CAIR Proposes World Islamophobia Report

WASHINGTON, January 14 (IslamOnline.net) - The largest US Muslim civil liberties called on the State Department to issue a report on Islamophobia across the world, as American Muslims have complained of more anti-Islam TV rants.

The proposal was made when the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and several other Muslim and Arab-American groups met Thursday, January 13, with top State Department officials to discuss a number of issues related to American foreign policy, according to CAIR’s Web site.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad presented in the meeting -- attended by Assistant Secretary Patricia de Stacy Harrison, Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher and Ambassador William Burns -- a proposal for cooperative efforts to challenge both Islamophobia and anti-Americanism.

The proposal includes such measures as producing a report on the growing phenomenon of Islamophobia, conferences in this country and in the Muslim world to discuss both Islamophobia and Anti-Americanism and domestic and international “goodwill ambassadors” who can speak about both topics.

“By challenging anti-Muslim bigotry, we can help reduce anti-American attitudes in the Islamic world.

“And by having American Muslims speak out in support of their nation's values, while at the same time maintaining essential credibility on issues of importance to Muslims worldwide, we undercut growing Islamophobic views in our society,” read the report, carried by the group in a press release Thursday.

The meeting came after the State Department released its first report on global anti-Semitism January 5, taking a country-by-country survey of anti-Semitism worldwide from July 2003, to December 15, 2004.

The report was mandated by the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act, which was approved by US President George W. Bush in October.

Influential Jewish leaders applauded the move, saying the very fact that Congress enacted legislation requiring the State Department to issue annual reports is “extremely important and highly significant.”

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties group, having 30 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada.

CAIR said in earlier reports and surveys that attacks against Muslims have been on the rise in the United States since the 9/11/2001 deadly attacks.

The recent slur against Muslims was carried in the Fox TV hit show “24”, which featured an upper-middle class Muslim family operating as a sleeper “terrorist cell”.

In the drama, premiered Monday, January 9, the Muslim mother poisons her son's non-Muslim girlfriend because it was feared the girl could jeopardize the terrorists' plan.

The Fox television network said it would provide its stations with TV spots that portray Muslims in a favorable way after it received complaints for featuring followers of Islam as terrorists on the television show.

A Fox spokesman was quoted by Reuters Friday, January 14, as saying it would provide public service announcements sponsored by CAIR to its affiliate stations.

“What we are hoping to do is to try and mitigate the damages of the stereotypes because it can bring real-life consequences on American Muslims and their lives here,” said Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Islamic group.

Citing a public opinion survey conducted by Cornell University last year, Ahmed said television influences viewers' perceptions of Muslims.

“There aren't any positive or even neutral portrayals of Muslims on TV; whenever Muslims or Arabs are portrayed it is always in a stereotypical way,” she said.

“What we are hoping to do is to try and mitigate the damages of the stereotypes because it can bring real-life consequences on American Muslims and their lives here,” said Ahmed.

“When average Americans don't have any personal interaction with Muslims, whether it be at work or at school, they base their perception of Islam and Muslims from what they see on TV,” she added.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan opened in December a seminar on combating Islamophobia through education, inclusion and example.

Annan also warned in an earlier black-tie dinner at the UN headquarters in January that Islamophobia poses a challenge to the spirit that he said unites peoples across the globe.

He said that since the 9/11 attacks “many Muslims, particularly in the West, have found themselves the objects of suspicion, harassment and discrimination.”

“Too many people see Islam as a monolith and as intrinsically opposed to the West. Caricature remains widespread and the gulf of ignorance is dangerously deep.”

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Killing the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim.

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Text of Fatwah Urging Jihad Against Americans

Published in Al-Quds al-'Arabi on Febuary 23, 1998

Statement signed by Sheikh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin; Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of the Jihad Group in Egypt; Abu- Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, a leader of the Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan; and Fazlul Rahman, leader of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh

Praise be to God, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said "I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped, God who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders." The Arabian Peninsula has never--since God made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas--been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies now spreading in it like locusts, consuming its riches and destroying its plantations. All this is happening at a time when nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.

No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.

The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So now they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.

The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al- Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al- Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said "As for the militant struggle, it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life."

On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."

This is in addition to the words of Almighty God "And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated and oppressed--women and children, whose cry is 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"

We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

Almighty God said "O ye who believe, give your response to God and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that God cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."

Almighty God also says "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things."

Almighty God also says "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."

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