My favorite part is where he calls for stopping the attacks in Swat and Pakistan against Muslims who “just want to pray and worship” etc. when in fact they want to commit genocide against non Muslims in the area and enforce sharia law on all Muslims and non Muslims alike. Hell the vast majority of the refugees from the Taliban and Al Queda ARE Muslims who want nothing to do with them.
Category Archives: Islam in the Americas
Ottawa Sun: Sadiqi ‘honour’ femicide trial.
From the Ottawa Sun May 16 2009
Hasibullah Sadiqi expressed a desire to “get rid of” his sister and her fiance weeks before he shot and killed the couple, one of his friends told a jury Thursday.
“He said, ‘I want to get rid of them,’ ” said Payman Fazli. “Then he said he was just joking.”
Sadiqi has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of his sister, Khatera Sadiqi, and her fiance, Feroz Mangal. The pair were shot and killed while sitting in their car in the Elmvale Mall parking lot just before 1 a.m. on Sept. 19, 2006.
Although Hasibullah Sadiqi doesn’t deny he is responsible for the deaths, his lawyers have said he rejects the Crown’s theory the shootings were an “honour killing” carried out by Sadiqi.
The Crown contends he murdered the pair because he felt his sister had dishonoured his family by becoming engaged to Mangal without her father’s permission, and by moving in with the man’s family, actions contrary to her family’s Afghan heritage. Sounded sad
Under cross-examination by defence attorney Lorne Goldstein, Fazli stood by his story he’d personally heard Sadiqi use the phrase “get rid of them” when speaking about what he wanted to do about the relationship between his sister and Mangal.
Fazli said it’s likely he’s the only person who heard Sadiqi say those words on two separate occasions weeks before the shootings.
Fazli also testified about meeting Sadiqi the morning after the killings at Fazli’s apartment building on Riverside Dr. “He wanted to see me. He sounded sad and upset,” said Fazli. “He said Khatera was gone. I said, ‘What do you mean?’ and he said, ‘Khatera is gone.’ ”
Fazli said Sadiqi then admitted he’d shot the couple.
“He asked me if I wanted to go to mosque to say a prayer for her,” said Fazli. “He said, ‘She’ll become a martyr. She’s in paradise now.’ ”
Near the end of Fazli’s testimony, the 22-year-old became emotional when he talked about having to come to court and talk about the killings.
“So many families want justice for Khatera and Feroz,” said Fazli. “Two lives are gone. Everyone is hurt by this.”
Earlier in the day, court also heard from Sultan Mangal, Feroz’s father, about the last time he spoke with his son.
Mangal said he called his son around 11:20 p.m. on the night of the shootings.
“I told him, ‘Why are you late?’ ” Mangal testified through a Pashto interpreter, frequently dabbing at his eyes with a tissue. “With a smile and a laugh he said, ‘I am on the highway. I’ll be shortly home.’ That was the last (of his) voice I heard.”
te************@******ia.ca
Somali steals $USD9M and flees for Canada.
Much harder to find a Somali in Ottawa I guess than in Somalia. From Debbie Schlussel:
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES; Read Fed Documents ****
On the one hand, this card-carrying member of the “Religion of Peace” stole $9 million from a water company. That’s bad. On the other hand, we should be happy that he didn’t poison the water . . . as far as we know.
A former water-company employee is being sought on a federal warrant on charges that he fled the country after wiring $9 million of the firm’s money into overseas bank accounts on the same day he resigned, court records show.Abdirahman Ismail Abdi, who turns 33 on Monday, was named in a warrant alleging unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He also faces charges of grand theft and unauthorized computer access in Santa Clara County.
“Religion of Peace”
Abdi resigned April 27 from his job at California Water Service Co. in San Jose. Authorities say that Abdi used a computer at the firm that evening to send $9.2 million into bank accounts in Qatar.The transactions were later flagged as suspicious, authorities said, and the money was returned to Cal Water, a privately owned water utility with 460,000 customers in California.
Abdi fled to Canada after sending his wife and two children to Germany.
Many questions? Who is this guy? Where is he from? Somalia? The name sounds Somalian? How did he get his job at a water company? And how the heck did he get access to $9.2 mill at the company? Sounds like someone else would have to be in on all of this.
Like I said, we’re lucky he didn’t poison the water, but if he was in a position to steal $9.2 million, he was in a position to do a lot of other things.
Scary, indeed.
A prediction: I’d bet the FBI–the lead agency on terrorism investigations–is involved in the investigation. Just a hunch.
**** UPDATE: There’s more on Abdi that makes you wonder how this guy got access to $9.2 million or even a job with a drinking water company. He’s an illegal alien and–I was right–from Somalia, who was ordered deported four years ago. Is this yet another example of illegal aliens “doing the job [stealing $9.2 million] that Americans just won’t do”?
Local prosecutors and police determined that Abdi has been trying to flee the country since at least May 1, when he tried to book a flight to London just days after police searched his South Bay home.Court papers show that Abdi, 32, resigned from his job as an auditor for the San Jose water company April 27 and was spotted by a janitor returning that night to the office of a former co-worker. The following morning, water officials discovered that Abdi had engineered three wire transfers totaling more than $9 million from the company’s accounts to an account in Qatar. The accounts were frozen and the money returned to the water company, according to court papers.
But San Jose police then closed in on Abdi, finding that he had put his wife and two children on a plane to Frankfurt, Germany, on April 28. Officials believe Abdi fled the country, perhaps to Canada, on May 5, according to a letter sent last week from the district attorney’s office to San Jose federal prosecutors.
California Water Service delivers drinking water throughout the state, including Los Altos and parts of Cupertino, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View and Sunnyvale.
And here’s the money quote:
According to the same letter, Abdi is not a U.S. citizen and was ordered deported to Somalia in 2005.
The legacy of Julie L. Myers a/k/a the former “ICE Princess”–the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for most of the time since Abdi was ordered deported–keeps on giving.
Yup, let’s hear it for going after employers and not illegal alien workers.
**** UPDATE #2: Read the federal documents filed so far the in federal criminal complaint against Abdirahman Ismail Abdi. The documents, including FBI agent David M. Brown’s affidavit (told you the FBI was involved), answer a few questions, but much less than they raise. For instance, a letter from the Santa Clara District Attorney’s office to the U.S. Attorney’s office states:
Abdi had been ordered in absentia to be deported on May 15, 2005 to Somalia. ICE records indicate that he departed the US. However on May 20, 2005 Abdi attempted to reenter the US through Blaine Washington. He was denied entry.
So, how did he eventually get back into the United States, and how did he get a job with this drinking water company?
Would love to know the answers to these question, but I’ll bet we’ll never get them.
I’ll also bet that the $9 million-plus was headed for Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab in Abdi’s native Somalia. The FBI’s involvement here is not a coincidence.
Posted by Debbie at May 15, 2009 12:06 PM
What Farrakhan gets wrong.
I don’t mean in his crypto science of course as that’s beyond wrong and well into the preposterous. I mean how to sell the absurd.
Here is how Scientology does it:
First, they tell you something interesting and kinda likely in that intuitive way to get you into it. Then, after you pay them something they tell you something else thats kinda believable but now that you have both paid and worked for it, you of course will be much more receptive to it. See, people are like that. The more you pay for something the more you value it. It’s why selfish morons buy so called ‘organic’ food instead of food produced by technology which gives the best yield from the land. It’s also why artists like Barnett Newman can sell a painting of three stripes to the National Gallery of Canada for millions of dollars and people don’t arrive en masse with pitchforks and torches. When it costs this much, it has to be good.
Scientology doesn’t give you the really warped twisted alien scientists crap till you are into them for tens of thousands and way more if you actually have means. Then of course you believe it cause you paid so much to be told it. Farrakhan on the other hand, mixed Scientology with Islam and hands this crapout for free.
The only thing that shocks me, is that anyone would believe this stuff without being drugged or sleep deprived.
Here is GAR’s post on a handout I received yesterday from a Farrakhan Zombie at a local mall:
It was a 3-page handout of one of Farrakhan’s speeches – actually, part 3 of something called “The Resurrection of the Dead”. So, I unfortunately don’t have the first two parts.
I read the whole thing, but I really can’t understand it. Usually, you get religious pamphlets that talk about the age of the earth being 6,000 years. In this one, he talks about “the splitting of the moon” which took place 66 trillion years ago!
Here’s more about the splitting of the moon:
“Elijah Muhammed said that Allah taught him that at one time we made history to last for 35,000 years, when the earth and the moon were one planet. But one of our scientists wanted the people to speak one language and became disappointed that he could not get them to speak the same dialect or the same language. So, he decided to destroy the earth and those of us who lived on it.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammed said Allah taught him that they drilled a hole into the earth and filled it with a type of explosive that is far greater than the dynamite used in this world, and, the scientist ignited it, thinking that he was going to kill everybody; and a part of it [now called the moon] was blasted off 36,000 miles and the part that we are on fell 12,000 miles into the pocket of rotation that it now occupies. The water that was on that part now called moon fell back to this part. So that part called moon has no water. The earth is now three-quarters water; and the fact that the moon is constantly trying to get back the water it lost is a sign of equality, because the moon equalizes the waters of the earth and keeps the water from drowning out civilization.”Now, you know a bit more about the history of the earth and the moon.
Well. This is Black Islam. So I wonder if it will be a crime soon to say: “This is some of the most unmitigated utter bullshit that has ever crossed my eyes and should be treated like leprosy on paper” If I where to suggest that this stream of consciousness was Skelaxin for the brain, would I be guilty of a hate crime? Whats the number of believers you have to have before it can be considered blasphemy in Ireland?
Ultimately we are creating a new world where any belief is protected merely because someone believes it and clearly the more violently they do, the more protection they get and secondly, the only thing we have going for us is that some of the people who push destructive and retrograde nonsense on us is they are too freaking stupid to market it right.
Brooklyn: Jihadist Arab Apprehended in Synagogue
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 From Islam in Action
Brooklyn:Jihadist Arab Apprehended in Synagogue
During the latest Hamas-Israel conflict we saw American Muslims take to the streets spewing hatred towards Jews. On Monday in Brooklyn NY the hatred of Jews that stems from Islam had reared its head again.
Violent Intruders Attack Brooklyn Synagogues
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
(IsraelNN.com) For the second time in less than a week, a packed Brooklyn, New York, synagogue has been the target of threats of violence by intruders.
On Monday, according to Yeshiva World News, an Arab man in his mid-30s entered Boro Park’s ‘Sephardish Shul’ and began making proclamations of jihad. Members of a Jewish volunteer security organization, the Shomrim, apprehended the threatening individual. They held him until police officers arrived at the scene, arresting the suspect. Detectives spoke with the “Middle Eastern man” at a station house near the synagogue.
Police officials reminded the community, “If you see something, say something.” Security in Brooklyn’s heavily Jewish Boro Park area has been stepped up during the Purim holiday.
Just two days earlier, a man wielding a butcher’s knife burst into a Kerestir Chassidic synagogue in Williamsburg. He initially turned up unarmed and began throwing soda cans at the gathered worshipers, which hit one of them, and returned shortly thereafter with the bladed weapon.
The attacker was prevented from using the butcher’s knife on anyone by a young man, described as a “friend” of the knife-wielding intruder, who then fled together with him.
The recent attacks come just over a month after Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn was targeted in a series of English-language jihadist videos posted on the Internet. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129790 The videos and accompanying texts singled out “770,” but also intimated that all Orthodox Jewish organizations were equally worthy of attack by Muslims. The threatening material included images of the 770 synagogue and study house, pictures of the police van out front, and indications of which parts of the building are crowded at what times.
The source of the thinly-veiled threats, a group called Revolution Muslim, is domestic to the United States.
The High Cost of Western Idealism: Saving Schoolgirls From Being Poison-Gassed in Afghanistan and Honor-Murdered in Sweden.
Phyllis Chesler needs to be read and listened to on this.
Yesterday in Charikar, Afghanistan, for the second time in two weeks, 50 innocent schoolgirls were poison-gassed at school and had to be hospitalized. Many girls lost consciousness and collapsed. Some girls were dizzy, nauseous, and threw up. Amazingly, Noor Jahan, a ninth grader at the Ura Jalili Girls High School said:
“I am pretty sure whoever has done this is against education for girls, but I strongly ask the parents not to be discouraged by such brutal action and send their children to school.”
Such attacks on Afghan girls schools have escalated within the past year. However, this barbaric, Taliban mentality is alive and well among some Afghan immigrants in the West. The Afghan-Canadian brother, Hasibullah Sadiqi, who killed his sister and her fiancé in Ottawa and who is now standing trial, came to Canada when he was five months old. Nevertheless, Hasibullah enacted ancient tribal, (or radically Islamic codes), despite the fact that he had been living in the West for more than twenty one years.
Many male immigrants look as if they’ve assimilated to western ways. They dress in western attire, speak the language of their adopted country, study, socialize with, and work alongside native citizens. They may do all these things even if they wear Muslim, Sikh, or Hindu religious attire.
When it comes to many female immigrants, especially if they are Muslim, things are different. The women are forced into (or “choose”) to wear hijab, niqab, burq’a, or chador. Their movements are closely supervised and monitored. They suffer daily threats: If they do anything that is viewed as “too western,” or do anything against their parents wishes, they will be beaten, cursed, grounded, stalked, spied on, and threatened with death.
Nonie Darwish at Purdue University, Lafayette, IN
More on Ottawa’s ‘honor killing’ trial
From the Ottawa Citizen May 9 2009 hat tip grace
Tearful mother speaks of abuse at ‘honour killing’ trial
OTTAWA — A hostile encounter between Hasibullah Sadiqi and his sister’s fiancé, Feroz Mangal, occurred in a shopping mall months before Mangal and Sadiqi’s sister, Khatera, were gunned down, an Ottawa court heard Friday.
The testimony emerged during the emotional second day of Sadiqi’s trial.
The 23-year-old faces two first-degree murder charges, accused of shooting his sister and Mangal with a revolver while they sat in a car at the Elmvale Acres shopping plaza shortly before 1 a.m. on Sept. 19, 2006. Khatera was pronounced dead at the scene, while Mangal was taken off life support 10 days later.
The Crown’s theory is that the slaying was an “honour killing” sparked by anger over the couple’s engagement.
Sadiqi’s defence lawyers, meanwhile, do not deny that their client is responsible for the deaths, but are expected to argue he was provoked, which could reduce a murder charge to manslaughter.
The trial has started to hear evidence of the complex web of culture, tradition, history and relationships thought to be at the centre of the case.
The first civilian witness to testify was Sadiqi’s mother, Nasima Fayaz.
As she took the witness box, metres away from her son, she began to cry.
Fayaz said she and her former husband, both from Afghanistan, came to Canada in the 1980s with their son, Hasibullah, who was five months old. They settled in Ottawa and had two daughters, Khatera and Aurezo.
Fayaz called herself open-minded, but said her former husband was very traditional and abusive. They divorced and she moved to the Vancouver area in 1999, she said. After some court proceedings, the children were left with their father.
Six years later, Khatera tracked her down through other relatives, Fayaz said.
“The abuse was getting worse for my daughters in the house,” she said. Fayaz said she sent tickets to her children and her daughters eventually moved in with her.
Sadiqi did not move to live with his mother, citing work and then college, she said.
He protected his other family members from the alleged wrath of his father, his mother and 15-year-old sister, Aurezo, told the court. When things got bad and Khatera tried to commit suicide by taking pills, it was Sadiqi, not their father, who tried to get her to go to hospital, they said.
After learning that her daughter wanted to marry Mangal, Fayaz said she thought they were young, but wanted to support them.
Fayaz and Hasibullah Assadi, a close friend to Sadiqi who knew Khatera and Mangal, both testified that Sadiqi did not appear to be angry when he learned of the engagement.
Assadi said Sadiqi seemed happy about the news, and thought Mangal appeared to be a nice guy.
Sadiqi had asked the couple to wait for a week or so, so he could talk to his father about it, Assadi said. In earlier testimony, Fayaz said Sadiqi had asked for a week to “check out” Mangal.
Although Khatera wanted her brother involved in the engagement, she wanted nothing to do with her father, Fayaz said.
Khatera went to Ottawa, likely in late January or early February 2006, but didn’t tell her brother about her return, Fayaz said. Khatera lived with an aunt and eventually moved in with Mangal and his family, the court heard.
That seemed to anger Sadiqi, Assadi said.
The brother “was really upset about this because Khatera is his sister, instead of coming up to him, like living with him, she’s going to Feroz and his house, living there. That’s not right,” Assadi said. Sadiqi was also upset that Mangal had spent time with Khatera in Vancouver, Assadi said.
Assadi said he and Sadiqi were in the St. Laurent Shopping Centre in early or mid-spring 2006 when they saw Khatera and Mangal.
Khatera tried to speak to her brother, but Sadiqi told her to leave, Assadi said.
Mangal confronted Sadiqi about the way he spoke to Khatera, Assadi said, but Sadiqi said he could talk to his sister how he liked.
Mangal started to take off his jacket, as if preparing to fight, and the pair were separated, Assadi said. Sadiqi “wasn’t really happy” about Mangal’s actions, Assadi testified.
He said the engagement had unfolded in a non-traditional way. Although some in the Afghan community saw it as OK, others “wouldn’t see this as the right way.”
That could have affected the Sadiqis’ reputation, Assadi said.
Assistant Crown attorney Mark Moors asked Assadi what Sadiqi told people about the engagement.
Assadi said Sadiqi told them the couple wouldn’t be happy anymore. Pushed further by the Crown, he paused, appearing to choke up.
“That it’s not going to last long,” he said.
The trial, before a jury, continues Monday.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Hawaii creates ‘Honor Islam’ day.
I wonder if the Baha’i or Zoroastrians killed a few tens of thousands of people around the world in terrorist attacks and then maybe flew giant jetliners into US buildings if Hawaii would grant them a special day to celebrate their wonderful accomplishments. The really has gone crazy. Mind you Canada is as bad. We have Islamic history month here but if anyone actually speaks on actual Islamic history, they are in serious danger of losing their jobs.
From CBS News:
(AP) Hawaii’s state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate “Islam Day” _ over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn’t want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001.
The Senate’s two Republicans argued that a minority of Islamic extremists have killed many innocents in terrorist attacks.
“I recall radical Islamists around the world cheering the horrors of 9/11. That is the day all civilized people of all religions should remember,” said Republican Sen. Fred Hemmings to the applause of more than 100 people gathered in the Senate to oppose a separate issue _ same-sex civil unions.
The resolution to proclaim Sept. 24, 2009, as Islam Day passed the Senate on a 22-3 vote. It had previously passed the House.
The bill seeks to recognize “the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions” that Islam and the Islamic world have made. It does not call for any spending or organized celebration of Islam Day.
“We are a state of tolerance. We understand that people have different beliefs,” said Sen. Will Espero, a Democrat. “We may not all agree on every single item and issue out there, but to say and highlight the negativity of the Islamic people is an insult to the majority” of believers “who are good law-abiding citizens of the world.”
But Republican Sen. Sam Slom argued that the United States has become too sympathetic toward Islamic extremists.
“I don’t think there’s any country in the history of the world that has been more tolerant than the United States of America, and because of that tolerance, we’ve looked the other way a lot of times, and many thousands of our citizens have been killed by terrorists,” said Slom, a Republican.
The lone Democrat voting against the bill opposed it on church-state separation fears.
Member of ‘Toronto 18’ pleads guilty to plot to behead and terrorize
The interesting thing to note in this case I feel is the fact that at least two of the Toronto 18 had wives who where ‘graduates’ of the ISA schools within Ontario where women are taught to be Jihad brides and encourage men to Jihad. Things my dear freinds here in Canada are much worse than most know. There is a true fifth column of Islamic terrorists in Canada by any defintion of the term with serious and active plots and plans and an entire infrastructure, much of it run on Government multiculti handouts with intentions of implementing sharia and Islamic supremacy on Canadian citizens. Here is another link on the Toronto 18 case:
Eeyore for Vlad.
News Toronto & GTA Toronto Sun:
Guilty plea in terror plot
22-year-old member of Toronto 18 admits to playing role in plan to attack T.O. targets
Last Updated: 6th May 2009, 5:59am
BRAMPTON — A member of the so-called Toronto 18 has pleaded guilty to his role in a terrorist plot to bomb downtown Toronto targets.
Saad Khalid, 22, of Mississauga, is the first adult member of the group rounded up in a massive 2006 terror sweep to plead guilty.
Nine adults are still facing trial.
Last fall, the lone young offender to go to trial was found guilty.
Shortly after the unexpected guilty plea was entered Monday in Brampton court, a publication ban application was made. Continue Reading →
Muslim preacher explains mosques are for indoctrination to hate and violence even to placenta
Man bites dog. That’s how it is to say ‘bombs found in mosques’ or, Muslim cleric calls for genocide hate vioence terror and so on. It’s become utterly banal yet no less important to remind people that this is in fact the orthodoxy and not the exception. A number of studies have shown that US mosques preach violent jihad somewhere on the order of 80% and the number for Canada is rumoured to be somewhat higher. This makes the radical mosques the ones who do not preach violent take over of host societies. And why should we find this surprising? Even a cursory examination of Koran and other Muslim holy texts show this to be exactly as Mohamed preached, acted, lived and set examples for.
Phyllis Chesler: Islamic Gender Apartheid.
My Speech for the Human Rights Rally Against Radical Fundamentalist Islam Today in Times Square, New York. From Pajamas Media:
Radical, fundamentalist Islam is the world’s largest practioner of both gender and religious apartheid.
Others are speaking here today about Islamic religious apartheid. I have been asked to focus on Islamic gender apartheid.
We who live in the West, and who have learned how to analyze and protest gender inequality here, simply have no idea how much free-er and safer women are in the West than in Muslim countries.
I once lived in the Islamic world, in Afghanistan. What I learned in Kabul rendered me immune to the romanticization of the Third World or to the glamorization of tyrants and terrorists that defined my generation of 1960s and 1970s radicals.
Being born female and Muslim, especially today, under radical Islamic rule, is potentially a capital crime. The warnings and the punishment begin early on and are both relentless and normalized.
Women are viewed as sub-human, half-demon, dangerous, sexually “wild”—by men whose own lust and progeny knows no bounds. While there are many exceptions, in general, Muslim (and Arab) girls are despised and routinely cursed, beaten, treated as servants or slaves by their fathers and older brothers. Women are hidden, literally suffocated under face and body veils, shrouded, visually buried alive while still alive.
Frank Gaffney speaks on Obama’s release of the Uighurs into the U.S. Population
Judge suspends Pakistani woman’s deportation order amid honour-killing fears
Posted: April 28, 2009, 6:31 PM by Rob Roberts The National Post:
By Wu Yun, National Post
Mississauga hairdresser Roohi Tabassum was supposed to be deported from the U.S. to her native Pakistan today, where she feared her estranged husband would kill her for touching men’s hair.
But the Federal Court Tuesday agreed to suspend the 44-year-old woman’s deportation order until a pre-removal appeal, which could take several months.
Ms. Tabassum was smuggled to Canada from the U.S. in 2001, and filed a failed refugee claim. She has since built a life in Mississauga, working as a hairdresser and buying a house, even as she faces deportation to Pakistan.
She submitted to the court several letters from her husband, Faisal Javed, and his relatives, who purportedly threatened to kill her once she returned to Pakistan, because she dishonoured him by touching men’s hair.
“The Federal Court was also satisfied … the immigration officer who handled her pre-removal assessment appeal didn’t properly take those letters into account,” her lawyer, Max Berger, said today.
Her husband, who fled Pakistan with her eight years ago but only made it to the United Arab Emirates, was angered when a friend spotted her in the hair salon in 2006. He also suspected she had a boyfriend, but she strongly denied it. They have separated but not yet legally divorced.
Mr. Berger said the Federal Court postponed her deportation because it was satisfied “Roohi would suffer irreparable harm if she was removed from Canada.”
He will ask the Canada Border Services Agency to reconsider Ms. Tabassum’s pre-removal assessment.
Mr. Berger told the court that 1,200 to 1,500 women were killed in 2007 from honour killings in Pakistan, citing U.S. Department of State statistics.
Obama’s Muslim Advisor
As you read this, it may be worth keeping in mind, that this woman clearly relates disagreeing with, or even not liking Islam with racism. For the umpteenth time, Islam is a political philosophy and a religion. It is not deserving of any rights and especially not the right to be liked or respected. These attitudes are earned and not earned by sending out retarded women to be detonated by remote control in order to murder unexpecting and uninvolved people, which is still going on in Iraq, in the name of Islam. Muslims are not a race and should be viewed as we would view any other group with stated violent goals of violent manifest destiny.
Eeyore.
By Muhammed Qasim, IOL Correspondent from Islam online
WASHINGTON – Dalia Mogahed, a hijab-clad American Muslim, has made history being the first Muslim woman appointed to a position in President Barack Obama’s administration.
She sets on a newly-formed interfaith advisory board the administration hopes will improve relations with Muslims in the US and across the globe.
The Egyptian-born American heads the Gallup American Center for Muslim Studies, a research center that produces studies on Muslim public opinion worldwide.
In an exclusive interview, IslamOnline.net discussed with Egyptian-born Mogahed her new role, the challenges facing Muslims, Islamophobia in the US and her own success story.
– How do you feel about being the first Muslim appointed to the Obama administration?
I am not actually the first Muslim. There have been other Muslims appointed to Obama’s administration. I am also not the only Muslim on the White House advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. I join Dr. Eboo Patel as the second Muslim on the council. I am, however, the first Muslim woman in this council. I feel very honored for the privilege to serve in this way, but also recognize the responsibility that I’ve agreed to take on. I see my role much more in terms of what needs to get done rather than a historical accomplishment. I believe the accomplishments are yet to be fulfilled.
– What is the role of the Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnership?
I am a member of a 25-person advisory council to the White House focused on offering solutions for societal problems sourced in the wisdom of faith communities. More specifically, I am on the Inter-religious Dialogue and Cooperation Task Force, a group of only 5. We will work on recommendations for our area of focus and these will be reviewed by the larger council and then included in an annual report with recommendations from the council to the President.
– What is your role as an advisor on Islam?
I would not say I am an advisor on Islam. I would say that it is my role to convey the facts about what Muslims think and feel. I see my role as offering the voices of the silenced majority of Muslims in America and around the world to the council so that our deliberations are informed by their ideas and wisdom. I believe that I was chosen because the administration cares about what Muslims think and wants to listen.
– What kind of advise would you be giving Obama to improve relations with US Muslims and the Muslim world?
I would advise him to listen first and foremost. Many have claimed that terrorists have ‘hijacked Islam’. I disagree. I think Islam is safe and thriving in the lives of Muslims around the world. What the terrorists have been allowed to take over are Muslim grievances. Muslim concerns over injustice have been largely dismissed by the previous administration leaving a vacuum exploited by extremists. This is a dangerous reality for all of us. Instead, the US must hear mainstream Muslim concerns even if America does not agree with their perceptions. These issues can no longer be ignored or left and the extremists to monopolize.
– What areas of domestic and foreign policies you think the administration should be introducing change in?
I would endorse the action plan outlined in the report “Changing Course” which recommends four areas of action: Respect, Reform (political and economic) and Resolution of conflict. When it comes to the US, I would recommend that a senior member of the administration go on a “listening tour” of the US and hear what Muslim Americans are concerned over. Like all Americans, they are worried about the economic crisis, their financial future and jobs. And like many other US citizens, Muslim Americans are also worried about racial profiling, discriminatory immigration policy and the erosion of civil liberties.
– What do you think of the rising Islamphobia in America?
Islamphobia in America is very real. Gallup finds that Muslims are among the most unfavorably viewed groups in the US and only a little over a third of Americans say they have no prejudice against Muslims. This presents a grave danger to America as a whole. The disease of racism, by definition, is a bias in judgment. This means that racism clouds sound judgment and leads people to make irrational decisions. It also divides a nation and prevents the full utilization of its intellectual and cultural resources. Racism is wasteful. Racism is a strategic disadvantage. I am very proud of the progress America has made in fighting this problem as it relates to the relationship between blacks and whites. In 1956 only 4% of Americans approved of a marriage between whites and blacks. The marriage that produced our president was illegal in Virginia when he was born. Today 80% of Americans approve of marriage between blacks and whites. Last year, Barack Obama became the first Democratic Presidential candidate in decades to carry Virginia. We are a stronger and smarter nation because of this growth. Our next growth spurt will be in ridding our society of anti-Muslim prejudice.