Left: The famous mud-mosque in Mali, where al Qaeda has been active, has been used by Taha Ghayyur as an advertisement of his presentation at the Al-Falah Islamic Center as part of Black History Month – “Discover the Forgotten Legacy of African Islam” on Feb. 19, 2016.
Recent mass demonstrations in Iran and the government’s violent crackdown has been met with a deafening silence by Muslim “civil rights” organizations in the U.S. and Canada. Why have they refrained from supporting the Iranian people’s uprising to overthrow the oppressive mullahs? After all, the same organizations have vocally and financially supported the mass demonstrations in the Middle East and North Africa that erupted in December 2010 and led to the rise of Egypt’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government and caused turmoil and destabilized these regions.
American and Canadian Muslim organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the U.S. and Canada, the Muslim Student Association (MSA) in the U.S. and Canada, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) (including its Canadian branch), share the similar agenda and boards and serve as umbrellas to many smaller associations and community-based groups. Their charities aim to expand the implementation of their agenda, and a few of them have been identified as unindicted co-conspirator in Islamist terrorist financing trials in the U.S. Their common mission: dedication to “da’wah” (proselytization), building “an Islamic way of life in North America[, and] commitment to Islam as a total way of life” by practicing sharia (Islamic law). This desire to impose any version of Islam on society to establish global Islamic theocracy via political activism has been accurately described by Prof. Clive Kessler as “political Islam” or “ISIS/Daesh “lite”.”
Political Islam has been successfully enforced by the mullahs in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Over the years, they have increased their efforts to enforce and spread political Islam everywhere. Their efforts did not stop with Shite groups; rather, they extended especially to Sunni Muslim Brotherhood offshoots such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and al-Qaeda. Not surprisingly, the first foreign trip of Egypt’s now-deposed Muslim Brother president, Mohammed Morsi, was to visit Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood’s short-lived government (June 2012-July 2013) has failed because the Egyptian people rejected its oppression early on.
The ousting of the M.B. government was followed with banning its activities in Egypt and later in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Syria. But by then, the global Brotherhood’s movement has been well entrenched in the West, where their activities are not limited and often encouraged. The leaders of the Islamist movement have doubled their efforts to spread and whenever possible, to enforce political Islam on Muslims and infidels alike.
The el-Sisi government, which banned the Muslim Brotherhood and their affiliates, arrested many of their leaders and activists and seized documents, which identify many of their supporters everywhere, including in North America, where political Islam has been gathering force.
Followers of the movement in Britain have been recently identified by the Egyptian authorities as funding terrorist attacks in Egypt and the Sinai. A list of such funders was provided by the Egyptian government to law enforcement in England. A similar list of North American M.B. activists and sympathizers and organizations that support them would help curb the expansion of political Islam in the U.S. and Canada. Such information is especially needed because M.B.-affiliated groups in the U.S. and Canada, have recently turned opaque, deleting pertinent information from their websites.
Take for example ISNA North America and its Canadian branch. The new executive director of ISNA Canada, Taha Ghayyur, has been active and listed as a board member in several U.S. and Canadian M.B.-affiliated groups who promote political Islam. He has openly spoken about how to gradually implement Islamic law (sharia) in North America.
In an article originally published in English by the Young Muslims website and entitled “Understanding Punishment in Shariah,” Taha Ghayyur explained the rationale behind the harsh punishments in Islam (execution, stoning, cutting off thieves’ hands, etc.) and argued that the Islamic law (sharia) can be implemented in North America. (Detailed information on Taha Ghayyur’s involvement with North American Muslim organizations is available here.)
The following are excerpts from Ghayyur’s article:
[If o]ne wonders if [sharia] can be practically implemented in our contemporary North American context[,] … [t]he principles of [sharia] are universal and are not bound by the limitations of time and culture.
Ghayyur argues:
It is certainly possible to apply [sharia] in the North American society only if three conditions are fulfilled:
· One, when an environment is developed, provisioned with preventative measures, that is conductive to a just and productive lifestyle, which is often not compatible with a consumer lifestyle.
· Two, if the [sharia] laws are implemented gradually, accompanied by continuous public education and training on the importance of justice, freedom, and one’s purpose on this [E]arth, the way it was revealed and practiced, as a strategy of pre-crime social reform, over a period of twenty-three years at the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the first generation of Muslims.
· Three, if the punishments in the [sharia] are given their due place, only to be used as a last resort, and not to be practiced in isolation from the other major objectives of the [sharia].
He then clarifies why it is important to introduce these measures gradually:
If a comprehensive approach to [sharia] is not adopted then one may expect to witness horrific images of extremist, selective, and literal application of the Islamic text, the likes of which we have witnessed in recent times.
To prevent this from happening, Ghayyur recommends his version of Daesh lite. Nonetheless, Ghayyur is recommended by Toronto’s District School Board ass a speaker “willing to come to schools” to “create a healthy dialogue in order to build bridges between communities.”
ISNA’s Ghayyur is preaching for gradually enforcing sharia in North America and “commitment to Islam as a total way of life.” This is not different from what the mullahs are imposing in Iran. So it is not surprising that none of ISNA- and other M.B.-affiliated groups in North America have expressed support to the Iranians who wish to free themselves from the shackles of the mullahs’ version of Da’esh “lite.”
*This article was published in American Thinker, on January 10, 2018.