Right Rising

The Nazi Zionist Stephen Schwartz Attacks CAIR

2010-03-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

As a CAIR official has mentioned before, these books would be like "Neo-Nazis writing books about Judaism for public schools"! Shame on people like Daniel Piples, Stephen Schwartz, and other Islamophobes. Read this right wing filth and see how evil they really are, all they are missing are the swastikas:

"CAIR Attacks American Educational Book Series
BY Stephen Schwartz
March 24, 2010 12:00 AM

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is the leading
Islamic extremist organization in North America. CAIR pretends to be
a civil liberties group but has a long record of promoting radical
ideology and of flimsy complaints of discrimination against Muslims.
On March 17, CAIR unveiled a new effort--not its first--to interfere
with educational publishing. At a press conference in Philadelphia,
CAIR accused the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), which is
located in that city, of fostering "incorrect information and
fear-mongering" by publishing a 10-book series, "World of Islam."

CAIR's attack is hardly a surprise. Its agenda has always focused on
gaining control over how Islam is discussed and taught in American
society. It published An Educator's Guide to Islamic Religious
Practices on the pretext of "help[ing] to create a
culturally-sensitive academic environment." It has called on public
school administrators to adopt a list of separate facilities and
provisions for Muslim students. These include adding Muslim holidays
to school calendars; accommodating Muslim prayer; separating out pork
products, which are forbidden to Muslims, on school menus; protecting
girl students who affect the head covering or hijab, and refraining
from offering handshakes when meeting Muslim women and girls. Further
reflecting its fundamentalist outlook, CAIR is particularly concerned
with co-ed physical education, especially swimming classes, from
which it asks that Muslim students be excused; it calls for full-body
covering of girls, and separate shower facilities, in gym classes.
CAIR also demands that Muslim children to be exempted from sex
education and family life classes, "strenuous physical activity"
during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and school dances.

CAIR has blamed U.S. public school textbooks for "incidents of
harassment and violence against Muslim children," though it says that
"availability of more accurate and balanced instructional material is
increasing"--i.e., that politically correct depictions of Islam had
gained currency in public school textbooks before the events of
September 11, 2001.

The FPRI "World of Islam" series is issued by Mason Crest, a
Pennsylvania educational publisher with a wide scope. Indeed, Mason
Crest publishes another series called "Introducing Islam" that is
favored by CAIR. The works under CAIR attack are not textbooks, but
brief supplemental manuals that may be used to enhance student
reading. None of the "World of Islam" booklets can fairly be
described as biased against Islam. Rather, the volumes seek to
balance the uncritical, pro-Islam bias of numerous public school
textbooks with a fairer assessment of the problems facing Americans
and other Westerners in understanding Islam.

One of its titles, The History of Islam, by Middle East scholar Barry
Rubin, evaluates Muslim achievements in science, navigation, and
architecture, while indicating the difference between
conservative-traditionalist Islam, which favors recognition of
Islamic law (sharia) as a source of legislation, and Islamist
ideology that seeks to make it the sole basis of legislation. Muslim
fundamentalists and radicals may resent such comments, but they are
simply descriptive of reality, and, if anything, express notable
sympathy for those Muslims who, according to Rubin, comprise "the
great majority [that] reject the Islamist interpretation of their
religion and are horrified by the idea of living under an extremist
Muslim society."

Other titles in the "World of Islam" series include Islam in Europe,
which ends with the warning that given high immigrant Muslim
birthrates, "many Europeans are afraid that they may become a
minority in their own countries. The fear, more often than not, has
been exaggerated and used by populist parties as an argument against
immigration." A companion booklet, The Muslim World: An Overview,
offers a positive assessment of the U.S.-led interventions to protect
Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. At the same time, it
describes the major Islamist terrorist attacks in Spain in 2004 and
Britain in 2005 and the agitation for sharia as public law in the
latter country. Yet another in the series, Islamic-Jewish Relations
Before 1947, includes recognition that Muslim history is mixed: Jews
lived well and were unmolested in some Muslim countries, but faced
restrictions and violence in others.

These texts are neither prejudicial nor ideological; they represent
established historical opinion and accurate reporting on present-day
challenges affecting Muslims and non-Muslims alike. CAIR is
attempting, as often in the past, to reinforce its claim to be a
privileged interpreter of Islam in the United States. At the press
conference CAIR called to condemn the series, its Philadelphia
regional "civil rights director," Moein Khawaja, admitted "he was not
aware of any discrimination against Muslim children due to the
books." As so often before, CAIR engages in deliberate distortion and
incitement against legitimate authors and educators. Its latest
offensive in the educational field should be firmly rejected.

Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor"

American Nazi: Evangelical Christians & Zionist Jews

2010-01-31T09:52:00.000-08:00

The real American Nazis are not the pseudo Neo-Nazis that we think of, they are in fact people such as Pamela Gellar of Atlas Shruggs, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, and other buffoons such as Jamal Jivanjee who is a Christian Terrorist. Jamal Jivanjee duped this young girl by the name of Rifqa Bary into following his brand of extremist Christianity that has no place in the USA. They are persecuting Muslims and every Muslim they convert to this Christian Cult group they think they have killed another of their enemies. This young girl is a fool to think that she is 'saved', infact she is more damned than anything. The same Christian fanatics that support her today may try to kill her if she ever leaves Christianity. There are many old and new testament bible verses of killing apostates! Both Jews and Christians who are fanatics believe in killing apostates. The only reason why most American Jews and Christians don't know is that they do not have a good education on the doctrine. Ironically, there is a verse in the New Testament about killing disobedient children. So, if Rifqa goes to a Christian parent, she may be killed if she every disobeys them. Maybe that is why she can't go back to her Muslim parents in Ohio! These people are crazy and they should be investigated by the Police and FBI. They are hate mongers who will stop at nothing to kill and exterminate Muslims. Muslims are the new Jews of this decade.

Let's look at Rifqa's "Testimony" before she went to Florida (notice the lack of the word honor killings and apostasy)

So, Rifqa was brainwashed since she was 13 by Jamal Jivanjee and his evil minions...then smuggled by the minions to Florida to be conditioned and brainwashed that her parents who are Muslims will kill her because of honor killings and apostasy. Which by the way are two different concepts all together. Honor Killings are done by Christians from Milan, Italy to Calcutta, India. Killing for Apostasy is also done by by Christians and Jews, because it commands them in their old and new testaments. This buffoon by the name of Jamal Jivanjee (like the predator that he is) preyed (not prayed) upon Rifqa Bary in order to corrupt her. Turn her into a Jesus Freak, since she was 13. Other evil groups involved are the Korean Christians, Xenos Fellowship, Brian Williams, and many other Fundamentalist Christian Terrorists. We as Americans should stop these evil people from hunting our children. The next time one of these evil people tries to take your child to a 'bible study' aka Nazi indoctrination session, tell them "F**k no, she won't go". Take your Nazi Christianity and shove it up your raptured hole. I am a real Christian and don't agree with your bullshit!

Scott Brown (R-MA) Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Get Back In The Water...

2010-01-20T07:27:00.001-08:00

Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the political waters under the best administration in US history (Obama). You have this Reich commander by the name of Scott Brown taking office in MA. This is a threat to the existence of the USA as we know it. If the Republicans win again, we will all be living in a world similar to that of V for Vendetta. Jan. 10, 2010 (Mark my words). http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/20/analysis.massachusetts.election/index.html?hpt=T1

Robert Spencer: Loonwatch, One-half of the Leftist-Mooslim Alliance

2009-11-05T07:27:00.001-08:00

Robert Spencer: Loonwatch, One-half of the Leftist-Mooslim Alliance

Posted on 27 August 2009 by Garibaldi

Loonwatchers, it seems the big bad blogger himself, Robert Spencer, is beginning to worry about our little blog over on Jihad Watch (hat tip: Mallorcaman). In a blog titled, Daily Kos Sides with Islamic Supremacists Who Want to Extinguish Free Speech and Oppress Women and Non-Muslims (how many stereotypes can you fit in a single title?), Spencer targets Daily Kos contributor Devon Moore who has written comments on our site previously and has linked to us on his site.

Spencer’s post is interesting both for what Spencer writes as well as the comments which end up proving the depths to which Spencer has sunk. I don’t know if Spencer is giddy at the mere fact that he received some mention on Daily Kos or if he is truly fuming in his traditional, up-tight and conspiratorial way that “stealth jihad” is being perpetuated under the guise of some dreaded and fanciful “leftist-Mooslim” alliance. There is probably an element of both in his paranoia, but as in his attempt to pick a fight with Bassiouni it looks as though it is more of the conspiracy card.

The title itself is quite perplexing and makes bold the fact that Spencer has a penchant not only for melodrama (to stroke his ego) but also misinformation. Whenever anyone disagrees with Spencer or disputes his claims (and the list of people is ever increasing) he takes it personally, and reacts with violently worded blog posts that sling innuendo to-and-fro.

The question is: why is it that Spencer can dish out the criticism but is unable to take it? Is it the hallmark of an objective scholar to think that he or she is above any criticism? That everyone outside of the choir he sings to is wrong and part of some Leftist-Mooslim alliance? The ALA is wrong? Muslim scholar and International Law expert Cherif Bassiouni is wrong? Chicago activist Ahmed Rehab is wrong? Islamic scholar Carl Ernst is wrong? Islamic scholar John Esposito is wrong? Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is wrong? Religious scholar Karen Armstrong is wrong? Islamic scholar Khaleel Mohammed is wrong? Academic historian Ivan Jablonka is wrong? Journalist and neo-Con Stephen Shwartz is wrong? Conservative ex-boyfriend of Ann Coulter Dinesh D’Souza is wrong? Spencer’s former friend Charles Johnson is wrong? Blogger and columnist for Commentary Magazine Kejda Gjermani is wrong? The list goes on and on.

Of course, the plain truth is that all of these diverse individuals are neither wrong or incorrect but they are on to something: Spencer is not an objective scholar, he is not in fact very scholarly, in fact he traffics in some of the oldest and well abused stereotypes about Islam and Muslims out there, while all at the same time putting up a front that he is objective and part of the elite vanguard safe-guarding Western values such as freedom of religion and free speech.

This methodology of Spencer is belied by the fact that he takes umbrage at other people expressing their right to free speech which is exactly what Devon Moore did. He stated his opinion (one shared by many), yet according to Spencer what he did was the equivalent to teaming up with “Islamic Supremacists who want to extinguish free speech and oppress women and non-Muslims.” Say what?

Spencer really should go through our website, especially the articles relating to him. He will see that all we do is report the facts — his instances of Islamophobia and anti-Muslimism. Like when he joined the genocidal Facebook group which called for the reconquista of modern day Turkey and its transformation through ethnic cleansing of the whole peninsula; driving out its Muslim Turkish inhabitants and replacing them with Christians.
Malkin's Book

Malkin's Book

We don’t have time to go through a detailed list of the odious friends and individuals of a very anti-Muslim bent that Spencer calls allies, but they include: Michelle Malkin of In Defense of Internment fame, Geert Wilders a neo-Fascist European politician (though Spencer thinks he is not a “genuine” neo-fascist) who wants to ban the Qur’an, Muslim immigration and deny religious freedom to Muslims, Serge Trifkovic one of the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs during the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims, the Gates of Vienna website which advocates an end to Muslim immigration and the dominance of the original indigenous White Europeans, and more. One day we will list all his buddies but just this small oeuvre should be a chilling reminder of who Spencer is: a biased, self proclaimed scholar who does not view Islam from a dispassionate and objective lens.

Spencer’s blog post also reveals a bit more of the strange world he inhabits. He writes, first quoting Devon Moore,

The anti-Muslims cover a wide spectrum though most can be found slithering in the Right-Wing. They range from academics such as Daniel Pipes, self-declared scholars like Robert Spencer and his JihadWatch, to open racists such as Debbie Schlussel, Pamela Geller and the blog Gates of Vienna.

“Open racists”? When the Left can’t argue (which is most of the time), they smear and lie. Schlussel and Geller are freedom fighters, warriors for human rights. Only to a Leftist would that be “racist.” They are not open racists or closet racists or any kind of racists.

Moore made the incontrovertible point that Pamela Geller and Debbie Schlussel are racists, he could have also added loony extremists. Yet, according to Spencer, Debbie Schlussel and Pamela Geller are “freedom fighters” and “warriors for human rights.”

Pamela Geller, you may recall is one of the bloggers who initiated and pushed (and still is pushing) the Birther conspiracy about Barack Obama. That Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and that he is a secret Muslim subverting America through Jihad. She also “uncovered” somehow that Barack Obama was the illegitimate son of Malcolm X. This is what her WikiAnswer page has to say about her,

Pam Geller’s blog has earned her a spot in the Conservative limelight. She frequently attacks Barack Obama, pushing and originating conspiracy theories that include: Obama is a secret Muslim, Obama is not American, Obama is the illegitimate son of Malcolm X, Obama is an anti-Semite. She writes in an August 1st blog about Obama’s travel to Pakistan in the 80’s, “I think he went for the drugs and came back with jihad.”

Debbie Schlussel

Debbie Schlussel

The other “freedom fighter” for Spencer is that delightful, if deranged blogger known as Debbie Schlussel. She gives us so much fodder that there should be a website devoted exclusively to her. Debbie Schlussel was the one who proclaimed after the Virginia Tech Massacre that the shooter was a Muslim, and when early reports came out that he was Asian, she wrote that “Pakis are considered Asian” and that the attack could have been “part of a co-ordinated terrorist plot by Pakistanis.” Even when it was revealed that the shooter was a Korean she persisted with her story that he could have been a secret Muslim. Not too long ago she was on the record making a genocidal joke about Palestinians, while writing about clashes between rival Palestinian forces which left six dead Schlussel stated, “As we say in lawyer jokes, that’s a start. Six down, a few million to go.”

Now with friends like those can we really take Robert Spencer seriously? Especially when he gives these crazies ringing endorsements as “freedom fighters” and “warriors for human rights.” It seems even some of his followers are a little queasy about his endorsement, one commenter on JihadWatch, JoeChill writes,

Sorry, Mr. Spencer–you make some excellent points, but Debbie Schlussel is a highly disturbed woman. Granted, the idiots at Kos don’t like her, but even a broken clock, etc.

Schlussel initially suggested that the VA Tech shooter was a Muslim (he wasn’t). She claims that one of the 9/11 victims, Jon Schlissel, was a “cousin” of hers (based on the idea that someone with a similar name had the same ancestor a few centuries ago) and she repeatedly attacks those she disagrees with by making unsubstantiated claims, or, more often, lies.

I agree with you that Islamic jihadists and those who follow Sharia law are little more than brutal thugs who are trying to remake the world into their own twisted image. But Schlussel’s pretty twisted herself, even though she opposes them. If conservative writers are guardians of the Constitution, Schlussel is a rabid German Shepherd. By espousing her, you weaken your otherwise excellent column.

Posted by: JoeChill [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 25, 2009 4:35 PM

It would be wise for Robert Spencer to take this advice from JoeChill, he should retract his endorsement of the racist Debbie Schlussel, apologize for it, condemn her and distance himself from her. Then he should do the same with Pamela Geller. That way he might be on the road to rehabilitating his image as an apologist for fascism and an endorser of racists, instead of boohooing about a fictitious “Leftist-Mooslim” alliance.

Fathima Bary Needs to Read Her Bible; Final Word on Islam and Apostasy

2009-11-05T07:24:00.001-08:00

Fathima Bary Needs to Read Her Bible; Final Word on Islam and Apostasy

Posted on 28 September 2009 by Danios

apostasy

An emotional Fathima Rifqa Bary–whose personal writings reaveal that she wants to be a modern day prophet–said of her parents:

“My parents are Muslim…I don’t know if you know about honor killing…They have to kill me…Because if they love Allah more than me, they have to do it. It’s in the Quran. And you can, like, give them knowledge about it [gestures to someone off camera, who says something unintelligible].”

It seems that Fathima’s understanding of the Quran comes from whomever she pointed to, whom I can only assume is her pastor (or pastor’s underling more likely). A few more dry runs could have perfected the performance. She just had to memorize a few verses to prove her claim:

13:6 If–your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend, which is as your own soul–entice you secretly, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods,” which you have not known–not you, nor your fathers;

13:7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, near to you, or far off from you, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

13:8 You shall not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall your eye pity him, neither shall you spare, neither shall you conceal him:

13:9 But you must surely kill him; your hand must be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

13:10 And you must stone him with stones, that he die; because he has sought to thrust you away from the LORD your God.

Well, that’s pretty damning evidence right there. That sounds a lot like “honor” killing: “If your brother…or your son or your daughter….entice you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’…You must kill him…you must stone him with stones, that he die.” Well, if that’s in the Quran, then we better ban all Muslim immigration to America!

But before we call Homeland Security, I hope you don’t mind if I check the Quran to verify if those verses exist.

[Flipping through pages of Quran]

Hmmm, can’t seem to find it.

Oh wait, *smacks forehead*, I remember now where those verses are from. Ahh yes, they are from the Bible (Deuteronomy, 13:6-10). There are of course many other Biblical verses in the same vein, such as 2 Chronicles 15:13 which reads: “All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.”

Oopsie doopsie!

Maybe it’s not such a good idea to randomly quote someone else’s scripture or medieval texts without any context as a proof to demonize a people or to fear monger.

Introduction

Islamophobes insist that Islam says that apostates must be killed. These ardent critics of the faith are of the view that Islam is for this reason simply incompatible with the Western Judeo-Christian tradition. Their view–which they try to propagate–is that Islam is somehow so inherently different from all other religions that it should be singled out as the one faith that we just absolutely cannot tolerate.

The issue of course is that “Islam” doesn’t “say” anything, since it is not a person. Islam is in fact polyvalent: it has within it different understandings and interpretations of the religion. On this particular issue, Islam itself doesn’t “say” anything. Valerie Hoffman, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Illinois, commented on the issue of apostasy in Islam: “You can’t say Islam says this or Islam says that.” The question of course is “whose Islam” and “which Islam?”

Yes, the majority “classical” and “traditional” opinion codified hundreds of years ago was indeed that apostates from Islam should be killed. However, such views are abundantly present in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well, yet Jews and Christians have over the course of time reanalyzed their canonical texts and come to different understandings today.

Before the Great War, the Ottoman Empire united Muslim lands under one symbolic leadership. (Perhaps an oversimplification but it suffices for our discussion here.) It is interesting to note that the Ottoman government eventually stopped enforcing the punishment for apostasy and finally abolished it altogether in 1844, more than one hundred and sixty years ago:

Punishment for apostasy (in any case, extremely rare) was not in practice enforced in later times and was completely abolished by the [Ottoman] Turks by a decree of the Ottoman government in 1260/1844.

(The New Encyclopedia of Islam, by Cyril Glasse, p.54)

And we read:

The Ottoman Caliphate, the supreme representative of Sunni Islam, formally abolished this penalty…The Shaykh al-Islam, the supreme head of the religious courts and colleges, ratified this major shift in traditional legal doctrine. It was pointed out that there is no verse in the Qur’an that lays down a punishment for apostasy (although chapter 5 verse 54 and chapter 2 verse 217 predict a punishment in the next world). It was also pointed out that the ambiguities in the hadith (the sayings of the Prophet) suggest that apostasy is only an offense when combined with the crime of treason…

The debate triggered by the Ottoman reform was continued when al-Azhar University in Cairo, the supreme religious authority in the Arab world, delivered a formal fatwa (religious edict) in 1958, which confirmed the abolition of the classical law in this area.

(T.J. Winters writing for Newsweek)

It should be kept in mind that the Ottomans had embraced change, pushing what came to be known as the Tanzimat reforms, a drive to modernize the Islamic state to be compatible with the contemporary age. They abolished the jizya and dhimmi system; the Hatt-i Humayun of 1856 promised full legal equality for citizens of all religions, and the Nationality Law of 1869 created a common Ottoman citizenship irrespective of religious or ethnic divisions.

The point is that the Islamic state had embraced change and reform of their religious understanding. The debate had begun, but after World War I, the Allies occupied Turkey and Arab lands. They broke up the Ottoman Empire, and carved out mandate states, installing despots into power, something which of course retarded further Muslim intellectual growth.

The modern Muslim world is living with the consequences of these events. Unfortunately, feelings of anti-Westernism have emerged as a backlash to colonialism and subsequent events. Extremists and religious fundamentalists began to define themselves in opposition to the West; the more the West condemned their extreme understandings of Islam, the more “street cred” these fundamentalists garnered. Hey, if the West hates you, and the West is the colonialist, then you must be right! Such was the thought process.

So harsher understandings replaced more tolerant ones, and the punishment for apostates–which had been long abandoned by the Ottoman Empire–was re-instituted in a few Muslim majority countries. As Dr. Tariq Ramadan put it:

The opposition and condemnations by the West supplies, paradoxically, the popular feeling of fidelity to the Islamic teachings; a reasoning that is antithetical, simple and simplistic. The intense opposition of the West is sufficient proof [for them] of the [supposed] authentic Islamic character of the literal application of hudûd (Islamic penal code).

In the context of relationships between countries, we often tend to remember only the conflicts and the wars. We focus on the battles and wars between the Muslim world and the Judeo-Christian West, but on a deeper level, there is another more significant aspect, which is an ideological cultural exchange. Muslims now live in the West; when Western Muslims approach the Islamic texts, they come with a certain background and upbringing which necessarily affects their understanding.

What we have witnessed in the last couple decades is a growing trend of a return back to early reformist understanding of freedom of religion. These reform-minded Muslims have realized that not only is the modern concept of freedom of religion permissible in their religion–and not only is it wholly compatible with the Quran–but rather it is mandated and obligatory in Islam.

A “soft reformation” is taking place in Islam, as mentioned by Dr. Tariq Ramadan and others. The reformists are challenging traditional interpretations and understandings of the religion, and pushing for a repeal of apostasy laws in specific where they exist. The struggle is on, and change cannot and will not happen overnight; the post-colonial mess that the Muslim world finds itself in only retards intellectual growth but the process has begun.

Enter the Islamophobes

Instead of seeking to help the reform-minded Muslims, the Islamophobes have demonized virtually all Muslims, except of course a few self-hating Muslims who simply repeat whatever the Islamophobes want to hear (for which they are rewarded handsomely).

The main argument used by Islamophobes is that Islam as a religion itself advocates the death penalty for apostates, and therefore it is the religion itself–not the interpretation of it–that is the problem, an unusually obtuse and altogether unhelpful assertion. Furthermore, some of them argue, Muslims must abandon their belief in the inerrant nature of the Quran. In other words, the Islamophobes posit that the only possible way for Muslims to become “civilized” is to view the Quran as any other text, deleting what they dislike from it and adding whatever they wish to it–or as Daniel Pipes puts it: to make it “defunct.”

While, certainly, that may seem like a plausible solution to an outsider, the problem is that for the vast majority of Muslims it is quite simply not a possibility; it is anathema to question the Quran’s veracity. Regardless of the arguments back and forth on the issue, the practical reality is that the Muslim masses cannot countenance such a thing; the Islamophobes know this, and that’s why they set up this formula. In other words, they know that the Muslims cannot do this and therefore it has become for the Islamophobes the “only possible solution” to the problem.

Yet, it is hardly the case that the Muslims can only take one possible route to modernization. Reform-minded Muslims believe that a change in the texts is not required, but only a change in the understanding and interpretation of said texts.

Open Texts

The Quran is an open text, because it generally refrains from specifics. In fact, names are almost never used in it, in order that its verses have not only a specific meaning but also a more general import. For example, a verse may have been revealed to placate the Islamic prophet Muhammad during a particularly difficult time in his struggle; so even though the verse will have a specific reason for revelation (to one particular man in one specific situation), it can also be used in a general context: Muslims will use that same verse when they themselves are going through tough times.

Because of this unique structure of the Quranic text, what one gets out of it depends a lot on the reader, who tends to inject into verses his own background and biases, for better or for worse. Having said that, it seems to the author that an unbiased and neutral reading validates the argument of the reform-minded Muslims: nowhere in the Quran does it clearly and definitively say one must kill apostates. In fact, it seems to say the exact opposite.

If Muslims can understand it in that way, why this continual insistence by the Islamophobes that the Muslims “must” abandon their belief in the inerrant nature of the Quran? (Again, it is in order to set up a situation whereby Muslims simply cannot fulfill the requirements to be accepted into society, which is exactly what the Islamophobes desire.)

But enough jibber jabber; the proof is in the pudding.

The Quran

Ms. Fathima Rifqa Bary was incorrect: unlike the Bible, the Quran does not at all say to kill apostates if they choose to leave Islam. Rather, it says the exact opposite. The Quran declares emphatically:

“Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth is distinct from error!” (Quran, 2:256)

Almost every Muslim knows this verse by heart. It categorically closes the door to religious compulsion, and is used by reform-minded Muslims to promote freedom of religion and the idea that the people have a right to follow whatever religion they so choose. Because “truth is distinct from error,” people should be able to discern it for themselves without having to be forced.

Tafsir al-Jalalayn, a classical Islamic text, says of this verse: “This was revealed concerning the Ansar who tried to compel their sons to enter into Islam.” Some of their children were Jewish, and the parents wished to force them to become Muslims. In Al-Suyuti’s classical text Asbab al-Nuzul (Reasons for Revelation), it also says that there was a Muslim father by the name of Husayn bin Salim bin Awf who had two daughters both of whom were Christians. After failing to convince them to convert to Islam of their own free will, he went to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and requested permission to compel them into Islam. It was for this that the verse “Let there be no compulsion in religion” was revealed, to forbid parents from forcibly converting their children to Islam.

The relevance to the Fathima Rifqa Bary case cannot be understated: contrary to Fathima’s claim, the Quran forbids religious compulsion in general. The verse in question was specifically revealed for parents in regard to their children of different faiths. Amazingly, the Quranic verse was revealed to forbid a Muslim father from forcing his Christian daughters into Islam. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like Mr. Bary and his daughter! So how accurate was Fathima’s claim that the Quran commands parents to force their children into Islam or kill them if they refuse?

Ironically, it is the Bible–the same one that Fathima holds–that has verses in it commanding parents to stone their daughters should they worship gods other than the Christian one. Considering that Fathima espouses a hardliner literalistic Christian fundamentalist mentality, we wonder if she would even contextualize the verse like the Christian mainstream does? (This is not about Christianity vs Islam; this is about extremists vs moderates; Fathima and the Global Revolution Church are not representative of mainstream Christianity, at least not any more than Al-Muhajiroon is of the Islamic mainstream!)

Alas, I digress. Back to the Quran, which says:

“And if your Lord had pleased, surely all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them; will you then force men till they become believers?” (Quran, 10:99)

Reform-minded Muslims use the above verse to argue that forcing people into Islam is wrong because God Himself did not do that. They believe that the power to guide and misguide people rests only with God, and nobody can share in that. The next verse is used by reformists to show that Muslims should just worry about what they themselves do, instead of trying to force people into guidance:

“And had God willed, He could have made you all one [religious] community, but He sends astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. But you shall certainly be called to account for what you (yourself) used to do [i.e. not what others used to do].” (Quran, 16:93)

The phrase–“God guides Whom He wills” and that He “misguides Whom He wills”–appears in dozens of Quranic verses. All of these references are commanding believers that they cannot force or will people into the religion, but that only God can do that.

The Quran commands:

“The Truth is from your Lord; so let him who please believe and let him who please disbelieve.” (Quran, 18:29)

And the Quran says:

“Exhort them to believe; your task is only to exhort. You cannot compel them to believe.” (Quran, 88:21-22)

Another verse in the Quran indicates that during the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, there were people who believed and disbelieved–and then believed only to disbelieve once again; in other words, people entered into and out of the religion freely. The Quran says that such people are weak in faith and God will never guide them in this worldly life. The verse reads:

“Those who believe then disbelieve, again believe and again disbelieve, then increase in disbelief, Allah will never forgive them nor guide them to the Way.” (Quran, 4:137)

Reform-minded Muslims use this verse as a proof that there can be no punishment for apostasy. If that had been the case, then those who believe and then disbelieved (i.e. apostates) would have been put to death and therefore no chance would have been given to them to once again believe and disbelieve. Furthermore, the verse says that God will never guide them back to Islam, indicating that the Muslims are to ignore such a person: if God did not guide them to the Way, then why should Muslims?

So there are clear and explicit verses of the Quran that reform-minded Muslims naturally understand to mean that freedom of religion must be extended to all, and that compulsion into Islam is not to be tolerated.

The Hadiths

Enter the Hadiths. For those who don’t know, the Hadiths are a body of collection of the prophet Muhammad’s sayings or traditions. In other words, the Quran is considered by Muslims to be the word of God, and the Hadiths are the words of their prophet. Unlike the Quran however, Muslims do not believe that all of the Hadiths are authentic. Rather, many of them are apocryphal and therefore rejected. In other words, if some Islamophobe claims that such-and-such Hadith exists, be aware of the fact that many of them are rejected by Muslims. The Hadiths do not occupy the same rank as the Quran, but are rather a secondary source open to criticism.

In this huge body of collection, we find the Hadith that Islamophobes rely on as their trump card in this debate, which reads as follows: “Whoever changes his religion, kill him.” At first glance, that seems pretty clear and unambiguous but has the Islamophobe proven his case? Well, let’s take into consideration that the Bible has many seemingly clear and unambiguous verses which call to kill apostates, yet we never assume that Christians today believe this, nor do we insist that Christianity itself demands it.

A Christian–when confronted with those verses in the Bible–would respond by saying something like the following:

“Well, that’s the Old Testament, and Jesus abrogated that part of the law. Back then during Biblical times, the believers were few and there was a real fear that they would be eliminated so punishing apostates was a deterrent. Furthermore, at that time apostasy was akin to high treason.”

And this answer would completely placate the Islamophobes. In other words, verses that seemed unambiguous and clear from a religious book seemed to indicate one thing at face value, but the people who follow that book have a different way of understanding it: they give an explanation that contextualizes the verses.

Let’s be clear here: we’re not trying to bash Christianity at all. What we are saying however is that if we extend the common courtesy to Christians that they can contextualize such verses in the Bible, then why do we not extend the same courtesy to the Muslims when it comes to the Hadiths? Keep in mind also that Muslims believe that their Bible–so to speak–is the Quran and not the Hadiths. In other words, if Christianity’s primary source seems to say that apostates are to be killed, then why do we not accept any explanation from Muslims about their secondary source? (Hint: Islamophobia is the answer!) It is this terrible double standard that bothers Muslims and those who believe in religious tolerance.

So how do reform-minded Muslims contextualize the Hadith in question (i.e. “whoever changes his religion, kill him.”)? First of all, they point out that these are not the words of the Islamic prophet Muhammad to begin with; rather, these are the the words of a man named Ibn Abbas who was paraphrasing the words of the Islamic prophet. The full text of that particular Hadith is as follows:

Some Zanadiqa were brought to Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn Abbas who said, “If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah’s Apostle forbade it, saying: Do not punish anybody with Allah’s punishment (fire). I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Apostle: Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.” (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 84, Number 57)

If this was a paraphrase, what were the actual words of the Islamic prophet Muhammad? We find one such Hadith which says:

“The blood of a Muslim, who confesses that there is no God but God and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: (1) In penalty for murder, (2) a married person who commits adultery and (3) the one who reverts from Islam (apostates) and leaves the community.” (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 12, Book ad-Diyat, Number 6878, p.209)

Based on this, reformists say that a person cannot be given capital punishment except for three offenses: (1) murder, (2) adultery, and (3) apostasy combined with “leav[ing] the community.” Such Muslims say that apostasy is not punished except for when it is combined with “leav[ing] the community,” which they say refers to high treason against the Islamic state. What is meant specifically by “leaving the community” is of leaving the community to join the enemy forces. To bolster this claim, reformists point to another similarly narrated Hadith, which reads:

“The blood of a Muslim, who confesses that none has the right to be worshiped but God and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: (1) a married person who commits adultery; he is to be stoned and (2) a man who went out fighting against God and His Messenger; he is to be killed or crucified or exiled from the land and (3) a man who murders another person; he is to be killed on account of it.” (Sunan Abu Dawud, Vol. 4, Number 4353, p. 126)

In other words, we have the exact same three instances in which a person may be put to death: (1) murder, (2) adultery, and (3) “a man who went out fighting against God and His Messenger.” Reform-minded Muslims reason that since the Islamic prophet restricted capital punishment to three classes of people, the third instance must be referring to the same group. In other words “leav[ing] the community” refers to “a man who went out fighting against God and His Messenger.” Reform-minded Muslims tie these Hadiths to the following Quranic verse:

“The punishment of those who wage war against God and His Apostle, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: this is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.” (Quran, 5:33)

Notice how similar the above verse is to the Hadith mentioned in Sunan Abu Dawud (above). The Hadith mentions the one “who went out fighting against God and His Messenger” whilst the Quran says “those who wage war against God and His Apostle,” and the punishment for such is also the same in both: “killed or crucified or exiled from the land.” Reformists point out that the opinion of the ultraconservative Muslims–that peaceful apostates are to be killed–does not jive with the above, since that would mean that a person is to be killed for other than the three reasons, even though the Islamic prophet limited it to only three reasons, not four.

And even if we say that the Hadiths do not limit capital punishment to only three reasons, argue reformists, the issue is that the two Hadiths (as found in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sunan Abu Dawood) both mention three sins–murder, adultery, and apostasy/waging war. It is abundantly clear then that the third sin (other than murder and adultery) is in reference to the same thing in both narrations, due to the congruency of the two Hadiths–which firmly establishes the linkage so the linking of apostasy to treason is firmly established by the congruency of the two Hadiths. This argument stands alone in itself and is not dependent on limiting capital punishment to three sins.

Reasons for Revelation

At the time that this Hadith was said (i.e. to kill apostates that left the community), the Muslims of the city of Medina were under attack by the Quraish “idolaters” of Mecca (which at that time was predominantly non-Muslim). Many of the Muslims in Medina were emigrants from Mecca, who had converted to Islam. Do you see now why religion and national identity was fused at the hip back then? If you were a Meccan who converted from paganism to Islam, you’d be persecuted or even killed by your former co-religionists. So those who converted to Islam would “leave the community” of Mecca to join Medina.

The Meccans reacted harshly to this new religion of Islam and desired to wipe it off the map. They gathered armies and marched towards the fledgling Islamic city-state. Naturally, since the converts to Islam came from pagan families, such battles between Mecca and Medina would result in brother being pitted against brother, and father against son. Some of the newly converted Muslims naturally felt uncomfortable having to fight their families, and therefore would apostatize to the side of the idolatrous Meccans. Others were simply weak in faith and felt overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the invaders, so they defected to the pagan army.

More insidiously, there were some in Medina who conspired with the people of Mecca to betray the Muslims in battle. They hatched a plan that they would “convert” to Islam to join the forces of Medina, only to apostatize and abandon the Muslims in the thick of things, in order to destroy the morale of the Muslim army. The Quran says of this:

“A section of the People of the Book say: ‘Believe in the morning what is revealed to those who believe, and reject it at the end of the day, perchance they may themselves turn back.” (Quran, 3:72)

In the classical Tafsir (commentary) entitled Asbab al-Nuzul (Reasons for Revelation) it says of this verse:

…The town of Uraynah conspired with each other, saying: “Pretend to join the religion of Muhammad at the beginning of the day and declare your disbelief in it at the end of the day. Say: ‘We have looked in our Scriptures and consulted our scholars and found that Muhammad is not genuine; it is clear to us now that he is lying and that his religion is false.’ If you do this, his Companions will doubt their religion. They will say: ‘these are people of the Book and they are more knowledgeable than us. They will then abandon their religion and embrace yours.’”

Reformists believe it was in this particular situation that the Hadiths about killing “apostates” who “leave the community” and “wage war against God and His Messenger” were said. “Leaving the community” is a reference to leaving the community of Medina to join the invaders. Therefore, they reason, it was not merely “peaceful apostasy” which is to be punished, but rather high treason, i.e. trying to destroy the Islamic state’s army. It was a specific plot of the unbelievers to convert to Islam in order to mass apostatize and defect to the pagan side to destroy the Muslims.

One can see then how apostasy and defection are linked; back then, there was a pagan army and a Muslim army. If you were pagan, you fought for the pagan army. If you were Muslim, you fought for the Muslim army. If you converted from one to the other, then you’d likely abandon one army and defect to the other. Hence the phrase “the one who reverts from Islam (apostates) and leaves the community.”

Furthermore, the act of assisting in battle the unbelievers against the believers was in itself considered an act of apostasy. This is why reformists believe that back then religious identity was fused with national identity and state loyalty. This is what professor M. Cherif Bassiouni meant when he wrote,

My position on apostasy…[is] that at the time of the Prophet it was not considered as only changing one’s mind but that it was the equivalent of joining the enemy and thus constituting high treason.

Going back to the now famous Hadith (“Whoever changes his religion, kill him”) this was–revealed about the Zanadiqa:

Some Zanadiqa were brought to Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn Abbas who said, “If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah’s Apostle forbade it, saying: Do not punish anybody with Allah’s punishment (fire). I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Apostle: Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.” (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 84, Number 57)

The word “Zanadiqa” translates to heretics, and here is referring to a group known as the Saba’iyya. The founder of this group, Ibn Saba, was believed by Muslims to be an enemy of the Islamic state who pretended to convert to Islam in order to instigate civil war and strife. Although his existence is a matter of dispute amongst scholars, his group–the Saba’iyya (Zanadiqa)–did exist. They claimed that the prophet Muhammad’s cousin–a man by the name of Ali ibn Abi Talib–was god incarnate. They instigated revolts against the government and eventually orchestrated the murder of the Caliph (Muslim leader) of the time, a man named Uthman ibn Affan. We read:

Ibn Saba…[whose] activity began during the caliphate of Uthman when he travelled from Hijaz to Syria, stirr[ed] up unrest and rebellion in Egypt, Basrah, and Kufah and incit[ed] to the murder of the caliph by the Egyptian rebels…Ibn Saba was also responsible for the outbreak of fighting between the armies of Ali and Aisha at Basrah. (Shi’ite Heritage: Essays on Classical and Modern Traditions, by Lynda Clarke, pp.9-10)

And:

The Khalif Ali caused the adherents of Abd Allah ibn Saba to be burnt to death…But when Ibn Abbas learned of the occurrence, he said: “I should indeed have put them to death, but certainly not burned them, for the Prophet has forbidden that any one shall be punished by fire, because this is the mode of punishment exclusively to Allah.”

(Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Edited by James Hastings, p.625)

In other words, the Zanadiqa being referred to here were not “peaceful apostates” who simply changed their mind, but rather they were guilty of high treason, causing a civil war, instigating a rebellion in Egypt, and ultimately killing the Caliph. Indeed, they were similar to the group of people who had pretended to convert to Islam in order to apostatize during the thick of things (i.e. in the battle between Medina and Mecca). The bottom line then is that even the Hadith that the Islamophobes rely upon can be used as a proof that only those apostates who wage war against the state are to be killed.

The Traditional Opinion

Yes, it is true that the majority “classical” and traditional opinion of Islamic jurists was that apostasy–even “peaceful apostasy”–should be punished by death. This belief was enshrined into Islamic jurisprudence in the medieval era, and therefore many “classical” Islamic texts do indeed say this. It is for this reason that Alan Kornman of ACT for America–a fervently Islamophobic group–was waving around a copy of Reliance of the Traveler, a fourteenth century manual of Islamic jurisprudence, which does say that apostates should be killed. Is it possible to point out the obvious? The text was written hundreds of years ago in the medieval era. The absurdity of using it as some sort of proof against contemporary Muslims is absurd. Muslims do not consider this book to be religiously binding upon them. The words of the classical scholars are not considered a part of the Islamic canon. Only the Quran and some of the Hadiths are said to have any divine origin.

Contemporary Muslims believe that they are free to agree or disagree with the words of classical scholars. There is no equivalent to the pope in Islam. Yes, they do respect the classical scholars, and do view them as some of the greatest scholars of all time, but that does not mean that they agree with them on all issues. As for “classical texts” like the Reliance of the Traveler, yes many moderate Muslims consider such treatises to be a good source of attaining their Islamic knowledge, but they don’t believe that they must accept every single sentence or dot therein! As the famous Islamic saying goes: they take the good in it, and leave the rest!

Even within the classical Islamic texts, one can find great disagreement therein. For example, there are classical texts which refute some of the views expressed in the Reliance of the Traveler. If that is the case–that Islamic scholars of that time disagreed with some views within that text and others–why shouldn’t contemporary Islamic scholars–and Muslims in general–disagree with some of its views? Is this really so hard to comprehend? I don’t think so.

We understand it perfectly well with classical Christian texts. Let’s look at the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the most influential Christian scholars in history. The Vatican considers him as “the model teacher” for those pursuing priesthood.

The Summa Theologica, a book written by St. Thomas Aquinas, is considered one of the best summaries of Catholic doctrine to this day, and continues to be relied upon. In other words, here we have a text that is certainly more central to the Catholic faith than the Reliance of the Traveler is to Muslims. Well, let’s take a look-see into what the Summa Theologica says about apostasy; the first part talks about how Jews are apostates and thus worse than regular disbelievers, and the second part talks about how apostates ought to be compelled by the sword to Christianity:

Question 10: Unbelief in General

… It is written (2 Peter 2:21): “It had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they have known it, to turn back.” Now the heathens have not known the way of justice, whereas heretics and Jews have abandoned it after knowing it in some way. Therefore theirs is the graver sin…He who resists the faith after accepting it, sins more grievously against faith, than he who resists it without having accepted it…[The Jews] accepted the figure of that faith in the Old Law, which they corrupt by their false interpretations, [so] their unbelief is a more grievous sin than that of the heathens, because the latter have not accepted the Gospel faith in any way at all…

Article 8. Whether unbelievers ought to be compelled to the faith?

…I answer that, Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as the heathens and the Jews: and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith…On the other hand, there are unbelievers who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it, such as heretics and all apostates: such should be submitted even to bodily compulsion, that they may fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received…

For, Augustine says “…When a man’s crime [apostasy] is so publicly known, and so hateful to all, that he has no defenders, or none such as might cause a schism, the severity of discipline should not slacken”…Those Jews who have in no way received the faith, ought not by no means to be compelled to the faith: if, however, they have received it, they ought to be compelled to keep it…Christ at first compelled Paul and afterwards taught Him…the rites of other unbelievers, which are neither truthful nor profitable are by no means to be tolerated…

Do we then think it is justified to wave around this seven hundred year old text in the air as a proof that Christians believe that apostates should be killed? Or that “since the Jews are the slaves of the Church, she can dispose of their possessions” and the “the rites of other unbelievers, which are neither truthful nor profitable are by no means to be tolerated?” No sensible person can say so. Rather, Catholics are free to read the book, taking what they like and disagreeing with whatever they dislike.

So why then can’t these people understand the same thing for the Reliance of the Traveler, which says the exact same thing about apostasy as does the Summa Theologica? Muslims use it in a similar manner to learn about traditional Islamic jurisprudence just as Catholics use the Summa Theologica to learn traditional Catholic doctrine, taking the good and leaving the rest. In fact, the Muslim translator of the book, Nuh Keller, did not even translate parts of the book into English which he deemed totally irrelevant to the modern day and age, which shows that Muslims do not consider whatever is in the text as religiously binding. It doesn’t mean that Muslims must abandon the book in its entirety, just as Catholics don’t need to abandon the Summa Theologica altogether.

The Four Schools of Islamic Jurisprudence

A critic of Islam argued back:

Yes there may be moderate Muslims but at this moment in time there is no moderate Islam, as defined by the [four] main schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

First, it is absurd to say that there is no moderate Islam; moderate Islam is what the vast majority of Muslims follow, and how they define it. As for the argument that “all four schools of Islamic jurisprudence demand the death penalty for apostasy,” isn’t this simply restating the obvious? Contemporary Muslims already admit that the traditional and classical opinion of Islamic jurists was that apostates were to be killed (which by the way was also amongst the “traditional and classical opinions” in Judaism and Christianity as well).

Since the four schools of thought were defined and codified hundreds of years ago, doesn’t it already go without saying that the four schools of jurisprudence would take the traditional and classical opinion on the matter? Stated another way: as the four schools were codified hundreds of years ago, is it any surprise that they should follow the old way of looking at the matter as opposed to the new? So what exactly is the critic trying to say? It is simply restating and repackaging the obvious attack in attempt to give an air of authority to it.

His statement also betrays a superficial understanding of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence. The four schools are not defined by their final rulings or verdicts, but rather based on their methodology (Usul). Within a school itself, all sorts of conflicting opinions can be found, since a school is defined not by a ruling but by the methodology one uses to arrive at such a ruling. In other words, contemporary Muslims can still follow the same methodology and arrive at different conclusions, without betraying the school of thought itself. Many followers of the four schools have done so with regard to the issue of apostasy.

So the fact that a person follows a school of jurisprudence does not at all mean that he must commit himself to one particular ruling. Furthermore, many Muslims do not follow a school of jurisprudence at all, with still others claiming that it is wrong to follow the four schools whatsoever. Bottom line: there are diverse opinions on this matter, and to pigeonhole Muslims into a particular belief is wrong. It is just wrong to speak on behalf of Muslims; let them speak for themselves!

Contemporary Muslims argue that their rejection of an opinion held by the classical scholars does not amount to rejection of the scholars themselves, nor of the schools of thought they founded. Rather, they insist that respectful disagreement is not only permitted but mandated in Islam. Furthermore, the new opinion of contemporary Muslims is simply a reflection of changed circumstances which have allowed Muslims to properly understand the issue. Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq says:

Undeniably, the traditional position of Muslim scholars and jurists has been that apostasy [riddah] is punishable by death. The longstanding problem of the traditional position, as held by Classical jurists or scholars, can be explained and excused as not being able to see apostasy, an issue of pure freedom of faith and conscience, separate from treason against the community or the state. However, the accumulated experience over the history in terms of abuse of this position about apostasy even against Muslims as well as the changed context of a globally-connected, pluralistic society should help us appreciate the contemporary challenges in light of the Qur’anic norms and the Prophetic legacy. In this context, while the classical misunderstanding about this issue of apostasy is excusable, the position of some of the well-known contemporary scholars is not.

Contemporary Scholars

Whilst ultraconservative scholars tenaciously cling to medieval opinions, moderate Muslim scholars are increasingly adopting the opinion that absolute freedom of religion is mandated in Islam. Hundreds of Islamic clerics have accepted this view as correct. Representatives from all the major Western Muslim organizations have spoken out against the death penalty for apostates.

Indeed, Islam is witnessing a “soft revolution” nowadays, and a reformation is taking place. It seems almost every other day another major Islamic scholar announces that he has studied the issue and come to the conclusion that there should be no punishment for apostasy.

Ijma

The conservative Muslims (and in turn the Islamophobes) insist that there is an Ijma (consensus) on the view that apostates are to be killed. This is an Islamic legal term which connotes a sort of authoritativeness to a ruling, almost like a papal decree. However, this is a hotly contested topic, and this article here explains why it is inappropriate to use Ijma as a proof.

Imam al-Shawkani argued:

“The one who claims that ijma constitutes proof is not correct, for such [a claim] constitutes mere conjecture (zann) on the part of an individual from the community of Muslims. No believer can worship God on the basis of this.”

Refuting Robert Spencer’s Drivel

Robert Spencer of JihadWatch argues that Fathima Rifqa Bary was correct for claiming that the Quran mandates death for apostasy. We have already outlined the numerous verses in the Quran that state the contrary. But let us now deal with Spencer’s “proof.” He claims that the following verse is “direct proof” that apostates are to be killed:

“And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.” (Quran, 2:217)

Sorry, Spencer, but I don’t see how that’s “direct proof,” especially in light of the explicit verses in the Quran that I have cited above which clearly and unambiguously forbid compulsion in religion. In fact, contemporary Islamic scholars use this verse (the one Spencer just used) as a proof that there is no worldly punishment for apostasy, only a heavenly one. For example, Dr. Jamal Badawi says:

There is no single verse in the Qur’an that prescribes an earthly punishment for apostasy. Verses about apostasy in the Qur’an speak only about God’s punishment of the apostate in the Hereafter [such as] “…But if any of you should turn away from his/her faith and die as a denier [of the truth] – these it is whose works will bear no fruit in this world and in the life to come; and these it is who are destined for the fire, therein to abide.” ([Quran] Al-Baqarah 2:217)

…The silence of the Qur’an on any prescribed mandatory capital for apostasy is quite revealing. More revealing is the fact that there is overwhelming evidence in the Qur’an of freedom of conscious, belief, and worship.

Of course, Spencer quotes an Islamic scholar who lived hundreds of years ago as a proof. Sorry, but that’s not a proof to Muslims, nor is it binding. Whilst moderate Muslims respect Imam al-Qurtubi like Catholics respect St. Thomas Aquinas, they don’t believe his words are divine and simply disagree with them. That is in actuality the bulk of Spencer’s argument, since the verse itself is not at all “direct proof” of anything!

Then Spencer uses verse 4:89 as a “proof:”

“If they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever you find them.” (Quran, 4:89)

But he does not quote what comes right before and after it, thereby removing the context of the verse. The Quran says:

“Why should you be divided into two parties about the Hypocrites? …If they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever you find them; Except those who join a group between whom and you there is a treaty of peace, or those who approach you with hearts restraining them from fighting you as well as fighting their own people. If God had pleased, He could have given them power over you, and they would have fought you: Therefore if they withdraw from you and fight you not, and instead send you guarantees of peace, then God Has opened no way for you to war against them…Therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and do not offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear authority (to war against).” (Quran, 4:89-91)

This verse is talking about a group of apostates who are pretending to be Muslims (and are thus Hypocrites), so that they can turn renegade during war and destroy the Muslim army from the inside. In actuality, this verse shows the mercy of Islam, in the sense that the Islamic prophet was forbidden to make war against these people until they picked up arms against the Muslims; if, however, they did not pick up arms and instead sent guarantees of peace, then Muslims were forbidden from fighting them. This verse can be used as a proof for the reformist position, namely that peaceful apostates cannot be killed, but those who wage war against the Islamic state (i.e. high treason) should be.

Spencer quotes Tafsir al-Jalalayn as a proof, yet doesn’t realize that the text itself negates his view. Tafsir al-Jalalayn says of the very next verse (4:90):

[Those who come to you] refraining from fighting either you or them, then do not interfere with them, neither taking them as captives nor slaying them…If they stay away from you and do not fight you, and offer you peace, reconciliation, that is, [if] they submit, then God does not allow you any way against them, [He does not allow you] a means to take them captive or to slay them.

Abrogation

Christianity was militarized after Jesus died, by latter day thinkers. A similar thing happened with Islam. The Quranic text prohibits military aggression, allowing war only in self-defense; it also gives absolute freedom of religion. Latter day thinkers within Islam had such a hard time dealing with these issues that they simply decided to “abrogate” the peaceful and tolerant verses in order to make Islam “more compatible” with the warlike times. For example, the author of Tafsir al-Jalalayn had such a hard time reconciling verse 4:90 with the view–that apostates are to be killed–that he rationalized that: “this statement and what follows was abrogated.”

This has importance here: Spencer uses the verse (4:90) as a proof that apostasy is mandated in the Quran, yet the classical scholar he quoted as a proof was so “frustrated” by this same verse–since it seemed to imply freedom of religion–that he was forced to abrogate it. In other words, even those Muslim scholars who believe that apostates are to be killed had to get rid of this Quranic verse in order to make their claim, so how can Spencer now use the verse as a proof?

For those of you who don’t know what abrogation means, it means that a verse was rescinded and basically no longer counts. Translation: the verse still appears in the Quran but it has no legal import to it. Contemporary moderate Muslim scholars reject such a haphazard abrogation of Quranic verses. For example, a Muslim cleric by the name of Shabir Ally says:

[Question:] Now this idea of abrogation altogether seems odd. You have a book–you say it’s from God–and you say ‘well, He didn’t really mean this.’ How does one justify this?

[Answer:] Well, Imam al-Tabari is in a way the father of tafsirs. And his tafsir is the monumental one that came to be used widely in later tafsirs…and he said very clearly that if a verse is to be agrogated, you have to have some definitive information from the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself which says that this verse is abrogated, otherwise how would you know if a certain verse is abrogated? You shouldn’t claim that a verse is abrogated without this type of definitive information.

Dr. Jamal Badawi says:

While some scholars have claimed that hundreds of verses of the Qur’an were abrogated, the majority of scholars reject that claim.

Interestingly, the ultraconservative Muslim scholars are inconsistent in their own understanding of the Quran. For example, the ultraconservative Saudi scholar Ibn Baz affirmed the idea that abrogation is to be used only as a last resort when understanding two seemingly “contradictory” verses of the Quran; Ibn Baz stated:

Whenever it is possible to show agreement or reconciliation between various narrations, in a manner which is suitable, without stretching their meanings, it becomes obligatory to do so. Making Reconciliation (al-Jam) between the texts takes precedence over the other two methods of resolving apparent contradiction between proofs–the two other methods being Outweighing (al-Tarjih) and Abrogation (al-Naskh). This is what has been agreed upon in the Science of Usul al-Fiqh.

The above might be very confusing to the layperson, so to summarize: he is basically saying that when two texts seem to contradict each other, then one should first try to reconcile them (al-Jam) before one claims that one is abrogated by the other (al-Naskh). In other words, when we have one text saying “Let there be no compulsion in religion” and another saying “Whoever changes his religion, kill him,” there seems to be an apparent contradiction between the two. One way to resolve these two texts would be to say that the latter abrogated the former (and this is the argument of Bin Baz and other ultraconservative scholars). Ibn Baz is quoted by an ultraconservative Saudi website as saying:

[Question:] Some friends say that whoever does not enter Islam, that is his choice and he should not be forced to become Muslim, quoting as evidence the verses in which Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning)…“There is no compulsion in religion” [al-Baqarah 2:256] What is your opinion concerning that?

[Answer:] …Ayat al-Sayf (the verse of the sword)…and similar verses abrogate the verses which say that there is no compulsion to become Muslim.

Oddly however Bin Baz does not follow his own rule that Reconciliation of texts takes precedence over Abrogation! Reform-minded Muslims reconcile the texts by simply contextualizing the second narration, which indicates that peaceful apostates are not to be killed but those apostates who “wage war” (i.e. high treason) are.

The way in which Ibn Baz, other ultraconservatives, and some classical scholars abrogated the peaceful verses without direct proof of that must be rejected, argue reform-minded Muslims. As Ibn Al-Hassar, a classical Islamic scholar himself, stated:

It is not acceptable, in the matter of Abrogation, to accept statements of the interpreters of the Quran, not even the ijtihad (reasoning) of those engaging in ijtihad without authentic reports or clear evidence…What is acceptable in that matter is the [explicit] narration [of the Prophet] and history [Sunna/Sira] not opinion or ijtihad.

Therefore, reform-minded Muslims reject any classical or contemporary scholar’s opinion that such-and-such verse was abrogated, unless the claimant brings unequivocal proof of that, such as a direct statement from the Islamic prophet to that effect. But in the absence of that, such arguments are rejected; otherwise, every single verse in the Quran could be abrogated by mere desire! Therefore, when Islamophobes try to build their whole case on Tafsirs (commentaries) written hundreds of years ago, be extremely wary! A Tafsir is not a proof in and of itself; it is simply one man’s interpretation of the Quran open to criticism.

Reform-minded Muslim scholars argue that their understanding of the Quran’s view on this matter is more accurate and truer to the text, since they take into consideration all of the verses instead of simply doing away with whatever verses they cannot reconcile to their preconceived view. Meanwhile, the ultraconservatives are forced to abrogate verses of the Quran without any proof for that, such as the verse that forbids compulsion in religion. Certainly, it is unacceptable to just abrogate verses that one does not agree with!

In other words, neither the ultraconservative Muslims nor the Islamophobes can make their case, i.e. that the Quran says to kill apostates, without having to get rid of certain Quranic verses, those that are abundantly clear that religious compulsion is forbidden. This in actuality shows the strength of the reformist view, namely that if one looks at the Quran as a whole, it mandates religious freedom.

Hypocrites Worse than Disbelievers

In the Quran, it is clear that the worst of mankind are the Hypocrites, a group of people who pretended to be Muslims but were really disbelievers in their hearts. They were a group that sought to destroy Islam from the inside. Reformists point out that forcing people into Islam–be they disbelievers or apostates–would create a legion of Hypocrites within the ranks of the Muslims, something far more dangerous than people simply peacefully following whatever religion they want. Dr. Jamal Badawi argues:

The fear of such assumed [capital] punishment [for apostasy] may lead many to hypocrisy; by pretending to remain Muslims just to save their lives. In the final analysis, hypocrisy is a greater danger to the community than apostasy in itself. Hypocrites may implode the Muslim community from within.

Reform-minded Muslims also point out the fact that there was a Bedouin who apostatized in the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad, leaving the Islamic city-state of Medina; he abandoned both his religious and national identity (as the two were fused back then). Instead of punishing the man, the prophet Muhammad simply replied by saying: “Medina is like a pair of bellows (i.e. a furnace): it expels its impurities and brightens and clears its good.” (Sahih al-Bukhari,Vol.9, No.316, pp.241) Reformists use this narration as a proof that someone leaving the religion is–in a way–a good thing: it purifies the religion from those weak in faith who could become Hypocrites. Is it not better to have a few strong believers rather than many weak Hypocrites?

Dr. Jamal Badawi notes that this incident involving the Bedouin took place after the Islamic city-state of Medina was up and running, so the Islamophobes cannot claim that this was before some mass abrogation of verses:

This incident took place in Madinah when Muslims were living in an independent Islamic “state,” where the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had full authority to implement Shari`ah law.

If indeed the “revealed” prescribed punishment for apostasy is death, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would have been the first to carry out the punishment. In fact, he did not even prescribe any punishment at all against that Bedouin, nor did he send any one to arrest him as an “apostate,” imprison, or ask him to recant or even reconsider his decision as later jurists prescribed. Nor is there any solid ground to claim that this and other similar hadiths were “abrogated.” In fact, these Hadiths are in conformity with the Qur’an and consistent with its central value of freedom of conscious and rejection of any compulsion in matters of faith (Al-Baqarah 2:256).

Nonsensical Defense

Some conservative Muslims argue that the death penalty for apostasy makes “perfect sense,” since “people choose to enter Islam knowing that it is a lifetime decision punishable by death” and therefore “it serves to ensure that their intention is strong” and “dissuades those weak in faith from entering it.”

Reform-minded Muslims argue that this argument is weak from many angles. It is negated by the fact that the conservative Muslims do not differentiate in this matter between converts to Islam and those born into the religion: in fact, some of the classical scholars opined that born Muslims who apostatize (murtad fitri) are more liable to punishment than those who had converted to Islam (murtad milli). The question reform-minded Muslims ask is: does a born Muslim get the chance to enter the religion knowing that he will be killed if he ever leaves it? The answer is of course no; one simply grows up following the religion of one’s parents; therefore, the justification that “apostates knew what they were getting into” falls flat on its face.

Reform-minded Muslims also say that it is quite simply common sense that people change their minds. This is quite obvious: one day a person thinks Islam is the religion for him, but maybe ten years down the line he doesn’t.

Additionally, reform-minded Muslims argue that killing an apostate robs him of the chance to repent later in life. There are for example many youth who leave religion only to come back to it in their elderly years when they become fearful of death and what follows that. A person who apostates today could become Islam’s best follower some day in the future.

Lastly, reform-minded Muslims point out that the Quranic principle is that God has granted humans free will: they have the right to accept Islam or reject it. Nobody can force them to do so. Why would God command Muslims to force people into Islam when it is He Himself Who gave people the ability to leave the religion?

An Important Clarification

Even if Fathima’s parents held the “traditional view,” this does not mean that they were going to kill her. In fact, the traditional view–as espoused by the classical scholars and now championed by the ultraconservatives–has always been that corporal punishments–such as killing of apostates–must be done by the government and not individuals.

Vigilante justice has always been strictly forbidden, and in fact severely punished. The second Caliph of Islam was in fact killed, and his son ended up killing the murderer, vigilante style. Even though his case seemed just, the Muslim authorities punished him for murder, due to it being vigilante justice outside the court system.

We can read this from ultraconservative Islamic websites themselves, which quote classical scholars; for example, the Saudi based Islam-QA strictly forbids “honor killing” on the grounds that it is vigilante justice:

Al-Qurtubi said:

There is no dispute among the scholars that qisaas (retaliatory punishments) such as execution cannot be carried out except by those in authority who are obliged to carry out the qisaas and carry out hadd punishments etc, because Allaah has addressed the command regarding qisaas to all the Muslims, and it is not possible for all the Muslims to get together to carry out the qisaas, which is why they appointed a leader who may represent them in carrying out the qisaas and hadd punishments.

Tafseer al-Qurtubi, 2/245, 246.

No one should carry out the hadd punishments without the permission of the ruler. If there is no ruler who rules according to sharee’ah then it is not permissible for the ordinary people to carry out the hadd [corporal] punishments. Whoever does that is sinning, because carrying out the hadd punishments requires examining the matter and requires shar’i knowledge in order to know the conditions of proof.

The ordinary people have no knowledge of such things, and the carrying out of one of the hadd punishments by the ordinary people leads to many evils and the loss of security, whereby people will attack one another and kill one another or chop off one another’s hands on the grounds that they are carrying out hadd punishments.

Islam-QA: Honor Killings Forbidden in Islam

And that’s the opposite of a reformist site. So even they don’t advocate honor killings or vigilante justice. The point here is not to justify the ultraconservative view. Rather, it is simply to show that this entire thing has been a hyped up situation used to demonize Islam and Muslims in general. Most Western Muslims don’t believe in killing apostates, and even the small fraction that do don’t believe it can be done in the West.

Conclusion

The Quran does not at all say to kill apostates. As for the Hadiths, yes there are some texts which could be interpreted as such, but reform-minded Muslims believe that if you properly contextualize them, this is not the case. Furthermore, they believe that if a Hadith contradicts a basic tenet of the Quran, it is to be rejected; in other words, the Quran takes precedence over all other texts.

As for a parent forcing a child to convert to Islam, an explicit verse in the Quran rejects this practice, which was specifically revealed for a Muslim father who was trying to force his Christian daughters to accept Islam, a remarkably similar situation to what we see in the Fathima Rifqa Bary case today.

What seems apparent is that Fathima’s parents never threatened to kill her; rather, she was brainwashed by some Christian extremists (who by the way look down on the Christian mainstream) into thinking that Islam itself–and the Quran in particular–mandates death for apostates. Notice in her emotional interview that she clearly was of the view that: the Quran mandates it, ergo religious Muslims believe in it. This logic is faulty and problematic.

The Islamophobes have jumped on this opportunity to spread fear and hate, insisting that Islam is intrinsically culpable, a pagan and heathen religion incompatible with those who love Christ.

Yes, a legitimate criticism is that it is unfortunate that there are Muslims–even some big time scholars who are not ultraconservatives–hold onto this view. This is in fact a self-criticism that the reform-minded Muslims themselves engage in, and if the critics limited their input to this, there would have been no problem. But the Islamophobes wanted to impugn Islam as a whole, and the Muslims in generality.

The issue of apostasy is at “the heart of a burning debate among modern Muslims,” explained Sherman Jackson, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Michigan. It is a time of reassessment, flux, and hopefully change. But to reduce that all down to “Muslims (or Islam) say that apostates are to be killed” is preposterous. Muslims are undergoing a soft reformation, led by the Western Muslims and the likes of Dr. Tariq Ramadan. But it will take time, just like Europe did not reform overnight.

Even if there happens to be a case of Muslim parents killing their children for changing religions, this shouldn’t be used as an example of what Islam advocates, or what Muslims in general think. Such demonization is altogether unhelpful and only helps to strengthen a binary worldview. If indeed such a case takes place (and they do from time to time), then the fault lies with the murderers, not Islam and not the Muslims in generality. Certainly we shouldn’t encourage extremists and xenophobes who seek to co-opt such tragedies for their own nefarious agendas of fear mongering and singling out of Muslims, who are already one of the most maligned minority groups in the West.

Joe Kaufman O Meter #1: “Nuke the Mooslims!”

2009-11-05T07:23:00.001-08:00

Joe Kaufman O Meter #1: “Nuke the Mooslims!”

Posted on 16 April 2009 by Garibaldi
Joe Kaufman

Joe Kaufman

Joe Kaufman has been on the Anti-Muslim scene for quite a while now and is dubbed by the far Right-Wing FrontPageMag as, you guessed it…another one of their ”Investigative Journalists.” That he has been influenced by Meir Kahane and the Kahanist ideology is well documented, as is his love and angst for Kahane.

In the past he has been known to contribute to the terrorist organization founded by Kahane known as JDL (Jewish Defense League) while others accuse Kaufman of at the very least holding views that parallel JDL positions.

Kaufman’s unsavory associations and views are quite real and they are only dangerous to America if you’re stupid enough to swallow his conspiracy theories but other than that he is simply a half-baked paranoid conspiracy theorist, some what along the lines of the “9/11 Truthers.”

In every nook and cranny there is a “Mooslim”…hiding and ready to get ya…so beware and be afraid. Be veryyyy afraid goes his story.

In this special LoonWatch series we will detail the exploits and punchlines that Krazy Kaufman throws out there and attempts to pass on as serious journalism, commentary and investigation.

Kaufman-O-Meter #1

We went into the way-back-loonwatchers-time-machine and came up with this dandy quote which Kaufman made a month after 9/11:

Question: If the decimation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the right thing to do, in response to Pearl Harbor, then why the heck are we saving our nuclear weapons now? And furthermore, if we’re not using them, why do we have the nukes in the first place? After all, there is no more Soviet Union to compete with. If the attacks are not a good enough reason to use them, then what are we holding on to them for?!!! Now, at this point, you may think of me as being no less than a madman, but hear me out, for I have a method to my madness.

I said this in another post but I’ll repeat it, I CAN”T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! These loons pretty much write the material for us.

I guess we can tell that geo-strategic political planning and military strategy is not Kaufman’s forte. Maybe we should help him out and let him know why the above is such a bad idea.

First of all Joe, unfortunately many nations in the world still have nuclear weapons which is one of the reasons we still have them (though happily President Obama has moved to reduce Nukes with the goal of eliminating them). It’s something known as deterrence and in the age of the Cold War was called Mutually Assured Destruction, or M.A.D. a policy that contributed in pro-longing the status quo between the Soviet Union and the USA, resulting in the Soviet Union’s eventual collapse.

Secondly Joe, who exactly do you want to use these Nukes against? Alqaeda? So will you nuke Alqaeda in Iraq or Afghanistan? Maybe Pakistan? How about Algeria or Germany? Maybe you want to nuke all these countries? The problem with that Joe is that it will probably lead to the deaths of Millions of people and the end of civilization as we know it, something that most Americans with the exception of yourself don’t want to see happen.

A Case Study in Sincere Hypocrisy: Brigitte Gabriel

2009-11-05T07:20:00.001-08:00

A Case Study in Sincere Hypocrisy: Brigitte Gabriel

Posted on 14 April 2009 by Mooneye
Brigitte Gabriel

Brigitte Gabriel

Brigitte Gabriel is a notorious apologist for the fascist Phalange group, Kataeb, and the terrorist group, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), who were responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres that slaughtered 1700 to 2000 Palestinians (mostly women and chidren).

Her story is that she grew up during that nation’s long, and bloody civil war. It was a war that claimed many lives and saw many factions shift alliances and allegiance. Groups that were enemies in the morning became allies at night. Indeed, Muslims fought Muslims and Christians fought Christians.

She seems to play up this milieu to justify her views, as if we should - moved by her “alibi” - automatically excuse and accept them. But her alibi is objectionable since most Lebanese who grew up during this same war did not turn out as rabidly racist as she did.

Gabriel believes Arabs “have no soul!”

The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arab world is the difference between civilization and barbarism. It’s the difference between good and evil [applause]…. this is what we’re witnessing in the Arabic world, They have no SOUL !, they are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call “Allah” which is very different from the God we believe….[applause] because our God is the God of love.

(No soul? An oddly dehumanizing thing for an alleged Christian to say, don’t you think?)

It is no wonder then that theThe New York Times Magazine describes her as a “Radical Islamophobe.”

Brigitte’s self-contradiction is notable. At times she seems to acknowledge that “moderate” Muslims exist,

It’s the duty of all moderate Muslims to speak against the hate, against the Jihad… the people in the West must support the moderates.

The same Brigitte Gabriel on another day scoffs at the notion that a Muslim can be moderate,

America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam. You hear about Wahabbi and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims, supposedly, are wonderful moderates. Closer to the truth are the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed printed by a Danish newspaper…derived from one source: authentic Islam.

And she spills out to the Australian News her bizarre definition of a radical Muslim:

a practising Muslim who goes to mosque every Friday, prays five times a day, and who believes that the Koran is the word of God, and who believes that Mohammed is the perfect man and (four inaudible words) is a radical Muslim.

Let me get this straight, so a Muslim who essentially observes the basic five pillars of Islam is a radical? That leaves us with 1.4 billion radical Muslims, so who gets to be the “moderate” Muslim, I’m confused.

So Brigitte, what is it? Are there any moderates or not? Brigitte seems to be telling us that the only acceptable Muslims are the ones who don’t practice Islam altogether? Or perhaps, she’s even implying that the only good Muslim is an ex-Muslim?

The question becomes, how can someone so blatantly clueless get airtime anywhere other than on America’s Funniest Home Videos?

The answer, Brigitte has found her very own litte niche to settle within the lucrative business of Muslim-bashing. Her forte is to parlay her “otherness,” and so-called “insider knowledge of the Muslim world,” (the “I’ve been there, I know” line) into a cash cow. Meanwhile we are supposed to be duped into freaking out and running back to her for more “expert” advice brought to us from our loyal friend who ventures into the other side on our behalf.

Gabriel started two organizations, American Congress for Truth (ACT) and (she seems to be running out of ideas) Act! for America that receive plenty of funding and “donations” from the likes of the goonish Christians United for Israel and others. Maybe she thinks Americans are gullible or maybe she is a true hypocrite as Andre Gide said,

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.

This very well may be the case with our merchant of intolerance and misunderstanding, Brigitte Gabriel.

Iran's new chant is 'Death to no one!'

2009-11-05T07:10:00.001-08:00

Iran's new chant is 'Death to no one!'

By Hamid Dabashi, Special to CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
At age 25, Hamid Dabashi entered U.S. embassy in Tehran for a visa
Not long after, Iranian students held embassy hostage for 444 days
Dabashi says the bitterness between Iran and U.S. may one day end
He says Iran's youthful population wants to chart a new course
RELATED TOPICS
Iran
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Barack Obama
Editor's note: Hamid Dabashi is the author of "Iran: A People Interrupted." He is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. His Web site is http://www.hamiddabashi.com/.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- November 4 is the 30th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, a turning point in Iranian history, in the geopolitics of the region and in the troubled history of U.S.-Iran relations.

On that day, militants, many of them students, invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking about 70 Americans as hostages in a drama that would last 444 days.

I am one of the last Iranian students who peacefully walked into the United States embassy in Tehran. I went there in July 1976 with a recently acquired Iranian passport and an even more recently obtained acceptance letter from the University of Pennsylvania, and an I-20 form, as we called it then. Then a 25-year-old, I applied for a visa, received one and boarded a plane to Philadelphia.

In just about a second and a half, the way time flies these days, I will turn 60, and I will have a claim over Philadelphia and New York as my successive hometowns more than I do over the cities in which I was born and received my college education, Ahvaz and Tehran.

I've seen both sides of the tension between Iran and the United States: Two homelands that have so far failed to connect on friendly terms. My time in America began with the Gerald Ford-Jimmy Carter presidential debates.

When the hostages were taken in Tehran, President Carter ordered the cancellation of our student visas. That meant we had to report to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, secure a temporary extension of our status, and forfeit any possibility of leaving the country -- for we would have not been allowed back -- until we could obtain the much-coveted green card.

Ted Koppel began counting the days of the hostage crisis on "Nightline." It made for a difficult time when I had to face my American classmates and colleagues.

Over the last month, and in anticipation of this day, an open-ended war has been waged between the supporters of the status quo in Iran and the champions of change in Iranian political culture.

As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government and its clerical supporters are gearing up for business as usual of "Death to America!" chants and marches to mark the anniversary, the nonviolent, grassroots, civil rights movement has produced its own posters and placards, leading with the chant: "Death to no one!"

If Americans are cursed with a very short memory, Iranians have been plagued with very long recollections. They talk about the Arab/Muslim conquest of the mid-seventh century AD as if it happened the day before yesterday, and they consider the CIA-engineered coup of 1953 as if it were indeed yesterday. But this year, commemoration of historical events has turned into a battle for a happier and healthier future, rather than a tiresome marking of the troublesome past.

Iran and the United States have charted divergent and hostile paths over the last 30 years. The legitimate fear of a U.S.-led coup on the model of 1953 resulted in an illegitimate breach of diplomatic immunity and the taking over of the U.S. embassy and its staff.

Ayatollah Khomeini then abused that crisis to build a theocracy and crack down on all alternative claims on that revolution. When the American hostages had served their purpose, Khomeini's regime released them in January 1981. By then he had bigger fish to fry in the course of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). Under that smoke screen (which he prolonged long after Saddam Hussein had realized his folly and was ready for peace talks) Khomeini cracked down even more violently on internal opposition.

On the American side, the story was no less sad and catastrophic. Under President Reagan and subsequent U.S. administrations, Saddam Hussein was armed to the teeth to confront the Islamic Republic.

At the same time, the Afghan Mujahedeen (soon to be transmuted into "the Taliban") were even more massively armed (via Pakistani intelligence and Saudi money -- fueled by militant Wahabism) to battle the Soviets and prevent the spread of the Shia-inspired Iranian revolution into Central Asia. The strategy succeeded, the Islamic revolution turned inward, killed its own children and aggressively degenerated into a terrorizing theocracy.

But soon the two monsters the United States and its allies had created, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, came back to haunt their creators.

Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait soon after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, almost at the same time that Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda operation, feeding on the Talibanization of Afghanistan, began a series of terrorist attacks on U.S. interests that ultimately culminated in the events of 9/11. That resulted in the U.S. led-invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 and of Iraq in March 2003. And our world has remained in the grips of the decades-old spiral of violence ever since.

Roger Cohen has written a column for the New York Times speculating about what would have happened if the massive June demonstrations in Iran had been successful in dismantling the Islamic republic. One must also wonder what would have happened if the coup of 1953 had not implanted a national trauma in Iran that laid the groundwork for Ayatollah Khomeini's anti-American measures and the creation of a repressive government.

When on November 4, you see throngs of young Iranians chanting "Death to No one!" they are not just challenging the brutal theocracy that is distorting their history and abusing their youth, they are also raising a gentle accusatory finger at their own parental generation.

I am father to four American children -- two born in Allentown, Pennsylvania and two in New York City -- who have never set foot in their parental homeland. The Iran they now watch on television, track on the Internet, and follow in the news is no longer paralyzed by the post-traumatic syndrome of the 1953 coup.

A young generation of Iranians -- 80 percent of the population under the age of 40, 70 percent under 30, 50 percent under 25 -- seems determined to chart a future free from their parental follies.

So one day with the first direct flight from JFK to Mehrabad Airport, I, too, might take my children, two of them now old enough to have voted for President Obama, to the other side of who they are -- and of who they must proudly be.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Hamid Dabashi.

No to Darwish: speaker clouds understanding of Islam

2009-11-05T06:52:00.001-08:00

No to Darwish: speaker clouds understanding of Islam

By  Hajer Al-Faham 

Published: Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Updated: Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Reading through my e-mails, I was shocked to find an advertisement for Nonie Darwish on campus. This was the “avid women’s rights speaker” from the Middle East?

This self-proclaimed “former Muslim” is notorious for her baseless assertions, ranging from “Muslim student organizations on every college campus are spreading radical Islam,” to “a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 [sic] years old.”

Apparently, the International Studies Department (in coalition with CAMERA) has decided to join Nonie Darwish in her crusade to liberate the “freedom-hungry” Muslims and Arabs.

All that aside, I want to focus on Nonie Darwish and ask how the author of “Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law” and “Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror” is qualified to give an informational speech on “human rights and Islam?” Admittedly, she runs Web sites titled “Former Muslims United” and “Arabs for Israel,” but that does not change the fact that she has absolutely no professional or educational background in Islamic jurisprudence.

I suppose one could argue that her limited personal experiences are a source of knowledge, but that doesn’t justify her intentional distortion of Islamic law in order to appeal to the anti-Muslim hysteria in our country. Additionally, I would like to refute the e-mail for her event because it mentioned her claim that Sharia requires Muslim women to have “four male witnesses” to “make a case” for rape.

This is false. The Quran states that accusations of adultery require four witnesses. Accusations require four witnesses to assure that people cannot make false claims. I’m going to assume that the organizers of this event were sloppy and did not have time to check their facts because they were in a hurry to liberate Muslim women.

I am also troubled by the fact that Darwish treats Islam as the cause for “why Arabs are oppressed under their government.” Once again, I need to ask if I should attribute this falsehood to her lack of knowledge of Middle Eastern history or her devious plan to bash Muslims while pretending to be an objective scholar.

In conclusion, I would like to inform everyone that I am a Muslim and Iraqi-American woman. The goal of my response is not to infringe upon free-speech rights. I was compelled to take a stand because I am quite familiar with Darwish; her purpose is to amplify hatred towards people like me, who have the “misfortune” of being Arab or Muslim in post-9/11 America.

Unlike my peers, I do not have the privilege of observing this issue from a neutral distance. Physical assault, job discrimination and public humiliation are among the hardships I deal with as a result of the hate rhetoric that is espoused by Darwish and her counterparts.

I hope the organizers of this event take this into consideration next time they have the benevolence to create an event to help people “understand” Islam and the Middle East.

 Hajer Al-Faham
Political Science/Women Studies Major

Pamela Gellar of Atlas Shrugs = Zionist Banshee

2009-10-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

You know why Pamela Gellar is such a Zionist Banshee? I don't know, however I will tell you...she is mentally deranged. She is the biggest right wing zionist vaginal yeast you will ever hear of..worse than Ann Coultier. She is insane! Just look at this article of hers...what a buffoon!

Another Culture War Defeat For Fox News?

2009-10-25T07:31:00.001-07:00

Another Culture War Defeat For Fox News?
Reported by Priscilla - October 24, 2009

Despite the prayers and entreaties of good, conservative Christians and the Fox “opinion” pieces in which the host’s opinion dovetailed that of their good, conservative Christian audience and good conservative guest(s), Rifqa Bary is being returned, per court order, to her home state of Ohio. Bary is the Muslim American young woman whose conversion to Christianity was, allegedly, met with a death threat from her father. As such, she amscrayed down to Florida where she briefly lived with some evangelical Christians whom she met on the internet. When the state took custody of her, her case became quite the cause celebre (Jihad?) in the conservative Christian community who hooked her up with a Florida “family values” lawyer and proceeded to smear her family and the members of her father’s mosque of being wild eyed radicals who represented a grave threat to this girl. The court said not so much and has now ordered her back to Ohio where she will live with a foster family. So despite Frank Gaffney’s belief that this case is an example of creeping Sharia and good Christian Gretchen Carlson’s question of “how this could be happening in America,” Rifqa Bary is back in Ohio after the court found that her allegations of possible violence had no credibility. Oh well, as long as there are persecuted Christians (and they are legion) they’ll have sanctuary at Fox News!

Bat Ye’or: Anti-Muslim Loon with a Crazy Conspiracy Theory Named “Eurabia”

2009-10-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

Bat Ye’or: Anti-Muslim Loon with a Crazy Conspiracy Theory Named “Eurabia”

Posted on 10 September 2009 by Danios

"The Islamic State of Eurabia"
We all have them: crazy uncles or senile grandparents raving about one conspiracy theory or the other on the dinner table. “Man landing on the moon was a big hoax,” or something about Kennedy’s assassination. We’d smile and continue eating our leftover mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, then politely ask to be excused on account of work early the next morning, the car ride back home full of mirthful post-dinner analysis of the crazy dinner table conspiracy talk.
So when we first read about Bat Ye’or, a lady with no educational qualifications to speak of, who came up with the crazy conspiracy theory entitled “Eurabia,” we here at LoonWatch barely reacted. If a zany lady comes up with some insane theory, we’re certainly not going to take her seriously, at least not any more than the crazy old McCain lady.
The sad reality, however, is that Bat Ye’or is now being used by leading Islamophobes as a primary source for their research and subsequent analysis. So who is Bat Ye’or? Well, first of all, her name is not Bat Ye’or. That’s just her “screen-name.” For many years, she kept her real identity a secret, and only wrote under this moniker, which is Hebrew for “daughter of the Nile.” She also had another screen-name, which was Yahudiya Masriya, Arabic for “Egyptian Jewess.” Her real name is Gisele Littman, and she’s vitriolically anti-Muslim and anti-Islam.
She has written a handful of articles and books–with the basic theme that Muslims have savagely oppressed Non-Muslims (”dhimmis”) throughout history. These resources written by her are used as reference sources by famous Islamophobes like Robert Spencer (the face behind the xenophobic websites Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch). Spencer hailed Bat Ye’or as “the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude, of the institutionalized discrimination and harassment of non-Muslims under Islamic law.” Daniel Pipes, an Islamophobic professor, cites her work numerous times. She has emerged from relative obscurity to fame, her work being the backbone of Islamophobic (mis)characterization of Islamic history.
Pamela Geller, admin of the anti-Muslim site Atlas Shrugs, declares: “Bat Ye’or is the world’s foremost leading scholar on Islam.” Amazing how the “world’s foremost leading scholar on Islam” has no educational background and absolutely no credentials at all from a recognized university; truly amazing that anyone can become the world’s leading scholar on Islam with just a library card, a keyboard and internet connection, and of course the key ingredient of all–an all encompassing hatred of Islam. Can one imagine the world’s leading scholar on Judaism being an Anti-Semite? This just in: the world’s foremost leading scholar on Judaism is an Anti-Semitic Hamas member. Absurd!
Bat Ye’or is Not a Scholar
Bat Ye’or is not a scholar; she does not have the credentials of a historian from any recognized university. She is referred to as an “independent researcher,” a euphemism for a random person who goes to the library, opens up some books, and starts writing. Adi Shwartz, a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, rightfully points out Bat Ye’or’s lack of credentials:
Europe allowed the immigration of millions of Muslims to its territories…and will ultimately…transform Europe into a continent under the thumb of the Arab and Muslim world. Europe is dead, and in its stead “Eurabia” has arisen.
This controversial thesis belongs to Bat Ye’or, the pen name of a self-taught Jewish intellectual who was born in Egypt and who currently lives in Switzerland. She refuses to reveal her real name for security reasons, she says, but her thesis is just the prologue to far-reaching conclusions and extreme statements…While her ideas were once almost completely ignored, nowadays, because of the prevailing consternation in Europe regarding its complex relations with the Muslim world, she is receiving more attention, though she is still quite far from entering the European mainstream…
Bat Ye’or’s opinions have made her a controversial figure, as has the fact that she is not an academic and has never taught at any university. She conducts her research independently.
Professor Robert Wistrich, head of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, says of her:
Up until the 1980s, she was not accepted at all. In academic circles they scorned her publications…A real change toward her emerged in the 1990s, and especially in recent years.
In other words, Bat Ye’or was never taken seriously by academics; it was only recently due to the political climate of Islamophobia that her works have become oft-cited by certain elements of society. Interestingly enough, Bat Ye’or herself admits this:
They didn’t even mention my name in publications. In the United States, I am certain that the September 11 attacks woke people up, including the Jewish community that had previously ignored me…
It truly calls to question the legitimacy of the Islamophobes that they use as their main source a woman who has no credentials and whose work was scorned and ignored by academics and only became popular due to a wave of xenophobia:
[Professor Wistrich said:] “In a survey conducted in Germany recently 83 percent gave the answer ‘fanaticism’ to the question ‘What is Islam?’ Sixty percent said there was a clash of civilizations. This is why Bat Ye’or is getting more attention these days.”
Her opinions on the integration of the Muslims and Europe’s bleak future are acquiring many supporters for her in Europe’s extreme right-wing circles.
Those numbers are staggering, and frightening. An overwhelming majority (83%) of Germans believe that Islam is fanaticism. (One can imagine what a similar poll conducted in the early 1930’s or 40’s-during the reign of the Nazis-would have shown had it asked what their view of Judaism was.) It is such a climate that leads to pogroms, and it seems that Bat Ye’or wishes to tap into this potential. She admits that her works are embraced by “the extreme right and in racist movements.” She gives them the wink and nod, with the usual half-hearted disclaimer that “attacking Muslims, sometimes even physically, is stupid.” Any bigotry short of that, of course, is fine and dandy. Wistrich, who invited her to speak at a conference in Jerusalem, cracked a crass joke:
At the conference I said half-joking that it was possible to call this [her book] ‘the protocols of the elders of Brussels.’
It is interesting that Wistrich could be so mirthful about such a serious topic, as if it is somehow comical for a person to write a document that would result in ethnic strife. Again, a frightening idea. Adi Schwartz, the Israeli journalist who questioned her credentials, aptly titled his article on her “The Protocols of the Elders of Brussels.”
Bat Ye’or: Neutral Academic or Biased Ideologue?

Bat Ye'or: a crazy old lady
Bat Ye’or has an axe to grind; there could be no one more biased than her. Her antipathy towards Islam stems from her stormy past: in 1957, she was expelled from Egypt during the Israeli invasion of Sinai. Although one can and should most definitely sympathize with her plight, it seems that she has–like so many racists before her–reacted to bigotry by becoming a bigot. She was wronged by Muslims, and now she wants to take vengeance, which has blinded her. Bat Ye’or said in an interview:
I wrote these books because I had witnessed the destruction, in a few short years, of a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years and which had existed from the time of Jeremiah the Prophet. I saw the disintegration and flight of families, dispossessed and humiliated, the destruction of their synagogues, the bombing of the Jewish quarters and the terrorizing of a peaceful population. I have personally experienced the hardships of exile, the misery of statelessness-and I wanted to get to the root cause of all this. I wanted to understand why the Jews from Arab countries, nearly a million, had shared my experience.
This is not unbiased and dispassionate academic study; for Bat Ye’or, this is personal. From the above quote alone, one can see the inconsistency in Bat Ye’or’s views. During the Israeli occupation of Sinai, anti-Semitism surged in Egypt and within “a few short years” an end was brought to “a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years.” Does she not see the inconsistency here? Over one thousand of those 2,600 years were during Muslim rule of Egypt, which began in 639 AD. During that time period, there was a Jewish community which thrived, or as Bat Ye’or words it, was “vibrant.” Surely then it makes no sense to generalize the “few short years” to all of Islamic history.
Conspiracy Theory: Palestinians Don’t Exist; Europeans Created Them
It is an irony that Bat Ye’or laments about “the hardships of exile, [and the] misery of statelessness,” which is exactly what the Palestinian people have suffered from. Yet, Bat Ye’or, a fervent supporter of Israel goes even further than some of the most extreme Right-Wing Israelis and even denies the existence of a Palestinian people, arguing that “the Palestinian cause was created mainly in Europe.” To put her quote into context, she says:
The Kurds, the Berbers, the Basques (Spain) and the Corsicans (France) have nationalist characteristics, but not the Palestinians. The Palestinian cause was created mainly in Europe…
So Kurds, Berbers, Basques, and Corsicans are all peoples, but not the Palestinians, who are an imaginary peoples invented by Europe. So why exactly did Europe create the Palestinian people? She explains:
The Palestinian cause was created mainly in Europe, with the purpose to transfer onto the Palestinians the Jewish history in order to delegitimize Israel and to absolve Europe from the Holocaust by throwing onto Israel its own European history of Nazism, apartheid and colonialism.
Let us allow the reader to properly understand her conspiracy theory: she is arguing that the Palestinian people were created by Europe in order to paint Israel as being guilty of Nazism, apartheid, and colonialism–in order to absolve themselves of blame for the Holocaust which created the state of Israel. One can imagine the European leaders convening in some secret lair–shoddy lighting and a room full of cigar smoke–contemplating how to absolve themselves of blame for the Holocaust. “I got it!” exclaims one especially wily European intellectual. “We’ll invent a people–let’s call them ‘Palestinians’–and say that they existed in the land of Israel!” They passed it to a vote, and voila! The Europeans then made a few calls and engineered the Palestinian race. As Jon Stewart said mockingly about the Obama-being-a-stealth-Jihadist-from-Yemen theory: “It was just too easy.”
Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory is creative no doubt, but ludicrous. This is the woman whom Islamophobes like Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Pamela Geller cite as a primary source for their views on Islam, thus highlighting that they have absolutely no academic integrity or credibility.
Conspiracy Theory: Europe Will Become a Vassal State to the Arab World
Bat Ye’or is a fringe conspiracy theorist who argues that “Europe will become a vassal [state], a satellite of the Arab world.” Such alarmist drivel that no sane person could take her seriously. The irony is that the reality is the exact opposite: it is the Arab world that plays second fiddle compared to the West. Tell us, Bat Ye’or, how will the Arabs make a vassal state out of Europe? Them and which army? The combined Arab might pales in front of Israel; how can the Arab world then vanquish all of Europe? Such senseless fear mongering.
Conspiracy Theory: European Universities are Controlled by Palestinians
As part of her global conspiracy theory, Bat Ye’or argues that “[European] universities, for example, are controlled by the Palestinians.” Oh why of course! In fact, the deans of the European universities are all “stealth Palestinians;” every year they travel to the Gaza Strip for an annual ceremony, where Hamas leaders dictate what the curriculum will be for the year, and indoctrinate them in all things jihad. It is in fact funding from Palestine that is keeping the European universities afloat. (deadpan face)
Can one imagine the reaction of Islamophobes if some Moozlim-looking person said that the Western universities were controlled by “the Jews?” They would call such a person not only a crazy conspiracy theorist but a racist, and rightfully so, but the issue here is the profound double standard. You want to say something outlandish about Jews or any other minority? Not acceptable (Rightfully so). But say the same thing about Muslims? Then you get your own show on Fox News, and your books will become best-sellers (of the “What’s Wrong with Islam” or “Why I’m Not a Muslim” variety).
Conspiracy Theory: The Rise of Eurabia
The culmination of Bat Ye’or’s theories is what she coins as “Eurabia,” a (not so) clever combination of the words “Europe” and “Arabia.” Basically, the theory is that Arab and Muslim immigration (of “stealth jihadists”) will soon overwhelm Europe, destroy Western culture and civilization forever, and replace the democratic governments with Taliban style theocracies. While that does sound like an interesting plot for a fictional movie, it is pure insanity to take this seriously. Bat Ye’or is simply delusional. David Aaronovitch, a journalist for The Times, labels Bat Ye’or as a conspiracy theorist:
Pinch me a third time while we get to grips with “Eurabia”. This is a concept created by a writer called Bat Ye’or who, according to the publicity for her most recent book, “chronicles Arab determination to subdue Europe as a cultural appendage to the Muslim world-and Europe’s willingness to be so subjugated”. This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea.
Aaronovitch would know; he wrote the book entitled Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History. (Aaronovitch is no “dhimmi” as the Islamophobes would say; he produced a pro-Israeli documentary titled Blaming the Jews.)
Conspiracy Theory: The Churches of Europe are Colluding with Muslims
Bat Ye’or’s lunacy can be ascertained by some of her even more outlandish claims. For example, she accuses the churches in Europe of being in a state of “collusion with the Muslims,” which she says have of their own volition become “Christian slave militias” that will “spearhead…the Islamic war against Christianity.” According to her, the churches of Europe “reject…the Bible, which they read with a Koranic understanding.” She goes on to say that European Christians “are more inclined to follow the Koranic Muslim Jesus, called Isa, than the Jewish Jesus.” Can any sober academic–or even sensible layman–take such drivel seriously? But perhaps the reader thinks that we have taken her words out of context (after all, who could say something so crazy!), so let us reproduce her entire nonsensical answer verbatim so that her madness can be firmly established in the eyes of the reader:
JW: You’re accusing churches of collusion with the Muslims?
BY [Bat Ye'or]: Yes. Those churches know perfectly well the dire condition of Christians in Muslim lands. But instead of denouncing it, they adopt the militancy of the Janissaries, those Christian slave militias that were the spearhead of the Islamic war against Christianity. They forbid Christians to reveal the iniquities of modern dhimmitude in Arab countries, the enslavement of Christians in Sudan, the abductions and jihadic terror against innocent population. Those churches follow an arcionist theological line which separates the Gospels from the Hebrew Bible. They reject the historical legitimacy of Israel in its own land and, therefore, reject also the Bible, which they read with a Koranic understanding. They are more inclined to follow the Koranic Muslim Jesus, called Isa, than the Jewish Jesus. In my book, I call them the Islamized churches because their rejection of Israel’s history implies their refusal of the Bible and their acceptance of the Koranic version of the Bible that considers Christianity as a deformation of Islam.
This lunacy has been affirmed by another well-known loon–Daniel Pipes–who writes:
The historian Bat Ye’or, the first person to comprehend the gradual process of Europe accepting the dhimmi status, observes that this fundamental shift began with the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, when the continent began moving “into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence, thus breaking the traditional trans-Atlantic solidarity.”
Translation: not only has Europe fallen under the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence–and not only has it become a subservient “dhimmi” to the Arab world–it is doing so willingly and of its own volition. Riiiight, riiiight. So Pipes is not far behind Bat Ye’or in looniness, which explains his reliance on her work.
Voice of Reason
Adam Keller, a well-known Israeli peace activist and cofounder of Gush Shalom, wrote a letter of protest to the Israeli publisher of Bat Ye’or’s book:
In 1886 the French antisemite Edouard Drumont published ‘La France Juive’ (Jewish France), creating the false nightmarish image of a France dominated by Jews, and sowing the poisonous seeds which came to fruit when Vichi French officials collaborated in the mass murder of French Jewry…
Bat Yeor’, [is] a British inflammatory writer who presumes to be a historian and who, I regret to note, is Jewish. In this book - which, like the other works of this writer, is little more than a rabid anti-Muslim tract - ‘Bat Yeor’ follows in notorious footsteps indeed by creating the false nightmarish image of a Europe dominated by Arabs and Muslims. As Edouard Drumont sought to arouse the French people to persecute and kill their Jewish neighbours, so does Ms. Littman intend to drive Europeans into a continent-wide orgy of hatred and violence against the Muslim immigrants who are now a significant ethnic minority throughout the continent, and the great majority of whom seek nothing but to live useful and fruitful lives in their new homelands.
Ms. Littman’s reasons for writing her racist and inflammatory book are all too obvious. The reasons why you, a respectable publishing house, have chosen to present it to the Israeli public are far more obscure. Whatever these reasons might be, surely - now that you already taken this step - it would be appropriate to complete your task and produce also a companion volume, i.e. a Hebrew translation of ‘La France Juive’? After all, the informed Israeli reading public deserves to be given the chance of comparing the classical work of a master racist demagogue with that of his loyal present-day disciple and successor.
Craigh Smith of The New York Times refers to Bat Ye’or as one “of the most extreme voices” of the right:
A curious thing is happening in Belgium these days: a small but vocal number of Jews are supporting a far-right party whose founders were Nazi collaborators. The xenophobic party, Vlaams Belang, plays on fears of Arab immigrants and, unlike the prewar parties from which it is descended, courts Jewish votes…
Those fears shape some of the most extreme voices on the new Jewish right. Giselle Littman, who was expelled from Egypt in 1957 and now publishes under the pseudonym Bat Yeor, argues in her latest book, ”Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis,” that Europe has consciously allied itself with the Arab world at the expense of Jews and the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Johann Hari of The Independent writes of Bat Ye’or:
There are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca. Meet Bat Ye’or, a “scholar” who argues that Europe is on the brink of being transformed into a conquered continent called “Eurabia”.
In this new land, Christians and Jews will be reduced by the new Muslim majority to the status of “dhimmis” - second-class citizens forced to “walk in the gutter”. This will not happen by accident. It is part of a deliberate and “occult” plan, concocted between the Arab League and leading European politicians like Jacques Chirac and Mary Robinson, who secretly love Islam and are deliberately flooding the continent with Muslim immigrants. As Orianna Fallacci - one of the best-selling writers in Italy - has summarised the thesis in her hymns of praise to Ye’or, “Muslims have been told to come here and breed like rats.”
Rather than dismissing her preposterous assertions, high-profile writers like Melanie Phillips, Daniel Pipes and Niall Ferguson laud Ye’or as a suppressed hero, silenced by (you guessed it) “political correctness”. Her name is brandished as a gold standard in right-wing Tory circles. It’s interesting that writers so alert to anti-Semitism have lent their names to an ideology that is so startlingly similar. In this theory, the Star of David has simply been replaced by the Islamic crescent. If the term has any meaning, this is authentic Islamophobia, treating virtually all Muslims as verminous sharia-carriers. So why are these people still treated as serious and sane by the BBC and its editors?
Selective and Shoddy “Scholarship”
Bat Ye’or’s idea of history is nothing short of propaganda. She said in one interview:
The Arab invaders arrived in [Jerusalem in] the 7th century, devastated the country, massacred and enslaved the population and expropriated the Jewish and Christian indigenous populations, as is related by contemporaneous sources.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
As for her actual work on dhimmis (Non-Muslims under Muslim rule) is concerned, it is selective and shoddy “scholarship.” Professor Robert Brenton Betts, a well-renowned American historian who worked for the Library of Congress and the Department of State, criticizes Bet Ye’or’s book:
The general tone of the book is strident and anti-Muslim. This is coupled with selective scholarship designed to pick out the worst examples of anti-Christian behavior by Muslim governments, usually in time of war and threats to their own destruction (as in the case of the deplorable Armenian genocide of 1915). Add to this the attempt to demonize the so-called Islamic threat to Western civilization and the end-product is generally unedifying and frequently irritating.
(source: Robert Brenton Betts, “The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude” Middle East Policy 5-3 ; September 1997, pp. 200-2003)
Professor Michael Sells of the University of Chicago writes:
By obscuring the existence of pre-Christian and other old, non-Christian communities in Europe as well as the reason for their disappearance in other areas of Europe [due to Christian persecution], Bat Ye’or constructs an invidious comparison between the allegedly humane Europe of Christian and Enlightenment values and the ever present persecution within Islam. Whenever the possibility is raised of actually comparing circumstances of non-Christians in Europe to non-Muslims under Islamic governance in a careful, thoughtful manner, Bat Ye’or forecloses such comparison.
(source: The New Crusades: Construction the Muslim Enemy, by Professor Michael Sells, p.364)
In other words, the comparison that Bat Ye’or–and Islamophobes in general–flee from is the one between the Muslim lands in the pre-modern era with the contemporaneous Christian Europe. Instead, they choose to compare medieval Islamdom with post-enlightenment and postmodern standards, a most unequal and unusually obtuse comparison. Jan Platvoet sums it up best with a very nuanced answer (emphasis is mine):
Arab scholars praise the tolerance of Islam towards the ‘protected population’. The Egyptian Qasim ‘Abduh Qasim, for instance, who has published several works on the dhimmis in Muslim lands in general, and Egypt in particular, emphasizes the positive attitude of Muslims towards non-Muslims, even under the regime of the eleventh-century Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, known for his persecution of minorities, especially the Christians.
The opposite point of view is represented by a number of researchers, notably a writer who [uses] the pseudonym Bat Ye’or, i.e. Daughter of the Nile. She has managed to select from the body of historiographical evidence, chronicles and documents, only that material which portrays the negative aspects. Some such materials can occasionally be found, relating to various episodes, periods, and areas; it is therefore no wonder that she has succeeded in filling a complete volume, now published in several languages, on the maltreatment of the dhimmis by Muslims. Bat Ye’or has recently published a new book dedicated exclusively to the long history of Christians under Muslim rule; this book is characterized by the same spirit as her previous book on the dhimmis.
…It seems that the truth lies somewhere in between [Qasim and Bat Ye'or's version]…The life of the dhimmis in the shade of Islam was certainly not easy, but at least their physical security (aman) and the safety of their property was assured, almost without exception.
(Pluralism and Identity, by Jan Platvoet, p.169)

Nazi propaganda showing Jewish octopus taking over the world, not unlike image up top of Islamic crescent taking over Europe
In other words, Bat Ye’or scours historical texts to find all the negative points she possibly can, and then she compiles them into a book. Naturally, the span of Islamic history was over a thousand years, so she can easily fill up hundreds of pages, giving the credulous reader the false impression that Islamic history was incredibly dastardly. To give a suitable analogy, let’s say Rodney King were to scour all the reports throughout the country for the last fifty years for all acts of police brutality–and then compiled them into a book–he could easily fill hundreds of pages. A person who relied on his book would get the false impression that the police were–and are–always brutal, or at least more so than not. One gets a skewed picture from such a selective analysis.
The Islamophobe Robert Spencer argues that Bat Ye’or’s book is convincing because it is “full…[of] almost half primary source documents so that one can see the voracity of what she is saying from very ancient texts.” Yet it is convincing only because it is selective and biased; Bat Ye’or simply sifted throughout Islamic history to selectively find all the instances of anti-Jewish and anti-Christian persecution, ignoring the overwhelming majority of Islamic history which was characterized according to the overwhelming number of scholars by relative tolerance (for the times, and certainly compared to Christendom); if Bat Ye’or could fill a book with her quotes, it would only be a slight exaggeration to say that we could fill an entire anthology with quotes highlighting the relative tolerance of Muslims. Taken selectively, Bat Ye’or’s choice of quotes seem damning, but diluted within the proper context, they would be less convincing of an argument. One can easily carry out such a hatchet job on Christian (and even Jewish) history in a similar fashion.
World renowned Jewish-Israeli historian Nissim Rejwan warns:
By way of conclusion, a word of caution is in order…It must be pointed out that the picture has not been uniformly so rosy and that instances of religious intolerance toward and discriminatory treatment of Jews under Islam are by no means difficult to find. This point is of special relevance at a time in which, following a reawakening of interest in the history of Arab-Jewish relations among Jewish writers and intellectuals, certain interested circles have been trying to…[question the] Judeo-Arabic tradition or symbiosis by digging up scattered pieces of evidence to show that Islam is essentially intolerant…and that Muslims’ contempt for Jews was even greater and more deep-seated than that manifested by Christians…
Such caricatures of the history of Jews under Islam continue to be disseminated by scholars as well as by interested publicists and ideologues. Indeed, all discussion of relations between Jews and Muslims…is beset by the most burning emotions and by highly charged sensitivities. In their eagerness to repudiate the generally accepted version of these relations (a version which, it is worthwhile pointing out, originates not in Muslim books of history but with Jewish historians and Orientalists in nineteenth-century Europe), certain partisan students of the Middle East conflict today seem to go out of their way to show that, far from being the record of harmonious coexistence it is often claimed to be, the story of Jewish-Muslim relations since the time of Muhammad was “a sorry array of conquest, massacre, subjection, spoilation in goods and women and children, contempt, expulsion-[and] even the yellow badge…”
Informed by a fervor seldom encountered in scholarly discourse, some of these latter-day historians have gone so far as to question even the motives of those European-Jewish scholars of the past century who virtually founded modern Oriental and Arabic studies and managed to unearth the impressive legacy of Judeo-Arabic culture, a culture that was undeniably an outcome of a long and symbiotic encounter between Muslims and Jews.
…[But] by the standards then prevailing-and they are plainly the only ones by which a historian is entitled to pass judgment-Spanish Islamic tolerance was no myth but a reality of which present-day Muslim Arabs are fully justified in reminding their contemporaries…Tolerance, then, is a highly relative concept, and the only sensible way of gauging the extent of tolerance in a given society or culture in a given age is to compare it with that prevailing in other societies and cultures in the same period…
The only plausible conclusion one could draw from the whole debate is that, while Jewish life in Muslim Spain-and under Islam generally-was not exactly the idyllic paradise some would want us to believe, it was far from the veritable hell that was the Jews’ consistent lot under Christendom.
Bat Ye’or: The Pioneer of “Dhimmitude”

The Usual Suspects: Bat Ye'or and Robert Spencer
It should be noted that the Islamophobe Robert Spencer refers to Bat Ye’or as “the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude” (emphasis is ours). The word “pioneer” indicates that she is the first to voice such views. In other words, the traditional and long-established understanding of academics and historians is at variance with Bat Ye’or’s assessment: Muslim history was characterized by relative lenience and tolerance towards dhimmis. (Again, all things are relative; while certainly it wouldn’t be considered tolerant to today’s standards and norms, back then it certainly was, evidenced by historical statements from the “dhimmis” themselves.)
The fact that Bat Ye’or is the first to challenge traditional and established opinion is evidenced by what J.G. Jansen, an outspoken Dutch critic of militant Islam, says:
In 1985, Bat Ye’or offered Islamic studies a surprise with her book, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, a convincing demonstration that the notion of a traditional, lenient, liberal, and tolerant Muslim treatment of the Jewish and Christian minorities is more myth than reality.
While Jansen’s view that Bat Ye’or’s book is “convincing” is certainly questionable coming from him, his quote is significant in that it shows that up until Bat Ye’or’s book the traditional and predominant scholarly opinion was that Islamic history was characterized by relative tolerance, certainly in comparison to contemporaneous Christendom. Bat Ye’or is after all the one who coined the term “dhimmitude,” which Islamophobes–including Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes–make recurrent use of.

The Usual Suspects: Bat Ye'or and Pamela Geller
The fact that Bat Ye’or is the first to counter traditional opinion does not mean that the predominant view of scholars has changed, as Bat Ye’or “is still quite far from entering the European mainstream,” according to Shwartz. But–according to Wistrich–”a real change toward her emerged in the 1990s, and especially in recent years,” as she became accepted in “extreme right-wing circles.” It is this motley group which is trying through sheer force and fear to influence academia, and push pseudo-intellectuals like Bat Ye’or into the arena of historical discourse. The fact that the leading Islamophobes reference her (including Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Pamela Geller) indicates the weakness of their sources, and calls to question their own credibility.
Spencer argues that it is only “political correctness” that prevents people from taking Bat Ye’or seriously; no, my Islamophobic friend, it is not political correctness, but academic integrity. When you consider an Islamophobe to be the leading scholar of Islam in the world, then something is profoundly wrong. Simply substitute the word “Jews” for “Muslims” in the following sentence and the matter becomes clear: “Muslims will take over Europe.” Anyone who said that about Jews would be branded an Anti-Semite and academically ostracized, yet hey, it’s open season for Muslim-bashing!
The Bottom Line
Even if we were to accept the fallacious argument that Muslim history was characterized by profound and incessant intolerance, then what does that mean for us today? The Mongols were historically known to be intolerant, at least the Genghis Khan variety; how should that affect our opinion of Mongolians today? Do we discriminate against them based on their historical record? What do the present day Mongolians have to do with those of the past? Do people inherit sins?
The relevance of Islamic history to today’s popular discourse is questionable. It is in fact designed to demonize Muslims, but the reality is that the question shouldn’t even arise. Why is it that Muslims of today are on trial for what their ancestors supposedly did? Should all nations now demand their pound of flesh from all who wronged their people in ancient times? Maybe we should create a system of reparations…?
Then what is the end goal for Islamophobes like Bat Ye’or? Why does she spend so much time pontificating about the historical record? It all boils down to one thing: immigration. She has highlighted the negative aspects of Islamic history in order to push the argument for a tight control (or rather, full cessation) of Arab and Muslim immigration to Europe. Indeed, Islamophobia is simply another flavor of xenophobia.
In every generation, there have been xenophobes, who have this irrational fear of the other. In American history, it started with the Irish and Italian immigrants who were both heavily discriminated against due to their religion and skin color. Then it was against the Chinese who were brought to build railroads, the Japanese in World War II, and so on. What history has born out consistently however is that the xenophobes always end up with egg on their faces. They are on the wrong side; tolerance and multiculturalism always win out over intolerance and bigotry. The question is: which side are you on?

Temple University Rejects Geert Wilders

2009-10-21T10:04:00.001-07:00

Temple University Rejects Geert Wilders
Posted on 18 October 2009 by Barbel

Temple University Rejects Geert Wilders
Contrary to what those at the ironically named David Horowitz Freedom Center have been claiming, Geert Wilders was not planning to travel to Philadelphia from the Netherlands solely for the purpose of informing Americans about terrorism. The notion that a politician from the Netherlands needed to travel to a city less than two hours away from Ground Zero to inform us about the nature of terrorism or the challenges we face from it in the future would be laughable if it were not such a grim indicator of the state of the world today.
So, we must wonder, what then was the real motive for the Dutch politician’s planned visit? Based on Wilders’ record, it is clear that the purpose behind the speech was to convince Americans that Islam as a religion is the root cause of terror and that the United States must seriously consider curtailing the civil liberties of its Muslim population if it wishes to survive as a free nation. We need only to look at some of the many previous comments Wilders has made to come to this conclusion.
“It is not a coincidence that every terroristic act, almost every terroristic act, aimed and based on this fascist book, the Koran, and this wrong ideology, Islam, unfortunately has been done by people from Islamic [background]“
“I don’t believe in a moderate Islam. I don’t believe in what some people call a European Islam. I don’t think there will be [a moderate Islam] and if there will be, in time, it will be in two or three thousand years.”
“Madam Chairman, this country has an excise tax on petrol and diesel, it has parking permits and a dog tax, it has an airline ticket tax and has a packaging tax, so why not tax the headscarf? A Head Rag Tax.”
We were fortunate this time around that students and the administration at Temple University were informed of Wilders’ nefarious agenda by the commendable efforts of the Muslim Students Association on campus and his slanderous speech (which is not protected by the First Amendment) was canceled before it could take place. Rumor has it though that Columbia University has decided to hold the speech instead. One can only hope that they too come to the realization that slander is not a right acknowledged by the First Amendment nor is it a form of speech worthy of being granted a position at the podium of an institution of higher learning.
To understand why Wilders’ words should be considered as slanderous, we have to take a few steps back and look at the big picture. Slander involves the speaking of false words that damage the recipient’s reputation (luckily for Wilders, one can not be sued for slandering a religion or ideology). Wilders’ claim is that there are elements intrinsic to Islam itself that promote acts of terror against civilians. To support his position he has crafted a youtube-sized video that cleverly juxtaposes carefully selected passages from the Quran and speeches by terrorist leaders with acts of terror. Ignoring the fact that anyone with more than a cursory knowledge of the Quran could show that the passages Wilders [and his intellectual brethren in Al Qaeda] chose are taken out of context, Wilders has forgotten the very basic of all rules of statistics. Correlation does not imply causation. The significant number of Muslims involved in terrorist actions does not mean that Islam is the cause, nor do most Americans follow that crass logic.
How can Islam as a religion be culpable for causing terror if terror itself has had such a long history of being practiced by people of varying faiths and no faith? When Native Americans attacked and killed all of the inhabitants of Jamestown, what was it but terrorism? When President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz, what was it but terrorism? When the Zionist group, Irgun, bombed unarmed Palestinian and British civilians, what was it but terrorism? Any argument that attempts to assert that Native American beliefs, or anarchist beliefs, or the Zionist movement, intrinsically promote terror against civilians is absurd and patently false. Similarly, any argument that claims that Islamic scripture promotes terror simply because Islam is the religion practiced by most terrorist today is just as absurd and just as patently false.
There are more than one and a half billion Muslims in the world today. If Wilders’ assertions about Islam were correct, one in four people would be attempting to kill the other 3 people. Were this to happen, global civilization would quickly disintegrate as we faced a level of warfare that would make World War II look like nothing more than a rough game of beach volleyball. Since this is clearly not the case, we are left with the possibility that the vast majority of Muslims who have condemned terrorism have misunderstood their religion and that Geert Wilders, great scholar of Islam that he is, has uncovered Islam’s true message. Once again, this would be a laughable notion if it were not such a grim indicator of the current realities of political thought.
The unfortunate truth is that terrorism is simply a tool used by peoples who have exhausted all others means of resistance. Fanaticism and terrorism by a people who have had their lives and liberties attacked from every possible direction is a deplorable yet predictable phenomena that is independent from any particular set of religious or ideological beliefs. In the last century alone, those living in the the “Muslim World” have had to face challenges stemming from the decline of formal religious institutions, the abrupt end of colonialism, the imposition of forced dictatorships, the creation and failure of arbitrary nation-states, and the existence of occupying foreign armies on their land. The combined effect of these forces has unfortunately resulted in a rise in the number of people who see acts of terror as the only means by which they can establish a system of social justice that they believe will give them the freedoms they desire. Islamic scripture is used as a way to rationalize the approach these individuals have chosen to achieve their goal, similar to the way Christian scripture was used to rationalize the political and financial ambitions of the papacy during the Crusades.
Until Geert Wilders is able to demonstrate that Islam, and not the numerous other factors that have historically played a role in cultivating terror, is the actual cause for terrorism today–a task as unachievable as it is absurd– his claims amount to slander and defamation and should be treated as such. Temple University was right to rescind their offer to have Wilders speak and Columbia should follow suit. Slander has no place in a free and just society; especially slander that utilizes hate speech to promote discrimination.
Editor’s Update: Temple University has decided, under pressure it seems to allow the Temple University Purpose to go ahead with the Geert Wilders speech. After initially signalling that it would not be permitted they are going ahead with it in the name of “free speech,” an argument we addressed above. However, aside from leading administrators it seems the whole University, consisting of the student body and the faculty have indeed “rejected” Wilders.
Temple U. Uneasy as anti-Islam Figure is Set to Speak
The Student Senate has joined ranks with several organizations decrying a student group’s invitation to Dutch politician Geert Wilders, known for anti-Islamic and anti-immigration beliefs, to speak on campus.
In an overwhelming vote yesterday, the governing body passed a resolution denouncing Wilders for “intolerable, disgraceful and prejudiced slandering of the Islamic faith.”
Student Senate President Jeff Dempsey said he couldn’t support the decision to invite Wilders and hoped that the university would pull the plug on the program at the last minute.
“I’ve never been ashamed to be a Temple student,” Dempsey said, adding that university-sponsored dollars were not used to fund the event. “Our proud embrace of diversity and inclusion is tarnished by this man’s provocation of hate.”
Wilders was invited to speak by a new group on campus called Temple University Purpose.
Before the meeting, about a dozen students held signs with phrases including “Temple U. Does Not Condone Hate” and “Hate Speech [does not equal] Free Speech.”
Among the demonstrators was Megan Chialastri, vice president of All Sides, an organization that seeks to promote peace between Israel and Palestine.
“We feel student groups should not bring people on campus that jeopardize the safety, or just the way people feel on this campus,” she said.
In a letter issued last week, Monira Gamal-Eldin, president of the Muslim Students Association, criticized the university for being the first in the United States to allow Wilders to address students.
“The Muslim population at Temple feels attacked, threatened and ultimately unsafe that Mr. Wilders has been invited to voice his hate-driven opinions,” she wrote.
“The decision to allow Mr. Wilders to share his viewpoints is a danger not only for the public safety of Muslims and the honor of the core principle of Islam, but also for academic integrity and objectivity on campus.”
Nonetheless, the event will go on as planned, said university spokesman Ray Betzner. “We respect the right of our student organizations to invite people who express a wide variety of views and ideas,” he wrote in an e-mail yesterday.
David Horowitz, of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which funded the event, issued a letter asking university officials to disregard the concerns of the Muslim students.
“The Temple community should reject the call by the MSA to censor free speech on the Temple campus, and should recognize it for what it is - an assault on the right of all Americans to have a democracy that is inclusive, tolerant and respectful of the rights of others,” he wrote.
The event is not intended to offend any group, but to provide a forum for students to discuss sensitive subjects, said Brittany Walsh, president of Purpose, a social and political group that organized the event. She added that her group does not share Wilders’ views.
“I respect their opposition to it,” she said of the Muslim students. “The purpose of TU Purpose is to hash out unconventional views . . . to promote freedom of speech and give students an education opportunity of a lifetime to raise concerns and issues with a prominent international figure.”
But Barry Scatton, whose College Republicans organization had co-sponsored the event but now condemns it, said that discussion shouldn’t come at the expense of others.
“It’s caused so much personal trauma to a lot of students,” he said. “That is not the goal for me or my organization.”
As a precaution, Temple officials will dispatch university police for crowd control, a security official said. The event is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in Room 17 of Anderson Hall, on Berks Street between 11th and 12th.
Wilders, a leader of the Party for Freedom, in the Netherlands, has made headlines for a string of controversial actions.
In 2008, Wilders escaped prosecution in England for allegedly inciting hatred of Muslims after releasing his short film “Fitna,” in which Quran verses are shown alongside images from terrorist attacks.
Before that, Wilders had called for bans on the Quran - likening it to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf - and the burka, the Muslim women’s garment that covers most of the body.

Fathima Bary Needs to Read Her Bible; Final Word on Islam and Apostasy

2009-10-21T10:03:00.001-07:00

Fathima Bary Needs to Read Her Bible; Final Word on Islam and Apostasy
Posted on 28 September 2009 by Danios

An emotional Fathima Rifqa Bary–whose personal writings reaveal that she wants to be a modern day prophet–said of her parents:
“My parents are Muslim…I don’t know if you know about honor killing…They have to kill me…Because if they love Allah more than me, they have to do it. It’s in the Quran. And you can, like, give them knowledge about it [gestures to someone off camera, who says something unintelligible].”
It seems that Fathima’s understanding of the Quran comes from whomever she pointed to, whom I can only assume is her pastor (or pastor’s underling more likely). A few more dry runs could have perfected the performance. She just had to memorize a few verses to prove her claim:
13:6 If–your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend, which is as your own soul–entice you secretly, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods,” which you have not known–not you, nor your fathers;
13:7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, near to you, or far off from you, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
13:8 You shall not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall your eye pity him, neither shall you spare, neither shall you conceal him:
13:9 But you must surely kill him; your hand must be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
13:10 And you must stone him with stones, that he die; because he has sought to thrust you away from the LORD your God.
Well, that’s pretty damning evidence right there. That sounds a lot like “honor” killing: “If your brother…or your son or your daughter….entice you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’…You must kill him…you must stone him with stones, that he die.” Well, if that’s in the Quran, then we better ban all Muslim immigration to America!
But before we call Homeland Security, I hope you don’t mind if I check the Quran to verify if those verses exist.
[Flipping through pages of Quran]
Hmmm, can’t seem to find it.
Oh wait, *smacks forehead*, I remember now where those verses are from. Ahh yes, they are from the Bible (Deuteronomy, 13:6-10). There are of course many other Biblical verses in the same vein, such as 2 Chronicles 15:13 which reads: “All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.”
Oopsie doopsie!
Maybe it’s not such a good idea to randomly quote someone else’s scripture or medieval texts without any context as a proof to demonize a people or to fear monger.
Introduction
Islamophobes insist that Islam says that apostates must be killed. These ardent critics of the faith are of the view that Islam is for this reason simply incompatible with the Western Judeo-Christian tradition. Their view–which they try to propagate–is that Islam is somehow so inherently different from all other religions that it should be singled out as the one faith that we just absolutely cannot tolerate.
The issue of course is that “Islam” doesn’t “say” anything, since it is not a person. Islam is in fact polyvalent: it has within it different understandings and interpretations of the religion. On this particular issue, Islam itself doesn’t “say” anything. Valerie Hoffman, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Illinois, commented on the issue of apostasy in Islam: “You can’t say Islam says this or Islam says that.” The question of course is “whose Islam” and “which Islam?”
Yes, the majority “classical” and “traditional” opinion codified hundreds of years ago was indeed that apostates from Islam should be killed. However, such views are abundantly present in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well, yet Jews and Christians have over the course of time reanalyzed their canonical texts and come to different understandings today.
Before the Great War, the Ottoman Empire united Muslim lands under one symbolic leadership. (Perhaps an oversimplification but it suffices for our discussion here.) It is interesting to note that the Ottoman government eventually stopped enforcing the punishment for apostasy and finally abolished it altogether in 1844, more than one hundred and sixty years ago:
Punishment for apostasy (in any case, extremely rare) was not in practice enforced in later times and was completely abolished by the [Ottoman] Turks by a decree of the Ottoman government in 1260/1844.
(The New Encyclopedia of Islam, by Cyril Glasse, p.54)
And we read:
The Ottoman Caliphate, the supreme representative of Sunni Islam, formally abolished this penalty…The Shaykh al-Islam, the supreme head of the religious courts and colleges, ratified this major shift in traditional legal doctrine. It was pointed out that there is no verse in the Qur’an that lays down a punishment for apostasy (although chapter 5 verse 54 and chapter 2 verse 217 predict a punishment in the next world). It was also pointed out that the ambiguities in the hadith (the sayings of the Prophet) suggest that apostasy is only an offense when combined with the crime of treason…
The debate triggered by the Ottoman reform was continued when al-Azhar University in Cairo, the supreme religious authority in the Arab world, delivered a formal fatwa (religious edict) in 1958, which confirmed the abolition of the classical law in this area.
(T.J. Winters writing for Newsweek)
It should be kept in mind that the Ottomans had embraced change, pushing what came to be known as the Tanzimat reforms, a drive to modernize the Islamic state to be compatible with the contemporary age. They abolished the jizya and dhimmi system; the Hatt-i Humayun of 1856 promised full legal equality for citizens of all religions, and the Nationality Law of 1869 created a common Ottoman citizenship irrespective of religious or ethnic divisions.
The point is that the Islamic state had embraced change and reform of their religious understanding. The debate had begun, but after World War I, the Allies occupied Turkey and Arab lands. They broke up the Ottoman Empire, and carved out mandate states, installing despots into power, something which of course retarded further Muslim intellectual growth.
The modern Muslim world is living with the consequences of these events. Unfortunately, feelings of anti-Westernism have emerged as a backlash to colonialism and subsequent events. Extremists and religious fundamentalists began to define themselves in opposition to the West; the more the West condemned their extreme understandings of Islam, the more “street cred” these fundamentalists garnered. Hey, if the West hates you, and the West is the colonialist, then you must be right! Such was the thought process.
So harsher understandings replaced more tolerant ones, and the punishment for apostates–which had been long abandoned by the Ottoman Empire–was re-instituted in a few Muslim majority countries. As Dr. Tariq Ramadan put it:
The opposition and condemnations by the West supplies, paradoxically, the popular feeling of fidelity to the Islamic teachings; a reasoning that is antithetical, simple and simplistic. The intense opposition of the West is sufficient proof [for them] of the [supposed] authentic Islamic character of the literal application of hudûd (Islamic penal code).
In the context of relationships between countries, we often tend to remember only the conflicts and the wars. We focus on the battles and wars between the Muslim world and the Judeo-Christian West, but on a deeper level, there is another more significant aspect, which is an ideological cultural exchange. Muslims now live in the West; when Western Muslims approach the Islamic texts, they come with a certain background and upbringing which necessarily affects their understanding.
What we have witnessed in the last couple decades is a growing trend of a return back to early reformist understanding of freedom of religion. These reform-minded Muslims have realized that not only is the modern concept of freedom of religion permissible in their religion–and not only is it wholly compatible with the Quran–but rather it is mandated and obligatory in Islam.
A “soft reformation” is taking place in Islam, as mentioned by Dr. Tariq Ramadan and others. The reformists are challenging traditional interpretations and understandings of the religion, and pushing for a repeal of apostasy laws in specific where they exist. The struggle is on, and change cannot and will not happen overnight; the post-colonial mess that the Muslim world finds itself in only retards intellectual growth but the process has begun.
Enter the Islamophobes
Instead of seeking to help the reform-minded Muslims, the Islamophobes have demonized virtually all Muslims, except of course a few self-hating Muslims who simply repeat whatever the Islamophobes want to hear (for which they are rewarded handsomely).
The main argument used by Islamophobes is that Islam as a religion itself advocates the death penalty for apostates, and therefore it is the religion itself–not the interpretation of it–that is the problem, an unusually obtuse and altogether unhelpful assertion. Furthermore, some of them argue, Muslims must abandon their belief in the inerrant nature of the Quran. In other words, the Islamophobes posit that the only possible way for Muslims to become “civilized” is to view the Quran as any other text, deleting what they dislike from it and adding whatever they wish to it–or as Daniel Pipes puts it: to make it “defunct.”
While, certainly, that may seem like a plausible solution to an outsider, the problem is that for the vast majority of Muslims it is quite simply not a possibility; it is anathema to question the Quran’s veracity. Regardless of the arguments back and forth on the issue, the practical reality is that the Muslim masses cannot countenance such a thing; the Islamophobes know this, and that’s why they set up this formula. In other words, they know that the Muslims cannot do this and therefore it has become for the Islamophobes the “only possible solution” to the problem.
Yet, it is hardly the case that the Muslims can only take one possible route to modernization. Reform-minded Muslims believe that a change in the texts is not required, but only a change in the understanding and interpretation of said texts.
Open Texts
The Quran is an open text, because it generally refrains from specifics. In fact, names are almost never used in it, in order that its verses have not only a specific meaning but also a more general import. For example, a verse may have been revealed to placate the Islamic prophet Muhammad during a particularly difficult time in his struggle; so even though the verse will have a specific reason for revelation (to one particular man in one specific situation), it can also be used in a general context: Muslims will use that same verse when they themselves are going through tough times.
Because of this unique structure of the Quranic text, what one gets out of it depends a lot on the reader, who tends to inject into verses his own background and biases, for better or for worse. Having said that, it seems to the author that an unbiased and neutral reading validates the argument of the reform-minded Muslims: nowhere in the Quran does it clearly and definitively say one must kill apostates. In fact, it seems to say the exact opposite.
If Muslims can understand it in that way, why this continual insistence by the Islamophobes that the Muslims “must” abandon their belief in the inerrant nature of the Quran? (Again, it is in order to set up a situation whereby Muslims simply cannot fulfill the requirements to be accepted into society, which is exactly what the Islamophobes desire.)
But enough jibber jabber; the proof is in the pudding.
The Quran
Ms. Fathima Rifqa Bary was incorrect: unlike the Bible, the Quran does not at all say to kill apostates if they choose to leave Islam. Rather, it says the exact opposite. The Quran declares emphatically:
“Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth is distinct from error!” (Quran, 2:256)
Almost every Muslim knows this verse by heart. It categorically closes the door to religious compulsion, and is used by reform-minded Muslims to promote freedom of religion and the idea that the people have a right to follow whatever religion they so choose. Because “truth is distinct from error,” people should be able to discern it for themselves without having to be forced.
Tafsir al-Jalalayn, a classical Islamic text, says of this verse: “This was revealed concerning the Ansar who tried to compel their sons to enter into Islam.” Some of their children were Jewish, and the parents wished to force them to become Muslims. In Al-Suyuti’s classical text Asbab al-Nuzul (Reasons for Revelation), it also says that there was a Muslim father by the name of Husayn bin Salim bin Awf who had two daughters both of whom were Christians. After failing to convince them to convert to Islam of their own free will, he went to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and requested permission to compel them into Islam. It was for this that the verse “Let there be no compulsion in religion” was revealed, to forbid parents from forcibly converting their children to Islam.
The relevance to the Fathima Rifqa Bary case cannot be understated: contrary to Fathima’s claim, the Quran forbids religious compulsion in general. The verse in question was specifically revealed for parents in regard to their children of different faiths. Amazingly, the Quranic verse was revealed to forbid a Muslim father from forcing his Christian daughters into Islam. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like Mr. Bary and his daughter! So how accurate was Fathima’s claim that the Quran commands parents to force their children into Islam or kill them if they refuse?
Ironically, it is the Bible–the same one that Fathima holds–that has verses in it commanding parents to stone their daughters should they worship gods other than the Christian one. Considering that Fathima espouses a hardliner literalistic Christian fundamentalist mentality, we wonder if she would even contextualize the verse like the Christian mainstream does? (This is not about Christianity vs Islam; this is about extremists vs moderates; Fathima and the Global Revolution Church are not representative of mainstream Christianity, at least not any more than Al-Muhajiroon is of the Islamic mainstream!)
Alas, I digress. Back to the Quran, which says:
“And if your Lord had pleased, surely all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them; will you then force men till they become believers?” (Quran, 10:99)
Reform-minded Muslims use the above verse to argue that forcing people into Islam is wrong because God Himself did not do that. They believe that the power to guide and misguide people rests only with God, and nobody can share in that. The next verse is used by reformists to show that Muslims should just worry about what they themselves do, instead of trying to force people into guidance:
“And had God willed, He could have made you all one [religious] community, but He sends astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. But you shall certainly be called to account for what you (yourself) used to do [i.e. not what others used to do].” (Quran, 16:93)
The phrase–“God guides Whom He wills” and that He “misguides Whom He wills”–appears in dozens of Quranic verses. All of these references are commanding believers that they cannot force or will people into the religion, but that only God can do that.
The Quran commands:
“The Truth is from your Lord; so let him who please believe and let him who please disbelieve.” (Quran, 18:29)
And the Quran says:
“Exhort them to believe; your task is only to exhort. You cannot compel them to believe.” (Quran, 88:21-22)
Another verse in the Quran indicates that during the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, there were people who believed and disbelieved–and then believed only to disbelieve once again; in other words, people entered into and out of the religion freely. The Quran says that such people are weak in faith and God will never guide them in this worldly life. The verse reads:
“Those who believe then disbelieve, again believe and again disbelieve, then increase in disbelief, Allah will never forgive them nor guide them to the Way.” (Quran, 4:137)
Reform-minded Muslims use this verse as a proof that there can be no punishment for apostasy. If that had been the case, then those who believe and then disbelieved (i.e. apostates) would have been put to death and therefore no chance would have been given to them to once again believe and disbelieve. Furthermore, the verse says that God will never guide them back to Islam, indicating that the Muslims are to ignore such a person: if God did not guide them to the Way, then why should Muslims?
So there are clear and explicit verses of the Quran that reform-minded Muslims naturally understand to mean that freedom of religion must be extended to all, and that compulsion into Islam is not to be tolerated.
The Hadiths
Enter the Hadiths. For those who don’t know, the Hadiths are a body of collection of the prophet Muhammad’s sayings or traditions. In other words, the Quran is considered by Muslims to be the word of God, and the Hadiths are the words of their prophet. Unlike the Quran however, Muslims do not believe that all of the Hadiths are authentic. Rather, many of them are apocryphal and therefore rejected. In other words, if some Islamophobe claims that such-and-such Hadith exists, be aware of the fact that many of them are rejected by Muslims. The Hadiths do not occupy the same rank as the Quran, but are rather a secondary source open to criticism.
In this huge body of collection, we find the Hadith that Islamophobes rely on as their trump card in this debate, which reads as follows: “Whoever changes his religion, kill him.” At first glance, that seems pretty clear and unambiguous but has the Islamophobe proven his case? Well, let’s take into consideration that the Bible has many seemingly clear and unambiguous verses which call to kill apostates, yet we never assume that Christians today believe this, nor do we insist that Christianity itself demands it.
A Christian–when confronted with those verses in the Bible–would respond by saying something like the following:
“Well, that’s the Old Testament, and Jesus abrogated that part of the law. Back then during Biblical times, the believers were few and there was a real fear that they would be eliminated so punishing apostates was a deterrent. Furthermore, at that time apostasy was akin to high treason.”
And this answer would completely placate the Islamophobes. In other words, verses that seemed unambiguous and clear from a religious book seemed to indicate one thing at face value, but the people who follow that book have a different way of understanding it: they give an explanation that contextualizes the verses.
Let’s be clear here: we’re not trying to bash Christianity at all. What we are saying however is that if we extend the common courtesy to Christians that they can contextualize such verses in the Bible, then why do we not extend the same courtesy to the Muslims when it comes to the Hadiths? Keep in mind also that Muslims believe that their Bible–so to speak–is the Quran and not the Hadiths. In other words, if Christianity’s primary source seems to say that apostates are to be killed, then why do we not accept any explanation from Muslims about their secondary source? (Hint: Islamophobia is the answer!) It is this terrible double standard that bothers Muslims and those who believe in religious tolerance.
So how do reform-minded Muslims contextualize the Hadith in question (i.e. “whoever changes his religion, kill him.”)? First of all, they point out that these are not the words of the Islamic prophet Muhammad to begin with; rather, these are the the words of a man named Ibn Abbas who was paraphrasing the words of the Islamic prophet. The full text of that particular Hadith is as follows:
Some Zanadiqa were brought to Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn Abbas who said, “If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah’s Apostle forbade it, saying: Do not punish anybody with Allah’s punishment (fire). I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Apostle: Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.” (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 84, Number 57)
If this was a paraphrase, what were the actual words of the Islamic prophet Muhammad? We find one such Hadith which says:
“The blood of a Muslim, who confesses that there is no God but God and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: (1) In penalty for murder, (2) a married person who commits adultery and (3) the one who reverts from Islam (apostates) and leaves the community.” (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 12, Book ad-Diyat, Number 6878, p.209)
Based on this, reformists say that a person cannot be given capital punishment except for three offenses: (1) murder, (2) adultery, and (3) apostasy combined with “leav[ing] the community.” Such Muslims say that apostasy is not punished except for when it is combined with “leav[ing] the community,” which they say refers to high treason against the Islamic state. What is meant specifically by “leaving the community” is of leaving the community to join the enemy forces. To bolster this claim, reformists point to another similarly narrated Hadith, which reads:
“The blood of a Muslim, who confesses that none has the right to be worshiped but God and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: (1) a married person who commits adultery; he is to be stoned and (2) a man who went out fighting against God and His Messenger; he is to be killed or crucified or exiled from the land and (3) a man who murders another person; he is to be killed on account of it.” (Sunan Abu Dawud, Vol. 4, Number 4353, p. 126)
In other words, we have the exact same three instances in which a person may be put to death: (1) murder, (2) adultery, and (3) “a man who went out fighting against God and His Messenger.” Reform-minded Muslims reason that since the Islamic prophet restricted capital punishment to three classes of people, the third instance must be referring to the same group. In other words “leav[ing] the community” refers to “a man who went out fighting against God and His Messenger.” Reform-minded Muslims tie these Hadiths to the following Quranic verse:
“The punishment of those who wage war against God and His Apostle, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: this is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.” (Quran, 5:33)
Notice how similar the above verse is to the Hadith mentioned in Sunan Abu Dawud (above). The Hadith mentions the one “who went out fighting against God and His Messenger” whilst the Quran says “those who wage war against God and His Apostle,” and the punishment for such is also the same in both: “killed or crucified or exiled from the land.” Reformists point out that the opinion of the ultraconservative Muslims–that peaceful apostates are to be killed–does not jive with the above, since that would mean that a person is to be killed for other than the three reasons, even though the Islamic prophet limited it to only three reasons, not four.
And even if we say that the Hadiths do not limit capital punishment to only three reasons, argue reformists, the issue is that the two Hadiths (as found in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sunan Abu Dawood) both mention three sins–murder, adultery, and apostasy/waging war. It is abundantly clear then that the third sin (other than murder and adultery) is in reference to the same thing in both narrations, due to the congruency of the two Hadiths–which firmly establishes the linkage so the linking of apostasy to treason is firmly established by the congruency of the two Hadiths. This argument stands alone in itself and is not dependent on limiting capital punishment to three sins.
Reasons for Revelation
At the time that this Hadith was said (i.e. to kill apostates that left the community), the Muslims of the city of Medina were under attack by the Quraish “idolaters” of Mecca (which at that time was predominantly non-Muslim). Many of the Muslims in Medina were emigrants from Mecca, who had converted to Islam. Do you see now why religion and national identity was fused at the hip back then? If you were a Meccan who converted from paganism to Islam, you’d be persecuted or even killed by your former co-religionists. So those who converted to Islam would “leave the community” of Mecca to join Medina.
The Meccans reacted harshly to this new religion of Islam and desired to wipe it off the map. They gathered armies and marched towards the fledgling Islamic city-state. Naturally, since the converts to Islam came from pagan families, such battles between Mecca and Medina would result in brother being pitted against brother, and father against son. Some of the newly converted Muslims naturally felt uncomfortable having to fight their families, and therefore would apostatize to the side of the idolatrous Meccans. Others were simply weak in faith and felt overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the invaders, so they defected to the pagan army.
More insidiously, there were some in Medina who conspired with the people of Mecca to betray the Muslims in battle. They hatched a plan that they would “convert” to Islam to join the forces of Medina, only to apostatize and abandon the Muslims in the thick of things, in order to destroy the morale of the Muslim army. The Quran says of this:
“A section of the People of the Book say: ‘Believe in the morning what is revealed to those who believe, and reject it at the end of the day, perchance they may themselves turn back.” (Quran, 3:72)
In the classical Tafsir (commentary) entitled Asbab al-Nuzul (Reasons for Revelation) it says of this verse:
…The town of Uraynah conspired with each other, saying: “Pretend to join the religion of Muhammad at the beginning of the day and declare your disbelief in it at the end of the day. Say: ‘We have looked in our Scriptures and consulted our scholars and found that Muhammad is not genuine; it is clear to us now that he is lying and that his religion is false.’ If you do this, his Companions will doubt their religion. They will say: ‘these are people of the Book and they are more knowledgeable than us. They will then abandon their religion and embrace yours.’”
Reformists believe it was in this particular situation that the Hadiths about killing “apostates” who “leave the community” and “wage war against God and His Messenger” were said. “Leaving the community” is a reference to leaving the community of Medina to join the invaders. Therefore, they reason, it was not merely “peaceful apostasy” which is to be punished, but rather high treason, i.e. trying to destroy the Islamic state’s army. It was a specific plot of the unbelievers to convert to Islam in order to mass apostatize and defect to the pagan side to destroy the Muslims.
One can see then how apostasy and defection are linked; back then, there was a pagan army and a Muslim army. If you were pagan, you fought for the pagan army. If you were Muslim, you fought for the Muslim army. If you converted from one to the other, then you’d likely abandon one army and defect to the other. Hence the phrase “the one who reverts from Islam (apostates) and leaves the community.”
Furthermore, the act of assisting in battle the unbelievers against the believers was in itself considered an act of apostasy. This is why reformists believe that back then religious identity was fused with national identity and state loyalty. This is what professor M. Cherif Bassiouni meant when he wrote,
My position on apostasy…[is] that at the time of the Prophet it was not considered as only changing one’s mind but that it was the equivalent of joining the enemy and thus constituting high treason.
Going back to the now famous Hadith (“Whoever changes his religion, kill him”) this was–revealed about the Zanadiqa:
Some Zanadiqa were brought to Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn Abbas who said, “If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah’s Apostle forbade it, saying: Do not punish anybody with Allah’s punishment (fire). I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Apostle: Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.” (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 84, Number 57)
The word “Zanadiqa” translates to heretics, and here is referring to a group known as the Saba’iyya. The founder of this group, Ibn Saba, was believed by Muslims to be an enemy of the Islamic state who pretended to convert to Islam in order to instigate civil war and strife. Although his existence is a matter of dispute amongst scholars, his group–the Saba’iyya (Zanadiqa)–did exist. They claimed that the prophet Muhammad’s cousin–a man by the name of Ali ibn Abi Talib–was god incarnate. They instigated revolts against the government and eventually orchestrated the murder of the Caliph (Muslim leader) of the time, a man named Uthman ibn Affan. We read:
Ibn Saba…[whose] activity began during the caliphate of Uthman when he travelled from Hijaz to Syria, stirr[ed] up unrest and rebellion in Egypt, Basrah, and Kufah and incit[ed] to the murder of the caliph by the Egyptian rebels…Ibn Saba was also responsible for the outbreak of fighting between the armies of Ali and Aisha at Basrah. (Shi’ite Heritage: Essays on Classical and Modern Traditions, by Lynda Clarke, pp.9-10)
And:
The Khalif Ali caused the adherents of Abd Allah ibn Saba to be burnt to death…But when Ibn Abbas learned of the occurrence, he said: “I should indeed have put them to death, but certainly not burned them, for the Prophet has forbidden that any one shall be punished by fire, because this is the mode of punishment exclusively to Allah.”
(Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Edited by James Hastings, p.625)
In other words, the Zanadiqa being referred to here were not “peaceful apostates” who simply changed their mind, but rather they were guilty of high treason, causing a civil war, instigating a rebellion in Egypt, and ultimately killing the Caliph. Indeed, they were similar to the group of people who had pretended to convert to Islam in order to apostatize during the thick of things (i.e. in the battle between Medina and Mecca). The bottom line then is that even the Hadith that the Islamophobes rely upon can be used as a proof that only those apostates who wage war against the state are to be killed.
The Traditional Opinion
Yes, it is true that the majority “classical” and traditional opinion of Islamic jurists was that apostasy–even “peaceful apostasy”–should be punished by death. This belief was enshrined into Islamic jurisprudence in the medieval era, and therefore many “classical” Islamic texts do indeed say this. It is for this reason that Alan Kornman of ACT for America–a fervently Islamophobic group–was waving around a copy of Reliance of the Traveler, a fourteenth century manual of Islamic jurisprudence, which does say that apostates should be killed. Is it possible to point out the obvious? The text was written hundreds of years ago in the medieval era. The absurdity of using it as some sort of proof against contemporary Muslims is absurd. Muslims do not consider this book to be religiously binding upon them. The words of the classical scholars are not considered a part of the Islamic canon. Only the Quran and some of the Hadiths are said to have any divine origin.
Contemporary Muslims believe that they are free to agree or disagree with the words of classical scholars. There is no equivalent to the pope in Islam. Yes, they do respect the classical scholars, and do view them as some of the greatest scholars of all time, but that does not mean that they agree with them on all issues. As for “classical texts” like the Reliance of the Traveler, yes many moderate Muslims consider such treatises to be a good source of attaining their Islamic knowledge, but they don’t believe that they must accept every single sentence or dot therein! As the famous Islamic saying goes: they take the good in it, and leave the rest!
Even within the classical Islamic texts, one can find great disagreement therein. For example, there are classical texts which refute some of the views expressed in the Reliance of the Traveler. If that is the case–that Islamic scholars of that time disagreed with some views within that text and others–why shouldn’t contemporary Islamic scholars–and Muslims in general–disagree with some of its views? Is this really so hard to comprehend? I don’t think so.
We understand it perfectly well with classical Christian texts. Let’s look at the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the most influential Christian scholars in history. The Vatican considers him as “the model teacher” for those pursuing priesthood.
The Summa Theologica, a book written by St. Thomas Aquinas, is considered one of the best summaries of Catholic doctrine to this day, and continues to be relied upon. In other words, here we have a text that is certainly more central to the Catholic faith than the Reliance of the Traveler is to Muslims. Well, let’s take a look-see into what the Summa Theologica says about apostasy; the first part talks about how Jews are apostates and thus worse than regular disbelievers, and the second part talks about how apostates ought to be compelled by the sword to Christianity:
Question 10: Unbelief in General
… It is written (2 Peter 2:21): “It had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they have known it, to turn back.” Now the heathens have not known the way of justice, whereas heretics and Jews have abandoned it after knowing it in some way. Therefore theirs is the graver sin…He who resists the faith after accepting it, sins more grievously against faith, than he who resists it without having accepted it…[The Jews] accepted the figure of that faith in the Old Law, which they corrupt by their false interpretations, [so] their unbelief is a more grievous sin than that of the heathens, because the latter have not accepted the Gospel faith in any way at all…
Article 8. Whether unbelievers ought to be compelled to the faith?
…I answer that, Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as the heathens and the Jews: and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith…On the other hand, there are unbelievers who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it, such as heretics and all apostates: such should be submitted even to bodily compulsion, that they may fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received…
For, Augustine says “…When a man’s crime [apostasy] is so publicly known, and so hateful to all, that he has no defenders, or none such as might cause a schism, the severity of discipline should not slacken”…Those Jews who have in no way received the faith, ought not by no means to be compelled to the faith: if, however, they have received it, they ought to be compelled to keep it…Christ at first compelled Paul and afterwards taught Him…the rites of other unbelievers, which are neither truthful nor profitable are by no means to be tolerated…
Do we then think it is justified to wave around this seven hundred year old text in the air as a proof that Christians believe that apostates should be killed? Or that “since the Jews are the slaves of the Church, she can dispose of their possessions” and the “the rites of other unbelievers, which are neither truthful nor profitable are by no means to be tolerated?” No sensible person can say so. Rather, Catholics are free to read the book, taking what they like and disagreeing with whatever they dislike.
So why then can’t these people understand the same thing for the Reliance of the Traveler, which says the exact same thing about apostasy as does the Summa Theologica? Muslims use it in a similar manner to learn about traditional Islamic jurisprudence just as Catholics use the Summa Theologica to learn traditional Catholic doctrine, taking the good and leaving the rest. In fact, the Muslim translator of the book, Nuh Keller, did not even translate parts of the book into English which he deemed totally irrelevant to the modern day and age, which shows that Muslims do not consider whatever is in the text as religiously binding. It doesn’t mean that Muslims must abandon the book in its entirety, just as Catholics don’t need to abandon the Summa Theologica altogether.
The Four Schools of Islamic Jurisprudence
A critic of Islam argued back:
Yes there may be moderate Muslims but at this moment in time there is no moderate Islam, as defined by the [four] main schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
First, it is absurd to say that there is no moderate Islam; moderate Islam is what the vast majority of Muslims follow, and how they define it. As for the argument that “all four schools of Islamic jurisprudence demand the death penalty for apostasy,” isn’t this simply restating the obvious? Contemporary Muslims already admit that the traditional and classical opinion of Islamic jurists was that apostates were to be killed (which by the way was also amongst the “traditional and classical opinions” in Judaism and Christianity as well).
Since the four schools of thought were defined and codified hundreds of years ago, doesn’t it already go without saying that the four schools of jurisprudence would take the traditional and classical opinion on the matter? Stated another way: as the four schools were codified hundreds of years ago, is it any surprise that they should follow the old way of looking at the matter as opposed to the new? So what exactly is the critic trying to say? It is simply restating and repackaging the obvious attack in attempt to give an air of authority to it.
His statement also betrays a superficial understanding of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence. The four schools are not defined by their final rulings or verdicts, but rather based on their methodology (Usul). Within a school itself, all sorts of conflicting opinions can be found, since a school is defined not by a ruling but by the methodology one uses to arrive at such a ruling. In other words, contemporary Muslims can still follow the same methodology and arrive at different conclusions, without betraying the school of thought itself. Many followers of the four schools have done so with regard to the issue of apostasy.
So the fact that a person follows a school of jurisprudence does not at all mean that he must commit himself to one particular ruling. Furthermore, many Muslims do not follow a school of jurisprudence at all, with still others claiming that it is wrong to follow the four schools whatsoever. Bottom line: there are diverse opinions on this matter, and to pigeonhole Muslims into a particular belief is wrong. It is just wrong to speak on behalf of Muslims; let them speak for themselves!
Contemporary Muslims argue that their rejection of an opinion held by the classical scholars does not amount to rejection of the scholars themselves, nor of the schools of thought they founded. Rather, they insist that respectful disagreement is not only permitted but mandated in Islam. Furthermore, the new opinion of contemporary Muslims is simply a reflection of changed circumstances which have allowed Muslims to properly understand the issue. Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq says:
Undeniably, the traditional position of Muslim scholars and jurists has been that apostasy [riddah] is punishable by death. The longstanding problem of the traditional position, as held by Classical jurists or scholars, can be explained and excused as not being able to see apostasy, an issue of pure freedom of faith and conscience, separate from treason against the community or the state. However, the accumulated experience over the history in terms of abuse of this position about apostasy even against Muslims as well as the changed context of a globally-connected, pluralistic society should help us appreciate the contemporary challenges in light of the Qur’anic norms and the Prophetic legacy. In this context, while the classical misunderstanding about this issue of apostasy is excusable, the position of some of the well-known contemporary scholars is not.
Contemporary Scholars
Whilst ultraconservative scholars tenaciously cling to medieval opinions, moderate Muslim scholars are increasingly adopting the opinion that absolute freedom of religion is mandated in Islam. Hundreds of Islamic clerics have accepted this view as correct. Representatives from all the major Western Muslim organizations have spoken out against the death penalty for apostates.
Indeed, Islam is witnessing a “soft revolution” nowadays, and a reformation is taking place. It seems almost every other day another major Islamic scholar announces that he has studied the issue and come to the conclusion that there should be no punishment for apostasy.
Ijma
The conservative Muslims (and in turn the Islamophobes) insist that there is an Ijma (consensus) on the view that apostates are to be killed. This is an Islamic legal term which connotes a sort of authoritativeness to a ruling, almost like a papal decree. However, this is a hotly contested topic, and this article here explains why it is inappropriate to use Ijma as a proof.
Imam al-Shawkani argued:
“The one who claims that ijma constitutes proof is not correct, for such [a claim] constitutes mere conjecture (zann) on the part of an individual from the community of Muslims. No believer can worship God on the basis of this.”
Refuting Robert Spencer’s Drivel
Robert Spencer of JihadWatch argues that Fathima Rifqa Bary was correct for claiming that the Quran mandates death for apostasy. We have already outlined the numerous verses in the Quran that state the contrary. But let us now deal with Spencer’s “proof.” He claims that the following verse is “direct proof” that apostates are to be killed:
“And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.” (Quran, 2:217)
Sorry, Spencer, but I don’t see how that’s “direct proof,” especially in light of the explicit verses in the Quran that I have cited above which clearly and unambiguously forbid compulsion in religion. In fact, contemporary Islamic scholars use this verse (the one Spencer just used) as a proof that there is no worldly punishment for apostasy, only a heavenly one. For example, Dr. Jamal Badawi says:
There is no single verse in the Qur’an that prescribes an earthly punishment for apostasy. Verses about apostasy in the Qur’an speak only about God’s punishment of the apostate in the Hereafter [such as] “…But if any of you should turn away from his/her faith and die as a denier [of the truth] – these it is whose works will bear no fruit in this world and in the life to come; and these it is who are destined for the fire, therein to abide.” ([Quran] Al-Baqarah 2:217)
…The silence of the Qur’an on any prescribed mandatory capital for apostasy is quite revealing. More revealing is the fact that there is overwhelming evidence in the Qur’an of freedom of conscious, belief, and worship.
Of course, Spencer quotes an Islamic scholar who lived hundreds of years ago as a proof. Sorry, but that’s not a proof to Muslims, nor is it binding. Whilst moderate Muslims respect Imam al-Qurtubi like Catholics respect St. Thomas Aquinas, they don’t believe his words are divine and simply disagree with them. That is in actuality the bulk of Spencer’s argument, since the verse itself is not at all “direct proof” of anything!
Then Spencer uses verse 4:89 as a “proof:”
“If they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever you find them.” (Quran, 4:89)
But he does not quote what comes right before and after it, thereby removing the context of the verse. The Quran says:
“Why should you be divided into two parties about the Hypocrites? …If they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever you find them; Except those who join a group between whom and you there is a treaty of peace, or those who approach you with hearts restraining them from fighting you as well as fighting their own people. If God had pleased, He could have given them power over you, and they would have fought you: Therefore if they withdraw from you and fight you not, and instead send you guarantees of peace, then God Has opened no way for you to war against them…Therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and do not offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear authority (to war against).” (Quran, 4:89-91)
This verse is talking about a group of apostates who are pretending to be Muslims (and are thus Hypocrites), so that they can turn renegade during war and destroy the Muslim army from the inside. In actuality, this verse shows the mercy of Islam, in the sense that the Islamic prophet was forbidden to make war against these people until they picked up arms against the Muslims; if, however, they did not pick up arms and instead sent guarantees of peace, then Muslims were forbidden from fighting them. This verse can be used as a proof for the reformist position, namely that peaceful apostates cannot be killed, but those who wage war against the Islamic state (i.e. high treason) should be.
Spencer quotes Tafsir al-Jalalayn as a proof, yet doesn’t realize that the text itself negates his view. Tafsir al-Jalalayn says of the very next verse (4:90):
[Those who come to you] refraining from fighting either you or them, then do not interfere with them, neither taking them as captives nor slaying them…If they stay away from you and do not fight you, and offer you peace, reconciliation, that is, [if] they submit, then God does not allow you any way against them, [He does not allow you] a means to take them captive or to slay them.
Abrogation
Christianity was militarized after Jesus died, by latter day thinkers. A similar thing happened with Islam. The Quranic text prohibits military aggression, allowing war only in self-defense; it also gives absolute freedom of religion. Latter day thinkers within Islam had such a hard time dealing with these issues that they simply decided to “abrogate” the peaceful and tolerant verses in order to make Islam “more compatible” with the warlike times. For example, the author of Tafsir al-Jalalayn had such a hard time reconciling verse 4:90 with the view–that apostates are to be killed–that he rationalized that: “this statement and what follows was abrogated.”
This has importance here: Spencer uses the verse (4:90) as a proof that apostasy is mandated in the Quran, yet the classical scholar he quoted as a proof was so “frustrated” by this same verse–since it seemed to imply freedom of religion–that he was forced to abrogate it. In other words, even those Muslim scholars who believe that apostates are to be killed had to get rid of this Quranic verse in order to make their claim, so how can Spencer now use the verse as a proof?
For those of you who don’t know what abrogation means, it means that a verse was rescinded and basically no longer counts. Translation: the verse still appears in the Quran but it has no legal import to it. Contemporary moderate Muslim scholars reject such a haphazard abrogation of Quranic verses. For example, a Muslim cleric by the name of Shabir Ally says:
[Question:] Now this idea of abrogation altogether seems odd. You have a book–you say it’s from God–and you say ‘well, He didn’t really mean this.’ How does one justify this?
[Answer:] Well, Imam al-Tabari is in a way the father of tafsirs. And his tafsir is the monumental one that came to be used widely in later tafsirs…and he said very clearly that if a verse is to be agrogated, you have to have some definitive information from the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself which says that this verse is abrogated, otherwise how would you know if a certain verse is abrogated? You shouldn’t claim that a verse is abrogated without this type of definitive information.
Dr. Jamal Badawi says:
While some scholars have claimed that hundreds of verses of the Qur’an were abrogated, the majority of scholars reject that claim.
Interestingly, the ultraconservative Muslim scholars are inconsistent in their own understanding of the Quran. For example, the ultraconservative Saudi scholar Ibn Baz affirmed the idea that abrogation is to be used only as a last resort when understanding two seemingly “contradictory” verses of the Quran; Ibn Baz stated:
Whenever it is possible to show agreement or reconciliation between various narrations, in a manner which is suitable, without stretching their meanings, it becomes obligatory to do so. Making Reconciliation (al-Jam) between the texts takes precedence over the other two methods of resolving apparent contradiction between proofs–the two other methods being Outweighing (al-Tarjih) and Abrogation (al-Naskh). This is what has been agreed upon in the Science of Usul al-Fiqh.
The above might be very confusing to the layperson, so to summarize: he is basically saying that when two texts seem to contradict each other, then one should first try to reconcile them (al-Jam) before one claims that one is abrogated by the other (al-Naskh). In other words, when we have one text saying “Let there be no compulsion in religion” and another saying “Whoever changes his religion, kill him,” there seems to be an apparent contradiction between the two. One way to resolve these two texts would be to say that the latter abrogated the former (and this is the argument of Bin Baz and other ultraconservative scholars). Ibn Baz is quoted by an ultraconservative Saudi website as saying:
[Question:] Some friends say that whoever does not enter Islam, that is his choice and he should not be forced to become Muslim, quoting as evidence the verses in which Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning)…“There is no compulsion in religion” [al-Baqarah 2:256] What is your opinion concerning that?
[Answer:] …Ayat al-Sayf (the verse of the sword)…and similar verses abrogate the verses which say that there is no compulsion to become Muslim.
Oddly however Bin Baz does not follow his own rule that Reconciliation of texts takes precedence over Abrogation! Reform-minded Muslims reconcile the texts by simply contextualizing the second narration, which indicates that peaceful apostates are not to be killed but those apostates who “wage war” (i.e. high treason) are.
The way in which Ibn Baz, other ultraconservatives, and some classical scholars abrogated the peaceful verses without direct proof of that must be rejected, argue reform-minded Muslims. As Ibn Al-Hassar, a classical Islamic scholar himself, stated:
It is not acceptable, in the matter of Abrogation, to accept statements of the interpreters of the Quran, not even the ijtihad (reasoning) of those engaging in ijtihad without authentic reports or clear evidence…What is acceptable in that matter is the [explicit] narration [of the Prophet] and history [Sunna/Sira] not opinion or ijtihad.
Therefore, reform-minded Muslims reject any classical or contemporary scholar’s opinion that such-and-such verse was abrogated, unless the claimant brings unequivocal proof of that, such as a direct statement from the Islamic prophet to that effect. But in the absence of that, such arguments are rejected; otherwise, every single verse in the Quran could be abrogated by mere desire! Therefore, when Islamophobes try to build their whole case on Tafsirs (commentaries) written hundreds of years ago, be extremely wary! A Tafsir is not a proof in and of itself; it is simply one man’s interpretation of the Quran open to criticism.
Reform-minded Muslim scholars argue that their understanding of the Quran’s view on this matter is more accurate and truer to the text, since they take into consideration all of the verses instead of simply doing away with whatever verses they cannot reconcile to their preconceived view. Meanwhile, the ultraconservatives are forced to abrogate verses of the Quran without any proof for that, such as the verse that forbids compulsion in religion. Certainly, it is unacceptable to just abrogate verses that one does not agree with!
In other words, neither the ultraconservative Muslims nor the Islamophobes can make their case, i.e. that the Quran says to kill apostates, without having to get rid of certain Quranic verses, those that are abundantly clear that religious compulsion is forbidden. This in actuality shows the strength of the reformist view, namely that if one looks at the Quran as a whole, it mandates religious freedom.
Hypocrites Worse than Disbelievers
In the Quran, it is clear that the worst of mankind are the Hypocrites, a group of people who pretended to be Muslims but were really disbelievers in their hearts. They were a group that sought to destroy Islam from the inside. Reformists point out that forcing people into Islam–be they disbelievers or apostates–would create a legion of Hypocrites within the ranks of the Muslims, something far more dangerous than people simply peacefully following whatever religion they want. Dr. Jamal Badawi argues:
The fear of such assumed [capital] punishment [for apostasy] may lead many to hypocrisy; by pretending to remain Muslims just to save their lives. In the final analysis, hypocrisy is a greater danger to the community than apostasy in itself. Hypocrites may implode the Muslim community from within.
Reform-minded Muslims also point out the fact that there was a Bedouin who apostatized in the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad, leaving the Islamic city-state of Medina; he abandoned both his religious and national identity (as the two were fused back then). Instead of punishing the man, the prophet Muhammad simply replied by saying: “Medina is like a pair of bellows (i.e. a furnace): it expels its impurities and brightens and clears its good.” (Sahih al-Bukhari,Vol.9, No.316, pp.241) Reformists use this narration as a proof that someone leaving the religion is–in a way–a good thing: it purifies the religion from those weak in faith who could become Hypocrites. Is it not better to have a few strong believers rather than many weak Hypocrites?
Dr. Jamal Badawi notes that this incident involving the Bedouin took place after the Islamic city-state of Medina was up and running, so the Islamophobes cannot claim that this was before some mass abrogation of verses:
This incident took place in Madinah when Muslims were living in an independent Islamic “state,” where the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had full authority to implement Shari`ah law.
If indeed the “revealed” prescribed punishment for apostasy is death, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would have been the first to carry out the punishment. In fact, he did not even prescribe any punishment at all against that Bedouin, nor did he send any one to arrest him as an “apostate,” imprison, or ask him to recant or even reconsider his decision as later jurists prescribed. Nor is there any solid ground to claim that this and other similar hadiths were “abrogated.” In fact, these Hadiths are in conformity with the Qur’an and consistent with its central value of freedom of conscious and rejection of any compulsion in matters of faith (Al-Baqarah 2:256).
Nonsensical Defense
Some conservative Muslims argue that the death penalty for apostasy makes “perfect sense,” since “people choose to enter Islam knowing that it is a lifetime decision punishable by death” and therefore “it serves to ensure that their intention is strong” and “dissuades those weak in faith from entering it.”
Reform-minded Muslims argue that this argument is weak from many angles. It is negated by the fact that the conservative Muslims do not differentiate in this matter between converts to Islam and those born into the religion: in fact, some of the classical scholars opined that born Muslims who apostatize (murtad fitri) are more liable to punishment than those who had converted to Islam (murtad milli). The question reform-minded Muslims ask is: does a born Muslim get the chance to enter the religion knowing that he will be killed if he ever leaves it? The answer is of course no; one simply grows up following the religion of one’s parents; therefore, the justification that “apostates knew what they were getting into” falls flat on its face.
Reform-minded Muslims also say that it is quite simply common sense that people change their minds. This is quite obvious: one day a person thinks Islam is the religion for him, but maybe ten years down the line he doesn’t.
Additionally, reform-minded Muslims argue that killing an apostate robs him of the chance to repent later in life. There are for example many youth who leave religion only to come back to it in their elderly years when they become fearful of death and what follows that. A person who apostates today could become Islam’s best follower some day in the future.
Lastly, reform-minded Muslims point out that the Quranic principle is that God has granted humans free will: they have the right to accept Islam or reject it. Nobody can force them to do so. Why would God command Muslims to force people into Islam when it is He Himself Who gave people the ability to leave the religion?
An Important Clarification
Even if Fathima’s parents held the “traditional view,” this does not mean that they were going to kill her. In fact, the traditional view–as espoused by the classical scholars and now championed by the ultraconservatives–has always been that corporal punishments–such as killing of apostates–must be done by the government and not individuals.
Vigilante justice has always been strictly forbidden, and in fact severely punished. The second Caliph of Islam was in fact killed, and his son ended up killing the murderer, vigilante style. Even though his case seemed just, the Muslim authorities punished him for murder, due to it being vigilante justice outside the court system.
We can read this from ultraconservative Islamic websites themselves, which quote classical scholars; for example, the Saudi based Islam-QA strictly forbids “honor killing” on the grounds that it is vigilante justice:
Al-Qurtubi said:
There is no dispute among the scholars that qisaas (retaliatory punishments) such as execution cannot be carried out except by those in authority who are obliged to carry out the qisaas and carry out hadd punishments etc, because Allaah has addressed the command regarding qisaas to all the Muslims, and it is not possible for all the Muslims to get together to carry out the qisaas, which is why they appointed a leader who may represent them in carrying out the qisaas and hadd punishments.
Tafseer al-Qurtubi, 2/245, 246.
No one should carry out the hadd punishments without the permission of the ruler. If there is no ruler who rules according to sharee’ah then it is not permissible for the ordinary people to carry out the hadd [corporal] punishments. Whoever does that is sinning, because carrying out the hadd punishments requires examining the matter and requires shar’i knowledge in order to know the conditions of proof.
The ordinary people have no knowledge of such things, and the carrying out of one of the hadd punishments by the ordinary people leads to many evils and the loss of security, whereby people will attack one another and kill one another or chop off one another’s hands on the grounds that they are carrying out hadd punishments.
Islam-QA: Honor Killings Forbidden in Islam
And that’s the opposite of a reformist site. So even they don’t advocate honor killings or vigilante justice. The point here is not to justify the ultraconservative view. Rather, it is simply to show that this entire thing has been a hyped up situation used to demonize Islam and Muslims in general. Most Western Muslims don’t believe in killing apostates, and even the small fraction that do don’t believe it can be done in the West.
Conclusion
The Quran does not at all say to kill apostates. As for the Hadiths, yes there are some texts which could be interpreted as such, but reform-minded Muslims believe that if you properly contextualize them, this is not the case. Furthermore, they believe that if a Hadith contradicts a basic tenet of the Quran, it is to be rejected; in other words, the Quran takes precedence over all other texts.
As for a parent forcing a child to convert to Islam, an explicit verse in the Quran rejects this practice, which was specifically revealed for a Muslim father who was trying to force his Christian daughters to accept Islam, a remarkably similar situation to what we see in the Fathima Rifqa Bary case today.
What seems apparent is that Fathima’s parents never threatened to kill her; rather, she was brainwashed by some Christian extremists (who by the way look down on the Christian mainstream) into thinking that Islam itself–and the Quran in particular–mandates death for apostates. Notice in her emotional interview that she clearly was of the view that: the Quran mandates it, ergo religious Muslims believe in it. This logic is faulty and problematic.
The Islamophobes have jumped on this opportunity to spread fear and hate, insisting that Islam is intrinsically culpable, a pagan and heathen religion incompatible with those who love Christ.
Yes, a legitimate criticism is that it is unfortunate that there are Muslims–even some big time scholars who are not ultraconservatives–hold onto this view. This is in fact a self-criticism that the reform-minded Muslims themselves engage in, and if the critics limited their input to this, there would have been no problem. But the Islamophobes wanted to impugn Islam as a whole, and the Muslims in generality.
The issue of apostasy is at “the heart of a burning debate among modern Muslims,” explained Sherman Jackson, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Michigan. It is a time of reassessment, flux, and hopefully change. But to reduce that all down to “Muslims (or Islam) say that apostates are to be killed” is preposterous. Muslims are undergoing a soft reformation, led by the Western Muslims and the likes of Dr. Tariq Ramadan. But it will take time, just like Europe did not reform overnight.
Even if there happens to be a case of Muslim parents killing their children for changing religions, this shouldn’t be used as an example of what Islam advocates, or what Muslims in general think. Such demonization is altogether unhelpful and only helps to strengthen a binary worldview. If indeed such a case takes place (and they do from time to time), then the fault lies with the murderers, not Islam and not the Muslims in generality. Certainly we shouldn’t encourage extremists and xenophobes who seek to co-opt such tragedies for their own nefarious agendas of fear mongering and singling out of Muslims, who are already one of the most maligned minority groups in the West.

David Rohde's Insights Into What Motivates the Taliban?

2009-10-21T06:46:00.001-07:00

David Rohde's Insights Into What Motivates the Taliban?
by Glenn Greenwald
http://www.commondr eams.org/ view/2009/ 10/18-7

The New York Times' David Rohde writes about the seven months he was held hostage by a group of extremist Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conveys this observation about what motivates them:My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington's antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged.

Apparently, when we drop bombs on Muslim countries -- or when Israel attacks Palestinians -- that fuels anti-American hatred and militarism among Muslims. The same outcomes occur when we imprison Muslims without charges in places like Guantanamo and Bagram. Imagine that. Recall, according to Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower, what prompted 9/11 "ringleader" Mohammed Atta to devote himself to a suicide mission, as recounted by Juan Cole during the Israel/Gaza war:

In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying traditional architecture of Aleppo saw footage like this on the news [graphic]. He was consumed with anguish and the desire for revenge.
As soon as operation Grapes of Wrath had begun the week before, he had written out a martyrdom will, indicating his willingness to die avenging the victims, killed in that operation--with airplanes and bombs that were a free gift from the United States. His name was Muhammad Atta. Five years later he [allegedly] piloted American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center. (Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 307: "On April 11, 1996, when Atta was twenty-seven years old, he signed a standardized will he got from the al-Quds mosque. It was the day Israel attacked Lebanon in Operation grapes of Wrath. According to one of his friends, Atta was enraged, and by filling out his last testament during the attack he was offering his life in response").

On Tuesday, the Israeli military shelled a United Nations school to which terrified Gazans had fled for refuge, killing at least 42 persons and wounding 55, virtually all of them civilians, and many of them children. The Palestinian death toll rose to 660.You wonder if someone somewhere is writing out a will today.One could -- and should -- ask that question every time the U.S. or Israel engages in another military strike that kills Muslim civilians, or for that matter, every day that goes by when we continue to wage war inside Muslim countries.

Rohde adds this about what motivates these Taliban:America, Europe and Israel preached democracy, human rights and impartial justice to the Muslim world, they said, but failed to follow those principles themselves.One of the taboo topics in the American media is how the U.S. Government routinely violates the principles we espouse for, and try to impose on, the rest of the world.

We systematically torture Muslims and then cover it up and protect our torturers while preaching accountability and the rule of law; we condemn deprivations of due process while maintaining and expanding lawless prison systems for Muslims; we demand adherence to U.N. dictates and international law while blocking investigations into U.N. reports of war crimes and possible "crimes against humanity" by our allies; we righteously oppose aggression while invading and simultaneously occupying numerous countries, while threatening to attack still more, and arming countries like Israel to the teeth to wage still other attacks, etc. etc. As a result of the media avoidance of such topics, many Americans don't ever think much about the huge gap between what we claim about ourselves and what we do. But much of the rest of the world -- certainly including the Muslim world -- sees that discrepancy quite clearly, often up-close.

That's what accounts for the radically different, even irreconcilable, perceptions that Americans and so many people in the rest of the world have about who we are and what we do ("why do the hate us?"). Is it really surprising that young Taliban fighters, surrounded by a foreign occupying army and lawless prison system for the last eight years, are "fixated" on such things and are radicalized by it?

Shouldn't that, by itself, make us think about not doing those things any longer, since they only exacerbate the problem we claim we are trying to solve? Finally, Rohde describes his treatment at the hands of the Taliban during his seven months of captivity as follows:They vowed to follow the tenets of Islam that mandate the good treatment of prisoners. In my case, they unquestionably did. They gave me bottled water, let me walk in a small yard each day and never beat me.Rohde explains that the Taliban automatically believe that journalists -- especially American journalists -- are spies.

Despite that belief, the Taliban never waterboarded him, never hung him naked in a cold room to induce hypothermia, never stuffed him in a coffin-like box as punishment, never deprived him of sleep to the point of severe disorientation, and instead adhered to their commitment regarding "the good treatment of prisoners." We might want to think about what that means about us.

That many of the Taliban are inhumane, brutal and barbaric extremists only underscores that point further.* * * * *Two other item, one related and the other not:(1) An Iranian dissident group staged two suicide bombing attacks today which killed some Revolutionary Guard commanders as well as "dozens of others."

At least according to an ABC News report from 2007 (from the unreliable Brian Ross), the group which claimed responsibility for these attacks (and which has staged similar attacks in the past) -- Jundallah -- "has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005."

If that's true, would that make the U.S. a so-called "state sponsor of terrorism"? (2) Following up on the Goldman Sachs issues I wrote about on Friday, The New York Times' Frank Rich today has a scathing column condemning Goldman. Their behavior is becoming so transparent that it cannot help but enter mainstream discourse (that even prompted David Axelrod to condemn Goldman's bonuses and other practices as "offensive," while claiming the White House was powerless to stop it).

UPDATE: From Bryan Bender, The Boston Globe, October 9, 2009 (h/t CarolynC):

Nearly all of the insurgents battling US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are not religiously motivated Taliban and Al Qaeda warriors, but a new generation of tribal fighters vying for control of territory, mineral wealth, and smuggling routes, according to summaries of new US intelligence reports.

Some of the major insurgent groups, including one responsible for a spate of recent American casualties, actually opposed the Taliban's harsh Islamic government in Afghanistan during the 1990s, according to the reports, described by US officials under the condition they not be identified.

"Ninety percent is a tribal, localized insurgency,' ' said one US intelligence official in Washington who helped draft the assessments. "Ten percent are hardcore ideologues fighting for the Taliban.''

US commanders and politicians often loosely refer to the enemy as the Taliban or Al Qaeda, giving rise to the image of holy warriors seeking to spread a fundamentalist form of Islam. But the mostly ethnic Pashtun fighters are often deeply connected by family and social ties to the valleys and mountains where they are fighting, and they see themselves as opposing the United States because it is an occupying power, the officials and analysts said.

One of the most astounding feats in propaganda is how we've managed to take people who live in a country which we invade, bomb and occupy -- and who fight against us because we're doing that -- and call them "Terrorists, " thereby "justifying" continuing to bomb and occupy their country further ("We have to stay in order to fight the Terrorists: meaning the people who are fighting us because we stay").

Israeli Spy Caught by U.S. Department of Justice!

2009-10-20T09:55:00.001-07:00

A former scientist at the United States' space agency has been
arrested on suspicion of attempting to spy for Israel, the U.S.
department of Justice announced on Monday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1122206.html

FORMER EMPLOYER OF MUSLIM-BASHING BOOK CALLS FOR ‘WAR’ ON ISLAM

2009-10-20T09:41:00.001-07:00

FORMER EMPLOYER OF MUSLIM-BASHING BOOK CALLS FOR ‘WAR’ ON ISLAM

Paul "Dave" Gaubatz, co-author of “Muslim Mafia,” is the former “Director of Intelligence and Counter-terrorism Studies” of the hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE) and its associated Mapping Shari’a in America Project. The Mapping Shari’a in America Project says it is devoted to spying on mosques and other Islamic institutions in the United States.

In explaining why he seeks to infiltrate mosques and Islamic institutions nationwide, Gaubatz wrote in a commentary on that group’s website: “…the real answer to Why is the fact that in this country, our government and its myriad of agencies and bureaucracies have determined that a priori Islam itself is NOT the evil ideology it in fact is…” (April 20, 2007)

On its now-private website, SANE offered a policy proposal that would make it illegal to be a Muslim:

“Whereas, adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the US. [sic] Government through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the US Constitution and the imposition of Shari’a on the American People...It shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Islam.” [A SANE Act to Deal with the Islamic Threat to America’s National Existence (SADITANE)]

SANE’s website once contained the following white supremacist language as part of its mission statement:

“America is a unique people bound together through a commitment to America’s Judeo-Christian moral foundation and to an enduring faith and trust in G-d and in His Providence. America’s founding, and its greatness was neither accident nor staging ground for some better existence or world state. America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white, who ventured from Europe to create a nation in their image of a country existing as free men under G-d.”

Other articles on the SANE website made racist statements such as: “There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote,” and "Race matters and affects your intelligence. Jews are the smartest white people around. Orientals smarter than Whites. Latinos next. Then Blacks.”

Another SANE article stated:

“Is there something unique about the Black American (or, at least the Black New Yorker) that leads him to murder so disproportionately and to most often kill and victimize his own? Do we see patterns of Black culture that arise out of Africa and the wanton murder of blacks by blacks there? Why have the colonized blacks of the African continent, after having acquired their freedom and independence, so willingly slaughtered their own and live in despicable disease and squalor despite a land of enormous riches while Indians of the Indian sub-continent have successfully moved from British rule to democracy and relative civility even in a country that still maintains social inequalities as a fact of their culture?”

A 2007 commentary by the head of SANE, David Yerushalmi, called for a “war against Islam and all Muslim faithful.”

SEE: War Manifesto: The War Against Islam
By David Yerushalmi & SANE Staff Wed, January 10, 2007

…The following can be considered the SANE War Manifesto.

On the so-called Global War on Terrorism, GWOT, we have been quite clear along with a few other resolute souls. This should be a WAR AGAINST ISLAM and all Muslim faithful. In particular, historical, traditional, and authoritative Shari’a, or the Islamic Way of Life, bound most tightly by Islamic law and jurisprudence, or fiqh, is the focus of the ideology which drives our enemy. People who don’t grasp that Islam is first and foremost a religious ideology built on a legal foundation or jurisprudence simply don’t understand Islam…

The actual or physical enemy is any Muslim who adopts or accepts historical and traditional Shari’a as authoritative. This includes individuals, terrorist networks, clans, tribes, regimes, or states. One law and one Rule of Engagement: If you adopt Shari’a as your ideology, you constitute our enemy and you are in our cross-hairs. We of course will pick the most opportune time and place but you will be targeted.

At a practical level, this means that Shari’a and Islamic law are immediately outlawed. Any Moslem in America who adopts historical and traditional Shari’a will be subject to deportation. Mosques which adhere to Islamic law will be shut down permanently. No self-described or practicing Muslim, irrespective of his or her declarations to the contrary, will be allowed to immigrate to this country.

The Christian Mafia (Evangelical Zionists)

2009-10-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

Something that came up recently is this book called the "Muslim Mafia" that was made by The Christian Mafia known as "Evangelical Zionists" such as Dave Gaubatz and his allies in the Republican Party. Rep. Sue Myrick wrote the forward to this book, which brings up the question how much money is she getting for illegaly infiltrating an American organization known as CAIR. Why is CAIR being treated like a foreign nation? It is a grassroots American Muslim Civil Rights organization that stands up for the rights of American Muslims. We as Americans should be proud of it's existence! This book the Muslim Mafia is such a joke, especially because it is written by the Christian Mafia itself! So, seeing how this is setting a new presedence, should Christian and Jewish Churches, Synagogues, Organizations and Businesses be infiltrated by Athiests legally? Are Athiests allowed to do the same thing without being punished? This WASP & Zionist conspiracy against Americans who happen to be Muslim is disgusting! We as patriotic Americans need to stand up and help our fellow Muslim Americans, not hurt them.

Christian Man Tried To Have Prostitute Have Sex With 11 Year Old Girl For $150

2009-10-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

DEVELOPING NEWS:

A prostitute claims John Scott Gilbert tried to get her to have sex with an 11 year old girl for $150.

Gilbert apparently said he was brokering the deal and that the girl was a friend's daughter.

Columbus police are investigating this accusation and say Gilbert did download child pornography onto his cell phone and his computer.

They found 20 pictures of a man having sex with a 10 year old girl.

He has admitted to that and is out on bond.

Gilbert's mother says this is just a fantasy of his, but that he didn't act on it.

...This is exactly why Rifqa Bary should have psychological evaluations done to see if she was sexually abused by her Pastor Captors (PC).

Interracial couple in Louisiana denied marriage license

2009-10-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

This is why the racists and biggots want organizations like CAIR, NAACP, ACLU, ADL to go away...HERE WE COME JIM CROW!

nterracial couple in Louisiana denied marriage license

* Story Highlights
* Justice of peace urged to resign after denying marriage license to interracial couple
* Keith Bardwell told newspaper he's not racist, claims interracial marriages don't last
* Couple received marriage license from another justice, considers taking legal action

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Civil rights advocates in eastern Louisiana are calling for a justice of the peace of Tangipahoa Parish to resign after he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.

"He's an elected public official and one of his duties is to marry people. He doesn't have the right to say he doesn't believe in it," Patricia Morris, president of the NAACP branch of Tangipahoa Parish, located near the Mississippi line, said Thursday.

"If he doesn't do what his position calls for him to do, he should resign from that position."

The demands for Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, to step down came after he wouldn't issue a marriage license to Beth Humphrey, 30, and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond.

"I was just really shocked, because he's an elected official," Humphrey said. VideoWatch Terence McKay react to the denial of a marriage license »

Bardwell didn't immediately return calls from CNN on Thursday.

However, Bardwell told Hammond's Daily Star newspaper that he was concerned for the children who might be born of the relationship and that, in his experience, most interracial marriages don't last.

"I'm not a racist," Bardwell told the newspaper. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children."

Bardwell, stressing that he couldn't personally endorse the marriage, said his wife referred the couple to another justice of the peace.

The bride says the case boils down to discrimination.

Humphrey told CNN that she called Bardwell on October 6 to ask about getting a marriage license, and was asked by his wife whether it would be an interracial marriage. Humphrey said she was told that Bardwell does not sign off on interracial marriages.

She said the couple -- who received their marriage license October 9 from another justice of the peace in the same parish -- have reached out to an attorney to determine their next step.

"We would like him to resign," she said. "He doesn't believe he's being racist, but it is racist."

Morris told CNN that her NAACP chapter has forwarded the case to the state and national levels of the civil rights group.

According to the Census Bureau, Tangipahoa Parish is about 70 percent white and 30 percent black.

CNN's Samira Simone contributed to this report.

Treasonous 4th Reich Republican Spy David Gaubatz "infiltrates" American Civil Rights Organization (CAIR)

2009-10-16T07:18:00.001-07:00

Recently a book has been published by the right wing fascist nazi party in the USA called "The Muslim Mafia" which is written by David Gaubatz (4th Reich Spy) against the American Muslim Community. His actions are treasonous, because he has attacked and infiltrated an American Organization on American Soil. This Israeli loyalist needs to be tried and put in prison for treason against the United States. He and his 4th Reich allies have started an Anti-Obama, Anti-Minority (non-white), Anti Muslim, Anti-Hispanic, etc. agenda so they can turn America into Nazi Germany where Americans no longer have Constitutional Rights and have to serve the Neocon-Zionist 4th Reich. This is disgusting and un-American. Real Christians and Jews need to stand up against this tyranny and put David Gaubatz in jail!

4th Reich Republican Congresswoman - Rep. Sue Myrick (R)

2009-10-16T07:13:00.000-07:00

The 4th Reich Republican Congresswoman - Rep. Sue Myrick and 3 other Nazi Republican Party representatives have joined David Gaubatz (Nazi Spy) in assaulting the Muslim Community and CAIR!

Praise Jesus! Rifqa Bary Going back to Ohio! Pamela Gellar: Whore of Babylon Speaks on Rifqa Bary

2009-10-13T17:09:00.001-07:00

Praise Jesus! Rifqa Bary is going back home to Ohio! The Whore of Babylon aka Pamela Gellar uses Islamophobia in order to throw Christian against Muslim, eventhough she is a Zionist herself. We as Jews and Christians should not fall for such lies and evil. We need to support the Muslims who are being attacked by vile right wing fanatics. The spewing of Satan by the Anti-Christ "Citizen Soldier" Pamela Gellar of Atlas Shrugs: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/10/rifqa-bary-to-be-returned-to-ohio-no-wait.html

Muslim Basher, Patrick Poole, Preys On People Fears

2009-10-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

Muslim Basher, Patrick Poole, Preys On People Fears

By Mahmoud El-Yousseph

ccun.org, August 17, 2007

Paul Harvey news delights us everyday with his "the rest of the story", however, Patrick Poole of Hilliard, Ohio, while he is good at defaming and antagonizing Muslims in central Ohio, has nothing substantive to offer.

After reading Dispatch story by Barbara Carmen about Abukar Arman, A Somali immigrant and a father of four who was cleared of any ties to terrorism after being accused as such by Mr. Poole, I became interested in the accuser. After all, this is the same Mr. Poole who attacked many reputable members of the Muslims community and their religious and educational institutions.

In my search I found out that Mr. Poole harbors such rabid hatred toward Muslims. One wonders if this man has ever met a Muslim. It is obvious after reading his hate literature and reading his interview that he uses the verbal equivalent of "shock and awe" to make a name for himself. This man is a vocal diversionist. The following is a mere sample of these tactics:

Last June, he attacked our Governor Ted Strickland for visiting local Muslim.

He also denounced Mike Curtin, the CEO of Columbus Dispatch for speaking to Muslims.

Last May he attacked Salah Sultan, a nationally noted Muslim scholars. For no reason other than his views- the very same thing he accused Abukar Arman of. [The US Constitution guarantees freedom of expression to every citizen and non-citizen living in this free country.]

He preys on people fears and depicts local Muslims as snakes hiding in the grass awaiting the next move and as such constitute threat for our homeland security.

Mr. Poole complained about and questions the reason behind the 6 ft fence around Sunrise Academy - the only full-time Islamic school in Ohio.

Poole has profiled every vocal local Muslims in Central Ohio. Despite the fact it is illegal for our own government to maintain a file on U.S. citizens for simply exercising their First Amendment Right.

Again, he is now raising the red flag regarding a Muslim mother who serves as the president of the PTA at Sunrise Academy and also sits on the advisory board of Hilliard Parks.

As in the case of Abukar Arman, Poole might soon publicly accuse this Muslim mother of the possibility of providing intelligence information about Hilliard parks to our enemy.

Mr. Poole who admits on his website that he devotes dozens of hours stocking, searching, and monitoring local Muslims should be ashamed of himself. Perhaps he should now show his true color, by considering to volunteer for the position vacated by Abukar Arman and 2 other member at Franklin county.

Personally, I was in the same dilemma like Mr. Arman hours after 9/11 terrorist attack. And that was shortly after I finished packing up my duffel bag in anticipation of deployment. My loyalty and patriotism to America came into questions by people like Mr. Poole who were calling local, state, and federal law enforcement agency on me. Even though I was willing and ready to die for America if need be. Thanks to Columbus Dispatch editor, a Jewish OSU professor, and a retired Christian lawyer and a Korean War Veteran who came to my defense.

Muslims like Mr. Arman and I in central Ohio are assets and not a liability. We have a lot to offer and a lot at stake. We also stand together with our local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies for the safety of our homeland security.

Only working together as Americans we can overcome hate and discrimination which will in turn allow us to overcome the threat of terrorism within our borders and abroad. Let us take heed from the words of Charles Caleb Colton when he said “We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them”.

Mahmoud El-Yousseph

Retired USAF Veteran

Responding to Pamela Gellar's Atlas Shrugs Nonsense

2009-10-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Pamela, if you think the Jews are the new Nazis, it is because you are right! They are destroying the USA for their own self interest at the expense of Palestinian lives. People look at Israeli soldiers as the soldiers of death...just look at the pictures you yourself posted on your site of dead Palestinian children due to Israeli bullets: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/10/demagogueinchief-obamas-website-ugly-hate-is-back-jews-are-the-new-nazis.html

Atlas Shrugged by Aynd Rand: Objectivism's Danger To Human Society

2009-10-08T14:32:00.001-07:00

Rand's philosophy has been the object of criticism by prominent intellectuals. In the essay "On the Randian Argument,"[115] philosopher Robert Nozick is sympathetic to Rand's political conclusions, but does not think her arguments justify them. In particular, his essay criticizes her foundational argument in ethics, which states that one's own life is, for each individual, the ultimate value because it makes all other values possible. He argues that to make her argument sound, one needs to explain why someone could not rationally prefer dying and having no values. Thus, her attempt to defend the morality of selfishness is, in his view, essentially an instance of begging the question. Nozick also argues that Rand's solution to David Hume's famous is-ought problem is unsatisfactory; an academic debate has developed around this issue, with scholars coming down on both sides.[116][117]

William F. Buckley, Jr. called her philosophy "stillborn."[118] Psychologist Albert Ellis has argued that adherence to Objectivism can result in hazardous psychological effects.[119] After his expulsion from Rand's circle, Nathaniel Branden accused Rand and her followers of "destructive moralism," something he reports having engaged in himself when he was associated with Rand, but which he now claims "subtly encourages repression, self-alienation, and guilt."[120]

Commentators have noted that the Objectivist epistemology is incomplete.[121] The notion of proof for propositions remains sketchy.[122] Rand did not work out a philosophy of science, as she herself acknowledged.[123] The relationship between Objectivist epistemology and cognitive science remains unclear; Rand, Peikoff, and Kelley have all made extensive claims about human cognition and its development which appear to belong to psychology, yet Rand asserted that philosophy is logically prior to psychology and in no way dependent on it.[124][125]

Zionist Blogger Attacking The Bary Family!

2009-10-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Check out this Zionist nutcase: http://jewishodysseus.blogspot.com/2009/09/rifqa-barys-dad-confesses-to-domestic_16.html who attacks Rifqa Bary's father by pulling out legal statutes. Based on these Mr. Bary is innoccent completely, however the rest of the Christian fathers who beat their children are guilty of mental, sexual, and physical abuse that takes place more in this country by White Christians than anybody else. I personally know many Christian friends during high school, college, and work that have been sexually abused by their Christian missionary fathers. There is a long history of abuse among the Christian community and in the Jewish community. Muslims may have issues, but they are much less than the Jewish and Christian reported cases. As a Christian I am ashamed of what Christians do. However, some people like Devil Worshipping Jews who were interviewed on the Oprah show admit to child sacrifices and abuse and are not even put int he media other thant he Oprah show! This Islamophobia gives Americans a bad name. I am ashamed of these actions of politically motivated evil people.

Zionists Stir up Violence Deliberately in Prelude to Saber Rattling Against Iran

2009-10-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

Israel's self interest saber rattling againt Iran is something we as Americans need to keep our hands clean from. Israel's interests are no longer America's interests. Israel's meddling has caused everybody to drop the US Dollar for the Euro when it comes to oil trading. This is hurting our economy...for what? Israel? The Terrorist State? We got to leave these crazy people alone and keep clear of them so we can become a strong nation again. They are costing us our soul!

A senior Palestinian official says Israel has deliberately triggered violence in Al-Aqsa mosque compound to justify its crackdown and tighten its hold on the occupied East Jerusalem Al-Quds.

"Israel is lighting matches in the hope of sparking a fire, deliberately escalating tensions in occupied East Jerusalem rather than taking steps to placate the situation," Palestinian chief peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a statement Tuesday.

He accused Tel Aviv of deliberately creating "an extremely dangerous situation" after banning Palestinians from entering Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Sunday.

Clashes erupted in the city after Israel closed the site and deployed thousands of police forces to secure a Jewish religious ceremony in the holy site, known to Muslims as Al-Haram Al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Palestinian leaders issued a series of warnings last week, saying they would "confront Israel" diplomatically over provoking tension in the region.

The United States and Jordan are trying to ease the tensions, with Jordan asking Israel to prevent the entry of Jews and tourists to the site until the situation calms down, Haaretz reported.

"That will calm the atmosphere while respecting the Jordanian role in Al-Aqsa Mosque," the daily quoted a senior Jordanian source as saying.

Before the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000, visits to the holy site had to be coordinated with the Waqf religious trust, which is under Jordanian control.

Between 2000 and 2003, non-Muslims were completely barred from the area until the Israel police decided unilaterally to reverse the ban.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem Al-Quds during a 1967 aggression and later annexed it.

The Jawa Report: Right Wing Disinformation Blog

2009-10-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu

The worst lie filled blog on the face of the planet in regards to Islamophobia!

My Pet Jawa Puts out Disinformation on The Rifqa Bary Case!

2009-10-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

My Pet Jawa needs to be ashamed of itself for putting out false information with false "sources close to..." whoever. They never name who the 'source' is because there is no source. This is how these right wing criminals operate, they take information that has baffled them and try to write fiction novels trying to explain why they are losing the case. By making up this bogus story against Rifqa's Brother they are trying to make people forget about the CONFERENCE CALL WITH RIFQA BARY THAT HAD HER PRAYING LIKE A FANATIC. Sorry my pet jawa, you lose on this one because you can't just make up bogus stories and call it news. That is why you are a weblog and not CNN. These right wing criminals need to be taken to court, fined and put in prison if necessary in order to stop them from hurting Americans. Read about the false report from my pet jawa regarding Rifqa's brother: http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/199068.php The rise of the right wing nut cases is a danger to America that has been reported by The Department of Homeland Security and should be taken seriously!

Patrick Poole: Terrorizing Ohio Muslims

2009-09-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

The Infamous Right Wing Nazi (Neocon-Zionist) blogger "Patrick Poole" who lives at his parents house is a self styled "expert consultant on terrorism"! LMAO

This guy is such a fraud that you have to give him credit for his overweight Rocky Mountain Oysters. However, he is a racist, biggot, and Islamophobe from hell. As a Christian, I would say that he has hurt Christianity more than any terrorist. He has attacked every Muslim in Ohio under the flag of anti-terrorism. Recently, someone close to Patrick Poole informed us that he is having some difficulties getting funding from the Israeli intelligence services and that his Katza explained why he is not getting any more funding.

Well, the reason for this lack of funding must be the fact that Israel has become a potential hostile in relations to the US Foreign policy. American intel services have said that if Israel decides to attack Iran with fighter planes, that the USA would have to shoot them down! Also, as some trivia that you may not be aware of, Israel has more spies in the USA than in a lot of other countries. That is why they are such a big security risk. Patrick Poole who works with many "Sayanim" has had difficulties with his "Katza" from the information a close person to him has emailed us.

Also, it appears that the FBI is investigating Patrick Poole's connections with Israeli intelligence services. From what we have come to understand is that he has been funded by Israelis and has been blogging for them for some time to create disinformation against Muslims to further their goals. By turning American Muslims into the enemey, he has been trying to get more funding for their cause. This is criminal behavior that rightfully should be investigated! Long live the USA! God bless the USA!

Christian-Zionist Law & Muslim Persecution in the United States

2009-09-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

As an American, this is a sad day that I write that American Muslims have become targets of Nazi hate from Neocons/Zionists/Evangelicals! I keep finding more and more articles of the Christian and Jewish Right Wing hating on Muslims. This is sick, it's a disease of these racist European people who can not leave behind their superiority complexes! Why should I as an American have to keep answering for these racist pigs? When are we going to wake up and stop the hate? The Muslims are the new "Ni**ers" as it seems. The Right Wing people call them "Sand Ni**ers, Dune Coons, etc." This is sick...a real American would never hurt other Americans or anybody else for that matter with this Nazi hate speech. I pray that Jesus gives these racists a slap in the face for what they are doing to wake them up! As I know Jesus, he most likely will by making other people succeed instead of them!

Imagine if Rifqa Bary were Julie Johnson

2009-09-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-scott-maxwell-rifqa-bary-092709,0,127808.column

Imagine if Rifqa Bary were Julie Johnson

Scott Maxwell

TAKING NAMES

September 27, 2009

Maybe you've already formed a strong opinion about teenage runway Rifqa Bary.

But imagine if the family that helped her run away from Ohio weren't a Christian one here in Orlando. Imagine, just for a moment, that the circumstances were reversed.

Imagine this news story ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Orlando girl, feared missing for two weeks, has been found in Ohio — in the home of a Muslim imam.

The girl's parents, devout Christians who live in a modest suburb in east Orlando, were shocked to learn that the imam and his wife had been harboring their daughter, Julie Johnson, all this time without letting them know.

Julie was 16 when she ran away — a minor in the eyes of the law.

The girl's parents assumed that their daughter would soon be returned home. But Ohio authorities have so far refused.

The imam and his wife — who met Julie through an online prayer group — say she no longer wants to be a Christian.

They say she has converted to Islam and is now afraid that her parents may use their Christian beliefs to justify hurting her if she is returned to Orlando.

Mainstream Christians have said that notion is preposterous. They say Christianity is a religion that espouses love and compassion.

But conservative Muslims say otherwise.

"There are verses in the Bible that talk about killing children," said Ahmed Akmed, a Muslim activist, who has made a career out of mixing religion and politics, pushing Muslim-based amendment drives and raising money for his cause. "And we can point to numerous examples of Christian activities that are dangerous to minors."

As evidence, Akmed cited snake handlers, hate groups and even some Christians who claim their faith teaches them to withhold medicine from their children.

He also quoted verses from the Old Testament — specifically Deuteronomy 13, which talks of stoning and killing children who turn away from the Lord to worship other gods.

"We're not making this stuff up," Akmed said. "It's out there. And it's in their Bible."

Christians throughout America were both dumbfounded and insulted by the accusations in this high-profile case.

"That's a gross and intentional misrepresentation of our faith," said one Methodist minister. "Yes, there have been a handful of heinous acts perpetrated in the name of Christianity. But the vast majority of Christians — we're talking 99.99 percent — not only have nothing to do with such extremism, they actively condemn it.

"Anyone who has spent any amount of time in an American church knows that Christians do not take every verse literally. Jesus' primary message was one of love and compassion."

Muslim activists, however, say they are not willing to bet Julie's life on that.

"Didn't Christians in Florida just last year use Old Testament verses to justify changing their entire state constitution to ban gay marriage?" Akmed asked. "So why would we believe that they take parts about fornication literally — and not the parts about killing family members?"

Florida officials say they have investigated Julie's parents, visiting the Orlando home and talking to people who know her, finding no evidence of abuse.

Instead, they found a diary where Julie wrote that she believed she had been called by Allah to be a prophet for Islam.

Julie's parents say their daughter is a confused girl who is struggling with her faith as well as her adolescence.

But if she wants to become a Muslim, they will let her. "I just want my little girl back," the father said.

They are also confused about precisely how their teenage daughter ended up 800 miles away with an imam who runs a little-known mosque from a movie theater inside a struggling mall in suburban Columbus.

Florida officials agree with Julie's parents that she should be returned to her home state, where she would be placed in the foster-care system.

But officials in Ohio have dragged their feet, pleasing Muslim activists who are pressuring politicians and claiming that anyone who supports reuniting Julie with her Christian parents will have her blood on their hands.

Perhaps it's hard to relate to a story that sounds so far-fetched. It's difficult, after all, to truly put yourself in the shoes — or pews — of another.

But it doesn't seem too far-fetched for everyone involved to follow and apply laws the same way, regardless of faith.

Or to treat others the way you wish to be treated — a value espoused by both Jesus and Muhammad.

Scott Maxwell can be reached at smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com.

The Zionist, Messianic-Christian Network Inside Evangelical Churches: Walid Shoebat, His Clones and Enablers

2009-09-24T06:47:00.001-07:00

The Zionist, Messianic-Christian Network Inside Evangelical Churches: Walid Shoebat, His Clones and Enablers
Charles E Carlson Sep 23, 2009

Walid Shoebat’s words are artful and inflammatory…each phrase seems designed to incite fear of, and therefore hatred for Muslims. Chosen People Ministries’ local branch inside Scottsdale Bible Church sponsored Shoebat’s appearance, and took up a collection to pay his substantial honorarium. A Chosen People Ministries spokesman set the tone with a dramatic, Islam did it, introduction of the program wrapped around its Day 911 Commemorative Service.

Shoebat is a well-paid servant of a foreign power, political Israel. He pretends to be an Arab terrorist converted to Christianity. Except for the money that changes hands, Israel is the only beneficiary of Shoebat’s deception. His central theme is the Zionist message, Muslims hate Christians, and his own alleged history as a 16-year old terrorist, is the authority upon which millions have listened to him. Shoebat repeats many times the statement that is the title of his book, “Why We (Muslims) Want To Kill You” (Christians). He insists Islamists will kill us unless we convert to Islam, and seems to leaves no alternative but to kill them first. Endnote(1) Who is Walid Shoebat, Part I

Walid is a most convincing speaker as we should expect of a trained Israeli agent. His presentation is a barrage of words. He says so much you have scarce time to think about each staccato conclusion. You are, instead, impacted with vivid impressions pounded out one after another. When Shoebat talks about Islam he reads fluently from the Qur’an in Arabic and translates it into English as he sees fit. English speaking listeners are left at the mercy of his translation. He also quotes phrases from the Bible, including the Old Testament, Third Chapter of Joel, which he stretches to his purpose, warning his listeners that upon Jesus' next coming He will judge harshly for “dividing the land.” Implied is Israel should have it all.

This author invites anyone to show me where Jesus or his followers ever said anything about land ownership. Zionism’s second objective, along with generating hatred of Islam, is to seed the false notion that God gave the land of the Philistines to present day political Israel. Endnote(2) Roots of Christian Zionism

If there had been no Walid Shoebat, Israel would have had to invent him and they are inventing more speakers very much like him. We have learned to our horror, that other Shoebat sound alike’s tell equally preposterous terrorist tales from pulpits and at colleges, preying upon vulnerable Judeo-Christian churches whose members pay lavishly for self-deception.

At one very important event at the US Air Force Academy chapel, no less than three Shoebat clones were assembled, each one spinning his own amazing, topper story of brutal terrorism and conversion to Christianity. At both the University of Colorado in Boulder, and at Berkley, California, two Shoebats shared the spotlight, sponsored by the College Republicans for which upward to $10,000.00 was paid by the taxpayers. Obviously someone scheduled these appearances, and we know that common thread. Endnote (3) Chris Hedges, The War Upon Tolerance

Chosen People Ministries also is a network of interwoven ministries, all focused on one thing: the acquisition of money to be used in the service of Jews and of Israel. The ministry, found by a Jew named Cohen who became a Christian, makes a thin pretense of converting Jews to Christianity, but, in fact, it usually does the opposite. A few minutes spent scrutinizing these related web pages should convince any clear-eyed Christian that he or she will not benefit from the intensely sophisticated money acquisition system described therein. Endnote (5) Chosen People Ministries

.

Chosen People Ministries is also an Israeli front. It is one of the oldest national “Messianic” Christian movements, dating back to the 1890s, not long after the spawning of the evangelical church. Cesar Aharon, a Jew turned Christian, described Messianic church movements as the ones that claim to convert Jews to Christianity, but in fact are invariably led by Jews, to convert Christians to Judaism

I would add to Cesar’s remark that the conversions, if any, are not to Orthodox Judaism, which opposes Zionism, but to reformed Judaism and its most powerful political spokesman, Christian Zionism. Endnote (3) Aharon Judaizing Elements of the Messianic Movement Cesar Aharon and Benzion Melechson

Chris Hedges, former Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times, and a man with experience in Palestine during the very years when Shoebat was growing up in the USA, wrote of the three Shoebat clones who spoke to the Air Force Academy Cadets:

“These men are frauds, but this is not the point. They are part of a dark and frightening war by the Christian right against tolerance that, in the moment of another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would make it acceptable to target and persecute all Muslims, including the some 6 million Muslims who live in the United States. These men stoke these irrational fears.” (4)

Shoebat’s “history” of terrorism is balderdash. It is nonsense made up from scratch: he even lies about his name. We see nothing unusual with writers and speakers using aliases, but this man may be the first to claim his real given Arab name, Walid Shoebat, is an alias that he made up to protect himself from “terrorists.” We suspect he discredits his real name to throw researchers off the trail of his family members, who seem to tell the truth about him when asked. Walid’s polished and memorized speech,, his books, his videos, and even his resume are a ball of yarn with a hundred loose ends. The best proof that Shoebat is an Israeli agent comes from the nonsense of his own statements in books and interviews. In 2004, a gullible BBC correspondent quoting Shoebat:

“My whole dream was to die as a shaheed [martyr]. I would open my shirt hoping to be shot- but the Israelis would never shoot at the body, so I never succeeded, he said.”

But the Intifada (uprising) did not start until 4 or more years after 16-year old Walid went to America. Also his statement that Israelis “never shoot the body” can only have been written by a Zionist, for hospital records prove Palestinians suffer head wounds most often, followed by body shots. Israelis shoot to kill even when using rubber coated bullets.

Shoebat: “One day, in the middle of a riot, Walid was part of a group which snatched an Israeli soldier who was trying to quell the violence. They beat him senseless and tried to lynch him, before he was rescued by troops and the group fled. "We ran to a monastery where the nuns protected us - even they hated the Jews!" Walid was eventually caught and imprisoned in the Muscovite Prison in Jerusalem, but was released after a few weeks. He returned to violence straight away, bombing an Israeli bank in Bethlehem.” Endnote (6) (Raffi Berg BBC News Online, 2004)

Walid’s story about hiding with local nuns has a fairy tale sound. He may have borrowed it from the Van Trop family scene in Julie Andrew’s “Sound of Music,” popular at the time Walid was growing up. The Nazis in a family movie may have respected a convent, but Israel would not. The idea that he was arrested, then turned loose, is also quite unlike Israel, where many youths have been held without charges in prison for years. This is a land where torture is approved by the Supreme Court, and anyone suspected of beating a soldier would probably never see the light of day.

We Hold These Truths caught Walid’s trail through the good fortune of discovering a credible witness who says Shoebat could not have done any of these things. A Christian pastor introduced this man whom we will call, “Ali,” though that is not his real name. “Ali” and Walid knew each other as high school mates in the late 1970’s in Beit Sahour, a village of only 250, near Bethlehem. Ali says none of the events Walid testified to happened, and there were no secrets in his village. Shoebat was an ordinary high school student from a well-to-do, nominally Muslim, religiously mixed family. There were no bombings or soldiers’ kidnappings.

Walid confirms that his mother was an American, not a Muslim, and he left Beit Sahour for the USA on her arm when he was only 16. Had he had a criminal record, as he claims, he would not have gotten out of Israel, nor into the USA.

Ali’s story of his daily life with Walid is supported by a feature article in the usually pro-Israel “Jerusalem Post” on March 30, 2008, by Israeli reporter Jorg Luyken, who wrote a feature story about Walid Shoebat entitled “The Palestinian terrorist turned Zionist”. The Post reporter explains in detail that he checked family references in tiny Beit Sahour and interviewed Shoebat’s relatives who are still there, and who reject Wahid’s story of a “terrorist” past. The reporter’s conclusions mesh with those of our anonymous witness. Endnote (7) Jerusalem Post

The J-Post story is thoroughly researched and effectively exposed Walid’s lone child-bomber story as a fairy tale. The Post did not overlook the lies Shoebat tells about his given name, and it calls his financial dealing into serious question. We do not care how much money he takes in, only how many innocent lives he costs. Walid’s family members recall him as an ordinary schoolboy with an American mother who kept him away from most of the family and hurried him off to the USA at first opportunity, leaving her other children behind with the father. Walid says his mother did not like Muslims, and he was trained by his mother.

When the J-Post questioned Shoebat about gaping holes in his life story, he made no admissions or apologies, but spun even more ridiculous tales in an attempt to cover for himself. Walid insists he did indeed bomb Bank Leumi, even if the bank did not know it; he supposes the bank might not have noticed it was bombed because he threw the bomb on its roof.

Caught in a lie, Shoebat comes up with bigger lies, a standard technique of the professionals. We would like to know how big a bomb a 16-year old can throw onto a bank’s roof? Writer Luyken clearly did not buy Walid’s story and concluded with a rhetorical question.

Luyken: “If the Bank Leumi bombing claim is unfounded, it is unclear why Shoebat would have wanted to manufacture a terrorist past. True or not, however, it has plainly brought him some prominence and provided him with a means to speak in favor of Israel and be paid for doing so.” Endnote (6) Jerusalem Post

I would not expect the writer for the “Jerusalem Post” to risk his job by naming an obvious conclusion he has exposed. We Hold These Truths will not dodge it. We think it was an Israeli handler who, as the J-Post suggests, “manufacture(d) a terrorist past” for Shoebat. His stories of beating soldiers and single-handed bombings never happened and are an invented cover for his career as an agent for Israel. With the state of Israel to back his story, what has Shoebat to fear? Walid’s only risk is that we and others will expose him, Israel will get someone else to do his job, and the money will stop flowing to him.

Not one word Shoebat says can be believed. He lies about his past, a network of planned and coordinated interwoven lies. This deliberateness of his lies is born out by a careful examination of his SBC speech, which reveals that Shoebat dropped all mention of his long-bomber, terrorist, prison record. He smoothly blended in a different story of his supposed activities in a US college, which he did not document in any way. Shoebat now wants us to forget the old lies he told and move on. Only a fool would do so. His speech writers use incendiary race hatred and a dash of race-sex to play on listener’s raw emotion with generalities about Muslims:

“Why do we want to kill you…until you submit?”

“A (Palestinian) man decapitated his daughter on his doorstep”…and the (Muslim) community supported him.

“They will be there to pursue your children”

“They do like to marry American girls.”

Judeo-Christians like those 500 or so at SBC, believe Shoebat because they want to. They want to believe him because they have been conditioned to accept the strange notion generated by World Zionism that all Muslims are out to get all Christians. Chosen People Ministries, operating inside the church, uses Shoebat to sell his deliberate deception to the gullible people of Scottsdale Bible Church. Endnote(8) Shoebat, at SBC, You Tube

Shoebat: An Israeli agent or a freelance Bernard Madoff ?

We observe that it is nigh impossible for a freelance con-man to live such a lie as Shoebat has wrapped around himself; but trained agents of intelligence organization go lifetimes on invented identities and cooked up histories. They often tell dramatic lies that are so big and dramatic they can be remembered and are rarely challenged.

When Shoebat is exposed by a respected writer like Chris Hedges, the “Light of Truth” Hedges publishes freelance is overshadowed by Shoebat’s network TV appearances before a friendly host to an audience of 10’s of millions and his featured appearance on a DVD called “Obsession” that was claimed to have been sent to 27 million people.

Shoebat’s success as a confidence man can be contrasted to Bernard Madoff, who is now finally in prison, but who lived a total business lie for much of two decades. Madoff lied to everyone, but he sent checks periodically to all the people he was slowly fleecing, obtaining the money from new fleece donors. One who gets a check has trouble believing the person who writes it is not a good guy...until the check bounces. Now everyone knows Madoff was for 20 years a professional deceiver, and the lies have not ended because no one knows who got away with the money.

Mr. Shoebat, like Mr. Madoff, is a quantum deceiver, but Shoebat does not give checks away; he only collects. His story would be quickly unraveled were it not that someone with power and influence is lending him credibility. The proof that Shoebat is an agent for Israel is that he has so many clones. We know of at least four of both sexes. Chris Hedges talks about three “stooges” who were all coordinated at one program at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. A fourth clone, Bridget Gabriel, works ostensibly for Pat Robertson. (Chris Hedges, the “Light of Truth”)

Other aspiring professional Zionists promote Israel with secular groups and even Muslim groups. I have met no less than three in Phoenix, who are either former or current Israeli agents, paid or de-facto, trying to climb the ladder toward the fame and fortune. One is a professing Muslim, medical doctor, Mohammad Zuhdi Jasser, president of the Phoenix-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy, whose words prove that there are also Islamic Zionists. A young former IDF air force pilot who gives free, anti-Palestinian speeches at low budget meetings; finally, Scottsdale art dealer Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent wrote “By Way of Deception,” an expose’ on how the Mossad works. He tells of the Israeli recruiting and training process at the highest level, far above the training of professional liars like Shoebat. Israel propaganda is big business, an issue for another story.

Intervention outside Scottsdale Bible Church Day 9-11, 2009

Scottsdale Bible Church, with a reported 5000 members and regular attendees, and a 2500 seat auditorium, is one of the more affluent churches in the Phoenix Metro area. Attendees at this service were admitted only by advance registration. Others who came without advance tickets were rejected at the door of the 1/3 full house.

The acts of members outside the Church support our view that Shoebat’s balderdash terrorist story is protected from challenge wherever he speaks. His role is to convince Judeo-Christian church members that Palestinian “terrorism” justifies Israel’s acts of aggression and that the victims deserved to be annihilated because of alleged hatred of Christians. To paraphrase: “We” Muslims hate you so much you really need to hate us back to protect yourselves. No mention is made of Jesus’ admonition to love your brothers and even your enemies.

The saddest fact we witnessed at our vigil at Scottsdale Bible Church (SBC) was the willingness of the sponsoring church to allow its members to be deceived. Shoebat was promoted to the church by Church members who are associated with Chosen People Ministries. But the church’s lead pastor, Jamie Rasmussen, approved the program and the use of the auditorium, probably under the “no harm, no foul” thinking. But there is harm. Zionists inside the churches are promoting death and destruction for Muslims everywhere, and a few Americans will also die. Project Strait Gate provided the Senior Pastor all the information we had three weeks in advance by letter and FAX . We offered meetings to discuss it, which were ignored.

Twelve Vigil Team members, dignified and disciplined, stood quietly in the 104-degree sun until it set, displaying our message on large signs to those entering SBC. One of these read;

“SHOEBAT IS A FRAUD”; another read

“RACISM KILLS PALESTINIANS”.

Some of those entering the church, let us know they understood our message and did not want to hear it with gestures, a number of thumbs down, and a few obscene gestures. An older man in a new, black Mercedes stopped to tell two of us, “You have better be gone when I come back in thirty minutes. We were very much there, but we did not see notice the Mercedes again.

The church’s most overt act of agitation came from a baritone singer who came out in snakeskin boots to sing Christian Songs to us. A buddy with a church nametag stood, watched, and directed from the church parking lot. The singer stood belly-to-belly and hip-to-hip with demonstrators and sang “Jesus” songs loudly in each of our ears for well over an hour. ( Mercifully, he did not approach the three lady picketers.) His was a most uncomfortable, in your face, agitation right in front of the off-duty hirelings, who said not a word. We complained to them and even summoned the regular Police patrolmen once. When they appeared, the man in the boots stepped away a half step until the patrolmen were gone, and then went right back to singing in our ears.

His buddy wearing a church nametag “Scott,” called the singer to give him instructions upon which the latter returned, and zeroed in on Hani, one of two Muslim Arabs we invited to answer questions about Islam. The singer became a preacher, reading loudly in Hani’s ears from the Bible. He even proclaimed that Hani was going to “hell.” Wherever Hani walked, the snakeskin boots followed, only inches away from his heels. It must have been a miserable two hours for Hani, but to his credit, he kept his temper.

It is our experience that off-duty cops working for churches will make small stretches of law and facts if asked to do so by the tax-exempt church that pays them to be there in uniform. We have learned not to trust off-duty police. To counteract them, we insist on the presence of local on-duty police to referee. One attendee, who knew us, came out to warn us that the hireling police were quietly warning attendees not to talk to or take literature from demonstrators. We assume this was part of the church’s police briefing.

In two and a half hours, only three members of the congregation, one a before-mentioned friend, walked the short distance to the street to talk to any of us. If I was a SBC church member I would want to walk past the police to the street to ask, “OK what’s your story?” or “Do you have anything in writing that explains why you are picketing my church?”

Christian Zionism can best be understood in the dishonest acts and words of Walid Shoebat. Like his record, Zionism is a lie. We have listened carefully to the Shoebat program, which we refer you to on You Tube. He had much to say about the “evils of Islam” and “Why we want to kill you.” but he did not say one word about converting Muslims to be followers of Christ, supposedly the evangelical mission.

Shoebat also materially altered his story for this event, perhaps because of our advance exposure of him, leaving out all references to his phony acts of terror in Palestine. He even omitted his hallmark, bank bombing yarn that has been a part of most programs and his website history.

It seems Shoebat has stopped telling just this one lie, having been caught in it. This is all the more proof that he is a programmed professional deceiver, selling war and death in the name of Jesus Christ. Similarly Chosen People Ministries did not make an appeal for Jews to convert to Christianity, as is supposed to be its purpose. Evangelicals always ask for conversions even when they don’t mean it.

Judeo-Christians pretend to believe the unnatural and impossible in the name of loving Israel. They turn from Jesus’ words of love to programmed Zionist words of hatred. The troubadour in the snakeskin boots was the church’s missionary to us. He sang songs featuring Jesus’ name to harass and torment, hoping to inflame to violence. This is vile, hate-filled fruit of Zionism, hiding behind Jesus’name, and ignoring the meaning of His very words and acts. It clearly demonstrates that Christian Zionism is not Christianity.

Endnotes

(1)Who is Walid Shoebat, Part I http://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=3267

( 2) Roots of Christian Zionism http://whtt.org/show/

(3) Judaizing Elements of the Messianic Movement Cesar Aharon and Benzion Melechson, DVD

http://eshop.whtt.org/popupdetails.php?popup=1&prodId=279

(4) Chris Hedges “The War Against Tolerance” http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080211_the_war_against_tolerance/#Richard

(5) Chosen People Ministries

http://www.chosenpeople.com/main/page/us_ministries.html

.http://www.chosenpeople.com/main/.

http://www.ministrywatch.com/profile/chosen-people-ministries.aspx

http://www.wallwatchers.org/ww/people/index1.html

http://www.jewishrootsofchristianity.org/

https://www.chosenpeople.com/main/page/watchmen_for_jerusalem.html

(6) Raffi Berg, BBC News Online, 2004

(7) Jerusalem Post

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1206632362598&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

(8) Shoebat, SBC, You Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMlh7Ox_4eQ

Nonie Darwish - Con Artist & Gold Digger Extraordinaire Starts New Organization: Former Muslims United (God Money Worshippers)

2009-09-22T16:53:00.000-07:00

It looks like Nonie Darwish the poster child for right wing evangelicals has struck again with creating a new hate organization called Former Muslims United. What next the KKK is going to open a civil liberties organization? This gives me the inspiration to start Former Christians United...or maybe Former Jews United to be the new civil liberties organization representing ex jews and ex christians trying to run away from the Zionist/Neocon/Evangelical death squad. These people really want to destroy America by turning us into Hitler's playground. The Whore of Babylon (Nonie Darwish)

The Couple (Global Revolution Church's Crusader Marshall - Blake & Beverly Lorenz) Who Harbored Rifqa Bary Speak Out

2009-09-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

This is a disturbing video of the Crusader's trying to cover their tracks, in order to escape legal liability. However, that is not going to happen...they are legally responsible for the illegal activity they were involved in and will suffer monetary damages even if they try to re-organize their Church. The FBI will find where their money is going.

They will not be able to escape The USA's legal system, no matter what fanatical sect of Christianity they follow. The "Voice of the Martyrs" Christian Terrorist Magazine was mentioned in the interview by the Crusader Marshall and his wife. This is very scary, because the Voice of the Martyrs is a Crusader Magazine that pushes for hatred of Islam and Muslims in general.

Evangelical Attorney: Christians On Wrong Side Of Rifqa Fight

2009-09-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

Evangelical Attorney: Christians On Wrong Side Of Rifqa Fight

Jeremy Weber
Now that controversy over the fate of Rifqa Bary -- the teenage Christian convert who ran away from her Ohio home fearing her Muslim parents would kill her -- has reached Elian Gonzalez proportions, many evangelicals may be tuning out the never-ending headlines.
But don't miss this one.
Craig McCarthy was the Orlando attorney representing Rifqa Bary's mother until Sept. 3. He is also a committed evangelical. And, contrary to those who have mobilized around Rifqa's cause, McCarthy believes her Sri Lankan parents are in the right.
McCarthy is "happy that the child knows Jesus." But he is concerned that "many Christian conservatives have allowed themselves to adopt a narrative and thus reach conclusions ... prematurely" -- to the extent that their evangelistic zeal has led them to spread false information.
The core of his message: "Please recognize that the Lord is not so powerless as to need people to hide information, to embellish facts, or to give false witness in order to advance Christ's kingdom."
Read it all here.

Why I think Rifqa’s mother is in the right

2009-09-19T10:38:00.001-07:00

Why I think Rifqa’s mother is in the right

By Craig McCarthy, Special to the St. Petersburg Times

Published Friday, September 18, 2009

Editor's note: Craig McCarthy, a private attorney in Orlando specializing in juvenile courts, was the court-appointed attorney for Rifqa Bary's mother from Aug. 10 until Sept. 3. Rifqa Bary, a 17-year-old Christian convert who fled Ohio for Orlando, has claimed she'll be killed if sent back to her Muslim parents. Last week, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found no credible reason to believe that. At a Monday hearing, her parents' attorneys plan to argue that the case should be dismissed in Florida and sent back to Ohio.

The objective facts of the Rifqa Bary case, viewed with a minimum of passion and maximum wisdom and discernment, should matter, to Christians in particular.

I am writing now because a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has been released addressing the claims of Rifqa Bary that her parents would allegedly kill her because she has converted from Islam to Christianity. The report provides additional documentation of things I have known for some weeks but have not until now been at liberty to say.

It will astonish many fellow conservatives as well as many on the left to learn that I, an evangelical Christian, have vigorously defended Rifqa Bary's mother in court. And I believe that my former client's cause is just.

From the beginning of this case until earlier this month, I was the attorney for Aysha Risana Bary, Rifqa's mother. I hope it comes across as nothing but a simple fact when I say this to you: I know more about what is really going on in this case than you do — and those of us who are Christians and conservatives ought to be interested in the facts behind controversial stories.

I found the Lord and became born again at the age of 5 and was raised in an evangelical tradition and environment. With the exception of my live appearance on Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends last month, I have made my faith as a Christian clear to every journalist who has interviewed me about this case.

I am an attorney who has been involved with probably close to a thousand cases involving child abuse and neglect, both on the side of the state and on the side of parents who have had the state dismantle their families. (A little aside: I almost lost my job way back for trying to save Terri Schiavo while I was a Department of Children and Families attorney — I was critical of Attorney General Charlie Crist in that case then and am critical of Gov. Charlie Crist in this case now.)

Bottom line, I am a Christian attorney who believes in working to advance the cause of Christ while I'm here in this fallen world.

And I also believe that many Christian conservatives have allowed themselves to adopt a narrative and thus reach conclusions about the Rifqa Bary case prematurely, just as we accuse the mainstream media of sticking to their preferred narratives instead of squaring their passions with reality.

Early on, I all but pleaded with Christians to hit the pause button and wait for more investigation and facts. The implications of getting this wrong have pained me greatly. Now to the facts.

On the morning of Aug. 10, I was working at the juvenile courthouse in Orange County. I observed people loudly making threats to bring in the media and the governor about some matter to be heard that day. Something immediately seemed "off" about some of the personalities in this case (and by that I do not mean the child herself).

Later that day, I was appointed to the case to defend Rifqa's mom. This was not purely by chance. As the person in my county who is routinely appointed to serve as an attorney ad litem to speak for children in foster care, I had been asked to stick around. It was anticipated that I might very well become Rifqa's attorney.

When the attorney who had at first entered an appearance on behalf of Pastor Blake Lorenz later changed her position and declared that she in fact represented the child Rifqa, however, I was given the task of representing one of the parents in the case. It's inside baseball for most readers, but I was immediately struck by the strangeness of Lorenz's attorney spontaneously declaring an attorney-client relationship with the child in open court that hadn't existed the moment before.

That sense of strangeness remains relevant given a recent motion to clarify the roles of Rifqa's four attorneys filed by DCF. In any event, I took the case on behalf of Rifqa's mom and started digging, knowing from the beginning that the case had implications for people of my Christian faith and being determined to get it right.

By Aug. 12, I already had solid documentation that at least one thing circulating in the media and on blogs was flat wrong: that the parents had not reported the child missing for 10 days. Not long after, I was able to nail down another misreported "fact," that the child's note left to her parents had not been given to police. Neither of those things are true.

Why are those relatively mundane facts important? They are important because the person reporting them couldn't possibly know those things, yet so-called adults surrounding Rifqa eagerly passed those things on to media without analysis, one imagines, because they served to paint the child's parents in a bad light.

Knowing that the key facts first presented in Orlando were just plain wrong, and almost inexplicably wrong given that neither claim could possibly be known to anyone in Florida, I continued with my sense that something was "off" here, and kept digging.

I was annoyed as a Christian, as an officer of the court and as a litigator (in that order) that many with whom I agree on many issues were so willing to disregard the notion that a parent has the right in this country to raise and influence a child without governmental interference, unless there is evidence of abuse or neglect that is credible and not based on stereotypes or based on the beliefs or actions of what people who are not the parents might think, feel or do.

Consider this: A minor goes missing; an Amber Alert is issued; law enforcement officials develop information; that information brings police to a lead; that lead actually has knowledge of where the child is; despite the fact that the lead initially denies his knowledge of where the child is, police are able to put that together with a call to the National Center for Missing and Endangered Children, and then they find the missing child. … Yet the response of certain people involved with this case is to be outraged that the police did their jobs. Something is "off."

Then came the FDLE report executive summary. It's out there now. It confirms things I already knew. When Mohamed Bary personally showed me photographs of his daughter in a cheerleader outfit when we met for the second time on Aug. 21 (he had driven from Ohio to Florida twice to attend court hearings), I knew that claims that he had no idea that his child was a Westernized and normal high school student were nonsense.

Reading the FDLE report, I now have confirmation of several things I'd developed information about. I am no longer involved with this case as an attorney. It would be improper by my writing to interfere with the Barys' new attorneys and how they want to proceed. Suffice it to say that a growing list of otherwise uninterested people would have to be lying in order for what you think is true about this case to be true.

To my Christian readers I say that most of you likely had a heartfelt desire to protect a new convert to our faith. I can't fault you there. Quite frankly I am happy that the child knows Jesus, but that is a personal feeling and not relevant to my previous job of defending these parents from the power of the state to take their family apart.

Please recognize that the Lord is not so powerless as to need people to hide information, to embellish facts, or to give false witness in order to advance Christ's kingdom. You homeschoolers in particular ought to pause and weigh the power of the state to take your child into foster care against your feelings on this case and whether or not you would wish to be afforded a competent defense should religious biases be used against you some day.

To any readers who may be of the People for the American Way variety who blog about the hypocrisy of Christians, I simply present myself, an evangelical Christian who believes in facts and law and has extended himself far out on a limb before his peers on behalf of Rifqa's mother.

To any readers who may be Muslim, do not allow your reading of certain blogs to taint your feelings toward your Christian neighbors.

And to Rifqa, one year younger than my older child, I say that as a father and as a Christian, and as your mother's former attorney, I care about you and have since Aug. 10. God bless you, and I believe that all things will work together for good.

Craig McCarthy, a graduate of West Point and Florida State Law School, was the court-appointed attorney for Rifqa Bary's mother for the first several weeks of this case.

Sue Pamela Gellar & Robert Spencer!

2009-09-17T21:31:00.001-07:00

Why doesn't anybody sue Pamela Gellar and the whole right wing mafia? Let us real Christians and Jews join in sueing these right wing nuts for their atrocities against the American People and Nation! I think that every right wing nut case needs to be taken to court to answer for all the false allegations they print about their opponnents. I think every time they attack a person because of their race or religion, they need to be put in jail just like any common criminal. (Yes this means you Pamela Gellar and Robert Spencer!)

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity

2009-09-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity

The use of the term Politically Correct to talk about how real society deals with issues is a popular right wing rhetoric and slogan to describe anything that is true. If they want to set the standards such as the "Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam", then the same applies to them. I am helping right a book right now which may be called "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity" and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Judaism" to reflect the hate of the Neocons and Zionists who have been attacking other peaceful American Citizens in this beautiful country of ours. United We Stand, Divided We Fall. Also, One Nation Under God (not just Jesus or Yahweh). These fundamentalist Christian evangelicals are a danger to our society!

Rise of the Right: The End of America

2009-09-17T01:01:00.000-07:00

THE END OF AMERICA

United States is on the road to becoming a fascist society, right under our very noses.The Ten Steps of the Fascist Shift as interpreted by Naomi Wolf and applied to the Bush administration, could equally apply to Presidents in the 1920s, 1940s, and 1950s. United States history has been through many worse times and survived.
While researching the 1920s for my book The Ragmans War, I learned many dark secrets about the Roaring Twenties hidden in union archives, news articles from that time, and in memories of old men.
Applying the 10 steps to the administrations of Wilson, Harding and Coolidge would have made it the 1920s the worst decade for fascism in US history. Steel and Rail Barons controlled all branches of government and wielded their influence to keep millions of immigrant workers laboring in the mills and mines for little or no wages. Dissidents and union organizers who riled against this serf system of cheap labor that kept the Twenties stock market roaring were branded as anarchists. They were detained, deported, jailed, or murdered.
In the mining towns the mine families were forbidden to bear arms, to assemble, to have free ingress and egress to their towns, to sing hymns, and join unions. During the 1927-28 strike in the western Pennsylvania coalfields, they had their property seized and sold at auction and were evicted from their houses even when the rent was paid. Company agents had free access to invade their homes at whim.
Constitutional abuses in the bituminous coalfields around Pittsburgh were so bad that members of the US Senate decided to visit the area to evaluate the situation. The ACLU did their own investigation and reported their findings in a booklet titled The Shame of Pennsylvania.
Dont believe me then look it up for yourself or read Bucket of Blood the Ragmans War, The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of Americas Largest Labor Uprising, or Storming Heavan. Then there was the Red Scare of 1919, the Palmer Raids, and persecution of the IWW (Wobblies)? What about the Red Scare of the late 1940s under Truman? How many communists and sympathizers were detained, deported, jailed, or went into hiding?

The Ten Steps of the 1928 Fascist Shift:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy (Communists, Wobblies, Labor Unions).

2. Create a gulag ( Captive Coal Towns, Wobbly Interment Camps, Deportation Centers).

3. Develop a thug caste (Coal and Iron Police, Pinkerton Men, American Legion).

4. Set up an internal surveillance system (Paid Stool Pigeons, Mail Interception).

5. Harass citizens groups (Company Sheriffs, State Troopers, County Sheriffs, Constables, Coal and Iron Police, KKK, Jim Crow Laws).

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release (union organizers, black lists, civil rights activists, Wobblies, innocent immigrant workers).

7. Target key individuals (scientists, academics, journalists, artists, writers, social activists, movie producers, labor leaders and organizers).

8. Control the press (coal, steel, and rail barons, judges, Hearst Syndicate).

9. Dissent equals treason (Sedition Laws, Red Scare, Palmer Raids, Anti Union Laws).

10. Suspend the rule of law (suspension of Constitutional rights for coal and steel families, Rossitor Injunctions, Coal & Steel companies rule the towns they own, their appointed agents are the law).

OOPS!!! Wolfe forgot about suppression of free speech.

Master Remote Viewing & Remote Influencing http://www.mc8.org

Learn More Secrets on Myspase ExSeCRet Page.
http://www.myspace.com/exsecret

V's Speech to the Right Wing Nutcases

2009-09-17T00:50:00.003-07:00

This is such a beautiful speech by V to the masses regarding the Right Wing Nutcases: If you see what I see...if you feel what I feel...

Ergun Caner The Fake Muslim Convert Exposed

2009-09-17T00:44:00.000-07:00

OMG this is the funniest thing I have ever seen, this right wing nutcase is trying to pass off as an ex-Muslim. From our sources who know him personally, they say that his father was a Turkish Muslim, however his mother has always been a European Christian. He was raised as a Christian and was never a Muslim. His parents do not live together. Out of spite for his father not wanting to live with his mother, he has choses this money making path to hate his father by attacking the Islamic faith. Sad how these evangelicals have to attack other people to promote their false religion of hate. Real Christians do not teach this rubbish! Please don't judge Christians based on this fool. This fool was trying to jump on the Rifqa Bary bandwagon! What a joke, if this is Christianity, then we don't want to be Christian anymore!

The Histrionic Rifqa Bary In Full Fanaticism Being Cheered on By Adults

2009-09-16T16:26:00.001-07:00

This is such a disturbing child soldier propoganda video that you think it came out of Blood Diamond. Look at how this young 16 year old girl is talking, word for word she is repeating what her violent Crusader mentors have taught her:

Right Wing Watch Blog!

2009-09-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's about time to see such wonderful blogs such as Right Wing Watch! http://www.rightwingwatch.org

The Right Wing has started something they can't finish, that is the rest of us sane Americans blogging the evil actions of the Right Wing aka Fascists.

Fathima Rifqa Bary: Christian Extremists Questioning Law & Order

2009-09-15T15:48:00.001-07:00

http://www.floridabaptistwitness.com/10777.article

In the article referenced above, the Christian Extremists are questioning Law & Order by saying that the Police have not done their job. Which is ridiculous and typical of hate mongering people when they can't have their way.

Interesting enough...Mehmet Caner the fake apostate gives his view that the FDLE is being politically correct. Well, if everybody else was not politically correct, especially the FDLE, they would call a spade a spade...when right wing elements of the Florida Government put pressure on the FDLE and they resist, they should be given a medal. If the FDLE wanted to be politically correct, they would have called the Christian Extremist groups what they really are...Christian Terrorists and Kidnappers who are allied with Israeli Zionists trying to manipulate Christians and Muslims and throw them at each other. The real culprit of hate is Pamela Gellar (Zionist Jew), Robert Spencer, Bridgette Gabrielle, and other hate mongering Nazi / Fascists. The Neocon/Zionist alliance is so disgusting that you have to laugh at their comedy blogs.

Celebrate: Michael Savage’s flagship station drops him.

2009-09-11T07:22:00.001-07:00

Michael Savage’s flagship station drops him.

Earlier today, the conservative blog Patriot Axom noted that far-right radio host Michael Savage has been taken “off the air” from his San Francisco-based flagship station, Talk 910 KNEW. Now, a representative from the station has issued a statement explaining why it will no longer air Savage’s show:

I’m going to answer the very first question many of you have.

“Why did you take Michael Savage off the air?”

Here’s your no-spin direct answer; we have decided to go in a different philosophical and ideological direction, featuring more contemporary content and more local information. The Savage Nation does not fit into that vision.

910 KNEW’s decision is the latest blow to Savage’s efforts to spread hate. Last winter, following a campaign by the Council On American-Islamic Relations and Brave New Films, numerous advertisers ended their relationship with Savage, including Geico, Union Bank of California, and ITT Technical Institute. Savage has in the past advocated killing 100 million Muslims, compared President Jimmy Carter to Hitler, and has said that the U.S. Senate is “more histrionic than ever” because of the addition of female senators.

Pamela Geller: The Looniest Blogger Ever

2009-09-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

Posted on 31 August 2009 by Mooneye
Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller

What do you get when you combine the most outlandish gaffes of Anne Coulter, the most awkward monologues of Sarah Palin, the senility of the crazy McCain Lady, filter any remaining logic out of it and give it a keyboard in the Bronx?

The answer is the looniest blogger ever: Pamela Geller. If you are unaware of who Pamela Geller is then we apologize for bringing her being into your world, but she is all too familiar to those of us who browse the internet and have come across her shrill and plainly insane blogging on Atlas Shrugs. (Given the amount of hallucinations on that blog, Atlas Shrugs should properly be renamed Atlas Drugs).

What is it though that Pamela believes in? What does she blog about?

Pam has the distinction of being the originator and pusher of some of the most vile and obscene conspiracy theories on the internet. Mostly dealing with Islam and Muslims but also Barack Obama, and the two are combined — A LOT. In one of her recent tirades titled, CNN Tells, Sells More Lies About Palin — it’s Time to Expose the truth about Obama, Geller writes,

So why not tell the truth about Obama and his reported strange sexual predilections? My question is, it is well known that Obama allegedly was involved with a crack whore in his youth. Very seedy stuff. Why aren’t they pursuing that story? Find the ho, give her a show!

Here she calls on CNN to investigate Obama’s “strange sexual predilections.” She also says that it is “well known” but then sneaks in “allegedly” that Obama was “involved with a crack whore in his youth.” This is just the beginning of the craziness. She then goes on to state that she believes that President Obama’s trip to Pakistan in the 80’s was originally to go for drugs but that he became indoctrinated into Jihad.

Back in the early 80’s, there were only two reasons to travel to Pakistan. Jihad or drugs. I think he went for the drugs and came back with jihad. (He did, after all, change his name to Barack Hussein Obama from Barry Soetoro, upon his return from that trip).

Real good investigative work Pam! He changed his name to what had always been his name and that shows that he is a Jihadist? For the uber-racist Pam Geller, drugs is a connotation for Black and Jihad is a connotation for Muslim; a Black man can only travel to get drugs, and a Muslim country can only offer travelers Jihad.

Additionally, Pam Geller has an unhealthy obsession with Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. For Pam the old adage do not speak ill of the dead has no resonance, in fact she can’t even stop her self from speaking slanderous lies about the dead.

Pam, that ever-vigilant firecracker of a reporter broke a story that “even CNN didn’t care to touch.” What was this highly neglected breaking story? Obama is the illegitimate son of Malcolm X! In her 50,000 word rant, Pam Geller toys with all sorts of theories including the suggestion that Obama’s mom somehow had an amorous hook up with Malcolm?

Barack Hussein Obama Jr Malcolm X Barack Hussein Obama Sr. Barack Hussein Obama Sr., Tom Mboya, and Philip Ochieng, all share common physical features of the Kenyan Luo tribe: Modest stature under six feet, round faces, small chins, wide set eyes, slanted back foreheads, and retracted hairlines…none of these features are shared by Malcolm X and Barack Hussein Obama Jr.

She then goes on a long and wide conspiratorial line trying to link Barack’s mother with Malcolm X, and all the possibilities of how they could have hooked up. If you read the post, beware that it is long, like sleuthing through a swamp.

In a most bizarre jab at Obama’s mom, Geller wonders aloud why CNN isn’t pursuing some “story” about the “alleged” nude “pornographic” pictures taken of Obama’s mom by Frank Marshall Davis!

Why isn’t CNN pursuing the nude pornographic photos of Obama’s mom…I never ran the pics, as it was unseemly and wasn’t relevant. But this assault on Palin is too disgusting. It’s time to tell the ugly truth about the enemy in the White House and his whores in the media.

Maybe CNN and the “whores in the media” aren’t running this story because it is a non-story with no news value? Or maybe because it is a figment of a loony blogger’s imagination with no thread of truth in it? Or maybe because it has nothing to do with the job performance of that “Negro Mooslim enemy” in the White House?

That is another card in the loonieness that is Pamela Geller. She believes Obama is an enemy, i.e. according to her he is a Muslim. On the end-of-times loon website World Net Daily, Geller wrote this hysterical post titled Obama’s Islam: Now He Tells Us,

We should have seen all this coming. Obama deceitfully hid his Muslim background and schooling and his agenda. I started writing about Obama’s religious Muslim background in January 2007, and throughout 2007 and 2008 I presented evidence of Obama’s identification as a Muslim when he was a child, his extremist Muslim family and his Islamic schooling. In December 2007, I wrote, “Barack Obama went to a madrassa in Jakarta. A madrassa in a Muslim country. Whether he was devout or secular, he knows what was taught. He knows what is in the Quran. Even if he is ambiguous, he knows the stakes involved. His father was a Muslim who took three wives (without divorcing). His stepfather and close members of his family are devout Muslims. Not an unimportant influence.” And who can forget Obama’s bald-faced lies to the Jews? In February 2008, Obama told Jewish leaders: “If anyone is still puzzled about the facts, in fact I have never been a Muslim.” Yet he was registered as a Muslim in an Indonesian school…And so now we have our first Muslim presidency, just eight years after 9/11. The media can spin their subjugation and adulation a million different ways, but America did not vote for a “Muslim presidency,” which is what this is. Everything this president has done so far has helped foster America’s submission to Islam.

If that weren’t enough then you could predict what comes next. Not only is Obama the illegitimate son of Malcolm X, not born in America, on top of all that it is obvious that since he is a Muslim he must also be an anti-Semite!

Every decision, every move, every policy decision the President has made in regards to Israel has been the act of …. an anti-semite.

So there you have it the Mooslims are taking over! In fact they have already taken over America, so much so that we have a Mooslim president, who is anti-Semitic, sired by the fire breathing Malcolm X, his mom was a whore, and oh yeah somewhere in there he is also a socialist! That comes to you courtesy of the Looniest Blogger Ever!

Her blog remains “popular,” the adjective “popular” however may be a bit misleading as it seems to be popular only with crazies who espouse openly bigoted views. A glance at her comments section demonstrates this,

Posted by: jj | Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 01:24 AM , “Pigs are more humane than Muhammad. And cleaner, too.”

Posted by: En français | Monday, August 31, 2009 at 07:56 AM

What is a man with the name Matthew Polombo doing as the secretaey general of something called the Somali Youth Action? To build this big Islamic style complex exclusively for Moslem Somalis in Minneapolis means someone thinks they are there to stay ….. but as soon as we get rid of the Monster in the White House, we will get rid of them. Since they were imported, the crime rate has soared. They were criminals in Somalia, so they are also criminals in America and have no idea of American ideals and way of life. This sport center would be a hatching center for more crimes against Americans who don’t want them, didn’t ask them to come and want to get rid of them. The people of Minneapolis are insanely stupid if they allow this Obamanation to materialize.

Posted by: Sarastro | Monday, August 31, 2009 at 07:57 AM

WTF?!?!? How many dang Somalis do we have here that they need a frickin’ Youth Center? WhoTF needs Somalis here anyway? What? Are they the world’s best meat-packers?!?!?

Yeah, and I know. . . when the Muslims say “prevent” violence they mean “promote” violence.

Yeah, right. Separate gyms and pools, a place to get married, and maybe a hall or two in which to teach hatred and strategy for Islamic Supremacy?

This article is just more evidence that Muslims, (may their prophet be damned,) have no desire to assimilate or become Americans in support of America.

These comments are just a sampling of what passes as polite discourse on Atlas Shrugs, to get further acquainted with her and the loonieness of her commenters just parse through the comment section there, you will be truly mortified.

Oxymoron: Conservative Sex Symbols

2009-09-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

The whole ideology of Conservatism is rooted in conserving and modesty. How then are vile prostitutes and strippers like Ann Coultier, Pamela Gellar, Michelle Malkin, Hasselbeck, and others conservative? They are nothing but Prostitutes for the right wing media. They degrade the value of women and turn them into eye candy and meat for the right wing male pigs to masturbate over them while they are bombing women and children in other countries. It reminds me of a book I read in college called The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, where the "Conservative Holy Warriors" of the Christian Knights Templar would sleep with Christian women from Europe who would come and offer their bodies for sex to the Crusaders in order to "boost their morale". So, by breaking Christian values and fornicating, they want to fight a holy war...these right wing conservative "sex symbols" are the modern day version of these same whores.

Apostasy: An Unqualified Fatwa

2009-09-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

With the story of Rifqa Bary, a 17 year old who converted from Islam to Christianity, all over the news the subject of apostasy in Islam has taken center stage. If you are unfamiliar with the Rifqa Bary case I invite you read my previous articles on the subject.

Part I & Part II

As with any discussion of Islamic Law, I begin with my standard disclaimer, Caveat Emptor. Buyer beware. This is an ambitious task for a layman such as me, and I am unqualified. I firmly believe that civil disagreement is the crucible of Truth, and that reason and evidense are it's flame. In that light logic forces me to take this position. I consider it Truth, at least until a more convincing argument presents itself, and I swear by God, I invite such evidence. As I have explained before, there is no compulsion in religion. Everything right and True is from Allah.

To be clear, in Rifqa Bary's case the authentic, or inauthentic teachings of Islam have no relevance. What is relevant is whether or not Muhammad, her father, puts the girl in any real danger. I will stand by the reports of the Florida and Ohio law enforcement agencies who investigated the allegations, which are currently sealed by the judge but will become public after September 13th. As always I believe the only just solution is emancipation. I think it's silly that we consider 17 year olds children, and I can't morally advocate using state coercion to place her back with her family against her will. Set her free and let her associate with her family on a voluntary basis.

In the original video which aired August 10th Rifqa said to the camera and to the world, "If they love Allah more than me, they have to do it (kill her). It’s in the Quran." It is a widely accepted misconception that the Quran calls for the death penalty for apostasy. This is mostly claimed by Christians and Orientalists, and it’s utterly false. No such verse exists, and I challenge you to bring it. The Quran speaks repeatedly of people returning to disbelief after believing (2:217, 3:86-90, 4:137, 9:66, 9:74, 16:106-109, 4:88-91, 47:25-27), but never says they should be punished in this life. Let’s take a look.
Quran 3:86-87
86- How shall God guide those who reject Faith after they accepted it and bore witness that the Messenger was true and that Clear Signs had come unto them? but God guides not a people unjust. -87- For such the reward is that on them rests the curse of God, of His angels, and mankind combined.

Hmmm… so curse them… not kill them.
Quran 4:137
137- Those who believe, then reject faith, then believe again and again reject faith, and go on increasing in disbelief, God will not forgive them nor guide them nor guide them on the way.

Maybe you can explain to me how a person enters Islam, and then leaves it, then enters again, and then leaves it again… if you’re supposed to kill them when they left the first time.
Quran 16:106-109
106- Any one who, after accepting faith in God, utters Disbelief, - except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Disbelief, on them is Wrath from God, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty. -107- This is because they love the life of this world better than the Hereafter: and God will not guide those who reject Faith. -108- Those are they whose hearts, ears, and eyes God has sealed, and they take no heed. -109- Without doubt, in the Hereafter they will perish.

The “dreadful penalty” for apostasy is God’s to bring in the Hereafter.

The only time the Quran ever says anything about killing apostates it is in reference to a specific event in the life of Muhammad. While the Muslims were in Mecca there was great persecution at the hands of the pagans, and the Quran spoke at length about hypocrites among the Muslims who were spies from the pagans. Then the command was given for the Muslims to flee Mecca and migrate to Medina. This migration revealed the hypocrites, who refused to leave Mecca. Permission was given to fight those who left Islam and joined pagan tribes in aggressing against the Muslims.
Quran 4:89-91
89- They desire that you should reject Faith, as they do, that you may be like them. So, take not friends from among them until they flee in the way of God (to Medina). But if they turn back (to Mecca), seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not friends nor helpers from among them. -90- Except those who join a people with whom you have a treaty of peace, or those who approach you with hearts restraining them from fighting you or fighting their own people. Had God willed He would have given them power over you, and they would have fought you. Therefore if they withdraw from you, but fight you not, and offer you peace, then God has opened no way for you to war against them.

In this passage the apostates are broken into three categories.

1) Those allied with a tribe that has a peace treaty with the Mulsims.
2) Those who want to keep neutrality in the conflict.
3) Those allied with a tribe engaged in hostilities towards the Muslims.

As everywhere else in the Quran, permission is only given to fight those who aggressed on you first. And this verse clearly prohibits Muslims from fighting those who left Islam if they wish to live in peace or neutrality.

But then we get that famous Hadith, favorite of Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and Tom Trento, that unholy trinity of islamophobia.

"WHOEVER CHANGED HIS RELIGION, KILL HIM."

Whoa! Well that’s problematic isn’t it! It seems perfectly clear… kill the apostates, right? Heck, it kinda means kill converts too! I guess I'm not safe in Ohio, because I had to change my religion in order to convert to Islam. Well… this Hadith is unreliable for a number of reasons… first we’ve gotta read the whole thing:

Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57:
Narrated by 'Ikrima:
Some atheists were brought to 'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his religion, kill him.'"

This Hadith appears, with minor variations, in all the major hadith collections (Bukhari, Tirmidhi, Abu Da'ud and Ibn Majah), but always with the same chain of narration. The hadith is narrated only ‘Ikrima in the second generation, and only by Ibn ‘Abbas in the first generation. The only person in the chain who ever met the Prophet is Ibn Abbas, who was 10 years old when he converted and 13 when the Prophet died. Further, examining the reliability of the narrators you’ll find the many scholars considered Ikrima a liar, or at the very least untrustworthy. He was known to sympathize with the extremists of his day known as the Khawarij, who despised Ali.

So, to believe that this was an authentic teaching from Muhammad you’d have to believe that he gave a law prescribing the death penalty to a child, and no one else, not even Ali, who had been his companion for 23 years. And you'd have to believe that the boy tells no one except a liar.... and this is how the law is transmitted. But it’s not even transmitted well. In this narration the word for atheists is “Zanadiqa” which is not Arabic but Persian. In another it says, “those who abandoned Islam” and in another it says, “people from al-Zatt who worshipped idols”. These narrations of the same event are irreconsilable. An atheist can not be an idol worshiper. It's far easier for me to believe that Ikrima invented this out of whole cloth to discredit the authority of Ali.

This becomes obvious if you read the same Hadith in the collection of Abu Da'ud, which ends differently.

Abu Da`ud 3787
Ayyub informed us from ‘Ikrima that that ‘Ali, peace be upon him, burned some people who abandoned Islam. This reached Ibn ‘Abbas and he said: I would not have burnt them with fire. Indeed, the Messenger of God said: ‘Do not punish with the punishment of God.’ I would have killed them in accordance with the word of the Messenger of God. For, surely the Messenger of God said: ‘Whoever changed his religion kill him’.” This reached ‘Ali, peace be upon him, and he said: ‘Woe to Ibn ‘Abbas’.

It’s a Hadith about a rumor that Ali has been burning apostates (which never happened by the way) and when the rumor reached Ali, he says “woe” to the person spreading the rumor. Ibn 'Abbas was vindicated however. It was reported by Abdullah bin al-Harith that when he visited ‘Ali, he was shocked to find ‘Ikrima bound to a post outside the door of ‘Ali’s house. When he asked ‘Ali regarding this ‘Ali explained by saying: “This wicked man attributes false traditions to Ibn ‘Abbas." This Hadith is now what it was then... a vicious rumor.

Unfortunately the misconception that the punishment for apostasy is death is common, even among Muslims. In reality this ruling comes from an age when apostasy and treason were synonymous. In deed, to convert to Christianity in a Muslim country at the height of the Crusades would have likely cost you your head. Robert Spenser and the anti-Muslim brain trust like to over simplify Islamic law by implying that the opinion is unanimous across all scholars but this is simply false. There has always been a difference of opinion. Many scholars, most notably Ibn Taymiyyah, draw a distinction between minor apostasy and major apostasy. Minor apostasy, which consists only in leaving Islam carries no punishement, while major apostasy, which includes some kind of espianage or treason, deserved punishment. Hundreds of scholars confirm this.

As I discussed in my previous article on compulsion in religion , actions which are coerced have no moral value. And the aim of Islam is to place moral value in every action… so how can coercion be virtuous? What greater coercive force is there than the threat of death? You do nothing but create hypocrites by threatening apostates with death.

It is a basic principle in Islam that you should be strict with yourself, and soft with others. If there is any difference of opinion amongst qualified scholars we are supposed to give our brothers and sisters the benefit of the doubt. In my opinion if even one qualified scholar disagrees with such a ruling that is doubt enough to never carry it out. I stand with our mother Aisha who said, "It is preferable for the ruler to pardon mistakenly than to punish mistakenly."

So, I hope that's been helpful. Remeber everything right and True is from Allah. Any mistake is from myself. May He forgive me for my deviances, and may He manifest the Truth on your tongue, my dear reader, so that I may accept it.

Astaghfirullah, wa alhamdulillah, wa lahaula wala quwata illa billah.
http://www.answering-christianity.com/apostates.htm
http://www.islamicperspectives.com/Apostasy1.htm
http://islamicperspectives.com/PunishmentOfApostasy_Part2.html

Subhanallah!

There is no might or power on earth or in Heaven greater than God.

I'm way out on a limb here, but I think I figured it out! Tell me if this makes sense... if you're just tuning in go back and read Rifqa Part I: The Xenos Cult

It's 2:44 am, and I haven't slept, but the trial is today and I don't have time to polish this, so here's some real gonzo journalism. I do this all for you, my dear reader.

The Franklin County Children Services in Ohio conducted a nearly month long investigation and concluded that the allegations against Muhammad Bary were unsubstantiated and it was safe for Rifqa to return home. Although they recommended therapy for the girl, and Muhammad agreed the whole family could use counseling.

That's bad for the anti-Muslim narrative, so John Stemberger filed a memorendum basically saying, "No it's not the Dad... it's the whole community!" Basically the Noor Islamic center is connected to Dr. Saqr, who's connected to Salah Soltan, who's connected to Al-Qaradawi, who's connected to Al Qaeda and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and all the evil people in the world. He actually said this is the memorendum. "The Muslim Brotherhood... an international organization responsible for birthing virtually every Islamic terrorist organization in the world!"

Therefore Ohio is not safe. Carry out that arguement all 10,000 Muslims at the Noor Islamic Center Community are terrorists by association. Let's just take away all their kids and give them to good evangelical families? I'll tell you one thing reader... if she's not safe in Ohio, she's not safe in Florida. All it took was a little creative Googling and I was able to determine the likely address where she's staying... But I digress.

Oh my dear reader! I can play the association game. Check this out...

My contacts in Ohio on the case say that Xenos materials and a Flash drive containing the diary of Pastor Brian Williams were found in her bedroom and were turned over to police. They also confirm that I was right about the man in the room in the video as I described in Part I. That he was bald, had a goatee. They tell me he was also at the hearing on the 21st and addressed Muhammad Bary is "Brother" like a Muslim. But this guy was not a Muslim. He was interviewed after the trial in Florida twice by CBN:

Florida Judge Protects Terrified Christian Convert
Rifqa Bary - Prisoner of Islam

This guy is Jamal Jivanjee. Jamal Jivanjee claims to be a Muslim apostate from Columbus. He befriended Rifqa in Columbus long before she fled to Florida. He was also at the court house Friday August 21st. Bald guy with a goatee.

Ok... check this out.

If he's the coach in the first video, that means he went with Rifqa from Ohio to Florida. And that means that this is probably the guy that Lorenz is protecting when he says he doens't want to reveal who bought her the ticket.

"The pastor won't say who bought Rifqa's ticket. He is trying to protect the person" ~ Orlando Sentinal

I'd even bet (if I were a betting man) that there is no ticket and Jamal drove her the whole way.

But it get's better...

Jamal Jivanjee is on the board of directors of "illuminate" and on his bio he says he's a graduate of Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA where he studied Pastoral ministry. The President of the Liberty Theological Seminary and Professor of Apologetics at Liberty University is Ergun Mehmet Caner. Ergun Caner was interviewed by the Florida Baptist Witness early in the Rifqa contraversy but he dropped out of the frey.

Ergun claims to be another Christian convert from Islam from Columbus Ohio, and claims that he lives his life with a fatwa against his life from that community, which makes him uniquely qualified to speak about this case. This man is a complete charlatan! He is a fraud! He is a liar! A dajjal! I strongly suggest you take a look at this video. It's the first in an eight part series.

Ergun Mehmet Caner is FAKE apostate. He and as his brothers are these Christians that go around claiming to be ex-Muslim preaching lies about how aweful being a Muslim is. If you didn't watch the series here's some highlights. He claims his father built that mosque, and that he was trained to be the muadhin, but he misprounounces it! In part 2 he says the Shahada is "bismillakh aman arakhim mukhamdu alham arakhman arakhim." In part 3 he says that Ramadan is 40 days, and he says, "Jesus strapped himself to a cross so I wouldn't have a stap a bomb to myself." And he's always careful to point out that apostates risked their culture, families and lives for Jesus by leaving Islam. Wallahi! This man was never a Muslim.

So we're dealing with liars. And what's worse, they train other fake apostates! This is the sourse. This is the propagandist. The brainwasher. Ergun trains anti-Muslim propagandists. Jamal is a student of Ergun. Rifqa is a "friend" of Jamal. These are the people who turned typical arguments between a completely westernized teenage cheerleader and her liberal parents into death threats and honor killing from Islamic jihadists in Rifqa's mind.

Alhamdullilah! That's all I have for now. It's not proof yet, but I think this raises some serious questions about how all these people are connected. It's still just a theory. But I think it's a stronger chain of reasoning than "They're all TERRORISTS!" Hopfully it comes full circle in the trial today.

More to come. Please subscribe.

May Allah guide the course of this trial into the light of Truth. May He expose the liars and debase them. Ya Allah! Be Just with them. May He forgive you and me for our inequities. Everything right and true is from Allah. Any mistake is from myself. Astaghfirullah, wa alhamdulillah, wa lahaula wala quwata illa billah.

The Histrionic Rifqa Bary: What The Right Wing Does Not What You To Know!

2009-09-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval and inappropriate seductiveness, usually beginning in early adulthood. These individuals are lively, dramatic, enthusiastic, and flirtatious. They may be inappropriately sexually provocative, express strong emotions with an impressionistic style, and be easily influenced by others. Read more about this disorder that is obviously Rifqa Bary's reason for falling prey to the Global Revolution Church, Xenos Fellowship Church, Pastor Brian Williams, Tayee Adrian, and Pastor Blake Lorenz:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic_personality_disorder

This poor girl is a victim of Fundamentalist Christian Evangelicals and their Zionist allies. She is just a pawn in their political games unfortunately. Real Jews, Christians, and Muslims need to unite against this type of Extremism.

Apostasy in Islam: No Punishment

2009-09-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

More E-Mails on the Fathima Rifqa Bary Case!

2009-09-06T11:29:00.001-07:00

We have recieved emails from people who have known Fathima Rifqa Bary about her attending the Mosque three times and in those three times she brought her little brother with her. During these gatherings, she made a comment to the Muslim girls in the Mosque that she is the only Muslim girl that has a boyfriend. It appears that her lies against her parents, community and Islam have a multi-tier agenda. Ms. Rifqa want's to have open relationships with boys (it seems she has something for African-American boys such as Tayee Adrian and Pastor Brian Williams), she wants to obtain her citizenship, and she wants to be the center of attention. This of course is due to her having some things in her life that she is trying to make up for, such as her blindness in her right eye. On her Myspace page she has her favorite movie listed as "A Walk to Remember", which is a classic Christian movie about this girl who's father is a pastor and falls in love with a boy who ends up not caring about her health issues. Sound familiar? Well it is, Ms. Rifqa Bary is living her fantasy at the expense of her Muslim parents and community. Shame on Rifqa's selfishness to live her fantasy and become an American Citizen at the expense of others. Also, shame on the Fundamentalist Christians that are encouraging her delinquent behavior!

What to do about rise in right-wing extremism?

2009-09-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

What to do about right-wing extremism?

ie. Evangelical Christian Extremists, Pamela Gellar, Tom Trento, Robert Spencer, and so on...

Rifqa Bary, Tom Smith & The Xenos Cult of Evangelicals

2009-09-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Ties that bind?
Has an area ministry with a focus on youth forced itself between mother and son? Or has his faith simply formed even closer

By Jim Carney
Beacon Journal staff writer

Published on Sunday, Feb 08, 2009

On a Saturday night in November, as a small group gathered for a Bible study at a Fairchild Avenue church in Kent, a woman stood along the street waving a sign: ''I Want My Son Back.''

She brought her husband and daughter, too.

''Xenos is a Cult'' and ''Tom, Don't Drink the Kool-Aid,'' said some of their signs.

Annemarie Smith, 48, a Roman Catholic from Stow, believes her 18-year-old son, Thomas, has been taken by a cult.

She has launched a religious war that has engaged the Stow police, mayor, high school and a municipal judge. Shestarted an Internet blog and is trying to rally others to the cause.

Online, she makes allegations of alcohol abuse,vandalism and brainwashing of young children. She calls the church leader and his family ''Devil man,'' ''Devil wife'' and ''Devil son.''

Her son, meanwhile, left home to live with church friends and has received an ultimatum from his parents: ''Us or the church.''

Xenos Christian Fellowship is her target.

The congregation of about 160 rented space at Riverwood Community Chapel in Kent until Smith's sidewalk protests raised concerns among the Riverwood leadership. Now the group meets mostly in Stow and Cuyahoga Falls homes, community buildings and restaurants.

The local Xenos leader, Keith McCallum, a bearded former software writer, accuses Smith of a ''terror campaign'' and threatening to shoot him. He said her allegations have no merit.

In a quarter century of ministry, he said, ''we've never had any lawsuits, crimes or misdemeanors filed against us.''

McCallum, 52, said that his group is nontraditional in that it has no building and is focused on young people, but it is traditional in its study of the Bible.

His family has a history of Christian work. His mother was born to African missionaries. Brother Scot McCallum died accidentally in 2003 while on a mission trip in Russia.

And another brother, Dennis, started a ministry in the early 1970s — much like the one in Stow — with small group meetings.

Today, Dennis McCallum is pastor of the loosely organized 5,000-member Xenos Christian Fellowship, a megachurch on the Columbus beltway.

But as some local members joke, no matter how big or how established the church, just having an ''X'' in the name seems to alarm people.

Teen finds new religion

Thomas Smith had no idea in the seventh grade that when he went to a Bible study with a friend that it would lead to separation from his family.

The invitation came from Kyle McCallum, son of the church leader.

''It was seventh grade, and, oh, this was fun,'' he said of Xenos, but then, ''eighth grade came and I really didn't care about God.''

His attendance ebbed.

''It became a battle between me and Keith . . . for him to convince me to believe in God. ''

At age 16, he had what he described as a saving moment.

''I accepted Christ. . . . It was amazing,'' he said, but he fought changing his lifestyle.

Then, last June, there a series of events weighed heavily on him. He again had dropped out of the ''fellowship.'' He had graduated from high school and there were things in his life and at home that left him conflicted.

In one day, he lost his girlfriend and was in an accident in the car that he had purchased with money working at a coffee shop.

''I thought, what is going on in my life? What is my life? Look at what I have done and where it has gotten me. I am standing in the middle of the road. My car is crashed. What do I still have?''

For a second time, he said he had a spiritual moment.

''I was like, wow, I still have Christ in my life and I still have God.''

That's when the serious rift began at home.

Baptism leads to fight

Annemarie Smith says she raised her family in a good Catholic home. Now, she says that her son has not only gone astray, but he is in trouble with the law.

Thomas was baptized Catholic and attended St. Martha school in Akron through fourth grade, at which point the family moved to Stow. After that, he said he did not regularly attend church.

His mother, a stay-at-home mom, said she had no problem with her children occasionally attending church with friends — and she believes her son's attraction to Xenos is more about friends than God.

The tension grew exponentially after Thomas' roadside reckoning and an announcement to his parents that he planned to be baptized again, this time at a Xenos service, and that he would like for them to attend.

They told him he already had been baptized Catholic and they would not attend.

The day before it was to happen, there was a fight. Thomas, by then 18, and his mother disagree on the circumstances, but Thomas left and did not return.

Thomas went to McCallum's for a few days, then moved in with some other church friends.

Blog is born

Annemarie Smith calls the baptism ''the breaking point.'' She went to Stow police asking for an investigation of cult activity.

She also launched a blog, Parents Against Xenos, and explained her feelings about the baptism: ''I was mortified. I had failed in my religion and also my son. Catholics must promise to raise their children also in the Catholic faith, I have always held that dear to my heart and this news just caught me off guard.''

His baptism and discussion of his spiritual awakening were videotaped and posted on the church Web site.

''Before I was a Christian, I was a screwed-up guy. I was living for nothing,'' he said in the video. He wasn't sure where he would be had it not been for ''the love and relationships that Keith and everyone has shown me and the Lord has shown me.''

McCallum's willingness to discuss God led them to talk in a bar until 4 a.m. on a school night, he said.

His mother said she was enraged at the video.

Thomas and McCallum later said that the meeting was until 1 a.m. at a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant on a weekend. Thomas said recently that he was mistaken about the time because he was emotional as he recalled the two-year-old event.

In response, his mother has accused McCallum of making people change their stories.

''So sad to see him scampering about like a rat,'' Annemarie Smith says on her blog.

She also is revealing about her own family, posting on the Web the fact that ''my husband works in the adult industry.''

Annemarie Smith said she believed Thomas was going to make it an issue, so she would be forthcoming. Leonard Smith, she said, is a financial officer for a Cleveland distributor of adult material and she hosted related in-home passion parties.

Her focus is on what she believes is a cult and brainwashing.

Allegations begin

In Beacon Journal interviews, she said some former Xenos members told her of spray painting at a local cemetery. Stow cemetery officials say there has been no such incident.

Annemarie Smith also suggested that college students took young boys and girls camping near Port Clinton. She said she wasn't suggesting that anything sexual happened, but that it was a brainwashing trip.

McCallum said the event was a camping ''retreat'' involving many of the families in the church — people of all ages.

The arrest of Thomas, however, has elevated the fight to the courtroom.

Thomas, Kyle McCallum and others were in a car in the Chapel Hill area several days after Christmas. Cuyahoga Falls police stopped them after receiving a report that someone was waving guns from the back seat of the car, and the two were charged with inducing panic.

Thomas says the guns were plastic, and they were playing. Their pretrial hearing is Feb. 20.

Annemarie Smith has gone to Stow Municipal Judge Lisa Coates for help.

In her letter she said: ''This may sound horrible to you, but I do hope Tom has to do some time or is punished severely, because with the grace of God and some time away from this group, he may come to realize what this group has cost him and he will begin to turn his life around.''

She wrote that Thomas ''was a great kid, honor roll every year,'' but now, ''his father and I believe with all our hearts he has been brainwashed.''

And ''as a Catholic, I believe God had a hand in Tom's arrest.''

Things get ugly

For Keith McCallum, Annemarie Smith's online campaign escalated enough in January for him to go to police about something she had said a year earlier.

She told her son that she was going to get a gun and shoot McCallum.

She didn't deny it when police investigated. A department supplemental report said that she admitted saying in anger that she would like to buy a gun and shoot McCallum. She said she didn't intend to follow up on the threat but instead she would ''affect Mr. McCallum's leadership'' through ''legal means and blog postings on the Internet.''

In all, three complaints — one from Annemarie Smith, one from McCallum and another from a family alleging their daughter was being harassed — have been investigated by Stow police, and Chief Louis A. Dirker Jr. said that, as far as the department is concerned, the cases are closed.

''From our end and from people we've talked to, there is nothing that caused us concern that anything illegal or unethical is being done,'' Dirker said.

Parents raise concerns

Jon and Brenda Roszkowski were the ones who complained to Stow police that their daughter was being harassed at Stow-Munroe Falls High School after she left the church.

They met with the Beacon Journal at Annemarie Smith's house, along with another parent and former church member, Jackie Brown, and other family members.

''Church is No. 1 before family'' at Xenos, said Jon Roszkowski. His daughter transferred to Woodridge High School to escape the problem, he said.

Stow Principal Susan Schur said she talked with students she believed were involved, warned them against harassment, but concluded that there was no behavior warranting discipline.

Brown, of Cuyahoga Falls, pulled her daughter out of the church. At one point, Brown and about a dozen family members were involved, but she became concerned about the amount of time teenagers were investing.

''They seemed to only care about the kids,'' she said of church leaders, and that was troubling. There is, she said, ''something wrong with this church. They are turning people away from God.''

Church defended

But Pastor Duane Crabbs, who heads South Street Ministries in Akron, sees it differently.

''The Jews weren't thrilled with this group of Jesus followers'' in the first days of the church, he said.

Crabbs said he was influenced in his faith by the Columbus Xenos church when he lived there.

''Xenos has a hard edge to their message, but that is the hard edge of the Gospel and that involves service,'' Crabbs said.

Young volunteers from Xenos tutor young people at South Street twice a week, Crabbs said. Xenos members also volunteer for ACCESS Inc. in Akron.

Becky Allen, an 18-year-old Stow-Munroe Falls High School senior, rejected the idea that the group is cultish and said people are troubled because ''we don't have a building.''

She was one of nearly 30 high school students who met in January in the basement of church leader Greg Morscher.

For about an hour, they studied Scripture and prayed, then had refreshments.

New member Steven Collins, 17, of Stow, surmised: ''I think a lot of people think it's a cult because they encourage you to read your Bible and pray, and people aren't OK with that.''

And, he said, there's that ''X'' in the name.

''Maybe the name of the church might freak them out.''

Focusing on youth

Keith McCallum said Smith's allegations are unfounded.

''If that is happening, we sure would like to know how and where, because that is pretty crazy stuff,'' he said.

McCallum described himself as a ''flower child'' when he grew up in suburban Columbus.

''I was a Christian kid.'' But, he said, ''I was way out of my league as I got into the drug culture. I wish there had been a church that had been able to reach out to our culture that I could rely on.''

McCallum said he has a ''furnace burning in my heart for these younger generations'' and few churches are reaching out to them.

''It breaks my heart that there are so many kids with so many tragic emotional issues going on and the Christian church is having a hard time being there to help,'' McCallum said.

The Xenos mission statement says that all people are accepted by God and the church, no matter where they are in life. According to the Xenos Web site, ''Xenos (pronounced zee-noss) is a Greek word meaning a traveler or someone living outside their native land.''

There are Xenos fellowships in Dayton and Cincinnati, too. However, the Columbus church says the satellites aren't directly connected.

Fellowship gets start

Keith McCallum, who has a journalism degree from Ohio State University and studied theology at Ashland Theological Seminary, said he has been ordained by the Columbus Xenos.

His work in Northeast Ohio began in the early 1990s, when he traveled to the Cleveland area from Columbus to plant a church. He was in software development at the time.

He launched home studies and organized the weekly ''Central Teaching'' sessions. In 1994, he moved his family to Bedford, then to Stow in 2001.

For several years, they met in Bedford, later in a warehouse in northern Summit County and then rented space at Riverwood in Kent. Recently, they've been meeting at the Quirk Cultural Center in Cuyahoga Falls.

McCallum said he and his wife, Darlene, work full time for the church. He said he had some savings from his business career and that in 2007, he and his wife made about $42,000, including taxable and nontaxable income.

The vast majority of Xenos church members have had no other church relationship, he said.

A lot of people ''have a grotesque picture of church. Often it is either past experience or it is so alien and foreign to their cultural experience. It is like walking into The Wizard of Oz.''

The church is not ''hung up'' on such things as services, robes or steeples, or even church music. ''We don't do anything traditional,'' he said — with the exception of focusing on the Bible.

He said he met with Stow Mayor Karen Fritschel and Chief Dirker a few weeks ago to explain the church mission because of the controversy.

''Spiritual decisions are extremely significant and, boy, do they cause arguments,'' he said.

McCallum said the church's beliefs can be summed up like this:

''We believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that came down to Earth to pay for our sins and make it possible to have a personal relationship with God by grace, and not by good works or rituals, but by God's forgiveness.''

And, he said, the church is praying for Annemarie Smith.

Annemarie Smith said she is ''praying for the other families of Xenos.''

Division remains

''I know I can't save Tommy,'' she said on her blog. ''He has to save himself.''

And over the holidays, she posted this: ''Holidays are unbearable and your dogs miss you.''

McCallum, meanwhile, is at a loss.

''We are all about maintaining and deepening relationships,'' so this dispute runs counter to beliefs, he said.

Thomas Smith said he has called his father's cell phone almost weekly, but there is no answer. His mother disputes that, although she says he left a message on the house phone a few weeks ago saying he is well.

He is a sophomore at Kent State University and working part time for a NASA contractor.

''I want to reconcile that relationship more than anything else,'' he said. ''They are my only parents.''

But, he said, ''it's hard to hear your mom say she thinks you should go to jail.''

Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.

Indocrinated Child Soldier For Jesus!

2009-09-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

Anyone watching the blogosphere now knows Rifqa Bary. Born Muslim, she converted to Christianity and fled her home in New Albany Ohio and went to Orlando Florida to the home of a pastor she met on Facebook. This video surfaced on August 10th, Rifqa's 17th birthday, which began the the cacophony.

There were immediately two competing narratives. Rifqa's attorney John Stemberger asserts that Rifqa suffered a history of physical and sexual abuse, and she is now fighting for her life. Anti-Muslim bloggers like Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch immediately jumped into the fray. In this narrative an extremely devout Muslim family from a radical Ohio mosque are trying to fly their apostate daughter back to Sri Lanka for an “honor killing.” The Bary family insists that they've never made any such threats, that the girl is free to practice any religion, and they just want their family whole again. In this narrative a cult of Evangelical Christians used the Internet to brainwash her into leaving her religion and her family and move the Florida.

On the Evangelical side this is an opportunity to dump on Islam, and the girl is the frosting that makes the guano palatable. On the Muslim side the focus is on defending Islam, and there's little regard for the details of the case. But I found serious problems with both narratives. Now, I think I've found something few others are talking about.

The first thing that was clear was the Rifqa learned about "honor killings" from Christians not from Muslims. Periodically in the video, when she's flustered, she looks over to someone off camera. This is a tell when someone has been coached. They seek visual confirmation by making eye contact. At the five minute mark she says, "It's in the Quran." Which it's not, but then she looks off camera and says, "You can, like, give them knowledge about it." She gestures, and a man answers unintelligibly. Then she says to the reporter, "He really will explain it and break it down. They have to do this!" Who ever that man is... he is the coach. And we know it's not the pastor because he's holding her, but I'm certain he had a hand in it. He's quoted as having said, "These are the last days, these are the end times, and this conflict between Islam and Christianity is going to grow greater. This conflict between good and evil is going to grow greater." Do you see why it makes no sense? If this is her religion, her upbringing, her life... she would be fluent in it's details. She wouldn't need someone else to explain it for her.

But that's not enough. Blake Lorenz had only had her for a few weeks in Florida. That's time for coaching, but not for brainwashing. So, I looked to her church activity in Ohio. Only a few articles briefly mention that she attended Church called Xenos Christian Fellowship. A little Googling on this group immediately brings the whole picture into view. Message boards and articles about the Xenos Fellowship are filled with comments about the group's cultish tendencies, specifically it's manipulative efforts to isolate people from their friend's and family.

Xenos means "Alien" as in the members of the Church, called "Xenoids," should be aliens in this world, seeking only their home in Heaven. Ex-Xenoids speak of years of rigid social control and peer pressure before they could get out and ostracism once they left. Stories emerge of "Leaders" running a "Ministry House" where groups of older members live together and host "Home Church" to "Cell Groups" of high school and junior high aged members. The group takes 13 and 14 year old girls out on "Bible Study" camping retreats with college aged boys.

Ex-leaders describe a community where adults and youth are discouraged from socializing outside the fold without bringing another Xenoid along. Where leaders conspire to orchestrate the romantic relationships of members by pairing "workers" together and breaking off "fringe" members. Others describe losing loved ones to the Church, their siblings, or children or even spouses being so engrossed in the Church they abandon all other ties. They describe the Church as preying on confused teenagers, exploiting their weaknesses and then jumping in to "save" them. Even worse they have on staff an on call psychologist to keep people in line.

Annemarie Smith, creator of Parents Against Xenos calls the Church the "Xenos Cult", and their leader, "The Devil Man." At her blog she describes her son's history with the Xenos Cult, which is not at all unlike Rifqa's story. Her son Tom, like Rifqa, was an honor roll student. A charismatic over achiever. But like Rifqa he was relatively new to the area, and needed friends. Members seek out candidates with family problems, or who just don't fit in somehow. Just as Muhammad describes his daughter, Annemarie described Tom as,"speaking as if reading from a script." Like Rifqa he was baptised in his new religion. He told his family that he did not feel as connected to them as to his new Church, and he could not have relationships that were not centered around God. So complete was the group's control over Tom that he called to threaten her into shutting down her website. But she continues in good faith that her son will come around. The leader then accused her of carrying on a, "terror campaign" when she stood outside the Church's meetings with signs saying, "I want my son back." In her crusade against the Xenos Cult Annemarie has pulled many from the flock, but not Tom.

Let me be clear. I subscribe to a principle which is as Islamic as it is American, that the accused be considered innocent until proven guilty. I consider the father innocent of the allegations of abuse until I see evidence. Similarly, I consider the pastor innocent of the allegations of brainwashing until I see evidence. I believe that this is most likely what happened to Rifqa. The flavor is different, but the results are the same.

Rifqa and her attorney, John Stemberger describe her family as "extremely devout" and try to connect the family with terrorism in the community. The Muslim response has been that Muhammad is not very devout. His daughter was a cheerleader, and his son drinks beer and parties.

I don't think this is a good argument. What you do by making this argument is you concede that devout Muslims are violent, and you throw the Bary family under the bus to save Islam from controversy. If you want to jump to the defense of Islam, just link people to the hundreds of scholars who confirm that the death penalty for apostasy comes from a time in history when apostasy was synonymous with treason. It has no place in the modern world. There is no compulsion in religion. Islam is not on trial here. We are talking about a specific person. And specific people are capable of murder. Do not allow this to be an argument about Islam. Stand up for justice for the girl!

The family insists that they've never made any threats. Character witnesses from amongst the family's friends and neighbors confirm that they are not as they are being portrayed. Sgt. Jerry Cupp of the Columbus Police Department told the Associated Press that Bary "comes across to me as a loving, caring, worried father about the whereabouts and the health of his daughter." , and police say they have found no evidense of abuse. But this does not support the allegation that Blake Lorenz brainwashed and kidnapped the girl into an Evangelical cult. Screenshots from Rifqa's Myspace show her proclaiming "JC" as her savior in 2007, long before she met Blake Lorenz. He may be a charlatan who's enjoying his moment in the spot light.

I believe the most likely culprit here is the Xenos Cult, a group that specifically emphasizes verses where Jesus tells the disciples to leave their family, disown their loved ones. Xenos tears families apart.

As Muslims I think we must suspend judgement, because if we deny the facts, and we bunker down in defense of Islam, and we're wrong, we will have lost all credibility. The Truth will out. A judge ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the abuse allegations, while Rifqa is staying with a temporary guardian in Florida until the next hearing scheduled for September 3rd. If any of these allegations are true the Facebook records will show it. We must stand in defense of the girl, because Rifqa is the victim in any scenario.

We must contend with the reality that she is a 17 year old woman who in all likelihood genuinely believes her life is in danger. Even if she's wrong, that fear is real. Can we in good conscience force her to return to a family she's terrified of?If you ask me she needs a psychiatrist who specializes in cult deprogramming. Who ever the culprit is, she's probably suffering from extreme emotional and psychological damage. I think that we must seriously consider advocating for her emancipation?

For more info:
Xenos Christian Fellowship
Parents Against Xenos
Ex-Xenoids Speak

Big Mouth Strikes Again: Stemberger

2009-08-31T21:24:00.000-07:00

This Crusader Clown by the name of John Stemberger has written a 35 page document attacking the Noor Mosque in Columbus, Ohio with written material from Patrick Poole and other Anti-Muslim Haters. If you are a Christian, please disavow yourself from these zealot fundamentalist Templars. Well, as we all guessed it, they have alot more on their plate now considering that there has been a link established between Rifqa Bary and Pastor Brian Williams who was connected to Pastor Blake Lorenz. There are pictures of Pastor Brian Williams as well as a massive Diary that was found on Rifqa's flash drive that show the extremist rhetoric of these Evangelicals who have indoctrinated and kidnapped this child soldier in Christ. They should be ashamed of themselves for stealing peoples children and attacking the parents. No real Christian would do these evil things.

The Caner Brothers: Fake Muslim Conversion to Christianity

2009-08-31T00:54:00.000-07:00

The Caner Brothers are the funniest group out of all these Neocon Fundamentalists. Mehmet Caner who has no Turkish accent and does not know apples from oranges of Islam talks about how he converted from Islam to Christianity. Well, let me fill you in on a little secret...he never was a practicing Muslim. His father was a Turkish Muslim, but his mother has always been an American Christian. He was raised as a Christian to begin with, now he is practicing Evangelical Christianity and thinks that is something amazing. He speaks about Islam without understanding how to even say some of the basics of the faith. He fails to understand any of Islam's fundamentals. He claims that in Islam apostasy is punishable with death...this is obviously not true. However, in the Torah and Bible apostasy is mentioned as something who's punishment is death. But Islam is not Judaism and Christianity to have their punishment for apostasy. Considering that the Caner Brothers were never Practicing Muslims, then it would not even matter what faith they chose anyway. Please reas this bullshit report that will make you want to vomit with the amount of lies and disinformation that it contains: http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/198639.php

Herbert London & Rifqa Bary: Right Wing Agenda

2009-08-31T00:38:00.000-07:00

Herbert London has written a ridiculous letter to the Judge working on the Rifqa Bary case claiming that it has to do with constitutional rights of separation of Church and State...well Mr. Herbert, you are enjoining in the oppossite. You are calling for the Judge to engage in Christian Fundamentalism, which would be against the Constitution of the USA. You are a hypocrite and a fibber. Here is Herbert's bullshit rant: http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.4136/pub_detail.asp

No real Christian would touch you, this article or Rifqa Bary with a 10 foot pole. You and your Neocon/Zionist agenda needs a big flushing down the toilet. Infact, I think that is what I will do, if I find any books written by these Neocons, I will use it as my toilet paper. Jesus would smite these hypocrites if he was here.

Patrick Poole: Fake Counter Terrorism Expert

2009-08-30T17:39:00.001-07:00

Where is our local hate monger Patrick Poole when you need him? Why are you all tongue tied now my Neocon friend? Why this one Sentinel is so eloquent? Patrick Poole a self proclaimed Counter Terrorism Expert is nothing but a money hungrey attention seeker that sells hate against Muslims (Islamophobia) as real news and consulting! If I love my brother humans (Muslims) then in his eyes I am a "Dhimmi". Well, the Islamic Empire has not taken over the world yet, so we are not Dhimmis, but if I was living in an Islamic State and they asked me to pay a 2% tax for military protection and I can be called a Protected Person (Dhimmi) then so be it...DHIMMI PRIDE BIOTCH! DHIMMI DHIMMI DHIMMI DHIMMI YA! Why don't Jews and Christians have a version of Dhimmi? Because they don't protect Muslims in their Jewish or Christian States. During the inquisition in Spain, all the Spanish Muslims were put to the sword and not only were they not protected from external harm, but they themselves cut off the heads of every Muslim in Spain. When the tables were turned, we Christians were PROTECTED PERSONS (DHIMMIS).

Muslim family: Problems with Rifqa Bary began with laptop gift

2009-08-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

Pamela Gellar of Atlas Shrugs (Bullshit Shrugs) is probably having an orgasmic bloodrush to the head after reading this truthful article that just literally takes a big dump on all the right wing, Zionist, and Neocon Nazi propoganda. I hope she chokes on her own vomit every time she lies.

This is an amazingly truthful article in this world of hate propogated by Zionists and Neocons:

Muslim family: Problems with Rifqa Bary began with laptop gift

by Rene Stutzman

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-bary-family-in-columbus-083009,0,4902721.story

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Mohamed Bary is a doting Muslim father, intent on giving his daughter the best education he can. But he says he made a terrible mistake last October: He bought her a laptop computer.

Because of that laptop and access to the Internet, he says he lost his daughter to Christian extremists.

Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17, is 800 miles away, living with a Christian foster family in the Orlando area. She is a runaway who has become a cause célèbre among evangelical Christians. She fled Ohio last month, saying her father had threatened to kill her because she had converted to Christianity.

Not true, Mohamed Bary said.

"I still cannot believe she would think that," he said.

But somebody planted that idea in her head, and he is convinced it was someone she met on the Internet.

Facebook, an online social network in which users select "friends" from anywhere and everywhere, is where Rifqa met Blake and Beverly Lorenz, the Orlando husband-and-wife minister team who took her in after she ran away.

In the weeks before she fled, her parents noticed she would sleep all day and stay up all night exploring the Internet.

Until this spring, Rifqa was a model student, an obedient daughter. She earned good grades, worked part-time at a Chinese restaurant and called home even if she were running just 10 minutes late.

But about the time school ended in May, she began all-night Facebook sessions. She started withdrawing from family members and longtime friends, her parents said.

Many of her chats were with evangelical Christians, her father said. They turned her against him, he said.

Friends back family
People who know the Barys say Rifqa's allegations are crazy.

"There is no way this man would hurt his daughter," said Neil Javery, 52, a Hindu and family friend in Westerville, the Columbus suburb where the Barys live.

Mohamed Bary, 47, is a kind, gentle man who loves his daughter, takes great pride in Rifqa's school accomplishments.

He sells jewelry and Amway products, friends say.

Aysha Bary is a stay-at-home mom who speaks little English but breaks into tears over what has happened.

"My heart goes out to them," said Holly Easton of Plain City, Ohio, who owns a wedding gown business and pays Rifqa's mother to stitch beads onto gowns. "It's horrible. ... I hope they're able to reconcile, and she comes home and they can be a family again."

The Barys are not radical Muslims, friends and associates say. Their household is as normal as any other.

"It's just typical," Easton said. "Kid comes in, looks at parents, rolls her eyes and goes upstairs."

It became atypical on July 19. That's the day Rifqa, a popular high-school cheerleader, sneaked away and fled to Orlando on a Greyhound bus.

Two weeks later, the Florida Department of Children and Families placed her in a foster home. Her parents, through a pair of court-appointed attorneys, are fighting to have her returned to Ohio, where they've agreed to let her live with a foster family for at least 30 days.

John Stemberger, a conservative Christian activist and leader of the Florida Family Policy Council, has taken on Rifqa as a client and cause. He told Circuit Judge Daniel Dawson at an Aug. 21 hearing in Orlando that until she turns 18 next August, she wants to stay with her Florida foster family and be free to worship Jesus.

Rifqa told the judge she'd been a Christian for four years. Her parents learned of her conversion a year ago — and that she had kept her new faith a secret from them. She proclaimed herself a Christian on her Facebook page in 2007.

Away from home, though, Rifqa was open about her faith. She gathered with other students for "See you at the Pole," an annual prayer service held at schools around the country. Until about three months ago, she attended a youth group at the tiny Korean United Methodist Church in Columbus.

She carried a Bible to class. That upset her parents, who told her they were afraid — not that she had converted to another faith but that she'd get in trouble for violating the separation of church and state.

Her father said when he discovered her reading a Bible months ago, "We didn't go crazy and nuts."

He encouraged her to learn more about Islam, he said, and once she'd done that, she would be free to worship as she chose.

Her love for Jesus is heartfelt, he said, but he remains baffled at how that got twisted into her fear that he would kill her.

"It's so sad," he said. "After everything she has said about us, she's still our daughter, and we want her back."

Born in Sri Lanka

When Rifqa was born, her family was wealthy and lived in Galle, Sri Lanka. They owned a large house and enjoyed the benefits of a driver, a cook and a maid.

Rifqa was a tiny newborn, just 5 pounds, and very quiet, Aysha Bary said. When Rifqa was 5, she fell onto a toy airplane. It left her blind in the right eye.

Her father insisted she get medical care in the United States. He feared her care would mean a long separation from his wife and son, so he moved the family to Queens, N.Y., in 2000.

In 2004, he moved them to the Columbus area because of its excellent public schools.

By the time the Barys moved here, though, they were no longer wealthy. Two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mohamed Bary was on a business trip, flying with a bag of gems, as he often did. This time, the airline ordered him to check the bag. It was lost. It contained nearly $400,000 worth of jewels, said David Leung, 48, of Worthington, Ohio, a close family friend. Financially, the family has not recovered, he said.

The Barys live in a small, two-bedroom apartment and own one car, an 11-year-old Honda station wagon that has 225,000 miles on it.

A week ago, Rifqa's parents and brothers, ages 5 and 18, climbed into that car and drove 16 hours to Orlando for a court hearing. They had hoped the judge would order Rifqa back to Ohio.

But by then thousands of people had seen Rifqa on YouTube, crying and saying that her father, because he is a Muslim, has no option but to kill her for abandoning Islam. Gov. Charlie Crist's office received hundreds of e-mails — much of it anti-Muslim — urging him block her return to Ohio.

He did not, but he sent his general counsel, Rob Wheeler, and DCF Secretary George Sheldon to the Aug. 21 hearing. While they sat watching, a DCF lawyer asked the judge to put off a decision on returning Rifqa to Ohio until Sept. 3. He did.

DCF also asked the judge to let the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigate whether Rifqa's father and other Muslims in Columbus are a threat to her. The judge said yes to that, as well.

FDLE agents and child welfare workers inspected the family's home and questioned Rifqa's parents last week.

"I'm happy they came," her father said. "We have nothing to hide."

He and his wife are modern Muslims, he said. Now, during the holy month of Ramadan, a time of prayer, they eat nothing between sunrise and sunset. Until this year Rifqa fasted with them.

Their prayers this year, her father said, are that Rifqa will come back to them.

"We want our daughter back home," he said. "She can practice whatever religion she wants."

Rene Stutzman can be reached at rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com or 407-650-6394.

Pamella Gellar: Zionist Extraordinaire

2009-08-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

Pamella Gellar works with her Zionist "Partner in Crime" Robert Spencer as she puts it so fittingly to commit hate crimes against Muslims. Is it any wonder why she hates Muslims? Let's see...New York Zionist Jew? Is that a surprise? Does she care about Christians or Christ? No, she does not give a rats behind about Christianity or Rifqa Bary, however she has turned into the flag bearer on this issue in order to slam Muslims as if she is an Israeli Defense Force murderer. Most likely she is a "Sayanim", which is any person who is Jewish that may be called on by the government of Israel to serve as an operative/spy to further their cause. In this case she acts like a Christian American concerned about us "poor Americans who can't defend ourselves". I wonder if Robert Spencer is her Katza (Israeli Mossad Commanding Officer). She needs to back down on attacking American Muslims Civil Rights before she is taken to court not just by Muslims, but also by concerned Christians and Jews who do not prescribe to the Zionist Terrorist cause. Pamella Gellars finances need to be investigated by the FBI to see where she get's funding and where she send's funding. I would not be surprised to find out if this "Stealth Zionist" was involved with illegal businesses.

Fundamentalist Christians in Florida

2009-08-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

Why does Florida have so many Fundamentalist Christians? And what is their hostility towards Islam? We as Christians need to teach other people that this is not real Christianity! These right wing fundamentalist Christians are ruining Christianity for the rest of us. THIS IS WHY THEY HATE US: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090826/ARTICLES/908261007/1002?Title=-Devil-shirts-get-kids-sent-home

You Don't Have to Act like a Refugee

2009-08-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

You Don't Have to Act like a Refugee

Thursday, August 27, 2009
By FCW Editorial

Rifqa Bary says that if she's sent back to Ohio her father Mohamed will kill her. The 17-year-old, whose family immigrated from Sri Lanka, says she converted to Christianity from Islam four years ago, having picked up the religion from friends at school where she's an honors student and cheerleader. This led to four years of beatings from her father and brothers, according the right-wing blogs salivating over Rifqa's story.

"Beatings were random, violent, unprovoked," writes Pamela Geller, the "citizen journalist, citizen soldier" who runs the site Atlas Shrugs. "Take, for example, when Rifqa and her father Mohammad [sic] were driving in the car. He would force her to wear the hijab, which she hated. In her discomfort she would slouch down, embarrassed, and her father would haul off and sock her in the face so that she never forgot to sit up straight in her costume." Finally, her father told her he'd kill her for shaming the family, the teen says.

So Rifqa met a husband-and-wife Christian ministry team on Facebook, ran away from home and rode a Greyhound to their doorstep. Luckily, they live in Florida, a state where no dispute can ever be handled quickly or sensibly. (Elián González, Terry Schiavo, the 2000 recount.) She is now in foster care and a Florida juvenile court is deciding whether or not to send her back to Ohio.

Newsmax, WorldNetDaily and other conservative news sources have dedicated a lot of bandwidth to this story. Faux News is the most reliable national news source to more than glimpse at it, and only the Columbus Dispatch and Orlando Sentinel are dealing out real information.

This may be why no one has realized this story is full of holes. (Most of these people haven't even noticed the Book of Genesis is full of holes.)

Mohamed Bary, a jeweler, beats his daughter for being embarrassed at wearing a hijab but also lets her prance around in a cheerleading uniform before a crowd every Friday night? We've never even seen a picture of Rifqa Bary in a hijab; in the myriad pictures floating around the Internet, she's in typical Gap-ish clothing. She also had very unrestricted Facebook access for someone living in tyranny. She says she was at the bottom of a family dogpile for four years, but neither school officials in Ohio or the DCF agents in Florida have found as much as a bruise. The chief of the Columbus police missing persons bureau said Mr. Bary "comes across to me a loving, caring, worried father about the whereabouts and the health of his daughter."

Christian crusaders haven't dug up any dirt on Mr. Bary. They note a radical cleric and members of a terrorist cell have passed through Columbus area mosques and that a similar "honor killing" happened in Dallas — in other words, They're all the same! They cite not the Koran but interpretations of Islamic law saying Bary would have to kill his daughter. Good thing she is not coming back to a family of Christians; their holy book says rebellious teens should be stoned (Deut. 21:18-21).

Clearly, this is not about Mohamed Bary; it's about Islam and continuing irrational prejudice against it.

Rifqa Bary may not be lying exactly — the repressed memory fad proved confused people can come to believe terrible things about their families — but her story only adds up if you assume all Muslim men are secretly savages sworn to kill the infidel.

This is how the rabid right operates. Disregarding evidence or common sense, they follow the story line that makes sense to them — be it that Democrats are overhauling health care to implement "death panels" or that an ethnically complicated liberal in the White House must be a Kenyan citizen at the heart of a Dan Brown–sized conspiracy.

Here's where this kind of thinking (of lack thereof) can lead us: The law-abiding Bary family is worried, reunion or no, it may have to return to Sri Lanka because of all the negative attention. So because of right-wing paranoia, a family may actually leave the U.S. because of religious persecution.

Patrick Poole (& Ohio Rightwingers): Idiots or Racists?

2009-08-25T12:31:00.000-07:00

Patrick Poole (& Ohio Rightwingers): Idiots or Racists?

(Same people who are on the Rifqa Bary bandwagon)

In the good 'ole days of the 60's and 70's, Conservatives/Republicans were content to target African Americans with racist politics. However, sensing an opportunity to target more minorities in the wake of the attacks of 9/11, some conservative republicans have launched crusades against all practicing the Islamic faith (or in some cases merely being of middle eastern descent). Make no mistake, the Islamic Fundamentalist misinterpreting their holy work as a sermon of destruction must be dealt with, but Islam in itself is not the threat. The issue, like in any culture, is dealing with the extremists who choose to misinterpret their scripture as license to kill.

The hatred the rightwing holds for Arabs, and those practicing any form of the Islamic faith, always amazes me. I still have immensely emotional reactions to the events that occurred on September 11th, but I've never lumped the entire middle east into my rage against those that committed the atrocities against our country. However, in my opinion, some folks - like those at FrontPage Magazine - hear the word the Islam and immediately revert into fight or flight mode. Most recently, Patrick Poole - aided by the likes of RAB and Columbuser - lashed out at Abukar Arman and insinuated he was a terrorist (or aiding and abetting terrorists). Today in a comprehensive article, the Dispatch refuted all such claims:

For the past few weeks, Arman -- who served on the county's Criminal Justice Planning Board -- was under scrutiny by federal and local law enforcement.

"We did a background check and found no criminal or terrorist connections," said county Administrator Don L. Brown. "Mr. Arman is not a person of interest."

The problem here is that organizations like Poole's Frontpage Magazine (aided by Republican blogs) initiate and serve as echo chambers for these sorts of islamic witch hunts. A second problem is that County Commissioners like Paula Brooks takes them seriously:

Poole notes the county Web site says that the criminal justice board oversees homeland security. County officials said that is an error: The board oversees justice grants and court programs, and handles no sensitive information.

Two commissioners, Marilyn Brown and Mary Jo Kilroy, didn't respond to Poole. The third, Paula Brooks, sent an e-mail to Brown on July 12.

"Don, I expect this to be investigated expeditiously," Brooks wrote. "If true, these allegations are definitely grounds for removal."

Note to Paula Brooks and all other Democratic incumbents. DON'T RESPOND OFFICIALLY TO FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE. While you're at it, it's probably a bad idea to respond officially to any other blog or publication that has a history of setting attacking (which is why I don't put info requests into most GOPers, I don't expect them to be answered). Next time you do something this half-witted, expect to have liberals down your throats too - it's moronic.

Folks like Columbuser and Poole just don't know how to say "I'm sorry." They get the whiff of Islam and they go stark raving mad. As evidence from Columbuser's response today:

Democrats and the Franklin County Board of Commissioners are pumping the fact that a criminal background check on Abukar Arman “found no criminal or terrorist connections,” according to Franklin County Administrator Don L. Brown. This is somewhat besides the point, since Arman was not accused of any criminal activity, but rather of “praise for [US] designated terrorist organizations and individuals.” The accusations were made by Hilliard resident Patrick Poole, both on his blog and in the online FrontPage Magazine.

Here’s the Dispatch’s article on the “clearing” of Arman and here’s Patrick Poole’s response. Patrick is a bit kinder to the Dispatch than I would be. The article ignores the fact that the Democratic/county response is completely off-point.

Point blank, the county response was appropriate. They noted there was no terrorist connection. Anyone that tells you otherwise is letting their own bias get in the way of the facts. Also, these folks should be admonished for trying to tie terrorism to Democrats, even after the individual in question is cleared. Columbuser makes a nice try of this with his headline "Franklin County Democratys 'clear' HAMAS supporter," and RAB previously tried to use the issue against Mayor Coleman. The issue for these folks is that they think Abukar inappropriately praised Islamic organizations they don't approve of. I don't have too much to weigh in on that issue, however, I would note that the investigation found that Abukar broke no law. However:

Arman counters that even U.S. government officials now are talking with the Islamic Courts Union, which, despite its harsh fundamentalist rule, did stop lawlessness for a time in Somalia. He says that his writings simply point out that Al-Qaradawi is viewed by many Muslims as a moderate.

Also, Frontpage magazine, RAB, Columbuser, and others owe Abukar Arman an apology for discrediting his reputation. However, I won't be holding my breath too long on that one.

The Law of Apostasy in Christianity

2009-08-25T12:28:00.000-07:00

The Law of Apostasy in Christianity, something Christians are very silent on. They often preach about freedom to convert, and the rights of minorities and all, but let us read their own Bible:

Deuteronomy
Chapter 13
KJV

1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, 2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; 3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. 5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; 7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; 8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: 9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. 11 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.

12 If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying, 13 Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known; 14 Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you; 15 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. 16 And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again. 17 And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers; 18 When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God.

So as you can see, the punishment of apostasy in Christianity is DEATH, and not only that, the one who tries to convert you is also to be put the death!!!! Note even whole cities are to be destroyed!!!!

So Christians are the last one to talk about the punishment of apostasy, since the punishment for apostasy according to the Bible is DEATH.

What will Christians now say? Will they come up with the typical lie they always say when put in a hole that 'oh no we don’t have to follow the OT anymore'. That has become quite a famous line now, anyways, I would like the Christian to show me where this rule has been abrogated or told to not be followed. I have not seen it in the NT.

Secondly, note the ending of the verse, it says KEPP ALL HIS COMMANDMENTS, which also include this command to kill apostates and those who try to convert you. Let us read what Jesus said in the NT:

Luke 10:

18. A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
19. "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone.
20. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.' "
21. "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
22. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

So as Jesus himself said, you know the commandments don’t you? Yes, you do, so as Jesus said follow them. And what do we read at the end of Deuteronomy 13:

18 When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God

So it says keep the commandments, which included killing apostates and those who try to convert you, what did Jesus say? Keep the commandments, ALL OF THEM. Which includes this law of apostasy.

So Christians are the LAST to be talking about freedom to convert. This is just a typical missionary tactic, which is becoming very common now, this also shows how pathetic Christian missionaries really are, and it does show how pathetic some Christian people are also, since they always come preaching how bad Islam is and how Christianity grants freedom for all, obviously they talk from ignorance since most Christians have never even read their own Bible. I am not trying to be offensive in saying that, but it is true, Christians should start reading their own Bible, and read the filth found in it, when you tell a Christian that Judah had sex with his daughter in law and that Jesus comes from this lineage, they call you a liar and a pervert which shows how little they know about their own Bible.

Why Do Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians Think that all Muslims Lie?

2009-08-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

I am the type of Christian that is dressed in the "Kingdom of Jerusalem's Blue Outfit", however the Templars of The Global Revolution Church and those who support them think like the Templars dressed in White with Red Crosses on their chest!

There is another video that has obviously been removed by the Evangelical Templars due to it's truth which portrays the following story:

Baldwin asks Balian to marry Sybilla, knowing that the pair have affection for each other, but Balian does not accept as he refuses to be associated with the necessary murder of Guy; such political intrigue being counter to Balian's morality. After Baldwin finally dies, Sibylla's son Baldwin V a child of six years becomes King of Jerusalem. Guy goes to Raynald for advice and realizes that even though Balian is not King, he can still become the General of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Aware of this threat, and infuriated by the knowledge of his wife's affair with Balian, Guy sends several Templars to murder him, but they fail, with Balian narrowly managing to defeat the assassins. It is soon realized that Baldwin is stricken like his uncle with leprosy; crushed by the knowledge of this, Sibylla euthanizes her son preventing him from suffering. Sibylla succeeds her son and therefore names Guy as her King Consort of Jerusalem. Guy, now free to do as he pleases, releases Raynald, and has Raynald and his Templar lackeys provoke Saladin to war by murdering Saladin's sister. When Saladin sends an emissary to demand the return of his sister's body, the heads of those responsible, and the surrender of Jerusalem, Guy answers by cutting the emissary's throat, nearly causing a fight between Tiberias's knights, the Knights Hospitaler, and the Knights Templar. As the emissary's body is towed away, Guy arrogantly whispers "I am Jerusalem."