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New mosques continue to be built in the United States (US), however, the architectural style appears to be changing. The all too familiar minarets, domes and arches, which historically represent Islamic architecture around the world, are being replaced by less intricately designed modern buildings. Some argue that the change is necessary to meet the needs of an increasing and diverse American Muslim community. They see the change as being more welcoming to a younger generation of Muslim Americans and catering to the needs of the elderly when services are provided for their benefit.

Architect Maryam Eskandari, former associate director of the American Institute of Architects, is touring the US with a photo exhibition that shows the changes in American mosques from traditional to modern designs. She says Islamic architecture has long been subject to personal interpretation and set in a cultural and historical context. The new designs are influenced by current ideas and sentiments in America which could be seen as representing the level of maturity of Americans towards tolerance for Islam.  In other words, they reflect where America is today. They signify a debate taking place in the US about Muslim identity and about American identity.

Nasser Rabbat, director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology expressed the view that "the dome and minaret are the most easily recognizable visual markers of a mosque”. He added, however, that they are not compulsory architectural features. Mr. Rabbat also added that Muslims should not eliminate traditional design features of the mosque because of fear. While he believes that there is a place for new designs, the purpose should be good, modern design and not design intended to conceal Islamic identity.

For former presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson among them, being properly educated included owning and reading the  Holy Quran. Via Boston.com, a glimpse at the little-known long history of the Holy Quran in America:

Reports of Holy Qurans in American libraries go back at least to 1683, when an early settler of Germantown, Pa., brought a German version to these shores. Despite its foreign air, Adams’s Holy Quran had a strong New England pedigree. The first Holy Quran published in the United States, it was printed in Springfield in 1806.

Why would John Adams and a cluster of farmers in the Connecticut valley have bought copies of the Holy Quran in 1806? Surprisingly, there was a long tradition of New Englanders reading in the Islamic scripture. No book states the case more plainly than a single volume, tucked away deep within the citadel of Copley Square — the Boston Public Library. The book known as Adams 281.1 is a copy of the Holy Quran, from the personal collection of John Adams.

Thomas Jefferson, especially, had a familiarity with Islam that borders on the astonishing. Not only did he study the Islamic culture, but Jefferson even tried to learn Arabic. Like Adams, he owned a Holy Quran, a 1764 English edition that he bought while studying law as a young man in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Just five years ago, that Holy Quran became the center of a controversy, when the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, asked if he could place his hand on it while taking his oath of office — a request that elicited tremendous screeches from the talk radio extremists.

Digestion of food is essential to the well being of everyone. Without proper digestion we invite countless illnesses to visit us. Digestion begins in the mouth, by chewing food down to the tiniest morsel possible. Most people are in such a rush to eat that they do not chew their food properly and the end result is acid reflex, indigestion, or heartburn. The pre-mentioned maladies can also come from eating poor food combinations, microwaved foods, or processed food daily. When you begin to digest your food you change it from one form into another: it is a physical and chemical process. This process is necessary for your body and cells to assimilate, absorb, and finally eliminate all unused portions of your meal. Whenever you put anything into your mouth this process begins. Unfortunately, most people don’t think about their digestive tract until they have problems with it. On a yearly average, around 62 million people show up at the doctor’s office with digestive complaints. This quote, which was written in Hieroglyphics, and found in an ancient Egyptian tomb, should also raise an eyebrow:

“One-quarter of what you eat keeps you alive. The other three quarters keeps your doctor alive”

Modern diets are the cause of most health problems. Diets that consist of overcooked and highly processed food are helping doctors get rich. The digestive tract of a good many people are swimming in an ocean of mucus, which in turn causes a sluggish system. People arise in the morning felling yet worse than when they laid down to rest. Such tired, run down systems then require a shot of coffee to kick start the body in the morning. Furthermore, the bloodstream nowadays is full of mild poisons: poisons from sugar, genetically engineered foods, meats that are loaded with hormones and antibiotics, carbonated beverages, drugs, and even the cosmetics, detergents and soaps that seep into our blood through the skin. These poisons are actually attacked by our immune systems. Most food intake does not help us attain good health. Our intake has become toxic in nature. This toxic overload in food is highly acidic and damaging to our digestive tract. Our diets should be more alkaline than acidic. The body constantly tries to balance itself and bring you back to an alkaline state. A healthy diet is about 80% alkaline and 20% acidic. However most of diets are just the opposite. We have too much acid in our diet. Did you know that cancer can not grow in an alkaline environment? Alkalinity increases the oxygen in your body. Scientists have researched these facts and found that clean oxygenated blood is mandatory for good health. In 1931 the Nobel Prize winning work of Dr. Otto Warburg showed that cells weaken, mutate, or die in the absence of oxygen. Several years later two time Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Linus Pauling, was the first to show that cancer cells are unable to grow in an oxygen rich environment.

Unfortunately there many bad habits prohibiting our health. Discipline and understanding of how things really work is needed, especially regarding the digestive systems. To some rather small degree it is not all our fault, however. This society promotes obesity. Greed has invaded the lives of many. Over eating is a hobby. Most people don’t realize that over eating increases the hearts pumping action, which also increases the blood supply and in turn raises the blood pressure. Continuously over eating can cause degeneration of tissues of the heart and brain. If we are what we eat, then we are in trouble.

Why is digestion so important, you may still ask? The answer is that food ultimately determines how you look, feel, and function. A proper balance of raw vegetables, fruits and juices (that are in season), organic meats, butter and whole grains is essential to have a healthy functioning system. In the winter, root crops are eaten, and warming foods. In the summer cooling foods and summer fruits keep the system running properly. Digestive enzymes are needed to help food digest. The pancreas produces enzymes. It produces about two pints of digestive juice which is also alkaline. If we do not have enough enzymes within our foods, the pancreas recruits enzymes from other parts of the body. This is a job within itself and over taxes the pancreas. This extra job, when done daily, often causes the pancreas to enlarge. A diet that is high in acid wears away at your bones, causes arthritis and decays teeth.

In reality good digestive health is the result of what is assimilated, not what is necessarily eaten. Only the foods that are assimilated can be utilized for rebuilding and repairing cells and malfunctions. We are allergic to many foods; and why not, if we are not eating real food? Allergic reactions can be exhibited in many forms. Here are a few: immediate bloating, burping which is sometimes sour, heart burn, runny nose, excess mucus, flatulence, diarrhea, and vomiting. Extreme cases involve fever, but what is fever except an avenue the body uses to destroy the poisons that have invaded you. Onions and garlic should be added to the daily diet. Eat radishes like candy. When using vinegar use organic apple cider vinegar or make your own. Vinegar helps break down fats and proteins. Eat fruits and vegetables in season only. The Almighty Creator has provided a wide variety of foods to choose from; figs, kale, horseradish, olives from the tree, pumpkin, okra, collard green, and honey to name a few. Our Creator has given us so much. Eat simple, live simple, and reflect.

For decades, El Sheikh Gilani has pioneered and introduced the El Gilani Methodology to the American public, a method of spiritual therapy which consists of the audition of specially selected portions of the Holy Quran and blessed prayers of Holy Messengers of the One Almighty Creator that, by the Power of The Almighty, heal physical and non-physical ailments.  From time to time, El Sheikh Gilani’s diagnosis of the cause of such types of ailments requires the understanding of non-physical elements and their role in the causes of disease.

In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in patients suffering from mental illness and satanic possession.  These occurrences are often brought on through the reading of satanic literature, music, television and pure magic, like that found in juggling balls and so-called supernatural things. What is shown on various popular magic shows is nothing but the use of jinns who are non-human beings that can take on a physical or non-physical form, and who can make things seem to appear and disappear, or transfer objects  from one person to another.

Many evil people have gained control over and indulge in partnerships with these jinn by observing certain rituals and rites and by the use of various formulas. People are advised to stay away from such activities, and such people, because they will eventually suffer from spiritual and mental diseases for which there is no cure. Practitioners of these phenomena can force people to do things against their will, such as committing murders, and can cause miscarriages and stillbirths, bleeding from various parts of the body, sensations of red hot pins and nails in the body, and have numerous negative effects on children.

The ‘Black Sciences”  have been known to man and have existed since the time of the Holy Messenger David, peace be on him.  It is quite common that evil entities were frequently engaged by the freemasons. These evil entities can easily break things and become quite destructive. Levitation, or the act of floating and rising in the air, is another well known phenomenon known to the Eastern world for the last 3,000 years. It is a kind of spiritual magic achieved with the aid of jinn beings who would lift a person, or take him to various places. It is still being practiced today.  A television program aired here in Pakistan on the 25th of November, that demonstrated how these practitioners apparently raise themselves off the ground.

Perhaps the most well known personality to use the jinn in his stunts is an Israeli magician by the name of Uri Geller, who himself suffers from jinn possession. During his act, which has appeared on a number of television networks including the BBC, Geller caused forks and spoons to bend without coming into physical contact with them.  He was also able to influence, through the medium of television, occurrences in the homes of his television audience.  Presently, things have advanced so much that  many television shows, movies, and video games show satanic mediums and sensitives, and spread psychic diseases; yet no one seems to realize or care.  Remember the thousands of Japanese children that suffered seizures after viewing a particular cartoon, and also the jinn possession suffered by many who read Henry Potter’s black magic, sorcery novels.

During his research, El Sheikh Gilani was able to confront Professor John Taylor of the London University, who was engaged in an investigation of the Geller phenomena.  El Sheikh Gilani, who was quite familiar with this, simply identified it as a classic example of jinn possession.  Of course, Professor Taylor was not eager to accept El Sheikh’s clear explanation, since to do so would mean an immediate end to the fraud that was a source of the financial grants that provided him with a lucrative income.

El Sheikh Gilani has decided to expose this fraud in his upcoming lecture on the jinn, which will be made available through the Abdul Qadir Gilani Institute of Sufic Sciences, Department of Jinnology. Much of El Sheikh Gilani’s memoirs can be likened to experiences written about in the 1001 Arabian Nights.  There are very few things written about in these tales that he did not experience in his youth. In his upcoming lecture entitled the “Science of Jinns,” El Sheikh will detail how Muslim jinns carry his servants from one place to another.

Yes, there are many human beings that are possessed, or whose physical bodies are occupied by jinn, and they speak and talk to and through the possessed person. The jinn eat the food of the victim, and even share their women, and other elements of their daily lives.  Out of our concern for Muslims and non-Muslims, and the welfare of our fellow Americans, we warn you to keep away from these evil sciences. We know the formula to counter this evil, and when these jinn are in the company of, or around a Muslim, they cannot produce or rise up one centimeter. At one time Uri Geller was challenged to bend a fork or spoon that was inscribed with portions of the Holy Quran, and he quickly refused realizing that Holy Quran is the only effective defense from satanic influences.

In this so-called modern era,  there is a proliferation of call-in psychic networks that are being aggressively marketed through the mass media with endorsements by well known Hollywood stars. Pick up almost any magazine, and there are numerous advertisements for all types of occult activities as well as magical props and trinkets that promise strange powers.  In addition, there are those who pursue the dollar via direct junk mailings offering charms, and the like, to ward off misfortune, attract good fortune and many other promises. Be careful! These evil devices are dangerous weapons in the hands of sorcerers and satanists, many of whom are psychiatrists and advocates of mind control.

Note:  For more information on this important material, please read the Ultimate Fraud of the Freudists and Psychiatry: The Ultimate Betrayal. published by Zavia Books.

Cell phone companies reported that US government bodies, including federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and courts, made at least 1.3 million demands for subscriber information in 2011.

According to a report in the New York Times, telecommunications companies routinely hand over thousands of pieces of information every day about their customers, including the contents of text messages and caller locations. One of the largest carriers, AT&T, responds to more than 700 government requests for information each day, while another major cell phone company, Sprint, reported that it had received an average of 1,500 government requests each day last year.

Nine telecom companies reported evidence of this pervasive state surveillance of their customers in response to an inquiry from a congressional committee investigating the increased use of phone tapping and other forms of data mining. The Times reports that because of incomplete record-keeping, the actual number of government demands for cell phone users’ private information was almost certainly far higher than the 1.3 million figure reported to Congress.

The cell phone companies reported that government agencies have increased their requests for subscriber information at a rate of 12 percent to 16 percent per year over the past five years. Many of the demands for cell phone information are not accompanied by court orders or legal subpoenas, meaning that even the nominal safeguards against warrantless invasions of privacy are now routinely flouted.

State surveillance of cell phone use is now so pervasive that there was actually a fall in the number of police requests for wiretapping warrants made to US courts last year.

The level of US government spying of cell phone use would be the envy of any police state, and marks the American population as one of the most surveilled in the world.

“Whether they realize it or not, Americans are carrying tracking devices with them wherever they go,” said American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] spokesman Christopher Calabrese in response to the revelations to Congress from the cell phone carriers. “The cell phone data of innocent Americans is almost certainly swept up in these requests,” he added.

The ACLU also reported findings from its own study of local law enforcement agencies’ use of cell records, finding that some police departments have invested in their own cell phone tracking technology, allowing them to bypass even the very limited safeguards maintained by the carriers. In addition, the civil liberties group found that some telecom companies maintained their own permanent records of all private cell phone use, giving them and the government a massive trove of data through which to trawl.

Such is the demand from US government bodies for cell phone users’ private details that carriers now maintain large teams of technicians and lawyers to process the round-the-clock deluge of requests. While most companies did not state to the congressional inquiry how many government requests for cell phone records were denied, one small carrier, C Spire Wireless, recorded that it had rejected only around 15 percent of the 12,500 law enforcement demands it received over the past five years.

Rep. Edward Markey (Democrat of Massachusetts), who released the results of the congressional inquiry to the Times, described the level of demand for cell phone information by law enforcement agencies as “startling.”

“We cannot allow privacy protections to be swept aside with the sweeping nature of these information requests,” the Democratic congressman stated. “Law enforcement agencies are looking for a needle, but what are they doing with the haystack?”

Despite such professions of concern, it is the Democratic Party that is leading the way in shredding the democratic rights of the US population. The Obama administration set a major precedent for the expansion of unwarranted state surveillance in the US when it worked to grant legal immunity to phone companies that had participated in the Bush-era program of illegal wiretapping carried out by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Together with the Democratic-controlled Congress, in 2009, newly elected President Obama upheld the previous administration’s effort to shield government agencies and telecom companies from private lawsuits that sought to uphold individual privacy against domestic spying. This culminated in the decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in January this year to dismiss 33 lawsuits against companies that had participated in warrantless electronic surveillance.

The New York Times played its own part in covering up the criminal operations of the US government when in 2003 it withheld a story for over one year about the Bush administration’s program of domestic spying. The editors of the US “newspaper of record” released their account of the NSA’s illegal wiretapping only after the 2004 elections in order to protect the Bush White House and minimize public discussion of the attacks on democratic rights.

Given this role, and its current efforts to downplay the erosion of democratic rights by both parties and at all levels of the state, one can only guess as to what other crimes the New York Times and its fellow media conglomerates are covering up.

There exists no significant constituency in the US bourgeoisie committed to the maintenance of democratic rights, such as the right to privacy clearly established within the US Constitution and extended under subsequent pieces of legislation such as the 1934 Communications Act and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Communications Act.

The US ruling elite has responded to the growth of social inequality over the past three decades by building up the repressive apparatus of the state—police agencies, prisons, spying operations, etc.—while dismantling basic democratic protections. Now, divided from the vast majority of population by an unbridgeable social gulf, there is a distinct odor of dictatorship around America’s financial aristocracy and its two thoroughly bribed political parties.

The latest revelations about cell phone monitoring, when added to the long record of anti-democratic attacks carried out since the declaration of the “war on terror”—from the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to the Obama administration’s assertion of the right to summarily execute anyone, including US citizens, anywhere in the world—provide chilling evidence of the real and growing threat of an American police state.

(IP)  In recent weeks, a US Senate subcommittee held hearings about the use of drones and their devastation on humanity. However, missing from the congressional transcripts is the realization that the US has changed the rules of warfare, which others may claim the right to use against America in the future.  The precedents set by the United States for drone warfare may have formidable consequences as other countries are quickly developing the technology.

What makes the drone proliferation dangerous is the powerful combination of efficiency and lethality spreading in an environment lacking internationally accepted guidelines on legitimate use. This technology is snowballing through a global arena where the primary example for its application is the one set by the United States. Will Americans accept the US drone policy when it is used by other countries against Americans?

Small, inexpensive, and lethal, drones enable everyone from Iran to Russia, or the Chinese People's Liberation Army to engage in what the Pentagon acknowledges is a new arms race with "alarming" consequences. More than 50 countries operate surveillance drones and increasingly are fitting them with weapons. Spy drones routinely shadow US aircraft carrier strike groups and other military exercises. Drones crisscross the Persian Gulf.  Israeli drones have circled over Gaza. Experts say it is a rare conflict that does  not attract spy drones.

A Department of Defense (DoD) Task Force report details the capabilities of drone technologies of other countries that could be a “very serious threat” posed to US military forces both at sea and on the ground. This changes the game for the reason that the US has not had to deal with aerial threats in generations. The report presents another threat from the proliferation of drones: The enemy could take advantage of the size of drones to flood the airspace, creating chaos and confusion in the defense and operations of US air offensives, creating a scenario similar to a flock of geese at the end of a commercial runway.

The study suggested armed drones are the equivalent of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) -a simple, cheap and effective weapon which has forced the US to spend billions of dollars in defense, while experiencing growing casualties: 1,330 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan by IEDs.

Chinese aerospace firms have developed dozens of drones as its technology is maturing rapidly for use in surveillance and combat strikes. China's increased use of drones also adds to concerns about the lack of internationally recognized standards for drone attacks. "China is following the precedent set by the US. The thinking is that `If the US can do it, so can we. They're a big country with security interests and so are we'," said Siemon Wezeman, a senior fellow at the arms transfers program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden.

At the US Subcommittee hearing, testimony included a witness to the horrifying experience of a drone attack, Farea Al Muslimi, a US educated Yemeni. Al Muslimi testified of the terrible fear he experienced when touring Abyan in Yemen, but the exponential affect of having his own village droned was life-changing: : “... I could never have imagined that the same hand that changed my life and took it from miserable to promising one would also drone my village...”.

The proliferation of drone technology has moved well beyond the control of the United States government and its closest allies. The aircraft are too easy to obtain, with barriers to entry on the production side crumbling too quickly to place limits on the spread of a technology that promises to transform warfare on a global scale. Already, more than 75 countries have remote piloted aircraft. More than 50 nations are building a total of nearly a thousand types.

All Americans should be concerned that other countries will soon slap us in the face with their own drones and targeted killings of people they deem militant to their country as they use our own debauched drone policy against us.

NEW YORK - A New York Police Department detective told a federal judge that he's seen no evidence that one of his informants brought up the subject of jihad as a way to bait Muslims into making incriminating remarks. But text messages obtained by The Associated Press show otherwise.

And while the detective, Stephen Hoban, described the activities in a new legal filing in U.S. District Court as narrowly focused on a few people under investigation, text messages show a wide-ranging effort. Eager to make money, Shamiur Rahman, the informant, snapped pictures during prayer sessions, rallies and a parade; recorded the names of people who signed petitions or protested; and reported fellow Muslims who volunteered to feed needy families.

When the detective responded, his text messages nearly always sought more information:

"Did you take pictures?"

"I need pictures from the rally. And I need to know who is there."

"Get pictures"

Rahman told the AP last year that he made about $9,000 over nine months spying widely on friends and others. He said the NYPD encouraged him to use a tactic called "create and capture." He said it involved creating conversations about jihad or terrorism, then capturing the responses and sending them to the NYPD.

Now, as the NYPD defends itself from allegations by civil rights lawyers that such tactics violated a long-standing federal court order, the department said Rahman was either lying or didn't know what he was talking about.

"Rahman was never tasked to, nor did he as far as I know, engage in what he refers to as a `create and capture' methodology," Hoban wrote. "There are 57 field reports documenting Rahman's work as an informant. In reviewing those field reports, it is clear that Rahman did not use what he refers to in his declaration as a `create and capture' strategy."

Rahman allowed the AP to review months of text messages with Hoban from January to September 2012.

"Hey bro," Rahman told Hoban in one message. "I think im going to bring up jihad with these guys tonight, see what they say and know and then go home because everyones really just praying and stuff."

Hoban did not respond to that message. Rahman previously said his NYPD handler only encouraged him to use the tactic, never dissuaded him. Rahman did not respond to messages for comment from AP after Hoban's filing in federal court in Manhattan.

The different accounts of Rahman's activities are significant. Taken with the NYPD's use of plainclothes detectives assigned to the Demographics Unit to catalog Muslim business and eavesdrop on conversations, civil rights lawyers say that Rahman's tactics show the NYPD is violating court-imposed rules about what files it can keep on activities protected by the First Amendment.

The NYPD strongly denies that and Hoban's affidavit is central to their defense.

The NYPD's court papers also reveal for the first time the scope of the monitoring by its Demographics Unit, now called the Zone Assessment Unit. In the past three years, the unit has filed more than 4,200 reports, or about four per day.

Each report typically describes a clandestine visit to a business or mosque, the ethnicity of the clientele and, in some cases, what conversations the officers overheard. The detectives reported details from more than 200 conversations, or about one a week.

Thomas Galati, the commanding officer of the Intelligence Division, said most of those conversations were used to gauge people's reactions to overseas events. The AP has previously reported that Demographics detectives were extremely interested in people's reactions to U.S. drone attacks.

The civil rights lawyers want a federal judge to appoint an outside monitor to oversee the NYPD's intelligence-gathering operations, which the police department is strongly resisting. Such a monitor, the NYPD says, "would have rippling negative effects with dire consequences."

David Cohen, the NYPD's top intelligence official, argued in court documents that he and a battery of lawyers review all investigations. Oversight from outside the department, he said, would make New York a more dangerous place to live.

As evidence that New York was under constant threat of terrorism, he said the suspects in last month's Boston Marathon bombing were headed to Times Square, where he said they might have carried out an attack deadlier than the one in Boston.

Coupled with other thwarted and aspirational plots against New York in recent years, Cohen said the Boston attack showed "the need for a vibrant intelligence program that uniquely addresses the counterterrorism security equities of New York City."

Informants such as Rahman were central to Cohen's effort to identify terrorists before they attacked.

Rahman sent Hoban pictures: Imams. The sign-up list for an Islamic study group. People at rallies and parades. And bags of rice and boxes of Cheerios that his mosque was collecting for the needy.

"This is what they give to each family, plus flour, cookies, pudding, and meat," Rahman wrote.

And he collected phone numbers. One belonged to an elderly neighbor who worked in a woman's shelter. Two more were people who signed a petition and were "probably organizing a rally" for Muslims suffering in Myanmar.

Rahman collected information on the Muslim student group at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the non-profit Muslim American Society. Hoban, however, said those groups were never his informant's focus.

Instead, Hoban said Rahman kept tabs on a small group of people. That effort happened to take him into mosques and student groups, Hoban said.

For instance, he said Rahman went to a Brooklyn youth center run by the Muslim American Society "spontaneously." Hoban said he found out about it later.

In one text message, however, Rahman said he was heading to Friday prayers.

"Afterwards I might go to the mas center," he writes, a reference to the center.

"Ok," Hoban responds, "let me know who is there."

Editor’s Note: The Islamic Post Editorial team reiterates to its readers and the New York Police Department that American Muslims would never harm their country. We will continue to support this fact with cutting edge international news from a unique perspective.

Harvard University (US) has posted one of the miraculous lines of the Holy Quran at the entrance of its faculty of law, describing the line as one of the greatest expressions for justice in history.

Line 135 of Sura An Nisa ( chapter – ‘The Women’) has been posted on a wall facing the faculty’s main entrance, which is dedicated to the best phrases said about justice. It reads: "O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses To Allah, even as against Yourselves, or your parents, Or your kin, and whether It be (against) rich or poor: For Allah can best protect both.” This chapter was revealed in the Arabian city of Medina, where the first followers of the Holy Last Messenger (Peace and blessings be upon him) made hijra (migration) to from Mecca in 622 CE. As the name of this surah implies, An-Nisa’ mainly deals with the responsibilities and rights of women in Islamic society, but it also touches on inheritance and family law, along with slavery and temporary marriage. In this line, the Holy Qur’an is addressing the importance of truthfulness in giving testimony. 

  Harvard University was established in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1636 as the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.

Across America, doctors are putting youth in foster care covered by Medicaid insurance on powerful, mind-altering drugs at rates up to 13 times that of children in the general population. What’s more, doctors are prescribing foster children drugs at doses beyond what the Food and Drug Administration has approved, sometimes in potentially dangerous combinations according to a new report by the federal Government Accountability Office. Foster children are being prescribed cocktails of powerful anti-psychosis drugs just as frequently as some of the most mentally disabled youngsters on Medicaid, a new study suggests.

The report, published in late 2011 in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to investigate how often youngsters in foster care are given two anti-psychotic drugs at once, the authors said. The drugs include Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa — among other so-called major tranquilizers — which were developed for schizophrenia but are now used as all-purpose drugs for almost any psychiatric symptoms.

“The kids in foster care may come from bad homes, but they do not have the sort of complex medical issues that those in the disabled population do,” said Susan dosReis, an associate professor in the University Of Maryland School Of Pharmacy and the lead author.

The implication, Dr. dosReis and other experts said: Doctors are treating foster children’s behavioral problems with the same powerful drugs given to people with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. “We simply don’t have evidence to support this kind of use, especially in young children,” Dr. dosReis said.

The new study focused on one of the most powerful classes of drugs, anti-psychotics. It found that about 2 percent of foster children took at least one such drug, even though schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, for which the drugs are approved, are extremely rare in young children.

It is well known that children in foster care are subject to abuse, neglect and even death while in the home of foster parents. In some cases it is a continuation of abuse received from their parents – the reason for the separation. This report exposes that these vulnerable souls are also pray to medical professionals for another type of abuse. There is no doubt there exist objectionable behavior from children and young adults that live abuse of any kind, drugging them beyond the federal approval dosages and combinations is not the solution or cure.

According to the Casey Foundation, 12 to 18 months after leaving foster care 27% of the male and 10% of the female leaving the foster care system will be incarcerated.  Eighty percent of prison inmates have been through the foster care system.

His Eminence Sheik Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, Vice Chancellor of the Quranic Open University explains in his book Quranic Psychiatry, that mental diseases are actually diseases of the soul.  The words of Allah have healing for all the creatures, especially man.  Prayers of Prophets Abraham, Moses, Jesus and the Last Messenger of Allah, Muhammad, peace be upon them all, are contained in the Holy Qur’an and the Old Testament (if available without interpolation).  He further points out that at present many “psychiatrists” neither believe in Allah the Almighty nor the soul. Therefore, they claim to heal man’s mental ailments – diseases of the soul, by physical means, for example, as in the case with these children, the misuse of powerful anti-psychotic drugs and in other cases with the use of electric shocks.

As humanitarians what we expect in the name of humanity, is that leaving aside professional pride, psychiatrist must look towards other directions, the non-physical aspect of man which is his soul – its diseases, causes, symptoms and remedies.

The Terror Factory is a well-researched and fast-paced exposé of the dubious tactics the FBI has used in targeting Muslim Americans with sting operations since 2001. The book updates and expands upon Aaronson’s award-winning 2011 Mother Jones cover story “The Informants.” Most readers likely have heard about several alleged conspiracies to attack skyscrapers, synagogues, or subway stations, involving either individuals whom the FBI calls “lone wolves” or small cells that a credulous press has tagged with such sinister appellations as the Newburgh 4 or the Liberty City 7. But they may be astonished to learn that many of these frightening plots were almost entirely concocted and engineered by the FBI itself, using corrupt agent provocateurs who often posed a far more serious criminal threat than the dimwitted saps the investigations ultimately netted. 

In addition to offering leniency, if not forgiveness, for heinous crimes, the FBI pays these informants tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, creating a perverse incentive for them to ensnare dupes into terrorist plots. Aaronson quotes an FBI official defending this practice: “To catch the devil you have to go to hell.” 

Such an analysis might make sense when police leverage one criminal to gain information about more-serious criminal conspiracies—in other words, to catch a real “devil.” But Aaronson’s research reveals that the targets in most of these sting operations posed little real threat. They may have had a history of angry anti-government rhetoric, but they took no steps toward terrorist acts until they received encouragement and resources from government agents. 

Aaronson correctly takes pains to avoid portraying those caught in the stings as completely innocent of malice. But he demonstrates that they almost universally lack violent criminal histories or connections to real terrorist groups. Most important, while they may have talked about committing violent acts, they rarely had weapons of their own and, usually lacked the financial means to acquire them. Yet the government provided them with military hardware worth thousands of dollars that would be extremely difficult for even sophisticated criminal organizations to obtain, only to bust them in a staged finale. 

This aspect of Aaronson’s narrative is most troubling to me, as a former FBI agent who worked undercover in domestic terrorism investigations before 9/11. Prior to September 11, 2001, if an agent had suggested opening a terrorism case against someone who was not a member of a terrorist group, who had not attempted to acquire weapons, and who didn’t have the means to obtain them, he would have been gently encouraged to look for a more serious threat. An agent who suggested giving such a person a stinger missile or a car full of military-grade plastic explosives would have been sent to counseling. Yet in Aaronson’s telling, such techniques are now becoming commonplace. 

My concern is partly that the artificially inflated scale of the threats seem designed to overwhelm judges, jurors, and the general public, who might otherwise view such methods as illegal entrapment. The FBI often announces these arrests with great fanfare, highlighting the scope of the damage that could have been caused by weapons provided entirely by the government. Such pretrial publicity creates a climate of fear that is likely to influence judges and jurors. 

Even more unsettling is the flawed reasoning that drives the use of these methods. FBI agents have been inundated with bigoted training materials that falsely portray Arabs and Muslims as inherently violent. The FBI also has embraced an unfounded theory of “radicalization” that alleges a direct progression from adopting certain beliefs, or expressing opposition to U.S. policies, to becoming a terrorist. With such a skewed and biased view of the American Muslim community, the FBI’s strategy of “preemption, prevention, and disruption” results in abusive surveillance, targeting, and exploitation of innocent people based simply on their exercise of their First Amendment rights. 

Without reforms to FBI guidelines, anyone holding unorthodox views or challenging government policies could find himself targeted by overzealous federal agents using unscrupulous informants. The FBI should be investigating violent crime, not inventing it. 

    - Ecerpts from an article by Michael German of the ACLU                                                    

The US government is expanding its drone campaign on to the continent of Africa with drone presence in Djibouti, and flying unarmed drones from Ethiopia. Surveillance flights have been conducted over East Africa from Seychelles. 

Predator drones, which are designed to carry missiles, have been introduced into Niger that borders Mali. The administration believes Al Qaeda and such groups have established themselves in West Africa. Washington says the predator drones are unarmed, only gathering intel and conducting surveillance over Mali and Niger. Arming the drones has not been ruled out. 

Drone strikes were first used after the 9/11 attacks from bases in Pakistan and Uzbekistan, in combat missions inside Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border under the Bush administration and have continued with this administration. More than a decade later, having killed almost 5,000 people, mostly civilians including women and children, Washington has expanded the use of the remotely controlled aircraft into Yemen, Somalia and most of all in Pakistan. 

The 2011 Air Force Chief of Staff General T. Michael Moseley proudly proclaimed: “We’ve moved from using [drones] primarily in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance roles before Operation Iraqi Freedom, to a true hunter-killer role with the Reaper.” 

In February of this year, President Obama signed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, a bill that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) described as containing requirements for integrating drones into the national airspace starting immediately. The FAA anticipates as many as 30,000 drones to be in the skies over America by the end of the decade; they are likely to begin flying by 2015. 

A Back Room Bargain to Kill 

An article in the New York Times, adapted from an excerpt of the Times national security correspondent Mark Mazzetti’s new book on the CIA drone campaign in Pakistan,“The Way of the Knife”, provides details on how the killing campaign started. With one targeted killing and at least three other simultaneous kills, including two boys, aged 10 and 16.

Selection from the Times: 

The target was not a top operative of Al Qaeda, but a Pakistani, allegedly an ally of the Taliban, who led a tribal rebellion that fought and humbled Pakistan’s army in the country’s western mountains, and was marked by then president of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf’s government as an enemy of the state. In a secret deal, the CIA had agreed to kill him in exchange for access to airspace it had long sought so it could use drones to hunt down its own enemies. 

That back-room bargain, described in detail for the first time in interviews with more than a dozen officials in Pakistan and the United States, is critical to understanding the origins of a covert drone war that began under the Bush administration, was embraced and expanded by President Obama, and is now the subject of fierce debate. The deal, a month after a blistering internal report about abuses in the CIA’s network of secret prisons, paved the way for the CIA to change its focus from capturing terrorists to killing them, and helped transform an agency that began as a cold war espionage service into a paramilitary organization. 

The deal with Pakistan, struck in 2004, limited CIA drones to the tribal regions, along the Afghan borders, away from its own terror training camps. Since then, the CIA has conducted at least 366 strikes, killing at least 2,537 people, including 168 children. The CIA has conducted hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan that have killed thousands of people. The Obama Administration’s proposed rules for the use of drones, brought up only after his entire first term had passed, exempts the CIA’s operations in Pakistan. 

Secrecy is Not An Option 

The April protests across the country and the consensus of Congress against the most secretive program of this administration is sending an unclouded message to the White House -- secrecy is not an option for this government to invoke when placing American citizens on kill lists, or the use of drones in the assassination of anyone off the battlefield without due process of the law. It is incongruous that the government would write clandestine laws justifying murder of its citizens and to justify trespassing on the sovereignty of a country to spy on and assassinate its citizens. 

Major milestones have been reached for the release of information on the Obama secretive killing program and the CIA’s knowledge of drones used by the government in targeted killings. The American people are holding the administration accountable to its word for transparency of government and for the protection of rules of law. 

In March Senator Rand Paul, Republican from Kentucky with a bipartisan backing took a posture to protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; along with the outrage of the American people, Congress has exercised its authority to provide checks and balances for the executive office and its most secretive killing program. As a result, the demand emerged for the White House to turn over to Congress and the American public its legal opinions justifying Obama’s vast killing program. 

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU for release of information on the secretive killing program was directed at the CIA, the administration’s partner in secrecy about the government’s use of drones in killing people away from the battlefield. The CIA’s typical response to inquiries about its knowledge of the government’s involvement in the use of drones as part of the secretive killing program – “cannot confirm or deny”. This ruling made two things very clear, the CIA is not exempt in its drone operations and the public has the right to understand and evaluate the government’s defense of the drone program with information that goes beyond what has been selectively leaked and disclosed. The CIA will have to change its vernacular and disposition when responding to requests for information about drones; refusal to explain its knowledge with “ cannot confirm or deny” on the issue of drones is not an option. 

The First State Laws on Drones 

Idaho Governor Butch Otter signed into law the first bill in the nation protecting individuals from unfettered surveillance by unmanned aerial vehicles. 

Virginia enacted the very first drones bill nationwide on April 3. Their bill imposes a two-year moratorium on law enforcement drone use, except in emergencies, in order to give the VA legislature time to put in place legal protections for domestic drone use. 

Idaho’s new law, which, like Virginia’s moratorium, will go into effect on July 1, prohibits law enforcement from using drones to conduct investigations absent a probable cause warrant, ensuring that the police can only use drones to watch Idahoans who are suspected of wrongdoing and can’t keep an eye on everyone in the Gem State just in case they do something wrong. 

–This article was prepared with information fromDemocracyNow, ACLU, Reason, Russia Today, October 2011, Answer Coalition 

 After years of harassment and an unrelenting hate campaign against them, TMOA has brought this matter to court where justice will be served,? said plaintiff's lawyer Tahirah Clark of Deposit.  The complaint demands retraction of all defamatory statements found in the book and on the website, and provides at least a dozen examples of objectionable statements. Throughout the book, Mawyer expresses frustration with the fact that law enforcement has taken no action against TMOA and implies someone must. Ms. Clark contends there is no reason for law enforcement to act against her client's members, and that the sentiment of Mawyer is a thinly veiled way of stirring up vigilantism against innocent American Muslims.  Matthew Gardner, Public Relations Director of The Muslims of America exclaims, ?Mawyer abuses the first amendment freedom of speech by turning it into freedom of action.  This crusade he has launched against Muslims produces supporters and sympathizers whose actions take the form of violence.?

  In November 2012, Mawyer posted the address of TMOA's Hancock property on his website. The lawsuit contends that doing so was a manner of encouraging people to go to the location and exact violence. In December 2012, the complaint describes an incident where unknown individuals trespassed onto a TMOA village in Red House, VA... and fired 13 shotgun blasts into a village welcoming sign. The group has asked that this incident be investigated as a hate crime. The village in Virginia was saved from loss of life, but such armed criminals have already been seen in many other TMOA locations. Unfortunately, when these matters are reported to police, no action is taken, which has prompted TMOA to seek justice in the courts.

  As upstanding U.S. citizens with parents who have fought in the Vietnam War defending America, it is well known that American Muslims have not committed any act of terror. Therefore, the sharp rise of Islamophobia is of grave concern to The Muslims of America recently prompting letters to President Barack Obama as well as the Secretary General of The United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, petitioning for protection of the American Muslim and assistance in stopping those who boldly spout hate then attempt to hide behind their First Amendment rights.

 The freedom of speech is a right that we all hold dear as citizens.  However, that freedom is not absolute.  People cannot knowingly tell harmful lies on other people, or use words to incite violence, both of which Mr. Mawyer and his organization have done,? said Ms. Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, Co-Counsel for The Muslims of America. The case is scheduled for a hearing May 2013 before US Magistrate Judge David E. Peebles in Binghamton. TMOA is headquartered in New York. Mawyer, co-author Pierucci and CAN are all based in Virginia.

Signed,

Matthew Gardner

Director, Public Relations

The Muslims of America

(434) 664-6775

Public.relations@iqou-moa.org