| April 9, 2008
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The Global Spread of Islam |
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| This is that...
Joel 2:3
A fire consumes before them and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them but a desolate wilderness behind them, and nothing at all escapes them.
Habakkuk 1:2-3
How long, O LORD, will I call for help, and You will not hear? I cry out to You, "violence! "Yet You do not save. Why do You make me see iniquity, and cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me; strife exists and contention arises.
[Picture: Islamic protests in London |
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| Shalom in Christ Jesus, |
 Regarding Rome's Claim that Muslims are now more numerous than Catholics
There are 150 sects of Islam, Sunni & Shia being the largest but Ahmadi, Sufi, Birhani, Nation of Islam, Alewa etc. being among the others.
If you put all of the Islamic sects together, they are bigger than Roman Catholicism. However, this fails to compare like with like. If you compare like with like, putting all sects of Christendom together, there are twice as many broadly defined 'Christians' as there are Moslems in the world. Moreover, Roman Catholicism is larger than either Sunni or Shia, so it remains the largest religious institution by far.
Moreover, both Islam and Rome have a lie built into their statistics. Rome counts everyone ever baptized Catholic as Catholic even if they do not practice it or have renounced it and converted to other faiths (many have converted to Pentecostalism in Latin America, The Philippines, and USA).
Islam does something similar: 'Once a Catholic, always a Catholic' and 'once a Moslem, always a Moslem'.
Huge numbers of Moslems have become Pentecostals in Asia and to a degree in Africa. Because of Pentecostalism (for all of its faults), in real terms Evangelical Christianity is growing faster than Islam. But, statistics can be made to say what you want them to say.
Political and religious statisticians call on mathematicians expert in statistics & probability to devise finite math formulas to misrepresent actuality much like crooked corporate executives at Enron used CPAs and Chartered Accountants at Arthur Anderson to come up with "creative accounting" procedures to make the corporate solvency figures say what they wanted.
To the average person not trained in science or math, statistical conclusions seem like factual representations of reality based on quantitative mathematical models, when in fact they may be misrepresentations masqueraded by badly crunched numbers designed by hired gun mathematicians or accountants hired to furnish the technical know how to play the game. It is poker being played with calculators and computers "who is bluffing"?
The Vatican does everything for a calculated reason. It is good PR for their inter-faith agenda to convey the notion that Islam must be accommodated and united with because of the magnitude of its success. No, numbers don't lie. But theocrats, bureaucrats, and politicians do. Throughout its long history, the Vatican has rarely ever done anything except lie. The very existence of the papacy is entirely predicated on a lie.
Here in Britain, management of the economy, the national budget, and PSBR is run like this. The Lord Chancellor's annual projections are consistently proven to be fairy tales constructed with some political or electoral aim (ironically, the economists know it before he even opens his mouth).
Statisticians are like lawyers, tabloid journalists, and media relation consultants. Their real skill is not in arriving at or reporting the truth, but in sculpturing the facts to put a particular spin or slant on the truth. Only the bible is truth.
JJ Prasch |
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Muslims more numerous than Catholics: Vatican |
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; editing by Andrew Roche - March 30, 2008
VATICAN CITY - Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday.
Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 percent.
"For the first time in history we are no longer at the top: the Muslims have overtaken us," Formenti told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview, saying the data referred to 2006.
He said that if all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants, then Christians made up 33 percent of the world's population -- or about 2 billion people.
The Vatican recently put the number of Catholics in the world at 1.13 billion people. It did not provide a figure for Muslims, generally estimated at around 1.3 billion.
Formenti said that while the number of Catholics as a proportion of the world's population was fairly stable, the percentage of Muslims was growing because of higher birth rates.
He said the data on Muslim populations had been compiled by individual countries and then released by the United Nations, adding the Vatican could only vouch for its own statistics.
Original Report Here |
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Muslims and Christians to discuss letter of 138 Muslim intellectuals |
ASIA NEWS.it (Catholic Press Agency for Asia) - March 27, 2008
Dhaka - For the first time in Bangladesh, a group of Christian and Muslims personalities will officially meet in dialogue toanswer a "Common Call". The meeting, which is set to take place on 18 April, was born out of a mutual desire to deepen the message contained in the letter 138 Muslim intellectuals sent to Benedict XVI and world Christian authorities.
The conference, whose topic is "A Common Call: Muslims and Christians," is being organised by the Department of World Religions of Dhaka University and the Episcopal Commission for Inter-religious Dialogue. It will take place in the capital with 35 Christians and 35 Muslims participating.
During the meeting the 70 participants will try to work out a common statement to publish as a result of the conference.
Fr Francesco Rapacioli, PIME missionary, is among the Christians attending the event. He has been involved in ecumenical dialogue for years and is calling for prayers so that "the meeting can take place without any problems and serve as an important moment in the dialogue between these two communities in Bangladesh".
"Initially, the seminar was scheduled for 8 March but then the founder of the Department of World Religions, Dr Kazi Nurul Islam, had some health problems so that we had to postpone everything. In the end it was providential because this way there will be two meetings, a preparatory meeting for the Muslim group and one for the Christian group, and then a joint one at the end."
Dr Kazi Nurul Islam is convinced of the importance of promoting peace between various religious communities through dialogue and mutual knowledge.
In a recent interview, he said that unfortunately the letter of the 138 did not find any great echo in Bangladeshi media; and the population, mostly poor and illiterate, is more concerned about its own survival.
According to Nurul, the path to change things lies in education. He said: "In Bangladesh, the education offered by some kinds of Islamic school is an authentic curse for the country. Every year, thousands of ignorant, dangerous, jobless youth, easily recruited by terrorist organizations, leading astray the common people with their unilateral interpretations of the Koran, graduate from such schools." For him Islamic schools must teach "about other religions as well" from as early as the primary school level.
With a 150 million people, Bangladesh is the seventh most populated country in the world. Islam is the main religion representing 90 per cent of the population. Christians are a tiny minority of 3 per cent.
Original Report Here |
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U.S. Muslims and Mormons share deepening ties |
The connection is based not on theology but on shared values and a sense of isolation from mainstream America
LOS ANGELES TIMES [Tribune Company] - By David Haldane - April 2, 2008
The Mormon Church has to be among the most outgoing on earth; in recent years its leaders have reached out to, among others, Latinos, Koreans, Catholics and Jews.
One of the most enthusiastic responses, however, has come from what some might consider a surprising source: U.S. Muslims.
"We are very aware of the history of Mormons as a group that was chastised in America," says Maher Hathout, a senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. "They can be a good model for any group that feels alienated."
Which perhaps explains an open-mosque day held last fall at the Islamic Center of Irvine. More than half the guests were Mormons.
"A Mormon living in an Islamic society would be very comfortable," said Steve Young, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attending the event.
The sentiment is echoed by Muslims. "When I go to a Mormon church I feel at ease," said Haitham Bundakji, former chairman of the Islamic Society of Orange County. "When I heard the president [of LDS] speak a few years ago, if I'd closed my eyes I'd have thought he was an imam."
Though the relationship has raised eyebrows and provided ammunition for critics of both religions, Mormons and Muslims have deepening ties in the United States.
What binds them has little to do with theology: Mormons venerate Jesus as interpreted by founder Joseph Smith, while Muslims view Muhammad as god's prophet. Based on shared values and a sense of isolation from mainstream America, the connection was intensified by 9/11 and cemented by the Southeast Asia tsunami. It is especially evident in Southern California, with large Mormons and Muslim populations.
The Mormon Church has become the biggest contributor to Buena Park-based Islamic Relief, touted by its administrators as the West's largest Muslim-based charity. Relief officials say the church has donated $20 million in goods and services since the 2004 tsunami, equal to about 20% of the charity's annual budget.
Brigham Young University in Utah, the church's major institution of higher learning, features what is thought to be one of the world's best programs for translating classic Islamic works from Arabic to English. Though created primarily for academic purposes, the results have impressed Muslims flattered by the close attention.
"It shows they have a keen interest in the Muslim world," said Levent Akbarut, a member of the Islamic Congregation of La Cañada-Flintridge.
And Mormons and Muslims say they often are co-hosts of educational and social programs at which, though some may be angling for long-term doctrinal influence, very little open proselytizing of each other seems to take place. "We have a very close and friendly relationship," said Keith Atkinson, West Coast LDS spokesman.Mormons "explain our faith to anyone who will listen" and "treat Muslims like anybody else," said Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, one of the church's top governing bodies in Salt Lake City. But Oaks added that "we don't preach to people who would be disenfranchised" or likely offended by the effort.
Arnold H. Green, a history professor at BYU, has traced how early Mormons in the 19th century were hounded by accusations that church founder Smith was the American Muhammad. The first Mormons angrily denied any connection to the Muslim prophet but gradually accepted some comparisons, particularly that both religions were founded by post-Christian prophets with strong sectarian views. "As the church grew into a global faith," Green wrote in a 2001 essay, "its posture toward Islam became . . . more positive" until, today, "the two faiths have become associated in several ways, including Mormonism's being called the Islam of America."
Both religions strongly emphasize family. They tend toward patriarchy, believing in feminine modesty, chastity and virtue. And although Islam discourages dancing involving both sexes, Mormons report that church-sponsored "modesty proms" commonly draw Islamic youths.
Both faiths adhere to religion-based health codes, including prohibitions against alcohol, but Mormons and Muslims share something more: membership in quickly growing minority religions that many other Americans have sometimes viewed with suspicion and scorn. - - -
A recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that although a thin majority of those polled expressed positive opinions of Muslims and Mormons, the number was significantly less than those favoring Roman Catholics or Jews.
But the clincher, according to Mauss, is that both communities "have been stung in recent years by the recurrence of scandals over which they have no control." For Muslims, the obvious example is 9/11.
For Mormons, Mauss says, the problem is polygamy, which, though rejected by the mainstream church more than a century ago, is still the first thing that occurs to many Americans when they think about the religion. - - - -
Read Full Report |
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Saudi Arabia: No churches unless prophet Mohammed recognised, says expert |
| PAKISTAN CHRISTIAN POST - March 29, 2008
Riyadh: No churches should be permitted in Saudi Arabia, unless Pope Benedict XVI recognised the prophet Mohammed, according to a Middle East expert.
While Saudi mediators are working with the Vatican on negotiations to allow places of religious worship, some experts believe it will not occur without this recognition.
Anwar Ashiqi, president of the Saudi centre for Middle East strategic studies, endorsed this view in an interview on the site of Arab satellite TV network, al-Arabiya on Thursday.
"I haven taken part in several meetings related to Islamic-Christian dialogue and there have been negotiations on this issue," he said.
"It would be possible to launch official negotiations to construct a church in Saudi Arabia only after the Pope and all the Christian churches recognise the prophet Mohammed."
"If they don`t recognise him as a prophet, how can we have a church in the Saudi kingdom?"
Ashiqi`s comments came after a declaration launched by the papal nuncio of the Persian Gulf, the archbishop Mounged El-Hachem, at the opening of the first Catholic church in Qatar last week.
The prelate had announced the launch of "treaties to construct a church in Saudi Arabia where it is banned to practise whatever religion they want outside Islam".
El-Hachem estimated three to four million Christians in the Saudi kingdom who want to have a church.
A member of Saudi Arabia`s Consultative Council, Abdelaziz al-Thinani, rejected the prelate`s claims saying that there were no Christians among the Saudis who were all Muslims.
"Those few Christians do not reside in the country permanently, they come and go," he said.
He denied there were four million Christians in the kingdom and said the issue of human rights should not be used to call for the construction of a Christian church.
Most of Saudi Arabia`s Christians are foreign workers. There are 8.2 million foreign workers in a country of 25.6 million people according to a report by the Saudi Labour Ministry.
Original Report Here |
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Islam's 'Public Enemy #1' |
 Coptic priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire.
NATIONAL REVIEW - By Raymond Ibrahim - March 25, 2008
Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros - named Islam's "Public Enemy #1" by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid - has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries - mostly Muslim converts - he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., "Life TV"). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance - free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros's excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.
Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt's Copts - members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East - have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of "dhimmitude" (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam "ten demands," whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam's own radical demands on non-Muslims.
The result? Mass conversions to Christianity - if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam - who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday - is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros's public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV's "unprecedented evangelical raid" on the Muslim world. Several factors account for the Botros phenomenon.
First, the new media - particularly satellite TV and the Internet (the main conduits for Life TV) - have made it possible for questions about Islam to be made public without fear of reprisal. It is unprecedented to hear Muslims from around the Islamic world - even from Saudi Arabia, where imported Bibles are confiscated and burned - call into the show to argue with Botros and his colleagues, and sometimes, to accept Christ.
Secondly, Botros's broadcasts are in Arabic - the language of some 200 million people, most of them Muslim. While several Western writers have published persuasive critiques of Islam, their arguments go largely unnoticed in the Islamic world. Botros's mastery of classical Arabic not only allows him to reach a broader audience, it enables him to delve deeply into the voluminous Arabic literature - much of it untapped by Western writers who rely on translations - and so report to the average Muslim on the discrepancies and affronts to moral common sense found within this vast corpus.
A third reason for Botros's success is that his polemical technique has proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme - from the pressing to the esoteric - often expressed as a question (e.g., "Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?"; "Are women inferior to men in Islam?"; "Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?" "Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?"). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes - always careful to give sources and reference numbers - from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet - the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present - the illustrious ulema.
Typically, Botros's presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open - and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on "al-dalil we al-burhan," - "evidence and proof," one of his frequent refrains - not shout-downs or sophistry.
More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence - which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros's conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him - which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.
Botros spent three years bringing to broad public attention a scandalous - and authentic - hadith stating that women should "breastfeed" strange men with whom they must spend any amount of time. A leading hadith scholar, Abd al-Muhdi, was confronted with this issue on the live talk show of popular Arabic host Hala Sirhan. Opting to be truthful, al-Muhdi confirmed that going through the motions of breastfeeding adult males is, according to sharia, a legitimate way of making married women "forbidden" to the men with whom they are forced into contact - the logic being that, by being "breastfed," the men become like "sons" to the women and therefore can no longer have sexual designs on them.
To make matters worse, Ezzat Atiyya, head of the Hadith department at al-Azhar University - Sunni Islam's most authoritative institution - went so far as to issue a fatwa legitimatizing "Rida' al-Kibir" (sharia's term for "breastfeeding the adult"), which prompted such outrage in the Islamic world that it was subsequently recanted.
Botros played the key role in exposing this obscure and embarrassing issue and forcing the ulema to respond. Another guest on Hala Sirhan's show, Abd al-Fatah, slyly indicated that the entire controversy was instigated by Botros: "I know you all [fellow panelists] watch that channel and that priest and that none of you [pointing at Abd al-Muhdi] can ever respond to him, since he always documents his sources!"
Incapable of rebutting Botros, the only strategy left to the ulema (aside from a rumored $5-million bounty on his head) is to ignore him. When his name is brought up, they dismiss him as a troublemaking liar who is backed by - who else? - international "Jewry." They could easily refute his points, they insist, but will not deign to do so. That strategy may satisfy some Muslims, but others are demanding straightforward responses from the ulema.
The most dramatic example of this occurred on another famous show on the international station, Iqra. The host, Basma - a conservative Muslim woman in full hijab - asked two prominent ulema, including Sheikh Gamal Qutb, one-time grand mufti of al-Azhar University, to explain the legality of the Koranic verse (4:24) that permits men to freely copulate with captive women. She repeatedly asked: "According to sharia, is slave-sex still applicable?" The two ulema would give no clear answer - dissembling here, going off on tangents there. Basma remained adamant: Muslim youth were confused, and needed a response, since "there is a certain channel and a certain man who has discussed this issue over twenty times and has received no response from you."
The flustered Sheikh Qutb roared, "low-life people like that must be totally ignored!" and stormed off the set. He later returned, but refused to admit that Islam indeed permits sex-slaves, spending his time attacking Botros instead. When Basma said "Ninety percent of Muslims, including myself, do not understand the issue of concubinage in Islam and are having a hard time swallowing it," the sheikh responded, "You don't need to understand." As for Muslims who watch and are influenced by Botros, he barked, "Too bad for them! If my son is sick and chooses to visit a mechanic, not a doctor - that's his problem!"
But the ultimate reason for Botros's success is that - unlike his Western counterparts who criticize Islam from a political standpoint - his primary interest is the salvation of souls. He often begins and concludes his programs by stating that he loves all Muslims as fellow humans and wants to steer them away from falsehood to Truth. To that end, he doesn't just expose troubling aspects of Islam. Before concluding every program, he quotes pertinent biblical verses and invites all his viewers to come to Christ.
Botros's motive is not to incite the West against Islam, promote "Israeli interests," or "demonize" Muslims, but to draw Muslims away from the dead legalism of sharia to the spirituality of Christianity. Many Western critics fail to appreciate that, to disempower radical Islam, something theocentric and spiritually satisfying - not secularism, democracy, capitalism, materialism, feminism, etc. - must be offered in its place. The truths of one religion can only be challenged and supplanted by the truths of another. And so Father Zakaria Botros has been fighting fire with fire.
- Raymond Ibrahim is editor of The Al Qaeda Reader.
Original Report Here |
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The gospel according to Allam |
HAARETZ [Schocken/DuMont Schauberg] - By Adi Schwartz - March 29, 2008
Magdi Allam, the most famous Muslim in Italy, and one of the leading and most courageous intellectuals in Europe today, converted to Christianity last Saturday night. The fact that the baptism was held at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome during Easter midnight Mass - the so-called "mother of all masses" - and was performed by Pope Benedict XVI himself, has made huge waves in Italy and throughout the Christian and Muslim worlds. The exalted occasion also transformed Allam's conversion from a private act of faith into a public political event.
"It was the most beautiful day of my life," Allam told Haaretz this week, in a phone conversation from Rome. "I was reborn. This was a radical choice, which has changed my entire past and has begun a new life. On that day, the Magdi Allam inside me, who believes unambiguously and unquestionably in the principles of liberty and choice, was reborn in the framework of religion. For me it was both Easter and the Feast of the Nativity."
Since the beginning of the decade Allam, 56, has been writing pieces in Corriere della Sera, Italy's most influential newspaper, in which he has sharply condemned radical Islam and warned of the danger from within it constitutes, which he sees as lying in wait for democratic and liberal Europe. In 2003, Hamas declared a death sentence on him because of his criticism of terror attacks in Israel; since then the Italian government has assigned him a round-the-clock bodyguard. - - -
After a long and agonizing path, he says, he came to the conclusion that the Arab states' refusal to recognize Israel in the 1950s and '60s was to the Palestinians' detriment, and that the Muslim culture in which he was raised nurtured falsehood, tyranny, hatred, violence and death. In recent years, he concluded that the universal defense of the value of the sanctity of life goes hand in hand with the defense of Israel's right to exist.
Last year, Allam, winner of the 2006 Dan David Prize (for outstanding scientific, technological, cultural or social achievement), published the book "Long Live Israel: From the Ideology of Death to the Civilization of Life, My Story," which is forthcoming in Hebrew.
"After the book was published, I was severely attacked," he says. "They called me a traitor, a Zionist and an agent of the Mossad. They sentenced me to death again. This fact made me wonder why many Muslims lose the ability to conduct a conversation when Israel's right to exist is brought up for discussion." That, Allam explains, is one of the reasons for his conversion to Christianity. - - - -
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Pope baptizes prominent Italian Muslim |
 ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Nicole Winfield - March 22, 2008
VATICAN CITY - Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service.
An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the newspaper Corriere della Sera newspaper, where he is a deputy editor. He titled one book "Long Live Israel."
As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.
"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."
Vatican Television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism. He later received his first Communion.
Allam, 55, told the newspaper Il Giornale in a December interview that his criticism of Palestinian suicide bombing provoked threats on his life in 2003, prompting the Italian government to provide him with a sizable security detail.
The Union of Islamic Communities in Italy - which Allam has frequently criticized as having links to Hamas - said the baptism was his own decision. - - -
Yahya Pallavicini, vice president of Coreis, the Islamic religious community in Italy, said he respected Allam's choice but said he was "perplexed" by the symbolic and high-profile way in which he chose to convert. - - -
Egypt's highest Islamic cleric, the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, wrote last year against the killing of apostates, saying there is no worldly retribution for Muslims who abandon their religion and that punishment would come in the afterlife. - - - -
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US: Teacher spills beans about Islamic classes |
'The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to assembly for prayer'
WORLDNETDAILY - April 9, 2008
A Minnesota teacher who substituted for two fifth-grade classes at a publicly funded school located in the same building as an Islamic mosque says religion appears to be a significant focus of the education.
Amanda Getz of Bloomington, Minn., told a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune her duties at Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights included taking students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing."
Then, the teacher told columnist Katherine Kersten, "teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer.
Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered," the teacher said.
The Star-Tribune previously documented that the charter high school for kindergarten through eighth-grade students is named after a Muslim warlord, shares the address of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, is led by two imams, is composed almost exclusively (99 percent) of blacks and has as its top goal to preserve "our values."
And it's all funded by the taxpayers of Minnesota.
Kersten wrote she had asked for permission to visit the school and was denied. The school also declined to return a WND telephone request for an interview.
The institution has drawn objections from a number of people, including Robert Spencer, the expert who monitors such developments at Jihad Watch.
"Can you imagine a public school founded by two Christian ministers, and housed in the same building as a church? Add to that - in the same building - a prominent chapel. And let's say the students are required to fast during Lent, and attend Bible studies right after school. All with your tax dollars," he wrote. "Inconceivable? Sure."
If such a place existed, Spencer said, "the ACLU lawyers would descend on it like locusts. It would be shut down before you could say 'separation of church and state,' to the accompaniment of New York Times and Washington Post editorials full of indignant foreboding, warning darkly about the growing influence of the Religious Right in America."
Kersten's latest report documents the teacher's observations at the school.
Getz told Kersten that the orders when she arrived were to prepare for the "assembly" at the school by having the children do their ritual washing and take them to the gymnasium.
"The prayer I saw was not voluntary," Getz told the columnist. "The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."
She said, "When I arrived, I was told 'after school we have Islamic Studies,' and I might have to stay for hall duty. The teachers had written assignments on the blackboard for classes like math and social studies. Islamic Studies was the last one - the board said the kids were studying the Quran. The students were told to copy it into their planner, along with everything else. That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other."
She also reported the fifth-graders stayed in the classroom after the end of the school day, and the "man in white" who led prayers during the assembly came in to teach Islam.
"TIZA has, in effect, extended the school day - buses leave only after Islamic Studies are over," noted the columnist. "Getz did not see evidence of other extra-curricular activity, except for a group of small children playing outside."
Kersten continued, "Significantly, 77 percent of TIZA parents say their 'main reason for choosing TIZA --- was because of after-school programs conducted by various non-profit organizations at the end of the school period in the school building,' according to a TIZA report."
Kersten noted earlier that the school shares the same building as the headquarters of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota." There also is a mosque in the building, and TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, and its sponsor is a group called Islamic Relief.
"Why does the Minnesota Department of Education allow this sort of religious activity at a public school?" Kersten questioned.
She noted the ACLU of Minnesota is looking into the situation, and "the Minnesota Department of Education has also begun a review" now.
"TIZA's operation as a public, taxpayer-funded school is troubling on several fronts. TIZA is skirting the law by operating what is essentially an Islamic school at taxpayer expense," Kersten wrote. "The Department of Education has failed to provide the oversight necessary to catch these illegalities, and appears to lack the tools to do so. In addition, there's a double standard at work here - if TIZA were a Christian school, it would likely be gone in a heartbeat."
Kersten previously revealed other links between the school and Islam, including a carpeted space for prayer, halal food in the cafeteria and fasting for students during Ramadan.
Just last year, the program for the 2007 MAS-Minnesota convention, under the motto "Establishing Islam in Minnesota" asked the question, "Did you know that MAS-MN --- houses a full-time elementary school?"
On the adjacent page was an ad for Tarek ibn Ziyad.
The Minnesota Department of Education confirmed the academy pocketed more than $65,000 in state money for the 2006-2007 year under one program alone.
WND previously reported in Idaho the five pillars of Islam were taught under the guise of history, "religion guidelines' used in public schools were assembled with help from a terror suspect and U.S. courts upheld mandatory Islamic training in schools. - - - -
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Textbook: Islamic 'jihad' means doing good works |
Also includes Muslims fighting 'to protect themselves from harm'
WORLDNETDAILY - By Bob Unruh - January 16, 2008
An Islamic "jihad" is an effort by Muslims to convince "others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research," according to a middle school textbook used in California and other states.
And even at its most violent, "jihad" simply is Muslims fighting "to protect themselves from those who would do them harm," says the "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond" book published by Teachers' Curriculum Institute.
But a parent whose child has been handed the text in a Sacramento district is accusing the publisher of a pro-Muslim bias to the point that Islamic theology has been incorporated into the public school teachings.
"It makes an attempt to seem like an egalitarian world history book, but on closer inspection you find that seven (not all are titled so) of the chapters deal with Islam or Muslim subjects," wrote the parent, whose name was being withheld, in a letter to WND.
"The upsetting part is not only do they go into the history (which would be acceptable) but also the teaching of Islam," she said. "This book does not really go into Christianity or the teachings of Christ, nor does it address religious doctrine elsewhere to the degree it does Islam."
She said the book's one page referencing Jews "is only to convey that they were tortured by Crusaders to get them to convert to 'Christianity.' (It fails to mention that the biggest persecutors of Jews throughout history and still today are Arab Muslims). It gives four other one-liner references to the Jews being blamed for the plagues and problems in the land. It does not talk about the Jews as making a significant impact on the culture at large." - - -
"Keep in mind when looking at this particular book scholars from all over California (reviewed it)," he said. "We have our own scholars who created the program, California scholars look at the program and makes sure [it] is accurate."
One of those experts who contributed to the text, according to the American Textbook Council, which released a scathing indictment of the project, is Ayad Al-Qazzaz.
"Al-Qazzaz is a Muslim apologist, a frequent speaker in Northern California school districts promoting Islam and Arab causes," the ATC review said. "Al-Qazzaz also co-wrote AWAIR's 'Arab World Notebook.' AWAIR stands for Arab World and Islamic Resources, an opaque, proselytizing 'non-profit organization' that conducts teacher workshops and sells supplementary materials to schools." - - -
WND previously has reported on the influence of Islamic "consultants" on public school texts in the United States, as well as how other schools have included the "Five Pillars of Islam" among their required courses. - - - -
Read Full Article
See More Posted on the Be Alert! Weblog
Also:
D.C. imam declares Muslim takeover-plan Posted on the Be Alert! Blog
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Russia challenges US in the Islamic world |
Ed. Note: A commentary that although has anti-Israel tones, is quite worth reading. The author rightly points out how the Bush Administration's promotion of an Islamic state in Kosovo is a failed 'Cold War' strategy and Russia actually takes the higher road in the world's eyes by looking to strengthen "Christian Europe" and unite religions.
ASIA TIMES ONLINE (Hong Kong) - By M K Bhadrakumar - March 29, 2008
When US President George W Bush named Karachi-born Pakistani American Sada Cumber as the first US envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the White House announcement of February 27 almost passed off as pork-barrel politics on the part of a lame-duck administration. Cumber is a Texan entrepreneur - and so was Bush.
Cumber is founder of CACH Capital Management based in Austin, Texas, which is a high-performance wealth management firm with acumen and expertise in rendering advisory services to Muslim countries flushed with disposable petrodollar sovereign wealth funds. But then wouldn't Bush know the OIC is not an institution for investment selection and portfolio structure?
White House press secretary Dana Perino explained that Bush considered the OIC to be an important organization and that's why he appointed a special envoy. She said, "The [OIC] has a constructive role to play in the world, and the president is signaling our desire to have a greater dialogue with the organization as well as Muslims around the world." But the OIC has been existence for 39 years - and Muslims for over a millennium. Why now?
In June last year Bush first articulated the thought of deputing an envoy to the OIC. Why the delay? When the media asked Perino why Bush had taken so long, she merely said, "He [Bush] wanted to find the right person and he found that in Sada Cumber."
Islamic card in Kosovo
There is reason to believe, however, that it was in the month of February that the Bush administration woke up to a new reality that cultivating the 57-member OIC could indeed make all the difference in the years to come. Around that time, Washington almost instinctively played the "Islamic card" against Moscow, and found to its dismay that what used to be a highly dependable and potent trump card in Cold War politics is no longer so, and, in fact, it turned out to be a dud card.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov succinctly captured Washington's "OIC heartache" when he commented in an interview with the government newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta, "It is not without meaning that many nations, including Islamic states, do not intend to recognize Kosovo's independence."
With a touch of sarcasm, Lavrov underscored post-Soviet Russia's reversal of roles with the US in the Muslim world. He added, "I would like to caution against the temptation to succumb to exhortations that are coming from non-Arab and non-Islamic countries but are addressed precisely to Islamic countries to display Islamic solidarity and recognize Kosovo. For, the situation in Kosovo is the most striking example of ethnic separatism."
He was cautioning the Islamic world to be wary of the US attempt to "Islamize" the geopolitical setting in the Balkans. He warned, "Disturbances have also begun in other regions of the world. To encourage separatist tendencies, I believe, is immoral. You see what is happening in China's autonomous region of Tibet, the way the separatists are acting there --- And then developments in other parts of the world as well suggest that we see only the beginning of an extremely explosive process. And those who follow this path should not call for a show of solidarity, whether Islamic or Euro-Atlantic. They ought to think of their responsibility in the first place."
Soon after his interview in Moscow, Lavrov set out on yet another extended tour of the Middle East, but starting with the eleventh summit of the OIC at Dakar, Senegal, on March 13, which was he attending as an "observer" for the second time in a row. - - -
Religions as a panacea for conflicts
Being no longer a citadel of atheism has certainly helped the Kremlin. But it is altogether a new level of exhilaration of the mind and intellect to be able to transmute the newfound religious belief into a hardcore political agenda. Lavrov went on the offensive at Dakar and assured the OIC that Russia is determined to "make its major contribution to ensuring Europe's civilizational compatibility and promoting tolerance, in particular towards different faiths". He expressed hope that "a Christian Europe would have been able to find common grounds with other religions more easily".
In a major political initiative at Dakar, Lavrov sought the support of the OIC for a Russian proposal that an "advisory council of religions" should be set up under the auspices of the United Nations, predicated on the estimation that "the involvement of the religious factor could be of help in settling different conflicts through strengthening confidence and concord of all parties based on international law with full respect of the UN role in international affairs".
The proposal altogether elevates Moscow's two-year "dialogue" with the OIC since it gained observer status in the organization to a qualitatively new level. Moscow would know that Washington cannot match the Russian initiative, but at the same time would be hard-pressed to oppose it. Washington's predicament is that it has no effective way of countering Moscow's insistent claim that as a multinational and multi-faith society with a centuries-old history, "Russia is also a part of the Islamic world", to quote Lavrov. - - - -
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Fitna: Network Solutions suspends anti-Islamist film Web site |
The hosting company wants to determine whether the site violates its acceptable use policy
INTERNATIONAL DATA GROUP NEWS SERVICE/Computerworld - By Linda Rosencrance - March 25, 2008
Web hosting company Network Solutions LLC has suspended a Web site that a conservative Dutch politician wanted to use to release an anti-Quran video that critics are saying is extremely critical of Islam.
Right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders planned to release the movie titled Fitna, whose Arabic name translates to ordeal, on the Web site March 31.
In a statement sent via e-mail, Network Solutions said that it was investigating a number of complaints that the Web site Fitnathemovie.com may have violated its guidelines on hate language. Network Solutions' acceptable use policy say that the company bans content "that is obscene, defamatory, libelous, unlawful, harassing, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, constitutes an illegal threat, violates export control laws, hate propaganda, fraudulent material or fraudulent activity, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature." - - -
"Our hosting customer for this site also made several public comments regarding his plans for the use of this site," the company said. "In response to the complaints and the customer's public comments, Network Solutions has made repeated requests to discuss the matter with our customer."
Network Solutions said it has also asked Wilders if the company could review the film before it was loaded onto the site to determine if it violates its acceptable use policy. However, the company said Wilders has not responded to its requests, so, in the interim, it has suspended the Web site.
Network Solutions said Wilders has full access to the site during the suspension. The company said if Wilders provides Network Solutions with the content and the company determines that it doesn't violate its acceptable use police, then he will be allowed to post the content. However, if it's found to violate the policy, Network Solutions said Wilders would be free to post the content using other avenues, but not with Network Solutions.
"Network Solutions is by no means taking any action to limit freedom of speech or to preemptively censor content," according to the e-mail statement. "Our company also does not proactively police the content of our customers' sites. If a complaint is received, however, we do conduct a review to determine whether the site's content violates our company's acceptable use policy."
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Dutch Jewish group: Anti-Islam film is 'counterproductive' |
HAARETZ [Schocken/DuMont Schauberg] - By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz Correspondent and News Agencies - March 30, 2008
The newly-released anti-Islam film by right-wing Dutch legislator Geert Wilders drew condemnations from the Netherlands' Central Jewish Board, which Friday called the film's focus on anti-Jewish preachings by Muslims "counterproductive" and "generalizing."
In keeping with Wilders' belief in a Judeo-Christian partnership in the face of "the threat of Islam," the 15-minute film, entitled "Fitna" - Arabic for strife - shows clerics calling to behead Jews, Koran passages equating Jews to "apes and swines" and photos of demonstrators promising "another Holocaust" and praising Adolf Hitler.
In a statement following the film's online release, the board said that Wilders - the leader of the Party for Freedom - was guilty of serious generalizations. "Wilders presented demographics on the increase of Muslims in Europe with pictures from scenes of terrorist attacks, suggesting all Muslims are potential terrorists," head of the Hague-based Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, Dr. Ronny Naftaniel, Saturday told Haaretz. While the anti-Semitic material Wilders compiled "demonstrates some Muslims have terrible ideas about Jews," the way Fitna portrays reality serves to "polarize Dutch society," the board said, adding this was counterproductive to the fight against extremism.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he was "proud" of Dutch Muslims for their peaceful reaction to the film. Parliament is due to discuss Fitna on Tuesday. - - - -
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Resisting Islamic Law |
THE JERUSALEM POST [Mirkaei Tikshoret/CanWest] - By Daniel Pipes - February 21, 2008
Westerners opposed to the application of the Islamic law (the Shari'a) watch with dismay as it goes from strength to strength in their countries - harems increasingly accepted, a church leader endorsing Islamic law, a judge referring to the Koran, clandestine Muslim courts meting out justice. What can be done to stop the progress of this medieval legal system so deeply at odds with modern life, one that oppresses women and turns non-Muslims into second-class citizens?
A first step is for Westerners to mount a united front against the Shari'a. Facing near-unanimous hostility, Islamists back down. For one example, note the retreat last week by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in a dispute concerning guide dogs used by the blind.
Muslims traditionally consider dogs impure animals to be avoided, creating an aversion that becomes problematic when Muslim store-owners or taxi drivers deny service to blind Westerners relying on service dogs. I have collected fifteen such cases on my weblog, at "Muslim Taxi Drivers vs. Seeing-Eye Dogs": five from the United States (New Orleans, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Brooksville, Fl.; Everett, Wash.); four from Canada (Vancouver, twice in Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Alberta); three from the United Kingdom (Cambridge, twice in London); two from Australia (Melbourne, Sydney); and one from Norway (Oslo).
News accounts quote Muslim cabbies rudely rejecting blind would-be passengers, yelling at them, "No dog, No dog, Get out, get out"; "Get that dog out of here"; and "No dogs, no dogs." The blind find themselves rejected, humiliated, abandoned, insulted, or even injured, left in the rain, dropped in the middle of nowhere, made late for an appointment, or caused to miss a flight.
Islamist organizations initially responded to this problem by supporting anti-canine cabbies. The Muslim Association of Canada pointed out how Muslims generally regard dog saliva as unclean. CAIR on one occasion echoed this assertion, claiming that "the saliva of dogs invalidates the ritual purity needed for prayer." On another, the head of CAIR, Nihad Awad, declared that "People from the Middle East especially --- have been indoctrinated with a kind of fear of dogs" and justified a driver rejecting a guide dog on the grounds that he "has a genuine fear and he acted in good faith. He acted in accordance with his religious beliefs."
However, when the police and the courts are called in, the legal rights of the blind to their basic needs and their dignity almost always trump the Muslim dislike for dogs. The Muslim proprietor or driver invariably finds himself admonished, fined, re-educated, warned, or even jailed. The judge who found a cabby's behavior to be "a total disgrace" spoke for many.
CAIR, realizing that its approach had failed in the courts of both law and of public opinion, suddenly and nimbly switched sides. In a cynical maneuver, for example, it organized 300 cabbies in Minneapolis to provide free rides for participants at a National Federation of the Blind conference. (Unconvinced by this obvious ploy, a federation official responded: "We really are uncomfortable --- with the offer of getting free rides. We don't think that solves anything. We believe the cabdrivers need to realize that the law says they will not turn down a blind person.") And, finally, last week, the Canadian office of CAIR issued a statement urging Muslims to accommodate blind taxi passengers, quoting a board member that "Islam allows for dogs to be used by the visually impaired."
CAIR's capitulation contains an important lesson: When Westerners broadly agree on rejecting a specific Islamic law or tradition and unite against it, Western Islamists must adjust to the majority's will. Guide dogs for the blind represent just one of many such consensus issues; others tend to involve women, such as husbands beating wives, the burqa head coverings, female genital mutilation, and "honor" killings. Western unity can also compel Islamists to denounce their preferred positions in areas such as slavery and Shar'i-compliant finances.
Other Islam-derived practices do not (yet) exist in the West but do prevail in the Muslim world. These include punishing a woman for being raped, exploiting children as suicide bombers, and executing offenders for such crimes as converting out of Islam, adultery, having a child out of wedlock, or witchcraft. Western solidarity can win concessions in these areas too.
If Westerners stick together, the Shari'a is doomed. If we do not, we are doomed.
Original Report Here |
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Conspiracy or coincidence? Flight 93 memorial attacked over crescent shape |
 THE INDEPENDENT, UK [APN / INM / O'Reilly] - By Leonard Doyle in Shanksville, Pennsylvania - April 5, 2008United Airlines Flight 93 came in low and fast over this poor Appalachian community, passing directly over a scrapyard where one of the few witnesses to the disaster said the plane was at a tilt and low enough to "count the rivets".
Burnished into the nation's collective memory of 11 September 2001 is the heroism of Flight 93's passengers, who overwhelmed the hijackers and forced them to ditch the plane rather than let them attempt an attack on the US Capitol building 150 miles away.
But disagreement and rancour has dogged efforts to commemorate the 40 victims of terrorism on this Pennsylvania hillside. Seven and a half years after the tragedy, several family members of those who perished say that the planned memorial is in the shape of an Islamic crescent and points directlytowards Mecca.
They complain that a planned "Tower of Voices," a 93ft tall structure that will hold 40 chimes representing the victims of terrorism, is in fact a "minaret".
Tom Burnett, whose son Tom Jnr died in the crash, said of the design that it is "aesthetically wonderful," but "a lot of it contains Islamic symbols". He added: "We ought to just throw the design out and start anew because it really dishonours those who died."
Mr Burnett represents only a minority of the families of Flight 93 but he is not alone in his concerns about the planned memorial, which is not expected to be built until 2010. To the dismay of many, an active community has grown up - online and in the locality - with the sole aim of blocking the memorial in its current form.
The controversy has caused no end of annoyance to local businesses, some of which stand to reap rich financial rewards as the numbers of visitors to the crash memorial grows over time. Already nearly half a million people come to the temporary site.
The straight facts of what happened to Flight 93 are by now widely accepted. The plane hurtled into a reclaimed coal strip mine at 10.03am on 11 September 2001. One witness, Karl Landis, said the plane "rolled slightly to the left and appeared to hit the ground at almost a 90-degree angle".
Another witness, Eric Peterson, said: "It was a massive, massive explosion. Flames and then smoke and then a massive, massive mushroom cloud."
The plane hit the ground at more than 560mph at a 40-degree angle leaving a 115ft wide crater. The fuselage was driven 23ft into the earth and, in the explosion, human remains were scattered over a wide area. Some are still scattered across the crash site to this day.
The 9/11 Commission investigation also concluded that the passengers did not succeed in breaking into the cockpit but that the hijackers crashed the plane when they thought they were about to be overwhelmed.
The story of how the passengers fought back against the terrorists and saved countless other lives, is now part of the national narrative. Tom Burnett Jnr, a father of three young daughters, spoke to his wife Deena from an onboard phone. He said he and his fellow-passengers were "going to do something" despite her protests that he should "Sit down. Be still. Be quiet. Don't draw attention to yourself. Wait for the authorities."
Tom replied: "We can't wait. Deena, if they are going to run this plane into the ground, we're going to do something."
Another passenger, Todd Beamer revealed in a telephone call that passengers were planning a counter-attack. His last words, "Are you guys ready? Let's roll," would become a battle cry for Americans fighting the Taliban and al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan. Even President George Bush has taken to using it in his speeches.
The top of the mountain where the crash occurred was removed many years ago by an opencast coal mining operation. All that is left of the natural landscape is a large bowl. The site of the crash is beside a toxic outfall from a now reclaimed stripmine.
Up the hill, a temporary memorial stands under the flight path of the plane which was bound for San Francisco but had turned back in the direction of Washington DC. Volunteers staff a small wooden hut. Beside it is a wire fence where visitors attach mementos. There are a few flags and a large cross.
With baseball hats and firemen's jackets flapping in the wind, the impromptu memorial carries the signs of the country's anguish over the disaster. There is hardly a surface without a sticker or a note in indelible ink paying tribute to the passengers. It looks down on a fenced off area of "sacred ground," the crash site.
How a planned memorial, for which there were more than 1,000 anonymous submissions and which went through two separate juries before being agreed could end up being described as an "Islamic mosque" remains a mystery for many of those involved.
Part of the blame must lie with Paul Murdoch, architect of the winning design who initially described it as a "Crescent of Embrace". The title caused the internet to erupt with conspiracy theories. Then someone noticed that the arc actually pointed towards Mecca. The fact that this was also the direction to Washington DC was lost on the conspiracy theorists.
The architect quickly agreed to remove "any perceptions relating to Islamic symbolism". The crescent became a circle, with two symbolic breaks, one where visitors will walk along the flight path, the other at the crash scene.
Joanne Hanley, National Parks superintendent for Western Pennsylvania, who is responsible for building the memorial, has little time for the conspiracy theorists. Now that the design of the memorial has been changed to accommodate the critics she is incensed that the controversy still rumbles on.
"It's very upsetting for the families and an unnecessary distraction," she said. "But thank goodness we allow these people to have their say. That, after all, is what the 40 who died on the plane were trying to protect."
Original Report Here |
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Petition blasts Islamic themes at Flight 93 site |
WORLDNETDAILY - April 7, 2008
A group of concerned citizens has been raising alarms about the Islamic elements planned for the Flight 93 Memorial near Shanksville, Pa., for years. And a member of Congress has demanded the National Park Service make changes in its plans.
But there's been no substantive response, and now the activists say it's time for the American people to let officials know whether they want to pay for a memorial with a crescent that points to Mecca. The opponents say the configuration comprises a "mihrab," the foundational point for every Islamic mosque. It also includes a tower designed like an Islamic sundial and 44 memorial glass blocks, one each for the passengers, crew and terrorists aboard Flight 93.
The new petition, promoted both online and on paper, tells the government simply to investigate the design of the memorial, which is to honor the passengers and crew members of Flight 93 who perished Sept. 11, 2001.
Authorities believe the hijackers may have planned to hit the White House or the U.S. Capitol. Three other flights hijacked that day by Islamic terrorists hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, killing just under 3,000 people.
The fourth jet, Flight 93, hurtled into the ground in Pennsylvania that morning, hitting at more than 560 miles per hour and creating a 115-foot wide crater. Authorities say the fuselage was driven 23 feet into the ground.
The federal 9/11 commission found while the passengers probably did not succeed in breaking into the cockpit, the hijackers crashed the plan before reaching their goal. - - -
Tom Burnett Sr., who has actively opposed the Islamic symbolism and has warned the National Park Service not to use his son's name in the memorial, told the reporter, "We ought to just throw the design out and start anew because it really dishonors those who died."
He's written a letter seeking support for the petition.
"The planned Flight 93 Memorial contains extensive Islamic symbolism. It is an insult to my son Tom, and to the other murdered heroes of Flight 93 who stopped Islamic terrorists from destroying the White House or the Capitol that terrible September day," he wrote.
"Please consider signing this online petition that I and some compatriots have put together. It calls for a new memorial design, and for investigation of the present design," he said.
"For those who are not familiar, the original 'Crescent of Embrace' design was laid out in the crescent and star formation of an Islamic flag," he said. "Outrage over this overt Islamic symbolism forced the Memorial Project to disguise the original crescent with a few additional trees, but every particle of the original design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign."
"The Memorial Project assumes that any similarity to an Islamic crescent has to be unintentional. Even if it WERE unintentional it would still be intolerable, but how can anyone look at that crescent and star configuration and think that it CAN'T be intentional? That is like seeing an airliner fly into the World Trade Center and thinking that it CAN'T be intentional," he continued.
"It turns out that a person facing into the giant crescent will be facing Mecca. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a "mihrab" and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. The crescent memorial will be the world's largest mosque!" he said.
"Architect Paul Murdoch says that the crescent shape comes from the hijacked airplane breaking the circle where it crosses the upper crescent tip. The flight path then continues down to between the crescent tips where Flight 93 crashed," Burnett said. "I don't want to celebrate the terrorist's circle-breaking crescent-creating feat, and I certainly don't want my son's name inscribed on that terrorist memorializing block count."
The petition issues a call to state and federal lawmakers to investigate the design, and then replace it with a new design "not tainted by Islamic or terrorist memorializing symbolism." - - - -
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Stifled, Egypt's Young Turn to Islamic Fervor |
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Michael Slackman - February 17, 2008
CAIRO - The concrete steps leading from Ahmed Muhammad Sayyid's first-floor apartment sag in the middle, worn down over time, like Mr. Sayyid himself. Once, Mr. Sayyid had a decent job and a chance to marry. But his fiancée's family canceled the engagement because after two years, he could not raise enough money to buy an apartment and furniture.
Mr. Sayyid spun into depression and lost nearly 40 pounds. For months, he sat at home and focused on one thing: reading the Koran. Now, at 28, with a diploma in tourism, he is living with his mother and working as a driver for less than $100 a month. With each of life's disappointments and indignities, Mr. Sayyid has drawn religion closer.
Here in Egypt and across the Middle East, many young people are being forced to put off marriage, the gateway to independence, sexual activity and societal respect. Stymied by the government's failure to provide adequate schooling and thwarted by an economy without jobs to match their abilities or aspirations, they are stuck in limbo between youth and adulthood.
"I can't get a job, I have no money, I can't get married, what can I say?" Mr. Sayyid said one day after becoming so overwhelmed that he refused to go to work, or to go home, and spent the day hiding at a friend's apartment.
In their frustration, the young are turning to religion for solace and purpose, pulling their parents and their governments along with them.
With 60 percent of the region's population under the age of 25, this youthful religious fervor has enormous implications for the Middle East. More than ever, Islam has become the cornerstone of identity, replacing other, failed ideologies: Arabism, socialism, nationalism.
The wave of religious identification has forced governments that are increasingly seen as corrupt or inept to seek their own public redemption through religion. In Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Morocco and Algeria, leaders who once headed secular states or played down religion have struggled to reposition themselves as the guardians of Islamic values. More and more parents are sending their children to religious schools, and some countries have infused more religious content into their state educational systems. - - - -
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Upstate New York: Main street parade to honor Muhammad |
Binghamton, N.Y., grants permit for Milad-un-Nabi event
WORLDNETDAILY - April 3, 2008
Muslim leaders at an encampment in the Catskill Mountains called "Islamberg" have been granted a permit by the city of Binghamton, N.Y., to hold a parade Saturday in honor of Muhammad's birthday.
The holiday, called Milad-un-Nabi, will be celebrated by a group of families who live at the nearby property owned by Muslims of the Americas Inc.
The city has scheduled the parade for 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the downtown area, including its main street. A report in the local Press & Sun-Bulletin said the celebration previously held on the group's own property this year is being expanded.
"We're trying to do an interfaith thing, we're reach out to the community to do a program based on unity," Maryam Rahim, a spokeswoman, told the newspaper. "We haven't been very well known. ...We want everyone to come out and celebrate, may ask questions."
City spokesman Andrew Block said the group secured the appropriate permits to hold the celebration, and the city will close down one lane of the downtown's main street for the parade.
Other events will be held in front of the old Broome County courthouse, officials said.
Rahim told the paper some Muslims claim the celebration is not important, but others classify it alongside Eid-ul-Fitr, the observance that concludes the month of Ramadan for Muslims.
The newspaper said Muslims of the Americas was formed in the 1980s when several families migrated from New York City to make a new start. There now is a mosque and a private school on the land.
However, others describe the location as a training facility for the Pakistani terrorist group Jamaat ul Fuqra.
As WND reported, a covert visit to the encampment found neighboring residents deeply concerned about military-style training taking place there but frustrated by the lack of attention from federal authorities. The visit was conducted by the Northeast Intelligence Network, which worked with an Internet blogger, "CP," to publish an report. - - - -
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Report: Non-Muslims Deserve to Be Punished |
FOX NEWS [News Corporation/Murdoch] - April 1, 2008
A report posted on Islam Watch, a site run by Muslims who oppose intolerant teachings and hatred for unbelievers, exposes a prominent Islamic cleric and lawyer who support extreme punishment for non-Muslims - including killing and rape.
A question-and-answer session with Imam Abdul Makin in an East London mosque asks why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters, according to Islam Watch.
"Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet," the Imam says, according to the report. "If you don't believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain."
The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam's position, saying that all Muslims are innocent.
"You are innocent if you are a Muslim," Choudary tells the BBC. "Then you are innocent in the eyes of God. If you are not a Muslim, then you are guilty of not believing in God."
Choudary said he would not condemn a Muslim for any action.
"As a Muslim, I must support my Muslim brothers and sisters," Choudary said. "I must have hatred to everything that is not Muslim."
Original Report Here |
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FBI boosts trainingin Islamic 'sensitivity' |
| Bureau is heavily recruiting Muslim agents
WORLDNETDAILY - March 6, 2008
The FBI believes its agents still aren't sensitive enough to Muslims and their culture, so the bureau has extended by "a few weeks" its Islamic cultural "enrichment" training program, WND has learned.
During a recent outreach event at a Washington-area mosque, FBI officials also reassured a large turnout of concerned Muslims that the bureau is not profiling Arabs and Muslims for terrorism, and has made investigating alleged "hate crimes" against them and other minorities "the second-highest priority in the criminal division of the FBI."
Among the officials who attended the Feb. 8 "town hall meeting" at the large ADAMS Center mosque were Timothy Healy, deputy assistant director for FBI intelligence, and Dave Bennett, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Washington field office.
The officials said terrorism is "not a new phenomenon" limited to Muslims, and they cited abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolph as an example of a Christian terrorist.
While they said they are concerned about the threat from "homegrown terror" perpetuated by second-generation Muslim immigrants, the officials assured the Muslim audience they are no more concerned about such homegrown attacks than they are "about bank robberies," and are not targeting the Muslim community for special surveillance.
One official offered that FBI headquarters has extended the bureau's Arabic curriculum, which includes Muslim culture, by "a few weeks" to expose agents to Islam and cultivate a better understanding of the faith.
"We all need to learn and understand each other," he said, adding that the Muslim sensitivity program is part of basic training for agents.
"One of the things that the FBI believes in is diversity," he said. "Diversity is important."
To that end, he says the bureau is "under a hiring push this year" and is heavily recruiting Muslim agents. The FBI wants to hire 900 FBI agents and 2,000 professional support staff, including Arabic translators, by Sept. 30. - - - -
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UK: Forced Islamic Marriage |
| Dozens of missing schoolchildren feared forced into arranged marriages
LONDON DAILY MAIL [Associated Newspapers/DMGT] - By Chris Brooke - March 5, 2008
Dozens of children are missing from school amid fears they have been forced into arranged marriages, it was revealed yesterday.
In Bradford, 33 children remain "unaccounted for" after being off school for at least two months with no explanation.
The Government is also concerned about another 14 areas of the country where it is feared children under 16 could also be missing from school rolls.
The figures were disclosed yesterday by Children's Minister Kevin Brennan during evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, which is investigating the controversial issue of forced marriages.
He revealed the results of worrying inquiries by officials in Bradford, a city with a substantial Asian population. - - -
Further inquiries had established the whereabouts of 172 - leaving 33 unaccounted for. - - -
The MPs demanded a report with more details about the "missing" children be ready by next Tuesday.
The national Forced Marriage Unit was set up three years ago to tackle the problem regarded as "an abuse of human rights and a form of domestic violence".
Laws coming into force this summer will allow victims to obtain court injunctions against anyone trying to force them to marry.
A spokesman for the department of children, schools and families said there was no evidence the "missing" children had been forced into marriage but Bradford was an area where "a forced marriage problem has been reported".
"We have asked the local authority to find out more details about these children," she said. - - - -
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Europe Struggles to Reconcile Free Speech, Muslim Sensibilities |
| BLOOMBERG [Bloomberg L.P.] - By Celestine Bohlen - March 25, 2008
A French court this month upheld a magazine's right to print a Danish cartoon of the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. At the same time, it affirmed a lower court's finding that the image, published two years ago, could be ``shocking, even hurtful'' for devout Muslims.
The split decision illustrates how France, like the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, is struggling to accommodate its growing Muslim minority without sacrificing principles such as separation of church and state and free speech, which form the heart of a cultural identity forged by Voltaire and other 18th-century philosophers. - - - -
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Islamic Teachings That Prove Their Religion Is False |
DECEPTION IN THE CHURCH - Compiled by Sandy Simpson - April 1, 2008
This article presents documented proof that Mohammed was a false teacher and a false prophet ... thus the Qur'an and other Islamic holy writings by Mohammed and his followers are false. More evidence that the "god" Allah they worship is a false god. Their false religion is based on a false prophet, false scriptures and a false god.
Any Muslim reading this can find the true Way of salvation on this page.
Following you will find some of the most ridiculous teachings I can think of from the Qur'an and other authoritative writings of Islam. That people would believe this stuff is a mystery to me. But then the Bible says that those who live in sin and false religion are blind and in darkness. - - - -
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