Free Republic

Sumbul Siddiqui became the first Muslim mayor in the state on Monday, getting elected in Cambridge — where her family moved decades ago after emigrating from Pakistan. Siddiqui, 31, was elected unanimously on the first ballot by her fellow councilors. Following the vote, the packed chamber stood and showered her with applause. “The more and more different representation there is, the better it is for everyone,” she told the Herald after the inauguration, noting Cambridge’s diversity.

Muslim Patrol Battles Bloods: New Turf Rivalry in Brooklyn (David Wood) The Muslim Community Patrol in New York recently assaulted a teenaged boy for insulting a Muslim woman outside Siraj Wahhaj's Masjid Taqwa in Brooklyn. Unfortunately for the Muslim Patrol, the teenager was the son of a high-ranking member of the Bloods (a violent street gang). A group of Bloods soon showed up at the mosque for a confrontation, but police showed up and dispersed the groups. One of the Bloods, however, vowed that the conflict wasn't over. Will we see more conflicts like this due to the rise of...

FULL TITLE: FBI warns of possible Christmas ISIS attacks after list of US churches is posted on Islamic extremist website The FBI has warned state and city police of possible ISIS threats against the US after a list of churches across the country was posted online by fanatics. The bureau said while no one specific threat had been traced, officers should be more vigilant over the holidays given the amid 'aspirational calls for attacks'. In a memo it told how the Islamic extremist group had compiled a list of churches across the country and shared it online. 'The FBI is...

Amid the chaos of the 2009 holiday travel season, jihadists planned to slaughter 290 innocent travelers on a Christmas Day flight from the Netherlands to Detroit, Michigan. Twenty-three-year old Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab intended to detonate Northwest Airlines Flight 253, but the explosives in his underwear malfunctioned and brave passengers subdued him until he could be arrested. The graphic and traumatic defeat they planned for the United States failed, that time. Following the attempted attack, President Obama threw the intelligence community under the bus for its failure to “connect the dots.” He said, “this was not a failure to...

Kamal Al-Khatib, the cemetery's director, has repeatedly refused to confirm or deny Facebook posts questioning whether Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik are buried at the cemetery, saying that all the burials are anonymous. "If we can't denounce this, is there anything we won't condone? Is treason now acceptable in polite society?" [Lancaster Mayor]Parris wrote Wednesday evening on Facebook... Al-Khatib refused again Thursday to confirm or deny whether the couple are buried in the cemetery, which is about 10 miles southwest of Rosamond. The cemetery has more than 1,000 graves and all are anonymous, with no identification on any headstones, Al-Khatib...

Legendary funnyman Bill Cosby is down with Katie Couric’s plan for combating Islamophobia in America: a Muslim “Cosby Show.” “I like her idea,” The Cos told The Track. “I think you could very well teach and people could understand. I do feel that whenever I have gotten to meet people who are coming from different countries that may have been Muslim, I do know that they say they love ‘The Cosby Show.’ And then they ask me, ‘You know why? Because it’s about family.’ ”

Pakistan received $656 million in security funds from the United States as authorities probed links between the country and the confessed Times Square bomber. According to Dawn newspaper, the U.S. embassy in Islamabad transferred $188 million to Pakistan's central bank last week and the remaining $468 million on Monday. The coalition-support funds compensate Pakistan for counterterrorim and counterinsurgency operations. Faisal Shahzad, a Connecticut resident and the 30-year-old son of a retired official in Pakistan's air force, was hauled off an Emirates airlines flight bound for Dubai on Monday night and charged Tuesday with attempting to detonate an SUV bomb in...

The Franklin county, Ohio Juvenial Detention Center allows inmates to recieve mail. Therefore.. Rifqa should be able to recieve Christmas cards from well wishers starting now. You just have to have your return address on the letter and follow a few simple rules HERE. I am sending her a Christmas card and hope that others will do likewise. Thank you, and God Bless. Rifqa Bary 855 W. Mound Columbus, OH 43223

Note the personal smears, the attempt to bully and intimidate, and the non-specificity of the charges against me (they can't be specific, because I don't say anything inaccurate about them -- or about Islam or jihad). Note also the irony: this letter comes a day after CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper slandered me on national television by ascribing to me hateful words written by someone else -- which appeared on this site for about an hour, during which, lo and behold, someone at CAIR was watching. I was speaking to a YAF official who told me that I was scheduled to speak...

The recent homegrown plot in Britain to blow up transatlantic flights will intensify the fear that the country's 1.6 million Muslims are rejecting political tolerance and free speech for a violent, radicalized version of Islam. There is a real concern that British Muslims do pose a threat to that country and its traditional values. So how prevalent are such radical views among British Muslims? Some answers are provided by the most comprehensive survey to date of Muslim opinion in Britain. The results from NOP Research, broadcast by Channel 4-TV on August 7, are startling.

RECORD NUMBER OF EX-MUSLIMS CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR: A spiritual revolution underway in Mideast More Muslims converted to faith in Jesus Christ over the past decade than at any other time in human history. A spiritual revolution is underway throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. As a result, a record number of ex-Muslims are celebrating Christmas this year, despite intense persecution, arrests, assassinations, and widespread church bombings. During the writing of Epicenter, my wife and kids and I lived in the Mideast for three months. During that time, I had the privilege of interviewing more than three...

LONDON (AFP) - Britain, which suffered its own terror carnage last year, has marked the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in low-key fashion, amid growing questions about the country's leading role in the war on terror. A new poll indicated that only seven percent of Britons believe that the United States and Britain -- Washington's key ally in the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq -- are winning the conflict against global terrorism. Nearly a quarter -- 22 percent-- believe the two countries were losing the war, according to the YouGov survey for Sky News television, commissioned to...

How much of the American media's unwillingness to show the cartoon images of Islam's prophet has been out of respect for Islam, how much an inflated sense of political correctness, and how much out of sheer cowardice? All of the evidence points to the latter. Time and again the American media has demonstrated its zero tolerance policy toward world religions, with one notable exception. Indeed, the press seems to enjoy goading and provoking Christians as much as the early Romans did. Granted, the Western press was for a time reluctant to portray Jews negatively in recompense for its silence during...

AP Enterprise: FBI Managers Admit They Didn't Seek Out Terrorism Expertise After Sept. 11By John Solomon Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 19, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - In sworn testimony that contrasts with their promises to the public, the FBI managers who crafted the post-Sept. 11 fight against terrorism say expertise about the Mideast or terrorism was not important in choosing the agents they promoted to top jobs. And they still do not believe such experience is necessary today even as terrorist acts occur across the globe. "A bombing case is a bombing case," said Dale Watson, the FBI's terrorism chief...

Muslim second wives may get a tax break NICHOLAS HELLEN, SOCIAL AFFAIRS EDITOR THE Inland Revenue is considering recognising polygamy for some religious groups for tax purposes. Officials have agreed to examine “family friendly” representations from Muslims who take up to four wives under sharia, the laws derived from the Koran. Existing rules allow only one wife for inheritance tax purposes. The Revenue has been asked to relax this so that a husband’s estate can be divided tax-free between several wives. The move is bound to create controversy if it leads to a change in the rules. It is seen...

French cinema chains are refusing to distribute or screen Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion of the Christ because of fears that it may spark a new outbreak of anti-Semitism. France is the only European country where there is still no distribution deal for the film, which depicts the last days of Jesus Christ in graphic detail and is accused by critics of stoking anti-Jewish sentiment. The film was released in America and Australia last week but French distributors are wary of its impact on audiences and want to gauge its reception elsewhere in Europe, where it is due to...

(CP) - The father of a Canadian terrorist suspect who was killed in a shootout with Saudi police said Friday his son was a "perfect teenager" but fell prey to extremist groups that valued his western passport, fluent English and North American education. "They tricked him," Mansour Jabarah said in a phone interview with The Canadian Press from Kuwait City. Only two hours earlier, he had received word from the Canadian Ambassador in Kuwait that his son, Abdul-Rahman Jabarah, was among the dead after Saudi police stormed a house in the town of Suweir, 900 kilometres northwest of the capital...

The word Sufi is most likely to be derived from the Arabic word "soof", meaning wool. This is because of the Sufi habit of wearing woolen coats...1 Sufism is known as "Islaamic Mysticism," in which Muslims seek to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God 2. Mysticism is defined as the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality, and the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight)3 Both the terms Sufi and Sufism and Sufi beliefs have no basis...