#American imam

[secular-jew]

DAILY CALIPHATE HEADLINES:

Hamas Official Baraka: Lebanon Should Transfer Its Palestinians To Israeli Border;

Fmr State Advisor Alghabra Clashes With BBC Host: UNRWA Employees Carried Out 7/10 Attacks;

ISIS Khurasan Magazine Questions Hamas For Starting Gaza War

CAIR Official In Harrisburg, PA Sermon: Herzl Plotted To Remove The Quran From Muslims' Hearts;

Miami Imam Kablawi On Backlash After He Referred To 'Tyrannical Jews' In Sermon;

Chicago Interfaith Org Official: AIPAC Encourages Jews To Marry Hindus

THESE IMAM'S are sick in the head, and the Middle East is infected with Islamist extremism.

[eretzyisrael]

The Arab American News reports that a crowd of 1,200 Arab Americans filled an auditorium at the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center in Dearborn last Tuesday evening, well after the Hamas atrocities were well know and documented.

That didn't stop Osama Siblani,  publisher of the Arab American News, to tell the crowd that Hamas was “not a terrorist organization.”

Imam Imran Salha of the Islamic Center of Detroit, a Palestinian-majority mosque, said  that Israel will burn.

This is only what is being reported. The full video shows more outrageous statements.

That same Imam Salha referred to the perpetrators of the massacre, saying "the Palestinians that 

stand up for their rights, that protest peacefully, that they cross the border. They do not love to die.

They love life. And because they love life, they wanted to stand up for their rights." His use of past tense makes it clear he was referring to this event.

Salha also mocked the Israelis at the rave who tried desperately to escape from being murdered by Hamas terrorists: "If you really had a claim to the land, oh Israeli,  why did you run away like a chicken?" the imam said to applause.

Another speaker, Nasir Beydoun, invoked antisemitic tropes by saying "Before we end the occupation of Palestine, we have to end the occupation of Congress!"  

He is a candidate for the Senate.

(UPDATE) Siblani's full statement was reprehensible:

We are not going to be intimidated or silent when they say Hamas is a terrorist organization. The fact is it is not a terrorist community. And we have to say to them that terrorist is Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. But not only Benjamin Netanyahu and his government but everyone that stands behind them and supports him, killing people in Palestine. We are not afraid to say it. You know why? Because it is the truth. And we have to say it because we are responsible before God. ... Let me tell you, let me tell you what happened on Sunday. So what happened on Sunday was shameful. Here in Michigan.  Our representative went to a synagogue and that is not the issue. But what they did there is shameful. While people are being dead. Under the rubbles of their homes. From the bombs that made in the United States. And give it to Israel to kill people. They were standing and dancing and laughing on our bodies, on our homes.

Sunday was Simchat Torah. The representative visited a synagogue where Jews were dancing around the Torah as is done on this holiday. The idea that they were dancing because Israel was bombing Palestinians is sickening - because in synagogues around the world, this was the saddest Simchat Torah ever, as we were only starting to learn about the horrific and genocidal attack by Siblani's Hamas friends on thousands of innocent Jewish civilians. 

Where I prayed, where we do not use electronics during the festival, the first time we learned about the attack was right before the dancing. We stopped, said Psalms, prayed for the safety of the people, and then danced a subdued set of hakafot with songs centered around asking God for salvation.

For Siblani to twist that into saying that Jews were celebrating Palestinian deaths is grotesque and revolting..  

[doodoocumfart]

Honestly Hosseini is a crazy last name for a character like stewy to have. Like even as an Iranians go that’s a choice of a last name

[xtruss]

Islamophobia: Taking A Page From The French Anti-Islam Playbook, UK Redefines ‘Extremism’

The British Government’s New Definition of Extremism is Another Attempt at Thought Policing Muslims and Should Be Resisted.

— 19 March 2024 | Imam Omar Suleiman

A Pro-Palestinian Protester holds a placard on a march through the British capital during a demonstration for the Palestinian people, in London, Britain, 21 October 2023. EPA-EFE/Andy Rain

As the genocide in Gaza continues to be streamed live to our screens, many Western governments are not only refusing to end their complicity in the slaughter, but also trying to silence and demonise the Muslim movements and organisations resisting the Israeli occupation within their countries’ borders.

In January of this year, the British government proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir as a “terrorist” organisation, making it a criminal offence to belong to or invite support for the decades-old movement. No matter your view on the movement itself, this proscription is clearly a convenient political play.

In the post-9/11 era, Hizb ut-Tahrir has repeatedly been threatened with proscription and aggressively surveilled under the country’s inherently Islamophobic counter-radicalisation programme, Prevent. Former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron tried to outright ban the group, in 2005 and 2010 respectively, but both times Home Office lawyers concluded that the group did not engage with or glorify any form of violence and advised that it should be allowed to continue its activities.

There is no suggestion that the group has since changed its approach to violence, or committed any crime under British law, so its official banning appears to be nothing but a French-style attempt at framing any Muslim movement, ideology or political expression that appears to challenge Western norms as violent and a threat to national security.

This week, the British government took yet another page from the French anti-Muslim playbook, and redefined “extremism” in a blatant attempt to subjugate and marginalise British Muslims who are taking a stance against the genocide of Palestinians.

In a clear attempt to curtail weekly pro-Palestine demonstrations attended by hundreds of thousands, and amid wider attempts to conflate all pro-Palestine activism with extremism, Communities Secretary Michael Gove announced that the state has expanded the official definition of extremism.

The new definition, Gove revealed, would include “the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others” or attempts to “undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights”. It would also classify those who “intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve” these aims as extremists.

While the former definition focused on actual acts of violence, this new one is broader and much less precise. It appears to have been purposefully crafted to open the door to loaded, ideologically driven interpretations that could lead to the branding of all Muslim thought and political action not explicitly approved by the government as “extremism”. The inclusion into this definition of those supposedly creating “a permissive environment” for extremist behaviour is especially dangerous, as it could result in the arbitrary criminalisation of large segments of Muslim civil society in Britain.

For years, France has used a loose, ideologically-driven definition and understanding of secularism to marginalise, criminalise and subjugate its citizens originating from its former colonies, who are overwhelmingly Muslim.

Today, with this new, loose and ideologically-driven definition of extremism, Britain is attempting to do the same to British Muslims, who are standing up in support of Palestinians facing genocide and doing so with ever-increasing support from other Britons of conscience.

The global Muslim community, which stood with French Muslims as their government tried to crack down on their basic rights under the guise of secularism, will also be firm in its support for British Muslims as their government attempts to curtail their rights under the guise of “fighting extremism”.

In a speech last week at the House of Commons, Gove suggested that a number of mainstream Muslim organisations, such as the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), may fall foul of this new definition of extremism and as a result be banned from access to public money, ministers and civil servants.

In response, the MAB, known for the extensive role it played in anti-Iraq war protests and movement in Britain, condemned the government’s redefinition of extremism as “a cynical move to appease the hard-right, targeting mainstream British Muslim organisations” and challenged Gove to repeat the allegations without parliamentary privilege so they can sue.

Other Muslim media organisations like 5Pillars were under threat of being included in the government’s list of extremist groups, only to be eventually excluded. Dilly Hussain, the editor of 5Pillars, responded to the initial suggestion that the media platform would be on the extremist list by saying, “it’s not the job of Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove, or [the UK Prime Minister’s office] to be labelling and targeting members of the free press [with] whom they ideologically disagree with while claiming to be champions and upholders of “freedom of expression”.

Other British Muslim civil society organisations such as Friends of Al-Aqsa, which had a prominent presence in protests against the genocide in Gaza, and CAGE, which led the efforts to challenge France’s crackdown on Muslim civil liberties, are also facing the risk of being classified as “extremist” under the new definition. Even a mainstream mosque like the Lewisham Islamic Centre is under threat due to the initial inclusion of its Imam, Shakeel Beg.

The British government’s redefinition of extremism requires deep scrutiny because it amounts to a feigned reinvention of what “extremism” actually means. Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND), a well-established NGO, referred to this in its response to Gove’s slander. “Victory for resistance to Gove’s extremism, he has NOT placed MEND on an extremism list because the facts don’t allow it. Instead, he uses parliamentary privilege to slander.”

As Muslims, we must be proactive in condemning the thought policing of the British Muslim community. We must speak loudly against the British government’s efforts to silence and criminalise Muslim civil society for thought crimes, especially at a time when the same government is complicit in a genocide against Muslims in Gaza. And when we speak up, we must speak up for all groups and organisations facing such baseless and discriminatory attacks. This includes groups that may have ideas or approaches that aren’t representative of the majority of Muslims. At a time when Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bigotry is on the rise, we cannot allow the British government to pick and choose which Muslims have a right to cultivate ideas, campaign or protest – we should stand firmly in defence of all our Muslim brothers and sisters in the UK and everywhere else. We should also encourage members of the British civil society of all ethnic and religious backgrounds to speak up in defence of Muslims in their country who are currently under a multi-pronged attack. Only if we bravely speak up, and do so together, can we prevent Britain from transforming into an Orwellian dystopia, like France already did.

— Imam Dr. Omar Suleiman is an American Muslim Scholar and Theologically Driven Activist for Human Rights. He is the Founder and President of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, and a Professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University.

[reasonsforhope]

“Mufti Mohammad Farhan juggles numerous responsibilities at the Islamic Center of Long Island in New York. On a Friday afternoon, he finishes leading prayers and departs for a funeral at the mosque. Since the pandemic, however, he has taken on a new role: identifying those in the Muslim community who need mental health support and referring them to clinical experts and therapists.

Across the United States, Muslim attitudes toward mental illness are changing, as is the role of the mosque. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Muslims have been more willing to engage in public conversations regarding mental health issues, including the taboo subject of suicide. Imams and religious leaders have responded to worsening mental health problems in a variety of ways, including by taking mental health training. Although limited, such training can be a first step toward imams becoming a crucial part of the solution to their community’s mental health needs.

“We are often the first responders to mental health crises, because there is a trust factor that was built over time, and because of the huge stigma within our community,” explains Mufti Farhan, a soft-spoken religious leader who grew up in New York...

Culturally Competent Care

Sarah Murad, a counselor at the Islamic Circle of North America’s humanitarian arm, has been providing culturally competent care to immigrant communities in Illinois, a state with the highest per-capita population of American Muslims in the U.S., many of whom are religious conservatives or recent immigrants. “By the time people come to seek our help, it is already too late because of the stigma [around mental health], so the first thing they ask for is a religious counselor,” Murad says. In such instances, she refers cases to Shaykh Omer Haqqani, who works at the Islamic Center of Wheaton and provides culturally relevant therapy and khutbahs, or sermons, about mental health across Illinois.

“Our faith tells us that it’s OK to be sad and express our emotions,” says Haqqani. He often cites the following story to those who seek his help: “When our prophet Muhammad (PBUH) lost his infant child—he was weeping, he was mourning, he was crying to the point where the companions came and asked him, ‘Even you, the prophet of God?’”...

For religious leaders, like Haqqani in Illinois and Farhan on Long Island, the shift toward seeking mental health care is happening at Islamic centers and mosques. Both men cite an expansion of the role Islamic centers play in the lives of community members. “For Muslims, one of the most important and effective venues to get information about mental health is at the mosque, and topics such as suicide and depression are now openly being addressed in khutbahs,” Haqqani shares...

Prevention, Not Reaction

[Dr. Rania] Awaad noticed how religious leaders tend to ask for intervention only after a crisis has occurred, and together with her team at Stanford University, she launched a campaign to train 500 Muslim leaders on suicide response.

Amara Kamara, a 53-year-old first-generation immigrant from Liberia, attended Awaad’s training in his capacity as a mental health advocate and administrator at Masjid Al-Ansar in Minnesota. He saw it as a “new experience” that allows him to “see how we can use community resources to have an open discussion about a difficult topic and tell the victims that it is OK to talk about it.”” -via Yes! Magazine, 12/28/22

[kakashis-kunoichi]

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[imperiuswrecked]

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian babies that were left to starve to death then rot in their beds by the IOF.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian doctors surrounded by bodies of dead children begging the world to stop the slaughter.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian children who held a press conference in English to beg the world to stop murdering them because they want to live.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian Priest who said "We will not accept your apology after the genocide" to the world.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian Imam who used the speakers of the Mosque, not to call people to prayer but to call out to God while the world around them was burning from American supplied Israeli bombs.

I'm never forgetting the grandfather who held his dead grandchild in his arms. Or the father carrying the remains of his two children in plastic shopping bags. Or the mother holding her dead child in a shroud. Or the father sitting among the rubble after he lost his whole family. Or the girl trapped under a broken building begging for people to save her family first. Or the boy who cried when he saw his brother alive. Or the girl who asked if she was still alive after being pulled from the rubble. Or the boy who carried the remains of his brother in his backpack. Or the old man the IOF used for a photoshoot before they shot him dead after getting pictures. Or the little boy wearing plastic gloves to pick up the remains of his family. Or the graves desecrated. Or the body of that small baby girl left alone in a tent because no one knew who she was or if her family was alive, small and alone and not one person who knew her name to bury her. Or the young boy who was shot in the street while his sister watched from the window. Or the men and boys who were stripped naked in winter. Or those tortured. Or those made to stand in open graves. Or the people who were raped by IOF soldiers. Or Palestinian workers kidnapped by the IOF and then labeled with wristbands, each one reduced to a number, then made to walk back to Gaza to be killed in the world's largest open air concentration camp. Or the people of Gaza starving because Israeli Zionists are blocking aid trucks. Or the Israelis dancing and celebrating the death of Palestinians. Or the lies spread by Zionists and their supporters. Or the people profiting off the oppression and deaths of Palestinians. Or the people of the West Bank being killed or kidnapped by the IOF. Or old woman who was older than the creation of the terror state of "Israel" who was shot by snipers for saying that. Or the Israelis dressed up as Palestinians to enter a hospital and kill three Palestinians in their beds. Or every single Palestinian currently kept in an Israeli prison. Or the journalists, doctors, poets, men, women, children, and the unborn all massacred. Or the fact that WCNSF exists now. Or the woman who refused to wash the blood from her hands. Or the dead, unburied and unmourned.

I'm never forgetting those who chose silence in the face of a genocide.

I may not know all their names but I will not forget the over 30,000 Palestinians dead. Or the over 60, 000 people hurt. Or the unknown number of people missing, still lost under the rubble. Or the 12,000 children slaughtered. An entire generation crippled or murdered.

I will never forget these things when Palestine is free.

[soon-palestine]

After the White House cancelled the annual Iftar due to Arab and Muslim Americans collectively rejecting the invitations, the WH turned it into a small ‘meeting’ with six Muslim Americans including an Imam. Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a physician from Chicago who had traveled to Gaza earlier this year with a delegation of doctors, showed up and handed Biden a letter from an 8 year old girl in Gaza. He then walked out, saying “I wanted a chance to stand up and walk away from the people making decisions the way they are walking from my people.”

[zvaigzdelasas]

According to a source in the State Department, hours before a meeting between Biden and a group of Muslim Americans, several activists had urged a group of advocates to boycott the meeting to make it clear that the Muslim community was not going to accept the administration’s excuses for its unflinching support of what experts are saying is a genocide of Palestinians. “There was no purpose for this meeting,” the source, who asked to remain anonymous, told MEE. “The Biden Administration also refused to speak to anyone that publicly disagreed or criticised them,” the source said. According to the Wall Street Journal, the group that met Biden included Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison; Wa’el Alzayat, of the Muslim political advocacy group Emgage; Imam Mohamed Magid, executive religious director of All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center in Virginia; Rami Nashashibi, a Palestinian-American and director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network; and Suzanne Barakat, a professor of family medicine at the University of California.

27 Oct 23

[hero-israel]

#4 sounds like white people at the end of slavery… “we didn’t want to end it because what if there’s retaliation? There have already been slave riots. Imagine what would happen if we gave them freedom or if we became the minority?” It’s not speculative it actually happened the fears had basis. That’s what number four sounds like. It also feels like you only care about one view point like you expect me to believe y’all are perfect victims that did one thing in retaliation?

#4 sounds like that to you because you are an American who thinks the whole world is America and all history must be the same as yours. So you should start by asking yourself what it is in your cultural upbringing, and what in the media you consume, that has you automatically believing the worst possible claims against Jews, to the point of seeing it as understandable for us to be mass murdered.

Jews did not - and do not - want to live in an Arab or Muslim majority society not because of any issues related to "slave uprisings" you are teleporting into this discussion, but rather because Jews had already been brutally oppressed, persecuted, and genocided by Arabs and Muslims for 1,000+ years before Israel or political Zionism were ever invented. Mohammed himself got his hands dirty with this, wiping out the Jews of Yathrib and renaming the gore-drenched rubble into something called "Medina." No less a source than Maimonides wrote in 1172 "God has entangled us with this people, the nation of Ishmael, who treat us so prejudicially and who legislate our harm and hatred…. No nation has ever arisen more harmful than they, nor has anyone done more to humiliate us, degrade us, and consolidate hatred against us... We bear the inhumane burden of their humiliation, lies and absurdities, being as the prophet said, ‘like a deaf man who does not hear or a dumb man who does not open his mouth’.... Our sages disciplined us to bear Ishmael’s lies and absurdities, listening in silence, and we have trained ourselves, old and young, to endure their humiliation, as Isaiah said, ‘I have given my back to the smiters, and my cheek to the beard pullers.’”

Because there is a long history of this, there is much you can read about it, if you care.

Some very random examples:

The "badge of shame" was invented in medieval Baghdad, only later migrating to Europe

Life for Jews in Yemen: The Jews of Yemen were treated as pariah, third-class citizens who needed to be perennially reminded of their submission to the ruling faith…The Jews were considered to be impure, and therefore forbidden to touch a Muslim or a Muslim’s food. They were obliged to humble themselves before a Muslim, to walk on his left side, and to greet him first. They were forbidden to raise their voices in front of a Muslim. They could not build their houses higher than the Muslims’ or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering a Muslim quarter, a Jew had to take off his footgear and walk barefoot. No Jewish man was permitted to wear a turban or carry the Jambiyyah (dagger), which was worn universally by the free tribesmen of Yemen. If attacked with stones or fist by Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. Further, the Jews were forced to wear sidelocks or peots. The wearing of such long and dangling peots “was originally a source of great shame for the Yemenites. It was decreed by the imams to distinguish the Jews from the Muslims”. More degrading and insulting decrees to the Jews were the Atarot (Headgear) and Latrine Decrees. The former was a seventeenth-century decree forbidding the Jews to wear a headcovering or turbans. The Latrine Decree was a nineteenth-century edict in which the Jews were forced to clean out public toilets and remove animal dung and carcasses from the streets. Another discriminatory edict was the Orphan Decree which gave the Zaydis the right to convert to Islam any child under the age of thirteen whose father is dead. Further, evidence by a Jew against a Muslim was invalid and a “Jew was forbidden to pass a Muslim to his right, and whoever did so, even unwittingly, could be beaten without trial; the Jews were forbidden to make their purchases before the Muslims had completed theirs; a Jew entering the house of an Arab or the office of an official was only allowed to sit down in the place where the shoes were removed” . Tudor Parfitt summarizes some of these laws in the following: [the Jews] were required not to insult Islam, never strike a Muslim, or to impede him in his path. They were not to assist each other in any activity against a Muslim…They were not to build new places of worship or repair existing one…They were not to pray too noisily or hold public religious processions. They were not to wink. They were not to proselytize. They were not to bear arms. They were required to dress in a distinctive fashion in order not to be mistaken for a member of the Muslim occupying forces. In other words dhimmis had all the times to behave themselves in an unostentatious and unthreatening manner, one appropriate to a defeated and humbled subject people. They were to avoid the slightest show of triumphalism and they were forbidden any activity that could lead to proselytization. Yemenite Jews were “excluded as it almost always…from affairs of state, and from the great institutions of the country”

1941 Farhud pogrom (Iraq)

1929 Hebron Massacre ("They cut off hands, they cut off fingers, they held heads over a stove, they gouged out eyes. A rabbi stood immobile, commending the souls of his Jews to God – they scalped him. They made off with his brains. On Mrs. Sokolov’s lap, one after the other, they sat six students from the yeshiva and, with her still alive, slit their throats. They mutilated the men. They shoved thirteen-year-old girls, mothers, and grandmothers into the blood and raped them in unison....")

1921 Jaffa Riots

1920 Nebi Musa Riots

1910 Shiraz Blood Libel (Iran) ("In the middle of the 19th century, J. J. Benjamin wrote about the life of Persian Jews: "…they are obliged to live in a separate part of town…; for they are considered as unclean creatures… Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt… For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans… If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him… unmercifully… If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods… Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them... Sometimes the Iranians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever please them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life... If... a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (the start of Muharram)…, he is sure to be murdered")

1840 Damascus Blood Libel (Syria)

1839 Allahdad Pogrom (Iran)

1834 Hebron Massacre

1834 Looting of Safed

1700 Jerusalem oppression / apartheid: ("Muslims are very hostile to Jews and inflict upon them vexations in the streets of the city… the common folk persecute the Jews, for we are forbidden to defend ourselves against the Turks or the Arabs. If an Arab strikes a Jew, he (the Jew) must appease him but dare not rebuke him, for fear that he may be struck even harder, which they (the Arabs) do without the slightest scruple...")

1679 Mawza Exile (Yemen)

1660 Destruction of Safed

1500s Iran: ("After the ascension of Shah ‘Abbas II the Jews of Isfahan faced a lot of persecution. Most communities were forced to convert to Islam. Furthermore those who refused to convert would have most of their inheritance taken away as the inheritance laws at the time allowed for those who converted to Shia Islam to inherit the property of non-Muslim family members. Some communities did not convert and were thus forced to wear a special badge to show that they were Jewish. The maltreatment of the Jews weakened their community ties and influence throughout the region. By 1889 there were only around four hundred Jewish families left in Isfahan and most very poor.... by the middle 20th century 80% of the Jews of Isfahan lived on the verge of poverty.")

There's so much more I really don't know where to start or where to end. Afghanistan revoked all Jewish citizenship in 1933. Turkey banned all Jewish names and held massive antisemitic pogroms in 1934. Iraq banned Hebrew schools and Hebrew names in 1936, pogroms throughout Libya 1945, Syria fired all Jewish government employees 1946. Tripoli pogrom 1785. Algiers 1805. Cairo 1844. Istanbul 1870. Safed 1517 and 1799. Jerusalem 1665 and 1720. Granada Massacre 1066. Fez Massacre 1033. How many Wiki links do you want, how many textbooks?

This is an old, old conflict, and the Americanized "colonizer / slave plantation" frame is off-topic.

[vintagegeekculture]

there was Chinese interest in the Out Of Asia theory, in both the Republic, Chiang Republic and People’s Republic periods before the Out Of Africa theory became commonly accepted. Was the 1954 Yeti expedition done just from the Nepalese-Indian side or were the American agents and “anthropologists” given access on the Sino-Tibetan side of the Himalayan border?

During the early part of this century, it was absolutely believed for a long time that the deserts of Western China were the most likely place of human origins, as seen in this migration map from 1944, made from the best available knowledge of the time:

Remember, the oldest fossil remains at this point were in China, where Homo erectus was discovered (originally known by his initial place of discovery in Chungkotien Cave, nicknamed "Peking Man"). The discovery of Australopithecus and Homo habilis in Olduvai Gorge and South Africa, which place human origins in Africa, were not until the 50s and 60s, so it seemed entirely reasonable that Homo sapiens evolved in Western China.

The idea that China's desert regions were the origin of modern humans and culture is seen a lot in pop culture from 1900-1950, mainly because there were tremendous explorations in the region, especially Aurel Stein's expedition of 1908, who ventured into the Taklamakan Desert to find the Dunhuang Caves and Khara-Khoto, a city destroyed completely by Genghis Khan and vanished in the desert.

If you've ever heard of Roy Chapman Andrews and his famous expeditions in the 1920s, it's worth noting that he ventured into the Gobi Desert looking for human remains....not dinosaurs, and the discovery of dinosaur eggs was an unexpected surprise.

For that reason, there was a short lived Silk Road Mania that seemed to be a smaller scale predecessor to the pop culture dominating Egyptomania of the 1920s. It's bizarre to read adventure and fantasy fiction of the 1910s-1920s that features mentions of Silk Road peoples like the Kyrgyz, Sogdians, Tajik, Uigurians, and Tuvans. The best example I can think of would be the Khlit the Kossack stories of Harold Lamb (who also wrote a biography of Tamerlane), which together with Tarzan and Tros of Samothrace, formed the core inspiration for Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian.

The most interesting example of this would be A. Merritt's Dwellers in the Mirage, which featured a lost city in Xinjiang that was the home of the Nordic race, who worshipped their original religion, the kraken-like squid devil god Khalkru. It was widely believed in this era that Nordics emerged from Central Asia originally, and while it's easy to write this off as turn of the century racialist claptrap pseudohistory (along with Hyperborea legends), in this case, it is actually true: a branch of the Indo-European family lived in West China, and 5,000 year old redheaded mummies have been found in the region. As usual, A. Merritt was right on the money with his archeology, more so than other 1920s authors. After all, his "Moon Pool" was set around the just discovered ruins of Nan Madol, the Venice of Micronesia.

Jack Williamson's still chilling Darker Than You Think in 1948 was also set in the Silk Road/Central Asian region, as the place the race of shapeshifters emerged from, Homo magi, who await the coming of their evil messiah, the Night King, who will give them power over the human race.

H. Rider Haggard set "Ayesha: the Return of She" (1905) in Xinjiang, among a lost Greek colony in Central Asia (no doubt based on Alexandria on the Indus, a Greek colony in modern Pakistan that was the furthest bastion of Greek Culture). This was also two years after the Younghusband Thibetan Expedition of 1903, where the British invaded Tibet. At the time, the Qing Dynasty was completely declining and lost control of the frontier regions, and the power vacuum was filled by religious authority by default (this is something you also saw in Xinjiang, where for example, the leader of the city was the Imam of Kashgar).

This is one of the many British invasions they have attempted to cram down the memory hole, but if you ever see a Himalayan art piece that was "obtained in 1903-1904" ....well, you know where it came from.

Incidentally, there's one really funny recent conspiracy theory about paleontology, fossils, and China that I find incredibly interesting: the idea that dinosaurs having feathers is a lie and a sinister plot spread by the Communist Chinese (who else?) to make American youth into sissy fancylads, like Jessie "the Body" Ventura. How? By lying to us and making up that the manly and vigorous Tyrannosaurus, a beast with off the charts heterosexuality and a model for boys everywhere, might have been feathered like a debutante's dress. What next - lipstick on a Great White Shark? The long term goal is to make Americans effeminate C. Nelson Reilly types unable to defend against invasion. This is a theory that is getting steam among the kind of people who used to read Soldier of Fortune magazine, and among abusive stepfathers the world over.

...okay, are you done laughing? Yeah, this is obvious crackpottery and transparent sexual pathology, on the level of the John Birch Society in the 60s saying the Beatles were a Communist mind control plot. Mostly because animals just look how they look, and if it turned out that the ferocious Tyrannosaurus had feathers and looked like a fancylad Jessie Ventura to you, well, that's your problem and mental baggage, really.

I was left scratching my head over this one. But there is (kind of) something to this, and that is that a huge chunk of recent dinosaur discoveries have been in China. I don't think it has anything to do with a Communist plot to turn American boys into fancylads, but more to do with a major push in internal public investment in sciences in that country, and an explosion of Chinese dinosaur discoveries. If you want to see a great undervisited dinosaur museum, go to the Zigong Dinosaur Museum in Sichuan.

Pop quiz: what living scientist has named more dinosaur discoveries? It's not Bakker or Horner. The greatest living paleontologist, Xu Xing, which is why a lot of recently found dinosaurs are named things like Shangtungasaurus.

[beardedmrbean]

Michigan's Dearborn, that has been labelled America's Jihad Capital has been witnessing many pro-Hamas, anti-America and anti-Israel rallies.

Chants of Death to America and Death to Israel were hurled at the International Al-Quds Day rally held in Michigan on the last day of Ramadan.

"Imam Khomeini, who declared the International Al-Quds Day, this is why he would say to pour all of your chants and all of your shouts upon the head of America," Tarek Bazzi, a Michigan-based activist linked to the Hadi institute, said in a video from the rally.

The activist went on to claim that US is "one of the rottenest countries that has ever existed on this Earth," while arguing to eliminate the entire American "system."

"It’s not just Genocide Joe that has to go," Bazzi said, referring to President Biden. "It is the entire system that has to go. Any system that would allow such atrocities and such devilry to happen and would support it – such a system does not deserve to exist on God’s Earth."

When Bazzi asked his audience, when "fools" ask them "if Israel has the right to exist," they chant "Death to Israel" is "the most logical chant shouted across the world today."

The remarks were followed by chants of "Death to Israel" from protesters in the crowd. Soon after, Israeli flag was desecrated at the pro-Palestinian event held on the last Friday of Ramadan in Dearborn. 

Protesters were even heard chanting "Free Palestine" and "From the river to the sea," a controversial phrase classified as "hate" by many American Jews. 

Dearborn called America's Jihad Capital by WSJ

According to US media Dearborn has become a "hotbed of hate for many years, with the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Executive Director Steven Stalinsky calling it America's Jihad Capital. 

Almost immediately after... and long before Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza,' Stalinisky wrote, 'people were celebrating the horrific events of that day in pro-Hamas rallies and marches throughout Dearborn.'

The city witnessed huge protests against US President Joe Biden last month, with activists from the town encouraging Democrats to vote "uncommitted" instead of supporting the president’s re-election bid.

"This type of extremism, this type of rhetoric, this type of division … threats of violence was a Middle East thing, it seems like a lot of that was limited to the Middle East, and now it’s come to our doorstep," Rep. Phil Green told Fox News Digital

Green said the majority of Dearborn’s citizens are peaceful and don’t promote violence, but he acknowledged the movements bubbling up from the town are worth monitoring closely for lawmakers.

[1americanconservative]

HEY! DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE FBI RAID ON THE HOME OF THE IMAM WHO CALLED FOR A JIHAD AGAINST AMERICANS FROM HIS HOME IN MICHIGAN! RIGHT…ME EITHER…WTF! So the FBI will hunt down grandma’s present at the Capitol on J6. Go after parents concerned over what their children are learning in school. Arrest Conservatives and raid their homes with a Swat Team. But if you are a Muslim who resides in America, leader of a Mosque…and call for the taking up of arms against America and Americans. You get to wake up the next day and eat your breakfast in peace without fear of arrest. This is Joe Biden’s American.

Hamas Calls for Violence Against Americans, and So Does This Michigan Imam

[girlactionfigure]

It is very concerning that Antisemitism and genocidal calls against Jewish people are only deemed condemnable by governmental and religious figures if it is coupled with a denunciation of Islamophobia. Such conditional condemnations appear as mere political maneuvers, coated with empty lip-service. The Antisemitism we are witnessing today is clear advocacy for another Holocaust, where all Jews are being targeted. While acknowledging the existence of daily attacks against Muslims, the comparison fails, as there is no movement seeking the erasure of 1.8 billion Muslims from planet Earth. Insisting on condemning Antisemitism only if Islamophobia is condemned is dangerous because Islamophobia doesn’t come from Jewish people, and Antisemitism is of many flavours. Islam is not at war with Judaism; instead, both Jews and Muslims confront the threat posed by Islamist terrorists. Each struggle is unique, and imposing conditions on condemnation diminishes the struggles faced by innocent victims from different communities. You cannot compare a genocide, to an attack on a Mosque. When was the last time you heard of an interfaith event to condemn Anti-Black Racism… on the condition that Anti-Asian Racism is also condemned. These are two different struggles, and Asians in America did not live the painful history of African Americans or the slave trade. It would be an insult to the entire Black American population. To truly combat bigotry, we must unequivocally condemn each form without diluting their significance through false comparisons and misleading headlines. If you condemn Antisemitism, then condemn Antisemitism. Thank you and God Bless.

Imam of Peace

[bfpnola]

the full 4 hours worth of speeches and chants before the national march even actually began to march. being there in-person was truly another experience, so i wanted to share this here so y'all could get even just a sliver of that same amazement! speeches you can listen to include:

Opening Chant

Introduction with Manolo De Los Santos

Nadya Tannous from Palestinian Youth Movement

Ahlam from Maryland2Palestine

Arsema Kifle from Dissenters

Jasmin Nicole Williams from Artists Against Apartheid

Dr. Hatem Bazian from UC Berkeley

Lauren Pineiro from the Tampa 5

Mahdi Bray from the American Muslim Alliance

Black Alliance for Peace

Melanie Yazzie from The Red Nation

Marte White from Community Movement Builders

Omar Suleiman, an American imam

Mohammed Nabulsi from Palestinian Youth Movement

Brian Becker from ANSWER Coalition

Layan Fuleihan from The People's Forum

Macklemore (yes, the muisician)

Ya'oub from the National Students for Justice in Palestine

Maysoon Abu Gharbieh from Arab Women's Committee (Chicago)

Tara Alalami, Sarah Ihmoud, and Rasha Mubarak from Palestinian Feminist Collective and Susan Sarandon

Ahmad Abuznaid from US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

Nihad Awad from Council on American-Islamic Relations

Mohammed El-Kurd, a writer

Nazek Sankari from US Palestinian Community Network

Nour Jafghama and Medea Benjamin from CODEPINK

Meredith from Anti War Committee MN

Osama Abu Irshaid from American Muslims for Palestine

Noura Erakat, a human rights attorney

Majid Gadsen from December 12 Movement

Nina from Bayan USA

Rania Mustafa from Palestinian American Community Center NJ

Krystal Two Bulls from Honor the Earth

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss from Neturei Karta

Jonel Edwards from Dream Defenders

Raja Abdulhag from Al Quds News

Ángel from Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

Nick Tilsen from NDN Collective

Lamis Deek from Al Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition

Ju-Hyun Park from Nodutdol

Eugene Puryear from Party for Socialism and Liberation

Vijay Prashad from Tricontinental Institute

Celine Qussiny from Palestinian Youth Movement

as well as several interviews towards the end of the video in front of the white house! go watch! go share!