A. Z. Mohamed : Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan

Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan

by A. Z. Mohamed
July 3, 2018 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12576/blasphemy-laws-pakistan

• Many extremist Muslims are aiming at even more government submission to sharia through intimidation and terror.
• Christians and Ahmadis continue to raise concerns regarding the government's failure to safeguard minority rights, as well as the government's persistent discrimination against religious minorities.
• Pakistan is also where Muslim militants, such as the Pakistani Taliban, carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks. It seems no one is there to stop them.

On May 6, Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan's Minister of the Interior, was shot during a rally in his own constituency, in the province of Punjab. Fortunately, he survived the attack, but the bullet in his abdomen could not be removed. "The bullet lodged in my body... will keep reminding me of the impending need to remove the seeds of hatred sowed in the country," Iqbal said.
An initial report suggested that the main suspect, Abid Hussain, 21, had carefully planned the attack; recently, Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Court issued an 8-day judicial remand of four possible accomplices.

On May 6, Pakistan's Minister of the Interior, Ahsan Iqbal (pictured at left), was shot and wounded by an Islamist extremist during a rally in Punjab. (Image source: USAID Pakistan/Wikimedia Commons)

According to other reports, Hussain is linked to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) -- also known as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah ("Movement of the Prophet's Followers"). TLP is a new Sunni extremist party known for aggressively calling for enforcing Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which can carry the death penalty, and for opposing any relaxation of these laws.
Many fear that this assault is not an isolated incident and that other members of the cabinet are on the TLP's hit list. This apprehension, however, does not mean that the government is against sharia or blasphemy laws, or is even thinking of reforming them. Many extremist Muslims are aiming at even more government submission to sharia through intimidation and terror.
Extremist Muslims in Pakistan have been successful in achieving their objectives. according to the U.S. Department of State's 2017 Report on International Religious Freedom:

"The [Pakistani] courts continued to enforce blasphemy laws, the punishment for which ranges from life in prison to the death sentence for a range of charges, including 'defiling the Prophet Muhammad.'"

According to reports from civil society organizations, in 2017, there were at least 50 individuals imprisoned on blasphemy charges, at least 17 of whom had received death sentences, In addition, the report added, the police registered at least 17 new cases under the blasphemy laws against still other individuals.
Pakistan's TLP party activism is just one example of how extremist Muslims and official complicity combine to perpetuate sharia and blasphemy laws. TLP itself was apparently inspired by a "blasphemy killer." The party "was born out of a protest movement supporting Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to relax Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws," Reuters reported.
In October 2017, Pakistan's president, Mamnoon Hussain, signed into law a bill that changed an electoral oath which affirmed the belief that the Prophet Muhammed is the final prophet of Islam to a "declaration" and abolished separate voter lists for Ahmadi Muslims, whom many Muslims consider non-Muslim, as Ahmadis regard Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) as their Mahdi (Messiah). In 1974, a constitutional amendment introduced by the prime minister at the time, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had declared the Ahmadiyya community a non-Muslim minority; and in 1984, President Zia-ul Haq issued Ordinance XX which makes it a criminal offense for Ahmadis to call themselves Muslims, and to practice or propagate their faith.
In any event, the law sparked weeks of protests, led by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan members, against the government. The TLP accused then-Minister for Law and Justice, Zahid Hamid, of blasphemy and demanded his resignation. The government succumbed to pressure by extremist Muslims, and attributed the change in the oath to "clerical error." Parliament reversed the provisions; Hamid was forced to resign and the government gave assurances that Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five with a highly questionable blasphemy conviction, would not be sent abroad. Notably, Qadri had apparently also murdered governor Salman Taseer for speaking against a death sentence on Asia Bibi.
More appalling is what the U.S. Department of State report said: that government officials -- under pressure from the extremist Muslims' protests of October 2017 -- and probably to deny any support to Ahmadis -- had engaged in anti-Ahmadi rhetoric and attended events that Ahmadis said incited violence against members of their community. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community leaders and human rights organizations "continued to express concerns about the government's targeting of Ahmadis for blasphemy, and Ahmadis continued to be affected by discriminatory and ambiguous legislation that denied them basic rights," the report added.
Christians and Ahmadi Muslims are not by any means exceptional: members of all religious minority communities in Pakistan are distressed that the government submitted to Tehreek-e-Labbaik party and other Islamists' pressure. Christians and Ahmadis continue to raise concerns regarding the government's failure to safeguard minority rights as well as its persistent discrimination against religious minorities. Authorities have also often failed to intervene during episodes of violence against religious minorities, and the police have often failed to arrest perpetrators of these abuses.
In his condemnation of the assassination attempt of the Minister of Interior, Rizvi, TLP's leader, emphasized that his party is waging an unarmed struggle to bring "the Prophet's religion to the throne," in a way that clearly identifies his party role in achieving Islamists' ultimate goal of al-hakemyah of Allah (the sovereignty of God and sharia law), a role that consists in spreading narratives such as the supremacy of Islam, the supposed religion of truth, over all other world religions (Quran 3:19); the supposed supremacy of sharia over all man-made laws, and that the Christians and Jews are supposedly conspiring against Islam and Muslims (Quran 2:109). Extremist Muslims, like Tehreek-e-Labbaik, have been able to plant seeds of intolerance, hatred and fear, lionize terrorists and lead protests to impose sharia and blasphemy laws.
Within this context of Islamists' "unarmed struggle," the goal of bringing "the Prophet's religion to the throne" is likely to take place in a country where the government, under religious pressure, was unable to defend an electoral reform bill enacted by the president last October. The government also has not followed most of the instructions issued four years ago by Pakistan's Supreme Court to protect religious minorities after a terrorist bomber murdered 127 innocent people at a church. Pakistan is also where Muslim militants, such as the Pakistani Taliban, carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks. It seems no one is there to stop them.

A. Z. Mohamed is a Muslim born and raised in the Middle East.

Lawrence A. Franklin : Indonesia: Falling to Radicals

Indonesia: Falling to Radicals

by Lawrence A. Franklin
July 4, 2018 at 4:30 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12617/indonesia-radicals

• If Indonesia's repatriated foreign fighters have their way, all of the country's churches will be destroyed.
• If the repatriated foreign fighters are able to radicalize Indonesia's Muslims, all of the country may eventually resemble Aceh Province, where, after a lengthy reign of terror by Islamic militias, most Christians have been driven out.

An Indonesian family of six, repatriated from former Islamic State (ISIS)-controlled territory in Syria, separately targeted three Christian sites in Surabaya, Indonesia, in May. The suicide bombings killed at least 11 people, as well as all of the attacking family members. Indonesian authorities suspect the bombers are affiliated with Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), the Congregation of the Islamic State. While anti-Christian incidents are common in majority-Muslim Indonesia, until now, suicide bombings by Islamists were not often seen there.
The same day, May 14, a second family, affiliated with the same terrorist JAD cell, also staged a suicide attack at Surabaya's police headquarters. A third family was killed in a town outside Surabaya when bombs prematurely exploded inside their home. All three families met regularly for radical Islamic religious sessions.
Indonesia's National Police Chief, Tito Karnavian, indicated that the suicide family that attacked the churches were among an estimated 500 people who had been deported from former ISIS-occupied land in Syria back to Indonesia.
A sizeable Indonesian terrorist group, JAD, designated a terrorist entity by the U.S. Department of State, has already pledged loyalty to ISIS, which, through their Amaq News Agency, claimed responsibility for the Surabaya attack. A JAD terrorist cell was also behind the May prison riot in Jakarta, an incident that claimed the lives of five policemen. JAD's leader, Aman Abdurrahman (a.k.a. Oman Rochman), is currently in prison, facing the death penalty for urging his followers to attack a Starbucks and a police post in Jakarta in 2016.
Indonesian author and counterterrorism expert Al Chaidar believes that some of Indonesia's ISIS volunteers to Syria are legacy terrorists, following in the paths of their Jihadi fathers. He also claims that some of these jihadists favor the al-Qaeda linked Al-Nusra, while others favor ISIS. Police Chief Karnavian describes JAD as even more radical than Indonesia's al-Qaeda-affiliated Jaamah Islamiyah (JI/Islamic Congregation), the terrorist group responsible for killing 200 people in Bali in 2002.
On another ominous note, Suhardi Alius, Indonesia's Chief of Counterterrorism Operations, said that about 40 JAD volunteers who joined the Jihad in the Philippines in 2017, gained combat experience in the process. These Indonesian JAD terrorists had evidently joined with Filipino terrorists to fight against Philippine army troops who were trying to liberate the town of Marawi in the southern Philippines from terrorist control. JAD's decision to dispatch some of its members to fight in the Philippines indicates that, like its predecessor, Jaamah Islamiyah, it might be interested in re-establishing the 15^th century Sulu Islamic Sultanate throughout the archipelagos of Southeast Asia.
Other mostly non-violent but conservative Indonesian Muslim organizations groups -- such as the Islamic People's Forum and the Islamic Defenders Front -- can simply count on Indonesia's restrictive religious legislation to block Christian interests. These include the 2006 JOINT Decree on Houses of Worship, which requires the signatures of 60 neighboring households of non-Christian families to approve initiating church construction. Occasionally, however, the Islamic Defenders Front, through vigilante action, harasses Muslims who it accuses of not being sufficiently orthodox.
Both Christians and moderate Muslims are also often accused of violating Indonesia's blasphemy law. However, Islam's watchdog agency for doctrinal unity, the Council of Indonesian Ulama, continues to stir up intolerant feelings by issuing restrictive religious judgments concerning the rights of minorities. These judgements include helping convicting people who convert from Islam to Christianity of blasphemy despite Indonesia's civil Constitution, which pledges to protect the interests of minority religions.
Only one of Indonesia's provinces, Aceh is governed by Sharia law. In Aceh, Koranically approved physical punishments are meted out to "sinners" -- Christians and Muslims alike.

Pictured: A woman receives a public caning in Aceh, Indonesia -- a sentence for spending time with a man who is not her husband, which is a violation of Sharia law. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

Nevertheless, both of Indonesia's largest Islamic organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, roundly condemned JAD's murderous assault on Christians.
JAD might not be successful in attracting many Indonesian Muslims to join its ranks; suicide bombings may be too extreme for most Indonesian Muslims. As more Indonesian foreign volunteers navigate their way back to this Southeast Asian nation, however, acts of terror, like these recent attacks, may become the new normal. Because of JAD's affiliation with ISIS and its global resources, the terrorist group is likely to have a much larger impact than its numbers indicate.
Finally, Indonesian General Gatot Nurmantyo predicts a dark future for the Indonesian state's rendezvous with terrorism. He says there are sleeper terrorist cells in virtually every one of Indonesia's provinces except Papua. If Indonesia's repatriated foreign fighters have their way, all of the country's churches could well be destroyed. If the repatriated foreign fighters are able to radicalize Indonesia's Muslims, all of the country may eventually resemble Aceh Province, where, after a lengthy reign of terror by Islamic militias, most Christians have been driven out.

Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

Stefan Frank : Germany: 'Decapitating' Freedom of the Press?

Germany: 'Decapitating' Freedom of the Press?

by Stefan Frank
July 5, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12618/germany-press-freedom

• If it was indeed the authorities' plan to censor the news and keep the information of the beheading under wraps, then it backfired. Due to the reports about the raid, thousands of people have seen the video, and hundreds of thousands have heard about the botched censorship attempt.
• Hamburg's government is still trying to conceal the beheading. Among other things, they [the AfD party] wanted to know whether the child had been beheaded. The administration -- in breach of its constitutional duty -- refused to answer. It also censored the questions by blacking out whole sentences.
• Why the beheading should be kept a secret is anyone's guess. What has become clear is how easily authorities in Germany can censor the news and punish bloggers who spread undesired information. They have a vast toolbox of laws at their disposal. It does not seem to bother them that the law invoked in this case stipulates explicitly that it shall not be applied to the "reporting of contemporary events."

In an apparent attempt to sweep under the rug a recent double homicide in Hamburg, Germany, authorities there censored the story. They also raided the apartments of a witness who filmed a video describing the murder, and a blogger who posted the video on YouTube.
The murder, which made headlines worldwide, occurred on the morning of April 12. The assailant, Mourtala Madou, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant from Niger, stabbed his German ex-girlfriend, identified as Sandra P., and their one-year-old daughter, Miriam, at a Hamburg subway station. The child died at the scene; her mother died later, at the hospital. The woman's three-year-old son witnessed the murders.
According to the prosecutor's office, Madou -- who initially fled the scene, but then called the police and was arrested shortly thereafter -- acted "out of anger and revenge," because the day before the incident, the court had denied him joint custody of his daughter.
It later emerged that for months Madou had been threatening to harm Sandra P. and the baby. A senior public prosecutor told reporters that the police investigated the woman's charges, but had concluded that the "threats were not meant seriously" and did not pursue the case.
Furthermore, half a year earlier, in October 2017, a judge revoked a restraining order that Sandra P. had obtained against Madou two months earlier, on the grounds that he saw "no evidence" that Madou had threatened her. That was when Madou's threats increased and he explicitly announced: "I'm going to kill our daughter, and then I kill you!"
A detail of the murders that has never officially been revealed, is that Madou apparently attempted to decapitate the baby. This detail was mentioned by a commuter -- Ghanaese citizen Daniel J., a gospel singer at an evangelical church in Hamburg -- who happened to arrive at the subway station moments after the attack and filmed the scene on his phone. In the video, police officers can be seen questioning witnesses, and paramedics are surrounding what appears to be the baby girl. Daniel J. says, in English, "Oh my God. It's unbelievable. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus. They cut off the head of the baby. Oh my God. Oh Jesus."

Police question witnesses to the double-murder in Jungfernstieg subway station in Hamburg, Germany. (Image source: Daniel J./Heinrich Kordewiner video screenshot)

Heinrich Kordewiner, a blogger from Hamburg who discovered the video on Daniel J.'s Facebook page, uploaded it to YouTube.

A few days later, a team of state prosecutors and officers of the cybercrime unit of the Hamburg police arrived at Kordewiner's apartment with a search warrant, and confiscated his computer, mobile phone and other electronics, allegedly to find "evidence" of the "crime". He was -- and still is -- accused of: uploading the video.
Kordewiner and his flatmate told Gatestone about the raid, which took place at 6.45 a.m. They recounted that when they first refused to open the door, police forced it open -- and even searched the flatmate's room, although it was apparently not covered by the search warrant.
"The police officer said that he could also search for SD (secure digital) cards," the flatmate told Gatestone. "While he fumbled through the books on my shelf, he suggested that he could turn my whole apartment upside down. He told me to relax."

According to the search warrant, Kordewiner is accused of having "invaded the private sphere" of the murder victim, in breach of §201a of Germany's Criminal Code. This so-called "paparazzi paragraph" -- the legislation of which was launched by Heiko Maas (currently Germany's Foreign Minister), who as Minister of Justice was responsible for Germany's internet censorship law -- is a barely known and rarely applied law, passed in 2015. Among other things, it makes it illegal to take pictures that "display someone in a helpless situation." 

Supposedly aimed at protecting victims of traffic accidents from being filmed by curious onlookers, the law was already highly controversial when it was debated in 2014, and journalist associations criticized it for jeopardizing freedom of the press.

When the German parliament debated the law, one of the 10 experts invited to give their opinions on the matter was Ulf Bornemann, head of the "Hate and Incitement" department of Hamburg's public prosecution office. A former MP and member of the East German civil rights movement, Vera Lengsfeld, wrote at the time that Bornemann was the only one to embrace the law without reservations: "Why," she reported he had said, "should the data of a supposed inciter be protected?"

In a written statement, Bornemann praised the censorship law for sending "a clear political message that the administration is willing to act against hate crime in social networks." Bornemann was also part of the team that raided Kordewiner's apartment.

The stated reason for the raid -- a breach of privacy rights -- is flimsy. Only the victim's feet can be seen in the video, and even those for only a brief moment. As the daily newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt pointed out, the footage "is blurred, taken from a distance and doesn't allow the identification of any person."

Meanwhile, the German publication Welt online posted a video that shows close-up footage of the victim -- something that did not spur state prosecutors into action. The main difference between the two videos seems to be the verbal comment on the beheading in Daniel J's video. The alleged breach of "privacy rights," then, would appear to be a pretext.

The "Beheading"

"We don't comment on this rumor," state prosecutor Nana Frombach said to Gatestone when asked about the beheading. All she was willing to acknowledge was that the child had suffered "severe neck injuries." When Gatestone said that §201a could not be applied to the video in question because it did not show anybody's face, she replied that this had "yet to be decided," and that the raid was based on an "initial suspicion." Gatestone then mentioned that Kordewiner, instead of uploading the video anonymously (which would have been easy for him to do), had uploaded it to his YouTube channel, along with his full name and address, rendering the raid's stated goal of "finding evidence" not merely disproportionate but entirely unnecessary. Frombach said that she was not allowed to "comment on details of an ongoing investigation," but that she could "guarantee" that the search warrant had been "approved by a judge."

How can any journalist, under such censorship, report the news? Would it be illegal to film the scene of a terrorist attack? Frombach said that she could "not tell" whether this would still be legal in today's Germany. "I can only judge specific cases, not ones that lie in the future," she said.
The libertarian website Achse des Guten (Axis of the Good) was the first media outlet to report the raid. Two days later, the daily Hamburger Abendblatt wrote:

"Hamburg's state prosecutor rabidly prosecutes a blogger who has published pictures of the tragedy at Jungfernstieg... The raid was based on paragraph 201a, a law that the council of the press and journalist associations view as being problematic with regard to free reporting."

The Abendblatt criticized the "nebulous phrasing" of the law and the "even more nebulous interpretation by the state prosecutor," stating, "The law stipulates that no pictures of helpless persons may be taken. However, the cell phone footage does not show such persons."

According to the Abendblatt, sources "from within the security apparatus" had been "surprised" by the raids of the homes of the blogger and Daniel J. The state prosecutor who ordered the raids had been "very hot on this case," these sources said, and was "shooting out of cannons into sparrows... it is surprising how quickly the search warrant was issued, given the high obstacles we face every day, even when dealing with serious crime."

In an accompanying comment, Abendblatt editor Matthias Iken called the raid "foolish," because "it supports the conspiracy theories of right-wingers." Where, he asked, "do the prohibitions start? And where do they stop?"
In the meantime, the incriminated video has been deleted from all German websites and made inaccessible for German visitors to YouTube (although Germans can still view it on websites that are out of reach of the German authorities).

Censorship Backfired

If it was indeed the authorities' plan to censor the news and keep the information of the beheading under wraps, then it backfired. Due to the reports about the raid, thousands of people have seen the video, and hundreds of thousands have heard about the botched censorship attempt. Even worse for the would-be censors, they unwittingly revealed the very detail that they wanted to keep from the public. This is because the search warrant -- a copy of which was handed to Kordewiner -- happens to provide a detailed account of the murders. It elaborates that Madou had "wanted to punish the mother of the child" and "enforce his claim to power and ownership." With an "intent to kill," Madou "suddenly" took a "knife from the backpack he was carrying, stabbed the child in the belly and then almost completely cut through the neck."

The office of the state prosecutor is under the authority of Hamburg's state government, a coalition of Social Democrats and the Green Party. The state's Minister of Justice, Till Steffen, is a member of the Green Party and has for years been accused of being behind many scandals in his ministry. Among these are that alleged murderers repeatedly have had to be released from pre-trial detention because their trials have taken too long. In 2016, Steffen prevented police from sharing pictures of the Berlin truck terrorist, Anis Amri when he was still at large, out of fear that sharing images of jihadist terror suspects could incite racial hatred.

Censorship in Parliament

Hamburg's government is still trying to conceal the beheading. This became clear when, in May, MPs of the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) made a parliamentary enquiry about the police raid and details of the murder case. Among other things, they wanted to know whether the child had been beheaded. The administration -- in breach of its constitutional duty -- refused to answer. It also censored the questions by blacking out whole sentences. The newspaper Die Welt noted: "That the text of an enquiry and the questions are blackened out without consultation" is something "that almost never happens."

When Gatestone contacted Alexander Wolf, one of the MPs who made the enquiry, to find out what exactly was censored, he sent the original enquiry (the first two pages from the left) as well as the senate's answer (pages 3, 4 and 5) in which parts of the questions were censored. Every hint of a beheading that might have taken place was blacked out, as was the link to the article that first broke the news about the beheading and the subsequent police raid. Wolf told Gatestone:

"In the session of the interior committee, the Senator of the Interior and the responsible state prosecutor both replied very evasively to the repeated questions of our speaker, Dirk Nockemann, and imputed a lack of respect [for the murder victim]. In my opinion, this was designed to cause indignation against the enquirer on the part of the other MPs. Apparently, the Senator wants to sweep the issue under the rug."

The speakers of the other opposition parties were also contacted by Gatestone: Dennis Gladiator of the Christian-Democrats (CDU) and Anna von Treuenfels-Frowein of the centrist Free Democrat Party (FDP). Treuenfeld-Frowein replied:

"Of course, the public has a right to information. But for us as a party committed to the rule of law, personal rights do not end with death. We therefore consider the decision to black out parts of the enquiry to be appropriate. Right now, there is no need to make details of the crime public."

Gladiator did not respond to Gatestone's repeated requests for comment.
Why the beheading should be kept a secret is anyone's guess. What has become clear is how easily authorities in Germany can censor the news and punish bloggers who spread undesired information. They have a vast toolbox of laws at their disposal. It does not seem to bother them that the law invoked in this case stipulates explicitly that it shall not be applied to the "reporting of contemporary events." The state prosecutor, however, argues that this murder case – which was reported, among others, in France, India, Pakistan, South Africa and the United States – does not constitute such a "contemporary event."

"For Hamburg's ministry of justice," the Abendblatt wrote, "the double murder is a crime of passion that must not be of any interest to the public."

Stefan Frank is a journalist and author based in Germany.

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Salim Mansur : The Abuse of Egypt's Coptic Christians

The Abuse of Egypt's Coptic Christians

by Salim Mansur
July 7, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12661/egypt-christians-abuse

• The violence, and incitement to violence, directed by Egyptian Muslims against the Copts -- especially those organized sectarian campaigns by the Muslim Brotherhood and related groups -- are crimes against humanity and should be treated as such by the international community.
• We know that a few drops of lemon will curdle an entire bowl of milk. Egypt's Muslims, as many Muslims elsewhere, have poured the entire Nile River -- made toxic by their bigotry and violence -- into their faith-tradition. We, Muslims, have degraded our culture by authoritarianism and the obstinate tendency to blame others for our own failings. We have thus perverted the very Islam that we believe is the final revelation.
• Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere know from experience the extent to which Western powers have betrayed in practice what they pronounce in theory when it comes to support for people subjected to authoritarian regimes.
• What is long overdue from the West is a robust policy to defend and secure human rights for everyone, especially minorities, in Muslim-majority countries... [as in] the Helsinki Agreement of 1975.

We have seen and recoiled from the horrific footage of Coptic Christians beheaded by ISIS in 2015 in Libya and the repeated bombings over the past two decades of Coptic churches in Egypt. We read about the Maspero massacre in 2011, when Egyptian military tanks, deployed to protect peaceful Christian demonstrators, instead rolled over them, crushing many to death. And we continue to receive reports of Coptic girls abducted, compelled to convert to Islam and forced into marriages with Muslims.
Each time there is news of another act of hate-filled violence against the Copts, or other religious minorities, we shudder. When there are attacks against Yazidis in the Fertile Crescent, the Baha'is in Iran and Christians and Ahmadis in Pakistan, we ask how Muslims can affirm these crimes against humanity perpetrated under the banner of Islam.
Apart from condemning the visible/demonstrable bigotry and violence -- and from appealing to Western governments for assistance -- Muslims opposed to Islamist extremism are at a loss about what needs to be done to hold the governments of Egypt and other Muslim-majority states accountable for their failure to protect their religious minorities from the sectarian violence that is regularly directed at them.
Here, regarding the Copts in Egypt, are a few preliminary observations that might serve as a proposal for how Muslims and non-Muslims, working together, might find a way out of this terrible situation and ensure their mutual survival and peaceful co-existence:

• Egyptian Muslims are primarily, and fundamentally, responsible for the worsening situation of the Coptic Christians in Egypt. As Egypt's overwhelming majority population, Muslims have the responsibility to secure the rights of the Copts as a religious minority.
  
• The violence, and incitement to violence, directed by Egyptian Muslims against the Copts -- especially those organized sectarian campaigns by the Muslim Brotherhood and related groups -- are crimes against humanity and should be treated as such by the international community
  
• As part of their religious obligation, Egyptian Muslims bear an even heavier responsibility to secure the well-being and protect the rights and dignity of Coptic Christians. In persecuting the Copts, Egypt's Muslims are shredding the directives of the Quran on respecting and protecting Jews and Christians as the "People of the Book." According to the Quran, each one of us will be held accountable for our deeds on the Day of Reckoning. It is not for God to forgive the wrong an individual does to another unless the wrongdoer has sought and received forgiveness from the victim. In accordance with their own beliefs, then, Egypt's Muslims are undeniably guilty for the wrongs they have done to the Copts and will most certainly be held accountable on the Day of Reckoning.
  
• The tragedy of the Copts is hugely amplified when we take into account their unique status in the history of Islam: due to the very special and intimate relationship that the leader of the Coptic Church was instrumental in arranging between his people and the Prophet Muhammad. According to the official history of the Coptic Church:
  

  "For the four centuries that followed the Arab's conquest of Egypt, the Coptic Church generally flourished and Egypt remained basically Christian. This is due to a large extent to the fortunate position that the Copts enjoyed, for Mohammed -- the Prophet of Islam -- who had an Egyptian wife named 'Coptic Maria' (mother of Ibrahim his son), preached especial kindness towards Copts: 'When you conquer Egypt, be kind to the Copts for they are your protégés and kith and kin."'
  

• We know that a few drops of lemon will curdle an entire bowl of milk. Egypt's Muslims, as many Muslims elsewhere, have poured the entire Nile River -- made toxic by their bigotry and violence -- into their faith-tradition. We, Muslims, have degraded our culture by authoritarianism and the obstinate tendency to blame others for our own failings. We have thus perverted the very Islam that we believe is the final revelation.
  
• Egyptian history has been shaped greatly by the cycle of invasions, conquests, exploitation by non-Egyptians, sectarian disputes and religious conflicts, long before the coming of the Arabs in the seventh century of the Common Era, and long after the Arabs had lost their supremacy in the region to non-Arabs and non-Muslims. The negative effects of such a long and enduring history also find expression in the violence that makes the Copts victims of Muslim bigotry and violence in recent history.
  
• Muslims in general, including those of Egypt, are a "third world" people. As a result, they are both victims and victimizers in the complicated history of the modern world. As a "third world" people, they are confronted with the immense challenge of modernization, made even more difficult with the deep involvement of, and intervention by, outside powers in their situation. For the past century, Egypt has borne the full imprint of this complicated history, particularly since the failed 1882 proto-nationalist uprising in the Nile valley, led by Ahmed Arabi. That failure led directly to the occupation of Egypt by Britain, and in the subsequent struggle of the Egyptian people to achieve both independence and development. It was a failure that greatly confounded the inherent patience and nobility of the Egyptian people, for whom wars and their devastating consequences became a heavy burden.
  
• It may not be difficult to be magnanimous in victory, as the Prophet Muhammad demonstrated, following his conquest of Mecca in 630; but it is certainly easy to become embittered, resentful and vengeful in defeat, as has been the history of Arabs and Muslims over the past century. This situation is when enlightened leadership becomes essential, but such leadership has been sorely missing in Egypt and in the wider Muslim world.
  

So what is to be done given the situation of Coptic Christians in Egypt, and religious minorities across the Muslim ummah (community)?
Whatever specific policy initiative is taken to deal with their plight, there is one indispensable requirement going forward. In the words of the German Catholic theologian, Hans Küng: "No survival without a world ethic. No world peace without peace between religions. No peace between the religions without dialogue between the religions."
Muslims in the public arena have one simple yet formidable task on hand: to speak the truth about the way in which Muslims across the world have been perverting God's Word into a political ideology and their religion into an unending inquisition.
During a December 2014 address to religious scholars and clerics at Cairo's Al-Azhar University -- the most renowned Sunni Muslim institution of learning in the Islamic world -- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared unambiguously:

"Honorable Imam [the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar], you bear responsibility before Allah. The world in its entirety awaits your words, because the Islamic nation is being torn apart, destroyed, and is heading to perdition. We ourselves are bringing it to perdition... We must take a long, hard look at the current situation we are in. It is inconceivable that the ideology we sanctify, should make our entire nation a source of concern, danger, killing, and destruction all over the world. It is inconceivable that this ideology... I am referring not to 'religion,' but to 'ideology' -- the body of ideas and texts that we have sanctified in the course of centuries, to the point that challenging them has become very difficult."

Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, delivered a historic speech to top Islamic scholars and clergy at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, December 28, 2014. (Image source: MEMRI)

For the political leader of present-day Egypt to understand that Muslim religious scholars and clerics "bear responsibility" for perverting Islam by turning it into a fierce political ideology is extraordinary. The question, however, is whether those scholars and clerics grasped what he was saying. More importantly, do they have the integrity to rise to al-Sisi's challenge? And what about the West's responsibility in this matter?
Western powers, if they are to maintain credibility regarding leadership based on human rights, cannot turn a blind eye to what is going on in the Muslim world. Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere know from experience the extent to which Western powers have betrayed in practice what they pronounce in theory when it comes to support for people subjected to authoritarian regimes.
Egypt's Muslims have a long record of struggling to modernize their society. The lack of success of religious reformers, such as Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) and Ali Abd al-Raziq (1888-1966), and secular intellectuals, such as Taha Hussein (1889-1973), Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010) and Hasan Hanafi (b.1935), in bringing Egypt out of its "third world" cultural backwardness was compounded by the complicated history of the country and people caught in the grips of colonial interests, anti-colonial struggles, inter-Arab rivalries, wars against Israel, and the Cold War contest in the Middle East.
What is long overdue from the West is a robust policy to defend and secure human rights for everyone, especially minorities, in Muslim-majority countries. Ironically, it already has on hand well-tested policies of both defending and successfully advancing respect for human rights within totalitarian states in the form of the Helsinki Agreement of 1975, which in retrospect contributed to the undoing of communism in the Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe.
A policy modelled on the Helsinki Agreement and tailored to the specific situation within the Muslim world, as in Egypt, by the Western powers led by the United States should be presented as the sine qua non to the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) if they wish to maintain a relationship of mutual respect and assistance with, for instance, the G7 nations. As signatories of the UN-adopted Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the OIC member states, including Egypt, must be told in no uncertain terms that their complicity in or failure to prevent human-rights abuses will have serious consequences.
The Western powers should also make it known categorically that the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which was adopted by the OIC, is unacceptable, because Article 24 of the document states: "All the rights and liberties stated in this Declaration are in accordance with the precepts of the Islamic Law." In other words, the Cairo Declaration makes Shariah law the basis for rights and freedoms within Muslim-majority countries. This should be totally unacceptable to Western powers, particularly the United States, as the principal founding member of the United Nations -- just as it is unacceptable to Muslims who understand the incompatibility of Shariah with the requirements of the modern world.
Shariah is an obsolete product of the minds of men belonging to the early Middle Ages. The Copts, as other religious minorities among the member states of the OIC, and many Muslims, are victimized daily on the basis of Shariah in Egypt. There can be no reprieve for them as long as the government continues to impose Shariah-directed rules and regulations in the country as a whole, and as long as Egyptian society complies.
An incessant demand must be made of the United States to lead the G7 to adopt a Helsinki-type of agreement in their dealings with the member states of the OIC. Such an accord eventually would have a similar effect on the Muslim world -- in terms of human rights, protection of religious minorities, equal status for women and freedom of speech as essential for advancing democracy -- as the Helsinki Agreement had in liberating the people under communism in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe.
The treatment of the Copts in Egypt is a moral outrage for any Muslim aware of the religious tradition bequeathed to him by his prophet. This tradition includes Muhammad's affection for the Copts through his marriage to Maria, a daughter of the Copts, who bore him the son, Ibrahim (died in infancy), he so earnestly desired. As a result of this providentially blessed relationship, the Copts as a people became Muhammad's extended family, his kith and kin. When Egyptian Muslims seek God's mercy, they need reminding that it begins with atoning for wrongdoing against the Copts, and seeking forgiveness from them. The leadership of Al-Azhar University in Cairo could make a beginning by following President al-Sisi's example when he said recently, in welcoming the Copts with open arms as members of Egypt's family:
"We too love you. You are our family, you are from us, we are one and no one will divide us."

Salim Mansur is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute. He teaches in the department of political science at Western University in London, Ontario, and is the author of "The Qur'an Problem and Islamism"; "Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim"; and "Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism."
This article is based on remarks the author delivered at the 9^th annual convention of Coptic Solidarity, held in Washington, D.C. on June 21-22.

Raymond Ibrahim : International Community Ignores Genocide of Christians in Nigeria

International Community Ignores Genocide of Christians in Nigeria

by Raymond Ibrahim
July 8, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12645/christians-genocide-nigeria

• This brings the death toll of Christians to more than 6,000 since the start of 2018.
• "The Islamists of northern Nigeria seem determined to turn Nigeria into an Islamic Sultanate and replace Liberal Democracy with Sharia as the National Ideology. The object of course, is to supplant the Constitution with Sharia as the source of legislation." — National Christian Elders Forum, a wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria.
• The Nigerian government and the international community, however, have from the start done little to address the situation. This lack of participation is not surprising: they cannot even acknowledge its roots, namely, the intolerant ideology of jihad.

In what the Christian Association of Nigeria is calling a "pure genocide," 238 more Christians were killed and churches desecrated by Muslims last week in the west African nation. This brings the death toll of Christians to more than 6,000 since the start of 2018.
According to a joint statement by the Christian Association, an umbrella group of various Christian denominations, "There is no doubt that the sole purpose of these attacks is aimed at ethnic cleansing, land grabbing and forceful ejection of the Christian natives from their ancestral land and heritage."
The statement condemned the recent attacks, "where over 200 persons were brutally killed and our churches destroyed without any intervention from security agencies in spite of several distress calls made to them."
The statement adds that the majority of those 6,000 Christians massacred this year were "mostly children, women and the aged... What is happening in ... Nigeria is pure genocide and must be stopped immediately."
The details of the murder of these thousands, though seldom reported, are often grisly; many were either hacked to death or beheaded with machetes; others were burned alive (including inside locked churches or homes); and women are often sexually assaulted or raped before being slaughtered.
Both the Nigerian government and the U.S. government have long sought to present this protracted jihad as territorial clashes between the haves (apparently always Christians) and haves-not (apparently always Muslims).
In 2012, for instance, President Bill Clinton said that "inequality" and "poverty" are "what's fueling all this stuff" (the "stuff" being a reference to the ongoing Muslim slaughter of Christians in Nigeria). Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, said after an Easter Day bombing in 2012 of a Nigerian church left 39 worshippers dead, "I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence". The Obama administration reportedly agreed to spend $600 million in a USAID initiative launched to ascertain the "true causes" of unrest and violence in Nigeria -- which naturally lay in the socio-economic, supposedly never the religious, realm.
In its recent statement, however, the Christian Association of Nigeria denied these claims. After saying that those responsible for slaughtering Christians are always allowed to "go scot free" by the Nigerian government—which further portrays the attacks as "farmers/herdsmen clashes"—it inquired:

"How can it be a clash when one group [Muslims] is persistently attacking, killing, maiming, [and] destroying, and the other group [Christians] is persistently being killed, maimed and their places of worship destroyed? How can it be a clash when the herdsmen are hunting farmers in their own villages/communities and farmers are running for their lives?"

On May 2, the National Christian Elders Forum -- a wing of the Christian Association, the members of which average the age of 75 and come from Nigeria's six geopolitical zones -- met with the British High Commission in an effort to receive support. (Days before the meeting, around 30 Muslim herdsmen had stormed a church during early morning Mass and murdered nearly 20 parishioners and two clergymen.) The group's executive summary of issues included:

It is clear to the Christian Elders that JIHAD has been launched in Nigeria by the Islamists of northern Nigeria led by the Fulani ethnic group [the "herdsmen"]. This Jihad is based on the Doctrine of Hate taught in Mosques and Islamic Madrasas in northern Nigeria as well as the supremacist ideology of the Fulani. Using both conventional (violent) Jihad, and stealth (civilization) Jihad, the Islamists of northern Nigeria seem determined to turn Nigeria into an Islamic Sultanate and replace Liberal Democracy with Sharia as the National Ideology. The object of course, is to supplant the Constitution with Sharia as the source of legislation. The current 1999 Constitution is plagued with dual conflicting ideology of Democracy and Sharia. There are certain values which are non-negotiable in a pluralistic society and it seems the advocates of the Caliphate do not respect this. A dual-ideology-driven Nigeria cannot be the Nigeria of our dream. We want a Nigeria, where citizens are treated equally before the law at all levels.... Bearing in mind that Christians constitute over 50% of the Nigerian population, the goal of the Islamists is bound to create serious conflicts which if not checked is capable of escalating into another civil war. Already, the Islamists are murdering Christians with impunity and destroying vulnerable Christian places of worship and communities at an alarming and inhuman rate.

That 6,000 Christians, "mostly children, women and the aged," have been butchered in just the first six months of this year is a reminder of how violence only escalates when left unchecked. That is the story of the Muslim persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
It took three times as long (a year-and-a-half, between December 2013 to July 2015), for example, for the same Muslim herdsmen to slaughter a total of 1,484 Christians (532 men, 507 women, and 445 children), critically wound 2,388 Christians (1,069 men, 817 women, and 502 children), and burn or destroy 171 churches.
The Nigerian government and the international community, however, have from the start done little to address the situation. This lack of participation is not surprising: they cannot even acknowledge its roots, namely, the intolerant ideology of jihad. As a result, the death toll of Christians has only risen -- and will likely continue to grow exponentially -- until such time that this reality is not only acknowledged but addressed.

The governor of Nigeria's Anambra State, Willie Obiano (center), visits a wounded survivor of a deadly attack on St. Philip Catholic Church in Ozubulu, August 11, 2017. (Image source: Channels TV video screenshot)

Raymond Ibrahim is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (published by Regnery with Gatestone Institute, April 2013).

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A. Z. Mohamed : Is Islam "Exceptional"?

Is Islam "Exceptional"?

by A. Z. Mohamed
July 9, 2018 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12635/exceptional-islam

• "Western observers... will need to accept Islam's vital and varied role in politics and formulate policies with that in mind, rather than hoping for secularizing outcomes that are unlikely anytime soon, if ever." — Shadi Hamid, author of Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World.
• "'Islamic exceptionalism' is neither good nor bad. It just is." — Shadi Hamid.
• "As the transition from pre-modernity to modernity proceeds with its twists and turns, the Muslim world, over time will progress and develop to the point that eventually there will arise a theology, as occurred in Christendom, consistent with the needs of Muslims and reconciled with modernity." — Salim Mansur, author of The Qur'an Problem and Islamism: Reflections of a Dissident Muslim.

In early May, the Brookings Institution held a lecture and panel discussion in India on the question of whether Islam is "exceptional" and what it means for the future of Western democracy. A main speaker at the event was Shadi Hamid, author of a 2016 book, Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World.
Hamid, an American Muslim, repeated the thesis of his book, summarized in an op-ed in Time magazine.
"Because of its outsize role in law and governance, Islam has been — and will continue to be — resistant to secularization," he wrote. He explained:

"Unlike Jesus Christ, the Prophet Muhammad was a theologian, a preacher, a warrior and a politician, all at once. He was also the leader and builder of a new state, capturing, holding and governing new territory. Religious and political functions, at least for the believer, were no accident. They were meant to be intertwined in the leadership of one man.
"Second, more than merely the word of God, for Muslims, the Quran is God's direct and literal speech. It is difficult to overstate the centrality of divine authorship. This does not mean Muslims are literalists; most are not. But it does mean the text cannot easily be dismissed as irrelevant."

This means, he added, that "Western observers... will need to accept Islam's vital and varied role in politics and formulate policies with that in mind, rather than hoping for secularizing outcomes that are unlikely anytime soon, if ever."
To clarify that his position is not necessarily critical, he wrote, "'Islamic exceptionalism' is neither good nor bad. It just is."
Islamists might be likely to welcome Hamid's understanding of Islamic "exceptionalism" more than his value-neutral assertion that it is "neither good nor bad."
Muslims frequently describe Islam as the "religion of truth" -- superior to all others. As it is written in the Quran (3:19):

"Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam. And those who were given the Scripture did not differ except after knowledge had come to them -- out of jealous animosity between themselves. And whoever disbelieves in the verses of Allah, then indeed, Allah is swift in [taking] account."

Many of the Western world's politicians, academics and members of the media tend to treat Islam differently from other religions and ideologies. They claim it is a "religion of peace" -- abused by a small minority of radicals to justify terrorism -- and that it is compatible with democratic values.
Hamid, however, appears to do neither.
According to Middle East Institute scholar Hassan Mneimneh:

"Hamid's work can be understood as an invitation to sober the discussion about Islam and politics on two connected fronts: 1) disabusing some Western circles of the reductionist and patronizing notion that Muslim societies will eventually follow the Western template toward liberal democracy, and 2) calling for an acceptance of the depth of the cultural and conceptual differences between Muslim and Western societies."

Mneimneh nevertheless added that, "Hamid seems to accept the Islamist notion of the uncontested primacy of a totalitarizing religion, and that 'universal' values are basically a Western import."

Hassan Mneimneh (left) and Shadi Hamid (right) at a panel discussion for The Middle East Institute, July 27, 2016. (Image source: Middle East Institute video screenshot)

It should be of great concern that even a self-described liberal such as Hamid -- one who said he feels "a bit uncomfortable making this claim, especially now with anti-Muslim bigotry on the rise" -- leaves little room for optimism where the ability of Islam to undergo a reformation is concerned. He does not appear even to think it is necessary.
Salim Mansur, author, among other works, of The Qur'an Problem and Islamism: Reflections of a Dissident Muslim, disagrees. In a recent article, he wrote:

"The Muslim world currently appears trapped within the parameters of the pre-modern world, based on its quasi-nominalist view of God. The Sufi understanding of God as universal love seems not fully to meet the Muslim world's urgent need to figure out how to negotiate modernity without abandoning the God of the Qur'an.
"The fury of the internal upheaval inside the Muslim world -- the Muslim rage that is incomprehensible to non-Muslims -- will eventually exhaust itself when a sufficiently large segment of the Muslim population reconciles reason and revelation to discover that God never meant any religion, including Islam, to be a burden preventing man from threading a relationship with Him in harmony with human nature.
"As the transition from pre-modernity to modernity proceeds with its twists and turns, the Muslim world, over time will progress and develop to the point that eventually there will arise a theology, as occurred in Christendom, consistent with the needs of Muslims and reconciled with modernity."

A. Z. Mohamed is a Muslim born and raised in the Middle East.

Nonie Darwish : "Jihad Allowance": Views of Work in the Middle East

"Jihad Allowance": Views of Work in the Middle East

by Nonie Darwish
July 10, 2018 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12340/jihad-allowance-work-ethic

• After the ruling class, the highest respect and wealth is given to the jihadist class or military leadership class. Otherwise, the jihadist or military class might turn against the leadership and Islamic system itself. That is one reason why the highest pensions in most Muslim countries, as in Gaza and the West Bank, go to widows, parents and children of jihadists and military retirees.
• "We [the Muslim world], don't work and if we work, we don't do it professionally. We do not produce . . . and we import everything from the needle to missiles... Muhammad ordered us to excel in everything 'if you kill, do it properly, and if you slaughter, do it properly...' How come the Zionist gang has managed to be superior to us? They have become superior through knowledge and technology and work ethics." — Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.
• Today, as Muslims are escaping their vast, poverty-stricken Islamic territories in 54 Islamic nations for the greener lands of Europe and America, Westerners seem to think they are rescuing refugees. Many times they are, but other times this is just the latest version of a story that has been repeating itself for 1,400 years.

Recently, the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, dismissed President Trump as just a "tradesman" who lacked the qualifications to handle political and international affairs. At face value, the criticism might sound similar to that of an opposition party alleging that Trump lacks political experience. Coming from an Islamic leader, however, it reflects a much deeper meaning: on how differently the Islamic culture views the work ethic and the means of acquiring wealth.
Although there are many Muslims who work tirelessly and are immensely successful, Islamic culture in general has little respect for manual labor and even for business owners. People who engage in legitimate "trade" for a living are often viewed with scorn or as "having" to labor for a living.
Historically, Islamic society has given the highest respect and wealth not to the innovators or hardest workers; rather, is usually been bestowed on the ruling class, their families and associates. After the ruling class, the highest respect and wealth is given to the jihadist class, or military leadership class.
According to the Koran and the example of Muhammad, the spoils of war (acquired wealth through jihad) is to be given to the jihadists. Jihadists need to be kept busy against the outside world at all times to expand or maintain the power of Islam. Otherwise, the jihadist or military class might turn against the leadership and Islamic system itself. Congress recently pulled more than $300 million a year from the Palestinian Authority that the US was paying in a "pay to slay" arrangement that incentivized murder -- a "jobs program".
Muhammad rewarded Muslim fighters who died with Paradise; these are the only people guaranteed admittance. Those who survived jihad were given wealth:

"Allah guarantees that He will admit the 'mujahid' in His cause into Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home safety with rewards and war booty" (Bukhari 4:52:46).

The example of Muhammad and his Muslim fighters rests in stark contrast to the example of the pre-Islamized Meccan merchants who rejected Muhammad, and to the Jews who lived in Medina, who engaged in trade and earned their living from hard labor.
The contrast between the lifestyle of Muhammad and his fighters and that of the Jewish tribes probably alarmed the Jews -- with good reason. Muhammad's eyes were set on taking the power, wealth and control from the Jews and from the Arab leaders of Mecca -- and he succeeded.
"Spoils of war" -- also the name of a chapter in the Koran, Al-Anfāl, mostly about the Badr war -- became the lure used to attract more and more fighters to the side of Islam against wealthy Jews and the merchants of Mecca.
Spoils of war or booty, or taking the wealth of Muhammad's enemies after killing them became a big business. Anyone who was caught stealing booty was punished by Muhammad gave his fighters four-fifths of the spoils and one fifth was given to Muhammad and Allah. Anyone caught stealing booty was punished by Muhammad
Capturing wealth from others, rather than creating wealth, became an Islamic value, established as an honorable and holy legal right of Muslims. As Muhammad said in the hadith, "Booty has been made legal for me" (Bukhari 53:351).
This has been, in general, the Muslim economic model, set by the example of Muhammad, for building wealth. The most prestigious and privileged position in society for any Muslim man is the position of the jihadist. Islam became an ever-expanding machine of conquest that could not stop -- or else it would run out of money. It took as the spoils of conquest the wealth of many great civilizations including Persia, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Coptic Christian Egypt, and the Biblical lands in and around Jerusalem -- demonstrating why manual labor and those who work in both farming and trade are looked down upon in Muslim culture as not putting jihad as number one to earn a living.
Today, as Muslims are escaping their vast, poverty-stricken Islamic territories in 54 Islamic nations for the greener lands of Europe and America, Westerners seem to think they are rescuing refugees. Many times they are, but other times this is just the latest version of a story that has been repeating itself for 1,400 years.
Muslim clerics today are still advocating jihad for the acquisition of wealth. For example, the prominent Egyptian Sheikh, Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni, is still lecturing at Al Azhar University on how Muslims' financial difficulties are due to the fact that they have abandoned jihad and the wealth and slaves that could be acquired from it.
At least one Muslim leader -- the Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi -- has noticed the lack of a work ethic in Islamic society. He tried to recommend a solution to the lack of a work ethic in Muslim society, but he could not find one quote in the Quran regarding the subject except in doing jihad well. Referring to the Muslim world, he said: "We don't work and if we work, we don't do it professionally. We do not produce... and we import everything from the needle to missiles." He gave the only Islamic reference he could find regarding proper work ethic:

"Muhammad ordered us to excel in everything 'if you kill, do it properly, and if you slaughter, do it properly...' How come the Zionist gang has managed to be superior to us? They have become superior through knowledge and technology and work ethics."

The lack of a proper work ethic in Islamic culture is possibly a large cause behind the refugee movement and helps to explain why Muslims' eyes are always focused on the outside, non-Muslim world, the greener pastures, for more and more to conquer or expand into.
Islam's long history of wealth creation through acquisition continues today. In 2013, the British Muslim cleric, Anjem Choudary, who was sentenced prison for "urging support" for ISIS, called it a "Jihadi allowance," as if it were, or should be, an entitlement. By the age of 45, and with four children, Choudary said that according to Islamic law, this is the way it is supposed to work.
Reported by both the U.K. Sun and Telegraph, Choudary said:

• "We are on Jihad Seekers Allowance, we take the Jizya [protection money paid to Muslims by non-Muslims] which is ours anyway."
• "The normal situation is to take money from the [non-Muslims] isn't it? So this is the normal situation."
• "They give us the money. You work, give us the money. Allah Akbar, we take the money. Hopefully there is no one from the DSS [Department of Social Security] listening."
• "Ah, but you see people will say you are not working. But the normal situation is for you to take money from the kuffar [non-believers]. So we take Jihad Seeker's Allowance."

Only the West, still in denial, seems to have trouble believing it.

British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary, who was sentenced prison for "urging support" for ISIS, called unemployment and welfare benefits for Muslims a "Jihadi allowance," as if it were, or should be, an entitlement. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Nonie Darwish, born and raised in Egypt, is author of "Wholly Different; Why I Chose Biblical Values Over Islamic Values".