Jihad Watch

Video thanks to Golem, who writes: "Shia Muslims have been viciously persecuted in Pakistan for decades...Here is a recent article describing this situation." Note that it is from an Iranian Shi'ite source; still, it gives much illuminating information.

Golem adds about the video above: "Here is a brutal example of this situation, a Shia Muslim who survived a prior attack, being gunned down in the hospital."

Reuters doesn't bother to explain why Iran considers Israel its "arch-enemy." This would lead them into a discussion of Islam and Islamic antisemitism, and there's no way they're getting into that. Nor do they tell readers why Egypt's approval of the Sharia constitution would lead to a thaw in relations with Iran, since the peace treaty with Israel is ostensibly still in force. Clearly the Iranians are aware that the Muslim Brotherhood's ascendancy in Egypt and the new constitution mean that the peace with Israel is not long for this world.

"Iran welcomes approval of new constitution in Egypt," from Reuters, December 23:

(Reuters) - Iran welcomed on Sunday initial results that showed the approval of an Islamist-backed constitution in Egypt, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported.

The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi to power in a June election, said an unofficial tally showed 64 percent of voters backed the charter after two rounds of voting that ended with a final ballot on Saturday.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast congratulated the Egyptians on the approval of the constitution, adding that Tehran regarded it as "a decisive step towards democracy" in Egypt, according to ISNA.

Diplomatic relations between Tehran and Cairo broke down after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution over Egypt's support for the overthrown shah and its peace agreement with Iran's arch-enemy Israel.

Since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, there have been signs of warming relations. In August, Mursi made the first visit to Tehran by an Egyptian leader in more than 30 years. The two countries have not officially upgraded ties.

"People's participation (in the referendum) will be a great support for the Egyptian government so that in the future, it can take more steps in achieving the great Islamic and revolutionary goals of the Egyptian people," Mehmanparast added.

The noble Rasheed

And he didn't mean getting in his exercise despite a busy schedule, either. "Alabama terror case could hinge on relationships," by Jay Reeves and Melissa Nelson-Gabriel for the Associated Press, December 23:

MOBILE, Ala. — The terrorism case against an Alabama man accused of planning to wage violent jihad in Africa may hinge on just how well he knew a man on the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list.

Federal prosecutors portrayed Randy Wilson as an Islamic radical who wanted to reunite with Omar Hammami, an American who also grew up in Alabama but has since become one of the most well-known jihadists in Somalia. Wilson and another American who lived in Alabama for the last year, Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair, are accused of plotting to leave the country to join Islamic radicals fighting in North Africa.

The two men were arrested separately about two weeks ago in Georgia. Abukhdair was taken into custody at a bus station; Wilson was arrested as he was about to board a flight to Morocco.

Wilson's attorney has described his client as a devout Muslim who was taking his family to Mauritania to study Islam, not wage jihad. Public defender Domingo Soto also said Wilson didn't live with Hammami, 28, about a decade ago, as the FBI has said, and the attorney questioned how well the two knew each other....

Wilson, 25, has a wife and two young children. He was known around his neighborhood in Mobile, along the Alabama coast, for his big yard sales. He was friendly and outgoing, neighbors said.

Court documents, interviews with acquaintances and a sworn statement by an FBI investigator paint a picture of Wilson's troubled childhood.

Debra Lynn Weaver and Randy Lamar Wilson married in Mobile in 1986 and had Randy Jr. nine months later. Wilson's father was arrested on drug charges in the first of a string of scrapes with the law, and his mother filed for divorce four months later, when he was 1.

Wilson's mother remarried an Egyptian man when he was 5. She converted to Islam with the marriage, and her son eventually became Muslim, too.

Ashfaq Taufique, president of the Birmingham Islamic Society, remembered first meeting Wilson when he was attending an Islamic school.

"I knew him as a Muslim as a young boy," said Taufique. "He went by Randy and Rasheed."

Soto said Wilson has never been in trouble. While attending a Muslim school in Birmingham, he was offered prestigious scholarships to study abroad at places including Saudi Arabia, Soto said.

Hammami was the president of the Muslim Student Association at the University of South Alabama, the FBI said.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he was quoted in a campus newspaper talking about the attacks.

"Everyone was really shocked. Even now it's difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this," he told The Vanguard.

Yep, it's virtually inconceivable that a Muslim would try to "slay the pagans wherever you find them" (Qur'an 9:5) or "strike terror" into the hearts of the unbelievers (3:151).

Hammami later wrote in an online autobiography that he already had turned toward radicalism by that time and privately praised Allah for the attacks....

Agents already were watching Abukhdair and Wilson by then. The FBI said Abukhdair moved in with Wilson's family and gave the Friday sermon at a mosque in Mobile about a year ago.

Leaders at the mosque didn't return telephone calls seeking comment, and a worker shooed away a reporter who visited.

The FBI said it kept tabs on the pair through an undercover operative. Wilson "described Hammami as a friend and showed the (undercover operative) an al-Qaeda video on his laptop praising jihad and the downfall of the West," the FBI said.

Wilson and Abukhdair began concocting ways to travel to Africa to join in jihad, an agent wrote.

Wilson, the FBI said, believed he would receive "special treatment" in Somalia because of his connection with Hammami.

"In addition to travel plans, they discussed their joy that Omar Hammami is now on the FBI 'Most Wanted Terrorists' list, and were excited that he is now even more famous," said the FBI statement.

Wilson lived next door to Tom Rothaar for two years. Rothaar said he was a friendly neighbor and who would have frequent yard sales with items he bought in bulk from big-box retail stores.

Rothaar said he was "staggered" by Wilson's arrest and tried to make sense of it during a 5-mile run.

"I couldn't," Rothaar said. "The only thing I can think is all the typical clichés about how I cannot believe he was living next door and seemed so normal."

Another decent fellow.

...as it looks increasingly as if the rebels are going to work to establish an Islamic state, institutionalizing the subjugation of the Christians.

"Syrian Christians fear bleak future after Assad," by Barbara Surka for the Associated Press, December 23 (thanks to Kenneth):

BEIRUT — With Christmas just days away, 40-year-old Mira begged her parents to flee their hometown of Aleppo, which has become a main battleground in Syria's civil war.

Her parents have refused to join her in Lebanon, but they are taking one simple precaution inside their besieged city. For the first time, Mira says, her parents will not put up a Christmas tree this year for fear that their religion might make them a target.

"They want to stay to guard the property so nobody takes it," said Mira, who spoke to The Associated Press in Lebanon on condition that only her first name be published, out of concern for her family.

"They cannot celebrate Christmas properly. It's not safe. They are in a Christian area, but they don't feel secure to put a tree, even inside their apartment," Mira said.

Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Syria's population of more than 22 million, say they are particularly vulnerable to the violence that has been sweeping the country since March 2011. They are fearful that Syria will become another Iraq, with Christians caught in the crossfire between rival Islamic groups.

Hundreds of thousands of Christians fled Iraq after their community and others were targeted by militants in the chaotic years after dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003.

During the Syria conflict, Christians have largely stuck by President Bashar Assad, in large part because they fear the rising power of Muslim hard-liners and groups with al-Qaida-style ideologies within the uprising against his rule. Many Christians worry they will be marginalized or even targeted if the country's Sunni Muslim majority, which forms the majority of the opposition, takes over.

The rebel leadership has sought to portray itself as inclusive, promising no reprisals if Assad falls. But some actions by fighters on the ground have been less reassuring.

This week, the commander of one rebel brigade threatened to storm two predominantly Christian towns in central Syria — Mahrada and Sqailbiyeh — saying regime forces were using the towns to attack nearby areas.

The commander, Rashid Abul-Fidaa, of the Ansar Brigade in Hama province demanded the towns' residents "evict Assad's gangs" or be attacked.

Christians and other minorities have generally supported Assad's regime in the past because it promoted a secular ideology that was seen as giving minorities a degree of protection.

The regime and ruling elite are dominated by the Alawite sect, itself a minority offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs, but it has brought Christians and other minorities — as well as Sunni Muslims — into senior positions.

Christians have flourished under the Assad regime, which came to power four decades ago under Assad's father, Hafez. The regime divided economic privileges among minorities and certain Sunni families in exchange for giving up political power.

The threat of Islamic extremism resonates deeply in Syria, a country with many ethnic and religious minorities, and the regime has used their worries to try to keep their support. Assad has warned repeatedly that the country's turmoil will throw Syria into chaos, religious extremism and sectarian divisions....

Even for those who support the rebels, the nature of the opposition has caused ripples of apprehension. As the fight to overthrow Assad drags on, the rebels' ranks are becoming dominated by Islamists, raising concerns that the country's potential new rulers will marginalize them or establish an Islamic state.

Al-Qaida-inspired groups have become the most organized fighting units, increasingly leading battles for parts of Aleppo or assaults on military installations outside the city....

Kidnapping infidels and releasing them for ransom is fully sanctioned in Islamic law: "As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, 'When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks' (Qur'an sura 47, verse 4)" — Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance), trans. by Dr. Asadullah Yate, (London), Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 1996, p. 192.

"Islamist group claims Nigeria kidnap of French national," from Radio Netherlands, December 23:

The radical Islamist group Ansaru on Sunday claimed the recent kidnapping of a French citizen in northern Nigeria, citing France's push for military intervention in Mali as a justification.

Ansaru "announces to the world, especially the French government, that it was responsible for the abduction of engineer Francis Colump, 63, working for the French company Vergnet," said a statement emailed to journalists.

Late last Wednesday some 30 gunmen stormed Vergnet's residence in Katsina state, where the alternative energy firm has a wind power project.

"The reason for his kidnap is the stance of the French government and the French people on Islam," said the statement written in Hausa, the dominant language in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north.

The group specifically pointed to "France's major role in the (planned) attack on the Islamic state in northern Mali."

It also cited France's "law outlawing the use of Islamic veil by Muslim women."

Paris has backed plans to deploy a west African force to northern Mali to flush out the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist groups who took control of the vast desert territory earlier this year.

Last year, France passed a law banning the wearing of the full-face veil.

"We inform the French government that this group will continue launching attacks on the French government and French citizens ... as long as it does not change its stance on these two issues," the Ansaru statement said.

Ansaru is less well known than Islamist group Boko Haram, which is waging a deadly insurgency across northern Nigeria that has killed hundreds since 2009. Boko Haram has said it wants to create an Islamic state in the north.

The two groups are known to have ties but are seen as independent.

In November, Britain's interior ministry identified Ansaru as a "Nigeria-based terrorist organisation" and declared membership or support for it illegal.

The group's full name, Jama'atu Ansarul Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan, is roughly translated as "Vanguards for the aid of Muslims in black Africa."

Britain has said the group likely has ties to Al-Qaeda's north Africa franchise, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and may have been responsible for the 2011 kidnapping of a Briton and an Italian in northern Nigeria. Both hostages were killed in March.

French President Francois Hollande on Friday told the Europe 1 radio station that Colump's kidnappers were "probably linked to AQIM or the groups which are today in Mali."

The police chief in Katsina, Abdullahi Magaji, told AFP that there were indications that former or current employees of Vergnet had been involved, arguing that the attack appeared to be "an inside job."...

What? An inside job? "Moderate" employees turned out to be untrustworthy? It's...unprecedented!

Mona in her famous pink coat

"Journalist" Mona Eltahawy, who took pink spray paint to our AFDI pro-freedom ads because they labeled jihadists as "savages," although she had nary a word of complaint when the New York Times and Hillary Clinton also labeled jihadists as "savages," has written a poem in which she obscurely links her fascist vandalism of our ads to the savage sexual assault she endured in Cairo's Tahrir Square, when her assailants, whom she characterized at the time as "beasts," broke her arms.

Be forewarned: the poem is laughably and luridly obscene, calling to mind a twelve-year-old being deliberately naughty and obsessively repeating dirty words she has just learned; it can be found in its entirety here. It is not noteworthy for being horrid poetry, although that it assuredly is; what is striking about it is that this much-lauded pundit and commentator evidently thinks that in both Tahrir Square and the New York subways vandalizing our ad she was standing for freedom. She refers to the vandalism in this passage (in which I have bowdlerized her adolescent obscenities):

Pink is the colour of my spray paint,
Pink is the colour of my p***y,
You want to f**k me in my pink coat.

I don't know who the unfortunate "you" is in the third line, but it most assuredly ain't me, babe. In any case, I have previously praised Eltahawy for speaking out against the Muslim oppression of women, and suggested that she spray-painted our ad in order to get back into the good graces of her Leftist and Muslim friends and colleagues who had harshly criticized her for standing up for Muslim women.

This odd, lurid, embarrassing and barely coherent poem, although it parades in the dress of feminist sexual liberation, is actually another attempt to regain those good graces. For by portraying herself as standing up against both those who "broke my f***king arms" in Tahrir Square and against us who are standing against jihad savagery, Eltahawy is echoing the very common propaganda line that Islamic supremacists are employing today. They claim they are standing against "extremists on both sides," as if committing acts of violent jihad and resisting that violent jihad were two sides of the same coin, and they're standing in the tolerant middle, resisting both "extremisms."

It's an Orwellian sleight of hand, designed to enable the jihad by stigmatizing resistance to it. When Mona Eltahawy took pink spray paint to our ad, she wasn't standing up against any kind of oppression; she was enabling the very same oppression that she had spoken out against earlier. In her poem, when she equates her spray-painting with her getting her arms broken in Tahrir Square, she is enabling that oppression again. Our ads are actually in defense of the freedom she so luridly and obscenely claims for herself in this poem -- and in it, Mona Eltahawy has once again aligned herself with the forces of oppression she professes to oppose.

"This is an Islamic country, and Islam is clear about everything. There is no need for people to voice their opinions about it. And if he truly is an apostate, he should be punished." Again and again we see this: utter certainty about what Islam is all about, enunciated by Muslims in Muslim countries -- and the very same propositions denied by Islamic spokesmen in the West, and those who assert that they're part of Islam denounced as "Islamophobes."

So it in the case of apostasy. Muhammad said: "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Yet Muslim spokesmen such as Harris Zafar, Mustafa Akyol, Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz (among many others) have assured us that Islam doesn't punish apostasy. I expect that Zafar, Akyol, al-Marayati, Bassiouni, and Eteraz will immediately be jetting over to Sana'a to explain to Yemeni authorities that they are getting Islam all wrong, wrong, wrong.

"'Repent or die' in Yemen," by Judith Spiegel for Radio Netherlands, December 21 (thanks to Lachlan):

Ali Ali Qasim Alsaidi felt Yemen and its people were drifting away from Islam as it was meant to be. He wrote his findings – substantiated by Qu’ranic [sic] readings – on Facebook. And he’s now accused of apostasy, facing death penalty. It is early the morning when Ali Ali Qasim Alsaidi (43) drives to the Press and Publications Court in Yemen’s capital Sana’a. Dressed in a brown suit, he steers his old Mercedes through the quiet streets of the city. People here are oblivious to the Kafka-like trial Alsaidi will be facing in an hour or so. “It’s sorry or die”, he says. He means that in order for him to be cleared of the apostasy accusation, he has to repent. But he finds this difficult. “The things I wrote on Facebook were the result of research and are religiously correct”, says Alsaidi. He also felt it was his duty to write them down. Galileo of Yemen

Alsaidi is the general director for budget and planning at the Yemeni Higher Judicial Council Secretariat. It was his colleagues who allegedly reported him to the prosecutor’s office. His lawyer Amin Hajar says that Alsaidi’s colleagues did so because they wanted his job. According to Hajar, “they have turned him into the Galileo of Yemen, only 500 years later.”

“Religion in this country is going this way”, Alsaidi points to the right, “and the people are going that way”, he points to the left. This is what he tried to make clear in his Facebook posts, most of which he published in the spring of 2011, when there was heavy fighting between government troops and the tribesmen of Hameed al Ahmar in the Al Hasaba district.

Taboo on discussing religion

“In this country you can discuss everything except religion”, says Alsaidi. And indeed, there is hardly any subject Yemenis do not discuss daily and at great length during their qat sessions, but religion is hardly ever one of them. “Nobody has read the Qu’ran [sic]. People just listen to all kinds of sheikhs.” In his Facebook posts he emphasises the importance of using reason as a means of finding the truth in religious matters.

For this, Alsaidi now stands trial in the Press and Publications Court. There’s a crowd in front of the entrance to the building, where many of Alsaidi’s family, friends and neighbours have gathered. They all believe in his innocence and are annoyed by the affair. “This country doesn’t know what freedom means, and Islah (Yemen’s equivalent to the Brotherhood) is making it worse”, they say angrily.

Article 259

The specialised Press and Publications Court was established in 2009. Many people believe its sole purpose is to silence Yemen’s few independent media outlets. Apparently it is now also being used to silence bloggers and Facebook users. It is questionable whether this court has the authority to do so, which is one of the arguments Alsaidi’s defence lawyers will be using. But then again, if not this court, there’s probably another one in Yemen.

A more important line of defence is that nothing Alsaidi wrote is against Islam and thus in violation of Article 259 of the Yemeni criminal code which states that “anyone who turns back from or denounces the religion of Islam, will receive the death penalty after being asked to repent three times and after having received a respite of thirty days.’

Eliminating apostates

Alsaidi didn’t denounce religion, argues his defence team. Or as the Yemeni journalist Hind Aleryani wrote in her blog: “there is nothing in Alsaidi’s writings that shows he is an unbeliever.’ Support came from other sources as well. Most of them are afraid that if this case succeeds, the apostasy article might be politically (ab)used to get rid of people.

But the media and lawyers aren’t raising the even more fundamental question, at least from a Western perspective, about whether there may be something wrong with the article itself. What if Alsaidi or anyone else were an unbeliever? Should the state have the right to punish people for denouncing their religion?

Religious conservatives

“Of course”, responds a schoolteacher who lives not far from the court and wishes to remain anonymous. “This is an Islamic country, and Islam is clear about everything. There is no need for people to voice their opinions about it. And if he truly is an apostate, he should be punished.’

Which is exactly what Alsaidi’s family and friends are afraid of. “It is not only the court that could punish Ali. Any crazy person who considers him a kafir [unbeliever] might also decide to kill him”, they say. They stroke their chins, referring to men with beards.

"Repent or die"

Then it is time to go inside the courtroom. The hearing doesn’t take long. Alsaidi’s defence team repeat what they’ve said before: their client should not be here. The prosecutor repeats what he said before: Alsaidi is an apostate. The judge says Alsaidi’s defence team should come up with a better defence, next week, same time, same place.

Back in the car Alsaidi is disappointed. This is not good. “Nothing changed. They are delaying the case because they want me to repent, but how can I? I am afraid I will first lose my job, then my wife [under Yemeni law a Yemeni wife cannot be married to an (alleged) unbeliever] and then my life.”

No big surprise there. But only 32 percent turnout? Is the level of indifference in Egypt really that high, or do most Egyptians figure the Sharia die is cast and there is nothing they can do about it now?

"Egypt Islamists say charter passed in referendum," from AFP, December 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

CAIRO — A majority of Egyptians have backed a controversial new charter in a two-round referendum that deeply polarised the country, ruling Islamists and the official media said on Sunday.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which President Mohamed Morsi hails from, and the official Al-Ahram newspaper reported that about 64 percent of vote cast were in favour of the charter, according to preliminary results from Sunday's second round of voting.

Turnout over both rounds was roughly 32 percent, according to the Muslim Brotherhood figures posted on its Twitter account.

The results are based on reports from returning officials from all but a few stations over the two rounds, which were held a week apart. The election committee will announce the official final results within two days.

The new constitution, drafted by an Islamist-dominated council boycotted by Christians and liberals, is expected to go into effect this week....

"Out of context"? Sheesh. All these years and they still fall back on that tired dodge? Isn't there anyone in the Islamic Supremacist Talking Points Factory who can come up with anything new and more convincing?

"No merriness here: mosque puts fatwa on Christmas," by Natalie O'Brien for the Sydney Morning Herald, December 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

THE Lakemba Mosque has issued a fatwa against Christmas, warning followers it is a ''sin'' to even wish people a Merry Christmas.

The religious ruling, which followed a similar lecture during Friday prayers at Australia's biggest mosque, was posted on its Facebook site on Saturday morning.

The head imam at Lakemba, Sheikh Yahya Safi, had told the congregation during prayers that they should not take part in anything to do with Christmas.

Samir Dandan, the president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, which oversees the mosque, could not be reached for comment on Saturday.

The fatwa, which has sparked widespread community debate and condemnation, warns that the "disbelievers are trying to draw Muslims away from the straight path".

It also says that Christmas Day and associated celebrations are among the "falsehoods that a Muslim should avoid ... and therefore, a Muslim is neither allowed to celebrate the Christmas Day nor is he allowed to congratulate them"....

The fatwa quotes the teacher Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim as saying that congratulating disbelievers for their rituals is forbidden, and if a "Muslim who says this does not become a disbeliever himself, he at least commits a sin as this is the same as congratulating him for his belief in the trinity, which is a greater sin and much more disliked by Almighty Allaah than congratulating him for drinking alcohol or killing a soul or committing fornication or adultery”....

And then: "Christmas wish appears in sky over mosque," from ABC News, December 23:

The Lebanese Muslim Association says it arranged for a Christmas wish to be written in the sky above the country's biggest mosque, in response to reports it had banned Muslims from wishing people a happy Christmas.

Over the weekend, a message appeared on the Facebook page for Lakemba Mosque, saying that Muslims were forbidden from taking part in Christmas traditions or wishing people a merry Christmas.

The entry implied it was a fatwa, or Islamic ruling, and was based on a lecture given at the mosque during Friday prayers.

The Lebanese Muslim Association, which runs the mosque, says the comments were taken out of context and the group harbours no anti-Christmas sentiment.

Samier Dandan from the the Lebanese Muslim Association says a junior staff member of the association copied and pasted text from another website that the mosque had not endorsed.

"From our perspective this is an innocent mistake done by a youth member who's employed by this organisation," he said.

"We are basically not going to apologise for what I perceive to be an innocent mistake, which is not necessarily reflective of the true mindset and belief of this organisation."

This afternoon, the organisation arranged to have the words "Merry Xmas" written in the sky above Lakemba Mosque....

But the earlier report said that "the head imam at Lakemba, Sheikh Yahya Safi, had told the congregation during prayers that they should not take part in anything to do with Christmas." Is Sheikh Yahya Safi a "youth member" and "junior staff member" also?

Today brings still more Qur'anic antisemitism:

And the Jews say, "The hand of Allah is chained." Chained are their hands, and cursed are they for what they say. Rather, both His hands are extended; He spends however He wills. And that which has been revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase many of them in transgression and disbelief. And We have cast among them animosity and hatred until the Day of Resurrection. Every time they kindled the fire of war [against you], Allah extinguished it. And they strive throughout the land [causing] corruption, and Allah does not like corrupters. (Qur'an 5:64)

"The hand of Allah is chained"? It is unclear what Jewish concept, if any, the Qur’an is referring to in this case. Ibn Kathir comments: “Allah states that the Jews, may Allah’s continuous curses descend on them until the Day of Resurrection, describe Him as a miser. Allah is far holier than what they attribute to Him.”

Allah is also absolute will, with hand absolutely unfettered: Allah’s unfettered hand is a vivid image of divine freedom. Such a God can be bound by no laws. Muslim theologians argued during the long controversy with the heretical Islamic Mu‘tazilite sect, which exalted human reason beyond the point that the eventual victors were willing to tolerate, that Allah was free to act as he pleased, even to the extent that he was not bound to govern the universe according to consistent and observable laws. “He cannot be questioned concerning what He does” (Qur’an 21:23).

Accordingly, there was no point to observing the workings of the physical world; there was no reason to expect that any pattern to its workings would be consistent, or even discernible. If Allah could not be counted on to be consistent, why waste time observing the order of things? It could change tomorrow. Stanley Jaki, a Catholic priest and physicist, explains that it was the renowned Sufi thinker al-Ghazali who “denounced natural laws, the very objective of science, as a blasphemous constraint upon the free will of Allah.”

The great twelfth-century Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides explained orthodox Islamic cosmology in similar terms, noting that Islamic thinkers of his day assumed “the possibility that an existing being should be larger or smaller than it really is, or that it should be different in form and position from what it really is; e.g., a man might have the height of a mountain, might have several heads, and fly in the air; or an elephant might be as small as an insect, or an insect as huge as an elephant. This method of admitting possibilities is applied to the whole Universe.”

Relatively early in its history, therefore, science was deprived in the Islamic world of the philosophical foundation it needed in order to flourish. It found that philosophical foundation only in Christian Europe, where it was assumed that God was good and had constructed the universe according to consistent and observable laws. Such an idea would have been for pious Muslims tantamount to saying, “Allah’s hand is fettered.”

This same verse also says that whenever the Jews “kindled the fire of war [against you], Allah extinguished it” That is, says the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, “war against the Prophet(s).” According to Bulandshahri, “The Jews make every effort to instigate wars against the Muslims, but Allah foils their attempts each time, either by instilling terror in their hearts or by their defeat in these battles.” The Jews also “strive to do mischief on earth” – that is, fasaad (فَسَاد) – for which the punishment is specified in Qur'an 5:33: “they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land.”

"Syria: Religious Police Patrol Aleppo’s Countryside," by Basel Dayoub for al-Akhbar, December 19 (thanks to Lachlan):

...Residents of the embattled city, whose main concerns revolve around security and survival, were shocked to hear that opposition groups who control the Aleppan countryside are deploying a vice-and-virtue police to enforce a deeply conservative interpretation of Islamic law.

Again: Islamic law as interpreted by all four Sunni madhahib (schools of jurisprudence) is remarkably similar, agreeing on about 75% of all rulings. There is no "liberal interpretation of Islamic law." There is Islamic law, as in Saudi Arabia, and there is the non-enforcement of Islamic law and application of other legal constructs, as in Turkey (for now). In other words, it isn't as if Turkey is applying a "liberal" form of Sharia. It isn't enforcing Sharia at all. For now.

The opposition insists that the new force is the revolution’s version of a civilian police squad, whose primary purpose is to fight crime, particularly those committed by undisciplined members of the armed factions. In fact, there are those who support its creation for this very reason.

One local resident, for example, argued that “there were a number of transgressions committed by some Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters, and this police force will punish those involved – their door is open to whoever wants to lodge a complaint. We shouldn’t judge them before we’ve tried them.”

Then, rumors began to circulate that such a formation was patrolling the streets of the town of al-Bab in Aleppo’s countryside and herding people into mosques during prayer time and preventing women from driving cars. The opposition quickly denied the news.

They insisted that the picture of a religious police office circulating on the Internet was taken in Saudi Arabia and attributed to the opposition to tarnish its reputation. Regime loyalists responded by taking several pictures of the office from different angles to establish its location.

Then, rumors began to circulate that such a formation was herding people into mosques during prayer time and preventing women from driving cars.

The following day, the so-called Revolutionary Military Council in Aleppo issued a statement banning women from driving. The group also released several video clips showing men of various Arab nationalities patrolling the streets and forcing people to pray....

Samer Othman also defended the creation of such a force, noting that their primary role is “to pursue criminals, thieves, and those who drink alcohol – the focus on preventing women from driving is merely to cover up all these positive aspects.”

Of course!

Still more Muslims succumb to the all too prevalent misunderstanding of Islam that gets the crazy idea that it teaches some kind of violence. Yet no Muslim group anywhere has any program for teaching against this view of Islam. Now, why is that?

"Three Men Appear in Court in Mysterious Terror Case," by Mosi Secret in the New York Times, December 21:

Three men appeared in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Friday on charges that they had trained to be suicide bombers with a Somali terrorist group.

The defendants, Ali Yasin Ahmed, 27, Mahdi Hashi, 23, and Mohamed Yusuf, 29, were arrested in August by authorities in Africa while going to Yemen. They are accused of participating in weapons and explosives training with Al Shabab, a United States-designated terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda, during a four-year period beginning in 2008. Court documents show no connection between the alleged crimes and the United States.

Much of the case is shrouded in mystery. For four months, the case remained under seal, and the court documents unsealed on Friday contained little elaboration on the crimes or any indication of why the case was brought in New York. Even the nationalities of the men were unclear. They appeared in court with the aid of a Swedish interpreter.

The case is not the first brought in New York involving foreigners accused of acts of terrorism abroad. In June, an Eritrean man, Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed, pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Manhattan to conspiring to support Al Shabab. More than 30 defendants have been prosecuted in this country for supporting the group.

Al Shabab is known for a strict Islamist ideology calling for amputations and public stonings for violations of Islamic law....

There we go again with "strict." There is no version of Islamic law that doesn't call for amputations and stonings. Islamic law is by its nature "strict."

They want to make Syria a Sharia state, which means no alcohol or tobacco, or "immoral" movies and TV shows. No one seems to be offering any other vision of Sharia, despite claims in the West that it is so multifarious as to defy easy characterization.

"Jabhat Al Nusra's new Syria," by Balint Szlanko for The National, December 15 (thanks to Lachlan):

The man wearing the balaclava had eyes that never stopped smiling.

Reclining on a pillow in an otherwise empty room, this burly, 41-year-old commander of Jabhat Al Nusra - the most fearsome jihadi group in Syria - exuded an almost disturbing calm, in marked contrast to the loud, chatty air that often characterises more mainstream groups of the Free Syrian Army.

The man, who calls himself Sheikh Abu Ahmed and said he was the military commander of Jabhat Al Nusra in the Hasakah governorate of eastern Syria, spoke to The National in the north-eastern town of Ras el Ayn, where fighting between Islamist rebels and the Kurdish PYD party has killed dozens of militants in recent weeks.

Dressed in plain clothes, Abu Ahmed outlined his group's vision for a new Syria.

"Our first goal is to get rid of Assad. Then we want a state where the Quran is the only source of law," he said. "Sharia is the right path for all humanity - all other laws make people unhappy."

Jabhat Al Nusra has emerged this year as the most powerful and high-profile Salafist group in the Syrian conflict, openly embracing suicide bombing as an important weapon against a technologically superior enemy. It has claimed several successful attacks, many of which have killed civilians, on major government targets such as the Damascus headquarters of the elite air force intelligence service....

Sitting in an unheated room furnished with only a carpet and a few pillows, Abu Ahmed described a new Syria, where alcohol and tobacco would be banned.

"These rules will be introduced gradually. We will advise people at first," he said when this journalist pointed out that enforcing such a law would be difficult in a country where smoking is so widespread.

Cinema and "immoral" TV shows would also be banned. "They corrupt the morals, especially of young people. Just look at the West," he said, adding that he had recently read in a magazine that in Germany, only 10 per cent of women were virgins by the time they got married.

Wouldn't the young be angry at such measures? "Perhaps they will be. But they will get used to it eventually," Abu Ahmed said....

But he didn't think this was a danger. "We don't want to leave modernity behind. We will not get out of our cars and ride donkeys from now on. We simply want our judges to apply Sharia [law] and not the civil code," he said. He also argued that in earlier eras Islam achieved great technological progress. "We are underdeveloped now because we left the path of Allah. Perhaps this is why this war is so cruel: as a punishment for our sins."...

Jabhat Al Nusra has parallels with Al Qaeda and has been endorsed by it as the purest Islamist group in Syria. Abu Ahmed claimed his group had no links to Al Qaeda and stressed that their goals were purely Syrian. "We will respect everybody who respects us," he said.

But he also expressed sympathy with Al Qaeda.

"I like them because they are mujaheddin who want to apply Sharia," he said. He added that the killing of civilians is acceptable as long as it's a response to a similar attack. Jabhat Al Nusra is also linked to at least one execution of captured Syrian soldiers, a probable war crime, and beheadings of suspected spies.

The emergence of such extremist groups has greatly concerned some of Syria's minorities, such as the Christians and the Alawites, many of whom still support the Assad government as a result. Abu Ahmed said the minorities had nothing to fear, pointing to a long history of Christian presence in Muslim countries. "As for the Kurds, they will have no need for autonomy - they are Muslims, too, so we can live together," he said.

Yet in its communications, Jabhat al Nusra has embraced a fierce sectarian message. According to an analysis by the International Crisis Group (ICG), the group routinely refers in derogatory terms to "the Alawite enemy" - the main support base of the regime - and its "Shiite agents"....

Abu Ahmed admitted that there were foreign fighters in his group - mostly from other Arab countries - but he said they were only a very small minority.

Analysts say that many of its fighters are veterans of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. He said they took no financing from external powers and that their weapons were either self-purchased or ghanima - war spoils. The ICG report suggests that they probably receive money from private donors with jihadist sympathies, mainly in the region.

Abu Ahmed worked as a bus driver before the war. He said he'd always been very religious and as a result had problems with the security services.

"We joined the demonstrations in the very beginning but only took up arms when they started shooting at us," he said. "Our faith is very strong and we're not afraid of death, of becoming martyrs. This is what drives us, what makes us brave. We will not stop until the regime falls. And I advise all my people to be good Muslims to help win this war."

"There's really no such thing as just Sharia, it's not one monolithic Continuum - Sharia is understood in thousands of different ways over the 1,500 years in which multiple and competing schools of law have tried to construct some kind of civic penal and family law code that would abide by Islamic values and principles, it's understood in many different ways..." -- Reza Aslan

And yet whenever we see Sharia implemented, it looks the same. Now, why is that?

"House to Mull Bill Banning Alcoholic Beverages in Indonesia," by Markus Junianto Sihaloho for the Jakarta Globe, December 20 (thanks to Lookmann):

Indonesia would introduce stiff penalties for the consumption of all alcoholic beverages under a controversial bill drafted by the country’s oldest Islamic party, which is seeking an effective ban on the sale, production and consumption of alcohol in the Muslim-majority nation.

Hard alcohol is already heavily regulated in Indonesia, where hefty taxes contribute to some of the highest prices in the region and local bylaws limit the open sale of liquor in some regions.

The proposed legislation, drafted by the United Development Party (PPP), would go further, effectively banning all alcohol, including domestically produced beer like Bintang, in a push that would make Indonesia a dry country.

Those caught consuming alcohol could face up to two years in prison. Distributors would face up to five years in prison while producers could face a maximum of 10 years.

“This will be a total ban, and not just an attempt to regulate production, distribution and consumption of alcohol,” Arwani Thomafi, the PPP secretary at the House of Representatives, said on Thursday.

The bill is among 70 priority bills scheduled for deliberation next year.

The party introduced the bill to bring the nation “in line with religious guidelines” as well as address the negative impact of excessive alcohol consumption on people’s health, Arwani said.

He claimed that alcohol consumption had spurred a rise in crime and offered no significant contribution to state revenue.

Tourist areas and “certain ethnicities” might be spared the ban, Arwani said. He did not explain which tourist areas or ethnic groups would be allowed to drink alcohol under the ban.

Arwani brushed off any potential controversy the bill might generate during its deliberation as a normal part of the legislative process.

“I think it’s part of the usual dynamics in bill deliberations,” he said.

Arwani also confirmed that the bill had been included in next year’s list of priority legislation at the expense of a much-criticized bill to amend the law on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

“The alcohol bill has been included in the list of 2013 priority legislation to replace the KPK law revision. There are 19 bills that are still being drafted. A total of 58 new bills have been included in the list of priority legislation,” he said.

He insisted that alcohol was banned in every religion because it could endanger people’s lives....

Yep. Every last one.

Drinking alcohol: haram. Murdering someone for drinking alcohol: pleasing to Allah. "Yemen extremists kill woman in alcohol raid," from AFP, December 21 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Armed extremists killed a woman in Yemen's main southern city of Aden when they raided several homes whose owners allegedly have alcoholic drinks, residents and a security official said on Friday.

"More than ten" armed men on motorbikes stormed three houses in Aden's Memdara neighborhood on Thursday, residents said.

The owners fled except for one woman who remained in one of the apartments, the sources said, adding that the gunmen shot her dead before driving off.

A security official in Aden told AFP that "we have received a complaint stating that Islamist extremists have killed a woman." He did not give any further details.

Extremists took advantage of a year-long uprising in Yemen that ousted veteran strongman president Ali Abdullah Saleh, seizing control of large swathes of territory in the country's southern and eastern provinces.

Despite giving up most of these territories after an all-out army offensive against them that ended in June, many have infiltrated the once bustling port of Aden in an attempt to impose their strict version of Islamic (sharia) law.

Have you ever noticed that mainstream media reports frequently reference a "strict version of Sharia" -- in Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Nigeria's Kano state, or Yemen, or elsewhere -- but we never read about a "relaxed version of Sharia"? That's because there isn't one. Contrary to the lies of Islamic apologists in the West, the content of Sharia is quite clear. And quite "strict" in all its variations.

Thought to be linked to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the militants operate mainly by night, harassing young couples seen together and sometimes launching deadly attacks against security forces.

We have previously seen this gutter thug threatening "snitches" and applauding the fascist vandalism of "journalist" Mona Eltahawy. In this he makes a call that is tantamount to calling for genocide. But don't worry: he's a "moderate."

"CAIR Leader Mimics Hamas in Calling for Israel’s Destruction," by Joe Kaufman at FrontPage, December 21:

The slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” can be heard regularly from the shores of the Gaza Strip, emanating from members of terrorist groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The river represents the Jordan River, and the sea is the Mediterranean – both sides of Israel. Essentially, this means the destruction of Israel.

Khaled Meshaal, the global head of Hamas, stated something similar, when he made his historic visit to Gaza this month. He said, “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north.” Just one week previous to that, the leader of another Islamist group, Cyrus McGoldrick, repeated the slogan on Facebook and Twitter. Except he did not state it from the Middle East, he made it from the United States.

McGoldrick is the Civil Rights Manager and spokesman for the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR-New York. The national organization of CAIR was founded in June 1994 as a part of the umbrella group created by then-global Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook. [Today, Marzook is the number two leader under Meshaal.] As well, CAIR was named a party to Hamas financing by the U.S. Justice Department for two federal trials against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). CAIR had asked people to donate money to the terrorist HLF charity via CAIR’s national website.

When fighting broke out between Hamas, who was firing hundreds of rockets into Israeli civilian neighborhoods, and Israel, who was responding to the Hamas fire by targeting terrorist infrastructure, McGoldrick didn’t flinch as to which side he was supporting. On November 12 on Twitter, he wrote, “Gaza under attack for the last few days. May G-d protect them [Hamas] and grant them victory.” Just two days earlier, McGoldrick had attended a CAIR banquet in Tampa, Florida. Just one day earlier, he had praised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

On November 15, McGoldrick tweeted, “Palestine is a land occupied by foreign settlers. They [Hamas] have the right to resist, to defend themselves, ‘by any means necessary.’”

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Egypt, took place on November 21. However, that did not stop McGoldrick from tweeting and posting to his Facebook page one week later, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” When McGoldrick said that “Palestine” was “land occupied by foreign settlers,” he wasn’t referring to Gaza and the West Bank; he was referring to all of Israel.

Read it all.

We're constantly told that no Muslims in the West hold to the violent, supremacist, Jew-hating form of Islam we see active around the world. Anyone who is skeptical about this is immediately branded an "Islamophobe." Yet we constantly see evidence to the contrary. From Blazing Cat Fur today comes this Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "GTA Muslim School Girl Praises Hezbollah Leader's Defeat Of Zionist Regime In Madrassah Speech Competition":

In 2010 the Wali ul Asr school, located in Brampton Ontario, staged a speech competition among its elementary school students....

In this clip the young lady opens by denigrating Western society in a discussion on the need to wear the hijab. She concludes with praise for the Ayatollah Khomeini and Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the banned terrorist group Hezbollah. Her praise for Nasrallah focuses on his defeat of the "Zionist Regime"...

Read it all.

"Islamist sect Boko Haram has previously blown up telephone masts and offices of phone companies, saying they help the security forces catch its members." And meanwhile, "armed police have been guarding major churches." Will the Islamophobia never end?

"Suicide bombers hit cellphone firms in north Nigeria," by Augustine Madu for Reuters, December 22 (thanks to Izuchukwu):

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - Two suicide car bombers attacked the offices of two mobile phone operators on Saturday in Nigeria's northern city of Kano, killing themselves but no civilians, police said.

India's Airtel and South Africa's MTN were the targets.

Islamist sect Boko Haram has previously blown up telephone masts and offices of phone companies, saying they help the security forces catch its members.

"The one who hit the Airtel office was shot by military men before the bomb exploded ... at the MTN office the car rammed into the fence but no civilians were killed," Ibrahim Idris, the chief of police in Kano, told Reuters. Both bombs went off.

A military source said one security guard was injured and has been taken to hospital.

MTN and Airtel Nigeria's parent company Bharti Airtel, India's top cellphone operator, gave no immediate comment.

The national emergency agency confirmed the bombings and said it was not aware of any civilian casualties. The security forces have played down the death toll in previous bombings.

At least 2,800 people have died in fighting in the largely Muslim north since Boko Haram launched an uprising against the government in 2009, watchdog Human Rights Watch says.

The sect wants to impose strict Islamic law on a country of 160 million people split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.

The group has previously targeted churches on Christmas Day and security has been increased in all the major northern cities, although security experts say given the scale of Christian worship in Nigeria they cannot protect everyone.

Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city after the southern commercial hub Lagos, was the site of Boko Haram's deadliest attack which killed at least 186 people in January in coordinated bombings and shootings.

Armed police have been guarding major churches in Kano this week and additional police checkpoints have been set up around the majority-Muslim city, a Reuters witness said....

Security experts say they believe Boko Haram is seeking to spark a religious conflict by targeting Christians in a country where ethnic violence has flared up periodically in recent years, in some cases killing hundreds in the space of hours....

No kidding, really?

Try not to be so ethnocentric. Be more like Michael Potemra of National Review, who wrote: "The Koran is one of the loveliest books ever written, a distillation of monotheism that is full of spiritual wisdom, and I never fail to profit from my reading of it." It's understandable that the pious would want to incinerate anyone even suspected of desecrating one of the loveliest books ever written, now, isn't it?

"Pakistan mob burns man accused of desecrating Quran alive," from Reuters, December 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Hyderabad (Pakistan): A mob broke into a Pakistani police station and burnt a man accused of desecrating the Quran alive, police said Saturday, in the latest violence focusing attention on the country's blasphemy laws.

The man was a traveller and had spent Thursday night at the mosque, said Maulvi Memon, the imam in the southern village of Seeta in Sindh province. The charred remains of the Quran were found the next morning.

"He was alone in the mosque during the night," Memon said. "There was no one else there to do this terrible thing."

Villagers beat the man then handed him over to police. A few hours later, a crowd of around 200 stormed the police station, dragged the man out and set him on fire, said Usman Ghani, the senior superintendent of police in Dadu district.

Ghani said around 30 people had been arrested for the murder and seven police detained for negligence.

At least 53 people have been killed in Pakistan since 1990 after being accused of blasphemy, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies, and accusations are becoming more frequent.

Blasphemy in Pakistan is punishable by death but it is not specifically defined by law. During court cases, lawyers often do not wish to repeat evidence against the accused for fear of being blasphemous themselves.

People have been arrested for just discussing or writing about Islam, making mistakes in homework or not joining protests against a film insulting Islam. In some cases, the accusers have had financial disputes with those who are accused....

"The people want the implementation of Shariah. Our souls and blood, we sacrifice to Islam."

"Dozens injured in Egypt clashes as police fire tear gas at Morsi supporters and opponents," from NBC News, December 21 (thanks to Kenneth):

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — Supporters of President Mohammed Morsi and his opponents hurled rocks at each other in Egypt's second city on the eve of a final vote on a new constitution shaped by Islamists.

Police fired tear gas as scores of opponents of the constitution and thousands of Islamists hurled rocks across a security cordon separating them near a mosque in Alexandria that was the focus for violence last week.

"God is great," Islamists chanted when the clash began.

The Egyptian Ministry of Health said at least 55 people were injured in the clashes near the al-Qaid Ibrahim mosque in Alexandria, state media reported.

The Islamists had gathered in support of an Islamic vision of Egypt's future a day before a second round of voting in a referendum on the basic law. Opposition supporters had also turned out as worshipers assembled for Friday prayers....

Lines of riot police cordoned off Alexandria's al-Qaid Ibrahim mosque, scene of last week's violence. Islamists chanted pro-Islamic slogans while a smaller group of opponents gathered nearby, chanting against Morsi, propelled to power in a June election by the Muslim Brotherhood.

"The people want the implementation of Shariah," the Islamist sympathizers shouted, in a show of support for Islamic law. "Our souls and blood, we sacrifice to Islam," they shouted.

In one incident, an Islamist filming anti-Morsi protesters was grabbed and roughed up. Islamists on the other side of a security cordon pushed and shoved police trying to reach him.

The opposition, facing defeat in the referendum, has called for a no vote against a document it says is too Islamist and ignores the rights of women and minorities, including the 10 percent of Egyptians who are Christian.