3/15/2017: There’s An Emerging “Alt-Jihad” Movement in the U.S.

/in , , /by

 

There’s An Emerging ‘Alt-Jihad’ Movement In The U.S.
But It’s Not Muslims Who Are Pushing It…

by M. Zuhdi Jasser
Independent Journal Review
March 15, 2017

 

The “alt-right” and the “alt-left” are recent terms to describe extreme sides of the political spectrum. While the members of the “alt-” movements may feel comfortable trying to attach themselves to other travelers on the right and left, most members of the traditional conservative and liberal spectrum reject the extreme un-American nature of the alt-movements.

The insidious, myopic, and extreme nature of one movement in particular has inspired me to coin a new term: the “alt-Jihad.”

Everyone knows the “jihad” of violent and Islamist supremacism. Jihadists are those who advocate the establishment of a caliphate, or any so-called “Islamic state,” via violent or nonviolent (but no less supremacist) means.

The Muslim community worldwide is comprised of 1.6 billion individuals, each with their own relationship to the faith. There are those Muslims who subscribe to the forms of global jihadism of the 56 Islamic states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Most people understand that while they may be a plurality of Muslims, they are a minority. The rest of us – the vast majority – reject it.

The ideological divisions are far more complicated and to that end, I was recently interviewed in the Federalist: “A Muslim Reformer Speaks about his Battle Against Islamism and PC.” Steve Postal interviewed me to commemorate the one year anniversary of the founding of the Muslim Reform Movement. Our declaration is a must read for Americans who seek to find ways to ideologically discern which Muslims share our American values and are working with us versus those who are Islamists.

Most Americans have long known the American ‘petro-Islamic’ establishment who have long been the “useful idiots for Islamism” who “willfully blind” themselves to the evils of Islamism in the name of progressive politics. Sen. Ted Cruz had hearings on this “willful blindness” last year.

A deceptively similar yet polar opposite (alt-side) is the willful blindness of the ‘alt-jihadists.’ Alt-jihadists support, empower, flaunt, and legitimize Islamist radicals and their leaders by branding all Muslims and all Islam as one and the same, and deeming us all to be enemies of freedom.

Alt-jihadists are non-Muslim thought leaders who are defined by two characteristics. Regardless of their intentions, first, they view Islam as a terminal monolith, a supremacist political ideology leaving no room for a distinction between the faith of Islam and Islamism. Second, they universally dismiss and vilify anti-Islamist reformers not as Uncle Toms but essentially similarly calling them “liars” and “illegitimate.” Alt-jihadists take it upon themselves to excommunicate anti-Islamists reformers from their monolithic version of Islam.

These two characteristics, like the apologists, only end up serving entrenching the global jihad and its Islamist monopoly from which the alt-jihadists claim to want to save the world.

The alt-jihad consists of non-Muslims who refuse to leave room for even the remote possibility of branding Islam and any faithful Muslims into modernity. The alt-jihad is simple, simplistic, self-serving and dangerous. It attempts to deny Muslim dissidents any space, hope, or support whatsoever we so urgently need to make headway. Their parroting of Islamist tyrannical rhetoric and their slash-and-burn approach only strengthens the hold Islamist extremists have on Muslim communities.

The alt-jihad does not sincerely seek for Muslims to find solutions to the problems plaguing our communities, but rather seeks the containment, if not the elimination, of Islam as a faith. Some even seem to advocate that this happen “by any means necessary.” For the alt-jihad, there is no hope for modernization of Islam – there are terrorist Muslims, and terrorist Muslims-in-waiting.

In the past few weeks the alt-jihad criticism of our work has spiked. Is something afoot? Stephen Kirby penned this for Robert Spencer’s JihadWatch.org: “Muslim Reform Group reached out to 3,000 US Mosques, got only 40 responses.” Kirby is the head of the Act for America Des Moines Chapter, and like Carl Goldberg here in Arizona, has long trolled our work, blindly striking us at the knees whenever possible.

Among many deceptive missives he wrote this patronizing fatwa (legal ruling) from his own quasi “sharia court:”

But I would like to save the Muslim Reform Movement (MRM) time and non-Muslims money. Instead of a new study on why the MRM has virtually no Muslim support, I will provide the answer: in terms of Islamic doctrine, the MRM declaration is blasphemous, and the MRM should not be surprised that over 99% of the larger Muslim community does not want to join in with that blasphemy.

It is only attention from the non-Muslim world that will enable the Muslim Reform Movement to remain on life-support, visible but irrelevant.

There you have it. With the strike of a few keystrokes from a comfortable bunker in that Iowa haven of anti-Muslim engagement, Kirby rendered his fatwa. His like-minded echo chamber across the blogosphere has since reposted these words of mass destruction and dancing gleefully on our grave.

That was not from the propaganda arm of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s PressTV, or Qatar’s and the Muslim Brotherhood’s AlJazeera, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s state TV, nor the propaganda of American Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups – it was from the alt-jihad.

Kirby was only to be then echoed by the fatwas of Diana West at the Daily Caller (Islam Catastrophe Continues), John Guandolo at UTT (Unfit for Duty), and Militant Islam Monitor to name but a few in the metaphorical Alt-Jihadi Shura council. Their primary target was hit pieces on Sebastian Gorka, but why pass an opportunity to collaterally eulogize Muslim reformists? Therein alt-Jihadists declared the Muslim Reform Movement “an abject failure”, “utter nonsense” and “a personal fantasy Islam.”

The alt-jihadists malignantly took one fact about the poor response we received from American mosques and willfully disregarded the rest of the interview and the body of our 13 years of work at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) and the new Muslim Reform Movement. Instead of honestly dissecting strategic position papers like this one: Fighting for Victory against Islamism: A Blueprint for how the West can Counter Islamist Tyranny, the alt-jihadists trip over themselves to dance on the graves of Muslim dissidents.

Beyond being destructive, the entire premise of the alt-jihad is absurd: we put out our challenge to the self-appointed leaders of the community to prove that it’s true that the vast majority of the Islamic establishment would not sign our declaration. We’ve been saying essentially that since our founding. Our effort was another public demonstration of that fact, with a new way to demonstrate it to the broader Muslim community, who are now able to see which principles their self-appointed leaders refuse to sign on to.

We admit the majority have been asleep. The alt-jihad claims in an un-American blindness to the anti-theocrats that we have no oxygen to breathe in the House of Islam.

This didn’t start this month. Alt-jihadists declared our reform movement dead on arrival at our outset in December 2015, much as they did over ten years ago with AIFD when we launched. Kirby had issued his fatwa declaring our “still-birth” days after our first press conference in December 2015: The Muslim Reform Movement plays Fantasy Islam. His Wahhabi sharia court “welcomed his readers to a personal version of Islam that had nothing to do with Islam”.

Classic alt-jihadism. The alt-jihadists have for years invoked takfirism (excommunication) against our work. But who needs an Iranian or Saudi Islamist Supreme Council of Inquisition when we have Stephen Kirby (July 2015, Dec 2015), Diana West (2012), Robert Spencer, and others to dismiss reformist dissenters inside the House of Islam as illegitimate Muslims?

But really. What brilliance and foresight does it take to defeat a nascent dissident reform movement by declaring it DOA? The alt-jihadi cabal’s arguments are not bolstered by their own strongly held Islamic interpretations, exegesis, and beliefs but rather by simply conveniently parroting the tyrannical dogma of their favorite Islamist theocrats. After I initially debated Stephen Kirby in Omaha, he went on to write the “the Lure of Fantasy Islam.” The archetypal alt-jihadist, he dismisses my own knowledge of Arabic, Qur’an, and Hadith, and instead with no rationale just regurgitates irrelevant fatwas of salafi-jihadis.

We offer theological deconstructions of Salafi-jihadi arguments and the alt-jihad’s only response is to channel the scoffing of the Islamist establishment.

There is far more than one interpretation of Islam. Our belief is that the future of freedom depends upon the victory of the Muslim Reform Movement over Islamists. And as I stated in the Federalist, Muslim interpretations of Islam cannot ever be reformed under the boots of tyrannical regimes across the 56 OIC Muslim majority nations who torture and assassinate dissidents.

But the alt-jihad does not care about solutions, especially those advocating American ideas against theocracy within the House of Islam. The alt-jihad does not care about advocating American ideas for the freedom and liberation of secular movements across the planet (the only real allies of the US) that separate mosque and state. No. It’s only about convincing the rest of America and the West that the entire religion of Islam is the monolithic problem and there is no viable path within towards modernity.

In fact, if the OIC had sought to create both, Orwellian foils and promoters of their own global supremacist form of the Islam of their sharia states, the alt-jihadists would be it. My attempts to graciously address the “concerns” of the alt-jihad are not new. I’ve engaged Robert Spencer in a debate on his conclusions regarding the Prophet Muhammad and Islam in 2010. Pamela Geller also ruled in her fatwa that I practice my own “Private Islam.” As I said in my response to similar dismissals from Pamela Geller’s in 2011, one of her numerous lies exposed was that I was “kicked out of my mosque.” Then she doubled down and I was somehow “kicked out of his mosque twice.”m I was never kicked out and never said I was. The fact they intentionally ignore is how I actually publicly took on the leadership of our mosque here: “I was bullied for criticizing Hamas.”

Alt-jihadists live in a world where truth and intellectual credibility are optional. They have one purpose: to obstruct any hope or path towards a solution within the House of Islam.

Despite the now over 14 Muslim leaders in the US, Canada, and Europe that launched our diverse Muslim Reform Movement and their diverse followings, the alt-jihad waits to impugn motives, declare us liars, or declare themselves more informed about Islam – much like the playbook of every OIC tyrant and government paid Islamist cleric across the planet would also do. But they are the traditional global jihad.

The wind beneath the sails of the traditional global jihad is the alt-jihad.

Lastly, make no mistake. The opinions of alt-jihadists are free speech. But their disagreements with us reformers are neither professional, respectful, nor hopeful of our space within the faith. They are only dismissive. Defeatist. Islamist. Exactly how the Saudi government, Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, or Khomeinists scoff at Muslim thinkers and reformers as “un-Islamic,” the alt-jihad does the same. Their work never sees the hope of our reforms for the possible synergy of secularism with our interpretations of Islam. Instead, they empower the Islamist establishment.

It is actually rather bizarre that their like-minded ideological bedfellows in takfir (the declaration of another Muslim as not being ‘Muslim’ or ‘Muslim enough’ in their behavior or ideas) are the Islamist supremacists. They seem to have all the conclusions and answers about who is and who is not a legitimate Muslim thinker.

Alt-jihadism at its core is takfirism by any other name.

No different from the useful idiocy of Islamist apologists who choose willful blindness, the alt-jihad are useful idiots for Islamist jihadists who also view Islam as one interpretation and true Muslims as only sharia supremacists. The alt-jihad is another willfully blind dead-end.

Saudis say they want more women’s rights – this Muslim-American reformer doesn’t believe a word of it

/in /by

Source: Borderless News Online

Saudi Arabia now says it requires brides-to-be to agree to their marriage, instead of the usual practice of having fathers decide who their daughters will marry. This seems like progress, but one Muslim-American reformer says it’s just the latest smoke screen in an ongoing bid to appease the West, and that the Middle East nation continues to treat women as chattel.

Saudi women are 4th class citizens in a country that has been a major oil supplier to the U.S. for decades. Every aspect of their lives is dictated by male relatives, and this male dominance is enshrined in law and backed by an ultra-conservative brand of Islam. Women cannot drive, cannot work outside the home, and have few property rights. Rape victims are often blamed for being assaulted, as it’s considered their fault for being alone with a man in the first place – a big no-no in the Kingdom.

Women in Saudi have traditionally married whomever their father chooses, no matter what. If your father is deceased, than a male guardian, such as a brother, uncle or even a younger male cousin – it doesn’t matter if he’s younger than you, as long as he’s a guy – will choose your husband for you. It doesn’t matter if the groom-to-be is toothless, fat as a cow or violent toward his other wives.

Now,  Saudi media is reporting that Minister of Justice Walid Al-Samaani has directed officials who handle marriage contracts that they must have the woman’s consent before the legal process can go ahead. Borderless News Online could not independently verify this, and the Saudi embassy in the U.S. did not return phone calls.

Read More

We can’t ignore the rise of homegrown hate and domestic terrorism

/in /by

Source: The Florida Times Union

Terrorism doesn’t come in one style.

It can be the unpopular security guard influenced by a radical interpretation of Islam like Omar Mateen.

It can be a loner influenced by white supremacist propaganda like Dylann Roof.

It can an anti-abortion extremist like Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park bomber.

It can be the anti-government militiaman like Timothy McVeigh.

It’s important for the nation to go after all of those who threaten the nation’s public safety.

During a recent hearing held by a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee, it became clear that many Americans are letting ideology blind them.

Those with liberal leanings are focused on the anti-government extremists.

Conservatives are focused on those with radical interpretations of the Quran.

Each side has legitimate concerns.

Sen. Ted Cruz, chair of the subcommittee, was concerned that the Obama administration seemed to be scrubbing all mention of ISIS and “Islamic terrorism” from public documents. He portrayed this as “Orwellian double speak.”

Of course, the ideology of the terrorists do not represent the vast majority of Muslims, but it must be admitted that these extremists are wrapping themselves in the cloak of the Quran. Make the distinction, but don’t censor it either.

Read more

08/05/2016 After Qandeel Baloch’s murder, is the world finally waking up to ‘honor killings’?

/in , /by

Source: Asia Times

The brutal murder of Pakistani model and social media star Qandeel Baloch drew so much international attention that Islamabad is finally taking steps to prevent such “honor killings” by removing legal loopholes which help culprits to escape punishment or receive light sentences. However, this social evil can’t be wiped out unless Muslim communities reform and allow women and girls to make their own clothing, dating, marital and even sexual choices.

The case of Qandeel Baloch, the “Kim Kardashian” of Pakistan, has rightly captured international headlines. A social media phenomenon, Baloch was known for posts that were provocative in the context of her home culture, even if they would be considered rather benign to many in the West, and certainly in the United States.

Honor-based violence – a type of violence in which families, sometimes with the help of the broader community, punish a victim (usually female) for a perceived social or sexual indiscretion, has long been a plague. This is certainly true in Pakistan – most especially in more insular communities where a more regressive interpretation of Islam is enforced.

Read More 

 

06/28/2016 SENATE TESTIMONY : “Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism.” By Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser

/in , , , /by

I. Introduction

Thank you Chairman Cruz and members of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary for holding today’s hearing on “Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism.” I am Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, President and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) based in Phoenix, Arizona. I am here today, taking time away from family and work during this last week of what is our holiest month of Ramadan, a time of fasting and deep atonement, because I could not feel more strongly that our current national and agency direction in combating Islamist inspired terrorism is deeply flawed and profoundly dangerous. As a devout Muslim who loves my faith, and loves my nation, the deemphasis of “radical Islam” is the greatest obstacle to both national harmony and national security.

Wholesale denial of the truth by many in our government and political establishment has actually emboldened extremists on both sides of this debate: both radical Islamists and anti-Muslim fascists.

Neither Islam nor Muslims are not monolithic and should not be treated as such by anyone – much less our government and media. Please understand it is as equally foolhardy in counter-terrorism and counter-radicalization work to refuse to acknowledge the role of political Islam in the threat as it is to villainize the whole of Islam and all Muslims. The majority of Americans are smart enough to understand that to say the House of “Islam has no problems” is just as problematic as declaring that “Islam, and all Muslims, are the problem”.

 

Testimony Of M Zuhdi Jasser

Civil Rights Champion or Radical Hiding in the Open?

/in , /by

Source: Gatestone Institute Policy Council

 

Dawud Walid is the longtime executive director of Michigan’s chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). His Twitter profile currently bills him as a “human rights advocate and political blogger,” and his blog sells him as an imam who lectures on topics such as how to maintain your manners when dealing with hostile people (the irony of this will soon become abundantly clear), and how to address the very real problem of anti-Black racism within the Muslim community.

To anyone less familiar with Walid’s persona — especially online — he could easily appear to be a champion of civil rights, a man before his time in terms of addressing intra-community problems as well as hostilities between Muslims and non-Muslims. A more comprehensive review of his activities — or even just a cursory review of his commentary on one of the days he has chosen to lash out at anyone with whom he disagrees — reveals a more sinister, even cruel, man. Further, his true aim seems not to be civil discourse and community cohesion, but rather the furtherance of a particularly malignant, vicious strain of political Islam.

I have seen Walid demean, bully, and slander other Muslims for years. He has actively worked to silence discussion of critical issues, by working to shut down screenings of Honor Diaries, a film addressing the mistreatment of women in the name of “honor” culture; instigating online hate campaigns and witch hunts against dissidents — women in particular — and pushing Muslims to ostracize those with whom he disagrees. While this behavior has been abhorrent and has brought significant distress and even potential danger to those he has targeted, the broader public has paid little mind.

His most recent tirade on social media, however, may — and should — wake the public up to his real agenda.

On March 25 of this year, Walid took to social media to talk about the Easter holiday, and how he believes Muslims should treat Christians on this day. Rather than using the opportunity to offer best wishes to Christians and condemn the slaughter of Christians by ISIS, Walid urged Muslims not to “encourage infidels” by wishing Christians a “Happy Easter.” His comments were at best hateful, at worst incitement. His is the kind of thinking that leads to attacks such as the one against Christians in Pakistan over Easter, or when the Pakistani Taliban blew up a crowd of mostly women and children of Ahmadi Muslims, or when Asad Shah, stabbed 30 times, was assassinated recently in his store in Glasgow, Scotland, for wishing Christians a Happy Easter.

Dawud Walid wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post:

“Being respectful of others’ rights to observe and practice religious holidays doesn’t mean welcoming or celebrating them.

“‘Good Friday’ and Easter Sunday symbolize the biggest theological difference between Christians and Muslims. The belief of ‘original sin’ needing a human sacrifice of Jesus (peace be upon him) who is believed by Christians to be the son of Allah the Most High is blasphemous according to Islamic theology.

“There’s no original sin for humans to atone for since ‘no soul bears the burden of another’ according to the Qur’an. Regarding the crucifixion, ‘they killed him not’ and it was only a ‘likeness of him’ is stated in the Qur’an. And of course, ‘He begot none, nor was He begotten’ meaning Allah didn’t have a son is also a primary belief of monotheism articulated in the Qur’an.

“Be respectful, and don’t pick theology debates with your Christian family members and friends this weekend. However, avoid wishing them ‘Happy Easter’ greetings.

“Avoid giving the remote appearance of passively affirming shirk [polytheism] and kufr [disbelief].”

In the above post, Walid is referencing blasphemy — a crime in places such as Pakistan, where Christians and even minority Muslims are marked for death under archaic “blasphemy” laws, perceived insults to Muhammad or Islam. He further suggests that he believes Christianity to be a polytheistic religion, again asserting his belief in the doctrine of blasphemy. Finally, he instructs Muslims to self-isolate from both family and friends, by not extending the normal human kindness of a “Happy Easter” greeting, lest they seem to be affirming “shirk” (idolatry, polytheism) and “kufr” (disbelief; related to kafir, often used to mean “infidel”). Where blasphemy laws exist, and where this mentality takes hold, the punishment for what he calls “kufr” is death — sometimes by the state, sometimes by mobs tacitly endorsed by the state.

Read more

03/30/2016 As A Muslim, I Don’t Believe Monitoring Muslims To Prevent Terrorism Is Islamophobic.

/in /by

Source: Independent Journal Review 

 

In the wake of every terrorist attack, a national discussion always ensues on what can and should be done to prevent further attacks. While this knee-jerk reaction is understandable, it is a symptom of the problem, not a step in the right direction. These conversations may make public commentators, policymakers and media personalities feel like they are creating solutions – but the reality is that cure for the cancer of radical Islam must be identified and targeted at its source: the ideology of Islamism, or political Islam; and that can only be done from within Muslim communities.

As I have argued for decades, the problem of Islamism is deep-rooted, widely spread across the earth, and backed by some of the most money-rich and ruthless governments on Earth. While far from all Muslims are Islamists, and even fewer Muslims are violent Islamists, the fact is that these bad actors exist and are a force to be reckoned with in our communities – and many Muslims to be sure have been intimidated, brainwashed or otherwise pressured against exposing them.

Recently, presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz came under intense scrutiny for suggesting that Muslim communities be secured and monitored in order to identify and address radicalization. The backlash he faced is not unfamiliar to me – but as a Muslim, I’ve come under a particularly vicious type of attack for making similar comments.

 

Read More 

12/23/2015 C-SPAN Accused of ‘Mainstreaming Islamist Organizations While Willfully Marginalizing’ Reformists

/in /by

Source: CNS News

 

(CNSNews.com) – The leader of an umbrella group of moderate Islamic organizations is troubled by C-SPAN’s decision not to cover its launch event at the National Press Club earlier this month, when on Monday the public affairs network provided live coverage to another Muslim event – highlighting “Islamophobia” – at the same venue.

Attempts to get C-SPAN to cover the launch of the Muslim Reform Movement on December 4 were unsuccessful, said M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a key figure in the establishment of the MRM.

On Monday, C-SPAN covered a press conference by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its allies in the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) at which 2016 political candidates were warned that anti-Muslim sentiment would carry a cost at the ballot box.

Jasser, a Phoenix-Ariz.-based Muslim physician and anti-Islamist activist, called the incident “beyond bizarre if not flagrantly biased.”

“They are mainstreaming Islamist organizations while willfully marginalizing us,” he said. “At least show both!”

Jasser noted that the launch of the Muslim Reform Movement took place just two days after the San Bernardino terrorist attack and weeks after the one in Paris.

Read more