TFP: Both as a specialist in Islam and as a Catholic, could you explain what are the principal differences between Islamism and Catholicism?
Robert Spencer: Islam and Catholicism differ in their views of Jesus: Islam denies the divinity of Christ and His redemption. Islam regards Him as a Muslim prophet who taught Islam, but whose message was corrupted by His followers to create Christianity. In doing so, according to the Qur’an, they deified Him and began to teach that He was the Son of God and was crucified, when in reality He was a human prophet and was not crucified. (See Qur’an 9:30; 4:157, 5:112-116).
One of the myriad other ways in which Islam and Catholicism also differ fundamentally is in their views of the dignity of the human person. In Islam, there is a sharp dichotomy between believers, “the best of peoples” (Qur’an 3:110) and unbelievers, “the most vile of created beings” (Qur’an 98:6). Traditional Islam also denies the freedom of conscience, mandating death for apostates.
TFP - Nowadays everyone talks about jihad, but few know its precise meaning. What is the correct understanding of the term?
Robert Spencer: Jihad in Arabic means struggle, and there are as many connotations of the word in Arabic as there are of “struggle” in English. However, the traditional, mainstream and primary Islamic understanding of jihad as a theological concept involves warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. This idea is rooted in a cluster of Qur’anic verses that contain general and open-ended commands to fight non-Muslims, including:
• “O ye who believe! Fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him” (9:123).
• “O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell, an evil refuge indeed” (9:73). The Arabic word translated here as “strive hard” is jahidi, a verbal form of the noun jihad.
The command applies first to fighting those who worship other gods besides Allah: “Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free.” (9:5). In plain English, this means that “idolaters” are to be killed, unless they convert to Islam and begin following Islamic laws such as paying alms (“the poor-due.”)
However, Muslims must fight Jews and Christians as well, although the Qur’an recognizes that as “People of the Book” they have received genuine revelations from Allah: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya [the special tax on non-Muslims] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (9:29).
The words mean what they appear to mean. The noted Qur’an commentator Ibn Juzayy says that Qur’an 9:29 is “a command to fight the People of the Book.” Another respected mainstream Qur’an commentary, the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, notes that when 9:29 says that Muslims must fight against those who “follow not the Religion of Truth,” it means those who do not follow Islam, “which is firm and abrogates other deens [religions].”[1]
All four principal Sunni schools of jurisprudence, the Shafi’i, Maliki, Hanafi and Hanbali schools, agree on the importance of jihad warfare against non-Muslims who refuse to convert to Islam. Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani (d. 996), a Maliki jurist, declared that “it is preferable not to begin hostilities with the enemy before having invited the latter to embrace the religion of Allah except where the enemy attacks first. They have the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax (jizya), short of which war will be declared against them.”[2] Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), a Hanbali jurist who is a favorite of bin Laden and other modern-day jihadists, explained that the aim of jihad was “that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.”[3]
The other schools echo these teachings. The Hanafi school stipulates, “If the infidels, upon receiving the call [to convert to Islam], neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax, it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them . . . the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.”[4] Likewise, the Shafi’i scholar Abu’l Hasan al-Mawardi (d. 1058) taught that once infidels refuse the invitation to convert to Islam, “war is waged against them and they are treated as those whom the call has reached.”[5]
In other words, “Let me make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
A Hanafi legal manual explains that the fight against unbelievers can sometimes take non-violent forms: “Jihad in the language is exerting effort. In the understanding of the Sharia, it is exerting effort and energy in fighting fi sabeel lillah [in the path of Allah] by nafs [spiritual struggle], finance, tongue or another.”[6] Indeed, in traditional Islam, jihad bil sayf (jihad with the sword) or combat (qitaal) is only one means of jihad. Other forms of jihad include jihad bil mal (waging jihad by means of one’s wealth); jihad bil lisan (waging jihad through persuasion); jihad bil yad (waging jihad by taking action, but not necessarily arms, against injustice).
But all these various forms of jihad – both violent and non-violent – are directed toward the same end: the Islamization of the world and the imposition of Islamic law over unbelieving societies. Majid Khadduri (1909-2007), an internationally renowned Iraqi scholar of Islamic law, explained in his 1955 book War and Peace in the Law of Islam that Islam had embedded within it an expansionist and supremacist imperative:
The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world. It refused to recognize the coexistence of non-Muslim communities, except perhaps as subordinate entities, because by its very nature a universal state tolerates the existence of no other state than itself. . . . The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state.[7]
Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad, quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book . . . is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes, “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.[8]
But if this is so, why hasn’t the worldwide Islamic community been waging jihad on a large scale up until relatively recently? Writing in 1994, before the worldwide jihadist effort had reached the strength it enjoys today, Nyazee said it is only because it has not been able to do so: “The Muslim community may be considered to be passing through a period of truce. In its present state of weakness, there is nothing much it can do about it.”[9]
TFP: In your most recent book Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs, you cover a little-known aspect of the Islamist offensive: psychological warfare, which is waged by Islamic pressure groups within our borders. Tell us something about this.
Robert Spencer: One of the most effective tactics employed by Islamic jihadists throughout the world is to intimidate their opponents into silence. Death threats, murders, acts of mass terrorism, beheadings broadcast over the Internet – all these actions are obviously useful to minimize resistance to the jihadists’ agenda. Naturally, the number of people who repudiate them becomes less significant when such dissidents are afraid to express their opposition in any way.
Threats of violence are indeed effective in silencing criticism of jihadists or even simple mockery of any aspect of Islam. Stealth jihadists, however, do not employ this approach. Groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim-American Society (MAS) have learned from the past mistakes of many U.S.-based Islamic leaders that aggressive public pronouncements and threats uttered against Islam’s perceived enemies bring unwelcome attention and undermine their pretensions of being mainstream civil rights organizations. So they’ve adopted a different strategy to silence critics of jihadism and Islamic supremacism: they label them as “bigots,” “hatemongers,” and “Islamophobes.”
In the U.S., playing the race card can in some ways be even more effective than death threats. If a U.S.-based Islamic group announced a death fatwa against an American writer, that group would be denounced in the media as “extremist” and possibly trigger a police investigation. But if the group cries “racism” against the same writer, liberal as well as conservative media figures hop to shun and denounce the accused “racist,” for bigotry and racism are the cardinal sins of the U.S. public square.
Islamic groups in the U.S. skillfully play the race card against those who publicize uncomfortable truths about Islam: criticism of Islamic supremacist impulses or of the organizations themselves is frequently met with indignant cries of “racism.” These groups deliberately conflate race with religion, exploiting the fact that most Muslims in the country are either black or Arab and Pakistani immigrants. The fact that Islam is a religion and not a race is apparently irrelevant, and journalists never challenge these groups on their confusion of the two.
CAIR in particular has become expert at bandying about allegations of bigotry and racism to silence its critics or quash even fictional representations that it deems offensive to Muslims. In 2001, when Tom Clancy’s novel The Sum of All Fears was being made into a movie, CAIR launched a successful campaign to pressure the filmmakers into changing the Islamic terrorists of the story into some other kind of villain. (Ultimately they became neo-Nazis – apparently the Aryan Nations doesn’t have CAIR’s clout.) There can be little doubt that the filmmakers were simply bullied into making the change by the prospect of CAIR publicly denouncing them as racists. Film director Phil Alden Robinson wrote abjectly to CAIR, “I hope you will be reassured that I have no intention of promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs, and I wish you the best in your continuing efforts to combat discrimination.”[10] America got a dramatic reminder of the fact that there really are Islamic terrorists, and they’re not just the figments of bigoted imaginations, on September 11, 2001, but by then filming on The Sum of All Fears had already been completed.
Islamic groups in the U.S. have employed the race card innumerable times in myriad contexts in order to intimidate and silence their opponents. To give credit where credit is due, it has proven to be an excellent strategy for deflecting attention from the reality of jihadist sentiments and jihadist activity among American Muslims. The stealth jihadists employ this kind of obfuscation to great effect. Their immediate goal is not to overpower America directly through combat, but rather to convince Americans that there is nothing at all to fear from Islamic theology, and that anyone who argues otherwise is an Islamophobe motivated solely by hate. With the population lulled into complacency, they can go about their work of forcing western “accommodation” to Islamic practices. This is meant to set the stage for Islam eventually to emerge supreme.
TFP: How should Catholics react against this insidious Islamist offensive in America?
Robert Spencer: The primary challenge that Catholics who are aware of the jihad threat is to convince their coreligionists that such a threat is indeed real. Many have been blinded to the threat by a widespread misunderstanding of the statements of the Second Vatican Council about Islam, and by the impression that Catholics and Muslims must make common cause on moral issues. While some limited cooperation may indeed be possible in the international arena, this fact should not render us unwilling to admit the facts about Islam’s supremacist agenda, which denies the very legitimacy of Christianity as a faith.
TFP: Is there also an Islamist threat in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Holland?
Robert Spencer: Yes, and it is far more advanced there than it is in America. The historian Bernard Lewis has said flatly that Europe will be Islamic by the end of this century. The results for Catholic civilization in Europe and its artifacts will be disastrous.
TFP: You are also the author of a book, which deals with the Crusades: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), which was a New York Times bestseller. Since our magazine is honored to be called Crusade, tell us something about the role of the Crusades in the struggle against Islam, particularly what lessons they may provide for the struggle we must wage today.
Robert Spencer: The Crusades were not acts of unprovoked aggression by Europe against the Islamic world, but a delayed response to centuries of Muslim aggression, which grew fiercer than ever in the eleventh century. These were wars for the recapture of Christian lands and the defense of Christians, not religious imperialism. Nor were the Crusades called in order to convert Muslims or anyone else to Christianity by force. The Crusaders did many things that cannot be excused, but in their conception they were defensive actions against an Islamic jihad that had by the time of the First Crusade overwhelmed half of Christendom.
Lessons for today? We need to summon our spiritual and cultural resources as well as our military resources in order to defeat the jihadist challenge.
ROBERT SPENCER is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of eight books on Islam and jihad. Spencer is a weekly columnist for Human Events and FrontPage Magazine, and has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community.
Mr. Spencer holds an MA in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history in depth since 1980
Monday, June 15, 2009
Robert Spenser Explains the Islamist Threat
Friday, January 16, 2009
Bulgaria expels high ranking cleric on national security concerns
The Bulgarian government has extradited Adem Yerinde from the country. The Bulgarian State Security Agency held and interrogated the Turkish Muslim cleric for three hours last week. The government has said that the reason for the harsh measures was because Yerinde is a “threat to national security”.
The cleric, who was a deputy-dean of the Islamic institute for higher education in the capital Sofia, was also responsible for staff recruitment and financing of three regional Islamic schools in Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian and the Turkish authorities have not given further explanation into the matter, but the Turkish Foreign Ministry and the Embassy of Turkey in Sofia have reportedly attempted to block the extradition.
Information leaked last week that the associate principle in one of the regional Islamic schools in Bulgaria demanded from girls to cover their heads with Islamic headscarfs, which might be connected with the extradition of Adem Yerinde.
Source: http://yesterday.actualno.com/news_214372.html
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Islamic wahhabi radicals continue to peneterate the territory of Bulgaria
Monday, April 28, 2008
Roubaix: the first occupied French city
Interview with Mohamed Sab'awi - a young sociologist from the catholic
university in Lille, Algerian by birth French by naturalization.
"Our peaceful invasion of European has not yet been completed. We
intend to act in all countries simultaneously. Because you give us
more and more space, it would be foolish of us not to take advantage
of this… We will be your Trojan horse. You've become hostages to the
very human rights which you are claiming. For example, if you were to
speak to me in Algeria or in Saudi Arabia, as I speak to you now,
you'd be most likely arrested on the spot.
You French are not able to impose respect from our youth toward
yourselves. Why they would respect a country that has surrendered to
them? One only respects whom it fears. When we have power, you will
not see a single Arab set fire to a car or a store… The Arabs know
that the inexorable thief deserves the amputation of his hand".
Mohamed Sab'awi continues during a recent interview:
"The laws of your Republic (France) do not conform to those of the
Koran and should not be imposed on Muslims, who can only be governed
by Sharia law. We will therefore work to take this power that we are
due. We will begin by Roubaix, who is now a Muslim city by more than
60%.
In future elections, we will mobilize our workforce, and the next
mayor will be Muslim. After negotiating with the state and the region,
we will declare Roubaix as a Muslim stronghold, independent (from
France,) and we will impose Sharia (law of God) to all inhabitants (of
Roubaix).
The Christian minority will have the status of Dhimmis. This will be a
special category that could redeem its freedoms and rights by a
special tax. This means, we will do what it takes to lead by
persuasion into our community. Tens of thousands of French have
already embraced Islam voluntarily, why not the Christians of Roubaix?
Currently at the University of Lille, we are setting up brigades of
faith, charged to "convert" the ungovernable Christians or Jews of
Roubaix, to have them to come to our religion, because God wills it!
If we are the strongest, it is God that wanted this. We do not have
the constraints of Christian obligation to provide assistance to
orphans, the poor and disabled. We can and must, on the contrary,
crush them if they constitute an obstacle and especially if they are
infidels ".
Article from: Le National Radical # 11, page 8
Translation: Erik Linawood
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Minnesotans Pay for Muslim School
Minnesota taxpayers are footing the bill for a charter school that
reportedly violates the law by promoting religion — Islam.
Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) in Inver Grove Heights regularly holds
prayer sessions and includes study of the Koran in its curriculum,
even though charter schools are public schools and must not endorse or
promote religion, according to columnist Katherine Kersten of the
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune.
She writes: "TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious
school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American
Society of Minnesota, whose mission is 'establishing Islam in
Minnesota.' The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive
director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its
sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief."
Zaman maintains that TIZA is not a religious school, and that prayer
is voluntary.
But Kersten says a substitute teacher who worked at the school told
her that students were taken to the bathroom to perform "ritual
washing," then were led into the gym where a man dressed in white with
a white cap led them in prayer.
"The prayer I saw was not voluntary," the teacher told Kersten, adding
that students were studying the Koran, "which gave me the impression
that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other."
The ACLU of Minnesota has begun an investigation of TIZA, and the
Minnesota Department of Education has also launched a review,
according to Kersten, who concludes:
"TIZA is skirting the law by operating what is essentially an Islamic
school at taxpayer expense…
"There's a double standard at work here — if TIZA were a Christian
school, it would likely be gone in a heartbeat."
as reported by newsmax.com
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Golden Rule Islam
by Bill Warner
Islam's apologists say that Islam just needs a reform. After all, Christianity and Judaism have been reformed. But the apologists never get around to saying what the reform would be.
There are many kinds of reform possible to Islam, but does anyone care if they reformed prayer by praying towards LA rather than Mecca? No. The only thing that kafirs care about is how Islam treats us. We want our treatment changed. We want political Islam reformed.
Islam's treatment of us can be found in one word--kafir. The Koran says that a kafir (unbeliever) can be robbed, killed, tortured, mocked, insulted, beheaded, raped, crucified and on and on. The Hadith and the Sira agree with the Koran. Every single reference to the kafirs is negative, offensive and hateful.
The word "kafir" illustrates both of political Islam's principles--submission and duality. The Trilogy (Koran, Sira and Hadith) says that every kafir in the world must submit to political Islam.
The Koran also establishes dualism with its ethical system. A Muslim is not to kill another Muslim; a kafir may be killed, or not. A Muslim is not to lie to another Muslim; a kafir may be deceived or not. And so on. Islam has one set of ethics for Muslims and another set of ethics for the kafir--dualistic ethics.
The later political Koran written in Medina frequently contradicts the early religious Koran written in Mecca. The Koran gives a rule for removing the contradiction by saying that the later Koran "abrogates" the early Koran. But the earlier Koran is still true; it was given by Allah. So in Islam both sides of a contradiction can be true. This gives Islam its dualistic logic. Our unitary logic says that if two things contradict, then one of them is false
This dualism accounts for the two types of Muslims--the good Muslim at work and the Taliban Muslim. Both Muslims are "real" Muslims. Dualism gives the "good" Muslim plausible deniability when they say that jihadists are not "real" Islam. Dualism means the "good" Muslims and the jihadists are just two ends of the same stick.
The Koran, Sira and Hadith are filled with demands for all kafirs to submit to Islam. Kafirs can submit by joining the religion or submit by being a dhimmi (an apoligist). Either way, the Koran constantly demands that all kafirs submit to Islam.
So what kafirs want to reform about Islam is its principles of political submission and duality. What principle can be used to reform Islam? The key is how Islam treats the "other"--the kafir. The Golden Rule tells us how the "other" is to be treated. Every culture in the world has the Golden Rule as part of its heritage. But not Islam.
So what happens if we apply--treat others, as you want to be treated--to political Islam? All of the hurtful, hateful and harmful duality and submission disappear. What is amazing is how much of the Islamic doctrine goes away. About 61% of the Koran disappears. The Sira loses 75% of its words and 20% of the Hadith vanishes.
And those figures are low. All of the abusive words about women would go away as well. So the above reductions would be even bigger.
The Golden Rule even changes Hell. Islamic Hell is primarily political. Hell is mentioned 146 times in the Koran. Only 9 references are for moral failings--greed, lack of charity, love of worldly success. The other 137 references to Hell involve eternal torture for not agreeing that Mohammed is right. That is a political charge, not a morals failure. Thus 94% of the references to Hell are as a political prison for dissenters. The Golden Rule would empty the political prison.
Think how wonderful a Golden Rule Islam would be. No arguments, demands, accusations, law suits, threats, pressure, hateful speech, killings, or bombings. A Muslim could even be a true friend to a kafir. Islam would develop a sense of shame and admit to the terrible suffering of the 270,000,000 kafirs killed in jihad. A Golden Rule Islam would ask forgiveness about all the suffering of the dhimmis. A Golden Rule Islam would also admit to running the slave trade in Africa by killing and capturing the slaves they sold to the white slave traders.
Women would not have to be beaten and wear the hijab or burka. Honor killings would stop. Muslims could join us in the human race.
But all of those wonderful thoughts vanish when you realize what else it would mean to Islam. Mohammed had only 150 followers in Mecca after preaching the religion for 13 years. But when he went to Medina and became a politician and warlord, he conquered all of Arabia in 9 years by averaging a violent event every 6 weeks.
Duality and political submission were the principles that gave Islam its victory. Why would Islam drop the only principles that yielded success? Duality and political submission have crushed the world that believes in the Golden Rule.
CSPI (Center for the Study of Political Islam) could produce a Koran, Sira and Hadith that would use the Golden Rule. It would be a thin volume, but what Muslim would buy it?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
"Kill the apostates wherever you find them..."
You know them. The kind of folks who get saved, talk the talk for a period of time (sometime for many years) and then all of a sudden bam - they're gone. I don't like to label people, but in the church world they're known as "backsliders".
Anyhow, so what do we do when people backslide from the Lord? Well, at most we don't associate with them. This is what the New Testament teaches.
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and
offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid
them. Rom. 16:17
How does Mohammed teach backsliders should be treated? Read this:
"Ali was raised by Mohammed from the age of ten and became the fourth
caliph. Ali pronounced the following on lies and deception.
B9,84,64 When I relate to you the words of Mohammed, by Allah, I would
rather die than bear false witness to his teachings. However, if I
should say something unrelated to the prophet, then it might very well be a lie
so that I might deceive my enemy. Without question, I heard Mohammed say,
"In the final days before Redemption there will emerge groups of foolish
youths who will say all the right things but their faith will go no
further than their mouths and will flee from their religion like an arrow.
So, kill the apostates wherever you find them, because whoever does
so will be rewarded on Judgment Day."
And while you're at it, check these one out, too:
A Muslim can swear a false oath by any other god and not be accountable.
B8,73,73 Mohammed: "A Muslim who swears a false oath by the god of
another religion is not obligated to fulfill that promise because he
cannot be bound by a faith he does not hold."
In Islam something that is not true is not always a lie.
B3,49,857 Mohammed: "A man who brings peace to the people by making
up good words or by saying nice things, though untrue, does not lie."
An oath by a Muslim is flexible.
B8,78,618 Abu Bakr faithfully kept his oaths until Allah revealed to Mo-
hammed the atonement for breaking them. Afterwards he said, "If I make
a pledge and later discover a more worthy pledge, then I will take
the better action and make amends for my earlier promise."
When deception advances Islam, the deception is not a sin.
B5,59,369 Mohammed asked, "Who will kill Ka'b, the enemy of Allah and Mohammed?"
Bin Maslama rose and responded, "O Mohammed! Would it please you if I killed him?"
Mohammed answered, "Yes."
Bin Maslama then said, "Give me permission to deceive him with lies so that my plot will succeed."
Mohammed replied, "You may speak falsely to him."
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Former chief mufti arrested in Bulgaria on charges of pro-terrorist activity
CALLING FOR JIHAD IN BULGARIA
The publishers of two web sites preaching radical Islam in Bulgaria have been arrested in a special operation of the National Security Service and the anti-mafia unit of the Bulgarian police. According to the report of the Bulgarian news web site www.news.bg
51 year old Ali Haierdin is the leader and the main organizer of the illegal group. The man is a former senior mufti of Sofia and is known to have been connected with the Jordanian Ahmad Mussa, who was expelled from Bulgaria in the year 2000, after the authorities uncovered his plans to form a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Bulgaria.
The other person arrested is a female, also 51 year old, who is described in the report as the wife of Ali Haierdin. Her assignment was to gather information from Chechen web sites, to translate them into Bulgarian and publish them on the web site the couple operated. Among the arrested are also the two administrators of the web sites, 27 year old male M.A. and 37 year old female M.G. The latter has converted to Islam under the influence of the main leader, 51 year old A.H., later on publishing her own web site dedicated to spreading Wahhabi teachings. The Wahhabi style teachings provide the ideological foundation of radical terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.
THE SAUDI ARABIA CONNECTION
Bulgaria was accepted as a full fledged member state into the European Union on January 1 of 2007. Experts agree that more and more Islamic radical groups will seek to establish their presence in the country, seeing it as a doorway into Europe.
Most Bulgarians feel detached from the problems of the Middle East and follow the events reported by the international media with a neutral mindset. Today's sting operation comes as a wake up call for many ordinary people who have somehow believed that radical Islam will bypass the country. Inspite of the rise of nationalistic parties in recent years, most Bulgarians have not exhibited strong anti-Muslm feelings. Due to the internal political maneuvering of the representatives of Muslims on the political scene, Bulgaria managed to avoid religious conflicts typical of the Balkans in the 90's.
Some sources estimate over 12% of Bulgaria's 7,4 million population are Muslims. Until now the majority of the Muslim population has been considered of the moderate Sunni brand of Islam.
The secretary of the office of the Chief Mufti has denied any ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.
However, in the last several years more and more evidence has surfaced of increased activity of Saudi Arabia radicals in Bulgaria.
The links of radicals to the chief mufti have been reported for years. One investigation, conducted in August 2004 by Yana Buhrer Tavanier, who is an editor with the Bulgarian weekly Kapital, uncovered a shadowy network that finances mosques and schools that promote the radical teachings of Wahhabi Islam and similar tendencies, and a network that has links to the chief mufti’s office.*
She tracked down some information that leaked through an Islamic web site, announcing the opening of new Islamic Schools in Bulgaria.
"One organization came up wherever we looked for radical Islam in Bulgaria: Al Waqf-Al Islami, a foundation that promotes Wahhabism in Europe.
The charity has built several mosques in Bulgaria ... and organized and financed a trip by Chief Mufti Fikri Sali to Saudi Arabia in July last year. While no Al Waqf involvement in terrorist activities has ever been proven, its Dutch branch--which invited Sali to Saudi Arabia--has come under suspicion after it was revealed that six of the 9/11 hijackers had attended a seminar it organized. (Al Waqf is among several organizations that are being sued by families of 9/11 victims.)
The Dutch intelligence service has recently compiled a report detailing the activities of
Al Waqf’s Dutch branch, based in the town of Eindhoven. The report described the Al
Waqf mosques there as a recruiting ground for a “holy war,” or jihad. Could something similar be happening in Bulgaria?
In our trip around Razgrad, in north-eastern Bulgaria, we found four mosques that had been built or financed by Al Waqf-Al Islami in 1993 and 1994, when the foundation was legally registered in Bulgaria. (Fikri Sali was also the chief mufti at that time.) The registration was revoked in the summer of 1994, and in 1999 its representative Abdulrahim Taha was expelled from the country.
But our report also indicates that Al Waqf never pulled out of Bulgaria. In fact, its
activities seem to be expanding. "
The report goes on to uncover more of the activities of Saudi Arabia sponsored radicals:
"...The Al Waqf foundation was registered in Bulgaria in 1993-1994, when the chief mufti was Fikri Sali. Among the founders was Abdullah al Huseini, brother of the Hamad al Huseini whose name showed up on a document discovered during a NATO raid in Bosnia detailing the “golden chain” of Saudi businessmen funding Al Qaeda.
There are at least four mosques in Bulgaria that have been built or supported by Al Waqf- Al Islami. All the mosques were built during the period when Fikri Sali was chief mufti and Mehmed Alya regional mufti of Razgrad--in 1993 and 1994. And Muafak was remembered as one of the benefactors in two of the villages with Al Waqf-Al Islami mosques.
Late 1993 was also the time when the chief mufti’s office concluded an agreement with
Al Waqf--a copy of which we obtained--for joint educational activities. The document
talks about “the opening of schools or training centers of a new kind” and support for
difficult, ill, or socially disadvantaged children.
The foundation promised to fund these educational institutions and, in return, received the right to control--“independently or jointly with the chief mufti’s office”--their operations and expenditure, and also the teachers’ work and the curricula.
In the summer of 1994, the Directorate on Denominations of the Council of Ministers
refused to re-register the foundation and, in 1999, its representative Abdulrahim Taha was expelled from Bulgaria..."
----
* "Bulgaria: Mysterious Mosques and Schools"
report by Yana Buhrer Tavanier, 27 January 2005
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
The Qur'an according to Elisson
This is a follow-up of my first article on the Keith Ellison's asking to swear over Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an.
I also encourage you to watch/listen to the ENHANCED podcast I published on www.kingdomfirst.tv including the interview with Dr. William Welty, who is very knowledgeable on all things Islam. With enhanced podcasts, you can click on the links you watch. Try it out, I think you'll like it.
In this posting I just want to give you the scoop of what appears to be a growing awareness over the Ellison swearing over the Qur'an story.
I want to highlight some things for you, in case you don't find the time to listen to the whole 30 minutes of the podcast.
1) ANOTHER REVISIONIST CAMP ON THE SCENE
We know there are have secular progressives and liberals who will do anything to eradicate and explain away the Christian foundations of the United States. We know they are revisionists.
Well, we have a new kid on the block - the Muslim camp!
Why am I saying this?
In my first January 7th posting, I told you that what Ellison is aiming at confusing the masses and somehow sneak into their minds the idea that may be, just may be the founding fathers of the United States were somehow influenced by Islam and considered the Qur'an as a divine book.
After all, the saying goes that he who controls the past, controls the future, right?
Now, at the time I wrote what I wrote, I HAD NO IDEA that Ellison had already actually said all of this HIMSELF! Openly and blatantly!
How do we know this?
WorldNetDaily just published an article in which they quote the Detroit FreePress article which quotes Ellison as saying that the Qur'an is: "definitely an important historical document in our national history and demonstrates that Jefferson was a broad visionary thinker who not only possessed a Quran, but read it...It would have been something that contributed to his own thinking."
This is what I say in my previous posting BEFORE I knew of this statement:
"Ellison can't change history. But what Ellison has attempted to achieve by asking to swear over Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an is to confuse the masses by simply giving publicity to the fact president Jefferson did have indeed a copy of the Qur'an. Taken out of context, this information can be confusing. Most people's lives are too busy and they get the bulk of their information about world events from 15 minutes of the evening news or a local newspaper whose lead story is on obesity among pets. Cheap populism thrives on and benefits from the ignorance of the masses. This is what Keith Ellison counts on.
It seems to me that Keith Ellison, shamelessly ignoring the historic context of Jefferson's owning the Qur'an, tried to further the Muslim agenda in the US and possibly try to introduce some revisionist version of US history in which Islam was part of the belief system of the founding fathers...."
The FreePress goes on to say: "But Ellison said Friday that Jefferson's Quran "shows that from the earliest times of this republic, the Koran was in the consciousness of people who brought about democracy."
I hate to say it, but this is clearly one of those..."I told you so" moments.
2) ALLAHU BARBAR!
WorldNetDaily BACKS THE BARBARY PIRATES EXPLANATION!
That's a good step forward. It's important we give voice to this story. The media must be educated of the TRUE history behind the Qur'an. WorldNetDaily backs up this interpretation of the origins of Jefferson's Qur'an. It's out duty to inform others and fight ignorance at all levels.
History can't be changed, but people's perception of it can be. The holocaust deniers know this and it gives them hope that they too can succeed in promoting their revisionist ideas.
In other words, it's our turn to raise our voices and shot: ALLAHU BARBAR!
Let's inform the world who were the Barbary Pirates, what they did (murder and enslave people) and how Jefferson had to fight with them.
3) THE ELECTION NIGHT EPISODE
It was interesting also to read in this WDN article how they quote another blogger who had also noticed with horror how the Ellison camp was cheering Allahu Akbar on election night.
This was a significant episode. If anyone happened to have recorded this on their VCR, DVD or TiVO, let me know and I'll personally assist you to see to it that this material be liberated to fly free on the web. Or if someone has already seen it online, forward it so we can start distributing it. One picture is worth thousand pictures. And if people get to hear also the shouts to Allah in the background, it will be a HUGE eye-opener to a lot of people.
And lastly, some of you actually wrote letters to Keith Ellison's office at the email address I provided. Way 2 go, folks!
