Journalists and Jihad in the Heartland of the USA
by Bruce Keegan
13 January 2007
Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef, aka Derrick Shareef, 22, a convert to Islam, wanted to kill Jews at a synagogue, kill a judge, and explode hand grenades at CherryVale mall on 22 Dec 2006 during the Christmas shopping rush, all in the Rockford area, which is about 90 west of Chicago, according to the articles.
Madison, WI
Mike Robinson noted that Shpendim Nadzaku, imam of the Muslim Association of Greater Rockford, said:
No one in the community has any clue as to who this person is – he’s completely anonymous.
Ah, yes, another lone Muslim commits Jihad. What did Robinson expect the imam to say—that he or his acquaintances knew the suspect well? Robert Spencer said:
Amazing how no one who ever participates in jihad violence ever seems to have seen the inside of a mosque.
One might add that Muslims leaders commonly deny involvement in extremism, and issue statements against terrorism in advance. Even when tape-recorded, they inevitably say their words were taken out of context. Whenever a terrorist is arrested, many Muslims vouch that he or she was not involved in terrorism. Just today I see that the newspapers in the UK report the denials of knowledge by a mosque foundation and a bookstore chain:
Leaders of the mosques have expressed concern at the
preachers' activities, saying they were unaware such views were
being disseminated.…In a statement the company that runs the
bookstore said: 'We sell and supply a wide range of material and
we do not necessarily agree with it. It is totally unfair to blame [us]
for any of the views expressed in these lectures.[1]
One is right to suspect it all has to do with taqiyya, the Islamic doctrine that allows Muslims to lie to save themselves some trouble.
Since, according to moderate Muslim Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, radicals have “‘taken over 80 percent of the mosques’ in the United States,” and Shareef attended mosque somewhere in the DeKalb and Rockford areas (Shareef changed residences), one would expect that plenty of Muslims know something but are not talking.It seems that journalists have not noticed, or choose to ignore, the pattern that whenever a Jihadist is arrested, or dies during a terrorist act, Muslims nearly always disassociate themselves from the Jihadist as far as possible—to the point of claiming not to know the person at all. They also claim to having had no forehand knowledge, not even an inkling or hint, of the upcoming attack. According to Daniel Pipes, Muslims are trained by CAIR and other agencies to be coy with the press and the FBI.
Chicago
I checked Google News for a Sun-Times commentary, but did not see any commentary Shareef. Ignoring terrorism in one’s backyard, if that is what was done, is worse than pooh-poohing it, in my opinion. On the other hand, I probably just missed it.
Rockford, IL
Edith C. Webster wrote, “Religious communities feel ripples of terror plot,” Rockford Register Star, 10 December 2006. She quotes Minister Steve Muhammad of the Nation of Islam in Rockford as saying:
This should not be linked to Islam at all. If he’s the one, then
he should pay the price. No other Muslim, Christian or person should
have to explain.
How though can one not link violent Jihad to Islam when it is taught in numerous verses in the Koran. Also, the vast majority of terrorists are Muslims, and these all believe in Jihad to a man. Daniel Pipes points out that many surveys and studies show that one out of eight Muslims are Islamists and potential killers. Pipes wrote:
Islamists constitute a small but significant minority of
Muslims, perhaps 10 to 15 per cent of the population. Many
of them are peaceable in appearance, but they all must be
considered potential killers.[2]
Pipes later wrote:
Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers.[3]Somone might object and say that very few Islamists and extremists are found outside of the Mideast. Most Muslims came into the West since the 1970s, with the immigration rate ever increasing due to family reunification and importing spouses from the “old” country.
Rockford, IL, Continued
Pat Cunningham wrote in “Jihad: A word that represents a lot of miscommunication,” Rockford Register Star, 9 December 2006, that Shareef’s idea of Jihad meaning terrorism “is at odds with the meaning embraced by countless Muslims.” Robert Spencer critiqued this article at Jihad Watch.
The meaning of Jihad that Cunningham thinks most Muslims embrace is “a struggle for self-improvement” rather than spreading and defending Islam by the sword. Unfortunately for infidels, there are 1.2 billion Muslims. So while “countless” Muslims may believe that Jihad is self-improvement, that still leaves “countless” Muslims who believe in the violent definition of Jihad. What’s worse is those who do believe in the violent version of Jihad, if only in their heart of hearts, are not going to be frank about it.Cunningham wrote:
If different Muslims ascribe different meanings to jihad,
Islam is like other religions in which adherents differ on the
meanings of vice and virtue, sinfulness and saintliness.
So what Cunningham is saying here, if I read it correctly, is that one’s man’s terrorist is another man’s martyr, just as one man’s vice is another man’s virtue, and just as one man’s sinner is another man’s saint.
Cunningham used National Geographic as a main source, but this is too politically correct a magazine to be truly helpful in the war that Islamists have declared against the West. I would suggest turning to Hugh Fitzgerald’s “Islam for Infidels” at Jihad Watch for starters.Readers take note that Cunningham did not turn to some Medieval Islamic treatise, or Islamic school of thought, that made moderate Islam respectable and authentic. The reason he didn’t is the Koran and Hadith and Sira are so clear that Jihad is mandated upon all Muslims until the end of time that any treatise proposing a more peaceful version of Islam is branded apostate literature and un-Islamic!
Beloit, WI
I came across Rasmieyh Abdelnabi's reporting on the Shareef incident for the Beloit Daily News: “You can’t let fear control you: Citizens react to grenade plot,” 9 December 2006. I decided I needed a whole other blog entry to comment on her reporting, so kindly see my next blog entry.
Footnotes:[1] “Revealed: preachers’ messages of hate,” The Guardian, 7 Jan 2007.
