News Analysis
"All-American Muslim": A Little Taqiyya on the Prairie
America’s answer to the Canadian CBC TV series, “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” premiered at The Learning Channel (TLC) on 13 November 201l: “All-American Muslim” is airing as an 8-part series styled as a kind of faux-reality show and follows members of five Shi’ite Muslim families of Lebanese descent in Dearborn, Michigan. The idea is to show that these Muslims are just like any other Americans and to dispel what TLC terms “misconceptions, conflicts and differences they face outside — and within — their own community. . . .” Misconceptions about Islam do, in fact, abound; but it is not likely that “All-American Muslim” will do much to clarify how Islamic supremacism and violence against non-believers derive directly from the doctrine, law, and scriptures of Islam itself. That every Muslim believer does not behave in conformance with such fundamental tenets of the faith is obvious and to be acknowledged with relief. Unfortunately, though, television shows that gloss over the reality of Islamic ideology not only obscure the full truth about Islam from non-Muslims who then remain unprepared to defend against its hostile elements, but also leave no space for Muslims who themselves oppose jihadist terrorism, inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims, misogyny, honor killings, the apostasy death penalty, and vicious hudud punishments. This is why the new TLC series might more accurately be called “A Little Taqiyya on the Prairie.” Taqiyya, of course, is the sanctioned Islamic practice of deceit and dissimulation to defend or promote Islam.
Part of the whitewash at “All-American Muslim” involves some of the program stars themselves. One of the American-born leads, Suehaila Amen, is a devout Shi’ite Muslim who wears the hijab and, just days after the 9/11 attacks, wrote a letter to a Lebanese newspaper, declaring Lebanon her “homeland” and America as a place where “everyone is your enemy.” It is unclear whether Amen knew at the time of the deep involvement of the Iranian terror proxy, Lebanese Hizballah, in the 9/11 attacks. Amen serves as 1st Vice President of the Lebanese American Heritage Club of Dearborn, MI, which has sponsored openly antisemitic, anti-Israel, and pro-Hizballah rallies and whose founder, Ali Jawad, was fired from the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign because of his alleged ties to Hizballah. On 21 June 2011, the Club held a boisterous rally in support of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, even as that dictator’s security forces were gunning down unarmed protestors in the streets. Club members also rallied against former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and cheered his ouster in February 2011, an event that cleared the way for the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power there. Amen also organized fundraising banquets in 2010 and 2011 for the Michigan Chapter of the CAIR Action Network; according to the U.S. Department of Justice, CAIR is the U.S. branch of the HAMAS terror organization, itself an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
The program’s story line is also problematic on multiple levels. It at once promotes the all-American image of Islam that TLC is looking for and yet subtly reinforces basic Islamic fundamentals. For instance, one of the main characters is the former Roman Catholic, Jeff McDermott, who converts to Islam so that he can marry Shadia Amen, Suehaila’s sister and daughter of one of the five families featured in the program. Not made clear is whether McDermott actually understands that his new faith commands him to wage jihad against his former one. Nor does the program address what would happen to him if he ever has second thoughts about his conversion or decides he’s made a mistake and wants to return to the Catholic faith. Islamic law (shariah) prescribes the death penalty for apostates.
The show’s setting in Dearborn, MI is meant to depict one of the largest Muslim communities in the U.S. and the site of the largest mosque in the country in an unrealistically rosy light. What the producers take care not to divulge to their viewers is the reality that Dearborn is a hotbed of Islamic jihadist support, where in 2009 the FBI shot it out on the streets with jihadis involved in a plot to overthrow the U.S. government, shouts of “Allahu Akbar” are hurled at Christians, and shariah is gaining ground. This is how taqiyya works to obscure what Islam would prefer not be publicized while the air-brushed version gets all the reviews. “A Little Taqiyya on the Prairie” would be a much more accurate name for a show that falls so far short, as this one does, of presenting a truly honest depiction of Islam in America.
America’s answer to the Canadian CBC TV series, “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” premiered at The Learning Channel (TLC) on 13 November 201l: “All-American Muslim” is airing as an 8-part series styled as a kind of faux-reality show and follows members of five Shi’ite Muslim families of Lebanese descent in Dearborn, Michigan.
The idea is to show that these Muslims are just like any other Americans and to dispel what TLC terms “misconceptions, conflicts and differences they face outside — and within — their own community. . . .” Misconceptions about Islam do, in fact, abound; but it is not likely that “All-American Muslim” will do much to clarify how Islamic supremacism and violence against non-believers derive directly from the doctrine, law, and scriptures of Islam itself.
That every Muslim believer does not behave in conformance with such fundamental tenets of the faith is obvious and to be acknowledged with relief. Unfortunately, though, television shows that gloss over the reality of Islamic ideology not only obscure the full truth about Islam from non-Muslims who then remain unprepared to defend against its hostile elements, but also leave no space for Muslims who themselves oppose jihadist terrorism, inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims, misogyny, honor killings, the apostasy death penalty, and vicious hudud punishments. This is why the new TLC series might more accurately be called “A Little Taqiyya on the Prairie.” Taqiyya, of course, is the sanctioned Islamic practice of deceit and dissimulation to defend or promote Islam.
Part of the whitewash at “All-American Muslim” involves some of the program stars themselves. One of the American-born leads, Suehaila Amen, is a devout Shi’ite Muslim who wears the hijab and, just days after the 9/11 attacks, wrote a letter to a Lebanese newspaper, declaring Lebanon her “homeland” and America as a place where “everyone is your enemy.” It is unclear whether Amen knew at the time of the deep involvement of the Iranian terror proxy, Lebanese Hizballah, in the 9/11 attacks. Amen serves as 1st Vice President of the Lebanese American Heritage Club of Dearborn, MI, which has sponsored openly antisemitic, anti-Israel, and pro-Hizballah rallies and whose founder, Ali Jawad, was fired from the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign because of his alleged ties to Hizballah.
On 21 June 2011, the Club held a boisterous rally in support of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, even as that dictator’s security forces were gunning down unarmed protestors in the streets. Club members also rallied against former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and cheered his ouster in February 2011, an event that cleared the way for the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power there. Amen also organized fundraising banquets in 2010 and 2011 for the Michigan Chapter of the CAIR Action Network; according to the U.S. Department of Justice, CAIR is the U.S. branch of the HAMAS terror organization, itself an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
The Imam featured in the series, Husham Al- Husainy, who marries Jeff, the Catholic who converted to Islam, and Shadia Amen was actually featured on Sean Hannity's program on Fox News back in 2007. Al-Husainy is a radical Muslim who refused to answer Hannity's questions regarding Hisballah and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and instead went on an angry ranting spree.
The program’s story line is also problematic on multiple levels. It at once promotes the all-American image of Islam that TLC is looking for and yet subtly reinforces basic Islamic fundamentals. For instance, one of the main characters is the former Roman Catholic, Jeff McDermott, who converts to Islam so that he can marry Shadia Amen, Suehaila’s sister and daughter of one of the five families featured in the program. Not made clear is whether McDermott actually understands that his new faith commands him to wage jihad against his former one. Nor does the program address what would happen to him if he ever has second thoughts about his conversion or decides he’s made a mistake and wants to return to the Catholic faith. Islamic law (shariah) prescribes the death penalty for apostates.
The show’s setting in Dearborn, MI is meant to depict one of the largest Muslim communities in the U.S. and the site of the largest mosque in the country in an unrealistically rosy light. What the producers take care not to divulge to their viewers is the reality that Dearborn is a hotbed of Islamic jihadist support, where in 2009 the FBI shot it out on the streets with jihadis involved in a plot to overthrow the U.S. government, shouts of “Allahu Akbar” are hurled at Christians, and shariah is gaining ground. This is how taqiyya works to obscure what Islam would prefer not be publicized while the air-brushed version gets all the reviews. “A Little Taqiyya on the Prairie” would be a much more accurate name for a show that falls so far short, as this one does, of presenting a truly honest depiction of Islam in America.
Clare M. Lopez, a senior fellow at the Clarion Fund, is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, national defense, and counterterrorism issues.
Do you think "All-American Muslim" should be taken off the air? You can contact the broadcaster directly with your concerns or complaints.
Watch the interview and follow up phone interview with the Imam featured in the series, Husham Al- Husainy, aired on the Sean Hannity program.
Recent Articles
America’s answer to the Canadian CBC TV series, “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” premiered at The Learning Channel (TLC) on 13 November 201l: “All-American Muslim” is airing as an 8-part series styled as a kind of faux-reality show and follows members of five Shi’ite Muslim families of Lebanese descent in Dearborn, Michigan.
The idea is to show that these Muslims are just like any other Americans and to dispel what TLC terms “misconceptions, conflicts and differences they face outside — and within — their own community. . . .” Misconceptions about Islam do, in fact, abound; but it is not likely that “All-American Muslim” will do much to clarify how Islamic supremacism and violence against non-believers derive directly from the doctrine, law, and scriptures of Islam itself.
That every Muslim believer does not behave in conformance with such fundamental tenets of the faith is obvious and to be acknowledged with relief. Unfortunately, though, television shows that gloss over the reality of Islamic ideology not only obscure the full truth about Islam from non-Muslims who then remain unprepared to defend against its hostile elements, but also leave no space for Muslims who themselves oppose jihadist terrorism, inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims, misogyny, honor killings, the apostasy death penalty, and vicious hudud punishments. This is why the new TLC series might more accurately be called “A Little Taqiyya on the Prairie.” Taqiyya, of course, is the sanctioned Islamic practice of deceit and dissimulation to defend or promote Islam.
Part of the whitewash at “All-American Muslim” involves some of the program stars themselves. One of the American-born leads, Suehaila Amen, is a devout Shi’ite Muslim who wears the hijab and, just days after the 9/11 attacks, wrote a letter to a Lebanese newspaper, declaring Lebanon her “homeland” and America as a place where “everyone is your enemy.” It is unclear whether Amen knew at the time of the deep involvement of the Iranian terror proxy, Lebanese Hizballah, in the 9/11 attacks. Amen serves as 1st Vice President of the Lebanese American Heritage Club of Dearborn, MI, which has sponsored openly antisemitic, anti-Israel, and pro-Hizballah rallies and whose founder, Ali Jawad, was fired from the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign because of his alleged ties to Hizballah.
On 21 June 2011, the Club held a boisterous rally in support of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, even as that dictator’s security forces were gunning down unarmed protestors in the streets. Club members also rallied against former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and cheered his ouster in February 2011, an event that cleared the way for the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power there. Amen also organized fundraising banquets in 2010 and 2011 for the Michigan Chapter of the CAIR Action Network; according to the U.S. Department of Justice, CAIR is the U.S. branch of the HAMAS terror organization, itself an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
The Imam featured in the series, Husham Al- Husainy, who marries Jeff, the Catholic who converted to Islam, and Shadia Amen was actually featured on Sean Hannity's program on Fox News back in 2007. Al-Husainy is a radical Muslim who refused to answer Hannity's questions regarding Hisballah and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and instead went on an angry ranting spree.
The program’s story line is also problematic on multiple levels. It at once promotes the all-American image of Islam that TLC is looking for and yet subtly reinforces basic Islamic fundamentals. For instance, one of the main characters is the former Roman Catholic, Jeff McDermott, who converts to Islam so that he can marry Shadia Amen, Suehaila’s sister and daughter of one of the five families featured in the program. Not made clear is whether McDermott actually understands that his new faith commands him to wage jihad against his former one. Nor does the program address what would happen to him if he ever has second thoughts about his conversion or decides he’s made a mistake and wants to return to the Catholic faith. Islamic law (shariah) prescribes the death penalty for apostates.
The show’s setting in Dearborn, MI is meant to depict one of the largest Muslim communities in the U.S. and the site of the largest mosque in the country in an unrealistically rosy light. What the producers take care not to divulge to their viewers is the reality that Dearborn is a hotbed of Islamic jihadist support, where in 2009 the FBI shot it out on the streets with jihadis involved in a plot to overthrow the U.S. government, shouts of “Allahu Akbar” are hurled at Christians, and shariah is gaining ground. This is how taqiyya works to obscure what Islam would prefer not be publicized while the air-brushed version gets all the reviews. “A Little Taqiyya on the Prairie” would be a much more accurate name for a show that falls so far short, as this one does, of presenting a truly honest depiction of Islam in America.
Clare M. Lopez, a senior fellow at the Clarion Fund, is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, national defense, and counterterrorism issues.
Do you think "All-American Muslim" should be taken off the air? You can contact the broadcaster directly with your concerns or complaints.
Watch the interview and follow up phone interview with the Imam featured in the series, Husham Al- Husainy, aired on the Sean Hannity program.
Comments
To Sean,
My friend you must first understand that when a muslim speaks of peace they mean peace according to the Quran. Which is total subjection of every man, woman and child to the rule and law of alah. (I will not capitalize that name.) They believe that every prophet before mohammed is below mohammed and therefore in total agreement with the teachings of the Quran. So when he said that Jesus and Moses will be mad at you it is all based on his islamic view of Jesus and Moses. Which has nothing to do with real history. But is twisted to fit the islamic dogma. Any one who has spent time in a cult as, sad to say, I have can tell you what the true ear marks of a cult are. Islam has all the markings of a good and true cult. Twisting of history, All history. Unquestioning submission. Any critiquing of the books,leaders or interpretations are not tolerated. harsh punishments, Isolation of followers from non followers. A book that can only be understood and explained by a select special group of people. That book by the way is FULL of contradictions and is mind numbing to read and when it is read it becomes clear to see that it is the ramblings of a lunatic OR a carefully crafted piece that plays on the mind of illiterate, superstitious people to bring them through fear to obey your will. Like any good cult islam has a different definition for every thing. Peace, Love, God, Jesus, etc.. Islem also teaches that a Muslim can lie to a nonbeliever any time it furthers the work of alah. So that man is a lier and deceiver and that is why he would NOT answer your questions.
Thomas Jefferson after reading the Quran set out to put a stop to their spread as best he could. That is because he realized what islam is really all about.
There is more to say but not tonight.
I realize this may never get to Sean but Clare M. Lopez I hope you and others like you can help educate people like Sean about the truth of islam.
Thank you.
VF
this guy is funny
This blog reeks of Nazism.
The totalitarinism is inherent in Islam. You have played the Nazi/Hitler card, and you lose, Mohammed.
wasnt everyone saying that jews control the media?
did he manage the towel head to say anything that matters? bulbing same think over and over like a hysterical woman in pain hehehe, answering questions you coaling Jewish media?, and Muslim media is terror terror terror kill kill kill and you are a idiot!!
I am a Canadian. I consider myself a right wing liberal in my country. Just the other day, I told my mother that watching the conservative Sun News network has opened my eyes to how most media brainwashes us to left wing thinking. A couple of days later my mother told me that "Anderson" had a group of American Muslims on his show. I put on "Anderson" for just a few minutes because that's all I could stomach. I called my mother and told her, "that program is exactly why I told you to watch conservative news. It gives you a perspective to figure out what is b.s. and what isn't. I didn't realize until later that night that these people were part of a T.V. show. "All-American Muslim" is clearly the destructive left-wing propaganda I was warning you against."
I watched "Little Mosque on the Prairie" for a season until I realised what horse pucky it was.
What like Fox news? God help us!
True Americans should not watch this program. No amount of clarification can change what this evil ideology is all aabout. They are all here to take our American system by hook or by crook. We must meet them "head on" from now on. We need to elect the right person in the oval office to purge them all out of this country. They are the greatest threat to our civilization. Islam is not a religion and we should all know this. It is likened to communism or nazism, it is an evil ideology.
Who are "true Americans" in your point of view? Obviously you think that only Christians are "true Americans"! That's absolutely ridiculous. Who are you to tell others that they aren't real Americans?
As the saying goes, I learned all I need to know about Islam on 9/11 and the Nick Berg beheading.
Who doesn't know that? I hope everyone here in nthe USA knows about it or we are dead.
But you know what,we as christians fail to realize one important thing. I myself get scary thoughts and I do fear that one of these days America WILL fall into the hands of Muslims and they might or WILL conquer the United States of America like they did to Spain for 800 years. Don't be surprise. If the American people keep their resistance and their rebellion against God's requirements, such as turning from their wicked ways and stop legalizing every thing that comes to their minds, things that are wicked and against the law of God, we WILL be on the exclusive road of being conquered by Islam it self. If you THINK for once that God cannot allow this to happen to us, think twice. He can. God can easily, as he has done centuries past, made nations fall and setup other governments to take over those countries that needed a wip in the ass. Don't even think that we as a nation, can escape the judgment of God. If we as a nation continue in the road of excluding God from our very lives, be certain, God will make this nation fall like He did with Babylon.
so true is your comment.... we have to wake up.
It is amazing that when asked simple questions like Hanity did they conveniently refuse to answer the question directly. This is more proof that the Islamic Extremists have clearly 1 agenda, that is to Kill all Non-Islamics and to force people into accepting Islam unconditionally or be killed...
We as a nation must expose these radicals and their agenda and deport them back to their country of origin. We MUST NEVER accept their Sharia Law. I for one, will not let them take our Country, our Traditions and Our way of life and destroy it. They can all go straight to hell!
Again more propaganda to keep these war machine going. It's funny how the right and now the left will bankrupt us so we will keep thinking there is a boogey man Muslim hiding under every rock, and even more reason to give up our freedoms for some B.S. security, believe me I'm a Republican but this is starting to get a little out of hand, of course they want you to think exactly what you are these nice Muslims really want to cut my head off! this is a religious war peeps and I've always thought organized religion is the curse of the world, it is devisive, quarrelsome and often times idiotic.
Propaganda? What exactly does it take to make you believe? There are countless sound bites out there of Muslims admitting their goals for anyone who wants to pay attention! Ahmadinejad has stated repeatedly that his greatest desire is to destroy first Israel, and then the US! Granted his goal may be a little ambitious, but the way things are going in this country, I dare say it is within the realm of possibilities, since our government now seems to give more rights to those who have migrated here, legally or illegally, than to it's own citizens!
You are right about it being a religious war! However, to my knowledge the Muslim faith is the only one that demands conversion to their faith or death! I am so sick of the political correctness in this country causing everyone to walk on egg shells, for fear of offending someone! In this case, claiming that there are only a few of the "jihadists" who adhere to that part of the religion. That may or may not be the truth, but the bottom line is, that is what their "religion" demands, so who knows how many of their radical elements would demand it once they have the majority rule! Look around Europe and pay attention to what is happening there, now that they seem to have the majority rule there!
Stop being motivated by what you have "always believed" and do some research on what is going on around you before it is too late! Check out Deerborne, Michigan, where they have a large population there and see what kinds of things are starting to happen there! Do your own research and stop blindly believing what you have always believed. The world is changing around you and you aren't even aware of it!
They definitely have an agenda and a plan and they are getting very successful at achieving their goal because the rest of the world refuses to believe what they are saying from their own mouths! We have become so arrogant as to think that we can be politically correct and that will make everything work out for the best, even when there is evidence to the contrary! Or at least that is what we are being told! I find it difficult to believe that so many people are that blindly idiotic, myself!