Tag Archives: al-Aqsa Mosque

Jihad is ‘getting to a better place,’ says CAIR campaign

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slide_270028_1886096_free-600x350By Neil Munro

An Islamic-advocacy group linked to terrorism is launching a public-relations campaign to argue that jihad doesn’t mean Islamic holy war, but instead a “concerted effort … with the purpose of getting to a better place.”

However, the campaign, which is being launched Dec. 14 by an affiliate of the Council on American Islamic Relations, isn’t a formal religious declaration by United States or Arab Islamic authorities, and it does clash with orthodox judgments dating back 1,400 years to the beginning of Islam.

“It is [public] education about what we believe,” said Ahmed Rehab, who serves as the founder of the project, head of CAIR’s Chicago affiliate and CAIR’s strategic communications chief.

The views of jihad groups, Salafi activists in Egypt and of the Arab world’s leading preacher, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, “are not the entirety of the story,” Rehab told The Daily Caller on Thursday.

Those orthodox views of jihad as warfare to spread Islam are being championed by a new wave of Islamic revivalists — including numerous jihadi groups, such as the “Jamaat al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad” terror group in the Gaza strip.

They also are being pushed by Qaradawi, whose weekly radio show has a claimed audience of 60 million. In 2011, he was invited by the dominant Islamic group in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, to give a speech to thousands of Islamist supporters in downtown Cairo.

“I have hope that Almighty Allah … will also please me with the conquest of the al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem, Israel]. … May Allah prepare the way for us to preach in the al-Aqsa Mosque in safety!” he declared.

In contrast, Rehab’s “MyJihad” public-relations campaign portrays jihad as “a concerted and noble effort against injustice, hate, misunderstanding, war, violence, poverty, hunger, abuse or whatever challenge big or small we face in daily life, with the purpose of getting to a better place,” according to the campaign’s website, MyJihad.org.

The campaign will include testimonials, op-eds, bus advertising and visits to mosques, Rehab said.

“This is a whitewash,” charged Robert Spencer, the author of several books about orthodox Islam.

Jihad, Spencer said, in Islamic texts “as well as in Islamic law, has always borne the primary meaning of warfare against unbelievers in order to affect their subjugation under Sharia.”

Read more at Daily Caller

See also: Jihad in Islam (counterjihadreport.com)

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‘Holy Jihad’ is the only way to deal with Israel, says Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood chief

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Mohammed Badie attends a press conference at the group’s parliamentary office in Cairo, November 30, 2010 (photo credit: AP/Nasser Nasser)

Times of Israel:

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Egypt’s foremost Muslim Brotherhood official called on the Arab world Thursday to replace negotiations with Israel with “holy Jihad,” claiming that if Jews are allowed to pray on the Temple Mount they will destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and supplant it with the third temple.

Mohammed Badie, Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, declared in a public message published by Egyptian daily Al-Ahram that “the Zionists only understand force,” and that Arabs cannot hope to achieve justice from the Jews “through the corridors of the United Nations or through negotiations.”

‘Zionists only understand the language of force and will not relent without duress,’ Badie continued. ‘This will only happen through holy Jihad, high sacrifices and all forms of resistance’

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, but he resigned all official positions in the movement upon taking office. He has said that his government would uphold the Camp David peace accords with Israel, and recently named a new ambassador to Israel.

“The time has come for the Islamic nation to unite around one man for the sake of Jerusalem and Palestine,” Badie said. “The Jews have dominated the land, spread corruption on earth, spilled the blood of believers and in their actions profaned holy places, including their own.”

“Zionists only understand the language of force and will not relent without duress,” Badie continued. “This will only happen through holy Jihad, high sacrifices and all forms of resistance. The day they realize we will march this path and raise the banner of Jihad for the sake of God, is the day they will relent and stop their tyranny.”

Badie, 69, has headed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt since 2010, and before that served on its governing council for more than a decade. Trained in veterinary medicine and an academic by profession, he served time in jail for political activity as a young man but was pardoned by president Anwar Sadat.

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Notorious Anti-Semite and 9/11 Denier Now Head of Egypt’s Gov’t Religious Dept.

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Family Security Matters:

by THE  GLOBAL MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD DAILY REPORT

Egyptian Artabic-language media is reporting  that Salah Soltan, a notorious anti-Semite and formerly part of the U.S. Muslim  Brotherhood,, has been appointed as Secretary General of the Supreme Council for  Islamic Affairs (SCIF) attached  to the Egyptian Ministry of Waqf. The  appointment was made by the Minister Dr. Talaat Mohamed Afify Salem who has  been described  as a member of the Salafist movement in Egypt and as an “ally”  of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Ministry of Waqf (Islamic Endowment) is reported  to have influence over Al-Azhar, the country’s most important  Islamic institution. The SCIF describes  itself as follows:

The Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs is one of the sectors affiliated to  the Egyptian Ministry of Al-Awqaf (Endowments). It was established at 1960  with the aim of presenting the Moderate and Enlightened Islamic Culture to  Muslims in Egypt, Arab and Muslim Worlds as well as for all concerned personals  of the Islamic Culture.

In 2006, the Simon  Wiesenthal Center complained  about anti-Semitic and anti-Christian material appearing on the official SCIF  website. In 2007, Egyptian media reported  that SCIF had issued a fatwa permitting so-called “pleasure marriages” in  which the woman gives up some of the rights granted her by Islam, such as the  right to housing and financial support from her husband

Dr. Salah Sultan (aka Solah Sultan, Sallah Sultan) had left the U.S.  following negative press reports in the U.S. media about his extremist  statements which led the authorities there to suspend his application for  American citizenship and, as discussed in a previous post,  relocated to Bahrain in 2007 where he was appointed  as adviser to the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in that  country. Dr Sultan’s online CV, now removed from the  Internet, indicates that he is or was a member of several important U.S.  and European Muslim Brotherhood organizations including the European Council for  Fatwa and Research, the Fiqh Council of North America, and the Islamic American  University, closely associated with the Muslim American Society (MAS).This  resume also expressed Dr. Soltan’s vision “To live happily. To die as a martyr.”  Another previous post discussed some of Dr.  Sultan statements including an appearance on Saudi TV where Dr. Sultan asserted  that the US planned the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for terrorizing the world and  praising Osama bin Laden confidante Abd Al-Majid Al-Zindani. Another post discussed a seminar  featuring Dr. Sultan sponsored by the European Assembly for Imams and Spiritual  Guides, closely associated with the Federation of Islamic Organizations In  Europe (FIOE). Dr. Sultan is also known to be a  a prominent member of  the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) headed by  Global Muslim  Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi.

In November a post reported  that Dr. Sultan had given two sermons on Al-Aqsa TV in which he said he has met  people all over the world who “thirst for the blood of the Jews” and that Jews  have entered Egypt in order to commit crimes including deliberately infecting  Egyptian girls with AIDS.  In a March TV interview he  cited the notorious anti-Semitic forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as  well as predicting the end of Israel and the United States. In another  recent TV interview Dr. Sultan called for  young people to practice sports in order to prepare themselves for Jihad to  liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Another recent post discussed  demands by Sultan for violent actions against Israeli by Egyptians, this time  issuing a fatwa (religious ruling) calling for the killing of the Israeli  ambassador on Alzajeera TV. A post from  August 2011 reported that Sultan had said it is permissible for any  Egyptian to kill a Zionist met on Egyptian territory. In April 2010, Dr.  Sultan accused Jews of  using Christian blood for Matzoh (substitute for bread used during the Jewish  holiday of Passover) in an example of what is called “blood libel”, the  accusations that Jews use human blood in religious rituals. (Historically these  are accusations that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted and  date back to the 1st Century . In 2008 he made other  virulently  anti-Semitic and anti-American comments on  Egyptian TV.

Reproduced with the permission of the Global  Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.

PA, Islamists Push Blood Libel Against Israel

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IPT News September 6, 2012

One of the most enduring anti-Israel slanders is the charge that it is persecuting non-Jews and destroying Muslim and Christian holy sites. These dubious claims continue to be made not only by international organizations, but by U.S. groups like American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Coming at a time when Christians are under direct attack from Muslims in Egypt, Nigeria and in other Muslim states, promulgating such fantasies serves only to incite hatred and violence against Jews.

Palestinian Muslims and Christians “are living basically in an outdoor prison, in refugee camps,” CAIR-Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid said in a May speech to the Islamic Organization of North America. “Al-Masjid al-Aqsa is our property for us to defend. This is the land that Allah guided us to … and it should be free” (i.e., not under Israeli jurisdiction).

CAIR-Michigan’s Lena Masri last month tweeted an op-ed from a pro-Hizballah Lebanese newspaper accusing Israel of destroying Palestinian mosques. In 2010, CAIR-Los Angeles Executive Director Hussam Ayloush wrote that a ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court rejecting claims that authorities desecrated a Muslim cemetery was illegitimate: “This is the same court that has long excused internationally condemned apartheid-like policies and human rights violations against Palestinians, including occupation, settlement construction and denying refugees the right to return.”

In 2010, Israel added two of the most holy sites in Judaism – the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem – to its historic registry list, drawing an angry reaction from AMP Chairman Hatem Bazian, who said the designation “proves Israel does not want peace.” Bazian claimed that the move is “just the latest in a series of actions aimed at separating Palestinians from their land.”

Both Hamas and the more “moderate” Palestinian Fatah organization have accused Israel of a laundry list of crimes against non-Jews, ranging from drinking Muslim blood to attempting to steal Jerusalem’s “Islamic-Christian religious history.”

Perhaps no falsehood has been recycled more often than the claim that Israel seeks to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque.

On Aug. 21, 1969, a deranged Australian Christian named Michael Dennis Rohan set fire to the mosque. Although Israeli firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze and Rohan confessed to setting it, Islamists and others have spent more than four decades propagating the falsehood that Jews and Israelis were behind the attack.

Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes writes that many Muslims around the world became convinced that Israel had paid Rohan (some claimed his actual name was Cohen) up to $100 million to torch the mosque.

As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, the al-Aqsa slander has become a staple of Palestinian Authority propaganda, with its media organs claiming that Jews seek to invade al Aqsa, and that Israel plans to destroy the mosque and build the Jewish Temple in its place. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has declared that Israel seeks to destroy that shrine.

“Israel’s policies and schemes have never stopped and will never stop in al-Aqsa courtyards in order to harm [the mosque's] Arabness and holiness,” PA television told viewers August 3. “What is new this time is the discovery of traces of dangerous chemicals in the al-Aqsa foundations and [the discovery of] other solvents used to cause the foundations to crumble and collapse.” That same day, the official PA daily al-Hayat al-Jadida claimed the Israeli chemical plot was part of “a dramatic offensive to Judaize the city and utterly erase its original [Arab] landmarks.”

In June, Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mohamed Badie exhorted Muslims to make their “sole goal” the “recovery of al-Aqsa Mosque, freeing it from the filth of the Zionists, and imposing Muslim rule throughout beloved Palestine.”

Badie added that “The Lord of Glory has threatened these murdering Zionists criminals with a penalty of a kind which operates in this world before the Hereafter.”

The website of Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Muslim Brotherhood cleric based in Qatar, recently featured a statement from the International Union of Muslim Scholars accusing “armed Zionists” of committing “aggression” against Muslim worshippers at al-Aqsa and declaring Jerusalem “the holy city for Muslims and Christians.” The same statement denounced Israel for insisting that Arab peace negotiators recognize it as a Jewish state.

Hizballah boss Hassan Nasrallah has accused Israel of attempting to destroy al-Aqsa Mosque. The Iranian regime’s Fars News Agency published a story quoting without rebuttal a “Palestinian activist” warning that Israel may order the mosque’s destruction “through an artificial (earth) quake.” After Israeli security forces clashed with Palestinian rioters at the mosque compound in October 2009, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal claimed the incident was “the first step towards dividing the mosque, and demolishing it and building a temple in its place.

“Jerusalem belongs to its Arab inhabitants, Muslims and Christians. The future (of the city) will not be settled at the negotiating table, but on the ground of confrontation and resistance,” Meshaal added.

Read more…