AND YOU THOUGHT IT WAS
WAY OVER THERE?!?
How an Islamic Terror Sheikh Ended Up Selling Meth in Orange County, USA
Images of
9/11: A Visual Remembrance
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/11/images-911-visual-remembrance/
Muslim Beheads Man on French Street, and Here We Go Again
Once again we get the same mind-numbing denial and willful ignorance we always see after jihad attacks.
It happened again on Friday: a Muslim migrant from Chechnya, screaming “Allahu akbar,” beheaded a schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, on a street in a Paris suburb for the crime of showing cartoons of Muhammad to his students. The response to this gruesome jihad murder has been as predictable, and dreary, and drearily predictable, as one might expect.
In response to the murder, French President Emmanuel Macron said: “This battle is ours and it is existential. They will not pass. Obscurantism and the violence that goes with it will not win. They will not divide us. That’s what they seek and we must stand together.”
This sounds great on the first hearing. That’s the idea. But in reality, “They will not divide us” is a statement that is designed to reassure Muslims in France. Macron is saying that he will do nothing to “divide” the supposedly happily united French people. What would “divide” them? Well, something like scrutinizing the Islamic death penalty for blasphemy and challenging Muslim leaders in France to repudiate it explicitly and declare their support for the freedom of speech, and to demonstrate their sincerity by instituting programs in mosques and Islamic schools in France to teach against Sharia blasphemy laws and emphasize the importance of the freedom of speech. That would “divide us.” Macron is saying it won’t happen, as expected.
Meanwhile, according to the Telegraph, “Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of the far-Left party, Unbowed France, said: ‘Horrible crime in Conflans! In fact, the assassin takes himself for the god that he claims he follows. He is sullying religion. And he is inflicting on us all the hell of having to live with murderers like him.’”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, like so many non-Muslims who assure us that Islam is the most peaceful, benign and cuddly of religions, clearly has no clue about what Islam actually teaches.
Islam mandates death for non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state who mention “something impermissible about Allah, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), or Islam” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o11.10), and such laws are based upon passages in the Hadith and Sira in which Muhammad orders the murders of people who have insulted him.
These include Abu Afak, who was over one hundred years old, and the poetess Asma bint Marwan. Abu Afak was killed in his sleep, in response to Muhammad’s question, “Who will avenge me on this scoundrel?” Similarly, Muhammad on another occasion cried out, “Will no one rid me of this daughter of Marwan?” One of his followers, Umayr ibn Adi, went to her house that night, where he found her sleeping next to her children. The youngest, a nursing babe, was in her arms. But that didn’t stop Umayr from murdering her and the baby as well. Muhammad commended him: “You have done a great service to Allah and His Messenger, Umayr!” (Ibn Ishaq, 674-676)
Then there was Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf. Muhammad asked: “Who is willing to kill Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?” One of the Muslims, Muhammad bin Maslama, answered, “O Allah’s Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?” When Muhammad said that he would, Muhammad bin Maslama said, “Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab).” Muhammad responded: “You may say it.” Muhammad bin Maslama duly lied to Ka’b, luring him into his trap, and murdered him. (Sahih Bukhari, volume 5, book 59, number 369)
Likewise, the popular fatwa website Islam QA used to call for death for blasphemers, using both Qur’an and Hadith to make its argument, although now it has removed this. “The scholars are unanimously agreed,” the site explained, “that a Muslim who insults the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) becomes a kaafir [unbeliever] and an apostate who is to be executed. This consensus was narrated by more than one of the scholars, such as Imaam Ishaaq ibn Raahawayh, Ibn al-Mundhir, al-Qaadi ‘Iyaad, al-Khattaabi and others.”
In light of all that, what this migrant did Friday is not in the least out of the ordinary, or unexpected.
When is France, and when is the West in general, going to recognize the danger that mass Muslim migration without any attempt at assimilation poses for the freedom of speech and other aspects of a free society? Note that Paty invited Muslim students to leave the room before showing the Muhammad cartoons. He was beheaded anyway. His crime, as far as his attacker was concerned, was daring to show the cartoons at all, even if the tender eyes of Muslim students were not assaulted by this blasphemy. The Islamic supremacist demand is that all people, Muslim and non-Muslim, in non-Muslim as well as in Muslim countries, bow to Islamic law.
The West is eventually going to have to decide whether it is going to do so, or defend free society. So far it has gotten along by pretending that the conflict doesn’t exist and that the showdown will never come. Samuel Paty is dead today because of that pretense. At a certain point, France is going to have to choose between the freedom of expression and Sharia blasphemy laws. Which it will choose is anyone’s guess, but in Sweden police are already hunting down people who burned the Qur’an, and the social media giants are increasingly open about their silencing of all dissidents from their hard-Left agenda, so the overall prognosis for free societies is not good.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
The terrorist killers are alleged to have shouted, "We have killed Charlie Hebdo; we have taken revenge for the sake of the Prophet Mohammed."
During the Black Lives Matter riots, a white Muslim illegal
alien stabbed a New York cop, grabbed his gun, and opened fire on other
officers while shouting, “Allahu Akbar”. Despite wounding three cops and
claiming, “my religion made me do it,” there’s been little coverage.
Will France Finally Rain Justice Down on Islamic Terrorists?
A court case in
Paris began on September 2, 2020 to render justice concerning a series of
terrorist attacks in recent French history. The case is occurring
after five years of investigation and delay, partly due to COVID-19, which
caused the closing of most French courthouses, with the trial of 14 suspects,
three in absentia, accused of being connected with those responsible for the
terror attacks on the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo in central Paris
and following events — the attack on a kosher supermarket, Hypercacher, in east
Paris and other sites for three days beginning on January 7,
2015. The suspects are charged with being involved in the logistics
and preparation of the events, helping finance and providing operational
materials and weapons in support of the jihadists. Because of its
unusual nature, and the judicial and political importance of the trial, which
is expected to last two months, the high-security proceedings are to be filmed.
This case is
important not only in itself, but also because of its relevance in the ongoing
highly controversial debate on the limits to freedom of speech and the
importance of intellectual and cultural freedom.
The magazine
Charlie Hebdo has been a beacon of free speech in France. It
is an equal-opportunity offender, satirizing public figures, religious symbols,
and ideas of all kinds. The terrorist attacks, the subject of the
Paris trial, began as a result of Islamist opposition on the grounds of
blasphemy to the publications by Charlie Hebdo that on February 9, 2006
republished 12 satirical cartoons. The cartoons were originally
published by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in 2005, titled
"The Face of Mohammed," some of which were deliberately
provocative. Muslim authorities regarded them as insulting,
especially one that portrayed the prophet with a bomb in his
turban. In general, many Muslims consider a portrait of the prophet
sacrilegious and thus were offended by the cartoons.
In 2007, the
Grand Mosque of Paris brought criminal proceedings against C.H. under France's
hate speech laws, but the Paris court acquitted the magazine, finding that the
magazine had ridiculed fundamentalists, not Muslims as a whole. At
the time, President Jacques Chirac condemned the cartoons as publications that
could hurt the convictions, in particular religious convictions, of others.
This court
decision did not prevent violence. In November 2011, the office of
C.H. in the 20th arrondissement was firebombed. Going beyond
peaceful protest, two brothers, the Kouachi brothers, of Algerian descent,
armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, attacked the office of C.H.,
killing 12 people — the editor, journalists and cartoonists, and a police
officer outside the building. The killers shouted, "Allahu
akbar," "God is great," and claimed they were part of an
al-Qaeda group. They proclaimed, "We have killed Charlie
Hebdo. We have taken revenge for the sake of Prophet Mohammed.
Three days
later, another terrorist , Amedy Couibaly, a friend of the Kouachis, pledged to
ISIS and the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula and attacked the
kosher supermarket in east Paris, shooting four Jews and a female police
officer. He was assisted by a woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, who fled via
Turkey to Syria. One of those on trial in Paris in absentia, she is
regarded by police as armed and extremely dangerous. The attack on
the kosher supermarket was an indication that Jews were the main target of
Islamist extremists, three years after the attack, in March 2012, on the Jewish
school in Toulouse in which three children and their teacher were shot dead by
a .45 caliber gun and a 9 mm gun that jammed.
At the core of
the events concerning Charlie Hebdo is a courageous figure, Flemming Rose, then
cultural editor of the Danish paper and the person principally responsible for
the decision to publish. He was prepared to defend free speech in
all its forms and risked his life to do so. Al-Qaeda put him on its
hit list. Rose has always refused to apologize for publishing the
cartoons. He explained in an article of February 19, 2006 that he
had commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship
in Europe caused by increasing fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing
with issues relating to Islam. His goal was simply to reduce or end
self-imposed limits of expression. His argument is highly relevant
today. Some among the political left in Europe have been unwilling
to confront the racist ideology of Islamists. They mistakenly view
the Koran as a new version of Das
Kapital and continue to see the Muslims of Europe as the new
proletariat.
The
terrorist events had a double impact. One was an outpouring of sympathy for
C.H. with large peaceful demonstrations in France and abroad, one in Paris
attended by François Hollande, Angela Merkel, and British then–prime minister
David Cameron. Pencils were held up by demonstrators to indicate
support for freedom of expression. For a moment, the magic words
"je suis Charlie" were carried on signs and on clothing to show
international support. In its honor, a street name in Paris was
changed to "Place de la Liberté d'Expression." President
Hollande sent troops into the streets to guard sites.
The other impact
was further attacks in France, especially a series of coordinated terrorist
attacks in Paris and its suburbs. The most brazen were outside the
Stade de France, the sports stadium in Saint Denis outside Paris, during a
football game between France and Germany at which President Hollande was in
attendance, followed by mass shootings at cafés and restaurants, and then, on
November 13, 2015, an attack, the deadliest since World War II, at the Bataclan
theater in the 11th arrondissement, previously owned by a Jewish family,
when 130 were killed and many more injured. The Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, claimed responsibility.
The terrorist
killers are alleged to have shouted, "We have killed Charlie Hebdo; we
have taken revenge for the sake of the Prophet Mohammed." But they
are mistaken. Charlie Hebdo remains published. It again
courageously published in its current September issue a dozen cartoons first
published in Denmark in 2005 and bravely asserts, "We will never lie down;
we will never give up." However, caution is
necessary. C.H. is published under conditions of absolute secrecy,
in a secret location; the staff is surrounded by armed guards and security
measures. Special doors and code words are used, and the journalists
are threatened with death.
France
officially recognizes that hatred still thrives in the country. In a
French database, over 8,000 are listed as Islamist radicals. The
wave of violence has led to 258 killed since January 7, 2015. In the
midst of this reality, the court in Paris must consider the basic
issue. Is France the champion of free speech and expression in its
publications, or did the cartoons go beyond the bounds of civility and respect
for others? French law states that incitement to terrorism is a
punishable offense. The controversy will continue. The
French Constitutional Court in June 2020 struck down provisions of a law to
combat online hate speech. Perhaps the present court case will
decide on the general issue of freedom. It will certainly confirm
the nature of the terrorist attacks. One was against freedom of
expression. The other was against Jews because they were Jews.
How an Islamic Terror Sheikh Ended Up Selling Meth in Orange County
And why the authorities let it happen.
Mon Sep 7, 2020
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
The
end of what law enforcement had called the most imminent Islamic terrorist plot
since September 11 came when Gregory Vernon Patterson left his cell phone
behind at a gas station.
Patterson
and his roommate, Levar Haley Washington, had joined Jamiyyat Ul-Islam
Is-Saheeh, a prison Islamic terror group, and had been conducting a robbery
spree to finance terror plots against the LAX airport, the National Guard, and
local synagogues during the High Holy days.
The
shotgun robberies by the organization, whose name meant the Association of True
Islam, were going well. The gang of criminal Jihadis had pulled off eleven gas
station robberies in LA and Orange County to raise funds for their terror spree
until Patterson dropped his phone during a robbery at a gas station in
Torrance. The phone led authorities to the South Central apartment being used
by Patterson and Washington where they found Bin Laden posters and a target
list.
The
target list included LAX which was convenient because Patterson already worked
there.
Washington
and Patterson were busted while trying to rob another gas station in Fullerton.
Patterson
told cops that robbing gas stations was “part of a jihad against the U.S.,
particularly against American oil companies who are stealing from our
countries” and that he wanted to die for Allah. The gas station robberies had
been meant to raise money to buy weapons and to provide training to Patterson,
who had no criminal record, in how to be a terrorist.
Patterson
and Hammad Riaz Samana, a Pakistani, had all attended the Jamaat-E-Masijudal
mosque where Washington had recruited the black convert and the Pakistani
Muslim. The two terrorists swore allegiance to Washington and the shotgun
robberies of gas stations began.
Washington,
a former Crip, had done time in Folsom State Prison where he found a copy of
the Koran, began calling himself Abdur Rahman, and was recruited by a terror
mastermind.
There
were two unique things about the 2005 terror plot. As Daniel Pipes pointed out
at the time, it was the first “large-scale” terror plot organized by Americans,
not Muslim immigrants.
But
it was also the first Islamic terror plot in America that was organized from
prison.
Kevin
Lamarr James, a Crips gang member, had been sent away for a decade for a
robbery in 1996. A member of the Nation of Islam, James made the same journey
as Malcolm X and many other black Muslims, away from the racist black
nationalist UFO cult, and to mainstream Islam.
On
one hand, he had gotten a tattoo of Allah and on the other, the star and
crescent of Islam.
The
charismaic James created Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh or JIS to spread true
Islam, recruit prisoners, and set off a wave of Islamic terrorist atrocities
against American targets in California.
Members
were told to swear an oath of secrecy, to wage war on infidels, especially
Jews. In prison, they practiced Arabic, studied Islamic theology, and trained
in martial arts. Out of prison, they were told to blend into society and build
the Caliphate in America through Jihad.
By
the time the robberies began, a Jihadist group had been secretly operating in
Folsom Prison for nearly a decade, and was about to make the leap to carrying
out attacks on the outside.
One
of their target dates for a terror attack was the fourth anniversary of
September 11.
“This
incident is the first in a series of incidents to come in a plight to defend
and propagate traditional Islam in its purity,” James, who had changed his name
to Ahmed Binyamin Alasiri, allegedly declared in a press release for the
attacks.
“We
are not extremists, radicals, or terrorists. We are only servants of Allah.”
But
James hadn’t picked the best servants for his deity. When Patterson left behind
his phone, the authorities followed the trail right back to Folsom Prison and
JIS’ mastermind.
The
four-man cell was charged with levying war against the United States.
But
James was the one with the brains. While Washington, his patsy, was slapped
with a twenty-two year prison sentence, his ‘Sheikh’ who had built an entire
terror group in prison, denied everything and then claimed that he suffered
from a really bad childhood.
"Your
honor, I'm thoroughly embarrassed and appalled by my actions. I don't even
recognize who I was three years ago. Never before in my life before meeting
these people, did I believe in violence or targeting innocent civilians,” the
terror sheikh gushed.
Judge
Cormac Carney, who would later illegally declare the death penalty to be
unconstitutional, called James' missive “the most powerful letter I’ve ever
received.”
The
naive judge was also impressed by all of James' prison college classes and his
evolution and repentance, and described him as a victim from a disadvantaged
background.
In
the portion of James’ letter that Judge Carney read out loud in court, the
terror mastermind vowed that, “My country need never fear from me again.”
That
was in 2009.
He
was freed in September 2019. And in August 2020, he was busted selling
meth.
James,
now living in Orange County and officially being called Ahmed Binyamin Alasiri,
had been selling nearly pure methamphetamine for thousands of dollars.
And
all of this was going on while James was on supervised release.
The
FBI had called the terror plot by Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, "probably
the one that operationally was closest to actually occurring".
"Americans
watched so-called 'home grown' terrorists unleash multiple bombings in the city
of London. Some in this country may have mistakenly believed that it could not
happen here. Today we have chilling evidence that it is possible,” Attorney
General Alberto Gonzalez said.
The
terror plot had been aimed at military targets, as well as a number of Los
Angeles congregations, including, allegedly, the ultra-progressive B’nai
David-Judea, which would have been struck by armed gunmen pushing their way
inside and opening fire on Yom Kippur.
The
heavy security presence at Los Angeles synagogues, which includes heavily armed
guards and bulletproof vests, is part of the legacy that James and his True
Islam terror group left there.
James
had built up a terrorist operation in prison backed by manifestos and operational
documents making him the closest counterpart to the Blind Sheikh. Instead he
was given a lighter sentence because the same charismatic gang member turned
preacher, who had convinced hardened criminals from rival gangs to believe in
him, had turned a judge.
Selling
meth may have been the alleged hobby of a newly freed criminal, or something
more. Traffic in certain drugs, including methamphetamines, has been used by
Islamic terrorist groups to finance their operations. It’s unknown whether this
is the case here, but the FBI, after Obama, is less likely to be looking for it
or to even know what to be on the lookout for.
When
Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh fell afoul of the FBI in 2005, law enforcement was
acquainted with the methodology, infrastructure and strategies of Islamic
terrorists. During the Obama administration, a cultural revolution was waged
against counterterrorism from the inside.
If
James is up to anything these days, the FBI is unprepared and unready to find
out.
Fifteen
years later, the terror plot, once a major event, has been largely forgotten.
And the same is true of most Islamic terrorist attacks except for September 11.
As the country enters another September and begins a countdown to 9/11,
everything afterward is being forgotten.
During the Black Lives Matter riots, a white Muslim illegal
alien stabbed a New York cop, grabbed his gun, and opened fire on other
officers while shouting, “Allahu Akbar”. Despite wounding three cops and
claiming, “my religion made me do it,” there’s been little coverage.
In
the midst of a pandemic and nationwide race riots, we should not forget that
there is more than one threat vector. Islamic terrorists don’t go away just
because no one is paying attention. And the same prison system that helped
produce the wave of BLM violence has also incubated Islamic prison terror cells
like the one that plotted to kill Americans on another September 11.
The
Nation of Islam has been a feeder for both Islamic terrorism and Black Lives
Matter violence. All three are deeply violent, bigoted, and possessed of a
feverish hatred of America.
Sweden: Muslims Riot Over Qur’an-Burning
Danish authorities react swiftly -- by banning a critic of Islam
from the country.
Mon
Sep 7, 2020
Agence France-Presse reported last Saturday
that “protesters threw stones at police and burned tyres in southern Sweden
late on Friday, authorities said, hours after an anti-Muslim Danish politician
was blocked from attending a Quran-burning rally nearby.” Were the “anti-Muslim
Danish politician” or the participants at the “Quran-burning rally” throwing
stones at police or burning tires? No, but as far as Swedish authorities were
concerned, they were the problem, not the Muslim rioters.
According
to AFP, “about 300 people were on the streets of Malmo with violence escalating
as the evening wore on….The demonstration was connected to an incident earlier
in the day in which protesters burned a copy of the Islamic holy book,”
according to police spokesman Rickard Lundqvist.
The
Danish politician Rasmus Paludan, who has burned the Qur’an before, was
planning to go to Malmo to speak at the event, but Swedish authorities moved
quickly to prevent that, barring him from entering Sweden until at least 2022.
Apparently Paludan entered Sweden anyway, as AFP notes that he “was later
arrested near Malmo.”
Malmo
Police spokesman Calle Persson explained: “We suspect that he was going to
break the law in Sweden. There was also a risk that his behaviour would pose a
threat to society.” Police also swooped into the Qur’an-burning rally and
arrested three people there for “inciting racial hatred.”
Paludan
was, understandably, disgusted by all this, and pointed out, quite correctly,
that there was a glaring official double standard at play. “Sent back and
banned from Sweden for two years,” he wrote on Facebook (where he is,
apparently, not banned yet, but that is certainly coming given the social media
giant’s repeatedly affirmed commitment to enforcing Sharia blasphemy laws under
the spurious guise of “hate speech”). “However,” Paludin added, “rapists and
murderers are always welcome!” he wrote.
Yes,
that’s quite right. Swedish authorities have made it clear who they think is
the real threat: not criminal Muslim migrants, but those who dare offend them.
I’m not in favor of burning the Qur’an. I believe people should read it and understand its contents rather
than burn it. But in a free society, book-burning is not or should not be
illegal. It is part of the freedom of expression; we may dislike it, but to
outlaw it would restrict the freedom of expression in ways that would have
negative consequences for society in other ways: the group that was prevented
by law from being criticized or insulted, including having its holy book burned,
would be free from all restraints and able to work its will unchallenged and
unopposed.
If
Rasmus Paludin had intended to travel to Sweden to burn a Bible, would anyone
have cared? Would he have been banned from the country or arrested? When that
police spokesman, Calle Persson, said “We suspect that he was going to break
the law in Sweden,” to what law was he referring? Is burning a Qur’an against
the law in Sweden? Is Sweden under Sharia now?
And
when Persson added that “there was also a risk that his behaviour would pose a
threat to society,” note that this is the same sleight-of-hand British
officials employed when they banned Pamela Geller and me from entering that
country. Just as in our case, Paludin does not actually pose a threat to
society. The people who were going to react violently and irrationally to his
behavior pose a threat to society, and the Swedes lack the will to act against
them, so they act against Paludin instead.
And
now Muslims are rioting despite the Swedish authorities’ best efforts to
prevent it from happening. The police did not burn the Qur’an, but they’re the
ones getting stones thrown at them. The property destroyed and people injured
in the riots likely had nothing to do with the people responsible for the
Qur’an burning, but that is the deadly illogic of riots everywhere. We’re
seeing the same thing now all over the United States.
The
rioters were, of course, screaming “Allahu akbar.” For them, Allah is
greater than the gods of Sweden, be they the God of Christianity, or the gods
of secularism, hedonism, the welfare state, what have you. Will Sweden
acquiesce to their declarations of superiority and supremacism? Does it, at
this late date, have the will not to do so?
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad
Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to
Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His
latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An
America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute
Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like
him on Facebook here.
Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now
My interview with scholar, activist, author, and “heretic” Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
[Pre-order Ayaan Hirsi Ali's new book, 'Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights': HERE.]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalian-born, Dutch-American scholar, former politician, author and activist, is also one of the world’s leading public intellectuals. She is known for her critiques of Islam, and her intransigent devotion to freedom of speech. She is the author of numerous books. Her latest is Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.
Hirsi Ali is also a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the founder of the AHA Foundation which is a non-profit organization for the defense of women’s rights. The organization fights against female genital mutilation and forced marriages.
Hirsi Ali’s life is proof that grit, tenacity and an exalted vision for one’s life can result in the achievement of greatness. Born in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1969 and raised as a devout Muslim before later leaving the religion, Hirsi Ali spent her childhood among her birthplace, Saudi Arabia and Kenya where she learned English. She fled Kenya for Germany pending an arranged marriage she had no choice in formulating. Alone, but armed with a heroic spirit and a belief in life’s better possibilities, she quietly boarded a train from Bonn to Amsterdam. There, she ended up in a refugee camp, was granted asylum, and worked for a while cleaning factories. Hirsi Ali learned and mastered Dutch from scratch within a year. She eventually earned a university degree in political science and, at age 33, was elected to the Dutch parliament.
She fled Holland after receiving death threats for working on the film Submission with Theo Van Gogh, who was shot eight times and murdered by a 26-year-old Dutch Moroccan Islamist terrorist.
In Heretic, Hirsi Ali makes several uncompromising statements about Islam. She writes that violence is inherent in Islam, and that Islam is not a religion of peace. She submits that this does not mean that Islamic belief makes Muslims naturally violent. Rather, the call to violence and the justification for it are explicitly stated in the sacred texts of Islam. Hirsi Ali argues that this theologically sanctioned violence is there to be activated by a number of offenses including but not limited to apostasy, adultery, blasphemy and threats to the honor of family and Islam itself.
A dignified human being with a rarefied mind, and possessed of an almost preternatural calmness, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, while preparing for the publication of her new book Prey, granted me the pleasure of this interview.
Jason Hill: Ayaan, thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. It has been an intellectually exhilarating experience to re-read your books, but on the fifth anniversary of HERETIC: WHY ISLAM NEEDS A REFORMATION NOW, I must ask: how optimistic are you about that reformation today in 2020 as you were in 2015 when the book was published?
Hirsi Ali: Since 2015, I have been heartened by the efforts of individuals such as Elham Manea, Seyran Ateş, Asra Nomani, Yahya Cholil Staquf, and many others—think of Abdullahi an-Na’im-- to reform Islam. These “reform” Muslims are diverse.
Some are what you would call “religious figures” who were formally trained in religious matters, such as Yahya Cholil Staquf or Abdullahi an-Na’im. Others are authors and intellectuals with a deep knowledge base who are not formal religious figures.
As such, these “reform” Muslims defy easy categorization: some are more progressive, others more conservative. On foreign policy, too, they differ.
What unites them is the recognition that traditional Shariah law simply cannot go unreformed. It has to be fundamentally—no pun intended—reformed. The Qur’an, and in particular the political and military activities of Islam’s formative Medina period, and the activities of the Prophet Mohammed, all have to be put in a historical context.
There is an excellent new book out by Krithika Varagur titled The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project. The book describes the tens of billions of dollars and countless man-hours that have gone into disseminating the Wahhabi/Salafi (and there are differences between these two) strands of Islam across the globe over the past five decades or so. Although the subject matter of tracking funding flows is opaque, today it appears the Saudis have begun scaling back this effort a bit as the Saudi Crown Prince (MBS) is seeking some kind of religious moderation in order to help Saudi Arabia modernize more generally.
Can you ask yourself: what if reformist and humanist Muslims today could benefit from the same scale and scope of support that extremists have over the past five decades? What could be accomplished if reformers, humanist and dissident Muslims were supported in terms of organization, infrastructure, steady funding?
If reformers could reach out to young Muslims who are targeted by extremist preachers? We—the Western world— cannot hope to defeat extremism by weapons. We need to counter the ideology that creates the violence. The Yemeni-Swiss political scientist Elham Manea has a good book on this very topic that will be released in English shortly.
Disappointingly, one of the main impediments to this reform effort is the “woke” assertion, widely prevalent, in the West that Islam needs no reforms and that raising the issue of Islamism is “Islamophobic.” When, at the time Heretic was published, I encouraged the U.S. to engage in the battle of ideas, one expert scoffed that “funding Muslim reformers is not the solution.”
I suppose we should let reformers twist in the wind? Of course, I acknowledge that Islam can only be reformed by Muslims—whether they live in the West or in other parts of the world—but reform Muslims need all the support they can get given the threats, the lack of support and the ostracization they face. They face a difficult, steep climb.
In many ways, the purse strings of American and European grant-making foundations that could make a difference remain tied today. Many Western donors and grant-making foundations are extremely uncomfortable wading into religious issues, even though the battle against Islamism is the battle that will define the future of the Islamic world and our relationship with them.
To answer your question: I am optimistic in the sense that there are many Muslims who support reforms and are seeking a better path, but pessimistic that there is little support for them.
My optimism is tempered by a concern we are letting a great opportunity go to waste. Remember also that today, considerable numbers of Muslims in the Arab world appear to be leaving the faith entirely as religious extremism has left them profoundly shaken and disillusioned.
HILL: You gave some pretty chilling statistics regarding the beliefs of Muslims in your book. Three-quarters of Pakistanis and more than two-fifths of Bangladeshis and Iraqis think that those who leave Islam should suffer the death penalty. At the time of your writing, two-fifths of Muslim immigrants between then and 2030 will be from those countries. What do you say to hardliners who would say such people could be regarded as national security threats given their reluctance to also assimilate to Western values? With the infusion of such illiberal traditions and beliefs inside our republic, should we not have a moratorium on immigration vis-à-vis immigrants from those countries?
Ali: A general moratorium on immigration is in some ways an admission of defeat: that we are not capable, with all our resources, to determine who is suitable to enter the United States.
A total moratorium is also not fair in an ethical sense. Think of the many Afghan interpreters who risked their lives to help U.S. forces in Afghanistan under harrowing circumstances with the steady risk of Islamist violence. It’s not moral to just leave them behind. They’ve taken real risks for American troops.
I do favor a far more selective immigration policy, for the U.S. and other Western countries in the face of Islamism. It should not be enough to come from an economically disadvantaged part of the world to be admitted.
There are two key questions that tend to be missing in the current immigration debate in Europe and the United States:
- How many immigrants can the host society successfully assimilate without becoming fractured, that is to say, without its social cohesion being jeopardized?
- Which immigrants have the best prospects of assimilating and becoming productive members of the host society?
Right now, these questions are rarely a meaningful part of domestic immigration laws. In answering these two questions, Western countries can certainly continue to receive refugees from the poorest parts of the world, but values and cultural differences have to be considered. Who is best able to assimilate?
Under no circumstance should Western countries let in people with Islamist views who seek to establish a parallel society. This is not in the interest of women’s rights, of the open society, of religious and sexual minorities. It’s not xenophobic to refuse entry to Islamists.
Certainly, people can lie about their convictions and their worldview. But there are some indicators of where people’s loyalties lie. We have to dare to ask these questions of prospective immigrants, even of asylum seekers and refugees, and do our best to ascertain how successful an admitted immigrant is likely to be.
It is not so much “success” in the financial sense I am concerned with, but successful in the sense of becoming a productive member of society, a person who shares the values of the host society and lives in harmony with this society. Those immigrants who do not share a commitment to pluralism, to the free society, to fully respecting women in the public sphere—I do not think such immigrants should be admitted, even if they happen to be “refugees” fleeing a conflict.
Thinking about it in this way would mark a considerable change in immigration policy in many Western countries, which at the moment tends to be quite legalistic rather than value-focused. It has to be said that many legal frameworks surrounding refugee policy are not suitable to the present era and are in need of revision.
Being discerning in terms of deciding who to admit does not mean leaving people in war zones to fend for themselves, by the way. One can do both while upholding humanitarian principles. It’s a matter of policy choices, of being sensible and lucid.
HILL: How dangerous a threat is political Islam to America? Also, more particularly, how worried are you about the likelihood of, say, as we find in parts of Europe where some Islamic communities are governed by Sharia law, that the same thing could happen here in the United States?
Ali: To begin, let me address your first question. Political Islam is a considerable threat to America because Islamists control much of the “official” infrastructure for American Muslims. Islamists purport to speak for all American Muslims, in the sense of saying to policymakers: if you want to do anything related to, say, extremists, then you have to somehow go through us, and then we will decide what happens. You’d better not upset us either, because then your “connection” to Muslims will somehow “disappear” It’s a bit like the fox guarding the henhouse.
These are groups such as CAIR with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist ideology, that are not recognized as such by many U.S. policymakers. The U.S. government has made many errors in judgment with regard to such outreach partners. I cannot say it often enough: officials tend to be focused on violent groups, but have done little to address groups that foster the ideology that paves the way for future violence.
For about two decades there have been a lot of fairly senior “mid-level” officials in various U.S. agencies who do not appear to fully grasp the nettle with regard to Islamism in the United States. There have been a lot of mistakes made since 9/11.
In the prior Administration, Islamist lobbying groups successfully insisted on changing training materials pertaining to radical Islam, and counter-terrorism trainers and lecturers employed by U.S. intelligence agencies were fired for accurately describing the nature of the threat. We have not yet fixed that damage, certainly not at the level of career officials.
The current Trump Administration is complex. There is not always policy synchronization on this issue. I know, for instance, that Secretary Pompeo does understand the strategic challenge posed by ostensibly “non-violent” Islamism. With other officials, it depends. Within the FBI, it depends. Within the CIA, it depends. There is “wokeism” even in those agencies.
At the top level, the promised “commission on radical Islam which will include reformist voices in the Muslim community,” for instance, has still not materialized. I am not sure if that is a lack of interest from the top or a matter of other issues appearing more urgent.
With regard to your second question on Shariah law and “parallel” communities, I continue to receive requests for help from Muslim women in serious distress through my work with the AHA Foundation. We know that there are radical Imams in American who are committed to a type of separatism, hailing from various backgrounds. We know that FGM in America is sometimes justified in the name of religion, and that the legal system in America is not able to meet this challenge, as a recent ruling in Michigan has shown. We know that forced marriages take place in the United States.
Yes, I am deeply concerned about this. Women’s rights advocates have to engage. Those committed to the open society, to pluralism, have to engage to counteract this type of separatism. Out of a reluctance to engage in “stigmatization,” many of these human rights issues pertaining to American Muslims do not really attract the attention of journalists. That, too, has to change.
HILL: What are your thoughts on President Trump's travel ban?
Ali: The initial “travel ban” was, as I said at the time, clumsy. I thought that it was simultaneously far too broad and yet too narrow in terms of its purported focus.
The third iteration of the “travel ban,” the one that was upheld by the Supreme Court, was in that sense considerably better in terms of its focus. It simply stated that there are some countries, nationals of whom cannot (yet) be adequately vetted. It also established clearly that the U.S. government had to regain a measure of control over what had become a porous immigration process.
As someone who comes from an immigrant background and grew up Muslim, I would say that the diversity of the human condition has to be respected. Among Muslims there are humanists, moderates, dissidents and, of course, ex-Muslims. “Muslims” as human beings should not be defined primarily by their religious identity.
At the same time, as someone who is intimately aware of the nature of radical Islam, we have to be clear-eyed about the risks of letting in people without proper vetting and scrutiny. We cannot maintain, against hope, that every Muslim will assimilate to the open society in America. We have to be discerning without being hostile.
It is a matter of developing a much savvier immigration policy—what works best for the benefit of all those involved — rather than a strictly legalistic one where issues of social values and social cohesion are almost an afterthought, where it is a matter of jumping through legal hurdles and exceptions to “win” an immigration authorization or residency.
My hope is that the policy with regard to Islamism and immigration will continue to improve regardless of who wins the elections in November. I am deeply concerned that “wokeism,” identity politics or political correctness—however you refer to it—that these ideologies will hobble public policy in this regard.
Hill: And, finally: a personal question: What brings you joy and vitality in this world? Are you an optimist by temperament?
Ali: By temperament, I would say that I am an optimist. There is a resilience in the philosophy of liberalism and a strength in our institutions. They are currently being tested but American values are strong and I remain optimistic about our future. My friends and family are the main drivers of this hope. They bring me joy and happiness.
Jason D. Hill is professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago, and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His areas of specialization include ethics, social and political philosophy, American foreign policy and American politics. He is the author of several books, including “We Have Overcome: An Immigrant’s Letter to the American People” (Bombardier Books/Post Hill Press). Follow him on Twitter @JasonDhill6.
Video: Revealed - Obama’s Betrayal of SEAL Team Six
The new startling revelations.
Subscribe to the Glazov Gang‘s YouTube Channel and follow us on Instagram: @JamieGlazov, Parler: @JamieGlazov and Twitter: @JamieGlazov.
With the new startling revelations now surfacing about the true fate of SEAL Team Six, Frontpage Mag editors have deemed it vital to run the special Glazov Gang episode in which Clare Lopez discusses Revealed: Obama’s Betrayal of SEAL Team Six.
Don’t miss it!
And make sure to watch our 3-Part-Special with Clare on Osama’s Post-9/11 Safe Haven in Iran, how 9/11 Came From Riyadh & Tehran and Helping Saudis Slip Away.
[I] Osama’s Post-9/11 Safe Haven in Iran.
[2] 9/11 Came From Riyadh & Tehran.
[3] Helping Saudis Slip Away.
Subscribe to the Glazov Gang‘s YouTube Channel and follow us on Instagram: @JamieGlazov, Parler: @JamieGlazov and Twitter: @JamieGlazov.
Saudi Slavery
An Islamically-sanctioned barbarity continues.
November 8, 2019
Hugh Fitzgerald
As is well known, slavery was formally abolished in Saudi Arabia as late as 1962, and then only after terrific pressure had been applied to the Saudis by Western governments. And today, when we speak of slavery in the Muslim world, we think of Mauritania (with 600,000 slaves), as the report in the past hour discussed, Niger (600,000 slaves), Mali (200,000 slaves), and Libya (where slave markets have opened in nine sites during the last two years). Most of us assume that in Saudi Arabia, slavery is no longer tolerated.
But most of us are wrong.
Slavery may have been formally abolished, but the cruel and savage treatment of foreign domestic workers, their inability to free themselves from arduous work conditions because their employers keep their passports and other documents, amount to slavery in all but name.
A report on one group of domestic slaves — Vietnamese women — by reporter Yen Duong, who interviewed former workers who had made it back to Vietnam, was published last year in Al Jazeera here:
Overworked, abused, hungry: Vietnamese domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.
Women say they are forced to work at least 18 hours a day, denied food, assaulted and refused the right to return home.
Pham Thi Dao, 46, says she worked more than 18 hours a day and was given the same one meal to live on – a slice of lamb and plain rice.
Dao, 46, was a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia for more than seven months until she returned to Vietnam in April.
“I worked from 5am until 1am in the morning, and was allowed to eat once at 1pm,” Dao told Al Jazeera of her experience in the port city of Yanbu. “It was the same every day – a slice of lamb and a plate of plain rice. After nearly two months, I was like a mad person.”
According to statistics from Vietnam’s labor ministry, there are currently 20,000 Vietnamese workers in the kingdom, with nearly 7,000 working as domestic staff for Saudi families…
The same harsh conditions which Vietnamese have endured have also been reported by the Filipino, Indonesian, and Sri Lankan workers, in Saudi Arabia. And they have also been endured by domestic workers in the the Emirates and Kuwait. In addition to the harsh working conditions, there is the persistent threat of sexual assault by their Arab masters. Some domestic workers have been raped and murdered by their Arab employers. Yet it has been almost impossible to bring employers to justice for such crimes.
Some who escaped have recounted slave-like working and living conditions.
“I understand that as [domestic] workers we need to get used to difficult working conditions,” said Dao, who is vocal on social media about her experience. “We didn’t ask for much, just no starvation, no beatings, and three meals per day. If we had that, we would not have begged for rescue.”…
“As soon as I arrived at the airport in Riyadh, they (employees from a Saudi company providing domestic workers) pushed me into a room with more than a hundred of others,” she said. “When my employer picked me up later, he took my passport and employment contract. Most women I’ve talked to here experience the same thing.”
By seizing the workers’ passports, the Saudi employers have complete control over them. They cannot leave the country, nor move about inside Saudi Arabia, nor go to work for another employer. And if they don’t have their employment contract, which has been seized by their employer, they have no way of knowing if the onerous conditions they endure violate the contract’s provisions. They are captives of their employer in every sense.
Like Dao, she said she was given one meal a day and worked 18-hour shifts.
Another domestic worker, who requested anonymity, showed Al Jazeera her contract stipulating a nine-hour working day – a standard given the contracts are composed by Vietnam’s labour ministry.
Dao shows notes from the Arabic lesson she took before her trip. Vietnamese domestic workers are entitled to classes on language, skills and culture but the sessions are poorly executed, say the workers.
When Linh asked to be moved to another family – a workers’ right according to their contracts – staff at the Vietnamese broker company shouted at her and tried to intimidate her.
She went on a hunger strike for three days until her employer agreed to take her back to the Saudi company…
Leaving an employment contract carries a hefty fine, plus the price of a ticket back to Vietnam, if the worker is unable to prove abuse at the hands of their employers.
The cost of quitting is usually between $2,500 and $3,500.
If workers get, at best, $388 per month, that means that if they manage to persuade their employer to give them back their passports and to let them leave, they will still have to come up with between seven and nine months of salary that must be paid back. And that assumes that they will be paid the highest amount ($388/month) and will have all other expenses, during that period of seven-to-nine months, paid by their employer.
Tuyet told her partner in Vietnam by phone that she is being abused by the family she works for in Riyadh.
Bui Van Sang’s partner, Tuyet, works in Riyadh.
He said she is being beaten and starved.
The Vietnamese broker company asked him for $2,155 for her return, but refused to put anything in writing, he claimed.
Her phone has been taken away and Sang is only able to contact her every two to three weeks, “when her employer feels like [allowing her]”.
These domestic workers are totally at the mercy of their Arab employers. They cannot even contact anyone in the outside world unless the employer “feels like [allowing her].” They are, essentially, prisoners whose brutal living and working conditions are set by the employer, who answers to no one. That constitutes slavery, whether or not it is called by that name.
By the time he had raised the $2,155, the Vietnamese broker company demanded double the payment, he said.
He travelled 1,500km from his southern Vietnamese home province of Tay Ninh to the capital, Hanoi, to beg the broker, but was turned away….
The Vietnamese brokers are akin to slave traders. They round up the “slaves” (domestic workers), hold out the promise of decent work and pay which, once those they traffic in arrive in Saudi Arabia, is simply ignored. The slaves have been delivered, the brokers paid by the Saudi employers, and the living conditions, of 18-hour days, with one meal a day, are now the norm. For beatings and sexual assaults, there is no recourse for these Vietnamese domestics. Meanwhile, Saudi employers hold onto those passports without which these workers cannot leave the country.
There are no independent organisations in either Saudi Arabia or Vietnam which ensure the safety of domestic workers.
In the past few years, reports of abuse have prompted Saudi authorities to suggest amendments to existing labor regulations, but rights groups say they fall short.
Whatever regulations are talked about, Saudi employers still do pretty much what they want in setting the conditions of work for domestic helpers.
Workers and their relatives have to rely entirely on the Vietnamese broker companies for support.
Linh, the domestic helper in Riyadh, said when she contacted the Vietnamese company that brought her there, they told her the employment contract is only valid in Vietnam, not in Saudi Arabia.
In other words, the Vietnamese brokers, having been paid by the Saudi employers, have washed their hands of the Vietnamese workers sent to Saudi Arabia. The employment contracts on which these domestic workers were relying are, they now admit, worthless in Saudi Arabia. These women have no guarantee of any rights; whatever their Saudi employer wishes to impose is what they must accept. Hence the 18-hour days, seven days a week, and the single meal each day. How is this not akin to slavery?
“They [the Vietnamese companies] are supposed to protect our rights, but all they do is yell at us,” Linh said by phone. “Now I just want to leave the country. If I go to the police, at least they’d bring me to the detention centre, and I’d be deported and allowed to leave.”
She recently livestreamed a video detailing the treatment that she and many fellow Vietnamese domestic helpers face while working in Saudi Arabia.
The video has been viewed 113,000 times.
“Many women I know here just want the same thing – they just want to leave,” she said. “But they are afraid, threatened, and don’t even dare to speak out.”
Their fear is palpable. If they complain of their working conditions, will they be beaten by their employers? Will they be given even more unpleasant or difficult tasks? Will the 18-hour day become a 20-hour day, as one Vietnamese man reported his wife had had to endure, that is with only four hours of sleep allowed? Will even the one slice of meat they are now given be reduced still further, or will they perhaps not be given meat at all? Will they no longer be allowed to call home even twice a month? Not all Saudi employers are simon-legrees, but a great many appear to be. The point is that domestic workers ought to have rights enshrined in the Saudi law, but they do not. And the conditions which they endure are scarcely distinguishable from slavery.
The Saudis are not alone in such mistreatment of their domestic workers. The Kuwaitis and the Emiratis have been difficult masters, too, but the conditions of domestic workers appear to be especially harsh in Saudi Arabia. The mentality that lies behind this mistreatment rests on two things. First, there is the deep belief that slavery is legitimate, given that Muhammad himself owned slaves, and does not become illegitimate in Islamic societies just because Western pressure has led to its formal prohibition. The slave-owner mentality remains. Second, these domestic workers — Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Indonesian, Sri Lankan — are almost all non-Muslims, and the treatment they receive is commensurate with their description in the Qur’an, as being “the most vile of creatures.” It would be interesting to compare the working conditions of the non-Muslim domestic workers in Saudi Arabia with those who, from Indonesia, are themselves Muslim. But that’s a subject for another occasion.
South Florida ‘ISIS’ Imam: 'Jews Behind All Corruption in the Earth'
Fadi Kablawi spews venom against Jews, Hindus, Christians, gays and fellow Muslims.
Joe Kaufman, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative and the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Republican Nominee for U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).
Fadi Kablawi (Qablawi), head imam of the North Miami Islamic Center (NMIC) and FBI ‘person of interest,’ is a radical Muslim’s radical. His targets comprise of Jews, Christians, homosexuals, women, Hindus and Muslims, even his fellow radical Muslims. This past July, he made the claim that Jews are behind all the corruption on Earth. He did so, during one of his Friday khutbas (sermons), in front of his congregation, which includes young and impressionable children. At times, he draws large crowds. Will Kablawi’s dangerous rhetoric drive one or more of his followers to commit acts of violence? Has it already?
Fadi Yousef Kablawi, a.k.a. Abu Ubeidah, was born in Amman, Jordan, in 1978. At the age of 17, he moved to the US with his family. After finishing high school, Kablawi attended Florida International University (FIU) for his undergraduate studies and completed his doctoral degree in dental medicine, at the University of Pennsylvania, in 2005. Working alongside his wife, he had a thriving Miami dentistry, until August 2017, when he was arrested for allegedly using his business to overcharge his patients and commit Medicaid fraud. A video news report depicts a somber Kablawi handcuffed and sporting an orange jumpsuit, standing in front of Bond Court judge, Mindy Glazer, who happens to be Jewish.
Incorporated in September 2010, the North Miami Islamic Center (NMIC), a.k.a. Masjid As Sunnah An Nabawiyyah, is the brainchild of Kablawi. In fact, the mosque’s colorful logo bears the name of Kablawi’s former corporation, al-Tayyib, which is as well the mosque’s website address, altayyib.com. A children’s school, Reviver Academy, shares the identical North Miami location of the mosque. According to Kablawi, he created the school in order to provide a pure and unfiltered form of Islam for the kids. Photos and video footage from the school show the children using the same area of the mosque where Kablawi emits his hate speech.
Kablawi is an equal opportunity offender, attacking all faiths, including his own, though Jews are by far his primary target. Last month, he told his congregants, “[A Muslim] doesn’t associate his behavior with an iman (faith). The Jews are different. They will use the iman, which is ‘We’re Jews,’ to justify every heinous thing they do.” Also last month, he stated, “You will find the most enemies to the believers are the Jews.” This past July, Kablawi told his congregation the following about Jews: “Look at the façade and the corruption in the Earth, today. You’ll find them behind it, in everything.”
Kablawi is not happy that some of his fellow Muslims are making peace with Israel. On September 15th, at the White House, historic peace agreements were signed between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE. On October 2nd, Kablawi told his audience, “Anything you sign as peace is nothing but selling out, is nothing but cowardice, is nothing but humiliation, is nothing but debasement.” On September 20th, he stated, “If anybody who brings this issue up… tell them brotherhood is stronger than cousinhood. When they abuse and kill our brothers… the Muslims in Palestine are brothers not cousins, and when my cousin kills my brother I will kill my cousin.”
Kablawi is also not friendly towards Muslims who side with Hindus wishing to resettle in the Indian state of Kashmir, following years of terror and dispossession at the hands of Islamists. In August 2019, he tweeted his own mini fatwa (religious ruling), stating, “Whoever allies himself, celebrates and honors the Hindus for what they have done to Muslims in Kashmir is an apostate, out of the fold of the religion of Muhammad…”
Kablawi likes vilifying Christians, too. Last month, he told his congregants, “[T]he Christians don’t think. They just follow whatever.” He said that Christians have a “hallucinating imagination.” He called Christianity “fake.” In January 2019, he told his congregation, “The Christian religion makes no sense… If you look at all the religions in the world, Christianity can compete for first place in stupidity.” This past July he stated, “Someone might ask, ‘Why are there a lot of Christians?’ There are lots of Christians, because their fitra (state of purity/innocence) got corrupted.”
Kablawi also hates gays with a passion. Last month, he railed against gay rights. He stated to his audience, “20 years or 30 years ago, talking to someone about the rights of homosexuals – crazy! God knows what there will be tomorrow… Maybe the straight ones will be the gay ones. We will be looked at as abnormal.” He referred to gays as “Sodomites.” In March 2019, Kablawi bizarrely attacked gays and Christians together, tweeting, “After long research, I think I finally discovered the virus responsible for LGBTQ disease… It is called the Church virus; most dangerous mutation of such virus is the Catholic one.” Kablawi has even attacked Islamist favorite Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and a leader from CAIR for cavorting with LGBT.
And when it comes to jihad, for Kablawi, there is only one primary meaning, and that is holy war. In July, he said, “[J]ihad is when you put your life on the line. Not the cute jihad, as they call everything ‘jihad’ today. A brother sent me a message, ‘This is the Real Jihad’… about coronavirus. This kid somewhere in Falastin. They stopped him from seeing his mother, at the hospital, who was infected with the virus. He would climb, every night, the walls of the hospital and sit next to the room of his mother… May Allah reward him for being righteous and dutiful to his mother. But that’s not the real jihad. Real jihad is not climbing walls. Real jihad is climbing over people’s necks and heads and skulls.”
This past July, hundreds of mosque goers packed Kablawi’s NMIC, as Kablawi stood in front leading prayers. No doubt, his type of no frills Islamic fundamentalism has attracted a significant segment of the Muslim community. One must therefore question how much of Kablawi’s extreme and bigoted rhetoric has his congregants taken to heart, and are they willing to act on it, meaning violently? One of his followers, Salman Rashid, this past December, was charged with soliciting ISIS to murder the deans of two South Florida colleges. And according to Kablawi, he himself is considered by the FBI to be a member of ISIS.
Fadi Kablawi is a danger and threat to society. The message that he sends to his congregation and all who watch and share his videos is one of hatred and violence. Kablawi believes that he is teaching the Islamic religion in the proper manner – one that is unfiltered and unapologetic – and that may very well be so. However, what Kablawi is doing, as well, is inspiring his followers and congregants, including very young and impressionable children, to retain this hatred and to potentially carry out the same type of jihad that Kablawi lauds and embraces.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
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