Tower of terrorism at Ground Zero

By: Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

America is defined by the last phrase of its national anthem: The land of the free and the home of the brave. Freedom, in all its forms, is its greatest legacy, which the nation has bravely fought many wars on many fronts to preserve against the unceasing assaults of totalitarianism of all stripes. Time and again, the heroes of the nation bravely sacrificed their lives to protect freedom and liberty.

Currently, America is faced with the insidious, multifaceted, and most deadly threat of Islamism. Since Islam has been around for centuries, there is a tendency to ignore or even deny the threat it poses to humanity. Various concessions are made, some of them as good faith offerings and some in the hope of placating the Islamists. Yet, concessions to threats are appeasements. And appeasements have never solved any problems. They only whet the appetite of the aggressor, give it more power, and make it even more dangerous.

Very unfortunately, in today’s world, Islamists [including political Islam] are set as Islam’s locomotive that takes the Islamic train on its demolition course. Instead of promoting peace, many of the so-called leaders of the ‘Muslim Ummah’ are engaged in fuelling Jihad and killing innocent people in the name of religion. And sadly, such elements are gradually growing influence everywhere in the world as well brainwashing some of the naïve global leaders like Barack Hussain Obama, who continues to appease Islamists without sensing the degree of threat it poses to his very own country.

Islam and democracy are incompatible. As democracies practice their magnificent accommodating belief, they knowingly or unknowingly lay the track for the advancing train wrecking that is Islam. Radical Islamism threatens to set a new record for brutality, contrary to the contention that there is no reason to worry about it. Jihadist Wahabism’s tentacles are reaching out from its cradle in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arab Emirates. The Petrodollar flush Sunni-Shia zealots are liberally financing mosques, Madrassas [Islamic indoctrination schools], Islamic centers at universities, front organizations and lobbyists to promote the Wahhabi or Shiite virulent Islamism in every part of America. That makes America the Vulnerable.

Activities of Tablighi Jamaat is gradually increasing in United States, and according to recent statistics disclosed during last year’s largest Tablighi congregations in Bangladesh, more than four hundred Tablighi groups are actively working in various so-called community mosques or in disguise mostly targeting young Americans with the goal of converting them initially to Islam and later giving them Jihadist provocations.

What is Tablighi jamaat?

Tablighi Jamaat [Conveying Group] is a Muslim missionary and revival movement. Their activities are not limited to the Deobandi community.
Leaders of Tablighi Jamaat claim that the movement is strictly non-political in nature, with the main aim of the participants being to work at the grass roots level and reaching out to all Muslims of the world for spiritual development.
Tablighi Jamat seeks to revitalize Muslims around the world. It is claimed that their ideology and practices are in strict accordance with Qur'an and Sunnah.
Despite their affiliation and influence of the prominent scholars of Deoband, they do not focus any particular sect or community. It gathers its members and aids in community activities such as mosque building and education.
Tabligh maintains an international headquarters, the Markaz, in Nizamuddin, Delhi and has several national headquarters to coordinate its activities in over 80 countries. Throughout its history it has sent its members to travel the world, preaching a message of peace and tolerance. It organizes preachers in groups [called Jamaats, meaning Assembly]. Each group, on average, consists of 10 to 12 Muslims who fund themselves in this preaching mission.
The second largest gathering of Muslims after the Hajj [the pilgrimage to Mecca] is known as Bishwa Ijtema, a non political gathering of Muslims from all over the world hosted by the leaders of "International Tabligh Jama'at". It takes place in Tongi which is on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The Tablighi Jamaat was founded in the late 1920s by the well known scholar Maulana Ilyas [Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhelvi] in the Mewat province of India. The inspiration for devoting his life to Islam came to Ilyas during his second pilgrimage to the Hejaz in 1926. Maulana Ilyas put forward the slogan, 'Come O Muslims! Be Muslims'. This expressed the central focus of Tablighi Jamat, which has been renewing Muslim society by renewing Muslim practice in those it feels have lost their desire to devote themselves to Allah and the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.
Maulana Ilyas was a prominent member of the movement and throughout Tabligh's history there has been a degree of association between scholars of Deoband and Tablighi Jamat. Tabligh was formed at a time in India when some Muslim leaders feared that Indian Muslims were losing their Muslim identity to the majority Hindu culture.
In 1978, construction of the Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, England commenced. Subsequently, the mosque became the European headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat.
Ameer [Emir] or Zimmadar are titles of leadership in the movement. The first Ameer, also the founder, was Maulana Ilyas [1885-1944], second was his son Maulana Muhammad Yusuf Kandhalawi and the third was Maulana Inaam ul Hasan. Now there is a shura which includes two leaders: Maulana Zubair ul Hasan and Maulana Saad Kandhalawi. In Pakistan the duties of the Ameer are being served by Haji Abdulwahhab. Maulana Muhammad Zakariya al-Kandahlawi is also among the prestigious personalities of the Jamaat, as he compiled the famous book Fazail-e-Amal.
With the ascent of Maulana Yusuf, Ilyas´ son, as its second emir (leader), the group began to expand activities in 1946, and within two decades the group reached Southwest and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Initially it expanded its reach to South Asian diaspora communities, first in Arab countries then in Southeast Asia. Once established, the Tablighi Jamaat began engaging local populations as well.
Although the movement first established itself in the United States, it established a large presence in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. It was especially prominent in France during the 1980s. The members of Tablighi Jamat are also represented in the French Council of the Muslim Faith. Tabligh's influence has grown, though, in the increasing Pakistani community in France, which has doubled in the decade before 2008 to 50,000-60,000.
However, Britain is the current focus of the movement in the West, primarily due to the large South Asian population that began to arrive there in the 1960s and 1970s. By 2007, Tabligh members were situated at 600 of Britain's 1350 mosques.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the movement made inroads into Central Asia. As of 2007, it was estimated 10,000 Tablighi members could be found in Kyrgyzstan alone.
By 2008 it had a presence in nearly 80 countries and had become a leading revitalist movement. However, it maintains a presence in India, where at least 100 of its Jamaats go out from Markaz, the international headquarters, to different parts of India and overseas.
There are many celebrated personalities associated with this movement:
These include the former Presidents of Pakistan, Muhammad Rafiq Tarar and Farooq Leghari [Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari], and former President of India, Dr. Zakir Hussain who was also associated with this movement. Major General Ziaur Rahman, former President and Chief of Army Staff of the Bangladesh Army, was a strong supporter and member of Tablighi Jamaat, and popularized it in Bangladesh.
Lieutenant General [R] Javed Nasir of the Pakistan Army and former head of Inter-Services Intelligence along with former Prime Minister of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq have also been linked with the movement.
Other well-known politicians such as Dr. Arbab Ghulam Rahim the former chief mininster of Sindh, and Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq, former Pakistani Federal Minister for Religious Affairs have strong ties with the Tablighi activities.
Many well-recognized writers and scholars, such as Dr. Nadir Ali Khan [famous Indian writer] and others are deeply related with it.
Among Pakistani cricket professionals, Shahid Afridi, Saqlain Mushtaq, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mushtaq Ahmed; and the former Pakistani cricketers Saeed Anwar, Saleem Malik are active members. It is also widely believed that Pakistani middle order batsman Mohammad Yousuf embraced Islam with the help of the Tablighi Jamaat. Others include South African batsman Hashim Amla.
This movement also includes eminent directors and producers including Naeem Butt.
Former renowned singer and pop star Junaid Jamshed has close links with Jamaat, and his departure from professional singing career is attributed as the result of his inclination towards this movement.
Many famed actors and models including Moin Akhter, Hammad Khan Jadoon and many others are strongly affiliated with the movement.
Several business men, industrialists, millionaires are actively serving in the movement.
Tablighi Jamaat terror connection:
Policy analysts and Islamist scholars are fiercely divided in their assessments of Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic revivalist organization that has spread from its origins in India in the 1920s to the broader Muslim world.
Policy communities, for their part, have depicted the Tablighi Jamaat as a "gateway to terrorism" and contend that the organization poses numerous, underestimated security risks. The group appeared peripherally in such high-profile cases as those of Jose Padilla, Richard Reid and John Walker Lindh, all of whom allegedly used the group as their stepping stone to radicalism. However, the Islamic studies community tends to depict Tablighi Jamaat, which roughly translates to "group to deliver the message of Islam," as a revivalist organization that eschews politics in its quest to reform society. What accounts for these starkly different accounts, and how can one resolve some of the deeply perplexing questions surrounding this important and secretive organization?
In an attempt to better understand this movement and its social, political, and potential security implications, the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the U.S. Institute of Peace hosted Eva Borreguero, visiting Fulbright Scholar at Georgetown University´s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, to present some of the key findings of her ongoing research on the Tablighi Jamaat. This talk drew on Borreguero´s recent fieldwork in India and Pakistan, two important centers for the Tablighi Jamaat. This USIPeaceBrieing highlights Borreguero´s arguments, as well as some of the important issues that arose during the discussion that followed her presentation.
Tablighi Jamaat: Gateway to Terrorism?
In Britain, France, and the United States, the Tablighi Jamaat has appeared on the fringes of several terrorism investigations, leading some to speculate that its apolitical stance simply masks "fertile ground for breeding terrorism." While acknowledging the involvement of the movement´s individuals, Borreguero discounted the claims made against the organization itself.
Borreguero began her assessment by providing an historical overview of this complex movement. Maulana Muhammad Ilyas founded the Tablighi Jamaat in 1925, against the backdrop of the British Empire and a waning Muslim identity in South Asia. Believing that social, political, and economic hardships beset Muslims in India, Ilyas sought a return to a pristine form of Islam from the heterodox variants flourishing in South Asia. For nearly two decades, the Tablighi Jamaat operated mainly within South Asia. With the ascent of Maulana Yusuf, Ilyas´ son, as its second emir [leader], the group began to expand activities in 1946, and within two decades the group reached Southwest and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Initially it expanded its reach to South Asian diaspora communities, first in Arab countries then in Southeast Asia. Once established, the Tablighi Jamaat began engaging local populations as well. Although the group first established itself in the United States, Britain is the current locus of the group in the West, primarily due to the large South Asian population that began to arrive there in the 1960s and 1970s.

Structure, Composition, and Work:
Despite its secretive nature, Borreguero offered some insights into the organizational structure of the Tablighi Jamaat. The general conception of the group is of a nebulous collection of loosely affiliated, itinerate jamaats. While this is one major component of the group, there is a fixed, hierarchical network of elders and mosques, and the two components do overlap. According to Borreguero, the core of the organization is comprised of "full-time" Tablighis who comprise the shura [council] and who are usually the elders of the mosques affiliated with the group.
In addition to this core, there are the traveling Tablighis who undertake proselytizing missions over varying durations. Formed into jamaats of approximately ten people, these Tablighis’ missions last three days, forty days, four months, or one year. The jamaat’s destination and desired area of focus generally determines the length of these missions. Those who go for three days concentrate on a local city, while a jamaat traveling for a month will do so throughout their country. The longer tours of four months to one year generally take the Tablighis abroad.
During these tours, the jamaat—under the leadership of its emir—stays at a local mosque, which serves as its base for the duration. Four or five members of the group conduct daily ghast, during which they visit neighborhoods [or neighborhoods with large Muslim populations if in a non-Muslim country] and homes, asking the men of the household to attend mosque for Maghrib [sunset] prayers. Those who attend are offered the dawa [invitation] as the Tablighis outline their six principles and encourage attendees to form their own jamaat. Members voluntarily work for the organization and there is no registration process in the group. Participants are free to leave the movement at any time. Consequently, Tablighi Jamaat has a loose, informal recruitment process and attracts members of varying commitment. For example, some members only engage in group activities episodically, while others will do so annually. All of these factors contribute to the uncertainty regarding Tablighi Jamaat´s membership numbers.
Tablighis in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have competing claims as to which comprises the movement’s international headquarters. Those in India contend that Nizamuddin [India] is the base, since the movement grew out of the Deoband school of Islam and it is in Delhi that the group was founded. However, elders in Raiwind [Pakistan] and Tongi [Bangladesh] dispute Nizamuddin’s final authority, citing their countries´ majority Muslim populations and claiming that the organization can operate more openly.
South Asia is by far the most significant region for the group, with Mecca and Medina also serving as important geographical symbols. The organization is diverse and includes persons from nearly every sector of society across the countries of South Asia and beyond. Within South Asia, members of the lower-middle class and the business community have joined the group and some members even hold government posts. In the West, second and third generation Muslim diaspora make up the main pool of Tablighis. This demographic usually has little knowledge of Islam but are also not fully assimilated to culture in the West. According to Borreguero, the Tablighi Jamaat "is a source of re-Islamization that provides an alternative to religious institutions." These individuals tend to be well-educated, multilingual, and have lived in both the West and a Muslim country. She noted that the Tablighi Jamaat also has some appeal to marginal members of society [petty criminals, drug abusers, and so on] who are looking for a renewed identity that submerges them in a community of piety.
Keys to the Success of the Tablighi Jamaat:
Borreguero sees several salient features which explain the Tablighi Jamaat´s successful transformation from a local South Asian movement into a robust transnational phenomenon, including its simple message, its non-political character, the authority of its leadership, and its policy of secrecy.
Outstanding Concerns:
Borreguero addressed the persistent question of how a group so devoted to proselytizing a pristine form of Islam and inner spiritual transformation can coexist with modern society, and specifically whether such a group warrants scrutiny because of its revivalist beliefs.
While recognizing the numerous reports that link Tablighi Jamaat to militancy in various forms, her fieldwork yielded little evidence to support the most sweeping of these claims. During her interviews with Tablighis, they tended not to opine on politics. However, she conceded that for some Tablighis—as individuals—this might not be enough. She claimed that there is no evidence thus far that the group as a whole is involved with militant groups, such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, while acknowledging the potential role that individual Tablighis may have played in them. She claimed that the Tablighi Jamaat remains neutral on these groups, neither condemning nor supporting their actions.
To some analysts, this neutrality is enough to make them culpable. Borreguero admits that militant groups may try to infiltrate the Tablighi Jamaat in order to gain a cover for obtaining visas and traveling abroad. Also, individual members may come to find that the movement’s principles are too apolitical and neutral for their liking. Members of militant groups often attend the Tablighi Jamaat´s Ijtima [congregation] in Raiwind, where they hand out recruitment pamphlets. It is thus possible that a flame sparked and fueled by Tabligh could begin to burn out of control.
Borreguero, however, stressed that once this extreme position is taken, the individual relinquishes his or her membership to the Tablighi Jamaat. She also believes that any overt connection with these groups is not in the best interest of the Tablighi Jamaat. As stated above, the movement’s neutrality allows cordial relations with authorities, or at least keeps them from incurring official harassment. Any collusion with militant outfits would likely invite official proscription, especially in Western societies.
While much light was shed on the Tablighi Jamaat, many questions still remain. To some, its official secrecy and peripheral links to some nefarious individuals have nullified its choice to remain outside politics. But, as scholar Barbara Metcalf writes, "Islamic movements [like the Tablighi Jamaat] may have many goals and offer a range of social, moral, and spiritual satisfactions that are positive and not merely a reactionary rejection of modernity or ´the West.´ Quite simply, these movements may, in the end, have much less to do with ´us´ than is often thought." Borreguero´s insights provided a gateway to better assess the group´s motives and machinations. It may well be that the study of the Tablighi Jamaat as an apolitical traditionalist movement gives an alternate lens through which security concerns over Islamist groups´ hostility toward the West can be viewed.
Every fall, over a million almost identically dressed, bearded Muslim men from around the world descend on the small Pakistani town of Raiwind for a three-day celebration of faith. Similar gatherings take place annually outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Bhopal, India. These pilgrims are no ordinary Muslims, though; they belong to a movement called Tablighi Jamaat ["Proselytizing Group"]. They are trained missionaries who have dedicated much of their lives to spreading Islam across the globe. The largest group of religious proselytizers of any faith, they are part of the reason for the explosive growth of Islamic religious fervor and conversion.
Despite its size, worldwide presence, and tremendous importance, Tablighi Jamaat remains largely unknown outside the Muslim community, even to many scholars of Islam. This is no coincidence. Tablighi Jamaat officials work to remain outside of both media and governmental notice. Tablighi Jamaat neither has formal organizational structure nor does it publish details about the scope of its activities, its membership, or its finances. By eschewing open discussion of politics and portraying itself only as a pietistic movement, Tablighi Jamaat works to project a non-threatening image. Because of the movement's secrecy, scholars often have no choice but to rely on explanations from Tablighi Jamaat acolytes.
As a result, academics tend to describe the group as an apolitical devotional movement stressing individual faith, introspection, and spiritual development. The austere and egalitarian lifestyle of Tablighi missionaries and their principled stands against social ills leads many outside observers to assume that the group has a positive influence on society. Graham Fuller, a former CIA official and expert on Islam, for example, characterized Tablighi Jamaat as a "peaceful and apolitical preaching-to-the-people movement." Barbara Metcalf, a University of California scholar of South Asian Islam, called Tablighi Jamaat "an apolitical, quietist movement of internal grassroots missionary renewal" and compares its activities to the efforts to reshape individual lives by Alcoholics Anonymous. Olivier Roy, a prominent authority on Islam at Paris's prestigious Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, described Tablighi Jamaat as "completely apolitical and law abiding." Governments normally intolerant of independent movements often make an exception for Tablighi Jamaat. The Bangladeshi prime minister and top political leadership, many of whom are Islamists, regularly attend their rallies, and Pakistani military officers, many of whom are sympathetic to militant Islam, even allow Tablighi missionaries to preach in the barracks.
Yet, the Pakistani experience strips the patina from Tablighi Jamaat's façade. Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif [1990-93; 1997-99], whose father was a prominent Tablighi member and financier, helped Tablighi members take prominent positions. For example, in 1998, Muhammad Rafique Tarar took the ceremonial presidency while, in 1990, Javed Nasir assumed the powerful director-generalship of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's chief intelligence agency. When Benazir Bhutto, less sympathetic to Islamist causes, returned to the premiership in 1993, Tablighis conspired to overthrow her government. In 1995, the Pakistani army thwarted a coup attempt by several dozen high-ranking military officers and civilians, all of whom were members of the Tablighi Jamaat and some of whom also held membership in Harakat ul-Mujahideen, a U.S. State Department-defined terrorist organization. Some of the confusion over Tablighi Jamaat's apolitical characterization derives from the fact that the movement does not consider individual states to be legitimate. They may not become actively involved in internal politics or disputes over local issues, but, from a philosophical and transnational perspective, the Tablighi Jamaat's millenarian philosophy is very political indeed. According to the French Tablighi expert Marc Gaborieau, its ultimate objective is nothing short of a "planned conquest of the world" in the spirit of jihad.
Origins and Ideology:
The prominent Deobandi cleric and scholar Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi [1885-1944] launched Tablighi Jamaat in 1927 in Mewat, India, not far from Delhi. From its inception, the extremist attitudes that characterize Deobandism permeated Tablighi philosophy. Ilyas's followers were intolerant of other Muslims and especially Shi´ites, let alone adherents of other faiths. Indeed, part of Ilyas's impetus for founding Tablighi Jamaat was to counter the inroads being made by Hindu missionaries. They rejected modernity as antithetical to Islam, excluded women, and preached that Islam must subsume all other religions. The creed grew in importance after Pakistani military dictator Zia ul-Haq encouraged Deobandis to Islamize Pakistan.
The Tablighi Jamaat canon is bare-boned. Apart from the Qu'ran, the only literature Tablighis are required to read are the Tablighi Nisab, seven essays penned by a companion of Ilyas in the 1920s. Tablighi Jamaat is not a monolith: one subsection believes they should pursue jihad through conscience [jihad bin nafs] while a more radical wing advocates jihad through the sword [jihad bin saif]. But, in practice, all Tablighis preach a creed that is hardly distinguishable from the radical Wahhabi-Salafi jihadist ideology that so many terrorists share.
Part of the reason why the Tablighi Jamaat leadership can maintain such strict secrecy is its dynastic flavor. All Tablighi Jamaat leaders since Ilyas have been related to him by either blood or marriage. Upon Ilyas' 1944 death, his son, Maulana Muhammad Yusuf [1917-65], assumed leadership of the movement, dramatically expanding its reach and influence.
Following the partition of India, Tablighi Jamaat spread rapidly in the new Muslim nation of Pakistan. Yusuf and his successor, Inamul Hassan [1965-95], transformed Tablighi Jamaat into a truly transnational movement with a renewed emphasis targeting conversion of non-Muslims, a mission the movement continues to the present day.
While few details are known about the group's structure, at the top sits the emir who, according to some observers, presides over a shura [Council], which plays an advisory role. Further down are individual country organizations. By the late 1960s, Tablighi Jamaat had not only established itself in Western Europe and North America but even claimed adherents in countries like Japan, which has no significant Muslim population.
The movement's rapid penetration into non-Muslim regions began in the 1970s and coincides with the establishment of a synergistic relationship between Saudi Wahhabis and South Asian Deobandis. While Wahhabis are dismissive of other Islamic schools, they single out Tablighi Jamaat for praise, even if they disagree with some of its practices, such as willingness to pray in mosques housing graves. The late Sheikh ´Abd al ´Aziz ibn Baz, perhaps the most influential Wahhabi cleric in the late twentieth century, recognized the Tablighis good work and encouraged his Wahhabi brethren to go on missions with them so that they can "guide and advise them." A practical result of this cooperation has been large-scale Saudi financing of Tablighi Jamaat. While Tablighi Jamaat in theory requires its missionaries to cover their own expenses during their trips, in practice, Saudi money subsidizes transportation costs for thousands of poor missionaries. While Tablighi Jamaat's financial activities are shrouded in secrecy, there is no doubt that some of the vast sums spent by Saudi organizations such as the World Muslim League on proselytism benefit Tablighi Jamaat. As early as 1978, the World Muslim League subsidized the building of the Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, England, which has since become the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat in all of Europe. Wahhabi sources have paid Tablighi missionaries in Africa salaries higher than the European Union pays teachers in Zanzibar. In both Western Europe and the United States, Tablighis operate interchangeably out of Deobandi and Wahhabi controlled mosques and Islamic centers.

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing:
The West's misreading of Tablighi Jamaat actions and motives has serious implications for the war on terrorism. Tablighi Jamaat has always adopted an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam, but in the past two decades, it has radicalized to the point where it is now a driving force of Islamic extremism and a major recruiting agency for terrorist causes worldwide. For a majority of young Muslim extremists, joining Tablighi Jamaat is the first step on the road to extremism. Perhaps 80 percent of the Islamist extremists in France come from Tablighi ranks, prompting French intelligence officers to call Tablighi Jamaat the "antechamber of fundamentalism." U.S. counterterrorism officials are increasingly adopting the same attitude. "We have a significant presence of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States," the deputy chief of the FBI's international terrorism section said in 2003, "and we have found that Al-Qaeda used them for recruiting now and in the past."
Recruitment methods for young jihadists are almost identical. After joining Tablighi Jamaat groups at a local mosque or Islamic center and doing a few local dawa [proselytism] missions, Tablighi officials invite star recruits to the Tablighi center in Raiwind, Pakistan, for four months of additional missionary training. Representatives of terrorist organizations approach the students at the Raiwind center and invite them to undertake military training. Most agree to do so.

Tablighi Jamaat has long been directly involved in the sponsorship of terrorist groups. Pakistani and Indian observers believe, for instance, that Tablighi Jamaat was instrumental in founding Harakat ul-Mujahideen. Founded at Raiwind in 1980, almost all of the Harakat ul-Mujahideen's original members were Tablighis. Famous for the December 1998 hijacking of an Air India passenger jet and the May 8, 2002 murder of a busload of French engineers in Karachi, Harakat members make no secret of their ties. "The two organizations together make up a truly international network of genuine jihadi Muslims," one senior Harakat ul-Mujahideen official said. More than 6,000 Tablighis have trained in Harakat ul-Mujahideen camps. Many fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and readily joined Al-Qaeda after the Taliban defeated Afghanistan's anti-Soviet mujahideen [Jihadists].
Another violent Tablighi Jamaat spin-off is the Harakat ul-Jihad-i Islami. Founded in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, this group has been active not only in the disputed Indian provinces of Jammu and Kashmir but also in the state of Gujarat, where Tablighi Jamaat extremists have taken over perhaps 80 percent of the mosques previously run by the moderate Barelvi Muslims. The Tablighi movement is also very active in northern Africa where it became one of the four groups that founded the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria. Moroccan authorities are currently prosecuting sixty members of the Moroccan Tablighi offshoot Dawa wa Tabligh in connection with the May 16, 2003 terrorist attack on a Casablanca synagogue. Dutch police are investigating links between the Moroccan cells and the November 2, 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
There are many other cases of individual Tablighis committing acts of terrorism. French Tablighi members, for example, have helped organize and execute attacks not only in Paris but also at the Hotel Asni in Marrakech in 1994. Kazakh authorities expelled a number of Tablighi missionaries because they had been organizing networks advancing "extremist propaganda and recruitment." Indian investigators suspect influential Tablighi leader, Maulana Umarji, and a group of his followers in the February 27, 2002 fire bombing of a train carrying Hindu nationalists in Gujarat, India. The incident sparked a wave of pogroms victimizing both Muslims and Hindus. More recently, Moroccan authorities sentenced Yusef Fikri, a Tablighi member and leader of the Moroccan terrorist organization At-Takfir wal-Hijrah, to death for his role in masterminding the May 2003 Casablanca terrorist bombings that claimed more than forty lives.
Tablighi Jamaat has also facilitated other terrorists' missions. The group has provided logistical support and helped procure travel documents. Many take advantage of Tablighi Jamaat's benign reputation. Moroccan authorities say that leaflets circulated by the terrorist group Al-Salafiyah al-Jihadiyah urged their members to join Islamic organizations that operate openly, such as Tablighi Jamaat, in order "to hide their identity on the one hand and influence these groups and their policies on the other." In a similar vein, a Pakistani jihadi website commented that Tablighi Jamaat organizational structures can be easily adopted to jihad activities. The Philippine government has accused Tablighi Jamaat, which has an 11,000-member presence in the country, of serving both as a conduit of Saudi money to the Islamic terrorists in the south and as a cover for Pakistani jihad volunteers.
There is also evidence that Tablighi Jamaat directly recruits for terrorist organizations. As early as the 1980s, the movement sponsored military training for 900 recruits annually in Pakistan and Algeria while, in 1999, Uzbek authorities accused Tablighi Jamaat of sending 400 Uzbeks to terrorist training camps. The West is not immune. British counterterrorism authorities estimate that at least 2,000 British nationals had gone to Pakistan for jihad training by 1998, and the French secret services report that between 80 and 100 French nationals fought for Al-Qaeda.
A Trojan Horse for Terror in America?
Within the United States, the cases of American Taliban John Lindh, the "Lackawanna Six," and the Oregon cell that conspired to bomb a synagogue and sought to link up with Al-Qaeda, all involve Tablighi missionaries. Other indicted terrorists, such as "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla, and Lyman Harris, who sought to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge, were all members of Tablighi Jamaat at one time or another. According to Robert Blitzer, head of the FBI's first Islamic counterterrorism unit, between 1,000 and 2,000 Americans left to join the jihad in the 1990s alone. Pakistani intelligence sources report that 400 American Tablighi recruits received training in Pakistani or Afghan terrorist camps since 1989.
The Tablighi Jamaat has made inroads among two very different segments of the American Muslim population. Because many American Muslims are immigrants, and a large subsection of these are from South Asia, Deobandi influences have been able to penetrate deeply. Many Tablighi Jamaat missionaries speak Urdu as a first language and so can communicate easily with American Muslims of South Asian origin. The Tablighi headquarters in the United States for the past decade appears to be in the Al-Falah mosque in Queens, New York. Its missionaries—predominantly from South Asia—regularly visit Sunni mosques and Islamic centers across the country. The willingness of Saudi-controlled front organizations and charities, such as the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth [WAMY], the Haramain Foundation, the International Islamic Relief Organization [IIRO] and others, to spend large amounts of money to co-opt the religious establishment has helped catalyze recruitment. As a result Wahhabi and Deobandi influence dominate American Islam.
This trend is apparent in the activities of Tanzeem-e Islami. Founded by long-term Tablighi member and passionate Taliban supporter, Israr Ahmed, Tanzeem-e Islami flooded American Muslim organizations with communications accusing Israel of complicity in the 9/11 terror attacks. A frequent featured speaker at Islamic conferences and events in the United States, Ahmed engages in incendiary rhetoric urging his audiences to prepare for "the final showdown between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world, which has been captured by the Jews." Unfortunately, his conspiracy theories have begun to take hold among growing segments of the American Muslim community. For example, Siraj Wahhaj, among the best known African-American Muslim converts and the first Muslim cleric to lead prayers in the U.S. Congress, is also on record accusing the FBI and the CIA of being the "real terrorists." He has expressed his support for the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and advocating the demise of American democracy.
Tablighi Jamaat has appealed to African American Muslims for other reasons. Founded by Elijah Mohammed in the early 1930s, the Nation of Islam was essentially a charismatic African American separatist organization which had little to do with normative Islam. Many Nation of Islam members found attractive both the Tablighi Jamaat's anti-state separatist message and its description of American society as racist, decadent, and oppressive. Seeing such fertile ground, Tablighi and Wahhabi missionaries targeted the African American community with great success. One Tablighi sympathizer explained, The Umma [Muslim community] must remember that winning over the black Muslims is not only a religious obligation but also a selfish necessity. The votes of the black Muslims can give the immigrant Muslims the political clout they need at every stage to protect their vital interests. Likewise, outside Muslim states like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Pakistan need to mobilize their effort, money, and missionary skills to expand and consolidate the black Muslim community in the USA, not only for religious reasons, but also as a farsighted investment in the black Muslims' immense potential as a credible lobby for Muslim causes, such as Palestine, Bosnia, or Kashmir—offsetting, at least partially, the venal influence of the powerful India-Israel lobby.
Not only foreign Tablighis but also the movement's sympathizers within the United States enunciate this goal. The president of the Islamic Research Foundation in Louisville, Kentucky, a strong advocate of Tablighi missionary work, for instance, insists that "if all the Afro-American brothers and sisters become Muslims, we can change the political landscape of America" and "make U.S. foreign policy pro-Islamic and Muslim friendly." As a result of Tablighi and Wahhabi proselytizing, African Americans comprise between 30 and 40 percent of the American Muslim community, and perhaps 85 percent of all American Muslim converts. Much of this success is due to a successful proselytizing drive in the penitentiary system. Prison officials say that by the mid-1990s, between 10 and 20 percent of the nation's 1.5 million inmates identified themselves as Muslims. Some 30,000 African Americans convert to Islam in prison every year.
The American political system tolerates all views so long as they adhere to the rule of law. Unfortunately, Tablighi Jamaat missionaries may be encouraging African American recruits to break the law. Harkat ul-Mujahideen has boasted of training dozens of African American Jihadists in its military camps. There is evidence that African American Jihadists have died in both Afghanistan and Kashmir.
Tablighi Jamaat: The Future of American Islam?
Tablighi Jamaat has made unprecedented strides in recent decades. It increasingly relies on local missionaries rather than South Asian Tablighis to recruit in Western countries and often sets up groups which apparently model themselves after Tablighi Jamaat but do not acknowledge links to it.
In the United States, such a role is apparently played by the Islamic Circle of North America [ICNA]. Founded in 1968 as an offshoot of the fiercely Islamist Muslim Student Association, ICNA is the only major American Muslim organization that has paid open homage to Tablighi founder Ilyas. The monthly ICNA publication, The Message, has praised Ilyas as one of the four greatest Islamic leaders of the last 100 years. While the relationship between ICNA and Tablighi Jamaat is not clear, the two organizations share a number of similarities. They both embrace the extreme Deobandi and Wahhabi interpretations of Islam. ICNA demonstrates disdain for Western democratic values and opposes virtually all counterterrorism legislation, such as the Patriot Act, while providing moral and financial support to all Muslims implicated in terrorist activities. An editorial in the ICNA organ, The Message International, in September 1989 bemoaned the "uncounted number of Muslims lost to Western values" which was a "major cause for concern." In 2003 and 2004, ICNA has collected money to assist detainees suspected of terrorist activities, participated in pro-terrorist rallies, and mounted campaigns on behalf of indicted Hamas functionary Sami al-Arian. Like Tablighi Jamaat, ICNA initially drew its membership disproportionately from South Asians. As with Tablighi Jamaat, ICNA demands total dedication to missionary work from its members. Because many ICNA members spend at least thirty hours per week on their mission, their ability to independently support themselves is unclear. Many cannot hold full-time jobs. ICNA's recruitment efforts have borne fruit, though. All ICNA members are organized in small study groups of no more than eight people, called NeighborNets. As in a cult, these cells provide support and reinforcement for new recruits, who may have sought to fill a void in their lives. Its yearly convocations, patterned on the annual Tablighi Jamaat meetings in South Asia, now attract some 15,000 people.
The estimated 15,000 Tablighi missionaries reportedly active in the United States present a serious national security problem. At best, they and their proxy groups form a powerful proselytizing movement that preaches extremism and disdain for religious tolerance, democracy, and separation of church and state. At worst, they represent an Islamist fifth column that aids and abets terrorism. Contrary to their benign treatment by scholars and academics, Tablighi Jamaat has more to do with political sedition than with religion.
U.S. officials should focus on reality rather than rhetoric. Pakistani and Saudi support for Tablighi Jamaat is incompatible with their claims to be key allies in the war on terror. While law enforcement focuses attention on Osama bin Laden, the war on terrorism cannot be won unless al-Qaeda terrorists are understood to be the products of Islamist ideology preached by groups like Tablighi Jamaat. If the West chooses to turn a blind eye to the problem, Tablighi involvement in future terrorist activities at home and abroad is not a matter of conjecture; it is a certainty.
The Tablighi Role in the Global Jihadism:
However, there are indeed some links between Tablighis and the world of jihadism. First, there is evidence of indirect connections between the group and the wider radical/extremist Deobandi nexus composed of anti-Shiite sectarian groups, Kashmiri militants and the Taliban. This link provides a medium through which Tablighis who are disgruntled with the group’s apolitical program could break orbit and join militant organizations.
One apparent manifestation of this nexus was a purported militant offshoot of TJ, Jihad bi al-Saif [Jihad through the Sword], which was established in Taxila, Pakistan. Members of this group were accused of plotting a coup against former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1995. Yet, because of the organization’s extreme secrecy, little is known about it other than that it is believed to have developed in reaction to the TJ’s apolitical, peaceful stance.
The TJ organization also serves as a de facto conduit for Islamist extremists and for groups such as al Qaeda to recruit new members. Significantly, the Tablighi recruits do intersect with the world of radical Islamism when they travel to Pakistan to receive their initial training. We have received reports that once the recruits are in Pakistan, representatives of various radical Islamist groups, such as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Taliban and al Qaeda, are said to woo them actively — to the point of offering them military training. And some of them accept the offer. For example, John Walker Lindh — an American who is serving a prison sentence for aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan — traveled with Tablighi preachers to Pakistan in 1998 to further his Islamic studies before joining the Taliban.
Because of the piety and strict belief system of the Tablighis and their focus on calling wayward Muslims back to an austere and orthodox Muslim faith, the movement has offered a place where jihadist spotters can look for potential recruits. These facilitators often offer enthusiastic new or rededicated Muslims a more active way to live and develop their faith. Although the TJ promotes a benign message, the same conservative Islamic values espoused by the Tablighis also are part of jihadist ideology, and so some Muslims attracted to the Tablighi movement are enticed into becoming involved with jihadists.
Additionally, because of its apolitical belief system, TJ seems to leave a gap in the ideological indoctrination of the individual Tablighi because it essentially asks the novice to shun politics and public affairs. The problem in taking this belief system from theory to practice, however, is that some people find they cannot ignore what is happening in the world around them, especially when that world includes wars. This is when some Tablighis become disillusioned with TJ and start turning to jihadist groups that offer religiously sanctioned prescriptions as to how "good Muslims" should deal with life’s injustices.
Once a facilitator identifies such candidates, he often will segregate them from the main congregation in the mosque or community center and put them into small prayer circles or study groups where they can be more easily exposed to jihadist ideology. [Of course, it also has been shown that a person with friends or relatives who ascribe to radical ideology can more easily be radical].
Examples of people making the jump from TJ to radical Islam are the two leading members of the cell responsible for the July 7, 2005, London bombings — Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer. Both had life-changing experiences through their exposure to TJ, though by 2001 the men had left the Tablighi mosque they had been attending in the British city of Beeston, because they found it to be too apolitical. They apparently were frustrated by the mosque’s elders, who forbid the discussion of politics in the mosque.
After Khan and Tanweer left the Tablighi mosque, they began attending the smaller Iqra Learning Center bookstore in Beeston, where they reportedly were exposed to frequent political discussions about places such as Iraq, Kashmir and Chechnya. The store’s proprietors reportedly even produced jihad videos depicting crimes by the West against the Muslim world. Exposed to this environment, the two men eventually became radicalized to the point of traveling to Pakistan to attend a terrorist training camp and then returning to the United Kingdom to plan and execute a suicide attack that resulted in the death of them both.
TJ also is used by Jihadists as cover both for recruiting activities, as discussed above, and for travel. Like Khan and Tanweer, many jihadists desire to travel to Pakistan for training, while others want to get to Afghanistan, Kashmir or other places to fight jihad. However, the travel environment is far different today than it was in the early 1980s, when 747 jetliners packed with Jihadists from Saudi Arabia and other places flew into Pakistan en route to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Foreigners traveling to Pakistan today cannot enter the country without a visa, and Pakistani authorities are no longer inclined to issue visas to Jihadists, as Jeffrey Battle and the other members of the Portland Seven had to learn the hard way. Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the friends traveled to China with the intention of entering Afghanistan by way of Pakistan. Once at the Chinese-Pakistani border, however, they found they could not enter Pakistan without a visa. After spending a frustrating month trying to obtain visas from the Pakistani Embassy in Beijing, the seven aspiring Jihadists decided to go their separate ways.
Battle, who reportedly once served as a bodyguard for Black Panther leader Quanell X, later attempted to obtain a visa to Pakistan by saying he was affiliated with TJ. The Pakistanis, probably recognizing him from his prior [and apparently somewhat vocal] visa attempts, denied him again, though he was able to get a visa to travel to Bangladesh using the feigned connection to TJ. Unable to make his way from Bangladesh to Pakistan or Afghanistan, however, Battle returned to the United States, where he was later arrested. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of seditious conspiracy and waging war against the United States.
Similarly, in the spring of 2001 the members of the so-called Lackawanna Six cell traveled to Pakistan under the pretext of studying the Islamic religion and culture at the TJ training center. In reality, the men traveled through Pakistan to Afghanistan, where they attended training at the al-Farooq camp, a training site being run by al Qaeda. Again, the men used TJ as cover for travel, though there is no indication that TJ played any real part in their alleged plot.
Although the TJ organization unintentionally serves as a front for, or conduit to, militant organizations such as al Qaeda, there is no evidence that the Tablighis act willingly as a global unified jihadist recruiting arm. Rather, such activities appear to occur without the knowledge or consent of TJ leaders. Additionally, because of the very size of the organization and it activities in Muslim communities in the West, a great many Muslims have had some sort of contact with the group. TJ itself, however, is not an intentional propagator of terrorism.
Man behind the Cordoba Mosque:

Faisal Abdul Rauf The prospective developer of a $100 million, 13-story mosque 600 feet from Ground Zero presents himself as a Muslim moderate. Yet Kuwait-born Faisal Abdul Rauf also boasts of his issue from an "Egyptian family steeped in religious scholarship". Indeed, Feisal Rauf's Muslim Brotherhood provenance, radical by definition, is as authentic as it gets.

Rauf's father, Dr. Muhammad Abdul Rauf [1917-2004] - an Egyptian contemporary of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna - conveyed to Feisal his family's long tradition of radicalism, which he acquired at Islam's closest equivalent to the Vatican, Al-Azhar University. The elder Dr. Rauf studied and taught there before fleeing Egypt in 1948. That year, Feisal Abdul Rauf was born in Kuwait.

Imam Faisal Rauf has planned for some time to further develop his father's U.S. Islamic expansionism. In 1990, Rauf opened the tiny al-Farah Mosque at 245 West Broadway in lower Manhattan. Area residents did not even notice the mosque until 2006, when the New York State Liquor Authority [SLA] refused to license a new bar on the same block and started yanking others' liquor licenses.

Rauf attended grammar school and high school in the UK and Malaysia, according to his biography. He probably first lived in America only in 1965, at age 17, when his father moved from Malaysia to New York to plan and head the Islamic Cultural Center [not built until the mid-1980s]. Rauf then obtained a BS in physics at Columbia University. In 1971, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Rauf's father headed the Islamic Center on Massachusetts Ave. His father, buried in Suitland, MD, at the for-profit Washington National Cemetery, also founded three Malaysian Islamic studies programs, including the International Islamic University of Malaysia.
Rauf's early UK education and familiarization with American popular culture and values made him an acutely adept practitioner of Islamic taqiyya - deceptive speech and action to advance the interests and supremacy of Islam. To further that Islamic advancement, Rauf in 1997 established the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA). His Kashmir-born wife Daisy Kahn, an interior designer by profession, has run the organization since 2005.
Rauf then began cultivating new spheres of influence. In about summer 2002, Rauf started lecturing on Islam at the 750-acre southwestern New York campus of Chautauqua Institution, a 136-year-old non-profit where religion director Joan Brown Campbell took Rauf under her wing. Under the rubric of the "Abrahamic" faiths, a convenient cover for Rauf's Islamic activities, Campbell subsequently named him the prospective head of a Muslim house now planned on campus by another Rauf brainchild - the 501(3)c organization Muslim Friends of Chautauqua. Rauf also befriended Karen Armstrong, the former British nun and devotee of Islam.

In 2003, Rauf befriended leaders of Denver's Aspen Institute, including former executive director and four-term Aspen mayor John S. Bennet. In 2004, under ASMA auspices, Rauf organized a meeting of 125 young Muslims and formed Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow. With Bennet's help, he co-founded the Cordoba Initiative in Aspen, purportedly to "improve" Muslim-West relations. Rauf gets funding from a variety of other liberal organizations, including, for example, Gloria Steinem's Ms. Foundation.

Now, the same Rauf is set to construct a mosque at Ground Zero, which he claims will prove that ‘Islam is not a violent faith’.

As Islamic attacks on September 11, 2001, destroyed the World Trade Center towers, falling jet debris simultaneously crushed the five-story 1923 structure some 600 feet away that until that morning housed a robust Burlington Coat Factory store. Over the ruin of the former retail outlet, Rauf now plans to build a 13-story, $100 million mosque. Rauf says the Cordoba Initiative bought the former retail building to prove to the world that Islam is not a violent faith.
Imam Rauf says that New York Muslims provided nearly $5 million in cash to buy the Park Place building. Yet in fiscal 2009, Rauf's ASMA received large international donations. In the year ended June 30, 2009 - days before Feisal closed the purchase - ASMA received at least $1.3 million. The largest donation, $576,312, came from Qatar. That Persian Gulf nation has long harbored terror financiers, and even the government stands accused of funding international terrorism. Qatar also has, for decades, hosted Muslim Brotherhood spiritual chief Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The elderly sheikh, a large and founding shareholder in the terror-financing al-Taqwa Bank, champions sharia law, wife beating, and suicide bombing.
ASMA also received $481,942 from Holland's Millennial Development Goals Fund [MDG3], $144,752 from New York's Carnegie Corporation, $53,664 from the U.N. Population Fund [UNFPA], plus donations from the Rockefeller Brothers and Hunt Alternatives funds, among others.

The Ground Zero mosque plan is more than a little reminiscent of a program initiated by Rauf's late father in 1965. That year, Muhammad R. Abdul Rauf moved to New York to plan and head a huge Islamic Cultural Center that took decades to realize. He bought prime Manhattan real estate at 96th St. and 3rd Ave - roughly two thirds of a city block - apparently with $1.3 million in funding from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Libya. The late Rauf long retained some of that land in a personal trust. But when construction started on the $17 million mosque in 1984, it had received funding from 46 Islamic nations. By 2010, the enormous Islamic complex had added another two buildings. Since 1984, its founders-envisioned apartment unit has been restricted to Muslims alone.

Whenever Feisal first considered building a mosque across from Ground Zero, he had the idea firmly in mind by 2004, when he wrote What's Right with Islam. The book was translated into many languages. In Indonesia's Bahasa, its title translates as "The Call from the WTC Rubble." Rauf promoted the book in December 2007 at a Kuala Lumpur gathering of Hizb ut Tahrir – a terror outfit banned in Germany since 2003, and also outlawed in Bangladesh, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, among other places - and ideologically akin to the Muslim Brotherhood. Both seek to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law [Sharia], and eventually impose Islam and Sharia law worldwide. Most North American Muslim Brotherhood organizations avoid widely publicizing that aim. The Hizb Ut Tahrir however, at a July 2009 Khalifah conference at a suburban Chicago Hilton, openly promised to replace capitalism with Islam and Sharia law.

Now, Imam Rauf is set to construct his dream project, wherefrom possibly the radical Islamists will start Islamization of America. This will not be a mere mosque, but a tower of terrorism to further flex the muscle of militant Islam right inside the heart of United States.
Hope Americans will realize this, before it is too late!

Israel to build fence on Egyptian border

ISRAEL will build a security fence along the length of its border with Egypt, stretching across the Sinai desert from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the $500 million fence on Thursday with the aim of thwarting drugs and people-smuggling rackets that operate across the border.

''In the end, there will be no choice but to close off the state of Israel by a fence on all sides,'' Mr Netanyahu was quoted as telling his cabinet.

''The state has to be fenced off completely on all sides. Why? Because Israel is the only country in the First World to which people can walk on foot from Third World countries and Africa,'' Mr Netanyahu said.

''If we don't fence ourselves off, Israel will be flooded by hundreds of thousands of foreign workers and illegal residents,'' he said.

Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon are already sealed with fences and concrete walls and wire fences surround the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The border with Egypt however has been relatively porous.

According to the new plan to seal the border, the barrier will consist of two parallel barbed-wire fences designed to delay anyone trying to cross it until the arrival of border police.

The fences will be built along either side of a 180-kilometre stretch of natural barrier that separates Israel and Egypt.

Radar systems and other detection devices will be installed along the border to warn of potential infiltrators, along with increased border patrols.

Construction of the fence is expected to take about two years.

Egyptian security officials were reported as saying that Israel had not notified Cairo of its plan to build a fence between the two countries.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit was expected to issue a statement today.

Meanwhile, violence around the Gaza Strip was escalating last night as Palestinian militants continued to fire mortar shells and home-made Qassam rockets at targets in southern Israel.

Since last Friday, Palestinians have fired about 30 mortar shells and Qassam rockets into Israeli territory.

All landed in open territory, causing no damage or injury.

On Sunday, the Israeli air force attacked several targets in Gaza on Sunday, killing three Palestinian fighters believed to be members of the extremist Islamic Jihad group.

The three were said to be engaged in preparations for firing a rocket or mortar shells at Israel.

Islamic Jihad issued a statement claiming two of the operatives as its members.

The third was believed to have been a member of Hamas.

Israeli military officials said last night that Israel had spotted the Palestinians in the act of preparing to fire rockets at Israel.

''The air force spotted, in two different instances and just moments before launch, terrorist cells firing rockets and took advantage of that in order to attack,'' a military spokesman said.

''We have no intention of using restraint in response to launches of any kind.

''Any attempt to harm the civilians of the state of Israel or IDF troops will receive a clear response. They had better not think that we're blinking,'' the spokesman said.

The Age

H/T: J.R.

Israeli Aircraft Strike Tunnels, Arms Factories in Gaza Strip

JERUSALEM — Israeli aircraft attacked two suspected weapons-making factories and a smuggling tunnel in the Gaza Strip early Sunday in what the military said was retaliation for Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel.

The airstrikes, which wounded at least seven people — including one seriously — came despite an announcement by Gaza's Hamas rulers that the territory's military factions had all agreed to stop firing rockets. The Hamas announcement came late Saturday, after the rocket attack.

Hamas' interior minister, Fathi Hamad, said the proclaimed halt in rocket fire was designed to prevent Israeli retaliation and provide stability for Gaza, which continues to suffer from the aftermath of a massive Israeli military offensive in December and January.

The offensive killed some 1,400 Palestinians, according to U.N. and Palestinian estimates, and damaged or destroyed thousands of homes. Thirteen Israelis also were killed. Most of the damage in Gaza has not been repaired due to an Israeli blockade that has prevented construction materials from entering the territory.

Israel said it launched the offensive to crush Palestinian rocket squads, who had severely disrupted life in southern Israel for years.

While Hamas has all but halted its own rocket fire, smaller militant groups have continued to launch attacks, though the number of attacks has decreased dramatically.

On Sunday, Islamic Jihad, a smaller faction responsible for much of the rocket fire, said there is "no formal truce," but confirmed it would temporarily stop its attacks.

"Yes, there is a halt, but if there are attacks by the Zionist enemies, as there inevitably will be, there will be a response," said Khader Habib, a spokesman for the group.

An end to Palestinian rocket attacks could be an important step toward a broader prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas. The Iranian-backed Hamas is demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchanged for Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who was captured by Hamas-allied militants more than three years ago.

Usama Mazeini, a Hamas official involved in the German-brokered negotiations over Schalit, told Hamas newsletter al-Risala on Saturday that the talks are close to resolving the "obstacles" that remain.

He gave no further details, but the publication quoted anonymous Hamas officials as saying a deal is "reaching completion."

Israeli officials declined comment.

FoxNews

I was sold to Lashkar by my father: Mumbai attacker Kasab

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the sole surviving terrorist of the group of ten sent by the Pakistan based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba to attack Mumbai, says his father essentially sold him into the group.

Kasab, who was part of the pair that killed 50 and wounded more than 100 at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the city's main railway station, makes the suggestion in tapes included in a new documentary, "Terror in Mumbai" airing on HBO on Thursday.

Snatches of cellphone conversations - many never heard before - between the gunmen and their controllers in Pakistan, as well as video footage of the police with Kasab were aired on Sunday in a preview of the documentary by narrator Fareed Zakaria in his GPS programme on CNN.

One of the tapes of Kasab's interrogation points to how he got involved with the LeT terror group:

Kasab: He said, "These people make loads of money and so will you. (Inaudible) We'll have money, we won't be poor any more. Your brothers and sisters can get married. Look at these guys living the good life. You can be like them," he said.

Unidentified Male: Your dad said this?

Kasab: Yes. So, I said, "Fine, whatever."

Unidentified Male: What does he do for a living?

Kasab: He used to sell yogurt and potato snacks in the street.

Unidentified Male: How much did they give you? Did they put it in your account?

Kasab: There is no account. They gave it to my dad.

Unidentified Male: How much did they give him?

Kasab: I don't know. Maybe (ph) a few hundred thousand.

In another tape, Kasab recalls how the terrorist group was trained.

Police: How long were you in training?

Kasab: Three months. There were 24 or 25 in our class.

Police: Where were the people from?

Kasab: They don't tell you. I only knew about one. He said he was from Lahore. He became my friend.

Police: Didn't they allow you to speak to each other?

Kasab: We were forbidden to speak to each other. It was very strict. The proper training where they say, "This boy is ready now" - that only takes three months. That's it.

Police: Did you ever ask, "Won't I feel pity for the people I'm killing?"

Kasab: I did, but he said you have to do these things if you're going to be a big man and get rewarded in heaven.

Police: So you came here for jihad? Is that right?

Kasab: (crying) What jihad?

Police: It's no use crying. Tell me the truth. Is that right or no?

Kasab: You wouldn't understand.

Locked in a bathroom at Mumbai's Trident Oberoi hotel, another young Pakistani terrorist named Fahadullah knew the end was near. He was out of food, water, energy and ammunition, and could hear the steady stream of police gunshots getting closer.

He and nine other terrorists were winding down from a gruesome, 36-hour killing spree through the city, and he was talking on the phone to a handler far away in Pakistan.

"You mustn't let them arrest you, remember that," the controller insisted.

"Fahadullah, my brother, can't you just get out there and fight?"

Fahadullah could not. "I am out of grenades," he weakly offered.

"Be brave, brother. Don't panic. For your mission to end successfully, you must be killed. God is waiting for you in heaven."

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/I-was-sold-to-Lashkar-by-my-father-Kasab/H1-Article1-476915.aspx

Thousands of Islamic Jihad supporters gather in Gaza

Tens of thousands of Islamic Jihad loyalists held a rally in Gaza on Friday to commemorate the group's slain founder.

Holding plastic models of rockets and wearing masks and mock suicide bomber's vests, the members chanted "death to Israel" and "Muhammad's army will be back to wipe off the Hebrew state."

An Islamic Jihad leader, Nafez Azzam, called on the crowd Friday to reject negotiations with Israel and support violent resistance.

The group was founded in 1979 by Fathi Shikaki as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Shikaki was gunned down in Malta in October 1995 by a man on a motorcycle in attack widely attributed to Israel.

Islamic Jihad, a smaller organization than Hamas, has carried out dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israeli civilians.

Source: JPost

Islamic Jihad to Hamas: Hey, you're not letting us fire rockets into Israel

This looks like another attempt by Hamas to portray itself as "moderate," and thereby gull the Infidels into fatal concessions. "Gaza militants say Hamas stops their rocket fire," by Nidal al-Mughrabi for Reuters, October 10:

GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian armed group accused the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers on Saturday of preventing its men from firing rockets at Israel, a sensitive allegation for the Islamist faction as it pursues mediated deals with the Jewish state.

Hamas police intercepted Islamic Jihad rocket crews on three occasions over the past month, a group official said, foiling their bids to avenge Israeli fire on Gaza and to show solidarity with Palestinian protests over a contested Jerusalem shrine.

"We have been prevented from launching attacks," the Islamic Jihad official told Reuters, adding that Hamas had also scrapped a planned rally by the group and arrested two of its members in a dispute over control of a mosque in northern Gaza....

Source: JihadWatch

Le djhad universel : La guerre mondiale de l’islam radical contre les démocraties libérales

par Vijay Kumar

Le 11 septembre 2001, une guerre a débarqué sur nos rivages avec un meurtre de masse commis par une bande d’hommes liés par une idéologie militante. Les États-Unis ont répondu par ce qu’on a appelé la « guerre contre le terrorisme », un réflexe qui s’est avéré aussi inefficace que coûteux.

Nous avons dépensé plus de mille milliards de dollars dans les invasions de l’Afghanistan et de l’Irak. Plus de 5000 soldats américains ont été tués au cours des huit dernières années, et des dizaines de milliers ont été blessés.

Que nous ont apporté ces flots de sang et d’argent ?

Il n’y a pas eu de victoire durable des États-Unis. Il n’y a pas de victoire, ni stratégique, ni politique, ni morale. Et il n’y a pas de paix. Le terrorisme islamique continue à travers le monde comme si de rien n’était.

L’administration Obama veut maintenant éviter toute connotation déplaisante de l’expression « guerre contre le terrorisme » et s’enfonce encore davantage dans l’ambiguïté en parlant désormais des « opérations de contingence à l’étranger ». Mais c’est toujours la même guerre perdante, toujours aussi coûteuse, toujours aussi inefficace.

Lire la suite...

Source: Political Islam (Traduction par Poste de veille)

Gunshots disrupt Gaza funeral

Five people have been injured after shots were fired at a funeral in Gaza City for two of three Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid, Palestinian medical sources have said.

The gunshots rang out from across the border with Israel, Palestinian sources told Al Jazeera, as thousands of Palestinians turned out in the streets for the funeral on Saturday.

Israel has yet to confirm whether gunfire came from their side of the border, but has said that it is looking into the incident.

"The funeral procession was taking place very close to the border with Israel, [near] the Nahal Ouz crossing - obviously that border that splits Gaza from Israel is very heavily guarded by Israeli forces," Sherine Tadross, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, reported.

"During the procession, mourners started firing shots up into the air - as is tradition to show their defiance, their protest and anger.

"Israeli forces on the border saw that as an act of aggression and started firing," she said.

The incident is also the first time guns have been fired during a protest since the end of Israel's offensive on Gaza at in January that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians.

The brandishing of weapons in Gaza City was a rare show of force by the Islamic Jihad movement, and came despite strict rules against the public display of weapons enforced by Hamas.

The group banned the bearing of weapons in public after it seized power in Gaza in June 2007.

"We call on all Palestinian resistance factions to resume martyrdom operations inside the Zionist entity," one protest leader at the funeral yelled through a megaphone, referring to suicide bombings.

The funeral was for fighters from Islamic Jihad, killed on Friday evening by Israeli aircraft in a strike that severely wounded three other people.

The three men killed in the Israeli air raid were travelling in a car when it was struck by a missile, Moaiya Hassanain, an official at the Gaza health ministry, said.

The Israeli military said the Palestinian militants were hit from the air as they unloaded rockets from their vehicle.

An Israeli military spokesman said the army had "targeted three terrorists in the Gaza Strip on their way to launch rockets at Israel".

Islamic Jihad issued a statement blaming Israel for what it said was a "cowardly crime" and calling on all Palestinian armed groups to confront it.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, condemned the violence.

"These crimes are the result of a Zionist attitude based on killing, violence and destruction, especially in the absence of a strong Arab and international position, which ought to protect the interests of the Palestinian people," he said.

Earlier in the day a rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel without wounding anyone, according to the Israeli military.

Source: Al Jazeera (English)

Ex-jihadi describes Jihad

West Struggles With Definition of Jihad
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 10:11 AM - By: Dr. Tawfik Hamid

Since Sept. 11, few words have been considered more controversial than the term "jihad" in theological, political, and military discussions.
Apologists for Islamic radicalism immediately raced after 9/11 to convince the West that "jihad" is predominantly understood in a peaceful way. Many in the West accepted and relied on this comforting definition without adequate scientific research in Arabic and Islamic literature.
For example, John O. Brennan, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, mentioned that the meaning of jihad is to ". . . purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal" in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Aug. 6.

In addition, John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed defined jihad in their book “Who speaks for Islam” in the same peaceful way.[1]

Hiding the violent meaning of jihad has also permeated reputable encyclopedias for terrorism such as “Encylopedia of Terrorism” by Combs & Slann (See Revised Edition Infobase Publishing, page: 165)

According to classical Islamic texts and sources, jihad can be understood in several ways. Some are very violent and others are peaceful.

Scientific honesty necessitates that we present all views about the meaning of the word jihad instead of selecting the definition that makes us feel most comfortable.

The following facts MUST be addressed to understand the most dominant meaning of the word jihad in the Muslim world:

Currently, the words "jihadi Islam" are used by the mainstream Arab media to refer to the violent form of Islam. If jihad is mainly peaceful, why do the Arab media use the word predominantly to describe violent Islam? (Note: jihad is the noun, jihadi is the adjective)
The word jihad is interpreted in most of the reputable traditional Islamic books in a violent manner. One of the many available examples, al-Shawkaneei's interpretation for the Quran[2] mentions for Sura 9, Verse 73 that "Jihad against the Infidels is achieved by fighting them until they submit to Islam". Is this the moral goal that Brennan's speech writers and "Islamic experts" are alluding to? Why would it be that he the most reputable Islamic scholars understood jihad in such a way if it was predominantly peaceful?

Modern Islamic books written by top Islamic scholars and distributed globally still adopt the violent meaning of the word to fight the disbelievers until "Allah alone is worshiped". For example, Minhaj al-Muslim [3] states clearly that the aim of violent jihad is that "Allah alone is worshiped." Minhaj al-Muslim is published in Saudi Arabia, London, Houston, and New York and is written by al-Jaza'iry, who is a lecturer in the Noble Prophetic Mosque in Saudi Arabia. This position is one of the highest positions in Islam that could be attained by any Muslim scholar. It is unrealistic to assume that he, too, does not understand the definition of jihad.

If the word jihad is primarily understood in a peaceful way, why do we not hear about peaceful jihadi organizations? The word jihad is almost always used by the violent radical groups. If the word is understood predominantly in a peaceful way, we would have seen it used predominantly by peaceful Islamic organizations rather than the violent ones.

The hadith (or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) that described jihad as a struggle against one's desires ("It is the striving of the servant against his desires") is a Daiif or weak (unbinding) Hadith. [4]

Modern Islamic scholars such as Yusuf Al-Quradawy who are considered "moderates" by many in Western media and academia mention clearly that jihad has to be conducted via wars to spread Islam and make Islam as the only religion [5]. How is it that such a knowledgeable and leading "moderate" Islamic scholar is not aware of the meaning of the word jihad while non-Arabic speakers are aware of it?

It is fair to say that jihad "can be" understood in a peaceful way. However, there is huge difference between saying that "Jihad can be understood in a peaceful way" and "Jihad is a peaceful concept." The former is an honest and accurate statement, while the latter is a wrong and deceiving one that indicates a serious lack of knowledge.

Creating a Western definition for a word that does not represent how it is primarily used by native Arabic speakers and in Islamic text is both misleading and dangerous to our national security. It would be great to convince Arabic speakers and the Muslim world to change the meaning of the word instead of deceiving ourselves. The change must occur in Muslims’ educational books rather than in the public statements they release to the West to convince it that jihad is peaceful.

The most effective way to know the true meaning of jihad is to simply evaluate how the word is used by the Arab street and how it is defined in Islamic texts and in the Arab media, as seen above. As Brennan wisely put it in his speech, "How you define a problem shapes how you address it," and eight years after September 11, we are still having problems defining the problem.”

[1] John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, “Who Speaks for Islam” (Gallop Press, 2007), p. 75.
[2] Fath Al-Quadeer, Dar Al-Kitab Al-Arabi [Arabic] 2005
[3] Darussalam Publisher 2001 First Edition
[4] See: “Mihaj Al-Muslim First Edition” by Al-Jaza'iry, Chapter 5 (Volume two), page 167
[5] Islamic Revival series by Yusuf Al-Quradawy, Islamic Solution is an Obligation and a Necessity [Arabic], page 91.

Dr. Tawfik Hamid is the author of "Inside Jihad." He was a former associate of Dr. al-Zawahiri (second in command of al-Qaida) and currently he is a reformer of Islam. To know more about Hamid please visit http://tawfikhamid.com/. Hamid's writings in this blog represent only his thoughts and not the views of the institute where he works.

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.newsmax.com/tawfik_hamid/islam_jihad_muslims_/2009/09/01/254881.html

Mujahid/-ah who spits in the Dish he/she eats in: the West

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vt5C-K3qes

Abdulhakim Muhammad: “It Wasn’t Murder, It Was War”
by Baron Bodissey - Tuesday, June 09, 2009

I asserted last night that Pvt. William Andrew Long should be classified as a battlefield casualty, since he was killed by a self-declared Muslim mujahid in an ongoing war against the United States.
The accused murderer, Abdulhakim Muhammad, continues to make my case for me. By now the Obama administration must fervently wish that this poster boy for Islamic peacefulness and tolerance would shut up.
Notice that Mr. Muhammad’s latest media announcement was made via a collect call to the AP from his jail cell in Arkansas:
Suspect in Soldier Shooting Says He Was Justified

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A Muslim convert charged with fatally shooting an American soldier at a military recruiting center said Tuesday that he doesn’t consider the killing a murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified.
“I do feel I’m not guilty,” Abdulhakim Muhammad told The Associated Press in a collect call from the Pulaski County jail. “I don’t think it was murder, because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason.”
[…]
“Yes, I did tell the police upon my arrest that this was an act of retaliation, and not a reaction on the soldiers personally,” Muhammad said. He called it “a act, for the sake of God, for the sake of Allah, the Lord of all the world, and also a retaliation on U.S. military.”
No doubt President Obama, like President Bush before him, would assert that Abdulhakim Muhammad is not a true Muslim, because real Muslims don’t commit such heinous acts. But Mr. Muhammad considers himself an authentic Muslim, and so do many other Muslims who slaughter innocent people in the name of Allah.
Thousands upon thousands of Muslims across the globe do the same thing, and consider themselves good Muslims as a result of their actions. Who are we to dispute their definition of their own religion?
How is it that Presidents Bush and Obama know more about the meaning of Islam than Muslims themselves?
The article continues:
In the interview, Muhammad also disputed his lawyer’s claim that he had been “radicalized” in a Yemeni prison and said fellow prisoners that some call terrorists were actually “very good Muslim brothers.”
And indeed they are, in the eyes of many (possibly a majority) of their fellow Muslims.
This incident seems to be yet another instance of Sudden Jihad Syndrome.
He also said he didn’t specifically plan the shootings that morning.
“It’s been on my mind for awhile. It wasn’t nothing planned really. It was just the heat of the moment, you know,” said Muhammad, who was arrested on a highway shortly after the attack.
Mr. Muhammad’s phone call was in defiance of a gag order designed to protect his right to a fair trial:
Prosecutor Larry Jegley, who on Monday won a gag order in the case, declined to comment specifically on Muhammad’s remarks.
“I asked for the gag order to protect Mr. Muhammad’s right for a fair trial,” Jegley said. “I’ve never had a situation like this with a gag order and I’m sure Mr. Muhammad’s attorney will take care of it.”
And here’s the money quote:
Asked whether he considered the shootings at the recruiting center an act of war, Muhammad said “I didn’t know the soldiers personally, but yes, it was an attack of retaliation. And I feel that other attacks, not by me or people I know, but definitely Muslims in this country and others elsewhere, are going to attack for doing those things they did,” especially desecrating the Quran.
It was an act of war.
The upcoming trial is going to be an interesting event. It will be hard for the media to impose as thick a blanket of silence on it as they did on the shooting itself.
Unless Britney Spears is getting divorced or married or something at the same time, it’s quite possible that the American public may actually become aware of the murder trial of Abdulhakim Muhammad.
And if there were any real justice, it would be a military tribunal.

Source: http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=9017#more-9017
H/T: http://occidentalsoapbox.blogspot.com

The West toward Islam: from the Newstate to Humanism

Victim History vs. Jihad - 1400 Years of Jihad = 270 Million Dead
FrontPage Magazine 12 March 2009 By Jamie Glazov

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill Warner, the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI). CSPI’s goal is to teach the doctrine of political Islam through its books and it has produced a series on its focus. Mr. Warner did not write the CSPI series, but he acts as the agent for a group of scholars who are the authors.

FP: Bill Warner, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Warner: Thank you, Jamie, and Frontpage Magazine for having me.

FP: I would like to talk to you today about your view that the end of critical thought has arrived. First let me ask you, what exactly do you mean by critical thought?
Warner: Critical thought also can be called analytic thought or scientific analysis. A key element is that all sides of an idea are to be analyzed. There are no forbidden questions in critical thought. There is an appeal to logic and reason. Critical thought is not about feelings, but freedom of ideas.
Critical thought is the opposite of authoritative thought that is delivered fully developed by an “authority.” Authoritative thought is the use of power by controlling thought and ideas. Medieval scholasticism and Communist propaganda are examples of authoritative thought where there is no room in the public forum to disagree with the authority and if you do, you will be punished in some way. Authoritarian thought is the thought process of slavery. Freedom of thought is not allowed.
Two characteristics of critical reasoning are skepticism and humor. Skepticism means that all assumptions can be questioned. Everything is on the table. It may seem odd to have humor as part of critical thinking, but humor comes about as part of skepticism. Skepticism encourages humor because you are able to poke fun at any idea. One reason for the Mohammed cartoon riots was that Islam does not allow any skepticism or critical thought. There are no known Mohammed jokes in the Muslim world. We have jokes about God, Jesus, St. Peter, Moses, Satan and Adam. We can make a little joke at anybody’s expense because we can have freedom of thought. Humor stops at Mohammed’s door, because critical thought stops at Mohammed’s door.

FP: Why is critical thought being abandoned?
Warner: It stands in the way of the power of what I call (with a hat tip to George Orwell) the Newstate. We now live in a world that has brought together the government, universities and the media into one political system. The Newstate power determines what will be taught in schools, put into the news, and what can be discussed at forums and meetings. For instance, the Newstate prohibits our military from studying Islamic war doctrine. The State Department can only use standard political science methods to discuss Middle East and Asian policy.
The Newstate prohibits the study of political Islam in the Universities. The role of Islam in the history of slavery, the dhimmi (unbelievers living under Islamic rule) history, and the annihilation of kafir (unbeliever) civilizations is forbidden. The curriculum of the Universities only includes small samples from the Koran, the Sira (Mohammed’s biography) and the Hadith (his traditions). You can get a degree in Middle East Studies without ever reading the texts of the core doctrine of Islam.
At the Rotary Club or the universities, you can have a speaker who presents dawah or Islamic missionary propaganda, but no one can present a critical analysis of Islam. Any rational/critical/analytic study of their ideology is not given room at the table. Those who know about Islam are called bigots if they try to speak from knowledge. Only Muslims and those who are ignorant about Islam (the dhimmis) are allowed to speak. Ignorance has become the only acceptable point-of-view.
The next goal of the Newstate will be to declare critical thought to be hate-speech. Islam cannot sustain critical examination, so critical thought will be made immoral and evil by our dhimmi Newstate.

FP: Why is critical thought so vital in the study of Islam?
Warner: Up until 9/11, almost all thought in the Universities saw things from the viewpoint of Islam, not from the viewpoint of kafirs. Around 270 million people have died in jihad over the last 1400 years. Yet, according to the universities, Islam just expanded, there was no suffering. That is the Islamic view, not the kafir view. Mohammed laughed when kafir heads were thrown at his feet, but no university professor calls it barbaric.
On 9/11 our universities, who are supposed to be bastions of critical thought, were found to be dishing out Islamic propaganda for our culture, instead of facts. Our leaders—political, religious, and cultural—had all been educated about Islam. What did they learn? Islam was one of the great religions; the Islamic Golden Age was the high point of history and preserved European culture; the Crusades were an exercise in ignorance and bigotry, blah, blah… That was the university propaganda that had infected our civilization. We were blindsided by our own scholars.
The intellectual vacuum created a new breed of scholars—Bat Ye’or, Andrew Bostom, Robert Spencer, Serge Trifkovic, and a host of others who were not trained about Islam in college, but who used critical analysis to tackle the most pressing questions of the day: What is Islam? What does it mean to kafirs? This is the most important question to ask.

FP: Why is the kafir viewpoint so important?
Warner: The only thing that matters to the kafir about Islam is how it treats the kafir. What does it matter to a kafir if a Muslim tries to use the bathroom following the way of Mohammed? What do I care how a Muslim prays? Prayer and bathrooms do not concern me. I care about how Mohammed treated kafirs and that was horrible, terrible and the perfect example of how Muslims are to treat kafirs. Notice that this view is in contrast to how a Muslim sees Mohammed—that is the Muslim-centric view. They are never the same view.
The post-9/11 scholars viewed Islam from the standpoint of the victims—the kafirs and the dhimmis. The new scholars used critical thinking to define a new viewpoint of Islam—kafir-centric.
The answers from kafir-centric scholars about Islam all agree on what Islam and its history is. The kafir-centric thinkers agree as to what the current political situation means. This is remarkable. Note that they do not agree on what to do about it, but they all agree on the nature of the problem and not one of them agrees with the university/media/government, the Newstate, position on Islam.
Every critical thinker reaches the same conclusions. Why should this be a surprise? The very essence of critical thinking is being objective. The result does not depend upon the person. It is not an opinion, but an exercise in logic. Any person who performs the experiments can prove the truth or falseness of, say, Newton’s laws of motion.
It is the same with Islam. Anyone can start with the Koran, the Sira (the life of Mohammed) and the Hadith (his traditions) and they will arrive at the same conclusions as long as they use logic and analysis. Part of the analysis is whether you analyze the doctrine from the standpoint of a Muslim or a kafir. For instance, on the day that Mohammed killed 800 Jews in Medina it was a good thing from the standpoint of a believer, but a terrible day for the kafir Jews. Good from one point of view, but very bad from a kafir point of view.
There is a third view of Islamic scholarship—the dhimmi view. Dhimmis are kafirs that serve Islam. Dhimmis write about the doctrine of Islam just like the Muslims, but without the devotional overtones. The Newstate holds the dhimmi-centric view and wants to outlaw the kafir-centric school of thought.

FP: Why do you think they want to outlaw the kafir-centric school of thought?
Warner: Kafir-centric scholars can kick anybody’s butt in any argument or discussion about Islam. We are a mountain of facts and understand the mind of Islam. We can answer all of the questions with authority. We hold the high moral ground and yet, we are called bigots for our knowledge and labors. We are denied a forum in the public. Only the voice of the authority of the Newstate can speak about Islam.
Notice that when someone who is from the Newstate speaks, they never actual talk about any facts about Islam. Or if they do quote some fact, like George Bush with his half of a Koran verse, or Obama with his Golden Rule spin on one hadith, it is no more than a sentence they parse out of the doctrine.
Since the kafir-centric thinkers can overpower any of the drones from the Newstate, the main goal of the Newstate is to see that we do not get a forum. We are never invited to the party at the university when a dhimmi or Muslim speaks. If there is a multicultural “dialogue” we are never allowed to ask difficult questions. Our voices are not heard in the State department, the Pentagon or FBI. During Mumbai, we were never given any airtime. Face-time with any government/media/university official will not happen, because it cannot happen. At all times the Newstate tries to keep a Muslim brotherhood type around to be a Praetorian guard if they suspect anyone who actually knows Islam might show up.
When the Center for the Study of Political Islam was started, the basic assumption was that once the doctrine of political Islam was laid out in a clear language, kafirs would flock to it. But most of the population is filled with the Newstate platitudes and talks about moderate Muslims, etc. They are desperately ignorant and refuse to engage logical analysis.
I have seen religious leaders grow angry at a lecture about what Mohammed did to other religions. They were desperate not to know, and they remained arrogantly ignorant. So they will tell others about Islam based upon their ignorance. Ignorance is an acceptable point-of-view about Islam. Any dhimmi or Muslim can get a forum at any time; kafir-centric scholars are condemned as bigots and troublemakers and denied a place at the table.

FP: How are the Kafirs doing in the ideological battle?
Warner: We have to face the facts. Kafirs are losing on every front. We now live in a Christian-Muslim nation according to our commander-in-chief-dhimmi. Priests, professors, preachers, politicians, pundits and rabbis all line up in obedience to Mohammed. If placed anywhere near the doctrinal/historical facts about political Islam, they grow tense and tell you about the “nice Muslim” they have met. It seems as though every city has a “nice Muslim” that is passed from dhimmi leader to dhimmi leader, so they can all say they know one.
Actual knowledge about the true history and doctrine of political Islam is not only nil, but the desire to know more is nonexistent. Responses about Islam are denials about what Islam is and what it does. Liberal preachers and rabbis, for instance, are political Islam’s supporters and mouth tales about how well Islam and Judaism co-existed in the Middle Ages and how Jews and Muslims were fellow scholars. They refuse to engage in any sort of rational/critical/analytic discussion about Islam. The rest have different excuses, but they remain in the dhimmi camp.
Critical thinking is being abandoned as fast as Klan robes at an ACLU meeting. One thing is very clear—the enemy is no longer political Islam. The enemy of critical thought is the dhimmi. It is the dhimmis who carry water for Islam and do great damage to our civilization.

FP: Why are the dhimmis desperate not to know about Islam?
Warner: Money is the motivation of one set of dhimmis—the professors. Islam pours a great deal of money into the university system. It is very easy to purchase a professor and a department. Everything from building funds, professorships, trips, and grants purchase the loyalty of dhimmi universities. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. We must also include the dhimmi political types being bribed by the Saudis.
The other answer is laziness and fear, with fear in the lead. Everyone starts off at less than zero. The universities taught us that Islam was good, Golden Age, yada, yada or at worst—benign. The Newstate loves Islam just like they love illegal immigrants. Just watch CNN, read the NY Times and listen to the President. Islamic life is good, and where it is not good, it is our fault—colonialism and Bush. So if you float downstream, why would you want to learn anything?
The Newstate making the learning process difficult also helps laziness. Islam deliberately made the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith hard to understand and the professors went along with the Islam-is-hard propaganda. The Koran is notorious for never being read, much less understood. Why? The universities did not want to make it simple.
But we come to the big one—fear. Everyone has a clue that Islam’s dualistic nature contains unlimited violence, but that clue remains in the background. Saying you are afraid of Islam is like a white woman saying she is afraid of black males. Expressing your fear is proof of your racism and bigotry.
There is a larger fear—what if the boogieman really is underneath the bed? What will we do? People are desperately ignorant. Otherwise intelligent people believe the most contradictory things, but wind up with—Islam must be good, it just has to be good, because if it is not good, I cannot imagine what we will do. There is fear. Desperate fear.
What if the preacher or rabbi who attended the interfaith dialogs finds out that the imam was a liar? His congregation does not want to hear it. What if the politician finds out about the true nature of Islam? The media and the Moslem voters rule him. The media is so intellectually corrupt that they are past discussion.
If you don’t know, you don’t have to deal with it. Ignorance is good. All the leaders are ignorant, they are rich and powerful, and so they must be right. Turn off your mind and float downstream. Dhimmis are floaters.

FP: How can we educate these dhimmis and change their point of view?
Warner: It turns out that there is one aspect of Islam that even dhimmis will pay attention to—the history of the victim, in particular, their own victims. Our Tears of Jihad project teaches about just that—the history of the victims of jihad.
Based upon victim history, we have created a new idea in newsletters. The idea is not to present any facts about Islam. Facts about Islam produce panic, denial and fear. We decided to present the suffering of a group without the doctrine that causes it. Our goal is to show religious leadership and individuals what suffering is visited upon their group.
The first one of these was the Bulletin of Jew Hatred (the term Jew hatred comes from Bostom’s wonderful Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism). We have added the (...)

Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com

Source: http://europenews.dk/en/node/21037