John Cassady invites readers of the Asheville Citizen-Times to test their knowledge of “radical Islam”.
Category Archives: Right wing
Rehashing Orientalist cliches
“Worse than classical Orientalists are modern American writers who rehash classical Orientalist cliches but who lack the rigor, erudition, knowledge, and language skills of classical Orientalists.
“This guy is a good example. So much of the treatment (especially on page 15) is so far off but have no time to elaborate. You read this article and you think that Zarqawi is the Prophet of Islam, and not Muhammad.”
As’ad AbuKhalil responds to the article “Muhammad: The Warrior Prophet” by one Richard A. Gabriel, in the military history magazine MHQ.
‘US opens door to millions of Muslims’, right-wing blogger warns
“The new immigration bill will allow hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of Muslims to come into the United States over the next decade. Many of them have been indoctrinated all their lives to hate the United States, but that’s not on the immigration qualifications. Nobody asks newcomers ‘have you been taught to hate the United States?’ But that is exactly how France and Britain created their domestic terrorist threat: By importing hundreds of thousands of unassimilated people under the guise of multicultural love and peace. Almost all vote for the Left.”
Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian, 18 May 2007
Note also the citing of Christopher Hitchens’ recent Vanity Fair article.
Venue withdrawn over line on Islam
The controversial Christian conference on the “threat” of Islam has lost its Christchurch venue after sponsors expressed unease at the tone of the seminars. The move has drawn scorn from some Christians who see it as kowtowing to political correctness and “Muslim outrage”.
The Mosques and Miracles conference was to be held at Spreydon Baptist church, but negative publicity surrounding the event had caused church management to reconsider. In March, Muslim leaders condemned Mosques and Miracles as “a conference of bigots” after the organiser, Murray Dillner, said Islam made a society “implode” and had a mind-set to “take over the world”.
Spreydon Baptist senior pastor Murray Robertson said sponsor pressure had triggered the decision. “A number of the people who support our community work said they weren’t comfortable with the position. Part of their brief is to not support groups that are intolerant. We had no control over the content of the conference and we felt we were taking a whole bunch of hits for something we had nothing to do with. Spreydon Baptist Church wishes to make it quite clear that we are not anti-Muslim in our attitudes.”
A Christchurch minister, who declined to be named, said he felt the church leaders who made the decision had “wimped out”. “Since when have Christians getting together in Christchurch to discuss world issues of religion and society been dictated to by Muslim outrage? I think it’s very sad and a bit sinister.”
Update: See also coverage at Dhimmi Watch.
Muslims bent on world conquest (part 354)
“To Islam, a non-Muslim is a combatant against Allah and he is fair game to be subjugated and killed. When some billion and a half adhere to the pathological belief of Islam and use it as their marching order of life, the rest of humanity can ignore the threat only at its own peril. Once again, a resurgent Islam is on a campaign of conquest throughout the world. Hordes of life-in-hand foot-solider fanatical Muslims are striving to kill and get killed. All they want is the opportunity to discharge their homicidal-suicidal impulse, on their way to Allah’s promised glorious paradise…. Deluded by the threats and promises of Islam, Muslims, poor or rich, vie with one another in furthering the violent cause of Allah. Many non-Muslims are also victims of a different, yet just as deadly, delusion. They believe that Islam is a religion of peace, that only a small minority of Muslims are jihadists, and that Muslims can be reasoned with to abandon the Quran-mandated elimination of the non-believers.”
‘Outrage Over New Ban on the Cross’
“School chiefs are today under fire for banning pupils from wearing crosses in class while allowing the jewellery of other faiths. Christian groups and politicians condemned the education bosses and accused them of ’double standards’. The officials have told headteachers to ban jewellery except in ‘exceptional circumstances’ when schools need to be ‘sensitive’ towards other faiths. The ‘exceptions’ include lockets worn by Muslims and Hindu bracelets….
“A spokesman for the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship yesterday said: ‘We have had numerous examples recently of the rights of some faith groups being tolerated while the rights of others, generally Christians, are not. Where rights are in competition, some rights win out. So we have a situation where gay rights trump Christian rights and in some areas, Muslim rights seem paramount’.”
See also Sunday Telegraph, 13 May 2007 and Evening Standard, 14 May 2007
And check out Five Chinese Crackers, 14 May 2007
United bigots of the ‘mega-mosque’ campaign
Yusuf Smith examines the role of Alan Craig and the Christian People’s Alliance in the campaign against the Newham so-called “mega-mosque”.
What ‘Dave’ learnt about Muslims
Tory party leader David Cameron does a rewrite of his blog about his stay with a Muslim family in Birmingham. This one is pitched at a liberal audience, so he omits the stuff about Muslims being in denial about 7/7. Yes, it’s yet another example of Cameron trying to be all things to all people.
Amazingly, Cameron does have his admirers in the Muslim communities, despite his track record of anti-Muslim rhetoric. See for example here, here, here, here, here and here. Or try putting “David Cameron” into the search engine on this site.
Madeleine Bunting interviews Ed Husain
“It is as if, just as Husain once swallowed large chunks of Hizb ut-Tahrir propaganda, he now seems to have swallowed undigested the prevailing critique of British Muslims. He has no truck with the idea of Islamophobia, which he dismisses as the squeal of an Islamist leadership pleading special favours; he criticises Asian racism and castigates Muslims ‘who go back home to get married’ and produce ‘another generation confused about home’. On issues such as segregation, he is confident it is the fault of multiculturalism….
“One suspects the naivety which took him into Hizb-ut Tahrir has blinded him as to how his story will be used to buttress positions hostile to many things he holds dear – his own faith and racial tolerance, for example. A glance at the blog response to a Husain piece in the Telegraph reveals how rightwing racism and anti-Islamic sentiment are feasting on his testimony.”
Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian, 12 May 2007
For “left” support for Husain (from the AWL’s Jim Denham) see Shiraz Socialist, 12 May 2007
For right-wing support see Jihad Watch, 2 May 2007 and Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 13 May 2007
North Carolina church’s sign against Islam sparks controversy
Words like “bomb” and “die” draw attention to the small sign in front of Good News Independent Baptist Church.
Rev. Gary Murrell put up the sign, which on one side claims the message of Islam is “submit, convert or die.” The other side reads: “When is the last time you heard of a Jew or Christian with a bomb strapped to their body?”
Despite some in the Islamic community who claim the sign is offensive, Murrell says it is not a hate sign. “It was not put up there with the purpose of showing that we hate those people,” he said. “It’s not the people, it’s the religion.”
Murrell says it is a violent religion compared to Christianity. But not everyone agrees.
“I would really say that the actions of one individual really do not represent the Islamic faith,” said Debbie Jaunich, with the Islamic Center of Raleigh. “The Islamic faith really calls for peace.”
“It’s sad to see that we still have this kind of ignorance in the community about the Islamic faith,” she added. Murrell says he is trying to make people think but Jaunich said she thinks it breeds discrimination and bigotry.
“The point is that their salvation is in Jesus Christ, not in the Islamic faith,” Murrell said. “I am not trying to be a bigot. I’m not. I don’t hate those people.”
Murrell says the sign has been up for about a week and that he plans to change it this weekend.
But discussion about the message will likely continue. The Islamic Center of Raleigh is inviting Murrell and his congregation for a visit to learn more about Islam.
