FBI Invite to Islamophobe Upsets Muslims / SC Mosque Helps Fight Crime / TX Muslim Country Musician Overturns Stereotypes

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

AMERICAN MUSLIM NEWS BRIEFS - 3/18/07

* IN: FBI Invite to Islamophobe Upsets Muslims (Indy Star)
- Robert Spencer: Islam is a 'False Religion'
- Robert Spencer: Quran 'Certainly Fraudulent'
- Robert Spencer: 'Islam is a Serious Threat' to Western World
- Jihad Watch: 'How Could Any Decent Person Remain a Muslim?'
- Jihad Watch: 'I Hate Is-Lame with an Incandescent Intensity'
* Author: CAIR Represents Views of Mainstream Muslims (Wash Post)
- CAIR-FL Rep Takes Part in Interfaith Forum (Sun-Sentinel)
* CAIR: At Muslim Cemetery, 5 New Child-Size Graves (NY Times)
* Dr. Al-Arian Lost 50 Pounds in Hunger Strike (Democracy Now)
* CT: Muslim Prison Chaplain Claims Hate Directed at Him (AP)
* SC: Mosque Helps Fight Neighborhood Crimes
- NY: Butcher Meets Muslim Dietary Needs (Times Herald-Record)
- Audio: TX Muslim Country Musician Overturns Stereotypes

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IN: INVITATION TO AUTHOR UPSETS MUSLIMS - TOP
Islamic group says writer's planned talk to an FBI task force would add to distrust
Robert King, Indianapolis Star, 3/18/07
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070318/LOCAL/703180426/-1/ZONES04

The decision by the FBI's Indianapolis office to bring in author Robert Spencer to talk to its anti-terrorism task force has a Plainfield-based Muslim organization concerned that the bureau is listening to an "Islamophobe" who distorts its faith.

The FBI had planned to bring in Spencer this week to speak to Indiana's Joint Terrorism Task Force. His appearance was postponed because he had a scheduling conflict. Both Spencer and the FBI hope to reschedule.

Louay Safi, director of leadership development with the Plainfield-based Islamic Society of North America, said bringing Spencer in to talk of Islam is akin to bringing an anti-Semite to talk about Jews or a Ku Klux Klan member to talk about race.

"Many people in our community will not be happy with it," Safi said.

Spencer is the author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" and "The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion." He is also a director of Jihad Watch, a Web site that calls attention to the activity of Islamic jihadists.

The site includes his take on various writings by Islamic scholars and groups as well as the news of the day in the Middle East. In fact, he announced he was coming to Indianapolis to meet with FBI officials.

Safi said Spencer's writings take selected passages from Islamic writings out of context in an effort to prove the religion condones terrorism. He said the FBI's use of Spencer could reinforce views some Muslims hold that the bureau treats them unfairly.

"When they bring in someone like that, it makes it difficult even for us to explain to the Muslim community that (the FBI) is neutral and is not listening to extremists who really hate Muslims," Safi said. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

ROBERT SPENCER: ISLAM IS A 'FALSE RELIGION' - TOP
http://watchjihadwatch.blogspot.com/2006/05/bias.html

In his book "Guide for Catholics," Spencer wrote:

"Islam itself is an incomplete, misleading, and often downright false revelation which, in many ways, directly contradicts what God has revealed through the prophets of the Old Testament and through his Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.. . .For several reasons. . .Islam constitutes a threat to the world at large."

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PAT ROBERTSON CALLS QURAN 'FRAUDULENT,' ROBERT SPENCER AGREES - TOP
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/44498.aspx
(Note: video may take time to load.)

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ROBERT SPENCER: 'ISLAM IS A SERIOUS THREAT' TO WESTERN WORLD - TOP
Julia Duin, Washington Times, 12/1/03
http://www.washtimes.com/culture/20031201-091332-2655r.htm

Catholics - as well as other Christians - need to know a lot more about Islam, say two authors of a book of 100 questions and answers on the topic. However, the outlook on Muslims from "Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics" is hardly favorable.

One of the authors, Daniel Ali of Burke, the founder of Christian-Islamic Forum, is a Kurdish convert from Islam to Christianity. Co-author Robert Spencer is a Catholic researcher who also wrote "Onward Muslim Soldiers," a history of jihad.

"We wanted Catholics to become informed about Islam because not only is Islam the church's chief rival in terms of religion but Islam is a serious threat to the peace and well-being of the Western world in general," Mr. Spencer said. (MORE)

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BACKGROUNDER: CA SYNAGOGUE THAT HOSTED ISLAMOPHOBE URGED TO INVITE MUSLIM SPEAKER - TOP
Hate-filled comments on speaker's website compare Muslims to animals and Nazis

( ANAHEIM, CA, 11/8/2005) - The Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today urged a Los Angeles synagogue that recently hosted the operator of a virulently anti-Muslim website to invite a Muslim representative who can offer a balancing perspective on Islam.

CAIR-LA has learned that Robert Spencer, who operates the "Jihad Watch" Internet hate site, spoke at Temple Shalom for the Arts during a Yom Kippur event. Spencer's website is notorious for its depiction of Islam as an inherently violent faith that is a threat to world peace.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald recently wrote on that site:

"To be sure, plenty of Believers in exotic creeds alien or new to the West have managed to fit in perfectly well, and be friendly neighbors and loyal citizens. . .Only one group, only one belief-system, distinguishes itself by appearing incapable of fitting in. And that is Muslims, and Islam. . . if one really knew what Islam contained . . .then how could any decent person remain a Muslim?"

He went on to recommend that western nations be "Islam-proofed the way a house is child-proofed," compared Muslims to Nazis and urged that they be boycotted: "[I]t should not be hard to find ways to limit the spread or practice of Islam. And if in addition to whatever local, state and federal government officials do, private parties simply conduct their own boycott of goods and services offered by Muslims, in the same way that they would have refused to buy, in 1938, a German Voigtlander camera. . ."

SEE: http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/2005/11/008827print.html

Comments posted on the site are bone-chilling in the raw hatred they espouse. For example, one poster described Muslims as being like animals, writing: "If they want students to learn about Islamic culture, what's wrong with a simple field trip to the city zoo?"

Other anti-Muslim comments on the Jihad Watch website include:

* "Islam strips its followers of all aspects of their identity and in short converts them into killer-Zombies."

* "Islam, the preferred religion of criminals."

* "If Mohammad were alive today and spouting his 'new' message from God in today's media he would be identified and branded as the lunatic that he was and be jailed or hospitalized." (MORE)

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MUSLIMS SEE A GROWING MEDIA BIAS - TOP
Jim Ritter, Chicago Sun-Times, 9/4/2006
http://www.cair.com/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=40750&theType=NB

On a typical workday, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations talks to a dozen or so print and broadcast reporters.

"The vast majority does a pretty good job and they need to be congratulated," he said.

It's another story when Hooper watches cable TV commentators, listens to talk radio or surfs hundreds of anti-Islamic Web sites. "The level of anti-Muslim rhetoric is growing in quantum leaps since 9/11," he said.

Hooper and other experts addressed "Islamaphobia" in the media during a panel discussion Sunday at the Islamic Society of North America's annual convention at the Donald E. Stevens Convention Center in Rosemont.

Web sites are especially virulent, Hooper said. Consider these comments recently posted on the blog of Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

* "If I happen to wax hateful and angry from time to time when it comes to the subject of Islam, that is the fault of Islam and its thriving terrorist establishment. . . .It is good to hate your enemies: We are going to have to kill them."

* "Islam is not only a cult, it's a political movement. As such it contravenes the constitution and espouses treason."

* "I hate is-lame with an incandescent intensity." (MORE)

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CAIR: A MORE ISLAMIC ISLAM - TOP
Geneive Abdo, Washington Post, 3/17/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/16/AR2007031601941.html

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A small group of self-proclaimed secular Muslims from North America and elsewhere gathered in St. Petersburg recently for what they billed as a new global movement to correct the assumed wrongs of Islam and call for an Islamic Reformation.

Across the state in Fort Lauderdale, Muslim leaders from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Washington-based advocacy group whose members the "secular" Muslims claim are radicals, denounced any notion of a Reformation as another attempt by the West to impose its history and philosophy on the Islamic world.

The self-proclaimed secularists represent only a small minority of Muslims. The views among religious Muslims from CAIR more closely reflect the views of the majority, not only in the United States but worldwide. Yet Western media, governments and neoconservative pundits pay more attention to the secular minority.

The St. Petersburg convention is but one example: It was carried live on Glenn Beck's conservative CNN show. Some of the organizers and speakers at the convention are well known thanks to the media spotlight: Irshad Manji, author of "The Trouble With Islam," and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch parliamentarian and author of "Infidel," were but a few there claiming to have suffered personally at the hands of "radical" Islam. One participant, Wafa Sultan, declared on Glenn Beck's show that she doesn't "see any difference between radical Islam and regular Islam."

The secular Muslim agenda is promoted because these ideas reflect a Western vision for the future of Islam. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, everyone from high-ranking officials in the Bush administration to the author Salman Rushdie has prescribed a preferred remedy for Islam: Reform the faith so it is imbued with Western values -- the privatization of religion, the flourishing of Western-style democracy -- and rulers who are secular, not religious, Muslims. The problem with this prescription is that it is divorced from reality. It is built upon the principle that if Muslims are fed a steady diet of Western influence, they, too, will embrace modernity, secularism and everything else the West has to offer. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

CAIR-FL REP TAKES PART IN INTERFAITH FORUM - TOP
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 3/17/07

Religions of Peace: An Interfaith Forum is planned for 6 p.m. Sunday at Royal Palm Christian Church, 9600 Royal Palm Blvd., Coral Springs. Various perspectives will be discussed:

Muslim: Altaf Ali, Florida executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Jewish: Rabbi Mark Gross, Temple Beth Orr.

Christian: Rev. Craig Watts, Royal Palm Christian Church.

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CAIR: AT MUSLIM RESTING PLACE, 5 NEW CHILD-SIZE GRAVES - TOP
By ROJA HEYDARPOUR, 3/18/07
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/nyregion/18cemetery.html

Anthony Sparno's days are usually filled with silent hours tending his gateless 12-acre cemetery. He picks up garbage, fills the water tank, digs graves, does the books from his car or a diner and takes calls from imams and funeral homes.

That solitary life was disrupted last week when hundreds of mourners - and a news media swarm - descended on Mr. Sparno's Makbarat As-Salaam cemetery in Millstone, N.J., to bury five small bodies Monday afternoon.

Mr. Sparno, a convert to Islam who owns the all-Muslim cemetery, was among the first to be called in the aftermath of the house fire in the Bronx on March 7 that killed a woman and nine children from two families from Mali.

Monday morning, he spent two hours digging five graves for the Magassa family: 1-year-old Bilaly and 3-year-old Djama; Abudubary, 5; Mahamadou, 8; and Bandiougou, 11.

"I had five kids, then one after that," an unrelated burial, Mr. Sparno said matter-of-factly of what must have been his highest-profile workday, if not his busiest. "Not a glorified life."

The other fire victims, members of the Soumare family - 7-month-old twins Harouma and Sisi; Djibril, 3; Hassing, 6; and Fatoumata, their mother, 42 - were flown to Mali for burial.

Makbarat As-Salaam, which opened in 1992, is one of few exclusively Muslim cemeteries in the country. No statistics are available because the phenomenon is still in its initial stages, said Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights and advocacy group. (MORE)

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JAILED PALESTINIAN PROFESSOR SAMI AL-ARIAN ENTERS 54TH DAY OF HUNGER STRIKE TO PROTEST INDEFINITE IMPRISONMENT - TOP
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/03/17/18377815.php

Democracy Now (reposted)
Saturday Mar 17th, 2007 9:15 AM

Sami Al-Arian is in dire condition. The jailed Palestinian professor has lost over 50 pounds as he enters the 54th day of a hunger strike to protest the circumstances of his continued imprisonment. We speak with his wife, Nahla Al-Arian.

Sami Al-Arian has spent the past four years in jail despite a jury's failure over a year ago to return a single guilty verdict on any of the 17 charges brought against him. He eventually signed a plea deal with the government in exchange for being released and deported.

This past January, with just three months left before his scheduled release, a judge found him in contempt after he refused to testify before a Virginia grand jury. The date of his release could now be extended by a year and a half. On January 22nd, Al-Arian - who is a diabetic - stopped eating in protest. Last month he was transferred to the Federal Medical facility in Butner Virginia as his health deteriorated. A week before his transfer, we spoke with Sami Al-Arian from prison in his first broadcast interview since his 2003 arrest. He explained why he was on hunger strike.

* Sami Al-Arian, speaking from prison on Democracy Now! [Click for full interview: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/07/1546227&mode=thread&tid=25

His wife, Nahla Al-Arian, is going to Virginia today to visit him along with their five children. She joins me now from Tampa, Florida where she lives.

* Nahla Al-Arian, Sami Al-Arian's wife.

LISTEN ONLINE:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/16/1410255

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CT: MUSLIM PRISON CHAPLAIN CLAIMS MORE HATE DIRECTED AT HIM - TOP
Associated Press, 3/17/07
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/state/hc-17114141.apds.m0738.bc-ct--chapmar17,0,6340828.story

EAST LYME, Conn. -- The state Department of Correction is investigating a claim of discrimination filed by the Muslim chaplain at the state prison for women involving a defaced photo.

A childhood picture of Bilal Asari, who is black, among a group of white children, that has been hanging in his office was defaced. Someone painted over Asari's black face with white correction fluid and scrawled a racial slur across the photo in red ink.

DOC spokesman Brian Garnett said Friday the agency was investigating what he calls "vile and bigoted behavior."

Asari said someone came into his locked office at J.B. Gates Correctional Institution in Niantic to deface the photo, which he said his mother had given him to remind him of how far he had come from the days when he was bused to an all-white school.

Asari said the incident is just the latest in a series of incidents of racial and religious discrimination he has faced from employees at the prison.

Asari told The Day of New London the incident is a part of more than two years of racial and religious discrimination he has faced from prison employees.

"They're doing what they can do to make my life hard," Asari said Friday. "They're calling my office and hanging up. They come in my worship service and step on my rug with their boots."

Asari said he recently filed a complaint with the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities after he received little or no response to more than 12 internal and affirmative action complaints he has made to the Department of Correction over the last two years. (MORE)

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SC: MOSQUE BOOSTS CITIZENS PATROL - TOP
NADINE PARKS, Post and Courier, 3/17/07
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=135055

Failure for the Citizen Patrol Against Drugs is not an option.

That's the message this week from a North Charleston mosque that has teamed up with residents of Charleston's East Side and North Charleston's Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood to get the civilian patrol group back on the streets. Also, a march is set for March 24 in Union Heights, with patrols beginning there on March 26.

"We all share in this commonality of trying to make our communities better," said Imam Rahim Karriem of Masjid Al-Jami Ar-Rashid. "We're all in this together. That's what the Citizen Patrol Against Drugs is all about."

Six or seven members of the North Charleston mosque have been there since the patrols began in the fall on Charleston's East Side. For weeks, they patrolled to report crime almost every night and to get the civic movement flowing in the drug-infested neighborhood that saw a rash of violence last summer. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

NY: BUTCHER SHOP TRIES TO 'MEAT' MUSLIM DIETARY NEEDS - TOP
Raja Abdulrahim, Times Herald-Record
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070318/BIZ/703180331

Middletown - For halal-observing Muslims here, the option has long been either get their meat from Paterson, N.J., or just eat salmon, vegetables and Kennedy Fried Chicken all the time.

At least that's how Qasim Muhammad describes the situation before the opening of Halalco Meat Market on East Main Street, of which he is part owner and butcher.

Halal, also called thabiha, meat, describes the method by which the animal is killed: a clean cut across the throat, killing the animal instantly, and allowing the blood to drain from the body. Seafood is exempt from this requirement.

If this was the gastro-religious analogy section of the SAT, the answer would be Muslim is to halal, as Jew is to kosher. (MORE)

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MUSLIM COUNTRY MUSICIAN TURNS STEREOTYPES UPSIDE DOWN - TOP
Austin American-Statesman, 3/17/07
http://www.statesman.com/travel/content/life/stories/faith/03/17/17flynn.html

It was the twang that threw me. I'm talking serious cowboy voice. The kind that can only come from out on the range. The kind that still startles my New England ears.

"Miss Fleeeeynn?" he said. "This is Kareem Salama. I understand you're trying to reach me."

OK, hold it. I happened to have this man's Web site up for a story I was researching. And I knew that Salama was a Muslim, a law student, and a country and western singer. And, of course, I had read his biography on his site, where he detailed his multicultural upbringing. His parents, who now live in Richmond, southwest of Houston, took him to Native American powwows and the county fairs and rodeos and made trips to Branson, Mo., and Opryland in Nashville, Tenn.

As I listened to him, I couldn't reconcile the twang with the chiseled Egyptian face on the Web site. Most of the Muslims I know have foreign accents. But why should I be so jolted by a thoroughly American Muslim?

Or should I say: A Muslim who, at least on the surface, seems to fit another American stereotype? More on that later.

Salama graciously answered all my questions and pulled back the curtain on an unexpectedly American portrait. It's probably safe to say your average Oklahoma boy isn't memorizing classical Arabic poetry and composing a melody for John Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning." And I'm guessing you don't see too many Muslims in 10-gallon hats at the Grand Ole Opry.

Salama acknowledged that "the vast majority of us (Muslims) don't fit the image of people have in their head."

"Although, I understand why people have that image in their head," he added. (MORE)

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CAIR
Council on American-Islamic Relations
453 New Jersey Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20003
Tel: 202-488-8787, 202-744-7726
Fax: 202-488-0833
E-mail: info@cair.com
URL: http://www.cair.com