Free Republic

The Islamic State, despite being driven by Kurdish fighters from its one-time Syrian stronghold in Kobani last week, nevertheless is extending its reach well beyond Iraq and Syria, military officials and analysts warn -- represented, by some estimates, in nearly a dozen countries. Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, delivered a grim assessment earlier this week in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, as he described how the group was surfacing in North Africa. "With affiliates in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, the group is beginning to assemble a growing international footprint that includes ungoverned and under...

In today's edition of the American Thinker, Peter Muhearn raises an interesting point in the current Pope-Islam controversy: Did Pope Benedict give Muslims cause for offense by quoting the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (born 1350, died 1425)? Manuel once scored debating points on a Persian scholar by demanding ”[s]how me just what Mohammed brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” . . . Manuel certainly knew what he was talking about. He spent some time as a hostage in...

With academics, writers and journalists present, the meeting was published on the website of the World Bulletin. World Bulletin Research Panel have placed their mark on their round table meetings. Prof. Dr. Ali Murat Yel, researcher and writer Levent Basturk and journalist Saadet Oruc's meeting was moderated Aynur Erdogan. Levent Basturk highlighted the historical dimension of Islamophobia in his speech. Basturk explained that the concept of Islamophobia had gained ground but was rooted in events prior to 9/11, saying: "A liberal-left think tank in the UK had organised reports about attacks on Muslim immigrants. The report didn't just focus on...

I find it very odd that a president notably lacking in humility and frequently riding his own high horse would lecture American Christians about those subjects because they presumably condemn acts of barbarism by Islamists. Talk about a string of disconnects. While we're at it, let's note one more. Obama, at the National Prayer Breakfast, also exhorted us to "uphold the distinction between our faith and our governments -- between church and between state." Last time I checked, it was not Christians, unless you believe that Obama is a Christian, who were using government power to restrict religious liberties of...

Mark Levin characterizes Hussein Obama as Jeremiah Wright Lite, saying, “He doesn’t give us the full, you know, Jeremiah Wright Monte, but he gives us enough.” He says, “So when you try to use your common sense, your experience, your belief in faith and country, right and wrong, good and bad, it doesn’t comport with how Obama thinks and reflects on things.” Levin continues, saying, “When I say nihilistic what I mean is he rejects the current moral and social order. He rejects it. The world begins with him and it begins between his ears. And again, the way Marx...

Recent TV news segments, op-ed pieces, public debates and letters to the editor have debated the issue of whether it is unfair, bigoted, overbroad or dangerous to implicate Islam in the reign of violence and terror that has embroiled much of the world over the past several years. Where does the truth, as difficult as defining "truth" is, lie? Rarely in the debate is there much factual data. In 2013 the PEW Research Center conducted extensive surveys on attitudes in the Muslim world. The results (at least to this writer) are stunning. • Three hundred million Muslims believe that Sharia-prescribed...

A notorious ‘anti-Islam’ movement is coming to Britain with its first ever demo and a march likely to attract thousands. Pegida has sparked huge controversy in Germany. Under the banner of ‘Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West’, it claims it is trying to defend countries from the spread of extremism at the hands of Muslim immigrants. Pegida’s UK spokesman told the Mirror: “We do not want to attract extremists to this rally. “We are against radical Islam, hate preachers and believe Muslims need to adapt to our way of life in the West instead of us adapting to...

Women should "remain hidden and veiled", only leaving their homes in exceptional circumstances, according to an Islamic State manifesto intended as a recruitment tool. The document includes a curriculum for teaching young girls how to be homemakers and mothers who are "sedentary, still and stable" - and condemns the notion of gender equality. Circulated widely on jihadist forums, the text was apparently released in an attempt to recruit women living in Saudi Arabia. A plan for "the ideal education of our girls" is also included, which takes place when they are between seven and 15 years old. Religious studies, knitting,...

A full 20 percent of the Turkish public approves of the use of violence in the name of Islam, though a majority of the public does not approve, a survey conducted in January by the Ankara-based MetroPOLL Strategic and Social Research Center has revealed. MetroPOLL's survey revealed that the majority of Turks believe Charlie Hebdo insulted Prophet Muhammad with its controversial cartoons. Almost 20 percent of the respondents said the magazine's staff deserved to be killed. To a question about the real victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack, only 21.7 percent of the people said they were the 12 people...

The sight of vast graves opening and the undead clawing out should unnerve us all. But we haven’t even noticed. As more blood flows than any horror film offers, it’s brought the hope of eternal life to bygone empires we all thought dead and buried — and good riddance. Blinded by the flash of headline events, we fail to see the strategic arcs of our era: the agonized collapse of Europe’s empires — climaxing in the Soviet Union’s demise — and now, amid the chaos and fanaticism, the belief on the part of once-mighty powers that they can rebuild fallen...

The absence of strong Western leadership against the Boko Haram terror state has created an opportunity Iran seems ready to exploit. The Premium Times of Nigeria reports that Iran is stepping forward to offer assistance to the African Union against the savage caliphate spilling out of northern Nigeria into Cameroon and menacing the entire region: ... Abdollohian said the activities of the Boko Haram militants and that of Al-Shabaab in the Somalia were similar to that of Al-Qaeda and the ISIS and other terrorist groups in the Middle East. ... Iran was willing to share its experiences on terrorist activities...

... The Muslim population in the UK numbers 3.5 million. A large percentage can trace their roots back to a rural region of Pakistan controlled Kashmir and Sylhet in Bangladesh. They arrived uneducated and with a very narrow, insular strand of Islam and settled in the North of England or inner city London. In comparison the Indian community who settled in Britain were middle class and possessed a strong entrepreneurial background as well as placing a high priority on education. Many were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin. After 50 years in the UK the Indian community continues to thrive...

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” –Aristotle I believe the biggest threat to western democracies today comes not only from Islam’s traditions of intolerance and political violence and anti-Western sentiment, but also from those apologists and pluralists, both religious and political, who are making every effort to convince us that this threat—these egregious customs—were never foreign to our North American traditions of tolerance and rule of law; as though Islam, with its ever-present political and religious maelstroms, is applicable to our democratic way of life. One premise being applied vigorously is that, simply...

Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.) was on “The Kelly File” tonight following his testimony about terrorism at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. […] “Radical Islam has increased four-fold in five years,” Keane told Megyn Kelly. […] “This administration has been paralyzed by the fear of adverse consequences in the Middle East driven by the realities of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Keane told Kelly. …

A video distributed Saturday on the Internet showed what appears to be a Japanese hostage saying that a fellow Japanese captive had been executed and outlining a new militant demand for his release. In the video, the hostage, a man identified as Kenji Goto, a Japanese journalist, appears to be holding a photo of his countryman, Haruna Yukawa, who has been beheaded. The case has drawn a great deal of attention in Japan and spawned a crisis for the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had vowed to do what he could to save the two men. Abe said...

HIZB ut-Tahrir leaders last night urged a crowd of about 500 in Sydney’s Lakemba to rise as one to defend­ the name of the prophet Mohammed, extolling them to reject the West’s concept of freedom of speech as a “smokescreen” to oppress Muslims. Organisers warmed up the audience with a series of chants including “rise, Muslims, take a stand, defend the prophet hand in hand” and “the prophet that you defame, Allah will protect his name”. One speaker, Sufyan Badar, told the crowd it had gathered not as a reflection of freedom of association, but as a “response to the...

Sydney - On Friday night, a group of nearly 1,000 protesters assembled in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba to oppose what organisers classed as negative coverage of the Islamic faith and to reject the notion of free speech. Local Muslim leader Sufyan Badar addressed the throng, saying the rally was in a sense an answer to the protests in the aftermath the Paris attack. Badar argued that in fact protests defending free speech had nothing to do with the notion of freedom itself. "[It's] the smokescreen with which Western politicians and media conceal the underlying issues," he said. "In reality,...

In the wake of the most recent attacks in Paris, the airwaves have been full of myths about Muslim communities in Europe. However, history tells a rather different tale: Muslims are far from alien from European culture; in fact, they are central to it. The links between Europe and Islam date back to the very first generation of Muslims. We know of the famed rule of Muslim Iberia (now known as Spain and Portugal), which created a thriving multi-religious society, something that was then a novelty in Europe. Several hundred years earlier, after Muslim Spain had begun, you might have...

While Iran’s march toward a nuclear bomb has provoked a major clash between the White House and Congress, Iran’s march toward conventional domination of the Arab world has been largely overlooked. In Washington, that is. The Arabs have noticed. And the pro-American ones, the Gulf Arabs in particular, are deeply worried. This week, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized control of the Yemeni government, heretofore pro-American. In September, they overran Sanaa, the capital. On Tuesday, they seized the presidential palace. On Thursday, they forced the president to resign. The Houthi have local religious grievances, being Shiites in a majority Sunni land. But...

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, said Wednesday it deplored the continued “mocking of Islam” by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The kingdom is “surprised, and deplored” the publication last week of a new cartoon of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, the state Saudi Press Agency said, citing a source at the foreign ministry. “The kingdom does not find any justification for such deliberate abuse against Islam, which insults the feelings of 1.5 billion Muslims around the world,” the source said. Freedom of opinion and expression do not justify “insulting religious beliefs,” the source added.