MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

For … business purposes? This is one I can’t figure out. Perhaps Mohammed Morsi is actually trying to dissuade non-Muslims from visiting Egypt entirely in the hopes of encouraging more Sharia tourism? …

By Max Fisher, The Washington Post – “It was only 16 years ago, in 1997, that members of an Egyptian militant group called Gamaa Islamiya stormed the ancient Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, a tourism magnet, and massacred 62 tourists before killing themselves, part of their insurgent campaign against the government. This week, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi swore in Adel Mohamed al-Khayat, a former leader of Gamaa Islamiya and now a member of its political arm, as the new governor of Luxor governorate.

Gamaa Islamiya swore off violence and denounced al-Qaeda a decade ago. But they are still listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group, which cites a number of other terrorist attacks before the group’s 1999 about-face and says that part of the group never renounced violence. Khayat joined Gamaa before it renounced violence and he was serving as one of its leaders, according to Reuters, when the 1997 attack took place, albeit in a different province.

The growing political influence of Islamism in Egypt, both moderate and not, is a trend larger than just Khayat or his group. It would hardly be fair to blame Morsi for Gamaa Islamiya’s long-standing base of support in some rural area of Egypt. But his decision to appoint Khayat, whose group is best known for terrifying foreigners into avoiding Egyptian tourism sites, to the job of running Luxor is baffling. The region is known as a major, international tourist draw, making it not just a source of Egyptian pride but of increasingly crucial and scarce tourism revenue.

Tourism has dropped in Egypt since the January 2011 revolution, costing the country an estimated $2.5 billion at a time when it needs every penny. So many of Egypt’s problems are worsened by the country’s economic struggle that you might think Morsi would seize any opportunity he could to boost tourism income. Although Khayat has said he welcomes ‘all forms of tourism’ – a subtle pledge, perhaps, that yes Westerners are still allowed in Luxor – his appointment seems unlikely to bolster tourist confidence in the region.” Read more.

Egypt Tourism Minister Quits Over New Luxor Governor – “Egypt’s tourism minister has resigned a day after President Mohamed Morsi appointed a new governor to Luxor province from an Islamist party linked to a massacre of holidaymakers in the temple city. Hesham Zazou said on Wednesday he ‘couldn’t continue in the role of tourism minister’ after the appointment of Adel al-Khayat, a former member of the political arm of Islamist group Gamaa Islamiya.” Read more.

Flashback: Brotherhood ‘Inspired’ Egyptian Businessmen Now Encouraging ‘Sharia Tourism’ – “In what appears to be another expression of the strengthening of Islam under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, Channel 2 News reported on Sunday of a new initiative in Egypt which encourages ‘sharia tourism.’ The new project, initiated by local businessmen, is directed at the religious sector in Egypt and allows it to take a vacation which follows the rules of Islam. Two businessmen have launched the initiative as part of a local company called Shouq Travel, and they invite vacationers to arrange their vacation according to Sharia law.” Read more.

He apparently beheaded a Muslim woman. If media “reports” are any indication, it had absolutely nothing to do with Islam, of course. Although no reason was mentioned in the article below, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is yet another example of a woman paying the ultimiate price for somehow dishonoring the family, or was simply a Muslim woman acting too Western, or both. And that would have been insulting to the “prophet” …

By ANNA EDWARDS, Mail Online – “A 20-year-old man has appeared in court charged with the murder of a young woman who was beheaded in a knife attack.

Aras Hussein appeared at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court today accused of murdering Reema Ramzan, 18.

Miss Ramzan, who was from the Darnall area of Sheffield, died on June 4 following an incident at a property on Herries Road, in the city.

Detectives said she suffered a severe knife attack resulting in fatal injuries, including the severing of her head.

Hussein, of Sheffield, is also charged with assaulting five people at Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital, where he was taken following his arrest by police.

He stood in the glass-fronted dock today flanked by two uniformed police officers.

Sporting full beard and short, dark hair, he wore a navy blue T-shirt and spoke only to confirm his personal details and that he understood the charge.

Hussein was remanded in custody following a 10 minute hearing and told he will appear again a Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday.” Read more.

Flashback: Bis Dass Der Tod Uns Scheidet: Man Shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ Beheads Wife In Germany – “A German man was seen atop his roof, a knife in one hand and his wife’s head in the other this morning. The unidentified 32-year-old man allegedly screamed ‘Allahu Akbar,’ which means [Allah is greater] in Arabic, before decapitating his wife on the roof of his five-story apartment, according to a translation of the Berliner Morgenpost… The man reportedly sharpened his knife and then beheaded the victim while she was still alive. Horrified witnesses saw the man standing at the roof’s edge with his wife’s head in his hand …” Read more.

Flashback: Muslim TV Channel Executive Beheads Wife – “The founder of a New York television station has been convicted of beheading his wife in 2009 in the studio the couple had opened to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims after the September 11 terror attacks. Muzzammil ‘Mo’ Hassan never denied that he killed Aasiya Hassan inside the suburban Buffalo station the couple established to promote cultural understanding… From the start, his lawyers dismissed suggestions that culture played a role in the killing.” Read more.

Flashback: Islam’s Rule Of Numbers: Islamic Beheadings Are Not Uncommon In The West, Including The U.S. – “As surreal as this event may seem, Islamic beheadings are not uncommon in the West, including the U.S. In 2011, a Pakistani-American who helped develop ‘Bridges TV’—a station ’designed to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims’—beheaded his wife. In Germany in 2012, another Muslim man beheaded his wife in front of their six children—again while hollering ’Allahu Akbar.’ Beheading non-Muslim ‘infidels’ in the Islamic world is especially commonplace …” Read more.

Is Iran’s new President elect Hassan Rouhani really a moderate and a reformer? Fat chance. The fact that the 12-member Guardians Council of clerics permitted his candidacy — not to mention the “Annihilate-Israel-And-Kill-All-Jews-Worldwide” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself — should speak volumes. Islam is the law of the land in Iran and the Qur’an is the quintessential source of influence for the Islamic Republic’s own constitution as well as its foreign policy, one that openly calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. And when the “infallible god” of Islam is called “the best of deceivers” by such a quintessential book, we can be certain that The Office of the Supreme Leader will do everything in its power to mimic Allah’s “divine” example …

By Nazila Fathi, CNN – “Millions of Iranians poured into the streets Saturday to celebrate the victory of presidential candidate Hassan Rouhani. Huge crowds snarled traffic in the capital, Tehran, demanding the release of hundreds of political prisoners arrested during protests over sham elections four years ago. ‘My dead brother and sister, I got your vote back,’ people chanted, a reference to more than 100 demonstrators killed by the regime.

The surprise was not so much that 18 million votes were cast for Rouhani, slightly more than half the ballots, but the fact that the regime had endorsed his victory, triggering hope that international pressure over Iran’s nuclear program and growing internal rifts at home might have forced the leadership to restore some of its lost legitimacy.

Rouhani is not a reformist, even according to Iranian standards. He had backed the violent crackdown against the pro-democracy student movement in 1999 and never formally aligned himself with the reformist camp. A cleric and a veteran politician since 1979, he was in the circle close to the founder of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. He served five terms as a member of Parliament and 16 years as the head of the National Security Council.

… The president sets the tone for domestic and foreign policy and can make room for more moderate voices in politics. But he holds little power compared with the authority that the constitution gives Khamenei. If Khamenei is willing to end international pressure over Iran’s nuclear program, Rouhani provides the perfect opportunity.” Read more.

‘Merciless’ Hassan Rouhani Bragged About Deceiving The West Over Iranian Nuclear Program – “‘For 16 years starting in 1989, Mr. Rohani served as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. During his tenure on the council, Mr. Rouhani led the crackdown on a 1999 student uprising and helped the regime evade Western scrutiny of its nuclear-weapons program… As Mr. Rouhani said at a pro-regime rally in July 1999: ‘At dusk yesterday we received a decisive revolutionary order to crush mercilessly and monumentally any move of these opportunist elements wherever it may occur.” … While Iranians may know him as the man behind a brutal crackdown (one I witnessed as I was in Iran at the time), most Western diplomats know him as a nuclear negotiator during the last years of the Mohammad Khatami administration. Years later, Rouhani bragged about how he deceived the West.” Read more.

Iranian Christian: All Candidates Were Part Of Ayatollah’s Team, ‘I Really Don’t Know What Will Be Next’ – “‘In your Western media, the candidates are divided into conservatives and reformers, as if there is a choice, but let me tell you this: there is no choice. All of the candidates are from Ayatollah Khamenei’s team,’ Open Doors ministry said in a statement, quoting an Iranian Christian believer… Ethnic Persians are by definition Muslim, and therefore, ethnic Persian Christians are seen as apostates …” Read more.

Israeli Defense Minister Warns Iran May Exploit Rohani Win To Advance Nuclear Program – “Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon cautioned on Tuesday that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, may exploit the moderate image of President elect Hassan Rohani to advance Tehran’s nuclear project… Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu shares his concerns, Ya’alon added. ‘The very fact that he [Khamenei] allowed Rohani to be elected is interesting. But we must not delude ourselves, as Rohani is a part of the conservative regime and the Islamic Revolution …” Read more.

As threatening as knives are, they are not the real menace. A knife can impair the body, but the Qur’an impairs the mind …

Qur’an Sura 48:29a, “Mohammed is [Allah’s] apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers …”

Qur’an Sura 8:12b, “… terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an.”

Qur’an Sura 25:52, “Therefore listen not to the Unbelievers, but strive against them with the utmost strenuousness …”

By Presseportal.de via Islam verses Europe – “Officers from police station 11 have provisionally arrested a 24-year-old from the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) on suspicion of threatening with a knife. The civil protection bureau in the state criminal office has taken over the investigation.

According to what has so far been discovered, the suspect entered a tent associated with the registered demonstration ‘Lampedusa refugees’ in Steindamm, sat at a table and sang. After a short time he stepped in front of the tent and drew two knives. This led a 47-year-old man, who was standing in front of the tent, to feel threatened. The suspect then went to the subway station Hauptbahnhof-Süd and encountered a Hamburg Rail employee. The suspect circled the 30-year-old, holding a book in one hand and a knife in the other, and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’. While doing this he continually moved the blade of the knife across the ground, as if he wanted to sharpen it. As the suspect again approached the 30-year-old in a threatening manner with the knife, the injured party fled in the direction of the central bus station and informed the police.

When the two police officers reached the scene, they encountered the suspect, who held two knives in his hands and several times shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’.

The officers arrested the 24-year-old on a provisional basis. Both knives (kitchen knives) were secured. During his arrest, a Koran fell out of the suspect’s jacket pocket.” Read more.

Flashback: Islam in Germany

• Achtung! The Islamization Of Germany In 2012
• Muslims Assault Jews In Berlin, Jews Cautioned To No Longer Dress Like Jews
• German Politicians Welcome Sharia Law In Germany, ‘Good For Integration’
• Islamist Calls Upon Muslims To Murder All Members Of Far-Right Anti-Sharia Party
• Hundreds Of Radical Islamists Riot In Bonn, 29 Police Officers Injured, 2 Stabbed
• Germany: Salafist Islamists Threat Growing, Interior Ministers Say
• Christian Cross Removed From German Court To Appease Muslims
• Hamburg Mosque Violates Anti-Hate Contract, Calls For The Destruction Of Israel
• Germany’s Islamization Continues As Churches Nationwide Become Mosques
• Islamist Threatens To Attack Germany, Kill Chancellor Angela Merkel
• Muslims To Non-Muslim Woman On Train: ‘We Will Destroy You All, We Will Wipe You Out … You Will All Go To Hell If You Do Not Accept Allah’s Law’

By Jon Boone, The Guardian – “With his track record as a member of the political arm of a banned terrorist organisation, Mian Shahzib is unlikely to ever be given a visa to enter Britain.

But that does not stop the jovial 33-year-old from giving British children religious instruction every day from the comfort of his home in Pakistan.

He spends hours each night sitting under a fluorescent light in the courtyard of a small mosque in Lahore, peering into a laptop as children first from the Middle East, then Europe and North America spend half an hour after school talking to him over a faltering Skype line. ‘Put on your cap and wash your hands,’ he told a 12-year-old boy sitting in a large office chair in his parents’ home in Edinburgh.

After checking the boy had memorised various prayers to get him through the day, including a special blessing for exiting and entering the toilet, he got down to business, helping the boy read aloud the classical Arabic of a few verses of the Qur’an.

The fact that a hardcore Islamist and long-term follower of the UN-proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) has daily access to children in the west is likely to fuel concerns about religious radicals spreading their message.

Shahzib’s website, Easy Qur’an Memorising, makes no mention of his history and is one of hundreds of such online companies, some of which advertise on satellite channels broadcasting to the Pakistani diaspora. They are part of a little-known outsourcing boom fuelled by parents of Pakistani origin turning to Qur’an teachers in Pakistan. ‘It’s just like a call centre where you are saving a lot of money by getting someone overseas to do it much more cheaply,’ said Fawad Rana, a property developer in Solihull who has used Qur’an teachers for his two sons for the past three years.

Rana makes an online payment of £30 a month to Faiz-e-Quran, one of the larger online religious education companies, which gets his children three half-hour sessions a week.

‘And there’s the convenience factor – the last thing kids want to do is spend half an hour travelling to the nearest mosque and then not even getting 10 minutes of one-on-one tuition,’ he said.

Although Faiz-e-Quran say it takes care to scrutinise and monitor all the teachers it employs, the industry is increasingly dominated by one-man operations. After several years working on his business, Shahzib now has about a dozen students aged 12 to 18 scattered all over the world. It’s a long way from his past role as an activist with JuD, a Pakistani Islamist organisation known for its holy war against Indian rule in the contested region of Kashmir.

The organisation is on the UN’s list of sanctioned organisations because of its alleged association with al-Qaida and is considered a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai.” Read more.