In this mailing:
- Nonie Darwish: The Nice Muslim Family Next Door
- Raymond Ibrahim: The Siege of Egypt's St. Mark Cathedral
The Nice Muslim Family Next Door
by Nonie Darwish
April 22, 2013 at 5:00 am
April 22, 2013 at 5:00 am
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Where are
the articles by moderate Muslims condemning the prominent Muslims who beg Allah
to strike infidels with cancer and disease? No practicing Muslim has openly
condemned such prayers, or named the sheikhs who urge these brutalities.
The neighbors of the Chechnyan Muslim family whose sons were responsible for
the Boston Marathon terror attack said they were stunned by the news and that
this nice Muslim family was known for its generosity and kindness. Many
Americans often ask, "What about the Muslim family next door? They are
really nice people."Some of the nicest people I know are Muslims, but that must never blind us from understanding the risk we are taking when we allow the building of hundreds of mosques financed by Saudi Arabia, as well as millions of Muslims to migrate into America at a time of a fierce, if sophisticated, desire by Islamist groups to spread Islam throughout the world, and to radicalize impressionable youths by stoking anger against the Western nations, people and values.
The existence of nice, educated Muslims should also never blind us from seeing the deep problems within the ideology of Islam and its jihadist goals. Muslims themselves admit that Islam is more than a religion – that it is, in fact, a state, legal system and a military institution—with the goal, as one's holy duty, of bringing Islam to the rest of the world, a desire often enshrined deep in the hearts of Muslims.
Even though our visible problem is with the Muslim jihadists, the so-called "moderate" Muslims have often been silent enablers and defenders, perhaps from inertia, misinformation or fear of reprisals against them, including death threats to them and members of their family should they speak out.
Terrorists could never be as powerful as they are without the prayers, and especially the material support, of Islamic nations, governments and people. A Muslim Egyptian friend -- one of the nicest people you will ever meet -- visiting in 1994, was crying in front of the television while praying for the people of Chechnya to declare independence from Russia and declare their country an Islamic State ruled by Sharia law.
The critiques of Islam by this author are never written for the purpose of condemning people; naturally, there are good and bad people in every culture. My deep concern springs from the ideology of Islam: it has had such dark implications on Islamic society, forcing many, otherwise perfectly fine people, to enact unthinkable terror, as others stand silently by. Islam is the only religion that requires its followers to kill those who do not believe in Allah, and to take revenge in the name of Allah. In the Quran, holy vengeance and retaliation are commanded for Muslims: "O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you. He who transgresseth after this will have a painful doom." [Koran 2:178]. Or: "We shall take vengeance (Muntaquimun) upon the sinners." [32:22] The translation of the Arabic word "Muntaquimun" meaning vengeance is often watered down in translation by using the word punishment or retribution instead.
It was frustrating and unsettling to hear the aunt of the two terrorists stating, from Toronto, Canada, that her two nephews were "set up," and the terrorists' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, stating in various interviews with ABC and other stations, first that his son should give up peacefully; then that the son who was killed was framed; then that the son who was not killed should tell the truth; then warning that if the US kills his son: "all hell will break loose."
Having grown up Muslim, I would urge Americans to demand more from the so called "moderate" Muslims, instead of giving them a pass for their silence, which appears a complicit defense of jihad. For too long, with some courageous exceptions, moderate Muslims hear no evil, see no evil and do nothing about it. They stand defiant, behaving as if they were victims, while the cries of Christians suffering under Islam in the Middle East are ignored. (Most Jews were forced out years ago. As the saying in Arabic goes: First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People).
Many moderate Muslims have been insisting that the Boston bombings have "nothing to do with Islam." They deny there is a problem for apostates fleeing Islam, and do nothing about their arrest, the threats against them or their murder. At least 5,000 reported honor killings happen annually in the name of Allah, but moderate Muslims insist that, too, has nothing to do with Islam, and is a hold-over tribal custom, despite the Sura and verses that are used to justify it [Qur'an (18:65-81], and not only speak out against the practice, but go as far as to threaten those who expose it. Moderate Muslims also have nothing to say to the hundreds of Islamic clerics who curse non-Muslims and encourage jihad from the pulpits of mosques.
Where are the articles by moderate Muslims condemning the prominent Muslims who beg Allah to strike infidels with cancer and disease? The holiest mosques of Mecca blast curses at Jews and Christians over microphones -- "Till they pray for death and do not receive it" -- and supplicate Allah to make the lives of Christians and Jews "hostage to misery; drape them with endless despair, unrelenting pain and unremitting ailment; fill their lives with sorrow and pain and end their lives in humiliation and oppression."
No true practicing Muslim, moderate or not, has openly condemned such prayers to pilgrims in Mecca or has named the sheikhs who urge these brutalities. But the majority of moderate Muslims are quick to blame American foreign policy and Israel. If America cooperates with Islamic dictators, Muslims accuse America of empowering dictators; if America removes a Saddam Hussein to give Muslims a chance for freedom, they accuse the US of interfering in their internal affairs.
The day Usama Bin Laden was killed, a friend called from Egypt to say that everyone was in mourning, sad over Bin Laden's death. Does such a response to the death of a terrorist stem from moderate Islam, radical Islam, or Islam?
Nonie Darwish Author "The Devil We Don't Know" and President of Former Muslims United.
Related Topics: Nonie Darwish
The
Siege of Egypt's St. Mark Cathedral
An Insider's Account
by Raymond Ibrahim
April 22, 2013 at 4:00 am
April 22, 2013 at 4:00 am
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"Was
Egypt's entire state security unable to stop a mere 30-40 youths form
vandalizing the nation's cathedral?" — Amir Ramzi, eyewitness to the Egyptian
security forces joining the mob that attacked the cathedral.
What really happened on Sunday, April 7, 2013, during the St. Mark Cathedral
attack in Cairo, where two Christians were killed and dozens wounded by
Egyptian forces? As usual, different reports gave different versions, but now
that the smoke has settled, the facts as first asserted during the attack by
Coptic activists have been confirmed.Back during the conflict, when the military was actually besieging the St. Mark cathedral—the most sacred building for millions of Coptic Christians and the only apostolic see in the entire continent of Africa—Amir Ramzi, a Copt who managed to escape the compound where hundreds of other Christians were trapped all night, was interviewed by phone on the popular Egyptian show, Cairo Today.
According to Ramzi, President of the Criminal Court: "Today we witnessed a day unprecedented in the history of modern Egypt—a day when holy sites were attacked both by the interior ministry and the mob."
The program's host, Amr Adib, evidently finding it difficult to implicate the interior ministry in an attack on an Egyptian landmark, asked Ramzi to clarify. So Ramzi began from the beginning, explaining how the funeral service was for six Christians killed two days earlier—including one intentionally set aflame—in a conflict begun when Muslims were seen sexually harassing a Christian girl. Many of the Copts coming out of the cathedral funeral service were angry and protesting. Waiting for them in the streets were Islamic extremists, who started hurling rocks on the Copts—who responded in like manner. Eventually police appeared; Ramzi himself called a police chief, who assured him that the Copts should just go back into their cathedral until the police secure the situation:
So that's what we did, thinking police would come to protect and separate the clashers. We were surprised to find that the police began to intervene and become another party to the conflict, attacking the Copts who were fighting back against the [Muslim] youth who were attacking them, and shooting gas bombs into the cathedral compound, which caused extreme poisoning, to the point that the ambulance cars were not enough to take the sick.
Ramzi added that three to four gas bombs struck the papal headquarters itself—the seat of the Coptic pope—while another 40 to 50 entered into the general compound, causing dozens of Copts, including many women and children, to grow sick and faint. Whether from the gas bombs themselves or from another source, Copts also found the ceiling of their cathedral catching fire, although the youths managed to put it out.
He further confirmed that live ammunition was fired on those Copts who refused to relent and instead fought back fiercely, mainly with rocks. When Ramzi tried to calm them, they told him that they "were ready to be martyred for our most important church," and, "We are not just children to abandon our cathedral to be set aflame or have someone attack it."
Ramzi said that he could not really blame these Christian defenders and added that many were already in heavy mourning for the six Copts murdered the day before, and that, after a second attack on their cathedral at the funeral of those who had been killed, they had reached a point beyond frustration.
Ramzi's most important and, at the time, controversial assertion, however, was the role played by Egypt's Interior Ministry. The police and security figures, he said, would tell the beleaguered Copts that everything was fine, that matters were secured, "only to find another five gas bombs thrown their way, not to mention live ammunition fired at them." Similarly, he said that security forces kept circling the cathedral and shooting gas bombs at every door: "Why, why would they do this?" Ramzi said on the phone. When he and others phoned the police, urging them to bring an armored vehicle to the front of the cathedral to guard it, the vehicle came, but far from protecting the cathedral, he personally saw "the [Muslim] youths" standing on top of it, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the cathedral.
When the host continued to express dismay and doubt, that the state security would really behave this way, Ramzi asked an important question: the one thing that everyone agreed to is that, for hours, there were at least 30-40 Muslim youths hurling various projectiles and Molotov cocktails at the cathedral, "So can you tell me why security did not stop them or apprehend them? Was Egypt's entire state security unable to stop a mere 30-40 youths from vandalizing the nation's cathedral?"
When the host said, "but they arrested ten people," Ramzi scoffed: "What are you thinking? You will find that the majority of them are Christian!"
Time has proven all of Ramzi's eyewitness assertions true. Soon after his interview, which was conducted as the cathedral was still under siege, several pictures were published, including by Youm7, a prominent Egyptian paper, showing Muslims shooting rifles and throwing rocks and other objects at the cathedral, while the security forces stand by. One picture shows a masked man in civilian clothes sitting in an Egyptian armored vehicle.
Even the Western mainstream media recently came around to affirming that Egyptian security forces were involved in the attack on the cathedral. And, true to Ramzi's prediction, the only people to be arrested in connection with this latest assault on Christianity were the Christians themselves.
Raymond Ibrahim is author of the forthcoming book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Related Topics: Egypt
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