Tag Archives: Muslim American Society

IW News Brief: Boston and the Aftermath of Terror

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Islamist Watch (IW) maintains an extensive archive of news items on nonviolent Islamism in the Western world. The complete collection can be found here; lists organized by topic are accessible on the right side of the IW homepage.

The IW database includes dozens of articles scrutinizing the many narratives, questions, and controversies to arise in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings carried out by two Muslim immigrants, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Several key developments are highlighted below:

Political correctness at the FBI

Following reports that Russian officials had contacted Washington about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s extremism years ago — warnings investigated and then set aside by the FBI — some suspect that political correctness paved the path to the attack. “The FBI can’t talk about Islam and they can’t talk about jihad,” notes counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka, citing policies that de-emphasize radical Islam as a driver of violence. “I have zero doubt it affected their investigation of Tsarnaev,” adds specialist Patrick Poole. Congressmen have voiced concerns as well.

The FBI also dropped the ball prior to the Fort Hood bloodbath. In that case, the Washington field office cautioned its San Diego counterpart that probing Nidal Hasan was a “politically sensitive” subject, and internal emails classified Hasan’s messages to an al-Qaeda operative as mere “research.” Furthermore, building on its record of Muslim outreach follies, the agency recently caved to Islamists on training and expunged “biased” materials. Its “Guiding Principles: Touchstone Document on Training” declares that if someone belongs to a group that engages in both violence and “constitutionally protected activities,” the FBI must not assume that the person is involved in the former. As columnist Matthew Vadum opines, “It’s not that much of an exaggeration to say that the FBI could not have done anything about Tsarnaev unless he strapped on a suicide vest in front of them, called them ‘infidels,’ and detailed his abominable plans.”

Left: The brutal reality of jihad was displayed on April 15, 2013. Right: The Islamic Society of Boston may appear friendly from the outside, but its history tells a very different tale.

Left: The brutal reality of jihad was displayed on April 15, 2013. Right: The Islamic Society of Boston may appear friendly from the outside, but its history tells a very different tale.

Radicalism at the Islamic Society of Boston

As the authorities trace the Tsarnaev brothers’ road to extremism, some point to the Cambridge mosque they attended. Charles Jacobs of Americans for Peace and Tolerance has stated that “if the story emerges that they were radicalized in America … the Islamic Society of Boston [ISB] and its leaders provide an interesting place to look.” Indeed they do. The ISB’s first president was Abdurahman Alamoudi, now imprisoned in connection with an assassination plot. Muslim Brotherhood cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was listed among its trustees, and multiple convicted terrorists, including “Lady al-Qaeda” Aafia Siddiqui, prayed on the premises. Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, a reformist Muslim, recently reflected on a past visit: “Their writings and teachings were fanatical. … I left Egypt to escape the Muslim Brotherhood, but I had found it there.”

In positive news, Governor Deval Patrick’s office withdrew an invitation to Suhaib Webb, imam of the affiliated ISB Cultural Center (ISBCC) in Roxbury, to speak at an interfaith service on April 18. The center is managed by the Muslim American Society (MAS), which, according to prosecutors, “was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” Another ISBCC imam once exhorted congregants to “grab on to the gun and the sword” in Siddiqui’s defense. “Officials who change course when confronted with the facts need to be commended,” the Clarion Project’s Ryan Mauro explains. “Thank [the governor] by contacting his office here.”

Rays of light in the media darkness

While many media outlets downplayed jihad, others were surprisingly candid: USA Today ran a detailed piece on the ISB’s radicalism. The Islamist-friendly Bill O’Reilly blasted Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for denying Islam’s role in terrorism. Bill Maher mocked Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, when he asserted that “it’s not like people who are Muslim who do wacky things have a monopoly on it.” Maher called the idea that all faiths are equal in terms of inspiring violence “liberal bulls—t,” perhaps opening the eyes of viewers who reflexively discount criticism of Islam from the right.

Daniel Pipes sees the Boston bombings as “education by murder,” noting that Westerners “learn best about Islamism when blood flows in the streets.” This process is aided when the bloodshed encourages prominent media figures to overcome inhibitions and speak truthfully about jihad.

Left: Bill Maher asked Brian Levin whether a show about Islam similar to the raucous Book of Mormon could run on Broadway without violence. "Possibly so," he replied, convincing no one. Right: Ibrahim Hooper admits that revenge attacks against Muslims have been rare.

Left: Bill Maher asked Brian Levin whether a show about Islam similar to the raucous Book of Mormon could run on Broadway without violence. “Possibly so,” he replied, convincing no one. Right: Ibrahim Hooper admits that revenge attacks against Muslims have been rare.

Post-terror backlash fails to materialize yet again

Amid the predictable hype about anti-Muslim backlash — which almost never occurs — the Associated Press relays this refreshingly frank tidbit: “Muslim civil rights leaders say the anti-Islam reaction has been more muted this time than after other attacks since Sept. 11. … Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations … said his organization has seen no uptick in reports of harassment, assaults, or damage to mosques since the April 15 bombings.”

No surprise here: Muslims in the U.S. actually suffer hate crimes at a lower rate than blacks, Jews, or gays. Blogger Brendan O’Neill sums it up: “Time and again, left-leaning campaigners and observers respond to terror attacks in the West by panicking about the possibly racist response of Joe Public — and time and again, their fears prove ill-founded and Joe Public proves himself a more decent, tolerant person than they give him credit for. What this reveals is that liberal concern over Islamophobia, liberal fretting about anti-Muslim bigotry, is ironically driven by a bigotry of its own, by an deeply prejudiced view of everyday people as hateful and stupid.”

* * *

For additional news and analysis, please visit the IW website.

 

Megyn Kelly and Michelle Malkin Call Out Eric Holder on Lame Warning of Retaliation Against Muslims:

Mosque that Boston suspects attended has radical ties

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Terror suspects, fugitives and radical speakers have passed through the Cambridge mosque that the Tsarnaev brothers are known to have visited.

USA TODAY

By Oren Dorell:

BOSTON — The mosque attended by the two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon double bombing has been associated with other terrorism suspects, has invited radical speakers to a sister mosque in Boston and is affiliated with a Muslim group that critics say nurses grievances that can lead to extremism.

Several people who attended the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, Mass., have been investigated for Islamic terrorism, including a conviction of the mosque’s first president, Abdulrahman Alamoudi, in connection with an assassination plot against a Saudi prince.

Its sister mosque in Boston, known as the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, has invited guests who have defended terrorism suspects. A former trustee appears in a series of videos in which he advocates treating gays as criminals, says husbands should sometimes beat their wives and calls on Allah (God) to kill Zionists and Jews, according to Americans for Peace and Tolerance, an interfaith group that has investigated the mosques.

The head of the group is among critics who say the two mosques teach a brand of Islamic thought that encourages grievances against the West, distrust of law enforcement and opposition to Western forms of government, dress and social values.

“We don’t know where these boys were radicalized, but this mosque has a curriculum that radicalizes people. Other people have been radicalized there,” said the head of the group, Charles Jacobs.

Yusufi Vali, executive director at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, insists his mosque does not spread radical ideology and cannot be blamed for the acts of a few worshipers.

“If there were really any worry about us being extreme,” Vali said, U.S. law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and Departments of Justice and Homeland Security would not partner with the Muslim American Society and the Boston mosque in conducting monthly meetings that have been ongoing for four years, he said, in an apparent reference to U.S. government outreach programs in the Muslim community.

The Cambridge and Boston mosques, separated by the Charles River, are owned by the same entity but managed individually. The imam of the Cambridge mosque, Sheik Basyouny Nehela, is on the board of directors of the Boston mosque.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, attended the Cambridge mosque for services and are accused of setting two bombs that killed three people and injured at least 264 others at the April 15 Boston Marathon.

The FBI has not indicated that either mosque was involved in any criminal activity, but mosque attendees and officials have been implicated in terrorist activity:

• Alamoudi, who signed the articles of incorporation as the Cambridge mosque’s president, was sentenced to 23 years in federal court in Alexandria, Va., in 2004 for his role as a facilitator in what federal prosecutors called a Libyan assassination plot against then-crown prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Abdullah is now the Saudi king.

Aafia Siddiqui is shown after her graduation from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.(Photo: AP)

Aafia Siddiqui is shown after her graduation from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.(Photo: AP)

• Aafia Siddiqui, who occasionally prayed at the Cambridge mosque, was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 while in possession of cyanide canisters and plans for a chemical attack in New York City. She tried to grab a rifle while in detention and shot at military officers and FBI agents, for which she was convicted in New York in 2010 and is serving an 86-year sentence.

The 2009 booking photo of Tarek Mehanna, of Sudbury, Mass.(Photo: Sudbury Police Department via AP)

The 2009 booking photo of Tarek Mehanna, of Sudbury, Mass.(Photo: Sudbury Police Department via AP)

• Tarek Mehanna, who worshiped at the Cambridge mosque, was sentenced in 2012 to 17 years in prison for conspiring to aid al-Qaeda. Mehanna had traveled to Yemen to seek terrorist training and plotted to use automatic weapons to shoot up a mall in the Boston suburbs, federal investigators in Boston alleged.

• Ahmad Abousamra, the son of a former vice president of the Muslim American Society Boston Abdul-Badi Abousamra, was identified by the FBI as Mehanna’s co-conspirator. He fled to Syria and is wanted by the FBI on charges of providing support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill Americans in a foreign country.

• Jamal Badawi of Canada, a former trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston Trust, which owns both mosques, was named as a non-indicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial in Texas over the funneling of money to Hamas, which is the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

What both mosques have in common is an affiliation with the Muslim American Society, an organization founded in 1993 that describes itself as an American Islamic revival movement. It has also been described by federal prosecutors in court as the “overt arm” of the Muslim Brotherhood, which calls for Islamic law and is the parent organization of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

Critics say the Muslim American Society promotes a fraught relationship with the United States, expressed in part by the pattern discussed by Americans for Progress and Tolerance in which adherents are made to feel cut off from their home country and to identify with a global Islamist political community rather than with America.

Zhudi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said the radical teachings often follow a theme of recitation of grievances that Islam has with the West, advocacy against U.S. foreign policy and terrorism prosecutions, and efforts “to evangelize Islam in order to improve Western society that is secularized,” he says.

Jasser, a veteran of the U.S. Navy and author of the 2012 book A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot Fights to Save His Faith, says the teachings make some followers feel “like their national identity is completely absent and hollow, and that vacuum can be filled by (radical) Islamic ideology, which is supremacist and looks upon the West as evil.”

The Cambridge mosque was founded in 1982 by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and several other Boston-area schools, according to a profile by the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. Its members founded the sister mosque in Boston in 2009.

The leadership of the two mosques is intertwined, and the ideology they teach is the same, Jacobs said. Ilya Feoktistov, director of research at Americans for Peace and Tolerance, said much of the money to create the Boston mosque came not from local Muslims but from foreign sources.

More than half of the $15.5 million used to found the Boston mosque came from Saudi sources, Feoktistov said, who cites financial documents that Jacobs’ group obtained when the mosque sued it for defamation. The lawsuit was later dropped.

Vali said that the vast majority of total donors were in the United States and that “no donations were accepted if the donor wanted to have any decision-making influence (even if benign).”

Vali characterized Americans for Peace and Tolerance and its founder, Jacobs, as anti-Muslim activists who spread “lies and half-truths in order to attack and marginalize much of the local Muslim community and many of its institutions.”

“It’s the new McCarthyism in full swing,” he said.

Sheik Basyouny Nehela, the imam of the Cambridge mosque, which is located across the Charles River from Boston, is on the board of directors for the Muslim American Society of Boston, which runs the Boston mosque. The Tsarnaevs attended the Cambridge mosque.

A statement issued by the Cambridge mosque said the Tsarnaev brothers were “occasional visitors.” The mosque’s office manager, Nichole Mossalam, said neither brother expressed radical views. “They never exhibited any violent sentiments or behaviors. Otherwise, they would have been reported,” Mossalam said.

The Cambridge mosque said Tsarnaev, 26, who died Thursday night in a shootout with police, “disagreed with the moderate American-Islamic theology” of the mosque. Tsarnaev challenged an imam who said in his sermon that it was appropriate to celebrate U.S. national holidays and was told to stop such outbursts, the mosque said in a statement.

Talal Eid, a Muslim chaplain at Brandeis University, said focusing on individual radicals that prayed in a building is unfair.

“In 2011, the two brothers were right under the nose of the FBI and they didn’t find anything,” Eid said, who never met the Tsarnaevs. “How do you want me as an imam to know enough to tell them they are not welcome here? How can I figure out those people have that kind of criminal intent?”

The Muslim American Society says on its website that it is independent of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, early Brotherhood literature is considered “the foundational texts for the intellectual component for Islamic work in America,” the website states.

Jacobs says claims of moderate Islam do not square with the mosque’s classic jihadi texts in its library and its hosting of radical speakers.

Jacobs said Ahmed Mansour, his co-director at Americans for Peace and Tolerance, found writings by Syed Qutb, the former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and other jihadi texts at the Cambridge mosque’s library when Mansour went there in 2003. Qutb pioneered the radical violent ideology espoused by al-Qaeda.

Yusuf al Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader who espouses radical views in videos collected by Jacobs’ group, was listed as a trustee on the Cambridge mosque’s IRS filings until 2000, and on the mosque’s website until 2003, when he addressed congregants via recorded video message to raise money for the Boston mosque, according to a screenshot of the announcement that Feoktistov provided.

Vali said Qaradawi was listed as an honorary trustee years ago only because his scholarship and high esteem in Muslim circles would help with fundraising.

Yasir Qadhi, who lectured at the Boston mosque in April 2009, has advocated replacing U.S. democracy with Islamic rule and called Christians “filthy” polytheists whose “life and prosperity … holds no value in the state of Jihad,” according to a video obtained by Jacobs’ group.

Vali said Qadhi was a guest of a non-profit organization that was renting space at the Boston mosque and has changed his views since that video was made.

Jacobs and others say it is not only renters who express sympathetic views for terrorists. Leaders of the Boston and Cambridge mosques, and invited guests, have advocated on behalf of convicted terrorists, urging followers to seek their release or lenient sentences.

Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, sometimes a spokesman for the Boston mosque, used Siddiqui’s case to speak against the USA Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism law passed under the George W. Bush administration. “After they’re done with (Siddiqui), they are going to come to your door if they feel like it,” he said, according to a video obtained by Americans for Peace and Tolerance.

Anwar Kazmi, a member of the Cambridge mosque’s board of trustees, called for leniency for Mehanna and Siddiqui at a Boston rally in February 2012, in a video posted to YouTube. He characterized Siddiqui’s 86-year sentence as excessive.

In an interview with USA TODAY, Kazmi insisted that the Cambridge mosque is moderate and condemns the marathon bombings. On Monday, the mosque e-mailed members to caution them that the FBI may question them and that they may want to seek representation.

“This kind of violence, terrorism, it’s just completely contrary to the spirit of Islam,” Kasmi said. “The words in the Quran say if anybody kills even a single human being without just cause, it’s as if you’ve killed all of humanity.”

Contributing: Yamiche Alcindor

 

The Boston Mosque – TheBlazeTV – The Glenn Beck Program – 2013.04.23:

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Massachusetts Governor’s problems may be bigger than previously thought

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The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center

The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center

by :

This is a bit of a continuation from a post from yesterday. Before continuing, you may want to check this out first. Upon doing so, take note of the relationship between Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick – a Democrat – and the Muslim American Society (MAS).

That relationship, when viewed in the context of the video below only makes Patrick’s relationship with the Muslim community in Boston all the more troubling.

With that as a foundation, let’s take a look at another story of terrorism in Boston. In October of 2010, a would-be Muslim terrorist from Sudbury, MA – a suburb of Boston – named Tarek Mehanna was arrested before he could carry out his plot to gun down shoppers in a mall. Stories like these don’t get nearly the attention that successful attacks do but in this case, Mehanna’s intent and connections are quite newsworthy in light of the marathon bombings.

In fact, Mehanna’s co-conspirator – Ahmad Abousamra – is really the ‘person of interest’ in this case. As you’ll see in the video, Mehanna met Abousamra at the Islamic Center of New England (ICNE), an entity linked to the broader Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which has long been identified as a Muslim Brotherhood group in the U.S.

Read the rest at  Shoebat.com

 

 

Interview with Charles Jacobs of Americans for Peace and Tolerance:

 

 

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Massachusetts Governor appears to have some explaining to do

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Abdullah Farooq

Abdullah Farooq

by :

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick – a Democrat – appears to have himself a bit of an Imam problem dating back to 2010. On May 22nd of that year, Patrick embraced an Imam named Abdullah Faarooq and the Muslim American Society (MAS), a group whose secretary-general said was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Just a couple months earlier, Faarooq spoke at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center & Mosque and said this:

“Grab onto the shovel, grab onto the gun, and the sword, don’t be afraid to step out into this world.”

Here is a must-see video about Patrick’s embrace and a disturbing reality about this cultural center. Take note that the Center’s founder is none other than Abdurahman Alamoudi, who is serving a multiple year prison sentence for charges related to terrorism. He also worked in the Clinton State Department as a goodwill ambassador (h/t BNI and Andrew Bostom):

 

According to Breitbart, one of the Chechen marathon bombers attended the Islamic Society of Boston mosque. That mosque works in conjunction with the Cultural Center that Patrick was so comfortable supporting.

Incidentally, in light of CNN’s expert on the attacks – Juliette Kayyem –tripping all over herself to avoid calling the bombings what they are – Jihadist attacks – it is interesting that Kayyem once served as Deval Patrick’s homeland security advisor.

American Muslim Brotherhood Member is New Syrian Prime Minister

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hitto-450x299Front Page -

By :

America and Europe have served as safe havens for a generation of Islamists looking to take over their own countries. Iranian Islamists like Khomeini hung out in Paris. Arab Islamists hung out in the United States.

If you loved Morsi, meet Ghassan Hitto, the choice of the rebels to be the Prime Minister of an imaginary government. Hitto was no doubt chosen for his American background and his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Just last year Ghassan Hitto was an IT executive in Dallas whose focus was probably lines of code or how to deliver a project on time. But today he was giving a speech in Istanbul in which he insisted his new priority was to utilise “all conceivable means” to topple President Bashar al-Assad and provide desperately-needed aid to the beleaguered people of Syria.

He was voted in by 35 of the 49 coalition members who cast ballots, but another 15 members were not present – with several walking out in protest at Mr Hitto’s perceived links to the Muslim Brotherhood and its backers in Qatar.

Alongside the legitimacy issues caused by the expatriate nature of the opposition, the coalition has also been beset by divisions between Islamists and liberal members, and Mr Hitto’s election was no different. And despite being touted as a “consensus candidate” that could unite both sides, former Syrian National Council head Burhan Ghalioun and prominent dissidents Walid al Bunni and Kamal al-Labwani were among those who abstained from the vote.

Mr al-Labwani told The Independent that outnumbered liberals could do little to get their voices heard and said he planned to resign from the coalition.

“The government is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Qatar government,” Mr al-Labwani said. “We will be against this government and will not give it legality. Democracy is from the land and from the people not from a council that is composed by the government of Qatar.”

Known for being religiously pious, Mr Hitto had been an active member of the Muslim community in the US. He headed the board of the largest Islamic school in the country and was also a board member of the local chapter of the Muslim American Society, according to friends. The society was set up by the Muslim Brotherhood but now downplays its links to the organisation.

Dallas-based security adviser Mohamed Elibiary, who has known Mr Hitto for the past 10-years described him as “more of an intellectual Islamic activist than a rank and file Islamist type”. “He is broadly respected amongst various segments of the Muslim community including by Muslim Brotherhood members,” he said, adding that he was a “consummate hard negotiating diplomat.”

Mohamed Elibiary is not exactly the guy you want to be defending your credibility, but at least some of the Brotherhood’s stooges are coming out of the closet now that it’s time for them to take power.

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State Department Recruits Future Diplomats at Muslim Brotherhood Jihadist Event

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weiner20n-2-web-450x267By Daniel Greenfield:

Because one Huma Abedin just isn’t enough.

The Obama administration is covertly recruiting Muslims to work at the State Department as Foreign Service officers representing the United States in one of 265 American embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions worldwide. It appears to be part of the administration’s Muslim outreach effort, which includes a variety of controversial moves.

Ward held a 90-minute seminar at a recent convention sponsored by two groups—Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)—with known ties to radical Islam. Both nonprofits are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is known as the parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda. In fact, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reports that MAS was founded as the U.S. chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood which strives to indoctrinate the world with Islamic Sharia law.

Yet there was a U.S. State Department official, side by side at a radical Islamic powwow in Chicago with a number of speakers who advocate violent jihad. Among them was Kifah Mustapha, a fundraiser at terrorist organization (Holy Land Foundation) convicted of funneling millions to Hamas and Jamal Badawi, a MAS founder who praised the jihad of Gaza terrorists during a speech titled “Understanding Jihad and Martyrdom.”

The conference that Ward conducted focused on career opportunities for Muslim youth. Here is how the event was billed: “Besides being a citizenship duty, there are benefits that Muslims can add to the American Muslim community and the global Muslim world by joining the US Foreign Services. This session will shed light on the different career opportunities for Muslim youth in the US Foreign Services Department. It will also clear any concerns that many people have feared about pursuing in this career.”

What about the concerns of Americans who may be concerned that Obama Inc. has decided to recruit members of Islamist Supremacist groups and supporters of Islamic terrorism into the diplomatic corps of the United States?

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Organization of Islamic Cooperation on the Defensive Over Shariah in America

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20110225_Shariah4Americaby CLARE M. LOPEZ

For all who’ve been working hard to educate Americans on the facts about  Islamic Law (shariah), there are some encouraging signals. The Organization  of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its affiliated network, including the  Muslim Brotherhood in America, would seem to be in full-on defensive mode about  shariah if a recent Brotherhood conference and a couple of new reports are  indicative.

At the Muslim American Society (MAS)-Islamic  Circle of North America (ICNA) conference in Chicago, Illinois 21-25  December 2012, a few thousand mostly Arabic speaking Muslims circled the wagons  for a five-day program aimed at rousing them to defense of Islam. The Islamic  Circle of North America (ICNA), acknowledged in the Brotherhood’s 1991 “Explanatory  Memorandum” as one of its organizations, and the Muslim American Society  (MAS) co-sponsored the 11th Annual MAS-ICNA  Convention. The Convention speakers roster featured Tariq  Ramadan, scion of the Brotherhood’s al-Banna founding family; Nihad  Awad, the Executive Director of HAMAS’  U.S. branch, CAIR  (Council on American Islamic Relations); Siraj  Wahhaj, Imam of the al-Taqwa Mosque in Brooklyn, NY and included on a list  of unindicted  co-conspirators from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial;  and  Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA),  the largest Muslim  Brotherhood front group in the U.S.

The Convention theme of “Renaissance” was all about getting American Muslims  to experience a “double revolution in intellect and psychology,” as Ramadan put  it, so they’d be energized enough to stand up to an alleged atmosphere of   “Islamophobia” in the U.S. that has shariah in its sights. This theme, of  course, is straight out of the OIC’s “Islamophobia  Observatory” which hyperventilates about such things at Foreign Ministers  meetings and in regular reports posted to its website.

A 19 January 2013 report from the Brookings Institute’s Doha Center entitled,  “A  Rights Agenda For The Muslim World,” presents a full-throated apologia for  the OIC’s allegedly frustrated efforts to get its recalcitrant member states to  integrate shariah with modern international standards on human rights. The  problem seems to be that the OIC allows some of those countries with a “conservative  brand of Islam” too much leeway to cling to their  “emphasis  on national sovereignty,” which just wrecks the OIC Secretary General  Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu’s sincere efforts to implement more effective “supra-national  human rights mechanisms.”  Apparently, according to the report’s  author, Turan Kayaoglu, Ihsanoglu wants to make human rights the centerpiece of  the OIC agenda, which Turan says “shows  a gradual move away from emphasizing the centrality of shariah.” Supposedly,  Ihsanoglu increasingly is willing to “discuss  these issues in the context of international human rights rather than  exclusively within that of Islamic law and tradition.” A quick check of the  OIC website shows the “Islamophobia Observatory” is still up and the Human  Rights page features the UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 (the one  about restricting free speech criticism of Islam) and other items about “combating intolerance,  negative stereotyping, and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to  violence and violence against persons, based on religion or  belief“-i.e., Islam.

Nothing much about international standards of human rights superseding  shariah anytime soon, but the OIC did establish an “Independent Permanent  Commission on Human Rights” (IPHRC) in 2011, the Brookings report says, that is  supposed to “promote  the civil social, and economic rights enshrined in the organization’s human  rights documents.” Of course, the 1990 Cairo  Declaration that abrogates the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human  Rights in favor of shariah is still posted in its usual spot on the OIC’s Human  Rights page, so maybe they just haven’t gotten around to updating that yet. But  in the meantime, the OIC wants everyone to know that its focus on shariah is  definitely on the wane. Really.

Read more: Family Security Matters

New Islamist Mosque Opens in Virginia

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Picture-9-363x350By Ryan Mauro

Last month, a new mosque called the ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America) Islamic Center opened in Alexandria, Virginia. ICNA, an Islamist group with origins in the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan, framed its inauguration as an interfaith victory, giving thanks to the three churches that let them worship on their premises as the mosque project was completed.

The two-story mosque replaced a house that was bought by ICNA in 2000. It says the facility cost $850,000 to build and can accommodate about 150 people. Good Shepherd Catholic Church, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and Aldersgate United Methodist Church allowed ICNA’s Northern Virginia chapter to worship as the mosque was being built

ICNA’s use of Aldersgate United Methodist Church led to a favorable segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which praised its pastor and mocked an evangelical critic. In one scene, the critic is seen saying mosques wouldn’t allow their premises to be used for Christian prayers. The correspondent joked about how embarrassing it’d be for him if the show cut to a clip of Christians being invited to a mosque.

Ironically, the clip the Daily Show showed was of Mohammed El-Filali of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, a mosque with extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. El-Filali led a chant comparing Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to Hitler at a rally in 2002. He also refused to condemn Palestinian suicide bombers in an interview with the Associated Press.

The pro-ICNA churches and the Daily Show apparently didn’t take the time to pop ICNA’s name into a search engine. If they did, it wouldn’t have taken long to find documentation of the group’s Islamist history.

Its origins lie with a Pakistani Islamist group called Jamaat-e-Islami. ICNA’s own publication said in 1996 that it was founded with the “organizational development methodology” of Jamaat-e-Islami’s founder. A former ICNA president and secretary-general, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, was indicted by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal in October for his role as “chief executioner” in at least 18 political assassinations in 1971. Khan belonged to the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami.

A 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood strategic memorandum, which says its “work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within,” lists ICNA as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” The memo refers to productive meetings between ICNA and the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood “in an attempt to reach a unity of merger.” ICNA has long held its annual conferences in conjunction with the Muslim American Society, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, in apparent fulfillment of this objective.

ICNA has not abandoned its Islamist ideology since then. Its 2010 handbook laid out a five-level strategy towards achieving a “united Islamic state, governed by an elected khalifah in accordance with the laws of shari’ah (Islamic law),” right in line with the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine of gradualism. Its last conference in December featured at least a dozen Islamist speakers, including ones that have supported Hamas and have ties to the Brotherhood. Among the event’s sponsors were Turkish Airlines and the DISH Network.

Read more at Front Page

DISH Network, Turkish Airlines Support Islamist Conference in U.S.

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330x171xNEtCRdMiG0dz_png_pagespeed_ic_NN5y_eKAeDBy Ryan Mauro

The annual convention of the Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) brings together Islamists from around the U.S. and outside the country. This year’s event, held on December 21-25, had at least a dozen Islamist speakers with links to the Muslim Brotherhood and histories of extremist rhetoric. (See our previous article about the here.)

One speaker who was booked for the event, Saudi Sheikh Ayed Al-Qarni, is so radical that the U.S. government refused to let him enter the country to attend the conference.

Advocating for his entry into the U.S. was CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (whose executive-director spoke at the event), who demanded that the U.S. allow him in.

MAS was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood and ICNA is listed in a 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.”

Renting venues and equipment, covering travel expenses, purchasing advertising and all the other costs that come with these huge events (MAS-ICNA expected nearly 10,000 people) are not cheap. That’s where sponsors come in. Helping with this year’s event was the DISH Network and Turkish Airlines. Their logos are seen at the bottom of the convention home page and were printed on the bags given to attendees.

It’s unclear why the DISH Network would sponsor an event like this. You can click here to email them and ask them. Press them to commit to ending their financial support for future MAS-ICNA events.

Turkish Airlines at least has a customer base to target. Turkish Airlines donated two economy class plane tickets to the 2011 conference of American Muslims for Palestine but, contrary to original reports, decided against supporting the 2012 conference because of its “highly political nature.” Turkish Airlines should be encouraged to end its support for MAS-ICNA events as well. A proper email address was not found at its website, but a mailing address was found: Levent Selvili; Turkish Airlines; General Manager, Chicago; 455 N. Cityfront Plaza Dr., Ste. 2560; Chicago, IL 60611

Go to Radical Islam to see list of other MAS-ICNA convention sponsors

RadicalIslam.org will be happy to post any response from the DISH Network or Turkish Airlines you receive explaining their sponsorship of this Islamist event.

Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org’s National Security Analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.

CAIR Protests Saudi Radical’s Exclusion From U.S.

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MAS-ICNA annual conferenceIPT News

The head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) vows to complain to U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials after they blocked a radical Saudi cleric from entering the country this week to attend a national Islamist conference in Chicago.

Sheikh Ayed al-Qarni was scheduled to speak twice during the Muslim American-Society (MAS)/Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) national convention Dec. 22-25. But a statement released during the convention expressed “the unpleasant and saddening news” that al-Qarni had been removed from his flight from Saudi Arabia despite having a visa from the U.S. embassy, and that he appears to be on the U.S. “no-fly list.” Al-Qarni is described as “one of our great speakers” and as someone known “for his logical discourse and balanced views, he promotes understanding and collaboration between all people, regardless of their faith, background, or language.”

Al-Qarni has advocated jihad in the past and his preaching on the subject has been described as influential among al-Qaida followers.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad told an Arabic news outlet that he would protest al-Qarni’s exclusion with DHS and State Department officials. “We defend all Muslims who are subject to arbitrary measure, and by this logic, we will act but not formally plead, unless we obtain authorization from him.”

It’s an ironic protest to make in light of a public relations campaign orchestrated by CAIR’s Chicago chapter. “MyJihad” aims to show non-Muslims that the term jihad is more about peaceful, personal attempts at overcoming challenges than about calls for violence and terror.

Through Awad, also a listed speaker at the convention, CAIR is fighting to bring a Saudi cleric into the United States who has argued the exact opposite message. During a 2005 sermon flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), al-Qarni called the jihad against American forces in Fallujah ”a source of pride … downing their planes, destroying equipment, slaughtering them, taking them hostage, and proclaiming ‘Allah Akhbar’ from the mosques, and the worshippers and the preacher cursing them in their prayers, and then come others begging for forgiveness, and requesting a dialogue and a ceasefire and negotiations. Who can say even one word against this true Jihad against these colonialist occupiers?” [Emphasis added]

He belittled Muslims who failed to take action, including “harming the Jews.” He invoked Israel’s targeted killings of Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, saying he prayed that Allah “will destroy the Jews and their helpers from among the Christians and the Communists, and that He will turn them into the Muslims’ spoils. I praise the Jihad, the sacrifice, and the resistance against the occupiers in Iraq. We curse them all of them every night and pray that Allah will annihilate them, tear them apart, and grant us victory over them…”

“Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered,” al-Qarni said. “This is the path to victory, to shahada, and to sacrifice.”

This was no one-time rant.

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