 by Moorthy Muthuswamy The recent criticism of Geert Wilders’ views on Islam by the leading lights of the conservative movement has created much indignation and surprise in certain quarters. If conservative analysts with strong national security credentials couldn’t be convinced of Islam’s threat, getting the point across to the centrist politicians who define and execute policy will indeed be even tougher. In a particularly striking criticism of Wilders, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer asserts that “What he [Geert Wilders] says is extreme, radical, and wrong. He basically is arguing that Islam is the same as Islamism. Islamism is an ideology of a small minority which holds that the essence of Islam is jihad, conquest, forcing people into accepting a certain very narrow interpretation [of Islam]. The untruth of that is obvious.” Without commenting on the merits of Dr. Krauthammer’s critique, it is pertinent to note that it is his opinion. This is true of Geert Wilder’s reasoned views on Islam as well. After all, both have not quoted any scientific study to back their assertions. If Islam is a threat as some claim, what would it take to persuade that certain fundamental attributes of Islam enshrine it a violent ideology of conquest?
The key to settling what Islam stands for is to let science, not opinion, dictate the debate. This is reality crystallized by an analogy: There was a time when a male lion was seen as an embodiment of a great and dominant hunter of a pride. This perception reflected the majority of opinions at a certain time. However, various studies conducted in ensuing years told a different story: that female lions were the real hunters of a pride. That is, statistics of female lions hunting for their pride dominated the overall hunting pattern of a pride. These statistics put to rest the specific question of who hunted the most in a pride. In fact, these statistics form the definitive scientific basis of these studies. More than a few Muslims have claimed that they engage in jihad (a religious war waged to advance the cause of Islam at the expense of unbelievers) because Islamic scriptures command them to do so.
Even nations representing Muslim communities—Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran—have taken to sponsoring jihad worldwide, on the basis of the scriptures.
There are widely varying opinions on the root cause of this—the dominant one is that the relevant Islamic scriptures have been misinterpreted. As with the discussion of the lions, a corresponding scientific query would be to find out the extent or the statistics of dislike of unbelievers and their conquest in the Islamic doctrines. Recently, Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam has carried out a groundbreaking statistical analysis of Islamic doctrines.
I summarize his studies by noting that about sixty-one percent of the contents of the Koran are found to speak ill of unbelievers or call for their violent conquest; at best only 2.6 percent of the verses of the Koran are noted to show goodwill toward humanity. Moreover, about seventy five percent of Muhammad’s biography (Sira) consists of jihad waged on unbelievers. While there might be some subjectivity to the above analysis, the overwhelming thrust of the inferences should be noted.
This overall thrust exposes the sheer absurdity of excusing the Koran-inspired terror on the so-called “selective interpretation” of the Muslim holy book or its “verses being taken out of context.” The burden of scientific or statistical evidence suggests that Islam is an intolerant religion that drives its followers toward a violent conquest of unbelievers. If such is the thrust of the Islamic doctrines, their propagation would lead to increased violence directed at non-Muslims. Indeed, rise in Muslim extremism of the past decades is directly correlated with hundreds of billions of dollars spent by government-linked Saudi charities to “propagate” Islam worldwide. Not surprisingly, even in the modern context, manifestations of Islamic supremacy and conquest are the norm, rather than the exception. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden outlined a condition for terror attacks against America to cease: “I invite you to embrace Islam.” During the past sixty years most non-Muslim minorities—tens of millions—in all Muslim-majority regions of South Asia were terrorized into leaving for nearby non-Muslim-majority lands. All of this points to conquering land and people for Islam. America’s policy approach to the Muslim world has been clouded by misrepresentations of Islam’s character. For instance, in one of the most important foreign policy initiatives of his presidency, in the now-famous Cairo speech, Obama observed that “[America and Islam] overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” We are left with the grim reality that at the fundamental level America’s policies toward the Muslim world are based on false premises—and hence, are untenable. This reality must be acknowledged widely before alternate policies can be devised. We live in the era of science that has brought unprecedented security, development, health and prosperity. Yet, we have allowed opinions to dictate debate and policy on an existential threat. The importance of letting science drive policy couldn’t be clearer on the subject of Islamic radicalism. The writer is a U.S.-based nuclear physicist and author of the book Defeating Political Islam: The New Cold War. His email is moorthym@comcast.net. With thanks to The West, Islam and Sharia
 The following are excerpts from an interview with Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf, the son of Sheik Hassan Yousuf, Hamas leader in the West Bank. Yousuf Jr. converted to Christianity, and recently revealed that he had collaborated with Israel. The interview aired on BBC Arabic on March 12, 2010.
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: I have said, and I continue to say, that my problem is not with Hamas or with the Muslims. My problem is with the God of Islam and with the Prophet of Islam. With regard to... There were continuous conflicts, which drove me to think about which direction I would like my life to go. Of course, the torture carried out by Hamas on its people in prison, their stupidity, and their political inadequacy drove me to speak out.
[...]
Interviewer: Are you saying that your views on what you call "the Islam of Hamas" are what led you to collaborate with the Israelis?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: Who said there is the Islam of Hamas and the Islam of Al-Qaeda?
Interviewer: That's what you are saying, more or less.
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: No, I am not saying that. What I am saying is that Islam is Islam, and the Koran is the Koran. The Koran suffers from a split personality, and the God of Islam suffers from a split personality. All the Muslims who follow the God of Islam interpret Islam as they like, but this does not negate the terroristic and murderous character of Islam, which incites people, through the Koran, to kill people and blow themselves up.
[...]
Interviewer: Where does the Koran call for terrorism?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: Go to Surat Al-Tawba, verses 5 and 29. The problem is that Muslims do not understand their own religion. I call upon the Muslims to read their Koran and understand it, before they say that Islam is a religion of peace and compassion.
Interviewer: I asked you...
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: The God of Islam calls to kill any non-Muslim. The God of Islam calls to kill me today.
Interviewer: But don't you agree that Islam recognizes other religions, exalts Jesus, recognizes Judaism, and so on? Do you or do you not accept this?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: There are several unreliable views of several Islamic thinkers, but their authority does not supersede that of the God of Islam, who said: "Slay the People of the Book wherever you find them."
Interviewer: How can you say that? Did the Koran call to slay the People of the Book?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: He said: "Slay the polytheists wherever you find them." Read the surah.
Interviewer: But the People of the Book are not polytheists, are they?
[...]
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: If you want to ague with me – let's argue. Is Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, the supreme role model for the Muslims?
Interviewer: What do you think?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: Did Muhammad kill the Jews of Khaybar, or didn't he? You tell me. Why distort the facts? The Muslims must be honest with themselves and with the rest of the world. Muhammad – the supreme role model for the Muslims – killed the Jews of Khaybar, of Qureiza, and of Nadhir. He killed their children and captured their women. This is the supreme role model for the Muslims.
Interviewer: So your problem is with history, not with the present.
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: My problem is with that false prophet, Muhammad, and with the God of Islam.
[...]
The Muslims are not terrorists by nature. They are among the best nations, in my opinion. However, if the Muslims continue to cover for the terrorists, and to glorify and honor terrorists who blow themselves up, killing children, they will continue to be accomplices. My father is an accomplice.
[...]
Israel has been acting with violence, and killed innocent people. It killed people with or without a reason, but mistakes may happen. Every country on the face of the earth makes mistakes, not only Israel. The difference between Israel and Hamas...
Interviewer: When Israel kills innocent people, this is a "mistake," but when others kill innocent people, it is not?
Mus'ab Hassan Yousuf: Killing is a mistake – regardless of who the killer is – but Hamas has no principles, no laws, and no limits, whereas Israel is bound by law and constitution. If there is a racist Israeli, he will stand trial. Give me one example of a Hamas official who stood trial.
[...]
In my view, if Islam were implemented properly, this would spell the destruction of the Arab and Muslim world – the whole world, in fact – because every Muslim would become a Bin Laden.
[...]
The Christians have been persecuted for the past 14 centuries – not by the Muslims, but by the God of Islam. The persecution begins in the Koran and in the behavior of the Prophet of Islam. View Film Clip Here. With thanks to MEMRI
 Geert Wilders, the far-right MP who likens the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, goes on trial today in a politically charged test of the limits of tolerance and free speech in the Netherlands. Mr Wilders, 46, leader of the Freedom Party, is charged with incitement and discrimination against Muslims over his outspoken comments attacking Islam and for his film, Fitna, which juxtaposed images of 9/11 and beheadings with verses of the Koran.
He has called the Koran “a fascist book” and described Islamic culture as retarded. Mr Wilders, who has made no secret of his ambition to become Prime Minister, has called his indictment a political trial but the Amsterdam Court of Appeal decided that it was in the public interest to prosecute him because his comments have been “so insulting to Muslims”. “I am being prosecuted for my political convictions,” Mr Wilders said this week. The maverick politician was banned from Britain last February on the grounds that he would “threaten community harmony and therefore public security” but travelled to London in October when the restriction was dropped. He faces up to two years in prison if convicted but his opponents fear that, win or lose, his Freedom Party will receive a boost in next year’s election where it is expected to challenge the ruling Christian Democrats for the largest party vote. In last summer’s European Parliament elections Mr Wilders’s party took 17 per cent of the vote, second to the CDA of Jan Peter Balkenende, the Prime Minister, on 19.9 per cent. Mr Wilders has received numerous death threats for his campaign against the “Islamisation of our societies” views but has built a large following by exploiting a backlash against relaxed Dutch immigration policies, vowing to close Holland’s borders if he comes to power. “My supporters say, ‘At last there is someone who dares to say what millions of people think’. That is what I do.” Today’s hearing in Amsterdam district court is a formal opening session to determine who will be called as witnesses and whether they will all be heard in public. A spokeswoman for the Public Prosecution Office said that the demand for the case came from a variety of individuals and organisations which complained about comments made by Mr Wilders. “The Court of Appeal determined that statements equating Islam to Nazism were a punishable insult to Islamic worshippers and therefore constituted ground for criminal prosecution,” she said. In its judgment ordering the prosecution of Mr Wilders the Court of Appeal stated: “The court considers this so insulting for Muslims that it is in the public interest to prosecute Wilders.
By attacking the symbols of the Muslim religion, he also insulted Muslim believers. In a democratic system, hate speech is considered to be so serious that it is in the general interest to draw a clear line.” Times Online
 [Editor's note: Protected by a bodyguard and twelve armed campus security officers, David Horowitz spoke at the University of Southern California on November 4, 2009. This is a text of his remarks, edited for readability. A video of the speech is available here. To read about the efforts to censor him before the speech and the slander directed at him, click here.]
I want to thank the College Republicans for being brave enough to invite me, and I want to thank all of you who are here to actually listen for coming. It used to be a pleasure for me to speak on a college campus like USC. I can remember the days when I could stroll onto the USC campus and walk over to the statue of Tommy Trojan where College Republicans had erected a platform for a rally to support our troops in Afghanistan after 9/11 at which I was to speak.
Now, however, I can’t set foot on this campus – or any campus – without being accompanied by a personal bodyguard and a battalion of armed campus security police to protect me and my student hosts. Sheer prudence forces me to visit campuses with these security measures in place because I’ve been demonized by the campus left at virtually every school I’ve visited in the past decade and physically assaulted at several.
USC officials regard the threats against this event seriously enough to have assigned twelve armed officers to watch over the proceedings.
These police are not here to protect you from me. They are here to protect me from you members of the USC Progressive Alliance, Students for Justice in Palestine and the USC Muslim Student Union who have made these threats and incited hatred towards this event and its speaker. These are the tactics favored by fascists – and when I use that word I mean it literally. I don’t use it the way the Left does, as an epithet for anyone they don’t like. The attacks on this event and those organizing it are part of a national hate campaign that the left has organized against me and others who share my views. It can be tracked on numerous websites over nearly a decade and is evidenced in the common themes of slander and abuse that are directed towards me.
The left’s campaign – really a declaration of war — is in part a response to my opposition to its anti-American, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic agendas. Consequently I accept their attacks as features of this battlefield, signature methods of leftist argument. But the College Republicans on this campus have been caught in this crossfire. These students pay the same tuition as the political thugs who are on the attack and who are supported by the USC student paper which is under the control of USC administrators, and they do not deserve to be treated this way. Nor should a university administrator lend legitimacy to modes of discourse which violate the published ethical standards of the institution he represents. In its attack the USC Progressive Alliance put out a flyer containing gross fabrications which are central to its campaign of slander against this event and the students hosting it. The flyer’s headline reads: “Hate Muslims? So Do We.” It pretends to be a document issued by College Republicans. In fact they had nothing to do with it, while the sentiment it expresses is reprehensible to them. The deception isn’t even original. Two years ago an identical flyer was posted all over the George Washington University campus when I spoke there during an Islamofascism Awareness Week I had organized. This “Hate Muslims? So Do We” poster bore the forged signature of the Young America’s Foundation, which was the group that was sponsoring my speech at George Washington U. When the president of the University became aware of the poster he was so outraged that he sent emissaries to dorm rooms of the leaders of the Young America’s Foundation at eight in the morning to summon them to his office where he threatened them with expulsion. They explained to him that they had absolutely nothing to do with the offense and didn’t hate Muslims but the president’s threat remained.
That night he convened a campus meeting to deplore the attack. As you know there is a new religion on college campuses based on the idea that there are endangered human species that need to be protected – all of them conveniently championed by the left as groups that are oppressed. In fact the only oppressed and persecuted groups on college campuses are those under attack from the left — campus conservatives, Christians and Jews. That’s the reality, in contrast to the rhetoric. Read it all at FPM
 Six people were killed Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, where protesters claiming that international troops destroyed copies of the Koran clashed with Afghan and foreign security forces, Afghan officials said. Also in the south, 13 insurgents were killed by a missile that international forces fired from an unmanned drone, NATO said. A protest of about 2,000 people in Helmand province's Garmsir district turned violent as demonstrators fought with security forces, leaving six civilians dead, according to the top official in the province, Abdullah Barak. Provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi confirmed six dead but did not say if they were civilians. NATO said only one person was killed during the protest — an insurgent sniper who allegedly shot at an Afghan official and was killed by NATO troops. A NATO spokesman denied that the foreign troops desecrated any copies of Islam's holy book in Sunday's operation with Afghan forces in Garmsir. Lt. Nico Melendez said no shots were fired, and no property was damaged. "We take such allegations very seriously and would support a combined investigation with local Afghan authorities," he said. Afghanistan is a Muslim nation where blasphemy of Muhammad and the Koran is considered a serious crime that is punishable by death. Similar allegations that U.S. troops desecrated the Koran during an operation in October in Wardak province also sparked protests. U.S. and Afghan authorities denied the allegation, insisting that the Taliban are spreading the rumor to stir up public anger. Tensions have intensified in southern Afghanistan as U.S. and other foreign troops step up their efforts to rout the Taliban. Coalition troops saw a group of insurgents near a safe house preparing ammunition as well as insurgent mortar teams moving equipment in the Naw Zad area of Helmand province, NATO said. The international force launched one missile, killing the 13 militants. On Monday, another missile fired from an unmanned aircraft killed three insurgents farther south in the Nad Ali district of Helmand, according to NATO. Drone attacks are widely associated with the fight against al-Qaida and its allies in neighboring Pakistan, where the unmanned aircraft are used to go after militants in areas where U.S. troops are banned from entering. But a NATO spokesman said the aircraft are also regularly used in Afghanistan. "The use of drones is routine and drone strikes are something that we're able to rely upon when we need them," Lt. Nico Melendez said, adding that their use has not increased or decreased in recent months. Melendez said drones are used in Afghanistan for reconnaissance, aerial monitoring and for attacks. In the south-central part of the country, a member of the Afghan National Police was killed and two others were wounded in a suicide attack Monday evening at a police station in Uruzgan province, police chief Juma Gul Hamit said. The suicide bomber detonated his cache of explosives near the gate of the police chief's office in Dihrawud district. Hamit said the attacker tried to enter the office where a meeting was under way. Although wounded by police, the bomber detonated his explosive vest, killing the one policeman and injuring the two others who kept him from going inside. In Paris, meanwhile, the French military said an army captain died Tuesday of wounds suffered a day before during an insurgent ambush in the Alasay valley east of Kabul. Another French soldier was killed instantly in the same ambush. Both casualties were with a joint Afghan and French army patrol that was attacked by small arms fire in a village market place. France has some 3,500 troops with NATO in Afghanistan. It has lost 38 men in Afghanistan since 2001. FoxNews
 Here is an illuminating piece that you would do well to keep around for future reference: "How Taqiyya Alters Islam's Rules of War: Defeating Jihadist Terrorism," by our old Jihad Watch friend, the great scholar Raymond Ibrahim in the Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2010: Islam must seem a paradoxical religion to non-Muslims. On the one hand, it is constantly being portrayed as the religion of peace; on the other, its adherents are responsible for the majority of terror attacks around the world.
Apologists for Islam emphasize that it is a faith built upon high ethical standards; others stress that it is a religion of the law. Islam's dual notions of truth and falsehood further reveal its paradoxical nature: While the Qur'an is against believers deceiving other believers--for "surely God guides not him who is prodigal and a liar"[1]--deception directed at non-Muslims, generally known in Arabic as taqiyya, also has Qur'anic support and falls within the legal category of things that are permissible for Muslims. Muslim deception can be viewed as a slightly less than noble means to the glorious end of Islamic hegemony under Shari'a, which is seen as good for both Muslims and non-Muslims. In this sense, lying in the service of altruism is permissible. In a recent example, Muslim cleric Mahmoud al-Masri publicly recounted a story where a Muslim lied and misled a Jew into converting to Islam, calling it a "beautiful trick." Taqiyya offers two basic uses. The better known revolves around dissembling over one's religious identity when in fear of persecution. Such has been the historical usage of taqiyya among Shi'i communities whenever and wherever their Sunni rivals have outnumbered and thus threatened them.
Conversely, Sunni Muslims, far from suffering persecution have, whenever capability allowed, waged jihad against the realm of unbelief; and it is here that they have deployed taqiyya--not as dissimulation but as active deceit. In fact, deceit, which is doctrinally grounded in Islam, is often depicted as being equal--sometimes superior--to other universal military virtues, such as courage, fortitude, or self-sacrifice. Yet if Muslims are exhorted to be truthful, how can deceit not only be prevalent but have divine sanction? What exactly is taqiyya? How is it justified by scholars and those who make use of it? How does it fit into a broader conception of Islam's code of ethics, especially in relation to the non-Muslim? More to the point, what ramifications does the doctrine of taqiyya have for all interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims? The Doctrine of Taqiyya According to Shari'a--the body of legal rulings that defines how a Muslim should behave in all circumstances--deception is not only permitted in certain situations but may be deemed obligatory in others. Contrary to early Christian tradition, for instance, Muslims who were forced to choose between recanting Islam or suffering persecution were permitted to lie and feign apostasy. Other jurists have decreed that Muslims are obligated to lie in order to preserve themselves,[2] based on Qur'anic verses forbidding Muslims from being instrumental in their own deaths.[3] This is the classic definition of the doctrine of taqiyya. Based on an Arabic word denoting fear, taqiyya has long been understood, especially by Western academics, as something to resort to in times of religious persecution and, for the most part, used in this sense by minority Shi'i groups living among hostile Sunni majorities.[4] Taqiyya allowed the Shi'a to dissemble their religious affiliation in front of the Sunnis on a regular basis, not merely by keeping clandestine about their own beliefs but by actively praying and behaving as if they were Sunnis. Read it all at JihadWatch
 Few would consider Robert Spencer, author and prominent scholar of Islam, to be a radical. Spencer’s politics fit snuggly within the mainstream of conservative thought. He appears regularly at both Human Events and FrontPage Magazine. His books are published by the stalwart conservative press Regnery. His rhetoric and demeanor are hardly radical either. Read his books and you’ll find sly, witty humor to complement his often depressing subject matter. His talks are no different. He presents a friendly demeanor. Here’s an example from the recent Restoration Weekend: So in what manner is Spencer possessed of the Radical Spirit? To understand this we need to understand what it means to be radical. The first definition of the term (coming from its etymology) sums it up: “Arising from or going to a root or source.” Thus Spencer’s radicalism soon becomes clear to those familiar with his books and his essential blog, JihadWatch. His principle project is this: to go to the root of understanding Islam. To strip away the obfuscations of the Left and alleged “moderate” Islamist apologists and to really demonstrate just what this religion is all about. And so his newest book, The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran is in a sense his most radical work yet. In the past Spencer has hit numerous Islam-related topics. Last year’s Stealth Jihad looked at how many Islamists have shifted tactics from violence to quiet subversion. Previous books focused on Muhammad and the differences between Islam and Christianity. Now he examines the Koran itself. In twelve accessible chapters – each interspersed with sidebars and quotes in Idiot’s Guide fashion – Spencer gives a crash course on the Koran’s origins, its interpretation and its contents. He explains how the book was assembled and why it’s so difficult to understand. (It’s not even written chronologically!) He also shows how pervasively anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, intolerant, and violent attitudes are embedded within this book revered by more than a billion people. The experience of reading The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran brought to mind two other “radical” texts, each exploring a different kind of faith. The first is Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixties, the classic critique of the New Left by Peter Collier and David Horowitz. Destructive Generation is a dense book that overwhelms with the sheer number, variety, and intensity of its facts and arguments. One completes it almost exhausted. Spencer’s Infidel’s Guide produces a similar effect. The author packs his text with so many quotes from the Koran, the Hadith, and prominent Muslim commentators that it’s profoundly difficult to argue with him. (Which perhaps explains why the usual anti-Spencer retort is to slur him as a bigot and not bother to even quote him.) The second is this year’s Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them) by agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. The new book by the author of Misquoting Jesus and God’s Problem provided a more thoughtful alternative to critiquing religion than the Christopher Hitchens/Richard Dawkins militant atheism. Spencer’s approach to the Koran is identical to Ehrman’s to the New Testament. He’s a nonbeliever who seeks to look at a holy text critically, examining how it was made and what the text itself actually says – not how it’s allegedly divine and infallible. Yet why is Spencer the “bigot” of the two? Why is it acceptable to look at Christianity critically but “racist” to do so for Islam? Why have we built an advantage to our enemies right into the fabric of our “politically correct” culture? And it’s here where we return to understanding Spencer as a radical. Because Spencer is not just a radical intellectual – willing to take an idea to its root no matter how maligned the left-dominated intellectual culture might make him. He’s also a radical activist. Consider another of the American Heritage Dictionary’s definitions of radical: “One who advocates fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions.” Possessed of the conservative’s understanding of human nature and loyalty to individual liberty he knows the only way one can both effectively and morally change society is to change people’s ideas. And so the “fundamental or revolutionary change” that he advocates is a revision in the way Americans understand Islam. Let us support him as he pursues this intellectual revolution. Our very society is dependent upon its success. FPM
 Tawfik Hamid, a former member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, writes that recent changes in Saudi Arabia makes him question whether (as the title of his piece says) “Is Saudi Arabia leading a reformation of the Muslim world?” He points to this development: For years the religious police in Saudi Arabia (”Haiat Al-Amr Bil-Maaroof Wa Al-nahei An Al-Munkar”) was advocating separation between men and women in education and daily life activity. Many other parts of the Muslim world and Islamic societies have gradually adopted the same gender separation approach. Since the most unexpected things often happen, last week Sheck Dr. Ahmed Ibn Khasem Al-Ghamdy the head of the religious police in Mecca (that used to punish people for mixing with the other gender) has announced that mixing between males and females is completely Islamic and permissible in the religion. The Sheikh then justifies his ruling by using stories from the Koran to make the case for women’s rights!
Hamid also says that King Abdullah has approved the first university in the country to not be segregated based on gender. World Threats
 Here is the apotheosis of the Islamic tendency to treat women as commodities -- a tendency with deep roots in the Qur'an and Sunnah. "Girl sold in open auction," by Sikander Khoso for The Nation, December 13
JACOBABAD - A 20-year-old girl was auctioned at village Badani Bhutto of Taluka Kashmore in consideration of Rs2,70,000 on Saturday. Azizan, daughter of late Allah Bux Bhutto, was divorced on the allegation of Karo-kari some time back. She is stated to be mother of two children and was residing with her brother who held the open auction for her 'sale' at village Badani Bhutto. A large number of villagers showed interest in the auction that started with Rs50,000 and ended at Rs270,000. Bilawal Bhutto, 50, of the same village purchased her for the said amount. Initially he paid Rs210,000 for the girl. Maulana Azizullah Bhutto performed their nikah [marriage] later. It is irony of the situation that no one condemned the inhuman act. The groom will take the bride to his house after paying the rest of the amount. The auction money was distributed equally among all the brothers of the girl. With thanks to JihadWatch
 The experience of reading The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran brought to mind two other “radical” texts, each exploring a different kind of faith. The first is Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixties, the classic critique of the New Left by Peter Collier and David Horowitz.
Destructive Generation is a dense book that overwhelms with the sheer number, variety, and intensity of its facts and arguments. One completes it almost exhausted.
Spencer’s Infidel’s Guide produces a similar effect. The author packs his text with so many quotes from the Koran, the Hadith, and prominent Muslim commentators that it’s profoundly difficult to argue with him. (Which perhaps explains why the usual anti-Spencer retort is to slur him as a bigot and not bother to even quote him.) The second is this year’s Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them) by agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. The new book by the author of Misquoting Jesus and God’s Problem provided a more thoughtful alternative to critiquing religion than the Christopher Hitchens/Richard Dawkins militant atheism. Spencer’s approach to the Koran is identical to Ehrman’s to the New Testament. He’s a nonbeliever who seeks to look at a holy text critically, examining how it was made and what the text itself actually says – not how it’s allegedly divine and infallible.
Yet why is Spencer the “bigot” of the two? Why is it acceptable to look at Christianity critically but “racist” to do so for Islam? Why have we built an advantage to our enemies right into the fabric of our “politically correct” culture? And it’s here where we return to understanding Spencer as a radical. Because Spencer is not just a radical intellectual – willing to take an idea to its root no matter how maligned the left-dominated intellectual culture might make him.
He’s also a radical activist. Consider another of the American Heritage Dictionary’s definitions of radical: “One who advocates fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions.” Possessed of the conservative’s understanding of human nature and loyalty to individual liberty he knows the only way one can both effectively and morally change society is to change people’s ideas. And so the “fundamental or revolutionary change” that he advocates is a revision in the way Americans understand Islam. Let us support him as he pursues this intellectual revolution. Our very society is dependent upon its success. NewsReal Blog
 The prosecution in the Hague will investigate 49 cases of child abuse during Koran classes in mosques in the city, it was announced Tuesday.
The local GGD (municipal health department) received so many reports of child abuse that according to the youth health department (JGZ), it's a pattern.
This is because the number of reports (49), is almost equal to the number of indications of domestic child abuse (52). While generally, in 93% of the cases of child abuse the offender is a parent or somebody else directly in charge of raising the kids. In total, about 4,600 files were investigated.
In April the Hague municipal council asked the city executive to study the problem after they got stories of children being beaten during Koran classes.
Half of the reports of child abuse were linked to classes in the El Islam mosque. On Monday Mayor Jozias van Aartsen and Alderman (Education, youth and sport), had a pointed talk with the mosque administration.
The mosque administration agrees with the municipality that child abuse is unacceptable and promised to be cooperative and open. The mosque also promised more supervision of Koran classes and to directly intervene if there's concrete indications of violence against children.
The El-Islam mosque also promised to suspend the work of the teachers suspected of child-abuse during the investigation.
The city executive will speak with more mosque administration in the near future. In addition, JGZ social workers will attempt to convince parents to lodge complaints if they suspect their children are being beaten. So far none of the parents was ready to do so in the cases which were discovered.
The Socialist Party in the city council wants a criminal case opened against the mosque. SP councilor Hiek van Driel: "I can't imagine that people from the administration didn't know that children in this mosque were so badly mistreated."
SMN, the umbrella organization for Moroccans in the Netherlands, says they've got reports from their people of possible cases of child abuse in mosques in the Hague, but also elsewhere.
"We know from our network that there are mosques where corporal punishment is meted out. That happens not only in the Hague but in a manner of speaking also in Amsterdam and Utrecht," said chairman Farid Azarkan Wednesday.
SMN says in a press release that it's "intolerable that children get corporal punishment." Azarkan says that teachers should keep their hands off the children. "That we've agreed with each other here in the Netherlands and everybody should keep to it."
The organization calls on mosque administrations to act against teachers who overstep the line and to take seriously parents and children who complain about child-abuse. The SMN will draw attention to this in its regular meeting with mosque organizations.
Azarkan asks for a nuanced discussion on the topic, saying that only a few mosques are guilty of such practices.
Sources: Telegraaf 1, 2; West (Dutch) Thanks to Islam in Europe
 By Bill Warner When you study the incident of Major Hasan at Fort Hood, you realize that there were some questions that needed to have been asked. But, no one knew what to ask, since the wrong questions might seem, well, politically incorrect. No one wants to be politically incorrect. We don’t want to offend. If you look around you will find that no one is asking any Muslims hard questions. Never mind the Major Hasan types, no one asks questions to the Muslim at work. It turns out that there are many questions that each and every Muslim should be asked. These are simple ones that deal with the core of Islam. Every Muslim knows the answers. “Do you believe that the Koran is perfect?” This is not offensive. Muslims must believe that the Koran is perfect, without error. They also believe that it is eternal and universal. Most of all, it came from the lips of Mohammed. “Is Mohammed the ideal Muslim? Should Muslims pattern their life after Mohammed?” Again, don’t worry that Muslims will find this awkward. Mohammed is admired, looked up to, and idealized. He is the perfect father, husband, friend, warrior, wise elder and best companion that could be. These questions establish the Islam of the believer. Every Muslim believes that the Koran is perfect, and Mohammed is the ideal human.
Islam is only partially based on the Koran. Far more of a Muslim’s life is governed by Mohammed than the Koran and Allah. Why is this so important? The practical way to understand Islam and what Muslims believe and think is to know about Mohammed. This is very good news. Anyone can understand Mohammed’s life.
However, once you get to know Mohammed, the perfect Muslim, Islam becomes problematic.
From the first days of being a prophet Mohammed not only preached a better way of life, but he attacked all those who did not believe him. He created a new type of human being called the kafir, usually called unbeliever, but this is not an accurate translation. A kafir is the worst person in the world; an unbeliever is just someone who does not believe. A kafir can be mocked, deceived, tortured, enslaved, murdered, robbed, raped, and plotted against. Kafir is the worst word in the human language. Now we are ready to ask a Muslim another question. “Am I a kafir?” The only answer is yes, but that is not the answer you will get. If you are a Christian you will be told no, you are a person of the Book. That sounds nice, but if you don’t believe that both Jesus and Mohammed were the prophets of Allah and that the Gospels are false, then you are a Christian kafir. They also might say that you are a non-Muslim, but that is not what the Koran says. The Koran says that you are a kafir. Now we come to more questions that should be asked, but most people do not have the knowledge to ask them, since the questions are based on knowing Mohammed’s life. As an example, Mohammed repeatedly advised Muslims to deceive kafirs if it would advance Islam. So: “Have you ever deceived a kafir?” is appropriate to ask. Mohammed assassinated kafirs, tortured, enslaved, robbed and plotted against them. His entire life as a prophet was an attempt to make kafirs submit to Islam by any means possible. It is proper then to ask: “How do you feel about what he did?” If you are a Christian, ask: “Over 60 million Christians have been killed in jihad. Christians are persecuted daily in Islamic lands. Have you ever apologized for this?” If you are a black American, ask: “Islam sold slaves on the West coast of Africa, the east coast of Africa and the Mediterranean. You enslaved over a million Europeans. Why do you never take any responsibility for slavery?” If you are a Jew, ask: “How do you see the war against Israel as jihad?” The other reason we do not ask questions is that we have become a nation of deceivers under political correctness. We don’t ask Muslims any question that would make them feel “uncomfortable”. It is completely reasonable to ask anyone about their ideology. Christians, Jews, liberals, conservatives and every other ideology have to answer questions about what they believe. Why not Muslims? That is the true question for kafirs: “Why are Muslims the only people in the world who don’t have to be asked difficult questions about what they believe?” All Muslims must answer questions about Islam, questions about Mohammed and the Koran for the only way to know a Muslim is to know their Islam. Western Front
 Frontpage Interview’s guests today are Robert Spencer and Moorthy Muthuswamy. Moorthy Muthuswamy is an expert on terrorism in India. He grew up in India, where he had firsthand experience with political Islam and jihad. He moved to America in 1984 to pursue graduate studies. In 1992, he received a doctorate in nuclear physics from Stony Brook University, New York. Since 1999 he has extensively published ideas on neutralizing political Islam’s terror war as it is imposed on unbelievers. He is the author of the new book, Defeating Political Islam: The New Cold War. Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of nine books on Islam and Jihad, a weekly columnist for Human Events and Frontpagemag.com, and has led numerous seminars for the U.S. military and intelligence communities. He is the author of the new book, The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran. FP: Moorthy Muthuswamy and Robert Spencer, welcome to Frontpage Interview. I’d like to talk to both of you today about the Yemeni Koran. Moorthy Muthuswamy, let’s begin with you. Tell us about this Yemeni Koran and what it signifies. Muthuswamy: Thank you for the opportunity, Jamie. First, some background. In 1972, during the restoration of the Great Mosque of Sana’a, in Yemen, a gravesite containing a mash of old parchment pages was discovered. It became clear that this parchment hoard is an example of what is sometimes referred to as a “paper grave.” In this case, the site was the resting place for tens of thousands of fragments from close to a thousand different parchment codices of the Koran, the Muslim holy book. Using a technique called “carbon dating,” some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard were dated back to the seventh and eighth centuries, or Islam’s first two centuries. Until now, three ancient copies of the Koran were said to exist. One copy in the Library of Tashkent in Uzbekistan, and another in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, date from the eighth century.
A copy kept in the British Library in London dates from the late seventh century. But the Sana’a parchment pages are even older. Moreover, these pages are written in a script that originates from the Hijaz—the region of Arabia where the prophet Muhammad purportedly lived. This makes the Yemeni Korans not only the oldest to have survived, but one of the earliest copies of the Koran ever. In 1981, the first scientific undertaking to study the Yemeni Koran was initiated by a group headed by Gerd-R. Puin, a specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Koranic paleography based at Saarland University, in Saarbrücken, Germany. Puin and his group recognized the antiquity of some of the parchment fragments. Their preliminary inspection revealed unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography and artistic embellishment. Interestingly, some of the sheets were also palimpsests—versions very clearly written over even earlier, washed-off or erased versions. To quote Puin: “So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is just God’s unaltered word… They like to quote the textual work that shows that the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too. The Sana’a fragments will help us to do this.” The idea that the Koran is the literal Word of God, perfect, timeless, and permanent, is crucial to Islam, in particular, to the Islamists at the forefront of spreading sharia and jihad.
However, some of the Sana’a fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text. Indeed, this evidence compels one to conclude that the Muslim holy book has undergone a textual evolution rather than simply the Word of God as revealed in its entirety to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. More at FPM
 A delegation of Israelis from the West Bank on Sunday brought copies of the Koran to the Palestinian village of Yasuf, where two days earlier a mosque was torched and vandalized allegedly at the hand of angry settlers.
The delegation from the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, led by peace activist Rabbi Menachem Froman, met the village elders at a nearby checkpoint after being held up for several hours by the Israel Defense Forces.
The delegation said they brought the Muslim holy books to show their condemnation for the attack and to replace those burnt by vandals.
Security officials say they fear that the torching of a mosque near Nablus on Friday could lead to reprisal attacks by Palestinians on Jews. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel's security services to find the people behind the arson, which Jewish extremists are suspected of perpetrating.
Immediately after the attack on the mosque at the village of Yasuf, Palestinian residents scuffled with members of the Border Police, a few of whom were lightly wounded. Several Palestinians were also hurt.
The arson prompted army and Border Police commanders to increase their presence in the Nablus area to prevent further attacks by Jewish extremists and reprisals by Palestinians. Security sources said such reprisals were a concern because the arson attack offended Palestinians' religious sentiments.
"The attack on the mosque was a dangerous provocation that could cause a further and unnecessary conflagration," one security official said.
Israel Defense Forces officers in the West Bank say that some settlers may escalate their opposition to the temporary freeze on settlement construction by targeting the Palestinian population - the "price tag" policy.
Attacks like the arson have provoked similar attacks by Palestinians, which the Shin Bet security service calls "popular attacks." These include acts that require little planning like stabbings, stone throwing and the hurling of Molotov cocktails.
The assailants - whose acts drew condemnations from U.S., Palestinian, Israeli and settler leaders - entered Yasuf before dawn Friday, according to the police.
They burned prayer carpets and a book stand containing Muslim holy texts, and left graffiti on the floor reading "Price tag - greetings from Effi." The vandals escaped. Police officials said they had no definite leads. The Shin Bet declined to discuss the investigation.
"We condemn this attack in the strongest terms and call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice," the U.S. State Department said.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has condemned the act as a bid to thwart the peace process with the Palestinians. "This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government's efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel's future," he said on Friday.
President Shimon Peres urged officials to do "everything in their power to bring to justice" the people behind the attack, which he said ran contrary to Israel's fundamental values.
"The government, the security forces and the law-enforcement institutions must take every measure, with the utmost urgency, to find the perpetrators and put them on trial in accordance with the gravity of the acts," Peres said in a statement.
According to opposition leader Tzipi Livni in a speech in Herzliya on Friday, "while a human rights march goes on in Tel Aviv, in Samaria extremist elements set fire to a mosque in a severe, despicable act of provocation."
In a statement yesterday, the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, added that the "profanation of the mosque and the torching of copies of the Koran found in it, and the spraying of racist graffiti on the mosque's walls against Islam and Muslims represent blatant aggression against the sanctity of sacred places."
Danny Dayan, who heads the Yesha Council of settlements, said the vandalism was "a wrong and foolish act." He added that "whoever did this does not wish for the good of the settlements in Judea and Samaria."
But far-right activist Itamar Ben-Gvir said that "Netanyahu must freeze these racist edicts to calm the atmosphere."
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) added that "those who wish to wipe out the Jewish people must not expect us to identify with their symbols and centers of incitement. I ran out of condemnations when the synagogues at Gush Katif were burned."
 By Kenneth Roberts [Part One] Both Sunnis and Shi’ites believe in the use of sacred violence. The right to coerce the infidels and subdue them was given by Allah to Mohammed as owner of the earth. Theologically, mocking Mohammed’s method of controlling the infidels is blasphemy, for the violent method of Mohammed comes directly from Allah.
Allah’s method trumps human logic, even the Western ideal of free speech that is based on mere human philosophy and mere human reasoning, rather than Allah’s Divine Command.
In mere human philosophy, Mohammed’s fitna-prevention method is built on a fallacy of logic called the Appeal to Force in place of logical argument. But this fallacious argument is the main argument of the Koran. Muslims know that the Koranic argument for violence against the infidels takes up 2/3 of the Koran and they further know that the Koranic argument cannot be wrong, for it comes directly from Allah and Allah is not a liar. Mohammed’s method for eliminating fitna is jihad and all Muslims should freely use Mohammed’s method, since Mohammed is their role model. This is what Muslims did in the Danish cartoon riots.
It is also what motivated Dr. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009. Normally, Muslims will not kill infidels for merely thinking non-Islamic thoughts. After all, who knows what another person is thinking, even one’s own spouse? Sacred violence is authorized when open disagreement with Mohammed is expressed in the public domain, as with a cartoon or an anti-Islamic book. It need not be the guilty person who is punished, so we can never be sure of the physical safety of any infidels, since throughout history, jihads have often included mass slaughters and genocides of men, women and children. Mohammed approved of such indiscriminate killing of unbelievers on occasion, if it was convenient for him. During a night-time sneak attack on a town, Mohammed was asked about his customary method of sparing women and children (so that they could be sources of revenue as slaves). According to the Hadith by Abu Muslim 19:4322 , Mohammed responded, “They are of them.” In other words, the women and children are accomplices in the fitna of the defending males. And besides, it was inconvenient to attack and carry lanterns to check everything that moves in the dark. Here Mohammed authorized wholesale slaughter of an entire community. The justification for this was the political charge of fitna. So no infidel is ever innocent of fitna, a capital crime. Such logic was used by Major Nidal Hasan when he committed a wholesale slaughter http://www.faithfreedom.org/islam/islamic-mind-major-nidal-hasan of 13 unarmed American soldiers: …the American army opposes Mohammed’s method…it is guilty of fitna…and the 13 slaughtered soldiers ‘are of them.’
This made Dr. Hasan a hero to the former mullah of his mosque, because he executed the enemies of Mohammed using deceit and surprise, just like Mohammed did. Mohammed frequently executed unarmed prisoners of war. Dr. Hasan is a rational, pious Muslim. His ideas agree with the official scholarly concensus of normative Islam. Mohammed’s brilliant method of ruthless assassination silences fitna by paralyzing the brain with fear. Mohammed’s method may not be judged by any external standard, because his method is itself the standard. Forget the obvious ethical flexibility or opportunism. Mohammed’s method takes a position above human logic, ethical analysis and philosophical discourse. To analyze Mohammed’s ethical inconsistencies is fitna. Today, Islamic governments are seeking new ways to control fitna beyond their borders. Kafir fitna is temptation or luring that tempts Muslims to question or lose their faith. Kafirs commit fitna every time they disagree with Sharia law in the public domain, when they mock Mohammed’s violent method in cartoons or use reason or logic on the Internet to show Mohammed is wrong. Such politically incorrect utterance keeps the Islamic state from insuring all information supports the unity and power of that State and its jihadist army. Information control is normative Islam and is fully acceptable to all pious Muslims, since it prevents fitna, the ultimate crime. Modern Muslims agree that fitna should be removed from human society through censorship of discourse that disagrees with Islam, even in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. By removing the right to disagree with Islam at the UN, Muslim governments hope to implement global information control. Politically, this will allow Islamic governments to totally ignore all human rights complaints by claiming Muslims have a unique human right: the right of not hearing any criticism. When governments of the Islamic Conference say they wish to remove utterances that criticizes Islam, they actually mean ‘fitna’…public disagreement with Mohammed. Islamic governments know fitna control is needed before discriminatory Sharia law can be fully implemented and jihad can go ahead. They seek to shut down the freedom of UN diplomats to discuss any human rights aspect of Islam. They cast a veil over Islamic discrimination against women and minorities in view of the radical claim that Muslims have a superior, unique human right which infidels do not possess. More at WesternFront
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
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by Moorthy Muthuswamy
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