Exclusive Interview
Lost in a Yemen Jail! ... A DB Staffer Speaks About His Long, Strange Trip and the Secret Gulag America Has Built in the Middle East and Africa
Coming across the border of Yemen for some reason, a top Daily Bell gnome predictably (you really can't send them anywhere) attacked a senior Yemen official with gustatory intentions. The ravenous gnome was then taken into custody and remanded to the second-most secure jail in all of Yemen, a political jail complete with dungeons, blindfolds and hundreds of incarcerated supposed al Qaeda prisoners. Foolish gnome! President Saleh's police state was not created for his nutritional needs!
Daily Bell: We're going to treat this interview as if we don't know you or even, for the most part, what happened. So let's begin with the most important question. Are you really a gnome?
Gnomish Staffer: Some days it feels so.
Daily Bell: What the hell were you doing in Yemen?
Staffer: Crossing over the border in a smuggler's truck. They smuggle gas from Oman next door where it's cheaper.
Daily Bell: So this is a true story?
Staffer: You can make up your own mind about the gnome – but the jail part is true. All that I'm going to relate here is the truth as I saw it and recall it. I was held in Yemen in a political jail.
Daily Bell: Yes, you were incarcerated for a month ...
Staffer: Seemed longer.
Daily Bell: Where were you taken first?
Staffer: Near the Oman boarder. They questioned me at a secret location.
Daily Bell: Who were "they?"
Staffer: They were President Ali Abdullah Saleh's secret police. He has a network across the country along with extensive security infrastructure. It includes secret police stations, jails and of course, a truly national force of informers, watchers, police and secret security police.
Daily Bell: Sounds expensive.
Staffer: Well, that's the point. One might think Yemen is chaotic – and it is. But the security apparatus is functioning with precision.
Daily Bell: Who pays for such an expensive operation?
Staffer: The Americans must be paying for it in some way. It's an entirely professional operation.
Daily Bell: What did they want from you?
Staffer: Since I had come across the boarder incognito – a mistake I immediately admitted and apologized for – they believed the CIA or some such organization was sponsoring me as a spy. They were asking questions.
Daily Bell: Did you answer?
Staffer: They told me I would be under the authority of Yemen's laws and regulations. So, I was reluctant. I wanted to speak to the American Embassy first to find out the legality.
Daily Bell: You're not much for state representation. Did you find your situation ironic?
Staffer: Philosophically, I think government should get out of the way. But when you're sitting with six unshaven Yemen secret police in dirty robes going through your belongings and threatening you, you tend to want any edge you can get.
Daily Bell: What did they say when you wouldn't answer their questions?
Staffer: They said they were sending me to Saana to the political jail there and "God help you."
Daily Bell: Sounds grim. What did you want to do there, anyway?
Staffer: Well, I've visited numerous countries' capitals in the past two years. Caracas, Medellin, Panama City, Montevideo, Nairobi, Muscat and now Saana ... Traveling broadens the mind and DB has benefited considerably, in my view, from my journeys. Of course, in Yemen, I didn't see much after the first day except via a window of an SUV partially obscured by automatic rifles. After they questioned me at the border, I spent the night on a pallet in the local cell in handcuffs. They were going to make me sleep with my hands cuffed behind my back, but I managed to convince them to move the handcuffs to the front.
Daily Bell: Sounds uncomfortable.
Staffer: You try it. I managed to sleep. But that was when I went on a hunger strike. Not that they noticed, or not initially.
Daily Bell: So, off you went to Saana.
Staffer: Yes, one of the oldest and most intriguing cities in the world – with the old city itself built in the mouth of an inactive volcano.
Daily Bell: Wow, a real tourist spot.
Staffer: Funny thing, no one is visiting Yemen these days for the tourism. I didn't see much of Saana. From the plane, they took me directly to the political prison. I later found out there was one worse version but this one was pretty bad. I spent the night three floors down in a solitary jail cell. I refused food and water, which caused the guards much surprise.
Daily Bell: How were the guards generally?
Staffer: They were young men, very gaunt and just as oppressed as the prisoners in their own way. They were paid US$100 a month and locked into the prison every night, as I understand it. A lot of them choose to run away when they get the chance.
Daily Bell: Are they part of Saleh's army?
Staffer: Yes, some 500,000 strong but mostly conscripts. If there is a big challenge to Saleh, the soldiers will likely run away. Social stability is not one of Yemen's strong points at the moment.
Daily Bell: What happened the next morning?
Staffer: They moved me to a group dungeon with others.
Daily Bell: And who were they?
Staffer: Throughout my stay, I was with the most intensely spiritual young men I've ever had the privilege to meet. In Islam, you pray with your toes touching. There were no shoes allowed on the dingy carpets. The guards would lock you in and then you would stand up in a row toe to toe and the leader (by acclimation) would recite prayers. During Ramadan, the prayers might take up to an hour. In between, they would read the Koran, chanting to themselves. Some had memorized all or most of the Koran.
Daily Bell: They sound fanatical.
Staffer: No, not fanatical. They were the most generous youngsters you'd ever want to meet. Islam mandates that you share what you have, and they were literally giving me the shirts off their backs because I had been put into my cell without much in the way of clean clothing. They gave me toothpaste and soap and towels. They tried to give me food but I generally stayed on my little hunger strike for most of the month. I found it made the jail manager nervous. He was always trying to get the doctor to take my blood pressure. It was sort of funny, really. I told the doctor once that I had lost about 25 pounds and he translated it into kilograms and started to laugh. He didn't take it seriously. Others told me if I hadn't been an American, they wouldn't have cared at all. People go into comas there from hunger strikes and they just ignore them or pick them up, carry them to the hospital and force feed them. And there were other things I heard about. People who made too much noise were handcuffed and then tazered on their handcuffs – which causes comas as well. And other young people suspected of being al Qaeda were being hung from their hands and forced to stay awake for days at a time.
Daily Bell: How did they handle it?
Staffer: With the resignation of youth. And with religious conviction. There was nothing much to do in jail. They wouldn't let you have games or pens or paper. So, you read the Koran and prayed.
Daily Bell: Did you read the Koran?
Staffer: It was in Arabic, but I had many good conversations about the Koran and Islam. I was intensely moved by these young people, some of them only 18 or 19, who had been captured and taken to this prison to be interrogated by the Americans who were deciding who is al Qaeda and who is not.
Daily Bell: Did the Americans know about the torture and all the rest?
Staffer: I cannot imagine they did not.
Daily Bell: Did they condone it?
Staffer: The Americans were regular questioners of inmates at that jail. And others as well.
Daily Bell: They were part of the process?
Staffer: They seemed to be, from what I heard.
Daily Bell: So there is an al Qaeda?
Staffer: There is a Jihadist movement, which is more than I was prepared to admit when I went to Yemen. But something is building in the Middle East – assiduously fanned by the West, I might add. It was reconceived by Osama bin Laden, though in my mind he was certainly a CIA-affiliated asset.
Daily Bell: Explain, please ...
Staffer: Well ... what are the chances that the son of the Bush family's main business contact in Saudi Arabia – a family that is worth billions – suddenly becomes a fanatical, fundamentalist Muslim and then supposedly blows up the World Trade Towers? Pretty coincidental, I'd say. And there are plenty of stories of bin Laden traveling to the US in the 1990s under the name of Tim Osman to recruit for his cause, a cause apparently sponsored by the CIA. After all, the CIA seemingly was responsible for aggregating the original so-called al Qaeda in the 1980s when they were recruiting young radicals to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. They collected a data base that they called the base – as in al Qaeda. It was a "list." The CIA seems obviously involved in the inception of al Qaeda, though they deny it strenuously.
Daily Bell: Were you surprised by the number and amount of al Qaeda you met?
Staffer: I was surprised by the signs hanging around the necks that said "al Qaeda." Just kidding. You would never know who was al Qaeda at that jail and who was not. A very few admitted to being al Qaeda. Most of these young men were simply impoverished, unlucky and deeply religious.
Daily Bell: What distinguishes al Qaeda from others?
Staffer: Apparently, those who might be considered Jihadists – I'm reluctant to use the term al Qaeda – are those who seek a return of the Caliphate to the Middle East. This means a return to the original Sunni Islam tenets of Mohammad, the Messenger. They will do this via a Sura. Six highly esteemed members of society will choose the nation's leader and he will be responsible for the new Muslim state. Anybody can come there of any religion to live and that person will not be oppressed in any way nor pressured to change his or her religion. Jews especially are highly esteemed in the Koran and set above Christians and even other Muslims.
Daily Bell: That's a surprising perspective.
Staffer: There's lots that is surprising about fundamentalist Islam. As we've argued at DB, the truth is not being told about what's going in the Middle East. For instance, Islam – Sunni Islam, anyway – is in many ways the least intrusive religion you could ever belong to. Taxes in the West are above 50 percent, all in all, for many people. Islam has almost no taxes, certainly not an income tax. Un-apostated islam has no central banking, either. Gold and silver are considered money – not fiat paper. The state in many ways basically leaves you alone, though Sharia law is to be administered by Islamic Courts appointed by the leader of the nation.
Daily Bell: Isn't Sharia law fairly barbaric?
Staffer: It has perhaps been applied in a barbaric way in modern times, but inherently it is not barbaric as it takes up to four male witnesses to get anything done. So, even if you are involved in adultery, you have to be caught in the act by four male Muslims of the appropriate age, and they have to be willing to stand up in an Islamic Court and bear witness to the transgression. And if any one of them has only seen you, say, getting dressed in the bedroom rather than being caught in the act, then that testimony doesn't count. So the standard of proof to apply the more significant parts of Sharia law come with an immensely high standard.
Daily Bell: What's the point then?
Staffer: Well, the punishments – lashings and stonings – are fairly significant. They are intended to scare people more than they are intended to be applied, or so people told me. The threat is supposed to keep people in line. But the real threat is religious. Allah knows all of your transgressions and keeps the book of your life. If you are not a good Muslim, you can experience hell fire. An apostate may never go to Heaven with all of its delights.
Daily Bell: What is an apostate?
Staffer: The Jihadists would argue that all of the modern Middle East regimes are apostated – that is, none of them are applying Islam as it ought to be applied. There is not therefore a single Muslim state in the world. Those who believe in a return to the original message of Mohammed want to establish an Islamic state as Israel established a Jewish one.
Daily Bell: But they want to do so violently?
Staffer: Strangely enough, the fundamentalists have been trying to make peace with America for years. In Yemen, there have apparently been numerous suggestions of ceasefires, etc., but the Americans always turn them down.
Daily Bell: You know this for a fact?
Staffer: I was told this independently on numerous occasions.
Daily Bell: What's the alternative?
Staffer: Well, the alternative is a kind of war. In Abyan Province in the South of Yemen, the Americans are shelling certain urban areas on a daily basis – places where rebellious tribesmen and al Qaeda are said to be. They are sending in Saudi and American planes as well, and at night they are apparently sending in SEALS with night-fighting equipment. This is a significant illegal action. America apparently has numerous troops on the ground on a nightly basis – and yet you read nothing about this is the mainstream press. America is very far gone now, from a truth-telling standpoint. Almost everything reported in the mainstream press in America and even the West is a lie of some sort, or at least a fudge. The purpose is always the same – to promote world government. In fact, the more the Internet tells the truth, the more the mainstream press does not. It's as if the elite banking families that run the world are trying to counteract the truth with lies and distortions.
Daily Bell: Shouldn't Congress pass some sort of resolution if the Pentagon is sending troops into harm's way in Yemen?
Staffer: You would think so. My theory is that with all the wiretapping and general intimidation down in Washington, it takes a very strong Congressman to stand up and speak the truth about anything. And many Congressmen are likely sociopaths of some sort anyway, ones who worked to get elected to line their pockets and not to serve their constituents – as if anything in Washington could be construed as "service."
Daily Bell: Back to the Yemen strife. What does America hope to accomplish?
Staffer: America and the Saudis want to damp down the fundamentalist movement in Yemen, though in my view it's one that the Western intelligence agencies bolstered in the first place.
Daily Bell: Why would they do such a thing?
Staffer: Obviously to take away more freedoms in the West. The target on this mostly phony war on terror, in my view, is the West and the middle class. The elites have been after middle class freedoms for over a century. With the war on terror, they have has a reason to escalate considerably. The Patriot Act, with all of its reductions in what was left of freedom in the US, was written before 9/11. During its signing they had the military patrolling the corridors of Congress with guns. Congressmen were intimidated. The situation in America and the West has gotten no better since then. The great families want world government and they are willing to remove any freedoms they need to in order to get it.
Daily Bell: So the war on terror has little to do with al Qaeda?
Staffer: In the prison I was in, people told me over and over that America and Yemen were actually producing radicalized young men with their incarceration policies.
Daily Bell: How did that work?
Staffer: I personally met only one man who claimed to be a legitimate member of al Qaeda in a jail that supposedly was chock full of al Qaeda. The rest were young men, mostly, who had the misfortune of holding somewhat fundamentalist, or at least enthusiastic, views about Islam.
Daily Bell: Thought crimes, in other words.
Staffer: Sure. Some examples. A shopkeeper from Kenya who was taken prisoner some six months ago for speaking to someone who held fundamentalist views 17 years before. He was put in an even worse prison than the one I was in. The worst prison in Yemen, where all the hard-core Jihadists are supposedly locked up. He said it consisted of single, individual cells – it was dungeonlike, in other words – and that you were not let out even to go to the bathroom except occasionally. He said the primary entertainment consisted of sitting on a ratty mattress watching your urine pool in front of you. After several months of this, he was moved to the prison where I was. By then he'd developed severe high blood pressure. It was aggravated by the interrogations. He said he was always being dragged in front of Americans from the embassy and that his questioners included one Asian man, apparently from the CIA, who was always shouting at him that he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he didn't reveal information that he knew. The trouble was that he was only a shopkeeper and didn't know anything. His last significant Islamic conversation occurred 17 years ago. He was desperate to get out because he had a business and a family and his business was in ruins after nine months.
Daily Bell: Why didn't they let him go?
Staffer: Well, this is the sad part. The entire political prison system in Yemen is built on the idea that there are many al Qaeda who need to be identified. Thus, the Americans may pay a bounty for such people – of one sort or another – and the Yemeni authorities are glad to oblige by fueling the charade with innocent people.
Daily Bell: Any other examples?
Staffer: Tons. There was a young Nigerian there with a two wives who had studied at an Islamic center that had been shut down. He himself had no connections to fundamentalist Islam, but when he came to pick up his passports – which the jail had been holding – they arrested him and he'd been there about three months when I met him.
Daily Bell: Others?
Staffer: Two brothers I spent time with, both from Iraq and Yemen. The one brother had gone rabbit hunting with a fellow who expressed some fundamentalist views. The fundamentalist was arrested, though he later escaped. But he mentioned the brother's name and the brother was picked up and incarcerated. He was an engineer. Later his brother was picked up. His brother was a schoolteacher. Neither apparently had a history of Jihadist associations. But they were eventually sentenced to ten years apiece by the Yemen courts.
Daily Bell: Didn't they have representation?
Staffer: Perhaps. Who knows? It doesn't matter much. There are no real laws in Yemen. There is no burden of proof. You can be picked up and interrogated and if you have the wrong associations, for whatever reason, you can be held for years without a trial. This is happening in Saudi Arabia, too, where they will now pick you up on hearsay and then arrest your father and brothers as well – on general principles. The Saudi jails are very nice, I hear, much nicer then the Yemen ones, with clean carpets, TVs on the walls and all the food you can eat. But the end result is even worse. The Saudis will hold you up to five years or more without a trial. There were some Yemenis that had just been released into Yemeni custody and I spoke to them. The Saudis were actually willing to hold them longer but their families came up after five years and made a big fuss, protesting outside of the jail. The Saudis finally let them go.
Daily Bell: Sounds horrible despite the "comforts."
Staffer: It is entirely evil. We're gradually returning to the era of Star Chambers and guilty until proven innocent. What makes it more evil in my view is that the West – specifically America – is behind it. The Americans told the Kenyan shopkeeper – or so he told me – that they had numerous jails all over the Middle East and Africa that they controlled and that there was no escape for him. If he was released and returned to Kenya he might find himself in a Kenyan political jail soon enough, also controlled by America.
Daily Bell: Weren't the CIA and Pentagon pressured to stop building these kinds of jails?
Staffer: You mean rendition centers? That's what they are. They are places where you have no rights and all judicial systems are suspended. That America still operates them and is still building them is symptomatic of how far the rot has spread. They just built one in Somalia. The American military-industrial complex is entirely out of control. It is only a matter of time before what it is visiting on other countries is visited on America as well. Americans are naïve if they think they can duck their heads into the sand and avoid the sight of what is undoubtedly headed their way. These sorts of profoundly anti-freedom policies are no accident. They are part and parcel of the way those at the top of the American military and intelligence establishment actually think.
Daily Bell: Rendition is supposed to be a thing of the past.
Staffer: I've been thinking about that. In Yemen, anyway, the Americans are hiding behind Yemeni so-called justice. Even the two nice people at the American Embassy who came to see me – and I have thanked them several times for the work they did on my behalf – were convinced that they could not interfere with the Yemen judicial system. I voiced my opinion on this several times to them. The Americans are basically running Yemen, not the Yemenis, I insisted.
Daily Bell: Did they respond?
Staffer: Actually, no. They just switched the subject. Or stared. It's not an issue that invites rational discussion.
Daily Bell: How many times did you see them?
Staffer: Only twice for about an hour altogether in about a month's time. They said they were working behind the scenes and I believe them. I got out in a month. Some others are still waiting to leave after years – and these individuals are the ones that have been told they will be going. I was lucky. Also, I was from America and that helped enormously. Saleh's entire government is scared of Americans from what I can tell.
Daily Bell: Saleh's not there, though.
Staffer: Saleh was blown up, perhaps by the Americans, and now he's in Saudi Arabia and who knows if he is coming back. The Saudis communicate what they wish strategically and then the Americans decide whether or not to implement it. That's how it appears to work.
Daily Bell: Do you have any proof the Americans are running Yemen?
Staffer: There was one fellow I spoke to – or at least heard about from several others – who was called 'the Bedouin.' He was asked by Saleh five years ago to make peace with the fundamentalists. One of his brothers apparently had something to do with blowing up the Hood. Anyway, he had significant contacts. He started to reach out to about five fundamentalist leaders – all dead now – and then the CIA flew a fellow over from Washington, DC to speak to him.
Daily Bell: What did he say?
Staffer: He told the Bedouin that he could not make peace with the five fundamentalists he was speaking to. There were larger issues that had to be taken into account. Anyway, the Bedouin refused and the CIA man said he would have to stay in jail until he reconsidered. The Bedouin appealed to Saleh, and Saleh was extremely apologetic, as he should have been. But he told the Bedouin that there was nothing he could do. If the Americans wanted to remand the Bedouin to jail, off he would go. Years later, he's still in jail and still refusing to cooperate with the CIA. He has a TV in his cell as a consolation and can see visitors in the morning. He can also move about certain portions of the jail at will. But he's still a prisoner because he wouldn't cooperate with the CIA. The CiA told him, by the way, that they would build him up in the press and he would become a very big man, a hero, if he cooperated with them.
Daily Bell: Did he believe that?
Staffer: I don't know. But he is more than a little peeved at the Americans and at the CIA. The larger issue is the control that America asserts – not just in Yemen. I figured out finally this is going on all over the Middle East and Africa – the United Arab Emirates, Bharain, Oman, Kenya, Nigeria, Niger, now Libya. The Americans and NATO – the West, in other words, at the behest of the major Western banking families – have built a virtual Gulag throughout the region. They hide behind the local police as they do in Yemen and this provides them with deniability. Nonetheless, the Americans in particular have assiduously set up a rights-free Gulag of sorts. There are thousands, tens of thousands, of innocent young men being picked up in this dragnet every year who've done nothing wrong except perhaps to be enthusiastically spiritual and to focus closely on becoming good Muslims.
Daily Bell: This must be a costly endeavor, when you think about it.
Staffer: It is costly and it's just plain weird. The American taxpayer has footed the bill for this transcontinental Gulag and it runs into the billions, perhaps hundreds of billions, every year. It's scooping young, innocent men off the sidewalk and returning them years later as embittered enemies of the West. It's a virtual campaign to radicalize the youth of Islam and it's no coincidence, in my view. The great banking families want radical Islam. They want a war between East and West, at least a cold war if not a hot one. Again, it's part of building world government. The more chaos and hate that's being spread, the more you need the trans-national organizations such as the IMF, World Court and UN. The globalists' solutions have all been constructed. Now you just need enough problems to activate them.
Daily Bell: Do you think it will come to that?
Staffer: Well ... let's look at the realities. The dictators being deposed in the Middle East are all secular. Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Ben Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya – all of them are non-Islamic types. And what will come about now? Probably the Muslim Brotherhood in one way or another. The Brotherhood is apparently penetrated and to a degree controlled by the CIA. So you have the spectacle of the West actively deposing secularists in order to replace them with controllable Muslim entities. Of course, it won't be portrayed that way in the West. The Muslim Brotherhood will be painted as a radical sect that poses an immediate danger to the West.
Daily Bell: But it won't?
Staffer: Not really in my opinion. Also, the Islamist-type countries may be set against the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Jordan and Morocco just applied to the GCC. If America won't stand for yet another Middle East war, you can always have one by proxy. America and NATO will control both sides from afar. This is no idle hypothesis. I'm told you can find white papers written on this subject from several prestigious Middle Eastern think tanks. That's how they operate. They write down what's coming up in the next few years. That way they can't be accused of conspiracy. If something happens, it seems more or less predictable because it HAS been predicted.
Daily Bell: OK, an interesting supposition anyway. But what about al Qaeda?
Staffer: Al Qaeda in Yemen, especially, provides us with an uncertain situation. At this point one could argue that al Qaeda has served its purpose. The West no longer wants a Jihadist movement when it can be replaced with something a good deal more controllable – the Muslim Brotherhood, which advocates democratic elections unlike al Qaeda. On the other hand, the form of Islam that al Qaeda advocates is growing in popularity in the Middle East. There are fundamentalists throughout Yemen, in numerous cities, and in Saudi Arabia as well, or so I was told. What the West may have created will not be easily put back to sleep. It is very hard to say, especially when it comes to Yemen, which has 30 unruly tribes and a Southern region that wants to secede.
Daily Bell: If you had to sum up this incident in your life how would you do it?
Staffer: I tend to be a fairly insular person. Writing for DB – especially as many articles and other kinds of writing as I do – I don't get out a lot even when I travel. I've experienced a great deal but mostly by accident on my travels. I certainly wouldn't have spent time in a Yemen jail at the expense of my writing if I could help it. I'm about to post two libertarian fiction books to Kindle and there are many other things going on my life. You, Anthony Wile, are to be congratulated for stepping up and actually raising the bar on the Bell's writing and analysis. But it would never have been my choice to stop writing for a month after having written every day for the past 45 years. I also want to thank you for working tirelessly to get me out. I know without your efforts I would still be there.
Daily Bell: We weren't going to leave you there.
Staffer: Well, thanks. I knew you were working hard on my behalf and it was very comforting. Having said that, my experience in the Yemen political prison opened my eyes more fully to the vastness of Western manipulations being perpetrated on the Middle East and actually the entire world. The charade of Muslim terrorism has morphed into an entire Gulag in which young men are being dragooned into what is essentially a work of fiction.
Daily Bell: You see it as a kind of directed history ...
Staffer: There is increasingly little doubt in my mind that for at least the past 100-200 years the world has experienced the fullness of directed history. No single event is what it seems; no explanation suffices for the wars, depressions and political and economic depredations that the world suffers from. Every disaster, every challenge, seems to bring world government closer. It's increasingly obvious. They're not even trying to hide it. Western military and intelligence agencies are fully behind these manipulations, in my view. The great banking families are directing them. The hope for the world, as we've pointed out time and again, is the Internet Reformation, for the truth-telling of the Internet is blowing up power elite memes as fast as they can be implemented.
Daily Bell: Did those in the prison see it this way as well, at least as concerning Islam and the war on terror?
Staffer: To a large degree, yes, though many strangely enough were convinced of the leadership of bin Laden, etc. This was confusing to me until I realized that those at the top of a controlled war needn't share their views with the rank and file. They go through the motions and those beneath tend to believe what they're told. The Middle East actually has a history of this sort of treachery going back to the Persian Hashshashin movement.
Daily Bell: Any final thoughts?
Staffer: Just that I was incredibly moved by the young people I met who were so generous and kind in the face of adversity. They named me Jonah after Jonah and the whale – the whale being the jail. This is the sort of metaphorical plane on which their minds worked. They knew nothing of rock and roll. They sing and chant the Koran, which is one of the great works of literature of all time. Thus, these young people were steeped in the metaphor of classical literature. Where their peers in the West were singing along to Britney Spears, these young people were speaking and thinking within the ambit of a much different perspective. It was like living among young men who saw the world through the eyes of, say, Shakespeare, a truly unusual experience, like living within a real-life anachronism. The nobility of their morality and the greatness of its expression was a kind of out-of-body experience for me. It also made me understand how so many young people can blow themselves up when facing an enemy. Between praying five times a day and generally being bathed in this resonant, classical expression of the Koran, one's socialization becomes entirely focused on the Islamic message. If Islam demands a blood sacrifice, such people will provide it. Their socialization will support it.
Daily Bell: It sounds quite intense. Before we let you go, we need to ask you how you were finally released.
Staffer: They called me out to have me take an inventory of my possessions. Usually they would blindfold you and handcuff you for interrogation purposes. But this time, they let me walk through the jail in a very relaxed way. That night they drove me to the airport in an SUV just the way I came in. A young man from the American Embassy was waiting there for me and filled me in on my release and where I was headed – thanks in large part to your efforts. Then I got on a plane and left Yemen behind.
Daily Bell: Did you unwind on the plane?
Staffer: I asked for a scotch.
Daily Bell: Did you get it?
Staffer: No. They weren't serving liquor.
Daily Bell: It's quite a story. Thanks for presenting it. Don't do it again.
Staffer: I didn't intend to do it the first time. However, I would like to dedicate this interview to the young men who were so kind to me and are unlawfully incarcerated in such jails throughout the Middle East and Africa, often apparently with American support – financial and otherwise. It should end; it must end.
Well, this has been quite a month. But our prodigal gnome has returned and he has quite a story to tell as you can see. We hope you enjoyed it – or were at least moved by it and the serious message that it conveyed.
The point being made is a profound one; what is being visited on the Middle East will not long be confined to that area. What is being done there will soon be visited on the West itself. There is no use fooling one's self about this.
The profound illegality and evil that is being visited on the Middle East and Africa will soon find a firm foothold in the West if its march is not radically slowed or even halted. The war on terror is being used as a way to erode Western freedoms, some of which go back centuries.
We hope the alternative 'Net press continues to raise the alarm about these and other such issues. There is no alternative. These issues must be raised and addressed, preferably on a daily basis. What is going on is wrong. No amount of justification can make it right.
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Posted by ankaboot on 01/12/12 06:00 PM
With reference to my "Panorama" promise, please see "Dominions of Faith: Humanity is the Crown of Creation" which we have added to our website at
Click to view link
... noting that almost all instances of human dominion have either collapsed or are collapsing as we watch; but that the operative word here is "almost." Some dominions continue, despite eons of efforts to displace them ~ those efforts to usurp the dominions already established, have never been completely or permanently successful, and have always led to the ultimate demise of those who seek universal dominion.
This has been because most people seeking dominion are seeking the benefits of dominion and are not pursuing the responsibilities and obligations of dominion. Adam Smith's "every man's pursuit of what is best for himself" neglects the necessary "and what is best for the group." This is what I see here at The Daily Bell ~ short-sightedness doomed to ultimate failure. A focus on short-term success at the expense of long-term benefit can have no other outcome.
Sayonara.
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Posted by rudyf on 12/15/11 11:11 PM
Too bad:
The National Defense Authorization Act makes the 'Gulag' a part of America... all this is now officially legal and 'The Homeland' is part of the battlefield.
Yemen is no longer any different from the 'Land of the Free'.
Rudy Fritsch
Editor in Chief
The Gold Standard Institute
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/20/11 01:35 AM
"We are sorry for your condition ... "
It's rather an inconvenience, but unlikely to be without beneficial purpose. I usually break my concentration by other means (to eliminate predispositional perspectives), but focus has been consistently restored when I've seriously needed it. I'm just inadequately accustomed to having limited volition in the process. "Insanity" (i.e., transcendent sanity) has been my forte, and thinking "inside the box" is not perceptible from inside the box ~ perhaps I'm being evicted from yet another box.
All possession is transitory, including our possession of ourselves. But I still have possessions that others have not come to claim as their own, so I'm not concerned about a few moments of dispossession of myself.
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/19/11 05:51 AM
"But surely, a believer should be able to enunciate a moral judgment, basing it upon the Divine Laws revealed in Scripture."
God's "moral" Judgments are statements of the natural law. Enunciating God's moral judgment is a legal judgment. We can perceive morality in God's Judgment; we cannot determine what is moral otherwise.
This may seem a fine distinction, but it is critical. People make judgments all the time, usually expressed as "opinions." And we are much more quick to make adverse moral judgments about others than we are to make them about ourselves.
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On my promised "panorama" ...
Today ~ late this afternoon ~ I was able to bring the agonizing pain of my liver condition under control, so that I do not need pain medication. Now I have a short time in which to prepare two critical pleadings in a court case. I cannot control the "fits and starts" of the writing that I do, and although the next (third) installment of "Panorama" is assembling itself in my mind, it's not complete yet. God willing, I'll be able to turn to it Tuesday. Thank you for your patience.
Reply from The Daily Bell
We are sorry for your condition ....
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Posted by BlackVeil on 11/18/11 06:28 AM
Summer writes: "You believe in Islam and yet you fail to make a moral judgement on whether it is right to kill Ahmadis or others purely on the basis of them having a different faith. You claim that it is not a judgement for you to make. How then do you make any moral judgements at all if you cannot on such a major issue - whether to kill on the basis of faith alone?"
Ankaboot writes: "God makes moral judgments. We make legal judgments according to what He has given us as His judgment. If you don't understand that, then you certainly do not understand Islam."
But surely, a believer should be able to enunciate a moral judgement, basing it upon the Divine Laws revealed in Scripture.
This is especially important when facing questions such as the legality of killing a person - such a huge question - encompassing the world in itself.
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/14/11 06:14 AM
... exercising sovereign dominion is something we do together, each pursuing what he is most capable of doing well, obtaining the fruits of his labors, harmoniously.
The word "khalifa," so inappropriately bestowed as a title on the often-figurehead chief administrator and final arbiter of a ruling party of the various illegitimate muslim empires, has been always problematic ~ the word refers to all of humanity, acting both collectively and individually, with each individual sowing and reaping his unique crop. We can readily analyze the spectrum of "human resources" into four categories: vision, love, talent and wisdom.
It is these that dignify man, distinguish individuals, and ennoble humanity. And it is these that must be liberated from the demands of subsistence and contrary ambitions, in order to establish and perpetuate a human society capable of establishing and exercising benevolent sovereign dominion that can endure the entropy of discordance.
We have proven ourselves unable to do this with the incredible wealth of human resources we have been given. We lack cohesion; we fail to develop human resources; we differ on appropriate deployment of our capacities; we are one humanity, but we are not one people, we are many, and (too often rightly) fear each other. We do not know how to negotiate material existence ~ the "secular." And in our efforts to contrive a universally-applicable order or commonly-necessary pattern of conduct, we have not even been able to establish agreement that we will not kill each other.
But this indictment of our sovereign competence cannot lie against everyone. Men of astounding vision and profound insight have appeared throughout human history, leaving traces of their passage that we remember today as lights in the surrounding darkness: human societies, civilizations, cultures reflecting the natural harmony of human existence in a material world. Visionaries inspired people with the necessary talents to join a quest for dominion, motivated and driven by love and judiciously ruled by wisdom.
We remember the names of the dynasties and nations ~ Egypt under the pharaohs; Athens and Greece and Rome; the Han, Ming, and Song dynasties of China and the Edo in Japan; the Incas and the Aztecs of the Americas; the Russias; Timbuktu, Sankore, and Akebulan in Africa; the Brahmin dynasties of India; Kashmir; Persia; Babylon; the Kingdom of David, the empire of Solomon, and Jewish kingdoms across the face of the eastern hemisphere from China to the Atlantic and Africa, all of Israel; the Umayyad, Abbasid, Mongol, Spanish, Fatimid, and Ottoman dynasties of the Millennial Kingdom of the muslim world; and just recently the European colonial empires who, standing on the shoulders of giants, raised the modern technological-industrial civilizations atop the ruins of the past, and drove the faithful of the East to the West in America.
All of these share common characteristics. They established, by force of the pen or the sword, a rule of law across a geographic dominion and were initially governed by principle and reason claiming origins in "the gods" or "the son of heaven" or "God." They monopolized coercive force in a central authority, delegating powers to provinces. They organized the division of labor and cooperative enterprise to produce a commonwealth conserved and increased in the hands of those most capable of administration of its material and organizational components. Their successors and heirs grew fat, complacent, and self-centered. And they all collapsed, most into the dustbin of history and seen no more, leaving behind an ethnic expression of their lost humanity. We remember only the names, and little else beyond the jewels in the rubble, because their sovereign dominion was lost, overtaken by later generations with a superior vision, more realized talent, greater wisdom, and a more abiding love.
But the supernal dominion of "God" or "the gods" or "the son of heaven," or "reason and principle" or "love, vision, talent and wisdom," over the hearts and minds of the faithful, did not perish; neither did the drive for dominion indelibly engraved on every cell and neuron of the human family; and neither did the power of the sword to overthrow tyranny and oppression to restore liberty to everyone devoted to the well-being and success of humanity. It is this dominion ~ the "kingdom of heaven," of thought and perception, concern and concept, fleeting and ephemeral and otherwise imperceptible, the underlying substance of matter and energy that moves invisibly through fire, earth, air and water to move the minds and hearts of humankind ~ that establishes all other dominion and sovereignty, the rise and fall of humanity, and the very character of our material existence and temper of all of our lives: and everything else.
And it has common ~ and immutable ~ characteristics.
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... to be continued.
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This ~ writing like this ~ is what I do best, and what I love to do, and do whenever I can. I am always amazed by what my fingers do, apparently on their own: I type, then read, correct spelling and make any necessary minor stylistic revisions, and publish ~ this "flavor" of "my writing" is all extemporaneous.
But there are other demands, the least of which is maintaining my physical existence, that I must satisfy in order to have time to do this. Before I could turn to this, today, I had to satisfy other obligations ~ among them my reply to the strong-hearted Summer, above, and other replies in other forums to others whose sincerity is also apparent to me. It is the sincere for whom my fingers do their work, I work my fingers for more important things like stirring my coffee. And sometime this week, I have to write two short, but extremely critical, legal pleadings to file in our case before the State Supreme Court ~ which will require at least a day of undisturbed concentration with no distractions or diversions, like the time I needed to write what you read above that required an identical singularity of focus (three hours, one revision).
So please be patient with me. "Origins" ~ or the first fifty pages of it ~ was written sporadically, the same way, in 31 days. This may be longer, or may take longer, or both ~ I don't know yet what Daily Bell readers are going to see, any more than you do.
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/13/11 10:35 PM
Summer speculates: "To summarise, you believe that Hadith is an integral part of Islam yet you do not believe in the many AHadith clearly refering to the coming of the Messiah (Salman Farsi - the Persian - he would appear east of Damacus - Qadian. Etc)"
I am not so narrow-minded and blind as that fantasy dogmatic ignoramus you imagine to be me.
Everything we have that depicts the lives of the Messenger and the Sahaba, the period during which the Qur'an was being sent down, and the time of the first four successors, and everything after that until yesterday, today, and tomorrow, is an "integral part of Islam." So is the history of Israel, and so is the history of Messianic Israel ("Christianity"). So is the history of Noah, Ham, Shem, and Japheth and their descendants. I'm not wearing any "blinders" as you imagine, and my focus is not so narrow as you imagine. I've been doing this for half a century, and have been on the Sirat al-'Azeez al-Hakeem for most of that time. God's creation is a seamlessly integrated singularity, reflecting His singularity, and as with the Qur'an, no part of it can be isolated from any other part of it and be comprehended with understanding.
Everything preceding the sending down of the Qur'an led to that moment when Allah said "This day have I perfected for you your faith and completed My favor on you and approved for you Islam as a religion," and everything since the sending down of the Qur'an has come from that moment. There is only one other moment in the history of creation that is anything like that, and that is the moment when He said to it "BE!" ~ which we did not witness. The moment that we did witness was the completion of perfection. Unless we proceed from THAT moment, we will fail to realize His Favor. And unless we immerse ourselves in THAT moment, we cannot proceed from it. ALL of that moment is preserved in the Qur'an, with absolute accuracy and reliability. SOME of that moment is preserved in SOME of the hadith, within an incomparable mass of information that is known conclusively to LACK accuracy and reliability.
Think about what Eve must have felt when one of her sons killed the other, and when Adam sent her surviving son, a killer by his very nature, into exile. Those feelings shaped the future of all humanity. Then think about Noah, alone in the world with three sons, being told by God "Whoso sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed." His sons will be killers by their very nature. Those feelings shaped the future of all humanity. Then think about more than ten thousand Companions being told by God "You are the perfection of humanity."
There they were, warts and all, with enemies and hypocrites among them, but with nowhere to go but down. Put yourself in their shoes and walk a mile with the Messsenger and you'll begin to understand Islam. Then keep going. Not just the hadith and the Qur'an and the Messenger, but EVERYTHING about those years ~ the struggles, the culture, the water and sand, the words of the Call to Prayer that Bilal could no longer sing because of his grief after Habibullah Muhammad had died ~ the tears and the terror after Allah took him back ~ the eruption of ambition before he was even buried ... all of it is "integral to Islam."
Mu'awiyah and Yazid murdered all of the prophet's family that they could, shaping the future and sealing the fate of the already-shattered Ummah. What good came of that? When you figure out what good DID come from that, that does not appear to be "good" in the eyes of most muslims, you'll have more understanding of Islam.
"You believe in Islam and yet you fail to make a moral judgement on whether it is right to kill Ahmadis or others purely on the basis of them having a different faith. You claim that it is not a judgement for you to make. How then do you make any moral judgements at all if you cannot on such a major issue - whether to kill on the basis of faith alone?"
God makes moral judgments. We make legal judgments according to what He has given us as His judgment. If you don't understand that, then you certainly do not understand Islam.
The rest of your contentions are directed at someone who doesn't exist. And finding that you cannot be informed, I will decline contention with you, so you may have the last word in this conversation. Thank you for your revelations, and may Allah show you His Mercy.
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/13/11 08:52 PM
"Wow, sorry about your ill health and thanks for the links ... "
Egads! Bad links! The .pdf of "Origins" is at:
Click to view link
(I had typed "masb" instead of "mabs"); and the Town Hall battle starts at:
Click to view link
(the forum software added the forum url at the beginning of the link).
[NOTE: to reach the intended pages from these links, that go to the forum's "page not found" page, just delete the forum url from the address bar to recover the actual url posted in the thread.]
As for my health, I feel fine. My Teflon aorta restored my health considerably a couple of years back, and this current liver study gives me an opportunity to (legally) indulge myself with a bit of poppy sap extract, which I had to give up fifty years ago because I liked it too much. I've been studying anatomy and physiology for about fifteen years now ~ mine ~ and have not ceased to be amazed not only at the perfection of this self-correcting organic machinery, but at the advances we've made in medicine during my lifetime. When I realized that we kill ourselves by fighting entropy (Origins, pp. 27-29), my "aging process" changed considerably. My DNA started modifying itself, disused restorative mechanisms came back on line, and I've been left with residual damage from my dissolute youth to repair by intervention ~ such as this liver thing, and before that, Teflon arteries from my heart to my legs. It's fascinating and it's fun.
And now the hydrocodone has kicked in, so I'll return to our other conversation.
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Posted by Summer on 11/13/11 08:45 PM
To summarise, you believe that Hadith is an integral part of Islam yet you do not believe in the many AHadith clearly refering to the coming of the Messiah (Salman Farsi - the Persian - he would appear east of Damacus - Qadian. Etc)
You believe in Islam and yet you fail to make a moral judgement on whether it is right to kill Ahmadis or others purely on the basis of them having a different faith. You claim that it is not a judgement for you to make. How then do you make any moral judgements at all if you cannot on such a major issue - whether to kill on the basis of faith alone?
You refuse to face the Hadith of the 73 sects and all sects against one - Ahmadiyyat. You obfuscate the points of Hadith by alluding to the strength of the narration - how long can you do this without showing you are dodging certain prophecies? Instead you make allegations as to Ahmadiyyat's affiliations when you and most common Muslim folk are well aware that there are many groups outside of Ahmadiyyat that are funded by the West and have historically been so - but there is no persecution of them - no condemnation anywhere near the extent that Ahmadiyyat faces - as Jesus faced with Jews.
You ignore the fact that great scholars, such as Imam Raghib, and many of the Ummah await the Messiah and Mahdi and have come up with your own way to escape the prophecies that clearly state that a Messiah would come in the 14th century of Islam. (At the time of Gog and Magog - probably US and Russia and at the time of Dajjal - pseudo-Christian missionary efforts against Islam and Elites).
You assert that compulsion is permitted in faith citing the example of Musailama without noting that Abu Bakr - on behalf of the state took action against him when he disobeyed state law viz., zakat. And from this you conclude that you may override the Quran (there is no compulsion in matters of faith) and that 'Jihad' is permitted against people merely on the basis of faith.
Click to view link
Many Muslims 'interpret' the prophecy of the eclipses as I do and proof has been obtained that the eclipses appeared as described (in Quran and Hadith), in Qadian, at the correct time - you refuse to look at the link that clearly elaborates this point (first you said many eclipses happen in the same month of Ramadhan then you decided to reveal you know the exact Hadith and that it refers to specific days - obfuscation again).
'Now according to this the eclipse of the moon actually occurred on Thursday evening the 13th of Ramazan, 1311 A.H. (March 21, 1894) and that of the sun occurred on Friday morning the 28th of the same Ramazan (April 6, 1894). The eclipse of the moon generally occurs on the 13th, 14th, or 15th day of a lunar month and according to the prophecy, it occurred on the first date. The eclipse of the sun can occur on the 27th, 28th, and 29th and it occurred on the 28th which was the middle date predicted. Hence, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad rightly claimed that the prophecy was fulfilled and it was a strong evidence on the truth of his claim as no one except God has power over these heavenly bodies.'
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Summer: "Mirza Ghulam Ahmad wrote that the conditions for Jihad were not applicable at his time as under British rule in India religious freedom was permitted and Muslims were not attacked on the basis of their religion - this is not a change of 'the law' quite the contrary it is in exact accordance with Quranic principles."
Ankaboot: 'He was mistaken. We were told when to lay down the sword and it was not when Ghulam Ahmad surrendered to the British conquest of India. The Messenger said "My people will not agree on error." Ghulam Ahmad found little agreement on his error of abject expedience.'
This was such a feeble and tenuous link to try and make a point, which has not been made. You know very well this is a Hadith which is applicable usually in Fiqh issues, it has little or no relevance to issues of Jihad.
You allege that Ahmadiyyat was some sort of British construct whilst saying you are not in a position to judge about Maudoudi when it is a matter of common knowledge among many Muslims - even a historical fact (I mean come on!), how on earth, why on earth did you make a judgement about Ahmadiyyat then if not Maudoudi?!
Ankabut: 'You need to understand that Abu Bakr's only authority was entirely secular, limited, and constrained. He had no more "spiritual role" than any other muslim, which at most was to "Make Islam known"
Your views on Abu Bakr are strange indeed. Even non-Muslims believe him to be the first Caliph of Islam, definitely and obviously a 'spiritual role/authority' (you seem to be obfuscating again).
'And that "Make Islam known" role was itself restricted and governed by the words of the Messenger "None narrates except an amir, one commanded, or a pretender." There have been a lot of pretenders since then, Ghulam Ahmad was neither the first nor the last.'
This is convoluted and irrational. Again, you insist on mish-mashing different issues to come to something that makes sense in your head.
Ahmadiyyat has done so much for the service of Islam in the last century viz., missionary work, building mosques and schools, translating the Quran into important 'international languages' charitable work etc. - signs of a sincere community. A true prophet and his followers always face persecution, ridicule, are ostracized and opposed. They always start with small numbers and continue increasing at a healthy pace. It's followers always start as a weak minority and become the majority. That time is fast approaching. The prophecies are fulfilled. Accept this or reject it, neither God nor His Messiah need you or anyone else, quite the contrary those who do as the Holy Prophet instructed:
'When you see him (Imam Mahdi) then certainly perform bait to him even if you have to crawl over your knees through the mountains of snow because he (Imam Mahdi) will be the Khalifa of God."
Do so merely for their own benefit.
"By the One who owns my soul, it is nigh, of a certainty, that the son of Mary will appear among you. He will be a judge, he will be just; so he will break the cross (refute [interpolated] Christian doctrines with reason and arguments--Commentary on Bukhari by Ainee) and kill the swine (a figurative speech denoting greedy, dirty and annoying person-- an abomination. Killing also is through spiritual means); and he will stop war." (Bukhari, Vol. 1, Babo Nozooli Isa)
Is this another one of your weak Hadiths from Bukhari?!
Anyone who has an intimate understanding of Islam knows (generally speaking) this Hadith is applicable now:
"There will come a time upon the people when nothing will remain of Islam except its name and nothing will remain of the Quran except its inscription. Their mosques will be splendidly furnished but destitute of guidance. Their divines will be the worst people under the sky; strife will issue from them and avert to them."
If you think there is no need for a reformer then you may carry on with the current state of affairs. I wish for better and believe in the AHadith aforementioned.
Ankaboot: 'But you can believe anything you want to believe. Irrational beliefs do not make someone "not a muslim"'
On this I agree.
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/13/11 11:24 AM
In February of 2010, I started writing "Origins of Ownership" (I think the title will change) on the Web, which began with a premise:
"What we have known instinctively is that each of us has exclusive authoritative dominion over himself that no one has any authority to usurp; that is not subordinate to any other; that is not derived, delegated, bestowed, or earned; but is the fundament and entire foundation of our human nature. We have an absolute natural right to rule ourselves."
I had to put it aside on March 24, 2010, after writing the first 50-odd pages, ending the fourth chapter (of five) of part II (of an anticipated five) with "By 8,000 years ago, we possessed virtually all of the habitable areas of the entire planet, and had no competition for habitat that offered any threat to our dominion." "Part 0" includes the Foreword, Preface, and Introduction, which in my opinion are essential reading.
The part/chapter headings are:
Instinct, Intellect, Imagination, Inference, Insurrection
Emergence, Survival, Saturation, Migration, Aggression
Event, Determination, Nation, Competition, Extinction
Acquisition, Accumulation, Anxiety, Aggregation, Aggression
Possession, Use, Transfer, Alienation, and Dispensation
The completed parts are at the an-cap libertarian forum "Click to view link," at:
Click to view link
Click to view link and
Click to view link
Should those pages be inaccessible ("members only"?), there's a printable Acrobat file at
Click to view link
The reason I had to set it aside twenty months ago starts at:
Click to view link
... and continues with a blow-by-blow account of our battle with a hopelessly clueless Town Council, presently in the Washington State Supreme Court. I've written and argued all of our pleadings in the trial court and the Supreme Court, quite a few of them are in the thread.
However ...
After two hours of sleep, my current liver problem woke me up (MRI scheduled for Tuesday) with some pain that it's taken me two hours to quiet.
So I'm headed back to bed for at least another three hours, after which I'll get back to the panorama (which starts about where Origins currently leaves off) ~ God willin' and the creek don't rise.
I think Origins can give you an idea of the scope of my thinking (and research) about what's happening in the world today.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Wow, sorry about your ill health and thanks for the links ...
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/13/11 07:40 AM
"We repeat some comments and questions offered lower down in this thread ... "
Completely slipped my mind, and it shouldn't have. Thanks for the reminder. But first ...
On "secular" ~ "religions" become "established" because they inform the people of a better way to carry on their worldly affairs with each other. Every extant faith began as a community made up of people who formerly were divided against each other, with an emphasis on "self and family" that pitted house against house in the scramble for subsistence and comfort ~ and power. This is the core of "religion" ~ locally autonomous nation-building.
Humanity is created to collectively exercise sovereign dominion over so much of the phenomenological universe as He places in our hands. The drive for dominion is genetic, instinctual, and more remorseless than the drive for individual survival or perpetuation of the species. What is written on our genes is "Produce, proliferate, and partake as you please" ~ which history shows us doing persistently and in abundance. To do any of those three things requires dominion, however minimal it might be. In a word, we must be "free" ~ and to realize our potentials we must have "liberty," which is the opportunity to acquire the means of exercising our freedom. Whenever anyone is deprived of their natural dominion by others, this introduces an entropy that ultimately dissolves social union, and kingdoms and empires fall, taking with them the common wealth of the society and the commonly-shared means of subsistence.
The word "collectively" is key ~ exercising sovereign dominion is something we do together, each pursuing what he is most capable of doing well, obtaining the fruits of his labors, harmoniously. The word "khalifa" so inappropriately bestowed on the often-figurehead chief administrator and final arbiter of a ruling party of the various illegitimate muslim empires has been always problematic ~ the word refers to all of humanity, acting both collectively and individually, with each individual sowing and reaping his unique crop. We can readily analyze the spectrum of "human resources" into four categories: vision, love, talent and wisdom. It is these that dignify man, distinguish individuals, and ennoble humanity. And it is these that must be liberated from the demands of subsistence and contrary ambitions, in order to estabish and perpetuate a human society capable of establishing and exercising benevolent sovereign dominion that can endure the entropy of discordance.
We have proven ourselves unable to do this with the incredible wealth of human resources we have been given. We lack cohesion; we fail to develop human resources; we differ on appropriate deployment of our capacities; we are one humanity, but we are not one people, we are many, and (too often rightly) fear each other. We do not know how to negotiate material existence ~ the "secular." And in our efforts to contrive a universally-applicable order or commonly-necessary pattern of conduct, we have not even been able to establish agreement that we will not kill each other.
Please forgive me for requiring patience of you, but I've again run up against a need for rest. I like the way the above exposition is going, I'll leave this window open so that I don't neglect it when I wake up and continue, in a few hours. I see where this is going, and thank you for the inspiration ~ without which I couldn't write a sentence. I intend to address each of your points of interest, in their necessary context. As with much of what I write, I've been waiting for the opportunity ~ which is always occasioned by a sincere question or desire to know what I learn by writing what it inspires. Every once in a while, something arises of significant magnitude ~ and I sense that this is one such occasion. So stay with me, I expect that this is going to be an interesting panorama.
Reply from The Daily Bell
All right, thanks for such a serious exposition. We will eagerly await the rest.
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/13/11 05:04 AM
"Almost all Muslims and Islamic Jurists believe Hadith to be an integral part of Islam!"
And rightly so. But the degree to which we can rely on the veracity and accuracy of the reports is quite variable, and never a certainty.
"Mirza Ghulam Ahmad wrote that the conditions for Jihad were not applicable at his time as under British rule in India religious freedom was permitted and Muslims were not attacked on the basis of their religion - this is not a change of 'the law' quite the contrary it is in exact accordance with Quranic principles."
He was mistaken. We were told when to lay down the sword and it was not when Ghulam Ahmad surrendered to the British conquest of India. The Messenger said "My people will not agree on error." Ghulam Ahmad found little agreement on his error of abject expedience.
"Of all the mosques that are built throughout the West, only Ahmadi mosques are fully self-funded."
This is absolutely false.
"Almost all other mosques are built with contributions from the public purse."
This also is absolutely false.
"Maulana Maudoudi (vehemently against Ahmadiyyat) and others including Osama Bin Laden are known to have received money from the CIA. Therefore if you're looking for British funded groups Ahmadiyyat is the least likely candidate."
Neither Maudoodi (1903-1979) nor bin Laden (1957-2011?) was a contemporary of Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908), who died before either of them was competent to make a contract. And I am not of those who allege that the British funded him, only that they were pleased with him.
"Abu Bakr launched a campaign against the false prophet Musailma, not because of his erroneous beliefs but rather due to his fomenting rebellion (treachery was a capital offence in most states) against the state. Abu Bakr did this not in his role as a Khalifa but rather in his capacity as head of a secular state which afforded freedom of religious expression to all."
This is false. Musailima the Liar, master of Yamamah, declared that he was a "co-prophet" with the Messenger and of equal prophetic authority. He purported to abolish prayer and freely allowed sex and wine consumption. This was the rebellion ~ he altered the religion.
The Messenger saw in a dream that he was wearing two gold bracelets, and when he blew at them as at dust, they disappeared. He told Abu Bakr that they were two false prophets, including Musailima, of whom Allah would rid the muslims. Abu Bakr expected that nothing would need to be done to eliminate the liars. When Musailima later rose up against Abu Bakr, he was killed by Wahshi ibn Harb. A few years later, his few persisting followers were denounced, and the messenger he had previously sent to Muhammad, claiming prophetic authority, was executed for altering the religion.
"Abu Bakr's secular and spiritual roles were incidental and have caused confusion to many who do not understand the distinction of the two roles as laid out in Quran and Sunna - La ikra ha fideen - there is no compulsion in matters of faith. You need to reconcile this verse of the Quran with your erroneous understanding."
"There is no coercion in the religion" ~ period. Where there is coercion, there is no religion. No one was compelled to join Abu Bakr in carrying out the Command of Allah.
You need to understand that Abu Bakr's only authority was entirely secular, limited, and constrained. He had no more "spiritual role" than any other muslim, which at most was to "Make Islam known" ~ "known" as it was completed and perfected and written on the muslims on the day that He sent down the last of the Message, "This day have I perfected for you your faith and completed My favor on you and approved for you Islam as a religion." And that "Make Islam known" role was itself restricted and governed by the words of the Messenger "None narrates except an amir, one commanded, or a pretender." There have been a lot of pretenders since then, Ghulam Ahmad was neither the first nor the last.
But once again, you can believe anything you want to believe. Irrational beliefs do not make someone "not a muslim" ~ if they did, there would be very few muslims, if any at all.
Reply from The Daily Bell
We repeat some comments and questions offered lower down in this thread ...
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ankaboot: The Bavarian Illuminati, expelled from the Lodge long ago, is a diversion. Their independent power is virtually nonexistent, they have to move others to act for them.
DB: We were not speaking of a specific order, merely the larger "Illuminati" as it is portrayed today.
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ankaboot: Those "others" owe them nothing at all, and have a different agenda. And what you call "the modern conspiracy" was formed in the time of Solomon and has been running ever since.
DB: Thanks. You know this .... how?
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ankaboot: The Illuminati are pawns in another game.
DB: What game would that be? And what, then, is the previous game?
A lot of what you are writing now is vague and comprised of hints. Why so shy?
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/13/11 03:32 AM
Summer offers as evidence:
"For our Mahdi (Divine Reformer) there are two signs which have never appeared before since the creation of the heavens and the earth, namely the moon will be eclipsed on the first night in Ramazan (i.e. on the first of the nights on which a lunar eclipse can occur) and the sun will be eclipsed in its middle (i.e. on the middle day of the days on which a solar eclipse can occur), and these signs have not appeared since God created the heavens and the earth."
So let's remove the added "interpretation" and see what this purported statement of the Messenger actually says:
"For our Mahdi there are two signs which have never appeared before since the creation of the heavens and the earth, namely the moon will be eclipsed on the first night in Ramazan and the sun will be eclipsed in its middle, and these signs have not appeared since God created the heavens and the earth."
Now it is most certainly true that "these signs have not appeared since God created the heavens and the earth." For such a thing to happen, the Qur'an ~ which says that the moon and the planets move in regular orbits, and that we can rely on the regularity of their apparent movements to travel on the seas and establish the days of the festivals ~ would have to be false, which it is not. Here's why:
The first day of a lunar month begins when someone sees the crescent of the new moon after sunset. At this time the moon has moved past the "new moon" position where it might eclipse the sun. Thus a lunar eclipse CANNOT happen on the first day of Ramadan, because the earth is not between the sun and the moon, the only place where it could eclipse the moon; and a solar eclipse CANNOT happen on the first day of Ramadan because it has moved past the "new moon" position where it might eclipse the sun.
A solar eclipse can only happen at the moment of the "new moon" when the moon is between the earth and the sun. A lunar eclipse takes place when the earth blocks the sun' light from the moon ~ when the earth is between the sun and the moon. When the moon is on the other side of the earth from the sun, it cannot cause a solar eclipse. Thus there cannot be a solar eclipse in the middle of a lunar month. The regularity of the astral bodies makes it impossible.
The Qur'an makes three kinds of statements: "In it are words plain and clear, of established meaning; and others that are obscure" (that is, their meaning cannot be seen), and metaphors like this:
"He sends a rain from the sky; and as valleys wash to their destiny the flood bears a rising foam. And from what they smelt in the fire to forge adornment and wares, a froth of its kind: that is how ALLAH coins the true and the vain. Then as for the scum, it passes uselessly; and as for what serves the people, it remains in the earth. That is how ALLAH strikes images."
The foam, the froth, and the scum are what is VISIBLE on top of the flood or the molten metal ~ or reversing it, what can be seen on top of the flood or the molten metal is the scum that passes uselessly, while what is NOT seen beneath it "serves the people." The point here is that Muhammad, according to 'A'isha, was "the Qur'an walking" ~ EVERYTHING that he said is either plain and clear and of established meaning, or obscured, or metaphorical. Signs are not metaphorical, they are plain and clear and have a specific and completely unambiguous meaning ~ they may be obscure until they appear, but it is their undeniable and obvious appearance that makes them Signs.
Thus when a prophet gives people a Sign, his exact, plain and clear, unambiguous words describing the Sign mean exactly what they say, no more and no less, and no "interpretation" can make them say anything else. Here, the exact words predict impossible eclipses on "the first day of Ramadan" and "in the middle" (of Ramadan) ~ both impossible according to the Qur'an. So ...
We are left with only two possibilities: either Muhammad was not a prophet, or he did not predict any such Sign of any "Mahdi."
It is this kind of priestly "interpretation" ~ making words say what they do not say ~ that turns people away from faith, while it attracts others to a false faith. Jesus said to the scribes asking for a Sign of the Son of man, "I give you the Sign of Jonah ~ just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so the son of man shall spend three days and three nights in the belly of the earth." Priests, saying that Jesus was the Son of man, say that two nights and parts of three days adding up to less than two days ~ the time Jesus was supposedly in the tomb ~ were the "three days and three nights" of the Sign of the Son of man. Because of this irrational "interpretation," many people reject Christianity entirely. Two nights does not equal three nights, and almost two days does not equal three days.
What actually happened, six centuries later, was that Muhammad and Abu Bakr, evading the Meccans sent to capture them, spent three full days and three full nights in a cave south of Mecca ~ in the belly of the earth, exactly and precisely the words of the Sign, with no "interpretation" or ambiguity whatsoever. In our experience, all "interpretation" of just about anything that says something else has amounted to "You have to take my word for it and accept my authority concerning it," usually leading to "hear and obey me." This is how every religion has been corrupted: priests, asserting authority that they do not have, twist the religion to their own desires.
"These [eclipse] signs have not appeared since God created the heavens and the earth." That was true a century and a half ago, and it is true now. They cannot appear. The moon has never jumped across its orbit to the other side of the planet, as this supposed "Sign" would require, not once, let alone twice in the same month.
And the Messenger Muhammad would not have predicted that something Allah says is impossible would happen.
But you can believe anything you want to believe. Irrational beliefs do not make someone "not a muslim" ~ if they did, there would be very few muslims, if any at all. Unfortunately, most of the world's muslims believe otherwise, at least regarding Ghulam Ahmad and his followers. I sympathize, but I have no power to do anything about that. On the bright side, should any of them kill you for following Ghulam Ahmad, they'll be making you a martyr and you'll enter the Garden without any accounting, and with a clear understanding of the error of following a false prophet, a false messiah, and a nonexistent "Mahdi."
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Posted by Summer on 11/12/11 06:36 PM
Hazrat Imam Baqar Muhammad bin Alira has narrated the following Hadees (saying of the Holy Prophet Muhammadsa):
For our Mahdi (Divine Reformer) there are two signs which have never appeared before since the creation of the heavens and the earth, namely the moon will be eclipsed on the first night in Ramazan (i.e. on the first of the nights on which a lunar eclipse can occur) and the sun will be eclipsed in its middle (i.e. on the middle day of the days on which a solar eclipse can occur), and these signs have not appeared since God created the heavens and the earth. (Dare Qutani Vol 1, page 188)
Click to view link
Almost all Muslims and Islamic Jurists believe Hadith to be an integral part of Islam!
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad wrote that the conditions for Jihad were not applicable at his time as under British rule in India religious freedom was permitted and Muslims were not attacked on the basis of their religion - this is not a change of 'the law' quite the contrary it is in exact accordance with Quranic principles.
Of all the mosques that are built throughout the West, only Ahmadi mosques are fully self-funded. Almost all other mosques are built with contributions from the public purse. Maulana Maudoudi (vehemently against Ahmadiyyat) and others including Osama Bin Laden are known to have received money from the CIA. Therefore if you're looking for British funded groups Ahmadiyyat is the least likely candidate.
Abu Bakr launched a campaign against the false prophet Musailma, not because of his erroneous beliefs but rather due to his fomenting rebellion (treachery was a capital offence in most states) against the state. Abu Bakr did this not in his role as a Khalifa but rather in his capacity as head of a secular state which afforded freedom of religious expression to all.
Abu Bakr's secular and spiritual roles were incidental and have caused confusion to many who do not understand the distinction of the two roles as laid out in Quran and Sunna - La ikra ha fideen - there is no compulsion in matters of faith. You need to reconcile this verse of the Quran with your erroneous understanding.
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/12/11 11:10 AM
And I do have to get some sleep. All-nighters at my age take a heavy toll. The Web's "War in the heavens" isn't going to end today.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Good night, then. And thanks for your insights ...
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/12/11 11:01 AM
"You must be speaking of end-times or some such thing, given your spiritual approach. We tend to believe it is all more secular than that. The modern conspiracy started about 300 years ago with the founding of the Illuminati, from what we can tell ... "
Not "end times," rather "end of the age." And of course it's "secular" ~ that's what "religion" addresses, the ways to deal with material existence, "secular" matters.
The Bavarian Illuminati, expelled from the Lodge long ago, is a diversion. Their independent power is virtually nonexistent, they have to move others to act for them.
Those "others" owe them nothing at all, and have a different agenda. And what you call "the modern conspiracy" was formed in the time of Solomon and has been running ever since.
The Illuminati are pawns in another game.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Not "end times," rather "end of the age." And of course it's "secular" ~ that's what "religion" addresses, the ways to deal with material existence, "secular" matters.
DB: Definition of SECULAR (Webster)
1 a : of or relating to the worldly or temporal
b : not overtly or specifically religious
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The Bavarian Illuminati, expelled from the Lodge long ago, is a diversion. Their independent power is virtually nonexistent, they have to move others to act for them.
DB: We were not speaking of a specific order, merely the larger "Illuminati" as it is portrayed today.
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Those "others" owe them nothing at all, and have a different agenda. And what you call "the modern conspiracy" was formed in the time of Solomon and has been running ever since.
DB: Thanks. You know this .... how?
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The Illuminati are pawns in another game.
DB: What game would that be? And what, then, is the previous game?
A lot of what you are writing now is vague and comprised of hints. Why so shy?
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/12/11 10:03 AM
"Obviously we think it's something more than business as usual. Also there is the matter of the Illuminati hand-signals and the evident numerology ... The Rothschild's Supreme Court building in Israel, etc."
That's all "business as usual," a regular progression that started with Noah, with some fundamental elements dating back to Adam. It's basically very simple, but elaborate, and totally "religious" in every aspect ~ it has to do with human evolution, which is continuous and continuing, and entropy.
We're at a particular juncture in human history, a quantum change is underway. It has been going on for at least a century, and may be going on for another three or more. It's so slow and incremental that it's almost impossible to see except in the context of the entire history of humanity starting with Adam. There are several sequences of events that are partially underway that are dramatic, blatant, and momentous, and more to come, over which no one will have any meaningful control, or time to think about before they're overtaken by the events.
These changes will come as a surprise, although they shouldn't be a surprise for anyone, and from completely unexpected directions. They will not all be pleasant for everyone. Life as we know it will be a quickly fading memory for our grandchildren. Nothing will happen "overnight" to change the course of anyone's life, any change in anyone's course will only lead to an already-unavoidable outcome. Stability will return in a way that no one alive today can even imagine, and life will go on as it has been, without any "unimaginable" change that anyone can see, but the experience of life will be utterly different for everybody. The histories of this period will read like a science fiction fantasy, but we will not experience it as "unordinary."
We've all been watching this for our entire lives, but for the most part not seeing it. We've been studying it here for forty years, and it's been moving like a Swiss watch, one second after another with entirely predictable precision. It's awesome, majestic, glacial, and as immense as the birth, life, and death of a star ~ and that's just from the empirical data, with no "theory" or "speculation" or "hypothesis" involved in the slightest. It's not a matter of "prophecy," we're not prophets ~ we're just witnesses. Our distant descendants will look back on us and wonder how we kept our sanity, not realizing that we didn't; and wondering how we came through it with our lives intact, not realizing that we didn't do that, either.
But that's all "business as usual," the steady march of human evolution, no "leaps of faith" or "meteoric rises," just the usual humdrum of everyday existence while the universe changes around us. Like life today and throughout the distant past, it's not all "pretty"; but it's not all nightmare, either.
It's just what we were born to see.
Reply from The Daily Bell
But that's all "business as usual," the steady march of human evolution, no "leaps of faith" or "meteoric rises," just the usual humdrum of everyday existence while the universe changes around us. Like life today and throughout the distant past, it's not all "pretty"; but it's not all nightmare, either.
You seem a wise and studious person. All right then, what is it we were "born to see." What are these "changes" we shall bear witness to. You must be speaking of end-times or some such thing, given your spiritual approach. We tend to believe it is all more secular than that. The modern conspiracy started about 300 years ago with the founding of the Illuminati, from what we can tell ...
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/12/11 07:56 AM
The Daily Bell software made broken links that don't lead to two of the pages I listed. All three are below in the order of their appearance in my comment:
http:// blog. sojo. net
http: //www. Click to view link index.htm#with1
http: //www. asmasociety. org
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/12/11 07:51 AM
"Here is a question respectfully placed to Shaykh al-Hajj Dawud Ahmad al-Amriki, M.S.J.D. Are you involved in the Cordoba Initiative - the mosque being built at the tip of Manhattan that was so much in the news not long ago?"
You have copied and pasted, in your post, what I suspect is my total "involvement" in Cordoba House ~ a comment I posted to their web blog. I think I posted elsewhere concerning the foul attacks on 'Abdur-Ra'uf during the campaign season (to which he wisely did not reply or respond in any way). And of course the first two hundred pages of my comments at Click to view link, the Christian Sojourners' discussion forum, discussed the attack by the enemies of humanity on the Cordoba Initiative ~ you can read those pages from Click to view link in a downloadable Acrobat file from The Priceless Muslim America Bookstore (where there are no prices).
Should you do so, and read footnotes, you will find that I live in Washington State, on the other end of the country from Manhattan ~ a place I've never visited. You will also discover that I am a fundamentalist muslim shaykh of orthodox tasawwuf, while it should not be difficult for you to discover that 'Abdur-Ra'uf is a rather more heterodox "Sufi" (with a capital "S" in what appears to be his wife's Click to view link American Sufi Muslim Association) muslim moving in a socio-political environment with which I have no connection whatever.
You may also discover that I am "known" almost nowhere, to no more than a few very private people, none of whom have "household names," and that most of the four thousand letter-size pages of exposition and comment I have written onto the Web in fifteen years is now available only on the Muslim America website.
I suspect that I know more than 'Abdur-Ra'uf does about some of the so-called "secret societies" he appears to be involved with (that I am not), and I'm certain that I am much more "in touch" with Muslim America, with which he appears to have little or no connection or awareness except at some points of the "prominence" strata of figureheads and Rose Garden photo-ops. His associations may condemn him in the eyes of some, but like other muslim advocates and "leaders" who have not remained "below the radar," that is where God has placed him and I'm sure his works and sacrifices will benefit the faithful of all religions in America as well as those with no particular faith or none, and himself in this life and in the next. He has his work, I have mine, and the likelihood of there being any "involvement" of either with the other is probably between zero and none.
"It seems so ... "
You will find me in many places where the enemies of humanity have organized secretive parties to deceive Americans about Islam, as well as in some places where people have expressed a desire to know more about Islam, religion in general, history that until recently was almost completely unknown in America's educational and information media, or simple rational common sense about economics, politics, media duplicity, or related subjects. Generally I write to readers according to their understanding, which people unfamiliar with American "executive dissonance," "selective history," and "occultist imagination" are generally unable to do.
As for what you quoted from "Phoenix," Cordoba House has never been represented by anyone associated with it as "a genuine masjid (mosque) in the traditional Islamic sense," it is a "community center" like your local YMCA, supported by Jewish, Christian, muslim, and secularist leaders in Manhattan, which lacks a "community center" accessible to the business districts. The "esoteric significance" of the numbers 12 and 13 is not remotely "occult," the symbolism on the US one-dollar bill is commonly understood by anyone who has done the slightest amount of research or "investigation."
And "Internationalist Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf" is associated with more "powerhouse" organizations than Phoenix even knows exist ~ their interest in his work is only a "secret" to those ignorant of the oligarchic history of humanity from Day One. Those caught up in the "Globalist Conspiracy" to "control the world" are seemingly oblivious to the obvious fact that those they imagine to be "seeking power" do not need to "seek" it ~ they have always had it, and simply change the public face of it, as needed, to keep it.
"Occupy Wall Street," like "The Arab Spring" and the deceptively-named "Islamophobia," is somewhat interesting in this regard; Phoenix is not. This whole business is no more "occult" than a Moose Lodge or a pack of Cub Scouts, it's not "hidden," you can read all about it in the CFR's journal, "Foreign Affairs," and in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. It's only "esoteric" and "occult" to those without a clue that they're being conned by people playing on their imaginations.
People deceive and oppress themselves ~ they don't need any particular help, but there's always someone around ready to make a buck by "helping" them dive into the spaghetti bowl of politico-economic administration. Americans (and others) are being herded toward a revolution in order to tighten the screws on the wage-slaves, debt-slaves, and corporate slaves who imagine that "representative democracy" is not a scam. It's just "business as usual" that sells newspapers. It's not some kind of "mystery."
Reply from The Daily Bell
Obviously we think it's something more than business as usual. Also there is the matter of the Illuminati hand-signals and the evident numerology ... The Rothschild's Supreme Court building in Israel, etc.
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Posted by ankaboot on 11/12/11 03:28 AM
Postscript:
"Ankabut - Spider (strange or apt choice of name?)."
What other creature is at home in a web?
Would it spoil your summer were I to use "Shaykh al-Hajj Dawud Ahmad al-Amriki, M.S.J.D." instead of a "name" appropriate to the Web, and a picture of me for my avatar that isn't older than you are?
Reply from The Daily Bell
Here is a question respectfully placed to Shaykh al-Hajj Dawud Ahmad al-Amriki, M.S.J.D. Are you involved in the Cordoba Initiative - the mosque being built at the tip of Manhattan that was so much in the news not long ago?
Perhaps Shaykh al-Amriki, if by chance he visits here again, can let us know if this is the case. It seems so ...
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Here is a feedback we found on the Cordoba Initiative blog (‘Abdur-Ra’uf) is a major supporter of the Cordoba Initiative ...
Click to view link
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ankaboot
What appears to be being missed in all this is that ALLAH ta’ala has started in America the process to which Imam ‘Abdur-Ra’uf has devoted his life: increasing meaningful cooperation among people of all faiths. The “controversy” has again attracted the attention of responsible Americans to Islam. The reality is that when Islam is made known to Christians according to their understanding, they recognize it as differing from their own religions almost not at all.
Since first visiting the Cordoba Initiative website in the first week of August, I have written over 400 “comments” at the Christian Sojourners’ Click to view link (linked on the Cordoba home page), comprising over 160,000 words articulating Islam in American idiomatic English ~ speaking to people according to their understanding. I have also written comments in other Christian web forums, as well as continuing lengthy private eMail conversations with Christian ministers and laity.
The “Welcome” I have received has been phenomenal, and from just two of the web forums, according to our web logs, seventy people in August and 35 people in the first half of September have visited the Muslim America website at Click to view link and seventy people in August and forty in the first half of September have visited our “Welcome, Strangers!” page at Click to view link which contains the reported hadith “God will bring them together to join Jesus the son of Mary” which appears, from all evidences, to refer to us, in our time.*
And this is just the experience of one muslim charged with making Islam known to people. Others of Muslim America have reported similar experiences, both on-line and in their neighborhoods. What the enemies of humanity have tried to stop, they have instead accelerated.
This is why the “71% opposed” August polls have not been superseded by fresh polls that would show a massive drop in opposition as Americans learn that they’ve been brazenly deceived about Cordoba House, about Islam, and about their nineteen million American muslim neighbors.
The time is at hand, muslims. Go meet your neighbors. Take gifts of dates and figs and refuse to “argue” about dogma and doctrine. Let them know that as a Christian-majority country, America should be a “Christian country” according to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount; and that God has charged us to protect and defend that, while we live in a Muslim America that is more free to practice our religion according to our understanding than in any other country in the world ~ which is what we have been doing in America for over a century and eight generations of minding our own business and being respectable citizens.
ALLAH is changing the face of America.
Shaykh al-Hajj Dawud Ahmad al-Amriki*
Masjid al-Amr, Muslim America
hajj@Click to view link
*The appearance here of our understandings does not constitute endorsement or agreement by anyone of the Cordoba Initiative of any of those understandings.
Permalink, Reply
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And then there is this ...
By Click to view link (For Immediate Release)
8-19-10 © 2010 Click to view link
PHOENIX (Click to view link)- Why 12 blocks away from ground zero? Why 13 stories high? I'll tell you why... Because this mosque is not a genuine masjid (mosque) in the traditional Islamic sense.
The numbers 12, and 13 are clearly esoteric and occult in nature.
The ground zero mosque has everything to do with the * Carnegie Corporation of New York * Rockefeller Brothers * Rockefeller Philanthropy * Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Internationalist Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam who speaks frequently at:
Council on Foreign Relations (David Rockefeller)
YPO, (Young President's Organization - Rockefeller)
World Economic Forum in Davos (Bilderberg elite Banksters)
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