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
Marvelous. The families of very few Muslims have been here that long. I did assume you to be a Muslim. And if nuconvert means that you have just really converted to Islam from the religion of your ancestors, whoseoever they might be, remember, one of our American freedoms is the freedom to leave.
Of course Christians commit atrocities everyday. It's just that darned few of them are church-sanctioned. When there is a lady cab driver in Riyadh, take up this discussion with her.
Nice job on the freeper handle, though, and see you at the next DAR meeting.
I'll have to take your word for that because I haven't seen any evidence of it.
None of the several moslems that I know or know of have said word one in denouncing their terrorist fundamentalist brothers. We do, however, hear about moslem FBI agents who are loyal to their moslem brothers first and the security of the U.S. second or less.
If there are ANY moslems denouncing islamo-terrorists, they sure are quiet about it.
Here are my questions again, the ones you ignored.
What US based muslim groups fight muslim terror? What have they done? What division of islam do they follow? Who are their religious leaders? How many muslims do they speak for?
There are six million muslims in the US. List SIX (one-millionith) that lead the charge against muslim terror.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Put it in different words; it still means the same thing: Silence is acquiescence, acquiescence is de facto support, and support means you're FOR it! There simply are NO islamic groups anywhere in the world who are speaking out against terrorism. Therefore......DUH!
Having said this, I know a lot of Turkish muslims with whom I would trust my life. Conversely, I do NOT know any pakistanis, or any wahabbi-sect muslim, or any muslim from any other country (including the USA), for that matter, who I would trust to Pee properly!
I hope it's NOT merely a matter of time before they start their stupid muslim death tricks in North America (9/11 notwithstanding) - one schoolbus bombing here in the states and we're gonna start playing (sincerest apologies to the American Indian on this one) cowboys and muslims, and it'll be over very quickly - hope I'm wrong, but I have yet to hear a realistic alternative (hollywierd stupidity WILL NOT WORK - hope they don't get killed when they go over there; on the other hand, what would be the downside....?).
As long as there is a muslim out there who believes the koran, which is very specific on how to deal with infidels, how can there be peace? Koran-believing muslims do NOT want peace, they want to kill infidels (including liberals). Can ANYONE point to ANY muslim group who is saying, specifically, this is not true?
Islam is at war with all that is not islamic, and that includes me! Given the chance, I'll be shooting first!!
Until muslims start turning terrorists over to appropriate authorities world-wide, daily, instead of blowing themselves up in stupid muslim death tricks, I won't believe a mere handful of muslims crying "peace" in the wilderness will have much effect on however many billion "kill infidel" types living according to the koran......
I'm sure it will come as shock to everyone but...
I called all the 'mainstream' muslim organizations in Seattle and none could answer any of my questions.
You aren't gonna change these pondscum. They are the only ones who can change themselves, and ONLY IF THEY WANT TO!! What part of "we don't want peace, we want to kill you" do you not understand?? They do not want to change, they want you dead. DUH!
Iraqis are informing on terrorists in Iraq. Their informing has nothing to do with the religion of either the terrorist or the average Iraqi citizen who, in spite of the lies being told by the western mainstream press, is happy the coalition is there and want to see the violence end in his country.
As a matter of fact, the whole Iraqi connection to terrorism is 99% fiscal and based not on religion but a desire for revenge after the destruction in 1991 of the then 4th largest military force in the world. Saddam's forces ended up with their sorry butts firmly kicked and mostly blown away - the mother of all whimpers!
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I STILL don't see any MEANINGFUL outcry by muslims in general, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, against stupid muslim death tricks. As previously stated, this silence is de facto support for terrorism, and until I see WIDESPREAD outcry from a MAJORITY of (supposedly) "moderate" muslims against terrorism, I consider them all complicit.
Call it prejudice if you want; I call it common sense: I do not trust any non-Turkish muslim, no way, no how, and if they move funny, I'm shooting first!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.