By Lauri Goodstein of the NY Times:

Click here to view the embedded video.

NY Times Article:

A recent spate of arrests of Muslims accused of terrorism in the United States has revealed that many of them were radicalized by militant preaching they found on the Internet.

Now nine influential American Muslim scholars have come together in a YouTube video to repudiate the militants’ message. The nine represent a diversity of theological schools within Islam, and several of them have large followings among American Muslim youths.

The video is one indication that American Muslim leaders are increasingly engaging the war of ideas being waged within Islam.

“We need to shepherd our own flock and to say that, theologically, these things are unacceptable,” said Imam Suhaib Webb, the educational director for the Muslim American Society, a grass-roots group in Santa Clara, Calif., who is among the nine in the video. “The Prophet Muhammad, when on the battlefield, saw that amongst the enemy there were innocent women and children killed, and he was openly angry. He is prohibiting us from killing the innocent. It is very clear.”

Mr. Webb said in an interview on Friday that as a white convert from Oklahoma, he had become deeply alarmed in the past year at the number of converts who had been arrested on charges of planning or carrying out violence in the name of Islam.

In July alone, one American convert in Virginia and another in Alaska who were arrested and accused of having ties to terrorism were both said to have been influenced by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born militant cleric now hiding in Yemen who maintains an active Web site.

Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, who is also in the video, said, “We’re hoping that that loner out there who, because of internal turmoil, starts listening to the wrong people, that this message also filters into his ear.”

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said of the video: “It can be a powerful outlet. It is the kind of thing that, formatwise, is matching what’s being done by the jihadist groups.”

He said that some of the scholars in the video were politically controversial but had credibility among many Muslims because they were not seen as “sell-outs.”

“Some would argue that they might be more effective than those perceived as more establishment figures,” said Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, the author of “My Year Inside Radical Islam.”

Among the nine are several converts to Islam who are popular because they are steeped in both American culture and Islamic scholarship. They include Sheik Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir, scholars who have founded Zaytuna College, an Islamic seminary in Hayward, Calif.

The video, which is about five and a half minutes long, opens with ominous music, like that used in some of the jihadists’ propaganda videos, and the words “Believers Beware: Injustice Cannot Defeat Injustice.”

“Many people are saying that there are so many issues of injustice taking place around the world,” Imam Mohamed Magid, leader of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, a mosque in Virginia, says in the video. “That is true, we acknowledge the injustice taking place around the world. But we believe there is a way to address the injustice — not by taking innocent people’s lives.”

Edina Lekovic, director of policy and programming for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the advocacy group that produced the video, said they intentionally chose scholars who represent a diversity of theological streams.

“We didn’t want to just target the liberals or the conservatives or ultraconservatives,” Ms. Lekovic said. “The point was to show that no matter where you stand on the religious spectrum, we all have a shared belief and shared outrage by the events that are taking place.”

She said the only criticism the council had received was that there were no female scholars in the video — a fact she attributed to scheduling problems. She said the council expected to make another video that would include women. The group is also preparing another version, without the music, for Muslims who consider music haram, or forbidden.

Mr. Magid said in an interview: “This is the beginning of a greater effort. Imams have to be virtual imams, answering questions on the Web, having blogs. We have to have open discussions for youths to talk about what is frustrating them.”

I was travelling from upstate New York to Long Island when I heard about the London bombings. At the time, the news didn’t mean anything. I assumed it was just one bomb in some remote area of London. But of course, no area of London can be called remote. It wasn’t until I came near a TV that I saw the full magnitude of what had happened. Four separate bombs had gone off in different areas of Central London, all very congested and highly populated areas. Even then, seeing it on the TV screen whilst I was sitting thousands of miles away on holiday, I could not comprehend the full scope and magnitude of the situation. I could not understand what was to come. Or how the fate of Muslims was to change so drastically.

I watched CNN and FOX News with contempt…as they were focusing on was how America could be affected, nothing on the where, what and how. Switching to BBC World News, I finally found something substantial to watch. Still, I did not fully comprehend the profound effects and ramifications of the bombing that were to come in British society. Perhaps it was due to my lack of understanding or the distance between London and New York. My parents were worried, not just because members of my family work in Central London, but also because I was due to start my degree at university that year right in the centre of London and I would have to travel on the Tube daily. Naturally, their feelings were understandable.

That day came and went and I began my first day at university with excitement, stress, and the joy of making new friends. It wasn’t until 7th July, 2006 came around that I truly felt the magnitude of the previous year’s events. I watched the memorial for the 56 people who died that day…and it was then that the tears flowed. I cried. I wept. The tears gushed for the people who had died. For their families who were suffering without them. But most of all, for the Muslims and for what was to come. I knew that it was going to be an uphill struggle for us all from now on.

So how do I feel 5 years on? I’m not quite sure. Yes, it has been an uphill struggle for Muslims in the West. But has it been as tough as I thought it would? No. But then that’s relative. How do I feel about 7/7 now? I still feel the horror and the shock when I go to Russell Square and Edgware Road. And it’s not like there isn’t something to remind me at the Tube stations either. I feel like my beautiful hometown has been tarnished…like someone broke it. But not just that, I feel like the Muslim community in London has become divided as a result of it all. And it hurts.

I just wish I could find the glue for it.

I pray that Allah (swt) reunites us all and gives us all hidayah. May Allah (swt) bestow His Mercy on us all. Ameen.

By Hesham A. Hassaballa, a Chicago doctor and writer. Cross-posted with permission from www.Godfaithpen.com:

On the evening of May 10, there was a small explosion and fire outside a Jacksonville, FL mosque. According to a fire department investigation and officials of the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida, worshipers heard a loud noise outside the mosque, and there was a small fire that was extinguished. The damage was described as “very minimal” by a Jacksonville Fire and Rescue spokesperson. Thank God, no one was injured in the attack.

According to the Council on American Islamic Relations, mosque officials reported that an unknown white man in his 40s entered the mosque on April 4 and shouted “Stop this blaspheming.” He was chased away by worshipers, but he reportedly said, “I will be back.” Now, it has been determined that the explosion was due to a pipe bomb, and it is being investigated as a possible act of domestic terrorism. “It was a dangerous device, and had anybody been around it they could have been seriously injured or killed,” says Special Agent James Casey.

Yet, you would not be faulted for not knowing that it even occurred. Most of the news coverage has been local in Florida. There has not been nearly the same amount of coverage at the failed bombing in Times Square.

Now, of course, the size of this pipe bomb is nothing compared to the size of the truck bomb allegedly placed by Faisal Shahzad. The mosque bombing was perpetrated by one individual, and it increasingly looks like the Taliban in Pakistan were behind the attempted bombing in Times Square. Obviously, an attack on Times Square in the middle of a tourist/theater district is much more of a story than an attack on a mosque in Florida.

But just as the Times Square bomb could have really done harm, the pipe bomb could have also done a lot of harm. FBI officials noted that the blast radius could have been 100 feet. In addition, The FBI Special Agent in Florida, James Casey, had added: “We want to sort of emphasize the seriousness of the thing and not let people believe that this was just a match and a little bit of gasoline that was spread around.” The attempted attack on Times Square was rightly called an act of terrorism. But, as this news report says: “The FBI is looking at this case as a possible hate crime, and now they’re analyzing it as a possible act of domestic terrorism.”

A pipe bomb that explodes outside a mosque causing a fire a possible act of domestic terrorism? What if a pipe bomb exploded in Times Square? Or outside a church? Would this be called terrorism? Of course it would…and it should. So should this attack on the Jacksonville, FL mosque.

It must be said that this is not the only incident of an attack on a house of worship. Black churches have been attacked in this country for decades, and people have been killed. It is an ugly stain on the fabric of our nation’s history. Yet, so is this. Houses of worship are sacred spaces that must be respected, protected, and kept safe.

It is heinous wherever it occurs: whether it is a church in Baghdad, a Church in Birmingham, a synagogue in Chicago, a mosque in the West Bank, or a mosque in America. And we should also call a spade a spade: a pipe bomb outside a mosque is terrorism. But, because no Muslim is behind it, it does not get much attention. This must stop.

Alhamdulillah (thank God), an act of terrorism with potential of causing significant harm in New York has been averted. A crude car-bomb was planted in a SUV parked in the bustling New York Times Square. This square is at the heart of New York, and is part of the city that especially never sleeps.

While significant harm has been averted on the ground, our elected leaders continue to harm American interests with premature conclusions. It does seem that they just haven’t learned from history. Amazing, and then not so surprising, that  Mayor George W. Bloomberg is already blaming “international terrorists”, who “hate our freedoms” for the failed act of terrorism. Of course he cannot already know who is behind the plot, but as the security expert stated (in an interview with Al Jazeera -story below), this line appears to take a pretty much no-regrets position, with politicians using it for their “own political advantage to accuse the Islamic militants even if it turned out that they have nothing to do with it”.

The plot, Bloomberg admits, was “amateurish” as has been every “plot” thus far in America, thank God. Why Bloomberg thinks that well-trained “international terrorists” could be amateurish escapes me; rather, such plots may point more to local extremists, who could be either the J-types or could be the white-supremacist-types.

More than a year ago, the Department of Homeland security warned about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity”, especially under tough economic times. With a non-white in the Presidential seat, one can only imagine white supremacist anger at this time. So why should that possibility be immediately excluded, Mr. Bloomberg? In fact, if there is anyone who hates our freedoms, it is the white supremacists who hate non-whites’ freedom!

Of course, the entire premise of “our freedoms” being a cause (let alone primary cause) for terrorism is entirely bogus. Most j-types don’t really care for our “freedoms”; a lot of them actually had and left these “freedoms” on their own accord. Rather, their hate is driven by America’s foreign policies. Of course, Bloomberg won’t say that, because that indirectly makes Israel complicit. As the military chiefs have finally come out said it, Israel’s policies are indeed one of the biggest factors for anti-Americanism.

So, if it is indeed “international terrorists”, Mr. W-wannabe, it is not for freedoms, but rather for our policies and the policies of Israel. Not that this fact excuses the terrorists for their treachery, but lets at least get the causes right, so we can do something about the consequences.

We hope and pray of course that no Muslims were involved. If they were, then let’s brace for another media pounding, with cheer-leading provided by the Islamophobic right-wingers, the ziocons & the neocons. In any case, Muslim organizations should assume the worst-case scenario, and start preparing for a response.

Car bomb found in New York square

A car bomb has been found in New York City’s Time Square, prompting US police to evacuate thousands of people from the area.

Police said the explosive device, discovered in a four-wheel-drive vehicle on Saturday evening, consisted of propane tanks, fireworks, petrol containers, wires and two clocks.

Michael Bloomberg, the city’s mayor, said the bomb, which failed to go off, was homemade and “looked amateurish”.

“We are very lucky. Thanks to alert New Yorkers and professional police officers, we avoided what could have been a very deadly event,” he said.

Bloomberg also said that “we have no idea who did this and why”.

Bomb-squad staff were deployed in busy square in the heart of Manhattan late on Saturday and police shut down several streets after a street vendor alerted police of “an unoccupied suspicious vehicle”.

Bloomberg said the police then observed that the car had smoke emerging from vents near the back seat and smelled of gun powder. There were reports of a small flash and popping sounds also coming from the car.

Nearby life normal

Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from Manhattan, said that while the square was shut down, life was going on as usual in areas nearby.

“New Yorkers have lived through many scares,” she said.

“The [four-wheel vehicle] was a Nissan Pathfinder with licence plates from the state of Connecticut.

“The plates were actually traced and found to belong to another vehicle so obviously investigation is still going on.”

The purpose of the bomb was to create “a significant amount of fire,” Raymond Kelly, the city police commissioner, said.

He said that after an examination by bomb squad experts, the vehicle will be moved to a police location.

“The vehicle will be examined for DNA and fingerprint evidence.”

Terrorists blamed

In his press conference, Mayor Bloomberg said that “terrorists around the world”, who want to take “freedoms” away from the Americans, always focus on the symbol of those freedoms – New York City.

Riad Kahwaji, a security analyst from the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai, said it was “premature” to accuse international terrorists.

“We shouldn’t jump into conclusions here,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We have a precedent here, back in the 1990s, of the attack on the FBI building in Oklahoma city. People immediately accused Islamic militants and it turned out [the culprit] was one of the right-wing fundamentalists from inside the US.

“Right now, the big bogeyman is al-Qaeda, the Islamic terrorists. … For the US, it’s always safe and good for their own political advantage to accuse the Islamic militants even if it turned out that they have nothing to do with it.”

A statement issued by the White House said the New York police department had done “excellent work” in responding to the incident.

Unconfirmed reports said someone had been seen running from the car.

The vehicle had been parked close to a theatre on the corner of 45th Street and Seventh Avenue showing a production of The Lion King.

Times Square is one of the city’s most high-profile attractions and police are deployed there in large numbers.

In December they closed the area while inspecting a van at first feared to contain a bomb, but which turned out to be carrying nothing dangerous.

[Source: Al Jazeera]

Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hawara awoke on Wednesday to find a blue star of David painted on the outside of their mosque, after what a local resident described as an attack by Israeli settlers who live nearby.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the vandals also uprooted more than 300 olive trees, set two cars on fire and painted the name of the prophet Muhammad, in Hebrew letters, on a wall of the mosque.

Ynet News, another Israeli newspaper site, reported:

Hawara resident Ziad Dib told Ynet that he saw a number of settlers flee the village in a Subaru at around 3 a.m. According to him, the settlers torched his car.

Haaretz noted that Israeli officials said the vandalism may be part of a wider campaign by settlers:

A military official told Army Radio that the army suspected settler violence against Palestinians, part of some settlers’ policy of imposing a ‘price tag’ on a government order to freeze Israeli construction in the West Bank. As part of the strategy, settlers from nearby Yitzhar have launched numerous attacks on Palestinians, including an arson attack on a mosque in December 2009.

Read the rest of the story here.

By Imam Omar Ahmad Suleiman, Imam in New Orleans, LA and a member of ICNA’s Shariah Council

In the name of Allah, the most Compassionate, the most Merciful.

May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon His final messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

First and foremost, everything that is written is in assumption that the messages from Imam Anwar that have recently surfaced are indeed from him and no one else.

As American Muslims, many of us used to wonder at how Allah has blessed Imam Anwar with such a degree of eloquence, and the gift of storytelling if you will, that he could move you to tears within 5 minutes of his lecturing. The news that he was detained a few years ago in Yemen brought many of us into a state of shock and depression. We invoked Allah (subhanahu wa ta ala) to free our beloved Imam nightly until we heard the wonderful news that he had been freed on December 12, 2007. I remember all the text messages, emails, and blog posts with ecstatic Muslims around the country praising Allah for his release.

Then something happened. Slowly, we began to see the post-prison Anwar Al Awlaki express strange radical views. Lectures that were as fiery as ever were being published on various websites that called on Muslims to join the “global jihad.” Out of our blind love for him, most American Muslims simply dismissed his new lectures and writings as tainted by his frustration with what had happened to him in prison. As a community, we were willing to forgive him for his new bitter and pessimistic attitude towards the world because of the ordeal he had faced.

On November 7, 2009, 2 days after the Fort Hood shooting, the love affair between conscience American Muslims and Imam Anwar suffered a huge blow. Although Imam Al Awlaki was sounding increasingly radical in his lectures, he never once before condoned terrorism. In fact, he very clearly denounced the attacks of 9/11 in various interviews and sermons both within public and private circles. This time was different. He not only condoned the Fort Hood shootings but even went so far to say that Muslim organizations and scholars in the United States were guilty of cowardice, treason, and hypocrisy for condemning the shootings. As American Muslims who loved the old Anwar Al Awlaki so much, most of us immediately declared that these words were probably forged in his name to create dissension amongst the community. Then as the interviews started to come out, we couldn’t believe what was happening. Some of us probably questioned our own faith and principles because of our attachment to Imam Anwar. We watched Imam Johari of Dar Al Hijrah, where Imam Anwar once delivered a powerful condemnation of 9/11, as he had to stand and denounce one of his former closest friends and a man who captured our hearts for so many years.

Then came Imam Anwar’s praise of the failed Christmas day terrorist plot of Umar Farouk AbdulMuttalib. This left us even more baffled since this was an attack intended to kill 278 innocent airline passengers, many of whom were Muslims. How could an Imam who once seemed so level-headed now be a proponent of such a clear transgression of Islamic law?

Our search for answers and excuses for Anwar Al Awlaki have run out. Today we are hearing the words of hate and violence in the voice of the very same Imam which used to bring us so much good through the stories of our prophets and the remembrance of the hereafter. His call today for us as American Muslims to take up arms against our own country serves no other purpose but to wreak havoc and destruction. It is the same call of the kharijites that has been repeated so many times that feasts on the frustration and uncontrolled emotions of vulnerable youth that do not have the foundation or knowledge to recognize its illegitimacy.

In the next few days, I sincerely hope that American Muslim scholars will repudiate this call of hate using the injunctions of the Quran and the authentic Sunnah of our beloved Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). In the long run however, as Muslim communities and organizations we must seek to offer avenues of positive energy, in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah, for our zealous youth. We also should not shy away from repudiating calls of violence and hate that recklessly ignore the manhaj (methodology) of our pious predecessors. It is only through the dissemination of authentic knowledge of our religion that such calls can be drowned.

To our dear young brothers and sisters who grew up listening to the lectures of Imam Anwar and are overcome by emotion, I can only advise you with the words of the late Imam Al Ghazali (ra): “Islam is a commitment to principles, not people.” Think about the repercussions of this call to the religion of Allah. Will yielding to this pessimistic view of world destruction bring about any good to the ummah? Will it really end the occupation of Palestine or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or will it simply make matters worse than they already are. Allah desires from you that you bring about a positive change in your society, not chaos and destruction that will only further jeopardize an already delicate situation.

As for the Imam Anwar of today who spreads messages filled with hate and violence, perhaps no one could refute you more effectively than the Imam Anwar that was so beloved to our community who once said in a sermon back in October 2001:

“We as Muslims… we want to bring an end to terrorism more than anyone else. Our position needs to be reiterated and needs to be very clear. The fact the US has administered the death and homicide of over 1 million civilians in Iraq, the fact that the US is supporting the deaths and killing of thousands of Palestinians, does not justify the killing of 1 US civilian in New York City or Washington DC.”

I sincerely ask Allah to guide Imam Anwar back to the path of moderation, and enlighten him to renounce this new methodology which stands contrary to the Quran and Sunnah. May Allah protect our community and allow us to be amongst those who call to guidance and are guided, and not amongst those who call to misguidance and are astray. Ameen.

By Abd-Allah H.

As Muslims defensively chant “not all terrorists are Muslims” and “there are terrorists of every faith,” the question that the Islamophobes invariably ask is: “why is it that 99% of terrorists are Muslims?”  Alternatively, they state: “twenty thousand acts of Islamic terrorism have occurred in the last year compared to three acts from every other religion combined.”  (Admittedly, I am unsure of the exact numbers they use, but it doesn’t really matter since these sorts of figures are usually concocted anyways.) Nonetheless, the point appears valid: there seem to be a lot more Muslim terrorists nowadays; so does Islam breed terrorism?  It’s a fair question.

In order to arrive at a scientifically valid answer, we’d have to account for confounding variables. Otherwise, incorrect conclusions could be drawn.  One study showed for example that people with more ashtrays in their houses were more prone to lung cancer.  A faulty conclusion would be that ashtrays cause lung cancer.  The confounding variable in this case is of course smoking.  In other words, a linear correlation between ashtrays and lung cancer does not necessarily establish a causal relationship.  To give a slightly more complex example: a study found that those who drank more coffee were more likely to develop lung cancer; could researchers then claim that coffee consumption causes lung cancer?  No.  It turns out that smokers tend to drink more coffee than non-smokers; it was the smoking, not the coffee, that caused the cancer.

When clinical drug trials are conducted, researchers give the drug to be tested to one population (called the variable population) and the existing drug therapy to another (the control population).  The effect of the drug is then ascertained by comparing the morbidity and mortality in both populations.  However, in order for the comparison to be valid, the two populations have to be similar.  If they are not, the study becomes compromised.  For example, if the city of Berkeley, California is chosen for the variable population, and Miami, Florida is chosen as the control population, there could be heavily skewed results.  Berkeley hosts a college campus, and thus a disproportionately high number of young adults; Miami on the other hand is home to many old people who go there to retire (“It’s the law” according to Seinfeld).  It would not be surprising then if there was less morbidity and mortality in Berkeley than in Miami.  Perhaps such a tactic would be useful for pharmaceutical companies to market their drugs, but it would certainly be bad medicine.  In other words, the raw data must be stratified or normalized before final conclusions can be drawn.

Such empirical studies ought to be done with academic rigor and scholarly honesty, something which we can hardly expect of Islamophobes.  Many of us are familiar with the indefatigable work of John Esposito who has led the charge in using the scientific method to verify (or in this case, reject) the hypotheses of hate-mongers; Gallup poll obtained some much needed data in this regard.  But I’d like to draw the reader’s attention to another less familiar study–one which is closer to our null hypothesis.  In 2002, Professor Daniel Price of Kent State University published a paper in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.  He asked: does Islam repress human rights?

Islamophobes will often compare the developed “Christian world” with the developing Islamic one, and then draw faulty conclusions based on that.  But surely such a comparison is unfair–it’s comparing Berkeley to Miami. Confounding variables include gross domestic product, literacy rates, poverty level, and a host of other factors (not to speak of foreign occupation). If, however, one compares a majority Christian country in Africa, for example, with an Islamic country in the same continent, the results would be far less dramatic–and much more accurate.  Professor Price normalized the data and concluded that there was no causal relationship between Islam and repression of human rights; he wrote:

I test[ed] the relationship between Islam and human rights across a sample of 23 predominantly Muslim countries and a control group of non-Muslim developing nations, while controlling for other factors that have been shown to affect human rights practices.  I found that the influence of Islamic political culture on government has a statistically insignificant relationship with the protection of human rights.

Similarly, we can ask: does Islam cause terrorism?  Although I do not claim to have conducted a scientific study on the matter, I would like to present a case series to hopefully shed some light on this matter.

Case Series

Perhaps the most famous non-Muslim example of terrorism that Westerners are familiar with is the Irish Republican Army (IRA).  According to the Council on Foreign Relations: “For decades, beginning in the late 1960s, [the IRA] was considered one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world.” Was it Islam that bred terrorism in the region?  Or was it the population’s sense of foreign occupation?

The Tamil Tigers are another example–a predominantly Hindu separatist group in Sri Lanka.  They invented the suicide belt and were–according to the New York Times–the “pioneer[s] in the tactic of suicide bombings…[carrying] out scores of attacks over the years, both targeted assassinations and mass terrorist killings.”  They also pioneered the use of women as suicide bombers, with “up to 40 percent” of the Black Tigers suicide squad being women.  Was it Islam that inspired these terrorists, or was it their sense of occupation?

An historical example analogous to the Palestinian people is that of the Native Americans–who were occupied and expelled by the white colonialists.  When we read books of history today, it is generally recognized that the colonists–not the Native Americans–were blameworthy for stealing land that was not theirs.  The struggle of the Native Americans to oust their occupiers (the Native American intifada) is seen in that light–the epic and just struggle of an indigenous population fighting off the far superior foreign occupier.  Do history books today focus on the fact that the Native Americans used terror tactics in their war against the white man?  In fact, the Native Americans would routinely kill women and children in their raids, scalping their heads as per their religious belief.

Indeed, the American pioneers justified their war against the “savages” by pointing to such brutal attacks; of course today we recognize that the occupation took place first, and the Native American reprisals took place as a result.  It’s interesting how some people cannot properly identify the cause and effect in today’s global situation.  The 9/11 attacks are seen as the cause, and the invasion of Afghanistan as a result.  Yet, the reality is that the 9/11 attacks were the result, and the occupation of Muslim lands was the cause.  Unless of course you actually believe the nonsense idea that Al-Qaeda attacked the United States because “they hate our freedoms and liberties.” It would after all be absurd to claim that the Native Americans raided and killed pioneer women and children because “they hated the white man.”  Clearly, the reason was the occupation.

In any case, the struggle of the Native Americans was brutal–there is no way to deny that.  Were such tactics adopted because of their zeal for Islam?  Or was it the occupation that fueled their rage?  The answer is too obvious.  There is an intrinsic desire of every indigenous people to viciously fight off foreign invaders.

We have the example of the resistance groups in the Ukraine following the Nazi invasion in World War II.  The Red Army formed terrorist units that fought off the Nazis.  Ukrainian nationalists formed a third group–the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)–which used terrorism as a means to fight off both Nazi and Soviet occupiers.  Following the war, the Soviets recognized the group as a “terrorist” outfit; the UPA would even target civilian families who would cooperate with the Soviets by turning in food to collective farms.  Was it UPA’s adherence to the religion of Islam that prompted such terrorism?  Or was it their sense of foreign occupation?

The examples are countless.  Wherever there is a sense of occupation–perceived or real–terrorism follows.  Occupation breeds terrorism.  Terrorism is the weapon of the weak against the occupier.  The occupier is in a position of power and therefore has no need for such petty terrorist tactics.  The occupier has the benefit of tanks, fighter jets, and bombers.

I will here give one last example as a case in point: that of the Israelis themselves.  In the 1930′s and 40′s, it was the Zionist Jews–the predecessors of the modern day state of Israel–who engaged in terrorism on a massive scale.  Jewish terrorist outfits such as the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi (Stern Gang) were formed.  The Zionist Jews believed that God had granted them the land of Palestine, and as such, the British and the Palestinians were viewed as occupiers.

Jewish terrorist groups blew up various buildings, such as the King David hotel in July of 1946.  The existence of these Jewish terrorist groups cannot be denied.  The Encyclopedia Britannica says, for instance: “The Haganah turned to terrorist activities, bombing bridges, rail lines, and ships.”  The Irgun was condemned as a terrorist organization by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry and various mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times; even Winston Churchill, who ordinarily was very sympathetic to the Jewish state, declared: “I will never forgive the Irgun terrorists.”  The Lehi (Stern Gang) was–in a resolution passed on September 18th of 1948–condemned by the United Nations Security Council as a “criminal group of terrorists.”

Yet after the creation of the state of Israel, all three terrorist groups moved into what is today considered the mainstream.  Haganah became the core of the Israeli Defense Forces, Irgun became the Herut party which later became the Likud, and the Lehi entered the political arena (being the only one of the three which would eventually die out).  Whether or not these groups adopted state terrorism as opposed to guerrilla terrorism is a topic for another discussion,  but the question to ask here is: what caused the Zionist groups to abandon the classical form of terrorism?  Clearly it was the fact that they were no longer a weak party in need of it.  The Israelis had tanks, fighter jets, and bombers–far more powerful instruments of death than anything in the arsenal of paramilitary terrorist groups.  So what we find quite consistently is that terrorism is a weapon of those who view themselves as occupied; in the case of the Zionist Jews, they viewed the British as occupiers and therefore resorted to terrorism.  Once the British were evicted and Israeli hegemony established, the bread-and-butter type of terrorism was abandoned.

The link between occupation and terrorism is undeniable.  To link Islam to terrorism is as erroneous as linking Judaism to terrorism.  One can easily take certain passages out of context from the Quran and claim that it is the cause of “Islamic terrorism.”  Yet, one could also take verses from the Hebrew Bible which clearly indicate that Jews should wipe out the inhabitants of the holy land because God gave it to them:

When you go to make war against a city you are to make [an offer of] peace to it. Then if it accepts peace and surrenders to you, you shall use all the people found in it as forced labour, and they shall be your slaves/serfs. But if it will not make peace with you, and makes war against you, you are to besiege it, and when Yahweh your god gives it to you, you are to kill by the sword every male in it. Only the women and the children and the animals and whatever [else] may be in the city…you are to take as plunder [i.e. slaves]…Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far off from you, which are not of the cities of these peoples [who live in the promised territory]. However, from the cities of these people [the cities] which Yahweh your god is giving you as a possession, you shall not let any human being survive. But you shall utterly destroy them.

(Deut. 20:10-17)

The Root Causes of “Islamic Terror”

Why then are there so many Muslim terrorists nowadays?  The answer is quite simple: the sole super power in the world has focused its wrath on the Islamic world.  After the fall of communism, Islam became the next boogie man.  Specifically, the United States has been not only an ardent supporter of but an active enabler of the state of Israel; quite simply, without the U.S.’s unconditional support of Israel, the continued occupation of Arab lands would have been impossible.  This occupation has radicalized people in the Muslim world; the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq–among other invasions–has fueled a surge in “Islamic terrorism.”  This is not even to speak of the CIA’s role in sustaining puppet regimes in the region, which local populations view as occupation by proxy.  As Robert Fisk put it:

I’ve been thirty-three years in the Middle-East now. By all means we should send the Muslim world our doctors, our teachers, etc. But we’re always going there and offering democracy and freedom, and we’re arriving with our tanks and our Abrams M1A1 tanks, and our Bradley fighting armored vehicles, and our horses and our swords, always promising them freedom.

And I calculated the other day that we now have twenty-two times as many military personnel in the Muslim world than the Crusaders had in the 12th century. And that land does not belong to us; it is not ours and we should leave militarily; we should take all our soldiers out; it doesn’t belong to us.

Chris Hedges, senior fellow at the Nation Institute and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University, wrote:

Muslim rage is stoked because we station tens of thousands of American troops on Muslim soil, occupy two Muslim nations, make possible the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, support repressive Arab regimes and torture thousands of Muslims in offshore penal colonies where prisoners are stripped of their rights. We now have 22 times as many military personnel in the Muslim world as were deployed during the crusades in the 12th century. The rage comes because we have constructed massive military bases, some the size of small cities, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, and established basing rights in the Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The rage comes because we have expanded our military empire into neighboring Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It comes because we station troops and special forces in Egypt, Algeria and Yemen. And this vast network of bases and military outposts looks suspiciously permanent.

The Muslim world fears, correctly, that we intend to dominate Middle East oil supplies and any Caspian Sea oil infrastructure. And it is interested not in our protestations of good will but in the elemental right of justice and freedom from foreign occupation. We would react, should the situation be reversed, no differently.

The brutal reality of expanding foreign occupation and harsher and harsher forms of control are the tinder of Islamic fundamentalism, insurgences and terrorism. We can blame the violence on a clash of civilizations. We can naively tell ourselves we are envied for our freedoms. We can point to the Koran. But these are fantasies that divert us from facing the central dispute between us and the Muslim world, from facing our own responsibility for the virus of chaos and violence spreading throughout the Middle East. We can have peace when we shut down our bases, stay the hand of the Israelis to create a Palestinian state, and go home, or we can have long, costly and ultimately futile regional war. We cannot have both.

Prior to the creation of the state of Israel, the Islamic world had coexisted peacefully with the United States for some one hundred and seventy years–without conflict (with the notable exception of the brief Tripolitan war).  Is it some sort of magical coincidence that Islam becomes the big bad boogie man when the United States decides to not only send troops to the Middle East but to send its CIA operatives there?  Let us ask the Islamophobes why is it that not a single Islamic terrorist attack took place on American soil prior to U.S. soldiers being deployed in the Middle East and their bankrolling of Israeli munitions?  How is it that for over one hundred and seventy years not a single Islamic attack took place against the United States? During this time period Islam existed, but the occupation did not.  Does it then take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to figure out that the correlation is not between terrorism and Islam but between terrorism and occupation? As Ron Paul famously said of 9/11: “They attack us because we’ve been over there [i.e. occupying them].”

The Israeli daily Ha’aretz wrote:

UN expert: Palestinian terror ‘inevitable’ result of occupation

A report commissioned by the United Nations suggests that Palestinian terrorism is the inevitable consequence of Israeli occupation…The report by John Dugard, independent investigator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the UN Human Rights Council, will be presented next month, but it has been posted on the body’s Web site…

“While Palestinian terrorist acts are to be deplored, they must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation,” writes Dugard, whose 25-page report accuses the Israel of acts and policies consistent with all three…

“As long as there is occupation, there will be terrorism,” he argues.

“Acts of terror against military occupation must be seen in historical context,” Dugard says. “This is why every effort should be made to bring the occupation to a speedy end. Until this is done, peace cannot be expected, and violence will continue.”

Back to the question of “why are there so many Muslim terrorists,” the answer is exceedingly simple: the United States made a calculated bet in the late 1940′s and early 1950′s that they would make their bed with Israel–which quickly became an American outpost in the Middle East.  The U.S. needed access to the oil rich fields come hell or high water, even if it meant alienating twenty percent of the world’s population.  It is this fateful decision that has led to the radicalization of the occupied peoples and those who view the occupied as their brothers in faith.

Had China been the world’s primary source of oil–instead of the Middle East–the United States would have sought to dominate it, and not the Muslim world.  A puppet regime would have been established in China, or perhaps the country would have been directly occupied based on the pretext that terrorists reside there.  (The terrorists would undoubtedly come into existence after the invasion, thereby giving a retroactive justification for the war.)  In such a scenario, it would be Chinese terrorists that grace our nightly news feeds, not Muslims.  The link is occupation, not religion.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com summarized it best:

What’s most striking about these “warnings” is that they virtually never examine the reasons why this would be happening.  Why, after all this time, would American Muslims suddenly be more willing to engage in violence against the U.S.?  To his credit, Scott Shane devoted several paragraphs of his NYT article to addressing this question, and what he finds is both highly significant and highly unsurprising:

[T]he continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the American operations like drone strikes in Pakistan, are fueling radicalization at home, [terrorism expert Robert Leiken] said. “Just the length of U.S. involvement in these countries is provoking more Muslim Americans to react,” Mr. Leiken said . . . .

Like many other specialists, [Georgetown University terrorism expert Bruce] Hoffman pointed to the United States’ combat in Muslim lands as the only obvious spur to many of the recent cases, especially those with a Pakistani connection. “The longer we’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, “the more some susceptible young men are coming to believe that it’s their duty to take up arms to defend their fellow Muslims.”

A few analysts, in fact, argue that Mr. Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan — intended to prevent a terrorist haven there — could backfire.

Robert A. Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist, contends that suicide attacks are almost always prompted by resentment of foreign troops, and that escalation in Afghanistan will fuel more plots. “This new deployment increases the risk of the next 9/11,” he said. “It will not make this country safer.”

The evidence proving this causation is now so overwhelming as to be undeniable.  Waging wars, occupying, and dropping bombs in Muslim countries is the single most counter-productive step that can be taken to combat Islamic extremism (indefinitely imprisoning them without charges is a close second).  It’s akin to advising a lung cancer patient to triple the quantity of cigarettes he smokes each day.  Yet we continue to do it over and over, and then point to the harms we cause as reasons we need to continue doing it.  Our “counter-terrorism” campaign basically consists of three steps repeated endlessly:

(1) Interfere in or otherwise act aggressively in the Muslim world.

(2) Provoke increased anti-American sentiment and fuel terrorism as a result of Step 1.

(3) Point to the increased anti-American sentiment and terrorism as a reason we need to escalate our interference and aggression in the Muslim world.  Return to Step 1.

If one wants to find a correlation between terrorist attacks and some other factor, then let it be the deaths of civilians due to foreign occupation.  The Iraq war has resulted in the death of over 100,000 Muslim civilians; tens of thousands of Muslim civilians were killed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan; 1,441 Palestinian children have been killed by Israel just since September of 2000, not to speak of the thousands upon thousands of Palestinian civilians killed since 1947.  Israel has created millions upon millions of Palestinian refugees.  Hundreds upon hundreds of Pakistani civilians have been killed by U.S. drone attacks.  I have not included the many other civilians who have been killed in various parts of the Islamic world due to the direct and indirect actions of the United States.

In an article entitled “Why They Hate Us”, Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt wrote:

At a recent conference on U.S. relations with the Islamic world…one of the other participants (a prominent English journalist) put it quite simply. “If the United States wants to improve its image in the Islamic world,” he said, “it should stop killing Muslims.”

Now I don’t think the issue is quite that simple, but the comment got me thinking: How many Muslims has the United States killed in the past thirty years, and how many Americans have been killed by Muslims? Coming up with a precise answer to this question is probably impossible, but it is also not necessary, because the rough numbers are so clearly lopsided.

Here’s my back-of-the-envelope analysis, based on estimates deliberately chosen to favor the United States. Specifically, I have taken the low estimates of Muslim fatalities, along with much more reliable figures for U.S. deaths.

To repeat: I have deliberately selected “low-end” estimates for Muslim fatalities, so these figures present the “best case” for the United States. Even so, the United States has killed nearly 30 Muslims for every American lost. The real ratio is probably much higher, and a reasonable upper bound for Muslim fatalities (based mostly on higher estimates of “excess deaths” in Iraq due to the sanctions regime and the post-2003 occupation) is well over one million, equivalent to over 100 Muslim fatalities for every American lost…

…If you really want to know “why they hate us,” the numbers presented above cannot be ignored…

It is also striking to observe that virtually all of the Muslim deaths were the direct or indirect consequence of official U.S. government policy. By contrast, most of the Americans killed by Muslims were the victims of non-state terrorist groups such as al Qaeda or the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans should also bear in mind that the figures reported above omit the Arabs and Muslims killed by Israel in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. Given our generous and unconditional support for Israel’s policy towards the Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular, Muslims rightly hold us partly responsible for those victims too.

Contrary to what Friedman thinks, our real problem isn’t a fictitious Muslim “narrative” about America’s role in the region; it is mostly the actual things we have been doing in recent years. To say that in no way justifies anti-American terrorism or absolves other societies of responsibility for their own mistakes or misdeeds. But the self-righteousness on display in Friedman’s op-ed isn’t just simplistic; it is actively harmful. Why? Because whitewashing our own misconduct makes it harder for Americans to figure out why their country is so unpopular and makes us less likely to consider different (and more effective) approaches.

…When you kill tens of thousands of people in other countries — and sometimes for no good reason — you shouldn’t be surprised when people in those countries are enraged by this behavior and interested in revenge. After all, how did we react after September 11?

About 2,800 Americans died as a result of the atrocious 9/11 attacks.  Yet, over 288,000 Muslims have been killed by American military action.  That means that in Muslim eyes there were over one hundred 9/11′s committed by America against the Islamic world.  Imagine the rage in the eyes of Americans if there was another 9/11 type attack; now imagine if there were one hundred more.  That’s the level of anger in the Muslim world.

So if the Islamophobes ask why there are so many Muslim terrorists today, then let them compare the number of Muslim civilians killed with the number of civilians killed of other religious faiths.  The correlation will then become clear: the higher the number of civilians killed by foreign occupation, the more terrorists that arise.  If Muslims have so many terrorists, it’s because the world’s only super power kills more Muslims than people of any other faith.

Coming back to our ashtray and lung cancer analogy: Islam is the ashtray, terrorism is lung cancer, and the occupation is smoking. Despite what Islamophobes insist, Islam is not the problem; it’s just a confounding variable.  The culprit is the occupation.

A letter to my neighbors & colleagues who don’t share my Islamic faith…

The events of 9/11 are ones that have forever changed the world we live in, but not always in ways that you might have imagined. For most regular Americans, it has brought uncomfortably close to home images that were once thought to only happen “over there” in some other country.

It has led to people being more scared of their neighbors, their co-workers and even their seat-mate on an airplane. It has resulted in terror alerts, airport security measures and even strange recommendations of buying lots of duct tape for your windows (still haven’t figured that one out yet). But for another segment of the population it has resulted in other types of dread and fear.

I’m writing this to you today because I want to share with you my feelings and my experiences, not because I want your sympathy or for you to write to Congress, but mainly because I don’t want you to be afraid of me. Because I want to let you inside my head for a brief moment to see things, maybe, from a different perspective.

For most Muslims in the US, the breaking news of a possible terrorist incident brings about an enormous feeling of dread. The dread of the fall-out from the “attack” that we are sure to feel in very personal ways. Mosques around the US get death threats, threatening vandalism and even shot at or burned down after these things happen. Moreover, people who look “Middle-Eastern” get physically attacked, and women who cover their hair with the Islamic head-cover (hijab) get no end of dirty looks, rude insults and their own share of threats.

Ever since 9/11, I am treated like a criminal every-time I return to the US from an overseas trip. Whether I have gone to Egypt to visit my extended family, to Pakistan to provide medical relief to earthquake victims or to Costa Rica to surf truly awesome waves, I am escorted by Border Patrol to a separate area of the airport. There, I am subjected to questioning about the details of my trip while my baggage, pockets and wallet are meticulously searched. I have had my credit cards, business cards and hospital ID’s taken from me and photocopied in a separate room because “its policy”. There is no such thing as invasion of privacy for people like me – I simply have to give them everything they want and be happy that I don’t get rendered to another facility. I have never committed a crime, but I am a Muslim.

I, like many others, was born in this country. I chose to be a physician because I sincerely care about others. I chose to be an ER doctor because I don’t want to have to worry about someone’s ability to pay for medical care, and because it offers me the freedom to have a life away from the hospital. A life that I have chosen to use again in the service of humanity – whether it be by teaching religious morals, or by using my medical skills in a humanitarian crisis like Hurricane Katrina or the Pakistani Earthquake, or by doing my small part to raise educated, respectful and moral children for the future of America and the world.

I sincerely want you to know that my religion, Islam, does not encourage violence. In fact, it specifically speaks AGAINST the killing of innocent people. It encourages forgiveness and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, be they interpersonal or international. I hope that you have seen this trend in my character, even though I know I am far from perfect and have much to improve in myself.  I don’t have hate in my heart, even for those that have used their power to hurt others around them. I pray for justice for the people of our world, and I pray for peace as well.

I wish you could know how sorry I am that a small group of people have distorted all that is good in my religion by using it as a call for terror and bloodshed. I am sorry that these misguided people have caused harm to my fellow countrymen and women. I feel the same way that many of you might feel when you read about the atrocities committed against the Native Americans or the African Slaves by our ancestors in this country. The fact that Americans did these terrible things doesn’t take away from the good that America stands for. It just means that sometimes people can go very far astray from the principles they seek to represent. Nonetheless, I still feel sorry that these things are being done in the name of Islam and I wish that I could stop them from happening.

I know that no matter what I may say, there will still be those who will not like me because I have chosen, with my intellect and my heart, to follow Islam. This will not stop me though from extending my hand and my heart in friendship to those around me who need care. It will not stop me from trying my best to be a good citizen of America and the world. It will not stop me from working tirelessly to prevent those whom I can reach from turning to extremism. And it will not lead me to hate in return.

An excellent, factual and thoughtful overview of the so called “war on terror” in Pakistan.

Hear, hear Obama & Democratic administration… this isn’t Mullah Imran speaking, someone to be dismissed as an “Islamist”, but someone “moderately religious”, a million times more educated than Zardari or any of the other lota Pakistani politician, and more principled than the political lot combined. Time to put your Nobel prize to good use, President, and invoke change that we can believe in (starting with ceasing the support of corrupt politicians, the fountainhead of which is Zardari).

Click here to view the embedded video.

The following message is MM’s response, as approved by the Shayookh, to all those who suggested (in the Sh. Salman Oudah + MM Shayookh post)  that the so-called, self-styled “mujahideen” be given benefit of doubt, that perhaps they are “misunderstood” or wrongly portrayed by “the media.” Furthermore, suggestions have been made that these terrorist outfits, including alQaeda do not target civilians: