Netherlands: School backs down from halal-only Christmas meal

An elementary Catholic school in Weert (Netherlands) decided to serve just halal food this year for its Christmas meal. The school has about 400 students and about ten Muslim students. However, after some parents complained, the school backed down.

The Christmas meal is organized every year together with the parents association. According to principal Margo Janssen they decided for practical considerations to serve halal for everybody.

In previous years they took the Muslims into account and served them separate halal dishes, but this wouldn't be necessary if everybody is served halal. Janssen points out that this is also done in hospitals and prisons. This year they thought it would be simpler and cheaper to serve everybody halal.

According to Janssen this also follows Christian thought, which says you should take others into account. He says that there's no real reason to make a fuss about it. "It's the spirit of the times. We have no intention at all to give a signal with this. It's still a Christmas meal with a Christian background." They would have a nativity scene and a candle march. It all happened with the best of intentions, he says.

Jean Paul van der Donk, chairman of the parents association, says they've received eight complaints from angry parents. But, he says, those parents should understand that they didn't choose halal food for religious reasons, but purely for practical reasons. Catholics aren't forbidden to eat halal meat, while the opposite is the case for Muslims.

After getting complaints from parents the management decided to review the issue.

The school has since changed its mind and decided to offer every student a choice of what to eat. "We've been naive as a school," the school's site says.

They hope to now go back to having a festive Christmas meal, and hope the school's name won't be damaged by one not so well thought out decision.


Sources: Telegraaf, Trouw, Rorate (Dutch), h/t NRP

With thanks to Islam in Europe

Muslim leaders vow cyber response to luring youths

By Joseph Weber

Muslim leaders said Friday the five American youths arrested in Pakistan for allegedly attempting to join the al Qaeda network were lured through the Internet into embracing terrorist ideology and that they will wage a cyber counterattack.

"This is a wake-up call involving our youths — Muslims and Catholics," Imam Mahdi Bray said outside the Islamic Circle of North American Center, the Northern Virginia mosque in which the men worshipped and participated in youth-group activities.

"They see great injustices, and their emotions and passions are stirred, as they should be. … But we are determined not to let religious extremists exploit the vulnerability of our youth through slick, seductive and destructive propaganda on the Internet. We will respond in kind on the Internet. Silence in cyberspace is not an option."

Pakistani officials say the men allegedly asked an al Qaeda-linked group for training but were rejected because they lacked credentials.

They reportedly attempted first to contact jihadist groups in August through e-mails, then Facebook and YouTube. The men, ages 19 to 25, then went to Pakistan to set up meetings.

U.S. official: Pakistan to deport U.S. youths

The men disappeared last month from the Washington, D.C., area. One left behind a militaristic video that prompted family members to contact the FBI.

Pakistani residents became suspicious of the young men and told police, who arrested them Tuesday in a home belonging to an uncle of one of the suspects.

The men, all U.S. citizens, have been identified as Eman Yasir, Waqar Hasan, Umer Farooq, Ahmed Mimi and Ramy Zamzam, a dental student at Howard University and the group's alleged ringleader. They allegedly told Pakistani authorities at first they were in the country to attend a wedding.

Mr. Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, said the small Alexandria mosque where the young men met taught lawfulness and dignity, which he called the "core values of our faith."

He and other religious leaders praised family members for taking swift action when their sons disappeared.

"This could have been much worse," Mr. Bray said.

Essam Tellawi, a spokesman for the Islamic center, said the mosque teaches the Koran and the teaching of the prophet Muhammad, including moderation, tolerance and peaceful interactions with neighbors.

"Pray for the five families," said Mr. Tellawi, dressed warmly outside the mosque on a cold, gray afternoon. "They are going through severe hardship. Pray [the men] get back safely and for a speedy resolution to this matter."

He declined to discuss specifics about the case, saying the matter remains under investigation.

Mustafa Abu Maryem, the mosque's youth coordinator, said he never suspected the young men of "bad behavior" and that they are "fun-loving" and have a "bright future."

"I hope all of this is not what it seems to be," he said.

Mr. Maryem said group activities focused on community events and sports, which were meant to be "positive forces in the young men's lives."

He also said discussions included ones on the positive aspects of marriage and the evils of gangs.

"We never talked about politics or fighting — directly or indirectly," Mr. Maryem said. "Our focus was community, community, community."

Washington Times

H/T: ROP

The Making of and Dealing with Jihadists

Bewildered by what fanatic Muslims do, some conclude that Muslims are brainwashed.

Otherwise, how can their totally illogical belief system and barbaric behavior be explained? But the notion of “brainwashing” that is bandied about is the stuff of science fiction and Hollywood movies such as the Manchurian Candidate.

The human person arrives in this world with his brains already washed in the sense of being what John Lock called tabula rasa, clean slate—ready for experience to imprint its script on it. John Lock was only partly correct.

The brain also arrives with numerous predispositions already in place. It is a combination of life’s influences and a person’s own decisions that determine which of these dispositions develop and which ones fail. It is through this process that a unique human being is formed.

Many animals come with already in-place programs that automatically run much of their lives.

Birds’ migration, mating courtship and thousands of other complex behaviors are instances of this type of specific programming. A catchword for this type of behavior is “instinct.”

As a general rule, the higher the organism the less is its rigid pre-programs and the greater its latitude to exercise choices.

Making choices depends on what there is to choose from and to what extent a given choice appeals to the person. And the human newborn enters the arena of life without the means of being other than a passive recipient of “things” already chosen for him.

It is like the old joke by Henry Ford who reportedly told his customers that they could have the choice of color for their car as long as it is black. Things are almost as bleak for the new arrival. He didn’t have a say in choosing his parents, his socio-economic condition, his environment of birth and much more. All are already in place and he is to start in life from the context of his birth.

The development of a new-born in any family is importantly influenced by many factors, among them how hands-on the parents are; how religious they are, how severely they micromanage him in an attempt to make him not only a good person but also a person better-one than they themselves.

Parents tend to live vicariously through their children by programming them, the best they can, so that the children become or achieve much of what they themselves had failed to become or to accomplish. This attitude covers all areas of life such as giving the child the education they didn’t have, helping him with fame and fortune, nurturing him to become a topnotch athlete and so forth.

It is a fact that early influences play a cardinal role in shaping the person.

For this reason, for instance, the overwhelming majority of Muslims have born into Muslim families, Catholics into Catholic families, Hindus into Hindu families and so on. It is also a fact that the degree of religiosity ranges from mild to strong, with most people falling somewhere between the two extremes.

Interestingly, two siblings raised by the same set of parents under the same influences may end up at the opposite extremes in their religious views and practices.

It is here that the human dynamic of freedom of choice comes into play and steers one to one extreme and the other to the other extreme. Occasional extreme deviations notwithstanding, the great majority of siblings of a given family end up with various degrees of that family’s overall religious and other values.

The same general principle of subscribing to a set of common values exists in all human groupings, in some cases with a broad flexibility and inclusiveness while in others with rigidity and exclusivity.

More at Amil Imani

A New Mosque in Nicaragua Fires Up the Rumor Mill

With just 300 or so Muslims in all of Nicaragua, it became an instant mystery here when a big new mosque suddenly seemed to spring up recently in a residential neighborhood.

Like, who paid for it?

The ever-present Managua rumor mill quickly turned to the government of Iran.

Its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Muslim, and Nicaragua's leftist leader, Daniel Ortega, a Catholic, say they share a revolutionary kinship.

As part of a grandiose effort to show that Iran is a global superpower, Mr. Ahmadinejad and his government promised in 2007 and 2008 to invest up to $1 billion in this impoverished country of 5.7 million, including a new city and deep-water port in a remote jungle on the Atlantic Coast.

Never mind that local Nicaraguan officials say they haven't heard a word on the port project ever since an Iranian-led delegation was confronted 18 months ago by angry villagers. Or that virtually none of the other announced investments have materialized.

The geopolitical chatter surrounding the gold-domed mosque, which opened in September after more than a year of construction, continues. "Did Iran put up the money? That's the question everyone asks," says Ismat Khatib, a native Nicaraguan lawyer and businessman who is of Palestinian descent. One Managua-based diplomat says it is believed Iran subsidized it.

But Mr. Khatib, who is treasurer of the Nicaraguan Islamic Cultural Association, which oversees the mosque, insists that the Iranian government contributed not a single córdoba. In fact, he says the only thing it actually promised to donate was a large, special rug for the mosque's prayer room -- and that it never arrived.

"This is the real version," says Mr. Khatib. "You can end the mystery with this."

Not quite. Speculation also surrounds who has been praying at the mosque, or la mezquita, which offers services five times a day, beginning at 4:30 a.m.

"All the Taliban," declares William Martinez, a 24-year-old barber at Le Moustache, a hair salon across the street. Natalie Melendez, a clerk at the Veo Veo video-rental store on the corner, offers a different account. "There are two types of people who use the mosque," she says, matter-of-factly. "The Arabs and the Iranians."

Muslims, particularly Palestinians, have been emigrating to Nicaragua for decades and have established a number of businesses here, especially in the fabric trade.

But because their numbers are so small, their faith remains foreign to most Nicaraguans, who are largely Catholic or evangelical Christian. Many here refer to all Muslims or Middle Easterners as Turks, and seem to know next to nothing about their religious beliefs.

"They pray to the god of the moon so they only gather at night," says Ms. Melendez.

In an interview, Fahmi M. Hassan, a Palestinian fabric merchant and president of the Islamic cultural association, sought to dispel some of the myths surrounding the new mosque, which he says cost about $600,000.

Mr. Hassan -- who says Nicaragua's Muslims mostly are transplanted Palestinians, Jordanians and Pakistanis -- scoffs at rumors that Iran paid for the mosque.

He says the Iranian Embassy in Managua angered the Muslim community here when it tried about a year ago to compete with his Islamic association by creating a similar entity with a nearly identical name -- the Nicaraguan Islamic Cultural Center.

Read more here,,,,

Source: WSJ

Muslim Veterans Group Says No Reports of Harassment of Islamic Soldiers

A Muslim veteran affairs organization says it has not received reports of harassment from Islamic soldiers, contrary to claims by a relative of the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base.

Abdul-Rashid Abdullah, deputy director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, told FoxNews.com that the nonprofit group has not received a single report recently of a U.S. soldier being harassed "simply because he was Muslim."

"That kind of report is inconsistent with what we've heard," Abdullah said prior to a press conference in Washington to denounce Thursday's shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 dead and 38 wounded. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist who was reportedly due to be deployed later this month, is accused in the mass shooting.

Abdullah said his organization, which condemned the "unspeakable" attack, serves "several thousand" Muslim soldiers.

Hasan was shot four times during the Thursday attack and remained unconscious early Friday. He reportedly had told relatives in Virginia that he began having second thoughts about his military career after fellow soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim.

Hasan's aunt, Noel Hasan, of Falls Church, Va., told The Washington Post her nephew wanted out of the military following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks due to harassment about being a Muslim.

"Some people can take it and some people cannot," she told the newspaper. "He had listened to all of that and he wanted out of the military."

Nawar Shora, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, expressed his sympathies to the victims and their relatives on Friday.

"We were all shocked at the tragedy yesterday at Fort Hood and the act of cowardice by the attacker," Shora said. "We were all attacked yesterday. Let's remember that this was an attack on all Americans and it’s a time for all Americans to come together in unity and in faith."

Alejandro Beutel, government liaison for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said the Muslim-American community is "appalled" by the incident.

"We unequivocally denounce this heinous act against our brave men and women serving in the military to protect our country," Beutel said. "We pray for [the victims'] well-being and for the safety of the entire nation."

Lt. Col. Les Melnyck, a Defense Department spokesman, said that as of August, 3,557 active duty troops of roughly 1.4 million identified themselves as being Muslim. According to the self-reported figures, the largest religious preference identified was Roman Catholic (284,000), followed by "no preference," he said.

"It's self-reported so you don't have to fill in that box," Melnyck said, adding that 1,710 Muslims are currently serving in the Army, by far the most of any service branch.

Source: FoxNews

Muslim killed Catholic girl in love with flatmate

Lidia Motylska

By Jeni Harvey

A teenager was brutally murdered by her boyfriend's Muslim flatmate because he did not approve of him going out with a Catholic.

Lidia Motylska, 19, was strangled in an alleyway in Leeds by Iraqi immigrant Abobakir Jabari who objected to his Kurdish flatmate's relationship with her.

Yesterday Jabari, 39, who was given British citizenship in 2005, pleaded guilty at Sheffield Crown Court to murdering the petite Polish teenager.

The court heard he garrotted her from behind, using the cord from his tracksuit bottoms, before inflicting "gratuitous" wounds on her lifeless body. He stabbed her repeatedly in the chest and stomach and slit her throat.

Sentencing Jabari to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 19-and-a-half years, Mr Justice McKinnon said the murder involved an exceptional degree of violence. Read more ...

Source: Yorkshire PostAbobakir Jabari
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Muslim convert to Catholicism tells pope Islam is not inherently good

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Muslim-born journalist baptized by Pope Benedict XVI at Easter asked the pope to tell his top aide for relations with Muslims that Islam is not an intrinsically good religion and that Islamic terrorism is not the result of a minority gone astray.

As the Vatican was preparing to host the first meeting of the Catholic-Muslim Forum Nov. 4-6, Magdi Allam, a longtime critic of the Muslim faith of his parents, issued an open letter to Pope Benedict that included criticism of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

In the letter, posted on his Web site Oct. 20, Allam said he wanted to tell the pope of his concern for "the serious religious and ethical straying that has infiltrated and spread within the heart of the church."

He told the pope that it "is vital for the common good of the Catholic Church, the general interest of Christianity and of Western civilization itself" that the pope make a pronouncement in "a clear and binding way" on the question of whether Islam is a valid religion. Read more ...

Source: Catholic News Service

PAKISTAN: TALIBAN BOMBS CATHOLIC GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL

Blast claims no victims but reflects radical Islam's tightened grip.


Taliban militants bombed a Catholic-run girls’ school in Pakistan’s war-torn Swat Valley as part of a larger effort to subvert women’s status in society through Islamic law, locals say.

On Wednesday (Oct. 8) the Islamic terrorist group bombed the Convent Girls’ School in Sangota, run by the Presentation Sisters, a Catholic religious order that has opened girls’ schools around the world. Militants have threatened the school frequently for offering education to females.

No one was injured in the attack. The school had closed a few months earlier due to deteriorating security in Swat, a source told Compass. Students and faculty left in July following threats.

“The Taliban said, ‘We have asked you so many times to close down the school but you are not listening. We are going to set it on fire,’” said Yousef Benjamin, a Lahore-based peace activist.

Militants had already attacked or blown up and forced the closure of many girls’ schools in Swat, said Cecil Chaudhry, executive secretary of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance. They told the nuns they would destroy their school if it weren’t closed. Following the bombing the militants ransacked the school’s adjoining convent. Read more ...

Source: Compass Direct News
H/T: Shariah Finance Watch