Islamophobic 'List' Used to Justify Suspicion of Muslims

Reports on every crime committed by a Muslim are assigned to the faith, whether or not there is even a remote religious connection.

(WASHINGTON, DC) - One of the bigoted themes often promoted by the growing cottage industry of Muslim-bashers is that the increasing level of Islamophobia online and in the public arena is merely a legitimate response to the violent actions of Muslims worldwide.

These Islamophobes scour the Internet to highlight every act of violence or political instability that can be tied to Islam and Muslims.

If a Muslim in a remote village in Pakistan violates Islamic beliefs by abusing his wife, we will hear about it and about why Islam should be blamed for his actions. Reports on every crime committed by a Muslim are assigned to the faith, whether or not there is even a remote religious connection.

This leads to a collective “mental list” of outrages committed by Muslims that is used to justify Islamophobia and suspicion of Muslims.

The list grows with each new crime or act of violence committed by a Muslim anywhere in the world.

For example, when Muhammad Ahmad Ali was recently stopped for speeding in Ohio and some 50 bombs and four guns were found in his vehicle, that was added to the list.

And when chemicals, fuses, guns, bomb-making materials, and how-to manuals with titles such as "Boobytraps," "Deadly Brew," and "Highly Explosive Pyrotechnic Compositions” were found recently in the Maryland home of Omar Ahmed Muhammad, that too was added to the list.

Never heard of these cases? Perhaps that is because they involved not the stereotypical pseudonyms used above, but instead involved individuals named Andrew Scott Boguslawski and Todd Dwight Wheeler Jr., who are apparently not Muslim.

We all know about and condemn the Boston Marathon bombings, but how about the bomb targeting the route of a Spokane, Wash., Martin Luther King Day march? That bomb was packed with fishing weights coated with an active ingredient in rat poison.

How about the plot to kidnap or kill Alaska state troopers and a Fairbanks judge? The plans included "extensive surveillance" on the homes of two Fairbanks troopers.

Never heard of these incidents in which no Muslims were involved? You are not alone.

Does anyone truly believe that anyone anywhere would remain unaware of these cases if it had been Muslims who were charged?

That is the problem with the “list,” it only grows if the perpetrator is an “Ali,” “Ahmed” or “Muhammad.” Violent acts or crimes committed by others are either ignored, attributed to the “deranged” nature of the perpetrator, or quickly forgotten.

This “list” phenomenon can be expanded to include political instability around the world.

The campaign to sever South Sudan from Sudan was portrayed as a struggle for liberation from oppressive “Muslim and Arab” rulers. We now see “liberated” South Sudanese killing each other based on having the wrong pattern of tribal scarring.

Thousands of Muslims rallying in support of democracy have been killed or injured by the forces of a military coup in Egypt, yet the world acquiesces to the slaughter.

Would the world have similarly failed to stop the slaughter of 130,000 Syrians or the persecution of Burmese Muslims if the governments committing the killings and abuses were “Islamist?”

The answer to that question is intuitive based on the selective information accumulated in the “list.”

Only when we view all acts of violence or instances of political instability through the same intellectual lens will we be able take the steps necessary to achieve what should be everyone’s goal –- a more just and peaceful world in which people of all faiths and backgrounds are equally valued and respected.

[Ibrahim Hooper is national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. He may be contacted at ihooper@cair.com or 202-744-7726.]

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Dan January 15, 2014 5:33 pm (Pacific time)

First of all, the term “Islamophobia” was invented and promoted in the early 1990s by the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), a front group of the Muslim Brotherhood. “This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.” In short, in its very origins, “Islamophobia” was a term designed as a weapon to advance a totalitarian cause by stigmatizing critics and silencing them.

Tell that to the Muslims who are persecuted in this country by racist idiots who run around half cocked on poor information. Tell that to the ones who have been murdered, both here in the US and abroad in places like Burma where Muslims are the victims in an ongoing Genocide. The term exists as a simple one word explanation for hatred and ignorance in the context of Muslim people.

Second, Pakistani Muslims beating their wives are following the fatwas, or the Sharia.

Who do you think you are? What kind of person paints an entire group of people with a single brush? There are bad people everywhere in the world, quite obviously, and they don't have to be from Pakistan. It is almost funny, so since some Americans beat their wives I guess we can say they all do, according to your reasoning, which is now just entertainment to those of us with a mind and heart connected to Human Rights and equality. Are you familiar with the word 'equality/?

Third, Ibrahim Hooper works for an organization born of the Muslim Brotherhood called the Council on American Islamic Relations. This group was an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 2007 HLF trial in which the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development was shut down, and numerous leaders imprisoned, for funneling millions of dollars to Hamas.

Good, the poor people of Gaza need all the help they can get. Holy Land Foundation? Just the words make me want to puke.

Ibrahim Hooper has also made pro-Islamist statements calling for the U.S.A. to be Islamic. "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future...But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

Good for him, it just proves that you are wrong.

CAIR is an Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization that supports the Brotherhood goal of domination of the West. Read their agenda here: http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/20.pdf

Tears for Fears sang "Everybody wants to rule the world" and it is neither rocket science or anything shockingly new. I don't know about the alleged connection to the MB and I don't care, it doesn't matter. Besides, the Muslim people that westerners need to fear are all funded by the US government anyway, ever heard of Syria? Misinformation is unwelcome here.

Rocky Lore January 15, 2014 1:51 pm (Pacific time)

CAIR is not a civil rights group. They are a Hamas front whose leadership was convicted for their role in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial.

CAIR is a group of people battling the hatred and ignorance about Islam that you characterize so well. Hamas is the elected political leadership of Gaza, Israel is an apartheid war crime state that has one set of laws for Jews and one set for everyone else, Jewish only roads, housing communities, and it is all sitting on stolen land and the justification is this Biblical prophecy about being "Chosen" but we don't buy that around here. The Jews and the Wahhabi Muslims in Saudi who think the exact same thing can crawl in a hole and disappear because International Human Rights laws prohibit the behavior Israel carries out every single day. It is laughable that the US is allied with both Israel and the Wahhabi Muslims who want women walking around covered in a tent.

By the way, Hamas halted suicide bombing years ago, and even stated their remorse for ever having done it, of course the racist Zionists will never admit that.

Also, the "rockets" from Gaza which are unguided large fireworks, have killed less than 30 people since the first one was fired in the early 90's, so you can throw away that argument. Israel kills that many Palestinian people every couple of weeks. In fact we were one of the first agencies to cleat that matter up for the world. During "Operation Cast Lead" Israel killed approximately 400 children and targeted 56 schools with the best weapon software and claimed they were "mistakes." Israel is no representation of real Jewish people, it is a militaristic political government manifestation using Judaism as an excuse for its crimes, and that has to be the biggest disappointment to God in all of human history. Their ancestors perished in the Shoa or Holocaust, and now the descendents are doing the same thing to the Palestinians.

Don Davenport January 15, 2014 10:21 am (Pacific time)

There are far more acts of hate and intolerance by Muslim towards infidels than the other way around.

What you know about it comes from mainstream TV that does not count. The truth is that the USA backs the most dangerous Muslims in the world and persecutes those who are totally innocent.

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Islamophobic 'List' Used to Justify Suspicion of Muslims

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