Category: Muslim Brotherhood

Is a ‘Little Bit of Sharia’ Okay?

By Alyssa A. Lappen and Andrew G. Bostom
American Thinker | Jul. 25, 2011

Some Americans argue that U.S. civil and criminal legal codes and courts should recognize Islamic law (sharia), as applied to Muslim families, at least. But sharia critics need point no further than Australia to show the utter incoherence of that contention.

Polygamy is illegal in Australia, as is marriage of underage women and children.

Nevertheless, Australia accepts

“valid Muslim polygamist marriages, lawfully entered into overseas,… with second and third wives and their children able to claim welfare and other benefits,”

according to The Australian legal affairs editor Chris Merritt. Australia accepts them, even though in many such marriages a woman is “under [Australia’s] lawful marriage age.”

In effect, Australia has allowed a parallel legal system — operating against its own statutes as a sort of illegal “shadow system” — to take hold.

Courts and attorneys down under may be largely “oblivious,” but sharia has taken root there, according to legal research by academics Ann Black and Kerrie Sadie to be published Jul 25 in The New South Wales Law Journal. In a 2008 survey, they found that 90% of Australian Muslims adhere to its civil laws and reject sharia.

Yet the researchers also found that, under the radar, many Australian Muslims have also long observed Islamic traditions and sharia, particularly in family matters. Not all Australian Muslims register new marriages taking place there, for example. Since Islamic law endorses polygamous and underage marriages, some families seal marital vows solely with religious ceremonies, breaching Australia’s Marriage Act. A man may take multiple wives (marry polygamously) — or take a wife or wives below the age at which Australia confers majority, allowing men and women to marry with “informed consent,” of their own volition.

The Australian Muslim push for broad acceptance of sharia has not occurred in a vacuum, however. In North America, U.S. and Canadian Muslim organizations and leaders likewise advocate for adaptation of sharia laws in as many venues as possible.

Jamal A. Badawi, a onetime board member of the U.S. arm of the global Muslim Brotherhood, naturalized Canadian, self-styled Christian-Islamic relations expert — and director of the MB’s Consultative Council of North America (CCNA) and the U.S. Hamas arm, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted Holy Land Foundation co-conspirator — seeks Western legalization of polygamy for Muslims.

Islam does not require second wives, so Muslims in the West must “follow the laws,” Badawi wrote in a May 2005 Islam Online fatwa. Yet he claims that Western prohibition of second wives for Muslims denies “a particular right according to [our] own sharia.” Western democracies should “reciprocate” what Badawi considers Islamic tolerance of religious minority worship, teachings, family law, and estate division with equal “autonomy in [Islamic] issues … , including marriage.” They should except their own laws to legalize Muslim sharia, making Islamic polygamy “quiet [sic] legitimate,” and superior to Western secular laws allowing homosexual marriage.

Often, he claims, no “solution would be better than polygamy” — for men with barren wives “instinctively aspir[ing] to have children or heirs,” for example, or whose “chronically ill” wives they must divorce or forever “suppress … instinctive sexual needs” and secretly take “one or more illicit sex partners.” Forget women’s wants or needs. Polygamy is an “optional solution,” Badawi claims.

Clerics at the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) — an offshoot of the North American Imams Federation (NAIF), describing itself as “a fiqh council, basically” — likewise extol sharia-endorsed polygamy. AMJA currently encourages Muslim Americans to engage in polygamous marriages in the U.S., where polygamous marriages, in every state of the union, remain completely and totally illegal.

In early Aug. 2007, a Muslim questioner of AMJA clerics stated that “as long as you don’t register your marriage to the registrar, it is okay to have more than one wife here in the states[.]” A friend argued that “the law prohibits marrying more than one is against shaariah so, it is okay for us to break it[.]” In essence, he asked whether Islam makes it legal or forbidden (“haram”) to abide by U.S. law.

Al-Haj replied in favor of Islam (emphasis added):

Polygamy is halal [permissible] in Islam and may be highly recommended when the number of females is bigger than that of males to afford all females a decent life that suffices their physiologic, emotional and other needs. The US law about polygamy is against the Islamic law, for no one can make prohibited that which Allah specifically made allowable.

A Muslim should respect U.S. laws on polygamy, al-Haj also suggested, only so as not to harm the reputations of either polygamy or Muslims, or harm his community or family, including “the second partner and her children from him.” Since “many celebrities hav[e] extramarital affairs,” who are not prosecuted, al-Haj concluded, the Muslim man should perhaps consult “a legal expert” on the lawfulness of entering an “undocumented marriage” (as in “undocumented worker,” i.e., illegal alien).

In Oct. 2007 AMJA cleric Main Khalid Al-Qudah also approved a Muslim’s request for Islamic validation of polygamy in another religious ruling (fatwa 2134). Polygamy, he wrote:

is permissible for different reasons, like:

1- The sexual energy of men is more than that of women in general. So, in some cases, one wife is not enough to fulfill the conjugal desire of her husband

2- Pregnancy and delivery negatively affect the shape and physical attraction that women have.

3- World wide, the percentage of females is always more than that of males, eventually, there must be a solution, either to permit adultery and prostitution, or to allow polygamy

4- One husband could take care of more than one wife at the same time; socially, financially, and even sexually as I mentioned above. However, the opposite is not right because of the physical and psychological capability that Allah the all mighty gave men.

Anyone who thinks a little bit of sharia is a-okay should reconsider. A little bit of sharia is akin to being “a little bit” pregnant.

A nation must consider whether all its citizens should be governed by secular law — or not.

Once sharia is “a little bit accepted,” there is no going back. That explains, moreover, why Muslim clerics would like nothing better than to introduce a little bit of sharia at a time.


All Articles, Poems & Commentaries Copyright © 1971-2021 Alyssa A. Lappen
All Rights Reserved.
Printing is allowed for personal use only | Commercial usage (For Profit) is a copyright violation and written permission must be granted first.

A Foreign Policy Institute Obamamania Love Fest

Seeing the President as a “Born Again Neocon”

by Alyssa A. Lappen
Family Security Matters | May 24, 2011


Muhammed Ali (1769-1849)

To hear former CIA agent Reuel Marc Gerecht tell it, Ottoman governor Muhammed Ali and his Menemencioglu tribe supporter, Ahmed Bey, spawned Egypt’s current parliamentary and democratic longings in the 1830s. Gerecht presumably somehow credits the Macedonian renegade’s 1832-1840 [1] effort to usurp control of the Nile region from his Ottoman Turk masters and effect his own Egyptian empire. In any case, Ali’s military prowess brought the Sublime Porte to the verge of ruin, forcing the Ottomans, in desperation, to seek unheard of aid from infidels — that era’s great Western powers. [2]

Gerecht posited his theory of Egypt’s glorious 19th century democratic nascence at a May 19, 2011 University Club gathering in Manhattan hosted by Washington D.C.’s Foreign Policy Institute. The “organic discussions” initiated in 1830s Egypt were “œessentially shut off by dictatorship in the 1950s,” a situation duplicated across “the entire Middle East,” Gerecht said. Strangely, he did not hint at what he believes to have thwarted Egyptian democracy from 1840 to the 1950s. Colonialism, no doubt, although it actually conveyed any and all enlightenment to have stuck.

Gerecht’s historical conception underpins his enthusiasm for the new push for Egyptian democracy. He lauded President Barack Obama’s hopes for “Democracy in the Muslim World and democracy in the Arab world.” From initially appearing “a little bit George H.W. Bush and a little bit more Frantz Fanon,” Obama has morphed, growing “as the great Arab revolt has unfolded, a little bit more George W. Bush,” Gerecht said. Fellow FPI panelist, historian Max Boot, concurred. While still “very critical” of Bush even during his first years in office, Obama has “done a 180 in many ways” and now feels “compelled in the same way that Bush became a born again neocon,” Boot approvingly observed.


Reuel Marc Gerecht.

Granted, Gerecht is not completely dewey-eyed. “It’s going to be a rough ride,” he admits. He correctly expects Egypt’s imminent elections, whether in September 2011 or later, to win the Muslim Brotherhood at least 25% of the vote and seats in parliament, perhaps more. Gerecht also recognizes that upon winning such a margin, the MB will propose a legislative “vote to cancel the peace treaty with Israel” and attempt to formally institute as many aspects of sharia (Islamic law) as possible, succeeding in many (though he naïvely thinks, not all) aspects.

Unlike pragmatic realists, Gerecht said he does not “have a problem” with the likely results. “I want to see the Brotherhood do well enough so they can be a force,” he asserts. “I want to see great debates happen. The only way that you’re going to get evolution in this affair is for people to let rip.” He foresees a replay of “organic discussions” he imagines Egypt entertained nearly two centuries ago.

Nevermind that the Muslim Brotherhood now hopes to win 50% of the vote. [3] Nevermind that a recent poll found that at least 60% of Egyptians maintain fundamentalist Islamic views, 85% regard Islam’s political role as a “positive” (only 2% say it’s negative), and only 20% portray themselves as secular. [4] Nevermind that 91% of Egyptian girls routinely suffer female genital mutilation, [5] while Egyptian clerics routinely insist that Islamic law requires the practice. [6]

Boot differed slightly on U.S. “devotion to democracy” which he said insufficiently recognizes that the “actual messy, … semi-democracy” with which Egypt will emerge may “be more hostile to us and to Israel.” The U.S. should abandon its “overly idealistic” late 20th century view that everything will be fine given an uncompromised vote. “We should get our hands dirty here,” he said, and fund “more moderate, more secular, more pro-Western parties,” as done in the Cold War for pro-U.S. Forces.

Gerecht is not the only one with a distorted view of Egyptian democratic traditions.

Yes, in 1866 Khedive Ismail decreed that an advisory body be formed. [7] Ismail likewise encouraged cultural development. He initiated construction of what’s now called the Suez Canal, and increased the size of both the Alexandria port and trade with the West. [8] Ismail also expanded Egypt culturally. In 1770, for example, the Khedive commissioned Giuseppe Verdi to compose the opera Aida, which premiered in January 1771 at the recently constructed Cairo opera house. [9]

Arab League secretary general Amre Moussa points to such change as more democratic than any European structure then extant. [10] Former Egyptian dissident Saad E. Ibrahim has long expressed similar views. Not surprisingly, the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy boost them, from a strategic Washington D.C. office headed by Muslim Brother Ali Abuzakook. [11] Ibrahim reiterated his idyllic image of Egyptian democratic revolution at an Apr. 5 Middle East Forum lunch. [12]

Attributing anything at all revolutionary to Egypt’s 1866 parliament, however, is utterly preposterous. The U.K. Parliament predated Egypt’s dictatorially mandated advisory council by centuries. [13] Russia established its nobles’ Boyar Duma in 1547; a century and two-thirds later, in 1711, Peter the Great transferred the Duma’s genuine powers to a new Governing Senate. [14] Norway first convened its Parliament in 1814; [15] French revolutions spawned public representation starting in 1830. Austria-Hungary and Romania both established parliaments in 1866. [16] Other European democratic efforts undoubtedly abound. To say nothing of North America, where 13 colonies established their first representative government in 1774, where New England towns for more than a century before that held annual representative meetings — and each colony self-governed on most internal affairs.

Under close scrutiny, Egypt’s little democratic developments actually look far less significant than Gerecht suggests. He appears completely oblivious to the fact that, even at its apogee in the 1920s, Egypt’s secular parliamentary heyday barely existed. Moreover, by the 1930s the Muslim Brotherhood had advanced considerably in its original Islamiyya center, and in Cairo and other populous areas too.

Indeed, Muhammad Heykal published his hagiography of Muslim prophet Muhammad in 1935, according to Dr. Andrew G. Bostom. Other prominent “liberal nationalists” later successfully published similar pious hortatory Islamic volumes, ushering in what Nadav Safran termed the “Reactionary Phase” of Egyptian political thought and discourse. Brotherhood adherents believed secular Western ideologies and constitutions had failed. Islam thus re-emerged as an infinitely more popular alternative. As Safran noted in 1961,

Haykal’s argument (i.e., already in the mid-1930s) that the Egyptian cultural soil was inhospitable any but Muslim inspired ideals and values seemed to receive resounding confirmation from the events and met enthusiastic approval from the public.

Since the 1930s, and certainly after the collapse of the Wafd (Delegation) Party in the wake of World War II, Egypt’s populace demolished imported Western ideologies. Islamic leaders successfully replaced them by traditional loyalties to the Arab and larger Islamic communities, Bostom reported, providing a succinct description of the phenomenon, penned by Gabriel Warbeurg in 1983:

[I]nstead of the principles of the French Revolution and British parliamentarism, Islam re-emerged as the main source for government.”

In the 83 years since Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, his heirs and its leaders had time and resources aplenty to develop a network in Egypt and worldwide, cultivate considerable financial aid from foreign governments (including Saudi Arabia) [17] and build a web of “charitable” funds—headed by “spritual” leader Yusuf al Qaradawi. The latter, an ardent supporter of jihad, suicide bombing, and wife beating, runs dozens of illegal and legal businesses to finance planned government takeovers. U.S. and European authorities have long known of MB plans written in 1982 [18] and 1991 respectively, [19] to impose sharia law globally and in North America. Organized and disciplined, the MB accumulated enough political expertise in the last near-century to dwarf any skills opponents might have retained from Egypt’s brief “democratic” experiment in the fairly distant past.

That MB experience hardly represents peacefulness, regardless of the latest MB spin. The organization parented every known Sunni terrorist organization today, and works closely with Hezbollah and Iran.

MB Shura Council member Abdul Moneim abu el-Fotouh, now making an Egyptian presidential bid, [20] in 1970 founded Jamaa Islamiya (JI). [21] That group assassinated President Anwar el Sadat [22] and in 1997 murdered 71 tourists in Luxor. [23] JI leader Karam Zohdi in 1981 received a life sentence for Sadat’s murder. But in 1997, Zohdi reputedly played a “major role” in a JI renunciation of violence and Egypt freed him in 2003.[24] The JI renunciation was either only local, or only temporarily expedient — or both — for in 2006, JI reportedly joined forces in several al Qaeda liquid bomb plots. [25]

Whenever convenient, el-Fotouh likewise routinely presents himself as a moderate. [26] That anyone ever believes him constitutes a sick joke.

In Jan. 2011, el-Fotouh said that the murder of 21 Coptic Christians praying in their church on New Years’ Eve was “a criminal act with Zionist…finger prints” to “sow hatred among Muslims and Coptic Christians.” Egyptian Muslims could not have murdered committed this atrocity. [27] Similarly, in Aug. 2006, el-Fotouh told the New York Times it was ‘better to support a Hezbollah-Iranian agenda than an ‘American-Zionist’ one.” He also accused the U.S. of invading Iraq only “to divide Muslims.”

In March 2003, el-Fotouh supported Islamic scholars who performed their ‘basic religious duty‘ in inciting Muslims to join jihad against the U.S. Al Azhar had rightly urged them to “defend themselves and their faith” against an “enemy” — stepping “on Muslims’ land” — which the clerics called “a new Crusader battle targeting our land, honor, faith and nation.” The al Azhar decree amounted to its clerics’ “attempt … to fulfill their duty before God,” since the U.S. planned “to enslave the Arab nation.” In Oct. 2006, the U.S. banned el-Fotouh from entering due to his many such past statements. [28]

Since New Year’s Eve, Muslims have only increased wholesale attacks against Egypt’s Coptic Christians—an estimated 12 million, up to 15% of Egypt’s people. [29] Perhaps since “divine” sharia law sanctions criminal abuses for innumerable inhuman reasons, Egypt’s military stands idly by, watching. Now, the MB has now joined a coalition with Egypt’s JI, increasing risks for its Christian minority. [30]

In April 2011, Saad Ibrahim dubbed Egypt’s turmoil a “lotus revolution” after a native Cairo flower. But the Muslim Brotherhood will assuredly gain control of Egypt by “democratic” vote. At that juncture, logical observers can expect to see Cairo water its “lotus” flowers with rivers of blood that could make Khomeini’s slaughter of Iranian civilians look like a Sunday picnic.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Alyssa A. Lappen is a U.S.-based investigative journalist focusing on the Middle East and Islam. She is a former Senior Fellow for the American Center for Democracy (2005-2008); former Senior Editor of Institutional Investor (1993-1999), Working Woman (1991-1993) and Corporate Finance (1991). She was previously an Associate Editor at Forbes, where she worked upwards of 12 years (1978-1990), and an editor and staff writer at several other publications. She is also a poet. Her website is https://www.alyssaalappen.org.

NOTES:

[1] C. Kafadar H. Karateke C. Fleischer, “Historians of the Ottoman Empire: Ahmed Bey,” http://www.ottomanhistorians.com/database/pdf/menemenciogluahmed_en.pdf (viewed 5/20/2011).
[2] Efraim Karsh and Inari Karsh, Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1923 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 5, 27-42, 48, 69, 74-75, 289.
[3] “Muslim Brotherhood announce party chief, seek 50% of parliament,” al-Ahram, Apr. 30, 2011, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/11085/Egypt/Politics-/Muslim-Brotherhood-announce-party-chief,-seek–of-.aspx (viewed 5/20/2011).
[4] Doug Schoen, “Why the Muslim Brotherhood will win,” Fox News, Feb. 10, 2011, http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/02/10/muslim-brotherhood-win/ (viewed 5/17/2011).
[5] Armen Hareyan, “UNICEF calls on Egypt to end female genital cutting,” ExmaxHealth, Sept. 12, 2007, http://www.emaxhealth.com/48/15932.html Michael Slackman, “In Egypt, a rising push against genital cutting,” New York Times, Sept. 19, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/world/africa/20iht-20girls.7576384.html?pagewanted=print; “Female circumcision: 90% of childbearing women in Egypt” Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM) News Blog, Feb. 15, 2011, http://fgcdailynews.blogspot.com/2011/02/female-circumcision-90-percent-of.html (all viewed 5/22/2011).
[6] “Egyptian Shaykh: Muslim Scholars Say That FGM Is Either Obligatory or Commendable,” Translating Jihad, May 17, 2011, http://translating-jihad.blogspot.com/2011/05/egyptian-shaykh-muslim-scholars-say.html (viewed 5/17/2011).
[7] “Democracy is born,” al-Ahram, May 25-31, 2000, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/483/chrncls.htm (viewed 5/22/2011).
[8] “Alexandria,” ArchNet Digital Library, undated, http://archnet.org/library/places/one-place.jsp?place_id=1455&order_by=author&showdescription=1 (viewed 5/22/2011).
[9] Richard Willmer, “Music,” The Italian Language, undated, http://www.italian-language-study.com/italian-culture-abroad/music.htm (viewed 5/22/2011).
[10] Amre Moussa, Doha Debate Special Event, Qatar Foundation, Oct. 29, 2006, http://www.thedohadebates.com/debates/debate.asp?d=15&s=3&mode=transcript (viewed 5/22/2011).
[11] “Saad Eddin Ibrahim on democracy in the Arab world,” CSID Email Bulletin, Nov. 11, 2006, https://www.csidonline.org/publications/csid-bulletins/58/356#succor (viewed 5/22/2011); Washington, D.C. CSID director Aly Abuzaakook https://www.csidonline.org/about-csid (5/22/2011) is also former American Muslim Council (AMC) executive director, former International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) publishing chief, and former head of the Hamas-funding, designated terrorist organization United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). Steven Emerson, “Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade,” Jul. 31, 2008, http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/testimony/357.pdf, pp. 16-17, citing “Aly. R. Abuzaakouk, Guest CV,” Live Dialogue, Islam Online, undated, http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Guestcv.asp?hGuestID=OVzzHu (blocked link), now at http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20080416030303/http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Guestcv.asp?hGuestID=OVzzHu; Nadifa Abdi, “MYNA moves,” Islamic Horizons, Feb. 1988, pp. 16-17, and U.S. State Dept. FOIA documents, case 20070224, Dec. 10, 2007 (all viewed 3/4/2011).
[12] Saad Ibrahim remarks, Middle East Forum, Apr. 5, 2011. This reporter was present.
[13] Lionel Cecil Jane, “Coming of Parliament: England from 1350 to 1660,” Story of the Greatest Nations: From the Dawn of History to the Twentieth Century, ed. Edward S. Sliis, A.M. And Charles F. Horne, MS, (New York: Francis R. Niglutsch, 1905), http://www.archive.org/stream/catalogueofcentr00brisiala/catalogueofcentr00brisiala_djvu.txt; See also L.C. Jane, http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Parliament-England-1350-1660/dp/1459000455/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306086992&sr=1-1-fkmr1 (both viewed 5/11/2011).
[14] “Boyar Duma,” The Free Encyclopedia, http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Boyar+Duma (viewed 5/22/2011).
[15] “Parliament of Norway,” Wikipedia, as modified Apr. 13, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Norway (viewed 5/22/2011).
[16] Josephus Nelson Larned, The New Larned History for Ready Reference, Reading and Research, Vol. 1, (complete revised edition, 1922, p. 705, digitized by Google Books. Claudia Ursutiu, “Jewish Question in the Romanian Parliament (1866-1919),” Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of antiSemitism, http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/reslist.html (viewed 5/22/2011).
[17] Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, “Shari’a financing and the coming ummah,” Chapter 28, Armed Groups: Studies in National Security, Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency, ed. Jeffrey Norwitz, (U.S. Naval War College: Jun. 2008), pp. 389-404, https://www.alyssaalappen.org/wp-content/uploads/sharia-financing-and-the-coming-ummah-by-ehrenfeld-and-lappen.pdf (first viewed 6/2/2008); Ehrenfeld and Lappen, “The truth about the Muslim Brotherhood,” Front Page Magazine, Jun. 16, 2006, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=3996 (first viewed 6/16/2006).
[18] Patrick Poole, “The Muslim Brotherhood ‘Project’,” Front Page Magazine, May 11, 2006, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4475 (first viewed 5/11/2006).
[19] Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, 5/22/1991,” www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategicGoal.pdf (first viewed 9/18/2007), as cited in Lappen, “Yousef Qaradawi’s U.S. Minions,” Act for America Special Report, Feb. 25, 2011, https://www.alyssaalappen.org/2011/02/25/yusuf-qaradawis-u-s-minions/ (viewed 2/25/2011).
[20] “Muslim Brotherhood leader to run for Egyptian presidency,” Sydney Herald Sun, May 11, 2011, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/muslim-brotherhood-leader-to-run-for-egyptian-presidency/story-e6frf7jx-1226054262936; “Egypt’s Muslims design presidential candidate for U.S. nod,” Debkafile, May 13, 2011, http://www.debka.com/article/20930/ (both viewed 5/19/2011).
[21] “Abdel Moneim Abu el-Fotouh,” Egypt Today, Mar. 5, 2006, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=4686 (viewed 5/19/2011).
[22] “AJ Islamiya and Zawahiri’s EIJ assassinate Sadat,” America and the Mid-East, Xtimeline, Oct. 6, 1981, http://www.xtimeline.com/evt/view.aspx?id=12888 (viewed 5/22/2011).
[23] Simon Reeve, “The Liquid bombs plot: al Qaeda corrupts a generation,” The Mirror, Aug. 12, 2006, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/THE+LIQUID+BOMBS+PLOT:+Al-Qaeda+corrupts+a+generation-a0149377156 (viewed 5/22/2011).
[24] Lamia Radi, “Egypt frees leader of Jamaa Islamiya,” Middle East Online, 9/29/2003, http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=7187=7187&format=0 (viewed 5/22/2011).
[25] Reeve, “Liquid bombs plot: al Qaeda corrupts a generation,” The Mirror, Aug. 12, 2006, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/THE+LIQUID+BOMBS+PLOT:+Al-Qaeda+corrupts+a+generation-a0149377156 (viewed 5/22/2011).
[26] “Muslim Brotherhood leader to run for Egyptian presidency,” Sydney Herald Sun, May 11, 2011,http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/muslim-brotherhood-leader-to-run-for-egyptian-presidency/story-e6frf7jx-1226054262936; “Egypt’s Muslims design presidential candidate for U.S. nod,” Debkafile, May 13, 2011, http://www.debka.com/article/20930/ (both viewed 5/19/2011).
[27] “Islamists blame Jews for Coptic Church bombing,” IPT News, Jan. 3, 2011, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2468/islamists-blame-jews-for-coptic-church-bombing (first viewed 1/3/2011).
[28] Lappen, “Islam’s Useful Idiots,” American Thinker, Oct. 23, 2006, http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/10/islams_useful_idiots.html (viewed 10/23/2006).
[29] Egypt’s Coptic Christians, http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/copticchristians.htm; see also Michelle Boortstein, “Egypt’s uprising stirs fears of persecution of minority Coptic Christians,” Washington Post, Feb. 4, 2011 (both viewed 5/22/2011).
[30] Michael Weiss, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Salafi pact puts Egyptian Christians in great danger,” Telegraph, May 13, 2011, http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/michaelweiss/100087770/the-muslim-brotherhoods-salafi-pact-puts-egyptian-christians-in-great-danger/; “Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader visits Jamaa Islamiya in Tripoli,” Lebanon News, May 13, 2011, http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArchiveDetails.aspx?ID=270587 (both viewed 5/13/2011).


All Articles, Poems & Commentaries Copyright © 1971-2021 Alyssa A. Lappen
All Rights Reserved.
Printing is allowed for personal use only | Commercial usage (For Profit) is a copyright violation and written permission must be granted first.

What has happened to the Anti-defamation league?

Is opposition to sharia a social crime?

by Alyssa A. Lappen
Family Security Matters | Mar. 31, 2011

ADL now supports sharia. How can any supporter of civil rights defend the introduction of such barbaric “law” into the United States?

The following is an open letter addressed to the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League.

Dear Mr. Foxman —

I am absolutely appalled that ADL has smeared the name of a reputable attorney, David Yerushalmi alongside others who, unlike him, are indeed egregious in word and deed.

Attorney Yerushalmi was rankly faulted in a terribly unprofessional article some weeks ago. In my opinion, as a journalist of 35 years experience, this is a case in which he was genuinely libeled and I certainly hope he intends to sue. I believe he has a cause of action.

As you know, libel in America consists of stating something inaccurate (often intentionally) — and with purposeful malice. The article I note above contained no facts on which to base its opinions, and malice virtually dripped from the prose. In recent years, journalists have often made me ashamed of my lifelong profession, but this piece took the cake and the frosting as well. If it had any role, partial or otherwise, in your determination to add Mr. Yerushalmi to a list of hate-mongers, I would urge you to reconsider.

I have spoken with Mr. Yerushalmi as a source and find him one of the most precise attorneys I know. His information is absolutely credible. He thoroughly and exactly cites many Islamic law texts. He is never inaccurate. Never. He is certainly not the hateful man that you paint him.

Perhaps you are unaware that the national leadership of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), on the other hand, has repeatedly been identified by federal law-enforcement officials to have had links with terrorist organizations. This occurred in Nov. 2008 with the Holy Land Foundation Hamas and terror-financing case. The government obtained 108 unanimous verdicts on ALL 108 terror-financing, money laundering and tax fraud charges leveled against five HLF officers. Some of the funds they sent to Hamas had washed through CAIR accounts, proven by canceled check copies.

Federal evidence was again cited in the civil suit by the family of David Boim in the Chicago 7th Circuit Court of Appeals against the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) — CAIR’s predecessor and co-founder — in Dec. 2008. The federal judge in that case ruled that the CAIR predecessor — namely the IAP — was indeed inseparable from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Muslim American Society and he held their agents responsible, fully and finally, for the $156 million judgment in the Boim’s case against them. Thus $156 million less is now available to fund Hamas terrorism.

Then in October 2010, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that hundreds of individuals and organizations named as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation case — including CAIR — would NOT be delisted as unindicted co-conspirators, due to the preponderance of evidence against them. CAIR knew and knows that the evidence against its leadership and several CAIR chapters is indeed so strong that it could never have won an appeal, and did not even try. An appeal was filed by another North American Muslim Brotherhood organization with which you may not be familiar, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), a subsidiary of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

It is a travesty that you brand as a hate monger a man legitimately attempting — via the U.S. courts — to legally defeat efforts of the above groups, among others, to increasingly impose Islamic law through secular U.S. civil courts and institutions. Unfortunately, the encroachment of these laws is not a “theory” but is a well-established fact.

In Florida, in the last few weeks, a judge ruled that a mosque must — under secular U.S. laws — follow sharia to resolve an internal dispute between members. Those suing came to America to ESCAPE sharia law. Yet now a U.S. court has ordered them to adhere to it. They will appeal this egregious decision, rightfully so.

A New Jersey judge ruled some months ago that a man who had badly beaten his wife had the right to do so, since sharia condones this practice. Fortunately, that decision was reversed on appeal.

In Massachusetts, about four years ago, the ACLU motioned for dismissal of criminal charges against three terrorists who fraudulently obtained charitable tax-exempt status to fund suicide murder. Sharia law requires Muslims to give 2.5% of their wealth annually to charity (zakat); funding jihad and jihad fighters are covered by several of eight religiously mandated means to allocate annual zakat payments. The ACLU cited these facts in its motion, arguing that raising monies to fund jihad, fraudulently or otherwise, is Constitutionally protected religious practice under the First Amendment. Fortunately, the federal district justices in Worcester, Ma. denied this motion point blank.

Do you suppose that any of the above instances are part, at best, of some wildly imaginative conspiracy theory? I assure you the ACLU motion to protect the religious freedom of fraudulently collected “tax-exempt” funds for jihad was quite real. I held and read the motion in my own hands, and reported on the case. The argument was all too real — albeit surreal.

Mr. Foxman, contrary to your claims in the ADL commentary on Mr. Yerushalmi, these cases are not the figment of some lunatic’s mind. Unfortunately, in fact, dozens of similar such cases nationwide demonstrate an orchestrated attempt to inject Islamic law into the U.S. secular legal codes, both on state and national levels. In those cases that the goals are achieved, these sharia laws provide exceptions for Muslims alone — to legal standards normally considered foundational to Western civilization — on a vast array of points and issues.

Another difficulty is that, unlike other kinds of religious law, sharia law is composed largely of edicts and regulations to be imposed upon non-Muslims. If it is allowed to continue to its logical terminus, therefore, the only possible conclusion of this trend would be complete decimation of all manner of constitutionally protected freedoms, including freedom of speech, “out of religious respect.” Consider the case of Uganda. Yes indeed, Idi Amin was educated in Saudi Arabia and ultimately he fled to and died there. While this aspect of Amin’s history was barely reported, he hoped to impose sharia law on Uganda. Let us recall the genocidal results.

Certainly we can demand respect for all faiths, without disallowing any criticism whatever. Look, for example, at your own criticism of Mel Gibson’s film on Christ. No one branded you a hatemonger. You merely expressed your opinion as a matter of constitutionally-protected free speech. And so it should be with all faiths — including Mohammed, Islam and sharia. How on earth can people learn any of its dark aspects if no one is allowed to speak on the subject without merciless and baseless accusations of hate mongering like those you leveled in this case.

You may recall Wafa Sultan, who lived under sharia, and spoke quite plainly against sharia and Islamic precepts on Al Jazera, shocking the Arab and Muslim worlds. She has now done so in America too.

I would think you’d support the Freedom Pledge that Dr. Sultan and her other fearless Former Muslims United co-founders — including Nonie Darwish, who lost her father to a suicide “martyr” mission — have sent to dozens of Muslim leaders across the U.S. They ask these leaders to pledge to protect religious freedom of apostates to Islam, namely to promise to openly oppose fatwas calling for apostates’ deaths, and do everything else possible to protect their freedoms from medieval — not to say unconstitutional and illegal — practices like the Islamic death penalty for public abandonment of faith. Only two Muslims have signed, God bless them both. That is no figment of imagination, either, nor are the fatwas calling for their deaths.

Florida U.S. Rep., Ret. Col. Allen West agrees with Mr Yerushalmi — that sharia proponents have put America’s secular laws under attack for years now and, via the judiciary, have already had considerable success eroding them. Having served two tours of duty in Iraq, Rep. West is familiar with the Islamic laws and has seen them in action on the ground.

That ADL is unaware of any of the above noted facts does not render “hate-mongers” of those Americans who pay keen attention to their surroundings and do not share your complacency.

Once upon a time, the ADL did excellent work to combat anti-Semitism, which of course was its founding mission. Here, the ADL has apparently taken the side of organizations that for decades have expressed zealous anti-Semitism, hatred of Jews and hatred of Israel — and indeed of the very concept (much less existence) of a Jewish state. They have done so both through their words at private organizational conferences, and writings in organizational publications and pseudo-academic journals — and with their money, for suicide bombers, in Jerusalem and Israel, among other things.

It is easy to find such statements and positions from their leadership over the last 30 years, and recently too. For years, dozens of hard-working non-profit organizations have researched these organizations to expose them. In several terrorism and related cases, the federal government has prevailed partly on the basis of their solid, professional research. That is but one way in which individuals dangerous to America (and Israel) were convicted of terror-related crimes, deported for fraudulent immigration applications or both.

Furthermore, in part, you label David Yerushalmi “extremist” for asking that the U.S. actually enforce existing immigration laws. You may not like it, but that is a legitimate political viewpoint, for legal reasons of course, but also for humanitarian considerations. It is certainly not grounds for the juvenile name-calling the ADL issued in this case. Actually, “undocumented workers” very often suffer horrendous landlord and employment abuses — and the highest rate of criminal assault, theft, fraud and so on targeting any population. For among those “undocumented workers” live tens of thousands of criminals. Indeed, several 9/11 hijackers were what some might, ten years later, call “undocumented workers.”

Taken together, these two positions in the ADL frontal attack on David Yerushalmi sadly suggest that the organization now opposes those who want only to uphold existing U.S. laws — legally, I might add — yet agrees with groups that regularly break U.S. laws, verbally and financially support anti-Semitism and terror, and have already in effect funded dozens of murders, perhaps even hundreds.

Agreed, there have been Jewish extremists. But they are very few and far between. More importantly, David Yerushalmi is not one of these. I think you do great disservice to the Anti-Defamation League and the time-honored fights against anti-Semitism and racism by siding with extreme, radical, hateful, proven terror-supporting organizations. They are intent upon demolishing his good name — and that of anyone else daring to criticize them or their agenda, much less their precepts of faith and religious law — and thereby to intimidate the American press and leadership into silence. Surely you should recognize this as the tactic of brown shirts.

Opposing the emergence of sharia law in American public life hardly exemplifies racism, or extremism. It is merely an effort to maintain and enforce the Constitutional separation of church and state, based on sad and very real experience over the last decade in particular.

Moreover, it is the earnest effort of many concerned minorities who ought to be ADL’s natural allies — former Sudanese slaves, former Muslims fearful for their lives (even in America), Maronite Christians, Hindus whose temples have been smashed by the thousands, Coptic Christians with families suffering mass slaughter (hundreds burned, alive, in churches), now, in Egypt and on and on.

Yet you attack Mr. Yerushalmi as an extremist.

Shame on you. Shame!

I read your mother’s oral history and am fortunate to have known and to know other survivors of the Vilna ghetto and Stutthoff, generally unknown death camps in its orbit and death marches. They bestowed a sacred blessing and this indelible lesson, to speak out, not to remain silent. Your mother, I think, did not save you from the Holocaust to do something so atrocious as this.

Best regards —

Alyssa A. Lappen

Investigative journalist and poet
https://www.alyssaalappen.org

CC: U.S. Rep. Allen West
CC: Diana West, Syndicated columnist
CC: Andrew McCarthy, Columnist and former U.S. Attorney
CC: Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Cong. Mount Sinai and President, New York Board of Rabbis
CC: Jeffrey Weinsenfeld, Philanthropist and Trustee
CC: Debra Burlingame, Co-founder, 9/11 Families
CC: Tim Brown, Co-founder, 9/11 Families
CC: Editor in Chief, Jewish World Review
CC: Gary Rosenblatt, Jewish Week
CC: Matthew R.J. Brodsky, Editor, InFocus, Jewish Policy Center
CC: Rick Greenfield, Editor, Jewish Ledger
CC: Susan Rosenbluth, Editor, Jewish Voice and Opinion
CC: Steven Baum, Editor, Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism

_____________________________________________________________________
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Alyssa A. Lappen is a U.S.-based investigative journalist focusing on the Middle East and Islam. She is a former Senior Fellow for the American Center for Democracy (2005-2008); former Senior Editor of Institutional Investor (1993-1999), Working Woman (1991-1993) and Corporate Finance (1991).



Sharia in action in Aceh. How can any supporter of civil rights defend the introduction of such barbaric “law” into the United States?

EDITOR’S NOTE: In addition to the items listed above, it should also be pointed out that the ADL has decided in its article to smear David Yerushalmi as a racist, as well as someone it sneers at as perceiving sharia implementation to be a “conspiracy.”

The smear that David Yerushalmi is a racist is a point which the ADL emphasized through an update to another smear-piece against Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, where Attorney Yerushalmi is said to indulge in “anti-black bigotry.” The ADL suggested in the article discussed by Ms. Lappen that, “He also contended that African-Americans are a ‘relatively murderous race killing itself.”

David Yerushalmi has presented on his SANE website a repudiation of earlier criticisms of this and other comments, where it is clear the original statements were taken out of context. He states that this repudiation has been available to ADL since September 2010. This repudiation covers other points, but for brevity I reproduce one paragraph that relates specifically to the “murderous” comment:

“The reference to blacks and murder in New York specifically linked to an article I had written (and published in the American Thinker here) which analyzed a New York Times story which addressed the Department of Justice statistics that show that blacks in New York are grossly overrepresented among the City’s murderers. Indeed, I point out that the victims in these cases are most likely to be fellow blacks. Would one be irrational to conclude that blacks are more likely to murder (more “murderous”) than non-blacks? To suggest otherwise is to argue that the statistics reported by the DOJ and relied upon by the New York Times are inaccurate. Moreover, nowhere in the article do I even begin to suggest that these statistics are explained by skin color or race more broadly, and indeed the article leaves open the why because statistics themselves could never tell us that.”

It is deeply worrying that a lawyer’s opposition to sharia law — which runs contrary to the principles enshrined in the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights — should be used as a cudgel to attack him. When such an attack comes from a group supposedly aiming to defend the rights of Jews yet is seen to be apparently condoning Sharia, this obviously raises alarms about motive and intent. More so when leading proponents of Sharia in America have been shown to support the terrorist organization Hamas, which invokes the killing of Jews as part of sacred Islamic scripture in its Hamas Charter. This and other clauses that call for the delegitimization of Israel have not subsequently been removed from the Hamas Charter.

Adrian Morgan, The Editor, Family Security Matters.


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Yusuf Qaradawi’s U.S. minion

The real aim of the Fiqh Council of North America

By Alyssa A. Lappen

Act for America special report | Feb. 25, 2011

Those who believe Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi doesn’t threaten Egypt — or the U.S. — should reconsider. The U.S. banned Qaradawi as a terror-sympathizer in late 1999, 1 yet his MB emissaries continue working to implement his brand of sharia in North America.

Since its 1963 inception within the Muslim Students of America religious committee 2 the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), it has been key to MB plans for the U.S. Indeed, the MB so designated FCNA (by an earlier moniker) in an internal 1991 strategic memo. 3 FCNA focuses on implementing sharia: individually and collectively, FCNA advises and educates “members and officials on matters related to the application of sharia,” here. 4

For at least a decade, FCNA has also espoused an unique version of classical Islamic law. 5 Drawn largely from Qaradawi’s frequently odious rulings, this temporary “fiqh al aqalliyyat” 6 covers Muslim minorities in the West, according to sharia finance adviser and FCNA secretary Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, 7 a Dow Jones Islamic Indexes adviser to date. 8

Like classic sharia, fiqh al aqalliyyat is highly illiberal. Unlike classic law, it is only interim: It encourages Muslims to temporarily accept non-Muslim rule but heavily populate the West. 9 The thesis posits that Dar al-Islam exists wherever Muslims live. It prefers to call the Muslim world “dar-al ijaba,” land of response, and non-Muslim nations, “dar ad-dawah,” i.e., where Islam “has to be spread.” Traditional fatwas banning citizenship in the West block Muslims from fulfilling dawa requirements and calling non-Muslims “kufir” doesn’t persuade converts. Whether by conversion or war, the MB goal remains conquest of the West. 10

Sharia criminal law, for example, demands and routinely applies capital punishment for apostates from Islam, 11 directly contradicting U.S. constitutional rights to freedom of faith. In late Sept. 2009, Former Muslims United sent polite, respectful requests to several dozen U.S. Muslim leaders, that they sign its Freedom Pledge to protect lives, property and rights to freedom of faith for all former Muslims. Pledge recipients included FCNA chairman Muzammil Siddiqi, 12 vice chair Muhammad Nur Abdullah, executive director Zulfiqar Ali Shah, executive council members Mohamad A. El Sheikh, FCNA executive trustee Jamal Badawi, Abdur Rahman Khan and Zainab Alwani and member Ishan Bagby. 13 All falsely attest to moderation. None replied. None signed.

Apart from unindicted terror-financing co-conspirator Badawi, a onetime trustee of the U.S. arm of the global Muslim Brotherhood itself — and a decades-long trustee on ISNA’s 18-member board 14 — the FCNA executives and members include many figures whose troubling associations, rulings and deeds are equally difficult to digest:

  • Since his circa 1976 arrival in the U.S., to head religious affairs at the United Nations office of the terror-linked Muslim World League 15 (MWL), Siddiqi has maintained close ties to Islamic radicals both in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Siddiqi thus serves both the Supreme Islamic Council of Egypt and Mecca’s Supreme Council of Mosques, 16 plus the fatwa board at Islam Online, a website of Qatar-based MB spiritual mouthpiece Yusuf Qaradawi — who returned to Egypt on Feb. 17, 2011 after a 30-year exile to pray for Jerusalem’s conquest. 17 (Siddiqi’s class was first to graduate from the MB’s 1961-founded Islamic University of Medina, after King Saud bin Abdel Aziz welcomed a second wave of Egyptian exiles and funded their spread of orthodox Islam and jihad doctrine, particularly to foreign students.) 18


  • FCNA co-founder, former chairman and president Taha Jabir Alalwani — an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of admitted terror-financier Sami al-Arian 19 — on Oct. 13, 2007 signed “A Common Word,” a declaration of commonality purporting to tie Christians and Muslims more closely. Nevertheless, he supports Islamic law — including the death penalty for apostates. Very few website visitors pierce the facade 20 or recognize the MB goal — buying time to complete their North American conquest. That’s all it is.


  • In April 2006, Abdullah and Badawi co-authored a fatwa encouraging Muslim proselytizing to Christians and Jews, but finding gross sin in Muslim conversions outside Islam.21 When scholars distinguish apostasy “not punishable by death,” from “apostasy… accompanied by … high treason,” Badawi wrote, the death penalty is still administered — for high treason. The distinction would not comfort the murder victims, in either sort of fiqh ruling.


  • Alalwani also serves SAFA Group and its suspected terror-aiding and funding network. In 2003, the U.S. Customs and Treasury departments raided FCNA’s Virginia offices within their Operation Greenquest dragnet for terrorist ties and financing. 22 Homeland security’s senior special Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent David Kane, in Oct. 2003 reported strong evidence of al-Arian’s conspiracy with SAFA Group executives to fund and support HAMAS and PIJ. In a late 1988 (or so) fatwa also discovered, Alalwani invoked jihad, invested by Allah’s power in Muslims, as “the only way to liberate Palestine,” where “no person or authority” could give Jews any rights at all, much less let Jews settle or live.23


  • On Mar. 24, 2003 at Islam Online, Abdullah, Badawi and Siddiqi condoned “Seeking Martyrdom by Attacking US Military Bases in the Gulf,” a ruling of anonymous “muftis” mandating maiming and murder of U.S. troops in the Middle East. “[A]ttacking American soldiers who came to launch war against Muslims is an obligation and Jihad, as they are true invaders,” the fatwa commands. Such obligatory jihad, moreover, would deliver “the highest degree of martyrdom” to Muslims “killed” so doing: 24 Eternity with 72 virgins.


    • In 2008, a federal jury unanimously convicted five Holy Land Foundation officers of 108 counts of funding Hamas, money laundering and tax fraud. 25 Prosecutors also pronounced FCNA executive trustee Jamal Badawi and FCNA member, trustee and former Islamic Association of Palestine (IOP) director Muhammad al-Hanooti 26 unindicted co-conspirators (with many MB organizations). A circa 1978 immigrant 27 — and unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trace Center attack — Hanooti remains in Washington D.C. 28 A preponderance of publicly accessible evidence prompted the New Orleans 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Oct. 2010 to leave all HLF unindicted co-conspirator designations unsealed and in tact. 29

    Badawi, Hanooti et all remain highly suspect.


    —————————————————————
    Alysssa A. Lappen, an ACT for America contributing editor and investigative journalist, is a former senior fellow at American Center for Democracy (2005-2008); former senior editor of Institutional Investor (1993-1999), Working Woman (1991-1993) and Corporate Finance (1991), and writes for many print and internet publications. ACT for America commissioned this work.

    —————————————————————————
    NOTES:
    1 Steven Salinsky, “Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradawi and Qatar’s Education City — Hosting American University Students from Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth, Cornell & Others,” Middle East Media Research Institute, Feb. 19, 2010, http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3984.htm and http://www.memri.org/image/IA_Qaradawi.pdf (viewed 2/5/2011).
    2 “History of the Fiqh Council,” FCNA, 11/22/2010, http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/node/6 (viewed 2/5/2011).
    3 Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, 5/22/1991,” www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategicGoal.pdf (first viewed 9/18/2007).
    4 “Fiqh Council of North America responds to the question: What is the Islamic opinion on the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001,” reprinted at Islamopedia, undated, http://www.islamopediaonline.org/fatwa/fiqh-councilnorth-
    america-responds-question-what-islamic-opinion-terrorist-attacks-united-sta     (viewed 2/3/2011).
    5 Taha Jabir Alalwani, “Towards a Fiqh for minorities: some basic reflections,” occasional paper #10, (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003), pp. 44; Abu Amal Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53.
    6 Ralph Ghadban, “Tariq Ramadan’s Islamism: a lecturer of unfree thinking,” Frankfurter Allgemeine, Sept. 9, 2009,
    http://www.faz.net/s/RubC3FFBF288EDC421F93E22EFA74003C4D/Doc~E8D907A2243D44E1BB6F26A34B25FD7
    9E~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html     (viewed 2/3/2011); Alalwani, “Prolegominato (sic, intended “prolegomenon”) the
    Fiqh of the minorities: Some basic reflections,” undated, Islam Online,
    http://web.archive.org/web/20071212175822/www.fiqhcouncil.org/Default.aspx?tabid=60 (viewed 2/5/2011); Alalwani “Towards a Fiqh for minorities: some basic reflections,” occasional paper #10, (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003), pp. 44; Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53.
    7 Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, “Fiqh and the Fiqh Council of North America,” Islamicity, undated, http://www.islamicity.com/politics/shariah.htm (viewed 2/5/2011).
    8 Jeffrey Imm, “Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and Islamist Financing,”Counterterrorismblog.org, Nov. 14, 2007,
    http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/11/wsj_and_islamist_financing.php (last viewed 2/21/2011); see also Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes rulebook, Dec. 2009,
    http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/downloads/rulebooks/Dow_Jones_Islamic_Market_Indexes_Rulebook.pdf (viewed
    2/21/2011); http://www.djindexes.com/islamicmarket/?go=supervisory-board (viewed 2/21/2011); “Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, Chief Shariah Officer and Board Member,” Managing Team / Shariah Supervisory Board, Sharia Capital, undated, http://www.shariahcap.com/about-mt-delorenzo.php (viewed 2/21/2011).
    9 Ralph Ghadban, “Tariq Ramadan’s Islamism: a lecturer of unfree thinking,” Frankfurter Allgemeine, Sept. 9, 2009, http://www.faz.net/s/RubC3FFBF288EDC421F93E22EFA74003C4D/Doc~E8D907A2243D44E1BB6F26A34B25FD7
    9E~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.htm    l (viewed 2/3/2011); Taha Alalwani, “Prolegominato (sic, intended ‘prolegomenon’) the Fiqh of the minorities: Some basic reflections,” undated, Islam Online, http://web.archive.org/web/20071212175822/www.fiqhcouncil.org/Default.aspx?tabid=60 (viewed 2/5/2011), a preface; and Alalwani, “Towards a Fiqh for minorities: some basic reflections,” occasional paper #10, (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003), pp. 44; Abu Amal Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,”Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53.
    10 Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53; see also abridged article, available at http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/waseem/fatwa.htm (last viewed 2/20/2011).
    11 Yusuf Qaradawi, European Council for Fatwa and Research, “Fatwa on apostasy: apostasy major and minor,” 2006, http://www.islamonline.net/English/contemporary/2006/04/article01c.shtml (dead link) see Apostasy fatwa and The Lawful and prohibited in Islam, 1960, reprinted 2006, http://www.amazon.com/Prohibited-translators-ElHelbawy-Moinuddin-al-
    Qardawi/dp/8171513735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253238796&sr=8-1    ; Abul ala Mawdudi, “Punishment of the apostate according to Islamic law,” 1963, translated from Urdu 1994,http://answeringislam.
    org/Hahn/Mawdudi/#whya; Badawi    , “Apostasy from Islam: any change in the contemporary context?” Islam Online, 2006, http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=Gz9HCK; Sano Koutoub Moustapha, “Lina Joy’s case and religious freedom,” International Islamic University, Malaysia, undated,
    http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=yuha10 (link dead on 2/15/2011); Ahmad Shafaat, “Punishment of Apostasy in Islam, parts I and II,” Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, 2006 and 2007, http://www.islamicperspectives.com/Apostasy1.htm and http://islamicperspectives.com/PunishmentOfApostasy_Part2.html; “A Shiite opinion on apostasy,” Kayhan International, March 1986, http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/apostasy-from-islam/a-shiiteopinion-on-apostasy/; “A Sunni Muslim pronouncement on apostasy from Lebanon,” http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/apostasy-from-islam/pledge-fatwa-mufti-of-lebanon/; al-Azhr, the Egyptian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, “Fatwa on apostasy,” originally from German Wikipedia, as cited at http://www.atlasshrugs.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rechtsgutachten_betr_Apostasie_im_Islam.jpg
    as cited at http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/apostasy-from-islam/al-azhar-fatwa/ (all fatwas first viewed 9/24/2009) as cited by and with thanks to Nonie Darwish, co-founder, Former Muslims United, http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/.
    12 “Muzammil Siddiqi, past president,” ISNA, http://www.isna.net/ISNAHQ/pages/Muzammil-Siddiqi.aspx; “About us,” NAIT, http://www.nait.net/NAIT_about_ us.htm (all viewed 5/25/2010).
    13 Former Muslims United cover letter and Freedom Pledge, Sept. 22, 2009, http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/the-pledge/cover-letter-pledge/ (first viewed 9/22/2009).
    14 “Dr. Jamal Badawi,” Fiqh Council of North America, undated,
    http://fiqhcouncil.org/AboutUs/tabid/175/ctl/Detail/mid/601/xmid/38/xmfid/4/Default.aspx (viewed 6/2/2010); “ISNA
    board of directors,” http://www.isna.net/ISNAHQ/pages/Board-of-Directors.aspx (viewed 6/10/2010).
    15 “Muzammil H. Siddiqi,” Islam Online, undated
    http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503614805&pagename=IslamOnline-English-
    Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaCounselorE%2FFatwaCounselorE     (dead link) see Muzammil Siddiqi profile; Muslim World League, Saudi Arabia Market Information Resource, http://www.saudinf.com/main/k312.htm (viewed 5/20/2010); Lappen, “A secular market nightmare,” ibid.; “Muslim World League,” History Commons, http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=muslim_world_league (viewed 5/2/2010). Siddiqi remained U.S. MWL director until at least 2005. The FBI and Homeland Security raided MWL’s offices for possible terrorist ties in 2002 and again in July 2005, according to the investigative Pipeline News service. “Terror friendly organizations issue fatuous fatwa against terror,” Pipeline News, Jul. 28, 2005, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:L_0IwlWft2wJ:www.pipelinenews.org/2007/Terror-Friendly-
    Organizations-Issue-Fatuous-Fatwa-Against.html     (viewed 6/1/2010).
    Siddiqi simultaneously headed the Muslim Student Association religious affairs department, and one recent report suggests that he may still. “Muzammil Siddiqi,” ProCon.org,
    http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=004996 (viewed 6/1/2010).
    16 “Muzammil Siddiqi,” Islam Online, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503614805&pagename=IslamOnline-English-
    Ask_Scholar/FatwaCounselorE/FatwaCounselorE    , (viewed 5/25/2010).
    17 “Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Friday sermon at Cairo’s Tahrir Square: pray for conquest of al-Aqsa,” Feb. 18, 2011, http://www.memritv.org/report/en/5020.htm, as cited, Bostom, “For the De-Nile-ists, Qaradawi-Khomeini in Cairo,” Feb. 18, 2011, http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/02/18/for-the-de-nile-ists%E2%80%94qaradawi-khomeini-incairo/ (both viewed 2/18/2011).
    18 Alyssa A. Lappen, “A secular market nightmare,” Front Page Magazine, May 9, 2008, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=C64342C1-C28F-4BED-8658-B69E78684D38 (viewed 4/12/2010)/
    19 “Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA),” Investigative Project, undated, http://www.investigativeproject.org/FCNA-CAIR.html (viewed 2/5/2011). Al-Arian funded Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a designated foreign terrorist organization. To avoid a new trial after a jury deadlocked on 9 of his 17 terror-funding charges in Dec. 2005, al-Arian accepted a 57-month prison sentence, to be followed by immediate subsequent deportation. However, in Oct. 2006, al-Arian defied a subpoena to testify before a U.S. grand jury. He served an added year for contempt and was released on bail, and under house arrest, in Apr. 2008. Meanwhile in Jan. 2008, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Apr. 2006 plea agreement contents did “not establish that the plea agreement immunized al-Arian from future grand jury subpoenas.” Despite that ruling, endless further court wrangling ensued over the terms of al-Arian’s Apr. 2006 plea deal. To date, al-Arian apparently remains under house arrest. “U.S. to deport Palestinian it failed to convict,” New York Times, Apr. 15, 2006, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE5D9163FF936A25757C0A9609C8B63 (first viewed 4/15/2006); “Judge cancels al-Arian hearing again,” IPT News, Oct. 29, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2286/hearing-may-determine-fate-of-al-arian-contempt (viewed 2/9/2011).
    20 “A common word,” Oct. 13, 2007, http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=signatories; see also comments at http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=comments (both viewed 6/2/2010).
    21 Abdullah, Jamal Badawi, “Freedom of Belief & Minority Rights in Muslim Countries,” Islam Online fatwa bank, Apr. 18, 2008, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-
    Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaEAskTheScholar&cid=1119503547720     (viewed 6/10/2010); Freedom_of_Belief_&_Minoirity_Rights_In_Muslim_Countries_ISLAMONLIONE_4.18.2006.
    22 “Terror friendly organizations issue fatuous fatwa against terror,” Pipeline News, Jul. 28, 2005, ibid.
    23” Redacted affidavit in support of application, in the matter of searches involving 555 Grove Street, Herndon, Va., and related locations, (E.D. Va 02-114-MG.),” as cited in “Backgrounder on the Fiqh Council of North America and the
    Council of American-Islamic Relations,” Investigative Project, undated, http://www.investigativeproject.org/FCNACAIR.html (viewed 4/20/2010). (Now at
    http://web.archive.org/web/20050830160244/http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae/ArchivePress/OctoberPDFArchive/03/sa
    faaffid102003.pdf     (p. 36, now unsealed, viewed 2/16/2011).
    24 A group of muftis, “Seeking Martyrdom by Attacking US Military Bases in the Gulf,” Islam Online fatwa bank, Mar. 24, 2003, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-
    Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503546700     (dead link) see: Martyrdom fatwa (viewed 6/13/2010).
    25 Gretel Kovach, “Five convicted in terrorism financing trial,” New York Times, Nov. 25, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/us/25charity.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print (viewed 5/10/2010); Paul J. Weber,
    Los Angeles Times, Nov. 25, 2008, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/25/nation/na-muslim-charity25 (viewed 5/20/2010); Convicted HLF officers included former HLF chairman Ghassan Elashi, former chief executive Shukri Abu Baker, Mufid Abdulqater, Abdulraham Odeh and Mohammed El-Mezain. Two more former HLF officers, Haitham Maghawri and Akram Mishal (cousin to Hamas chief Khaled Mishael) had fled and were not tried.
    26 Attachment A, in the U.S. District Court for the northern district of Texas, Dallas Division, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, http://www.pipelinenews.org/images/2007-05-29-US%20v%20HLF-ListCoConspirators.pdf (first viewed 6/1/2007); “History of the Fiqh Council,” FCNA, 11/22/2010, http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/node/6 (viewed 2/5/2011); Steven Emerson, “The American Islamic leaders’ fatwa is bogus,”Counterterrorism Blog, Jul. 28, 2005, ibid.
    27 “Muhammad al-Hanooti,” Islam Online, undated http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503615091&pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaCounselorE%2FFatwaCounselorE (dead link), see Muhammad al-Hanooti profile
    28 Paul Sperry, “The great al-Qaeda patriot,” Front Page Magazine, Apr. 9, 2007, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=26058 (viewed 5/2/2007).
    29 U.S. Plaintiff-Appellee v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, et al, Defendants North American Islamic Trust, Movant-Appellant, No. 09-10875, Before Garza and Benavides, Circuit Judges, and Crone, District Judge, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Oct. 20, 2010, http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-5th-circuit/1541806.html (viewed 11/25/2010).


    All Articles, Poems & Commentaries Copyright © 1971-2021 Alyssa A. Lappen
    All Rights Reserved.
    Printing is allowed for personal use only | Commercial usage (For Profit) is a copyright violation and written permission must be granted first.

    Though Europe Rots, We Must Defend the West

    With free speech under attack, our civilization’s survival is at stake.

    By Alyssa A. Lappen
    Pajamas Media | Jan. 18, 2011

    Defending the rights to free speech of editor, columnist and Danish and International Free Press Society president Lars Hedegaard — especially the right to criticize orthodox Islam as freely as one may Christianity or Judaism — now equals defending the right of Western civilization to survive. 1 Barring an effective international outcry — or a rare fever of Sudden Enlightenment Syndrome one morning soon awakening Denmark’s Public Prosecutor with common sense — Hedegaard will face trial on Danish racism charges and conviction alike on Jan. 24, 2011: 2 a veritable auto da fe.

    In Dec. 2009, Hedegaard remarked in a taped interview upon certain domestic violence peculiar to Muslim families (“they” rape their own children). He was then charged as a common criminal. 3

    In 1969, Denmark’s proud history of supporting freedom, whatever the cost, enticed me to live for a summer with a family of potters in Grena, Jutland. In the 1940s, Denmark saved virtually its entire Jewish population from a regime whose totalitarianism many Islamic leaders now hope to best. Since then, Denmark may have gone rotten. The state apparently deems it far less criminal for groups driven by ideological or religious belief to behave criminally, than for anyone to publicly observe their heinous deeds. All the more, as (in this case) said criminal behavior would in other situations scandalize civilized people. Should a modern Danish coven of warlocks and witches regularly rape and roast their teenage daughters, doubtless the public prosecutor would charge no one for saying as much.

    Alas, Hedegaard challenges modern Danish liberalism too, as he did in a Jan. 2009 interview with me. 4

    Denmarks’ Public Prosecutor charged Hedegaard with racism for allegedly violating article 266 b of its penal code, (aka “racism clause”). This allows a prosecutor to infer criminal offense in any statement that he believes threatens, demeans or ridicules anyone based on race, skin color, national or ethnic origin, religious faith or sexual orientation. In other words, the law gives the prosecutor endless latitude to levy criminal charges over a wide range of easily misconstrued statements by or about — well, almost anyone.5 This absurdity of law in effect lets Denmark’s public prosecutor lavish his taxpayer-funded time on perusing news and other taped records of public figures for factual statements on Islam or predominantly Muslim behaviors; and that is how he seems to cast his own prejudiced net.

    In North America, free speech is presumed a fundamental right cemented into the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — namely the first article in the Bill of Rights that Congress passed, the states ratified and U.S. law adopted on Dec. 15, 1791. It naturally includes the right to criticize almost anything, short of treason, charges for which the U.S. has not prosecuted in a very long while. Moreover, foreigners can no longer easily rebuke Americans via foreign lawsuits for taking full advantage of that enshrined U.S. freedom. 6

    But in the early 1960s, orthodox Islamic believers calling themselves the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan, in Arabic) initiated global efforts to destroy the West and its values, free speech foremost among them. By their thinking, God alone can make laws, not man — the only just laws therefore being Islamic (sharia). All others, especially secular Western laws, must go, particularly those allowing what Islamic law considers blasphemy and a capitol offense — any criticism of Islam or Mohammed.

    In 1982 and again in 1991, the Brothers set to paper their long-held plans to decimate Western societies and impose global Islamic law. They declared war on basic human rights — evolved from Judeao-Christian traditions codified in King Henry I’s 1100 C.E. Charter of Liberties, 7and expanded into various forms of due process 8 via Britain’s 1215 Magna Carta, 9 King Edward I’s 1305 writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, 10 New York’s 1683 Charter of Liberties and Privileges, 11 William Penn’s 1701 Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, 12 the U.S. 1791 Bill of Rights, article § 77 of the Danish Constitution (letting anyone publish without censorship or government consent) — and a host of like statutes in most Western nations. These culminated with the United Nation’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, affirming human rights to “enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want….” 13

    Upon first hearing of MB plans, Westerners generally react with stupefied incredulity. Some furiously rage at the messenger. Yet global Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi concretely stipulated 14 these MB plans on Dec. 1, 1982 in “Towards a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy (Points of Departure, Elements, Procedures and Missions),” 15 which Swiss officials discovered in Nov. 2001 at the villa of MB chief financial officer Yusuf Nada. 16 North American MB chief Mohamed Akram on May 22, 1991 created a similar “regional” outline in an “Explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal for the Group in North America,” 17 presented as evidence by U.S. prosecutors to help convict five Holy Land Foundation officials of 108 terror-financing related charges. 18

    The realities behind this decades-long Muslim Brotherhood campaign have now slammed Europe. On Dec. 3, 2010, Denmark’s public prosecutor figuratively collected his first scalp for racism, that of pastor and Member of Parliament Jesper Langballe, 19 not surprisingly for defending Hedegaard. “Of course Lars Hedegaard should not have said that there are Muslim fathers who rape their daughters,” Langballe stated, “when the truth appears to be that they make due with killing their daughters (the so-called honor killings) and leave it to their uncles to rape them.”

    Randers municipal court found MP Langballe (Danish People’s Party) guilty of hate speech under Denmark’s penal code, Article 266b after duly honoring Danish legal precedent to deny Langballe the right to prove his truthful allegation that Muslim families often sexually abuse and murder their daughters for family honor. In such cases, Danish law figures the truth immaterial. As if under Islamic libel law itself, 20 Denmark may nowadays convict a defendant solely upon the personal offense taken or perceived in his or her statement. No actual crime need have occurred.

    At his kangaroo court trial, MP Langballe therefore concluded, “With this article in the penal code, I must be assumed convicted in advance. I have no intention of participating in this circus. Therefore I confess.” Denmark denied MP Langballe both freedom of speech and due process and may now fine or incarcerate him up to two years. 21

    These are but the latest journalists, elected European officials and humanitarians charged for perceived defamations of Islam in their statements of fact and exact reiterations of Quranic and other Islamic sacred texts. Finland first stepped to the plate, in 2009 convicting its best known political blogger, Jussi Kristian Halla-aho, then 38. 22

    However in May 2008, Gregorius Nekschot, a pseudonymous Dutch cartoonist was similarly arrested and charged with discriminatory speech. In Sept. 2010, Dutch prosecutors finally dropped charges against Nekschot, on the eve of Holland’s next travesty of justice. Despite a court order that he dismantle his personal website, Nekschot was victorious. “I can carry on making caricatures, perhaps even more controversial ones, because I have been allowed to keep my anonymity,” he said.23

    Then came five charges of hate speech against Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Prosecutors initially ruled that Wilders’ statements might hurt Muslim feelings but weren’t crimes. But in Jan. 2009, Amsterdam’s Appeals Court reversed the finding and ordered prosecutors to proceed. 24 At trial, an empaneled judge snidely remarked on Wilders’ intent to remain silent. An immediate appeal to replace the biased panel was denied. 25 Dutch prosecutors then reiterated the legality of criticizing religion (Muslim feelings determine no “facts of the case”, but trial judges ignored their request to acquit on all five charges.26

    After incontestable judicial bias surfaced, however, a new appeals court on Oct. 22 terminated the Wilders trial. At a private May 2010 dinner party, Islamic expert and defense witness Hans Jansen revealed, magistrate Tom Schalken (among the Amsterdam judges to order Wilders’ prosecution) had approached to explain why Wilders must be prosecuted. Schalken’s unlawfully expressed, extra-judicial comment to a defense witness forced the appeals justices to order a new Wilders trial.27

    Next up was Austria’s Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Pax Europa‘s Austrian representative and a former Organization for Security and Co-operation envoy in Europe. Pax Europa, focusing on sharia law incursions and simultaneous erosion of free speech in Europe, is Germany’s “foremost human rights organization,” she says. 28 In Sept. 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff learned she was accused of “defamation of religion” during a 2009 three-part seminar on “Islamization of Europe” for the Freedom Education Institute (FEI). She is not a member of FEI or any part of the late, controversial Joerg Haider‘s “far-right” Austrian Freedom Party. But even if Sabaditsch-Wolff did belong, it would not be criminal: the state gives public monies to the Austrian Freedom Party’s Institute.

    Moreover, Sabaditsch-Wolff based her academic observations on experience gained, by choice, from living most of her adult life “in Arab and Muslim-majority countries.” Exactly which statements prompted Vienna’s prosecutor to indict her for hate speech, he did not see fit to specify. 29 She was “tried” in Vienna, if you can call it that, in Nov. 2010. No decision has yet been announced.

    That same month, the European Union required member states to implement the “Framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia,” a measure adopted Nov. 28, 2008 to combat “certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.” This EU legal provision required all EU member states to comply fully by Nov. 28, 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff asserts, and punish “intentional conduct” considered a pretext to target “a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.” 30 Oblique or not, this means Muslims.

    Who passed these measures, at whose proposal, without consulting Europe’s parliaments or populaces — and whether are they binding under national constitutions — should immediately arise as critical topics of debate in all EU member states. And Americans, lest we think ourselves immune, should steel the ramparts for the continuing onslaught upon our own treasured rights to free speech. Despite our new Free Speech protection measure, free speech remains under barrage assault.

    NOTES:
    1 In borrowing the title from the book of my friend and colleague, Ibn Warraq, I intend him the highest compliment for being, with Lars Hedegaard, among those at the vanguard of defending Western civilization.
    2 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010,http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/12/the-scandal-of-danish-justice/ (first viewed 12/12/2010).
    3 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
    4 Alyssa A. Lappen, “The eternal Danish optimist,” Right Side News, Jan. 5, 2009, http://www.rightsidenews.com/200901043173/life-and-science/culture-wars/the-eternal-danish-optimist.html.
    5 Ahmed Mohamud and Eva Agnete Selsing, “The lawsuit against Lars Hedegaard,” International Free Press Society, Sept. 27, 2010, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/09/4087/ (viewed 1/9/2011).
    6 NY Assembly Rep. Rory I. Lanceman, “Author of New York State’s first-in-the-nation law against “libel tourism” applauds congressional passage of the “Speech Act” to protect Americans’ 1st Amendment rights,” N.Y. Assembly District 25, Jul. 25, 2010, http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=025&sh=story&story=39928; Alyssa A. Lappen, “America’s First Amendment lifeline,” Human Events, 1/25/2008, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24649; “Gov. Patterson signs legislation protecting New Yorkers against infringement of First Amendment rights by foreign libel judgment,” New York State press release, May 1, 2008, http://www.r8ny.com/node/16798; On May 1, 2008, New York State established the first libel terrorism protection act in the U.S.; I played a critical role obtaining necessary legislative support, without which I suspect it would have been impossible to achieve passage of a federal law along the same lines.
    7 “Charter of Liberties,” Medieval Sourcebook, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/hcoronation.html (viewed 1/10/2011).
    8 “Due process,” U.S Constitution, 5th Amendment, annotations, p. 11, reprinted at FindLaw, undated, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/11.html; see also “Due process,” Cornell Univ. Law School, http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/due_process (both viewed 1/10/2011)
    9 “Magna Carta,” Britannia History, http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/magna2.html
    10 “A brief history of habeas corpus,” BBC, Mar. 9, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4329839.stm (viewed 1/10/2011).
    11 Charter of Liberties & Privileges, NY, 1683, http://www.montauk.com/history/seeds/charter.htm (viewed 1/10/2011).
    12 William Penn, “Charter of Privileges,” Oct. 28, 1701, http://www.constitution.org/bcp/penncharpriv.htm (1/10/2011).
    13 “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations General Assembly, Dec. 10, 1948, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml; The document recognizes “the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people….” (emphasis added).
    14 Lappen and Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Sharia financing and the coming ummah,” Chap. 28, Armed Groups: Studies in National Security, Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency, ed. Jeffrey Norwitz, (U.S. Naval War College: 2008), pp. 389-404, https://www.alyssaalappen.org/wp-content/uploads/sharia-financing-and-the-coming-ummah-by-ehrenfeld-and-lappen.pdf.
    15 Yusuf Qaradawi, “Towards a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy (Points of Departure, Elements, Procedures and Missions),” global Muslim Brotherhood, Dec. 1, 1982, as cited by Patrick Poole, “The Muslim Brotherhood Project,” Front Page Magazine, May 11, 2006, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4475 and http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4476 (first viewed 5/11/2006).
    16 Olivier Guitta, “The Cartoon Jihad,” Weekly Standard, Feb. 20, 2006, http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/704xewyj.asp (viewed 2/22/2006).
    17 Mohamed Akram, “Explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal for the Group in North America,” Muslim Brotherhood, global Muslim Brotherhood, North America, May 22, 1991, p. 15, http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategicGoal.pdf (first viewed 9/18/2007).
    18 Jason Trahan and Tanya Eiserer, “Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty,” Dallas Morning News, Nov. 28, 2008, http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/112508dnmetholylandverdicts.1e5022504.html; see also “Ruling: humanitarian aid to Palestine a front for Hamas support,” Raw Story, Nov. 24, 2008, http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Largest_Muslim_charity_in_US_ruled_1124.html; “US-based Muslim charity guilty of funding terrorism,” Telegraph, Nov. 24, 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3515658/US-based-Muslim-charity-guilty-of-funding-terrorism.html; “Federal judge hands down sentences in Holy Land Foundation case,” Dept. of Justice, May 27, 2009, http://dallas.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/dl052709.htm (all viewed 12/2/2010).
    19 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
    20 Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib (d. 1368), Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat, translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller, 1991 and 1994, Amana Publications (revised ed., 1994), p. 730, as noted in Lappen, “Does sharia law now apply in the U.S.” Pajamas Media, Jan. 2, 2008, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/sharia_libel_law_now_applies_i/.
    21 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
    22 James Cohen, “23 minute interview with Jussi Halla-aho,” International Free Press Society, Sept. 17, 2009, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2009/09/23-minute-interview-with-jussi-halla-aho/ (viewed 1/10/2011); see also “Jussi Halla-aho,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jussi_Halla-aho (viewed 1/10/2011).
    23 Katrine Winkel Holm, “Prosecutor drops case against Dutch cartoonist,” International Free Speech Society, Sept. 25, 2010, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/09/prosecutor-drops-case-against-dutch-cartoonist/ (viewed 9/30/2010).
    24 Mike Corder, “Dutch court: prosecute anti-Islamic law-maker,” Associated Press, Jan. 21, 2009, as reprinted in http://sweetness-light.com/archive/court-prosecute-geert-wilders-for-hate-speech (viewed 1/10/2011).
    25 Bruce Mutsvairo, “Wilders hate speech trial to resume,” Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 5, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/1005/Geert-Wilders-hate-speech-trial-to-resume-in-Netherlands (10/6/2010).
    26 “Dutch prosecutors sought anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders’ acquittal on five hate speech charges Friday, saying his criticism of the Muslim religion, though hurtful to some, was not criminal,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Oct. 15, 2010, http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/acquit-dutch-anti-islam-lawmaker-prosecutors (viewed 1/10/2011).
    27 “Hans Jansen, scholar of Islam, and a witness for the defense in the Wilders trial, describes a curious dinner party,” and “Uproar: Dutch court orders retrial for Wilders,” New English Review, Oct. 22, 2010, http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_months.cfm/m/10/y/2010/sr/100 (both viewed 10/22/2010).
    28 A. Millar, “Lawfare in Austria: Is truth illegal?” Hudson Organization, Oct. 11, 2010, http://www.hudson-ny.org/1596/sabaditsch-wolff-lawfare-austria (first viewed 10/12/2010).
    29 A. Millar, “Lawfare in Austria: Is truth illegal?” Hudson Organization, Oct. 11, 2010, ibid.
    30 “Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff: We are Being Systematically Silenced, This is our Time,” In Defense of Free Speech, Nov. 27, 2010, http://english.savefreespeech.org/?p=221 (viewed 1/10/2011).


    All Articles, Poems & Commentaries Copyright © 1971-2021 Alyssa A. Lappen
    All Rights Reserved.
    Printing is allowed for personal use only | Commercial usage (For Profit) is a copyright violation and written permission must be granted first.

    Organization of Islamic Conference’s Chicago Summit Flops

    The recent Chicago meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) had low turnout, U.S. envoy Rashad Hussain failed to turn up, and only a tenth of the audience seats were filled.

    by Alyssa A. Lappen

    Family Security Matters | Oct. 8, 2010

    The International Islamic News Agency suggests that Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu of Turkey presented a moderate and modern portrait at Chicago’s late September American Islamic College (AIC) conference. He tried. The “second largest intergovernmental organization outside the United Nations” stands as a “strategic and crucial partner” to the U.N., Ihsangolu said and is “not a religious organization.” Sounding liberal was paramount. After all, Ihsangolu appeared here, the first time any OIC forum welcomed the U.S. general public.

    The OIC, he said, had evolved into a

    “unique institution with a very modern and up-to-date charter and a 10-year program of action propelled by the vision of moderation and modernization…. [that] voices the consensual views and attitudes of the Muslim world, defends its causes and coordinates … joint actions … political, economic, cultural or otherwise. [emphasis added]

    “[It] reflects the true and real image of Islam, based on tolerance, peace, … and acknowledgment of diversity [to] dialogue with other[s] … [for] historic reconciliation between the Muslim world and the West. Contrary to the popular understanding, … [the Abrahamic tradition of faith,] Islam and points of reference is (sic) compatible with the finest manners of human nature. It … embraces the supreme virtues of peace, equality, justice, compassion, human rights. It respects nature and the environment…, not the preserve of any people, or religion or civilization…, [but] diversive (sic) values… all [must] internalize and uphold.”

    OIC ambassador to the U.N. Ufuk Goken noted its condemnations of attacks on an active duty Jewish soldier in Israel and Christians in Mosul. The OIC also combats “Christianophobia,” he said, and is not:

    • full of jihadis
    • anti-American
    • antisemitic
    • an organization with double standards.

    Former White House special OIC envoy Sada Cumber even faulted Islamic theocracies and seemed to criticize the OIC for failing to unify Islamic sects. The world’s real WMD, Cumber said, are “Weapons of Muslim Destruction” — Muslim governments “pushing their version of Islam” on the world. Not a single Muslim government anywhere offers its citizens the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness Muslims enjoy in the U.S., he said. “The day [my native] Pakistan can offer that, I will move there.”

    Alas, the event flopped. Expected White House envoys were no-shows. Two distinct audience counts during Ihsangolu’s Sept. 29 keynote — delayed a half hour as planners prayer for more warm bodies — found the refurbished 1,000-seat AIC auditorium holding under 30 and 50 people, respectively.

    Generously estimated, maybe 150 guests all told attended four Sept. 29 panel discussions. But the hall never simultaneously seated even 100 guests. By Oct. 6 AIC had posted no conference news or photos. A revised agenda and speakers’ list were hidden and shorter than AIC originally promised. A site search turned up only the May 2010 White House announcement of Rashad Hussain‘s appointment as special OIC envoy. Hussain called in last-second regrets, audibly enraging CAIR Chicago executive director Ahmed Rehab. He fumed at Hussain’s failure to reschedule his “conflict.” Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwanophobia site claimed a “kitchen sink” of “hate smears” had caused the cancellation — “supremacist gathering,” “Muslim Brotherhood,” “Hamas,” “Shariah,” “Khilafah,” “yada yada.”

    Advance marketing, though, belied the actual OIC charter content (strangely, no longer posted at the OIC). It and OIC’s 10-year plan unify members behind Islamic values, wrote Geneva-based Association for World Education NGO emissary David G. Littman in 2008. Their collective goal is to promote traditional Islamic values and world “pioneering.” Others citing native Muslim scholars, jurists and sacred texts, also correctly name it as conquest. Writes scholar of Islam Bat Ye’or,

    “in contrast to to the European states “[OIC nations unify] to [defend] their national sovereignty and territorial integrity… support … Palestine with al-Quds Al Sharif, the Arabized name for Jerusalem, as its capital, and exhort each other to promote human rights, basic freedoms, the state of law (shari’a), and democracy according to their constitutional and legal system — in other words, compliance with shari’a.”

    Sure enough, Ihsangolu stressed Muslim efforts to open “channels of communications with their host countries,” suggesting Muslims aren’t citizens of “their host counties,” but the Muslim ummah (nation). The Brotherhood espouses this foundational Islamic dogma, notably in its May 1991 strategic goals for North America by Mohamed Akram.1 Ihsangolu often cited the dread “Islamophobia,” thus embracing immutable sharia requirements that Muslims may deride other faiths, but must never tolerate critics or criticism of Islam, in any form. Like most other speakers, he also encouraged Muslims, “Join other groups in fighting injustice,” which “goes hand in hand” with Islamic teachings. By what definitions.

    The OIC, projecting a false veil of moderation, should perhaps rejoice that the conference fizzled. Otherwise, intemperate comments might have gone viral. World Congress of Muslim Philanthropies president and Chicago physician Tariq Cheema, moderated “American Foreign Policy & the Muslim world.” A regular at events stacked with MB participants and organizations, this 2nd panel sought a big U.S. policy shift. Cheema asked U.S. Muslims to strengthen inter-continental “south-south” hemispheric relations, introducing others hoping to blunt U.S. preeminence and empower global Islam.

    “Islam in the American context,” the 3rd panel, featured Gallup Center for Muslim Studies’ Magali Rheault. She outlined findings of a 2010 “religious perceptions” poll purported to show anti-Muslim bias, Muslim depression, unhappiness and poor economic status relative to other U.S. religious groups. But Gallup failed to ask why any disliked specific doctrines. If it confirmed participants as U.S. citizens, the report doesn’t say. Glaringly absent were queries on U.S. allegiance, or if participants:

    • Accept the US Constitution as the land’s supreme law, superseding any civil or criminal laws espoused in your religious texts?
    • Accept the equality of all religions?
    • Favor separation of religion and state?
    • Would serve U.S. armed forces faithfully and fight if necessary against their co-religionists?

    While subject to U.S. laws, Muslim disregard for them did not concern two other 3rd panel speakers. Chicago Malcom X College social scientist Misbahudeen Ahmed-Rufai, a Ghana native, discussed largely silent African Muslims in the U.S. He cited, but did not question, the huge percentages of African Muslims who arrived or remain in the U.S. illegally.

    “If you burn a Koran it is a hate crime,” asserted Loyola Univ. Islamic studies director Marcia Hermansen. She thereby ignored the outrageous May 2009 U.S. military incineration of Bibles sent unsolicited to U.S. troops in Afghanistan — and more importantly, the First Amendment that consciously and actively lets citizens speak freely — and burn U.S. flags, Bibles or Korans if they like.

    Perhaps most revealing were some comments during the day’s 4th and final “Imagining our future” panel. Gambling State Univ. mathematical professor Abdulalim Shabbaz claimed that Europeans invented racism — he specified it as “white supremacism” — to justify enslaving Africans. He ignored the ongoing Islamic slaving tradition. And Shabbaz first quoted Koran 49:13, acknowledging human diversity, while enjoining Muslims to assert their “most honored” status, another kind of supremacism:

    “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).” [emphasis added]

    Convert S. (“Sherman”) Abd al-Hakim Jackson, a speaker at the Muslim Brotherhood Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM), and Muslim Alliance of North America (MANA) seemed to envision a Muslim revolution. He worried that U.S. Muslims try too hard to prove what they are not — “intolerant,” “terrorists,” or “trying to impose our way of life.” He feared a “domesticated” U.S. Islam not making “principled” social contributions. He wanted Muslims to be “America’s moral conscience,” challenging the U.S. “state” and “dominant culture” and teaching Americans they’re “not infallible.” That would require more power. He cited the grandson of MB founder Hasan al-Banna, Tariq Ramadan: those impious at night can’t “expect to change society by day.” U.S. Muslims should use their “perceived threat,” or risk losing relevance, he said. Minority medieval Muslims had conquered the mid east and made unIslamic institutions Islamic. Hint hint.

    Convert Aminah McCloud, a self-described early acolyte of Muslim Brotherhood International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) founder Ismail Faruqi, offered the biggest shockers. Introduced by MB mainstay ISNA secretary general Safaa Zarzour as his mentor, teacher and friend, McCloud said Muslim leaders “represent us as a passive people, a patient and docent (sic) in the face of oppression.” That insures U.S. Muslims will “have no future,” she said. She questions Muslim involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center attack.

    “We [Muslims] did not perform our own investigations. We took the side of those against us and declared that any [groups] involved were not of us, praying that we would not be called on to do anything more than acquiesce…”

    Regarding Muslim responses to the genocidal 9/11 attacks, she said,

    “the thing that alarmed me the most was when I watched Muslims who were supposed to represent me claim that Islam just meant peace. I would have never transitioned to a religious tradition that just meant peace, that stood for nothing.”

    Meanwhile, McCloud viewed fellow Americans as oppressive, genocidal maniacs, “who pray for [Muslim] extinction.”

    “…America is a nation of cowboys, with little respect for those who don’t fight for what they believe in. …America, for better or worse, again, is a nation of cowboys. From the stories of its first genocide against the people of this land, everyone knows what Americans are liable to do if you extend an unprotected hand.”

    Cumber too, openly embraced sharia, whose purest form, he said would provide Muslims rule of law, access to justice, higher education, soft and hard infrastructure, gender equality, accountability and transparency. Hardly a vision of sharia shared by the Muslim Brotherhood, OIC’s parent and watchdog.

    Ihsanogulu wanted to sway novices to Islam with a ceremonial facade identical to that of an Oct. 2009 Helsinki “Islam in Europe” conference. “We are not anti-Christian, we are not anti-Semitic, we are not anti-anybody,” he said then. The “moderate and modern” 2008 OIC renaissance (strangely labeled “jihad of peace“) claimed all the same purportedly liberal values Ihsangolu paraded in Chicago.

    The Saudi-founded and petrodollar-flush OIC spent a fair sum to that end. It presumably underwrote air tickets and rooms for key OIC and Muslim leaders and funded dinner and soft drinks for maybe 75 guests on Sept. 28, to welcome Ihsanoglu and celebrate the opening of AIC, albeit as-yet unaccredited. On Sept. 29, the OIC plied another 75 or so Muslim leaders and guests from the general public with coffee, tea, and a four course sit down luncheon of hummus and pita; salad; halal chicken, vegetables, potatoes; and rice pudding. Hosts distributed party favors too — dated, embossed OIC brief cases holding patented, OIC coffee mugs, OIC stainless travel mugs and retractable ball-point pens.

    But the AIC itself pled poverty, soliciting Sept. 29 attendees for $1,000, $4,000. $5,000, $30,000, $600,000 or $700,000 donations for brass name plates of choice on chairs, classrooms, dorm rooms, conference rooms, the auditorium or the dormitory building, respectively.

    Nevertheless, Americans should remain vigilant. Constitutional protections of free speech and religious practice do not outlaw criticism of faith that would infringe on the rights of others. The OIC-hosted Muslim speakers often invoked U.S. Constitutional rights, but conveniently ignored them in cases that others had bruised their sentiments. They labeled all critics of Islam hate mongers and bigots.

    Americans should recognize this strategy as a dangerous attempt to introduce a key sharia law component — prohibiting any criticism of Islam — to the detriment of everyone, especially Muslims. To achieve true renaissance presuppose questions.

    Notes:
    1 Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, 5/22/1991,” www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategicGoal.pdf (viewed 9/18/2007); “Attachment A,” In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Dallas Division, USA vs. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, http://www.pipelinenews.org/images/2007-05-29-US v HLF-ListCoConspirators.pdf (first viewed 6/1/2007).


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