Breaking News: Ottawa Gunman a Recent Convert to Islam

Terrorist shooting attack is the second fatal Muslim Jihad Attack this week in Canada. See here for more.

Alleged Ottawa Gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, recent convert to Islam

And it seems that these Muslims were acting in direct response to calls from the Islamic State Caliphate for Muslims to attack sites in North America (see here and here).  These are not "lone wolf" attacks. They are a direct result of an increasingly emboldened Islam, and the ideology which commands such attacks comes directly from the Quran and the example of Muhammad (see my post on the 'Jerusalem' Omnimax film here.)

With 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, if only 1% are motivated to obey the Quran's commands to wage jihad against non-Muslims, that means there are 16 million radicalized Muslim jihadists out there. If the ratio is 10%, the Muslim jihad army jumps to 160 million.

As I wrote in an article in May 2013 (Message to Muslims: Time for Some Serious Questions) after the broad daylight murder and near beheading of British soldier Lee Rigby by a Muslim:

This is gravely concerning, and should prompt us to pose the following questions to all Muslims everywhere: 

1. Do you subscribe to this same "theologically determined logic" which spawns acts of violence and terrorism by Muslims in every country of the world, and drives an Islamic supremacism which seeks to establish a global caliphate to bring Islam to world dominance? In other words, do you feel in your heart, as a Muslim, that you are at war with non-Muslims?

2. If you say you do not subscribe to this worldview, how do you support your position from Islam's sacred texts? Because � as you should know � all Islamic supremacists and jihadists fully support their actions using the Quran and the example of Muhammad and the consistent teaching of Islamic jurisprudence, and they say your religion commands you to support them in the global jihad.

3. In your heart of hearts, when you continue to see such horrific acts being perpetrated in the name of Islam by men and women who claim to be devout Muslims and use your own sacred texts to back up their actions, do you question the validity of your Islamic faith, your Muslim identity? In other words, "Are you finally reaching a crisis point in your faith?"

In short, it's time to ask Muslims everywhere, "Why do you remain a Muslim?"

It's time for Muslims to ask themselves, "Why do I remain a Muslim?"

As an Orthodox Christian, I believe we offer the Way, the Truth and the Life through the Orthodox Gospel of Jesus Christ. To all Muslims everywhere I offer this challenge: If you claim to be striving to live in truth and in a way pleasing to God, "come and see" what the Orthodox Christian Faith is all about. You will find a Light and Life you never knew existed.

But there is another aspect to this "crisis of faith" you should by now be going through.

We believe that the human conscience is a divine gift from God placed in every human heart. If your conscience is nagging at you, telling you that there has to be something terribly wrong with Islam if so many of its most devout adherents are committing murder in the name of God, then you simply must obey your conscience and seek answers. You are obligated to that small voice telling you to "get out." Your religion places a huge stigma on apostasy, and as you probably know, even prescribes death for those who leave Islam or insult Muhammad. Why is that? That should even further prove its falsity to you.

Do you not know that even according to the Quran, Jesus (Isa) is bestowed with greater honor from God than Muhammad? Jesus worked miracles, raised the dead, and ascended bodily into heaven, whereas Muhammad did none of these things.


It's time to leave falsehood and turn to truth. It's time to learn about Jesus Christ as His Church has always known Him and proclaimed Him, "full of grace and truth."


This is the same Church which your religion and forbears have relentlessly persecuted since Islam expanded out of the Arabian peninsula and began waging jihad against the world. Yet this same Church, by the grace of God, stands ready to embrace and receive you as a friend and brother or sister, if you repent of Islam, turn away from it, and turn to Jesus Christ.

It's time for all you Muslims of good conscience to show real courage, bravery, integrity and repentance, leave your former religion, which you know in your heart is false, and turn to Jesus Christ in the Orthodox Church, who offers you the true Way of Light and Life.

How I Met My Granddaughter�s Father

I�m responding in a loving way to my brother Mezba who is married (congratulations!) and has offspring (wonderful!) but is nevertheless about to enjoy the benefit of my sincere, unsolicited advice. I imagined what I would say if a young man came to me with this attitude intending to become the father of my grandchildren, whether it�s my son or someone who would like to become my son-in-law.

It�s especially easy to respond to this article because Mezba is so honest, so naive, and so unapologetic with his outrageous generalizations. Mezba, bro veteran, tell it like it is!

�There were no good girls in Canada.� I�ve never been to Canada, but there are many good girls in America! Either Canada is some kind of country-wide brothel with a small oasis of righteousness, or you weren�t looking hard enough, Mezba! Besides, what is a �good� girl?

�Many of them had been in previous relationships.� I�m tired of the attitude that women should be blamed for the relationships they�ve been in, and I�m frustrated that dating implies sex in the minds of so many Muslims. Spending some time with members of both sexes can be done in a halal way, can lead to a successful marriage in the best case, and (if nothing else) is a healthy way of developing comfort and a mature attitude towards relationships � a time investment that pays off when you get married and when you choose to pontificate later in life.

�They were too old.� Too old for what? Too old for sex? Too old to have babies? The frank truth is that men die younger than women on average, and the limits of childbearing years for women are exaggerated in our communities. Do I really need to bring up Khadija (as)?

�If [raising a proper, Islamic family] meant not keeping up with one�s professional peers, so be it.� A little compromise here goes a long way; what if a woman�s career is more promising than her husband�s? Shouldn�t he be willing to put his career on hold and be the house-husband for the sake of raising a �proper, Islamic family�? Isn�t that a conversation worth having?

�An arranged marriage is where a guy gets a girl he would never have a shot with in real life.� I hope this is a (distasteful) joke! Mezba, arranged marriages are still real life! Why ever would a girl consent to an arranged marriage when she can do better by meeting guys the old-fashioned way?

Reading articles like this reminds me of an episode of �Red Dwarf� where they go to an alternate dimension which is exactly the same as our universe except that men and women are swapped. The humor comes from the protagonists seeing their attitudes towards the opposite sex reversed.

If you�re unsure if you�re being a misogynist, try imagining a role-reversal and see if it seems funny or strange.

Let�s put aside romance for a moment and work this out logically: ideally, women should aim to have their first children when they�re 27 or 28; hence, they should get married to a man when they are 25 or 26. This leaves them time after college to take it easy, go on road trips with the girls, chill, and enjoy life a little before settling down with their husbands, enjoying them for a year or two, and then having that first kid. It doesn�t make sense for her to marry someone who�s also 25 or (God forbid) older: a man with a career of his own won�t want to take time off to stay at home and raise the kids, and, let�s face it: women want a man who is young whom they can enjoy and who won�t leave them an elderly widow at the end of life. An attractive, 25-year-old, career-driven, upwardly-mobile woman should be trying to marry a hot, 21- or 22-year-old man who is just finishing college and who�s willing to sacrifice his career to raise a �proper, Islamic family�.

See what I mean?

The truth is, finding a spouse is tough. People look for so much in a spouse: a companion, a confidant, a parent for their children, a good family member to their family, someone to make babies with, have sex with, and to show off to everyone else � in some order, depending on one�s preference. An arranged marriage can help get you there, but it�s not a magic bullet. Finding The One is a challenge for all but the extremely lucky in every culture.

Our community needs to revise its attitude, lest we leave many Muslim women in the west with only one option: accept that you�ll be judged and marry a non-Muslim, someone that has a shot with you in real life. As it is, after reading such a piece, they must be asking: are there any �good boys� in Canada?

Source

Young, Inuit and Muslim: Maatalii Okalik-Syed�s faith journey

As a young Inuk woman, Maatalii Okalik-Syed is exceptional in many ways.

From a very early age, the 21-year-old native of Pangnirtung, Nunavut committed herself to helping others. She�s worked with several grassroots Aboriginal and Inuit organizations, all the way up to the Government of Nunavut. And now she�s set to graduate from Carleton University with a Human Rights and Political Science degree, minoring in Aboriginal Studies.

But an impressive resume is not the only thing that sets Maatalii apart. Maatalii is a Muslim, one of a small but growing number of Indigenous women in Canada converting to a religion most associate with the Middle East.

It�s not known exactly how many have converted, but some Indigenous Muslims report seeing more and more people like them praying at Ottawa-Gatineau mosques. People like Linda Soliman. A Cree woman originally from Fort Albany in northern Ontario, she credits Islam with strengthening her parenting skills and improving the relationship with her parents.

�You�re not the first person to ask,� laughs Maatalii as she tells the story of how she became a Muslim.

�I grew up in the eastern part of Ottawa. The elementary school I went to had people from different cultures and backgrounds and from different faiths,� Maatalii explains. �Same thing during middle and high school.�

And it was during high school that she would first become curious about her future faith. There to help answer her many questions about Islam was Bengali friend and classmate Ashique Syed.

Her religious curiosity only continued to grow when, by 2004, Maatalii accepted Islam as her new way of life. Four years later, she and Ashique married.

The ceremony took place in his family home. �It was a wonderful wedding, a mixture of both cultures,� says Maatalii.

But Maatalii admits the fact they were from different cultures did cross her mind, aware that, �traditionally, Bengali people would marry other Bengali,� she says.

There was also the language barrier to consider. �It was definitely a learning curve,� says Maatalii. �I�m picking up a lot of Bengali and he is taking Inuktitut language classes. We work together to make it work for both of our families,� she adds.

Such cultural support even goes beyond each other�s families. �I�ve done a lot of leadership work in the (Inuit) community and every step of the way he was doing it with me,� she notes. Last year, the couple went to her home community of Pangnirtung.

�We went fishing, and we caught 4 or 5 seals, and we also went caribou hunting. He actually skinned the caribou,� shares Maatalii. �Once school is done, we have wishes to go back there.�

In other parts of the world, the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Islam is more pronounced.

In Australia, one estimate pegs the number of Aboriginal Muslims at 1,000, enough to support more formal organizations like the Indigenous Muslim Support Network. And in Central America, Islam is gaining a foothold among some Mayans.

For Maatalii, news that other Indigenous people in Canada and around the world are converting to Islam comes as no surprise.

�It�s a religion of peace.�

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