Thursday, April 30, 2015

Gov't Releases Pictures Of 4 Suspected Al Shabaab Militants

Teacher Who Fled NE Forced To Sell Second-Hand Clothes To Survive

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80-Year-Old Mpeketoni Woman Still Riding Bicycles And Motorbikes

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

France bans Muslim girl from school for black skirt


PRESS TV

Wed Apr 29, 2015 2:16AM
Sarah, a Muslim student in Charleville-Mezieres, France
Sarah, a Muslim student in Charleville-Mezieres, France
The case of a Muslim girl who has been banned from class twice for wearing long skirt has sparked outcry in France.
Earlier this month, the girl identified as Sarah, was stopped from going to class in the northeastern town of Charleville-Mezieres by the head teacher, who reportedly thought the long black skirt “conspicuously” showed religious affiliation, something that is strictly forbidden by France’s secular laws.
“The girl was not excluded, she was asked to come back with a neutral outfit and it seems her father did not want the student to come back to school,” Patrice Dutot, a local education official, told AFP on Tuesday.
The 15-year old student, however, told local daily newspaper L’Ardennais that her skirt was “nothing special, it’s very simple, there’s nothing conspicuous. There is no religious sign whatsoever.”
Sarah’s story has been trending on Twitter in France with the hashtag  #JePorteMaJupeCommeJeVeux, translated into English as “I wear my skirt as I please.”
According to the Committee against Islamophobia in France, known by its French acronym CCIF, some 130 students were banned from class last year for wearing outfits considered as too openly religious.
France has an extremely strict law forbidding displays of religion deemed ostentatious.
RS/MHB/AS
(12)

Boston Scientists Stumble Upon Prostate Breakthrough


The Clever Owl

Millions of Men Can Finally Sleep Through the Night Thanks to this Discovery

On Nov 20, 2014
(Boston) - Scientific discoveries often happen unintentionally. In the early 20th century, Alexander Fleming noticed that the mold growing on one of the culture plates in his lab was killing all of the bacteria, leading him to discover antibiotics. In the 1990s, a large pharmaceutical company was doing clinical trials on a new pill for heart disease when they learned that men were having a strange side effect from the new drug. This blue pill would later help hundreds of millions of men overcome erectile dysfunction.
A team of Boston-based sleep researchers responsible for the widely popular sleep aid Somnapure may have just made such an accidental discovery.
If you haven’t already heard of it, Somnapure has changed the way Americans deal with poor sleep. Available at all major retailers, including Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS, Somnapure’s groundbreaking formula was created by the scientists at Peak Life (its parent company).
Even though Peak Life was enjoying the success of its popular new sleep aid, one thing continued to baffle this team of researchers: some men over the age of 60 still weren’t getting the deep, restful sleep that other Somnapure customers were enjoying.
Why Some Men Over 60 Can’t Sleep
It didn’t take long for these scientists to identify the problem: these men were all experiencing prostate issues causing them to wake up to use the bathroom several times a night. It wasn’t just the 60 seconds or so that these men were actually awake and going to the bathroom that was harmful—it was the interruption of their sleep cycle that caused them all to feel so tired and sluggish the next day.
The team of sleep researchers worked to figure out how they could help men with prostate issues get the help they needed to sleep through the night.
The Birth of Peak Life Prostate
After countless hours of research and experimentation, the Peak Life researchers were able to formulate a product so effective at improving prostate health that their male customers could reliably and regularly sleep through the night.
The secret behind Peak Life Prostate is its proprietary Flow Enhancement Complex, which includes premium prostate health ingredients like saw palmetto and beta-sitosterol. For many scientists, the inclusion of these premium ingredients alone would have been enough, but not for the researchers at Peak Life. They went a step further and found that by suspending the primary ingredients in a hydrophobic solution, they were able to increase the bioavailability of the phytosterols contained in the formula. Long story short, Peak Life Prostate is extremely effective at reducing frequent trips to the bathroom and supporting a normal prostate size.
So there it is. What began as an anomaly that baffled a team of sleep researchers led to the creation of one of the most effective natural prostate health supplements ever devised.
Not only are the scientists over at Peak Life proud of their accomplishment, but they’re also extremely confident that Peak Life Prostate will work for you. So confident, in fact, that they’re giving out free two-week samples of Peak Life Prostate to men who qualify while supplies last. All you have to do is  CLICK HERE to claim your 14-day risk-free trial.

Survivors of Colorado Cinema Massacre Describe Horrors for Jury

Tuesday, 28 Apr 2015 07:53 PM
 
A woman who survived Colorado's movie theater massacre found an escape route blocked by bodies, she told jurors on Tuesday in the murder trial of gunman James Holmes. And a nine-months pregnant woman slipped in blood while fleeing with her badly wounded husband. Survivors of the mass shooting told of their terror for the first time in court as the gunman looked on. Twelve people were killed and 70 were wounded in July 2012 when Holmes opened fire inside the crowded theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora.
Holmes, a 27-year-old former neuroscience graduate student, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to multiple charges of murder and attempted murder in the rampage at the theater, which was showing the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises."
His long-awaited trial began in Arapahoe County District Court in nearby Centennial on Monday. The 19 women and five men of the jury were asked to decide whether Holmes was insane when he plotted and carried out the attack, or a calculating mass murderer who deserves to be put to death.
On Tuesday, the prosecution's first witness, Katie Medley, described how she was nine months pregnant when she went to see the movie with her husband, Caleb, an aspiring stand-up comedian.
Her husband, who was shot through the eye, testified briefly from his wheelchair, just a few feet away from Holmes, who looked on expressionless.
Latest News Update
The brain injury Caleb Medley suffered left him unable to walk or speak clearly. Instead, he pointed at an alphabet board to spell out his answers as he confirmed his name.
After the gunfire began, his wife said she quickly realized he was badly hurt: "I saw blood pouring from his face, and I knew he got shot in the head," she told the hushed courtroom.
"I told him that I loved him, and that I would take care of our baby if he didn't make it."
Two days later, she gave birth to their son Hugo in the same hospital where her husband was undergoing multiple surgeries.

YELLING, SCREAMS
Another survivor, Munirih Gravelly, an employee of Aurora's Buckley Air Force Base, went to the Century 16 multiplex with a friend who was killed there.
She said the movie had been playing for about 15 or 20 minutes when a tear gas canister was thrown into theater nine, and then the shooting started. She lay on the floor.
"I heard all the gunfire and a lot of yelling, you know, out of confusion, but then it shortly turned to screams. I heard a lot of people calling other people's names," she said.
During a pause in the shooting, she tried to crawl to safety but froze when the shots began again.
Finally the gunfire and the movie stopped, and the lights came on.
"Then I could see down the aisle I was in, and I wouldn't have been able to get out anyway because there were bodies in it," Gravelly said. She had to step over her friend's corpse to leave.
None of the prosecution witnesses were asked any questions by Holmes' lawyers.
Aurora police Sergeant Michael Hawkins said he was walking to his car after his shift when he heard the "shots fired" call.
Speeding to the scene, he listened to reports of tear gas and multiple gunshot victims. In theater nine, he found a man suffering a terrible wound.
"Most of his head was gone," Hawkins told jurors.
Fighting back tears, he then described carrying the youngest victim, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6, to an ambulance. She had been shot multiple times and later died.
On Monday, prosecutors said Holmes, who was armed with a handgun, shotgun and semiautomatic rifle, carried out the massacre because he had lost his career, his girlfriend and his purpose in life, and had done it "to make himself feel better."
In their opening statement, Holmes' public defenders said he was suffering from schizophrenia. He had long heard voices in his head commanding him to kill, and he was not in control of his actions "or what he perceived to be reality."
The trial is expected to last four or five months. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if Holmes is convicted.
© 2015 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
 
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Faith Horizons, When Religion Becomes Evil Part 1, by Yassir Fazaga

Faith Horizons, When Religion Becomes Evil Part 2, by Yassir Fazaga

Weakness of Faith - Day 02 - Said Rageah, Abdul Kadir Ambe, Abu Sumayah

3 Tonnes Of Ivory From Kenya Nabbed At A Port In Thailand

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Obama confronts 'cruel' reality of his drone war




President Obama: I profoundly regret what happened

President Obama: I profoundly regret what happened 02:40
Washington (CNN)The long trail of civilian death left by President Barack Obama's drone war finally has an innocent American face.
In an extraordinary moment, Obama appeared Thursday in the White House briefing room to apologize for the accidental killings of an American and an Italian hostage in an attack on an al Qaeda compound on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The deaths of U.S. hostage Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto were an agonizing personal blow to Obama and White House and CIA counterterrorism officials, who were forced to confront the horrifying reality that as a result of their actions, the United States killed two innocent captives.
"It is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally, and our fight (against) terrorists specifically, mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes, can occur," Obama said.
But the killings also have political and policy implications. It was a serious jolt for the drone war program, which is a bedrock of his counterterror legacy. They raised questions of whether U.S. covert agencies had done absolutely everything they could to ensure that no civilians were in the path of the drone strikes or whether the CIA was guilty of another intelligence failure.
The methodology of Obama's campaign against Islamic extremism -- including strikes to kill unidentified suspected militants -- and the risks inherent in basing military targeting decisions on the imperfect science of intelligence will also face new scrutiny.
The death of Weinstein also will supercharge a controversy about whether the United States, which refuses to negotiate with al Qaeda and ISIS for the release of most detained Americans, does enough to find and bring home U.S. hostages.
In a political sense, the tragedy handed the administration a new national security crisis at a time when Obama's foreign policy is already under assault from Capitol Hill critics and public alarm is rising over the threat from groups like ISIS.
Four years after the stunning special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Obama's national security legacy is being called into question on multiple fronts. The latest episode comes after a failed raid to free U.S. hostages in Syria, a controversy over a Taliban prisoner swap to free a U.S. soldier and the collapse of the Yemeni government, a vital U.S. partner in the fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
EXPAND IMAGE
Obama, in his determination to end U.S. land wars in the Middle East and South Asia, significantly escalated the drone program put in place by the Bush administration and has carried out hundreds of strikes in the lawless border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan in a classified program that top officials rarely discuss publicly.
Indirectly, the deaths of the two hostages in January, which were only made public Thursday, can be traced back to that fateful presidential decision.
Grief was etched into Obama's face as he made the dramatic announcement, one of the lowest points of a presidency scarred by perpetual crises and marked by his effort to put the war on terror on a sustainable footing.

'No words' to express loss

"I realize that there are no words that can ever equal their loss," Obama said in a somber appearance that recalled his grief-stricken comments from the same podium after the Newtown school massacre in December 2012.
"As President and as commander-in-chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations, including the one that inadvertently took the lives of Warren and Giovanni," Obama said in a grave tone. "I profoundly regret what happened."
The President did not specifically sign off on the operation that killed Weinstein, but the White House said it was conducted in line with procedures he has put in place to regulate counterterrorism operations.
U.S. intelligence agencies had been spying for months from the air on the al Qaeda hideout at an undisclosed location, but they had seen no sign that Weinstein and Lo Porto were being hidden in the building.
One key question that Obama will face -- and one that may emerge from reviews the White House and members of Congress say they will mount -- is whether the deaths of civilian hostages were an unavoidable accident or whether the intelligence community committed serious errors.
"My own instinctive reaction, without having a huge number of facts in front of me, is that if you are striking terrorists using military force for many years in a row, then something like this unfortunately becomes almost a statistical inevitability," said Daniel Benjamin, formerly the top counterterrorism adviser to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is now at Dartmouth College. "It is very hard to avoid."
The fact that it has been deemed too dangerous to put American operatives on the ground in the lawless tribal regions of Pakistan and the reality that U.S. anti-terror operations are conducted from the air introduces a high degree of risk. Intelligence agencies can never know for sure who is being targeted, and civil liberties groups have long complained about the randomness of the attacks that have killed significant numbers of Pakistani civilians.
Officials refuse to give figures for the number of attacks. But the Bureau for Investigative Journalism estimates there have been more than 400 U.S. strikes in Pakistan, which have killed between 423 and 962 bystanders along with hundreds of suspected al Qaeda operatives.

Two al Qaeda operatives killed

Supporters of the program say it has been a hugely effective tool in eradicating the core leadership of al Qaeda. And although the deaths of Weinstein and Lo Porto are dominating the aftermath of Obama's announcement, the White House did note that strikes also killed two key al Qaeda operatives, also Americans.
"I think the story of the drones has been one of success; it broke the backbone of al Qaeda. But at the end of the day it is not a totally accurate way to fight terrorism," said CNN intelligence analyst Robert Baer, a former CIA operative.
"There are a lot of civilian casualties. They always knew it was never 100% certain. There is no way to see whether somebody is in that building, simply because you cannot see through walls."
Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California also pointed to the difficult task that U.S. spies have in getting reliable intelligence in difficult-to-reach parts of the world.
McCain: We rely on drones too much in many areas

McCain: We rely on drones too much in many areas 02:28
PLAY VIDEO
"Although our intelligence is outstanding, it is not perfect," Nunes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement.
Obama put in place protocols designed to eliminate civilian deaths in drone strikes, which have caused a significant anti-U.S. backlash in Pakistan, and explained them in a speech at the National Defense University in 2013.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California pledged to investigate the operation to ensure that those steps were properly followed in this case.
"We have to take everything with a certain degree of skepticism," Schiff said. "We owe it to the families and to the American public not to take anything as an article of faith."
The White House argued Thursday that intelligence assessments were correct in identifying al Qaeda operatives at the site of the operation but, tragically, a separate assessment that no civilians were there turned out to be incorrect.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Obama's protocols were followed fully in the case. But he suggested the tragedy could still lead to changes.

Questions about drone policy

"What's also clear, and what I would also readily admit to you, is that in the aftermath of a situation like this, it raises legitimate questions about whether additional changes need to be made to those protocols," Earnest told reporters.
It also raises questions about efforts to recover hostages. Weinstein's death followed the beheadings of U.S. hostages Steven Sotloff and James Foley and the swap of Taliban prisoners for U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who has since been charged with desertion.
In light of the Bergdahl swap, families of slain hostages have accused the administration of doing too little to save their loved ones, despite a failed rescue operation to free Foley and other U.S. hostages held by ISIS in Syria.
Political blowback quickly erupted over Weinstein's death, and there are accusations that the administration erred in not finding the U.S. hostage before now.
"I think it was a very significant failure. Our country let Warren down," said Democratic Rep. John Delaney, who serves the Maryland congressional district where the Weinstein family lives and is calling for a "czar" to coordinate government efforts to trace hostages.
"We have let him down by not being able to find him. We don't have someone who wakes up every morning and can cut across all bureaucracy and can grab any resource at any agency and bring it to bear to help find these hostages."
Delaney's concerns were mirrored by those of Weinstein's family.

'Disappointing' assistance to family

"Unfortunately, the assistance we received from other elements of the U.S. government was inconsistent and disappointing over the course of 3½ years," said Weinstein's wife, Elaine, in a statement.
Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, a Marine veteran of the Iraq and Afghan wars, said the U.S. government was failing detained Americans abroad.
"Warren Weinstein did not have to die," Hunter said. "His death is further evidence of the failures in communication and coordination between government agencies tasked with recovering Americans in captivity -- and the fact that he's dead, as a result, is absolutely tragic."
But Obama's statement also drew plenty of support on Capitol Hill, even from those who are usually deeply critical of his foreign policy.
"You can't stop the drone program because of this," said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is mulling a run for president. "The hostages are innocent victims. I feel terrible for them, but we're at war and we've got to keep prosecuting this war."
So far, none of the other candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination has weighed in, despite making Obama's perceived failings on national security a centerpiece of the young campaign.
That may reflect an appreciation of the gravity of the choices faced by the person who holds the job they are fighting to get.

Police: These are the men behind terror in Kenya

Nairobi News

Posted on Dec 17, 2014 5651 Views

Terror suspects Mohamed Mohamud and Ahmed Iman 
Terror suspects Mohamed Mohamud and Ahmed Iman

By KENFREY KIBERENGE

In Summary

  • Members of the public asked to pass any information on their whereabouts of the two suspects to the nearest police station or administration unit for action
Police have released pictures of two Kenyan men accused of masterminding terrorist attacks in the country.
The two are Mohamed Mohamud aka Dulyadin aka Gamadheere from Garissa and Ahmed Iman from Majengo slums in Nairobi.
“(They) are among key Al-Shabaab commanders being sought by the National Police Service for being behind a spate of terrorist attacks in the country,” Gideon M. Kimilu, the deputy director of Directorate of Criminal Investigations, said in a statement to newsrooms on Wednesday.
“Anybody who spots them or has information on their whereabouts should pass it to the nearest police station or administration unit for action,” he added.
Kenya has experienced 136 terror attacks since 2011 resulting in numerous deaths and casualties. The deadliest was in September last year when four armed terrorists stormed into Westgate Mall in Nairobi and massacred 67 people. And in November this year alone, 66 Kenyans were killed by the Al Shabaab in Mandera.
On Tuesday, the NGO coordination board announced that the government had deregistered 15 NGOs for funding terrorist activities in the country.

http://nairobinews.co.ke/police-these-are-the-men-behind-terror-in-kenya/

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

​ISIS building online ‘cult with wicked motive’ – counter terror chief


Published time: April 22, 2015 14:04
Reuters
Reuters
475151
Misfits, the vulnerable and the mentally ill are top recruiting targets for the Islamic State as it tries to build a deadly cult using its hyped social media savvy, according to a senior UK policeman.
Speaking at a counter-terrorism equipment and networking exposition in London, Scotland Yard’s Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said the threat from Islamic State-inspired extremists was new and radical due to its fragmented nature.

He said the group had “a cult following that has a wicked motive” and that the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) “isn’t looking to organize itself in tight secret cells in the way that previous terrorist groups have done.
“It’s actually looking to inspire people to support their cause and to act in their name.
They’re developing that with a very, very determined approach to exploiting social media and propaganda and the like.
The real aim being to kill and get footage of that to propagate the message and propagate themselves to their cause,” he added.
Such concerns are not limited to Britain.
Last month one of America’s top spies shared his fears about the capacity of social media to “greatly amplify” the IS’s campaign of terrorism.
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, CIA Director John Brennan said the IS has been so successful at staying intact and afloat largely because it has embraced new tools, such as social media, which enable it to achieve a transnational diffusion of ideas in real time over the web.

What makes terrorism so difficult to fight is not just the ideology that fuels it, or the tactics that enable it. The power of modern communications also plays a role,” Brennan said.

New technologies can help groups like ISIL coordinate operations, attract new recruits, disseminate propaganda and inspire sympathizers across the globe to act in their name.
Brennan described the group as both well-armed and well-financed in his prepared remarks and said that, if unchecked, it would “pose a serious danger not only to Syria and Iraq, but to the wider region and beyond, including the threat of attacks in the homelands of the United States and our partners.

 Read more:
CIA director blames social media for strength of ISIS
British teen arrested in connection with Anzac terror plot

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Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Radicalisation as a mental health, not religious, issue

MuslimVillage.com

by Kamaldeep Bhui
Source: NewScientist

Filed under: Featured,Opinion |
Sketch from "Boston Marathon Bomber", Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hearing.
Sketch from “Boston Marathon Bomber”, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hearing.
By: Kamaldeep Bhui
Source: NewScientist
THERE was great unease when it emerged that Mohammed Emwazi, the masked figure who appeared in Islamic State videos in which hostages in Syria were beheaded, was educated and raised in the UK. A similar reaction followed the 7/7 bombings of 2005 and the 2013 murder of soldier Lee Rigby in London.
All these events prompted wild speculation about what led those responsible to risk death, commit criminal acts and turn their backs on family, friends and a relatively comfortable life in the UK – a place that offers ready access to education as well as medical and social care. They exemplify a worrying trend for individuals here and in other democracies to turn against their societies, sometimes killing fellow citizens at home or abroad.
Despite efforts to prevent radicalisation, there has been a steady stream of young people travelling to Syria to join the jihadists. The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, part of King’s College London, estimates that more than 20,000 people from around the world have done so, including more than 500 UK citizens and at least 3000 from the rest of Europe. Among them are a growing number of women and girls, some as young as 15.
One attempt to explain their choice argues that they have simply succumbed to a persuasive ideology about establishing an Islamic state, one transcending the borders of nation states, in a campaign dressed up as a religious war. Loyalty to this imagined new state paves the way to being disloyal to your own.
Others suggest that radicalised people are angry about their own living conditions, discrimination, poverty and unemployment, or possibly reacting to unjust foreign policy. In this picture, turning to terrorism is an act of protest.
Such explanations may dominate, but they lack evidence. My colleagues and I have used a public health approach to better understand what really puts people at risk of radicalisation.
The science of public health allows us to assess what happens when harms threaten society, and to try to identify risk factors and resilience factors. We can then target those factors to improve health. This has proved to be a powerful route to a safer world, and has already been applied with some success to preventing suicide, violence and mental illness. Could we do the same thing with radicalisation?
Research in the US following the 9/11 attacks suggested that having sympathies for terrorist acts and violent protest is a sign that people are susceptible to future radicalising influences. We took that as our starting point and assessed these kinds of sympathies in men and women of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin living in the UK.
We found that these views were uncommon – they were held by just 2.5 per cent of our sample – and were unrelated to poverty, political engagement, or experience of discrimination and adversity. However, we did find a correlation between extremist sympathies and being young, in full-time education, relative social isolation, and having a tendency towards depressive symptoms.
In contrast, we found that being born outside the UK, general ill health or having large social networks were all associated with moderate views. We also found that women were as likely as men to hold extreme sympathies, although the association with depression was stronger in men. Frequency of religious worship and attending a place of worship were not correlated with extremist leanings.
Such findings challenge many of the pervasive ideas about what drives radical beliefs, including the notion that religious orthodoxy fuels extremism.
Depressive symptoms fall squarely into the health arena. We know that any form of depression is associated with negative sentiment, including a sense of hopelessness, worthlessness and helplessness. Such an outlook can fuel thoughts that suicide is a solution. Depression can also leave people feeling irritable and aggressive.
We also know that half of all cases of long-term mental illness develop by the age of 14. Are we overlooking subtle varieties of psychological distress that do not meet diagnostic thresholds, but can still devastate young people’s schooling and relationships and leave them vulnerable to radicalisation? We will need to identify these young people and make sure we better understand the extent to which depressive illness, a pessimistic outlook and social isolation raise the risk of being radicalised.
Given what we know about young people’s impulsive decision-making and the difficulty they have in forecasting consequences, these people may seek solutions they mistakenly think will empower them. For example, a search for sacred meaning may lead them to commit to terrorist causes, just as some might join a gang to bolster self-esteem and for protection.
This is a complex issue, and of course peer pressure can play a part in swaying choices, as can online information and social networking. Healthy sources of self-esteem, authentic religious teaching and social support are known to buffer the risk of joining gangs, and are also likely to be important in fighting extremism.
Encouraging young people to learn about risky behaviour and pitfalls they might be vulnerable to, and about morality and spirituality and ways of growing well, are mentioned in the UK’s Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. This is a good idea.
Reframing the conversation on radicalisation, from one about criminal justice to one focused on the health of young people, might also help address some opposition to existing strategies.
We hope our paradigm offers a way to find out why some people are more easily radicalised, and that this will help stop yet more following this destructive path.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of MuslimVillage.com.

More Than Half Of Americans Have Unfavorable View Of Islam, Poll Finds

huffingtonpost.

Jaweed Kaleem Headshot

Posted: Updated:
MUSLIM AMERICANS
More than half of Americans say they have unfavorable views of Islam, and six in 10 either aren't interested or don't know whether they want to learn more about the faith, according to a new poll.

Younger Americans are the most likely to have positive views on Islam, be interested in learning about the religion and have Muslim friends.
The findings, detailed in a HuffPost/YouGov poll on Americans’ views of Muslims released Friday as part of HuffPost Religion’s week-long Muslim Life in America series, show a nation of fractured opinions and experiences when it comes to Islam, with stark differences among age groups and political affiliations.
Overall, 55 percent of Americans had either a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Islam, while one in four said they were not sure how they viewed the faith. Just 7 percent said they had a very favorable view of the religion, and 14 percent said they saw it somewhat favorably.
While a majority had negative views, few seemed to base those judgements on knowledge or on relationships with Muslims. Just 13 percent told HuffPost/YouGov that they “understand the Islamic religion” either extremely well or very well. Thirty percent said they know the faith “moderately well.” Meanwhile, 16 percent of Americans said they work with Muslims and nearly one in four said they they have a friend who is Muslim.
The survey, conducted March 5 through March 9 among 1,000 U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population, also asked if Americans had ever been to a mosque, and if people would be interested in learning more about the faith.
One in 10 said they had been to a mosque, and 39 percent said they would be interested in learning more about Islam. A higher share, 44 percent, said they would not want to learn more, and 17 percent said they were unsure.
When broken down by age and political affiliation, younger Americans and Democrats were more likely to feel goodwill toward Islam and to want to learn about it. Democrats were 16 percentage points more likely than Republicans to hold favorable views, and 13 points more likely to say they would be interested in learning more.
Forty percent of those ages 18 to 29 had an unfavorable view of Islam, compared with 63 percent of those ages 45 to 64, and 58 percent of those 65 and older. People under 29 were more likely to have Muslim friends, and were 20 points more likely than any other age group to say they would want to learn more about Islam.
HuffPost Religion associate editor Antonia Blumberg, who spearheaded the Muslim Life in America series, said negative perceptions of American Muslims partly inspired the effort to write about diversity among America's 2.75 million Muslims. HuffPost’s stories this week have included features on the experiences of Muslim American college students, including a Muslim fraternity; Muslims in Hollywood; a Muslim filmmaker; social justice organizing within Muslim communities; and a counselor who started the Muslim Wellness Foundation.
Blumberg shared a story from her interview with comedian Dean Obeidallah for an article on Muslim Americans in the entertainment industry. The way Obeidallah introduces himself to his guests struck her, she said. "I joke on my radio show, ‘Hi, I’m Dean Obeidallah and I want to be your Muslim friend,'" he says to guests. He explained the unusual introduction to Blumberg as an example of how "the mainstream media is a way we can come into people’s homes and become people’s friends."
“The bottom line is, too many Americans have never even (consciously) met a Muslim person,” Blumberg said. “They have no context for understanding the faith outside of what's in the news. The aim of the Muslim Life in America series is to lift up the voices and stories of Muslim Americans from all walks of life to contextualize and humanize the faith for other Americans. When you realize the incredible diversity of the Muslim American community, stereotypes just won't make sense anymore. “
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the poll's methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov's reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/10/americans-islam-poll_n_7036574.html


Could Islamic finance save capitalism?

theguardian

Islamic finance is widely misunderstood but its core principles could provide a blueprint for a sustainable global economy
Mosque
The ideals of Islamic finance link money as a medium of exchange to hard assets in the real economy. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
Is there a place for ethics and morality in the global economy? Should we continue to rely on governments to tweak at the margins of financial regulation, or is there a credible argument that a root and branch reformation is required – a revolution in capitalism?
Anthropologist and co-founder of the Occupy Wall Street movement David Graeber believes – along with an increasing number of leading intellectuals – that the world’s reliance on our current banking system has had a catastrophic impact on society, leading to an increasing divide between rich and poor, an increase in contemporary versions of debt bondage, and perpetuating the idea that credit creation is a mark of human progress.
Other academics support the notion that mainstream economists, bankers and politicians focus on symptoms without questioning the monetary system itself. If banks are given the power to create money and grant credit, then unfettered credit expansion can lead to bad investments, as the last few years have demonstrated. In addition, money creation by central banks to bail out the financial services industry only encourages those banks to take ever greater risks. This is the concept of moral hazard: profits are privatised but losses are socialised.
Even our measure of human progress seems fundamentally flawed. Gross domestic product – the universal measure of economic output – does not measure rates of literacy, divorce or suicide. GDP does not account for our impact on the environment. In short, it reflects the culture of the modern corporation: a vehicle designed to eliminate all moral imperatives except for profit.
Logically it is impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual motion on a planet with finite resources. Intellectuals such as Mufti Taqi Usmani, a renowned scholar of Islamic jurisprudence, contend that Islamic economic theory may have some answers to the thorny dilemma of balancing the free market with protection of the vulnerable. Indeed, the Prophet Muhammad in his last sermon before he died emphasised human and property rights to his followers, leaving them to codify the ethical principles he had bequeathed through the word of God and the documented precedent of his own life. This codified law is known as sharia and is perhaps more misunderstood today than at any time in its history.
Where once sharia was an organic and evolving body of law, emphasising mercy, tolerance and inclusiveness, it is now characterised as an instrument of control by post-colonial Muslim rulers searching for identity. When Europe’s barbarous principalities once slumbered through their Dark Ages, the Islamic world experienced an age of scientific, literary and philosophical enlightenment, borrowing whatever was good from the cultures around them and building on it. Islamic scholars in medieval Baghdad and Cordoba developed rules and mechanisms to encourage entrepreneurship, leading to the dissemination of financial innovations along the Silk Route and into southern Europe. These were the roots of modern capitalism, but somehow along the way the protection of the weak became forgotten.
Today, as the Islamic world experiences a crisis of identity, Islamic finance remains a rare bridge between two cultures. David Cameron announced last year that London would become one of the global capitals of Islamic finance and, soon after, a UK sovereign Islamic bond was issued in the capital markets. Mufti Taqi has spoken at Davos on reforming the world’s post-crisis financial landscape through the lens of faith.
Conventional commentators describe the industry as “banking without interest” but the fundamental differentiator is the nature of money itself: in Islamic economic theory, money is merely a medium of exchange, not a commodity to be traded. It has no intrinsic value. Financial transactions must have an underlying attachment to the “real economy”. Real assets must be bought and sold as opposed to the trading of intangible pieces of paper, like the infamous derivatives that brought down Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers. And (in theory at least) because money itself should have an asset backing, it cannot be created out of thin air. A blueprint for a stable global economy and one which can bring long-term societal benefits, according even to some non-Muslim academics.
But are the ideals of Islamic finance reflected in the industry? Not for me they’re not. An industry dominated by conventional bankers addicted to cheap credit and exotic derivatives has focused on “reverse engineering” of conventional financial products into their sharia-compliant counterparts. An emphasis on the letter of the law over the spirit of the law has left the layman confused. With a global Muslim population of 1.6 billion, much of it under penetrated by financial services, surely the time has come to emphasise broader ethical principles over adherence to arcane contractual mechanisms? Just as Christian financiers in the Middle Ages created elaborate contractual structures to circumvent the Church’s ban on usury, is Islamic finance not guilty of the very same today?
The industry balances on a turning point. The next few years will determine whether the history of Islamic finance blindly follows that of medieval European finance, or whether its revolutionary ideals can bring something of benefit to the whole world.
Harris Irfan is author of Heaven’s Bankers: Inside the Hidden World of Islamic Finance and managing director at EIIB-Rasmala, a boutique investment bank
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http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/dec/04/could-islamic-finance-solution-capitalism