Islamic Awakening user AbuSulaiman has recently posted this on the forum:

new Fatwa from Sh. Anwar

From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Date Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 5:32 PM

subject: Fwd: Fwd: Imam Anwar updte!!

Dear brother XXXX,I wanted to clarify my recent comments on brother Nidal Hasan’s shooting at Fort Hood which i am unable to do on my site until the brothers restore it, may Allah reward them.

If a Muslim is in a non-Muslim army and is part of the military apparatus which is waging war against Muslims, it is not permissible for him to take part at all. Helping the kuffar against the Muslims is riddah without doubt. Allah said concerning the one who supports the mushrikeen:

“And if any amongst you takes them as awliya then surely, he is one of them (al-Maida 5:51)

If a Muslim is serving in the US army I want to emphasize the necessity of leaving the army of the disbelievers and finding work elsewhere, because his presence in the army implies helping them, strengthening them and increasing the numbers of their fighters. However, if his work in the army allows him to pass on their secrets to the Muslims or help the Muslims in some other way that is a separate issue and completely permissible.

It seems pretty obvious that the end of this email (if genuine) has probably been cut off, but there is probably little point speculating about what content was deemed too sensitive to be shared. All that can be said is that, with Awlaki back on the internet, he’ll be back to his old radicalising tricks quicker than you can say “No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny.”

View it here.

At slide 11 he discusses fatwas concerning Muslims serving in the US military. It concludes with a quotation whose origins are unclear:

“It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.”

From slide 17  (a bit of a false start, he actually commences the discussion properly at slide 35) he starts to discuss abrogation. Hasan gives the Jihad Watch style simplistic definition that peaceful verses tended to come earlier, and there is a later passage allowing violence against non-believers (the so-called ‘Sword Verse’ – 9:05) and therefore Muslims are allowed to fight offensive jihad.

The most crucial and concerning slides are number 45, titled “Offensive Islam if [sic] the Future”, and 48 – where Hasan lists comments. These include:

If Muslim groups can convince Muslims that they are fighting for God against injustices of the “infidels”; ie: enemies of Islam, then Muslims can become a potent adversary ei: suicide bombing, etc.

And:

We love death more than you love life!

Comments continue on slide 49:

Muslims may be seen as moderate (compromising) but God is not.

And:

Fighting to establish an Islamic state to please God, even by force, is condoned by the [sic] Islam

This leads Hasan to conclude that Muslim soldiers should be allowed to opt out of fighting against other Muslims as “conscientious objectors” (slide 50).

How could the US military have missed signs this obvious? And what other signs has it been missing elsewhere?

The CST’s response is certainly one of the best, particularly this gem of a detail:

There is another, very simple, example of how the programme makers appear to have decided on their theory and conclusions before accumulating any facts.  The Guardian opinion piece states:

For instance, Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) – once described by the famous Conservative politician and historian as “the largest organisation in western Europe dedicated to the cause of the people of Israel” – claims that 80% of all Tory MPs are members.

The Guardian news article states:

At least half of the shadow cabinet are members of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), according to a Dispatches programme being screened on Channel 4.

If both these figures are true, then simple maths should tell Dispatches that joining CFI actually decreases your chance of being elevated to the shadow cabinet; or at least that shadow cabinet members are less supportive of Israel than Tory backbenchers.

My impression is that Oborne overstates his case. Certainly there are individuals and organisations that support Israel but (a) they are doing so for a multitude of reasons and (b) there is no link between them. But then I suppose a programme about how some individuals and organisations quite like Israel would not have been glamourous enough for a flagship Channel 4 programme, unlike suggestions of a powerful and united lobby.

Aulaqi said Hasan viewed him as a confidant. “It was clear from his e-mails that Nidal trusted me. Nidal told me: ‘I speak with you about issues that I never speak with anyone else,’ ” he told Shaea.

The cleric said Hasan informed him that he had become a devout Muslim around the time Aulaqi was preaching at Dar al-Hijrah, in 2001 and 2002. “Anwar said, ‘Maybe Nidal was affected by one of my lectures,’” said Shaea.

Now, Osama Saeed, Islamic Forum Europe and others may be on the defensive but Awlaki certainly isn’t. Speaking to an intermediary for the Washington Post, he affirmed his support for Nidal’s murderous rampage:

Explaining why he wrote on his Web site that Hasan was a “hero,” According to Shaea, Aulaqi said: “I blessed the act because it was against a military target. And the soldiers who were killed were not normal soldiers, but those who were trained and prepared to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.” [...]

Aulaqi said Hasan’s alleged shooting spree was allowed under Islam because it was a form of jihad. “There are some people in the United States who said this shooting has nothing to do with Islam, that it was not permissible under Islam,” he said, according to Shaea. “But I would say it is permissible. . . . America was the one who first brought the battle to Muslim countries.”

The cleric also denounced what he described as contradictory behavior by Muslims who condemned Hasan’s actions and “let him down.” According to Shaea, he said: “They say American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan should be killed, so how can they say the American soldier should not be killed at the moment they are going to Iraq and Afghanistan?”

And, although the email relationship between Awlaki and Nidal seems to have been made up of a dozen or so emails from Nidal and just two or three from Awlaki, there is a suggestion that Awlaki may have been tailoring the contents of his blog to try to influence Nidal.

On Dec. 23, 2008, days after he said Hasan first e-mailed him, Aulaqi also posted online words encouraging attacks on U.S. soldiers, writing: “The bullets of the fighters of Afghanistan and Iraq are a reflection of the feelings of the Muslims towards America,” according to the NEFA Foundation, a private South Carolina group that monitors extremist Web sites.

Whatever the true extent of the relationship between Awlaki and Nidal, the fact that Nidal first adopted extremist ideas back in 2001 whilst under Awlaki’s influence shows us that people who claim that Awlaki was a moderate in the years between being a “spiritual advisor” to the 9/11 hijackers and him reprising that role with Nidal are horribly ill-informed, mad or bad. Or all three. Awlaki may have got more extreme in that period, but Nidal still thought to go to him in the months before shooting to death 13 soldiers.

They could not be less correct, as a Bangladeshi news site reports:

The Dhaka University’s vice chancellor received death threats on Sunday from banned Islamist outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The organisation in two letters asked A A M S Arefin Siddique to reinstate central coordinator of the outfit and spokesman professor Mohiuddin Ahmed to his position in the university without delay.

He has also been asked to take steps for releasing arrested relatives of some of the convicts in the Bangabandhu murder case.

The university’s assistant registrar Munshi Shamsuddin told bdnews24.com the letters arrived between 1pm and 1:30pm on Sunday; one was posted on Nov 10 and the other on Nov 11.

One letter reads: “Don’t involve Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Mohiuddin in any trouble. And reinstate the three teachers sent on forced leave within three days. Or else, we will kill you and your family. No one can save you.”

The letter is undersigned as Abdul Hamid, president of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s committee of registrar building officials.

As the Spittoon reported, HT was banned in Bangladesh last month for reasons of national security. This seems to have been a good call, at least if HT’s apparent allies are anything to go by.

The letters claimed that Hizb ut Tahrir has 200 trained members.

The other letter under signed by the same asked for removal of all barriers regarding admission of madrasa students in the university. It also asked the vice-chancellor to get the government to release Mehnaz Rashid, Kamrul Haque Swapan and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami leader Mufti Abdul Hannan.
[...]
Mehnaz Rashid, daughter of death convict Abdur Rashid in the Bangabandhu murder case, and Swapan, brother of another fugitive death convict Shariful Haque Dalim, were arrested recently over alleged involvements in the bomb attack on Awami League MP Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh.

HuJi Leader Mufti Hannan is standing trial for bombing prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s meeting on Aug 21, 2004.

Assuming this is correct, HT Bangladesh is making death-threats to try and force the release of terrorists implicated in bombings and murders. If this is HT’s idea of a non-violent “exclusively political method”, what they would mean by “violent” doesn’t bear thinking about.

The saga of an armed custodian of military power turning roguish, whether out of stress or conviction, is not new. Just 25 years ago, there was the incident of the Prime Minister’s own bodyguards turning their guns on the person they were entrusted to protect. The reason was not any personal dislike of Indira Gandhi but a political (or, if you must, religious) retribution for the military action on the Golden Temple in Amritsar. A few months earlier there were incidents of mutiny among Sikh soldiers unable to digest the desecration of their holiest shrine. In weighing a perceived injustice to their faith with loyalty to the state, individuals exercised painful options — and only a handful involved rebellion.

It is more than likely that similar conflicts preyed on the mind of the gunman in Fort Hood as he sprayed bullets on his colleagues shouting Allah-o-Akbar. In eschewing his personal future for the cause of jihad, Nidal was acting in the same way as countless suicide bombers who have joined the martyrdom queue. Driven by a deep sense of religiosity, these individuals sincerely believe that they are serving god by killing themselves and others. Their motives are very different from the ones that propelled Indira’s bodyguards. Beant and Satwant didn’t believe they were heralding a better society. Nor were they guided by theology. They shot the Prime Minister to protest against the disrespect to the holiest of Sikh shrines. Their actions were located in the tradition of blood feuds that abound in rural societies.

This distinction is crucial. It is a colossal mistake to locate the so-called Islamist rage in specific grievances such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine (the expedient default grievance). Last week, Ayatollah Abdolhossein Moezi, the representative of the Iranian ‘Supreme Leader’ in Britain, fuelled a controversy by suggesting that Muslims shouldn’t be a part of the armed forces of countries that are in conflict with fellow Muslims. “We say that Muslims are not allowed to go and kill Muslims,” he pronounced grandly.

The argument is disingenuous. If Muslims were theologically forbidden from killing other Muslims, as the Ayatollah claimed, a trigger-happy Iranian police wouldn’t have killed so many fellow Shias protesting against something as innocuous as a rigged presidential election. Nor would suicide bombing have become a cottage industry in Pakistan, considering that nearly 90 per cent of those killed are invariably Muslims. There has to some theological underpinning to acts of murder that inflict so much collateral damage on Muslims.

[...]

[Anwar al-Awlaki] implies that no Muslim can be part of any outfit that opposed the Islamist jihad. This may explain why the Pakistani Army, which tries to play a double game, is considered a legitimate target.

But there is an even more sinister message in al-Awlaki’s endorsement of the Fort Hood massacre. It implies that all Muslims, regardless of which passport they hold and where they live, are bound by a common obligation to their god. Their duty, in other words, is to facilitate the global jihad of Islamism and forget about national obligations.

It would not be surprising if, inspired by Nidal, clerics in European countries where there are large Muslim populations, issue similar decrees. More to the point, how long before the patriotism of India’s Muslim soldiers are put to a similar warped test? After all, there is ongoing battle between Indian nationhood and jihad.

His conclusion is one with which few followers of the Spittoon will disagree:

In India, the motivations behind Indira’s killings were instantly recognised and, in our own blundering way, acted upon. In the case of Fort Hood, there is a strange reluctance to admit all traces of an ideological virus which can potentially devastate society and even cause civil strife. There is a global radicalisation of Muslims which has its roots in the convergence of religion and political power. To try and overcome it with competitive theology — countering one religious quotation with another — and multiculturalism are unlikely to work. On the contrary, the battle will be on terms desired by the Islamists. It is time we seriously explore whether religious radicalisation can be offset by a dogmatic refusal to concede any space to religion in political life. It’s not easy but various alternative approaches haven’t succeeded.

In every country which faces political violence justified with invocations to some deity political leaders are needed who have the courage to deny religion a space in political life. We need secularism. This is not to say that individuals guided by a personal religious faith should be denied a voice in politics, of course not. Rather, we must not play the game of accepting as political arguments that we should enact law X or pursue policy Y because it is the correct thing to do according to religion Z.

Political leaders may think they are being cunning in trying to play Islamists at their own game. However, so long as they accept the Islamists’ rule that public policy should be decided by theological arguments, this is a game the Islamists will win.

website coming back online

Assaalmu’alaykum all

The website will be back to normal with a few days time.

If it does come back online this would be an unfortunate development. However, with Awlaki on the run in Yemen, it is most likely that this message was posted by an anonymous supporter, not the man himself. Anyway now his Facebook page is also down we at the Spittoon thought we’d highlight a few people who probably thought this would protect them from being busted as Awlaki supporters on Facebook.

Yvonne Ridley is also a fan of herself. Narcissist.

The Islamic Society for the University of London Union also likes Anwar, apparently.

No surprise that Moazzam Begg of Cageprisoners, an organisation which is rather keen on Awlaki, should be a fan

And Mozzam's colleague at Cageprisoners, Maryam Hassan. She also likes Sayyid Qutb, the philosopher of militant Islamism.

No doubt they will try to tell us that they had no idea Awlaki was a vicious jihadist preacher. This doesn’t really wash.  He may have originally developed a reputation for his biographies of the Sahabah, but he’s not been propagating moderate ideas for nigh-on seven years.

Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.

What explains Pakistan’s collective masochism? To understand this, one needs to study the drastic social and cultural transformations that have rendered this country so completely different from what it was in earlier times.

For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula. This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.

This change is by design. Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state used Islam as an instrument of state policy. Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for academic posts in universities required that the candidate demonstrate a knowledge of Islamic teachings and jihad was declared essential for every Muslim. Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of a spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal. The notion of an Islamic state – still in an amorphous and diffused form – is more popular now than ever before as people look desperately for miracles to rescue a failing state.

Villages have changed drastically; this transformation has been driven, in part, by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court.

In Pakistan’s lower-middle and middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement that frowns on any and every expression of joy and pleasure. Lacking any positive connection to culture and knowledge, it seeks to eliminate “corruption” by regulating cultural life and seizing control of the education system.

“Classical music is on its last legs in Pakistan; the sarangi and vichitraveena are completely dead,” laments Mohammad Shehzad, a music aficionado. Indeed, teaching music in public universities is violently opposed by students of the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba at Punjab University. So the university has been forced to hold its music classes elsewhere. Religious fundamentalists consider music haram or un-Islamic. Kathak dancing, once popular with the Muslim elite of India, has few teachers left. Pakistan produces no feature films of any consequence. Nevertheless, the Pakistani elite, disconnected from the rest of the population, live their lives in comfort through their vicarious proximity to the West. Alcoholism is a chronic problem of the super rich of Lahore – a curious irony for this deeply religious country.

[...]

The Saudi-isation of a once-vibrant Pakistani culture continues at a relentless pace. The drive to segregate is now also being found among educated women. Vigorous proselytisers carrying this message, such as Mrs Farhat Hashmi, have been catapulted to the heights of fame and fortune. Their success is evident. Two decades back, the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in Urdu. Today, some shops across the country specialise in abayas. At colleges and universities across Pakistan, the female student is seeking the anonymity of the burqa. And in some parts of the country she seems to outnumber her sisters who still “dare” to show their faces.

I have observed the veil profoundly affect habits and attitudes. Many of my veiled female students have largely become silent note-takers, are increasingly timid and seem less inclined to ask questions or take part in discussions. They lack the confidence of a young university student.

While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent extremism, it does shorten the distance. The socially conservative are more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine – the list runs on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are Muslims, and if presented with incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere reaction to oppression.

-

Read it all here.

Hat tip: Talk Islam

Yet more evidence of the links between them? Probably not, but it’s always worth noting the dubious personal morality of the ostentatiously pious.

Well, now Awlaki has responded to the shooting with an entry entitled Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing (pdf) on his blog. I reproduce it below in the hope that people in various capacities in government (central and local), the media and more will become familiar with this man and never again will he be able to sully a venue in Britain.

Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.

Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.

The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation.

The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy.

Allah(swt) says: Give tidings to the hypocrites that there is for them a painful punishment –
Those who take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Do they seek with them honor [through power]? But indeed, honor belongs to Allah entirely. (al-Nisa 136-137)

The inconsistency of being a Muslim today and living in America and the West in general reveals the wisdom behind the opinions that call for migration from the West. It is becoming more and more difficult to hold on to Islam in an environment that is becoming more hostile towards Muslims.

May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance and steadfastness and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act. Ameen

Despite being a US citizen himself, he thinks Major Hasan is a “hero” and his slaughter of soldiers relaxing “a heroic act”. People must have no illusions about who Awlaki is.

Whilst Sunny, Harry’s Place and many more speculate about what lay behind Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s murderous rampage in Fort Hood, the Huffington Post carries a piece written by Kamran Pasha, who has a Muslim soldier friend, Richard, who knew Hasan. It contains a fascinating and troubling detail.

As Richard got to know Hasan better over the next several months, he found the major to be a pious man who was at the mosque daily. But Richard also began to garner a sense of Hasan’s political views that troubled him. A black-and-white outlook on Islam and life that had no room for nuance or debate. Hasan had apparently attended a mosque led by an imam named Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni scholar whose political views Richard disagrees with.

Awlaki is a controversial figure among Muslims, and has been accused by the Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 of serving as a “spiritual advisor” to two of the September 11 hijackers. While Richard is careful to say that he respects much of Awlaki’s historical scholarship, he rejects his political ideology, which posits a black-and-white, us versus them, view of America’s relationship with the Islamic world. [...]

Richard does not know how heavily Hasan was influenced by fundamentalist thinkers like Awlaki. But the major’s views were definitely troubling. Richard described an incident where Hasan made some anti-Semitic comments about Jews as a nation being “cursed by God” in Islam. Richard responded that the Qur’an does not condemn any group of people collectively, and that no one is born “cursed” by their ancestry.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kamran-pasha/a-muslim-soldiers-view-fr_b_348973.html&cp

That would be the same mosque that some of the 9/11 hijackers attended and the same Awlaki whose support of an al-Qaeda style ideology has long been documented. Wikipedia steps in:

9/11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hazmi came into contact with al Awlaki at the Rabat mosque in San Diego, though The 9/11 Commission Report notes that “We do not know how or when Hazmi and Midhar first met” him.

According to The 9/11 Commission Report, the two “may even have met or at least talked to him the same day they first moved to San Diego.” Al Midhar and al Hazmi “reportedly respected al Awlaki as a religious figure and developed a close relationship with him.” The Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 labels al Awlaki “their spiritual advisor” and asserts that there were reports of “closed-door meetings” involving the three.

In January 2001, al Awlaki moved to Virginia and became the imam at the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, VA, a mosque with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. In April 2001, al Hamzi and fellow hijacker Hani Hanjour showed up at Dar al Hijrah. The 9/11 Commission Report asserts that al Hazmi’s “appearance may not have been coincidental. We have unable to learn enough about al Awlaki’s relationship with Hazmi and Midhar to reach a conclusion.”

The Toronto Star recently had this to say about Awlaki:

Anwar al Awlaki preached in perfect Arabic and flawless English about the need to fight in the name of religion, because the “world is united in fighting Islam.”

The time for jihad is now, no matter your training, he told members of the group that would later become known as the Toronto 18. Six months following that “training camp,” those youths were rounded up in Canada’s largest post-9/11 terrorism investigation and charged with plotting to blow up downtown Toronto and military targets.

Zakaria Amara, the leader of that group, entered a surprise guilty plea earlier this month. A date for his sentencing is to be set on Tuesday.

Awlaki’s role in allegedly inciting “homegrown terrorism” was just a footnote in the volumes of evidence submitted in the Toronto case.

But in recent months, as Awlaki’s name has popped up in terrorism cases in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, intelligence services are closely monitoring the U.S.-born cleric.

“Awlaki is an exceptionally smart person,” says FBI consultant and terrorism researcher Evan Kohlmann, who has studied the 38-year-old for years. “He has the strongest statements of any English-language site.”

And this, from a New York Times article about Somalis from America being recruited to fight for al-Qaeda allies al-Shabab:

Mr. Hassan’s interest in the Islamist movement dovetailed with his own religious transformation, friends said. In the fall of 2007 he began downloading sermons onto his iPod and soon was attending the Abubakar mosque.

By then, Mr. Hassan had become upset by the reports of rapes in Somalia and set out to learn more about the insurgency, one friend recalled. He began talking of joining the movement as early as February 2008, around the same time that a friend from the mosque — Mr. Maruf, the former gang member — left for Somalia.

“I wanted to go, so I got to know him,” Mr. Hassan said in a recent telephone conversation from Somalia with a Minneapolis friend.

That May, he was incensed by a United States military air strike that killed Aden Hashi Ayro, a leader of the Shabaab, along with at least 10 civilians. “How dare they?” Mr. Hassan demanded one afternoon at the student center. “Who is the terrorist?”

Mr. Hassan and another university student searched the Internet for jihadist videos and chat rooms, the friend said. They listened to “Constants on the Path to Jihad,” lectures by the Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is suspected of inciting Muslims in the West to violence.

Whether Major Hasan’s actions were motivated by insanity or a jihadist ideology is a debate which will no doubt play out for a while, but his connection to Anwar al-Awlaki could well be a crucial detail casting light on this terrible affair.

-

UPDATE:

The Telegraph has picked up on this story.

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan’s motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an “al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers… who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen”.

The appointment of Asim Hafeez as head of intervention at the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism has caused serious concern among more moderate Muslim advisers across Whitehall. [...]

Mr Hafeez was described by one fellow adviser as “hardcore Salafi”. Salafism is a strictly puritanical branch of Islam, often associated with Saudi Arabia. It does not promote violence, but does urge the creation of an Islamic state.

The new Home Office adviser is reported to have raised eyebrows at his new department during the Muslim festival of Ramadan, when he lectured guests at a reception about the benefits of fasting. Before his appointment at the Home Office, Mr Hafeez worked as an adviser to the Welsh Assembly, government where he had a reputation for his strict views on Islam. He also regularly lectured on Islamic issues at Welsh universities.

The Home Office appointment coincides with a change of regime at the Department of Communities and Local Government, where John Denham has replaced Hazel Blears as Secretary of State.

Sources at the department have told the JC that Mr Denham’s deputy, Shahid Malik, has announced his belief that ministers have been “talking to the wrong people”.

The Home Office last night confirmed that Mr Hafeez had been given the job, but said that all appointments followed government procedures.

Now, the headline is admittedly somewhat misleading. Asim is Salafi – and no doubt Spittoon readers can think of a few other adjectives – but there’s no evidence of him being an Islamist. Otherwise it is interesting (and reassuring) to see that “more moderate Muslim advisers across Whitehall” share the Spittoon’s concerns about Mr Hafeez. When will the Home Office wake up?

You will remember that, back in August, it was Cageprisoners who tried to organise an event at Kensington Town Hall involving a video message from jihadist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki (and a speech by Reprieve employee Ahmed Ghappour). Fortunately, these plans were over-ruled by Kensington Council and Anwar al-Awlaki’s message was not broadcast. Cageprisoners is led by Moazzem Begg, who said of hate preacher Ali al-Tamimi.

He cannot be regarded as an extremist, fundamentalist, lunatic type terrorist scholar that they claim abound. He is one of the most reasonable and middle of the path scholars that I have come across, who not only make sense in everything that they say, but they back it up with evidence from the Qur’an. [8:45 onwards]

But even this seems rather tame when compared with what his (soon to be former) colleague Asim Qureshi said whilst speaking on a Hizb ut-Tahrir platform a few years ago.

QURESHI: We embrace the mercy. We embrace every single thing that is set upon us and we deal with it because we have no fear.  So when we see the example of our brothers and sisters fighting in Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan then we know where the example lies. When we see Hezbollah defeating the armies of Israel, we know what the solution is and where the victory lies. We know that it is incumbent upon all of us to support the jihad of our brothers and sisters in these countries when they are facing the oppression of the west.

VOICE IN CROWD: Takbir!

CROWD: Allahu Akbar!

VOICE IN CROWD: Takbir!

CROWD + QURESHI: Allahu Akbar!

VOICE IN CROWD: Takbir!

CROWD + QURESHI: Allahu Akbar!

You could be charitable and say that Reprieve are just naive, but they have a long relationship with Cageprisoners. In March 2007 they produced a joint report (pdf) on ‘Mass rendition, incommunicado detention and possible torture of foreign nationals in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia’ and Reprieve’s 2007 Annual Report (pdf) includes Cageprisoners on a list of ‘Partners and Supporters’ (as does its 2008 Annual Report). Reprieve was even a “supporting organisation” for a rally staged by Cageprisoners in Trafalgar Square back in July 2006.

It will be interesting to see what influence Asim has at Reprieve. Will they now share platforms with Hizb ut-Tahrir and issue statements in support of jihad against “western oppression” in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Takbir!

However:

Naim al-Qalaani from Hezbollah’s Committee for the Boycott of Zionist Goods in Lebanon told the TV the book’s distribution was a flagrant violation and a move toward normalization with Lebanon’s archenemy, Israel.

The diary of Anne Frank has been sold in Lebanon for years, both in English and in earlier translations into Arabic, and it was not clear why Hezbollah’s TV chose to highlight its existence in the country now.

Al-Manar officials were not available for comment on Wednesday.

The Aladdin Project said in a statement it condemns this campaign of vilification and intimidation by Hezbollah’s TV.

The Project is an initiative of the Paris-based Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah (Holocaust) which aims to spread awareness of the genocide among Muslims. It organizes conferences and has translated key Holocaust writings.

Al-Manar launched a similar campaign against a school textbook two weeks ago, when it forced a leading Lebanese school to remove pages from a history book that described Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Remind me again, how can anyone who claims to stand up for human rights support Hezbollah, an organisation that bans books in this way?

Then AM abandoned their plan to march in central London and instead held a rally in Walthamstow. Predictably, the Express covered this protest and incendiary comments made at it by AM’s current leader Anjem Choudary (referred to by the article’s author, James Fielding as a “Sheikh” despite the fact that Anjem doesn’t even know basic Arabic) but omitted to mention any counter protests.

As covered here, British Muslims for Secular Democracy (BMSD) did turn up and organised a well-natured counter-protest against AM, bearing placards saying “Laugh at those who insult freedom/They are very silly people” and “Debate those who insult Islam/You might change a mind”. BMSD’s Shaaz Mahboob has today written a piece for Comment is Free looking back on a “A good day for democracy”, as he calls it. It is well worth a read.

Inayat Bunglawala has also written a piece for Comment is Free, but from a rather different perspective. He decided to call off the counter-protest his ‘Muslims4UK’ group were co-ordinating when AM announced they’d not be turning up. Revealingly, there are twelves mentions of “I” and “me” in this article but, like in the Express, none of the BMSD demo (even calling his article “The demo that wasn’t”.  What are we to think of Inayat Bunglawala on this matter, especially when put in the context of Shaaz Mahboob’s comments in his article?

Sadly, we were not joined by the Islamic Society of Britain and Inayat Bunglawala’s group, Muslims4UK, who called off their own counter-demonstration. Also, disappointingly, we discovered that Inayat Bunglawala had formally requested that the police set up a separate pen, so that they would not have to stand with pro-democracy and anti-sharia Muslim groups such as us. This sort of sectarianism is incredibly damaging, not only to Muslims, but Britain as a whole.

Inayat seems to be trying to claim credit for these counter protests despite the fact that, in his own article, it seems pretty obvious that others contacted the police at the same time as, or before, he was organising a protest.

The day after I handed in my official “notification to hold a procession” form to the police, they contacted me to say that a number of groups had registered to hold counter-protests against al-Muhajiroun.

If counter-demonstrations against AM are to be successful in grabbing press and public attention away from Anjem and co’s calculated craziness, those opposing them need to be united and organised, avoiding factionalism and one-upmanship. This Saturday Inayat let the side down. Hopefully, the next time AM organise a publicity stunt, he will behave better and help the cause, not divide it.

A West Midlands police spokesperson explains:

This may not be as serious as the Tomlinson case, nor as startling as the community support officer (also with West Midlands police) who warned Christian preachers off evangelising in an area with a high Muslim population, but it is still a troubling matter.

Individual cases like these are disturbing enough, but the real problem is the existence of a culture which seems to allow police officers to believe that they have unlimited powers. It is this which must be addressed in the forthcoming HMIC report into policing of protests, not just the most egregious examples of where the police have overstepped the mark.

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You can see the trailer for “One Day” here.

H/T

Well, now Hizb ut-Tahrir have admitted (pdf) to the duplicitous tricks they have been using to insinuate their way into British mosques, from which they have long been banned.

Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir have also started raising awareness around the country on government plans to promote compulsory Sex and Relationship Education to children aged 5 years old and above, and encouraged parents to question the implementation of this policy in their children’s schools.

Democracy is not simply about holding an election once in a blue moon, it is about allowing the elements vital to a democracy (free spech, free press, freedom of association and so on) to flourish. It is about holding free and fair elections on a regular basis. It most certainly is not about killing opponents or this:

The Islamist movement Hamas has told Palestinians in the Gaza Strip not to take part in elections called by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas said the elections set for 24 January had been called without its agreement and were illegal.

It said anyone in Gaza who co-operated with the poll would be “dealt with by the ministry or by other means”.

Hamas drove Mr Abbas’s Fatah party out of Gaza in 2007 and the two factions remain bitter rivals.

January’s proposed parliamentary and presidential vote would mark the end of the four-year term of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Mr Abbas’s presidential term expired earlier this year but he has continued in the absence of elections.

“The government in the Gaza Strip rejects the principle of holding elections in the Gaza Strip because it comes without an agreement and was announced by a president whose presidency has ended its term,” said the Hamas interior ministry statement.

Hamas also said it would not permit the Central Election Commission (CEC) – which has five offices in Gaza – to operate in the enclave.

Is this really a dispute about the legitimacy of Mr Abbas as President, or could it be about a detail found within the same article?

The most recent opinion polls suggest that support for Hamas has sagged badly, the BBC’s Tim Franks reports from Jerusalem.

Hamas has betrayed the fundamental precepts of democracy and therefore it can have no claims to legitimacy.

Since Israel now has a kosher McDonald’s, since Saudi Arabia’s McDonald’s closes five times a day for Muslim prayer, since Egypt has 18 McDonald’s and Jordan is getting its first, the chances of a war between them are minimal. But watch out for that Syrian front. There are no Big Macs served in Damascus. India-Pakistan? I’m still worried. India, where 40 percent of the population is vegetarian, just opened the first beefless McDonald’s (vegetable nuggets!), but Pakistan is still a Mac-free zone.

Obviously, I say all this tongue in cheek. But there was enough of a correlation for me to ask James Cantalupo, president of McDonald’s International and its de facto Secretary of State, what might be behind this Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention — which stipulates that when a country reaches a certain level of economic development, when it has a middle class big enough to support a McDonald’s, it becomes a McDonald’s country, and people in McDonald’s countries don’t like to fight wars; they like to wait in line for burgers. Or as Mr. Cantalupo puts it: ”We focus our development on the more well-developed economies — those that are growing and those that are large — and the risks involved in being adventuresome $(for those growing economies$) are probably getting too great.”

Well, there is now disturbing news for residents of Iceland – McDonald’s Iceland is to shut up shop. Could the Cod Wars reignite due to this development?

H/T

Now she has written another defence of her appearance, this time for the Huffington Post.

At Gallup, where I direct the Center for Muslim Studies, we do precisely this every day–measure and report what the world is thinking. While what we discover is not what some expect–or want to hear, denying these findings may help some score points with their ideological base, but only weakens our ability to meet our goals as a nation.

[...]

I experienced this first hand a few weeks ago when I spoke by phone on a UK based TV program called Muslimah Dilema. To my unpleasant surprise, I found out on air that I was joined by a member of Hizbul Tahrir (HT), a marginal but controversial group which denounces Western Democracy and calls for the creation of a pan-Islamic state in the Muslim world. The reaction to my reporting of Gallup’s findings on Muslim views of democracy, gender and Shari’a (Islam’s ethical and legal code) by both the HT representative and later the bloggers who’ve parsed my interview showed just how little either side was willing to understand the very people they so prolifically discuss.

The HT representative on the program dismissed or “reinterpreted” findings I presented so as to not challenge the group’s simplistic utopian ideology which holds liberty in contempt as morally decadent. For example, as I regularly report, our research shows that far from denouncing democracy, Muslims around the world say it is among the things they most admire about the West, specifically mentioning “liberty” as a desirable attribute. Around the world, from Morocco to Malaysia, Muslim respondents described their respect for much of what the West holds dear: freedom of the press, the rule of law, and transparency and accountability of government.

As much as HT selectively ignored and exploited these findings to push their propaganda, many conservative pundits who diametrically oppose HT’s vision of the world, did much the same. To them, my crime was that I reported that many Muslim women wanted sharia as a source of legislation. I also explained that Muslim women surveyed by Gallup said they believed they should have access to equal legal rights, free employment, voting without family influence, and even leadership positions in government. This suggests that many Muslim women see Sharia differently from those who use it to deny women rights. For simply stating results of survey research, I stood accused of “endorsing” Taliban-like rule, and downplaying the abuses done in the name of sharia.

Measuring and reporting what people believe does not mean agreement or endorsement. What it does mean is seeing the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. Factoring in this reality makes leaders stronger–their decisions are better informed, their communication is better targeted, and their outcomes are better anticipated. While some may find the facts inconvenient, the rest of us can benefit from our ability to engage in authentic dialogue, even when we disagree.

Read this transcript (pdf) of her appearance or watch the video and judge for yourself whether she was the wronged party as she tries to portray herself. Or will you agree with me and al-Qanaas al-Masri that Dalia messed up by failing to contradict the HT members she appeared alongside when they used her research to support HT’s ideology?

Dalia Mogahed’s foolish appearance on Islam Channel handed Hizb ut-Tahrir a massive propaganda coup – time for a mea culpa, not excuses.