Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Antisemitic Islamic preacher to return to Canada

From Judeoscope (Canada)

Yasir Qadhi, a Houston-based antisemitic preacher affiliated with the Salafi Al-Maghrib Institute (7,000 students in Canada and the US) is scheduled to speak at the Institute’s Ilm Fest on May 21 at Mississauga’s Living Arts Centre. Qadhi, who spoke one year ago at Montreal’s Assunah Al Nabawiah Mosque, teaches that Jews incurred God’s wrath and lost any claim to the Land of Israel, that “Hitler never intended to mass-destroy the Jews”, that Jews study Islam because “they want to destroy us [Muslims]”.

Sufi paths resist against Salafi Djihadi ways of thinking

From Souad Ziane of Echorouk online (Algeria)

Sheikh Sari continued speaking about the very “tolerant Islam preached in zawias,” “It is far from the Salafi Djihadi way”. The salafi way to teach Islam has been very popular during a period of time, when the salafi preachers accused us of being the state’s religious representatives in the area. “We have been through hard times and we could not speak”. Now the mureeds (followers) are so numerous that Sheikh Sari said the Sufi paths would be a tool in the “fight against the Salafi Djihadist ... The Zaouias (Sufi spiritual schools) have become powerful in political decisions since President Bouteflika has been touring the country and visiting every Zaouia in any area he visited.

U.S.-Iran Talks on Iraq Useful, But Unlikely to Produce Immediate Results

From Bernard Gwertzman at the Council on Foreign Relations

Q: What do you think Iran would like to see out of these talks, if anything?
Anthony H. Cordesman, CISC: From Iran’s viewpoint, in theory, it should feel that conciliation, rather than a Shiite-nominated government, offers more hope of long-term stability. Cooperation would give it a true partner, or at least, neighbor, in Iraq, and perhaps ease its strategic problems with the United States as well as the problems that seem to be growing between Sunni and Shiite states as a result of both the fighting inside Iraq and the fact that many of the neo-Salafi extremist movements like al-Qaeda are as much opposed to the Shiite sect as they are to people from the West. This is a rational argument, but the fact is the supreme leader and the president of Iran, and many of the military commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, are people motivated by ideology.

Senegal's Muslim brotherhood preaches hard work

From Daniel Flynn at Reuters

"If we took money from the Saudis to build our mosques, we'd have to pray the way they wanted," he said. While a rash of Saudi-built mosques in West Africa has stirred concerns of a rise in Wahhabi fundamentalism in the arid Sahel, the Mourides preach tolerance. Founded under the yoke of French colonialism in the 1880s, Mouridism values independence and personal religious fulfilment.

The 'dirty thieves' of Sadr City

From Pepe Escobar of Asia Times (HK)

A simple monument at the entrance of Al-Mustansariya University (older than the Sorbonne) commemorates the victims - mostly girls - of the horrific January bombing that killed 107 and wounded more than 280. Now female students attend classes twice a week at the most. The university still receives threats via the Internet from Salafi-jihadists to "stop education". Snipers routinely shoot university guards. This is considered by Salafi-jihadists a "Shi'ite university" - thus a prime target. Whatever happens politically in Iraq, most of Sunni Baghdad - and even secular, educated Shi'ites - still fear Sadr City. It is undeniably a class-struggle issue.

Karakorum – the region of insurgencies

From K. N. Pandita of the Kashmir Herald (India)

This reminds one of the demographic changes affected by General Musharraf in Gilgit and Baltistan during 1980s when he was the Corps Commander of Northern Areas. The Shia population of Gilgit and Baltistan was reduced to minority level by settling Sunni Wahhabi tribesman from other parts of NWFP in the area.