CAIR Chairman Ahmed Resigns

http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/07/cair-chairman-ahmed-resigns.html

Four pieces to read, two added today, July 22, 2008;
Cair and Pervaz Ahmed need to clarify these allegations, as they stand.
With the exception of a few, American Muslims believe in co-existence and contributing towards the well being of our nation. They inherently repsect each faith without any reservation. The opinion of the majority of Muslims must be given a voice.

CAIR and Parvaz Ahmed need to clarify the allegations leveled against the organization in view of his resignation.

American Muslims believe in co-existence, and are the participating and contributing members of our nation. They inherently respect others faith without any reservation. It is time for majority of Muslims to have that voice.

Who are the Islamists? They are the control freaks who will pick up a stick to frighten or straighten you. Their insecurities are apparent in terms of their inability to dialogue; instead they run with the circular logic.

The civil societies have evolved with the idea of co-existence and the Islamists do not believe in it, nor do they believe in the validity of another point of view. The same statement goes with the Neocons be it Christian, Hindu, Muslim or Jewish label wearers.

They do not believe in co-existence, nor do they have the capacity to see another point of view. To them their understanding of the faith is the only way, which is fine, but their agenda is to impose their understanding on others and that is simply not acceptable. They believe God has appointed them to run the world, but they are a very insignificant minority with a burning desire to impose their views on others. Their time is up now. It is time for the moderate majority to represent the faith.

The Muslim base is open minded and believes in democracy, pluralism and separation of church and the state as most Americans believe.

CAIR is not in the business of political Islam, they are in the business of defending the civil rights of Muslims in particular and eventually Americans in general. Another Ahmed was accused of saying that the purpose of Muslims in America was to rule America; they do not have any proof other than their word, given that, whose word would you buy into? I would rather buy Mr. Ahmed’s words, as he claims he did not say those words, whereas the WorldNet people are yet to produce any proof.

Most Muslims including me believes that CAIR, ISNA and other organizations are NOT Islamists in nature, they represent the views of the moderate majority of Muslims.

However, the resignation of Pervaz Ahmed is brewing rumors that may not be true, it is time for CAIR and Mr. Ahmed to speak up and tell the truth. Muslims are in America to live their own lives as every one else, they do not have any agenda to rule America, the Neocons do, not the Christians, not the Muslims, not the Jews and others.

Mike Ghouse, President
World Muslim Congress
www.WorldMuslimcongress.com
www.WorldMuslimCongress.org

July 9, 2008

CAIR Chairman Resignation Needs Careful Analysis
M. Zuhdi Jasser

The recent departure of Parvez Ahmed from CAIR's Board of Directors and his leadership post was just noted by my fellow blogger- Left Coast Conservative.

In the Florida Times Union piece, Jeff Brumley cites Dr. Ahmed's grievances over CAIR's lack of appeal to "less religious Muslims" and youth. He also criticizes their grievances as always appearing anti-American.

If Dr. Ahmed had cited disagreement with the Islamist ideology of his co-directors at CAIR I would have taken note. If Dr. Ahmed had cited CAIR's inability to name terrorist organizations like AL Qaeda, HAMAS, Hizbullah, and others by name, I would have taken note. If Dr. Ahmed had cited CAIR's ultimate goal to implement sharia through requests for accommodation as a minority while pushing sharia law in other nations where Musilms are a majority I would have taken note. If Dr. Ahmed had cited his desire to join anti-Islamist movements and dissidents against the Islamist organizations which exist which are mainly Muslim Brotherhood front-groups, I would have taken note. But he did not.

Time will tell, what he and his fellow CAIR-departee, Ahmed Bedier in Florida do next. But from where I sit, looking at the comments he left with the Florida Times-Union, it appears to simply be a manifestation of a software upgrade for Islamists in the U.S. who are finding that their divisive agenda is failing miserably and they are looking for a way to re-tool their Islamist platform in a way which can more cunningly deceive the masses as being less divisive.

Note, Dr. Ahmed's references to the synergy of Islam with America. That is certianly the feeling of anti-Islamists. But Dr. Ahmed is no anti-Islamist. And nothing in his departure interview points to such an epiphany about the merits of the anti-Islamist Muslim stance. Until he begins to declare the need for Muslims to counter political Islam as embodied in groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and until he begins to lift up the need to separate religion from government in the Muslim mindset and keep sharia at home--I see nothing but a repositioning going on.

Simply put, some Islamists are growing unhappy with the current intransigence of the "old guard" and are upgrading to Islamism 2.0 which will be even harder for the untrained citizen to notice. But in the end. Islamism 2.0 can become 9.0 and it will still advocate for the Islamic state and not believe in secular constitutions like our US Constitution as being central in guiding government for society in Muslim majority nations.

We shouldn't let internal battles among Islamists distract us from the real contest of ideas regarding political Islam and the west to which all of these upgrades remain silent.

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Another point of view

Chairman of Council on American-Islamic Relations resigns

He cites group's failure to be more proactive, open to younger Muslims.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/070808/met_301001680.shtml

By Jeff Brumley, The Times-Union

Jacksonville resident Parvez Ahmed has resigned as chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, saying he's frustrated about the national organization's failure to be more proactive and positive in its promotion of Muslim civil rights.

The nation's most well-known Muslim advocacy group, which he has led as board chairman since 2005, also needs to be more inclusive of younger, less-religious Muslims and encourage regular turnover of leadership ranks to ensure an infusion of new ideas, he told the Times-Union on Monday, a day after resigning.

These and other goals have been agreed to in principle by the organization's board and professional leadership, Ahmed said, but "an old guard mentality" among some of those leaders has kept elements of the strategic plan from being realized.

"And I got a little bit burned out pushing so hard" for the organization to be more open and transparent, he said.

The Washington, D.C.-based council declined to answer specific questions about Ahmed's comments. Instead, it e-mailed a four-sentence statement thanking Ahmed, 44, for his contributions and acknowledging differences in vision.

"Ultimately, the majority of organizational stakeholders supported a vision for implementing change and growth that differed from that of Dr. Ahmed," the statement said.
Two board members did not return phone calls seeking comment Monday.

An outspoken critic of the group said Ahmed did not capitalize on a golden opportunity to transform the organization.

The council was the only Muslim agency in the United States experiencing growth when Ahmed assumed its leadership, said Muqtedar Khan, director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware. But its continued foray into political and foreign-policy matters - such as seeking rights for foreign combatants held at Guantanamo Bay - has detracted from its mission of promoting Muslim-American rights, he said.

"He had an opportunity to take it to the next level and I think he failed," Khan said.
Ahmed said one of his unrealized goals was to transform the council into an organization that doesn't sound anti-American when it's criticizing government policies.

An example would be racial profiling, he said. In such cases the organization rightly criticizes the practice but routinely fails to work behind the scenes with government agencies to ultimately eliminate the practice.

Ahmed, a business professor at the University of North Florida, said his resignation has as much to do with a busy personal and professional life as it does with the council's sluggish movement. He's in the process of writing two books. And he said his children - a daughter, 11, and son, 7 - are beginning to require more of his time and energy for home schooling.
"I also wanted to send a message that a change in leadership is needed at the highest level, that we need some new blood at the board and executive levels," he said.

Ahmed has been a member of the council since 1991 but got actively involved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "Before that I was a very studious, quiet academic," he said.
By October of that year he had formed Pennsylvania's first council chapter and was named state chairman. In 2002 he had moved to Jacksonville to teach at UNF and was named chairman of Florida's council. At the time it boasted a $70,000 annual budget, one small office and a single part-time staffer. Today, he said, the council has additional offices in Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville, 10 full-time employees and an annual budget of $900,000.

Although he will no longer be involved with the national council, Ahmed said he hopes it will devote more resources to demonstrating that Americans and Muslims share the values of peace, justice, understanding and inclusiveness. "The values of Islam and the values of America are complimentary."

jeff.brumley@jacksonville.com (904) 359-4310

Notes by Iftekhar Hai

From last 2 years Parvez Ahmed wanted to bring in positive changes to improve CAIR but, religiously motivated board of directors did not give him support. Here is what he was asking:

1) CAIR concentrate on domestic issues like Civil Rights and Human Rights for American Muslims only NOT on Foreign Policy matters.

2) Do not involve Israel-Palestine issues with CAIR Civil Rights agenda.

3) Work with interfaith groups and build coalition - without the hidden agenda of proselytising or talking about Islam.

4) Recruit more young less religious American Muslims who will work on a secular agenda of Civil Rights and Human Rights. He never got the cooperation from other Board members who are more religiously inclined.

5) End all CAIR programs with American National Anthem. CAIR always starts all its programs with verses from the Quran - but they have never encouraged ending their program with National American Songs or National Anthem, like, "America the Beautiful."

6) CAIR also does not make it a point to display the American flag. It never encourages the American Islamic schools to ask the children to take the, "Pledge of Allegiance." Parvez Ahmed says, "I want to make CAIR more American organization - not anti-American" The religious minded Board of Directors failed to see his vision.

Iftekhar Hai UMA Interfaith Alliance Tel: 650-872-2578 http://www.umaia.net/

Islamists V. Anti-Islamists

Article follows my comments;

http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/04/islamists-v-anti-islamists-muslims.html

I wholeheartedly welcome the debate between Imam Al-Darsani and Zuhdi Jasser in the tradition of Prophet Muhammad to understand one’s faith back and forth. If some one claims righteousness of his belief, he or she must be willing to withstand the onslaught of questions and bring wisdom, rather than the circular logic to the debate.

Prior to the debate, I was not sure about the scope of it, however, it appeared that Jasser was blinded and was going to deepen the chasm rather than drive towards the intended solutions.

It is true that the establishment, be it Muslim or otherwise is usually short-sighted or perhaps overloaded with the issues and is inclined to ignore the unproven, un-established mavericks; Zuhdi is beyond that now. ISNA offers the platform to express one’s ideas in their legendary three day annual conferences. You have to be one of the many to be a presenter.

Most of the Muslims are opposed to extremist’s ideas, just like the majorities in every faith. However, Zuhdi’s approach may create a chasm rather than understand it, it may actually make each side to dig in their heels. You cannot push an idea onto others. Our effort is to bring about an understanding from Qur’aan, which is about Pluralism and co-existence. Qur'an, Al-Hujurat, Surah 49:13: "O mankind! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. The noblest of you, in sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Allah Knows and is Aware." In fact our mission statement is driven by that verse.

It is the tiny weenie minority within each group that tends to be extremist, I believe they are 1/10th of 1% of each group. They are known as Neocons, Islamist, Zionists and Hindutvadis, they may be genuinely afraid of imaginary enemies and express that as the truth and proclaim a clear and present danger. Unfortunately for the World, but fortunately for them, they evoke enough passion to bring their respective groups to band together and are well funded for the wrong purpose. They are the most cohesive groups in the world; they are passionate about their fiction and go about making it happen. They are even willing to pre-empt God and bring about Armageddon.

Every war, genocide and killing of human beings is their work. They may adopt different methods, but killing, genocide and creating chaos is common to all of them. They just cannot sit quite and let there be peace. They feed off each other.

Our goal is to invoke a similar passion in the moderate people who are the majority and let them speak out sense and assure the Quad that if they put in the time to work on peace, their nightmares may vanish and bring some peace to them. We have to guard ourselves with our words and actions to cause peace, mitigate conflicts and nurture goodwill.

Let us re-assure the world that the grand ideas of Muslims dominating the world are a fiction. There are enough Muslims to kill it even before it germinates. In the United States itself, Zuhdi Jasser, myself and millions of Muslims are out there who prefer nothing but a pluralistic Democracy. No, let me shoot it straight, we do not want any religious governance, let alone Islamic. Islam is a religion like other religions that helps one achieve peace for the individual and what surrounds him or her. To be religious is to be a peacemaker, one who constantly seeks to mitigate conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; life and mater. Indeed, that is the purpose of religion, any religion.

Zuhdi needs to substantiate his claims, “These elusive Islamists include a host of “political imams” (imams who use their pulpit to preach an Islamist domestic and foreign policy agenda) who are apparently a majority of imams in mosques around the U.S. Not only are political imams in the majority of mosques but the salafist orientation seems to predominate mosques also.”
This evokes an imaginary discomfort among all Americans. This is not the truth. He needs to prove it by statistics, at least drop the word majority from his statements. Opposing Islamism is one thing, frightening the public is another.

Zuhdi Jasser states, “This is augmented in the public place with their supporting and collaborating Islamist organizations which include ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), MAS (Muslim American Society), ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America), MSA (Muslim Students Association), the North American…”
Labeling an organization as Islamist is the work of keyboard or the mouth. Zuhdi needs to substantiate it. From what I know of ISNA and CAIR, they are working for co-existence, peace and harmony. Apparently a CAIR Executive made a statement that Islam is here to dominate, he denied ever saying such a statement, and the journalist did not have anything to prove that the executive said something to that effect. An accusation of that magnitude without proof is dangerous to our society. Did CAIR founder say Islam to rule America?

“In fact, statistics would show that only a small minority of American Muslims maintain membership in any “Muslim” organizations.” Indeed, that is the case with most immigrant communities; be it a German-American association, or Czech-American, or Filipino American Association. Although it sounds right, I hope there is statistics available for it.

Zuhdi is not in touch with what is going on in the world when he states, “Wahhabism to salafism to deobandism to militant Islamism and its terror, we will be able to effectuate and progress a global anti-Islamist movement.” On March 10th, the Deoband Seminary held a conference in India gathering 10,000 Clerics who made a declaration condemning terrorism. Then similar declarations were made by Muslim organizations around the world.

http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/03/muslim-nations-condemn-terrorism.html

Mike Ghouse is the founder of the World Muslim Congress, a group committed to building bridges and nurturing a world of co-existence. He also heads the foundation for pluralism, an organization committed to study religious pluralism and pluralistic governance. His articles can be found at http://www.worldmuslimcongress.com/ and its five blogs, the http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/ and its blogs and http://www.mikeghouse.net/

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii[( The War of Ideas )]iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Finally, a debate occurred between an Islamist and an anti-Islamist Muslim
Part One of Two
M. Zuhdi Jasser

A public debate between two devotional Muslims occurred on April 5, 2008 at Edison College in Naples, Florida. We shared deeply conflicting ideas on Islam, political Islam, terrorism, and morality. Arguments so far seemingly relegated to “Muslim vs. non-Muslims” debates due to the Muslim activist predominance of the Islamist mindset were finally debated from a position deep within a Muslim consciousness.

Already a tired phrase, call it what you will, “the battle,” “the war,” “the contest” of ideas between the West (secular democracies) and the Muslim world (Islamist theocracies) remains an elusive target for many of us in the thick of the fight. As an American, the concept of debate and intellectual argumentation runs to the core of who I am. So many other anti-Islamist Muslims and I can imagine no other method of getting our ideas across to the “other” side whether discussing the political, religious, legal, social, or spiritual realm. But when it comes to our current target – the threat of political Islam within the devotional Muslim consciousness – leading Islamist figures in the U.S. have remained slippery targets, unwilling to engage anti-Islamists openly in the public square.

These elusive Islamists include a host of “political imams” (imams who use their pulpit to preach an Islamist domestic and foreign policy agenda) who are apparently a majority of imams in mosques around the U.S. Not only are political imams in the majority of mosques but the salafist orientation seems to predominate mosques also. This is augmented in the public place with their supporting and collaborating Islamist organizations which include ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), MAS (Muslim American Society), ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America), MSA (Muslim Students Association), the North American Imams Federation, The Assembly of American Muslim Jurists, and the MPAC (Muslim Public Affairs Council) to name a few. That, in and of itself, is telling. However, the obvious nature of their avoidance behavior in engaging anti-Islamists is not enough or even a start in the effort to win the “hearts and minds” of Muslims.

The entirety of mosques and Islamist and anti-Islamist Muslim organizations do not represent all American Muslims. Most American Muslims are actually unaffiliated with any element of the organized Muslim community. Some, if not most, are unaffiliated simply because they separate religion and politics. In fact, statistics would show that only a small minority of American Muslims maintain membership in any “Muslim” organizations.

The ideas expressed in this debate will possibly expose why. Most Islamist organizations and imams have little to no moral leadership or credibility when they espouse apologetics and excuses trying to convince the world that moral imperatives have exceptions. Hopefully the mainstream media, government officials, and the average non-Muslim American will begin to see that “Islamists” are in no way synonymous with “Muslims.” The “battle for the soul of Islam” between Islamists and anti-Islamists needs to be forged expeditiously or the Islamists will assiduously continue their grand scheme of eventual and total domination.

Since its inception, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy was created by anti-Islamist Muslims upon a foundation that our guiding ideologies simply need to be heard in the Muslim community. Then, let the chips fall where they may. With that public hearing, or “forum,” we will begin to openly challenge the ossified precepts of salafism, Wahhabism, Islamism, and various pre-modern identifications of eastern Muslim culture. With that challenge we pray that an awakening – possibly very similar to the modernization of the West, which ushered in “enlightenment” – may occur within the consciousness of Muslims everywhere, forever separating spiritual Islam or the domain of God (faith) from the domain of government and the state (reason).

It is direct forays between Islamists and anti-Islamists which highlight the profound areas of disagreement. For example, when AIFD sponsored the nation’s first Muslim rally against terrorism in 2004 entitled “Standing with Muslims Against Terrorism” and invited the local Islamist Politburo (also known as the “Valley council of imams”) to join us in a universal unqualified condemnation of terrorism, they explicitly refused citing a host of morally defunct explanations. As a group, they refused to make a public moral imperative without qualifications (apologetics) about American foreign policy as an excuse for terrorism. They not only stayed home from the rally despite repeated public calls to join us, but the imams have also repeatedly refused to go on record regarding AIFD’s mission of ideologically engaging Islamism, let alone directly engage anti-Islamists. In fact in the 2007 controversial documentary by ABG Films Islam v Islamists, local imam, Ahmed Shqeirat described our work as “liberal extremism.”

The debate this week against an imam in Naples proved that these apologetics are apparently and most unfortunately common across the nation (from Arizona to Florida) in many imam circles as a litmus test for Islamists who believe in political Islam and the Islamic state. Make no mistake: my opponents in the clerical realm try to brush off our work as “anti-imam” or anti-scholarship in Islam. A cartoon in a local Islamist publication tried to portray just such propaganda against me in 2005. The reality is quite the contrary. Many humble scholarly imams have provided the intellectual underpinnings for our anti-Islamist Muslim precepts at AIFD. In fact it is the persona of the morally corrupt imam who has been the greatest liability for the real scholars of Islam who are the anti-Islamist, anti-Wahhabi imams of virtue which are so marginalized in the American public square.

This challenge of opening this debate and even acknowledging its existence is no small undertaking, considering the number of Islamist forces working within the Muslim community against such an awakening. Further challenges include tendencies of the general public to accept minority and identity politics in the U.S. and the inherent Islamist exploitation of that in order to further tribal behavior and foment divisiveness in America. By doing so, they craftily avoid self-critique, not to mention the collaborating forces outside the Muslim community (mainstream media and many U.S. Government officials) that are all too ready to accept Islamist ideology as the de facto consensus of the orientation of the faithful.

Yet, frustratingly, many anti-Islamist Muslims have been standing alone ready to challenge the Islamist position within the Muslim community, unable to gain any traction against the conventional wisdom that Islam is Islamism and Islamists are the only devotional Muslims. Geert Wilders’ film Fitna, Ayaan hirsi Ali’s Infidel and other expressions exposing radical Islamist ideology are able to conflate Islam with political Islam and militant Islam because they have been almost inarguably unable to find a palpable debate within the Muslim community concerning the ideas they critique. Islamists often whine in an oversimplified denial immersed in pathetic victimology, while anti-Islamist Muslims remain unheard and unable to find a forum.

Certainly, many anti-Islamist Muslims have been writing and speaking out all over the world. But we have generally been “preaching to the choir” and past the Islamists and their collaborators who disagree with us. Why have we have often ended up speaking “past” them? The answer is their unwillingness to engage openly in a debate over our central differences on Islam and the Muslim consciousness. Theirs is a strategy cloaked in deliberately ignoring the debate and deliberately clouding Islam with Islamism – much to the chagrin of the average non-Islamist Muslim.

The Islamists conveniently call internal challenges to their theology a manifestation of a societal ill which they equate with “division” (fitna in Arabic). They feel that their moves to politically collectivize the Muslim community, or the “ummah,” can never be challenged. They ignore the fact that the political collectivization of Muslims runs contrary to the national interests of our collective nation and our citizenship. For the few who do accept the challenge they do so only on their terms, privately, within the community, away from media and away from any accountability to the greater American community.

This blind collectivism is the exact reason the Muslim mind in so many mosques and activist organizations is hopelessly and cowardly paralyzed in apologetics and victimization. The Islamists are thereby easily able to muster the courage of their faulty convictions enough to champion political Islam and secure its stranglehold upon the public manifestation of the Muslim consciousness.

There is no better way for Muslims to generate credibility and speed up our growth than to encourage and participate in an open public debate. Once anti-Islamist and pro-Islamist Muslims intellectually engage one another, the rest of the world can finally see that the most effective means to counterterrorism is a devotional Muslim counter to political Islam and the religious validity of the Islamic state. The determination of whose version of Islam is closer to the central message of Islam is vital to countering the visceral drive of militant Islamism.

By avoiding debate, the Islamists are not only ignoring the Prophet Mohammed’s tradition of intellectual engagement with all those who disagreed with him inside and outside the faith community, but they are falling lockstep with the fascist precept that supremacist ideologies have to be superior by virtue of their own standing and should never be challenged by other non-conforming Muslims.

Engagement can be a tenuous and possibly dangerous endeavor. Many Islamists by virtue of their apologetics for terrorism and facilitation of the Islamist ideology end up associated (if not hatched from) international and often militant Islamist organizations like Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. But debating them is still quite helpful and infinitely revealing.

The most important element to be underscored is that debate and confrontation cannot be equated with endorsement and facilitation. It is far more dangerous to ignore these organizations and Islamist thought leaders and hand them the intellectual reins of the Muslim community unchallenged than to engage them and highlight the ideas which put them at odds with reason, spirituality, and modernity.

Recently on February 23, 2008, while I was participating in a panel on radical Islam’s threat to the West in Naples Florida, a local imam, Mohamed Al-Darsani of the Islamic Center for Peace challenged my ideas and cast me out with little substantiation as being “outside the mainstream Muslim community.” It seemed that my orthodox adherence to traditional Sunni Muslim worship and spiritual devotion made little difference to him. His charge about my position in the Muslim community was made concerning my stand on terrorism and political Islam.

I immediately responded with an open challenge to engage him in a debate on the threat of Islamism (the desire to form an Islamic state) to American security. To my surprise (and thanks to the Florida Security Council), he agreed.

With the tenacity of the local Florida Security Council, within six weeks, I had an official debate with Imam Mohammed Al-Darsani, with Michael Cromartie of the Center for Ethics and Public Policy moderating. We agreed to debate the question: “Is the Establishment of the Islamic State a Clear Ideological Threat to the United States?” I debated the affirmative and Mr. Al-Darsani the negative.

The two-plus hour long debate covered a lot of ground. Most poignantly, it highlighted the great chasm between the corruption of Islamist apologetics and the struggle to renew the moral truth of spiritual Islam separated from Islamist demagoguery. A review of the debate demonstrates the wide abyss which separates so many faithful anti-Islamist Muslims from Imam Al-Darsani and other similar Islamist apologists. One has to give the imam credit for showing up and having the courage of his convictions. Sadly, it is those very convictions which are the primary fuel for terrorism worldwide. Once we understand the relationship of political Islam and its various permutations from Wahhabism to salafism to deobandism to militant Islamism and its terror, we will be able to effectuate and progress a global anti-Islamist movement.

Debates like the one which occurred last week in Florida are the beginning of a “contest” of ideas which will herald either the victory of post-modern Islam over theocratic Islam or the converse. Global security and the continuation of American society as we know it hangs in the balance.

The debate was videotaped by both sides – ours (AIFD) and theirs (Imam Al-Darsani and the Islamic Center for Peace of Fort Myers, Florida). Our copy is in production and will not be available for a while. A Muslim member of Mr. Al-Darsani’s mosque, Greg George, has posted the entire debate online in six parts. He is apparently also a documentary producer and an unconventional (to say the least) candidate for Congress in his district. I refer you to his video links of the debate which he posted. But that is certainly no endorsement of Mr. George or Mr. Al-Darsani and his Islamic Center for Peace.

Watch the debate at these links at Google Video.

Watch the debate at these links at Google Video.

[Part 1 (Introductions and Al-Darsani Opening)]
[Part 2 (Jasser opening, Rebuttals]
[Part 3 Cross-Examinations]
[Part 4 Audience Q+A]
[Part 5 Audience Q+A and Al-Darsani Closing]
[Part 6 Jasser Closing- End of Debate]

As you watch the debate, know that this is one of the first of its kind publicly that I know of in the West between two devotional Muslims over the topic of political Islam and terror.

Human beings may often err as we engage in the confrontation of ideas. But to err is human. The only thing worse than an occasional misstep or misspeak in the public contest of ideas is the apathetic indifference and avoidance of any challenge to our own ideas. Such avoidance comes from individual weakness and the inability of many Islamists to muster the courage of their convictions. Those unwilling to withstand a public challenge to their ideas deserve neither the respect of their convictions nor the leadership of the communities which they purport to represent. In fact, their failure to do so points to a murkier Islamist plot of silencing discourse and stifling criticism to evade accountability, not only to Muslims, but to America as a whole.
In Part II of this column I will review my own perceptions of the obvious ideological demarcations made in the debate between the Islamist (Al-Darsani) and the anti-Islamist (Jasser).

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