Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center

Heritage Foundation ^ | 7/12/2007

[pacelvi]

This is a video NOT of the film itself but a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation by a group which had just finished watching it there at Heritage.

Date: July 12, 2007 Time: 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Speaker(s): Featuring a discussion afterwards with:

Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani Chairman, Islamic Supreme Council of America and the Sufi Muslim Council of Britain

Hedieh Mirahmadi, J.D. Political Advisor to the Sufi Muslim Council of Britain

and the Director and Producers of the documentary:

Martyn Burke, Alex Alexiev, and Frank Gaffney

Host(s): John Edward Hilboldt Director, Lectures and Seminars, The Heritage Foundation

Details: Location: The Heritage Foundation's Allison Auditorium

This documentary tells the story of courageous moderate Muslims in the United States, Western Europe, and Canada who are taking on adherents to the radical extremist ideology known as Islamism. What is happening to these moderates – who are being ostracized, intimidated and, in some cases, threatened with death – offers critical insights into the dangers that both they and we are facing. It also highlights steps to help empower these moderates and others like them.

When the Public Broadcasting Service cut this program – paid for by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and your tax dollars – from the “America at a Crossroads” series, they said it was a “biased, inaccurate view of the subject.” But as Congressman Jim Walsh of Syracuse, NY, said to CPB and PBS officials at a recent hearing, “there’s a concerted and substantial effort on the part of radical Wahhabist Islam to silence these voices with physical… [and] verbal intimidation. And [these filmmakers] document it in the United States, in Canada and around the world.”

On Thursday, July 12 – you can watch, and you can decide.

[Man50D]

Voices from the Muslim Center

There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim as the following article reveals.

Islamic Scholar Warns U.S. of 'Two-Faced' Muslims

NewsMax.com Wires

Thursday, June 20, 2002

WASHINGTON – A leader of the small worldwide Muslim reform movement is warning the West against wishful thinking as the U.S. government promotes an intensive dialogue with Islam.

"The dialogue is not proceeding well because of the two-facedness of most Muslim interlocutors on the one hand and the gullibility of well-meaning Western idealists on the other," Bassam Tibi said Tuesday in an interview with United Press International.

Syrian-born Ti bi, who claims to be a direct descendant of the prophet Mohammed and teaches political science at Goettingen University in Germany, appealed for intellectual honesty in these exchanges.

This Is 'Peace'?

"First, both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms these mean different things to each of them. The word 'peace,' for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al-Islam – or 'House of Islam' – to the entire world," explained Tibi, who is also a research scholar at Harvard University.

"This is completely different from the Enlightenment concept of eternal peace that dominates Western thought, a concept developed by Immanuel Kant," an 18th-century philosopher.

This Is 'Tolerance'?

"Similarly, when Muslims and the Western heirs of the Enlightenment speak of tolerance they have different things in mind. In Islamic terminology, this term implies abiding non-Islamic monotheists, such as Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, as second-class believers. They are 'dhimmi,' a protected but politically immature minority."

According to Tibi, the quest of converting the entire world to Islam is an immutable fixture of the Muslim worldview. Only if this task is accomplished, if the world has become a "Dar al-Islam," will it also be a "Dar a-Salam," or a house of peace.

Tibi appealed to his co-religionists to "revise their understanding of peace and tolerance by accepting pluralism." Furthermore, he said, Muslim leaders should give up the notion of Jihad in the sense of conquest, as opposed to Jihad as an internal struggle of the individual.

Liberal Mush

Tibi's advice comes at a time when the U.S. government is urging American Muslim leaders to promote understanding for the United States in Islamic regions. To Tibi, this is more of a diplomatic endeavor than the promotion of a more profound theological understanding between Islam and the Judeo-Christian worldview prevalent in the West.

But Muzammil Siddiqi, one senior Islamic scholar the State Department consults with, told UPI he found that his efforts in furthering contacts between Muslim, Christian and Jewish theologians were having some success.

Indian-born Siddiqi is the director of the large Islamic Center of Orange County in California. In consultation with the State Department and in cooperation with the University of Kentucky, he traveled back and forth between the United States and the Middle East trying to convince Muslim theologians and jurists to meet with American church leaders.

"I have found that many, though not all, were ready to welcome visitors from America and also to come here to explore with Christians and Jews what we have in common," Siddiqi said.

Though Siddiqi's center is heavily engaged in interfaith activities, he made it clear that to him, as indeed for conservative Christians, syncretism – the mixing of religions – was anathema.

Common values should be sought out, he explained, and the equality of all believers respected, be they Muslims, Christians, Hindus or Buddhists. But the purity of the faith must not be compromised.

In an article in the prestigious Hamburg weekly Die Zeit, Tibi gave anecdotal evidence of how daunting a task this dialogue with Islam can be.

Staring in Horror at the Bible

The bishop of Hildesheim in Germany paid an imam a courtesy visit in his mosque. The imam handed the Catholic prelate a Koran, which he joyfully accepted. But when the bishop tried to present the imam with a Bible, the Muslim cleric just stared at him in horror and refused to even touch Christianity's holy book.

"The bishop was irritated because he perceived this behavior as a gross discourtesy," wrote Tibi, "but the imam had only acted according to his faith. For if an imam gives a bishop a Koran, he considers this a Da'Wa, or call to Islam."

This, explained Tibi, must be borne in mind when one engages in a dialogue with Muslim "scholars," for it corresponds to a verse in the Koran: "And say ... to those who are unlearned: 'Do ye submit yourselves?'" (Surah 3:20). John Quincy Adams wrote: In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE (Adams's capital letters)… Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant… While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and goodwill towards men." Lord Tebbit wrote: "The Muslim religion is so unreformed since it was created that nowhere in the Muslim world has there been any real advance in science, or art or literature, or technology in the last 500 years" Vernon Richards wrote: "The true Islamic concept of peace goes something like this: "Peace comes through submission to Muhammad and his concept of Allah" (i.e. Islam). As such the Islamic concept of peace, meaning making the whole world Muslim, is actually a mandate for war. It was inevitable and unavoidable that the conflict would eventually reach our borders, and so it has." Andre Servier, 1922 wrote: “Islam was not a torch, as has been claimed, but an extinguisher. Conceived in a barbarous brain for the use of a barbarous people, it was - and it remains - incapable of adapting itself to civilization. Wherever it has dominated, it has broken the impulse towards progress and checked the evolution of society.” Theodore Roosevelt wrote: “The Greeks who triumphed at Marathon and Salamis did a work without which the world would have been deprived of the social value of Plato and Aristotle, of Aeschylus, Herodotus, and Thucydides. The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization, because the victories stretching through the centuries from the days of Miltiades and Themistocles to those of Charles Martel in the eighth century and those of John Sobieski in the seventeenth century.” “During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier and the Polish king, the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any "social values" whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influence. There are such "social values" today in Europe, America, and Australia only because during those thousand years the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do - that is, to beat back the Moslem invader.” David Selbourne – The Losing Battle with Islam: "Of course, there are distinguished precedents even for the bleakest and coarsest of these judgements. To Montesquieu in 1748, Islam’s ‘destructive spirit’ spoke ‘only by the sword’; to Schopenhauer in 1819, the Koran was a ‘wretched book’ in which he had ‘not been able to discover one single idea of value’; to De Tocqueville in 1843, Islam was ‘deadly’, ‘to be feared’ and a ‘form of decadence’". – Winston Churchill, wrote in 1899: “The religion of Islam above all others was founded upon the sword … Moreover it provides incentives to slaughter, and in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men – filled with a wild and merciless fanaticism”. John Quincy Adams who wrote in 1829: "The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force". John Wesley (1703-91) who wrote, "Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it...have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are raised from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind". Hilaire Belloc who wrote in 1938: "Will not perhaps the temporal power of Islam return and with it the menace of an armed Mohammedan world, which will shake off the domination of Europeans -- still nominally Christian -- and reappear as the prime enemy of our civilization? The future always comes as a surprise, but political wisdom consists in attempting at least some partial judgment of what that surprise may be. And for my part I cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing of the future is the return of Islam". Bishop Fulton J Sheen who wrote in 1950: "Today (1950), the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is becoming hatred against Christianity itself. Although the statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has ceased to be Christian, and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world Power". Patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria, while negotiating the surrender of Alexandria to the Muslims, 640 AD: "I am afraid that God has sent these men to lay waste the world". Gregory Palamus of Thessalonica, 1354: "For these impious people, hated by God and infamous, boast of having got the better of the Romans by their love of God…they live by the bow, the sword and debauchery, finding pleasure in taking slaves, devoting themselves to murder, pillage, spoil…and not only do they commit these crimes, but even — what an aberration — they believe that God approves of them. This is what I think of them, now that I know precisely about their way of life.". William Eaton, US Consul to Tunis, wrote in 1799: "Considered as a nation, they are deplorably wretched, because they have no property in the soil to inspire an ambition to cultivate it. They are abject slaves to the despotism of their government, and they are humiliated by tyranny, the worst of all tyrannies, the despotism of priestcraft. They live in more solemn fear of the frowns of a bigot who has been dead and rotten above a thousand years, than of the living despot whose frown would cost them their lives…The ignorance, superstitious tradition and civil and religious tyranny, which depress the human mind here, exclude improvement of every kind…" And how about this quote from Ayatollah Khomeini from 1942: “Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world…. Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers] Islam says Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us Islam says Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender to the enemy Islam says Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Koranic] verses and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” - Ayatollah Khomeini In defense of the UK, Winston Churchill 1941: You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period - I am addressing myself to the School - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated

[pacelvi]

lol.. you’re using the quotes i aggregated.

that’s ok , i dont mind.

[Slow Lane]

I object to the term “”Islamism”, “Islamist” or “Islamofascist”, since these so-called groups are following ISLAM itself. They are not deviating from the Koran, the Hadiths or Sunnah but obeying the teachings exactly. Yes, there might be a moderate Muslims, but they are apostates. The sooner what’s left of the West realizes this the safer it will be.

[RC2]

Personally, I don’t care. I don’t trust them and never will. If they want to practice their cult, let them do it in the middle east. It’s not worth taking a chance with them............not any more.

[pacelvi]

the video i posted isn’t really about moderates.. it’s about the extent of Saudi control in America.

there is a lot of important information in the video. this is not a video about kissing ass to PCism.. it’s a video about the sedition going on in the US.. and yes, the word Sedition is used a lot.

If this message isn’t “pure” enough for you , then please, just stay out of this thread.

[onedoug]

I’m sorry to say, I agree.

[BlackbirdSST]

Shilling for mussies? Blackbird.

[pacelvi]

Who?

[BlackbirdSST]

Who?

The comment was targeting the article and the concept of moderate mussies. You just posted it, so I hit reply. Blackbird.

[pacelvi]

The video has nothing to do with Moderate Muslims.

It has everything to do with the creeping sedition being spread throughout the United States by Saudi Arabia and the efforts of the Left to find common cause with them.

[BlackbirdSST]

The video has nothing to do with Moderate Muslims. It has everything to do with the creeping sedition being spread throughout the United States by Saudi Arabia and the efforts of the Left to find common cause with them.

From the article that YOU posted:This documentary tells the story of courageous moderate Muslims in the United States, Western Europe, and Canada who are taking on adherents to the radical extremist ideology known as Islamism. What is happening to these moderates – who are being ostracized, intimidated and, in some cases, threatened with death – offers critical insights into the dangers that both they and we are facing. It also highlights steps to help empower these moderates and others like them.

I don't do videos, so is the Heritage Foundation lying? Blackbird.

[pacelvi]

Well I watched it... are you telling me you know what the content is even though you haven’t watched it?

Did you happen to even read the first line of what I put:

“This is a video NOT of the film itself but a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation by a group which had just finished watching it there at Heritage. “

Are you this ignorant about everything you say?

[BlackbirdSST]

Well I watched it... are you telling me you know what the content is even though you haven’t watched it? Did you happen to even read the first line of what I put: “This is a video NOT of the film itself but a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation by a group which had just finished watching it there at Heritage. “ Are you this ignorant about everything you say?

Take your smugness and put it in your bong and smoke it pinhead. I read the article YOU posted, or are you too ignorant to realize that is the way FR works? You posted it and added your commentary. I ask you simply, are you the liar, or is the Heritage Foundation the liar? It might occur to you, since I said I don't do video, to post a transcript of the video, considering your point of contention. Looking at your posting history I'll just flag you as an antagonist troll looking for a bridge. Thanks for playing. Blackbird.

[pacelvi]

“I read the article YOU posted”

I just pasted what was on their website with a preface stating that the video was of the DISCUSSION.

” I ask you simply, are you the liar, or is the Heritage Foundation the liar?”

You were the liar.. stating it was a apology for the Muslims. The Video is anything but that. Now instead of acting for the truth, which I have done, you are acting out of ego.

Do you want people to get the truth or not? Your totally ignorant disparaging comments would discourage people from viewing the video.

” It might occur to you, since I said I don’t do video, to post a transcript of the video,”

Sure. I’ll get right on that.. I’ll start making a transcript of a discussion that lasted over an hour just for you.

“Thanks for playing. Blackbird.”

Good.. take your ball and leave.

[BlackbirdSST]

To: pacelvi Shilling for mussies? Blackbird. 8 posted on 07/16/2007 8:03:10 AM MDT by BlackbirdSST (I'm dug in, giving no more ground to the rino stampede. BB) [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

To: BlackbirdSST Who? 9 posted on 07/16/2007 8:44:09 AM MDT by pacelvi [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

To: pacelvi Who?

The comment was targeting the article and the concept of moderate mussies. You just posted it, so I hit reply. Blackbird. 10 posted on 07/16/2007 8:57:16 AM MDT by BlackbirdSST (I'm dug in, giving no more ground to the rino stampede. BB) [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

Your not the sharpest knife in the drawer are you? Evidently, you and The Heritage Foundation have a differing opinion of what's on said video. They speak of moderate muslimes. I say, there's no such animal. As you continue trolling (obviously looking to be antagonistic) just remember you started it. You might even consider, should you shake your head hard enough to get your two brains cells to spark, that I was in general agreement with your assessment. How stoopid can one be?

You were the liar.. stating it was a apology for the Muslims.

Liar. Ummm, what part of, I don't do videos, didn't penetrate your thick skull? I HAVE NO OPINION ON THE VIDEO SINCE I DIDN'T WATCH IT. DUH! I OFFERED NO OPINION ON THE VIDEO JUST THE ARTICLE YOU POSTED FROM THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION. DUH! My opinion was and is, The Heritage Foundation was "shilling for mussies".

The Video is anything but that.

The burden of proof is on you. Post the transcript (or at least enough in excerpts to back up your claim, since I wouldn't (NOW) take your word that the sky is blue, or troll someone else. Blackbird.

[pacelvi]

Christ.. what are you an infant? Grow up, baby.

[BlackbirdSST]

Christ.. what are you an infant? Grow up, baby.<

You're as dumb as a bag of rocks! My apologies to the bags of rocks. My apologies to you for offering to agree with you on your own thread, a mistake that will not happen twice. Blackbird.

[pacelvi]

Don’t cry.

[GOPJ]

"First, both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms these mean different things to each of them. The word 'peace,' for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al-Islam – or 'House of Islam' – to the entire world," explained Tibi, who is also a research scholar at Harvard University.

Yep, it's a religion of peace - when "peace" means "you will surrender to our beliefs or else".