An Ex-Muslim Examines the Dilemma of Raising Children in Islam
The inhumane dictates of Islamic theology.
I would like to clarify at the outset that it is the evils of Islam theology, and not necessarily the individual character of Muslim parents, that make raising children in Islam such a troublesome matter.
Muslim individuals, including parents, can be either good or bad human beings. It is the extent to which a person adheres to the many inhumane dictates of Islamic theology that determine whether a person is respectable or not. I personally wish Muslims well, despite my deep antipathy towards Mohammedanism.
Speaking as a former Muslim who is repulsed by the depredations of Islamic theology, I assert that it is a great misfortune to be born into Islam and a great shame for parents to raise children in Islam. The reader may ask, What are the depredations of Islamic theology? In previous articles found HERE, I address Islam’s sanctioning of spousal abuse, its deadly homophobia, its death penalty for apostasy, etc.
There is arguably no greater parental responsibility than that of raising a child with a humane belief system. In fact, it would be far better to raise a child with no particular belief system than to insist that a child adhere to an ethically unsound set of beliefs. And Islam is without doubt a highly unethical ideology.
Furthermore, I would argue that committing one’s life to the practice and promotion of Islam is among the most foolish and self-defeating decisions that a human being can make for themselves and their family. For not only would such a person be practising an untrue, morally abhorrent religion, he or she would essentially be betraying humanity and future generations.
A particularly tragic aspect of raising children in Islam is the intense pressure placed upon Muslims to conform to Islamic rules and traditions. The pressure to obey Islamic dictates is especially concerning as it relates to Muslim girls, when one considers realities such as the permissibility of child marriage (due to the example of Muhammad marrying a six-year-old child and consummating the marriage when the child reached the age of nine (see Sahih Muslim Book 8, Number 3309), the stipulation that a Muslim woman may not marry a non-Muslim man (Quran 2:221), wearing Islamic head and body coverings, and on and on. Girls who refuse to obey such rules face threats of real violence from family members and the Islamic community. Honor killings are all too common within the Islamic community for females who attempt to break from Islamic norms. Brutal Sharia law is well known to be especially strict towards females. Sadly, the Sharia is sourced from the Quran and Muhammad’s Sunnah; therefore, Muslim families essentially enforce an informal version of the Islamic law when punishing those who stray from obedience to Mohammedanism.
Another troublesome aspect of raising children in Islam is the hatred of unbelievers and non-Islamic faith traditions that Islam inculcates in the minds of young persons. This hatred and dehumanizing of unbelievers is crystallized in Qur’anic verses such as those found below, stating that unbelievers are the worst of creatures and Muslim’s the best of peoples:
Qur’an 3:110: You are the best of people that has been raised up for mankind. You command what is right and forbid what is wrong, and you believe in Allah. And if the people of the book had believed, it would have been better for them. Some of them are believers, but most of them are rebellious.
Qur’an 98:6: Indeed, the unbelievers among the people of the book and the idolaters will remain in the fire of Gehenna. They are the most vile of created beings.
Another example of the Islam-inspired hatred that is taught to Muslim children are the Qur’anic passages below aimed at Christians and Jews. Such hateful passages fuel the persecution and bloodshed currently taking place in Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, and elsewhere, where the murder of Christians in particular is commonplace and only increasing. Hatred of unbelievers is the undercurrent of Islam and the foundational reason why young boys and men commit the innumerable jihad attacks we see occurring throughout the world in 2023.
Qur’an 3:28: Let not the believers take unbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoever does that has no connection with Allah unless you are guarding yourselves against them, taking security. Allah bids you to beware of him. To Allah is the journeying.
Qur’an 5:51: O you who believe, do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends of one another. He among you who takes them for friends is of them. Indeed, Allah does not guide wrongdoing people.
Qur’an 9:29: Fight against those do not believe in Allah or the last day, and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth, even if they are among the people of the book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.
The social strife and violent conflict that Islam naturally creates between Muslims and unbelievers is playing out in Europe and UK in dramatic fashion. In the short span of a few decades, hundreds of large no-go zones have developed throughout Europe, where non-Muslims dare not enter for reasons of safety. And it is in this Islamic cultural milieu that Muslim children are raised to distrust and hate the non-Islamic state and its non-Islamic citizens.
The blind obedience and cult-like sway that Islam has over its adherents is profound, due to fear, false promises of heavenly rewards, and community reprisal for leaving Islam or transgressing against Islamic tradition. It should not be underestimated just how firmly Muslim believers will continue to cling to this cruel ideology. For the reasons mentioned above, Muslim parents continue to deny the fact that it is grave injustice to raise children in Islam. The best hope for the world is that Muslim parents find ways to safely leave Islam with their children and then speak out against the harms and falsehoods of the religion.
If Muslims can be made to see the hideous falsehood of Islam, people have a chance at living in relative harmony with one another despite the various challenges that arise over time. Reflecting on my twenty-five years living as an ex-Muslim, I believe the three most harmful and ironic passages in the entire Islamic canon are these:
Qur’an 5:3: This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed my favor to you, and have chosen Islam as the religion for you.
Qur’an: 16:89: And the day when we raise in every nation a witness against them from their own people, and we bring you as a witness against these. And we reveal the book to you as an explanation of all things, and a guidance and a mercy and good news for the Muslims.
33:21: Indeed in the messenger of Allah you have an excellent example for him who looks to Allah and the last day, and remembers Allah a great deal.
Here is a recent statement from a group of Bangladeshi apostates living in the UK, explaining the reasons why they have abandoned Islam:
One who claims to be a messenger of God is expected to live a saintly life. He must not be given to lust, he must not be a sexual pervert, and he must not be a rapist, a highway robber, a war criminal, a mass murderer or an assassin. One who claims to be a messenger of God must have a superior character. He must stand above the vices of the people of his time. Yet Muhammad’s life is that of a gangster godfather. He raided merchant caravans, looted innocent people, massacred entire male populations and enslaved the women and children. He raped the women captured in war after killing their husbands and told his followers that it is okay to have sex with their captives (Qur’an 33:50). He assassinated those who criticized him and executed them when he came to power and became de facto despot of Arabia. Muhammad was bereft of human compassion. He was an obsessed man with his dreams of grandiosity and could not forgive those who stood in his way…
The statement continues:
Muhammad was a narcissist, like Hitler, Saddam or Stalin. He was astute and knew how to manipulate people, but his emotional intelligence was less evolved than that of a 6-year-old child. He simply could not feel the pain of others. He brutally massacred thousands of innocent people and pillaged their wealth. His ambitions were big and as a narcissist he honestly believed he is entitled to do as he pleased and commit all sorts of crimes and his evil deeds are justified.
OMAR Act Would Stop Ilhan From Paying Campaign Cash to Her Hubby
The party of self-righteousness is also the party of corruption.
The party of self-righteousness is also, not surprisingly, the party of corruption. Democrats routinely engage in the most flagrantly corrupt actions, apparently secure in the knowledge that Old Joe Biden’s resolutely corrupt “Justice” Department will not pause its terror investigations of parents protesting at school board meetings long enough to do anything serious in response. Now, however, a Republican congressman has introduced a bill that would change all that. It has no chance whatsoever of becoming law, however, and that in itself is telling.
Fox News reported Friday that Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) has introduced the “Oversight for Members And Relatives (OMAR) Act.” This act derives its name, of course, from the winsome and patriotic Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu), the far-Left media darling who has funneled massive amounts of campaign money to the firm of her latest husband (who is not her brother). The OMAR Act would “prohibit campaign compensation from certain committees from going to candidates’ spouses,” and would “require the disclosure of campaign compensation to candidates’ immediate family members.”
Tiffany explained sensibly: “Regardless of political party, we should all be able to agree that running for political office shouldn’t be part of a family enrichment scheme. Public officials should serve their constituents; they shouldn’t be serving up a plate of campaign cash to their spouse. The OMAR Act will help restore public confidence in Congress and prevent politicians from pocketing their campaign funds.” It’s hard to imagine why any elected representative would be against that. Don’t they want, at the very least, to give the appearance of rectitude? Don’t they want to at least appear to be trustworthy? Or has the corruption and the Democrats’ impunity in these latter days advanced to the point where they don’t even feel the need to look as if they’re behaving uprightly?
A cosponsor of the bill, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), further elucidated the commonsense nature of this initiative when he declared: “Members of Congress should not be able to enrich themselves by paying their spouses with campaign money. It’s crazy this is even legal in the first place.” You can say that again, Mike. “This bill puts an end to this despicable practice and is a common-sense way to restore trust in government and ensure people don’t profit off running for Congress.” Trust in government is at shockingly low levels. One would think our elected officials would want to address that, unless, of course, they don’t feel any need to cultivate that trust anymore.
A third sponsor of the bill, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), added that the “American people want honesty and transparency in campaign finance, and a start to this is ensuring members of Congress don’t funnel campaign money to members of their family. The OMAR Act is a good step in preventing any potential conflicts of interest, such as a Member paying their husband’s consulting firm $2.8 million.”
Yes, Omar did that. “Public officials should always act in the best interest of their constituents, and this bill will help show the American people we’re serious about enforcing this principle.” Yet it has no chance of passing. And why is that? Omar herself, if she addresses it at all, will charge that it’s a racist, sexist, “Islamophobic” endeavor to limit her influence. Her Democrat colleagues will join her in that claim, and any that might have voted for it had it come from one of their own will instead vote against the bill. If it passes the House anyway, it will die in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Fox notes that Omar “dished out millions of dollars from her campaign’s coffers to the E Street Group during the 2020 election cycle.” The E Street Group is her husband Tim Mynett’s political consulting firm. It “raked in half of Omar’s total expenditures, making it the committee’s largest vendor during that election.” Once she started to get some negative publicity over this, Omar “abruptly changed from her once-defiant stance and cut off the cash flow to the E Street group shortly before the 2022 cycle. Now, her campaign pays far less for the same services to various other firms, calling into question the large payments to the E Street Group.” Nonetheless, despite the tacit admission of wrongdoing involved in her cutting off the E Street Group, Omar is certain to oppose Tiffany’s act, and it will not get anywhere, or at least nowhere beyond the House.
Corruption? Pah! The ruling party that indicts its opponents need not worry about such trivial matters.
Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 26 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest books are The Critical Qur’an and The Sumter Gambit. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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CAIR Radical Ramadan Reunion in Tampa
Former and current leaders from the Hamas-related group celebrate the holidays together.
Tampa Bay, Florida has long been a hotbed of radical Muslim activity, and Ramadan is a big draw for the resident extremists and their organizations. On March 31st, a Ramadan iftar (evening break-the-fast meal), held at Tampa’s Petra Middle Eastern Restaurant, brought together some of the city’s most extreme elements, including former and current leaders from the Hamas-linked CAIR and worse. A city council member also participated. The public display of comradery by terror-related Islamists and local officials is both ominous and indicative of the influence Muslim fanatics have in Tampa, and the dangers posed by this must not be ignored.
CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations has its foundation in the terrorist group Hamas. It was established, in June 1994, as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, the US chapter of which was headed by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. Seed money for CAIR came from fellow Palestine Committee outfit, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a charity that would later be shut down by the US government for Hamas fundraising. During HLF’s federal trials, in 2007 and 2008, CAIR would be named a party to the crime by the US Justice Department.
The CAIR figures attending last month’s iftar dinner, titled ‘Tampa Muslims and Friends Iftar,’ are related to CAIR’s Florida chapter. When it comes to terrorism, CAIR-Florida very much emulates its parent organization. A prime example of this was CAIR-Florida’s sponsorship of a pro-Hamas rally that took place in downtown Miami, in July 2014. Rally goers repeatedly chanted “We are Hamas,” “Let’s go Hamas,” and “Hamas kicked your ass.”
The iftar attendees included: former CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hassan Shibly; current CAIR-Florida Executive Director Abdullah Jaber; former CAIR-Florida Communications Director and founder of the CAIR-Florida headquarters in Tampa, Ahmed Bedier; and current CAIR-Florida Policy Manager Hiba Rahim.
For close to a decade, Hassan Shibly has held a leadership position within CAIR-Florida. In 2021, he resigned his job, after his then-wife went public with claims that he emotionally and physically abused her. For years, Shibly’s name was found on the federal ‘terrorism watch list.’ He has defended Hezbollah as “basically a resistance movement.” He has called for female al-Qaeda operative Aafia Siddiqui to be freed from prison. He continues to attempt to get ISIS bride Hoda Muthana, who threatened President Obama’s life, to be let into the US. In 2021, he posted a viciously anti-Semitic video on Instagram, telling Israeli Jews to “go back to Europe.”
Subsequent to the Shibly scandal, Abdullah Jaber, who spoke at the iftar, took over as CAIR-Florida Executive Director. Prior to that, he had been Executive Director of CAIR-Georgia. Shortly following his hire, Jaber spoke at a May 2021 Tampa anti-Israel rally, which took place two days after Israel and Hamas, who had been fighting, agreed to a ceasefire. Much of the world wanted to see a ceasefire to end the death and destruction that was taking place on both sides. Yet, that did not hinder Jaber, who emphatically and callously led the crowd in the chant, “We don’t want a ceasefire.”
Ahmed Bedier’s tenure with CAIR coincided with the trial of Sami al-Arian, a USF professor who created a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) network within the Tampa area. Bedier was al-Arian’s unofficial spokesman in the media. In December 2005, during a TV interview, when asked if he believed al-Arian’s involvement with PIJ was immoral, Bedier infamously stated, “To a certain degree. Now, before 1995, there was nothing immoral about it.” Bedier’s younger brother Amir, who was a big fan of Osama bin Laden, was shot and killed by Egyptian police. Before his death, Bedier labeled him a “hero.” Bedier, like Shibly, has been accused of sexual harassment.
In addition to CAIR operatives, the iftar attendees included a convicted member of PIJ and Sami al-Arian co-conspirator, Hatem Fariz. According to the indictment against the two, Fariz “was a PIJ member” and did “conspire… to commit offenses against the United States… by making and receiving contributions of funds, goods, and services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” Among other things, the indictment discusses how Fariz laughed and made light of a June 2002 PIJ suicide bombing that had just taken place in northern Israel, which ended the lives of 17 people and which his PIJ colleague described to him as being “successful.”
Another speaker at the iftar was Tampa City Council Member Bill Carlson. A photo of Carlson smiling and posing alongside alleged wife beater Hassan Shibly and convicted PIJ member Hatem Fariz was posted by Fariz on his Facebook page. This is the kind of image that could easily be used by future political opponents of Carlson – and justifiably so – to question his ethics and intent.
Those involved with terror-related groups such as CAIR and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are threats to our society. The fact that these entities and their representatives openly operate within our nation’s borders speaks volumes about how lightly officials within our government take the issue of terrorism. Indeed, in the case of this event, a government official was publicly participating and, by doing so, tacitly endorsing and legitimizing our enemy’s agenda. Council Member Carlson should be called out for his bad judgement and issue an apology.
It is high time that America’s elected representatives exercise caution and due diligence when engaging with Islamist groups and their leaders. Failure to do so jeopardizes both national security and has life and death consequences far beyond American shores.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
Joe Kaufman
Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative. He was a 2014, 2016, and 2018 Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).
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Huwaida Arraf – Terror Cheerleader
Profile of a failed Congressional candidate and rabid anti-Semite.
Visit StopAntiSemitism.org.
Huwaida Arraf is a failed Congressional candidate out of Michigan and a rabid antisemite that equates the Jewish nation with Nazi Germany, glorifies and legally defends convicted terrorists, and advocates for violence against Israel. Arraf is also a big supporter of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has been listed as an Advisory Board Member for the pro-BDS group U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) since 2010.
Arraf co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in 2001, which has been linked to terror groups like Hamas, PIJ, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), all of which are designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the U.S. State Department.
Arraf is an outspoken supporter of violence when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
In January 2002, during the second intifada, Arraf authored an article on Palestinian resistance and intifada. In the article, she expresses “the Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics — both nonviolent and violent. But most importantly it must develop a strategy involving both aspects.”
In the same article, Arraf writes, “we accept that Palestinians have a right to resist with arms” and that if prospective Hamas suicide bombers would instead “offer themselves as martyrs by standing on a settler road and blocking it from traffic” that would be “no less of a jihad…no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation” and they would also “be considered shaheed [martyr] Allah.”
Arraf often equates the world’s sole Jewish state to that of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, something deemed antisemitic under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism:
In 2018, Arraf tweeted, “Shame on those who have allowed Israel to turn Gaza into a concentration camp.”
In 2018, Arraf equated the Palestinian Resistance to the Holocaust: “Calling for the freedom of the Palestinian people, of all people, on the walls of the Warsaw ghetto should be applauded, not condemned!”
Arraf also believes the state of Israel has no right to exist, tweeting at then Secretary of State John Kerry, stating “Israel does not have the right to a Jewish state.” Such expressions of erasure are also deemed antisemitic by IHRA.
Arraf, an attorney, boasts convicted terrorists, such as Rasmea Odeh, as clients. In 2016, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) wrote a tweet that Arraf was a “new member of Rasmea Odeh’s defense team” with Arraf expressing her glee, stating it was a privilege to defend Odeh. In 1969, Odeh orchestrated a bombing that killed two Jewish college students shopping in a Jerusalem supermarket. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate.
In 2020, Arraf tweeted her admiration for Leila Khaled, a Palestinian freedom fighter. Arraf included a petition that called Khaled “a powerful, inspiring figure, more than just a freedom fighter, a national icon. Khaled helped hijack two airplanes and claims the second intifada was unsuccessful because not enough Jews were murdered. Khaled compares Zionists to Nazis and advocates for the use of children in military & terror zones.
Despite Huwaida Arraf’s hateful background, earlier this month she was shockingly invited to join a diversity panel at Bloomfield Hills High School, a suburb in Michigan boasting a large Jewish population. Arraf presented four times, to grades 9-12th, and was supposed to discuss how to build empathy within the community; instead, in each presentation, she deviated from the prompts and went on a rampage against Israel and the Jewish people. Faculty members never intervened, allowing her to continue her hate campaign, leaving several Jewish students in tears. The school was forced to apologize but caused further outrage after the principal’s message failed to include Jews or Israel. The superintendent was forced to step in and issue a second apology.
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Glazov Gang: Punishment for Discussing Islam and Child Marriage
Why you shouldn't dare even mention what the Qur'an and Hadiths say.
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This new Glazov Gang episode is hosted by Anni Cyrus and features Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a free-speech champion, author of The Truth is No Defense and host of her own weekly show on EncounterTruth.com.
Elisabeth discusses Punishment for Discussing Islam and Child Marriage, reflecting on Why you shouldn’t dare even mention what the Qur’an and Hadiths say.
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