Tag Archives: Bangladesh

Violence and Mainstream Islam

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Bengladesh-demos

Hundreds of thousands of Bengladeshi Muslims demonstrate and chant ,“Allah is great, hang the atheist bloggers.”

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April 8th, 2013 by Andrew Bostom:

Against the backdrop of 20,651 jihadist attacks since 9/11/2001, and the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Dhaka, Bengladesh (hat tip Jihad Watch) on the march this past week, demanding the execution of “atheist bloggers” for “blaspheming” Islam, I was re-reading V.S. Naipaul’s second brilliant travelogue account of Asian Islamdom, circa 1995,  Beyond Belief.

Naipaul’s five month 1995 journey included sojourns in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia, supposedly more “moderate,” overall, than Arab Islamdom. Beyond Belief contains this simple, elegant description by a secular Pakistani journalist, i.e., a private apostate, who found mainstream Islamic violence unacceptable. Identified only as “Salman,” he proffered this explanation about the roots of traditionalist, mainstream Islamic violence—which must be considered when applying the term “moderate” to mainstream votaries of Islam:

…[T]he idea of jihad, holy war…was a special Muslim idea. He [Salman] explained it like this: “In Christianity, Christ died for all Christians. He can ensure heaven for them. In Islam, Mohammed can only make a submission in your favor for being a follower of his. It is only Allah who makes the final decision on the merit won by your good deeds. Nothing is greater, so far as goodness goes, than jihad in the name of Allah.” [Naipaul interjects] Jihad was not meant metaphorically. “The word of the Koran is taken very literally. It is blasphemous even to think of it as allegory. The Koran lays great store in jihad. It is one of the sayings of Mohammed–not in the Koran, it’s one of the traditions—‘If you see an un-Islamic practice you stop it by force. If you do not possess the power to stop it, you condemn it verbally. If not that also, then you condemn it in your heart.’ As far back as I can remember I have known this. I think this tradition gives the Muslim license to act violently.” [Naipaul adds] …he [Salman] understood both their [Muslims] need to win merit as followers of Mohammed, and also their fear of hell. [Salman again] “Endless whipping with fiery flames, and fire beyond imagination. Having to drink pus. It’s very graphic in the traditions. In the Koran there’s just mention of the fires and the endlessness of punishment.”

The canonical hadith alluded to by Naipaul’s “Salman,” are cited below, including the delightful spectacle of drinking pus in Hell:

I heard the Messenger of Allah say: “Whoever among you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand (by action); if he cannot, then with his tongue (by speaking out); and if he cannot, then with his heart (by hating it and feeling it is wrong), and that is the weakest of faith.” [Sahih Muslim, The Book of Faith, Chapter 20, Clarifying That Forbidding Evil is Part of Faith; Faith Increases and Decreases; Enjoining What is Good and Forbidding What is Evil Are Obligatory; [177] 78- (49), pp.143-44, from: Vol. 1 English translation of Sahih Muslim From Hadith no. 01-1160, translated by Nasirrudin al-Khattab, Darussalam Books, Riyadh, 2007.]

Amr ibn Shu’ayb reported from his father on the authority of his grandfather that the Prophet said, “The arrogant will be (rasied and) gathered on the Day of Resurrection as ants in the garb of mankind. They will be covered with disgrace from all sides and they will be driven to a cell in Hell named Bulas. They will boil in the fire of Fires and will be given to drink the pus of the people of the Fire, extremely bad in odor.” [From Jami Tirmidhi (2500)]

 

Article In Leading Bangladeshi Daily Traces The Roots Of ‘Islamic Totalitarianism’

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“Only One Power Determines The Course Of History: The Power Of Ideas”; “One Needs To Identify The Enemy As The Vicious Ideology Of Islamic Totalitarianism… That Needs To Be Defeated By A Stronger, Freedom-Embracing Ideology”

MEMRI, March 10, 2013:

In the Islamic nation of Bangladesh, the secular government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has initiated a series of measures against Islamic fundamentalist groups and terrorist organizations in recent years. One of her government’s key initiatives has been the establishment of an International Crimes Tribunal (ICT). The tribunal has tried several Bangladeshi leaders for collaborating with the Pakistan Army in committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 war, which resulted in the secession of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.

The country’s secular forces are aligned with the government, while the right-wing forces are led by the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former Prime Minister Begum Khalida Zia. Leaders from the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami have been indicted by the tribunal for crimes such as rape and murder during the 1971 liberation war.

In early 2013, as the tribune convicted several leaders, violent protests were organized by the rival groups in the capital Dhaka, leading to the killings of dozens of civilians and policemen. Among the top people convicted of various war crimes and sentenced to death and life imprisonment are Jamaat-e-Islami leaders Abul Kalam Azad, Abdul Quader Mollah, and Delwar Hossain Sayedee.

Supporters of BNP and members of the Jamaat’s students wing Islami Chhatra Shibir have organized protests against the government, while liberal forces in the country are led by Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, which came to power following elections in 2008. During several rounds of protests by both sides, tens of thousands of Bangladeshis have turned out in Shahbag Square of Dhaka, as well as in various small towns. The protests are also seen as a struggle between liberal and fundamentalist forces in the country.

In a recent article, a Bangladeshi daily traced the roots of what it called “Islamic totalitarianism” in Bangladesh. The article, “The Rise Of Islamic Totalitarianism,” was written by Shahrazad Jafer and published by Daily Ittefaq, a leading newspaper. The following are excerpts:[1]

“A Power Is Rising Slowly In Bangladesh; It Violates Our Liberty… The Adversary Is Not A Man But An Ideology [Of Islamic Totalitarianism]“; 11th Century Theologian Al-Ghazali Advocated “Unquestioning Faith… Faith Became The Absolute Authority, The Final Arbiter; Reason Was Abandoned”

“A power is rising slowly in Bangladesh; it violates our liberty and life. It violates our very existence. The adversary is not a man but an ideology; the man is but a mere tool. To defeat it, one needs to understand its history, identity, and goal. With razor-sharp clarity, one needs to know its adversary and to know that the only defense against it is secularism.

“Rebirth of Faith: Al‑Ghazali

“The Islamic Golden Age from 8th to 12th century was once the pinnacle of science, philosophy, and art. The people of Baghdad were studying and debating the works of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers. They were fascinated by the teachings of Aristotle on logic and attempted to combine both logic and faith.

“[Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad] Al-Ghazali [1058-1111], a Muslim philosopher, was distressed by the conflict between Islam (submission to faith) and the Golden Age (reason and science). He sought solitude in the desert in search of an answer to this dilemma. He returned with a simple answer: unquestioning faith. Consequently, faith became the absolute authority, the final arbiter. Reason was abandoned and criticism [became] impossible since we could not question an infallible god.

“This was the rebirth of faith into the Muslim society and the end of the age of Enlightenment. Al-Ghazali became known as the man who saved Islam and was given the unique title of ’Hujjat-Al-Islam’ – The Proof of Islam.”

Read more at MEMRI

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Britain Legitimizes, Funds Terrorist Movement

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Shahbag protesters in Dhaka

Shahbag protesters in Dhaka

by Samuel Westrop:

Jamaat-e-Islami, an extremist Bangladeshi Islamist group responsible for mass killings in 1971, has established itself as a leading force among British Muslims.

Forty years after Pakistani forces and their Islamist collaborators slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, there is finally some semblance of justice in Bangladesh. Of the ten people indicted for acts of genocide by the Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal, eight of them are from the Islamist movement, Jamaat-e-Islami.

In the West, where many of the war criminals from the 1971 atrocities fled, the Jamaat movement has become a powerful leader within Muslim communities.

Bangladesh’s official figures claim Pakistani soldiers and their Jamaat collaborators killed an estimated three million people, raped 200,000 women and forced tens of millions to flee their homes. At the time of the genocide, one US official was quoted saying, “It is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland.”

Earlier this month, the war crimes tribunal handed a life sentence to Abdul Quader Mollah, a leading Jamaat-e-Islami figure, for his role in the 1971 atrocities. He emerged from the Supreme Court on February 4, offering a victory sign to his supporters. Known as the “Butcher of Mirpur,” Mollah was convicted of beheading a poet, raping an 11 year old girl, and shooting 344 people.

Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis have deemed a prison sentence too benign; huge protests have been taking place for several weeks outside the courthouse in Bangladesh’s capital city, Dhaka. Even today, Bangladesh’s other extreme Islamist groups believe Jamaat to be too violent. A journalist for the British Independent, Philip Hensher, wrote that, “The protests … are led by intelligent and liberal people; they are, however, calling with great urgency for the death penalty to be passed on Mollah and other convicted war criminals.”

In Britain, however, Jamaat is not troubled by its past.

The East London Mosque and the Islamic Forum of Europe are both leading Jamaat organizers in Britain. Both institutions heavily promote the writings of Syed Mawdudi, the founder of Jamaat Islamism, whose book, Let Us Be Muslims, tells followers that, “The sacred duty of Muslims … wherever you are, in whichever country you live, you must strive to change the wrong basis of government, and seize all powers to rule and make laws from those who do not fear God.”

Read more at Gatestone Institute

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Islamists behind fatal rioting in Bangladesh have prominent US ally

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673_large1By Adam Savit at Center For Security Policy:

Dozens have died in Bangladesh over the weekend as deadly Islamist-instigated rioting has engulfed the country.  The riots are a response to the death sentence handed down to Delwar Hossain Sayedee, vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) political party, by the International Crimes Tribunal.  Sayedee was convicted of war crimes stemming from the 1971 Bangladesh civil war, which saw up to 3 million civilians slaughtered and millions more cleansed from the Muslim-majority nation.  Most of the victims were Hindus and other religious and ethnic minorities.

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) is the premier Muslim Brotherhood group on the Indian subcontinent and it’s American progeny, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), was established in 1968.  ICNA’s past Secretary General and Vice President Ashrafuz Zaman Khan, also a past President of the ICNA NY Chapter, will reportedly be indicted for war crimes by the same International Crimes Tribunal for the systematic execution of civilians during the civil war.  Bangladeshi groups claim Khan personally killed seven Dhaka University teachers.

Last year, ICNA launched a $3 million campaign promoting shariah law in America, featuring billboards in at least 15 U.S. cities, “Shariah seminars” on 20 college campuses, and town hall-style forums and interfaith events in 25 cities.

In response, the Center for Security Policy released a thoroughly referenced guide to ICNA’s extremist beliefs and associations.  Click here for a flyer version in PDF format for easy printing.

 

The Uprising in Bangladesh that the Media Isn’t Covering

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Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina

by: Ryan Mauro:

For the past two weeks, Bangladesh has been experiencing its largest demonstrations in two decades. Anti-Islamist Muslim Tarek Fatah says  it is “the first time ever in the Muslim world there has been a popular uprising against the fascism of Islamist parties.”

Unlike the Arab Spring revolutions, this uprising’s goal is not overthrowing a secular government, but protecting one.

The current government is led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, a female secularist from the Awami League Party. Her party won in a landslide in December 2008, a remarkable—if mostly unnoticed—achievement in a 90 percent Muslim country.

Part of the reason for the victory was the party’s support for bringing justice to those responsible for the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians in 1971 when Bangladesh broke from Pakistan. The Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), opposed independence and its student wing was involved in the bloodshed. (Read our interview with Saleem Reza Noor, a Bangladeshi-American, about JEI.)

Read more at Radical Islam

 

Westerners and Wahhabism: Living in a Fool’s Paradise

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The Saudi Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, recently called for a destruction of all churches in the Arabian peninsula, as well as marriage for girls as young as 10 years old.

by: Jamal Hasan:

Many Westerners are still living in fool’s paradise, buying the apologist’s soft-sold idea that Wahhabism is a minority view of the Islamic world. The reality indicates that the situation is just the other way around.

The proliferation of Wahhabistic philosophy is so widespread all across the globe that it can hardly be considered an aberration. From Pakistan to Qatar, from Bangladesh to Afghanistan, the common belief system among Muslim masses is very close to Wahhabite ideology.

Read more at Radical Islam

 

Report Claims ICNA Imam Facing Indictment

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IPT News
March 22, 2012

A former leader and current member of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) may soon be charged with crimes stemming from activities during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence.

Ashraf Uz Zaman Khan

The country’s International Crimes Tribunal reportedly will indict Ashrafuz Zaman Khan for the suspected murder of pro-independence intellectuals.

The war divided Pakistan and Bangladesh into two separate nations, but not before Islamist unionists and the Pakistani army launched systematic massacres of civilians and intelligentsia supporting independence.

Khan is alleged to have been an active participant and to have even functioned as an executioner.

Ironically, Khan gave a speech last April during an anti-war rally in New York, in which he decried the harm done by the war on terror.

“In Iraq, the U.S. had more than 150,000 troops plus 190,000 contractors. One million people were killed and the whole infrastructure of the country was destroyed,” Khan said. “On behalf of the Islamic Circle of North America, I [sic] ordering you and all other peace loving people to continue this struggle to end the wars and terrorism to make this world as a peaceful abode.””

Khan has been active in ICNA, a group that bills itself as “a leading grassroots organization in the American Muslim community.” He served as secretary general in 2000 and vice president in 2001, and was the president of the ICNA New York chapter when he made the speech.

But ICNA itself has had a checkered past. It was founded by activists from the extremist organization Jamaat-e-Islami, the South Asian equivalent to the Arab world’s Muslim Brotherhood, which has expressed support for violent jihad against American forces and other non-Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere. The Jamaat also salutes the jihad of groups like Hamas, Hizballah, and Hizbul Mujahideen in Kashmir.

ICNA’s constitution is largely copied from Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan’s founding documents, including the goal of promoting Islam as an alternative to Western society. Its education platforms teach books by Jamaat founder Syed Abul Ala Maududi, which are banned in Bangladesh for reasons of incitement. And the group is suspected of inciting young members to participate in foreign jihads, as was emphasized in a 1997 article in the group’s magazine.

Khan’s alleged crimes in Bangladesh came as part of the pro-Pakistan al-Badr militia and in conjunction with the local Jamaat-e-Islami branch. Bangladesh has indicted national Jamaat leaders for their roles in the 1971 killings, proscribed books by the group’s founder for their “militancy and terrorism,” and repeatedly threatened to ban the organization as a whole.

Groups like the Secular Voice of Bangladesh claim Khan had a role in organizing the killings, and say his record is well-documented in his personal diary. They claim Khan was a chief executioner for the al-Badr force, personally killing seven Dhaka University teachers in the city of Mirpur. The names and addresses of other intellectuals who were murdered or went missing in 1971 reportedly are recorded in the diary. Khan’s driver during the massacres, identified as Mr. Mofizuddin, is said to have already given testimony against him.

The news hasn’t escaped the ears of American officials, who asked the Bangladeshi government for clarifying information in 2008. According to the Secular Voice of Bangladesh and other Bangladeshi news sources, Eli Rosenbaum, former chief of the Office of Special Investigation in the Justice Department, put in the request.

Rosenbaum hunted Nazi war criminals in the United States, often using deportation as a tool to send the accused back to their home countries to face justice. Although the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh, positive confirmation of the information could result in the revoking of Khan’s American citizenship and deportation to Bangladesh for trial.

It is not known if or when the Bangladeshi government responded to Rosenbaum.

ICNA has not offered comment about the Khan’s alleged crimes, nor his role in the organization. However, Bangladeshi charges against him will certainly lead to a debate about deporting the Imam from the U.S. and stripping him of his citizenship.

Related Topics: The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)

h/t  NSLIA:

ICNA’s true goals; they leave this out at their website below…
http://www.investigativeproject.org/2373/hand-book-shows-icna-true-goals
 
Here is an article by Walid Shoebat on the ICNA:
http://www.shoebat.com/2012/03/02/shocker-muslim-brotherhood-group-putting-smiley-face-on-sharia/

ICNA’s website (wow, what a fantasy trip; but notice how they are out ‘helping’  in disaster areas (preying on victims?): http://www.icna.org/ (once here, either of the last 2 middle bars will then take you to their “campaign,” such as here: http://www.icna.org/american-muslim-campaign-to-repair-sharias-reputation/#more-10369).
 
ICNA’s events (“Defending Religious Freedom”) http://www.defendingreligiousfreedom.com/events/
 
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