Hi all, There are several articles to read, please do so. Thank you, Muhaideen
-----Original Message----- From: CAIR [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 4:58 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: CAIR-NET: Muslim Vote and Bush Converts/American Mosques In the Name Of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful AMERICAN MUSLIM NEWS BRIEFS - 8/17/04 * VERSE OF THE DAY: JESUS * MUSLIM VOTE AND BUSH CONVERTS (Christian Science Monitor) * CA: MUSLIMS WORSHIP UNDER WATCHFUL EYE OF FBI (NC Times) - CAIR and ACLU Offer Legal Help to FBI Interviewees - Possible Error in N.Y. Terror Evidence (AP) - INCITEMENT WATCH: Racial Profiling a Matter of Survival * OH: ANTI-MUSLIM BIAS HAS NO PLACE IN AMERICA (Cincinnati Enquirer) * SCHOLAR STUDIES ARCHITECTURE OF AMERICAN MOSQUES (Boston Globe) - MA: Learning More About Islam (Metro West Daily News) * PATRIOT WONDERS WHAT SON DIED FOR IN IRAQ (Chicago Sun-Times) * BUSH 'PEACE' APPOINTEE ENDORSES ISRAELI VIGILANTE CAMP - Israeli Soldiers Kill 9-Year-Old Boy (AP) - Sharon Ends West Bank Construction Freeze (AP) ----- VERSE OF THE DAY: JESUS "And in the footsteps (of earlier Prophets) We sent Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming the law that had come before him. We sent him the Gospel, wherein was guidance and light�a guidance and an admonition to those who are conscious of God." The Holy Quran, 17:15 ----- MUSLIM VOTE AND BUSH CONVERTS Dante Chinni, Christian Science Monitor, 8/17/04 http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0817/p09s01-codc.html The Muslim vote long fell fairly reliably into the Democratic column, but that changed in 2000. A combination of perceived slights by the Gore campaign and active wooing by Mr. Bush led to a break in the conventional wisdom. Major Muslim community groups actually went so far as to endorse Bush in 2000, in large part due to one big issue: racial profiling. On the campaign trail and in the debates, Bush used the issue to talk about his support of the Secret Evidence Repeal Act, a proposal to reverse parts of a Clinton-era law that made it easier for prosecutors to use secret evidence in terrorism cases. Polls in 2000 showed Muslims favored Bush over Mr. Gore by a wide margin - some showed support in the 90 percent range - and some groups argued that some 60,000 Muslim votes put Bush over the top in Florida. It's amazing how much can change in four years - years that have included Sept. 11, John Ashcroft, and the Patriot Act. The latest poll by the Council on American-Islamic Relations shows John Kerry with 54 percent of the Muslim vote in the 2004 race, comfortably ahead of Ralph Nader, who garners 26 percent. The president? With a little work he may break out of the single digits with Muslim-American voters� In Washington, where handicapping the presidential race sits just below self-promotion as a favorite pastime, there is a theory about the 2004 campaign, and it goes a something like this: Going into the stretch run of the election season, Bush has the weaker hand. The electorate is so polarized and the 2000 election was so close that most of the famous "advantages of incumbency" do not apply. Everyone in Washington, and even in the great hinterlands beyond, knows a wavering former Bush voter, someone who cast their ballot for the president in 2000, but is not sure about 2004 - or, worse for the administration, someone who is sure they aren't voting for Bush this year. In the last four years he has done something that offends them or taken a stand they cannot abide. The same can't be said of former Gore voters. The overwhelming majority of them have never warmed to the president or considered him as a serious option. For Bush, in other words, any erosion of support is noteworthy. Do the 1,000 votes in Hamtramck mean something? Maybe not, especially in Michigan, where the latest poll has John Kerry up by seven points. But every time the call to prayer sounds here, it is a reminder that the Bush campaign must not just try to reach a group of previous supporters but to grow one that now barely exists - Bush converts. ----- MUSLIMS WORSHIP UNDER WATCHFUL EYE OF FBI AGNES DIGGS, North County Times, 8/16/04 http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/08/17/special_reports/religion/8_16_042 2_08_18.txt The faithful who come to worship at the Masjid Al-Ittehad in Vista on Friday crowd the prayer hall and spill over into the courtyard. At this masjid, or mosque (literally "place of prostration"), Nader Dehani serves as imam, conducting the service, which opens with a call to prayer. He stresses to the congregation the importance of adherence to the laws of Islam, the Shari'a. He offers words of encouragement to all in getting through the difficult times everyone is facing. He offers blessings. And on some days, while others share a meal and fellowship, Dehani and other members of the mosque leadership sit in the building's small office and politely answer questions posed by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No one protests. No one complains. No one mentions that the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits government interference with a person's right to practice their religion. But what if your religion has been taken hostage by politics? What if the very name of your faith has come to be associated with terror and death? What if you had to submit to interrogation because your faith fit the profile of those who are sworn enemies of America and its way of life?... If the government feels the need to monitor immigrants from certain countries, there is no other place to find them in concentrated numbers, he said. It was the same situation during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Evans said. "If there was some other place that American Muslims show up every weekend, the FBI would show up there. But there is no other place," Evans said. "It was the same thing with the black church in the '60s." There's an intimidation quality to it, Evans said, and if you're a recent immigrant, you might not have certain knowledge about your rights� The FBI visits to the mosque are uncomfortable for some, coming at a time of prayer. Praying five times a day is one of the five pillars of the faith. Some people are now staying away from the mosque, afraid to misspeak or otherwise create trouble for themselves. "It seems to be cause to be fearful if you speak up and express your faith," Jebril said. "Worshipping God should be what brings you the most peace." She understands that the investigators must do their jobs, but there is a fine line to be walked. "This is a powerful country," she said. "But there's a lot of responsibility with power." FBI agents have made several visits to the Vista mosque, but always after calling first, said Jan Caldwell, FBI media coordinator. They can ask agents not to come, she said. "They have no reason to be afraid of us," Caldwell said. "If they say no, that's not an issue. That's part of democracy." Visits to mosques actually began before the Iraq war when agents reached out to Muslim communities not only to gain information but also to remind them that the FBI was there to help them should they become victims of hate crimes, Caldwell said... SEE ALSO: CAIR AND ACLU OFFER LEGAL HELP TO FBI INTERVIEWEES http://www.cair-net.org/asp/article.asp?id=1153&page=NR --- POSSIBLE ERROR IN N.Y. TERROR EVIDENCE MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press, 8/17/04 ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Federal prosecutors have acknowledged a possible error in a key piece of evidence used to arrest and detain two Albany mosque leaders accused of supporting terrorism. Defense attorneys say the translation error undermines the entire government case, and the men should get out on bail at another detention hearing scheduled Aug. 24. "It's a travesty," lawyer Terence Kindlon said. U.S. attorney Glenn Suddaby said authorities are not sure which translation is correct, and it doesn't change the case. "It doesn't change their behavior. It doesn't change the significance of where this notebook was found. We're going forward," he said Tuesday. In a federal court affidavit, the FBI said it received information that U.S. soldiers found a notebook at "a terrorist camp" in northern Iraq last summer with an Arabic entry that called 34-year-old Yassin Muhiddin Aref "commander" and listed his former address and phone number in Albany. However, FBI translators now have a copy of the original entry, disagree with the Defense Department and say the Kurdish phrase actually means "brother," prosecutors told the judge in a letter. Aref, a native of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, came to the United States as a refugee. He has several brothers and nephews still there, Kindlon said. "I think when the key piece of information at the detention hearing proves to be false, that we should reopen the detention hearing and let my client go back to his wife and children," Kindlon said Tuesday... --- RACIAL PROFILING: A MATTER OF SURVIVAL Michelle Malkin, USA Today, 8/17/04 http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-08-16-racial-profiling_ x.htm When our national security is on the line, "racial profiling" -- or more precisely, threat profiling based on race, religion or nationality -- is justified. Targeted intelligence-gathering at mosques and in local Muslim communities, for example, makes perfect sense when we are at war with Islamic extremists. Yet, last week, the FBI came under fire for questioning Muslims in Seattle about possible terrorist ties. Members of a local mosque complained to Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., who called for a congressional investigation of the FBI's innocuous tactics. The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington accused the agency of "ethnic profiling." But where else are federal agents supposed to turn for help in uncovering terrorist plots by Islamic fanatics: Buddhist temples? Knights of Columbus meetings? Amish neighborhoods? Some might argue that profiling is so offensive to fundamental American values that it ought to be prohibited, even if the prohibition jeopardizes our safety. Yet many of the ethnic activists and civil-liberties groups who object most strenuously to the use of racial, ethnic, religious and nationality classifications during war support the use of similar classifications to ensure "diversity" or "parity" in peacetime. The civil-rights hypocrites have never met a "compelling government interest" for using racial, ethnicity or nationality classifications they didn't like, except when that compelling interest happens to be the nation's very survival... ACTION REQUESTED: Letters to the editor may be sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] COPY TO: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please include your full name, address and day and evening phone number so we can verify your letter. Submissions are edited for length, accuracy and clarity. Letters of 250 or fewer words have the best chance of being published. ----- ANTI-MUSLIM BIAS HAS NO PLACE IN AMERICA Dr. Baher Salem Foad, Cincinnati Enquirer, 8/17/04 http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/08/17/editorial_ed1foad.html I read the syndicated column by Zef Chafets "In real world, Islam not so peaceful" (Aug. 10), and it clearly sends a message of hate. He cites the actions of few Muslims who are being investigated as representative of the attitude and beliefs of American Muslims. I would like to use the Muslim community in Cincinnati to illustrate the opposite viewpoint that Muslims are hard-working, peace-loving and caring members of society. There are more than 100 physicians in Cincinnati who are dedicated and care for their patients. Muslim engineers, teachers and business people are actively involved in the affairs of their community. They are good neighbors and sincere friends. The Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati opened in 1996 and has been a great asset to our community. More than 30,000 visitors have been welcomed and toured our facility, as well as countless number of school and college students, and members of churches and synagogues. Our center is open to the public and we have nothing to hide. We have welcomed priests and rabbis, and our members have visited many churches and schools and answered questions about our faith and beliefs� Stereotyping Muslims and propagating a message of hate serves no useful purpose. On the contrary, we should respect the rights and intentions of others and not allow differences of faith prejudice our attitude or behavior. It is the diversity of our nation and its tolerance and freedom that is the real strength of America and what makes our country great. Bias, prejudice and hate have no place in our community or our beloved America. We should judge people by what they do, not by their skin color or religious affiliation. Those who distort the message of Islam for their own purpose should be exposed and fought. We should no longer sit idle watching our freedom attacked. It is not only the duty of Muslims, but of decent non-Muslims, to stand up and speak against prejudice and hate. Dr. Baher Salem Foad of Madeira is a practicing arthritis specialist and director of education at the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati in West Chester Township. ----- AN MIT SCHOLAR'S STUDY OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF AMERICAN MOSQUES REVEALS A MUSLIM COMMUNITY IN SEARCH OF ITSELF. Theresa Everline, Boston Globe, 8/15/04 http://www.boston.com/ WHEN THE ISLAMIC CENTER of Ocean County is completed, the small southern New Jersey township of Toms River will have its second Islamic house of worship. Ziaulhaq Zia, the chairman of the center's board of trustees, describes what the building will look like. "We will have a minaret," he says. "We will have a dome." In other words, the building will have the most recognizable features of traditional mosque architecture, reflecting certain tenets of Islam: the dome symbolizing the divine power engulfing the believers; the minaret, as it aspires toward heaven, representing the declaration of faith embodied in the call to prayer. Does the congregation prefer this traditional appearance? Yes, says Zia, but with reservations. After all, since construction on the center began in 2000, it has been vandalized seven times. Like other immigrant communities, Muslim Americans have a desire to signal their presence. Yet since 9/11, the Muslim community in America has become both increasingly visible and increasingly nervous about that visibility. The question for America's approximately 6 million Muslims who confront daily not only the charged post-9/11 political climate but also the pressures and expectations of life in a country of strip malls, rap videos, and exuberant individualism is what outward form that visibility should take. For Omar Khalidi, a scholar of Islamic religion who has been documenting the American mosque for a decade, the approximately 1,500 mosques dotting the American landscape provide an answer, if not always a simple one. Although most mosques in America today are housed in buildings converted from other uses restaurants, storefronts, theaters there are more than 100 that have been built expressly as mosques. These are the mosques built everywhere from New York City to Plainfield, Ind.; from Wayland, Mass., to Albuquerque, N.M. that most interest Khalidi, whose aim, he explains, is to explore "the difficult process of expressing identity through architectural forms." Khalidi, who is the bibliographer for the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT, is one of several scholars around the country who are examining how mosque architecture in America reflects the tensions and yearnings within America's evolving and ethnically diverse Muslim community. (According to a 2001 survey by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, 33 percent of the mosque-going population is South Asian, 30 percent African American, and 25 percent Arab. Almost 90 percent of mosques have at least some representatives of each of the major ethnic groups.) Today's American Muslims face a heightened version of a question that generations of Christians, Jews, and others have faced before them: Is it best to express identity by preserving old, traditional forms or to discover a new language appropriate to a new setting?. . .According to the Koran, the only requirement for a mosque is that it have a niche, called a mihrab, in the wall, known as the qibla, that faces Mecca. "Everything else is up for grabs," says Akel Kahera, assistant professor of architecture at Texas Tech University and author of "Deconstructing the American Mosque" (2002)� SEE ALSO: LEARNING MORE ABOUT ISLAM Charlie Breitrose, Metro West Daily News, 8/17/04 http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=75673 FRAMINGHAM -- Not a day goes by that something from the Muslim world does not make the headlines, but many in the United States, including school teachers, have sparse knowledge of the culture and history of Islam. Forty teachers from around the state are spending the week at Cameron Middle School to build their knowledge about Islam so they can return to class this fall to teach the subject that is now required under the state's history curriculum frameworks. The teacher workshop, called "The Genesis and Genius of Islam," covers a variety of topics, from the founding of Islam, to the expansion and achievements, to how the religion changed. The weeklong course is hosted by Primary Source, a Watertown-based group that runs teacher workshops on history and humanities. Yesterday, teachers heard about women's role in Islam and how it has changed. Barbara Petzen, who runs the outreach center for Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, was the speaker. To generalize about Islam and women's place in Muslim societies, Petzen said, would be as wrong as painting all Christians with the same brush� ----- PATRIOT WONDERS WHAT SON DIED FOR IN IRAQ TOM McNAMEE, Chicago Sun-Times, 8/16/04 http://www.suntimes.com/output/mcnamee/cst-nws-mcnamee16.html Jack Collins says President Bush was wrong to go to war in Iraq. Some would say that makes him unpatriotic. You tell me. Last Sunday, Jack and his wife, Angel, were visiting relatives in Chicago when their young daughter Lauren called from home in Crystal Lake. "There are people at the door," Lauren told her mother. "Two Marines." Jack and Angel knew what that meant. When you have a son fighting in Iraq, you live in dread that two Marines might one day show up at your door. Jack got on the phone and asked one of the Marines to give it to him straight. But the Marine said softly, "Mr. Collins, we'd like to talk to you in person." "So I knew," Jack told me later� But as much as Jack and Angel stood by their son and every other American soldier in Iraq, working with other families to send food and gifts, they have never believed in this war. "We believe we can separate the politics from what's going on there, from what our soldiers are being asked to do," Jack said. "I agreed with why we went to Afghanistan. I think we needed to. But we misread what was going to happen in Iraq." But what do you say, I asked Jack, to those who think we must rally around the president? "The last time I looked, our right as United States citizens is to question our leaders," Jack said. "That is what my son died for us to do. We shouldn't just blindly follow along." A wake for Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins USMC will be held today from 3 to 9 p.m. at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, 1023 McHenry Ave. in Crystal Lake. A funeral mass will be offered at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday. You might want to go and show your respect for a patriot. And for his brave son who died. ----- BUSH 'PEACE' APPOINTEE ENDORSES ISRAELI VIGILANTE CAMP http://www.opshiloh.com Excerpts from the Operation Shiloh web site endorsed by Daniel Pipes, who was appointed by President Bush to the board of the United States Institute of Peace (www.usip.org): (Note that Pipes endorses a group that promotes conspiracy theories about Muslim involvement in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.) Every church, synagogue, school and community center should have a security committee, and those people should take the OpShiloh course. If your organization does not have a security committee, we will show you how to start one. TRAIN TO SURVIVE: On September 11, 2001, America lost her innocence. Yet as Americans are warned of the overwhelming likelihood of more terror attacks on US soil, we are encouraged to continue in our normal routines. AS CITIZENS, THERE IS MORE WE CAN DO TO HELP. * We KNOW there are THOUSANDS of terror cells in the US * We KNOW the enemy is gathering intelligence against potential targets on US soil. * We KNOW there have been attempted terror attacks that have been averted. "Operation Shiloh impresses me as a way, drawing on Israel's unique counter-terrorism strengths, for concerned citizens to equip themselves against terrorist threats. I recommend it highly." - Daniel Pipes, member of the presidentially-appointed board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and a prize-winning columnist for the New York Sun and The Jerusalem Post "In my book, The Third Terrorist, I document the involvement of radical Islamist terror cells in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Because federal authorities have failed to act, these terror cells are still active in cities and towns across America. They are planning additional attacks, and I worry that more bombings are likely. "The Operation Shiloh Civilian Counter-Terrorism course is the only training I know of that provides anti-terror guidance and training to American civilians. With proper training, you can help foil the plans of the radical Islamist terror cells in our midst. I urge you to take this course and put it into practice in your community." - Jayna Davis, author of The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing" SEE ALSO: ISRAELI SOLDIERS KILL 9-YEAR-OLD BOY ALI DARAGHMEH, Associated Press, 8/17/04 NABLUS, West Bank (AP) - Israeli soldiers on Tuesday shot and killed a 9-year-old Palestinian boy in Nablus as he sat on the front steps of his home eating a sandwich, relatives said. The troops were enforcing a curfew when they drove by 9-year-old Khaled Usta's home, the boy's aunt, Ferial Usta said. Youths threw stones at the troops, but the group fled when the soldiers got out of the jeep and pointed their guns at a fence just behind the boys, she said. Khaled was sitting just behind the fence eating a sandwich when one of the soldiers fired his rifle, the aunt said� --- SHARON ENDS WEST BANK CONSTRUCTION FREEZE MARK LAVIE, Associated Press, 8/17/04 JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has approved the construction of 1,000 more homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, officials said Tuesday, violating a U.S.-backed peace plan that calls for a building freeze. Sharon's aides said they had Washington's tacit approval for the construction, because the houses would be built inside existing settlements that are among the enclaves Israel insists on keeping under any peace settlement with the Palestinians. But the U.S. Embassy criticized the construction plan, and Palestinians denounced it. Israel's moderate opposition Labor Party, mentioned as a possible partner in Sharon's governing coalition, demanded that the project be canceled� ----- To SUBSCRIBE to or UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, go to: http://cair.biglist.com/cair-net/ To reach the list moderator, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- CAIR Council on American-Islamic Relations 453 New Jersey Avenue, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20003 Tel: 202-488-8787, 202-744-7726 Fax: 202-488-0833 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: http://www.cair-net.org ----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or go to: http://cair.biglist.com/unsub.php/cair-net/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. 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