Unfortunately I'll be out of action for a couple of weeks. Yesterday I was too crook to even get out of bed. I apologise, but I'm going to have to take time to recover. In the meantime do scroll back through the archives - it's interesting to see what was occupying us in April and May last year.

And please keep checking Jihad Watch, Gates of Vienna, Raymond Ibrahim and David Wood These are exceptional sources for keeping informed on the issues.

​God willing I'll be back in a couple of weeks.

This is further to my recent post about a Muslim lady Doctor performing FGM on Muslim girls in Michigan, USA.

David Wood takes us through the very sound doctrinal basis in the central Islamic texts for FGM. He does this because two prominent North American Muslim voices - the kind that are regularly invited onto the big news networks to mutter soothing words about how neat the real Islam is - have been caught publicly lying about the practice. This is a 15 minute video, which is on the long side I'll grant you, but it will put an end forever to anyone believing that FGM has nothing to do with Islam.

The exact opposite is true. Learn the facts and put the lies behind your back.

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Linda Sarsour Caught Lying about Female Genital Mutilation in Islam​
After learning that a female genital mutilation gang had been arrested in Michigan, faux feminist Linda Sarsour tweeted: "Female genital mutilation has no place in Detroit or anywhere else in the world. Female genital mutilation is barbaric and is not an Islamic practice."

In this video, our hero David Wood turns to Muslim scholars and Islam's most trusted sources to see if female genital mutilation (female circumcision) is prescribed in Islam.

A young Saudi woman was attempting to reach Australia to escape her abusive family. She was intercepted at Manila airport by people who seem to be her uncles. She may be dead.

Where are the Western voices being raised in her defence? This 7 minute video challenges Western Feminists to stop treating Muslim women as though they are of less worth than white women. Christine Williams simply asks that abusive men be treated the same way regardless of ethnicity.

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​This special edition of the Glazov Gang presents the Christine Williams Moment hosted by Christine Williams, an award-winning journalist and a columnist at JihadWatch.org. Christine focused on The Heart-Wrenching Screams of Dina Ali Lasloom, unveiling the shameful and cowardly silence of feminists.

David Wood produced this valuable lecture on whether the IS is really Islamic. His talk covers a basic introduction concerning common Islamic terminology & authorities:~ the 5 Pillars & the 6 Articles of faith; the Qur'an, Hadith and Muhammad.
He also covers:~

• The scriptural basis for Offensive Jihad;
• Why there are so many peaceful Muslims if Islam teaches violence;
• Submission to scriptural authority, the doctrines of Abrogation, Taqiyya;
• The progression of the concept of fighting from Pacifism to defensive to offensive fighting;
• A wonderfully thorough exegetical explanation of Q 9.29, which commands Muslims to offensively fight non-Muslims. Really excellent.
• Why do ISIS kill so many Muslims if they are supposed to share the religion?;
• Dr Wood presents his "Jihad Triangle" - a Muslim must combine Knowledge, Belief and Obedience in order to join ISIS.

There is a fruitful Q&A time where among other things he addresses the common issue raised that ISIS displays a similar misunderstanding of Islam as the KKK, Abortion bombers and Westboro Baptist Church do of Christianity. He also touches on the issues of "hate speech" and the Islamic view of the end of the world.

​Free exchange of ideas and building relationships is the only way forward.

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On April 5th, 2017, Dr. David Wood spoke at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) to an audience of just under 100 people for a lecture sponsored by Ratio Christi. David spoke for just over an hour, took questions for a second hour, then stayed to speak with people one-on-one for a third hour.

How could such a well connected, educated and informed woman so outrageously misunderstand the teachings of Islam?

Now this is obviously an awkward & embarrassing issue for all involved - no one wants to discuss such things. As a person who disagrees with the practise I find it awkward to discuss, partly because I am a man & I have been told over many years to butt out of "women's issues". Partly too I feel as though I am picking on an already marginalised minority community. Those advocating and performing it meanwhile don't want anyone outside to know as they are following the clear directions of their faith & this will put their faith under the spotlight.

I guess everything would be fine if Women's Rights advocates were speaking out loudly on behalf of the girls about FGM and if the "moderate majority" of Muslims went swiftly to authorities to pot those engaging in FGM (it seems some have done so, but isn't there a legitimate question to ask about how this could happen more than once? Instead respect for authority and the teachings of the Faith crushed concern for the children). But seeing as neither of those things is happening there is only one question left for me to answer: which is more important, my unpleasant feelings or stopping the girls being brutalised? 

The Dawoodi Bohras may be a Sect of Islam, but FGM is solidly mainstream Islam. According to the Shafi'i book of Sharia Law The Reliance of the Traveller:~
“Circumcision is obligatory (for every male and female) (by cutting off the piece of skin on the glans of the penis of the male, but circumcision of the female is by cutting out the bazr ‘clitoris’ [this is called khufaadh ‘female circumcision’]).” — ‘Umdat al-Salik e4.3, translated by Mark Durie, The Third Choice, p. 64
 

From Robert Spencer.

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          "Leaders of the Farmington Hills mosque released a statement Friday saying they are offering assistance to investigators. ‘Any violation of U.S. law is counter to instructions to our community members,’ the statement said. ‘It does not reflect the everyday lives of the Dawoodi Bohras in America. It is an important rule of the Dawoodi Bohras that we respect the laws of the land, wherever we live,’ the statement continued. ‘This is precisely what we have done for several generations in America. We remind our members regularly of their obligations.’…Nagarwala’s husband, Moiz Nagarwala, is listed as a leader of the Farmington Hills mosque, according to the mosque’s password-protected website, and records list him as having served as joint treasurer.”

The leaders of the mosque didn’t know that Nagarwala was practicing female genital mutilation? If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Why didn’t the vast majority of Muslims who, we’re told, believe that FGM is cultural, not Islamic, and think it abhorrent as well, not report Nagarwala and her accomplices to authorities?


“2nd doctor, wife arrested in genital mutilation case,”
by Robert Snell, Detroit News, April 21, 2017 (thanks to Doc):

Federal agents arrested a second doctor and his wife Friday in a widening conspiracy involving female genital mutilation and members of a Muslim sect.

Dr. Fakhruddin Attar is accused of letting Dr. Jumana Nagarwala perform mutilations at his Burhani Medical Clinic on Farmington Road. His wife, office manager Farida Attar, also was arrested and is accused of helping Nagarwala perform the mutilations, according to a 14-page complaint unsealed Friday in federal court.

The arrests are the latest development in the nation’s first female genital mutilation case, which is providing insight into a small, insular Muslim community in Metro Detroit and an illegal procedure performed on young girls.

The complaint solves a mystery stemming from the case by pinpointing where Nagarwala allegedly mutilated two 7-year-old girls from Minnesota earlier this year. The complaint also describes a conspiracy involving at least Nagarwala, Attar and his wife — all three are members of the Dawoodi Bohra religious community based locally out of a Farmington Hills mosque….

Nagarwala, meanwhile, was charged in federal court April 12 and is being held without bond on charges that could send her to federal prison for life.

According to court records and testimony, Nagarwala is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra, a small Muslim sect from India that was linked to a mutilation scandal in Australia two years ago. Sect members locally belong to the Anjuman-e-Najmi mosque on Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills. It’s the only Dawoodi Bohra mosque in Michigan.

The Dawoodi Bohras hail mostly from western India and were traditionally comprised of businessmen, entrepreneurs and professionals. There are about 1 million followers worldwide. Two years ago, three Dawoodi Bohras faced trial in Australia in a case that raised awareness of female genital mutilation. The case ended in prison sentences for the three, including a Dawoodi Bohra community leader.

Leaders of the Farmington Hills mosque released a statement Friday saying they are offering assistance to investigators. “Any violation of U.S. law is counter to instructions to our community members,” the statement said. “It does not reflect the everyday lives of the Dawoodi Bohras in America.

“It is an important rule of the Dawoodi Bohras that we respect the laws of the land, wherever we live,” the statement continued. “This is precisely what we have done for several generations in America. We remind our members regularly of their obligations.”

Illegal since 1996

Nagarwala’s husband, Moiz Nagarwala, is listed as a leader of the Farmington Hills mosque, according to the mosque’s password-protected website, and records list him as having served as joint treasurer. Attar has served as treasurer and a leader of the Farmington Hills mosque, according to the Anjuman-e-Najmi website. 

Prosecutors said some members of the religious and cultural community practice female genital mutilation on young girls. Some members of the community who have spoken against the practice said the surgery is performed to suppress female sexuality, reduce sexual pleasure and curb promiscuity, according to the criminal complaint….

The Qur'an in Sura 2.65-66; 5.60 & 7.163-166 states that Allah turned some Jews into Apes after they failed to observe the Sabbath. Through Muhammad (Q 4.47) Allah warns the "people of the book" (in this case Jews) that they risk the same fate should they reject the true revelations of Allah as enunciated by Muhammad.

This 8 minute video covers the origin of the "Apes & Swines" stories in Islam and handily dismantles them. The ministry of Acts17 Apologetics has its website here, which is full of useful information for discussing the reality of Jesus with Atheists and other people, as well as with Muslims.

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Shabir Ally, the Quran, and the Village of the Apes and Swine: Part 1 (Anthony Rogers)   
​In the Quran, Allah declares that various law-breakers were transformed into apes and pigs. Since Muhammad was known for plagiarizing stories from Jews and Christians, we may wonder where Muhammad heard fables about Allah miraculously disfiguring people. In "Shabir Ally, the Quran, and the Village of the Apes and Swine," Anthony Rogers investigates.

Following Sandra Solomon's talk on how her Islamic upbringing taught her animosity towards Christians we have this short article from the Barnabas Fund which just came into my Inbox.

My question in the face of this is, as always, why not?

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UNITED STATES – Islamic State’s “war against Christians” not getting attention in Western media

Islamic State’s (IS) war against Christians is not getting the attention it deserves in Western media, according to journalist Piers Morgan [Graeme: a gentleman on the Left side of politics, definitely not alt-right]. In an interview with US television following the Palm Sunday suicide attacks on churches in Egypt, Morgan stated: “what happened in Egypt was unbelievably significant … what ISIS really stands for, what they are carrying out in the Middle East, and in Egypt in particular, is a kind of genocidal attack on Christians and Christianity. They want Christianity eradicated, and they want to convert all Muslims to their crusade, they want it to be a Holy War, and they want Christians gone. And I don’t think that narrative is getting the attention it should get in the American media, and that’s the same in other media around the world.”

Following the murders of at least six believers in less than four weeks in the Sinai town of Al-Arish earlier this year, IS released a propaganda video stating that they would eliminate Egypt’s “apostate” Christians. “Their [Islamic State’s] real war is now against Christians and the cross,” added Morgan, although IS has in fact always openly acknowledged that its goal is to destroy Christianity.
​From Fox News here

Sandra Solomon again, this time not about what Islam taught her about Jews but 8 minutes on what Islam taught her about Christians. As a Muslim growing up in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam, you would think that her instruction would be "by the book". It was.

She covers what she was taught about Jesus, the Bible, the Trinity and the "ignorant" condition of Christians - or Crusaders as her teachers termed us - who will be fought against until Islam is established. The belief in the Second Coming of Jesus which will result in the final destruction of Christian and other non-Muslim forces is a basis for what has been going on in the Syrian war. Such beliefs also lead to the understandably poor treatment of Christians under Islamic authorities, such as there being no churches in Saudi Arabia because Muhammad taught there should be no Christians or Jews in Arabia.

Now to my friends who feel Islam is accepting of Christians & Jews as followers of an Abrahamic faith - how does this square with the friendly reassurances you've received from your Muslim friends? Who is likely to be correct - your dear Muslim friends or the sacred texts of Islam? Sandra is not merely cherry picking verses, she is describing her entire upbringing in the home of Islam. Should we not pause to consider how many years of such indoctrination is likely to affect a person? And doesn't her experience of being taught these things as true Islam indeed make sense of so much that we see?

Oh happy day! At least Australia is doing something to establish a firm but fair baseline in getting the words and the deeds of migrants to line up with Western values. It's a step in the right direction and something I sincerely hope our own government engages in, as it is the kind of thing I advocated in my open letter to our government.

From our friends at Jihad Watch.

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“Citizenship changes revealed: Fluent English, four years of residency, Australian values”,  
​by Rachel Baxendale, The Australian, April 20, 2017:

Prospective Australian citizens will need to have fluent English, four years of residency, Australian values, and a demonstrated capacity to integrate as part of an overhaul of the citizenship test announced by the Turnbull government this morning.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says there is “no more important title in our democracy than ‘Australian citizen’, and the institution of citizenship must reflect Australian values.

“We’re not defined by race or religion or culture, as many other nations are,” he said.

“We’re defined by commitment to common values, political values, the rule of law, democracy, freedom, mutual respect, equality for men and women … and our citizenship process should reflect that.”

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said the government made no apologies for wanting new Australian citizens to integrate.

“We want people to be able to send their kids to school, to take advantage of a great education system,” he said.

“We want people to be able to work if they’re of working age and to make sure that if they have a capacity to work, they’re contributing and not leading a life on welfare.

Mr Dutton outlined the four key aspects of the overhaul:
• The current residency requirement to be eligible for citizenship will increase from 12 months to four years;
• Applicants will be required to pass an English language test equivalent to IELTS level 6 equivalent, or a “competent” English language proficiency level;
• The government will make changes to the pledge of Australian citizenship and add questions to the current test aimed at cracking down on inappropriate attitudes on issues such as violence against women, child and forced marriage, female genital mutilation, etc;
• Applicants must provide evidence of integration including employment, tax payments and schooling for children;

Mr Dutton said the government would consult around the changes to questions and pledge and the values requirements between now and June 1.

Test attempts limited
The new requirements will also limit the number of times an applicant can fail the citizenship test to three (at present there is no limit), and introduce an automatic fail for applicants who cheat during the test.

Mr Dutton said the current multiple-choice test was essentially a civics test, that asked questions of people.

“What we’re saying is that we want people to demonstrate the fact that they have, if they’re of working age, that they have worked over that period of four years, that they have sent their children to school,” he said.

“We would ask questions for example, as we’re seeing in Melbourne at the moment, if kids are roaming the street at night as part of gangs in the apex gangs or elsewhere in cities like Melbourne, whether or not that is adopting an Australian value. Clearly it’s not.

The Immigration Minister said he believed there was a deficiency in the way the current test was applied, and said the new test would work alongside current laws to crack down inappropriate conduct.

“For example, a perpetrator of domestic violence,” he said.

“My view is that that person shouldn’t become an Australian citizen. We can ask that question but we can also undertake our own checks in relation to police checks or whatever the case might be. So that’s how you can adopt, apply the test.”

Mr Dutton said there were currently criminal background checks for applicants, but the current checks were “clearly insufficient”.

Mr Turnbull conceded that practices such as genital mutilation and forced marriage are already illegal, but said questions on such matters in the new test were necessary to reinforce Australian values.

“Are you proud of our Australian values? Are you a proud Australian? You should stand up for it. You should stand up for those values and that’s what we’re doing,” he told a journalist.

“You see if we believe that respect for women and respect for women and children and saying no to violence against women and children, if we believe that that is an Australian value and it is and every one of you does believe that, then why should that not be made a key part, a fundamental part, a very prominent part, of our process to be an Australian citizen?

“Why should the test simply be a checklist of civic questions, all very important, about the parliament and how many senators there are from each state. These are all important things to know, no doubt, but fundamentally, the values which bind us together are those ones of respect, the rule of law, commitment to freedom, democracy, these are the key elements in our Australian identity and our citizenship should reflect this.”

Mr Turnbull said members of the Labor Party were criticising the proposition that prospective citizens should have competent English.

“Really? Are they serious?” he said.

“I mean does anybody doubt that if you want to succeed, if you want to even have a chance of succeeding in Australia, you need to be able to speak English?

“It is the single best thing any person coming to this country can do is learn English and that’s why Peter’s department put such a big effort into it.”

Mr Dutton said people would lie on the new citizenship test in relation to issues such as domestic violence.

“I mean they lie now in relation to citizenship tests and in relationship to laws that exist now,” he said. “That is not an argument for us to do nothing in this space.

“Domestic violence is a significant issue in this country, and we shouldn’t tolerate one instance of it, and the fact that somebody might fudge an answer on a test or an application is no argument against us asking people if you want to become an Australian citizen, abide by our laws and our norms.

“If somebody lies in an application, if they are fraudulent in their application for Australian citizenship, there is an existing power under the act in certain circumstances to revoke that citizenship.”

Mr Turnbull said the government would be briefing the Opposition and crossbench about the new laws “today or as soon as possible”, subject to their availability.

‘No shame in Australian values’
Earlier, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says he doesn’t think Australians should be ashamed of saying that we want people granted Australian citizenship to abide by Australian laws and values.

“I don’t think we should be ashamed of saying that we want people who are going to abide by the law, people who are going to pick up Australian values, still honour their heritage, but when you’re in Australia you abide by Australian laws, you abide by our values,” Mr Dutton said this morning.

“At the same time we want people to honour and respect their heritage and their culture, the country from which they’ve migrated, but once you’re here and once you seek Australian citizenship we do very clearly want you to be part of our team and we want you to be abiding by laws, we want you to be adopting Australian values and integrating into Australian life.

Asked what he meant by “Australian values”, Mr Dutton said he abhorred domestic violence. “I think perpetrators of domestic violence or people who would advocate violence against women don’t deserve Australian citizenship,” he said.

“I’ve been very clear about that. I believe that if you have children of school age, every effort should be made to see their regular attendance at school, because part of the opportunity of living in Australia and becoming an Australian and adopting Australian ways is that you take advantage of a great education system, not having kids involved in gang violence, for example, or breaking laws otherwise, so I think it’s an adoption, frankly of common sense.

Asked how a citizenship could police attitudes on domestic violence given people were unlikely to advocate it on a citizenship test, Mr Dutton said the government would continue to work with state and local government authorities to crack down on perpetrators as they currently do.

“There is a test of good character at the moment, and we can look at the evidence available to us,” he said.

“We can look at information that people provide to us. Obviously we can seek information from state and local government authorities in relation to the consideration of an application and that’s the way that these matters are determined.

“There are people that advocate and there are people that perpetrate domestic violence and we have the availability of that information otherwise, whether they’re honest on their test or not, there are other ways that we can work with state authorities to identify those people.”

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the new citizenship would ask a series of questions to highlight inappropriate attitudes.

“I don’t think anyone could seriously defend an attitude that says women are not equal to men, or that violence against women is acceptable, so we’re looking to test attitudes to ensure that people who take out Australian citizenship, and it is a privilege to become an Australian citizen, so it has responsibilities and obligations with it, that they are prepared to embrace the values, the laws, the attitudes that we have as a society that’s made us so successful,” Ms Bishop said…..

Read this. Then wonder at how we can allow something that works to be deleted simply because it is unpopular.

I was just thinking this morning about one of the distinctives of the English speaking peoples (if I can borrow that reference from Mr Churchill): it is that we base many of our decisions on pragmatism. Does it work? If it works good - how can we improve it? If it doesn't work then let's find something that does. Don't tell me what a great theory you've got - if it doesn't play out in real life to be of advantage, to provide an advance, you can keep your really great idea and we'll soldier on with what does advance us. This is how we've rolled for hundreds of years.

But it seems we are now like Samson who became too lazy, slept with the enemy and had his eyes taken out. He relied too much on his strength & forgot what he had was a gift that he could easily lose. There is no law of nature that states we have to win no matter how stupid we are.

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“The purge of a report on radical Islam has put NYC at risk,”
by Paul Sperry, New York Post, April 15, 2017:

The NYPD has had a stellar track record of protecting the city from another 9/11, foiling more than 20 planned terrorist attacks since 2001. But some worry the department is losing its terror-fighting edge as it tries to please Muslim grievance groups.

Last year, for instance, it censored an anti-terror handbook to appease offended Muslims, even though it has accurately predicted radicalization patterns in recent “homegrown” terror cases. Rank-and-file NYPD officers, detectives and even intelligence and counterterrorism units are officially barred now from referring to the handbook or the scientific study on which it was based.

Former law-enforcement officials fear its removal as a training tool may be hurting efforts to prevent terrorist activity, such as the vehicle-ramming attacks plaguing European cities.

“The report was extremely accurate on how the radicalization process works and what indicators to look for,” said Patrick Dunleavy, former deputy inspector general of the New York state prisons’ criminal-intelligence division, who also worked with the NYPD’s intelligence division for several years.

Mayor de Blasio agreed in January 2016 to purge the remarkably prescient police training guide “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat” to help settle a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Muslim groups who claimed the NYPD’s anti-terror training discriminated against Muslims.

Written 10 years ago, the seminal NYPD report detailing the religious steps homegrown terrorists take toward radicalization is now more relevant than ever, with recent terror suspects closely following those steps. But in 2007, the same year the study was released, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) organized a protest against it, complaining it “casts suspicion on all US Muslims.” Even though federal law enforcement has long-shunned CAIR as a suspected terrorist front organization, “groups like CAIR were insistent on having it removed, and de Blasio caved into them,” Dunleavy said.

Under the city’s unusual settlement agreement, the NYPD as well as New York state agencies were forced to remove its 90-page anti-terror study — described by plaintiffs as “deeply flawed” and “inflammatory” — from databases and no longer rely on it “to open or extend investigations” into terrorist activities. Also, police must now commit to “mitigating the potential impact” of any counterterrorism investigation on the Muslim community.

The deal has had a chilling effect on other city police forces’ ability to use fact-based, trend analysis to develop terrorism cases, experts say. They warn that purging such studies deprives local law enforcement of the ability to understand how ISIS and other jihadists recruit, organize and operate — which is critical to disrupting terrorism plots.

“The FBI has its hands full with over 1,000 open cases on ISIS terrorist suspects already in the US,” former FBI Agent John Guandolo said, “and it needs the help of well-trained eyes and ears on the ground at the local and state level.”

“The bad guys know if police don’t know this stuff at the ground level, they win,” added Guandolo, who trains sheriffs departments across the country to ID local jihadi networks through his consulting firm, Understanding the Threat LLC.

The authors of the report, led by Mitch Silber, former NYPD director of intelligence analysis, examined hundreds of “homegrown” terrorism cases and found that suspects followed the same “radicalization” path. Key indicators include: alienating themselves from their former lives and friends; giving up cigarettes, drinking and partying; wearing traditional Islamic clothing; growing a beard; becoming obsessed with Mideast politics and jihad; and regularly attending a hardline mosque. In other words, the more they immersed themselves in their faith, the more radical they grew.

“You can take all the terrorist cases since that report and compare the information on the subject and the case and see stark similarities to what Mitch laid out,” Dunleavy noted.

The terrorists who carried out recent attacks in Boston; Fort Hood, Texas; Little Rock, Ark.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; San Bernardino, Fla.; Orlando; Philadelphia and at Ohio State University, among others, followed a similar pattern of radicalization. In each case, the Muslim attacker was influenced through “incubators of extremism” within the Muslim community, including Islamic student associations, schools, bookstores and mosques. Jihadi websites also played a role, but what unifies them all is Islamic doctrine. As the NYPD study found, “The ultimate objective for any attack is always the same — to punish the West, overthrow the democratic order, re-establish the caliphate, and institute Sharia,” or Islamic law.

“The radicalizer is Sharia, not the Internet,” said Philip Haney, a former Homeland Security counterterrorism analyst. Haney says the feds are plagued by their own PC censorship. Bowing to pressure from CAIR and other Muslim groups, Homeland Security and the Justice Department have purged anti-terrorism training materials and fired instructors deemed offensive to Muslims. CAIR-launched protests also helped convince the FBI to recently suspend an Internet program aimed at preventing the radicalization of Muslim youth.

“If we fail to correct this situation, it is inevitable that more attacks will occur,” warned Haney, author of “See Something, Say Nothing.”…

Robert Spencer recently presented a talk on the difference between hate speech and free intellectual enquiry at Truman State University. Leading up to the talk there had been threats of disruption & violence from non-Muslim students against him for his apparently hateful stance. I hope you're getting this: they are so convinced that he is intolerant that they will shout him down and they are so convinced he promotes hate that they will beat him up. And they firmly believe they are the tolerant and accepting ones. Make sense of that.

I place below the brilliant Mr Spencer's own intro to the 48 minute video. I really encourage you to watch the talk, he gives very few of these talks these days as they are often shut down under some pretence or another - usually the College "can't provide adequate security". Make the most of it while you can still hear it.

And do decide for yourself: does it really sound like "Islamophobia" or hate speech to you?

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From Jihad Watch:~

Here is the notorious exercise in “hate speech” that Left-fascists did their best to shut down. Will any of them find any actual “hate” in it? Of course not. Last Thursday evening, I spoke at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. When they heard that I had been invited, Left-fascists first called for me to be physically attacked, and then tried to get university officials to cancel my appearance. The university placated the fascists by inviting Faizan Syed of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to speak just before I did. Syed gave a canned dawah presentation filled with half-truths, deceptions, and detours, along with a liberal amount of the usual defamation and ad hominem smears against me that feature in Hamas-linked CAIR and Leftist “Islamophobia” fearmongering rhetoric.

Syed’s speech was enthusiastically received by the audience, which was filled with members of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and many non-Muslim students (including males) wearing hijabs in solidarity with their supposedly oppressed Muslim friends. (I wonder if they would doff those hijabs in solidarity with Aqsa Parvez and the other Muslim women and girls who have been murdered for not wearing the hijab. Somehow I doubt it.)

Just before I began speaking, Truman State University officials turned up the heat in the room, which had been perfectly comfortable during Syed’s address. They refused to turn it down when we requested that they do so, so the room was sweltering by the time I began and much hotter still by the time I finished. The audience was almost completely hostile. They didn’t disrupt my remarks, as the MSA had instructed them not to; for which I would thank them except that I believe it should be taken for granted that unpopular and unwelcome opinions that are nonetheless based on sound reasoning and evidence should be given a fair hearing on university campuses. They did ask a series of hostile questions, rolling their eyes, shaking their heads, and chuckling at my answers. This video, alas, is cut off, and doesn’t contain the full Q and A period.

Unfortunately for the Truman State students, Faizan Syed with all his slick falsehoods and character assassination, and all their contempt and hatred for me and the truths I tell, will not make the realities they deny go away.

David Wood covers the usual and predictable media bias around today's murderous attack outside the building of a Catholic charity in this 5 minute video.

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On April 18th, 2017, black nationalist Kori Ali Muhammad gunned down three white non-Muslims outside a Catholic charity in Fresno, California. During the shooting, Muhammad shouted "Allahu Akbar!" Not surprisingly, the Associated Press immediately tried to deflect attention away from Islam. 

An article, I am pleased to say, from Stuff. It's great to see them give this issue some coverage. Watch the video within the article, it gives a good idea of the coordination and money involved in the abduction. Some very organised and resourceful people were behind this. I'd bet that authorities have had a pretty good idea of those involved since early in the investigation. But two months later and we're no further ahead. 

Sure, you can be a Christian and do good in Malaysia - as long as you don't do too much good.

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Pastor Raymond Koh's abduction highlights anti-Christian fears in Malaysia 
The well-planned abduction by at least 15 masked men of a protestant pastor and the disappearances of three other church-linked people in Malaysia have prompted fears of religious vigilantism in the Muslim-majority nation.
​
Security camera footage showed the daylight abduction of the 62 year-old pastor Raymond Koh in the leafy suburb of Kelana Jaya near the capital Kuala Lumpur on February 13.

A convoy of three black SUV's, two cars and two motor cycles blocked Koh's car.

Several men ran to Koh's car while one filmed the incident and another stopped traffic, witnesses said.

The abduction took less than a minute.

Initially police and Koh's family believed he had been kidnapped for ransom.

But two months later the family have not heard from his abductors and now believe that "religious elements" grabbed him in an act of "vigilantism or terrorism."

Koh runs a non-government organisation called Harapan Komuniti (Hope Community) which helps the poor, single mothers and drug addicts.

The organisation was investigated in 2011 by Malaysia's Islamic authorities after being accused of attempting to convert Muslims when its members hosted a party with Muslim attendees at a church.

The allegations were dropped. Later, several Muslims lodged police reports against Koh alleging he had tried to convert Muslim youths to Christianity, as rumours about him circulated on the social media. Two bullets arrived in his mail. Apostasy is an offence in the country.

Koh's son Jonathan told the BBC his father would never ask anyone to leave Islam. "His alleged proselytism is not an excuse for kidnapping. If he did anything wrong, he should have the right as any citizen to trial," he said.
"He's passionate, he loves people, he loves God."

Koh said the abductors knew who his father was, where he was going and probably had been tracking him.
"It was very professionally executed," he said. Koh's family have offered a reward for his safe return.

Malaysia's police, who have urged the local media not to publicise the abduction, appear to have no leads in the case which they are treating as a disappearance, because no ransom demand has been made.

Lawyer members of the Malaysian Bar issued a statement on April 11 expressing concern about "unprecedented mysterious disappearances" in the country. One social activist named as missing arrived back in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday after travelling to Thailand without telling his family. But last November another pastor and welfare activist, Amri Che Mat, 44, was taken from his car after it was blocked by other vehicles in the state of Perlis in the north-east of peninsular Malaysia. Police found his four-wheel-drive car abandoned with smashed windows the following day. Amri's family said he had shown no odd behaviour and had no received any threats before his disappearance.

Another pastor, Joshua Hilmy and his wife Ruth, also a pastor, have been missing from their home in Petaling Jaya, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, since late last year.

Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia, said the disappearances have sent a "worrying signal" to Christians. [Graeme: and of course there are many other worrying signals too]

As so often happens the threat comes into power by a slim margin. As so often happens it does not then ever leave except by force.

While I was studying how relationships differ between Tanzania's Christians & Muslims and the Christians & Muslims of Nigeria a few years ago I discovered something interesting. African worldview today is still based on Tribalism and the importance of the ancestors. The reason we so often see Western democracy break down in Africa is because once there has been an election and a leader has been chosen (by fair means or foul) this is understood to be the person chosen with the authority of "the ancestors" (a term almost interchangeable with the term "heaven") and so there is no need for any further elections. The new "Big man" has been chosen by heaven and that is that.

Economic ruin, bloody tribal war may follow but the decision has been made - the leader stays unless forced to leave. And here we are now in Turkey seeing the same thing play out. A new ego-maniacal Sharia-Law-enforcing tyrant has emerged. He is there to stay. He knows he is. He represents Allah & Allah's Law - heaven put him there. That is that.

Woe to those who disagree with him yet live under his rule. And woe to those in the West who have among them a large number of his supporters. The article below gives some first-hand insights and raises some very real issues for Turkey and for Europe and the large number of Turks living there who support Erdogan and Islam.

We have seen dictators in Muslim majority countries before but most, like Qadaffi, Saddam, Assad, Mubarak (and perhaps even Sisi in Egypt today), merely used Islam as a cloak to gain authority with their populace. Erdogan is different, he doesn't aim for facade. Like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood ex-President Morsi (removed by force) he really means to impose Sharia upon Turkey. He means to undo all of Ataturk's Westernising reforms. All of them. He means to remake Turkey into an Islamic State.

Once again we see the inability of any political philosophy to subdue the religion of Islam for very long - except by force - and the complete inability of any political philosophy to permanently overpower it. Because Islam encompasses the whole of life and to be obedient to Allah means to implement without question his divine will as determined through Sharia law it is this that - as history and current events show - keeps returning to the fore.
 
After that conveniently thwarted Coup last year (see my post here) he has little organised opposition standing in his way. Remember, Ataturk himself said of Islam:

"For nearly five hundred years, these rules and theories [regarding civil and criminal law] of an Arab Shaikh and the interpretations of generations of lazy and good-for-nothing priests have decided the civil and criminal law of Turkey. They have decided the form of the Constitution, the details of the lives of each Turk, his food, his hours of rising and sleeping, the shape of his clothes, the routine of the midwife who produced his children, what he learned in his schools, his customs, his thoughts-even his most intimate habits. This theology of an immoral Arab ... is a dead thing. Possibly it might have suited tribes in the desert. It is no good for modern, progressive state."

Isn't this where we came in?
​
In my humble opinion only a better religion - a better God, a better Book and a better Man - can defeat this. No external force or law is capable of it. Only a change of the human heart can do it.

>>>>>>>>>
How Erdogan's Victory Might Be Europe's Defeat
by Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
April 17, 2017

Over lunch in Istanbul last week, a friend and I spoke about the upcoming Turkish referendum. "Many European Turks are likely to vote 'yes,'" I cautioned my friend, whom I knew was planning to vote 'no,' or against the measure to grant President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unlimited powers. A "yes" vote, by contrast, would end the democratic parliamentary government established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the republic, and in the eyes of most Western leaders, establish Erdogan as the Muslim world's newest dictator.

My friend was visibly angered. "Then let them, with all their rights and freedoms, come here to live," she retorted. "How dare they think that they can take these rights from us when we are the ones who have to live with the result?"

The outcome of Sunday's referendum showed a Turkey split almost exactly in half, with 51 percent "yes" and just under 49 percent voting "no."

Or did it?

It is too soon to make a full analysis of the vote results – which some rights groups have already contested – but one thing was immediately made clear: the vast majority of Turks living throughout Europe voted in support of Erdogan's rule, even as the majority of those living in major Turkish cities – Izmir, Ankara and Istanbul – voted against it. If only the votes of Turks living in the country had been counted, would the results have been the same? Or would they show that Turkey's residents support a secular, Western democracy while Europe's Turks do not?

If my friends in Istanbul who voted "no" woke this morning afraid for their country's future, so, too, should my friends in much of Europe. In the Netherlands, for instance, a whopping 71 percent of Dutch-Turks who participated in the vote chose "yes." As the results of the referendum became known, thousands descended on the Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam, waving Turkish flags and celebrating the victory of an Islamist leader who had pledged to "raise a new, religious generation," end secular education, and who has imprisoned countless journalists, writers, artists, and others who have dared to criticize him.

It was not only in Holland. According to the Daily Sabah, 75 percent of Belgian Turks who voted opted for "yes," as did 73 percent in Austria, 65 percent in France, and 63 percent in Germany. Only Switzerland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom showed majorities with "no" votes. And of these three, Sweden is effectively the only member of the EU.

American-Turks, however, showed the greatest resistance, with 83 percent voting "no." Still, some prominent Islamist voices spoke out in support of Erdogan, including former Muslim American Society president and political activist Esam Omeish, who celebrated the referendum results on his Facebook page with a photo of himself holding a Turkish flag that reads "evet," or "yes."

In Europe, some have argued, as did "Volkan," a pseudonym for the owner of the popular DutchTurks.nl blog, that the results were self-inflicted, the result of having antagonized Turkey and Erdogan in recent months. Holland, for instance, refused entry to pro-Erdogan officials seeking to campaign on his behalf. Germany, where rallies were similarly blocked, has also been outspoken in its criticism of Erdogan's imprisonment of a German-Turkish journalist.

But such explanations do not account for the results in Austria and France, or for the similar outcome of the November 2015 election, in which majorities in Germany, the Netherlands, and France all voted for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP).

What I did not tell my friend, as we sat watching the sunlight dance over the Bosphorus, was that the European Turks who were voting to change the Turkish Constitution, who were effectively choosing to establish a more fundamentalist, Islamist Turkey in place of the secular, Western democracy that has been in place since 1923, have no interest in the "freedoms" that she spoke of. That they have them in Europe is meaningless: they don't want them. They don't want them in Turkey, where they come from; and they don't want them in Europe, where they now live. Not for themselves. And not for anybody else.

Indeed, as the IPT noted after the November 2015 elections, of the 4.6 million Turks living in Europe, a majority seems to prefer to live in an Islamic state, and not a secular one.

This is the frightening lesson that Europe must learn from the results of the April 16 referendum. While its leaders now confer about the "proper" response to Erdogan in his new role and what they expect of him as the leader of a clearly-divided country, they might also consider their response to his supporters who are not just Turkish citizens, but Europe's own. How to reckon with Europeans who choose against European norms and values, who actively vote against the separation of church and state, who seek a more Islamized society? What does this say about the failure of integration? More, what does it say – or threaten – about Europe's potential future? And what can be done to save it?

Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands. Follow her at @radicalstates.
​

From Jihad Watch again:~

In June 2009 at al-Azhar, Barack Obama said: “For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning.”

In October 2001, right after 9/11, the New York Times called Al-Azhar “the revered mosque, the distinguished university, the leading voice of the Sunni Muslim establishment.” It quoted a Muslim cleric: “Al Azhar is the only institution in the world that has learned the moderate Islam and taught it in a moderate way without fanaticism, and without abiding by the teachings of a school that promotes rigidity or violence.”

So why doesn’t al-Azhar declare the Islamic State apostate? Non-Muslim authorities all over the West assume that the vast majority of Muslims reject and abhor the understanding of Islam taught by the Islamic State. Why doesn’t the foremost institution in Sunni Islam validate that assumption? Because they know that what the Islamic State is doing has ample justification in Islamic texts and teachings. The beheadings (Qur’an 47:4); the subjugation of Christians as dhimmis (Qur’an 9:29) or the massacre of Christians who refused to submit (Qur’an 9:5); the sexual enslavement of infidel women (Qur’an 4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30) — it’s all there.

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“Why does Egypt’s largest Muslim beacon, Al-Azhar, refuse to declare IS ‘apostate’?,”
​by Taha Saker, Egypt Independent, April 14, 2017:

After the Islamic State (IS) militant group declared its responsibility for Palm Sunday’s deadly attacks that targeted two Coptic churches in Egypt’s Delta and Alexandria city, several media figures and organizations launched severe attack against Egypt’s largest religious institution, Al-Azhar University, considering its teachings as fostering religious extremism.

Through these outlets, Al-Azhar is now facing the backlash of taking part in supporting the IS-affiliated members through its insistance [sic] to refuse considering the IS group as ‘apostates’ and through maintaining some extremist teachings in the syllabuses that are taught to its students.

The backlash criticized the educational syllabuses that are being currently taught in Al-Azhar institution that include teachings from some prominent clerics. These teachings directly incite the brutal killing of anyone who does not follow Islam or who had been deemed to be an ‘infidel’.

The criticism, released from those figures and other media outlets, accused the aforementioned teachings of Al-Azhar by increasingly contributing to generate numerous members affiliated to IS.

Moreover, Al-Azhar’s teaching are perceived by some as the main platform that legitimizes the killing and slaughtering which are currently being practiced by IS group in different parts of the world, in the name of Islamic (Sharia) law….

I've previously posted that the senior national coordinator for UK counter-terrorism policing, Neil Basu, stated “We must all accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he did this. That understanding may have died with him.” 

​He wears an impressive uniform, yet talks sheer babble.
My dear Mr Basu, far be it from me to tell you your job. I will let Robert Spencer tell you your job:~

This new revelation makes it perfectly clear why he did it: because he considered himself to be a mujahid, a warrior for Allah, claiming Allah’s promise of Paradise to those who “kill and are killed” for him (Qur’an 9:111).

>>>>>>>>>>.
“Westminster terrorist promised to see family ‘in paradise’ before attack,” by Oli Gamp, International Business Times, April 16, 2017 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

The terrorist behind the Westminster terrorist attacks, who killed four people by running them down with a car and stabbing a policeman. had allegedly warned his family of his impending death.

Khalid Masood reportedly said “You will soon hear of my death, but don’t worry… I will be in paradise” during a phone call seven days before he committed the atrocities.

The attack, which was claimed by Isis, was the worst of its kind in the nation’s capital since the 7 July bombings on buses and trains in 2005, and left 50 others injured when Masood collided into pedestrians at 78mph on Westminster Bridge.He then crashed into the gates of Parliament before ditching his vehicle and stabbing PC Keith Palmer, who was guarding the grounds….

“I want you to be happy for me, I don’t want you to be sad. I want it to be our secret.”Isis have welcomed and encouraged the method of committing acts of terrorism by driving into crowds of people, an act that has been replicated across the world in the past year….

Dr. Saad interviews Cynthia Farahat, an Egyptian Coptic Christian who educated herself for 12 years studying Islamic jurisprudence up to the same level as the Blind Sheikh, who had a Doctorate. She started a political party in Egypt and has a fascinating first hand account of what life is like for a minority in Muslim Egypt. For instance she was told by a member of the Mubarak government that there is official policy to always under report the Christian population by half and that, even though Islam teaches the subjugation of non-Muslims the government's policy is not to follow through on this completely as the Christians are useful as a foil against the Islamists. This also gives an outlet of hate for the Islamists that takes pressure off the regime (the problem though, remains the inherited beliefs arising from Islam itself).

So this is a highly educated Westernised woman with unique insights into the issues discussed. An extremely useful 65 minutes of valuable education chock full of insights. I particularly found the information on the extent of Muslim Brotherhood penetration into the West to be revealing as well as the things Egyptian children are taught in school - this includes that the concept of Hijra (migration to enlarge the scope and influence of Islam) which she says is taught in schools as a way to defeat the West. See, fascinating.

The final point discussed is the role and experience of Muslim reformers. I am extremely dubious over her claims that a reason-based reevaluation of Islam which is under way can make any headway, though I applaud its existence and apparent growth.

Her own experiences & perspective are among the most valuable I have encountered.

>>>>>>>>>>>>
Topics covered include living as a Copt in Egypt, Egyptian politics, the Muslim Brotherhood, Barack Obama's Islamophilia, Islamic reformation and immigration, Canada's M103 motion to combat "Islamophobia," and the regressive mindset, among other topics. 

Note: Apologies for the few seconds when the connection froze during the taping of our chat. I did not edit out those few seconds as I could not remember where this occurred exactly.

Cynthia's website: http://cynthiafarahat.com

Daniel Greenfield is an extremely prodigious & intelligent Jewish journalist. He writes here of yet another recent attack brought on by Islam's core teachings - although I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't heard of it. But the people involved, the history, the circumstances, the setting, the reasons, the responses - all of these arrange themselves in this one appalling incident as an excellent didactic moment.

By the way, when Greenfield calls Muhammad a "murderous bandit" he is not merely employing hyperbole. Muhammad conducted many razzias, or raids for plunder, and Islam's Scriptures themselves display that he engaged in murders - such as the murders of Jewish POWs of the Banu Qurayza tribe in Arabia*. It may give offence but the term is entirely accurate.

*Sahih Bukhari volume 5, hadith 148 says this: “Narrated by Abu Said Al-Khudri: Some people (i.e. the Jews of Bani bin Quraiza) agreed to accept the verdict of Sad bin Muadh so the Prophet sent for him (i.e. Sad bin Muadh). He came riding a donkey, and when he approached the Mosque, the Prophet said, “Get up for the best amongst you.” or said, “Get up for your chief.” Then the Prophet said, “O Sad! These people have agreed to accept your verdict.” Sad said, “I judge that their warriors should be killed and their children and women should be taken as captives.” The Prophet said, “You have given a judgment similar to Allah’s Judgment (or the King’s judgment).”
See also the Sira: 
“The Jews were made to come down, and Allah’s Messenger imprisoned them. Then the Prophet went out into the marketplace of Medina, and he had trenches dug in it. He sent for the Jewish men and had them beheaded in those trenches. They were brought out to him in batches. They numbered 800 to 900 boys and men.” (Ishaq 464).

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An Antisemitic murder in a French no-go zone: Colourful, vibrant, multicultural Muslim atrocities

​Sarah Lucy Halimi was thrown out of the window of the third floor Paris apartment while she begged her Muslim killer to spare her life.

The 66-year-old director of an Orthodox Jewish nursery was woken from her sleep when she was violently beaten by her twenty something Muslim neighbor who then dragged her to the window.

She died on the street outside the building where she had lived for thirty years.

The killer had allegedly shouted, “Allahu Akbar”. In the tragic comedy of denial that every Islamic terrorism investigation inevitably becomes, the authorities are still hunting around for his motive.

The media claims that her Muslim killer, like every other Muslim terrorist in the past two years, was mentally unstable. According to official reports, he was incoherent. According to other accounts, he told the police that he had followed the commands of the Koran. He certainly would not have been the first.

The street where Sarah Lucy’s broken body lay was the Rue de Vaucouleurs. It’s close to Belleville, a neighborhood whose name means “Beautiful town”, but which is better known these days as one of France’s "Zones Urbaines Sensibles" or “Sensitive Urban Zones.”

Or, without the euphemisms, parts of the beautiful town are really a “No Go Zone”. Or, if you prefer the official descriptions, a vibrant, colorful and multicultural community full of delightfully exotic foods.

Two years ago, smirking media reporters had a field day visiting Belleville to show that FOX News reports about No Go Zones in France were nonsense. “Look, at the couscous restaurants and colorful scarves, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Unless your delightfully multicultural Muslim neighbor decides to shove you through a window while shouting one of his religion’s exotic genocidal epithets about the Jews and all infidels.

Belleville was once home to many Jews. Then Jews from North Africa fled there after Muslim takeovers deprived them of the civil rights they had briefly enjoyed under French rule. And their Mohammedan oppressors followed. Some years back, the JTA ran one of its cheerful Islamophilic pieces about Belleville. "In one Paris neighborhood, Jews and Muslims live as they did in North Africa."

That is indeed true. Just not in the way that the JTA would like its gullible readers to believe.

Yonathan Halimi, Sarah Lucy’s son, describes the killer’s family as being known for its anti-Semitism. "One day, one of the killer's sisters pushed my sister down the stairs, and the next time she called her a dirty Jew," he described. Sarah’s brother said that the killer called Sarah and her daughter, “dirty Jews”.

This is how Jews and Muslims lived in North Africa. This is how they lived everywhere under Muslim rule. Now this is how Jews and Muslims live in Paris and anywhere else settled by Islamic migration.

Halimi is a common last name among North African Jews. It means that their ancestors once lived in Ksar Oulad Abd El Halim in Morocco. You can still find Stars of David on the buildings in Ksar Oulad Abd El Halim, but the Jews are all gone. There are Halimis in Paris. But not as many as there once were.

A decade ago, Ilan Halimi was captured and tortured to death by monsters who styled themselves the “Gang of Barbarians”. The barbarians left him dying by the side of the road with burns and stab wounds over most of his body while the police did their best to direct attention away from the inconvenient question of Muslim anti-Semitism. Since then the head of the Gang of Barbarians has managed to produce videos from jail in which he spews hatred at Jews and promotes Islamic terrorism.

On the day before Passover Eve, a thousand Jews gathered outside the building where the latest Halimi was murdered. As they memorialized Sarah Lucy Halimi, the colorful and multicultural settlers of this portion of occupied Paris, greeted them with thrown bottles and shouts of, “Dirty Jews”.

The same taunt aimed at the Halimis by the Muslim killer and his occupying clan. Truly, Jews and Muslims live in Paris as they did in North Africa.

But the media always has its own spin on the Muslim murder of non-Muslims. As Le Figaro’s account put it, the demonstrators “dispersed” after an “altercation” with the “young people of the neighborhood”.

The Jews, even though they lived here before the Islamic invasion arrived, are never the people of the neighborhood. Sarah Lucy Halimi had lived in her building for three decades. The Muslim family of her killer arrived at a later date and yet she remained an outsider to be murdered while Muslim violence and hatred is referred to only through euphemisms such as “youths of the neighborhood.”

When the marchers sang the French National Anthem in this terrible place, while an invading army of “youths” watched, jeered and hooted from the windows, some of its lines had an ominous resonance.

“Against us tyranny's Bloody banner is raised.” And indeed, the black flags of Islam can be seen flying in France’s No Go Zones. “They are coming right into your arms. To cut the throats of your sons, your women!” They are coming. And we take them in. We feed them, we clothe them and then they kill us.

But there was also the rising chorus of Hatikvah. Sarah Lucy Halimi, like her son, like so many other Halimis, has found her final home in Israel. Before the arrival of Passover, she made her own exodus.

"An eternal flame will burn on the altar, it will not be extinguished," her son eulogized her with a quote from the Bible at her burial in Jerusalem. "I can testify that she contained an eternal flame."

That is where the religion of Sarah Lucy Halimi differs so fundamentally from that of her killer. And where her God differs so fundamentally from Allah.

The Kaddish prayer for the dead that they recited both at the march and at her funeral has its similarities to Islam’s Allahu Akbar with its ringing declaration, “Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name.” But where Muslims declare the greatness of their deity when murdering Jews, Jews praise God when memorializing the victims of Islamic oppression because unlike Muslims they see death not as a gateway to an obscene orgy of carnal pleasures, but as the expression of the eternal flame of the soul.

The Muslim killer’s shout of Allahu Akbar, his declaration of his deity’s greatness at empowering him to throw a 66-year-old nursery school director out of a window, is really an indictment of Islam.

The first ever cry of “Allahu Akbar” was uttered during Mohammed’s massacre of the Jews of Khaibar. The murderous bandit who founded Islam had lain in wait for the Jews who cultivated palm trees in a desert oasis to emerge in the morning. When the Jews came out with spades to make the desert bloom, Muslims attacked the gardeners with weapons against which gardening tools are no match.

Mohammed shouted, “Allahu Akbar”. That does not mean, as the phrase is often mistranslated, that Allah is great. Or as it is even more woefully mistranslated, God is great. For Allah is only the deity of Islam. Instead Mohammed shouted that his god was greater than the God of the Jews because Allah had enabled him to ambush unarmed men. Or to throw a 66-year-old nursery director out of a window.

“Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud,” remains a popular racist Muslim chant. Jews, remember Khaybar.

Khaybar is worth remembering as is an elderly woman falling from the third floor to 30 Rue de Vaucouleurs, and every atrocity and act of racist Islamic terror in the 1,389 years in between.

A war against humanity is underway. It began long ago. The killers shout, “Allahu Akbar”. And their victims fall from New York City skyscrapers and third floor Parisian apartments. They are run over in London and Nice, shot in San Bernardino and Paris and blown up in Boston and Brussels.

​We must remember all of them. And we must win the war.

The following article gives much insight into life as a Christian in today's Egypt. Many disturbing examples are offered of the second-class status of non-Muslims in that Muslim majority country. Do take the time to read through it all. It's pretty sobering.

What about it? Would you be happy to live there?

>>>>>>>>>>>
Palm Sunday Bombing Underscores Depth of Egypt's Anti-Christian Bigotry
by John Rossomando
IPT News
April 12, 2017

​Suicide bombings of two Coptic churches in Egypt Sunday by ISIS terrorists should not be viewed in isolation. The bombings killed 44 people and injured 100 more, and mark the deadliest in a series of attacks targeting the country's Christian minority.

ISIS warned of future attacks in December after another of its suicide bombers killed 25 worshipers in a chapel adjacent to the Coptic Pope's cathedral in Cairo. In this case, one of the bombers struck just after the Coptic Pope finished celebrating Mass at the Coptic cathedral in Alexandria.

The attacks reflect a larger epidemic of anti-Christian bias and hate found among a sizeable portion of Egypt's majority Muslim community. This bigotry remains entrenched despite President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi's symbolic statements about reforming Islam and building a major Coptic church.

Many Islamists remain angry with the Coptic community for supporting al-Sisi after the 2013 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood's political party after a year in power.

"The Minority Copt's (sic) Of Egypt Should Never Have joined Sisi Against The Sunni's of Egypt Now They Are Paying The price! No End Soon Either," an ISIS supporter identified as @HaqqRevolution wrote on Twitter.

Last month, ISIS's Al-Naba newsletter vowed that attacks against the Copts would intensify unless they convert to Islam or pay the Quranic tax known as jizyah. Al-Naba also attacked the Copts for supporting al-Sisi.

Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam's most prestigious institution, spews anti-Christian statements and fatwas that label Christians as heretics. Al-Azhar distributed a free book in June 2015 describing Christianity as a "failed religion," and suggested that the Bible contains "seeds of weakness." Building churches is a crime under Al-Azhar's curriculum which also suggests that churches should be barred in Muslim countries.

"Hence, it is a mistake to say that the attacks currently taking place against Copts in Minya and elsewhere are the acts of individuals [and not part of a larger phenomenon]. [Al-Azhar] students will continue to study until they attain a certificate or a license to preach at a mosque, and then they will spread what they learned among the worshipers," Egyptian researcher Ahmad Abdu Maher wrote last August.

Much of the anti-Coptic hatred found among Egyptian children stems from school lessons that say "Christians are infidels destined for Hell," Al-Masry Al-Youm columnist Fathia Al-Dakhakhni wrote Feb. 26.

The wonderful Dr. Gad Saad interviews the fascinating Moroccan, Brother Rashid. So lovely to experience this friendly and open discussion between a Jewish atheist and an ex-Muslim Christian. Obviously there are several major differences in worldview and perspective between these two amiable men, but they like each other and engage in a good-natured back & forth.

These two men so sensitively & warmly engage with the issues and the people I know you can't help but be moved as well as learn a great deal.

The topics touched on include:~

• how Islamic doctrine contradicts much natural good within the human heart;
• how orthodox Islamic doctrine affects the culture and worldview of all Muslims - yet they also deal with how Muslims as people are distinct from Islam itself;
• the place of the Qur'an, Hadith, Sira;
• Sharia Law and it's stark contrast to Western Laws (you can buy the Reliance of the Traveller here); 
• Western apologists who lie about Islam;
• "Cafeteria" Islam - where one picks only the parts of Islam one likes and ignores the unpleasant parts;
• the fact that Muhammad led 83 war raids (there's an unpleasant part);
• the peculiar & unthinking approach of the majority of Westerners towards Islam - why won't they study?;
• distinguishing between symptoms and root causes of problems with Muslims;
• How, as Muslims, people are obliged to extend the hegemony of Islam throughout the Earth - it is not a personal Faith;
• Turkey's President Erdogan;
• How to sensitively call jihad "Islamic" and not "Islamist" - Islam is Islam irrespective of how little or much any individual Muslim follows it;
• how patronising Westerners take it upon themselves to define what is & what is not "real Islam" and who is & who is not a "real Muslim";
• bravely seeking dialogue and not waiting for things to get so bad that we fall apart;
• the large amount of Muslims around the world leaving Islam - Brother Rashid sees millions doing so in the coming years & discusses how the world might change;
• the future of the Muslim world - its loss of confidence and the demographic drop of population growth below replacement rate in many Muslim countries;
• Is a Reformation of Islam possible? (the answer is a resounding "no");
• the hope offered by the "natural selection of ideas";
• how to cope with an influx of migrants who have a hostile worldview to the West's;
• should we choose migrants based on religion - why not help the genuine persecuted minorities come here?;
• Islam as an ideology cloaked with the cover of a religion and how to combat this poisonous ideology;
• what the term kafir really means and why it matters (to be called a kafir is to receive a death sentence);
• Islam is as bad as Nazism and Communism (interesting point that we wouldn't put up with Nazi doctrine here if it simply instituted prayers and called itself a religion);
• why do we put up with preaching promoting violence from Imams in the West?

Great bridge-building stuff. I loved it and I think you will too. Video of 75 minutes and such a good investment of time.

Here is Brother Rashid's English language website and here is his Arabic language site.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My Chat with Ex-Muslim Televangelist Brother Rachid.
Topics covered include his religious conversion, Islamic texts, immigration, and reformation among other issues.

Gosh that's not very respectful is it? Those are not my words, they are the words of an ex-Muslim lady. If she was in Austria she might be prosecuted for "an excess of opinion" and "denigration of religious teachings of a legally recognised religion"! (An "excess of opinion"? What does that even mean?)

Fortunately in New Zealand we have a long tradition of free speech and if we disagree with her assessment of Islam's prophet we can debate the issue instead of prosecute her. Isn't that great?

But why does she speak so?
​Let her explain - watch this 9 minute video of her focusing on how she was taught to regard the Jews growing up as a Muslim in the Middle East. 

>>>>>>>>
Sandra Solomon, an ex-Muslim who grew up in Saudi Arabia who is now valiantly fighting against the Islamization of the West — and of her new home country of Canada in particular. Sandra unveils What Islam Taught Me About the Jews, sharing how the life of Mohammed, the Koran and Hadith taught her a very clear message.

Bruce Bawer is an American gay activist who has authored several books, one of which is "While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within". Concerning his often controversial books Bawer states that the "books are motivated by a dedication to individual identity and individual freedom and an opposition to groupthink, oppression, tyranny." Well we're big fans of that round here. He has lived in Scandinavia since 1999 and always has valuable insights into the state of that part of the globe.

I have found quite a bit of opposition to what I'm trying to do among the gay community - except for those like Bawer who have had first hand experience of living close to Muslims & have then studied the religion. Among such people I have firm allies.

Read on, this is very good stuff.

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'Swedish Conditions'
​Diagnosing a deadly disorder.  

Will last Friday's terror attack in Stockholm change Swedish attitudes toward Islam? Not likely. Pretty much all of Europe has spent the last few decades undergoing (steady) Islamization, but the invasion has progressed so much further in Sweden than in almost every other country on the continent – and has occasioned so much less frank reportage, commentary, and criticism, that brave souls in Sweden's Scandinavian neighbors, Denmark and Norway – routinely make disparaging reference to “Swedish conditions.” What this term refers to is not only the drastic social and economic changes currently underway in the country that once proudly called itself Folkhemmet, “the people's home,” but the mentality – a mentality not unique to Sweden, but certainly more fully developed there, in the government, media, academy, police, and the public at large, than anywhere else in Europe – that has made this dread transformation possible. 

A few recent news items provide illustrative examples of what it means to be living under “Swedish conditions”: 

• On March 10, it was reported that despite longtime plans, there would not be a new police station in Rinkeby, a notoriously unsafe immigrant neighborhood in Stockholm. Not a single construction firm had put in a bid for the project. Why? Because, as several police officers told SVT News, “it's much too dangerous to build a police station in the area.”
• On March 12, Sweden's Minister for Culture and Democracy, Alice Bah Kuhnke, said in a TV interview that the 150-odd jihadists who have returned to Sweden after fighting for ISIS should not be investigated, let alone prosecuted, but should instead be welcomed back and encouraged to integrate – by which she seemed to mean offering various welfare incentives and assorted freebies. (Such enticements, incidentally, would be perfectly in line with Swedish practice.) 
• On April 5, after Sweden's TV4 reported that a Muslim school in Vällingby was forcing girls to sit in the back of the school bus, Victoria Kawesa, head of a party called Feminist Initiative, blamed it not on Islam but on the “global patriarchy.” 

But no recent event or telecast provided a more illuminating picture of “Swedish conditions” than the April 3 episode of Horisont, a 60 Minutes-type series on Danish TV. (The fact that Danish TV airs such programs while Swedish TV does not is itself, of course, a telling reflection of “Swedish conditions.”) 

The central figure on the Horisont episode was Eva Ek Törnberg, an ethnic Swede who not only lives in Seved, an immigrant-heavy district of Malmö, but is known as the “Queen of Seved” because of her decades-long efforts to cozy up to her Muslim neighbors and help them become full members of Swedish society. 

On Horisont, however, she admits that her attitudes have changed over time. She used to call herself a “citizen of the world” and to champion open borders – now she looks around and finds herself thinking: “What has happened to my little Sweden?” She once thought it was “nonsense” to expect newcomers to learn Swedish – now she feels otherwise. Yes, she still believes in letting these people in by the truckload – but she no longer warms as she once did to the idea of a “multicultural society.” She perseveres in her attempt to bring Muslims into the Swedish fold – but she's increasingly frustrated and confused by her lack of success. As she puts it, she's curious about these people's lives – why are they so indifferent to hers? 

Yet she doesn't want to complain too much – because, as she puts it, “one doesn't want to be linked to the Sweden Democrats,” those universally anathematized residents of “the people's home” who actually dare to criticize Islam out loud and to support immigration controls. (And who, by the way, are on the verge of becoming the country's largest party.) For all her disillusionment, moreover, Eva is still capable of getting teary-eyed about the utopian prospect of ethnic Swedes and Muslim immigrants working together to find a solution to their problems. For her, psychologically, the idea that Islam is the problem is plainly a bridge too far. 

Cutting from Malmö to Stockholm, Horisont introduces us to another woman. Zeliha Delgi, originally from Turkey and apparently single, is a self-described feminist who came to Sweden decades ago precisely because she wanted to live in a country that offered completely equal rights for women. At first, Zeliha says, Sweden was “the perfect land for me.” But then Rinkeby, where she lived, began to fall under the control of the Muslim “moral police.” The real cops – the Swedish cops – backed off, allowing the “moral police” to do their nasty work with increasing arrogance and authority. Patrolling the streets, these theological gendarmes would see Zeliha out at a café, sipping coffee – a woman, alone – and order her to go home. There was nothing she could do but obey. And as time went by, the situation just got worse and worse. And the Swedish authorities were beyond worthless, washing their hands of the whole business – lest, of course, they be perceived as Islamophobic. Eventually Zeliha moved to a non-Muslim part of Stockholm, where she can dress as she wants and go where she wants without anybody giving her grief or ordering her around. She has – and this was the word she used – freedom. 

For now, anyway. 

Horisont didn't tell us what to think about what it was showing us. But the point was clear. Naive ethnic Swedes like Eva, who put out the welcome mat for those despicable “moral police” and their ideological ilk, have ruined more and more parts of Sweden for people like Zeliha, who came to Sweden in search of individual liberty, sexual equality, human rights, and the rule of law. As one wise blogger put it, Eva – who is “honest, provincial, and naive” – is the very personification of today's Sweden. She hasn't “thought deeply about anything” – and, as a result, her country has been made a “hostage to her dreams.” One might add that while Eva sees very clearly where her dreams have led, she still can't fully let go of them. Terrified as she is of being mistaken for a (gasp) Sweden Democrat, she's doubtless even more appalled by the idea of Donald Trump – for while Trump is, in fact, exactly the kind of leader Sweden needs if it hopes to step back from the brink of disaster, most Swedes (who, on the whole, continue to be more worried about being considered racists than about losing their country to Islam) reject Trump outright. A March poll found him to be more unpopular in Sweden than any politician ever, from any country, with 80 percent of Swedes giving him a thumbs-down and only 10 percent – those Sweden Democrat types, you know – liking him. (Here's a taste of “Swedish conditions” for you: when Trump announced his temporary ban on immigration from certain Muslim countries, Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallström retaliated by banning Israelis from entering Sweden.)

So it goes. On March 9, Jerzy Sarnecki, a criminology professor at Stockholm University, said that the precipitous rise in violence among Muslim gangs in Swedish cities has nothing – nothing, mind you! – to do with Islam or immigration: no, it's all caused by social ills that are, in turn, the fault of Swedish society at large. Another criminology professor, Leif G. W. Persson, blamed gang violence on the police. 

The only places in Sweden where you can find out what's really going on are online – a handful of alternative news and commentary websites, plus Facebook and other social media, where Swedes share with one another details and (yes) graphic images that the mainstream media systematically cover up. On Sunday, the editor-in-chief of Expressen, Thomas Mattsson, devoted his column to what he apparently thought was the important takeaway from last Friday's terrorist act: namely, the threat to Swedish society represented by those rogue online spaces. “The criticism that can – and should! – he formulated right now,” he wrote, “is about social media.” He added that “the reputable, constitutionally protected Swedish media,” which are “responsible” and respectful of “professional ethics,” and the independent online media – media whose offense, in his eyes, is obviously that they pull back the curtain on “Swedish conditions” – “could not be greater.”

A March 11 editorial in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten succinctly spelled out the whole problem with “Swedish conditions”: what should “most worry Sweden's neighbors,” the paper's editors wrote, is the Swedes' “unwillingness to openly and honestly discuss the government-approved multicultural idyll....In the long run, the mendacity that characterizes the Swedish debate cannot be maintained. The discrepancy between the official, idealized version of Sweden, 'the people's home,' and the brutal reality that everyone can see has simply become too great.” 

People just got slaughtered in the name of Islam.
Again. 

We are assured by media, academics & politicians that this has nothing to do with Islam.
Again.

What? Some people do as their holy book & their religion's absolute authority figure command and yet it has nothing whatsoever to do with the religion, the holy book or that person?
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You sure you're as smart as you'd like us to believe?
'Cos that just doesn't make any sense.
​
We're waiting for you to get the point.
How long do we have to keep seeing dead bodies pile up while we're waiting for you to get it?

And here's another question for those who persist in saying that Islam is a Religion of Peace™:~
"What evidence could we give you that would convince you that you're wrong?"
​
David Wood provides a challenging discussion of this whole ghastly phenomenon in this 7 minute video.
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The Palm Sunday Bombings: Are Coptic Christians Islamophobes?
On April 9th, 2017, ISIS-linked jihadis bombed Coptic Christians at St. George's Church and St. Mark's Cathedral in Egypt. Since these attacks have been going on for centuries, and since the attacks are promoted in the Qur'an and the Hadith, are Copts irrational for being concerned about Islam?

Raymond Ibrahim ​penned this informative article regarding how "Islamophobes" have had an apparent prejudice against Islam for a very long time. Among many excellent points he notes that those very same people from the Occident also met Hindus & others and did not seem to have the same difficulties with their beliefs as they did with those who adhered closely to the commands of the prophet - even though such were just as foreign. If these people were intolerant xenophobes surely they would be equal opportunity intolerant xenophobes? What made Islam singularly deserving of criticism?

Remember too that the quote of Churchill's was from a man who spent time in Sudan & Afghanistan and was not merely some bookish theoretician.

Read on. It's good.

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A 1,389 Year-Old ‘Phobia’?
​​A direct correlation exists between Western ignorance of history and Western ignorance of Islam’s “troublesome” doctrines.  It is this connection that allows Islam’s apologists to get away with so many distortions and outright lies meant to shield Islam.

Take Reza Aslan, CNN’s resident “cannibal”: he recently claimed that “Islamophobia”— defined by CAIR and others as “unfounded fear of and hostility towards Islam”—was created by a few “clowns” in 2014.

To be sure, Western fear of Islam is something of a recent phenomenon in modern times.  Because the world was a much bigger place a few decades ago, and Islam was oceans away, the average American hardly knew anything about Muhammad’s creed.  However, as the world has become smaller—as Muslims have grown in numbers in Western societies, as modern technology has made it possible for the weaker to terrorize the stronger, and then broadcast it for the world to see (via Internet)—so has the Western world been hearing, seeing, and experiencing more and more of Islam.

But Aslan’s lament is not that people were once ignorant but now are wise to Islam.  Rather, he accuses a number of writers and activists—the aforementioned “clowns”—of manufacturing a menacing image of Islam, which, in turn, has prompted Western people to develop an “unfounded fear of and hostility towards Islam”—or, in a word, “Islamophobia.”

Such a claim relies on an obscene amount of historical ignorance.  The fact is, Western peoples, including some of their luminaries, have portrayed Islam as a hostile and violent force from the very start—often in terms that would make today’s “Islamophobe” blush.  And that wasn’t because Europeans were “recasting the other” to “validate their imperial aspirations” (to use the tired terminology of Edward Said that has long dominated academia’s treatment of Western-Muslim interactions).  Rather, it was because, from the very start, Islam treated the “infidel” the same way ISIS treats the infidel: atrociously.

According to Muslim history, in 628, Muhammad summoned the Roman (or “Byzantine”) emperor, Heraclius—the symbolic head of “the West,” then known as “Christendom”—to submit to Islam; when the emperor refused, a virulent jihad was unleashed against the Western world.  Less than 100 years later, Islam had conquered more than two-thirds of Christendom, and was raiding deep into France.  While these far-reaching conquests are often allotted a sentence, if that, in today’s textbooks, the chroniclers of the time, including Muslim ones, make clear that these were cataclysmic events that had a traumatic effect on, and played no small part in forming, the unconquered portion of Christendom, which became Europe proper.  As Ibn Khaldun famously put it after describing incessant Muslim raids for booty and slaves all along Europe’s Mediterranean coasts during the ninth and tenth centuries, “the Christians could no longer float a plank on the sea.”  They took to the inlands and the Dark Ages began.

But it wasn’t just what they personally experienced at the hands of Muslims that developed this ancient “phobia” to Islam.  As far back as the eighth century, Islam’s scriptures and histories—the Koran, hadith, sira and maghazi literature—became available to those Christian communities living adjacent to, or even under the authority of, the caliphates.  Based solely on these primary sources of Islam, Christians concluded that Muhammad was a (possibly demon possessed) false prophet who had very obviously concocted a creed to justify the worst depravities of man—for dominion, plunder, cruelty and carnality.  This view prevailed for well over a millennium all over Europe (and till this day among “Islamophobes”); and it was augmented by the fact that Muslims were still, well over a millennium, invading Christian territories, plundering them, and abducting their women and children.  The United States’ first brush with Islam—the early nineteenth century Barbary Wars—came by way of Muslim raids on American ships for booty and slaves in the name of Allah.

Here is a miniscule sampling of what Europeans thought of Islam throughout the centuries:

Theophanes, the Byzantine chronicler (d.818):
    He [Muhammad] taught those who gave ear to him that the one slaying the enemy—or being slain by the enemy—entered into paradise [see Koran 9:111].  And he said paradise was carnal and sensual—orgies of eating, drinking, and women. Also, there was a river of wine … and the women were of another sort, and the duration of sex greatly prolonged and its pleasure long-enduring [e.g., Koran 56: 7-40, 78:31, 55:70-77].  And all sorts of other nonsense.

Thomas Aquinas, one of Christendom’s most influential philosophers (d.1274):
      He [Muhammad] seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us …. and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine…. Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants [i.e., his “proof” that God was with him is that he was able to conquer and plunder others]….  Muhammad forced others to become his follower’s by the violence of his arms.

Marco Polo, world famous traveler (d.1324):
      According to their [Muslims’] doctrine, whatever is stolen or plundered from others of a different faith, is properly taken, and the theft is no crime; whilst those who suffer death or injury by the hands of Christians, are considered as martyrs. If, therefore, they were not prohibited and restrained by the [Mongol] powers who now govern them, they would commit many outrages. These principles are common to all Saracens.

When the Mongol khan later discovered the depraved criminality of Achmath (or Ahmed), one of his Muslim governors, Polo writes that that the khan’s
   attention [went] to the doctrines of the Sect of the Saracens [i.e., Islam], which excuse every crime, yea, even murder itself, when committed on such as are not of their religion. And seeing that this doctrine had led the accursed Achmath and his sons to act as they did without any sense of guilt, the Khan was led to entertain the greatest disgust and abomination for it. So he summoned the Saracens and prohibited their doing many things which their religion enjoined.

Alexis de Tocqueville, French political thinker and philosopher, best known for Democracy in America (d.1859),
   I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.

Winston Churchill, a leader of the Allied war effort against Hitler during WWII (1965):
            How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism [Islam] lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.  The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.  A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.  The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Lest it seem that these and other historic charges against Islam are simply products of Christian/Western xenophobia that simply cannot tolerate the “other,” it should be noted that many of Islam’s Western critics regularly praised other non-Muslim civilizations, as well as what is called today “moderate Muslims.”   Thus Marco Polo hailed the Brahmins of India as being “most honorable,” possessing a “hatred for cheating or of taking the goods of other persons.” And despite his criticisms of the “sect of the Saracens,” that is, Islam, he referred to one Muslim leader as governing “with justice,” and another who “showed himself [to be] a very good lord, and made himself beloved by everybody.”

Winston Churchill summed up the matter as follows:  “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities—but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”

Apologists like Reza Aslan can say whatever they want; they can claim that Islam is forever and perpetually “misunderstood”— and can bank on Western ignorance of its own history to get away with it.  But fear and dislike of Islam has been the mainstream position among Christian/Western people for nearly 1,400 years—ever since Muhammad started raiding, plundering, massacring, and enslaving non-Muslims (“infidels”) in the name of his god; and it is because his followers, Muslims, continue raiding, plundering, massacring, and enslaving “infidels” that fear and dislike of Islam—what is called “Islamophobia”—exists to this day.

The brilliant Raymond Ibrahim provides this article on the experience of Egypt's Christians in their Muslim-majority setting.

And the root cause of this isn't ISIS. The Islamic State is itself a symptom, a manifestation. The cause is the faith of Islam as it has been received in its orthodox, historic and authoritative form. Ibrahim's article explains this very well...

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44 Dead Christians: Islam’s Latest Victims
Egypt’s Christians began Holy Week celebrations by being blown up today.  Two Coptic Christian Orthodox churches packed with worshippers for Palm Sunday mass were attacked by Islamic suicide bombers; a total of 44 were killed and 126 wounded or mutilated.

Horrific scenes of carnage—limbs and blood splattered on altars and pews—are being reported from both churches.   Twenty-seven people—initial reports indicate mostly children—were killed in St. George’s in Tanta, north Egypt.  “Where is the government?” yelled an angry Christian there to AP reporters. “There is no government! There was a clear lapse in security, which must be tightened from now on to save lives.”

Less than two hours later, 17 people were killed in St. Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria, which—since the original church building founded by the Evangelist Mark in the first century was burned to the ground during the seventh century Muslim invasions of Egypt—has been the historic seat of Coptic Christendom.  Pope Tawadros, who was present—and apparently targeted—evaded the carnage.

In death toll and severity, today’s bombings surpass what was formerly considered Egypt’s deadliest church attack: less than four months ago, on Sunday, December 11, 2016, an Islamic suicide bomber entered the St. Peter Cathedral in Cairo during mass, detonated himself and killed at least 27 worshippers—mostly women and children—and wounded nearly 70.  Descriptions of scenes from that bombing are virtually identical to those coming from Egypt now: “I found bodies, many of them women, lying on the pews. It was a horrible scene.  I saw a headless woman being carried away.  Everyone was in a state of shock. We were scooping up people’s flesh off the floor.  There were children. What have they done to deserve this? I wish I had died with them instead of seeing these scenes.”

Before the December 11 attack, the deadliest church bombing occurred on January 1, 2011.  Then, while ushering in the New Year, 23 Christians were blown to bits.

The Islamic state claims both December 11’s and today’s bombings. (Because there was no “Islamic State” around in 2011, only generic “Islamics” can claim that one.)  This uptick in Christian persecution is believed to be in response to a video recently released by the Islamic State in Sinai.  In it, masked militants promised more attacks on the “worshipers of the cross,” a reference to the Copts of Egypt, whom they also referred to as their “favorite prey” and—in a bit of classic Muslim projection—as the “infidels who are empowering the West against Muslim nations.”

It should be remembered that for every successful church bomb attack in Egypt, there are numerous failed or “too-insignificant-to-report” ones.   Thus, in the week before today’s bombings, an explosive device was found by St. George’s in Tanta and dismantled in time.  Before that, another bomb was found planted at the Collège Saint Marc, an all-boys school in downtown Alexandria.  Similarly, a couple of weeks before December 11’s church bombing, a man hurled an improvised explosive at another church in Samalout.  Had that bomb detonated—it too was dismantled in time—casualties would likely have been very high, as the church was packed with thousands of worshippers congregating for a special holiday service.  In a separate December incident, Islamic slogans and messages of hate—including “you will die Christians”—were painted on the floor of yet another church, that of the Virgin Mary in Damietta.

Today’s church bombings also follow a spate of murderous hate crimes against Christians throughout Egypt in recent weeks and month—crimes that saw Copts burned alive and slaughtered on busy streets and in broad daylight and displaced from the Sinai.  In a video of these destitute Copts, one man can be heard saying “They are burning us alive! They seek to exterminate Christians altogether!  Where’s the [Egyptian] military?”  Another woman yells at the camera, “Tell the whole world, look—we’ve left our homes, and why? Because they kill our children, they kill our women, they kill our innocent people!  Why? Our children are terrified to go to schools.  Why? Why all this injustice?!  Why doesn’t the president [Sisi] move and do something for us?  We can’t even answer our doors without being terrified!” (Note: Donations that go directly to Egypt’s displaced Copts can be made here).

In response to today’s church bombings, President Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency, adding in a statement that such attacks will only strengthen the resolve of Egyptians against “evil forces.” For his part, President Trump tweeted that he is “so sad to hear of the terrorist attack” but that he has “great confidence” that Sisi “will handle the situation properly.”

Sisi further blamed today’s bombing on “countries and fascist, terrorist organizations that tried to control Egypt.”

But what about what’s happening right inside of Egypt?  Is Sisi “handl[ing] the situation properly” there?  Whether those terrorizing Coptic Christians are truly card-holding members of ISIS or are mere sympathizers, the fact is they are all homegrown in Egypt—all taught to hate “infidels” in the mosques and schools of Egypt.

Sisi himself openly acknowledged this in 2015 when he stood before Egypt’s Islamic clerics of Al Azhar and implored them to do something about how Islam is taught to Muslims.  Among other things, Sisi said that the “corpus of [Islamic] texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries” are “antagonizing the entire world” and that Egypt “is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.”

Just how seriously his words were taken was revealed last November when Egypt’s highest Islamic authority and Grand Imam, Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb—who appeared sitting in the front row during Sisi’s 2015 speech--defended Al Azhar’s reliance on that very same “corpus of [Islamic] texts and ideas … sacralized over the centuries” which many reformers are eager to see eliminated from Egypt’s curriculum because they support the most “radical” expressions of Islam—including killing apostates, burning infidels, persecuting Christians and destroying churches.

Egypt’s Grand Imam went so far as to flippantly dismiss the call to reform as quixotic at best:

     When they [Sisi and reformers] say that Al Azhar must change the religious discourse, change the religious discourse, this too is, I mean, I don’t know—a new windmill that just appeared, this “change religious discourse”—what change religious discourse?  Al Azhar doesn’t change religious discourse—Al Azhar proclaims the true religious discourse, which we learned from our elders.

And the law that the elders of Islam, the ulema, bequeathed to Muslims preaches hate for “infidels”—which, in Egypt, means Christians.  This is Egypt’s ultimate problem, not, to quote Sisi, foreign “countries and fascist, terrorist organizations,” which are symptoms of the problem.