Don’t taze Muslims! (Quran alert)

According to a report from Orlando news station, Local 6 WKMG, 4 police officers are under investigation after a man accused them of using a Taser gun on him after he refused to let go of a Quran.

Well, as it turns out, the man was holding the Quran under his shirt. The cops knew he was holding something and ordered him to take his hand out of his shirt and hold them up. The man, Jeffrey Shields, said that he was holding a Quran and didn’t want to let it go for fear of it falling to the ground. After he refused to put up his hands the police officers used the Taser. 

Police spokesman, Lou Biondi said, “The officers didn’t have a clue what he had under there, regardless of what he was saying.”

Muslims are always careful to treat the Quran with great symbolic honor. For example, they never put it on the floor and always put it on the top of the book shelf.

I’m not sure if this guy, Jeffrey Shields, is a Muslim or not. His overwhelming loyalty to demonstrate respect for the Quran seems to indicate he is a Muslim, but then his name doesn’t sound very Muslim. And a lot of people who convert to Islam take on a Muslim name, so who knows.

The Police spokesman Biondi  said, “It is odd that he waited so long to file a complaint, 19 days or so. Normally when people feel they’ve been wronged, it’s something that happens almost immediately.”

Anyway, this sounds like some Muslim organization might be behind the complaint against the officer. They may have heard about the case and are pushing Jeffrey Shields to make a case out of it. It’s another opportunity to try to promote the cause of Islam.

I guess they will try to promote an attitude, even if a law can’t be passed, that makes law enforcement authorities give Muslims deferential treatment when they are holding a Quran.

Stay tuned.

Muslims Are Seeing Jesus During Ramadan

For an number of years I’ve heard many reports about Muslims who have dreams about Jesus during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.

According to a September 21 report in Christian World News, Brother Andrew of Open Doors International said, “Jesus often appears in a vision or in a dream, especially in this time of Ramadan. They’re so concentrated on spiritual things and on heavenly things and on the God they’re seeking. Every Muslim is still a seeker for God, and then it so often happens, all over the Muslim world, that Jesus appears and they get a changed heart or a strong desire to follow that man who was in my room, who said, ‘I’m Jesus, I came to heal you, I came to save you, I died for you, I want you to be with me in heaven.’”

During the month of Ramadan, many Muslims are seeking for an experience with God. They hope that God will be near to them, especially on the “night of power,” which is believed by Muslims to be the day Mohammed supernaturally received the Quran.

For several decades now, Christians have organized to pray for Muslims during the month of Ramadan.  This year the initiative led by 30-Days International is dubbed “Loving Muslims Through Prayer.”

According to The Christian Post, “Some former Muslims who lived in areas where they have no contact with Christians and no chance of hearing the Gospel have said they had dreams and visions of Jesus which spurred them to seek more information about Jesus Christ, eventually resulting in their conversion.”

Indeed Muslims around the world are discovering the truth of Jesus Christ. And in doing so, their lives are changed and they experience the reality written by the Apostle Paul 2,000 years ago to the early Christians:

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)

I’ve seen this reality in the lives of former Muslims around the world. Some are bold witnesses for the risen Jesus. They have carefully considered the cost of discipleship and have taken up their cross as followers of Christ.

And they are shaking the Islamic world to its very foundations.

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This just in from a post at Free Republic:

Cartoons in Swedish newspaper, Al-Qaeda’s Prophet, and Hadi Elmi of the Islamic Education Center in Houston

According to press reports (see canada.com and abcnews.go.com) the fundamtalist Islamic organization, Al-Qaeda, is calling for the death of Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks and newspaper editor Ulf Johansson. The Swedish newspaper, Nerikes Allehanda, published a cartoon by Vilks depicting Mohammed, the one Al-Qaeda and 1.6 billion Muslims word-wide regard as a prophet of God.

The statement from Al-Qaeda’s threat-spokesman, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, promises a larger bounty if Vilks is “slaughtered like a lamb”.

Two weeks earlier Muslims in Sweden gathered to protest the cartoon and condemn the cartoonist. Photographs (Associated Press, here; and Agence France-Presse, here) of the demonstrators show protestors holding a banner with the cartoonist’s name written in Arabic script surrounded by flaming fire. On the ground before the demonstrators there are at least 2 banners depicting the Christian cross symbol and the words ”Down with Sweden, Death to Larish”.

The banner with the cross could have been a crude facsimile of the Swedish flag, but the blue color does not seem to match the actual color of the nation’s flag and the dimensions of the cross do not seem to match either.

The placement of the banners on the ground is clearly a gesture designed to show contempt. In this case, it was a clear public demonstration of the contempt the demonstrators have for the Swedish nation, the cartoonist, and the symbol of Chrsitianity. One of the Associated Press photographs here shows the demonstrators burning the cross banner.¹

Muslims calling for the death of those who defame the one they call a prophet is nothing new. Salman Rushdie comes to mind. Muslims world-wide have demanded his death becasue of how Mohammed was depicted in his book The Satanic Verses.

Even in the United States, threats of death were issued against Salman Rushdie.  Hadi Elmi of the Islamic Education Center in Houston, TX was one such leader protesting and chanting “death to Rushdie” in front of the theater where the writer was invited to speak. According to The Houston Chronicle Elmi said, ”those who commit evil must be punished”.

But this happened on September 10, 2001 and reported in the next morning’s newspaper, September 11, 2001. Several days later, Hadi Elmi seems to have become a moderate Muslim.

¹ The photographs on the link has changed since this was first posted.

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UPDATE from Earned Media

To view the cartoons go to http://www.earnedmedia.org/vilks0916.htm

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UPDATE (exerpt) from Associated Press report by Louise Nordstrom

Cartoonist Hiding From al-Qaida Threat

STOCKHOLM, Sweden Sept. 17 (Associated Press) — A Swedish cartoonist who depicted Islam’s Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog said Monday that police have taken him to a secret location and told him he cannot return home following a death threat from al-Qaida in Iraq.

Lars Vilks, who was whisked away by police when he returned to Sweden from Germany on Sunday, said police have described the threats against him as “very serious.”

“Police guard was nonexistent before this. It’s 100 percent now,” he said in a telephone interview. “I can’t live in my home, I’ve only been allowed to pick up some things.”

…More here.

“Islamophobia today is the most serious form of religious defamation.”

Ok, please don’t laugh at me. I didn’t say it.

“Islamophobia today is the most serious form of religious defamation.” This was said by Doudou Diene who is described by Associated Press reporter, Frank Jordans, as a “racism expert” with the United Nations.

I can still hear you laughing. But at least now you know the source of the joke.

Well it’s good to know that the United Nations is right on top of the “most serious form of religious defamation”. 

But what about those of us who are not afraid of Islam but belive it to be false and believe it’s founder, Mohammed, is not a prophet of God? We are not afraid of Islam and don’t tell others to be afraid, thus we aren’t contributiting to “Islamophobia”, right?

So are those of us who are not afraid to expose the lies of Islam and the fact that Mohammed is not a prophet also guilty of this “most serious form of religious defamation”?

What does the United Nations have to say about people like me?

I’m not afraid of Islam or any of its thugs. I refuse to live in submission to the teachings of Mohammed, and thus feel quite free to speak out.

In one of my class sessions, a student once asked me if I was afraid of what the Muslims might do to me for saying what I say. My response was, “afraid of what? What can they do? They might take me, rip my body apart and spill my guts on the ground. So what? What is to be afraid of?”

“And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Jesus Christ, Matthew 10:28

So I want that expert on racism at the United Nations, Mr. Doudou Diene, to know I’m not afraid of Islam. And I’m not afraid of the United Nations either. (If I was, would it be called UNophobia?)

But I would like clarification from the UN about religious defamation that has nothing to do with Islamophobia.

I know Mr. Diene is not saying I do not have the right to speak out, but if the United Nations ever does try to curtail my free speech rights, at least I know I can rely on David Cole of Georgetown University to defend my First Amendment rights.

Knowing God

You can know God.

God is incomprehensible, so nobody can fully understand God.

But the knowledge of God is possible, He can be known.

“And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” (John 17:3)

“I invite you to embrace Islam” Osama bin Laden

Sporting a freshly dyed beard, Osama is asking Americns to embrace Islam.

This is Islamic missionary work. Osama is engaging in dawa, Muslim evangelism 101.

The mosques all across America are ready, willing, and able to accept a fresh batch of converts, or as the Muslims say, reverts. The message is the same, whether it comes from Osama or the American Muslim leaders: there is one god and Mohammed is his messenger. They are all on the same page, working toward the same goal.

Meanwhile, I still have a Pashto New Testament reserved for the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. Osama, if you see this message, please let me know how I can get the Pashto New Testament to him. I lost contact with his buddies in New York in 2001. Thanks.

David Cole of Georgetown University

David Cole of Georgetown University is feeling sorry for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). See this article in in the IndyStar to read what he’s saying.

According to various news sources, including Newsweek, ISNA has been named by federal prosecuters as one of the “unindicted co-conspirators” in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation in Dallas, TX. They have also been described by prosecutors as a U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization dedicated to world-wide Islamic rule.

But David Cole thinks ISNA is a moderate Muslim organization and that it’s unfair to brand them with “guilt by association” by naming them an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case.

This is the same David Cole who was an attorney for Gregory Lee Johnson, member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, who was arrested and charged with “desecrating a venerated object” in violation of a Texas statute after burning and spitting on an American flag while supporters chanted “America, the red, white and blue, we spit on you.” This is the case known as Texas v. Johnson which was argued before the Supreme Court.

This is the same David Cole who also represented three other flag burners in the United States v. Eichman case before the Supreme Court which upheld the Texas v. Johnson decision.

This is the same David Cole who represented the National Endowment for the Arts so it could continue to receive grants from American tax dollars to promote indecent art.

This is the same David Cole who was a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization which has recently provided legal assistance to the suspected terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay.

It’s good to know about Dr. Cole’s committment to First Amendment issues.

Now that he’s feeling sorry for Muslim organizations in America, I’m wondering if he is also lecturing the “moderate” Muslim leaders about the First Amendment rights of non-Muslims to desecrate the Quran and publish cartoons poking fun at Mohammed?