American Muslim Organization Applauds US Effort to Bring Osama Bin Laden to Justice

AIFD PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD)

PHOENIX (May 1, 2011) - Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) issued the following statement regarding President Obama's announcement that the United States had killed Osama Bin Laden:

"This evening's announcement by President Obama that the United States had carried out an operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama Bin Laden is a victory for the United States of America against the face of Islamist terror and the man who perpetrated war crimes against our nation on September 11, 2001. Most importantly this will allow the American people and especially the 9/11 families to begin to get a degree of closure.

This operation is a testament to the dedication and steadfastness of the United States military, our homeland security, and intelligence community. There is no finer force than the men and women of the United States military who defend and secure our freedom every day.

The death of Osama Bin Laden is significant because it closes a chapter in our war against Islamist extremists. But make no mistake this war is far from over. Bin Laden was but one head on the Hydra that is the Islamist movement. It is our hope that Bin Laden's death will serve as a means to transition this war from a reactionary approach to quell violence to a proactive war of ideas against the ideology that breeds the extremism.

We will not be free of terror until we openly confront the ideology of political Islam which is the underlying fuel for the militant Islamism of groups like Al Qaeda. To deliver true national security we must demonstrate the same dedication and steadfastness in creating a liberty narrative within the Muslim conscience as we did in hunting Bin Laden."

About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD's mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.

American Muslim Organization Applauds Oklahoma Anti-Shariah Law

AIFD PRESS RELEASE: AIFD  American Islamic Forum for Democracy

SQ755 protects the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause and the rule of One Law

PHOENIX (November 5, 2010) - Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) issued the following statement regarding the passage of Oklahoma's State Question 755.

"As Muslims dedicated to modernity, reform and our one law system in the west and in the United States, AIFD applauds the people of Oklahoma for passing State Question 755 and making "the legal precepts of other nations or cultures" off-limits to Oklahoma courts and specifically denying the use of Sharia Law.

The issue is simple. As Americans we believe in the Constitution, the Establishment Clause, and our one law system. SQ755 reaffirms the First amendment to the Constitution and prevents the Establishment or empowerment of a foreign legal system like the specific shariah legal systems implemented in many Muslim majority nations and in western shariah courts seen in places like Britain.

By filing a lawsuit, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has wasted no time in proving once again that they are unable to stand behind public declarations that the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and our one law system supersede and are preferable to a sharia law system. They are using the American cover of religious freedom to try and knock down a simple law that prohibits the domination of one religion over others.

SQ755 is not about religious freedom or minority rights. It is about the inviolable sanctity of the U.S. constitution and our country's foundational belief in a legal system based in one law that is based in reason and individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The law has no impact on the personal practice of Islam or the personal interpretation of "shariah" (God's law to a Muslim), but rather SQ755 focuses on shariah as a total legal system that the people of Oklahoma wanted to make clear shall not be used or respected systemically in deciding law in Oklahoma. CAIR's assertion that it is akin to France's ban of the hijab or personal head covering for women is absurd. There is no evidence that this law prevents any of the personal manifestation of the practice of Islam or the use of personal religious principles in arguing law based in reason in state or federal court. Shariah as a legal system can just not be used as prima facie evidence in court.

SQ755 also thus prevents the establishment of separate shariah or Islamic courts in Oklahoma. As we have seen in Britain, Islamists have transformed the British arbitration system to the point that they are operating upwards of 85 shariah courts now. These courts are mostly operated out of mosques in Britain. While they claim that the courts are voluntary, as Canadians voiced loudly in their rejection of shariah courts, these groups exploit tribal pressures and coercion within Muslim communities in order to circumvent the one law and one legal system of Britain and western nations. It is naïve and ignorant to believe that such courts are purely "voluntary". Just ask many of the women who get pressured through them and pressured to stay "out of western un-Islamic courts."

CAIR's lawsuit proves that they are part of an Islamist establishment in America that do not and will not believe in the separation of mosque and state and that they promote the ideology of political Islam. This ideology is based in a belief in the supremacy of Islamic legal systems and is often a conveyer belt toward radicalization. CAIR shows once again that they are part of the problem not the solution.

To those who say "Why Oklahoma?", we say "Why not Oklahoma?" The Oklahoma precedent and example is important. It has already showed CAIR's hand and where they place shariah law in relation to the Constitution. CAIR flippantly states that the law is not necessary. By implying that Islam and shariah are inseparable they demonstrate a willful denial of the internationally pervasive draconian shariah law systems around the world in places like Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia to name a few, and how academically clear the legal system of shariah law is. Note should be made of how CAIR's response to SQ755 does not address any of the harms instituted against Muslims and non-Muslims around the world in the name of shariah law.

AIFD and most reformist Muslims believe a ban on shariah courts is necessary to protect the rights of the individual and in particular the rights of women."

About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD's mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/

Media contact:

office: 602-254-1840
email: info@aifdemocracy.org

American Muslim Organization Says President Obama is Wrong

AIFD

American Islamic Forum for Democracy

STATEMENT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PHOENIX (August 15, 2010) - Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy issued the following statement regarding remarks from President Obama on the proposed mosque and Islamic Center at Ground Zero:

"As an American Muslim whose family fled persecution in Syria and as someone who has stood in the face of some resistance to the building of many of our houses of worship in the U.S., I fully understand the value of standing for religious freedom in America. But President Obama's statement about the Ground Zero mosque at last night's White House Iftar dinner is the latest example of political correctness gone awry.

The President commented that:
"Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America."

Yes, Mr. President, this is America and you have fundamentally misunderstood the stakes in this discussion and the sentiments of the American people. Instead, you have focused on the very issue that the Islamist propagandists wish you to-- the narrative that Americans somehow need lectures about Islam, Muslims, and religious freedom.

Your message to Americans will be spun on Al Jazeera and by Islamists across the world that President Obama reassured a friendly global Muslim audience at the White House Ramadan dinner that he was going to remind Americans about the principles of religious freedom for Muslims since they seem to be trampling over those principles in the local dispute at Ground Zero in New York.

Mr. President this is not about religious freedom. It is about the importance of the World Trade Center site to the psyche of the American People. It is about a blatant attack on our sovereignty by people whose ideology ultimately demands the elimination of our way of life. While Imam Faisal Rauf may not share their violent tendencies he does seem to share a belief that Islamic structures are a political statement and even Ground Zero should be looked upon through the lens of political Islam and not a solely American one.

As a Muslim desperate to reform his faith, your remarks take us backwards from the day that my faith will come into modernity. I do not stand to eliminate Imam Rauf's religious freedom; I stand to make sure that my children's religious freedom will be determined by the liberty guaranteed in the American Constitution and not by clerics or leaders who are apologists for shar'iah law and will tell me what religious freedom is.

'Park 51', 'The Cordoba House' or whatever they are calling it today should not be built, not because it is not their right to do it - but because it is not right to do it." Mr. President, your involvement in this issue is divisive not uniting. Your follow-up stating that 'you will not speak to the wisdom of the construction of that mosque and center' indicates a passive-aggressive meddling on your part that only marginalizes those Muslim and non-Muslim voices against it while pretending to understand both sides of the debate.

Contact: 602-254-1840 (office), email: info@aifdemocracy.org, web: www.aifdemocracy.org

About the American Islamic Foundation for Democracy

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD's mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/

CAIR's Attack On Tea Party Movement Outrageous

AIFD

American Islamic Forum for Democracy

NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PHOENIX (August 6, 2010) - The Council on American Islamic Relations attacks on the Tea-Party movement are outlandish and an example of the denial in which the Islamist organization exists. In a recent article in WhoRunsGov.com Ibrahim Hooper, Executive Director of CAIR, claims that the "level of Islamophobia is 'going off the charts' recently and he thinks it's coincided with the rise of the Tea Party movement." He also in a patently political admonishment called for Democrats to "take a tougher position against the anti-Muslim sentiments that have cropped up in the debate over whether to build a mosque near Ground Zero."

There is nothing within the charters of the Tea Party movement or the vast majority of their gatherings to justify a claim that they are increasing "Islamophobia" in the United States. It is profoundly hypocritical for an organization supposedly focused on Muslim civil rights to taint an entire movement of millions of Americans with a broad brush.

CAIR prefers to stereotype and slander Americans rather than deal with our own realities as Muslims. The fact is that there has been a significant increase in the number of homegrown terror arrests in the past year. The fact is that the building of an ostentatious display of Islamist culture with unknown funding sources within shouting distance of Ground Zero demonstrates a profound lack of sensitivity. This is all amplified by a continued lack of effort by Muslim organizations to address the underlying issues of Islamist radicalization. And CAIR yet cannot comprehend why there may be ill feelings or unintentional fear towards Muslims in America. Mr. Hooper's inability to recognize that demonstrates how out of touch his clearly Islamist organization is with the American people, Muslim and Non-Muslim alike.

"There is nothing that more exemplifies the true nature of CAIR and their fellow Islamists who carry the platform of political Islam in the United States than this open admonition to the Democratic Party and their inappropriate slander of the entire Tea Party Movement," said Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). "If CAIR was truly about the religion of Islam, spirituality and faith, they would stay above the political fray and deal with those issues which focus on Islam and the reforms we need to make our faith stronger and more modern such as pursuing the separation of mosque and state. But instead, they use the Ground Zero mosque controversy and other flash points to advance their Islamist party platform."

Last month CAIR distributed a press release calling for hate crime investigations into an arson attack upon a Georgia mosque. That attack was soon thereafter linked to a Muslim congregant of that mosque. No apology was issued to Americans. CAIRs Nihad Awad said this week on Fox's Bill O'Reilly that he was "sick and tired of the linkage of Islam to 9/11".

"Awad is in denial. There are interpretations of Islam that are obviously linked to 9-11. The righteous battle is for us Muslims to defeat those Islamic ideas that create those interpretations- political Islam. The only way to eliminate the linkage of Islam and 9/11 is for Muslims to fight the battle within the House of Islam and eliminate the ideology of political Islam," said Jasser. "Instead of throwing slanderous insults at a growing national movement of millions of tea partiers and acting like an Islamist political party by imploring "the Democrats" to buy into Muslim victimology, we need to take non-partisan anti-Islamist responsibility for reforming our faith and protecting American Muslims from the slippery slope of Islamist radicalization."

About the American Islamic Foundation for Democracy

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD's mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.

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