Free Republic

Writer and scholar Reza Aslan was 15 years old when he found Jesus. His secular Muslim family had fled to the U.S. from Iran, and Aslan's conversion was, in a sense, an adolescent's attempt to fit into American life and culture. "My parents were certainly surprised," Aslan tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. As Aslan got older, he began his studies in the history of Christianity, and he started to lose faith. He came to the realization that Jesus of Nazareth was quite different from the Messiah he'd been introduced to at church. "I became very angry," he says. "I became...

An angry mother has accused a primary school of denying her child water on one of the hottest days of the year for fear of upsetting pupils observing Ramadan. Kora Blagden, 32, claimed a teacher at her son Luke’s school refused to let the 10-year old drink from his water bottle because it was unfair to fasting classmates. Many pupils at Charles Dickens Primary School, Portsmouth, Hampshire, are fasting during Ramadan, which means they refrain from taking food or water between sunrise and sunset for around 30 days, depending on the moon. Mother-of-four Kora said: 'Just before bedtime me and...

Traveler Information Ramadan, a holy month for persons of the Muslim faith, begins this year approximately on Tuesday, July 9, 2013 and ends on Thursday, August 8, 2013. TSA understands that this is a significant religious event for the Muslim community. TSA has reminded its security workforce that traveling passengers may be observed at various areas in the airport - including security checkpoints or on aircraft - engaged in religious practices and meditations during Ramadan. TSA would also like to inform the traveling public that they may notice passengers who are observing Ramadan engaging in the following activities at the...

A "multicultural student group" at Rocky Mountain High School recited the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic on Monday, replacing "one nation under God" with "one nation under Allah." School principal Tom Lopez supported the decision to have the pledge recited in this manner, and even after an outraged public contacted the school to complain Lopez stood his ground. Lopez claims the kids weren't trying to be "un-American," but to "[accentuate] the meaning of the words as regularly spoken in English."

Here’s a sign of the changing times — Muslim cabbies now have their very own place at San Francisco International Airport to wash their hands and feet before they pray. Under Islamic law, Muslims are required to pray five times a day — a ritual that also calls for a ceremonial cleansing. For many cab drivers, that’s meant either lugging bottled water around or using one of the bathrooms inside the terminal to wash — a practice not always welcomed by airport passengers. So Royal Cab driver Hasan Khan, 52, a Pakistani immigrant, collected some 300 signatures from fellow cabbies,...

Children from Newtongrange Primary visited the Central Mosque in Potterrow, but from an original group of 90 pupils, 28 were withdrawn. The trip had been organised to help educate the primary one, two and five pupils about other religions and cultures. But one parent today said they didn’t want their child “mixed up in the hate being preached in mosques”. The incident comes amid heightened tensions in the wake of the killing of soldier Lee Rigby in London, and David Cameron’s pledge to “drain the swamp” of extremism. Religious leaders and Midlothian councillors condemned parents pulling their children out the...

In its latest effort to protect followers of Islam in the U.S. the Obama Justice Department warns against using social media to spread information considered inflammatory against Muslims, threatening that it could constitute a violation of civil rights. The move comes a few years after the administration became the first in history to dispatch a U.S. Attorney General to personally reassure Muslims that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is dedicated to protecting them. In the unprecedented event, Attorney General Eric Holder assured a San Francisco-based organization (Muslim Advocates) that urges members not to cooperate in federal terrorism investigations that the...

<p>Karen and Billy Vaughn lost her SEAL son Aaron in 2011 in Afghanistan along with 16 other Navy SEALs. At the memorial service in Afghanistan an Islamic cleric desecrated their son and the other SEALs. Now they’re speaking out.</p> <p>On Sunday the Vaughns went on FOX and Friends. Billy Vaughn wants the Commander-in Chief, “To defend the policy that in this United states government that allows the body of a slain warrior to be desecrated and allows the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be mocked.”</p>

If anyone in the USA, for some extraordinary reason, is still in doubt about whom to choose for President [this was written before the last presidential election but is still topical], I recommend two things. The first is an empiricist approach: you have tried one candidate and he failed, you haven't tried the other. In experimental science it would be reasonable to choose the not-yet-tried possibility. The second thing is, if you haven't already done so, to read "Obama's Muslim Childhood" by Daniel Pipes.The discovery that Obama has been wearing for over 30 years a ring with the first...

There’s something sick about an administration which is so pro-Islamic that it can’t even tell the truth about the people who are trying to kill us,” Mr. Gingrich said ... Mr. Gingrich accused the White House of being unwilling to discuss threats from some Muslims. And he slammed President Barack Obama for mounting a “war” on the Catholic Church over contraception but apologize to Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the burning of Qurans.

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Accused of Breaking Sharia LawPosted By Raymond Ibrahim On April 18, 2013 @ 12:10 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 6 Comments The U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, is being accused of some outlandish behavior and remarks. Last week, several Egyptian papers and websites, including Al Dostor, reported that Dia’ al-Din al-Garahi, a human rights lawyer and president of the Justice Center for Freedoms and Media, submitted a complaint to the Attorney General accusing Patterson “of libel and defamation of the Egyptian people and making statements that are likely to disturb...

Steve Emerson just broke the shocking news that the Saudi National, Abdul al-Harbi, first questioned in the Boston bombing, is going to be deported on "national security grounds." He is from a very powerful Saudi family with many terrorist ties. Abdul al-Harbi is a devout Muslim from Medina. I said it takes longer than 15 hours to investigate all of Abdul al-Harbi's relatives, friends, acquaintances, and business and school friends. Perhaps a quick look at the Arabic sources should raise the eyebrows of every American relative to the extent of the problem at hand. Many from Al-Harbi’s clan are steeped...

LAKE WALES | The Arabic word, translated simply, means "unbeliever." Ever since Eddie Bryant had it inked across his right calf, the former National Guard member has gotten positive reactions, he said, until last week. Bryant walked into Florida Skydiving Center on April 3 in shorts, his tattoo of the word "kafir" exposed. A group from Qatar, a Middle Eastern country with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, also was visiting. A staffer tapped Bryant, 27, on the shoulder as he stood under a hangar at the Lake Wales business. Would he mind seeing the manager, Betty Hill? Hill, 59, and Bryant...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Dr. Khaled Said, which aired on Al-Hafez TV (via the Internet) on March 17, 2013. Khaled Said: If the revolution declares a framework for dealing with the West and America – they will accept it, kiss our hands, and double the aid they give us. We consider this aid to be jizya [poll tax], not regular aid. Interviewer: Is this the rhetoric of the revolution? Khaled Said: It certainly is. Interviewer: The aid the Americans give us is the jizya tax they have to pay? Khaled Said: Yes, it is. They...

Fury is brewing at Rocky Mountain High School, in Colorado, after a multicultural student group were encouraged to recite the Pledge of Allegiance over the loudspeaker in Arabic - replacing ´one nation under God´ with ´one nation under Allah´. Following Monday´s pledge, Principal Tom Lopez has been inundated with complaints from outraged parents concerned that saying the Pledge in any language other than English is unpatriotic. Standing by his controversial decision, Principal Lopez has said that despite the irate telephone calls and emails, he is not in any way or form trying to push an

President Obama declares that, “We are not at war with Islam,” but the Islamic Quran and Sharia command that Muslims conduct jihadist war against non-Muslims to spread the religion and Sharia law worldwide. The question is why Obama maintains we are not at war with Islam, when Islam is clearly at war with the U.S.? President Barack H. Obama proclaims that the U.S. is not “at war with Islam.” The president then proceeds to draw an imaginary line between “moderate” and “radical” groups of Muslims that does not exist within the reality of Islamic “theology.” Obama claims that that there...

Bears re-reading as Obama begins his Second Assault upon the United States. ==================================================== Yeah, that's what NASA should be all about. "Charlie Bolden: Stealth Middle East Diplomat?," by Keith Cowing at NASA Watch, July 2 (thanks to Weasel Zippers): Bolden: I am here in the region - its sort of the first anniversary of President Barack Obama's visit to Cairo - and his speech there when he gave what has now become known as Obama's "Cairo Initiative" where he announced that he wanted this to become a new beginning of the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world....

An Egyptian magazine claims that six American Islamist activists who work with the Obama administration are Muslim Brotherhood operatives who enjoy strong influence over U.S. policy. The Dec. 22 story published in Egypt's Rose El-Youssef magazine (read an IPT translation here) suggests the six turned the White House "from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood." The story is largely unsourced, but its publication is considered significant in raising the issue to Egyptian readers. The six named people include: Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland...

UPDATE: See the images of Virginia teacher’s alleged assault on 10-year-old student during “Islamic hand sign” lesson. –An elementary school teacher in Chesapeake, Va. has been charged with simple assault after a parent claimed her daughter’s hand was cut open as a result of the teacher yanking her arm aggressively while trying to teach students an “Islamic hand sign.”Officer Leo Kosinski, a spokesman for the Chesapeake Police Department, told TheBlaze that Tara Harris was criminally charged with a misdemeanor on Oct. 11 and released on a summons. The case is currently under investigation.“It’s still a criminal charge. It happened at...

CAIRO — The elections that followed the Arab uprisings elevated Islamists out of decades of repression and into the region’s most powerful posts. Here in Egypt, a former prisoner became president. But to Salafists, adherents of a puritanical form of Islam who have embraced the country’s new freedoms with gusto, the emerging Islamist order has a serious flaw: It isn’t nearly Islamist enough. “They say that the people do not want sharia,” said Gamel Saber, a back-slapping Salafist activist who said he dreams of a day when his country’s courts will fully implement Islamic law. “But that is not true....