An interesting article by Dalia Mogahed in New Europe, based on findings in the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center’s report Measuring Muslim-West Relations: Assessing the New Beginning.
Category Archives: USA
OnIslam interviews Yusuf al-Qaradawi
Under government pressures, Egypt’s state television has scrapped plans for hosting prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi following his Friday prayers sermon from Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
“Some government officials considered the Friday sermon too strong,” Qaradawi, the president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), told OnIslam.net in exclusive statements. “They would not bear a second powerful speech.”
Qaradawi delivered the weekly sermon on Friday, February 18 from Tahrir Square, where nearly five million Egyptians gathered to celebrate the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The sermon was broadcast by the state television, Qaradawi’s first appearance on the Egyptian TV in decades.
During the sermon, the prominent scholar called on Egyptians, both Muslims and Christians, to be proud of their country after ousting Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for 30 years. He also praised the armed forces’ position on protecting the revolution, calling on them to open Rafah border with Gaza strip.
After the sermon, Qaradawi, an Egyptian, was invited to appear on the Egyptian television on Sunday on the prime-time program “Egypt Today”. But shortly, the prominent scholar received a phone call from the program’s anchor apologizing for not shooting the program.
“I don’t know who was exactly behind banning Sheikh Qaradawi from appearing on the state television,” a source close to the prominent scholar said. A source in “Egypt Today” program cited “procedural reasons” for banning Qaradawi’s appearance.
Qaradawi dismissed accusations that his weekly sermon aimed at establishing a religious state in Egypt. “On the contrary, my speech supported establishing a civil state with a religious background,” he has told Al-Ahram newspaper. “I am totally against theocracy. We are not a state for mullahs.”
Some critics compared the return of Qaradawi, who has been living in Qatar, to Egypt as Ayatollah Ruhollah Ghomeini to Iran from France after the 1979 revolution. “I only came to celebrate the revolution,” said Qaradawi.
Qaradawi dismissed claims that he was still a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. “I’ve totally defected from the Muslim Brotherhood and have rejected many calls to be appointed as the group’s general guide,” he said. “I hope to serve as a guide for the whole nation and not for a certain group.”
The prominent scholar denied reports that his “guards” had prevented Google executive and activist Wael Ghonim from taking the podium in Tahrir Square. “I have no guards, I only brought my sons with me,” Qaradawi said. “I rejected many requests by scholars to send guards to protect me. Allah is my guard.”
Media reports claimed that Ghonim, who emerged as a leading youth figure in the Egyptian revolution, had been prevented by Qaradawi’s guards from speaking to the celebrators. Qaradawi said he neither organize the celebration nor prevent anyone from going on stage.
“I was surrounded by youth who cordoned me to protect me from the huge crowds,” he said. “I would have been glad if I met this young man [Ghonim] who initiated the 25 January revolution. I have praised him in a TV program when he was released from the prison. So how can I prevent him? I was only a guest in the celebrations.”
Meanwhile, over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer is outraged that Qaradawi has called on the Libyan armed forces to turn their guns on Gaddafi rather than the Libyan people.
Update: Spencer has a piece on Qaradawi at Human Events (“Egypt’s Islamic supremacist is man of the hour”). The depth of Spencer’s knowledge of Qaradawi can be gauged by the reference to “his website IslamOnline.com (which publishes many of his fatwas)”. It has apparently escaped the attention of this self-styled expert on all things Islamic that last year a strike and sit-in took place at the IslamOnline offices in Cairo. Qaradawi intervened on the side of the strikers and as a result the Qatari government removed him from his position as chairman of the Al-Balagh Cultural Society which owns the website. The IslamOnline strikers subsequently launched the OnIslam website (“From the creators of IslamOnline”) which is where the above interview with Qaradawi was published. Qaradawi now has no links with IslamOnline.
EDL leadership falls out with Jewish Division over relations with JTF
Richard Bartholomew has the details.
Potential US presidential candidate infuriated by Christian church allowing Muslims to pray there
Devout Christian Mike Huckabee is having a hard time understanding the concept of charity. The former Arkansas governor and potential 2012 hopeful visited Fox and Friends to discuss a small church that had allowed Muslims to worship when mosques in the area proved too small or were under construction, something he considered shocking and the beginning of a slippery slope: “Should the church be rented out to show adult movies on the weekend?”
Huckabee was clearly incensed with the news that Muslims were worshipping in a church. “As much as I respect the autonomy of each local church, you just wonder, what are they thinking?” he told the Fox and Friends crew. “If the purpose of a church is to push forward the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then you have a Muslim group that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated, I have a hard time understanding that.”
72 per cent of Americans say Congressional hearings should not single out Muslims
At the beginning of February a coalition of more than 50 Muslim, human rights and faith organisations sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi objecting to the planned hearings on the “radicalization” of American Muslims initiated by Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
Arguing that “singling out a group of Americans for government scrutiny based on their faith is divisive and wrong”, the coalition urged: “If Chairman King wishes to address violent extremism, then we hope you will ensure that he examines violence motivated by extremist beliefs, in all its forms, in a full, fair and objective way.”
King’s response to the proposal was: “I totally reject that. That, to me, is political correctness at its worst. If we included these other violent events in the hearings, we’d be sending the false signal that we think there’s a security threat equivalency between and the neo-Nazi movement, or Al Qaeda and gun groups. There is none…. I’m not going to dilute the hearings by including other extremists.”
However, over at The Plum Line, Greg Sargent draws our attention to a new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute which reveals that, while a majority of Americans think that King’s hearings are a good idea, an even larger majority agrees with the coalition’s proposal that the hearings should not single out Muslims.
It’s not all good news, though. As Sargent points out, 46% of respondents agreed that US Muslims have not done enough to combat extremism within their own communities, which is one of the assumptions underpinning King’s initiative. Sargent summarises:
“While a huge majority rejects King’s insistence on focusing the hearings just on Muslims, the public just might receptive to their obvious, if implicit, intent: To put you on notice that ordinary Muslims in your midst just might be looking the other way while evil ones are plotting to kill you.”
Now, where do you suppose non-Muslim Americans might have acquired this distorted view of their Muslim neighbours? The Public Religion Research Institute reports:
“The survey findings also show a significant correlation between trust in Fox News and negative attitudes about Muslims. Americans who most trust Fox News are more likely to believe that Muslims want to establish Shari’a law, have not done enough to oppose extremism, and believe investigating Muslim extremism is a good idea.”
(For more on King’s hearings, see LoonWatch.)
Right-wing US media exploit attack on Lara Logan to justify anti-Muslim bigotry
In the wake of the brutal and devastating sexual assault committed against CBS News international correspondent Lara Logan by an Egyptian mob, many in the right-wing media have used the attack to fuel their anti-Muslim agenda.
Media Matters, 17 February 2011
See also Rachel Newcomb, “‘Blame the Muslims’: violence against women in Egypt”, Huffington Post, 16 February 2011
‘Is Islam good or evil?’ Unemployed artist seeks publicity
A painting that’s debuting in Sacramento on a Muslim holiday poses the question if Islam is good or evil.
Artist Peter Reynosa said it took him about a month to complete “Good or Evil?” and that the purpose of the painting is for viewers to participate in critical thinking about religion.
Reynosa said the piece raises the question of Islam in particular because of Western clashes in the Middle East.
A small crowd gathered outside the library on the Sacramento State campus on Tuesday to see the painting.
Tuesday is the holiday Mawlid an-Nabi, the celebration of the birth of Islam’s prophet, Mohammad.
Reynosa is an unemployed artist from Yuba City.
See also Appeal-Democrat, 15 February 2011
British Muslim stranded in Canada because his name’s on US no-fly list
A British man says he’s stranded in Canada after being denied permission to fly home because he’s on the U.S. no-fly list.
Dawood Hepplewhite of Sheffield, England, turned up at Pearson Airport in Toronto on Sunday only to be told by an Air Transat official he couldn’t board the plane. “I got really upset at him – ‘How can you tell me I’m not allowed to go to my own country?'” Hepplewhite said late Tuesday in an interview.
An Air Transat spokesman did not immediately respond to an inquiry.
Hepplewhite, 30, divides his time between Sheffield and Toronto, where his Canadian wife Farhia and their three children reside. All five were planning to head back to England for an extended stay.
Hepplewhite says Air Canada and British Airways also refused to let him fly to England on Monday.
Airlines that operate from Canada have been known to reject passengers whose names are on the U.S. no-fly list. That’s because many flights pass over American airspace or may be forced to land at a U.S. airport in the event of an emergency.
Hepplewhite says he’s no security threat, but suspects he is on the no-fly list because he’s a white Muslim and attended a job interview in Yemen for a position teaching English a few years ago. “And when I came back to England I got pulled aside by the police.” But Hepplewhite abandoned any idea of working in the Middle-Eastern country and has been to Canada several times since that incident.
He was told this week to use the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s redress process to try to get his name removed from the U.S. no-fly roster – a process that can take between 45 to 60 days.
Toronto Star, 16 February 2011
Update: See “British man on U.S. no-fly list headed home after delay in Canada”, Vacouver Sun, 16 February 2011
Further update: See “Ban strands family”, The Star, 18 February 2011
Amarillo pastor who tried to burn Qur’an runs for mayor
A Texas man who tried to organize the burning of a Quran last September 11th is running for mayor of Amarillo. David Grisham, leader of “Repent Amarillo“, filed his papers Monday.
Grisham says he wants to lead the city in a new direction. “If the government authorities are to be ministers of God, then ministers of God need to be running for the offices of the governing authorities, makes sense to me,” Grisham said.
News Channel 6, 16 February 2011
Grisham can only pray that his mayoral campaign meets with more success than his attempt to burn the Qur’an did.
EDL’s Jewish Division forms alliance with far-right US Zionist group
The head of the EDL’s Jewish division Roberta Moore has announced a partnership with far-right American group the Jewish Task Force on the EDL Facebook page.
The JTF leader Victor Vancier has also posted a podcast where he said: “We were contacted by the English Defence League last few weeks and we have agreed we want to work together on joint projects. They are a major organisation, with mass media coverage. I wanted to be sure they were not the BNP, we would never work Holocaust deniers or Nazis. They wave Israeli flags, they support the Jewish people. They want Jewish members. We are happy to work with them to save England from the millions of Muslim invaders. We want to work as a united front.”
He added: “The Jewish establishment in the UK, the ‘self hating Jews’ have condemned the EDL because they support the Muslim invasion. It’s pathetic, including the so-called Orthodox. They have to be politically correct, as we go to the gas chambers. We are not interested in this, and neither is the EDL. This will turn into something big.”
Mr Vancier is banned from entering Israel because of his allegiance to the late Rabbi Meir Kahane and his Kach party – outlawed in Israel in 1994 as “terrorist organisations”. The group now raises money for Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
He spent five years in prison from 1987 for 18 bomb attacks against Soviet targets in the US to protest the treatment of Soviet Jews. His website claims US President Barack Obama is a secret Muslim and calls Secretary of State Hilary Clinton “a vicious Jew hater”.