Muslims Protest in Los Angeles: "Love Long Hitler! Put Jews in Ovens!"
After witnessing the violence, Jew hatred, and America hatred we have been witnessing at these "pro-Hamas" rallies the Muslims have been staging across America, the only thing I can say is, "America, good luck with that!" Who could forget this video I took in Fort Lauderdale last week?
And Obama said he is going to meet with Hamas. A jihadi annihilationist organziation whose mission and objective (and whose charter states it emphatically) is the destruction of Israel, whose sole reason for existence is to annihilate the Jews. He is meeting with those Muslim nazis.
As an African American Muslim, I can say my prayers were answered when Obama was elected," Chavis Muhammad writes.
He quotes Ayann Ahmed, an entrepreneur working with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, saying,
"I believe he will help bring about a better understanding that Islam is a religion of peace and compassion. Obama is a man of understanding of the world."
Also cited by Chavis Muhammad is Imam El-Hagg Talib Abdur-Rashid of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in New York, who says, "Obama has a job ahead of him of immense proportions. But so do we as Muslims in America."
"Whenever there is an advance in the consciousness of people to do away with unjustified prejudices against Islam or the Muslim community, then that is cause for hope and goodwill," Chavis Muhammad says. "With President Obama, rhetoric will translate into sustainable actions for the greater good of society."
"Beyond his name that signifies his connection to both the African and Muslim worlds, Barack Obama has demonstrated an openness and familiarity with Islam that gives Muslims hope that we will move beyond the 'clash of civilizations model,'" writes Zaheer Ali, a student at Columbia.
Ilyasah Shabazz, the daughter of Al Hajj Malik Shabazz, aka Malcolm X, says were her father alive today, he would "share everyone's joy about the prospect of returning the United States to a position of credibility, respect and leadership."
"Forty-four years after his martyrdom, he remains the most famous and recognized Muslim American, as well as a role model for men and women alike advocating for social justice," she writes.
"Forty-four years ago, the idea of an African American as president of the most powerful nation on earth – let alone president with a name that is common among Muslims – wasn't even imaginable. Yet in 2008, the people of the United States of America voted," she said.
"I believe that President Obama and the citizens of the world will also come to understand that Islam is a religion of peace and unity, which in effect, are the same ideals for which my own father advocated," she continues. 'These ideals run contrary to those of that small minority of people who have obviously strayed away from the message of the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) when he taught that even if you absolutely have to fight, it should be avoided at all costs as a peaceful solution is better and bloodshed is abhorred by God. That even in such a case, you should display the beauty of Islam in your conduct in battle in an honorable way by adhering to the strict laws of conflict and chivalry that have been a fundamental part of the religion since the time of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) 1400 years ago."
I asked Robert Spencer for a response to this taqiya. He writes back:
The Qur'an quite clearly does teach believers to commit acts of violence against unbelievers -- see 2:190-193, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4, etc. Of course, this writer would probably respond that such passages have not been understood as marching orders for all time by all Muslims throughout history, and that is no doubt true. However, and unfortunately for the assertions made by this writer, there is not a single authoritative school of Islamic jurisprudence that does NOT teach that it is part of the obligation of the Muslim community to wage war against unbelievers and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law.
To wit:Shafi'i school: A Shafi'i manual of Islamic law that was certified in 1991 by the clerics at Al-Azhar University, one of the leading authorities in the Islamic world, as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy, stipulates that “the caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians...until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax.” It adds a comment by Sheikh Nuh ‘Ali Salman, a Jordanian expert on Islamic jurisprudence: the caliph wages this war only “provided that he has first invited [Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians] to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)...while remaining in their ancestral religions.” ('Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).Of course, there is no caliph today, and hence the oft-repeated claim that Osama et al are waging jihad illegitimately, as no state authority has authorized their jihad. But they explain their actions in terms of defensive jihad, which needs no state authority to call it, and becomes "obligatory for everyone" ('Umdat al-Salik, o9.3) if a Muslim land is attacked. The end of the defensive jihad, however, is not peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims as equals: 'Umdat al-Salik specifies that the warfare against non-Muslims must continue until "the final descent of Jesus." After that, "nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for taking the poll tax is only effective until Jesus' descent" (o9.8).Hanafi school: A Hanafi manual of Islamic law repeats the same injunctions. It insists that people must be called to embrace Islam before being fought, “because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith.” It emphasizes that jihad must not be waged for economic gain, but solely for religious reasons: from the call to Islam “the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war.”However, “if the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax [jizya], it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.” (Al-Hidayah, II.140)Maliki school: Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a Maliki legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”Hanbali school: The great medieval theorist of what is commonly known today as radical or fundamentalist Islam, Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328), was a Hanbali jurist. He directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.”Of course, these are all extremely old authorities -- such that one might reasonably assume that whatever they say couldn’t possibly still be the consensus of the Islamic mainstream. The laws of the United States have evolved considerably since the adoption of the Constitution, which itself has been amended. So why shouldn’t this be true of Islamic law as well? Many observers assume that it must be, and that contemporary jihadists' departure from mainstream Islam must be located in its preference for the writings of ancient jurists rather than modern ones. But in this, unfortunately, they fail to reckon with the implications of the closing of the gates of ijtihad.Ijtihad is the process of arriving at a decision on a point of Islamic law through study of the Qur’an and Sunnah. From the beginning of Islam, the authoritative study of such sources was reserved to a select number of scholars who fulfilled certain qualifications, including a comprehensive knowledge of the Qur’an and Sunnah, as well as knowledge of the principle of analogical reasoning (qiyas) by which legal decisions are made; knowledge of the consensus (ijma) on any given question of Muhammad, his closest companions, and the scholars of the past; and more, including living a blameless life. The founders of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence are among the small number of scholars -- mujtahedin -- thus qualified to perform ijithad. But they all lived very long ago; for many centuries, independent study of the Qur’an and Sunnah has been discouraged among Muslims, who are instead expected to adhere to the rulings of one of those established schools. Since the death of Ahmed ibn Hanbal, from whom the Hanbali school takes its name, in 855 A.D., no one has been recognized by the Sunni Muslim community as a mujtahid of the first class -- that is, someone who is qualified to originate legislation of his own, based on the Qur’an and Sunnah but not upon the findings of earlier mujtahedin.Islamic scholar Cyril Glasse notes that “‘the door of ijtihad is closed’ as of some nine hundred years, and since then the tendency of jurisprudence (fiqh) has been to produce only commentaries upon commentaries and marginalia.”
