Christopher Columbus (l); Nihad Awad (r)
With the constant barrage of grim news, we can sure use some comic relief.
Neil Munro reports for The Daily Caller, Jan. 4, 2013, that Nihad Awad, co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), said Muslims had discovered the Americas long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.
CAIR is America’s largest Muslim “civil rights” lobby group, headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., with regional offices nationwide. In 2009, the FBI called CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Five of CAIR’s former employees have been jailed or deported for terror offenses, and FBI officials refuse to meet Awad because of his ties to jihadi groups, such as Hamas.
Last December 27, Awad told a Saudi TV station in an interview in a New York studio, recorded by the Middle East Media Research Institute: “There are historical accounts according to which the Muslims preceded Columbus, who is said to have discovered the U.S. Some documents and accounts indicate that Muslim seafarers were the first to reach the U.S., [so] the bottom line is that Islam played a part in the establishment and development of the U.S.”
Awad then argued that Muslims can settle in the U.S. without violating Islam’s myriad Sharia rules about religion, diet, speech, friendships, work and political loyalty. But Islam’s Sharia laws curb religious freedom, speech, and political activism, and also subordinate non-Muslims and women to orthodox Muslim men. Sharia is enforced in Saudi Arabia, Iran, much of Afghanistan and increasingly in Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and Libya, all of which were recently governed by secular laws.
Awad’s claim is part of a broader campaign by Islamist groups to encourage Muslims to settle in the United States and Europe. From 610 to 632, Islam’s founder, Mohammad, reputedly urged his followers to spread Islam by both conquest and emigration.
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The Islamic civilization did enjoy a “Golden Age” beginning in the middle of the 8th century with the ascension of the Abbasid Caliphate and the transfer of the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. Lasting five centuries, Islam’s Golden Age came to an abrupt end when the Mongols invaded and conquered Baghdad in 1258 — 234 years before Christopher Columbus found America.
Muslims “discovered” the Americas first?
Yeah right. [smirk]
On a more ominous note, there may be a method to Awad’s madness.
Fundamentalist Islam sees the world as divided between the part already won for Islam and that which remains to be conquered. They believe that once a land has become part of the dar-al-Islam (House of Islam), it cannot be allowed to revert to infidel rule and Muslims have the irredentist right to reclaim the land for Islam.
Does this mean CAIR, with its cofounder Awad’s ludicrous and wholly without-evidence claim that unnamed Muslims had discovered the Americas before Columbus, is “reclaiming” America for Islam?
See also:
- “FBI Does Not Believe Islam is a Religion of Peace,” Oct 15, 2011.
- “8 of 10 Mosques in America Promote Jihad,” June 5, 2011.
- “US Islamic Website Calls for Demolition of Statue of Liberty,” March 5, 2011.
- “Europe Wakes Up to Suicide by Islamicization,” December 20, 2010.
- “3 Mainstream US Muslim Groups Support Terror,” November 28, 2010.
- “Flag of Islam Will Fly Over the White House,” October 4, 2010.
- “Radical Muslim Group Has Infiltrated U.S. Government,” September 17, 2010.
- “Obama Advisor Sees America As Place of Islam’s Revival,” July 21, 2010.
- “Obama Says He’s Muslim,” July 8, 2010.
- “‘Progressive’ Islamization of America,” February 26, 2010.
- “DHS Sees Americans, Not Islamic Jihadists, as Terrorists,” February 25, 2010.
~Eowyn
