 For almost a decade, American Muslims have seen a growing debate in their communities about the radicalization of Muslims in America and how to combat it. Since its inception in 2003, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) has been one of the lone voices publicly waging a contest of ideas with Islamist organizations in the U.S. The crux of our mission is that the ideology of political Islam (Islamism) is the root cause of extremism that threatens Americans' security as well as the faith of American Muslims.
Most major American-Muslim organizations hatched from the Muslim Brotherhood are advocates of political Islam and will always refuse to acknowledge the need to separate mosque and state. The recent Christmas Day airliner attack, the earlier December arrests of American Muslims in Pakistan, and the Fort Hood massacre moved that debate into a new phase. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) have begun to acknowledge for the first time that Muslim communities are facing a "radicalization" problem. These organizations recently announced they are pursuing "anti-radicalization" programs. This is certainly an important change in their rhetoric, but sadly, window-dressing. These Islamist groups have simply recognized that their post-9/11 apologetic messaging is not resonating with the general public. To solve the problem, they co-opted the rhetoric of curbing radicalization. But absent real, honest reform against political Islam, their rhetoric is vacuous. The question that begs to be asked of any Muslim group touting these programs is: What will be the structure and substance of your campaign, and will you confront, renounce and reform the ideology of political Islam? CAIR and MPAC have typically renounced the use of terror and violence, but they have never taken a position against the ideology of political Islam. They have also been constant antagonists to efforts by law enforcement to understand and mitigate the real stages of radicalization of Muslims in America. Just recently these groups called for government to naively "decouple religion from terror." If the root cause of Muslim radicalization is Islamism, what good is any counterterrorism effort that decouples religion from terror?
How can law enforcement effectively counter terrorism in our country without recognizing the slippery slope of political Islam and its separatist narrative is the core ideology that drives the mindset of the extremists as they radicalize? Pragmatically, and I say this with tough love for my co-religionists, many American Muslims need a 12-step program to recognize the driving separatism of political Islam. So many American Muslims have gone down that slippery slope of political Islam to radicalization that the connection cannot be denied. Until the majority of American Muslims can reform their theo-political ideas against the growing global power of the Islamist movement, home-grown terror will only increase as it has. There must be a public war of ideas within the Islamic consciousness promoting liberty over Islamism, freedom over theocracy and secular law over Sharia law. M. Zudhi Jasser 
 For almost a decade, American Muslims have seen a growing debate among Muslim communities about the radicalization of Muslims in America and how to combat it. American Islamists groups (CAIR, MPAC, MAS and ISNA, to name a few) hatched from the ideology of the global Muslim Brotherhood and their being given a disproportionate amount of media attention and resources in the U.S. presented their best face of blanket denials and smoothly avoided any acknowledgement of a problem. For eight years since 9/11 American Islamist groups have refused to acknowledge the fact that salafism, Islamism, and other ideologies directly contributed to that radicalization. This year, actually just last week, after an ever increasing string of homegrown Muslim terrorists, and after CAIR was banned from the FBI, the denial finally gave way to a long overdue admission of a problem. Yet, their admission had no analysis whatsoever of the real root cause of Muslim radicalization – political Islam and salafism. Since its inception in 2003, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) has been publicly waging a contest of ideas with many of those Islamist organizations that the ideology of Political Islam is at the root of the cancer that threatens American security and the faith of American Muslims. AIFD has long believed that Islamism is the root cause of Muslim radicalization in the U.S. and around the world. The arrests in Pakistan on December 9, 2009 of five young Muslim men from America transitioned that debate into a new phase. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has thrust itself into the front of this case. CAIR held a press conference on December 9th, audaciously announcing in their their press release on behalf of the entire Muslim community that, "The Muslim community has taken the lead in bringing this case to the attention of law enforcement authorities and will offer ongoing cooperation with the FBI as the investigation moves forward." At the press conference, Nihad Awad, Executive Director, CAIR-National stated that, "We also as a community realize and recognize that there is a problem. This problem we believe it is not wide spread, but we as a community, we acknowledge that there is a problem, and we are going to deal with it effectively. We are going to launch a major campaign of education to refute the misuse of versus in the Koran or the misuse of certain grievances in the Muslim world." In a press release for the same press conference, Haris Tarin, Community Development Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) recognized that, "Any radicalization that exists is a major problem that we must – and are – addressing head on. This case underscores not only the importance of strong relations between the Muslim American community and law enforcement, but also the grave need for educational programs to prevent extremism within our community." This news follows a number of troubling cases related to Muslim Americans, including the disappearance of five young Somali men from Minnesota who later turned up in Somalia to fight alongside Al-Shabab, the horrific shooting rampage at Ft. Hood, and the arrests of three men in Illinois, Colorado and Texas on unrelated terror plot charges." This is an important change in the rhetoric of CAIR and MPAC. The optimist in me would like to believe that AIFD's efforts and that of other vocal anti-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslims have forced these organizations to admit that there is an ideological problem in many of our communities. As with alcoholics and drug addicts, admitting that there is a problem is the first step down the path of recovery and reformation.
But the cynic and realist in me sees these announcements for what they are: recognition by these groups that their post 9/11 apologetic messaging is not resonating with the general public. To solve the problem, they adapted their messages to co-opt the rhetoric of curbing radicalization. Just last month, both of these groups were out front in their efforts to decouple faith from the obvious Islamist radicalization of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the perpetrator of the Fort Hood massacre.
In October they both were also quick to defame the FBI in the shooting death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah of Detroit, who openly called for an establishment of an Islamic State and opened fire on agents who were coming to arrest him under criminal charges. While the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Reuters trip over themselves to quote Mr. Awad and CAIR, who made themselves into the news of the case of the radicalization of these five men, none seem to be asking them the question that needs to be asked: What will be the structure and substance of your anti-radicalization education campaign and will you confront, renounce, and reform the ideology of Political Islam? CAIR and MPAC have typically renounced the use of terror and violence, but they have never taken a position against the ideology of Political Islam. They both have also been the primary antagonists to efforts by law enforcement to understand and mitigate the real stages of radicalization of Muslims in America. In 2007, under the umbrella of the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition (MACLC), CAIR-NY and MPAC –NY authored "Counterterrorism policy, MACLC's critique of the NYPD's report on homegrown radicalism." The paper is a response to NYPD's report "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat." In it, the organizations lay out their belief that, "The study of violent extremism, however, should decouple religion from terror to safeguard civil liberties on free speech and equal protection grounds as a matter of strong public policy." If the root cause of Muslim radicalization is Islamism (political Islam), what good is any effort at counterterrorism that decouples the religion from terror?
How can law enforcement effectively counter terrorism in our country without recognition that Political Islam and its narrative is the core ideology when, at its extreme, drives the general mindset of the extremists carrying out the attacks? When we were fighting communism in the Cold War, we generally understood that, violent or non-violent, those who advocated the communist ideology were part of the problem and not part of the solution whether they were strident Soviets or just idealistic non-violent Marxists.
The distinction mattered little and certainly our counterintelligence experts were not using the non-violent Marxists as experts on how to defeat the Soviets. More at M.Zudhi Jasser's site
 A New York-based Muslim extremist group known for its unabashed support for violence against Jews and others posted a link on its website Tuesday branding American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) Executive Director, M. Zuhdi Jasser, a "murtad," or apostate. Being labeled an apostate – a Muslim who renounces Islam – is a very serious accusation, often resulting in a death sentence in many places throughout the Muslim world. And while this is not a certainty in all cases and contexts, it is troubling that Revolution Muslim (RM) thought it acceptable to bestow upon themselves the license to label a pious Muslim as such. And it's not the first time the group has slurred Jasser this way. RM's latest attack against Jasser came in reaction to a video, originally posted by AIFD, showing him and U.S. Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) engaged in a Capitol Hill forum about Islam's internal struggle against radicalism.
Rather than assessing the complete debate, RM elected to post just one segment (of nine) where, it says Ellison "gives the Murtad Zubi [sic.] Jasser a schooling." We at IPT News must have heard something completely different when we attended and reported on the forum last month. Jasser, a Navy veteran, is a devout Muslim who challenges radical Islamists and advocates a separation between religion and political ideas such as the spread of Shariah law. RM's radical reaction is hardly surprising considering the group's record. As noted in an October 2009 Anti-Defamation League (ADL) "backgrounder" on RM, the group has, on numerous occasions, promoted attacks against Jews, Hindus, Americans, and other non-Muslims.
In one recent case, "RM posted to its Web site a poem asking God to 'kill the Jews' and listing ways Jews could be hurt, including by burning 'their flammable sukkos while they sleep' and throwing 'liquid drain cleaner in their faces.'" Fox News reports that the post was removed and replaced with a more innocuous article soon after it caught the eye of the NYPD. Similarly, just last week, RM posted a video on YouTube in which group member Abdullah As-Sayf Jones rants on the streets of New York City to passersby about the justification for Major Nidal Hasan's wanton act of violence at Fort Hood. In an effort to show Hasan's act had the moral upper-hand as compared to U.S. military actions overseas, Jones says: "This did not take place at a hospital. This was not a civilian target. Not a school, not a hotel, nothing else. This took place at a military base….compared to American military tactics, in which they drive drones over the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, indiscriminately killing Pakistanis. A U.S. drone does not tell the difference [between legitimate targets and civilians]…but yet, here it is, the so-called terrorist making sure specifically to target military targets." In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting, RM also posted a link to another controversial video – this one put out by a group called AIM Films – in which a man identified as Bilal Abdul-Kareem defends Hasan's killing spree as an act against an enemy in a state of war, rather than a criminal or terrorist act. RM's mission, as stated on its website, includes uniting the "Muslim world…under the banner of Islam." In pursuing this mission, RM regularly pushes the limits of 1st Amendment freedom of speech protections in showing support for violence.
This strategy is very similar to yet another New York-based group, with whom RM shares membership and often cooperates: the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS). ITS, "an offshoot of a British group by the name Al Muhajiroun…that supports violence in order to create a global Islamic state," according to the ADL report, has openly shown support for Al Qaeda and has spewed hate against the FBI, CIA, and others. Counter Terrorism Blog
 by M. Zuhdi Jasser
Read part one of this article here. On July 26, 2008, our American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) was kindly invited to the Noor Islamic Cultural Center (NICC) in Hilliard by their director, Hany Saqr, to give a talk on any subject we wished. I asked to speak to them about "Upholding our Islamic Responsibility: Countering the Ideologies that Fuel Terrorism."
Take a look at short video excerpts (Part I, Part II) of my talk to the Noor mosque, selected with some relevance to the subject of reform and apostasy. While our hosts were very cordial, polite, and gracious, we first found it very interesting that there was virtually no publicity about our visit – which was in stark contrast from previous speakers.
They also completely avoided any media acknowledgment of our visit and message. AIFD worked to generate our own publicity of the event with an extensive pre-interview with the Columbus Dispatch.
But interestingly, despite the reporter's keen interest, the Dispatch never attended the talk or published any parts of the interview only posting an announcement of our visit. One cannot help but be suspicious of what influenced their absence particularly for a newspaper which has in the Bary case given more than adequate inches to the Noor Center's and CAIR-Ohio's side of the story. Interestingly, the Dispatch itself has had epiphanies about CAIR as Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) recently pointed out on the floor of the House: CAIR has waged a campaign to intimidate and silence anyone who raises alarms about the dangers of Islamic extremism. CAIR's rationale is that discussions of Islamic extremism lead to animosity not just toward those who twist Islam into a justification for terrorism but toward all who practice Islam. CAIR's concern is understandable, but its response is unreasonable. The group acts properly when it hammers home the point that only a small number of Muslims support religiously motivated violence and that targeting law-abiding Muslims is wrong. Where CAIR errs is in labeling anyone who discusses Islamic terrorism a bigot and hatemonger, an Islamophobe, to use CAIR's favorite slur. Also note that even in Mr. Saqr's introduction of me there was no real endorsement of our ideas but rather, a statement about the value of debate.
In fact, opening a debate on reform with Muslim communities is our intention but before, during, and after our visit, there was absolutely no acknowledgement on their website or in their mosque literature about our visit. It was almost as if they checked the box of inviting an anti-Islamist and could go back to the comfort of their foundational Islamism and promotion of the likes of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. In fact, in direct feedback from some who attended the talk, I was told "that the new Islamic ideas of modernity were a welcome outlook but I should have refrained from direct criticism of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, since he is so respected by many of the congregants."
And some Muslims wonder what the real impediments to reform are? If these global Muslim Brotherhood icons cannot be criticized frankly and openly as I did in my visit to Noor, reform will never become a reality.
The work of Patrick Poole locally has exposed documentation of NICC leadership connections to official Muslim Brotherhood leadership structure in the West and to Al-Qaradawi. These speakers at Noor have previously raised concerns of their ideological mindset: Salah Sultan, Ahmed Al-Akhras, Christopher Paul, Khalid Yasin, Siraj Wahhaj, and Wagdi Ghoneim. If Muslims cannot acknowledge as I did, publicly with the Noor audience, that Qaradawi and these other contacts of theirs are examples of deep seated moral corruption in the highest order, then Islamic scholarship will continue to be driven into the ground by Islamist apologists.
Islamists will always compromise real moral clarity for an Islamist set of ethics in which the ends justifies the means (terrorism) and the Islamic state takes precedence over the secular system (Muslim supremacism). Read more here,,,,, Source: M. Zudhi Jasser
 By Sid Shahid At the core of the post-9/11 "war of ideas" is the battle over terminology. It would seem that Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser struck a nerve with the powers that be at CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) when he took the Obama administration to task for its abandonment of the phrase "war on terror" and its myopic focus on al-Qaeda, rather than the broader ideology behind it. In that criticism Dr. Jasser states: Acts of terror are rooted in the aspirations of Islamists to create an Islamic state and impose their version of Shariah law. ...
Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with the string of radical Islamists arrested across the country — from North Carolina to New York, Oregon, and New Jersey (to name but a few) — in the last year alone. The only thing these radicals have in common is their belief in a militant version of political Islam. …
It certainly is not the role of any administration to determine who are "good" and "bad" jihadists. Not calling them exactly what they call themselves makes the White House the arbiter of who is and who is not a Muslim. This avoidance behavior allows American Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood's front groups in Washington, to continue to deny their responsibility to lead the Islamic reform effort against Islamism and its role in radicalization — the real existential threat to the West. Islamist Watch Source: Islamist WatchH/T: Gramfan
 By Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser Actively seeking a Caliphate in the USA.
On July 19, 2009, Hizb ut-Tahrir ("Party of Liberation"; HT) held a recruitment conference at the Hilton Oak Lawn hotel just outside Chicago, Illinois The event was entitled the Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islamand reportedly garnered 300 attendees.While 300 attendees may not make a movement, the meeting is significant and its occurrence should sound warning bells in the Chicago Muslim community and for all Americans. Hizb ut-Tahrir is a harbinger of much deeper efforts to convert Muslim children to an ideology that is rooted in a belief that is contrary to the liberties and ideals that Americans hold dear. While Hizb ut-Tahrir may be new to most Americans, its roots in the United States date back over a decade to Southern California and Chicago. The organization was first founded in 1953 by a Palestinian qadi or shari'a judge, and today is a global Islamist network with hundreds of thousands of adherents from England to Indonesia. It actively seeks to create a Caliphate based in shari'a law. Hizb ut-Tahrir's platform lies at the center of the contest of ideas and what it means to be a Muslim. Groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir use the entire faith community, or ummah, of Muslims for a specific global political agenda to give susceptible youth an identity that takes precedence over what it is to be American, and our inherent allegiance to the Constitution and its legal system. Western governments created by the people and for the people are in direct conflict with an ideology that proclaims law comes directly from the hand of God and has only one form - their theocratic form. Islamist organizations like the Council for American Islamic Organizations (CAIR) and many local mosques in Chicago often dismiss Hizb ut-Tahrir and claim that their ideas are "separate" and "marginal" from their own. However, they have made no attempt in these protestations to advocate for the separation of mosque and state. It is our contention at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) that there is no version of political Islam for American Muslims which can coexist with America's founding principles and our Establishment Clause. To discuss this conference and avoid discussing the dangers of political Islam is to miss the "elephant in the room." HT may condemn terrorism, but Islamist groups like theirs and others often become gateways for the radicalization of youth. Terrorism is merely a tool that Islamists use to reach their goal of a shari'a-law-structured government. Hizb ut-Tahrir is one of the worst offenders amongst them. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is actively denouncing Hizb ut-Tahrir's efforts and its ideologies, and calling on Muslims to denounce efforts by HT to gain a foothold in the American Muslim community. The movement to establish the Islamic state will always generate groups like HT until we, Muslims, can truly separate spiritual Islam from the agenda of political Islam. AIFD maintains that a separation of mosque and state affords Muslims a better opportunity to practice their faith in freedom rather than under the theocratic oppression of Islamists. All American Muslim organizations, including CAIR and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), need to be on the record that Hizb ut-Tahrir's actions, ideologies and the overriding mission of political Islam are unacceptable to their organizations both as Americans and as Muslims. Anything less is a tacit acceptance of the overriding goal of Islamism. Source: INN
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For almost a decade, American Muslims have seen a growing debate in their communities about the radicalization of Muslims in America and how to combat it.
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