Jihad in the U.S. -- Oh, yes, it's underway here too...

[Snowden]

Of course, that software will never be used! Of course not; Iran wants nuclear power only for peaceful uses.

[Snowden]

Pentagon charges mastermind of USS Cole mass murder


The perpetrator of a pre-9/11 jihad attack is charged. "Alleged USS Cole Mastermind Charged: Pentagon Says Guantanamo Detainee Met With Bin Laden, Purchased Boat and Explosives," by Luis Martinez and Theresa Cook for ABC News, June 30 (thanks to JMB):

The Pentagon has charged a Guantanamo Bay detainee with planning and participating in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

The Pentagon has charged Saudi 'Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri with planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the Port of Aden, Yemen. Al-Nashiri is in custody at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

The U.S. military claims that Saudi 'Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri masterminded the plot in which two men appearing to be civilians piloted their small boat toward the Cole in the Port of Aden, Yemen, and detonated explosives hidden inside the vessel.

The attack killed 17 sailors, wounded another 47 and left a 40-foot hole in the side of the ship.

The charges say al-Nashiri met with Osama bin Laden to reorganize and plot the Cole attack after a similar plot against the USS the Sullivans failed in January 2000....

Jihad Watch: Pentagon charges mastermind of USS Cole mass murder

[Snowden]

Judge: "Jihad" message on Volkswagen van is protected speech


As the right to free speech is threatened as never before, here comes this decision: this fellow is free to make a political statement by scaring the daylights out of passersby -- at least, unless his Volkswagen van looks too ludicrous to scare anyone, which is likely.

I am glad in these dark days to see any ruling in favor of the freedom of speech, however nutty this fellow may be, but consider a thought experiment: what if this Volkswagen van had been painted with proclamations of hostility to jihad? What if it announced that Muslim immigration should be stopped (which it patently should, given the impossibility of distinguishing actual or potential jihadists from peaceful Muslims)? What if it announced that Islamic groups in the U.S. are carrying out a stealth jihad to subvert American institutions and Constitutional government (which they patently are, as per the 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum that came to light at the trial of the Holy Land Foundation last summer, the Islamic supremacist statements made by CAIR leaders and others, the initiatives to force American businesses and public institutions to make special accommodation for Muslim practices, etc.)? What if it even quoted statements such as the one by CAIR's Omar Ahmad: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth"? [Emphasis mine.]

Then that there is no telling how this ruling may have come out. Then it would be "hate speech." And even if the court decision had been the same, CAIR would be issuing "Action Alerts" and "Incitement Watch" pieces about "hatred of Muslims," and the mainstream media would fall into line behind them. But say you're a jihadist with a WMD? Fine, fine, be on your way!

"Ninth Circuit Holds Van’s Message of ‘Jihad’ Protected Speech," by Sherri K. Okamoto for the Metropolitan News-Enterprise (Los Angeles), June 30 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

A Grass Valley man’s proclamation via block letters on his 1970 Volkswagen van that he was a terrorist carrying a weapon of mass destruction was political hyperbole protected by the First Amendment, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday.

A three judge panel concluded that police officers violated Matthew Fogel’s constitutional rights by arresting him and impounding the van upon which he had painted the message, as well as other slogans and paintings, but declined to impose liability against the officers, holding that a reasonable officer could have concluded the message was not protected under existing precedent.

Fogel painted block letters on the back of his van indicating he was a suicide bomber, and declaring “jihad” on the First Amendment and invoking Allah to praise the Patriot Act. The rest of the vehicle was decorated with slogans and paintings added by Fogel and his friends that had no political or threatening character.

When a citizen in the town located between Sacramento and Reno complained about the van, a police officer responded, but told his supervisor that the writing was merely satire. The supervisor disagreed, however, and ordered the officer to treat the situation like a bomb threat.

Mild-Mannered

Officers testified that, upon being questioned about the van’s messages, Fogel said he wanted to “scare people into thinking.” The interviewing officer stated in a deposition that he found Fogel mild-mannered, and that he did not take the writing as a threat.

The officers did not follow standard bomb threat procedures at the scene or during a subsequent search of the van, but impounded the vehicle and arrested Fogel, who spent one night in jail before being released when the district attorney declined to press charges. The police department released Fogel’s van once he removed the writing.

[...]

Fletcher also pointed out that the officers who saw the van and its message did not behave as if they believed the speech was a true threat and there was no evidence that Fogel subjectively intended the speech as a true threat of serious harm, leading Fletcher to conclude that Fogel’s message was “exactly the kind of ‘unpleasantly sharp attack’” on the government that the First Amendment “welcomes and protects.”...

Jihad Watch: Judge: "Jihad" message on Volkswagen van is protected speech

[Snowden]

Muslim former guard at Andrews Air Force base convicted of concealing alias on job application


"Darrick Jackson, 38, left his Muslim name off the application, prosecutors said, to conceal his ties to a local imam known for inflammatory comments."

An update on this story. "Air Base Ex-Guard Convicted of Hiding Muslim Name," by Henri E. Cauvin for the Washington Post, June 28:

A Southeast Washington man who did not disclose his Muslim name on an application for a job as a private security guard at Andrews Air Force Base was convicted yesterday of making a false statement.

Darrick Jackson, 38, left his Muslim name off the application, prosecutors said, to conceal his ties to a local imam known for inflammatory comments.

Jackson, whose first trial ended last year with a hung jury, was tried again this week in federal court in Greenbelt. After deliberating for about a day and a half, the jury found Jackson guilty.

He faces up to five years in prison. U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow, who presided over the trial, is scheduled to sentence Jackson on Sept. 22.

Jackson was trying to avoid being linked to Abdul Alim Musa, prosecutors said. Musa has led a mosque in Southeast for almost 20 years and is known for his provocative comments about the United States, Israel and other subjects.

Jackson's attorney, John Chamble, has argued that his client misunderstood the question -- "Have you ever used or been known by another name?" -- thinking it referred to a woman's maiden name.

But assistant U.S. attorneys David I. Salem and Emily Glatfelter said the omission during a 2005 background investigation was a deliberate attempt to keep his ties to Musa and the mosque secret.

On the application, Jackson indicated that he had no other names. And in an interview with an investigator from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Jackson did not disclose any other names, prosecutors said. Jackson also is known as Abdul-Jalil Mohammad, prosecutors said. (In some prosecution filings, the last part of Jackson's Muslim name is spelled "Mohammed.")

In an interview last night, Musa said the prosecution was "hassling Muslims."

"We regard all of this as just harassment, just the federal government playing around," Musa said.

The U.S. attorney for Maryland, Rod J. Rosenstein, has defended the prosecution of Jackson, saying it is not about the defendant's religion but about ensuring the security of U.S. government installations.

Jihad Watch: Muslim former guard at Andrews Air Force base convicted of concealing alias on job application

[Snowden]

Spencer Blogging the Qur’an: Sura 32, “The Prostration”


In this latest edition of my Blogging the Qur'an series at Hot Air, I discuss the Qur'an's sura 32, which recapitulates many core themes of the Qur'an. In the comments field at Hot Air are lively discussions of whether or not to point out differences between religious traditions when one belongs to one of them constitutes proselytizing; whether members of other religious traditions can legitimately "criticize Islam" or if such criticism is ipso facto illegitimate; and whether mainstream Islamic tradition affirms or denies human free will. I will be writing more about the last point when I'm back in the Jihad Watch offices later this week.

Sura 32, “The Prostration,” dates from the middle of the Meccan period, and repeats many familiar preoccupations we have seen in other chapters of the Qur’an. Maududi says that “the main theme of the Surah is to remove the doubts of the people concerning Tauhid [the absolute oneness of Allah], the Hereafter and the Prophethood, and to invite them to all these three realities.”

The attentive reader of this Blogging the Qur’an series, particularly over the last few weeks, may have noticed that these themes — removing doubts of the people concerning the unity of Allah, the Day of Judgment, and Muhammad’s status as a prophet — are concerns of many, many other passages of the Qur’an outside of this chapter, and so sura 32 essentially stands as a kind of recapitulation and review of many things we have seen thus far. Repetition, of course, is a pedagogical tool, particularly in an oral culture.

And so we hear again in it that the Qur’an is true beyond doubt and Muhammad has not forged it (vv. 1-2); and that Allah created everything in six days and no one will protect or intercede for anyone else on the Day of Judgment (v. 4); and that Allah knows everything (v. 6); and that human beings were created from clay (v. 7); and that the unbelievers deny the resurrection of the dead (v. 10); and that Allah will taunt the unbelievers on the Day of Judgment and when he casts them into hell, telling them to “taste the penalty” of their evildoing (vv. 14, 20); and that those who believe pray and give alms (vv. 15-16) and will receive a reward (v. 17). (Incidentally, when Muslims hear v. 15’s reference to prostration, and other verses of the Qur’an that refer to prostration, they themselves are supposed to make a prostration; some editions of the Qur’an come with a sign in the margins by each prostration verse, so that the reader can be prepared for what is coming.)

In connection with all this, an early Muslim, Mu’adh bin Jabal, once asked Muhammad: “O Prophet of Allah, tell me of a deed that will grant me admittance to Paradise and keep me away from Hell.”

Muhammad replied: “You have asked about something great, and it is easy for the one for whom Allah makes it easy. Worship Allah and do not associate anything with Him, establish regular prayer, pay Zakah, fast Ramadan and perform pilgrimage to the House.” Then he asked Mu’adh: “Shall I not tell you of the greatest of all things and its pillars and pinnacle?” When Mu’adh replied in the affirmative, Muhammad said: “The greatest of all things is Islam, its pillars are the prayers and its pinnacle is Jihad for the sake of Allah.” And he told Mu’adh that all that depends on restraining one’s tongue.

The unbelievers are not equal to the believers (v. 18) – for indeed, the believers are the “best of people” (3:110) while the unbelievers are “the most vile of created beings” (98:6).

We see something new in the statement that everything Allah created is good (v. 7). This appears to contradict the idea that Allah created many jinns and men for hell (7:179 and v. 13 of this sura). However, the Imam Malik says that this only means that “he created everything well and in a goodly fashion,” not that everything he created is itself good. In v. 13 is also repeated the assertion that Allah would have guided all human beings to the truth if he had so desired – indicating here again that Allah does not, unlike the God of the Bible, will “that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Timothy 2:3).

The unbelievers will be punished in this life as well as the next (v. 21). This is an idea that has implications for the political aspect of Islam – since the dhimmis, that is, the People of the Book (primarily Jews and Christians) in the Islamic state are to offer “willing submission” to the Muslims and “feel themselves subdued” (9:29), it becomes the responsibility of the Islamic state to make sure that that happens, so that they taste the penalty for their unbelief not just in the next life but in this one also. Ibn `Abbas and many others have explained the idea of v. 21 in this way: “The near torment means diseases and problems in this world, and the things that happen to its people as a test from Allah to His servants so that they will repent to Him.” These tests are in part to be instituted by the Islamic state, imposing second-class status and institutionalized discrimination upon the dhimmis in order to move them to repentance and conversion. For there is no worse sinner than one who ignores Allah’s signs (v. 22) — which, as we have seen, include the verses of the Qur’an.

More familiar themes follow: Allah reminds Muhammad that he gave a book to Moses (v. 23), although we are not here given yet another recapitulation of the whole story of Moses or any significant portion of it. However, as it was in earlier retellings of incidents in Moses’ career (as we have seen on more than one occasion), Maududi says that the point here is about Muhammad again: “Then it is said: ‘This is not the first and novel event of its kind that a Book has been sent down upon a man from God. Before this the Book had been sent upon Moses also, which you all know. There is nothing strange in this at which you should marvel. Be assured that this Book has come down from God, and note it well that the same will happen now as has already happened in the time of Moses. Leadership now will be bestowed only on those who will accept this Divine Book. Those who reject it shall be doomed to failure.’”

Pickthall translates the next clause of v. 23 as “so be not ye in doubt of his receiving it,” but the Tafsir al-Jalalayn and others have it as “do not be in doubt concerning the encounter with him,” and consider it to refer to Muhammad’s Night Journey to Paradise, during which he met Moses and other prophets. Allah appointed leaders for the Children of Israel (v. 24), and on Judgment Day will judge between their squabbling factions (v. 25). Don’t they realize the lesson in the people Allah has previously destroyed (v. 26)? Don’t they see the signs in the things of nature (v. 27)? Yet they scoff, asking when the Day will be (v. 28). Allah tells Muhammad to tell them that it won’t do any good to become a believer on that Day (v. 29).

Next week: Sura 33, “The Confederates,” about Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis – no wait, it’s actually about several key battles in the early history of Muhammad’s Medina period, and even includes Allah’s orders to Muhammad to marry his former daughter-in-law. That incident, which is touched upon only obliquely in sura 33, is one of the most notorious incidents in Muhammad’s entire tumultuous prophetic career, and a hot topic of discussion ever since among both Islamic apologists and their opponents.

Jihad Watch: Spencer Blogging the Qur’an: Sura 32, “The Prostration”