DNC Islamic prayers commence led by jihad-preaching Imam

Posted on September 1, 2012 by creeping

20,000 minus 19,900 or more showed up. via Islamic prayers in Marshall Park draw critics | WCNC.com Charlotte.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — About 200 Muslim men, women and children prayed together Friday afternoon, as police and protesters looked on in Marshall Park for the Jumah at the DNC 2012.

The event, sponsored by the Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs, was added to the official DNC Host Committee calendar and the implied endorsement angered people across the country.

Earlier this week, the committee removed the Jumah from its calendar.

Officials said speakers for the event and statements and positions from event organizers were not appropriate and relevant to the Host Committee.

Organizer Jibril Hough, of the Islamic Center of Charlotte, said the Jumah was never sponsored by the DNC Host Committee.

“The DNC did not do this. We did this,” said Hough. “It is about prayer, not politics. We want to celebrate the community and let people know about our beliefs.”

Several protesters showed up to Marshall Park during the Jumah and a few shouted and chastised the worshipers.

Police did get involved by asking the protesters to turn down their sound system.

Most of the people attending the Jumah said they felt it was a success and look forward to other Islamic events happening through the weekend.

Hough, who is on the DNC Welcome Committee, said he felt it was a historic day and is proud of his city.

Video at the link above shows what, about 50 people? (if anyone finds video of the event on youtube please post in comments)

Any way you look at it this was applauded by the Democrats, it was promoted as a Democratic event and even listed on the DNC schedule until the very last minute. They fully embrace Muslims even though those that call for jihad against Americans and to convert America into an Islamic state as the event’s lead imam Siraj Wahhaj has done

In a September 1991 speech in Toronto, titled “The Afghanistan Jihad,” Wahhaj told his fellow Muslims:

“Those who struggle for Allah, it doesn’t matter what kind of weapons [you use], I’m telling you it doesn’t matter! You don’t need nuclear weapons or even guns! If you have faith in Allah and a knife! If Allah wants you to win, you will win! Because Allah is the only one who fights. And when his hand is over your hand, whoever is at war against my friends, I declare war on them…. The Americans are not your friends … The Canadians are not your friends … The Europeans are not your friends. Your friend is Allah, the Messenger and those who believe. These people will never be satisfied with you until you follow their religion …”

Two months later, Wahhaj urged U.S. Muslims to become politically active as a means of augmenting the influence of their faith: “As long as you remember that if you get involved in politics, you have to be very careful that your leader is for Allah. You don’t get involved in politics because it’s the American thing to do. You get involved in politics because politics are a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.”[1]

In a 1992 sermon, Wahhaj emphasized the importance of jihad to his Al-Taqwa mosque congregation: “I will never ever tell people, ‘don’t be violent, that is not the Islamic way.’ The violence has to be selected…. Islam is the only answer because it is only Islam that we do it for Allah…. [We are] commanded to do jihad…. [W]hen Allah commands us to fight we are not stopping, no one will stop us.”

In an autumn 1992 address to an Islamic gathering in New Jersey, Wahhaj expressed his desire to have Muslims seize control of the United States and replace the country’s constitutional government with an Islamic caliphate. “If we were united and strong,” Wahhaj said, “we’d elect our own emir [leader] and give allegiance to him…. [T]ake my word, if 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.”

We’ve written about Siraj Wahhaj numerous times – see posts here. Listen to Siraj Wahhaj call Muslims in America to wage jihad below.

• states Islam commands jihad of the true soldiers of Allah – listen to the Wahhaj speech
• advocates the replacement of the U.S. government with an Islamic Caliphate
• unindicted co-conspirator to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings
• called the most dangerous ‘Islamic Scholar’ in the U.S. in regards to our national security
• promoted Islamic ads on NYC subways to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary
• Keynote speaker at 2009 ICNA-MAS conference (Memorial Day weekend)

More Siraj Wahhaj profiled at Discover the Networks

Decades from now your children will ask, why didn’t my parents or grandparents stop this obvious infiltration and invasion after 9/11.

Posted on1 Sep 12 by Creeping Sharia

[Editor’s Note: You cannot tell me our president is not a Muslim. He blatantly bends over for Muslim’s and “allah”, to help advance Islam…his change was not socialism, IT IS Islamization, as per his Muslim Brotherhood handlers had made sure they put a Trojan horse into the White House, and Obama filling the prophesied Son of the West, as being a world leader that will unite Muslims worldwide, and will be the precursor or forerunner to the Mahdi, and Mullah Obama is doing a good job (in the Muslim mind) for bringing Muslims together during his “reign”, like helping with the Arab Spring, Arab Winter, ousting “secular” Muslim Egyptian president Mubarak, illegally (according to the US Constitution) going to war with “secular” Muslim Libyan president Gaddafi, shredding the Constitution to help Islam take over the United States, and now slapping Americans in the face with denying a Catholic Bishop from praying a blessing prayer before the convention, and have a terrorist and jihad advocate and recruiter pray the Jumah, which entails two “sermons” from sura 87 and 88 from the Qur’an…so overall, they democrats got to listen to Islamic prayer as well as Islamic preaching from an unindicted terrorist and a jihadi advocate/recruiter, and an anti-American Imam. May God Almighty have mercy on our souls, especially the Democrats!]

Pro-sharia group receives $25M annually, more than all anti-jihad groups it fears…combined

Posted on September 3, 2011 by creeping

And that’s just the known funding for one pro-sharia group trying to silence Americans. It doesn’t include the billions given by Saudi’s and others to Hamas-linked CAIR, Harvard, Georgetown, Yale, and others.

via Poisonous Prose: Part One (of Two) » Publications » Family Security Matters.

However, CAP alone receives $25 million per annum, so in just two years it is in receipt of far more money than all of the “Islamophobic” groups it collectively names and condemns have made in a decade. As a 501 (3)(c) organization, CAP’s existence seems to be entirely connected to attempting to swing elections in the Democrat Party’s favor, which would appear to be a contravention of IRS guidelines.

…

The CAP report co-authored and promoted by Wajahat Ali in the Guardian is entitled “FEAR Inc., The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.”

CAP’s Wajahat Ali on Al Jazeera

Courtesy of Media Matters – another well-funded leftist, anti-American group – via Saudi-influenced Fox, we learn that the Center for American “Progress” may actually rake in $38 Million annually. That’s almost as much as their Islamophic dream team reportedly garnered, $42M, in more than a decade. Where does CAP’s progressive funding come from? Daniel Greenfield reminds us:

The Center for American Progress’ campaign for donor transparency, however, stops at its own doors. While its own budget is many times that of the organizations that its report targets — the CAP’s policy is to keep the identities of its own donors secret.

Posted on 3 Sep by creeping sharia

FEC May Allow Foreign Born Muslim to Run for US President

Posted on August 31, 2011 by creeping

h/t The Religion of Peace, via FEC Drafts Opinions for Guyana-Born Man About Presidential Run : Roll Call Politics.

The Federal Election Commission is showing signs that it might allow a Guyana-born American citizen to file papers and raise money to run for president of the United States.

The agency released two draft advisory opinions Friday that could permit New York lawyer Abdul Hassan to go through the initial steps to run for president. But the FEC’s pending decision won’t be the last word on the constitutional issue of whether someone born outside the United States can be president.

Hassan was born in the South American country in 1974, and he asked the FEC in July whether he could raise funds as a candidate for president.

The request put the FEC in the rare role of deciding a large constitutional issue that has only a few intersections with campaign finance law. The two commonly held constitutional requirements to run for president are that the candidate be 35 years or older and be a “natural born citizen.”

The agency quickly signaled that it would decide the technicalities of filing requirements while leaving the broader issue of who can run for president to the judicial branch. In an email to Hassan on July 18, the FEC stated that he understood “that although the Commission can respond to the questions asked in [his] advisory opinion, the Commission cannot make any determination as to whether [Hassan] can, as a naturalized citizen, serve as President.”

Both advisory opinions answer three of Hassan’s four questions in a similar way. They state that Hassan could be a candidate, may solicit funds and would be required to file disclosure reports. But the two opinions differ on whether he may receive federal matching funds.

The first draft states that Hassan would not be allowed to receive matching funds because “the United States Constitution provides that ‘[n]o Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.’”

The second draft ducks the issue, stating that the “Commission expresses no opinion regarding this question” because it is a “hypothetical.”

The FEC is slated to discuss and possibly vote on the draft opinions at an open meeting Thursday. Four of the six commissioners must support an opinion for it to be approved.

Hassan told Roll Call that he has almost no political background but is a “political junkie” with various legislative ideas.

“I follow politics closely, but I have never held elected office,” he said. “I would admit that I am not well-known, and I would admit that my chances of winning are not as good as other candidates. That’s obvious.”

Although Hassan said he sees the far-reaching implications of his FEC request for future candidates, he said he did not make his request as a response to long-refuted claims that President Barack Obama was not born in America.

“I wasn’t even thinking about the birthers, though I am ideologically opposed to people on the birther side of the argument,” he said.

Ideologically opposed to the Constitution?

Posted on 31 Aug 11 by creeping sharia

Illinois Governor Appoints U.S. Muslim Brotherhood Leader To New Advisory Council

Posted on September 1, 2011 by creeping

Illinois taxpayers are funding a Muslim American Advisory Council to help put Muslims in their state government! Just like Obama is unilaterally doing at the federal level.

via The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, EXCLUSIVE: Illinois Governor Appoints U.S. Muslim Brotherhood Leader To New Advisory Council

The State of Illinois has announced the creation of its Muslim American Advisory Council that includes the Secretary-General of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). According to the press release:

CHICAGO – August 30, 2011. Governor Pat Quinn today named members to serve on the Muslim American Advisory Council, which will help ensure Muslim American participation in state government. Governor Quinn announced the new council during “Eid,” the close of the holy month of Ramadan. “Illinois is a diverse state, which is one of our greatest strengths,” Governor Quinn said. “There are more than 400,000 Muslims and 300 mosques within our borders, representing various racial and ethnic sects of Islam. I want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity for input in how we address issues such as education, public safety and jobs, because the strategies may need to differ based on the history, culture and needs of different communities.” The Muslim American Advisory Council will advise the Governor on ways to advance the role and civic participation of Muslim Americans in Illinois. Additionally, the council will recommend strategies to better integrate Muslims in Illinois socially, educationally, culturally and economically. The council will facilitate relationship-building in the Muslim community to achieve goals related to International Commerce in Muslim countries/communities, and identify ways to more effectively disseminate information and outreach to Muslim Americans regarding state programs and services. The council will advise the Governor on appropriate policy developments, official directives, and other issues of significance impacting Illinois’ Muslims. It will bring important faith-based issues based on factual findings to the Governor’s attention and make recommendations to address those issues. It will also strengthen communication between the state and Muslim leadership and the general community.

Included in the list of appointees is ISNA Secretary-General Saafa Zarzour who has extensive ties to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood which a Hudson Institute report says includes ISNA as a major component. For example, Mr. Zazour is a board member and President of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR.) Investigative research posted on GMBDR has determined that CAIR had it origins in the U.S. Hamas infrastructure and documents released in the Holy Land Trial have revealed that the founders and current leaders of CAIR were part of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as identifying the organization itself as being another part of the U.S. Brotherhood. A recent post discussed an interview with the Deputy leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in which he confirms a relationship between his organization and CAIR.

Read it all at GMBDR and Contact Your Elected Officials.

Pat Quinn and Hamas-linked CAIR have history.

Posted on 1 Sep 11 by creeping sharia

Another CAIR shakedown for sharia at Electrolux

Posted on August 26, 2011 by creeping

via PipeLineNews.org, Electrolux Tells CAIR To Stuff It:

August 22, 2011 – San Francisco, CA – CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, an unindicted coconspirator in the nation’s largest and most successful prosecution of domestic Hamas funding, is once again taking on the Electrolux Corp., based [stateside] in Minnesota.

The company employs approximately 150 Muslim workers, whom CAIR has been taking advantage of in order to foment the type of civilizational/cultural jihad proposed by the Muslim Brotherhood and its numerous front groups. [see, document General Strategic Goal For The Group In North America]

CAIR is alleging that the employer is not making reasonable accommodation for Muslims to observe Ramadan. This despite an already extant EEOC mediated settlement of a similar complaint last year. [see, CAIR Strong Arms Electrolux In Minnesota]

Many of Electrolux’ Muslim workers are “political refugees” who were permitted to immigrate to the United States from Somalia, a key al-Qaeda stronghold, under an ill-considered State Dept. program which has been roundly criticized.

Somali immigrants have in large part not been a model of successful acculturation and have a history of precipitating labor disputes [often represented by Islamist groups such as CAIR] in businesses as diverse as Dell Computer, J.B Swift & Co and the Minneapolis airport.

More ominously at least 3 Somali Americans have travelled back to their native land to become suicide bombers for the al-Qaeda linked group, al-Shabaab. [see, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2934/somali-american-becomes-suicide-bomber Somali American Becomes Suicide Bomber]

To many, the prospect of a pressure group advocating on behalf of its constituency is unremarkable however the above outlined type of dispute reflects something far more insidious. It’s a clear demonstration of the ability of Shari’a proponents to employ the West’s numerous freedoms and rights against itself – a seditious stealth weapon – designed to weaken and eventually overturn constitutional government.

Posted on 26 Aug 11 by Creeping Sharia

Promoting Islam at Lackland Air Force Base

Posted on August 21, 2011 by creeping

And based on the photo’s and description, enforcing sharia too. via Timothy Furnish, PhD at FSM: Promoting Islam at Lackland Air Force Base

On August 7, 2011, in a chapel converted to a mosque on Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas, the U.S. government officially became a sponsor of the Mahdi. No, not Barack Husein Obama, but a much more serious and overt candidate: Adnan Oktar, a.k.a. “Harun Yahya,” the Turkish Creationist whose followers consider him the “rightly-guided one” of Islamic tradition, expected to come before the end of time to make the entire world Muslim.

Mahdism was my original area of academic specialization within Islamic history (about which I wrote my doctoral dissertation, first book and numerous articles, and which I track via this website); I interviewed Oktar in Istanbul a few years ago; and, finally, I spent time in the military, both enlisted and commissioned, the latter training to be a chaplain. So I have some familiarity with all aspects of this troubling story, which came to my attention early on 14 August 2011 via photos posted to my Facebook page by contacts within Oktar’s organization. I contacted the Public Affairs Officer (PAO) at Lackland and, in summary, was told the following: that such “religious education” classes are provided every weekend from “other” faith perspectives (Latter Day Saints, Buddhists, Pentecostals) besides the main ones (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Eastern Orthodox); that these are entirely voluntary; that the “program chaplain …was aware of and approved of the speaker.”

The speaker in question was from Oktar’s organization , an Islamic Creationist one, which is very inimical to Darwinian evolution as well as a strong proponent of Islamic Mahdist da`wah (“propaganda” or “evangelism”). From Istanbul Oktar presides over a publishing and Internet franchise dealing in a double-sided coin of Islamic anti-Darwinism and belief in the imminent arrival, if not presence already, of the Islamic deliverer—most likely in the guise of Oktar himself. The Harun Yahya movement resembles that of fellow Turk Fethullah Gülen, insofar as both spring from a neo-Ottoman Sufism with Mahdist overtones. But the latter, with his global chain of Islamic charter schools, is taken more seriously and viewed by many in the U.S. as an ideological threat.  The fact that Gülen lives in exile in the U.S. has so far provided him a higher profile here. But Oktar and his people, while heretofore playing Avis to Gülen’s Hertz, are definitely trying harder—and succeeding even where Gülen’s people have so far feared to tread: onto the U.S. Air Force’s only basic training installation.

According to both my sources–Oktar’s organization and the Public Affairs Office (PAO) at Lackland—on the first Sunday in August a representative of Harun Yahya was allowed, following an invitation from the Muslim chaplain at Lackland, Captain Sharior Rahman, to present two classes: a morning one on “The Collapse of Darwinism and the Fact of Creation” and an evening one covering “Miracles in the Qur’an.” It would appear that the morning class was attended solely by basic trainees, as the photo above shows (note the screen, which says “The Collapse of Evolution and the Fact of Creation”).

The Turkish Muslim group further claims about the evening class (of which I have no pictures) that “attendants were high rank officials [sic]: sergeants, master sergeants and captains. The talks were very well received and appreciated and the attendants were gifted the Quran [sic] (emphasis added). The captain presented a special medal as the token of appreciation to Mr Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya).” “The captain” would be, presumably, Chaplain Rahman—which brings up its own troubling issues, as I shall examine below.

Another picture shows a dozen female trainees, sitting separately from the males—whether out of military, or Islamic, mandate is unclear:

…

The Lackland basic training command seems to have deferred to the Muslim Chaplain, Rahman, on this issue—and the PAO told me as much. I have no desire to cast aspersions on Chaplain Rahman, for I have never met him and know little about him. But if a non-mainstream group like Oktar’s can gain entrée so easily to a major US military installation simply on the Muslim chaplain’s advice, what’s to prevent another Muslim military chaplain in this, or another, branch of service from signing off on Hizb al-Tahrir’s preaching their plans for peacefully resurrecting the caliphate or Tablighi Jama’at from inculcating trainees with ideal Islamic piety and the need for shari`ah?  Both HT and TJ are non-jihadist and operate (at least in this country) via Islamic da`wah (“missionary work”), not terrorism. But should the U.S. military really have such a coarse vetting net—based on this episode—that it could very readily allow these, or similar, groups to slip through and disseminate their ideas to some of the most impressionable members of our military?

…

I first learned Arabic in the mid-1980s at the Defense Language Institute, and I have been studying Middle Eastern and African Islamic history for two decades. I have no problems with Muslims attempting to spread their faith peacefully in this country, nor even with our military service members learning about Islam as an important adjunct to the global struggle in which we are engaged. What I do have a problem with—as an American, a veteran, a Christian and an Islamic expert—is Islamic groups being given access to young, impressionable basic trainees under the spurious guise of the First Amendment.

As it is, Lackland Air Force base is in the business of promoting Islam in general, and the Mahdi in particular, over the faith of the vast majority of military personnel (73% of Air Force enlisted are Christian; 0.2% are Muslim).  And that should be unacceptable to all Americans.

Posted on 21 Aug 11 by Creeping Sharia

Christian family held slave to Muslim landowner for 30 years

Posted on August 22, 2011 by creeping

via Punjab: Christian family held slave to a Muslim landowner for 30 years | Spero News.

A Christian family consisting of 26 persons, including women and children, lived in slavery for over 30 years. Forced to work on a farm belonging to a wealthy Muslim landowner Rahim Yar Khan, in a district of the province of Punjab, only recently managed to regain freedom. Reduced to servitude for three decades, the family members escaped their captor through the intervention of the leaders of the Catholic Diocese of Bahawalpur. Meanwhile the abduction of Christian girls, forced to marry Muslim men and forcibly converted to Islam, continue. The latest incident took place at Quetta: the young girl, after two years of prison, managed to escape and is now in an undisclosed location under threat of death.

About 30 years ago Zulfiquar Masih, a Christian from Rahim Yar Khan, signed a loan to raise enough money for his daughter’s marriage. The interest rate rocketed to touch 500% making it impossible to pay off the debt. For this the entire family was segregated by force in a private jail and forced to work for Basharat Ali Gulo, a Muslim farmer and company owner. Enslaved for three decades, the family managed to free itself through the intervention of the Catholic leaders of Bahawalpur. On behalf of the diocese Fr. Samuel Rafael,filed a complaint against Basharat Ali at the High Court. And the judges have ordered the release of the family, until then held in forced labor.

Speaking to AsiaNews Fr Rafael said that “thousands of workers are kept in conditions of slavery across Pakistan today.” In Sindh province the Hindus are kept in slavery for generations by the feduals. We condemn such acts and will fight for the Christians in slavery. We have raised the matter to the concerned authorities. It is a clear violation of human rights.”

Meanwhile, the 27 year old Catholic schoolgirl Arifa Alfred, segregated for two years by a Muslim, who abducted her with the help of two “friends” to marry her by force and convert her to Islam has managed to escape with her family, and is hiding in a secret location. Arifa, a college student, from Nawa Killi, Quetta, a city near the border with Afghanistan, has lived in conditions of slavery, locked in the house and deprived of freedom of movement and worship, despite having repeatedly reaffirmed her faith in Christ.

The girl was repeatedly beaten with violence, suffered physical and psychological torture. Only by a fortunate circumstance – Amjad, the alleged husband, did not locked the door – did she manage to escape, going first to the hospital to heal her wounds, then her brother. Despite the family complaint, the police was unwilling to intervene, on the contrary, the police inspector expressed his satisfaction with Arifa’s conversion to Islam and invited the girl to return to her kidnapper.

Posted on 22 Aug 11 by Creeping Sharia

DHS portrays white Americans as terrorists, again (video)

Posted on August 20, 2011 by creeping

Can the DHS be classified as anything but a failure?

posted on 20 Aug 11 by Creeping Sharia

Obama at White House Ramadan dinner: “these are quintessentially American celebrations”

Posted on August 11, 2011 by creeping

Not. Excerpts via the LA Times:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you so much. (Applause.)  Everyone, please have a seat, have a seat.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the White House. Tonight is part of a rich tradition here at the White House of celebrating the holy days of many faiths and the diversity that define us as a nation. So these are quintessentially American celebrations — people of different faiths coming together, with humility before our maker, to reaffirm our obligations to one another, because no matter who we are, or how we pray, we’re all children of a loving God.

…

To the millions of Muslim Americans across the United States and more — the more than…. …one billion Muslims around the world, Ramadan is a time of reflection and a time of devotion.  It’s an occasion to join with family and friends in celebration of a faith known for its diversity and a commitment to justice and the dignity of all human beings. So to you and your families, Ramadan Kareem. 

Sharia justice?

…

“This evening reminds us of both the timeless teachings of a great religion and the enduring strengths of a great nation. Like so many faiths, Islam has always been part of our American family, and Muslim Americans have long contributed to the strength and character of our country, in all walks of life. This has been especially true over the past 10 years.

There’s that pesky non-truth again. Maybe Islam has always been a part of Obama’s American family, but hasn’t been a significant part of most of American history. When it has, especially true over the past ten years, it has been in an overwhelmingly negative light. Even the Associate Press has backed off on repeating Obama’s ‘Thomas Jefferson’ tradition lie.

…

“An America that doesn’t simply tolerate people of different backgrounds and beliefs, but an America where we are enriched by our diversity. An America where we treat one another with respect and with dignity, remembering that here in the United States there is no “them” or “us;” it’s just us. An America where our fundamental freedoms and inalienable rights are not simply preserved, but continually renewed and refreshed…

Renewing and refreshing inalienable rights? Or creating new ones?

Read the full transcript and check the guest list at the link above.

What you might note is that the only time Obama seems to speak highly of America is when he is speaking to and referring to Muslims in America.

Why he chose to this Ramadan (month of jihad) dinner to preempt 9/11 by focusing on Muslims as victims is not clear.

What is clear is that not once did Obama mention that those who perpetrated the horrific, intentional, mass killing of Americans on 9/11 were Muslims – who also celebrated Ramadan and were acting on behalf of the Muslim world. Be sure he won’t dare mention that if he addresses Americans on 9/11.

Obama spreads false claim that Thomas Jefferson hosted first Ramadan iftar dinner at White House

Posted on August 8, 2011 by creeping

In other words, as we noted back in March, the White House is lying. Worse, they are rewriting American history to fit their Islamic agenda. Jihad Watch exposes the lie in, Obama spreads false claim that Thomas Jefferson hosted first Ramadan iftar dinner at White House

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The State Department retails the PC myth in this article, “Thomas Jefferson’s Iftar,” July 29. Nor is this the first time this falsehood has gone around: the State announcement quotes Barack Obama saying last year: “Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been a part of America. The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan — making it the first known iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago.”

Longtime Jihad Watch writer Hugh Fitzgerald busted this myth in his piece “Barack Obama, The New York Times, that Iftar Dinner, and the rewriting of history,” which was first published here at Jihad Watch on August 26, 2010. Here it is again:

Barack Obama, The New York Times, that Iftar Dinner, and the rewriting of history
by Hugh Fitzgerald

“The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan — making it the first known iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago.” — Barack Obama, speaking on August 14, 2010, at the “Annual Iftar Dinner” at the White House

Really? Is that what happened? Was there a “first known iftar at the White House” given by none other than President Thomas Jefferson for the “first Muslim ambassador to the United States”? That’s what Barack Obama and his dutiful speechwriters told the Muslims in attendance at the 2010 “Annual Iftar Dinner,” knowing full well that the remarks would be published for all to see. Apparently Obama, and those who wrote this speech for him, and others who vetted it, find nothing wrong with attempting to convince Americans, as part of their policy of trying to win Muslim hearts and Muslim minds, that American history itself can be rewritten. A little insidious nunc pro tunc backdating, to rewrite American history. And that rewrite of American history has the goal of convincing Americans, in order to please Muslims, that the United States and Islam, that Americans and Muslims, go way back.

…

During the six solar months Mellimelli was here, the lunar month of Ramadan occurred. And as it happens, during that Ramadan observed by Mellimelli, but naturally unobserved, hardly noticed, by the Americans, President Jefferson invited Sidi Soliman Mellimelli for dinner at the White House. He probably during that six-month period had done it more than once. Mellimelli replied that he could not come at the appointed hour of three thirty in the afternoon (our ancestors rose much earlier, and ate much earlier, and went to bed much earlier, in the pre-Edison days of their existence). That time fell, for him, but not for Thomas Jefferson or anyone else in the United States of America, during the fasting period of the month of Ramadan. He replied that he could not come at the hour set, that is, at half-past three, but only after sundown.

Jefferson, a courteous man, simply moved the dinner forward by a few hours. He didn’t change the menu, he didn’t change anything else. And moving the dinner forward by a few hours hardly turns that dinner into a soi-disant “Iftar Dinner.” Barack Obama’s trying to do so, trying that is, to rewrite American history, with some nunc-pro-tunc backdating, in order to flatter or please his Muslim guests, is false. And, being false, is also disgusting. It is disgusting for an American President to misrepresent American history to Americans, including all the schoolchildren who are now being subject to all kinds of Islamic propaganda, cunningly woven into the newly-mandated textbooks, that so favorably misrepresent Islam, as here.

Now there is a kind of coda to this dismal tale, and it is provided by the New York Times, which likes to put on airs and think of itself as “the newspaper of record,” whatever that means. The Times carried a front-page story on August 14, 2010, written by one Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and no doubt gone over by many vigilant editors. This story contains a predictably glowing account of Barack Obama’s remarks at the “Annual Iftar Dinner.” Here is the paragraph that caught my eye:

In hosting the iftar, Mr. Obama was following a White House tradition that, while sporadic, dates to Thomas Jefferson, who held a sunset dinner for the first Muslim ambassador to the United States. President George W. Bush hosted iftars annually.

Question for Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and for her editors at The New York Times: You report that there is a “White Hosue tradition that, while sporadic, dates to Thomas Jefferson.” I claim that you are wrong. I claim that there is no White House Tradition at all about Iftar Dinners. I claim that Thomas Jefferson, in moving forward by a few hours a dinner that changed in no other respect, for Sidi Soliman Mellimelli, was not providing the first of the “Annual Iftar Dinners” that, the New York Times tells us, has since Jefferson’s non-existent “Iftar Dinner,” have been observed “sporadically.”

When, then, was the next in this long, but “sporadic” series of iftar dinners? I can find no record of any, for roughly the next two hundred years, until we come to the fall of the year 2001, that is, just after the deadliest attack on American civilians ever recorded, an attack carried out by a novemdectet of Muslims acting according to their understanding of the very same texts — Qur’an,Hadith, Sira — that all Muslims read, an understanding that many have demonstrated since that they share, not least in the spontaneous celebrations that were immediately held in Cairo, and Riyadh, and Jeddah, and in Ramallah, and Gaza, and Damascus, and Baghdad, and all over the place, where Muslims felt that they had won a victory over those accursed kuffar, those ingrates, those Infidels. And it was President George Bush who decided that, to win Muslim “trust” or to end Muslim “mistrust” — I forget which — so that we could, non-Muslim and Muslim, collaborate on defeating those “violent extremists” who had “hijacked a great religion,” started this sporadic ball unsporadically rolling. And he did it, by golly, he did. He hosted an Iftar Dinner with all the fixins. It was held just the month after the attacks prompted by Islamic texts and tenets and attitudes on the World Trade Center, on the Pentagon, on a plane’s doomed pilots and passengers over a field in Pennsylvania.

And thus it is, that ever since 2001, we have had iftar dinner after iftar dinner. But it was not Jefferson or any other of our cultivated and learned Presidents, who started this “tradition” that has been observed only “sporadically” — i.e., never — until George Bush came along, unless we are to count as an “iftar dinner” what was merely seen, by Jefferson, as a dinner given at a time convenient for his not-too-honored guest.

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Fitzgerald is only getting warmed up – do read it all and Contact Your Elected Officials and the New York Times.