A noteworthy piece in Guardian (UK):

The US government is being accused of pumping millions of dollars into unregulated training schemes for local police officers and other law enforcers that give a distorted, dangerous and inflammatory picture of the Muslim faith.

Political Research Associates, a Massachusetts-based progressive thinktank, spent nine months investigating the burgeoning industry of counter-terrorism training. It concluded that in seminars and conferences across America, police, transit and other law-enforcement officers were being given an ideologically skewed impression of Islam that impugned the entire religion, presenting it as inherently violent and sympathetic to terrorism.

One training conference, which PRA investigators attended, was held last October by the International Counter-Terrorism Officers Association, a body formed by New York police officers in the wake of 9/11. The conference was addressed by Walid Shoebat, a speaker used by several of the private training outfits.

Shoebat is a convert to Christianity, having formerly been a Muslim with links to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. In his presentation, called The Jihad Mindset and How to Defeat It: Why We Want to Kill You, he accused Muslim men of raping women, children and young boys. "They are paedophiles!" he shouted.

According to the report, Shoebat went on: "The Muslim beheads with a smile. You can see it on YouTube, on TV; the Afghan child trained to execute Christians. You say that Islam is a peaceful religion? Why? It hates the west."

He also said: "Islam is a revolution and is intent to destroy all other systems. They want to expand, like Nazism."

Another training firm that is highlighted is Security Solutions International, a Miami-based company that has worked with some 1,000 law enforcement agencies since 2004. It gives seminars with titles such as "The Islamic Jihadist Threat", "Jihad 2.0" and "Allah in America".

At one seminar, SSI's trainer showed footage of the 2002 beheading of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist, by his al-Qaida kidnappers.

The report is published as the Homeland Security Committee in the House of Representatives is poised to open controversial hearings into the radicalisation of the American-Muslim community. Peter King, who chairs the committee, has been accused of launching a witch-hunt.

A third training outfit, the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, based in Alexandria, Virginia, uses experienced FBI, CIA and other former federal agents to conduct its training of about 8,000 national security employees a year. PRA investigators were not allowed to attend the centre's seminars, but based on its website and the writings of some of its key trainers, the report concludes that its course, Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine, uses the framework of the cold war to portray Islam as an existential threat equivalent to communism.

Walid Phares, who trains on behalf of the centre, argues in his writings that jihadists are infiltrating western organisations posing as civil rights advocates: "The most important mission is to further recruit and grow their numbers until the 'holy moment' comes."

Thomas Cincotta, the author of the PRA report, called on Congress and the Homeland Security department to begin an inquiry into the use of public money to provide training that he called dangerous and unhelpful. "Police officers and law enforcers who attend these causes will walk away with the impression that law-abiding citizens should be suspicious of the broader Muslim community. I'm deeply troubled by that – it impinges on fundamental freedoms to practise religion, and it jeopardises our safety and national security by potentially alienating Muslims at a time when we need to work together."

The report says that in the wake of 9/11 a huge sum of taxpayers' money had been invested in counter-terrorism training for law enforcers. Two federal grant programmes alone, led by Homeland Security, paid out $1.7bn to states across the country in 2010.

Some of the training schemes are closely monitored by the Homeland Security department, but much of the money, the report says, is filtered through a host of largely unregulated training schemes, some of which are conducted by private security bodies.

SSI's president, Henry Morgenstern, defended his company's track record. "We have a very good reputation training law enforcers. We are not a kooky organisation." He said of the report's authors: "These people are out to weaken the anti-terrorism effort and it's clearly politically motivated."

He added: "You cannot whitewash radical Islam – they really do cut people's heads off, they do carry out honour killings, so we are trying to show law enforcers that this is what they are up against. We are not saying that all Muslims chop people's heads off."

The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies declined to comment.

The involvement of anti-Muslim groups in federal and state training has caused consternation in the past. Last August Reverend Jesse Jackson protested to the FBI after it was discovered that Robert Spencer had been used as an official trainer on counter-terrorism for police offers.

Spencer is a founding member of Stop the Islamisation of America, a group that virulently opposed the building of a Muslim community centre near Ground Zero in New York and that has links with the far-right English Defence League.

An interesting article.

Apostate Politics: How Some Recanted Muslims Have Bolstered Militarist US Policies

By Samer Araabi, January 10, 2011

Originally published in Right Web

One of the more infamous cases is that of Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of the neocon crowd during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq who, after his return to Iraq, leveraged his wealth and connections to become a major political figure there, often to the embarrassment of his erstwhile comrades.

More recently, there has emerged a cadre of high-profile individuals from the Greater Middle East who, unlike Chalabi, have turned against Islam and embraced their lives in the West. In doing so, they have adopted views strikingly similar to some of the more hawkish factions in U.S. politics. Notable examples include Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, and Nonie Darwish, all known for their vociferous condemnations of Islam, their affiliations with prominent neoconservative organizations, and the anger they have aroused from both Arabs and Muslims worldwide. Though the research and analysis produced by these self-styled “apostates of Islam” often has limited scholarly value, they have played an important role in providing a purportedly moral justification for Western military campaigns in Muslim countries.

Adopting the Clash of Civilizations

The background of many of theses apostates, including the three mentioned above, follow a common pattern. As natives of Arab or Muslim countries, they have each experienced pivotal events that shaped their perspectives on their countries of origin and religion. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali emigrant who once served in the Dutch House of Representatives and now works as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was raised in war-torn Somalia, where she was subjected to the appalling practice of female genital mutilation. Wafa Sultan, the Syrian-American author of A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of Islam, grew up in Syria where, in her words, “the tentacles of the Saudi octopus” had nurtured religious fanatics who murdered her university professor. For Nonie Darwish, the Egyptian-American founder of Arabs for Israel, it was the death of her father, killed by an Israeli parcel bomb while organizing Palestinian resistance in Gaza, and the pressure put upon her to take revenge.

These traumatic experiences helped convince these women that Islam was immoral and dangerous. They abandoned what they perceived to be a “backward culture” in favor of the “enlightened values” of the West. Hirsi Ali abandoned religion altogether. Darwish converted to Christianity. And Sultan asserts that “I even don’t believe in Islam, but I am a Muslim.”

These “crusaders against Islam” are also often characterized by a Manichean worldview pitting the West against Islam. They tend to broadly portray Islam as a homogenous system of highly conformed practice, wherein singular experiences can be extrapolated to explain the broader culture. All three borrow language from Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis to depict the collision between these “opposing forces.” Sultan has stated that “the clash we are witnessing around the world is … a clash between freedom and oppression.” Hirsli Ali describes “the clash of values between the tribal culture of Islam and Western modernity." And Darwish refers to Islam as “an attack on civilization itself by haters of civilization.”

These apostates also frequently adopt a certain presumptuous arrogance in their statements about Islam and its adherents that non-Muslim westerners would likely find difficult to pull off. Hirsi Ali, for example, has spoken repeatedly of “the tragedy of the tribal Muslim man” who has fallen prey to “the grip of jihad,” claiming that “the only difference between my relatives and me is that I opened my mind.” Sultan has claimed that the Crusades were simply the logical reaction to “Islamic religious teachings.” And Darwish has frequently spoken of the “culture of death” in the Middle East.

Adopted by the Right

The hawkish right in the United States has heavily promoted the writings of these women, who have subsequently joined the ranks of neoconservative organizations like the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Security Policy, and the Middle East Media Research Institute. Unsurprisingly, these groups share many of the views of their new pundits: an unapologetic defense of all things “western,” a perceived moral duty to protect the civilized West against Islam, and a willingness to use all means necessary to achieve this objective. Commenting on this pattern, Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald has pointed out that those keenest to “help” the oppressed people of the Middle East are also those most eager to bomb countries in the region.

These apostate Muslims and their neocon colleagues have developed tight, symbiotic relationships. Rightwing institutions provide platforms and legitimacy, allowing otherwise little known individuals to rise to positions of international prominence. None of these so-called experts have produced serious scholarship or careful analysis of actual political effects, aside from personal or anecdotal experience. And their main value, at least in terms of political discourse in the United States, appears to be that, as former insiders, they can provide a sheen of legitimacy to the Islamophobic tendencies of their rightwing supporters.

A similar phenomenon can be seen with the growing prominence of Western-born Muslims who, although not apostates, promote hawkish U.S. policies toward the Middle East. One such figure is Zuhdi Jasser, a Wisconsin-born practicing Muslim who is a member of the neocon-led Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) and founder of the group American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Jasser is quoted on the CPD website, saying: “Only freedom-loving devotional American Muslims can lead an effective counter-jihad from within the Muslim community. The future of American liberty and the free world as we know it depends upon the moral courage of anti-Islamist Muslims.”

The Militarist Agenda

The views expressed by these apostates tend to bolster some of the more hawkish U.S. Mideast policies. For example, Hirsi Ali’s August 2010 article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled “How to Win the Clash of Civilizations,” advocated a “divide-and-rule” strategy to protect “our civilization” from destruction. She goes on to praise “The greatest advantage of Huntington's civilizational model of international relations … [is that] it reflects the world as it is—not as we wish it to be. It allows us to distinguish friends from enemies.” In earlier article, she called for a continued military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, implying that any withdrawal would have “jihadis dancing in jubilation.”

Nonie Darwish has railed against the willingness of Western countries to “appease … and assimilate” Muslims, since “all mosques have an anti-American and an anti-peace message” based in a “culture of jihad, tribalism and terror.”

Even more alarmingly, Wafa Sultan has publicly stated that “1.3 billion Muslims … have to realize they have only two choices: to change or to be crushed,” implying that the “pressure” may have to take the form of “atom bombs.”

Comments like these are given more weight because of the identities of the sources. By vilifying the aspirations of the societies they’ve left behind, their discourse takes on an air of “truth to power,” safe from charges of neo-colonialism or western exceptionalism. Their hyperbolic pronouncements have consistently been used to buttress conservative arguments for war by creating a pretense that “people from the region” support such actions. Publications advocating tougher, more aggressive policies in the “war on terror” often rely on narratives provided by these figures, in ways reminiscent of Chalabi’s “intelligence” on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Amir Abbas Fakhravar’s claims of impending Iranian collapse.

There is a certain paradox in the effort to rely on indigenous opinions to justify policies, while ignoring the overwhelming condemnation of such perspectives by the vast majority of the indigenous people themselves. And yet, these figures are repeatedly held up to mirror and confirm the predetermined opinions of war-hungry organizations eager to validate their destructive agendas.

The New Face of Orientalism

Early this year, David Frum, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush who famously coined the “Axis of Evil” phrase, hosted a posh gathering in northwest Washington D.C. to honor Ayaan Hirsi Ali for her “strength,” “courage,” and “intelligence.” Though attendees were limited for “security reasons,” Hirsi Ali was surrounded by fellow neocons, discussing topics from the “liberation of Iran” to the “religious extremism” behind the Gaza flotilla. The respect afforded by militarist ideologues to Hirsi Ali and her compatriots is palpable, based almost solely on the ability of these figures to validate simplistic perceptions of the Muslim world as violent, backward, and dangerous.

Just as diehard Cold Warriors viewed all socialist countries as a single, threatening entity, these apostates and their rightwing supporters have reified the Islamic world into an undifferentiated mass. They conveniently lump the disparate strains of Islam, the competing visions of Muslim identity, and the blurred and fluid boundaries of the Middle East, into a single—and threatening—unit. But in reality, the “Muslim world,” if such an entity can be said to exist, would encompass not only the Deobandis of Pakistan and the Wahhabis of the Gulf, but also Sufi mystics in Konya, Druzes in Lebanon, Shafi’i in Indonesia, and countless others.

Additionally, this monolithic view leaves little room for positive developments, such as the creation of democratic institutions in 23 Muslim countries. And it seems to have blinded these apostates to the injustices that have resulted from U.S. military interventions. This view also fails to account for the many actors and organizations throughout the Greater Middle East who may disagree with Western policies for reasons not derived from religion or culture, such as the secular PFLP in Palestine or the Free Patriotic Movement in Lebanon.

As The Economist notes in its review of Hirsi Ali’s autobiography Infidel (Free Press 2007), the lives of “Muslims [are] more complex than many people in the West may have realized. But the West’s tendency to seek simplistic explanations is a weakness that Ms. Hirsi Ali also shows she has been happy to exploit.”

The Irony of Demonization

There is an irony underlying the careers of these recanted Muslims—namely, that the very same western policies they refuse to condemn often spur the resentment they ascribe as cultural backwardness or religious fervor. The anger and protestations of Muslims are often more rooted in rational considerations than Western militarists are willing to admit. Muslims, like any other group, possess layered identities, any aspect of which can be aroused in anger. As M. Junaid Levesque-Alam of the Crossing the Crescent blog explains, “When three planes hurtled into national icons, did anger and hatred rise in American hearts only after consultation of Biblical verses?”

Indeed, the very existence of icons such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, and Nonie Darwish falsifies to a great extent the notion of a monolithic Muslim world. Their ability to react and rebel against their environment, as well as the variety of Muslim responses to their work, demonstrate the diversity of thought and opinion within Muslim society. Portraying Muslims in a simplistic and negative light may be a useful tool to build popular support for military campaigns. But in the long term, ignorance and stereotyping will only serve to undermine any policy objectives in the region. A more thoughtful foreign policy would be one that is grounded in dialogue, interaction, and the drive for understanding—not demonizing and finger-pointing. The sooner the U.S. public confronts this reality, the sooner peace can be achieved in the Middle East.

Samer Araabi is a Right Web research assistant and a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus.

[A LA Times Op-Ed]

A law we don't need

Oklahoma's amendment prohibiting courts from considering Islam's Sharia law in decisions is the product of fear-mongering.

By Michael A. Helfand

Oklahomans have a plan to save the country. It doesn't address the reverberations of the financial crisis or outline a way to pay for social services on a limited budget. Instead, they've fashioned a "preemptive strike" against Islamic law in the United States. Last week, 70% of Oklahoma's electorate approved this amendment to the state's Constitution: "The [Oklahoma] Courts … when exercising their judicial authority … shall not consider international law or Sharia Law."

Oklahoma isn't alone. Arizona is considering a bill that would prohibit state judges from "rely[ing] on any body of religious sectarian law or foreign law," and a similar bill has just been introduced in the South Carolina Legislature. Whether more states will hop on the bandwagon may depend on the outcome of a lawsuit filed in Oklahoma federal district court that contends that the amendment violates the 1st Amendment. But the amendment is not just of dubious constitutionality; it's dangerous and unnecessary on the merits.

Rex Duncan, a Republican state representative in Oklahoma and a sponsor of the amendment, has explained that part of its purpose is to ban religious forms of arbitration: "Parties would come to the courts and say we want to be bound by Islamic law and then ask the courts to enforce those agreements. That is a backdoor way to get Sharia law into courts. There ... have been some efforts, I believe, to explore bringing that to America, and it's dangerous."

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In reality, such arbitration is well established. For nearly half a century, Jewish, Christian and Muslim tribunals have operated in the United States in concert with government courts. These tribunals preside over matters of religious ritual and also apply religious law to a wide range of disputes between individuals and even commercial entities. Parties, in keeping with shared beliefs and values, can voluntarily agree to submit employment, divorce, contractual and various other types of disputes for resolution. State and federal courts currently treat such religious tribunals as they do all other arbitration panels that litigants can seek out as an alternative to going to court. And, as long as the tribunal and its decisions meet certain standards, government courts routinely "confirm" them — that is, render them legally enforceable.

To some, the prospect that the "Save Our State" amendment could challenge this process would be a positive development. In fact, if we were to buy into some of the characterizations propounded by some pundits and politicians, we might think that religious arbitration could force U.S. courts to allow dismemberment or stoning as a form of punishment. But if the awards of religious tribunals are to be enforced in court, the hearings must comply with various procedural requirements, the arbitration agreements cannot be unconscionable, and the awards cannot contravene state and federal laws. Indeed, under the aptly titled "public policy exception," courts cannot enforce any arbitration award, including one issued by a religious tribunal, that undermines U.S. public policies.

For example, parties before a religious tribunal have a right to an attorney that cannot be waived. The tribunal must give notice to the parties regarding all hearings. And it must accept all relevant evidence and allow parties to cross-examine witnesses.

When it comes to the decisions themselves, just as a court cannot enforce a contract to hire a hit man, a court cannot enforce an arbitration award that requires something such as stoning or caning. Nor could a court confirm a religious tribunal's child custody decision without making its own independent determination as to what was in the best interests of the child. In the words of a New York court, "An arbitration award that deprives a party of a constitutional right to seek redress or protection in a civil or criminal matter is against public policy."

But that alone isn't a reason to maintain the tradition of religious arbitration. This form of justice sometimes provides legal redress that the state and federal courts cannot.

Consider a case in which a pastor, imam or rabbi is given a lifetime contract (a relatively common practice) that allows his or her congregation to terminate his or her employment only for cause. Somewhere down the line, the congregation decides that its religious leader is no longer doing the job. Accordingly, the congregation terminates the contract. But the pastor, imam or rabbi might very well disagree that there was cause for the dismissal. Where does he or she go to bring that claim?

The answer is not in state or federal court. The establishment clause of the 1st Amendment prohibits government courts from rendering a view regarding religious doctrine. And deciding what the appropriate responsibilities of a pastor or imam or rabbi are, and whether they have been fulfilled, would generally amount to rendering such a view. As a result, the court could only dismiss the case. However, the pastor, imam or rabbi could turn to a religious tribunal, and a U.S. court could later confirm the decision and give it legal force.

Legislation banning religious arbitration is deeply misguided. The decisions of religious tribunals are unenforceable unless they comply with public policy. And we need them to address cases that constitutional doctrine prohibits from being litigated in government courts. In the end, allowing state and federal courts to "consider" the findings of religious tribunals for the purposes of "confirmation" doesn't violate cherished religious freedoms, it enhances them.

Laws like Oklahoma's "Save Our State" amendment pander to unfounded fears. Instead of saving the nation, they merely add to its list of problems.

Michael A. Helfand is an associate professor of law at Pepperdine University and associate director of the university's Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies.

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

As I prepare for my upcoming sabbatical (more about that later in sha'Allah!), during which I intend to spend most of my time in my hometown of New York City, I was pleasantly surprised by a recent commentary by CNN's Fareed Zakaria (a Harvard man I believe!) on the Lower Manhattan Islamic Center controversy. Check it out.

According to various eyewitness reports, CDs containing the viciously anti-Islamic propaganda film, "Obsession," were recently being distributed in Harvard Square. This fact has apparently not gone unnoticed by Harvard College students: the distribution of the CDs outside the gates of the University has been mentioned unfavorably by members of one of the Quad Houses on the House's e-mail list. While much could be said about the links between one of the major presidential candiates and the shadowy organization that is massively financing the distribution of "Obsession" CDs by mail, in newspapers and on the streets of the so-called "swing" states, I restrict myself to here to calling attention to an insightful essay that points out just some of the fallacies that the film seeks to promote.

In a recent entry on his blog, New Islamic Direction, the inimitable Imam Zaid Shakir reveals some of historical and political inanities to be found in this Islamophobic piece of propaganda. I reproduce the entire essay here in recognition of its relevance and importance:

Recently, 28 million copies of the anti-Islamic propaganda documentary, Obsession, were distributed free of charge in what are being considered the “swing” states in the current election campaign. This effort is clearly designed to leverage the idea in the minds of many Americans that Senator Barack Obama is a Muslim (he is not), and therefore, he is to be identified with the images and statements of Muslims portrayed in the video. These portrayals give the impression that Islam is a fanatical, bloodthirsty religion, whose adherents are hell-bent on destroying America. In essence, the video represents a diabolical attempt by dark forces to sway an American election.

The film is black propaganda that relies in some instances on distorting the truth and in others on blatant lies or vile innuendos. One of the allegations advanced by the film that is particularly insidious is that Islam is the new fascism, a deadly force that constitutes an existentialist threat to the United States. To support this allegation, the film’s producers juxtapose scenes of Nazi marches and other forms of political imagery with corresponding Muslim images. I have briefly discussed the issue of the Islamo-Fascist threat in my article, Vote for Me and I’ll Set You Free. There I mentioned:

In recent days, surrogates of one of my opponents have been distributing, free of charge, a disturbing DVD entitled “Obsession.” This film attempts to portray the maniacal rants of a minuscule fringe of deluded Muslim fanatics as an existentialist threat to the United States that must be combated by the full might of the United States’ military and society. It tries to deceive you into believing that “Radical Islam” and “Islamo-Fascism” is the 21st Century equivalent of Hitler’s Germany. Both history and contemporary reality belie that claim. Nazi Germany was an industrialized state that had military means that rivaled or surpassed those of America. Had circumstances proved more favorable for the Germans, they could have well developed an atomic bomb before America. Similarly, under more fortuitous circumstances, Germany’s ballistic missile program, which produced the deadly V2 Rocket, and its fighter aircraft program, which introduced the Messerschmitt 262, the world’s first tactic jet fighter, could have given Germany a tactical advantage that could have turned the tide of the war in Hitler’s favor.

As a result of their combined military strength, combating the fascist threat of Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hirohito’s Japan would require the military service of 16.1 million American troops and cost 406,000 American lives. What has been the cost of containing the so-called “Islamo-Fascist” threat? First of all, there is only one real front in the so-called “War on Terror,” Afghanistan. There, the remnants of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the latter of which has not been implicated in a single terrorist act against the United States, have been held in check by 34,000 American troops currently on the ground, at a cost of 519 American lives, even though the conflict there has endured longer than World War Two. The number of troops committed, and the number of lives sacrificed gives you a clear indication of the true extent of the nature of the threat posed by Radical Islam.

The shameless allegation that Islam is the new fascism would be bad enough were it presented in isolation. However, it is coupled with the false claim that Muslims supported Hitler and the Nazis during World War Two. This claim is a foul misrepresentation of the historical record and it serves to dishonor the memory of all of the courageous Muslims who selflessly fought and died in defense of the European democracies, even though many of their own lands were still suffering under the yoke of European colonization.

At the heart of this baseless and base allegation is the fact that the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem, Al-Hajj Amin al-Husseini, had close ties to the German leader Adolf Hitler, and even spent part of the war in Berlin. While this much is true, al-Husseini’s sentiments were not those of the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians, to say nothing of the rest of the world’s Muslims. To use al-Husseini’s ties to Hitler as a means to defame and discredit Islam and Muslims as fascists is misleading and has to be challenged.

In fact, there were several Palestinian brigades in the British Army who actively fought the spread of fascism. The existence of these Palestinian brigades was more indicative of the mood of the Arab and Muslim masses, than al-Husseini’s misguided actions. Therefore, when al-Husseini issued his call for a Muslim “Jihad” against the allied forces his plea was largely ignored. The fascist “Jihad” never materialized. The reason for that is simple. It had no significant support from the masses of Muslims.

The Palestinian Muslims were not alone in terms of their participation in the anti-fascist effort. Hundreds of thousands of North and West African Muslims assisted in the liberation of France from the German occupation and the French Vichy government. Upwards to half of the free French forces that landed in southern France in 1944 were Africans, the overwhelming majority of them Muslims. Among their ranks is a group referred to as Senegal’s Secret Soldiers, a group of Senegalese Muslims who played a major role in the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation.

One of this country’s staunchest Muslim allies in the struggle against the fascist menace was the Moroccan king, Muhammad V. He not only worked strenuously to insure that Moroccans supported neither the French Vichy government nor the Nazi effort in North Africa, but he also courageously supported Moroccan Jews during the war years.

Farther east, hundreds of thousands of Muslims enrolled in the British Indian Army. On January 1, 1945, there were 447,580 Punjabi Muslims in the British Indian Army. This number constituted 32% of the army’s troop strength, a percentage tremendously greater than the percentage of Muslims in the overall population. These Muslim soldiers were deployed in all of the major theaters of battle in the fight against the Axis powers and performed admirably. They were firmly supported by the political leader of the Muslims in India, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a fervent critic of Hitler.

The claim of widespread Muslim support for Hitler is further belied by the fact that Turkey, at that time the strongest independent Muslim nation, maintained strict neutrality for most of the war. When the Turks did enter the war they did so on the side of the Alliance. The Turks broke all diplomatic and economic relations with the Germans in August of 1944, and declared war against Germany, February 25, 1945. These moves were instrumental in the defeat of fascism. Besides the political importance of Turkey’s declaration of war against the Axis forces, her entrance into the war on the side of the Alliance deprived Germany of one of its major supplies of chromite, an essential element in her steel production.

Perhaps the greatest testimony to the Muslims who actively opposed fascism is the work of the Paris Mosque in protecting Jewish children from the Nazis, who were sending French Jews: men, women, and children to perish in the death camps of Eastern Europe. The mosque itself was built by the French government in appreciation of the 500,000 Muslims who had fought for France during World War One, with 100,000 losing their lives in the trenches. It is estimated that the mosque helped to save over 1,700 Jewish children, by providing them with shelter, transit, and Muslim names. Below is a copy of a pamphlet that circulated among Algerian Muslims in Paris at the onset of the Nazis’ campaign against the Jews in France:

Yesterday at dawn, the Jews of Paris were arrested. The old, the women, and the children. In exile like ourselves, workers like ourselves. They are our brothers. Their children are like our own children. The one who encounters one of his children must give that child shelter and protection for as long as misfortune - or sorrow - lasts. Oh, man of my country, your heart is generous.

It is a great shame that sinister propaganda like Obsession is allowed to be disseminated in this country. Similarly vile hatemongering would never be allowed were it directed at Jews, African Americans, gays or other segments of the American population. It is a greater shame that supposedly reputable newspapers such as The New York Times have participated openly and actively in that campaign. However, the greatest shame is for us Muslims to sit back and do nothing. We have to fight back with the truth. We have to organize to disseminate the truth, and to inform the citizens of this land of who we are as Muslims, the truth about our religion, and our history. Most importantly, we cannot allow the honor and dignity of our innocent coreligionists, whose sacrifices have enriched humanity, to be trampled on and violated by individuals who have placed themselves in the service of a sinister and nefarious agenda