An Islamic Justice

[islander]

Stop! Stop!

Excuse me, but is our website now being used to inflame religious hatred?

 

i'm doing my best to believe otherwise.

[islander]

for all your posts pointing out "muslim" terrorism, bear with me...

Looking for Answers In Islam's Holy Book Despite Contradictions,
Koran Favors Peace Over War, Scholars Say

By Bill Broadway
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 29, 2001; Page B09


Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, apparently orchestrated by people who quote the Koran to justify terrorist acts, President Bush has joined religious leaders in urging Americans not to condemn all Muslims because of the actions of a few seeking to "hijack Islam."  Many people have responded by learning more about the world's second-largest religion -- visiting mosques, surfing the Internet and clearing bookstore shelves of copies of the Koran.  Understanding the Koran is essential for understanding Islam, because Muslims believe the scripture Prophet Muhammad received in the 7th century from the angel Gabriel to be the "true word of God."

But the Koran, like the Bible, presents problems of interpretation because of contradictory passages about vengeance, war and peace.  In one instance, the Koran advocates doing a good deed for an enemy instead of retaliating against him.  "We ordained therein for them: 'Life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth,and wounds equal for equal,' " says Surah (Chapter) 5.  "But if any one remits the retaliation by way of charity, it is an act of atonement for himself."

-more-

[chriswise]

Labing taasa basahon,,ning ingyong gi pang post labay2x ra ning akoa,,Sa akong pobring pang huna2x gikasubo gayod nako ang nahitabo sa kalibutan ron labi na sa mga dapit sa kamusliman,,Gigamit na nila ang religion sa Politics,,tataw kaayo na ang duha ka sanga sa muslim sunni og shia,,nag ilog karon kinsay mo dominar sa muslim,Klaro kaayo na gigamit ang religion pag aghat  sa mga tawo mo alsa..bahin sa kristiyanos karon masmaayo gayod na buwag ang simbahan og ang goberno kay mamansahan lang simbahan sa mga di maong tomong og toyo sa goberno na gi pa od sa sa simbahan....

[islander]

klaro ang imong paghagpat, chris.  (kumusta ang imong new year tuod?)  akong pagsabot nimo, ang relihiyon gigamit sa politikong tumong mao nga kun unsa may gubot nga mahitabo, di angay basulon ang relihiyon.  hinaot unta nga sakto ang akong pagsabot sa imong buot ipasabot.

[islander]

Looking for Answers In Islam's Holy Book, continued...


Just a few verses earlier is this harsh warning to infidels: "The punishment of those who wage war against God and His Apostle, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter."

In Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Torah in the Hebrew Bible, Moses shares this fiery message from God as the Israelites prepare to enter the Promised Land: "I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy."

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus amends an Old Testament call for vengeance with a pronouncement that might have been the source for the similar text in the Koran: "Ye have heard . . . An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on they right cheek, turn to him the other also."

Yet a few chapters later, Jesus makes a pronouncement that has perplexed Christians for centuries. "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth," Jesus tells his disciples. "I came not to send peace, but a sword." The words of the Koran, which is about the same length as the New Testament, are infallible -- but only in the original Arabic. Tradition holds that other languages cannot approach the Arabic in style and accuracy, so Muslims are required to read, recite and pray in Arabic.

http://groups.yahoo.com/

[islander]

But some Arabic words present differing interpretations for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, said Barbara Stowasser, a Koranic scholar and director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

The most controversial example is jihad, whose noun and verb forms appear more than 30 times in the 114 chapters, or surahs, in the Koran, Stowasser said.  In English translations, the word appears variously as "struggle," "strive" or "fight."

But in any language, mainstream Muslim scholars say, jihad refers primarily to the inner faith struggle of the believer, not to physical confrontation.  They often recite a statement attributed to Muhammad after he returned from battle: "We are returning from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad -- jihad against the self."

Osama bin Laden and other Muslim extremists "pick and choose" passages from the Koran to support a global jihad, or holy war, against the United States and other countries, Stowasser said, citing a passage from Surah 9 that is sometimes used by militant Muslims.

more at http://groups.yahoo.com/ or at Washington Post, Saturday, September 29, 2001; Page B09

[islander]

The Danger of a Single Story: Persecution of Muslims in America

By Bryan Farris
October 7, 2010



In July 2009, Chimamanda Adichie, a renowned Nigerian author, spoke at TEDGlobal about the danger of a single story.  In her talk, Chimamanda discussed the single story that has been told about Africa throughout modern literature.  You know that story well; it is a story of poverty, corruption, inefficiency and beautiful animals.  Chimamanda pointed out, “The single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.  They make one story become the only story.”

Truer words could not be spoken; despite what you find in books, Africa is a wonderful multidimensional place.  When I first visited the continent, I realized that I held stereotypes which limited my expectations.  The tall buildings of Nairobi shocked me, as did the high quality shopping centers of Lusaka, Zambia.  As I found it, many Africans are poor, but many are wealthy as well.  Some Africans may be corrupt, but many are honest, hard workers.  As Chimamanda described, Africa is not what most literature would lead you to believe.  For every negative stereotype you hold, there are many unsaid positives. 

Describing herself, Chimamanda said, “all of these stories are part of who I am, but to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me.”  I firmly believe that the same goes for Africa as a whole.

http://risingpyramid.org/
-blue underscoring mine

[islander]

However, this post is not about Africa; it’s about the story of Muslims in America.  As I watched Chimamanda Adichie’s talk recently, it struck me that the American media is telling a single story of Muslims, a terrible, ugly story.  We are persecuting peace-loving Muslims for wanting to open a mosque at Ground Zero.  While I understand that there is a great deal of pain and suffering associated with the location, it is important to keep in mind who actually caused that pain and that we live in a ‘free’ country.  We are applying stereotypes to all Muslims, just because the September 11th attacks happened to be carried out by very radical followers of Islam.  Muslims are not terrorists.  But, that is the single story we tell.

http://risingpyramid.org/
-blue underscoring mine

[islander]

In her talk, Chimamanda exclaimed, “The consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity.  It makes our recognition of an equal humanity difficult; it emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.”

Today, so many non-Muslim Americans don’t recognize how much all of us have in common, how we share the same values, dreams and even the same challenges.  Recently Nicholas Kristof wrote, “Many Americans honestly believe that Muslims are prone to violence, but humans are too complicated and diverse to lump into groups that we form invidious conclusions about.  We’ve mostly learned that about [African Americans], Jews and other groups that suffered historic discrimination, but it’s still O.K. to make sweeping statements about “Muslims” as an undifferentiated mass.”  Truly, we have become blinded by the stories we tell.

http://risingpyramid.org/
-blue underscoring mine

[Lorenzo]

Muslim Persecution of Christians: The Christmas Edition


 by Raymond Ibrahim, January 6, 2012


The Nigerian church bombings, wherein the Islamic group Boko Haram killed over 40 people celebrating Christmas mass, is just the most obvious example of anti-Christian sentiment in December.  Elsewhere around the Muslim world, Christmas time for Christians is a time of increased threats, harassment, and fear, which is not surprising, considering Muslim clerics maintain that “saying Merry Christmas is worse than fornication or killing someone.” A few examples:

• Egypt: The Coptic Church is being threatened with a repeat of “Nag Hammadi,” the area where drive-by Muslims shot to death six Christians as they exited church after celebrating Christmas mass in 2010. Due to fears of a repeat, the diocese has “cancel[ed] all festivities for New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve.”

• Indonesia:  In a “brutal act” that has “strongly affected the Catholic community,” days before Christmas, “vandals decapitated the statue of the Virgin Mary in a small grotto … a cross was stolen and the aspersorium was badly damaged.”

• Iran: There were reports of a sharp increase of activities against Christians prior to Christmas by the State Security centers of the Islamic Republic. Local churches were “ordered to cancel Christmas and New Year’s celebrations as a show of their compliance and support” for “the two month-long mourning activities of the Shia’ Moslems.”

• Malaysia:  Parish priests and church youth leaders had to get “caroling” permits—requiring them to submit their full names and identity card numbers at police stations—simply to “visit their fellow church members and belt out ‘Joy to the World,’ [or] ‘Silent Night, Holy Night.’”

• Pakistan: “Intelligence reports warned of threats of terrorist attacks on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day,” adding that most church security is “inadequate.”  Christians also lamented that “extreme power outages have become routine during Christmas and Easter seasons.”

Meanwhile, if Christians under Islam are forced to live like dhimmis—non-Muslims under Muslim authority, treated as second-class citizens—in the West, voluntarily playing the dhimmi to appease Muslims during Christmas time is commonplace: the University of London held Christmas service featuring readings from the Quran (which condemns the incarnation, that is, Christmas); and “a posh Montreal suburb has decided to remove a nativity scene and menorah from town hall rather than acquiesce to demands from a Muslim group to erect Islamic religious symbols.”
Categorized by theme, the rest of December’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed according to theme and in country alphabetical order, not necessarily severity.

CHURCH ATTACKS
Ethiopia: A video of some 500 Muslims burning down a church on November 29 while crying “Allahu Akbar!” appeared.  The pretext for burning this church was that it had no “permit”—even though it was built on land owned by Christians for 60 years.


Indonesia: An “Islamic extremist” group is pushing hard to have five churches demolished, again, to claims that the churches have no permit. The congregation of another “embattled church” that Muslims are trying to shut down “was forced to move its Christmas prayers to a member’s house after Islamic groups assembled at the disputed site making threats.

Iran: While celebrating Christmas, a church was raided by State Security. All those present, including Sunday school children, were arrested and interrogated.  Hundreds of Christian books were seized.  The detained Christians suffered “considerable verbal abuses”; the whereabouts of others arrested, including the reverend and his wife, remain unknown. “Raids and detentions during the Christmas season are not uncommon in Iran, a Shi’a-majority country that is seen as one of the worst persecutors of religious minorities.”

Nigeria: Weeks before the Christmas Day church bombings, another jihadi attack, enabled by “local Muslims,” left five churches destroyed and several Christians killed: “The Muslims in this town were going round town pointing out church buildings and shops owned by Christians to members of Boko Haram, and they in turn bombed these churches and shops.”

Turkey: A large-scale al-Qaeda plot to bomb “all the churches in Ankara,” was exposed.  An official indictment against al-Qaeda members earlier arrested revealed the homegrown terrorist cell’s plans to attack Ankara’s churches and their Christian clergy.


http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/06/muslim-persecution-of-christians-the-christmas-edition/

[Lorenzo]

APOSTASY, BLASPHEMY, and PROSELYTISM


Algeria: In May, a Muslim convert to Christianity was sentenced to a five-year prison term on charges of “insulting Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and with ‘proselytism’ for giving a Muslim a CD about Christianity.” Now the judge has decided “to indefinitely postpone” the man’s appeal, thus “show[ing how] the judicial system keeps Christians in limbo without officially punishing or acquitting them.”


Kashmir: The top Islamic clergyman launched a website against apostasy and the conversion of Muslims to Christianity.  The website works to “check the conversion of young [Muslim] boys and girls [to Christianity]”; its “fundamental goal” is to “thwart catastrophic [Christian] missionary activities.”


Iran: Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who caught the attention of the world after being imprisoned and awaiting execution for leaving Islam, may have to wait another year for a ruling on whether the sentence will be upheld, as authorities continue to delay, in the hopes that the world will forget.  Meanwhile, authorities continue “to pressure Nadarkhani to recant his faith,” giving him and ordering him to read “Islamic literature aimed at discrediting the Bible. The court reportedly has been told to use whatever means necessary to compel Nadarkhani to recant his faith.”  Another convert to Christianity recently told of his experiences: “When my family and friends learned of my decision, they didn’t accept it and rejected me as a result. They made me leave our family home. In addition, my friends treated me like my family had and began calling me an apostate and an infidel. In Iran, anyone who converts to Christianity faces various problems. In spite of the love I had for my family, I had to leave my home. Everyone rejected me.”

Malaysia:  Lamenting that “It could be hundreds, maybe even thousands” of Muslims converting to Christianity, a former state-commissioner has been “collecting data” to “persuade” the apostates to return to Islam: “We are helping them, hoping they will come back to Islam.” Likewise, the Sultan of Selangor, a Malaysian state, has ordered top-level Islamic organizations to take strategic steps against proselytism, “so that Muslims who have began distancing themselves from Islam will return to the fold and repent.”

Pakistan:  After a Muslim family discovered their son had converted to Christianity, not only did “his father put up a notice in local newspapers disowning him,” but his family “file[d] a police complaint against him because—as a murtad or apostate deserving death—he was said to have committed “blasphemy.” Likewise, after a rent-related quarrel, a Muslim landlord accused his Christian tenant of desecrating the Quran, which led to crowds of Muslims surrounding the Christian’s house, making threats and hurling anti-Christian slogans; “Muslim leaders made announcements from several mosques calling for severe punishment.” He was arrested and charged under Pakistan’s “blasphemy” laws, which make willful desecration of the Quran punishable with life imprisonment.


http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/06/muslim-persecution-of-christians-the-christmas-edition/

[Lorenzo]

Threatening Shadows Over Egypt
By Robert S. Wistrich

The Muslim Brotherhood did not initiate the current upheavals in the Middle East, but the Islamist parties in Egypt, as in Tunisia and Libya, have been the chief beneficiaries of the collapse of long-standing authoritarian repressive regimes across North Africa. In Egypt itself, the two largest Islamist groups (the Brotherhood and the Salafists) won about three quarters of the ballots in the second round of legislative elections held in December 2011, while the secular and the liberal forces took a battering. The Brotherhood (which garnered over 40% of the votes) is an organization founded by an Egyptian schoolteacher, Hassan el Banna, back in 1928. It has never deviated from its founder’s central axiom:

“Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Koran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

It is this radical vision which animates all those in the region who seek a fully Islamic society and way of life.

The Muslim Brotherhood has always been deeply anti-Western, viscerally hostile to Israel and openly anti-Semitic – points usually downplayed in Western commentary on the “Arab Spring.” Indeed, the anti-Jewish conspiracy theories promoted by the Brotherhood and its affiliated preachers are in a class of their own. This is especially true of Egyptian-born Yusuf al-Qaradawi, undoubtedly the most celebrated Muslim Brotherhood cleric in the world. The still vigorous 84-year-old, often misleadingly depicted in the West as a “moderate,” flew in from Qatar to Cairo’s Tahrir Square on February 18, 2011 to lead a million-strong crowd in Friday prayers, thereby ending 50 years of exile from his native land. He called for pluralistic democracy in Egypt while at the same time offering the hope “that Almighty Allah will also please me with the conquest of the al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].”

Two years earlier, in a notorious commentary on Al-Jazeera TV (January 28, 2009), the “moderate” Qaradawi had provided religious justification for both past and future Holocausts:

Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the Jews people who would punish them for their corruption…The last punishment was carried out by [Adolf] Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them…Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers.
In other words, the loathing of Jews, the Holocaust and the destruction of Israel by Muslims were linked by Qaradawi as things mandated by God himself.

Regarding Israel and the Jews, fundamentalist Muslim attitudes have never deviated since the 1940s. Islamist ideologues, despite their virulent anti-Westernism, have had no problem in drawing on Western sources for their radical anti- Semitism – whether these libels come from Protocols of the Elders of Zion forgery, Henry Ford’s The International Jew, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, fantasies about Judeo-Masonic plots, or have their origin in Christian anti-Talmudism, medieval blood-libels and the slanders of contemporary or Holocaust deniers in America and Europe.

The current swelling of Islamist ranks within Egypt and across the Arab world has hardly improved matters. At a vocal Muslim Brotherhood rally in Cairo’s most prominent mosque on November 25, 2011, Islamic activists ominously chanted “Tel Aviv, judgment day has come,” vowing to “one day kill all Jews.” The rally, which sought to promote the “battle against Jerusalem’s judaization,” was peppered with hate-filled speeches about the “treacherous Jews.” There were explicit calls for Jihad and liberating all of Palestine as well as references to a well-known hadith concerning the future Muslim annihilation of the Jews. Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University (the most senior clerical authority in Sunni Islam) even claimed that Jews throughout the world were seeking to prevent Egyptian and Islamic unity, as well as trying to “Judaize al-Quds [Jerusalem].”

This kind of incitement and the pressure from the Egyptian street does not mean that the fragile peace treaty with Israel will be cancelled overnight. But calls for such a step have been repeatedly heard in recent months even from the “liberal” and more “progressive” sectors of the political spectrum as well as from the Islamist parties.

Dr. Rashad Bayoumi, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, bluntly told the Arabic daily al-Hayat on the first day of 2012 that his organization will never “recognize Israel at all”, whatever the circumstances. Israel, he emphasized, was a “criminal enemy” with whom Egypt should never have signed a peace treaty in the first place. If this treaty is not to be abrogated, much will depend on the United States making clear to Egypt how dire the economic and political consequences for its well-being would be.

It is particularly chilling to note that the Islamic wave already dominates not only in Iran, which is on the verge of nuclear weapons, but also in Turkey, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, the Gaza strip under Hamas and the Lebanese state, currently in the iron grip of Hezbollah. Apart from seeking to impose Shariah law, and to further downgrade the status of women – while repressing Copts and other non Muslim minorities – the neo-Islamist movements and regimes remain as determined as ever to wipe out Israel and to radically reduce American influence in the region. Needless to say, like the Brotherhood itself, Islamists consider themselves to be the sole authentic interpreters of the Divine will.

In the face of this mounting fundamentalist danger, Israel has no choice but to consolidate its deterrent capacity, close ranks and treat with the upmost skepticism any siren voices calling on it to take unreasonable “risks for peace." At the same time it will have to develop a new regional strategy that takes into account the seismic changes currently shaking the Middle East.

Prof. Robert S. Wistrich is the director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of A Lethal Obsession: Antisemitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (Random House, 2010).

[Lorenzo]

Muslim U.S. soldier converted to Islam on Internet, traveled to Kenya with Qur'an and Islamic texts to join jihad terror group



How did he come to misunderstand the Qur'an's beautiful message of peace and depiction of jihad as an interior spiritual struggle? Why does this happen so often to devout readers of the Qur'an? There are two questions we can be sure that investigators will not care or dare to look into.

More on this story. "Craig Baxam, ex-U.S. soldier, charged with trying to aid terror group al-Shabab," by Matt Zapotosky for the Washington Post, January 9 (thanks to all who sent this in):

...In an interview with FBI agents outlined in the complaint, Baxam admitted a willingness to commit violence, though mostly in defending al-Shabab’s Somali territories from potential invaders. He told the agents that he was specifically seeking al-Shabab — not al-Qaeda — and that he felt offensive jihad was questionable.
Of course. There can be no offensive jihad without a caliph, according to traditional Islamic theology. That's why modern-day jihadists cast their jihads as defensive, as defensive jihad is always permitted -- indeed, required, if a Muslim land is attacked.

Still, Baxam acknowledged that al-Shabab was sometimes responsible for suicide bombings, according to the complaint, and he said he was “looking for dying with a gun in my hand” and would be happy to die defending Islam. He also said al-Shabab’s practice of beating people seen on the street during what is supposed to be prayer time was “awesome.”
Why Baxam became fascinated with al-Shabab and radical Islam remains unclear. A 2005 graduate of Laurel High School who was born in Takoma Park, Baxam joined the U.S. Army in 2007 and completed advanced training in cryptology and intelligence, according to the criminal complaint. He served in Baghdad, then reenlisted for a year-long stint in South Korea.

Baxam left the Army in July — a month before his term was over and about a week after he had “secretly” converted to Islam, according to the complaint. Baxam told agents that he discovered Islam while he was browsing the Internet and had no previous religious affiliation. An online article he read about the Islamic day of judgment “spoke to” him, authorities wrote in the complaint, and he read more.

Baxam’s plan to reach al-Shabab, though, was something less than ironclad. He set out with only a Koran and some other religious texts, a prayer mat, towel and razors, according to the complaint. He carried about $700 in cash and planned to donate it to al-Shabab.

After making his way to Mombasa, then Malindi, Baxam told a taxi driver to take him “as far north as possible” in Kenya, according to the complaint. Dropped off in a city whose name he could not recall, he tried to take a bus to the northern city of Garissa, according to the complaint. He was arrested on that bus by Kenyan police, who suspected that he was trying to travel to Somalia, according to the complaint....

Baxam told FBI agents that after his military service he worked for a television services company in Maryland but spent much of his time reading and praying, according to the complaint. He soon decided that he needed to move somewhere governed by sharia law, according to the complaint, so he set off for Somalia....


http://www.jihadwatch.org/

[Lorenzo]

Pakistani Christian editor receiving death threats for reporting on persecution of Christians



The uniformity of the language in Islamic supremacist hate mail is striking. It is so formulaic that one could all but program an automatic jihad-mail generator to do one's hating and kick back with a cup of tea. The language here is reminiscent of what we and others have received over the years. Did those guys call each other? Or could there possibly be some other reason they seem to "misunderstand" Islam with such striking uniformity?

"Christian editor receives death threats from Pakistan Islamists," by Ahmar Mustikhan for the Examiner, January 6:

A Pakistani Christian editor has said he receives hate mails and death threats on a daily basis from Pakistan for carrying reports on the persecution of Christians in the South Asian country.
Dr. Nazir S. Bhatti, editor of the Pakistan Christian Post who doubles as founder of Pakistan Christian Congress, Thursday received one such email in whch Aasia Bibi, who is languishing in jail for alleged blasphemy, and former Punjab governor Salman Taseer and minorities affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti, who were assassinated last year for crusading to end the blasphemy law, were called harami or bastards.
A defiant Bhatti said Christians are sons of soil not descendants of Muslim invaders. Over the centuries, Muslim invaders massacred 80 million Hindus to convert India into Islam.
Bhatti posted the hate email on his Facebook page Thursday.
“I have read some of your media and it disturbs me very greatly that your media is responsible for sympathizing with the criminal, dirty harami woman Aasia Bibi, who insulted our beloved Prophet (Peace be upon him). .... Furthermore, your media has been portraying such haramis like Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti as "shaheeds" (martyrs), they are both haramis and jahannamis (destined for hell) and gustakh e Rasool (blasphemer of prophet).”
The writer told Bhatti, "I would like to remind you of one very important fact. Pakistan is an Islamic nation. It is a nation for Muslims, by Muslims, of Muslims."
Pakistan like neighboring Iran and Saudi Arabia is officially an Islamic republic where only a Muslim can become the head of state or government.
"Now you people are not Muslims, and you are not Pakistanis, but you are only guests who happen to live in Pakistan. Truth be told, we do not like you people, and would rather you leave our beautiful country. You can go to Europe or America, but we do not like you to live in Pakistan, the land which is Paak (pure)..
"All of Pakistan is behind Hazrat Ghazi e Millat, Mumtaz Hussain Qadri.... we will make life for you in Pakistan a living hell, I swear to God so don’t forget it.”
In fact, many in the West were stunned as lawyers in Rawalpindi, headquarters of the Pakistan military, garlanded the alleged Qadri and took out rallies in his favor.
After killing Governor Taseer, militants abducted his young son Shahbaz Taseer as a way to protect his killer Qadri.


Christains are routinely killed, forcibly converted and raped in Pakistan, but the culprits are never brought to justice.




http://www.jihadwatch.org/

[islander]

...Persecution of Muslims in America, continued

However, it is never too late to start rebuilding what we have broken.  Chimamanda was very clear that stories matter; “stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.  Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.” 

In his column, Kristof spoke on behalf of Americans, saying, “I hereby apologize to Muslims for the wave of bigotry and simple nuttiness that has lately been directed at you.  The venom on the airwaves, equating Muslims with terrorists, should embarrass us more than you.” 

If you share Kristof’s embarrassment, then please start sharing the other stories of Muslims, the stories about peace and about kindness because those are too often left behind. [To get you started, here are a few stories about the humanity of Muslims: here and here.]*  Muslims in Pakistan today are struggling through one of the largest catastrophes in history and through it all they are exhibiting compassion for one another and humanity.  As another example, in my last post I wrote about a powerful positive message delivered by Eboo Patel, an American Muslim.  The Muslims in these stories are humans who deserve the same dignity and respect that anyone else ought to have.

http://risingpyramid.org/
-blue underscoring mine
*a connection to another website

[islander]

If we are to bring real change to the poor at the bottom of the economic pyramid (BoP), then we have to have an attitude of tolerance and acceptance.  Our work has to be firmly rooted in strong, moral values.  Through evidence of honor killings, female genital mutilation and sex trafficking, the book Half the Sky demonstrates that prejudice exits amongst those we are trying to serve.  How can we preach tolerance and acceptance of all if we can’t practice it at home?

I want to leave you with the final quote from Chimamanda Achibie’s talk.  The single story we are telling about Muslims in America is a very dangerous one, but we can still refuse to allow that to be the only story.  She said, “When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place [or people], we regain a kind of paradise.”  Let’s work on building paradise here in America.

- Bryan

http://risingpyramid.org/

[Lorenzo]

Spencer: Santorum more realistic than Romney and Paul on jihad



In Human Events this morning, I discuss several of the candidates who will be facing off up in New Hampshire today:

After Rick Santorum​’s surprising show in Iowa, he may be the only candidate standing between Mitt Romney​ and the Republican nomination. But there is no contest between the two as to which demonstrates a more realistic understanding of the threat of jihad and Islamic supremacism. In that arena, Santorum wins hands down.
“Jihadism is evil and we need to say what it is,” Santorum said last March. “We need to define it and say what it is. And it is evil. Sharia law is incompatible with American jurisprudence and our Constitution.” He added correctly, and in sharp contrast to the prevailing view, that “Sharia law is not just a religious code. It is also a governmental code. It happens to be both religious in nature and origin, but it is a civil code. And it is incompatible with the civil code of the United States.”

Even though he made these remarks almost a year ago, as he rises in prominence, Santorum is going to get a lot of heat for this. The Islamic supremacist sympathizers in the mainstream media began calling to these remarks after the Iowa caucus, accusing Santorum of the phantom malady of “Islamophobia.”

One would hope that in response to these accusations Santorum would ask Leftist reporters (and Ron Paul, who recently accused him of “hating Muslims”) if they think that Sharia provisions such as the death penalty for apostates, stoning for adultery, amputation of the hand for theft, the denial of freedom of speech and institutionalized second-class status for women and non-Muslims are not evil.

If Santorum did that, it is likely that the media would then highlight some smooth Islamic supremacist deceiver who would claim that those things are not part of Sharia; however, there is not a single Muslim country that has ever implemented Sharia without implementing those measures, or one school of Islamic jurisprudence that does not teach such things. So Rick Santorum is on firm ground.

Mitt Romney, by contrast, is sinking into the quicksand of politically correct half-truths and untruths about Islam and jihad. Recently he claimed that violent Islamic jihadists “take a very different view of Islam than the Muslims I know.” He said that the Muslims he knew in Detroit were “peace-loving and America-loving individuals. I believe that very sincerely. I believe people of the Islamic faith do not have to subscribe to the idea of radical, violent jihadism.” Romney has even gone so far as to claim that “there is, however, a movement in the world known as jihadism” that is “by no means a branch of Islam. It is instead an entirely different entity. In no way do I suggest it is a part of Islam.”

This is tantamount to saying that the local post office is by no means a branch of the U.S. Postal Service, or that golf has nothing to do with the country-club left-leaning Republicanism that Romney represents....



http://www.jihadwatch.org/

[Lorenzo]

It is a shame that so many innocent Christians are being killed and persecuted so violently in these areas. May The Lord Jesus Christ protect them and support them in their times of trial....

[islander]

lorenz's latest source of muslim bashing articles:  http://www.jihadwatch.org/

Jihad Watch is a blog affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which is run independently by American author Robert Spencer.  It is considered an important platform for the counterjihad movement.

According to the website, a theology of violent jihad, which denies non Muslims equality, human rights, and dignity, has been present throughout the history of Islam. Jihad Watch says that it is "dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts."  It has been called "Islamophobic" by opponents who say it portrays Islam and it followers in a negative light.  Spencer has rebutted that criticism. (excerpts from wikipedia)

[islander]

Criticism

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called Jihad Watch an "Internet hate site" and claimed it is "notorious for its depiction of Islam as an inherently violent faith that is a threat to world peace."  Guardian writer Brian Whitaker described Jihad Watch as a "notoriously Islamophobic website", while other critics such as Dinesh D'Souza, Karen Armstrong, and Cathy Young, pointed to what they see as "deliberate mischaracterizations" of Islam and Muslims by Spencer as inherently violent and therefore prone to terrorism.

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in her book Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, wrote that Spencer uses Jihad Watch to spread misinformation and hatred of Islam.  She added that he presents a skewed, one-sided, and inflammatory story that only helps to sow the seed of civilizational conflict.  The websites Spencer Watch and Loon Watch were founded in reaction to Spencer and the Jihad Watch website and critique the cogency of Spencer's criticisms. (wikipedia excerpts)