Anti-Semitism Is Alive And Well In The USA

 

Anti-Semitism is alive and well in the USA ...... is this the face of a new Neo Nazis or just the Righteous Right Wing Republicans ? The target ... Muslims , Islam in particular ,anything associated with Islam. The USA has legal freedom of religion but it seems only for the Jews and Christians now a days .Islamic dress ,Islamic TV , Islamic charity, Qurans , mosques ,prayer meetings are all under attack by these mad dogs calling themselves the Face Of America . I , as a American and a Muslim refuse to believe that my country is willing to throw out the basic right that was the founding stone of the formation of America , the freedom to practice your own religion regardless of what it may be .

America needs to wake up and smell the coffee , realize it is being manipulated by a few " special interest "groups that are hiding their true intent behind the cover of misguided patriotism . Who are they? As the Internal Revenue Agency in America always says ... " follow the money trail " and then you will find that answer .Who is financing these attacks against Islam ?Who has a vested interest in seeing it destroyed ?Who stands to benefit ?

 Ask yourself  the next time you see or hear some one slamming a religion, why ? Why are they so afraid ?Do they really have all the correct facts ? Not all religions are the same.Not all members that belong to a religion practices it the way it was meant to be practiced .In EVERY religion you will find the good , the misguided , and the bad. 

Think people , think for yourself . Don't follow blindly behind anyone elses thinking , that way leads to holocausts and ethicnic cleansing ." Read" , this was the 1st commandment God gave to Mohammed ; by it , He was telling Mohammed to think . You think too .

Understanding

With the quick approach of Ramadan , one stops to take stock of ones faith . I find that mine is strong but I am unable to express my beliefs for fear of stepping on non Muslims toe's, in public, too often .The below post from author Ellen Appleby Keim's blog  Muslimah.Femagination  says just what I feel . I hope you will read it .

Reaching Out to the World

Belief, Featured, Society and Politics Add comments

Jul 262010

It’s one thing to witness to non-Muslims by being strong in our faith. We shouldn’t shy away from practicing the Five Pillars or being open about who we are. But how many non-Muslims will feel comfortable about approaching us if they see this impenetrable wall of  Muslimness? And how do we reach through that wall if we know nothing about non-Muslims’ hopes, dreams and beliefs?

Why did Allah make us all different?

The Bible implies that God made us all to speak different languages as a punishment for man’s attempt to reach heaven by building the Tower of Babel. Islam puts a much more positive spin on our differences. Allah means for us to learn from one another. People who have different experiences of life can add to our wisdom about how to live. I don’t think it’s incidental that Muslims are taught to seek knowledge. We should always be open to learning new things. And one of the things we will learn is that people are not so very different at the core.
It’s wrong for Muslims to think that they are better than non-Muslims. If anything, we are just more fortunate. To harbor hate or prejudice in our hearts toward those who don’t embrace Islam runs counter to everything Allah intends for us. Hate and prejudice diminish the person who holds onto them. The only way to make an impression on non-Muslims is to show charity and love toward them. Love is the most powerful force in the world.

What can we learn from the Bible?

You may think that I sound too much like a Christian when I write things like that. But why do we consider Jesus to be one of the greatest of prophets if we don’t listen to what he had to say? Muslims have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Because we reject Jesus’ divinity, we tend to ignore his teachings. I know that Muslims think the Bible is corrupted, but that doesn’t mean that it has nothing in it that can teach us how to be better Muslims.
I was led to convert to Islam by a combination of knowledge and being loved. I didn’t come to Islam because I was afraid I would go to hell if I didn’t. In fact, I had to get over my fear of hell if I did. As a Christian, I was taught that the only way to God, and to eternal life, was through Jesus Christ. If I didn’t believe that Jesus was God and that he died as a sacrifice for my sins, I would go to hell. Even after I had stopped believing that Jesus was divine, I was afraid to stop going through him to get to God.

My conversion

But then I met Muslims who were secure and happy in their faith, who accepted and loved me even though I wasn’t a Muslim. They answered my questions about Islam, but left it totally up to me whether I would convert or not. And I know that even if I hadn’t, they would have remained friendly and caring toward me, because I’ve seen the way they are with other non-Muslims.
Non-Muslims think of Muslims as hate-filled and resentful toward Western culture. I won’t deny that there are some who are, just as there are some Christians who are hate-filled and resentful toward Islamic culture. But a Muslim—or a Christian—who is truly submitted to God isn’t like that. Submission to Allah means submission to His will, and His will is that we all come to Him. Anything we do as believers that causes non-believers to turn away from God is against His will, and therefore a sin.

Reaching through our Muslimness

Islam is simple at its core, but complicated in its practice. Sometimes I think that we make it too complicated. I know there are Muslims who believe that the simplest way is to follow all the precepts in the Qur’an and in Mohammad’s (pbuh) teachings. But what if you don’t know all there is to learn about Islam? You could become paralyzed wondering which way you should turn. Sometimes I feel afraid to do anything; it seems that the safest way is to reject anything that is not specifically labeled Islamic. But if you do that, you lose touch with the world, and I don’t believe that Allah wants us to do that.

Pray-In's Against Segregation Of The Sexes

The below is a reprint from the Washington Post Newspaper article on "Mosque Pray In's" , by writers 
William Wan and Michael Laris . The subject is about American Muslim women protesting being segregated in moques for prayers . It presents a interesting veiw that I hear many times here in Libya by women that would either love to go pray in the mosque and are prevented by coustom , or find there isn't room set aside for them to use as prayer rooms , or would just rather praye with the main congregations , at the back of the room behind the men . What do you think about this ?


Mosque pray-ins against segregation of sexes are springing up
By William Wan and Michael Laris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 22, 2010; B01


Last Saturday, five women took off their shoes and walked across the padded carpet at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque, one of the Washington region's largest Islamic centers.
For weeks, they had planned for this moment, to stand behind the men in the main prayer hall of the Falls Church mosque as an act of protest. Usually, women at the mosque pray in segregated spaces away from the men, but these women, who came from outside the Dar al-Hijrah community, wanted to make a point.
It was the third time this year that the women had staged a protest at a Washington area mosque, and, as before, the conflict began almost immediately. By the end, angry words would be exchanged, the police called.
Such "pray-in" protests have sprung up in Muslim communities across the country in the past decade as women's rights advocates and feminist Muslims have agitated for more shared spaces in mosques. One of the women at the Dar Al-Hijrah event, author Asra Nomani, was even featured in a 2009 film documenting her protest at a mosque in Morgantown, W.Va.
The activists have compared their efforts to the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, but those who oppose them say the issue is not that simple. At mosques where such protests have taken place, for example, the longtime female attendees often are happy with the arrangement because praying in a segregated space allows them privacy and modesty. It is only protesters barging in from outside their communities who clamor for change, they say. The goal of protesters has also changed from city to city, with some trying to pray behind the men in the prayer hall, others wanting to pray side-by-side.
Such nuances were lost at Dar al-Hijrah as the clash between the protesters and the mosque's leaders eventually devolved into a heated argument.
When the women entered for the 5:10 p.m. prayer, scores of men were already lined up in long rows beneath a domed skylight facing Imam Shaker Elsayed, the leader of the Fairfax County mosque. The mosque's regular attendees told the women that they belonged upstairs on the balcony, behind a glass barrier, where women usually pray.
But Elsayed, recognizing the women from a community debate weeks earlier, instructed the men to stand down. "We have a group of sisters who want to make a point," he said. Elsayed welcomed the women to remain but asked them to stand at the very back of the room. He believes it is immodest for women to prostrate themselves before Allah in full view of men standing or walking behind them.
But protester Fatima Thompson challenged Elsayed. "Your interpretation of that Sunnah is incorrect," she called out, referring to a guide to Islamic practice. The two continued sparring over sacred texts until Elsayed pulled back. "This is no time for argumentation. Let us go for the prayer," he told the room, but added this declaration: "This is your last visit to this place, Fatima. This is your last visit to this place." He later worked with police on paperwork to ban their return.

Protests in D.C., too
Thompson, of Owings Mills, said the idea for the protests came after she was directed behind a tall barrier this year at the Islamic Center of Washington and felt cut off from the life of the congregation. In February and March, the group staged protests at the District mosque and was told the protests were not welcome.
"I don't understand why they cannot just talk," said Fatima Goodwin, an administrator at the Islamic Center of Washington. "They don't even pray here regularly, and they come in here to tell us what to do. Anybody is welcome to pray with us, but they have to respect our rules and tradition."
"The sisters are not helping us," said a regular female attendee at Dar al-Hijrah who declined to give her name because she did not want to be publicly involved in the debate. "It's better we have our own room upstairs, our own freedom, you know what I mean?"
The protesters normally worship at other local mosques -- the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Dar us-Salaam in College Park and Dar al-Taqwa in Ellicott City -- which also segregate women from men for prayer.
Thompson said she went on a mission in February to "probe" Dar al-Hijrah as a protest target. She had a hidden digital recorder and asked women there about their views on being segregated to a balcony. She said she did not tell them that she was recording their comments.
"They pretty much were like: 'This is the way it is. We'll keep going with it,' " Thompson said. She talked to about a dozen women. Some were "actively" pro-segregation, Thompson said. "None of them said it should change," she said. But the group thinks such women have been brainwashed to some degree to accept a subservient or inferior position.
These conflicting views, Muslim leaders say, result from the interplay between Muslim tradition and American values.
"As the Muslim community in America has developed over the years, it's organized itself on the democratic basis of this country," said Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America.
Mosques now pick a governing board through elections, he said, and mosque leadership increasingly includes women from the community. The president of ISNA is a woman, Syeed said. "The democratization of our community is one of our biggest achievements in America, but because of that, you now see communities heading in different directions with different trends."
And there are conflicting values and allegiances even among the protest organizers. Many belong to a larger group called Muslims for Progressive Values but recently decided to keep the women in the mosque movement separate from the progressive Muslim group, which includes gay Muslims, lest they alienate people who may not support one cause or the other.
Questionable results
At the protest last Saturday, there was a tense scuffle when three men approached a protester videotaping the scene. After the prayers, a member of the mosque called Fairfax police, who asked the women to leave.
How much such protests accomplish is hard to measure. Female activists in other cities say it has led to more women-friendly mosques. In some cities like-minded women and Muslims have established services of their own in which they can worship however they want. Critics, however, say that the Muslim community has been moving to address such issues and that the women are picking fights for theater and are more interested in conflict than dialogue.
"People keep saying, why can't you do it in a civil way?" Thompson said. "But as long as they're comfortable, they're not going to do anything. Because of what we're doing, you can be sure it's being discussed in the community. We want them to wonder if we'll go to their mosque next, if what they're doing is right or wrong. I already have a mosque in mind for our next pray-in. We're not going to stop."

Talks on Prisoners Release

I hesitated to write on this subject knowing full well I might be opening Pandora's box of very nasty surprises , but I felt I had to comment on Libya's proposed action to release some Islamist rebels from prison . Saif Al Islam Ghaddafi , chairperson for The International Foundation, is currently in negotiations with an Al Quada- affiliated Islamist rebel group to release some of it's members that are in prison .

As a foreigner living here , married to a Libyan , mother to Libyans , grand mother to Libyans , I am frightened to know this may come about . Used to be , being a Muslim was a natural thing here . There was no compulsion in religion to be extreme . I mean everyone is Muslim here . The Christain foreigner's working here , or the occasional Christian married to a Libyan are the exception to the rule , but they are treated with respect and are allowed to worship as they wish . They are not allowed to evangelize though . But more and more on the streets here in Tripoli you will see men with short Arabic style dress , all rumpled , many times not too clean looking even though the clothing most be clean to pray in , short pants , long unkempt breads , menacing glares towards people in general , women singled out for the " special " look . If you try to engage them in a conversation they act as if you are the bane of Righteousness . Sometimes in tow , you will see a woman covered from head to toe in swaths of BLACK material ,with a veil shielding her face from view . This is a relatively new affection one didn't see here in Libya before maybe the mid 1990's . Women dressed however they felt like either traditionally or "western" , the same for men .They still do , don't get me wrong . But this growing group is pushing this form of dress on others , onto people that don't necessarily agree with them . Much like the Taila-bad in Afghanistan did with the baraka .

This is alarming ... WHY ? Because these people ( here I loosely use this term ) are generally the NEW MUSLIM RIGHT and they , I have noticed when ever I have occasion to engage them in conversation, are the Extremist that want radical change in the Muslim world , if not the entire world . They are NOT tolerant of other views , cultures , or religions .They think like many other closed minded groups through out history , that if you are not with them , then you are their enemy .

Where ever they have the power ( Pakistan , Afghanistan , Iran etc....) then chaos follows in government and civilian life , with the collapse of the economy . Women and children seem to pay the price with loss of simple freedoms such as education and for some reason , medical care . I find the frequency of the NEW MUSLIMS RIGHT converts down right scary . They are so black and white in their dealings and thoughts with the world ,no grey anywhere . No give or take with them . I am not alone in this feeling. This isn't just a foreigners feeling either . I hear Libyans expressing their concern also .They are too cautious to vocalize loudly their fears due to their concern over this groups growing power in the society . This is a potential future problem taking root now .Hopefully it can be worked out without jeopardizing religious freedoms we have now .