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To: Sabertooth
It does seem to me that something funny is going on, in that nearly every time someone from the Administration has contact with a Muslim group, it is one of these groups that Daniel Pipes and Stephen Schwartz and Steve Emerson identify as Wahhabist fronts with terrorist connections. There's something about Norquist that makes me queasy, and the feeling grows with everything I read about this flap.

Bush did meet with Sheik Muhammad Hisham Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council recently, but you would think they would want to be broadcasting the message that someone like Kabbani has the Administration's ear and not the likes of the American Muslim Council.

Kabbani is a respected Sufi scholar and head of one of the Sufi orders in this country. The Sufis are the Muslim mystics who are hated intensely by the Wahhabis - like, they would as soon kill a Sufi as a Jew or a Christian. In 1999, he said at a State Department forum that 80% of the mosques in America were controlled by extremists, after which which CAIR and the AMC and all the so-called "mainstream Muslim groups" did their best to ruin him.

Kabbani is worth getting to know about, because he is a Muslim from a very traditional school of thought who is very clear and unsparing in his repudiation of radical Islamism. If there were any justice in this world, he would have been the Muslim leader at the National Cathedral service after 9/11.

Kabbani is very pro-American and believes that America, the real existing America, is a great place for Muslims. Asked in an interview whether America should become a Muslim state, he answered: "America was founded on the principle of a separation between church and state. Therefore, I presume it is not legally possible by virtue of the Constitution of this country." Notice that he took American law as the framework for his answer.

I know that many FReepers would contest his benign characterization of Islam, but if he can persuade Muslims to interpret their religion this way, more power to him. I think its clear that he really believes what he is saying.

You can read an interview with Kabbani from 1999 about the State Department appearance here; an interview with the Middle East Quarterly on Muslims in America here; the webpage of the Islamic Supreme Council is here.

34 posted on 02/20/2003 6:58:10 PM PST by Southern Federalist
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To: Southern Federalist; bvw; aristeides; Lion's Cub; Wallaby; Nita Nuprez; thinden
Thanks for the informative post.
38 posted on 02/20/2003 7:06:39 PM PST by Fred Mertz
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To: Southern Federalist
Kabbani is also the Muslim scholar that Gaffney wants the president to be dealing with -- rather than the people he is dealing with on a more regular basis --- I smell a rat.
344 posted on 02/21/2003 7:20:52 AM PST by Frankie Fiveangels
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