At the Islamic Association of Greater Hartford, Young Muslims Coached to Handle the Media (Part 3)
BY HUGH FITZGERALD
JIHADWATCH.ORG
SEP 15, 2019
Students at a Muslim Sunday school in central Connecticut are being taught by Dr. Reza Mansoor to be “media-savvy.” In previous posts, we discussed their sadness at the way Muslims are too often mistreated by those who cannot get beyond 9/11, about their need, according to Dr Mansoor, to clear up “misconceptions” about the faith that some islamophobes still harbor, and to insist that Islamic and American values are “completely compatible” — in short, to be trained in the arts of exaggeration and dissimulation in order to be Defenders of the Faith.
“Students also raised the issue of the controversial Muslim travel ban by President Donald Trump.
“If you’re not welcome to someone’s house, you’re not going to feel safe going there,” said Laila Mehar, 27, a student who is a bit older. “You’re not going to feel at home. Again, cultivating a sense of fear. So we think that we’re seeing a lot of that today with the refugees coming in.”
What the reporter, no doubt channeling Mansoor, uncritically calls the “Muslim travel ban,” needs yet again to be clarified. It is not a “Muslim travel ban.” It is a ban on admitting people from seven countries, two of which were non-Muslim, where the American government believed there was a heightened threat from terrorists, and the ability of the governments in those seven countries to monitor such threats was deemed inadequate. 95% of the world’s Muslims remained unaffected by this so-called “Muslim travel ban.”
Nonetheless, Mansoor told the class, he still thinks America is a great place to practice Islam — that it remains a safe haven for immigrants like himself. Mansoor explained how he came from Sri Lanka almost 30 years ago after his medical school there was bombed.
“We don’t want the Muslim ban and the ‘Islam hates America’ and stuff to change this nation that welcomes immigrants and that has made America such a beautiful country,” Mansoor said.
Much is made, in this report, of the supposed anxiety felt by these Muslim high school students. It is worth noting that Dr. Mansoor could have helped relieve his students of some of their unnecessary anxiety by explaining that the so-called “Muslim ban” was nothing of the kind. He might have explained, too, that reports of attacks on Muslims in this country have been deliberately exaggerated by some of those claiming victimhood (their stories, as they unraveled, can be found online), that given the many Muslim terror attacks in America and Europe, it is perfectly understandable that many Americans are wary of Islam…and that — he could have added — “we Muslims have a duty to confront, not to deny, the Qur’anic verses that have led Muslims to wage Jihad against all others for 1,400 years. We must not flinch from examining the contents of the Quran, to see if a way to establish a real modus vivendi, a true coexistence with those we have been commanded to fight and to kill — let’s not keep up the pretense that such verses do not exist — is possible. Dissimulation, taqiyya, may continue to fool many Infidels, but those many can become few.”
“The class was winding down. “All right, good job, guys,” he said. “Time for pizza.”
Outside, one of the security guards could be seen patrolling the property. Eleventh-grader Nisaa Mohamed, 16, said she feels safe at her mosque. But as a Connecticut hAt the Islamic Association of Greater Hartford, Young Muslims Coached to Handle the Media (Part 3)
SEP 15, 2019 10:00 AM BY HUGH FITZGERALD6 COMMENTS
Students at a Muslim Sunday school in central Connecticut are being taught by Dr. Reza Mansoor to be “media-savvy.” In previous posts, we discussed their sadness at the way Muslims are too often mistreated by those who cannot get beyond 9/11, about their need, according to Dr Mansoor, to clear up “misconceptions” about the faith that some islamophobes still harbor, and to insist that Islamic and American values are “completely compatible” — in short, to be trained in the arts of exaggeration and dissimulation in order to be Defenders of the Faith.
“Students also raised the issue of the controversial Muslim travel ban by President Donald Trump.
“If you’re not welcome to someone’s house, you’re not going to feel safe going there,” said Laila Mehar, 27, a student who is a bit older. “You’re not going to feel at home. Again, cultivating a sense of fear. So we think that we’re seeing a lot of that today with the refugees coming in.”
What the reporter, no doubt channeling Mansoor, uncritically calls the “Muslim travel ban,” needs yet again to be clarified. It is not a “Muslim travel ban.” It is a ban on admitting people from seven countries, two of which were non-Muslim, where the American government believed there was a heightened threat from terrorists, and the ability of the governments in those seven countries to monitor such threats was deemed inadequate. 95% of the world’s Muslims remained unaffected by this so-called “Muslim travel ban.”
Nonetheless, Mansoor told the class, he still thinks America is a great place to practice Islam — that it remains a safe haven for immigrants like himself. Mansoor explained how he came from Sri Lanka almost 30 years ago after his medical school there was bombed.
“We don’t want the Muslim ban and the ‘Islam hates America’ and stuff to change this nation that welcomes immigrants and that has made America such a beautiful country,” Mansoor said.
Much is made, in this report, of the supposed anxiety felt by these Muslim high school students. It is worth noting that Dr. Mansoor could have helped relieve his students of some of their unnecessary anxiety by explaining that the so-called “Muslim ban” was nothing of the kind. He might have explained, too, that reports of attacks on Muslims in this country have been deliberately exaggerated by some of those claiming victimhood (their stories, as they unraveled, can be found online), that given the many Muslim terror attacks in America and Europe, it is perfectly understandable that many Americans are wary of Islam…and that — he could have added — “we Muslims have a duty to confront, not to deny, the Qur’anic verses that have led Muslims to wage Jihad against all others for 1,400 years. We must not flinch from examining the contents of the Quran, to see if a way to establish a real modus vivendi, a true coexistence with those we have been commanded to fight and to kill — let’s not keep up the pretense that such verses do not exist — is possible. Dissimulation, taqiyya, may continue to fool many Infidels, but those many can become few.”
The class was winding down. “All right, good job, guys,” he said. “Time for pizza.”
Outside, one of the security guards could be seen patrolling the property. Eleventh-grader Nisaa Mohamed, 16, said she feels safe at her mosque. But as a Connecticut high schooler who wears a headscarf, Mohamed said she’s had to deal with people calling her a terrorist.
Victimhood is powerful. Mention of the security guard is meant to remind us of the dangers these young Muslims face. And while all over the Western world we see Muslims attacking non-Muslims in attempts to terrorize them, we are supposed to believe that, although Nisaa Mohamad “feels safe at her mosque,” implicitly she does not “feel safe” elsewhere (else she would have said “I feel safe”), and “people” have “called her a terrorist.” Skepticism is in order. How many people have called her that? Twenty? Ten? One? None? It’s an easy claim to make, impossible to disprove.
“My friend and I, who also wears a scarf, we took our time to explain to them that our religion does not motivate or promote violence,” Mohamed said, “and that we’re a religion of peace.”igh schooler who wears a headscarf, Mohamed said she’s had to deal with people calling her a terrorist.
In other words, Nisaa Mohamed and her friend “took [their] time” to misinform — more exactly, to lie — about Islam, to Unbelievers. It’s not credible that she can truly believe “that our religion does not motivate or promote violence.” The Qur’an is full of violence. Nisaa Mohamed is 16, and presumably by now has read the Qur’an, and if she did, she can hardly avoid having come across at least some of the 109 verses that command Muslims to wage violent Jihad against Unbelievers. Did such verses as 2:191-193, 2:216, 3:151, 4:7, 4:89, 812, 8:60, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4, for example, make no impression on her? What did she think “Fighting is prescribed for you” (2:216) meant? Or “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers’’ (3:151)? Or “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Satan” (4:76)? Or “(Remember) when your Lord inspired the angels… ‘I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them’” (8:12)? Or the Verse of the Sword, that tells Believers “when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.” (9:5). Even just one of those verses, and there are 109 verses of that ilk, would have been sufficient to show that Islam — the Qur’an — “motivates and promotes violence.” Either Nisaa Mohamed is practicing her taqiyya, or she has no idea what is in the Qur’an. I know which explanation I find more plausible.
The Rest…HERE
