INTERFAITH DIALOGUE WITH "MODERATE" MUSLIMS

From PJM:

To fully appreciate the meaning of interfaith dialogues with so-called “moderate” Muslims and friends, consider the aptSears Optical commercial. “Mama,” Kitty’s myopic owner, fails to see without her glasses. She opens the door to let Kitty in to “snuggle with mama” but instead, a raccoon―known to carry rabies―runs in and jumps in with ‘mama’ on her cozy bed.

Consider this an analogy for a distressing drama in progress at Chautauqua Institution, a strikingly beautiful summer retreat in Chautauqua, N.Y. While enveloped by pastoral landscape, Lake Chautauqua, beautiful houses and gardens, and enriched by music, visual arts, ballet, opera, symphony, chamber music and much more, Chautauqua is opening its doors to another sort of rabid beast.

After toying with the idea for many years, Chautauqua’s religion department this summer announced plans to add a Cordoba House to the Institution’s “Abrahamic family,” to be led by the infamous Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a move it describes as “highly supported by Chautauqua Faith leaders.”

What’s the rush? Why now, when bands of Islamic brigands roam much of the Middle East and Africa, and Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers worldwide endanger Western civilization? Why at this moment, as Islamic jihadists slaughter Christians throughout theentireMiddleEast as well as elsewhere. After all, Chautauqua Institution was founded by Protestant Christians.

Rather than outrage over endemic tyrannical Islamic abuses of Christians, associate religion department director Maureen Rovegno expresses what an objective individual could at best describe as naiveté:

“The only way that this fear [of Islam] can be alleviated, or neutralized, is to get to know each other in a personal way.” As the Psalm goes: ‘How good is it, and how pleasant, when people dwell together in unity’.”

Thus, only this summer, Chautauqua featured five influential Muslim Brotherhood functionaries and apologists as guest speakers: Former Islamic Circle of North America president Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, Imam Rauf, DaliaMogahed,KarenArmstrong and John Esposito, a Georgetown University professor and head of its Prince Alwaeed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, eponymous for the Saudi royal who in 2005 donated $20 million to the center.

Esposito has long espoused views consistent with Brotherhood doctrine and during the 1990′s was known to claim that Islamic fundamentalism, in fact, was democratic and posed no threat to the U.S. Esposito has also served with global Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusef Qaradawi―since 1999 banned for his terror support from entry to the U.S.―at both theInstitue of Islamic Political Thought and the Circle of Tradition and Progress as well as the United Association For Studies and Research (USAR), part of the Hamas’ U.S. Muslim Brotherhood support infrastructure.

On Aug. 15, 2014, I tried to question Esposito following his presentation at the Chautauqua Hall of Philosophy. Chaos briefly ensued. I began with a referral to Sheikh Qaradawi, the MB spiritual leader banned in the U.S., and a major supporter of Hamas―the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

I stated:

John Esposito is known to view Sheikh Yusef Qaradawias a “reformist.”

Karen Armstrong considers him a moderate.

Imam Rauf favorably describes him as “the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today.”

Dalia Mogahed, a featured Chautauqua speaker during the Week on Egypt, conducted her first interviewwith Qaradawi on his Islam Online website.

(All four, presumably involved with Chautauqua’s future Muslim House, were the Institution’s guest speakers this summer.)

I intended to share the following data on the horrors that Qaradawi sanctions, authorizes and stands for. Esposito refused to let me read even a small sample of Qaradawi’s edicts:

・  Qaradawi condones female genital mutilation;

・  Qaradawi endorses  killing Muslims who leave Islam (apostates);

・  Qaradawi claims that Hitler was sent by Allah to punish the Jews (see video);

・  Qaradawi declares force a legitimate means to establish or support Islamic principles (“changing wrong by force whenever possible”)  Priorities of the Islamic Movement chapter

・  Qaradawi promotes Islamic conquest of the West;

・  Qaradawi describes the mosque as a political institution to mobilize participants for jihad;

・  Qaradawi endorsed the use of suicide bombers and killing Americans in Iraq.