The Demise of Islam?

From FrontPageMagazine.com on July 15, 2008

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Abul Kasem, an ex-Muslim who is the author of hundreds of articles and several books on Islam including, Women in Islam. He was a contributor to the book Leaving Islam – Apostates Speak Out as well as to Beyond Jihad: Critical Views From Inside Islam.

FP: Abul Kasem, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Kasem: Good to be here Jamie.

FP: We’re here today to discuss the potential demise of Islam and the fact that the Prophet Muhammad actually predicted this demise himself – a fact that sounds somewhat odd and that many are unaware of. What is the best way to start a discussion of this issue?

Kasem: Well, I would start by asking this question: could the current civilization ever imagine a world without Islam?

To many, this might sound like a dim-witted question. After all, Islam has been with us for fifteen hundred years. It just doesn’t even seem thinkable that Islam could possibly die out. Currently, after all, Islam is the raging storm afflicting every part of the world, especially with the mayhem of the Islamist terrorists and the escalating oil prices – and oil largely flows from a few Islamic lands. The leaders of the un-Islamic world are busy pleasing Islam in whatever manner. Even the United Nation’s Human Rights Organisation has just passed a resolution disallowing discussion of how Islam violates fundamental human rights in many Islamic paradises. In this context, it seems almost impossible to imagine a world free of Islam.

FP: Absolutely, and it is totally unrealistic to think that Islam will ever disappear.

Kasem: No. Despite the world situation that I just painted, what you say is not true at all.

FP: Please explain.

Kasem: We learn from the annals of Islamic history that Islam is not that powerful and that it is actually very vulnerable. Much evidence suggests that it may very well die under its own weight.

FP: Fair enough, please expand.

Kasem: There is a secret life of Islam and it may very well lead to the death of Islam. The history of Islam, for instance, tells us that Islam needs blood to thrive. Human blood is the life-line of Islam, violence its hallmark, and hate its foundation. In the beginning, Islam lives on the blood of infidels. When that is unavailable, or becomes difficult, Islam must cannibalize itself. As a car needs gasoline to run, so does Islam need human blood just to run its own course, set by Muhammad, its Prophet.

FP: Sounds very much like communism. It starts off extinguishing the “class enemy” and then when there are no more external “enemies” to slaughter, the killing machine turns on itself. Terror takes on a life of its own and the killing machine devours its own children and then ultimately engages in suicide. This totalitarian impulse ultimately stems from a death wish.

Kasem: Precisely. And so the demise of Islam is inherent in the very seed of Islamic cannibalism. And so to understand why Islam, eventually, will self-destruct we must first learn a few lessons from the annals of Islamic history. Let me briefly paint the picture:

During the last few decades we have witnessed Islamic cannibalism right, front and center. The most recent event was the Iran-Iraq war, in which millions of Muslims were killed, not by the infidels (kafirs) but by Muslims. Undoubtedly, in not-too-distant a future, we are bound to witness many such events of Islamic cannibalism.

FP: Is Islamic cannibalism theologically rooted?

Kasem: Absolutely. The earliest example of Islamic cannibalism, after all, is found in the Qur’an itself -- in verses 9:108-110. These verses refer to the gutting of a rival mosque on the instruction of Muhammad, when he was returning after his expedition to Tabuk, a resourceful town in the Syrian-Byzantine territory. This Islamic incursion story goes like this:

Proceeding further from Tabuk on his way to Medina, Muhammad halted at Dhu Awan at Quba (about 4 kms. from Medina), an hour’s journey from Medina. There, an opposition Muslim group had built a mosque. Previously, while Muhammad was making preparations for the march to Tabuk, this group of Muslims approached him and said, “O Messenger of God, we have built a mosque for the sick and needy and for rainy and cold nights, and we would like you to visit us and pray for us”(The History of al Tabari, vol.ix, p.61). Busy with his preparations for Tabuk expedition, Muhammad excused himself from visiting this newly-built mosque, but assured the dissident group that he would call on their mosque while returning to Medina (from Tabuk).

On his return journey from Tabuk and halting at Dhu Awan, Muhammad accused builders of this mosque of being unjust. Without any warning, he sent a band of jihadists to burn and destroy the freshly constructed mosque. He said to his band of hooligans, “Go to this mosque whose owners are unjust people and destroy and burn it” (ibid, p.61). His band of raging arsonists stealthily entered the bustling mosque and set fire to it when it was filled with people assembled for the evening prayer. The worshippers dispersed in utter terror. Allah promptly sent down verse 9:107, 110, justifying the destruction of opposition mosques. To further validate his gutting of this mosque, Muhammad concocted the story that he suspected that the builders of the ‘Mosque of Dissent’ were planning to assassinate him.

FP: So what is this story in the Qur’an teaching? What is its message?

Kasem: Those verses of the Qur’an, when taken in true Islamic spirit, can only mean one thing: the call for the devastation of rival mosques. The most important question is: which mosques are genuinely Islamic and which mosques are not so Islamic? Since there is no central authority in Islam to decide on this, it becomes a moot-point. It is, therefore, a free-market in Islam when it comes to destruction and bloodshed.

FP: The consequences?

Kasem: The consequences are obvious and inevitable: Sunnis are free to destroy Shia mosques; the Shias are permitted to destroy Sunni mosques; both these groups are free to destroy Ahmedi or Kurdish mosques, and so on. Within each group there are sub-groups and they are also entitled to commit such atrocities on other groups. This is exactly what is going on in almost all Islamic Paradises.

In Iraq, Sunnis are destroying Shia mosques and murdering them. In Pakistan, Sunnis are killing the Shias and burning their mosques. Then the Shias are avenging this by destroying Sunni mosques. In Bangladesh, both the Sunnis and the Shias are occupying Ahmedi mosques and setting them on fire. This musical chair of mosque-burning and killing is proceeding unabated, each group claiming they are the true Muslims. Each group is adamant they are absolutely following the Qur’an and Sunna (Muhammad’s deeds and examples), the two principal sources of Islam.

Interestingly, this fratricide is unstoppable, as the Islamic Ummah is far from monolithic. No one knows the precise divisions among the Ummah. But Muhammad had predicted that the Muslims will be divided into seventy-two sects, each one killing one another, and together killing the infidels.

FP: So Muhammad actually himself predicted this cannibalism with Islam itself? Give us the theological evidence.

Kasem: Yes he did. There are many ahadith that discuss Muhammad’s prediction about his Ummah. Let me give a few:

Seventy-two of the seventy-three Muslim sects will go to hell; only one of the sects will be in Paradise; it is the majority group…(Sunaan Abu Dawud, 3.40.4580)

Islam has seventy branches…(Sunaan Abu Dawud, 3.40.4659)

Whoever creates disunity in the Islamic community kill him…(Sunaan Abu Dawud, 3.40.4744)

In a note (footnote 4153), the English translator of Sunaan Abu Dawud, Professor Ahmad Hasan admits that it is permissible to ‘cannibalize’ dissident Islamic group/s. He writes: ‘The Prophet (may peace be upon him) did not tolerate disunity and schism among Muslims. Therefore, he ordered that, instead of causing separation and disagreement in the community, it is better to kill the person who causes disunity.’

Another hadis (Sunaan Abu Dawud, 40.4747, Sahih Bukhari, 4.55.577) asks to murder those Muslims who are insincere in their faith. This hadis even tells that Allah loves the Muslims who kill those insincere Muslims.

FP: Tell us a few major sects and sub-sects of Islam:

Kasem: Here are some of the main ones:

Sunnis: Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, Hanbal

Sufis

Wahabis

Salafists

Submitters (Qur’an only Muslims)

Khilafites

Deobandis

Shia: Jaffri, Islamilia, Zaidiah, Yazdis

Ashariyahs

Alawis

Qadianis

Ahmedis

Druzes

Dawoodis

Bohras

Kharizis

Kurds

Needless to say, each group (and sub group) thinks they are the true Muslims, and only they have the right to practice Islam. Thus often, they cannibalize one another. There is no tolerance, compromise or truce among these groups.

FP: Tell us about a few more cases of Islamic cannibalism that were perpetrated during the nascent stages of Islam.

Kasem: Well, I mentioned the very first Islamic cannibalism mentioned in the Qur’an. Ever since then, the practice of killing Muslims by Muslims is truly endemic. During the time of Khulafa Rashedin (the rightly guided caliphs) this cannibalism took a serious turn, sparing not even the two last caliphs, ‘Uthman and Ali. Both of them were murdered by savage Islamic cannibals. Among these two cases of Islamic cannibalism, perhaps the murder of ‘Uthman stands out to be the most aghast. Here is how it was carried out, as described by Tabari (The History of al Tabari, volume XV, p219-20):

…Muhammad b. Abi Bakr, accompanied by Kinanah b. Bishr b. ‘Attab, Sudan b. Humran and ‘Amr b. al-Hamiq, reached ‘Uthman by climbing over the wall from the house of ‘Amr b. Hazm. They found ‘Uthman, with his wife Na’ilah, reading the Surah of the Cow from the Qur’an. Muhammad b. Abi Bakr came up to them and seized ‘Uthman’s beard. “May God disgrace you, you hyena,” he said. ‘Uthman replied, “I am no hyena. I am God’s servant and the Commander of the Faithful. ”Muhammad said, “Neither Mua’wiyah nor anyone else has been of any use to you.” ‘Uthman said, “Son of my brother, let go my beard. Your father would not have gripped like this.” Muhammad replied, “Had my father seen you doing these things, he would have denounced you for them, and I mean to do worse to you than grab your beard.” ‘Uthman said, “I seek God’s help and support against you.” Then Muhammad pierced his forehead with a broad iron-tipped arrow that he was holding. Kinanah b. Bishr raised some arrows of the same kind that he was holding, and plunged them into the base of ’Uthman’s ear down to his throat. Then he fell on him with his sword until he killed him.

According to ‘Abd al-Rahman—Abu ‘Awn:

Kinanah b. Bishr struck his forehead with an iron bar. He pitched forward, face down, and Sudan b. Humran al-Muradi beat him after he had fallen and killed him.…As to ‘Amr b.al-Hamiq, he jumped on ‘Uthman and sat on his chest—he was still barely alive—and stabbed him nine times. ‘Amr said, “I stabbed him three times for God’s sake and six times because of the anger in my breast against him.”

If we are troubled reading those passages, we must remember that all of those who ‘cannibalized’ ‘Uthman were impeccable Muslims—the most ardent jihadists, belonging to the stock of Muhammad the Hashim clan of the Quraysh.

This Islamic cannibalism did not end there. The cycle continued until Aisha (Prophet Muhammad’s dearest wife), along with two of her brothers-in-law, Talha and Zubayr set out to avenge ‘Uthman’s murder. When she reached al-Basrah, a rebel stronghold, she killed (by beheading) six hundred of the suspected rebels who had ‘cannibalized’ ‘Uthman. Ali, being sucked into the vortex of this cannibalistic cycle, set out to punish Aisha’s gang.

The result: ten thousand Muslims, including Talhah and Zubayr lay perished in al-Basrah, equal in proportion from both sides. Aisha’s life was spared by the cannibals, but her camel was hamstrung.

In Islamic history this is known as the Battle of the Camel. This is perhaps one of the most moving examples of how Islamic cannibalism really perpetuates a never-ending cycle of violence and mayhem. This is the reason why we shall never observe a let up to the succession of Islamic cannibalism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Egypt or Sudan.

The narration of this very important chain of cannibalism will remain incomplete till we learn the fate of all the participants sucked into this whirlpool of cannibalism and counter cannibalism.

The following passages, adopted from Tabari’s Tarikh al-Tabari (vol. xvii) illustrate very briefly how this cycle of Islamic cannibalism continued, and will continue:

Muawiyah b. Abi Sufyan, the governor of Syria and a close relative of caliph ‘Uthman demanded from Ali the handing over of the killers of ‘Uthman. When Ali refused to comply with this request, Muawayiah b. Abi Sufyan, and his right-hand man, ‘Amr b. al-‘As (the deposed governor of Egypt), became open enemies of Ali. They gathered forces and set off to attack Ali. Ali met this force at Siffin. Fearful of defeat at the hands of Ali’s fierce and well-trained army, Muwayiah and ‘Amr devised quite an innovative trick. Their soldiers attached copies of the Qur’an at the tip of their lances and raised them high in air. Ali’s soldiers went in stupor and were hesitant to charge their enemy, lest they trample the Holy Qur’an. Both sides remained standstill—the battle became a stalemate. In the end, both parties agreed to stop fighting and decided on a speedy negotiated settlement by appointing an arbiter from each side. Having mutually reached this agreement, both sides separated and returned.

But not everyone on Ali’s side was happy with his prompt decision. A faction of Islamist extremists thought judgment belonged to Allah and Ali’s decision to appoint arbiters for a peaceful settlement is contrary to Islamic principle. This dissident group of Ali was known as the Kharijites. They insisted that Ali resume fighting. But Ali could not renege on his treaty of a peaceful settlement. The Kharijites declared Ali to be a sinner and asked him to repent. Initial attempt by Ali for reconciliation with the Kharijites met with feeble success. So, ultimately, Ali had to cannibalize the cannibals. He had to fight a major battle at the canal of Nahrawan, east of river Tigris in Iraq. This battle ended with a merciless mass slaughter of the Kharijites. But this cannibalization did not completely eradicate the Kharijite problem. Many Kharijites survived this genocide, went into hiding, and some of them returned to Kufa (Ali’s headquarter in Iraq) stealthily. A few of them went to Egypt.

FP: Let’s get back to Muhammad. He gave the instructions for -- and paved the foundation to -- Islamic cannibalism. He also, in this context, made a prediction in regards to Islam’s demise, correct?

Kasem: Yes, he predicted the demise of Islam.

As strange and as unbelievable as it might appear in these days of unremitting Islamic terrorism and Islamic cannibalism, Muhammad himself had predicted the decline of Islam. Comparing Islam with a snake, he likened Islam to be confined between the mosques of Mecca and Medina. Please read these Sahih ahadith from Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim:

Belief returns and goes back to Medina like a snake...(Sahih Bukhari, 3.30.100)

There will be no trace of Islam in some believers...(Sahih Bukhari, 9.84.65)

Islam was initiated as something strange, and it would revert to its (old position) of being strange, and it would concentrate between the two mosques just as the serpent crawls back into its hole…(Sahih Muslim, 1.0270)

The Islamic faith will recede to Medina just as the serpent crawls into its hole…(Sahih Muslim, 1.0271, 0272)

Allah needs sinners… (Sahih Muslim 37.6620, 6622)

Muslims will diminish in number and they will go back to where they started…(Sunaan Abu Dawud, 2.19.3029)

Muslims will be the scum and the rubbish even though their numbers may increase; the enemy will not fear Muslims anymore. This will be because the Muslims will love world and dislike death…(Sunaan Abu Dawud, 37.4284)

Muhammad’s contemporaries were the best Muslims; after three generations, the Muslims will be mainly treacherous and untrustworthy… (Sahih Bukhari, 5.57.2, 3)

Muslims will be destroyed through the hands of some Quraysh young men…(Sahih Bukhari, 9.87.180)

There will be much killing during the last days of the Muslims…(Sahih Bukhari, 9.88.183)

And here are a few excerpts from the greatest of all Islamic minds, al Ghazali:

Muhammad said Islam began with a few and will soon return to a few as it began. The few of those true Muslims are those who follow to purify Muhammad’s sunnah and follow strictly his traditions…(Ihya Ulum al Din by Ghazali, Tr. Fazl-ul-Karim. First edition. Darul Ishat, Karachi, 1993. p.1.49).

Muhammad said, “The wealth of a Muslim in near future will be goats and sheep. He will roam in caves of hillocks and places of water. He will shift from one place to another with his religion and calamities.”…(ibid, p.2.142)

Muhammad said, “In near future such a time will come upon man when it will be difficult to save his religion. To save religion he will flee away like a jacket from one cave to another and from one hillock to another.”…(ibid)

FP: Ho do we understand Allah's mindset in all of this?

Kasem: It is impossible to understand Allah’s mind. In many verses He threatens infidels with severe punishment, including death if they do not convert to Islam. However the Qur’an also demonstrates Allah’s frustration. Allah is so disappointed with Muhammad’s performance that He promises to send a beast as a final messenger (27:82). In verse 68:51 Allah admits that the Qur’an had made Muhammad a mad man, thus implying that Muhammad, after all, could not be trusted to save Islam. To accentuate Muhammad’s mental instability Allah says in verse 41:36 that Allah let Satan confuse Muhammad. In verses 38:82 83 Allah admits that He let loose Iblis, the Satan; He did not want to control Iblis. This means Satan is more powerful than Allah. Thus, it is imperative that eventually, Satan will triumph and destroy Islam. This, of course, is the desire of Allah, as nothing may transpire without Allah’s wish. Allah even admits that He loves to sow discord about His Book (the Qur’an, 41:45).

FP: So what do we conclude from what you have demonstrated here today?

Kasem: We can conclude that there is a certain ending to Islam and that those who wish for it do not necessarily need to do anything. All that is needed is to let it run its own course. It is bound to self-destruct, if we are to learn from the lessons of Islamic history. The un-Islamic world just needs to protect itself with strict security measures, never letting the various groups of Islam unite to kill the infidels. Once the infidels learn the secret life of Islam, it is simply a matter to watch how Islam implodes. Once the Islamic oil runs dry, once the world secures a reliable source of energy to replace oil, once the infidels stand together, and once the infidels become iron-resolute to contain Islam in their lands, Islam will die a natural death.

FP: Abul Kasem, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Kasem: My pleasure Jamie.

Obama Administration's Selling America "Cheap" to Islam

Nothing surprises me any more with the actions, statements and logic of the present administration and its supporters. Yesterday, John Brennan, deputy National Security Advisor, announced that we may no longer describe our enemy as ‘jihadists’ or ‘Islamists’ because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam.

I have news for Mr. Brennon, it is not Americans who invented the word jihadists, but it is Muslims who used that word for 1400 years. The word jihadist is derived from, Mujahada or Mujahidoun, to describe those who go to war for the sake of spreading Islam. Brennon is right in that jihad is a major tenant of Islam, but wrong in calling it legitimate because in fact it is a declaration of war and violence against non-Muslim individuals, governments and nations that has been going on for 1400 years. The Obama administration refuses to understand that the doctrine of jihad challenges the sovereignty of any non-Muslim country and denies it exercising its right to remain non-Muslim. But after standing against the Arizona law, I do not think the current administration cares much about sovereignty of the USA.

I feel kind of silly in explaining the obvious to Mr. Brennan because he cannot be that stupid. But just in case, this is the definition of jihad as given in mainstream Shafii law: “to war against non-Muslims, derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare, to establish the religion” (Shafii law # o9.0 p 599). To ensure that all Muslims perform or at least support jihad, there is also a law that states that not performing jihad or fleeing from combat with “unbelievers” is considered an enormous crime (Shafii law 377 p. 987). Not only is jihad the duty of every Muslim, but every Muslim head of state. Sharia says: “The caliph fights all other peoples until they become Muslim” (o9.9 p. 603).

This definition of Jihad as above, is being taught today across the Muslim world and producing thousands of young men and women who are committed to killing us. Such jihad commandments to kill and engage in aggressive wars against non-Muslims are all over Muslim scriptures and preached from mosques across the Middle East and even in the West. Such violent jihad commandments all over Muslim scriptures have never been amended, annulled or denied by any Muslim group with authority in the Middle East. All we ever hear is unsubstantiated denials by Muslims in the West.

Here is another Sharia law: “The Caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax while being belittled”. Law# o9.8 p. 602. If that is not enough the following might convince Mr. Brennan: “When the caliph (Muslim Head of State) appoints a ruler on a region, (his duty includes) if the area has a border adjacent to enemy lands, (he will) undertake jihad against enemies, dividing the spoils of battle among combatants and deserving recipients.” (Law# o25.8 and 9 (8) p,647).

When it comes to the interpretation of Islam, many Muslim groups in the US say they abide by the interpretations of Al Azhar University in Cairo. Well, Al Azhar University in Cairo approved and signed the above Sharia laws and also teaches that jihad is a permanent war institution against Jews Christians and pagans.

There is a relentless campaign to dumb down Americans. There is daily massive, merciless pressure on the ordinary American citizen to conform to an unbearable state of giving up their culture, dignity and pride. Those in charge in New York have approved the building of a huge mosque at Ground Zero, which will be financed by the same people who financed the terror attack on 9/11. It will be considered by the Muslim world as yet another holy site for the triumph of Islam. Like holy mosque built on top of the Jewish second temple, in a few decades, Islam will claim this area of New York as Muslim holy grounds. American victims of 9/11 are buried next to a holy mosque of triumph and Muslims will come to visit from all over the world. Who knows, perhaps our great grand children will have an eternal war with Muslims over ground zero as a disputed area between Americans and Muslims.

To teach Americans another lesson, the Obama administration even brought a foreign leader, the President of Mexico, to come to our Congress and teach the American people a lesson about what is right and wrong.

We are told that Americans must never feel insulted, humiliated or that their noses are being rubbed in the ground by President Obma’s administration. You see, a good American must be sensitive to Muslim wishes, but asking Muslims to reciprocate would be insensitive.

A good American can no longer be patriotic, but must respect the patriotism of others. He must be tolerant, but must tolerate the intolerance of others. He must blame himself first, second and third, but never dare blame others. A good American must welcome Islamic penetration and agenda of jihad, but never suspect any ill will from those who call themselves jihadists and blow themselves up with fellow US citizens. He must never demand equal access in Muslim countries. He must resist feelings of pride in his culture, but celebrate the cultures of everyone else, even those who cut the clitorises of young girls. He must celebrate the diversity and division of America into little tribes even if some are hell-bent on imposing their religion, language and culture by any means necessary. A good American must abandon any reference in public to God, Christ, or Christmas. But he must celebrate other religions, especially Islam, while denying that Islam had anything to do with 9/11.

The present administration and its supporters are following a policy of divide and conquer and are gambling with our future, thinking that in the end the jihadists will get tired and reform themselves of their own volition. The administration is trying to play word games to tell Muslims they are not at war with America, when even the children in the Arab streets know that Islamic jihad is at war with America. America might be afraid, but denial and playing word games is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Mr. Brennon and those who agree with him have ignored 1400 years of Islamic jihad history. Only those cultures that fought the jihadists survived and preserved their language and religion. Wars at the gates of Vienna stopped the jihadists in their tracks, but with appeasement, political correctness and Muslim immigration, America might wake up one day asking “how did we lose Europe?”

The present administration is selling America cheap, very cheap, for votes, for approval from Saudi Arabia and radical Islamists. I wish to tell them, you are rewarding the enemies of America who will never love you. Our politicians are at least engaged in gross negligence and at worst playing with fire.
Is this a great country for Islam to conquer or what?

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Nonie Darwish is a former Muslims and the author of “Cruel and Usual Punishment; The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law”.

Furore of a Silent Revolution!

Islamic Ulema's struggle against Internet, which critics, especially a handful of ex-Muslims, have been using to open the minds of Muslim youth to the truth of Islam so as to unfurl a silent revolution that would spell death of Islam and Muhammad.

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[Extremism is fire, which thrives on the blows of its opponents. And an ideology of hatred always comes to a natural death sooner or later.]

It’s completely ridiculous of a person to think that he stands high in the eyes of a Muslim youth, whereas he/she is just a puppet based on his/her emotional propaganda of religious beliefs. Today’s Muslim youth is not as naive as it was before; media is a medium to develop his/her knowledge, but unfortunately the man himself wasn’t. A big farewell to this Muslim man, who shall soon hide from his own shadows.

Ex-Muslims are taking things to a personal level of educating their fellow ‘believers’ about what Islam truly is. Anyone, who tries to awaken the Muslim youth from the hypnosis that they are in fact parroting verses of the Koran [without ever understanding what it actually says, but rather blindly believing the Ulema who twist and turn the meanings of these verses to suit their whiffed intellectuals], will be ridiculed and a death fatwa will become obligatory. The Ulema these days are doing their desperate best by bringing the confidence and self-beliefs back in the Muslim youth by reminding them of the glorious past of Islam. They march to the streets in large numbers to protest against anything that may make the Muslim youth aware of Islam's truth. The latest being the Facebook and Youtube fiasco!

In social networking sites, one does have the freedom to express his/her mind! With new tools [information] easily available, one can inform others about the naked truths with facts, which may unfurl a silent revolution to change their thoughts. People call it a cult.

I think we need to make a new cult of ‘information war’ to bring down those, who oppose naked truths—a “cult” that always uses lenses, fogged with ‘clear bitter truths’ about this Islamic religious ideology, to view the world as it exists today!

Well, in politics and policies, there is no absolutes: no absolute to freedom, no absolute to death. Until and unless the very mindset of the very people change, and they stop celebrating religious fascism and separatism in the name of religion, caste, ethnicity or whatever, preached and taught by the Islamic Ulema—men like Ali Sina, M. A. Khan, Abul Kasem, Greet Wilders, Dr. Walid Pares, Ibn Warraq, Mohammad Asghar, Syed Kamran Mirza, and Amil Imani et al. will always rise and preach confusion, plant seeds of rebellion, in all sections in the Islamic society via the INTERNET.

Why these few (Islamic Ignorant) men do such a thing? All we can hope is people like them [should and will] keep the bastion of TRUTH about religion and its logic standing and will in essence be the ever-burning fire that helps rejuvenate millions of phoenixes but also burns false prophets! Muhammad will truly be dead the day Muslims take him out of their minds and don’t even remember his name, much less his teachings! Islamic awareness is the first footsteps in that direction!

Internet Censorship

Pakistani women, affiliated with a religious party, rally against the Facebook page "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day". A Paki- stan court ordered the government to block the popular social networking site, because of the controversial page that encour- aged users to post images of Prophet Muhammad. (AP Photo)

The furor over blocking numerous websites last week by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority on the instructions of the Lahore High Court refuses to die down and for good reason, too! At least 800 web pages and URLs have so far been blocked for Pakistan’s Internet users in an effort to restrict access to material considered blasphemous. The number may grow. However, apart from the Facebook page that hosted the 'everybody draw Muhammad day', which has now been removed, PTA has given no explanations as to “what exactly this objectionable material is?”

There are a number of points to ponder. First, the LHC order referred to the caricatures’ site. On whose authority has access to other sites been restricted? The PTA may be guilty of overstepping its authority by extending the scope of the court’s order to apply the directives to websites of its own choosing. Second, given the other issues confronting, there is the possibility that ‘blasphemy’ is being used to cover up attempts to suppress criticism on Blogs. Sites such as Facebook and YouTube have become a prominent tool for radical activism and criticism of religion. Third, blocking these sites constitutes outright censorship and a serious transgression of the individual’s right to access information of his/her choice on the Internet.

Islam cannot police the world! By blocking websites achieves nothing but only invites derision from the global community, besides encouraging mischievous elements to undertake similarly offensive exercises in order to provoke a reaction. In shutting off access to these sites is denying people access to information; interestingly, one of the blocked pages is a Wikipedia discussion on the freedom of speech versus blasphemy. Lastly, bans like this simply do not work.

“The only way to comprehensively control access to sections of the Internet is to stop Internet facilities altogether,” told an Ulema on local television. A number of ways to circumvent the blocked material are being communicated to Internet users, who are thus able to access websites of their choice. It must be made to respect the rights to information and restore the blocked websites immediately, leaving Internet users to decide for themselves what is or is not offensive to them?

It is sad to see that the instance of bringing a “radical change of such learning” is treated/thought as only a waste of time of Western conspiracy theories. The Ulema jump the gun and, with their sling-shot, jabs at Internet—a medium, which makes it hard to hold back any knowledge! The biggest problem with the Islamic Ulema is that they want no roles in social uplifts of its people, but rather to keep the Islamic mindset on razors edge. Those, who have done nothing, are the loudest ones!

There will always be Islamic extremists, who will turn violent and shun a measured response to crass exercises such as the drawing event. But the answer should not be resorting to practices that drag the society further back into the dark ages of Islam!

Should Ongoing Islamic Violence Be Called "Terrorism"?

Western governments, in the past few years, have been grappled with debates on how to define ongoing Islamic violence to help deal with it best. So far any mention of 'Muslim', 'Islam', 'Jihad', and last of all 'terrorism' have been removed from documents and discussions on it. Nonetheless, it is out and out "terrorism" in ideal defenition of the word.

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There has been a lot of debate on how the ongoing violence by Muslim fanatics, perpetrated in the name of 'Islam' or 'Islamic Jihad', be defined. After 9/11, as emotion was running high, the Bush Administration's calling the campaign against violent Islamic militants a "War on Terror" received wide acceptance. However, Muslims generally have been unhappy with this label: they would be happier if violence by Muslim fanatics would be relegated to a form of social criminal activity; so has been the opinion of many Western liberal commentators.

As the U.S.-led War on Terror lingered on, with al-Qaeda-minded militant outfits flourishing around the world, giving the impression that War on Terror might fail, there has been a lot of soul-searching in the West about the entire campaign, especially on how to define it.

Is the label War on Terror counter-productive?

Should it be called Islamic or Jihadi Terrorism?

Governments in Western countries, of course advised often by radical Muslim organizations, initially reached the conclusion that the violence by a small fraction of Muslim fanatics should not, in any way, be connected to Islam. New manuals were rolled out for distribution amongst various government organizations, particularly law-enforcement agencies, instructing them not to mention words like 'Islam', 'Muslim' or 'Jihad' whiling reporting or talking about violence by Islamic militants.

This was an effort to disconnect Muslims or Islam completely from ongoing violence by radical Muslims; in other words, it was an effort to appease Muslims. Reason has also been given that associating Islam or Muslims to violence make Muslims feel victimized, pushing them further toward taking a radical path. The massive increase in violent trend amongst Muslims worldwide since 9/11, instead of its expected decrease after years of War on Terror, gives good justification to such a line of thinking.

The latest in this saga of redefining ongoing Islamic violence, especially after the arrival of President Obama, has been the debate on whether the violence should be called "terrorism" at all. In fact, the Obama administration has also obliterated the word 'terrorism' from its lexicon concerning ongoing Islamic violence, and has, instead, tried to label it as "man-caused disaster", howsoever ridiculous it may sound. Yet, others advocate that it should simply be seen as normal social criminality by individuals or gangs and be dealt with as such.

Thus, not only the terms 'Islam', 'Muslim' and 'Jihad', but also 'war', 'terrorism' and 'terror' have been effaced from manuals, documents and discussions dealing with ongoing violence by Muslim radicals. The reasoning behind this latest line of thinking has been nicely articulated by one of our reader, Roger, in a letter to me, which I quote below:

I have a question for you. I do not know much about Islam, but have formed the following opinion.

The Muslims and Christians and Jews have been fighting for several thousand years. To avoid playing into the idea of this history of war, the words, "war on terror" ought to be eliminated, as it dignifies the terrorist criminals and thugs as "warriors". Rather, it should be called a "police action", and the terrorist should be called what they are, criminals and gangs of thugs.

If this is a wrong way of thinking, if the world should keep calling it a "war on terror", please explain why. And in the explanation, please address the primary issue; I am concerned calling it a "war on terror" dignifies the jihadists as "warriors"! I am thinking of the American police action against the Italian Mafia that took several generations to complete. We never called it a "war on the Mafia", that would have dignified them way way too much. We termed it a police action, and identified the murderers as criminals, thugs, and the outcast of society, and arrested them, and put them in jail. Yes, it took a generation, but the Mafia is pretty much wiped out now in America. If that is not appropriate for the Islamic terrorists, please explain why.

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My reply:

Dear Roger,

To the question of whether the measures undertaken against Islamic violence should be called 'war on terror', the best solution is to call it by what it is: 'war on Islamic Jihad or Islamic Jihadi terrorism'.

But that's probably not possible. 'War on terror' is mostly acceptable so far, although not to President Obama, a line of thinking you seem to support.

The first thing we must consider: whether the action of Jihadis can qualify as 'terrorism'. It does.

'Terrorism' is an indiscriminate violent campaign to achieve an ideological aim. Ongoing Islamic Jihadis have a unified ideological goal, and their violence is indiscriminate.

Violence of Jihadis is qualitatively different from social criminality or criminality of Italian Mafia as you have mentioned. Jihadis want a new socio-political order on the global scale; common criminal gangs or mafia don't have such well-defined comprehensive political goal.

Calling it 'war on terror' may dignify the perpetrators somewhat. Nonetheless, in this age of secular democracy, general population, at least in the liberal West, also see 'terrorism' as a dishonorable means to achieve a political goal. This 'label' is somewhat discrediting to the campaign.

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Roger's reply:

Dear Khan,

Thank you for your reply. I am persuaded by you that this is much larger in scope than the Mafia. You make a perfect point that the Mafia was pretty much a criminal organization with limited scope and impact, usually just in a few local cities and markets, while the Islamic Jihad has the future of the world as its scope, with methods that Hitler would approve. So I no longer will object to labeling it war. I supported Obama, but am becoming slightly nervous that he is not being tough enough. I do remember Reagan having no compunction to calling China a "gang of thugs" and Russia as "the evil empire".

I agree, the impact on humanity is probably going to be severe. I worry about the future. I have heard encouraging words from people who are dedicated to building schools for girls in Afghanistan and some other Muslim countries, with the idea that a society becomes more civil when women are educated. After all, children are in the hands of their mothers during their most formative years.

The war on Islamic Jihad terrorism will require the full resources of modern countries. The first step is to understand the situation correctly.

Thank you for your efforts to educate us all.

The Tragedy of Islamic Child-Marriage and Pedophilia

Pedophilic child-marriages---widespread in Muslim societies, thanks to Muhammad's pedophilic marriage to 6-year-old Aisha---not only condemns little girls into sex-slave-like married life, but it also often turn fatal for them because of injuries suffered from forced intercourse by their husbands.

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In my previous article, I have discussed how Prophet Muhammad’s holy tradition, namely the example of his marrying 6-year-old Aisha at the age of 52, inspires Muslims worldwide to engage in child-Marriage & pedophilia.

Child-marriage devastates lives of little girls in many ways. Most importantly, marriage between two individuals of such unequal age and maturity can never develop in a loving and mutually respectful one, which should be central in marriage or between couples. It becomes a relationship between master and slave, to be more accurate, between master and sex-slave.

There is another, rather cruel and tragic, aspect to it. It is the bodily torture, not only by beating as allowed by Allah, but also by forcing those little girls into sex, for which she is not physically prepared, even if we ignore her mental unpreparedness.

The perversity of Islamic culture is that when a man brings his new wife, often a complete stranger, home, he must have sex with her on the very first night. Else friends and neighbors would tease him of lacking manhood.

Because of such social pressure, the husband would normally have sex with his wife, even if that requiring forcing (i.e. rape; in Islam, not such thing as marital rape: your wife is a tilth for you, plough her how, where and when you want, says the Quran 2:223) to prove his manhood. When this is done on little girl, they suffer extreme pain and genital injury, which could, tragically, even be fatal, leading to death.

A 13-year-old Yemeni Bride died due to Genital Injury and Bleeding

On April 2 this tear (2010), a 13-year-old Yemeni girl died of injuries to her genitals four days after a family-arranged marriage in Hajja, Yemen. The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen and other Islamic countries. But this tragic incident in Yemen has drawn attention of international human rights groups that are pressurizing the government to ban child-marriages and fix 17 as the minimum age of marriage for girls. According to Majed al-Madhaji, a spokesman for the Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights, the said 13-year-old girl was married to a 23-year-old man; she died 4 days after marriage. A medical report from al-Thawra hospital said she suffered a tear to her genitals, which caused severe bleeding, leading to her death. The Associated Press reported that the girl was unwilling to have sex with her husband, who forced the girl into sexual act (rape) by tying herself on the bed. Her husband is now in police custody.

Another Yemeni human rights group said the girl was married off in an agreement between two men to marry each other’s sisters to avoid having to pay high bride-price, a common arrangement in the impoverished country. According to a survey by the Social Affairs Ministry of Yemen, more than a quarter of Yemen’s girls marry off before age of 15. The report also said that the tribal custom also plays a role, including the belief that a young bride can be shaped into an obedient wife, bear more children and be kept away from temptation.

In February 2009, the Parliament legislated a law banning child-marriage and setting the 17 years as the minimum age of marriage for girls. But it was disapproved and repealed by the highest religious authority and sent back to parliament’s constitutional committee for review. Some lawmakers called the move un-Islamic and a group of the country’s highest Islamic authorities declared that those, who support a ban on child-marriage, apostates. Some of Yemen's most influential Islamic leaders, including one now living in the US, said that Osama bin Laden has declared supporters of the ban on child-marriage apostates, and hence liable to be punished by death.

Another Yemeni child-bride hospitalized with genital injuries

It should be mentioned here that, on April 14, another Yemeni child-bride, aged 11, was been hospitalized with similar genital injury. According to report by a human rights group in Sanaa, an 11-year-old Yemeni girl, who was married to a man in country's Hajja province, was hospitalized on April 14 with genital injuries. It was, thus, the second incident of genital injury to a child-bride caused in a couple of weeks in Yemen, caused by violent sexual assault by their adult husbands.

The said 11-year-old girl was married off last year under the condition that her adult husband would wait until she reached puberty to consummate the marriage. “But he, like many other men who marry child brides, did not wait”, says Amal Basha, director of the Arabic Sisters Forum, a human rights organization. "She looked like she was butchered," said the girl's mother, Nijma Ahmed. A police report says that this girl was also reluctant to have sex, but her husband forcibly raped her to prove his manhood.

A study has revealed that nearly 50% of the women in Yemen are married before the age of 18, some as young as 8 among them. As many as 8 girls die each day in Yemen due to child-marriage, “Many of them in childbirth”. Last year, a child-marriage case in Yemen made international headlines after a 12-year-old girl died while giving birth, together with the baby, says Ms Basha. “The group, Arabic Sisters Forum, also runs a hotline for victims of domestic violence and has been lobbying in support of a minimum marriage age now under consideration by the Yemeni parliament” she adds... But the Islamic conservatives clerics in Yemen have declared a war against women like Amal Basha declaring them apostates from Islam for opposing child marriage, which they see as divinely ordained by Allah. “The government”, she says, “is intimidated by the religious and tribal customs.” While talking to the journalists, she said, "They say that the attempt to ban child marriage is un-Islamic. They also declared jihad against the UN treaty on women's rights. … They say my campaign is a Western agenda that it will lead to sex out of wedlock and prostitution," Ms Basha said.

It should be mentioned here that Ms Basha was repeatedly threatened; a liquid was sprayed on her face on the street; headquarter of her organization was ransacked; and the brakes on her car were cut in an assassination attempt. She faces these threats and assaults, believe many, not only because of her support for banning child-marriage, but also her organization's investigation and condemnation of grave human rights violations in Yemen.

Yemeni Women oppose child marriage ban

It is astonishing that thousands of Yemeni women—for whose rights social activist like Amal Basha and many others are fighting, ignoring the threats and attacks on their lives by the conservatives—clad in head-to-toe burqa, held a demonstration on March 21, 2010, outside the parliament in San'a, to oppose the proposed legislation banning child-marriage. The protesters held up banners, proclaiming “don’t ban what Allah made permissible”, or “stop violating Islamic sharia law in the name of rights and freedoms”, reported an AP correspondent. Undoubtedly the demonstration was organized by Muslim clerics, opposed to the proposal, because it goes against Islamic sharia law. “Most importantly, the religious decree, issued after Sunday’s demonstration, deeply imperils efforts to salvage legislation that would make it illegal for those under the age of 17 to marry,” said the AP correspondent.

“A handful of women’s rights activists outside the parliament were seen leaving after being outnumbered by the demonstrators. ‘It is unreasonable to marry our daughters at the age of eight or nine. This is a serious problem”, said Houriya Mashhour, deputy director of Yemen’s Women National Committee. It is really a tough task to liberate people, who prefer to remain shackled.

Such is the power of Muhammad's vicious cult, which can so imperviously inspire Muslim women to embrace tragic end to their lives.

The Ground Zero Mosque Developer: Muslim Brotherhood Roots, Radical Dreams

Everything there is to know about Faisal Abdul Rauf, the wolf in sheep’s clothing behind the planned lower Manhattan mega-mosque.

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[Appeared in Pajamas Media on May 14, 2010. Published with author's consent]

The prospective developer of a $100 million, 13-story mosque 600 feet from Ground Zero presents himself as a Muslim moderate (1). Yet Kuwait-born Faisal Abdul Rauf also boasts of his issue from an “Egyptian family steeped in religious scholarship” (2). Indeed, Feisal Rauf’s Muslim Brotherhood provenance, radical by definition, is as authentic as it gets.

Imán Faisal

Rauf’s father, Dr. Muhammad Abdul Rauf (1917-2004) — an Egyptian contemporary of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna — conveyed to Feisal his family’s long tradition of radicalism, which he acquired at Islam’s closest equivalent to the Vatican, Al-Azhar University. The elder Dr. Rauf studied and taught there before fleeing Egypt in 1948. That year, Feisal Abdul Rauf was born in Kuwait.

Feisal Rauf has planned for some time to further develop his father’s U.S. Islamic expansionism. In 1990, Rauf opened the tiny al-Farah Mosque at 245 West Broadway in lower Manhattan. Area residents did not even notice the mosque until 2006, when the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA) refused to license a new bar on the same block and started yanking others’ liquor licenses (3).

Rauf attended grammar school and high school in the UK and Malaysia, according to his biography. He probably first lived in America only in 1965, at age 17, when his father moved from Malaysia to New York to plan and head the Islamic Cultural Center (not built until the mid-1980s) (4). Rauf then obtained a BS in physics at Columbia University (5). In 1971, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Rauf’s father headed the Islamic Center on Massachusetts Ave. (6) His father, buried in Suitland, MD, at the for-profit Washington National Cemetery, also founded three Malaysian Islamic studies programs, including the International Islamic University of Malaysia (7).

Rauf’s early UK education and familiarization with American popular culture and values made him an acutely adept practitioner of Islamic taqiyya — deceptive speech and action to advance the interests and supremacy of Islam (8). To further that Islamic advancement, Rauf in 1997 established the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA). His Kashmir-born wife Daisy Kahn, an interior designer by profession, has run the organization since 2005 (9).

Rauf then began cultivating new spheres of influence. In about summer 2002, Rauf started lecturing on Islam at the 750-acre southwestern New York campus of Chautauqua Institution, a 136-year-old non-profit where religion director Joan Brown Campbell took Rauf under her wing. Under the rubric of the “Abrahamic” faiths, a convenient cover for Rauf’s Islamic activities, Campbell subsequently named him the prospective head of a Muslim house now planned on campus by another Rauf brainchild — the 501(3)c organization Muslim Friends of Chautauqua. Rauf also befriended Karen Armstrong, the former British nun and devotee of Islam.

In summer 2002, as a “theologian in residence,” Armstrong advocated for the Muslim Brotherhood — as if the father of all Islamic terrorist organizations was a progressive charity:

[The MB] set up a wonderful welfare program before it was suppressed. … Factories where Muslims could work, had time for prayers, had vacation time, insurance, [learned] labor laws, [provided] clinics, they taught people how to treat sewage, drainage, and it was always the religions response to try to help modernity to give to the ordinary people the benefits of modernity in an Islamic setting that made sense to them and made things more balanced (10).

In 2003, Rauf befriended leaders of Denver’s Aspen Institute, including former executive director and four-term Aspen mayor John S. Bennet. In 2004, under ASMA auspices, Rauf organized a meeting of 125 young Muslims and formed Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow. With Bennet’s help, he co-founded the Cordoba Initiative in Aspen, purportedly to “improve” Muslim-West relations (11). Rauf gets funding from a variety of other liberal organizations, including, for example, Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Foundation.

However, Rauf directly contradicted his conciliatory behavior with a firebrand interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. Terrorism, he stated, will end only when the West acknowledges the harm it has done to Muslims:

The West’s role during World War II was strictly defensive, and in no way religious. Moreover, Rauf’s statements — which Daisy Kahn glossed over in a December 2009 Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham — ignored Islam’s continuous attacks, from the 7th to 16th centuries, on non-Muslim peoples throughout the Mideast, Africa, Europe, central Asia, and India (12).

The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. … It was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets (12).

Rauf further revealed his antagonistic sentiments in the 2006 Copenhagen gathering he organized for the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow. To enhance his moderate cloak, Rauf invited such liberal Muslims as Irshad Manji and Mona Eltahawy. But the Muslim leaders of Tomorrow also includes radicals like Yasir Qadhi — a favorite speaker at conferences of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and Dhaba “Debbie” Almontasser, who works closely with Hamas’ U.S. arm — the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), itself an unindicted co-conspirator in terror financing.

Perhaps Rauf founded the Cordoba Initiative in 2004 intending to build a mosque in downtown Manhattan directly across from Ground Zero. However, Rauf tipped his hand to authorities only in April 2009, when he incorporated the Cordoba Initiative in New York (13). Within months, in July 2009, he bought a future mosque site at 45 Park Place for $4.58 million in cash from the heirs to New York’s Pomerantz family.

As Islamic attacks on September 11, 2001, destroyed the World Trade Center towers, falling jet debris simultaneously crushed the five-story 1923 structure some 600 feet away that until that morning housed a robust Burlington Coat Factory store (14). Over the ruin of the former retail outlet, Rauf now plans to build a 13-story, $100 million mosque. Rauf says the Cordoba Initiative bought the former retail building to prove to the world that Islam is not a violent faith (14).

Imam Rauf says that New York Muslims provided nearly $5 million in cash to buy the Park Place building (16). Yet in fiscal 2009, Rauf’s ASMA received large international donations. In the year ended June 30, 2009 — days before Feisal closed the purchase — ASMA received at least $1.3 million. The largest donation, $576,312, came from Qatar (17). That Persian Gulf nation has long harbored terror financiers, and even the government stands accused of funding international terrorism. Qatar also has, for decades, hosted Muslim Brotherhood spiritual chief Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The elderly sheikh, a large and founding shareholder in the terror-financing al-Taqwa Bank, champions sharia law, wife beating, and suicide bombing.

ASMA also received $481,942 from Holland’s Millennial Development Goals Fund (MDG3), $144,752 from New York’s Carnegie Corporation, $53,664 from the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), plus donations from the Rockefeller Brothers and Hunt Alternatives funds, among others (18).

The Ground Zero mosque plan is more than a little reminiscent of a program initiated by Rauf’s late father in 1965. That year, Muhammad R. Abdul Rauf moved to New York to plan and head a huge Islamic Cultural Center that took decades to realize (19). He bought prime Manhattan real estate at 96th St. and 3rd Ave — roughly two thirds of a city block — apparently with $1.3 million in funding from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Libya. The late Rauf long retained some of that land in a personal trust (19). But when construction started on the $17 million mosque in 1984, it had received funding from 46 Islamic nations. By 2010, the enormous Islamic complex had added another two buildings. Since 1984, its founders-envisioned apartment unit has been restricted to Muslims alone (20).

Whenever Feisal first considered building a mosque across from Ground Zero, he had the idea firmly in mind by 2004, when he wrote What’s Right with Islam. The book was translated into many languages. In Indonesia’s Bahasa, its title translates as “The Call from the WTC Rubble.” Rauf promoted the book in December 2007 at a Kuala Lumpur gathering of Hizb ut Tahrir (20) — an organization banned in Germany since 2003, and also outlawed in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, among other places — and ideologically akin to the MB. Both seek to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law (sharia), and eventually impose Islam and sharia law worldwide. Most North American MB organizations avoid widely publicizing that aim. The HT however, at a July 2009 Khalifah conference at a suburban Chicago Hilton, openly promised to replace capitalism with Islam and sharia law (21).

Feisal Rauf supports sharia law, too.

Described in one Asian report as an Egyptian citizen living in the U.S., he has repeatedly stated, and writes in his 2004 book, that the U.S. Constitution is sharia-compliant. The “American Constitution and system of governance uphold the core principles of Islamic law,” Rauf wrote in his book. The “American political structure is Shariah-compliant,” he contends, since Muslim jurists over the centuries have “defined five areas of life” to be protected by Islamic law — life, mind, religion, property, and family. Only two further actions could render the U.S. more Islamic than it is already, Rauf contends:

[Inviting] voices of all religions to join the dialogue in shaping the nation’s practical life, [and allowing] religious communities more leeway to judge among themselves according to their own laws (22).

These assertions, however, merely fulfill the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine of flexibility — adapting to each and every environment in which the brothers eventually hope to force Islamic law upon the masses. Rauf’s claims starkly represent taqiyya, the Islamic practice of deception, to further theocratic and essentially fascist Islamic advances (23). And the additional “leeway” Rauf seeks for intra-community religious-law enforcement is a thinly veiled attempt to impose shariah more widely in the U.S., in direct contravention of the U.S. Constitution.

President Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo challenged Muslims, as Rauf wrote in a June 5, 2009 Washington Post column (24): “Live up to the tenets of our religion, embrace Shariah law as conceived by the Prophet, and see what happens.” But sharia inhibits all kinds of freedoms, especially those of women and non-Muslims. Islamic law protects only the lives, minds, religion, property, and families of Muslims — not all peoples of all faiths, as Rauf would have us believe (25).

Since at least 2006, Rauf’s Cordoba Initiative has partnered with the Gallup Organization and “a team of Sunni and Shi’a scholars from Morocco to Indonesia” to create “an Islamic legal benchmark for measuring ‘Islamicity’ of a state” for use by the public, pundits, “and state officials in both the Muslim and Western worlds.” If the U.S. is so sharia-compliant, and Rauf so strongly supports Western democracy and separation of mosque and state, why has his U.S.-based institution initiated such a project? Funded by Malaysia and many other Muslim nations in the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), no less?

Rauf has often directly contradicted his seemingly tolerant and peace-loving pronouncements with harsh, antagonistic assessments of the U.S. In his May 7 Khutbah (Muslim sabbath sermon), delivered at 1:00 p.m. at 45 Park Place in Manhattan, Rauf implied that Muslims did not perpetrate 9/11 at all, according to writer Madeline Brooks, who attended (26): “Some people say it was Muslims who attacked on 9/11 … ” he stated, before trailing off into another topic.

He also expressed this view in an interview with 60 Minutes aired on Sept. 30, 2001 as well (27):

The attacks were “a reaction against the U.S. government politically, where we espouse principles of democracy and human rights, [yet] … ally ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries. … [U.S.] policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.

Not the crimes Muslims committed: “the crime that happened.” He continued:

In … the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden was made in the USA (28).

Rauf explained the Islamic disdain for life, as well:

In the Islamic belief system, the next life is the primary life. The next life is more real, more intense, and more vivid.

In short, Islam reveres death. Indeed, Islam orders its adherents to conduct jihad warfare, and promises paradise and 72 virgins to those who die in the service of Allah (29).

Even Cordoba Institute’s name telegraphs the organization’s deceptiveness. Cordoba (also the name for Chautauqua’s proposed new Muslim house) was the seat of the Islamic Caliphate that ruled most of Spain from Tariq ibn Zayid’s 711 invasion through 1248, and controlled parts of Spain until its full liberation in 1492. However, neither the Umayyads (who ruled monolithically until about 1031), nor the particularly vicious Almoravids (who swept over the Atlas mountains and, in 1080, into Spain) ruled non-Muslims kindly. While Islamic harshness varied, it remained unquestionably ever-present.

Rauf is not alone in his blatant whitewash of Islam’s brutal history in Spain. Many others purvey the same historical falsehood. Yet Muslim rule in Spain never remotely approached the mythic level of beneficence that Rauf pretends (30).

The surviving victims of 9/11 and families of the deceased should not be alone in opposing Rauf’s proposed 13-story mosque, 600 feet from the World Trade Center site. Traditionally, Muslims have destroyed houses of worship built by virtually every other faith under the sun. Worldwide, Islam has plundered tens of thousands (if not more) of Christian churches, Jewish synagogues and holy archaeological sites, plus Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Sikh, and other temples and monasteries. Then, in the interest of jihad, Islam has claimed all these religious places of others as their own “mosques,” forever Muslim.

To allow a mosque at a place a Muslim gang destroyed on 9/11 would amount to formally blessing Islam’s 1,400-year-old tradition of exclusivity and suppression of all persons of all other faiths. It would be a 100% victory of Islam and sharia law over the U.S. Constitution and America’s time-honored democracy and pluralism.
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NOTES:

1 Feisal Abdul Rauf biography, http://asmasociety.org/about/b_rauf.html (viewed 4/28/2010).

2 Feisal Abdul Rauf biography, http://asmasociety.org/about/b_rauf.html (viewed 4/28/2010).

3 Carl Glassman, “West Broadway bars facing license ban,” Tribeca Trib, Mar. 31, 2006, http://www.tribecatrib.com/bak/archives/newsmarch06/Bar_new.htm (viewed 5/20/2007).

4 Rauf bio, http://asmasociety.org/about/b_rauf.html, ibid.; Islamic Cultural Center of New York, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Cultural_Center_of_New_York (viewed 5/9/2010).

5 Rauf bio, http://asmasociety.org/about/b_rauf.html, ibid.

6 Islamic Center of Washington, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Center_of_Washington (viewed 5/9/2010).

7 Salmy Hashim, “Islamic scholar Tan Sri Dr. Muhammad Abdul Rauf Dies,” Bernama, the Malaysian National News Agency, Dec. 12, 2004, ibid.; Jaclyn Ling-Chien Neo, “’Anti-God, anti-Islam and anti-Quran’: Expanding the range of participants and parameters in discourse over women’s rights and Islam in Malaysia,” Pacific Basin Law Journal, Vol. 21:29, 2003, p. 69, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID753226_code491760.pdf? abstractid=753226&mirid=1 (viewed 5/7/2010).

8 Ikhwan website, http://www.ummah.net/ikhwan/ (viewed 6/4/2008); The Muslim Brotherhood charter calls on members to sidestep attention through their long-established “flexibility” strategy — muruna in Arabic. To spread Islam, a basic requirement of shari’a or Islamic law, MB adherents also routinely practice concealment, known alternatively as either taqiyya or kitman. Ikhwan website, http://www.ummah.net/ikhwan/ (viewed 6/4/2008); The Muslim Brotherhood charter calls on members to sidestep attention through their long-established “flexibility” strategy — muruna in Arabic. To spread Islam, a basic requirement of shari’a or Islamic law, MB adherents also routinely practice concealment, known alternatively as either taqiyya or kitman. See also Warner MacKenzie, “Understanding Taqiyya: Islamic principle of lying for the sake of Allah,” Islam-Watch, Apr. 30, 2007, http://www.islam-watch.org/Warner/Taqiyya-Islamic-Principle-Lying-for- Allah.htm (viewed 5/16/2010).

9 “Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf,” chairman, Cordoba Institute, http://www.cordobainitiative.org/?q=content/staff-bios (viewed 5/11/2010).; Daisy Kahn biography, http://www.asmasociety.org/about/b_dkhan.html (viewed 5/12/2010).

10 Quotation in Chautauqua institution panel, summer 2002.

11 American Society for Muslim Advancement Financial statement for period ended Jun. 30, 2009, p. 9, http://www.asmasociety.org/about/asma_audit_2009.pdf (viewed 5/10/2010).

12 Frank Walker, “We must act to end jihad: imam,” Sydney Sun-Herald, Mar. 21, 2004, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/21/1079789939987.html (viewed 4/5/2004).

12 Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity, ibid; Andrew G. Bostom, Legacy of Jihad, ibid.

13 American Society for Muslim Advancement Financial statement for period ended Jun. 30, 2009, p. 9, http://www.asmasociety.org/about/asma_audit_2009.pdf (viewed 5/10/2010).

14 Marc Pitzke, “Finding Allah at Ground Zero: A new Manhattan mosque hopes to heal,” Spiegel Online, Dec. 17, 2009, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-667678,00.html (viewed 5/10/2010); “9/11 Firefighter opposes mosque at Ground Zero as “a Trojan horse rolled onto our most sacred ground”, asks “Where is the money coming from?” The Jawa Report, May 8, 2010, http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/202370.php (viewed 5/9/2010);

14 Gadi Adelman, “Exclusive: Spitting in the Face of Everyone Murdered on 9/11,” Family Security Matters, May 10, 2010, http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.6177/pub_detail.a sp (viewed 5/10/2010); Matt Dunning, “CB1 committee hails plan for a mosque two blocks from WTC site,” Tribeca Trib, May 10, 2010, http://www.tribecatrib.com/news/2010/may/603_cb1-committee-hails-plans -for-a-mosque-two-blocks-from-world-trade-center-site.html (viewed 5/10/2010).

16 “9/11 Firefighter opposes mosque at Ground Zero as “a Trojan horse rolled onto our most sacred ground”, asks “Where is the money coming from?” The Jawa Report, May 8, 2010, http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/202370.php (viewed 5/9/2010); Christian Salazar, “Some 9/11 families angry about plans for Ground Zero mosque,” Associated Press, May 7, 2010, http://www.kboi2.com/news/national/93073789.html (viewed 5/10/2010).

17 American Society for Muslim Advancement Financial statement for period ended Jun. 30, 2009, p. 8, http://www.asmasociety.org/about/asma_audit_2009.pdf (viewed 5/10/2010), as cited by Gadi Adelman, “Exclusive: Spitting in the Face of Everyone Murdered on 9/11,” Family Security Matters, May 10, 2010, http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.6177/pub_detail.a sp (viewed 5/10/2010).

18 ASMA Financial statement for year ended Jun. 30, 2009, p. 8, http://www.asmasociety.org/about/asma_audit_2009.pdf , ibid, as cited by Gadi Adelman, “Exclusive: Spitting in the Face of Everyone Murdered on 9/11,” Family Security Matters, ibid, http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.6177/pub_detail.a sp.

19 Salmy Hashim, “Islamic scholar Tan Sri Dr. Muhammad Abdul Rauf Dies,” Bernama, the Malaysian National News Agency, Dec. 12, 2004, http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/bernama-malaysian-national-new s-agency/mi_8082/is_20041212/islamic-scholar-tan-sri-dr/ai_n51486662/ (viewed 5/4/2010).

19 George Goodman, “Ground broken for Islamic Center,” New York Times, Oct. 28, 1984, http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/28/realestate/ground-broken-for-islamic -center.html?&pagewanted=print (viewed 5/10/2010); Islamic Cultural Center of New York, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Cultural_Center_of_New_York (viewed 5/9/2010).; Hashim, “Islamic scholar Tan Sri Dr. Muhammad Abdul Rauf Dies,” ibid.

20 Goodman, ibid.; David Dunlap, “A new mosque for Manhattan for the 21st century,” New York Times, Apr. 26, 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/26/arts/architecture-a-new-mosque-for-m anhattan-for-the-21st-century.html?pagewanted=print (viewed 5/10/2010).

20 http://hizbut-tahrir.or.id/2007/12/27/imam-masjid-al-farah-new-york-ci ty-konstitusi-as-sesuai-syari%E2%80%99ah/

21 “Hizb Ut-Tahrir: Shariah Takes Precedence over U.S. Constitution,” IPT News, July 20, 2009, http://www.investigativeproject.org/1100/hizb-ut-tahrir-shariah-takes- precedence-over-us, (viewed May 13, 2010).

22 Spencer Ackerman, “Religious protection,” The New Republic, Dec. 12, 2005, http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/religious-protection; Feisal Abdul Rauf, What’s Right with Islam: a New Vision for Muslims and the West, (New York: HarperOne, 2004) p. 86.

23 “Taqiyah,” Dictionary of Islam, http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Hughes/t.htm (last visited 4/20/2010).

24 Feisal Abdul Rauf, “Obama’s challenge to the Muslim world,” Washington Post, Jun. 5, 2009, http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/feisal_abdul_rauf /2009/06/obamas_challenge_to_the_muslim_world.html (viewed 4/26/2010).

25 al-Mawardi, The Laws of Islamic Governance; Reliance of the Traveller.

26 Madeline Brooks, “The Ground Zero Mosque Must Be Stopped,” No mosques at Ground Zero, May 9, 2010, http://nomosquesatgroundzero.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/breaking-our-med ia-and-the-news-thats-not-fit-to-print5-09-10/ (viewed 5/9/2010).

27 Ed Bradley, “Prominent American Muslims denounce terror committed in the name of Islam,” 60 Minutes, Sept. 30, 2001, http://islamicity.com/video/ch20/CBS60Minutes.ram; (viewed 5/5/2010). Transcripts, at Monroe County Green Party, http://www.monroegreens.org/Sept11/60minutes20010930b.htm, The Anti-Venom, http://brotherandrew.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Jiha d&thread=75&page=1 and Islam for Today, http://www.islamfortoday.com/60minutes.htm (all viewed 5/5/2010); Partial transcripts at http://hem.passagen.se/okn50/60m_e.html, http://newsbusters.org/forums/topic-discussion/religion-peace-17019 , http://www.abc.se/~m9783/CBS_60.html, and http://web.comhem.se/onesr/CBS_60.html, (all viewed 5/9/2010).

28 Ed Bradley, “Prominent American Muslims denounce terror committed in the name of Islam,” 60 Minutes, Sept. 30, 2001, http://islamicity.com/video/ch20/CBS60Minutes.ram, ibid.

29 Qur’an 9:29 commands, “Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” As translated by Yusuf Ali, from Yet Another Quran Browser, http://qb.gomen.org/QuranBrowser/cgi/bin/retrieve.cgi?version=pickthal l+yusufali+khan+shakir+sherali+khalifa+arberry+palmer+rodwell+sale+tra nsliterated&layout=auto&searchstring=009:27-31, (4/26/2010); see also Sahih Muslim: The Book of Jihad and Expedition (Kitab al-jihad Wa’l-Siyar), As cited in Bostom, Legacy of Jihad, 2005, pp 138-139, from Abdul Hamid Siqqiqi, “Translation of Sahih Muslim,” Muslim Students Association, “Book 019, Number 4294:

30 Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain, 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, from Seville to Tortosa.

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….”