Posted on 10/26/2003 4:29:48 AM PST by TrebleRebel
Nazi? Moi?
All I had done was ask a simple question of Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed, the general secretary of the Islamic Society of North America, who recently met with The Dallas Morning News' editorial board.
Dr. Syeed's revealing reaction – he said that my query reminded him of "Nazism" and that I would have to "repent" – tells us a great deal about American Islam's extremist problem ... and ours.
ISNA is the largest Islamic organization in the country, serving as an umbrella group for 300 or so mosques, cultural centers and affiliated groups.
The North American Islamic Trust, a sister organization set up for what its Web site calls the "protection and safeguarding" of the finances of ISNA and other groups, owns between 20 percent and 27 percent of this country's mosques.
ISNA is heavily funded by Saudi contributions and has been described in congressional testimony by terrorism expert (and Muslim convert) Stephen Schwartz as one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States.
Though ISNA portrays itself as mainstream, Islamic scholar Ali Asani of Harvard calls it "ultra-orthodox [and] ultra-conservative."
Echoing similar reports from across the country, Dr. Khalid Duran, a moderate Muslim, and unnamed others like him told the St. Petersburg Times that extremists try to take over American mosques and hand the titles over to NAIT.
Jamaluddin Hoffman, a Sufi and moderate, characterizes what's going on as "a war for the heart and soul of our religion."
ISNA's advisory board (see www.isna.net) is thick with men who have espoused extremist opinions and have troubling associations.
There's Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn imam named by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White as one of the "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also testified as a character witness for convicted terror mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes has documented at least two occasions in which Mr. Wahhaj has urged followers to overturn the U.S. system of government and set up an Islamic dictatorship.
There's Muzammil Siddiqui, a former ISNA president who spoke at an Oct. 28, 2000, "Jerusalem Day" rally in Washington, an event that degenerated into a hatefest in which the crowd chanted, "Death to the Jews!" Columnist Debbie Schlussel, citing a Pakistani news Web site, quoted Dr. Siddiqui as saying that Islamic rule has to be global and that "all our efforts should lead to that direction."
ISNA board member Bassam Osman is the president of NAIT, which owns the Islamic Academy of Florida. That school was described as a criminal enterprise in the federal indictment handed down in February against school founder Sami al-Arian and others alleged to be Palestinian Islamic Jihad fund-raisers.
ISNA sponsored a big conference this past summer in Dallas (www.dfwisna.com). Mr. Wahhaj, Dr. Syeed and Dr. Siddiqui spoke there, as did Imam Zaid Shakir, who said in a 1992 educational video that Muslims can't accept the American political system because "it is against the orders and ordainments of Allah."
None of these people has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. But they all have been affiliated with a brand of Islam that most Americans would, and should, find frightening. We are entitled to ask why.
Given ISNA's leadership, it is no wonder Dr. Syeed wouldn't give a straight answer when a Morning News colleague of mine asked him three times what his organization was doing to fight Islamic extremism.
When I asked the man how he squared his profession of tolerance and moderation with having radicals on the ISNA board, Dr. Syeed became hostile, sputtering that my question reminded him of Hitlerian persecution. That is blustering nonsense, of course, and an attempt to silence legitimate questions about ISNA's agenda through intimidation and misdirection.
They must not get away with it. As benign as they sometimes sound, Dr. Syeed and his ilk are no friends of moderation and tolerance.
As the late Seif Ashmawi, a moderate Muslim-American newspaper publisher, once put it, "Radical Islamic groups have now taken over leadership of the 'mainstream' Islamic institutions in the United States, and anyone who pretends otherwise is deliberately engaging in self-deception."
Silence and a lack of curiosity, however well meaning or unwitting, are allowing a malignant ideology to grow unchecked in this country.
American Muslims who want no part of Islamofascist ideology are its first victims. They won't be its last.
Rod Dreher is an editorial writer and occasional columnist for The Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is rdreher@dallasnews.com
I mean, come now AMERICAN Islamists surely must represent the best of that peaceful religion, wouldn't they? The "terrorists" are only a small radical branch of that "peaceful religion" aren't they?
Until we understand and accept that we are at war with Islam only because it is their stated goal to dominate the world and destroy all philosophies that aren't theirs will the western world have any chance at all of living in "peace". Unfortunately, IMO, it is going to take an attack that makes the events of 911 seem like a Sunday school picnic before many will understand the insidious goal of Islam and then act accordingly.
What most apologists for Islam don't understand and there can't accept is that it is not simply a religion. It is a socio/economic/political system using the veil of "religion" and "belief in Allah" to justify their murderous, barbaric actions.
Islam is at WAR with the rest of the world and it is not simply a war of words or ideas. They are raised to believe their will must be imposed upon us by "the sword" and that their warriors who die in martyrdom in that cause receive special adulation in the eyes of their god.
When will their apologists here wake up and smell the coffee?
In round numbers, there are a mere 1.5 Billion Muslims in the world. A paltry 5% or so are active terrorist, fire- breathing international jihadist suicide bombers who hate all things un-Muslim and will kill to make that point. OK. Now stop being such a racist!
75-80 million people with very deep pockets want to kill you, your family, your friends, and destroy your country and culture. Relax. No Biggie. Another 15% or so of Muslims support these unfashionable, fanatic anti-social types with money and other help. They personally wouldn't dream of strapping on the dynamite, or hi-jacking your flight. So lighten up, at least 80% of the world's Muslims are not going to hurt anyone.
Unfortunately, that includes their more enthusiastic brothers in the Religion of Peace.
My OPINION is that ISLAM IS TERROR!
It is obviously apparent that should you even study the history of this vile philosophy in a small degree that we won't agree. That's the way things are. It is just my opinion that your attitude is naive, but a popular one nonetheless, and will cause us much more suffering as a nation than we need endure. But perhaps it is inevitable that we endure more pain before people really come to understand the insidious philosophy of Islam.
ISLAM IS TERROR! It was built on it. It demands it (Jihad). And it rewards it.
For example, why aren't the Saudis sending troops to help eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan? Why has there been no outcry in the Muslim world about slavery and the killing of Christians in the Sudan and elsewhere. There is a great deal of blather (unfortunately, a lot of it coming from the White House) right now about the difference between "Islam," a pure and noble 'Religion of Peace,' soi-disant ... and Isalm-ISM, a bad thing that wants to take over the world and will kill you to do so, unless everyone immediately converts to their religion and way of life.
My point to you is that there is no difference. Islam is not just another religion. Many people in Germany read "Mein Kampf." They ignored it as the blueprint of the Nazis. Hopefully, when people read the Koran, they will not ignore it as the blueprint of Islam.
They won't.
The starry-eyed naive liberals in this country will force us to accept islam as a "religion" protected by the First Ammendment, even though it has been ruled in the courts that it is not.
No, just the ones that believe their own scriptures.
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