Todayz Newz

by Cinnamon Stillwell
American Thinker
November 15, 2009

Reposted from the Middle East Forum

In the wake of the horrific attack at the Fort Hood military base in Texas earlier this month, and the mounting evidence that the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was motivated by Islamist beliefs, the media has turned to Middle East studies “experts” for enlightenment. Instead, what the media, and, by extension, the American public, has received is the moral relativism and obfuscation that too often meets any effort to address Islamism or jihadism in an intellectually honest manner.

Writing for the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog, John Esposito, professor and founding director of the Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, extends his long tradition of issuing apologias for radical Islam by conflating Hasan’s actions with “extremists” of all religions. In the process, he professes ignorance as to why there might be suspicion directed towards Islam in the wake of 9/11, the worst Islamic terrorist attack in U.S. history:

Why this common tendency and double standard towards Islam and Muslims post-9/11? We judge the religion and majority of mainstream Muslims by the acts of an individual or an aberrant minority of extremists. Yet, when Jewish fundamentalists kill a prime minister or innocent Palestinians or Christian extremists blow up abortion clinics or assassinate their physicians, somehow the media is capable of sticking to all the facts and distinguishing between the use and abuse of a religion.

Having written this post while news of Hasan’s fanatical leanings and possible terrorist connections was still developing, Esposito warns against a “rush to judgment” that might, as he puts it, “negatively impact the American public’s perception of Islam.” Heaven forbid Americans start to suspect that Islam itself contains the seeds for Islamism. Contrary to popular belief, this awareness need not implicate all Muslims. Rather, it asks the faithful to address Islamist violence and aggression by implementing theological and cultural reform.

Esposito continues the moral equivalency and non sequiturs in a later “On Faith” post:

by Raymond Ibrahim
Pajamas Media
November 18, 2009

Posted in the Middle East Forum

One of the difficulties in discussing Islam’s more troubling doctrines is that they have an anachronistic, even otherworldly, feel to them; that is, unless actively and openly upheld by Muslims, non-Muslims, particularly of the Western variety, tend to see them as abstract theory, not standard practice for today. In fact, some Westerners have difficulties acknowledging even those problematic doctrines that are openly upheld by Muslims — such as jihad. How much more when the doctrines in question are subtle, or stealthy, in nature?

Enter Nidal Malik Hasan, the psychiatrist, U.S. Army major, and “observant Muslim who prayed daily,” who recently went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, killing thirteen Americans (including a pregnant woman). While the media wonders in exasperation why he did it, offering the same old tired and trite reasons — he was “picked on,” he was “mentally unbalanced” — the fact is his behavior comports well with certain Islamic doctrines. As such, it behooves Americans to take a moment and familiarize themselves with the esotericisms of Islam.

Note: Any number of ulema (Muslim scholars) have expounded the following doctrines. However, since jihadi icon and theoretician Ayman Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two, has also addressed many of these doctrines in his treatises, including by quoting several authoritative ulema, I will primarily rely on excerpts from The Al Qaeda Reader (AQR), for those readers who wish to source, and read in context, the following quotes in one volume.

Wala’ wa Bara’

Perhaps best translated as “loyalty and enmity,” this doctrine requires Muslims to maintain absolute loyalty to Islam and one another, while disavowing, even hating (e.g., Koran 60:4), all things un-Islamic — including persons (a.k.a. “infidels”). This theme has ample support in the Koran, hadith, and rulings of the ulema, that is, usul al-fiqh (roots of Muslim jurisprudence). In fact, Zawahiri has written a fifty-page treatise entitled “Loyalty and Enmity” (AQR, p. 63-115).

One of the many Koranic verses on which he relies warns Muslims against “taking the Jews and Christians as friends and allies … whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he is surely one of them” (Koran 5:51), i.e., he becomes an infidel. The plain meaning of this verse alone — other verses, such as 3:28, 4:144, and 6:40 follow this theme — and its implications for today can hardly be clearer. According to one of the most authoritative Muslim exegetes, al-Tabari (838-923), Koran 5:51 means that the Muslim who “allies with them [non-Muslims] and enables them against the believers, that same one is a member of their faith and community” (AQR, p. 71).

Sheikh al-Islam, Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328), takes the concept of loyalty one step further when he tells Muslims that they are “obligated to befriend a believer — even if he is oppressive and violent towards you and must be hostile to the infidel, even if he is liberal and kind to you” (AQR, p. 84).

In ways, Hasan’s life was a testimony to loyalty and enmity. According to his colleague, Dr. Finnell, Hasan “was very vocal about the war, very upfront about being a Muslim first and an American second.” If his being “vocal about the war” is not enough to demonstrate unwavering loyalty to Islam, his insistence that he is first and foremost a Muslim is. Other evidence indicates that the primary factor that threw him “over the edge” was that he was being deployed to a Muslim country (Afghanistan) — his “worst nightmare.”

According to a fellow Muslim convenience store owner who often spoke with Hasan, the thought that he might injure or kill Muslims “weighed heavily on him.” Hasan also counseled a fellow Muslim not to join the U.S. Army, since “Muslims shouldn’t kill Muslims,” again, showing where his loyalty lies. Tabari’s exegesis comes to mind: the Muslim who “allies with them [non-Muslims] and enables them against the believers, that same one is a member of their faith and community,” i.e., he too becomes an infidel (AQR, p. 71).

Another source who spoke with Hasan notes that “in the Koran, you’re not supposed to have alliances with Jews or Christian or others, and if you are killed in the military fighting against Muslims, you will go to hell.”

At any rate, surely none of this should come as a surprise. In April 2005, another Muslim serving in the U.S. Army, Hasan Akbar, was convicted of murder for killing two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait. According to the AP, “he launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq.”

Taqiyya

This doctrine, which revolves around deceiving the infidel, is pivotal to upholding loyalty and enmity wherever and whenever Muslim minorities live among non-Muslim majorities.

In an article in the December 5, 2009 issue of World Magazine, author Lynn Vincent hits the nail on the head: U.S. analysts, constrained by politics, are loath to conclude and publicize what the facts already show: that jihadist Muslims who state that they kill non-Muslims because their religious ideology demands it are in fact doing so. They have successfully infiltrated the United States from foreign countries, have won and radicalized Muslim converts among U.S. citizens, and—if the uptick in busted plots is any indication—are planning violence at an increasing rate.”

The article mentions five separate “lone wolf” incidents of Islamist-style jihadist attacks that were discovered this year and halted in time, before anyone actually lost their lives. Then, almost as if it was an oversight, one slipped through the cracks: Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, in what some are calling the worst case since 9-11 of domestic terrorism. But our government and military leaders are not so quick to draw such a conclusion.

It is only through continuing willful ignorance that we will see more and more of these acts perpetrated on our soil. Until our leaders recognize these events for what they are, they will be unable to form a strategy to counter them.

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch is interviewed by an acquaintance of mine, Nabeel Qureshi who, along with David Wood, comprise the Acts17 Apologetics Ministry. I was with David and Nabeel this past summer in Dearborn when the now infamous Shari’a in America video was made, which now has over 1.6 million hits on YouTube.

Note at about 4:30 into the interview, Nabeel asks Robert if there is any hope or if there is any light at the end of the tunnel. Spencer says there is no solving this problem; there is only managing it. I have to disagree. The problem will be solved when Muslims worldwide meet the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ himself and yield to Him as Lord and Savior. Being the good Catholic man he is, Robert Spencer should know this.

Major Nadal Malik Hasan

None dare call what happened in Texas by its real name: Sudden Jihad Syndrome.

by Ebrahim Ashabi

Islamist Perfidy and Western Naivety
Which Is More Lethal?

by Raymond Ibrahim
Pajamas Media
November 9, 2009
http://www.meforum.org/2496/islamist-perfidy-western-naivety

In a blog entry for Islamist Watch, David J. Rusin shows how the word “jihad” continues to be euphemized in the West. Despite Islamic law’s unequivocal portrayal of it as a military endeavor to empower Islam, jihad is still being peddled as “nothing more than a student laboring to pass algebra, a mom driving her kids to soccer practice, or, in the words of the Cambridge study, a civic-minded person engaged in ‘lobbying, activism, and writing’ — a community organizer of sorts.” Rusin concludes by observing: “Why Islamists peddle such specious definitions should be clear. More baffling and disturbing is why they gain traction among so many Westerners.”

Indeed, therein lies the irony: Islamist perfidy is only to be expected; Western naivety, on the other hand, which, if anything, should have begun to dissipate in our post-9/11 world, has burgeoned to the point of nearly making the former unnecessary. For while there is no doubt that Islamists (and their misguided Western cronies) distort the meaning of jihad, increasingly, even when the true meaning is in plain sight, America’s leaders and media still fail to discern it. In other words, apathy — or willful blindness — regarding jihad has become so deep-seated in the West that Islamists need no longer actively dissemble.

Consider: When President Barack Hussein Obama addressed the Islamic world from Cairo on June 4, 2009, he said: “As the Holy Koran tells us, ‘Be conscious of God and speak always the truth’ [Sura 9:119]. That is what I will try to do — to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us.” Let us for the moment put aside the fact that Sura 9, from whence Obama quotes, contains the most violent and intolerant exhortations in all the Koran (which is saying something). The problem here is that the original Arabic text of Sura 9:119 says absolutely nothing about “speaking the truth.” The word “speaking” is nowhere in the text, and “truth,” as an abstract, is a wrong translation for sadiqin, which refers to people. The verse most literally translates as “fear Allah and be with the truthful.” In other words, Muslims should stand firm with fellow Muslims (”truthful” serving as a Koranic epithet for “Muslims” the same way “believers” often does). It is, as ever, a call for divisiveness — of Muslims (the “truthful”) versus infidels (the “false”).

Last evening I got into a bit of a discussion on Facebook with someone who had a mutual friend with me. He was decrying all the ‘right-wingers’ who were attempting to label the shooting at Ft. Hood as an act of jihad perpetrated by a lone gunman. His position was that it was not jihad at all; it was just the random act of a madman with a gun, and none of this would have happened if guns were outlawed. And his position is not alone. I have heard this and a number of other theories put forth as to what drove Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan to do what he did. To me, they all seem to miss the obvious, and likely out of political correctness, or out of fear of being labeled a bigot or an Islamophobe (whatever that is).

Let’s look at the facts as we know them to be at this point in time:

• Hasan had attempted to contact al-Qaeda operatives
• Hasan posted anti-American slogans on a blog
• Hasan spoke openly against the war in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Hasan told fellow soldiers Muslims should not be fighting against other Muslims
• Hasan was disciplined for proselytizing patients in Islam
• At a meeting with senior Army staff more than a year ago, Hasan warned of “adverse events” if the military did not allow Muslims to opt out of assignment to Muslim nations as conscientious objectors.
• The morning of the shooting, Hasan sold and gave away all his personal possessions, in addition to passing out copies of the Qur’an
• According to eyewitnesses he shouted the words “Allahu Akhbar” just before opening fire

I am confident the ongoing investigation will reveal even more facts and details. But what is clear so far is that this was not a simple random act of violence perpetrated by a madman with a gun. This was clearly an act of jihad, albeit by one lone man, attempting to right the wrongs that have been committed against ‘Muslim brothers’ by the United States armed forces. Hasan clearly intended to die the day of the shooting. It appears he was unsuccessful.

How much longer must we endure the politically correct atmosphere in our government and our major media outlets? How many more acts of mass violence against Americans by radical Muslims must we endure before we recognize the enemy and call it by name: Radical Islam?