Muslim Heretics Conference

The American author Sherry Jones is either very brave or very foolhardy. She has written a novel about Mohammed, focusing on his relationship with his favourite wife, A’isha.

A professor of Muslim history, Denise Spellberg of the University of Texas, has described the book as “very ugly, stupid … soft-core pornography”. Miss Jones can turn the other cheek.

The words of Anjem Choudhary, a one-time member of the extremist Islamist group al-Mujaharoun, are not so easy to brush aside.

Speaking after a firebomb attack on the home of the book’s London publisher, he describes the novel as “an attack on the honour of Mohammed” and adds: “It is clearly stipulated in Muslim law that any kind of attack on his honour carries the death penalty.”

Such an outrageous comment takes us back 20 years, to when Salman Rushdie was subjected to a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran, on the grounds that he had committed blasphemy and apostasy in his book, The Satanic Verses. It is important to remember what then happened.

There were bomb attacks on bookshops in London, York and High Wycombe; the Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death; the Italian translator was also stabbed, but survived; an arson attack against the book’s Turkish translator resulted in the deaths of 37 people.

Mr Choudhary’s words, therefore, should not be dismissed as just ugly rhetoric. They indicate that radical Islamist opinion remains dangerously rebarbative.

Isn’t it time that moderate Muslims spoke out loud and long against the way a tiny minority of zealots can dominate the political debate and constantly depict Islam as intolerant and bigoted, when, in reality, those words apply only to its most extreme, blinkered adherents?

Speaking truth to Islam - Telegraph

Geert Wilders, chairman Party for Freedom, the Netherlands

Speech at the Four Seasons, New York

September 25, 2008

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for inviting me. Great to be at the Four Seasons. I come from a country that has one season only: a rainy season that starts January 1st and ends December 31st. When we have three sunny days in a row, the government declares a national emergency. So Four Seasons, that’s new to me.

It’s great to be in New York. When I see the skyscrapers and office buildings, I think of what Ayn Rand said: “The sky over New York and the will of man made visible.” Of course. Without the Dutch you would have been nowhere, still figuring out how to buy this island from the Indians. But we are glad we did it for you. And, frankly, you did a far better job than we possibly could have done.

I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The danger I see looming is the scenario of America as the last man standing. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe. In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe? Patriots from around Europe risk their lives every day to prevent precisely this scenario form becoming a reality.

My short lecture consists of 4 parts.

First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe. Then, I will say a few things about Islam. Thirdly, if you are still here, I will talk a little bit about the movie you just saw. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem.

The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome’s ancient buildings and maybe the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago.

But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world, a world very few visitors see – and one that does not appear in your tourist guidebook. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration. All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighbourhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities. In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear “whore, whore”. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin. In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity. In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate. A Dutch study reported that half of Dutch Muslims admit they “understand” the 9/11 attacks.

Muslims demand what they call ‘respect’. And this is how we give them respect. Our elites are willing to give in. To give up. In my own country we have gone from calls by one cabinet member to turn Muslim holidays into official state holidays, to statements by another cabinet member, that Islam is part of Dutch culture, to an affirmation by the Christian-Democratic attorney general that he is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. Some prefer to see these as isolated incidents, but I call it a Muslim intifada. I call the perpetrators “settlers”. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies, they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighbourhoods, their cities, their countries.

Politicians shy away from taking a stand against this creeping sharia. They believe in the equality of all cultures. Moreover, on a mundane level, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.

Our many problems with Islam cannot be explained by poverty, repression or the European colonial past, as the Left claims. Nor does it have anything to do with Palestinians or American troops in Iraq. The problem is Islam itself.

Allow me to give you a brief Islam 101. The first thing you need to know about Islam is the importance of the book of the Quran. The Quran is Allah’s personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the prophet. This is where the trouble starts. Every word in the Quran is Allah’s word and therefore not open to discussion or interpretation. It is valid for every Muslim and for all times. Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam. Sure, there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent.

The Quran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Quran calls for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to fulfil their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Muslim, Islam is to rule the world – by the sword. The Quran is clearly anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages – at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of slavery, but never advised to liberate slaves. Islam has no other morality than the advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side.

Quran as Allah’s own word and Mohammed as the perfect man are the two most important facets of Islam. Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

This is what you need to know about Islam, in order to understand what is going on in Europe. For millions of Muslims the Quran and the live of Mohammed are not 14 centuries old, but are an everyday reality, an ideal, that guide every aspect of their lives. Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam “the most retrograde force in the world”, and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran.

Which brings me to my movie, Fitna.

I am a lawmaker, and not a movie maker. But I felt I had the moral duty to educate about Islam. The duty to make clear that the Quran stands at the heart of what some people call terrorism but is in reality jihad. I wanted to show that the problems of Islam are at the core of Islam, and do not belong to its fringes.

Now, from the day the plan for my movie was made public, it caused quite a stir, in the Netherlands and throughout Europe. First, there was a political storm, with government leaders, across the continent in sheer panic. The Netherlands was put under a heightened terror alert, because of possible attacks or a revolt by our Muslim population. The Dutch branch of the Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir declared that the Netherlands was due for an attack. Internationally, there was a series of incidents. The Taliban threatened to organize additional attacks against Dutch troops in Afghanistan, and a website linked to Al Qaeda published the message that I ought to be killed, while various muftis in the Middle East stated that I would be responsible for all the bloodshed after the screening of the movie. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Dutch flag was burned on several occasions. Dolls representing me were also burned. The Indonesian President announced that I will never be admitted into Indonesia again, while the UN Secretary General and the European Union issued cowardly statements in the same vein as those made by the Dutch Government. I could go on and on. It was an absolute disgrace, a sell-out.

A plethora of legal troubles also followed, and have not ended yet. Currently the state of Jordan is litigating against me. Only last week there were renewed security agency reports about a heightened terror alert for the Netherlands because of Fitna.

Now, I would like to say a few things about Israel. Because, very soon, we will get together in its capitol. The best way for a politician in Europe to loose votes is to say something positive about Israel. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I, however, will continue to speak up for Israel. I see defending Israel as a matter of principle. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.

Samuel Huntington writes it so aptly: “Islam has bloody borders”. Israel is located precisely on that border. This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything. Therefore, it is not that the West has a stake in Israel. It is Israel.

It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the growing Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all fronts we are losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam. Muslim immigration is even a source of pride within ruling liberal parties. Academia, the arts, the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. The entire establishment has sided with our enemy. Leftists, liberals and Christian-Democrats are now all in bed with Islam.

This is the most painful thing to see: the betrayal by our elites. At this moment in Europe’s history, our elites are supposed to lead us. To stand up for centuries of civilization. To defend our heritage. To honour our eternal Judeo-Christian values that made Europe what it is today. But there are very few signs of hope to be seen at the governmental level. Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi; in private, they probably know how grave the situation is. But when the little red light goes on, they stare into the camera and tell us that Islam is a religion of peace, and we should all try to get along nicely and sing Kumbaya. They willingly participate in, what President Reagan so aptly called: “the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.”

If there is hope in Europe, it comes from the people, not from the elites. Change can only come from a grass-roots level. It has to come from the citizens themselves. Yet these patriots will have to take on the entire political, legal and media establishment.

Over the past years there have been some small, but encouraging, signs of a rebirth of the original European spirit. Maybe the elites turn their backs on freedom, the public does not. In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat to our national identity. I don’t think the public opinion in Holland is very different from other European countries.

Patriotic parties that oppose jihad are growing, against all odds. My own party debuted two years ago, with five percent of the vote. Now it stands at ten percent in the polls. The same is true of all smililary-minded parties in Europe. They are fighting the liberal establishment, and are gaining footholds on the political arena, one voter at the time.

Now, for the first time, these patriotic parties will come together and exchange experiences. It may be the start of something big. Something that might change the map of Europe for decades to come. It might also be Europe’s last chance.

This December a conference will take place in Jerusalem. Thanks to Professor Aryeh Eldad, a member of Knesset, we will be able to watch Fitna in the Knesset building and discuss the jihad. We are organizing this event in Israel to emphasize the fact that we are all in the same boat together, and that Israel is part of our common heritage. Those attending will be a select audience. No racist organizations will be allowed. And we will only admit parties that are solidly democratic.

This conference will be the start of an Alliance of European patriots. This Alliance will serve as the backbone for all organizations and political parties that oppose jihad and Islamization. For this Alliance I seek your support.

This endeavor may be crucial to America and to the West. America may hold fast to the dream that, thanks tot its location, it is safe from jihad and shaira. But seven years ago to the day, there was still smoke rising from ground zero, following the attacks that forever shattered that dream. Yet there is a danger even greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe’s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

This is not the first time our civilization is under threat. We have seen dangers before. We have been betrayed by our elites before. They have sided with our enemies before. And yet, then, freedom prevailed.

These are not times in which to take lessons from appeasement, capitulation, giving away, giving up or giving in. These are not times in which to draw lessons from Mr. Chamberlain. These are times calling us to draw lessons from Mr. Churchill and the words he spoke in 1942:

“Never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy”.

Geert Wilders: Wisdom and Courage | EuropeNews

WASHINGTON, July 15, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — State Department-Negotiated Deadline for Reform Nears

Today the Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute released a 90-page report ( http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/textbooks_final_for_pdf.pdf), 2008 Update: Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance, with a foreword by R. James Woolsey. It was prepared in consultation with the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs.

This report compares the 2007-2008 textbooks that are currently posted on the website of the Saudi Ministry of Education with those analyzed in our 2006 study, and shows that the same violent and intolerant teachings against other religious believers noted in 2006 remain in the current texts.

They assert that unbelievers, such as Christians, Jews, and Muslims who do not share Wahhabi beliefs and practices, are hated “enemies.” Global jihad as an “effort to wage war against the unbelievers” is also promoted in the Ministry’s textbooks: “In its general usage, ‘jihad’ is divided into the following categories: …Wrestling with the infidels by calling them to the faith and battling against them.” No argument is made here that such references to jihad mean only spiritual and defensive struggles.

Lessons remain that Jews and Christians are apes and swine, Jews conspire to “gain sole control over the world,” the Christian Crusades never ended, the American universities of Cairo and Beirut are part of the continuing Crusades, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are historical fact, and on Judgment Day “the rocks or the trees” will call out to Muslims to kill the Jews.

They teach that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an “apostate,” an “adulterer,” and those practicing “major polytheism.” Shiites are among those identified as “polytheists.” One lesson states that “it is not permissible to violate the blood, property, or honor of the unbeliever who makes a compact with the Muslims,” but is pointedly silent on whether security guarantees are extended to non-Muslims without such a compact. Other lessons demonize members of the Baha’i and Ahmadiyya groups.

A lesson from a tenth grade text now posted on the Saudi Ministry’s website sanctions the killing of homosexuals and discusses methods for doing so.

In the lessons examined in this report, the Saudi government discounts or ignores passages in the Qur’an to support tolerance.

All of these textbooks have been reissued at least once and all but two of them reissued twice, yet overall the changes to the passages in question have been minimal, and the degree of substantive change has been negligible. Taken together, the report concludes, revisions in the currently-posted texts amount to moving around the furniture, not cleaning the house.

This analysis is issued as a deadline nears for the removal of intolerant teachings from all Saudi textbooks. This commitment stems from the Saudi government’s “confirmation” of policies that resulted from extensive bilateral negotiations with the U.S., and which policies were publicly announced and lauded as “significant developments” by the State Department in July 2006. Whether Saudi Arabia’s “comprehensive revision of textbooks” will be achieved by the start of the September 2008 school year remains to be seen. As the report documents, thorough textbook reform has not yet occurred.

Saudi King Abdullah is taking a leading role in interfaith dialogue initiatives, including convening a conference in Madrid later this week. The report notes that the Saudi Education Ministry’s continued teaching of hatred and violence against other religious believers raises concerns about whether the Saudi government has a genuine desire to find common ground with other religions.

For the report ( http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/textbooks_final_for_pdf.pdf), along with English and original Arabic excerpts ( http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/Excerpts_from_Saudi_Textbooks_715.pdf) go to: www.hudson.org/religion.

Hudson Institute is a non-partisan policy research organization dedicated to innovative research and analysis that promotes global security, prosperity, and freedom.

SOURCE Hudson Institute

 http://www.hudson.org

New Report Shows Saudi Ministry Textbooks Still Teach Extreme Intolerance - MarketWatch

Curbing Criticism With Defamation

By Supna Zaidi
The OIC wants a UN resolution to prevent defamation of Islam. Yet, one of its member nations proves yet again that it is simply a pretext to curb criticism of Islamic societies internationally.

The resolution, called “Combating Defamation of Religion,” is sponsored by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). According to the text of an OIC proposal, the new UN body should state clearly that the “defamation of religions and prophets is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression” and that states, organizations and the media have a “responsibility in promoting tolerance and respect for religious and cultural values.

Malaysia arrested internet blogger, Raja Petra Kamarudin, for insulting Islam, though what he really did was criticize the Malay government. Petra published an article in Malaysia Today website accusing Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Razak, of involvement in the 2007 murder of a Mongolian woman. Mr Razak denies the charge.

The current Malaysian administration under Abdullah Badawi is being challenged not only by critics like Petra, but also Anwar Ibrahim, who is leading the politician. Ibrahim gained national attention after he was thrown in jail under alleged trumped of charges of sodomy and corruption almost a decade ago. He is back in the game, leading the opposition against the Badawi government.

Petra’s was sentenced to two years detention under the Internal Security Act, which many critics argue is meant for terrorists, not legitimate critics of government and society. The Islamic Development Department (Jakim) director-general Datuk Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz has argued that the comments and criticisms throughout Petra’s writings are reminiscent of “anti-Islamic” statements westerners usually make.

Thus, Petra must be an agent for the west in Malaysia, insulting Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and Muslims with impunity. Malaysia is not the only Muslim country that hides behind religion to attack individuals that they have a very secular “beef” with. Consider:

1. Pakistan repeatedly attacks non-Muslims, especially Christians with blasphemy. In reality many cases involve work, family, or neighborly feuds that have nothing to do with religion. See, here, here, and here.

So, what does the resolution to prevent Defamation against religion really mean to OIC members when blasphemy is used as a tool against political enemies who are Muslim themselves, like Petra? Moreover, what does such behavior suggest if blasphemy were a weapon Muslim nations could yield against non-Muslim nations? Already, we have seen the following encroachments on secular life in the west:

1. Sharia Finance;

2. Islam in public schools;

3. Violations of basic hygiene policy by Muslim medical staff;

4. Censorship of literature.

To debate any of the above, Islamists label dissenters bigots and racist, rather than address the concerns and respond on topic.

Unfortunately, instead of western nations taking a stand against the manipulation behind the OIC resolution, some countries are caving in. Norway, for example, passed anti-blasphemy laws in 2006 after the Dutch cartoon incident.

The Norwegian Penal Code states:

“Law 150-A, which has been approved by parliament, criminalizes blasphemy and clearly prohibits despising others or lampooning religions in any form of expression, including the use of photographs,” Norway’s Deputy Archbishop Oliva Howika told reporters after a meeting in Doha with Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

The United States, along with many European nations, are trying to defeat the resolution. Critics of the resolution correctly realize that it is meant to curb criticism of Islam though it permeates the economic, political and social life of 57 nations, and Islamist immigrants in the West.

Islamist immigrants are the real threat, and the OIC knows it. Instead of respecting and appreciating the various democratic institutions and values like tolerance and pluralism that many of their home countries lack, Islamists want Sharia.

Curbing criticism of such attempts is what the resolution against defamation of Religion attempts to do. Any challenges to unreasonable requests for religious accommodation by Islamists would now be considered discrimination, ignoring the significant difference between equal treatment under the law with special treatment of one faith over all others.

The resolution must fail. It is hypocritical considering how the 57 Muslim nations treat non-Muslims and even Muslim minorities in their own states. Moreover, it is a weapon to silence the spread of Islamism in the West by tying the hands of critics. Malaysia’s Raja Petra Kamarudin is but one example of many victims of blasphemy laws in the Islamic world already. The resolution against the defamation of religion would make detentions’ like his the norm and not news worthy if passed.

(Supna Zaidi is editor-in-chief of Muslim World Today and asst director of Islamist Watch at the Middle East Forum)

Muslim World Today: Front Page 9262008

China’s Muslims say Ramadan a time of repression

By WILLIAM FOREMAN

Associated Press Writer

William Foreman

Uighurs are seen at the Sufi mosque in Yarkent, in China’s western Xinjiang province Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008. For followers of Islam, Ramadan is supposed to be a time of fasting, spiritual reflection and prayer. But for many members of China’s Muslim ethnic Uighur minority, the holy month is also full of fear and seething resentment about increasingly tight restrictions - coming on the heels of a series of attacks - on how they worship and practice their moderate form of Islam.

All that was left on the chin of the Muslim man praying at the huge brownstone mosque was a small patch of stubble. He said officials had forced young men in China’s far western Xinjiang region to cut off their beards at the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

“If I didn’t shave, they would do this to me,” said the man, who put his wrists together as if handcuffed, his eyes bulging with anger. “If I say more, I could be arrested.”

He gave only part of his name, Arem, and stomped away.

For Muslims, Ramadan is a time of fasting and prayer. But for China’s Muslim ethnic Uighurs, the holy month is also full of fear and seething resentment about increasingly tight restrictions on how they practice their moderate form of Islam, influenced by the Sunni and Sufi sects.

Managing the restive Turkic people is developing into one of China’s biggest challenges. Like the Tibetans, the Uighurs have been unwilling to buy into the government’s plan: greater economic prosperity instead of greater religious freedom or autonomy.

This year has been especially jittery in Xinjiang, a sprawling territory three times the size of France that is home to 9 million Uighurs (pronounced WEE-GURS). Despite ramped-up security in the region before the Beijing Olympics, a string of bombings and deadly attacks - the worst wave of violence in a decade - deeply embarrassed China under the global spotlight.

China blamed terrorists, but has yet to release evidence that links terror groups to attacks that killed 33 people in Kuqa and Kashgar in western Xinjiang.

With the Olympics over and the world’s focus elsewhere, it seems to be payback time for Xinjiang. Overseas Uighur rights groups have accused the government of mass arrests, which police deny. Uighurs interviewed by The Associated Press in Kuqa and Kashgar complained of sweeping detentions but would not say more. In Kuqa, security officials followed an AP journalist for most of his visit.

The most obvious signs of tension are the tight restrictions on Ramadan, which ends this week.

Several local governments have posted lists of warnings on their Web sites, including a detailed one by the township of Yingmaili in Xayar county, near Kuqa. Government employees, teachers and students can’t fast during Ramadan. Mosques can’t host out-of-town visitors or play video and sound recordings. Proselytizing in public is prohibited. Surveillance of mosques must be increased. Restaurants must stay open during the daylight fasting period.

“All effective means must be used to make sure that men shave their beards and that women remove veils that cover their faces,” adds the notice.

A slogan painted on a wall in the area warns Muslims it is illegal to make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca except with a government-sanctioned tour group.

Such restrictions have long been on the books but were selectively enforced, said Dru Gladney, an expert on Uighurs at the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College in California.

“The government has really been enforcing these restrictions in Xinjiang more than in the past,” Gladney said. “In other Muslim areas in China, you certainly don’t see these similar kinds of restrictions.”

In many ways, Xinjiang is China’s Siberia. This harsh land of snowcapped mountains and scorching deserts is broken up by oil fields and oasis cities surrounded by lush fields of cotton, melons and grapes. The territory has been China’s nuclear test ground and home to an extensive “laogai,” a gulag-like prison system.

Xinjiang also shares borders with Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations - a volatile neighborhood that makes Beijing nervous.

www.kansascity.com | 09/28/2008 | China’s Muslims say Ramadan a time of repression

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Two of the Arab world’s most prominent Muslim theologians from the Sunni and Shiite sects unleashed verbal salvos against each other in an increasingly sharp war of words between the religion’s two main branches.
The exchange began when Youssef al-Qaradawi, one of the most well-known Islamic television clerics, called Shiites

«heretics» and accused them seeking to infiltrate Sunni societies in a recent interview.
Lebanon’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah _ one of the most influential Arab Shiites _ shot back that Qaradawi was trying to incite «fitna» or civil strife in the Muslim community.
The long tense relations between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the region have flared into open dispute in recent years, following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the eruption of sectarian killings there.
Though sectarian violence has eased in Iraq this year, it has flared in other places, particularly Lebanon, which saw heavy clashes in May between Sunni gunmen and the Shiite Hezbollah, leaving dozens dead.
Periodic reconciliation efforts, such as a Sunni-Shiite dialogue conference in June in the holy city of Mecca, have done little to ease deep suspicions among the Mideast’s Sunni majority toward Shiites, seen by some as a tool for spreading the influence of Persian Iran.
The latest verbal clash started with a Sept. 9 interview that al-Qaradawi gave to Egypt’s independent daily Al-Masri Al-Youm.
«Shiites are Muslims but they are heretics and their danger comes from their attempt to invade the Sunni society,» said the Egyptian-born cleric, who lives in Qatar. «They are able to do that because of their billions (of dollars) and trained cadres of Shiites proselytizing in Sunni countries.
«In this period, we should protect the Sunni society from the Shiite invasion,» he said.
Al-Qaradawi, a Sunni Muslim, is widely respected throughout the Middle East and has a popular weekly television show on Islamic law on the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera. He has also participated in numerous Muslim and interfaith reconciliation dialogues.
Mideast countries are overwhelmingly Sunni, except for Iraq, Iran and Bahrain. Lebanon has a Shiite plurality.
Ibrahim Bayram, a political analyst with Lebanon’s leading An-Nahar newspaper, said Wednesday that al-Qaradawi’s statements were «strange because he is considered a moderate cleric and he used to call for closer relations between Sunnis and Shiites.
«The time when any cleric can decide who is a Muslim and who is not, is gone,» he added.
Days after al-Qaradawi’s interview, Fadlallah responded in Kuwait’s Al-Rai Al-Amm newspaper. «If what has been attributed to Sheik al-Qaradawi is true, then this amounts to fitna,» he said, using the word for internal civil strife that is anathema to Muslim communities.
Al-Qaradawi replied with a statement to al-Rai al-Amm saying, «we Sunnis know that we are the only group that will survive. All other (Muslim) groups have been involved in heresy.
Many Sunnis in the Arab world have shown admiration for Shiite Hezbollah for standing up against Israel. But much of Hezbollah’s popularity among Sunnis in the region was lost after the Shiite group turned its guns against Lebanon’s Sunnis in a political dispute in May.
Sunnis throughout the region have also been suspicious of the close ties between Iran and Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, accusing the Persian nation of seeking to dominate the Arab world.
The 14-century-old dispute stems from the succession of Prophet Muhammad, splitting the Muslim world into Sunni and Shiite branches. Both branches follow the same basic tenets, but important differences include commemorations of rival historical figures.

Top Sunni and Shiite clerics trade accusations

Interview with the Muslim Reform Thinker Amina Wadud:  “The Koran Cannot Be Usurped”

by Martina Sabra

Islam, gender equality and human rights are compatible – this is a basic conviction of Amina Wadud, author of several books about Islam and women. Martina Sabra interviewed the Islamic feminist at a recent conference about “Women power in Islam” in Germany

Professor Wadud, in 2005 you produced a world-wide media hype because you publicly lead a gender-inclusive prayer for Muslim men and women in New York. You received hate-mails from all over the world, there were even bomb threats. Looking back, what do you think about the events today, and what are your conclusions from what happened?

Amina Wadud: First of all, I wasn’t the first Muslim woman to lead a mixed prayer. But the Sharia has determined by majority opinion that men should be the leaders of all rituals in public. I have been working in concert with more progressive Muslims, who lead mixed prayers. This is something that has been going on among the Sunnis for some 20 years – so it is maybe not very well known, but it is practiced by others. The New York prayer was intentionally done to bring in the experience of women as prayer leaders. The rationale is that some of the rules which we have practiced are not rules which are part of the Koran or the Sunna but they have become a part of culture and history. And those things can be changed from a religious point of view.

There was a great deal of media sensation. But the prayer is a kind of worship, an intimate relationship with God, and it is difficult to do it just for the sensation. It is very difficult to organize mixed prayers, because you need Muslims who want to pray together, and you need a place. You want it as an expression of being a Muslim, but you don’t want it to be politicized. So in order to integrate these things, I sometimes rather say no when I am asked to perform a public gender-inclusive prayer. In private, smaller settings – yes.

Until the age of twenty, you were a Christian. Your father was a Methodist minister. Today you are one of the best-known Muslim reform thinkers worldwide. Why did you become a Muslim?

Wadud: I was always interested in theological ideas. As you’re saying, my father was a Methodist minister. I was raised as a Christian and very, very interested in ideas about God, about morality, about human nature and about spirituality. So before converting to Islam I was a Buddhist, and lived in an Ashram and practiced meditation, which I still practice today. When I was twenty, I stepped into a mosque not far from where I lived. I wanted to know about Islam. I am very interested in the relationship between the profane and the sacred.

For me, Islam gave me a language, and actually Arabic was an important part of it – it gave me the language of tawhid, the language of God’s intimate relationship with the creation, but also the power to bring harmony to things which are disparate. That for me is the epitome of surrender. Islam helped me to understand my experience with Christianity and Buddhism. It is a reasoned revelation. This is maybe not for everyone, some people have a more simplistic understanding of Islam. But this is how I lived it.

When I was given the opportunity to study a little bit about Islam, I was very impressed, especially with the Koran. For me, the Koran opened up a relationship between my logic, my reasoning, my understanding of the world, my love and desire for nature, and for the world beyond the world, for the unseen. And so I have developed my work specifically with the area of Koran and gender, and that is the area that I think it is sort of a gift to me because it is something that I love doing.

As a child, you witnessed the civil rights movement in the United States. As an adolescent, you say that you were very conscious about personal freedom and intellectual independence. Wasn’t that in strong contradiction with the conservative mainstream Islam of the seventies?

Wadud: Certainly, I faced many contradictions. The struggle to be Muslim was easiest at the beginning, when I made the transformation from my post-Christian, post-Buddhist state into being a Muslim. Then, knowledge was the main impetus. Now it is more difficult, there is more that I understand and therefore more responsibility. My perspective is part of a reform and that makes it sometimes difficult because it is not mainstream.

When I first began to work on things that I considered to be gender mainstream, or gender-inclusive, the notion of Islamic Feminism had not been discussed. I wrote “Qur’an and Woman” in the end of the eighties. In fact, many see the book as the beginning of female-centred exegesis of the Koran, which is an important part of what we now recognize analytically as Islamic feminism. Muslim women are not all interested in Islamic Feminism. Some of them are not even interested in being Muslim. For me, I have not had a problem with Islam so much as I had a problem with the way in which Islam is practiced. And that this kind of Islam can sometimes be aggressive against women’s full rights.

But again, you have to understand that this is a new phenomenon in its name. Whether or not women accept that name – I myself never go by feminist – I always go by pro-faith, pro-feminist, because I am trying to combine the two things: the relationship with God, and the relationship with God as a woman.

So when there is patriarchy we must dismantle the patriarchy, not to replace it with something equally unequal, but rather to truly establish relationships of reciprocity between human beings no matter what their agenda or their perspective and that’s where we are finding ourselves in a new terrain where this work is going in many different countries where women and men, Muslims and non-Muslims, but clearly understanding that it’s not possible for God to create a call to him, her or it, and that call does not equally include women and men.

In your writings, you often refer to Christian and Jewish religious thinkers, among others Paul Tillich and Martin Buber. In your books “Qur’an and Woman” and “Inside the Gender Jihad” you defend pluralism, the freedom of opinion and the right to be different from an Islamic perspective. According to your writings, the Koran should be re-read from a gender perspective and in the light of its historical context. Yet, the Koran is considered to be eternal and unchangeable. How does that match?

Wadud: I think that unless you have had a real connection with the Koran, you will not understand how it is a force in history as well as in spirit. You will not be able to understand that there is a cooperation between the reader and the text. You will say that there is some flaw with methodology. But you have to understand that the readers can use the text for whatever they want, because there is a dynamic relationship between the text and the interpretation. The text is both created in time but also evolves beyond time.

Could you give an example of how that works in practice?

Wadud: We are now participating in a global reform movement for a Muslim personal status law, and the very fundamental basis for that yields back to the egalitarian trajectory of the Koran. The Koran did not complete that in the context of the prophet’s lifetime. But the Koran is not usurped by even its own historical context. But some people have grown up in a culture where the Koran is used for a narrow and restrictive interpretation so they consider that interpretation the only interpretation. And that’s problematic from my perspective. My work has shown that the interpretation is never complete. Meaning is never fixed.

The Koran as an open structure – where do you draw the line between hermeneutics and arbitrariness?

Wadud: What has happened in modernity after the enlightenment is a more rigid demarcation of the text that loses its flexibility historically. So I don’t want the text to be limited to this post-enlightenment interpretation. I don’t want the long legacy of interpretative works to be disregarded. I do however see that the necessity for the inclusion of gender as a category of thought is something that is unique post-enlightenment. And in that respect what we are doing is that we are looking through our own historical lens, and our historical lens is as legitimate as any other historical lens, and our historical lens is also limited, in that we are not projecting into the future.

© Qantara.de 2008

The American Muslim (TAM)

American Muslims and the 2008 Presidential Election
Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and other swing states that will determine the 2008 presidential election all have significant numbers of Muslim American voters.

Often misunderstood by other Americans, these voters may play a pivotal role in the election. Will they turn out for Barack Obama to protest the Bush administration’s conduct of foreign policy and other issues, and to embrace Democratic social policies? Or will they agree with John McCain’s approach to international affairs, as well as with his stand on taxes and other domestic policies? On some hot-button cultural issues, might Muslim American voters even emerge as a strong ally of the Christian right?

Jen’nan Ghazal Read says U.S. Muslims are far too diverse to be characterized in such sweeping terms. She says they resemble other Americans in their socioeconomic status, with political beliefs that range from ultra-conservative to ultra-liberal.

An associate professor of sociology and global health at Duke University, Read is an expert on Muslim American political assimilation.

With special support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Duke’s Office of News and Communications has created this website to serve as a resource for reporters and others who want to learn more about Muslim Americans and the 2008 election, drawing on the research of Professor Read and others.

American Muslims and the 2008 Presidential Election

Demolishing the Foundations of Islam

by Bill Levinson

Civilized people are raised from birth with the injunction to never attack another person’s religious faith, but recent abuses by militant “Muslims” have risen to the point where doing this becomes a reasonable and necessary act of self-defense. The problem is not that militant “Muslims” want to pray to Mecca, follow Islamic dietary rules, and so on, but that they want to impose their beliefs and way of life on others. At that point, civilized society has to stop them, even at the price of attacking the foundation of their religion.

Before proceeding, however, we will make a clear distinction between militant “Islam,” or Islam Release 1.0, and moderate or peaceful Islam, or Islam Release 2.0. Islam Release 1.0 was created by a violent and self-serving bandit to get his followers to kill and die for him, but it also included concepts like the umma (”community”) that called upon Muslims to treat each other with kindness, respect, and charity. It also opened the door to ethnic and racial tolerance with the concept of the Dar-el-Islam (House of Submission) in which all Muslims are brothers, regardless of ethnicity, race, or tribe. This basic principle is benevolent even if Mohammed’s motive–getting quarrelsome tribes to cooperate so he could conquer his neighbors–was totally selfish and malevolent.

Some Muslims later evolved their religion into a civilized one by separating Mohammed’s good ideas (community, brotherhood) from his self-serving agenda. The result was Islam Release 2.0, or moderate/peaceful Islam. These Muslims are not the problem, and they are in fact often murdered or abused by the followers of Islam Release 1.0. Many of them came to the United States to get away from Islam 1.0, just as many Jews and Christians came here to get away from what passed for Christianity in parts of Europe through the 19th century.

We will say clearly up front that Muslims, like everyone else who has immigrated to our country, are more than welcome to live and let live. That is what America is about: doing what you want, as long as you don’t infringe on the rights of others. Most Muslim-Americans, as followers of Islam 2.0, behave in this manner. On the other hand, anyone who comes to this country to attack its freedoms or impose his way of life on others is our country’s enemy, and he will be treated as an enemy to the extent that our laws allow. These are the enemies about whom we are talking:

(1) In Scotland, militant “Muslims” have gotten a medical organization to ban staff members from eating at their desks during the fast of Ramadan, because this “offends” the Muslims. In contrast, observant Jews do not object to other people eating on Yom Kippur, nor do they force Gentiles to eat matzohs during Passover. Workplaces often offer matzohs during Passover, but they don’t take the leavened bread away for fear of “offending” Jews. Catholics do not demand that non-Catholics desist from eating meat on Fridays, nor do they object to non-Catholics who don’t give up something for Lent. Only militant “Muslims” seem to think they can impose their beliefs and customs on others, and this is what has to come to a screeching halt.

(2) In the United States, “Muslim” taxi drivers have refused to transport blind passengers with seeing-eye dogs. Their excuse is that they consider dogs “unclean,” although a service animal has far more value to a civilized nation than anyone who refuses service to a disabled person. These drivers have also refused to transport passengers who have alcoholic beverages, even though Islam simply prohibits the driver from drinking those beverages. Come to think of it, so do laws against drunk driving.

(3) Muslim Student Associations have made trouble at at least two universities (Penn State and Tufts), where they got complicit college administrators to interfere with the First Amendment rights of other students. At Bucknell University, college administrators stepped in to condemn a conservative student group for using the phrase “hunting terrorists,” and Republicans at another college were called on the carpet for desecrating an Al Qaida flag (because it has Allah’s name on it in Arabic). This also has to come to a screeching halt, with these Muslim Student Associations being denounced forcefully. If their members don’t like it, the United States has no Berlin or other wall to keep people in who don’t want to be here.

(4) http://www.muslimdayparade.com/, to be headed by Keith Ellison–the same individual who compared 9/11 to the Reichstag fire, while making a McCarthyite remark to the effect that he wasn’t going to say that the United States perpetrated the atrocity itself. See also New York Islamist Day Parade, By Joe Kaufman and Beila Rabinowitz.

(5) The “flying imams” who frightened a planeload of innocent people by chanting to Allah, behaving as if they might hijack the airplane, and then trying to sue passengers who did exactly what those repetitious announcements at airports tell them to do: report suspicious behavior to authorities.

(6) In Europe, public demonstrations have included slogans like “Europe, you will pay, your 9/11 is on its way” and “Behead those who insult Islam.”

(7) In Europe and Australia, militant “Islamic” rape gangs have called unveiled women “uncovered meat” whom they are free to “take.”

(8) Some American schools are making children role-play Muslims in direct contravention of church-state separation. Schools that would not dare for an instant to make children sing Christmas or Hannukah songs are compelling children to take Islamic names and, according to some reports, even pray toward Mecca.

It stops here, and it stops now. Militant “Islamic” groups have marched through our streets, which they have a First Amendment right to do, while proclaiming that Islam will dominate the United States. We have a First Amendment right, which we will now exercise, to denounce the foundations of their religion as a self-serving scam by a desert bandit whose primary motivation was to enrich himself with money and power. This can be done with a simple statement that can be printed on stickers (we would not recommend a bumper sticker) that can easily be put up in public places:

Jesus died for Christians
Muslims died for Mohammed

Note that this statement passes no judgment on whether Jesus was actually the son of God. Christians can say that Jesus died as a sacrifice for their sins, while Jews can say that Jesus was motivated by a desire to serve his followers instead of himself. Never did Jesus use his teachings to enrich himself at the expense of others, or to lead aggressive wars of conquest. Furthermore, according to John Keegan’s A History of Warfare (and contrary to Tufts University’s Committee on Student Life, which proclaimed that “labeling Islam violent is unacceptable in any way, shape, or form”),

Muhammad, unlike Christ, was a man of violence; he bore arms, was wounded in battle and preached holy war, jihad, against those who defied the will of God, as revealed to him. His successors perceived the world as divided into Dar-al-Islam–the House of Submission, submission to the teachings of Mohammed, as collected in the Koran–and Dar al-Harb, the House of War, which were those parts yet to be conquered.

This is an excellent summary:
(1) Mohammed was a violent man who preached holy wars against those who defied the will of God, as revealed to Mohammed.
(2) His successors divided the world into the House of Submission and the House of War, i.e. the part yet to be conquered. Adolf Hitler was just as explicit when he said, “Germany today, tomorrow the world.”
(3) While Jesus never sought riches for himself, Mohammed was a merchant who knew the value of money. This was yet another motive to create a religion that would help him enrich himself.

Christianity’s Superiority over Islam
It is easy to judge a culture, or even a religion, by its stories, legends, and role models. Which characters appear as heroes, and who is denounced as a villain? The concept of servant leadership permeates Christianity. Jesus is said to have washed his disciples’ feet, thus underscoring the principle that the leader must serve his or her followers. Numerous Christian stories reinforce this idea.

(1) Wanda (pronounced “Vanda”), a legendary Polish queen, drowned herself to save her people from an ambitious German prince who wanted to take over her kingdom by marrying her. Had she fought him, her smaller army would have been destroyed. The story does not explain why he did not invade her kingdom anyway, but perhaps without a female monarch upon whom he could force a marriage, other kings and dukes would not have recognized the legitimacy of his actions.
(2) Henryk Sienkiewicz’s With Fire and Sword describes how Jarema Wisniowiecki, a voyevode or provincial governor, shared the hardships of his soldiers whenever he was at war. When bad weather destroyed a harvest, he suspended the rents of his peasants and even gave them food from his own stores.
(3) Frederick the Great proclaimed that the prince is the first servant of his country.
(4) The following speech was delivered by Queen Elizabeth I when England was in danger of invasion by the Spanish Armada:

We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.

This principle is not unique to Christianity, because the Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote more than 2500 years ago that the general must not take comforts that are not available to his followers. In China, the Mandate of Heaven refers to the authority a king gains by serving his subjects. A king who serves himself at his subjects’ expense loses the Mandate quickly, along with his people’s loyalty. India’s Kshatriya Dharma (the Right Way of the Warrior) says that a king cannot abandon even a dog, if the dog is his follower.

While Japanese speak of the Way of Lord and Retainer (with a code of mutual obligations), the history of Islam 1.0 is the Way of Master and Slave. Even the Sultan, as the son of a female slave, regards himself as Allah’s slave. It’s possible that some sultans and caliphs took this seriously enough to act as though they held their kingdoms in trust for Allah, but most understood that, for all practical purposes, they were answerable to no one. Janissaries and Mamelukes were military slaves. Keegan’s A History of Warfare reports that, once they completed their military training, Mamelukes were technically free, although not free to choose another occupation or any master but the Sultan!

The Way of Master and Slave is obvious in the recruitment of suicide bombers. The gray-bearded mullahs who tell teenage boys and young men that they will get seventy-two dark-eyed virgins by blowing themselves up did not become gray-bearded mullahs by following their own advice. This practice dates back to the Assassins, or hashish-users. Their leader, the Old Man of the Mountains, got them high on hashish, and then led them to a beautiful garden full of compliant and beautiful women. He told them they were in the Islamic Paradise, and would go there forever if they died while serving him. Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad creates phony miracles (his followers say that a green aura surrounds him when he speaks) while claiming to be in contact with the Twelfth Imam. He has made no secret of his plans to start a nuclear war with Israel or even the United States, even if millions of his followers die from the inevitable retaliation.

In summary, then, the concept that leaders exist to serve their followers permeates not only Christianity, but also Hinduism and Asian belief structures. The concept that slaves and followers exist to serve their masters permeates both contemporary and historical Islam 1.0. The latter is so antithetical to the basic principles of organizational behavior that Islam cannot stand for long on such a flimsy foundation. We can, by expanding upon and circulating this information, demolish the foundation of Islam 1.0 to bring it crashing down in any country in which its dictators do not exercise control over what people can read or hear. The recent activities of militant “Muslims” make this a reasonable and necessary act of self-defense on behalf of our countries and freedoms, and we must carry it out aggressively and decisively.

Demolishing the Foundations of Islam « Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian

There is a little known article on the web that can be accessed by typing the words “confessions of a british spy” into a search engine.

It concerns a british spy plot to destabilize the Ottoman Empire in the early 1700’s. The article, if genuine (and it appears to be) was translated into english from a Turkish document.

It relates the story of how a young Muslim, Wahhabi, by name was “recruited” by a British spy (Hempher). The purpose of the plot was to cause Muslims to begin fighting amongst themselves and therebye distract the Ottoman authorities from what was really going on. This was to be achieved by corrupting the mainstream Muslim religions.

This man went on to begin the Wahhabi movement in what is now Saudi Arabia. As we all know, that is where the “big bucks” are coming from that support the Muslim extremists that continue to howl for the blood of those who don’t think as they do.

As indicated in that document the relationship between Wahhabi and the tribal chief that protected him during the startup period continues to this day in the modern rulers of that country and the Wahhabi religion..

It is a fascinating “read” in light of what is now happening in the world and if you follow the thought and begin to research other articles on the net, many placed there by Muslims fighting back, you are going to be appalled.

There is a great deal of information available to read and it is well worth the time spent digging for it.

I recommend “confessions of a british spy” to everyone as a great place to start on the path to “enlightenment” regarding peaceful Muslims today and the problems that they face.

As a person who knew absolutely nothing about Muslims before I read this article, it heightened my interest as I began to explore the web. That effort has created an entirely different picture of the current unrest and the reasons for it in my mind.

It may do the same for you.

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Daniel Pipes replies:

I devote much attention to this fascinating document in my book, The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), pp. 211-12. See http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1648. You can see an extract at “The Saga of Hempher, Purported British Spy: an extract from The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy.”

Wahhabism and “Confessions of a British spy” - Reader comments at DanielPipes.org