This article is not about Islam as a religion or most of the world’s Muslims. It is about combating an extreme version of Islam that is defined as Political Islam that claims to be the only true representation of the religion of Islam.
Political Islam and its hateful tentacles are as dangerous for the welfare of American Muslims as it is for non-Muslim citizens. Most global Muslim populations reject Political Islam as they are more apt to be victimized by its irrational fanaticisms than are non-Muslims.
The black flag: Middle-Eastern minorities are facing genocide (illustration by Michael Daley)
How we read the news is important. As far as the Middle East is concerned, the news is often slanted towards Western interests, whether commercial, military or security-related. It is not, of course, wrong to report and to interpret events in this way but, in doing so, we can miss something crucial that is going on in a nation or a region. It is even possible to say that what is missed could become crucial to international security or trade. That is not my primary concern here which is, rather, to ask what the events mean for the people living in these parts of the world, especially the minorities and the disadvantaged. That is to say, the "invisible" people.
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund
Last month I was in Damascus. I had the great privilege of meeting Dr Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti ofSyria. He is a man of peace who pleads repeatedly for equal and harmonious relations between Muslims, Christians and followers of all religions as members of one human family. Because of this stance, he has endured great abuse and criticism from some of his fellow Muslims and was targeted for assassination by the Saudis. Knowing that he would have good security and protection, the group of Islamist hit-men were instructed that, if they could not kill the Grand Mufti himself, they should kill one of his sons instead. In due course they murdered his teenage son. After some months, two of the perpetrators were caught and imprisoned. The Grand Mufti asked to see them and they were brought to him blindfolded. He instructed their blindfolds to be removed, and the two young men, discovering themselves face to face with the head of Sunni Islam inSyriaand the father of their victim, shook with fear. But, to their astonishment, the Grand Mufti gently reached out his hands to them and told them not to be afraid. He said that he did not want their mothers to weep as his own bereaved wife had wept for her son, and therefore he forgave them.
Dr Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti ofSyria
Last week I was in northernIraqand came face to face with the stark reality of another face of Islam, that of ISIS (the Islamic State ofIraqand the Levant, now calling itself simply the Islamic State). The sheer brutality of this face of Islam cannot be comprehended. It kills men, women and children, the elderly, the poor and the weak. It cuts in half little children and commits acts of ethnic cleansing that border on genocide. This behaviour is pure barbarism reminiscent of the early Assyrians and later Babylonians who once inhabited this region and were known for their immense cruelty.
The barbaric murder of American journalist James Foley by the radical Islamic caliphate Islamic State this week is a prime example of how President Obama just does not understand the world in which we live.
Back in January, President Obama spoke of Islamic State to theNew Yorker:
The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant. I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.
A member loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) waves an ISIL flag in Raqqa June 29, 2014.
Credits: REUTERS/Stringer
FARZANA HASSAN | QMI AGENCY
News from abroad about Islamist expansion makes for sombre reading.
The past weeks have plunged the world into a new wave of depravity, with reports of brutalized women, children buried alive, even severed heads.
But all that is, at least, "over there." What we do not expect is calls for jihad, the creation of caliphates and oppressive sharia regulations in the Greater Toronto Area.
I recently stumbled upon a gathering in the GTA promoting just such a revolution.
A caption announcing "Talk on Gaza and Al-Sham" (Syria) caught my eye.
Noon is the Arabic letter that represents (n) in English.It is the first letter in the Arabic word "Nasrani."This word was used in reference to Christians in the Quran. The letter, “Noon,” was the mark that “ISIS” painted on the homes of the Christians of Mosul, Iraq.It identified the home and business owners as citizens targeted for expulsion from the city where their Christian ancestors have lived for thousands of years.
ISIS later renamed itself as the "Islamic State."It invaded the Christian areas and took control.Soon after, they attacked the homes of Christians, their churches, and monasteries.They plundered household valuable and looted and destroyed irreplaceable archaeological treasures. In the end, they issued a statement to the Christians whom they had labeled “Nasrani” that they had only a few hours to make three monumental coerced decisions.
تمثيل الكنيسة للأقباط سياسيا لا يخدم الكنيسة أو الأقباط
بقلم منير بشاى
عاد موضوع تمثيل الكنيسة السياسى للاقباط للاضواء من جديد. وكان نيافة الانبا يؤنس اسقف الخدمات قد ادلى بتصريح للمهندس عزت بولس، مدير موقع الاقباط متحدون، ضمن حوار بمطار زيورخ، فى 6 يوليو 2014. حيث سأله المهندس عزت "هل الكنيسة ما زالت الممثل السياسى للاقباط؟" فكان رده "بالطبع الكنيسة هى الممثل السياسى للاقباط وستظل كذلك" ثم اضاف "ولكن نحن فى زمن يمكن لأى فرد ان يتحدث ويتكلم ولا يمكن منع أحدهم من التعبير عن رأيه".
والغريب ان ياتى هذا التصريح فى وقت كنا نظن ان الموضوع قد تم حسمه وان التوجه العام للكنيسة فى عهد قداسة البابا تواضروس هو الابتعاد بالكنيسة عن معترك السياسة، وهو ما اعلنه قداسته اكثر من مرة.
هذا الكلام خطير أتمنى ان يكون تعبيرا فقط عن رأى نيافة الانبا يؤنس وليس رأى قيادة الكنيسة كلها. ووجه الخطورة ان نيافة الاسقف يقدمه كمبدأ عام وليس كحالة طارئة اضطرت الكنيسة معها القيام بهذا الدور فى غياب دور علمانى فعّال.
Summer test for "Islamic State" call to young European radicals-EU official
* Caliphate declaration may attract radical students on summer break
* Caliphate, violence in Iraq show need for "immediate action"
* Nine EU countries agree to measures to counter jihadist risk
By Steve Scherer and Ilaria Polleschi
MILAN, July 8 (Reuters) - The long summer break will test the ability of the militant "Islamic State" group led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to draw radical Islamist students in Europe to fight in Iraq and Syria, an EU official said in Milan on Tuesday.
Dick Cheney: Obama Refusing to Recognize Global Spread of Radical Islam
By Sandy Fitzgerald
The United States is in "big trouble ahead" because of President Barack Obama's "refusal to recognize reality" and his emphasis on getting the United States to withdraw from the Middle East, according to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
OLD HABITSof denial die hard, even as we watch the 'Trojan Horse' disgorge its sinister cargo on our television screens. After the Ofsted report into an alleged plot by Islamist hardliners to take over Birmingham community schools, several Anglicans emailed me this week saying things like: 'I am so confused about this issue and torn between my views of tolerance and religious freedom and what seems to be going on. Also don't want to be gripped by fear.' And 'It’s hard to stay focused and to know whom to trust when I try to read articles on the political and social ramifications of Islam and Islamicism in Britain.'
Operation Trojan Horse is an alleged plot by Islamists to take over schools in England and run them to their agenda. The name, based on the Ancient Greek myth, came from a leaked letter discovered in March 2014, alleged to be from Islamists in Birmingham, specifying the steps to take in order to get a school under control and speculating on the possibility of expanding the conspiracy to other cities. While some staff have stated that they were removed from their posts in manners similar to those described in the letter, a number of governors and the Muslim Council of Britain have dubbed the reaction of authorities to the alleged plot a "witch hunt".[1][2][3]
Confidence in the ‘noble knight’: Gezery. Photo: Jayson Casper
THE FOUNDING FATHER of modern Coptic activism retires a happy man as Egyptian Christians celebrate the election of a new president as hope dawns for equality.
Two days before the vote that saw Abdel Fattah al-Sisi elected president, Hany el-Gezery, the 60-year old founder of Copts for Egypt, announced the dissolution of his pioneering movement.
Muslim Brotherhood, The beginning; The dream of restoring Khelafa and apply Sharia:
The idea of Muslim Brotherhood was born in Suez Canal city of Ismaelia in 1928 by primary school teacher, Hassan Elbana, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire with the aim to restore “Khelafa Islamiah” i.e Islamic Super state with a Muslim ruler who apply Sharia Islamiah “Islamic Rules and jurisprudence” to the full. The Muslim Brotherhood motto has always been “Allah is our goal, Quran is our constitution, the prophet is our leader, Jihad is our way and death in the cause of Allah is our highest objectives”, the emblem is here, two crossing swords under the Quran and below them is the Arabic word “Be prepared” a reminder of the Quranic verse “And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may terrify the enemy of Allah” Surah Al-Anfal 8.60. It is a call for war.
For the time being, Washington should pay no attention to anything Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood says in English and little attention to any private "assurances" it offers.
Amid new strains in U.S.-Egypt ties, some in Washington are studying the tensions and results of recent voting for indications that democracy can take hold. Those who say the Muslim Brotherhood is showing new signs of moderation should compare its message to outsiders, in English, with its message to Egyptians and other Arabs, in Arabic.
Armenian Christians are once more fleeing from the aggression of
Turkey and not surprisingly the Western nations sprouting international
law at the Russian Federation are deadly silent. Indeed, NATO Turkey is
allowed to occupy Northern Cyprus, cleanse Orthodox Christianity and to
create Turkish settlements based on their conquest; to enter Northern
Iraq in order to attack the Kurds when it pleases the elites in Ankara;
and NATO Turkey is allowed to be a base for international jihadists and a
zone for supplying military arms to terrorists, sectarians, and
mercenaries, that fight against the Syrian government. Therefore, the
recent involvement by Turkey in the cleansing of Armenian Christians in
Northern Syria appears to be one long continuation of past misdeeds.
Conversations between Morsi and terrorist leader revealed. By Raymond Ibrahim February 5, 2014 (Morning Star News) – As former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s trials continue, it’s enlightening to consider what is likely to be one of the centerpieces: longstanding accusations that Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood party worked with foreign terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, against the national security of Egypt.
Based on these accusations of high treason, Morsi and others could face the death penalty.
Some in Egypt hail the overwhelming backing of last week’s constitutional referendum as a repudiation of the 2012 constitution approved during the Morsi era. However, most Egyptians would tell you a “yes” vote was not about the substance of the constitution, but a vote for moving Egypt forward, whatever “forward” might mean.
Regardless of where one stands on Egypt’s constitutional referendum and further steps in the post-June 30 roadmap, one thing is certain: the ideals of the January 25, 2011 revolution remain unfulfilled. The once-touted “democratic transition” has become an experiment gone haywire, characterized by repeated setbacks and government stifling of all kinds of dissent.
Egyptians say Yes to Newly Drafted Constitution and a Lot More…
By Mounir Bishay
On the 14th and 15th of January 2014, the people of Egypt voted in a referendum for a new Constitution to replace the pro-Brotherhood Constitution of 2012. The new Constitution was approved by unprecedented majority of 98.1%, 19.1 million out of 20.6 said yes, while only 331 thousands (1.9%) said no. On the other hand, the Brotherhood Constitution of 2012 was approved by only 62% and was marred by reports of vote fraud.
Though valid, the new constitution's high approval margin could raise doubts in the minds of some people in the West. They are not accustomed to seeing political issue votes reflect anything near unanimity. It is commonly understood in the West that a sign of a healthy democracy is diversity of opinion.
Michele Bachmann writes: Muslim Brotherhood: A history of terror
Michele Bachmann
By Michele Bachmann
If the decision of the interim government of Egypt is to consider the organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, then the United States should follow.
From the time of Hassan al-Banna and the “secret apparatus” staging terror attacks across Egypt and the assassinations of Prime Minister Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha and judge Ahmed El-Khazindar in 1948, to the ongoing attacks on Coptic Christians and churches and the terror campaign targeting the military in the Sinai and elsewhere, the Muslim Brotherhood has always kept terrorism as part of its arsenal and living up to their motto, “Jihad is our way.”
BY MICHAEL GERSON
MCT Casanova / MCT
Photo BY MICHAEL GERSON This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
In some parts of the world, Herod’s massacre of the innocents is a living tradition. On Christmas Day in Iraq, 37 people were killed in bomb attacks in Christian districts of Baghdad. Radical Islamists mark — and stain — the season with brutality and intolerance.
