Islam's History of Forced Conversions

by Raymond Ibrahim

Finding and connecting similar patterns of behavior throughout Islamic history is one of the most objective ways of determining whether something is or is not part of Muslim civilization.

Consider the issue of forced conversion in Islam, a phenomenon that has a long history with ample precedents. Indeed, from its inception, most of those who embraced Islam did so under duress, beginning with the Ridda wars and during the age of conquests, and to escape dhimmi status. This is a simple fact.

Yet, when one examines today's cases of forced conversions with those from centuries past, identical patterns emerge, demonstrating great continuity. Consider:

Days ago in Pakistan, two Christian men were severely beaten with iron rods and left for dead by a group of Muslims, simply because they refused to convert to Islam. According to Compass Direct News, they were returning from a church service when they were accosted by six Muslims. After they discovered they were Christian, the Muslims

then started questioning them about their faith and later tried to force them to recite the Kalma [Islamic conversion creed, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger"] and become Muslims, telling them that this was the only way they could live peacefully in the city. They also offered monetary incentives and "protection" to Ishfaq and Naeem [the Christians], but the two refused to renounce Christianity.

"After cajoling the two Christians for some time," the Muslims pretended to go away, only to ram their car into the Christians: "The Muslims [then] got out of the car armed with iron rods and attacked Ishfaq and Naeem, shouting that they should either recite the Kalma or be prepared to die…severely beating[ing] the two Christians, fracturing Ishfaq Munawar's jaw and breaking five teeth, and seriously injuring Masih…. [T]he two Christians fell unconscious, and the young Muslim men left assuming they had killed them."

Contrast this contemporary account with the following anecdote from some 500 years past (excerpted from Witnesses for Christ, pgs.62-64):

In the year 1522, two Christian brothers in Ottoman Egypt were denounced by local Muslims "mostly out of jealousy and envy"; so the emir arrested them and "began flattering them and asking questions about their faith." The brothers made it clear that they were firm adherents of Christianity. "The Muslims in the audience became enraged with the brothers when they heard their answers, and they began screaming and demanding they must become Muslims." The brothers responded by refusing to "deny the faith we received from our forefathers, but we will remain unshaken and very firm in it until the end."

The Muslim judge deciding their case told the Christian brothers that if they simply said the Kalma and embraced Islam, they "would be given many honors and much glory"; otherwise, they would die. At that point, the brothers' mother came to support them, but "when the Muslims in court noticed her, they fell upon her, tore her clothing, and gave her a thorough beating."

After rebuking them for their savagery, the brothers reaffirmed that they would never deny Christianity for Islam, adding "behold our necks, do what you wish, but do it quickly."

Hearing this, one of the Muslims in the audience became so angry that he took out a knife and stabbed Kyrmidoles [one brother] in the chest, while someone else kicked him as hard as possible, and another dropped a large stone on his head. Finally, they plucked out his eyes. Thus Kyrmidoles died. As for Gabriel [his brother] they threw him to the ground and one of the soldiers severed his right shoulder and then proceeded and cut off his head.

Now, consider the near identical patterns in the two accounts, separated by half a millennium:

1. The Muslims first begin by talking to the Christians about their religion, suggesting they convert to Islam.
2. Failing to persuade the Christians, the Muslims proceed to "cajole" and offer "monetary incentives and protection" (in the modern case) and "flatter" and offer "many honors and much glory" (in the historic case). All that the Christians need do is speak some words, the Kalma, and become Muslim.
3. When the Christians still refuse, the Muslims fly into a savage rage, beating and torturing their victims to death (in the modern case, the Muslims assumed they had killed their victims).

Considering the Ottoman Empire and contemporary Pakistan are separated by culture, language, and some 500 years, how does one explain these identical patterns? What binds them together?

Only Islam—Islam empowered, Islam in charge; Muslim majorities governing, and thus abusing their non-Muslim minority. A fact of life, past and present.

Raymond Ibrahim, an Islam specialist and author of The Al Qaeda Reader, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3056/islam-forced-conversions

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

PA Maps Show ‘State’ that Swallows Up Israel

by Maayana Miskin

Map of Palestine according to Fatah-ruled PA

Israel news photo: PMW

When addressing the United Nations, Palestinian Authority (PA) representatives speak of the 1967 "borders” – a reference not to borders recognized internationally in 1967, but to their hope to build an Arab state on all land east of the indefensible 1949 armistice line between Israel and Jordan.

However, maps used within the PA tell a different story, one in which Israel does not exist at all, within any borders.

The PA’s official state tourism map, revealed this week by journalist David Bedein, labels all of Israel, Judea, Samaria and Gaza as “Palestine.” The 1949 armistice line is marked and labeled the “armistice line,” but there is no mention of the country established to its west more than 62 years ago.

In addition, the names of several Israeli cities have been “Arabized,” with Be’er Sheva labeled “Bir Assaba” and Tel Aviv also referred to as “Tell Ar-Rabee.” Arab towns such as Tamra and Shfaram are marked on the map, while far larger majority-Jewish cities are not.

The Jewish connection to sites such as the Old City of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Tomb of the Patriarchs is not mentioned.

Earlier in the year a PA television program declared that the entire Land of Israel is “Palestine,” while a children’s program played songs referring to Israeli cities such as Tzfat, Haifa and Beit Shean as “Palestine.”

"Palestine" was the name given the land designated by the British for the Jewish homeland. However, once part of that area became the state of Israel, local Arabs, who began calling themselves "Palestinians", designated the state they wish to establish as "Palestine".

The term was first used by the ancient Romans when they attempted to erase memory of Jewish connection to the land, after they destroyed the Second Jewish Temple over 1900 years ago.

Maayana Miskin

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148414#.TomJxlnpWNM

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Wash. Post's Silly Semantics Against Israel's Rightful Claims to Jerusalem

by Leo Rennert

Just when readers of the Washington Post might think that its reporters have exhausted all available semantic distortions to blacken Israel, here comes a new contorted Israel-bashing label that descends into the far reaches of utter silliness.

It's served up by Joel Greenberg, the Post's Jerusalem correspondent, in an Oct.2 article about a senior Palestinian official complaining that the Quartet of international mediators -- the U.S., the EU, the UN and Russia -- are too easy on Israel in pushing for resumption of negotiations ("Abbas aide presses for strong action by Quartet -- He portrays mediators' response to settlement plans as slap on wrist" page A14).

While the Quartet is pushing for a new round of talks without pre-conditions, the Abbas aide first wants an Israeli settlement freeze and Greenberg clearly sympathizes with him. Greenberg also writes that the dispute about how to proceed to negotiations was aggravated when Israel advanced building plans on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem," -- as he puts it in his lead paragraph.

Farther down in his piece, Greenberg more specifically reiterates that Israel has complicated matters with plans to build "1,100 homes in Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood built on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem." It takes Greenberg a while to recognize the Jewish character of Gilo.

However, in Greenberg's view, it is not enough to simply label Gilo a Jewish neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem. No, as far as he's concerned, Gilo doesn't belong to Israel and to these Jewish residents because it sits on "West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem." Such annexation, in his view, is Israel's original sin

Consequently, Greenberg rejects any permissibility for Jerusalem, like many cities and capitals around the world, to grow by bursting its geographic boundaries -- a natural phenomenon elsewhere around the globe.

Which is utterly silly, when you think of it.

Take for example, London, which originally consisted of an area known as the Square Mile, or what is referred to today as the "City of London." But over the years, London, as a municipality, added 32 boroughs -- a rather awesome series of expansions, or annexations, to use Greenberg's term.

So would Greenberg, if he were assigned to the London bureau of the Post, write that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II resides in "Buckingham Palace on land annexed to London?" I rather doubt it.

Or take as another example, Paris, which originally consisted of only two small islands in the Seine -- Ile de la Cite and Ile St. Louis. By 1860, it had stretched to 30 square miles and, since the last annexations in 1929, now encompasses 41 square miles.

Would the Post, reporting from Paris, write that President Sarkozy resides in the "Elysee Palace, built on land annexed to Paris"?

Or closer to home, Sacramento, the capital of California, also has followed a similar trend of geographic growth and annexations since the Gold Rush.

Yet, only when it comes to Jerusalem, does Greenberg find it necessary, as part of his anti-Israel agenda, to declare a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem as "built on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem."

It's not as if Israel grabbed this part or any other part of Jerusalem from the Palestinians. There never has been any Palestinian sovereign throughout history. The Palestinians never have had sovereign ownership of any Jerusalem neighborhood and that includes Gilo. The last sovereign to hold sway over the Holy Land was the Ottoman Empire and it disappeared after World War I. On the other hand, for one thousand years, Jews were the sovereign rulers of this land until the Roman conquest and Jews have been a continuous presence in this land for the last 3,000 years -- with a brief interlude during the Babylonian exile.

After World War I, the "international community" -- the British with the Balfour Declaration, the World War I victors at the San Remo conference, the League of Nations, the U.S. Congress all called for establishment of a Jewish national home in the Holy Land.

So, while today, there remains contention over setting sovereign boundaries around Jerusalem and in the West Bank, every conceivable peace plan that's been floated in recent decades leaves Gilo and other Jewish neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem on the Israeli side.

So why smear Gilo as somehow a non-kosher entity "built on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem." Gilo, by international consensus, is as much part of Israel as Tel Aviv.

How silly can Greenberg and the Post get in pursuit of their anti-Israel agenda?

Leo Rennert is a former Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent of McClatchy Newspapers.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/wash_posts_silly_semantics_against_israels_rightful_claims_to_jerusalem.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Europe, Globalization and the Coming Caliphate

by Janet Levy

The following is a book review of

Europe, Globalization and the Coming Caliphate

By Bat Ye'or

Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011

224 pp., $24.95

This past week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed an upgrade for the Arab-Palestinians' U.N. status from "nonmember observer" to "nonmember observer state," plus a one-year timetable for establishing a Palestinian state. In light of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's request for a unilateral declaration of statehood through the United Nations and a likely showdown at the Security Council with the United States promising to veto any Palestinian resolution, Sarkozy's proposal allegedly attempted to lower the "risk of engendering a cycle of violence in the Middle East."

In truth, there has been almost non-stop Islamic terrorism in Israel, a refusal by the Palestinian Authority to recognize the Jewish state and plentiful distribution of maps that turn the entire state of Israel into a state dubbed "Palestine." Israeli attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement have been thwarted on several occasions and the risibly named "land for peace" policy -- the Jewish state's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 -- has resulted only in increasing attacks from Arab-Palestinians.

Yet, this nonsensical notion of rewarding terrorism with a state persists, when it would obviously simply enable more Islamic attacks against Israel. Elevation to "nonmember observer state" status would allow Palestinian membership on several U.N. panels which could lead to anti-Israel lawfare - creation or use of laws to harm Israel - at the International Criminal Court. Conveniently using the Rome Statute, the Palestinians could prosecute the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli politicians for war crimes.

Facing presidential elections in 2012 in a country where 82% of the public supports a Palestinian state and where Muslims outnumber Jews 10 to 1, Sarkozy appears to have used Arab-Palestinian statehood demands, not to create peace, but to appease French Muslims and appeal to the anti-Israel electorate. Further, the French government could also have viewed a pro-Palestinian proposal at the U.N. as a way to avert increasing Muslim violence throughout the country.

These recent events give even more relevancy to the recent book, Europe, Globalization, and the Coming Universal Caliphate, by Middle East historian and scholar Bat Ye'or in which the author explains how Europe, with France as the driving force, has been complicit in the Islamization of the continent and its evolution from a Judeo-Christian civilization to one of subservience to Islam, a civilization of dhimmitude, or Eurabia.

Central to this shift has been the adoption of multiculturalism, which advances the idea that all cultures are equal and deserve equal treatment and which makes it politically incorrect to critique other cultures or uphold European traditions and values. Multiculturalism has also resulted in rapprochement between Islam and Europe, a multilateral partnership between the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the U.N., and the Palestinianization of European policy to delegitimize Israel and cast it as the occupier/victimizer of Arab-Palestinians. The European Union has even done the bidding of the OIC - the representative body of the Muslim world - by allowing unchecked Muslim immigration into Europe, promoting Islamic and Arabic culture on the continent, funding Palestinian terrorist acts sanitized as resistance operations, sponsoring challenges to Israel's security such as the Gaza flotillas, and spearheading boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Bat Ye'or charts the development of the Eurabian movement to affect sweeping structural and cultural changes to Europe, beginning in the 1970s with the Euro-Arab Dialogue subterfuge, borne of the Arab oil embargo. She cites this cultural and economic partnership as a vehicle to import Islamic culture into Europe and recounts how Muslim immigrants were welcomed and permitted to maintain segregated enclaves, which have progressed to "no-go zones" for native Europeans. She observes that Muslims have not been pressured to integrate into European society and that Muslim immigrants have gradually supplanted European culture with their own, creating bastions of shariah in their communities. Under the banner of multiculturalism and the shortsighted strategic alliance with Arab-Muslim countries, Bat Ye'or says, Europe has effectively facilitated its own Islamization.

To pave the way for Eurabia, the EU legitimized multiculturalism, which undermined state nationalism and cultural identities, Bat Ye'or writes. Ironically, she adds, while multiculturalism postulated a cultural equivalency between the Western and Arab-Muslim world, Muslims always viewed themselves and Islam as superior. Multiculturalism thus enabled Muslims to retain their separate and distinct way of life under a protective umbrella and carry on as if they were in their native countries. Of course, Muslim states are openly hostile to multicultural values, ethnic and religious diversity and tolerance, as evidenced, Bat Ye'or says, by the rampant discrimination and violent attacks against non-Muslims and the execution of Islamic converts.

The revival of the barely dormant relationship between European supporters of the Third Reich ideology and their Arab-Muslim counterparts, represented by the OIC, formed the chrysalis of a united front against America and Israel. The EU attempted to weaken the U.S. by building a counterweight at the U.N., namely the OIC. The EU sought close ties with the OIC and wittingly facilitated OIC goals of Islamic cultural penetration of Europe. Official European policy has encouraged citizenship for Muslims, a liberal asylum policy, the fight against Islamophobia, better relations with Arab countries and the demand for cultural sensitivity. The EU goal was to use the clout afforded by their Arab-Muslim alliance to challenge the U.S. position of supremacy at the U.N. and in the Middle East. By recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization, supporting PLO leader Yasser Arafat and siding with the Arab-Palestinians against the Israelis, the EU saw a way to establish Europe as the major player in the region, insure uninterrupted oil and gas supplies and guarantee protection from Islamic terrorism on European soil.

The OIC, founded in Saudi Arabia in 1969 and consisting of 56 member countries, plus the Palestinian territory, represents the collective voice of the global Muslim community. It is the second largest international organization in the world after the United Nations, wielding enough power to register the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam as a formal document at the U.N. even though its tenets conflict with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 by the U.N. Further, while supporting Hamas and Iran's nuclear program, the OIC was able to pass a 2007 resolution at the U.N. to combat blasphemy against Islam. Using the U.N., the OIC has declared that the crime of terrorism has been eclipsed by "crimes against humanity" - meaning crimes against Muslims.

The OIC's primary goals are to destroy Israel and establish a worldwide caliphate under shariah. The OIC and its member states view the sacred Koranic duty of all Muslims as the Islamization of the planet and the destruction of Israel. The very existence of the Jewish state supports the biblical roots of Judaism and Christianity and represents a grave insult to the existence of Islam which maintains that nothing existed before Mohammed. The OIC endeavors to promote Islamic values, encourage worldwide solidarity among Muslims, support Palestinian statehood and outlaw all criticism of Islam and Muslims.

In Europe, Globalization, and the Coming Universal Caliphate, Bat Ye'or cites the irony that the Muslim world, through the OIC, blames the West for victimization of Arab-Palestinians, yet ignores the oppression of Middle East Christians and spews hatred against the Jews. Europeans - prompted by fear of Muslims in their midst, the need for Arab oil and their own sordid history of anti-Semitism - accept blame for transgressions against Muslims by which they are, in turn, victimized. They excuse jihadist terrorism by blaming U.S. imperialism, anti-Muslim foreign policy, America's support of the State of Israel and counterterrorist measures. They thereby place themselves in the ludicrous position of sanctioning jihad as a valid response to alleged U.S. and Israeli oppression and labeling attempts to eradicate terrorism as anti-Muslim.

In summary, in Europe, Globalization and the Coming Caliphate, Bat Ye'or observes that the EU experience, which began as a bulwark for security and defense, a means to fuel its economy and a quest for global empowerment, has become a foolhardy enterprise that has led to Eurabia, the subjugated status of dhimmitude. Under Eurabia, Europe is now experiencing the gradual eradication of human rights, the legitimization of jihadist terrorism and the demise of the democratic values of freedom, justice, tolerance and equality. Bat Ye'or's observations of Europe's descent into Eurabia and dhimmitude are a caution for Americans facing the threat of Islamization. A clear and present danger is building in our midst that could take the same shape and direction of Eurabia if Americans fail to be vigilant.

Janet Levy

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/europe_globalization_and_the_coming_caliphate.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

CAIR's Silence on Pastor's Apostasy Death Sentence is Deafening

by Andrew G. Bostom

Will Mainstream American Islam Condemn Pastor Nadarkhani's "Apostasy" Death Sentence? Where is CAIR? Where is the Islamic Society of North America?

Almost 90 years ago, in his 1924 The Law of Apostasy in Islam, Samuel Zwemer made these observations, regarding the post World War I "Arab Spring" of that era:

The story is told that Damocles, at the court of Dionysius of Sicily, pronounced the latter the happiest man on earth. When, however, Damocles was permitted to sit on the royal throne, he perceived a sword hanging by a horse-hair over his head. The imagined felicity vanished, and he begged Dionysius to remove him from his seat of peril. Today [circa 1924] we read of new mandatories, of liberty, and of promised equality to minorities under Moslem rule; and newspapers assert that a new era has come to the Near East. Economic development, intellectual awakening, reforms, constitutions, parliaments and promises Does the sword of Damocles, however, still hang over the head of each convert from Islam to Christianity? Is the new Islam more tolerant than the old? [emphasis added] Will the lives and property of converts be protected, and the rights of minorities be respected? ....Again and again has European pressure, aided by a few educated Orientals, endeavored to secure equality before the law for all religions and races in the Near East. But as often as the attempt was made it proved a failure, each new failure more ghastly than the last. The reason is that the conscience and the faith of the most sincere and upright Moslems are bound up with the Koran and the Traditions. [emphasis added] Civilization cannot eradicate deep-seated convictions. Rifles and ironclads, the cafe, the theatre, written constitutions, representative parliaments; none of these reach far below the surface. A truer freedom...than the one supplied by their own faith, must come before Moslems can enter into the larger liberty which we enjoy.

Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkani's chilling "apostasy" case illustrates, starkly, how Zwemer's remarks remain depressingly relevant today: the scimitar of Damocles hovers over Nadarkhani for his "crime" of converting from Islam to Christianity. Thus far mainstream American Muslim advocacy groups-notably the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) have failed to condemn Pastor Nadarkhani's heinous death sentence. This dereliction of basic moral duty by CAIR and ISNA, so vocal in highlighting the slightest perceived "violations" of Muslim rights here in the US, demonstrates that the continued failure of Islam to uphold basic freedom of conscience extends beyond the "Near East," to Muslim communities across the entire world.

Notwithstanding transparent last minute Iranian efforts to recast the criminal proceedings against Pastor Nadarkhani with allegations of-what else-"Zionist conspiracism," or other trumped up charges, a translated Iranian Supreme Court brief from 2010 (obtained by CNN from the American Center for Law and Justice, and translated from its original Farsi by the Confederation of Iranian Students in Washington) makes plain that apostasy is the sole charge.

Mr. Youcef Nadarkhani, son of Byrom, 32-years old, married, born in Rasht in the state of Gilan is convicted of turning his back on Islam, the greatest religion, the prophecy of Mohammad at the age of 19...He (Nadarkhani) has stated that he is a Christian and no longer Muslim...During many sessions in court with the presence of his attorney and a judge, he has been sentenced to execution by hanging according to article 8 of Tahrir Al- Wasilah (a book on Islamic Law, Sharia, authored by Ayatollah Khomeini as a guide for Muslims)

The quintessence of a contemporary Shiite pronouncement on apostasy in Islam (which cites Khomeini's treatise extensively) appearing in Kayhan International, March 1986, stated openly

In Islam, apostasy is a flagrant sin and guilt for which certain punishments have been specified in Shari'a (Islamic law). Apostasy means, to renounce the religion or a religious principle after accepting it. In other words, one's departure from Islam to atheism is called apostasy. A person who abandons Islam and adopts atheism is called an apostate . . ...Apostasy is the escape from the pattern of creation and nature and that is why the word "voluntary" has been adopted for such an apostate...Can the penalty of escaping from the path and pattern of nature and creation be anything other than annihilation? This is the same thing that has been crystallized in the penal code of Islam. The anti-apostasy punishments of Islam are proper laws to rescue mankind from falling into the cesspool of treason, betrayal, and disloyalty and to remind the human being of his ideological commitments.

Iranian apostasy law is consistent with mainstream Islam's rejection of freedom of conscience since the 7^th century advent of the creed, through the clear modern dictates of the global Muslim umma's religio-political hierarchy as put forth in the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, signed by all 56 member nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (now the Organization of Islamic Cooperation).

• Koranic verses, such as 2:217 and 4:89 and their classical, mainstream exegeses by seminal Koranic commentators such as Baydawi (on 4:89: "Whosoever turns his back from his belief [irtada], openly or secretly, take him and kill him wheresoever ye find him, like any other infidel") and Qurtubi (on 2:217: "Scholars disagree about whether or not apostates are asked to repent. One group say they are asked to repent and, if they do, they are not killed. Some say they are given an hour and others a month. Others say they are asked to repent three times, and that is the view of Malik [founder of the Maliki school of Islamic Law]..It is also said they are killed without being asked to repent.")
• Muhammad is reported to have sanctioned lethal punishment for apsotates in the two most important canonical hadith collections, i.e., Bukhari and Muslim, and the Muwatta of Imam Malik:

Bukhari, volume 9, #17-Narrated Abdullah: Allah's Messenger said, "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Messenger, cannot be shed except in three cases: in Qisas (equality in punishment) for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (Apostate) and leaves the Muslims."

Bukhari, volume 9, #57-Narrated Ikrima, "Some atheists were brought to Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's messenger forbade it, saying, "Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire)." I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Messenger, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him."

Muslim-Chapter 6: WHEN IT IS PERMISSIBLE TO TAKE THE LIFE OF A MUSLIM, Book 016, Number 4152: Abdullah (b. Mas'ud) reported Allah's Messenger as saying: It is not permissible to take the life of a Muslim who bears testimony (to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and I am the Messenger of Allah, but in one of the three cases: the married adulterer, a life for life, and the deserter of his Din (Islam), abandoning the community.

Muwatta of Imam Malik, #1410-"Zaid b. Aslam reported that the Apostle declared that the man who leaves the fold of Islam should be executed."

• There is also a consensus by all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (i.e., Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafii), as well as classical Shiite jurists, that apostates from Islam must be put to death. Averroes (d. 1198), the renowned philosopher and scholar of the natural sciences, who was also an important Maliki jurist, provided this typical Muslim legal opinion on the punishment for apostasy: "An apostate...is to be executed by agreement in the case of a man, because of the words of the Prophet, 'Slay those who change their din [religion]'...Asking the apostate to repent was stipulated as a condition...prior to his execution."
• The contemporary (i.e., 1991) Al-Azhar (Cairo) Islamic Research Academy endorsed manual of Islamic Law, Umdat al-Salik (pp. 595-96) states: "Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief (kufr) and the worst.... When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostasizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed. In such a case, it is obligatory...to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed."
• The equivalent, gravely negative implications of the OIC's Sharia-based Cairo Declaration are most apparent in its transparent rejection of freedom of conscience in Article 10, which proclaims: "Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion, or to atheism." Ominously, articles 19 and 22 reiterate a principle stated elsewhere throughout the document, which clearly applies to the "punishment" of so-called "apostates" from Islam: "[19d] There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Sharia.; [22a] Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Sharia.; [22b] Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Sharia.; [22c] Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith."

The universality of these Islamic attitudes affects Muslim communities in the West, including North America. Syed Mumtaz Ali, the late architect of Canada's Sharia (Islamic Law) tribunal, and law professor Ali Khan, for example both have openly advocated extending Islamic apostasy laws to the West. Mumtaz Ali, in a disturbing essay, affirmed the traditional Islamic legal viewpoint that apostates must "choose between Islam and the sword," arguing further that if Canada were to act in accord with its own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian government must grant the country's Islamic community authority to punish those Muslims who apostasize, or malign their faith.

Washburn (Topeka, Kansas) University Law Professor, Ali Khan, another practicing Muslim, provided a more original, but no less frightening rationale for Muslims in the West to violate, fatally, the basic freedom of conscience of their co-religionists. Khan argued in The Cumberland Law Review that apostasy from Islam is an "attack" upon "protected knowledge," which if deemed (i.e., by some Islamic tribunal one must assume!) to be "open, hostile, and voiced contemptuously," justified punishment by death. Ali Khan is convinced that traditional Islamic law precepts antipodean to freedom of conscience nevertheless trump this foundational Western freedom, because,

Islam is the truth beyond doubt. [And] [t]hese rules preserve the dignity of protected knowledge, discouraging an 'easy in, easy out' attitude toward Islam.

And in April, 2009 Harvard Muslim chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser explained approvingly to a Muslim student that the traditional Islamic practice of executing apostates from Islam, remained both venerable, and applicable:

There is great wisdom (hikma) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment), and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human-rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand.

The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), consistent with modern fatwas published by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), and other prominent, mainstream Muslim clerics in Egypt (Al Azhar University), Lebanon, Iran, and Malaysia, has also mandated lethal punishment for apostates from Islam. AMJA's mission statement maintains the organization was, "...founded to provide guidance for Muslims living in North America...AMJA is a religious organization that does not exploit religion to achieve any political ends, but instead provides practical solutions within the guidelines of Islam and the nation's laws to the various challenges experienced by Muslim communities..." Moreover, AMJA was deemed a laudable, mainstream Muslim organization for North American imam training by the (US) Muslim Observer in October 2010, despite AMJA's imams having issued the following public rulings on "apostasy" from Islam, in 2006 and 2009:

Dr. Hatem al-Haj 2006-04-17 As for the Sharia ruling, it is the punishment of killing for the man with the grand Four Fiqh Sharia scholars, and the same with the woman with the major Shari'ah scholars, and she is jailed with Al-Hanafiyyah scholars, as the prophet, prayers and peace of Allah be upon him, said: "Whoever a Muslim changes his/her religion, kill him/her", and his saying: "A Muslim's blood, who testifies that there is no god except Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah, is not made permissible except by three reasons: the life for the life; the married adulterer and the that who abandons his/her religion".

Dr. Main Khalid Al-Qudah 2009-01-02 Under the authority of the Muslim state, the People of the Book have the right to stay on their belief without being compelled to embrace Islam. But if one of them has embraced Islam, it would not be acceptable from him to go back to his original religion. The same rule applies to those who are born into Muslim families. According to the Islamic Law, they cannot commit apostasy.

Dr. Main Khalid Al-Qudah 2009-04-10 As for the second one, the "people" in this hadith means either the apostates who had become Muslim and then retreated to disbelief thereafter, or the polytheists who do not attribute themselves to any divine religion. This second possible meaning has been mentioned in Imam Al-Nasa'i's narration: "I have been commanded to fight against the polytheists until they..." In Islam, neither of these categories of people is allowed to remain on their religion. The fact that there is no compulsion in religion does not negate the other fact that someone who has embraced Islam cannot change his mind afterward and embrace polytheism.

The eerie silence regarding Pastor Youcef Nadarkani's looming death sentence for "apostasy" from typically shrill mainstream Muslim advocacy groups such as CAIR and ISNA can only be interpreted as meaning these organizations reject true freedom of conscience, and condone such Sharia-based punishment for the "crime" of "apostasizing" from Islam.

Andrew G. Bostom

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/cairs_silence_on_pastors_apostasy_death_sentence_is_deafening.html

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The Killing of Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani

by Kerry Patton

The 11th branch of Iran’s Gilan Provincial Court upheld the apostasy conviction and execution sentencing of Christian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani this week. Social media accounts like Twitter have swarmed support for Pastor Nadarkhani. But where is the critically needed support from nation states—let alone, from where the Vatican?

The Vatican is an internationally recognized sovereign state with full diplomatic status. The Holy See has a legal personality under international law, giving it recognition as a sovereign state, which allows it to enter into treaties and to send and receive diplomatic representation. Knowing the Vatican has these powers, why hasn’t it spoken up on behalf of the Christian minister?

It is understood that the Vatican does not have its own military. However, history exemplifies the power of the Vatican to bring nations together to defeat its arch enemies through either diplomatic means or military might. This does not imply cause for a militant exhibition. However, it does imply, in a historical sense, the power of the Vatican. Has that power been lost today?

At the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II addressed the world to aid the Greeks and recover Palestine from Muslim rule. It was here that Pope Urban II requested aid from the West to fight against the Seljuq Turks. Nation states listened to the Pope and launched armies to engage battle against the Muslims, which lasted approximately 175 years. Some believe the ninth crusade was initiated by Muslims ten years ago on that horrific and tragic September day often referred to as 9-11.

Assyrian-born Chaldean Catholic Tariq Aziz served as deputy prime minister to Iraq until 2003. During his tenure and immediately prior to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Saddam Hussein repeatedly sent Aziz to the Vatican in an attempt to delay and or resolve military confrontation against the United States. Needless to say, when you commit crimes against humanity as Aziz had, it’s extremely tough for the Vatican to assist you.

Iran constantly commits crimes against humanity. War crimes have been committed, relentless killings of innocent people, torture, and so much more comes directly out of this Shiite-dominated state—yet they sit on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The Vatican failed in delivering any statement opposing this newly appointed Iranian UN position.

Lately, instead of fighting for the morale and values bestowed before a loving and peaceful Christian faith, Pope Benedict seems to have embraced Iran. In 2008, Pope Benedict actually conferred that the two entities agreed with one another on faith-based principles. Pope Urban II must be rolling in his grave.

Since 2001 alone, there have been well over 2,000 innocent Christians brutally murdered by Muslims. None of these people were military members engaged in any of the wars fought in Iraq or Afghanistan. They were faith-based community members or missionaries, some of which were actual clergy. Not once in any of the aforementioned atrocities did the Vatican make a global outcry for the victims. Yes, some statements can be found in Vatican records, but they failed to saturate international media news as they should have.

If anyone believes that the Vatican will step up today in safeguarding one of their own practitioners who preaches the word of God to fellow Christians, they will likely be let down. As a practicing Roman Catholic, I am at times ashamed of my own religious denomination, yet for whatever reason, I maintain my faith.

There are currently numerous prayer calls for Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani. Numerous petitions exist requesting the United States Department of State intervene. While fully recognizing the power of prayer, maybe it’s time to simply do more about Iran and follow the war cry of Pope Urban II not just for the sake of Pastor Nadarkhani but for all of those who have faced the horrors of Iran’s evil.

Kerry Patton

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/09/30/the-killing-of-pastor-yousef-nadarkhani/

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Dep. Foreign Minister: Zaki's Remarks Prove Us Right

by Gil Ronen

Ayalon after Fatah man's gaffe: "This is less about the creation of a PA state than it is about the destruction of the one Jewish State."

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon reacted Sunday to the statement by a senior Fatah man that exposes the organization's plan to destroy Israel in stages, while pretending to seek a peaceful compromise.

"As I have said on many occasions," said Ayalon, "here is further proof that the conflict is not about territory. The Palestinians have been offered a state repeatedly for several decades and have rejected each and every offer. This is less about the creation of a Palestinian state than it is about the destruction of the one Jewish State."

The statement by Abbas Zaki, a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee led by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is one of the most damning statements ever made by an Arab official regarding Fatah's "stages plan." The interview was aired on Al Jazeera on September 23, at about the same time that Abbas was presenting the case for independent statehood in the United Nations. Possibly the hype around Abbas's speech gave Zaki confidence that his statement would go by unnoticed – as it largely has.

"If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall, what will become of Israel? It will come to an end,” Zaki predicted.

He noted that reaching the “greater goal” would be impossible initially, and that revealing it would not be smart: “If we say that we want to wipe Israel out... C'mon, it's too difficult. It's not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don't say these things to the world,” he warned. “Keep it to yourself.”

Gil Ronen

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148412#.TojUxFnpWNM

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Fatah Official: Shhh! 1949 Lines would be Israel's Doom

by Chana Ya'ar

A senior member of the Fatah Central Committee led by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in an interview referred to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and U.S. President Barack Obama, as “dirtbags,” and explained how causing Israel to leave Judea and Samaria would spell its doom.

Abbas Zaki told the interviewer that any final status agreement between Israel and the PA “should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967... everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go.”

Israel claims that Abbas and numerous other PA Arab officials have made it clear in many ways that the "greater" and ultimate goal has been and continues to be the elimination of the State of Israel altogether, but this was an outright statement to that effect.

Zaki made his remarks during an interview on the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite television channel, which reaches millions of Arabs worldwide.

A video clip of Zaki's remarks was translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, a media watchdog organization that monitors Arabic-language media.

“If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall, what will become of Israel? It will come to an end,” Zaki predicted.

“Who is nervous, upset and angry now? Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama... All those dirtbags,” he said scornfully. “Why even get into this? We should be happy to see Israel upset.”

He noted that reaching the “greater goal” would be impossible initially, and that revealing it would not be smart: “If we say that we want to wipe Israel out... C'mon, it's too difficult. It's not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don't say these things to the world,” he warned. “Keep it to yourself.”

For public consumption, Zaki advised Arabs to stick to the party line: “I want the resolutions that everybody agrees upon. I say to the world, to the Quartet, and to America: You promised, and you turned out to be liars.”

In his recent speech to the 66th United Nations General Assembly, Abbas referred to Israel as the "land of Jesus and Mohammed," with no mention whatsoever of the ancient history of the Jews who dwelled therein, preceding both, and who have maintained a continuous presence in the land to this day.

MEMRI has translated recent remarks by Fatah officials, in which they are heard slamming Obama's speech of support for Israel at the United Nations General Assembly.

Chana Ya'ar

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148406#.TojTI1npWNM

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Al-Qaeda Speaks Spanish: Advances to Mallorca and the Western Sahara

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

The Spanish Civil Guard arrested a suspected Al-Qaeda operative. a few weeks ago. According to media reports, the 26-year-old man, originally from Cuba, was then released after a 45-minute closed-door arraignment and has to report daily to the police station nearest his home in Cala Rajada, on the northeast side of the Spanish island of Mallorca. According to the Spanish Interior Ministry's statement, the young man, identified as Jose Ernesto Feliu Mora, was wanted for allegedly being an Al-Qaeda's member and for having 1,120 radical videos on the Internet, mostly produced by him. Reports mention that he used these YouTube videos with jihadi, or holy war, content to indoctrinate other individuals. The Interior Ministry's statement added that the police also seized from him portable computers, external hard drives and USB memory sticks.

Feliu Mora converted years ago to Islam, probably in Spain. He took the name of Khalid Siyf Allahu Almaslul and grew his Muslim beard. During his free time he learned Arabic, apparently on his own, and tried several times to move to Pakistan to join terrorist training camps. Media outlets reported that he was obsessed with attacking Spanish troops in Afghanistan, while promoting online hate against the U.S.. The police started to track his e-mails in 2010, when Feliu Mora allegedly tried to contact leading Islamic fundamentalists.

Al-Qaeda on the island of Mallorca

Although Almaslul used to live with his mother and his half-brother in Mallorca, one of the Balearic islands located in the Mediterranean Sea. However, he was not the only Al-Qaeda operative to do so.. Several Al-Qaeda members have spent time on Mallorca. The most known is Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, co-founder of Al-Qaeda, now imprisoned in the ADX Florence facility in Colorado. Salim, born in Sudan from Iraqi parents, was involved in the terrorist attack against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Just before being arrested in Germany, Salim lived for a while in a luxurious apartment in Mallorca. The apartment belonged to Ahmed Brahim, an Algerian Al-Qaeda member who was one of the masterminds of the 1998-attack against the U.S. embassies. Brahim, who allegedly had "routine" contacts with Tariq Ramadan, was detained by the Spanish authorities for financing Al-Qaeda in Spain. He lived for 14 years on Mallorca, where his apartment on the island was used as a logistical center for terrorist activities.

Two more Al-Qaeda terrorists, involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, spent time in Mallorca. One, Jamal Ahmidan, known as "The Chinese," had been born in Morocco and lived surrounded by call girls and expensive cars. Just one week before the train attacks, he went to Mallorca to organize a sale of hashish and Ecstasy to finance the terrorist attack. Just after the attacks, however, police came close to his hiding place, and Ahmidan blew up himself in the Madrid' suburb of Leganes. The other mna involved in the 2004 attacks was the ringleader: Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, known as "El Tunecino" (The Tunisian); he was involved a love relationship with Nora, the daughter of Ahmed Brahim, and often visited the island of Mallorca. He also blew himself up in Leganes, along with Ahmidan.

Among Islamist terrorists who stayed on Mallorca there was also Mohamed Achraf, sentenced by a Spanish court to 14 years in prison for plotting a car bomb attack on government buildings in Madrid. While in jail on Maillorca in 2002, Achraf managed to organize and lead a terrorist cell before eventually being transferred to the prison of Salamanca.

Cuba and Al-Qaeda

The Cuban origin of the suspected Al-Qaeda operative again provoked questions about links between the Cuban regime and the terrorist movement. The book For Whom the Bell Tolls by Gautam Maitra states that according to a Country Reports on Terrorism released by the Office of the Coordinator for Terrorism in 2006, Cuba "virtually" refused to agree with U.S. request to support the U.S. in its War on Terrorism. "Cuba, according to the report, has not, so far, made any attempt towards tracking, blocking, or seizing terrorist assets despite legal provisions to do so. Cuba has never spoken against either the Al-Qaeda or any other group designated in the FTO list, the report claims. Nor did Cuba embark on any counter terrorist drives or join any international or regional forum on counter terrorism issues," the book states.

In 2007, the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami [UM] reported that that the Cuban regime could have links with Al-Qaeda through the Polisario, a terrorist group fighting for the independence from Morocco of the Western Sahara. Cuba has been sponsoring and supporting the Polisario since its birth in 1973. In recent years, the Moroccan government has accused the Polisario of "coordination and cooperation with al-Qaeda." According to the UM, "the 'Cuban brigade' of advisors and intelligence operatives stationed within the Polisario zone may be directly or indirectly supporting al-Qaeda operations and training camps. At the very least, it would be unwise to assume that Cuba's sophisticated intelligence apparatus is not providing valuable information and guidance to Polisario with a tacit consent to pass it on to an enemy (al-Qaeda) of a mutual enemy (the U.S.)."

Around the beginning of September, the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera sparked the rumor that another terrorist group, Hezbollah, was opening a base in Cuba. The news item stated that the organization chose Cuba as a safe haven from where to plan attacks against Israeli targets in Latin America to avenge the death of the Hezbollah commander, Imad Mughniyah.

The Internet

The possible links with Feliu Mora and Al-Qaeda reminded Spain that the threat of terrorism is still there, and that the country could be again attacked. Even though Feliu Mora was released, his videos are still circulating on the internet and luring new members, especially adolescents. His account on Twitter is still active, and it is still possible to read messages against Christians and Jews. Although his account on Facebook was blocked, a website saved what had used to be front page of his account. According to the media, the Spanish police are now trying to erase his profiles on the Internet. It seems that next battle against terrorism will not be done only on the ground but also online -- especially on social networks -- which are rapidly proliferating as a way to recruit young people to join the jihad against the West.

Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2457/al-qaeda-mallorca-sahara

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Running for Their Lives

by Raymond Ibrahim

Historically, non-Muslims whose lands were seized by the jihad had three choices: conversion, dhimmitude, or death. Today, however, they have a fourth option largely unavailable to their forbears: quit their lands of origin—emigrate—the latest testimony to the nature of Islam.

A recent report indicates that unprecedented numbers of Copts, Egypt's indigenous Christian population, are emigrating from their homeland in response to the so-called "Arab spring":

The Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organizations (EUHRO) published a report today on emigration of Christians from Egypt, saying that nearly 100,000 Christians have emigrated since March 2011. The report, which was sent to the Egyptian cabinet and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), warned that this emigration has been prompted by the escalating intimidation and attacks on Christians by Islamists. "Copts are not emigrating abroad voluntarily," said Naguib Gabriell, the director EUHRO, "they are coerced into that by threats and intimidation by hard line Salafists, and the lack of protection they are getting from the Egyptian regime."

The report goes on to list a number of attacks on Copts and churches—including the killing of Coptic youth in Moqattam, the Imbaba and other church attacks—adding "Salafist clerics, who gained political influence after the January 25 Revolution, have become emboldened, calling Copts Dhimmis who have to pay the jizya (tax paid by non-Muslims to the state) because they are not first class citizens and can never enjoy full citizenship rights, or obtain sensitive posts."

Indeed, this boldness is a harbinger of things to come—and Copts know it, hence the emigration. Wagdi Ghoneim, a popular cleric and former imam in California, recently called Copts "Crusaders" on Al Jazeera—about the worst thing to call someone in the Muslim world—insisting that they do not deserve equal rights with Muslims in Egypt, because they are infidel dhimmis. Likewise, Abu Shadi, a top representative of the Salafis, told Tahrir News that the Copts must either convert to Islam, pay jizya and assume inferior status, or die. These are just a couple of examples of the countless Muslim leaders openly hostile to Egypt's native population.

Nor is this phenomenon limited to the Copts of Egypt:

Gabriel sees a parallel with the Christian emigration from Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. "After the massacre of the congregation of Our Lady of Deliverance Church on October 31, 2010, and other attacks in Iraq, the ratio of Iraqi Christians went down from 8% to 2%; in Palestine to just .5%, and in Lebanon from 75% to 32%. If emigration of Christians, who constitute nearly 16% of the Egyptian population, continues at the present rate, it may reach 250,000 by the end of 2011, and within ten years a third of the Coptic population of Egypt would be gone."

Bear in mind these large numbers are not simply indicative of those who want to emigrate, but those who simply can: not only does it take years to work out the legalities of emigrating, but many simply cannot afford it. In other words, if emigration was a simple thing, the number of Christian emigrants from the Muslim world would be even higher.

As professor Habib Malik confirms, "It is principally the violence visited sporadically upon these Christian communities in their native towns and villages across the Middle East, and the absence of any reliable means of protection in a region seething with religious fanaticism and despotic forms of rule, which impels Christians to flee and not return" (Islamism and the Future of the Christians of the Middle East, pgs. 36-37).

But it's more than this; in fact, we are witnessing another manifestation of history—witnessing firsthand how formerly non-Muslim lands become Muslim. For just as conversion to Islam (out of force, out of necessity, out of cynicism) and the outright killing of non-Muslims saw the ranks of Islam grow, so too does emigration fit in this same paradigm of Islamization.

Beyond the authoritative primary sources which unequivocally demonstrate the violent nature of Islam—including history and theology texts—which many prefer to dismiss as "dead books," here, then, is yet another live example. And yet the West's leaders, from academics to politicians, will continue insisting that Islam is the "religion of peace"—testimony to the endemic blindness inflicting this age.

Raymond Ibrahim, an Islam-specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3054/running-for-their-lives

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