The Rise of Islam

[nChrist]

Brothers and Sisters,

I think we are actually watching the Tribulation Period about to be ushered in. Making a deal with the devil won't help a thing. In reality, it doesn't appear that anything will help, and GOD'S Appointed Time might be right around the corner. Regardless, Christians have prayer to offer, work to do, and GOD'S Will to yield to. GOD'S Will be DONE!

[HisDaughter]

Condemning Islamic terrorism banned on Marine training base
Father of USS Cole victim ordered to remove critical bumper stickers
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Posted: November 13, 2008
10:30 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily


A lawsuit has been filed against two officers at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune Marine base for banning a civilian worker – a 25-year Marine whose son was a victim of the U.S.S. Cole attack – from publicly condemning Islamic terrorists.

One of the 'offensive' bumper stickers

The lawsuit was filed by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of Jesse Nieto after base officials first ordered him to remove bumper stickers from his private vehicle then banned the vehicle from all federal installations nationwide.

In a statement e-mailed to WND, base spokesman Nat Fahy said the action against Nieto was pursued based on "third party complaints regarding the offensive nature of Mr. Nieto's stickers."

"After refusing his supervisor's informal request to remove the stickers, Mr. Nieto was issued two separate motor vehicle citations. After being afforded an opportunity to argue his position in front of the base magistrate, the magistrate told him to remove the stickers from his car. While he did remove several offensive stickers off during this period, he refused to remove all of the offending stickers. Because he remained in violation of the base order, Mr. Nieto's DoD registration decal was ultimately removed from his vehicle."

According to the lawsuit, Lt. Col. James Hessen, the base traffic court officer, ruled that the decals on Nieto's vehicle were "offensive," and when asked to explain, said, "'It's just what I think,' or words to that effect," the complaint states.

Lawyers for the Thomas More Law Center said Nieto served in the Marines for 25 years, including two combat tours in Vietnam. His youngest son, Marc, and 16 of Marc's shipmates were killed Oct. 12, 2000, by Islamic terrorists who bombed the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen.

Nieto has worked as a civilian employee at Camp Lejeune since 1994. It was about 2001 when he started displaying various decals and bumper stickers on his vehicle "expressing anti-terrorist sentiments," such as "Remember the Cole, 12 Oct 2000," "Islam = Terrorism," and "We Died, They Rejoiced,"



On July 31, he was ticketed on base by two military police officers for displaying "offensive material."

Another "offensive" bumper stickers

The ticket was issued even though other automobile-mounted slogans such as a Confederate flag with, "If This Offends You … You Need a History Lesson," a "Darwin fish" mocking Christianity, sexually explicit symbols such as silhouettes of nude women, one with "Your Child May be an Honor Student But Your Driving Sucks," and several versions of a cartoon character (similar to Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes) urinating on various symbols were allowed, the lawsuit said.

In August, after Nieto refused to remove the "offending" decals, the base magistrate issued a written order that required him to take his vehicle off the base "until all decals were removed" and banning his vehicle from all federal installations nationwide.

The order, the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina said, now prevents Nieto from visiting Arlington National Cemetery, where his son is buried.

The case alleges the military is violating Nieto's constitutional rights to freedom of speech and equal protection of the law.

"The banning of these decals is political correctness run amok in the military," said Richard Thompson, president of the law center. "Our troops are being killed by Islamic terrorists, 9/11 was caused by Islamic terrorists, these terrorists want to destroy America, the Islamic countries persecute Christians and now the military is victimizing a father whose son was killed by Islamic terrorists while serving our nation."

Thompson said the next move on the part of the Marines might be to "eliminate the Marine's Hymn since the phrase 'to the shores of Tripoli' celebrates the Marine victory over Islamic forces in the Barbary Coast War and the Battle of Derne."The lawsuit alleges viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, equal protection violations of the Fifth Amendment and claims there are no objective standards for guiding bumper sticker banishments.

Also named as a defendant is Col. Richard Flatau Jr., the base commander.

The case also alleges that Nieto was threatened with dismissal from his job for having the decals and not only cannot drive to work or visit his son's grave in Arlington, he also cannot use his vehicle to visit the U.S.S. Cole Memorial in Norfolk, Va.

"During public addresses, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces, President George W. Bush, has used the terms 'Islamic terrorists,' 'Islamic extremism,' and 'Islamic militants,' noting that the Islamic terrorists responsible for killing Americans on September 11, 2001, are the 'same murderers … responsible for bombing the U.S.S. Cole,'" the lawsuit said.

"The Commander-in-Chief has indicated that the United States will give no quarter to these terrorists, stating that 'we must pursue them wherever they are' and we will not let up until our enemies are defeated and our people are secure," the lawsuit said.

"Consequently, it is unreasonable to conclude that the words, terms, or political viewpoint expressed by the Commander-in-Chief or those expressed by Plaintiff are prohibited on federal installations in the United States, including military bases such as Camp Lejeune."

The lawyer handling the case is Robert Muise, who also has been defending Marine Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the highest-ranking officer accused in the Rep. John Murtha-instigated prosecution of soldiers for a firefight with terrorists in Haditha, Iraq.

[Soldier4Christ]

I go on a number of Military bases especially so since my son has joined the Army. I have a number of bumper stickers on my van that would be considered "offensive" on those grounds. So far nothing has been said. I wonder how long that will though after seeing this article. I will have to stand with this Marine on this.

[HisDaughter]

Saudi Arabia Using UN Interfaith Dialogue To Push Global Blasphemy Law

csmonitor.com
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World leaders gathering at the United Nations this week for a special session of the General Assembly to advance interfaith dialogue should have no illusions that their efforts will miraculously promote mutual respect between religious communities or end abuses of religious freedom.

Saudi King Abdullah, who initiated this week's special session, is quietly enlisting the leaders' support for a global law to punish blasphemy – a campaign championed by the 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference that puts the rights of religions ahead of individual liberties.

If the campaign succeeds, states that presume to speak in the name of religion will be able to crush religious freedom not only in their own country, but abroad.

The UN session is designed to endorse a meeting of religious leaders in Spain last summer that was the brainchild of King Abdullah and organized by the Muslim World League. That meeting resulted in a final statement counseling promotion of "respect for religions, their places of worship, and their symbols ... therefore preventing the derision of what people consider sacred."

The lofty-sounding principle is, in fact, a cleverly coded way of granting religious leaders the right to criminalize speech and activities that they deem to insult religion. Instead of promoting harmony, however, this effort will exacerbate divisions and intensify religious repression.

Such prohibitions have already been used in some countries to restrict discussion of individuals' freedom vis-à-vis the state, to prevent criticism of political figures or parties, to curb dissent from prevailing views and beliefs, and even to incite and to justify violence.

They undermine the standards codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the keystone of the United Nations, by granting greater rights to religions than to individuals, including those who choose to hold no faith – or who would seek to convert.

Another stark irony hangs over the UN special session this week. Saudi Arabia is one of the world's worst abusers of religious freedom, a fact recognized by the Bush administration when it named it a "country of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act in 2004. The king couldn't hold such a conference at home, where conservative clerics no doubt would purge the guest list of Jews from Israel, Baha'is, and Ahmadis.

The Saudi government permits the public practice of only one interpretation of Islam. This forces the 2-to-3 million Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and other expatriate workers there to leave their convictions at the border, since non-Muslim places of worship are prohibited, non-Muslim religious materials risk confiscation, and even private worship is affected by the strictures.

It also violates the rights of the large communities of Muslims who adhere to Islamic traditions other than the one deemed orthodox by Saudi clerics. In the past two years, dozens of Shiites have been detained for up to 30 days for holding small religious gatherings at home. One Ismaili, Hadi Al-Mutaif, is serving a life sentence after being condemned for apostasy in 1994 for a remark he made as a teenager that was deemed blasphemous. The alleged crime of apostasy, in fact, can be punished by death.

The government's policies are enforced by the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, a roving religious police force, armed with whips, that regularly oversteps its authority and is unchecked by the judiciary.

Women seeking to exercise basic freedoms of speech, movement, association, and equality before the law have experienced particularly severe abuse.

In a particularly egregious recent case, a woman was gang-raped as punishment by seven men who found her alone in a car with a man who was not her relative. She escaped the sentence of 200 lashes and six months in prison only because of a pardon by King Abdullah, yet he also said he believed the sentence was appropriate.

Holding a session on advancing interfaith dialogue abroad is a pale substitute for hosting it in the kingdom, where the message of respect for freedom of religion and belief is most needed.

Against the background of Saudi repression and the kingdom's role in exporting extremism, including through school textbooks preaching hatred of "unbelievers," the UN and every world leader attending the special session should be demanding an end to severe violations of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia.

Dialogue is no substitute for compliance with universal human rights standards.

The monarch would make a far greater contribution by exponentially increasing his efforts to promote religious freedom at home, where religious intolerance reigns. A welcome first step would be to release Hadi Al-Mutaif and all other religious prisoners who remain behind bars in Saudi Arabia.

[HisDaughter]

Islam Experts Wary of Plan for U.S. Muslim College

www.christianpost.com

Two experts, one a Christian the other a devout Muslim, are both wary of a plan in progress to establish the first four-year accredited Islamic college in the United States.

Both fear that the proposed school, which could open as soon as next fall, would promote the idea of the Islamic state.

“Certainly, an attempt at the formation of an accredited college by Muslim academics can be a good thing if it is founded in the ideas of freedom and liberty and against Islamism (political Islam),” said Dr. M. Zuhidi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), to The Christian Post.

“But I’m not convinced that this college will be creating anti-Islamist Muslims who will reform sharia (Islamic law) and bring Muslim thought into an era where religious law can be separated from government as the Establishment Clause mandates,” he added.

Jasser, who is a devout practicing Muslim American and a former physician to the U.S. Congress, pointed out that one of the college’s main scholars, Imam Zaid Shakir, had said in a 2006 New York Times story that he hopes the United States will one day be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law.

The “primary root cause” of Islamic radicalism, stressed Jasser, is the mission to establish an Islamic state.

“The leadership of Zaytuna [College] seems to be all about political Islam with no public critique of the global mission of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist idealogies,” said Jasser, whose public critique of problems he sees in his faith has resulted in a backlash from the Muslim community.

He added, “I dream of the day where universities have established endowed chairs in the study of anti-Islamist studies from the viewpoint of freedom and with devout Muslims leading the charge and the academics.”

A group of American Muslims, including Zaid Shakir, is leading an effort to establish Zaytuna College, or what some call the “Muslim Georgetown.”

Shakir, who converted to Islam while serving in the U.S. Air Force, said the college will offer liberal arts education and Islamic studies, The Associated Press reported. The college plans to start with offering two majors: Arabic language and Islamic legal and theological studies.

In 1996, Shakir founded Zaytuna Institute based in Berkeley, Calif. The American Muslim imam, who now has tens of thousands of followers, was trained under Islamic scholars in North Africa and the Middle East for years after his conversion.

Shakir told the New York Times earlier that he wants the United States to be ruled by Islamic law “not by violent means, but by persuasion.”

Dr. William Wagner, author of How Islam Plans to Change the World, said he is not surprised about the plan to build a Muslim college in the United States. He said for years Islamists have planned to open universities in western countries.

“They see the value of education especially in educating their young leaders for eventual takeover of some western countries,” said Wagner, former professor of missions at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in San Francisco, to The Christian Post.

“Their strategy includes extensive student work in many U.S. universities and the start of a new university is only an extension of their main strategy,” he said.

Wagner served for over 30 years as a missionary in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa with the International Mission Board.

Currently, leaders of Zaytuna are in the midst of a fundraising campaign. They need $2 to $4 million to launch the school next year. A Zaytuna adviser told AP in a recent interview that the school will soon raise tens of millions of dollars to build a campus in the Bay area in the next few years.

[HisDaughter]

America's prison system serves as Evangelism 101 for Islam

washingtontimes.com/


At least two of the Muslim ex-convicts arrested last week in the Bronx on charges of planning to bomb synagogues and shoot down airplanes came to Islam while in prison. Their arrest has raised the point that America's prison system often serves as Evangelism 101 for Islam.

A few years ago, I visited several Muslims in a state penitentiary in Culpeper, Va., and combed local mosques for former inmates to learn why so many prisoners choose Islam.

Dantes Augustin, a former Catholic, told me of a "humble, meek and very pious" Muslim prison chaplain he met in a federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa. The chaplain took the time to explain the basics of the religion and Mr. Augustin converted within a year.

In Islam, he explained, "Cleanliness is highly recommended; you should not use profanity, you should be courteous. I always wanted to practice virtues and Islam gave me the tools."

Mr. Augustin added, "I met Muslims from all over the world in American prisons: Indonesians, Palestinians, Egyptians, even Chinese. Islam is the fastest growing religion in prison because people there see it for what it really is."

There are anywhere from 200,000 to 340,000 Muslim inmates in local, federal and state prisons, or 9 percent to 15 percent of the nation's incarcerated population even though they are 2 percent of the total U.S. populace. The federal Bureau of Prisons told me Muslims comprised 5.7 percent of their inmates, and a spokeswoman for the District's jail system told me 18 percent of its inmates were Muslim.

Prison is a fertile ground for inmates who already feel victimized by American society, according to Roy and Niger Innis of the Manhattan-based Congress of Racial Equality.

"Prison is the best recruitment ground imaginable," Roy Innis said. "Young black men change their so-called white Christian slave names to a Muslim name. Then they are told it wasnt their crime, it was racism that put them in jail."

Conversions to Islam, they said, are considered the ultimate rebellion against a white-controlled system. Black Christians, they added, are called traitors to their race and Christianity is labeled as a weak and powerless faith because of the killing of its founder. Islam, which honors Jesus as a prophet but denies that He rose from the dead, is portrayed as the religion of power.

"Criminals are made to feel they are political prisoners and revolutionaries in the criminal system," Niger Innis said. "Once people are released, they go back to Watts or Harlem and integrate themselves into the black community. So, if they are part of a terrorist cell in prison, they spread that into the black community."

Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society and the founder and former director of the National Islamic Prison Foundation, had a different read on why inmates convert.

"Islam is organized in prison; there's prayer five times a day; and things that are organized run better," he says. "There's needs for boundaries and needs for certainties. Machismo has an important aspect in prisons and Islam has a strong concentration on being manly. That really resonates with people who come from homes without fathers around."

[HisDaughter]

Christian couple found guilty of sedition for for distributing evangelical publications that cast Islam in a negative light

www.google.com

A Christian Singaporean couple were found guilty of sedition on Thursday for distributing evangelical publications that cast Islam in a negative light, court officials said.

Ong Kian Cheong and his wife Dorothy Chan had been charged with distributing a seditious publication to two Muslims in October and March 2007 and sending a second such booklet to another Muslim in December that same year, a district court official told AFP.

The publications were found to have promoted feelings of ill-will and hostility between Christians and Muslims, the Straits Times said on its website.

A hearing was set for June 4 for mitigation pleas and sentencing.

The sedition charge carries a jail term of up to three years or a fine of up to 5,000 Singapore dollars (3,437 US) or both.

Singapore, a multi-racial island nation, clamps down hard on anyone seen to be inciting communal tensions.

In 2005, two ethnic Chinese men were jailed for anti-Muslim blogs.

[HisDaughter]

Binyamin Netanyahu may yield to two-state solution after pressure from Obama

Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to endorse a “two-state solution” in a much-heralded speech this weekend, but he may stall on American demands to freeze Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Feeling the squeeze between the US Administration, which wants a moratorium on settlement growth and a commitment to a Palestinian state, and his national-religious coalition, which favours neither, the Israeli Prime Minister appears likely to try to steer a middle course.

Israeli newspapers were full of speculation about what Mr Netanyahu — who has so far refused openly to back a Palestinian state alongside Israel — might offer to deflect pressure from Washington. Ehud Barak, his Defence Minister, urged him this week to recognise a Palestinian state, but members of Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party have cautioned him against the move.

Haaretz, the centre-left newspaper, said that the Prime Minister was likely to mention a two-state solution and pledge to adhere to the “road map” — a US-brokered document that calls for an end to Israeli settlement building and a clampdown on militant groups by the Palestinian Authority. The road map was adopted in 2003 but both sides have accused each other of failing to meet their obligations.

The Israeli media have predicted that when he speaks at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv on Sunday night, Mr Netanyahu will recommend an immediate resumption of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, but will also set out some demands, including that the Palestinians should recognise the state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

While accepting the road map Mr Netanyahu is not thought to be planning to mention an explicit freeze on settlements, as demanded by President Obama in his keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last week.

In conceding to a two-state solution, he may even try to ask the US to relax its demands that all settlement expansions should be stopped — a move that is vehemently opposed by Mr Netanyahu’s national-religious constituency.

Such a compromise would in effect take the peace process back to where it was under the previous centre-left Government of Ehud Olmert, whose resignation amid repeated corruption allegations eventually brought the Israeli Right to power this year. Mr Olmert had pledged to take action against settlements but opponents said that the Jewish communities built on land conquered by Israel in the 1967 war still enjoyed an unprecedented growth spurt while he was in office.

The dilemma faced by Mr Netanyahu will raise uncomfortable memories of his first stint as Prime Minister in the late 1990s, when his fractious right-wing coalition toppled him after he yielded to American pressure to hand over tracts of the West Bank to the control of the Palestinian Authority as part of the now defunct Oslo peace accords.

Analysts noted that Mr Netanyahu appeared to have been taken by surprise by the strength of Mr Obama’s resolve to thwart the growth of settlements.

Members of the ruling coalition, wary of their leader caving in, have cautioned the Prime Minister against giving too much away before negotiations have even resumed. “The US pressure is mainly psychological. One should not forget that the President is not the only one in the United States. There’s the Congress and the Senate, which support Israel,” Miri Regev, a Likud MP, said.

Another powerful member of Mr Netanyahu’s party, Benny Begin, the son of Israel’s first right-wing Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, said that “if the only solution is two states for two peoples, then there is no solution”.

Mr Netanyahu has in the past opposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state, arguing that such an entity would soon fall under the control of the Iranian-backed Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip.

[HisDaughter]

Britain warned of new wave of Islamic terrorism 

independent.co.uk

The police and MI5 must brace themselves to counter a new generation of violent Islamic terrorists, an expert warned today.

Home-grown jihadists intent on murdering others in high-profile outrages "will not wither away", Professor Michael Clarke said.

The director of Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) warned a series of successful police operations have turned prisons into "universities of terror".

He said security services may look back at the last eight years as a "golden age of counter terrorism" marked by success and good luck.

Mr Clarke said: "The phenomenon will not wither away in the near future: it is likely to be generational.

"All the available evidence is that radicalisation of alienated Muslim youth in the UK can taken place very rapidly as long as it is based somewhere on personal contact."

Mr Clarke said the evolution of recruitment and terrorist techniques of British cells is "entirely possible" as they learn from their mistakes.

He added: "Most of the plotters have left behind a trail of forensics behind that has led some police professionals to predict that this will seem like a golden age of counter terrorism, when we were both successful and lucky."

A research paper, Terrorism in the United Kingdom: Confirming its modus operandi, highlighted the web of links between a series of plots uncovered since 2001.

Researchers found semi-trained British terrorists are having less contact with core al Qaida figures in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

They said Nato operations in the lawless border territory between the two countries are successfully suppressing terrorist groups.

Continued fighting has disrupted several long-established training camps and prevented leaders, including Osama bin Laden, communicating effectively.

But the paper said al Qaida remains an "inspiration" for British cells who recruit potential terrorists and groom them for violence.

Mr Clarke said criminal trials highlighted the shortcomings of terrorist cells who failed to make viable devices and left themselves open to bugging and infiltration.

He said: "The tradecraft of UK jihadi terrorists is extremely variable. For the movement as a whole this is not a problem.

"Amateurs are as dangerous as professionals if they are lucky, and if there are enough amateurs plotting, some of them will be lucky.

"Those who are not keep the security services stretched and public anxieties high."

Mr Clarke said police and MI5 chiefs should be "proud" of their successes since the July 2005 bombings.

But he added: "It is becoming clear that the UK's security services have done a good job so far in containing a new, home grown threat to public safety and to the UK's chosen way of life.

"Since 2001 we have seen only the first round of the struggle. Prisons around the world are universities of terror and there is no reason to believe that the UK's will not be the same.

"The 90-odd convictions, of which the security services can be proud, will have their own longer-term consequences for which the government must be prepared."

[Shammu]

Somalia president declares state of emergency
Posted 2d 12h ago

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia's president declared a state of emergency Monday as his fragile, U.N.-backed government struggles to quash a deadly Islamic insurgency.

President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said the declaration means "our forces are on full alert." It was not clear what difference the declaration will make on the ground.

Somalia's government is under attack by militants who want to topple the administration and install a strict Islamic state. A surge in violence in recent weeks, which diplomats said is a major push by the insurgents to force the government out of its Mogadishu strongholds, has killed nearly 200 civilians.

Last week, the national security minister and Mogadishu's police chief were among those killed.

Somalia's defense minister was supposed to be in Paris to meet with French government ministers Monday, but returned to Somalia instead because of "the degradation of the situation on the ground," according to the French Foreign Ministry.

Somali lawmakers pleaded this weekend for immediate international military intervention from countries including Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti to help quash the insurgency. But there was no indication reinforcements would be forthcoming.

African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping said in a statement that the Somali government "has the right to seek support from AU member states and the larger international community."

But Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the country would not send troops, choosing instead to help Somalia "in other ways." He did not elaborate.

There was no immediate word on whether other countries would answer the call. There already is an AU force in Mogadishu, but its mandate is restricted to guarding government officials and installations.

Nearly 126,000 people have fled their homes since May 7, according to the U.N. refugee agency. The United Nations says an estimated 3.2 million Somalis — almost half the country's population — need food and other humanitarian aid.

Two years ago, Ethiopia deployed troops to support Somalia's fragile, Western-backed government, but they were widely unpopular and finally withdrawn in January after the election of a new president. Last month, Ethiopia sent in troops to the border regions of Somalia.

Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti are members of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional group that has led past peace talks on Somalia and last month imposed a sea and air blockade to stop supplies reaching the Islamic insurgents in Somalia. It is not clear whether the blockade is effective.

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991 when the overthrow of a dictatorship plunged the country into chaos.

Somalia president declares state of emergency

[Shammu]

Islamic Society reaches out to other faiths
D.C. convention to feature popular pastor; area group hopes Obama will attend
By Robert King
Posted: June 21, 2009

The Plainfield-based Islamic Society of North America is holding out hope President Barack Obama might make an appearance at its convention this year in Washington, D.C., over the Fourth of July weekend.

But even if Obama doesn't show, the nation's largest Muslim organization already landed a high-profile guest: Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren.

He will join a panel discussion that is the main session of a four-day convention expected to attract 40,000 Muslims from across the country. Warren will be joined on the panel by Islamic Society President Ingrid Mattson and noted Muslim scholar Hamza Yusuf, among others.

"We are living in a pluralist country. It is critical for us to have positive relationships with people of other faiths," said Sayyid Syeed, a longtime leader with the Islamic Society who focuses on building the organization's interfaith ties. "(Warren) realizes that it is equally critical for him to work with people of other faiths."

Syeed invited Warren during a gathering they attended last year at the White House. Since then, the Islamic Society has introduced Warren to Muslim groups in California, where his 20,000-member church is based.

Warren was unavailable for an interview, said Kristin Cole of A. Larry Ross Communications, which handles his media contacts.

While an appearance by the nation's most prominent evangelical pastor at a gathering of its oldest Muslim organization might seem an unlikely pairing, scholars and observers from various perspectives say it makes sense.

"ISNA is very interested in extending their connections with Protestant groups," said Rafia Zakaria, an Indiana lawyer and associate editor at altmuslim.com, a Web site that looks at Muslim issues. "Having a figure as high profile as him gives them legitimacy to extend those kinds of alliances with church groups that have a significant amount of power in the United States."

In the past two years, the Islamic Society has forged friendships with the Union of Reform Judaism and the American Baptist Churches, USA.

For Warren, author of the best-selling "The Purpose Driven Life" who gave the invocation at Obama's inauguration, the visit to a Muslim convention also fits, said Tulane University assistant sociology professor Shayne Lee, co-author of "Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace."

Warren has conducted workshops with Jewish rabbis, Lee said, offering tips on how to build their congregations, and established ties with the gay rights community in California. He also was unafraid to endure criticism from conservatives about his role in the Obama inauguration.
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"He is not a typical isolationist evangelical," Lee said. "He is more of a post-modern leader who is willing to look at new terrain to see how he can extend his leadership and his influence."

That such a high-profile evangelist is willing to take risks, Lee said, marks an important moment in American religion.

"ISNA has faced a lot of challenges in recent years," Zakaria said. "It is crucial to them to have these alliances with other faith-based groups."

Set in Washington over the Independence Day holiday, the convention will try to address freedom from a uniquely Muslim-American perspective with an all-American theme that is also the title of the session Warren will take part in: "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Islamic Society reaches out to other faiths

[HisDaughter]

Germany Has 1 Million More Muslims than Previously Thought   

spiegel.de

Poor, uneducated and living in a "parallel society" of headscarf-wearing women and criminal youth: The common stereotype of Muslims in Germany is not an all-too-positive one. But a new study reveals a surprisingly different picture of the reality -- including the fact that many more Muslims live in Germany than was previously believed.

The study, which was commissioned by the Interior Ministry together with Germany's Islam Conference, is the first country-wide study that gives a representative overview of Muslim life in Germany. Researchers from the Nuremberg-based Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) interviewed around 6,000 Muslims from 49 different countries about the role of religion in their everyday life and various aspects of integration. A summary of the study was published Tuesday and the full study will be presented Thursday at the last meeting of the Islam Conference, which Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble initiated in 2006 in a bid to launch a dialogue between the German state and the Muslim community.

Many More Muslims in Germany

One of the study's most surprising findings is that Germany is home to many more Muslims than was previously believed. The researchers concluded that between 3.8 million and 4.3 million Muslims live in the country, making up around 5 percent of the total population of 82 million. The figure had previously been estimated at between 3.1 million and 3.4 million. The reason for the huge increase is that the study's authors took more countries of origin into account than had previously been the case, and also looked at the children of Muslims with German citizenship.

Regarding the issue of citizenship, the study revealed that around 45 percent of Muslims living in Germany have a German passport. Another sign of successful integration, in the view of the authors, is the fact that more than half of Germany's Muslims are members of what the authors term a "German" club or association -- a designation that includes sports clubs, unions and associations for senior citizens, but not clubs based around members' country of origin.

Almost two-thirds of Germany's Muslims are of Turkish origin, the researchers found, while smaller groups come from Balkan countries such as Bosnia or Albania, the Middle East and North Africa. Almost all live in the states of the former West Germany and Berlin, with the most living in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state.

The study also reveals surprising results when it comes to some key issues in the often-heated integration debate in Germany. Contrary to popular stereotypes, 70 percent of female Muslims do not wear a headscarf, with second generation immigrants less likely to wear a headscarf than their mothers. And Muslim girls, who are commonly imagined to be closeted away by their families, are much more involved in school activities than generally believed: Some 90 percent of female Muslim students take part in school trips while 93 percent take part in swimming lessons, another hot-button issue in Germany.

Educated Second Generation

The study also found that the majority of Muslims consider themselves religious. Around a third described themselves as "very religious" and a half said they were "somewhat religious." However only about a third of respondents regularly attended a mosque, although 76 percent said they wanted Islamic religious education classes in schools.

When the researchers compared the first and second generations of Muslim immigrants, they found that Muslims born in Germany showed higher levels of education compared to their parents, particularly when it came to girls. In the case of female Muslims, this was partly due to the very low level of education of many female first generation immigrants.

However it wasn't all good news. The study's authors found that the Muslim community is home to a disproportionately high level of school drop-outs, unemployed and poor people -- particularly among immigrants of Turkish descent.

[Shammu]

Germany Has 1 Million More Muslims than Previously Thought   

It looks like muslims are now worse then cockroaches!!

Around a third described themselves as "very religious"

Hmmmmmmmmmm and those are the one's who blow things/people up. But that is only my opinion...........

[HisDaughter]

It looks like muslims are now worse then cockroaches!!

[HisDaughter]

Arab group says restoring the Islamic Caliphate is the answer not Hamas or Fatah    

israelnationalnews.com/

The Hizb ut Tahrir Islamic fundamentalist movement has become active among Palestinian Authority Arabs in Judea and Samaria, pushing a message that only restoring the Islamic caliphate and the rule of Islamic law, not Fatah or Hamas, holds the answer for the region.

According to National Public Radio (NPR), the group is arranging rallies and drumming up support while dodging security forces loyal to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who see the group as a threat.

"The coming of the caliphate threatens the Palestinian Authority regime and threatens the American interests in the area,” said Hizb ut Tahrir supporter Osama al-Ansari from Hebron, “They are harassing us because a caliphate will not provide for the existence of the Palestinian Authority."

Besides not recognizing the authority of the PA or Hamas, the group also does not accept democracy or the concept of the modern nation-state. While the group officially rejects violence, various counterterrorism agencies have argued that radical ideology such as that of Hizb ut Tahrir can be linked to terrorist attacks.

While more tolerated in Western countries, the group has been banned by several Mideast regimes.

The PA originally ignored the growth of Hizb ut Tahrir, hoping it would help divide the religious PA Arabs who were flocking to Hamas, senior editor at Al-Ayyam newspaper in Ramallah Khalil Shaheen told NPR. Now, he said, they are suffering from the consequences.

"It seems that everything is going out of control for the Palestinian Authority," Shaheen said. "The Tahrir party is getting more popular in the West Bank and is trying to fill the vacuum that took place after the weakness of Fatah itself."