Terrorism fatwa denounced as ‘bogus’ = terrorists in America

[tocqueville]

Terrorism fatwa denounced as ‘bogus’

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The fatwa against terrorism issued here on Thursday by the Fiqh Council of North America has been denounced as “bogus.”

According to Steven A Emerson, executive director of the Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism, the fatwa is “bogus” since it does not renounce nor even acknowledge the existence of an Islamic jihadist culture that has permeated mosques and young Muslims around the world. It does not renounce Jihad let alone admit that it has been used to justify Islamic terrorist acts. It does not condemn by name any Islamic group or leader. “In short, it is a fake fatwa designed merely to deceive the American public into believing that these groups are moderate,” he added.

He said the Fiqh Council and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the two bodies behind the production of the fatwa, have been directly linked to and associated with Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic extremist organisations. One of them is an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a current terrorist case, another previous a financier to Al Qaeda.

Fiqh Council chairman Muzammil Siddiqui,, Emerson continued, told a rally in Washington on 28 October 2000, “ America has to learn - if you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come.” Emerson also attacked CAIR, charging that in the past four years,

several CAIR officials have been convicted of or charged with various terrorism-related offenses.

CAIR, he added, had also championed and defended officials of Islamic terrorist groups as well as attacked the prosecutions of Islamic terrorists arrested and/or convicted since 9-11. It had and attacked the government’s freezing of Islamic terrorist fronts as part of a “war against Islam” by the United States .

Emerson alleged that another signatory, the Muslim American Society, is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, whose publications have repeatedly supported suicide bombings.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-7-2005_pg7_16

[The Magistrate]

1. Mr. Emerson, Sir

Has the quality of bogosity himself, in abundance.

The fatwa could have been a bit more explicit, that is true enough, but it is an excellent statement that we should all welcome, and that may have some beneficial effect.

Allegations of financing "terrorism" are particularly slippery. Moslems are required to donate to charities to benefit fellow believers, it is among the pillars of the faith. Some of the charitable organizations have devoted funds, for example, to relief in Arab Palestine, and in Bosnia, and lately in Afghanistan and even Iraq. It is simple enough to make some of these things appear to be "support for terrorism", when they are really no such thing at all. And there are also occassions when individual officials of such an organization skim funds, and otherwise perform in criminal wise, to divert funds of the charity to nefarious purposes. That is a hazard all such organizations face: recently some high muckamuck in the United Way was caught embezzeling funds for the high life, but no one leapt to accuse the organization of existing to subsidize B.M.W. dealers and high end call girls....

[tocqueville]

2. No argument about that (charities) but I found the

interesting part of the article being quoting the names of members of different muslims associations for being linked with terrorist activities. Either it's true or not.

The other interesting aspect is that the article comes from a Pakistani daily. If the Pakistani consider this fatwa as bogus, they might have some reasons for that. The official line would be normally to accept it.

Besides I didn't know about Emerson's background (I did a check on Wikipedia and I can agree it's controversial).

[Kagemusha]

3. There's pro-Musharraf Pakistanis and those who just plain aren't.

Those that aren't have a political incentive to view the fatwa as bogus and keep the heat on secular governments. All of them, really.

[drdon326]

4. What ??

no way.

[Orangeone]

5. Steven Emerson

is the one who is bogus. I suggest Googling his name.

He was one those "experts" that was convinced that Arabs were responsible for the Oklahoma City Bombings.