Oxford Union Debate: November 2024 – Dr Zudhi Jasser argues that Islam needs reform as its current form does not fit with democracy 3/8

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Before any hostile commentary flows here about my position. Yes I love my faith. And have a strong relationship with God. Suffice it to say that I would not have dedicated myself to cofounding the Muslim Reform Movement if Islam, as an organized religion was already so obviously compatible with Democracy. What matters is not what any individual Muslim may profess but rather what the Islamic “Establishment” are teaching and writing. We have long been putting the global establishment and its Islamist theocratic leadership on notice that it’s time to reform against Islamism being normative Islam into modernity and liberalism.

[CLARITy Coalition Statement] “CLARITy Coalition stands with Israel on the first anniversary of October 7th Attacks, Condemns Islamist Terrorism”- October 4, 2024

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The CLARITy Coalition stands with our brothers and sisters in Israel in their struggle against the tyrannical leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terrorist proxies. The Iranian regime is built on the oppressive Islamist ideology of its founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, and the Clarity Coalition opposes its suppression of human rights, secular democracy and women’s rights.

We stand with the people of Israel in their existential fight for their national security against the violence of radical Islamism on multiple fronts, domestically, on their borders and across the Middle East region.

The battles Israel faces against Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian regime are just wars against the inhumanity of Islamism, militancy, and antisemitism. The barbaric terror attacks of October 7, 2023, which resulted in the slaughter of over 1,400 Israeli civilians, must never be forgotten. Israel’s efforts to dismantle and destroy Hamas are not just Israel’s fight—they are our fight as well.

We commend Israel’s courage and steadfastness in defending its state against Islamist tyranny, especially in the face of global indifference. The resilience of the Israeli people in standing firm against Hamas, Hezbollah, and jihadists is remarkable. We pray for Israel’s victory against the barrage of missiles from Iran and for an end to the belligerence of Islamist terrorists. Their belief in apocalyptic violence cannot be ignored or minimized.

As a coalition of Muslim and non-Muslim leaders, we stand with Israel’s moral clarity and support the decimation of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthi rebels, and other Islamist terror surrogates of Iran. This is the most effective strategy for ensuring Israel’s security, as well as the security of the region and the world.

The CLARITy Coalition calls on others to stand with Israel in defense of democratic values and national security. We are a global coalition founded by Muslims, ex-Muslims, academics, scholars, authors, and activists who stand for peace, democracy, liberty, and secular governance and who are deeply concerned by the continuing threat posed to these values by the actions and demands of Islamists in various places around the world.

CLARITy (Champions for Liberty Against the Reality of Islamist Tyranny) is a global coalition founded by Muslims, ex-Muslims, academics, scholars, authors, and activists who stand for peace, democracy, liberty, and secular governance and who are deeply concerned by the continuing threat posed to these values by the actions and demands of Islamists in various places around the world. Find us on the web at https://www.claritycoalition.org and on X @CLARITyCoaltion

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

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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

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

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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.

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11/6/2015 Dublin cleric concerned over Islamic teaching

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Source: RTE Ireland’s National Television and Radio Broadcaster

A Dublin-based Muslim cleric has said that he is concerned that Muslim children may be taught incorrect teachings of Islam and may develop a distorted version of Islam at weekend Islamic education classes held throughout Ireland.

Shaykh Umar al-Qadri, who is head Imam at Blanchardstown mosque, told RTÉ’s News At One that teachers attending the weekend classes are often unqualified in Islamic studies, they have no training and there is no regulation or transparency of the syllabus.

He said if children are being taught incorrect versions of Islam, it may leave them vulnerable to radicalisation.

“Some youngsters or teenagers that have travelled from Ireland to join ISIS, or to join other militant organisations, they were being brought up in Ireland,” he said.

“They used to attend Koran schools and weekend Islamic schools in Ireland. So how was it possible that these children were able to be radicalised?”

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11/5/15 Remove Islam’s ‘Scarlet Letter’ Sex Laws

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Source: The Daily Beast

Excerpt from the article:

The terrible video of Taliban stoning a young Afghan woman to death has gone viral—and Muslims must fight against the outdated laws that allow such brutality.
On a rocky patch of dirt in the mountainous province of Ghor in central Afghanistan, a band of about a dozen men, clad in turbans and traditional salwar kameez, or baggy pants and tunic, tower over a young woman, named Rokhshana, buried, yes, in a pit.

A pile of fresh dirt is piled around her shoulders and head, peeking out from the hole, just above ground. The long, dark shadows of the men dance around the woman menacingly.

In a shocking two-minute video, shot just days ago and ricocheting around the world this week, a man stops just a few feet from Rokhshana, close enough to look her in the eyes. He picks up a stone, reels back and flings it toward the young woman, aged about 19. The rock hits the ground, landing with a thud. The man reaches down to pick up another rock and throws again.

This time, the man hits his mark: Rokhshana, a name that means bright, brilliant and shining. Her crime: zina, or illegal sex, for rejecting a forced marriage for a love marriage. Her chosen husband was lashed and set free.

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10/25/15 Afghanistan Looks to Russia for Military Hardware: Kremlin’s more-assertive foreign policy raises potential for clash with U.S.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal 

Excerpt for the article:

Afghanistan, battered by worsening security, is reaching out to an old ally and patron—Russia—just as the Kremlin is seeking to reassert its position as a heavyweight on the world stage.

President Ashraf Ghani has asked Moscow for artillery, small arms and Mi-35 helicopter gunships for his country’s struggling military, Afghan and Russian officials say, after the U.S. and its allies pulled most of their troops from Afghanistan and reduced financial aid.

The outreach has created another opening for the Kremlin, stepping up the potential for confrontation with Washington. East-West relations are already strained over such issues as Ukraine and Middle Eastern policy.

“Russia is seizing the opportunity,” a U.S. official said.

Beyond such rivalries, however, the move also reflects Russian concerns that the deterioration of security in Afghanistan could destabilize Central Asia—and bring Islamic extremism closer to its own border.

At an Oct. 16 summit in Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the situation “was becoming close to critical,” with militant groups looking to expand their reach across the region.

“It’s important for us to be ready to react in concert to just such a scenario,” he told other Central Asian leaders.

Russia launched an air war in Syria last month with the aim, it said, of combating the rise of Islamic State in the region by buttressing its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It also has forged a new alliance with Iran and Iraq with the same goals.

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09/23/2014 MEDIA STATEMENT FROM AUSTRALIAN CHRISTIANS

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Source: News Maker 

Sharia law is Islamic law and the law of the Islamic state. Therefore it may seem unsurprising that given the claims of ISIS to be an Islamic State that Jacqui Lambie associates sharia law with terrorism. The obvious question that follows is; ‘what is terrorism?’ It seems our own universities, though they have courses devoted to it, have trouble defining terrorism and suggest one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. What is clear is that academics would never define terrorism as sharia law which leaves Lambie languishing.

Fortunately we have Australian Islamic scholars like Mehmet Ozalp who have given us a few more clues about sharia law. In his submission to the 2012 Multiculturalism Inquiry Ozalp noted there are four categories of sharia law; the first two pertain to beliefs, worship and rituals and the latter two to ethics and law. It seems clear that if we are to maintain a healthy separation of ‘church’ and state – or in this case mosque and state – the line should be clearly drawn before we seek to redefine ethics and law.

 

In a free society, promoting freedom of religion is a no brainer.  It should have no bearing on the rest of society whether adherents of Islam face Mecca five times a day or not. However when we get to ethics and law, those other two categories of sharia that affect everyone, we encounter a number of issues. These include the apostasy and blasphemy laws, that undermine freedom and human rights. It’s clear it is here that the line must be drawn.

No one should cry ‘racism’ when these lines are drawn.  Dr Zudhi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy  (AIFD) is an example of a strong advocate for separation of mosque and state. He  renounces sharia law and refers to those OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) leaders pushing for the international recognition of laws that would effectively act as international blasphemy and apostasy laws, as ‘thugs’. Despite being a committed Muslim, Jasser urges Americans to not bow down to these thugs because he values freedom, democracy and human rights for all.

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12/10/2013 Egypt’s Record Against Christians Called Into Question

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Source:  Trans Talk Radio News Service  

Excerpt from article:

(TRNS) — Human rights experts and advocates said today that human rights and religious freedom in Egypt must improve under Egypt’s current military government.

“When religious freedom is protected, the rest of society will be healthy,” U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Vice Chair Zuhdi Jasser said at a hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “When it is not protected, society will deteriorate.”

Egypt’s transition to democracy following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak was expected to lead to an improvement in human rights, according to Human Rights First Policy Director Tad Stahnke. Instead, the rise and downfall of the Morsi regime has led to more religious freedom unrest.

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10/16/2013 Turkey says it fires on al-Qaida-linked fighter positions in Syria

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Source: The Jerusalem Post

Turkish military fires four artillery shells at Islamist Syrian positions after stray mortar shell strikes Turkish territory.

Patriot missile installation on Turkish-Syrian border.
Patriot missile installation on Turkish-Syrian border. Photo: REUTERS

ISTANBUL – Turkey’s army said on Wednesday it had fired on al-Qaida-linked fighters over the border in northern Syria in response to a stray mortar shell which struck Turkish territory.

The military fired four artillery shells at positions of fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Tuesday, the general staff statement said.

Turkey has repeatedly carried out such retaliatory action when shells fired from Syria hit Turkey in the past. This appeared to be the first time the Turkish military had targeted the al-Qaida-linked fighters in such a way.

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