Ismail Royer

2002-11-07T07:01:00.000-08:00

Assalaamu alaikum, Greetings, etc.

I suppose the time has come for me to face facts and basically put an end to this blog, or, more accurately, to say that it has been folded into the new website. Considering the new webzine has so far gotten 40 times as many hits in two weeks as this blog has gotten in the couple months that it has been up, it seems a little pointless to spend time on it when I scramble to get new issues of the webzine up.

So, if you've stumbled on this page and find it kind of interesting, then it's being continued at A True Word, but hopefully in a more refined and productive manner.

Salaam, Peace, and all that...

Ismail

2002-11-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

Whew! After a couple sleepless nights, we just got the new issue of A True Word up. It's going well, we've had an average of 12,000 hits a day and plenty of good feedback. I've had less time for this blog, which the new zine is kind of eclipsing. Ah well. Here's an article I just published there. Check out the site for the rest of the articles, including an interesting interview I did with ex-CIA official and RAND scholar Graham Fuller on the avoidability of a clash of civilizations.

Who are the Radicals?

In a very practical sense, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were a tremendous success. September 11, 2001 dramatically advanced the agenda of a tiny group of radicals who perceive that the only way to achieve their goals is by driving the worlds of Islam and Christianity into a cataclysmic confrontation.

These radicals are not just Muslims; they are Christians and Jews as well. Under examination, the ultimate goals of the radical pro-Israel fringe, extremist Christian fundamentalists, and Al Qaida are startlingly similar. The line between the camps becomes quite fuzzy, a subject that A True Word hopes to examine in future articles.

The 9/11 conspirators, of course, had a good idea that war would be the consequence of their efforts, though they must be disappointed in the outcome as it stands today. The American attack on Afghanistan and wider "War on Terrorism" drove the Muslim masses, to a limited and superficial extent, into the arms of a group who had heretofore been relatively unknown, marginal, and lacking in influence.

Even among jihad circles, which Western mythology teaches that he dominated, Osama bin Ladin's embroilment in a civil war between Muslims, and the tendency of his group to engage in takfeer (excommunication) and accusations of hypocrisy against respected Islamic scholars and many Muslims in general, left him relatively isolated. Indeed, most activists in the Islamic resistance struggles in the 1990s advised potential volunteers to avoid Afghanistan and its convoluted, bewildering politics, from which most foreign volunteers had fled subsequent to the region's descent into Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

Lashkar Jihad, the largest jihad group in Indonesia, has explicitly distanced itself from Bin Ladin and denounced his methods. And in an April 2000 open letter to ABC News president David Westin, an official of the Kashmiri jihad brigade Lashkar-e-Taiba wrote that his group "has no organizational affiliation or ties with Usamah bin Laden. Our organization is not involved, nor has it ever been involved, in any activities in America or East Africa. We condemn all acts of violence against civilians and those who commit such acts, whether Muslim or non-Muslim. Islam does not allow the killing of peaceful, innocent, unarmed civilians."

Indeed, it is the aspirations of Muslims for peace and freedom in places like Kashmir and Chechnya that have suffered as a consequence of 9/11. Bosnia has witnessed a slide back to the Communist era with a series of political arrests on the basis of flimsy or no evidence, justified by a "war on terrorism." Russia and China ape Bush's rhetoric, recasting domestic Muslim liberation movements as struggles against international terrorism. MIT Professor Noam Chomsky observes: "The atrocities of September 11 were a devastating blow for the Palestinians, as they instantly recognized. Israel is openly exulting in the 'window of opportunity' it now has to crush Palestinians with impunity."

While Muslims have been the subject of a great deal of scrutiny, the West has not paid a fraction of as much attention to its own, homegrown radicals whose agitation has contributed as much, if not more, to a potential Third World War as bin Ladin himself. A coterie of lobbyists, media commentators, and US government bureaucrats, pursuing their own unique but overlapping agendas, work together in an unlikely alliance under the assumption that such a war will benefit their peculiar and obscure causes. Those causes have very little to do with the interests of America and her citizens, Western countries, or humanity in general.

The average American doesn't believe that a war between Muslims and the West to usher in the return of Jesus Christ is a sensible policy goal, but quite influential lobbyists do. The interests of America and peace are sacrificed as opinion-makers and lobbyists drive a wedge between our country and the Muslim world as a means of shoring up an illegitimate regime in the Holy Land. Career spooks and defense contractors scramble for ways to justify their existence in a post-Soviet world with no enemy looming outside America's gates, no convincing threat to its survival.

But the problems of these fringe special interests are not humanity's problems, and what they believe is the solution to their problems-unlimited war-is not the solution to humanity's problems. And thus, we have a responsibility to begin identifying those for whom war is an end in itself, to analyze their arguments, and to expose their incongruence, falsehood, and danger.

This is the case regardless of religion or nationality, but we have the US media to put Muslims under the spotlight-although it quite often gets the story wrong, due to incomplete information or assumptions tainted by the influence of the aforementioned homegrown extremists. Therefore, each week, A True Word will examine the claims and credibility of the West's homegrown ideologues, taking up the slack that has been neglected in a society unable to perceive, like a purloined letter, its own roots in the conflict.

This does not mean that Muslims should dismiss criticism out of hand; on the contrary, we must begin listening to our detractors as a means of improving and refining our communication with the West, and even altering our behavior if we find that it has indeed been inconsistent with the noble and universal aims of our religion.

At the same time, the West must begin to recognize the difference between what are rational arguments and argumentation, between the seekers of truth and those who seek to obscure it with irrelevance, hyperbole, and hysteria. They must begin to emulate the former, and dismiss the latter to the dustbin of political irrelevance.

2002-10-30T18:12:00.000-08:00

More on Chechnya

Some readers question my view of the Moscow incident and the Russians' "resolution" of it. However, an uncharacteristically wise editorial from Monday's Wall Street Journal, which rarely has anything rational to say about Muslims, agrees:

Vladimir Putin may have brought an end to the Moscow hostage crisis, but he now faces the wrath that follows the death of more than 100 citizens, most of whom seem to have died at the hands of their rescuers. This "ending" is but a chapter in a wider crisis for Russia's president, one whose gravity he had tried to ignore. More than three years after he promised to "solve" the Chechnya issue, its dangers and cruelties are only multiplying. Ordinary Russians must now start asking hard questions about where Moscow's
Chechen policy is taking them.

Their first conclusion will be that they are not properly protected. Some ask why Movsar Barayev and his followers chose to embark on a suicide mission now; but the question is better put thus: Why had this not happened before? After all, Chechnya has suffered eight years of perpetual warfare and contains hundreds of men as brutalized and desperate as Barayev. Now, almost anything is possible. Russia is vast, with vulnerable targets and weak policing. As a Chechen moderate who has long called for negotiations
told me bitterly: "The Russians should thank God that they just seized a House of Culture and not a nuclear power station..."

2002-10-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

The only practical difference between this guy, 18-year old Daniel Fears, and John Allen Williams (I won't call him by his assumed last name) is that Williams was a better shot. Both deserve execution if found guilty, of course.

Lying axe-grinders like Daniel Pipes are already trying to connect Williams, whom Farrakhan admits is a "Nation of Islam" fruitcake, to Islam itself. I'm waiting for Pipes to connect the guy in the photo here to Christianity or white people or something (and I'm focusing on Pipes as an example, but of course his way of thinking is quite widespread).

Fears' lawyer says the kid "just flipped out," but for Pipes and his ilk, a Muslim--like the Egyptian guy at the El Al counter, or even a counterfeit Muslim like Williams--are incapable of "just flipping out." Everything negative a Muslim does is proof of the evil of Islam, and everything positive a Muslim does is ignored, or, if aknowledged, dismissed as PR.

2002-10-28T08:02:00.000-08:00

Camps for Americans to be held indefinitely without charge? Is that legal? Yes, says William J. Haynes II, the Defense Department's lawyer, because the Patriot Act authorizes the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force" (translation from legalese: "anything Bush damn well pleases") to protect the country.

So don't let anyone tell you that Osama bin Ladin and the Bush can't find some common ground: "I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed," OBL predicted.

Though honestly that isn't quite the common ground I'd prefer between Muslims and the West.

2002-10-27T23:18:00.000-08:00

Greetings. Well, I've got a new creative outlet going on-line today, a new weekly webzine called A True Word. It's a project of three people, myself, Amir Butler of Australia, and Shibli Zaman of Texas. Check it out, I hope you like it.

I'll probably be putting my more formal writing on that publication and using this more in a traditional blog sense, as informal ramblings and commentary. Ok, here goes. The New York Times says:

"Of the 117 hostages confirmed dead so far, the Moscow health committee said tonight, only one had died of gunshot wounds. The remaining 116 hostages appear to have died of gas-related injuries."

The article also points out that the Ruskies lied about the reason for the timing of the raid--that the hostage-takers hadn't actually begun executing people.

We hear about how Saddam gassed his own people. Guess he wasn't the last US ally to do that.

Update

I went to the big anti-war rally over the weekend and stumbled on the two dozen pro-war counter-protestors. One of them was a Russian lady holding a sign that said "DESTROY CHECHNYA." I asked her why and she said because "they fight like animals, not soldiers; they kill prisoners of war."

Oh yeah? Well, here's this for those who feel the Russian army is some chivalrous band of heroes.

And executing women combatants while they're sleeping? That's OK, then?

2002-10-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

The Futility of Apology

You’re in third grade again, one of thirty-five white kids in a class with five black kids, and your teacher is passing back your math tests. She turns to the class, stabs a finger at one of the black kids and accuses him of cheating on the test. The kid admits it and she dispatches him to the principal’s office.

Now she demands that the four remaining black kids stand and apologize for the lone cheater’s behavior. Confused and embarrassed, they awkwardly sputter something about being sorry. The teacher mocks their apologies and marches the whole lot off to the principle’s office.

Is this fair? Reasonable?

No, the scenario is ridiculous. The teacher, hopefully, would be fired immediately. So why does it seem reasonable to hold every individual Muslim responsible for the actions of a few? And why do Muslim spokesmen accept this responsibility?

In the days following the September 11 attacks, American Muslim leaders bent far, far over backwards to condemn the attacks, to such an extent that they sacrificed a certain amount of dignity as they prostrated themselves before the public and the media. Muslim leaders published contrite full page ads in national newspapers, held blood drives, cuddled in photo ops with President Bush, burned candles at vigils, hoisted flags outside mosques and draped their cars, homes and persons in red, white and blue, made pilgrimages to churches to pray for the destruction of the attacks’ perpetrators. They urged Muslims in America to join the FBI and to enlist in the US military and fight in Afghanistan.

None of it was good enough. From one corner, commentators from the right and left complained loudly that Muslim leaders had been absolutely silent. From the other, those who acknowledged the existence of the avalanche of condemnations complained that they were half-hearted and insincere. “We know these people really hate America,” one FBI agent told me.

The first contention is demonstrably false and the result of ignorance or deliberate deception. The second is of course wrong, but more understandable. Whatever the circumstances, it is impossible to apologize sincerely when the apology is made for the sake of smoothing things over, not because one is truly responsible for what one is apologizing for. At the same time, exaggerated apologies tend to imply an admission of guilt. As the Christians' own holy book says, “The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.”

It is true that there is a difference between condemning an act and apologizing for it, but somewhere after the fiftieth statement of condemnation the distinction is blurred. The fact is that Muslims had a unique responsibility to spell out Islam’s position on the events, which, after all, were carried out in the name of Islam and mainstream Muslim concerns. But this should be done in a dignified manner and to a reasonable extent. What is expected of Muslims, and what they have accepted, goes beyond our responsibility.

Last week, as I was running late for a late-night meeting, I stopped off at the Starbucks a block from my Virginia home for some coffee. Minutes after I got back in my car, a sniper shot and killed a woman at the Home Depot three stores down. After this brush with death, am I demanding that all white people apologize (most experts say the sniper’s probably white), or that the National Rifle Association hold a prayer vigil? No, because I don’t feel they are responsible.

At the same time, many of those who are loudest in demanding even more apologies from the Muslims are silent on the actions of those they actually are responsible for. The Middle East Media Research Institute, for example, a pro-Israel think tank, regularly plays “gotcha” with Muslims, dubiously translating speeches and articles sliced from their context to portray a Muslim world seething with hatred and extremism. The group’s director is Yigal Carmon, former administrative head of the occupied West Bank between 1977 and 1982, ranking member of Israel’s intelligence establishment, and an outspoken proponent of torture. “Pain is not taking life,” Carmon explained to the Washington Post. “Pain comes and goes. Pain disappears. You know, everyone experiences that. Unwillingly, of course.”

Aside from appearing guilty and insincere, the danger of losing perspective on this matter is that condemnations and apologies can deteriorate into an orgy of self-flagellation and unhealthy obsession with the alleged failings of Muslims. Our community is not perfect, and some of the responses of some Muslims to the challenges they face are the result of a combination of frustration and ignorance, willful or otherwise, of Islamic parameters of action. These Muslims should be advised and the people should be warned against their methodology.

This does not mean, however, that we should obsess over our mistakes, even if they are the only aspects of our community getting any media attention. I perceive in some quarters an inferiority complex taking hold, a paralyzing “9/11 Syndrome” that is causing many Muslims to retreat, curl up into a fetal position, be afraid to begin any sentence without a condemnation of terrorism, and just be happy they haven’t yet been deported. Why should Muslims feel so humiliated, when there is so much about our community to feel positive and hopeful about?

It has been repeated ad nauseum that, except for an insignificant fraction, Muslims in America want dialogue and harmonious relations with their neighbors. This is true enough. But Muslims need to stop expending energy fleeing from the fallacious notion that they bear responsibility for what a handful of people do, and be bold as lions in implementing their duty to Allah and the society they live in: “You [Muslims] are the best of nations raised up for the benefit of men: you enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong and believe in Allah.”

2002-10-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

Shortcomings in attacks on belief in God

Dig down to the root of just about any anti-religion statement and you’ll find at its foundation one of two philosophies: moral relativism or secular humanism. In modern American popular culture, these are the two belief systems that together comprise the intellectual roots of the anti-religion camp. These philosophies are in many ways hostile to each other, but their adherents are united against a common enemy. Both are seriously flawed. Both are in many ways religions themselves, and certainly among their adherents one finds those who are as insufferably self-righteous and dogmatic as any greasy-haired televangelist.

Moral relativism is the belief that moral standards are grounded only in social custom, not in any universal or divine truth, so therefore all beliefs and moral standards are equally true. Sound familiar? It should, it’s the official religion of most university campuses and has spread throughout pop culture. “There ain’t no wrong, ain’t no right,” sang rock group Jane’s Addiction.

This belief is a little problematic. So the Aztec ritual of flinging virgins into live volcanoes is the moral equivalent of, say, Ghandi’s principles of non-violence? And yet, a religious person will often find himself on the business end of a moral relativist’s finger, wagged Church Lady-style in disapproval. The accompanying sermon is usually some version of “I’m superior because I’m so tolerant.”

The truth is that moral relativism invalidates itself. If every belief is equally true, that means I’m wrong for believing in a divine revelation as a universal criterion for human beliefs and actions. But of course, it also means that my religion is just as true as moral relativism. So there’s nothing for a moral relativist to feel superior about or disapprove of, even in reference to a member of the Manson Family.

Secular humanists, on the other hand, hold that only theirs is a valid belief system; namely, that belief in God (and all that follows from that) is wrong because His existence cannot be proved. And indeed it cannot be “proved” by some mathematical formula or scientific experiment; that’s why it’s called “faith.” Humans are left to derive His existence from His creation: a child’s smile, a Virginia autumn, a sunset. The believer finds it difficult to reflect on these marvels and consider them cosmic rolls of the dice.

In secular humanism, human reason is the ultimate criterion, the ultimate source of truth: “…dogmas, ideologies and traditions…must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith,” states the Council for Secular Humanism. But this rather reasonable-sounding tenet is misleading, because to secular humanists, anyone who does accept a faith has not sufficiently “weighed and tested” it, since by definition it cannot be “proved” by the secular humanist criterion. This argument against religion fails because it assumes what it is trying to prove.

Secular humanists describe their belief system with neutral terms, calling it a “philosophy” or “conviction,” whereas they define religions with more loaded terms, as being “dogmas.” In reality, secular humanism and what would be traditionally considered “religions” like Islam and Christianity share a common ground in that they are all doctrines asserting an ultimate criterion of truth. Secular humanists simply dismiss belief in God out of hand because it’s not the ultimate source of truth that they believe in—the equivalent of a Christian trying to objectively prove that other religions are false because they don’t accept the Bible.

All belief systems, then, are not equally valid but they are all equally a set of assumptions whose validity must be judged on their own merits.

To be continued…

2002-10-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

So sorry

It seems like I've ruffled some feathers and managed to upset some people (That's not me in the pic, that's an upset guy. I just think he sets an appropriately "upset" tone).

So there's a discussion that's been raging on the comments section of this site in response to my Bosnia post. To my delight I find I'm being attacked in random corners of the blogosphere--even in Spanish--which gives me yet another opportunity to gently and tactfully hold the hands of the masses and guide them away from their rank stupidity. (Please don't cry...that's just a little post-modern cynical humor...I'll try to tone it down.)

Tacitus, a guy so phenomenally enlightened he has to refer to himself in the third person, says I'm a "lunatic" because:

"1) Your belief that your proscription [of the marriage of Muslim women to non-Muslim men] is divinely inspired, and 2) your utter lack of social graces in insulting the marital status of strangers."

First of all, regarding Bill Allison’s marriage. What a bunch of whiners. These people are more sensitive than Woody Allen. Poor ol' maligned Bill Allison asks me to comment about his marriage (granted, probably as a snotty way of proving some point or another), and then cries about it after I don’t tell him what he wants to hear. Sheesh.

Let's try to get to the root of all the fuss. I told Tacitus:

"Intellectual cowardice makes me nauseous. 'In Royer's eyes,' Islam doesn't permit Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, you say. Again, assuming you're not an ignoramus, you know that in fact it is Islam itself that doesn't permit it, NOT 'Ismail Royer.' So what you're really railing against is Islam itself, but of course I'm a more politically correct target. If you don't like Islam, you don't like it, so don't equivocate."

He replies:

“Do I dislike Islam in all its forms? No. Do I dislike Islam as defined by you? Yes. It is a proven enabler of barbarism and tyranny.”

Good for him. I’m a big supporter of cutting through the crap and getting to the root of the matter, whatever the topic.

He doesn't like Islam “as I define it” (and neither do Allison and a big chunk of their fellow "intellectuals.") Fair enough, that’s their right. But "as I define it"? I didn't define Islam anywhere in the article, so there's some inference on their part. Apparently "lunatic Islam" is distinct from "acceptable Islam" in that lunatics believe Islam is divinely inspired. Tacitus says:

“…the movement among Jews [to prevent intermarriage] is based upon a desire to preserve a particular ethnicity and cultural heritage, and not upon an interpretation of a divine command. [This is] hardly lunatic. You cross the line into lunacy (or something like it) [with]…your belief that your proscription is divinely inspired…”

The marriage topic is hardly the most conspicuous or controversial aspect of Islam, unless these people are singularly focused on the "right" of non-Muslim men to marry Muslim women. And he doesn't mind so much the eugenics-style notion of trying to prevent intermarriage if its done out of a worldly motivation to "preserve ethnicity." Therefore its the "divinely inspired" part that's making their blood boil. Ah, finally, the crux of the matter.

An Islam these folks would approve of, then, would be one whose adherents do not believe is divinely inspired. That wouldn’t be much of a “religion” at all, of course. The truth is that by definition you won't find a Muslim who doesn't believe that Islam is divinely inspired, so I guess we're all lunatics in your eyes. Oh well, you can't please everybody.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Tacitus claims I'm a "radical Islamic fundamentalist fanatic extremist terrorist" or some such because I assert that the concept of "democracy" is ambiguous. Uh...how much of a "moderate" can this guy be if he reacts so hysterically to my exceedingly mild critique of HIS religion (oops...I mean "philosophy")?

2002-10-10T01:14:00.000-07:00

Western misconceptions of Bosnia

One of many of the reasons I am doing this website is to expand the parameters of debate by putting forward a point of view that is rarely heard in the stale “left vs. right” approved spectrum of thought. So I was encouraged that some people were irritated enough by my post on Bosnia to react to it with some thoughts of their own. Well, not always entirely of their own.

What follows is unusually long for me, a reply to a rebuttal of the Bosnia post. I chose to write in this detail, however, because the rebuttal contained a host of commonly held misconceptions about the region. Therefore, this piece is a reply not so much to that rebuttal but to those misconceptions themselves.

In his rebuttal of my post, Bill Allison is right about one thing: Bosnia is a topic he “knows a little about.” A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, however, and the little knowledge he has of the topic is a rehash of conventional wisdom, unspoiled by much reflection of his own. Having read an article by Bosnia’s ex-president may make him an expert on the issue relative to most Americans who can barely find their own country on a map, but that hardly gives him the right to question my qualifications to discuss the issue.

Claim: All parties were equally bad

First, Mr. Allison asks whether I’m as pleased that the neo-Communists lost in the Croat and Serb ministates of Bosnia as I am that they lost in the Muslim part, considering that the parties that came out ahead there were the same parties that led the genocide against the Muslims.

When Communists lose in Muslim Bosnia, it’s good. When they lose in the Serb and Croat occupied areas, it’s bad. Why? Because the so-called Muslim “nationalist” party never promoted systematic rape, murder, and ethnic cleansing, whereas the Serb and Croat nationalist parties did. So although I’m a foe of communism, historically the Yugoslav manifestation of it has been less murderous than Croat and Serb nationalism.

Let me say at this point that, stripped to its essence, the notion that an election victory by all three ruling wartime parties is equally bad tends to assume a moral equivalency between the victims and the criminals. That may not be what Mr. Allison consciously intends; perhaps he simply echoes this notion uncritically, having internalized it from EU and US diplomats and NGO “experts” who monopolize the Bosnia issue in our lazy, narrow-minded media.

Claim: the Bosnian war was not religious

Mr. Allison recites the lefty litany that the war was not a Christian holy war against Muslims, but a war by nationalists opposed to a multicultural Bosnia. This is true in the same sense that the Spanish Inquisition was conducted by nationalists opposed to a multicultural Spain or the Crusades were launched in opposition to a multicultural Jerusalem. As I recall then-Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic telling Dubai TV (in Arabic, a language he is fluent in after studying Islamic law in Libya), the Muslims were targeted “faqat lianna nehnu Muslimeen”—only because we are Muslims.

Claim: Bosnian Muslims aren’t real Muslims

Mr. Allison seems to assume that I am recasting Alija Izetbegovic as an Islamic fundamentalist (whatever that is) in the same way that the Serbs do, and then tries to “defend” Izetbegovic against me. Izetbegovic isn’t one of Mr. Royer’s kind of Muslims, he says, because after all, the former Bosnian president’s writings argue for “freedom of conscience, speech and religion in Muslim countries, and full rights for women.” That is, these are concepts that he, Izetbegovic, and all civilized people believe in, and that my fellow Islamic fundamentalists and I do not.

I’m happy to readjust Mr. Allison’s assumptions. Islam, Izetbegovic, and I all stand for those concepts, although not in their extreme as Mr. Allison and his fellow “civilized” people do. Islam is a religion of moderation and balance, and in ideal Islamic society the rights of individuals are balanced against the rights of the community. Western civilization, of course, makes a stab at this as well (is it legal in the US for a Rastafarian to smoke marijuana? Can I yell “fire” in a crowded theater?), but, not being a divinely revealed way of life, can only come up short.

Mr. Allison’s “proof” that Bosnian Muslims accept his "civilized" parameters on liberties rather than the "oppressive" parameters of Islam is an essay claiming that “between World War II and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, 30 to 40 percent of marriages in Sarajevo…were mixed marriages between Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim and Jew.”

This recalls the standard university text “How to Lie With Statistics.” I’ll assume Mr. Allison has a basic knowledge of Islam and knows that Muslim men are permitted to marry Christian and Jewish women. If Mr. Allison wants to make any claims about the degree to which Bosnian Muslims in that forty-year window of time observed or flouted Islamic teachings, the real question is: what percentage of marriages in Sarajevo and other urban areas were between Muslim WOMEN and NON-MUSLIM MEN. The answer to this question could be zero and his statistic could still be true.

This is sufficient to render this “proof” meaningless, setting aside of course questions like: Who conducted this survey? Perhaps Communist authorities who might be motivated to fudge and downplay religion? Was it scientific? And are the practices of people in a narrow demographic sliver during a forty-year period under oppressive communist rule really representative of an entire people’s 550-year-old religious tradition?

Claim: Islam is oppressive

Continuing his refutation of my article (I thought I had written about the merits of neo-communism’s waning appeal), Mr. Allison then quotes a lengthy warm-fuzzy passage about the fact that many cultures and languages and religions formed a big melting pot in Bosnia. This he apparently offers as further proof that MY kind of Islam is alien to the region, assuming such a society would be anathema to it and me. On the contrary: the source of the Ottoman’s tolerance of diverse religions, cultures, and languages in the Ottoman Empire was not Western secular humanism (gasp!) but Islam itself.

Like a Communist Party schoolbook author, however, Mr. Allison is hell-bent on minimizing Islam’s role in Bosnia: the Muslims were simply “an integral part of that culture,” he asserts. No, they were not a “part” of that culture, they were the foundation of that culture. The Ottoman Empire was an Islamic empire that, to greater or lesser degrees, ruled for over 500 years not by democracy (whatever that means) or by the communism of Tito or Lagumdzija, but by the Shariah of the Prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah, peace be upon him.

I have a coin that was used in Bosnia in the late 1800s inscribed with the Arabic words “La illaha il Allah,” “There is no god but Allah,” Islam’s testimony of faith and the same words on the flag of the Arab and Bosnian Mujahideen you say were “clearly” terrorists. At the same time I have seen in the town square of Travnik, a wartime headquarters of the Arabs and former seat of the Ottoman wazir, the grave of a commander of Serb origin who helped lead the Muslims to devastating victories over the Serbian nationalists.

Claim: The neo-Communists will solve Bosnia’s problems

If Mr. Allison truly admired and understood the justice and harmony of Bosnia’s past, then he would wish for a return to its tradition of authentic Islamic values and ultimately Islamic authority.

He doesn’t quite understand it, though, so he looks to Tito’s successors: “Mr. Royer should explain why it is that he regards U.S. support for a peaceful, multiethnic Bosnia as ‘opposing Islam,’” he demands. (For him, US support for neo-Communists equals support for a “peaceful, multi-ethnic Bosnia”—for all his kind words about Izetbegovic, we finally learn where his political sympathies lie). In case he didn’t read my article which he expended so much effort refuting, the Communists don’t have a good track record in dealing with Muslims or religion in general. Lefties like Mr. Allison might not be concerned about that, but the multiethnic, multi-religious citizens of Ottoman Bosnia that he claims to admire would have had a problem with it.

The West’s supporting of the neo-Communists in Bosnia amounts to opposing Islam because the only serious opposition to them is the Muslim party, and the US and EU have threatened economic sanctions if the people vote for other than the neo-Communist party (or, as they sanitize it, the “wartime” party of the SDA). There are many other examples of the West’s machinations against Islam in the Balkans, which I will perhaps detail in a future article, God willing.

Claim: America saved Bosnia

America “saved” Bosnia, he claims. No, America and the European Union destroyed Bosnia. If you witness a rape and have the power to stop it but don’t, you are morally, if not legally, culpable. If you witness a rape and chase away people who are trying to help the victim, you are an accessory to the crime. In the case of Bosnia, the how and the why are arguable but incidental. What remains after their doublespeak and excuses are 350,000 dead, thousands of women raped, and genocidal maniacs awarded the land they stole. The US action came conveniently as the Muslims were marching on Banja Luka and the Serb army was fleeing. The Dayton diktat, I mean “accord,” was signed and the creation of a stable Muslim-dominated state in Europe was averted.

Claim: “Wahhabies” are destroying Bosnian architecture

Mr. Allison regurgitates Michael A. Sells’ bigotry-fueled hysteria about the alleged “destruction” by Saudi Arabian organizations of architectural monuments they are supposed to be restoring. These claims, also advanced by racists like Stephen Schwartz, dovetail nicely with the Israeli lobby’s laughably transparent anti-Saudi Arabia campaign. In short, the claim is that members of the “wahhabi” sect (whose existence is a figment of the imagination of extreme Sufis, Westerners, and others who feel threatened by authentic Islam) have a tenet that allows no decoration on the walls of mosques, and so therefore “wahhabis” have destroyed the interior of the Gazi Husrev Bey mosque.

The problem with this theory is that there is no such anti-decoration tenet. The other problem is that the entire interior of the mosque has been restored and is back on the walls and ceiling of the mosque, exactly as the organizations said it would be. I know because I prayed Salaatul Jummuah in this mosque in April of this year. In 1996 I asked a mosque official why the interior was gone and he told me it was removed and would be replaced once it was restored, and it was. So this window of opportunity for Mr. Sells and his ilk to stir up intra-religious mistrust has been closed, though no doubt they will continue to seek others.

Claim: Each individual Muslim is responsible for what every other Muslim on the planet has ever said or done

And finally, Mr. Allison’s demand that I defend an Egyptian newspaper’s support for Milosevic is preposterous. Dear reader, I demand that you defend Charles Lindbergh’s support for Hitler. Confused? Me too.

Photo: Masjid Al-Ansar, Zenica, Bosnia. Photo by Ismail Royer

2002-10-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

Commies & US policy toward Islam fail miserably

Good news for American policy-makers! The Communists have been defeated in free and fair elections in a pivotal Central European nation.

Oh, wait, sorry. I thought for a minute it was the 1980s. I'll try again.

Bad news for American policy-makers! The Communists have been defeated! Yes, the Muslim party in Bosnia has apparently handed a defeat to the Western-backed pinkos, who, according to preliminary returns, managed to scrape together a pitiful 14 percent of the vote.

Even threats from the EU and the US that they would stop throwing crumbs their way did not convince Bosnians to re-elect the party of Tito, a party greatly admired by America and the European Union for its main quality of not being Muslim, a quality it advertises with rallies featuring barbecued swine and massive posters of the blessedly deceased, wart-faced Yugoslav dictator.

Tito's League of Communists, which renamed itself the Social Democrat Party but retains its old headquarters and real estate holdings, was elected in 1997 with a lot of campaign support from the US, NATO and the European Union. Bosnian people were fed up with an economy that stagnated under the SDA, the Muslim party that had led them during the Croat and Serb orchestrated genocide of 1992 to 1995.

This is the "democratic" party that outlawed face veils for women; that murdered scholar Mustafa Busuladzic for writing an article critical of Stalin's deportation of the Chechen nation to Kazakhstan; that jailed Muslims like Alija Izetbegovic whose attendance at prayers and practice and love of their religion made them a threat to the dictatorship.

Characteristically, once the party regained power, they started locking up Muslims again and shutting down mosques (like the one in Zenica's jail). They began arresting Arabs, like the scholar Imad al-Misri, who had sacrificed wealth and cushy lives in their homelands to defend women and children from genocide--yet had suddenly become "terrorists" linked to Bin Ladin by virtue of their natural origin or language. This, of course, they were asked to do by America, but a Balkan communist needs little prodding to lock up a Muslim.

Support Communists in Eastern Europe, you say? Don't American politicians know US national interests from a hole in the ground? Golly, next they'll be pumping money to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Oh, wait, they already do that--over $3 million worth of office space, equipment, radios, vehicles, staff and training to a Sudanese opposition group that includes the Sudanese wing of Saddam's party (and, of course, Communists), with another $10 million approved but which remains, to my knowledge, as yet unspent. All in the name of battling a nominally "Islamist" government.

Here's a wacky idea--instead of opposing Islam by any means necessary (including asinine means, like trying to maneuver Communists into power in Europe and supporting Saddam Hussein's political party in the Middle East)--why don't American policy makers actually sit down and try to figure out how to get along with the Muslims in the world?

Would it really hurt anyone (except Israel's umbilical cord) for the US to actually try to live and let live--instead of repeatedly poking a billion Muslims with a sharp stick and then being "surprised" when a handful of misguided people carry out an act of terrorism?

Photo: US-trained Communist shock troops beat Muslims in Bosnia, Jan. 2002

2002-09-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

"Pro-Democrocacy" Think Tank is Front for Israeli Lobby

A new think tank reports it has "joined forces" with a Saudi dissident (what are they, the Wonder Twins?) in the neocon campaign to smear the Saudi government and Saudi-based Islamic groups. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the so-called "Saudi Institute," a one-man show run by disgruntled Shi'ite Ali Al-Ahmed (above), claim in a new report that Saudi Arabian religious authorities are spreading "hate literature."

The report is totally bogus, rife with mistranslation and selective quoting. For example, the report cites a passage from a book distributed by the Virginia-based Instititute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences, part of the Saudi university system, in which it is written that Muslims should feel hatred toward non-Muslims. He neglects to mention that this refers to what a Muslim’s attitude toward the enemy should be during a period of war. He juxtaposes this with a quote 20 pages away that Muslims should not take the Christians and Jews as friends, regardless of whether or not they are combatants. They translate the word "awliyaat" as "friends," when the term actually means patrons or protectors ("isdiqaa" means friends).

He conveniently avoids passages like this from the book:

“Treat them with gentleness and in the best manner. You may give charity to the poor among them, give them presents and accept their presents, give them condolences, answer their greetings…and travel to their countries if there is no religious oppression. You may visit them, you may interact with them freely.”

As a long time observer of the neocon anti-Islam industry, a think tank with a name like "Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" just begs me to delve a little deeper. Turns out it was co-founded by neocon godfather Richard Perle, one of "a group of high-ranking hawks in the Pentagon--led by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz--that some DC insiders call the 'Kosher Nostra.'" Perle heads up the quasi-official Defense Policy Board, which sponsored the controversial Pentagon briefing in July that described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States.

Look a little further and we find that the FDD’s vice president, Nim Boms, is a former Officer of Public and Academic Affairs for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. Heading up the FDD is Clifford May, currently Vice Chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group with a stated goal of “continuing foreign aid to Israel.” Other FDD officials include veteran pro-Israel activists like Charles Jacobs, who has been active with the National Unity Coalition for Israel (NUCI), a group he tells the New York Times (1/21/98) gives “voice to evangelical Christians who are ardent Zionists.”

And violent groups? They apparently don't have a problem with them as long as they support their favorite country. Jacobs’ NUCI has posted materials on its web site by an official of Kach, the violent Israeli militant group outlawed by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. And FDD Senior Advisor Walid Phares has had a long and close relationship with the Guardians of the Cedar, a pro-Israel Lebanese militia. The group, which in 1976 led the massacre of at least 3,000 Palestinian men, women, and children at the Tel al-Za’atar refugee camp near Beirut (and continues to call the massacre a "cleansing"), is labeled “an extremist Christian group” by the US State Department. The Congressional Research Service labels them an “extremist Maronite militia and terrorist organization.”

The FDD says it believes that "terrorism ...is never justifiable, and must never be condoned or tolerated by civilized peoples." Obviously that's a lie, since two of its senior officers condone terrorists, at the very least. So what do they really want? The degradation of America’s relationship with the Muslim world in general and with Saudi Arabia in particular, a strategy they hope will result in a proportionate gain for Israel.

2002-09-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

I’m not a martyr, but I play one on TV

Islam is routinely attacked as a religion whose adherents are “fanatics” because they have such faith in their convictions that they are willing to die for them. But some of Islam’s most outspoken detractors seem to desire martyrdom so fervently that they rival the most zealous Hamas bomber—even to the extent that they publicly fantasize about their impending demise in the name of their cause.

The fashionableness of martyrdom began with Salman Rushdie, who had the good fortune to be the target of an actual, non-imaginary fatwa by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his assassination. Despite the inconveniences the edict caused for Rushdie, it had the positive effect of boosting his career to a level he could never have reached on the strength of his dull, laborious writing alone.

Since then, for Islam-bashers, having a “fatwa” issued against them has acquired a status rivaling that of the Pulitzer Prize for normal authors—a phenomenon I call “Rushdie envy.” Mavens of the increasingly lucrative anti-Islam industry compete with one another for the honor of being stalked by swarthy, wild-eyed fanatics.

Arch-Muslim-basher Steven Emerson tells a fishy tale of what he calls “an actual hit team” (just to make sure we know it’s not an “imaginary hit team”) of “radical Islamic fundamentalists” being dispatched to do away with him as payback for his courageous reporting. As a man so desperately in need of redeeming his reputation that he had to hire a PR firm, I’m sure he was at least as pleased with this news as he was with the news of 9/11 (assuming there’s even a grain of truth to his story). Certainly it impressed Emerson’s supporters, who trumpet the claim as evidence of his legitimacy.

Mystery man Detlev Herschler, I mean Detlev Khalid, oops, I mean Detlev B.K. Duran, no, wait, I mean Khalid Duran (I guess that’s his name this week) and his American Jewish Committee patrons spawned a hilarious fiasco when they falsely claimed Duran was the target of a death sentence by a Jordanian political party. Duran and AJC shopped the manufactured story around to journalists for weeks before anyone finally bit. Duran made a histrionic show of “going into hiding,” until the alleged authors of the “fatwa” inconveniently denied ever making any threat. One year later, it is unclear whether Duran is still going through the motions, skulking around “in hiding” under the protection of his pistol-packing, scam-promoting lawyer Michael J. Wildes.

Even Muslims looking to promote themselves as “moderates” trumpet dubious stories of receiving death threats as a means of proving themselves to those whose approval they seek. Hisham Kabbani, a self-styled Sufi promoted by pro-Israel neoconservatives, says he’s a victim. In interviews with media outlets hostile to Islam, UCLA professor Khaled Abou El Fadl—who describes himself as an “ex-fundamentlist”—glories in stories of death threats against him.

It is of course true that there is at least one case of a Westerner being threatened with death for writing blasphemous and insulting material about Islam. Such threats are not only illegal, they play into the hands of those who are hostile to Islam and eager for the validation they provide. These exaggerated and fabricated threats serve as a smokescreen to divert attention from the flawed arguments of authentic Islam’s detractors that would otherwise be easily and effectively refuted in the public forum.

2002-09-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

More on Pipes/Netanyahu/Ashrawi

Some readers have challenged my criticism of Daniel Pipes' commentary on demonstrations in Colorado and Montreal last week. A typical one, from Wind Rider:

Might participate in the poll if you substitute your name for Pipes', and add a third choice - 'both'

Case in point - your characterization of the Canadian and Colorado speaking events. Little bit of difference with brazen violence and people listening to the speaker and on occaision holding up small cards that say 'I disagree'.

What color is the sky in your world?

To which I respond:

The issue of the protester's methods at the two universities is secondary. The lowest common denominator is that the goal of the anti-Netanyahu crowd and the anti-Ashrawi crowd was the same: to prevent the other's voice from being heard. It would be hypocritical for those opposing Netanyahu's appearance to invoke "freedom of speech" had the tables been turned and had Pipes been demonstrating against an Ashrawi appearance in Canada. (The stakes are different, however; realize that a campus speech by Ashrawi might be the only chance for some to hear the Palestinian viewpoint, whereas--Netanyahu speech or no Netanyahu speech--pro-Israel voices and money dominate in the media and smoke-filled backrooms.)

That's why the reverse is true: it's hypocritical of Pipes to invoke freedom of speech for his comrade-in-arms Netanyahu, when his goal was to make sure no-one heard Ashrawi speak. The Concordia protesters succeeded in shutting the event down, while Pipes wishes he could have shut down Ashrawi.

Now that that's out of the way, no doubt the behavior of the Canadian crowd was outrageous and unacceptable, and completely un-Islamic (if indeed a significant number of them were Muslims, which I doubt).

It's disingenuous, however, for Pipes to characterize these tactics as a systematic methodology of opponents of Israel. I have participated in or documented at least a dozen anti-Israel protests and I have never witnessed any violence, with possibly one minor exception.

However, I personally watched an AIPAC intern cross a police line at an anti-Sharon protest in DC and punch a Muslim, and one of The Lobby's South Sudanese friends assaulted an African American Muslim at an anti-Sudan demonstration led by pro-Israel activist Michael Horowitz. There is in fact such a history of the pro-Israel camp's attempts at crushing opposing views--yes, sometimes violently--that it really does not benefit them to start pointing fingers.

To their credit, it was characteristically politically adroit of the pro-Israelis to use the "I disagree" cards, and the addition of that pious little touch was no doubt influenced by a realization that they could capitalize off of the Concordia students' retarded behavior three days earlier. But this was just one aspect of the event; the supporters of Israeli colonialism did not simply wish to show their "disagreement," they want--as Pipes himself said--to marginilize, to exclude, and to silence.

2002-09-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

Pity me, I've been victimized.

When I was fourteen I knew a girl who always had some devastating personal issue or another to unload on me. Her brother was always trying to kill himself, or her parents hated her, or she was running away from home or something. Being the nice, bleeding heart guy that I am, I always felt compelled to listen to her endless whining and try to help her in some way. But of course I never really liked her, I never really respected her. How can you respect someone drowning in self-pity? It's human nature to be repulsed by undignified people.

In America today, folks vie for political influence by assuming a mantle of victimhood. This has its origins in the fact that there are real victims of America's march through history which this nation has never really faced up to. Some of those victims made imperfect but measurable gains during the civil rights era, so every group jockeying for power these days portrays themselves as similarly victimized. By adopting the language of the civil rights movement, they hope the legitimacy of actual victims rubs off on them, thus allowing them to tap into lingering white guilt as fuel to propel their particular cause.

Don't think I'm talking just about homosexuals or the handicapped or any of the favorite targets of conservative criticism of victimhood. Considering that Evangelical Christians and their allies among the Jewish community are some of the biggest whiners, it's amusing that right-wingers have the gall to criticize anyone else for playing the role.

Since victims are all the rage nowadays, it's hard to blame Muslims in America for having a tendency to whine as well. It's easy to understand why, because it's a fact that Muslims have been mistreated in this country to some degree--I myself recently tussled with some neo-Nazis in rural Ohio who had a problem with my wife's face veil. It's also understandable that Muslims would adopt the vocabulary of the left, since liberals have been Muslims' main allies.

But there's a problem with Muslims making themselves into the victim. First, it's undignified. Just like I couldn't stand the girl I felt an obligation to help out, crawling around whimpering and begging isn't going to foster Muslims' self-respect, nor is it likely to make other Americans impressed with Islam, even though they might feel guilt-tripped into throwing a few crumbs from the political table.

Second, it's simply not the case that, relatively speaking, Muslims in America have suffered to any great degree. It's silly and--as Civil Rights Commissioner Robert Ingram points out--even offensive to even imply that Muslims have been treated as badly as other folks. It would be a mistake to feel safe and secure, but it's a testimony to the American people's progress and tolerance that there hasn't been systematic rioting or lynching of Muslims in the US (so far). After all, in other parts of the world, Muslims are slaughtered for far less significant reasons than 3,000 people dead and several billion dollars worth of damage. That's not to belittle the 9/11-fueled murders of Muslims that did occur, but overwhelmingly, Americans have maintained relatively tolerant attitudes toward Muslims in America, even though the government has launched what appears to be the beginning of a crackdown that "real Americans" are likely to eventually suffer from.

Finally, though many of the Muslims who have internalized the language of the left and lecture piously about human rights when it comes to how they themselves (read: Palestinians) are treated, they don't seem quite so moved at the deaths of Jewish children targeted by Muslims who ignore Islamic rules of engagement. This inconsistency doesn't go unnoticed, and gives the appearance (ahem) of a double standard. (Can't wait to see the hate mail on this one--I'll deal with the issue then.) This of course applies to "Israelis" as well, who derive political benefit from the killing of their civilians but will slaughter Arabs at the drop of a hat.

I don't want to address at this point the question of whether or not, or to what degree, Muslims should be involved in the political process. I'm just suggesting that in whatever arena we find ourselves, let's conduct ourselves as men and women and not just randomly adopt any strategy that is currently in vogue--even if it seems to be an expedient means of achieving success.

2002-09-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

Oh, goody! Pop bigot Daniel Pipes, a guy for whom "life began" when the planes hit the twin towers, has served up another steaming shovelful of fertilizer. What a joy it is to read this guy. His stuff requires no real effort to deconstruct, no deliberate propaganda analysis to realize how he intends to deceive the reader.

But that's a question that has haunted me--"to deceive" entails a deliberate twisting of facts. Pipes gets the facts so wrong one wonders whether his problem isn't that he's dishonest but that he may not the sharpest tool in the shed. Does he reject coherent reasoning and skew reality because he assumes--being an Ivory Tower Intellectual--that anyone who reads the New York Post is probably a gullible chump who moves his lips when he reads, and probably won't know the difference? Or is Pipes a dimwit who can't quite wrap his head around certain concepts, a guy who made it through Harvard by virtue of social promotion and a smart, big-shot dad?

Wait a minute, you say. You can't graduate from Harvard and be an idiot, you say. But I've sat in a room with Pipes while he tried to claim that a major difference between "Islamists" (bad Muslims) and "moderate Muslims" (good Muslims) is that "Islamists" are trying to convert Friday into a "sabbath" akin to the Jewish sabbath, wherein Muslims would be forbidden to work. (That might not sound odd to the unversed, but this is an issue no-one cares about or has ever even heard of.) Then there was the time he tried to argue that Muslims were not discriminated against in America because in the many instances in which they are discriminated against, and then fight for their rights, they often win--but its bad for Muslims to fight for their rights because that's asking for "special privileges" and a symptom of a growing "Islamist" menace in America. Whee! A syllogistic roller-coaster ride!

Islamists seek public financial support for Islamic schools, mosques, and other institutions. They also lobby for special quotas for Muslim immigrants, try to compel corporations to make special allowances for Muslim employees, and demand the formal inclusion of Muslims in affirmative-action plans. [From "The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America"]

So in his latest, Pipes argues that opponents of Israeli apartheid are "bad" because they succeeded last week in shutting down a planned speech by Netanyahu, while Israel's proponents are "good" because they didn't manage to shut down a speech last week by Hanan Ashrawi. Indeed, he implies, those who do not respect free speech are a danger to our American way of life. Their contempt for Western Liberal values is symptomatic of the immorality of their anti-Israel views, while our respect for free speech proves that we are civilized and democratic.

Except that Pipes neglects to mention in the article that that he helped lead a demonstration outside the auditorium where Ashrawi was speaking, ranting: "We should work so that this type of anti-American spokeswoman is not welcome on American campuses."

Daniel Pipes: dimwitted or dishonest?

2002-09-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

I and many other Muslims have long been suspicious of some of these pro-jihad websites that seem to bend over backwards to be "more radical than thou," like Khurasaan.com (now apparently down), Taliban-News.com, and Jihadunspun.net. These websites are characterized by their unusually open support for Usama Bin Ladin, their extremely snazzy, appealing graphics, and their technological sophistication. Visiting them, with their appeals that you "register" to participate in the site, leaves one with the vague feeling that one has stumbled upon an intelligence gathering operation. I first noticed this phenomenon a few years ago, when an extremely well-done website surfaced with all kinds of rousing jihad rhetoric and graphics and links, and a form urging people to "join the jihad!" and sign up with their names and contact info. That tactic is nothing new--Al Muhajiroun has been performing the same function in Britain for several years.

It turns out that indeed US intelligence is apparently supporting at least some of these websites, many of which (like Taliban-News.com) have turned up on PA-based ISP BurstNET. As one FBI agent says: "Often it is more beneficial for us to keep such sites up and running." Apparently the sites have been enjoying Omar Bakri Muhammad-like protection from the domestic intelligence services.

If true, this doesn't necessarily mean that FBI agents are the authors of the content of the websites. I probably made a mistake a couple years back when I assumed that the infamous Sakina "Ultimate Jihad Challenge" website was a trap laid by some intelligence agency for zeolous yet dumb Muslim kids. The main reason was the site was so, so incredibly goofy and unwise that no real mujahideen would even consider something as stupid as this hare-brained scheme. I even exchanged some e-mails with the site administrator because I was going to do an investigative story for the Islamic news service I used to work for on how law enforcement was trying to entrap Muslims (too bad I didn't save the e-mails). The guy insisted on a cash payment of $6,000 before he would even tell me where the supposed camp was located. Turns out the guy behind it was arrested and charged with "invitation to weapons training" or something, so I was right in thinking he was stupid and not a real mujahid, but wrong in thinking it was an intelligence op. Never underestimate people's capacity for stupidity.

Instead of actually authoring the sites, the feds may just be trying to ensure their continuity while naive, impressionable Muslims continue to express and read the unpopular views of other Muslims--an act which, in the post-9/11 world, is potentially criminal. However, there's no getting around the fact that there is something very, very...odd about JihadUnspun.net, for example. It looks like it was put together by several people with computer science and journalism degrees and an unlimited bank account.

2002-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

I just received the following from investigative reporter Steven Epstein, an expert in Islamic terrorism. This information is mind-blowing. Truly.

(For the thick headed, this is a parody.)

-----------

Dear Colleagues and Fans,

If you have been following my reporting for the last few years, you are aware of my warnings about American Muslim groups like the National Muslim Students' Organization(NMSO). I can now announce that through my investigative reporting, I have discovered that the NMSO actually engineered the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and moreover, routinely brags about it.

FACT: On a 1976 roadtrip, Billy Ray Hassenpfeffer, the brother-in-law of NMSO Executive Director Altaf Hassan, once stopped for a Slurpee at the Flagstaff, Arizona 7-11 where, a mere 15 years later, one Muhammad Siddiqi would land a job as a clerk. Mr. Siddiqi, a Pakistani by nationality, had once shined the shoes of Osama bin Ladin's cousin's hairdresser in his previous job in his native Peshawar, according to unnamed intelligence sources.

FACT: Mr. Hassenpfeffer is currently under investigation for failing to return a library book he checked out as a high school student. Hassenpfeffer claims to have "lost" the book, a biography of rock star Elvis Presley. It is claimed by many Islamist Turks that Presley, a known anti-semite, was of Turkish descent. Moreover, unknown intelligence sources say the teenaged Hassenpfeffer would repeatedly disparage the then-popular rock group KISS, whose lead singer and bassist were Jewish, as "tone-deaf clowns."

FACT: Hassan, linked by marriage to an anti-Jewish fan of anti-semites and an associate of an associate of someone who served bin Ladin (by repeatedly and unapolegetically giving the terrorist leader "mullet" hairdos in the 1970s), told ABC News on Sept. 13: "We condemn this attack in the strongest of terms." Note that Hassan pointedly did not specify WHICH attack he was condemning, a deliberate omission that implies tacit acceptance and even praise for the terrorist attacks, non-existent intelligence sources say.

FACT: Mr. Anwar Hadeed, NMSO's Communications Director, is a Palestinian.

I am available for lectures and media interviews.

Mr. Steven Epstein
Director
The Investigative Project

2002-09-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Bismillah alhamdulillah assalaatu wasalaamu ala rasulillah

In the Name of Allah. Praise be to Allah, and may prayers and Peace be upon the Messenger of Allah.

This is basically a depository for my thoughts on various issues. I'm an American convert to Islam. Maybe you're reading this and you're not Muslim and you're thinking, I don't care about something some raghead or some religious person writes. Maybe you're Muslim and reading what I'm writing and you're making all kinds of judgements that I'm extremist or liberal or Salafi or Modernist or deviated in some way and what a moron I am. Here's an idea--send me an e-mail and tell me in a pleasant, logical way how you think I'm wrong and if I'm wrong, I'll change my mind. If you're really interested in the truth and not just on an ego-trip, I would love to hear from you.

Imam Al-Shafi'i used to pray, when he was debating with someone, that Allah would make the truth come from the other person, in order that the truth would come forward but that his intention would not be corrupted and would remain for the sake of Allah alone and not for the sake of winning arguments.

Or, maybe you'll think this page is just boring. Oh well, sorry I couldn't entertain you.

The topics I generally write about might be considered to be of a "political" nature. The only difference between a "political" event and a "personal" event is the difference in scale and geographic proximity to the event. Thus I never understood why if my neighbor or relative is raped, God forbid, its considered a "personal" event, but if many women are raped in Bosnia or Indonesia in the course of a war, its a "political" event, and therefore I should somehow not be as concerned. Only someone lacking in humanity would make a distinction between two equivelant events that differ only in location.

There is however a distinction between "trivial" and "important," so that if my neighbor loses an election race for board member in the building I live in, I'm mildly interested in the same way I'm only mildly interested if tweedle-dee or tweedle-dum wins in the Presidential election. Neither will have much of an impact on me or anyone I know, except maybe to make my life worse by banning pets from the building or throwing all the Muslims in jail. Lots of people spend lots of time pontificating on trivial issues, content to hear the sounds of their own voices. They use all the jargon and think they've said something intelligent, when their intention behind having opened their mouths in the first place is invalid. My purpose is to communicate my ideas in the hope that in some small way, I'll advance the human condition, for the pleasure of my Creator.

May Allah grant us His Guidance and Mercy. Ameen.