Ahmed Al-Rabei The declaration made by the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh stating that he would not stand as a candidate for another term as president of the republic was a bombshell that surprised us all. It has introduced a new feature into the culture of Arab political ideology. If such a statement is followed through, historians will boldly write that Ali Abdullah Saleh is the first Arab president to step down and abandon rule completely aware of the road that he has chosen to take!
He's right. Usually Arab heads of state either die in office from old age, like Yasser, or they're carried out feet-first, leaving a trail of blood from multiple performations. With the exception of Lebanon, which isn't a real good role model, he'll become the first Arab elder statesman ever.
Me message to him is this, stand firm in your decision! Do not allow the voices of Sana'a to persuade you to reconsider your decision. They will tell you (and they probably already have) that if you resign the country will be ruined and the people will perish. Do not believe them and it seems that you are far more intelligent to believe such words. Let them protest and demonstrate, illustrating their support for you but do not listen to them.
Balancing the guys hollering in the street is the knowledge that the U.S. isn't going to lift a finger to support a president-for-life should something untoward happen. We had good relations with Shevardnadze, and waved bye-bye when he departed. Same with Akayev. Same with Islam Karimov. We're obviously putting diplomatic pressure on Mubarak, Baby Assad, and the others like them, not that it's doing much good at this point, but unless Osama bin Laden himself descends on Sanaa, grimacing ferociously, Saleh would be on his own next term. And the knowledge that he's going to do the right thing will make us support him for the remainder of this term, plus give lots of positive strokes to Yemen.
I assure you that your name will be proudly engraved into Arab history. Fathers will point out your picture in the newspapers and tell their sons that this is the Arab leader who consciously let go of power when he felt the time was correct. Your decision, Mr. President, has filled us with happiness. Therefore, please do not disappoint us by going back on it. It is your duty to contradict those who claim that the statement is a tactical effort towards the election campaigns and to ultimately, continue your post as president.
Saleh's a pretty smart fellow. I think he's deciphered the handwriting on the wall without any assistance.
Think about all the respect that you will gain when received as an honorable guest in Arab conferences and meetings, and when visiting the Yemeni governorates as a former president without the hassle of guards or procession cars. We want you to fulfill our dream of holding the title of 'former Arab president', a title that nobody has previously held.
See? The world really is changing, and much of it's due to that idiot, George Bush. Amazing, how that works...
Mr. President, fight for your decision! Refuse all calls to withdraw from it. We also plead that you persuade your son not to run for presidency so that it does not seem that you strategically gave up your position for it to be filled by him. You will discover after leaving office that there are joys of the simple, modest life of which you were deprived. Mr. President, uphold your decision and may God bless you!
Posted by: Fred ||
07/24/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Additionally,Mr. priesident history will record you as one of the great leaders of the World.
The same goes for many other countries than Australia.
ANDREW BOLT
It's time we accepted the difficult truth: many of the Muslims we invite to live in Australia want to destroy us.
FOR four years, since the September 11 attacks, I've begged our Islamic leaders to drive extremists from their mosques.
For four years I've also reassured you that most Muslims here are moderate.
I've even insisted they have some moderate Muslim leaders, and last week again endorsed Sheik Fehmi Naji El-Imam of Preston mosque as a man of peace.
How eager I was to praise. Heavens, I described as "moderate" the Melbourne-based Islamic Information Services Network of Australia (IISNA), which purged from its website articles I'd noted claiming democracy was a sin, Jews were behind September 11 and Western society was a pollution.
But was I just kidding myself? Isn't it becoming terribly clear that Islam -- at least the Islam of Australia's Arab sheiks and imams -- is hostile to our society?
Isn't it now obvious we should never have let into our country those imams who now preach hate?
Isn't the evidence that some cultures -- Muslim Arab ones -- pose more problems than their importation at this rate is worth? Isn't multiculturalism making these problems worse?
I know these are dangerous, hurtful questions. I also know many Muslims will feel deeply offended, loving this country and obeying its laws, and I wish only I heard from them far more often.
But the London bombings, perpetrated by home-grown Muslims, makes our silence on such issues not a sign of civility, but suicide.
So let me admit that the past few days have been terrible for those of us who thought we could count on Muslim leaders for real help against the Muslim extremists who threaten us.
Such setbacks we've had.
Only last week I'd praised Sheik Fehmi as a good man, who'd condemned the London bombings. But a day later he was asked about fellow Melbourne sheik Mohammed Omran, a friend of a suspected al-Qaida boss, who'd claimed September 11 was really the work of a US-based conspiracy.
"He is entitled to his own thinking," Fehmi replied meekly. Then, asked if Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorists had committed those attacks, he added: "We cannot say. We do not know these things."
How can Muslim leaders fight terrorism, when the most moderate of them won't condemn even bin Laden, or admit that monster's self-confessed guilt?
Fehmi was not my only disappointment. I checked the IISNA site this week, and among the announcements of classes and prayers found this advice to a reader who'd asked if it was a sin to kill non-Muslims:
"In regard to non-Muslims who are at war with the Muslims and do not have a peace treaty with the Muslims or are not living under Muslim rule, then Muslims are commanded to kill them, because Allah says . . . 'Fight those of the disbelievers who are close to you, and let them find harshness in you.' "
If that's advice passed on by a "moderate" Islamic group, what must the radical ones here say?
Well, we know that, too. In a Melbourne bookshop run by Omran a Herald Sun reporter this month found books being sold that command Muslims to ready for war and to hate Jews.
In Sydney last week, the Islamic Bookshop, Australia's largest of the kind, was found (again) selling similar poison near the Lakemba mosque, including a book with tips on how to blow yourself up and kill plenty.
"The form this usually takes nowadays is to wire up one's body, or a vehicle or a suitcase with explosives and then to enter among a conglomeration of the enemy and to detonate," it says.
"There is no other technique which strikes as much terror into their hearts."
Again and again we're told such things aren't typical. Apologists, too often Muslim converts with little clout among ethnic groups, claim Islam means peace. But again and again we are left feeling like dupes.
The genuinely charming Waleed Aly, of the Islamic Council of Victoria, goes on 3AW to tell us the radical Mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj el-Din el-Hilaly, who has praised suicide bombers as "heroes" and called the September 11 attacks "God's work against oppressors", is not a big worry because he represents no one. Aly says he doesn't even know who made the man a mufti, our highest ranking Islamic cleric.
But the truth, Waleed, is that your own council voted to make Hilaly the Mufti in a decision of the Federation of Islamic Councils of Australia. Why won't you sack him?
Everywhere disappointment. Hilaly's spokesman, Keysar Trad, soothes us with false claims that the Mufti is misquoted and is a proud Australian, but he turns out himself to have been a translator for the Islamic Youth Movement, a pro-bin Laden group whose leader, Bilal Khazal, now faces terrorism-related charges in Sydney.
We also find Trad has written articles with lines such as: "The criminal dregs of white society colonised this country (Australia) and . . . the descendants of these criminal dregs tell us that they are better than us."
Faced with such evidence whichever way I turn, what else can I think about Islam -- or Arab Islam, at least -- but that it is an enemy of our culture, our society? And I ask: How did we come to let in the extremist preachers of such a hostile creed?
Why did we let in sheiks such as the Jordanian-born Omran, who declares Islam rejects democracy and instructs Muslims to go to Iraq to fight coalition troops? Why did we let in the Egyptian-born Hilaly?
But so much that we did in the name of multiculturalism was dangerously naive. Just think: only a few years ago the jihad-preaching Islamic Youth Movement, which met in Hilaly's mosque, was given three grants -- two state multicultural grants to run language classes and one work-for-the-dole grant to smarten up its offices.
Then there was all that other multicultural pampering to help Muslim ethnic groups here keep their distance, their "identity".
In March, the Victorian Multicultural Commission, whose grants budget the Bracks Government has tripled, even ran a football carnival for teenagers who were split into ethnic teams -- the Turks playing the Greeks, the Lebanese the Jews and so on.
Does this make any sense in a society where the urgent need now is not to reinforce old tribal loyalties, but dissolve them in a warm pool called "Australia"?
As you figure the answer, remember that Lebanese Australian children at the Muslim-dominated Moreland Secondary College, now closed after non-Muslim students fled, danced for joy at the September 11 attacks. Remember Lebanese ethnic gangs are strong in Sydney.
How hapless we've been, refusing to admit we were importing a problem that multiculturalism could only make worse.
For example, we have allowed into Australia Lebanese -- many of them Muslim -- who are often uneducated, unskilled and poor
in English. Their Islam was yet another barrier to their assimilation.
The results were as predictable as they were politely ignored -- a jobless rate and imprisonment rate double that of other Australians. Gangs. Poverty. A near ghetto in Lakemba.
What an unholy recipe: First we build a vulnerable underclass of unassimilated people with a religion of rejection. Then we let loose on them imported radicals preaching a hatred of our society; teachers who instruct them in the shame of our history; and multiculturalists who pay them to keep their distance and retain their much nicer ways.
A LL this always was foolish. Now we see it was dangerous as well, since British-born Muslims bred in a similar stew of multiculturalism, ethnic enclaves and Islamist extremism, have gone to war.
We need now to change ideas once thought sacred by our cultural elite.
First, we must be more wary about the dangers of importing cultures that clash with the one that has built this free, rich and democratic society.
As a former Chief Justice, the late Sir Harry Gibbs, said in 2002: "A state is entitled to prevent the immigration of persons whose culture is such that they are unlikely readily to integrate into society, or at least to ensure that persons of that kind do not enter the country in such numbers that they will be likely to form a distinct and alien section of society, with the resulting problems that we have seen in the UK."
Second, we must ban mosques from hiring imams from overseas, or at least those who preach race hate or damn democracy. If Islam does mean peace, let only peace be preached.
And, third, we must show more pride in this country, and switch our multicultural cash from funding division to building unity.
After all, the duty of government is to make one nation out of many tribes -- and not the deadly reverse.
#1
We need now to change ideas once thought sacred by our cultural elite.
Heed this man's words-- the sooner, the better.
I've lost all but the tiniest sliver of hope that there is going to be any effective answer to the menace of totalitarian Islam, other than banishing Muslims utterly from our midst. They simply must go. All of them.
If we do not remove these people from among us, we will eventually be burned to death in situ by the hypergolic mixture of Islam and Western society.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/24/2005 10:30 Comments ||
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#2
The writer admits that as recently as the previous week he was part of the problem. This is a nice -- and pointed -- opinion piece, but will he still hold this opinion, so foreign to his nature, a week or two in the future?
#3
A French report found that over 60% of imams were collecting welfare, while preaching Koran hate. As one would not invite a cockroach infestation of one's home, why allow the Muslim pestilence to infest our countries? The Koran is nothing but a terror manual. Once we admit that, then we can wage a real war on Muslim terror. Check out this ban-the-koran book:
http://voi.org/books/tcqp/
And this free book on Muslim Hadith perversity:
http://voi.org/books/uith/
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
07/24/2005 13:00 Comments ||
Top||
#4
A French report found that over 60% of imams were collecting welfare, while preaching Koran hate. As one would not invite a cockroach infestation of one's home, why allow the Muslim pestilence to infest our countries? The Koran is nothing but a terror manual. Once we admit that, then we can wage a real war on Muslim terror. Check out this ban-the-koran book:
http://voi.org/books/tcqp/
And this free book on Muslim Hadith perversity:
http://voi.org/books/uith/
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
07/24/2005 13:04 Comments ||
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#5
Here is the key sentence: "If Islam does mean peace, let only peace be preached. "
Any Moslem leader who advocates, or says the Koran and other Islamic texts require, war against non-Moslems -- must be arrested, tried and executed. Any Moslem leader who praises Bin Laden, Zarqawi, and other terrorist leaders must be arrested, tried and executed.
Here is the key request to make of our political leaders in the West: enforce "If Islam does mean peace, let only peace be preached. " And execute all Moslems who preach war on us (the West and Israel) and our freedom. Any Moslem who preaches war on non-Moslems has declared war and must be treated as such.
If Germany persists in its refusal to extradite an al-Qaeda suspect to Spain, Spain may reciprocate by declining to extradite its citizens to Germany, the National Court said Thursday.
Germany's Constitutional Court recently ruled against the extradition of Syrian-born Mamoun Darkazanli on the grounds that the European Union extradition law violated the constitutional rights of German citizens.
Darkazanli is accused by Spain of being an al-Qaeda key figure who has provided logistical and financial support to the network since 1997 in Spain, Germany and Britain.
Germany's highest court's decision was seen as a major blow to European
attempts to streamline extradition procedures.
The Spanish judiciary will only take a decision after getting a detailed explanation from Germany, National Court sources added.
Hat Tip to this LFG post which bitchslaps the London Times for their agenda-driven factual ommision... read: lying to fit their PC Moonbattery. Main link points to the Times article for those who wish to swill some Sunday Kool Aid.
Sir Winston just rocks.
âHow dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.â
âSir Winston Churchill, from The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899) 1899. Sir Winston would not be surprised that nothing of substance has changed since.
Islam: a Human Pathogen worthy of the full application of Western science - military science, methinks.
#3
Excellent post, Dotcom! Thanks.
Peace and blessings be upon you and Charles Johnson of LGF who's been doing the Lord's work for the last 4 years.
Who is like unto Churchill?
What a wonderful, wonderful man, leader and statesman for the ages.
We can only hope that he's leading the angels to help us Up There but Thank God he left us his legacy and his writings as a guide.
#4
Except that we in America don't seem too dedicated or truly engaged in science anymore. Just look at the way genetic research is being held up while our enemies cultivate it (viz. stem cell research) or, even more basically, how about the fact that most Americans seem to have an insuperable opposition to the theory of evolution, which is the foundation of modern biology - genetics included! I think some you who now smugly cheer our Fearless Leader from the stands will, unfortunately, inhabit a country which has willingly (and willfully) abandonded it's commitment to free scientific enquiry. Please note Sir Winston's important aside about the relationship of Christianity and Science "and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, THE SCIENCE AGAINST WHICH IT HAD VAINLY STRUGGLED..." Christianity, with it's insistence on the primacy of faith over reason, is fundamentally opposed to the spririt of science. It has, in the past, and is now in the process of onced again asserting its supremace over free intellectual inquiry, science included. Islam has no monopoly on fundamentalist idiots, as the roll call of the current Congress makes perfectly clear. WAKE UP!
If Christianity is insistent on the primacy of faith over science, why has most science been done in Christian countires? Would you prefer to be doing science in an Islamic country?
Give it a rest, take two aspirins and give RB a call in the morning.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
07/24/2005 20:22 Comments ||
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#7
Well, Gonzo, it is standard leftist dogma that all supporters of the War on Terrorism are conservatives and that all conservatives are Bible-thumping creation-nuts and flat-earthers (as well as obese Wal-Mart shoppers).
Both of these assertions are bunk, Goebbels-style Big Lies straight from the global media-left's own ad hoc Ministry of Truth. This absurd caricature of the opposition is, in fact, one of the many misconceptions that will condemn the global left to extinction.
While the creationist lobby is very noisy and irritating, it is not by any means representative of "most Americans," Euro-bigot and Tranzi propaganda notwithstanding. It is especially not representative of those who take a really active role in supporting the global war against Islamic medievalism. At this site, and at the "Great Satan" itself (Little Green Footballs), creationist sympathizers are few and far between.
Please know that I am a research scientist in a hard discipline (geophysics) and a full professor to boot. I have been in the trenches fighting creationist charlatans for 25 years. This is probably longer than you have been alive, judging by the juvenile authoritarianism and credulity of your rhetoric.
#8
Another thing, Gonzo. If Christianity and Islam were truly equivalent, you and I wouldn't be here.
....Well, maybe you would, but as an enthusistic convert to the Religion of Pieces.
#10
In this Western post-Enlightenment world in which we are privileged to live, society allows space for such activities as scientific research unencumbered by the majority religious belief. Hence Western economic, military and cultural supremacy. Imagine trying to get a grant to do, say, diabetes research, in which equal attention had to be given to the question of how many angels it takes to replicate the effect of a given dose of insulin? American society is admittedly far from perfect, and a staggering percentage of the population is -- or chooses to be -- incapable of understanding the difference between science and magic but, like our form of democracy, it is a terrible situation, better than which does not exist (which may well paraphrase another churchill statement made when he was a bit older).
#11
Gonzomema may want to study Aristotle, Aquinas, and the development of science in the West from the 14th century onward.
Some people are anti-science and try to enlist government power to further their cause, while claiming to do it in the name of their Christian faith. However, the huge majority of Westerners consider their faith a private matter of living a good life AND are both pro-freedom and pro-technology. So chill out. Nobody's got a monopoly on Luddite minorities.
As for stem cell research in the US, the only thing Bush has done is to stop FEDERAL FUNDING of it. Unless you're an unreformed socialist who thinks all science must be State Science, there is no need to be upset. On the contrary, we'll get much faster, better progress if the government stays out of it.
#12
I hadn't seen your post when I wrote that, AC, or I would have added an expanded signature, a la LC FOTSGreg. So here it is:
trailing wife
married, mother, housewife, member of a minority religion, child of educators and research scientists and long-time denizen of ivory towers
Oh, yes, I almost forgot: former liberal democrat, now a textbook neocon thanks to 9/11.
If evolution were in fact true.....we would see certain things among the general population. We would in fact see people who are not as "evolved" as everybody else. We would perhaps see a body walking around with the head of a fish. Or maybe his knuckles dragging the ground and the head of a squirrel. Why are we all in the same "phase" of evolution? Why don't we see jellyfish with the head of a monkey? Why are ALL jellyfish....in fact jellyfish and not some conglomerate of many other creatures? Why haven't I seen any "half evolved" men flying around with the birds? Or, swimming with the fishes?
Evolution exists in the schools simply because some people haven't really thought it through. If you would think about it and let your mind take you to all the little places where IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE, you'd come to a different conclusion.
JUST THINK ABOUT IT.....THOROUGHLY!
Posted by: Tom Dooley ||
07/24/2005 22:48 Comments ||
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#14
Radic Islam teaches mostly impressionable youth thats it okay to take the weath of the "infidel", etc. by force - okay, then what afterwards!? What mighty divine plan does Radical islam and aligned have to both glorify God and unduce universal modernity and prosperity on the masses. Methinks the answer behind door #3 is the same as for Leftism-Socialism - got no plan(s) except to hide behind the skirts and plans of one's enemies; and acquire and remain in anti-democratic, permament, super-Govt-Regulatory led/based power, by any means necessary, at any price. Radical islam = Socialists = Get America suborned and out of the way, then decide whom gets to make the rules.
To just take one of your examples, a monkey's head would not survive on a jellyfish, it requires oxygenated blood, high-energy nutrients, the right mix of amino acids and hormones and literally a million other things that can come only from a monkey's body or that of a very closely related species. Bodies and heads do not evolve separately, they evolve together. The chain of evolutionary mutation can see a small change in one without a corresponding change in the other, but the other will inevitably catch up.
#16
Creationist are, by definition, one of the tiniest of minorities. They aren't likely to have success on their own without resorting to drastic measures, as, for instance, chicanery and other charlatans tactics.
On the other hand, the hypocracies of the left speak volumes. for to use their own illogic, isn't the creationist movement a minority whose right to their beliefs is to be protected? illiberals say, There is no such thing as majority rule; the minority must be protected from the majority. But look how selectively applied to those outnumbered by the full force of The State. Be it the latest edict from the supreme cork concerning the property rights of hameowners["..it is as if God had spoken"-NanciePelosie.]. or Waco [Dragnett Reno told the ATF to pursue the Branch Davidians on "Child Abuse" charges. ATF told herm the simple fact of the matter: The ATF has no jurisdiction over child abuse cases. Then she worked the guns angle, NEVER proving it in justification for a raid. -hence the neccesity for setting up ATF agents to get popped for the PR value and get the public outraged enough to support the whole GUMMIT catastrophe.
Arisotle, on the other hand, in the metaphisics, argued successfully, that the origin of all things rests with a single source. That source is g-d, may you find him now. He did this in an environment of a polytheistic myth concerning a pantheon of gods. and unless he was hanging out with rabbis, how did he hit on monotheism? Philosophy is science, the science of logic.
Science has not come up with an explanation of creation that bears any distinction from the same arcane, dogma of other belief systems. No guarantee that that science won't lapse into the unethical pursuit of science for profit that fuels "the stem cell research bonanza to come", genetically engeneered sales plans so that Hollywood stars, will have to suffer a child with acne, or imperfect breast, and so on.
I frankly couldn't care less if creationist thought is taught in school; people are free to believe as they wish. No harm done. You can read Mein Kampf, for chissakes, it doesn't mean you believe in it. And with what do you plan to arm yourself against the poison of mein Kampf? I'll take Philosophy and Ethics over [irresponsible, unchecked] science any day. There was plenty of "science" in Margaret Sangers Eugenics, not to mention real racism, as well as in hitlers racial purity theories.
I'll take creation taught in schools, taught by a rastafarian, no less, just to stick it to illiberals.
Posted by: an dalusian dog ||
07/25/2005 0:02 Comments ||
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From Jihad Unspun, an aritcle titled "Islam and Revolution" written by "The Street Mimbar"
Whoever rejects Taghut, i.e. A totalitarian government that is intoxicated with the excessive concentration of excessive power and believes in Allah is on firm grounds ... It was this determination to abolish the material manifestation of Taghut in its political, economic, military, cultural, social, psychological etc. forms that highlights the discourses and instructions of the Qurâan and Sunnah. .... This uncompromising, revolutionary and daring spirit motivated and oriented all the prophets. It was this divine revolutionary drive that forced them into execution chambers, exile, political refuge, poverty, excommunication, banishment, alienation, prison, ridicule, assassination attempts, a crucifixion bid, etc.
There can be no doubt that among the first political decisions taken by the Prophet was to organise his followers into what is today called a party. This massing of members was never a political leverage which the Prophet used to gain power, popularity or privilege. The rejection of the establishment was an all-out, hardcore and confident one, which did not break down into negotiations or accommodations half way through the struggle. On the contrary, the more the leadership of Muhammedâs revolutionary purity persisted in its opposition and relentless struggle to seize the power and legitimacy from the forces of shirk and Taghut, the more these kaafir leaders tried to persuade the Islamic leadership to negotiate, compromise and accommodate. Their desire is that you should accommodate and compromise so they would accommodate and compromise ....
The war initiated by the Prophet was a revolt against the value system and its legal system simultaneously. The revolutionary spirit did not spare the royalty and the majesty of Quraish. This revolutionary commitment denigrated Quraishâs futuristic vision, it vilified their lords and repudiated their cheap life. The revolutionary language of the Qurâan is unmistakable. ....
Then the revolutionary spirit in the Qurâan goes on to fiercely assail usury which was the oppressive money generating mechanism of the Quraishi power structure .... The revolutionary justice in the following ayaat threatens those mercantile elements ..... The consequence of these divine revolutionary guidelines was an increase in the persecution of Muslims. The revolutionary students and companions of Muhammad were tortured, but they did not leave their torture chambers convinced that the only way to power is by joining the Quraishi power structure and changing it from within. .... Instead, they graduated from their torture chambers with a fervent revolutionary conviction that Allah will deliver them either to worldly power or heavenly peace ....
Quraish instigated policies of boycotts and embargoes, it activated its mouth-pieces and media against the revolutionary impulse of the emissary and his deen but Muhammed (sallalahu alaihi wa sallam) continued to criticise them and he continued his struggle to undermine the prevailing Meccan order. ....
[The article continues on another page.]
..... And finally, the Qurâanâs revolutionary force conquers death itself. A Muslim does not fear dying. This is not to imply that a Muslim is obsessed with killing and being killed. Rather, a Muslim welcomes death when it becomes an act of worship and devotion. The quiescent attitude of government-sponsored Islam dreads death.
It can only be a revolutionary mood in the dear book that erodes all elements and factors of fear. Thus the stage is set for the military assault against the forces of shirk and kufr. Only after being equipped with this revolutionary fervour can Muslims be ready for the military campaigns awaiting them.
Those who compromise their revolutionary and military momentum during combat are warned and threatened. This is their ultimatum
O you who are committed to Allah, when you meet the kaafirs in battle positions, never turn your backs to them. If any of you turns your back on this enemy, and it is not as part of a strategy of war or a retreat to join another battalion of your own, then you draw on yourself the wrath of Allah and your abode is hell an evil refuge indeed (Surah Al-Anfal verse 15-16)
These ayahs and many more in the Qurâan are enough to shatter the static, dormant. inactive, dull figure image that todayâs moderates want to make Muhammed (sallalahu alaihi wa sallam). This revolutionary example for all Muslims participated in 27 military battles and expeditions. .... The serious and assertive Prophetic mentality ordered the execution of 400 counter-revolutionaries belonging to Bani Quraida. Revolutionary integrity in the beloved heart of our leader made it possible for him to personally eliminate a kaafir by the name of Ubaiy Bin Khalaf. The Prophetâs policy to his commanders on the conquest of Mecca was that they should not kill anyone unless the others were intent on killing the Muslims. But there were several who the Prophet wanted to execute even if they were found within the sanctuary of the Kaaâba. Among them were Abdulla bin Saad, Abdulla bin Khattal and two of his women singers who often sang songs of rhythmic diatribe against the Prophet. The Prophet ordered them killed in addition to others. His words still ring in the justice seeking and struggling revolutionaries .....
All of the above policies and actions taken by the beloved are subject to the outcry of international organisations, human rights associations etc. Even the conventional minds of ritualistic Islam would question the revolutionary portrait of the Prophet ..... And that is precisely the issue. The revolutionary figure of the Prophet has faded away. His revolutionary and combatant nature does not exist in the minds and hearts of the bulk of those who purport to follow him. Here lies the task of rehabilitating the revolutionary character of our supreme guide and teacher.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
07/24/2005 13:39 ||
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#1
Sounds like Marxist claptrap in the service of Islamofascism.
How's Kofi -- still in charge of the United Thugs?
Maulana Samiul Haq is the head of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. As the head of now famous Darul Uloom Haqqania at Frontier's Akora Khattak town, he has the dubious distinction of being the mentor of many a senior Taliban leader.
Maulana Samiul Haq has been in politics for long and has worked with or in opposition to a number of governments. Though his party is a minor member of the religious parties' alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), his views on the government's efforts to reform madrassas and curb extremism heavily influence the opinion of those running thousands of Deobandi madrassas across the country. Following are excerpts of his interview:
The News on Sunday: After every terrorist attack anywhere in the world, why do Pakistani madrassas become a flash point?
Maulana Samiul Haq: This trend has its genesis in September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Since then, we have been facing accusations of promoting terrorism and brainwashing students at madrassas for waging a war against infidels. Thousands of foreign journalists and other people have visited our madrassa since 9/11 to find out its role in the terrorist attacks in the United States. They have met with the students but did anyone find a single clue that any of our students was involved in those attacks? It is nonsense that after every terrorist attack, Western countries point their accusing fingers at the madrassas. In fact, Western countries only want to malign madrassas through these accusations.
TNS: Why should they do so?
MSH: Western media is playing a major role in the propaganda against madrassas. In their quest for sensationalism, they are bent upon finding something which can damage the nonviolent and peaceful environment of madrassas. They leave no stone unturned to create nonsense stories against madrassas.
Look at all the terrorist attacks whether in the United States on September 11, 2001, or two weeks ago in London. None of the suspects (for these attacks) was a madrassa student. Apparently, all of them were well groomed people equipped with modern education, operating from their bases in universities in Europe. It has become fashionable to link terrorism with madrassas.
TNS: But Pakistani authorities have confirmed that the three people being accused for carrying out recent bombings in London visited Pakistan. One of them is reported to have attended a madrassa in Lahore.
MSH: This is totally baseless. The authorities of that madrassa have rejected this accusation. Linking London bombing with Pakistani madrassas is only part of a broader campaign against these madrassas. If an expatriate Pakistani comes to Pakistan and visits a mosque or madrassa, it does not make him a terrorist. But neither these visits have anything to do with terrorism nor they get military training during their short visits to mosques and madrassas. Expatriates coming from other countries would do the same thing. They go back to their homelands and visit their places of worship and (yet no one calls them terrorists).
TNS: Generally it is believed that madrassas sow the seeds of hatred in the minds of their students against non-Muslims. The madrassas are also accused of urging the students to take up the path of jihad and martyrdom. Don't you think this hatred and call for jihad is making madrassas breeding centers of radical Islamic militancy?
MSH: This is a wrong assumption. Our doors are open and our curriculum is equally open (for anyone to see). The question of teaching hatred and militancy to students is absurd. They are no part of our curriculum. We only impart pure religious education about the Quran and the Hadith. The majority of the suspected militants who carried out terrorist acts are not graduates of madrassas. They were taught at modern education institutions.
TNS: Madrassas don't need to have their students registered. Should this mean that even those linked to terrorist organisations can easily get admitted, be they foreigners or local?
MSH: We have a tough scrutiny system. Every student has to pass through that system before he is admitted. We don't give admission to any passerby. Checking all relevant documents including reference letters is part of our admission process. Sometime, we go beyond that to delve into the past of a student seeking admission. Madrassas also have an organised examination system to award degrees. As far as foreign students are concerned, before 9/11 there was some sort of flexibility for them. But after 9/11, a foreign student has to pass through many stages for getting admission.
TNS: What about the allegation that your madrassa, Darul Uloom Haqqania, was the launching pad for the Taliban movement in Afghanistan?
MSH: Firstly, at the time (when the future Taliban leadership was studying at our madrassa) the whole world, including the United States and Europe, was supporting Afghan mujahideen against Russian aggression. Thousands of Arabs came here to take part in the Afghan war and the United States fully supported them at that time. Secondly, Afghan students have been coming here for getting religious education since ages. There had been no madrassa system in Afghanistan like the one we have.
As far as the Taliban movement is concerned, it came into existence in the backdrop of Russian aggression against Afghanistan. (At that time) not only madrassa students but also students from other modern educational institutions went to Afghanistan for jihad. I do admit that a majority of Taliban have studied either at my madrassa or in other madrassas in Pakistan but is there any proof that Taliban are involved in any act of terrorism? Can the United States or any other country produce even a single Talib who masterminded or took part in any act of terrorism? Taliban leadership has time and again denounced terrorist attacks.
TNS: What is your opinion on the notion that some people are trying to mix up jihad with terrorism?
MSH: There is a clear distinction between jihad and terrorism. They cannot be mixed up. Jihad is something which is fought in the open field with enemies while terrorism is an act of cowardice which deserves condemnation.
TNS: Why then people resort to the extreme step of committing suicide attacks?
MSH: Though acts of terrorism are condemnable but this is a fact that the disgruntled and desperate youth in the Muslim world find it as the only way out (of their plight) as they see no end to their sufferings otherwise. There are about one billion Muslims in the world, constituting one-fifth of the whole global population. But they have been facing extreme injustice and unfair treatment at the hands of big powers. In this milieu, it seems impossible to control the emotionally charged young segment of the Muslim society. (Even) their parents don't know about their activities. The only way out of this situation is a dialogue between the West and the Islamic world. There should be practical steps for redressing the grievances of Muslims.
TNS: Curriculum taught at madrassas is mainly focused on the life hereafter and offers little insight into worldly affairs. Teaching otherworldliness is thought of as the promotion of martyrdom. The students seem to see little charm in the life here and now....
MSH: This is all a cock and bull story. Islam gives as much importance to the worldly life as to the life after death. Our curriculum is aimed at making a nice and polite human being who does good and noble work so that he gets a happy life after death as a reward. It is true that we mainly focus on life after death but we also know the fact that we can have a better life after death only if we do good deeds here in this world. Morality, human rights and good conduct with fellow human beings are part of our curriculum. Our graduates are practical models of what we teach.
TNS: Education is not totally free in Pakistan but religious madrassas offer totally free education. This make the operation of madrassas suspicious. Who takes over their financial burden?
MSH: Instead of praising and appreciating (what the madrassas are doing), it is strange that imparting free education is being viewed suspiciously. Imparting Islamic education is like worship. Taking money for it is haram (illegal). There are many missionary organisations in Europe that are run by people's donations. Same is the case with our madrassas. The Muslims from around the world generously donate for running these madrassas. This criticism shows the hypocritical face of the West. On the one hand, they have been campaigning for the spread of education and literacy and that too cost free but on the other hand when we do exactly the same thing, then they not only criticise us but also defame us.
TNS: To keep pace with time, do you think that the centuries-old religious education system of Pakistan needs any reformation?
MSH: We have been reforming our system through our main regulatory body, Wifaqul Madaris, which is responsible for all the affairs of (Deobandi) madrassa system. Similarly, we have been reviewing what new things are needed to be introduced in madrassas. We always welcome new things which suit our system of education. Besides religious education, now our students have also access to computer education. Some social subjects are also part of our syllabus.
TNS: If you welcome reforms in madrassas, then why do you resist the reforms programme initiated by the government?
MSH: We welcome only those reforms which bring about positive improvements in our system of education. But we reject the entire reforms package announced by the Musharraf government. This US-sponsored reform package is aimed at taking control of the madrassas and damage the true spirit of our religious institutions. There is no need for taking any aid from the government for the reforms of madrassas. Time and again we have said that running madrassas has noting to do with money and financial aid. We strongly believe that all madrassas are functioning through divine help. The much-touted slogans of reforming madrassas and enlightened moderation are nothing more but attempts to appease the United States and the West.
Posted by: john ||
07/24/2005 10:33 ||
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When the Taliban were studying at his madrassa they were hiding in the madrassaPaklistan instead of fighting the Soviet. The hard work was made by the people of Massud and Ismail Khan while the proto-Taliban of Hykmathiar spent more time fighting the autherntic resistantrs than in fighting the Soviets.
Indeed, so deep is our Establishment's involvement with terror that all manner of desperado and yahoo has been allowed to breeze into and out of our country, on his journey towards some dastardly act or the other: witness the beauty of Something or other Reid, who tried to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic, and who visited the Land of the Pure three or four times within the space of a year or so. How come? Let me ask for the umpteenth time: how did this man get a visa to travel to Pakistan considering the fact that he was a no-good petty criminal, a dirty, filthy, bum who lived on the mean streets of London? I mean it takes sifarish to get my Brit friends Pakistani visas longer than one month's duration, so how come Reid walked into and out of the country at will?
Posted by: john ||
07/24/2005 09:55 ||
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A couple of weeks old, but still relevant, even if it is preaching to the choir for RBers.
Another Episode in the War between Christendom and Islam
by Bruce Thornton
The slaughter in London is another grisly wake-up call that likely will go as unheeded as earlier ones. Already the standard narrative is being trotted out: evildoers created by what the New York Times predictably called the âroot causes of terrorismâ: autocracy, or economic stagnation, or Palestinian suffering, or globalization's dislocations, or Western historical sins, or the war in Iraq (the cause will depend on the political prejudices of the pundit) have âhijackedâ Islam and distorted its peaceful message. And now they are using Islam to justify murder in order to further their own ambitions or dysfunctional psychic needs. Given this explanation, so the story goes, we must be careful not to demonize all Muslims and assure them that we respect their religion and culture. The tale is then wrapped up with fierce threats against the terrorists and protestations of admiration for Islam.
Believing this delusion requires that one ignores fourteen centuries of Islamic jihad against the West, a war of conquest and colonization ratified by centuries of Islamic theology and jurisprudence. Indeed, what we call Islamic radicals are in fact Islamic traditionalists; it is the so-called âmoderatesâ â those wanting to compromise Islam so it can coexist with Western ideas such as secular government, separation of church and state, and human rights â who are the radicals and innovators. The terrorists are simply fulfilling the traditional and orthodox command of their religion to battle the infidels who resist the revelation of Mohammed and the global socio-political order mandated by Islam.
Listen to one of the most respected and influential of Muslim clerics, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, on the legitimacy of jihad: âIt has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar Al-Harb [the Domain of Disbelief where the battle for the domination of Islam should be waged] is not protected. Because they fight against and are hostile towards the Muslims, they annulled the protection of his blood and his property." (See Andrew Bostom:).This interpretation is entirely consistent with fourteen centuries of Islamic theology and jurisprudence, which in turn is based on the Koran's injunction to âslay them [infidels] wherever you catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter . . . . Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.â And this jihad is to continue âuntil persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah.â
Islam's divinely sanctioned entitlement to global domination explains the symbolic value of the London attacks: one day after London was chosen to host the 2012 Olympics, and right in the middle of the G8 summit in Scotland. For both the Olympics and the G8 represent a global order that rivals Islam, one based on Western ideals and institutions, a social and political order in which Islam has no exalted position but is simply one religion among many. And, we should add, a global order whose notions of individual rights and secular government are incompatible with Islamic law.
So much is obvious â facts of the historical record. Yet listen to a respected historian in a conservative magazine: âMuslim holy wars (âjihadsâ), as taught in the Koran, were first and foremost a personal inner struggle for moral purityâ and only secondarily a war against infidels. So all those Muslim armies that conquered the Christian Near East, North Africa, Egypt, Spain, Sicily, the Balkans, all that plunder, slaughter, rape, enslavement, kidnapping, and destruction were only the âsecondaryâ jihad. How could such blindness to the obvious, masquerading as sophisticated âtolerance,â not arouse contempt in the minds of our adversaries? They tell us over and over that they are waging jihad in order to establish the global hegemony of Islam, and we tell ourselves that these Muslims don't understand their own religion. Millions and millions of Muslims all over the world cheer for the jihadists and support them materially and psychologically, millions idolize bin Laden and celebrate the murder of Westerners, but we tell ourselves that they are a minority of confused souls whose minds have been addled by poverty or autocracy or anger over the Palestinians.
In any conflict it's a good idea to take seriously the motives the enemy professes and not rationalize or explain them away in terms of your own cultural assumptions. The murderers we call terrorists are traditional jihadists, as much as were the first Islamic armies that swept away the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman civilizations of the Mediterranean. They are not going to be bought off with votes, a free press, more cable channels, Wal-Mart, or any other material good that to us constitutes the good life. They are fighting for a spiritual cause, the establishment of Islam as a global order in fulfillment of the will of Allah, and the reduction of all those who will not become Muslims to dhimmi, inferiors who acknowledge the superiority of Islam and the rightness of their subjection to it.
The next few weeks will show whether the British have advanced as far down the road of dhimmitude as have the Spaniards, who responded to the murder of their citizens not with the force and resistance their ancestors showed for seven centuries, but with fear and appeasement. As for us, we'd better discard our illusions that the jihadists, as Thomas Freidman put it, are âa cancer within the [Islamic] body politicâ and accept instead that jihad just may be a vital organ. Then maybe we can see this war for what it is: one more episode in the long struggle between what used to be called Christendom and a religion of aggressive conquest and colonization.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The declaration made by the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh stating that he would not stand as a candidate for another term as president of the republic was a bombshell that surprised us all. It has introduced a new feature into the culture of Arab political ideology. If such a statement is followed through, historians will boldly write that Ali Abdullah Saleh is the first Arab president to step down and abandon rule completely aware of the road that he has chosen to take!
Maulana Samiul Haq is the head of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. As the head of now famous Darul Uloom Haqqania at Frontier's Akora Khattak town, he has the dubious distinction of being the mentor of many a senior Taliban leader.
