Posted tagged ‘Political Islam’

The West’s Most Important Ally: Islam’s Dissidents

June 12, 2016

The West’s Most Important Ally: Islam’s Dissidents, Gatestone InstituteGiulio Meotti, June 12, 2016

♦ Today a new Iron Curtain has been erected by Islam against the rest of the world, and the new heroes are the dissidents, the apostates, the rebels, the non-believers and the heretics.

♦ This rapidly growing army of Muslim dissidents is the best liberation movement for millions of Muslims who aspire to practice their faith peacefully without submitting to the dictates of fundamentalists and fanatics.

♦ They are alone against all. Against Islamism which uses Kalashnikovs and against an intellectual terrorism which submits them to media intimidation. Seen as “traitors” by their communities, they are accused by the élites in the West of “stigmatizing.”

♦ We should support them — all of them. Some of the bravest defenders of freedom come from the Islamic regimes. Europe should give financial, moral and political support to these friends of Western civilization, while our disgraced intelligentsia is engaged in slandering them.

Islam, warned the best-selling Algerian novelist, Boualem Sansal, is going to split European society. In an interview with German media, this brave Arab writer painted a vision of Europe subjugated by radical Islam. According to Sansal, the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels are directed at the Western way of life: “You can not even defeat the weak Arab states, so they have brought in fifth columns to bring the West to destroy itself. If they succeed society will fall.”

Mr. Sansal, who has been threatened with death, belongs to a rapidly growing army of Muslim dissidents. They are the best liberation movement for millions of Muslims who aspire to practice their faith peacefully without submitting to the dictates of fundamentalists and fanatics. These Muslim dissidents pursue freedom of conscience, interreligious coexistence, pluralism in the public sphere, criticism of Islam, and respect for the rule of common law. For the Islamic world, their message could be devastating. That is why the Islamists are hunting them down.

It is always individuals, such as Lech Walesa, who make all the difference. The Soviet Union was defeated by only three beings: Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II — and the dissidents. When Professor Robert Havemann died in East Germany, few people noticed it. This intrepid critic of the regime was confined under house arrest in Grünheide, guarded by the Stasi. But the old professor never allowed himself to be intimidated. He continued to fight for his ideas.

A hero of Czechoslovak anti-Communism, Jan Patočka, died under grueling police interrogation. Patočka paid the highest price of silencing. His brilliant lectures were reduced to a clandestine seminar. Although unable to publish, he continued to work in a tiny underground apartment.

Hunted by the KGB, Alexander Solzhenitsyn set down the chapters of his Gulag Archipelago and hid them with different trusted friends, so no one possessed the entire manuscript. In 1973 only three copies existed. When the Soviet political police managed to extort the typist, Elizaveta Voronyanskya, to one of the hideouts, thinking the masterpiece was lost forever she hanged herself.

Today a new Iron Curtain has been erected by Islam against the rest of the world, and the new heroes are the dissidents, the apostates, the heretics, the rebels, and the non-believers. It is no coincidence that the first victim of a fatwa was Salman Rushdie, an Indian-British writer from a Muslim family.

Pascal Bruckner called them “the free thinkers of the Muslim world.” We should support them — all of them. Because if the enemies of freedom come from free societies, those who kneel before Allah’s enforcers, some of the bravest defenders of freedom come from the Islamic regimes. Europe should give financial, moral and political support to these friends of Western civilization, while our disgraced intelligentsia is engaged in slandering them.

One, an Algerian author, Kamel Daoud, who called Saudi Arabia “an Isis that had made it,” recently sparked an “Islamophobia” row for having directed his own anger at the naïve people, who he says ignore the cultural gulf separating the Arab-Muslim world from Europe.

Another, an Iranian exile, now in the Netherlands, the jurist Afshin Ellian, works at Utrecht University, where after the murder of Theo Van Gogh, he is protected by bodyguards. After the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, while Europe’s media were busy in blaming the “stupid” cartoonists, Ellian promoted an appeal: “Don’t let terrorists determine the limits of free speech.”

Another brave dissident and author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, had to flee from the Netherlands to the U.S., where she rapidly became one of most prominent public intellectuals.

1644Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a brave Muslim dissident and author, had to flee from the Netherlands to the U.S., where she rapidly became one of most prominent public intellectuals. (Image source: Gage Skidmore)

The Moroccan mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, is also guarded by police. He recently told fellow Muslims who protested against freedoms they found while living in the West to “pack your bags and f… off.” A heroic Christian defender of these freedoms in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, is now on trial accused of “discrimination.” “I am in jail,” he has said, referring to his safehouses, “and they are walking around free.”

Many of these dissidents are women. Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan politician and journalist, declared war on Islamic fundamentalists after the Taliban’s religious police beat her for daring to walk without a male escort. A suicide bomber blew himself up near her car, killing three. Kadra Yusuf, a Somali journalist, infiltrated Oslo’s mosques to denounce the imams, especially regarding female genital mutilation, not even required in the Koran or the Hadith (reports about Mohammad). In Pakistan, Sherry Rehman called for “a reform of Pakistani blasphemy’s laws.” She risks her life every day. She is branded by Islamists “fit to be killed” for being a woman, a Muslim and a secular activist. The Syrian-American author and psychiatrist, Wafa Sultan, was also branded an “infidel” deserving of death.

Le Figaro recently published a long report about Muslim French personalities threatened with “execution”. “Placed under permanent police protection, regarded as traitors by Muslim fundamentalists, they live in a hell. In the eyes of Islamists, their freedom is an act of betrayal of the ummah [community].” They are writers and journalists of Arab-Muslim culture who denounce the Islamist threat and the inherent violence of the Koran. They stand alone against Islamism which uses the physical terrorism of Kalashnikovs, and against the intellectual terrorism which submits them to media intimidation. Seen as “traitors” by their communities, they are accused by the élites in the West of “stigmatizing.”

The French journalist Zineb El Rhazoui has more bodyguards than many ministers in the government of Manuel Valls, and for security, has to change houses in Paris often in recent months. For this young scholar, born in Casablanca and who works at the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, walking down the street in Paris has become unthinkable. A fatwa put out after January 7, 2015 reads: “Kill Zineb El Rhazoui to avenge the Prophet.”

Threats against another dissident, Nadia Remadna, do not come from Raqqa, Syria, but her own city: Sevran, in Seine-Saint-Denis. They reflect the growing influence of Islamists in the lost territories of the French Republic. What “crime” was she found guilty of? She created the “Brigade of Mothers” to combat the Islamist influence on young Muslims.

A philosophy teacher, Sofiane Zitouni, has also quit his job at a Muslim French school over “insidious Islamism.”

The French-Algerian journalist, essayist and author of several investigations into Islamist circles,Mohamed Sifaoui, is the victim of a double threat. He is a prime target for both fundamentalists and the “tolerant” grand inquisitors. Sentenced to two years in prison by the Algerian regime for “press offenses,” then harassed by Islamists, Sifaoui requested asylum in France in 1999 and has never set foot in Algeria again. Since then, Sifaoui has seen his picture and name next to the words “le mourtad,” the apostate, on Islamist websites, meaning that he is targeted for death. French police protection around him has been total since 2006, when he defended freedom of expression for the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.

About fifteen witnesses made a deposition in favor of the magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Among them were the late Muslim Tunisian essayist, Abdelwahab Meddeb, who had the courage to challenge the entire French Muslim establishment which tried to stop Charlie Hebdo. Meddeb wanted to show “this is not about anyone against Islam, but enlightened Islam against obscurantist Islam.”

Also in France, Hassen Chalghoumi, the courageous imam of Drancy, preaches while wearing a bullet-proof vest. When he goes out on the street, he is accompanied by five police officers with semiautomatic weapons. This is not outside Baghdad’s Green Zone; this is in the heart of Paris. Chalghoumi backed the ban on burkas; made an unprecedented visit at Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial; paid tribute to the victims of Charlie Hebdo and favored a dialogue with French Jews.

Naser Khader, a Muslim liberal with Danish citizenship, who called for “a Muslim reformation,” and authored “Honour and Shame,” is threatened by Islamic groups with death.

In Italy, an Egyptian-born writer, Magdi Cristiano Allam, is protected by bodyguards for having criticized political Islam. As the deputy editor of Italy’s leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera, Mr. Allam published a book whose title alone was enough to endanger his life: “Viva Israele.

Ibn Warraq lives protected behind a pseudonym since writing a seminal book, “Why I am Not a Muslim.”

The Palestinian blogger Walid Husayin is also a rarity. Jailed for “satirizing the Koran, he recently published a book in France about his experience in the Palestinian territories, where his “atheism” nearly cost him his life.

In Tunisia there are a handful of filmmakers and intellectuals who fight for freedom of expression, especially after a secular opposition leader, Chokri Belaid, was assassinated. Also Nadia El Fani, the director of “Ni Allah ni maître” [“Neither Allah nor Master”], and Nabil Karoui, the manager of Nessma TV, are threatened with death and are being taken to court to answer charges of “blasphemy.” If Tunisia’s “Arab spring” did not turn into an Islamist winter, as elsewhere, it is largely thanks to these dissidents.

Those heroes know what happened to their predecessors in “the war on Arab intellectuals.” Writers such as Tahar Djaout were killed in 1993 by the Islamists in Algiers, as was the journalist, Farag Foda, famous for his sharp satires on Islamic fundamentalism. Prior to his murder, Foda had been accused of “blasphemy” by the great mosque of al-Azhar. A dozen Bangladeshi bloggers have also been murdered in cold blood by Islamists for the “crime” of “secularism.”

Last year, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al- Sisi called for reforming Islam and the way it is taught as did Sunni Islam’s leading cleric, Sheikh Ahmed al Tayeb, head of Cairo’s al-Azhar University, the center of Sunni Islam. And he said it in Mecca, no less. Egypt’s conservatives however did their best to tamp that down – at least for the moment.

There are, however, more and more dissidents successfully speaking out and leading bold, farsighted movements. In the U.S., M. Zuhdi Jasser, author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam,” and a practising physician, founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Last year, more than two dozen Muslim personalities promoted an appeal “to embrace a pluralistic interpretation of Islam, rejecting all forms of oppression and abuses committed in the name of religion.”

In Canada, Raheel and Sohail Raza founded “Muslims Facing Tomorrow,” and there is the outspoken Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, Salim Mansur.

In the U.K., Maajid Nawaz heads the influential Quilliam Foundation, and Shiraz Maher, who defected from the Islamist organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, now serves as a Senior Fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London.

These are just a few of today’s heroes. Some had to be left out; there were too many to list.

The proud and painful resistance of these “Allah’s rebels” is one of the most beautiful testaments of our times. These “Allah’s rebels” are also the only real hope of reform for the Islamic world — and of preserving freedom for all of us.

Political Islam Explained by Bill Warner (part 2 of 2)

June 10, 2016

Political Islam Explained by Bill Warner (part 2 of 2), Rubin Reports via YouTube, June 6, 2016

Political Islam Explained by Bill Warner (part 1 of 2)

June 10, 2016

Political Islam Explained by Bill Warner (part 1 of 2), Rubin Reports, via YouTube, June 6, 2016

The Pope and the Imam

June 7, 2016

The Pope and the Imam via YouTube, June 7, 2016

The blurb beneath the video states,

Pope Francis met with a high level imam in order to spread peace and co-existence. The Pope is willing to ignore 1400 years of jihad against Christians to talk about peace. But peace in Islam only comes after submission. Co-existence in Islam comes when the Kafir becomes a dhimmi and accepts Sharia law.

The last Pope to talk about the history of Islamic murder of Christians caused Muslims to riot and kill.

This Pope calls terrorism the problem, not jihad. He also uses the phony phrase “true Islam” as if jihad is not true Islam. The shop-worn word “extremist” is used to divorce the doctrine of Islam from reality of current events and history.

The imam spoke the only word of truth: “We should not treat Muslims as a terrorist threat.” The threat is not Muslims; the threat is the doctrine of political Islam.

The Pope also brought home Muslim migrants, not Christian refugees from Islamic persecution. The Pope, Christians and everybody else ignore the suffering of Christians.

The Pope is no different from the ignorant Protestants and Jews. Ignorance is the problem, ignorance of the political nature of Islam.

Our Good Islam/Bad Islam Strategy

February 11, 2016

Our Good Islam/Bad Islam Strategy, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, February 11, 2016

Behead them

There is no Good Islam. There is no Bad Islam. There is just Islam.

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

Our only hope of defeating Islamic terrorism is Islam. That’s our whole counterterrorism strategy.

But Islamic terrorism is not a separate component of Islam that can be cut off from it. Not only is it not un-Islamic, but it expresses Islamic religious imperatives. Muslim religious leaders have occasionally issued fatwas against terrorism, but terrorism for Muslim clerics, like sex for Bill Clinton, is a matter of definition. The tactics of terrorism, including suicide bombing and the murder of civilians, have been approved by fatwas from many of the same Islamic religious leaders that our establishment deems moderate. And the objective of terrorism, the subjugation of non-Muslims, has been the most fundamental Islamic imperative for the expansionistic religion since the days of Mohammed.

Our strategy, in Europe and America, under Bush and under Obama, has been to artificially subdivide a Good Islam from a Bad Islam and to declare that Bad Islam is not really Islam. Bad Islam, as Obama claims, “hijacked” a peaceful religion. Secretary of State Kerry calls Bad Islam’s followers, “apostates”. ISIS speaks for no religion. It has no religion. Which means the Islamic State must be a bunch of atheists.

Our diplomats and politicians don’t verbally acknowledge the existence of a Bad Islam. Even its name is one of those names that must not be named. There is only Good Islam. Bad Islam doesn’t even exist.

This isn’t just domestic spin, which it is, but it’s also an attempt at constructing an Islamic narrative. Our leaders don’t care what we think. They just want us to keep quiet and not offend Muslims. They do care a great deal about what Muslims think. And so, in their own clumsy way, they try to talk like Muslims.

They are attempting to participate in an Islamic debate without the requisite theological credentials. They want to tell Muslims that they should be Good Muslims not Bad Muslims, but they’re too afraid to use those words, so instead they substitute Good Muslims and Not Muslims. All Muslims are Good Muslims and Bad Muslims are Not Muslims is their Takfiri version of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Our counterterrorism strategy has been constructed to convince Good Islam to have nothing to do with Bad Islam. And any of us who criticize Good Islam or argue that the artificial distinction between Good Islam and Bad Islam, between Saudi Arabia and ISIS, between Iran and Hezbollah, between Pakistan and the Taliban, is false are accused of provoking Good Islam to transform into Bad Islam.

Nothing so thoroughly proves that the difference between Bad Islam and Good Islam is a lie as the compulsive way that they warn that Good Muslims are capable of turning into Bad Muslims at any moment. Offend a Good Muslim, criticize his religion, fail to integrate him, accommodate his every whim and censor what he dislikes and he’ll join ISIS and then he’ll become a Bad Muslim.

After every terror attack, the media painstakingly constructs a narrative to determine why former moderates like Anwar Al-Awlaki, the Tsarnaevs or the San Bernardino killers turned bad without resorting to religious explanations. Their efforts at rationalization quickly become ridiculous; Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood killer, contracted airborne PTSD, Anwar Al-Awlaki, the head of Al Qaeda in Yemen, became an “extremist” because he was afraid the FBI had found out about his prostitutes and the Times Square bomber turned into a terrorist because his “American Dream” was ruined.

Nobody, they conclude, becomes an Islamic terrorist because of Islam. Instead there are a thousand unrelated issues, having nothing to do with Islam, which creates the Muslim terrorist. Even the term “Radical Islamic Jihadist”, an absurd circumlocution (is there a moderate Islamic Jihadist), has become a badge of courage on one side and a dangerous, irresponsible term that provokes violence on the other.

But what is the distinction between Good Islam and Bad Islam? It isn’t fighting ISIS. Al Qaeda and the Taliban do that. It isn’t terrorism. Our Muslim allies, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar, are hip deep in the terror trade. It isn’t equality for non-Muslims. No Muslim country under Sharia law could have that. Equality for women? See above.

What are the metrics that distinguish Good Islam and Bad Islam? There aren’t any. We can’t discuss the existence of Bad Islam because it would reveal that Bad Islam and Good Islam are really the same thing.

Our Good Islam allies in Pakistan fight Bad Islam’s terror, when they aren’t hiding Osama bin Laden. Bad Islam in the Islamic State beheads people and takes slaves and Good Islam in Saudi Arabia does too. Qatar is our Good Islam ally helping us fight Bad Islam terrorists by arming and funding Good Islam terrorists who sometimes turn out to be Bad Islam terrorists so we can’t figure out if the Islamic terrorists the CIA is routing weapons to are Good Islam terrorists or Bad Islam terrorists.

The moderate Muslim Brotherhood wins democratic elections. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood then burns down churches. The moderate Palestinian Authority negotiates with Israel and then the extremist Palestinian Authority cheers the stabbing of a Jewish grandmother. The moderate Iranian government signs a nuclear deal and then the extremist Iranian government calls for “Death to America”.

Like the saintly Dr. Jekyll and the mean Mr. Hyde, Good Islam and Bad Islam are two halves of the same coin. When Dr. Jekyll wanted to act out his baser nature, he took a potion and turned into Mr. Hyde. But the nasty urges were always a part of him. When a moderate Muslim pulls a Keffiyah over his face and starts stabbing, bombing or beheading, he doesn’t become an extremist, he just expresses his dark side.

Good Islam borrowed all sorts of noble sentiments from Judaism and Christianity. But when non-Muslims didn’t accept Islam, then Mohammed stopped playing nice and preached murder. Bad Islam is not something ISIS invented on a website. It’s always been a part of Islam. We attempt to separate Good Islam and Bad Islam because we don’t like being beheaded. But Muslims don’t make that distinction.

Our counterterrorism strategy is based on empowering Good Islam, on building coalitions with Muslims to fight terrorism and enlisting their cooperation in the War on Terror. But we’re trying to convince Dr. Jekyll to help us fight Mr. Hyde. And Dr. Jekyll might even help us out, until he turns into Mr. Hyde.

Our moderate Afghan Muslim allies, when they’re aren’t raping young boys (one of their cultural peculiarities we are taught to ignore), sometimes unexpectedly open fire on our soldiers. The Muslim migrants who arrive here to “enrich” our societies sometimes start shooting and bombing. The head of Al Qaeda was hanging out near the West Point of Pakistan. The mastermind of 9/11 was saved by a member of the Qatari royal family. The call is coming from inside the house. Mr. Hyde is Dr. Jekyll.

When we “empower” and “build coalitions” with Good Islam, we’re also empowering and building coalitions with Bad Islam. Just ask all the Muslim terrorists running around with our weapons.

Our leaders want Good Islam to shield us from Bad Islam. If Good Islam is out front, then Muslims won’t see a clash of civilizations or a religious war, but a war between Good Islam and Bad Islam. But the Muslim understanding of Good Islam and Bad Islam is very different from our own.

Sunnis see their Jihadis as Good Islam and Shiites as Bad Islam. Shiites look at it the other way around. The Muslim Brotherhood, that our elites were so enamored with, saw secular governments as Bad Islam. To win them over, we helped them overthrow more secular governments because our leaders had adopted an understanding of Good Islam in which giving Christians civil rights was Bad Islam.

To win over Good Islam, we censor cartoons of Mohammed and criticism of the Koran, open our borders, Islamize our institutions and then wait to see if we’re on the good side of Good Islam. We adapt our societies and legal systems to Islamic norms and hope that it’s enough to let us join the Good Islam Coalition. If we go on at this rate, the experts will tell us that the only way to defeat Islamic terrorism is for us to become Muslims. Only then will we become members in good standing of Good Islam.

There is no Good Islam and no Bad Islam, as Muslim leaders occasionally trouble to tell us. The distinction that our leaders make between Good Islam and Bad Islam is not theological, but pragmatic. They dub whatever is shooting at us right now Bad Islam and assume that everything else must be Good Islam. That is the fallacy which they used to arrive at their Tiny Minority of Extremists formula.

There is no Tiny Minority of Extremists. Behind the various tiny minorities of extremists are countries and billionaires, global organizations and Islamic banks. Outsourcing our counterterrorism strategy to the countries and ideologies behind the terrorists we’re fighting isn’t a plan, it’s a death wish.

Islamic terrorism is just what we call Islam when it’s killing us.

The Jihad isn’t coming from some phantom website. It’s coming from our Muslim allies. It’s coming from Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It’s coming from the Muslim Brotherhood and its front groups. It’s coming from the moderate Muslim leaders that our leaders pose with at anti-extremism conferences. And it’s coming from the mosques and homes of the Muslims living in America.

There is no Good Islam. There is no Bad Islam. There is just Islam.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Challenge of Radical Islam

January 3, 2016

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Challenge of Radical Islam, You Tube, January 3, 2015

(It’s an hour and six minutes long but well worth watching. — DM)

 

Islam — Radical, Extremist and Mainstream

November 21, 2015

Islam — Radical, Extremist and Mainstream, Dan Miller’s Blog, November 21, 2015

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

In largely secular western societies, Islam and its history are viewed by many non-Muslims as substantially irrelevant to how devout Muslims behave. Perhaps the view that religion is of little importance to devout Muslims is based on the role, minor if any, that religion and religious history play in their own secular lives. However, both Islamic teachings and history give devout Muslims their grounding in Islam and teach them that Islam is the religion of war, not peace: Islam must become the world’s only religion by extirpating all others.

Islam was founded by Mohamed ( c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE) in the sixth century. Mohamed

is considered, almost universally,[n 2] by Muslims to have been the last prophet sent by God to mankind[3][n 3] to restore Islam, which they believe to be the unaltered original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets.[4][5][6][7] [Emphasis added.]

Islam considers the words of Mohamed, as transcribed in the “Holy” Quran and Hadith, to be the words of Allah. “Restoring” other monotheistic religions means changing them to comport with Islam as dictated to Mohamed by Allah; unaltered, those other religions cannot continue to exist; it is the duty of Muslims to force them to change or to exterminate them.

Islam provides the basis for Sunni and Shiite (principal branches of Islam) efforts to govern world civilization according to Islamic principles as voiced by Allah through his prophet, Mohamed. Since Islamic principles tolerate no religious or political freedoms (let alone contemporary gender equality or homosexuality notions), such western ideas must be extirpated — as they have been in Saudi Arabia (now the head of the UN Human Rights Council) and Iran. Islamic principles are also manifested by the hopes and efforts of the Islamic State (Sunni, like Saudi Arabia) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (Shiite) to achieve their own caliphates.

Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr is a scholar of Islamic law and a graduate of Egypt’s Al Azhar University — regularly touted as the world’s most prestigious Islamic university. Al Azhar University co-hosted Obama’s 2009 “New Beginnings” address in Cairo, to which Obama insisted that at least ten members of the Muslim Brotherhood be invited. According to an article at Jihad Watch,

After being asked why Al Azhar, which is in the habit of denouncing secular thinkers as un-Islamic, refuses to denounce the Islamic State as un-Islamic, Sheikh Nasr said:

It can’t [condemn the Islamic State as un-Islamic].  The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar’s programs.  So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic?  Al Azhar says there must be a caliphate and that it is an obligation for the Muslim world [to establish it].  Al Azhar teaches the law of apostasy and killing the apostate.  Al Azhar is hostile towards religious minorities, and teaches things like not building churches, etc.  Al Azhar upholds the institution of jizya [extracting tribute from religious minorities].  Al Azhar teaches stoning people.  So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic? [Emphasis added.]

Nasr joins a growing chorus of critics of Al Azhar.  Last September, while discussing how the Islamic State burns some of its victims alive—most notoriously, a Jordanian pilot—Egyptian journalist Yusuf al-Husayni remarked on his satellite program that “The Islamic State is only doing what Al Azhar teaches… and the simplest example is Ibn Kathir’s Beginning and End.”

Since the world’s preeminent Islamic university teaches Islam as proclaimed by the Islamic State, how can non-Muslims claim that the Islamic State is not Islamic? Why do many, even conservatives, refer to the Islamic State and its allied Islamic terror groups as “radical” or “extremist?”

Martin Luther was “radical” and “extreme” because he tried to reform aspects of Roman Catholicism which he deemed malign.

He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God’s punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar, with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.

Unlike Martin Luther’s eventually successful efforts to reform aspects of Roman Catholicism, the efforts of Egyptian President Sisi and other moderate Muslims to reform Islam have thus far gained little traction. Obama appears to support President Sisi’s principal opponent in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliate, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Sisi and other moderates — rather than the Islamic State and Islamic nations such as Iran and Saudi Arabia — should be characterized as “radical” or “extreme” because they dispute the teachings of Allah as relayed through his prophet, Mohamed. The proponents of Islam as it now exists are “mainstream,” and therefore neither “radical” nor “extreme.” We should support “radicals” like President Sisi.

As noted in an article titled Beware of Islamic Terrorism,

All Islamic terrorists — not only the Islamic State group and al-Qaida — systematically and deliberately target civilians, stabbing their Muslim and “infidel” host countries in the back, abusing their hospitality to advance 14 centuries of megalomaniac aspirations to rule the globe in general, and to reclaim the “waqf” (Allah-ordained) regions of Europe in particular.

Emboldened by Western indifference, these destabilizing and terror-intensifying aspirations have been bolstered by the Islamic educational systems in Europe, the U.S. and other Western countries. These proclaim a supposedly irrevocable Islamic title over the eighth-century Islamic conquests of Lyon, Nice and much of France, as well as all of Spain; the ninth-century subjugation of parts of Italy; and the ninth- and 10th-century occupations of western Switzerland, including Geneva. [Emphasis added.]

Europe has underestimated the critical significance of this long anti-Western history in shaping contemporary Islamic education, culture, politics, peace, war, and the overall Islamic attitude toward Europe, North America, Australia, and other “arrogant infidels.” “Infidel” France has been the prime European target for Islamic terrorists, with 11 reported attacks in 2015, despite France’s systematic criticism of Israel and support for the Palestinian Authority — dispelling conventional “wisdom” that Islamic terrorism is Israeli or Palestinian-driven.

Europe has ignored the significant impact the crucial milestones in the life of the Prophet Muhammad have had on contemporary Islamic geostrategy, such as his seventh-century Hijrah, when Muhammad, along with his loyalists, emigrated or fled from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina), not to be integrated and blend into Medina’s social, economic or political environment, but to advance and spread Islam through conversion, subversion and terrorism, if necessary. Asserting himself over his hosts and rivals in Medina, Muhammad gathered a critical mass of military might to conquer Mecca and launch Islam’s drive to dominate the world. [Emphasis added.]

According to a moderate Muslim, Maajid Nawaz, writing in an article at the Daily Beast titled ISIS Is Just One of a Full-Blown Global Jihadist Insurgency,

Our political leaders have been restricting the definition of this problem to whichever jihadist group is causing them the biggest headache at the present time, while ignoring the fact that they are all borne of the same Islamist ideology. Before ISIS emerged, the U.S. State Department strangely took to naming the problem “al Qaeda-inspired extremism,” even though it was not al Qaeda that inspired the radicalism. Rather, Islamist extremism inspired al Qaeda. And in turn, ISIS did not radicalize those 6,000 European Muslims who have traveled to join them, nor the thousands of supporters the French now say they are monitoring. [Emphasis added.]

This did not happened overnight and could not have emerged from a vacuum. ISIS propaganda is good, but not that good. No, decades of Islamist propaganda in communities had already primed these young Muslims to yearn for a theocratic caliphate. When surveyed, 33 percent of British Muslims expressed a desire to resurrect a caliphate. ISIS simply plucked the low-hanging fruit, which had been seeded long ago by various Islamist groups, and it will now require decades of community resilience to push back. But we cannot even begin to do so until we recognize the problem for what it is. Welcome to the full-blown global jihadist insurgency. [Emphasis added.]

The author of that article claims that Islamism (often referred to as “political Islam“) is not Islam:

I speak as a former Liberal Democrat candidate in the U.K.’s last general election and as someone who became a political prisoner in Egypt due to my former belief in Islamism. I speak, therefore, from a place of concern and familiarity, not enmity and hostility to Islam and Muslims. In a televised discussion with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on the issue, I have argued that of course ISIS is not Islam. Nor am I. Nor is anyone, really. Because Islam is what Muslims make it. But it is as disingenuous to argue that ISIS has “nothing to do with Islam” as it is to argue that “they are Islam.” ISIS has something to do with Islam. Not nothing, not everything, but something. . . . [Emphasis added.]

It is important to define here what I mean by Islamism: Islam is a religion, and like any other it is internally diverse. But Islamism is the desire to impose a very particular version of Islam on society. Hence, Islamism is Muslim theocracy. [Emphasis added.]

In another article, Mr. Nawaz acknowledges,

Islamism has been rising in the UK for decades. Over the years, in survey after survey, attitudes have reflected a worrying trend. A quarter of British Muslims sympathised with the Charlie Hebdo shootings. 0% have expressed tolerance for homosexuality. A third have claimed that killing for religion can be justified, while 36% have thought apostates should be killed. 40% have wanted the introduction of sharia as law in the UK and 33% have expressed a desire to see the return of a worldwide theocratic Caliphate. Is it any wonder then, that from this milieu up to 1,000 British Muslims have joined ISIS, which is more than joined the Army reserves.

I wish Mr. Nawaz well and hope that his efforts to change Islam succeed. However, in drawing distinctions between Islam and Islamism, he seems to have forgotten, or perhaps to have chosen to ignore, the teachings of Allah as relayed by his messenger and Islam’s founder, Mohamed, referenced at the beginning of this article. Mohamed (and presumably Allah himself) would be surprised by and even horrified at such notions as “Islam is what Muslims make itand that Islam does not contemplate a Muslim theocracy. So, in all probability, would be many of the clerics at Egypt’s Al Azhar University.

Here are a few videos of Islamic clerics spreading their messages of Islamic peace, love and tolerance. The last of the bunch is about one of Obama’s favorite Muslims.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CQwU_QhrHE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNYZX6lt49k

To close on a somewhat lighter note, here are a few observations by Jonah Goldberg taken from his Goldberg file (November 20, 2015 e-mail),

If you Google “Christian terrorism,” you’re probably a jackass to begin with. But if you do — bidden not by your own drive to jackassery but by the natural curiosity inspired by this “news” letter — you’ll find lots of left-wingtrollery about how the worst terrorist attacks on American soil have been committed by Christians. Much of it is tendentious, question-begging twaddle. But I really don’t want to waste a lot of time on whether Tim McVeigh was a Christian or not (he really wasn’t).

What I find interesting is that many of the same people who clutch their pearls at the mere suggestion that Islamic terrorism has anything to do with — oh, what’s the word again? — oh right: Islam, seem to have no problem making the case that “Christian terrorism” is like a real thing. Remember how so many liberals loved — loved — Obama’s sophomoric and insidious tirade about not getting on our “high horses” about ISIS’s atrocities in the here and now because medieval Christians did bad things a thousand years ago? They never seem to think that argument through. Leaving out the ass-aching stupidity of the comparison, it actually concedes the very point Obama never wants to concede. By laying the barbaric sins of Christians a thousand years ago at the feet of Christians today, he implicitly tags Muslims with the barbarism committed in their name today. [Emphasis added.]

Now, I see no need to wade too deeply into the theology here, but I think I am on very solid ground when I say that Islamic terrorism draws more easily and deeply from the Koran than Tim McVeigh drew from the Christian Bible. Of course, you’re free to disagree. In a free society, everybody has the right to be wrong in their opinions. (But don’t tell anyone at Yale that.)

. . . .

But it is simply a lie — an obvious, glaring, indisputable, trout-in-the-milk lie — that Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

Simply put, this is nonsense. . . .  The jihadists say they are motivated by Islam. They shout “Allahu akbar!” whenever they kill people. “Moderate Muslims” in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have been funding Islamic radicals around the world for nearly a century. This morning in Mali, terrorist gunmen reportedly released those hostages who could quote the Koran. The leader of ISIS has a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies and openly talks about restoring the Caliphate. [Emphasis added.]

Despite all of this, don’t be distracted from the greatest threat to our security; or perhaps we should be:

theo3

Egypt’s secular culture minister ruffles Salafi feathers

October 7, 2015

Egypt’s secular culture minister ruffles Salafi feathers, Al-MonitorRami Galal, October 6, 2015

(Building a secular Muslim state in a region dominated by Islamists is difficult and takes time, as Egypt and Al-Sisi are learning. — DM)

helmiEgypt’s newly appointed Culture Minister Hilmi al-Namnam appears on the Egyptian talk show 25/30, Nov. 11, 2014. (photo by youtube.com/ONtv)

CAIRO — On Sept. 19, a new Egyptian Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, was sworn in before President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Among the new ministers is the journalist Hilmi al-Namnam, who holds the culture portfolio. The appointment of Namnam, a secularist, has sparked controversy among Egyptian Salafis and aroused opposition in Saudi Arabia. Such Saudi writers and intellectuals as Jamal Khashoggi, editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel, object to Namnam’s appointment because he opposes Wahhabi Salafism, the religiopoliticial movement that originated in the Nejd region of the Saudi kingdom.

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab founded what became the Wahhabi movement in the 18th century. In 1744, Wahhab allied with Muhammad ibn Saud, emir of the Nejd and founder of the first Saudi state, to increase followers of the Quran, Sunnism and the words and actions of the Salaf, the first three generations of Muslims. In doing so, they sought to purify Islam of misguided practices negatively affecting the Islamic essence of unity and various forms of heresy.

Immediately after Namnam assumed the culture portfolio, a video of him from July 2013 went viral. In it, Namnam stated, “The political Islam current must leave the political game completely, especially the Salafist Nour Party, which is more dangerous than the Muslim Brotherhood.” He compared the Nour Party to a “whore who extorts her husband if he doesn’t fulfill her demands by escorting someone else.” Namnam also said, “We lie when we say Egypt is a naturally religious country. It is high time we said Egypt is a naturally secular state.”

The Nour Party came in second in the 2012 parliamentary elections. Among its positions at the time were prohibitions on electing women and Copts, saluting the flag and singing the national anthem. The party altered these platforms, however, after lending its stamp of approval in 2013 to the June 30 revolution, although most of its leading figures waivered over what course to take.

On Sept. 19, Shaaban Abdel Aleem, a member of the Nour Party’s board, requested information on the selection criteria used for appointing the new ministers. On the same day, Khashoggi, who is close to Saudi decision-makers, commented on Namnam’s appointment via Twitter. “For whoever is planning mutual cultural exchanges with our brothers in Egypt, the following piece of information could be useful: Namnam is not only a critic of Wahhabism, but abhors it and blames it for all his country’s catastrophes,” Khashoggi tweeted. In a separate tweet, he wrote, “Honestly, for the sake of relations between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and due to the nature of the regime there, Egypt should not appoint a minister like Namnam, who has taken it too far in offending the kingdom.”

Namnam responded that evening in a phone call to “Al-Ashera Masaa,” a show on Dream TV, saying, “I did not say Wahhabism was the mother of vices. These are not my words, but I am against terrorist groups in general.” He added that he had criticized “attempts to export Wahhabism to Egypt,” but that he “respects the kingdom’s choices, just as the kingdom’s writers should respect Egypt and Egyptians’ choices.”

Khashoggi immediately replied, again on Twitter, writing, “Egypt’s minister of culture claims he respects Wahhabism, but admits that he is against exporting it to Egypt. I would like to tell him that Wahhabism cannot be exported. It is a pillar of the Egyptian revolution and is represented by emblematic figures like the followers of Sheikh Muhammad Abduh.” The Islamic jurist Abduh, an Egyptian, is a founder of Islamic modernism. He spearheaded the movement at the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century to counter intellectual and cultural stagnation and revive the Islamic nation in line with the times.

Khashoggi argued, “Salafism preceded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as there was the Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyah group, which remains the oldest reformist Islamic organization in Egypt and the world.” Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyah seeks absolute unity and the rejection of superstitions and cults. It began in Cairo’s Hadara Mosque in 1926. Many Al-Azhar scholars and Salafist preachers were welcoming of it.

On Oct. 2, tensions escalated when Namnam said during an interview on the Sada al-Balad channel that he was ready to be “martyred to spare Egypt from turning into a caliphate state.” He added that secularism is not the adversary of Islam, as some claim. “Every moderate Muslim is necessarily secular. But, not every secularist is a Muslim,” he said.

The following day, Yasser Borhami, deputy leader of the Salafist Call, implored Sisi to intervene and forbid Namnam from making such statements, which he said contradict the constitution given that Sharia is the primary source of legislation.

Nour Party leader Younes Makhyoun entered the fray Oct. 3, asserting that Namnam should remain impartial or be dismissed. “The person [Sisi] who appointed this minister must oblige him to respect the constitution,” he stated.

Sayyed Mustafa, deputy chair of the Nour Party, told Al-Monitor, “The party did not look into Namnam’s old opinions, because they stem from personal freedom. Each person has the right to believe whatever they wish. But he must realize that he is the minister of culture for 90 million Egyptians. The Ministry of Culture should represent all currents, not just one, be it secular or nonsecular.” He added, “As a minister handling a political portfolio, Namnam must take into consideration Egypt’s foreign relations in general and brotherly relations in particular, like those it shares with Saudi Arabia.”

Zubeida Atta, former dean of Helwan University’s faculty of arts and a member of the Supreme Council of Culture, has a different perspective on the issue. “The concept of secularism that Namnam called for is not a heretical one. It relies on the use of education and its application in countries to improve them and ensure their civil aspects, instead of mixing religion with political life. The latter [mixing of the two] would send Egypt down a sectarian abyss that would threaten its existence,” she told Al-Monitor. “The Nour Party demanded clarifying the selection criteria of ministers. I demand clarifying the criteria that allow such a religious party to participate in political life and in parliamentary elections.”

As for the rumblings from the Gulf, Atta asserted, “Egypt does not dare suggest a Saudi Arabian minister for a certain ministry in the kingdom or criticize a current minister in the Saudi Arabian regime, because this is an internal Saudi Arabian matter. Why is Khashoggi, among others, allowing himself to interfere in the appointment of a minister in the Egyptian Cabinet?”

 

Satire | Three cheers for Terroristine

October 1, 2015

Three cheers for Terroristine, Sultan Knish Blog, Daniel Greenfield, October 1, 2015

(He refers, of course, to “Palestine.” — DM)

We need a terrorist state. Where the politicians are terrorists, the police are terrorists and even the men sitting at the desk when you come in to drop off a form are terrorists.

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There are states that support terrorists, and give safe harbor to them, but that’s not good enough. We don’t want another Pakistan or Iran. We’re not half-assing it this time. What we want is the genuine article. Terrorists from the top down. Terrorists everywhere. A state where every branch of government and the entire country is nothing but terrorists.

Terroristine has been an ancient dream since 1973 or was it 1967. A generation of keffiyah draped thugs, KGB operatives and human rights activists have looked out into the darkness and called it into being. It is a vision of a country where everyone is a murderer and children are taught from a very young age that their purpose in life is to die killing people who don’t share their religion.

And now after decades of negotiations, treaties, suicide bombings, mutilations, billions of dollars in vanishing into Swiss bank accounts and the death of its Egyptian born leader of AIDS– Terroristine is closer than ever to coming into being.

Abbas, its unelected dictator, who has struggled long and hard so that one of his sons might have his own cigarette monopoly in Gaza, has come to the UN to promise that Terroristine will have “will actively contribute to the achievement of economic, cultural, and humanitarian progress of civilization.”

And who can doubt him? Certainly not Terroristinians who don’t have elections or a free press.

Terroristine, whose noble flag (that looks like nearly every other Arab flag) flies over the UN, has done wonders for civilization. Consider the airplane hijacking. The suicide bomber. Has there ever been a civilization that did as much for civilized living as the Terroristinians?

Every time you get groped at an airport, thank Terroristine. Without the Terroristinian contribution to civilization, you might actually be able to get on a plane in peace. Or visit the Twin Towers.

The Terroristinian contribution to human progress is unquestionable. But only one thing stands in the way of it unleashing its full Terroristinian potential for all mankind.

Them. Those pesky people who live in that country that is always in the way. You know the ones, with too many Nobel prizes, newly invented tomatoes and microchips. They stand in the way of the great cultural contributions of Terroristine. They must die so that Terroristine must live.

They must be thrown out of their homes, village by village and city by city, so that the noble Terroristinians can plant their rockets on the rubble of their houses, the charred remains of their fields, and point them at their cities.

Trying to end terrorism by creating a terrorist state makes is like trying to put out a fire with more fire. It can’t work, but we must try. So that we can say that we tried. Over and over again. We’ll keep trying until we run out of land to try with. And people to try with.

Until there’s nothing left but Terroristines everywhere. Until all the world is Terroristine. The question is can we make it happen? Yes, we can. Oh sweet Allah, yes we can.

Israel must return to the 1967 borders, which are really the 1948 borders. Why are the borders of the 1948 war, so much better than the borders of the Six Day War? Because the Terroristinians came closer to winning that war. Came closer to driving the Yahood into the sea and ululating over miles  of their corpses.

boy_bomb.preview

But the dream failed. Farmers armed with outdated rifles. Volunteer pilots from America and Canada. Refitted cargo ships filled with half-dead men, women and children straight from the camps. Used Czech artillery. They held off the armies of seven Terroristinian nations. Farm by farm, they stood off tanks and infantry. In Jerusalem, they fought for every house. And so the Zionist entity survived.

Allah curse them. They survived.

But now it’s back to 1948 again. Every war undone. Every defeat turned to victory. Cut Jerusalem in two. Drive out the farmers. Burn their land. Dig up their graves. March the borders back to 1948. And fly the Terroristinian flag over dust and rubble. Had they won in 1948 or 1967 or 1973, there would be no Israel and no Terroristine. The land would have become part of Syria, Egypt and Jordan. And only when the mobs of the faithful would drive out the tyrants to replace them with Islamic states, would there finally be a Terroristine.

But despite what Abbas says, there is still hope for a two state solution. And we must do everything in our power to salvage the two state solution so that there will be a state of civilization on one side and a state of terrorists on the other. Hospitals here, launching pads there. Schools here, bomb factories there. Life here, death here. We all know the story. Olive trees and bomb belts. Rocks and dead families in burning cars by the side of the road. Children with their throats cut.

A dream. A nightmare. Who even knows anymore.

Why do we need Terroristine? Peace. There can be no peace without a terrorist state. Not a chance of it. The only way we’ll ever have peace is to give the terrorists a country of their own. A country dedicated to terrorism. Only then will the Terroristinians finally give up on all the killing, and dedicate themselves to medical research, quantum mechanics and the arts. It hasn’t happened yet to. But it’s bound to.

After decades as an autonomous territory, spreading death and destruction, it’s time for Terroristine to finally be recognized as an independent state. With contiguous borders cutting Israel in half. It is the only hope for peace in the region. Would Sunnis and Shiites be killing each other from Yemen to Iraq? Assuredly not. The moment the flag of Terroristine rises above the wounded hills, and its peaceful anthem, “Palestine is My Revenge” is heard in the land, then a great echoing sigh will rise up from the mouths of one billion Muslims. And the violence will cease.

The international community is impatient. They want Terroristine and they want it now. Whatever Israel has offered in the past, it isn’t enough. It must offer more and more. Whatever it takes. We know the Terroristinians want their own state. Every time they walk out of negotiations or end them with a round of terrorist attacks, it shows their deep and abiding passion for a state. They want it so badly they aren’t willing to make a single concession for it. Or even negotiate for it.

That’s how committed they are to realizing their great dream to Terroristine. And who can blame them? Have any people suffered the way the Terroristinians have? (Besides all the people the Terroristinians have killed over the last 1,400 years.) Have any other people been wholly subsidized by a UN agency dedicated only to them? Have any other people inspired such a stylish fashion statement? No more excuses. The world demands Terroristine. Middle East peace demands Terroristine.

How much longer can Israel expect to draw out the necessary concessions with weak justifications about terrorism. We know they’re terrorists. That’s why we’re giving them a state. If they weren’t terrorists, they could go to the back of the line with the Jews, Kurds and Armenians.

From one corner of the Muslim world to the other, a cry goes out. “We Are All Terroristinians.” They cry it it Cairo and Damascus, in Tehran and Islamabad, in Dubai and Paris. They mosques go up, the asses go up and the bombs go off. And off to the peace negotiations we go.

Islam will dominate the world

Everyone is impatient. Everyone is on fire. Especially the Terroristinians. Jewish store windows are smashed in London, Terroristinians butcher Rabbis in Jerusalem synagogues, fuming Terroristinians shoot up American recruiting centers. And the crowds cheer. “We Are All Terroristinians Now.”

It is a great day, I tell you. A great day for negotiating. ISIS impatiently beheads infidels to create its own Islamic Terroristine. In Afghanistan the word goes out, “We are the Taliban, we are the Afghan people, we are Terroristinians.” In Egypt and Turkey, they cry, “Khaybar Ya Yahood”. Churches burn. Soldiers die. The smoke rises to heaven. A man waits in line at the airport. His passport is Dutch, Welsh, German, American, it doesn’t matter. He is a Terroristinian. Yallah.

One day the borders of Terroristine will stretch from Spain to Pakistan. Or beyond Why settle for Jerusalem, when we can have London, Paris and Hamburg too. Why settle for anything at all? Allah is generous to the believers. Our people are in Africa. Even China. The Great Satan himself bows toward Mecca. The old governments are falling. The pawns of the Kufir are fleeing before our eyes.

We are all Terroristinians now. There is no other book on our shelves than the Koran. No law but Sharia in our hearts. And no nation but Terroristine. The ghost of Chamberlain stands outside No. 10 Downing Street promising peace. A Terroristinian refugee beheads him and holds up his spectral head to the cheers of the crowd. Rockets sail through the sky. The crowd cheers. Hip Hip Hooray. Hierosylma Est Perdita. Three cheers for Terroristine.

Satire? | Election 2048 – Under the peace of Islam

September 30, 2015

Election 2048 – Under the peace of Islam, Sultan Knish Blog, Daniel Greenfield, September 30, 2015

Election Coverage 2048 – Al-CNN

As the election of 2048 approaches, the candidates from both parties continue to exchange strong views on the issues that affect the lives of Americans. The Party of Democracy and Justice (Hezb-Al-Dimukratie-Wa’al Adalah) continues to maintain that the election will come down to social justice issues.

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“With 34 percent unemployment and the price of goat so far out of range of most working families that they have been forced to switch to chicken, it is time that our opponents stopped dodging the issues and took a serious look at the economic consequences of their policies,” Bashar Mohammed Hussein Al-Hamdani, said during a campaign stop at a HalalBurger in Peoria, Illinois.

However the ruling Freedom and Religion Party (Hezb Al-Hurriyah Wa’al Allah) denounced this as class warfare. Still preoccupied with the ongoing occupation of the Netherlands and Greece, the party has taken criticism for ignoring the economic problems of the United States while being preoccupied with waging foreign wars in the name of Islam.

Nevertheless President Mohammed Al-Thani, fresh off a pilgrimage from Mecca, vigorously defended his record while conducting a photo op at a San Diego Madrassa. “The Freedom and Religion Party believes in creating opportunities, rather than offering hand outs. Our subjugation of infidel nations has opened up new territories to be dominated by the believers and our vigorous drive for national morality has revived the family unit as an economic force. Our program of heavily fining women who go out with their naked hair exposed and raising the Jizya tax on the People of the Book has also raised billions of dollars that will go toward repaying the nation 93 trillion dollar debt.”

The high Jizya tax has provoked outrage in some parts of the United States, but the continuing decline of the nation’s non-Muslim population has made the Christian vote much less of a factor in the election. Hamdani has promised to cut the Jizya tax by 20 percent if elected, but it is unclear whether conservative elements in his own party will allow him to do it. National surveys show that since making the proposal, Hamdani’s ratings have gone down 9 points in Illinois and 14 points in California.

President Al-Thani’s advisors view the 2 million conversions to Islam since the Jizya tax was tripled as a major benefit to the party which lost its Christian support during the Great Transition. Since then the Freedom and Justice Party has picked up a Christian and Jewish bloc vote, but the value of that bloc has not held up well over the last two elections.

Christian rights activists attribute the decline of American Christians to the Jizya tax which has made it impossible for many Christian families to earn a living. They also blame the bloody 2045 Riots which marked the end of the Christian presence in former strongholds such as Nashville and Cedar Rapids, as well as rumors about the kidnapping and forced conversion of Christian girls.

However popular talk show host and pundit, Abdul Greene countered that the decrease was best explained by the large scale immigration of Christians out of the country. “The Christians are too bigoted to live in the same country with us, just like their parents and grandparents. If they can’t control the country, they refuse to live here and accept our laws.”

Christian rights activists have accused Greene of playing a major role in stirring up the 2045 Riots which torched Christian areas in major cities across the United States after a Christian man was accused of having an intimate encounter with a Muslim woman. Greene however insists that the Christians are the ones to blame. Greene’s support of the Freedom and Religion Party has been controversial, but President Al-Thani has refused to disavow him.

The latest round of attacks by Greek guerrillas on liberation forces in Athens led to smaller attacks on Christian businesses in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles last month. They also accentuated the debate over the continuing occupation of Greece which began in 2031 when the United States government intervened to protect the territorial claims of the Turkish Republic of Cyprus. Much as in the Netherlands, the intervention to protect a Muslim community turned into a full blown occupation and a war against an insurgency that is believed to be backed and supplied by rogue states such as the breakaway Arctic Republic and the Zionist Entity.

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The Freedom and Religion Party under President Al-Thani continues to take the position that American prosperity is closely linked to the welfare of the rest of the Muslim world. In the State of the Union address the president stated that, “We cannot repeat the folly of the Americans of the pagan period who believed that they could have material wealth without religion. Our prosperity comes from Allah and it is only by spreading the way of Allah and conducting our Jihad in the way of Allah on behalf of our endangered brothers and sisters in Europe and Asia that we will be deserving of Allah’s bounty.”

Hoping to exploit the widespread economic dissatisfaction, Hamdani, a former Wisconsin governor, has promised to withdraw troops from Greece within two years and the Netherlands within five years with the majority of remaining liberation forces being drawn from other Muslim countries. “We can best aid our fellow believers in the Muslim world by being a model of stability and a beacon of tolerance.”

Yusuf Al-Amiriki, a member of Hamdini’s foreign policy defense team and a first generation convert descended from two American presidents, courted controversy with a proposal to set up a coalition government of Muslim and moderate Christian groups in the Netherlands. Such governments had been tried in Europe before during the 2030’s, but invariably fell apart. Leading Senators from the Freedom and Justice Party accused Hamdani of selling out Muslim interests in order to court the Christian vote. Hamdani’s spokeswoman, Aisha Zubedi, has refused to comment on the Amiriki proposal except to say that Hamdani was open to any solution that would restore peace to the people of the Netherlands and protect the rights of European Muslims.

Hamdani courted further controversy by appearing at the funeral of former President Bob Thompson. Thompson had served two terms and while his administration had worked hard on outreach to the Muslim world, he also engaged in the targeted murder of Muslim religious leaders and provided aid to the Zionist entity. For these reasons, President Al-Thani chose not to appear at his funeral even though President Thompson had been a member of the pre-transition Freedom and Religion Party, which was then known as the Republican Party.

Despite the official disapproval, Thompson was viewed positively by many in the Muslim community. Tens of millions of Pakistani-Americans remember how after the India-Pakistan war, the Thompson Administration generously opened its borders to victims of the nuclear fallout in Pakistan. Without that step it might have taken decades more before America achieved a Muslim majority.

During the beginning of his second term, Thompson became the first president to take the oath of office on both a Bible and a Koran declaring that he wanted to make no separation between the books of god. At the Thompson funeral, Hamdani appeared to promise that he would repeat that gesture, but his spokeswoman quickly disavowed any notion that he would ever take an oath on a text that was not the Koran.

“No American president has taken an oath on a bible in over a decade, all that the governor meant was that he would keep both Christians and Muslims in mind as the people of Allah when he takes his oath to protect and defend the Sharia,” Aisha Zubedi said.

While the Democracy and Justice Party has often appealed to the poor, its missteps have raised concerns in traditional Muslim communities that Hamdani is going too far in pandering to non-Muslims. “Next thing you know he’ll say we should let the Jews come back to America,” Congressman Mohammed Mogabe declared. “If Hamdani wants votes out of Cleveland then he is going to show he will fight for us, not for the enemies of the prophets.”

Hamdani has hurriedly scheduled an upcoming visit to the Ground Zero Mosque, but it may not be enough to improve his image in the eyes those who have accused him of flirting with apostasy. While the Mosque is a traditional stop for presidential candidates, Hamdani is unlikely to pay tribute to the souls of the 19 martyrs as Al-Thani did during the previous election.

Hoping to refocus attention on his economic program, Hamdani called for higher corporate taxes and accused some corporations of abusing Islamic banking, in particular Hibah payments, to avoid paying taxes. Such charges are not new, but particularly galling at a time when over half the country is out of work and tycoons like Ahmed Shalafi and Sheikh Johnson have used their connections with the Al-Thani government to become billionaires.

To counter Hamdani, Al-Thani’s economic advisers have offered up a stimulus plan that raises the Jizya tax on infidels for the second time in a year and vowed to cut spending even further without affecting subsidies to Islamic schools or military preparedness for the Global Jihad. Though the election is still some time away, the Al-Thani campaign has also rolled out a series of ads targeting poor communities which accuse Hamdani of plotting with Jewish and Christian tycoons to subvert the Islamic system of finance through freemasonry and Communist class warfare tactics.

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Adding further drama to the election is the possibility of a third party campaign. Andrew McMillan who has been running as an independent in elections for almost twenty years without appealing to anyone but the same racist groups who have been disavowed even by most Christians and Jews, but there is talk that McMillan’s America Party might consider replacing the eccentric millionaire with sports star Ted March. As leading goalscorer who helped the United States win the 2042 World Cup, March is one of the most admired non-Muslims in the country. With him on the ticket, the America Party might be able to adopt a new moderate image that is no longer associated with bigotry and intolerance. But frustrating his own party members, the septuagenarian McMillan appeared to an event commemorating the 2045 riots and gave a rousing speech which hit on many of the same old themes. “For thirty-six years I’ve been involved in politics and the only thing that I can tell you about politics is that it’s all bunk. We weren’t talking about the things that mattered thirty-six years ago and we aren’t talking about them now.”