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Swiss businessman defiantly builds minaret to protest ban

by Abdullah on Dec 11, 2009 Islam, Muslims, North America, Protest, World News Comments Closed • , , ,
Swiss businessman Guillaume Morand erected a minaret atop the chimney of his office building

Swiss businessman Guillaume Morand erected a minaret atop the chimney of his office building

In a country where failing to use official, region-specific trash bags can incur a hefty fine, defying a architectural ban on minarets is practically an act of terrorism. 

But that didn’t stop Swiss businessman Guillaume Morand, who protested last month’s constitutional amendment banning minarets by building one atop the chimney of his office in the city of Lausanne.

Morand, who owns a chain of shoe stores, told the AFP news agency that the ban is shameful, and blamed liberal parties for failing to counter what he described as right-wing scare tactics. The Swiss People’s Party, which spearheaded the initiative to ban minarets on mosques, released an aggressive campaign including posters of women in face-covering burkas and minarets shaped like rockets.

The ban was all the more scandalous, Morand said, given that Switzerland encourages Arabs to “visit the country and to spend their money here.”

 

Morand joins prominent Jewish leaders and the Vatican in condemning the referendum last month, when 53% of Swiss voters went to the polls to decide whether to outlaw the construction of any more minarets, although only four mosques in Switzerland have them. The amendment passed with 57% of the votes. (more…)

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“Gay Travels in the Muslim World”

by Asad on Dec 22, 2009 Islam, Knowledge, North America, World News Comments Closed • , , ,

gay_travels-935The Middle East is famous for hospitality, but will that extend to the tour for the Routledge Press book, Gay Travels in the Muslim World?

The book, edited by Michael Luongo, is the first and only gay themed American book ever to be translated into Arabic. The tour begins at Lebanon’s Beirut Book Fair where Luongo will be signing the book today at the Arab Diffusion. After Lebanon, Luongo will travel through Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and Egypt, among other countries during his six week tour.

“I’ve had conversations for the past two years about presenting this book in the Middle East, but until now, that just hasn’t happened,” said the 41 year old editor, noting he had tried to present the book at the Emirates Airlines Book Fair in the past.

“Ironically, the Arabs who were part of the Fair said yes, but the Europeans, afraid of controversy, said no. Homophobia is complicated, isn’t it?” So far in Lebanon, there has been a positive reaction, and Luongo said even a member of the Saudi government bought a copy of the book and asked about possibly presenting it in Riyadh.

The book has been a consistent gay travel best seller in the United States and was originally published by Haworth Press in 2007, until the company was bought by Routledge/Taylor & Francis in 2008.

In 2009, the Lebanese publishing company Arab Diffusion launched the book in Arabic. This itself was not without controversy as the publisher used the Arabic word “shaz” in its translation for gay, a word meaning “different” but which can also mean “pervert,” and historically used to mean gay. The lost-in-translation problem made headlines across the globe, including in the New York Post’s Page 6 gossip column. Arab Diffusion has agreed to recover the book using the more sensitive word “mithlee” a modern Arabic literal translation of homosexual. (more…)

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“Wahhabis” Suspected in Killing of Muslim Cleric

by Abdullah on Sep 21, 2009 Eid, Islam, Muslims, North America, Terrorism, World News Comments Closed • , , , , ,
Ismail Bostanov

Ismail Bostanov

The Deputy Chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Stavropol, Ismail Bostanov, was murdered in the city of Cherkessk on Sunday (September 20). Interfax quoted a law enforcement source in Karachaevo-Cherkessia as saying the attack took place when Bostanov’s was stopped at a traffic light and unidentified attackers opened fire on him. Bostanov was killed and his son was wounded and hospitalized (Interfax, September 20). According to other reports, the attack took place at a gas station (RIA Novosti, September 20). Bostanov was reportedly traveling back from a mosque in Ust-Dzheguta, south of Cherkessk, with his son when the attack occurred (www.newsru.com, September 20).

Bostanov was the Deputy Chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Stavropol for over 20 years and rector of the Islamic Institute in Karachaevo-Cherkessia for more than 10 years (www.gazeta.ru, RIA Novosti, September 20). In December 2006, three masked attackers broke into Bostanov’s home in Cherkessk, knifed and shot him and with firearms and beat up his wife. However, investigators at the time concluded that attack was part of an attempted robbery because the raiders stole money from Bostanov’s house (Kommersant, September 21).

Ismail Berdiev, who is the mufti of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and head of the Coordination Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, said yesterday that he is convinced that Bostanov was killed by “Wahhabis” -the standard term used by local officials in the North Caucasus, both governmental and religious, for Islamist rebels and their sympathizers. “And who else could it have been -he was not a businessman, so that it could have entered someone’s mind to kill him for the sake of money,” Berdiev told Interfax, adding that Bostanov was known in Karachaevo-Cherkessia as “an active fighter against the spread of Wahhabi ideology.” Berdiev expressed particular indignation over the fact that Bostanov’s murder took place on the Muslim holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan (Eid Al-Fitr started Sunday, September 20, in most Arab and Muslim countries as well as in North America and Europe). “It simply beggars the imagination that someone dared to commit this heinous crime on such a holy day,” Berdiev said (www.newsru.com, September 20). (more…)

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5 U.S.suspected of terror links

by Asad on Dec 10, 2009 Islam, Muslims, North America, Pakistan, Terrorism, World News Comments Closed • , , , , , , ,
Nihad Awad, national executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, spoke in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday about the arrests in Pakistan of five Americans

Nihad Awad, national executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, spoke in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday about the arrests in Pakistan of five Americans

Police in Pakistan raided a house linked to an Islamic militant group Wednesday and arrested five young American Muslim men from the Washington, D.C., area, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

One of the young men had left behind a video showing scenes of war, calling for the defense of Muslims and saying that “young Muslims have to do something,” said a person who had seen the video, describing it as a farewell of sorts.

It was the third known case since September in which Americans with ties to the Pakistan-Afghanistan region have been detained over possible terrorist connections.

The men were not accused of any crime, but their intent remained mysterious, and both U.S. and Pakistani officials emphasized that they were still gathering facts.

The five Americans, ranging in age from 19 to 25, were arrested in Sargodha, a dusty city in Punjab province, where several militant organizations with links to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban operate, according to a senior Pakistani official and a U.S. official in Washington. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.

Three of the men arrested Wednesday are Pakistani-Americans, one is a Yemeni-American and one an Egyptian-American, the Pakistani official said. Pakistani law enforcement officers had “continuously tracked” the men from the moment they arrived Dec. 1 at Karachi international airport. All carried U.S. passports, he said. (more…)

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Abandon the doctrine of jihad

by Abdurrahman on Sep 9, 2009 Muslims, North America, Terrorism, World News Comments Closed • , , ,

BombersWe Muslims had barely recovered from the news of the 14-year conviction of the Canadian terrorist Saad Khalid, when our Labour Day holiday was interrupted with the bulletin that three of our co-religionists had been found guilty in the U. K. of plotting to kill thousands of people by blowing up planes bound for Toronto, Montreal and other North American cities.

A British court convicted Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, of conspiring to activate bombs disguised as soft drinks, and later boasting in videos there would be “floods of martyr operations” that would leave body parts scattered in the streets. “Don’t mess with Muslims,” Hussain threatened.

I will not be surprised if Islamist leaders in the U. K. and North America now line up at the mics and issue the familiar denunciations of terrorism accompanied by the oft-repeated claim that “Islam is a religion of peace.” I say to them, this is not enough. Now is the time to say loudly, the doctrine of jihad is outdated and needs to be abandoned.

(more…)

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Abdullah Khadr feared rape of sister

by Abdurrahman on Oct 7, 2009 Canada, Muslims, North America, Pakistan, Terrorism, World News Comments Closed • , , , , ,
Canadian captive Omar Khadr at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Canadian captive Omar Khadr at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Abdullah Khadr broke down in a Toronto court Tuesday, saying he told authorities in Pakistan he had bought weapons for Al Qaeda because he feared if he didn’t say that, his sister would be raped.

The 28-year-old, who is fighting extradition to the United States on terrorism charges, said he invented stories because it was the only way to stop his alleged torture by Pakistani and U.S. officials.

Khadr alleges in an affidavit that during his 14 months in detention, Pakistani officers beat him and penetrated him with a stick and American officials threatened to arrest his sister and have done to her what had been done to him.

While testifying, the eldest son of the infamous Khadr family became choked up and wiped away tears.

“(The Americans) told me that if I didn’t confess … they would bring my sister and do terrible things,” Khadr told Crown prosecutor Howard Piafsky.

An FBI affidavit says the interview team “never threatened to harm or retaliate against Khadr, his sister or any family member if he did not give satisfactory answers.

“It also never threatened to send Khadr or his sister to any prison in Egypt or Uzbekistan, or suggested, directly or indirectly, that he or his sister would be raped,” says the affidavit, part of which was read by Piafsky. (more…)

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Acknowledging America’s arrogance

by Asad on Sep 1, 2009 North America Comments Closed •

"Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are,” Mullen said.Guardian News and Media

When the highest-ranking officer in the US armed forces, Admiral Micheal Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admits: “We hurt ourselves more [with Muslim nations] when our words don’t align with our actions… Our messages lack credibility because we haven’t invested enough in building trust and relationships, and we haven’t always delivered on promises,” it represents a rare but welcome insight from the military about US foreign policy.

“Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are,” Mullen has written in the Joint Forces Quarterly. “We’ve come to believe that messages are something we can launch downrange like a rocket, something we can fire for effect. They are not. Good communication runs both ways. It’s not about telling our story. We must also be better listeners.”

Some Muslims, such as Haroon Moghul of New York University’s Islamic centre, optimistically greeted Mullen’s statement as a remarkable sign of change: “It shows a military that is critically thinking, and empowered to do so by a White House that seeks to develop effective strategies, not ideological categories and uncritical postures.” However, Aziz Poonawalla of Talk Islam, urges: “Fundamentally, the Obama administration needs to articulate a clear set of explicit, achievable goals for our military in [Afghanistan] – with a clear timeline for withdrawal.”

Indeed, a recent poll of Muslim countries revealed that actions speak much louder than President Obama’s eloquent words promising “mutual respect” and “partnership”. Despite Obama’s well-received Cairo address earlier this year, animosity towards the US “continues to run deep and unabated,” according to the Pew poll, especially in Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan. The most obvious reasons for such anger include the attacks by predator drones in Pakistan and the recent reinforcement of 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan, which now brings the total number of US soldiers deployed there to 57,000. (more…)

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Actions, Not Words, to Win Muslims

by sufisahab on Aug 29, 2009 Islam, Muslims, North America Comments Closed • , ,
"Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are,” Mullen said.

"Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are,” Mullen said.

IslamOnline.net & Newspapers

CAIRO — Criticizing the US public relations programs for the Muslim world, America’s top military commander believes that US actions, not promises, are the key to winning hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide.

“To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,” Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in an essay on the Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal, on Friday, August 28.

“I would argue that most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all.”

Mullen said US plans to create new government and military bodies to manage a broad public relations effort to counter anti-US sentiments are unworkable.

“They are policy and execution problems,” he said.

“Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”

The criticism comes amid concerted efforts by the Obama administration to step up public relations efforts to improve the US image in the Muslim world.

In a landmark speech from Cairo in June, Obama vowed a new beginning with the Muslim world to overcome decades of mistrust and discord. (more…)

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Ad campaign in Bay Area answers questions about Islam

by Abdullah on Sep 15, 2009 Islam, Knowledge, Muslims, North America, World News Comments Closed • , , ,
Courtesy Islamic Circle of North America -- Billboards such as this one alongside U.S. 101 and Tully Road in San Jose are part of an awareness campaign sponsored nationally by the Islamic Circle of North America, which seeks to dispel misinformation about the Islamic religion

Courtesy Islamic Circle of North America -- Billboards such as this one alongside U.S. 101 and Tully Road in San Jose are part of an awareness campaign sponsored nationally by the Islamic Circle of North America, which seeks to dispel misinformation about the Islamic religion

It’s certainly not unusual to spot billboards in Silicon Valley urging you to step into Fry’s Electronics, shop at the Great Mall or buy a new Halloween costume.

But for the first time, billboards asking “Why Islam?” have sprouted up in San Jose, Santa Clara and Concord, along with a blitz of posters on buses and bus stops — a campaign to educate people about the religion and fight negative stereotypes. The ads offer free Korans and a toll-free number people can call to seek answers about the oft-misunderstood religion.

“The best-case scenario of this campaign would be to show the public that Muslims are hardworking, peace-loving family contributors,” said Ahmed Khaleel, 30, of Santa Clara, the outreach coordinator for the Bay Area Chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America, which is sponsoring the “Why Islam” project. “Since Sept. 11, Islam has stood at the focus of negativism. Islam is not synonymous with terrorism.”

The billboard campaign began in New York almost a year before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Ironically, one of the campaign founders, Tariq Amanullah, died in the World Trade Center that day.

But as the nation mourns the eighth anniversary of the attacks today, the dual events of the tragedy and Ramadan make the timing of the billboard campaign especially poignant. Ramadan, a month of sunrise-to-sundown fasting, ends Sept. 19.

The message of the campaign is simply to show that Islam is quitesimilar to other religions. (more…)

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American Muslims Eight Years After 9/11

by sufisahab on Sep 13, 2009 Islam, Muslims, North America Comments Closed • , , ,

Obama_-_Ramadan_Statement01President Barack Obama’s campaign slogan was “change”. The seven-million strong American Muslim community, firmly believing in his “change” slogan, voted overwhelmingly for him in the 2008 presidential elections with the hope that his administration would bring an end to their humiliation and sufferings they faced in the Bush era in the name of “war on terror.”

American Muslims were both pleased and surprised by President Obama’s inclusive words in his inaugural address, on January 20th, when he said America is “a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers.” Such words signaled Obama’s recognition that Muslims are an important part of the American fabric.  

In his historic June 4 speech in Cairo, President Obama hinted to the problems facing the American Muslims by saying that the United States “rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.”  

His Cairo statement coincided with a statement by Attorney General Eric Holder: “The President’s pledge for a new beginning between the United States and the Muslim community takes root here in the Justice Department where we are committed to using criminal and civil rights laws to protect Muslim Americans.

A top priority of this Justice Department is a return to robust civil rights enforcement and outreach in defending religious freedoms and other fundamental rights of all of our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the housing market, in our schools and in the 
voting booth.”   (more…)

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