Islam's Encounters With America

[Valin]

WSJ:

A survey by Elaph, the most respected electronic daily in the Arab world, saw 58% object to the building of the WTC mosque.
FOUAD AJAMI
9/20/10

From his recent travels to the Persian Gulf—sponsored and paid for by the State Department—Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf returned with a none-too-subtle threat. His project, the Ground Zero Mosque, would have to go on. Its cancellation would risk putting "our soldiers, our troops, our embassies and citizens under attack in the Muslim world."

(Snip)

The truth is that the trajectory of Islam in America (and Europe for that matter) is at variance with the play of things in Islam's main habitat. A survey by Elaph, the most respected electronic daily in the Arab world, gave a decided edge to those who objected to the building of this mosque—58% saw it as a project of folly.

Elaph was at it again in the aftermath of Pastor Terry Jones's threat to burn copies of the Quran: It queried its readers as to whether America was a "tolerant" or a "bigoted" society. The split was 63% to 37% in favor of those who accepted the good faith and pluralism of this country.

(Snip)


More here News Busters




Maybe the Arab world is chock full of Islamaphobes?

[Valin]

MEMRI: Sayyid Imam Al-Sharif, aka "Dr. Fadl" Comes Out against Cordoba House, Slams Al-Awlaki, Compares Bin Laden to Hitler and Genghis Khan

9/20/10

 

Sayyid Imam Al-Sharif

 

The former senior jihadist cleric Sayyid Imam Al-Sharif, aka "Dr. Fadl," has reportedly issued a new statement denouncing the plans to build a mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks. The handwritten document, titled "A Statement from Dr. Fadl Regarding the New York Mosque and the Burning of the Quran on the Ninth Anniversary of the 9/11 Bombings," was cited and summarized in Al-Hayat by Muhammad Salah, the newspaper's Cairo bureau chief, who likewise conducted the famous prison interviews with Sayyid Imam in late 2007.[1]

 

In addition, the Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Yawm published what it said was the full text of the statement. (All of the Al-Hayat excerpts are contained in the article in Al-Masri Al-Yawm, but in the former Sayyid Imam labels Faisal Abdul Rauf "an Islamic preacher" (ahad du'at al-islam) whereas in the latter version he is labeled "a promoter of discord" (ahad du'at al-fitna). (The words islam and fitna are not at all orthographically similar in Arabic, so one of the newspapers has presumably altered the text.)

 

Sayyid Imam is one of a handful of influential radical clerics who helped give birth to the global jihadist movement in the 1980s and 1990s. He is a former head of Ayman Al-Zawahiri's Jihad organization, and in 1987 he authored a shari'a guide to jihad that was used as a textbook in Al-Qaeda training camps. Imam was arrested in Yemen in the post-9/11 security crackdown and was extradited to Egypt. In 2007 he stunned many with the publication of his Document of Right Guidance for Jihad Activity in Egypt and the World, in which he called for a cessation of most forms of jihad. Since that time he has been a regular and vehement critic of Al-Qaeda.[2]

 

(Snip)

[SrWoodchuck]

Valin! Thanks for both of these posts.

 

It's a crime that the media will not allow the voices of Fouad Ajami & Dr. Fadl to be heard. A louder voice of non-jihadist, moderate American Muslims is needed, before any "dialogue" such as is happening at the Ground Zero mosque, can be effective. I have respect for Fouad Ajami, but none for Imam Rauf.