“Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea” al-Alwaki, Imam
The New York Times has a piece on Anwar al-Awlaki entitled -- Imam’s Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad. The title sums up the Times' dhimmitude and cluelessness on the subject.
Many .......Muslim listeners, accustomed to preachers with heavy accents and an otherworldly focus, were entranced by his mix of the ancient and the contemporary, his seamless transition from the 29 battles of the Prophet Muhammad to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “He was the main man who translated the jihad into English,” said Abu Yahiya, 27, a Bangladeshi-British student of Mr. Awlaki’s lectures in 2003.
What the NY Times does not understand is that there is no change, no "path" from "condemning terror to preaching jihad." It is Islam. Al-Alwlaki always preached jihad and violence; it was the media that was gullible and ignorant. We are witnessing the same treatment of the imam behind the grotesque mega mosque at Ground Zero: 911 Mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Blames Christians: "The US and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism can end"
Imam Awlaki was the go-to Muslim cleric for reporters scrambling to explain Islam after 911; he was the same imam who guided the 911 Muslim attackers to commit jihad. Got that? al-Awaki was the "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001. He guided the 911 jihadis, the Fort Hood Major Muslim, the Christmas ball bomber. He was imam at the respected Dar al Hijreh while being the go-to Muslim for big media for information on Islam. Exactly like un-indicted co-conspirator, Hamas-linked CAIR being the go-to guys for media now.
In fact, the F.B.I. had first taken an interest in Mr. Awlaki in 1999, concerned about brushes with militants that to this day remain difficult to interpret. In 1998 and 1999, he was a vice president of a small Islamic charity that an F.B.I. agent later testified was “a front organization to funnel money to terrorists.” He had been visited by Ziyad Khaleel, a Qaeda operative who purchased a battery for Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone, as well as by an associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheik, who was serving a life sentence for plotting to blow up New York landmarks.
Still more disturbing was Mr. Awlaki’s links to two future Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi. They prayed at his San Diego mosque and were seen in long conferences with the cleric. Mr. Alhazmi would follow the imam to his new mosque in Virginia, and 9/11 investigators would call Mr. Awlaki Mr. Alhazmi’s “spiritual adviser.”
That al-Awlaki was go-to guy for the media right after 911 best exhibits the practice of taqiya, and taqiya should have been the focus of the Times piece. According to one FBI agent, Awlaki “was at the center of the 9/11 story.”
Taqiyya, or not showing their faith openly by means of pretense, dissimulation, or concealment, is a special type of LYING which is taught and used by Shi'a Muslims, cf. Sunni Muslims and Taqiyya. "Taqiyya" (or taqiyyah) is related to the terms "taqwa'" and "taqi'" - all have the root meaning of "guarding" something, in this case, the Islamic faith.
Taqiya is required [in Islam].
The Times does not mention or explore taqiya. Instead it lies for the liar. It advances the false narrative as painting Awlaki as a man of peace who became .......radical, aka devout. The Times paints Awlaki's fundamentalism as some sort of new hat ............. while, of course, blaming America (as a sub-text) for his "radicalism," ie: "Finally, after the Yemeni authorities, under American pressure, imprisoned him in 2006 and 2007, Mr. Awlaki seems to have hardened into a fully committed ideologist of jihad, condemning non-Muslims and cheerleading for slaughter."
Hardened because of imprisonment as if .................
He was a nonviolent moderate until the United States attacked Muslims openly in Afghanistan and Iraq, covertly in Pakistan and Yemen, and even at home, by making targets of Muslims for raids and arrests. He merely followed the religious obligation to defend his faith, he said.
“What am I accused of?” he asks in a recent video bearing the imprint of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. “Of calling for the truth? Of calling for jihad for the sake of Allah? Of calling to defend the causes of the Islamic nation?”
This is Islam. Taqiya -- lies and decption to advance Islam is a mandate. You say one thing to the West, the infidel, the kuffar and another to the ummah (the worldwide Muslim community), the brothers. This is as old as Islam. We first witnessed it when Yaser Arafat would speak in English and his translator would say something completely opposite to the Muslim world.
The article is instructive in ways it had not intended. While al-Awlaki's neighbors speak of what a lovely, engaging neighbor he was, al-Awlaki told fellow Muslims ‘never trust a Kuffar’ -- something former Muslim Wafa Sultan explains in her book and her speeches. What Muslims say to the infidels is radically different than what they say to each other and in their homes.
The Times shows its ignorance of Islam when it equates it to Christianity -- liberal dogma. There is nothing Christian, evangelical or Pastor-like about imams.
Like many an evangelical Christian pastor, Mr. Awlaki preached against vice and sin, lauded family values and parsed the scripture, winning fans and rising to successively larger mosques.
Imam’s Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad
“Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea.” ANWAR AL-AWLAKI, a radical American-born Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen.
WASHINGTON — In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the eloquent 30-year-old imam of a mosque outside Washington became a go-to Muslim cleric for reporters scrambling to explain Islam. He condemned the mass murder, invited television crews to follow him around and patiently explained the rituals of his religion.
“We came here to build, not to destroy,” the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, said in a sermon. “We are the bridge between Americans and one billion Muslims worldwide.”
At first glance, it seemed plausible that this lanky, ambitious man, with the scholarly wire-rims and equal command of English and Arabic, could indeed be such a bridge. CD sets of his engaging lectures on the Prophet Muhammad were in thousands of Muslim homes. American-born, he had a sense of humor, loved deep-sea fishing, had dabbled in get-rich-quick investment schemes and dropped references to “Joe Sixpack” into his sermons. A few weeks before the attacks he had preached in the United States Capitol.
Nine years later, from his hide-out in Yemen, Mr. Awlaki has declared war on the United States.
“America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil,” he said in a statement posted on extremist Web sites in March. Though he had spent 21 of his 39 years in the United States, he added, “I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim.”
His mix of scripture and vitriol has helped lure young Muslims into a dozen plots. He cheered on the Fort Hood gunman and had a role in prompting the attempted airliner bombing on Dec. 25, intelligence officials say. And last week, Faisal Shahzad, who is charged in the attempted bombing in Times Square, told investigators that Mr. Awlaki’s prolific online lectures urging jihad as a religious duty helped inspire him to act.
At a time of new concern about the attraction of Western Muslims to violent extremism, there is no figure more central than Mr. Awlaki, who has harnessed the Internet for the goals of Al Qaeda. Counterterrorism officials are gravely concerned about his powerful appeal for many others who are following his path to radicalization.
“He’s a magnetic character,” said Philip Mudd, a veteran of the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center who just stepped down after nearly five years as a top F.B.I. intelligence adviser. “He’s a powerful orator in a revolutionary movement.”
Convinced that he is a lethal threat, the United States government has responded in kind. This year Mr. Awlaki became the first American citizen on the C.I.A.’s list of terrorists approved as a target for killing, a designation that has only enhanced his status with admirers like Shahidur Rahman, 27, a British Muslim of Bangladeshi descent who studied with Mr. Awlaki in London in 2003.
Other clerics equivocated about whether terrorist violence could be reconciled with Islam, Mr. Rahman said, but even seven years ago Mr. Awlaki made clear that he had few such qualms.
There's six pages of Times whitewash.
UPDATE: Read this from Ali Sina
