FOX News put up a cover story detailing issues of spousal abuse within the American Muslim community. The picture on the front of their web site shows the eyes of a woman wearing a face veil... no where in the entire article were the terms niqab or burqah or face veil mentioned, but somehow this lady's eyes were related to domestic abuse. Idiots.
The front page runs "America's Hidden Culture of Abuse." Yea, there are plenty of American women who can relate to that picture of the niqabi (???). In addition, they state: "Suffering in silence: Abuse of Muslim-American women is worse than reported because it is shrouded in secrecy — what is behind this sinister trend in the U.S.?"
American Muslim women face the same issues White, Black, Latino, et al., face when confronted with domestic abuse: who do I talk about this with, who do I report it to, and what can I do to get out of this situation? Westerners have a severe problem when it comes to looking at other peoples' issues and not dealing with their own.
The reporter alludes to the notion that American Muslim women are not prone to report domestic or sexual abuse. As if White American are. The article seems to identify American Muslim women with submissiveness when in reality the statistics indicate that most females who are victims of sexual or domestic abuse do not report the crime.
From RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network): "Rapes Still Not Being Reported-The National Crime Victimization Survey includes statistics on reported and unreported crimes in America. Sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes, with more than half still being left unreported. Utilizing services such as The National Sexual Assault Hotline can help encourage victims to get help and report what has happened to them so that more perpetrators can be brought to justice."
Uhm, yea. So all those Muslim women, try and be more like Western women and report abuse... oh wait, never mind. Actually, all American women need to report these crimes and then have a law passed where wife beaters and sexual abusers serve hard time for their crimes.
This is more right wing propaganda that needs to be placed in context - the context that American Muslim women are no different than their other ethnic or racial counterparts when it comes to this type of crime. The only difference is the motivation and justification for such abuse. You don't think there are White guys beating up their wives who haven't set the dinner table on time or made crappy meat loaf? Have you ever seen Sleeping With the Enemy??? Hello!?
Good Lord.
This is my favorite line from the article, check out the arrogance right here: "It isn't clear if the increase in calls is due to more abuse or whether more immigrant women, exposed to America's open culture, have felt the freedom to seek help."
God damn, those White girls getting beat up should learn more about their "open culture" and start reporting how over 230,000 people are sexually abused in the good old U.S. of A each year.
Last but not least: 59% of sexual assault cases are not reported to the police (RAINN).
American Muslim women are just being American then, it seems, sadly. The problem with articles like these are very clear. They are not about informing the public of a real problem, but of sticking the light on a particular group in the general population and demonzing them more and more every single day. It's pathetic and unnecessary. Alhamdulillah we have Muslim groups in the U.S. that are beginning this work and insha-Allah God will help them improve and help sisters more and more. But this crap journalism? It's just typical propaganda meant to portray Muslims as wife beaters, animals, barbarians. Thanks a lot FOX News.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Florida Demonstrates Idiotic Greed
I got my mom and wife to vote against the property tax amendment. My mom wasn't happy voting that way knowing she would probably lose out on $300 a year and an increase of $15,000 on homestead exemption. But I convinced her that this loss for her would mean that our crappy school system wouldn't be hurt anymore - the rest of Florida did not agree with me voting overwhelmingly in favor of saving a few bucks and continuing the crisis that our school system faces.
This was just plain greed. Governor Charlie Crist got his wish and now he and the State Legislature better make sure our schools and social services don't suffer in order to save the average Floridian $240 a year on their property taxes. It seems most people interviewed who voted in favor of the amendment still do not think the problems related to property taxes have been solved.
Crist better get back to his office and start working his rear end off because if he doesn't our schools will continue to suck and less and less people will be able to live in Florida as property taxes remain sky high.
This was just plain greed. Governor Charlie Crist got his wish and now he and the State Legislature better make sure our schools and social services don't suffer in order to save the average Floridian $240 a year on their property taxes. It seems most people interviewed who voted in favor of the amendment still do not think the problems related to property taxes have been solved.
Crist better get back to his office and start working his rear end off because if he doesn't our schools will continue to suck and less and less people will be able to live in Florida as property taxes remain sky high.
Husain Haqqani, the PPP, and Dynastic Politics: Covering Up the Corruption of the the Bhuttos and Zardaris
Husain Haqqani is the director of the International Relations department at Boston University. I read an op-ed he wrote for the LA Times on January 16, 2008. In it he basically glosses over the fact that Benazir Bhutto's son, Bilawal, was designated the Pakistan People's Party leader in complete disregard to any sort of democraticprocedure.
What does he say? He says the choice for Pakistanis is one between the Pakistani military and ISI who will rule the country and suppress democracy or to put their trust in the leaders of the PPP (otherwise known as the Bhutto Party) and be satisfied with dynastic politics.
What does he not say? He doesn't mention a single word on how Asif Zardari, Bhutto's husband and Bilawal's father, swindled the people of his country enriching himself with their money. He also does not mention that the leaders of this very same party worked in complete tandem with the very same military complex he denounces. Benazir worked with the military in her second term and actively supported the Taliban as well as steal her nation's money to place in her and her husband's Swiss bank accounts.
Haqqani is the director of the IR program at BU, and so how pathetic is it for students to have to attend a course of his and have to learn how real democracy is something so far out on the horizon that Pakistanis need a corrupt family to lead them to it. Haqqani points out that people of a particular nation do relate to certain political families, but this in no way can be a justification for continuing dynastic rule in a political party that speaks on and on about bringing democracy.
The sham was there for everyone to see. Benazir was out there speaking relentlessly about bringing democracy and freedom to Pakistanis and then once she passed on her will told us everything we needed to know: she named her husband the leader of the party after her death.
No democracy, no election, just corruption - that's the way the Bhutto's have always been no matter how much Haqqani might think otherwise. He lives in a fantasy land - his book on Pakistan and its military demonstrated that quite clearly as he quickly glossed over the atrocities and crimes of the Bhutto family, while focusing all his research on demonstrating the evils of the military establishment.
The people of Pakistan do have a choice and its not between the PPP and the military - it is whether they want freedom and democracy or not. If they do then that means the elimination of both the military establishment and the PPP as a dynastic political party.
Mr. Haqqani is without doubt a propaganda service for the PPP. He ought to be ashamed of such catering and support for a party whose leadership has shown no inclination towards helping those it has always spoken on behalf of. Then again, the elites of every nation serve their own interests and his rhetoric should really surprise no one.
What does he say? He says the choice for Pakistanis is one between the Pakistani military and ISI who will rule the country and suppress democracy or to put their trust in the leaders of the PPP (otherwise known as the Bhutto Party) and be satisfied with dynastic politics.
What does he not say? He doesn't mention a single word on how Asif Zardari, Bhutto's husband and Bilawal's father, swindled the people of his country enriching himself with their money. He also does not mention that the leaders of this very same party worked in complete tandem with the very same military complex he denounces. Benazir worked with the military in her second term and actively supported the Taliban as well as steal her nation's money to place in her and her husband's Swiss bank accounts.
Haqqani is the director of the IR program at BU, and so how pathetic is it for students to have to attend a course of his and have to learn how real democracy is something so far out on the horizon that Pakistanis need a corrupt family to lead them to it. Haqqani points out that people of a particular nation do relate to certain political families, but this in no way can be a justification for continuing dynastic rule in a political party that speaks on and on about bringing democracy.
The sham was there for everyone to see. Benazir was out there speaking relentlessly about bringing democracy and freedom to Pakistanis and then once she passed on her will told us everything we needed to know: she named her husband the leader of the party after her death.
No democracy, no election, just corruption - that's the way the Bhutto's have always been no matter how much Haqqani might think otherwise. He lives in a fantasy land - his book on Pakistan and its military demonstrated that quite clearly as he quickly glossed over the atrocities and crimes of the Bhutto family, while focusing all his research on demonstrating the evils of the military establishment.
The people of Pakistan do have a choice and its not between the PPP and the military - it is whether they want freedom and democracy or not. If they do then that means the elimination of both the military establishment and the PPP as a dynastic political party.
Mr. Haqqani is without doubt a propaganda service for the PPP. He ought to be ashamed of such catering and support for a party whose leadership has shown no inclination towards helping those it has always spoken on behalf of. Then again, the elites of every nation serve their own interests and his rhetoric should really surprise no one.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Black and Immigrant Muslims
I've been reading Dr. Sherman Jackson's book Islam and the Blackamerican. I think many of us in the U.S. have understood the ethnic and racial divide in the American Muslim community. There are many elements that influence and guide our mosques, organizations and other institutions. Some are good, some less so, some possibly down right bad. In general though, I think our community is successfully integrating into American life. Praise the Lord.
Anyway, Dr. Jackson points out the issues Black Muslims face in relation to the Immigrant community. Those issues are basically ones that make the Black Muslim community feel inferior or alienated by the Immigrant community. And probably most importantly for the Black Muslim community, Sunni Islam or probably more accurately, Salafi Islam, has led many Black Muslims into a hole where they resist the dominant white culture through ineffective and counterproductive ways. Whereas the Nation of Islam and other forms of Black Islam raised the character and integrity of Black Muslims into adopting morals and manners that could be uniquely and wholly Black, but not in an Uncle Tom sort of way. Those morals and manners were adopted to improve the Black Muslim - not to become the White Man - but to become a better person who could more effectively fight for the causes of his or her community.
The Immigrant community came not with "real" or "pure" Islam, but with their colonialism and anti-colonialism resistance movements influenced Islam. The Immigrant communities came influenced by a whole array of organizations, ideologies, and opinions. Then they pretty much enforced all that on the Black Muslims and looked down upon their "pseudo" Islam, in effect rejecting many of the important societal and moral advances made by the Black Muslim community.
I believe we have a long way to go. Many in the Black Muslim community still feel neglected and left out by the Immigrant community. It will be the responsibility of the second and third generation Immigrant Muslims, like myself, to fix many of these rifts in order to better unify and organize our entire American Muslim community.
I was recently at a Black Muslim Masjid (the fact that I'm calling it that is the sad state our Islamic centers are in where we identify a particular mosque with a particular ethnic or racial group) and found the constituents there somewhat hostile and bitter over past experiences with certain Muslim organizations and institutions. I spoke with them, related to them, and demonstrated that I at the very least understood where they were coming from and admitted that mistakes have been made in the relationship between different groups of Muslims. It was a very positive experience alhamdulillah and one I hope that will continue and lead to greater unity.
It's going to take the second and third generation Immigrant Muslims to reach out to other racial groups and not hide in their own institutions and attempt to keep others who don't see eye to eye with them on everything out also. But I think this will happen because we are growing up thankfully in an age when color and race matter less and less. Just like the Prophets of God would have wanted.
Anyway, Dr. Jackson points out the issues Black Muslims face in relation to the Immigrant community. Those issues are basically ones that make the Black Muslim community feel inferior or alienated by the Immigrant community. And probably most importantly for the Black Muslim community, Sunni Islam or probably more accurately, Salafi Islam, has led many Black Muslims into a hole where they resist the dominant white culture through ineffective and counterproductive ways. Whereas the Nation of Islam and other forms of Black Islam raised the character and integrity of Black Muslims into adopting morals and manners that could be uniquely and wholly Black, but not in an Uncle Tom sort of way. Those morals and manners were adopted to improve the Black Muslim - not to become the White Man - but to become a better person who could more effectively fight for the causes of his or her community.
The Immigrant community came not with "real" or "pure" Islam, but with their colonialism and anti-colonialism resistance movements influenced Islam. The Immigrant communities came influenced by a whole array of organizations, ideologies, and opinions. Then they pretty much enforced all that on the Black Muslims and looked down upon their "pseudo" Islam, in effect rejecting many of the important societal and moral advances made by the Black Muslim community.
I believe we have a long way to go. Many in the Black Muslim community still feel neglected and left out by the Immigrant community. It will be the responsibility of the second and third generation Immigrant Muslims, like myself, to fix many of these rifts in order to better unify and organize our entire American Muslim community.
I was recently at a Black Muslim Masjid (the fact that I'm calling it that is the sad state our Islamic centers are in where we identify a particular mosque with a particular ethnic or racial group) and found the constituents there somewhat hostile and bitter over past experiences with certain Muslim organizations and institutions. I spoke with them, related to them, and demonstrated that I at the very least understood where they were coming from and admitted that mistakes have been made in the relationship between different groups of Muslims. It was a very positive experience alhamdulillah and one I hope that will continue and lead to greater unity.
It's going to take the second and third generation Immigrant Muslims to reach out to other racial groups and not hide in their own institutions and attempt to keep others who don't see eye to eye with them on everything out also. But I think this will happen because we are growing up thankfully in an age when color and race matter less and less. Just like the Prophets of God would have wanted.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Gaza: Where are the Suicide Bombers when the Road Blocks are Unmanned?
Allan Nairn, common sense reporting on the situation in Gaza:
Most all political violence consists of clear wrongs , like murder or unjustified war, but sometimes, sadly, disgustingly, some violence is justified as a last resort, and sometimes -- as a subcategory of that -- some of that justified violence is also wise, tactically.
Once you get far outside the murder and the crimes of war and those against humanity, some of the choices regarding whether or not to use some violence can be legitimately tough and debatable.
But the Gaza wall-breaking was an easy call: no people were killed, some may have been saved, and the spectacle of an exodus into Egypt effectively dramatized a gross injustice.
It's ironic that this was apparently done -- its not yet clear from what level -- by or with some Hamas people, since that's a movement that has, in its bombings of Israeli civilians, been immoral, criminal, and tactically stupid, turning the oppressed into oppressors, in many eyes, and turning some victims into actual murderers.
But this use of violence -- against mere bricks in a wall -- was right and a stroke of genius. The legend of all-knowing Israeli intelligence notwithstanding, some of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)/ Shin Bet/ Mossad/ Cabinet killers must have been stunned, and temporarily shaken.
This was, after all, the first big, smart Palestinian move since the David and Goliath stone intifada, which pitted mere stone-throwing teenagers against Israeli tanks and body-armored soldiers, and exposed the Occupation, twenty years ago, putting Israel's regime on the defensive. (Not that it lasted long enough to produce results. The Peace Laureates Rabin and Arafat killed it; Rabin with knee-breaking -- "force, might, and beatings" was his order, which, for a while, made Israel look still worse, but then Arafat shut the teen Davids down since they were winning without his approval).
The poor Washington Post was clearly stunned and shaken by this wall breach in Gaza.
They were reduced to accusing Hamas of "exploit[ing] [Israel's] temporary shutdown of fuel supplies" -- i.e. by telling people about it (aren't newspapers supposed to encourage that?), and were cornered into the unfortunate position -- if one accepts their logic -- of seeming to support the denial of rights to Darfur refugees. ("As thousands stream across the border to Egypt, Hamas blockades the peace process," The Washington Post, January 24, 2008).
The Post asked rhetorically: "Would Mr. Mubarak allow tens of thousands of Darfur refugees to illegally enter Egypt from Sudan, where a real humanitarian crisis is underway?," the expected answer from the reader being a realistic, shameful (for Mubarak) "No," and then demanded that Mubarak apply exactly that shameful standard by likewise barring uninvited Gazans.
So in order to keep the Palestinians out (or, more precisely, keep them cooped-in), you seem willing to bar the Darfuris too?
When you reach for arguments like that, it's a sign that your side's case is in trouble.
So what would happen if some Palestinians decided to break the West Bank wall, too? Say, tens of thousands of teens one morning, at dawn, turning up with picks and crowbars?
Would the IDF destroy people to save concrete?
Quite possibly.
They feel entitled.
As then--Justice Minister Haim Ramon put it, "we have the right to destroy everything" (Gideon Levy, Little Ahmadinejads, Haaretz, 10/06/2007), and though he was talking about Lebanon '06 (Final rough tallies: 1,000 Lebanese civilians killed, 40 Israeli civilians, and 4 million mainly-US cluster bomblets scattered by IDF in southern Lebanon) he could have been articulating the broad moral/criminal law philosophy of today's Israeli/US establishments, and -- when it comes to Israel -- much of today's Israeli/US society.
But if they did, if they opened fire, Israel-Palestine history would begin anew, and though many Palestinians would die, as usual, this time they might not die in vain, since many in the world -- including the US -- would see who's oppressing whom.
Incidentally, Israel's leading newspaper, Haaretz, recently carried an airtight critique of the security rationale behind the vast complex of barriers that seal-in West Bank villages -- a complex of which the wall is only the final, tallest, manifestation.
The stated reasons for these barriers, that divert and slow Palestinians, making them fade and die in ambulances, is that they keep suicide/homicide bombers from attacking, in-and-of-itself, a good objective.
But Haaretz reporters found that, incredibly, 475 of 572 roadblocks were unmanned, and then posed the logically clinching questions: What? Suicide bombers can't get through here? They're not willing to step over the unmanned barriers that stop ordinary people (and ambulances)?
The Haaretz analyst reached the reasonable conclusion that the sealing-in has a different function:
"Is it seriously contended by anyone that a mound of earth, a ditch or a series of concrete blocks can stop terrorists from moving around? Do these barriers serve any function other than embittering the lives of the Palestinians? The sick and the elderly, pregnant women and people carrying shopping baskets undoubtedly find it more difficult to get in and out of their barricaded towns and villages. Indeed both B'Tselem and the organization Physicians for Human Rights have documented cases of sick people being unable to receive treatment because they couldn't reach their doctors or clinics--while anybody planning a terrorist attack can easily clamber over the mounds, traverse the ditches or circumvent the blocks..."
"Nobody I've spoken with," continued the writer, Daniel Gavron, " has a convincing military explanation for the unmanned roadblocks. In fact, people familiar with Israeli military thinking have convinced me that the main object of these barriers is to fragment the territory, effectively preempting the 'contiguous Palestinian state' recently touted by U.S. President George Bush. Nothing I have heard has convinced me that the unmanned roadblocks increase the security of Israelis in Israel, or even of the Jewish settlers in the territories." (Daniel Gavron, "Start with the unmanned roadblocks!," Haaretz, December 23, 2007, which also refers to earlier Haaretz reporting ).
And as the veteran Israeli correspondent Amira Hass points out, there seem to be other, non-barrier/wall, factors behind the recent decline in bombings; that is, bombings by walking Palestinians; bombings by flying Israelis have increased (see Amira Hass, "Where are the suicide bombers?," December 2007 | Kibush.co.il , translated from Hebrew by George Malent. Hass notes that some Palestinians, desperate for work, slip the wall into Israel daily. If they can do it, so could suicide bombers, if they personally or politically wanted to).
And, at any rate, the settlers and the Occupation are illegal, as is the wall, according to the World Court -- and not surprisingly, the Palestinians are justly unhappy with them all -- , so the best security solution is to simply remove them.
But the Israeli regime seems to want perpetual war tension. It now sustains their political culture.
That's fine. They can want whatever they want.
But they don't have the right to impose it.
And neither do the Palestinians, of course. They just have the right to their rights.
And since one of them is to have that illegal wall breached, and Mr. Olmert doesn't want to do it, maybe some Palestinian teens can do it for him.
He can meet them at the wall, at dawn.
Tell him to bring a pick.
The Breaking of the Gaza Wall
By ALLAN NAIRN
The breaking of the Gaza-Egypt wall is clearly a good thing, and a rare example of the moral -- and also wise -- use of violence in politics. (For the logic and effects of the Israeli cordon of Gaza see posting of December 7, 2007, "Imposed Hunger in Gaza, The Army in Indonesia. Questions of Logic and Activism").Most all political violence consists of clear wrongs , like murder or unjustified war, but sometimes, sadly, disgustingly, some violence is justified as a last resort, and sometimes -- as a subcategory of that -- some of that justified violence is also wise, tactically.
Once you get far outside the murder and the crimes of war and those against humanity, some of the choices regarding whether or not to use some violence can be legitimately tough and debatable.
But the Gaza wall-breaking was an easy call: no people were killed, some may have been saved, and the spectacle of an exodus into Egypt effectively dramatized a gross injustice.
It's ironic that this was apparently done -- its not yet clear from what level -- by or with some Hamas people, since that's a movement that has, in its bombings of Israeli civilians, been immoral, criminal, and tactically stupid, turning the oppressed into oppressors, in many eyes, and turning some victims into actual murderers.
But this use of violence -- against mere bricks in a wall -- was right and a stroke of genius. The legend of all-knowing Israeli intelligence notwithstanding, some of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)/ Shin Bet/ Mossad/ Cabinet killers must have been stunned, and temporarily shaken.
This was, after all, the first big, smart Palestinian move since the David and Goliath stone intifada, which pitted mere stone-throwing teenagers against Israeli tanks and body-armored soldiers, and exposed the Occupation, twenty years ago, putting Israel's regime on the defensive. (Not that it lasted long enough to produce results. The Peace Laureates Rabin and Arafat killed it; Rabin with knee-breaking -- "force, might, and beatings" was his order, which, for a while, made Israel look still worse, but then Arafat shut the teen Davids down since they were winning without his approval).
The poor Washington Post was clearly stunned and shaken by this wall breach in Gaza.
They were reduced to accusing Hamas of "exploit[ing] [Israel's] temporary shutdown of fuel supplies" -- i.e. by telling people about it (aren't newspapers supposed to encourage that?), and were cornered into the unfortunate position -- if one accepts their logic -- of seeming to support the denial of rights to Darfur refugees. ("As thousands stream across the border to Egypt, Hamas blockades the peace process," The Washington Post, January 24, 2008).
The Post asked rhetorically: "Would Mr. Mubarak allow tens of thousands of Darfur refugees to illegally enter Egypt from Sudan, where a real humanitarian crisis is underway?," the expected answer from the reader being a realistic, shameful (for Mubarak) "No," and then demanded that Mubarak apply exactly that shameful standard by likewise barring uninvited Gazans.
So in order to keep the Palestinians out (or, more precisely, keep them cooped-in), you seem willing to bar the Darfuris too?
When you reach for arguments like that, it's a sign that your side's case is in trouble.
So what would happen if some Palestinians decided to break the West Bank wall, too? Say, tens of thousands of teens one morning, at dawn, turning up with picks and crowbars?
Would the IDF destroy people to save concrete?
Quite possibly.
They feel entitled.
As then--Justice Minister Haim Ramon put it, "we have the right to destroy everything" (Gideon Levy, Little Ahmadinejads, Haaretz, 10/06/2007), and though he was talking about Lebanon '06 (Final rough tallies: 1,000 Lebanese civilians killed, 40 Israeli civilians, and 4 million mainly-US cluster bomblets scattered by IDF in southern Lebanon) he could have been articulating the broad moral/criminal law philosophy of today's Israeli/US establishments, and -- when it comes to Israel -- much of today's Israeli/US society.
But if they did, if they opened fire, Israel-Palestine history would begin anew, and though many Palestinians would die, as usual, this time they might not die in vain, since many in the world -- including the US -- would see who's oppressing whom.
Incidentally, Israel's leading newspaper, Haaretz, recently carried an airtight critique of the security rationale behind the vast complex of barriers that seal-in West Bank villages -- a complex of which the wall is only the final, tallest, manifestation.
The stated reasons for these barriers, that divert and slow Palestinians, making them fade and die in ambulances, is that they keep suicide/homicide bombers from attacking, in-and-of-itself, a good objective.
But Haaretz reporters found that, incredibly, 475 of 572 roadblocks were unmanned, and then posed the logically clinching questions: What? Suicide bombers can't get through here? They're not willing to step over the unmanned barriers that stop ordinary people (and ambulances)?
The Haaretz analyst reached the reasonable conclusion that the sealing-in has a different function:
"Is it seriously contended by anyone that a mound of earth, a ditch or a series of concrete blocks can stop terrorists from moving around? Do these barriers serve any function other than embittering the lives of the Palestinians? The sick and the elderly, pregnant women and people carrying shopping baskets undoubtedly find it more difficult to get in and out of their barricaded towns and villages. Indeed both B'Tselem and the organization Physicians for Human Rights have documented cases of sick people being unable to receive treatment because they couldn't reach their doctors or clinics--while anybody planning a terrorist attack can easily clamber over the mounds, traverse the ditches or circumvent the blocks..."
"Nobody I've spoken with," continued the writer, Daniel Gavron, " has a convincing military explanation for the unmanned roadblocks. In fact, people familiar with Israeli military thinking have convinced me that the main object of these barriers is to fragment the territory, effectively preempting the 'contiguous Palestinian state' recently touted by U.S. President George Bush. Nothing I have heard has convinced me that the unmanned roadblocks increase the security of Israelis in Israel, or even of the Jewish settlers in the territories." (Daniel Gavron, "Start with the unmanned roadblocks!," Haaretz, December 23, 2007, which also refers to earlier Haaretz reporting ).
And as the veteran Israeli correspondent Amira Hass points out, there seem to be other, non-barrier/wall, factors behind the recent decline in bombings; that is, bombings by walking Palestinians; bombings by flying Israelis have increased (see Amira Hass, "Where are the suicide bombers?," December 2007 | Kibush.co.il , translated from Hebrew by George Malent. Hass notes that some Palestinians, desperate for work, slip the wall into Israel daily. If they can do it, so could suicide bombers, if they personally or politically wanted to).
And, at any rate, the settlers and the Occupation are illegal, as is the wall, according to the World Court -- and not surprisingly, the Palestinians are justly unhappy with them all -- , so the best security solution is to simply remove them.
But the Israeli regime seems to want perpetual war tension. It now sustains their political culture.
That's fine. They can want whatever they want.
But they don't have the right to impose it.
And neither do the Palestinians, of course. They just have the right to their rights.
And since one of them is to have that illegal wall breached, and Mr. Olmert doesn't want to do it, maybe some Palestinian teens can do it for him.
He can meet them at the wall, at dawn.
Tell him to bring a pick.
Hamas Requested a Ceasefire??
Sure did. Back in August. Just like Ali Abunimah said they did.
"Hamas is making efforts to reach a ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip, London-based newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi reported Saturday.
According to the report, senior Hamas officials are attempting to dissuade militants from firing Qassam rockets and mortar shells from the Strip into southern Israel in efforts to prevent a large-scale Israel Defense Forces ground operation in the Hamas-ruled territory.
Israel Radio reported Saturday that Damascus-based Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal had met with the head of the Islamic Jihad in Lebanon to discuss the issue. Islamic Jihad sources told the Al-Quds al-Arabi that the group had agreed to Hamas' proposal, but only if Israel agrees to a mutual ceasefire.
The newspaper also reported that Egyptian officials have offered to broker the deal between Israel and the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip."
Read the rest: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/932364.html
"Hamas is making efforts to reach a ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip, London-based newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi reported Saturday.
According to the report, senior Hamas officials are attempting to dissuade militants from firing Qassam rockets and mortar shells from the Strip into southern Israel in efforts to prevent a large-scale Israel Defense Forces ground operation in the Hamas-ruled territory.
Israel Radio reported Saturday that Damascus-based Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal had met with the head of the Islamic Jihad in Lebanon to discuss the issue. Islamic Jihad sources told the Al-Quds al-Arabi that the group had agreed to Hamas' proposal, but only if Israel agrees to a mutual ceasefire.
The newspaper also reported that Egyptian officials have offered to broker the deal between Israel and the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip."
Read the rest: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/932364.html
More on Gaza...
Oh, those terrible rockets being fired, how deadly they are: over 300 Gazans have been killed by Israel, while 4 Israelis have died. It seems Israel doesn't need rockets...
Ending the stranglehold on Gaza
01.26.2008 | The Boston Globe
By Eyad al-Sarraj and Sara Roy
AN ISRAELI convoy of goods and peace activists will go today to Erez, Israel's border with Gaza, and many Palestinians will be on the other side waiting. They will not see one another, but Palestinians will know there are Jews who condemn the siege inflicted on the tiny territory by Israel's military establishment and want to see an end to the 40-year-old occupation.
Israel's minister of justice, Haim Ramon, had pushed for cutting off Gaza's "infrastructural oxygen" - water, electricity, and fuel - as a response to the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel. Last Sunday, Ramon's wish came true: Israel's blockade forced Gaza's only power plant to shut down, plunging 800,000 people into darkness. Food and humanitarian aid were also denied entry. Although international pressure forced Israel to let in some supplies two days later, and the situation further eased when Palestinians breached the border wall with Egypt, the worst may be yet to come.
The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, agrees with Ramon's strategy, saying that it is "inconceivable that life in Gaza continues to be normal." The rapid and deepening desperation of Gaza's sick and hungry is of no moral concern to her. For Livni, like Ramon, the siege is a tactical measure, a human experiment to stop the rockets and bring down a duly elected government.
The siege on Gaza and the West Bank began after Hamas's 2006 electoral victory with an international diplomatic and financial boycott of the new Hamas-led government. Development assistance was severely reduced with the improbable aim of bringing about a popular uprising against the very government just elected to power. Instead, this collective punishment resulted in a steady deterioration of Palestinian life, in growing lawlessness, and a violent confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, which escalated into a Hamas military takeover of Gaza in June 2007.
Since then, the siege has been tightened to an unprecedented level. Over 80 percent of the population of 1.5 million (compared to 63 percent in 2006) is dependent on international food assistance, which itself has been dramatically reduced.
In 2007, 87 percent of Gazans lived below the poverty line, more than a tripling of the percentage in 2000. In a November 2007 report, the Red Cross stated about the food allowed into Gaza that people are getting "enough to survive, not enough to live."
Why is this acceptable?
The reduction in fuel supplies that the Israeli government first approved in October not only threatens the provision of health and medical services but the stock of medicines, which is rapidly being depleted. This has forced the critically ill to seek treatment outside the Gaza Strip.
However, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, many patients are being denied permission to leave, because of new bureaucratic restrictions imposed on top of an already inefficient and arbitrary system. The organization has also accused the Israeli intelligence service of forcing some patients to inform on others in order to be granted passage.
Since June, Israel has limited its exports to Gaza to nine basic materials. Out of 9,000 commodities (including foodstuffs) that were entering Gaza before the siege began two years ago, only 20 commodities have been permitted entry since. Although Gaza daily requires 680,000 tons of flour to feed its population, Israel had cut this to 90 tons per day by November 2007, a reduction of 99 percent. Not surprisingly, there has been a sharp increase in the prices of foodstuffs.
Gaza also suffers from the ongoing destruction of its agriculture and physical infrastructure. Between June and November 2006, $74.7 million in damage was inflicted by the Israeli military on top of the nearly $2 billion already incurred by Palestinians between 2002 and 2005. Over half the damage was to agricultural land flattened by bulldozers, with the remainder to homes, public buildings, roads, water and sewage pipes, electricity infrastructure, and phone lines.
The psychological damage of living in a war zone may surpass the physical. According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, between Sept. 1, 2005, and July 25, 2007, 668 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli security forces. Over half were noncombatants and 126 were children. During the same period, Qassam rockets and mortar shells killed eight Israelis, half of them civilians.
Gaza is no longer approaching economic collapse. It has collapsed. Given the intensity of repression Gaza is facing, can the collapse of its society - family, neighborhood, and community structure - be far behind? If that happens, we shall all suffer the consequences for generations to come.
Eyad al-Sarraj is founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. Sara Roy is senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.
Ending the stranglehold on Gaza
01.26.2008 | The Boston Globe
By Eyad al-Sarraj and Sara Roy
AN ISRAELI convoy of goods and peace activists will go today to Erez, Israel's border with Gaza, and many Palestinians will be on the other side waiting. They will not see one another, but Palestinians will know there are Jews who condemn the siege inflicted on the tiny territory by Israel's military establishment and want to see an end to the 40-year-old occupation.
Israel's minister of justice, Haim Ramon, had pushed for cutting off Gaza's "infrastructural oxygen" - water, electricity, and fuel - as a response to the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel. Last Sunday, Ramon's wish came true: Israel's blockade forced Gaza's only power plant to shut down, plunging 800,000 people into darkness. Food and humanitarian aid were also denied entry. Although international pressure forced Israel to let in some supplies two days later, and the situation further eased when Palestinians breached the border wall with Egypt, the worst may be yet to come.
The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, agrees with Ramon's strategy, saying that it is "inconceivable that life in Gaza continues to be normal." The rapid and deepening desperation of Gaza's sick and hungry is of no moral concern to her. For Livni, like Ramon, the siege is a tactical measure, a human experiment to stop the rockets and bring down a duly elected government.
The siege on Gaza and the West Bank began after Hamas's 2006 electoral victory with an international diplomatic and financial boycott of the new Hamas-led government. Development assistance was severely reduced with the improbable aim of bringing about a popular uprising against the very government just elected to power. Instead, this collective punishment resulted in a steady deterioration of Palestinian life, in growing lawlessness, and a violent confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, which escalated into a Hamas military takeover of Gaza in June 2007.
Since then, the siege has been tightened to an unprecedented level. Over 80 percent of the population of 1.5 million (compared to 63 percent in 2006) is dependent on international food assistance, which itself has been dramatically reduced.
In 2007, 87 percent of Gazans lived below the poverty line, more than a tripling of the percentage in 2000. In a November 2007 report, the Red Cross stated about the food allowed into Gaza that people are getting "enough to survive, not enough to live."
Why is this acceptable?
The reduction in fuel supplies that the Israeli government first approved in October not only threatens the provision of health and medical services but the stock of medicines, which is rapidly being depleted. This has forced the critically ill to seek treatment outside the Gaza Strip.
However, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, many patients are being denied permission to leave, because of new bureaucratic restrictions imposed on top of an already inefficient and arbitrary system. The organization has also accused the Israeli intelligence service of forcing some patients to inform on others in order to be granted passage.
Since June, Israel has limited its exports to Gaza to nine basic materials. Out of 9,000 commodities (including foodstuffs) that were entering Gaza before the siege began two years ago, only 20 commodities have been permitted entry since. Although Gaza daily requires 680,000 tons of flour to feed its population, Israel had cut this to 90 tons per day by November 2007, a reduction of 99 percent. Not surprisingly, there has been a sharp increase in the prices of foodstuffs.
Gaza also suffers from the ongoing destruction of its agriculture and physical infrastructure. Between June and November 2006, $74.7 million in damage was inflicted by the Israeli military on top of the nearly $2 billion already incurred by Palestinians between 2002 and 2005. Over half the damage was to agricultural land flattened by bulldozers, with the remainder to homes, public buildings, roads, water and sewage pipes, electricity infrastructure, and phone lines.
The psychological damage of living in a war zone may surpass the physical. According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, between Sept. 1, 2005, and July 25, 2007, 668 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli security forces. Over half were noncombatants and 126 were children. During the same period, Qassam rockets and mortar shells killed eight Israelis, half of them civilians.
Gaza is no longer approaching economic collapse. It has collapsed. Given the intensity of repression Gaza is facing, can the collapse of its society - family, neighborhood, and community structure - be far behind? If that happens, we shall all suffer the consequences for generations to come.
Eyad al-Sarraj is founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. Sara Roy is senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Stephen Coughlin: Expert on Islamic Law or JihadWatch Propagandist?
I recently went through Stephen Coughlin's Master's thesis on Islamic Extremism. To my great astonishment I found it very accurate, detailed, scholarly, and completely factual... not.
His thesis, which can be found below, is the same Spencer bull crap that hovers around on the internet at site's like JihadWatch. He's no scholar and thankfully for Muslims that nut ball isn't working in the Pentagon anymore - another win for us radicals!
I mean, the guy went to the library and picked up as many books as he could on Islamic law and then went home with his preconceived notions of Islam and its jurisprudence. You got Horowitz, Spencer, the Nation and the like all claiming he's some Islamic law expert. Are you kidding me? How the hell did that crap pass for a thesis?? I could have written something better while taking care of business in the bathroom (seriously). If he even thought for a second of taking that thing he called a thesis to an Islamic Studies department he'd get trashed so fast - they'd probably be wondering why the hell they accepted him in the first place.
In a nutshell, the thesis, if you even want to call it that, is a complete rehashing of Spencer's typical propaganda. He's quoting ibn Rushd as one of his main sources on Jihad - ibn Rushd lived in Muslim Spain in the Middle Ages when Muslims and Christians in Europe were in a state of war. No concept of context, no concept of history, no nothing. As Dr. Jackson stated in his paper on Jihad in the modern age, there is no "state of war" anymore between most Muslim countries and non-Muslim countries. Even Pakistan and India - they even have diplomatic relations.
And what does he fail to mention - like Spencer - that only the executive can call the people to war or to go to war/jihad. The Ikhwan can't do it, the Khawarij can't do it, al-Qaeda can't do it... only the executive of a state. The relations between nations right now, at this very moment, is a state of peace. It is the assumed relationship - unless your Israel and Syria of course.
In any case, my little review of this crap thesis is that it justified this moron's firing from the Pentagon. It's a win for sanity, peace, and the attempt to truly understand one another. Alhamdulillah.
http://www.strategycenter.net/research/pubID.176/pub_detail.asp
His thesis, which can be found below,
I mean, the guy went to the library and picked up as many books as he could on Islamic law and then went home with his preconceived notions of Islam and its jurisprudence. You got Horowitz, Spencer, the Nation and the like all claiming he's some Islamic law expert. Are you kidding me? How the hell did that crap pass for a thesis?? I could have written something better while taking care of business in the bathroom (seriously). If he even thought for a second of taking that thing he called a thesis to an Islamic Studies department he'd get trashed so fast - they'd probably be wondering why the hell they accepted him in the first place.
In a nutshell, the thesis, if you even want to call it that, is a complete rehashing of Spencer's typical propaganda. He's quoting ibn Rushd as one of his main sources on Jihad - ibn Rushd lived in Muslim Spain in the Middle Ages when Muslims and Christians in Europe were in a state of war. No concept of context, no concept of history, no nothing. As Dr. Jackson stated in his paper on Jihad in the modern age, there is no "state of war" anymore between most Muslim countries and non-Muslim countries. Even Pakistan and India - they even have diplomatic relations.
And what does he fail to mention - like Spencer - that only the executive can call the people to war or to go to war/jihad. The Ikhwan can't do it, the Khawarij can't do it, al-Qaeda can't do it... only the executive of a state. The relations between nations right now, at this very moment, is a state of peace. It is the assumed relationship - unless your Israel and Syria of course.
In any case, my little review of this crap thesis is that it justified this moron's firing from the Pentagon. It's a win for sanity, peace, and the attempt to truly understand one another. Alhamdulillah.
http://www.strategycenter.net/research/pubID.176/pub_detail.asp
Israel Persecuting Palestinians? So Hard to Fathom
From Democracy Now!: Interview with Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifadah.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/24/where_do_the_presidential_contenders_stand
"The people of Gaza have been the victims of an experiment by the Bush administration and Israel, where, first of all, they had a democratic election. The US and Israel didn’t like that result, so they tried to overthrow Hamas using Contra-style militias and using a starvation siege. Hamas turned the tables on them and got rid of those militias. So they decided to tighten the siege on the people of Gaza, and the people of Gaza decided to break out of it themselves.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/24/where_do_the_presidential_contenders_stand
"The people of Gaza have been the victims of an experiment by the Bush administration and Israel, where, first of all, they had a democratic election. The US and Israel didn’t like that result, so they tried to overthrow Hamas using Contra-style militias and using a starvation siege. Hamas turned the tables on them and got rid of those militias. So they decided to tighten the siege on the people of Gaza, and the people of Gaza decided to break out of it themselves.
But the thing we have to absolutely focus on is the responsibility here. Israel, as the occupying power in the Gaza Strip, remains fully responsible for everything that happens there. Under Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, passed, by the way, after the horrors of World War II, Israel is legally required to provide as much food, water, medicine and fuel as the civilian population needs.
And the excuse that the Israelis are using, that they’re doing this in response to rocket fire, we know for a fact that Israel has rejected ceasefire after ceasefire put forward by Hamas and other Palestinian factions. We know for a fact that there are no rockets coming out of the West Bank. And yet Israel continues to carry out extrajudicial executions in the West Bank and military attacks on Nablus, on Balata refugee camp and all the other places in the West Bank.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
For David Horowitz: On Female Genital Mutilation
His campaign to end violence against Muslim women must have missed out on this news article from two years ago. I guess he was so gung ho about his mission that he didn't realize the top Muslim scholars have already spoken about this subject. But what about his Islam scholar in residence - Robert Spencer - surely such a great Islam scholar could have shown poor Dave that female circumcision has always been banned by consensus in Islamic jurisprudence. But I guess Robert was working on his piece where he proves that Muslim men are allowed to beat (i.e. beat the crap out of) their wives... oh wait, they're not.
In any case, here's an article from 2006 where two of the top scholars from al-Azhar University, among many others, met in a conference in Egypt and they stated unequivocally that female genital mutilation or circumcision is an un-Islamic practice and is banned.
Cairo
November 24, 2006 - 11:31AM
In any case, here's an article from 2006 where two of the top scholars from al-Azhar University, among many others, met in a conference in Egypt and they stated unequivocally that female genital mutilation or circumcision is an un-Islamic practice and is banned.
Muslim scholars rule female circumcision un-Islamic
A Egyptian conference of Muslim scholars from around the world declared female circumcision to be contrary to Islam and an attack on women, and called today for those who practice it to be punished.
The conference, organised by the German human rights group TARGET, recommended that governments pass laws to prohibit the tradition and that judicial bodies prosecute those who mutilate female genitals.
"The conference appeals to all Muslims to stop practicing this habit, according to Islam's teachings which prohibit inflicting harm on any human being," the participants said in their final statement.
Egypt's two top Islamic clerics, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar, the foremost theological institute in the Sunni Muslim world, and Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, attended the conference, which drew scholars from as far afield as Russia.
Tantawi's and Gomaa's edicts are considered binding.
Female circumcision, which involves cutting the clitoris, continues to be practiced in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa as well as Egypt, Yemen and Oman, despite numerous campaigns against it.
Those men who support the tradition believe it lowers a girl's sexual desire and helps maintain her honour. They also believe it is required by Islam.
The scholars said circumcision inflicts physical and mental harm on women. Furthermore, they said, Islam considers it to be an aggression against women. Those who perform it should be punished.
"The conference reminds all teaching and media institutions of their role to explain to the people the harmful effects of this habit in order to eliminate it," the scholars said in their recommendations.
"The conference calls on judicial institutions to issue laws that prohibit and criminalise this habit ... which appeared in several societies and was adopted by some Muslims although it is not sanctioned by the Quran or the Sunna," the scholars said, referring to Islam's holy book and the sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad.
Although many countries have outlawed female circumcision, the law is poorly enforced and prosecutions are rare.
In the 1950s, the Egyptian government tried to stop midwives from performing the custom, while allowing doctors to do so - fearing that otherwise families who insisted on circumcising their daughters would have the operation carried out in unsafe conditions. But in 1996, the health minister imposed a total ban on the practice.
AP
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
CNN: Congo Makes Headlines
It's sad to see this, but it seems that the Congo can only make headlines in the US when the number of deaths passes a certain threshold, like 5 million dead Congolese. Apparently Heath Ledger's autopsy is still more of a concern than 5 million dead people. The article also fails to note the complicity of US corporations in the theft of coltan from eastern DRC where rebels are supported by Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda. Corporate media and corporations just go hand in hand, go figure.
Report: Congo conflict claims 5 million lives
- Story Highlights
- Hopes rise for deal to end decade of fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo
- New report says conflict has claimed lives of more than 5 million people
- Government and armed groups attending conference in eastern city of Goma
- IRC says most deaths from malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia, and malnutrition
(CNN) -- Hopes are high that the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and armed groups can end a decade of fighting that a new report says has claimed the lives of more than 5 million people.
The two sides have been attending a conference for more than two weeks in the eastern city of Goma and late Tuesday, they appeared close to signing an agreement. Their discussions are focusing on peace for the country's eastern Kivu provinces.
Humanitarian group, the International Rescue Committee, released a report Wednesday saying that conflict and humanitarian crisis in Congo have taken the lives of some 5.4 million people since 1998, and that 45,000 people continue to die there every month.
IRC President George Rupp said the loss of life was equivalent to the entire population of Denmark, or the state of Colorado, dying within a decade.
Even with the country's violence, the IRC found that most of the deaths were from non-violent causes like malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia, and malnutrition.
Nearly half the deaths were among children younger than 5, even though they are only 19 percent of the population, the IRC said.
The group said the national rate of mortality is nearly 60 percent higher than the average in the sub-Saharan region.
The IRC's regional director said a peace deal -- even if it covers only the east of the country -- would have a wider impact.
"The significance is huge in the sense that the troubles in North Kivu have really been a major source of instability not only for the people in North Kivu itself, but for people in the surrounding region as well," said Alyoscia D'Onofrio, who spoke to CNN from Bukavu, in South Kivu province.
D'Onofrio said a peace deal would signal that the Congolese government can take control of security even in restive areas like the east. That in turn would improve regional security, since conflict in the east has tended to draw in neighboring states, he said.
The Kivu provinces border Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.
"I am cautiously optimistic about the possibilities for peace, and certainly, the significance of that peace would be huge," D'Onofrio said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross was also watching the outcome of the conference.
"We really hope that they will commit (to) something, and there is actually lots of hope that they will be able to find a kind of agreement," said ICRC representative Wolde-Gabriel Saugeron, who spoke to CNN from the Congolese capital of Kinshasa.
Follow Up on Wife Beating
Al-Nasai has reported 'Aishah as saying, 'The Prophet (pbuh) never beat any of his wives or servants; in fact, he did not strike anything with his hand except in the cause of Allah or when the prohibitions of Allah were violated, and he retaliated on behalf of Allah.'
And Islam haters shout and shout how the Prophet (salalahu alayhi wasalim) struck Aisha. She herself says that the Prophet (salalahu alayhi wasalim) never beat her.
But haters will be haters and they will find something else to point out and when Muslims explain to them that they're wrong they will again find something else.
But Islam haters only find fault about Islam and Muslim societies, but don't speak about the crimes that occur in their own backyards (no introspection for the West, God forbid).
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702
Stories like these demonstrate that we have serious problems in the U.S. that need addressing, insha-Allah. Muslims, Christians, whoever, should all be working to fix these things because they are happening in our society, not in some society a few thousand miles away.
But haters will be haters and they'll never lift a finger to help those in need who are right under their noses. They seem to care more about Muslim women in Iraq than American women in America who are undergoing the same brutality of domestic abuse. I'm sure they can have more influence in helping American women, but they obviously choose not to because that's not part of their agenda.
And Islam haters shout and shout how the Prophet (salalahu alayhi wasalim) struck Aisha. She herself says that the Prophet (salalahu alayhi wasalim) never beat her.
But haters will be haters and they will find something else to point out and when Muslims explain to them that they're wrong they will again find something else.
But Islam haters only find fault about Islam and Muslim societies, but don't speak about the crimes that occur in their own backyards (no introspection for the West, God forbid).
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702
Stories like these demonstrate that we have serious problems in the U.S. that need addressing, insha-Allah. Muslims, Christians, whoever, should all be working to fix these things because they are happening in our society, not in some society a few thousand miles away.
But haters will be haters and they'll never lift a finger to help those in need who are right under their noses. They seem to care more about Muslim women in Iraq than American women in America who are undergoing the same brutality of domestic abuse. I'm sure they can have more influence in helping American women, but they obviously choose not to because that's not part of their agenda.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Exposing Robert Spencer III: On "Beating" One's Wife
The issue of wife beating comes up frequently when people who say they don't have any hatred towards Islam speak about Islam (ala Robert Spencer). It's construed to be a verse that can bring "acute embarrassment" to Muslims since Islam seems to be the only religion in the world where wife beating is given "divine sanction." So what is a Muslim to do - reinterpret the Qur'an since such a verse obviously poses problems in our new and wonderful modern age? No - how about just referring to what classical Muslim scholars have said about the verse? Well, some of us have the sources available to address this verse and some do not.
Spencer makes a glaring error in his attempt to portray Islam as a faith where beating one's wife is given sanction. It's fairly obvious where the error (or crappy scholarship) lies- he relies only on translations of the Qur'an, not commentaries - big difference. See, Spencer will quote whatever he can get his hands on. In this case he relies on his usual assortment of web translations of the Qur'an and he also uses a Geocities web site that has the Muhammad Asad translation of the Qur'an. Yup, that's our Islam scholar, Mr. Robert Spencer, using the best primary scholarship available... Geocities.
Anyway, Spencer notes down about ten translations of verse 34 from Surah an-Nisa (Chapter 4). Most of them say something like "and beat them" possibly meaning a Muslim man can unload on his wife anytime she ticks him off. When most of us think "beat" we think "beat up." Like, I got beat up by the school bully today. We think of a fat lip, a black eye, or a broken bone.
What is the traditional Islamic scholarly explanation of this verse? Meaning, this is the scholarly interpretation of this verse for the past thousand or so years by Muslim scholars, not the views of Zuhdi Jasser or some other dork reformer. Well, we go to Shaikh Gibril Haddad:
"1. Does the Arabic word 'daraba' necessarily mean "violent or intense or repeated striking?"
No.
"Al-Razi (3:222) mentions that as a rule (a) it must be a light beating and (b) the face must be avoided. He added that certain of the Shafi`i jurists said "a coiled scarf (mindil malfuf) (NB: NOT "a folded handkerchief" as mistranslated by Asad) or his hand may be used but not a whip nor a stick."
So, let's say my wife hasn't shaved her legs in three months, she refuses sex, she's not praying, and she goes out with her friends to go spend my money at the mall whenever she wants without telling me - what can a Muslim husband do?
Beat her!
Nope, sorry, can't do that. I have to be patient, and if things are so horrible (aren't all wives like that? [bad joke]) then I have recourse to "tap" her. Yea... tap her. That's a hell of a beating, Robert.
Then Spencer does his usual low ball sucker punches on the Prophet, salalahu alayhi wasalim. He portrays the Prophet (salalahu alayhi wasalim) as a wife beater who gives the example for all Muslim men to go and beat their wives. But hadiths like: "Could any of you beat his wife as he would beat a slave, and then lie with her in the evening?" (Bukhari and Muslim) are never explained by Spencer, but are simply brushed aside because they don't fit into his schematic of Islam as a religion of violence.
The most pathetic attempt by Spencer to connect wife beating and Islam is his use of statistics. This is just another example of how Spencer, David Horowitz (his main source of support and probably financial gain) and others blind themselves to the extraordinary amount of abuse American women suffer. From RAINN: "Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men. In 2005-2006, there were an average annual 232,010 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault."
But no, let us criticize the Muslim world and not ourselves. It's called introspection Robert, maybe you should wonder why our wonderfully modern country has more domestic and sexual abuse than most countries out there. Everyone else should wonder why you have such a virulent agenda against Islam and how pathetic your scholarship is.
Spencer makes a glaring error in his attempt to portray Islam as a faith where beating one's wife is given sanction. It's fairly obvious where the error (or crappy scholarship) lies- he relies only on translations of the Qur'an, not commentaries - big difference. See, Spencer will quote whatever he can get his hands on. In this case he relies on his usual assortment of web translations of the Qur'an and he also uses a Geocities web site that has the Muhammad Asad translation of the Qur'an. Yup, that's our Islam scholar, Mr. Robert Spencer, using the best primary scholarship available... Geocities.
Anyway, Spencer notes down about ten translations of verse 34 from Surah an-Nisa (Chapter 4). Most of them say something like "and beat them" possibly meaning a Muslim man can unload on his wife anytime she ticks him off. When most of us think "beat" we think "beat up." Like, I got beat up by the school bully today. We think of a fat lip, a black eye, or a broken bone.
What is the traditional Islamic scholarly explanation of this verse? Meaning, this is the scholarly interpretation of this verse for the past thousand or so years by Muslim scholars, not the views of Zuhdi Jasser or some other dork reformer. Well, we go to Shaikh Gibril Haddad:
"1. Does the Arabic word 'daraba' necessarily mean "violent or intense or repeated striking?"
No.
Jurists routinely use the expression "daraba al-ma' `ala wajhihi" - lit. strike water upon the face, for someone accomplishing the first rukn of wudu' (washing the face).
Also in Arabic daraba al-ard "to strike the earth" - as in verse 4:94 {When you strike the earth in the cause of Allah} - means to travel, i.e. walking with a staff"
Uhm, yea. So - whatever Pakistani men are doing in Pakistan is probably not what Muslim jurists have said this verse means, which means they are clearly sinning if they are hurting their wives in any way. Also, most Muslims I know don't "beat" their faces with water when they're doing wudu - that would be pretty weird.
Also, just to clarify, you can't tap/beat your wife on her face. Haddad again:"Al-Razi (3:222) mentions that as a rule (a) it must be a light beating and (b) the face must be avoided. He added that certain of the Shafi`i jurists said "a coiled scarf (mindil malfuf) (NB: NOT "a folded handkerchief" as mistranslated by Asad) or his hand may be used but not a whip nor a stick."
We now have clarified what "beat" means in this verse. A husband can tap/beat her with a coiled scarf or a miswak (small stick) and the face must be avoided.
So when can a husband do this? Only if she's committing adultery or in a situation where she could commit adultery, like, say, sitting in a closed room with a guy who ain't her brother. Haddad again:
"Nushuz [disobedience] in the verse, as shown, is an euphemism for adultery because her primary marital duty is spelled out in the hadith as "not allowing whom you hate to enter your bed nor your house." Al-Maziri also said that another interpretation of the words in that hadith said it referred to a woman sitting in seclusion with a stranger inside her husband's house. (Al-Nawawi, Sharh Sahih Muslim.)
Spencer mentions Shaikh Syed Mahmud Allusi's work Ruhul Ma'ani. Let us say that the Shaikh is correct in everything he said, that a husband can "beat" his wife for the following: “if she refuses to beautify herself for him,” if she refuses sex when he asks for it, if she refuses to pray or perform ritual ablutions, and “if she goes out of the house without a valid excuse.” Well, what's a husband to do then - he can tap her on her arm or body. That's it. What does this horrible bodily beating signify? That the wife needs to adhere to her responsibilities because she's seriously out of line. That's it.So, let's say my wife hasn't shaved her legs in three months, she refuses sex, she's not praying, and she goes out with her friends to go spend my money at the mall whenever she wants without telling me - what can a Muslim husband do?
Beat her!
Nope, sorry, can't do that. I have to be patient, and if things are so horrible (aren't all wives like that? [bad joke]) then I have recourse to "tap" her. Yea... tap her. That's a hell of a beating, Robert.
Then Spencer does his usual low ball sucker punches on the Prophet, salalahu alayhi wasalim. He portrays the Prophet (salalahu alayhi wasalim) as a wife beater who gives the example for all Muslim men to go and beat their wives. But hadiths like: "Could any of you beat his wife as he would beat a slave, and then lie with her in the evening?" (Bukhari and Muslim) are never explained by Spencer, but are simply brushed aside because they don't fit into his schematic of Islam as a religion of violence.
The most pathetic attempt by Spencer to connect wife beating and Islam is his use of statistics. This is just another example of how Spencer, David Horowitz (his main source of support and probably financial gain) and others blind themselves to the extraordinary amount of abuse American women suffer. From RAINN: "Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men. In 2005-2006, there were an average annual 232,010 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault."
But no, let us criticize the Muslim world and not ourselves. It's called introspection Robert, maybe you should wonder why our wonderfully modern country has more domestic and sexual abuse than most countries out there. Everyone else should wonder why you have such a virulent agenda against Islam and how pathetic your scholarship is.
Exposing Robert Spencer Part III
One would imagine that if someone was claiming to be an expert on Islam they would know Arabic, have many primary source materials at their disposal, would have an immense knowledge of secondary literature on their area of expertise at the very least. Robert Spencer, advocate of dhimmis everywhere, likes to blog about the Qur'an. Mind you, he doesn't understand Arabic and he relies on other people's translations of Qur'anic commentary because he can't access the thousands of commentaries out there because he... yea... doesn't know Arabic. One would also figure that if he was such a great scholar on Islam then Spencer would not have to rely on web translations of Qur'an commentaries, but he would simply flip open his primary sources at home - because he would own a copy of the Jalalalayn, the tafsir of Qurtubi, or at the very least, the Saudi tampered tafsir of ibn Kathir. Alas, he doesn't have any of that so he can only blog on the Surahs that Bewley has offered commentaries for.
Pathetic, to say the least.
So here comes Aisha Bewley, the wonderful Maliki ustadha, who provides Spencer with the ability to discern the proclivities of the medieval Muslim jurist's mind, for if she had not provided the commentaries of some of the great Muslim jurists then poor pathetic Spencer would have nothing to blog about.
In his blog entry on Surah al-Tawba, verse 29 (http://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/02/blogging-the-qur%e2%80%99an-sura-9-%e2%80%9crepentance%e2%80%9d-verse-29/), Spencer focuses his attention on a couple of issues: dhimmis and the jizya.
His blogs are often rather boring because he doesn't elucidate beyond what some of the scholars have said regarding the verses he is writing about. Really, in essence this particular blog is about scaring Jews and Christians and "show them" what would happen to them if they were put under "Shariah" law. If the terrorists win, as right wing pundits so commonly put it, then you can expect to pay a poll tax and be stuck under the evil of a revived Islamic empire. So scary.
Anyway, besides the veiled threats by Spencer about the implications of this verse for Christians and Jews, the issue with this verse is stated quite eloquently by Dr. Sherman Jackson in his paper on "Jihad in the Modern World." Jackson speaks about Syed Qutb, Muslim radical thinker, but I think his comments easily apply to Spencer's rubbish on 9:29 as well. This commentary by Jackson also shows very clearly the proclivities of Spencer to rely on the methodology of the extremists when interpretating sources:
"As a modern Revivalist, Qutb all but ignores the classical tradition of the madhhabs and relies almost exclusively on the Qur'an. Based on his reading of Qur'an 9:29, he insists that waging jihad against the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) is a permanent, communal obligation upon the Muslims.
According the Qutb, the ninth chapter, in which this verse appears, was among the last to be revealed. As such, this verse constitutes the last and final stage of development in the Qur'anic doctrine on Muslim-non-Muslim relations...
Jackson continues: "In this particular case, however, Qutb insists that as an historical fact Jews and Christians have always proved themselves to be hostile to Muslims. As proof, he adduces several verses from the Qur'an, which he takes to constitute scriptural evidence of the inherent beliefs and attitudes of Jews and Christians (rather than as a scriptural description of the attitude of particular Jews or particular Christians at particular places and times). In addition, he relates a series of historical events, from the Crusades to modern colonialism. From this it becomes clear that it is Qutb's belief that Jews and Christians (which one senses he uses as a catch-all for the West) are inherently hostile towards Muslims that informs his reading of 9: 29. This belief, moreover, is so strong and overpowering that it preempts all other possibilities, including those established by the Qur'an itself. For example, at 5: 82, the Qur'an states, "You will find those who are most closely drawn to the Believers in love to be those who say, 'We are [*24] Christians'." Similarly, speaking this time of both Jews and Christians, Qur'an 3: 113-14 states, "They are not all the same. Among the People of the Book are those who stand at night reciting the words of God and prostrating. They believe in God and the Last Day, they command what is good and forbid what is evil and they strive in the path of righteousness. Indeed, they are among the righteous."
"What all of this suggests is that Qutb's understanding of the Qur'anic doctrine on Muslim- non-Muslim relations is as informed by his own reading into the text as it is by his attempt to extract meaning from the text. For the Qur'an clearly establishes a range of possible attitudes and behaviors on the part of Jews and Christians towards Muslims. Moreover, at least as many if not more exegetes, classical and modern, hold chapter five (which speaks of Christian love for Muslims) to be the last-revealed chapter as hold chapter nine to be so. As such, on purely formal grounds, one could just as rightly argue that chapter five reflects the final teaching on Muslim - non-Muslim relations. What brings Qutb to privilege 9: 29 and to construe it in the manner he does seems to be his historical assessment, based in part on his own experience, of the attitude of Jews and Christians towards Muslims. On this assessment, one would have to admit that whether we employ his "dynamic" method or the classical jurisprudence exemplified by al-Qarafi, Qutb is certainly correct in the conclusion he draws. But, it is equally true, on both approaches, that this conclusion could be overturned, assuming a different historical assessment. In other words, assuming that Jews and Christians are no longer active enemies of Muslims, or that there are political mechanisms in place that prevent them from acting on this hostility, even Qutb (or his followers), on his own methodology [not traditional Islam], could be convinced to modify his interpretation of 9: 29. In sum, assuming an overall "state of peace," even Qutb might be forced to concede that there is no obligation to wage jihad against Jews and Christians."
In any case, my point here is that there are other interpretations that allow for peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians and Jews under Islam. Again, we have to compare similar eras in order to make a valid comparison. One would be making a faulty comparison if they compared Egypt now compared to France in the 11th century and said Egypt is so much more free and open than it would be under "Christian" law, using 11th century France as an example. This is what Spencer and others essentially do - they make faulty comparisons.Sure, Christians would hate to be under 13th century Muslim rule in comparison to Western (secular) laws that govern much of the West today. That's a no brainer - when you actually think that through. But were not told to think it through instead Spencer gives us the option between modern U.S. rules and regulations and a 13th century Islamic state. Ultimately it is the ruler's decision if they want to treat Christians and Jews kindly or not, just like it was the decisions of Europeans throughout the Middle Ages to keep their lands as Christian as possible (Muslims couldn't live in Europe without converting or dying, but Spencer doesn't mention that).
I would refer anyone interested in "dhimmitude" and jihad to refer to Shaikh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti's fatwa on suicidal terrorism and how he explains clearly how it is a flagrant violation of Islamic law in all Four Sunni Schools to kill innocent non-Muslim civilians - that means everyone on 9-11. Only a state authority can declare jihad and since no Muslim state has done so then Muslims are obligated to live in a state of peace with their neighbors.
In reference to dhimmis, one of Spencer's favorite subjects, and I'm sure he has his copy of the Reliance of the Traveler readily at his side, the great scholar, Imam ibn an-Naqib, said that dhimmis should pay the tax... and that's it. No mention of them being "subdued." That's the orthodox Shafi'i view right there.
Pathetic, to say the least.
So here comes Aisha Bewley, the wonderful Maliki ustadha, who provides Spencer with the ability to discern the proclivities of the medieval Muslim jurist's mind, for if she had not provided the commentaries of some of the great Muslim jurists then poor pathetic Spencer would have nothing to blog about.
In his blog entry on Surah al-Tawba, verse 29 (http://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/02/blogging-the-qur%e2%80%99an-sura-9-%e2%80%9crepentance%e2%80%9d-verse-29/), Spencer focuses his attention on a couple of issues: dhimmis and the jizya.
His blogs are often rather boring because he doesn't elucidate beyond what some of the scholars have said regarding the verses he is writing about. Really, in essence this particular blog is about scaring Jews and Christians and "show them" what would happen to them if they were put under "Shariah" law. If the terrorists win, as right wing pundits so commonly put it, then you can expect to pay a poll tax and be stuck under the evil of a revived Islamic empire. So scary.
Anyway, besides the veiled threats by Spencer about the implications of this verse for Christians and Jews, the issue with this verse is stated quite eloquently by Dr. Sherman Jackson in his paper on "Jihad in the Modern World." Jackson speaks about Syed Qutb, Muslim radical thinker, but I think his comments easily apply to Spencer's rubbish on 9:29 as well. This commentary by Jackson also shows very clearly the proclivities of Spencer to rely on the methodology of the extremists when interpretating sources:
"As a modern Revivalist, Qutb all but ignores the classical tradition of the madhhabs and relies almost exclusively on the Qur'an. Based on his reading of Qur'an 9:29, he insists that waging jihad against the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) is a permanent, communal obligation upon the Muslims.
Fight those who do not believe in God and the Last Day and do not forbid that which God and His Messenger have forbidden and do not [*23] practice proper religion, among those who were given the Book until they pay the poll-tax and they are subdued.
According the Qutb, the ninth chapter, in which this verse appears, was among the last to be revealed. As such, this verse constitutes the last and final stage of development in the Qur'anic doctrine on Muslim-non-Muslim relations...
Jackson continues: "In this particular case, however, Qutb insists that as an historical fact Jews and Christians have always proved themselves to be hostile to Muslims. As proof, he adduces several verses from the Qur'an, which he takes to constitute scriptural evidence of the inherent beliefs and attitudes of Jews and Christians (rather than as a scriptural description of the attitude of particular Jews or particular Christians at particular places and times). In addition, he relates a series of historical events, from the Crusades to modern colonialism. From this it becomes clear that it is Qutb's belief that Jews and Christians (which one senses he uses as a catch-all for the West) are inherently hostile towards Muslims that informs his reading of 9: 29. This belief, moreover, is so strong and overpowering that it preempts all other possibilities, including those established by the Qur'an itself. For example, at 5: 82, the Qur'an states, "You will find those who are most closely drawn to the Believers in love to be those who say, 'We are [*24] Christians'." Similarly, speaking this time of both Jews and Christians, Qur'an 3: 113-14 states, "They are not all the same. Among the People of the Book are those who stand at night reciting the words of God and prostrating. They believe in God and the Last Day, they command what is good and forbid what is evil and they strive in the path of righteousness. Indeed, they are among the righteous."
"What all of this suggests is that Qutb's understanding of the Qur'anic doctrine on Muslim- non-Muslim relations is as informed by his own reading into the text as it is by his attempt to extract meaning from the text. For the Qur'an clearly establishes a range of possible attitudes and behaviors on the part of Jews and Christians towards Muslims. Moreover, at least as many if not more exegetes, classical and modern, hold chapter five (which speaks of Christian love for Muslims) to be the last-revealed chapter as hold chapter nine to be so. As such, on purely formal grounds, one could just as rightly argue that chapter five reflects the final teaching on Muslim - non-Muslim relations. What brings Qutb to privilege 9: 29 and to construe it in the manner he does seems to be his historical assessment, based in part on his own experience, of the attitude of Jews and Christians towards Muslims. On this assessment, one would have to admit that whether we employ his "dynamic" method or the classical jurisprudence exemplified by al-Qarafi, Qutb is certainly correct in the conclusion he draws. But, it is equally true, on both approaches, that this conclusion could be overturned, assuming a different historical assessment. In other words, assuming that Jews and Christians are no longer active enemies of Muslims, or that there are political mechanisms in place that prevent them from acting on this hostility, even Qutb (or his followers), on his own methodology [not traditional Islam], could be convinced to modify his interpretation of 9: 29. In sum, assuming an overall "state of peace," even Qutb might be forced to concede that there is no obligation to wage jihad against Jews and Christians."
In any case, my point here is that there are other interpretations that allow for peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians and Jews under Islam. Again, we have to compare similar eras in order to make a valid comparison. One would be making a faulty comparison if they compared Egypt now compared to France in the 11th century and said Egypt is so much more free and open than it would be under "Christian" law, using 11th century France as an example. This is what Spencer and others essentially do - they make faulty comparisons.Sure, Christians would hate to be under 13th century Muslim rule in comparison to Western (secular) laws that govern much of the West today. That's a no brainer - when you actually think that through. But were not told to think it through instead Spencer gives us the option between modern U.S. rules and regulations and a 13th century Islamic state. Ultimately it is the ruler's decision if they want to treat Christians and Jews kindly or not, just like it was the decisions of Europeans throughout the Middle Ages to keep their lands as Christian as possible (Muslims couldn't live in Europe without converting or dying, but Spencer doesn't mention that).
I would refer anyone interested in "dhimmitude" and jihad to refer to Shaikh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti's fatwa on suicidal terrorism and how he explains clearly how it is a flagrant violation of Islamic law in all Four Sunni Schools to kill innocent non-Muslim civilians - that means everyone on 9-11. Only a state authority can declare jihad and since no Muslim state has done so then Muslims are obligated to live in a state of peace with their neighbors.
In reference to dhimmis, one of Spencer's favorite subjects, and I'm sure he has his copy of the Reliance of the Traveler readily at his side, the great scholar, Imam ibn an-Naqib, said that dhimmis should pay the tax... and that's it. No mention of them being "subdued." That's the orthodox Shafi'i view right there.
Police, Soldiers Immune from Criticism
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Scotus-Muslim.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=muslim&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
So our soldiers can kill people in other countries and not be held liable and they can steal the belongings of prisoners in our prison system without anyone being held accountable. It's a good thing I live in the U.S. and I'm not a prisoner because boy, I would be screwed.
So our soldiers can kill people in other countries and not be held liable and they can steal the belongings of prisoners in our prison system without anyone being held accountable. It's a good thing I live in the U.S. and I'm not a prisoner because boy, I would be screwed.
Christian Fanatics in the Bosnian War
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/the_churches_and_the_bosnian_war.htm
"In Serb-controlled territory, however, religion was rampant. West of Sarajevo, just over the front-line, stood a Serb church where one could hear a list of captured Muslim settlements being read out in triumph by a priest, who then blessed the congregation - made up of followers of the religious warlord Vojislav Seselj, now an indicted war criminal, and who once fought an election in Serbia with a promise to remove the eyes of his prisoners with a rusty spoon.
"In Serb-controlled territory, however, religion was rampant. West of Sarajevo, just over the front-line, stood a Serb church where one could hear a list of captured Muslim settlements being read out in triumph by a priest, who then blessed the congregation - made up of followers of the religious warlord Vojislav Seselj, now an indicted war criminal, and who once fought an election in Serbia with a promise to remove the eyes of his prisoners with a rusty spoon.
In Trebinje, ‘an Orthodox priest led the way in expelling a Muslim family and seizing their home.’ [22] In the formerly Muslim-majority town of
Monday, January 21, 2008
Condemnation of Suicide Bombing
We don't kill non-Muslims who do not fight us. We don't commit suicide. We don't tolerate any of this. Those who take such means have failed from the beginning of their journey's to reach their goals. And those liars who call this perfect religion a faith that breeds violence have absolutely no understanding of Islam or they just lie. The proof is in the pudding.
http://www.livingislam.org/maa/dcmm_e.html
Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti:
[two wrongs do not make the second one right]
http://www.livingislam.org/maa/dcmm_e.html
Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti:
It is truly sad that despite our sophisticated and elaborate set of rules of engagement and in spite of the strict codes of warfare and the chivalrous disciplines which our soldiers are expected to observe, all having been thoroughly worked out and codified by the orthodox jurists of the Umma from among the generations of the Salaf, there are today in our midst those who are not ashamed to depart from these sacred conventions in favour of opinions espoused by persons who are not even trained in the Sacred Law at all let alone enough to be a qâdî or a faqîh - the rightful heir and source from which they should receive practical guidance in the first place. Instead they rely on engineers or scientists and on those who are not among its ahl, yet speak in the name of our Law. With these "reformist" preachers and da'îs comes a departure from the traditional ideas about the rules of siyar/jihâd/qitâl, i.e., warfare. Do they not realize that by doing so and by following them they will be ignoring the limitations and restrictions cherished and protected by our pious forefathers and that they will be turning their backs on the Jamâ'a and Ijmâ' and that they will be engaging in an act for which there is no accepted legal precedent within orthodoxy in our entire history? Have they forgotten that part of the original maqsad of warfare/jihâd was to limit warfare itself and that warfare for Muslims is not total war, so that women, children and innocent bystanders are not to be killed and property not to be needlessly destroyed?
To put it plainly, there is simply no legal precedent in the history of Sunni Islam for the tactic of attacking civilians and overtly non-military targets. Yet the awful reality today is that a minority of Sunni Muslims, whether in Iraq or Beslan or elsewhere, have perpetrated such acts in the name of jihâd and on behalf of the Umma. Perhaps the first such mission to break this long and admirable precedent was the Hamas bombing on a public bus in Jerusalem in 1994 - not that long ago. (Reflect on this!)
Immediately after the incident, the almost unanimous response of the orthodox Shâfi'î jurists from the Far East and the Hadramawt was not only to make clear that the minimum legal position from our Sacred Law is untenable for persons who carry out such acts, but also to warn the Umma that by going down that path we would be compromising the optimum way of Ihsân and that we would thereby be running a real risk of losing the moral and religious high ground. Those who still defend this tactic, invoking blindly a nebulous usûlî principle that it is justifiable out of darûra while ignoring the far'î strictures, must look long and hard at what they are doing and ask the question: was it absolutely necessary, and if so, why was this not done before 1994, and especially during the earlier wars, most of all during the disasters of 1948 and 1967?
How could such a tactic be condoned by one of our Rightly Guided Caliphs and a heroic fighter such as 'Alî (may Allâh ennoble his face!), who when in the Battle of the Trench his notorious non-Muslim opponent, who was seconds away from being killed by him, spat on his noble face, immediately left him alone. When asked later his reasons for withdrawing when Allâh clearly gave him power over him, he answered: "I was fighting for the sake of God, and when he spat in my face I feared that if I killed him it would have been out of revenge and spite!" Far from being an act of cowardice, this characterizes Muslim chivalry: fighting, yet not out of anger.
In actual fact, the only precedent for this tactic from Muslim history is the cowardly terrorism carried out by the "Assassins" of the Nizari Isma'îlîs. Their most famous victim from a suicide mission was the wise minister and the Defender of the Faith, who could have been alive to deal with the fitna of the Crusades: Nizâm al-Mulk, the Jamâl al-Shuhadâ' (may Allâh encompass him with His mercy!), assasinated on Thursday, the 10th of the holy month of Ramadan 485/14 October 1092.
Ironically, in the case of Palestine, the precedent was set not by Muslims but by early Zionist terrorist gangs such as the Irgun, who, for example, infamously bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22nd July 1946. So ask yourself as an upright and God-fearing believer, whose every organ will be interrogated: do you really want to follow the footsteps and the models of those Zionists and the heterodox Isma'îlîs, instead of the path taken by our Beloved (may Allâh's blessings and peace be upon him!), who for almost half of the (twenty-three) years of his mission endured Meccan persecution, humiliation and insults? Is anger your only strength? If so, remember the Prophetic advice that it is from the Devil. And is darûra your only excuse for following them instead into their condemned lizard-holes? Do you think that any of our famous mujâhids from history, such as 'Ali, Salâh al-Dîn, and Muhammad al-Fâtih (may Allâh be well pleased with them all!) will ever condone the article you quoted and these acts today in Baghdad, Jerusalem, Cairo, Bali, Casablanca, Beslan, Madrid, London and New York, some of them committed on days when it is traditionally forbidden by our Law to fight: Dhû l-Qa'da and al-Hijja, Muharram and Rajab? Every person of fitra will see that this is nothing other than a sunna of perversion.
This is what happens to the Banû Adam when the wahm is abandoned by 'aql, when one of the maqâsid justifies any wasîla, when the realities of furû' are indiscriminately overruled by generalities of usûl, and most tragically, as illustrated from the eternal blunder of Iblis, when Divine tawakkul is replaced by basic nafs.
Yes, we are one Umma such that when one part of the macro-body is attacked somewhere, another part inevitably feels the pain. Yet at the same time, our own history has shown that we have also been a wise and sensible, instead of a reactive and impulsive, Umma. That is the secret of our success, and that is where our strengths will always lie as has been promised by Divine Writ: in sabr and in tawakkul. It is already common knowledge that when Jerusalem fell to the Crusading forces on the 15th of July 1099 and was occupied by them, and despite its civilians having been raped, killed, tortured and plundered and the Umma at the time humiliated and insulted - acts far worse than what can be imagined in today's occupation - that it took more than 100 years of patience and legitimate struggle under the Eye of the Almighty before He allowed Salâh al-Din to liberate Jerusalem. We should have been taught from childhood by our fathers and mothers about the need to prioritize and about how to reconcile the spheres of our global concerns with those of our local responsibilities - as we will definitely not escape the questioning in the grave about the latter - so that by this insight we may hope that our response will not be disproportionate nor inappropriate. This is the true meaning [haqîqa] of the true advice [nasîha] of our Beloved Prophet ( 
may Allâh's blessings and peace be upon him!): to leave what does not concern one [tark ma lâ ya'nîh], where one's time and energy could be better spent in improving the lot of the Muslims today or benefiting others in this world.
Yes, we will naturally feel the pain when any of our brothers and sisters die unjustly anywhere when their deaths have been caused directly by non-Muslims, but it must be the more painful for us when they die in Iraq, for example, when their deaths are caused directly by the self-destroying/martyrdom/suicide missions carried out by one of our own. On tafakkur, the second pain should make us realize that missions of this sort, when the means and the legal particulars are all wrong - by scripture and reason - are not only a scourge for our non-Muslim neighbours but a plague and great fitna for this mercied Umma, and desire insâf so that out of maslaha and the general good, it must be stopped.
To this end, we could sum up a point of law tersely in the following maxim:
[two wrongs do not make the second one right]
If the first pain becomes one of the mitigating factors and ends up being used as a justification by our misguided young to retaliate in a manner which our Sacred Law definitely and without doubt outlaws (which makes your original article the more appalling, as its author will have passed the special age of 40), then the latter pain should by its graver significance generate a greater and more meaningful response. With this intention, we may hope that we shall regain our former high ground and reputation and rediscover our honour and chivalrous qualities and be no less brave.
I end with the first ever Verse revealed in the Qur'an which bestowed the military option only upon those in a position of authority:
wa-qAtilU fI sabIli LlAhi l-ladhIna yuqAtilUnakum
wa-lA ta'tadU inna LlAha lA yuHibbu l-mu'tadIna
wa-lA ta'tadU inna LlAha lA yuHibbu l-mu'tadIna
{And fight for the sake of God those who fight you: but do not commit excesses, for God does not love those who exceed (i.e., the Law)}
(al-Baqara, 2:190).
Even then, peace is preferred over war:
wa-in janaHU li-s-salmi fa-jnaH la-hA wa-tawakkal 'ala LlAhi
{Now if they incline toward peace,
then incline to it, and place your trust in God}
(al-Anfal, 8:61)
Even if you think that the authority in question has decided wrongly and you disagree with their decision not to war with the non-Muslim state upon which you wish war to be declared, then take heed of the following Divine command:
yA ayyhuhA l-ladhIna AmanU aTI'u l-LAha wa-aTI'u r-rasUla wa-uli l-amri minkum
{O believers, obey Allâh, and obey the Messenger, and those with authority among you!}
(al-Nisa', 4:58)
If you still insist that your authority should declare war with the non-Muslim state upon which you wish war to be declared, then the most you could do in this capacity is to lobby your authority for it. However, if your anger is so unrestrained that its fire brings out the worst in you to the point that your disagreement with your Muslim authority leads you to declare war on those you want your authority to declare war on, and you end up resorting to violence, then know with certainty that you have violated our own religious Laws. For then you will have taken the Sharî'a into your own hands. If indeed you reach the point of committing a violent act, then know that by our own Law you would have been automatically classified as a rebel [ahl al-baghy] whom the authority has the right to punish: even if the authority is perceived to be or is indeed corrupt [fâsiq]. (The definition of rebels is: "Muslims who have disagreed [not by heart or by tongue but by hand] with the authority even if it is unjust [jâ'ir] and they are correct ['adilûn]" [al-Nawawî, Majmû', 20:337].)
That is why, my brethren, when the military option is not a legal one for the individuals concerned, you must not lose hope in Allâh; and let us be reminded of the words of our Beloved ( may Allâh's blessings and peace be upon him!):
afDalu l-jihAdi kalimatu Haqqin 'inda sulTAnin jA'irin
[The best Jihad is a true (i.e., brave) word in the face of a tyrannical ruler.] (From a Hadîth of Abû Sa'îd al-Khudrî ( 
may Allâh be well pleased with him!) among others, which is related by Ibn al-Ja'd, Ahmad, Ibn Humayd, Ibn Mâjâh, Abû Dawûd, al-Tirmidhî, al-Nasâ'î, Abû Ya'lâ, Abû Bakr al-Rûyânî, al-Tabarânî, al-Hâkim, and al-Bayhaqî, with variants.)
For it is possible still, and especially today, to fight injustice or zulm and taghût in this dunyâ through your tongue and your words and through the pen and the courts, which still amounts in the Prophetic idiom to jihâd, even if not through war. As in the reminder [tadhkira] of the great scholar, Imâm al-Zarkashî: war is only a means to an end and as long as some other way is open to us, that other way should be the course trod upon by Muslims.
Ma shâ-Allâh, how true indeed are the Beloved's words, so that the latter mujâhid or activist will be no less brave or lacking in any courage with his or her campaign for a just cause in an oppressive country or one needing reforms than the former mujâhid or patriot who fought bravely for his country in a just war.
fa-t-taqillaha wa-raji' mufatashata nafsika wa-islaha fasadiha wa-huwa hasbuna wa-ni'ma l-wakil wa-la hawla wa-la quwwata illa billahi l-'aliyyi l-'azim! wa-salawatuhu 'ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa-alihi wasallim waradiyAllâhu tabaraka wa-ta'ala 'an sadatina ashabi rasulillahi ajma'in wa-'anna ma'ahum wa-fihim wa-yaj'aluna min hizbihim bi-rahmatikaya arhama r-rahimin! Âmin!
[Fear God, and go back to controlling your self and to curing your wickedness! For indeed, He is enough for us: what an excellent guardian! There is no help nor power except through God, the High and Mighty! May His blessings and peace be upon our master, Muhammad, and his Family! And may He be pleased with our leaders, the Companions of the Messenger of God, one and all! And may we be together with them and in their company, and may He make us among their Troop! By Your Mercy, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy, Amen!]
May this be of benefit.
With heartfelt wishes for salâm & tayyiba
from Oxford to Brunei,
Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti
16th Jumâdâ' II 1426
23rd July 2005
Friday, January 18, 2008
Saudi Beards
Why do Saudi guys not grow out full beards? I saw bin Laden's son the other day in a newspaper article and the guy was reppin' a goatee. It seems to be a Saudi thing - I guess if your royal you don't have to follow the Sunnah. Cool.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Responding to Stupid People
Why don't so-called terrorism and Islam experts read and refer to the works of Imam Hamza Yusuf, Shaykh Nuh Keller, Imam Zaid Shakir, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, or Dr. Sherman Jackson? These are the American Muslim intellectual heavyweights.
But Robert Spencer and others like to go after people who they know are ignorant and who they can easily manipulate into sounding like terror apologists. The fact is, Spencer and others like him look at jihadis and do whatever they can to intellectually legitimize their actions in the name of Islam with the clear intent of trying to connect Islam with the jihadis actions. Why doesn't Spencer, Kaufman, Pipes, and others look at the writings of the above mentioned scholars and then attempt to argue with them about which Islam is the true Islam.
I know very well, as do many Muslims, that if Spencer got into a debate about anything with Timothy Winter (AH Murad), he would not last five minutes without demonstrating his complete ineptness at intellectually discussing anything about religion.
What about Shaikh Gibril Haddad? Spencer should shoot him an email asking about Islam and terrorism. The man is such a joke, an intellectual fraud, that only in this day and age can someone like him pass as a scholar of anything. Why doesn't he look at the works of scholars who have written about terrorism? No, he just ignores them. He likes to ride roughshod over ISNA's and the Fiqh Council's fatawa, but he knows damn well he has nothing to critique regarding works like Imam Muhammad al-Akiti's fatwa on suicidal terrorism.
Go critique it Robert: http://www.livingislam.org/maa/dcmm_e.html
But Robert Spencer and others like to go after people who they know are ignorant and who they can easily manipulate into sounding like terror apologists. The fact is, Spencer and others like him look at jihadis and do whatever they can to intellectually legitimize their actions in the name of Islam with the clear intent of trying to connect Islam with the jihadis actions. Why doesn't Spencer, Kaufman, Pipes, and others look at the writings of the above mentioned scholars and then attempt to argue with them about which Islam is the true Islam.
I know very well, as do many Muslims, that if Spencer got into a debate about anything with Timothy Winter (AH Murad), he would not last five minutes without demonstrating his complete ineptness at intellectually discussing anything about religion.
What about Shaikh Gibril Haddad? Spencer should shoot him an email asking about Islam and terrorism. The man is such a joke, an intellectual fraud, that only in this day and age can someone like him pass as a scholar of anything. Why doesn't he look at the works of scholars who have written about terrorism? No, he just ignores them. He likes to ride roughshod over ISNA's and the Fiqh Council's fatawa, but he knows damn well he has nothing to critique regarding works like Imam Muhammad al-Akiti's fatwa on suicidal terrorism.
Go critique it Robert: http://www.livingislam.org/maa/dcmm_e.html
Kaufman: Double Standards Galore
I was just reading Joe Kaufman's latest article on FrontPageMag.com. Kaufman cries about how a restraining order was placed against him and how he was faced with a lawsuit upon his arrival to Texas a few months back when he was attempting to protest (harass?) an ICNA family day event.
Now Joe, how could you say the following and expect people to take you seriously?
"The protest was a peaceful one that featured about ten individuals holding signs and a speech given by me. While I was harassed by someone identifying himself as being from ICNA, who followed my every move with a video camera, no one on our side stepped out of line or did anything that would be seen as improper. No one shouted, and everyone acted in a courteous manner. Aside from being served the legal papers, everything went as planned."
Joe, everyone knows you do the same thing. In fact, the video of you by those guys from ICNA is posted on YouTube for everyone to see and you did the exact same thing to them, with the added veiled threat that "my picture is already public, yours is not." And "Now you're associated with a group that supports terrorism." Then you proceed to start video taping them. And it seems from the tape that you initiated conversation with them, carrying on with your usual drool about how every Muslim organization in America is really a terrorist front.
Joe, many people know your pathetic tactics and now you're crying about it when it happens to you. Here's a link to the YouTube video so everyone can take a look for themselves and see how big a hypocrite Joe really is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUabR703Xq0
Now Joe, how could you say the following and expect people to take you seriously?
"The protest was a peaceful one that featured about ten individuals holding signs and a speech given by me. While I was harassed by someone identifying himself as being from ICNA, who followed my every move with a video camera, no one on our side stepped out of line or did anything that would be seen as improper. No one shouted, and everyone acted in a courteous manner. Aside from being served the legal papers, everything went as planned."
Joe, everyone knows you do the same thing. In fact, the video of you by those guys from ICNA is posted on YouTube for everyone to see and you did the exact same thing to them, with the added veiled threat that "my picture is already public, yours is not." And "Now you're associated with a group that supports terrorism." Then you proceed to start video taping them. And it seems from the tape that you initiated conversation with them, carrying on with your usual drool about how every Muslim organization in America is really a terrorist front.
Joe, many people know your pathetic tactics and now you're crying about it when it happens to you. Here's a link to the YouTube video so everyone can take a look for themselves and see how big a hypocrite Joe really is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUabR703Xq0
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Muslims Against Shariah?
More like Muslims with anger management issues. This tiny debate took place under one of my previous blog entries. The writer said he was Khalim Massoud, the apparent founder of Muslims Against Shariah. Khalim likes to spam my blog periodically with some of his anti-Islam/Muslim propaganda garbage. Notice how he wants to show how "Islam is Peace, Love, and Light," yet when I expose his hypocrisy he has to resort to not just name calling, but cursing (gasp!). Yup, that's the way to show everyone Islam is a religion of peace, love and light.
I think these guys are pretty pathetic, but amusing in a sort of twisted way. Besides their claims that the Qur'an is tainted and that most mosques in the US are run by radical Wahhabis, they're actually just a front for guys like Robert Spencer or Joe Kaufman to point to say, "see, there are some Muslims who agree with us." Exactly true, there are other people who have escaped from insane asylums just like Spencer and Kaufman.
Anyway, here is the "debate" that took place. Remember, Islam is a religion of peace you stupid f***!!!
So you see, in the reformed version of Islam it's perfectly alright to curse at people and get all pissy when someone demonstrates you're retarded. I think the greatest challenge facing Massoud and his friends at MAS (not MAS, like, Muslim American Society, but MAS, as in, Muslims Against Sharia) is to find that true version of the Qur'an, the one without the verses about jihad and war and fighting. Good luck finding it. Maybe you can start by looking through the jurisprudence of the Sufis since, as you claim, they have their own school of fiqh.
"I also do not believe that all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach that it is part of the responsibility of the Ummah to subjugate the non-Muslim world through Jihad, i.e., Sufism.."
Yea! Sufism has its own school of jurisprudence. I guess all us Muslims for the past 14 centuries missed out on that.
Wow. "They go astray and they lead others astray." Go tell Shaykh Hisham Kabbani all your ideas and then get ready to have the door slammed on your face. See how many "Sufis" actually side with you.
I think these guys are pretty pathetic, but amusing in a sort of twisted way. Besides their claims that the Qur'an is tainted and that most mosques in the US are run by radical Wahhabis, they're actually just a front for guys like Robert Spencer or Joe Kaufman to point to say, "see, there are some Muslims who agree with us." Exactly true, there are other people who have escaped from insane asylums just like Spencer and Kaufman.
Anyway, here is the "debate" that took place. Remember, Islam is a religion of peace you stupid f***!!!
So you see, in the reformed version of Islam it's perfectly alright to curse at people and get all pissy when someone demonstrates you're retarded. I think the greatest challenge facing Massoud and his friends at MAS (not MAS, like, Muslim American Society, but MAS, as in, Muslims Against Sharia) is to find that true version of the Qur'an, the one without the verses about jihad and war and fighting. Good luck finding it. Maybe you can start by looking through the jurisprudence of the Sufis since, as you claim, they have their own school of fiqh.
"I also do not believe that all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach that it is part of the responsibility of the Ummah to subjugate the non-Muslim world through Jihad, i.e., Sufism.."
Yea! Sufism has its own school of jurisprudence. I guess all us Muslims for the past 14 centuries missed out on that.
Wow. "They go astray and they lead others astray." Go tell Shaykh Hisham Kabbani all your ideas and then get ready to have the door slammed on your face. See how many "Sufis" actually side with you.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Islam Online - Jamal Badawi Speaks Out
Jamal Badawi spoke out against Islam Online's beheading poem. CAIR Canada has not said anything yet, or at least, CAIR Canada's top board member, Faisal Kutty, has not spoken out against the poem. Kutty, like Badawi, writes opinion pieces for Islam Online.
The JDL and another Jewish organization are calling for Badawi and CAIR Canada to break relations with Islam Online because of the poem.
Badawi already denounced the stupid poem, so why get on his case about breaking ties with the web site when he had nothing to do with the publication of the poem? Why not focus attention on the editorial board of Islam Online and ask them to either reprimand the one who decided to publish the poem or have that person fired? Why are they bothering Badawi, a retired professor?
The JDL and another Jewish organization are calling for Badawi and CAIR Canada to break relations with Islam Online because of the poem.
Badawi already denounced the stupid poem, so why get on his case about breaking ties with the web site when he had nothing to do with the publication of the poem? Why not focus attention on the editorial board of Islam Online and ask them to either reprimand the one who decided to publish the poem or have that person fired? Why are they bothering Badawi, a retired professor?
If I was Badawi I would have told the JDL to take a hike for even asking that I distance myself from Islam Online. When the JDL condemns Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 Muslims and injured over a hundred more, then it can open its mouth about poems about beheadings on lame Islamic web sites. When the JDL openly states that "we feel that Goldstein took a preventative measure against yet another Arab attack on Jews," then that statement alone tells me enough about the intentions of the JDL and their views on human life.
In 1974 Estimate, CIA Found that Israel Already Had a Nuclear Stockpile
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB240/index.htm
A very scary world we live in.
A very scary world we live in.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Israel: All Gazans are Terrorists
http://www.btselem.org/english/Special/20080113_Response_to_Head_of_GSS_Statement.asp
13 Jan. 2008: Head of ISA defines a terrorist as any Palestinian killed by Israel
According to media reports, the head of the Israel Security Agency Yuval Diskin stated at today's meeting of the Israeli Cabinet that Israel has killed 1,000 terrorists in the Gaza Strip in the past two years, in operations by the IDF and the ISA.
The total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in Gaza in 2006 and 2007 is 816. Of these, 152 were minors, including 48 under the age of 14. In addition, many men and women were killed in Gaza who took no part in the hostilities. It appears that the head of the ISA defines every Palestinian killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip as a terrorist.
The children killed in the Gaza Strip during this period include: Maria Akel, age 5; Aya al-Astel, age 8; Muhand Amen age 6; Yehia Abu Salmiya, age 9 and his brother Nasrallah, age 5; Maisa, Maryam, Saad and Mahmoud Othamneh ages 9 months to 10 years; Hadil Ghiben age 7; and Mahmoud and Sara Abu Ghazal, age 8.
Busted in Beantown
Helping mujahidin in Afghanistan? Didn't somebody else also do that once?
Associated Press Writer
3 Convicted in Islamic Charity Trial
Associated Press Writer
BOSTON — Three former leaders of an Islamic charity were convicted Friday of duping the U.S. government into awarding their organization tax-exempt status by hiding the group's pro-jihad activities.
Care International Inc., which is now defunct, described its mission as helping war orphans, widows and refugees in Muslim nations. But prosecutors said the organization also distributed a newsletter promoting jihad and supported Muslim militants involved in armed conflicts around the world.
Emadeddin Muntasser, the founder of Care International; Muhammed Mubayyid, the group's former treasurer; and Samir Al-Monla, the president of Care from 1996 to 1998, were charged with tax code violations, making false statements and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
After a two-month trial and more than two weeks of deliberations, a federal jury found them guilty on all counts, except a false-statements count on which Al-Monla was acquitted. The fraud and false-statement charges each carry maximum sentences of five years in prison and fines of $250,000, while the tax charges carry a maximum three years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV scheduled sentencing hearings in early April.
"Today's verdict is a milestone in our efforts against those who conceal their support for extremist causes behind the veil of humanitarianism. For years, these defendants used an allegedly charitable organization as a front for the collection of donations that they converted for the purpose of supporting violent jihadists," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein in Washington said in a statement.
Defense attorneys, who did not immediately return calls for comment Friday, had accused prosecutors of trying to sensationalize the charges into a terrorism case by highlighting the newsletter.
Muntasser, 43, owner of the Logan Furniture Co., was born in Libya and now lives in Braintree. Mubayyid, 42, was born in Lebanon and now lives in Shrewsbury. Al-Monla, 50, was born in Kuwait, now lives in Brookline and is a U.S. citizen.
Their group, which was not affiliated with the well-known global relief organization CARE International, raised $1.7 million in donations from 1993 to 2001.
Prosecutors said the men failed to disclose that Care was a successor to the Boston branch of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in New York, which was linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The center was a recruitment office for Mektab al Khidmat, which Osama bin Laden co-founded in the 1980s to recruit mujahideen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, according to the 9-11 Commission.
Prosecutors alleged that Care was raising money to support mujahideen, defined in the indictment as "Muslim holy warriors," and that it published the pro-jihadist newsletter called "al-Hussam," which means "The Sword" in Arabic.
Prosecutors acknowledged Care did some legitimate charity work, but said the group concealed non-charitable activities from the government. Specifically, prosecutors said the men did not tell the government it supported mujahideen in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Pakistan and other countries. Care also used a portion of its donations to publish an English translation of "Join the Caravan," a pro-jihad book.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Bush: the Idiot
Yup... You can rest assured that's not going to sit too well with the Palestinians.
From al-Jazeera:
"On a landmark visit to the West Bank, George Bush, the US president, has said that any future Palestinian state must be a continuous territory without checkpoints.
But, despite optimistic comments that there could be a deal on a Palestinian state by the end of the year, an off-the-cuff remark about checkpoints threatens to overshadow the trip.
From al-Jazeera:
"On a landmark visit to the West Bank, George Bush, the US president, has said that any future Palestinian state must be a continuous territory without checkpoints.
But, despite optimistic comments that there could be a deal on a Palestinian state by the end of the year, an off-the-cuff remark about checkpoints threatens to overshadow the trip.
"You'll be happy to know, my whole motorcade of a mere 45 cars was able to make it through without being stopped," Bush said after being asked about the 30-minute journey from Jerusalem and Ramallah.
"I'm not so exactly sure that's what happens to the average person."
"I'm not so exactly sure that's what happens to the average person."
Save Darfur or Save Our Oil?
Is Save Darfur a PR Scam to Justify U.S. Resource Wars in Africa
By Bruce DixonDixon's ZSpace page
The star-studded hue and cry to Save Darfur and “stop the genocide” has gained enormous traction in U.S. media along with bipartisan support in Congress and the White House. But the Congo, with ten to twenty times as many African dead over the same period, is not called a “genocide” and passes almost unnoticed. Sudan sits atop lakes of oil. It has large supplies of uranium and other minerals, significant water resources, and a strategic location near still more African oil and resources. The unasked question is whether the nation’s Republican and Democratic foreign policy elite are using claims of genocide and appeals for “humanitarian intervention” to grease the way for the next oil and resource wars on the African continent.
The regular manufacture and the constant maintenance of false realities in the service of U.S. empire is a core function of the public relations profession and the corporate news media. Whether it’s fake news stories about wonder drugs and how toxic chemicals are good for you or Hollywood stars advocating military intervention to save African orphans, it pays to take a close look behind the facade.
Among the latest false realities being pushed upon the American people are the simplistic pictures of Black vs. Arab genocide in Darfur and the proposed solution: a robust U.S.-backed or U.S.-led military intervention in Western Sudan. At long last, increasing scrutiny is being focused on the Save Darfur lobby and the Save Darfur Coalition—its founders, finances, methods and motivations, and truthfulness. Here are ten reasons to suspect that the Save Darfur campaign is a PR scam to justify U.S. intervention in Africa.
1. It wouldn’t be the first Big Lie our government and media elite have sold us to justify a war.
Elders among us can recall the Tonkin Gulf incident, which the U.S. government deliberately provoked to justify initiation of the war in Vietnam. This rationale was quickly succeeded by the need to help the struggling infant “democracy” in South Vietnam and the still useful “fight ’em over there so we don’t have to fight ’em over here” nonsense. More recently the bombings, invasions, and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have been variously explained by people on the public payroll as necessary to “get Bin Laden” as revenge for 9-11, as measures to take “the world’s most dangerous weapons” from the hands of “the world’s most dangerous regimes,” as measures to enable the struggling Iraqi “democracy” to stand on its own two feet, and necessary because it’s still better to “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.”
2. It wouldn’t even be the first time the U.S. government and media elite used ”genocide prevention” as a rationale for military intervention in an oil-rich region.
The 1995 U.S. and NATO military intervention in Kosovo was supposedly a “peacekeeping” operation to stop a genocide. The lasting result of that campaign is Camp Bondsteel, one of the largest military bases on the planet. The U.S. is practically the only country in the world that maintains military bases outside its own borders. At just under 1,000 acres, Camp Bondsteel offers the U.S. military the ability to pre-position large quantities of equipment and supplies within striking distance of Caspian oil fields, pipeline routes, and relevant sea lanes.
3. If stopping genocide in Africa really was on the agenda, why the focus on Sudan with 200,000 to 400,000 dead, but not the Congo as well, with 5 million dead?
"The notion that a quarter million Darfuri dead are a genocide and five million dead Congolese are not is vicious and absurd,” according to Congolese activist Nita Evele. “What’s happened and what is still happening in the Congo is not a tribal conflict and it’s not a civil war. It is an invasion. It is a genocide with a death toll of five million, twenty times that of Darfur, conducted for the purpose of plundering Congolese mineral and natural resources.”
More than anything else, the selective and cynical application of the term “genocide” reveals the depth of hypocrisy around the Save Darfur campaign. In the Congo where local gangsters, mercenaries, and warlords—along with invading armies from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Angola—engage in slaughter, mass rape, and regional depopulation on a scale that dwarfs anything happening in Sudan, all the players eagerly compete to guarantee the continued extraction of vital coltan for Western computers and cell phones, the export of uranium for Western reactors and nukes, along with diamonds, gold, copper, timber, and other Congolese resources.
Former UN Ambassador Andrew Young and George H.W. Bush both serve on the board of Barrick Gold, one of the largest and most active mining concerns in war-torn Congo. Evidently, with profits from the brutal extraction of Congolese wealth flowing to the West, there can be no Congolese “genocide” worth noting, much less interfering with. For their purposes, U.S. strategic planners may regard their Congolese model as the ideal means of capturing African wealth at minimal cost without the bother of official U.S. troops on the ground.
4. It’s about Sudanese oil.
Sudan, and the Darfur region in particular, sits atop a lake of oil. But Sudanese oil fields are not being developed and drilled by Exxon or Chevron or British Petroleum. Chinese banks, oil, and construction firms are making the loans, drilling the wells, and laying the pipelines to take Sudanese oil where they intend it to go, calling far too many shots for a 21st century in which the U.S. aspires to control the planet’s energy supplies. A U.S. and NATO military intervention will solve that problem for U.S. planners.
5. It’s about Sudanese uranium, gum arabic, and other natural resources.
Uranium is vital to the nuclear weapons industry and an essential fuel for nuclear reactors. Sudan possesses high quality deposits of uranium. Gum arabic is an essential ingredient in pharmaceuticals, candies and beverages like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Sudanese exports of this commodity are 80 percent of the world’s supply. When U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese regime were being considered in 1997, industry lobbyists stepped up and secured an exemption in the sanctions bill to guarantee their supplies of gum arabic. But a U.S. and NATO military presence is a more secure guarantee that the extraction of Sudanese resources, like those of the Congo, flow westward to the U.S. and the European Union.
6. It’s about Sudan’s location.
Sudan sits opposite Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States where a large fraction of the world’s easily extracted oil will be for a few more years. Darfur also borders on Libya and Chad, each with its own vast oil resources, is within striking distance of West and Central Africa, and is a likely pipeline route. The Nile River flows through Sudan before reaching Egypt; Southern Sudan water resources have regional significance, too. With the creation of AFRICOM, the new Pentagon command for the African continent, the U.S. has made explicit its intention to plant a strategic footprint there. From permanent Sudanese bases, the U.S. military could influence the politics and ecocomies of Africa for generations to come.
7. Many of the backers and founders of the Save Darfur movement are the well-connected and funded U.S. foreign policy elite.
According to a Washington Post story this summer, “The Save Darfur (Coalition) was created in 2005 by two groups concerned about genocide in the African country—the American Jewish World Service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.... The coalition has a staff of 30 with expertise in policy and public relations. Its budget was about $15 million in the most recent fiscal year.... Save Darfur will not say exactly how much it has spent on its ads, which this week have attempted to shame China, host of the 2008 Olympics, into easing its support for Sudan. But a coalition spokeswoman said the amount is in the millions of dollars.”
Though the Save Darfur PR campaign employs viral marketing techniques, reaching out to college students, even to black bloggers, it is not a grassroots affair, as was the movement against apartheid and in support of African liberation movements in South Africa, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique. Top heavy with evangelical Christians who preach the coming war for the end of the world, and with elements known for their uncritical support of Israeli rejectionism in the Middle East, the Save Darfur movement is dominated/controlled by the establishment with a propaganda campaign that spends millions of dollars each month to manufacture consent for U.S. military intervention in Africa under the cloak of stopping or preventing genocide.
8. None of the funds raised by the Save Darfur Coalition go to help needy Africans in Darfur.
According to stories in both the Washington Post and the New York Times, “None of the money collected by Save Darfur goes to help the victims and their families. Instead, the coalition pours its proceeds into advocacy efforts that are primarily designed to persuade governments to act.”
9. Most Save Darfur partisans in the U.S. are not interested in political negotiations to end the conflict.
President Bush has openly and repeatedly attempted to throw monkey wrenches at peace negotiations to end the war in Darfur. Even pro-intervention scholars and humanitarian organizations active on the ground have criticized the U.S. for endangering humanitarian relief workers and for effectively urging rebel parties in Darfur to refuse peace talks and hold out for U.S. and NATO intervention on their behalf.
The PR campaign that depicts the conflict as strictly a racial affair, in which Arabs are exterminating the black population of Sudan, is slick, seamless, and attractive. It seems to leave no room for negotiation. In fact, many of Sudan’s “Arabs,” even the Janjiweed, are also black. In any case, they were armed and unleashed by a government that has the power to disarm them if it chooses. Refusing to talk to that government’s negotiators is a sure way to avoid any settlement.
10. Blackwater and other U.S. mercenary contractors, the unofficial armed wings of the Republican party and the Pentagon, are eagerly pitching their services.
Chris Taylor, head of strategy for Blackwater, says his company has a database of thousands of former police and military officers for security assignments. He says Blackwater personnel could set up perimeters and guard Darfurian villages and refugee camps in support of the UN. Blackwater officials say it would not take many men to fend off the Janjiweed, a militia that is supported by the Sudanese government and attacks villages on camelback.
Apparently Blackwater doesn’t need to go to the Congo where hunger and malnutrition, depopulation, mass rape, and the disappearance of schools, hospitals, and civil society into vast lawless zones ruled by an ever-changing cast of African proxies (like the son of the late and unlamented Idi Amin), operate under a veil of complicit media silence.
Look for the adoption of the Congolese model across those wide areas of Africa that U.S. strategic planners call “ungoverned spaces.” Just don’t expect to see details on the evening news or hear about them from Oprah, George Clooney, or Angelina Jolie.
Z
Bruce Dixon is managing editor of the Black Agenda Report. This article appears at www.blackagendareport.com.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Double standard on divestment
ZNet | Israel/Palestine |
Double standard on divestment |
| by Josh Ruebner; IMEU; January 09, 2008 |
On December 31, President Bush signed into law the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007, which was passed unanimously by Congress earlier in the month. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd, authorizes state and local governments to divest their holdings from corporations that profit from dealings with the Sudanese government and immunizes mutual fund managers from lawsuits for doing the same.
The practical impact of this legislation, however, is doubtful.
If Congress believes that institutions should divest from corporations that profit from human rights abuses in one country, then morality and logic dictate that
The dictates of politics, however, intrude on the ability of Members of Congress to act in an ethically consistent fashion when it comes to
Given that Israel repeatedly violates the terms of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits U.S. weapons from being used in an offensive manner or against civilians, and that U.S. corporations are profiting handsomely from its violations of Palestinian human rights, one could reasonably expect that Capitol Hill would be at least as adamant, if not more, in encouraging divestment from these corporations as well as being supportive of boycotts to protest these violations.
Not so. In fact, just the opposite is true. Last year the House of Representatives voted 414-0 to condemn British institutions for voting to engage in boycott campaigns against Israeli institutions and products to protest
Nor did Senator Dodd - the champion of divestment from
Dodd's well-intentioned letter would be greatly strengthened if he and other Members of Congress would apply the same principles that govern their encouragement of divestment from
Josh Ruebner is the Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator for the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Claiming Taqiyya: Xenophobia at Its Worst
Robert Spencer is either a terrible scholar or a terrible person. The reason being is that on his web site (http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/) Spencer has a section called "Islam 101" where the author, Gregory M. Davis, claims that he outlines the basics of the Islamic faith. By having this section featured prominently on his web site there can be little doubt that Spencer agrees with and supports Davis' shoddy scholarship. Besides the many errors and outright lies he has placed in this section (yes Robert, I will be more than happy to list all of Davis' errors just like I did about the Pact of Umar argument you made, just send me an email) Davis elaborates on a concept called taqiyya.
Taqiyya is a Shia concept that essentially allows Shias to keep their true beliefs secret while they live among Sunnis. Davis claims that the term also applies to Sunni Muslims who are living in "Dar al-Harb" or as Davis implies, the West, and thus he claims that Muslim organizations who are claiming that Islam is a religion of peace are actually lying. Individual Muslims, Davis asserts, may actually believe that their religion is a religion of peace, but Muslim organizations (he never specifies which ones, but from common right wing commentary he probably intends to imply ISNA, ICNA, CAIR, MAS, et al.) are really jihadi propaganda fronts.
So what is Davis really saying and what is Spencer really endorsing? When Spencer is on television he claims that he is providing a voice for moderate Muslims, giving them an intellectual foundation to stand upon to speak out against the radicals and extremists. He says that moderate and peaceful Muslims need to speak out against the elements within their religious doctrine that jihadis use to justify violence and "reform" those elements.
But based upon Davis' definition of taqiyya how could a person ever know who a sincerely peaceful Muslim is? How would we know such a person isn't deceiving us into thinking that they are a peaceful Muslim when in reality they are just hiding their true jihadi beliefs?
Hugh Fitzgerald, the other ideologue at Jihad Watch, attempts to summarize what taqiyya means. He argues that Sunnis also practice taqiyya (his source is a work by Mervyn Hiskett, a British scholar of Islam - he does not cite a single Islamic source stating that Sunni Muslims must deceive non-Muslims [but why would Muslim scholars actually say this? It's a secret, right Hugh?] although he could find texts from Shia scholars allowing for such a thing in Sunni dominated states). He points out some evidence to support his claims:
1. He says that Muslims will cite verses like 2:256 that say "There is no compulsion in religion," without making mention that this verse was abrogated. But was it really? If we turn to the Tafsir of Imam al-Qurtabi, the great Malikite scholar of Andalusia, he says one of the interpretations of this verse is that it was not abrogated and he cites among others, Hasan al-Basri, one of the greatest scholars of the Salaf, as holding the opinion that the verse was not abrogated by Surah al-Tawba. In fact, the verse serves as evidence, in al-Basri's opinion, that the meaning of the verse is intended for People of the Book, Jews and Christians, who live in the Islamic state. Qurtabi cites a hadith of Umar where he confronts an old Christian woman and asks her to become Muslim, but she turns down his offer. Umar proceeds to recite the relevant verse and asks God to be his witness to the affair.
What Spencer, Davis, and Fitzgerald do not understand is that there is no one interpretation of the verses of the Qur'an that is above all the others. You can find an opinion to support your assertions if you look around (like the jihadis do). There are plenty of Muslim scholars who say that 2:256 was abrogated, but there are just as many who say that it was not - and Hasan al-Basri is not just a someone, he was arguably the most pious and knowledgeable Tabi'i, being the student of Ali, may God ennoble his face.
2. Fitzgerald says that when Muslims say jihad is really a spiritual struggle they are not telling the truth. He asserts that the hadith that states that the struggle against the ego is the greater jihad has weak chains of transmission and he also states that this interpretation is a "recent one in Islam." He is wrong on both counts (honestly, this is like talking to a Salafi).
First, how could the interpretation of jihad being a spiritual struggle be a "recent one" when the hadith is mentioned in so many ancient Islamic texts that it couldn't possibly be limited to the last hundred years? The fact is, it is not a "recent" interpretation. The Muhaddithun, as Fitzgerald is wont to cite, and which ones he does not mention, have mentioned this hadith in many works, including by notable hadith shcolars like: al-Bayhaqi, al-Khatib, and ibn Hajr al-Asqalani. These scholars have criticized the chain of narrators, but none of them have said the hadith was forged, only that the chain was weak, which Fitzgerald is correct in noting.
But what does Fitzgerald know about hadith? Obviously nothing because if he knew anything then he would know that just because a hadith has a weak chain that it's meaning can still be sound. In the case of this hadith, many of the scholars of Islam, all before a hundred years ago, confirm the authenticity of the statement concerning the greater jihad being that of the struggle against the ego. In fact, some of the scholars say that the jihad against the ego is a precondition before a military jihad can be waged. Even ibn Taymiyya is of such an opinion, where he is reported to have said by his student, ibn al-Qayyam: "The jihad of nafs (ego) and hawa (desires) is the foundation of jihad of the disbelievers and hypocrites; one cannot do jihad of them before he first does jihad of his nafs and hawa, then he goes out and fights them."
Ibn Taymiyya died in 1328 CE. Hopefully that's old enough.
In any case, and refutation of shoddy scholarship not withstanding, Davis' concept of taqiyya puts Muslims living in the West in an extremely dangerous position. The reason being is that if enough Westerners were to believe Davis' argument about taqiyya then many Westerners could become extremely worried about their Muslim neighbors even if their Muslim neighbors speak out vociferously against terrorism in the name of their religion. Every Muslim organization looks suspect, even Jihad Watch's buddies, Muslims Against Shariah. How do we know they are really telling the truth? The danger of saying that Muslims hide their true beliefs is that it portrays Muslims, all Muslims, no matter their track record, as suspect. No Muslim can be trusted because no matter what issues from their mouth they could be deceiving the Western public.
This is flat out racism and deception and serves no other purpose than to marginalize those Muslims who do speak out and to cast doubt upon the positive efforts Western Muslims are undertaking. It's xenophobia, it's racist, it's disgusting.
Robert Spencer, Hugh Fitzgerald - you guys are bigots. Your "scholarship" is pathetic. It's always great to hear Spencer sitting back in a chair during an interview claiming that no Muslim can really argue with him regarding his accusations because he's studied traditional Islamic sources and he knows the real truth. The fact is, Spencer uses the same pathetic methodology employed by jihadis to justify their murder and mayhem. They both claim that what they present is the true Islam. Spencer does nothing to help "moderate" Muslims. He paints Islam as a religion of destruction and then tells Muslims to go fix it, but then he says that traditional Islam justifies terrorism, rape, wife beating, etc. So what is a Muslim to fix?
Spencer, the problem with you is that you want it both ways. You want Muslims to open up a dialog with the West and reform their religion, but then you want to show that the Islam the jihadis associate with is the real Islam, the Islam that has always been practiced and enforced throughout Islamic history.
As I have shown above, Surah al-Tawba is not the defining verse dictating relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslim scholars for all of Islamic history have noted that the jihad against the ego always comes before the jihad against Islam's enemies, this being based upon the teachings of the Prophet himself, peace and prayers be upon him.
The idea that Iran, Saudi Arabia, a-Qaeda are practicing things incorrectly is never even considered a possibility by Spencer. He just goes along with them, attempting to demonstrate how they're right, how their Islam is the right one.
You're no friend of Muslims, Spencer. You're a jihadi yourself.
Taqiyya is a Shia concept that essentially allows Shias to keep their true beliefs secret while they live among Sunnis. Davis claims that the term also applies to Sunni Muslims who are living in "Dar al-Harb" or as Davis implies, the West, and thus he claims that Muslim organizations who are claiming that Islam is a religion of peace are actually lying. Individual Muslims, Davis asserts, may actually believe that their religion is a religion of peace, but Muslim organizations (he never specifies which ones, but from common right wing commentary he probably intends to imply ISNA, ICNA, CAIR, MAS, et al.) are really jihadi propaganda fronts.
So what is Davis really saying and what is Spencer really endorsing? When Spencer is on television he claims that he is providing a voice for moderate Muslims, giving them an intellectual foundation to stand upon to speak out against the radicals and extremists. He says that moderate and peaceful Muslims need to speak out against the elements within their religious doctrine that jihadis use to justify violence and "reform" those elements.
But based upon Davis' definition of taqiyya how could a person ever know who a sincerely peaceful Muslim is? How would we know such a person isn't deceiving us into thinking that they are a peaceful Muslim when in reality they are just hiding their true jihadi beliefs?
Hugh Fitzgerald, the other ideologue at Jihad Watch, attempts to summarize what taqiyya means. He argues that Sunnis also practice taqiyya (his source is a work by Mervyn Hiskett, a British scholar of Islam - he does not cite a single Islamic source stating that Sunni Muslims must deceive non-Muslims [but why would Muslim scholars actually say this? It's a secret, right Hugh?] although he could find texts from Shia scholars allowing for such a thing in Sunni dominated states). He points out some evidence to support his claims:
1. He says that Muslims will cite verses like 2:256 that say "There is no compulsion in religion," without making mention that this verse was abrogated. But was it really? If we turn to the Tafsir of Imam al-Qurtabi, the great Malikite scholar of Andalusia, he says one of the interpretations of this verse is that it was not abrogated and he cites among others, Hasan al-Basri, one of the greatest scholars of the Salaf, as holding the opinion that the verse was not abrogated by Surah al-Tawba. In fact, the verse serves as evidence, in al-Basri's opinion, that the meaning of the verse is intended for People of the Book, Jews and Christians, who live in the Islamic state. Qurtabi cites a hadith of Umar where he confronts an old Christian woman and asks her to become Muslim, but she turns down his offer. Umar proceeds to recite the relevant verse and asks God to be his witness to the affair.
What Spencer, Davis, and Fitzgerald do not understand is that there is no one interpretation of the verses of the Qur'an that is above all the others. You can find an opinion to support your assertions if you look around (like the jihadis do). There are plenty of Muslim scholars who say that 2:256 was abrogated, but there are just as many who say that it was not - and Hasan al-Basri is not just a someone, he was arguably the most pious and knowledgeable Tabi'i, being the student of Ali, may God ennoble his face.
2. Fitzgerald says that when Muslims say jihad is really a spiritual struggle they are not telling the truth. He asserts that the hadith that states that the struggle against the ego is the greater jihad has weak chains of transmission and he also states that this interpretation is a "recent one in Islam." He is wrong on both counts (honestly, this is like talking to a Salafi).
First, how could the interpretation of jihad being a spiritual struggle be a "recent one" when the hadith is mentioned in so many ancient Islamic texts that it couldn't possibly be limited to the last hundred years? The fact is, it is not a "recent" interpretation. The Muhaddithun, as Fitzgerald is wont to cite, and which ones he does not mention, have mentioned this hadith in many works, including by notable hadith shcolars like: al-Bayhaqi, al-Khatib, and ibn Hajr al-Asqalani. These scholars have criticized the chain of narrators, but none of them have said the hadith was forged, only that the chain was weak, which Fitzgerald is correct in noting.
But what does Fitzgerald know about hadith? Obviously nothing because if he knew anything then he would know that just because a hadith has a weak chain that it's meaning can still be sound. In the case of this hadith, many of the scholars of Islam, all before a hundred years ago, confirm the authenticity of the statement concerning the greater jihad being that of the struggle against the ego. In fact, some of the scholars say that the jihad against the ego is a precondition before a military jihad can be waged. Even ibn Taymiyya is of such an opinion, where he is reported to have said by his student, ibn al-Qayyam: "The jihad of nafs (ego) and hawa (desires) is the foundation of jihad of the disbelievers and hypocrites; one cannot do jihad of them before he first does jihad of his nafs and hawa, then he goes out and fights them."
Ibn Taymiyya died in 1328 CE. Hopefully that's old enough.
In any case, and refutation of shoddy scholarship not withstanding, Davis' concept of taqiyya puts Muslims living in the West in an extremely dangerous position. The reason being is that if enough Westerners were to believe Davis' argument about taqiyya then many Westerners could become extremely worried about their Muslim neighbors even if their Muslim neighbors speak out vociferously against terrorism in the name of their religion. Every Muslim organization looks suspect, even Jihad Watch's buddies, Muslims Against Shariah. How do we know they are really telling the truth? The danger of saying that Muslims hide their true beliefs is that it portrays Muslims, all Muslims, no matter their track record, as suspect. No Muslim can be trusted because no matter what issues from their mouth they could be deceiving the Western public.
This is flat out racism and deception and serves no other purpose than to marginalize those Muslims who do speak out and to cast doubt upon the positive efforts Western Muslims are undertaking. It's xenophobia, it's racist, it's disgusting.
Robert Spencer, Hugh Fitzgerald - you guys are bigots. Your "scholarship" is pathetic. It's always great to hear Spencer sitting back in a chair during an interview claiming that no Muslim can really argue with him regarding his accusations because he's studied traditional Islamic sources and he knows the real truth. The fact is, Spencer uses the same pathetic methodology employed by jihadis to justify their murder and mayhem. They both claim that what they present is the true Islam. Spencer does nothing to help "moderate" Muslims. He paints Islam as a religion of destruction and then tells Muslims to go fix it, but then he says that traditional Islam justifies terrorism, rape, wife beating, etc. So what is a Muslim to fix?
Spencer, the problem with you is that you want it both ways. You want Muslims to open up a dialog with the West and reform their religion, but then you want to show that the Islam the jihadis associate with is the real Islam, the Islam that has always been practiced and enforced throughout Islamic history.
As I have shown above, Surah al-Tawba is not the defining verse dictating relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslim scholars for all of Islamic history have noted that the jihad against the ego always comes before the jihad against Islam's enemies, this being based upon the teachings of the Prophet himself, peace and prayers be upon him.
The idea that Iran, Saudi Arabia, a-Qaeda are practicing things incorrectly is never even considered a possibility by Spencer. He just goes along with them, attempting to demonstrate how they're right, how their Islam is the right one.
You're no friend of Muslims, Spencer. You're a jihadi yourself.
Why US Muslims live in peace
I don't agree with everything said in this article, but I agree with many of the basic premises underlined in this piece. I resent the idea that the Arab and Muslim world have issues with democracy. People in such countries are not allowed the opportunity to have democracy and decisions for governments are usually handed down from the United States anyway. Such a notion is racist and demonstrates ignorance of the circumstances surrounding the people of such nations. Take Pakistan for example - no one voted for Musharraf to come into power. Then Bhutto was forced down Pakistan's throat at the US's behest. When were the Pakistani people given a say in any of this idiocy the past nine years?
Why US Muslims live in peace
Wherever you have a Muslim community, you'll find trouble, you'll find friction, you'll find national-religious demands, and you'll find terror. Isn't that so? No, it isn't, at least not where the Muslim community in the United States is concerned.
At a time when European countries are debating among themselves about how to deal with the burgeoning extremism among their Muslim immigrant communities and how to contend with the dangers to their national security and culture from those who demand official recognition of their separate culture, there is no sign of similar unrest in the US. Close to a million Muslims live in America in peace.
Whereas in Europe acts of terror are initiated by local Muslims, the perpetrators of the terror attack on the World Trade Center were not aided by a single Muslim-American collaborator.
Strident demands to institute Shari'a law for Muslims are being heard in Europe, and even in Canada - but not in America, where no one has demanded that Arabic be recognized as an official language. Moreover, Muslim-American notables accentuate their loyalty to the US, and, unlike their European counterparts, publicly condemn Islamist terror and declare that they are proud of their loyalty to their new homeland.
A PUBLIC-OPINION survey conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in 2006 to gauge the views of Muslim voters showed that 84 percent said Muslims should strongly emphasize shared values with Christians and Jews; 77% said Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews; 89% said they vote regularly; 86% said they celebrate the Fourth of July and 64% said they fly the stars and stripes. Nothing similar can be found in European surveys.
What is the explanation of this dramatic contrast? True, the Muslim minority in the United States represents a much smaller proportion of the population than in Europe, but that alone cannot explain the distinct dissimilarity.
THERE ARE five fundamental differences between Europe and the United States.
First, the US has been a land of immigration from its inception and has a great deal of experience in absorbing immigrants from other cultures, while in Europe, the phenomenon of immigration is relatively new. The US is also more selective than Europe in choosing which immigrants they allow into their country.
Second, the US maintains maximum, if not absolute, separation between religion and state, making religion an individual matter. That means there is no room for Muslim-religious demands. In Europe, even in those states that do not have an official religion, religion is still very influential - perhaps with the exception of France - in the areas of education and public life.
Third, the United States has a tradition of individualism: It is the individual that stands alone facing government; the individual pledges his allegiance to the flag and the constitution when he becomes a citizen; the individual can conduct a dialogue with the government on his own and has no need for an intermediary, such as the Muslim Councils established in Britain and France.
FOURTH, the immigrant to the United States knows that his economic fate is up to him and his own efforts: He knows that he is immigrating to a country where he has the chance of becoming rich, of becoming a celebrity. The immigrant to Europe is motivated, among other reasons, by the opportunity to become eligible for national welfare. However, when the welfare payments are provided, the immigrants discover that they are not sufficient to actually put them on a par with the veteran population.
Fifth, multiculturalism is recognized in both cultures, but in the United States, the concept is limited to certain specific areas: tolerance, recognition of other cultures and of the need to have affirmative action and diversity in education and employment. In Europe - and especially a short time ago in Britain, Holland and Scandinavia - multiculturalism has been translated into group cultural rights, which isolate the immigrants from the majority population.
Because of all these things, scholars and political leaders in Europe are now turning their gaze to America to learn from it about how to absorb Muslim immigrants.
IN ISRAEL, the situation is of course quite different, largely because of the conflict and the extremist anti-Israeli stance taken by the Israeli-Arab leadership. But the American example is significant: The most important question of all, for us too, is whether there is any chance that the Arab world will ever make its peace with modern democratic values, which place the emphasis on individual freedoms, thought and expression, redirecting religious injunctions to the private domain.
The democratic world stands on two principal pillars: the Jewish pillar - that all humans are created in God's image - and the Greek pillar, which encourages criticism of accepted thought.
So far, not a single Arab society has accepted these two foundations. On the contrary, Arab societies are increasingly moving in the direction of oppressive extremism and suppression of all independent thought and freedom.
In his books, Albert Camus, a North-African Jew who fought against French colonialism, expressed his abhorrence of the anti-modern trend of the Arab-Muslim world, but in an interview with L'Express on June 14, 2004, he said, "The Arabs will have no choice but to accept the values of the West." Were he alive today, he could point to the Arab and Muslim community in the United States as a case in point, proving that under proper governmental conditions, the Arab-Muslim individual differs not at all in his aspirations for modern democracy and freedoms from his Western counterparts.
In this area, Israel can learn two things from America: the need for all immigrants and those receiving citizenship to take an individual oath of allegiance, and the importance of making the economic changes necessary to enable every Israeli Arab to advance economically, without being suffocated by red tape.
The writer is a professor of law at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, a former minister of education and MK, and the recipient of the 2006 Israel Prize in Law.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Radicals in the Masjids
I just read an article about Adam Gadahn, the white boy al-Qaeda operative. What caught my eye in the article was that Gadahn, aka Azzam al-Amriki, went to a local mosque, hooked up with some angry Muslims guys (probably Salafis) and then became a hostile bigot.
Where the hell are these guys???
I go to so many different mosques and I never see or have met guys like this. Do they come to the mosques late at night? During the day when I was in class or at work? I don't understand. Jose Padilla went to Darul Uloom back in the 1990s. I was going to Darul Uloom for two strait years every morning for tajwid classes and there was no one there but uncles.
Maybe some of us "moderate" Muslims need to do some sort of investigation into our local mosques because in all honesty I can't find any nut balls like Gadahn anywhere. And knowing me I would be actively involved in either beating the crap out of someone like Gadahn or making sure they ended up handcuffed in the back of a police car.
And then there's the whole "dressing like I'm an Arab" thing. I won't get into that today, I got enough work on my hands as it is. But I will say this: thobes are damn comfortable. If I had to pick to either wear a thobe everyday of my life or jeans and a t-shirt I might just choose the thobe because they're soooo comfortable. It's amazing - like an elegant pair of pajamas.
Where the hell are these guys???
I go to so many different mosques and I never see or have met guys like this. Do they come to the mosques late at night? During the day when I was in class or at work? I don't understand. Jose Padilla went to Darul Uloom back in the 1990s. I was going to Darul Uloom for two strait years every morning for tajwid classes and there was no one there but uncles.
Maybe some of us "moderate" Muslims need to do some sort of investigation into our local mosques because in all honesty I can't find any nut balls like Gadahn anywhere. And knowing me I would be actively involved in either beating the crap out of someone like Gadahn or making sure they ended up handcuffed in the back of a police car.
And then there's the whole "dressing like I'm an Arab" thing. I won't get into that today, I got enough work on my hands as it is. But I will say this: thobes are damn comfortable. If I had to pick to either wear a thobe everyday of my life or jeans and a t-shirt I might just choose the thobe because they're soooo comfortable. It's amazing - like an elegant pair of pajamas.
To Robert Spencer: Keep This on the Record
Robert Spencer recently released a video about Islam and honor killings, wondering why no one has condemned the practice, especially from the Left. I can't speak for everyone, but I've made my own comments. It's one of the first things I blogged about here. I am adding Imam Zaid Shakir's comments about honor killings with an additional comment:
Muslim men who kill their daughters or wives using Islam as a justification have no scholarly foundation to stand upon for such acts. Imam Zaid points this out. There is nothing in Islam, and Spencer knows this well, that can justify a guy killing his daughter because she had a boyfriend. It's an act of lunacy.
In the United States we have a great amount of domestic and sexual abuse. It's frightening. Now, what concerns me and what is plainly obvious to any objective person is why are Spencer and David Horowitz and others on the lunatic Right so concerned about honor killings and speaking out so vehemently against it when they completely ignore the crimes done in this country against women - rapes, murders, beatings, etc.? The reason is obvious - they don't care about women. Honor killings are a terrible thing. The men who commit such acts, in my opinion, should be executed. Plain and simple. At the very least they should be spending the rest of their lives in jail.
But Spencer and his boys don't care about American women who are victims of domestic abuse even though those numbers make global honor killing statistics pale in comparison. See: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080106_1_A1_hTuls55041.
Domestic abuse in the United States usually occurs due to alcohol or drugs. Christianity has nothing to do with these acts because Christianity barely exists in this country anymore except when elections role around. If Christianity did exist, and Jesus' teachings were followed, I'm sure domestic abuse would drop significantly. Then again, psychotic Christian men might justify violence through Christianity just like psychotic Muslim men use Islam as their justification. Even if that happened, it wouldn't make it right. They would still be cold blooded killers.
But since Spencer and others care so much about women they should report every act of domestic violence, not just those acts that are committed by Muslims. That's cherry picking. If they care about women so much then they should stop domestic violence in all its forms in their own country. Why are they concerned about other countries when their own nation has a terrible record of domestic violence? Yet they do nothing or say anything about it. They just want to defame Muslims and their religion. It's plainly obvious.
"Approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States. "
Muslim men who kill their daughters or wives using Islam as a justification have no scholarly foundation to stand upon for such acts. Imam Zaid points this out. There is nothing in Islam, and Spencer knows this well, that can justify a guy killing his daughter because she had a boyfriend. It's an act of lunacy.
In the United States we have a great amount of domestic and sexual abuse. It's frightening. Now, what concerns me and what is plainly obvious to any objective person is why are Spencer and David Horowitz and others on the lunatic Right so concerned about honor killings and speaking out so vehemently against it when they completely ignore the crimes done in this country against women - rapes, murders, beatings, etc.? The reason is obvious - they don't care about women. Honor killings are a terrible thing. The men who commit such acts, in my opinion, should be executed. Plain and simple. At the very least they should be spending the rest of their lives in jail.
But Spencer and his boys don't care about American women who are victims of domestic abuse even though those numbers make global honor killing statistics pale in comparison. See: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080106_1_A1_hTuls55041.
Domestic abuse in the United States usually occurs due to alcohol or drugs. Christianity has nothing to do with these acts because Christianity barely exists in this country anymore except when elections role around. If Christianity did exist, and Jesus' teachings were followed, I'm sure domestic abuse would drop significantly. Then again, psychotic Christian men might justify violence through Christianity just like psychotic Muslim men use Islam as their justification. Even if that happened, it wouldn't make it right. They would still be cold blooded killers.
But since Spencer and others care so much about women they should report every act of domestic violence, not just those acts that are committed by Muslims. That's cherry picking. If they care about women so much then they should stop domestic violence in all its forms in their own country. Why are they concerned about other countries when their own nation has a terrible record of domestic violence? Yet they do nothing or say anything about it. They just want to defame Muslims and their religion. It's plainly obvious.
"Approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States. "
Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 183781, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, at iv (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/183781.htmNow on to Imam Zaid:
Islam and Honor Killings (Revised)
For that reason, we ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul for other than murder or spreading corruption in the land, it is as if he has killed the whole of humanity… Qur’an 5:35
One of the gravest charges levied against Islam, in terms of its alleged antipathy towards women, is the claim that it encourages a phenomenon known as honor killings. This un-Islamic practice consists of the murder of female family members who are seen as dishonoring their families through real or perceived acts of indiscretion, such as premarital sexual relations or unapproved dating. This charge has been intensified recently due to the tragic murder of a Pakistani Canadian teenage girl, Aqsa Parvez.
The practice of honor killings has absolutely no sanction in the Qur’an, the Prophetic practice, or in the evolved systems of Islamic law. In the case of fornication or adultery, the only way a charge can be levied against an individual, male or female, is through confession, which is discouraged, or by four people actually witnessing the male organ penetrating the female. Even if four people witnessed a naked man engaged with a naked woman, but could not actually testify that they witnessed penetration, their testimony would be rejected.
In a somewhat related issue, it should be noted that in three of the four Sunni schools of law, as is the case with all of the major Shiite schools, pregnancy is not a proof of fornication, as the possibility of rape exists in such a case. Therefore, if a single woman were to become pregnant, according to the overwhelming majority of Islamic jurists, there is no basis for punishing her. In the few well-publicized instances where a pregnant woman has been threatened with death, the minority opinion of the Maliki School of law was unjustly evoked, as occurred in Nigeria, or criminal malfeasance occurred as is the case in Pakistan.
In the case of dating, there is no Islamically-mandated punishment for a male or a female seeing a member of the opposite sex against the wishes of their families. Such situations should be handled with counseling, compassion and a healthy dose of common sense. Muslim immigrants who have migrated to the West should realize that they have placed their children in an environment where there is a tremendous amount of anti-Islamic peer pressure. This is especially true if they have placed their children, as was the case of the young lady who was recently murdered in Canada, in public schools. Children who succumb to that pressure should not be seen as “bad” kids, for by the standards of the society that has shaped them, no matter how strong their home environment is, they are normal. To kill a female guilty of an offense such as dating or dressing like her peers under such circumstances is nothing short of cold-blooded murder, and no Islamic authority can argue otherwise.
The overwhelming majority of Muslim societies are free from the practice of honor killing, although it does endure in some parts of the Middle East and South Asia. According to statistics released by the United Nations in 2000 there are approximately 5,000 deaths annually from “honor” killings. Even if one killing occurred due to such barbarity, it would be one too many, as the Qur’an emphasizes.
However, to use the existence of such killings to smear Islam shows the desperation and misplaced priorities of many of those levying such attacks. Most of those deaths are the pathetic acts of sick individuals, who are far removed from the letter, as we have shown above, and the spirit of Islam. An example of such an individual is Muhammad Riaz, a British Muslim of South Asian descent who died as a result of a fire he set to burn to death his wife and four daughters, allegedly because his wife resisted his attempt to arrange marriages for his daughters. His wife and daughters did perish in that fire. To present Riaz, whose daughters had neither fornicated nor dated, as anything other than a sick individual is a sad attempt to defame Islam.
To attack Islam from this angle is a case of misplaced priorities because it can distract attention from far graver abuses of women that demand immediate redress. For example, the State Department estimates that approximately 800,000 women and girls are trafficked as sexual slaves annually. The overwhelming majority of these females are taken from and sent to nominally Christian countries.
Over the last five years well over one thousand women have been kidnapped and then gruesomely murdered in Guatemala. Their bodies usually turn up after a few days, mutilated and in some instances with messages such as “death to bitches” written on them. To date only three men have been incarcerated in connection with those attacks. Would it be proper to thereby conclude that the “Christians” of Guatemala, an overwhelmingly Christian nation, have no regard for the suffering of their women? Of course it would not.
At the end of the day, attacks such as the one that resulted in the death of Aqsa Parvez are acts of domestic violence resulting from rage that emanates from a total neglect of Islamic teachings. Ms. Parvez lost her life due to such violence and perhaps there are a few other instances where Muslims women in Canada or here in the United States, have been similarly victimized. However, these instances should be kept in perspective. In the United States there are approximately 1,200 women killed every year by their husbands or intimate partners. There are other “Christian” nations where murders of this type are even higher.
The United States, Guatemala, and other countries we could mention where similar abuses occur are Christian nations. However, it would be disingenuous to use such statistics as an indictment against Christianity. These issues are an affront to humanity and require our collective attention. Until we all view the problem this way, we are in jeopardizing the health and integrity of our society.
Saying this is not to minimize the gravity of so-called honor killings to the extent that they do occur in Muslim societies. As Muslims, we are commanded to be committed to justice. That commitment entails that as a community we oppose in the strongest terms “honor” killings and take immediate action to end such a practice in our communities.
Practical steps include the following:
1. Emphasize that such killings have no sanction in the Qur’an, the Prophetic practice, or in Islamic law.
2. Declare anyone guilty of involvement in honor killings to be a cold-blooded murderer.
3. Encourage judicial authorities to enact the harshest penalties possible for anyone accused of involvement in such killings.
4. Educate our Muslim communities, especially in the West, about the un-Islamic nature of honor killings, and the pressures, nuances, challenges and complications facing young Muslims, male and female in the West.
5. Work to eliminate the double standards, and to expose the hypocrisy that exist in our communities, generally, concerning attitudes and standards relating to the indiscretions of males as opposed to females.
In conclusion, Islam honors the female, and values femininity. It is up to every Muslim to translate teachings in that regard into a beautiful reality that helps to elevate the status of women in all societies. Honor killings, domestic violence in general, murders of the type terrorizing women in Guatemala, female sexual slavery and trafficking, pornography, especially its more violent manifestations, are all crimes against humanity that we should oppose in the strongest terms and work strenuously to eliminate. If our women are not safe, physically, emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically we are all at risk, for without women men are incomplete, and without men women are incomplete. Our Prophet, peace and blessings of God upon him alluded to this complementariness when he said, peace upon him, “Women are the complimenting halves of men.” Let us all work harder to make our societies whole.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Free Speech vs. Hate Speech
CAIR-CA: Free Speech vs. Hate Speech
Safaa Ibrahim, San Francisco Chronicle, 1/4/08
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/01/04/oped_resp_stillwell.DTL
Cinnamon Stillwell's recent column in SF Gate, "Savage vs. CAIR: The battle over free speech" on Dec. 19 offers a holiday assortment of misleading truths and omissions of facts. In her misguided defense of the "Savage Nation" radio show, Stillwell essentially defends anarchistic hate against minority groups including African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, immigrants and women. She does so under the pretense of defending free speech.
Of course, most elementary school students will tell you that hate speech is not to be confused with free speech.
CAIR, the California Council of Churches, Rabbi Haim Dov Beilak and other Hate Hurts America Coalition coalition members cherish
Stillwell's wrath against CAIR and other HHA members as a mere consequence of their advocacy against hate speech puts in question her credibility as a columnist.
Is Stillwell arguing that the incitement of violence against minorities is protected under free speech, or did she just never chance upon the numerous times Savage has advocated hateful acts against many other minority groups.
It cannot possibly be the latter because Savage's record is out there for all to see. In 2004, Savage stated "I think (Muslims) need to be forcibly converted to Christianity ... It's the only thing that can probably turn them into human beings." In 2006, he called for a ban on Muslim immigration and recommended making "the construction of mosques illegal in
Luckily, many Americans who become familiar with his divisive hatemongering have not fallen prey to Stillwell's expediency. A growing list of companies including AutoZone, Citrix, TrustedID, JC Penney, OfficeMax, Wal-Mart, and AT&T have pulled their sponsorship from the Savage Nation radio show in compliance with their companies' policy of not supporting hate speech.
Stillwell's column takes the Savage controversy as an excuse to publish yet another attack against CAIR using the same old tired allegations favored by the likes of Daniel Pipes, a Campuswatch.org colleague of Stillwell.
But when it comes to CAIR, Stillwell, like Pipes, is neither an objective journalist nor a neutral scholar. Stillwell does not initiate her research of CAIR by asking questions for which she seeks answers, but by providing answers for which she cherry-picks evidence. A quick review of Stillwell's writings leaves one to wonder whether she bears an agenda against Muslims and the organizations that represent them.
Readers deserve to get the straight record on CAIR:
CAIR, along with all major American Muslim organizations, has consistently condemned terrorism in all its forms, including attacks against Israeli civilians. A section on CAIR's Web site includes comprehensive information that demystifies the list of recycled smears and distortions used by Stillwell to defame CAIR. The fact that CAIR comes under attack by the likes of Stillwell and Savage is no surprise to anyone who works for positive social change. All proponents of justice have faced similar attacks designed to silence their voices.
These smear campaigns aim at marginalizing Muslims in
During a 2004 meeting at the FBI's
Stillwell goes further to attack CAIR for having been listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the recent case involving the Muslim charity the Holy Land Foundation and its alleged financial ties to the Palestinian terrorist group turned terrorist government Hamas. However, she omitted that after a record 19 days of deliberation, a jury in
One HLF case juror told the Associated Press, "I thought they were not guilty across the board." Juror William Neal added that the case "was strung together with macaroni noodles. There was so little evidence." He said the government "really used fear" to try to sway the jury.
This was a classic case of guilt by association and a political vendetta against American citizens to carry out the agenda of a special interest group — the
Probably the most widely recycled example of McCarthy-like attempts to portray CAIR as guilty by association is Stillwell's assertion that CAIR officials were convicted of terror ties. Such efforts evoke memories of attempts to smear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a communist or womanizer. It should be absolutely clear that it is CAIR's belief that anyone who is found guilty of committing a crime, especially one in the furtherance of terrorist motives, should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. CAIR would never compromise its principles, both American and Islamic, in the furtherance or assistance of any illegal criminal endeavors.
Anyone who has any knowledge of the law would know that the acts of a person done outside the scope or duration of his or her employment, and without the employer's knowledge, have no legal bearing on the employer. For example, when Aldrich Ames (CIA) and Robert Hanssen (FBI) admitted to being spies for foreign governments, it did not automatically associate the CIA or FBI with being complicit in any of these criminal activities. Currently, we have members of the U.S. Congress serving jail time and many others under the cloud of ethical suspicion. Does such behavior by members of Congress while in office incriminate the entire U.S. Congress? Only Islamophobes will assign guilt to Muslims by such false associations.
Yet another misleading untruth by Stillwell is her assertion that CAIR receives money from "Saudi funding." This is yet another attempt to invent a controversy. CAIR's operational budget is funded by donations from American Muslims and philanthropist grants.
CAIR remains an open and transparent organization. I invite Stillwell and the public to visit the CAIR Web site at www.cair.com to become familiar with the true nature of the organization and allow its work to speak for itself. Also, visit www.cair.com/factsaboutcair.asp to find out more about CAIR's recent accomplishments and www.cair.com/whattheysayaboutcair.asp to find out what
Safaa Ibrahim is Executive Director, CAIR-San Francisco Bay Area. E-mail her at sibrahim@cair.com
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Moderate Muslims and Reforming Islam
My work with CAIR has me read up quite a bit on right-wing commentators and reform minded Muslims who speak about reforming Islam in some way in order to make it more "moderate" or compatible to the modern world.
One of the most glaring things that comes to mind when I analyze issues between Muslims and the modern world is the unavoidable fact that Muslims, as a general and collective community, practice their religious obligations much more than any other community. This is a personal observation and it is not based upon any statistics, but I believe based on my observations that Muslims generally practice their religion much more than other religious groups.
What does that mean for Muslims who live in the modern world? It has the effect of making Muslims who practice seem alien to more secular minded people, whatever their religion might be. It also has the effect of making Muslims seem out of place or strange.
Who prays in their office?
Who washes their feet in the public bathroom?
Who has to leave work for an extended lunch break every Friday?
Who gets weird looks for having a beard or wearing a scarf?
It seems like many Muslims who want to practice their faith in the "modern world" have to expect the idea that if they want to practice their faith then they are not exactly going to fit in to social norms being practiced in most Western nations.
But I think instead of demanding for this or that accommodation, as time passes on most Westerners will become accustomed to seeing Muslims practice their faith. It won't be a strange site for non-Muslims to see a group of Heat fans praying in the corner of the American Airlines Arena. Watching an old Muslim man wash his feet in the public bathroom won't be a big deal or cause alarm. Hearing two Arab men speak Arabic on a plane (should they be speaking French instead?) will not cause other passengers to alert the authorities because those two swarthy men seem to be terrorists (Those damn shifty eyed camel jockeys).
With time comes understanding. No Muslim organization will really be able to do this type of work - the work of education. Every Muslim who practices their faith openly will make those around them understand what they are doing, whether it be praying, making wudu, beating their wife... just kidding.
In all seriousness, most Westerners don't care if you're praying. They just like to know what the hell you're doing when twenty Muslim guys are standing in a big row on a public basketball court (trying not to lose their downs in reality).
Islam is a deep religion and through fourteen hundred years of scholarship pretty much every topic has been covered by our jurists/lawyers. Islam is comprehensive. We have a great system of scholarship. No other religion evens comes remotely close to how unified Muslims are on their juristic system. And our law system is not rigid, it is amendable and open to interpretation, but by those who are qualified. Not someone who has to go to Aisha Bewley's web site to bite off her translations of Tabari and Suyuti and pass it off as some sort of academic assessment of Qur'anic tafsir (ahem, Robert Spencer). People like that, who don't know Arabic, let alone classical Arabic, are not qualified to even sit in on the discussion... that includes myself. Besides knowing all of the usuli principles and relevant hadiths and commentaries and past judgments of other scholars and knowledge of lexicon, etc. etc. etc., it takes a lot more than just browsing around the web to be a true scholar of Islamic theology and be able to recommend reforms that are consistent with the scholastic system that has been at the bedrock of Islam for over fourteen centuries.
Sorry Irshad Manji, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and all you other wonderful folks who want to make Islam a better religion. You don't have the intellectual capacity to address such an issue. Neither does Zuhdi Jasser. Even though he's a Muslim. And he's weird.
"Reforming" Islam will have to come from Muslims. Not from pseudo scholars and intellectuals who only care about their own publicity.
One of the most glaring things that comes to mind when I analyze issues between Muslims and the modern world is the unavoidable fact that Muslims, as a general and collective community, practice their religious obligations much more than any other community. This is a personal observation and it is not based upon any statistics, but I believe based on my observations that Muslims generally practice their religion much more than other religious groups.
What does that mean for Muslims who live in the modern world? It has the effect of making Muslims who practice seem alien to more secular minded people, whatever their religion might be. It also has the effect of making Muslims seem out of place or strange.
Who prays in their office?
Who washes their feet in the public bathroom?
Who has to leave work for an extended lunch break every Friday?
Who gets weird looks for having a beard or wearing a scarf?
It seems like many Muslims who want to practice their faith in the "modern world" have to expect the idea that if they want to practice their faith then they are not exactly going to fit in to social norms being practiced in most Western nations.
But I think instead of demanding for this or that accommodation, as time passes on most Westerners will become accustomed to seeing Muslims practice their faith. It won't be a strange site for non-Muslims to see a group of Heat fans praying in the corner of the American Airlines Arena. Watching an old Muslim man wash his feet in the public bathroom won't be a big deal or cause alarm. Hearing two Arab men speak Arabic on a plane (should they be speaking French instead?) will not cause other passengers to alert the authorities because those two swarthy men seem to be terrorists (Those damn shifty eyed camel jockeys).
With time comes understanding. No Muslim organization will really be able to do this type of work - the work of education. Every Muslim who practices their faith openly will make those around them understand what they are doing, whether it be praying, making wudu, beating their wife... just kidding.
In all seriousness, most Westerners don't care if you're praying. They just like to know what the hell you're doing when twenty Muslim guys are standing in a big row on a public basketball court (trying not to lose their downs in reality).
Islam is a deep religion and through fourteen hundred years of scholarship pretty much every topic has been covered by our jurists/lawyers. Islam is comprehensive. We have a great system of scholarship. No other religion evens comes remotely close to how unified Muslims are on their juristic system. And our law system is not rigid, it is amendable and open to interpretation, but by those who are qualified. Not someone who has to go to Aisha Bewley's web site to bite off her translations of Tabari and Suyuti and pass it off as some sort of academic assessment of Qur'anic tafsir (ahem, Robert Spencer). People like that, who don't know Arabic, let alone classical Arabic, are not qualified to even sit in on the discussion... that includes myself. Besides knowing all of the usuli principles and relevant hadiths and commentaries and past judgments of other scholars and knowledge of lexicon, etc. etc. etc., it takes a lot more than just browsing around the web to be a true scholar of Islamic theology and be able to recommend reforms that are consistent with the scholastic system that has been at the bedrock of Islam for over fourteen centuries.
Sorry Irshad Manji, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and all you other wonderful folks who want to make Islam a better religion. You don't have the intellectual capacity to address such an issue. Neither does Zuhdi Jasser. Even though he's a Muslim. And he's weird.
"Reforming" Islam will have to come from Muslims. Not from pseudo scholars and intellectuals who only care about their own publicity.
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Emerson, a Jew who gets it
A perspective of a moderate Muslim
At the risk of sounding anti-Semitic, I want to say this: either American Jews are completely clueless about the internal struggle inside Islam or they are so cowardly, that they are even afraid to voice their opinion. Or maybe it's a combination of both.
Every time there is a development that involves radical Islam, be it a Mayor of New York attending an Islamist parade, DOJ's officials attending an Islamist conference, or a protester being sued for having the balls to expose an Islamist-sponsored event at an amusement park, the American Jewish community is as quiet as a church mouse. It's like it is not even there.
The effect of this silence is devastating. Not for the Jewish community, not yet. That time is still to come. The silence affects the American Muslim community. Every time moderate Muslims are ignored and Islamists are legitimized (by either direct support from government representatives or silent support of the ADL), radicals gain ground. In the current PC climate, moderate Muslims have pretty much no choice but to keep their mouths shut.
Luckily for us, not everyone in the Jewish community is like that. There are some Jews that are speaking out. One of them is Steven Emerson, who has been warning the West about the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism since before PanAm 103. Most of his current work is focused on exposing the radicals masquerading as the moderates – those radicals who are embraced by the DOJ and the Pentagon, by the mayor of New York Bloomberg (Rudy would never get into bed with terrorist supporters) and the Treasury Department, by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, by the Congress and the White House.
There is a war of ideas within Islam, and moderate Muslims are losing. Most of Muslim clergy and Muslim establishment are paid for by the Wahhabis. Moderate Muslims are being run out of Mosques and community centers, and in many cases are physically threatened. Moderate Muslims have no place in the media or public debate, because the place reserved for Muslims is filled by Islamic radicals, who attempt to make criticizing anything Islamic a taboo. According to the Islamists, a Muslim can do no wrong.
1. When a non-Muslim criticizes Islam or Muslims, he/she is an Islamophobe.
2. When a Muslim criticizes Islam or Muslim, he/she is not a real Muslim, therefore see #1.
This is a tactic used by "moderate" Muslims, the darlings of the government and the media. But how can you call someone who praises bin Laden, or has ties to Hamas, or calls for the elimination of Israel, or wants to replace the Constitution with the Koran a moderate? They are anything but moderates, however nobody except for a few people like Steven Emerson seems to notice that. But even when the Emersons of America appeal to the public, they are often being dismissed as alarmists and racists. Well, they are anything, but. You don't have to be a clairvoyant to predict the future when it comes to expansion of radical Islam and extinction of moderate Muslims. All you need to do is get your heads out of the sand.
Why our government is so forgiving and forgetful when it comes to individuals or organizations with known terrorist ties and anti-American views is beyond me. Why the Jewish leaders are so timid when it comes to the subject of radical Islam is incomprehensible.
I thank God every day for people like Steven Emerson, because they are the last glimmer of hope for moderate Muslims.
K.M.
Original post
What's a Wahhabi? Please tell me.
What is your definition of a radical Muslim?
What is your definition of a moderate Muslim?
Who has praised bin Laden? Who has ties to Hamas? Who is calling for Israel's destruction and who wants to replace the Constitution with the Qur'an?
Not me. Not anyone I know. I work for CAIR. I hate bin Laden. I do not agree with the idea that Hamas is a terrorist organization - does it conduct terrorism? Absolutely, and I think that any act of theirs that harms or kills innocent Israelis is prohibited by my religion. So it's wrong - no reason they provide in my opinion can justify terrorism. But Israel is far worse. Hamas has not been brutally occupying Israel for over 40 years. I do not want th destruction of Israel, but I would like to see the Palestinian people gain their rightful state next to Israel. And lastly, I like our Constitution just the way it is and I'm sure my Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him, would like it that way, too.
So please take your pro-Emerson and pro-Zionist garbage somewhere else. Go accuse someone else of anti-Americanism. I want my country to be an exemplar of justice and not an outlaw state bent on world domination. I doubt that Emerson or you or anyone like you could even fathom such a thought.
Omer Subhani,
If you are to stupid to know what a Wahhabi is, we won't waste our time on you.
Right. "To stupid." Take a grammar class, moron.
A degenerate who claims to work for CAIR and does not know what "Wahhabi" is calls someone else a moron? Why is it not surprising?
You never answered my question. What's your definition of a Wahhabi? Either you don't know what you're talking about when you use the term, which is highly likely, or you like to use some sort of definition that attempts to encompass any Muslim who disagrees with your twisted view of the world.
I don't need to justify my intelligence to someone who's attempting to rip apart a religious book on the basis of their own whims and fancies (yea, let's strip the Bible apart because I don't like the fact that it tells believers to go to war as Moses had commanded [Joshua 4:13]). And someone who is too cowardly to put their name on the articles they write.
Upon reflection, don't waste your time on me. I'd rather not conduct dialog with someone like yourself.
"What's a Wahhabi?"
An Islamic movement founded by al-Wahhab
"What is your definition of a radical Muslim?
What is your definition of a moderate Muslim?"
definitions
"Who has praised bin Laden?"
Hussam Ayloush, Bassem Khafagi, Omar Shahin
"Who has ties to Hamas?"
Christina Abraham, Asma Ahmad, Omar Ahmad
Who wants to replace the Constitution with the Qur'an?
Ibrahim Hooper
If you work for CAIR, you are either a lying piece of shit and already know all of the above or you're an ignorant dumbass and might want to re-evaluate your associations.
Khalim Massoud
President
Muslims Against Sharia
Wow. Did you take out the ayaat that mention not using foul language?
Anyway, keep up the anti-CAIR work you're doing. It makes our work all the more fun every time a terrorist funding case demonstrates the innocence of American Muslims. The HLF case must have really gotten your knickers in a bunch, huh? Sucks for you.
You should use your finger pointing for more useful things,like picking your nose because that would probably be more prooductive than that ridiculous web site you have running.
By the way, tell your homeboy that taqiyya is a tactic commonly used by Shias and has nothing to do with Sunni Islam. Any Islamic Studies professor could tell you that, but you probably didn't check because you're so... stupid.
Typical Islamonazi. Changes the subject when confronted with facts. And you have nothing to do with American Muslims, you terrorist-sucking scumbag. I am an American Muslim. You're an Islamonazi who just happened to be in America, but not for long.
Yes, you have everything to do with American Muslims. You're so bright.
All of your allegations against the aforementioned individuals is backed up by evidence from the very right wing web sites you promote and who love promoting idiots like you.
None of your allegations are true upon scrutiny. It doesn't take more than ten minutes to see that none of your allegations are just guilt by association tactics.
You represent no one. You are a nobody. Your organization is a joke. Go find a real hobby.
You are such a stupid fuck! You boy Dougie Hooper doesn't even try to hide the fact that he wants to replace the Constitution with the Koran. He talks about it all the time on TV. How stupid should you be to deny something that is on tape?
Wow, you're pretty psychotic. Glad we got you out there reforming Islam into a religion of peace. I'm sure all that cursing and those ad hominem attacks come in handy. Masha-Allah.
The "stupid fuck" is a fair description rather than an ad hominem attack. You asked me to provide examples, which I did. You dismissed them as false even though you know they are easily provable. If that does not make you a stupid fuck, what does?