Interfaithing Equals Dhimmitude

Ongoing since 2002, the year after 9/11:


This week, at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C.:

From May 25-27, 2010, Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia will host Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and his 9th Annual Building Bridges Seminar. Since 2002, the Archbishop of Canterbury has chaired an annual seminar bringing together leading Muslim and Christian scholars from around the world to explore issues at the heart of the two traditions. Georgetown University has become a partner in this significant dialogue process and hosted the seminar in 2004 and 2006.

Prince Al-Waleed of Saudi is, no doubt, gratified by the dhimmitude of a Jesuit university as he watches mainstream Christianity submit to Islam via his "educational charities", which finance centers of Islamic study at Western universities.

According to Campus Watch:

Perhaps Alwaleed's animus toward the instruments of "Jewish pressure" explains some of his less-advertised investments -- among them, a $27 million contribution to a Saudi government telethon that raised more than $100 million for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Both the Middle East Media Research Institute's Steven Stalinsky and columnist Diana West have called attention to the prince's co-ownership of the Saudi ART TV network that, under Alwaleed's watch, aired not only the aforementioned telethon but also the fundraiser "Jihad in Palestine," which encouraged Muslims to triumph over the West through suicide bombings and "slitting of throats and shattering skulls."

Charming, huh? [heavy sarcasm]

Turn the page ....

Georgetown University Removes Name Of Jesus

Quickie link to this post by Pastorius at Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

Excerpt from the above posting:

...And so it came to pass, beneath Gaston Hall's beautiful painting of Morality, Faith, and Patriotism, with gold letters on the wall behind him spelling the Jesuit motto "Ad majorem Dei gloriam"—"To the greater glory of God"—Obama shared his prosperity gospel at the nation's oldest Catholic university.

But there was one thing missing: Jesus' name.

I'm not just talking about Obama's failing to mention Jesus—though he did pointedly fail to mention the name of the One—that is, for him, the other "One"—who first told the "parable" he shared.

No, Jesus' very name, in the form of the ancient monogram IHS, which had been in gold lettering on the wooden archway above Gaston Hall's dais, was painted over (or otherwise expertly camouflaged) prior to Obama's arrival. Apparently, the Name that is above every other name is not permitted to be above Obama....

[...]

CNS News says that it was at the request of the White House that the name of Jesus was removed...

Read the rest and see the photos HERE.

Addendum: See the high-resolution photos HERE.

Turn the page ....

Arabic Classes In America

[Image source]

Since 9/11, we have heard of the importance of more of us learning to speak Arabic. Indeed, more and more people today are studying the Arabic language, many of these students enrolled in community colleges and prestigious universities as well as uncounted others studying by using software such as Rosetta Stone. I personally know a few young people who have attempted such classes, only to abandon their study of Arabic; the reasons they gave me, their former teacher, were vague but typically included a level of discomfort with the material or the instructor.
---------
A July 5, 2008 Washington Post commentary, written by a student at Harvard Law School, provides disturbing information about the material offered in such classes:

To study Arabic in America today is to be inducted into a world of longing, abandonment and regret. And that's before you even touch the political issues.

Most maps of the Middle East in "Al-Kitaab" [the curriculum used] do not include Israel, though a substantial minority of Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, are native Arabic speakers. Alongside simple Arabic poems, students read about anti-Western heroes such as Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The DVD that comes with "Al-Kitaab" includes footage of Nasser's mass rallies in Cairo -- including slogans in Arabic and French such as "Brother Nations in Struggle, We Are By Your Side." These scenes of totalitarian rage are fondly described by the narrator as "dreams of his youth."

The accompanying lesson describes the highlights of Nasser's career, including the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the formation of the United Arab Republic. No mention is made of Egypt's defeat in the Six-Day War or of Nasser's brutal, repressive rule. In my class, we were asked to recite a passage about Nasser to practice our vocalization. (I refused.)

The last lesson in the book -- which we skipped -- features Maha's mother speaking wistfully of her childhood in Palestine: "My childhood was taken from me!" Over mournful music on the DVD, she talks about returning to Jerusalem, as if she were a refugee, but the images suggest that she left voluntarily after the Six-Day War, when Israel offered citizenship to the Arab residents of East Jerusalem. The fact that Israel also claims Jerusalem as its capital is ignored.

My class watched three movies this semester, all with political themes. One was "West Beirut," which cast Christians as the prime bad guys in Lebanon's civil war (though, to be fair, there was plenty of hatred all around). Another was "The Tale of Three Jewels," an allegorical film about Palestinian nationalism that portrayed Israeli soldiers as bloodthirsty child-killers.

The third movie, "Destiny," told the story of the great medieval Islamic philosopher Averroes and his struggles against Islamic religious fundamentalism. It was a bit more nuanced than the first two. But the film omitted the fact that it was only through the Hebrew transcription of Averroes's writings by Jewish scholars in Egypt that his works were preserved for posterity.

Friends and relatives who have used "Al-Kitaab" at other American universities report similarly morose experiences.

[...]

...[T]here is something fundamentally wrong with this indoctrination into misery. Most introductory language classes avoid controversial political subjects. In fact, they often highlight the brighter side of different cultures. Particularly with the growing importance of Arabic, can't we do better?

The U.S. government has funded studies on anti-Semitism in Palestinian textbooks. Fairfax county officials have asked the State Department to investigate the teaching materials at a Saudi-funded school. "Al-Kitaab" is published by Georgetown University Press, with some assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Perhaps we should also be looking into the content of the federally funded materials used in Arabic programs at our own universities.

According a friend of mine who studied Arabic as a second language in Saudi Arabia, lessons in The Kingdom included material much unlike primer readers to which most of us are accustomed. Specifically, beginning lessons used phrases such as "The sword is on the table," "The sword is under the table," and "The sword is behind the curtain." Certainly those phrases and their message are quite different from the early readers I encountered as a child, those primers including phrases such as "The cat is on the mat" and "See Spot run"!

Via a Google search of how language shapes thinking, I found the following essay entitled "Semanticide," by William Murchison at Human Life Review 1999:

George Orwell's stress on the distortive possibilities available in language remains fresh because of his descriptive and prophetic powers. Nineteen Eighty-Four sears the recollection, notwithstanding that when the title-year in question actually got here, the distorters-the Soviets-were stumbling toward ruin. Orwell's lesson is clear: Language shapes thinking; thinking shapes action. When language means other than it must, for a particular possibility to reach fruition, somebody is going to propose a new way of talking, and of understanding.

As the West rightly pursues the study of Arabic, precautions must be taken that the classes are not those of indoctrination and propagandizing. Instead, we have institutions such as the Islamic Saudi Academy instructing our military in Arabic. What else is being taught in those Arabic-language classes?

Turn the page ....

Attention, Bloggers! "Muslims Speak Out" (July 22-27)

Follow up to this posting...

To access the On Faith forum in order to post comments or questions, CLICK HERE, then on the name of the person to whom you wish to address the question or comment.

To the credit of the Washington Post, the following article was published in "Outlook," July 22, 2007 (emphases mine):

Losing My Jihadism

By Mansour al-Nogaidan
Sunday, July 22, 2007; B01

BURAIDAH, Saudi Arabia Islam needs a Reformation. It needs someone with the courage of Martin Luther.

This is the belief I've arrived at after a long and painful spiritual journey. It's not a popular conviction -- it has attracted angry criticism, including death threats, from many sides. But it was reinforced by Sept. 11, 2001, and in the years since, I've only become more convinced that it is critical to Islam's future.

Muslims are too rigid in our adherence to old, literal interpretations of the Koran. It's time for many verses -- especially those having to do with relations between Islam and other religions -- to be reinterpreted in favor of a more modern Islam. It's time to accept that God loves the faithful of all religions. It's time for Muslims to question our leaders and their strict teachings, to reach our own understanding of the prophet's words and to call for a bold renewal of our faith as a faith of goodwill, of peace and of light.

I didn't always think this way. Once, I was one of the extremists who clung to literal interpretations of Islam and tried to force them on others. I was a jihadist.

I grew up in Saudi Arabia. When I was 16, I found myself assailed by doubts about the existence of God. I prayed to God to give me the strength to overcome them. I made a deal with Him: I would give up everything, devote myself to Him and live the way the prophet Muhammad and his companions had lived 1,400 years ago if He would rid me of my doubts.

I joined a hard-line Salafi group. I abandoned modern life and lived in a mud hut, apart from my family. Viewing modern education as corrupt and immoral, I joined a circle of scholars who taught the Islamic sciences in the classical way, just as they had been taught 1,200 years ago. My involvement with this group led me to violence, and landed me in prison. In 1991, I took part in firebombing video stores in Riyadh and a women's center in my home town of Buraidah, seeing them as symbols of sin in a society that was marching rapidly toward modernization.

Yet all the while, my doubts remained. Was the Koran really the word of God? Had it really been revealed to Muhammad, or did he create it himself? But I never shared these doubts with anyone, because doubting Islam or the prophet is not tolerated in the Muslim society of my country.

By the time I turned 26, much of the turmoil in me had abated, and I made my peace with God. At the same time, my eyes were opened to the hypocrisy of so many who held themselves out as Muslim role models. I saw Islamic judges ignoring the marks of torture borne by my prison comrades. I learned of Islamic teachers who molested their students. I heard devout Muslims who never missed the five daily prayers lying with ease to people who did not share their extremist beliefs.

In 1999, when I was working as an imam at a Riyadh mosque, I happened upon two books that had a profound influence on me. One, written by a Palestinian scholar, was about the struggle between those who deal pragmatically with the Koran and those who take it and the hadith literally. The other was a book by a Moroccan philosopher about the formation of the Arab Muslim way of thinking.

The books inspired me to write an article for a Saudi newspaper arguing that Muslims have the right to question and criticize our religious leaders and not to take everything they tell us for granted. We owe it to ourselves, I wrote, to think pragmatically if our religion is to survive and thrive.

That article landed me in the center of a storm. Some men in my mosque refused to greet me. Others would no longer pray behind me. Under this pressure, I left the mosque.

I moved to the southern city of Abha, where I took a job as a writer and editor with a newly established newspaper. I went back to leading prayers at the paper's small mosque and to writing about my evolving philosophy. After I wrote articles stressing our right as Muslims to question our Saudi clerics and their interpretations and to come up with our own, officials from the kingdom's powerful religious establishment complained, and I was banned from writing.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, gave new life to what I had been saying. I went back to criticizing the rote manner in which we Muslims are fed our religion. I criticized al-Qaeda's school of thought, which considers everyone who isn't a Salafi Muslim the enemy. I pointed to examples from Islamic history that stressed the need to get along with other religions. I tried to give a new interpretation to the verses that call for enmity between Muslims and Christians and Jews. I wrote that they do not apply to us today and that Islam calls for friendship among all faiths.

I lost a lot of friends after that. My old companions from the jihad felt obliged to declare themselves either with me or against me. Some preferred to cut their links to me silently, but others fought me publicly, issuing statements filled with curses and lies. Once again, the paper came under great pressure to ban my writing. And I became a favorite target on the Internet, where my writings were lambasted and labeled blasphemous.

Eventually I was fired. But by then, I had started to develop a different relationship with God. I felt that He was moving me toward another kind of belief, where all that matters is that we pray to God from the heart. I continued to pray, but I started to avoid the verses that contain violence or enmity and only used the ones that speak of God's mercy and grace and greatness. I remembered an incident in the Koran when the prophet told a Bedouin who did not know how to pray to let go of the verses and get closer to God by repeating, "God is good, God is great." Don't sweat the details, the prophet said.

I felt at peace, and no longer doubted His existence.

In December 2002, in a Web site interview, I criticized al-Qaeda and declared that some of the Friday sermons were loathsome because of their attacks against non-Muslims. Within days, a fatwa was posted online, calling me an infidel and saying that I should be killed. Once again, I felt despair at the ways of the Muslim world. Two years later, I told al-Arabiya television that I thought God loves all faithful people of different religions. That earned me a fatwa from the mufti of Saudi Arabia declaring my infidelity.

But one evening not long after that, I heard a radio broadcast of the verse of light. Even though I had memorized the Koran at 15, I felt as though I was hearing this verse for the first time. God is light, it says, the universe is illuminated by His light. I felt the verse was speaking directly to me, sending me a message. This God of light, I thought, how could He be against any human? The God of light would not be happy to see people suffer, even if they had sinned and made mistakes along the way.

I had found my Islam. And I believe that others can find it, too. But first we need a Reformation similar to the Protestant Reformation that Martin Luther led against the Roman Catholic Church.

In the late 14th century, Islam had its own sort of Martin Luther. Ibn Taymiyya was an Islamic scholar from a hard-line Salafi sect who went through a spiritual crisis and came to believe that in time, God would close the gates of hell and grant all humans, regardless of their religion, entry to his everlasting paradise. Unlike Luther, however, Ibn Taymiyya never openly declared this revolutionary belief; he shared it only with a small, trusted circle of students.

Nevertheless, I find myself inspired by Luther's courageous uprising. I see what Islam needs -- a strong, charismatic personality who will lead us toward reform, and scholars who can convince Islamic communities of the need for a bold new interpretation of Islamic texts, to reconcile us with the wider world.

Mansour al-Nogaidan writes for the Bahraini newspaper Al-Waqt.

CLICK HERE to view the schedule for and to access the On Faith Forum "Muslims Speak Out." Here's our chance to ask pointed questions and to make appropriate comments. I've test-posted a comment there, and it went up onto the site.

As far as I can tell, Mansour al-Nogaidan, the author of the above article is not a part of the forum. Comments can be directed to Mansour al-Nogaidan at the Washington Post web site, but you might have to register first. You can address comments to all of the authors in the "Outlook" section HERE.

Turn the page ....

Attention, Counter-Propagandists!

From this source:

Bloggers, clear your calendars Sunday, July 22, through Friday, July 27. Some real propaganda bombshells are bound to be dropped, and you’ll want to be there when “several leading Muslim clerics and thinkers from around the globe will participate in an unprecedented online dialogue about their religion, terrorism and human rights.”

The “dialogue,” sponsored by The Washington Post and Newsweek Interactive and presented in conjunction with Georgetown University, has been dubbed “Muslims Speak Out” and will take place at On Faith, a blog operated as a joint effort of the Post and Newsweek.

More at this link.

Addendum: Complete list of speakers

[END OF THIS POSTING]

Turn the page ....

Low-Tech Terrorism

Citing the low-level methods and apparent bumbling of the Fort Dix Six, the media and a certain commenter here have disparaged last week's arrest of the aspiring terrorists in New Jersey.

To all those who might think that low-tech terrorist attacks cannot be of significance, I offer the following editorial, which appeared two days before the story broke.
-----------------------------------------

Complete article, as it appeared in the May 6, 2007 edition of the Washington Post, emphases mine:

The Rise of Low-Tech Terrorism
The movies were an affront to God, encouraging vice and Western-style decadence. So in August 1978, four Shiite revolutionaries locked the doors of the Cinema Rex in the Iranian city of Abadan and set the theater on fire. The firefighters were late, and nearby hydrants did not work. The victims' shrieks could be heard while firefighters and police stood outside, watching helplessly. At least 377 people -- perhaps many more -- were burned alive.

Never heard of the Cinema Rex fire? You're not alone. But the tragedy is more than an obscure, grisly memory from the run-up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. It's also the second-deadliest terrorist attack in modern history -- deadlier even than airline bombings such as Pan Am Flight 103 -- and one that offers many lessons about the changing threat of terrorism today.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, most Americans have worried about what terrorism experts call "spectaculars": massive, ingenious and above all theatrical extravaganzas such as al-Qaeda's attack on the twin towers, its simultaneous 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and its brazen 2000 suicide-boat assault on the USS Cole in Yemen. But perhaps we should be more worried about the Cinema Rex attack.

Although Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants still dream of spectaculars, a quick glance at the terrorist acts committed since 9/11 suggests that perpetrators are going low-tech, too. As the survivors of attacks in London, Madrid and the Russian town of Beslan will confirm, such tried-and-true terrorism methods as low-tech bombs, hostage-taking and arson have tremendous appeal to jihadists. Indeed, the State Department's annual survey on terrorism, released last week, notes that "in 2006 most attacks were perpetrated by terrorists applying conventional fighting methods that included using bombs and weapons, such as small arms."

While the United States and other countries have devoted lots of attention to bracing themselves for the big one, we've spent far too little time considering what we can learn from more mundane -- and more repeatable -- terrorist attacks that can inflict mass casualties.

A look at the various suspects arrested in recent years for crimes linked to radical Islamic terrorism in the United States suggests that the immediate threat we face is angry amateurs, not poised, professional killers such as Mohamed Atta, the leader of al-Qaeda's 9/11 team. Most of those arrested do appear to have meant Americans harm, whether by conducting attacks on their own or by raising money for other would-be killers. But these plots were rarely well-developed, and the operators were at best enthusiastic novices.

Consider the case of one of the few Americans actually convicted of terrorism since 9/11: Iyman Faris, an Ohio truck driver and naturalized U.S. citizen born in Kashmir who pleaded guilty in 2003, plotted to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge by severing its cables with blowtorches. Scary, sure -- but a completely absurd way to destroy the bridge, whose many cables are more than a foot in diameter.

These homegrown terrorists don't necessarily share the zeal and anonymity of a seasoned professional such as Atta. Many of those arrested on terrorism charges have a prison record and thus are known to law enforcement officials.

One of the most advanced post-9/11 plots, against the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and U.S. military facilities in the area, involved four former inmates who began their plotting while behind bars. Former prisoners rarely make ideal comrades; many would sell their own mother for a small reward.

But it's a mistake to write off the angry amateurs. They're not terribly skilled, but it doesn't take that much skill to kill dozens of people -- as the shootings at Virginia Tech so tragically demonstrate. Attacks such as the Cinema Rex fire are easily repeated, and they don't take the years of onerous training and planning that spectaculars demand.

So how can we stop low-tech terrorism? Unfortunately, better defenses can solve only part of the problem. We should defend the White House, nuclear plants and other high-profile targets that would tempt terrorists to stage a spectacular. But we can't defend every movie theater, synagogue, local government building or shopping mall without spending hundreds of billions of dollars and turning the United States into an armed camp.

That leaves offense -- at home as well as abroad. The FBI has tried to penetrate cells of would-be terrorists, often opening itself to criticism for spending enormous resources on disrupting what seems to be a bunch of bungling blowhards. The bureau should keep at it. Of course, sometimes a ballyhooed terrorism arrest will look foolish when the media reveal the plotters' amateurish plans and backgrounds. But aggressive law enforcement can help prevent these amateurs from becoming something more deadly.

Perhaps the best way to fight low-tech terrorists is through community support. For instance, the FBI began to focus on the "Lackawanna Six," who pleaded guilty in 2003 to providing material support to al-Qaeda, after receiving an anonymous letter from a member of the Yemeni community in Lackawanna, N.Y., near Buffalo. But to get these sorts of tips, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans need to see the police as protectors, not persecutors.

In this respect, Europe provides a cautionary tale. Governments there, particularly France's, have spent more time trying to shake down their Muslim communities for intelligence than they've spent reassuring and integrating them. The result? An angry, unassimilated Muslim minority whose fringes produce terrorists while its mainstream often resists police efforts to find them. The U.S. government has a fine line to walk here, too. But when in doubt, we should jettison intrusive measures in favor of those likely to win sustained support from Muslim Americans.

Finally, the government needs to talk coolly and calmly to the American people. Complete protection against arson, shootings and low-level bombings is impossible. Americans will have to accept a certain amount of risk in their daily lives, recognizing that effective government policies can reduce the threat but not eliminate it. Public opinion is the fulcrum of counterterrorism. Terrorists -- high-tech and low-tech alike -- rely on overreaction from a rattled public and government to do their dirty work. We shouldn't indulge them.

About the author of the above:

Daniel L. Byman is director of Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies and a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Additional information from Google Search about the author of the above.

Information about Brookings Institution.

I'm not sure that Mr. Byman's conclusions as to how to prevent such attacks are correct. But I know that part of the statement from CAIR certainly is inaccurate and promotes dhimmitude. From American Crusader:

CAIR's statement: “Based on the information gathered in this case, it seems clear that a potentially deadly attack has been averted. We applaud the FBI for its efforts and repeat the American Muslim community’s condemnation and repudiation of all those who would plan or carry out acts of terror while falsely claiming their actions have religious justification.”

If they had stopped there, it would have been almost un-CAIR-like, but of course they had to add a little caveat.

CAIR went on to say “refrain from linking this case to the faith of Islam.”

Be sure to read American Crusader's entire posting.

We in the West can soothe ourselves by pointing out that moronic terrorists got nabbed last week in New Jersey. But we're creating a false sense of security if we don't address the ideology behind Islamic terrorism. After all, the Fort Dix Six had a common bond. They didn't just "go postal," nor did they suffer from sudden jihad syndrome. And there are bound to be many more like them.

Turn the page ....