8/26/2008 | News | Gilbert T. Sewall

Textbook Lies about Islam

Islam is one of the most important issues of our time, but you wouldn't know it from reading a high school textbook. What students learn makes it almost impossible to understand Islam in history or the world today, much less what fuels Islam's challenge to peace and international security.

7/20/2008 | News | Middle East Media Research Institute

Mujahideen Monitor U.S. Economy, Attempt to Undermine Dollar

Numerous postings on Islamist websites in the past two years reflect the mujahideen's growing interest in the state of the U.S. economy. As was argued in a 2007 MEMRI analysis, [1] many of the jihadists and their supporters have come to view their struggle against the U.S. and the West as an economic war. More specifically, they have come to the conclusion that it is financial, rather than military, losses that will prompt the U.S. to change its policies in the Middle East and elsewhere. Consequently, they emphasize the importance of targeting U.S. interests around the world, and of directing their military jihad primarily at targets that affect the U.S. economy.

7/20/2008 | News | Middle East Media Research Institute

Lebanese Sunni Cleric Sheikh Maher Hamoud: I Admire Bin Laden, But Would Not Have Sanctioned 9/11 Attacks – Except for Those on Pentagon, CIA HQ, and White House

Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Sunni cleric Sheikh Maher Hamoud, which aired on NBN, a TV channel affiliated with the head of the Amal movement, Nabih Berri, on July 7, 2008. Sheikh Hamoud, imam of Al-Quds mosque in Sidon, Lebanon, has given interviews to Western journalists, [1] and has received financial support from former Australian mufti Taj Din al-Hilali. [2] Sheikh Hamoud is the scion of a prominent Sidon family and grandson of a former mufti of the city. According to media reports, he is an ally of Hizbullah, and in the early 1980s was one of the first Sunni clerics in Lebanon to embrace the revolutionary message of the founder of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. [3] To view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1808.htm.

7/20/2008 | News | Middle East Media Research Institute

Saudi Human and Women's Rights Activist Wajeha Al-Huwaidar Speaks Out Against Honor Killings

On April 7, 2007, a teenage Yazidi Kurdish girl named Du'a Al-Aswad was stoned to death by a lynch-mob in Iraq, because she had violated her family's honor. A video of the stoning, filmed by the participants themselves using their mobile phones, was posted on http://leilamagazine17.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post_6785.html . A year after the stoning, Saudi reformist and human rights activist Wajeha Al-Huweidar wrote a scathing article in which she harshly criticized the sexist character of Arab culture and particularly the phenomenon of "honor killings." The following are excerpts from her article, which appeared on the reformist website www.aafaq.org. "This Entire Part of the World [is Full of] Defeated and Dejected Men, Whose Only Way to Feel Victorious Is by Beating Women to Death" "Last April, a 17-year old Iraqi girl named Du'a Khalil Al-Aswad fell in love with a boy from a different [religious] sect. By this act, she violated the 'honor' of the men in her sect, causing them to go mad with the boiling [rage] of hellfire. Their male [egos] swelled like cancerous tumors, and their minds locked into the primitive madness of 'honor.'

7/8/2008 | News | Frank Gaffney

Islamists' Catch-22

Try a little thought experiment. What would have happened in this country during the Cold War if the Soviet Union successfully neutralized anti-communists opposed to the Kremlin's plans for world domination? Of course, Moscow strove to discredit those in America and elsewhere who opposed its totalitarian agenda - especially after Sen. Joseph McCarthy's excesses made it fashionable to vilify patriots by accusing them of believing communists were "under every bed." But what if the U.S.S.R. and its ideological soul-mates in places like China, North Korea, Cuba, Eastern Europe and parts of Africa had been able to criminalize efforts to oppose their quest for the triumph of world communism? What if it had been an internationally prosecutable offense even to talk about the dangers inherent in communist rule and the need to resist it? The short answer is that history might very well have come out differently. Had courageous anti-communists been unable accurately and forcefully to describe the nature of that time's enemy - and to work against the danger posed by its repressive, seditious program, the Cold War might well have been lost.

7/8/2008 | News | Huma Yusuf

Female suicide bombings in Iraq: Why the recent surge?

The number of attacks carried out by female suicide bombers in Iraq has increased sharply in 2008, causing observers to probe more deeply the motivations of the women involved and review policies that might be prompting the surge. Others are trying to determine whether this new tactic signals Al Qaeda's innovation or desperation in its fight against Iraqi and US forces. A female suicide bomber killed nine people and injured 12 others on Monday at a market near Baquba in Iraq. A BBC report highlights that the attack is the latest in a wave of bombings by women. The use of women to carry out suicide bombings has become a regular tactic of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The US military says there have been more than 20 suicide bombings by women this year in Iraq.

7/8/2008 | News | By:Tashbih Sayyed, Ph. D

Fourth of July - Is America Safe?

We must realize that the real war to defeat America is not being fought in South Asia, Central Asia or the Middle East, but right here in the United States of America. Our enemies have adopted our ways, our mannerisms, and our language. Understanding our commitment to our values, the enemies of Americanism have become "Americans". They are using our democracy and our freedoms to subvert the very Constitution that is the source of them.

7/8/2008 | News | Supna Zaidi

Why Secularism Matters

What does it mean to be offended and when does a person have the right to expect the law to intervene because we have been offended? The West's sense of "offense" versus the Muslim world's is fast becoming a central issue all over the world and is a factor in the failure of secularism in the Muslim world so far. From the dramatic riots caused by the Dutch cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to more subtle fights in the courtroom, where Islamists shout defamation and bigotry to censor criticism in the name of respect for their faith. So long as there is no separation of religion from the public sphere, Muslims will never be raised to understand the difference between legitimate debating, disagreement and critique from racism and bigotry.