How Muslims Celebrated Islamophobia Awareness Month

“Islamophobic prejudice is worryingly prevalent in the mainstream; on display in political life, in the the [sic] media and in the attitudes of the police and the courts.” So said a poster for Islamophobia Awareness Month, which Muslims in Britain and Europe marked with a series of events throughout November. The inaugural event in London on November 2 featured talks from human rights lawyer Imran Khan; Peter Oborne, the chief political commentator for The Daily Telegraph; Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn; Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition; and many others. But other Muslims worldwide had their own creative ways to mark the special month:

• In Florida, two Muslim brothers, Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi, were charged with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in the cause of jihad to commit mass murder of Americans.

• In Tehran, Muslims brutally murdered and dismembered a Jewish woman, in the crowning episode of an ongoing attempt to seize her property for use by an adjoining mosque.

• In Moscow, a Muslim, Ilyas Saidov, received a fifteen-year prison sentence for his role in plotting jihad-martyrdom suicide bombing attacks.

• In Baghdad, Sunni Muslims used three car bombs to murder 23 Shi’ite Muslims who were participating in processions for Ashura, the Shi’ite mourning festival marking the death of the Shi’ite leader Husayn bin Ali in the battle of Karbala against the Sunnis in the year 680.

• In Norway, a Muslim politician, Khalid Haji Ahmed, wrote on Facebook: “Damn Jew whores, wish Hitler could come back and shower you some more.”

• A Florida imam, Abu Taubah (a.k.a. Marcus Robertson), was exposed as having ties to the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center jihad bombing.

• Hamas’s official al-Aqsa TV station ran a music video containing the words: “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah.”

• In India, a young Muslim who had appeared on a television show speaking about his fear of being honor-killed for marrying without his parents’ consent was indeed murdered.

• In Libya, a jihadist group claiming to operate under authority of the Ministry of the Interior kidnapped twelve men it accused of homosexual activity, and threatened them with mutilation and execution.

• In Austria, Muslims protesting against Israel’s defensive action in Gaza chanted “Death to the Jews” while their leftist fellow protesters looked on in silence.

• On Facebook, a Muslim posted an admiring photo of Adolf Hitler, with the caption: “I could have killed all the Jews, but I left some of them to let you know why I was killing them.” Many other Muslims chimed in with “likes” and favorable comments.

• In Mali, Muslim officials arrested three Catholics for the crime of declining to listen to an Islamic sermon.

• In Nigeria, Muslims bombed a church and ambushed churchgoers, murdering fourteen Christians.

• And a Muslim wrote a comment at my website, saying: “Whenever I see Robert Spenser’s [sic] face I feel like having my palms around his neck, its a good thing we never meet eye to eye because he would be licking my boots if we ever did. I’m actually a very reserved and polite gent but when I hear that guy’s voice or see his face I feel like shutting him up permanently.”

That list doesn’t actually take us through the whole of “Islamophobia Awareness Month.” All that happened in just the past two weeks.

Meanwhile, a Malaysian politician urged his government to take “stern action” against those who “tarnish the image of Islam.” But by this he didn’t mean any of the Islamic jihadists listed above, or any others like them; rather, he wants to silence those who dare to point out how such jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify their violence.

And that also was the point of “Islamophobia Awareness Month”: to intimidate non-Muslims into thinking that there was something wrong, something “bigoted” and even “racist,” with resisting jihad violence and exploring its root causes within Islam. There is no justification under any circumstances for denying anyone equality of rights before the law or attacking innocent people.

The great weakness of the “Islamophobia” narrative is that virtually every day Muslims around the world show the justification for suspicion of the fanatically devout and pious believers. And the cries of “Islamophobia” that come from peaceful Muslims instead of honest self-appraisal and genuine reform not only do nothing to allay those suspicions, but only reinforce them. But then Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S., such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), use the very suspicions they have created by their disingenuousness for jihad terror and Islamic doctrine as new evidence of “Islamophobia.” The whole thing becomes self-enforcing.

In reality, the world doesn’t need awareness of “Islamophobia,” a manipulative, chimera construct. It needs awareness of how jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism. That’s why I, inspired by a video of Pat Condell, have designated December Hatred and Violence in the Qur’an Awareness Month. At my website, JihadWatch.org, I am featuring daily posts quoting and explaining hateful and violent passages in the Qur’an – which incite many more people to violence than “Islamophobia” ever has or will.

In this age of near-universal obfuscation and denial of the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, that’s what the free world needs awareness of most of all.