Posts with the tag 'Islam'
Just a bit amazing that such a person could be exposed enough to the Christian message to become a convert:
Masab-Joseph Yousef, a son of prominent West Bank MP Sheikh Hassan Yousef, has discussed his conversion to Christianity in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Praying that his family will “open their eyes to Jesus,” he expressed love for his enemies and claimed Muslims’ conversion to Christianity is the only way to have a chance for peace in the Holy Land.
Yousef, 30, said his first exposure to Christianity came in Jerusalem about eight years ago, when he was invited to learn about the faith. He converted four years ago, but did not tell his father. “For years I helped my father, the Hamas leader, and he didn’t know that I had converted, only that I had Christian friends,” he said to Haaretz.
His father, Sheikh Yousef, was a founder of the extremist group Hamas in the West Bank and was imprisoned for several years for his membership in the organization.
Masab-Joseph Yousef, the oldest of eight siblings, was expected to take an active role assisting in the political work of his father, whom he claimed is opposed to killing civilians. He characterized the Israelis’ arrests of his father as very influential events in his life.
“I only knew that the Israeli army had arrested my father repeatedly, and for me he was everything: a good, loving man who would do anything for me. He took care of us, bought us gifts, gave of himself, whereas the soldiers entered our house and took him away from me.”
Arrested at the age of 18 for his leadership role in his high school Islamic society, Yousef told Haaretz he discovered in prison that most Hamas members were not as admirable as his father.
“Their leaders in prison received better conditions, such as the best food, as well as more family visits and towels for the shower. These people have no morals, they have no integrity,” he said, alleging Hamas leaders also embezzle money meant for widowed families.
Yousef, who now lives in California, described how an invitation to learn more about Christianity led him to convert.
“I was very enthusiastic about what I heard. I began to read the Bible every day and I continued with religion lessons. I did it in secret, of course. I used to travel to the Ramallah hills, to places like the Al Tira neighborhood, and to sit there quietly with the amazing landscape and read the Bible.”
“A verse like ‘Love thine enemy’ had a great influence on me,” he continued. “At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves ‘great believers.’”
I am reminded of St. Francis’ project to end the Crusades by converting the Islamic world to Christianity, on the theory that it is better to make Christians than destroy Moslems - it didn’t work, of course, but not for lack of trying on St. Francis’ part. A very different world would it be had success crowned his efforts…
Aside from that, the story here is important because it shows that cross-cultural understanding between Islam and Christianity is possible. Someone looked past Yousef’s background and decided to introduce to him a new idea, and the courage that person showed has been rewarded by the development of a man who not only doesn’t kill for his religion, but can’t even comprehend the concept any longer. We need not fight each other forever, provided we recognise our common humanity and see in the other person another glorious creation of God, and not an enemy.
Tags: Christianity, Hamas, Islam, Israel, Masab-Joseph Yousef
August 16th, 2008
Europeans Moslems can’t seem to decide if gays should be executed, or not; rather run of the mill stuff for Moslems these days, but the real problem is how the government of Norway reacts:
For a case in point, I will refer the reader to an episode I’ve mentioned previously in this space — an Oslo debate last November at which the deputy chairman of Norway’s Islamic Council, Asghar Ali, refused to reject the death penalty for gays. When Senaid Kobilica, the head of the Islamic Council (which represents 60,000 Muslims), was asked where he stood on the question, he replied that he couldn’t give a definitive answer until he got a ruling from the European Fatwa Council. This week it was reported that he’s still waiting…
…What’s most chilling about all this, however, is not the positions of these Muslim leaders but the reactions of the Norwegian establishment. Or, one should say, the lack of reaction.
Consider this. After last November’s debate, it emerged that Asghar Ali not only was deputy chairman of the Islamic Council but was also on the board of the Oslo Arbeidersamfunn, the largest and most influential association within Norway’s ruling Labor Party. Asked about Ali’s views, the head of the Oslo Arbeidersamfunn, Anne Cathrine Berger, lamented that some people “can’t see the difference between a board member’s views and the organization’s views.” Despite scattered calls for his dismissal, Ali remained on the board. (When a new board election was held in February, Ali chose not to run again.)
That’s not all: Ali is, in addition, secretary of the 37,000-member Electricians’ and IT Workers’ Union…
…As for the Norwegian government, there has been no serious effort, as far as I know, to rescind from the Islamic Council its half million kroner a year in state support.
Does anyone in Europe realise that these peoples’ intentions are serious? They do propose to out-breed and out-immigrate non-Moslems and eventually take over and force through Islamic law. While European governments put the final touches on gay marriage the Islamists look forward to the day when they can hang all the gay people - the decision Europe made after World War Two to entirely secularise and welfarise Europe has proven disasterous on all levels, but the worst part of it seems to be that the will to live has gone out of the European population (or is it that during two world wars the best and bravest sacrificed themselves so much that there wasn’t enough physical strength to continue?).
There still is a living remnant in Europe - that small segment of the population which refused to surrender its Christian European identity. What remains to be seen is whether this remnant will be able to take over from dying secularism before the Islamists do. And we’ll also find out whether the United States will have to come to Europe’s rescue, again.
Tags: Europe, Islam
August 10th, 2008
The Jerusalem Post reported last week that Barack Obama’s half-brother Malik let something very interesting slip while talking to Army Radio.
Barack Obama’s half brother Malik said Thursday that if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background.
In an interview with Army Radio he expressed a special salutation from the Obamas of Kenya.
Israel Insider has more.
In a remarkable denial issued last November that still stands on the official campaign website, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a statement explaining that “Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.”
Apparently Malik Obama, himself a Muslim, had not read the press release.
Melanie Phillips is the most recent commentator to draw attention to the massive body of evidence that leaves no doubt that Barak Hussein Obama was born a Muslim (Islam is patrilineal) and raised a Muslim (so registered in school, acknowledging attending Islamic classes, reported accompanying his step-father to the mosque, and able to recite the Koran in the original Arabic).
Reuven Koret, Aaron Klein and Daniel Pipes have previously pointed to the attempts by Obama and his campaign to conceal the candidate’s Muslim background. The well documented evidence draws upon the on-the-ground interviews by researchers in Indonesia and Kenya, published quotations of Obama’s childhood friends and his school records, as well as the candidate’s own autobiography.
Will Barack Obama disown his half-brother now? Or can Barack Obama no more disown him than he can disown the black community? If that be the case, i may just take Obama a month or so to throw his half-brother under the bus.
ALSO BLOGGING: Gateway Pundit, Little Green Footballs…
Tags: Barack Obama, Islam
June 16th, 2008
Its a movie, and its causing a bit of controversy. Why? Because it connects the Koran with violence. Diana West notes the pre-emptive rage being directed against the film, and the nauseating cowardice resulting from the rage:
Pre-Emptive Rage is something new. It works like this: Because the Wilders film is expected to criticize Islam, Muslims who brook no religious criticism are expected to freak out. Therefore — just as if this were the most normal, everyday, ordinary state of affairs — Muslims and Europeans are making their respective arrangements.
In Afghanistan, Muslims have been igniting Dutch and Danish flags (did I mention Danish Cartoon Rage is back?), threatening to eject Dutch and Danish troops, and practicing their “Death to America” chants. Iranian officials have promised diplomatic rupture and worse if the film comes out. Meanwhile, the Dutch have embarked on a veritable world tour of pre-emptive appeasement. The MEMRI blog reported this week that the Dutch government sent a letter disavowing Mr. Wilders to Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, Sunni Islam’s foremost figure (who has variously called for “jihad” against U.S. forces in Iraq and sanctioned suicide bombings against Israeli women and children). The sheikh’s response? He “demanded that the Netherlands government take more action against Wilders, and added that protection given to those harming Islam will negatively affect Egyptian-Dutch relations.” Pre-emptive “Fitna” rage has also made European elites hopping mad — only not at the rioters and blackmailers (the healthy, normal reaction), but at Mr. Wilders. Here, multiculti Europeans and perpetually aggrieved Muslims are finding common ground.
Thus, as reported by Dutch blogger Klein Verzet, the grand mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, admonishes the European Parliament about potential film-related “riots, bloodshed and violence” for which “Wilders will be responsible.” And thus Dutch Prime Minister Jan Balkenende says exactly the same thing. At a press conference earlier this year, the online Dutch site NIS News Bulletin reported that Mr. Balkenende “stressed repeatedly and with irritation that Wilders and no one else was responsible for any violence that might break out after his film’s release.” And when Sheikh Tantawi indicates that providing “protection” for Mr. Wilders is a bad idea, it not only sounds like a mafia don calling for a hit, it also echoes the dean of Dutch journalists, Henk Hofland. As Thomas Landen of The Brussels Journal reports, Mr. Hofland urged the Dutch government to withdraw state protection from Mr. Wilders, who lives under constant threat of assassination. “Let him feel what it is like for those whose lives he endangers,” said Mr. Hofland, adding that any murders committed in retaliation for Mr. Wilders’ opinions on Islam would be the responsibility of Mr. Wilders, not the murderers.
From the American point of view, Wilders is wrong - we should not ban the Koran. But what is just astounding is the level of cowardice on display amongst Europeans on this subject. Rather than pleading that they agree with the Islamists that Wilders shouldn’t have made his film, the European governments should be promising stern actions against anyone who takes to violence over the film, including threats to deport all non-native Moslems, if necessary. One doesn’t wish to un-necessarily offend people - but if Moslems keep this sort of thing up, I’m going to start advocating a national “piss on a Koran” day. Moslems would consider my mere presence in Mecca to be a defilement, and with such an attitude they expect me to show respect for their sacred things? Respect should be a two way street, ya know?
But the cowardice is even worse than the Islamists making threats - if these Europeans wish to be slaves to Islamic masters, then just go ahead and sell yourselves. Get it over with, for crying out loud. The Moslems will treat you well…provided you kneel and scrape and pay tribute and don’t mind if your sons and daughters are taken away for the sexual and military service of the Moslem elite. Other than that, plus the odd beheading, you can just keep on with your lives, Europeans. Or, you can get off your knees and tell Islam where to stick it.
UPDATE: Little Green Footballs, naturally, has a link to the film. As for me, I’ve downloaded it - the Islamists and their leftwing enablers will not make this thing go into the Memory Hole.
Tags: Fitna, Islam, Western Civilization
March 28th, 2008
In the end, the whole point of the liberation of Iraq was to give an opportunity - for the first time ever - to the Arab/Moslem peoples to decide for themselves what they wanted to do. When given any sort of choice, people will always choose that which makes them happy - they may be mistaken about what happiness really is and what is the best way to obtain it, but the basic human desire is to be happy. Happiness is not tradtionally bound up with killing, war, death, destruction and robbery. That some sick individuals have preferred such doesn’t change the fact that most people don’t like to do these things - they don’t make them happy. And yet, what we’ve seen out of the Arab/Moslem world over the past 60 years has been pretty much nothing but killing, war, death, etc. What gives? Are the Arabs just a different species which glories in tragedy? Hardly - they are human beings…and that means they want to be happy.
The problem is that the rulers of the Arab world (some of whom, to our shame, we backed in a short-sighted desire for “stability”) are mostly a collection of megalomaniacs who do like killing, war, death, etc., as long as doing such things can perpetuate and increase their power and wealth. Since the late 1980’s, this species of leadership has dressed itself more and more in the words and symbols of the Moslem religion as the old paradigm (the secularist-socialistic worldview of Kemal’s Turkey, sometimes crossed with Nazi and communist thinking) clearly failed to deliver the goods or hold the imagination of the Arab people. But, once again, even though th Moslem religion is held very precious by the Arab people, its not like they were happy to exchange a leaderhip which shouted nationalism for mullahs who shouted piety - because while the mullahs promised a lot, their practice involved a lot of killing, war, death etc. They stopped killing for the sake of Pan-Arabism, and started killing for the sake of Allah. Not the sort of stuff to make people happy.
Now, in Iraq, we’re keeping at bay both the old Pan-Arabists as well as the mullahs - not completely, but enough for people to start making up their minds about things. And we’re starting to see an interesting result:
BAGHDAD — After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.
In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.
“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”
Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.”
Now, the news story says this is a contrast to a rising religious fervor elsewhere in the Moslem world - but I’m not buying that. its easy to fake fervor when you control all the media and can shoot people who don’t show proper fervor. Only in Iraq (and, to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan) are Moslem people in a majority-Moslem country capable of really questioning their religious leaders and asking why their faith seems to require suicide bombers and beheadings. My bet is that if the rest of the people of the Arab world had a real choice, they’d be asking such questions, too - one can’t imagine a human being happy about, say, the religious police in Saudi Arabia who can flog people for slight violations of their version of Islam. Sure, they put up with them, because they have to - but the way to happiness is not going to be found in a place where your sister can be beaten because a little hair was visible in public.
Do we really believe that average Egyptians want religious fanatics to persecute Egypt’s Christian community? Do we really believe that the average Pakistani wants a Christian sentenced to death for allegedly vandalising a mosque? Do we really believe that Arab men would throw a universal fit if their wives, daughters and sisters went out in public not covered from head to foot? To answer that question, ask yourself: do you feel like that? If the answer is “no” for you, then it is probably “no” for the Arabs, too. Now, don’t get me wrong - Islam is a conservative society; always will be, as long as it is Moslem. We’re not about to see a gay pride parade in Baghdad any time soon, nor nude bathing on the beaches of Saudi Arabia…such nonsense the Arabs will wisely leave to us fools in the West. But as far as just wanting to be happy and generally holding to a live and let live philosophy? I’ll bet anything that most Arabs are right there with us on that.
Tags: Arab States, Iraq, Islam
March 5th, 2008
A very small, yet hopeful sign:
Amman, Dec. 28, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The leader of an Islamic group calling for inter-religious dialogue has responded positively to a papal invitation for talks with the Holy See, Vatican Radio reports.
Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, the president of the Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Jordan, has indicated that he would like to meet with Pope Benedict XVI early in the new year. The Jordanian prince has been the most prominent figure associated the “Common Word” initiative, in which 138 Islamic leaders signed a public statement, issued in October, calling for broader dialogue between Christians and Muslims. More recently the Common Word participants joined in a Christmas greeting to the world’s Christians, renewing their call for dialogue and cooperation.
Pope Benedict replied to the Common Word initiative in November, with his own invitation for members of the Islamic group to join in talks at the Vatican. Prince Ghazi was responding to this papal invitation.
In his reply — which was conveyed in a letter to the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone — Prince Ghazi said that he hoped to meet with the Pope in February or March 2008.
I’ve linked to that public statement in the quote - and I do recommend that everyone read it. As I said shortly after it came out, it is a brisk and forthright attempt to bridge the gap between Islam and Christianity (and thus bridge the gap between Islam and the West). At that time, I also deplored the wet-noodle response a few weak-kneed Christians made to it; grovelling is not what is needed, or desired. But the Vatican holding a conference - at which I hope that other Christian leaders also attend - is a far better response. To get together and talk can often be an exercise in futility - but it some times can break logjams.
Just as there is a tiny element in Christianity which has forgotten what its all about, so there is a tiny element in Islam which is entirely off the Islamic ranch. Tiny, but still quite large in raw numbers (even if only 1% of Islam is radicalised, that is approximately 10 million people) - and, unfortunately, backed for varied reasons (some base, some just foolish) by politicians and rich people in the Arab/Moslem world. The ultimate key to victory in the War on Terrorism is for the Arab/Moslem world to be transformed into a free society which makes room for the religious dissident and seeks the betterment of the Arab people, rather than the revival of an archaic Caliphate. In this transformation, there is a role for everyone to play - including, not least, religious leaders on both sides who can come together and issue statements which will tend to isolate the Islamo-fascists and bring them into disrepute among the Arab population.
In this war of ideas, we must use our armed might, our economic might and our diplomatic might - but we also must make use of well-disposed people in the Moslem and Christian worlds who are willing, often at great personal risk, to come together past the divide. Small results will come from this conference - initially; but with good will and God’s grace, much will be accomplished over time.
Tags: Christianity, Islam
January 2nd, 2008
A Muslim girl was murdered by her father, reportedly for her refusal to wear a hijab.
Where is the outrage in the streets from this woman’s sisters at NOW? A perusal of their website denotes no outrage, not even a mention of this story, nor any other story of oppression and/or torture of women at the hands of male Muslim counterparts!
Oh, they’re having a bloody cow over the reinstatement of Don Imus. But of course, calling someone a “nappy-headed ho” is a much more an egregious offense than strangling a girl to death, or mutilating her genitalia. They’re lobbying Congress for “hate crime” legislation, but I’ll bet not one word is said about the hate crimes that are perpetrated daily against their Muslim sisters.
Where are the demonstrations in the streets? Where are the hoardes at U.C. Berkeley who protested the supposed torture practiced by the CIA? (yes, I know that waterboarding is much more heinous than murder and beheading or lifelong subjugation of women)
Where is the outrage on the Left regarding the murder of Aqsa Parvez?
Could it be that there is no political gain or agenda to be advanced in demonstrating against Islamist atrocities? Could it be that the moonbat left has a problem pointing out that which may actually give credence to the reasons behind our war against radical Islam?
Could it be that the suffering of women isn’t really important to them at all?
Could it be that there must be a political payoff before they’ll demonstrate about anything? Or that any outrage that they do display is contrived and calculated to get the maximum political benefit?
Could. It. Be?
Tags: Acts of Hatred, agenda, Islam, Liberal hypocrisy, torture
December 19th, 2007
It was the attack that sounded the clarion call; that the United States could no longer stand idly by while evil elements made their insidious trek across the globe.
It was the decisive moment that provided Americans with the righteous indignation that would be required to sustain them in fueling their eventual victory over the then-axis of evil; Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. No longer would that generation stand on the sidelines, waiting for someone else to take up that mantle; nor would they pass the burden for future generations to bear.
This was their moment. Their cup of suffering did not pass, but neither did their sacrifices fail to bear the fruits of liberty for future generations; not only of the United States of America, but of the entire global community.
_________________________________________
Fast forward to another day that will continue to live in infamy:
This, dear readers, is our generation’s clarion call. The time when history asks us to step up to the plate to fight a global evil.
Will we follow the brave example of what up til now had been our greatest generation? Will we now take up the mantle to fight the forces that threaten liberty, and portend doom upon our way of life, if not our very existence?
Or, will we instead squander the fruits of the sacrifices that followed that fateful day in December of 1941; opting rather to play on political expediency; hoping against hope that the unthinkable will not occur. Or if it does, that it will do so long after our generation passes; leaving our progeny to live their lives in slavish dhimmitude, if at all.
Dear readers, History today calls upon us to answer the call of defending liberty.
The question that is yet to be answered is thus: Will we utilize the clarion call put forth by the events on September 11th, 2001 as a source of righteous indignation to persevere in the cause of freedom? Or will our generation be the one that allowed government by the people, of the people, and for the people to perish from the earth?
I shudder to think about the looming answer to that question.
Tags: Defeaticrats, Islam, War on Terror
December 7th, 2007
What is A Common Word? An open letter penned by some Moslem scholars detailing some of the similarities between Islam and Christianity and asking that we all come together for the peace of the world? It is an admirable statement in every sense of the word. What is the common cowardice? This response by some Christian scholars:
As members of the worldwide Christian community, we were deeply encouraged and challenged by the recent historic open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals from around the world. A Common Word Between Us and You identifies some core common ground between Christianity and Islam which lies at the heart of our respective faiths as well as at the heart of the most ancient Abrahamic faith, Judaism. Jesus Christ’s call to love God and neighbour was rooted in the divine revelation to the people of Israel embodied in the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians worldwide. In this response we extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God and our neighbours.
Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility. Since Jesus Christ says, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye” (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the “war on terror”) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbours. Before we “shake your hand” in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.
It is, indeed, right and proper that we ask our Moslem brothers and sisters to forgive us for any sins we have done against them - but the open letter from the Moslems wasn’t asking for us to beg forgiveness, and neither did the Moslems beg forgiveness for their many sins against Christians. It was a manly (if we’re permitted to use such a word in 2007), straightforward appeal to shared values…and it was responded to in the manner a lickspittle slave would use towards his master. Any wise Moslem - like any wise Christian - knows there are unsettled accounts between Christianity and Islam; but it is not a requirement that anyone deal with them. If we owe an apology for what happened in Jerusalem in 1099, Islam owes an apology for what happened in Constantinople in 1453 - and so on and on and on. Offering their absurd apology up front entirely defeats any real good designed by A Common Word. There will be a curl of contempt on the lips of Islamo-fascists everywhere as they see Christians abase themselves before even moderate Moslems…the Islamo-fascists can dream about what we’ll do for them when they become our masters, as they are sure they’ll eventually be, given our unwillingness to be forthright about ourselves.
This is the time for real men and real women to act properly and as is fitting for stern times - it is time we firmly set aside the soft sludge of late 20th century political correctness. Our brothers and sisters in Islam don’t want to deal with slaves, they want to deal with men and women who have some spirit in them. If we’re to act like slaves, then we might as well become slaves - but if we act like we’ve got some guts, then the people of the Moslem world will meet us on the level and, differences aside, we’ll find a way develope a workable relationship. I hope some Christians who are better grounded in Our Lord’s teachings will re-respond to those fine Moslem scholars, and let them know that we’re not entirley a bunch of milksops over here.
Tags: Christianity, Islam, political ideology
December 3rd, 2007
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