It “is no difficult task for Allah” to bring America to its knees, a prominent former Muslim Brotherhood official said at a recent discussion in Egypt.

American leaders are “all criminals” plotting to stifle Arab revolutions and defend “that criminal and plundering state of Israel,” Kemal Helbawy, the Brotherhood’s former spokesman in the United Kingdom, said in a video dated July 26 and posted this week by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“If we use all the capabilities at our disposal properly, America will be brought to its knees and will be defeated like the Soviets in Afghanistan,” he said. “This is no difficult task for Allah.”

The remarks came during a sit-in outside the American embassy in Cairo.

Behind him is a poster of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik considered the inspiration behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who is serving a life sentence in the United States for a subsequent plot to bomb New York tunnels and landmarks. New Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has promised to seek Abdel Rahman’s release when he meets U.S. officials.

Helbawy left the Brotherhood last spring, blasting the group for trying to monopolize power in Egypt after a peaceful revolution ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. But Helbawy remains a staunch Islamist and, despite a long record of violent rhetoric, is welcomed among American Islamists and academic groups.
He hailed Osama bin Laden as “a great mujahid” last year just after the American raid in Pakistan killed the al-Qaida leader. He prayed that bin Laden “join the prophets, the martyrs, and the good people” and questioned whether America’s proof al-Qaida was behind the 9/11 attacks “was a trick and a bait … All evidences and indications refer that the Americans are the ones who planned this matter, not the Afghans who have weak resources.”

The London-based Quilliam Foundation, which works to counter jihadist influence,called this “the latest example of senior Muslim Brotherhood members giving different messages to different audiences. When speaking to mainstream audiences Helbawy presents himself as a moderate reformer; when speaking to Islamists he praises Osama bin Laden. This doublespeak undermines trust between Muslims and non-Muslims and hinders genuine efforts to tackle extremism and terrorism.”

Quilliam warned western governments to treat the Brotherhood “with the greatest suspicion,” adding that there are moderates in the group, but “anyone who thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole has ‘reformed’ is clearly deluded.”

Helbawy demonstrated that doublespeak two years earlier, during the 10th annual conference of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam Democracy. The event attracted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat and first Muslim elected to Congress.

He was on a panel on “Improving Relations between the U.S. and the Muslim World.” In his abstract for the conference, Helbawy waxed fondly about the benefits of democracy and life in the West. As a Muslim, he said he he “deeply appreciate[s] most of the values and blessings of the democratic society and wish that Muslim countries were more like the UK or Europe in this respect.”

“God created us into different nations, tribes, people, ethnic groups and races to know each other,” he wrote, “so as a Muslim I am fulfilling one of the many aims and objectives of my existence when I meet and know and work with other people to improve community relations. More broadly, living in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society enables us to appreciate our differences and overcome obstacles towards greater understanding.”
That lovely, humanistic embrace was absent in Helbawy’s 1992 speech in Oklahoma City before the Islamic Association for Palestine – a Hamas propaganda wing – and the Muslim Arab Youth Association:

Do not take Jews and Christians as allies. For they are allies to each other. Oh Brothers, the Palestinian cause is not of conflict of borders and land only. It is not even a conflict of human ideology and not over peace. Rather, it is an absolute clash of civilizations, between truth and falsehood. Between two conducts – one satanic, headed by Jews and their co-conspirators – and the other is religious, carried by Hamas, and the Islamic movement in particular, and the Islamic people in general who are behind it.

Lastly I am going to say something about Imam Hassan al-Banna, may he rest in peace, who had been trying to establish 70,000 fighters, and he started with the first battalion with 10,000 fighters, and today the Palestinians became strong fighting battalions. Let us stand and support this great nation and the future is for Islam. And I ask God’s forgiveness for you and for me and the Muslims. We ask God to give victory to our brothers and we ask God to release the leader of the Intifada, [Hamas founder] Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, praise be upon him.

Statements like that may have prompted government officials to prohibit Helbawy from coming into the United States in 2006 for a New York University conference. It’s not clear why the Obama administration saw fit to reverse that course, or why Secretary Clinton would agree to appear at a conference with someone espousing such hostility toward Jews and Christians and outward support for terrorist groups like Hamas.

In addition, Helbawy frequently appears on Iran’s official FARS News Agency, a rarity for someone from the Sunni Brotherhood movement. In 2010, he was interviewed on Iran’s English-language television outlet, Press TV, along with Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper about “Islamophobia” in America. CAIR officials routinely appear on the Iranian media outlet.

Fear of Islam “has the highest level in America unfortunately,” Helbawy said. “This implied democratic superpower in the world.”

Hooper didn’t challenge the statement, and blamed the Tea Party movement, saying it “unfortunately has given bigots a voice.”

The discussion was prompted by a Florida pastor’s threat to burn the Quran. Helbawy hinted darkly at widespread violence.

“You’re seeing the demonization of the faith itself. If you demonize the faith of Islam and you have millions of American Muslims, what is going to be done with those people? There are logical conclusions to ideologies. If you say Islam is intrinsically evil and Muslims are intrinsically evil, you must have a policy that flows from that very dangerous thing.”

It’s an odd concern from someone who envisioned “America will be brought to its knees” because it continues to incarcerate a convicted terrorist and who praised Osama bin Laden as “a great mujahid.” The Quilliam Foundation called on British Muslims to distance themselves from Helbawy’s radicalism last year.

It’s time American Muslims, along with government and academic officials, did too.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) is a non-profit research group founded by Steven Emerson in 1995. It is recognized as the world’s most comprehensive data center on radical Islamic terrorist groups. For more than a decade, the IPT has investigated the operations, funding, activities and front groups of Islamic terrorist and extremist groups in the United States and around the world. It has become a principal source of critical evidence to a wide variety of government offices and law enforcement agencies, as well as the U.S. Congress and numerous public policy forums. Research carried out by the IPT team has formed the basis for thousands of articles and television specials on the subject of radical Islamic involvement in terrorism, and has even led to successful government action against terrorists and financiers based in the United State

SOURCE:Right Side News

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (eTN) – The month of Ramadan is entering into its last quarter, and that is increasing philanthropy activities in Pakistan. Muslims during this holy month of Ramadan usually not only fast, but also do charity work, because it is said that Muslims should help Muslims, as well as non-Muslims, who are needy. There are many compensatory duties regarding charity in Islam, including Zakat and Fitrana. Both are usually done in this month of Ramadan.

Zakat al-Fitr is charity given to the poor at the end of the fasting in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The word Fitr means the same as Iftar – breaking a fast – and it comes from the same root word as Futoor, which means breakfast.

The main purpose of Zakat al-Fitr is to provide the poor with a means with which they can celebrate the festival of breaking the fast (Eid al-Fitr) along with the rest of the Muslims.

Every Muslim is required to pay Zakat al-Fitr at the conclusion of the month of Ramadan as a token of thankfulness to God for having enabled him or her to observe the obligatory fast.

The significant role played by Zakat in the circulation of wealth within the Islamic society is also played by the Sadaqat al-Fitr. However, in the case of Sadaqat al-Fitr, each individual is required to calculate how much charity is due from himself and his dependents, and to go into the community in order to find those who deserve such charity. Thus, Sadaqat al-Fitr plays a very important role in the development of the bonds of community.

The rich are obliged to come in direct contact with the poor, and the poor are put in contact with the extremely poor. This contact between the various levels of society helps to build real bonds of brotherhood and love within the Islamic community and trains those who have, to be generous to those who do not have.

Several organizations, like Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Charity Foundation, Edhi Foundation, Sahara Foundation, and the Red Crescent Authority, have taken the lead in this noble task of serving the deserving people by organizing Iftar programs.

Charities are coming from immigrant Pakistanis from all over the world, particularly from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile some foreign organizations are also doing charities and providing food, clothes, and even medicines to poor and needy people. In such activities, the UAE embassy in Islamabad is leading, compared to any other foreign organization.

These Iftar programs are being held in compliance with the directive of the President of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the UAE has been purposefully engaged in Iftar programs, which besides provision of food stuff, readymade meals are also included in distribution of alms and clothes to orphan children and the needy on the eve of Eid ul Fitr. The UAE ambassador to Islamabad Essa Abdulla Al Basha Al Noauimi, since the beginning of the holy month, has been distributing among needy families, large quantities of dates, which were sent by the UAE Red Crescent. At least 50,000 tons of dates have been distributed across the country as part of its continuing Ramadan programs, it said.

A delegation of the Khalifa Charity Foundation specially flew into Pakistan to distribute twenty tons of dates and 150,000 bags of flour in some districts of southern Punjab and the Balochistan provinces.

Another initiative was launched by the Director of the “UAE Project to Assist Pakistan,” Abdulla Al Ghafli, under which a consignment of 160 tons of flour were transported to Khyber Pukhtoonkhaw. This was meant for the families of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who had to leave their homes as a result of the military operation against the militants in South Waziristan. The IDPs had to take shelter in camps in KPK, and this project would benefit about 20,000 such families.

With the advent of the holy month of Ramadhan, the Red Crescent through its branch office in Islamabad, had distributed dry food rations for a month to 211 families housed in a UAE-built compound in Khalifa city, in Garhi Habibullah, a Mansehra district. It also hosted Iftar in several districts of the province.\

The Iftar programs were held in orphanages; occupants of welfare homes and schools; community centers; and for special persons, the elderly, and other deserving people. The UAE organizations have shown special care to patients and pre-medic staff in poly clinics Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, Holy Family, and District Hospital Rawalpindi. The press release quoted a senior diplomat as saying that such programs could help reduce some worries of certain segments of the society and would bring happiness, comfort, and brotherly feelings among the people of both countries.

SOURCE: Global Travel Industry News

 WASHINGTON, July 13, 2012 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA), a relief and development organization based in the D.C. metro area, launched its 2012 Day of Dignity campaign, coinciding with the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.  At the first of 15 scheduled events across the country this summer and fall, Day of Dignity’s Houston event was attended by 1,200 participants. While fasting, American Muslims and their fellow community members will distribute food, clothing, books, toys and hygiene kits to their neighbors who have been disadvantaged by harsh economic conditions.

In its 10th year, Day of Dignity is a nationwide campaign in which more than 2,000 volunteers will serve approximately 20,000 homeless people and others in need in the following cities: Houston; Detroit; Chicago; Las Vegas; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Dallas; New York City; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Flint; Minneapolis; Seattle; Fort Lauderdale; and Louisville.

“Day of Dignity provides local organizations an opportunity to be engaged and creative in their efforts to assist communities in need,” said Kyle Ismail, programs manager at Islamic Relief USA. “Day of Dignity serves as a connection point between these organizations and members of their communities.”

Precious Rasheeda Muhammad, Coordinator of 2012 Day of Dignity said “We are very excited to see the level of involvement from the segment of our community that is often forgotten. To see them very happy and excited about this experience does make it the best day of dignity ever.”

Islamic Relief USA, based in Alexandria, Va., is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) humanitarian organization with eight consecutive 4-star ratings from Charity Navigator. Its mission is to alleviate suffering, hunger, illiteracy and disease regardless of color, race, gender or creed, and to provide aid in a compassionate and dignified manner. In 2011, Islamic Relief USA helped more than 5 million people in 34 countries, including the United States. In addition to its 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, Islamic Relief USA meets all of the Standards for Charity Accountability of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance. Islamic Relief USA is listed on the U.S. government’s Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) charity list, and it is also a signatory to the code of conduct of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

SOURCE:THE SACRAMENTO BEE sacbee.com