The religious imperative

[solicitr]

Case in point:

It's been brought to my attention by several reliable sources that the Defense Department has brought Louay Safi to Fort Hood as an instructor, and that he has been lecturing on Islam to our troops in Fort Hood who are about to deploy to Afghanistan. Safi is a top official of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and served as research director at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

"Tolerism" or PC run wild.

[Primula Baggins]

Why is having a Muslim lecture on Islam a problem, soli?

[Frelga]

And why explaining Islam to the troops going to an Islamic country is a bad idea?

[solicitr]

Why is having a Muslim lecture on Islam a problem, soli?

Because in this case he's not just "a Muslim", but an official of the ISNA: that is to say, of the Muslim Brotherhood. A jihadist.

It's the difference between inviting a black person to speak on race relations, and inviting a Black Panther to speak on race relations.

[MithLuin]

Of course, if the troops are up against jihadists, it might be best to know something of that, too....

It depends on the context of his talk. Was he brought in as an 'example' or....

[Primula Baggins]

Your characterizations of Muslim organizations have been less than reliable in the past.

Links for this? To other than right-wing sites?

[sauronsfinger]

Let us look at Dr. Safi to see exactly who he is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louay_M._Safi

Louay Safi was born in Damascus where he received his early education. He moved to the United States in the early eighties where he received his B.Sc. in civil engineering, and later a M.A. and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He has written numerous books on social and political development, modernization, democracy, human rights, and Islamic resurgence.
Safi has served as Executive Director and Director of Research for the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), editor of the Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and President of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (1999-2003). He has also taught at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, the International Islamic University in Malaysia and George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Currently, he is the Executive Director of ISNA Leadership Development Center (ILDC), Plainfield, Indiana. He serves on the board of several leading Muslim organizations, including the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID), the Islamic Horizons, and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS). He is a fellow with the Institute of Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) and serves on the steering committee of the Muslim-Christian Initiative on the Nuclear Weapons Danger(MCI).
He has appeared on numerous radio and TV programs, including BBC, C-Span, CNN, Monte Carlo, Fox News, PBS, Middle East TV (MBC), Al-Jazeera TV, Voice of America, Malaysian television, and others.


Views and Positions

Louay Safi advocates reform of Islamic thought, culture, and law by appealing to the universal Islamic values. He supports democratic reform in Muslim countries, rejects interpretations of Islamic sources that instigate interreligious hostility, calls for the development of more inclusive societies in the Muslim world, and has frequently defended the fledgling Muslim American community against attacks from the far right.

Democracy
Safi believes that Democracy as a system of self governance, accountability of holders of public office, and the rule of law is fully compatible with Islam.[1] He has repeatedly argued that Islam is essential for the transformation of Muslim societies from autocratic rule to democracy. A cultural change is required for any democratic reform, and such a change, he insistes, is impossible without appealing to more fundamental values. That's where Islam comes in. As it is difficult to imagine the modern West without the Religious Reformation in Europe, it is also difficult to expect democratic reform in the Middle East without Islam being a big part of that.[2] "Turkey can probably give us some clues as how a positive Islamic reform can bring about true democracy without resorting to violence," he argues.[3]

Safi further argues that micro-managing the reform process is counterproductive, and is likely to play into the hands of anti-democratic forces intent on stemming out the fledgling democratic forces under the rubric of safeguarding national independence and countering foreign interference. He, therefore, proposes that rather than pressuring autocratic government to change school curricula and superimpose a set of abstract criteria through state apparatus, US government should use its influence to increase the margin of freedom for political expression and action by civil society organizations. The forces of reform and modernization are already at work in Muslim societies, and have, despite severe limitations imposed by the state on their actions, made considerable strides to effect educational, cultural, and political reforms.[4]

War and Peace
Safi insists that war is not an instrument for advancing Islam, but for repelling aggression and, in limited cases for rescuing a brutally oppressed minority. He criticized the classical doctrine of jihad as being seriously flawed since it violates some of the essential Islamic principles on the Islamic ethics of war. Safi has recently written objecting to the classical doctrine; “Evidently, the classical doctrine of war and peace has not been predicated on a comprehensive theory. The doctrine describes the factual conditions that historically prevailed between the Islamic state, during the ‘Abassid and Byzantium era, and thus, renders rules which respond to specific historical needs.”

The flaw is evident, he insists, when one considers the relationship between the early Muslim community and the Christian Abyssinia. He recalls that the Islamic prophet Muhammad himself had sent the earliest group of his followers from Mecca to seek refuge from persecution in Abyssinia. They lived there in peace, and some of them did not return, even after Muslims were in power in Mecca. Moreover, the peaceful coexistence continued for over a millennium up until modern times.[5]
He, nonetheless, rejects the effort to repudiate the right of people to use force to repel aggression. Jihad is a struggle for just peace using peaceful means. He, though, insists that Jihad as an armed struggle can be legitimately employed to repel aggression and lift oppression, but only as the last resort.[6]

[edit]Apostasy Controversy
Safi has not shied away from controversial issues, and has taken clear positions on hot questions, including the question of apostasy. He rejects efforts to implement traditional Sharia in modern times without considering the impact of historical social conditions on the promulgation of law in historical Muslim society. He, for instance, opposed the application of apostasy rules in modern Muslim society, and argued that a proper reading of Islamic sources would affirm religious freedom. Individuals, he insisted, should be able to accept or reject a particular faith on the basis of personal conviction, and that no amount of external pressure or compulsion should be permitted.[7]

Muslim Women’s Rights
Safi advocates women's right to assume public role and calls on the mosque authorities to reflect the leading role Muslim American women play by ensuring that they are represented on the mosque boards and join the rank of leadership. The importance of women taking active part on the executive boards and in executive committees is further underscored, he argues, by the need to represent concerns that can not be expressed except by women, who feel the impact of decisions made by the mosque on the quality of life and participation of other women.[8]

War on Terror
Safi believes that force can be used legitimately and effectively against terrorism, but he disagreed with the "War on Terror" strategy advanced by the Bush administration[9] He attributes the rise of terrorism to the authoritarian regimes that stifle debate in the Middle East, and that consistently use iron fist policies to silence opposition. Such policies, he contends, have had the effect of silencing moderate voices, and the only voices that are heard today are the voices of those who can make noise through violent actions.

Speaking in Dublin, Ireland before the College Historical Society, Safi stressed the need to have clarity in defining terrorism and consistency in prosecuting the war on terrorism. He pointed out that the current definition of terrorism adopted is oblivious to violence committed by suppressive governments against civilian populations under their control. He stressed the need to adopt universal criteria rooted in international humanitarian law, and then consistently apply the criteria to both state and non-state actors. This is not only the right thing to do, he argued, but the most effective way to counter terrorism. He suggested that terrorism should be defined as "the use of violence against civilians and non-combatants for achieving political ends."[10]
Focusing on the Global War on Terrorism, he illustrated how the lack of clarity and the absence of consistency have led to increase, rather than decrease, in the incidents of terrorism. Referring to recent statistics released by the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), a federally funded organization, he pointed out that the number of terrorist incidents increased worldwide from 2,013 in 2002 to 3,646 in 2004, to a staggering figure of almost 6,500 in 2006.[11]
Safi argues that overreliance on military power has been counterproductive in fighting terrorism, as it has deepened the divide between the United States and Muslim countries on the one hand, and reduced the ability of Muslim Americans to "promote dialog between the Muslim world and the West."
Safi blames the Far Right for promoting and harboring Islamophobia with the hope to turn the war on terrorism into a war on Islam and Muslims. The Far Right, he insists, wants to see deep rift between Islam and the West, and has turned Muslim Americans into targets and suspects, thereby reducing their ability to play the bridge-building role.[12][13]
[edit]Criticism and Praise

Safi has been criticized for his involvement with Muslim organizations, and for his views on US foreign policy towards the Middle East. He accused his critics of exploiting the climate of fear in the wake of 9/11 terrorist attacks to marginalize Muslim American organizations and activists. The Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands"? The rest of that passage...and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." That's from "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,the Islamic Society of North America is a arm of The Muslim Brotherhood.[14]
He decried the 2002 raids on mainstream Muslim organizations in Northern Virginia, which included the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), the highest Muslim religious authority in the North America, the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSSIS), a major Muslim institution for training Muslim chaplains, and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a research organization focusing of reform of Islamic thought. Safi accused the Custom Service agent who led the raids of relying heavily on information provided by the Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project and his former assistant Rita Katz’s SITE Institute.[15]
In July 2005, Michael Fichter, reporting for the Tampa Tribune, made a vague reference to a conversation Safi had in 1995 with Sami Al-Arian. Fichter contended that Safi asked Al-Arian whether an Executive Order issued in early 1995 by President Bill Clinton would affect the latter. According to Fichter, Al-Arian responded mockingly by calling the order "a war waged by the Zionists."[16] Fichter alleged that Safi agreed with Al-Arian's assessment that zionist lobbying activities were behind the Executive Order.[17]
Al-Arian, a former computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida, “was acquitted on eight counts of aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” He pleaded guilty in 2006 to one count of providing services to members of the terrorist group, rather than face a retrial. He was sentenced to prison and will be deported after completing his four-years-and-nine-months sentence.[18]
In May 2007, Michael Fichter left the Tribune to join Emerson's organization. The Tribune's article that reported Fichter’s departure quoted Ahmed Bedier as saying: “Fechter's move confirms our suspicious all along that Michael Fechter has been acting as an agent for Steven Emerson, unethically acting as an agent for Steven Emerson, and saw Emerson more than just as a source but also as a mentor."[19]
In an article published in the National Review Online (June 18, 2007), Emerson accused Safi of saying that the “assertion by ‘world leaders’ that the war on terrorism is not a war on Islam is nothing but a piece of propaganda and disinformation that was meant to appease Western Muslims and to maintain the coalition against terrorism.”[20]
Safi responded in an article published in the CounterPunch (July 2, 2007) by pointing out that the statement quoted by Emerson was made by Salman Rushdie, and that Emerson unfairly used it to distort his views.[21]
While critics like Emerson and Daniel Pipes have censored Safi for his involvement with, and defense of, Muslim American organizations, others have commended his work for promoting forward looking understanding of Islam. Muqtedar Khan, University of Delaware Professor and Brookings Institute fellow, identified him as among leading moderate Muslims involved in reforming Islamic thought.[22]. He has been called a Muslim reformer in an analysis by Barnabas Fund.[23] Ed Brayton called Safi an advocate of freedom and democracy and a strong voice against Islamic radicalism.[24]
Louay Safi is identified as one of several leading Muslim American reformers in a new book edited by Shireen Hunter and published this year by M.E. Sharpe under the title Reformist Voices of Islam. Tamara Sonn identified Safi as a leading Muslim American reformer whose influence “goes beyond the scholarly and intellectual communities and is being felt within the Muslim community at large, as shown by the changing character of the leadership of the Islamic Society of North America.”[25]
[edit]Books

It looks to me that he is an excellent choice to speak to our troops and we are very lucky to have a man of this quality and depth available to inform our leaders and soldiers.

Here is his webpage with many articles he has written

http://louaysafi.com/

[solicitr]

Because there's no way a Wikipedia page could be whitewashed, right?

Here's what they say of themselves in private, produced in evidence by those notorious right-wing groups, the FBI and Department of Justice, from the founding document of the ISNA (Philadelphia 1991, discovered 2002)

4- Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America:
The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.

The whole thing can be found here (Arabic followed by English). The ISNA is No 1 in the list of MB "affiliates." Incidentally, in February of this year the FBI severed all ties with ISNA and other MB front groups. Apparently DoD didn't get the memo.

[sauronsfinger]

Solicitr - I clicked on your link and the document you provide does not identify itself. It does not tell us who wrote this, where it came from, who is responsible for it, or give us any information of that type.

You still have presented nothing to show that Dr.Safi is not a fit person to help prepare our troops.

You still have presented nothing to show that Dr. Safi is some kind of dangerous "jihadist" - as you put it.

You still have presented nothing to show that Dr. Safi is the equal to a Black Panther - a comparison that you introduced into the topic.

If you do not like the Wikipedia entry, you can register and submit your own factual information.

this was used by you

It's been brought to my attention by several reliable sources that the Defense Department has brought Louay Safi to Fort Hood as an instructor, and that he has been lecturing on Islam to our troops in Fort Hood who are about to deploy to Afghanistan. Safi is a top official of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and served as research director at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

Where did that come from?

[solicitr]

"If you do not like the Wikipedia entry, you can register and submit your own factual information."

Yeah, right. Do you have any idea how Wikipedia works? In reality?


Membership in what the DOJ has designated an "unindicted co-conspirator" organization says nothing of course. Just like, I suppose, membership in the KKK doesn't prove an individual is actually a racist?


---------------------------------------------

More fruits of Gen Casey's precious "diversity"

The possible new spy ring involves several Arabic linguists, some also Egyptian and Syrian immigrants. They're suspected of, among other things:

* Omitting valuable intelligence from their translations of interrogations.

* Slipping notes to detainees inside copies of the Koran.

* Coaching detainees to make allegations of abuse against interrogators.

* Meeting with suspects on the terror watchlist while back in the United States.

This is the *second* such case at Gitmo.

[Dave_LF]

What are you objecting to--that the military is providing information about Islam, or that this guy's the one doing it?

[sauronsfinger]

Solicitr asks

Yeah, right. Do you have any idea how Wikipedia works? In reality?

Yes I do and I will be happy to help you with that answer. Wikipedia has an entry of Wikipedia itself. It tells you the answer to your question. Here it is for you.....

Editing model



In April 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation conducted a Wikipedia usability study, questioning users about the editing mechanism.[42]
In departure from the style of traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia employs the open editing model called "wiki". Except for a few vandalism-prone pages that can be edited only by established users, or in extreme cases only by administrators, every article may be edited anonymously or with a user account, while only registered users may create a new article (only in English edition). No article is owned by its creator or any other editor, or is vetted by any recognized authority; rather, the articles are collectively owned by a community of editors.[43]
Most importantly, when changes to an article are made, they become available immediately before undergoing any review, no matter if they contain an error, are somehow misguided, or even patent nonsense. The German edition of Wikipedia is an exception to this rule: it has been testing a system of maintaining "stable versions" of articles,[44] to allow a reader to see versions of articles that have passed certain reviews. The English edition of Wikipedia plans to trial a related approach.[45][46] Another proposal is the use of software to create "trust ratings" for individual Wikipedia contributors and using those ratings to determine which changes will be made visible immediately.[47]


Editors keep track of changes to articles by checking the difference between two revisions of a page, displayed here in red.
Contributors, registered or not, can take advantage of features available in the software that powers Wikipedia. The "History" page attached to each article records every single past revision of the article, though a revision with libelous content, criminal threats or copyright infringements may be removed afterwards.[48][49] This feature makes it easy to compare old and new versions, undo changes that an editor considers undesirable, or restore lost content. The "Discussion" pages associated with each article are used to coordinate work among multiple editors.[50] Regular contributors often maintain a "watchlist" of articles of interest to them, so that they can easily keep tabs on all recent changes to those articles. Computer programs called Internet bots have been used widely to remove vandalism as soon as it was made,[16] to correct common misspellings and stylistic issues, or to start articles such as geography entries in a standard format from statistical data.
Articles in Wikipedia are organized roughly in three ways according to: development status, subject matter and the access level required for
editing. The most developed state of articles is called "featured article": they are precisely ones that someday get featured in the main page of Wikipedia.[51][52] Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach the FA status via intensive works of few editors. In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English-language Wikipedia introduced an assessment scale against which the quality of articles is judged;[53] other editions have also adopted this.
A WikiProject is a place for a group of editors to coordinate works on a specific topic. The discussion pages attached to a project are often used to coordinate changes that take place across articles. Wikipedia also maintains a style guide called the Manual of Style or MoS for short, which stipulates, for example, cases in which an article must start with the article title in bold in the first sentence.
In 2008, two researchers theorized that the growth of Wikipedia is sustainable.[54]

That should answer your question.

[solicitr]

Stop condescending to me. "I will be happy to help you with that answer." Humbug. Trying to goad me into a frank expression of my personal views? Sorry. Not even by PM, since we all know you love to share private messages.

I've been a wiki editor for years. And that means I know how things really work there.

[Primula Baggins]

Please stop with the sarcasm.

[yovargas]

I've never been sure what this thread was about but I'm pretty sure it wasn't this.

[solicitr]

What are you objecting to--that the military is providing information about Islam, or that this guy's the one doing it?

That this guy's the one doing it. Out of approx 2 million Muslim Americans, did the Army have to pick a member of a terror-linked organization? Of course not. For that matter, why not fly over some genuine Afghans, who understand that culture far better than any Arab?

[sauronsfinger]

Solicitr - if you ask a question of me, and I answer it for you, it would be nice not to be attacked for giving you what you asked for.

What do you find wrong with the Dr. Safi information on wikipedia?

What is the source of your original quote about Dr. Safi?

What is the source of that link you sent us to regarding the information in Arabic and English?

That this guy's the one doing it. Out of approx 2 million Muslim Americans, did the Army have to pick a member of a terror-linked organization? Of course not.

Where have you shown that Dr. Safi is a member of any organization that is engaged in "terror" what ever that may mean to you? And what does that phrase mean to you? Apparently, the US Defense Department has checked out Dr. Safi and finds nothing wrong with him helping to train our troops.

What factual information do you have that the Department of Defense does not have?

[solicitr]

"What is the source of your original quote about Dr. Safi?

What is the source of that link you sent us to regarding the information in Arabic and English?

I suppose any comment re: reading comprehension would be superflouous. I also note that the concept of the rhetorical question apparently escapes tyou.

[sauronsfinger]

Just present your sources.

Primula asked you about this many hours ago and we still have not seen them.

[solicitr]

Unbelievable.

I've linked to a scan of the original document, trial-court evidence stamps and all. What more do you want? The FBI chain of custody going back to the original 2002 Northern Virginia raid?