Tag Archives: Islam

Egypt’s Christians: Distraught and Displaced

Posted on October 19, 2012 by | Leave a comment

by Raymond Ibrahim
Investigative Project on Terrorism
October 5, 2012
http://www.meforum.org/3356/egypt-christians-displaced

Last week Reuters reported that “Most Christians living near Egypt’s border with Israel [in the town of Rafah in Sinai] are fleeing their homes after Islamist militants made death threats and gunmen attacked a Coptic-owned shop.” Photos of desecrated churches and Christian property show Arabic graffiti saying things like “don’t come back” and “Islam is the truth.”

All media reports describe the same sequence of events: 1) Christians were threatened with leaflets warning them to evacuate or die; 2) an armed attack with automatic rifles was made on a Christian-owned shop; 3) Christians abandoned everything and fled their homes.

Anyone following events in Egypt knows that these three points—threatening leaflets, attacks on Christian property, followed by the displacement of Christians—are becoming commonplace in all of Egypt, and not just peripheral Sinai, even if the latter is the only area to make it to the Western mainstream media. Consider:

Genocidal Leaflets

On August 14, El Fegr reported that leaflets were distributed in areas with large Christian populations, including Upper Egypt, offering monetary rewards to Muslims who “kill or physically attack the enemies of the religion of Allah—the Christians in all of Egypt’s provinces, the slaves of the Cross, Allah’s curse upon them…”

As a testimony to just how safe the jihadis feel under Egypt’s new Islamist president, Muhammad Morsi—who just freed a militant jihadi responsible for the burning of a church that left several Christians dead—the leaflets named contact points and even a mosque where Muslims interested in learning more about killing Christians should rally “after Friday prayers where new members to the organization will be welcomed.”

On the same day these leaflets were distributed, a separate report titled “The serial killing of Copts has begun in Asyut” noted that a Christian store-owner was randomly targeted and killed by Salafis.

Muslim Attacks on Christian Properties and Persons

For months, Arabic-Christian media have been reporting ongoing stories of Muslim “gangs” and “thugs” attacking Christian homes, abducting the residents, including women and children, and demanding ransom monies—not unlike what is happening to Christians in Iraq and Syria. In one particular case, the Muslim gang attacked the home of a Coptic man, “releasing several gunshots in the air, and threatening him either to pay or die.” The gang “picked this specific village because Copts form 80% of its inhabitants.” Such reports often conclude with an all too familiar postscript: Christians calling police for help and filing complaints, all in vain.

A Coptic Solidarity report from August 20 titled “Copts in Upper Egypt Attacked, Beat, Plundered,” tells of just that—how Christians are being beat, their businesses set on fire, and their properties plundered (see also here and here for similar reports). Likewise, according to Al Moheet, a new human rights report indicates that, in Nag Hammadi alone, there are dozens of cases of Muslim gangs abducting Christian Copts and holding them for ransom. Concerning these, the Coptic Church is daily asking for justice from the Egyptian government and receiving none.

Christian Displacements

As for the exodus of Copts from their homes, this, too, has become an ongoing crisis, so much so that a recent statement by the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt lamented the “repeated incidents of displacement of Copts from their homes, whether by force or threat.” The statement also made clear that what happened in Sinai is no aberration: “Displacements began in Ameriya, then they stretched to Dahshur, and today terror and threats have reached the hearts and souls of our Coptic children in Rafah [Sinai].”

Indeed, back in February, a mob of over 3000 Muslims attacked and displaced Christians in the region of Ameriya, due to unsubstantiated rumors that a Christian man was involved with a Muslim woman. Christian homes and shops were looted and then torched; “terrorized” women and children who lost their homes stood in the streets with no place to go. As usual, it took the army an hour to drive 2 kilometers to the village, and none of the perpetrators were arrested. Later, a Muslim Council permanently evicted eight Christian families and confiscated their property, even as “Muslims insisted that the whole Coptic population of 62 families must be deported.”

A few weeks ago in Dahshur, after a Christian laundry worker accidently burned the shirt of a Muslim man, the latter came with a Muslim mob to attack the Copt at his home. As the Christian defended his household, a Muslim was killed. Accordingly, thousands of Muslims terrorized the area, causing 120 Christian families to flee. One elderly Coptic woman returned home from the bakery to find the area deserted of Christians. Rioting Muslims looted Christian businesses and homes. Family members of the deceased Muslim insist that the Christians must still pay with their lives.

Most recently, at the same time the media was reporting about the displacement of Christians from Rafah, over in Asyut, after a quarrel between two school girls—a Christian and a Muslim—several “heavily-armed” Muslims stormed the home of the Christian girl, causing her family and three other Coptic families to flee the village. When the father returned, he found that all his saved money and possessions had been robbed and plundered; and when he asked police for help, the officer replied, “I can’t do anything for you, reconcile with them and end the problem.”

Indeed, this has been the same attitude of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood led government: in all of the above cases, the government looked the other way, or, when called on it, denied reality. Thus the Coptic Holy Synod made it a point to assert in its statement that “nearly one month ago the media had published the violations against the Copts but the Egyptian authorities have not taken the necessary measures to protect the Egyptian families, who have the right to live safely in their homes.” As for the Rafah incident—the only incident to reach the mainstream media—Prime Minister Hisham Qandil denied that Christians were forced to flee, saying “One or two [Christian] families chose to move to another place and they are totally free to do so like all Egyptian citizens.”

Such governmental indifference is consistent with the fact that, despite promising greater representation for Egypt’s Christians, President Morsi just broke his word by allowing only one Copt—a female—to represent the nation’s 10-12 million Christians in the newly formed cabinet.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Leave a comment

Posted in news, politics, religion

Tagged , , ,

Another Successful Islamic Terrorist Attack, Why? (Corrected)

Posted on October 15, 2012 by | Leave a comment

News about the facts being discovered by the investigations of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya continues to unfold. What the recent Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearings made apparent is that the Obama administration was lying to the American public. Obama blamed the incident on an anti-Islamic film probably because such a film actually did incite a violent riot in Egypt. Nevertheless, the terrorist attack was was planned military style attack. It was most likely motivated both by revenge against our government’s military intervention in toppling the Gaddafi as noted by Congressman Kucinich and in-sync with the memory of the successful attack by Islamic terrorists against America on 9/11 as Congresswoman Adams made evident. At the same time, the successful terrorist attack in Benghazi was made possible by a minimization of the real threat posed by Islamic terrorists by the Obama administration in general and the real escalating violence and threats in Benghazi as emphasized by Congressman Rohrbacher. This was an issue repeatedly explored by various members of the Oversight Committee and confirmed by witnesses who were directly involved in security of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. In fact, Lt. Colonel Woods and Mr. Nordstrom, who was head of security in Libya prior to the attack, both affirmed that they had requested more armed military units to meet previous levels security personnel but their requests were ignored or denied by the Department of State.

As you will hear in the following video, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinish discusses the illegality of the Obama’s intervention in Libya and how it has created animus of Libyans against America. He makes it evident that neither the current Libyan government or Obama’s administration know which terrorist groups possesses the thousand of weapons and missles missing from Liyba’s arsenal. Thus, demonstrating the severity of the threat in Benghazi.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TnoYMMVrJ0&w=500&h=375]

As previously mentioned, an underlying problem contributing the successful terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi is Obama administration’s mindset. It is a mindset that minimizes the threat of Islamic radicalism. This mindset towards Islam makes America appear weak and thus has made our embassies more vulnerable. This is brought out clearly by Congressman Rohrbacher in the next video.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGV1e8ab3nI&w=500&h=375]

Congresswoman Adams has experience in law enforcement, Her questioning not not focused on those concerns common to law enforcement concerning terrorism, but it further demonstrated the disregard for those same issues by the State Department’s head of embassy security, which is detailed in the next video.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-qC1Ay2aME&w=500&h=375]

Congressman Jim Cooper read a list of American military and embassy personnel who were killed by terrorist attacks. The provide important perspective no both the real threat to our Ambassadors, their staffs, and our military. By implication, it affirms Congressman Kucinich’s position that much of U.S. military interventionism produces anti-American violence.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYzc4O2CAWQ&hl=en_US&w=500&h=277]

The only real difference between Central American terrorists and Islamic terrorists is ideological justification and concomitant financial support. Nicaraguans and other Central Americans have experience the violent and degrading interventionism of the American government as have the Libyans and others. Central Americans have no religion or other pervasive worldview that has historically justified killing others, but Muslim do. Because Central Americans do not, they have no financial backers make it possible for armed attacks or war against the American government i.e., ambassadors, embassy employees, military personnel, etc. Muslim, however, do have such backing as Al-Qaeda and all other Islamic Jihadists do.

Leave a comment

Posted in news, politics

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Obama Administration’s War on Persecuted Christians

Posted on August 7, 2012 by | Leave a comment

by Raymond Ibrahim
Special to IPT News
August 2, 2012
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3695/obama-administration-war-on-persecuted-christians

The Obama administration’s support for its Islamist allies means a lack of U.S. support for their enemies or, more properly, victims—the Christian and other non-Muslim minorities of the Muslim world. Consider the many recent proofs:

According to Pete Winn of CNS:

The U.S. State Department removed the sections covering religious freedom from the Country Reports on Human Rights that it released on May 24, three months past the statutory deadline Congress set for the release of these reports. The new human rights reports—purged of the sections that discuss the status of religious freedom in each of the countries covered—are also the human rights reports that include the period that covered the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Thus, the reports do not provide in-depth coverage of what has happened to Christians and other religious minorities in predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East that saw the rise of revolutionary movements in 2011 in which Islamist forces played an instrumental role. For the first time ever, the State Department simply eliminated the section of religious freedom in its reports covering 2011… (emphasis added).

The CNS report goes on to quote several U.S. officials questioning the motives of the Obama administration. Former U.S. diplomat Thomas Farr said that he has “observed during the three-and-a-half years of the Obama administration that the issue of religious freedom has been distinctly downplayed.” Leonard Leo, former chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said “to have pulled religious freedom out of it [the report] means that fewer people will obtain information,” so that “you don’t have the whole picture.”

It’s not the first time the administration has suppressed knowledge concerning the suffering of religious minorities under Islam. Earlier it suppressed knowledge concerning Islam itself (see here for a surreal example of the effects of such censorship).

In “Obama Overlooks Christian Persecution,” James Walsh gives more examples of State Department indifference “regarding the New Years’ murders of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the ravaging of a cathedral,” including how the State Department “refused to list Egypt as ‘a country of particular concern,’ even as Christians and others were being murdered, churches destroyed, and girls kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam. ”

And the evidence keeps mounting. Legislation to create a special envoy for religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia—legislation that, in the words of the Washington Post, “passed the House by a huge margin,” has been stalled by Sen. James Webb, D-Va.:

In a letter sent to Webb Wednesday night, Rep. Frank Wolf [R-Va, who introduced the envoy bill] said he “cannot understand why” the hold had been placed on a bill that might help Coptic Christians and other groups “who face daily persecution, hardship, violence, instability and even death.”

Yet the ultimate source of opposition is the State Department. The Post continues:

Webb spokesman Will Jenkins explained the hold by saying that “after considering the legislation, Senator Webb asked the State Department for its analysis.” In a position paper issued in response, State Department officials said “we oppose the bill as it infringes on the Secretary’s [Hillary Clinton’s] flexibility to make appropriate staffing decisions,” and suggested the duties of Wolf’s proposed envoy would overlap with several existing positions. “The new special envoy position is unnecessary, duplicative, and likely counterproductive,” the State Department said (emphasis added).

But as Wolf explained in his letter: “If I believed that religious minorities, especially in these strategic regions, were getting the attention warranted at the State Department, I would cease in pressing for passage of this legislation. Sadly, that is far from being the case. We must act now…. Time is running out.”

Much of this was discussed during Coptic Solidarity’s third annual conference in Washington D.C. last month, which I participated in, and which featured many politicians and lawmakers—including the U.K.’s Lord Alton, Senator Roy Blunt, Congressman Trent Franks, Congressman Joseph Pitts, and Frank Wolf himself. As Coptic Solidarity’s summary report puts it, “All policy makers voiced strong support to the Copts…. Some policy makers raised concerns about the current U.S. Administration’s overtures towards religious extremists.”

There was little doubt among the speakers that, while Webb is the front man, Hillary Clinton—who was named often—is ultimately behind the opposition to the bill. (Videos of all speakers can be accessed here; for information on the envoy bill and how to contact Webb’s office, click here).

Even those invited to speak about matters outside of Egypt, such as Nigerian lawyer and activist Emmanuel Ogebe, wondered at Obama’s position that the ongoing massacres of Christians have nothing to do with religion. After describing the sheer carnage of thousands of Christians at the hands of Muslim militants, lamented that Obama’s response was to pressure the Nigerian president to make more concessions, including by creating more mosques (the very places that “radicalize” Muslims against infidel Christians).

Indeed, while the administration vocally condemned vandal attacks on mosques in the West Bank (where no Muslims died), it had nothing to say when Islamic terrorists bombed Nigerian churches on Easter Sunday, killing some 50 Christians and wounding hundreds. And when the Egyptian military indiscriminately massacred dozens of unarmed Christians for protesting the nonstop attacks on their churches, all the White House could say is, “Now is a time for restraint on all sides”—as if Egypt’s beleaguered Christian minority needs to “restrain” itself against the nation’s military, a military that intentionally ran armored vehicles over them at Maspero.

In light of all this, naturally the Obama administration, in the guise of the State Department, would oppose a bill to create an envoy who will only expose more religious persecution that the administration will have to suppress or obfuscate?

Bottom line: In its attempts to empower its Islamist allies, the current U.S. administration has taken up their cause by waging a war of silence on their despised enemies—the Christians and other minorities of the Islamic world.

Leave a comment

Posted in news

Tagged , , , ,

Mexican Jihad

Posted on May 21, 2012 by | Leave a comment

By Raymond Ibrahim

As the United States considers the Islamic jihadi threats confronting it from all sides, it would do well to focus on its southern neighbor, Mexico, which has been targeted by Islamists and jihadists, who, through a number of tactics—from engaging in da’wa, converting Mexicans to Islam, to smuggling and the drug cartel, simple extortion, kidnappings and enslavement—have been subverting Mexico in order to empower Islam and sabotage the U.S.

According to a 2010 report, “Close to home: Hezbollah terrorists are plotting right on the U.S. border,” which appeared in the NY Daily News:

Mexican authorities have rolled up a Hezbollah network being built in Tijuana … closer to American homes than the terrorist hideouts in the Bekaa Valley are to Israel. Its goal, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported on the investigation: to strike targets in Israel and the West. Over the years, Hezbollah—rich with Iranian oil money and narcocash—has generated revenue by cozying up with Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs and people into the U.S. In this, it has shadowed the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran, which has been forging close ties with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who in turn supports the narcoterrorist organization FARC, which wreaks all kinds of havoc throughout the region.

Another 2010 article appearing in the Washington Times asserts that, “with fresh evidence of Hezbollah activity just south of the border [in Mexico], and numerous reports of Muslims from various countries posing as Mexicans and crossing into the United States from Mexico, our porous southern border is a national security nightmare waiting to happen.” This is in keeping with a recent study done by Georgetown University, which revealed that the number of immigrants from Lebanon and Syria living in Mexico exceeds 200,000. Syria, along with Iran, is one of Hezbollah’s strongest financial and political supporters, and Lebanon is the immigrants’ country of origin. Just like only 19 jihadists were necessary to cause the devastation of September 11, 2001, only a handful of these 200,000 are necessary to wreak havoc north of the border.

A jihadist cell in Mexico was recently found to have a weapons cache of 100 M-16 assault rifles, 100 AR-15 rifles, 2,500 hand grenades, C4 explosives and antitank munitions. The weapons, it turned out, had been smuggled by Muslims from Iraq. According to this report, “obvious concerns have arisen concerning Hezbollah’s presence in Mexico and possible ties to Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTO’s) operating along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

As far back as 2005, an article entitled “Islam is gaining a Foothold in Chiapas” showcased the inroads of Islam in Mexico:

Long a bastion of Catholicism, southern Mexico is quickly turning into a battleground for soul-savers. Islam, too, is gaining a foothold and the indigenous Mayans are converting by the hundreds. The Mexican government is worried about a culture clash in their own backyard… Muslim women in headscarves have become a common sight….

To appreciate the significance of the fact that Muslim headscarves “have become a common sight” in Mexico, consider the words of former jihadist Tawfik Hamid, who personally knew al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri. In his book, Inside Jihad, he writes: “The proliferation of the hijab [Muslim headscarves] is strongly correlated with increased terrorism…. Terrorism became much more frequent in such societies as Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, and the U.K. after the hijab became prevalent among Muslim women living in those communities.”

After discussing an increase in converts to Islam, the article continues by saying: “It’s a development that is beginning to worry the Mexican government. Indeed, the government even suspects the new converts of subversive activity and has already set the secret service onto the track of the Mayan Muslims. Mexican President Vincente Fox has even gone so far as to say he fears the influence of the radical fundamentalists of al-Qaida” [emphasis added].

Kidnappings, as part of a drug cartel or as part of a jihadist operation, which legitimizes crimes such as kidnapping and child slavery, have become increasingly common. To convert non-Muslims to their cause, Islamists also whip up—and then exploit—a sense of “grievance” against the “white man.”

In addition, according to counterterrorism experts in this report, Islamic terrorists blend in better with Mexicans than with Europeans, thereby enabling them to sneak into the U.S. across the southwest border. This Muslim cleric, for example, discusses how easy it is to smuggle a briefcase containing anthrax from Mexico into America, thereby killing at least some 330,000 Americans in a single hour.

Similarly, Michael Braun, formerly assistant administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), said that the Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America; however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S. Hezbollah relies on “the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels.”

Only a few months ago, Washington announced that FBI and DEA agents disrupted a plot to commit a “significant terrorist act in the United States,” tied to Iran with roots in Mexico. The increased violence—including beheadings, Islam’s signature trademark—is even more indicative that Islamists are well ensconced in Mexico’s drug cartel.

The threat is not limited to Hezbollah; back in 2006, according to ISN, “Mexican authorities investigated the activities of the Murabitun [a da’wa, or missionary-outreach, organization named after historic jihadists along Spain’s borders] due to reports of alleged immigration and visa abuses involving the group’s European members and possible radicals, including al-Qaeda.”

Even innocuous reports, such as this Muslim article, are cause for concern: “Today, most Mexican Islamic organizations focus on grassroots da’wa. These small organizations are most effective at the community level, going from village to village and speaking directly to the people.” Although this may not sound problematic, the strain of Islam being spread by many of these da’wa organizations is the radical, “Salafist,” anti-American variety. Here, for instance, is a popular Egyptian TV cleric saying that while Muslims must never smile to non-Muslims—who, as “infidels,” are by nature the enemy—they are free to do so if the Muslim is engaged in da’wa, trying to win over the infidel into the fold of Islam, especially if the potential convert can help empower Islam in any way.

These are but a few of the many reports on Islam in Mexico. The evidence that many Islamists in Mexico are plotting against the U.S., using all means—such as drug trafficking, which is not forbidden in Sharia law if it serves to empower Islam—is overwhelming.

Under various methods—from the violent to the subversive to the exploitative—Islam allows Muslims to lie and commit other duplicitous acts in the furtherance of Islam. Taqiyya [dissimulation] permits Hezbollah and other Islamists to engage in Mexico’s drug cartel, just as “pious” members of the Taliban in Afghanistan pursued the heroin trade. Aside from sheer violence, justified as “jihad,” or holy war, tactics pursued by Mexico’s Islamists include:

Kidnappings and enslavement, for which Mexico is already notorious. Sharia permits kidnapping, and even enslaving the infidel, in this situation, any non-Muslim in Mexico. The Quran not only approves of this, but allows male jihadists to have sex with female captives of war (Sura 4, verse 3). Here, for example, is a Muslim politician trying to legalize the institution of “sex-slavery.”

Extortion and blackmail, features of the Mexican landscape, are also permissible in Islam. According to Sharia, during jihad, Muslims are permitted to hold for ransom infidels to be sold back for large amounts of money. Here, for instance, is a popular Egyptian sheikh saying that the Islamic world’s problem is that it has stopped plundering and enslaving its infidel neighbors. He even boasts that under true Sharia, he could go to the local market and “buy” a female “sex-slave.”

In using subversive elements for da’wa, Muslims might comfortably use false arguments to turn Mexicans against their northern neighbors. For instance, they often argue that Islam is a religion of “racial equality,” whereas Christianity is the “white man’s” religion, imposed on their ancestors by racist whites who sought to keep them “impoverished” beyond the border. Islamist strategies in Mexico amount to trying to win the unbelievers over to their side, whether through conversion or just cooperation. For those who refuse to cooperate, they are infidels to be used in any way that seems appropriate.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. His article was first published by the Gatestone Institute on May 11, 2012

Leave a comment

Posted in politics, religion

Tagged , , , ,

USCIRF Alarmed By Blasphemy Amendments in Kuwait

Posted on May 13, 2012 by | Leave a comment

By USCIRF

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today expressed grave concern over the Kuwaiti Parliament’s approval last week of severe new penalties for blasphemy. The Emir of Kuwait has 30 days to approve these penalties before they would become law. The new provisions would impose the death penalty on Muslims who refuse to repent after being found to have insulted God, the Prophet Mohammad, his wives, or the Qur’an. For non-Muslims, the punishment would be up to 10 years in prison; for Muslims who repent, the punishment would be up to five years or a fine.

“These penalties are alarming and contrary to international human rights standards. It is particularly regrettable that a strong ally of the United States and a member of the UN Human Rights Council has taken these steps,” said Leonard Leo, USCIRF Chair. “The Kuwaiti parliament’s approval is especially unfortunate in light of the new consensus resolutions at the Human Rights Council – adopted in both 2011 and 2012 — that focus on fighting religious intolerance, discrimination, and violence without restricting speech.”

USCIRF urges the United States to work with Kuwait to address concerns about intolerant speech through counter-speech and positive measures, including education and outreach, as provided for in Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18. The U.S. government also should urge the Emir of Kuwait to reject the pending blasphemy law amendments and focus instead on criminalizing only incitement to imminent violence. Such a reform would make Kuwaiti law consistent with international human rights standards and the intolerance resolutions that Kuwait supported at the UN.

“These draconian provisions should be rejected because they would place individuals’ lives in jeopardy for exercising their internationally-guaranteed freedoms of religion and expression,” said Leo. “As has been evident during the years USCIRF has monitored religious freedom violations around the world, blasphemy laws do not promote religious harmony as their proponents assert; rather, they exacerbate religious intolerance, extremism, and violence.”

Leave a comment

Posted in politics, religion

Tagged , , , ,

The Historical Reality of the Muslim Conquests

Posted on March 13, 2012 by | Leave a comment

By Raymond Ibrahim

Because it is now almost axiomatic for American school textbooks to whitewash all things Islamic (see here for example), it may be useful to examine one of those aspects that are regularly distorted: the Muslim conquests.

Few events of history are so well documented and attested to as are these conquests, which commenced soon after the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad (632) and tapered off circa 750. Large swathes of the Old World—from the India in the east, to Spain in the west—were conquered and consolidated by the sword of Islam during this time.

By the standards of history, the reality of these conquests is unassailable, for history proper concerns itself with primary sources; and the Islamic conquests are thoroughly documented. More importantly, the overwhelming majority of primary source materials we rely on do not come from non-Muslims, who might be accused of bias. Rather, the foremost historians bequeathing to posterity thousands of pages of source materials documenting the Islamic conquests were not only Muslims themselves; they were—and still are—regarded by today’s Muslims as pious and trustworthy scholars (generically, the ulema).

Among the most authoritative books devoted to recounting the conquests are: Ibn Ishaq’s (d. 767) Sira (“Life of Muhammad”), the oldest biography of Muhammad; Waqidi’s (d. circa. 820) Maghazi (“Military Campaigns [of the Prophet]”); Baladhuri’s (d. 892) Futuh al-Buldan (“Conquests of the Nations”); and Tabari’s (d.923) multi-volume Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, (“History of Prophets and Kings”), which is 40 volumes in the English translation.

Taken together, these accounts (which are primarily based on older accounts—oral and written—tracing back to Muhammad and his successors) provide what was once, and in the Muslim world still is, a famous story: that Allah had perfected religion (Islam) for all humanity; that he commanded his final prophet (Muhammad) and community (Muslims) to spread Islam to the world; and that the latter was/is to accept it either willingly or unwillingly (jihad).

It should be noted that contemporary non-Muslim accounts further validate the facts of the conquests. The writings of the Christian bishop of Jerusalem Sophronius (d.638), for instance, or the chronicles of the Byzantine historian Theophanes (d.758), to name a couple, make clear that Muslims conquered much of what is today called the “Muslim world.”

According to the Muslim historical tradition, the majority of non-Muslim peoples of the Old World, not desiring to submit to Islam or its laws (Sharia), fought back, though most were eventually defeated and subsumed.

The first major conquest, renowned for its brutality, occurred in Arabia itself, immediately after Muhammad’s death in 632. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in politics, religion

Tagged , ,

Rutherford Institute Calls on Iranian Ambassador to Intervene in Execution of Christian Pastor in Iran

Posted on October 22, 2011 by | Leave a comment

(New York, NY)   John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, has called on the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations to intervene in the impending execution of Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian pastor in Iran who was convicted of apostasy. In a letter to the Iranian ambassador and other key dignitaries, Whitehead urged the Iranian ambassador to encourage his government to abide by its obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its own Constitution, which provides that “no one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief.”

The Rutherford Institute’s letter on behalf of Youcef Nadarkhani is available at www.rutherford.org.

“If citizens in Iran cannot depend upon the protections of the most basic human rights provided in their own Constitution, then we must offer them the solace of a watching world that is willing to intervene politically,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “Surely we cannot stand silent as this man of faith is martyred. Youcef’s imminent execution presents Iran with the unique opportunity to prove its commitment to human rights and being a part of the international community by dropping the charges against Youcef and letting him go free.”

According to reports by the Assyrian International News Agency, Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was convicted of apostasy after protesting the government’s decision to teach Christian schoolchildren—including Youcef’s own 8- and 6-year-old sons—about Islam. Over the course of the past two years Youcef has spent in prison, he has allegedly suffered various forms of inhumane and irregular punishment, including a denial of access to his attorney, the arrest of his wife, threats to place his two sons in the custody of Muslim families, and the administration of drugs in an attempt to force him to recant his religious faith. On Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011, Youcef refused to deny his faith a fourth time. Most recently, Youcef has been charged with rape and extortion, trumped-up charges which never surfaced during his series of trials in 2010.

Leave a comment

Posted in news

Tagged , , , , , ,

Nazism, Democracy, and the Murder of Reason

Posted on March 26, 2011 by | 1 comment

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

According to one study, 97 percent of all teachers in Nazi Germany were members of the Nazi party. Many of these teachers taught the humanities­—philosophy, literature, the fine arts. Many others taught the social sciences—sociology, political science, psychology, anthropology.

Clearly, the study and teaching of the humanities and the social sciences do not make people virtuous. We should not be surprised. For the prevailing doctrine in the humanities and the social sciences is moral relativism, which claims that reason cannot provide objective standards of good and bad, right and wrong. This is the prevailing doctrine in American and Israeli universities.

As for the exact sciences, physics and chemistry, they are ethically neutral. How did German scientists respond to Nazism? In his book on the great theoretical physicist Erwin Schrodinger, Walter Moore’s says: “There is no known instance in which a professor of physics or chemistry without any Jewish family ever made any open protest against Nazi activities. Even among the German intellectual elite, the scientists were conspicuously unanimous in this respect, since a few protests can be found among scholars in other fields.”

Science can serve dictators as well as democrats—witness Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This means that science does not make scientists or their societies humane. But much the same may be said of the secular democratic state in which moral relativism permeates every level of education. Witness the moral decay in America and Europe.

By the way: there are approximately 200 divergent schools of psychology, hence 200 different conceptions of human nature; and virtually all purvey the doctrine of moral relativism.

Because secular education is ethically neutral, it undermines reverence, awareness of what is noble, and this cannot but corrupt youth. Whatever decency we experience today we owe primarily to the waning influence of Torah values and classical Greek philosophy exemplified in Plato and Aristotle. During America’s constitution-forming period, Hebrew and the study of the Hebrew Bible constituted an essential part of the curriculum at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other universities. And so too were the classics.

A silent and insidious revolution has occurred in America. Not only have the classics been replaced by multiculturalism, but a reversion to paganism is evident on university campuses, where gays and lesbians feel at home, and they have similar types or indifferent representatives in Congress. They and their academic defenders would have us believe that homosexuality is “progressive.” In fact, homosexuality is reactionary, a throwback to paganism.

To sexual perversion add the nudity, pornography, and obscene violence purveyed by the entertainment media, which some half-educated psychologists justify as providing an “escape valve” for repressed instincts. Has it ever occurred to these secular educators of our youth that the nudity now commonplace in the cinema and television is indicative of superficiality? Has it ever occurred to them that pornography, by reducing love to lust, generates vulgarity? Has it ever occurred to their adolescent minds that media violence undermines kindness and compassion?

Thanks very much to utterly secularized education and to those who profit from the commercial exploitation of sex and violence, people are more concerned about the quality of things that goes into their stomachs than the quality of things that goes into their minds—or into the minds of their children. But this is the inevitable consequence of contemporary democracy, whose supreme principle is unfettered freedom of expression. Do not expect the high priests of the secular democratic state to reverse the ethically neutral principles of democracy, the religion of our times. But bear in mind that Weimar Germany, a democracy steeped in moral relativism, spawned tyranny.

Democracy is usually associated with reason. But reason takes a holiday from democracy when its two great principles, freedom and equality, have no moral constraints. This is more than a political issue: it’s a theological issue, and it underlies the conflict between the West and Islam.

The West boasts of its rationality. And yes, reason may be effective in the social and political dealings of democrats. But these democrats, whether secular or not, are living on borrowed time, having been influenced by a now waning Judeo-Christian culture based on the idea that man is created in the image of God. This idea is rejected by Islamic theology, and contrary to Daniel Pipes, this makes Islam incompatible with democracy; it also makes abiding peace with Islamic regimes impossible so long as they deem the Quran as sacred and immutable.

Utter indifference to Islamic theology led Jewish prime ministers into the Oslo covenant of death. This is the result of a morally neutral or secularized system of education. These half-educated Jewish democrats really believed that reason and mutual understanding would resolve Israel’s conflict with her Islamic foes.

Not all democrats, not even all social democrats, betray such ignorance or stupidity. Contrast the 19th century social democrat Ferdinand Lassalle, a Jew. In his drama Franz von Sickengen, there occurs a dialogue between a Lutheran chaplain, a pacifist, and Ulrick von Hutten, the great 16th century humanist. To the pacifist’s contention that reason as opposed to force is the driving principle of history, von Hutten replies: “My worthy Sir! You are ill-acquainted with history. Reason is its content, but its form is ever force.”

Recalling that it was the sword that saved Greece from Xerxes, and liberated Jerusalem from the Saracens; that it was the sword that David, Samson, and Gideon labored with, von Hutten concludes: “Thus, long ago as well as since, the sword achieved the glories told by history; and all that is great, as yet to be achieved, owes, in the end, its triumph to the sword.”

The sword saved Europe from the tyranny of Nazi Germany. But did reason emerge triumphant? Is it not the case that democratic Europe sides with the Palestinian Authority, a kleptocratic tyranny? Are Europe’s political and intellectual elites oblivious of the fact that the PA trains Arab children to emulate homicide bombers?

Decadent Europe aside, what are we to say of Israeli prime ministers who believe that reciprocity, or the give-and-take of conventional politics, will solve Israel’s conflict with Muslims. Don’t these Jewish politician know that Islamic theology regards as blasphemous the idea that man is created in the image of God, that Muslims reject the primacy of free will and reason, since both contradict Allah’s omnipotence?

Purdue University political scientist Louis Rene Beres says that “All politics is delinquency, challenging and besmirching life with the eternally smug babble of criminals, fools and … above all, the gibberish of the ordinary.” Beres regards Israeli politics, as “infantile.” For evidence, it’s enough to point out that Israeli prime ministers have released, armed, and paid thousands of Arab Jew-killers to provide for Israel’s security! Can such “useful idiots” take Islam seriously?

But if you want to laugh or cry about such idiocy, here’s a story from multicultural America, where relativism and secularized education thrive. In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an Alabama law which authorized teachers to set aside one minute at the start of each day for a moment of “silent meditation or voluntary prayer.” Soon thereafter the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit replaced its anti-Christian agenda by enforcing a pro-Islamic agenda! As one commentator noted, this same court, which has jurisdiction over nine states and fifty-nine million Americans, ruled that it was not constitutional for public school students to say “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance but that it was constitutional for public schools to require a three-week general indoctrination to the Islamic faith in which junior high-school students—even those who are not Muslims—must pretend they are Muslims and must offer prayers to Allah; they are further urged to take Islamic names, call each other by those names, wear Islamic garb, participate in Islamic games, and read the Koran during those three weeks. Significantly, the federal court of appeals did not think that requiring Islamic religious activities violated the so-called “separation of church and state” [doctrine] but that voluntarily saying “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance did.

Of course this is an attack on America’s Judeo-Christian foundations and a kowtowing to Islam.

This should worry Jews in Israel. Perhaps they should revive and update the ideas of the Hebraic Republic of antiquity? Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, Protestant and Catholic Hebraists in England, Holland, and Italy regarded the Hebraic Republic as the wisest and most just in history. John Shelden proposed that Britain replace its Parliament with the Sanhedrin! I have just finished a book which shows that the ideas underlying the original American Constitution are fundamentally Hebraic. Perhaps reviving aspects of that Republic should be the goal of those who deplore Israel’s dysfunctional political system?

This would require radical change in what is called “higher education.” In the end, however, the sword will also determine Israel’s future.

1 Comment

Posted in education, history, politics

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Can American Values Radicalize Muslims?

Posted on February 18, 2011 by | Leave a comment

by Raymond Ibrahim

Recent comments by U.S. officials on the threat posed by “radicalized” American Muslims are troubling, both for their domestic and international implications. Attorney General Eric Holder states that “the threat has changed … to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born.” The situation is critical enough to compel incoming head of the House Committee on Homeland Security Peter King to do all he can “to break down the wall of political correctness and drive the public debate on Islamic radicalization.”

To be sure, radicalized American Muslims pose a far greater risk than foreign radicals. For example, it is much easier for the former to get a job in the food industry and poison food — a recently revealed al-Qaeda strategy. American terrorists are also better positioned to exploit the Western mindset. After describing Anwar al-Awlaki as one of the most dangerous terrorists alive, Holder added that he “is a person who — as an American citizen — is familiar with this country and he brings a dimension, because of that American familiarity, that others do not.” (Likewise, American Adam Gadahn is al-Qaeda’s chief propagandist in English no doubt due to his “American familiarity.”)
Sue Myrick, a member of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote a particularly candid letter on “radicalization” to President Obama:

For many years we lulled ourselves with the idea that radicalization was not happening inside the United Sates. We believed American Muslims were immune to radicalization because, unlike the European counterparts, they are socially and economically well-integrated into society. There had been warnings that these assumptions were false but we paid them no mind. Today there is no doubt that radicalization is taking place inside America. The strikingly accelerated rate of American Muslims arrested for involvement in terrorist activities since May 2009 makes this fact self-evident.

Myrick named several American Muslims as examples of those who, while “embodying the American dream, at least socio-economically,” still turned to radical Islam, astutely adding, “The truth is that if grievances were the sole cause of terrorism, we would see daily acts by Americans who have lost their jobs and homes in this economic downturn.”

Quite so. Yet, though Myrick’s observations are limited to the domestic scene, they beg the following, even more “cosmic,” question: If American Muslims, who enjoy Western benefits — including democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression — are still being radicalized, why then do we insist that the importation of those same Western benefits to the Muslim world will eliminate its even more indigenous or authentic form of “radicalization”?
After all, the mainstream position, the only one evoked by politicians, maintains that all American sacrifices in the Muslim world (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) will pay off once Muslims discover how wonderful Western ways are, and happily slough off their Islamist veneer, which, as the theory goes, is a product of — you guessed it — a lack of democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression. Yet here are American Muslims, immersed in the bounties of the West — and still do they turn to violent jihad. Why think their counterparts, who are born and raised in the Muslim world, where Islam permeates every aspect of life, will respond differently?

In fact, far from eliminating radicalization, there is reason to believe that Western values can actually exacerbate Islamist tendencies. It is already known that Western concessions to Islam — in the guise of multiculturalism, “cultural sensitivity,” political correctness, and self-censorship — only bring out the worst in Islamists. Yet even some of the most prized aspects of Western civilization — personal freedom, rule of law, human dignity — when articulated through an Islamist framework, have the capacity to “radicalize” Muslims.

Consider: the West’s unique stress on the law as supreme arbitrator, translates into a stress to establish sharia law, Islam’s supreme arbitrator of human affairs; the West’s unwavering commitment to democracy, translates into an unwavering commitment to theocracy, including an anxious impulse to resurrect the caliphate; Western notions of human dignity and pride, when articulated through an Islamist mindset (which sees fellow Muslims as the ultimate, if not only, representatives of humanity) induces rage when fellow Muslims — Palestinians, Afghanis, Iraqis, etc. — are seen under Western, infidel dominion; Western notions of autonomy and personal freedom have even helped “Westernize” the notion of jihad into an individual duty, though it has traditionally been held by sharia as a communal duty.

Nor should any of this be surprising: a set of noble principles articulated through a fascistic paradigm can produce abominations. In this case, the better principles of Western civilization are being devoured, absorbed, and regurgitated into something equally potent, though from the other end of the spectrum. Put differently, just as a stress on human freedom, human dignity, and universal justice produces good humans, rearticulating these same concepts through an Islamist framework that qualifies them with the word “Muslim” — Muslim freedom, Muslim dignity, and Muslim justice — leads to what is being called “radicalization.”

Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of The Al Qaeda Reader, and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.

Originally published by Pajamas Media, February 10, 2011.

Leave a comment

Posted in politics, religion

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Thomas More Law Center Appeals Conviction of Young Christian Missionary Arrested at Dearborn Arab Festival

Posted on February 9, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Standing barely 5 feet tall, 18-year old Negeen Mayel, whose parents escaped from Afghanistan after the Russian invasion, could not escape the clutches of the Dearborn, Michigan Police Department. Her crime: she was a Christian publicly filming her fellow Christian missionaries discussing the Gospel with Muslims at last year’s annual Dearborn Arab Festival, and she didn’t turn off her camera quick enough after a police officer ordered her to do so.

Negeen Mayel was convicted in the Dearborn District Court of failure to obey a police officer’s order. Astonishingly, at the trial, the officer admitted that the filming by Mayel was in fact not a crime.

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) filed its opening brief with the Wayne County Circuit Court, seeking to overturn her conviction. Mayel was one of four Christian missionaries originally arrested for preaching the Gospel at the 2010 Arab Festival in Dearborn, Michigan.

All four Christians were charged with Breach of the Peace for discussing their faith with Muslims at the Festival. All four were acquitted by a jury. However, Negeen Mayel was also charged with “failure to obey” for not turning off her video camera when told to do so by a Dearborn police officer. The officer then forcefully grabbed Negeen’s arm and camera, placed her in handcuffs, and had her locked-up in the city jail.

Dearborn is considered home to the largest Muslim population in America. As a result, many City officials, including the Mayor, engage in official action solely to please this significant voting bloc. In this case, police effectively replaced our constitutional guarantees of Free Speech with Sharia law, which forbids Christians to proselytize Muslims.

The Law Center’s brief argues that the conviction must be overturned because the arresting police officer lacked any information that Mayel was involved in criminal activity when she was seized by the officer, in violation of the Constitution. According to the brief filed with the Circuit Court, the police officer’s order “to shut off her camera and remain with him for questioning directly violated constitutional rights. Consequently, cannot be criminally charged nor convicted for disobeying an unconstitutional—and thus unlawful—police order.”

Robert Muise, TMLC’s Senior Trial Counsel who is handling the matter, stated, “The arresting officer’s actions and the actions of the Dearborn police department are textbook examples of civil rights violations of the highest order. Consequently, when a conviction is based on the actions of a police officer that violate fundamental constitutional rights, as in this case, that conviction must be reversed, lest our constitutional freedoms be rendered meaningless platitudes subject to the will of police officials.”

Read more about Negeen Mayel’s case by going here and here.

Leave a comment

Posted in news, politics, religion

Tagged , , , , ,