TESTIMONY OF M. ZUHDI JASSER, M.D, President, AIFD, “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and the Community’s Response”
/0 Comments/in AIFD Press Releases/by M. Zuhdi Jasser
M. ZUHDI JASSER, M.D.
PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ISLAMIC FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY
MARCH 10, 2011
The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and the Community’s Response”
Thank you Chairman King, Ranking member Thompson, Distinguished members of the committee, for seeking my testimony on what I feel is the most important threat to American security in the 21st century, Islamist Radicalization.
My name is Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser and I am the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. I sit before you a proud, devout, American Muslim whose country is polarized on its perceptions of Muslims and the radicalization that occurs within our communities. One camp refuses to believe any Muslim could be radicalized living in blind multiculturalism, apologetics, and denial, and the other camp believes all devout Muslims and the faith of Islam are radicalized…
Between these two polarities is a reasoned, pragmatic approach focused on solutions that recognizes the beauty of one of the world’s great religions, while also acknowledging the existence within of a dangerous internal theo-political domestic and global ideology that must be confronted – Islamism.
I hope that these hearings are the beginning of a rational national conversation about those solutions.
Our Forum was founded in the wake of the devastating attacks of September 11. For me it is a very personal mission to leave my American Muslim children a legacy that their faith is based in the unalienable right to liberty and to teach them that the principles that founded America do not contradict their faith but strengthen it. Our founding principle is that I as a Muslim am able to best practice my faith in a society like the United States that guarantees the rights of every individual blind to faith with no governmental intermediary stepping between the individual and the creator to interpret the will of God. Because of this, our mission is to advocate for the principles of the Constitution of the United States of America, liberty and freedom and the separation of mosque and state. We believe that this mission from within the “House of Islam” is the only way to inoculate Muslim youth and young adults against radicalization. The “Liberty narrative” is the only effective counter to the “Islamist narrative”.
Some have criticized these proceedings saying it is not the government’s role to do that. As I sit here in the people’s House, I am reminded that we are a government of the people whose entire foundation, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights and especially the Establishment clause, rested on the ability of our citizenry to have open dialogue about any issue affecting our society probably most important of which was religious freedom.
Yet as we have seen with the lead up to these hearings, we are barely able to come together to have an open discussion of the problem. This is not a left versus right issue or a case of infringement on the rights of a minority. This needs to be a serious assessment of the threat posed to our national security. The course of Muslim radicalization in the United States over the past two years makes it exceedingly difficult for anyone to assert with a straight face that in America we Muslims do not have a radicalization problem.
From my perspective in our years of work of reform at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a lifetime of dedication to America, my faith, and my family, I see radicalization as my problem and as a Muslim I am not offended if you tell me that. In the end countering radicalization should be the obsession of every Muslim because if we do not what will be our legacy for our children?
So I come to you as a devout Muslim, and to give you a so far little heard viewpoint from that Islamic space, that shows our “diversity”. Those that have been struggling to get our leadership in mosques to reform and do the heavy lifting of modernization and enlightenment have been faced with too many obstacles inside and outside the Muslim community.
We need to create a deeply rooted theological identification with this society and especially with the American legal system and the American identity. All of our security hangs in the balance of this reform, this Islamic enlightenment process. Only Muslims can figure out how to get our young adults to identify with secular western society and its ideas. Multiculturalism – political correctness– has prevented true ideological assimilation through the challenging or confrontation of certain Muslim theo-political ideas that conflict with universal human rights and our democracy.
Prime Minister David Cameron addressed this in a very important speech he gave on February 5, 2011 at the Munich Security Conference that I have attached as Appendix 1.
I am a physician and as one, I know when a patient comes in with many different symptoms, we are trained that they almost always have one unifying diagnosis that causes their illness. The radicalization of our youth is not due to the litany of non-Muslim excuses. This cancer within an otherwise vibrant beautiful faith is at its core an identity problem that can only be resolved with Islamic reform- toward modernity and the separation of mosque and state.
So many of the Muslim groups in the United States that are “leading” our communities allow these groups to define our identity only through religion and not by Americanism. To them faith is not personal it is a political collectivist movement. I learned growing up in Wisconsin that my family came here more to learn from American values and assimilate those into our consciousness rather than coming here to evangelize any Islamic ideals. My concern is that too many Muslim American groups who dominate the discourse currently have the opposite mindset one of bringing Islam to America. That mindset is not one of humility but rather supremacism and it feeds radicalization.
Every Muslim I know would report a violent act about to happen and try to prevent it from happening. Anti-terror work includes a great number of American Muslim heroes as our Attorneys General and FBI Director have repeatedly stated. But the issue is not violence or reporting violence when it comes to cooperation. When we speak about “cooperation of Muslims with law enforcement”, what is more important is the growing culture of driving Muslims away from cooperation, partnership, and identity with our nation and its security forces. Our civil rights should be protected and defended, but the predominant message to our communities should be attachment, defense, and identification with America not alienation and separation.
Too many so-called Muslim leadership groups in America, like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) or Muslim Advocates, have specifically told Muslims across the nation, for example, not to speak to the FBI or law enforcement unless they are accompanied by an attorney. Rather than thanking the FBI for ferreting out radicals within our community, they have criticized sting operations as being “entrapment”- a claim that has not stood the test of anti-terrorism court cases since 9-11. Informants end up being showcased as bad apples and subjects of lawsuits rather than patriots. While individual rights must always be protected, operations like the FBI conducted in December 2010 in Portland, OR are common place in other types of cases such as drug enforcement and racketeering cases. So why would they not be acceptable in terror cases?
As another example I have been present at Friday prayers in 2004 at one of the largest mosques in Arizona where a photo distributed nationally by CAIR and later proven to be doctored showed an American soldier standing with two young Iraqi boys holding a sign that says, “he killed my dad and knocked up my sister.” (Appendix 2) As offended as I was as a Navy veteran, the imam and CAIR ended up pathologically alienating the Muslims in that audience from an American heritage.
CAIR and MPAC have typically renounced the use of terror and violence, but they have never taken a position against the ideology of Political Islam. They both have also been the primary antagonists to efforts by law enforcement to understand and mitigate the real stages of radicalization of Muslims in America. In 2007, under the umbrella of the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition (MACLC), CAIR-NY and MPAC -NY authored “Counterterrorism policy, MACLC’s critique of the NYPD’s report on homegrown radicalism.” The paper is a response to NYPD’s report “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat.” In it, the organizations lay out their belief that, “The study of violent extremism, however, should decouple religion from terror to safeguard civil liberties on free speech and equal protection grounds as a matter of strong public policy.” I have attached the full report of the NYPD Report on “Radicalization in the West: the Homegrown Threat,” because of the value it serves our community in understanding radicalization. (Appendix 4). Rather than demonize this great work, these groups should have admitted that it was work Muslims should have been doing.
If the root cause of Muslim radicalization is Islamism (political Islam), what good is any effort at counterterrorism that decouples any suggestion of theology no matter how separatist from terror? How can law enforcement effectively do counter terrorism in our country without recognition that Political Islam and its narrative is the core ideology when, at its extreme, drives the general mindset of the violent extremists carrying out the attacks?
The Investigative Project on Terrorism recently noted that, “Though Muslims represent about 1 percent of the American population; they constitute defendants in 186 of the 228 cases DOJ lists.” (Appendix 5). As a Muslim that loves my faith, I also realize that there is a unifying common ideology, a theo-political separatism that is driving this radicalization.
It is important for us to work from the same definition of radicalization. Appendix 9 provides a visualization created by counterterrorism expert Patrick Poole to understand the complexities of radicalization. It is not just the final threat of violence that defines it. It is a continuum only Muslims can dissect. It is our duty as Muslims and as Americans to unravel it. Violent extremism is only the final step. You do not treat a disease effectively by only focusing on the final step. The pathway they all share is a domestic and world view of political Islam-Islamism. This nation is based on a secular government which protects people in a liberty-centric and God-centric ethic. Islamism is based in a theocratic system that is Islamo-centric. We cannot counter-radicalize Muslims until we as Muslims shed Islamism.
Sure there are other non-Muslim violent extremist movements. But I, our families, our devout fellow American Muslims can only help you change the trajectory of Muslim radicals that slide down the separatist slippery slope of political Islam. To this point there has been little to no work on that trajectory- only the final step of violence.
Homeland Security, government, media and our general population are only focused on that final step when the jihadists seek violence against our homeland. But we will all be chasing our tails for centuries if that remains your focus. I implore you to walk it ba
k and treat the problem at its root, at its jugular-the supremacism of political Islam. As you utilize our resources to investigate methods of solving this ever-increasing and frightening threat, you will be squandering our nation’s resources if we continue to produce work as misguided as the Pentagon’s after incident report on the Fort Hood Massacre committed by Nidal Hasan.
If you look at Dr. Nidal Hasan’s “resume”, in many ways it’s frighteningly similar to mine– military physician, trained on scholarship, not ghettoized, deceptively assimilated. But I beseech you to look into why he ‘theo-politically’ turned out the way he did and I turned out the way I did. He did not go to sleep one night a normal compassionate, patriotic Constitutional American Muslim military psychiatrist and wake up the next day a barbaric radical wanting to viciously murder his fellow soldiers. His slide into radicalism was methodical- it was a process.
We need to recognize the pathway he traveled and begin to inoculate our Muslim youth against any ideas that may pull them toward that pathway. We need programs to look at the common ideological slides of these Muslim extremists and not just play defense but have a forward offensive promotion of the ideas of liberty that will inoculate them against any narrative that drives them to hate our nation, hate our fellow citizens and abort their primary devotion as American soldiers or citizens and rather as Faisal Shahzad proclaimed in a New York federal court that he was a “Muslim soldier” and part of a “jihad”. Only Muslims can do this. But it is a legacy we have to repair as Muslims and you can help us build platforms and stimuli to do so.
As Prime Minister Cameron of the UK stated that Muslim violent extremists are all swimming in the same pool of ideologies and the only way to defeat them is an offensive strategy to drain their pool of the water and energy that feeds them- treat their common condition. And it is not violence. These are the details many Muslim groups that supposedly “represent American Muslims” do not want to address and will do anything legally possible to avoid ever discussing.
As we address specific ideological drivers toward radicalization we must note that many but not all of the current predominant Muslim groups in Washington and their alphabet soup like CAIR, the Muslim American Society (MAS), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Islamic Circle of North America, Muslim Students’ Association, and Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) to name a few have been in existence for some time. They may disagree on a great deal but they share the distinction of remaining silent about the threat of the ideology of political Islam (Islamism) and in fact many of the ideas they employ utilize Islamist methods of engagement of Muslims and non-Muslims. To many of them diversity is ‘ethnic diversity’ or religious ‘sectarian diversity’ rather than religious ideological diversity.
I am here to tell you that we are a very diverse community. There is not one Islam. With almost a quarter of the world’s population practicing the faith, that would be impossible. We are a diverse community. Many if not a majority of Muslims choose not to even frequent mosques and do not accept representation of their “Muslim identity” to the mosque or to any Muslim organizations because they are personal pietistic Muslims who choose political activism through traditional American political infrastructure rather than arms of political Islam and its ideologies with which they disagree. We cannot forget this when supposedly engaging the “Muslim community”. By engaging Muslim groups as “representatives of predominant Muslim thought” we dismiss the majority of American Muslims who do not collectivize our community.
I implore you to avoid taking that lowest hanging fruit as being representative of American Muslims or in any way allowing yourselves to think that “American Muslims” think homogenously on anything.
With that caveat, many mosques do teach an Islam that is spiritual patriotic and not in conflict with America. But there are also many that are transmitting ideas that are Islamist and push Muslims down that pathway toward intoxication and possible violent radicalization. Let’s be frank. The example I gave earlier is not a unique one. Imam Anwar Awlaki did not become a rabid jihadist overnight and we forget that for years he had been preaching in mosques from Denver, to San Diego to Northern Virginia. We should be looking at how to counter his words and actions back then not just now. His own process of radicalization did not occur in a vacuum. He may now be a radicalizer but before he became that he must have been radicalized by a continuum of an ideology.
So rather than foster a climate of transparency that Islam is an open welcome religion whose prayer halls are open to everyone, our sermons should all be published publicly in the spirit of transparency, reform and modernization instead these groups sue you, sue the government, sue airlines, and even try to sue passengers who simply see something or say something. One of the Phoenix imams suing US Airways said to CAIR in a taped audio conversation after they were removed from an airline, “terrorism is not our problem, it’s their problem.” He was the head of the National Imams Federation.
Yes, they are all against violence, or as you politically correctly call it violent extremism, but this insidious separatism of political Islam drives separatism and ultimately early radicalization.
Openly Islamist parties in Egypt like the Muslim Brotherhood may utilize democracy as an engine of advancement but in the end their entire lens for governance is based upon “Islamization” and slow advancement of Islamic legalisms and evangelism rather than reform or learning from American foundational ideals and our Establishment Clause. Again this is all the same diagnosis. So when you look at some of the “Islamic” institutions, understanding their original foundational inspiration for Muslim evangelism and its funding is essential.
Their funding matters- because it usually comes with ideological strings. Even if they no longer take foreign funding, after planting the tree it still produces toxic fruit. According to former CIA director R. James Woolsey, the Saudis have spent nearly $90 billion spreading their ideology around the globe since the 1970s. According to scholars such as Gilles Kepel, Wahhabism, the fundamentalist militant Saudi Islamist ideology, gained considerable influence among Muslims following the dramatic increase of the price of oil in the 1970s. The Saudi government began to spend tens of billions of dollars throughout the Islamic world to promote Wahhabism, often referred to as “petro-Islam”. The Saudis themselves have acknowledged donations too many mosques in the United States. There have documented donations to major mosques in Boston, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Denver Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, San Diego and new York City to name a few. The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) is a non-profit 501-(C)3 organization that from its own documents admits to holding the deed to over 300 properties for mosques and Islamic schools. While it claims to not administer these institutions, it admits to support and advise them regarding their operation in conformity with the Shari’ah (Appendix 10). NAIT’s initial funding was provided by significant donations from petro dollars.
In addition to some mosques, the ideological infrastructure of some American imams in positions of significant leadership most likely contributes to early radicalization. In the United States for example, a major if not the major arm of “legal Islam” is led by the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America. I’ve attached their lists of members and experts who make up their network. While they have slowly massaged their ideas as some of us have exposed them, their fatwas (religious legal opinions) speak for themselves). I have attached a few of the thousands of rulings at their website which they place for young American Muslims to read. Some endorse harsh penalties for apostasy, confusing negativity towards citizenship, and other malignant interpretations of Islamic law incompatible with this nation.
I am very confident that radicals like Nidal Hasan were influenced in their path toward radicalization by some of these separatist Muslim beliefs being propagandized on websites and in some mosques. This will not be repaired by simply well intended outreach of law enforcement. There needs to be a campaign toward a Muslim led reorientation about what core ideas America stands for and an ideological abandonment of the collectivization of Muslims as a political “ummah” (nation state or legal unit). The current majority of Muslim organizations have yet to declare such a campaign. And in fact as the FBI documented in their letter to CAIR April 28, 2009 where they state in light of evidence from the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial, “The FBI suspended all formal contacts between CAIR and the FBI.” (Appendix 7)
We need a solutions oriented paradigm in this nation to address the radicalization problem. That paradigm needs to be Muslim led which will melt away inappropriate fear of Muslims. It needs, as Prime Minister Cameron stated a forward, “muscular liberalism” Our Muslim Liberty Project l believe is just one of those foundational solutions that can inoculate youth for a lifetime against such radicalization. It teaches them that the greatness of America is at its core a protection of every individual blind to faith, race, ethnic origin under God with unalienable rights. This is not under any singular faith but under God. This is very different from the Islamist mantra of an Islamo-centric government, constitution, and society.
Once Muslim youth can dismiss or reject the Islamic state and identify at their depths of their soul with the American legal system that will be the only inoculation against radicalization. Until all of you, and all of us as Muslim families understand that ideology, we will never make headway against radicalization and any headway we make against the symptom of violent acts or cells will be illusory. This society and its ideological foundations need to be ours at our core as Muslims. That needs Islamic reform against Islamism (political Islam). We need Muslims writing texts about the Establishment Clause, anti-Wahhabi, anti-salafi, and for a pious Islam that separates mosque and state.
I actually do not want you, our government solving this for us. I want us, Muslims to solve this but there has been no drive, no resources, no political will to do so. You shouldn’t do it, but you can drive it and give us a long overdue platform. Without that reform there will always be an antagonism for the identity of Muslims between political Islam and our secular constitutional republic based in liberalism. Our Muslim Liberty Project instills in young Muslims these values of liberalism, self-critique, and empowerment to challenge imams and clerics who tell them liberalism is not Islam. It teaches them to internalize the ideas of the Enlightenment without losing their personal Islamic relationship with God, their devotionalism, and spirituality.
This is not about Muslim civil rights. We must protect Muslims like all faiths. Are we that dysfunctional as a nation that we cannot have healthy discussions about a religion and pathways within it toward radicalization versus pathways toward modernity and America?
We have got to be functional enough as a nation to be able walk back Muslim radicalization without labeling all Muslims and fostering a climate that increases fear of Muslims. Our founding fathers had healthy critical debates about religious diversity within Christianity and it built this great nation. We should be able to do the same. And as for Muslims that repel this honest debate because they fear stigmatization, they have little faith in our national maturity to deal with political Islam while empowering reformist Muslims or they live in a culture of denial like the end-stage alcoholics and their enablers.
Defining the Muslim identity as an Islamist, a salafist, a jihadist or a wahhabist can no longer be acceptable to a moderate Muslim at home with American liberty. We Muslims must step away from history and redefine the moderate Muslim to our youth as someone who embraces Islam and liberty. The future of American Security depends upon Muslims mustering the courage to dissect the Islamic ideas that fuel volatile separatism from a modern Islam that we want to leave our children.
Our nation’s attempts at counter-radicalization have proven so far ineffective because it has lacked a strategy and a forward ideology into Muslim communities. We have been so fixated on preventing the next attack that we have neglected to develop the tools necessary to defeat the ideology that drives the attack. It is malpractice for us to believe that by eschewing violence we solve the problem. As we have watched the long overdue changes in the Middle East, at long last the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood poses to security around the world has been brought to the forefront. The Brotherhood is the leading Islamist organization in the world. It has also over the past century hatched many of the most violent Islamist organizations in the world. We have not transitioned this newly understood concern to the operations of the Brotherhood and like-minded organizations and leaders within the United States. Our domestic and foreign policy should be the same on this issue.
Muslims are long overdue for an ideological counter-jihad. Please help me wake up our communities to that American and Muslim responsibility we have.
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a medical doctor and a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, is the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix, Arizona. (www.aifdemocracy.org). He can be reached at info@aifdemocracy.org
** SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS/APPENDICES 1-10
PDF FILE AVAILABLE AT
http://www.aifdemocracy.org/library/Hearings_Oral_arguments_M_Zuhdi_Jasser_FINAL1.pdf
An American Muslim’s View — Why Our Community Needs the King Hearings On Radical Islam
/0 Comments/in AIFD Press Releases/by M. Zuhdi JasserAmerican Muslim organization calls upon American Muslims to denounce Shariah for America rally
/0 Comments/in AIFD Press Releases/by M. Zuhdi JasserFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
STATEMENT
AIFD stands against any movement that would subjugate Americans under Shariah law
PHOENIX (March 1, 2011) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) issued the following statement regarding the March 3, 2011 rally – Shariah for America: A call for revolution.
“Shariah for America’s march on Washington is an affront to very idea of America and in no way represents the core of American Muslims. American Muslims need to denounce this rally and to unequivocally state that Sharia for America’s movement to bring shariah into government is unconstitutional and unconscionable for liberty loving Muslims in America.
Shariah for America’s belief in governmental shariah is not a mandate from God, but is instead an instrument of man that uses the myth of Islamic supremacy to strip away individual liberty and freedom.
Not all Muslims are Islamists and the problems with Islamism are not only related to violence, but related to the entire ideology of seeking the supremacy of the Islamic state over the United States and Western society, which is exactly what Shariah for America is trying to do.
The organizers of Shariah for America believe that freedom of speech is a one way street and ultimately that their rally for shariah will not be countered by Muslims or Americans. AIFD stands in support of groups like Move America Forward and the Liberty Alliance who will rally on March 3 against shariah and the Islamic State. Events like this demonstrate that American Muslims need to be open about the need to separate mosque and state and to defeat the insidious supremacist ideology of shariah in government and Islamism in general.
Shariah for America is not the first group calling for the Islamist ideologies to defeat American values. These ideologies were also recently seen in July 2009 at the Hizb ut-tahrir recruiting conference outside Chicago.
Many American Islamist organizations see these demonstrations and meetings as being on the fringe, but at the end of the day very few American Muslim organizations have directly taken on the ideology of the caliphate, Islamism, political Islam and the Islamic state. They instead want us to believe that classically Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and all of its offshoots and front groups are not a threat to the United States, when in fact rallies like this demonstrate the depths of exactly what the threat is and how at their core all Islamists desire to remove our Constitutional republic and put in its place an Islamic state based in Islamic law and the interpretations of clerics and theocrats.
AIFD calls upon all people of conscience to counter these ideas and demonstrate the fact that these are the very ideas that radicalize Muslims. There is a continuum of radicalization which is not only violence but accentuated by ideologies like this group’s that are not being countered by Muslims. In fact their silence against these ideologies caters to a mindset which is obstructionist and less than cooperative in preventing jihadism and the continual recruitment of Muslims into radicalization. Until the majority of American Muslims can begin to have frank discussion about these ideologies and how various levels of these ideologies feed into extremism and radicalization we will not as a nation be able to counter the ideology of political Islam and it’s inherent radicalization..
Shariah for America has called for a day of Anger against America. American Muslims need to have a day of anger against Shariah for America and their ideas and demonstrate that they are truly marginal. The silence of American Muslims against the Islamic state and political Islam allows radical groups like this to speak for all Muslims. It is our hope that there will be a reform for the separation of mosque and state and to make it unequivocal that these ideas of shariah and Islamic supremacy are not welcome in our Muslim communities.
About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy
The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD’s mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.
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American Muslim organization calls verdict in Faleh Almaleki trial severe blow to reform
/0 Comments/in AIFD Press Releases/by M. Zuhdi Jasser
2nd degree murder conviction lends legitimacy to “Honor Killing” of Noor Almaleki
PHOENIX (February 22, 2011) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) issued the following statement regarding the second degree murder conviction in the Honor killing case against Faleh Almaleki:
“Today’s jury verdict of a second degree murder conviction of Faleh Almaleki is a travesty of our American justice system. It was already disappointing that the death penalty had to be off the table in this horrific case where Almaleki’s guilt was less at issue as was his intent. But now to see anything shy of first degree murder is an appalling manifestation of political correctness gone amuck. If there is to be anything to honor the barbaric murder of Noor Almaleki our Maricopa court should have made a an example of Mr. Almaleki and ensured that he received the full brunt of our legal system so that the message is clear that our nation will never countenance in any way shape or form behaviors that lead toward the oppression and ultimately in this case the murder of innocent girls like Noor.
This verdict has struck a severe blow to long overdue efforts toward necessary Islamic reforms against the misogynistic ideologies that manifest in many ways against the rights of women most horrifically in the rare but increasing number of cases of Honor Killings. Almaleki’s case is a clear example of Honor Killing with ample evidence given that Mr. Almaleki knew the consequence and the reason for the murder. This decision to convict on a lesser charge ends up giving some credence to his barbaric actions. It is actually akin to the verdict that is received in some backward Muslim majority countries like Jordan and Pakistan where Honor Killings are given lesser punishments as a result of a shariah based interpretation that such murders are “understandable” and thus deserve lesser punishments.
This decision sends the wrong message not only locally but across the world to those that believe it is all right for men to subjugate and control Muslim women. This jury missed an opportunity to send a very clear message that this behavior is not acceptable within the United States and a women’s individual rights are sacred and cannot be stripped by a father, husband or anyone else because they do not approve of her behavior.
Almalkei deserved the full force of the law for first degree murder and instead will only get the punishment of a second degree murder conviction. American Muslims need to step up for the memory of Noor Almaleki and protest this conviction as weak and declare that these behaviors can never be countenance in any way within our communities and within the Muslim conscience.”
About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy
The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD’s mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.
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A Letter to the People of Egypt from an American Muslim
/0 Comments/in AIFD Press Releases/by M. Zuhdi JasserAmerican Islamists find Common Cause with Pamela Geller
/0 Comments/in AIFD Press Releases/by M. Zuhdi JasserAmerican Muslim organization calls remarks from DNI Clapper false and dangerous
/0 Comments/in AIFD Press Releases/by M. Zuhdi JasserMuslim Brotherhood is the primary face of political Islam which is ideologically at war with United States
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PHOENIX (February 10, 2011) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) issued the following statement regarding DNI James Clapper’s assertions in front of the House Intelligence Committee that the Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular”.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is the antithesis of a secular organization as asserted today by James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence. Clapper’s statement presents a significant concern that our primary Intelligence officer has a complete lack of understanding of an organization that presents the greatest threat to the security of the United States. The Director of Intelligence is either grossly naïve or covering up for an ideology that is in an ideological war with the United States and western society.
The Muslim Brotherhood is built on the ideology of political Islam which adheres to a belief in Islamic Supremacy. To be a secular organization the Brotherhood would have to completely disavow the very beliefs that define the organization.
Further, the Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to the political process in a post-Mubarak Egypt and throughout the middle-east. Thugs like Mubarak have created an atmosphere that has allowed the Brotherhood to thrive. The United States needs to be active within the country of Egypt countering the ideology of the Brotherhood helping the people of Egypt develop liberty-minded, democratic infrastructure to secure the country’s future. We need to demonstrate to Egyptians that freedom does not come in the form of Islamic law or in the rule of theocratic clerics.
Our Intelligence community cannot afford to allow political correctness or this severally mistaken understanding of the Brotherhood to enter the conversation of how we will confront the changes in Egypt.”
As we deal with political Islam domestically and abroad it has hundreds of permutations from the most violent (Al Qaeda) to the non-violent (Islamist groups in the west). They all are pursuing the same goal which is the Islamic state based in Sharia Law. This is because they all share the same roots – The Muslim Brotherhood. This very conflict is what defines our American Islamic Forum for Democracy. If America gets this conflict wrong we are doomed to become accomplices in the ascendency of Islamic theocracy throughout the world which ultimately threatens our national security.
About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy
The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD’s mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.
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Understanding Egypt: Islamic Socialism and the Left
/0 Comments/in AIFD Press Releases/by M. Zuhdi JasserLetter to our Friends– AIFD Year-end President’s Journal
/0 Comments/in AIFD Press Releases/by M. Zuhdi Jasser
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
As we look forward to 2011, we wanted to take this opportunity to reflect upon our organizational successes in 2010 at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). We can truly say that we have affected positive, lasting change in the national conversation about political Islam and Islamist radicalization. Issues such as the ‘Ground Zero mosque’, Major Nidal Hasan’s attack on Fort Hood, and an unprecedented number of homegrown terror plots from Muslims radicalized on our soil have finally begun to awaken America. AIFD has been a major catalyst in beginning to break down the blinders of political correctness that have prevented our nation from understanding the root cause of the ever-growing threat of Islamist radicalization-the ideology of political Islam. AIFD also exemplifies how solutions to that ideology may evolve– internal reform toward the separation of mosque and state from deep within the “House of Islam.”
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.
AIFD’s successes: Our work through interviews and contributions on television, radio and in print has had consistent penetration into increasing audiences. This year alone we have reached an estimated audience of over 150,000,000. AIFD has been featured on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper 360. We have been carried on Fox News Channel’s America Live, The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity. CBS News’ The Early Show, MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, and nationally syndicated radio programs by Laura Ingraham, Fred Thompson, G. Gordon Liddy, and Dennis Miller have regularly featured AIFD. Our writings have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Dallas Morning News, the Washington Times, the Daily Caller, and the Hudson Institute. Our expertise has been called upon as a source by the National Journal, Newsmax, the Washington Post, and the USA Today to name a few.
Our expertise has been increasingly called upon for guidance by academe, foundations, government, and religious institutions (e.g. House and Senate congressional anti-terror caucuses, Joint Forces Staff College, Heritage Foundation, U.S. Navy, Oslo Freedom Forum, and many more).
AIFD continues to build the foundations for reform work within Muslim communities. In 2010, we successfully conducted numerous public forums targeting young Muslims at universities; helped launch a coalition of prominent American Muslim leaders that will serve as an alternative voice to that of the dominant Muslim Brotherhood movement in the United States; and we have been invited to engage and dialogue with prominent Muslim leaders and demonstrate the genuine diversity of opinions among American Muslims and the importance of Muslim groups who focus on solutions.
It is through your gifts and partnership that AIFD has become a prominent and credible resource on Islamic issues for the private and public sectors. For that, we thank you!
In 2011 our workload will continue to increase exponentially as public awareness grows for the concern of the challenges posed by political Islam to the core values of free societies and our national security. We will continue to seek every opportunity to engage leaders, non-Muslims and Muslims, to counter the obstacles that political correctness poses in preventing the development of long overdue strategies for internal Muslim reform against political Islam. In 2011 we hope to:
Engage young Muslims in developing Muslim led solutions toward a modern liberty-based paradigm of Islam. We hope to provide young Muslims alternative venues for conversations and ideas that empower opportunities for reform that addresses their faith-based challenges in a rapidly modernizing world. We will advocate for that reform through the separation of mosque and state and the importance of an American national identity based in universal freedom over one based in political Islam.
Build the capacity of a diverse group of Muslim leaders with a unified public Muslim voice to serve as an alternative to the global Muslim Brotherhood movement; additionally, to begin the long internal hard work of reform of those Islamic theologies that are incompatible with the principles of our U.S. Constitution.
Collaborate with intelligence and law enforcement to meet the growing request for education on Islamic issues.
Educate the private and public sectors about the ideology of political Islam and the urgency of related Islamic reform issues through writings, radio and media interviews, and public forum participation.
We rely on your generous financial support. Together we must preserve America’s commitment to freedom and national security for future generations. Your support and partnership are vital. Please consider making a gift today.
Sincerely,
M. Zuhdi Jasser
Founder and President
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To achieve our mission we need your help, together we can lead the conversation and movement
We need your financial support to continue confronting the ideologies of political Islam
© Copyright 2016 American Islamic Forum for Democracy
