AIFD Wishes Muslims a Blessed Ramadan and a rewarding and Spiritually Fulfilling Month of Fasting

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On Saturday, we begin the commemoration of our Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

During our fast and introspection we are reminded of the truly important elements of our lives and how we can strengthen them; good health, our family, a renewal of faith and our personal relationship with God. These are values we all hold dearly, but may often come to take for granted.

The fast of Ramadan is a symbolic equalizer for all Muslims from every part of humanity. From the very rich to the very poor, the fortunate or the less fortunate, during this month we find common goodness in the challenge and rewards of the daily fast.

The hunger and thirst is a remembrance of the cornerstone of free will and discipline in faith as much as it is a sign of health. It is a reminder of thanks for our health and a test to see and feel the plight of those less fortunate. In hunger and in thirst, we are all equal. It is an equality that not only crosses social boundaries, but religious, political and geographical as well. It is a reminder of our shared humanity with every individual around the world.

It is with these thoughts and prayers in mind that we wish Muslims a blessed Ramadan and a rewarding and spiritually fulfilling fast this coming month beginning tomorrow.

Blessings,

M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D.

Founder and President

American Islamic Forum for Democracy

AIFD Participates in Special “Moderate Muslim Summit” with top government officials and Members of Congress in US Capitol

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NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Washington, DC) – On Monday, M. Zuhdi Jasser, President and Chairman of the Board of American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) participated in an historic summit at the US Capitol. Jasser met with Heads of US Agencies, Members of Congress and congressional staff during an historic Moderate Muslim Summit organized by US Representative Sue Myrick (NC-09). The summit was a first of its kind because it assembled the largest group of diverse Muslims at the US Capitol to discuss issues and policy impacting Muslim communities and societies.

At the summit, Muslim leaders were able to meet with representatives from the State Department, USAID, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense in order to emphasize the importance of having a diverse Muslim voice when addressing Muslim communities and societies. They shared their thoughts and opinions on US foreign policy and aid, and how the US government can do a better job at reaching out and hearing from a more diverse group of Muslims rather than just the largest Muslim organizations that represent a minority opinion in the Muslim community.

“I’ve been working with AIFD on their projects and use them as a resource to help me,” said Rep. Myrick. “We set up this summit so I could introduce them to other Members of Congress and US agencies in hopes they will work with them on their projects and use them as a resource as well. The meetings were a great success, and I believe this summit was the first step to empower AIFD, as well as the other leaders present, in hopes that they will be a strong force in helping our government in combating radical Islamists and extremism”.

Leaders from the following organizations were also present at the summit:

  • Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi- President World Organization for Resource Development and Education (WORDE)
  • Farid Ghadry- President of the Reform Party of Syria
  • Manda Zand Ervin the founder and director of the Alliance of Iranian Women
  • Dr. Ali H. Alyami- Executive Director, The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia
  • Omran Salman- Arab Reformists Project, ‘Aafaq (Arabic for “horizons”).
  • Karim Bromund, Director of Inter-Religious Affairs for the Islamic Supreme Council of America

Dr Walid Phares, Senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and academic advisor to the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus, moderated the summit.

About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy

AIFD’s mission is to advocate for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution and demonstrate that the separation of mosque and state and the tenets of Liberty and Freedom are integral to the Muslim Faith. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/

Jihadist Indoctrination Group Recruiting in Chicago

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHICAGO (July 17, 2009) – The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is calling on American Muslim organizations to denounce Hizb ut-Tahrir, one of the oldest and largest indoctrinating organizations for jihadism. Hizb ut-Tahrir is holding its first U.S. recruiting conference at the Hilton Oak Lawn hotel on July 19, 2009.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamist network that is committed to creating an Islamic Caliphate that spans the globe. The organization is banned in Germany and Russia as well as several Arab countries and targets Muslim children between the ages of 9 and 18. Many compare their efforts to organizations like the Hitler Youth. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is counted among their alumnus.

“Americans need to be vigilant to not allow Hizb ut-Tahrir to establish a stronghold in the American Muslim Community,” said Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President of AIFD. “All American Muslim organizations including CAIR (Council for American Islamic Relations) and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) need to be on the record that Hizb ut-Tahrir’s actions, ideologies and mission are unacceptable to both Americans and as Muslims.”

AIFD is the most prominent American Muslim organization confronting the ideologies of political Islam and openly countering the belief that the Muslim faith is inextricably rooted to the concept of the Islamic State. AIFD believes that Muslims can better practice their faith when they are liberated by the separation of mosque and state.

“Hizb ut-Tahrir preaches an ideology that calls for the destruction of the principles that America is founded on,” said Dr. Jasser. “While their words are protected by our First Amendment, their actions and movement must not be allowed to take hold. The silence of American Islamist organizations like CAIR and ISNA in condemning the ideologies of Hizb ut-Tahrir and their agenda of insurgency in America speaks volumes to their own, albeit, more camouflaged Islamist agenda.”

AIFD seeks to fuel a movement within the Muslim consciousness and community which separates mosque and state. AIFD accomplishes its mission by educating Muslims on the value of Liberty and Freedom to the expression of faith and through the contest of ideas among non-Muslims and Muslims.

About the American Islamic Foundation for Democracy

AIFD’s mission is to advocate for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution and demonstrate that the separation of mosque and state and the tenets of Liberty and Freedom are integral to the Muslim Faith. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/

MEDIA CONTACTS: Matthew Dutile

Gordon C. James Public Relations

mdutile@gcjpr.com

602-274-1988 / 480-296-6193

Press Release: AIFD–President Obama’s Speech in Egypt must highlight the plight of reformers and the threat of Islamism

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For immediate release
Contact: Susan Assadi or Angela Jamison
(800)922-8792
susan@assadi.com, angela@assadi.com

Phoenix, AZ – June 3, 2009 – M. Zuhdi Jasser , M.D., President and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), called upon the Obama administration to take advantage of the unique opportunity it has on Thursday to stand up for the universal ideals of human rights in a land where such ideals are oppressed. Speaking from Egypt which remains a backdrop of authoritarian rule that has suffocated dissent and reform, President Obama must address the two-fold cancer which plagues reform and modernization in the so-called “Muslim world.” That cancer is Arab secular fascism (i.e. the Mubarak regime) and radical Islamism (i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Azhar University). For President Obama to avoid these two major cancers which ultimately fuel terrorism is to avoid one of his responsibilities as leader of the free world.

Dr. Jasser says, ” Terrorism is just a tactic. We are continually threatened by an enemy which cannot be defeated on the battlefield alone, but must be combated in a contest of ideas. We must marginalize and defeat the ideas of political Islam which ultimately drive the dreams of militant Islamists . Egypt is the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood and thus modern day political Islam which gave rise to hundreds of splinter groups of radical Islam throughout the world. Egypt is one of the primary frontlines in this global contest of ideas. To speak in Egypt and avoid the topics of political Islam, radical Islamism, and the Muslim Brotherhood, will be like visiting Moscow in the height of the Cold War and avoiding any mention of the inhumanities of communism and its incompatibility with liberty.”

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy will look to Thursday’s speech by President Obama to remind Egyptians and the so-called Muslim world of the following:

  • America calls upon Egypt and all “Muslim” nations to free all dissidents who are imprisoned or oppressed for their ideas including but not limited to bloggers, journalists and all liberal thinkers.
  • Muslim reforms must recognize the rights and freedoms of all minorities equally and must begin the move toward the separation of mosque and state. Many non-Muslims live in the so-called “Muslim world” and deserve equal treatment under the law and deserve complete religious freedom. Thus, the Muslim world is in reality not the “Muslim” world. It is for all faiths.
  • Al-Azhar University in Cairo is a primary example of an Islamist institution which is one of the world’s primary sources of supremacist Islamist and salafist ideology. It is imperative that the United States openly expose the perils of political Islam taught and metastasized around the world from that institution and others like it. We hope and pray that the President is similarly addressing the pathologies and medieval nature of Wahhabist ideologies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during his visit there today.
  • The states of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) must abandon the Cairo Declaration of Human rights and sign the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.
  • The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists have a goal of establishing Islamic states and imposing shar’ia law. This is not compatible with universal human rights and individual freedoms and must be addressed openly and critically.
  • President Obama should announce a counter-project against the Muslim Brotherhood Project of Islamizing the west which would bring the long awaited anti-theocratic ideals of western freedom to the Middle East.
  • Our enemy’s enemies will no longer simply be our friends with no questions asked. Our real friends must first share our humanitarian ideals of universal liberty and demonstrate a genuine and rapid course toward liberalizing their society for all citizens. The days of hypocrisy are gone where America turns a blind eye to the injustices done by governments in the name of Islam because of a fear of retaliation, political correctness, or oil prices.
  • We will begin to lift up equal rights for women and minorities in every nation and help all courageous leaders of next generations.
  • The security of all free-minded nations and their citizens demands that our greatest minds, stronges t personalities, and world leaders come together and counter the daily dose of despotism, tribalism, corruption, conspiracy theories, anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism and political Islam which has become a staple for so much of the “Muslim” media. Let there be a contest of ideas– not one dominated by state run or Islamist-run media.

In January Dr. Jasser wrote a hypothetical speech for President Obama to the Muslim World. The full text of AIFDs suggestions to President Obama is available online.

Dr. Jasser, a devout Muslim and son of Muslim-Syrian immigrants, is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, physician and past president of the Arizona Medical Association. Jasser is widely known as a moderate, anti-Islamist Muslim leader featured in the PBS film, Islam v Islamists produced by ABG Films, Inc. in 2007 and narrator of the recently released The Third Jihad produced by Clarion Fund, Inc. which focuses on the threat of radical Islam and the plans of the Muslim Brotherhood in the west. Jasser appears regularly in print and on national TV and radio programs.

TO SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW WITH AIFD, PLEASE CONTACT SUSAN ASSADI

(800) 922-8792, cell (480) 510-4881, susan@assadi.com

About American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD)

AIFD is a think tank and activist Muslim organization which provides a platform for a movement to separate spiritual Islam from the political- to separate mosque and state.

AIFD openly engages and challenges all American Muslims to proactively be in the forefront of the domestic and foreign struggle against the primary driving force of militant Islamism and its terrorist offshoots-the ideology of political Islam. Militant Islamists are fueled ideologically by a radicalization of the faith of Islam. This radicalization is fueled by both militant components and a more central political desire (Islamism) to establish Islamic states. Islamists view secular pluralistic societies like America as an anathema to Islam.

AIFD rather seeks to build coalitions of Muslims which not only reject the means of terror as an anathema to Islam but more globally reject the ends of the Islamic state which Islamists seek.

AIFD believes that the only way to genuinely wage the contest of ideas and counter the root cause of terrorism is for Muslims to be given ample opportunity for debate between one another– especially within the mosques. AIFD believes that the outcome of these debates between political Islam and non-political Islam will ultimately be one of the primary reasons globally for the decrease in the threat of homegrown terrorism. For more information see www.aifdemocracy.org.