Radical Islam Leaders Who Sponser Terror Upset Over Buffalo Beheadings: "Right Wing" Will "Misuse It"

We're not allowed to talk about this either? Let me get this straight. When a "stereotype" becomes reality, we're not allowed to question its validity?

When a man brutally beheads his wife, it's not news?

From The Associated Press:

The crime was so brutal, shocking and rife with the worst possible stereotypes about their faith that some U.S. Muslims thought the initial reports were a hoax.

The killing and its aftermath raise hard questions for Muslims — about gender issues, about distinctions between cultural and religious practices, and about differing interpretations of Islamic texts regarding the treatment of women.

"Muslims don't want to talk about this for good reason," said Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, a Muslim author and activist. "There is so much negativity about Muslims, and it sort of perpetuates it. The right wing is going to run with it and misuse it. But we've got to shine a light on this issue so we can transform it."

There is evidence of movement in that direction in the 10 days since the Hassan slaying. In an open letter to American Muslim leaders, Imam Mohamed Hagmagid Ali of Sterling, Va., vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, said "violence against women is real and cannot be ignored."

"This is a horrible tragedy, but it gives us a window," said Abdul-Ghafur, editor of the anthology "Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak." "The next time a woman comes to her imam and says, 'He hit me,' the reply might not be, 'Be patient, sister, is there something you did, sister? Is there something you can do?' The chances are greater the imam will say, 'This is unacceptable.'"

Personally, I like JWF's position on this:

Here's a helpful suggestion from the evil right: How about going to the police the next time your husband hits you instead of some useless imam?

But there is some great irony in this story not to be missed.

Here's what we know about the Islamic Society of North America and its ties to terror and its control over 80% of US mosques where it encourages radical and extremist teaching of Islam.

Enforces extremist Wahhabi theological writ in America's mosques.

ISNA focuses heavily on providing Wahhabi theological indoctrination materials to a large percentage of the mosques in North America. Many of these mosques were recently built with Saudi money and are required, by their Saudi benefactors, to strictly follow the dictates of Wahhabi imams -- an edict that affects the tone and content of the sermons given in the mosques, the selection of books and periodicals that may be read in mosque libraries or sold in mosque bookshops, and the policies governing the exclusion or suppression of dissenters from the congregations.

Through its affiliate, the North American Islamic Trust -- a Saudi government-backed organization created to fund Islamist enterprises in North America -- the Saudi-subsidized ISNA reportedly holds the mortgages on 50 to 80 percent of all mosques in the U.S. and Canada. Thus the organization can freely exercise ultimate authority over these houses of worship and their teachings.

Writes Kaukab Siddique, the editor of New Trend, an Islamic periodical of extremist views that is nonetheless opposed to Wahhabi domination of American Islam: "ISNA controls most mosques in America and thus also controls who will speak at every Friday prayer, and which literature will be distributed there."

Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz describes ISNA as "one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States." Adds Schwartz: "Our view is that the number of mosques under Wahhabi control actually totals at least 600 out of the official total of 1,200, while, as noted, Shia community leaders endorse the figure of 80 percent Wahhabi control. But we also offer a number of 4-6,000 mosques overall, including small and diverse congregations of many kinds."

According to Sufi leader Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani's testimony before a State Department Open Forum on January 7, 1999, extremists have taken over "more than 80 percent of the mosques in the United States ... This means that the ideology of extremism has been spread to 80 percent of the Muslim population, mostly the youth and the new generation." Kabbani based his statement on his personal investigation of 114 American mosques. "Ninety of them," he said, "were mostly exposed, and I say exposed, to extreme or radical ideology, based on their speeches, books and board members." This is largely due to the efforts of ISNA.

According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, ISNA "is a radical group hiding under a false veneer of moderation"; "convenes annual conferences where Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and promote hatred" (for instance, al Qaeda supporter and PLO official Yusuf Al-Qaradhawi was invited to speak at an ISNA conference); has held fundraisers for terrorists (after Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense); has condemned the U.S. government's post-9/11 seizure of Hamas' and Palestinian Islamic Jihad's financial assets; and publishes a bi-monthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, that "often champions militant Islamist doctrine."

Adds Emerson: "I think ISNA has been an umbrella, also a promoter of groups that have been involved in terrorism. I am not going to accuse the ISNA of being directly involved in terrorism. I will say ISNA has sponsored extremists, racists, people who call for Jihad against the United States."

Emerson further reports that "In September 2002, a full year after the 9/11 attacks, speakers at ISNA's annual conference still refused to acknowledge Bin Laden's role in the terrorist attacks.

"WTHR, an Indianapolis television station located close to ISNA's Plainfield, Indiana headquarters, said it had found "about a dozen charities, organizations and individuals under federal scrutiny for possible ties to terrorism that are in some way linked to ISNA."

In December 2003, U.S. Senators Charles Grassley and Max Baucus of the Senate Committee on Finance listed ISNA as one of 25 American Muslim organizations that "finance terrorism and perpetuate violence."

ISNA is known to have permitted the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (and a number of other Islamic charities with terror connections) to set up booths at its conventions, and in some cases has helped raise money for them.

Upon learning of the arrest of Sami Al-Arian, the University of South Florida computer science professor who eventually would be found guilty of conspiring to fund the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, ISNA issued a statement criticizing the U.S. government for its prosecution of Al-Arian.

ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document --titled "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America" -- as one of the Brotherhood's likeminded "organizations of our friends" who shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation.

These "friends" -- which included also the Islamic Circle of North America, Muslim Youth of North America, the Muslim Students Association, the Muslim Arab Youth Association, the Islamic Association for Palestine, the United Association for Studies and Research, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought -- were identified by the Brotherhood as groups that could help teach Muslims "that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands ... so that ... God's religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions."

Several organizations are considered constituents of ISNA. These include the Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America, the Islamic Medical Association of North America, the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers, the Council of Islamic Schools in North America, the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada, and Muslim Youth of North America.

Next time the ISNA attacks the so-called "right wing" for "misusing" violent radical Islam and continues its assertion that Islam is a peaceful religion, you might want to take it with a grain of salt. And maybe the AP should reconsider who it uses as sources on "peaceful" Islam.



And yes, for the record, I do believe most Muslims are peaceful people, just not the ones at the ISNA who are criticizing the media for covering a relevant news story.



Well, some in the media anyway.