Mehdi Hasan Rips Thomas Friedman’s “Nauseating” Column in NYT Praising Saudi Arabia

We get response from Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s recent controversial column, “Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last.” Hasan argues the piece is absurdly sympathetic to Saudi Arabia, and that Trump’s friendly relations with the country mean he “is not just a liar and a conspiracy theorist, he’s a hypocrite. He goes on about radical islamic terrorism but cozies up to Saudi Arabia, which many would argue has done more to promote ideologically and financially radical Islamic terrorism than any other country on earth.”

Robert Spencer on "Moderate Islam"

Robert Spencer argues that moderate Islam is a myth.

A Top Shariah Lawyer’s Stunning Response to the Question: ‘Is There Such a Thing as Moderate Islam?’

Read the Blaze article here | Benjamin Weingarten | Thursday, February 26, 2015

Does Moderate Islam Exist?

THE JERUSALEM POST: Until the leading Islamic scholars provide a peaceful theology that clearly contradicts the violent views of the IS, the existence of a “moderate Islam” must be questioned.

The guiding principle of the Islamic State (IS) is that Muslims must fight non-Muslims all over the world and offer them the following choices: Convert to Islam, pay a humiliating tax called “Jijya,” or be killed. This violent doctrine was the primary justification for the Islamic conquests by the early Muslims.

Following the latest in a long string of inhumane and barbaric attacks by the IS, who only offer these three options to non-Muslims, it becomes mandatory to ask whether this principle IS uses is Islamic or Un-Islamic.

In other words, can a young Muslim become more religious—and more obedient to Allah—without subscribing to this ancient brutality? Will he be able to find an approved Islamic theological source or interpretation that clearly contradicts this principle, or at least teaches it in a different way (i.e., contextualizing it in time and place)?

The sad answer is: No, he cannot.

Traditionally there are five sources for Islamic Law: the Koran, the Hadith of Prophet Mohamed (such as Sahih Al-Buchakry [sic]), the actions of the disciples of Mohamed (Sahaba), the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and the Tafseer (or Interpretations) of the Koran.

If a young Muslim were to do some research to examine whether what the IS is doing is in fact Islamic or Un-Islamic, he would find some shocking results. » | Tawfik Hamid | Sunday, September 14, 2014

The Deception Of "Moderate Islam"
RIGHT SIDE NEWS: In the ten plus years since Islamic jihadists, acting in the name of their god, Allah, murdered almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11/01, daily life in the United States has been tremendously altered by such security measures as waiting in long lines to pass through magnetometers at professional sporting events and submitting to invasive body searches before taking airline flights. In view of these remarkable changes in the way we go about our everyday activities, it is amazing that the following question is not asked, discussed, or analyzed at length in public forums: What exactly has caused such far-reaching and heretofore unusual infringements on the personal freedoms of Americans?

Of course, the answer is not some nondescript or nebulously “radical” terrorism as is commonly and inaccurately reported in the media and misleadingly alleged by the US Government; instead it is purposeful jihad by Shari’a-allegiant Muslims to subjugate non-Islamic believers under Islamic Shari’a law. Recognition of this fact may be politically incorrect and socially discomforting, but it is undeniable.

The logical follow-on question then should be: What does this Islamic jihad mean to Americans? First and foremost it does not mean that we are necessarily at war with worldwide Islam. But it does means that, whether we admit it or not, Shari’a-allegiant Muslims throughout the world are at war with non-Islamic civilization, specifically including America and Israel, based on mandates in the Muslims’ sacred scripture, the Qur’an, and in Islamic law, the Shari’a as recorded in the classic manual of Reliance of the Traveller. Shari’a is the legal gloss on Islamic scripture that turns a theology into a legal-political-military doctrine and system, which demands of its adherents political action and jihad, not merely prayer and ritual. » | Col. Tom Snodgrass (Ret.), Right Side News | Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Attack on Russian Mufti an 'Attack on Moderate Islam'
In what is being called an attack on moderate Islam, two Russian Muslim leaders were attacked in separate incidents. The attacks resulted in the injury of the Mufti of Tatarstan, Ildus Fayzov and the death of his deputy, Mufti Valiulla Yakupov. Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glass reports

Moderate Islam: Western Ally or Western Myth?

India’s Muslims, Lack of Jihadists

Moderate Islam Takes to the Airwaves
THE MEDIA LINE: A new channel is paving the way for a new generation of Islamic TV.

[Cairo, Egypt] The man on the television appears enraged, talking fast, yelling and demanding Muslims to follow the “right path of faith.” Not too far, at a nearby table, two young Egyptian girls, shrouded in their colorful hijabs – headscarves - watch the white clad sheikh speak. They turn to each other and their glances say it all: this is not what they are looking for in Islamic television.

The café, with its Islamic preachers blaring on most Fridays and often at other times during the week, have become more commonplace in an Egypt growing progressively more conservative by the day, but there are many who are fighting against this current, especially young veiled women.

Heba is a 22-year-old recent college graduate who studied media. She has worn the veil since she was 18-years-old, but these diatribes of elderly preachers is too much, she says, highlighting the growing gulf that exists in Egypt.

“I just don’t like how angry they sound and how judgmental they have become,” she told The Media Line, asking the waiter to change the channel. Her friend Sara nodded in agreement.

Both are part of the growing trend among 20-something Egyptian women looking for a more restrained approach to Islamic television. >>> Joseph Mayton | Monday, September 28, 2009

Prime Minister Objects to ’Moderate Islam’ Label
HÜRRIYET: ANKARA - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rejected attempts to call Turkey the representative of moderate Islam. "It is unacceptable for us to agree with such a definition. Turkey has never been a country to represent such a concept. Moreover, Islam cannot be classified as moderate or not," Erdoğan said, speaking at Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies late Thursday.

Erdoğan’s statements came only days before the visit of U.S President Barack Obama whose administration signaled a dramatic shift from George W. Bush in identifying Turkey as a moderate Islamic country. U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had praised Turkey as "a democratic country with a secular constitution" during her visit to Ankara in March. In his speech, "Alliance of Civilizations and Turkey’s role," Erdoğan pointed to the lack of dialogue between different religions and cultures, which has led to distressing incidents in the world history.

"The animosity, unfortunately, strengthens the scenarios that there is a so-called clash of civilizations in the world. Those, who defend such speculations, may go further to identify the terrorism with Islam which is based on peace," he maintained, adding that the situation helps those who try to globalize Islamophobia.

Erdoğan also wanted Western societies to be more open to cooperation and dialogue with the East. "It should be known that adopting a malicious and offending approach toward the sensitive issues of Islamic world by hiding behind some democratic freedoms like freedom of speech and right of free publication is unacceptable," he said.

Drawing attention to the importance of mutual understanding and respect, Erdoğan stated that he believes and respects Moses and Jesus, and accepts them as prophets. "I expect the same attitude from a Jew or a Christian toward my own prophet," Erdoğan noted. He underlined the importance of Turkey’s European Union membership in terms of establishing connections between the West and the East. >>> | Monday, April 6, 2009

Less Violent Islamists Are Still Islamists
ISRAELeNEWS: A fierce debate is brewing among jihadists, it seems. To hear pundits and the CIA boss describe it, the rupture is growing over interpretations by radical theologians about whom to kill and how to do it in the name of God.

It is progress of sorts flushing out mea culpas from repentant Islamists and widening divisions within Terror Inc., but far from advancement toward a triumph in a war of terror.

A more serious shortcoming is an accompanying refrain promoting “moderate Islam” to fill the void. That is tantamount to saying: “Okay, we take bin Laden heavy off the table and give you Sharia light.”

A month ago I was on a panel discussion on “Confronting Radicalism in the Arab World” that included Tawfik Hamid, whose pedigree includes serving in al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya, the bloodiest of Egypt’s terror groups that assassinated Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in 1981 and carried out assaults on hundreds of intellectuals, writers (including Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz), Christians, and government officials in the eighties.

Hamid has developed a good gig as speaker and op-ed writer (mostly at the Wall Street Journal). He passionately expounds on “conditional” interpretations of Koranic verses urging killing of apostates, non-Muslims, infidels, and renegades, explaining that his former colleagues misinterpret them. His subtext is trickier, pleading for a second chance for “moderate Islam” to accomplish what radical Islam clearly is failing at.

Why are we debating on such uneven playing fields? If Muslims want to reeducate radicals in their midst, the argument should not be about laying out more space for moderate Islamists.

Both never differed on their rejection of secular civil society. Indeed, scholarship accumulated since 9/11 demonstrates that Islamist groups — the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and so on, as well as the declared leadership of Muslim communities in Europe and America — are all spawned from the umbrella Muslim Brotherhood school of thought. Like it, moderate Islam’s single-minded pursuit has never been about blending.

The most prominent such group in America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, was first to leap to the defense of 700 Somali Muslim cab drivers who at the Minneapolis airport in 2007 launched a boycott of passengers with seeing-eye dogs (animals are dirty) or those carrying liquor (that’s sinful). CAIR again latched onto the seven imams taken off a commercial flight in 2006 after staging a flamboyant public prayer at an airport boarding area and requesting special seating arrangements on the flight in an obvious provocation of fear. Less Violent Islamists Are Still Islamists >>> By Youssef Ibrahim | June 15, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

"Faith in Moderate Islam May Be the Biggest Counterfeit Faith of All"
[Magdi Cristiano Allam] says his conversion has "liberated" him from "darkness" and allowed him to see Islam more clearly. He said: "I realized that Islam is not compatible with core values such as respect for life and freedom of choice."

TOWNHALL.COM: Pope Benedict XVI last week baptized a man into the Catholic Church. The man, Magdi Allam, had converted from another faith. There is nothing unusual about that. People convert from non-faith to faith, or from one religion to another, or within faiths to different denominations all the time. However, this conversion was different. Mr. Allam, who has taken a new name, Magdi Cristiano Allam, was a Muslim, and not just your average, everyday Muslim. Mr. Allam was a prized "moderate" Muslim, upon whom many in Italy and the West have pinned their hopes for a new generation of similarly moderate Muslims who would renounce terrorism and violence and lead Islam into a bright new promised land of tolerance, inclusion and religious pluralism. From the reaction in the Muslim world to Mr. Allam’s conversion, there apparently remains a very long way to go before moderation is achieved. The Children of Israel wandered 40 years in the wilderness before they arrived in the Promised Land. The journey to the promised land of Islamic moderation may take a lot longer — if the wanderers get there at all. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Allam’s conversion had produced "fury in Muslim lands," which is becoming increasingly easy to do. Conversion: A One-Way Street? >>> By Cal Thomas

Mark Alexander

Struggle for the Soul of Pakistan
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: If there is an address, an exact location for the rift tearing Pakistan apart, and possibly the world, it is a spot 17 miles (28 kilometers) west of Islamabad called the Margalla Pass. Here, at a limestone cliff in the middle of Pakistan, the mountainous west meets the Indus River Valley, and two ancient, and very different, civilizations collide. To the southeast, unfurled to the horizon, lie the fertile lowlands of the Indian subcontinent, realm of peasant farmers on steamy plots of land, bright with colors and the splash of serendipitous gods. To the west and north stretch the harsh, windswept mountains of Central Asia, land of herders and raiders on horseback, where man fears one God and takes no prisoners.

This is also where two conflicting forms of Islam meet: the relatively relaxed and tolerant Islam of India, versus the rigid fundamentalism of the Afghan frontier. Beneath the surface of Pakistan, these opposing forces grind against each other like two vast geologic plates, rattling teacups from Lahore to London, Karachi to New York. The clash between moderates and extremists in Pakistan today reflects this rift, and can be seen as a microcosm for a larger struggle among Muslims everywhere. So when the earth trembles in Pakistan, the world pays attention. Struggle for the Soul of Pakistan: The nation's efforts to straddle the fault line between moderate and militant Islam offer a cautionary tale for the post-9/11 world

Mark Alexander