ISLAMIC CENSORSHIP

HOW ALLAH HAS NIPPED YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW
by Howard Bloom, paleobiologist.

On Friday August 22, 2003, Howard Bloom gave permission to Jonathan Walther via email to post this article on the Internet. It is taken from pages 321-326 of the April 2003 edition of Abuse Your Illusions.

Ever since October 18, 1899, when the American Anti-Imperialist League declared that "the subjugation of any people is 'criminal aggression,'" we've heard valid and disturbing complaints about how badly Western imperialism has damaged the nations of Africa, Asia, and South America. But imagine what life would have been like in the West if the tables of imperialism had been turned on us.

Suppose that Europe had been invaded by a power infinitely stronger than that of any piddling Euro-king in, let's say, 711 AD. Imagine that the armies of the imperialist invaders were so strong that they eventually overran the known earth, taking India, Russia, parts of China, Central Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and a slab of Africa as large as a daisy chain of the Australias. Imagine that these international aggressors were determined to convert people to a more "advanced" way of life. Imagine that they used the persuaders of swords, gunpowder, and the biggest cannons this planet had ever seen. Imagine that the Mediterranean Sea was turned by navies of their New World Order to a pool of war for a millennium or more. Imagine that Spain, Portugal, Malta, Sicily, and the Italian provinces of Piedmont, Montferrat, and Liguria had fallen, and that Narbonne, in France, had been seized. Imagine that huge swatches of Eastern Europe — including Poland, Romania, and massive pizza slices of the Balkans and the Ukraine — had been swallowed entirely. Imagine that the monolithic masters of subjugation had sailed up the river Tiber and fought their way into Rome. Imagine that the Black Sea had been set aside by these conquerors as their "private lake."

Imagine that the coasts of Italy, England, and Ireland had been raided over and over again, the men killed, the women and children snatched as slaves. Imagine that the coasts of Italy, England, and Ireland had been raided over and over again, the men killed, the women and children snatched as slaves. Imagine that the good-looking ones had been penned up with hundreds of others from around the world to feed a decadent dictator's sexual cravings. Imagine that the European sex-slaves had included not just pretty girls, but also the attractive younger boys.

Imagine that the imperialist powers had periodically swept parts of the European landscape for white babies, tearing them from their nursing mothers' nipples and raising the infants to be cannon fodder, forced to fight ferociously for the cause of the "higher" civilization. Imagine that this enthusiasm for the subjugation of Westerners, Asians, and Far Easterners had lasted more than 1,200 years. And imagine that you were not allowed to read about it. No book on these atrocities could be published in the English language.

You would be in the dark, forming opinions without a clue about your own people's history. If the old Imperialist enslaver geared up to seize you once again, you would never know that he once had held you by the throat, and that his grip had rivaled in duration the life and death of civilization. Your ability to assess the seriousness of new threats from the seasoned nation-crusher would be profoundly crippled.

Grisly science fiction? No. Every detail of this imperialist nightmare happened. The whole scenario is true.

We flatter ourselves when we claim to have been the biggest, baddest exploiters since the Fall of the Roman Empire. Yes, the West spent 195 years on eight crusades to take a territory (the Christian "Holy Land") the size of a postage stamp. Yes, the West filled the streets of Jerusalem in 1099 with so much blood it literally welled up to the European butchers' ankles. Yes, the West briefly held 75 percent of the globe's landmass under its thumb. Yes, the West used foreign kings and queens like Kleenex to wipe its control-snorting nose. And, yes, the West killed off tens of millions of Native Americans through starvation and disease, then snatched the Middle East like a rag doll and waggled it humiliatingly for nearly 50 years.

But we are mere midgets of an Empire. We spent most of the last 1,500 years cooped up in a corner by the real giants of the capture-and-colonialization game.

If you are white, you are probably descended from one of the survivors who was not enslaved by these champions of people-chomping. Your ancestors are among the lucky ones who dodged being kidnapped and raised as battle-bots for a foreign power. Miguel Cervantes — the author of Don Quixote — was not so fortunate. He lost his left hand in a war of liberation against the predators, was captured, sold into slavery, and was kept in a central holding pen for Christian prisoners of the Empire for five years. The characters in Voltaire's Candide were forced to brave the Mediterranean Sea when it was patrolled by war fleets whose imperial propagandists bragged that their admirals totally "mastered" these waters. Voltaire's heroine, Cunegonde, was taken as a sex slave for a ruler of the rampaging military machine. Voltaire's fiction was a mere reflection of Europe's longstanding reality.

Even the young United States became involved, storming the parasitic exploiters' naval headquarters on the shores of Tripoli. The last European lands did not slip out of the oppressors' hands until 100 years ago. And some of those lands are now being fingered by the minions of tyranny once again.

Asia has not been so fortunate. Nor has Africa. In Mauritania and the Sudan, blacks are still enslaved by the thousands every year. Huge chunks of these continents remain a part of the old Empire, an Empire breathing heavily through its mask like Darth Vader, certain that its youth will bloom again. And convinced that in the next go-round, we won't stand a chance.

Those who've waged this assault on the West are the forces of Islam.

You've heard of our despicable Crusades. They went on for less than 200 years. The holy wars of Islam have ground on for over 1,300 years — 65 generations. Islam's modern historians brag to their own people about "the history of Muslim rule in Europe." The scholars' goal? "To remind the Muslim Ummah of its glorious past" — and perhaps to hint at its glorious future. On an English-language Website designed to gather Western recruits to Jihad, Dr. Mohsin Frooqi crows with pride about the days when Islam's troops brought "terror to the inhabitants of Corsica, Sardinia, Pisa and Genoa," "massacred the males" of Montferrat, and "devastated the cities and villages [of England and Ireland] and carried away booty and captives." Farooqi gloats over the fact that, "The terror of Muslim invaders along the old Danube highway hung over Europe for centuries," and that, "The yoke of Tatar Government remained on the necks of Russians for two hundred and fifty years."

Some of the Muslim world's most influential twenty-first century leaders say it is a sacred duty of Allah's 400 million men to resume the Empire's blessed campaigns, to yank all nations of this Earth into a global caliphate.


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Yet this thousand-year-plus Jihad against the West is not in your history books. It isn't on TV. And it isn't likely to be.

There is an Islamic loophool in our freedom of speech. In the 1990s, a British historical author, Paul Fregosi, was commissioned to write a book about the Islamic crusades against Europe. By April 1997, he had nearly finished the manuscript. Then his publisher, Little, Brown (a part of the AOL Time Warner media octopus), was approached very quietly by Islamic groups. Executives in the British offices of the publishing house had visions of bombs and cut throats dancing in their heads. They did what their polite Islamic visitors demanded. Without uttering a word to the public, they cancelled Paul Fregosi's book. The leading French news agency, Agence France-Presse, was the only media outlet with the guts to cover the tale. It did so in just one brief 254-word piece, then dropped the issue entirely. As an editor at Little, Brown told Fregosi: "We've got to play the game according to Muslim rules."

My publisher — Atlantic Monthly Press — was also threatened in June 1996 because my book, The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of Hisotry, rips off the masks disguising violence in every society, including the societies of Islam. Arab prsesure groups asked ever so politely that The Luciver Principle be withdrawn from print and that nothing that I write be published again. They offered to boycott my publisher's products — all of them — worldwide. And they backed their warning with a call for my punishment in seventeen Islamic countries.

We flatter ourselves when we claim to have been the biggest, baddest exploiters since the fall of the Roman Empire. In my case, punishment merely meant condemnation as a racist throughout the Islamic world, four years of denunciation on Islamic Websites from Michigan to Pakistan, an orchestrated campaign of negative readers' reviews on Amazon.com, an international letter-writing campaign to my publisher, and an attempt to stop the purchase or use of my books in universities and other places where they've gained popularity.

But if you want to know what real Islamic punishment means, ask the following people:

Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie, who has been in hiding since February 1989 because of a worldwide Islamic fatwa calling for his death issued by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. A militant Iranian group backed up the death sentence by offering a .8 million reward for Rushdie's murder. Despite reports to the contrary, the fatwa has not been lifted. In 1998, the Iranian parliament declared that only Allah or the person who issued the fatwa can rescind it. Since Khomeini is dead and Allah ain't talking, the death sentence remains technically in effect. The parlieament did say that it would do nothing to enforce the murderous decree, but the multimillion-dollar bounty remains in effect, and radical Muslim groups have continued to say that they will rub Rushdie out. He has become somewhat more visible, but he still keeps a pretty low profile and doesn't announce public appearances in advance.

Other people who've had a hand in the Satanic Verses. In issuing his fatwa, Khomeini called for the death not only of Rushdie but also of "all involved in its publication who were aware of its content." As of September 1998, according to the BBC, the book's Japanese translator had been stabbed to death, its Italian translator was non-fatally knifed, and its Norwegian publisher survived being shot.

Writer, poet, and doctor Taslima Nasrin, whose 1992 novel Laffa [Shame] touched off deadly riots in her native Bangladesh and triggered a Muslim death sentence on her head (she's now in hiding in Sweden). Her comments on the Koran and the treatment of women in Islam have further enraged those who wish her harm. In September 2002, a court in Bangladesh found her guilty in absentia of offending Muslims and sentenced her to a year in prison.

Playwright Terence McNally, who is the victim of a fatwa calling for his execution should he ever enter an Islamic nation. His crime: portraying Jesus as gay in Corpus Christi. Since Jesus is a minor prophet in Islam, an offense unto him is now apparently grounds for for a Muslim death decree.

Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel, who wrote a column prior to her country's scheduled hosting of the 2002 Miss World Pageant. She dared to say: "The Muslims thought it was immoral to bring 92 women to Nigeria and ask them to revel in vanity. What would Mohammed think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from one of them." These words triggered three days of riots that claimed the lives of more than 220 people. A government official in the Nigerian state of Zamfara issued a fatwa declaring: "Like Salman Rushdie, the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed. It is binding on all Muslims, wherever they are, to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty." Daniel is now hiding in the US.

Amal Kashua, a mother of eight, and Amir (last name unknown). These two members of Israel's Muslim minority starred in the first Israeli Arab porn film. Both of them have been severely beaten by mobs, and Kashua's family has said that they will kill her.

Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, whose neck carries a knife wound meant to end his life. His novel Children of Gebalawi (a/k/a Children of the Alley) — which indirectly depicts Mohammed, Jesus, and Moses as members of the working class — and his defense of Salman Rushdie led to the fatwa Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette. The creator of the comic strip Kudzu and syndicated political cartoons offered an acid take on Islamic terrorism. Taking off on the What Would Jesus Drive? ad campaign (which implies that Christ wouldn't tool around in a gas-guzzling SUV), his late-December 2002 cartoon showed a man in Middle Eatern garb behind the wheel of a Ryder truck. In the back is a nuclear missile, and across the top of the panel is the text: "What Would Mohammed Drive?" The cartoon didn't run in the print edition of the Tallahassee Democrat (where Marlette is on staff), but it did appear briefly on the newspaper's Website before being yanked off. Muslim groups howled, and Marlette was inundated with over 4,500 emails. "They all demanded an apology," he wrote. "Quite a few threatened mutilation and death."

As an editor at Little, Brown told Fregosi: "We've got to play the game acording to Muslim rules." It is too late to get the opinions of Islamist/feminist write Konca Kuris, who was kidnapped, tortured, and killed by Hezbollah in the Turkish town of Konya in 1998, or of Turkish secularist and newspaper columnist Ahmet Taner Kislali, who died when a bomb went off beneath the hood of his car the following year.

While Paul Fregosi's book was being stifled and mine was under attack, Simon & Schuster, part of the Viacom media goliath, withdrew a children's book because the Islamic activists demanded it. The execs at S&S say that publishing World Religions: Great Lives by respected historian William Jay Jacobs had been an editorial mistake. The error? An illustration of the prophet Mohammed with a sword in his hand. Said the Muslim pressure groups, the painting was defamatory. Also, the section on Mohammed opens with this paragraph:

Muhammed. The Prophet (or "Messenger of God"). During his lifetime he was a man who loved beautiful women, fine perfume, and tasty food. He took pleasure in seeing the heads of his enemies torn from their bodies by the swords of his soldiers. He hated Christians and Jews, poets and painters, and anyone who criticized him. Once he had a Jewish prisoner tortured in order to learn the location of the man's hidden treasure. Then, having uncovered the secret, he had his victim murdered and added the dead man's wife to the collection of women in his harem.

The illustration that caused "Great Lives: World Religions" to be destroyed (Simon & Schuster)

Because of this paragraph and the painting of the entire book — which contains biographies of 32 major figures of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Asian religions — was recalled, and it remains out of print. Simon & Schuster sent a letter of apology to the Council on Islamic-American relations.

Was the portrayal of Mohammed in World Religions: Great Lives accurate? Mohammed ordered a minimum of 27 military raids, and personally led nine of them. That information comes from one of Islam's most popular modern biographies of Mohammed, a 120-page book published in Lahore, Pakistan, by Islamic Publications Ltd and distributed worldwide, but only in Islamic bookshops. The slender volume is Sarwat Saulat's The Life of the Prophet. Unless you are a potential convert to Islam, this is a book that Muslims do not want you to see.

The most influential twentieth-century interpreter of the Koran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, told all Muslims who would listen that military conquest was an obligation of all Godly men... including the Prophet Mohammed. "The leaders of our religion were all soldiers, commanders, and warriors," he wrote. "They put on military dress and went into battle in the wars that are described for us in our history; they killed, and they were killed. The Commander of the Faithful himself [Mohammed] (upon whom be peace) would place a helmet on his blessed head, don his coat of chain mail, and gird on a sword." So why was Simon & Schuster forced to withdraw a children's book that showed a picture of Mohammed with a sword in his hand? Because this is one of Islam's treasured views of its founder. But you are not allowed to know it.

In the late 1990s, a cabal of globally interlinked Islamic groups devised a strategy: "offer" major publishers access to "Islamic experts" who would screen books in advance. Said the letter the Islamic groups sent to my publisher: "We... invite the Atlantic Monthly Press to consult with Muslim Americans (we can provide a list of scholars) prior to the publication of materials that deal with Muslim issues in order to avert defamation in the future." These wise men would tell publishers in advance which manuscripts should not be published, which books — like Simon & Schuster's children's reader — would be offensive to the Muslim community. To put it differently, these Islamic censors would ever so gently prevent you and me from peering into the everyday beliefs and rhetoric of the world-wide Islamic community.

Just to let Atlantic Monthly Press know it was not alone, the letter added that the publisher would merely be falling into line with what was becoming a common practice. The letter made it abundantly clear that "other publishers" had already caved in to the pressure groups' generous offer.

Publishers are heroes who stand up for truth, right? Except when their knees buckle and they kiss the floor in fear. Every publishing house approached with the pre-censorship deal kept silent. Many of them allowed the secret censors in. The press did not know it. Even the censorship watchdogs at the Authors Guild and the American Booksellers Association, sincerely pledged to uphold freedom of the press, didn't have a clue.

As of September 1998, according to the BBC, the book's Japanese translator had been stabbed to death, its Italian translator was non-fatally knifed, and its Norwegian publisher survived being shot. I knew it only because the Islamic groups had accidentally made me an insider when they attacked me back in 1991. Omni Magazine had printed an early version of a chapter on the Lucifer Principle, the book I was writing at the time. Muslim activists disliked the fact that the piece, "The Importance of Hugging," mentioned that it is taboo in many Muslim societies for a husband and a wife to hold hands, much less kiss, in public. The article cited scientific studies and research from an Arab sociologist indicating that this lack of physical affection may be one reason Islamic societies have a tendency to produce violence. The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee took exception to the very notion that Islamic violence exists, and picketed Omni's offices for four days and nights.

I always thought Bob Guccione, Sr., the owner of Omni and Penthouse, had guts. Heck, back in the 1960s and 1970s, Guccione had peeled the cover off of one shabby CIA plot after another — a practice that could have put him in considerable danger. But when the Muslim activists showed up in the lobby of his building, Bob Sr. ordered his staff to keep their mouths shut. When Omni staffers were pelted with questions from reporters, none was allowed to utter even so much as a "no comment".

When reporters called Omni asking for my response to the protests, my phone number was kept secret and I was told nothing. That's the way Guccione wanted it. Why did his staff follow orders? Why were they so meek? Because high-level Omni employees were literally shaking with terror, wondering when an Islamic bomb would turn them from yuppies to Alpo splatter.

I had no idea the protests were taking place until a six-column head-line about the demonstrations hit the New York Post. Then Pan Am Flight 103 was downed over Lockerbie, Scotland, by an Islamic terrorist's bomb, and the protestors swiftly and silently melted away.

Since then, the Islamic activists have learned that staging noisy protests doesn't pay. They big prize comes from arriving in "diplomatic" stealth. The mere presence of Islamic representatives in a publisher's office has the effect of a visit from enforcers of a Mafia don. People will do anything the Muslim delegation asks just to stay alive. And the victims will remain silent about the deals they make to buy Muslim activists off... as silent as if their tongues had been torn out.

There's a reason for this secrecy. Big-time authors, the ones who can make a publisher rich, hate censorship and will often refuse to sign with companies that are under a censor's thumb. If it's known that a publishing company has made a pre-censorship deal, that publishing house is shamed in public by elite organizations like the Authors Guild and the writers' international anti-censhorship group PEN. So Viacom's Simon & Schuster; AOL Time Warner's Little, Brown; and even my publisher, the independant Atlantic Monthly Press, do not want these author's groups to know a thing.

This fear of being caught in the act of censorship saved my book, The Lucifer Principle, from the shredder. After I'd spent four frantic days trying to find allies who would help defend Lucifer's right to exist, my agent, Richard Curtis, put me in touch with the Authors Guild's chief attorney. He wrote a letter to Atlantic Monthly Press explaining that the Guild would be forced to notify its members if Atlantic surrendered to the pressure groups and yanked my book. Atlantic Monthly Press was caught between two perils. On the one hand, it could risk the worldwide amputation of cash flow threatened in the letter from the Muslims, who wrote that "we intend to inform 52 countries, members of the Organization of Islamic Conference and thousands of Islamic Centers in America, Canada and Europe to boycott all Atlantic Monthly Press publications." On the other hand, it could take a chance on being shunned by the top authors in North America, Britain, and Europe.

The executives at Atlantic Monthly Press compromised. They asked me to rewrite a key chapter on Islamic violence — this time citing every gory Koranic reference by sura and verse. The facts in The Lucifer Principle had already been triple-checked. But when I was forced to dig deeper, the resulting rewrite, with it's 358 lines of footnotes, was far more damning to militant Islam than the original.

An author can be bankrupted or have his or her health destroyed by the pressures of a court case. Even a large organization like the Jewish Anti-Defamation League can be silenced by court actions. When I was under attack, I asked for aid from the ADL. One of it's top officers told me, "We can't touch this. We're already in enough trouble." He referred to a court case leveled against the ADL in America by Muslim groups in 1993. That case dragged on until February 2002. Eleven years of bills from a squad of lawyers who each charge or more per hour for their services add up fast. If that case had dragged on long enough, legal costs could have bled the ADL dry. As it was, it bled the ADL into silence.

Meanwhile, in 1997, when Paul Fregosi came under attack, I tracked down his home phone number in England and called him to offer support. He seemed confused about why his book had been hailed so enthusastically by its publisher during its early manuscript stages, then had been abruptly turned down. I told him of my own experiences with Islamic pressure groups and tried to explain the force that had been brought to bear against his publisher. It was a hard story for him to believe. I gathered the facts and wrote them up to encourage journalists at publications like the New York Times and The New Republic to come to Fregosi's defense. It turned out that the problem was worse than I had realized. Television networks and film studios were also targets of Islamic censorship. Even Disneyland would later be attacked by a Cairo meeting of Arab Foreign Ministers, who put together a committee that included "representatives of the Arab League, American Arab-Islamic organisations and Palestinians" to police Disney's depiction of Jerusalem.

In the late 1990s, a cabal of globally interlinked Islamic groups devised a strategy: "offer" major publishers access to "Islamic experts" who would screen books in advance. All of the media outlets I contacted shied away from the censorship story. Only The American Reporter, a Website dedicated to investigative journalism, printed an article on the subject. It deemed that bit of news so important that it led the day's edition with an editorial decrying Islamic efforts to muzzle the Western press.

Paul Fregosi's book, retitled Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries, was eventually published by a small press in Buffalo, New York, that prides itself on its crusading efforts — Paul Kurtz's Prometheus Books. Kurtz is a verteran fighter against right-wing Christian fundamentalism and pseudoscience. He's the founder and chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), founder and chairman of the Council for Secular Humanism, and President of the International Academy of Humanism. Which makes him one of the few publishers left who enjoys a good fight... especially one against religious extremists, no matter what god they are beholden to.

By the time Jihad in the West was ready for distribution, Fregosi had finally come to understand what he was up against. Prometheus' Webpage dedicated to Fregosi's book contains the following quote from him: "There's an intention to censor what's going on about Islam, more so than for any other religion."

Meanwhile, the Islamic censorship campaign moved from freedom of the press to freedom of speech — the freedom to talk out loud about Islam. Brigitte Bardot, the former sex goddess of the cinema, had become an activist for animal rights. She protested in two newspaper interviews with the French daily Le Figaro that ritual Islamic methods of slaughter were cruel. In 1997, she was taken to court in Paris for inciting racism by a French pro-Islamic group called The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between People. Bardot lost the case and was fined 2,000 francs. A lawyer for The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between People explained her interpretation of France's "liberty, equality, and fraternity" like this: "[R]acist insult is illegal... [T]he law on feredom of the press... prohibits insults... for books,... public speeches and also private speeches between two people or private letters." Islam has claimed the right in France to sue you for what you say in confidence to your friends.

In 2002, the Islamic movement against Western freedom of speech was still gaining momentum. During an interview with the French magazine Lire (which means "To Read"), French novelist Michel Houellebecq called Islam "the most stupid religion" and went on to give his opinion of the Muslim holy book: "When you read the Koran, you give up. At least the Bible is very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent." Offensive statements? Yes. Protected by the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights guaranteeing "freedom of opinion and expression; [including the] freedom to... seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media"? Yes. Or so you'd think.

To quote an article written by Salman Rushdie — the great veteran of Islamic censorship — in the Washington Post, "[T]he largest mosques in Paris and Lyon, the National Federation of French Muslims and the World Islamic League — accused [Houellebecq] of `making a racial insult' and of `inciting religious hatred.'" These organizations pooled their considerable funds (think "oil money") and took Houellebecq to court. Houellebecq was eventually exonerated.

As this was happening, legendary Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci was also in court. Her offense? In the months after 9/11, she had written a book — Anger and Pride (a/k/a Rage and Pride) — trying to wake the West up to the goals of the people we trivialize as "terrorists" — the Osama bin Laden-style mujahedin, makers of Holy War. "You don't understand," she wrote, "you don't want to understand, that for those Reverse Crusaders the West is a world to conquer and subjugate to Islam." Some of her thoughts were quite harsh, as when she says that Muslims "multiply like rats" and that "the children of Allah spend their time with their bottoms in the air, praying five times a day." Fallaci received death threats. Several groups sued to ban the publication of her book in France. When Fallaci hired a lawyer, the attorney also was threatened with death. In November 2002, the case was thrown out of court on a technicality (it had been improperly filed). One of the groups has vowed to refile the complaint.

Then, as if to add a touch of irony, an American group supporting Muslim holy war claimed the protection of freedom of expression guaranteed by the American Bill of Rights. The Global Relief Fund, a Muslim charity organization operating out of Illinois, was added to the US government's list of terrorist organizations. The reason? Its publications — publications you are not meant to see — solicit donations for violent Jihad in hotspots all over the world. A lawyer and spokesman for the fund, Ashraf Nubani, was outraged. This was a denial of freedom of speech, and worse, of freedom of religion. Some of the statements the authorities considered bloodthirsty had come directly from the Koran, a book filled with phrases like the following:

Come fight in the way of Allah... kill them wherever you find them... then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers. You shall soon be invited (to fight) against a people possessing mighty prowess; you will fight against them until they submit... The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Apostle and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution or crucifixion or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides... Say to the unbelievers if (now) they desist (from unbelief) their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist... fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere... Then Praise be to Allah Lord of the heavens and Lord of the earth Lord and Cherisher of all the worlds!
Said Nubani, "By quoting from foundation publications advocating that Muslims donate funds for jihad or struggle, the government is attacking Islam itself. You may not like it, but [financially supporting jihad] is part of the religion."


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By now, the number of Islamic facts you haven't been allowed to read is somewhere in the tens of thousands. If the secret pre-censors have their way, you may never understand why Osama bin Laden repeatedly vows to end 80 years of "humiliation and disgrace" — the 80 years since the global Islamic Empire of the Turks was carved up and its sinews slit, the 80 years in which the Holy Lands of Allah were divided into Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and numerous others — all false Western creations designed to strip Islam of its military unity and of its worldwide might.

You may never understand why one of Sunni Islam's top clerics, sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, declares on his television programs that "Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor." You may never understand why one of Sunni Islam's top clerics, Sheikh Youself Al-Qaradhawi, declares on his television programs that "Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor." You may never hear about Khartoum, Sudan's imam Sheikh Muhammad Abd Al-Karim, who preaches to the congregation of his mosque that, "The Prophet said that the Muslims would take India..." And you may never be forewarned that an imam who presides over Saudi Arabia's mosque of King Fahd Defense Academy, Sheikh Muhammad bin Abd Al-Rahman Al-'Arifi, preaches and posts Website articles insisting, "We will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it. Yes, the Christians, who carve crosses on the breasts of the Muslims in Kosovo — and before then in Bosnia, and before then in many places in the world — will yet pay us the Jiziya [the tax Muslim rulers exact from unbelievers], in humiliation, or they will convert to Islam."

You may never understand the goals of the Middle Eastern military cells now planted in the cities of Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Spain, and North America. You may never realize why Osama views Islamic mini-wars around the globe as part of a single battle for global purity, one that goes back in time to 640 AD. You may never know that Islamic militants are working mightily to gain control over "the Islamic Bomb" (i.e., Pakistan's atomic bombs) and over Pakistan's next-generation submarine-building shipyards... and the three 10,000-mile-range, missile-carrying subs those yards have built to date.

You will continue to read the propaganda about the West's horrible Crusades, and it is true. But you may never know about Islam's crusades against the West, and how much longer and more murderous they have been. Or how much more murderous their revival in an atomic, bio-savvy, wireless era may soon be.

A prayer bump or prayer scar, also known as a zabiba/zebiba/zebibah ("raisin" in Arabic), is a mark on the forehead of a Muslim, apparently due to the friction generated from the contact of the forehead with the prayer mat. Islam generally requires its adherents to pray five times a day (known as salah), which involves kneeling on a prayer mat and touching the ground with one's forehead. When done for extended periods of time, a prayer bump may develop. Some Muslims may consider the presence of a prayer bump to be a sign of religious dedication and piety. Some Muslims also believe that on the day of judgement, this bump will particularly fluoresce an immense white light.

The prayer bump can take the form of a discolouration of the skin, caused by repeated chafing and the build-up of callus. In extreme cases, the callus can be thick enough to create a real bump that protrudes from the forehead. They may also develop due to frequent prayer on hard surfaces such as stone floors.

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