{AIFD Commentary} “Understanding Hamas’ collective suicide mission- why now, and why at all?”, M Zuhdi Jasser, October 13, 2023

Hamas’ war on Israel

UNDERSTANDING HAMAS’ COLLECTIVE SUICIDE MISSION- WHY NOW, AND WHY AT ALL?

As “protests” now rage today across the Middle East, with these jihadi demonstrations, there is full clarity about WHY #Hamas launched a horrific, genocidal and suicidal mission against the Jewish people of the state of Israel. This is about a global religious war for the Islamist caliphate ambitions. Islamists divide the world into the “Land of Islam” ( Dar-Al-Islam) and “Land of War” (Dar Al-Harb). Full stop.

The regional and global triangular battle between Islamist movements and Arab dictators and the West hatched in 2011 is now reopened and redeclared. Chaos, death, and disruption are the kindling for jihadi global growth as they seek realization of the Caliphate and Dar-Al-Islam.

The why NOW? is due to the feckless, weakness of the Biden administration appeasement policies across the region from Hamas to Iran and Afghanistan which gave jihadis a green light they needed to make their end of times eschatology relevant again. They saw America as no longer having the will to defend our ally Israel or defend freedom. That’s why October 2023.

But the overarching WHY at all, why suicidality against certain destruction by the Israeli power is because the Palestinian Islamists were increasingly irrelevant and have with these evil acts of war, aggression, and terror brought themselves back to the fore front and center of global Islamist leadership rendered irrelevant by the Abraham Accords, irrelevant by populist revolutions in many Muslim majority nations, and their populist rejection of Islamism. This is the WHY of their nihilistic war this week that the West must understand and finally develop a strategy against with the likes of our Muslim Reform Movement to counter their global #jihad from within.

The Islamists and Marxists are trying to destroy us from within, shouldn’t we deploy the same against them?

As we now first decimate Hamas once and for all, if we don’t have an active frontal anti-Islamist counter-information arm to counter #Islamist supremacy and #jihad from within, it will come back and grow even stronger with or without Hamas, or as we see today on the Arab streets they have, with or without ISIS, or with or without Al Qaeda.

Jihad is the actual defined enemy.

Yes. Execute and Win this war now in the short term against Hamas, against the jihadi enemies of civilization. But, for the love of God and the free world and civilization, finally develop a potent strategy against Islamism.

It is long time overdue to develop a lasting long term strategy against global #jihad and global #Islamism in the Arab and Muslim streets domestically and abroad. Jihadis wait out our fickle quixotic election cycles and return again and again to slaughter innocents and rekindle their mass hysteria, as we return to domestic distractions which their Red-Green Axis sows.

It is time to to anchor the West from America to Israel against all forms of Islamism (political Islam) and defeat this ideology once and for all in this generation.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231013-thousands-protest-across-middle-east-in-support-of-palestinians

Zuhdi Jasser

Ramadan Kareem from AIFD— Wednesday, March 22, 2023

To all our Muslim friends and supporters on the occasion of Ramadan:

Hard to believe how fast another lunar year goes by. Tonight, Muslims around the world will begin our observance of the holy month of Ramadan. During this month, the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar, all who are physically and mentally able to do so will abstain from all of both food and drink from dawn until sunset.

This fast is not one of sorrow, but of thankfulness: the month of Ramadan reminds us to give thanks for our blessings, while keeping the suffering in our prayers and doing what we can to help them. The ability and physical capacity to fast is a reassurance of the blessing of health. Often the first signs of illness is a loss of appetite and thirst. We honor and hold sacred the fact that Ramadan symbolizes equality among Muslims and among all human beings.

Each Ramadan, we at AIFD are keenly aware of the sanctity and safety of this great nation which we call home, and which gives us the comfort and freedom to sincerely engage in the humble spiritual renewal that is Ramadan.

As the stressors of the post-pandemic new realities continue to rise to the surface our shared communities, economically, medically, and globally, these “pandemics after the pandemic” remind us how thankful we remain for the blessings of this nation and our fellow Americans,

This Ramadan, just as we do every year, we also will reaffirm our commitment to advocate for all those persecuted on the basis of their faith or their choice to reject religion; those suffering from gender and honor-based violence; and to take firm action to end these injustices. We remain eternally committed to ending the suffering of those who remain suffering in Syria, and in other places where the diseases of fascism or of theocracy keep innocents oppressed. We are especially keenly aware this year of our continued and sadly ever increasing demand to confront the root causes of radical Islamism and its jihad. We will continue to pray this month to strengthen our resolve and empower our advocacy for freedom within all our communities.

For all those who fast out of free will and with sincere intention, we find common goodness and reward in it, and for all those who choose any way to commemorate this spiritual holy month of Ramadan we share with you in this communality.

May all your prayers and wishes for atonement that you seek form God through your fast and worship be heard and fulfilled.

May we pray to end forever the attacks against people of faith at home and across the planet. May our prayers and fasting build a wall of protection around all sentient human beings across the planet. We are blessed to take this opportunity to wish Muslims worldwide a blessed and safe Ramadan, and a spiritually fulfilling fast.

Blessing always,

From your team at the …
American Islamic Forum for Democracy

3/17/2023: Massachusetts Bill Privileges Muslims in State Government

Massachusetts Bill Privileges Muslims in State Government

Focus on Western Islamism

By Dexter Van Zile
March 15, 2023

The Massachusetts state legislature is considering a bill that would promote and privilege the participation of Muslims in state politics. The bill (“An Act promoting the civil rights and inclusion of American Muslims in the commonwealth”), put forth by lawmakers from central and north Massachusetts in January, would establish a commission charged with promoting the participation of Muslims in the governance of the state. In particular, the commission would “identify and recommend qualified American Muslims for appointive positions at all levels of government, including boards and commissions, as the commission considers necessary and appropriate.”

The bill is “an unprecedented and unconstitutional effort to promote one religion, Islam, over all others, said Steve Resnicoff, director of DePaul College of Law Center for Jewish Law and Judaic Studies. “It would clearly violate the principle of separation of church and state.”

It would be one thing if the proposed commission were intended to combat discrimination against Muslims, Resnicoff said, but that’s not the case with this bill. “Instead, it calls for the creation of a government entity that would broadly endeavor to benefit the interests of Muslims,” he said.

In addition to identifying and recommending Muslims to serve in appointive positions in the state government, the commission would also advocate for the community. Such advocacy would target leaders in the fields of business, education, health care and state and local governments. It would also “serve as a liaison between government and private interest groups” on matters of interest to the state’s Muslim community.

Members of the commission — who would serve three-year terms — would be appointed by officials including the state governor, the attorney general, and members of the state legislature. In addition to state funding, the 11-member commission would be authorized to solicit donations to cover the cost of its operations, which would include the hiring of a paid executive director, staffers, and volunteers.

A sheet promoting the bill’s passage says a commission is necessary because the perspective and experiences of American Muslims “are often absent in policy conversations on issues that directly impact the community.”

The proponents of the bill, Senator James B. Eldridge (D-Middlesex and Worcester) and Representative Vanna Howard (D-17th Middlesex), have not responded to repeated requests for comment — including a personal visit to the Statehouse — but it appears the bill was filed with input from the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

In February, Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, CAIR-MA’s executive director and chief legal officer, posted a celebratory tweet about the introduction of the bill. It shows Eldridge standing alongside Amatul-Wadud, an astonishing scene, given Amatul-Wadud’s professional background.

Writing in The American Spectator in 2017, Orwin Litwin reported that Amatul-Wadud, was “deeply enmeshed in one of the most dangerous extremist groups in the United States.” In addition to serving as a lawyer for the group in question, Muslims of America (MOA), which has sent its members to Pakistan for extremist indoctrination and military training, Amatul-Wadud has promoted the conspiracy theories put forth by MOA’s founder, Pakistani cleric Mubarak Ali Gilani. Litwin reports that in 2015, Amatul-Wadud “shared a Facebook post from MOA of a long and unhinged 2014 article by Sheikh Gilani himself.”

Litwin reports that in the article Amatul-Wadud retweeted, “Gilani claims that the terror group ISIS (and indeed, Wahhabism itself) is a creation of British intelligence, that 9/11 was an inside job, that WTC-7 was destroyed by controlled demolition, and that America was manipulated into fighting Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein for the benefit of the Jews.”

The article Amatul-Wadud promoted on Facebook declares, among other things, that “there was no need for America to go to war against Hitler. Hitler was not the enemy of America or the American people. There was a mutual animosity between Hitler and the Jews. So, the American people paid a very heavy price for fighting someone else’s war.”

CAIR-MA has not responded to repeated requests for comment on the bill from FWI.

“The proposed legislation seeking to aid Islam is unconstitutional on its face,” said Karen Hurvitz, a Massachusetts attorney who serves as legal counsel for Education Without Indoctrination, a group that fights against anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda in K-12 schools. In particular, it flies in the face of 1947 Supreme Court ruling, Everson v. Bd. Of Education which states, “The ‘establishment of religion’ clause in the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can … pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.”

This ruling, Hurvitz reports, recounted how oppressive religious practices, which early settlers fled Europe to escape, were ironically transplanted to the colonies in North America. “The colonists reached the conviction that individual religious liberty could be achieved best under a government which was stripped of all power to support, or otherwise to assist any or all religions,” Hurvitz told FWI.

“Perhaps the proponents of this legislation are unaware of the First Amendment or its history. Perhaps they are used to the 26 countries where Islam is the official religion and where practice of other religions is not permitted,” she said. “That is not the United States.”

Charles Jacobs, founder of the Boston-based Americans for Peace and Tolerance a prominent counter-Islamist group in Massachusetts said, “This bill is a naked attempt to establish a beachhead for CAIR in Massachusetts state government,” he said, adding the assertion that Muslim voices haven’t been given a robust hearing in the state is “laughable.”

“The Islamic Society of Boston was able to purchase land from the city for a discount in 2003,” Jacobs said. “What are they talking about – not being heard? The past governor and other elected officials regularly visit the ISB all the time.”

Noting that the commission would be allowed to solicit funds from non-taxpayer sources, to cover its expenses, Jacobs indicates donors could have an outsized impact on its messaging.

“We already have enough problems with government agencies being vulnerable to capture by outside interests,” he said. “Saudi Arabia funded the construction of a mosque in Boston. Could Qatar end up funding this commission?”

Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and co-founder of the Muslim reform movement warns that the bill is part of a campaign to promote the influence of Islamism in the state under the guise of identity politics.

“This Islamist commission in Massachusetts is un-American and will only serve to feed Islamist separatist ideas and radicalization,” Jasser said. “It is rather incredible that any non-Muslims have joined the supremacist intent behind this commission.”

The Establishment Clause, Jasser said, is the primary firewall against theocracy and Islamism in America’s liberal democracy. “Without it, Islamists use identity politics where they are a minority and [majoritarian politics] where they are a majority to smother the voices of other dissenting anti-Islamist Muslims and certainly the voices of other faiths or citizens of no chosen faith,” he said.

Thomas Sheedy, president of the New York-based Atheists for Liberty warns that the act could be used “as a Trojan Horse to violate the Establishment Clause and ultimately the religious neutrality guaranteed to all Bay Staters.”

For most of its early history, public officials in Protestant-ruled Massachusetts were required to swear a public oath affirming their Christian faith before taking office. These requirements, enshrined in the state’s constitution — enacted in 1789 — were operative until 1833 when the state disestablished its churches. This bill, Sheedy warns, flies in the face of a nearly 200-year-old policy of disestablishment.

“With efforts to theocratize Islam throughout governments at home and abroad, by allowing this bill to pass, a dangerous precedent could emerge where secular governance can be halted, causing the demise of any real diversity and inclusion, he

said.

The bill has a long road to go before it’s enacted, said Rep. Steve Howitt (R-4th Bristol).

“There are over 6,000 bills introduced into the legislature every year,” he said. “Very few of them get signed by the governor.”

Efforts to elicit a response from the American Civil Liberties Union, which regularly inveighs against the influence of conservative Christians on government policy in the United States, were unsuccessful.

February 14, 2023 CLARITy Coalition Statement on appointment of Islamophobia officer by Canadian government

CLARITy Coalition Statement on appointment of Islamophobia officer by Canadian government

 

The CLARITy coalition stands for liberty and secularism in the face of Islamists. As such, we are vehemently opposed to the federal government of Canada offering an 85-million-dollar budget to an Islamophobia officer.

We are against the establishment of the office, in general, as it offers exclusive protection from criticism to one religion. This is a dangerous precedent to set aligning Canada’s federal government with theocracies such as Iran or Afghanistan. The title of this position says all anyone needs to know about how anti-freedom this contrived position is. While bigotry against Muslims certainly exists, the term ‘Islamophobia’ is a term created by Islamist theocrats to stifle legitimate criticism of various interpretations of Islam. It is beyond belief that the Canadian government carve out a protected position made solely for those theocrats handing them a platform to suppress ‘blasphemy ‘as they do across Muslim majority nations from Pakistan to Iran to Saudi Arabia.

We are also against the specific hiring of Amira El Ghawaby in this role. Muslims in Canada are an incredibly diverse group from many sects. It would be impossible to hire one person to represent the multitude of conflicting beliefs. Unfortunately, the federal government of Canada has chosen to hire someone who represents the most fundamentalist group of Muslims. This gives the false impression that Muslims are one monolithic group of fundamentalists. This is a distorted impression. Many Muslims in Canada, like those who are part of the CLARITy coalition, do not feel represented or supported by this office in government and especially not by the individual appointed.

El Ghawaby has an established connection to CAIR, an organization that was cited by the US government in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas fundraising trial of 2009 as unindicted co-conspirators. They are an organization which repeatedly sympathizes with radical Islamist groups like Hamas. Their civil rights claims are a façade for the advancement of Muslim Brotherhood legacy group interests. El Ghawaby has defamed and insulted French Canadians, a significant population of the constituents she is being paid to speak for. As well, she has publicly supported hijab on children and attacked those who oppose the mandated religious clothing on children. Finally, and most egregiously, she has unequivocally refused to make a distinction between bigotry against Muslims as people and criticism against Islam, a religion. On top of multiple expressions on social media to illustrate this, El Ghawaby also wrote an article in which she equates the publishing of Charlie Hebdo cartoons with racism. El Ghawaby chooses to conflate two very distinct ideas: bigotry against people and criticism of religions and/or ideologies. This puts her in opposition to one of Canada’s most important values- free expression.

As such, CLARITy opposes El Ghawaby’s appointment to the role and the role of ‘Islamophobia’ officer itself. The CLARITy coalition believes people of all religions, faiths, and beliefs deserve protection from bigotry and hate. We stand in solidarity with all people, from all groups, who believe in the liberal values of freedom of expression and freedom of religion and beliefs.

The Great Coverup: The Murder of Mahsa Amini

To our friends at MRM and AIFD:

You are invited to join Dr. Jasser who will be moderating a conversation webinar,
tomorrow Wednesday, October 5, 2022, from 3:30 pm ET to 4:30 pm ET.

The Great Coverup: The Murder of Mahsa Amini

Webinar link
no registration required
Passcode: 869841
Join leaders from the Muslim Reform Movement for a webinar conversation you will not find anywhere else.

Zuhdi Jasser moderates a conversation with heroes of the women’s rights movement around the world from inside and outside the House of Islam. The men with beards are finally on their heels in Iran.

Listen to what leaders of the Muslim Reform Movement, Asra Nomani, Raheel Raza, and Soraya Deen, joined by special guest Saghar Erica Kasraie have to say about this amazing time in history in Iran and across the “Muslim world”!

 

M. Zuhdi Jasser is president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix and the co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement. He is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and former Vice-Chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. He is the author of the book, “A Battle for the Soul of Islam.”

 

 

Asra Nomani is an American author and former Georgetown University professor. She is also a co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement. She is co-director of the Pearl Project and the author of “Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam”.

 

 

Raheel Raza is President of The Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow, founding member of The Muslim Reform Movement, Director of Forum for Learning, award-winning journalist, public speaker, and advocate for human rights, gender equality, and dignity in diversity

 

 

Soraya M. Deen is a Lawyer and an award-winning international activist, and a community organizer. She is the founder of the Muslim Women speakers movement.

 

 

Saghar Erica Kasraie is the Executive Director of LIVING WATER Productions. Fluent in both English and Farsi, she is an Iran-born American and Middle East expert, human rights activist, and voice for vulnerable religious minorities, especially women and children.

 

 

 

Additional options to join:
Or One tap mobile : US: +16694449171,,82461828858#,,,,*869841# or +17193594580,,82461828858#,,,,*869841#

About MRM
The Muslim Reform Movement is a dedicated coalition of diverse western Muslim leaders founded in December 4, 2015. The MRM focuses on opposing a very real interpretation of Islam that espouses violence, social injustice, and political Islam.

About AIFD
The American Islamic Forum for Democracy is a non-profit organization based in Phoenix, Ariz. dedicated to providing an American Muslim voice advocating genuine Muslim reform against Islamism and the ideologies which fuel global Muslim radicalization. AIFD’s mission is to advocate for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty, and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. In December 2015, AIFD convened and helped launch the Muslim Reform Movement, a coalition of over 12 Muslim organizations and leaders dedicated to reform for values of peace, human rights, and secular governance.

2/22/2022: Enes Kanter Freedom struggles against hypocritical elites

Enes Kanter Freedom struggles against hypocritical elites

by Zuhdi Jasser & Karys Rhea

It’s generally believed that the richer and more famous you are, the more power and influence you yield. Enes Kanter Freedom has proven that premise false.

For years, the NBA star has been desperately trying to draw attention to human rights abuses committed in China as well as his motherland of Turkey under the Islamist Erdogan regime. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has banned him from Turkey and is reportedly harassing his family.

Freedom himself identifies with the heterodox Gulenist movement of Turkey, an admittedly concerning and peculiar sect of Islam tied to the personality of Fethullah Gulen, who has been the subject of a number of investigations during his exile in Pennsylvania. That being said, Gulenist adherents in no way deserve the persecution they have endured at the hands of the Turkish government, which includes Erdogan’s official designation of them as a “terror” organization.

Last month, Freedom called out another Democrat, this time a Silicon Valley billionaire and part-owner of the Golden State Warriors, for dismissing human rights abuses in China. While the Celtics player may not be likely be characterized as a conservative, he is, to be sure, pro-freedom, pro-Western, and anti-Islamist (at least of the highly problematic Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and Shia Khomeinist varieties). The persecution of heterodox sects of Islam, from the Ahmadiya to the Ismailis to the Gulenists, reveals the deep-seated oppressive forces that dominate the global Islamist establishment and its autocratic facilitators that heroes such as Freedom have the courage to expose.

The answer could be found in plain view during a Lakers/Celtics post-game press conference in which LeBron James was confronted about his hypocritical ties to China that Freedom had criticized.

“He’s definitely not someone I would give my energy to,” James responded. “He’s trying to use my name to create an opportunity for himself. I definitely won’t comment too much on that.”

James’s patronization is telling. Self-serving hypocrites like him reveal the collective narcissism of the elites, already presumed to be on the right side of politics because they are towing the cultural party line. The narcissism is rancid when placed at the feet of the crimes against humanity they excuse from Xingang to Turkey.

In attacking the messenger, not the message, James is openly signaling that certain human rights issues do not garner followings based on celebrity status and that being famous doesn’t automatically lend credence to a cause being promoted. This is because the relationship by which people align themselves on popular cultural issues is a superficial one; they are not interested in the actual underlying ideology or principles at stake but in whether they can serve their narrow commercial and political interests by conforming to a view that has the presumption of a moral high ground. Virtue-signaling to movements that appear to be righteous allows them to gain cover for protecting and advancing their financial status.

This is why James does not have to address Nike’s use of Uyghur Muslims as slave labor or Turkey’s imprisonment of more journalists than any other nation. The only crimes against humanity that popular leftist culture rallies against are those not in conflict with their own interests. Picking up the issues of Uyghur slave labor will never become a cause celebre because corporate and Hollywood elites make millions off the Chinese economy and are motivated, above all, by self-preservation on the shoulders of genocidal tyrants.

Big corporations such as the NBA, the NFL, Apple, and Coca-Cola move where the market seems to give them the greatest benefit. They don’t have to support the interests of the black community; they can merely pay homage to the underlying ideology, and the masses will fail to detect the lack of evidence pointing to a heartfelt conviction.

Across the globe, dissident Muslim voices are marginalized by the bullying mobs of the red-green axis. This axis is a marriage of convenience between the dedicated liberals and illiberal Islamists, who have been successful in exploiting identity politics to further their goals. Enes Kanter Freedom, on the other hand, will have to continue to jump through hoops to get his honorable message out.

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser is the president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement, and a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander. Karys Rhea is a writer and researcher living in Brooklyn.

December 21, 2021 “Combating International Islamophobia Act

AMERICAN ISLAMIC FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s “Combating International Islamophobia Act,” a first of its kind, recently passed the House of Representatives (219-212) in a strict party-line vote.

Established as a hysterical response to Republican Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert’s no doubt rude and ill-advised “Jihad squad” remark, the bill dangerously calls for the establishment of, wait for it, an “Office to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia” in the Department of State. Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has now introduced the companion bill in the Senate.

While some critics believe this legislation is pure theatrics and won’t even be brought up for a vote, others surmise that senators will make changes before sending it back to the House, making it very possible that anti-blasphemy will now be codified into American law. This is not hyperbole.

The freest nation on earth is now unbelievably on the verge of creating a position in our State Department charged not with protecting inalienable human rights, but with protecting a faith ideology. This will be celebrated by our theocratic Islamist enemies across the world. The U.S. government will have a sanctioned “American Grand Mufti” who will determine what is, and what is not, Islam. Every American Muslim, especially anti-Islamist (anti-theocratic) Muslims, will be marginalized by the new US government arbiter on Islam.

To grasp how dangerous this bill is, it’s important to understand the origins and history of the term “Islamophobia.” It was operationalized by Islamist movements in the West, like the Muslim Brotherhood, in the late 20th century in order to silence western debate where Muslims are a minority, and prevent ideological diversity within emerging institutions of Islam. It was popularized by the ruthless theocrat Ayatollah Khomeini and his movement in 1989, when he issued a fatwa that imposed the death penalty on British author Salman Rushdie for his famous dissident novel “The Satanic Verses.” The term was then also repurposed internally within most Muslim majority countries under the “neo-caliphate” umbrella of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) where autocratic regimes would extinguish domestic dissent through torture, imprisonment, or death, under the guise of protecting God and His faith of Islam. In other words, it is a term that is used to jail critics of shariah tyranny and call them blasphemers.

Back here in the west, the charge of “Islamophobia” is wielded against anyone who criticizes the religion or its Islamists and Jihadists counterparts. As a result, the crimes of Islamist terrorists and their sponsors are whitewashed and obfuscated around the world in favor of political correctness. Pause. Reflect on what such an outpost in our Department of State will be serving?

Do not forget that the radicalized American Left is now pushing this theocratization of American Muslim identity. The Democratic Party just spent the last few years ripping America apart via the racialization of our nation and the foundations of our American principles. With this new Act, they are taking the weaponization of the label of “bigot” globally and handing it to Islamists to use with the full blessing of the American imprimatur. This is exactly what the global Red-green (Progressivist-Islamist) Axis does and has been doing at the United Nations for 80 years.

Never mind that Muslims like myself, who stand up against Islamist religious extremism, and who criticize imposition of shariah law and the abysmal treatment of women, gays and minorities in Islamist countries, are consistently and bizarrely also branded “Islamophobes” for doing so. On the contrary, we are the greatest defenders of genuine Muslim and non-Muslim rights. We at the pro-liberty, anti-Islamist Muslim Reform Movement are doing the actual work fighting anti-Muslim bigotry. This Orwellian office at the StateDepartment would only empower a look at the world through the binary Islamist lens of “Muslim and non-Muslim.”

We reformers constantly speak out against the atrocities committed throughout the world by Muslims against Muslims. So what will Congress do now, having passed this bill, when it confronts the uncomfortable fact that the vast majority of global attacks on Muslims are clearly committed by other Muslims?

The space that Omar’s bill creates for the suppression of countervailing ideas of liberalism is striking upon reading it. Its language reads like an OIC state manual, and even the statistics that are used to cite anti-Muslim bigotry in the bill’s press release are highly misleading, including referencing websites that have been thoroughly debunked as containing fraudulent data.

Not only did those who wrote it fail to consult with the State Department, but they do not even define what would apparently constitute “Islamophobia,” leaving open the possibility of reproval for anyone who says something negatively associated with Islam. Of even more concern is the repeated dangerous references to “incitement” language, which is code for an Orwellian control of free speech and protection of any “ideas” within “Islam” no matter how theocratic or repulsive they may be. Americans have already seen how this weapon is deployed by the “Establishment” against conservative thought. Now it is being weaponized globally on behalf of the “Islamist Establishment.”

This “anti-Islamophobia” position in the State Department will become a massive liability for our foreign policy. It will fulfill no other purpose than attacking western democratic nations (and of course Israel), while leaving millions of Muslims in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others to continue suffering at the hands of their tyrannical regimes. In other words, the supreme danger of this legislation is that it will give Islamists and Jihadists a free pass to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing against their fellow Muslims because it doesn’t fall under the purview of the Office of the American “Grand Mufti” of Islamophobia.

And given the foreign policy views of those who support this legislation, it will surely put the U.S. government in a position to withdraw protections granted by the First Amendment, as it will be increasingly difficult to draw attention to real human rights abuses by jihadists or Islamists without fear.

It is unthinkable that congress has come to this. Real anti-Muslim bigotry exists. But “Islamophobia” is a manufactured virtue signal that allows one to appear on the right side of social justice. This new and un-American position at State is named and founded on the racialization of an ideology, a faith — Islam. A party, the Democratic Party, that has repeatedly exaggerated the label of “bigotry” in order to suppress critical thinking now has the temerity to create a perch within our foreign policy apparatus that will weaponize the same Orwellian racialization of the faith of Islam that Islamist tyrannies do across the planet.

History will show that the Democratic Party of the 21st century has become the platform of Islamists, for Islamists.

Zuhdi Jasser is the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, based in Phoenix, Arizona, and the co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement. He is also a senior fellow for the Center for Security Policy and a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander. He is a former Vice-Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and author of the book, A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith. He is also a physician in private practice. Find him on Twitter: @DrZuhdiJasser.

December 1, 2021: Press Release – Muslim Reform Movement Opposes the Biden Administration’s Appointment of Rashad Hussain to Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom

PRESS RELEASE

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Media Contact:

Mischel Yosick
Muslim Reform Movement
480 225 7473
mischel@zliberty.com

 

December 1, 2021

Muslim Reform Movement Opposes the Biden Administration’s Appointment of Rashad Hussain to Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom

PHOENIX, Ariz. –  The Muslim Reform Movement, representing a global network of Muslims from the United States to Afghanistan, opposes the Biden administration’s appointment of Rashad Hussain to the position of U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, arguing that Mr. Hussain’s years of support for Islamist theocracies and autocracies rooted in Islamism, or political Islam, sends a dangerous message to Muslims around the world who oppose the hateful, divisive and bigoted ideology of Islamist governments and organizations.

The Muslim Reform Movement has long valued the importance of the U.S. State Department’s focus on international religious freedom across its diplomatic portfolios. As a diverse international coalition of Muslim reformers dedicated to defeating political Islam, many of us have long and very productive relationships with members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

The position of Ambassador at-Large for International Religious Freedom is especially important since the person sets the agenda for religious freedom advocacy globally for the U.S. Secretary of State and the U.S. State Department.

The Muslim Reform Movement is concerned about President Biden’s appointment of Rashad Hussain to the post of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. While we certainly, as a Muslim coalition, welcome the appointment of a Muslim to the position, such an appointment, especially if a Muslim, should be filled by an individual with established credibility in fighting vigorously for the freedom of each and every individual persecuted for their faith beliefs by regimes across the planet. While Mr. Hussain may have given lip service, in his previous positions as “Special Envoy” from the U.S. to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, in supposedly trying to protect the rights of non-Muslim minorities in the Muslim majority autocracies and theocracies that are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, his painful silence about the dangers embodied in Islamist movements, Islamist governance and their theocratic instruments of shariah, or Islamic law, underscores why he is not a sensible choice for this position.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a cofounder ot the Muslim Reform Movement, said, “I served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom USCIRF for four years from 2012 to 2016, and American Muslim organizations that serve as legacy groups for the Muslim Brotherhood are celebrating. They vociferously protested my appointment and now strongly support Rashad Hussain’s appointment as Ambassador at-Large for International Religious Freedom, just as they cheered his work as ‘Special Envoy’ to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He paved the way for the inroad of Islamist groups, governments, and radicals to the United States, in his position as Organization of Islamic Cooperation Envoy and Observer for the United States under the Obama administration. There, he failed to be a voice for Muslims fighting the Islamist establishment, its ideology, and its crimes against Muslim dissidents across the world.”

As Muslims, we are dedicated to countering the idea of political Islam and its theocratic instruments that permeate the Islamist establishment globally. Mr. Hussain has been revealingly silent about the persecution of Muslim dissidents, including feminists, writers, poets, and artists, in Muslim majority nations where they face persecution, harassment, imprisonment, and even death. Mr. Hussain would have had to express the dangers of an Islamic theocracy and its shariah state, and to date he has failed to do so, instead pandering to those nations as “Special Envoy” from the U.S. to the OIC.

Asra Nomani, a cofounder of the Muslim Reform Movement, said, “With the rise of Rashad Hussain within his administration, President Biden is sending a dangerous and troubling message to the brave Muslim men and women around the world who are defenders of human rights for the LGBTQ+ community, women, artists, dissidents and others. Mr. Hussain has protected and advanced the illiberal values of Islamic theocracies that perpetuate a disturbing and hateful ideology of Muslim supremacy, male supremacy, privilege, racism and misogyny, denying most of the citizens of its societies fundamental human rights, equality, and dignity.”

The Muslim Reform Movement is concerned that a Muslim placed in this post as an Islamist apologist for theocracies will send a troubling message to Islamist states, governments, and movements across the world, from Pakistan to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami, to name just a few threats to America’s values of secularism and human and women’s rights. 

The U.S. will send a message to Muslims around the world that the United States supports global Islamist movements, not the individual human rights of Muslims in Muslim-majority countries. 

Raheel Raza, a cofounder of the Muslim Reform Movement, said, “Certainly, if President Biden is seeking to appoint a Muslim to this position, he can find a Muslim who has established a coherent track record against the ideologies of Muslim supremacy, ‘Islamic Republics’ and their state-sponsored terrorism against even Muslims who dare to challenge their tyranny. Mr. Hussain had many opportunities during his previous positions to reveal his positions against the global threat of Islamism and not only did he not do so, but he in fact also often gave lip service to Islamist groups and ideologies that our Muslim Reform Movement knows are the root cause of Muslim radicalization against Western secular liberalism.” 

This appointment will undermine the United States’ national security and further the agenda of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, its radicalization of Muslims and its support for Islamist anti-West establishments.

As Muslims who love our faith and our country, we at the Muslim Reform Movement would like to call attention to the fact, particularly, as Muslims are appointed to positions often because of their faith and beliefs, it is incumbent upon them to be leading the advocacy of freedom and liberty for all, not just Islamists. 

Also, as leaders, they must have demonstrated a track record against the theocratic ideology of Islamism as they work to advance the ideas of secular liberal democracy from which our U.S. constitutional system is derived. To put in place an Islamist sympathizer and apologist, like Rashad Hussain, who simply checks the box of Muslim diversity for the Biden administration is frankly offensive to Muslim dissidents and non-Muslims across the world, and it compromises our security.

We must appoint to U.S. leadership Muslims who affirm the values of secular governance and human rights for all members of a society, regardless of gender, sexuality or other identity markers.

Zuhdi Jasser – President & Founder, American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Phoenix, Arizona
Asra Nomani – Journalist & Communications Consultant, Washington, DC
Raheel Raza – President, Muslims Facing Tomorrow, Toronto, Canada

 

ABOUT THE MUSLIM REFORM MOVEMENT

In December 2015, a number of reform-minded American Muslim organizations convened and launched the Muslim Reform Movement, a diverse coalition of over 15 Muslim organizations and leaders dedicated to reform for values of peace, human rights and secular governance. While each has their own Muslim organizations, work, and advocacy, together they form a diverse coalition defined by the values enshrined in their founding “Declaration of the Muslim Reform Movement” (See full document here). The founders are listed here.   

Find the coalition on social media at:
#MuslimReform
Twitter: @TheMuslimReform
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Facebook: Muslim Reform Movement