Subject: Islam

• Welcome Back Taliban!

  You'd better sit down. Today Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist suggested that the best way to deal with the increasing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan ... is to reintegrate the group into the Afghani government. From the AP via the International Herald-Tribune: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government. The Tennessee Republican said he

  October 2, 2006

• Michelle Malkin Bashes Gwen Stefani

  There are only two national blogs we read, and both of them are conservative: local loudmouth Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin, whose whiny diatribes we've been catching since her days as a syndicated columnist that appeared in The Orange County Register. Malkin is the Filipina-American columnist who wears her ethnicity only when politically convenient, who likes Muslims only when they renounce their faith, and thinks anyone who tries to respect their sensibilities is welcoming sharia law. Malki

  August 2, 2007

• The Continuing Story of Goat Boy, the Pesky Terrorist

  If there's anything funny about the U.S. War on Terror and its hunt for al-Qaeda, it's the fact that nearly six years after 9/11, we still haven't been able to capture or kill Adam Yahiye Gadahn, a.k.a. Azzam the American, a.k.a. Goat Boy. At least that's what we've come to call Gadahn around the newsroom, ever since ABC reported in late 2004 that the masked al-Qaeda terrorist who'd appeared on videos that summer—in which he babbled about infidels and threatened America with a second 9/11—wa

  August 7, 2007

• Behind the hijab in Anaheim

  Update: View a slideshow of images from Open-Mosque Day here. Too much is still unknown, speculated about and misunderstood when it comes to Muslims abroad and in the U.S. To counter this in their own small way, a dozen or so mosques throughout L.A. and Orange counties flung their doors open this past weekend for “Open Mosque Day.” I stopped by the large Islamic Institute of Orange County in Anaheim for the occasion, and there I was greeted by a table-full of smiling older women in hijab wh

  August 20, 2007

• Robert Morey Still Up to his Resume-Stretching

  Remember Robert Morey, the self-proclaimed Islam expert who runs Faith Community Church in Irvine? Last March, the Weekly examined many of his outrageous claims--that he's on a Hamas death list, that the Los Angeles Police Department consulted with him to make sure local Muslims wouldn't kill cops during raids, that he received a doctorate in Islamic Studies--and found them seriously laughing. After calling him out on the latter matter, Morey admitted he doesn't possess such a degree, telling me

  November 12, 2007

• Dead Again!

  For the second time in a year, a terrified American public has received the reassuring news that Adam Gadahn, a.k.a. "Goat Boy," is dead. Probably. As far as we know. Seeing as how we haven't heard much from him lately and he likes to harangue his former countrymen with annoying lectures about U.S. imperialism and the merits of al-Qaeda's feudal interpretation of Islam. Yesterday, England's Daily Telegraph added a few more mysterious details to a story that first appeared earlier this year sug

  September 9, 2008

• Looking for Mecca

  July 13, 2006

• Man Claiming to be FBI Informant Spins Quite a Tale

  A location scout for a spy movie could not have picked a better location for my late December meeting with Craig Monteilh: a table outside a restaurant in a bustling Irvine shopping center. A lensman would appreciate the shadow-erasing clouds hovering overhead on the warm winter morning. And central casting could not have found a better leading man: Monteilh is tall, intense, talkative, with a shaved head and the kind of cut body one would expect from someone who is now a fitness instructor.

  February 26, 2009

• Posthumous J Dilla record out in June

  A 25-track disc comprised of beats made by the late J Dilla is "dropping" (that's hip-hop for "being released") June 2 on Nature Sounds. Dilla was a much-heralded producer who gained fame in the late '80s with the group Slum Village. Many credit him for helping to place Detroit on the hip-hop map, but it was role in the production team The Ummah (with Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammed) that made him a hip-hop household name. Dilla's time with The Ummah saw him work on A Tribe Called Quest's two fin

  March 11, 2009

• Muslim Groups Consider Breaking FBI Ties Over Irvine Case

  Citing the highly publicized case involving an undercover informant who spied on an Irvine mosque, a coalition of U.S. Muslim organizations has announced it may suspend relations with the FBI."Muslim communities throughout the United States have made significant advances in promoting and contributing to a fair, free and pluralistic society," reads the statement from the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT). "Through civil rights advocacy, civic and political engagement,

  March 18, 2009

• FBI Spying on Mosques Draws Senate Attention; Rights Workshop Helps Local Muslims Deal With the Feds

  A Senate Judiciary Committee questioned FBI Director Robert Mueller Wednesday about a Muslim coalition's consideration of breaking ties with the bureau following the highly publicized federal government spying on an Irvine mosque.Meanwhile, a workshop has been organized for this Sunday to help local American Muslims deal with this frightening new twist in the "Global War on Terror." Details on that in a bit.  First, as mentioned here last week, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights

  March 26, 2009

• Notorious Islam Hater to Speak at Chapman U Tomorrow

  Wilders: If only all Islam-haters had hair like his...Dutch filmmaker and politician Geert Wilders will speak tomorrow at Chapman University's Memorial Hall at 2 p.m., hosted by the School of Law, and one wonders why my alma mater's fine film school isn't hosting the event. Simple: Wilders is a bit, ah, controversial, for his 2008 film, Fitna, which reflects the feelings of Wilders toward Islam.Take it, Geert!Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and

  April 3, 2009

• [Hey, You!] She's Just Not That Into You

  March 19, 2009

• Hasan Nouri Pitched Plans to Stabilize Aliso Creek and His Native Afghanistan, But No One Listened

  December 11, 2008

• Special Screenings

  Movie of the Week: The Power of Nightmares

  January 10, 2008

• Tuesday - 11/20

  When the Levees Broke: Part II at the Irvine Fine Arts Center, The Whirling Dervishes of Turkey at the Barclay

  November 22, 2007

• Rogue Statesman

  September 12, 2002

• So I Married a Terrorist . . .

  Saraah Olsons strange trip through the U.S. war on terror

  April 19, 2007

• 'I've Never Been to America. America Came to Me'

  September 21, 2006

• Battle of the Christian Titans

  July 13, 2006

• Looking for Muslims in the Comedy World

  May 25, 2006

• Dr. Jihad

  March 2, 2006

• This Week in Ramadan and Rosh Hashana

  October 13, 2005

• Mind Your Own Fatwas!

  August 11, 2005

• F. Yoo!

  February 10, 2005

• Crusaders at the Gates

  November 25, 2004

• Allah Carte

  November 11, 2004

• Ramadan-a-Dine-Long!

  November 4, 2004

• Burning Bush

  September 30, 2004

• Diary of a Mad County

  August 26, 2004

• Terror-Fied

  July 8, 2004

• Burning Bush

  April 1, 2004

• Mr. Taliban

  December 25, 2003

• Graham Drubs Dubya

  June 5, 2003

• Danas Follies

  February 27, 2003

• Conspiracy Theories

  February 20, 2003

• Terror Threads

  October 10, 2002

• Letters

  October 3, 2002

• The Partially Informed Alarmist

  July 4, 2002

• More Fuelish War Talk

  March 28, 2002

• Pulling His Cheney

  November 1, 2001

• CD Reviews

  August 19, 1999

• The FBI, the Islamic Center of Irvine and Craig Monteilh: Who Was Conning Whom?

  April 30, 2009

• Like Anti-Israel Speakers ala UCI? Go to Israel

  The anonymous contributor known as "the middle" on Jewlicious, which clings to the Muslim Student Union controversy at UC Irvine like the tight white t-shirt does to the shapely Jewlicious Apparel model on the "100 percent Kosher" site's home page, writes that the Irvine campus is getting a run for its death-to-Israel money from the University of Haifa in Israel.Northern Islamic Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Raed Salah came to visit Haifa U. We don't know what he said, because it was behind clo

  June 19, 2009

• Does Al Qaeda's Infamous Goat Boy Read the Weekly?

  In April, the Weekly published this story about Craig Monteilh, a self-described FBI mole who spied on Orange County mosques and claimed that he foiled unspecified terrorist plots. No evidence has ever surfaced to bolster Monteilh's claims, and in that story, I noted that only two OC residents have ever been linked to Al Qaeda, the most famous of whom is the terrorist group's American spokesman,  Adam Gadahn, aka "Azzam the American," whom I identified as a "Jewish-American."Gadahn grew up on a

  June 19, 2009

• [Hey, You!] Free to Be You and Me

  August 20, 2009

• Irvine Mosque Speaks: OC Weekly World Exclusive!

  On Feb. 21, FBI agents arrested Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, an Afghan immigrant, and charged him with lying about his brother-in-law's status as an alleged Al Qaeda terrorist. A few days later, Craig Monteilh, a convicted con artist, held a press conference to announce that he was an FBI informant and had helped the FBI bust Niazi. Over the next few months, Monteilh made numerous claims in published articles--including this one in the Weekly--asserting that he had been recruited by the FBI to snoop o

  May 29, 2009

• Local Muslim Woman Featured on "Speaking of Faith"

  Proud Bruin and Muslim​Speaking of Faith is one of the country's better public radio shows, a thoughtful, hour-long examination of faith in its many manifestations that local listeners can find every Sunday at 3 p.m. on KPCC-FM 89.3. Last week, the show devoted itself to Muslim listener-submitted reflections on Ramadan, and one of the 14 selected for airing came from Costa Mesa resident Parisa Popalzai, an Afghan native and UCLA graduate (go Bruins!) who spoke eloquently about her religious aw

  September 12, 2009

• The Willy Wonka of Muslims Invents a Ramadan Fasting Pill

  ​Azhak Hussam is positioning himself to be something like the Willy Wonka of Muslims. The Garden Grove cosmetics company owner (with a background in pharmacy, according to this article in Anaheim-based, InFocus, a Muslim newspaper) has invented what he calls, the Ramadan Fasting Tablet, which, if it works, will be for Muslims what Willy Wonka's three-course stick of gum was for a voracious Violet Beauregarde. The concept is so modern and of its time, it hurts: a chewy, "Belgian" chocolaty "tab

  July 27, 2009

• Dave Eggers to be Honored in Anaheim for Sensitivity to Muslims

  By David Shankbone/Wikipedia CommonsDave Eggers at the 2007 Brooklyn Book Festival.​A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius author Dave Eggers will be presented the 2009 "Courage in Media" award at the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' 13th annual banquet Saturday at the Anaheim Hilton.Anaheim-based CAIR-LA is honoring the Pulitzer Prize nominee for his latest novel Zeitoun, which is about a Muslim American man who volunteers to help rescue victims

  November 4, 2009