Posted on 01/12/2015 9:18:20 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Muslim leaders from across America will gather in Texas this weekend to hold the annual Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect conference, a weekend forum that is being billed as a “movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message,” according to event information.
The Saturday event, which seeks to combat “Islamophobes in America” who have turned the Islamic Prophet Muhammad “into an object of hate,” according to organizers, comes just a week after radicalized Islamists in France killed 17 people.
The victims died in events that began with the shooting attack on French newspaper Charlie Hebdo for its satirical cartoons that skewered the prophet.
Organizers of the event place the blame for Islam’s bad reputation on the media and so-called American Islamophobes who have “invested at least $160 million dollars to attack our Prophet and Islam,” according to the conference web page.
Keynote speakers at the event will include Georgetown University professor John Esposito, founding director of the school’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which has come under fire for, among other things, hosting 9/11 Truthers and a member of Egypt’s Nazi Party.
Also scheduled to attend the forum is controversial New York-based Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who was an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings trial. Wahhaj has called the FBI and CIA the “real terrorists” and expressed a desire for all Americans to become Muslim, according to the New York Post.
Organizers of the conference claim that the media and Islamophobes in America are the main reason why Islam and its prophet have such a bad reputation in the Western world.
“This is not an event. It is the beginning of a movement,” organizers write on their website, which blames Americans for giving Islam a bad name. “A movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message.”
“All these accusations were invented by Islamophobes in America,” the group claims. “As we celebrate the Prophet in our now annual, nationwide event: Stand with the Prophet, we recommit ourselves to rectify his image, peace be upon him.”
The event seeks to capitalize on outrage over cartoons and other materials mocking Mohammed in popular culture.
“Frustrated with Islamophobes defaming the Prophet?” the event materials ask. “Fuming over extremists like ISIS who give a bad name to Islam? Remember the Danish cartoons defaming the Prophet? Or the anti-Islam film, ‘Innocence of Muslims’?”
The event is being backed by several Muslim groups, including SoundVision, an Illinois-based website that provides advice and products to Muslims; RadioIslam, an AM radio station based in Chicago; and MuslimFest.
It will take place Saturday evening at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas.
The goal of the forum, which costs $20 to attend, is to raise money to fund a “Strategic Communication Center for the Muslim community, which will develop effective responses to anti-Islamic attacks, as well as to train young Muslims in media.”
This center will be equipped to respond to insults to the prophet, such as when publications run cartoons critical of Mohammed.
“When real events warrant, like the Danish Cartoon controversy, Sharia ban, Quran burning, Boko Haram kidnappings. [Islamic State] brutality, etc., we articulate fresh talking points and content quickly, and in a timely manner, working with professionals to disseminate it through community spokespersons and our allies,” organizers state on their website.
Meanwhile, a German newspaper that re-ran Charlie Hebdo satirical cartoons of Mohammed was firebombed over the weekend, according to reports.
The Muslim groups hosting the Stand with the Prophet event blame the media for fomenting the wrong ideas about Muslims. The site promoting the forum includes a Pew survey finding that the media is the largest influence on the public’s opinion about Muslims.
“Media is making the life of Muslims difficult by turning our neighbors against us,” the website states.
Martin Kramer, a Middle East expert and president of the Shalem College in Jerusalem, criticized Georgetown’s Esposito for participating the Stand with the Prophet forum.
“John Esposito favors ‘incitement to hatred’ legislation, under the rubric of religious freedom, that would effectively trump freedom of expression,” Kramer said. “‘Belief as well as unbelief needs to be protected,’ he has written. ‘Freedom of religion in a pluralistic society ought to mean that some things are sacred and treated as such.’”
“Rallies such as the one Esposito will address have one purpose: granting Islam a protected status, and denying that protection to its critics,” Kramer said.
Esposito did not respond to an email seeking comment about his participation in the event. A Georgetown University spokesman also did not respond to an email request for comment.
Phone calls to SoundVision, the group sponsoring the event and hosting information about it online, were not answered or returned. An email to the site’s informational address also was not returned.
Patrick Poole, a terrorism expert and national security reporter, said the conference is part of larger campaign to blame some in America for the negative impression of Muslims in the West.
“This is a yet another manifestation of ‘Islamophobia’-phobia,” Poole said. “The conference organizers invoke an ‘Islamophobia hate machine’ based in the U.S. that is responsible for defaming Muslims worldwide but the events of the past week and other recent attacks have done more to damage the image of Islam than any other factor.”
The Muslim community must take responsibility and stop blaming the West for Islam’s faltering image, Poole said.
“What this conference makes clear is that the Muslim community needs to find better leadership. The jig is up on Islamic leaders who rush to the microphones to denounce terrorism, only to find they justify and support terrorism when speaking inside their mosques or conferences,” Poole said.
“The standard message that any terrorist yelling ‘Allahu Akhbar’ has nothing to do with the Muslim community while any graffiti on a mosque is a sign of widespread ‘Islamophobia’ just isn’t selling any more,” he added. “Rather than revising their talking points, they’re doubling down on their narrative and it will only serve to isolate the Muslim community even further.”
Islam is a blatant theocracy and those who are ignoring it as that, are enablers
and willful combatants against the Constitution and rule of law.
Islam is no different than the Kings men of the 1700's coming over, then claiming
King George III as a prophet. It's a legal spin to justify invasion but our Constitution
isn't a Suicide pact and it can be stopped.
Unless thousands of Texans show up to protest this "Peacefully" those who do
may be arrested and you can bet your house that DHS and Holders men will be there to
demand the arrest of all who show up to defy the evil intent of this insurrection!
How the local officers react to Holders demands is unknown. I would expect
99.999% of them to side with America.
“Is Obama going to be guest speaker...”
No, but he will probably have someone from his administration there. Wait for the wrap up of the meeting to find out and prove me wrong.
I’m 10 minutes away.
Stand with the pedophile prophet
Let me guess. There will be a counter demo. They will attack it.
Does that mean there’ll be no five-time-a-day Mecca hoky poky?
Okay, it’s time for the tough talking Texas Freepers to show what they’re made of.
FRAN,,,,,
Counter Protest in Order
May have missed it but I didn’t see any mention of CAIR - won’t they be there, too.
If memory serves right, it was after 9/11 when a heavy-set member of CAIR (IIRC their president) was on FNC frequently. What a loud scumbag!
Freepers counter Protest,
It’s the mark for “place of prayer”. (or more accurately place of prostration)...
Sajdah.
The place of sajdah mark is more subtle. A dhimmie could walk by it and not have it removed. The only ones offended would be the true believers, and it would stay up long enough for them to see it.
Each other, same as always.
When the last two people on earth are muslims, Achemed'll slay Ackbar for not being muslim enough.
The level of absurdity in this is just breathtaking...however...the LSM will be lapping it up like the good little dogs that they are.
But it’s par for the course though...project, deflect, misrepresent and deny...taqiya (sp?)
I live in Houston. If anyone wants to meet up for a quick 1st amendment harrassment, send me a message.
The biggest stink is the keynote speaker is an unindicted Co-conspirator of the 1993 bombing, and the venue is a property under the Garland school district. The locals are planning protests.
Re yur #76: “In the spirit of the event, they’ll launch a few rockets at a synogogue,...”
I hope you’re joking, but I do suspect that this “rally” will more than likely morph into a “demonstration”, which in turn will require very little provocation (and a sign defaming the prophet or a slice of bacon tossed into their midst will probably do it) to escalate into a riot.
These Islamicists are more likely than not spoiling for confrontation, and at the very least intimidating the local Kafir.
If and when they do go ballistic, we might get to see how that whole Cowboys and Muslims thing works out.
My folks always told me to be my best .....
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