Multiculturalism and the Case of the Unwanted Hello

The Islamist campaign to undermine and ultimately supplant Western norms is waged on some of the most mundane battlefields. For example, a recent essay by Matthew Coutts describes a fascinating and instructive clash that arose in a residential hallway:

When the landlady of my Toronto apartment building said an outraged neighbor had filed a complaint about me over an apparently inappropriate hallway interaction with his wife, my mind raced through the countless conversations I've had with fellow tenants, none of which seemed a possible source of offense.

It turns out, it wasn't a salacious transaction that had caused the complaint, but rather a neighborly and — to me — entirely forgettable greeting, little more than a brief "good morning" as I passed my neighbors on the way to work.

Still, it was enough of an affront for the man — once a doctor somewhere in the Middle East, my landlady clarified — to feel I had broken a cultural taboo. The incident started an awkward feud which has involved warnings not to repeat my indiscretion and one face-to-face shouting match, which included allusions to my impending death.

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By David J. Rusin | June 30, 2009 at 11:58 pm | Permalink

ISNA Becomes the New Belle of the Islamist Ball

With the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) weighed down by legal problems, it was just a matter of time before the government found a fresh partner for its Muslim outreach efforts. Now we know who it is: the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Yet rather than representing some moderate alternative to CAIR, ISNA's ties to the radical Muslim Brotherhood may be even more pronounced.

The Obama administration's courtship of the Islamic Society started early, as ISNA president Ingrid Mattson was invited to participate in the inaugural prayer service at the National Cathedral on January 21. This honor came despite her disturbing views of Wahhabism as a simple "reform movement" and the West being at the root of the Muslim world's decline.

The initial flirtation has now blossomed into a full-blown relationship, as demonstrated by a pair of insider emails disseminated over the past week. The first message indicates that FBI Executive Assistant Director Tom Harrington met at agency headquarters with Imam Magid (Mohamed Hagmagid Ali), the vice president of ISNA. It also references FBI leaders' "decision" to "use ISNA as their official point of contact with the American Muslim community." How does the FBI square this approach with its mission "to protect and defend the United States," when a Muslim Brotherhood memo identifies ISNA as one of the "organizations of our friends" that could help advance the Brotherhood's "grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within"?

A second email, leaked to Pajamas Media, indicates that the Department of Justice will run an information booth at ISNA's convention over the July 4 weekend. "Volunteers needed for unique opportunity," the message begins — and no doubt the opportunity is unique. It is not every day that Justice Department staffers have the chance to attend the convention of a group named by their own agency's prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terror financing trial. Robert Spencer reminds us of the rebuke that ISNA and its sister organization, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), earned after they protested their designation:

During last year's trial, numerous exhibits were entered into evidence establishing both ISNA's and NAIT's intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestine Committee, and the defendants in this case. They were intimately connected with the HLF and its assigned task of providing financial support to Hamas.

The mainstream's embrace of ISNA will only grow warmer from here, as seen in the news that "purpose-driven" pastor Rick Warren plans to speak at the group's upcoming shindig. Interfaith gurus such as Warren are all about brotherhood. However, he, like the Obama administration, one day may regret promoting ISNA's "purpose-driven" Islamists — and their Brotherhood of a very different kind.

By David J. Rusin | June 26, 2009 at 12:17 pm | Permalink

BBC: Television for Dhimmis

Downplaying the threat of Islamism while simultaneously disparaging Western culture is the stock in trade of countless media outlets, but few have pursued this task with such vigor as the BBC. Though its well-documented bias in covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict serves as Exhibit A, the same worldview is expressed in the BBC's broad deference to Islam.

Islamist Watch highlighted two examples in 2008: comedian Ben Elton's assertion that "the BBC will let vicar gags pass but they would not let imam gags pass," along with a Christian party's protest that the network was censoring criticism of the London mega-mosque. Other cases from the IW archive include Hindus and Sikhs accusing the BBC of favoring Muslims and the head of the BBC arguing that Islam should be treated more sensitively than Christianity.

News items from May and June demonstrate that the broadcaster has only accelerated its descent into dhimmitude:

The BBC Trust has rejected complaints against a 2008 Bonekickers episode that, in the words of the Daily Mail, depicts a Christian extremist graphically "hacking off a moderate Muslim's head in an unprovoked attack." Telegraph columnist Damian Thompson writes, "Only a BBC drama series would, to quote the complainant, 'transfer the practice of terrorist beheadings from Islamist radicals to a fantasized group of fundamentalist Christians.'"

The BBC has apologized to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and offered £30,000 in compensation after a panelist on its Question Time program accused the organization of supporting attacks on UK troops. The most interesting aspect of this surrender is that the British government largely shares the guest's viewpoint: it suspended links with the MCB in March because one of the group's leaders, Daud Abdullah, had signed a statement endorsing such violence in defense of Gaza.

Most significantly, the BBC has appointed Aaqil Ahmed as its new chief of religious programming. Ahmed's Muslim faith is not a problem in itself, but his work in a similar post at Britain's Channel 4 raises concerns. First, the series Christianity: A History, which he shepherded into existence, has been criticized as a ridicule-filled "showcase of dumbed-down religion." Second, Ahmed oversaw the discussion show Shariah TV, which Muslim theologian Michael Mumisa once slammed as a "fatwa machine." In one episode, a Birmingham cleric says that "Islam allows a man to beat his wife"; in another, a Brixton cleric outlines the virtues of female genital mutilation.

To add insult to injury, British households with color TVs have the pleasure of paying £142.50 per year to subsidize the BBC's whitewashing of radical Islam and besmirching of Judeo-Christian civilization. However, one suspects that the ultimate cost to the UK will be far greater — and not quantifiable in pounds.

By David J. Rusin | June 17, 2009 at 11:09 am | Permalink

Obama's Cairo Speech Through the Lens of Islamists

President Obama's speech in Cairo to the so-called Muslim world has Islamist organizations fawning about the "new beginning" of relations with Muslims globally. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF terror trial and was recently wholly rejected by the FBI, issued a statement calling the speech "comprehensive, balanced, and forthright." This was not to be outdone by the like-minded Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which lauded the speech as a "foundation for mutual recognition and positive engagement."

Here, locally in Phoenix, the reaction was predictably similar but more troubling. A prominent Islamist, Marwan Ahmad, publisher of the pro-Hamas newspaper Muslim Voice and original founder of the local CAIR chapter in Arizona, stated to the Arizona Republic: "This is the first time I felt proud of being an American Muslim. I felt really proud, actually."

Interestingly, this is a remarkably candid comment when compared to a previous statement which was obviously a part of Islamist dissimulation: "The day I passed the test and became an American citizen is one of the proudest days of my life." So which is it, Mr. Ahmad?

Ahmad also had the revealing temerity to apparently condone violence and chastise President Obama for openly calling on Palestinians to abandon violent resistance, stating: "They want us to take the Martin Luther King example and the example of other peaceful leaders, yet [in response to the terrorist attacks], America has launched all these wars around the world. That doesn't add up."

These reactions of Islamists speak volumes to the unchanging ideological lens they use in reviewing American foreign and domestic policy. In Mr. Ahmad's case, his pride in being an American Muslim despite decades of residence on our soil came only now as an epiphany after a single speech. Words, not America, gave Ahmad pride. Simple words of appeasement given by our president on foreign soil over 7,000 miles away and hosted by the despotic Egyptian regime made all the difference to his Islamist mindset.

The truth is that Mr. Ahmad should have felt proud to be an American Muslim at the first moment he published his Islamist and frequently anti-American newspaper and exercised his freedom of expression guaranteed to him by the U.S. Constitution.

Only after the despotic governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who are blind and intransigent to political and religious reform, expressed pleasure and approval of our president have our local domestic Islamist groups become jubilant. Are the reformers in Egypt or the oppressed minorities of the "Muslim world" jubilant? No one knows because their voices cannot be heard.

Although President Obama must be given credit for mentioning reform, women's rights, and minority rights, he obviously could have and should have said much more, specifically naming reformers and the real obstacles (i.e., Islamism) to the changes he cited as necessary. No such critique can be heard from Islamists in America, who would rather bask in the glow of appeasement of their motherlands than recognize a lifetime of pride in American values.

The Islamist lens is all about protecting, legitimizing, and validating the agenda of political Islam and not about protecting, legitimizing, or validating all that is America.

Sid Shahid is the director of research and publications for the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). He can be reached at sid@aifdemocracy.org.

By Sid Shahid | June 9, 2009 at 12:23 pm | Permalink

Hijab Bullies Want Everyone to Cover Up

Lawful Islamists use two general strategies to advance their agenda: they request that Muslims be granted special privileges and, more broadly, they seek to impose their ways on others. Take the issue of head coverings. Some Muslims demand the right to wear hijabs or niqabs in situations where non-Muslim women would never be allowed to conceal themselves, such as when testifying in court or having a mug shot snapped. At the same time, more assertive Islamists abuse their authority by attempting to force other people to cover up as well.

First, a British Muslim dentist named Omer Butt stands accused of requiring "that women cover their hair with a headscarf, or hijab, and that male patients remove any gold jewelry." Butt, whose practice operates under the auspices of the National Health Service, was reprimanded in 2007 for similar offenses. Here is one of the new complaints:

The woman's husband, known as Mr. C, was … called into a private room at the surgery where Butt asked him to impose a dress code on his wife.

His wife said: "My husband came out and he looked quite angry and his face was red. He said, 'Let's go.'

"He shouldn't say to me that he can't treat me unless I wear the hijab. He said he could provide one for us, but I didn't want to wear one. I was in pain that day."

Second, an employee of Pakistani descent has manipulated non-Muslim first graders into accepting the hijab at a Norwegian school where most of the students are Muslim:

She flattered the girls who didn't wear hijab by telling them how pretty they would be if they only put on hijabs, and said that she could give them hijabs as gifts. The woman works for SFO (Skolefritidsordning or "School Free Time Arrangement"), which provides volunteers to take care of kids before and after school hours, and also works as a classroom assistant. In March she got the head of SFO to write the following note to the parents of two non-Muslim girls: "Can X get a hijab from SFO on Tuesday, March 31, 2009?" The letter is dated March 30 and signed by the head of Norwegian SFO.

The assistant principal does not seem to mind. "This was just a small gesture from SFO," she said. "There were two little girls who wanted to dress up in pretty, colorful, and glittering hijabs, and therefore SFO asked if it was okay with the parents for them to give them to the girls."

Whereas accommodations may be peddled with some success under the rubric of religious freedom, trampling on the rights of others tends to spark public outrage and backlash. People like Omer Butt and the pushy classroom helper thus provide a service of sorts. By crossing a line that wiser Islamists do not cross, they expose Islamism for what it is: a radical ideology whose adherents will prolong tooth discomfort and pressure six-year-olds in order to have their way.

By David J. Rusin | June 8, 2009 at 11:11 am | Permalink

Europe Pushes Back Against Female Genital Mutilation

In a recent interview, activist Ines Laufer explains how female genital mutilation (FGM), which aims to destroy the ability to experience sexual pleasure, threatens thousands of Muslim girls in Europe. "The number of FGM victims and minor girls at risk and the prevalence of FGM in the EU are much higher than assumed," she reports. Some families send their daughters overseas for the procedure; others utilize practitioners who travel from those countries to the West.

Yet several positive developments are of note. Last week a woman in Sweden was awarded compensation from her mother, who had subjected her to FGM during a "holiday" to Somalia in 2001 when she was eleven. "Torture" is how an administrative body describes her ordeal:

She was held down by her mother and two other women while her clitoris and inner labia were removed by a man in return for payment.

The girl's vagina was then sewn up down to the opening of her urethra. The whole procedure was conducted without anesthetic.

A similar case from Denmark resulted in a mother being sentenced earlier this year for allowing a pair of daughters to undergo the operation, which has been illegal there since 2003.

Other nations also are taking notice, as demonstrated by the following actions:

In France, where genital mutilation continues despite a relatively vigorous record of prosecution, "the government is handing out 100,000 leaflets to schools, doctors, and other public services explaining the health and legal risks and providing information on support services for victims."

In Britain, which outlawed the procedure in 1985 but where hundreds of girls still are mutilated each year, some schools are instituting programs by which "teachers there would soon be trained to detect victims of female circumcision and pupils at risk." This is an important safety valve; an alert teacher played a key role in the Danish case.

In Italy, the president of the Association of Moroccan Women, who also is an MP, has spoken out against FGM "because unfortunately we have noticed that the practice has anything but ceased" since such operations were prohibited in 2006.

In the Netherlands, a government minister has proposed that parents planning to take at-risk children to their countries of origin be made to sign a statement acknowledging that FGM is criminal, thus enabling prosecution if they do not comply.

The campaign to protect the human rights of Muslim girls in the West will be a long and difficult one. To paraphrase Churchill, this is not the beginning of the end. But with rising awareness, we are, perhaps, moving toward the end of the beginning.

By David J. Rusin | May 31, 2009 at 11:05 am | Permalink

New York Terror Plot Spotlights Radical Islam in Prisons

Disclosure of a plot by four ex-convicts — three Americans and a Haitian — to bomb synagogues and attack aircraft in New York City and upstate Newburgh, N.Y., highlights the intersection between social pathologies in the African-American community, radical Islam, and derivatives of the latter, especially in prisons.

The defendants in the case were arrested on Wednesday, May 20. They are James "Abdul Rahman" Cromitie, whose age, somewhere between 44 and 55, is unconfirmed; David "Daoud" Williams, 28; Onta "Hamza" Williams, 32; and 27-year-old Laguerre "Amin" Payen — the original given name of the latter, curiously, means "war." They have been charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in the U.S. and to acquire and use Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

Cromitie, the leader of the group and a resident of Newburgh, claimed to have lived in Afghanistan and to have made contact with the Pakistani jihadist organization Jaish-e-Muhammad (Muhammad's Army), which mainly aims its violence at embattled Kashmir, claimed by Pakistan and India. JEM was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 2003. But it and its associated organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Righteous), which has been blamed for the Mumbai atrocities late last year, enjoy support among radical Pakistanis in Britain and the U.S.

According to the Associated Press, the men became acquainted with each other and with jihadist ideology while incarcerated. Prison brought the quartet together and the subcultures of prison extremism remained a constant factor in their lives.

As habitual criminals, the four men seem more characteristic of a gang-style phenomenon known as "prison Islam," in which drug users and other offenders adopt Islamic trappings to intimidate other inmates, than of the Nation of Islam or the Wahhabism that has been introduced into many American prisons by extremist chaplains.

But under the tutelage of Cromitie, they appear to have graduated from "prison Islam" to serious jihadist ambitions. The Daily News reports that Cromitie, on his way to a Philadelphia meeting of the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), spewed threats to "destroy a synagogue." MANA is led, according to its website, by Siraj Wahhaj, one of the most flamboyant hate mongers in American Islam. The website also claims support for MANA from the supposed "Sufi" and "peace apostle" Hamza Yusuf Hanson and his associate Zaid Shakur, as well as other prominent Islamists, such as Ihsan Bagby and Abdul Hakim Jackson.

The pattern of prison conversion, followed by release and the pursuit of terrorist intentions, is not new. A similar scheme by a group calling itself Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (Assembly of Authentic Islam) originated at New Folsom Prison in California and was preempted by police action in Los Angeles in 2005. In 2007, the chief actors in the Folsom group, Levar Haley Washington and Kevin James, pleaded guilty to sedition charges. Washington was sentenced last year to 22 years in prison and James, early in 2009, to 16 years. Washington's sentence was augmented by an additional 22 years for his involvement in a gas station robbery. Another participant, Gregory Patterson, was penalized with 151 months incarceration.

Prison Islamization and radicalization remain a major threat around the world, including in Western Europe and Russia, as well as the U.S. Unfortunately, correctional authorities have lagged behind police bodies and prosecutors in dealing with the danger. Moderate Muslims must assist authorities in non-Muslim countries in combating this very real menace, by helping remove radical chaplains and literature from prisons and otherwise taking the fight against extremism into the prison environment.

Imaad Malik is the prison outreach director for the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, D.C.

By Imaad Malik | May 22, 2009 at 4:23 pm | Permalink

Can Muslims and Gays Coexist in Europe?

In While Europe Slept, American Bruce Bawer describes how he moved to the Netherlands because of its vaunted tolerance for alternative lifestyles, only to find Islamist gangs attacking gays on Amsterdam streets. Three years after the book's publication, new evidence illuminates European Muslims' attitudes toward homosexuality and the challenges they pose.

A survey by Dalia Mogahed's Gallup Center for Muslim Studies asked Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain, France, and Germany about their views on a number of issues, including whether they believe that homosexual acts are "morally acceptable or morally wrong":

The French public is more likely than any other population polled to view homosexuality (78%) as morally acceptable. As points of comparison, 68% of Germans and 58% of Britons believe homosexuality is morally acceptable. Among European Muslim populations surveyed, the acceptability of homosexuality is highest among French Muslims (35%) and lowest among British Muslims (0%).

The uniformity of the UK sample does stand out; has there ever been a poll in which everyone offered the same opinion on a controversial topic? However, the finding that Muslims are more critical than their non-Muslim counterparts is no surprise. Nor is it a grave concern on its own. Believing that others suffer punishment in the afterlife is very different than sending them there to face it. The problem is that, rather than "loving the sinner and hating the sin," some Muslim preachers cross the line by failing to condemn violence against gays — or even promoting it.

For example, Bawer notes that in November 2007, "the deputy chairman of Norway's Islamic Council, Asghar Ali, refused to reject the death penalty for gays. When Senaid Kobilica, the head of the Islamic Council (which represents 60,000 Muslims), was asked where he stood on the question, he replied that he couldn't give a definitive answer until he got a ruling from the European Fatwa Council." Nine months later he was still waiting.

In addition, there have been explicit justifications of violence against gays across Europe, including the UK. During a 2008 investigation of British mosques, "a female reporter infiltrated women's study circles. In one, a preacher using the name Umm Amira told followers: 'We are not going to be like animals … or to be like the homosexuals, God save us from that, you understand? We have to take the judgment; the judgment is to kill them.'" Extremist cleric Anjem Choudary also voiced support for the stoning of homosexuals in March 2009.

Islamic leaders who excuse or even advocate anti-gay violence can turn Muslims' negative views of homosexuals, as documented by the Gallup survey, into a powder keg. It is these radical imams whom European governments must target. Are they ready and willing to do so? Bruce Bawer provides this discomfiting clue: the aforementioned Asghar Ali, who could not bring himself to renounce the execution of gays, sat "on the board of … the largest and most influential association within Norway's ruling Labor Party."

By David J. Rusin | May 20, 2009 at 11:47 am | Permalink

Jihadism in European Prisons

Jihadists are radicalizing Muslims in prisons outside the U.S., in Europe and elsewhere, through aggressive indoctrination and recruitment. A new RAND Corporation report, "Radicalization or Rehabilitation: Understanding the Challenge of Extremist and Radicalized Prisoners," cites prisons as a key venue for Islamist recruitment. Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a former inmate and mentor of the late al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, describes jihadist tactics in prisons in the radical periodical Nida ul-Islam to include:

Refusal to cooperate in the prison's administrative regime, intimidating prison staff, and attacking guards.

Using prison visits to communicate with followers in the outside world.

Holding alternative Friday prayers to draw other prisoners away from the official prison services.

Producing and distributing ideological literature within, and for dissemination beyond, the prison population.

The RAND report also notes that much of the literature on Islam in prison libraries is specifically Islamist. Fundamentalist authors like the 13th-century figure Ibn Taymiyya and the 20th-century writer Sayyid Qutb are prevalent and seem especially attractive to prison readers since these men spent time in jail themselves, making them sympathetic figures to these captive audiences in Europe's prisons.

Governments are trying to counter the spread of Islamism in prisons. The RAND report assesses three programs in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. The religious rehabilitation group (RRG) in Singapore attempts to rehab arrested members of Jemaah Islamiya with counter-Islamist material produced by Islamic scholars and other experts. Moreover, relatives of inmates receive financial assistance and are counseled, while their children are provided with special education.

Saudi Arabia and Yemen also have programs for deradicalization of jihadist prisoners. Some of the problems these programs run into include the high risk that inmates will use their "successful" rehabilitation to obtain release and rejoin terrorist networks. The Yemeni program specifically has been challenged for weak results.

The questionable success of these programs is not an accident. RAND ignores analyzing elements inside and outside the Saudi establishment that finance radicalism while its government attempts to neutralize adherents of extremist doctrines. In such a situation, prison rehabilitation programs are being sabotaged by failures in their own governments, which use these programs for positive P.R. in the war against extremism without providing consistent results.

Another problem in the RAND report is that its review of Europe is too broad. By comparing the Islamist movement to the Basque ultranationalist Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), RAND associates the Islamist global totalitarian religious movement with the grievances of local nationalist extremists. By wanting to avoid offending European Muslim ideologues, RAND offers an incomplete analysis.

Fighting prison jihadism requires an alliance between secular governments and moderate Muslim leaders who demand not only an end to violence but the supremacist ideology behind it. Such moderates call for separation of religious and government authority and the equality of all religions under secular law.

Center for Islamic Pluralism (CIP) reports include the 2008 "Black America, Prisons, and Radical Islam."

"A Guide to Shariah Law and Islamist Ideology in Western Europe 2007-2009" will be published by CIP on May 15, 2009.

Imaad Malik is the prison outreach director for the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, D.C.

By Imaad Malik | May 14, 2009 at 6:15 pm | Permalink

'Punk the FBI' Imam Abdul Alim Musa Gets Punked by Britain

On May 5 the British Home Office published a list of "individuals banned from the UK for stirring up hatred." The inclusion of radio host Michael Savage has garnered most of the press, given his placement alongside terrorists such as Samir Kuntar. However, another American on the roster deserves some attention of his own: Abdul Alim Musa.

Born Clarence Reams, Musa converted to Islam in jail and now heads a D.C. mosque. He founded the radical organization As-Sabiqun, which seeks the "establishment of Islam as a complete way of life in America," citing Muslim Brotherhood thinkers and Ayatollah Khomeini as influences. According to the Washington Post, Musa "has been trying for years to build an Islamic community [in D.C.] … that he would like to see replicated nationwide until the United States becomes an Islamic state."

In contrast to typical "lobby group" Islamists, Musa could not be clearer about his actual views:

Praising terrorists: Musa described Osama bin Laden as "definitely misconstrued" and remarked, "I have to like him." With respect to Hamas, Musa said, "They are nice people. Very nice people." He also called Hezbollah "a good group of people practicing Islam."

Accusing President Bush of staging 9/11: "Just like Hitler burned the Reichstag … to gain full power over the people … George Bush brings down the World Trade Center, blames it on us [Muslims], and then claims himself dictator over the world."

Fingering Jews for the slave trade: "Who ran the slave trade … who funded [it]? You'll study and you will find out: the Jews. … It was the Jewish bankers … in Vienna, with pockets full of money, funding and insuring; that's who did it."

Gleefully predicting America's demise: "If you were to say that the Soviet Union was wiped off the face of the earth … people would have thought you were crazy, right? … We saw the fall of one so-called superpower. Old Sam is next."

Islamist Watch highlighted Musa earlier this year for his 2007 sermon on "How to Punk the FBI," in which he counsels Muslims against cooperating fully with law enforcement. The irony is that he was a longtime board member of the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), one of the groups threatening to end their allegedly cordial relationship with the FBI.

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's positioning of a loudmouthed radio host beside convicted murderers may seem a bit odd, but she is correct that "coming to the UK is a privilege." All in all, banning a true extremist like Abdul Alim Musa is no bad choice.

But do not celebrate too quickly. Now that Musa does not have to worry about planning any trips to Britain, he can focus on what he does best: radicalizing Muslims right here in America.

By David J. Rusin | May 8, 2009 at 11:50 am | Permalink