U.S. Mosques

Frank Gaffney on Sharia in U.S. Mosques

Frank Gaffney speaks about Sharia and jihad incubation in U.S. Mosques after the publishing of a new survey "Sharia and Violence in U.S. Mosques" by Middle East Quarterly.

Islamic Threat As Bright As the Sun

Townhall.com
By Diana West
June 9,2011
My best guess is the sun is hot. I feel its heat. I see by its light. I understand its role in the growth of crops and other living things. If I were to come across scholarly data attesting to its high temperatures, I would probably look at the fiery pictures (if there were any) and turn to something else.
On one level, I approach a new study on violence and Islam in the Middle East Quarterly in much the same way. That is, I've lived through 9/11 and the 17,298 Islamic terror attacks since (as tabulated by the website thereligionofpeace.com). I've seen pictures of Muslims rampaging around the world over a cartoon. I also understand Islam's animating role in the terror and subversion designed to extend Islamic law (Shariah) to a point where an Islamic government, or caliphate, rules the world.
But there is something transfixing about the new study, "Shari'a and Violence in American Mosques." The authors have amassed a solid bank of peer-reviewed data attesting to the presence and promotion of literature advocating violence in the majority of 100 randomly selected American mosques. And yes: that's majority of "American" mosques. Not Saudi mosques. Not Pakistani. Not Iranian. Not Turkish. Not even British mosques.
American mosques.
There goes that post-9/11 myth -- the one that tells us that American Islam is a happily assimilating creed, wholly different from the aggressive Islam transforming Europe. The new data collected by Israeli scholar Mordechai Kedar and attorney David Yerushalmi of the Center for Security Policy (and one of my 18 co-authors on the book "Shariah: The Threat to America") indicate that most American mosques are sanctioning, if not also promoting, the study of material of similar peril.
For me, the six tables of data boil down to two simple and stunning facts. More than 80 percent of the mosques in the study feature Islamic literature that advocates violence. (The authors divide the "violence-positive material" into two categories: 30 percent "moderate" violence, and 51 percent "severe" violence.) Further, 85 percent of the imams recommend this literature -- both lay-written and authoritative Islamic texts (not including the Quran or Sunnah, writings said to be words and deeds of Mohammed). It is a slim 19 percent of the mosques that don't feature such violent materials, and an even slimmer 15 percent of the imams who don't recommend it. I guess it is in these small fractions where we might find the real "tiny band of extremists" -- perhaps among the followers of the four imams in the 100 mosques who, the authors point out in a footnote, "instructed against the study of violence-positive material."
The authors follow a line of inquiry into whether signs of adherence to Shariah (Islamic law) within the mosque -- for example, sex-segregated prayer, regimented prayer lines, bearded imams -- indicate the presence of inflammatory material. Take sex-segregated prayer. They found that 95 percent of the mosques where men and women pray separately contain violent literature. At the same time, however, so do 74 percent of the mosques where men and women pray together. Similarly, 94 percent of the imams presiding over sex-segregated congregations recommend the study of violence-positive material; but so do 80 percent of the imams leading co-ed services. So, yes, Shariah-adherence is a sure-fire indicator, but it's not the only indicator.
No wonder the authors consider the conclusions to be drawn from their survey as "dismal at best." But what will those conclusions be? What should they be? I conclude, just for starters, that there is an urgent need to halt Islamic immigration to ensure that the demographic for more such mosques doesn't grow. But having dug up the hard data on the textual embrace of Islam-inspired violence within organized Islam in America, the authors almost seem content to throw it all away: "This survey suggests that, first and foremost, Muslim community leaders must take a more active role in educating their own faith community about the dangers associated with providing a safe haven for violent literature and its promotion."
The data may be new, but this is the same old mistake we've made since 9/11: outsourcing our response to the ideological threat posed by Islam to "Muslim community leaders" -- and usually linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. This isn't an internal Islamic problem. These alarming data on the promotion of violence within Islam in American mosques are for the wider, still non-Islamic society to address, and before it's too late.
Diana West is a contributing columnist for Townhall.com and author of the new book, The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization. 
This article was originally published here. 

Townhall.com
By Diana West
June 9,2011

My best guess is the sun is hot. I feel its heat. I see by its light. I understand its role in the growth of crops and other living things. If I were to come across scholarly data attesting to its high temperatures, I would probably look at the fiery pictures (if there were any) and turn to something else.

On one level, I approach a new study on violence and Islam in the Middle East Quarterly in much the same way. That is, I've lived through 9/11 and the 17,298 Islamic terror attacks since (as tabulated by the website thereligionofpeace.com). I've seen pictures of Muslims rampaging around the world over a cartoon. I also understand Islam's animating role in the terror and subversion designed to extend Islamic law (Shariah) to a point where an Islamic government, or caliphate, rules the world.

But there is something transfixing about the new study, "Shari'a and Violence in American Mosques." The authors have amassed a solid bank of peer-reviewed data attesting to the presence and promotion of literature advocating violence in the majority of 100 randomly selected American mosques. And yes: that's majority of "American" mosques. Not Saudi mosques. Not Pakistani. Not Iranian. Not Turkish. Not even British mosques.

American mosques.

There goes that post-9/11 myth -- the one that tells us that American Islam is a happily assimilating creed, wholly different from the aggressive Islam transforming Europe. The new data collected by Israeli scholar Mordechai Kedar and attorney David Yerushalmi of the Center for Security Policy (and one of my 18 co-authors on the book "Shariah: The Threat to America") indicate that most American mosques are sanctioning, if not also promoting, the study of material of similar peril.

For me, the six tables of data boil down to two simple and stunning facts. More than 80 percent of the mosques in the study feature Islamic literature that advocates violence. (The authors divide the "violence-positive material" into two categories: 30 percent "moderate" violence, and 51 percent "severe" violence.) Further, 85 percent of the imams recommend this literature -- both lay-written and authoritative Islamic texts (not including the Quran or Sunnah, writings said to be words and deeds of Mohammed). It is a slim 19 percent of the mosques that don't feature such violent materials, and an even slimmer 15 percent of the imams who don't recommend it. I guess it is in these small fractions where we might find the real "tiny band of extremists" -- perhaps among the followers of the four imams in the 100 mosques who, the authors point out in a footnote, "instructed against the study of violence-positive material."

The authors follow a line of inquiry into whether signs of adherence to Shariah (Islamic law) within the mosque -- for example, sex-segregated prayer, regimented prayer lines, bearded imams -- indicate the presence of inflammatory material. Take sex-segregated prayer. They found that 95 percent of the mosques where men and women pray separately contain violent literature. At the same time, however, so do 74 percent of the mosques where men and women pray together. Similarly, 94 percent of the imams presiding over sex-segregated congregations recommend the study of violence-positive material; but so do 80 percent of the imams leading co-ed services. So, yes, Shariah-adherence is a sure-fire indicator, but it's not the only indicator.

No wonder the authors consider the conclusions to be drawn from their survey as "dismal at best." But what will those conclusions be? What should they be? I conclude, just for starters, that there is an urgent need to halt Islamic immigration to ensure that the demographic for more such mosques doesn't grow. But having dug up the hard data on the textual embrace of Islam-inspired violence within organized Islam in America, the authors almost seem content to throw it all away: "This survey suggests that, first and foremost, Muslim community leaders must take a more active role in educating their own faith community about the dangers associated with providing a safe haven for violent literature and its promotion."

The data may be new, but this is the same old mistake we've made since 9/11: outsourcing our response to the ideological threat posed by Islam to "Muslim community leaders" -- and usually linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. This isn't an internal Islamic problem. These alarming data on the promotion of violence within Islam in American mosques are for the wider, still non-Islamic society to address, and before it's too late.

Diana West is a contributing columnist for Townhall.com and author of the new book, The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization. 

This article was originally published here. 

The Coordinates of Radicalism

 

National Review Online
By Andrew C. McCarthy
June 8, 2011
What is it that radicalizes Muslims, including American Muslims? Is it American foreign policy? Israeli “occupation” of the ancient Jewish territories of Judea and Samaria? Cartoons depicting the warrior-prophet as a warrior? Korans torched by obscure Florida pastors? The life of Osama bin Laden, or, perhaps, his death? Any of a thousand claimed slights, real or imagined, that purportedly provoke young Muslims to “conflagrate” — if we may borrow from the forgiving rationalizations of Faisal Rauf, would-be imam of the would-be Ground Zero mosque?
Here is the unsettling but sedulously avoided truth: What radicalizes Muslims is Islam.
Political correctness requires that we becloud this simple truth with a few caveats that, in most any other context, would be regarded as distractions by sensible people. So it is necessary to say that there is more than one interpretation of Islam. We must further note that the fact that Islam itself is the radicalizing catalyst does not mean that all, or even most, Muslims will become radicals. But here is another disquieting truth: Even the terms “radicalization” and “radical Islam” get things exactly backwards. The reality is that the radicals in Islam are the reformers — the Muslims who embrace Western civilization, its veneration of reason in matters of faith, and the pluralistic space it makes for civil society. What we wishfully call “radicalism” is in fact the Islamic mainstream.
These are the principal takeaways from an important study just competed by Israeli academic Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi of the Center for Security Policy in Washington. As detailed in a just-published Middle East Quarterly essay, “Shari’a and Violence in American Mosques” (available here), the authors’ “Mapping Sharia” project surveyed 100 randomly selected mosques across the United States. Onsite, fully 81 percent of the mosques featured Islamic texts that advocate violence. In nearly 85 percent of the mosques, the leadership (usually an imam or prayer leader) favorably recommended this literature for study by congregants. Moreover, 58 percent of the mosques invited guest lecturers known for promoting violent jihad.
Kedar and Yerushalmi sought to study two intimately related sets of correlations. The first focused on sharia, the Islamic system of law that is based primarily on the Koran and the Sunnah (i.e., the words, deeds, and traditions of Mohammed). The authors homed in on observable sharia-compliant behaviors. These are not actions unique to terrorist groups but conduct reflective of the broad consensus of sharia jurisprudence that cuts across the Sunni/Shiite divide — for example, women wearing the hijab or niqab (respectively, the head covering or full-length covering of the entire female form), the segregation of men from women during communal prayer, and the enforcement by imams of the requirement that male worshippers form up in tight, straight lines during mosque prayer.
The survey probed whether there was a statistically significant correlation between these sharia behaviors and the availability at the mosque of “violence-positive” literature. Significantly, although violence pervades Muslim scripture, the authors did not include scripture (the Koran and the Sunnah) in this violence-positive category. Instead, they confined it to “normative and instructive tracts,” because “a believer is free to understand scripture literally, figuratively, or merely poetically,” unless it has become an Islamic norm or a legal obligation through incorporation in sharia.
Thus the focus on violent-positive tracts, which are interpretive of scripture. They were ranked in accordance with their promotion of violence as “severe,” “moderate,” or “nonexistent.” The “severe” is easy enough to spot: It includes tracts that affirmatively call for brutality against non-Muslims (and deviant Muslims) by such 20th-century ideologues as Muslim Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb and his fellow polemicist Abul Awa Mawdudi. Similarly straightforward is literature that does not approve of, much less incite, violence. Most disheartening is the “moderate” category. These are tracts written by widely respected sharia authorities that, though predominantly concerned with “the more mundane aspects of religious worship and ritual,” express “positive attitudes toward violence” — implicitly endorsing it even if they have not incited it in the manner of Qutb and Mawdudi.
The authors found that 51 percent of the mosques featured severely violence-positive literature; an additional 30 percent distributed moderately violent tracts; and 19 percent offered nonviolent materials. What’s more, there was a strong correlation between sharia-compliant behavior and the presence of severely violent (as well as moderately violent) tracts. And while the mosques that were not as sharia-compliant (e.g., mosques that did not segregate the sexes during prayer or enforce straight prayer lines) featured less in the way of violent materials, the percentages of even these mosques that had violence-positive literature on site was disturbingly high. (See Table 2 of the MEQ essay.)
The second, related correlation the study examines is between the presence of violence-positive materials at a given mosque and the recommendation of these materials to worshippers by the mosque’s imam — a direct promotion of violent jihadism. To cut to the chase, if these materials are on site, the imam is nearly always found endorsing them. The more observably sharia-adherent the imam, the more certain this conclusion. For example, 93 percent of imams who sported the traditional full beard were found to recommend violence-positive literature. Nonetheless, more than three-quarters of imams who did not manifest similar indicia of sharia-compliance were still found to endorse the pro-violence literature if it was on site.
Perhaps the most jarring finding in the study involved mosque attendance. As the authors observe, “mosques that contained written materials in the severe category were the best attended, followed by those with only moderate-rated materials, trailed in turn by those lacking such texts.” We are not talking small divergence here: Severe-material mosques were found to have a mean attendance of 118 worshippers at services, while no-violence mosques had 15. The moderate-violence mosques came in around the middle, at 60.
In this aspect of the study may lie whatever modest silver lining there is. The Kedar-Yerushalmi survey examines what goes on in the mosques. It does not account for what happens outside the mosques or for how many American Muslims actually attend mosques with any regularity. That is to say, the fact that only 19 percent of mosques actually reflect what Islamic apologists portray as a vibrant, predominant brand of “moderate Islam” does not necessarily mean that only one in five American Muslims is a moderate.
Thousands of Muslims pray privately, as Islam permits. They visit mosques rarely, if at all, and when they go it is more for social or cultural purposes than for instruction. If they are Westernized, pro-American Muslims, they may resist the mosques precisely to avoid the influence of rabble-rousing clerics who have been recruited or trained by Saudi-backed Muslim Brotherhood elements. The study does not account for these Muslims. Their number would edge up the percentage of Muslim moderates, perhaps considerably.
But that is not the Islam Muslims are getting in American mosques. In sum, the study shows: The more sharia-compliant the mosque and its imam, the more virulently anti-Western is apt to be the Islam being preached there. Nor can it be ignored that this promotion of a pro-violence and anti-Western Islam in more than 80 percent of American mosques is of a piece with polling conducted of Muslims living in Islamic countries. As Messrs. Kedar and Yerushalmi remind us, a 2007 survey conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org found that substantial majorities in Morocco, Egypt, and Pakistan — and a majority even in reputedly moderate Indonesia — favored the implementation of sharia law and the insulation of their countries from Western values.
It is time to stop pretending that there is some other cause for this. Many things can prompt a tinderbox to conflagrate, but it has to be tinder in the first place. Islam is the tinder. We can hope that brave Muslim reformers can build on the small but far from invisible havens where a nonviolent, pluralistic Islam has taken root. But to deny an obvious nexus between the mainstream Islam of the mosques, the violent jihadism of the terrorists, and the stealth jihadism of Islamist organizations is to remain willfully blind.
—  Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.
 

National Review Online
By Andrew C. McCarthy
June 8, 2011

What is it that radicalizes Muslims, including American Muslims? Is it American foreign policy? Israeli “occupation” of the ancient Jewish territories of Judea and Samaria? Cartoons depicting the warrior-prophet as a warrior? Korans torched by obscure Florida pastors? The life of Osama bin Laden, or, perhaps, his death? Any of a thousand claimed slights, real or imagined, that purportedly provoke young Muslims to “conflagrate” — if we may borrow from the forgiving rationalizations of Faisal Rauf, would-be imam of the would-be Ground Zero mosque?

Here is the unsettling but sedulously avoided truth: What radicalizes Muslims is Islam.

Political correctness requires that we becloud this simple truth with a few caveats that, in most any other context, would be regarded as distractions by sensible people. So it is necessary to say that there is more than one interpretation of Islam. We must further note that the fact that Islam itself is the radicalizing catalyst does not mean that all, or even most, Muslims will become radicals. But here is another disquieting truth: Even the terms “radicalization” and “radical Islam” get things exactly backwards. The reality is that the radicals in Islam are the reformers — the Muslims who embrace Western civilization, its veneration of reason in matters of faith, and the pluralistic space it makes for civil society. What we wishfully call “radicalism” is in fact the Islamic mainstream.

These are the principal takeaways from an important study just competed by Israeli academic Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi of the Center for Security Policy in Washington. As detailed in a just-published Middle East Quarterly essay, “Shari’a and Violence in American Mosques” (available here), the authors’ “Mapping Sharia” project surveyed 100 randomly selected mosques across the United States. Onsite, fully 81 percent of the mosques featured Islamic texts that advocate violence. In nearly 85 percent of the mosques, the leadership (usually an imam or prayer leader) favorably recommended this literature for study by congregants. Moreover, 58 percent of the mosques invited guest lecturers known for promoting violent jihad.

Kedar and Yerushalmi sought to study two intimately related sets of correlations. The first focused on sharia, the Islamic system of law that is based primarily on the Koran and the Sunnah (i.e., the words, deeds, and traditions of Mohammed). The authors homed in on observable sharia-compliant behaviors. These are not actions unique to terrorist groups but conduct reflective of the broad consensus of sharia jurisprudence that cuts across the Sunni/Shiite divide — for example, women wearing the hijab or niqab (respectively, the head covering or full-length covering of the entire female form), the segregation of men from women during communal prayer, and the enforcement by imams of the requirement that male worshippers form up in tight, straight lines during mosque prayer.

The survey probed whether there was a statistically significant correlation between these sharia behaviors and the availability at the mosque of “violence-positive” literature. Significantly, although violence pervades Muslim scripture, the authors did not include scripture (the Koran and the Sunnah) in this violence-positive category. Instead, they confined it to “normative and instructive tracts,” because “a believer is free to understand scripture literally, figuratively, or merely poetically,” unless it has become an Islamic norm or a legal obligation through incorporation in sharia.

Thus the focus on violent-positive tracts, which are interpretive of scripture. They were ranked in accordance with their promotion of violence as “severe,” “moderate,” or “nonexistent.” The “severe” is easy enough to spot: It includes tracts that affirmatively call for brutality against non-Muslims (and deviant Muslims) by such 20th-century ideologues as Muslim Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb and his fellow polemicist Abul Awa Mawdudi. Similarly straightforward is literature that does not approve of, much less incite, violence. Most disheartening is the “moderate” category. These are tracts written by widely respected sharia authorities that, though predominantly concerned with “the more mundane aspects of religious worship and ritual,” express “positive attitudes toward violence” — implicitly endorsing it even if they have not incited it in the manner of Qutb and Mawdudi.

The authors found that 51 percent of the mosques featured severely violence-positive literature; an additional 30 percent distributed moderately violent tracts; and 19 percent offered nonviolent materials. What’s more, there was a strong correlation between sharia-compliant behavior and the presence of severely violent (as well as moderately violent) tracts. And while the mosques that were not as sharia-compliant (e.g., mosques that did not segregate the sexes during prayer or enforce straight prayer lines) featured less in the way of violent materials, the percentages of even these mosques that had violence-positive literature on site was disturbingly high. (See Table 2 of the MEQ essay.)

The second, related correlation the study examines is between the presence of violence-positive materials at a given mosque and the recommendation of these materials to worshippers by the mosque’s imam — a direct promotion of violent jihadism. To cut to the chase, if these materials are on site, the imam is nearly always found endorsing them. The more observably sharia-adherent the imam, the more certain this conclusion. For example, 93 percent of imams who sported the traditional full beard were found to recommend violence-positive literature. Nonetheless, more than three-quarters of imams who did not manifest similar indicia of sharia-compliance were still found to endorse the pro-violence literature if it was on site.

Perhaps the most jarring finding in the study involved mosque attendance. As the authors observe, “mosques that contained written materials in the severe category were the best attended, followed by those with only moderate-rated materials, trailed in turn by those lacking such texts.” We are not talking small divergence here: Severe-material mosques were found to have a mean attendance of 118 worshippers at services, while no-violence mosques had 15. The moderate-violence mosques came in around the middle, at 60.

In this aspect of the study may lie whatever modest silver lining there is. The Kedar-Yerushalmi survey examines what goes on in the mosques. It does not account for what happens outside the mosques or for how many American Muslims actually attend mosques with any regularity. That is to say, the fact that only 19 percent of mosques actually reflect what Islamic apologists portray as a vibrant, predominant brand of “moderate Islam” does not necessarily mean that only one in five American Muslims is a moderate.

Thousands of Muslims pray privately, as Islam permits. They visit mosques rarely, if at all, and when they go it is more for social or cultural purposes than for instruction. If they are Westernized, pro-American Muslims, they may resist the mosques precisely to avoid the influence of rabble-rousing clerics who have been recruited or trained by Saudi-backed Muslim Brotherhood elements. The study does not account for these Muslims. Their number would edge up the percentage of Muslim moderates, perhaps considerably.

But that is not the Islam Muslims are getting in American mosques. In sum, the study shows: The more sharia-compliant the mosque and its imam, the more virulently anti-Western is apt to be the Islam being preached there. Nor can it be ignored that this promotion of a pro-violence and anti-Western Islam in more than 80 percent of American mosques is of a piece with polling conducted of Muslims living in Islamic countries. As Messrs. Kedar and Yerushalmi remind us, a 2007 survey conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org found that substantial majorities in Morocco, Egypt, and Pakistan — and a majority even in reputedly moderate Indonesia — favored the implementation of sharia law and the insulation of their countries from Western values.

It is time to stop pretending that there is some other cause for this. Many things can prompt a tinderbox to conflagrate, but it has to be tinder in the first place. Islam is the tinder. We can hope that brave Muslim reformers can build on the small but far from invisible havens where a nonviolent, pluralistic Islam has taken root. But to deny an obvious nexus between the mainstream Islam of the mosques, the violent jihadism of the terrorists, and the stealth jihadism of Islamist organizations is to remain willfully blind.

—  Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

This article was originally published here. 

 

Shari'a and Violence in American Mosques

by Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2011, pp. 59-72

by Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2011, pp. 59-72

How great is the danger of extremist violence in the name of Islam in the United States? Recent congressional hearings into this question by Rep. Peter King (Republican of New York), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, have generated a firestorm of controversy among his colleagues, the press, and the general public. Though similar hearings have taken place at least fourteen times since 2001, King was labeled a latter-day Joe McCarthy and the hearings called an assault on civil liberties and a contemporary witch-hunt. Yet the larger dilemmas outlined by both the congressman and some of his witnesses remain: To what extent are American Muslims, native-born as well as naturalized, being radicalized by Islamists? And what steps can those who are sworn to the protection of American citizenry take that will uncover and disrupt the plots of those willing to take up arms against others for the sake of jihad?

Continue reading here.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and the Imam

Radical Mosque in Boston

To what extent are American Muslims, native-born as well as naturalized, being radicalized by Islamists?

Joseph Nassralla, coptic christian, speaks at the 9-11 Rally of Remembrance

9/11 memorial footage

Joseph Nasralla flies in from California to support the 9/11 memorial rally.

Florida Mosque caught funding terrorists

Florida Mosque funding terror

The al-Rahman mosque in Orlando, FL, a Muslim Brotherhood owned and operated property, is caught funding terrorism via George Galloway, self-admitted Hamas fundraiser, and Imam Mahdi Bray, public Hamas supporter.

NYC Ground Zero Mosque Founder Exposed...?

NYC Ground Zero Mosque Founder E

Imam Feisal says one thing for the Western media and something very different for Arab news.

Obama’s Ramadan Pandering

Obama’s Ramadan Pandering

by  Robert Spencer 

08/17/2010

Ramadan didn’t fall around Christmas time this year, but Barack Obama came bearing gifts anyway. At an Iftar dinner Friday night at the White House (the third night of Ramadan), Obama endorsed the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. 

In doing so, he was in effect saying that Muslims could build a triumphal mosque marking Islam’s superiority and victory—which is how the Ground Zero mosque will be viewed in the Islamic world—and can lie about their funding (as Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has done), and lie about their commitment to interreligious dialogue and harmony (as Rauf has also done), and refuse to denounce jihad terrorists (as Rauf has refused to denounce Hamas), and all that is just fine with the President of the United States.

For Obama, it’s all about religious freedom. Apparently now the principle of religious freedom now gives religious groups an absolute right to build anything anywhere. Expect Shinto revivalists to build a shrine to the kamikazes at Pearl Harbor any day now, and self-proclaimed Christian Ku Klux Klansmen to build a chapel honoring the Confederate dead at the site of the murder of Martin Luther King. It’s religious freedom! It’s the American way!

Obama brought more goodies for Muslims in the U.S. and around the world in his Ramadan message this year. In it, he claimed that during Ramadan Muslims “provide support to others to advance opportunity and prosperity for people everywhere.”

Oh, really?

When have past Ramadans ever resulted in any advancement of “opportunity and prosperity for people everywhere,” Mr. President? In reality, it’s against Islamic law to give zakat, the almsgiving that is one of the pillars of Islam and is required of every Muslim, to non-Muslims. 

That’s why Western governmental agencies and Christian charities build and staff schools and hospitals in impoverished parts of Africa and Asia, but oil-rich Muslim countries have never undertaken similar endeavors. With the sharp divide in Islam between believers and unbelievers, such that Muslims are commanded to be “merciful to one another, but ruthless to the unbelievers” (Koran 48:29), there is no basis in Islamic law for the idea that Islam fosters the advance of “opportunity and prosperity for people everywhere.” 

Obama also said that Ramadan’s rituals of fasting and prayer “remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.”

It would be kind of him to explain how the Koran’s designation of non-Muslims as “the most vile of created beings” (98:6) advances human dignity, much less tolerance or justice. The Koran’s command that Muslims must fight against Jews and Christians until they pay a religion-based poll tax, jizya, “with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29) likewise militates against the idea of universal human dignity that Obama professes to have discovered in Islam.

“And here in the United States,” Obama continued, “Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America and that American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country.” 

Islam has always been a part of America? Really? Will Obama provide us with a list of the Muslim Founding Fathers, the Muslim heroes of the American Revolution, the names of the Muslims killed fighting in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II—surely the President will have no trouble coming up with all that, will he? And he could also throw in a list of those “extraordinary contributions” that Muslims have made to our country. Aside from being the impetus for some extraordinary innovations in airport security, I can’t think of any. But I sure Barack Obama must be way ahead of me.

And so for this Ramadan, Barack Obama gave U.S. Muslims a grand mosque at Ground Zero, and an American pedigree as sterling and impeachable as his own. Will this be enough to stop the jihad against the U.S.? Smarter bets would be on its instead growing bolder than ever.

This article was originally published here.

Is Your Local Mosque 'Moderate' or 'Radical'?

Is Your Local Mosque 'Moderate' or 'Radical'? 

Ask the Imams of Mosques, the Muslim leaders, and the Islamic organizations in the US and worldwide to sign this declaration (See below)  

by Tawfik Hamid 

www.tawfikhamid.com  

After the problem of Ground Zero Mosque has escalated it becomes an urgent necessity to distinguish 'Moderate' from 'Radical' Islam. Without making such a distinction, the US and the rest of the world will remain divided regarding this issue. Debates about the issue can be endless unless we define the words 'radical' and 'moderate'.

Mosque leaders, Islamic scholars, and organizations who want to be considered Moderates MUST clearly and unambiguously declare the following declaration in their media outlets and on their websites.

I suggest that you send this declaration to Mosque leaders and the Islamic organizations inside the US and worldwide to see if they are ready to accept such a declaration or not.

Please feel free to circulate this newsletter so that we can start a process that allows us to distinguish radical from moderate Islam.

Declaration of Beliefs of Muslim Moderates -

 I (We) are Muslims who want contemporary understandings of Islam to replace currently predominant harsh and radical (Salafi/Wahabbi) interpretations of our religion. We therefore declare that:

 1-    Redda Law, the Sharia Law that allows the killing of Muslims who convert to other faiths, must be banned in Islamic teachings and in Sharia legal doctrine.  Islamic countries that practice Sharia must stop the practice of this law and must admit that Freedom of belief and the right to convert to other faith or believe is a basic right that must be given to all Muslims. 

 2-    Current mainstream Sharia doctrines justify the use of violence against women.  They encourage men to beat their wives to discipline them.  They allow women accused of adultery to be stoned to death.  These doctrines are barbarically inhumane, non-egalitarian, and teach Muslim children to be violent.  These teachings must be ended by reinterpreting the Islamic text that justifies such violence.

 3-    Traditional Sharia doctrines teach Muslims that they must engage in war so that Islam will dominate the world.  When Islam becomes dominant, Non-Muslims are offered three options: to convert to Islam, to pay Jizzia (a humiliating tax), or to be killed.  These doctrines run contrary to modern respect for diversity and for personal freedom of speech and belief.  This understanding of Jihad that seeks domination of Islam over other peoples must no longer be regarded as an Islamic value and its teaching as a duty for Muslims must end.

The early Islamic wars known as "Futohaat Islameia" were fought to implement this doctrine of Jihad. These wars therefore should now be regarded as un-Islamic and un-justifiable.   

4-   Jews are individuals who deserve the same respect accorded to all individuals.  They should not be called "pigs and monkeys."  The Islamic teaching that Muslims must fight and kill all Jews before the end of days is totally incorrect and unacceptable as it does not exist in the Quran.  All teachings that encourage anti-Semitic attitudes, violence or disrespect toward Jews must be declared un-Islamic.

5-    Slavery is a crime against humanity. All Sharia laws that justify slavery in our modern times must not be taught any more. Muslim scholars must have a clear and loud voice against slavery.

6-    Islamic Sharia laws currently permit the killing homosexuals.  These laws also are advocating a crime against our fellow human beings.  They must be declared un-Islamic and their implementation must be considered criminal.

Signed,

Dr. Tawfik Hamid (enter your name)

 

**Comment:

The above violent teachings, which currently are taught in mainstream Islamic books in America, are implemented in countries that allow governance according to Sharia Law. Future Muslim generations must be protected from these destructive doctrines, interpretations and customs.

These violent Sharia doctrines must be replaced with clear and unconditional explanations of why they no longer are valid. 

Anything short of a fully clear and unequivocal stand against these doctrines indicates passive approval.  Therefore, all Islamic leaders who genuinely consider themselves to be Muslim moderates must post these principles in English and in Arabic in full public view on their websites and declare them in their media outlets. 

Failure to publically post and support these principles should be interpreted as clear evidence that a leader's mosque or Islamic organization must be considered radical.