In the news - muslims......

[David_james]

Thanks Pastor Roger!

This is fascinating. If anyone studies history, they should know that the entire history of Islam is inseparable from the sword and violence. After all, that's what the Koran teaches very plainly. Anyone can read it for themselves and easily understand without question what the Koran teaches. If anyone has doubts, read it for yourself and end your doubts.

no thank you

[Soldier4Christ]

no thank you

I can't blame you. Reading the koran is a difficult thing to stomach. There is so much hatred and blasphemy in it that it does make one sick.

[Shammu]

I can't blame you. Reading the koran is a difficult thing to stomach. There is so much hatred and blasphemy in it that it does make one sick.

Yes it does, some where I have a big thread on islam.

Edited to add:

Here is the link on islam I told y'all about.  Peaceful religion isn't spelled Islam this link is on the forum, there are 6 pages.

[Shammu]

Muslims Leaders Warn Pope 'Survival of World' at Stake

Thursday, October 11, 2007

The "survival of the world" is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other, leaders of the Muslim world will warn the Pope and other Christian leaders today.

In an unprecedented open letter signed by 138 leading scholars from every sect of Islam, the Muslims plead with Christian leaders "to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions" and spell out the similarities between passages of the Bible and the Koran.

The scholars state: "As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes."

The phrasing has echoes of the New Testament passage: "He that is not with me is against me" - a passage used by President George Bush when addressing a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11.

The Muslims call instead for the emphasis to be on the shared characteristics of world's two largest faiths.

The letter, addressed to Pope Benedict XVI, to the Orthodox Church's Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew 1 and all the other Orthodox Patriarchs and to the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and the leaders of all other Protestant churches worldwide, will be rolled out around the world this morning in a series of press conferences beginning in Jordan. It is supported by the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres.

It is expected to be followed by a joint conference between Muslim and Christian world leaders at on "neutral" ground, such as at an American university.

"Finding common ground between Muslims and Christians is not simply a matter for polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders," the Muslim scholars say, noting that Christians and Muslims make up over a third and a fifth of humanity respectively.

"Together they make up more than 55 per cent of the population, making the relationship between these two religious communities the most important factor in contributing to meaningful peace around the world. If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace."

The Muslims even quote passages verbatim from the Bible, extremely rare in a publication of this kind and at this level and an indication of their resolve to bring the two faiths together and end the present tensions between them.

The letter continues: "With the terrible weaponry of the modern world; with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants. Thus our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake."

It says: "And to those who nevertheless relish conflict and destruction for their own sake or reckon that ultimately they stand to gain through them, we say that our very eternal souls are all also at stake if we fail to sincerely make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony."

Concluding with a quote from the Koran, the scholars say: "So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works."

The letter is being sent out today by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman, Jordan.

Among those launching the letter in the UK will be two world leading figures in interfaith dialogue Professor David Ford and Aref Ali Nayed.

Professor David Ford is Regius Professor of Divinity, and Fellow of Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Professor Ford is also the Founding Director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Program and led this year’s international inter-faith conference at Lancaster House in June on ‘Islam and Muslims in the World Today’.

Aref Ali Nayed is a leading theologian and senior adviser to the Cambridge Inter-Faith Program. He is formerly Professor at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome, and the International Institute for Islamic Thought and Civilization in Malaysia.

Signatures include Shaykh Sevki Omarbasic, Grand Mufti of Croatia, Dr Abdul Hamid Othman, adviser to the Prime Minister of Malaysia and Dr Ali Ozak, head of the endowment for Islamic scientific studies in Istanbul, Turkey. They also include Shaykh Dr Nuh Ali Salman Al-Qudah, Grand Mufti of Jordan and Shaykh Dr Ikrima Said Sabri, former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Imam of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Muslims Leaders Warn Pope 'Survival of World' at Stake

[Shammu]

Anger over plan to dig up 350,000 bodies in historic London cemetery for Muslim burial site
11/Oct/07

A row has erupted over a plan to dig up a third of a million bodies from an historic east London cemetery to make way for a new Muslim burial site.

Tower Hamlets council in London is considering reopening the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park in Mile End to answer a long-running campaign for a Muslim graveyard in the area.

The park, off Bow Common Lane, was deconsecrated as a Church of England cemetery by Parliament in 1966, after being deemed full with about 350,000 bodies buried there.

It is not yet clear what the Council proposes to do with the remains, if they are ultimately removed from the graves and a new burial site built in their place.

Council sources have said the plans are not yet at a stage where this has been properly considered.

But already opponents to the proposal are lining up. They include the environmentalist and broadcaster, who is leading calls for the park to be kept as a wildlife haven.

The botanist, who is patron of a charity that acts as the guardian of the graveyard, said he will 'pray that the wisdom of all faiths' prevails in the decision over the cemetery's future.

The other options are to find land outside Tower Hamlets or redevelop the Bow Common gas works.

The Labour-controlled council had asked officers to find ways of opening a Muslim-only cemetery - but lawyers warned them that would be illegal.

The authority then examined the possibility of a multi-faith site, clearing existing graves to create a new cemetery with an area set aside for Muslim burials.

But now outraged East Enders have declared "there is no way we'll allow them to dig up our ancestors".

They have bombarded their local paper, the East London Advertiser, with protests against the plan to exhume 350,000 graves dating back to 1841, including those of the children of Dr Barnardo.

Religious leaders and politicians have also reacted angrily.

Tower Hamlets Tory group leader Peter Golds said no new cemetery had been opened in an inner city area for decades.

Cllr Golds insisted: "Of course, there must be respect for the recent dead and for those who mourn, but this proposal will cause untold damage to community cohesion in a borough that seriously wants for tranquil open space."

Labour's Poplar and Canning Town MP Jim Fitzpatrick said: "The cemetery is a very special piece of green space and I would personally want to examine very carefully any proposal to change that."

The Rev Alan Green, chair of the Tower Hamlets Inter-Faith Forum and dean for the borough, said the former Church of England graveyard was not an 'appropriate' place for a new cemetery.

Rev Green said: "The Church supports the move to ensure suitable future provision for the burial and cremation needs for all local residents.

"However, we do not believe that the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park is an appropriate location due to the emotional, practical and ecological issues of removing thousands of bodies and destroying an important wildlife centre.

"Therefore, we hope that we can work with the council and other faith groups to find a more suitable alternative."

Even Respect group leader Abjol Miah, who has been at the forefront of calls for a Muslim cemetery, opposed the blueprint.

Mr Miah said: "The Bow cemetery is an historic site and a nature reserve and therefore appears not to be an appropriate place.

"However, there is an urgent need for new cemetery facilities for Tower Hamlets residents.

"The lack of such facilities affects everyone, and is pressing because many, including most Muslims, prefer to bury their loved ones."

But defending the plan, Labour's environment spokesman in Tower Hamlets, Abdal Ullah, said: "To preserve the respect and dignity for everyone, I think most of the graves would have to be cleared out and we'd start afresh."

He said a corner of the cemetery would be reserved for Muslims who are buried in shrouds at a depth of 6ft and on their side facing Mecca.

With the fast-changing demographics of Tower Hamlets, the cemetery would be pre-dominantly Muslim.

Re-opening the cemetery would require an Act of Parliament - involving widespread public consultation and scrutiny but by law, any graves more than 75 years old can be removed.

[Soldier4Christ]

The scholars state: "As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes."

The phrasing has echoes of the New Testament passage: "He that is not with me is against me" - a passage used by President George Bush when addressing a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11.

Even satan knows how to quote scripture to his advantage.

[David_james]

Even satan knows how to quote scripture to his advantage.

Exactly why I say, just because one can quote the entire Bible, doesn't mean you're a Christian

[Soldier4Christ]

NYC's Tallest (Surviving) Building Lit in Honor of Islam...

Empire State building tower lit for Islamic holy days

The Empire State Building will be illuminated green this weekend to mark the Islamic holy days of Eid-al-Fitr (EED-ALL-FEET-er).

The joyous "Festival of Fast-breaking" marks the end of Ramadan, a month of intense spiritual renewal.

This year is the first time the famous skyscraper will be aglow for the Islamic holiday. A spokeswoman for the building's owner says it will be an annual event, in the same tradition of the yearly skyscraper lighting for Christmas and Hanukah.

In Islam, the color green symbolizes a happy occasion and the importance of nature. It will be illuminated from Friday through Sunday.

What a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

[Soldier4Christ]

Surprise? 'New' Muslim Brotherhood Platform Sexist, Christophobic, Backwards...

Muslim Brotherhood sets up Islamic clerical power

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's powerful opposition movement, has laid down its first detailed political platform, which would bar women and Christians from becoming president and establish a board of Muslim clerics to oversee the government, reminiscent of Iran's Islamic state.

The platform has dismayed secular reform activists who have cautiously hoped the Brotherhood was becoming more moderate and who supported the movement in the face of a tough government crackdown against it.

The document also complicates the debate in Egypt over how to deal with the Brotherhood, which proved its widespread popularity in 2005 parliament elections.

The Brotherhood in recent years has increasingly touted itself as a pro-reform movement, insisting it wants a democratic playing field and an end to the autocratic rule of President Hosni Mubarak's regime. Some secular reformers increasingly have said that, given the Brotherhood's popularity, there can't be real democracy in Egypt unless the group has a seat at the political table.

But the blueprint illustrated the dominance of a more hard-line trend in the Brotherhood, known as the "Daawi" - Arabic for "preaching" - over a minority of moderates who seek to reform the group and call for a civic government that respects Islamic principles.

"Conservatives are the majority inside the group in general," said Abdel Moneim Mohammed, a young Brotherhood activist who has criticized the controversial aspects of the platform on his blog.

The blueprint is a draft platform for a Brotherhood political party, which Mubarak's government has vowed never to allow. The Brotherhood circulated the draft last month to a number of intellectuals for reaction.
So far, it has been strongly negative.

"It establishes a religious state," Abdel Moneim Said, head of the leading Al Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies, said. "Its an assassination to the civic state."

The program calls for the formation of a commission of senior religious scholars, chosen in national elections, "to give consultancy to parliament and presidents," according to a copy of the program obtained by The Associated Press.

The commission's opinion on government and parliament decisions would be the "recommended one," suggesting it could veto those decisions.

The platform says parliament could overrule the board but not in issues governed by "proven texts" of Islamic Sharia law, a vague phrase which could be a wide range of issues.

The body recalls the system in Iran, where clerical councils have final say on a wide range of political issues and can even vet candidates running for president and parliament.

Mohammed Mursi, head of the Brotherhood committee that drafted the blueprint, defended it saying that the clerical body will only play a consultative rule. "We don't want a religious state," Mursi said.

He said the Brotherhood could make changes in the draft before it publishes its final version. He did not say when the final text would be announced.

The program also bars women and Christians from holding the post of president - Christians because the presidency and the prime minister's post have Islamic religious duties so "non-Muslims are excused from holding this mission."

The president cannot be a woman because the post's religious and military duties "contradict with her nature, social and other humanitarian roles," the document says.

The blueprint discusses women's issues under its "Issues and Problems" chapter, alongside problems like unemployment and child labor. It underlines "equality between men and women in terms of their human dignity," but also warns against "burdening women with duties against their nature or role in the family."

Sameh Fawzy, a Christian political analyst, described the Brotherhood stance as "very distant from the principle of a modern nation state."

The platform is the most concrete policy paper yet by the Brotherhood, which won a fifth of the parliament's seats in the 2005 elections, making it the biggest opposition bloc. The Brotherhood has been banned since 1954 but its candidates run in elections as independents.

In the past, the group has been vague about its goals, saying it seeks greater rule of Islamic law in Egypt without giving details.

Bahy Eldin Hassan, head of Cairo Center for Human Rights, said the new platform shows the Brotherhood has added "vocabularies of democracy and human rights (to their rhetoric). But the content remains the same as the old generations."

Hassan said reformists inside the group have "no weight" inside the decision-making body of the group.

In his blog, Mohammed, the Brotherhood activist, criticized the idea of the clerical council as a "flaw" in the platform.

He also opposes the ban on women and Christians from the running for president. "As a Muslim, I have the right to reject a Christian as my president, but I will decide that in the ballot, not before," Mohammed, who was detained for several weeks earlier this year in the government crackdown, told AP.

But he doubted the platform would be a blow to the group's wider popularity, saying many Egyptians back it as a protest vote against the government. Even critics within the Brotherhood will "follow whatever the supreme leader says, since the group's membership is based upon listening and obedience," he said.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which operates in America as the Muslim American Society, has a plan and a vision: remake American society and turn it into an Islamic nation, ruled by Islamic law and led by Muslims. No, these aren't the extremists and terrorists - these are mainstream, if conservative, Muslims in America. Their goal in the U.S. is the same as it is in Egypt and in all other nations. They are continually working hard to make their dream a reality and are willing to take any means necessary to achieve that goal.

[Shammu]

Vatican welcomes Muslim peace initiative
Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:39am EDT

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The top Vatican official in charge of relations with Islam on Friday welcomed an unprecedented call from 138 Muslim scholars for peace and understanding between their religions.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran told Vatican Radio he found the letter, released on Thursday, "very interesting," in part because it was signed by both Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims and made numerous references to the Old and New Testaments.

The letter, addressed to Pope Benedict and other prominent Christian leaders, said finding common ground between the world's major faiths had to go beyond polite dialogue because "the very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake".

Tauran, a Frenchman who heads the Vatican's department for inter-religious dialogue, said he welcomed the fact that the letter was "not polemical" and called for a spiritual approach to inter-religious dialogue.

Such a joint letter was unprecedented in Islam, which has no central authority that speaks on behalf of all worshippers.

The list of signatories includes senior figures throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. They represent Sunni, Shi'ite and Sufi schools of Islam.

Relations between Muslims and Christians have been strained as al Qaeda has struck around the world and as the United States and other Western countries intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pope Benedict sparked Muslim protests last year with a speech hinting Islam was violent and irrational. It prompted 38 Muslim scholars to write a letter challenging his view of Islam and accepting his call for serious Christian-Muslim dialogue.

Benedict repeatedly expressed regret for the reaction to the speech, but stopped short of a clear apology sought by Muslims.

Vatican welcomes Muslim peace initiative

[Shammu]

Unprecedented Muslim call for peace with Christians
Thu Oct 11, 2007 11:21am EDT

By Peter Graff

LONDON (Reuters) - More than 130 Muslim scholars from around the globe called on Thursday for peace and understanding between Islam and Christianity, saying "the very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake".

In an unprecedented letter to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders, 138 Muslim scholars said finding common ground between the world's biggest faiths was not simply a matter for polite dialogue between religious leaders.

"If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world; with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants," the scholars wrote.

"Our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake," they wrote, adding that Islam and Christianity already agreed that love of God and neighbor were the two most important commandments of their faiths.

Relations between Muslims and Christians have been strained as al Qaeda has struck around the world and as the United States and other Western countries intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Such a joint letter is unprecedented in Islam, which has no central authority that speaks on behalf of all worshippers.

The list of signatories includes senior figures throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. They represent Sunni, Shi'ite and Sufi schools of Islam.

Among them were the grand muftis of Egypt, Palestine, Oman, Jordan, Syria, Bosnia and Russia and many imams and scholars. War-torn Iraq was represented by both Shi'ites and Sunnis.

Mustafa Cagrici, the mufti who prayed with Benedict in Istanbul's Blue Mosque last year, was also on the list, as was the popular Egyptian television preacher Amr Khaled.

"MAINSTREAM VOICES DROWNED OUT"

The letter was addressed to the Pope, leaders of Orthodox Christian churches, Anglican leader Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the heads of the world alliances of the Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist and Reformed churches.

Williams said he welcomed it as "indicative of the kind of relationship for which we yearn in all parts of the world".

"The call to respect, peace and goodwill should now be taken up by Christians and Muslims at all levels and in all countries," he said.

A Vatican official in Rome said the Roman Catholic Church would not comment until it had time to read the letter.

Aref Ali Nayed, one of the signatories and a senior adviser to the Cambridge Interfaith Program at Cambridge University in Britain, said the signatories represented the "99.9 percent of Muslims" who follow mainstream schools and oppose extremism.

"In Islam we have had a problem for some time now where the mainstream voices are drowned out by a minority that choose violence," he said.

Nayed said organizers of the letter had set up an ad hoc network among Muslim leaders that could lead to more cooperation in future.

"These people don't take their signatures lightly," he said. "We are trying to institutionalize this so we don't lose it."

The overture to Christians could be followed by similar letters addressed to Jews or secularists, he added.

Pope Benedict sparked Muslim protests last year with a speech hinting Islam was violent and irrational. It prompted 38 Muslim scholars to write a letter challenging his view of Islam and accepting his call for serious Christian-Muslim dialogue.

Benedict repeatedly expressed regret for the reaction to the speech, but stopped short of a clear apology sought by Muslims.

The new letter argues in theological terms, giving quotes from the Koran and the Bible that show both Christianity and Islam considered love of God as their greatest commandment and love of neighbor as the second greatest.

"The basis for this peace and understanding already exists," it said. "It is part of the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the one God and love of the neighbor."

Unprecedented Muslim call for peace with Christians

[Soldier4Christ]

NYC tries to increase share of Sharia finances
Big Apple hopes to capture piece of Islamic financial market

New York will play host to two major conferences on Islamic finance this month, events likely to underscore that the city is a bit player in this vast and growing market sector — particularly when compared to London.

The British capital is New York's chief rival as a global financial hub, and it has a big head start in the race to attract the billions of investment dollars from the oil-rich Middle East. This is critical because Islamic finance — banking and investing in compliance with Islamic religious law, known as Sharia — is perhaps the fastest-growing sector of the global financial services market. Islamic institutions around the world hold assets estimated at more than $300 billion, with another $400 billion in financial investments, according to a 2006 study by the accounting firm KPMG. Islamic finance is growing at a rate of about 15% a year, the study found. A consulting firm, McKinsey & Co., predicts growth of at least 20% in this sector over the next five years.

"There is not much value added that New York can bring to the party," a Harvard Business School professor emeritus who is an expert on Islamic finance, Samuel Hayes, said. "This is not where they come to look for products," he added, referring to Muslim investors.

Over the next three weeks, two conferences will attempt to change this. Shariah Capital, an Islamic financial advisory firm based in Greenwich, Conn., is sponsoring a conference October 23–24 titled "Islamic Finance in North America: Accessing Innovative Islamic Finance Opportunities" at Manhattan's 3 West Club. A conference company, Financial Research Associates, is holding a second event, the "Islamic Finance Summit 2007," at the Helmsley Hotel in Midtown on October 29.

Sharia-compliant finance firms do not collect interest on investments, eschew borrowing money, and do not short-sell stocks. There is also a prohibition against investing in "sin stocks," including companies that promote gambling, pornography, or alcohol.

London firms have successfully attracted Islamic money by catering to these rules. London-based law firm Clifford Chance advised on $18 billion worth of Islamic transactions last year and, at a British conference on Islamic finance last year, Gordon Brown, then chancellor of the Exchequer, said he wanted to make Britain "the gateway to Islamic finance and trade."

Despite its difficulty in attracting Islamic financial business, America has taken some encouraging steps, including the U.S. Treasury Department's appointment of a scholar-in-residence on Islamic finance in 2003. Since 1999, Dow Jones has begun tracking a number of indexes of Islamic markets that screen stocks based on Sharia criteria, even employing a dedicated board of Sharia scholars. In addition, Islamic mortgages, one of the first products to gain acceptance in America, have been growing since they first became available a decade ago, and in recent years, even Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been buying them.

Still, the Islamic mortgage market has not grown as quickly as some observers predicted. In fact, these mortgages remain just a fraction of the more than $2 trillion annual residential mortgage market. In December of last year, HSBC Bank USA, which had written some $50 million in Islamic mortgages over the past six years, stopped offering them, according to the Real Deal, a real estate magazine.

Now, in light of the recent subprime mortgage credit crisis, it could be even tougher for New York to catch up with London.

"The recent turmoil in the financial markets will probably slow down this trend" of new Islamic product offerings in America, a professor of Islamic banking and finance at Tufts University, Ibrahim Warde, said. "People have quickly become more wary of financial innovation."

This month's conferences, however, could be a turning point.

"Wall Street is the go-to place on the capital markets," the global director of Dow Jones's Islamic Market Group, Rushdi Siddiqui, said. "As regards New York, it's just a matter of time."

[Soldier4Christ]

 Terror jury hears al-Qaida oaths

A videotaped pledge of allegiance to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden by seven men accused of plotting terror attacks on U.S. soil was played Thursday for jurors, who saw each man repeat the oath, give his name and then break into applause.
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The oath was led by an FBI informant, Elie Assad, who was posing as an al-Qaida operative named Mohammed supposedly sent to help the group with its purported plot to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI buildings in several cities to spark an insurrection.

"We'll be doing, in the future, a great job together," Assad tells the men after administering the oath at a warehouse in Miami's impoverished Liberty City neighborhood. The warehouse had been supplied by the FBI and was wired for video and audio recording.

"I'm just happy," says the alleged ringleader, Narseal Batiste, after the ceremony.

Among the oath's words repeated by all the so-called "Liberty City Seven" are "to be a loyalist to the path of holy war and to my brothers." Assad told the group at the outset he was authorized to give the oath as a representative of bin Laden.

The ceremony took place March 16, 2006, and is critical to the prosecution's charges that the group conspired to provide support to al-Qaida and to levy war against the United States. Each of the seven faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

Earlier Thursday, Assad testified that Batiste provided a detailed list of gear the group wanted, including machine guns, bulletproof vests, sport utility vehicles, motorcycles and $50,000 in cash. He said Batiste sought dynamite to destroy the 110-story Sears Tower.

"He told me he was a professional, and he knows how to build buildings, and he knows how to take them down," Assad testified.

Attorneys for Batiste and the others have said they never intended to mount a terrorist attack and that they went along with the FBI informants only to attempt to extort money from them. Their trial is expected to last up to two more months.

Assad's testimony marked the first public appearance by the key prosecution witness. Assad described himself as a Lebanese national of Syrian descent who speaks six languages. He said he was enlisted by the FBI to act as an al-Qaida emissary after agents were tipped in fall 2005 that Batiste was allegedly plotting a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Assad testified that Batiste gave him a handwritten, three-page list of requested supplies at a meeting Dec. 29, 2005, including the weaponry, $50,000 in cash, binoculars, dirt bikes, street motorcycles, SUVs and two large recreational vehicles capable of holding his entire group.

Batiste also told Assad he had access to private land in Louisiana and Alabama, where he hoped to use these supplies to train his "soldiers" there so they could mount a guerrilla war to be triggered by the toppling of the Sears Tower.

"I'm really serious about everything I told you," Batiste said in one recorded conversation. "There's only one government — and that's the government of Islam."

Assad said he gave the list to the FBI and ultimately supplied only military-style boots and a cell phone to Batiste. "It's not safe to give him machine guns," Assad said.

Prosecutors also played a recording of a Jan. 28, 2006, meeting of Assad, the other informant and Batiste in the Florida Keys. The two informants had been unexpectedly driven there from Miami amid increasing suspicions among Batiste's group that they might be working for the FBI, prosecutors said.

During the meeting, held in a tent in the town of Islamorada, Batiste notes that the Bush administration has become increasingly concerned about homegrown terrorist cells and that "it would have been easy" for Assad to have recorded their previous talks — which, in fact, he did.

"You've got to understand, in this country right now, right now, there are spies everywhere," Batiste said on the recording.

Assad assured Batiste that he was a legitimate al-Qaida representative and the two informants were driven back to Miami unharmed.

[Soldier4Christ]

Ohio's Taxpayer-Financed Terror-Fest     
By Patrick Poole
FrontPageMagazine

Just a week after I revealed that an event is currently scheduled to be held at the Ohio State Capitol later this month featuring a known HAMAS operative with multiple immediate connections to designated terrorists (“HAMAS in the House”), new details have emerged that not only are taxpayers partially footing the bill for the event, but yet another speaker at the event also has multiple terror ties.

According to a flier for the “Many Faces of Islam” conference (a copy of which is posted at Central Ohioans Against Terrorism), the event is being co-sponsored by the Ohio Humanities Council (OHC), an organization that receives virtually all of its funding through government grants. According to the group’s most recent IRS Form 990, it received $903,715 from direct government contributions and only $27,819 from private sources during the 2005 fiscal year. OHC receives most of its funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities as the state affiliate of the national organization. Inquiries about how much taxpayer money OHC is providing for the “Many Faces of Islam” event have not yet received a reply.

As I reported last week, one of the featured speakers at “The Many Faces of Islam” conference to be held on October 28th in the Ohio Statehouse atrium is HAMAS operative Anisa Abd El Fattah. Fattah is past president of the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). According to a February 1993 New York Times article, convicted HAMAS terrorist operative and former UASR employee, Mohammed Salah, told federal authorities that UASR served as “the political command of HAMAS in the United States,” and UASR was founded by Specially Designated Global Terrorist Mousa abu Marzook. Fattah also co-authored two books with current HAMAS spokesman Ahmed Yousef, and served as a longtime consultant to convicted terror leader Abdurahman Alamoudi’s American Muslim Council (AMC).

Another speaker, Robert D. Crane, also held positions with UASR and Alamoudi’s AMC, in addition to the International Institute for Islamic Thought, which provided initial funding for convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian’s World Islam and Studies Enterprise (WISE) at the University of South Florida.

But according to other press reports yet another listed speaker for the upcoming conference, Dr. Zilfiqar Ali Shah, has also worked for organizations that have been closed by the U.S. government for terrorist support activities. Shah is the past president of the Islamic Circle of North America and the former Southeast Asia director for KindHearts, a Toledo, Ohio-based charity closed by federal authorities in February 2006 for financing terrorist organizations.

In his role as Southeast Asia director for KindHearts, Shah established a partnership with the Al-Khidmat Foundation, the charitable arm of the Jammat-i-Islami in Pakistan. But Al-Khidmat also played a critical role in the formation of Al-Qaeda, as Steve Schippert of TheatsWatch explains:

    While the al-Khidmat Foundation is described as a “welfare organisation run by the hard-line Islamist party Jamaat-i-Islami,” it is far from that. It is the Maktab al-Khidmat, the group founded in 1980 by Usama bin Laden’s mentor and ideological inspiration, Abdullah Azzam. Its primary purpose was then and is now to serve as “a support organization for Arab volunteers for the jihad in Afghanistan” and elsewhere today. Usama bin Laden financed this group from its inception. It is from this group that al-Qaeda sprang to life in 1989.

And as Joe Kaufman has reported here at FrontPage, “The Two Faces of Zulfiqar Ali Shah,” an event organized by Khan for his Universal Heritage Foundation, which ostensibly was dedicated “to promote a greater understanding and respect for and among people of all faiths, colors, and gender,” for its inaugural event he invited Shaikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais, the chief cleric of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, who had called for the murder of “Jews, Christians, and Americans.” Al-Sudais had also described Jews as “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the killers of prophets, and the grandsons of monkeys and pigs.” Due to Kaufman’s exposure of the event, Al-Sudais’ appearance was cancelled.

Shah has also has made his own shocking statements that question his pretended “interfaith” image. As reported by IslamOnline (run by Specially Designated Global Terror Yousef Al-Qaradawi), during a June 2001 meeting of Muslim leaders in Chicago, Khan said:

    If we are unable to stop the Jews now, their next stop is Yathrib (The Prophet's city of Medina), where the Jews used to live until their expulsion by Prophet Muhammad. That's the pinnacle of their motives.

Kaufman notes elsewhere that in his position with KindHearts, Khan promoted their efforts and conducted fundraising in association with groups operating openly with Al-Qaeda:

    Prior to the organization's closure, Shah went on a ten day KindHearts tour - through more than ten cities - with members of Tablighi Jamaat, a Pakistani organization that The New York Times described as a "recruitment" center for Al-Qaeda. The Tablighi members were Junaid Jamshed and Saeed Anwar. During this tour, KindHearts claimed to have raised $1.5 million.

After the shuttering of KindHearts, Khan took up a new position with the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, which prompted the local establishment media to investigate his background. In a May 2006 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Questions arise about Muslim scholar,” Khan defended his statement about Jews wanting to take over the city of Medina as a “joke” and denied knowing the extremist statements of Al-Sudais prior to inviting him to speak and the terror connections to KindHearts – connections that Khan himself helped establish.

With at least three of the four speakers scheduled to appear at the “Many Faces of Islam” event at the Ohio Statehouse having multiple connections to extremism and terrorism, it’s hard to believe that the primary sponsoring organization, the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio (IACO), was unaware of the highly controversial backgrounds of these individuals. In fact, it seems they were especially chosen for their very narrow understanding of Islam, which raises the question of why a publicly-funded organization like OHC would lend its weight and financial support to such an event. Because of the highly partisan nature of the speakers, it is highly doubtful that the conference will better help anyone better understand of Islam.

It seems more appropriate that the October terror-fest at the Ohio Statehouse should be renamed, “The Many Faces of Islamic Extremism.”

[nChrist]

Hello Pastor Roger,

I know more than I want to about Islam, and it irritates me to no end that our tax dollars are being used for things like this. Everything Christian is being driven out, and they're using our own tax dollars to do it. It's freedom for everyone but Christians in a Christian nation.