Why Can’t the MSM Investigate Rauf’s Shariah Index Project?
I put together a follow-up for my Dutch website about the Shariah Index Project, using more open sources:
– The Islamic Banking Bulletin (March, 2008, Safar 1429) of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), with an introduction of SBP Shariah Board Member Dr. Mahmood Ahmed Ghazi, who attended the initial meeting of Rauf’s project.
– A recent roster of the Federal Shariat Court, the highest Shariah court in Pakistan, proving the membership of Ghazi.
– The faculty bios of Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, mentioning Ghazi and Jasser Auda.
– A Wikipedia article about Iranian Larijani, top adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Also Wikipedia information about the Islamic scholars, Mohammad Hashim Kamali and Tahir Mahmood, who attended the initial meeting in Kuala Lumpur. I could find nothing about the Malaysian Chief Justice Dato’ Abdul Hamid Mohamad, so I placed a link to a lecture he gave in 2008 at Harvard Law School about “harmonization of common law and Shariah in Malaysia.”
– An interview in The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi. It was one of the very few occasions where Imam Rauf elaborated on the Shariah Index Project, shortly after a conference in Kuala Lumpur of Daisy Khan’s Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE). Rauf told reporter Rasha Elass that the Cordoba Initiative “is funded by the Malaysian government and other sources in both western and Muslim countries.”
– A link to the Hudson Institute report on the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States. Here is a lot of information about the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), where Rauf presented his Shariah project and where Jasser Auda is a member of the Academic Board.
Any reader or journalist can read and verify the sources in Brim’s article and those in my follow-up.
The Dutch media wrote a lot about the “loony opinions” of Pamela Geller, but so far haven’t said anything about the Shariah Index Project. One of my readers dismissed Christine Brim and her Center for Security Policy as conservative, even extreme right. But suppose a progressive reporter from the Huffington Post took the time to find the exact same sources and wrote an article questioning the intentions, connections, and financing of the Shariah Index Project?
Would people still consider those open sources as irrelevant?
Alas, the MSM is not interested in Imam Rauf’s Shariah Index Project. As long as they fail to do their research work, we must rely on the work of the conservative media, as the left has abandoned investigative journalism.
In the Netherlands, we are familiar with this. Left-wing media and parties did not address important subjects like immigration and Islam, thus leaving the door wide open for Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV). Now Wilders has 24 of the 150 seats in the Dutch parliament, and will cooperate with a right-wing minority government in the make, a coalition of Christian democrats (CDA) and conservative liberals (VVD).
Will the same thing happen in the U.S. if the MSM continues to fail?
Gosh, whatever Feisel “Taqiyya” Rauf says must true and anyting else is socially unaccpetable (eww) to dignify by even mentioning! (That’s liberal debate for you.)
Because the mainstream media did NOT do its job either during the 2008 presidential election or in investigating the background of the imam of the Ground Zero mosque, you are seeing a huge conservative backlash in this country. And with the mainstream media also shilling for Obama on health care, on bailouts, on the immigration issue in Arizona, and especially on the “stimulus,” most Americans today are finally getting the message that the mainstream media can’t be trusted. This is making the conservative backlash much more vocal and much more potent.
The failure in the the mainstream media doing any thorough investigation into imam Rauf is just the latest example of left-wing bias in the media, and common sense Americans are starting to get fed up with it. The Katie Courics of the mainstream media know as much about common-sense Americans as they do about life on Mars, and it’s showing. The Rauf controversy could be the last nail in the coffin of the mainstream media and it will be interesting to see whether or not people will be angry enough about this in 2010 and 2012 to show just how irrelevant the mainstream media now is. My bet is the American people will show them, big time.
Well, it’s obvious Glen Beck was hoodwinked in that 2006 interview where he’s talking and agreeing with Rauf about moderate Islam in America.
I wouldn’t trust Fox News since Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is the largest shareholder outside Rupert Murdoch. Al-Waleed’s Kingdom Foundation is openly funding the Ground Zero mosque.
I suggest you organize a protest to boycott Fox until they remove Al-Waleed bin Talal somehow.
You know, far-left trolls like you really should stop reading talking points from MoveOn.org or Media Matters. It makes you look worse than you already look, which is almost impossible to do.
Funny you should mention that Glenn Beck interview, because I actually SAW it the other day. Beck was a guest on a show with Rauf and all Beck did was agree with Rauf that terrorism was a problem. So, unless you do NOT think terrorism is a problem, you would be ageeing with Beck too. So an agreement that terrorism is a problem automatically implies that Beck agrees with everything this guy Rauf has to say, right? In your far-left world it probably does, but that is a clear example of how far-left blogs and web sites LIE on a daily basis. Grow up and actually look at the interview before you decide to lie about it.
As far as dealing with the Saudis in business, then I guess under your views we should also stop dealing with the Chinese because of their support for terrorist nations (like North Korea) and because of their horrible human rights record. So lets stop having all contact with China, even though they hold most of our debt. Sounds really “smart” to me. Anyway, what Saudi Arabia has to do with stopping a mosque to be built in our own country really is a strange argument, anyway.
You’ll get a lot farther in life, son, if you stop parroting far-left talking points. That is, of course, unless you are paid to do so by George Soros. I
“It makes you look worse than you already look, which is almost impossible to do.”
Harrumph, I’ll have you know I’ve been told I have the perfect face for blogging.
There’s a great difference between holding the Bush line, “We’re not at war with Islam a religion that is hijacked by extremists” which we see in 2006 and the current demagoguery Beck is engaging in. That’s more the point.
Anyway, if you can’t see the humor in America’s number one super patriotic Islam hating non-MSM news channel being owned in part by a follower of Islam.
Wait, of course you can’t. My bad.
Been to Dailykos lately Lefty??? Surprised you haven’t figured out that WE have you figured out.. DUH
I would seriously doubt that you have actually listened to FOX news…Beck, Hannity..sometimes O’reily.. If you had you would see that they tell you to check out the facts that they are givin you. This is ESPECIALLY true of Beck. Take a week, listen, grow up.
Yo lefty-I can see youve been reading the Huff andpuffpo lately. BTW ,Lefty has it ever occured to your non-existent dead batery between your ears that your heroine Ariana owes her money to her REPUBLICAN ex-husband Michael? Of course not. Justlike with your other heroes, Soros and Sandler. Of course, because , like you they are stupid pinkoes the fact they are billionaires(in there case, crooks) doesnr seem to matter, does it? And BTW, “lefty”-whos the largest shareholder in BSNBC? CNN? ABC? Isnt Richard Medley a large shareholder in several media conglomerates? and hes a wacko.
- the non-existent dead battery in my head –
I give up, with logic like that how do I stand a chance. I just thought I’d set the record straight. Arianna doesn’t pay her writers which is a bit too liberal for me what with living off the air and the, uhm whatever the hell else you can get for free. That kinda goes against my principles.
Sure thing Darth, now get back to finding that Millenium Falcon. The emperor is gonna be pissed if you come back empty handed again.
Funny how none of the responses to Lefty are dealing with the *fact* that bin Talal is head of the Kingdom Foundation, which is contributing funding to the GZM (it’s not a mosque and it’s not at Ground Zero, but I’ll just use the shorthand to avoid that debate). Fox is supposedly so worried about the Kingdom Foundation, but bin Talal is the 2nd largest shareholder of Fox News! I have a feeling, though, that bin Talal loves this controversy, since it means more Fox viewers, so more money in his pocket.
Instead, everyone is offering up straw man arguments that are not analogous to this situation.
Here’s a question: How many here voted for Bush and supported the invasion of Iraq? Okay, on the first point, you have a President who repeatedly said that Islam is a religion of peace hijacked by extremists, who was the first US President to put a Koran in the White House library, and who hosted several Ramadan dinners at the White House.
On the second point, we took out the government of a Muslim country and helped them with rebuilding. Why would we want to rebuild a Msulim country, if all Muslims are evildoers who can’t wait to destroy America? How could our military ever trust Iraqi soldiers to do the right thing?
The very reason I keep viewing television to a minimum.. Media has been bought and paid for by folks who don’t have my interests at heart.
I haven’t put my trust in any politician or media outlet for the past decade. Opinions are a dime a dozen and media employees are hired, not vetted by the public but employer(if then), and are not elected officials(aren’t in any way accountable to me).
At least getting the news via the intertubes exposes me to competing agendas and serves as a vast library. I am not beholden to anyone concerning research.
No blogger or commenter can tell me what to think but are valuable nevertheless in pointing out to me where (and what) I need to (on)focus next. There are some very smart people at this site, for instance, who share knowledge in a non-dogmatic manner.
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As far as being “hoodwinked” goes, Americans were more than just naifs when it came to the ideology named Islam-we were almost completely ignorant. That isn’t the case so much anymore.
I will stick with watching FOX when and if the mood hits me-it is just a more civil and pleasant experience-less anger, less preachy in tone, and far less coarse in nature.
“In the Netherlands, we are familiar with this. Left-wing media and parties did not address important subjects like immigration and Islam, thus leaving the door wide open for Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV).”
Same here. “Der Spiegel” just printed excerpts of a soon to be published book called “Germany abolishes itself – How we’re Jeopardizing our Country”, concerning most worrying outlooks about the impacts of uncontrolled Mass-Immigration, mostly from muslim countries, and it’s negative Implications for future development of Economical and Democratic Stability of Society.
Sarrazin is a member of the Socialist Democratic Party (SPD), the left-wing mainstream Party in Germany, and get’s a mutual bashing from most left-wing Publishers and Journalists, as well as from all Representatives of the Political Establishment. Consider that even the so called “right” in Germany, Angela Merkels CDU is joining in, unable to be confronted, adress or even to grapple with an unconvinient, uncomforting truth, while surveys suggest, that 20-30% of the german Electorate would want to vote for a German Geert Wilders Party, though it’s Undemocratic nature (a 1-man-Party) invokes strong concern.
Here’s a “left-wing” member evaluating statistics and allocable Projections to undergird his Premonitions, yet only a tiny minority of the Public Elites is willing to not fall into the “Racism”, “Bigotry”, “Agitation” – Style of Argument. Fact-checking?
It’s notable that the first and most outspoken criticism about the Failure of Immigration of Muslims into German Society has come from courageous Female Muslim Islam-critics and courageous Jewish German Journalists, as well as a handful of Left-Liberal Mavericks, as they should be immune to accusations of being “Racist” or “Bigot” one would assume – but guess what?! – Even they have become victims of Political Correctness and a gone astray self-deception of Cultural Relativism among Political Elites, by being suspected of Zionism (The new Anti-Semitism of “the left”) or Anti-Islam Propaganda.
Free Speech is on the decline in Europe, we have to wake up!
(Forgot to say that Thilo Sarrazin is the author of the mentioned book)
” Why Can’t the MSM Investigate Rauf’s Shariah Index Project? ”
They can. The question is why wont they?
The same media personalities that are pushing the mosque are the same folks who pushed for Obama. Hows THAT going?
It ain’t working very well at all for all involved! They have mad us all true Americans mad as hell and ready for action!
They will find out after the next P&F reports and loss of members of congress quite soon!
IF one is familiar with Jewish scholarly texts, one then understands the depth, breath and scope of Jewish law when it comes to business transactions, as well as many other aspects of Jewish life.
The Talmud, in all its intricacies, deals with many of these complex issues.
To wit, when has ANY westerner EVER heard of Jewish scholars trying to ram these tenets down anyone’s throats?
The point being, due to subtle and not so subtle threats of jihad from the Muslim ummah, western leaders have become obsessed in their fawning over the fine points of Sharia, completely missing the finest point of all-its mandate to submit to Allah!
Welcome to dhimmitude.
Why Can’t the MSM Investigate Rauf’s Shariah Index Project?
maybe the same reason they have been “cautioned” on reporting about hime
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7019688115?US%20Cautions%20Journalists%20Reporting%20On%20Ground%20Zero%20Imam
The globalist commies know all about the Sharia Index, they just don’t care…
It’s all part of the plan…
With your questions, you have forgotten one vital fact. When it comes to the game of Monopoly where Islam monopolizes the conversation, Islam itself always get a free pass, while the rest of the world scrambles to invent excuses for their words and their deeds.
The MSM are so afraid to question, research, and discover that they have gone beyond phobia, and have now become creatures who see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. They can no longer function and tend to lash out at those who try to pry their hands away so that they can participate in the freedom of discourse that Islam abhors because it raises questions they can’t answer.
Why can’t Fox News and talk radio investigate the Kingdom Foundation and its funding of the 9/11 Mosque? Well, because bin Talal who oversees the Kingdom Foundation is the second largest stock holder in, wait for it, Fox News.
http://www.americablog.com/2010/08/daily-show-on-terror-funder-fox-co.html
Or maybe they were just too busy “investigating” Fox News’ $1 million donation to Republican governors.
(Be honest with yourself.)
Didn’t a Mexican just buy the NY Times????
Not so easy to prevent folks from trading on your stock. How could Fox have denied the legal trade of stock ?
Libruls libruls libruls. Always on the wrong side.
Try this thought experiment. There is a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Atlanta http://www.nps.gov/malu/. Suppose, in order to “bring about mutual understanding, conciliation, and calm dialog”, the Sons of Dixie, or somesuch, desired to build a Confederate Christian Center down the street from this memorial. The Center would hold a prayer room (NOT a church of course), Civil War uniforms, and a library featuring the works of secessionist authors and history writers who saw a positive side to the Confederacy[see Freedom of Speech].
Obviously, such a project could not be stopped on religious grounds. But what side would Krugman, Ezra K[afka], My Iglesitas, Bloomberg and the rest of the mysterious cabal of passionate librul philosophers have to say about it?
Thats only item 1,493 that the MSM has failed to investigate.
I am more concerned with the investigation of their funding. I will wager with anyone that their funding can be linked to a terrorist group. If proven, slap ‘em with a RICO suit and seize everything they own, including the property
It doesn’t leave my head spinning.
A Pro-Confederacy center would be analogous to a pro-Al Qaeda center, which is not on the table.
Just as all Christians are not pro-Confederacy, not all followers of Islam are supporters of Al Qaeda.
The prevailing attitude from the right is that ALL followers of Islam are supporters of Al Qaeda, Sharia, Hamas and any other anti-American stances, be they American citizens or not.
It’s very similar to the anti-German sentiment that was propogandized by the Wilson administration where populist rage was inflamed insinuating that the “Hun” pledged allegiance to the Kaiser. As a result we interned German Americans, taking away their rights as citizens.
Ironically, the anti-Islamic rage is lost on those at the top since business relies on Saudi Oil. Note the Bush family ties to the Bin Laden family. A holy war against Islam makes it hard to do business.
“I wouldn’t trust Fox News since Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is the largest shareholder outside Rupert Murdoch.”
Makes sense to me. Fox’s owners might lay off digging into the issue for fear of offending a large minority stockholder.
What’s the rest of the MSM’s excuse?
Fox News is (and has been) more than willing to use bin Talal’s involvement in funding the mosque as the actions of some jihadist cabal . They’re just not willing to tell you that he’s their second largest stockholder. (Watch the clip up there at #10 for the unfortunate duplicity of patriotic conservatives’ favorite media outlet.)
Consider it stipulated that:
1.) Lefties loathe Fox because they don’t spew lefty propaganda 24/7 like traditional leftoid MSM networks do. I understand why people like you don’t like Fox.
2.) The fact that a large minority shareholder is a Saudi raises the possibility of a conflict of interest in Fox reporting on this issue.
Now, answer my question: What’s the rest of the MSM’s excuse?
Possible reasons for MSM lack of coverage: Muslim shari indexing is cool while non-Muslim religious indexing is profiling and bad? The MSM and elite currently in power is against “blood for oil” but tolerant of negotiating oil for mosques? The secular business of America is business; oil talks and BS walks so get over the “sacred” ground whining. So for the MSM, a “radical” Muslim is a Muslim who is acting traditionally, according to Islamic tenants, and is supposedly atypical. Most Muslims are just nominal Muslims, it seems. Actually, a radical Muslim is a Muslim who doesn’t act traditionally, mindlessly, by rote, picking up the gun to kill a cartoonist. So you might be a radical Muslim, if you don’t kill you daughter for dating Bevis or Butthead. But if you’re Omar and help your father kill your sister Fatima for dating Bevis, you’re probably a traditional Muslim. If you think the constitution takes precedence over Islam, you’re probably a radical American Muslim. If think Islam takes precedence over the constitution, you’re probably a traditional Muslim living in America and would love a trophy mosque in NY. That seems to explain the MSM sop to my satisfaction.