Category Archives: CMSA

Update on Congressional Muslim Staffers Association

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This month Heretics Crusade has been highlighting the existence and policies of the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association. Today we bring the first evidence of the success of their mission to be the premiere voice of “American Muslims” regardless of whether those Muslims want the CMSA to represent them or not.
It took me a while to track down the original article for this information but here it is in all its glory:
“Obama gets list of top Muslim Americans
Denver Post Wire Report
Posted: 03/27/2009 12:30:00 AM MDT

CHICAGO — In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation’s most qualified — Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted — has been submitted to the White House.


The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., was bumped up two weeks because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, who sifted through more than 300 names.

“It was mostly under the radar,” Williams said. “We thought it would put (the president) in a precarious position. We didn’t know how closely he wanted to appear to be working with the Muslim American community.”"
My alarm at the mission and goals of the secretive MCSA just jumped to a new level! This is a group that claims to represent ALL Muslims that work for Congress including those that do not publicly identify as Muslim and regardless of the “religiosity” of said “Muslims”.
This is a group that seeks to influence Senators and Representatives directly in the name of “American Muslims” that did not give them that mandate. This is an association that hid its Leadership list from the public as soon as I highlighted the partisan ideology of members of the Executive Committee.
We have a list 300 Muslims reduced to 45 to be recommend for jobs in the White House. This “vetting” was done by a group that until recently thought the only “Information on Islam” they need provide was to a VERY conservative Shiite site that warns men that if they allow one wife to SUCKLE another “wife” the first one becomes forbidden to him(yes, the 2nd wife would be an INFANT in this case). We have this organisation with (formerly) open ties to anti-Semitic and anti-Western groups intentionally selecting BY THEIR RELIGION “qualified” people to work in the White House. And all this with the open purpose of INCREASING THE INFLUENCE OF MUSLIMS well beyond their numbers in the general population.
Is it just me or is all this completely unconstitutional? Everyone is talking about CAIR and their agenda. In the heat of that inquiry Ibrahim Hooper tried to toss the MCSA to the wolves as a distraction but no one seemed to notice. Except Heretics Crusade.
The plot continues to thicken and I can’t help but wonder when the main anti-Jihad sites are going to pick it up.
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Ibrahim Hooper Sent Me – Part 3:

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On the 15th of last month Heretics Crusade posted a story about a group called the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association (CMSA). In that post I looked at the results of some basic internet research on the association and its executive committee.

Some of the results of that research were a bit alarming. But it was the reaction by the association to my articles that set off the most alarm bells.

The first reaction by the CMSA to my piece was to add a 2nd Information on Islam link to the one that directed viewers to a hard core Shiite website: al-Islam.org. The new link was to IslamiCity.com a whitewashed bastion of Mr. Rodgers style Taqqiya.

At that time the CMSA made no other changes to their site. Their Mission still had its shady goals and the group still claimed to represent Congressional employees that might well be hostile to the politics of the groups leadership.

But then after I did a follow up piece on the changes to their information page both links vanished for several days. Now a new information page is up along with a number of alarming changes to the transparency of the group’s leadership.

To recap the earlier stories; I found that the executive committee of the CMSA ranged from bland to positive to all but forthrightly Islamist. Of special note were Mouaz Moustafa, Communication Director and Diala Jadallah, Community Outreach Coordinator.

These two are connected with completely political and partisan factions that are in no way moderate to my mind or open to sharing their voice with more “open minded” Muslims. Yet these two are the very ones in charge of Community outreach and communications!

How alarming should it be then when I find that all information about the Executive Committee has been scrubbed from the CMSA website? That is right, no names listed, not even the positions to be held. Nothing.

Since they do not seem to answer “kafir” emails how does the public find out about this possibly unconstitutional group?

We not only have a Muslim organization of Congressional employees that has leaders with anti-Semitic and Islamist sympathies but they are now hiding who their leaders are from the public!
And how does the CMSA pick their leaders? I do not know how the current crop got their posts but here is the most recent information on elections from the CMSA website itself:

“Association members become eligible for voting in elections by attending at least one Association event or contributing to an event’s production (i.e. financial or in-kind donations, program planning and coordination, etc.) in the year of the election.
An Association member is eligible to run for an Executive Board position if they have attended and/or contributed to the production of at least two association events in the year of the election.”

On the surface it seems innocent enough. But one of the things I noted in my earlier stories was that the Events page was blank (still is). So was the News page (now gone).

So how do Muslim staffers with differing politics find out about the events? The CMSA has not answered a single email of mine. How do we know they answer the emails of all people claiming to be Muslim?

If there are any Muslim employees of Congress that have been given the cold shoulder on event information of voting rights please email me.

Ibrahim Hooper in a panic offered up the CMSA (because of its Shiite associations?) for investigation. With my acceptance of that invitation I have found that the CMSA indeed might desire to bring an intolerant, anti-Semitic, Islamist influence to Congress in the guise of their mission to, how did they put it again:

“Represent the social and political concerns and initiatives of the Muslim American community to Congressional Members, staffers, and other Federal officials. CMSA will allocate balanced attention to both domestic and international affairs that are relevant to the Muslim American community and the larger Muslim world.

• Provide authentic representations of Islamic principles and Muslim practices to government officials and pubic(sic) affairs organizations. CSMA strives to present Muslim traditions in a way that recognizes the plurality of religious thought and diversity of cultural practices in the American Muslim community.

• Act as an intermediary between the Muslim American community and Congressional Members, Offices, Committees, and other Federal departments and agencies. To facilitate engagement between Federal officials and Muslim leaders, CMSA collaborates with America’s mainstream, moderate Muslim organizations that specialize in advocacy, community organizing, media, public affairs, or research.”

I find this a bit disingenuous. In their past personal and professional lives the Committee members charged with communication and community outreach have shown no such willingness to entertain a “moderate Muslim” outlook much less represent it.

Now it seems that the CMSA is not too happy with CAIR for prompting this disclosure. CAIR is NOT one of the organizations listed under National Organizations and Networks on the new information page.

Given an opportunity to distance themselves from the “Taqqiya Muslims” the MCSA has chosen to hide from the public eye rather than answer questions. Their facebook page has been deleted and their Leadership has been scrubbed from their website. They do not answer my emails asking for information despite a promise to include their views in my subsequent stories.

Committee members Mouaz and Diala seem to me to be blatantly partisan and sympathetic to anti-Israeli and anti-American foreign groups. I do believe this is why their names have been removed from the site.

The group whose communication arm they control openly organizes Congressional employees in the name of a religion and claims to represent people that certainly did not give them that right. It looks like Ibrahim was right all along.

Next time I will look at the new information page and see how “moderate” the new list really is

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Congressional Muslim Staffers Association reacts.

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(HH here: On Oct 15th I posted a piece about the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association (CMSA). A quote by a beleaguered Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR prompted me to take a look at the Association and its leaders.

While not incredibly alarming it did seem to me that the political orientation of this group was troubling considering its stated goal is to influence congress’s attitudes and actions regarding Muslims in and out of the country. That the CMSA also claims to “represent” virtually ALL Muslims or former Muslims who are not public about their conversion (apostasy) makes this goal of being the “the premier Federal employee association representing Muslim American interests and concerns, particularly within Congress“.

Premier? To me that means that the CMSA seeks to have a louder and more effective voice than other organizations seeking to speak for Muslims in the Federal Gov. And they even include the caveat: “ESPECIALLY in Congress.”

The CMSA web site is very sparse. “News” is “under Construction” and “Events” is a blank. But there has been at least one change since my research visits. In the days since I posted the bit about the MCSA I have been watching a flurry of hits coming from D.C. They come from everywhere from the Library of Congress to the House of Representatives and lots of private ISPs.

Now one of the things I pointed out in my article was that the site presented only one link for “Information about Islam”. As you can see there are now TWO links. The original one to Al-Islam.org and a new one to IslamiCity.com. My quibble with the al-Islam link was not only that it was a single source but that it was a VERY conservative Shia site with all the traditional, anti-woman and anti-apostate/infidel laws fully represented.

Of all the things that I discussed about the site this is the only change that has been made. The CMSA still claims to represent ALL Muslims that work for Congress no matter who they are or what they believe.

But what about the new link? Does it provide a balance? Short answer? Yes. Long answer? It seems to “represent” the more “Liberal” and moderate Muslim world yes, but it also utterly whitewashes all aspects of Islam that seem odd or evil to Western eyes.

In discussing women’s rights and marriage laws and apostasy the site glosses over all the real-world negative aspects while taking the stance that the real problem is a misperception of what Islam Really Means that seems to be shared by the vast majority of Imams.

The height of silliness is seen when we read the article by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq on apostasy. Dr. Farooq lays out a very reasonable logic for Apostasy as it is meant today in the West, a solely religious conversion, is not what the historical and traditional Sharia has meant.

He feels that “misinterpretation” is rampant: “Another well-known Muslim scholar and jurist of our time, whom I also generally hold in high regard, is Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi…Dr. Al-Qaradawi also fails to separate apostasy from treason. It is unfortunate that such scholars of high repute have shown such serious lapse[es]…Views and positions of scholars and leaders, such as Maududi and al-Qaradawi, not only provide powerful ammunition for propaganda against Islam and Muslims, but also confound the mind of our own community, including our youth.“

Am I the only one that feels Dr. Farooq is a bit confused? He “hold[s] [Qaradawi] in high regard” but Mr. Qaradawi completely disagrees with Dr. Farooq about Apostasy. Not only that but here are a few of the other things that Mr. Qaradawi has said that Dr. Farooq does NOT take him to task for:

From al-Jazeera television via MemriTV:
“Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one“

“Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.”

“Never have I seen a single verse, paragraph, or sentence in the Torah which calls for peace. Everything in the Torah constitutes a call for war. They even call God “Lord of Hosts” – they don’t call Him “Lord of the Universe” or “the Compassionate, the Merciful…[The Torah contains] the notion of annihilation. We saw it when the Europeans went to America – they tried to annihilate the Indians. When they went to Australia, they tried to annihilate the aboriginal people. Indeed, they annihilated them. This is a biblical notion – annihilate them totally, do not leave a living soul among them.”

From Wikipedia:
“Qaradawi strongly supports Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets. Qaradawi claims that hundreds of other Islamic scholars are of the same opinion. Defending bombings against off duty soldiers Qaradawi told BBC Newsnight that:
“An Israeli woman is not like women in our societies, because she is a soldier.”

“I consider this type of martyrdom operation as an evidence of God’s justice.”

“Allah Almighty is just; through his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do”.[36]

At the press conference held by the organizations sponsoring Qaradawi’s visit to London, Qaradawi reiterated his view that Suicide attacks are a justified from of resistance to Israeli occupation. In the past, Qaradawi has justified those actions on the basis that all Israel civilians are potential soldiers since Israel is a “militarized society.”

Due to this, Qaradawi has been accused by many Western countries and Israel of supporting terrorism. However, he is opposed to attacks outside of the Palestinian territories and on other than Israeli targets.“

I included that last bit so I am not accused of being completely biased. Yes, Qaradawi says that Jihad attacks should be confined to “Palestinian territories and Israeli Targets”.

But let us not forget that to the mainstream Islamic world the entire West is a “Zionist plot” and controlled by Israel. That doesn’t leave a lot of ground protected against Jihad in his eyes.

Though Mr. al-Qaradawi has more than one troubling belief according to Western eyes he is held in “high regard” by the author of IslamiCity article about Apostasy. Though the author clams to be puzzled as to why Mr. Qaradawi defends the opposite interpretation.

The rest of the site seems to be much of the same. A soft-focus, Mr. Rogers’ version of Islam that seems more geared to Taqqiya than honest Dawa. At least the al-Islam site was open about Islam invading and conquering it’s neighbors.

Of course it does claim though (truthfully if that makes it any better to those subjegated) that it was not done to CONVERT the populace (true as far as it goes) but to FREE them from the evils of non-Islamic governments (a sin against God and the people kept from True Faith) so that the people would be “free” to choose to submit to Islam. Sounds a bit Orwellian doesn’t it? But that is orthodox Islam for you.

IslamiCity’s bio of Mohhamed omits virtually all of the incidents of Islamic violence (political murders, assasinations, expulsions.) except the ones that were actual self defense. Its treatment of women and marriage is disingenuous at best. Take a trip on the Taqqiya railroad and follow their “Understanding Islam and the Muslims” tour.

In IslamiCity’s favor the article on the Shia and Sunni is very fair and balanced and gives no high ground to either faction.

In summary it is nice to see that the MCSA is not incapable of change. Well at least a little bit. Instead of one fundamentalist Shia info site they now link to that one and a site that is the Muslim equivalent of an upper-middle class Presbyterian church in Pasadena; completely in the middle and with all the passion removed and scripture whitewashed of anything objectionable for the sake of tender ears.

Now let us see them change their claim to represent all Congressional Muslims. Or how about publishing those events that a Congressional “Muslim” must attend to have voting rights?

I would also love it if the MCSA eschewed politics and focused on being a social/religious networking/support group rather than a partisan political action group claiming to represent people to Congress who have given them no such mandate.

I would like to see them explicitly denounce the idea of organizing the employees of Congressmen in order to influence said elected officials in their public duties. It may pass the Constitution but no matter what group does it is a circumvention of the very idea of an objective elected official.

Radical Christian organizations have tried this game, though they usually go for the Senators and Representatives themselves. It has also been tried in the Military.

ANYWHERE it happens it needs to be put under a bright light so that all can see just what agenda drives the groups efforts. This is never more true than when the group doing the organizing is under the influence of foreign groups hostile to the values of the U.S.!!!

If any members of the MCSA want to write and give me their point of view I would be happy to add it to the info I have and to further articles regarding your group.

If there are any Muslims working for Congress that do NOT agree with the stands of the MCSA feel free to let me give you a voice. Please provide documentation, rumor is not what I want, I can get that from any Right Wing or Leftist demagogue.)

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