Aug. 25, 2010: Bob Basso, a Thomas Paine impersonator, stopped playing Paine after the U.S. bicentennial, but resurrected the character after Obama was elected President. Basso believes now more than ever it is time to resurrect the spirit of our founding fathers. Watch interview at PJTV. Also watch http://www.bobbasso.com/
What happens to America matters to each and every one of us - wherever we live.
Amnesty Madness
Mr. Paine loudly shouts "no" to amnesty on principles, not politics.
The Broken Common Bond
THOMAS PAINE argues for a restoration of the common bond over diversity.
Open Letter to President Obama
Thomas Paine admonishes the President to uphold our founding principles.
We the People Stimulus Package
Bob Basso author of "Common Sense" plays the role of Thomas Paine to ignite the fire of change in America. Patriotism and Pride for America lead Thomas Paine to help take back America!
The Second American Revolution
Thomas Paine, author of "Common Sense," returns to modern times to plea for a second revolution to take back America, Now!
Thomas Paine on to Washington
March on Washington, The Silent Majority Silent No More, Protest must turn to rebellion, wake up Congress, March on Congress.
WE CAN TURN THE TIDE! Our Western Way of Life is slipping away, fast. The 1930's are back.
Understanding Islam - Raymond Ibrahim
Blog Middle East and Terrorism - Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Islam's Doctrines of Deception by Raymond Ibrahim
To better understand Islam, one must appreciate the thoroughly legalistic nature of the religion. According to sharia (Islamic law) every conceivable human act is categorised as being either forbidden, discouraged, permissible, recommended, or obligatory.
"Common sense" or "universal opinion" has little to do with Islam's notions of right and wrong. Only what Allah (through the Quran) and his prophet Muhammad (through the Hadith) have to say about any given issue matters; and how Islam's greatest theologians and jurists – collectively known as the ulema, literally, "they who know" – have articulated it.
According to sharia, in certain situations, deception – also known as 'taqiyya', based on Quranic terminology, – is not only permitted but sometimes obligatory.
For instance, contrary to early Christian history, Muslims who must choose between either recanting Islam or being put to death are not only permitted to lie by pretending to have apostatised, but many jurists have decreed that, according to Quran 4:29, Muslims are obligated to lie in such instances.
Origins of Taqiyya
As a doctrine, taqiyya was first codified by Shia Muslims, primarily as a result of their historical experience. Long insisting that the caliphate rightly belonged to the prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali (and subsequently his descendents), the Shia were a vocal and powerful branch of Islam that emerged following Muhammad's death. After the internal Islamic Fitna wars from the years 656 AD to 661 AD, however, the Shia became a minority branch, persecuted by mainstream Muslims or Sunnis – so-called because they follow the example or 'sunna' of Muhammad and his companions. Taqiyya became pivotal to Shia survival.
Interspersed among the much more numerous Sunnis, who currently make up approximately 90 per cent of the Islamic world, the Shia often performed taqiyya by pretending to be Sunnis externally, while maintaining Shia beliefs internally, as permitted by Quranic verse 16:106. Even today, especially in those Muslim states where there is little religious freedom, the Shia still practice taqiyya. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, Shias are deemed by many of the Sunni majority to be heretics, traitors and infidels and like other non-Sunni Muslims they are often persecuted.
Several of Saudi Arabia's highest clerics have even issued fatwas sanctioning the killing of Shias. As a result, figures on the Arabian kingdom's Shia population vary wildly from as low as 1 per cent to nearly 20 per cent. Many Shias living there obviously choose to conceal their religious identity. As a result of some 1,400 years of Shia taqiyya, the Sunnis often accuse the Shias of being habitual liars, insisting that taqiyya is ingrained in Shia culture.
Conversely, the Sunnis have historically had little reason to dissemble or conceal any aspect of their faith, which would have been deemed dishonorable, especially when dealing with their historic competitors and enemies, the Christians. From the start, Islam burst out of Arabia subjugating much of the known world, and, throughout the Middle Ages, threatened to engulf all of Christendom. In a world where might made right, the Sunnis had nothing to apologise for, much less to hide from the 'infidel'.
Paradoxically, however, today many Sunnis are finding themselves in the Shias' place: living as minorities in Western countries surrounded and governed by their traditional foes. The primary difference is that, extremist Sunnis and Shia tend to reject each other outright, as evidenced by the ongoing Sunni-Shia struggle in Iraq, whereas, in the West, where freedom of religion is guaranteed, Sunnis need only dissemble over a few aspects of their faith.
Articulation of Taqiyya
According to the authoritative Arabic text, Al-Taqiyya Fi Al-Islam: "Taqiyya [deception] is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it. We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream...Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era."
The primary Quranic verse sanctioning deception with respect to non-Muslims states: "Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels instead of believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah – unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions." (Quran 3:28; see also 2:173; 2:185; 4:29; 22:78; 40:28.)
Al-Tabari's (838-923 AD) Tafsir, or Quranic exegeses, is essentially a standard reference in the entire Muslim world. Regarding 3:28, he wrote: "If you [Muslims] are under their [infidels'] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them, with your tongue, while harbouring inner animosity for them... Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels in place of believers – except when infidels are above them [in authority]. In such a scenario, let them act friendly towards them."
Regarding 3:28, the Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir (1301-1373) wrote: "Whoever at any time or place fears their [infidels'] evil, may protect himself through outward show."
As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad's companions. Abu Darda said: "Let us smile to the face of some people while our hearts curse them." Al-Hassan said: "Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the day of judgment [in perpetuity]."
Other prominent ulema, such as al- Qurtubi , al-Razi, and al-Arabi have extended taqiyya to cover deeds. Muslims can behave like infidels – from bowing down and worshipping idols and crosses to even exposing fellow Muslims' "weak spots" to the infidel enemy – anything short of actually killing a fellow Muslim.
War is Deceit
None of this should be surprising considering that Muhammad himself, whose example as the "most perfect human" is to be tenaciously followed, took an expedient view on the issue of deception. For instance, Muhammad permitted deceit in three situations: to reconcile two or more quarreling parties; husband to wife and vice-versa; and in war (See Sahih Muslim B32N6303, deemed an "authentic" hadith).
The entire sequence of Quranic revelations are a testimony to taqiyya and, since Allah is believed to be the revealer of these verses, he ultimately is seen as the perpetrator of deceit. This is not surprising since Allah himself is often described in the Quran as the "best deceiver" or "schemer." (see 3:54, 8:30, 10:21). This phenomenon revolves around the fact that the Quran contains both peaceful and tolerant verses, as well as violent and intolerant ones.
The ulema were uncertain which verses to codify into sharia's worldview. For instance, should they use the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims until they either convert or at least submit to Islam (9:5, 9:29)? To solve this quandary, they developed the doctrine of abrogation – naskh, supported by Quran 2:105. This essentially states that verses "revealed" later in Muhammad's career take precedence over those revealed earlier whenever there is a discrepancy.
Why the contradiction in the first place? The standard answer has been that, because Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by the infidels in the early years of Islam, a message of peace and co-existence was in order. However, after Muhammad migrated to Medina and grew in military strength and numbers, the militant or intolerant verses were revealed, urging Muslims to go on the offensive.
According to this standard view, circumstance dictates which verses are to be implemented. When Muslims are weak, they should preach and behave according to the Meccan verses; when strong, they should go on the offensive, according to the Medinan verses. Many Islamic books extensively deal with the doctrine of abrogation, or Al-Nasikh Wa Al-Mansukh.
War is Eternal
...according to all four recognised schools of Sunni jurisprudence, war against the infidel goes on in perpetuity, until "all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah" (Quran 8:39). According to the definitive Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online edition): "The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily. Furthermore there can be no question of genuine peace treaties with these nations; only truces, whose duration ought not, in principle, to exceed ten years, are authorised. But even such truces are precarious, inasmuch as they can, before they expire, be repudiated unilaterally should it appear more profitable for Islam to resume the conflict."
The concept of obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam's dichotomised worldview that pits Dar al Islam (House of Islam) against Dar al Harb (House of War or non-Muslims) until the former subsumes the latter. Muslim historian and philosopher, Ibn Khaldun (1332- 1406), articulated this division by saying: "In the Muslim community, holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. ...Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations."
...the sole function of the "peace-treaty" (hudna) is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup for a renewed offensive. Muhammad is quoted in the Hadith saying: "If I take an oath and later find something else better, I do what is better and break my oath (see Sahih Bukhari V7B67N427)."
This might be what former PLO leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat meant when, after negotiating a peace treaty criticised by his opponents as conceding too much to Israel, he said in a mosque: "I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraish in Mecca."
If Islam must be in a constant state of war with the non-Muslim world – which need not be physical, as radicals among the ulema have classified several non-literal forms of jihad, such as "jihad-of-the-pen" (propaganda), and "money-jihad" (economic) – and if Muslims are permitted to lie and feign loyalty to the infidel to further their war efforts, offers of peace, tolerance or dialogue from extremist Muslim corners are called into question.
Religious Obligation?
Following the terrorist attacks on the United States of 11 September 2001, a group of prominent Muslims wrote a letter to Americans saying that Islam is a tolerant religion that seeks to coexist with others.
Bin Laden castigated them, saying: "As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarised by the Most High's Word: 'We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us – till you believe in Allah alone' [Quran 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility – that is battle – ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [a dhimmi – a non-Muslim subject living as a "second-class" citizen in an Islamic state in accordance to Quran 9:29], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable [a circumstance under which taqiyya applies]. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity and hatred, directed from the Muslim to the infidel, is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them."
This hostile world view is traceable to Islam's schools of jurisprudence. When addressing Western audiences, however, Bin Laden's tone significantly changes. He lists any number of grievances as reasons for fighting the West – from Israeli policies towards Palestinians to the Western exploitation of women and US failure to sign the Kyoto protocol – never alluding to fighting the US simply because it is an infidel entity that must be subjugated. He often initiates his messages to the West by saying: "Reciprocal treatment is part of justice."
This is a clear instance of taqiyya, as Bin Laden is not only waging a physical jihad, but one of propaganda. Convincing the West that the current conflict is entirely its fault garners him and his cause more sympathy. Conversely, he also knows that if his Western audiences were to realise that, all real or imagined political grievances aside, according to the Islamic worldview delineated earlier, which bin Laden does accept, nothing short of their submission to Islam can ever bring peace, his propaganda campaign would be compromised. As a result there is constant lying, "for war is deceit".
If Bin Laden's words and actions represent an individual case of taqiyya, they raise questions about Saudi Arabia's recent initiatives for "dialogue". Saudi Arabia closely follows sharia. For instance, the Saudi government will not allow the construction of churches or synagogues on its land; Bibles are banned and burned. Christians engaged in any kind of missionary activity are arrested, tortured, and sometimes killed. Muslim converts to Christianity can be put to death in the kingdom.
Despite such limitations on religious freedom, the Saudis have been pushing for more dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims. At the most recent inter-faith conference in Madrid in July 2008, King Abdullah asserted: "Islam is a religion of moderation and tolerance, a message that calls for constructive dialogue among followers of all religions."
Days later, it was revealed that Saudi children's textbooks still call Christians and Jews "infidels", "hated enemies" and "pigs and swine". A multiple-choice test in a book for fourth-graders asks: "Who is a 'true' Muslim?" The correct answer is not the man who prays and fasts, but rather: "A man who worships God alone, loves the believers and hates the infidels". These infidels are the same people the Saudis want dialogue with. This raises the question of whether, when Saudis call for dialogue, they are merely following Muhammad's companion Abu Darda's advice: "Let us smile to the face of some people while our hearts curse them"?
There is also a philosophical – more particularly, epistemological – problem with taqiyya. Anyone who truly believes that no less an authority than God justifies and, through his prophet's example, sometimes even encourages deception, will not experience any ethical qualms or dilemmas about lying. This is especially true if the human mind is indeed a tabula rasa shaped by environment and education. Deception becomes second nature.
Exposing a Doctrine
All of the above is an exposition on doctrine and its various manifestations, not an assertion on the actual practices of the average Muslim. The deciding question is how literally any given Muslim follows sharia and its worldview.
So-called "moderate" Muslims – or, more specifically, secularised Muslims – do not closely adhere to sharia, and therefore have little to dissemble about. On the other hand, "radical" Muslims who closely observe sharia law, which splits the world into two perpetually warring halves, will always have a "divinely sanctioned" right to deceive, until "all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah" (Quran 8:39)... READ FULL ARTICLE
INTERVIEWED by Lawrence Wright
Several years after 9/11 we are still trying to figure out what happened and why. Raymond Ibrahim warns against applying our world view on Islam - we should not discount what they say [especially in Arabic - their intentions are clear].
[Amazon regarding Raymond Ibrahim's book "The Al Qaeda Reader"]: Al-Qaeda’s chilling ideology calls for a relentless jihad against non-Muslim “infidels,” repudiates democracy in favor of Islamic law, stresses the importance of martyrdom, and mocks the notion of “moderate” Islam. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these works is how grounded they are in the traditional sources of Islamic theology: the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet. The founders of al-Qaeda use these sources as powerful weapons of persuasion, reminding followers (and would-be recruits) that Muhammad and his warriors spread Islam through the power of the sword and that the Koran is not merely allegory or history but literal truth that commands all Muslims to action.
June 14, 2009: The classic interview where Raymond Ibrahim discusses his book The Al Qaeda Reader and blasts several Islamic apologetics.
Raymond Ibrahim describes spread of Islam in history
Non-Muslims living under Islam, Jihad, & interpretations
_________________
Islam's Doctrines of Deception by Raymond Ibrahim
To better understand Islam, one must appreciate the thoroughly legalistic nature of the religion. According to sharia (Islamic law) every conceivable human act is categorised as being either forbidden, discouraged, permissible, recommended, or obligatory.
"Common sense" or "universal opinion" has little to do with Islam's notions of right and wrong. Only what Allah (through the Quran) and his prophet Muhammad (through the Hadith) have to say about any given issue matters; and how Islam's greatest theologians and jurists – collectively known as the ulema, literally, "they who know" – have articulated it.
According to sharia, in certain situations, deception – also known as 'taqiyya', based on Quranic terminology, – is not only permitted but sometimes obligatory.
For instance, contrary to early Christian history, Muslims who must choose between either recanting Islam or being put to death are not only permitted to lie by pretending to have apostatised, but many jurists have decreed that, according to Quran 4:29, Muslims are obligated to lie in such instances.
Origins of Taqiyya
As a doctrine, taqiyya was first codified by Shia Muslims, primarily as a result of their historical experience. Long insisting that the caliphate rightly belonged to the prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali (and subsequently his descendents), the Shia were a vocal and powerful branch of Islam that emerged following Muhammad's death. After the internal Islamic Fitna wars from the years 656 AD to 661 AD, however, the Shia became a minority branch, persecuted by mainstream Muslims or Sunnis – so-called because they follow the example or 'sunna' of Muhammad and his companions. Taqiyya became pivotal to Shia survival.
Interspersed among the much more numerous Sunnis, who currently make up approximately 90 per cent of the Islamic world, the Shia often performed taqiyya by pretending to be Sunnis externally, while maintaining Shia beliefs internally, as permitted by Quranic verse 16:106. Even today, especially in those Muslim states where there is little religious freedom, the Shia still practice taqiyya. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, Shias are deemed by many of the Sunni majority to be heretics, traitors and infidels and like other non-Sunni Muslims they are often persecuted.
Several of Saudi Arabia's highest clerics have even issued fatwas sanctioning the killing of Shias. As a result, figures on the Arabian kingdom's Shia population vary wildly from as low as 1 per cent to nearly 20 per cent. Many Shias living there obviously choose to conceal their religious identity. As a result of some 1,400 years of Shia taqiyya, the Sunnis often accuse the Shias of being habitual liars, insisting that taqiyya is ingrained in Shia culture.
Conversely, the Sunnis have historically had little reason to dissemble or conceal any aspect of their faith, which would have been deemed dishonorable, especially when dealing with their historic competitors and enemies, the Christians. From the start, Islam burst out of Arabia subjugating much of the known world, and, throughout the Middle Ages, threatened to engulf all of Christendom. In a world where might made right, the Sunnis had nothing to apologise for, much less to hide from the 'infidel'.
Paradoxically, however, today many Sunnis are finding themselves in the Shias' place: living as minorities in Western countries surrounded and governed by their traditional foes. The primary difference is that, extremist Sunnis and Shia tend to reject each other outright, as evidenced by the ongoing Sunni-Shia struggle in Iraq, whereas, in the West, where freedom of religion is guaranteed, Sunnis need only dissemble over a few aspects of their faith.
Articulation of Taqiyya
According to the authoritative Arabic text, Al-Taqiyya Fi Al-Islam: "Taqiyya [deception] is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it. We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream...Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era."
The primary Quranic verse sanctioning deception with respect to non-Muslims states: "Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels instead of believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah – unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions." (Quran 3:28; see also 2:173; 2:185; 4:29; 22:78; 40:28.)
Al-Tabari's (838-923 AD) Tafsir, or Quranic exegeses, is essentially a standard reference in the entire Muslim world. Regarding 3:28, he wrote: "If you [Muslims] are under their [infidels'] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them, with your tongue, while harbouring inner animosity for them... Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels in place of believers – except when infidels are above them [in authority]. In such a scenario, let them act friendly towards them."
Regarding 3:28, the Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir (1301-1373) wrote: "Whoever at any time or place fears their [infidels'] evil, may protect himself through outward show."
As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad's companions. Abu Darda said: "Let us smile to the face of some people while our hearts curse them." Al-Hassan said: "Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the day of judgment [in perpetuity]."
Other prominent ulema, such as al- Qurtubi , al-Razi, and al-Arabi have extended taqiyya to cover deeds. Muslims can behave like infidels – from bowing down and worshipping idols and crosses to even exposing fellow Muslims' "weak spots" to the infidel enemy – anything short of actually killing a fellow Muslim.
War is Deceit
None of this should be surprising considering that Muhammad himself, whose example as the "most perfect human" is to be tenaciously followed, took an expedient view on the issue of deception. For instance, Muhammad permitted deceit in three situations: to reconcile two or more quarreling parties; husband to wife and vice-versa; and in war (See Sahih Muslim B32N6303, deemed an "authentic" hadith).
The entire sequence of Quranic revelations are a testimony to taqiyya and, since Allah is believed to be the revealer of these verses, he ultimately is seen as the perpetrator of deceit. This is not surprising since Allah himself is often described in the Quran as the "best deceiver" or "schemer." (see 3:54, 8:30, 10:21). This phenomenon revolves around the fact that the Quran contains both peaceful and tolerant verses, as well as violent and intolerant ones.
The ulema were uncertain which verses to codify into sharia's worldview. For instance, should they use the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims until they either convert or at least submit to Islam (9:5, 9:29)? To solve this quandary, they developed the doctrine of abrogation – naskh, supported by Quran 2:105. This essentially states that verses "revealed" later in Muhammad's career take precedence over those revealed earlier whenever there is a discrepancy.
Why the contradiction in the first place? The standard answer has been that, because Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by the infidels in the early years of Islam, a message of peace and co-existence was in order. However, after Muhammad migrated to Medina and grew in military strength and numbers, the militant or intolerant verses were revealed, urging Muslims to go on the offensive.
According to this standard view, circumstance dictates which verses are to be implemented. When Muslims are weak, they should preach and behave according to the Meccan verses; when strong, they should go on the offensive, according to the Medinan verses. Many Islamic books extensively deal with the doctrine of abrogation, or Al-Nasikh Wa Al-Mansukh.
War is Eternal
...according to all four recognised schools of Sunni jurisprudence, war against the infidel goes on in perpetuity, until "all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah" (Quran 8:39). According to the definitive Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online edition): "The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily. Furthermore there can be no question of genuine peace treaties with these nations; only truces, whose duration ought not, in principle, to exceed ten years, are authorised. But even such truces are precarious, inasmuch as they can, before they expire, be repudiated unilaterally should it appear more profitable for Islam to resume the conflict."
The concept of obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam's dichotomised worldview that pits Dar al Islam (House of Islam) against Dar al Harb (House of War or non-Muslims) until the former subsumes the latter. Muslim historian and philosopher, Ibn Khaldun (1332- 1406), articulated this division by saying: "In the Muslim community, holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. ...Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations."
...the sole function of the "peace-treaty" (hudna) is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup for a renewed offensive. Muhammad is quoted in the Hadith saying: "If I take an oath and later find something else better, I do what is better and break my oath (see Sahih Bukhari V7B67N427)."
This might be what former PLO leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat meant when, after negotiating a peace treaty criticised by his opponents as conceding too much to Israel, he said in a mosque: "I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraish in Mecca."
If Islam must be in a constant state of war with the non-Muslim world – which need not be physical, as radicals among the ulema have classified several non-literal forms of jihad, such as "jihad-of-the-pen" (propaganda), and "money-jihad" (economic) – and if Muslims are permitted to lie and feign loyalty to the infidel to further their war efforts, offers of peace, tolerance or dialogue from extremist Muslim corners are called into question.
Religious Obligation?
Following the terrorist attacks on the United States of 11 September 2001, a group of prominent Muslims wrote a letter to Americans saying that Islam is a tolerant religion that seeks to coexist with others.
Bin Laden castigated them, saying: "As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarised by the Most High's Word: 'We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us – till you believe in Allah alone' [Quran 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility – that is battle – ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [a dhimmi – a non-Muslim subject living as a "second-class" citizen in an Islamic state in accordance to Quran 9:29], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable [a circumstance under which taqiyya applies]. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity and hatred, directed from the Muslim to the infidel, is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them."
This hostile world view is traceable to Islam's schools of jurisprudence. When addressing Western audiences, however, Bin Laden's tone significantly changes. He lists any number of grievances as reasons for fighting the West – from Israeli policies towards Palestinians to the Western exploitation of women and US failure to sign the Kyoto protocol – never alluding to fighting the US simply because it is an infidel entity that must be subjugated. He often initiates his messages to the West by saying: "Reciprocal treatment is part of justice."
This is a clear instance of taqiyya, as Bin Laden is not only waging a physical jihad, but one of propaganda. Convincing the West that the current conflict is entirely its fault garners him and his cause more sympathy. Conversely, he also knows that if his Western audiences were to realise that, all real or imagined political grievances aside, according to the Islamic worldview delineated earlier, which bin Laden does accept, nothing short of their submission to Islam can ever bring peace, his propaganda campaign would be compromised. As a result there is constant lying, "for war is deceit".
If Bin Laden's words and actions represent an individual case of taqiyya, they raise questions about Saudi Arabia's recent initiatives for "dialogue". Saudi Arabia closely follows sharia. For instance, the Saudi government will not allow the construction of churches or synagogues on its land; Bibles are banned and burned. Christians engaged in any kind of missionary activity are arrested, tortured, and sometimes killed. Muslim converts to Christianity can be put to death in the kingdom.
Despite such limitations on religious freedom, the Saudis have been pushing for more dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims. At the most recent inter-faith conference in Madrid in July 2008, King Abdullah asserted: "Islam is a religion of moderation and tolerance, a message that calls for constructive dialogue among followers of all religions."
Days later, it was revealed that Saudi children's textbooks still call Christians and Jews "infidels", "hated enemies" and "pigs and swine". A multiple-choice test in a book for fourth-graders asks: "Who is a 'true' Muslim?" The correct answer is not the man who prays and fasts, but rather: "A man who worships God alone, loves the believers and hates the infidels". These infidels are the same people the Saudis want dialogue with. This raises the question of whether, when Saudis call for dialogue, they are merely following Muhammad's companion Abu Darda's advice: "Let us smile to the face of some people while our hearts curse them"?
There is also a philosophical – more particularly, epistemological – problem with taqiyya. Anyone who truly believes that no less an authority than God justifies and, through his prophet's example, sometimes even encourages deception, will not experience any ethical qualms or dilemmas about lying. This is especially true if the human mind is indeed a tabula rasa shaped by environment and education. Deception becomes second nature.
Exposing a Doctrine
All of the above is an exposition on doctrine and its various manifestations, not an assertion on the actual practices of the average Muslim. The deciding question is how literally any given Muslim follows sharia and its worldview.
So-called "moderate" Muslims – or, more specifically, secularised Muslims – do not closely adhere to sharia, and therefore have little to dissemble about. On the other hand, "radical" Muslims who closely observe sharia law, which splits the world into two perpetually warring halves, will always have a "divinely sanctioned" right to deceive, until "all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah" (Quran 8:39)... READ FULL ARTICLE
INTERVIEWED by Lawrence Wright
Several years after 9/11 we are still trying to figure out what happened and why. Raymond Ibrahim warns against applying our world view on Islam - we should not discount what they say [especially in Arabic - their intentions are clear].
[Amazon regarding Raymond Ibrahim's book "The Al Qaeda Reader"]: Al-Qaeda’s chilling ideology calls for a relentless jihad against non-Muslim “infidels,” repudiates democracy in favor of Islamic law, stresses the importance of martyrdom, and mocks the notion of “moderate” Islam. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these works is how grounded they are in the traditional sources of Islamic theology: the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet. The founders of al-Qaeda use these sources as powerful weapons of persuasion, reminding followers (and would-be recruits) that Muhammad and his warriors spread Islam through the power of the sword and that the Koran is not merely allegory or history but literal truth that commands all Muslims to action.
June 14, 2009: The classic interview where Raymond Ibrahim discusses his book The Al Qaeda Reader and blasts several Islamic apologetics.
Raymond Ibrahim describes spread of Islam in history
Non-Muslims living under Islam, Jihad, & interpretations
_________________
Facts About Israel
As a small country with limited natural resources, Israel depends on its most important natural resource - its people.
Israel's achievements are uniquely its own, a mixture of high idealism, ingenuity and self-reliance.
In almost 60 short years, Israel has accomplished what many nations haven't been able to do in centuries.
Israel's one natural resource is its brainpower, with a driving demand for survival and success against all odds, Israel developed an energetic and ambitious society.
Israel's achievements are uniquely its own, a mixture of high idealism, ingenuity and self-reliance.
In almost 60 short years, Israel has accomplished what many nations haven't been able to do in centuries.
Israel's one natural resource is its brainpower, with a driving demand for survival and success against all odds, Israel developed an energetic and ambitious society.
Torture In Iran
April 05, 2009: Ahmad Batebi tells CNN's Anderson Cooper, in his 1st U.S. television interview how he was tortured for 8 years in an Iranian prison and how he managed to escape.
Europe’s Guilty Conscience
Self-hatred is paralyzing the Continent
City-Journal.org - Pascal Bruckner - Summer 2010: ... since the end of World War II, Europe has been tormented by a need to repent.
Brooding over its past crimes (slavery, imperialism, fascism, communism), Europe sees its history as a series of murders and depredations that culminated in two global conflicts. The average European, male or female, is an extremely sensitive being, always ready to feel pity for the world’s sorrows and to take responsibility for them, always asking what the North can do for the South rather than asking what the South can do for itself.
Europe has surely engendered monsters. But it has, at the same time, engendered the ideas that made it possible to slay monsters. European history is a succession of paradoxes: arbitrary feudal power gave rise to democracy; ecclesiastical oppression, to freedom of conscience; national rivalries, to the dream of a supranational community; overseas conquests, to anticolonialism; and revolutionary ideologies, to the antitotalitarian movement. Europe sent armies, missionaries, and merchants to distant lands, but also invented anthropology, which is a way of seeing through others’ eyes, of standing at some distance from oneself in order to approach the stranger. The colonial adventure died of this fundamental contradiction: the subjection of continents to the laws of a mother country that at the same time taught its subjects the idea of a nation’s right to govern itself. In demanding independence, the colonies were applying to their masters the very rules that they had learned from them.
Since the time of the conquistadors, Europe has perfected the art of joining progress and cruelty. But a civilization responsible for the worst atrocities as well as the most sublime accomplishments cannot understand itself solely in terms of guilt. The suspicion that colors our most brilliant successes always risks degenerating into self-hatred and facile defeatism.
While America is a project, Europe is a sorrow. Before long, it will amount to little except the residue of abandoned dreams. We dreamed of a great diversity where we might live well, seek personal fulfillment, and, if possible, get rich—and all this in proximity to great works of culture. This was a worthwhile project, to be sure, and such a calm condition would be perfect in a time of great serenity, in a world that had finally achieved Kant’s “perpetual peace.” But there is a striking contrast between the stories that we Europeans tell ourselves about rights, tolerance, and multilateralism and the tragedies that we witness in the surrounding world—in autocratic Russia, aggressive Iran, arrogant China, a divided Middle East. We see them, too, in the heart of our great cities, in the double offensive of Islamist terrorism and fundamentalist groups aiming to colonize minds and hearts and Islamize Europe.
There is nothing more insidious than a collective guilt passed down from generation to generation, dyeing a people with a kind of permanent stain... Read full article
The Tyranny of Guilt
April 21, 2010: Author Pascal Bruckner in conversation with columnist Nick Cohen presenting a searing analysis of the bad politics that arise from excessive bad conscience.
City-Journal.org - Pascal Bruckner - Summer 2010: ... since the end of World War II, Europe has been tormented by a need to repent.
Brooding over its past crimes (slavery, imperialism, fascism, communism), Europe sees its history as a series of murders and depredations that culminated in two global conflicts. The average European, male or female, is an extremely sensitive being, always ready to feel pity for the world’s sorrows and to take responsibility for them, always asking what the North can do for the South rather than asking what the South can do for itself.
Europe has surely engendered monsters. But it has, at the same time, engendered the ideas that made it possible to slay monsters. European history is a succession of paradoxes: arbitrary feudal power gave rise to democracy; ecclesiastical oppression, to freedom of conscience; national rivalries, to the dream of a supranational community; overseas conquests, to anticolonialism; and revolutionary ideologies, to the antitotalitarian movement. Europe sent armies, missionaries, and merchants to distant lands, but also invented anthropology, which is a way of seeing through others’ eyes, of standing at some distance from oneself in order to approach the stranger. The colonial adventure died of this fundamental contradiction: the subjection of continents to the laws of a mother country that at the same time taught its subjects the idea of a nation’s right to govern itself. In demanding independence, the colonies were applying to their masters the very rules that they had learned from them.
Since the time of the conquistadors, Europe has perfected the art of joining progress and cruelty. But a civilization responsible for the worst atrocities as well as the most sublime accomplishments cannot understand itself solely in terms of guilt. The suspicion that colors our most brilliant successes always risks degenerating into self-hatred and facile defeatism.
While America is a project, Europe is a sorrow. Before long, it will amount to little except the residue of abandoned dreams. We dreamed of a great diversity where we might live well, seek personal fulfillment, and, if possible, get rich—and all this in proximity to great works of culture. This was a worthwhile project, to be sure, and such a calm condition would be perfect in a time of great serenity, in a world that had finally achieved Kant’s “perpetual peace.” But there is a striking contrast between the stories that we Europeans tell ourselves about rights, tolerance, and multilateralism and the tragedies that we witness in the surrounding world—in autocratic Russia, aggressive Iran, arrogant China, a divided Middle East. We see them, too, in the heart of our great cities, in the double offensive of Islamist terrorism and fundamentalist groups aiming to colonize minds and hearts and Islamize Europe.
There is nothing more insidious than a collective guilt passed down from generation to generation, dyeing a people with a kind of permanent stain... Read full article
The Tyranny of Guilt
April 21, 2010: Author Pascal Bruckner in conversation with columnist Nick Cohen presenting a searing analysis of the bad politics that arise from excessive bad conscience.
Mega Mosque Plans Target America's Heartland
Mega Mosques Strategically Placed Across the US... and who is Funding Them?
shoebatFoundation - August 22, 2010: The proposed mega-mosque at Ground Zero has sparked outrage among many Americans. But far from the bright lights of Manhattan, there is another mosque firestorm brewing... (http://www.shoebat.com/)
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shoebatFoundation - August 22, 2010: The proposed mega-mosque at Ground Zero has sparked outrage among many Americans. But far from the bright lights of Manhattan, there is another mosque firestorm brewing... (http://www.shoebat.com/)
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Under New American Management Al-Qaida Now Poses Inner Threat
Investors.com - Paul Sperry - August 12, 2010: Al-Qaida is under new American management. No fewer than four U.S. citizens and a permanent U.S. resident have risen to senior leadership posts.
These five English-speaking leaders are actively planning or facilitating attacks against their countrymen, while recruiting and radicalizing other American turncoats to carry them out.
By remaking itself into an American enterprise, al-Qaida is now more lethal than ever. Its new generation of leaders understands the way America works, having lived here for decades. They have a better sense of our security blind spots. They also know which kinds of attacks will produce both mass panic and maximum economic damage... Read article
These five English-speaking leaders are actively planning or facilitating attacks against their countrymen, while recruiting and radicalizing other American turncoats to carry them out.
By remaking itself into an American enterprise, al-Qaida is now more lethal than ever. Its new generation of leaders understands the way America works, having lived here for decades. They have a better sense of our security blind spots. They also know which kinds of attacks will produce both mass panic and maximum economic damage... Read article
Power Faith & Fantasy US & Middle East - Michael Oren
March 26, 2008: Michael B. Oren, Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jeruslam, specializes in the diplomatic and military history of the Middle East. He has written extensively for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic, of which he is a contributing editor. Oren discusses his book - Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.
BUY THE BOOK: Power Faith & Fantasy US & Middle East
Review expertp - Amazon - by J. A Magill: Michael Oren's excellent "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present" is such a book. Instead of covering familiar subjects, Mr. Oren offers an insightful study of an area few consider, America's relationship to the Middle East in the 19th Century. Many will surely wonder at how any author can squeeze more than 600 pages - not including footnotes and bibliography -- over a topic that you might suspect could be covered in scant pages. Such is the wonderful surprise that Oren offers. In gripping prose that will be familiar with those who have already read his definitive history of the Six Day War, Oren traces America's involvement in the Middle East and North Africa all the way back to the Revolutionary War period.
See more about Michael Oren
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BUY THE BOOK: Power Faith & Fantasy US & Middle East
Review expertp - Amazon - by J. A Magill: Michael Oren's excellent "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present" is such a book. Instead of covering familiar subjects, Mr. Oren offers an insightful study of an area few consider, America's relationship to the Middle East in the 19th Century. Many will surely wonder at how any author can squeeze more than 600 pages - not including footnotes and bibliography -- over a topic that you might suspect could be covered in scant pages. Such is the wonderful surprise that Oren offers. In gripping prose that will be familiar with those who have already read his definitive history of the Six Day War, Oren traces America's involvement in the Middle East and North Africa all the way back to the Revolutionary War period.
See more about Michael Oren
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Interview with Israeli Amb. Michael Oren: Trouble in Iran & UC Irvine
February 10, 2010: Israel's critics seem bent on bringing the Middle East, where there is no freedom of speech, to US campuses. With Iran promising a spectacular blow on February 11th, how should Israel's American friends respond to antagonism at home and overseas? Roger Simon interviews Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the United States. Watch part one and comment here. http://www.pjtv.com/
BUY THE BOOK: Six Days of War
Iran - Will Sanctions Work?
Israel's Ambassador Oren tells Roger Simon why it's time to toughen the West's line against the Iranian regime, why we should respect the Iranian people, and how we can head off Iran's nuclear program without turning the country against us. Watch and comment. http://www.pjtv.com/.
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Wolf Blitzer Interviews Ambassador Michael Oren on Iran and Airport Security
January 19, 2010: Ambassador Michael Oren's appearance on The Situation Room. Wolf Blitzer talked to the ambassador about Iran and Israeli airport security.
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Conversations with History: Michael B. Oren
August 15, 2008: Host Harry Kreisler welcomes historian and novelist Michael Oren for a discussion of the search for truth in his historical studies and in his novels. He reflects on the skills and temperament required to do history and fiction focusing on his study of the six day war in the Middle East and his novel Reunion.
Michael Oren: Power Faith and Fantasy U.S. and Middle East
March 26, 2008: Michael B. Oren, Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jeruslam, specializes in the diplomatic and military history of the Middle East. He has written extensively for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic, of which he is a contributing editor. Oren discusses his book - Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.
BUY THE BOOK: Power Faith & Fantasy US & Middle East
BUY THE BOOK: Six Days of War
Review excerpt from Amazon - by "dougrhon": Never before, has a book been published that not only chronicles the six days of the war itself but also the factors which led to it. In this important work, Michael Oren looks back and comprehensively examines each and every aspect of the conflict.
Oren presents the history from a military, diplomatic, political and cultural perspective. Through the extensive examination of archives, official reports, memoirs and interviews with surviving figures, Oren details the roles played by all the major players from the perspective of, not just the Israelis but the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians as well as the United States and the Soviet Union.
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BUY THE BOOK: Six Days of War
Iran - Will Sanctions Work?
Israel's Ambassador Oren tells Roger Simon why it's time to toughen the West's line against the Iranian regime, why we should respect the Iranian people, and how we can head off Iran's nuclear program without turning the country against us. Watch and comment. http://www.pjtv.com/.
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Wolf Blitzer Interviews Ambassador Michael Oren on Iran and Airport Security
January 19, 2010: Ambassador Michael Oren's appearance on The Situation Room. Wolf Blitzer talked to the ambassador about Iran and Israeli airport security.
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Conversations with History: Michael B. Oren
August 15, 2008: Host Harry Kreisler welcomes historian and novelist Michael Oren for a discussion of the search for truth in his historical studies and in his novels. He reflects on the skills and temperament required to do history and fiction focusing on his study of the six day war in the Middle East and his novel Reunion.
Michael Oren: Power Faith and Fantasy U.S. and Middle East
March 26, 2008: Michael B. Oren, Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jeruslam, specializes in the diplomatic and military history of the Middle East. He has written extensively for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic, of which he is a contributing editor. Oren discusses his book - Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.
BUY THE BOOK: Power Faith & Fantasy US & Middle East
BUY THE BOOK: Six Days of War
Review excerpt from Amazon - by "dougrhon": Never before, has a book been published that not only chronicles the six days of the war itself but also the factors which led to it. In this important work, Michael Oren looks back and comprehensively examines each and every aspect of the conflict.
Oren presents the history from a military, diplomatic, political and cultural perspective. Through the extensive examination of archives, official reports, memoirs and interviews with surviving figures, Oren details the roles played by all the major players from the perspective of, not just the Israelis but the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians as well as the United States and the Soviet Union.
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Losing the War against Islamic Totalitarianism - Dr. Yaron Brook
June 18, 2007: Israel and the West's War against Islamic Totalitarianism: Why We Are Losing - A Public Lecture by Dr. Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, USA
Location: The Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC)
On July 12, following the lecture, the Jerusalem Post published two articles about Ayn Rand and Dr. Yaron Brook.
Here are the links to the articles:
Location: The Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC)
On July 12, following the lecture, the Jerusalem Post published two articles about Ayn Rand and Dr. Yaron Brook.
Here are the links to the articles:
Sarah Palin Haters + Oil Drilling & Natural Gas
Bill Whittle - PJTV - August 06, 2009: On "Afterburner," Bill Whittle analyzes why elitists on the left and the right hate Sarah Palin. www.PJTV.com
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Vice Presidential Candidate Gov. Sarah Palin - Full Speech at the RNC
September 03, 2008: Vice Presidential Candidate Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) at the Republican National Convention
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Uncut: Sarah & Todd Palin on Oil Drilling and Natural Gas
Greta van Susteren's entire interview with former governor and her husband on drilling in Alaska and how it could solve America's energy woes.
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Vice Presidential Candidate Gov. Sarah Palin - Full Speech at the RNC
September 03, 2008: Vice Presidential Candidate Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) at the Republican National Convention
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Uncut: Sarah & Todd Palin on Oil Drilling and Natural Gas
Greta van Susteren's entire interview with former governor and her husband on drilling in Alaska and how it could solve America's energy woes.
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Power & Danger of Iconography - Obama
Barack Obama ran an unprecedented Presidential campaign - utilizing the power of design to help secure the seat of the President of the United States of America. However, his iconic emblem, the ever present "O", holds more power than even Obama knows. Bill Whittle points out the dangers of branding an ideology with an icon and how, perhaps, the powerful symbol will be used against the very man it built up. - http://www.pjtv.com/
Appeasement & Moral Cowardice START WARS!
Ground Zero Mosque Reality Check
Bill Whittle, PJTV - August 17, 2010: Bill Whittle talks about how policies of appeasement encouraged our enemies in the years leading up to World War II. Are modern policies of appeasement encouraging Islamic extremists? Will we pay the price for Obama's cowardice? Will we pay a price so vast that WWII will pale in comparison? Find out as Bill Whittle gets fired up on this edition of Afterburner at http://www.pjtv.com/
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DON'T MISS! WATCH NOW: Islamic Infiltration at ALL LEVELS of US Government
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Bill Whittle, PJTV - August 17, 2010: Bill Whittle talks about how policies of appeasement encouraged our enemies in the years leading up to World War II. Are modern policies of appeasement encouraging Islamic extremists? Will we pay the price for Obama's cowardice? Will we pay a price so vast that WWII will pale in comparison? Find out as Bill Whittle gets fired up on this edition of Afterburner at http://www.pjtv.com/
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DON'T MISS! WATCH NOW: Islamic Infiltration at ALL LEVELS of US Government
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Islamic Infiltration at ALL LEVELS of US Government
Inside Our Government, Armed with Our Secrets
Bill Whittle goes to Washington, DC to investigate radical Islam's influence over our government and access to our national security secrets. Two whistleblowers have the chilling details. http://www.pjtv.com/
In part two of Bill Whittle's investigation of radical Islam's influence over our government, a former FBI special agent discusses how our government has looked the other way as an Islamic insurrection mounts within our borders. http://www.pjtv.com/
DON'T MISS! Walid Shoebat talks about CIA infiltration, Fort Hood, and Islam in the US on Savage Nation
Obama Censors Threat
Bill Whittle - PJTV - April 09, 2010: Obama has passed edicts which specifically make it illegal for the administration to link Islam or Muslims with terrorism, or even to use the word terrorism. This is similar to what the Blair government did in the UK and will have similar results.
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Obama Bans Terms Jihad, Islam from US Security Documents
President Barack Obama's advisers will remove religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the US national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.
The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."
Lieberman: Omitting 'Islamic' Terrorism from Security Document Dishonest, 'Offensive'
FOXNews.com - April 11, 2010: Sen. Joe Lieberman slammed the Obama administration Sunday for stripping terms like "Islamic extremism" from a key national security document.
He wrote that failing to identify "violent Islamist extremism" as the enemy is "offensive."
The letter was written following reports that the administration was removing religious references from the U.S. National Security Strategy - the document that had described the "ideological conflict" of the early 21st century as "the struggle against militant Islamic radicalism."
Lieberman told "Fox News Sunday" this isn't the first time the Obama administration has tried to tiptoe around referring to Islam in its security documents and that it's time to "blow the whistle" on the trend.
Lieberman, in his letter, noted that prior Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon documents also did not refer to "Islamist extremism." He expressed dismay that the administration's review of the Fort Hood shooting, in which alleged shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan was said to have had contact with a radical cleric beforehand, omitted the term.
"Unless we're honest about that, we're not going to be able to defeat this enemy," Lieberman told "Fox News Sunday." "It's absolutely Orwellian and counterproductive to the fight that we're fighting." Read more.
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PRESIDENT OBAMA'S REDEFINITION OF TERMINOLOGY
White House: 'War on Terrorism' is over... 'Jihadist' and 'Global War', also unacceptable terms
August 06, 2009: President Obama's top homeland security and counterterrorism official took all three terms off the table of acceptable words inside the White House during a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
"The President does not describe this as a 'war on terrorism,'" said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, who outlined a "new way of seeing" the fight against terrorism.
The only terminology that Mr. Brennan said the administration is using is that the U.S. is "at war with al Qaeda."
"We are at war with al Qaeda," he said. "We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al Qaeda's murderous agenda."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in March that the administration was not using the term "war on terror" but no specific directive had come from the White House itself. Mr. Obama himself used the term "war on terror" on Jan. 23, his fourth day as president, but has not used it since.
Mr. Brennan's speech was aimed at outlining ways in which the Obama administration intends to undermine the "upstream" factors that create an environment in which terrorists are bred.
The president's adviser talked about increasing aid to foreign governments for building up their militaries and social and democratic institutions, but provided few details about how the White House will do that.
He was specific about ways in which Mr. Obama believes words influence the way America prosecutes the fight against terrorism.
Mr. Brennan said that to say the U.S. is fighting "jihadists" is wrongheaded because it is using "a legitimate term, 'jihad,' meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal" which "risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve."
"Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself," Mr. Brennan said.
As for the "war on terrorism," Mr. Brennan said the administration is not going to say that "because 'terrorism' is but a tactic — a means to an end, which in al Qaedas case is global domination by an Islamic caliphate."
"You can never fully defeat a tactic like terrorism any more than you can defeat the tactic of war itself," Mr. Brennan said.
He also said that to call the fight against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups - which he said remains "a dynamic and evolving threat" - should not be called "a global war."
While Mr. Brennan acknowledged that al Qaeda and its affiliates are active in countries throughout the Middle East and Africa, he also said that "portraying this as a 'global' war risks reinforcing the very image that al Qaeda seeks to project of itself - that it is a highly organized, global entity capable of replacing sovereign nations with a global caliphate."
The president's adviser said that in discussing counter terror operations, Mr. Obama "has encouraged us to be even more aggressive, even more proactive, and even more innovative" than they have been proposing.
But Mr. Brennan lamented "inflammatory rhetoric, hyperbole, and intellectual narrowness" surrounding the national security debate and said Mr. Obama has views that are "nuanced, not simplistic; practical, not ideological."
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TIME MAGAZINE - The Fort Hood Report: Why No Mention of Islam?
Mark Thompson - Washington - January 20, 2010: The U.S. military's just-released report into the Fort Hood shootings spends 86 pages detailing various slipups by Army officers but not once mentions Major Nidal Hasan by name or even discusses whether the killings may have had anything to do with the suspect's view of his Muslim faith. And as Congress opens two days of hearings on Wednesday into the Pentagon probe of the Nov. 5 attack that left 13 dead, lawmakers want explanations for that omission... Read article
Bill Whittle goes to Washington, DC to investigate radical Islam's influence over our government and access to our national security secrets. Two whistleblowers have the chilling details. http://www.pjtv.com/
In part two of Bill Whittle's investigation of radical Islam's influence over our government, a former FBI special agent discusses how our government has looked the other way as an Islamic insurrection mounts within our borders. http://www.pjtv.com/
DON'T MISS! Walid Shoebat talks about CIA infiltration, Fort Hood, and Islam in the US on Savage Nation
Obama Censors Threat
Bill Whittle - PJTV - April 09, 2010: Obama has passed edicts which specifically make it illegal for the administration to link Islam or Muslims with terrorism, or even to use the word terrorism. This is similar to what the Blair government did in the UK and will have similar results.
______________
Obama Bans Terms Jihad, Islam from US Security Documents
President Barack Obama's advisers will remove religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the US national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.
The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."
Lieberman: Omitting 'Islamic' Terrorism from Security Document Dishonest, 'Offensive'
FOXNews.com - April 11, 2010: Sen. Joe Lieberman slammed the Obama administration Sunday for stripping terms like "Islamic extremism" from a key national security document.
He wrote that failing to identify "violent Islamist extremism" as the enemy is "offensive."
The letter was written following reports that the administration was removing religious references from the U.S. National Security Strategy - the document that had described the "ideological conflict" of the early 21st century as "the struggle against militant Islamic radicalism."
Lieberman told "Fox News Sunday" this isn't the first time the Obama administration has tried to tiptoe around referring to Islam in its security documents and that it's time to "blow the whistle" on the trend.
Lieberman, in his letter, noted that prior Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon documents also did not refer to "Islamist extremism." He expressed dismay that the administration's review of the Fort Hood shooting, in which alleged shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan was said to have had contact with a radical cleric beforehand, omitted the term.
"Unless we're honest about that, we're not going to be able to defeat this enemy," Lieberman told "Fox News Sunday." "It's absolutely Orwellian and counterproductive to the fight that we're fighting." Read more.
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- FBI Counterterrorism Analytical Lexicon - The official FBI directive, never mentioning "Islam" or "Moslem"
- FORT HOOD: ADMINISTRATION REFUSED TO PROVIDE WITNESSES, DOCUMENTS Lieberman, Collins Serve Subpoenas in Fort Hood Investigation. April 19, 2010
PRESIDENT OBAMA'S REDEFINITION OF TERMINOLOGY
White House: 'War on Terrorism' is over... 'Jihadist' and 'Global War', also unacceptable terms
August 06, 2009: President Obama's top homeland security and counterterrorism official took all three terms off the table of acceptable words inside the White House during a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
"The President does not describe this as a 'war on terrorism,'" said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, who outlined a "new way of seeing" the fight against terrorism.
The only terminology that Mr. Brennan said the administration is using is that the U.S. is "at war with al Qaeda."
"We are at war with al Qaeda," he said. "We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al Qaeda's murderous agenda."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in March that the administration was not using the term "war on terror" but no specific directive had come from the White House itself. Mr. Obama himself used the term "war on terror" on Jan. 23, his fourth day as president, but has not used it since.
Mr. Brennan's speech was aimed at outlining ways in which the Obama administration intends to undermine the "upstream" factors that create an environment in which terrorists are bred.
The president's adviser talked about increasing aid to foreign governments for building up their militaries and social and democratic institutions, but provided few details about how the White House will do that.
He was specific about ways in which Mr. Obama believes words influence the way America prosecutes the fight against terrorism.
Mr. Brennan said that to say the U.S. is fighting "jihadists" is wrongheaded because it is using "a legitimate term, 'jihad,' meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal" which "risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve."
"Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself," Mr. Brennan said.
As for the "war on terrorism," Mr. Brennan said the administration is not going to say that "because 'terrorism' is but a tactic — a means to an end, which in al Qaedas case is global domination by an Islamic caliphate."
"You can never fully defeat a tactic like terrorism any more than you can defeat the tactic of war itself," Mr. Brennan said.
He also said that to call the fight against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups - which he said remains "a dynamic and evolving threat" - should not be called "a global war."
While Mr. Brennan acknowledged that al Qaeda and its affiliates are active in countries throughout the Middle East and Africa, he also said that "portraying this as a 'global' war risks reinforcing the very image that al Qaeda seeks to project of itself - that it is a highly organized, global entity capable of replacing sovereign nations with a global caliphate."
The president's adviser said that in discussing counter terror operations, Mr. Obama "has encouraged us to be even more aggressive, even more proactive, and even more innovative" than they have been proposing.
But Mr. Brennan lamented "inflammatory rhetoric, hyperbole, and intellectual narrowness" surrounding the national security debate and said Mr. Obama has views that are "nuanced, not simplistic; practical, not ideological."
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TIME MAGAZINE - The Fort Hood Report: Why No Mention of Islam?
Mark Thompson - Washington - January 20, 2010: The U.S. military's just-released report into the Fort Hood shootings spends 86 pages detailing various slipups by Army officers but not once mentions Major Nidal Hasan by name or even discusses whether the killings may have had anything to do with the suspect's view of his Muslim faith. And as Congress opens two days of hearings on Wednesday into the Pentagon probe of the Nov. 5 attack that left 13 dead, lawmakers want explanations for that omission... Read article
NYC Ground Zero Mosque Founder Exposed...?
A www.PJTV.com exclusive interview with Walid Shoebat about the Mega Mosque in NYC Ground Zero. Walid reveals disturbing contradictions between Ground Zero mosque founder Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf's Daily News article and comments in Arabic.
Book: Moorish Spain & the Cordoba Mosque
BUY "Moorish Spain" - Richard Fletcher's highly recommended book!
University of California, 2006, 2nd ed., 206 pp.
According to three important contemporary reports Fletcher summarizes:
--- after 711 Arab raids laid waste to “several provinces,” Tariq ibn Zayid's army followed with fully equipped legions, who in 712 murdered Roderic of Spain.
North Africa's governor then executed all Toledo's prominent nobles (causing the Bishop to flee), devastated the countryside and perpetrated further destruction and mass murder in Zargoza and the Ebro valley. Upon returning to the Umayyad seat of power in Damascus, he transported innumerable enslaved Visigoth lords, and all their gold and jewels.
By 715, the next governor, Abd al-Aziz, conquered provinces throughout Iberia. Documents and archaeological excavations corroborate the arrival of Toledo's Bishop in Rome and signs of 8th century devastation beside coins dated 711 to 713. In his April 713 treaty, Abd al-Aziz promised Theodemir lordship over, and free Christian practice throughout, seven southeastern towns. For this Abd al-Aziz extorted from Theodemir stiff annual head taxes of one silver dinar per person, all the region's wheat, barley, unfermented grape juice, vinegar, honey and oil, and an inviolable promise not to help enemies of Spain's Islamic conquerors.
From 718 through 720, As-Samh handed all Visigoth monarchy holdings to Arab Muslim governors, and gave all the less fertile land to the North African Berber Muslims. His generosity brought 150,000 to 200,000 Arab and Berber soldiers to Spain to usurp its wealth.
After the 750 Abbasids defeat of the Umayyads, in 762, the Islamic caliphate moved from Damascus to Baghdad. In 756 the Umayyad Abd al-Rahman escaped the Abbasid Caliph al-Saffah (“shedder of blood”) and established a rival Umayyad empire that ruled Spain until 1031. But the Umayyads continued to wreck havoc on Spain. Emir al Haken (796-822) kept a palace cavalry of 2,000 and a standing army of 60,000. In 805 alone, he crucified 72 people. In 818, he leveled Cordoba's southern suburb. The military governors of the Umayyads' three Spanish regions were constantly at war. In 884, for example, Burgos was destroyed “to its foundations.”
Even the reputedly enlightened Abd al-Rahman III (912-961) brutalized the population. At the Cordoba palace alone, he owned 3,750 slaves on his death in 961. On July 26 in 920, a Pyrenean monk at San Juan de la Pena recorded a slaughter in Valdejunquera, southwest of Pamplona. In 920, a three month campaign culminated on July 25 with a siege of the Muez castle. All “combatants” were “put to the sword,” including over 500 “counts and knights.” While returning to Cordoba, general al-Nasir totally destroyed many other villages too. The poet Ibn Abd Rabbihi later wrote the invaders left Osma “like a blackened piece of charcoal.”
In 976 Almanzor or Al-Mansur (“the victorious”) took power. In 977 he campaigned with his general against Leon.
Some 56 campaigns followed in Almanzor's rule alone. In 985, he sacked Barcelona and the San Cugat del Valles monastery. In 987, he plundered Coimbra (now in Portugal). In 995, he imprisoned the count of Castile, and destroyed Carrion and Astorga. In 997 he attacked Santiago de Compostela. In 999 he destroyed Pamplona and in 1002 flattened Roija and San Millan de la Cogolla monastery. Almonzor raided Catalonia in 1003; Castile in 1004; Leon in 1005; and Aragon in 1006. Almanzor himself described all war on Christians as Jihad. Christian subjects said he was “seized by the Devil.”
In the 11th century, Morocco's Almoravids crossed the Atlas mountains, conquered its plain and then conquered Spain - which they ruled from 1080 until Fernando liberated most of the peninsula in 1248.
“[N]oting can stand in their way,” wrote the Muslim historian Ibn Kahldun of Almoravid religious and military fervor, “for their outlook is the same and the object they desire is common to all and is one for which they are prepared to die.” Thus in 1148 alone, the Almohads massacred 100,000 Jews in Fez, 120,000 Jews in Marrakesh and wrecked devastation and death throughout Spain,
In 1148, Jewish physician and philosopher Maimonides fled Cordoba's Almohad persecution with his family disguised as Muslims. He found asylum in Fatimid Egypt. Arabs and Muslims had “persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us,” he later wrote. “Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.” Maimonides' 1172 Epistle to the [persecuted] Jews of Yemen that forced conversions they reported from Yemen, the Berbers had similarly forced upon Jews across the Maghreb and Spain. He described Mohammed as “the Madman,” despairing that the sole objective of his “invented ... well known religion,” was “procuring rule and submission....”
University of California, 2006, 2nd ed., 206 pp.
According to three important contemporary reports Fletcher summarizes:
- one “crucial administrative document from the Islamic side”
- some small “archaeological evidence” and the “Chronicle of 754”
- an anonymous Christian narrative in Latin:
--- after 711 Arab raids laid waste to “several provinces,” Tariq ibn Zayid's army followed with fully equipped legions, who in 712 murdered Roderic of Spain.
North Africa's governor then executed all Toledo's prominent nobles (causing the Bishop to flee), devastated the countryside and perpetrated further destruction and mass murder in Zargoza and the Ebro valley. Upon returning to the Umayyad seat of power in Damascus, he transported innumerable enslaved Visigoth lords, and all their gold and jewels.
By 715, the next governor, Abd al-Aziz, conquered provinces throughout Iberia. Documents and archaeological excavations corroborate the arrival of Toledo's Bishop in Rome and signs of 8th century devastation beside coins dated 711 to 713. In his April 713 treaty, Abd al-Aziz promised Theodemir lordship over, and free Christian practice throughout, seven southeastern towns. For this Abd al-Aziz extorted from Theodemir stiff annual head taxes of one silver dinar per person, all the region's wheat, barley, unfermented grape juice, vinegar, honey and oil, and an inviolable promise not to help enemies of Spain's Islamic conquerors.
From 718 through 720, As-Samh handed all Visigoth monarchy holdings to Arab Muslim governors, and gave all the less fertile land to the North African Berber Muslims. His generosity brought 150,000 to 200,000 Arab and Berber soldiers to Spain to usurp its wealth.
After the 750 Abbasids defeat of the Umayyads, in 762, the Islamic caliphate moved from Damascus to Baghdad. In 756 the Umayyad Abd al-Rahman escaped the Abbasid Caliph al-Saffah (“shedder of blood”) and established a rival Umayyad empire that ruled Spain until 1031. But the Umayyads continued to wreck havoc on Spain. Emir al Haken (796-822) kept a palace cavalry of 2,000 and a standing army of 60,000. In 805 alone, he crucified 72 people. In 818, he leveled Cordoba's southern suburb. The military governors of the Umayyads' three Spanish regions were constantly at war. In 884, for example, Burgos was destroyed “to its foundations.”
Even the reputedly enlightened Abd al-Rahman III (912-961) brutalized the population. At the Cordoba palace alone, he owned 3,750 slaves on his death in 961. On July 26 in 920, a Pyrenean monk at San Juan de la Pena recorded a slaughter in Valdejunquera, southwest of Pamplona. In 920, a three month campaign culminated on July 25 with a siege of the Muez castle. All “combatants” were “put to the sword,” including over 500 “counts and knights.” While returning to Cordoba, general al-Nasir totally destroyed many other villages too. The poet Ibn Abd Rabbihi later wrote the invaders left Osma “like a blackened piece of charcoal.”
In 976 Almanzor or Al-Mansur (“the victorious”) took power. In 977 he campaigned with his general against Leon.
Some 56 campaigns followed in Almanzor's rule alone. In 985, he sacked Barcelona and the San Cugat del Valles monastery. In 987, he plundered Coimbra (now in Portugal). In 995, he imprisoned the count of Castile, and destroyed Carrion and Astorga. In 997 he attacked Santiago de Compostela. In 999 he destroyed Pamplona and in 1002 flattened Roija and San Millan de la Cogolla monastery. Almonzor raided Catalonia in 1003; Castile in 1004; Leon in 1005; and Aragon in 1006. Almanzor himself described all war on Christians as Jihad. Christian subjects said he was “seized by the Devil.”
In the 11th century, Morocco's Almoravids crossed the Atlas mountains, conquered its plain and then conquered Spain - which they ruled from 1080 until Fernando liberated most of the peninsula in 1248.
“[N]oting can stand in their way,” wrote the Muslim historian Ibn Kahldun of Almoravid religious and military fervor, “for their outlook is the same and the object they desire is common to all and is one for which they are prepared to die.” Thus in 1148 alone, the Almohads massacred 100,000 Jews in Fez, 120,000 Jews in Marrakesh and wrecked devastation and death throughout Spain,
In 1148, Jewish physician and philosopher Maimonides fled Cordoba's Almohad persecution with his family disguised as Muslims. He found asylum in Fatimid Egypt. Arabs and Muslims had “persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us,” he later wrote. “Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.” Maimonides' 1172 Epistle to the [persecuted] Jews of Yemen that forced conversions they reported from Yemen, the Berbers had similarly forced upon Jews across the Maghreb and Spain. He described Mohammed as “the Madman,” despairing that the sole objective of his “invented ... well known religion,” was “procuring rule and submission....”
Exposing the Real Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf - from ACT! for America
BEWARE! Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
READ THIS POST and FOLLOW THE LINKS for an in-depth understanding of the need to object to the Ground Zero Mosque in every way possible.
Click here to download/read this report or read below.
August 17, 2010: We are concerned about the real agenda for this mosque, an agenda that includes the advance of sharia law. In this extensive expose’ below learn for yourself who the real Imam Rauf is — hardly the “moderate” he and his apologists claim he is.
If you haven’t yet done so, please sign our petition opposing the Ground Zero Mosque. One national poll now shows that 54% of Democrats, 70% of Independents, and 82% of Republicans are opposed to the Ground Zero Mosque.
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Feisal Abdul Rauf
An investigative report prepared for ACT! for America
by Alyssa Lappen
Feisal Abdul Rauf, born in Kuwait in 1948, boasts of his issue from an “Egyptian family steeped in religious scholarship.” He presents himself as a Muslim moderate. Yet Feisal Rauf's Muslim Brotherhood provenance, radical by definition, is as authentic as it gets.
Evidence of family, and direct Rauf Muslim Brotherhood connections:
READ THIS POST and FOLLOW THE LINKS for an in-depth understanding of the need to object to the Ground Zero Mosque in every way possible.
Click here to download/read this report or read below.
August 17, 2010: We are concerned about the real agenda for this mosque, an agenda that includes the advance of sharia law. In this extensive expose’ below learn for yourself who the real Imam Rauf is — hardly the “moderate” he and his apologists claim he is.
If you haven’t yet done so, please sign our petition opposing the Ground Zero Mosque. One national poll now shows that 54% of Democrats, 70% of Independents, and 82% of Republicans are opposed to the Ground Zero Mosque.
_______________
Feisal Abdul Rauf
An investigative report prepared for ACT! for America
by Alyssa Lappen
Feisal Abdul Rauf, born in Kuwait in 1948, boasts of his issue from an “Egyptian family steeped in religious scholarship.” He presents himself as a Muslim moderate. Yet Feisal Rauf's Muslim Brotherhood provenance, radical by definition, is as authentic as it gets.
Evidence of family, and direct Rauf Muslim Brotherhood connections:
- Rauf's father Dr. Muhammad Abdul Rauf (1917-2004), was an Egyptian contemporary of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) founder Hassan al-Banna.
- Rauf's father studied and taught at Islam's closest equivalent to the Vatican - Al-Azhar University - beside Hassan al-Banna, perpetuating the pious family tradition of radicalism.
- In 1948, Rauf's father fled Egypt, during its first MB crackdown; Feisal was born in Kuwait.
- In 1965, Feisal's father left Malaysia for New York City to stealthily buy two thirds of an E. 96th Street block for an Islamic “personal trust,” revealing its $1.3 million Islamic money from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Libya only after construction of the MB mosque began in 1984.
- Likewise, 46 Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) nations funded the $17 million Islamic Cultural Center, only after its 1992 opening did Rauf's father reveal that funding source or admit his long-term plans for discriminatory Muslim-only housing for the Islamic complex.
- Rauf's father named Feisal as a permanent trustee of the MB mosque.
- Under Feisal's permanent trusteeship, ICC employed Al-Azhar imam Muhammad Gemeaha. A week after fleeing the U.S. on Sept. 28, 2001 he stated, “only the Jews” could have perpetrated 9/11; Allah says Jews “disseminate corruption in the land,” spread “heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs.” Americans would exterminate Jews like “Hitler did” if they knew.
- ICC then hired Al-Azhar envoy Omar Saleem Abu-Namous. He too saw no “conclusive evidence” that Muslims committed the atrocities, but rather saw Muslims as innocent victims.
- At Perdana Global Peace Organization, an MB, Hamas and al-Qaeda affiliate, Rauf is second in command to antisemitic former Malaysian P.M. and Islamic law advocate Mahathir Mohamad, who in Nov. 2002, incited global anti-West financial war as a “jihad worth fighting for.”
- On May 7, 2010, Rauf himself stated, “Some people say ... Muslims ... attacked on 9/11 … ”
- In 2001 on 60 Minutes, Rauf called U.S. policies “an accessory to the crime that happened,” and said, “In … the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden was made in the USA.”
- Rauf wants to impose sharia in the U.S. His 2004 book, What's Right with Islam, is translated into Malay as the Call from the WTC Rubble.
- In Dec. 2007 Rauf promoted the book at a Kuala Lumpur Hizb ut Tahrir (HT) meeting. Banned in Germany since 2003 and outlawed in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, among other places - the organization is ideologically akin to the MB.
- In the fiscal year ended Jun. 30, 2009, Feisal's ASMA accepted at least $1.3 million, including $576,312 from Qatar, whose government stands accused of funding international terrorism, has long harbored terror financiers, and for decades hosted Muslim Brotherhood spiritual chief Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Rauf is quite friendly with Qaradawi, a large, founding shareholder in terror-funding al-Taqwa Bank who champions sharia law, wife beating and suicide bombing.
- Rauf concluded in the Washington Post, shortly after President Obama's June 2009 Cairo speech, that he'd challenged Muslims to “Live up to the tenets of our religion, embrace Shariah law as conceived by the Prophet, and see what happens.”
- Rauf seeks more U.S. legal “leeway” for sharia - to put Muslims above the law - by
“[Inviting] voices of all religions to join the dialogue in shaping the nation’s practical life, [and allowing] religious communities ... to judge ...according to their own laws. - On Dec. 9, 2007, Rauf said in Arabic to Sa’da Abdul Maksoud of the Hadi-el-Islam website, that current, unjust governments, “do not follow Islamic laws.” He advocates establishing sharia
“in more [ways than one] ... through a kingdom or a democracy, [so long as the] fundamentals of Shariah [exist, with standards of Muslim scholars] required to govern. ...to organize ... relationships between government ... and the governed.” - In March 2010, also in Arabic, Rauf stridently denounced interfaith discussions. “I don't believe in interfaith dialogue,” he said in an article that highlighted his statement in its headline.
- Rauf's Manhattan ASMA offices at 475 Riverside Drive occupy the suite next door to Council of American-Islamic-Relations (CAIR) of NY; its national parent is the U.S. arm of the MB terrorist group, Hamas, and an unindicted coconspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror financing case in which the organization and five officers were convicted.
- At the Jul. 13, 2010 New York Landmarks hearing on the fate a 152-year-old wrought-iron era building where a piece of jet fuselage fell through its roof on 9/11 - CAIR-NY executive director Zaed Ramadan supported destroying the structure opposite Ground Zero to build Rauf's 15 story mosque, a monument to Muslim victory to tower above the memorial site.
- Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan in 2009 both refused to sign a Freedom Pledge to protect former Muslims from the death sentence sought by most sharia interpretations for Muslim apostates. On Oct. 20, 2009, Former Muslims United asked ASMA's executives to pledge to
“renounce, repudiate and oppose any physical intimidation, or worldly and corporal punishment, of apostates ..., [however] that punishment may be determined or carried out by myself or any other Muslim including the [apostate's] family, community, Mosque leaders, Shariah court or judge, and Muslim government or regime.” - Rauf's 2000 and 2004 books both laud sharia and envision implementing it in the US – and “rejuvenating” the Islamic spirit of 14th century jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah and his 18th century heir Muhammad bin Abdul al-Wahhab. Rauf also lauds purported “modernists” Jamal al-Dinal-Afghani (d. 1897) and Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) who revered Wahhabis, Ibn Taymiyyah and like Rauf pretended sharia – with perennial jihad and countless strictures on non-Muslims and women – complements Western ideas like those in the U.S. Bill of Rights.
- Rauf also authorized two mainstay MB organizations, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) to produce “a special non-commercial edition” of his 2004 book to promote “proper [Western] understanding of Islam...”
- Rauf's ASMA in 2004 established the purportedly liberal Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow. Its liberal faces are largely overwhelmed by sharia devotees like al Qaeda supporter Yasir Qadhi, CAIR-NY community affairs director Faiza N. Ali - who co-authored CAIR's fallacious “denunciation” of a superb 2008 NYPD report on homegrown jihadists - and CAIR-NY community organizer Debbie Almontaser, who once ran the city's Khalil Gibran Academy.
- Since at least 2006, Rauf's US-based Cordoba Initiative has partnered with Gallup Organization and “Sunni and Shi'a scholars from Morocco to Indonesia” to create “an Islamic legal benchmark for measuring 'Islamicity' of a state” - sharia index - for official, state, public and press use in the “Muslim and Western worlds.” He initiated the project, funded by Malaysia and many other nations in the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
- A key sharia index board member, Jasser Auda, doubles on the academic council at the UK the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) office and in summer 2010 taught with Muslim Brotherhood heavies - e.g. former ISNA leadership development head Louay Safi, IIIT v.p. and NAIT founding general manager Jamal Barzinji and Minaret of Freedom head Imad Ad Deen Ahmad, present at the Beirut terrorist convention in January 2001. No mistaking their intent.
Ground Zero Mosque Hurts Islam
Douglas Murray - August 12, 2010: The very idea of building a mosque there is a dangerous sign of Muslim demands on Western societies, says British authority Douglas Murray - and it shows that the U.S. must make a stand.
“Islam is a religion of peace.” That is what every Western leader says every time a Muslim sets something off.
They never tell us which ones they think are the violent religions. But for Islam it’s a win-win. Knock down a tower and everyone in government says how terrific Islam is. Build a tower and everyone in government says how terrific Islam is. Either way it’s a gain for Islam.
My country, Britain, has led the way in this. But it is fascinating watching Mayor Bloomberg and Co. following the British curve... Read more and view Gallery of America's 30 Most Muslim Cities
“Islam is a religion of peace.” That is what every Western leader says every time a Muslim sets something off.
They never tell us which ones they think are the violent religions. But for Islam it’s a win-win. Knock down a tower and everyone in government says how terrific Islam is. Build a tower and everyone in government says how terrific Islam is. Either way it’s a gain for Islam.
My country, Britain, has led the way in this. But it is fascinating watching Mayor Bloomberg and Co. following the British curve... Read more and view Gallery of America's 30 Most Muslim Cities
Ground Zero PETITION - Sign Today!
To Mayor Bloomberg
- We urge you to stop plans to construct a Mosque and Islamic center 600 feet from Ground Zero.
- A neighborhood mosque to accommodate a local community would not have caused a stir. But this mammoth plan raises questions that have not been answered:
- Who is donating the multimillion dollar project and why?
- There are reports that the group behind the mosque project is involved in the flotillas against Israel. This must be investigated.
- Is this project part of the well documented campaign to place mosques as signs of Islam's dominance?
- Claims that this is dedicated to promoting tolerance have been severely undercut by the Imam's refusal to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization.
- Mayor Bloomberg, you owe the people of New York and the United States a full investigation of these and other related issues before you permit this project to proceed. A hearing by a community board is not an adequate review.
- When cloistered nuns tried to establish a convent at Auschwitz the world called it inappropriate and the religious community abandoned the site.
- The sponsors and supporters of this project have shown an intolerant attitude to any criticism.
- We believe it is imperative that a full investigation take place before this project becomes reality.
America Must Take a Stand
The other day, New York's Governor proposed ending the 9-11 Mosque controversy by offering to find another plot of land for the Mosque. The New York Post, which has led a campaign against the Mosque, praised the Governor's proposal.
Douglas Murray, a British authority on Islam, would disagree. Writing in the Daily Beast, Mr. Murray argues that the persistence of the Mosque promoters to build near Ground Zero even though most Americans oppose the project is proof that the United States is being challenged by a force that demands that our society capitulate to their wants... Read the article
NY Gov. George Pataki's Appearance on "America's Newsroom" FoxNews
July 15, 2010: Former New York Governor George Pataki appeared on Fox News this morning to discuss the Cordoba Mosque Issue with Bill Hemmer.
Marist Poll: Jewish New Yorkers are Greatest Opponents of Mosque
The respected Marist College Polling Institute reports today that among New Yorkers opposition to the 9-11 Mosque exists among all religious groups but New York's always liberal Jewish voters are the ones most opposed... See poll results
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Half-Baked Mosque - Developer Owns Only Part of Site
Isabel Vincent & Melissa Klein - August 8, 2010:
Not so fast.
The developers of the controversial mosque proposed near Ground Zero own only half the site where they want to construct the $100 million building, The Post has learned.
One of the two buildings on Park Place is owned by Con Edison, even though Soho Properties told officials and the public that it owns the entire parcel. And any potential sale by Con Ed faces a review by the state Public Service Commission.
“We never heard anything about Con Ed whatsoever,” said a stunned Julie Menin, the chairwoman of Community Board 1, which passed a May resolution supporting the mosque.
Rep. Peter King, who opposes the mosque, said the developers seemed to be “operating under false pretenses.”
“I wonder what else they are hiding,” said King (R-LI). “If we can’t have the full truth on this, what can we believe?” Read full article
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Bloomberg is Way Out of Line
It’s one thing for Mayor Bloomberg to play nanny and hector New Yorkers about smoking and trans fats, as he never stops doing. But it’s quite another for him to grab the flag and start scolding foes of that planned mosque near Ground Zero, as he did Friday.
The mayor was way, way out of line.
“A handful of people ought to be ashamed of themselves,” he huffed.
Well, we know one person who should be ashamed: him.
Bloomberg got downright apocalyptic, calling the controversy “[as] important [a] test of the separation of church and state . . . as we may see in our lifetimes.” Read more
Douglas Murray, a British authority on Islam, would disagree. Writing in the Daily Beast, Mr. Murray argues that the persistence of the Mosque promoters to build near Ground Zero even though most Americans oppose the project is proof that the United States is being challenged by a force that demands that our society capitulate to their wants... Read the article
NY Gov. George Pataki's Appearance on "America's Newsroom" FoxNews
July 15, 2010: Former New York Governor George Pataki appeared on Fox News this morning to discuss the Cordoba Mosque Issue with Bill Hemmer.
Marist Poll: Jewish New Yorkers are Greatest Opponents of Mosque
The respected Marist College Polling Institute reports today that among New Yorkers opposition to the 9-11 Mosque exists among all religious groups but New York's always liberal Jewish voters are the ones most opposed... See poll results
_____________
Half-Baked Mosque - Developer Owns Only Part of Site
Isabel Vincent & Melissa Klein - August 8, 2010:
Not so fast.
The developers of the controversial mosque proposed near Ground Zero own only half the site where they want to construct the $100 million building, The Post has learned.
One of the two buildings on Park Place is owned by Con Edison, even though Soho Properties told officials and the public that it owns the entire parcel. And any potential sale by Con Ed faces a review by the state Public Service Commission.
“We never heard anything about Con Ed whatsoever,” said a stunned Julie Menin, the chairwoman of Community Board 1, which passed a May resolution supporting the mosque.
Rep. Peter King, who opposes the mosque, said the developers seemed to be “operating under false pretenses.”
“I wonder what else they are hiding,” said King (R-LI). “If we can’t have the full truth on this, what can we believe?” Read full article
_____________
Bloomberg is Way Out of Line
It’s one thing for Mayor Bloomberg to play nanny and hector New Yorkers about smoking and trans fats, as he never stops doing. But it’s quite another for him to grab the flag and start scolding foes of that planned mosque near Ground Zero, as he did Friday.
The mayor was way, way out of line.
“A handful of people ought to be ashamed of themselves,” he huffed.
Well, we know one person who should be ashamed: him.
Bloomberg got downright apocalyptic, calling the controversy “[as] important [a] test of the separation of church and state . . . as we may see in our lifetimes.” Read more
History & Consequences of Park51: The Cordoba House
Frank Salvato - August 6, 2010: Read full article
In order to understand just how deliberately abrasive the construction of Park51 – or, as originally intended, The Cordoba House – in the shadow of Ground Zero actually is, we must come to understand its inferred meaning and to do that we must understand a period of violent Muslim aggression, circa 711AD, that established the Emirate and Caliphate of Cordoba. Remember, the mosque project at Ground Zero was originally meant to be called “The Cordoba House.”
The turning-point battle that brought the Muslims to power in Cordoba, the Battle of Guadalete, was not a singular Muslim attack, rather, it was the culminating event in a series of raids across the straits from North Africa. During the initial raids, several southern Iberian towns, predominantly Christian in nature, were pillaged by the Islamist forces, which had been harassing the peninsula by sea since approximately 705AD. But during the Battle of Guadalete, whole cities were razed and a grotesque number of people were slaughtered in a general destruction that sent non-Muslim civilians fleeing to the hill countries.
In light of the history behind the name of Abdul Rauf’s organization – the Cordoba Initiative – it is legitimate, and, in fact, necessary, to scrutinize not only the intent behind his quest to build a monument to Islamic conquest in the shadow of Ground Zero, but a moral obligation for the non-Islamic world to inquire as to who and/or what organizations are funding the construction of said monument.
Truth be told, I suspect that:
There can be no turning back, no further delay. The grace period that began on September 12, 2001, for non-Muslims to exercise understanding and tolerance of the Islamic religion, to explore the meaning behind the aggression, is over. The non-Muslim population of the world has been intensely exposed to Islam for almost a decade now and that is long enough for us to understand that in its current form – especially its current fundamentalist form – Islam is not symbiotic with freedom or liberty, not compatible with the 21st Century, and antithetical to the United States Constitution.
We in the free world, who understand that liberty and freedom come to us as inalienable rights from the Creator, will not acquiesce to an ideology that oppresses its own women, that celebrates the conquest of other cultures, and which is so indignant of other philosophies and ideologies that it would allow for the use and rationalization of “violent jihad” in pursuit of global subjugation.
There is no retreat from this moment in time, this “line in the sand,” as it were. So-called moderate Muslims must choose: peaceful symbiotic co-existence or a confrontation of cultures.
In order to understand just how deliberately abrasive the construction of Park51 – or, as originally intended, The Cordoba House – in the shadow of Ground Zero actually is, we must come to understand its inferred meaning and to do that we must understand a period of violent Muslim aggression, circa 711AD, that established the Emirate and Caliphate of Cordoba. Remember, the mosque project at Ground Zero was originally meant to be called “The Cordoba House.”
History
In 711AD, during the first attempt at global conquest by Muslim leaders, Tariq ibn-Ziyad, under the orders of the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I, brought most of the Iberian Peninsula (what is now Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar) under Muslim occupation in a campaign that lasted approximately seven years. The Iberian Peninsula, for the most part, became part of the expanding Umayyad Empire, under the name of al-Andalus. The turning-point battle that brought the Muslims to power in Cordoba, the Battle of Guadalete, was not a singular Muslim attack, rather, it was the culminating event in a series of raids across the straits from North Africa. During the initial raids, several southern Iberian towns, predominantly Christian in nature, were pillaged by the Islamist forces, which had been harassing the peninsula by sea since approximately 705AD. But during the Battle of Guadalete, whole cities were razed and a grotesque number of people were slaughtered in a general destruction that sent non-Muslim civilians fleeing to the hill countries.
In light of the history behind the name of Abdul Rauf’s organization – the Cordoba Initiative – it is legitimate, and, in fact, necessary, to scrutinize not only the intent behind his quest to build a monument to Islamic conquest in the shadow of Ground Zero, but a moral obligation for the non-Islamic world to inquire as to who and/or what organizations are funding the construction of said monument.
Truth be told, I suspect that:
- Abdul Rauf, deep down inside, sees his Cordoba House as a mark of conquest over America; a monument to the Islamist quest for a global Caliphate.
- Abdul Rauf, and all those who are helping to fund his “initiative,” would dance with glee at the prospect of the United States Constitution falling prey to sharia law.
- Of course, this is my opinion, but I am familiar with the Abdul Rauf’s of the world and there is nothing understanding, tolerant or inclusive about them.
- They are arrogant elitists hell-bent on domination, and in this particular case, the domination of a hallowed site by a monument to radical Islamist aggression surrendered by the ignorant, the uninformed and those possessing a less than noble agenda.
It is well past time that the so-called “moderate Muslims” step up to do what they know deep down is correct. It’s time for them to choose sides and live with their choices. Moderate Muslims either condemn the violence and deceit, the subjugation of women and the crusade against all other religions or they side with the aggressor jihadists in their quest for the establishment of a global Caliphate; a quest to rule the world under sharia law. From this day forward their silence must be interpreted as siding with the aggressor Islamists.
There can be no turning back, no further delay. The grace period that began on September 12, 2001, for non-Muslims to exercise understanding and tolerance of the Islamic religion, to explore the meaning behind the aggression, is over. The non-Muslim population of the world has been intensely exposed to Islam for almost a decade now and that is long enough for us to understand that in its current form – especially its current fundamentalist form – Islam is not symbiotic with freedom or liberty, not compatible with the 21st Century, and antithetical to the United States Constitution.
We in the free world, who understand that liberty and freedom come to us as inalienable rights from the Creator, will not acquiesce to an ideology that oppresses its own women, that celebrates the conquest of other cultures, and which is so indignant of other philosophies and ideologies that it would allow for the use and rationalization of “violent jihad” in pursuit of global subjugation.
There is no retreat from this moment in time, this “line in the sand,” as it were. So-called moderate Muslims must choose: peaceful symbiotic co-existence or a confrontation of cultures.
Obama's Support for Ground Zero Mosque Draws Fire
Published August 14, 2010 | FoxNews.com: President Obama is under fire after jumping into the middle of a cultural clash Friday night in favor of building a mosque near ground zero, a stance that has elevated the contentious issue to the presidential level ahead of a difficult election season for Democrats.
Some victims' advocates and Republicans have strongly condemned Obama's support for the mosque, which would be part of a $100 million Islamic community center two blocks from where nearly 3,000 people perished when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
"Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America's heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see," said Debra Burlingame, a spokeswoman for some Sept. 11 victims' families and the sister of one of the pilots killed in the attacks... Read more
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‘Obama Defends Ground Zero Mosque Plans’
August 13, 2010 - by Ed Driscoll - PyjamasMedia
“Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground,” the president said.
“But let me be clear: as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.
Obama said Islam is not the enemy, al-Qaida is... Read more
Obama agrees to religious freedom for Islam... and what about Christianity?
Read: Obama White House orders coverup of religious symbols for Georgetown speech.
Some victims' advocates and Republicans have strongly condemned Obama's support for the mosque, which would be part of a $100 million Islamic community center two blocks from where nearly 3,000 people perished when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
"Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America's heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see," said Debra Burlingame, a spokeswoman for some Sept. 11 victims' families and the sister of one of the pilots killed in the attacks... Read more
_______________
‘Obama Defends Ground Zero Mosque Plans’
August 13, 2010 - by Ed Driscoll - PyjamasMedia
“Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground,” the president said.
“But let me be clear: as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.
Obama said Islam is not the enemy, al-Qaida is... Read more
Obama agrees to religious freedom for Islam... and what about Christianity?
Read: Obama White House orders coverup of religious symbols for Georgetown speech.
Rifqa Bary: US Teen Flees Home & Her Honor Killing
Rifqa Bary: Teen fleeing home & her honor killing
Rifqa Bary's Attorney, Kort Gatterdam speaks out!
Justice for Rifqa Bary
Phyllis Chesler - Published August 06, 2010 | FoxNews.com: Christmas arrived early this year for this brave, young ex-Muslim convert to Christianity. On Thursday, at 5 p.m., Judge Mary Goodrich in Columbus, Ohio decided that Rifqa Bary, who will turn eighteen in five days, does not have to return to her family (all of whom are here illegally from Sri Lanka).
According to breaking local news, “Goodrich also said it’s not in the girl’s best interest to return her to her native Sri Lanka. Bary is (also) an illegal immigrant. The ruling allows her attorneys to file for a special immigration status to allow her to stay in the U.S. while she continues medical treatment following recent surgery for uterine cancer.”
Allow me to congratulate the Judge—and a special congratulations to Rifqa’s hard-working, dedicated, and skillful lawyers: Angela Lloyd and Kort Gatterdam. Most of all, allow me to congratulate Rifqa herself for her extraordinary strength and courage.
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D. is a frequent contributor to Fox News and blogs regularly at Pajamas Media and NewsReal Blog. She is the author of thirteen books, including "Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman" and "The New Anti-Semitism," and may be reached at her website www.phyllis-chesler.com
To continue reading this article click here.
About the author: Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D. is a frequent contributor to Fox News and blogs regularly at Pajamas Media and NewsReal Blog. She is the author of thirteen books, including "Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman" and "The New Anti-Semitism," and may be reached at her website http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/
Rifqa Bary Press Conference: Pamela Geller
September 03, 2009: Rifqa Bary's Arraignment
Robert Spencer at Rifqa Bary Press Conference
Rifqa Bary Hearing - full coverage at Atlas Shrugs
CBN update on Rifqa Bary
What Rifqa Bary's Case Tells Us
Rifqa Bary's Attorney, Kort Gatterdam speaks out!
Justice for Rifqa Bary
Phyllis Chesler - Published August 06, 2010 | FoxNews.com: Christmas arrived early this year for this brave, young ex-Muslim convert to Christianity. On Thursday, at 5 p.m., Judge Mary Goodrich in Columbus, Ohio decided that Rifqa Bary, who will turn eighteen in five days, does not have to return to her family (all of whom are here illegally from Sri Lanka).
According to breaking local news, “Goodrich also said it’s not in the girl’s best interest to return her to her native Sri Lanka. Bary is (also) an illegal immigrant. The ruling allows her attorneys to file for a special immigration status to allow her to stay in the U.S. while she continues medical treatment following recent surgery for uterine cancer.”
Allow me to congratulate the Judge—and a special congratulations to Rifqa’s hard-working, dedicated, and skillful lawyers: Angela Lloyd and Kort Gatterdam. Most of all, allow me to congratulate Rifqa herself for her extraordinary strength and courage.
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D. is a frequent contributor to Fox News and blogs regularly at Pajamas Media and NewsReal Blog. She is the author of thirteen books, including "Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman" and "The New Anti-Semitism," and may be reached at her website www.phyllis-chesler.com
To continue reading this article click here.
About the author: Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D. is a frequent contributor to Fox News and blogs regularly at Pajamas Media and NewsReal Blog. She is the author of thirteen books, including "Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman" and "The New Anti-Semitism," and may be reached at her website http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/
Rifqa Bary Press Conference: Pamela Geller
September 03, 2009: Rifqa Bary's Arraignment
Robert Spencer at Rifqa Bary Press Conference
Rifqa Bary Hearing - full coverage at Atlas Shrugs
CBN update on Rifqa Bary
What Rifqa Bary's Case Tells Us
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