Daily Archives: August 28, 2008

American Children Being Brainwashed in Taliban Madrassas

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Recently Brigitte Gabriel was invited to attend a weekend meeting that included elected officials and leaders of organizations concerned about radical Islam.

During that time she had the opportunity to meet with the producers of a documentary entitled “Karachi Kids.” “Karachi Kids” chronicles how children from around the world, including Americans and Canadians, are being sent off to a Pakistani madrassa run by the Taliban, to be brainwashed and sent back to their home countries as jihadists.

The school claims that it has already “graduated” over 100 American children.

Please read the press release below and click on The Karachi Kids to view the trailer.

Then, click here to contact your Member of Congress and two U.S. Senators and ask them to support legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX).

McCaul’s bill, H.Res 1336, calls for an accounting of how many American children are in radical Islamic madrassas in Pakistan. H.Res 1336 encourages “the United States Secretary of State to work with the government of Pakistan to secure the return to the United States of all American children being educated in madrassas in Pakistan.”

STATEMENT OF IMRAN RAZA

REGARDING RELEASE OF

AMERICAN CHILDREN FROM

PAKISTANI TALIBAN MADRASSA

(Atlanta, GA) – Imran Raza, the director and executive producer of the documentary “Karachi Kids” who discovered up to 80 American children in a Taliban-backed madrassa in Pakistan released the following statement regarding the return of two American children to Atlanta:
I am grateful for the safe return of the two American children from Atlanta from a Taliban- backed madrassa but the mullah claims to have up to 78 more in his institution. The headmaster comes to the United States once a year and personally recruits American children to enroll in his madrassa.
The remaining 78 children must be returned to the United States. This pipeline to jihad must be closed.
Let me be clear – these children do not learn math, or science, or liberal arts. They learn one thing – they memorize over the course of seven years every verse of the Koran coupled with the radical interpretation of their teachers.
This is just the first step in integrating these children back to American society. I am proud we did our part so we could say “Welcome Home.”
It is imperative that Members of Congress and the State Department undertake an accounting of just how many Americans are in the other 20,000 madrassas in Pakistan. Hundreds remain behind.

The Karachi Kids is a documentary about American children in the Jamia Binoria madrassa in Karachi Pakistan. A trailer of the film is available at www.karachikids.com.

Facts About the Binoria Madrassa

  • Located in Karachi, Pakistan, the Jamia Binoria madrassa was founded by Mufti Muhammed Naeem and espouses Deobandism — the religion of the Taliban.
  • The institution houses over 3,000 students including children from the United States and Canada.
  • Selig Harrison, the Director of the Asian Program for the Center for International Policy recently gave a speech reafng the link between the Jamia Binoria and the Taliban: “In Karachi, the Jamia Binoria, withsome 10,000 students enrolled in eight afted madrassas, displays a banner at its main gate urging Muslims to join the Taliban.”
  • A large number of graduates from the Binoria have become senior es in the Taliban.
  • Right before 9/11, Osama bin Laden addressed the students emphasizing the importance of jihad.
  • Mufti claims to have graduated over 100 Americans from his institution and asked what they teach the children, Mufti relied, “Islam, not math or anything else, only Islam.”

Barack Obama through Muslim Eyes

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Many questions about Barack Obama’s religious beliefs have been raised. Daniel Pipes has done a series of commentaries on this subject, and his most recent, “Barack Obama through Muslim Eyes,” is especially illuminating. Links to the first three articles can be found at the bottom.

by Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com
August 25, 2008
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5845

How do Muslims see Barack Hussein Obama? They have three choices: either as he presents himself – someone who has “never been a Muslim” and has “always been a Christian“; or as a fellow Muslim; or as an apostate from Islam.

Reports suggests that while Americans generally view the Democratic candidate having had no religion before converting at Reverend Jeremiah Wrights’s hands at age 27, Muslims the world over rarely see him as Christian but usually as either Muslim or ex-Muslim.

Lee Smith of the Hudson Institute explains why: “Barack Obama’s father was Muslim and therefore, according to Islamic law, so is the candidate. In spite of the Quranic verses explaining that there is no compulsion in religion, a Muslim child takes the religion of his or her father. … for Muslims around the world, non-American Muslims at any rate, they can only ever see Barack Hussein Obama as a Muslim.” In addition, his school record from Indonesia lists him as a Muslim.

Thus, an Egyptian newspaper, Al-Masri al-Youm, refers to his “Muslim origins.” Libyan ruler Mu‘ammar al-Qaddafi referred to Obama as “a Muslim” and a person with an “African and Islamic identity.” One Al-Jazeera analysis calls him a “non-Christian man,” a second refers to his “Muslim Kenyan” father, and a third, by Naseem Jamali, notes that “Obama may not want to be counted as a Muslim but Muslims are eager to count him as one of their own.”

A conversation in Beirut, quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, captures the puzzlement. “He has to be good for Arabs because he is a Muslim,” observed a grocer. “He’s not a Muslim, he’s a Christian,” replied a customer. Retorted the grocer: “He can’t be a Christian. His middle name is Hussein.” Arabic discussions of Obama sometimes mention his middle name as a code, with no further comment needed.

“The symbolism of a major American presidential candidate with the middle name of Hussein, who went to elementary school in Indonesia,” reports Tamara Cofman Wittes of the Brookings Institution from a U.S.-Muslim conference in Qatar, “that certainly speaks to Muslims abroad.” Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times found that Egyptians “don’t really understand Obama’s family tree, but what they do know is that if America — despite being attacked by Muslim militants on 9/11 — were to elect as its president some guy with the middle name ‘Hussein,’ it would mark a sea change in America-Muslim world relations.”

Some American Muslim leaders also perceive Obama as Muslim. The president of the Islamic Society of North America, Sayyid M. Syeed, told Muslims at a conference in Houston that whether Obama wins or loses, his candidacy will reinforce that Muslim children can “become the presidents of this country.” The Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan called Obama “the hope of the entire world” and compared him to his religion’s founder, Fard Muhammad.

But this excitement also has a dark side – suspicions that Obama is a traitor to his birth religion, an apostate (murtadd) from Islam. Al-Qaeda has prominently featured Obama’s stating “I am not a Muslim” and one analyst, Shireen K. Burki of the University of Mary Washington, sees Obama as “bin Laden’s dream candidate.” Should he become U.S. commander in chief, she believes, Al-Qaeda would likely “exploit his background to argue that an apostate is leading the global war on terror … to galvanize sympathizers into action.”

Mainstream Muslims tend to tiptoe around this topic. An Egyptian supporter of Obama, Yasser Khalil, reports that many Muslims react “with bewilderment and curiosity” when Obama is described as a Muslim apostate; Josie Delap and Robert Lane Greene of the Economist even claim that the Obama-as-apostate theme “has been notably absent” among Arabic-language columnists and editorialists.

That latter claim is inaccurate, for the topic is indeed discussed. At least one Arabic-language newspaper published Burki’s article. Kuwait’s Al-Watan referred to Obama as “a born Muslim, an apostate, a convert to Christianity.” Writing in the Arab Times, Syrian liberal Nidal Na‘isarepeatedly called Obama an “apostate Muslim.”

In sum, Muslims puzzle over Obama’s present religious status. They resist his self-identification as a Christian while they assume a baby born to a Muslim father and named “Hussein” began life a Muslim. Should Obama become president, differences in Muslim and American views of religious affiliation will create problems.

Aug. 25, 2008 update: This is the fourth in a series of articles I have published on Barack Obama’s ties to Islam. The prior three:

“Was Barack Obama a Muslim?” FrontPageMag.com, December 24, 2007. Raises questions about Obama’s childhood religion and considers some implications.

“Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam.” FrontPageMag.com, January 7, 2008. Replies to a critique of the previous article by “Media Matters for America.”

“Barack Obama’s Muslim Childhood.“ Jerusalem Post, May 1, 2008. Pulls together existing information on Obama’s childhood religion.