Responding to Interior Threats

"Who is going to do the certifying? Islam is so diverse, like many religions. So what sect or school of thought are you going to certify?"
"It is extremely complex. It's like having certification for Christian clergy. The question is: Would the Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons agree on requirements for certification. Obviously not."
"I don't see certification as a solution. People will take it as discrimination and feel targeted. It would create a culture of mistrust and suspicion and we don't need that. We need cooperation between the government and the people and if people don't trust the government you won't get cooperation."
Ottawa imam Mohamad Jebra

"What I see from the Conservative government is that they have absolutely no credibility to certify anyone and anything related to Islam."
"What makes an imam a good imam is someone who understands his working environment, the community and its culture. Imported imams lack the ability to speak to the realities of their congregation and they are not proficient enough in English or French when they are called to intervene in the media."
"There is a growing trend for homegrown imams who have much more credibility."
"Sometimes the volunteer might not have any extensive training in Islam and might be an engineer. But the same thing happens with other religions (in small communities). How else do you meet the needs of the community."
Salah Basalamah, Islamic scholar, University of Ottawa

"We agree that an imam should be in tune with the spiritual and social needs of his congregation and must be aware of Canadian values."
imam Imtiaz Ahmed, missionary, Ahmadiyya Muslim community

Wrong, Christian pastors and priests do indeed attend seminaries to qualify in their profession through the attainment of a degree in pastoral and religious studies in leading a flock of the faithful. They must be classically and academically ordained before they are recognized as having the credentials and the background to lead a congregation. There are more casual, grassroots non-accredited preachers of Christianity but they do not reflect the professional community.

And to point out the obvious, there are no problems in the world community with terrorists preying on others who espouse Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, or any other religion but Islam. It is Islamist jihadists who are glorying in horrific atrocities committed for the very purpose of inspiring terror and loathing from among the targeted, and admiration from among those who wish to join their predations as eager recruits.

It seems that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community opened a Canadian seminary in Vaughn, north of Toronto, 13 years ago. But then the Ahmadiyya is a sectarian offshoot of Islam, one whose values are directed toward peace and from whose ranks no known jihadis to threaten society have yet arisen. As a persecuted minority, looked upon with scorn as heretics by mainstream Islam, it isn't likely that their focus on citizenship and a peaceful religious worldview will be changing any time soon.

On the other hand, it has been estimated that 90 percent of the imams currently preaching in the many mosques that have popped up all over Canada as Muslims have migrated to the country over the past fifty years or so are foreign-trained. And among them, as testified to the Senate's security and defence committee by members of the Muslim community themselves, are imams who have focused on recruiting young Muslims for jihad.

Jihad is seen as an imperative for the pious, a requirement to be responded to, to come to the aid of Muslims who are said to be oppressed by non-Muslims. And since the temper of the Islamic times is that Islam is being targeted by 'Islamophobia', citing the presence of Western troops in Muslim countries mostly trying to keep Muslims from slaughtering one another as in Syria and Iraq, the focus is on bringing terror through 'assymetrical warfare' otherwise known as terrorism or guerrilla action, to the West.

Incitements to violence made popular through social media and the ever-so-accessible Internet have persuaded new recruits to Jihad and converts to Islam to join the melee. The Senate committee heard testimony from a multitude of sources familiar with the Islamist threat of terrorism and their impact on the West from a Canadian perspective. The conclusions they reached leading to the 25 recommendations contained in their preliminary report did not come out of nowhere.

Both are well justified. It's too late for Britain, for France, for most of the countries of Europe, to rescue themselves from the overwhelming presence of an encroaching, resentful Muslim presence demanding sharia law and exemption from the values and the laws and customs of the countries they have invaded through the courtesy of Western generosity in permitting people fleeing civil war, persecution, poverty, to begin their lives anew in liberal democracies.

The penchant of the new arrivals to use the freedoms available to them in those open democracies to alter the societies they have infiltrated to have them reflect what they have left is not a fate that Canadians wish to share with their European cousins. The Senate report on anti-terrorism recommends steps that the government could undertake; none too soon and none too dramatic in its intentions.