BOSTON BOMBINGS: Role of suspects’ Muslim beliefs unclear

Posted on | April 22, 2013

Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File

It’s still unclear whether religion was a motivation for the Boston Marathon bombings.

But as evidence emerges that Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have held extremist Muslim beliefs, speculation is rife as to whether those apparent beliefs led him and his brother Dzhokhar to plant the bombs that killed three people and injured more than 180 others, and to then kill a police officer.
From the beginning, U.S. Muslim organizations and leaders have condemned the bombings and emphasized that violence against innocent people violates the basic tenets of Islam.

“A person who claims an Islamic basis for such a heinous crime is no more faithful to the teachings of Islam than a KKK member who claims a biblical basis in committing bigoted crimes,” Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told me on Friday.

“Islam’s teachings are very clear in protecting the sanctity of life,” the Corona resident said. “Anyone who claims to be a Muslim cannot act in opposition to those teachings.”

Prayers for the victims of the Boston bombings and condemnations of the attacks were heard over the past few days in mosques across the country and at vigils organized by Muslims.

One Boston-area imam, Talal Eid, said he would refuse to perform funeral rites for someone who killed innocent people. The Quran says such people go to hell, he said.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev clashed with members of a Massachusetts mosque earlier this year. In January, he disrupted a service when he loudly objected to Martin Luther King Jr. being compared with the Prophet Mohammed.

One worshipper said Tsarnaev was angry because King was not a Muslim.
After the outburst, Yusufi Vali, a spokesman for the mosque, told The Boston Globe “The congregation shouted him out of the mosque.”

The FBI said that in 2011, a foreign government – later identified as Russia – asked for information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

“The FBI reviewed its records and determined that in early 2011, a foreign government asked the FBI for information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev,” the FBI said. “The request stated that it was based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”

The FBI found no evidence of terrorist activity.

There have already been assaults against Muslims in the Boston and New York areas.

Akbar Ahmed, the chairman of Islamic studies at American University in Washington, D.C., said anti-Muslim attitudes can alienate Muslims. He said in an essay on the National Geographic website that he believes the Tsarnaev brothers’ struggle in defining their identity led to the bombings. He also said Muslim community leaders need to work more to help young people deal with Islamophobia and guide them so they don’t fall prey to those who advocate violence.

The Tsarnaev brothers’ religious background has thrust Islam into the debate in Washington over how to react to the Boston bombings.

Rep. Peter King, a New York State Republican who has held hearings on “radical Islam” – hearing that were condemned by many Muslim and civil-liberties groups for singling out Muslims – said the bombings illustrated the need for greater surveillance of Muslims. King added that 99 percent of U.S. Muslims are good people, but that greater monitoring of Muslims is necessary because people such as the alleged Boston bombers have succeeded in staying “under the radar screen.”

King appeared Sunday on Fox News Sunday with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who appeared to accuse King of anti-Muslim attitudes.

“With respect to whether we are doing enough in the Muslim community, I think we should take a look at that,” she said. “But I don’t think we need to go and develop some real disdain and hatred on television about it.”

Feinstein then added, “This came at this point from two individuals. That’s what we really do know. We do not know what their connections are. So I think we ought to find out before we begin to charge them with all kinds of associations.”

Ayloush commenting on the Boston Bombings on KPCC's AirTalk Show with Larry Mantle

AirTalk | April 19th, 2013, 10:54am
KPCC/NPR Affiliate 

STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (L) speaks to the media at a shopping mall on the perimeter of a locked down area as a search for the second of two suspects wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings takes place on April 19, 2013 in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Stay up to date with on the ground coverage of the search for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as reporters from WBUR check in with law enforcement. We'll also consider the way the bombings and manhunt have affected local communities, including the Islamist and Chechen communities. How could a city like Boston be effectively shut down? What's it like to be under seige?

KPCC's up-to-date coverage on the Boston Marathon bombings

Guests:
Steve Brown, reporter and anchor at WBUR in Boston.
Erroll Southers, Adjunct Professor of Homeland Security and Public Policy Associate Director, Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, USC
Hussam Ayloush, Executive Director of the greater Los Angeles office at the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations (CARE)
Olga Oliker, Associate Director, RAND International Security & Defense Policy Center and author of "Russian Foreign Policy." Born in Russia and fluent in Russian, Oliker's expertise includes Russian foreign policy and deterrence strategy.
Thomas Wieczorek, ICMA Center for Public Safety Management
Phil Mattingly, Justice Department Reporter, Bloomberg News

BOSTON BOMBINGS: Islam condemns violence, Muslim leader reiterates

Posted on | April 19, 2013

Hussam Ayloush

As news emerges that the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were from the predominantly Muslim Russian republic of Chechnya, an Inland Muslim leader emphasized something he’s had to repeat every time a suspect in a terrorist attack is Muslim: Violence against innocent people is a severe violation of the teachings of Islam.


“A person who claims an Islamic basis for such a heinous crime is no more faithful to the teachings of Islam than a KKK member who claims a biblical basis in committing bigoted crimes,” said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a Corona resident.

“Islam’s teachings are very clear in protecting the sanctity of life,” he said. “Anyone who claims to be a Muslim cannot act in opposition to those teachings.”

One of the suspects, Dzhokhar Tsamaev, posted links to Muslim websites on a Russian-language social media site. He also posted links to websites advocating Chechen independence from Russia. Chechen rebels fought two unsuccessful wars for secession in the 1990s.

But the suspects’ uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, said he believed religion had nothing to do with his nephews’ motivations.

“Being losers, hatred to those who were able to settle themselves, these are the only reasons I can imagine,” he said “Anything else, anything else to do with religion is a fraud. It’s a fake. We’re Muslims. We’re ethnic Chechens.”

Ayloush said a small number of Americans, goaded on by anti-Muslim extremist commentators on the Internet, may blame Islam for the tragedy.

“There are people who are exploiting the tragedy in Boston to exploit anti-Muslim fear and paranoia,” he said.

But he said Inland Muslims generally have found support after past terrorist acts that were committed by a Muslim.

“It has been a positive experience when their neighbors, coworkers and friends say that you can’t blame a whole group for the actions of a few,” Ayloush said.

Ayloush said he’s not spending time thinking about the possibility of verbal or physical abuse that could be directed at Southern California Muslims as a result of the Boston attacks.

“Our bigger sentiment has been and continues to be with the victims in Boston,” he said. “We shouldn’t take away our focus from them.”

Follow me on Twitter: @DavidOlson11

Guest Column: We must forgive, in all events (OC Register)

Forgiving someone for attempted murder seems unfathomable.

(Apr 04, 2013 - Anaheim, CA) 

The shotgun came up. It pointed directly at the dark-skinned man clerking at the Dallas gas station. He recently had immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Rais Bhuiyan observed some customers at the gas station who grew aggressive and argumentative. On Sept. 21, Mark Stroman walked in, asked Bhuiyan where he was from and then shot him in the face, blinding him in his right eye. Bhuiyan was Stroman’s third victim in a hunting spree that left two other South Asian men dead.

Eight years later, the story changed – as hearts change – from one of revenge and terror to forgiveness and repentance. On the day that Stroman was slated for execution, Bhuiyan told Stroman that he had for-given him. Stroman, who had grown deeply penitent over his actions, thanked Bhuiyan in his last moments of living.

Forgiving someone for attempted murder seems unfathomable. It is difficult for the broken-hearted to forgive.

In all three Abrahamic traditions, the human journey begins with sin and forgiveness. God created Adam and forbade him from eating the fruit of a specified tree. Adam disobeyed the command, repented to God and he was shown forgiveness.

It’s much easier to be angry than to forgive. Sometimes we unnecessarily cling to anger. But Islam, as other faith traditions, asks us to rise above anger and discord and to reflect God’s attributes to the best of our limited human capability on this Earth.

“They should pardon and forgive. Do you not love that God should forgive you? And God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful” (Quran 24:22).

To forgive is not an act of passivism. We do not forgive by forgetting or not dealing with those who have wronged us. It is not our anger that inhibits us from forgiveness, but how we deal with our anger.

Forgiveness liberates our souls, empowers us with profound resolve to move forward, to improve our own shortcomings, to not let the sting of hatred or malice control our hearts and hinder us from improving ourselves.

It is an act of mercy to the wronged and the one who has wronged.

We cannot have what we will not give. We cannot have the fruits of forgiveness – peace, generosity, comfort, compassion and mercy – without giving it as Bhuiyan gave it to Stroman.

– Hussam Ayloush is the executive director of CAIR-Greater Los Angeles, based in Anaheim

Rattling the Cage: Pity Rick didn’t rag the Muslims

By LARRY DERFNER
10/06/2010
The Jerusalem Post

4 recent scandals involving public figures accused of running down minorities show that any offensive commentary on followers of Islam incurs no real consequences.

In America, you can’t rag the Jews publicly and you can’t rag the blacks publicly. It’s taboo – you lose your job, you have to quit the campaign if you say bad things about Jews or blacks – even if what you say is, you know, true.

After Jews and blacks come the Latinos, Asians, Catholics and all the other ethnic and religious minorities – none of them have the victim status that blacks and Jews enjoy, they’re not as controversial, so nobody in America is much inclined to slag them off anyway. (Latino illegal immigrants, however, are a different story, and you can put them down as much as you want so long as you specify that you’re talking about “illegal immigrants,” or at least “immigrants,” and not Latinos in general.)

With one exception, political correctness protects every ethnic and religious minority in America from public bad-mouthing, and that one exception is Muslims. In America, you can say anything you want as publicly as you want against Muslims, against Islam, against the Koran, and the only thing mainstream America might do is elect you. You will have trouble in very narrow, left-liberal, Ivy League circles, but that’s all. Everywhere else in the USA, Muslims are fair game. (All Arabs count as Muslims, of course, even if they’re Christian)...

READ FULL ARTICLE

CAIR-LA: Media coverage of Islam unbalanced (Daily Pilot)

Advocacy group says normal, peaceful Muslims are not in news stories, only the violent extremists.

By Mona Shadia, mona.shadia@latimes.com

September 14, 2010

ANAHEIM — The Greater Los Angeles Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) held a media breakfast at its offices Tuesday morning with reporters and editors from various Southern California news outlets to discuss how the American media portrays Islam and Muslims.

The regional office of the Muslim American advocacy and civil liberties group organized the event mainly to give media representatives information, resources and ideas on how to cover Muslims in a more positive light, as they are often typecast.

"Present Muslims like common people," said Ahlam Muhtaseb, assistant professor of communications studies at Cal State San Bernardino.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Muslims' loyalty to the United States has been questioned, and they have been scrutinized and lumped into one group that is seen as untrustworthy and not American enough, said Munira Syeda, CAIR-LA spokeswoman.

Lately, the coverage of the proposed building of an Islamic center, Park51, near the former World Trade Center site in New York City; the abandoned plan by a Florida church to burn the Koran on the ninth anniversary of 9/11; and the upcoming midterm elections has thrust Muslims into the national spotlight.

Typically when there is coverage of Islam or Muslims, it is done in a negative frame of mind, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR-LA.

For example, coverage of Muslims or Islam occurs mainly when a group who uses Islam to advance its agenda commits a suicide bombing in Iraq or elsewhere, or when someone, who also uses Islam to fulfill his goal, is suspected of committing a terrorist act, he said.

But ordinary, everyday Muslims, who make up most of the nearly 1.5 billion followers of Islam worldwide — 6 to 8 million of them in the United States — are not seen or heard, Ayloush said.

As a result, certain words trigger fear or negative perceptions of Muslims among Americans.

Ayloush said people have told him they equate the word "Islam" with terrorism, violence, and intolerance toward women, among other negative perceptions, none of which Islam represents.

On the other hand, positive stories about Muslim doctors who travel overseas to provide medical assistance to the poor, Muslim nurses who tend to the sick, Muslim public school teachers who work in inner cities and neighborhoods, and Muslims volunteers who raise funds for Haiti and other disaster-stricken areas are nowhere to be found on TV, radio or in newspapers, Ayloush said.

The idea is not to refrain from telling the negative stories, but to include the majority of Muslims in daily coverage, in the human interest stories that are heard and read everywhere, Ayloush said.

Rachel Maddow blasts Frank Gaffney and his conspiracy theories

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Comedian Dean Obeidallah commenting on South Park threats

Comedian Dean Obeidallah on FoxNews' "Geraldo at Large." (April 24, 2010)

ABC NEWS: One Man's Fight Against 'Islamophobia'

Ayloush on Aljazeera commenting on new radio station, One Legacy

CAIR-Los Angeles Executive Director Hussam Ayloush discussed the importance of having Muslim media outlets to accurately inform audiences about Islam and issues of importance to American Muslims

Ayloush on NPR Discussing FBI's Abuses Against U.S. Muslims

Muslim Groups Claim FBI Took Advantage
by Alex Cohen

Listen Now [7 min 14 sec] add to playlist | download

Weekend Edition Sunday, June 7, 2009 · Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, Muslim organizations throughout California banded together to try to prove to the U.S. that not all Muslims were terrorists. A major part of that effort was working with the FBI. But in recent years that partnership has broken down; Muslim groups claim the FBI deceived them and now refuses to cooperate.

AP: Israel keeps ban on foreign journalists in Gaza

What is Israel trying to keep the world from seeing?

Hussam Ayloush debates: Are Muslims in America receiving preferential treatment?

Talk show host Marc "Mr. K" Germain discusses with Hussam Ayloush on KTLK AM 1050 the question of Muslim accommodation in America.

You can listen to the interview at:
http://www.cair.com/audio/08022007/

This sensationalized topic was also addressed by several newspapers.

Some say schools giving Muslims special treatment (USA Today)
School to install foot baths for Muslims (LA Times)
Public schools grapple with Muslim prayer (Christian Science Monitor)

A hilarious movie about being Arab in America

Watch this movie trailer for an upcoming movie and possibly a sitcom entitled Arab in America.


It is really hilarious. For more information on the movie, visit: http://www.arabinamerica.com/



To watch the trailer, click on the image below:

Interfaith group promotes mutual understanding

Orange County residents of different religions meet and discuss faith.

By ADAM TOWNSEND, The Orange County Register, May 7, 2007

YORBA LINDA — The Interfaith Council of North Orange County is a group of the religious of all stripes who hold events to promote understanding and satisfy general curiosity on spiritual matters.

The roughly 20 active members – Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews and Christians, as well as followers of many other religions – meet to discuss what unifies their faiths and hold events for the public.

The group allows the faithful to share their beliefs respectfully, providing a forum that the members say is all too uncommon in this age of polarized politics and widespread ignorance of others' traditions.

"It's never been easy to wear a turban and a beard in the U.S., and after 9/11, it just got worse," said Arinder Chadha, a panelist for one of the group's discussion sessions...

Hussam Ayloush, who is the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Southern California, said such events were important, especially for American Muslims who may sometimes feel "under siege" as the U.S. wages war in predominantly Islamic nations.

"We unfortunately have let the extremists define who we are," Ayloush said. "Many times, instead of explaining what the religion is, we have to spend time explaining what it is not. According to some polls, 60 to 70 percent of people in America know little about Islam. Four out of 10 admit unfavorable views and biases against Muslims."

Photo source: Mark Martinez, The Orange County Register

Pro-Israel groups target American Muslims

An interesting article from InFocus, a local newspaper

By Aisha Aziz, Staff Writer

LOS ANGELES -- American Muslims and Muslim groups have long been a target of harassment and vilification from right-wing pro-Israel groups, a recent front-page article in the New York Times has exposed. Such forces, according to government sources, have used guilt by association to spread suspicion about Islam and Muslims, and in turn, kept Muslims out of mainstream American discourse and stripped them of their influence in the political and social arenas.
One group in particular, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has attracted widespread attention for working aggressively for Muslims’ civil rights, calling for interfaith dialogue and taking candid positions on issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iraq war...

For its part, CAIR officials say such attacks seek to marginalize the American Muslim voice and disenfranchise this minority.

"There is a well-coordinated attempt by extremist pro-Israel circles to silence American Muslims on issues ranging from Islam, to foreign policy, to civil rights and national security," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR’s southern California office. "If standing up for truth and justice makes CAIR controversial, then by all means, we are proud and honored to be controversial. In their day, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela were deemed controversial, too."...

Federal officials reported to the Times that CAIR’s Washington office "frequently issued controversial statements that made it hard for senior government figures to be associated with the group, particularly since some pro-Israeli lobbyists have created what one official called a "cottage industry" of attacking the group and anyone dealing with it."

Last summer, the group called for a stop to arms shipment to Israel as its military continued the invasion of Lebanon. In August, it sponsored a panel discussion highlighting how the power of the pro-Israel lobby harms the United States and negatively affects its policy on the Middle East, and in September, CAIR organized a dinner in honor of former Iranian President Mohamed Khatami.

"Traditionally within the government there is only one point of view that is acceptable, which is the pro-Israel line," said Nihad Awad, a founder of CAIR and its executive director, to the Times. "Another enlightened perspective on the conflict is not there, and it causes some discomfort."

Another extremist pro-Israel critic of Muslim organizations is Daniel Pipes, who makes no attempt to hide the real reasons that fuel his Islamophobia. Speaking at an American Jewish Congress convention in 2001, he said, "I worry very much from the Jewish point of view that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims...will present true dangers to American Jews."...

While groups driven by foreign agendas attempt to marginalize American Muslim organizations, government and law enforcement officials are increasingly reaching out to the Muslim community and recognizing their contributions to society as a whole.

At CAIR Southern California chapter’s fundraising banquet last November, nearly 2,000 people attended, including J. Stephen Tidwell, the director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office.

"I am very excited to be here," Mr. Tidwell told an Arab Radio and Television (ART) reporter, calling CAIR "an important bridge for the FBI into the Muslim, Arab-American community."