ISNA defends Louay Safi – in response to a hatchet job by the Dallas Morning News over Safi’s tangential involvement in the Malik Hassan case.
Latest Updates: ISNA RSS
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aziz
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johnpi
An experienced military trainer who taught US Army soldiers about his Muslim faith has been suspended from working on military bases pending a continuing criminal inquiry, according to a report in the Dallas Morning News.
The [Louay] Safi affair reveals the deep divisions within the U.S. government over how to combat terrorism and over what constitutes moderate Islam.
Some believe insight into Islamist thinking can be gained only by engaging a wide range of people in North America’s close-knit Muslim community, where leaders may well have ties to extremists – ties that do not necessarily signal alliances or support. Others argue that engagement should be limited or shunned to avoid legitimizing radicals or embarrassing the government.
Safi is a senior official of the Islamic Society of North America, the country’s largest Muslim organization. ISNA has been consulted for years by Washington and is described as a partner in the fight against terrorism. In addition to serving as ISNA’s communications director, Safi runs its program certifying Muslim chaplains for work in the U.S. military and prison system. He publicly denounces terrorism and advocates peace.
….“You have a schizophrenic government and a schizophrenic institution,” Zelikow said, referring to ISNA. “The schizophrenia cuts right into how the government views the whole Fort Hood affair. We don’t know whether to treat him [Hasan] as part of an international conspiracy or as a lone wolf who happened to have gotten solace from a radical imam.”
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abunoor
Message from Dr. Ingrid Mattson on the earthquake in Haiti
We realize from this hadith that the path to closeness with God is, after worship, service to humanity. Perhaps the most needy collectivity of people in the world today are the Haitians after enduring this terrible earthquake. Helping the Haitians in this time of need is certainly a sign of religious sincerity.
It is also important to realize, however, that this is much more than a “natural” disaster – that this suffering is not just part of God’s inscrutable plan. As was the case of the devastation that followed hurricane Katrina, human negligence and oppression made a challenging natural event into a disaster of hugely devastating proportions.
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abunoor
ISNA Commends Malaysian Court Ruling re: use of word Allah by Christians
ISNA Commends Malaysian Court Ruling that Affirms Religious Freedom of Christians
(Plainfield, IN – January 4, 2010) The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) commends the landmark ruling by a Malaysian Court on December 31, 2009, that affirms the religious freedom of Malaysian Christians. The ruling asserts that Christians have the right to use the word “Allah” to translate “God” into Bahasa Melayu, the Malaysian language. It strikes down a government ban that was placed in 2007 on the use of the term in Christian literature.
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Admin
Support the victims of the Fort Hood attacks by donating to the Islamic Society of North America’s “Fort Hood Family Fund” either online or via mail to ISNA at P. O. Box 808, Plainfield, Indiana 46168.
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abunoor
ISNA releases statement on killing of Imam Luqman Abdullah.
ISNA supports the vital work carried out by law enforcement agencies to protect the public against violence and criminal activities, and finds no justification for resisting duly executed arrest warrants. It further calls on all Muslims to reject any attempts that aim at undermining the rule of law or subverting the constitution. The only morally and legally acceptable way to challenge the actions of law enforcement agents is by working through the justice system and the court of law.
ISNA also calls on the FBI and other law enforcement agencies involved in Wednesday’s raid to conduct a full investigation and to bring clarity into circumstances that led to the shootout and the killing. The Muslim community must be brought fully on board in the fight against violent extremism and must be persuaded that FBI agents do not use excessive force or act out of an unfounded suspicion and exaggerated fear.
We urge the community leaders to convene community meetings to explore ways and means to prevent the repeat of this troubling incident. The defendants live in a downtrodden part of Detroit, and the community’s long-term response must address the underlying conditions that give rise to alienation and mistrust. We urge privileged Muslim communities to take greater interest in improving the conditions of disadvantaged communities and to join local leaders in dealing with the long standing plight of inner cities.I could analyze the problematic nature (in my view) of some of that statement at length but that could fall into the category of mistakenly treating a pr statement as some kind of intellectually rigorous statement of principles.
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johnpi
Right-wing newspaper The Washington Times directs a non-story smear at Muslim prayer gathering: ‘Attorney to terrorists organizes Muslim rally at Capitol.’
The headline is a reference to Hassen Abdellah, the president of Dar-ul-Islam, the mosque in Elizabeth, N.J. that is organizing the event. Abdellah has represented a variety of people accused in terrorism cases over the years.
Abdellah responded:
“I represent all kinds of people; that is what lawyers do,” he said. “We protect the Constitution by representing the rights of people who no one else wants to deal with.”
But there is some new information about the response to the event in this article:
The event has inspired enough rumors to warrant an entry on factcheck.org and a competing event on Friday at the Rayburn House Office Building sponsored by a group called Stop Islamization of America.
Several Islamic groups have distanced themselves from the event. The Islamic Society of America (ISNA) and the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) say they will not be participating. Imam Johari Abdul-Malik of Dar Al Hijrah in Falls Church, the area’s largest mosque, said he is attending but there will be no representatives from the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Sterling, one of the region’s largest mosques.
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abunoor
Speaking truth to Power?
ISNA sends out a message titled “ISNA President spoke to the President and Attorney General about Muslim concerns during White House Iftar”
But, when you read the details, it seems all she did was congratulate him for things he’d done that she liked. I guess “concerns” here meant issues that Muslims are interested in.
Dr. Mattson thanked President Obama for his leadership on health care reform, and informed him that “the Muslim American community considers this an important justice issue.” She also spoke with Attorney General Eric Holder about the Islamic Society of North America’s work with National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), and of ISNA’s support of his appointment of a federal prosecutor to look into CIA abuse of detainees.
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johnpi
ISNA has banned the first-ever translation of the Quran by a woman from its bookstore, according to Tarek Fatah. Fatah seems to be pretty fast and loose with the word “Islamist,” which prompts suspicion for me as ISNA has been the target of extremist smears for awhile.
Until 2007, only men had translated the Koran and interpreted it. That’s because the very idea of a woman translating the holy book offends Islamists. Consider, for example, the reaction to the first-ever translation by a woman — Laleh Bakhtiar’s The Sublime Quran — two years ago.
Mohammad Ashraf of the Canadian branch of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) — the same gentleman who this week told the CBC that there was no provision for honour killings in Islam — told The Toronto Star that he would not permit The Sublime Quran to be sold in the ISNA bookstore. “Our bookstore would not allow this kind of translation,” he said. “I will consider banning it … This woman-friendly translation will be out of line and will not fly too far.”
What had Laleh Bakhtiar done to deserve the punishment of having her translation of the Koran banned from ISNA’s Islamic bookstores? Her fault, in the eyes of Islamists, is that she believes the Koran does not condone spousal abuse, as claimed by Islamists.
I checked the Toronto Star article, and Ashraf did indeed say what he is quoted as saying. Ashraf also said his objection was not that she was a female scholar, but that “she was not trained at an academic institution accredited in the Muslim world.” This is a catch-22 though as Bakhtiar would likely never have been admitted into programs that would allow her to be recognized as a scholar in the first place, so I conclude that Fatah’s criticism above is justified. I would still not use the word “Islamist” to describe the organization in America – but perhaps the Canadian branch is a little more “out there.”
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aziz
An embarassment for ISNA: Warith Deen Umar brings the crazy jew-hate. That was the exception at ISNA though – ISNA was by all measures a success.
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johnpi
A Pajamas Media blogger is breathlessly reporting that the US Justice Department is seeking volunteers to staff a booth at the ISNA convention in Washington DC. Jennifer Rubin regurgitates the various attacks on ISNA, and even picks up the “Third Jihad” storyline about ‘a secret plot to destroy Western civilization’ etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Patriotboy has the snarky comeback:
Dear Mrs Rubin,
Kudos for writing about Obama’s ties to the ultra-dangerous Islamic Society of North America. We knew the Obamaslamunistofascists were treacherous, but who could have dreamed they’d stoop so low as to sponsor a booth at a convention held by a group so devious, Alberto Gonzales couldn’t find a reason to indict them.
We’re all going to die!
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johnpi
Washington Post: Muslim Americans at odds over FBI contact.
Leaders of some of the nation’s largest Muslim American organizations that are not part of the coalition say they disagree with a policy of cutting off contact. They say that severing ties with the federal enforcement agency tasked with hunting down homegrown terrorists could make it more difficult to find them and increase public suspicion of the Muslim community.
MPAC and ISNA are cited in the article as Muslim orgs not going along with the FBI boycott threat.
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aziz
As we have discussed previously on Talk Islam several times, ISNA is sponsoring ads on buses, trains, and billboards nationwide to promote Islam by inviting people to call a phone number and visit a website titled, “Why Islam”. I am unimpressed, unlike the earlier excellent Dial a Muslim campaign in florida which was less about prosletyzation and more about simple interfaith outreach.
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johnpi
Alarmist AP story picks up old smear that ISNA and Ingrid Mattson are ‘tied’ to Hamas (or “terrorists” or “extremists” on second reference). Mattson is going to be speaking during Obama’s inaugurational prayer service and so is in the national spotlight right now.
Once again, it is being made impossible to be an “acceptable” Muslim and have ties to the Muslim community. And of course, by making Hamas the baseline for accusing someone of “ties to terrorism,” it contributes to enemy formation against Hamas, which is the democratically elected representative political organization of Gaza.
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shahed
I’ll be speaking this Saturday at the ISNA South Central Conference in Houston. The topic: using the Web to shape public discourse on Islam and Muslims.
