The term "moderate Islam" is ugly and
offensive -- Islam is Islam
Erdogan, Prime Minister
of Turkey
the moderate Muslim, along with the Big
Foot, the unicorn, and the Loch Ness monster, remains more elusive than a cure
for cancer.
There is at least a theoretical possibility that a cure for cancer can be found
one day,
unless of course Islam takes over and drags us all down into its own endless
Dark Ages.
Yashiko
Sagimori, The Mythical Moderate Muslim
Tawfik Hamid, a former Jihadi, in an
article titled Inside the Jihadist’s Mind (The Herald Examiner 9/2007) wrote
that:
Muslims
who live in the West – who insist to outsiders that Islam is a “religion of peace”
and who enjoy freedom of expression, which they demand from their Western hosts
– have threatened me with murder and arson.
I have had to choose between accepting violent Salafi views and being
rejected by the overwhelming majority of my fellow Muslims. I have chosen the latter.
Tawfil Hamid is saying that the majority of Muslims are pretending to be moderate when they are not.
Muslim groups by pretending to be moderate and anti-terror can gain influence and respectability and actually help the cause of the terrorists. A classic example of this is the claims by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, MPAC, that they are against extremism (The Muslim Public Affairs Council War Against Steve Emerson, 1/12/05, Frontpagemag.com ). The 8/3/05 web site of the UK MPAC (MPACUK) raises questions about the so called lack of extremism of MPAC. It features an article titled: Zionists Behind Terror Attacks with a picture of a Jew with horns in front of the American flag.
MPAC accuses others of racism. They tried to discredit Steve Emerson, the investigative reporter who authored Jihad in America, as being an anti-Muslim racist. They did this despite Steve Emerson's repeated statements that not all Muslims are terrorists, because they want to cripple his effectiveness.
On July 28, 2005 U.S. and Canadian Muslim leaders issued at fatwa (religious ruling) against terrorism stating that terrorist tactics violate the Koran. According to Steven Emerson the very organizations issuing and promoting the fatwa are themselves integral nodes in the terror network. (Anti-Terror Fatwa is Bogus Moonbat Central 7/29/05) Emerson wrote:
"[I]t is a fake fatwa designed merely to deceive the American public into believing that these groups are moderate. In fact, officials of both organizations have been directly linked to and associated with Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic extremist organizations."
Not long after 9/11 Siraj Wahaj, the first Muslim to given an invocation to the U.S. Congress, said:
“I now feel responsible to preach, actually to go on a jihad against extremism.”
Robert Spencer in an article titled A Good Moderate Muslim is Hard to Find wrote (frontpagemag.com 11/29/04):
But what he thinks actually constitutes extremism is somewhat unclear; after all, he has also warned that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.” He has lamented that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.” In the early 1990s he sponsored talks by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman in mosques in New York City and New Jersey; Rahman was later convicted for conspiring to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, and Wahaj was designated a “potential unindicted co-conspirator.”
On
a religion blog, Siraj is quoted as telling his followers that a society
governed by strict Islamic law, where adulterers would be stoned to death and
thieves would have their hands cut off, would be superior to American
democracy. Siraj has made statements such as:
"In time, this so-called democracy will
crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be
Islam."
"If Allah says stone them to death, through the
Prophet Muhammad, then you stone them to death, because it's the obedience of
Allah and his messenger – nothing personal."
"I see the demise of the Soviet Union as a sign
for the American people that what happened in the Soviet Union will definitely
happen in America unless America changes its course from the new world order
and accepts the Islamic agenda."
Is this the most moderate Muslim leader Congress could find to honor with giving an invocation? If so that is alarming.
Muslim student organizations pretend to be moderate. John Perazzo wrote in Frontpage Magazine 11/13/07 about the Muslim Student Association of the University of California at Irvine as follows:
If one were to judge the Muslim Student Union (MSU) of the University of California at Irvine (UCI) solely on the basis of its self-description and its stated mission, one would have no inkling of the volcano of Jew-hatred that animates this organization. Founded in 1992 by a small group of Muslim students who “desired to establish an Islamic presence on campus,” MSU says it aims to provide a “community” or “family” atmosphere for Muslims enrolled at UCI, and to build “an environment that enhances good, discourages bad, and provides networks of resources, knowledge, people, and companionship to its members.” Toward these ends, MSU offers “daily congregational prayers, daily free iftars [the evening meal for breaking the daily fast] during Ramadan that serve over a hundred Muslims, over eight weekly classes, a quarterly magazine Alkalima, coalition building with other clubs on campus, and a gateway to the larger Muslim community …” MSU also provides career advice and a study/tutoring program to help Muslims at UCI.
It all sounds very, very nice.
What the Muslim Student Union does not mention in its literature, however, is that its members commonly wear green armbands during the events it sponsors, to signal their allegiance to the terrorist group Hamas. Nor is there any mention of the fact that MSU has displayed posters on the UCI campus that equate the Star of David with the Nazi Swastika.
Perazzo went on to describe the extremist rhetoric of Muslims haters the MSU brought to campus.
Robert Spencer in an interview with Frontpage Magazine mentioned that former Cleveland Imam Fawaz Damra, signed the Fiqh Council of North America’s Fatwa Against Terrorism while elsewhere affirming on secretly filmed video that “terrorism is the path to liberation”)
Debbie Schlussel wrote an article about the phony moderate Fawaz Damra as follows (frontpagemagazine 1/3/06):
Damrah
was respected as the leader of the largest mosque in Cleveland (reportedly, the
largest in Ohio), and was a nationally respected Islamic figure. To the public,
he represented himself as a moderate who opposed terrorism and only wanted
peace. Easily duped Jewish and Christian leaders frequently had unity dinners,
lunches, and townhall forums, all for the purpose of embracing this
"peaceful" Muslim man who played the role they craved, especially
after 9/11.
But the real Fawaz Abu Damra was a violent, hateful man, who supported the
destruction of Christians, Jews, and America. An FBI transcript of a 1991
speech shows Damra imploring Muslims in attendance to give to Islamic Jihad
movement through fraudulent means, and he makes it clear that the money will go
to stab and kill Jews:
Tonight, Dr. Sami al-Arian...he is the president of Islamic Committee for
Palestine and a short briefing about the Islamic Committee for Palestine, it is
the active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, and we like to call
it the Islamic Committee for Palestine here for security reasons.
***
Donate to the Islamic Jihad! Nidal Zaloum from the Islamic Jihad held a dagger
and stabbed four of the Jews in the courtyard of Al-Haram Al-Qudsi...For the
Intifada, for the Islamic Jihad, I say it frankly for the Islamic Jihad. The
jihad is still erupting in Palestine from village to village, I tell you it is
not for the organizations with respect to everyone but for the jihad. The
jihad! One of them would leave his house with a knife to stab the Jews--twelve
Jews after the events of the Gulf War. Brothers, the Intifada calls you. Five
hundred dollars! Who would add to five hundred dollars? Who would add to five
hundred dollars? If you write a check, write it for the Islamic Committee for
Palestine, I.C.P. Who would add to the five hundred dollars of Hajj Ahmad?
***
[Muslims should be] Directing all the rifles at the first and last enemy of the
Islamic national and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews.
The money Damra helped Sami al-Arian raise for Islamic Jihad went to fund
Islamic Jihad terrorist attacks on innocent people, such as the bus bombing
that murdered New Jersey college student Alisa Flatow, the daughter of my
friend Stephen Flatow.
Joe Kaufman wrote an article in Frontpage Magazine titled The Two Faces of Zulfiqar Ali Shah, about an event which ostensibly was dedicated to promote a greater understanding and respect for and among people of all faiths, colors, and gender. for its inaugural event Shaikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais, was invited to speak. He is the the chief cleric of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, who had called for the murder of Jews, Christians, and Americans. Al-Sudais had also described Jews as the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the killers of prophets, and the grandsons of monkeys and pigs. Due to Kaufmans exposure of the event, Al-Sudais's appearance was cancelled
Investors
Business Daily wrote about three phony moderates Sami al-Arian, Abdurahman
Alamoudi and Ali
Al-Timimi as
follows:
Sami Al-Arian: The popular and respected Muslim
activist was a White House guest of both presidents Clinton and Bush. He
assured his hosts he was both peace-loving and patriotic. "I am a very
moderate Muslim person," he said. "I also condemn violence in all its
forms."
All the while, Al-Arian was secretly running a U.S.
beachhead for Palestinian terrorists. In a speech at a Cleveland mosque, he
once thundered: "Let's damn America, let's damn Israel, let's damn their
allies until death."
He's now a convicted terrorist.
Abdurahman Alamoudi: This pillar of the
Muslim community also went from the White House to the Big House. But not
before developing the Pentagon's Muslim chaplain corps, and acting as a
goodwill ambassador for the State Department.
He, too, strongly denounced terror. "We are
against all forms of terrorism," he claimed. "Our religion is against
terrorism."
Privately, however, he raised major
funds for al-Qaida and was caught on tape grumbling that Osama bin Laden hadn't
killed enough Americans in the U.S. embassy bombings.
Also, at a Muslim conference, he was recorded saying
the following:
"Muslims sooner or later will be the moral
leadership of America. It depends on me and you. Either we do it now or we do
it after a hundred years, but this country will become a Muslim country. And I
think if we are outside this country, we can say, 'Oh, Allah, destroy America.'
But once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it."
Ali Al-Timimi: A noted imam and native
Washingtonian, he also put on a moderate face in public while secretly plotting
against us. The internationally known Muslim scholar had government clearance —
even worked with a former White House chief of staff — and was invited to speak
on Islam to the U.S. military.
Publicly, the imam denounced Islamic violence.
"My position against terrorism and Muslim-inspired violence against
innocent people is well known by Muslims," he said.
But privately, a darker picture emerged. Five days after the 9/11 attacks, he called them
"legitimate" and rallied young Muslim men at his mosque to carry out
more "holy war" and "violent jihad."
Al-Timimi even cheered the Columbia space shuttle
disaster, calling it a "good omen" for Muslims because it was a blow
to their "greatest enemy." He also said the U.S. "should be
destroyed."
This high-profile moderate is also now behind bars,
for soliciting terror and treason.
Ali Asad Chandia was a third grade teacher
from the D.C. suburbs who was described as a dedicated teacher, a great family
man and so gentle that he wouldn’t hurt a tree branch in his yard. Chandia, 29, trained at a jihad camp in Lahore,
Pakistan, run by the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Within months of 9/11, Chandia joined the so-called Virginia
jihad network dedicated to preparing for holy war against U.S. troops deployed
to Afghanistan. After his conviction,
some 350 Muslims including Islamic scholars, activists and other leaders, as
well as government employees and contractors, donated generously to his defense
fund. (The Terrorist
Next Door, frontpagemag.com 8/31/06)
Patrick Poole wrote an article Hometown
Jihad about the Islamization of his community of Hilliard Ohio and was attacked
for spreading hate speech and likened to a neo-Nazi. He wrote a followup
article (Hometown Jihad Blowback, frontpagemag.com 5/24/2006) in which he
further exposed the radicalism of one of his new neighbors, Salah Sultan and
how the Muslims pretend to be moderate he wrote:
As I said in Hometown Jihad, what concerns me most
about Salah Sultan is that he is my neighbor; and as a result of his well-known
terror ties, he poses a standing threat to the community I was raised in and
where scores of family and friends live. He not only resides here, but freely
spreads his message of hate and violence in our community. Just is troubling is
that, Sunrise Academy, while claiming to be run by peace-loving, moderate
Muslims, unapologetically hosts and promotes an individual like Salah Sultan.
If anything, what’s happening here in the
This faux moderation is a deliberate part of their
strategy of Islamic conquest, as Salah Sultan made clear in a speech he gave in April 2004 for the
Da'wah [conversion] work can never succeed unless
Muslims embed themselves within the very marrow of American society.
Salah Sultan has embedded himself into American
society here in
Patrick Poole wrote another article Columbus’
Hometown Jihad 7/11/07 which revealed
that
Abukar Arman, a vocal supporter of the Somali
terrorist group and al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Courts Union (ICU), as well as
several other terrorist individuals and organizations, was currently serving on
the blue-ribbon board that oversees Central Ohio Homeland Security.
3 months after the attack on America on Sept 11, on December 11, 2001, the Global Relief Foundation, a Chicago-area Muslim charity, issued a statement, urging Americans “to remember the tragedy as we unite against terrorism and disaster worldwide. . . . To forget the tragedy would be acquiescing to terror, and to the misery it brings. We will join hands and fight against terror wherever it strikes.”
It turns out that in October 2002, the Global Relief Foundation was placed on the United Nations list of “organizations subject to sanctions”; because of its support of terror organizations and its assets were frozen to prevent them from going to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Paul Sperry in an article titled Veiled Threat (frontpagemag.com 11/22/05) wrote that:
Authorities are still looking for another Pakistani woman who they believe to be a "fixer" for al-Qaida in the U.S. MIT-educated Aafia Siddiqui is said to have been involved in a plot to blow up underground gas tanks around Baltimore. The mother of three is known as a "good sister" who has memorized her Quran and is willing to help al Qaeda out when they need her. She was a hard-line Muslim activist on the MIT campus, where she wore head-to-toe traditional black gown and matching headscarf while raising money for jihadists around the world. The Bostonians she ran into outside that circle of hate, however, knew her only as a soft-spoken "philanthropist."
After Sept 11, American military chaplain Yousef Yee, said that the attacks were “un-Islamic and categorically denied by a great majority of Muslim scholars around the world.” But now he has been charged with attempting to give classified information to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. (Moderate Muslims, Where Art Thou, Robert Spencer, frontpagemag.com 11/6/03)
Sami Omar al Hussayen, head of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Idaho declared after the September 11 attacks that the University's Moslems
condemn in the strongest terms possible what are apparently vicious acts of terrorism against innocent citizens.
Robert Spencer in his book Onward Muslim Soldiers writes that:
the FBI charges that such statements were just a cover for his terrorist activities.
and that:
An American convert to Islam, New York prison chaplain Warith Deen Umar asserted that "even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and applaud" the September 11 terrorists
If we can't tell if Muslims are peaceful based on what they say can we judge Islam by the nice impression some Muslims make on us? Daniel Pipes answered that question in an article called "Those 'Jolly Fine' Terrorists" (New York Sun 12/2/03) about the nice impression some of them give. He writes that Mr. Badat who one admirer called "a walking angel" and "the bright star of our mosque" was arrested because of his training with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and his possession of PETN, one of the most powerful high explosives known. Wail al Dhaleai, who carried out a suicide attack against American troops in Iraq was given a eulogy as follows:
He was a very nice person. He used to train our kids. He was very jolly and always laughing.
Another mosque figure called Dhaleni a "jolly fine gentleman" and a neighbor noted how he went "out of his way to help the children." Dhaleni's martial arts coach added "He just made you laugh. I cannot say enough nice things about him. He was such a nice guy."
Dhaleni in some ways may really have been a nice guy as long as you weren't an infidel he was probably very nice.
Another very nice guy (if you were Muslim) was Mohammad Sidique Khan, father of a 14 month year old daughter and a learning mentor for children of immigrant families who had just arrived in Britain. Those who worked in his school said he was endlessly patient and immensely popular with children. Mr. Khan is no longer with us having blown himself and at least seven other people up in the Edgware Road subway station in London. (The Chilling Double Life of 'Beloved' Teacher Who Was Bomber, New York Post 7/14/04) Another bomber of the London subway, Jermaine Lindsay, was described as very kind and very nice by Magdy el-Nashar an Egyptian chemist who found him a place to stay in Leeds. (London 'bomb' chemist freed in Egypt, New York Post 8/10/05).
A 2001 yearbook from South
Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte shows him smiling with short black hair
combed over his forehead. Another photo shows the teen racing his Mitsubishi
Eclipse at a Fayetteville drag strip.
He was secretary of tutoring for Spanish his senior year and a
member of the Sabres high school football team.
In the ninth grade, he was student council president. His junior
and senior years, he belonged to the National Honor Society and the Spanish
National Honor Society. Taheri-azar was all these things as well as the
avenger who bought a 4 wheel drive Jeep Cherokee because it would keep going
after running over people so that he could run over more people.
Taheri-azar chose to run over his fellow classmates at UNC and planned the
attack for 11:45 AM on Friday because that's when he expected the largest
number of people to be congregating at the Pit. (Fayetteville Online
3/8/2006)
Youssef Mohamed
E., a 22-year-old Lebanese studying in
Robert Spencer ina an article titled Why’s a Nice Guy Like You Doing a Terrorist Act Like This? (frontpagemag.com 5/18/07), wrote:
According to
former Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Eddie Green, Kifah Jayyousi is “a
great guy, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.” While Green was
superintendent, Jayyousi oversaw the
Jayyousi is now charged, according to
the Detroit
Free Press, with “conspiring to kidnap, maim and murder by providing money,
recruits and equipment for Islamic struggles in
Christopher Paul, a martial arts
instructor at a mosque in
Yet now Paul, a Muslim, has been
charged, according to Associated Press, with “providing material support to
terrorists, conspiracy to provide support to terrorists and conspiracy to use a
weapon of mass destruction.” He is accused of training with Al-Qaeda in the
early 1990s, training people for violent jihad attacks on targets in
But another one of Paul’s friends,
Hisham Jenhawi, was skeptical: “I don’t think it’s even close to his
personality to act upon something like that. He’s a very kind person. You would
meet him on the street and he would want to hug you with the heart that he
has.” One of his neighbors, Mike James, added: “He seemed like a nice guy,
always waving…”
This kind of thing is nothing new. A friend
remembered Gokhan
Elaltuntas, a Muslim who carried out a suicide bombing on a synagogue in
According to a Southern
California friend of Raed Albanna, who killed 132 people in a suicide
attack outside a medical clinic in
In May 2007 6 Muslims were arrested for planning to kill U.S. soldiers in New Jersey. John Shiffman and Jan Hefner wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer that:
Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer (the
alleged ringleader) is a 22-year-old taxi driver who was born in Jordan and is
a naturalized citizen.
Danielle Lee, a dispatcher for
All City Taxi in Philadelphia, said she was shocked by Shnewer's arrest.
"He's such a nice
man," she said. "We never had any complaints. He always kept to
himself. No problems."
The three Duka brothers were going to
participate in the mass killing of soldiers.
Shiffman and Hefner wrote:
Neighbors said the Duka family appeared friendly, sharing
backyard-grown tomatoes and cucumbers.
Michael Levine, 38, who lives two doors away, said he was "blown
away" at the news of the arrests.
"They seemed like normal people - you'd have no idea," he
said. "It's unsettling. You don't know who your neighbors are."
Regarding Serdar Tatar another of the would be terrorists they
wrote:
A 7-Eleven spokesman said Tatar "came in and did his job like all
the employees." "This was a
person who got along with his coworkers," he said. "He was friendly
toward the customers."
Gandina a friend of the Tartar family told
the Inquirer:
"I have a very good opinion of this family, very good opinion," she said. "I cannot believe, I cannot believe that something can happen to them."
Perhaps the most startling example of
niceness is Dr.
Aiman Al-Zawaheri, Al Qaeda’s second in command (frontpage
magazine 10/24/2006) Dr. Hamid, a
former extremist Muslim when asked what Al-Zawaheri was like, Dr. Hamid does
not hesitate.
“Al-Zawaheri was a very nice man on the personal level,”
Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss-born Muslim academic and professor has been celebrated by intellectuals and news outlets; including Salon.com, which stated that he “could be one of the most important intellectuals in the world,” comparing the Islamic scholar to a modern-day Martin Luther; and Time, which named Ramadan one of the world's top hundred scientists and thinkers.
In truth, Ramadan, like the late
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, is a “master of double talk,”
relaying to Western ears an amicable message of unity between Western and
Muslim peoples, but expressing his true feelings of Western hatred to his
Muslim brethren.
What about if Muslims are engaged in interfaith dialog. Then surely they are nice. Yehudit Barsky wrote an article in the Jewish Week (10/8/04) in which she spoke about Imam Muhammad Gemeaha a former leader in interfaith dialogue with Jewish and Christian colleagues.
Shortly after 9-11, Imam Muhammad Gemeaha, the respected leader of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York and and representative of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, told Lailat Al-Qadr, the unofficial university Web site publication in Arabic, that Jews planned the terrorist attacks.
"If the Americans knew that the Jews carried out the Sept. 11 attacks," he said, "they would do to them what Hitler did."
Imam Gemeaha went on to accuse American Jewish doctors of poisoning Muslim patients. "Muslims and Arabs are now not safe, they cannot go out for their usual business, their children cannot go to schools and some Musims even cannot go to hospitals after some Jewish doctors in a hospital poisoned Muslim patients who died because of that," he said...
Clearly his interfaith activity was a ploy to gain respectability, serving as a cover for his true beliefs....
Jewish-Christian dialogue has promoted mutual understanding, as virtually all mainstream Christian leaders have denounced anti-Semitism. But the same has not happened with Muslim groups, as many leaders who pretended to engage in honest dialgue with us have supported terrorists.
The problem of the phony moderates and distinguishing them from the real ones was discussed by Daniel Pipes in an article titled Moderate Muslims, Real and Phony (frontpagemagazine 11/23/04)
The way we can determine the effect of Islam on people is by the behavior of Muslims as a whole. In this web site I review Muslim behavior through history and the inescapable conclusion is that belief in Islam makes people more warlike on the whole. The fact that there are nice peaceful Moslems leaves hope that someday a more moderate peaceful version of Islam may emerge but is irrelevant in evaluating the current nature of Islam. Dennis Prager, in his article "A Letter to an American Soldier in Iraq" (11/26/03) explained this as follows:
Of course, there are hundreds of millions of fine people among the world's 1.3 billion Muslims. But that is, unfortunately, as irrelevant to understanding today's war as the fact that there were millions of fine Germans living in Hitler's Germany was to understanding World War II.
It is not the fine Muslims who rule most Muslim countries, some of which are among the cruelest on earth. It is not the fine Muslims who dominate the Islamic schools around the world that teach that it is right to subjugate women and to slit Christians' and Jews' throats. It is not the fine Muslims who wish to impose a violent, hate-filled religion on others. It is not the fine Muslims who burned 13 churches in Nigeria just last week.
And sadly, most of the fine Muslims, including those in America, rarely condemn their civilization-threatening co-religionists.
Those who do condemn their civilization threatening co-religionists often find themselves targets of hatred from other Muslims.