Posted tagged ‘Islamists in America’

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Islamist Extremism in America: The Islamic Jurisprudence Center

July 3, 2016

Islamist Extremism in America: The Islamic Jurisprudence Center, Clarion Project, Jonathan Ruano de la Haza, July 3, 2016

Sulaiman-Anwar-640-320Sheikh Suleiman Anwar of the Islamic Jurisprudence Center. (Photo: © Screenshot from video)

In June 2015, Sheikh Suleiman Anwar founded the Islamic Jurisprudence Center (IJC) in Clarksburg, Maryland. The center’s mission was “to promote and advance the understanding of and compliance with Islamic law (Sharia) in all aspects of life.”

This mission statement might seem tame, except that Anwar’s webpage reveals a worldview that is remarkably extreme compared to that of most Muslim organizations in the West. Anwar wants total Sharia according to the Saudi model, where the hands of thieves are cut off. He rejects secular liberal democracies and pluralism within Islam.

Here we explore Anwar’s Islamist worldview and show what happened when it is implemented in Muslim countries.

Why is Suleiman Anwar important?

Anwar deserves greater scrutiny for a number of reasons. He is the microcosm of the globalization of Islamist concepts.

In 2004 and 2006 respectively, Anwar completed two master’s degrees in Islamic jurisprudence at the International Islamic University (IIU) in Islamabad, Pakistan, and the University of Sana’a in Yemen. Funded by Saudi money, IIU is an Islamist university teaching a rigid Saudi version of Islam and rejecting all other interpretations of Islam.

The atmosphere on IIU’s campus is Orwellian. IIU alumni Amna Shafqat recalls burqa clad women distributing pamphlets to IIU students, which call for the release of terrorist Afia Siddiqui and the murder of blasphemers and blaspheming cartoonists (like theCharlie Hedbo cartoonists).

Worse still, IIU is a key recruiting ground for the Jamaat-e-Islami, Tazeemi Islami, and other Islamist parties, which sometimes serve as gateways to terrorist organizations.

This was the environment in which Anwar pursued his master’s degree and his webpage and Facebook page contain Islamist ideas which mirror the beliefs swirling around IIU’s campus.

Anwar also used his position as Imam in order to promote Islamism. After completing his studies in Yemen, Anwar returned to the United States and served as Imam for the Islamic Society of Annapolis (May 2009-April 2010) and then the Tazkia Center and Masjid Umar (January 2011-October 2014). He accepted invitations to deliverJumu’a Khutbas (sermons) and lectures at fourteen Islamic organizations in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. and Toronto, Canada.

Thanks to YouTube, there is a record of what Anwar said at one of these events. In September 2010, he openly endorsed the Khilafah or Islamic Caliphate along with an extreme form of Sharia: “We are not living under the Khilafah. There is a big fitna [i.e. social unrest] going on, if you haven’t noticed. – and much of the fitna is happening because we don’t have Khilafah. And then there are many people who don’t want Khilafah, because they want to continue being criminals so that their hands don’t get cut off.”

The Fatwas

In early 2016, Anwar started issuing fatwas or Islamic rulings as executive director of the IJC. Two of these fatwas merit our attention. On March 20, 2016, Anwar issued an Islamic ruling denouncing purportedly “pseudo-Islamic organizations” and “pseudo-Imams” as disbelievers for telling Muslims that “it is permissible to live by a partial Sharia (instead of its totality).”

Anwar’s support for total Sharia governance is troubling, since even implementing partial Sharia governance has negative consequences for people’s lives.

For instance, Mauritania, Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Malaysia maintain the apostasy law on their books.

This law says that Muslims will face the death penalty for leaving Islam.

Although rarely used, the apostasy law’s existence has fostered a climate of fear that forces ex-Muslims to live in the closet. It also gives extremists an implicit license to murder ex-Muslims and even secular Muslims on the grounds that they are apostates of Islam. I personally know Pakistani and Nigerian ex-Muslims who are forced by this law to conceal their innermost thoughts and feelings while in public. One of them temporarily fled his community, because he came out as an atheist. He was only welcomed back to his community after agreeing to revert to Islam.

On June 13, Anwar wrote another fatwa on the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). These organizations subscribe to Islamic beliefs that range from moderate to conservative and are politically linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Anwar, however, thought that they were not Islamic enough.

His fatwa declared that “anyone who supports CAIR, ISNA, MAS, or ICNA, or any organization affiliated with them in any way, is a kafir (disbeliever) and a traitor to Allah and His Messenger.”

He added that this fatwa was meant to prevent Muslims “from dying upon kufr (disbelief), and consequently entering hellfire.” In effect, Anwar was supporting an unelected theocracy that outlawed pluralism within Islam and quashed secular democratic sentiments. Anwar despised the “Interfaith system,” since it “promotes equality of the religions.” He also accused these Muslim organizations of betraying Islam for promoting “the secular, divisive, corrupt, and immoral democratic system of government and encouraging Muslims everywhere to believe in and implement such beliefs.”

The scary thing is that the ideas contained in Anwar’s June 13 fatwa have actually been implemented in some Muslim countries.

A principle problem in the current war in Syria and Iraq is extremists dehumanizing people from other Islamic sects for not conforming to their vision of Islam. According to this extremist perspective, these other Islamic sects are a source of fitna (i.e. social unrest) and the logical way to achieve peace is by exterminating them. Likewise, anti-secular and anti-democratic sentiments have also had harmful consequences for many Muslim-majority communities.

The secular democratic system plays a key role in representing and managing the differences of religions and cultures in a peaceful way. The rejection of this system has resulted, for instance, in the use ofPakistan’s blasphemy law in order to persecute Shia, Ahmadi, Christian, and Hindu religious minorities.

The United States’ free speech laws allow a person like Anwar to promote extremism. Yet Anwar’s fatwas should not be the final word on Islam or on how political, economic, and cultural orders should be organized. Resident Americans of different backgrounds belong to an open society where ideas are studied and judged on their merits.

When Anwar issues his fatwas and calls upon Muslims to reject religious pluralism, secularism, and democracy, and embrace a political order like Saudi Arabia’s, liberal-minded people cannot afford to stand by and do nothing.

The preservation of an open society, which protects civil liberties and embraces cultural and religious diversity within reason, depends upon good people exposing and discrediting absolutist ideas which go against the principles of a free nation.

Categories: CAIR, Islamic Jurisprudence Center, Islamic radicalization, Islamism, Islamist extremists, Islamists in America, Sharia law
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Dr. Jasser joins Intelligence Report discussing the importance of identifying radical Islam

July 2, 2016

Dr. Jasser joins Intelligence Report discussing the importance of identifying radical Islam, AIFD and Fox News via YouTube, July 1, 2016

Categories: CAIR, Countering violent extremism, Islamic jihad, Islamic reformation, Islamic supremacy, Islamists in America, Obama administration, US Congress, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

The Washington Post’s Chronic CAIRless Syndrome

June 30, 2016

The Washington Post’s Chronic CAIRless Syndrome, Camera.org, June 29, 2016

(Sad but hardly exceptional. The “legitimate” media rarely present facts to dispute the Obama administration’s propaganda machine. — DM)

Why do Washington Post reporters and editorial systematically keep relevant background about the Council on American Islamic Relations from readers?

CAMERA has questioned Post coverage of CAIR—an unindicted co-conspirator in the United States’ biggest terrorism funding trial to date—for years. No answer has been forthcoming, not even after CAMERA provided the newspaper’s last three ombudsmen with public record information casting doubt on CAIR’s self-portrait as a civil rights advocate for Muslim Americans.

The late Deborah Howell, Post ombudsman from 2005 to 2008, told CAMERA’s Washington office she had brought its complaint to the newsroom’s attention but, in essence, staffers rebuffed discussion of it. And The Post has continued citing CAIR as a credible source, virtually never telling readers that, among other things:

*In that 2009 federal case, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development retrial, five men were sentenced to prison for raising more than $12 million for Hamas. Hamas is the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, a U.S.-government designated terrorist organization. Receiving a 65-year term was Ghassan Elashi, co-founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter;

*In an out-of-court settlement of a suit it brought, the council reduced libel claims to omit contesting assertions it was founded by Hamas members, founded by Islamic terrorists and funded by Hamas supporters;

*Including Elashi, at least five former CAIR lay leaders or staffers have been arrested, convicted and/or deported on weapons or terrorism charges; and

*A council “media guide” to proper reporting of Islamic issues was “pure propaganda,” according to Investor’s Business Daily.

All this and more can be found in CAMERA’s 2009 Special Report, “The Council on American Islamic Relations: Civil Rights, or Extremism?” copies of which have been provided to Post staffers on numerous occasions.

Giving CAIR a pass. And another. And another

CAMERA has not urged The Post, or other news outlets, to ignore CAIR. Rather, it repeatedly has recommended that the newspaper and other media provide the minimum context necessary. Readers reasonably ought to be able to determine for themselves whether the council is, as it implies, a Muslim American version of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) or the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), or, as its history indicates, a Muslim Brotherhood derivative.

But no. When it comes to CAIR, The Post has its back. Among recent examples:

*“How the Trump campaign decided to target Muslims; Influenced by 9/11, candidate and aides focused on ‘radical Islam,’” June 22, 2016. CAIR’s Corey Saylor, director of its “department to monitor and combat Islamophobia” is quoted. No information about CAIR is included;

“After Orlando, anxiety fills Muslim congregations; Worshipers in nightclub shooter’s town, already enduring epithets, worry about what might come next,” June 19. This Post report cites “Omar Saleh, a lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Florida chapter, which has offered free legal assistance to the Muslim community in which [Omar] Mateen [who committed the Orlando nightclub massacre] lived.” Again, no background on CAIR;

*“Trump’s broadside after massacre shakes Islamic group,” June 15. The feature leads with, and follows uncritically, CAIR’s claims of rising anti-Muslim sentiments and actions across the United States. Yet again, nothing in the article would flag the organization’s credibility for readers;

*“‘It could get a lot worse for Muslims in America’,” a May 4 Op-Ed by Post columnist Dana Milbank. Writing “[Presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Donald] Trump can’t be blamed for everything his followers do. But his ascent has coincided with a rise in the number of anti-Muslim incidents to the highest level the Council on American-Islamic Relations has ever found.” Readers are not told that CAIR has a history of exaggerated claims about anti-Muslim activity. Nor are they reminded that, the council’s old and new warnings of “Islamophobia” notwithstanding, according to FBI hate crime statistics Jews still are members of the religious group most likely to be targeted. In 2014, for example, of more than 1,100 reported hate crimes based on religion, nearly 57 percent aimed at Jews, 16 percent at Muslims.

Coincidentally, while The Post repeatedly presented CAIR as a credible source, including reporting its post-Orlando offer of legal assistance, the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the council should be tried for fraud. The case involves hundreds of people who had relied on CAIR for legal aid. See “CAIR to Stand Trial for Massive Fraud; The Council on American Islamic Relations is now charged with fraud and cover-up perpetrated against hundreds of Muslims,” The Clarion Project, June 22. The project is a non-profit organization that describes itself as “fighting extremism, promoting dialogue.”

If a tree falls on you in the forest

The Post does not appear to have covered the appeals verdict. A Nexis search indicates no U.S. newspapers did.

The Clarion Project, like CAMERA, like historian and publisher of Middle East Quarterly Daniel Pipes, The Investigative Project on Terrorism’s Steven Emerson and many others have been listed, or better, putatively black-listed, in a CAIR report. The council tars them as key players in an imagined national network fostering Islamophobia. The report, referred to obliquely by The Post in its June 15 article, is risible, slanderous and potentially libelous.

Asked about it by KPFA-FM radio, Berkeley, Cal., CAMERA replied, in part:

“CAIR’s self-described study of ‘Islamophobic networks’ alleges ‘CAMERA is pervasively inaccurate and disguises its anti-Muslim agenda by omitting important information.” ‘Pervasively inaccurate’ sweepingly implies a pattern of error. Yet the study appears to supply not one example. The allegation itself is not only pervasively inaccurate, it is slanderously and perhaps libelously so.

“As to our supposed camouflaged ‘anti-Muslim agenda,’ again, where are the examples? The one specific mention is of our ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] Special Report—but nothing in the report itself is quoted. Perhaps because it can’t be; CAIR attempts a weak smokescreen, confessing ‘unlike other Islamophobic organizations, CAMERA does not communicate obvious bigotry in their literature.’ (See CAMERA’s Special Report, “The Islamic Society of North America: Active, Influential and Rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood,” 2012)

“In fact, CAMERA does not communicate bigotry at all. But it’s our contention, which we believe the public record amply supports, that CAIR’s objective is not so much to fight anti-Muslim prejudice but to use the cry of ‘Islamophobia’ to censor discussion and analysis of Islamic extremism.”

FBI Director James Comey said that last year the bureau had more than 900 active cases, some in each of the 50 states, into suspected Islamic State sympathizers or other potential terrorists. George Washington University’s Program on Extremism noted the arrests in the United States in 2015 of 56 individuals on suspicion of plotting on behalf of or otherwise supporting the Islamic State. (See “Washington Times Notes Record Terror Levels,” CAMERA, Dec. 7, 2015.) Islamophobia, or newsworthy information?

Islamic extremism short of terrorist radicalization also would seem to be newsworthy, by definition. But not apparently to CAIR, which purports to find “Islamophobia” everywhere. As the Clarion Project notes, “CAIR wages an unrelenting campaign to discredit its critics as anti-Muslim bigots and moderate Muslims as puppets of an “Islamophobia network” (“Special Report: The Council on American Islamic Relations; Fact Sheet”. The paper covers some of the same material as CAMERA’s Special Report on CAIR, but extends the period under review through 2013.)

In relying uncritically on CAIR as a source, The Washington Post and other news media undercut themselves and short-change readers, listeners and viewers. The question is why? The answer would be newsworthy.

Categories: CAIR, Clarion Project, Fraud, Islamist organizations, Islamists and the media, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, Media, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama's America, Propaganda, Victimology, Washington Post
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Stop Importing Jihadists: Sharia Supremacists Have No Right to Enter the U.S.

June 29, 2016

Stop Importing Jihadists: Sharia Supremacists Have No Right to Enter the U.S., Breitbart, Jim Hanson, June 29, 2016

[T]he practice of Sharia is simply not compatible with life in the U.S. It is also the dividing line between Medieval Islam, with its abhorrent practices such as death for homosexuals; stoning for victims of rape; forced marriages and genital mutilation for girls; and Modern Islam, which could properly be called post-Sharia.

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

Donald Trump lit off a firestorm with his call for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. The deadly threat of Islamist terror and the migrant violence in Europe make a ban on Muslim immigration seem like a reasonable solution.

But we have Muslim allies, the King of Jordan for example, who would be affected by such an action. So if banning all Muslims is not the perfect solution, how can we deal with the ones who are a serious problem without alienating our allies?

The Center for Security Policy just released a white paper detailing how to do that entitled “Stop Importing Jihadists: Making Sharia-Supremacism a Bar to Immigration and Naturalization.” It explains how existing laws can be used to stop allowing Muslims from coming to this country who do not share our American values. This does not mean all Muslims, but it is a significant number who believe the totalitarian Islamist code called Sharia should be placed above the U.S. Constitution.

U.S. citizens have rights. But clearly, there are no rights for non-citizens to visit or migrate to the United States. It is a privilege. We need to make sure that anyone coming here doesn’t believe their mission is to bring with them an antiquated and barbaric system to impose on us. We have the authority under current law to stop members of totalitarian ideologies from infiltrating and working to subvert our free system.

The problem is not Muslims per se; it is Islamic Supremacists who push the totalitarian ideology called Sharia. Unfortunately, this is a significant number of Muslims worldwide; a Pew International poll shows more than half of them believe Sharia should be the law of their land. Most also believe this law should apply to non-Muslims, as well. That could hardly be more un-American and we have every right to tell those folks “That’s not how we do things here.”

There are differing versions of Sharia, but they agree that the practice of all aspects of life is governed by the unassailable word of Allah and not one single bit of it may be questioned. That includes an ironclad prohibition on any man-made law superseding Sharia and a requirement for believers to actively work to impose it everywhere. This makes it impossible for a Sharia-adherent Muslim to swear an oath to obey the U.S. Constitution or any other country’s governing document. There can be no agreement to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, Caesar must submit to Allah.

That single fact makes it prudent to restrict immigration by anyone who holds those beliefs. We have done this previously to stop totalitarian communists and fascists from infiltrating with a mind to undermine our society from within. That subversion is actually the very goal articulated by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood for its operations here in the United States: “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.”

It makes perfect sense to say to a group that wants to destroy us “from within” that “you are not welcome to come in.”

The dividing line we need to use for making policy is Sharia; the practice of Sharia is simply not compatible with life in the U.S. It is also the dividing line between Medieval Islam, with its abhorrent practices such as death for homosexuals; stoning for victims of rape; forced marriages and genital mutilation for girls; and Modern Islam, which could properly be called post-Sharia. The problem is Modern Islam does not truly exist yet. There are Muslims who do not practice or believe in the barbaric acts Sharia requires, but they are technically apostates, defectors of Islam, and the penalty for leaving is death.

The current state of play has members of the medieval form acting as the loudest voices of the “Muslim” community. Those who wish to practice a modern version do so at their own peril: they face shunning at best and death at worst. The medieval practitioners are aided in this effort by vast support; even the U.S. government has embraced them both abroad, by supporting groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, and here at home, in the form of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others.

Our U.S. government has a responsibility to safeguard this country and our way of life. That includes banning those who wish to destroy us from entering the United States. We must add Sharia to the list of totalitarian ideologies that trigger this prohibition. This will help all Americans including Modern Muslims who just want to live in peace in the land of the free.

Categories: Islamic immigration, Islamic integration, Islamic reformation, Islamism, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Dr. Jasser discusses his testifying before the U.S. Senate & reacting to bombings in Turkey

June 29, 2016

Dr. Jasser discusses his testifying before the U.S. Senate & reacting to bombings in Turkey, Fox News via YouTube

 

Categories: Countering violent extremism, Islam and terrorism, Islam in America, Islamic reformation, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamophobia, Ted Cruz, US Congress, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Ted Cruz GRILLS Muslim Advocates president who SCRUBBED the FBI lexicon

June 29, 2016

Ted Cruz GRILLS Muslim Advocates president who SCRUBBED the FBI lexicon, The Rebel, June 29, 2016

(But please see, ISIS is a Footnote: The Real Threat is Sharia and Islamic Supremacism. — DM)

Farhana H. Khera, President of Muslim Advocates, is questioned by Ted Cruz June 28 during a congressional committee called, “Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism”

In this video she tries not to answer the question as to why she pressed the Obama administration to expunge all language referring to Islamic Terror from security services such as the FBI’s lexicons.

It has been argued that the refusal to allow the FBI to pursue avenues of investigation based on terms such as “Jihad” or “Ummah” in the language found on surveillance materials directly led to the Boston Marathon bombing being carried out although the FBI were aware of the perpetrators and aware of the ideology they subscribed to.

Also very likely the San Bernardino attacks for the same reason.

Ms. Khera says in this video: “…Regardless of their race, religion or ideology”.

To discriminate on the basis of ideology is not the same as race.

In fact, ideology is what in rational times, societies based on reason would call “motive”.

Categories: FBI, Islam and terrorism, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, Ted Cruz, US Congress
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

ISIS is a Footnote: The Real Threat is Sharia and Islamic Supremacism

June 29, 2016

ISIS is a Footnote: The Real Threat is Sharia and Islamic Supremacism, Counterjihad, Shireen Qudosi, June 29, 2016

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a top North American Muslim Reformer, sees Muslim reformers “as the most essential head of spear in the battle against Islamic theocracy.” The largest collective of Muslim Reformers are presently in the United States.

“Ideas of freedom can happen in the laboratory of America,” adds Dr. Jasser. The West offers Muslim voices for humanity a level of freedom that is unmatched in any other part of the world, making Western Muslim reformers critical in this battle against radical Islam — particularly because truthful conversations on faith are painted as persecution, courtesy of the regressive left.

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

The battle against radical Islam isn’t an ‘over there’ fight confined to the wastebin landscape of some forgotten town. It’s a ubiquitous problem that takes place on American soil in two forms. The first is through direct jihadi attacks as we most recently saw in Orlando; the second takes the form of political warfare.

Yesterday, the battle of ideas took place on the floor of a Senate hearing spearheaded by Senator Ted Cruz. The “Willful Blindness” hearing, attended by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser,Philip Haney, and Andrew McCarthy among others, offered testimony to better understand barriers to combating radical Islam.

Other witnesses included soft-Islamist Farhana Khera, President and Executive Director of Muslim Advocates, who refused to admit that jihad or radicalization had absolutely anything to do with radical Islam. In fact, Senator Cruz’s attempt to engage Khera in dialogue yielded a minimum of 6 instances of denial within five minutes, with Khera defaulting to a regressive left narrative that the conversation is somehow empowering ISIS.

National security consultant Chris Gaubatz debunks the myth of an all-powerful and seeing ISIS:

“The global Islamic movement is made of terrorist groups and nation states; all seeking to impose sharia.”

ISIS is a footnote at best, not the bogeyman that Islamists try to threaten free speech with. The real threat is sharia and a mindset of Islamic supremacism.

Testimony was also provided by Michael German, a fellow of the Brennan Center for Justice and a former FBI Special Agent. German sees radical Islam as a problem but not in the context we would assume is logical based on the facts and common sense. In the same line of thinking as Khera, German denounces a theological association with violent acts of terror under a political doctrine.

German’s reasoning fails. He is neither expert in nor a student of Islamic theology. Had he an objective mind and trained scholar in both academic and traditional Islam, he would see that Islam has become a highly political system that forms and orchestrates national movement. The version of radical Islam adopted by terror groups is not that different than the version of Islam adopted by Islamic states – and to go further – the version of Islam that Islamists identify with. All versions ultimately hold Islam as supreme, paving the way for what is an undeniable theological supremacy. In other words, Islamic supremacy. And that understanding of Islam is adopted by billions of adherents.

In the same vein of thought as Islamists, German believes “radical Islam” is used to smear a faith group. He further argues “collective national security [is not achieved] by undermining security of others.” For German, “Ideas cannot be killed and ideologies cannot be destroyed.” He points to Nazi ideology that while defeated, was not destroyed.

However, radical Islamic ideology can be challenged and destroyed…from within. A growing movement in partnership with allies is already underway by Muslim reformers. Reformers are the new wave of Muslim scholars appearing nearly a millennia after the original Muslim free thinkers, the Mu’tazilites. The waves of movement in Islamic critical thought from the time of the Prophet, through his passing, and till today, shows that Islam is not the monolith German and Khera try to depict.

Andrew McCarthy, a former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney, understands Islam has seen a struggle to define itself from its earliest days. As McCarthy points out, Muslims “have not settled the question what is an authentic Islam.”

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a top North American Muslim Reformer, sees Muslim reformers “as the most essential head of spear in the battle against Islamic theocracy.” The largest collective of Muslim Reformers are presently in the United States.

“Ideas of freedom can happen in the laboratory of America,” adds Dr. Jasser. The West offers Muslim voices for humanity a level of freedom that is unmatched in any other part of the world, making Western Muslim reformers critical in this battle against radical Islam — particularly because truthful conversations on faith are painted as persecution, courtesy of the regressive left.

For McCarthy, the focus needs to shift to the supremacist interpretation of Islam that is fundamentally at odds with Western values. A clash of civilizations between Islam and the West is not a case of multiculturalism where room can be made for both. Islamic supremacism in its nature allows for only one ideology: its own.

So while German underscores that radical Islam is not a problem – that it is a misnomer – McCarthy points to history which shows us something entirely different. He summarizes that a struggle in Islam has been “ongoing for fourteen centuries supported by centuries of scholarship,” adding that “Islam is less a religion than a political radicalization with a religious veneer.”

McCarthy doesn’t see this as something the U.S. can fix, but it is something that we need to understand and not obscure – particularly because as Chris Gaubatz added, “We can kill every member of Al-Qaeda tomorrow, but it won’t end.”

Zuhdi Jasser added that America has “a sophisticated whack-a-mole system” of combatting terrorism. These are key assessment recognizing that ultimately we need to target the ideology and develop a system that moves beyond a fear of might trigger ISIS – a running theme for both Khera and German.

Khera along with German were both supported by Senator Dick Durbin who brought up a failed ongoing argument that needs to die: Westboro and the KKK are no more Christian than ISIS is Islamic. A cheap, tired trick, it shows a fundamental lack of knowledge about both Islam and Christianity.

Westboro and KKK are not acting in the footsteps of Jesus. However, ISIS is in many ways following the post-Medina violent warring behavior of its prophet, Muhammad. If we’re to see whether something is Islamic or Christian, we need to look at the verses and the leadership. Christianity did not have a violent Jesus and the teachings of Christ himself do not advocate violence. On the other hand, Islam has a violent version of Muhamad, which however justified in whatever context, is still violent and includes violent rhetoric that justified jihadi and supremacist agendas.

Germans builds on the back and forth highlighting Nazi Germany was defeated in part by criminalizing the ideology, something he feels can’t be done with Islam because the ideology can’t be scrubbed. I would argue we’ve already scrubbed so much: over 900 instances of references to jihad and Islam from official documents in what is a systematic purge of intelligence in a critical war.

Let’s go further still and get to the actual problem: the ideology. We need to do the same to political and violent doctrines in Islam, while supporting alternate voices found in reformers who are well on their way by outrightly challenging the theology or through grassroots efforts calling for modernized adaptations.

 

Categories: America, Christianity, Islamic reformation, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Political Islam, Sharia law, U.S. Congress, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

CAIR-Fuqra Official Announces Intention to Run for Governor

June 29, 2016

CAIR-Fuqra Official Announces Intention to Run for Governor, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, June 29, 2016

Tahirah-Amatul-Wadud-HPTahirah Amatul-Wadud (Photo: Facebook)

Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, an official with both the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Massachusetts chapter and the Muslims of the Americas (a rebranding of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra terrorist group), has announced her intention to run for governor.

She currently lives in Massachusetts, where Republican Governor Charlie Baker will be running for re-election in 2018. It is unclear if Wadud meant that that she’d run in the next cycle.

Amatul-Wadud is currently the general counsel for the Muslims of the Americas, whose spiritual leader is a radical cleric named SheikhMubarak Ali Gillani in Pakistan. The organization was previously known as Jamaat ul-Fuqra, when it carried out terrorist attacks in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The group is best known for its “Islamberg” headquarters in New York where guerilla training of women has occurred, as seen in this undated footage obtained by the Clarion Project from a law enforcement source. It claims to have 22 “Islamic villages” in 12 states. The Clarion Project identified one such “village” in Texas in 2014. We recently published the heartbreaking testimony of a woman who grew up in these villages in the 1980s.

A 2007 FBI report  obtained by the Clarion Project states “the documented propensity for violence by this organization supports the belief the leadership of the MOA extols membership to pursue a policy of jihad or holy war against individuals or groups it considers enemies of Islam, which includes the U.S. Government.”

It says “members of the MOA are encouraged to travel to Pakistan to receive religious and military/terrorist training from Gillani.” It warns that MOA “possess an infrastructure capable of planning and mounting terrorist campaigns overseas and within the U.S.” MOA has a history of terrorist and criminal activity.

Amatul-Wadud previously posted an article on her Facebook page by Gillani that touts 9/11 conspiracy theories and claims that ISIS is a front for British intelligence. It also claims that the U.S. was brought into World War Two by a Jewish conspiracy.

“There was no need for America to go to war against Hitler. Hitler was not the enemy of America or the American people. There was a mutual animosity between Hitler and the Jews. So, the American people paid a very heavy price for fighting someone else’s war,” Gillani wrote.

When Amatul-Wadud made her announcement, she immediately tweeted to Syeda Zainab Gillani, who praised her for the decision. Gillani’s twitter displays a photo of Sheikh Gillani and Hussain Adams, chief executive officer of MOA and son of convicted Fuqra terrorist, Barry Adams.

Amatul-Wadud is also a board member for the Massachusetts branch of CAIR, which the Justice Department has labeled an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism-financing trial. CAIR is also identified by the Justice Department as an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. The United Arab Emirates designated CAIR as a terrorist organization when it cracked down on Islamist extremism and banned the Muslim Brotherhood.

A 2007 court filing by federal prosecutors in another terrorism case reads:

“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists … the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists.”

Amatul-Wadud’s status as a joint CAIR/Fuqra official reflects growing ties between the two organizations.

Shockingly, Amatul-Wadud was invited to a White House event celebrating activists for religious pluralism in December. She is also on the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, which interestingly doesn’t mention her connection to MOA/Fuqra (but does mention her status as a CAIR official).

The CAIR-MA website also doesn’t mention the connection, only saying that she is “general counsel for a New York Muslim congregation.” When I confronted a CAIR official on Newsmax TV about this link and Fuqra’s history (which includes showing pictures of the weapons found during a raid on a Fuqra camp in Colorado in 1992), his rebuttal was that terrorist networks haven’t existed in America since the 9/11 attacks.

Whenever Amatul-Wadud does run for governor, MOA/Fuqra, CAIR and their allies will try to drown out voices mentioning this information with shouts of “Islamophobia,” as those with Islamist extremist backgrounds always do. But, with this volume of incriminating information, no megaphone will be loud enough to stop the facts from being heard.

Categories: CAIR, Clash of civilizations, Islamic jihad, Islamic radicalization, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, U.S. politics
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Freedom of Speech is not Free; it is Beyond Price

June 26, 2016

Freedom of Speech is not Free; it is Beyond Price, Dan Miller’s Blog, June 25, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

Accurate speech, considered “Islamophobic” or otherwise offensive to some, is now deemed “hateful” and punishable under distorted visions of law or university rules. So, apparently is the mention of God. Sometimes, those who dare to speak are silenced before they even begin.

The First Amendment provides,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Congress is not permitted to ignore the First Amendment, but the U.S. Airforce and other government entities appear to have done so. Recently, Senior Master Sergeant Oscar Rodriguez, Jr. (ret.) was forcibly removed from a private retirement ceremony at an Air Force base because he was about to deliver his flag folding speech. The retiree had heard the speech previously and had asked Rodriguez to deliver it.

When Roberson’s unit commander discovered that Rodriguez would be delivering the flag-folding speech, which mentions “God,” during the ceremony, he attempted to prevent Rodriguez from attending. After learning that he lacked authority to prevent Rodriguez from attending, the commander then told Roberson that Rodriguez could not give the speech. Rodriguez asked Roberson what he should do, and Roberson responded that it was his personal desire that Rodriguez give the flag-folding speech as planned. . . .

Roberson and Rodriguez tried to clear the speech through higher authorities at Travis Air Force Base, even offering to place notices on the door informing guests that the word “God” would be mentioned. They never received a response from the authorities. As an Air Force veteran himself, Rodriguez stood firm on his commitment to Roberson. [Emphasis added.]

Here is the speech, as Rodriguez had given it previously:

What an offensive word! True, it’s in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, but that’s gotta go. Thought experiment: what if Rodriguez had said “Allah” rather than “God?” Might that have been viewed as sufficiently inclusive to be acceptable? Why not? In its “unredacted” version of the Islamist Orlando shooter’s phone calls, the Department of Justice translated “Allah” into “God.” The DOJ probably didn’t want to hurt Islamists’ feelings by suggesting that the Obama administration thinks that Allah and hence Islamists have anything to do with terrorism.

Are we just beginning to enter a new age of fascism? No, we are already well into it.

Here’s a Bill Whittle segment about Obama, Guns, Islam and Orlando

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-linked “civil rights” organization, recently published an “Islamophobia” report. In Obama’s America, CAIR and its Islamist affiliates are the Government’s principal “go to” organizations for limiting access to the Muslim community in “countering violent extremism” efforts and during investigations of terror incidents.

According to CAIR, “Islamophobic” utterances are “hate speech;” it has provided a list of “Islamophobes” and their organizations. Below are comments about the list by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a reformist Muslim. He, as well as The Clarion Project (also an advocate for Islamic reform), are on CAIR’s list of “Islamophobes.”

Europe and its Western culture, and now to a somewhat lesser extent our own American culture (such as it is) are being surrendered to Islam. Allied with government authorities, our leftist “friends” are in the forefront of the war on free speech.

[I]n recent years, we’ve witnessed an unrelenting assault on free speech with a concerted effort by the regressive Left to curtail thought and restrict the free exchange of ideas. Last week, I wrote about campus terrorism and how conservatives and others who maintain views that are inconsistent with the leftist narrative have been subjected to campaigns of harassment and abuse by campus hooligans.

Often university officials are apathetic, turning a blind eye to these transgressions, while in other universities the administration is complicit by instructing campus police to stand down, allowing the agitators free reign to shut down speaking engagements through use of bullying tactics. In at least two instances, university presidents were forced to issue rather craven apologies to an alliance of leftists and Islamists for having the temerity to defend the right to free speech.

This disturbing trend of muzzling free speech has now substantially broadened to include criminalizing speech that issues challenges to the so-called science of climate change. Some seventeen left-leaning state attorneys general have launched investigative and intrusive probes against Exxon Mobil and conservative groups because of their involvement in debunking alarmist claims of imminent doom issued by hysterical climate change proponents.

The ringleaders of this anti-free speech witch hunt include Eric Schneiderman (D-New York) and Claude Walker (I-Virgin Islands). At a recent speech at the Bloomberg’s Big Law Business Summit, Schneiderman was dismissive of his critics, accusing them of “First Amendment opportunism.” The more he spoke the more he sounded like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s thuggish dictator who utilized the vast resources of the state to silence anyone who disagreed with him. [Emphasis added.]

I wish I could laugh at the next video. It’s funny in a way, but also deadly serious.

As the “best and brightest” from our top universities come of age and control “our” government, will the First Amendment be their principal target for destruction? Or will they also pursue with unabated vigor their war on the Second Amendment? Here is the text of the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Our British cousins just voted to leave the European Union to restore democracy at home.

For my final broadcast to the nation on the eve of Britain’s Independence Day, the BBC asked me to imagine myself as one of the courtiers to whom Her Majesty had recently asked the question, “In one minute, give three reasons for your opinion on whether my United Kingdom should remain in or leave the European Union.”

My three reasons for departure, in strict order of precedence, were Democracy, Democracy, and Democracy. For the so-called “European Parliament” is no Parliament. It is a mere duma. It lacks even the power to bring forward a bill, and the 28 faceless, unelected, omnipotent Kommissars – the official German name for the shadowy Commissioners who exercise the supreme lawmaking power that was once vested in our elected Parliament – have the power, under the Treaty of Maastricht, to meet behind closed doors to override in secret any decision of that “Parliament” at will, and even to issue “Commission Regulations” that bypass it altogether. [Emphasis added.]

Rather like our own distended Federal and State bureaucracies.

I concluded my one-minute broadcast with these words: “Your Majesty, with my humble duty, I was born in a democracy; I do not live in one; but I am determined to die in one.”  [Emphasis added.]

And now I shall die in one. In the words of William Pitt the Younger after the defeat of Napoleon, “England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.”

. . . .

The people have spoken. And the democratic spirit that inspired just over half the people of Britain to vote for national independence has its roots in the passionate devotion of the Founding Fathers of the United States to democracy. Our former colony showed us the way. Today, then, an even more heartfelt than usual “God bless America!” [Emphasis added.]

I am less than sanguine that we remain as deserving of the high praise the author offers. In any event, we have another version of Brexit coming up in November. Will we be as brave and as far-sighted as our founding fathers were long ago and as the Brits were a couple of days ago?

Quo vadis?

Categories: Academia, BREXIT, Britain, Christianity, Clash of civilizations, Democracy, Department of Justice, European Union, Fascism, Federal Government, First Amendment, Gun control, Hate speech, Islam - submission, Islam and terrorism, Islamic reformation, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, Leftists, Obama, Obama's America, U.S. Military, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

CAIR Hilarity: We Welcome “Significant, Healthy Debates” Among Muslims

June 23, 2016

CAIR Hilarity: We Welcome “Significant, Healthy Debates” Among Muslims, Investigative Project on Terrorism, June 23, 2016

“Our major holiday, Eid, is a topic of significant debate,” he said Monday. “When is it going to happen – because it’s based on a moon cycle? So if we can have these kinds of healthy debates we want all of those voices to be trained and go out and speak to the public at large.”

First, debate is limited to “simple practices of certain dietary requirements, or prayer or calendar issues,” Jasser said. “None of the diversity that they’re talking about is related to core issues of universal human rights.”

761 (2)

He might have been trying to be ironic. But Corey Saylor seemed to be playing it straight Monday when he claimed that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) wants “more empowered voices”in the future to “let the public at large see more of us talking about the full spectrum of views that exist within the Muslim community.”

We could hear the spit-take all the way from Arizona. That’s the home of Zuhdi Jasser, who founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) and the Muslim Reform Movement. Both groups embrace a “separation of mosque and state” and stand against the Islamist victimization agenda pushed by CAIR.

For that, CAIR repeatedly has called Jasser names in attempts to discredit and silence him. It tried to block his appointment to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2012 and tried unsuccessfully to have him ousted two years later.

Saylor’s comments about embracing debate came during a news conference to unveil CAIR’s latest report on groups it says are pushing “Islamophobia” in the United States, along with their funders. The report includes the AIFD among organizations “whose primary reason for existence is to promote prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims.”

While simultaneously calling for more empowered Muslim voices, CAIR accuses Jasser, a Muslim, of promoting hatred and prejudice against his faith because he disagrees with CAIR politically. For example, following terrorist attacks like the slaughter at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, or last November’s multi-pronged attacks in Paris, Jasser will talk about the radical Islamist ideology that drives the violence. CAIR, on the other hand, insists it has nothing to do with religion.

Rather than welcoming “the full spectrum of views,” as Saylor claimed, CAIR wants to “marginalize debate,” Jasser said in an interview. “They simply want to continue their sense that Islam has a PR problem, and it’s not a reform issue, that it needs to happen in the separation of mosque and state. The Islamists don’t ever want to recognize they are Islamists or that they do try to collectivize our community into a political movement. Because once they did that, they’d have to recognize that there are diverse voices that reject Islamism and their Islamist platform.”

It happened to him again last week. Jasser spoke in Birmingham, Ala., about curbing Islamist extremism and the terrorism done in its name. “No, it’s not all Islam that’s the problem, but there’s a problem in the house of Islam that needs to be addressed,” Jasser said.

A local television station turned to CAIR and a local mosque for reaction. “They said he’s a part of the problem and is only spreading Islamophobia,” the story said.

CAIR’s report, done in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender, also includes the Investigative Project on Terrorism among 33 “inner core” organizations that, like AIFD, exist to gin up hatred of Muslims and Islam. IPT “claims to investigate the activities and finances of radical terrorist groups, but makes all of Islam culpable,” the report said.

No supporting evidence is provided.

It is a false claim. In fact, IPT frequently cites Muslims who oppose Islamism, ranging from liberal UK reformist Maajid Nawaz to Jasser, an American Navy veteran and physician. But we also have exposed many of CAIR’s skeletons and emphasized its roots in a Hamas-support network in the United States created by the Muslim Brotherhood. We also frequently showcase radicalism exhibited by CAIR officials.

Saylor’s statement about embracing debate echoes a recommendation in CAIR’s formal report: “Empowering a diverse range of legitimate voices to persuasively contribute, particularly in the news media, to the views of Islam and American Muslims within public dialogue.” [Emphasis added.]

CAIR, the statement implies, reserves the right to tell the public which voices qualify as “legitimate.” CAIR’s stated objective, therefore, is at odds with its own definition of how debate can occur.

Saylor’s full statement further exposes the shallow nature of the claim CAIR wants “more empowered voices.”

(Video at the link)

“Our major holiday, Eid, is a topic of significant debate,” he said Monday. “When is it going to happen – because it’s based on a moon cycle? So if we can have these kind of healthy debates we want all of those voices to be trained and go out and speak to the public at large.”

First, debate is limited to “simple practices of certain dietary requirements, or prayer or calendar issues,” Jasser said. “None of the diversity that they’re talking about is related to core issues of universal human rights.”

Second, CAIR must ensure those engaged in debate are “trained” to participate.

“That’s the hypocrisy,” Jasser said.

When CAIR officials speak of diversity, Jasser said, they’re referring to ethnic/national background. Muslim Americans come from all over the world, from the Middle East and Asia.

“Islam is an idea. It’s not a race,” he said, so true diversity includes different views about the faith and its application in modern life.

“When it comes to intellect diversity, they’re completely missing in action,” Jasser said.

CAIR equates criticism of scholars or certain Islamist dogma with hate, he said. “They, with self-righteous indignation, refuse to accept the fact that somebody can love the community and love their faith and still be very critical of what is normatively felt to be Islamic law. That is un-American. Imagine somebody telling someone them that they are not good Americans because they disagree with this policy or that policy.”

CAIR largely has ignored the Muslim Reform Movement and has not commented on the specific principles its members enumerated.

The Muslim Reform Movement issued a public Declaration of its principles. Among them:

We support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by United Nations member states in 1948.

We reject interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam. Facing the threat of terrorism, intolerance, and social injustice in the name of Islam, we have reflected on how we can transform our communities based on three principles: peace, human rights and secular governance.

…

We are for secular governance, democracy and liberty. We are against political movements in the name of religion. We separate mosque and state. We are loyal to the nations in which we live. We reject the idea of the Islamic state. There is no need for an Islamic caliphate. We oppose institutionalized sharia. Sharia is manmade.

To be true to its own call, CAIR needs to embrace these ideals or publicly explain why it will not. That might lead to an outcome Saylor said with a straight face that he wants – “More empowered voices” and “significant, healthy debates going on among ourselves every year, every day.”

Now that would be a news conference worth watching.

Categories: CAIR, Debate, Islamic reformation, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamophobia, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »