Clash Over 'Islamization' at DC Muslim Prayer Rally
The Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) group has declared its mission to be educating Americans "about the threat that Islamic doctrine and those who support it present to our freedoms, and the future of our democracy and country." The organizers call themselves "scholar warriors/ideological warriors in the cause of American freedom and Constitutional government," as well as in "the defense of... our society of liberty, knowledge, and human decency."
SIOA believes that political Islam is opposed to American values of "freedom, tolerance, or human rights." They seek to raise the issue of what they call "brutal, misogynist" Islamic law and jihad in America, because "tolerance for ideologies that are opposed to our principles of individual freedoms and our Constitution is indefensible," the group declares in its online manifesto. A recently-released film, The Third Jihad, warns that radical Islam is working on a non-violent, cultural takeover of the United States.
"We are now in a new phase of a 1,400-year-old jihad against the kafirs (all non-Muslims everywhere); we are not prepared to meet the threat," SIOA says. "[I]gnorance about Islam, its doctrine and purposes is a moral and ethical failure whose consequences can be nothing short of national extinction."
The official launch of the SIOA is slated for September 25, 2009, at an as-yet unknown venue in the U.S. capital. The timing and location appears to be far from coincidental.
A massive Muslim prayer gathering is planned for for the same day in front of the Capitol building. Spearheaded by the Elizabeth, New Jersey Dar-ul-Islam Mosque, organizers are expecting 50,000 people to attend the first-of-its-kind national event. The gathering will be limited to prayer, according to Hassen Abdullah, president of Dar-ul-Islam.
SIOA sees the event as a "big-budget... soft jihad," fought through "marketing and cultural/ideological warfare." D.L. Adams of SIOA wrote of the planned Muslim prayer gathering, "It is impossible to see this event as anything but what it is, taqiyya (sacred deception), jihad (endless universal war against the unbelievers), and dawa (conversion)."
The SIOA website calls for 'every protest of this takiya-jihad-dawa event... [to] include some component of donkey, dog, and women.'
The SIOA's own event is planned to conclude with a "saunter" around the streets of Washington DC, on the day of the Muslim prayer rally, in order to "engage in conversations with our fellow citizens who might happen to be there on the same day on matters of moment." However, more confrontationally, the SIOA website calls for "every protest of this takiya-jihad-dawa event... [to] include some component of donkey, dog, and women." The reason for this unusual suggestion is made clear on the SIOA site as well: Muslim doctrine, according to the SIOA, says that "Islamic prayer is nullified if a dog, a woman, or a donkey are present."
At the same time, the SIOA promotional literature for the organizational launch emphasizes, "We are an entirely non-violent organization. Our sauntering is planned to be more a polite conversational engagement rather than a demonstration." Organizers "look forward to a pleasant several hours chatting with our fellow Americans in the Capitol on the issue at hand."
Speakers at the SIOA launch are slated to include expatriate Egyptian activist Nonie Darwish, Islam scholar and author Robert Spencer, journalist Pamela Geller, and Christine Brim, Senior Vice President for Policy and Program Management at the Center for Security Policy.