This is one of the most interesting articles I have read in awhile. Who knew? Somalis and other Muslim immigrants are leaving Islam in growing numbers, or at least hiding their rejection of the ‘faith.’ I’ve heard it said that there would be no Islam if there was no severe punishment for renouncing it. Around the world “apostasy” is a death sentence. Honor killings here in the US are a prime example of how Islam instills fear in its ‘followers.’
Here is The Economist with the fascinating news: Proof that free speech must be preserved. Hirsi Ali’s speaking out has influenced many to make the break!
AS SOON as he stepped off the plane on a family holiday to Kenya, Mahad Olad knew something was wrong. His mother, a “very devout, very conservative, very Wahhabi” woman, was acting strangely—furtively taking phone calls when she thought he was out of earshot. His suspicions would soon be proved correct. Mr Olad’s family, Somali immigrants to America and devout Muslims, had discovered that he had not only renounced Islam but was also gay. The holiday was a ruse, an intervention to save his soul.
Mr Olad was told he would leave college and be turned over the next day to the care of Muslim clerics who would restore his faith. “I was aware of the horrors of these camps,” Mr Olad says. “They operate them in the middle of nowhere, where you cannot escape. They subject you to beatings, starvation and trampling.” He tried to contact the American embassy, but it could not send help because of recent terrorist attacks nearby. Luckily, he also managed to reach a Kenyan atheist group. In the dead of night he sneaked into his mother’s room, stole his passport and was whisked away by taxi to the embassy, which eventually returned him safely to America. He has not spoken to his family since.
Though few have such harrowing stories, hundreds of thousands of American Muslims might recognise something like their own experience in Mr Olad’s tale. As the number of American Muslims has increased by almost 50% in the past decade, so too has the number of ex-Muslims. According to the Pew Research Centre, 23% of Americans raised as Muslims no longer identify with the faith. Most of them are young second-generation immigrants who have come to reject the religion of their parents. Some, however, are older when their crisis of faith arrives, already married to devout Muslim spouses and driving children to the mosque to study the Koran at weekends.
Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) touring the US. Is the SPLC trying to silence them too (as they have tried to do to Hirsi Ali)? https://www.exmna.org/ex-muslims-they-left-islam-and-now-tour-the-us-to-talk-about-it/
The vast majority, whether young or old, are silent about their faithlessness.
[….]
Publicly leaving Islam is difficult because many Muslims live in tight-knit communities. Many apostates are left closeted, afraid to put at risk their relationships with their parents, on whom they may still depend, or with their siblings and their friends. Non-believing Mormons, Hasidic Jews and evangelical Christians find themselves in a similar predicament. Within Somali enclaves in Minneapolis and Pakistani ones in Dallas, renunciation of Islam is tantamount to renunciation of an entire social circle. “The most frustrating part is living knowing that my life has to be guided by the rules I don’t agree with,” says one still deep in the closet.
[….]
Then there are those in more religious households. They tend to have cleaner breaks, sudden realisations while studying the Koran or the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. Often the verses that trigger this are controversial ones about slavery or gender that family members and imams cannot explain satisfactorily. Coming across the writings of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens sometimes has the same effect.
[….]
Despite all the pressure of family and community, more ex-Muslims seem to be going public. Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), an advocacy organisation, has pushed for those who safely can to publicly declare their renunciations.
“The goal is to change things enough so that we no longer need to exist,” says Sarah Haider, EXMNA’s director.
Much more here.
I’m chuckling as I wonder —- has the Southern Poverty Law Centerdeclared EXMNA a hate group yet? After all, showing what a bunch of buffoons they are, they named Ayaan Hirsi Ali an Anti-Muslim Extremist in 2016, here.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is listed on their website in the right hand column, but absent from the list in larger print. http://www.islamophobia.org/islamophobic-individuals.html
Apparently the list prepared by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was updated just before the elections this week. It includes some big names, but some regular grassroots activists are honored as well.
I know a lot of people who wish they had made it. (See our post yesterdayof ‘friends of CAIR’ who lost elections). Maybe there should be a bumper sticker—Proud Islamophobe on board!
Did any of your friends make the Islamophobe list?
Be sure to check out the comment they ascribe to Phyllis Schlafly about immigration, welfare and Muslim polygamy.
I’m posting the whole list here in case it disappears.
From CAIR’s website (spelling errors are CAIR’s):
Entries on this page are alphabetized by first name. Below the individual’s name are the organizations with which the individual is associated. The first organization listed is that with which the individual appears most closely identified in public. Other organizations to which the indivudual is connected are then listed in alphabetical order. Where there is no organization listed the individual is either independent or the group the individual is most closely identified in public is not degisnated as Islamophobic.
A member of the board of directors of Stop Islamization of Nations. When speaking about the September 11th attacks he said “they are not terrorists, they are jihad. They are for the Quran.”
a member of the board of directors of Stop Islamization of Nations. In 2012 Suseelan told an audience “If we do not kill the bacteria, the bacteria will kill us. Muslims will breed like rats and they will be a majority.”
Bill Maher hosts a political satire program, Real Time with Bill Maher, on HBO. Despite his claim to hold progressive opinions, Maher consistently demonizes and stigmatizes the Muslim community.
A Fox News Channel commentator. In June 2013, Kilmeade told a leader of the English Defence League, an anti-Muslim group known for violent protests, “We got your back.”
The head of Act for America. Gabriel has said, “America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam.”
The director of issues analysis at the American Family Association. According to Fischer, “Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam.”
A member of the Arizona chapter of Act for America. According to an announcement for an October 2013 event, Goldberg can prove that “Islam is not just a religion but also a totalitarian and imperialistic ideology.”
Lopez is the vice president for issues and analysis at the Center for Security Policy. She also a board member at the Clarion Project. In 2013, Lopez told an audience, “When people in other bona fide religions follow their doctrines they become better people — Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Jews. When Muslims follow their doctrine, they become jihadists.”
A member of the board of directors of Stop Islamization of Nations. In 2013, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups in the United States, listed Kincad among the “30 new activists heading up the radical right.”
The founder and director of the Middle East Forum. Pipes is also connected to the National Review, Clarion Project, and Washington Times. Pipes is the grandfather of Islamophobia in the United States. In 1990 he wrote, “Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene…All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.”
A former Michigan state legislator, Agema now represents his state as a national commiteeman of the Republican National Committee. In early 2014, Agema made anti-Muslim comments on his Facebook account: “Have you ever seen a Muslim do anything that contributes positively to the American way of life?
The founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that tracks hate in the United States, names Horowitz “the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement.”
A co-founder of the American Freedom Law Center and employee of the Center for Security Policy. Yerushalmi beleives, “Our greatest enemy today is Islam.”
A member of the president’s council of Stop Islamization of Nations. Robinson’s Q Society of Australia asserts, “Islam is not just another religion, but also a totalitarian ideology with a global agenda.”
The founder and president of the Center for Security Policy. Gaffney is also connected to the Washington Times, and Clarion Project. Gaffney has advocated renewing the House Un-American Activities Committee, a discredited McCarthy-era congressional committee that President Truman once described as “the most un-American thing in the country today.”
Beck hosts the Glenn Beck show on the Blaze. In February, 2011, Beck hosted anti-Muslim speaker Joel Richardson on his Fox News program and the two “tied Islam to the Antichrist in the new testament.”
The executive director of ACT for America. In 2010, Rodgers “contended that Muslims should be treated differently because their legal system is inherently flawed.”
Originally known for his work with the Virginia Anti-Shariah Taskforce, Lafferty is now with both the American Freedom Defense Initiative and Jihad Watch.
The founder of Understanding the Threat. Guandolo is a former FBI agent who trains law enforcement officers to believe in conspiracy theories such as his beleif that CIA Director Brennan is a secret Muslim.
The membership director for the central Florida chapter of Act for America and a professor at the University of Central Florida. Matusitz claims that Muslims “procreate like mushrooms after the rain” and that “the problem is Islam.”
A board member of Former Muslims United. In October 2012, Right Wing Watch posted a video of Saleem and noted that in that video, “Saleem alleged that Obama’s top speech writer and Sasha and Malia’s babysitter are both Islamic fundamentalists that are wielding secret power.”
A key individual with the California group Concerned American Citizens. On its website, the group asserts, “The real source of the devastating 9/11 attack is the Islamic Ideology as prescribed in Quran.”
A Minnesota Republican, Bachmann is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In June 2012, Bachmann led a group of House Republicans on a series of five letters to federal inspectors alleging that the Muslim Brotherhood was infiltrating the U.S. government. The allegations primarily centered on an aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and were soundly rejected by Republican leadership.
A host on the Fox News Channel and former governor of Arkansas. Huckabee referred to Islam as the “antithesis of the gospel of Christ.” He also seemed to compare Muslim prayer being allowed in a church to the showing of pornographic films.
Cunningham serves on the boards of many anti-Islam organizations, including the Center for Security Policy, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and also the Clarion Project.
The cautic mouthpiece of the U.S. Islamophobia network, Geller believes, “Hitler was inspired by Islam.”She blogs at Atlas Shrugs and is a leader with the American Freedom Defense Initiative, Jihad Watch, and Stop the Islamization of Nations. Note: Geller also heads Stop Islamization of America, but this entity is identified as an AFDI project.
Peter King represents a district centered in New York’s, Long Island. He served as chairman of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee from 2010-2012. King has maintained that “80%, 85% of the mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists,” and that average Muslims “are loyal,” but “don’t come forward, they don’t tell the police what they know”. Additionally in 2007, Representative King said, “Unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country.”
Phyllis Schlafly is the founder and president of The Eagle Forum, and worries about Muslim immigrants “bringing in a bunch of wives who will now go on our welfare”.
Joyner is the president of the Oak Initiative. He is also the founder/director of Morningstar Ministries and the founder/director of Heritage National Ministries. He has authored more than forty books. His book The Harvest lays out some of his views on Islam: “Islamic terrorists will permeate the West with teams that target Christian organizations and leaders. This is in preparation for an Islamic assault upon the entire world. They will compile computer data on every Christian leader who has any kind of extra-local influence (i.e. newsletters, television or radio outreach).
A prolific member of the U.S. Islamophobia network, Spencer runs the Jihad Watch web site and is also connected with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, and Stop Islamization of Nations. Spencer has referred to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad as a “con man. Someone who is knowing [sic] that what he is saying is false, but is fooling his followers.” In the same video he asserts, “From a historical standpoint, it is not even clear that Muhammad existed.”
Ailes is the president and CEO of Fox News Channel. According to a source who spoke to Rolling Stone, “He has a personal paranoia about people who are Muslim — which is consistent with the ideology of his network.”
Kharoba is the founder of the Counter Terrorism Operations Center. He claims to have trained “over 20,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers. Kharoba has no formal academic degrees in Islamic studies and no experience in law enforcement. His only claim of any qualification is that he has a pre-university level certificate in Arabic culture, but Arabic culture is not Islam; in fact, only 20 percent of the world’s Muslims are Arabs. Upon review, it was found that large sections of Kharoba’s training manual were word-for-word identical to unreliable web-based sources. The investigation found his most common source was Wikipedia.
Shalom Lewis is a cleric at the Congregation Etz Chaim synagogue in Marietta, Georgia. Etz Chaim’s website states Lewis “generates a caring warmth”, but his hateful speech about Islam is alarming and barbaric.
Reis is the Virginia State Director for Act for America. In 2010, as part of her welcome message for ACT’s Oklahoma chapter, Reis wrote, “The ideology, politics and religion of Islam has one purpose – to bring the world into submission to Islam and under its laws.”
Now a fellow at the Center for Security Policy, Coughlin holds the beleif that belief that Islam “obligates Muslims to use violence in the name of spreading or defending the faith.”
The founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Upon reviewing a book he wrote, the New York Times determined that Emerson has “an unfamiliarity with the Middle East and a pervasive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias”.
The president of the American Family Association, Wildmon has said, “[Islam] is, in fact, a religion of war, violence, intolerance, and physical persecution of non-Muslims.”
A member of the president’s council of Stop Islamization of America. Founder of the English Defence League (EDL), Robinson was jailed in 2013 for “having entered the United States illegally using someone else’s passport” and again in 2014 for mortgage fraud.
According to the web site of Dakdok’s Straight Way of Grace Ministry one of the group’s goals is to “expose Islam for what it is, and yes it is worse than a cancer, and this can be shown clearly in the reading of the Qur’an and the Hadith.”
Sultan is connected to both Former Muslims United and Stop Islamization of Nations. She says, “I don`t see any difference between radical Islam and regular Islam…You cannot be American and Muslim at the same time.”
The founder of the Forum for Middle East Understanding, Shoebat is the author of “The case for Islamophobia,’ a book published in March 2013. Shoebat’s training and speaking events are promoted using his credentials and his “background” as a former PLO terrorist who converted to Christianity. In 2011, CNN researchers “found no evidence” to support Shoebat’s trademark claim of being a “former PLO terrorist.”
A board member of the Oak Initiative. Boykin asserts that “[Islam] should not be protected under the First Amendment,” that there should be “no mosques in America,” that Islam is a “totalitarian way of life,” and that there can be no interfaith dialogue or cooperation between Muslims and Christians.
Jasser is founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a board member of the Clarion Project Under Jasser’s leadership, AIFD is embedded with groups that are dedicated to spreading false information, fear, and distrust of Islam and Muslims.
