Free Republic

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest explained that the Obama administration would not be using the phrase “radical Islam” to describe the ideology motivating the Charlie Hebdo terrorists.

I had lunch yesterday with three gentlemen who are very well read, who follow the news attentively, and who would shudder to think they are victims of ideological censorship. Yet not one of them — and the trio includes a very famous former reporter (a first-class reporter at that) for one of the country’s top newspapers — had heard a word about Egyptian President Sisi’s remarkable New Year’s Day speech, in which he called upon Muslim leaders and scholars to carry out a “religious revolution.” All three watch TV news ... so they were surprised that they hadn’t heard about...

The biggest story not yet covered appropriately in mainstream media plays out now in Egypt, where President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attacks the root causes of continuing conflict between certain adherents of Islam and freedom-loving secularists, in defiance of President Obama and of fierce critics. Living in a nation of 87 million persons, where an estimated 90 percent are Muslim, President el-Sisi is certain that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization, or a force for good and so his government holds hundreds of members of that organization in prison, where many face death sentences, including former President Mohammed Morsi....

CAIRO –  Egypt's president opened the new year with a dramatic call for a "revolution" in Islam to reform interpretations of the faith entrenched for hundreds of years, which he said have made the Muslim world a source of "destruction" and pitted it against the rest of the world.

JERUSALEM—In a speech on New Year’s day, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for a “religious revolution” in Islam that would displace violent jihad from the center of Muslim discourse. “Is it possible that 1.6 billion people (Muslims worldwide) should want to kill the rest of the world’s population—that is, 7 billion people—so that they themselves may live?” he asked. “Impossible.” Speaking to an audience of religious scholars celebrating the birth of Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, he called on the religious establishment to lead the fight for moderation in the Muslim world. “You imams (prayer leaders) are responsible before Allah. The...

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made an extraordinary speech on New Year’s Day to Cairo’s Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry calling for a long overdue virtual ecclesiastical revolution in Islam. This is something no Western leader has the had the courage to do, certainly not Barack Obama, despite his Muslim education. Accusing the umma (world Islamic population) of encouraging the hostility of the entire world, al-Sisi’s speech is so dramatic and essentially revolutionary it brings to mind Khrushchev’s famous speech exposing Stalin. Many have called for a reformation of Islam, but for the leader of the largest Arab nation to...

In a major positive development, Egypt's President Al Sisi has made an impassioned plea for a "religious revolution" in Islam. Speaking at Al Azhar University in Cairo, Sisi spoke directly to the religious establishment of Egypt: Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants – that is 7 billion – so that they themselves may live? Impossible! I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema – Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I'm talking about...

Part three in a three-part series. Islamists fear any real ideological battle within Islam against Islamism and its clerics. To that end, they seek the removal of American and Western involvement from Muslim majority countries. Americanism is founded upon an anti-theocratic ideology that is a global ideological threat to Islamism. "Jeffersonian" Muslims who depart from Islamism are similarly the greatest threat to the influence of Islamists within the Muslim community. Disengage Islamism from Muslims and Americanism will flourish among Muslims. With the deconstruction of Islamism (the ends), Islamist terror (the means) has no cause. Muslim activists should find it commonplace...

A few cartoons involving Muhammad have generated a firestorm that refuses to go out. Just a couple of weeks ago, a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina rented a jeep and drove it through a student plaza on the campus, injuring nine people, including a visiting scholar. Police are still investigating the crime, but one factor that may have contributed is that the campus paper printed one of the now infamous caricatures of Muhammad, arousing the anger of many Muslims. The driver, an Iranian Muslim, has plainly said he attacked the campus because it was the will of...

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, American Muslim leaders insisted that the terrorism had nothing to do with Islam. They cited Central Intelligence Agency reports showing that Latin Americans were responsible for more terrorist incidents than Muslims. They blamed Israel or American foreign policy, and their organizations focused on campaigns to convince non-Muslim Americans that Islam was a religion of peace. Nearly four years after the attacks, American Muslim leaders are changing their message. They are rolling out campaigns to persuade American Muslims - especially the young - to beware of preachers peddling extremism and terrorism. They say that terrorism...

LONDON: Salman Rushdie, whose Satanic Verses first revealed and exemplified to a shocked world the massed rage of a globally-vocal, possibly violent, fearsomely-networked, resurgent Islamist extremism, has led the West's call for an Islamic reformation that brings the planet's youngest, fastest-growing religion into the 21st century. Rushdie's new novel set in Kashmir details the transformation of a young Muslim boy from shy adolescent to Islamist terrorist under the tutelage of a bearded radical mullah. He launched his appeal for a "move beyond tradition...(for) the Koran to be seen as a historical document...not supernaturally above (history)" even as his book, 'Shalimar...

WHEN Sir Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, admitted that “our own children” had perpetrated the July 7 London bombings, it was the first time in my memory that a British Muslim had accepted his community’s responsibility for outrages committed by its members. Instead of blaming US foreign policy or “Islamophobia”, Sacranie described the bombings as a “profound challenge” for the Muslim community. However, this is the same Sacranie who, in 1989, said that “Death is perhaps too easy” for the author of The Satanic Verses. Tony Blair’s decision to knight him and treat him as the...

When Sir Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, admitted that "our own children" had perpetrated the July 7 London bombings, it was the first time in my memory that a British Muslim had accepted his community's responsibility for outrages committed by its members. Instead of blaming U.S. foreign policy or "Islamophobia," Sacranie described the bombings as a "profound challenge" for the Muslim community. However, this is the same Sacranie who, in 1989, said that "Death is perhaps too easy" for the author of "The Satanic Verses." Tony Blair's decision to knight him and treat him as the...

The London bombings have shocked the world and once again raised the question 'Why?'. But people who hurry to blame fundamentalists and poverty are missing the point: Islam itself. Today there is a lot of talk about the root causes of Islamic terrorism and how to deal with them. So what are these root causes then? UK-US foreign policy? The West’s lust for oil? Illiteracy and poverty in the Muslim world? The hijacking of Islam by a few extremists? These, amongst others, are the reasons most left-wing intellectuals and self-declared liberal Muslim thinkers, from British journalist Robert Fisk to Pakistani...

Driving back from the North Carolina mountains tonight, I heard an amazing commentary on NPR that fits into our discussion of the MSM’s heated search for a “moderate” version of Islam that it can hold up as some kind of majority viewpoint. This is part of the whole template that there are “fundamentalists” in all faiths who are equally dangerous in their often violent quest for the illusion of certainty and moral absolutes and then there are “moderates” who, if they all had their way, would all get along as they search for the Eternal Other.Here is the NPR link...

FALLS CHURCH The voice of the new imam at one of the largest mosques on the East Coast rang loud from the pulpit during Friday services: "The call to reform Islam is an alien call."

This is in response to the Point of View column by Parvez Ahmed. He quoted the Quran, which states that war should be purely "defensive." Islam started in the Arabian desert, expanding through North Africa very quickly. Were the Arabs "defensively" waging a war? Another point he makes is the Quran advocates kindness to people of other faiths. Yet Saudi Arabia, in the name of Islam, forbids building any churches in that country while financing the building of thousands of mosques throughout the world. The Quran incites the Muslims not to befriend Christians and Jews, and even to smite their...

The Islamic state that existed 1,400 years ago cannot be recreated, says a Muslim scholar Israr Ahmad. "The first Islamic state was created in a tribal setup; today the world has changed," said Ahmad. "So we can form a modern Islamic state based on the principles of our religion but cannot recreate what existed 1,400 years ago." Ahmed, who heads an orthodox Muslim religious party and campaigns tirelessly for establishing an Islamic government in Pakistan, made this observation during a debate on a private Pakistani television channel. The debate and Ahmed's admission both reflect the major change that the Islamic...

Does Islam Need a Luther or a Pope? Edward Feser 12/04/2003 It has become the conventional wisdom in the two years since 9/11 that the trouble with Islam is that, unlike Christianity, it never had a Protestant Reformation. The idea seems to be this: Christianity was (so it is held) rigid and authoritarian before Luther and company came along and paved the way for liberal democracy, science, and all things modern and good; Islam's problem is that it remains stuck in its "Medieval phase," still awaiting Reformers of its own. This analysis dovetails nicely with the conceptions most people have...

Prince Charles and others warned not to discuss the process of renouncing Islam Last month, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that Prince Charles was leading efforts to combat the Islamic law of apostasy, under which leaving the Muslim religion is at the very least illegal and is often punishable by death. Charles had held a private summit of Christian and Muslim leaders at Clarence House to discuss the issue. There was, however, one hitch: The Muslim delegation at the summit cautioned the prince and other non-Muslims not to speak publicly about apostasy laws, and some of the Christian leaders in attendance...