In an interview on Fox News on June 13th, Donald Trump said: “Look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind. And the something else in mind – you know, people can’t believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism’. There is something going on. It is inconceivable. There is something going on.”
Although Mr. Trump did not elaborate on what he meant by “something going on,” Jenna Johnson from The Washington Post, reporting on the interview apparently x-rayed his head. Figuring out what was in Trump’s mind, she came up with an article that was originally titled ‘Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shootings’, and later re-titled, as ‘Donald Trump seems to connect Obama to Orlando shooting.’
Evidently in order to dispel Ms. Johnson’s concerns regarding his involvement in Orlando’s despicable crime or perhaps in order to mollify Trump, after his meeting with his National Security Council on June 14th Barack Obama delivered a speech, in which for the first time in his presidency, he connected the words ‘radical’ and ‘Islam’ together.
Indignantly stating that he and his administration are wrongly criticized for not using the phrase “radical Islam,” he continued: “That‘s the key, they tell us. We can’t beat ISIL unless we call them radical Islamists. What exactly would using this label accomplish? ... Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.”
Obama is right; if one calls the threat by a different name it will not go away. But if it is called by its proper name, perhaps it can be at least properly opposed? Perhaps, it would be easier for people to understand where the threat is coming from and what it is?
ISIS did not “pervert Islam to justify terrorism,” and it does not have a “twisted interpretation of one of the world’s great religions” as the President tries to convince the American people. ISIS preaches radical Islam. Last year the Islamic State (ISIS) released a document called “These Are Our Creeds and Ways”. As reported by MEMRI* on June 2nd, Professor Ella Landau-Tasseron, former Chair of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, had recently reviewed the document. Below is her conclusion:
In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated … Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.
“The document ‘These are our Creeds and Ways’ is a self-profile of the Islamic State, reflecting its basic theology and political ideology. ISIS declares that it shuns extremism, and in fact it adds nothing new to traditional Islamic dogmas except for making the return of the caliphate a mandatory article of faith. The document deals with topics that have occupied Muslim minds for generations, yet it also reflects modern and local conditions and phenomena. It is firmly based on Islamic sources, which it cites often, and much of its content is identical to Islamic conservative Hanbali [one of the four major schools of Islamic law] and neo-Hanbali doctrines.”
By pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people, striving to hide the religious component of the threat Obama is doing a disservice to the adherents of Islam. Perhaps, Mr. Obama was so strong in his beliefs that he was not infected by the anti-American and anti-Semitic rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright while sitting in the pews of the Trinity church for more than twenty years. But how can he be sure that young American Muslims attracted by Islam would be able to withstand the insidious lures of radical Islam? Is he sure that they will be able to tell the difference between Sufism and Wahhabism, between Salafism and the traditional Sunni Islam if they are not firmly told and taught to be aware of the inherent dangers of the radical Islam? How will they know that they are attending a “virtuous” rather than an “evil” mosque?
In his speech Obama asked: “Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently? Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance?” It might happen that the answer to these questions would not be politically correct if one looks into the results of a 2011 Study carried out by Professor Mordechai Kedar from Bar Ilan University’s Department of Arabic and Middle East Studies. A “random survey of 100 representative mosques in the U.S.” showed that “51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all. In 84.5% of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts and 58% percent of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad.”
Maybe it is time to start using common sense? We do not need “to start treating all Muslim Americans differently” but if according to the Clarion project, a non-profit group that describes itself as “dedicated to exposing the dangers of Islamic extremism” there are “more than 80 radical mosques in the US,” at least these mosques should be put under strict surveillance or simply closed.
Perhaps if the term “radical Islam” is defined as dangerous to America it is time to look more carefully at the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) identified as Muslim Brotherhood front group in the 2004 Holy Land trail. Every time the terror strikes on the American soil, a representative of CAIR rushes to perform the damage control to the image of Islam. But should we really trust an organization whose founder is Omar M. Ahmad? The San Ramon Valley Herald wrote in an article on July 4th, 1998 about his speech “before a packed crowd at the Flamingo Palace banquet urging Muslims not to shirk their duty of sharing the Islamic faith with those ‘who are on the wrong side.’” Appealing to Muslims Ahmad declared: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant”. “The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth,” he said.
Describing an interview he conducted with Obama Nicholas Kristof wrote on March 7, 2007 in the New York Times: “Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated … Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset."
It is a pity that Mr. Kristof is not versed in Arabic and was not curious enough to ask Obama to translate the Arabic verses into English. To remedy this, we will appeal to one of the utmost authority in Islam, the 14th century sheikh Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri the author of the Reliance of the Traveller – A classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law. He writes on page 114: “The words of the call to prayer are well known: Allah is greatest. Allah is greatest. Allah is greatest. Allah is greatest. I testify there is no god but Allah. I testify there is no god but Allah. I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. Come to the prayer. Come to the prayer. Come to success. Come to success. Prayer is better than sleep. Prayer is better than sleep. Allah is greatest. Allah is greatest. There is no god but Allah.”
Pausing for just a moment to digest these lines, let the reader consider that these are the words that President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama considers to be “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset?” What is really going on?
* http://www.memri.org/pdf/MEMRI_IA_A_Self-Profile_of_the_Islamic_State-The_Creedal_Document2.pdf
Boris Shusteff is an engineer. He is also a research associate with the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies.