Alarming Oblivion

"The struggle for the soul of Islam between Islamists and humanists goes on in Canada and the U.S.A., not just in the Middle East, Europe and South Asia."
"[Nothing but extremist literature was found present in several mosque libraries.]Further research is required to determine the depth ... of this problem."
Study: “Lovers of the Death”? — Islamist Extremism in Mosques and Schools
Thomas Quiggin, former intelligence analyst, Saied Shoaaib, journalist

"[The study is an] exercise in shoddy research [generalizing about Canadian mosques and Islamic institutions]."

"If the writers have any evidence of criminal activity such as the promotion of terrorism and violent extremism, then they should report it immediately to the authorities. Otherwise, this is nothing more than an attempt to sow fear and distrust towards Canadian Muslim communities without any evidence of wrongdoing or proper context. Such writing only fans the flames of ignorance at a time when vandalism of mosques and hate incidents against Canadian Muslims are increasing."

The National Council of Canadian Muslims

"This is not a Muslim-bashing exercise. This is an attempt to deliberately provoke the government and the media into addressing the actual issues of what's going on. Here's the material that's actually being taught, here's where it comes from, here's how it's getting there. Is this acceptable in Canada, yes or no?"
Thomas Quiggin, former intelligence analyst with the Privy Council Office and the RCMP

A Muslim prays over a Quran.
FILE/JUNI KRISWANTO/AFP/Getty Images

Both Mr. Quiggin and his colleague and study co-author, Mr. Shoaaib, originally from Egypt and well versed in Islam and extremism within the religion, conducted research in mosque libraries and Islamic schools to reach the conclusions that their study reveals. Their concern was hugely elevated by the fact that in some of these places it was only extremist literature that could be found as resource material, relating to Islam. Including the texts written by two fathers of modern extremist Islam,

— "In the Shade of the Qur’an" and "Milestones" by Sayyid Qutb, an author seen by some as an inspiration for groups including al-Qaida;

— the complete works of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam.

The material that they were able to access and analyze, including social media postings, confirmed for them their apprehension that most Canadians, and certainly including leading politicians prefer to turn away from the obvious dangers inherent in the situation of institutionalized Islamist radicalization. It is their contention that this presents a vital issue too grave to ignore, the danger supported by the number of young Canadians that have accepted the role of violent jihad in Islam.

The warning voices of those Canadian Muslims whose outlook is humanist and moderate are not being heard, and if they are, they are ignored. The Canadian Council of Imams is clearly displeased with the airing of this study's conclusions. A year earlier the Senate defence and security committee had issued a report warning that some foreign-trained imams have spread extremist religious ideology unreflective of Canadian values, contributing to radicalization. Has anyone else in government read that report and looked into its findings?

Before the previous Conservative-led government invited the Islamic Republic of Iran to shutter its embassy and missions in Canada, it had provided its brand of fanatical Islamist school curricula to some Canadian Muslim schools practising Shiite Islam; inflammatory, racist, bigoted and alarming material that became the cause of an investigation.

Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah have written often and cogently of their alarm at the presence of extremists in the Muslim community in Canada spreading their messages of hatred, division, uncompromising Islamist exceptionality and violent jihad. The study's co-authors personally attended four mosques and three Islamic schools in the Ottawa area to gather the information that has concerned them and which should be of great concern to our intelligence and security agencies.

They have found reason to be alarmed about what they have identified as troubling activities — including homophobic statements and promotion of Holy War — at certain mosques in Montreal and Toronto. The promotion of holy war is simply jihad, the obligation of all faithful Muslims to accept their responsibility in pursuit of Islamic domination. There are several options, the slow and inevitable cultural war achieved through immigration and the more overt option of violent jihad.

In denouncing the study's findings, Muslim groups and organizations in Canada typically resort to defaming the authors with claims amounting to viral Islamophobia, claiming innocence and embracing the status of victimhood. Claims that the majority of kind-natured and good-mannered Canadians, anxious not to appear discriminatory, are prepared to accept and apologize profusely over.

What practical use is there in governments and the policing agencies in Canada undertaking exercises in de-radicalization given the reality that the Islamic establishment itself in Canada is implicated in and guilty of promoting Islamist extremism among its faithful? The custodians of Islamic values will extend themselves to infiltrate their ideas into the Canadian way of life and the government attempts to reverse their teachings? Pure lunacy.

“I bear witness that there is no God worthy of worship but Allah. He is one and has no partner, and I also bear witness that Muhammad (PBUH) is the Servant and Messenger of Allah, whom Allah sent with the ‘Religion of Truth’ [Islam] and with Guidance so that this Truth and this Guidance [Islam] will become established in the land over all other religions, although the ‘Disbelievers’ (Jews, Christians, Hindus and Atheists) hate that.” Friday night mosque prayers
Tarek Fatah, September 25, 2015