integrate in modern societies.

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Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. elections represents a hope for many progressive Muslims around the globe that adherents to Islamic extremist groups from Islamic State to the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami will get some resistance both to their abhorrent activities and their mindset.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Western liberal parties’ alliances have left Islamists forces unleashed on liberal and progressive Muslims.

We are unfortunately experiencing this kind of alliance in Canada, too, where some members of parliament, who are silent supporters of the Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami, are threatening and harassing journalists who oppose their Brotherhood ideologies. Sadly, our Liberal government doesn’t seem to consider these threats to our own core values.

Given this such situation, liberal and progressive Muslims have no choice but to align themselves with the conservative parties that at least denounce honor killings, sharia law, gender inequality and concealing one’s identity through the wearing of a niqab.

President-elect Trump used rough and tough language regarding Muslims during his election campaign. Many in the liberal media and Muslim organizations tried their best to create a backlash, but he survived and won the election in a landslide victory in the Electoral College.

Let’s examine what he actually said in his most infamous election campaign speech regarding banning Muslims. From a press release issued by Trump:

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.

According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing “25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad” and 51% of those polled, “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.”

Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.

Mr. Trump stated, “Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension.” 

Trump was simply presenting research findings by Pew Research and The Center for Security Policy.

As a Muslim-born person and a practicing journalist for over 30 years within a number of Muslim communities, I see more underlying hatred within the Muslim diaspora against each other’s sects as well as towards non-Muslims than described by Pew Research and The Center for Security Policy.

Liberals and my fellow Muslims! Let’s understand and accept the facts.

Being beneficiary to each other in terms of Muslim vote banks for liberals and “Muslims’ privileges” from liberals is not the deal at all.

Together, we are ruining the liberal pillars of democracy.

President-elect Trump raised a vital question during his election campaign: Where does this hatred comes from?

In my humble opinion, this hatred comes from the mindset of Political Islam as espoused by the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e-Islami and Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the like.

These groups are the ideological forefathers of Islamic State, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, etc.

The sooner we acknowledge this fact, the sooner we will be able to recognize the clandestine players of Political Islam active within our own political system and its policies.

Sadly, Political Islamists in our major mosques and other Islamic establishments are maneuvering ordinary Muslims’ sentiments against Western societies.

Until these mosques and organizations in the USA, Canada and elsewhere denounce violent jihad, sharia law, gender inequality, intolerance, the mixing of religion in politics and Political Islam itself, Muslims won’t be able to integrate in modern societies.

Rather than cursing President-elect Trump, the mosque establishment in the U.S. needs to sit with the new government and provide assurances about modernizing their institutions and communities.

Categories: Donald Trump and Islamists, Islamic reformation, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood
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Washington-Based Writer Mansour Al-Hadj: Fear Of Trump Presidency Is Overblown; It Is Impossible To Defeat Islamic Terrorism Without Reforming Islam

November 23, 2016

Washington-Based Writer Mansour Al-Hadj: Fear Of Trump Presidency Is Overblown; It Is Impossible To Defeat Islamic Terrorism Without Reforming Islam, MEMRI, November 23, 2016

On November 4, 2016, Mansour Al-Hadj, a liberal Saudi-born journalist living in the U.S.[1], published an article on the liberal Arabic-language website Aafaq.org about the following week’s U.S. presidential election, titled “Trumpophobia – And Why I’m Not Worried About a Trump Presidency.”

Al-Hadj begins his piece by stating that various elements had expressed, in the U.S. media and to him personally, fears of a Trump presidency, casting the candidate as dangerous not only for the U.S. but for global security; as having an uncontrollable desire to use nuclear weapons; as a new Hitler who would turn the U.S. into a Nazi Germany-style racist state; and as similar to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad – since he hinted he would not accept the results of the election unless he won – and to Saddam Hussein. Al-Hadj’s article is a response to these and other statements, which he calls symptoms of “Trumpophobia.”

Although he is a black Muslim Arab, and not a Trump supporter, Al-Hadj wrote, he believes that these fears are overblown, and unwarranted, because the U.S. is a true democracy and its president’s authority is limited, unlike in Arab and Islamic countries. Its system of checks and balances, he wrote, would prevent a President Trump from changing the core values of the country; not only have several American presidents been impeached and forced out one way or another, but Barack Obama, a black man, had been overwhelmingly voted in, twice, despite the claim that the U.S. is fundamentally racist.

Al-Hadj stated that while the “Trumpophobes” persist in accusing Trump of being an Islamophobe, their fear of him is misplaced. However, he stressed, the fear of radical Islam is absolutely warranted, and completely rational – not only on the part of non-Muslims, but for “every peace-loving Muslim” as well. Muslims, he wrote, fear Islam more than anyone else does, because it is they who are the main victims of Islamic terrorism, and it is they who are subject to oppression under Islamic regimes.

Pointing his finger at U.S. Democrats, and particularly the Obama administration, for attempting to obscure Islam’s actual connection to terrorism, in the face of the indisputable proof of such a connection provided by both history and today’s reality, he stressed that Islamic terrorism cannot be eliminated “without reforming Islam and purging it of everything that provides ideological justification for terrorist organizations and streams of political Islam.” He called on the Muslims to establish a global organization representing the entire spectrum of Muslims to deal with interpreting Islam, and for this organization to be the only world body authorized to speak for Muslims.[2]

Al-Hadj concluded by calling on Arabs and Muslims to learn from the democratic experience of the U.S., which, he wrote, entitles any citizen to run for president “in a peaceful democratic atmosphere, in which the only permissible weapon is words,” and enables anyone “to dream of reaching the highest positions with effort and determination, instead of relying on luck, tribal affiliation, wealth, religion, or sect,” as in the Arab and Muslim world.

30796Mansour Al-Hadj (Aafaq.org)

Following are excerpts from Mansour Al-Hadj’s article:[3]

I Don’t Fear A Trump Presidency Because He Cannot Abolish The Basic Values Of The American Nation

“Personally speaking – and despite the fact that I have black skin, come from a Muslim background, speak Arabic, and have an Arab name – I believe that the phenomenon of ‘Trumpophobia’ involves excessive fear, and even though I am not a Trump [supporter,] I do not fear for the fate of the U.S. if this man heads it. I am not worried because I believe the U.S. is a country run by institutions and the president’s authority there is not unlimited as it is in Arab and Islamic countries. [I believe that] Trump can absolutely not cancel the values, achievements and principles of justice, equality, and liberty that form the basis of this nation, whose pillars were established by the founding fathers who meticulously ensured the division and separation of powers. [They did this] so that the people can defend its achievements with the Constitution and government and non-governmental agencies, including the House and Senate, the Supreme Court, civil society organizations, and the judiciary, and while it faces challenges, the FBI still did not hesitate for one second to reopen the investigation into the emails of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton mere days before the election. Clinton could face incarceration if authorities decide that her violations require prosecution and if she is tried and convicted.

“For those who don’t know, the legislative branch in the U.S. can impeach a president, which has happened twice in its history: In 1998 the House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton after his sex scandal involving Monica Lewinsky. The president was tried before the Senate, which decided to acquit him, allowing Clinton to complete his term in office… President Nixon submitted his resignation after the Watergate scandal that involved spying on the Democratic Party before Congress could vote to impeach him.

“While it is apparent that many Americans are losing trust in their nation and are especially fearful of a takeover by white racists, this nation has proven that it deserves respect and esteem, since it has overcome all tests and fears, and succeeded in all challenges. While Arab channels reported on the racism that American blacks suffer from, and while my friends and acquaintances asked me if I was experiencing racial animosity due to my skin color, Americans – whites, blacks, Latinos, Arabs, Africans, and Asians – elected a black president, thus silencing the voices who rejected the possibility of a black man entering the White House and making Obama president. This would not have been possible if whites based their votes on his skin color rather than his positions.”

It Is Muslims Who Should Fear Islam More Than Anyone

“While the ‘Trumpophobes’ do not realize that their fears of his rise to power are unjustified, they insist on accusing him of unjustified fear of Islam, known as ‘Islamophobia.’ The truth is that fear of Islam is justified and rational, not only on the part of Trump and the Americans, but of every peace-loving Muslim who fears becoming a victim of an extremist Muslim martyrdom attacker who believes that murdering civilians in train stations, theaters, soccer stadiums, or dance halls will bring him closer to Allah, grant him a first class ticket to the eternal gardens of Paradise and the right to deflower dozens of heavenly beauties, and allow him to peer into the face of Allah and sit amongst the prophets, affirmers of truth, martyrs, and righteous men whom Allah favored.

“Trump, whether we like it or not, bases his slogans and ideas on his concern for his country and love of it, which is what his fans and supporters clearly see, [while] the anti-Trump media, instead of trying to analyze and criticize his ideas, try in vain to distort [his image] by focusing on his sexual transgressions, inflating statements he’s made about his views of Muslims and taking them out of context, and focusing on leaked statements and recordings of him discussing his attitude towards women… Ashraf Al-Ansari,[4] a member of the Republican Party and one of Trump’s supporters, was a guest on the panel of the show ‘Talking Points’ [on BBC Arabic], and said that Trump does not speak diplomatically like other politicians because he is a visionary, not a politician.

The Truth Must Be Acknowledged: Islamic Terrorism Is Rooted In Islam

“Trump believes that dealing with any problem starts with establishing an accurate definition of that problem, and in the case of Islamic organizations, it relates to the religion on which terrorists base [their actions] – a fact that Democrats in general, and the Obama administration in particular, try to mask by absolving the [Muslim] religion of any responsibility for [terrorism], and placing [responsibility] solely on one or more extremist groups, which they say have no connection to Islam, as Secretary of State John Kerry has said.

“The claim that terrorism is not related to Islam is a claim that historical facts disprove and current reality rejects and exposes as a distortion, since it is an undisputed fact that Islamic heritage is the ideological basis and the fertile ground granting terrorist groups justifications and motives to commit their heinous crimes. It is absurd to say that Islamic terrorism can be defeated without reforming Islam and purging it of everything that provides ideological justification for terrorist groups and streams of political Islam. I grew up in an Islamic environment that believes religion is its most valuable asset, and that the entire world is conspiring to eliminate it, and therefore that the only way to deal with this Western ‘plot’ against Islam is to adhere to the religion and spread it throughout the world, and revive the ancient glory of the [Muslims] ummah by reoccupying Andalusia, conquering Rome, and smashing the cross.

“While we [Muslims] have blackened the pages of our textbooks with the horrors carried out by European imperialism in Asia and Africa, we continue to call our Muslim ancestors’ occupation of other countries ‘Islamic victories.’ I will never forget the shocked faces of attendants at a lecture I gave at a Mosque in Blacksburg [Virginia] on the topic of ‘The Ills of the Islamic World,’ [when I spoke of] the magnitude of the crime committed by [Ottoman Sultan] Mehmed [II] who, after conquering Constantinople, turned the [Byzantine] Hagia Sophia church into a mosque. One attendee said that this was fine so long as most Muslims at the time agreed to turn the church into a mosque. Another attendee recited a hadith attributed to the Prophet [Muhammad], in which he praised the conqueror of Constantinople and said: ‘The best conqueror is he who conquers it [Constantinople], and the best leader is he who leads it.’ Thus, [this man] eliminated any possibility of a rational interpretation of Islam, based on the values of justice, liberty, and equality – [while] many people who defend Islam repeatedly claim that it ensures [these values], and engrains [them] diligently and applies them equally [to everyone], not just to Muslims but to members of other faiths as well.

“The debates that follow any terrorist attack around the world have become a kind of boring TV drama, and everyone knows how it will end before it even begins. In every debate, one side insists that the source of terrorism is ideology rooted in the Islamic heritage, which divides the world between Dar Al-Islam [the Abode of Islam] and Dar Al-Kufr [the Abode of Unbelief], sees Muslims as the ‘loftiest’ creations, and insists that the enemies wish to snuff out the light of Allah… This side insists that when Muhammad and his Companions [carried out] Allah’s verdict against the Jews of the Banu Qurayza [tribe] – as stated in a hadith: ‘Kill their men, capture their women and children, and commandeer their property’ – they committed crimes no different from the crimes committed by ISIS against the Yazidi people. [This side also] insists that the ‘Reformer Imam’ Muhammad bin ‘Abd Al-Wahhab [the founder of Wahhabism] declared jihad against the residents of the Arabian Peninsula because they had drifted away from the religion and violated the tenets of monotheism introduced by the Prophet Muhammad. It also insists that current curricula in [Mecca], the city that Muslims face at least five times a day [when praying], teach students that Shi’ites and Sufis are infidels, and that a person who does not pray must be called upon to repent three times, and later [if he does not repent] he must be killed, and [his body] must not be washed nor wrapped in shrouds nor buried in a Muslim cemetery.  They also teach them that the Jews are the eternal enemies of Muslims and that they, the Muslims, will fight them in the end times, and even the trees and the rocks will stand with [the Muslims] to the point that if a Jew hides behind them, they will direct [the Muslims] to him and say: ‘Oh, Muslim, oh servant of Allah – there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’

“As for the side that defends [Islam], it insists that jihadi groups have nothing to do with Islam and that the Koran forbids unlawful killing and ensures freedom of religion, as is stated in Koran 109:6: ‘For you is your religion, and for me is my religion,’ or Koran 5:32: ‘whoever kills a soul… it is as if he had slain mankind entirely,’[5] and argues that Iblis [Satan] refusing to prostrate before Adam is the best example of freedom of expression and disagreement.[6] Thus, the episodes [in defense and condemnation of Islam] end, leaving the viewer without much more [information] than he had prior to watching and without challenging the beliefs of either those who believe that Islam has no relation to terrorism or those who believe that it is the source of terrorism.

“As stated above, Muslims, who suffer from terrorism and from the oppression of regimes that purport to be Allah’s representatives on earth in order to force His laws on people, fear Islam more than anyone else. In other words, they are the most afflicted by ‘Islamophobia’ … And why wouldn’t they fear Islam when thousands of them became victims of terrorist attacks using explosive vests and car bombs that do not distinguish between a man and a woman or between children and elderly? Why wouldn’t they be afraid when hundreds of them are slaughtered like sheep after being accused of being apostates, Western spies and collaborators, merely for objecting to a backwards group ruling them in the name of the religion?

“I do not exaggerate when I say that any young woman forced to wear a hijab against her will has the right to become afflicted with the disease of ‘Islamophobia,’ and any child has the right to fear Islam if his parents forced him to pray and frightened him using tales of ‘the Bald Serpent’[7] and eternal torment in hell if he neglects his prayers. All those who expressed their opinion on Islam and paid the price for it, such as intellectual Farag Foda[8] and Mahmoud Mohammed Taha[9]… or anyone who was or still is at risk, such as Salman Rushdie, Islam Al-Buhairi,[10] Hamza Kashgari,[11] Turki Al-Hamad,[12] Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd,[13] Fatma Naout,[14] Maajid Nawaz,[15] and many others, have the right to be Islamophobic, since their lives are in the balance. As I tweeted yesterday [November 3], I believe that it is the right of any Shi’ite, Sufi, or Ahmadi, and of any liberal or [Muslim] who does not pray or fast or don a long [traditional] robe or who likes listening to music – [it is the right of any one of them] accused of apostasy and lawlessness to be afflicted with Islamophobia.

“I will never forget the nightmares that plagued me when I stopped praying over 10 years ago, and the fear that gripped me when I awakened terrified and covered in sweat in the middle of the night fearing the Bald Serpent and eternal hellfire.”

Muslims Must Establish A Global Organization To Deal With Interpreting Islam

“In my opinion, the solution… lies in Muslims establishing a global Islamic organization to which all Muslims from all sects, ideologies, and cultures, will send representatives and empower them to deal with anything related to interpreting Islamic heritage, explaining it, and establishing it, so that this [body] will be the only one officially qualified to speak for Muslims. [Establishing] such an organization is the only way Muslims can hope to take back their religion from the hands of the regimes and the groups that use it for their personal interests and use clerics to suppress any voice that proposes positions not in line with their agendas and policies. For more on this, see my article ‘Our Change to Restore Our Islam, The Religion of Peace.’[16]

“In conclusion, I reiterate that I understand the fear that many people have regarding Trump ascending to power, but I believe that the U.S. is not Syria or Iraq, or Germany before the rise of Hitler. [I believe] that instead of being fearful we should cherish the idea that Trump reaching this position – even though many oppose him and accuse him of being insane – proves the greatness of the U.S. and the beauty of its democratic experience. It allows anyone to run for or even become president – whether Trump, or Marco Rubio with his Latino roots, or Ben Carson the African-American, or a woman like Hillary Clinton, or a man with Arab roots like Ralph Nader, or a Jew like Bernie Sanders, or a Mormon like Mitt Romney, or a Catholic like late President John F. Kennedy. This, in a peaceful democratic atmosphere, in which the only permissible weapon is words. Obama’s term will end in a few weeks, and he will return to being a regular citizen who served his country and then passed [the baton] to another person to carry on this great empire’s role in leading the world.

“A quick comparison to our miserable Arab and Islamic world shows that Arabs and Muslims have a lot to learn from this unique experience in human history, rather than fragmenting countries, as happened in Sudan due to [President Omar] Al-Bashir and his Islamic men clinging to the altar and refusing to incorporate others in the regime since 1989 – a period during which the U.S. has seen four presidents, with a fifth on the way. We have a lot to learn from the U.S., which grants us free lessons… in constructing states and societies, peaceful transition of power, the conception of citizenship, work ethic, volunteering and philanthropy, the importance of freedom of expression and equality among all societal groups, and in the right of everyone to dream of reaching the highest positions with effort and determination, instead of relying on luck, tribal affiliation, wealth, religion, or sect [as happens in the Arab and Muslims world].

“As for the phenomenon of Islamophobia, which the CAIR organization [tries to cure] by handing out pills to those it thinks are afflicted with it, [17] [I say that] this is a serious problem, and dealing with it requires more than just an intense effort to defend Islam by calling it a religion of peace and offering pills to [Islamophobes]. [People fear Islam because they feel] they are threatened at any given moment by terrorism merely for being ‘infidels,’ ‘polytheists,’  ‘apostates’ or Shi’ites… or for deviating from tradition in accordance with Koranic verses and the traditions of the Prophet.”

Endnotes:

[1] Mansour Al-Hadj is Director of the MEMRI Reform Project. His previous articles include: MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6118, Liberal Writer Mansour Al-Hadj Proposes Founding An Independent Islamic Organization To Address Root Causes Of Violent Extremism, Promote Peaceful Aspects Of Islam, July 30, 2015; Special Dispatch; Special Dispatch No. 3699, Sooner or Later, the Revolution Will Reach Saudi Arabia, March 24, 2011; Special Dispatch No. 2663, In My Youth, I Was Taught to Love Death, December 1, 2009.

[2] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No.6118, “Liberal Writer Mansour Al-Hadj Proposes Founding An Independent Islamic Organization To Address Root Causes Of Violent Extremism, Promote Peaceful Aspects Of Islam,” June 30, 2015.

[3] Aafaq.org, November 4, 2016.

[4] An Egyptian businessman who lives in the U.S. and goes by the name Ashley Ansara.

[5] The full sentence in the verse is: ‘whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely.’

[6] Koran 34:2 states: “And [mention] when We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate before Adam’; so they prostrated, except for Iblis. He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers.”

[7] According to an unreliable hadith, the Bald Serpent will penetrate the graves of those who neglected prayer and bite them day and night. Alifta.net, the Saudi institution for research and fatwas, fatwa #8689.

[8] A secular Egyptian author and intellectual who supported the separation of religion and state and whose books caused widespread controversy. He was assassinated in 1992 by Al-Gama’a Al-Islamiyya.

[9] Sudanese philosopher executed on charges of apostasy in 1985.

[10] A young Egyptian intellectual and researcher and head of the Al-Yawm Al-Sabi’ daily’s Center for Islamic Studies. Al-Buhairi hosted a show on the Al-Kahira wal-Nas satellite channel in which he spoke out boldly against radical Islamic discourse and even criticized Al-Azhar and its head, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb. As a result the show was suspended and he was prosecuted for “offending religions.” In late May, 2015 he was convicted  and sentenced to five years in prison.

[11] A Saudi writer and poet who was arrested in 2012 for posting two tweets that “insulted the Prophet” and was incarcerated for two years without trial.

[12] A Saudi writer who was arrested in 2012 for tweeting that Islam needs to be reformed.

[13] An Egyptian researcher of Islam whose books sparked controversy in the 1990s by calling the Koran a cultural product. After in 1995 a sharia court convicted him of apostasy and forced to divorce his wife, the two fled to the Netherlands where he lived and worked as a university lecturer.

[14] An Egyptian writer who, in January 2016,  was found guilty of insulting Islam in a Facebook post that spoke out against the ritual of slaughter sheep on Eid al-Adha. She was sentenced to a fine and three years in prison.

[15] A British activist, author and journalist of Pakistani origin. In his youth he was a member of the Islamist movement Hizbullah ut-Tahrir, but later in life he renounced Islamism and became an activist against it.

[16] Published in Aafaq.com, July 13, 2015.

[17] This is a reference to a video circulated by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) by as part of its anti-Islamophobia campaign. The video advises Islamophobes to take a pill, Islamophobin, to treat their disease. See youtube.com/watch?v=_s57kPS_gjM.

Categories: Islam, Islam - the religion of war, Islam and conquest, Islamic dissidents, Islamic reformation, Islamic terrorism, Trump and Islam
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Ottawa Muslim Outreach Includes Islamists Only

November 21, 2016

Ottawa Muslim Outreach Includes Islamists Only, Investigative Project on Terrorism, November 21, 2016

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“There is a serious problem of a global jihadist insurgency and we have to name radical Islam as the main culprit. They are not going to get this conversation going with NCCM types because they are on the defensive,” he said. “If these institutions are going to reach out to the likes of NCCM (which obviously they are free to do) they should also have progressive and reform minded Muslims at the table so they get a balanced perspective.”

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After including an official from the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Canadian branch in an outreach program last April, the chief of the Durham Regional Police Service conveyed regret and pledged to be more careful. According to Sohail Raza, director of the anti-Islamist group Muslims Facing Tomorrow, the chief acknowledged more due diligence was necessary “so that inappropriate interests would not be inadvertently legitimized.”

That message has not reached Ottawa, where a city/community partnership called Crime Prevention Ottawa (CPO) appears intent on repeating Durham’s error.

A program set for this Friday, “Addressing Hate Crimes: Creating A Safe City for All,” features the same CAIR official who prompted Durham’s introspection. Amira Elghawaby is a spokeswoman for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, which changed its name from CAIR-Canada in 2013, openly admitting it was a cosmetic change: “We remain the same organization,” a news release said.

The Ottawa Police Service is among the CPO’s member organizations.

In the United States, FBI policy since 2008 has prohibited this kind of outreach with CAIR because of evidence its agents uncovered linking CAIR to a Muslim Brotherhood-created Hamas support network in the United States. “[U]ntil we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner,” then-Assistant FBI Assistant Director Richard Powers wrote.

That policy remains in effect. Its wisdom was reinforced by a federal judge in Dallas, who found that the “government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR” to Hamas. CAIR has had only one leader since its 1994 creation, executive director Nihad Awad.

In a 2003 affidavit, CAIR-Canada’s chairman acknowledged that the U.S. CAIR “has direct control” over the Canadian branch.

None of those documented connections – between CAIR and a Hamas support network, and between CAIR and the NCCM – has proven sufficient to get the Ottawa Police Service’s attention. In 2005 testimony before a Senate committee, then-Chief Vince Bevin said CAIR conducted training sessions “about cultural issues” for his officers multiple times a year.

It is unclear whether those sessions ever stopped.

The problem with Friday’s CPO program, and with the Ottawa police attitude in general, Raza told the Investigative Project on Terrorism in an email, is that participants will get a skewed perspective.

Raza is a member of several Muslim organizations that do not share CAIR’s Islamist ideology. Among them, Muslims Facing Tomorrow advocates for “the views of Muslims who believe Islam is open to reform and to new ideas in the advancement of human knowledge, and who oppose extremism in all forms in the name of Islam or any other faith-tradition.” He also is part of the Muslim Reform Movement, which includes Canadians and Americans who fight for “a respectful, merciful and inclusive interpretation of Islam” and reject “interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam.”

In contrast, CAIR and the NCCM do not address reform and Islamism in any direct fashion, so if the only Muslims consulted by government agencies are from such groups, Raza said, the message is limited.

“We find their activities at best shady and mis-leading for the Muslim population of Canada,” he said.

As is the case in the United States, Jews are targeted more often by hate crimes – most recently, three incidents in one week. But in Ottawa, a variety of religious institutions have been defaced by graffiti, including swastikas and racist slurs since the hate crimes program was announced. That includes the city’s largest mosque, and a church whose pastor is among Friday’s panelists.

Thus far, the CPO and the Ottawa police have exhibited little interest in opening their outreach to hear more varied opinions, Raza said.

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Social media sites operated by the Ottawa Police’s Diversity Unit exemplify this point. It re-posts Twitter comments by the NCCM and Elghawaby, including a Nov. 10 link to an article about the murder of three Muslims in North Carolina that is cast as an act of Islamophobia. Local police say they have found no evidence to substantiate that claim.

In October, the diversity unit promoted a partisan political ad for Hillary Clinton featuring Khizr Khan, whose son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died protecting his comrades from a 2004 car bombing in Iraq. It’s one thing to promote the Khan family’s story, and examples are easily found, but the Ottawa police chose to take sides in the election cycle of its neighboring country.

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The OPS has a three-person staff, one of whom touts his work with the NCCM in his biography. Given that, and the NCCM’s desire to maintain a monopoly on the public discourse about Muslims in Canada, it is clear that dissenting voices like Raza’s would have difficulty gaining traction.

That, Raza argued, is not in the public’s interest. He is not trying to silence anyone else. But in programs which value diversity, he believes diversity of opinion is lacking.

“There is a serious problem of a global jihadist insurgency and we have to name radical Islam as the main culprit. They are not going to get this conversation going with NCCM types because they are on the defensive,” he said. “If these institutions are going to reach out to the likes of NCCM (which obviously they are free to do) they should also have progressive and reform minded Muslims at the table so they get a balanced perspective.”

Categories: CAIR, Canada, Diversity, Islamic reformation, Islamists in Canada, Islamophobia
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Dr. Jasser discusses the misreporting of a immigrant registry on Varney & Co 11.17.2016

November 18, 2016

Dr. Jasser discusses the misreporting of a immigrant registry on Varney & Co 11.17.2016, Fox News and AIFD via YouTube, November 17, 2016

Categories: "Muslim Registry", Islam and terrorism, Islamic integration, Islamic reformation, Islamist vetting, Islamists in America, Media and Islam, Zuhdi Jasser
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Charlie Hebdo jihad massacre survivor: “We need to stop saying Islam is a religion of peace”

October 29, 2016

Charlie Hebdo jihad massacre survivor: “We need to stop saying Islam is a religion of peace”, Jihad Watch,  , October 29, 2016

As a secular Muslim, Zineb El Rhazoui is allowed to say in the mainstream what others are excoriated as “anti-Muslim extremists” for saying. The truth is true no matter who says it, but in today’s culture of identity politics, it’s truer when coming from racially and culturally approved voices.

“Zineb el Rhazoui, Charlie Hebdo survivor, discusses why the world needs to ‘Destroy Islamic Fascism,’” by Emma-Kate Symons, New York Times (of all places), October 18, 2016:

She leads a clandestine existence, on the move and under 24-hour guard as France’s most protected woman. Yet Zineb El Rhazoui, the Charlie Hebdo journalist who happened to be in Casablanca on January 7 last year, the day terrorists “avenging the Prophet” massacred nine people at the satirical magazine in Paris, believes she has a duty to defy Islamists desperate to silence her.

Shaken but undeterred by the fatwas and relentless, precise death threats issued via social media to “kill the bitch” since she helped produce the publication’s first survivors’ issue following the attack — and spoke about it in Arabic for the Arab press — the Moroccan-French writer refuses to assume an anonymous identity. Fleeing Paris or abandoning her human rights activism, and her unforgiving critiques of the religion she grew up with, are also out of the question.

“I don’t have the right to renounce my struggle, or to give up my freedom,” says the reporter and sociologist of religion in an interview with Women in the World, during a recent trip to New York, as part of French president Francois Hollande’s delegation when he received the Appeal of Conscience Foundation’s World Statesman Award for 2016. “If the French state protects me it is not little individual me: What is being protected is my freedom to be irreverent, and freedom of expression, so I should exercise this even more because I enjoy this protection.”

“It’s totally crazy. I have done nothing against the law and have nothing to hide, yet I live with security while those who threaten us are free,” El Rhazoui declares with an air of shock and anger that underscores the arbitrariness and brutality visited on a 34-year-old woman condemned to living on the run and mostly in the shadows. “And if you call them by their names you are Islamophobic and racist. I am racist? I can teach them a few things about Arab culture. I can show them how to discover its richness and the diversity of their culture. I believe this culture deserves universality because you can be Arab, Muslim and a free thinker.”…

Detruire Le Fascisme Islamique (Destroy Islamic Fascism), being released in France this week, takes the battle of ideas directly to the ideologically-driven zealots who inspired the assassins of her dear friend Charb (Stephane Charbonnier), late editor of Charlie Hebdo who preferred “to die standing than to live on my knees.”

Obtained exclusively by Women in the World, the book dedicated to “Muslim atheists” is an unapologetic strike against the strict application of Islam by imitating the first Salafists or “pious ancestors.” The Prophet Mohammed and his companions, whose violent exploits are contained in “bellicose texts from a barbaric 7th-century Bedouin tribal context,” exhibited codes of behavior El Rhazoui insists have no place in the modern world and can be directly connected to terrorism. “The most abject crimes of Islamic State are but a 21st-century remake of what the first Muslims accomplished under the guidance of the Prophet,” she writes, noting that sexual and domestic slavery, the massacre of non-Muslims (notably Jews), pedophilia, pillage, polygamy and summary executions were all adopted from pre-Islamic societies. The book is also the journalist’s way of carrying on the legacy of her dead comrades, who reveled in their right to mock established religion and fanatics everywhere — with Islam no exception to their traditional French anti-clerical ridicule — through satire and caricature.

Formerly the magazine’s religion writer, El Rhazoui is in the throes of joining the exodus of staff breaking from the magazine under its new management. Flush with cash from international donations, the fundamentally altered publication, she disappointedly explained, “will probably never again draw the Prophet” out of fear of more reprisals.

“[And] those who think that only a handful of madmen are capable of killing for a cartoon of Mohammed forget that everywhere that Islam reigns as the religion of the state, caricatures and cartoons in the press are repressed”.

El Rhazoui’s book, dedicated to “Muslim atheists,” is an unapologetic strike against the strict application of Islam.

Religion of peace and love?

“We need to admit that Islamism today is applied Islam,” El Rhazoui — who describes herself as an “atheist of Muslim culture” –writes, responding to politicians, religious figures, Islamophobia opponents and media commentators who claim after every jihadist attack that “real Islam” has nothing to do with such terror.

“When we apply Islam to the letter it gives Islamism, and when we apply Islamism to the letter it gives terrorism. So we need to stop saying Islam is a religion of peace and love. What is a moderate Islamist? An Islamist who doesn’t kill?”

The essay-length book is in the grand French polemical tradition of Emile Zola whose J’accuse denounced the anti-Semitism of the French state and establishment during the Dreyfus Affair, on the eve of the 20th century. El Rhazoui, who holds Moroccan and French citizenship, takes aim at a very 21st-century phenomenon: what she abhors as the “intellectual fraud” of Islamophobia, which pretends to be about anti-racism but in her reckoning is used as a weapon to silence all critics of Islam and the ideas behind it as automatically hostile towards all Muslims. Epitomized by the French Collective Against Islamophobia (CCIF), this deliberate strategy vilifies as Islamophobic voices such as El Rhazoui’s who dare question the religion the CCIF and fellow travelers define only through the prism of their own fundamentalism.

The notion of Islamophobia doesn’t even exist in Muslim countries, the author points out, because outside the West, criticism of the religion or Mohammed is officially “categorized as blasphemy.”

“Unable to pass blasphemy laws in Europe, groups like the CCIF employ a dangerous “semantic confusion,” she said. On the CCIF site it is written “Islamophobia is not an opinion: it is an offense.”

“This is very dangerous because it has even entered the dictionary as hostility towards Islam and Muslims. Yet criticism of an idea, of Islam or of a religion cannot be characterized as an offense or a crime. I was born and lived under the Islam of Morocco and live in France and I have the right criticize religion and this dictatorship of Islamophobia that says I have no right to criticize! If we criticize Christianity it doesn’t mean we are Christianophobes or racist towards the ‘Christian race.’”

The widespread pressure to self-censor is severe, El Rhazoui says.

“You can no longer speak about Islam without saying it’s a religion of peace and love. But when you open any book in Islam what do you find? Violence, blood, oppression of women and hate for other religions.

“Of course you can find this in other religions, however we are talking about something written many centuries ago during a barbaric time for humanity. As long as we don’t talk about this, and keep repeating that Islam is a religion of peace and love, many people will continue to believe the Koran is a constitution, and that rather than being a book written 15 centuries ago reflecting a particular context, it is a legal constitution to apply today.”

Zineb El Rhazoui feels she is carrying on the legacy of her dead Charlie Hebdo comrades.

After completing high school in Morocco, El Rhazoui studied languages and the sociology of religion, obtaining a Master’s degree from Paris’s prestigious social science graduate school EHESS. In her twenties she returned to the country of her birth to work as a journalist at Le Journal Hebdomadaire, becoming a campaigner for secular liberties, such as the right to break the fast and even snack in public during the month of Ramadan. This act of non-violent resistance earned her her first fatwa, ahead of her involvement in the movement supporting the Arab Spring in 2011. The wave of personal attacks and threats that came after her collective protest against Ramadan rules prompted her to leave Morocco again for France where she began to report for Charlie Hebdo, bringing her memories of having “vomited up compulsory religious classes” in a country where “being Muslim is not a choice” unless you’re Jewish or Christian.

Extreme personality cult

So-called Islamic fascism, seen in its most extreme form in groups like ISIS, shares characteristics in common with all extreme-right fascisms, El Rhazoui argues, because it combines an intense personality cult around Mohammed as the incarnation of the nation. It also employs widespread systems of suspicion and denunciation, exemplified by “sartorial branding” — for example Burkinis or niqabs — that allow for immediate identification and targeting of non-adherents. There are also familiar fascist tropes of repressive sexism against women and homosexuals, armed militias, adoption of a flag, and a strategy that confers the benign status of ‘Muslim women’ to heavily veiled adherents in the West, and characterizes them, disingenuously, as victimized objects of exclusion.

“The literary corpus of Islam is so stuffed with damning accounts it would be difficult to cleanse it without altering the fundamentals of dogma,” El Rhazoui writes.

“If the terrorists of Daesh [ISIS] behead those they judge to be miscreants, that is because they draw on their legislation in the texts like the 8th surah of the Koran, al-Anfal, verse 12: “Remember what Your Lord revealed to the angels : I am with you, so support those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. You can strike them above the neck and strike off every fingertip”.

‘You can be Arab, Muslim and a free thinker’

Drawing on her personal experience and scholarly knowledge of Islam’s core Arabic texts, the politics of the post-Arab Spring Middle East, and the wellspring of reformism and dissidence embraced within the multi-faceted Islamic civilization, El Rhazoui’s book is an impassioned response to all the extremists who want to see her and her fellow opponents of politico-religious repression dead.

The greatest racism is, El Rhazoui argues, the racism of the Islamist ideology that forbids marriage with people who are not Muslims, and that rejects women. “That is the definition of racism and fascism and we must say it,” the writer adds.

“Today Islam in the world only has a role as a civilization. A civilization is defined by many things and not uniquely by religion — but also by its geographical heritage, its artistic, culinary and sartorial traditions and by literature.

“The Muslim religion has its place in the modern world if it submits itself fully to the laws that rule humanity today: universal principles of equality between men and women, sexual and individual freedom, and equality for all, no matter your creed or religion. Until Islam has admitted this and accepted that the freedom of men and women is superior to it, Islam will not be acceptable.”

‘Islamophobia whiners’

Destroy Islamic Fascism aims to puncture the hypocrisy and faux-intellectual “fakery” (the author’s word) of “Islamophobia whiners” and other “collaborationists” from across the political spectrum — particularly the hard left, “Crypto-Islamist” anti-racists on a quest for a new “Muslim proletariat,” certain feminists, cultural relativists and so-called moderate Imams. All these “willing accomplices” do is distort the noble cause of fighting racism to give undeserved legitimacy to an ideology that at its most extreme results in the horrors of Islamic State, the author says, but also makes the lives of millions of Muslims living in Islamic countries downright miserable.

“What do these Islamophobia whiners say to the millions of individuals who live in Islamic theocracies and dream of liberty?” El Rhazoui concludes in her book. “Who speaks about the nightmare of a woman who decides to cross the streets of Algiers, Casablanca or Cairo in a skirt?… those who would like to drink a glass of alcohol in countries where you have to flout the law to do it? … about homosexuals, pariahs of Muslim societies, who often only have the choice of death, prison or exile? Who speaks about this youth born Muslim but dreaming of a normal life, these teens attacked for having had a romance?”

The summer furore over Burkini bans in France agitated the author who deplored the cynical rush of Islamists and their Western sympathizers in the media, academia and politics to celebrate the controversial swimsuit as a form of “liberation” and simultaneously a banal piece of cloth preferred by “Muslim women,” even though most never wear it.

“Western media, in an intolerable readiness to oblige, have defended the Burkini as a ‘freedom’ and a legitimate cultural expression of a part of humanity,” she said, but pointed out that “in Muslim countries the beaches are not filling up with Burkinis, but they are emptying themselves of women. From one year to another, they are disappearing from the public space, because the veil has never been anything except an extension of the walls of their harem to the exterior.”

As for mainstream or moderate Muslim clerics, El Rhazoui tells Women in the World that during the Burkini debate in France not one Imam stood up and said “Hey, wait a minute, you can be Muslim and wear a [regular] bathing suit.”

History will judge those who have monopolized the debate, given a platform to Islamist fundamentalism and even given it a guarantee of acceptability, the author of Destroy Islamic Fascism told Women in the World. “This is just betrayal and it is collaboration with one of the worst forms of fascism that exists today,” she said.

According to the writer, who is repeatedly accused of bigotry, the “Islamophobia ruse” is driven by “great ignorance” and a lack of understanding of the culture of Islam and what Islam with a big ‘I’ is — “they ignore its complexity and that there have always been opposition currents and progressive and liberal pushes from within.”

“The accomplices don’t recognize the struggles playing out today in Arab countries will inevitably be won by the democrats and free people. No fascism or totalitarianism has ever been able to win in the long haul of history. The people who are the allies and collaborators of this totalitarianism today will be judged by history and seen as accomplices to this criminal ideology to which they have given a veneer of respectability.”

For El Rhazoui the true racism emerges from a condescending approach to Islamic culture that decrees an Islamic woman in a burqa is congenitally not free and that her “race” is the burqa. “We present the fundamentalists as being a race and this only shows the contempt we have for this culture. It is absolutely intolerable,” she says.

Survivor syndrome

Women in the World asked El Rhazoui how she manages to keep up her spirits, and continue her struggle for the freedom to dissent after everything that has happened since January 2015.

“It is a question people often ask me,” she said with a perceptible tremor in her voice. “But when you live through these moments in which you are confronted by a reality as cruel and simple as life and death, you realize can put many things in perspective.

“Straight after the attacks, like many of my colleagues I felt guilty for having stayed alive. I said to myself ‘Those who are dead are dead for all our work, and some are dead when it wasn’t even their work. But it was my work because I am a journalist and I am still here.’ And then you understand this is all part of survivor syndrome, which is normal when you survive a massacre like that.

“As you start to heal you say, ‘I am lucky to be alive and if I am still here perhaps that is because I still have something to do.’ I understood long before the attack on Charlie, when I engaged in a struggle for individual liberties and democracy in Morocco, that when you fight against totalitarianism, whether it is political or religious, you should never give your enemies the pleasure of stopping living. We fight so that everyone can have a free and happy life and we must continue to live this same life.

Still a day doesn’t go past when she doesn’t think of her old colleague Charb and their many heated discussions.

“He was someone who was extremely lucid and for whom the concepts were clear. He was a true humanist who didn’t fear being accused of being racist because for him it was absurd.”

El Rhazoui’s deconstruction of Islam is also a defense of Muslims, she reasoned, as “salvation will come when we stop aligning the identity of an entire community with the most fundamentalist people who pretend to represent it.”

“We have to extend a hand to all these Muslims who are free people, who have questioned their heritage, and who are fighters for liberty, battling for the same values as us but in a context controlled by Islamists,” she says….

 

Categories: Charlie Hedbo, Islam - the religion of war, Islamic reformation, Islamists, Islamophobia
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The unseen war: The Islamist assault on dissidents

October 21, 2016

The unseen war: The Islamist assault on dissidents, Asia Times, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, October 20, 2016

Since September 2001, terrorism has dominated the headlines. But there is a much less discussed form of terrorism — assault on dissidents in which the very systems meant to protect them fail and hand them over to their killers.

The attack on dissidents is robbing families of their loved ones, instilling fear in communities, and obstructing many pathways toward deep reform within the House of Islam. It is long overdue for security forces and governments to modify their policies and stand unwaveringly by the universal human right of free speech.

Last month, Jordanian writer and political activist Nahed Hattar was murdered in cold blood outside a local court for “insulting Islam” by sharing a satirical cartoon on his Facebook page.

2016-09-28t150210z_88909722_s1beudxnneab_rtrmadp_3_jordan-writer-shooting-580x387Relatives and activists cry during the funeral of Jordanian writer Nahed Hattar, who was shot dead, in the town of Al-Fuheis near Amman, Jordan. Photo: REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

Hattar was murdered by a “known extremist” cleric as he was facing trial by his own government which opposed his freedom expression. These autocratic and quasi-theocratic governments often light the fuses of radicalism which at times they explode themselves and other times hand over blindly to rogue assassins who they empower.

In Bangladesh, bloggers who question theocracy are slaughtered in broad daylight – this year alone, at least eight dissident bloggers have been murdered. In Pakistan, dissidents and even lawmakers who break rank with the religious establishment are murdered with impunity – often with their own bodyguards tipping off and aiding the killers. When they are not killed, Muslim reformers, dissidents and freethinkers are threatened, stalked and made to live in fear. With the continued advance of Islamic State and those who are inspired by them, the problem is growing.

While some of these cases make headlines, many go unnoticed by the broader public. Worst of all, those who tacitly endorse such crimes are more prevalent than ever. Even in the United States, non-violent Islamists enthusiastically harass reformists on social media and at public events, spotlighting them with slanderous comments, inciting others to hate them, and leaking false personal information about them online.­­

You’d think that the broader society would completely marginalize such malignant actors. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong in many cases.

Nonviolent Islamists who knowingly cause dissidents to be targeted with harassment and threats aren’t just allowed to continue their malicious activities – they are positioned as representatives of the Muslim community in the media and even in the halls of political power, from Washington to London and even at the United Nations. It is when these individuals are granted legitimacy through political and social clout that they become even more dangerous.

For example, in the United States, Islamist groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose leadership has targeted members of the Muslim Reform Movement (including myself) as well as women’s rights and LGBT activists, have trained law enforcement on how to treat Muslims – when they themselves incite hate campaigns against minorities within the Muslim community.

At the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) claims to represent all of the world’s Muslims and even purporting to fight anti-Muslim bigotry. However, the OIC’s ideology and resulting actions – which include seeking to criminalize any speech or art they deem “offensive” to their interpretation of Islam – are exactly what inspire radicals to slit the throats of dissidents. Their governments and attendant systems are the malignant cauldrons that brew the ideas, culture, legalisms, and ideologues that suffocate reform.

The OIC, true to its name, has one purpose and that is to maintain control of the “House of Islam” by Islamists and suppress the diverse voices of anti-Islamist, pro-liberty reformers. Each Islamist regime does both domestically and globally. Domestically, they do so either directly or passive-aggressively by giving militants impunity over the murder of reformers, and globally they do so by making the free world in the West believe that Islamism and its attendant sharia states is the only possible form of Islam.

How can this be stopped? Through the education of the Muslim community as to the nefarious aims of Islamist regimes and their sympathizers; and by holding politicians, the media and national security establishments worldwide accountable for their empowerment of the worst within the Muslim community. While we must pay urgent heed to stopping violent extremism, that is only a tactic among many tried by Islamist movements. We must more importantly engage boldly and take sides in the war of ideas within the “House of Islam.” We must disarm non-violent Islamists as the theocrats they are in their war against dissidents, minorities and truth-sayers.

Categories: CAIR, Islamic dissidents, Islamic reformation, Islamist "democracy", Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, OIC, Zuhdi Jasser
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UK Cleric and High School Rector: “No Son of a Bastard Will Remain Alive After Swearing at My Prophet”

October 19, 2016

UK Cleric and High School Rector: “No Son of a Bastard Will Remain Alive After Swearing at My Prophet”, Counter Jihad, Bruce Cornibe, October 19, 2016

shah-sadruddin

In the West governments have the duty to protect free speech as well as other freedoms (exceptions for reasonable censorship – for example, sexually explicit content). The point is that ideas and concepts should be up for debate in order for society to learn and advance. Unfortunately, in much of the Islamic world certain ideas are not only prohibited by they can be punishable up to a death sentence. Let’s take a look at some examples of Muslim support for blasphemy laws.

First, a case in the UK reveals how Mufti Shah Sadruddin, a prominent figure among Bangladeshi Brits, has advocated for the death of those who insult Islam. This is the same Sadruddin who apparently ran for a “local councillor” position a couple years ago, the UK’s Mirror reports:

Footage has emerged of Mufti Shah Sadruddin making a shocking hate speech in London – a year before he tried to become a local councillor.

In his hate-filled rant, he rages against atheists and suggests those who insult his religion should be killed.

The shocking comments were unearthed ahead of a documentary about the abuse, violence and hatred suffered by some Muslims who choose to leave the religion.

Raging against non-believers, Sadruddin says in the video clip: “No son of a b*****d will remain alive after swearing at my prophet.”

The comment was filmed a year before he stood as a Conservativecandidate for Newham council in 2014.

In the run-up to the election, he claimed: “I believe in equality, I believe in fairness, I believe in loving the human race and I hate to hate anybody.”

So basically equality, fairness, and love are being defined by Sharia standards or Sadruddin is blatantly lying in order to advance his Islamist agenda in the UK. An ICM Unlimited survey released earlier this year shows that other British Muslim adults (18 years and older) also have particular sensitivities in matters regarding Islam’s prophet. For example, when asked: “In your opinion, should any publication have the right to publish pictures of the Prophet?” – 4% of the Muslims surveyed said “Yes” while 78% responded by saying “No[.]” And that question just deals with simply posting a picture – whether it’s a positive or negative portrayal of Muhammad is irrelevant here! Another question the survey asked reads: “And in your opinion, should any publication have the right to publish pictures which make fun of the Prophet?” – 1% of Muslims said “Yes” while 87% said “No[.]” While no one who is serious about their faith typically enjoys when other people insult or mock one’s beliefs, the fact that just the mere drawing of Muhammad causes such ire within the Islamic community is a real cause for concern within the UK.

A second case reveals how blasphemy laws are not only enforced in Pakistan but they also apply to non-Muslims as well – and an influential segment of Pakistanis support such laws. A recent article from the Pakistan Christian Post shows that “about 150 top Muslim Clerics (Muftis) issued a religious decree and demanded from Government to hang Asia bibi and all other prisoners of blasphemy laws and also demanded speedy trial of pending cases of blasphemy in Pakistani courts.” Asia Bibi is the Christian mother of five children who has been behind bars since 2009, and is facing the death penalty because of “allegations of blasphemy.” This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise considering a 2013 Pew Research Center article shows that 81% of Muslims in Pakistan believe “sharia is the revealed word of God[.]” The same Pew article found that “[a]mong Muslims who support making sharia the law of the land” (84% in Pakistan) about one third (34%) of those believe Sharia should apply to non-Muslims as well.

Another case exposes how even in America there’s an influential sector of Muslims that essentially help enforce de-facto blasphemy laws by stoking anti-blasphemy anger within the Islamic community when a Muslim Reformer wants to be truthful about the life of Muhammad. Recently, Muslim Reformer (and writer at Counterjihad.com), Shireen Qudosi, testified in front of a House Homeland Security Committee about the subject of radical Islam. At one point during the hearing Qudosi explained how Muhammad switched from being non-violent to violent during his “prophethood[,]” while he and his followers conducted jihad on their adversaries – however, CAIR clipped the segment into a video and basically suggested that Qudosi insulted the Islamic prophet (video here). Not only does the Hamas linked CAIR (professed to be “America’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization”) know that such a video stirs up animosities within the Muslim community that threatens the very life of Qudosi, but they are also trying to shut down any reasonable analysis of Muhammad’s life. One would like to see CAIR try and refute the fact that Muhammad did wage jihad, which included the vicious killings of innocent people. How long are Islamists going to keep painting Muhammad as a peaceful saint when the Quran and Sunnah tell a different story? We must be able to discuss these things without the fear of physical retaliation for offending somebody’s religion.

Categories: Britain and Islam, CAIR, Islam - submission, Islam and human rights, Islamic integration, Islamic reformation, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Islamists in Britain, Sharia law
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