Sunday, June 30, 2013

Shias: The Arab Spring's Latest Victims :: Raymond Ibrahim



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Shias: The Arab Spring's Latest Victims

by Raymond Ibrahim
June 25, 2013
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The U.S.-sponsored "Arab Spring" continues to expose itself as a Sunni supremacist takeover. While the indicators are many—from the al-Qaeda Benghazi consulate attack to the ongoing persecution of Christian minorities—attacks on Shia Muslims are also on the rise.
In Syria, where foreign Sunni jihadis, supported and armed by the United States, are attacking all non-Muslims—Christians are prime and obvious targets, and reports of church attacks, abductions of Christians, and their slaughter are many—Shias, who are seen as "false Muslims," are naturally also under attack. For example, Salafi Sheikh Yasir al-'Ajlawni recently issued a fatwa saying that those Muslims fighting to topple secular president Bashar Assad and install Sharia law are free to "capture and have sex with" all non-Sunni women, specifically naming President Assad's sect, the Alawites, as well as the Druze and other Shia branches.
Days ago, popular news outlet, Syrian Truth, posted a photo of a toddler living in the Deir ez-Zor Governate in eastern Syria, along the Iraq border, who was reportedly tied with chains to a fence from where she witnessed the killing of her Shia mother and father at the hands of the Sunni jihadis making the ranks of the "Free Syrian Army." Syrian Truth correctly describes them as takfiris, that is, Muslims who, like al-Qaeda, accuse—and slaughter—other Muslims, in this case, Shias, for not being "true" Muslims.
And now in Egypt, where Shias make roughly one percent of the nation, a Sunni mob reportedly numbering in the thousands—also described by Arabic reports as takfiris—attacked the home of the spiritual father of Egypt's Shia, Sheikh Hassan Shehata, killing him and four of his followers, and wounding dozens of other Shias that had congregated at his home. The mob descended on his residence last Sunday, savagely beating him and his followers with sticks, before setting his house on fire.
Watch the graphic video (also embedded below) as the mob beats the men and drags Shehata's bloodied body all over the street. According to the general manager of Hawamdia Hospital in Giza, where the Shia leader was taken after his beating, "when Sheikh Hassan Shehata arrived to the hospital, he appeared to be slaughtered from his neck, in addition to several injuries around his body … the rest of the bodies had several injuries as well as skull fractures." Another report mentions "numerous puncture wounds and severe bruising."
Eyewitnesses told Ahram newspaper that police stood by and did nothing to stop the attack—just as they invariably do when Egypt's Christian Copts and their churches are attacked.
Much of these recent attacks on Shias come in response to Salafi clerics—Salafis are ultra "purest" Sunnis—whipping their followers into frenzies against the Shias, especially in the context of the Syrian war. Countless clerics are calling on Sunni Muslims to go to Syria to join the battle against President Assad, not to mention Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president himself, Muhammad Morsi, who recently condemned Assad, cutting all ties with Syria.
Thus the "Arab Spring" is proving to be an Islamic takeover by the largest and strongest Islamic faction—Sunni supremacists—who are cleansing the lands of all "non-believers," from indigenous Christians like Egypt's Copts to all Shia branches. While apathetic Americans living a world away may think this has little to do with them, it is well to connect the dots and realize that all this is prelude to the resurrection of the caliphate—the chief goal of Sunni Islam, whether for the "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood or al-Qaeda. And the caliphate exists for one ultimate purpose: to expand, until, in the words of Koran 8:39, "all religion is for Allah," interpreted to mean, until Islamic Sharia law governs the entire world.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Related Topics:  Raymond Ibrahim This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

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Protests in Egypt



Ashraf Khalil joins Brian Dunstan with the latest on the protests in Egypt.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/protests-in-egypt/2518845384001

The 'Sex Jihad' :: Ibrahim at IPT



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The 'Sex Jihad'

by Raymond Ibrahim
Investigative Project on Terrorism
June 18, 2013
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News emerged a few weeks ago in Arabic media that yet another fatwa had called on practicing Muslim women to travel to Syria and offer their sexual services to the jihadis fighting to overthrow the secularist Assad government and install Islamic law. Reports attribute the fatwa to Saudi sheikh Muhammad al-'Arifi, who, along with other Muslim clerics earlier permitted jihadis to rape Syrian women.
Muslim women prostituting themselves in this case is being considered a legitimate jihad because such women are making sacrifices—their chastity, their dignity—in order to help apparently sexually-frustrated jihadis better focus on the war to empower Islam in Syria.
And it is prostitution—for they are promised payment, albeit in the afterlife. The Koran declares that "Allah has purchased of the believers their persons [their bodies] and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain (Yusuf Ali trans. 9:111).
On the basis of this fatwa, several young Tunisian Muslim girls traveled to Syria to be "sex-jihadis." Video interviews of distraught parents bemoaning their daughters' fates are on the Internet, including one of a father and mother holding a picture of their daughter: "She's only 16—she's only 16! They brainwashed her!" pleads the father.
Most recently, the Egyptian-based news service Masrawy published a video interview with "Aisha," one of the Tunisian Muslim girls who went sex-jihading in Syria, only to regret her actions. While in Tunisia, Aisha said she met a Muslim woman who began talking to her about the importance of piety, including wearing the hijab; she then went on to talk about traveling to Syria to help the jihadis "fight and kill infidels" and make Allah's word supreme, adding that "women who die would do so in the way of Allah and become martyrs and enter paradise." (According to mainstream Islamic teaching, dying in jihad is the only guaranteed way to avoid hell.)
Aisha eventually came to the conclusion that she was being exploited in the name of religion and left.
While news that Muslim girls in hijabs are prostituting themselves in the name of Islam may surprise some, Islamic clerics regularly issue fatwas permitting forbidden things—so long as they help the jihad. For instance, not only did the original "underwear bomber" Abdullah Hassan al-Asiri hide explosives in his rectum to assassinate Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Nayef—they met in 2009 after the 22-year-old Asiri "feigned repentance for his jihadi views"—but, according to Shi'ite talk-show host Abdullah Al-Khallaf, he had fellow jihadis sodomize him to "widen" his anus to fit more explosives.
Al-Khallaf read the fatwa that purportedly justified such actions during a 2012 Fadak TV episode.
After praising Allah and declaring that sodomy is forbidden in Islam, the fatwa asserted:
However, jihad comes first, for it is the pinnacle of Islam, and if the pinnacle of Islam can only be achieved through sodomy, then there is no wrong in it. For the overarching rule of [Islamic] jurisprudence asserts that "necessity makes permissible the prohibited." And if obligatory matters can only be achieved by performing the prohibited, then it becomes obligatory to perform the prohibited, and there is no greater duty than jihad. After he sodomizes you, you must ask Allah for forgiveness and praise him all the more. And know that Allah will reward the jihadis on the Day of Resurrection, according to their intentions—and your intention, Allah willing, is for the victory of Islam, and we ask that Allah accept it of you.
While all these sex-fatwas may seem bizarre, they highlight two important (though little known in the West) points. First, that jihad is the "pinnacle" of Islam—for it makes Islam supreme; and second, the idea that "necessity makes permissible the prohibited." Because making Islam supreme through jihad is the greatest priority, anything and everything that is otherwise banned becomes permissible. All that comes to matter is one's intention, or niyya (see Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi's discussion along these lines).
As for the intersection between sex and violence (jihad), it was once explored by the Arabic satellite program Daring Question, which aired various clips of young jihadis giddily singing about their forthcoming deaths and subsequent sexual escapades in heaven. After documenting various anecdotes indicative of jihadi obsession with sex, Egyptian human rights activist Magdi Khalil concluded that "absolutely everything [jihad, suicide operations, etc.] revolves around sex in paradise," adding, "if you look at the whole of Islamic history, you come up with two words: sex and violence."
Indeed, Islam's prophet Muhammad maintained that death during jihad not only blots out all sins—including sexual ones—but it actually gratifies them:
The martyr is special to Allah. He is forgiven [of all sins] from the first drop of blood [that he sheds]. He sees his throne in paradise, where he will be adorned in ornaments of faith. He will wed the 'Aynhour [a.k.a. "voluptuous women"] and will not know the torments of the grave, and safeguards against the greater terror [hell]. … And he will copulate with 72 'Aynhour (see The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 143).
This goes to one of the many seeming contradictions in Islam: Muslim women must chastely be covered head-to-toe—yet, in the service of jihad, they are allowed to prostitute themselves. Lying is forbidden—but permissible to empower Islam. Intentionally killing women and children is forbidden—but permissible during the jihad. Suicide is forbidden—but permissible during the jihad—when it is called "martyrdom."
One may therefore expect anything from would-be jihadis, regardless of how un-Islamic the means may otherwise seem.
Even so, this uncompromising mentality, which is prevalent throughout the Islamic world, especially along the frontlines of the jihad, is the same mentality that many Western leaders and politicians think can be appeased with just a bit more respect, well-wishing, and concessions from the West.
Such are the great, and disastrous, disconnects of our time.
Raymond Ibrahim is author of the new book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (published by Regnery in cooperation with Gatestone Institute, 2013). A Middle East and Islam expert, he is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Related Topics:  North Africa, Radical Islam, Sex and gender relations, Syria  |  Raymond Ibrahim This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

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Islamophobia in Egypt: 17 million take to streets to protest Islamization, vow to stay until Morsi is gone

from JihadWatch


The protesters oppose the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamization of Egypt. They must be racist, bigoted Islamophobes. "Live from Egypt: latest developments," from Al Arabiya, June 30 (thanks to Ian):
7:20 Former MP declares Port Said “freed and cleared of Muslim Brotherhoods” 7:00 Army estimates protesters at “several millions”
7:00 Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) says 4 millions in pro-Mursi rally
6:45 Health ministry says 174 wounded in seven provinces
6:40 One dead in clashes between pro and anti Mursi protesters
6:30 Cairo's Muslim Brotherhood HQ is attacked with petrol bombs
5: 30 pm National Salvation Front calls for boycotting the government
5:30 pm National Salvation Front protesters to stay on streets until Mursi goes
5:15 pm Protests move to el-Quba Palace where President Mursi is believed to be staying
4:00 pm Presidency urges protesters to avoid violence
3:55 pm: Presidency says it is open to dialogue
3:30 pm Military helicopters flying over Alexandria
3:20 pm Anti-Mursi rallies gather on Alexandria courniche
3:00 p.m. Opposition rallies reach presidential palace in Cairo
2:20 pm Protesters in Alexandria struck down by poisoned water

VIDEO: Obama-backed jihadists in Syria behead priest as crowd chants allahu akbar

from Atlas

BARBARISM!!!

VIDEO: Obama-backed jihadists in Syria behead priest as crowd chants allahu akbar

 

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/06/video-obama-backed-jihadists-in-syria-behead-priest-as-crowd-chants-allahu-akbar.html#comments

***Graphic*** Warning***
 
 
 
Obama is giving these savages "lethal weapons" and arms. I posted on the killing of this priest on June 28th when jihadists attacked a Christian village. I was unaware that they had beheaded him. "Catholic Online believes it is very important the world knows that Christians are being murdered for their faith, and that martyrdom isn't an ancient phenomenon." So why did the Catholic Diocese of Worcester cave to vicious jihad mouthpieces and libelists like Nathan Lean and cancel talks by Robert Spencer? The Catholic church must answer for that.
WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO - Syrian Jihadists behead Catholic priest Catholic Online: Syrian terrorists have beheaded a Catholic priest who they accused of collaborating with the Assad regime. Those accusations have not yet been verified. Father Francois was summarily executed and the Vatican has confirmed the martyrdom.
VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) - The Vatican is confirming the death by beheading of Franciscan Father, Francois Murad, who was martyred by Syrian jihadists on June 23.Below is the news release from the Vatican, via news.va. On Sunday, June 23 the Syrian priest François Murad was killed in Gassanieh, in northern Syria, in the convent of the Custody of the Holy Land where he had taken refuge. This is confirmed by a statement of the Custos of the Holy Land sent to Fides Agency. The circumstances of the death are not fully understood. According to local sources, the monastery where Fr. Murad was staying was attacked by militants linked to the jihadi group Jabhat al-Nusra.
Father François, 49, had taken the first steps in the religious life with the Franciscan Friars of the Custody of the Holy Land, and with them he continued to share close bonds of spiritual friendship. After being ordained a priest he had started the construction of a coenobitic monastery dedicated to St. Simon Stylites in the village of Gassanieh.After the start of the Civil War, the monastery of St. Simon had been bombed and Fr. Murad had moved to the convent of the Custody for safety reasons and to give support to the remaining few, along with another religious and nuns of the Rosary.
"Let us pray," writes the Custos of the Holy Land Pierbattista Pizzaballa OFM " so that this absurd and shameful war ends soon and that the people of Syria can go back to living a normal life." Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo, titular of the Syrian Catholic archeparchy in Hassaké-Nisibis reports to Fides: "The whole story of Christians in the Middle East is marked and made fruitful by the blood of the martyrs of many persecutions. Lately, father Murad sent me some messages that clearly showed how conscious he was of living in a dangerous situation, and offered his life for peace in Syria and around the world. "
**
This should make it clear to Christians around the world what jihadists are about. Make no mistake. Catholics and Christians around the globe are under dire threat, particularly from the spread of militant Islam. Until the threat is recognized and taken seriously, martyrdoms like this will continue.
We have a link to video provided via LiveLeak. We must warn you, the video is extremely graphic. We believe the first victim is Father Francois, and the second victim that is depicted is another person said to be a collaborator with the Assad regime.
The video CLEARLY depicts the beheadings of these victims. DO NOT follow the link unless you are over the age of 18, and are prepared to view content of this nature.
Catholic Online believes it is very important the world knows that Christians are being murdered for their faith, and that martyrdom isn't an ancient phenomenon.

A few words ....




Video: I speak about the British ban. Sign the petition asking that we be allowed into the UK here.

Obama Admin Met With Banned Cleric Qaradawi's (who calls for the killing of Americans and Jews) at the White House

from ATLAS

 

Obama Admin Met With Banned Cleric Qaradawi's (who calls for the killing of Americans and Jews) at the White House

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/06/obama-inc-met-with-qaradawi-deputy-while-deciding-to-arm-syrian-jihadists.html#more

Obama's pursuit of jihad is relentless. The mext threee and half years are going to be murder. It is just as I predicted in my 2010 book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.
"Exclusive: Banned Cleric's Outspoken Deputy Visits White House" by Steven Emerson and John Rossomando, IPT News 

Radical Egyptian cleric Yusuf Qaradawi is considered so radical that the United States bans him from entering the country.
Qaradawi, considered the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, has called for the killing of Jews and Americans.

That history makes the June 13 White House meeting with Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah all the more inexplicable. Bin Bayyah is vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a group founded by and headed by Qaradawi. The IUMS has a long history of supporting Hamas –a top Hamas leader is an IUMS member – and of calling for Israel's destruction.
Bin Bayyah's website claims that he met June 13 with senior Obama administration officials at the White House.
Nonetheless, it was the Obama administration which sought the meeting with Bin Bayyah, his website's account said.
"We asked for this meeting to learn from you and we need to be looking for new mechanisms to communicate with you and the Association of Muslim Scholars (another name used for the IUMS)," Gayle Smith, senior director of the National Security Council, reportedly said.
Bin Bayyah's June 13 account placed other senior officials in the meeting, including: Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and White House spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri. But the account was later changed to delete the reference to Donilon's presence at the meeting.

Smith also thanked Bin Bayyah for "his efforts to bring more understanding amongst humanity" during the meeting, the Bin Bayyah account said.

The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comments between June 14 and Tuesday.
Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah posted this photo of his June 13 White House meeting.
Bin Bayyah lobbied the White House to "take urgent action" to help Syrian rebels. "We demand Washington take a greater role in [Syria]," Bin Bayyah told Al-Jazeera. President Obama later announced plans to arm Syrian rebels.

In granting Bin Bayyah a visa, White House officials ignored his radical statements as well as his close connection to Qaradawi. The IUMS's hostility toward Israel, and its support of terrorists, is well documented. Bin Bayyah falls comfortably in line with that view.
For example, in a 2011 statement on his Arabic-language website, he criticized the West for placing Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others in the same category as al-Qaida:

"[P]lacing the Palestinian resistance, which defends internationally recognized rights, on an equal footing with intercontinental terrorist organizations (al-Qaida) is not based on any moral principle and would be detrimental to the cause of the fight against terrorism and mix the cards and raises questions to the world conscience and serves terrorists."

The IUMS welcomed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as a member in February 2012. The "Union will spare nothing in the service of the Palestinian people, praising the jihad of the Palestinian people with the leadership of the Hamas movement for resistance," Haniyeh's induction certificate said.
A 2004 fatwa, issued while Bin Bayyah was an IUMS board member, sanctioned "resistance," meaning attacks on American troops in Iraq as a duty on every able Muslim in and outside Iraq."
Jamal Badawi, a longtime ISNA board member, also is listed as a member of the IUMS Board of Trustees. Badawi has repeatedly defended Palestinian terrorism including suicide bombings. His name appears on the first page of a 1992 telephone directory of Muslim Brotherhood members in the United States, and he is listed as a fundraiser in records from the 2008 Holy Land Foundation Hamas financing trial.

Badawi's radical views fit in well with the IUMS, which has issued numerous statements against peace with Israel, calling for the "liberation of Palestine" from Jewish control. Each statement has been unyielding in calling on Muslims to destroy Israel and in forbidding them from making peace with the Jewish state.

After a board of trustees meeting in December, the IUMS issued a communique calling on Hamas and Fatah to reconcile in the name of "the core Palestinian values (including the right of return and resistance until the liberation of Palestine and its capital Jerusalem) … Meanwhile, the union calls on the scholars of the nation to continue their religious role in enlightening the local and international public concerning the dangers that this Judaization policy in Jerusalem poses for the historic unity of the Palestinian territories which is religiously impermissible to give up one inch of it."

Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, circled in red, is shown at the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) board meeting in Doha, Qatar in December. The trustees issued a concluding statement at the meeting calling for Israel's destruction and the return of Palestinians exiled after the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. (Photo:IUMS)
A photo on the group's website shows Bin Bayyah was present at the meeting.

In 2009, it issued a fatwa forbidding any normalization of relations with Israel. It came on the 42nd anniversary of the Six-Day War, and Israel's capturing of the Temple Mount.

"All political, economic, and cultural dealings and all forms of normalization with the Zionist entity are considered to be a form of supporting and sustaining the occupier in its occupation of land and holy places," the fatwa said. "Moreover, such actions are considered a form of loyalty to the enemy, which is religiously prohibited; as Allah (Exalted and Glorified be He) says: 'And if any amongst you takes them as Awliya' (friends, protectors, helpers, etc.), then surely he is one of them.'(Al-Ma'idah 5: 51). In conclusion, we call on all Muslims, rulers and citizens, to undertake their role, and embark on rescuing Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Blessed Land and freeing them from the clutches of the Zionist occupation."

Just last month, an IUMS-affiliated Egyptian cleric blamed the United States and Israel for driving Egyptian opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government. Khaled Kholif invoked the anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as evidence of his argument, the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch reported.

"America and Israel are pleased with [the Egyptian opposition] movements, which are led by the brainless," Kholif said during an appearance on Egypt's Al-Hafez television flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). "They have said so in The Protocols. Let me tell you exactly what they said in The Protocols: 'We will strive to undermine security in the lands of the Gentiles, through reckless revolutions, led by the brainless.' It says so in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as translated by Khalifa Al-Tunisi.

"If you haven't read it," Kholif said of the Protocols, "you should."

Embraced by American Islamists

Bin Bayyah previously met with White House envoy Rashad Hussain when Bin Bayyah participated in a July 2012 Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) conference in his native Mauritania.
His website also indicates he spoke at the ADAMS Center, a large northern Virginia mosque, while he was in Washington June 12.

In addition to his role as IUMS vice president , Bin Bayyah also is a member of the similarly anti-Semitic Qaradawi-founded European Council for Fatwa and Research and the OIC's International Islamic Fiqh Academy, the latter of which issued a resolution in January 2003 sanctioning Palestinian suicide bombings.

Qaradawi and Bin Bayyah show a keen mutual admiration of each other in their writing. Bin Bayyah notably referred to Qaradawi as "a mountain upon whose peak there is light" and as "a great reformer" who "spreads knowledge and wisdom" in a 2008 article published by Boston cleric Suhaib Webb. Qaradawi returned the favor three days later: "The reality is that the more I have come closer to him and got to know him better, the more I have loved him…"

That article also was published on Webb's site.

And like Qaradawi, Bin Bayyah claims Palestinian violence is acceptable under international law. Islamic law's approval is a given.

"He who adheres to international covenants can resist. The Palestinians. There are international conventions and there are international resolutions which give them rights but do not provide them with the means to obtain these rights. It is their right to resist," Bin Bayyah said during a 2010 Al-Jazeera broadcast. "So, that which says resistance, says kinds of resistance, including the use of weapons. So, international conventions do not stray too far from the interests Islamic Sharia oversees."

Bin Bayyah endorsed a push by Muslim intellectuals to get the United Nations to criminalize blasphemy against the Muslim prophet Muhammad and Islam, saying that it causes violence.
"To people of reason and understanding: We ask everyone to ponder the ramifications of provoking the feelings of over one billion people by a small party of people who desires not to seek peace nor fraternity between members of humanity," Bin Bayyah wrote in a post last fall. "This poses a threat to world peace with no tangible benefit realized. Is it not necessary in today's world for the United Nations to issue a resolution criminalizing the impingement of religious symbols? We request all religious and political authorities, as well as people of reason to join us in putting a stop to this futility that benefit no one."

Considering that this information is readily available on the Internet, it would not have been too difficult for White House officials to uncover that both Bin Bayyah and the IUMS support Palestinian terrorism and Israel's destruction. The White House visit also raises questions relative to the degree the Obama administration is willing to go to court the Muslim Brotherhood both at home and abroad.