The inadequate and deceptive "Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings"

From Jihad Watch / Posted by Robert Spencer

This morning I had this exchange with the prominent British Muslim spokesman Mohammed Ansar on Twitter:



He didn't really answer my question, as I had asked for sources giving a peaceful interpretation of sura 9, that is, Surat at-Tauba, the ninth chapter of the Qur'an, which jihad murderer Michael Adebolajo (Mujaahid Abu Hamza) specifically invoked to justify his murder of Lee Rigby. But since Ansar referred me to Qadra's Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings, I figured I'd give it a look.

I have never placed much stock in it as a genuine exercise in Islamic moderation since its author, Sheikh Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri, was a chief framer of Pakistan's notorious blasphemy laws, which have been used to victimize countless Christians in Pakistan. Still, his Fatwa is often touted as the quintessential refutation of the "extremist" understanding of Islam, so it warrants careful
consideration. I thought I'd start today by searching for what Qadri says about certain verses that jihad terrorists often invoke to justify jihad violence and Islamic supremacism. After all, if he a genuine reformer, then he is likely to offer a refutation of the jihadist interpretation of such verses and an alternative understanding of them, right?

So here are some of the verses I searched for in Qadri's voluminous document:

2:191-193:  “And slay them wherever you come upon them, and expel them from where they expelled you; persecution is more grievous than slaying. But fight them not by the Holy Mosque until they should fight you there; then, if they fight you, slay them -- such is the recompense of unbelievers, but if they give over, surely Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. Fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s; then if they give over, there shall be no enmity save for evildoers.”

Qadri refers to this passage once (p. 197) but offers no explanation of the commands to "slay them wherever you come upon them" or to "fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s."

4:89: “They wish that you should disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of them, until they emigrate in the way of Allah; then, if they turn their backs, take them, and slay them wherever you find them; take not to yourselves any one of them as friend or helper.”

Qadri does not mention this verse.

8:12: “When thy Lord was revealing to the angels, ‘I am with you; so confirm the believers. I shall cast into the unbelievers’ hearts terror; so smite above the necks, and smite every finger of them!’”
Qadri does not mention this verse.

8:39: “Fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s entirely; then if they give over, surely Allah sees the things they do.”

Qadri does not mention this verse.

8:60: “Make ready for them whatever force and strings of horses you can, to terrify thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides them that you know not; Allah knows them. And whatsoever you expend in the way of Allah shall be repaid you in full; you will not be wronged.”
Qadri only mentions this verse in the "Index of Qur'an Verses" at the back of the book, including only a partial quote with no commentary or explanation.

9:5: “Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way; Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.”

Qadri does not mention this verse.

9:29: “Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden -- such men as practise not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book -- until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled.”

Qadri does not mention this verse.

9:111: “Allah has bought from the believers their selves and their possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the way of Allah; they kill, and are killed; that is a promise binding upon Allah in the Torah, and the Gospel, and the Koran; and who fulfils his covenant truer than Allah? So rejoice in the bargain you have made with Him; that is the mighty triumph.”

Qadri does not mention this verse -- an exceptionally curious omission in light of the fact that he does include an extended condemnation of jihad-martyrdom suicide bombing.

9:123: “O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you; and let them find in you a harshness; and know that Allah is with the godfearing.”

Qadri does not mention this verse.

47:4: “When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds; then set them free, either by grace or ransom, till the war lays down its loads. So it shall be; and if Allah had willed, He would have avenged Himself upon them; but that He may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will not send their works astray.”

Qadri does not mention this verse.

There is a difference between reform and deception. Reformers confront what they are wishing to change. They show why they think the established view is wrong and offer an alternative. Qadri does not do that. He simply ignores key elements of the jihadist understanding of the Qur'an, offering no refutation or alternative explanation of verses that all too many Muslims believe are commanding them to do violence. Thus he cannot be considered a true reformer, but yet another deceiver trying to lull gullible non-Muslims into complacency about the nature, root causes and magnitude of the jihad threat. And that Mohammed Ansar would recommend his work is also extremely revealing about the "moderate" Muslim camp in Britain.

Maryland May Scrap Awful State-Run Obamacare Market And Just Send Everybody To Healthcare.gov

by Ben Bullard  / Personal Liberty Digest

PHOTOS.COM

The editorial board of The Baltimore Sun is embracing a suggestion by Representative John Delaney (D-Md.) that the State should consider abandoning its troubled healthcare online marketplace and just refer everyone who plans to sign up for Obamacare to the Federal Healthcare.gov website.

How bad does Maryland’s Obamacare enrollment process have to be to make Healthcare.gov seem like a preferable choice?

The editorial states:

If the exchange is able to replicate its best weekday and weekend performance during every one of the 104 days between now and the end of the open enrollment period on March 31, Maryland will still only achieve about three-quarters of its goal of signing up 150,000 people with private coverage. The site may be better, but better isn’t good enough.

Under those circumstances, the question raised by Rep. John Delaney, a Montgomery County Democrat, about whether it would be better for Maryland to scrap its effort to build its own exchange and instead join the federal one has merit. Indeed, Gov. Martin O’Malley acknowledged on Monday that the option — and all others — remain on the table.

… Mr. Delaney’s question gets to one of the key issues: Knowing what we know now, should we conclude that such ambitious features [as Maryland’s online marketplace is supposed to offer] are simply unfeasible and cut our losses? But it also raises another: Are we now at a point where the disruption of switching to the federal exchange would be greater than that of working through the current system?

The Sun also calls out Democratic Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley for possessing “no small amount of hubris and political ambition” in attempting to establish Maryland’s $107 million online insurance market as a full-featured flagship site that other States would seek to emulate.

Of course, deploying a site backed by such visionary goals is hard to do when your marketplace director goes on a Caribbean vacation in the middle of a disastrous site launch and then resigns in disgrace.

“We can have the best policy ideas in the world, but if no one thinks we can execute, no one will trust us to do them,” Delaney said last week in positing the idea of scrapping the State exchange. “I think the Maryland exchange is an example of Democrats not managing well.”

Remember: Delaney is a Democrat.

Obamacare Shows America's Aversion to Big Government Policies

Michael Barone / Townhall Columnist

 

 

As the fifth year of the Obama presidency draws to a close, it may be time to examine the unspoken but powerful assumption behind the policies of the president and his party.

That is the assumption that in times of economic distress Americans would be, more than usual, supportive of or amenable to Big Government programs.

The assumption was widely shared, and not just by Democrats. And it has pretty well been disproven, insofar as any abstract proposition can be disproven, in the five years of the Obama presidency.

The Obama assumption has its origins in the 1930s, in the apparent political and economic success of New Deal programs, and it was propagated with great success by the New Deal historians in books that were bestsellers in the years after World War II.

It is possible to draw different lessons from the 1930s, as I did in my book "Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan." In this view, Franklin Roosevelt's initial political success was due to the programs of the so-called First New Deal, which stopped the dizzying downward deflationary spiral in 1933 and 1934.

In contrast, the economic redistribution programs of the so-called Second New Deal produced labor unrest, a sharp recession and a sluggish recovery, and New Deal Democrats lost their congressional majorities. Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940 only because he was a seasoned leader in a world at war.

That's not how the Obama Democrats read history, however. Once in office with massive majorities, they wasted no time in passing an $800 billion stimulus package.

They were confident that the stimulus would prove popular with voters. They must have been puzzled when it didn't -- and when the idea of bailing out underwater homeowners generated not demands for government aid, but the formation of the Tea Party movement.

The Obama Democrats may have been puzzled as well when initial poll numbers showed majorities against Obamacare. In a time of economic distress, weren't Americans interested in getting free stuff?

This assumption ignored the fact that most Americans were not displeased with their current health insurance arrangements. And it overestimated the amount of sympathy that could be generated for the relatively few who couldn't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions or unanticipated accidents.

In retrospect, it's also plain that the Obama Democrats underestimated the difficulty of creating a workable framework for governance of the health care sector, which makes up one-sixth of the economy.

They had evidently read too much Arthur Schlesinger on the glories of the New Deal and too little Friedrich Hayek on the futility of central planning in a complex society.

So they forged ahead with their legislation even after the American people, through the unlikely medium of the voters of Massachusetts, said, "Please don't pass this bill." People would get to like it -- and to know what was in it -- after it was passed.

Looking back, it seems that most Americans instinctively shared Hayek's skepticism more than they hankered for Schlesinger's celebration of big government.

Some liberals seem to understand this. In a column for the New York Times, Thomas Edsall quotes Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman as saying that in times when a nation is "undergoing a decline in the material realm." it may be less than usually amenable to "greater generosity toward those who, through some combination of natural circumstance, market forces and sheer luck, have been left behind."

History provides support for that. In the distressed 1930s, when FDR expanded American government, our Anglosphere cousins in Britain, Canada and Australia voted for governments that opposed similar policies.

The Obamacare rollout that began nearly three months ago has proved more disastrous than all but a few critics of the legislation dared to predict. Polling shows increasing opposition to the legislation and to the credibility of Obama Democrats who, falsely, assured people they could keep their policies and their doctors if they liked them.

The apparent skepticism of most voters that government could competently administer the health care sector seems to have been justified -- and then some.

Gallup reports that 72 percent of Americans see big government, not big business or big labor, as the biggest threat to the nation's future -- the highest number since the question was first asked in 1965.

The Obama Democrats assumed Americans would embrace big government policies. They seem to have proved the opposite.

GLAAD: Lethal Enforcers of the Left's Tolerance Mob

Michelle Malkin/ Townhall Columnist

 

"Duck Dynasty's" Phil Robertson is not alone. He's the latest in a long, long lineup of politically incorrect targets of the left's sensitivity mob. Founded in 1985, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) gangstas won't stop until both the cultural and legal enforcement of their agenda are the norm.

The A&E network (Atheists & Elitists) suspended the reality TV patriarch and self-made businessman on Wednesday for the Biblical views he expressed in an interview with GQ. Robertson was asked by the liberal magazine what he viewed as sinful. Drawing on the condemnation of sexual immorality in Corinthians 6:9, he cited "adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers -- they won't inherit the kingdom of God."

Robertson's punishable transgressions? Responding honestly to a question posed to him (this was not an unsolicited "anti-gay rant"; it was a response) and abiding by his Christian faith. GLAAD's P.C. Praetorian Guard sprung into repressive action. The same group that initially gave f-word-spouting, homophobic liberal Alec Baldwin a pass accused Robertson of uttering "some of the vilest and most extreme statements" against "LGBT people" ever. (They should listen to the Koran-inspired executioners' rants of gay-hanging and gay-stoning Iranian mullahs sometime.) GLAAD also railed against Robertson's "vile" preference for female anatomy over male as if it were an international human rights violation.

A&E folded faster than a stadium seat, immediately disavowing Robertson and suspending him from his family's show indefinitely. Meanwhile, network execs continued to cash in on the lucrative "Duck Dynasty" empire with a marathon of program reruns on the very day they threw Robertson under the bus. The network is free to do that, of course. And I am free to tell you all about the radical thugs that A&E indulged.

GLAAD has worked tirelessly to marginalize and suppress the free speech of Christian leaders, Christian businesses and conservative talk-radio hosts dating back to their infamous Dr. Laura boycott 13 years ago. The group's mission is not about equality or defending against "defamation."

It's about silencing critics, making open debate radioactive, demonizing people of faith and making even the slightest perceived slight a hate crime.

Last year, GLAAD speech-squelchers issued a blacklist of 34 Christian commentators they wanted networks to ban from their air for "extreme" views (read: opposing gay marriage). Earlier this year, GLAAD attacked the National Geographic Channel for partnering with the traditional values-promoting Boy Scouts on a reality TV program. GLAAD is free to start its own Gay Scouts, but instead chose to harangue NatGeo for refusing to run a "disclaimer" at the beginning of each show condemning the Boy Scouts' leadership policies.

It's not enough to live and let live. You must repent and genuflect before the self-serving gods of selective progressivism. That's why GLAAD forgave Hollywood director Brett Ratner for using the word "fag." He was allowed back into the protected Hollywood club after submitting to GLAAD reeducation camp and appearing in GLAAD public service announcements. Bill Clinton, who authored both the Defense of Marriage Act and the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies so reviled by the homosexual lobby, ended up receiving a GLAAD "Advocate for Change" award earlier this year -- for changing his mind when politically expedient.

For the civility police, the operational motto is always: "Do as we say, not as we do, in the name of social justice. Amen."

In the 1960s, radical philosopher Herbert Marcuse popularized the "repressive tolerance" theory of modern progressives. "Liberating tolerance would mean intolerance against movements from the right and toleration of movements from the left," Marcuse pontificated. "Certain things cannot be said, certain ideas cannot be expressed, certain policies cannot be proposed."

The tolerance mob's insatiable quest for power and control has led to such unhinged witch-hunting that many of its own erstwhile allies are balking. Novelist Bret Easton Ellis called GLAAD the "gatekeepers of politically correct gayness." He was attacked as a "self-loathing gay man," but unlike A&E, he didn't give in. "An organization holding an awards ceremony that they think represents all gays and also feels they can choose which gays can and cannot be a member of the party is, on the face of it, ridiculous."

The liberal The Atlantic magazine recounted how GLAAD invited Fox News anchors Kimberly Guilfoyle and Jamie Colby to a New York event and then issued a press release condemning them and their employer after the network failed to cough up big donations for gala tables. Wrote the Atlantic's James Kirchick: "Aside from raising money to perpetuate its own existence and throwing swanky parties (the event feting Bill Clinton was one of three different media-award ceremonies, with others in New York and San Francisco), GLAAD has no purpose. That is, unless one views it not as a gay-rights organization but rather a partisan liberal one."

Nail, meet head. GLAAD's counterculture warriors know full well: It's a small leap from forcing Phil Robertson, the Boy Scouts and Rush Limbaugh out of the public square to forcing wedding photographers and cake bakers to serve gay customers against their will and mandating that Catholic medical providers and Hobby Lobby violate their religious conscience and cover abortion pills in order to stay in business.

These GLAAD tidings have everything to do with repression and nothing to do with rights.

Op-ed:
Michelle's gift to America...discuss ObamaCare on Christmas Day
By: Diane Sori

Christmas Day...a time for family and friends to honor the birth of God's only begotten Son. Christmas Day...the day the birth of one small child forever changed the course of humanity. Christmas Day...the day Michelle Obama asks that as you and your family gather around your tree and eat your Christmas meal that you use that time to talk about health care...to visit the exchanges... and decide which plan is right for you and your family.

Christmas Day...a day of the year that is for anything but a discussion on ObamaCare.

Barack HUSSEIN Obama, since leaving Jeremiah Wright's 'G-D America' church of 20 years attendance does NOT now regularly attend church, and Christmas Day is NO exception. And while he and Michelle do have a Christmas tree in their private quarters at the White House, a tree does NOT Christmas make...especially when year after year the tree is left behind as they jet off to Hawaii for yet another Christmas vacation taken on our taxpayer dime. Christmas to the Obama's is lounging by the pool and playing rounds of golf...just another fun-filled day in paradise uninterrupted by the seriousness of prayers or the celebration of the Savior's birth.

And with discussions about ObamaCare sure to come up in talk amongst the Obama's...as would anything that bears Mr. Narcissist's name...Michelle wanting 'We the People' to discuss health care...to discuss ObamaCare...on Christmas Day seems quite the norm to America's wannabe royal family.

The norm to them maybe, but far from the norm to Christians, Catholics, and Protestants throughout America as Christmas is being hijacked by people like the Obama's who have NO idea of the true meaning of Christmas. Christmas is also being hijacked by atheists, secularists, and progressives all with the goal of transforming Christmas into just another day of the year. And with school Christmas programs and parties becoming 'Winter Festivals', and with government offices and a multitude of commercial businesses having replaced the words 'Merry Christmas' with 'Happy Holidays' so as NOT to step on toes of non-believers, the 93% of Americans who celebrate Christmas and the 97% of Americans who are NOT in the least offended by the use of the words 'Merry Christmas' are now being dictated to by the 3% that are driving public policy for the rest of us...and we are doing little if anything to stop this.

And since she has NO idea of the true meaning of Christmas, into this group of Christmas hijackers charges Christmas Scrooge Michelle Obama...the woman who is trying to pull her lying husband and his miserable health care disaster out of the fire...is now asking 97% of the American population to put aside their family Christmas traditions and family talk to instead discuss ObamaCare.

If anyone deserves a lump of coal in their stocking it is Michele Obama for even mentioning this as a topic for Christmas Day conversation, much less using the sanctity of Christmas Day as a political forum for trying to win over women...for that is what this is about...the women who the Democrats so desperately need on their side come the 2014 midterm elections...is despicable at best...disgusting at worst.

Talk about a 'War on Women'...this is Michelle's own private war on both Christmas and on women.

With a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll reporting that 49% of women now have an unfavorable view of ObamaCare, compared to 33% with a favorable view, you can understand...but NOT excuse...the desperation in this most despicable of political pandering on the day of Christ's birth.

And when you consider that of all recent presidents, Barack HUSSEIN Obama is the one who has had the least involvement in the true message and meaning of Christmas, Michelle doing what she's doing all makes sense...albeit warped sense at best.

On December 24, 2009, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, in his first Christmas message to the nation as president, delivered the most generic and bland of Christmas addresses said with NO emotion or belief in his heart as he described the miracle birth in Bethlehem as a nondescript “message of peace and brotherhood that continues to inspire more than 2,000 years after Jesus’ birth.”

In his 2010 Christmas address to the nation, Obama spoke that "we are our brother’s keeper, we are our sister’s keeper, our separate stories in this big and busy world are really one." Nothing like throwing a call out to his oh so wanted New World Order in a Christmas message..

In his 2011 Christmas Address, Barack HUSSEIN Obama rehashed his 2010 message using slightly different words but again doing a call out to his New World Order way of thinking saying, "And this holiday season, let us reaffirm our commitment to each other, as family members, as neighbors, as Americans, regardless of our color or creed or faith. Let us remember that we are one, and we are a family."

And in last year's address given together as a couple, Michelle Obama for her part said, and I quote, "We both love this time of year. And there’s nothing quite like celebrating the holidays at the White House. It’s an incredible experience and one that we try to share with as many folks as possible."

Uhhhh...excuse me but last year the Obama's did NOT celebrate Christmas at the White House...last year just like they will be doing again this year...the Obama's will be spending Christmas in Hawaii in yet another of their countless vacations taken on our taxpayer dime.

Lying about where one spends Christmas is but another lie in the Obama family ever expanding circle of lies. And if Michelle herself can lie about something as simple as where she spent Christmas she sure as hell can demean this most holy of days by asking folks to talk about ObamaCare instead of celebrating the birth of the man she and her husband mock every time they host a Ramadan dinner at the White House...good muslims that they are.

Merry Christmas everyone and don't forget NOT to talk about ObamaCare on Christmas Day.