j***@satx.rr.com
2012-01-26 01:40:09 UTC
Jihadwatch
Raymond Ibrahim Speaks at Boston Event on Christian Persecution under
Islam
This last weekend, I participated in a well-attended conference on the
plight of Christians under Islam, sponsored by CAMERA. In "Boston
Event Spotlights Imperiled Middle East Christians," from the Institute
on Religion and Democracy, Matthew May describes the event. Because
the report is long, below are snippets from my talk -- though be sure
to read it all for summaries of the other speakers and their engaging
talks:
Columnist and author Mark Steyn always gets a well-deserved laugh when
he tells audiences that, to the useful idiots in the U.S. media and
citizenry, “Allahu Akbar,” the calling card of Islamic terrorists the
world over, is Arabic for “Nothing to see here!” But as author and
scholar Raymond Ibrahim told a forum on violence against Middle
Eastern Christians perpetrated by Islamists, what it really means is
“My God is better than your God.”
The plight of Christians in the Middle East at the hands of Islamic
jihadists – and U.S. media inattention and indifference to such
struggles - was the subject of a forum entitled “The Persecuted
Church: Christian Believers in Peril in the Middle East,” hosted and
sponsored by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting
(CAMERA), held at the Sheraton hotel in Framingham, Massachusetts, on
January 21, 2012.
Dr. Walid Phares, who among several other roles advises the U.S. House
of Representatives Anti-Terrorism Caucus, delivered the conference’s
keynote address entitled “The Ongoing Fight for Freedom.” Phares said
that the battle of ideas is fiercer than combat battles because the
same forces who have visited violence upon Christians, Jews, and
others in the Middle East have tried to suppress the West’s
understanding of what is really happening in the Middle East and what
is being taught in U.S. academic institutions. [...]
Ibrahim, author of The Al Qaeda Reader discussed his research on
Islamic primary sources and the emergence of the same patterns of
behavior among Muslims who forcibly have demanded that non-Muslims
submit to Islam for the past 1,400 years. He said the same acts, the
same accusations, the same flattery, and, eventually, the same
violence that modern-day Muslims have carried out against non-Muslims
is documented by Muslim clerics throughout history.
Ibrahim pointed out that Muslim attacks against churches all over the
world are not an aberration. He cited a Koranic verse that instructs
Muslims to “fight the people of the book” [Christians and Jews] until
they pay jizya and feel themselves subdued. Ibrahim argued that the
word “until” reveals that such a verse is prescriptive and perpetual
in meaning. He also cited the eighth century Pact of Umar and its
provisions that prohibited Christians from building churches. He
introduced the term “Islamicate” to describe a prevailing cultural
attitude among Muslims that non-Muslims are beneath Muslims, which has
seeped into the collective conscience of devout and non-practicing
Muslims alike.
Ibrahim argued that the media are all too willing to undermine the
realities of the Islamic faith, utilizing code terms such as
“sectarian strife” to describe atrocities committed by Muslims without
having to actually identify the religious affiliation of the
perpetrators. He also denounced as “stupidity” the U.S. government’s
prohibition against using qualifiers to describe Muslim violence
against non-Muslims, which he argued erases a wealth of knowledge and
pattern development....
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/ibrahim-speaks-at-boston-event-on-christian-persecution-under-islam.html
http://www.jihadwatch.org/
Raymond Ibrahim Speaks at Boston Event on Christian Persecution under
Islam
This last weekend, I participated in a well-attended conference on the
plight of Christians under Islam, sponsored by CAMERA. In "Boston
Event Spotlights Imperiled Middle East Christians," from the Institute
on Religion and Democracy, Matthew May describes the event. Because
the report is long, below are snippets from my talk -- though be sure
to read it all for summaries of the other speakers and their engaging
talks:
Columnist and author Mark Steyn always gets a well-deserved laugh when
he tells audiences that, to the useful idiots in the U.S. media and
citizenry, “Allahu Akbar,” the calling card of Islamic terrorists the
world over, is Arabic for “Nothing to see here!” But as author and
scholar Raymond Ibrahim told a forum on violence against Middle
Eastern Christians perpetrated by Islamists, what it really means is
“My God is better than your God.”
The plight of Christians in the Middle East at the hands of Islamic
jihadists – and U.S. media inattention and indifference to such
struggles - was the subject of a forum entitled “The Persecuted
Church: Christian Believers in Peril in the Middle East,” hosted and
sponsored by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting
(CAMERA), held at the Sheraton hotel in Framingham, Massachusetts, on
January 21, 2012.
Dr. Walid Phares, who among several other roles advises the U.S. House
of Representatives Anti-Terrorism Caucus, delivered the conference’s
keynote address entitled “The Ongoing Fight for Freedom.” Phares said
that the battle of ideas is fiercer than combat battles because the
same forces who have visited violence upon Christians, Jews, and
others in the Middle East have tried to suppress the West’s
understanding of what is really happening in the Middle East and what
is being taught in U.S. academic institutions. [...]
Ibrahim, author of The Al Qaeda Reader discussed his research on
Islamic primary sources and the emergence of the same patterns of
behavior among Muslims who forcibly have demanded that non-Muslims
submit to Islam for the past 1,400 years. He said the same acts, the
same accusations, the same flattery, and, eventually, the same
violence that modern-day Muslims have carried out against non-Muslims
is documented by Muslim clerics throughout history.
Ibrahim pointed out that Muslim attacks against churches all over the
world are not an aberration. He cited a Koranic verse that instructs
Muslims to “fight the people of the book” [Christians and Jews] until
they pay jizya and feel themselves subdued. Ibrahim argued that the
word “until” reveals that such a verse is prescriptive and perpetual
in meaning. He also cited the eighth century Pact of Umar and its
provisions that prohibited Christians from building churches. He
introduced the term “Islamicate” to describe a prevailing cultural
attitude among Muslims that non-Muslims are beneath Muslims, which has
seeped into the collective conscience of devout and non-practicing
Muslims alike.
Ibrahim argued that the media are all too willing to undermine the
realities of the Islamic faith, utilizing code terms such as
“sectarian strife” to describe atrocities committed by Muslims without
having to actually identify the religious affiliation of the
perpetrators. He also denounced as “stupidity” the U.S. government’s
prohibition against using qualifiers to describe Muslim violence
against non-Muslims, which he argued erases a wealth of knowledge and
pattern development....
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/ibrahim-speaks-at-boston-event-on-christian-persecution-under-islam.html
http://www.jihadwatch.org/