December 9, 2020: Countering Islamist Supremacist Culture: Europe on the Brink

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The Muslim Reform Movement leadership presents the first in a series of virtual panel discussions with our leadership and our communities. Each webinar will focus on the latest areas of concern for Muslim reform again st Islamism. Our first will be on:

Countering Islamist Supremacist Culture:
Europe on the Brink
Wednesday, December 9, 2020 | 3:00 PM ET
Join the webinar here

– Please share and invite your friends

You will not want to miss this fascinating panel led by four of our leading reformers at the Muslim Reform Movement. As France, Austria and other nations in the West began to directly confront political Islam and Islamism are we on the brink of a clash of cultures or civilization?

 

Courtney Lonergan
Applied Cultural Anthropologist and Professional Facilitator of Participatory Processes
Courtney is an enthusiastic and compelling participatory facilitator who engages the diverse perspectives of her stakeholders in meaningful dialogue to elicit inspired action and thoughtful working groups. She has lead several non-profits and grassroots initiatives and is a skilled graphic artist. Courtney will be leading this session that will include:

 

M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D.
Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD)
Dr. Jasser is the author of A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith (Simon & Schuster, June 2012). On March 20, 2012, Dr. Jasser was appointed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) where he served two terms both as a Commissioner and Vice-Chair until May 2016.

 

Soraya Deen
Soraya is a lawyer, an Interfaith Consultant and expert on Nonviolent Communication, Dialogue, Conflict Resolution and Peace making. She is a Fellow and Faculty of the Omnia Institute for Contextual Leadership, working directly with communities and Women impacted by Violent Extremism. Soraya joined the Muslim Reform Movement coalition in 2019 and has been a very strong supporter of our efforts.

 

Arif Humayun
Arif is a founding member of the Muslim Reform Movement and is a senior fellow with the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Arif developed interest in comparative religion while living in Australia from 1989-92. His first book Islam: The Summit of Religious Evolution was published in 1992 which established the common bonds between the Semitic faiths. His latest book Connivance buy Silence discusses how the Majority’s Failure to Challenge Politically Motivated [Mis]Interpretations of the Qur’an Empowered Radicals to Propagate Radicalism.

Eid Mubarak! – AIFD wishes all of our friends a Blessed Holiday of the Feast ( Eid Mubarak) on Eid Al-Fitr, May 23, 2020

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To our Muslim friends and supporters:

As the month of fasting, reflection and atonement of Ramadan ends tonight at sundown, we at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy would like to wish Muslims around the world “Eid Mubarak”(a blessed holiday) as tonight and tomorrow, we celebrate Eid al-Fitr, (the holiday of the feast) the celebration marking the close of Ramadan.

We hope that this month has allowed each of us to discover a renewed sense of spiritual solace. This past month, a trying time of isolation and unprecedented pressures for all Americans, was a time where we rededicated our ourselves to our families, our purpose, our humanity, our faith in our country, our duty to protect our nation, and our duty to protect our world from the radical savagery of militant Islamism. On this coinciding Memorial Day weekend, may our prayers for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our nation also be heard.

AIFD has had many opportunities to share our mission during this time of sacrifice, reflection and spiritual growth, and we thank those of you have offered your blessings and wishes for continued success and to those who continue to support our efforts through donations, with whom without, we could not exist.

Yours forever in liberty,

May 11, 2020 – AIFD Review of Facts on Scottsdale Community College handling of student quiz complaint and Islamist viral mob

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Scottsdale Community College Teaches the World how Cowardice in the Face of Islamist Mobs Actually Radicalizes Muslims

By AIFD Research Staff

Posted May 11, 2020 (this will be updated regularly as the story evolves with additions and dates at the end of the piece)

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy is based in Phoenix, AZ. Our founder and president, M Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., lives in Scottsdale and has been a frequent speaker at the Scottsdale Community College (SCC) campus for a number of classes and events. For example, only a few months ago, he spoke there for Turning Point USA on the topic “Taking on the Islamist Establishment” and in addition back in 2010 he had a pivotal debate with the lead imam in Arizona from the Islamic Community Center of Tempe, Ahmed Shqeirat, on “Does Islam Need Reform? And if so, how?”.

With that background, a number of friends of our forum contacted us last weekend, May 2, 2020, in order to let us know about recent developments at SCC. They, including supporters as well as other faculty at SCC, were all very concerned about the following:

  1. The unprofessional and incompetent conduct of the school’s top administration in its handling of a very simple student informal, but rather public, complaint about three questions on a quiz.
  2. The safety of a professor who, within 48 hours of information regarding one of his quiz’s being made public, was receiving death threats from across the planet, while the school’s administration responses only added fuel to the fire.
  3. The overall impact this rapidly evolving case would have on academic freedom across the campus and even wider.
  4. Should the Muslim community be treated like adults or infantilized and coddled after every one of their tantrums? What’s the impact of that bigotry of low expectations upon general radicalization?

Dr. Jasser spoke to the professor last week and broke the story on his May 4, 2020 Episode 68 of his podcast, “Reform This!”. This investigative report in the following will remain a collection of the actual facts in this case apparently lost or of no concern to most Islamist keyboard activists, the school’s administration, and traditional media.

Who is Professor Nicholas Damask, Ph.D.?

Dr. Damask as been a professor at Scottsdale Community College for over 24 years. He hails from Dayton, Ohio, and received a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati in political science and an M.A. in international relations from American University. His dissertation was on terrorism and its funding in the mid-90’s. He has been teaching this ever since and is a leading expert in this field in Arizona. A quick review of his public teaching scores from his students reveals impressive ratings. While AIFD had not had direct contact with Dr. Damask previously, he had come to a number of our presentations and events at SCC and is very supportive of our counter-terrorism and counter-islamism work.

In Dr. Jasser’s conversations this week with Dr. Damask, it is imminently clear that he is not someone who approaches Islam with prejudgment, bias or any hate whatsoever. His course is on political science and its history in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Only 15 percent of the curricula of the course in question, POS102, is related to terrorism and a part of that to Islamist terrorism. This is someone simply trying to teach his students what the root causes and underpinnings are for the Islamic militants. That is it. His is not a course in theology at all, but simply political movements.

Apparently all it takes for an anonymous student to take-down a professor and have his administration repudiate him reflexively while also diminishing the reputation of the entire College is a few publicly released snapshots of quiz questions with no other inquiries?

It is breathtakingly malicious and incompetent to conclude that he is a bigot based upon three questions out of context in a quiz. Let’s look at how this kerfuffle evolved?

Timeline of social media instigated cultural terrorism

  1. January 2020: Course opens and students can at their own pace work through the course curricula including lectures and study guides and then complete the quiz at each section. They have until May 1 to complete the entire course. The quiz questions can be reviewed later and the correct answers are provided for each section for the student to review. In this case the student finished the quiz for the section on Islamic terrorism on April 29th, 2020. This section was approximately 15% of the total curricula and the quiz in question was 25 questions total. Dr. Damask tells us that while he has a number of questions that he rotates through the course over the past many years these questions are not new. Dr. Damask also confirms that there is a honor code involved where other students taking the course online are assumed not to share snapshots and answers of the quizzes provided by those who finished them earlier.
  2. Wednesday, April 30th, 2020: the anonymous student took his quiz on Tuesday, April 29, 2020 then emailed the professor the next day (April 30) with a generic email saying that “you have insulted my religion” and “I am sick to my stomach”.

a. With no initial specifics, Dr. Damask responded kindly, saying, it certainly was not his intent, and he appreciated the students feelings and wanted the student to know that he was only trying to teach about international politics and in no way meant to insult him or his faith. Damask then later that day received a second email in which the student provided the screenshots of the three quiz questions that offended him out of the 25 total questions. He added that they “were distasteful to Islam.”

b. Damask then responded again that his course is not a commentary on religion and only about the ideas of the Islamic terrorists. He did note that the timeline of the emails makes it obvious that the student had obviously already sent the questions to the entire planet by sharing them on social media prior to his emails.

c. The student shared them apparently with an online comedian, prankster and general social media bully @g_dulla_mulla. He posted the following (post 1), apparently now a deleted post: “One of my followers sent me this. Look what schools are teaching now. SMH (shake my head) absolutely disgusting!!”. He has 239k followers. His YouTube channel is full of childish, if not thuggish pranks, some where he proudly accosts customers at Walmart and brags about getting kicked out of four Walmart’s So this is what appears to be the primary source (patient zero) of the viral spread of the three quiz questions.

  • Post 1

He then posts another question (post 2)  from the quiz, stating, “Wow, SMH! This class needs to be shutdown! Please don’t forget to report this disgusting school. I can’t believe what they are teaching those students”

His final post (post 3) was “This is the school. Please let’s all report this nasty ass school to the chancellor for racism! Let’s put them on blast.” Put them on blast is a rough translation for an Arabic colloquialism regarding loud, continuous protest and focus. Needless to say the comments under it were a clinic in Islamist radicalization, bullying and misinformation regarding the school, the professor, his course and the quiz. He identified the school to his followers and directed them to SCC.

3. May 1, 2020: If that wasn’t enough, the school likely began receiving a flurry of social media mentions and contacts through various channels. So what could be better than giving this Islamist mob a place to post their radicalism on the school’s Facebook and Instagram page under a groveling letter from the school’s head? Then, in barely 12-24 hours from the first viral posting, the school’s PR team led by Eric Sells had their Interim President, Chris Hines, post the following on both Facebook and Instagram. Thousands of comments later, the professor would be forced into hiding.

And then thousands of comments followed. Here are a few poignant examples the school has left up for over a week. The tenor of these comments speak to the incompetence of the school in giving platform to social media bullies and a student who bypassed professional avenues of complaint through his department and school.

  • Social media

There are thousands of comments like this now on the SCC social media.

The “comedian” @G_dulla_mulla that lit the fuse to this mess has since deleted his initial post but the next surrogate is also a comedian, Abdullah Jasim. He posts it with a video that essentially includes the next stage of radicalization—as is typical for Islamist agitprop—he invokes American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as morally equivalent “terrorism” to Al Qaeda, ISIS, HAMAS and other radical Islamist movements. He does this with a backdrop of SCC’s Instagram page and sarcastic, caustic commentary on the three quiz questions to another 125k followers who then proceed to make this “story”—a fuse lit from three quiz questions—go viral.

The facts about Dr. Damask’s course on “Political Science POS102” and the quiz

A section (about 15 percent) of Dr. Damask’s course is on terrorism. He shared a slide deck of his curricula with us and it is well referenced and rather balanced. He teaches about other examples of faith-based radicals from Jewish zealots to the Hindu thuggies. He also discusses what he describes as left and right wing terrorism and goes on to talk about how the constructs of faith can be used by militants in the abstract to drive terrorism.

He has taught this course for 24 years and has intermittently changed the questions and used similar ones, never having a complaint about his perspective regarding Muslims and terrorism. A couple quiz questions are not a barometer for evaluating anything let alone a conviction on bigotry.

Let’s look at the quiz questions:

And then the questions broadcast by the student?

Had the professor known his questions were going to be broadcast across the planet, to folks who hadn’t taken his course nor seen the other questions, Dr. Damask may have added more clarifying lines prior to the questions. Perhaps a phrase like, “For the terrorists…” or “the interpretation of Islam by the terrorists is…”. But that does not then mean that the questions were poorly worded or bigoted let alone the professor or the school being bigoted.

Clearly the context of the questions is related to the thought process of Islamist militants. As I’ve written about extensively in my book, “A Battle for the Soul of Islam”, and as we discuss almost daily at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, the great debate that needs to happen within the House of Islam is, “which Islam, whose Islam?” Dr. Damask’s course is not a theological discourse but rather this section of his course was about the root causes of terrorism and the underlying mindset of major global movements like Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, Nasrallah’s Hezbollah or Al-Baghdadi’s ISIS, or Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas. To release the above questions to the world as a measure of every Muslim’s Islam requires a breathtaking amount of dishonesty, deception and misinformation. This all sadly mattered little to any of the commenters who were too busy enacting a form of asymmetric cultural warfare – basically the same immoral construct as terrorism where the ends justifies the means. Like a bully, intimidation is not about the facts of a case but striking fear into the hearts of any and all that may question the Islam of theocrats like the massive global Islamist movements.

An appropriate question has to be, did the student even read the rest of the curriculum from the course? Did he even review the PowerPoint? See (link) The hundreds of thousands or more that were offended by the questions certainly did not. Dr. Damask talks about the radical’s own theo-political justification for terrorism?

This course is not about all Islam or all Muslims. Part of it was about terrorism and terrorists. It is not about the mosque down the street or the Muslims in his class or that we may know. In fact the penchant of grievance based Islamist organizations like the Council on American Islamic Relations to use manufactured incidents like this to condition (radicalize) Muslims that schools, professors, and Americans are anti-Muslim bigots.

Islamists laugh at how easy a mark SCC was

Nothing rewards a mob of Islamist bullies for their libel of a teacher, his school and Americans, more than an immediate response from the university president with a public apology. The Islamists from across the world were like sharks who saw meat in the water. The posts on the school’s Facebook page demonstrated how unleashed they all felt after the school’s top leadership posted a groveling apology with no due process. The power clearly lied with the Islamist grievance machine. Here are a few poignant examples:

Students should always be empowered to question teachers and schools. However that conversation does not begin with radical Islamists across the planet virally exploiting a couple of quiz questions. A social media mob and intimidation is not about academic freedom and it is far from supportive of freedom of speech.

Students should protest. Question. Raise their hands. But not start with a global mob of intimidation and their CAIR radicalizers. Sure enough. In this case, 10 days after it began, CAIR waltzes in to “take the student’s case”. Apparently their standards of operation have no problems with the fruit of this poisoned tree that went viral after a few comedians and pranksters took on the case first? The ambulance chasers of anti-Muslim bigotry will take any case that feeds their victimization narrative.

These legal “experts” at CAIR, like the top-level SCC administration, seemed to care little to nothing about due process or any facts in the case. They only cared about exacting punishment and retribution against anyone who ventures into teaching or discussing the connection between Islamism and Islamist terrorism.

Why shouldn’t the Islamists from CAIR or any group look at SCC and laugh at how easy a mark they were? Facts don’t matter. By the way, question #1 is there an honor code where you do things on line but you’re not supposed to distribute proprietary info?

Here’s the response again from the SCC President Chris Hines as crafted with Eric Sells, SCC’s PR lead. We remind you it was posted within 24 hours of the student’s very public mockery of the school and within 48 hours after he took the actual quiz:

Earlier this week, a student at Scottsdale Community College took a quiz as part of the class coursework. The student expressed concern over the wording of three questions related to Islam on the quiz. SCC senior leadership has reviewed the quiz questions and agrees with the student that the content was inaccurate, inappropriate, and not reflective of the inclusive nature of our college. SCC deeply apologizes to the student and to anyone in the broader community who was offended by the material. SCC Administration has addressed with the instructor the offensive nature of the quiz questions and their contradiction to the college’s values. The instructor will be apologizing to the student shortly, and the student will receive credit for the three questions. The questions will be permanently removed from any future tests. We applaud the student for bringing this to our attention – and encourage any student or employee to speak out. SCC does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability or age in our programs or activities. We value inclusiveness because we all benefit by embracing a diversity of voices, viewpoints, and experiences. SCC cultivates success when individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds are respected and empowered to contribute. — Chris Haines, Interim President. Scottsdale Community College.

This letter, its verbiage, its hurried dismissal of any due process, its weakness, appeasement and general tenor should offend any sensible American. This letter seems to address a heinous hate crime that never happened but President Hines wanted to believe the global Islamist bullies that it did.

President Haines promises an apology which Dr. Damask never agreed to. All he knew was that he was forwarded a letter of grotesque apologetics to fill in a couple blanks and sign his name. Here it is:

Nothing from the president on the student’s violation of process for complaints.

Nothing from the president on the student’s violation of honor codes by snap-shotting quiz questions for mass distribution.

Nothing from the president on the need to adjudicate this and have a hearing to hear both sides of the story.

She concluded the questions were “offensive”

She concluded the professor needed to apologize and more and in fact the student was lionized rather than taught.

Still as of May 10, 2020, there has been no formal complaint filed by the student. Nothing has been filed with the department chair.

On top of this disgusting letter from leadership, tossing their 24 year professor to the global Islamist wolves, Eric Sells, their public relations head asked the professor to fill out this apology letter above. In that letter, Dr. Damask is being coerced into signing a letter admitting that he wrote questions with “offensive material” and that he learned a new lesson in diversity and how to view his material. Never mind it is the leadership who let one monolithic movement of Islamist bullies speak for Muslims and threw away ideological diversity among Muslims with their obsequious apologetics.

This type of university action only radicalizes Muslims more

For the school to parrot the complaints of the student with no due process gives the Islamists the entire narrative. They have shaped what will be understood as the “facts in the case” others be damned.

Such a biased, one-sided approach to complaints about their faith representation from a Muslim (usually Islamists) implies that all Muslims should be coddled and given deference for any complaint with no need for due process or balance. In this month of Ramadan, the Islam we teach here at AIFD is not one of punishment and fear for those who may conflate militant Islam with our Islam, but rather one of humility, compassion and fairness.

This ‘bigotry of low expectations’ as an approach to any Muslim complaint actually radicalizes Muslims. It rewards their mob-like intimidation. Is that not what terrorism’s asynchronous warfare is all about? The cause of the university’s pathological response may be their cowardice, their inordinate fear of that Islamist mob. So in fact are they not then negotiating with cultural terrorists, bullies or a mob? So let’s review. A student gives three simple questions to a half-wit across the world to post and to unleash the global twitter mob. Now this professor is getting threats from around the world especially under the school’s cowardly post of an apology letter. In what planet does any of this make sense for an institution of any semblance of academic rigor, freedom and free speech?

The professor wasn’t even wrong. The questions’ intent is what matters. If you believe those questions are bigotry then you don’t understand anything of why there are 100’s of millions of followers of Islamist political groups all over the world. They are emulating their version of the Prophet Mohammed. They believe that their Islam is the only Islam. Their numbers are not insignificant and they dominate major theocratic regimes from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Islamist institutions in Egypt, Wahhabi ideology out of Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and millions upon millions more.

Our work at AIFD is about reform against political Islam as a root cause of radicalism and its terrorism. The Unites States was formed on the defeat of theocracy. And in today’s America teachers that have the courage to teach that Islamic theocracies are currently normative Islam which many Muslims who are honest would tell you just like Christian theocracy was normative Christianity before the 17th and 18th Jeffersonian religious liberty and freedom were ideas that took centuries in the make and the same thing now with Islamic law. It has to go through the same reformation but simple questions about terrorism and responses like this are not offensive and anyone who thinks they are is either ignorant, in denial or flat out deceptive.

Legacy media pile on along with the global Islamist mob and cowardice of SCC Leadership

With little surprise, the local legacy media covered the kerfuffle and basically regurgitated the Islamist talking points and propaganda from CAIR. Here’s the breathtakingly one-sided headline: “Scottsdale Community College Apologizes after ‘inappropriate’ questions on Islam Surface on Quiz”. They included no other voices from academia or the Muslim community. Dr. Jasser addressed the Arizona Republic reporter here via twitter and the Gannett ‘diversity’ reporter, Lorraine Longhi, did reach out to him and did apologize for excluding our voice. A follow up report is promised after she interviewed him on May 10, 2020. She will hopefully also interview the professor. We will keep you abreast of further developments in this clinic on academic freedom, free speech, religious liberty, ideological diversity, Muslim reform, and the cowardice of the West in the face of global Islamist bullies—“cultural terrorists”.

May 12, 2020 UPDATE:

 

Arizona Republic Gannett reporter Lorraine Longhi provides a more balanced and updated report on the SCC kerfuffle here. We are not sure why the Islamists at CAIR need another round of airing of their radicalizing propaganda. But regardless, this was better than the first story.  See her story here titled: “District to investigate Islam quiz questions, criticizes Scottsdale college’s ‘rush to judgment’.

May 12, 2020 update, the College Fix reported on the impact of a legal warning from FIRE and the interim chancellor of SCC provides an impressively humble apology and defense of Dr. Damask. See their full report here titled: Public college backs off threat to censor professor’s course on Islamist violence after legal warning | The College Fix

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

Media Contact
Mischel Yosick
mischel@zliberty.com
480-225-7473

November 20, 2019: “Arizona Muslim Alliance” brings to the Valley radical Islamist, Siraj Wahhaj

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Imam Siraj Wahhaj comes to the valley

This weekend the Arizona Muslim Alliance (AMA) is having its first annual “Celebrate Unity Leadership Summit”. This summit is to be held at the Islamic Center of the Northeast Valley in Scottsdale, Arizona on Saturday, November 23, 2019 for most of the day. The summit will feature the so-called “unifying” speaker and Islamic scholar–Imam Siraj Wahhaj. Wahhaj will also be touring other AMA affiliated mosques in the Phoenix Valley on Friday, November 22, 2019.

Wahhaj is a notorious, well known radical Islamist anti-American cleric whose dossier of Islamist and separatist ideologies is legendary in the United States, even for the dyed-in-the-wool Islamist Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups. The fact that this local upstart “coalition” of mosques –the AMA– is sponsoring Wahhaj and using his radical type as their first impression on the Valley and our Muslim communities is both very revealing and thus consequential in understanding the ideological underpinnings of various mosque leadership involved in this consortium of so called “unity” organization of many of  the mosques in the Valley– the Arizona Muslim Alliance.

We call on Arizonans and especially our Muslim communities to speak out against the fringe ideas of Siraj Wahhaj and guard against his likes and radicalization under the guise of unity.

In fact, apropos to the subject of unity Imam Siraj Wahhaj famously said:

“A brother asked me yesterday. He said, ‘brother Imam Siraj, after you do all this traveling around the country, around the world, what would you like to focus on? What would you like to be your area of focus?’ I said working on the unity of the Muslims. Because you know what brothers and sisters, if we were united nobody could stop us. You wouldn’t have to vote for Bush or Clinton. No, you wouldn’t have to. If we were united and strong we’d elect our own emir and give allegiance to him. And the rest of the world, take my word, 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us” – October 1992. (IPT)

Wahhaj has never repudiated those remarks nor any of the troves of decades of speeches, work, commentary, and radicalization we are about to share with you.

The Arizona Muslim Alliance and its leadership must be held accountable to this man’s ideas and leadership- the man they chose among so many others in America to launch their “celebrating unity leadership summit”

What is this new organization, the Arizona Muslim Alliance?

After you learn below who and what Wahhaj stands for, you may get a better understanding of what the leaders of our local Muslim communities actually agree to have influence their followers and youth. In fact looking at the Arizona Muslim Alliance mission proves this synergy with Imam Wahhaj.

  • Their motto is “AZ Muslims in Unison”. Are they intending to push the impression that Siraj Wahhaj speaks for all local Muslims “in unison”?
  • Arizona Corporation Commission lists Arizona Muslim Alliance, Inc. with an address of the same address as the Islamic Center of the Northeast Valley (in Scottsdale) [Arizona Muslim Alliance] and filed by Arizona Muslim Alliance Director Sarfaraz Sheikh. The following members as their Board of Directors: Kristy Sabbah, Ahmed Ewasha, Ahmed Hashim, and Salaheddine Tomeh. The Corporation commission lists the “known place of business” as the same address as the address of Salaheddine Tomeh of the Arizona Cultural Academy, a private Islamic K-12 school.
  • Their posted Vision, Mission, Philosophy and policies:
    1. The AMA is a platform to “bring together the Muslim community in Arizona and act as a unified voice to address the religious, social, economic, and political needs of the Muslims in this land.
    2. Vision: “to be the unifying Federation of Muslim organizations in Arizona, the leading advocate of the diverse Muslim community, and a catalyst for enriching the society at large”
    3. Mission: “uniting the Muslim community in Arizona by establishing effective communication, enhancing cooperation, sharing resources, and correlating activities among Arizona’s Muslim organizations. Representing and defending the interest of Arizona Muslims. Enhancing Muslim participation in the public sphere; encouraging cooperation and partnership with other religious and civic groups for the common good; providing services not available nor provided by individual member organizations.”
    4. Philosophy and policies: they report complying by local state and federal government law. They “will not interfere with member organization procedures, operations, and finances.” They “will represent the interests of main stream [sic] Arizona Muslims who are integral part of the citizens of Arizona… a diverse community, not limited to certain race national origin or ethnicity”. Note that no mention is made of ideological diversity. This is a Islamist monolithic coalition of the Islamist establishment in Maricopa County.
    5. They define main stream [sic] Islam as:
      1. “a complete way of life guided by the authentic sources of Islam; the glorious quarter and in the authentic tradition of the Prophet Mohammed”
      2. “Other traditions, man-made rules, cultures and ethnic behaviors and traditions are not considered as sources of AMA however, reserves the right to follow a ruling agreed upon by the majority of Islamic scholars”– if this isn’t a central Islamist separatist doctrine we don’t know what is.
    6. Organizationally: it is a 501c(3) nonprofit organization apparently with an assembly of voting within a ‘House of Representatives’?
    7. The rest of their definitions and policies are noted at this link.

Local History/Background

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy has previously done in-depth exposes on many of the local imams. It most notably included an in depth expose on “Exposing the ‘Flying Imams’” from the Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2008 edition. Therein, Dr. Jasser exposed the backgrounds, ideologies and track records of some of the leading local imams here in Arizona that led to the case, Ahmed Shqeirat et al. vs. U.S. Airways.  Sure enough, the lead contact imam for Imam Wahhaj’s Celebrating Unity event here in Arizona is again, Ahmed Shqeirat of the Islamic Community Center of Tempe (ICCP).

Additionally, Dr. Jasser wrote this expose for the Arizona Republic on August 23, 2014: “Muslim: I was bullied for criticizing Hamas”. Dr. Jasser laid out how he became the subject of the Eid (Holiday) sermon on so-called Islamophobia by Imam Yaser Ali at the Islamic Center of the Northeast Valley who in speaking against Dr. Jasser, said, “even Muslims can be against their own community”. Dr. Jasser further noted,

Even in America, leading Muslim organizations and clerics bully with threats of ostracism those Muslims who dare to dissent. Old-guard ideologues, too, used to monopoly control, make it crystal clear to their Muslim critics: Take us on and we will make an example of you as a traitor to the Muslim community (the ummah)… Intimidation and intolerance, from the bully pulpit by imams like Yaser Ali, are symptoms of a much deeper and broader conflict between political Islam (Islamism) and modernity — and more specifically, liberal democracy. Reform will not come easily. It must come from within, driven by both love for our faith and frank public critique of our leaders. But it cannot be done without the support of our non-Muslim allies, for universal human rights, freedom of conscience and, indeed, American security hang in the balance.

There has since been little to warrant exposure on our state or national platforms to goings on locally here in Arizona. However this weekend’s upcoming visit by the radical Islamist, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, brings home all of the areas, AIFD has been working to reform locally, nationally, and globally for years since our founding.

This new local coalition organization of the local Islamist establishment, the Arizona Muslim Alliance stands in stark contradiction to the principles of our reformist and anti-Islamist coalition- the Muslim Reform Movement. See our Declaration and compare and contrast what we stand for versus what the Islamists of the Arizona Muslim Alliance claim to stand for while living in this great land of freedom, the United States of America.

Who is Siraj Wahhaj? 

When Dr. Zuhdi Jasser’s Simon & Schuster book,  “A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save his Faith” came out in 2012 he noted that Imam Wahhaj’s keynote speech at the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America in 1995 was the entire reason he was moved to dedicating his life to defeating the Islamist ideology. Dressed in his Navy

uniform, having represented the National Naval Medical Center at the Islamic Medical Association that met in conjunction with the ISNA meeting, Dr. Jasser saw Imam Wahhaj hold up the Qur’an and declare his desire to replace the US Constitution with the Holy Qur’an and to make America into an Islamic state. Read the three page excerpt from his book about Siraj Wahhaj (Pages 85-87).

Eight years later, Dr. Jasser would found the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to fight that very insurgency of the Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the West.

Wahhaj is an Islamist imam with a long track record of separatism and anti-American anti-semitic vitriol. This imam has a long track record of vilifying America the society it citizens and its culture. The following is only a smattering of many of the radical comments he has made and while the Arizona Muslim Alliance (AMA) claims to be a “diverse” organization, they all seem to have agreed to bring one of the most notoriously radical imams in the United States. When all is said and done, the AMA leadership selected this leader to represent them and teach their population here locally while they claim to be a diverse organization. There are obvious reasons truly moderate, pro-American, reformist  Muslim organizations locally are not part of this Arizona Muslim Alliance and will likely not only never be a member, but will continue to confront their Islamist separatism which they peddle under the rubric of pan-Islamic “unity”. This AMA is simply another Muslim brotherhood legacy group with a penchant to amplify the voices of anti-American separatism and radicalization of leading Islamist icons like Siraj Wahhaj.

Siraj Wahhaj Jr and the recent New Mexico 2018 terror cell

Court records identified that children in a camp were being starved and trained in jihad to imminently shoot up a school and a hospital. After the state of New Mexico incredulously dropped the ball and charges were dismissed as time ran out on them, the FBI and DOJ then moved in with their own charges against the cell leaders. The federal government now controls the fate of the cell.  Following the initial raid, authorities confirmed that the body of the three-year old found in the compound was that of Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj. Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj is the grandson of radical Islamist preacher Siraj Wahhaj, Sr coming this weekend to teach Arizona Muslims how to unite. Out of the five suspects arrested in this case, one is Siraj Ibn Wahhaj’s son, and another two are his daughters.

This case and what happened with the younger generation of the Wahhaj family will likely demonstrate the pathways of how American Muslims are often radicalized.  Granted, there is no evidence that the senior Siraj Wahhaj, Sr. had anything to do with the New Mexico compound and his children’s jihadi terror training camp. In a Facebook video the day after the story broke, he stated that he “want[ed] to find out what happened, what made [his] children act in such a dramatic way.” We at AIFD believe that his non-violent Islamist preaching spawned the separatist, violent Islamism that we saw in the New Mexico compound.  The apples do not fall far from the insurgent, separatist tree of Islamism (whether or not imam Wahhaj taught violence or non-violent). But see his teachings below.

Since the New Mexico jihadi compound story broke, the mainstream media has gone to great lengths to avoid any in-depth coverage of this story. Clearly, the mainstream media is protecting the senior Wahhaj’s reputation as well as that of the major network of organizations to which he is tied. Had Siraj Wahhaj, Sr. not been related to this story, the coverage would have been very different. In cases of terrorism linked directly to the families of prominent Islamist activists and preachers, the American Muslim community finds itself at a defining moment.

How American Muslims learn and respond to the slippery slope of non-violent Islamism and its inherent separatism, as evidenced in the Wahhaj family, is critical. Will we remain in hopeless denial of the evils of Islamism? Will we as a diverse ideological community continue to allow the Islamist “establishment” to dominate and oppress our communities? Or will we finally garner the strength to stand up to Islamism and its separatism?  The Wahhaj family patriarch planted the seeds of Islamist separatism for decades. His hateful rhetoric spreads both within his family and in leadership positions throughout our communities. We can stay silent and enable this radicalization process, or we can fight with every fiber of our being against Islamist brainwashing.

While CAIR offered condolences and support for the Wahhaj family in September 2018 when it was exposed that Imam Wahhaj’s children were involved in a terror cell his grandchildren were found in atrocious Third World conditions and a three-year-old died in an exorcism. Rather than acknowledge the role that the imam might have played and radicalization of his own children and thus his grandchildren, CAIR instead thanked him for his contributions and wanted Americans to believe that we still owe him a great debt. They even had the temerity “to condemn as hate groups those who will use this as an opportunity to smear the man”.

Wahhaj is a leading fundraiser for major American Islamist organizations

He is a leading fundraiser and preacher for major American Islamist organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America), MAS (Muslim American Society), and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America). , Abdulrahman Alamoudi, the head of the American Muslim Council (AMC) the organization that invited him to give the first Muslim invocation to the US Congress in 1991, is still serving time for trafficking over $300,000 cash from Libyan dictator Gaddafi in a plot to assassinate then Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in addition to other terror finance charges.  This was likely an Al Qaeda operation. And Wahhaj still speaks highly of his time giving the first Muslim invocation to Congress, and conveniently ignores that the organization that made it happen has dissolved as its head joined the work of Al Qaeda.

 

 

Imam Siraj Wahhaj in his own words—a radical Islamist

  1. Supremacy of the Islamic state: Imam Wahhaj has a long history of endorsing the supremacy of his Islamic state over the United States or a Western country. He has told his followers according to Paul Barrett in the Wall Street Journal October 24, 2003, quote that: “a society governed by strict Islamic law in which adulterers would be stoned to death and thieves would have their hands cut off, would be superior to American democracy.”
  2. 9-11 truther: Referring to unnamed forces in the government and media he preached “these people want the destruction of Islam” Paul Barrett, WSJ “One Imam Trades the Path of Islam in Black America” October 24, 2003. He further said, “Why is even a truth or who brushed off evidence that Osama bin Laden’s involvement in 9/11 was obvious.” He dismisses bin Laden’s own video pronouncements claiming responsibility for the terror attacks and prefers to remain neutral. He thought it may be a media ruse: “I’m just not so sure want to be the one of the ones who say yeah he did it. He’s a horrible man”
  3. Wants the defeat of America: “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replaces constitutional government with a caliphate. If we were united and strong, we would elect our own emir and give allegiance to him. Take my word of 8 million Muslims united America the country will come to us.” Source
  4. Close to ’93 World Trade Center bombing master mind, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman: In the early 1990s he sponsored talks by Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman in mosques in New York City and New Jersey. Abdel-Rahman was later convicted for conspiring to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 and Wahhaj was designated a potential unindicted co-conspirator. Source
  5. Close to Al Qaeda operative Alamoudi: As noted above, in that video clip, Wahhaj becoming the first Muslim to provide an opening prayer to the United States Congress. On that same day he was sponsored by the American Muslim Council and its executive director Abdulrahman Alamoudi, an Al Qaeda operative who was later convicted and is currently serving a 25 year sentence for conspiring with the Libyan government to assassinate the king of Saudi Arabia as well as on terrorism charges.
  6. Horrifically anti-Western. In an audio tape recording where Wahhaj was speaking on “the Afghanistan Jihad” on September 28, 1991 he said, “and he alone declared, ‘whoever is at war with my friends, I declare war on them’, ‘who is a friend of Allah your true friend is Allah, the messenger, and those who believe!’ Americans and Canadians? Hear it well hear what I’m telling you well. The Americans are not your friends, hear what I’m telling you hear it well. The Canadians are not your friends. Here what I’m telling you. Hear it well. The Europeans are not your friends. Your friend is Allah, the messenger and those who believe. Those people will never be satisfied with you until you follow their religion. They will never be satisfied with you.” Source
  7. America is the devil and these punishments are commanded: In this audio he says, “I swear by God, I swear by God, the American government is controlled by Shaitan (the devil)…no doubt about it… If you commit zina (fornication) the punishment is 100 lashes. If you commit adultery the punishment is death by stoning, capital punishment…When you steal, God is angry, cut off their hands”… Woww to the Muslims who take Kafirs as friends. Kafirs will take you away to the remembrance of Allah… surrounded by kafirs making the hearts of our children corrupt. Do not hang out with the non-Muslims. You talk just like them. They are corrupt.”  Listen below to video or see full transcript provided by Middle East Forum here.
  8. On homosexuality:“Brothers and sisters, I don’t believe any of you are homosexual. This is a disease of this society. According to the Kinsey report, some 10% of the American people are homosexual. Over 25 million Americans, one out of ten. Men who prefer men, sexually, and women who prefer women. Now, there may be some who have some little tendency, maybe, among the Muslims, among us, allahu alam, I don’t think so, but hopefully today’s khutbah can get rid of that if you have it in your heart.And number two, I want you to be able to defend against these homosexuals, so you have good argument, Inshallah, and also to remind you last week what I told you, the news that we got from Toronto, supposedly of some Muslims coming out of the closet. Homosexuals, Muslims in Toronto, who want to establish a mosque over the land, for the gays, Muslim gays. We are against that 100%. We don’t accept it. We will never accept it, no matter how much the American government and the Canadian government legislate it in the laws that it is acceptable, it will never be acceptable by the Muslims.”  See the full transcript of this video provided by the Middle East Forum here. Listen below:
  9. Why Muslims should get involved in politics: “I just want to say this. Brothers and sisters, in my opinion what the Muslims do in America will have a profound effect on Muslims everywhere on this earth. As long as you remember that if you get involved with politics, you have to be very careful that your leader is for Allah. You don’t get in politics because it’s the American thing to do. You get involved in politics because politics can be a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.” –source

    END

     

     

    About AIFD

    The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a Muslim led think tank and activist non-profit organization based in Phoenix, AZ, addresses the root cause of the domestic and international threat of radical Islamist terrorism. 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 and is dedicated to providing an American Muslim voice calling for genuine reform against Islamism and the ideologies which fuel global Muslim radicalization.

    About M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D.

    Dr. Jasser, president and founder of AIFD, and co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement, is the author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith“, and is also founder of Take Back Islam. Dr. Jasser is an American Muslim and son of Syrian immigrants who fled Ba’athist oppression in 1966. Zuhdi is a physician in private practice and a former US Navy officer. He is a former commissioner and Vice-Chair of U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) appointed by the U.S. Senate serving from 2012-2016. An internationally recognized expert on Islamism, Dr. Jasser is widely published in the field and is featured in many top tier media. He regularly testifies to the U.S. Congress on the threat of global Islamism and domestic and foreign counter-ideology strategy. Zuhdi’s work is dedicated to championing universal human rights rooted in an American and Western identity from within the “House of Islam”. Twitter: @DrZuhdiJasser

    Contact US

    Email: info@aifdemocracy.org
    Phone: 480 225 7473

September 10, 2019: Honoring Islam

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TOWN HALL MEETING
WITH AMERICAN MUSLIM LEADERS AND MINNESOTANS

On July 23, 2019, at the 2019 conference of the Muslim Caucus Education Collective, Rep. Ilhan Omar reprimanded a Muslim audience member for asking a question about female genital mutilation, calling it an “appalling question.” Take part in a dynamic conversation with American Muslim leaders who ask and answer the “appalling questions”

HONORING ISLAM BY TAKING ON THE “APPALLING”QUESTIONS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

7-9 pm

Anderson Hall—University of Minnesota

257 19th AVE S, Minneapolis MN 55455

This event is free and open to the public with limited capacity. Please RSVP at MuslimReformMovement@Gmail.com to reserve your seat.

Twitter @TheMuslimReform

8/29/2019: CAIR Touts Partnership with Census Bureau

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Breaking News: CAIR Touts Partnership with Census Bureau
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
August 28, 2019
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8045/breaking-news-cair-touts-partnership-with-census

Federal law enforcement knows enough
about the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to order its agents not to engage with the group outside of criminal inivestigations. But despite that, the U.S. Census Bureau believes the conservative, Sunni-dominated Islamist organization is a trustworthy organization to partner with in next year’s national population count.

 

“CAIR is proud to partner with the U.S. Census Bureau to ensure American Muslims are fairly and accurately counted in the 2020 Census,” Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a CAIR news release. “Full participation in the census ensures that American Muslims will be better represented in Congress and that their communities receive an equal share in state and federal programs.”

It isn’t clear what CAIR or the Census Bureau will do as part of the partnership. The statement indicated CAIR will promote participation in the Census and advise people how to avoid scams. The Census Bureau did not respond to a request for comment.

“CAIR wants to ensure that that not only are American Muslim communities being fairly counted – but that their neighborhoods are getting a fair share in federal and state funding,” the CAIR release said. Internal documents seized by the FBI show that CAIR and its founders, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, were deeply involved in a Hamas-support network in America created by the Muslim Brotherhood. A committee report described the group’s mission as “defending the Islamic cause in Palestine and support for the emerging movement, the Hamas Movement.”

Both Ahmad and Awad appear on the “Palestine Committee” telephone list (Ahmad is listed as “Omar Yehya”), and CAIR is listed on a meeting agenda which named the committee’s branches.

“[U]ntil we can resolve whether there
continues to be a connection between
CAIR or its executives and HAMAS,” a
senior FBI official wrote in 2009, “the
FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner.”

The policy remains in effect a decade later. The FBI’s conclusion was shared by federal prosecutors and a U.S. District Court judge who reviewed the evidence.

Records seized by the FBI “do create at least a prima facie case as to CAIR’s involvement in a conspiracy to support Hamas,” U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis wrote in 2009.

“CAIR,” prosecutors wrote, “has been identified by the Government at trial as a participant in an ongoing and ultimately unlawful conspiracy to support a designated terrorist organization, a conspiracy from which CAIR never withdrew.”

CAIR has never acknowledged its Palestine Committee connections or tried to argue that it moved away from that support. Its leaders refuse to condemn Hamas, often angrily. Awad continues to promote antiIsrael rhetoric, as in 2014, calling the Jewish state “the biggest threat to world peace and security.”

Awad publicly expressed support for Hamas in 1994 – the year CAIR was founded – over the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In a 1998 speech, Awad openly referenced Jewish advisers in the Clinton administration as the driving force behind U.S. foreign policy: “Look at their names. Look at their ethnic, their ethnic or religious or racial background. You will see that these are the same groups that belong to the same interest groups in the (Clinton) Administration…they are the same people who are opposing the peace agreement (with Iraq).” But aside from its roots in a Hamas-support network, CAIR has a history of grossly inflating the American Muslim population. It issued a report in 2001 claiming there were 6 million Muslims in the United States. Six years later, however, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press analyzed Census Bureau data to estimate “the total population of Muslims in the United States at 2.35 million.” That number increased to 3.45 million people in 2017.

CAIR’s partnership is a problem, said Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. But there’s a deeper concern, which is found on the Census Bureau’s website. “The U.S. Census Bureau does not collect data on religious affiliation in its demographic surveys or decennial census. Public Law 94-521 prohibits us from asking a question on religious affiliation on a mandatory basis; in some person or household surveys, however, the U.S. Census Bureau may collect information about religious practices, on a voluntary basis.”

Given that, Jasser asked, why is the Census Bureau partnering with a religious organization at all? CAIR’s announcement perpetuates a stereotype that Muslim Americans are not engaged in society. “It’s counting all Americans as equals,” Jasser said, “not as faith groups.”

The notion that Muslims need to be encouraged to participate in the national census treats an entire population as “naïve immigrants,” Jasser said. “They claim we’re well-integrated. If that claim is true, why is this project necessary?”

It is important that Muslim Americans participate in the Census. CAIR’s history, however, raises questions about whether the Census Bureau has partnered with an organization deserving of its trust.

Wishes of Peace, Love and Joy to all this Holiday Easter and Passover Weekend. (April 20, 2019)

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To all our friends and supporters,

We at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) would like to wish our Jewish friends “Chag Pesach Sameach” (Happy Passover holiday) and to our Christian friends a Happy Easter.

We understand and deeply appreciate the deep spiritual significance of these holidays for the Jewish and Christian communities.

May we remain committed and undeterred in our mission to advance freedom for all persecuted people, and to stand with all those facing oppression everywhere.

Indeed, this is the core of our work at the AIFD – to challenge theocracy and fascism as they threaten our most precious God given blessings: freedom of conscience, the choice to have a relationship with the Divine that is based on sincere conviction, and the right to connect with others around our most sacred values.

At the core of being American is religious liberty to celebrate our most spiritually fulfilling of days. As you recognize your holiday and these important days of worship and sacrifice, may we also help continue to live up to our responsibilities to keep our nation free and open to your unrestricted worship.

As you recognize your holiday and these important days of worship and sacrifice, we hope at AIFD to continue to live up to our responsibilities to keep our nation free and open to your unrestricted worship.

Yours in liberty,

Team AIFD

July 2011: A Communique in Response to the National Strategy for Counterterrorism

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American Islamic Leadership Coalition

As American Muslim leaders, we come together to defend the US Constitution, uphold religious pluralism, protect American security and cherish genuine diversity in the practice of our faith of Islam.

July 2011:  A Communique in Response to the National Strategy for Counterterrorism

Background:

The American Islamic Leadership Coalition (AILC) is a group of more than 25 organizations and leaders that are representative of the overwhelming “silent majority” of Muslims in America, who, like our brethren of other faiths, span a wide gamut of religious beliefs and adhere to diverse social and cultural practices. AILC was established in September of 2010 in Washington, D.C. Our mission is: “to defend the U.S. Constitution, uphold religious pluralism, protect American security and cherish genuine diversity in the practice of our faith.”

We acknowledge that Muslim radicalization is a ‘Muslim problem that requires a Muslim-led solution.’ The general failure of Muslims to confront radicalization head on has contributed to a rising tide of fear of Muslims in the West, which jeopardizes the prospects of a peaceful and harmonious future for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Unlike most Muslim grievance groups, which deny and evade their American and Islamic responsibilities to lead counter-radicalization and reform efforts, AILC believes that it is our duty as Muslims, and Americans, to assist our government, our fellow citizens and our co-religionists in taking the difficult steps necessary to halt Muslim radicalization. For in the final analysis, only Muslims can counter and discredit the virulent theo-political ideologies that feed radicalization.

In the words of Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid (1940 – 2009), Indonesia’s first democratically-elected president and long-time head of the world’s largest Muslim organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama: we seek to “restore honor and respect to Islam, which the extremists have desecrated… People who are convinced that they know more than anyone else about Islam, and yet are full of hatred towards any of God’s creatures who do not travel the same path as they; and those who claim to be in possession of the absolute truth, and for that reason entitled to act as God’s vice-regents (caliphs) on earth and to dictate how everyone else must live—clearly, their words and behavior will not lead us into the presence of God. Their dream of an Islamic state is merely an illusion, for the true Islamic state is not to be found in the structure of any government, but rather, in hearts which are open to God and all His creatures.”[1]

Introduction:

Our national counterterrorism strategy has, to date, consisted of little more than a “whack-a-mole” program, which has yet to prescribe any comprehensive treatment directed at the root cause of Islamist terrorism, the theocratic, statist ideology of political Islam. For this reason, ten years after 9-11, the threat of homegrown Islamist terror has never been greater. Rather than continue to bury our collective heads in the sand, we must courageously recognize, acknowledge and act upon the fact that the vast majority of contemporary terrorism is fueled by Islamist ideology. Militancy and violence are natural outgrowths of “Islamism”—a hate-filled, supremacist and all-encompassing ideology of political Islam that mixes religion and state, and seeks to impose its “distorted interpretation of Islam” on others, through a theocratic government based on medieval concepts of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) also known as shari‘a.

On June 28, 2011, the White House published its “National Strategy for Counterterrorism” (“NSCT”).  AILC’s leadership team has reviewed and jointly drafted this communiqué in response to the NSCT, in order to provide policy makers, public intellectuals, the media and the general public with concrete insights from American Muslim leaders, who regard it as our human and religious duty to speak out against terrorism, and more importantly, against the ideology that underlies and animates it.

AILC members have joined together to help wage, and win, the ideological struggle (jihad) against Islamism from within the House of Islam. As Muslims who categorically reject the notion that there is any conflict between our faith and loyalty to our nation and its constitution, we feel a profound sense of responsibility to respond to the NSCT; to commend its merits; identify areas that cause us concern; and respectfully recommend that the U.S. government adopt certain approaches that we believe will facilitate the successful implementation of the NSCT, and help achieve its national and international peace and security objectives.

We commend the NSCT for:

  • Correctly identifying ideology (specifically, “a distorted interpretation of Islam”) as a key enabling factor of al-Qa’ida-style terrorism (page 3). From a counter-radicalization perspective, we believe this is the single most important concept in the document. If wisely and courageously pursued to its logical conclusion, this insight could indeed lead to “a future in which al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and adherents are defeated—and their ideology ultimately meets the same fate as its founder and leader” (page 2).
  • Advocating the dissemination of a positive view of the U.S. and our values: The NSCT states that “Contrasting a positive U.S. agenda that supports the rights of free speech, assembly, and democracy with the death and destruction offered by our terrorist adversaries helps undermine and undercut their appeal, isolating them from the very population they rely on for support” (page 5). This contrast is essential to winning the struggle with violent extremists, and the AILC is prepared to help articulate and advance these contrasting visions of society to Muslims in the U.S. and abroad.
  • Taking the military fight to the enemy. The AILC applauds NSCT confirmation that it is and shall remain U.S. strategy to maintain a robust military counter-terrorism protocol in those regions of the world in which Islamist militants, both Salafists and Khomeinists, plan and execute terrorist campaigns against citizens of the U.S. and our allies.
  • Working with local Muslim communities: Reporting on the NSCT, the Wall Street Journal noted, “Mr. Brennan said that this summer the administration would present a more detailed plan to work with local Muslim and Arab communities to counter violent extremism in the U.S.” If this “follow-on plan” avoids empowering groups that share al-Qa’ida’s Islamist ideology, and instead engages with genuinely pluralistic, tolerant and solutions-oriented Muslim groups and leaders, this could represent a significant step in helping to root out and prevent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

We are concerned that the NSCT:

  • Appears to reflect a largely pro forma, rather than substantive, approach to countering extremist ideology and the radicalization of Muslims in the U.S. and abroad. This reticence constitutes a potentially fatal weakness within the NSCT, and appears to perpetuate the misguided policy—pursued by both Republican and Democrat administrations—of refusing to address the ideology of religious hatred, supremacy and violence that underlies and animates Islamist terrorism. This refusal allows and encourages both Muslim and non-Muslim extremists to conflate Islam with al-Qa’ida’s ideology, without having to confront or intellectually respond to substantive challenge. This accelerates a crisis of misunderstanding and mutual recrimination that fosters the spread of anti-Western attitudes and conspiracy theories among Muslims, while fueling a growing fear of Muslims in the West.
  • Does not define individual rights, or articulate a systematic strategy to promote them: The NSCT laudably states that the U.S. will work with allies “to provide mutual security and protection to citizens of all nations while also upholding individual rights”(pg. 15). Yet with the exception of free speech and assembly (mentioned above), the NSCT provides no working definition or moral defense of individual rights, whether based on universal principles or, more importantly, those of Islam itself. We believe it is self-defeating to extol the principles of individual liberty in a vacuum, as it were, without addressing the countervailing Islamist ideology that fuels our enemies, who seek to wrap themselves and their totalitarian agenda in the mantle of Islamic legitimacy. The American experiment has proven that the best legal foundation for a free society that protects all citizens from government—including the most religiously orthodox—is one based upon the principle that every individual possesses certain unalienable rights endowed by the Creator, which may not be abridged by government. This legal foundation embodied in the American Establishment Clause,[2] which is consistent with chapter 2, verse 256 of the Qur’an (“There is no compulsion in religion”), constitutes the Achilles heel of the theocratic, statist ideology promoted by Islamists, including al-Qa’ida. A genuine effort to uphold individual rights must address the enormous chasm between the UN Declaration of Human Rights signed by free nations, and the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights endorsed by most Muslim-majority states. We must unapologetically articulate and defend individual rights in the broadest scope, in America and beyond. The AILC is uniquely positioned to help the Administration do so within a Muslim narrative and context.
  • Fails to define al-Qa’ida’s ideology, and its relationship to Islamist ideology and movements in general. Recognizing the vital role that ideology plays in al-Qa’ida propaganda, recruitment and terrorism, the NSCT employs the term “ideology” no less than 20 times within a 17-page document. To cite a prime example: “Countering this ideology… is an essential element of our strategy” (page 3). Yet nowhere does the NSCT actually define al-Qa’ida’s ideology; explain its historical antecedents; discuss how, why, where and among whom it tends to metastasize; or clarify the precise nature of its relationship to Islamic theology in general, of which it is merely said to be “a distorted interpretation.” Correctly understanding and identifying this ideology, in all its facets, is vital to defeating al-Qa’ida and its affiliates, which rely upon this ideology to radicalize and generate new recruits, both in the U.S. and abroad. We understand our government’s trepidation and reluctance to address specifics, when it comes to a theo-political ideology that is progressively embedding itself in one of the world’s great religions. But, make no mistake, there can be no successful counter-terrorism strategy that fails to identify and address Islamist ideology. Freedom-loving members of the AILC stand ready to assist public policy makers in this difficult and delicate process.
  • Provides no criteria for determining with which Muslim groups the Administration will conduct its outreach programs. Our nation’s long-term security depends, to a significant extent, upon American Muslims countering Islamism and its violent offshoots. Yet the report fails to mention the fact that Muslim communities are highly diverse, rather than monolithic. In seeking to discredit al-Qa’ida’s ideology, it is counterproductive to engage and empower groups that share an ostensibly (or tactically) “non-violent” form of that same ideology, as partners in what should be a systematic, long-term effort to undermine and discredit their highly politicized and distorted understanding of Islam. Unfortunately, well-financed Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi and Jamaat-e-Islami legacy groups—inspired by an Islamist ideology that substantially parallels that of al-Qa’ida itself—have been organizing in North America for nearly fifty years. Their members have, in many cases, acquired significant influence in American society under the guise of promoting a “moderation” that exists in word only, while actually seeking to intimidate, marginalize and otherwise silence those who hold a truly pluralistic, tolerant and spiritual understanding of Islam. The AILC was founded, in large part, to dispel this illusion, and to help unite the vast, silent majority of Muslims in the U.S. and Canada, to reclaim our religion from those who merely claim to speak in our name.
  • Fails to articulate a strategy to counter Islamist ideology in general, or “cyberjihad” in particular. Nearly every terrorist plot and act on U.S. soil in the past few years was perpetrated by American Muslims who were indoctrinated here, on our own soil. The Internet is one of the primary vehicles for the transmission of ideas that threaten our security, and should be a primary vehicle through which we respond to the propagation of extremist ideology. In 2008, many of us in the American Islamic Leadership Coalition commended the US Senate Homeland Security Committee on its comprehensive report on Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat. It is disconcerting that three years later, the White House’s newest NSCT appears to ignore most of those findings and recommendations.
  • Focuses narrowly upon al-Qa’ida as the enemy. While there is no disputing the fact that al-Qa’ida is and has been responsible for many terrorist attacks conducted against Americans and our allies, we must remember that this terrorist organization is loosely networked—like other Islamist terror organizations—and merely one of hundreds of militant Islamist groups, all of which emerge from their ideological progenitors, including Wahhabism, the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e-Islami, Khomeinist Shi’ism and other extremist movements that seek to instrumentalize the religion of Islam in order to seize and maintain power. To address only al-Qa’ida—while ignoring the larger phenomenon of Islamist extremism in general, in both its Sunni and Shi’a variants—demonstrates a tunnel vision that will continue to prevent the development and implementation of a truly effective counterterrorism strategy, while simultaneously blinding U.S. policy makers to the potential rise of entire regimes characterized by an intense antipathy to the United States, its interests and its values, and those of humanity at large.

AILC Recommendations:

  • The U.S. government should clearly and publicly define the ideology of al-Qa’ida that we seek to “defeat” (page 2), and realistically acknowledge its intimate links with Islamist ideology and political movements in general. Ignorance and/or lack of honesty in this arena is no virtue. This necessarily entails discussing, and addressing, the manner in which theocratic regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia export their Khomeinist and Wahhabi/Salafi ideologies worldwide, thereby fueling the spread of Islamist terrorism, and strengthening other Islamist groups such as the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood’s globalda‘wa (proselytism) movement;
  • The U.S. government should distinguish between the religion of Islam and Islamist ideology (“a distorted interpretation of Islam”), whose adherents seek to conflate their own political agenda with the religion of Islam itself.  Reverence and respect for the religion of Islam does not and should not entail submission to the dictates of an ambitious minority of Muslims who seek to instrumentalize religion for the acquisition of worldly power;
  • The U.S. government should acknowledge the diversity of American Muslims, and recognize that genuinely pluralistic, tolerant and spiritual Muslim leaders possess the theological legitimacy, authority and credibility required to counter Islamist ideology and movements from within Islam, and should be encouraged and supported in their efforts to do so;
  • The U.S. government should engage non-Islamist Muslim groups to help develop and implement effective counter-radicalization programs, which affirm the principles of liberty and individual rights, within an Islamic narrative;
  • This engagement should facilitate the production of compelling content (“narratives”) and their distribution, through proactive use of the internet, which is one of al-Qa’ida’s primary means of ideological indoctrination and recruitment;
  • The U.S. government should support the development of robust, on-the-ground efforts to expose the brutal reality of Islamist oppression, violence and terror, and broadcast the message of Love, Mercy and Compassion—which fosters respect for human dignity and individual rights—to Muslims throughout the world, couched within the narratives of Islam, and the specific cultural and historical framework of the various linguistic regions to which these messages are disseminated.

Conclusion:

The latest National Strategy for Counterterrorism should be commended for acknowledging that ideology (“a distorted understanding of Islam”) is a critical factor enabling al-Qa’ida-style terrorism. For if we truly hope to defeat al-Qa’ida and its affiliates, we must recognize that the struggle against terrorism is first and foremost ideological, rather than “kinetic,” as Ayman al-Zawahiri himself has repeatedly stated (e.g., “The majority of this war takes place in the information terrain”). We must also recognize the diversity of Muslim populations in the U.S. and abroad, and carefully select our counterterrorism partners on the basis of their principled rejection of al-Qa’ida (i.e., Islamist) ideology, rather than on the basis of tactical differences they may have with al-Qa’ida, when the ultimate objective they hope to achieve (the establishment of a theocratic state, and/or caliphate) is virtually identical. And we must develop a comprehensive, proactive strategy of our own, which demonstrates to Muslims around the world that their faith is more secure in an environment that promotes and protects the freedom of each individual.

The American Islamic Leadership Coalition was formed in order to provide a platform and an alternative voice for Muslims in North America. We offer the above thoughts to our government, and our fellow citizens, in the hope of fostering a more serious and mature national conversation about Islam, in order to resolve our current “institutional paralysis” in the face of extremism; defend our nation; and help “to restore the majesty of Islamic teachings as rahmatan lil ‘alamin—a blessing for all creation—which represents a vital key to building a peaceful world” (Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, writing in The Illusion of an Islamic State).

AILC Coalition Signatories:

Golam Akhter, Bangladesh-USA Human Rights Coalition Inc., Washington, DC

Bahman Batmanghelidj, Founding Member, Alliance for Democracy in Iran, Virginia, USA

Khurshed Chowdhury, Ph.D., Maryland, USA

Manda Zand Ervin, President, Alliance of Iranian Women, Maryland, USA

Tarek Fatah, Founder, Muslim Canadian Congress, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Farid Ghadry, President, Reform Party of Syria, Washington, DC

Jamal Hasan, Council for Democracy and Tolerance, Baltimore, MD

Farzana Hassan, Ed.D., Past President, Muslim Canadian Congress, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  1. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., President, American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Phoenix, AZ

Hasan Mahmud, Member, Advisory Board, World Muslim Congress, Dallas, TX

Kamal Nawash, President, Free Muslims Coalition, Washington, DC

  1. Holland Taylor, Chairman & CEO, LibForAll Foundation, Winston-Salem, NC

Jalal Zuberi, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA

[1]Wahid, Abdurrahman, ed. (2011).  The Illusion of an Islamic State: How an Alliance of Moderates Launched a Successful Jihad Against Radicalization and Terrorism in the World’s Largest Muslim-Majority Country (translated from Ilusi Negara Islam: Expansi Gerakan Islam Transnasional di Indonesia), p. 35. Jakarta: Wahid Institute, Maarif Institute and LibForAll Foundation Press.

[2]“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” “The Constitution of the United States,” Amendment I.