Jihad in America: More bad news for the “Wahhabi lobby”

Among the SDGTs named is Musa Abu Marzook, who currently serves as the Deputy Chief of Hamas’ Political Bureau in Syria. Prior to working out of Syria, Marzook was responsible for establishing a major base of international financial and political support for Hamas—right here in the United States.

In 1981, Marzook founded the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) in Richardson, Texas. Throughout the decade, the organization featured Hamas terrorists and radical clerics as keynote speakers at its annual gatherings. The 1989 convention in Kansas City was addressed by a veiled terrorist who recounted the sabotaging of a bus that killed 16 people in Israel. One year later, at another IAP conference in Kansas City, leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas were featured guests. FBI Counterterrorism chief Oliver Revell told The Washington Post on October 31, 1998 that, “IAP is a Hamas front…It’s controlled by Hamas, it brings Hamas leaders to the US, it does propaganda for Hamas.” The IAP remains active today.

The IAP was intimately linked with another Richardson-based Hamas front, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. On December 4, 2001, the Federal Government froze the assets of the HLF, with Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill stating, “The Holy Land Foundation masquerades as a charity, while its primary purpose is to fund Hamas.” Tax records show that Marzook made a one time cash donation of $210,000 to the HLF in 1993.

One of the IAP’s most prominent spinoffs is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). A vehement critic of the Bush administration’s policies in the war on terror, CAIR was formed by two IAP officials, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, the latter of whom has openly pledged his support for Hamas. Ghassan Elashi, founder of the Texas branch of CAIR, also served as Chairman of the Holy Land Foundation. Nonetheless, CAIR continues to speak on behalf of moderate Muslims in the US, and has been granted meetings with high-level administration officials.

Musa Abu Marzook was identified as a Hamas operative in 1995 and detained by authorities while the US mulled over an Israeli extradition request. Although a U.S. District Court Judge ruled that Marzook should be extradited, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropped the request, fearing retaliatory attacks. The US then deported Marzook to Jordan in 1997. Hamas leaders kept in contact with Marzook during his detention through operative lawyer Stanley Cohen, who said after the 9/11 attacks that he would represent Osama bin Laden. After arriving in Jordan it was not long before Marzook reassumed his leadership position in Syria.

Hamas officials were not the only ones looking out for Musa Abu Marzook while he was in US custody. Muslims for a Better America, a self-described sister organization of the American Muslim Council joined with CAIR and the IAP to protest the court-ordered extradition. In a press statement released by the Marzook Legal Fund, the groups lamented, “the concern that our judicial system has been kidnapped by Israeli interests.”

President Bush’s designation of Marzook as a global terrorist leaves no doubt that American Muslim groups like IAP and CAIR that he helped to create are fundamentally based on extremist ideologies and form an integral part of an international terrorist support network. It should be no surprise that these groups routinely defend those who commit such egregious acts and attack the policies that are designed to prevent them.

The investigation into Marzook’s financial activities in the United States has cast light on another individual intimate with links to terrorist entities and “mainstream” American Muslim groups alike. Soliman S. Biheiri is the founder of BMI, Inc., a now-defunct Islamic Investment firm under federal investigation for ties to designated terrorist entities. Earlier this month, Biheiri was indicted on immigration charges that he provided false information for his residency application. One terrorist entity with links to Biheiri is Musa Abu Marzook, an investor in BMI.

BMI’s chief investor was Yasin Qadi, named an SDGT in October 2001 for his financial support of Hamas and al-Qaeda. The designation was primarily the result of Qadi’s relationship with Mohammad Salah, who plead guilty to being a Hamas operative in Israel in 1995. Salah was employed at the Quranic Literary Institute in suburban Illinois in 1991 when Qadi transferred $820,000 to the group. The money was then invested in real estate, and the profits were directed to Salah. Although Qadi has maintained his innocence, the Wall Street Journal reported in November 2002 that bank records show a direct transaction of $27,000 from Qadi to Salah in March of 1992.

BMI also accepted substantial funding from Sana-Bell, Inc., a US charity founded by the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization. Corporate documents list Yaqub Mirza as a registered agent of Sana-Bell. Mirza, whose Virginia offices were raided by Federal agents in March of 2002, is suspected of being a key financier of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, funneling money through several of his investment firms including Sterling Management, the SAAR foundation, and SAFA trust.

Soliman Biheiri was a founding member of Ptech, a Boston-based computer software firm raided by US customs officials in December, 2002. That investigation was launched after Ptech associates expressed concern that the company was tied to terrorist funding. Yasin Qadi and Biheiri’s BMI, Inc. were two primary financiers of Ptech. Moreover, the company’s chief scientist and board member, Hussein Ibrahim, came to the company from BMI.

Biheiri is a member of the Advisory Board of the American Muslim Council. That’s bad news for the Bush administration, since Presidential political strategist Karl Rove has gone to great lengths to pander to terrorist-support groups like the AMC. Since September 11^th, the American Muslim council has been afforded meetings with top administration officials including President Bush, Karl Rove and FBI Director Robert Mueller. In June, 2002, the FBI Director’s spokesman Bill Carter stated that the FBI considers the AMC to be, “the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States.”

Despite gaining high-level political access, the AMC has done nothing to curb its extremist rhetoric. AMC founder Abdurahman Alamoudi has pronounced his support for Hamas and Hezbolla, and Executive Director Eric Vickers stated in a June 27, 2002 “Hardball with Chris Matthews” appearance on MSNBC that al-Qaeda was, “involved in a resistance movement.”

The AMC, along with other “mainstream” groups like CAIR, have gone to great lengths to oppose government initiatives in the war on terror. As investigations into individuals like Soliman Biheiri become public, it becomes increasingly apparent that these groups are not fighting a noble, disinterested battle to protect ordinary Muslim Americans, but instead struggling to keep their own illicit connections with terrorists concealed.

On Monday August 25^th, three Northern Virginia men pleaded guilty to conspiracy and gun charges for their role in plotting to join the designated terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. Yong Ki Kwon, Khwaja Mahmood Hasan, and Donald T. Surratt are three members of an eleven-member terrorist network that attended overseas terrorist training camps in Pakistan and trained for jihad on paintball courses in Virginia.

The other eight men have all entered pleas of not guilty, including Randall Todd “Ismail” Royer who served as the ringleader of the group, arranging sponsorship for several of the men to travel abroad as he had done before. Royer has been candid about his role in aiding Bosnian Muslim forces during the 1990’s and contributing to Lashkar-e-Taiba’s terrorist campaign to retake the Kashmir region from India.

When he wasn’t abroad aiding Jihadists, Royer was employed at the AMC, CAIR, and the Muslim American Society. Though his former employers have remained unusually silent-- usually they howl in protest when the Feds arrest terror suspects-- Royer sought legal defense not from a professional defense lawyer, but from Hamas lawyer Stanley Cohen.

When the man who once said he would defend Osama bin Laden is defending a former AMC and CAIR employee; when an AMC board member is under federal investigation for his company’s illicit ties to terrorists; when founding members of American Muslim organizations become designated terrorists, we must ask ourselves how much longer we can continue to believe the claim that such groups represent the interests of America’s moderate Muslims, and whether the Bush administration should continue to give them a political avenue to further their dangerous agenda.

True they did, the Janissaries.(see below) But they also afforded non-Muslims status under law, something that non-Christians didn't really have in Europe at the time. They also had Christian in high positions in there empire, and as ambassadors to European courts.

Janissaries

Turkish: yeniçeri

The standing Ottoman army, first organized by bey (also erroneously called sultan) Murad 1 in the late 14th century, lasting until 1826, altogether about 450 years.
The term in Turkish, yeniçeri means new troops, indicating exactly what they were in the beginning: An alternative to the old regular army.
The Janissaries became famous for their military skills, but also because they were staffed by youths conscripted from Christian families in the Balkans. After the conscription they were defined as the property of the sultan, and practically all of them converted to Islam.
The Janissaries were subject to strict rules, limiting their freedom and demanding higher moral standards than usual in the society. In the first couple of centuries, they were forced to celibacy, but this would later change. The janissaries were not allowed to grow beard, which was the sign of a free man.
The need for the bey/sultan to form the Janissary corps, came from the fragility of an army put together by free men from many different tribes from areas often wide apart. Their allegiance were normally to their own tribal leaders, leaders that often were tempted to oppose the power of the sultan, and to find allies among the main enemies of the Ottoman empire.
At first the Janissaries were put together of war prisoners. But from 1420's young men were taken from their homes at an early age, and contact with their old communities were cut. This system was called devsirme. They were even denied contact with the normal society in the areas were they were stationed. Through their training, they were learned to put their allegiance to the bey/sultan. At least so was the intention. And despite strict rules, they enjoyed high living standards and a social status which intended to give logic and force to their loyalty.
But over time, the Janissaries were so successful that they grew into one of the strongest power institutions in the empire. They could exercise this strength to influence the policy and to defend their own interests. From the 17th century and on, they staged many palace coups to exercise this power. But this would eventually be the main reason for their downfall — their strength made them dangerous to the sultan, and when the final battle over power came, the Janissaries lost, and all troops were killed or banished.
Other reasons for the sultan to want to remove the Janissaries were that they had grown into a large number, up from 20,000 in 1574 to 135,000 in their last year of 1826. This was expensive, and in addition the Janissaries had found their own (unacceptable) way of financing their military activities as well as their high living standard: they performed various trades and were more an more in contact with the society. They were truly a state in the state.
HISTORY
1380's: Bey Murad 1 forms the first devsirme system, from which the Janissary army could be formed.
15th century: The Janissaries grow into becoming a powerful political force within the Ottoman state.
16th century: It has become standard for Janissary troops to marry, and they even manage to get the privilege that their sons should be allowed to enter their army, even if these were born Muslims.
17th century: More and more, the Janissary troops engage in palace coups. This would continue right onto their end.
1648: Janissary troops discharge and kills sultan Ibrahim 1.
17th century: The traditional devsirme system of conscription is abandoned, and they had many free men applying, among them many from Muslim families too.
1820's: The Janissaries fails to crush the Greek fight for independence. By this, they proved that they were no longer the near-infallible army as they had been before.
1826 June: The Janissary corps finds out that the sultan is forming new European-style armies, and revolts. Sultan Murad 2 declares war on them, and it ends with cannons shooting at the Janissary barracks, killing most of the troops. Many of the survivors were executed, others were banished.

http://i-cias.com/e.o/index.htm

Muslim Spain and European Culture
©1995-2000 Dean Derhak

When you think of European culture, one of the first things that may come to your mind is the renaissance. Many of the roots of European culture can be traced back to that glorious time of art, science, commerce and architecture. But did you know that long before the renaissance there was a place of humanistic beauty in Muslim Spain? Not only was it artistic, scientific and commercial, but it also exhibited incredible tolerance, imagination and poetry. Moors, as the Spaniards call the Muslims, populated Spain for nearly 700 years. As you'll see, it was their civilization that enlightened Europe and brought it out of the dark ages to usher in the renaissance. Many of their cultural and intellectual influences still live with us today.

Way back during the eighth century, Europe was still knee-deep in the Medieval period. That's not the only thing they were knee-deep in. In his book, "The Day The Universe Changed," the historian James Burke describes how the typical European townspeople lived:

"The inhabitants threw all their refuse into the drains in the center of the narrow streets. The stench must have been overwhelming, though it appears to have gone virtually unnoticed. Mixed with excrement and urine would be the soiled reeds and straw used to cover the dirt floors. (p. 32)

This squalid society was organized under a feudal system and had little that would resemble a commercial economy. Along with other restrictions, the Catholic Church forbade the lending of money - which didn't help get things booming much. "Anti-Semitism, previously rare, began to increase. Money lending, which was forbidden by the Church, was permitted under Jewish law." (Burke, 1985, p. 32) Jews worked to develop a currency although they were heavily persecuted for it. Medieval Europe was a miserable lot, which ran high in illiteracy, superstition, barbarism and filth.

During this same time, Arabs entered Europe from the South. ABD AL-RAHMAN I, a survivor of a family of caliphs of the Arab empire, reached Spain in the mid-700's. He became the first Caliph of Al-Andalus, the Moorish part of Spain, which occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula. He also set up the UMAYYAD Dynasty that ruled Al-Andalus for over three-hundred years. (Grolier, History of Spain). Al Andalus means, "the land of the vandals," from which comes the modern name Andalusia.

At first, the land resembled the rest of Europe in all its squalor. But within two-hundred years the Moors had turned Al-Andalus into a bastion of culture, commerce and beauty. "Irrigation systems imported from Syria and Arabia turned the dry plains... into an agricultural cornucopia. Olives and wheat had always grown there. The Arabs added pomegranates, oranges, lemons, aubergines, artichokes, cumin, coriander, bananas, almonds, pams, henna, woad, madder, saffron, sugar-cane, cotton, rice, figs, grapes, peaches, apricots and rice." (Burke, 1985, p. 37)

By the beginning of the ninth century, Moorish Spain was the gem of Europe with its capital city, Cordova. With the establishment of Abdurrahman III - "the great caliphate of Cordova" - came the golden age of Al-Andalus. Cordova, in southern Spain, was the intellectual center of Europe.

At a time when London was a tiny mud-hut village that "could not boast of a single streetlamp" (Digest, 1973, p. 622), in Cordova "there were half a million inhabitants, living in 113,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 300 public baths spread throughout the city and its twenty-one suburbs. The streets were paved and lit." (Burke, 1985, p. 38) The houses had marble balconies for summer and hot-air ducts under the mosaic floors for the winter. They were adorned with gardens with artificial fountains and orchards". (Digest, 1973, p. 622) "Paper, a material still unknown to the west, was everywhere. There were bookshops and more than seventy libraries." (Burke, 1985, p. 38).

In his book titled, "Spain In The Modern World," James Cleuge explains the significance of Cordova in Medieval Europe:

"For there was nothing like it, at that epoch, in the rest of Europe. The best minds in that continent looked to Spain for everything which most clearly differentiates a human being from a tiger." (Cleugh, 1953, p. 70)

During the end of the first millennium, Cordova was the intellectual well from which European humanity came to drink. Students from France and England traveled there to sit at the feet of Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars, to learn philosophy, science and medicine (Digest, 1973, p. 622). In the great library of Cordova alone, there were some 600,000 manuscripts (Burke, 1978, p. 122).

This rich and sophisticated society took a tolerant view towards other faiths. Tolerance was unheard of in the rest of Europe. But in Moorish Spain, "thousands of Jews and Christians lived in peace and harmony with their Muslim overlords." (Burke, 1985, p. 38) The society had a literary rather than religious base. Economically their prosperity was unparalleled for centuries. The aristocracy promoted private land ownership and encouraged Jews in banking. There was little or no Muslim prostelyting. Instead, non-believers simply paid an extra tax!

"Their society had become too sophisticated to be fanatical. Christians and Moslems, with Jews as their intermediaries and interpreters, lived side by side and fought, not each other, but other mixed communities." (Cleugh, 1953, p. 71)

Unfortunately, this period of intellectual and economic prosperity began to decline. Shifting away from the rule of law, there began to be internal rifts in the Arab power structure. The Moorish harmony began to break up into warring factions. Finally, the caliphs were eliminated and Cordova fell to other Arab forces. "In 1013 the great library in Cordova was destroyed. True to their Islamic traditions however, the new rulers permitted the books to be dispersed, together with the Cordovan scholars to the capital towns of small emirates." (Burke, 1985, p. 40) The intellectual properties of the once great Al-Andalus were divided among small towns.

As the Moors built mini-alliances and fought amongst themselves, the Christians to the North were doing just the opposite. In Northern Spain the various Christian kingdoms united to expel the Moors from the European continent. (Grolier, History of Spain) This set the stage for the final act of the Medieval period.

In another of James Burke's works titled "Connections," he describes how the Moors thawed out Europe from the Dark Ages. "But the event that must have done more for the intellectual and scientific revival of Europe was the fall of Toledo in Spain to the Christians, in 1105." In Toledo the Arabs had huge libraries containing the lost (to Christian Europe) works of the Greeks and Romans along with Arab philosophy and mathematics. "The Spanish libraries were opened, revealing a store of classics and Arab works that staggered Christian Europeans." (Burke, 1978, p. 123)

The intellectual plunder of Toledo brought the scholars of northern Europe like moths to a candle. The Christians set up a giant translating program in Toledo. Using the Jews as interpreters, they translated the Arabic books into Latin. These books included "most of the major works of Greek science and philosophy... along with many original Arab works of scholarship." (Digest, p. 622) "The intellectual community which the northern scholars found in Spain was so far superior to what they had at home that it left a lasting jealousy of Arab culture, which was to color Western opinions for centuries" (Burke, 1985, p. 41)

"The subjects covered by the texts included medicine, astrology, astronomy pharmacology, psychology, physiology, zoology, biology, botany, mineralogy, optics, chemistry, physics, mathematics, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, music, meteorology, geography, mechanics, hydrostatics, navigation and history." (Burke, 1985, p. 42) These works alone however, didn't kindle the fire that would lead to the renaissance. They added to Europe's knowledge, but much of it was unappreciated without a change in the way Europeans viewed the world.

Remember, Medieval Europe was superstitious and irrational. "What caused the intellectual bombshell to explode, however, was the philosophy that came with (the books). This included Aristotle's system of nature and the logic of argument." (Burke, 1985, p. 42) Found among the works were even Arab philosophers' commentaries of Aristotle's views. This "shocked the West by giving religion and philosophy equal status as systems for explaining the cosmos." (Burke, 1985, p. 42) This questioning and the use of logic revolutionized the definition of truth and sparked the renaissance.

Christians continued to re-conquer Spain, leaving a wake of death and destruction in their path. The books were spared, but Moor culture was destroyed and their civilization disintegrated. Ironically, it wasn't just the strength of the Christians that defeated the Arabs but the disharmony among the Moor's own ranks. Like Greece and Rome that proceeded them, the Moors of Al-Andalus fell into moral decay and wandered from the intellect that had made them great.

The translations continued as each Moorish haven fell to the Christians. In 1492, the same year Columbus discovered the New World, Granada, the last Muslim enclave, was taken. Captors of the knowledge were not keepers of its wisdom. Sadly, all Jews and Muslims that would not abandon their beliefs were either killed or exiled (Grolier, History of Spain). Thus ended an epoch of tolerance and all that would remain of the Moors would be their books.

It's fascinating to realize just how much Europe learned from the Moorish texts and even greater to see how much that knowledge has endured. Because of the flood of knowledge, the first Universities started to appear. College and University degrees were developed (Burke, 1985, p. 48). Directly from the Arabs came the numerals we use today. Even the concept of Zero (an Arabic word) came from the translations (Castillo & Bond, 1987, p. 27) . Along with texts, Arabic music spread throughout Europe, giving us the keyboard, the flute and the concept of harmony. It's also fair to say that renaissance architectural concepts came from the Moorish libraries. Mathematics and architecture explained in the Arab texts along with Arab works on optics led to the perspective paintings of the renaissance period (Burke, 1985 p. 72). The first lawyers began their craft using the new translated knowledge as their guide. Even the food utensils we use today come from the Cordova kitchen! (Burke, 1985 p. 44) All of these examples show just some of the ways Europe transformed from the Moors.

Much of what we are today can find it's roots in the once great Moorish culture of Spain
http://www.xmission.com:8000/~dderhak/index/moors.htm

Radical Islam's 'plan' to take over America.
A couple of points
The author is talking about RADICAL islam (a political movement masquerading as a religion)
For more please see
The Evil Isn't Islam
by Daniel Pipes
New York Post
July 30, 2002
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/437

Arab-American author outlines secret
20-year strategy to undermine country

Not very good at keeping secrets as as some of us have been reading about this for some time now.

In reading this I don't see a name of an org., or group, so it begs the question who has outlined this "secret plan".
As I'm sure you are aware Islam is divied into many different sect and groups, an inside each of the major sects there are serious divisions. We can see an example of this today in Iraq with the Shites, One Mullah is crying "death to America" and two blocks over you have another working closely with the Americans/British.

Yes we do have a problem with RADICAL Muslims in America.
Someone who has been warning us about this for years is Sheikh Hisham Kabbani
(snip)
“Some of you Muslims in this country don’t like each other. I am saddened by the de facto boycott of the Islamic Supreme Council of America,” Ambassador Seiple said. “There ought to be a better way [of solving your differences].”

While non-Muslims in the audience were for the most part in the dark as to what Ambassador Seiple was referring to in his remarks, they stunned many Muslims in the room.

The controversy centers around Sheikh Hisham Kabbani, a Lebanon-born religious leader who has been in the U.S. for the past nine years championing his international Naqshbandi order of Sufism. The Los Angeles Times published a lengthy profile on Kabbani on April 15 stating he has converted hundreds of inner city African Americans to his fold. Other reported supporters include his uncle, the grand mufti of Lebanon, the president of Chechnya, the Sultan of Brunei (one of the wealthiest men in the world), and O.J. Simpson.

To all appearances, the 54-year-old Sheikh Kabbani sees himself as the catalyst for making his brand of Islam the dominant Muslim force in the U.S. However, most American Muslim organizations see dangerous divisiveness in his message. Kabbani gained the enmity of nearly every Muslim group in the U.S. on Jan. 7 when he delivered a speech to a State Department open forum.

In essence, the white-bearded Sufi charged that the “ideology of extremism has been spread to 80 percent of the [American] Muslim population.” He claimed the foremost Muslim student organization was directed by extremists and hinted that alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden was buying nuclear devices from the Russian mafia which could then fall into the hands of radical Muslim students in the U.S.

As soon as the Kabbani speech reached the media, Muslim groups reacted angrily, stating the Kabbani opinions voiced to the U.S. government’s foreign policymaking agency placed American Muslims under suspicion as a danger to the greater society.

http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0799/9907021.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.