 If you find it hard to believe that women received 40 lashes in Sudan recently for wearing (wide) trousers, read about the life of women under Shari'a (religious Muslim) law. Gaza is almost there, but the rest of the world is the goal. A warning. Shari’a, that is Muslim law, controls the private as well as the public life of the woman. In the Western World (including America ) Muslim men are starting to demand Shari’a Law under which wives can not obtain a divorce and men have full and complete control of their children. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities and other parts of the Western world are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shari'a law. By publicizing the information below, I hope to help enlightened American and other women avoid becoming slaves under Shari’a Law: 1. In the Muslim faith, a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old, consummating the marriage by 9.
2. A dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman who becomes a slave.
3. Even though a woman is abused she cannot obtain a divorce.
4. To prove rape, a woman must have four male witnesses.
5. Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family.
6. Husbands can beat their wives 'at will' and do not have to say why the beating occurred.
7. A husband is permitted to have 4 wives and a temporary wife for a limited period at his discretion.
The goal of radical Islamists is to impose Shari’a law on the world, ripping Western law and liberty in two. If that happens, Western civilization will be destroyed. Westerners generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each individual. Islamic law (Shari’a) teaches that non-Muslims should be subjugated or killed in this world.
Peace and prosperity for one's children is not as important as assuring that Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.
While Westerners tend to think that all religions encourage some form of the golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics - one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and subjugate others..
While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a personal understanding of and relationship with G-d, Shari'a advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that could be interpreted as criticism.
It's hard to imagine, that in this day and age, Islamic scholars agree that those who criticize Islam or choose to stop being Muslim should be executed.
Sadly, while talk of an Islamic reformation is common and even assumed by many in the West, such murmurings in the Middle East are silenced through intimidation.
While Westerners are accustomed to an increase in religious tolerance over time, petro dollars are being used to grow an extremely intolerant form of political Islam in Egypt and elsewhere.
In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President by themselves! Rest assured they will do so... You can look at how they have taken over several towns in the USA . Dearborn Mich. is one... and there are others....
It is too bad that so many accept Muslims as peaceful.. some may be but they have an army that is willing to shed blood in the name of Islam... While America is getting rid of Christianity from all public sites and erasing God from the lives of children the Muslims are planning a great jihad on America . More about the author:
Nonie Darwish recently authored the book, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. In it she warns about creeping shari’a law - what it is, what it means, and how it is manifested in Islamic countries.
Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza before immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father died while leading covert attacks on Israel. He was a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed with his family in Gaza.
When he died, he was considered a "shahid," a martyr for jihad. His posthumous status earned Nonie and her family an elevated position in Muslim society.
But Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her own Muslim culture and upbringing and later abandoned Islam. INN 
 Islam is in trouble at the heart of its birthplace, Saudi Arabia, and consequently in other Muslim countries. Muslim leaders and media are desperately trying to regain control both internally and externally. Muslims are starting to openly and defiantly question; while the international image of Islam is being tarnished daily with every act of terror, hate speech and calls for jihad from the pulpits of mosques. The traditional open calls for violence and jihad Islam got away with for centuries is now under scrutiny especially after 9/11. Islam is now under the microscope. That is the quagmire of Muslims today. How can they continue teaching their basic religious jihad education but still save face and Islam’s reputation in a culture where image and honor is everything. The West is not fully aware of what is happening in the Muslim world today where taboo topics are being discussed by brave Muslim reformists and former Muslims.
There are ground breaking Arabic TV and internet shows aired inside homes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Algeria, etc, discussing what ordinary Muslims were never allowed to heard before.
The brilliant Rachid Hmami, a Former Muslim turned Christian and originally from Morocco, has a show, Suaal Garii ‘Daring Question,’ that is making shock waves across the Middle East.
Another equally effective show, is that of the brave Coptic priest, Father Zakareya Botros, who was imprisoned in Egypt for proselytizing to Muslims. Father Botros’s show is a huge success in exposing tyranny, contradictions and weaknesses in Islam. Muslims who call in, are often in shocked by what they hear for the first time about their own religion, yet another proof that Muslim establishment intentionally spreads misinformation and ignorance of basic Muslim doctrines to Muslims. Many Muslims, even from Saudi Arabia, call in to renounce Islam. Unprecedented defiance is happening in the heart of the Muslim world. Recently a prominent Egyptian female attorney and human rights advocate, Nagla Al Imam, announced she left Islam and became a Christian and insists that she will remain in Egypt, in defiance of Islamic law condemning her to death. She is now under intense 24-hour security. Islam is in trouble from within. Both, King Abdullah, custodian of the two Holy Mosques of Islam in Mecca and Medina, and the Islamic establishment everywhere, are extremely alarmed by the status of Islam today. Their power to control Muslims, trained for centuries to blind submission, is slipping away. Huge sums of oil money dedicated to rescue Islam’s image, is not enough to do the job. That is where Obama’s services come to the rescue of King Abdulla. Obama’s bow to the king was no small matter, but of great significance in Muslim culture. It is a Muslim symbol of subjugation and inferiority. It was said that Obama decision to hold a trial in New York of the confessed mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, and the rest of the Guantanamo detainees, is proof of the US’s just legal system. But the Muslim world already knows that. Not one Muslim country demanded such a trial or claimed the KSM was innocent. To the contrary, the Muslim public, in general, think that Americans are stupid for opening their country to such terrorists and giving visas to terrorists while often denying it to legitimate travelers. Recently, my daughter innocently asked, why is America trying to tame untamable terrorists, it is like “having a pet shark”. The claims that such a trial will give an opportunity to the terrorists to justify their actions and hate propaganda, is true, but it is much more than that. Such a trial will vindicate and justify mainstream Islamic education of hatred and will help Muslim establishment tighten their screws. It will greatly boost to the status quo in Muslim counties and an opportunity for Arab media and Muslim clerics to justify 9/11, their hate propaganda, incitement to violence and outright lies. This trial will be a set back to Muslim reformers, human rights activists and Arab feminists. It is telling them there is a good reason for Islamic violence dictated by Sharia law. This trial will create unnecessary sympathy among the many uninformed Western citizens to Islamist fictitious ‘causes’ and finger-pointing Muslims have been taught and believed in since birth. Like the OJ Simpson trial, a good portion of Americans will be confused over glaring truths which will cause a huge set back to America’s war on terror. Knowingly or unknowingly, Obama has given a great gift for the New Year to the custodian of Islam, King Abdullah; a self-imposed trial by the victim nation of 9/11, a free televised propaganda machine from ground zero, to rescue mainstream Islam’s reputation. Protecting the image of Islam is one of the basic duties of Muslim leaders and the utmost obligation of every Muslim who is obliged by Islamic law to lie, cheat and kill for its sake. By holding such a trial in New York, America, intentionally or unintentionally, will be contributing to reforming Islam’s image, supporting its old ways of doing business and suppressing the brave reformation movements across the Muslim world, a true New Year’s gift to King Abdullah. Nonie Darwish FormerMuslimsUnited.org Author of ‘Cruel and Usual Punishment’ Thanks to Atlas for this exclusive.
 An arson fire was set only fifteen minutes before Nonie Darwish was set to speak at Boston University. Frightful and getting worse. It was not two weeks ago that Nonie Darwish was canceled at the last minute at Colmubia and Princeton two weeks ago as student groups caved to muslim pressure. This intimidation and suppression of free speech is systemic. Pies were thrown at Robert Spencer at New York University just a couple of weeks ago. What next? Grenades? And now arson. Of course this should be filed with the FBI as a hate crime - that vile piece of legislation that will be used against the wrong people. The Darwish event was moved at the last minute. What follows is the a note written by the student who organized the event. Dear Mrs. Darwish, I just wanted to thank you for speaking at Boston University yesterday. I would like to apologize again for the confusion regarding the location of the event because of the fire. So far we know the fire was intentionally set in one of the bathrooms on the second floor of the building. It is still under investigation and I will let you know if any more updates come out. I was not the only person to think that the fire could have been set because you were scheduled to speak but I will inform you of any more developments. Once again thank you so much for coming toBoston University and I speak for everyone who attended the event when I say what you had to say was not only extremely important but a pleasure hearing. Here is the link to the article that was written about the event: Activist: Arab-Israeli conflict rooted in Islamic law The Arab-Israeli conflict will not be resolved unless the Middle East stops enforcing restrictive Islamic Laws on society, a writer and human rights activist said.
Nonie Darwish, author of several books including, “Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law,” spoke about human and women’s rights in the Middle East at Hillel House on Wednesday to an audience of 15.
Darwish said finger pointing is a problem in the Arab culture.
“Part of the Arab culture that is standing in the way of reformation is a lack of self-criticism,” she said.
Darwish, who grew up in Cairo, Egypt, said her Gaza elementary school subjected her to “intense hate speech” and peace was never an option.
“A lot of what Arabs understand is really fabrication,” she said.
Darwish said she started speaking after 9/11 when she discovered the terrorist leader was from her hometown. Mohamed Atta, a 9/11 terrorist, is from Cairo.
“I called a lot of people in Egypt, and they said ‘How dare you say this? This is a Jewish conspiracy,’” she said. “My heart was broken, and I sincerely cried.”
Darwish said her country is not seeing the reality of today’s world
“The truth is the only thing that will save them,” she said.
In addition, she said, Islam has wounded women. For example, men can have four wives and beat them for disobedience.
“A woman under Islamic law cannot get a divorce,” she said. “However, men can divorce his wife verbally under Islamic law . . . Wife killing is a phenomenon in Muslim countries.”
Women must have four male witnesses to prove rape, Darwish said. And women have to be virgins when they marry or they are killed.
“She has committed adultery unless there are four male witnesses,” she said. “Women are in prison for sexual violations.”
Darwish also discussed the rights of non-Muslims in Islamic countries.
“Under Islamic law, Jews and Christians can live in an Islamic country only if they live as inferior, pay taxes and give money to the Muslim state,” she said.
Darwish said she believes these laws are the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
“The root of the conflict is seventh-century laws that are still practiced today, and no one wants to end these laws,” she said. “It’s still on books and taken seriously.”
When any religion expands itself so much that it politically imposes on minorities, it leaves itself open to criticism, she said.
“When Islam becomes religious as well as political, a leader has to be criticized,” she said.
Darwish said moderate Muslims should get involved in ending the conflict.
“If you love your religion, you have to take it out of the hands of the radicals,” she said.
Hillel House Taglit-Birthright Israel Program Associate KateLynn Plotnick said the situation seems to be getting worse.
“A mutual respect is needed between the two religions,” she said. “If you’re teaching to hate the other side, peace won’t be accomplished unless two sides can acknowledge and begin teaching morals and values in their speeches and writings.”
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America Fellow and College of Arts and Sciences junior Adam Korn said Darwish is a fantastic speaker.
“You’re hearing from someone who lived through this, and her family has distanced themselves because she speaks the truth,” Korn, a BU Students for Israel Vice President, said. “Women’s rights in the in the Middle East is not a big issue, and it should be.” With thanks to Atlas
 In our time, a speaker must face a gauntlet of hostility and a menacing crowd if she wishes to speak in favor of Israel or to tell the truth about Islam. That’s if she’s lucky. Most such speakers never get invited or when they do, their invitations are canceled. Nonie Darwish, the author of Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law and Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror, has faced on-campus hostility and disruption before.
Over the years, I have interviewed her about this a number of times. Like many of us, she has also sometimes been forced to have security guards with her when she speaks. This time, Nonie, who is the founder of Arabs for Israel, was invited to speak at both Columbia and Princeton. The official invitation at Columbia came from the very distinguished CAMERA, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), and from a new student organization there: Campus Media Watch, a group which is not yet quite up and running.
Darwish flew from the West Coast, and was already all dressed up and ready to travel to Columbia when she got word that she’d been canceled. “How humiliating is that? To come all this way, to be almost out the door, only to be told that they had to cancel my speech because campus security felt they could not protect me. Everyone is trying to blame someone else. Even the campus Republicans were afraid to sponsor me. SPME kept trying to fix it, but in the end, they could not.” True, in 2006, President Ahmadinejad of Iran was not able to speak at Columbia because the notice given was too short.
However, in 2007, Columbia University was able to provide security for him. And yet they could not provide it for Darwish.
In 2006, Holocaust-denier Norman Finkelstein spoke at Columbia and in 2009, anti-Zionist, Israeli journalist Amira Hass spoke at Columbia–both without incident. Neither speaker was canceled. Next week, Noam Chomsky is speaking there.
In Darwish’s view, “I doubt Chomsky will even need any security.” More from Phyllis Chesler
 by Nonie Darwish
In the Muslim faith a Muslim man can marry a child as young as one year old and have sexual intimacy with this child, consummating the marriage by age nine.
The dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman (who becomes his slave) and for the purchase of the private parts of the woman, to use her as a toy.
Even though a woman is abused she can not obtain a divorce.
To prove rape, the woman must have four male witnesses.
Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family. Husbands can beat their wives ‘at will’ and they do not have to say why they have beaten them.
The husband is permitted to have four wives and a temporary wife for an hour (prostitute) at his discretion.
The Sharia Muslim law controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.
In the West World (America) Muslim men are starting to demand Shariah Law so the wife can not obtain a divorce and he can have full and complete control of her. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American universities are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shariah law.
By passing this on, enlightened American women may avoid becoming a slave under Shariah Law.
Ripping the West in two
Author and lecturer Nonie Darwish says the goal of radical Islamists is to impose Shariah law on the world, ripping Western law and liberty in two.
She recently authored the book, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law.
Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza before immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father died while leading covert attacks on Israel. He was a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed with his family in Gaza.
When he died, he was considered a “shahid,” a martyr for jihad. His posthumous status earned Nonie and her family an elevated position in Muslim society.
But Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her own Muslim culture and upbringing. She converted to Christianity after hearing a Christian preacher on television.
In her latest book, Darwish warns about creeping sharia law – what it is, what it means, and how it is manifested in Islamic countries.
For the West, she says radical Islamists are working to impose sharia on the world. If that happens, Western civilization will be destroyed. Westerners generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each individual. Islamic law (Sharia) teaches that non-Muslims should be subjugated or killed in this world.
Peace and prosperity for one’s children is not as important as assuring that Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.
While Westerners tend to think that all religions encourage some form of the golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics – one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and subjugate others.
While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a personal understanding of and relationship with God, Sharia advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that could be interpreted as criticism.
It’s hard to imagine, that in this day and age, Islamic scholars agree that those who criticize Islam or choose to stop being Muslim should be executed. Sadly, while talk of an Islamic reformation is common and even assumed by many in the West, such murmurings in the Middle East are silenced through intimidation.
While Westerners are accustomed to an increase in religious tolerance over time, Darwish explains how petro dollars are being used to grow an extremely intolerant form of political Islam in her native Egypt and elsewhere.
In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President by themselves! Rest assured they will do so… You can look at how they have taken over several towns in the USA.. Dearborn Mich. is one . . . and there are others . . .
It is too bad that so many are disillusioned with life and Christianity to accept Muslims as peacefu . . . some may be but they have an army that is willing to shed blood in the name of Islam. The peaceful support the warriors with their finances and own kind of patriotism to their religion.
While America is getting rid of Christianity from all public sites and erasing God from the lives of children the Muslims are planning a great jihad on America.
 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attack, will be tried at a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan with the same rights as any US citizens. What is the purpose of this trial if Mr. Mohammed has already confessed? For the Obama administration, the trial will kill two birds with one stone and neither one is to seek justice for Mr. Mohammed since we all already know he did it. The purpose of the trial is to embarrass the Bush administration and America itself and to give Arabs a golden opportunity to indulge in propaganda to convince the West with falsehoods regarding the root causes of Islamic terrorism; mainly that it is the consequence of US foreign policy, old grievances and America’s supports Israel. Mr. Mohammed will have a chance to make a case against the US for the waterboarding used on him during his interrogation. That will be a confirmation to Attorney General Eric Holder’s reopening of the waterboarding investigation. The war between Islamism and the rest of the world is largely a cultural and ideological war. Jihad, violent and non-violent, is a cornerstone of Islam that seeks to penetrate the West by any means. Jihadists are commanded to strike terror in the hearts of non-believers, as the Quran says. Deep fear resulting from such terror, renders some Americans vulnerable to appeasement rather than fight it. Islamists understand that dynamics very well and have used it throughout their history. Now that they have already done the terror, which softened some Americans, it is time to play with American’s minds; to desensitize Americans to Islamic tyranny and as to who is right and who is wrong.
In the process, Islamists want us to hear their manufactured propaganda of Arab grievances and put the West on the defensive. That will not be very difficult in Western culture where many are eager to blame America first. The purpose of jihadists is to make the victims of jihad (America on 9/11), confused as to Islam’s jihadist goals. That is why teaching violent jihad to Muslims must go hand in hand with teaching them hatred of the West , the object of jihad.
Jihad education won’t work unless it is simultaneously accompanied by promoting fear and lies about non-Muslim nations Islamists want to conquer. Islamists must also convincethe West that Muslim countries are their victims. This is the only way to justify jihadist aspiration. Jihad will go much easier and faster if it is packaged as self defense both to the West and to the Jihadist Muslim youth. Muslim victim-hood image must always be maintained. The coming civil trial of Mohammed in New York is perhaps the best gift Obama has given to the Saudi Kind Abdullah, leader of the country that produced 15 of the 19 terrorists. He is giving him a chance to save face and present Islam as the victim. When Obama bowed to the Saudi King, it was a sign of subservience to Islam, whether Obama wants to admit it or not.
This trial will solidify the claims by some of Obama’s czars that America had it coming on 9/11. The Arab world must be celebrating. Nonie Darwish: Author: “Cruel and Usual Punishment; the terrifying global implications of Islamic law” Thanks to Atlas.
 Today we have yet another terror-related arrest of a Muslim, Tarek Mehanna, who was plotting jihad terror attacks against U.S. shopping malls. But Americans are told to never link that to Islamic teachings. Committed Muslims insist that Islam is misunderstood by the West. Sensitivity training to Islam is forced upon U.S. government employees and teachers. They are told that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, implying that if they believe their eyes, ears and common sense, then they must be Islamophobes. Muslim propaganda is cleverly wrapped in illogical strategies to get the Westerners confused about their own perceptions of Islam. For centuries Muslims lived with unchallenged, warped logic regarding their religion.
Instead of examining non-Muslim fear of Muslim violence and oppression encouraged by Muslim scriptures, Muslims are trained to regard such complaints as an attack Islam itself. I have no doubt in my mind that when Dalia Mogahed, White House advisor on Islamic issues, really means it when says that Sharia is misunderstood. Like her, early in my life as a Muslim, I believed the same. That is how we were trained to accept our destiny under Sharia which turned us into robots ruled by fear, intimidation and warped logic. Women are told they have been liberated by Islam because pre-Islamic society used to kill new born girls. Islam stopped that. We were told that before Islam came, men could marry an unlimited amount of women and slave girls. Then Islam came and limited the number to 4. We were told that women were not able to hold property before Islam. Then Islam came and gave us that right and the right not to share our property even with our husbands. The absence of community property between husband and wife in Islam is sold as a benefit when it really is the result of polygamy, where women have to protect their inheritance from being shared by other wives and by a husband who does not want to share his wealth. “What a great deal,” we Muslim women thought. Day in and day out we had to thank Allah for Islam that stopped our murder at birth. We had to thank Allah for being supported by husbands in a society that crippled us and did not allow us to get out of the house without our husband’s permission. Just as Muslim women are indoctrinated into believing that Islam saved them from murder at birth, Muslims are trying to convince the West that they too have nothing to fear from Islam.
Thus we see the sensitivity training of Westerners who are expected to never blame Muslim teachings for terrorism. Westerners deep fear of being called racist has been transferred to fear of being called an Islamophobe.
Thus, if the definition of Jihad in Muslim scriptures states that Jihad means “to war with non-Muslims to establish the religion,” the West should not misunderstand the word ‘war’ to be aggression. If Muslim scriptures clearly state that an apostate must be killed immediately and their killers will not be punished, then we must not take the word ‘kill’ at face value. If Muslim scriptures say that women are deficient in intellect and religion and must not be trusted, we should not take that seriously. Thus connecting Muslim commandments to kill and war with Islamic terror and violence is an act of Islamophobia that must be punished as a hate crime. We are still told that the West simply misunderstands Islam. Even after constant and persistent acts of Muslim terror against the West, we are told with deep sincerity, not to be afraid of Islam even if Muslims are holding the Qur’an in one hand and decapitating non-Muslims with another. The message of Islam to kill kafirs and apostates is so unreal and unimaginable to the Western mind that some Westerners actually are convinced it can’t be true and that no religion can openly advocate such violence and stay respected by the international community. It must be us, in the West, who do not understand Islam because the alternative is unimaginable. But the unimaginable has survived and thrived for 1400 years and it is still going strong with full force with the support of petro-dollars and facilitated by Western do-gooders. Editor’s note: To get he whole story on the reality of Sharia, buy Nonie Darwish’s new book, Cruel and Usual Punishment. Source: FPM
By Maxim Lott A German book publisher has canceled a novel about Islamic "honor killings," fearing that the book would offend the Muslim community and put him in danger. Critics of the decision call it a cowardly move, but others say the publisher is simply being responsible. The publisher of the book, which was to have been titled "To Whom Honor is Due," has indicated that he withdrew the book after an expert on Islam warned that some of the passages could spark violent retaliation from Muslims. "After the Muhammad cartoons, one knows that one can't publish sentences or drawings that defame Islam without expecting a security risk," Felix Droste, of Droste Verlag publishing, told the German newspaper Der Spiegel last week. He referred to a series of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that were published in Denmark in 2005 and sparked deadly violence across the Muslim world. Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are forbidden in Islam. This new controversy comes on the heels of Yale University Press' refusal to print the cartoons that were published in Denmark in a new book that details the controversy surrounding them. It also recalls other recent incidents: In 2008, Random House pulled The Jewel of Medina, a book about one of Muhammad's wives, and in 2006 a German theater cancelled a play in which Muhammad gets beheaded. Gabriele Brinkmann, the author of "To Whom Honor is Due," has been speaking out about the cancellation of her book. “It’s a scandal for a publisher to tuck its tail between its legs. This is anticipatory obedience," Brinkmann said, according to the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung. But Droste Verlag spokeswoman Nora Tichy pointed to statements by Droste that were published Wednesday, in which he said he was primarily motivated by a desire to respect all religions — "whether Christianity, Islam or Judaism."
He said he still plans to release a book that involves an honor killing next year, but that it will not contain controversial passages such as one in the cancelled book in which a chracter says "You can shove your Koran up your…” That passage, said Ibrahim Hooper, director of communications for the Council of American Islamic Relations, would offend Muslims. But while he would prefer to see the book go unpublished, he said Droste has every right to release it. "Obviously it's offensive. The question is do they have the right to publish it, and the answer is yes," Hooper said. "Now, they also have the right not to publish. That's really something that should be up to the publisher. And we would hope that [the decision] would be based on good faith and respect for others and not due to potential violence." But Nonie Darwish, the author of "Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law," said the publisher had every right to be afraid. Read more here ... Source: FoxNews Droste Verlag
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 We live at a moment in history when tyrants hold forth with none to stop them. Ahmadinejad-the-Monster held forth in all his western-suited glory at the UN and so did the terrorist, Gaddafi.
No one at the UN stopped the Libyan madman from speaking well beyond his allotted 15 minutes. If the UN can’t even do this, can you imagine them actually stopping a genocide or a terrorist plot in process?If they can’t or won’t, why are we funding them? Why do they exist? The American President has decided to “engage” with the UN and with the world of tyrants. Perhaps he can, perhaps he thinks like them. Me - I have an increasingly hard time dealing with their righteous arrogance and post-colonial resentments, not to mention their demonization of Israel. For example, let me share two recent conversations with you. In retrospect, both conversations were a little like talking to Red Guard Maoist youth leaders in 1949 in China. The first conversation took place in Rome at the international conference I attended. In my speech I referred to “third world” countries. Immediately afterwards, a young woman in a business suit (pants and a jacket) started following me around. She was from South Africa and was pleasant enough but strangely persistent. She said: “ We do not say ‘third world.’ That suggests that one world is ‘first’ and the others, last, or lesser. We would like you to say ‘developing world’ instead. Isn’t that more hopeful?” Said I: “You make an interesting point and I actually agree with you. Going forward, I might do as you suggest.” But she was programmed to go on, to wear down, force concessions, so that everyone will think exactly as she does. She was not used to easy victories and did not seem to hear or believe me. She continued explaining why ‘third world’ was a derogatory phrase and not a good post-colonial way of thinking. I repeated that I agreed with her. When she continued to press on, I backed away. Afterwards, I thought that she had shown very little respect for one of the keynote speakers (myself) whose presentation had just excited a good deal of interest. Ah–she was psychologically programmed to go after those in positions of authority. The second conversation took place in New York City. I was interviewing a college graduate for a potential position. One young woman identified herself as a feminist—but then quickly told me she was a Muslim and that some of her female relatives wear hijab and that their decision was a private one that no government should abrogate. I said that given my work and given how strongly I’d bonded with a stellar group of Muslim feminists at the conference in Rome, I would welcome a Muslim feminist on the job. And, I agreed with her about the importance of separating religion from state–but then said that the matter was still exceedingly tricky. Said I: “One does not want the government mixing in matters of religion or telling women what to wear but as long as Muslim girls and women can be killed for refusing to wear hijab, how can we as feminists fully support it?” Throwing all caution to the winds, I referred her to my website and recommended some books including Nonie Darwish’s Cruel and Usual Punishment, and a new and rather elegant little book by Marnia Lazreg titled Questioning the Veil. Open Letters to Muslim Women. I should have kept my mouth shut. Read more here ...Source: Chesler Chronicles United Nations
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
Nonie Darwish, an ex-Muslim and author of the superb book on Sharia, Cruel and Usual Punishment, comments on the Rifqa Bary case: "Former Muslims need protection now from the US government and court system. We need protection from Sharia Islamic Law." In spite of the clear danger to the life of Muslims who leave Islam, both the legal system and mainstream media still don’t get it. The most recent case in the US of the 17-year old girl, Rifqa Bary, is an example. US courts need proof (even though it is clearly stated in Islamic law books) that Islamic Law condemn apostates to death and encourage any Muslim on the street, even family members, to kill them. Western media does not seem to be interested in the topic. That is the same media that dedicates weeks of valuable air time to ridiculous claims of human rights violations only to certain privileged groups in America. Ms. Bary, Muslim convert to Christianity, had good instincts when she realized the great danger to her life and escaped from her home in Ohio and sought protection from the Christian community in Orlando Florida. If she had not escaped, she could have been yet another statistic of Muslims killed for leaving Islam. I will keep writing articles and books on the topic of Muslim Law, Sharia, until
the West fully understand that threat to their way of life and that Islamic Sharia and democracy cannot co-exist. The following are some laws on apostasy in mainstream Sharia books:
1- Apostates are to be given three days to repent and return to Islam. If s/he refuses, s/he is immediately killed. All Sharia books agree unanimously on this point. (Hanafi law in general, Shafi’i law f1.3, Hanbali law (from Al Mughni), Maliki law and Codified Islamic law).
2- It is obligarory for the califph to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed.
3- There is no indemnity for killing an apostate (O: or any expiation, since it is killing someone who deserves to die)
4- Testimony of apostates is not admissible.
5- An apostate does not inherit from Muslim parents.
6- Marriage of an apostate is immediately dissolved if the spouse is and remains Muslim. The above laws have kept Muslims enslaved inside the iron curtain of the Islamic State under penalty of death for 1400 years and counting. Laws encouraging the killing of non-Mulims, especially those who left Islam, also extend to non-Muslim nations and not just individuals. According to Sharia, non-Muslim nations are invited to convert to Islam and if they refuse a jihad war must begin. The commandment to wage violent wars against non-Muslim countries was given a pretty name by Sharia; jihad became a sacred duty for every Muslim head of State and individual. It is astounding how many Muslims have been desensitized to feeling of any sympathy or guilt toward murdered victims of apostasy laws and jihad.
In Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc, the majority of the population believe that apostates must be killed and that jihad against non-Muslim countries a badge of honor. I do not want to see the same desensitization happen in the West, but the silence of Western media is deafening. The US government must protect its citizens not only from the terrorism of jihad, but also from Islamic Laws condemning Muslims to death and encouraging vigilante street justice. How can a former Muslim like Rifqa, or like myself, live in peace in America when there are neighborhood mosques reading scriptures, to their believers telling them to kill Muslims who left the religion?. Even if 10% of Muslims in America follow Sharia as it is taught, we are in trouble. Muslim scriptures such as the Sahih hadith by Mohammad 9:50 states: “No Umma (a member of the Muslim community) should be killed for killing a Kaffir (an infidel). . . Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him.”
There is no peace for the apostate, not even in the West. The above threat is real and will increase exponentially with the growth of the Muslim population and those who demand Sharia as a religious right. No religion should give the right to its followers to kill others, period. Former Muslims need protection now from the US government and court system. We need protection from Sharia Islamic Law. Source: JihadWatch
While Iranian-American protesters packed streetcorners in Westwood last Saturday afternoon in support of the revolution currently playing out in the streets of Tehran, an historical drama about stoning in Iran got underway at the Los Angeles Film Festival mere blocks away. For the few who don’t know by now, The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s bestselling book, which relates the true story of a woman in a remote Iranian village, in the years after the 1979 Khomeini revolution, who is falsely accused of adultery and stoned to death by a mob desperate to cleanse themselves of this affront to their collective honor and to their religion. It’s not only a gripping story in its own right, but it shines a harsh spotlight on the almost unimaginable reality that the barbaric punishment of stoning still exists in the Iranian law code, despite a largely nominal 2002 moratorium, the result of pressure from Western human rights groups.
(Full disclosure, even though I’m not reviewing the film here: I’m close friends with the filmmakers Cyrus and Betsy Nowrasteh, I provided Mpower Pictures with a bit of research on the project, I’m friends with other cast and crew and producers associated with the film, and I think stoning is bad. So don’t take my word for it when I say Soraya will be the most important, affecting film you’ll see all year. Instead seek out the multitude of reviewers who recommend the film, including Big Hollywood’s John Nolte and then see it for yourself.) Following Saturday’s screening was a panel discussion, not so much moderated as simply hosted by Iranian novelist Khaled Hosseini, author of the bestselling The Kite Runner, who personally selected the film for the L.A. Film Festival. The panel also included Soraya’s writer-director Cyrus Nowrasteh, starring actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Dr. Reza Aslan, billed as an Islamic scholar. Heading off any concerns about possible Islam-bashing in the movie, Mr. Nowrasteh noted at the discussion’s outset that Soraya is actually a pro-Muslim film, because it shows how a few hypocrites can hijack a religion for personal reasons, not to mention that the story’s victim is herself Muslim. He went on to discuss his personal attraction to the story and the process of bringing it to the big screen. Ms. Aghdashloo eloquently responded to a couple of questions about her personal passion for the role and for addressing the real-world issue of stoning. The Q & A was shorter-lived than many including myself would have liked, or at least less focused; one question, for example, was directed to Mr. Hosseini about his novels rather than the movie. But the focus really got blurry when Reza Aslan took the mic.
“Well,” he started, “I guess it’s up to me to put this into some sort of historical context.” If only he had, then people might better understand why the outrage of stoning still exists, and why it exists today only in territories in the grip of Sharia, or Islamic law. Instead Aslan proceeded to so dilute any context at all that people told me at the reception later, which he did not attend, that they either had no idea what he was talking about or simply tuned him out. What he did do, in several obfuscating turns at bat, was utterly whitewash Islam, its prophet Mohammed, and Iranian lawmakers past and present of any responsibility whatsoever for the practice of stoning. He began by asserting that “many cultures” struggled with the issue of stoning. I nearly interrupted him right there to ask, “Really? Which cultures besides those under the thrall of Sharia law? Do Laplanders stone adulterers? Peruvian Indians? The Watusi? Minnesotans?” Aslan clouded any potential for understanding by claiming that culture, not religion, is responsible. Dr. Aslan, an assistant professor of creative writing at UC Riverside with degrees in religion, is such a professorial rock star that he has a MySpace fan page (“Even though he’s the greatest smartie-pants ever he’s a living doll and exceedingly cool,” the site gushes). Not unusually for professors, he seemed to revel in regaling his captive audience with rambling answers devoid of much actual meaning. At one point the answer meandered so tortuously that when Aslan was done I turned to friend and fellow Big Hollywood contributor Charles Winecoff and said, “What was the question again?” “Question?” Charles replied. “What was the answer?” The gist of his message was this: not only is religion inseparable from culture, but the words of, say, the Bible or Quran are utterly devoid of meaning in and of themselves, blank slates upon which we impose our own biased interpretations. Thus, to use one of Aslan’s own examples, if you’re a “misogynistic prick,” you’re going to view the Quran through that woman-hating lens and impose your own meaning upon it, regardless of what Mohammed, supposedly transcribing directly from Allah, actually wrote. Hence, Islam and Mohammed are not responsible for their followers’ misinterpretations, their patriarchal culture is. No one would deny that religion and culture aren’t closely intertwined (though I would argue that religion influences culture more than the other way around), but puh-leeze – it’s beyond absurd to say that there is no substantive difference between Mohammed’s message and Jesus’, that there is no meaning inherent in their words, or that the massive edifices of their religions have not been built, shakily or not, upon the foundations of those words. It’s also disingenuous to suggest that present-day stoning has nothing to do with a seventh-century religious directive. It’s true that stoning is a pre-Islamic practice not mentioned in the Quran; but the tenets of Islam are based not solely on the Quran, but derive also from the hadith, or the tales of Mohammed’s life, and Dr. Aslan neglected to mention that Mohammed does command stoning as a punishment for adultery in the hadith. Nonie Darwish, the Egyptian-American author of, most recently, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, and someone who knows a thing of two about women under Islam, stood in the audience and challenged Aslan at length about Mohammed and misogyny. He acknowledged one minor, innocuous point, but then dismissed her flatly with “Everything else you said is wrong” and handed the mic back to Mr. Hosseini. Not “That’s a common misconception,” or “Let me quote chapter and verse of the Quran to clarify things.” Just “Wrong.” End of discussion. 
(Yet more disclosure: I personally know Ms. Darwish and can attest that she is an affecting, enlightening speaker precisely because she speaks truth plainly and without the kind of empty circumlocutions Dr. Aslan relies on to befuddle the uninformed and to absolve religion of any responsibility for the actions of its believers.) After implying that Islam has simply been distorted by lots of misogynistic pricks, Dr. Aslan cheerily reassured us that Islamic scholars through the ages got around their discomfort with the whole stoning embarrassment by making it “impossible” to convict anyone of adultery, thanks to a legal formula of required witnesses that stacks the deck in favor of the alleged adulterer. Sounds good, except that people get convicted of it and stoned anyway, and he doesn’t explain why, if Mohammed/Allah never sanctioned it, Islamic scholars ever had to wrestle with the practice in the first place or why they don’t simply ban it as un-Islamic. To be fair, Dr. Aslan did cut through the fog with a couple of straightforward declarations, but even these raised more questions than they answered. One such jaw-dropping assertion – “There is no such thing as Sharia” – will come as thrilling news to those awaiting lashings, amputations, beheadings, and stonings in communities from Somalia to Nigeria to Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, etc. where Sharia is in full effect. Another Aslan stunner: “Mohammed was a seventh century feminist.” Surely, I thought, this outrageous soundbite would elicit guffaws from the audience! But the audience sat guffaw-less. Instead, applause greeted almost every one of Aslan’s opaque, vaporous commentaries. I’d like to believe that this was because he had finally finished talking, but the disappointing reality is that he was simply affirming things that many in the audience, Iranian and otherwise, desperately wanted to believe: that there is no connection between Islam and the Sharia-sanctioned brutality we’d just seen dramatized onscreen, and that Iranian authorities actually disapprove of it. A much-comforted Iranian woman next to me stood up and, after insisting on being called upon by Mr. Hosseini, gushed “Reza, I love you!” She neglected to express such love for Cyrus Nowrasteh, the director of this extraordinary film; maybe Mr. Nowrasteh needs to rev up his own MySpace fan page. Overall, Dr. Aslan breezily downplayed stonings in general - Hey, they almost never happen and only in outlying areas out of reach of the rule of big city law, so what’s the big deal? Irrepressible radio host and documentary filmmaker John Ziegler, sitting behind me at the screening, let out a sardonic “Besides, it’s not like it’s as bad as waterboarding, right?” But that wasn’t any solace to a 13-year-old girl sentenced by a Sharia court and stoned to death for adultery in Somalia just last October (after going to the authorities herself and reporting she was gang-raped). Admittedly, that wasn’t in Iran. Okay, so let’s look at the recent record there: an Iranian woman’s conviction of adultery was upheld just last November and her sentence of stoning confirmed. In January of this year, two men were stoned to death in Iran for adultery, and in May of this year, yet another man was stoned to death (the woman involved repented and presumably got her lashings instead). At least ten more men and women await death by stoning around the country.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is too important a film, and the issue of stoning under Sharia law (oops, I forgot – Sharia doesn’t exist) is too critical to allow an apologist like Dr. Aslan to whitewash Sharia with vague deflections and rude dismissal of debate. Lives are still at stake; men and women are still facing death in this grotesque manner (did I mention that it is specified in Iranian law that the stones to be hurled must not be too small to inflict significant damage nor too big to kill the victim immediately?). If we do not debate honestly the medieval ideology that lies behind this cruel practice, it will never end, and there will be more Sorayas. This just in, even as I write: The Iranian judiciary is claiming they’ve decided to eliminate stoning. Call me skeptical, but I’ll believe it when it’s officially enshrined in law, when those awaiting death by stoning have their sentences commuted (to lashings, which will certainly result in very muted cellblock celebration), and when no more stonings happen, even in remote villages. In any case, considering that The Stoning of Soraya M. was on a list released in March of Western films that Iran finds objectionable and insulting, and considering the widespread international media focus on Soraya and its relevance to the current unrest in Iran, there’s no doubt that the growing awareness of the film has pressured the Iranian authorities to at least look like they’re doing the right thing.
International donors pledged almost $4.5 billion in aid for Gaza earlier this month. It has been very painful for me to witness over the past few years the deteriorating humanitarian situation in that narrow strip where I lived as a child in the 1950s. The media tend to attribute Gaza's decline solely to Israeli military and economic actions against Hamas. But such a myopic analysis ignores the problem's root cause: 60 years of Arab policy aimed at cementing the Palestinian people's status as stateless refugees in order to use their suffering as a weapon against Israel. As a child in Gaza in the 1950s, I experienced the early results of this policy. Egypt, which then controlled the territory, conducted guerrilla-style operations against Israel from Gaza. My father commanded these operations, carried out by Palestinian fedayeen, Arabic for "self-sacrifice." Back then, Gaza was already the front line of the Arab jihad against Israel. My father was assassinated by Israeli forces in 1956. It was in those years that the Arab League started its Palestinian refugee policy. Arab countries implemented special laws designed to make it impossible to integrate the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab war against Israel. Even descendants of Palestinian refugees who are born in another Arab country and live there their entire lives can never gain that country's passport. Even if they marry a citizen of an Arab country, they cannot become citizens of their spouse's country. They must remain "Palestinian" even though they may have never set foot in the West Bank or Gaza. This policy of forcing a Palestinian identity on these people for eternity and condemning them to a miserable life in a refugee camp was designed to perpetuate and exacerbate the Palestinian refugee crisis. So was the Arab policy of overpopulating Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, whose main political support comes from Arab countries, encourages high birth rates by rewarding families with many children. Yasser Arafat said the Palestinian woman's womb was his best weapon. Arab countries always push for classifying as many Palestinians as possible as "refugees." As a result, about one-third of the Palestinians in Gaza still live in refugee camps. For 60 years, Palestinians have been used and abused by Arab regimes and Palestinian terrorists in their fight against Israel. Now it is Hamas, an Islamist terror organization supported by Iran, which is using and abusing Palestinians for this purpose. While Hamas leaders hid in the well-stocked bunkers and tunnels they prepared before they provoked Israel into attacking them, Palestinian civilians were exposed and caught in the deadly crossfire between Hamas and Israeli soldiers. As a result of 60 years of this Arab policy, Gaza has become a prison camp for 1.5 million Palestinians. Both Israel and Egypt are fearful of terrorist infiltration from Gaza -- all the more so since Hamas took over -- and have always maintained tight controls over their borders with Gaza. The Palestinians continue to endure hardships because Gaza continues to serve as the launching pad for terror attacks against Israeli citizens. Those attacks come in the form of Hamas missiles that indiscriminately target Israeli kindergartens, homes and businesses. And Hamas continued these attacks more than two years after Israel withdrew from Gaza in the hope that this step would begin the process of building a Palestinian state, eventually leading to a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There was no "cycle of violence" then, no justification for anything other than peace and prosperity. But instead, Hamas chose Islamic jihad. Gazans' and Israelis' hopes have been met with misery for Palestinians and missiles for Israelis. Hamas, an Iran proxy, has become a danger not only to Israel, but also to Palestinians as well as to neighboring Arab states, who fear the spread of radical Islam could destabilize their countries. Arabs claim they love the Palestinian people, but they seem more interested in sacrificing them. If they really loved their Palestinian brethren, they'd pressure Hamas to stop firing missiles at Israel. In the longer term, the Arab world must end the Palestinians' refugee status and thereby their desire to harm Israel. It's time for the 22 Arab countries to open their borders and absorb the Palestinians of Gaza who wish to start a new life. It is time for the Arab world to truly help the Palestinians, not use them. Mrs. Darwish, who grew up in Gaza City and Cairo, is the author, most recently, of "Cruel and Usual Punishment," (Thomas Nelson, 2009). Source: FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
By David Forsmark Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law
By Nonie Darwish
Nelson, $24.99, 272 pp.In the wake of the terror attacks of 9/11, President George W. Bush, in a vain attempt to persuade the world’s Muslims to side with America against the murderous jihadists, famously declared, "Islam means peace." That’s as linguistically correct -- and just as genuine -- as saying, "Pravda means truth." In fact, a literal interpretation of the Qur'an would justify the idea that a more accurate statement would be "Islam means slavery." A close reading of works by Darwish, the Egyptian-born author of Cruel and Usual Punishment, and Ayan Hirsi Ali, the Somali refugee who became a Dutch legislator, shows that a literal interpretation of the Qur’an means that whatever "peace" results from Islam is that of the master and the non-rebellious slave. Americans, however, shy away from such offensive talk. We are brought up drinking the tolerance Kool-Aid that all religions basically have the same moral goals and are just different ways to get to the same place. Thus, we project the specifically Judeo-Christian perspective of the Fatherhood of God -- and, therefore, the brotherhood of man - onto such faiths as Islam, too. Read more ...Source: FrontPage MagazineNonie Darwish
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
Cruel and Usual Punishment is a wake up call to the Western world.Nonie Darwish presents an insider's look at Sharia and examines how radical Muslim laws are destroying the Western world from within. Living under Sharia law for the first thirty years of her life, a virtual slave to Islamic law, Darwish never questioned or challenged her rights--or dared to even think about the validity of Sharia laws. She didn't try to examine what Sharia was, how it came about or why she followed it. "This is Allah's law," she was told, and she knew what awaited those who questioned Allah's law. But she doesn't believe the lies anymore, and now she wants to share her experiences with the Western world. Cruel and Usual Punishment is an insider's look at how Muslims sacrifice their basic human rights to obey the archaic and brutal laws handed down to their prophet centuries ago. Heed this warning: Sharia Law is attempting to infiltrate Western culture and destroy democracy. Source: Books Christian
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
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If you find it hard to believe that women received 40 lashes in Sudan recently for wearing (wide) trousers, read about the life of women under Shari'a (religious Muslim) law. Gaza is almost there, but the rest of the world is the goal. A warning. 
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