At Islam Online’s “Live Fatwa” page, Dr. Sano Koutoub Moustapha, professor of Jurisprudence at the International Islamic University in Malaysia, answers questions about whether it is permissible for Muslims to aid non-Muslim victims of the tsunami:
Name: Mary Question: It is permissible for us, as Muslims, to make du`aa’ for those human beings afflicted there even if those people include Muslims and non-Muslims?
Answer: In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Thank you.
There is no harm or prohibition to pray for those people who lost their lives in that natural disaster. However, your beloved Muslim brothers and sisters deserve more and more of prayers and du’aa’. They deserve your moral and financial assistances. You should share their sorrow and difficult time and do invoke Allah to accept them among the Shuhada’ or martyrs on the day of Judgment.
...
Name: Hakim Question: Can we give those afflicted people a portion of our zakah money even if they are non-Muslims? How about giving them charity?
Answer: In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Thank you. The receivers of Zakah money are clearly mentioned in the Qur’an. Among them, the poor and needy people. Looking at the situation of those people who are afflicted, one can conclude that the Muslims among them fall under the category of needy people.
In this regard, those Muslims deserve to receive a portion of Zakah. As for non-Muslims, they might deserve donation or any other form of assistance but not Zakah.
Thus, Zakah should be given to poor and needy Muslims. Some non-Muslims may receive a portion of Zakah if there is hope that by giving them Zakah that might lead to their conversion into Islam. They would be then considered under the category of mu’allafati qulubuhun or those whose hearts are inclined to accept Islam.
How do I ensure that the money I give DOESN'T go to muslims?
Reason 5,362 why islam stinks...
NEWS FLASH - Peaceful Palestinians decide not to target children and grandmothers in pizza parlours... 
There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!
From Jihad watch:
In this, the PA is simply reflecting traditional Islamic piety. The Hadith quoted by Dr. Hassan Khater is repeated several times in Sahih Muslim, indicating its attestation by multiple sources. (The exact version he quotes is in book 41, no. 6985). Nor is he the first Palestinian official to quote it.
From Palestinian Media Watch (no direct link), with thanks to JC:
For years, the PA religious establishment has repeatedly portrayed the killing of Jews as a religious necessity. Today, PA TV chose to rebroadcast this same call to genocide as a historical necessity -- this time from a senior PA academic rather than from a religious leader. Dr. Hassan Khater, founder of the Al Quds Encyclopedia and a TV lecturer, cited the identical Hadith - Islamic tradition attributed to Mohammed - that the religious leaders have used to demand this genocide. This was part of a lecture focusing on what he described as the war of the Jews against Palestinian trees.
These were his words quoting the Hadith:"Mohammed said in his Hadith: 'The Hour [Day of Resurrection] will not arrive until you fight the Jews, [until a Jew will hide behind a rock or tree] and the rock and the tree will say: Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!'" PA TV Dec. 27, 2004 [Rebroadcast from July 13, 2003]
The continued teaching that this Hadith applies today could well be a dominant factor driving terror against Israeli civilians. By depicting redemption as dependent on Muslims' killing of Jews, the PA world view presents this genocide as a religious obligation and historical necessity -- not related to the conflict over borders, but as something inherent to Allah's world.
The countries of the world where muslim terrorists have formed cells to kill us.
DON'T marry a muslim...
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - A California woman says she was married to Al Qaeda.
In a new television interview shedding light on how Osama Bin Laden's terror network operates in the U.S., Saraah Olson, 35, says one of Osama's men duped her into marriage - giving himself cover for terrorist plots and turning her dream life into a living hell she could not escape.
She finally figured it out after her husband, Hisham Diab, had the infamous blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman - now imprisoned for plots against New York - over for dinner.
After cooking for the evil cleric, she tried to get out by calling the FBI, Olson says in an interview on ABC's "PrimeTime Live" tonight. But she says the FBI wasn't interested and she gave up.
"I'm in hell," she recalled thinking. "I have entered the bowels of hell and I'm going to be here forever."
Abdel-Rahman visited her home in October 1992, just three months before the first World Trade Center attack.
After that - and suffering beatings from Diab - she was too afraid to come forward and went along with his schemes. "I'm not proud of it," she said. "I just knew that I lived in hell and I wanted out. If helping him ... meant that I wouldn't get hit, I was willing to do it.
"I was the wife. So it looked like a typical guy married to an American girl with the little blond-haired, blue-eyed boy in tow," said Olson, referring to her son from a previous marriage.
Under the cover of his American marriage, Diab ran a bogus charity that allegedly funneled cash to Al Qaeda, according to U.S. officials and terror researchers Steven Emerson and Rita Katz.
One of Diab's partners was his neighbor Khalil Deek, who was arrested by Jordan for plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy at the turn of the millennium.
And Olson witnessed the recruiting of Adam Gadahn, who is now believed to be "Azzam the American," a fellow Californian who recently released a terrorist tape promising attacks that would make America's streets "run red with blood." The FBI now considers him one of the top threats to the country.
But when he first showed up at Olson's home in Garden Grove, Calif., he was a teenager she described as "fresh meat" for Diab and Deek.
"They totally take this really nice guy ... and they start teaching him their belief of Islam, their warped thought process," Olson recalled.
Her nightmare finally ended when Diab fled around the time of the failed millennium plot.
MUSLIM LAW IS TYRANNY AGAINST WOMEN
Wed, December 22, 2004
Sharia has no place here
By PETER WORTHINGTON
OUTRAGEOUS AS it is, former NDP attorney-general Marion Boyd wants sharia law introduced into Ontario to resolve Muslim domestic disputes. It's hard to think of anything with a greater potential for misery and heartache to women than sharia law. Yet it is a step closer to becoming reality in Ontario.
Ms Boyd was appointed by the McGuinty government to relate sharia law to the 1991 arbitration act that Ms Boyd was involved in legislating as a member of the NDP government. Talk of conflict of interest!
Catholics and Jews can arbitrate domestic disputes within their faiths, and Ms Boyd apparently sees no fundamental difference between them and sharia law for Muslims.
In fact, there is a hell of a lot of difference.
Catholics and Jews don't discriminate against women the way sharia law does by violating fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution for equal treatment.
Under some interpretations of sharia, a woman who is raped is guilty of tempting the man. Showing an ankle is tantamount to enticement. A Muslim husband has the right -- duty even -- to beat his wife if she's disobedient. A Muslim who converts to Christianity technically could face a death sentence.
Apologists insist this is mostly symbolic, but who's to say?
In its extreme form, as with the Taliban of Afghanistan, on select Fridays in Kabul women who were deemed guilty of violating sharia law -- like leaving their houses, or showing their faces -- were taken to the football stadium to be humiliated.
Some were beaten, some were shot. That won't happen here, but it's sharia law and the pressure on women will be acute.
Ms Boyd says Muslim women will have a choice -- be adjudicated by sharia law, or Ontario law, and have a choice of adjudicators .
In theory, maybe, but in practice -- look at how many abused women haven't the strength to defy their abusers.
Ms Boyd may be emotionally wedded to the arbitration act she helped devise, but why would she ignore those who actually know and have had experience with sharia law?
Like the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, which pleaded with her to reject sharia and stick with Canadian law?
FANATICS WOULD REJOICE
Why would she not listen to Tarak Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, who passionately and convincingly argues that sharia should never be implanted in Canada.
Many have come here to escape the tyranny of sharia.
I've spoken to Fatah, and he's adamant that Ontario should not allow sharia to gain a foothold here.
He's not so concerned about abuses here (there will be, but that's human nature and inevitable) but is concerned that Ontario's decision would be trumpeted throughout the Islamic world as vindication and acceptance of sharia.
"It will be presented as Canada adopting sharia law -- not just a segment of it, but all of it. And it will be used by militants as propaganda to expand its extreme principles."
I hadn't thought of that --- and it's doubtful Marion Boyd has.
Attorney-General Michael Bryant and his boss, gaffe-prone Premier Dalton McGuinty, will make the final decision.
It will indeed be foolish if they don't reject the recommendation.
Sharia law has no place in civilized society, no matter how benignly it is depicted. It dates back to the 14th century and does not treat the sexes equally.
Period.
In Ontario it may not be used to order women stoned to death for behaviour it tolerates in men, but it is a matter of degree.
There is no need for it in Canada. It is not religious freedom, it is religious oppression.
Listen to the Council of Muslim Women and rational Muslims like Tarak Fatah, and not the Canadian Islamic Congress, which sees itself as the sole interpreter of sharia law.
Palestinians Don't Deserve Additional Aid
They deserve nothing but our contempt...
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
December 21, 2004
Yasser Arafat died last month. This month, his death is prompting plans for a foreign aid bounty of $500 million to $1 billion a year for the Palestinian Arabs.
That's the scoop Steven Weisman published in the New York Times on December 17. He revealed that Western, Arab, and other governments plan to add a 50% to 100% bonus to the $1 billion a year they already direct to 3.5 million Palestinian Arabs in the territories, contingent upon a crackdown on terrorist groups and the holding of credible elections in January 2005.
(Asked about Mr. Weisman's report, White House spokesman Scott McClellan neither confirmed nor denied it.
But President Bush did subsequently make some hugely ambitious statements about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: "I am convinced that, during this term, I will manage to bring peace" and "Next year is very important, as it will bring peace."
Aid-wise, residents of the West Bank and Gaza have hardly been neglected until now. They receive about $300 per person, making them, per capita, the world's greatest beneficiaries of foreign aid. Strangely, their efforts to destroy Israel have not inspired efforts to crush this hideous ambition but rather to subsidize it. Money being fungible, foreign aid effectively funds the Palestinian Arabs, bellicose propaganda machine, their arsenal, their army, and their suicide bombers.
This, however, does not faze international-aid types. Nigel Roberts, the World Bank's director for the West Bank and Gaza, blows off past failures. Addressing himself to donors, he says, "Maybe your $1 billion a year hasn't produced much, but we think there's a case for doing even more in the next three or four years."
Mr. Roberts is saying, in effect: Yes, your money enabled Arafat's corruption, jihad ideology, and suicide factories, but those are yesterday's problems; now, let's hope the new leadership uses donations for better purposes. Please lavish more funds on it to enhance its prestige and power, then hope for the best.
This la-la-land thinking ignores two wee problems. One concerns the Palestinian Arabs' widespread intent to destroy Israel, as portrayed by the outpouring of grief for archterrorist Arafat at his funeral, the consistent results of opinion research, and the steady supply of would-be jihadists. The Palestinian Arabs' discovery of inner moderation has yet to commence, to put it mildly.
The other problem is blaming the past decade's violence and tyranny exclusively on Arafat, and erroneously assuming that, now freed of him, the Palestinian Arabs are eager to reform. Mahmoud Abbas, the new leader, has indeed called for ending terrorism against Israel, but he did so for transparently tactical reasons (it is the wrong thing to do now), not for strategic reasons (it is permanently to be given up), much less for moral ones (it is inherently evil).
Mr. Abbas is not a moderate but a pragmatist. Unlike Arafat, consumed by his biography and his demons, Mr. Abbas offers a more reasonable figure, one who can more rationally pursue Arafat's goal of destroying Israel.
In this spirit, he has quickly apologized to the Kuwaitis and made up with the Syrians; compared to this, reaching out to the Americans is easy.
But, no less than his mentor Arafat, Mr. Abbas remains intent on eliminating Israel. This is evident, for example, from his recent comments insisting that millions of Palestinian Arab "refugees" be permitted to enter Israel so as to overwhelm it demographically; or from his keeping the virulent content of the Palestinian Authority's press in place.
To give additional money to the Palestinian Arabs now, ahead of their undergoing a change of heart and accepting the permanent existence of the Jewish state of Israel, is a terrible mistake, one that numbingly replicates the errors of the 1990's, Oslo diplomacy. Prematurely rewarding the Palestinian Arabs will again delay the timetable of conciliation.
As I have argued for years, money, arms, diplomacy, and recognition for the Palestinian Arabs should follow on their having accepted Israel. One sign that this will have happened: When Jews living in Hebron (on the West Bank) need no more security than Arabs living in Nazareth (within Israel).
Until that day of harmony - which I predict is about thirty years off - the outside world should focus not on showering money or other benefits on the Palestinian Arabs, but on pushing them relentlessly to accept Israel's existence.
Charles fights death penalty for folks who want to leave izlam
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent (Filed: 18/12/2004)
The Prince of Wales is brokering efforts to end the Muslim death penalty on converts to other faiths, The Telegraph has learned.
He held a private summit of Christian and Muslim leaders at Clarence House this month to explore the centuries-old Islamic law under which apostates face persecution and even death.
His intervention follows mounting anger at the treatment of Muslims who haveconverted to Christianity in a number of Islamic states.
As an advocate of inter-faith dialogue, Prince Charles has come underpressure to criticise the religious law that, campaigners say, has resultedin hundreds of executions in countries from Iran to Sudan.
Among the Christians at the confidential meeting was an Anglican archbishopfrom a part of Nigeria where Islamic Sharia law is enforced.
Others included the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, and thePakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali.
It is understood that the Muslim group, which included the Islamic scholarZaki Badawi, cautioned the prince and other non-Muslims against speakingpublicly on the issue.
It argued that Islamic moderates could have more influence on thetraditional position if the debate remained largely internal. (yeah...right...)
A member of the Christian group said yesterday that he was "very, very unhappy" about the outcome.
Patrick Sookhdeo, the international director of the Barnabas Fund whichcampaigns on behalf of persecuted Christians abroad, stressed that he wasspeaking on the record only because details of the meeting had alreadyleaked.
He urged the prince and Muslim leaders in Britain to criticise openly the traditional Islamic law on apostasy, calling for it to be abolishedthroughout the world. "My view, and I think the other Christians shared it, is that when something is wrong it must be stated as a wrong."
Of course it's wrong, evil and horrific - but doesn't that define islam in a nutshell?
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/18/npri...
Islam will rule the world.
The following was posted recently to a news group.
Islam will rule the world.
Constitution for the new Islamic Republic of USA is under construction.
We will fight infidel to death. Meanwhile, American laws will protect us. Democrats and Leftist will support us. UNO will legitimize us. CAIR will incubate us. ACLU will empower us. Western Universities will shelter us.Hollywood will love us.
Our children will immigrate from Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Indonesia and even from India to the US for education in full scholarship. America is paying and will continue to pay for our children’s educations and their upbringing in state funded Islamic schools.
We will use your welfare system. Our children will also send money home while they are preparing for Jihad.
We will take advantage of American kindness, gullibility, and compassion. When time comes we will stab them in the back to death. We will say one thing on the camera and teach another thing to our children at home. We will teach our children Islamic value from the very childhood. We will teach them not to compromise with Infidel. Once we do that from the very early age our children won’t hesitate to be martyr. We will take over the Europe first and then US. We already have a solid ground in the UK, Holland, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Germany, and US.
Our children will marry Caucasian in Europe and in America. We will mixed with intricate fabric of the Western society but still will remember to Jihad when times come. We are called “sleeper cells”. We will raise our children to be loyal to Islam and Mohammad.
At the time of the real fight we will hold our own children as our armor. When American or Israeli troops shoot at us the world will be watching. Imagine,… Imagine the news in the world /. Death of Muslim babies by infidels.
We know CNN, ABC, CBS are broadcasting live. Al-Jazeera will pour gasoline on the fire. The news will spread like wild fire. “Americans killed 6 babies, 10 babies”. “Jews killed two women”,
Visualize the news flash all over the world, …Moslem mother is sobbing, ….crying. ….Her babies are killed by Jews and Americans, the whole world is watching live. Hundrends of millions of Muslims all around the world are boiling. They will march through Europe. We will use our women to produce more babies who will in turn be used as armor/shield. Our babies are the gift from Allah for Jihad.
West manufactures their tanks in the factory. We will manufacture our military force by natural means, by producing more babies. That is the way it is cheaper.
You infidels at this site cannot defeat us. We are 1.2 billion. We will double again. Do you have enough bullets to kill us?
On the camera:We will always say, “Islam is the religion of Piece.”We will say, “Jihad is actually inner Jihad.”There will be more 911 in Europe and in America.We will say, “We do not support terrorism but America got what it deserved.”
Muslims, CAIR, ISNA and other international Islamic Organization will unite. We will partner with Leftist, ACLU, with Koffi Annan, and the UN, and if we have to then even with France.
Fasten your seatbelt, war of civilizations has just begun.
We will use your own values of Kindness against you.
You are destined to loose.
Must be very depressing for you. Isn’t it?
Allah-hu-Akbar.
Less a religion and more a magnet for psychopaths and a machine for conquest
From yesterday's Telegraph, an excellent opinion piece on the hypocricy of the "religion of peace"...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/12/11/do1101.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/12/11/ixop.html
Was the prophet Mohammed a paedophile? (yes, ed.) The question is sometimes asked because one of his wives, Aisha, was a child when he married her. As Barnaby Rogerson gingerly puts it in his highly sympathetic recent biography (The Prophet Muhammad, Little, Brown): "…the age disparity was considerable: she was only nine while Muhammad was 53". Aisha was taken from her seesaw on the morning of her marriage to be dressed in her wedding garment. After sharing a bowl of milk with the prophet, she went to bed with him.
To me, it seems anachronistic to describe Mohammed as a child-molester. The marriage rules of his age and society were much more tribal and dynastic than our own, and women were treated more as property and less as autonomous beings. Aisha was the daughter of Mohammed's right-hand man, and eventual successor (caliph), Abu Bakr. No doubt he and his family were very proud of the match. I raise the question, though, because it seems to me that people are perfectly entitled - rude and mistaken though they may be - to say that Mohammed was a paedophile, but if David Blunkett gets his way, they may not be able to.
As I write, I am looking at a Christmas brochure for Channel 4. It contains an interview with Paul Abbott, author of the "current hit show, Shameless". Clever Paul swears a lot, and proudly tells a story about how, when his brothers held him upside down to help him steal a Christmas tree from his Yugoslav next door neighbour, he was so frightened that he started urinating. Ha ha.
There follows a two-page pictorial spread of Paul's characters, the Gallaghers, having their Christmas lunch. The tableau is presented (sub-Buñuel) as a parody of the Last Supper. (Do Paul Abbott and Channel 4 believe, perhaps, that this took place at Christmas?) The first page shows a line of yobs - mimicking the Apostles - beginning their meal in reasonably good order. The second depicts them towards its end, violent and drunk. The "Jesus" figure is lurching forward, halo awry, beer can in one hand and cigarette in the other.
The natural inclination of Christians in the face of such affronts is anger. But would it really be a better society in which silly, urinating Mr Abbott could go to prison for such a thing, and perhaps the bosses of Channel 4 with him? Before lots of respectable readers shriek "Yes!", think what it means.
Why is it that so many people resent religion and turn against it? Surely it is because of its coercive force, its tendency to mistake the worldly power of its priests and mullahs for justified zeal for the truth. It is not God who turns people away, but what people do in the name of God. If a law against religious hatred is passed, even when blessed by St David Blunkett, the natural consequence will be a rise in the hatred of religion.
Particularly hatred of Islam. The BNP website describes Islam in the hands of some of its adherents as "less a religion and more a magnet for psychopaths and a machine for conquest". If a law says they can't say that, the BNP will, in the minds of many, be proved right. On Tuesday, Mr Blunkett said that it would be illegal to claim that "Muslims are a threat to Britain". People already censor themselves through fear of Muslim reaction to mockery - I don't suppose even brave, incontinent, foul-mouthed Paul Abbott would write a comedy for the start of Ramadan showing Mohammed downloading dubious images from the internet. If the law criminalises such activity, the scope for resentment is huge.
Iqbal Sacranie, of the mainstream Muslim Council of Britain, wants the new law because any "defamation of the character of the prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him)" is a "direct insult and abuse of the Muslim community". In effect, he is asking for the law of libel to be extended beyond the grave, giving religious belief a protection extended to no other creed or version of history.
Where does all this come from? Not, I fear, from the right, if misapplied, desire for different faiths to live at peace. Incitement to violence, after all, is already an offence, and so it should be. No, the pressure is chiefly from Muslims. If we want to understand its context, we should look at what happens in Muslim societies.
According to Muslim law, believers who reject or insult Islam have no rights. Apostasy is punishable by death. In Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, death is the penalty for those who convert from Islam to Christianity. In Pakistan, the blasphemy law prescribes death for anyone who, even accidentally, defiles the name of Mohammed. In a religion which, unlike Christianity, has no idea of a God who himself suffers humiliation, all insult must be avenged if the honour of God is to be upheld.
Under Islam, Christians and Jews, born into their religion, have slightly more rights than apostates. They are dhimmis, second-class citizens who must pay the jiyza, a sort of poll tax, because of their beliefs. Their life is hard.
In Saudi, they cannot worship in public at all, or be ministered to by clergy even in private. In Egypt, no Christian university is permitted. In Iran, Christians cannot say their liturgy in the national language. In almost all Muslim countries, they are there on sufferance and, increasingly, because of radical Islamism, not even on that.
The ancient plurality of the region is vanishing. Tens of thousands are fleeing the Muslim world, and in some countries - Sudan, Indonesia, Ivory Coast - large numbers die, on both sides. In Iraq, the intimidation of Christians is enormous. Five churches have suffered bomb attacks this year. Christians in Mosul have received letters saying that one member of each family will be killed to punish women who do not wear the headscarf. According to Dr Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund, a charity working for persecuted Christians, "Christians in Iraq are isolated and vulnerable this Christmas, and feel that they have been let down, even betrayed, by their fellow Christians in the West, especially the Church leadership".
The push for a religious hatred law here is an attempt to advance the legal privilege that Muslims claim for Islam. True, Muslim leaders are happy that the same protection should be extended to other religions in this country. But to a modern liberal society which claims the freedom to attack all beliefs, this should be no comfort. It says a good deal about the quality of churchmen and politicians in Britain that the most prominent opponent of the Bill is Mr Bean. The Archbishop of Canterbury is more or less invisible. The Government is on the side of repression.
Because it is usually called Boxing Day, people forget that December 26 is the feast of St Stephen, the first martyr. Somewhere in the Muslim world on that day, there will be more Christians martyred, as there are every day of the year. Muslims are not martyred in Britain. For once, the mote is in our own eye, and the beam in somebody else's - or will it soon be illegal to say that?
Chopping off heads in the name of God Muhammad Saad al-Beshi beheads up to seven people a day. "It doesn't matter to me: Two, four, 10 - as long as I'm doing God's will, it doesn't matter how many people I execute.
Wherever muslims are located, terrorists are nearby. Odd that, don't you think?
Ayaan Hirsi Ali - standing up to the crimes of islam
Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali is working on a follow-up project to "Submission", the controversial film made with murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
Hirsi Ali said the theme for Submission - Part II will be how the Islamic faith oppresses individuals, with a focus on the position of women. She also said that she wants to abolish or phase out Islamic education, rather than "burn it down" immediately.
But Hirsi Ali said she is also writing a book called "Shortcut to Enlightenment", asserting that she hopes to point out a short cut for Muslims to gain enlightenment, evening newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported Monday.
The first Submission was document.write('');
broadcast in August and portrayed women in see-through clothing describing physical abuse within the Islamic community. Anti-women texts from the Koran were daubed on the performers' bodies.
Besides vowing to produce a follow-up to the film, Hirsi Ali also spoke with the NRC about her personal situation, political future and her ideas about the current social climate in the Netherlands. It was her first interview since the 2 November murder of Van Gogh in Amsterdam.
A letter left with Van Gogh's body warned that Hirsi Ali was next, prompting her to go into hiding. She agreed to the interview with the paper only on condition the whereabouts and time of the interview would be kept secret.
The Somali-born MP has several times in the past gone into hiding due to death threats made against her.
An outspoken critic of Islam, she has previously described the prophet Mohammed as a "perverted tyrant" by modern standards for taking a 12-year-old girl as a wife. She is also strongly opposed to the status accorded to women in the Islamic faith.
A 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan, Mohammed B., has been arrested for the murder of Van Gogh. He is allegedly linked to a group of Islamic militants accused of planning the murder of Hirsi Ali and conservative independent MP Geert Wilders.
I've just been banned from an illiterate Canadian forum called Free Dominion (a voice of principled conservatism - what a laugh) because I objected to them hating their own country and masturbating at the thought of Canadian civil war. One of their moderators, a dickhead by the name of WLyingmackenzie has over 10 THOUSAND posts. Who in the world would have time to post that much - unless of course he has nothing else to do in this world. The odd collection of smegma called freedominion needs a new hobby!
Challenging Islam is risky
A great article by one of the few muslims who has the courage to ask questions about her religion. Sadly, most "moderate" muslims are walking, talking, Jew-haters...
By Irshad Manji
TORONTO, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Tuesday's slaying of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who criticized Islamic practices, reminds all of a nagging truth: More than 15 years after the government of Iran issued a death warrant against novelist Salman Rushdie, challenging Muslims remains a risky business.
As a Muslim dissident, I speak from experience. My book, "The Trouble with Islam," has put me on the receiving end of anger, hatred and vitriol. That's because I'm asking questions that we Muslims can no longer hide from. Why, for example, are we squandering the talents of half of God's creation, women? What's with the stubborn streak of anti-Semitism in Islam today? Above all, how can even moderate Muslims view the Koran literally when it, like every holy text, abounds in contradictions and ambiguity? The trouble with Islam today is that literalism is going mainstream.
Muslims who take offense at these points often wind up reinforcing them in their responses to me. I regularly get death threats through my Web site. Some of my would-be assassins emphasize the virtues of martyrdom, wanting to hurl me into the "flames of hell" in exchange for 72 virgins. Others simply want to know what plane I'm next boarding, so they can hijack it. Somehow, I don't feel the urge to share my schedule.
A few threats have been up-close and personal. At an airport in North America, a Muslim man approached my traveling companion to say, "You're luckier than your friend." When she asked him to explain, he turned his hand into the shape of a gun and pulled the trigger. "She will find out later what that means," he intoned.
But, for all of the threats, there's good news: I'm hearing more support, affection and even love from fellow Muslims than I thought possible. Two groups in particular -- young Muslims and Muslim women -- have flooded my Web site with letters of relief and thanks. They are relieved that somebody is saying out loud words they have only whispered, and grateful that they're being given the permission to think for themselves.
That's why I don't take my bodyguard everywhere I go. It may be necessary to have one when I visit France next week. But in my day-to-day life, I refuse to be closely protected. If I'm going to have credibility conveying to Muslims that we can, indeed, live while dissenting with the establishment, I can't have a big, burly fellow looking over my shoulder. I must lead by example. So far, so good.
To be sure, I haven't tried visiting Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan since the release of my book. (One challenge at time, please!) Still, the relative safety with which I've debated Islam in the West -- from Britain to Belgium, from Australia to Canada, from the Netherlands to the United States -- convinces me that Muslims in the West have a sterling opportunity. They are best poised to revive Islam's tradition of independent reasoning. Why in the West? Because it's here that we already enjoy the precious freedoms to think, express, challenge and be challenged -- all without fear of state reprisal.
I'm not denying that some Muslims have been targeted for harassment, profiling and discrimination by Western governments. I faced the same during the 1991 Gulf War when I was marched out of a federal building in Ottawa, Canada for no apparent reason. However, none of this negates a basic fact: If Muslims in the West dare to ask questions about our holy book, and if we care to denounce human rights violations being committed under the banner of that book, we need not worry about being raped, flogged, stoned or executed by the state for doing so. What in God's name are Muslims in the West doing with our freedoms?
I know what many young Muslim would like us to be doing -- thinking critically about ourselves and not solely about Washington. Indeed, a huge motivation for having written my book came from young Muslims on American and Canadian campuses. Even before 9/11, I spoke at universities about the virtues of diversity, including diversity of opinion. After many of these speeches, young Muslims emerged from the audiences, gathered at the side of stage, chatted excitedly among themselves, and then walked over to me.
"Irshad," I would hear, "we need voices such as yours to help us open up this religion of our because if it doesn't open up, we're leaving it."
They're on the front lines in the battle for the soul of Islam. Whatever the risks to my own safety, I won't turn my back on them -- or on the gift of freedom bestowed by my society.
--
(Irshad Manji is author of "The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith." She can be contacted through her Web site, www.muslim-refusenik.com.)
Muslim world: 74% want Hamas to replace Arafat
The goal of Hamas is to kill every Jew in Israel and most muslims support this goal. Moderate muslims - where are you?
A survey of the Arab world organized by the Al-Arabia network website after the death of Yasser Arafat, showed 73.72% want a Hamas representative to replace Arafat, ITIM reported.
In contrast only 0.7% expect that one of the PLO leaders will take over.
25.58% were in favor of an independent candidate.
113,107 participants from across the Arab world took part in the survey.
The organizers of the survey explained that the Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad organization stand for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the land of historic Palestine, a concept that the PLO gave up on when the Oslo discussions began.
