"Five Things I Learned About Mohammad"

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

Cross-posted from the Orange County Register

Tonight, PBS is broadcasting a 3-hour program entitled, The Life of Mohammad, hosted by Rageh Omar, a Somali-born British journalist. Yesterday, Cathleen Falsani wrote the below article advertising the program. The article is entitled, "Five Things I learned About Mohammad". It appears in the paper's Faith and Values section. The text is below.

Falsani: 5 things I learned about Muhammad

On Tuesday evening, PBS will air “The Life of Muhammad,” an exceptionally fine documentary series about the life and legacy of the founder of Islam.

Hosted by Rageh Omaar, a veteran Somali-born British journalist and war correspondent who is Muslim, the three-hour documentary paints a vivid picture not only of the Prophet Muhammad — who, according to prevailing Islamic custom, cannot be depicted in any fashion — but of the varied understandings of his life, teaching, and legacy.

Journalist and author Rageh Omaar, host and narrator of the three-part PBS series, "The Life of Muhammad," which airs Aug. 20 nation-wide.

Filmed on location in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, and elsewhere, the documentary, which was made for the BBC where it aired in 2011, succeeds where predecessors have failed by incorporating sweeping landscapes — physical and spiritual — with a breadth of knowledge from Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars (more than a dozen by my count, including some of the preeminent names in their fields, including Karen Armstrong and Tariq Ramadan) whose own perspectives run the gamut from orthodox and mystic, to skeptic and even detractor.

Divided into three parts — “The Seeker,” “Holy War,” and “Holy Peace” — the film opens inside Omaar’s hotel room where he is preparing for the haj — the pilgrimage to Mecca that is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Omaar tells us he made his first haj as a boy with his family 30 years earlier.

It is this human, personal touch from the host that helps make the documentary all the more compelling.

“Like most Muslims, the first human name I heard was not that of my mother or father,” Omaar says, “but of Muhammad.”

As is the Islamic custom, shortly after he was born in Somalia in 1967, someone whispered the words of the Shahada — the Muslim statement of faith that says, “There is no God but Allah. Muhammad is his messenger” — into Omaar’s ear.

“Fourteen-hundred years ago a man born here, in Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, changed the course of world history,” Omaar says, adding that he wants to explore the “many complexities” of Muhammad’s life and times and how they “still affect today’s world. I want to uncover the real Muhammad.”

Robustly researched and beautifully filmed, combined with Omaar’s inviting demeanor and assuring gravitas, “The Life of Muhammad” is well worth watching. It is a vivid corrective to the fear and misinformation that surrounds Islam and its 1.3 billion adherents worldwide.

Muslims are no more a monolith than Christians and Jews, and their understanding of their own doctrines and theology are as dynamic as any held by their Christian and Jewish cousins — all monotheistic “People of the Book,” whose stories overlap throughout history and continue to do so today.

Most viewers will learn a lot about the Prophet and Islam. And even those of us who have studied Islam likely will walk away with at least a few new gems of information and perspective.

Here are a few of mine:

1. Muhammad was an orphan.

His father died before he was born, and his mother (who had placed him with a Bedouin wet nurse as an infant and reunited with him several years later) died when he was about 6. He then went to live with a grandfather, who also died, before he finally came under the protection of his uncle, Abu Talib, who would be among Muhammad’s closest companions until his death.

Interestingly, while he was an ardent supporter of his nephew, according to the film, and despite Muhammad’s best efforts to persuade him, Abu Talib never converted to Islam. “The most direct, the most unequivocal statement in the Qur’an, is that there is no compulsion in religion — no ifs, ands or buts,” scholar Merryl Wyn Davies, director of London’s Muslim Institute, says in the film. “Unless you make a free, willing choice for faith, you cannot be held accountable for your actions thereafter. That is the essence of what Islam is about.”

2. Muhammad’s first wife, Khadijah, asked him to marry her.

When Muhammad was about 25, he agreed to work for Khadijah, a widow who was a successful merchant, accompanying some of her wares on a trade caravan. When he returned, she asked him to marry her. Even today it’s unusual for a woman to ask a man to marry her, but in 7th-century Arabia it would have been absolutely unheard of, according to the film.

Muhammad and Khadijah were married for nearly 25 years and together had four daughters. Although polygamy was the custom at the time, Muhammad didn’t take another wife until after Khadijah died. She was the love of his life, according to the film, his first convert and is considered the “mother of Islam.”

3. There are no memorials, statues or even plaques marking Muhammad’s birthplace.

Although historians and scholars believe they know precisely where Muhammad was born, in Mecca on June 6, 632 A.D., there are no markers celebrating the site as a sacred or even special place. According to the film, any signs or markers with Muhammad’s name have been removed over the years in an effort to ensure that Muhammad is not worshiped or venerated in any way. Muhammad was not the son of God or divine — he was just a man, a fact that he insisted be made clear in his lifetime and after.

Worshiping Muhammad or anyone other than Allah — the one true God — is considered the very worst kind of sin.

In accordance with the prevailing tradition in Islam against depicting Muhammad or any of the prophets before him (including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus), the film does not include any dramatic reenactments of Muhammad’s life or any historical artwork that shows the prophet without his face covered by a veil.

4. Muslims haven’t always prayed toward Mecca.

Among the many mosques and houses of worship Omaar visits in the film is the Masjid al-Qiblatain (or “Mosque of Two Qiblas”) in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Qibla is the Arabic term for the direction Muslims face when they pray five times daily (another of the Five Pillars of Islam.) The Mosque of Two Qiblas is so named because it has two arched alcoves indicating the direction of prayer — a large one facing in the direction of Mecca and a second, smaller one facing toward Jerusalem.

It was in this mosque that, while leading prayer, Muhammad is said to have received a revelation from God telling him to change the direction Muslims faced during prayer. According to the film, in the revelation, God told Muhammad to pray toward Mecca and the Kaaba — the large black cube that the Qur’an (the Muslim holy book) says was built as the first building for humans to worship Allah — rather than Jerusalem, as was the custom among Muhammad’s followers, as well as among Jews and Christians. From that day forward, no matter where they are in the world, Muslims face toward Mecca when they pray.

5. An “Islamic state” probably doesn’t mean what you think it means.

One of the most fascinating chapters in the film deals with the so-called “Constitution of Medina,” which is said to have been written by the Prophet Muhammad himself as the basis for the very first Islamic state in Medina. While there are varying historical and religious opinions about who wrote it, when and why — the film does an excellent job presenting various sides of the debate — the document was an agreement between the Muslims in Medina and the pagans, Jews, Christians and others who lived there at the time and made up what Muhammad described as the “ummah” or “community.

While “ummah” is often used today to describe an exclusively Muslim community, the film says that’s not what Muhammad intended. In fact, the constitution of the first “Islamic state” defined the rights given to non-Muslims as explicit members of the community, including a statement that said the “security of God” is equal for all groups, and that non-Muslims were not obligated to take part in “religious wars.”

One of the scholar-commentators in the film, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistani-born Anglican bishop of Rochester, England and author of “Islam: A Christian Perspective,” has one of the best lines in the film. Commenting on the Medina constitution, he says, “When people today say to me, ‘We would like to create an Islamic state here or there,‘ I say to them, ‘Will it be like the first one? And if not, why not?”

Contact the writer: cfalsani@ocregister.com

Comment:

With all the superlative adjectives, looks like this will be one of the greatestcinematographic ventures since Technocolor was invented.

I would not expect the Orange County Register to run an article criticizing Islam or the prophet-even in the editorial section. Yet, at the same time, this article is so hagiographic in nature as to be historically misleading if not downright false. The timing could not have been more ironic with over 60 churches in Egypt having been attacked and burned to the ground-to say nothing of all the other attacks against Christians and on-Muslim minorities across the Islamic world.

"It is a vivid corrective to the fear and misinformation that surrounds Islam and its 1.3 billion adherents worldwide."

Really? Tell that to the Coptic Christians in Egypt who are huddled in fear as we speak. Are they so misinformed?

“The most direct, the most unequivocal statement in the Qur’an, is that there is no compulsion in religion — no ifs, ands or buts,” scholar Merryl Wyn Davies, director of London’s Muslim Institute, says in the film."

True, that statement does appear in the Koran, but so do others written later that call it into question. In many parts of the Islamic world, forced conversions are going on even today.

"Muhammad and Khadijah were married for nearly 25 years and together had four daughters. Although polygamy was the custom at the time, Muhammad didn’t take another wife until after Khadijah died. She was the love of his life, according to the film, his first convert and is considered the “mother of Islam.”

Misleading?

"While “ummah” is often used today to describe an exclusively Muslim community, the film says that’s not what Muhammad intended. In fact, the constitution of the first “Islamic state” defined the rights given to non-Muslims as explicit members of the community, including a statement that said the “security of God” is equal for all groups, and that non-Muslims were not obligated to take part in “religious wars.”

Too bad the writer did not go into detail about what the conditions of dhimmitude were, which includes the part that they must feel subjugated to Islam.

This is quite similar to the current textbook controversy in our schools as to how Islam is presented to our children. Again, in the interests of harmony and the sensitivities of Muslim schoolchildren.

I wouldn't expect schools to attack Islam or any other religion. Yet, if it is necessary to present such a misleading narrative in this area, perhaps, it would be better to leave the subject alone. If we want to be well-informed on this subject, it is certainly possible to read the Islamic texts, study the complete life of Mohammad, and follow world events. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

This will be a series that will gloss over the truth in favor of showing Muhammad (MHBIH) in a good light. They will ignore his murdering ways, his raping of captive women, his hypocrisy, his lies, his pedophilia, his plundering, etc... In fact it is a fairy tale that is being presented to the American people. A fairy tale to lull the American people into a slumber like they did in Europe. A slumber that the American People will awaken to the nightmare that is what the streets of Europe has become.

Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender and Pedophile

Is the new cry that will be taken up by the LGBT groups.  After all to these people Pedophilia is just another Sexual Orientation to liberals.

Using the same tactics used by “gay” rights activists, pedophiles have begun to seek similar status arguing their desire for children is a sexual orientation no different than heterosexual or homosexuals.

Critics of the homosexual lifestyle have long claimed that once it became acceptable to identify homosexuality as simply an “alternative lifestyle” or sexual orientation, logically nothing would be off limits. “Gay” advocates have taken offense at such a position insisting this would never happen. However, psychiatrists are now beginning to advocate redefining pedophilia in the same way homosexuality was redefined several years ago.

In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. A group of psychiatrists with B4U-Act recently held a symposium proposing a new definition of pedophilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders of the APA.

B4U-Act calls pedophiles “minor-attracted people.” The organization’s website states its purpose is to, “help mental health professionals learn more about attraction to minors and to consider the effects of stereotyping, stigma and fear.”

In 1998 The APA issued a report claiming “that the ‘negative potential’ of adult sex with children was ‘overstated’ and that ‘the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from childhood sexual abuse experiences.”

Pedophilia has already been granted protected status by the Federal Government. The Matthew Shephard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act lists “sexual orientation” as a protected class; however, it does not define the term.

Republicans attempted to add an amendment specifying that “pedophilia is not covered as an orientation;” however, the amendment was defeated by Democrats. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fl) stated that all alternative sexual lifestyles should be protected under the law. “This bill addresses our resolve to end violence based on prejudice and to guarantee that all Americans, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability or all of these ‘philias’ and fetishes and ‘isms’ that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule.”

The White House praised the bill saying, “At root, this isn’t just about our laws; this is about who we are as a people. This is about whether we value one another – whether we embrace our differences rather than allowing them to become a source of animus.”

Earlier this year two psychologists in Canada declared that pedophilia is a sexual orientation just like homosexuality or heterosexuality.

Van Gijseghem, psychologist and retired professor of the University of Montreal, told members of Parliament, “Pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offense from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality.”

He went on to say, “True pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation. You cannot change this person’s sexual orientation. He may, however, remain abstinent.”

When asked if he should be comparing pedophiles to homosexuals, Van Gijseghem replied, “If, for instance, you were living in a society where heterosexuality is proscribed or prohibited and you were told that you had to get therapy to change your sexual orientation, you would probably say that that is slightly crazy. In other words, you would not accept that at all. I use this analogy to say that, yes indeed, pedophiles do not change their sexual orientation.”

Dr. Quinsey, professor emeritus of psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, agreed with Van Gijseghem. Quinsey said pedophiles’ sexual interests prefer children and, “There is no evidence that this sort of preference can be changed through treatment or through anything else.”

In July, 2010 Harvard health Publications said, “Pedophilia is a sexual orientation and unlikely to change. Treatment aims to enable someone to resist acting on his sexual urges.”

Linda Harvey, of Mission America, said the push for pedophiles to have equal rights will become more and more common as LGBT groups continue to assert themselves. “It’s all part of a plan to introduce sex to children at younger and younger ages; to convince them that normal friendship is actually a sexual attraction.”

Milton Diamond, a University of Hawaii professor and director of the Pacific Center for Sex and Society, stated that child pornography could be beneficial to society because, “Potential sex offenders use child pornography as a substitute for sex against children.”

Diamond is a distinguished lecturer for the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. The IASHS openly advocated for the repeal of the Revolutionary war ban on homosexuals serving in the military.

The IASHS lists, on its website, a list of “basic sexual rights” that includes “the right to engage in sexual acts or activities of any kind whatsoever, providing they do not involve nonconsensual acts, violence, constraint, coercion or fraud.” Another right is to, “be free of persecution, condemnation, discrimination, or societal intervention in private sexual behavior” and “the freedom of any sexual thought, fantasy or desire.” The organization also says that no one should be “disadvantaged because of age.”

Sex offender laws protecting children have been challenged in several states including California, Georgia and Iowa. Sex offenders claim the laws prohibiting them from living near schools or parks are unfair because it penalizes them for life.

SOURCE

Pretty soon it will be legal through out this nation for a pedophile to grab a child off the streets or from your home and repeatedly rape the child for his enjoyment.  After all according to Liberals it is perfectly normal to have sex with children.

The Right To Rape Children

In the near future your child will be walking home from school, a car pulls up, the man inside grabs your child and for days the child is sexually molested.  The police find both, but the man gets to keep the child and you are placed in jail for the crime of denying a Pedophile his right to rape children.

You feel this can never happen.  Yet recently members of the American Psychiatric Association attended a conference that proposed that pedophilia be accepted as a "lifestyle choice".

A group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals say it's time to change the way society views individuals who have physical attractions to children.

The organization, which calls itself B4U-Act, is lobbying for changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the guideline of standards on mental health that's put together by the American Psychiatric Association.

The group says its mission is to help pedophiles before they create a crisis, and to do so by offering a less critical view of the disorder.

"Stigmatizing and stereotyping minor-attracted people inflames the fears of minor-attracted people, mental health professionals and the public, without contributing to an understanding of minor-attracted people or the issue of child sexual abuse," reads the organization's website.

B4U-Act said that 38 individuals attended a symposium in Baltimore last week, including researchers from Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and the universities of Illinois and Louisville. According to the group, which said to not endorse every point of view expressed, the speakers in attendance concluded that "minor-attracted" individuals are largely misunderstood and should not be criminalized even as their actions should be discouraged.

Speakers also argued that people who are sexually attracted to children should have input into the decision about how pedophilia is defined in the DSM, which they said is supposed to be a guide to promote “mental health vs. social control.”

The American Psychiatric Association did not participate in the conference, and evidently does not condone the group's message.

"An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act and this is never considered normal or socially acceptable behavior," the APA wrote in a 2003 position statement.

Critics of the effort also note that the movement likens its fight for pedophilia acceptance to society's more recent embrace of homosexuality. They warn of a slippery slope to a time when pedophilia is "just another lifestyle choice" that won't warrant criminal charges—and will leave young children at risk.

Guess what none of the members of the American Psychiatric Association didn't do?  Yep condemn this idea out right.  Guess what they will be working to do instead?  Yep make it legal for your child, your grandchild to be molested legally.

Speakers also argued that people who are sexually attracted to children should have input into the decision about how pedophilia is defined in the DSM.

How about listening to the victims instead.  They are the ones who will have to live with the consequences of the actions of the APA and their sick views.

You can contact the APA here.
You can contact B4U-ACT here.

Let them know that in no uncertain terms you will ever accept Pedophilia will NEVER be acceptable to you and to US society.

Adult Husbands, Child Brides

Hat tip to Holger Awakens

"Hamas sponsored a mass wedding on Wednesday night for '450 couples.' Hamas dignitaries including Mahmud Zahar, one of the militant group's top leaders, were on hand to congratulate 450 grooms who took part in the carefully stage-managed event. "We are saying to the world and to America that you cannot deny us joy and happiness," Zahar told the men, all of whom were dressed in identical blac More..k suits and hailed from the nearby Jabalia refugee camp. Each groom received a present of 500 dollars from Hamas, which said its workers had also contributed five percent of their monthly salaries to add to the wedding gift...

Now I have raw video of the event, and I want you to pay close attention to the 'brides' - especially as they walk in with the 'grooms' around the 4:00 mark. There is no way that any of these little girls - half the heights of their husbands - is more than 10 years old."

Watching the above video at the mark around 4:00, you will see a "parade" of older men holding the hand of a child (there is no way any of those girls is older than 10). At first you would think that these men are these girls fathers or brothers, but the fact is that these children are the brides.

This isn't the first mass wedding Hamas has staged. The first one featured older women (16 and up). Nor are any of these "brides" the First Wife for these men perverts. They are second, third or fourth wives.

Islamic Law, Shar'ia, has become the rule of law for Gaza. And under Shar'ia Law, marriage between a grown man and a child below the age of 12 is legal. As is sex between the two.

In watching the video something occurred to me.

There were only 1,000 guests spectators at this "Grand Event". Normally Hamas mass rallies spectacles attract thousands of supporters. Yet this one was very small and low key. Yet there are plenty of young, single women in Gaza. In a population of 1,500,202 all the women cannot be married. And Hamas' first mass wedding were of widows. There must be a reason why Hamas is turning to child brides.

• Is it because the decent, honest, hard-working regular people of Gaza is fed up with Hamas?
• Could it be that normal adult women don't wish to live under Shar'ia Law?
• Could it be that given Free and Honest elections, elections in which the loser would relinquish power, Hamas would lose in a landslide?

What ever the answer, the fact is that Hamas cannot convince young, single, adult women and their famlies to marry one of their losers supporters. And that is speaking volumes to those who can read the signs.

Still More Corruption at the UN

Cross posted at Reject the UN


Founded in 1971 out of the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance and the United Nations Special Fund, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has been cited for mismanagement and corruption by its own internal investigators.

The United Nations Development Program was a good idea at one time. It was to help nations become Democracies (I wonder how they actually got that one passed the dictators), try to reduce the effects of war and poverty (they haven't been very successful with this either), help developing nations find environmentally friendly ways to develop (just looking at China and their pollution problem shows how ineffective they are), and help nations with the further spreading of HIV/AIDS and reduce its impact.

This wouldn't be news, except that the mismanagement is widely known to UN officials who overlook the corruption as the cost of doing business at the UN.

In a confidential report obtained by FOX News, UNDP’s auditors have described the UNDP procurement organization that is spending well over $2 billion annually as:

— overwhelmed by its caseload at headquarters and in the field, while procurement ballooned from $800 million in 2003 to $2.5 billion in 2006 and $2.2 billion last year;

— often failing to provide plans to support its buying activities, which the report says causes many purchases of goods and services to be carried out on an "ad hoc basis" (in fact, more than $595 million worth of non-existent purchases were recorded, although the audit notes that they were not paid for);

— wallowing in shoddy paperwork and faulty bidding processes, which contributed to a "high number of waivers of the competitive process and to quality problems in the procurement process in general";

— lacking the expertise to evaluate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of its most expensive and important purchases in civic construction and high-tech communications;

— drastically unqualified: Fully half of the organization’s procurement staff around the world were not certified for the basic requirements of their jobs, while the auditors also found the six-hour course for those who were certified to be "inadequate." Additionally, the auditors noted, "there are entire offices without a single certified buyer";

— suffering from an "apparent" conflict of interest at the top, where the people charged with vetting the procurement process for flaws are also members of the procurement office staff.

But then again it is not their money that they are spending. It is mostly American money. That makes it ok. Again corruption has enveloped what was once a good idea.

Even more ominously, the same auditors point out that UNDP:

— has no sure way of knowing whether it is doing business with organizations that the U.N. itself has condemned for terrorist ties and says UNDP country offices find the current manual system of cross-checking with U.N. terrorist sanctions lists to be "cumbersome and inefficient";

— has no formal policy for suspending or removing vendors for poor performance or corruption;

— and doesn’t ask new vendors for the identity of their owners or other corporate ties. This raises the possibility that vendors caught out for corruption or poor performance could simply switch names and reapply for approved status.

And of course all the vendors really would have to do is bribe the right official. That has been the UN policy since the 1970's.

But this isn't the only corruption to come to light today. The UN has become a center for pedophilia in the world.

The United Nations will investigate allegations by a leading children's charity that UN peacekeepers were involved in widespread sexual abuse of children, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said.

The report, released Tuesday by Save the Children UK, was based on field research in southern Sudan, Ivory Coast and Haiti. It describes a litany of sexual crimes committed by peacekeepers and international relief workers against children as young as 6 years old.

Abuses have been reported in peacekeeping missions ranging from Bosnia and Kosovo to Cambodia, East Timor, West Africa and Congo. The issue moved into the spotlight after the United Nations found in early 2005 that peacekeepers in Congo had sex with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.

Several month later, Jordan's UN ambassador at the time, Prince Zeid al-Hussein, wrote a report that described the UN military arm as deeply flawed. He recommended withholding the salaries of the guilty and requiring nations to pursue legal action against perpetrators.

And we do know what legal action they will receive. None! They don't get their pay and they get a pat on the wrist back home. What a joke.

In response, the UN adopted a zero tolerance policy toward sexual exploitation and abuse, and a universal code of conduct. The UN requires training for all peacekeepers, but punishment for offenders is left to individual countries.

Training for nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Nigeria, and Ghana. All models for the sexual exploitation of children. Nations where women and girls have no rights or freedoms. Such a good group to defend the helpless refugees of the world.

With corruption such as these examples are the question has to be asked: Is the United Nations relevant in today's world? Does the world really need such an organization? I'm afraid that the answer is no. The United Nations has no place in this world. The United Nations has caused more problems than it has solved. It is a hotbed of corruption and greed.

It is time that the United States and its allies take a long hard look at the United Nations. It is time that they start the move to remove themselves from this organization and build an organization dedicated to the ideals of Freedom and Democracy. A place where the dictators of the world cannot push their ideas of corruption, greed and hatred on the larger world.

It is time for the US to be rid of the UN!