You are just jealous because they let Beres out of the building.
You wouldn't go to see for yourself since you have to leave Davidson county and they might have scary gunz~!

Wow.. Is this real? If I had seen that report I'd have a hard time not thinking I was reading the onion

More specifically, the subtitle was "Is a Local Muslim Community Tied to TERRORISM?"
The bar was already pretty darn low for local TV journalism. But I suppose when Maury Davis is concerned about something, we all should be.

I could have understood all the hoopla if there had been something to the video. However, in last nights news presentation they spoke of an amish community and the break-ins they were experiencing and how they were needing protected and then bashing this muslim community. Also if they were a compound training terrorist, how is that different from the militia groups in Montana and such areas that have it out for the government. Are they not also terrorist? They should not be singled out for their beliefs, and we need to learn how treat everyone equally regardless of their nationality, religion, etc.
Just my opinion, I could be wrong...

Thank you so much for this.

I didn't see your post until now. This morning I did a little checking into "Act For America" and their local spokes-but, Vijay Kumar. Funny Beres never mentioned Kumar is the perpetual Republican candidate for Jim Cooper's seat.
These folks are anti-Muslim zealots. Way to mainstream the crazy.

All day yesterday the banner ad above the story on channel 5's site was for muslima.com, “the international Muslim matrimonial site.” Awkward! At least they seem to have fixed that.

(Don't think my last post made it through, but if this is a dupe, apologies.)
I checked into Act For America and local spokes-nut Vijay Kumar, who it seems is the perpetual Republican candidate for Jim Cooper's seat. Funny that wasn't mentioned in the piece. Act For America is run by a Zionist zealot named Brigitte Gabirel, whose books about Muslims have such lovley titles as "They Must Be Stopped" and "Because They Hate."
Seriosuly, since when has local media decided that the rantings of the crackpot fringe are newsworthy? I guess we can expect more of this, after all the national news media devoted 3 days of coverage to nutballs at the Tea Party.

Christian Coalition of America won't be happy until there's a fifty foot cross at every gate and driveway in America. I'd like to see the people at "Islamville" file a defamation lawsuit.

Susie-
It doesn't matter. What matters is that they blatantly lied. Journalists are supposed to objectively report the truth. While objectivity is difficult sometimes, the truth is much easier. Channel 5 has always been full of garbage, though. While I am surprised they stopped this low, I am only *slightly* surprised.

As soon as I saw the video of the trashed-out trailer homes in their compound, I knew these Muslims had assimilated themselves as red-blooded Tennesseans, and weren't some terrorists.

"Inside Islamville: Is a Local Muslim Community Tied to Terrorism?" may have yielded nothing, but personally, I look forward to Beres' hard-hitting followup piece: "Inside Islamville: What About Now?" and the next one: "Inside Islamville: What About Now? Terrorist Yet? Are We Sure? Let's Check Again"

Upon reflection, I have to wonder if this really is a new low for local TV news. I have two words for you: Andy Cordan.

...and they wounder why Broadcast TV is declining......just garbage

You missed the point. The real target of this subtle expose was Maury Davis. Newschannel5 can't go after an advertiser like Davis head on. But they can show what a panicky hatemonger he is by spending two nights debunking one of his pet conspiracies.
Well played, Nick Beres.

I don't why we should expect any better from local TV. What about WTN and WLAC radio? There was a time when their owners would never have allowed Phil Valentine and Steve Gill and all the rest of those blowhards on the air. Is there no one at Channel 5 with enough sense to recognize religious bigotry when they see it? Where was Phil Williams? So if Channel 5 heard from some crackpot that, say, the Church of Christ was sacrificing humans out on Haywood Lane, would they run out there and check it out and do a big scary investigative series?

The Church of Christ is sacrificing humans out on Haywood Lane?

Everyone seems to be forgetting that February is sweeps month.

Everyone seems to be forgetting that February is sweeps month.
No, we're not. That's what makes this so disgusting. It seems there is no bottom to WTVF's low stoop for ratings.

Wondering when NIck Beres is going to cover the "Loose Change" DVD, or maybe one of the Coral Ridge Ministry's hysterical videos.
Please don't tell the folks at NewsChannel5 about all the wacko stuff on YouTube. Lord knows where they'll look for their next "expose."

Inside NewsChannel5: Are their investigative reports SENSATIONALIZED CRAP?

This is appalling but nothing new. The TV and the print media have gone down the tubes, so to speak. Newspapers spin their headlines to raise doubts, fears and questions. "What is yah-dee-dah going to to to Obama's plans? "How is yah-dee-dah going impact the already bad eceonomy?"
About the third paragraph down you realize they're not saying this at all. TV does the same kind of thing - the impact is worse because it's visual.
I lost repect for 5 and CBS several years ago.

Maybe Nick is just setting the stage for his follow-up exclusive on inflamed rednecks attacking Islamville. Shameless.

Nick is usually above this kind of nonsense. It's what you'd expect of, maybe, Phil Williams. I've got to think that Beres wasn't responsible for the over-the-top promos and couldn't object too loudly to what his producers or corporate masters were demanding.

Gee soon it will be whats your community up to? They come and interview your community and see if your good Americans? Then what they send in the DEA to bust down the doors, shoot your dogs or you and lock everyone left alive in prison?
Oh wait the DEA does that now anyhow with just one bad tip, yep it could be your grandparents that get shot in the middle of the night when they decide to raid their home because some crackhead told them they were dealers to get off his charges!!
America, the land of the free, unless someone mistakenly points a finger at your home, or you have a different faith like these folks, then its cameras and choppers flying around, real nice! "hey, we came to see, are you terrorists"

I thought this story was a load of crap as well. Don't believe what you see on TV folks. All these stations/companies care about anymore are RATINGS!

Quit whining. The story was perfectly fine. In fact, it's promotion gathered a huge audience of people ready to believe the worst and revealed that their Muslim neighbors were just ordinary people. WTVF should be thanked.

What if someone said they were a Muslim and these types of things are going on ~ would you call them a crackpot?

I was horrified by this piece of crap on Channel 5. I've been writing nasty emails and tweeting about it ever since I saw it. They better cough up some money to pay for what they did to those poor people. But now, their safety is compromised. And notice how they don't have the courage to report what happened to the people as a result of their Hate Crime Enthusiastic piece? Karma is a bitch...I hope it bites Channel 5 in the ass.

I guess Middle TN doesn't understand that all are equal in the USA, still stuck in the McCarthy Hearings and Segregation. Just a pathetic and deplorable that this kind of thing lands on local news.

Ah, This is spot on! Dispells
many misnomers I've read

Wonderful to see how balanced you Americans are, & not prone to the weak-minded Hollywood Histrionics as encouraged by the swivel-eyed conspiracy theorists & existential HATE-mongers of the swamp. More than 99% of the world's people just want to live in peace & how they want - it is only the "Divide & Rule" power-seekers & the paranoid who stir up the primitive sectarianism. Peace & Love.

Contrary to Southern Beale's juvenille mudslinging, I find Vijay Kumar to be the among the most thoughtful, straightforward, intelligent, and eloquent political candidates I've ever encountered from either party. He is a devout Constitutionalist, which is why he is the anti-Sharia candidate, because Sharia law inarguably is diametrically opposed to the most fundamental principles of liberal democracy and to every one of our most cherished rights guaranteed by our Constitution. He watched his own native country, India, torn apart by Islamic aggression and domination, and was working in Iran during the Islamic Revolution in 1979 that put into place the militant theocracy we are dealing with today. He's seen jihad up-close and personal. Have you, Southern Beale? Do you know what dhimmitude is? Do you know what the jizya tax is? Do you advocate Islam's mandate that all non-Muslims are inferior and are to be dealt with by a separate set of standards under Sharia law? Or is your specialty just name-calling?

The hand wringing and overheated histronics over a news organization doing a news story is hilarious . This is a secular liberal democracy, it's not Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Iraq. Thank God. You can report or say whatever the hell you want.
Put on a berqa, quit eating pork chops, and turn the channel if you don't like it.
Sheesh.

Sorry Ned Didry, I am of Indian origins from Gujarat state- first hand & second hand experience. With regard to what is happening in India, firstly it is such a vast country & diverse land of over billion people that it is called a subcontinent i.e. if it were not joined to Asia, it would be rightly called a continent in its own right.
In fact India highlights the discrepancies in the "Muslims cannot live in democracies" facile agenda-driven narrative. Reductio ad absurdum. Try reading the US government reports which laud the 150mn odd Indian Muslim population as a positive example to emulate.
Even as an NRI with intimate links to India, to be honest, I can only speak with a reasonable degree of authority with respect to Gujarat. The Human Rights organisations whether Indian or Western all put the record straight as to who is culpable & who are the main victims of terror. Gujarat has long been a haven of Hindutva terrorists, like those that shot Gandhi. Many Indian PMs have been assassinated by terrorists, not one by a Muslim. Aryan Fascist Hindutvadis openly admire Nazi German militarism & Hitler in particular in Gujarati school text books. Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom-style fanatics, "first the Muslims & the Christians" has been seen by anti-minority pogroms. Luckily the centre still has a British "secular" multicultural tradition which respects diversity. Just because you may be concerned with fighting terrorists who happen to be from Muslim origins, open your eyes & do not forget the crazies of other ideologies/religions. God help us if the RSS ever get hold of India's nukes.

Latest Offerings from the Religion of Peace
"He who fights that Islam should be superior fights in Allah's cause"
Muhammad, prophet of Islam
2010.02.14 (Kufa, Iraq) - A female suicide bomber murders at least four Shia pilgrims headed to a religious ceremony.
2010.02.13 (Pune, India) - Five women are among nine innocents blasted to death by a Shahid suicide bomber at a bakery near a Jewish center.
2010.02.12 (Pattani, Thailand) - A 38-year-old man is murdered by Muslim gunmen.
2010.02.12 (Buhriz, Iraq) - A man and his son are blown to bits by Jihadi bombers.
2010.02.12 (Saada, Yemen) - Militant Shiites ambush and kill a government soldier.
2010.02.12 (Paktia, Afghanistan) - Three women are bound, gagged and executed by religious extremists.

Muhammad's Own Words
Fighting
Qur'an:9:88 "The Messenger and those who believe with him, strive hard and fight with their wealth and lives in Allah's Cause."
Qur'an:9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."
Qur'an:9:112 "The Believers fight in Allah's Cause, they slay and are slain, kill and are killed."
Qur'an:9:29 "Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission."
Ishaq:325 "Muslims, fight in Allah's Cause. Stand firm and you will prosper. Help the Prophet, obey him, give him your allegiance, and your religion will be victorious."
Qur'an:8:39 "Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah."
Qur'an:8:39 "So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world)."
Ishaq:324 "He said, 'Fight them so that there is no more rebellion, and religion, all of it, is for Allah only. Allah must have no rivals.'"
Qur'an:9:14 "Fight them and Allah will punish them by your hands, lay them low, and cover them with shame. He will help you over them."
Ishaq:300 "I am fighting in Allah's service. This is piety and a good deed. In Allah's war I do not fear as others should. For this fighting is righteous, true, and good."
Ishaq:587 "Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace."
Qur'an:8:65 "O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding."
Ishaq:326 "Prophet exhort the believers to fight. If there are twenty good fighters they will defeat two hundred for they are a senseless people. They do not fight with good intentions nor for truth."
Bukhari:V4B52N63 "A man whose face was covered with an iron mask came to the Prophet and said, 'Allah's Apostle! Shall I fight or embrace Islam first?' The Prophet said, 'Embrace Islam first and then fight.' So he embraced Islam, and was martyred. Allah's Apostle said, 'A Little work, but a great reward.'"
Bukhari:V4B53N386 "Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah alone or pay us the Jizyah tribute tax in submission. Our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says: 'Whoever amongst us is killed as a martyr shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever survives shall become your master.'"
Muslim:C34B20N4668 "The Messenger said: 'Anybody who equips a warrior going to fight in the Way of Allah is like one who actually fights. And anybody who looks after his family in his absence is also like one who actually fights."
Qur'an:9:38 "Believers, what is the matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth and fight in Allah's Cause you cling to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? Unless you go forth, He will afflict and punish you with a painful doom, and put others in your place."
Qur'an:9:123 "Fight the unbelievers around you, and let them find harshness in you."
Qur'an:8:72 "Those who accepted Islam and left their homes to fight in Allah's Cause with their possessions and persons, and those who gave (them) asylum, aid, and shelter, those who harbored them - these are allies of one another. You are not responsible for protecting those who embraced Islam but did not leave their homes [to fight] until they do so." [Another translation reads:] "You are only called to protect Muslims who fight."
Muslim:C9B1N31 "I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and believe in me (that) I am the Messenger and in all that I have brought."
Bukhari:V9B84N59 "Whoever says this will save his property and life from me.'"
Qur'an:8:73 "The unbelieving infidels are allies. Unless you (Muslims) aid each other (fighting as one united block to make Allah's religion victorious), there will be confusion and mischief. Those who accepted Islam, left their homes to fight in Allah's Cause (al-Jihad), as well as those who give them asylum, shelter, and aid - these are (all) Believers: for them is pardon and bountiful provision (in Paradise)."
Tabari IX:69 "Arabs are the most noble people in lineage, the most prominent, and the best in deeds. We were the first to respond to the call of the Prophet. We are Allah's helpers and the viziers of His Messenger. We fight people until they believe in Allah. He who believes in Allah and His Messenger has protected his life and possessions from us. As for one who disbelieves, we will fight him forever in the Cause of Allah. Killing him is a small matter to us."
Qur'an:48:16 "Say (Muhammad) to the wandering desert Arabs who lagged behind: 'You shall be invited to fight against a people given to war with mighty prowess. You shall fight them until they surrender and submit. If you obey, Allah will grant you a reward, but if you turn back, as you did before, He will punish you with a grievous torture."
Qur'an:48:22 "If the unbelieving infidels fight against you, they will retreat. (Such has been) the practice (approved) of Allah in the past: no change will you find in the ways of Allah."
Qur'an:47:4 "When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah's Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam."
Qur'an:47:31 "And We shall try you until We know those among you who are the fighters."
Tabari VI:138 "Those present at the oath of Aqabah had sworn an allegiance to Muhammad. It was a pledge of war against all men. Allah had permitted fighting."
Tabari VI:139 "Allah had given his Messenger permission to fight by revealing the verse 'And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah.'"
Qur'an:9:19 "Do you make the giving of drink to pilgrims, or the maintenance of the Mosque, equal to those who fight in the Cause of Allah? They are not comparable in the sight of Allah. Those who believe, and left their homes, striving with might, fighting in Allah's Cause with their goods and their lives, have the highest rank in the sight of Allah."
Ishaq:550 "The Muslims met them with their swords. They cut through many arms and skulls. Only confused cries and groans could be heard over our battle roars and snarling."
Qur'an:5:94 "Believers, Allah will make a test for you in the form of a little game in which you reach out for your lances. Any who fails this test will have a grievous punishment."
Ishaq:578 "Crushing the heads of the infidels and splitting their skulls with sharp swords, we continually thrust and cut at the enemy. Blood gushed from their deep wounds as the battle wore them down. We conquered bearing the Prophet's fluttering war banner. Our cavalry was submerged in rising dust, and our spears quivered, but by us the Prophet gained victory."
Tabari IX:22 "The Prophet continued to besiege the town, fighting them bitterly."
Tabari IX:25 "By Allah, I did not come to fight for nothing. I wanted a victory over Ta'if so that I might obtain a slave girl from them and make her pregnant."
Tabari IX:82 "The Messenger sent Khalid with an army of 400 to Harith [a South Arabian tribe] and ordered him to invite them to Islam for three days before he fought them. If they were to respond and submit, he was to teach them the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of His Prophet, and the requirements of Islam. If they should decline, then he was to fight them."
Tabari IX:88 "Abdallah Azdi came to the Messenger, embraced Islam, and became a good Muslim. Allah's Apostle invested Azdi with the authority over those who had surrendered and ordered him to fight the infidels from the tribes of Yemen. Azdi left with an army by the Messenger's command. The Muslims besieged them for a month. Then they withdrew, setting a trap. When the Yemenites went in pursuit, Azdi was able to inflict a heavy loss on them."
Ishaq:530 "Get out of his way, you infidel unbelievers. Every good thing goes with the Apostle. Lord, I believe in his word. We will fight you about its interpretations as we have fought you about its revelation with strokes that will remove heads from shoulders and make enemies of friends."
Muslim:C9B1N29 "Command For Fighting Against People So Long As They Do Not Profess That There Is No Ilah (God) But Allah And Muhammad Is His Messenger: When the Messenger breathed his last and Bakr was appointed Caliph, many Arabs chose to become apostates [rejected Islam]. Abu Bakr said: 'I will definitely fight against anyone who stops paying the Zakat tax, for it is an obligation. I will fight against them even to secure the cord used for hobbling the feet of a camel which they used to pay if they withhold it now.' Allah had justified fighting against those who refused to pay Zakat."
Muslim:C9B1N33 "The Prophet said: 'I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and they establish prostration prayer, and pay Zakat. If they do it, their blood and property are protected.'"
Muslim:C10B1N176 "Muhammad (may peace be upon him) sent us in a raiding party. We raided Huraqat in the morning. I caught hold of a man and he said: 'There is no god but Allah,' but I attacked him with a spear anyway. It once occurred to me that I should ask the Apostle about this. The Messenger said: 'Did he profess "There is no god but Allah," and even then you killed him?' I said: 'He made a profession out of the fear of the weapon I was threatening him with.' The Prophet said: 'Did you tear out his heart in order to find out whether it had professed truly or not?'"
Muslim:C20B1N4597 "The Prophet said at the conquest of Mecca: 'There is no migration now, but only Jihad, fighting for the Cause of Islam. When you are asked to set out on a Jihad expedition, you should readily do so.'"
Muslim:C28B20N4628 "Allah has undertaken to provide for one who leaves his home to fight for His Cause and to affirm the truth of His word; Allah will either admit him to Paradise or will bring him back home with his reward and booty."
Muslim:C28B20N4629 "The Messenger said: 'One who is wounded in the Way of Allah - and Allah knows best who is wounded in His Way - will appear on the Day of Judgment with his wound still bleeding. The color (of its discharge) will be blood, (but) its smell will be musk.'"
Muslim:C34B20N4652-3 "The Merit Of Jihad And Of Keeping Vigilance Over The Enemy: A man came to the Holy Prophet and said: 'Who is the best of men?' He replied: 'A man who fights staking his life and spending his wealth in Allah's Cause.'"
Muslim:C42B20N4684 "A desert Arab came to the Prophet and said: 'Messenger, one man fights for the spoils of war; another fights that he may be remembered, and one fights that he may see his (high) position (achieved as a result of his valor in fighting). Which of these is fighting in the Cause of Allah?' The Messenger of Allah said: 'Who fights so that the word of Allah is exalted is fighting in the Way of Allah.'"
Muslim:C53B20N4717 "The Prophet said: 'This religion will continue to exist, and a group of people from the Muslims will continue to fight for its protection until the Hour is established.'"
Bukhari:V5B59N288 "I witnessed a scene that was dearer to me than anything I had ever seen. Aswad came to the Prophet while Muhammad was urging the Muslims to fight the pagans. He said, 'We shall fight on your right and on your left and in front of you and behind you.' I saw the face of the Prophet getting bright with happiness, for that saying delighted him."
Bukhari:V5B59N290 "The believers who did not join the Ghazwa [Islamic raid or invasion] and those who fought are not equal in reward."
Qur'an:2:193 "Fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief) and religion is only for Allah. But if they cease/desist, let there be no hostility except against infidel disbelievers."
Qur'an:2:217 "They question you concerning fighting in the sacred month. Say: 'Fighting therein is a grave (matter); but to prevent access to Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, to expel its members, and polytheism are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they make you renegades from your religion. If any of you turn back and die in unbelief, your works will be lost and you will go to Hell. Surely those who believe and leave their homes to fight in Allah's Cause have the hope of Allah's mercy."
Qur'an:2:244 "Fight in Allah's Cause, and know that Allah hears and knows all."
Qur'an:2:246 "He said: 'Would you refrain from fighting if fighting were prescribed for you?' They said: 'How could we refuse to fight in Allah's Cause?'"
Ishaq:280 "The Apostle prepared for war in pursuance of Allah's command to fight his enemies and to fight the infidels who Allah commanded him to fight."
Qur'an:61:2 "O Muslims, why say one thing and do another? Grievously odious and hateful is it in the sight of Allah that you say that which you do not. Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in a battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure."
Bukhari:V4B52N61 "Allah's Apostle! We were absent from the first battle you fought against the pagans. If Allah gives us a chance to do battle, no doubt, He will see how bravely we fight."
Ishaq:398 "Ask them for their help. Thereby make the religion of Islam agreeable to them. And when you are resolved in the matter of religion concerning fighting your enemy you will have the advantage."
Qur'an:3:146 "How many prophets fought in Allah's Cause? With them (fought) myriads of godly men who were slain. They never lost heart if they met with disaster in Allah's Cause, nor did they weaken nor give in. Allah loves those who are firm and steadfast [warriors]."
Ishaq:393 "How many prophets has death in battle befallen and how many multitudes with him? They did not show weakness toward their enemies and were not humiliated when they suffered in the fight for Allah and their religion. That is steadfastness. Allah loves the steadfast."
Qur'an:3:153 "Behold! You ran off precipitately, climbing up the high hill without even casting a side glance at anyone, while the Messenger in your rear is calling you from your rear, urging you to fight. Allah gave you one distress after another by way of requital, to teach you not to grieve for the booty that had escaped you and for (the ill) that had befallen you."
Qur'an:3:154 "Say: 'Even if you had remained in your houses, those ordained to be slaughtered would have gone forth to the places where they were to slain."
Ishaq:440 "Helped by the Holy Spirit we smited Muhammad's foes. The Apostle sent a message to them with a sharp cutting sword."
Ishaq:470 "We attacked them fully armed, swords in hand, cutting through heads and skulls."
Qur'an:61:4 "Surely Allah loves those who fight in His Cause."
Qur'an:61:11 "Believers, shall I lead you to a bargain or trade that will save you from a painful torment? That you believe in Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad), and that you strive and fight in Allah's Cause with your property and your lives: That will be best for you!" Qur'an 61:12 "He will forgive you your sins, and admit you to Gardens under which rivers flow, and to beautiful mansions in Eden: that is indeed the Supreme Achievement. And another (favor) which you love: help from Allah for a speedy victory over your enemies."
Qur'an:8:5 "Your Lord ordered you out of your homes to fight for the true cause, even though some Muslims disliked it, and were averse (to fighting)."
Qur'an:24:53 "They swear their strongest oaths saying that if only you would command them. They would leave their homes (and go forth fighting in Allah's Cause). Say: 'Swear not; Obedience is (more) reasonable.'"
Qur'an:4:74 "Let those who fight in Allah's Cause sell this world's life for the hereafter. To him who fights in Allah's Cause, whether he is slain or victorious, We shall give him a reward."
Qur'an:4:75 "What reason have you that you should not fight in Allah's Cause?" [Another translation says:] "What is wrong with you that you do not fight for Allah?"
Qur'an:4:76 "Those who believe fight in the Cause of Allah."
Qur'an:4:77 "Have you not seen those to whom it was said: Withhold from fighting, perform the prayer and pay the zakat. But when orders for fighting were issued, a party of them feared men as they ought to have feared Allah. They say: 'Our Lord, why have You ordained fighting for us, why have You made war compulsory?'"
Qur'an:4:78 "Wherever you are, death will find you, even if you are in towers strong and high! So what is wrong with these people, that they fail to understand these simple words?"
Qur'an:4:84 "Then fight (Muhammad) in Allah's Cause. Incite the believers to fight with you."
Qur'an:4:94 "Believers, when you go abroad to fight wars in Allah's Cause, investigate carefully, and say not to anyone who greets you: 'You are not a believer!' Coveting the chance profits of this life (so that you may despoil him). With Allah are plenteous spoils and booty."
Qur'an:4:95 "Not equal are believers who sit home and receive no hurt and those who fight in Allah's Cause with their wealth and lives. Allah has granted a grade higher to those who fight with their possessions and bodies to those who sit home. Those who fight He has distinguished with a special reward."
Qur'an:4:100 "He who leaves his home in Allah's Cause finds abundant resources and many a refuge. Should he die as a refugee for Allah and His Messenger His reward becomes due and sure with Allah. When you travel through the earth there is no blame on you if you curtail your worship for fear unbelievers may attack you. In truth the disbelievers are your enemy."
Qur'an:4:102 "When you (Prophet) lead them in prayer, let some stand with you, taking their arms with them. When they finish their prostrations, let them take positions in the rear. And let others who have not yet prayed come - taking all precaution, and bearing arms. The Infidels wish, if you were negligent of your arms, to assault you in a rush. But there is no blame on you if you put away your arms because of the inconvenience of rain or because you are ill; but take precaution. For the Unbelieving Infidels Allah hath prepared a humiliating punishment."
Qur'an:4:104 "And do not relent in pursuing the enemy."

NRI Muslim from Gujarat sed: Just because you may be concerned with fighting terrorists who happen to be from Muslim origins, open your eyes & do not forget the crazies of other ideologies/religions.
The "crazies" of other ideologies/and religions haven't caused the deaths of close to 6 million people in the last few decades, as Muslim violence has. Other ideologies/religions don't have mandates like these:
"I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.'" —Muhammad (Sahih Bukhari. Hadith Volume 4, Book 52, Number 196: Narrated Abu Huraira)
"I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, so strike off their heads and cut off all their fingers, because they opposed God and His apostle and he who opposes God and His apostle (will find) God severe in punishment." —Muhammad (Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad)
"Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers." —Quran 3.151
"We shall put yokes on the necks of the Unbelievers." —Quran 34:33
"Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you." —Quran 2:216
I asked the Prophet [Muhammad], "What is the best deed?" He replied, "To believe in Allah and to fight for His Cause." (Sahih Bukhari. Hadith Volume 3, Book 46, Number 694: Narrated Abu Dhar)
"When you are called (by the Muslim ruler) for fighting, go forth immediately." —Muhammad (Sahih Bukhari. Hadith Volume 4, Book 52, Number 79: Narrated Ibn 'Abbas)
"Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, has ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah Alone or give Jizya (i.e. tribute)." (Sahih Bukhari. Hadith Volume 4, Book 53, Number 386: Narrated Jubair bin Haiya)
"Fight those who believe not in Allah...until they pay the Jizya [tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." —Quran 9:29
My eyes are wide open, thanks. You should try it some time.

Ah, This is perfect! Clears up
some misnomers I've read

This is disgusting. Channel 5 should be ashamed.

Selective polemics is quite an easy game to play.
With regard to deaths from other religions/ideologies. Set an artificial cut-off point, say the 1900, call it the "the Modern Age".
Atheistic ideologies killed far more than any religion e.g. Communism & Fascism. We can pick out the elephant in the room i.e. nationalism (or should I say the euphemism for tribalism?).
How about Capitalism & the scramble for resources using Imperialism?
The use of selective quotes out of context is easy, just read the Old Testament, or even the New Testament or Talmudic commentaries. Matthew 10:34 - "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" "Jesus in hell where His punishment is "boiling in hot semen." (Talmud, Gittin 57a; Exhibit 202)" Kol Nidre taken as any vow to a non-Jew can be ignored etc.
How about in wartime, "truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies- Winston Churchill." Machiavellian & Greco-Roman political dissembling for power?
Anyone heard about Social Darwinism, which forms much of the ideological justification for most Western derived violence?
Once again Rightwing "Clash" theorist "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
-- Samuel P. Huntington.
The magic 6 million figure, appealing to Pavlovian emotionalism eh? Where did that figure come from?
Eyes wide open you say? - recall the Christian verse Matthew 7:5 "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye".
P.S. Jaundiced polemics are easy for all sides & my intention is for pure illustration & not for demonisation or causing hurt to any group.

Saudi Arabia, the birth place of Islam, contributed NOTHING to Civilization, except, Quran, Mohammad, Jihad, and Sodomy.
Islam destroyed Iran (Persian, Zorastrian),
Egypt (Coptic), Syria (Eastern Orthodox), Turkey (Greek), Afghanistan (Buddhist), Pakistan (Hindu) civilizations.
Now Islam wants to destroy Western Europe, and the United States from the within.
There are no Jews OR Amreicans in Bali, Thailand, Why did Muslim Radicals kill hundreds there?
Why the world is silent of the genocide Sudanese Animists, who are black, by Arab Muslim Imperalists?
There are more than 15,000 terrorists acts since September 11, 2001 by Islamic terrorists. Why is the Left silent about them?
On these blogs, the Progressives are defending those who are determined to destoy them......The Radical Islam. What an irony.

Wow Jessie Thompson sure is a piece of work. Found some of his other posts at the "Patriotic Resistance." Disgusting.

Ad hominem is the last refuge for the defeated. Thanks for you confession, Anonymous, that you got nothin' but a bag'o'snide.

Salam Alaikum = Peace Be Upon You.
Amazing how the simple-minded paranoid conspiracy-theory existentialists reduce 23% of humanity to an evil stereotype - get out more.
Did Islam contribute nothing to civilisation? http://www.muslimheritage.com/. Ever heard about Algebra,Rumi,Romances, universities & the Empiricist method etc? However, the same slur was used by racists e.g. against black Africans to justify imperialism.
"Sodomy" - a Saudi contribution, really?
"Islam" did not destroy those nations anymore than Christianity destroyed Europe or the Americas etc. As for "Hindu" civilisation - no such thing. "Hinduism" was a term invented by the British in the C18th. I seem to recall Churchill's saying about India i.e. “India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the Equator.”
Islam no more wants to destroy Europe & the US than does any other religion. The Jews were accused of being a parasitic 5th column & eternal enemy of Western Civilisation too.
Without becoming an apologist for terrorists, try reading a bit more e.g. history & current affairs for a nuanced balanced view instead of simplistic conspiracy theories.
Bali had Western targets for terrorists. Militaristic expansionist Thailand was gifted a racially & religiously alien Malay nation by the British Empire, so resistance to occupation & assimilation is not that surprising is it? As for Sudan, more nuance debate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGOpfH_5_pY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Esalaam%2Eco%2Euk%2Fvideo%2F&feature=player_embedded . Plus can you really tell me that Sudanese Arabs are not black, try opening your eyes & looking?
As for terrorist acts, try reading the O.E.D. definition & applying that without fear or favour, & why is the Islamophobic bigots silent about them? Selective nonsense.
Progressives are not defending those wanting to destroy them. Progressives are progressive & can see the world from more than one side & are not fear-filled Regressives. Progressivesness requires empathy in order to treat all human beings as equals without ignorant prejudice, then picking on individual wrong-doers without labelling 23% of humanity as evil.

Muslim Claims of Accomplishment
By Peter BetBasoo
ChristiansOfIraq.com | Friday, January 04,
Dear Madame Fiorina:
It is with great interest that I read your speech delivered on September 26, 2001, titled "Technology, Business and Our way of Life: What's Next" [sic]. I was particularly interested in the story you told at the end of your speech, about the Arab/Muslim civilization. As an Assyrian, a non-Arab, Christian native of the Middle East, whose ancestors reach back to 5000 B.C., I wish to clarify some points you made in this little story, and to alert you to the dangers of unwittingly being drawn into the Arabist/Islamist ideology, which seeks to assimilate all cultures and religions into the Arab/Islamic fold.
I know you are a very busy woman, but please find ten minutes to read what follows, as it is a perspective that you will not likely get from anywhere else. I will answer some of the specific points you made in your speech, then conclude with a brief perspective on this Arabist/Islamist ideology.
Arabs and Muslims appeared on the world scene in 630 A.D., when the armies of Muhammad began their conquest of the Middle East. We should be very clear that this was a military conquest, not a missionary enterprise, and through the use of force, authorized by a declaration of a Jihad against infidels, Arabs/Muslims were able to forcibly convert and assimilate non-Arabs and non-Muslims into their fold. Very few indigenous communities of the Middle East survived this - primarily Assyrians, Jews, Armenians and Coptics (of Egypt).
Having conquered the Middle East, Arabs placed these communities under a Dhimmi (see the book DHIMMI, by Bat Ye'Or) system of governance, where the communities were allowed to rule themselves as religious minorities (Christians, Jews and Zoroastrian). These communities had to pay a tax (called a Jizzya in Arabic) that was, in effect, a penalty for being non-Muslim, and that was typically 80% in times of tolerance and up to 150% in times of oppression. This tax forced many of these communities to convert to Islam, as it was designed to do.
You state, "its architects designed buildings that defied gravity." I am not sure what you are referring to, but if you are referring to domes and arches, the fundamental architectural breakthrough of using a parabolic shape instead of a spherical shape for these structures was made by the Assyrians more than 1300 years earlier, as evidenced by their archaeological record.
You state,
"its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption."
The fundamental basis of modern mathematics had been laid down not hundreds but thousands of years before by Assyrians and Babylonians, who already knew of the concept of zero, of the Pythagorean Theorem, and of many, many other developments expropriated by Arabs/Muslims (see HISTORY OF BABYLONIAN MATHEMATICS by Otto E. Neugebauer).
You state,
"its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease."
The overwhelming majority of these doctors (99%) were Assyrians. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries Assyrians began a systematic translation of the Greek body of knowledge into Assyrian. At first, they concentrated on the religious works but then quickly moved to science, philosophy and medicine. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and many others were translated into Assyrian, and from Assyrian into Arabic. It is these Arabic translations which the Moors brought with them into Spain, and which the Spaniards translated into Latin and spread throughout Europe, thus igniting the European Renaissance.
By the sixth century A.D., Assyrians had begun exporting back to Byzantia their own works on science, philosophy and medicine. In the field of medicine, the Bakhteesho Assyrian family produced nine generations of physicians, and founded the great medical school at Gundeshapur (Iran). Also in the area of medicine, (the Assyrian) Hunayn ibn-Ishaq's textbook on ophthalmology, written in 950 A.D., remained the authoritative source on the subject until 1800 A.D.
In the area of philosophy, the Assyrian philosopher Job of Edessa developed a physical theory of the universe, in the Assyrian language, that rivaled Aristotle's theory, and that sought to replace matter with forces (a theory that anticipated some ideas in quantum mechanics, such as the spontaneous creation and destruction of matter that occurs in the quantum vacuum).
One of the greatest Assyrian achievements of the fourth century was the founding of the first university in the world, the School of Nisibis, which had three departments, theology, philosophy and medicine, and which became a magnet and center of intellectual development in the Middle East. The statutes of the School of Nisibis, which have been preserved, later became the model upon which the first Italian university was based (see THE STATUTES OF THE SCHOOL OF NISIBIS by Arthur Voobus).
When Arabs and Islam swept through the Middle East in 630 A.D., they encountered 600 years of Assyrian Christian civilization, with a rich heritage, a highly developed culture, and advanced learning institutions. It is this civilization that became the foundation of the Arab civilization.
You state,
"Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration."
This is a bit melodramatic. In fact, the astronomers you refer to were not Arabs but Chaldeans and Babylonians (of present day south-Iraq), who for millennia were known as astronomers and astrologers, and who were forcibly Arabized and Islamized - so rapidly that by 750 A.D. they had disappeared completely.
You state,
"its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things."
There is very little literature in the Arabic language that comes from this period you are referring to (the Koran is the only significant piece of literature), whereas the literary output of the Assyrians and Jews was vast. The third largest corpus of Christian writing, after Latin and Greek, is by the Assyrians in the Assyrian language (also called Syriac).
You state,
"when other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others."
This is a very important issue you raise, and it goes to the heart of the matter of what Arab/Islamic civilization represents. I reviewed a book titled HOW GREEK SCIENCE PASSED TO THE ARABS, in which author De Lacy O'Leary lists the significant translators and interpreters of Greek science. Of the 22 scholars listed, 20 were Assyrians, one was Persian and one an Arab. I state at the end of my review:
"The salient conclusion which can be drawn from O'Leary's book is that Assyrians played a significant role in the shaping of the Islamic world via the Greek corpus of knowledge. If this is so, one must then ask the question, what happened to the Christian communities which made them lose this great intellectual enterprise they had established? One can ask this same question of the Arabs. Sadly, O'Leary's book does not answer this question, and we must look elsewhere for the answer."
I did not answer this question I posed in the review because it was not the place to answer it, but the answer is very clear, the Christian Assyrian community was drained of its population through forced conversion to Islam (by the Jizzya), and once the community had dwindled below a critical threshold, it ceased producing the scholars that were the intellectual driving force of the Islamic civilization, and that is when the so called "Golden Age of Islam" came to an end (about 850 A.D.).
Islam the religion itself was significantly molded by Assyrians and Jews (see NESTORIAN INFLUENCE ON ISLAM and HAGARISM: THE MAKING OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD).
Arab/Islamic civilization is not a progressive force, it is a regressive force; it does not give impetus, it retards. The great civilization you describe was not an Arab/Muslim accomplishment, it was an Assyrian accomplishment that Arabs expropriated and subsequently lost when they drained, through the forced conversion of Assyrians to Islam, the source of the intellectual vitality that propelled it. What other Arab/Muslim civilization has risen since? What other Arab/Muslim successes can we cite?
You state,
"and perhaps we can learn a lesson from his [Suleiman] example: It was leadership based on meritocracy, not inheritance. It was leadership that harnessed the full capabilities of a very diverse population that included Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish traditions."
In fact, the Ottomans were extremely oppressive to non-Muslims. For example, young Christian boys were forcefully taken from their families, usually at the age of 8-10, and inducted into the Janissaries, (yeniceri in Turkish) where they were Islamized and made to fight for the Ottoman state. What literary, artistic or scientific achievements of the Ottomans can we point to? We can, on the other hand, point to the genocide of 750,000 Assyrians, 1.5 million Armenians and 400,000 Greeks in World War One by the Kemalist "Young Turk" government. This is the true face of Islam.
Arabs/Muslims are engaged in an explicit campaign of destruction and expropriation of cultures and communities, identities and ideas. Wherever Arab/Muslim civilization encounters a non-Arab/Muslim one, it attempts to destroy it (as the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan were destroyed, as Persepolis was destroyed by the Ayotollah Khomeini).
This is a pattern that has been recurring since the advent of Islam, 1400 years ago, and is amply substantiated by the historical record. If the "foreign" culture cannot be destroyed, then it is expropriated, and revisionist historians claim that it is and was Arab, as is the case of most of the Arab "accomplishments" you cited in your speech. For example, Arab history texts in the Middle East teach that Assyrians were Arabs, a fact that no reputable scholar would assert, and that no living Assyrian would accept. Assyrians first settled Nineveh, one of the major Assyrian cities, in 5000 B.C., which is 5630 years before Arabs came into that area. Even the word 'Arab' is an Assyrian word, meaning "Westerner" (the first written reference to Arabs was by the Assyrian King Sennacherib, 800 B.C., in which he tells of conquering the "ma'rabayeh" - Westerners. See THE MIGHT THAT WAS ASSYRIA by H. W. F. Saggs).
Even in America this Arabization policy continues. On October 27th a coalition of seven Assyrian and Maronite organizations sent an official letter to the Arab American Institute asking it to stop identifying Assyrians and Maronites as Arabs, which it had been deliberately doing.
There are minorities and nations struggling for survival in the Arab/Muslim ocean of the Middle East and Africa (Assyrians, Armenians, Coptics, Jews, southern Sudanese, Ethiopians, Nigerians...), and we must be very sensitive not to unwittingly and inadvertently support Islamic fascism and Arab Imperialism, with their attempts to wipe out all other cultures, religions and civilizations. It is incumbent upon each one of us to do our homework and research when making statements and speeches about these sensitive matters.
I hope you found this information enlightening. You may contact me at keepa@ninevehsoft.com for further questions.
Thank you for your consideration
Peter BetBasoo is an Assyrian from Iraq and the co-founder and director of the Assyrian International News Agency (www.aina.org). He can be reached at peter@aina.org

Dear Mr. NRI from Gujarat,
First of all there is no such a thing as Islamic Civilization. Islamic Civilization is a contradiction in terms. You say 26% of humnaity is Islam. Yes, indeed. Islam has turned 25% of Humanity to Zombies. Non-Arab Muslims are victims of Arab Imperialism. It is time for Muslims of South Asia, East Asia, and Africa to revolt agaist this repulsive barbarian ideology called Islam. Arab Imperalists and their lackeys in South Asia and elsewhere will be accountable for 1,400 years of JIhad. Pray to Tom Tancredo because your Allah is fake. Time has come for Saudi Arabia to accountable for its Crimes against Humanity.
Time has come for Europeans and Americans (Chinese, Sub-Saharan Africans, and HIndus might as well) to gang up an Arab Imperalism. People are AWARE. You can not play poker forever. YOur bluffing is over.
Please do not greet me with Sallam Aleiuum or Whatever...I reject your greeting....Islam is here to destroy Western Civilization. Soon you will say there is no such a thing as Western Civilization (as you said of Hindu Civilization in your posting). Islam destroys civilizations as termites destroy the wood. Either we in the west understand it don't....it is our affair, our misery.

Just another reason to turn your T.v. off.
Welcome to obama world .

Salam Alaikum = Peace Be Upon You.
This greeting is a general one in the plural form to everyone, so don't worry it's not all about you.
I will reply to the points raised, but when reams of new data going off at new tangents without actually dealing with past points are involved, it becomes rather silly. What I do for the sake of brevity & sparing the average reader is just adding links instead of writing a whole book here.
Quality not quantity.
In essence my short answer to the points raised about Muslim peoples being accused of taking the credit for other peoples' achievements is based upon the Universal State theory as advanced by the world-renown Prof. AJP Toynbee in his 12 volume magnum opus. To take the credit away from Muslim civilisation is like pretending that Western civilisation stole the achievements of pagan Europe (Greeks & Romans etc). Are you suggesting that or are selectively applying a double standard for Muslims?
As for "Hindu" civilization, it is not I, but the British academics who teach the invention of the term "Hindu" a few centuries ago. Plus that too, if you read my post was to illustrate how selective reading & context can alter perception. I am quite surprised that with an apparently Western name you pick up the point with regard to "Hindus" - my treatment of Westerners especially our Jewish brothers was far more harsh. It appears that a ray of light has shone through & you have seen how selective & out of context reading is unfair. Now hopefully you can avoid confirmation bias & partisanship with respect to all people including narrow-mindedly demonising Muslims.

Hi, NRI Muslim from Gujarat. Help me clarify this: You're a slave, is that correct?

Hi Ned Didry,
A rhetorical question perchance?
I wonder how relevant the question is in relation to the actual article about Hate crime against a minority place of worship? However, a civil tone deserves a civil answer & whether or not the intention is to selectively demonize out of context,I will leave with an open mind.
Since we are communicating in the English language, I think it necessary to refer to the O.E.D. for the definition of a slave. As far as I can gather from the comprehensive definition, it appears not; perhaps not even in the apparently metaphorical sense ("helpless victim to or of some dominating influence") as illustrated by "a slave to duty,of fashion" or "person having no leisure" etc.
May Tranquil Peace Be upon You.

Watch out the Bugi-man is going to get you.
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/02/tennessee-nashville-mosque-vandalized/

Hi, NRI Muslim from Gujarat.
Thank you for your thoughtful and comprehensive reply. In response to my asking you to clarify whether you are a slave or not, you said:
"I think it necessary to refer to the O.E.D. for the definition of a slave. As far as I can gather from the comprehensive definition, it appears not."
Hm. Well, it's a pity that Muhammad didn't have access to the O.E.D. (not that he could have read it if he had), because according to Islam's very best interpreters, Muhammad said the following:
“I testify that I am Allah's Slave and His Apostle.”
"I am only a Slave. So, call me the Slave of Allah and His Apostle."
"Shouldn't I love to be a thankful slave (of Allah)?"
"Allah accepts the repentance from his slaves."
"Peace be on us and on the true pious slaves of Allah."
Don't you love to be a thankful slave of Allah, NRI Muslim, as Muhammad did? Or do you consider yourself superior to Muhammad in proclaiming that you are not a slave?
I asked you for this clarification because Islam's holiest scripture says that Muhaammad is "a beautiful pattern of conduct" and is an "exalted standard of character" for Muslims. Well, the "pattern of conduct" and the "standard of character" Muhammad set, in his own very plain and unequivocal words, was to be a slave. Yet you say you are not a slave, as Muhammad said he was, so I am left to conclude that you feel Muhammad is not worthy of emulation.
Would you like to reconsider your answer, or are you saying that you are just a dilettante, a Muslim in name only, and not really a Muslim (one who submits) at all?
You further wrote: "May Tranquil Peace Be upon You."
Listen up, and listen up good, because I'm only going to say this once: I haven't granted you any power or authority to grant peace to me. You have no jurisdiction over my peace and tranquility. So it is unspeakably arrogant, condescending, and insulting every time you presume to arrogate to yourself the right to grant peace upon me. But you already knew that, didn't you?

Dearie NRI from Gujarat,
My, my, but you are such a ~smart~ little thing: "Toynbee!" "Pavlovian emotionalism!" "Paranoid conspiracy-theory existentialists!" "Machiavelli!" Guji, you little name-dropper, you: you make my heart all a-flutter!
And I ~loved~ this that you said:
>Progressives are progressive & can see
>the world from more than one side & are
>not fear-filled Regressives.
>Progressivesness requires empathy in
>order to treat all human beings as
>equals without ignorant prejudice."
I could just kiss you for that! Yes! Let's have a Progressive Mecca! Let's make Mecca the San Francisco of the East, baby! I ~DREAM~ of a gay pride parade around and around the Kaaba, with Barney Frank leading it as Honorary Grand Imam.
In fact, wouldn't it be, like, ~really~ progressive to make the Kaaba into an International Multicultural Center, and encircle it with churches and temples for every faith: Catholic, Protestant, Judaism, Druidism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Baha'i, Mormonism, Scientology, Zoroastrianism, Christian Science, Wicca.
Now that makes my nipples pert! Equals, equals, equals, without ignorant prejudice, just like you said! Insha'Allah, we'll see it in our lifetimes, Guji, with progressive-oriented Muslims like you! Mecca could become "the Mecca" (wink, wink) of women's lib, gay rights, multiculturalism, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Wow!
You've come a ~long~ way, baby, from that Islamic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, who hung out with Hitler and collaborated with Eichmann in the extermination of the Jews. (Was he, like, a colostomy bag, or ~what~?!) He was the same guy who earlier, in Palestine in 1929, falsely claimed that Jews had defiled mosques, which got all the local Muslims running around in the streets shouting "Itbah Al-Yahud!"--"Slaughter the Jews!" (You think Hitler maybe got the Reichstag fire idea from the Mufti?) Then after a bunch of Jews were killed in Hebron, that fun-loving Mufti sent pictures of the dead Jews around--and said they were pictures of dead Muslims that had been killed by Jews!
~Hardly~ progressive, those Nazi boys and the Mufti! (Of course Muhammad killed 600 Jews in a single day in Medina. Maybe the Mufti was just trying to be more like Muhammad or something.)
But, you, Guji! You are erudite and liberal and rational! Where are the others like you?
You said Muslims make up, what, like 23% of the world? Well, duh! You people are ~such~ breeders! (Gee whiz, get some Family Planning Centers and abortion clinics in Mecca, too, while you're being progressive!) And Muslims have killed like 250 ~million~ people in the last 1,400 years. No wonder they're spreading like cockroaches! Muslims mostly have been like a turd on a wedding cake. They even hang people like me! That's why I am ~so~ tickled to see you, a Muslim, stick up for progressives!
These uptight rednecks around here could learn a thing or two from you, Guji. MWAH!

Ned Didry:
Thank you too for your thoughtful and comprehensive reply. All too often civility is ignored, it is a mark of noble character traits if we can manage to debate/argue without descending into zero-sum all or nothing savagery, which ultimately degrades us all as human beings, a creature supposedly possessing a brain.
As I stated before, since we are communicating in the English language the O.E.D. is an important tool; the reason being that it is all probability the best facilitator for effective communication, especially with regard to subtle nuances of meaning. As so often from normal human experience, communication failure can result in unfortunate results. The internet is a de-personalized forum where many of us regress to a state of tourettes-like utterances - which all but the most vulgar boors would never dream of doing in face to face communication.
With regard to my beloved Prophet Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him), yes he is my role model & that for every sincere practising Muslim. Whatever is his Islamic example is the best of guidelines for us, his community. However, it must be taken in context & not selectively. Partisan polemics is all too easy. Critical Thinking is an important thing & in Arabic the very rough translation equates to Furqan, which just so happens to be another name for the Quran - the sacred book of Islam.
Just as with the English language & O.E.D., Arabic too must have its equivalant. Yes, my Prophet could not read the O.E.D. nor English - is that just is a cheap shot? He could not read Arabic, though in that oral culture, he was a well-respected member of a poetic aristocracy. Therefore he was not unaware of the power of words & nor was the society "Dumbed Down" in that respect. Unfortunately I cannot read classical Arabic so I cannot confirm the accuracy of the rough translation of the meaning.
As for the context, I would guess that anyone acknowledging a being supreme in the Universe, on whom his very life depends would be respectful & humble, awe-struck & deferential. That does not mean we Muslims abandon Furqan, as the Quran constantly exhorts creatures not to follow blindly, but ponder & reflect upon everything in existence. Narcissistic arrogance is not a quality to be admired in the best of Mankind e.g. a Prophet. In Christian traditions we have the "Lord" God mentioned. Surely from that follows the relationship of a metaphorical/actual serf or slave? Is Jesus (peace be upon him) not called "master" in Christian tradition?
As for "dilettante" well since I am not all-knowing unlike the Creator, that could be true, though of course this may be subjective & it is a matter of degree, of relativity.
As for "May tranquil peace Be upon You" - I am surprised by the reaction to a well-meaning phrase. Would it equally hurt you if I wished you happiness etc. However, even that "You" as I have repeatedly said is in plural form, & it is not all about you in the singular. As any Indian, who can speak more than one language that is quite obvious. Though, I appreciate that in English this particular aspect of language is as clearly expressed. Perhaps a common example that we can share is schoolboy French e.g. tu (singular) & vous (plural).
Also since it is a plural form, I suppose it can even be replaced by "us".
May Peaceful tranquility be upon you (plural).

Hi Liberace's Ghost -Thanks for the comic relief!
"Name dropper" - no, not really, just for the sake of brevity & clarity, one must defer to named experts in their respective fields of learning. Anything otherwise would normally be a question of competing opinions; tangible facts being swamped by quantity instead of quality.
The "Dumbing Down" of a knowledge-society is not edifying & it is a malaise. In fact, the situation has become so perverse that dumbing down has apparently become a laudable quality to aspire to e.g. many are familiar with Homer of the Simpsons, but ignore that of the fountainhead of Western civilization i.e. Homer of the Classics. Even I, being of Indian Muslim origins, hurt at the debasement of the New Rome. I thought that this was supposed to be the Information Age?
"Equality" & the funny examples, talk about reductio ad absurdum? I do not think that binary extremes without nuanced shades of grey is practical, Cerebral games are fine upto a point.No, we have to take realities in to account. I could equally say that true equality is when a man becomes a woman & vice-versa, roll on genderless sports e.g. boxing.
As for the bit-part political non-personality "Mufti of Jerusalem" remark, once again reading widely in context is important. There were many senior European Jews who had more knowledge of the what was going on. Some were even Nazis e.g. Mischlings. Hindsight is a valuable tool, as most of the World outside only found out afterwards about the evil of the Nazis. It could be said that he was following the saying that "the enemy of my enemy, is my friend" - even a modern-day hero of India joined Hitler in order to get rid off occupying Western colonials as he saw it i.e. Subhash Chandra Bose. Even commited Zionists worked with the Nazis i.e. Nazis wanted Jews out & the Zionists wanted Israel, so a commonality of interests. I wonder how many Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims fought for Hitler? Actually vast numbers of Muslims fought against Hitler e.g. millions of colonial volunteers for British, French & Soviets etc.
As for the 600 Jews killed by Prophet Muhammed - sorry lame old misleading out of context polemical dissembling.
There are many like me, whether erudite, rational or liberal, I do not know, they are just relative & often subjective labels. I too would like to know why the powerful global corporate mainstream media present a selective demonized caricature of 23% of humanity. Some say that the selective sensationalism is due to the fact that they are an agenda-driven part of the incestuous Military-Industrial Complex as so feared by President Eisenhower. However, be that as it may, here is a link to a more representative mainstream Muslim site that many do not see portrayed. http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/.
As for Muslim demographics, nice bit of egregious hate seeping out of your liberal or is it libertine pseudonym? Hitler would be proud. Again, a bit of context, Muslims are not a monolithic bloc, they exist because Islam spread across many different nations & continents. Look at the map, Muslims occupy the geo-strategic middle of the world. Perhaps that is why the lands have so often been fought over?
Peaceful tranquility be upon You.

The Religion of Peace
DATE…LOCATION…KILLED/INJURED…DESCRIPTION
Sirhan’s assassination of Robert F. Kennedy — on June 5, 1968
4/14/1972 USA New York, NY 1/3 Ten members of a local mosque phone in a false alarm and then ambush responding officers, killing one.
1/19/1973 USA Brooklyn, NY 1/ 1 Muslim extremists rob a sporting goods store for weapons, gunning down a police officer who responds to the alarm.
7/18/1973 USA Washington, DC 8/2 Nation of Islam members shoot seven members of a family to death in cold blood, including four children. A defendant in the case is later murdered in prison on orders from Elijah Muhammad.
10/19/1973 USA Oakland, CA 1/ 1 Nation of Islam terrorists kidnap a couple and nearly decapitate the man, while raping and leaving the woman for dead.
10/29/1973 USA Berkeley, CA 1/0 A woman is shot repeatedly in the face by Nation of Islam terrorists.
11/25/1973 USA Oakland, CA 1/0 A grocer is killed in his store by Nation of Islam terrorists.
12/11/1973 USA Oakland, CA 1/0 A man is killed by Nation of Islam terrorists while using a phone booth.
12/13/1973 USA Oakland, CA 1/0 A woman is shot to deah on the sidewalk by Nation of Islam terrorists.
12/20/1973 USA Oakland, CA 1/0 Nation of Islam terrorists gun down an 81-year-old janitor.
12/22/1973 USA Oakland, CA 2/0 Nation of Islam terrorist kills two people in separate attacks on the same day.
12/24/1973 USA Oakland, CA 1/0 A man is kidnapped, tortured and decapitated by Nation of Islam terrorists.
1/24/1974 USA Oakland, CA 4/1 Five vicious shooting attacks by Nation of Islam terrorists leave three people dead and one paralyzed for life. Three of the victims were women.
4/1/1974 USA Oakland, CA 1/1 A Nation of Islam terrorist shoots at two Salvation Army members, killing a man and injuring a woman.
4/16/1974 USA Ingleside, CA 1/0 A man is killed while helping a friend move by Nation of Islam terrorists.
3/9/1977 USA Washington, DC 1/1 Hanifi Muslims storm three buildings including a B’nai B’rith to hold 134 people hostage. At least two innocents were shot and one died.
7/22/1980 USA Bethesda, MD 1/0 A political dissident is shot and killed in front of his home by an Iranian agent who was an American convert to Islam.
8/31/1980 USA Savou, IL 2/0 An Iranian student guns down his next-door neighbors, a husband and wife.
1/31/1990 USA Tuscon, AZ 1/0 A Sunni cleric is assassinated in front of a Tuscon mosque after declaring that two verses of the Qur’an were invalid.
11/5/1990 USA New York City, NY 1/0 An Israeli rabbi is shot to death by a Muslim attacker at a hotel.
1/25/1993 USA Langley, VA 2/3 A Pakistani with Mujahideen ties guns down two CIA agents outside of the headquarters.
2/26/1993 USA New York, NY 6/1000 1040 Islamic terrorists detonate a massive truck bomb under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring over 1,000 in an effort to collapse the towers.
3/1/1994 USA Brooklyn, NY 1/0 A Muslim fires on a vanload of Jewish boys, killing one.
3/23/1997 USA New York, NY 1/6 A Palestinian leaves an anti-Jewish suicide note behind and travels to the top of the Empire State building where he shoot seven people in a Fedayeen attack.
4/3/1997 USA Lompoc, CA 1/0 A prison guard is stabbed to death by a radical Muslim.
10/31/1999 USA Near Nantucket 217/0 An Egyptian airline pilot runs a planeload of 217 passengers into the water after uttering a Qur’anic prayer.
3/17/2000 USA Atlanta, GA 1/1 A local imam and Muslim spiritual leader guns down a deputy sheriff and injures his partner.
9/11/2001 USA Washington, DC 184/53 Nearly 200 people are killed when Islamic hijackers steer a plane full of people into the Pentagon.
9/11/2001 USA Shanksville, PA 40/0 Forty passengers are killed after Islamic radicals hijack the plane in an attempt to steer it into the U.S. Capitol building.
9/11/2001 USA New York, NY 2772/251 Islamic hijackers steer two planes packed with fuel and passengers into the World Trade Center, killing hundreds on impact and eventually killing thousands when the towers collapsed. At least 200 are seriously injured.
3/19/2002 USA Tuscon, AZ 1/0 A 60-year-old man is gunned down by Muslim snipers on a golf course.
5/27/2002 USA Denton, TX 1/0 Muslim snipers kill a man as he works in his yard.
7/4/2002 USA Los Angeles, CA 2/0 Muslim man pulls out a gun at the counter of an Israeli airline and kills two people.
9/5/2002 USA Clinton, MD 1/0 A 55-year-old pizzaria owner is shot six times in the back by Muslims at close range.
9/21/2002 USA Montgomery, AL 1/1 Muslim snipers shoot two women, killing one.
9/23/2002 USA Baton Rouge, LA 1/0 A Korean mother is shot in the back by Muslim snipers.
10/2/2002 USA Wheaton, MD 1/0 Muslim snipers gun down a program analyst in a store parking lot.
10/3/2002 USA Montgomery County, MD 5/0 Muslim snipers kill three men and two women in separate attacks over a 15-hour period.
10/9/2002 USA Manassas, VA 1/1 A man is killed by Muslim snipers while pumping gas two days after a 13-year-old is wounded by the same team.
10/11/2002 USA Fredericksburg, VA 1/0 Another man is killed by Muslim snipers while pumping gas.
10/14/2002 USA Arlington, VA 1/0 A woman is killed by Muslim snipers in a Home Depot parking lot.
10/22/2002 USA Aspen Hill, MD 1/0 A bus driver is killed by Muslim snipers.
8/6/2003 USA Houston, TX 1/0 After undergoing a religious revival, a Saudi college student slashes the throat of a Jewish student with a 4″ butterfly knife, nearly decapitating the young man.
12/2/2003 USA Chicago, IL 1/0 A Muslim doctor deliberately allows a Jewish patient to die from an easily treatable condition.
4/13/2004 USA Raleigh, NC 1/4 A Muslim man runs down five strangers with a car.
4/15/2004 USA Scottsville, NY 1/2 In an honor killing, a Muslim father kills his wife and attacks his two daughters with a knife and hammer because he feared that they had been sexually molested.
6/16/2006 USA Baltimore, MD 1/0 A 62-year-old Jewish moviegoer is shot to death by a Muslim gunman in an unprovoked terror attack.
6/25/2006 USA Denver, CO 1/5 Saying that it was ‘Allah’s choice’, a Muslim shoots four of his co-workers and a police officer.
7/28/2006 USA Seattle, WA 1/5 An ‘angry’ Muslim-American uses a young girl as hostage to enter a local Jewish center, where he shoots six women, one of whom dies.
10/6/2006 USA Louisville, KY 4/1 In an ‘honor’ attack, a Muslim man rapes and beats his estranged wife, leaving her for dead, then savagely murders their four children.
2/13/2007 USA Salt Lake City, UT 5/4 A Muslim immigrant goes on a shooting rampage at a mall, targeting people buying Valentine’s Day cards at a gift shop and killing five.
1/1/2008 USA Irving, TX 2/0 A Muslim immigrant shoots his two daughters to death on concerns about their ‘Western’ lifestyle.
7/6/2008 USA Jonesboro, GA 1/0 A devout Muslim strangles his 25-year-old daughter in an honor killing.
2/12/2009 USA Buffalo, NY 1/0 The founder of a Muslim TV station beheads his wife in the hallway for seeking a divorce.
6/1/2009 USA Little Rock, AR 1/1 A Muslim with ‘religious motives’ shoots a local soldier to death inside a recruiting center.
11/2/2009 USA Glendale, AZ 1/1 A woman dies from injuries suffered when her father runs her down with a car for being too ‘Westernized.’ (10-20-09)
11/5/2009 USA Ft. Hood, TX 13/31 A Muslim psychiatrist guns down thirteen unarmed soldiers while yelling praises to Allah.

Iran: Clerics or pimps?
by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
February 25, 2010
http://www.weeklyblitz.net/546/iran-clerics-or-pimps
Iran has already turned into a country of horror. Citizen of that country, most of who are already fed-up with the fanatics, ruling the country are gradually raising their voice for democracy and end of reign of terror established by Khomeini through his so-called Islamic revolution in 1979.
Murder of civilians under the garb of Sharia law is a regular phenomenon in that country. Press and freedom of expression is seriously suffocated. There are numerous reports of gross human rights violations. Women are raped inside prison by the prison guards, before execution.
I have spent weeks in research to understand, what is going on inside Iran. During past several months, I have gathered information from various articles, blogs, online sources etc to get maximum information on the latest status in Iran. From this article, readers will be able to assess the social decay Iranian is gradually heading towards, due to rogue administration of the Islamist leaders. This is the first part of my article on Iran.
Clerics or pimps:
Iranian clerics or Mullahs, who are at the administration of that country are gradually exposing their nasty faces as mere pimps, who are selling their women to a number of countries as well tourists in that country. Iranian women are continuing to be sold as 'Jihadist Tools' to various nations with millions of dollars. While Iranian rulers pretend to treat prostitution or sex trade as taboo since it became Islamic Republic in 1979, it is evidently proved that poor governance of it is not only pushing thousands of Iranians into prostitution, but in many cases, those Mullahs are the ultimate beneficiaries of growing sex trade in that country.
In the 1970s, Bostonians looking for a proverbial good time went to the "Combat Zone" and New Yorkers flocked to 42nd Street; in contemporary Iran, the holy city of Qom is known [unofficially] as a place of "both pilgrimage and pleasure." There, prostitutes wearing veils and even chadors mill about temples or sit together in public courtyards where men can inspect them. Sometimes a male go-between [most of them are clerics] offer "introductions," at which point the prostitutes pull aside their headgear so the potential client can get a glimpse, but the whole process is fairly subtle. For an outsider, it's difficult to pick a street girl out of a crowd. Qom may have become a prostitution hot spot due to the abundance of shrines. Young female runaways with no shelter come to the city knowing they can take refuge at holy sites by sleeping in rooms intended for pilgrims. They have no way of making a living, so after awhile they get involved with the sex trade. The city's young theological students and transient tourists form the main clientele.
Of course, Qom isn't the only place in Iran where prostitutes walk the streets. Back in 2002, the Iranian newspaper Entekhab estimated that there were nearly 85,000 prostitutes in Tehran alone. In that city, and especially in nearby suburbs, there are neighborhoods where heavily made-up prostitutes in traditional garb stand idly at traffic circles. Prospective customers drive by slowly to check out the human wares, then make a deal. The visual difference between an ordinary citizen wearing makeup who happens to be standing alone and an actual prostitute is, again, quite subtle. Apparently, mistakes are not uncommon. Officially, the penalties for prostitution are severe—ranging from whipping to execution. But there's a loophole in the Islamic law called sigheh, or temporary marriage. According to Shiite interpretation, a man and a woman may enter an impermanent partnership with a preset expiration date. There's no legally required minimum duration [a day, a week, anything goes] and no need for official witnesses—unless the woman is a virgin, in which case she needs the consent of her legal guardian. An Iranian who's wary of arrest can simply escort a prostitute to a registry, obtain a temporary contract from a Muslim cleric, and then legally satisfy his sexual needs. And here is the point, where clerics get the opportunity of working as the pimp for that woman. In most cases, Iranian mullahs maintain network with national and international prostitution ring, where they supply these women, who possess a temporary marriage certificate [issued by the cleric], giving them the chance of entering the profession with a legal license of Islamic mask.
Prostitutes wear their veils loosely over their heads in a style that passes for risqué in this strictly regulated society. With their faces heavily made up, they stand at traffic circles where men driving by can inspect them and make a deal. The women are often young, including many teenagers who have run away from abusive homes. Based on official figures, there are some 300,000 women who work as prostitutes in Iran. And according to newspapers, the number is steadily rising. Now, some senior religious figures are suggesting the only way to solve the problem is to bring it under state control. In recent times, several prominent conservative clerics have proposed that prostitutes be placed in government-run shelters for destitute women to be called "chastity houses," where male customers could briefly marry them under Islamic law. Proponents of the idea argue that it would "eradicate social corruption" by legitimizing sexual relations between the men and women. Under the plan, the couples would register for a temporary marriage under Iran's Shiite religious law code. The code allows a man to marry a woman for a mutually agreed time as short as a few hours by reciting a verse from the Koran. Backing the plan, Ayatollah Mohammed Mousavi Bojnurdi, said: "We face a real challenge with all these women on the street. Our society is in an emergency situation. Hojatolislam Mohammed Taghi Fazel-Meibodi, a member of Qom Seminary, told RFE/RL's Persian Service that the proposal is religiously legal.
He said, "Our young people are troubled. There is poverty, unemployment, and more and more girls are escaping from their homes. In a society where there are sharp differences between rich and poor, rich men will use these poor girls for a quick thrill and to satisfy their impulses and lust."
Supporting the temporary marriage system, Iranian clerics say, such marriage helps easing social discontent among young men who are forced by the struggling economy to marry later. The socialist-style economy is unable to provide sufficient numbers of new jobs to absorb the large numbers of young men entering the market and is plagued by double-digit inflation and unemployment. As a result, many young men are unable to afford to start families, and the average marrying age has jumped from the early 20s, common two decades ago, to about 30 today.
Women's groups have been particularly outspoken about the idea of "chastity houses." Shahrbanou Amani, a female parliamentarian, called the idea of establishing "Chastity House" as "an insult and disrespectful to women." The Cultural Council for Women, a liberal Islamist women's group, said such houses would be a "deceitful and thinly disguised" form of prostitution.
Temporary marriage's or sighe phenomenon became common state in Iran after Mullah's regime had legalized this kind of marriage and made it a legal marriage throughout Iran through establishing offices to arranging that marriage for persons who seek it. Mullah's regime appointed clerics in these offices who intervene to conducting this marriage for persons who seek a sex under that marriage. If we contemplated well in concept of the temporary marriage or sighe Mullah's regime created and gave legal religious feature, so we would find that this marriage is a kind of masked prostitution women were used through due to their hard social and economical conditions to practice a sex with men who seek it where most women, who live under hard social and economical conditions within their community, are pressured on under these bad conditions to practice this kind of marriage for money where this marriage don't last than 1 hour to several hours.
On other hand, women, who practiced this marriage for many times with men, became unapproved for permanent marriage among their community and get discriminations in getting opportunities to the permanent marriage than their peers of others women among community in this case they became as fair slaves in the old ages who were used only for sex where female slave has no right in emancipating from her slavery and choosing her life partner she would live with him rest of her life term to creating the family. So, under this kind of marriage, mullah's regime turned Iranian woman into sex slave is sold and bought as women were sold and bought in the dark ages, this case is not strange for Islamists ruling Iran today as their old Arabic predecessors did when they invaded Persia before 1400 years ago and enslaved its women and transferred them to Arabic regions at the time to be sold in markets of these regions, so, that mullahs ruling Iran now do again same thing their Arab ancestors did before 1400 years. Mullah regime's goal of temporary marriage [sighe] is a using Iranian woman for cheap and illegal prostitution to saturating the sexual desires for clerics and officials underground and giving the legitimate feature for these sexual abuses clerics and officials committed against Iranian women in the name of religion. Mullah's regime made that marriage as an approach for clerics, officials and members of revolutionary guards to getting the cheap and illegal sex. These are the rights mullah's regime gave to Iranian woman where that regime turned her from free woman and she was enjoy her entire civil rights under Shah's time into female slave who is pressured on under using her hard social and economical conditions to practice the prostitution or temporary marriage to satisfying the base sexual desires for clerics and official in Iranian government in the process, There are many scandals happened for clerics and top officials in Mullah's regime who abused Iranian women sexually using the bad living conditions for those women resulted from poverty and homelessness and family problems and one of these scandals for these abuses is which happened during Khatami's presidency of Iran when it was exposed about implicating top members in the revolutionary guards and officials in abuse prisoners women in one of corrections which is located in Karj city where some of those prisoners women were taken in night from that correction by vehicles of revolutionary guards and governmental cars into houses of those officials to saturating their sexual desires and they were returned to correction in the next day. In the name of temporary marriage and what included that marriage from negative goals, so, that Iranian woman's market became common and cheap market for aliens coming to Iran and looking for cheap and illegal sex with women under the name of temporary marriage where a lot of aliens became come to Iran these days to buy sex under this kind of marriage being unable to get this kind of prostitution or marriage in their own countries. Most those aliens, coming to Iran for temporary marriage, come from Arabic countries supported to mullah's regime, such as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.
A country is beaten when it sells its women, but it is damned when its women sell themselves. The popular image of the Iranian sex trade portrays tearful teenagers abused and cast out by impoverished parents. Such victims doubtless abound, but the majority of Tehran's prostitutes are educated women seeking affluence. Only in the former Soviet Union after the collapse of communism in 1990 did educated women choose prostitution on a comparable scale, but under very different circumstances. Russians went hungry during the early 1990s as the Soviet economy dissolved and the currency collapsed. Today's Iranians suffer from shortages, but the data suggest that Tehran's prostitutes are not so much pushed into the trade by poverty as pulled into it by wealth.
Prices for Tehran luxury apartments exceeded those in Paris, as Iran's kleptocracy distributed the oil windfall to tens of thousands of hangers-on of the revolution. US$35 billion went missing from state oil funds, opposition newspapers charged at the time. Corruption evidently has made whores of Tehran's educated women.
According to a 2009 report from the US Council on Foreign Relations, "Iran serves as the major transport hub for opiates produced by [Afghanistan], and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that Iran has as many as 1.7 million opiate addicts." That is, 5% of Iran's adult, non-elderly population of 35 million is addicted to opiates. That is an astonishing number, unseen since the peak of Chinese addiction during the 19th century. The closest American equivalent [from the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health] found that 119,000 Americans reported using heroin within the prior month, or less than one-tenth of 1% of the non-elderly adult population. Nineteenth-century China had comparable rates of opium addiction, after the British won two wars for the right to push the drug down China's throat. Post-communist Russia had comparable rates of prostitution, when people actually went hungry. Iran's startling rates of opium addiction and prostitution reflect popular demoralization, the implosion of an ancient culture in its encounter with the modern world. These pathologies arose not from poverty but wealth, or rather a sudden concentration of wealth in the hands of the political class. No other country in modern history has evinced this kind of demoralization. For the majority of young Iranians, there is no way up, only a way out; 36% of Iran's youth aged 15 to 29 years want to emigrate, according to yet another unpublicized Iranian study, this time by the country's Education Ministry, Der Standard [in an article published in February 2009] adds. Only 32% find the existing social norms acceptable, while 63% complain about unemployment, the social order or lack of money.
The potlatch for the political class is balanced by widespread shortages for ordinary Iranians. In 2008 winter, widespread natural gas shortages left tens of thousands of households without heat. The declining morale of the Iranian population helps make sense of its galloping demographic decline. Academic demographers have tried to explain collapsing fertility as a function of rising female literacy. The problem is that the Iranian regime lies about literacy data, and has admitted as much recently.
The Iranian government's official data claim literacy percentage levels in the high 90s for urban women and in the high 80s for rural women. That cannot be true, for Iran's Literacy Movement Organization admitted in 2008 [according to an Agence-France Presse report of May 8, 2008] that 9,450,000 Iranians are illiterate of a population of 71 million [or an adult population of about 52 million]. This suggests far higher rates of illiteracy than in the official data. A better explanation of Iran's population implosion is that the country has undergone an existential crisis comparable to encounters of Amazon or Inuit tribes with modernity. Traditional society demands submission to the collective. Once the external constraints are removed, its members can shift from the most extreme forms of modesty to the other extreme of sexual license. Khomeini's revolution attempted to retard the disintegration of Persian society, but it appears to have accelerated the process. Modernity implies choice, and the efforts of the Iranian mullahs to prolong the strictures of traditional society appear to have backfired. The cause of Iran's collapsing fertility is not literacy as such, but extreme pessimism about the future and an endemic materialism that leads educated Iranian women to turn their own sexuality into a salable commodity.
Political Islam returned to the world stage with Ruhollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution in Iran, which became the most aggressive patron of Muslim radicals outside its borders, including Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Until very recently, an oil-price windfall gave the Iranian state ample resources to pursue its agenda at home and abroad. How, then, should we explain an eruption of social pathologies in Iran such as drug addiction and prostitution, on a scale much worse than anything observed in the West? Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran's birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever. Demographers have sought in vain to explain Iran's population implosion through family planning policies, or through social factors such as the rise of female literacy. But quantifiable factors do not explain the sudden collapse of fertility. It seems that a spiritual decay has overcome Iran, despite best efforts of a totalitarian theocracy. Popular morale has deteriorated much faster than in the "decadent" West against which the Khomeini revolution was directed. Their efforts to isolate Iran from the cultural degradation of the American "great Satan" have produced social pathologies worse than those in any Western country. With oil at barely one-fifth of its 2008 peak price, they will run out of money some time by 2010. Game theory would predict that Iran's leaders will gamble on a strategic long shot. That is not a comforting thought for Iran's neighbours.
Prostitution has become a career of choice among educated Iranian women. On February 3, 2009 the Austrian daily Der Standard published the results of two investigations conducted by the Tehran police, suppressed by the Iranian media. "More than 90% of Tehran's prostitutes have passed the university entrance exam, according to the results of one study, and more than 30% of them are registered at a university or studying," reports Der Standard. "The study was assigned to the Tehran Police Department and the Ministry of Health, and when the results were tabulated in early January no local newspaper dared to so much as mention them."
The Austrian newspaper added, "Eighty percent of the Tehran sex workers maintained that they pursue this career voluntarily and temporarily. The educated ones are waiting for better jobs. Those with university qualifications intend to study later and the ones who already are registered at university mention the high tuition [fees] as their motive for prostitution ... they are content with their occupation and do not consider it a sin according to Islamic law."
Prostitution as a response to poverty and abuse is one thing, but the results of this new study reflect something quite different. The educated women of Tehran choose prostitution in pursuit of upward mobility, as a way of sharing in the oil-based potlatch that made Tehran the world's hottest real estate market during 2006 and 2007.
Iranians already behave like a defeated people. That is why they are so unstable, and so dangerous. The new Persian Empire masquerading as an Islamic Republic is a wounded beast. The rural misery and urban squalor that drive Iranian women into the brothels of Dubai and Brussels contrasts sharply with neighboring Azerbaijan, whose economy will double in size by 2010.
The proliferation of Iranian prostitutes in Western Europe as well as the Arab world helps explain the country's population trends. The European Commission's most comprehensive surveys of human trafficking found that Iranian women made up 10-15% of the prostitutes working in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. "Fatima" from Persia has become as familiar as "Natasha" from Belarus. Iranian whores long have been a scandal in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, which periodically round up and expel them.
It is hard to obtain reliable data on prostitution inside Iran itself, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it has increased since Ahmadinejad became president in 2005. Anti-regime sociologists claim that at least 300,000 women are whoring in Tehran alone. The ADNKronos website reported on April 25, 2006:
Prostitution is on the rise in Iran ... Sociologist Amanollah Gharaii Moghaddam told ADNKronos International [AKI] that he believes Iran's deteriorating economy and the high unemployment rate among youths to be the main causes of this worrying phenomenon. In Iran, 28% of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 are unemployed ... The age of prostitutes is increasingly younger, and girls as young as 12 are selling their bodies on Iran's streets. Overall, the number of prostitutes is also on the rise and there are an estimated 300,000 of them in Tehran alone ... Nevertheless, Gharaii Moghaddam says "the number isn't so high when compared [with] the 4 million unemployed only in Tehran and the 5 million drug addicts today in Iran".
These distasteful facts bear directly upon Iran's national decline, and the impulses that push the Iranian leadership toward strategic flight forward. Iran's plunging birth rate, I observed in essays past, will burden the country with an elderly population proportionately as large as Western Europe's within a generation, just at the point at which this impoverished country will have ceased to export oil. By 2030, Iranian society will collapse.
The crisis of modernization first of all is a crisis of faith, and the attenuation of religious faith is the root cause of the birth-rate bust in the modern world. Traditional society is everywhere fragile, not only in the Islamic world; by definition it is bounded by values and expectations handed down from the past, to which individuals must submit. Once the bands of tradition are broken and each individual may choose for herself what sort of family to raise, religious faith becomes the decisive motivation for bringing children into the world.
The collapse of traditional society has brought about a collapse of birth rates across cultures. Cultures that fail to reproduce themselves by definition are failed cultures, for the simple reason that they will cease to exist before many generations have passed.
That is why the Islamists - Muslims who seek a new theocracy - display a sense of extreme urgency. They are not conservative Muslims, for they reject Muslim society as it exists as corrupt and decadent. They are revolutionaries who want to create a new kind of totalitarian theocracy that orders every detail of human life.
The clerical regime vacillates between repressing prostitution and sanctioning it through "temporary marriages", an arrangement permitted under Shi'ite jurisprudence. In the latter case the Muslim clergy in effect become pimps, taking a fee for sanctioning several "temporary marriages" per women per day.
These numbers cannot be verified, to be sure, but the spill-over of Iranian prostitutes into Western Europe and the Gulf states suggests that the actual numbers must be very large indeed, so large, in fact, as to help explain the frightful rate of Iran's demographic decline. Along with Albanian, Chechen and Bosnian women, Iranian prostitutes are living evidence of the dissolution of the traditional Muslim society that purports to shield women from degradation.
Nothing is more threadbare than the claim of Islamists to defend Muslim womanhood. Islamist radicals [like the penny-a-marriage mullahs of Iran] are the world's most prolific pimps. The same networks that move female flesh across borders also provide illegal passage for jihadist, and the proceeds of human trafficking often support Islamist terrorists. From Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur to Sarajevo to Tirana, the criminals who trade in women overlap with jihadist networks. Prostitutes serve the terror network in a number of capacities, including suicide bombing. The going rate for a Muslim woman who can pass for a European to carry a suicide bomb currently is more than US$100,000. The Persian prostitute is the camp follower of the jihadist, joined to him in a pact of national suicide.
Decades of repression of women:
Throughout the world, women still suffer from discrimination and oppression, for no reason other than their gender. In essence, the plight and suffering of women is the same for all of us. Today, major issues such as peace, social and economic development, and the spread of democracy have become unavoidably entangled with the issues of women.
Despite its defiance, the male-dominated regime is retreating step by step. Yet at the same time, a reactionary, violent and suppressive force called fundamentalism is emerging. Misogynous in character, fundamentalism or religious fanaticism, best represented by Khomeini and his successors in Iran, is threatening all the achievements of the civilized world, particularly those of women. Under the banner of Islam, the fundamentalists are denying the equality of women and men. Islamic fundamentalism establishes its thesis on the differences between the sexes and the conclusion that the male is superior, and hence, the female is a slave at his service. A parliamentarian in Iran is on record as saying, "Women must accept the reality of men dominating them, and the world must recognize the fact that men are superior." Ultimately, the fundamentalists do not believe women are human. One of the Iranian regime's key ideologues says: "Women and men are equal in their humane essence, but they are two different forms of humans, with two different sets of attributes and two different psyches..."
From the fundamentalist mullahs' perspective, sexual vice and virtue are the principal criteria for evaluation of women. The most ignoble and unforgivable of all sins is sexual wrongdoing. Piety, chastity and decency are measured by sex-related yardsticks, and seldom applied to political and social realms. Fundamentalism conceives of woman as sinister and satanic; she is the embodiment of sin and seduction. She must not step beyond her house, lest her presence in society breed sin. She must stay at home, serving her husband's carnal desires; if she fails to comply, she is compelling her man to commit sin outside the home. The top officials of the fundamentalist regime in Iran emphasize that it is the "sacred" responsibility of a woman to serve her husband and take care of the household. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the mullahs' "supreme leader," has declared that "women's first job is to be a wife and mother." Khamenei dismissed the notion of women's equal participation in social life in July 1997 as "negative, primitive and childish."
When Mohammad Khatami became president in May 1997, there were optimistic predictions that changes were on the way. Despite all the propaganda, Mullah Khatami and his administration's deeds point to the fact that mullahs' "moderation" is nothing but a mirage. Khatami was just as committed to the medieval system of Velayat-Faqih that Khomeini founded. His administration was no different than previous governments, and rests on the same basis of fanatic fundamentalism. In that context, his views on women came as no surprise. Speaking to Salaam newspaper on May 11, 1997, just days before his election, Khatami declared: "One of the West's biggest mistakes was the emancipation of women, which destroyed the family... Staying at home does not mean being pushed to the sidelines... We must not think that social activity means working outside the home. Housekeeping is among the most important of tasks."
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khatami's predecessor, who headed the powerful Council to Determine State Exigencies, is on record as declaring unequivocally that women are inferior and must be treated differently under the law: "Justice does not mean that all laws must be the same for men and women... The difference in the stature, vitality, voice, development, muscular quality, and physical strength of men and women shows that men are stronger and more capable in all fields... Men's brains are larger... Men incline toward reasoning and rationalism while women basically tend to be emotional. These differences affect the delegation of responsibilities, duties and rights."
Mullah Mohammad Yazdi, the Head of the Judiciary, also emphasized the subservience of women: "If kneeling before God were not obligatory, wives should have knelt before their husbands." He also said: "A woman is wholly the possession of her husband, and her public life is conditional upon her husband's consent."
These blatantly prejudiced views shed light on how discriminatory legislation against women has been proposed, adopted, and enforced in Iran since 1979. All the existing laws in Iran, which deal with the rights of women, arise from the stereotyped presumption that men are endowed with the right to dominate women. A man can divorce his wife freely and has the right to retain custody of their children. Article 105 of the Civil Code stipulates: "In the relationship between husband and wife, heading the family is characteristic of the husband." The Islamic Council of Guardians decreed that "a woman does not have the right to leave her home without her husband's permission, even to attend her father's funeral."
There are inequalities in punishments for similar crimes. While in most cases harsher punishments are issued for women, their credibility as witnesses and inheritance rights are half those of men. Article 115 of the Constitution specifically excludes women from the presidency. The law also excludes them from appointment to judgeships. Yazdi, the Head of the Judiciary, commented on December 15, 1986: "No matter at what stage of knowledge, virtue, perfection, and prudence a woman is, she does not have the right to rule... Even if a righteous accredited woman possesses all qualifications, she cannot assume a leadership position nor can she pass judgment, because she is a woman." In the words of another Iranian official, women are "immature" and need "guardians."
The fundamentalists look at the world and the hereafter through sex-tinted glasses. Throughout history, they have fabricated their own fantasies and moral lessons and attributed them to the Prophet Mohammad.
Contrary to all of Khatami's attempts to put a positive spin on the mullahs' misogynist treatment of women for international consumption, his cabinet did not include even one woman. The appointment of a woman, Massoumeh Ebtekar, as deputy for environmental protection, was supposed to reflect "moderation" and Khatami's attention to women's rights. But this woman vice president was no "moderate," and was notorious as a staunch advocate of suppressing women's rights. As a Spokesperson for the hostage-takers who captured the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, she once told an ABC Television correspondent that she was personally willing to take a gun and kill the hostages. [The New York Times, January 28, 1998]. In an interview with Die Tageszeitung on October 18, Ebtekar defended discrimination against women and medieval punishments, like stoning. In response to a question on stoning to death, Ebtekar said: "One should take the psychological and legal affairs of the society into consideration as well. If family rules and regulations are broken, it would result in many complex, grave consequences for all of the society."
In response to a question about revoking laws such as the one stipulating that women need their husbands' written permission to travel, she replied: "Man is responsible for the financial affairs of the family and for seeing that members of the family are not harmed. Thus, a woman needs her husband's permission to make a trip. Otherwise, due to problems that would arise, a rift would come between them."
Actually, it is this distorted, misogynous interpretation of Islam that provides the Iranian law and government with the basis for its sermonizing on the inferiority and subservience of women, encouraging more violence against them. As head of the Revolutionary Cultural Council, Khatami officially refused to commit the regime to the international convention banning discrimination against women – the United Nations Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women [CEDAW].
Reports from inside Iran reveal that the mullahs' regime has also intensified its attacks on the population, particularly against women and youths, and harassment in the streets by the so-called "Hezbollah" [Party of God] mercenaries is on the rise. Agence France Presse reported on November 30, 1997 that "Iranian security forces arrested a large number of women for improper veiling or attire that was not compatible with Islamic regulations." The AFP correspondent witnessed police forcing many young women into patrol cars in northern Tehran. About ten young women, some of whom were wearing colorful head scarves and light make-up, were witnessed in a police vehicle in Vanak's shopping mall.
Such incidents shed light on the circumstances of girls and women in Iran. Even a brief glance reveals the catastrophic consequences of their abuse and exploitation at the hands of the fundamentalists.
Girl children suffer the worst conditions in Iran today. According to the clerical regime's rules and regulations, a girl child can virtually be bought and sold with the consent of her male guardian. Article 1041 of the Civil Code provides that 'Marriage before puberty [nine full lunar years for girls] is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."
It has become common practice to sell or force very young girls to marry much older husbands, giving rise to all sorts of social ills. Adineh magazine wrote in summer 1991: "An 11-year-old girl was married off to a 27-year-old man. The father, who had seven daughters, received $300 for his consent. The morning after the marriage ceremonies, the girl was taken to hospital suffering from severe lacerations to her genitals."
The state-controlled daily, Ressalat, reported on December 15, 1991, that due to extreme poverty and the absence of the most basic facilities, the deprived people of northern Khorassan sell their young girls for as little as $33. The buyers, mostly from Gonabad, take the girls away and put them to work on farms and in workshops. In the impoverished province of Sistan-Baluchistan [southeastern Iran], girls eight - ten years old are sold by their drug-addicted parents for US$4. Children are routinely abused in the labor force, and girls as young as four are used in the brick manufacturing, carpet weaving, textile and clothing industries.
According to the penal code, a nine-year-old girl can be punished as an adult by flogging, execution and even stoning. Given the arbitrary punishments and the virtual lack of due process of law, large numbers of children have been executed, in many cases without being officially charged or even having their identities established.
In a report on November 22, 1994, the United Nations Special Rapportuer on violence against women said "the public stoning and lashing of women serves to institutionalize violence against women. The Special Rapportuer received many allegations of such violent punishments being inflicted on women in the Islamic Republic of Iran."
According to a special "religious decree" issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, virgin women prisoners must be raped before execution to prevent their going to heaven. A Guard conducts the rape the night before their murder. The next day, the religious judge at the prison issues a marriage certificate and sends it to the victim's family, along with a box of sweets.
Tens of thousands of women have been subjected to cruel torture and execution. One method is particularly revealing: the Revolutionary Guards fire a single bullet into the womb of women political prisoners, leaving them to bleed to death in a slow process of excruciating pain. Even pregnant women are not spared, and hundreds have been executed with their unborn children. Many defenseless women prisoners are held in what are euphemistically referred to as "residential quarters" in prisons, where the Guards systematically rape them in order to totally destroy them.
In an eyewitness report, Amnesty International revealed how the small children of many young women in Evin Prison are viciously abused. Witness Helmut Szimkus, a German engineer, told Amnesty International they are kept "because they are an asset to the prison authorities for gaining confessions." Szimkus, who was released after serving a lengthy sentence in an Iranian prison, said he witnessed several cases where Iranian children were tortured in the presence of their parents. "One time these guys [torturers] raped a nine-year-old girl. The parents had to watch. The father shook and rattled so badly that he could no longer sign the espionage confession they put before him."
The social environment imbedded in the misogynous views, laws and policies of the fundamentalist regime naturally spawns corruption, making it increasingly difficult for women to survive. Women bear the brunt of the economic difficulties and social barriers and restrictions. Large numbers of deprived women have been forced into prostitution or become addicted to drugs. Meanwhile, the clerical regime, touting Islam, claims to accord "divine respect" to women.
"It is appalling. Never has prostitution been so rampant. But everything is done behind the veil," Mahin, a 47-year old female Iranian jurist purged by the mullahs, told Helen Kami, the French journalist for Elle magazine who visited Iran in January 1997. Kami writes: "Prostitutes regularly roam Gandhi Street in north Tehran. At 5 p.m., we go to Istanbuli Street, also in north Tehran. The cab drivers, looking for wealthy or foreign patrons, are driving slowly. In exchange for only $1 [500 Tomans], they can provide you with girls, alcoholic beverages, heroin and hashish."
Many more of the social consequences of the mullahs' rule date back to the destructive, meaningless Iran-Iraq war, dragged on by Khomeini's regime for eight years. In this case, too, women and children suffered most. Since it was very difficult for a widow to provide for herself and raise a family in Iran's highly patriarchal society, multitudes turned to prostitution as the only means of survival. According to the Associated Press of July 21, 1989, the arrest of a war widow for prostitution touched off a national scandal, because the woman had prostituted herself as a last resort to feed her family.
Ressalat, a state-controlled newspaper, reported on July 3, 1991: "Three large brothels were discovered and shut down in Tehran in the past month alone. Thirty-eight women were arrested. Most of the arrested women said during interrogation that they had turned to prostitution as a result of poverty."
Unemployment and skyrocketing prices make it impossible for millions of Iranians to get married and raise a family. At a seminar on the difficulties of getting married, Ayatollah Haeri Shirazi proposed in January 1997 that authorities promote an unofficial, temporary marriage called sigheh, that can last less than 24 hours and be repeated as many times as desired. This form of exploitation of women has become very widespread, and legitimizes sexual relations with very young girls. Quoting Mahin, the Iranian jurist, the Elle magazine reporter wrote in January 1997 about the life of a 9-year-old girl whose destitute parents arranged for her to be a sigheh. The man visits his temporary "wife" every weekend at her father's house, for which privilege he pays her father about US$12 per visit.
The desperate women forced into prostitution, as a direct result of the regime's policies, have to endure very harsh punishments, including public flogging and death by stoning. In one case, a religious judge convicted 17 members of an alleged prostitution ring. Among them were 14 brothers and sisters from a single family. Ten women and one man were stoned to death; two women and another man were hanged.
At least seven individuals have been stoned to death in public since Khatami's election. On August 12, Agence France Presse reported that a 20-year-old woman who had been stoned "came to life" in the hospital morgue. The unidentified woman had been condemned to stoning by Boukan's Islamic court. After the verdict of stoning to death was carried out, the coroner confirmed her death, but she began to breathe at the morgue.
The penalty for fornication, under articles 100 and 102 of the penal code, is only flogging for the unmarried male offender, but stoning to death for the unmarried female offender. Adulterers may be stoned to death, irrespective of their gender, but a man is buried up to his waist, and a woman up to her neck. Article 119 stipulates that the stones should not be so large as to kill the victim quickly, nor too small to cause severe injury.
Caught in a vicious cycle of social humiliation and coercion, economic dependence, family insecurity, fear for their children's lives as well as their own, shame, lack of confidence, daily harassment for "improper veiling," insults, and sexual abuse, Iranian women lead a bleak life. Feelings of despair and helplessness cast dark shadows over the lives of many, giving rise to a growing trend of suicide. A study in 1992 showed that twice as many women commit suicide as men.
Another study in 1993 stated, "lower class women complain that the major problem is feeding their family... The problem is somewhat different for middle-class women. Psychologists say the reason for suicides of most women in this class is deprivation of individual freedoms. Lack of jobs or financial support for widows is the next reason for suicide. Iranian widows or divorcees have no source of income. When society doesn't provide employment opportunities, such women must remarry, turn to prostitution or commit suicide."
A confidential report to the regime's parliament on September 2, 1992, said the sudden surge in the rate of suicide among women across Iran was due in part to the pressures exerted on the wives of Revolutionary Guards and soldiers who had served in the Iran-Iraq war, who suffer from psychological disorders. The report pointed out that the most severely affected men were those who spent time at the front when they were teenagers, where they had killed or captured scores of people or witnessed sexual intercourse with animals. Many women suicides pointed to the psychological imbalance of their husbands as the sole reason for their decision to kill themselves.
The report added that girl children as young as ten, instead of spending their days playing with other children, were being forced to marry men three to four times their age. Meanwhile as "married women," they are banned from attending school. Zan-e-Rouz, a woman's magazine, wrote on Feb. 26, 1994, that a 14-year-old high school girl died after setting herself on fire to avoid marrying a 42-year-old man. Reuters reported on July 12, 1994, that "A 14-year-old Iranian girl, set to wed a man of 50 in an arranged marriage, burned herself to death."
Given the totalitarian rule in Iran, most organized activities are known to the authorities. The exposure of sex slave networks in Iran has shown that many mullahs and officials are involved in the sexual exploitation and trade of women and girls. Women report that in order to have a judge approve a divorce they have to have sex with him. Women who are arrested for prostitution say they must have sex with the arresting officer. There are reports of police locating young women for sex for the wealthy and powerful mullahs. In cities, shelters have been set-up to provide assistance for runaways. Officials who run these shelters are often corrupt; they run prostitution rings using the girls from the shelter. The ruling fundamentalists have differing opinions on their official position on the sex trade: deny and hide it or recognize and accommodate it. In 2002, a BBC journalist was deported for taking photographs of prostitutes. Officials told her: "We are deporting you … because you have taken pictures of prostitutes. This is not a true reflection of life in our Islamic Republic. We don't have prostitutes." Yet, earlier the same year, officials of the Social Department of the Interior Ministry suggested legalizing prostitution as a way to manage it and control the spread of HIV. They proposed setting-up brothels, called "morality houses," and using the traditional religious custom of temporary marriage, in which a couple can marry for a short period of time, even an hour, to facilitate prostitution. Islamic fundamentalists' ideology and practices are adaptable when it comes to controlling and using women. Some may think a thriving sex trade in a theocracy with clerics acting as pimps is a contradiction in a country founded and ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. In fact, this is not a contradiction. First, exploitation and repression of women are closely associated. Both exist where women, individually or collectively, are denied freedom and rights. Second, the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran are not simply conservative Muslims. Islamic fundamentalism is a political movement with a political ideology that considers women inherently inferior in intellectual and moral capacity. Fundamentalists hate women's minds and bodies. Selling women and girls for prostitution is just the dehumanizing complement to forcing women and girls to cover their bodies and hair with the veil. In a religious dictatorship like Iran, one cannot appeal to the rule of law for justice for women and girls. Women and girls have no guarantees of freedom and rights, and no expectation of respect or dignity from the Islamic fundamentalists.
Seven years back, a middle-aged Iranian-Canadian journalist named Zahra Kazemi was arrested in Tehran while taking photographs of regime hoodlums beating up young people who were demonstrating for freedom. A few days later she turned up dead in a local military hospital. The regime denied requests from the family and the Canadian government to examine the body, insisted that she had fallen in her prison cell and died of injuries to her head, denied that anyone had beaten her, and hastily buried her without any proper autopsy. The Kazemi family never believed the regime's story, but efforts to get at the truth were predictably fruitless. Until now. Dr. Shahram Azam, a medical doctor who has just been granted asylum in Canada, has presented a firsthand account of the terrible death of Zara Kazemi. He says he examined Kazemi in a military hospital in Tehran on June 26, 2003. He says he found horrific injuries to her entire body that demonstrated torture and rape. By the time he examined her--an examination limited by the Islamic republic's sexist restrictions that made it illegal for a male doctor to look at her genital area--Kazemi was unconscious and her body was covered with bruises. According to Dr. Azam, she had a skull fracture, two broken fingers, missing fingernails, a crushed big toe, a smashed nose, deep scratches on her neck, and evidence of flogging on her legs and back.
"I could see this was caused by torture," Azam told Canadian journalists. He added that the nurse who examined Kazemi's genitals told him of "brutal damage." He believes she was tortured and raped. If he is correct, we can add Zara Kazemi to a long list of women who have been brutalized by the mullah's torturers.
The brutal treatment of Iranian women by the mullahcracy is a daily occurrence, not an isolated case. As "Iran Focus" reported on March 2, 2005 "at least 54 Iranian girls and young women, between the ages of 16 and 25, are sold on the streets of Karachi in Pakistan on a daily basis," according to "a senior women's affairs analyst, speaking to a state-run news agency."
The analyst, Mahboubeh Moghadam, added that there are at least 300,000 runaway girls in Iran right now, the result, in Moghadam's words, of "the government policy which has resulted in poverty and the deprival of rights for the majority of people in society."
Professor Donna M. Hughes, at the University of Rhode Island, one of the few Western scholars courageous enough to keep reporting on these horrors, says that the enslaved women are typically sold to people in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, such as Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. But the slave trade is not limited to the Islamic world: Police have uncovered a number of prostitution and slavery rings operating from Tehran that have sold girls to France, Britain and Turkey as well. One network based in Turkey bought smuggled Iranian women and girls, gave them fake passports, and transported them to European and Persian Gulf countries. In one case, a 16-year-old girl was smuggled to Turkey, and then sold to a 58-year-old European national for $20,000.
Under the rule of the former Shah, a small number of women were hanged, mostly for murder. The Shah was deposed in 1979 and replaced by a fundamentalist Muslim regime led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He won a huge democratic majority for the formation of an Islamic Republic on April the 1st, 1979. Under the new government, women were required to wear the veil, western music and alcohol were banned, and the punishments prescribed by Sharia law came into force. Male and female executions became frequent – often for refusing to convert/recognise Islam or for being a member of an anti-regime political group.
There are no accurate records of just how many men, women and girls were executed in the first years of the Revolution. There is a credible list of 14,028 names available and some sources claim figures of several tens of thousands, although these are not substantiated with names. According to a report published by the Organisation of Women Against Execution in Iran, at least 2,000 women were executed between June 1981 and 1990. They have been able to prepare a list containing 1,428 names. 187 of these women were under the age of 18, with 9 girls under the age of 13 and 14 between the ages of 45 to 70. The youngest girl executed was just 10 years old. Thirty two of these women were reported to have been pregnant at the time of their execution. Many of those executed were high school and college students. Hanging was the most common method of execution for women, although some were shot. Men and women were hanged in large groups in Tehran prisons from cranes and forklift trucks. Each crane jib or forklift had a wooden or steel beam to which the noose was attached and when the preparations were complete, the prisoners were simply hoisted into the air.
Murder of Bahais:
The case of the 10 women hanged in Shiraz in 1983 is well documented, however. The "crime" of these women was to believe in the Bahá'í religion instead of Islam and to believe in the equality of men and women. These were considered to be very dangerous concepts by the Revolutionary regime who had them arrested and tortured in an effort to persuade them to convert into Islam. Several of them were subjected to the "bastinado" - beating on the soles of their feet. They were all given the opportunity to avoid execution by recanting their faith and converting to Islam but none of them chose to.
On the night of June the 18th,1983, they were driven in a bus to a polo field on the outskirts of Shiraz where a gallows had been set up. The bus driver who took them there reported that they seemed to be in good spirits, singing on the way and prepared to meet their fate.
The youngest prisoner was Mona Mahmudnizhad, who was just 17 years old. Her father had been hanged some months earlier for his beliefs. At the execution ground, she asked to be hanged last so that she could pray for all the other women. Reportedly, she kissed the noose and recited a prayer before she was suspended.
The other 9 members of the group were :
23 year old Roya Ishraqi, a promising veterinary student, was executed with her 50 year old mother, Izzad Janami Ishraqi.
20 year old Akhtar Sabit, a graduate nurse, who had taught children's religious classes.
28 year old Mahshid Nirumand was a physics graduate from the University of Shiraz. She is said to have remained resolute in prison and to have shared her food with the others and encouraged them to remain firm.
Shirin Dalvand was 25 years old and held a degree in sociology from the University of Shiraz. Shirin was an expert in the Baha'i faith. Under interrogation, she was asked whether she would ever give up her religion - she told her questioner that she would hold to her faith." Until my death, I hope that the divine mercy will enable me to remain firm to the last breath of my life".
Tahirih Siyavushi was a 32 year old nurse, who had been a member of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Shiraz. Her husband, Jamshid, had been hanged two days earlier. As a nurse, Tahirih helped to look after the other prisoners.
20 year old Simin Sabiri, who had been a member of the Committee of Studies Baha' ies of Shiraz.
Zarrin Muqimi was 28 years old and also very knowledgeable about her faith defending it vigorously under interrogation.
The oldest of the 10 was 54 year old Mrs. Nosrat Yalda'I who had belonged to the Spiritual Local Assembly of Shiraz and whose house was regarded as the "nerve centre" of the Community life Baha' ie in Shiraz. She had been viciously whipped during her time in prison and her wounds were still visible after her hanging. Both her husband and her son, Bahram had also been executed.
The town's people of Shiraz groups brought flowers to the mortuary to honour the bravery of these women, despite the dangers of such a protest. The Bahá'í religion is still considered dangerous by the regime and is suppressed.
Dina Parnabi was an Iranian high school student, accused of smuggling forbidden literature and criticising the regime in her talks with her classmates. She was hanged on the 10th of July 1984 in a Teheran prison. The hanging was done in private and after the execution was over, her body was stripped, washed and delivered for dissection at medical school. In Iran, female bodies delivered for medical studies often show the rope or cable burns around their necks, indicating that they were all executed by hanging.
Disrespecting the women in Islam:
In recent time, Iranian Mullahs and people in the administration have started calling women as 'Aurat', which actually is a Urdu word. In Urdu, women are called 'aurat', which came from the Arabic word 'awrah. The Arabic word refers to the genitals of a woman's body, in a simple and straightforward word, which is called the 'vagina'. It means, the entire body of a Muslim woman is a huge vagina and nothing else [Warraq, 2005. p. 316]. How many Urdu speaking Asian Muslims know this fact that for referring their mothers, sisters and daughters, they use a word which actually degrades their women folks? Nikah' [Muslim marriage], is an Arabic word whose literal meaning is penetration [Kaleeby, 2002; Warraq, 2005]. It can be pronounced as 'Nokh', which again means the 'awrah', the giant vagina, i.e, the entire body of a Muslim woman. When the word 'Nikah' is used to mean marriage, the actual meaning is not marriage but literally 'sexual penetration'. Ignorant Muslims often use these words, without knowing their actual meaning and degrade their woman folks to the level of sex-slaves and cheap highway prostitutes.
The compensation [dower] for sexual service of the wife in Islam is known as 'mahr', which all Muslim men must agree to pay before marriage. It can be immediate or deferred to a future date. No Islamic marriage is valid without the payment of 'mahr'. Sometimes, Muslim women take keen pride in the sums paid for them as 'mahr' without knowing the actual purpose of it. In reality, however, 'mahr' is nothing but the payment to purchase a female body for sexual enjoyment. This degradation is sanctioned by Shariah Law [the divine law of Allah]. So when a Muslim marries off his sister or daughter to another Muslim family, he actually auctions his sister for a quick financial profit. If the 'mahr' is not sufficient, then as per 'Sha'ria' Law, the marriage can be cancelled. Often the wife does not get to use the 'mahr' for herself. This money is used to furnish the house of the newly married couple or her father grabs the entire amount [Warraq, 2005, p. 311].
The Sha'ria does not recognize 'forced sex' on women after marriage. There is nothing called marital rape. Once 'mahr' is paid, the wife is a legal sex-slave of the man [often next to three other equally helpless wives]. In prostitution, a customer does not need to bother about the sexual gratification of the prostitute. Similarly, the sexual desires and preferences of the women are not recognized in Islam."

From 1980 to 2005 the FBI Database:
Lists "Islamic" terrorism as being 6% of the terrorism commited in the USA.
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/not-all-terrorists-are-muslims/
P.S. Even "Jewish" Terrorism by comparison comes in at 7%.
So why does the media create an "Alice in Wonderland" distortion?
Let us get a sense of perspective.
So-called Ex-Muslim from Iran:
I think you are getting your wires crossed - to go from violent attacks on minority places of worship in Nashville to pimping in Iran, is surely a bit strange???

This is to Jessi Thompson-Not only did you exploit the Qur'an but,you made sure that people think that Islam is a religion of violence.and it's not.Everything you wrote was wrong and you know i don't entirely blame you for acting so foolishly.I'm sure you don't own a Qura'n and if you did you would know that first off the Qura'n isn't based entirely off of Prophet Muhammed's words and second off Islam is about peace not violence.You would know that if you weren't so ignorant.