Bharat Rakshak

arun wrote:X Posted from the Islamic Sectarianism thread.

In Turkey, a country long held up as proof for the existence of Muslim Moderation, Green on Green intra-Mohammadden religion inspired violence during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan sees an arson attack against members of the minority Alevi sect for objecting to being woken up early in the morning by a Ramadan drummer by their co-religionists :

Alevi family's home stoned, stable torched in southeastern Turkey

NEW DELHI: When Shabnam Hashmi visited her first adoption centre in New Delhi’s suburbs, she was told that they didn’t have any Muslim children.“I was actually shocked because children don’t have a religion,” said Hashmi, a Muslim social activist and mother of two. “Why does it matter whether the child is coming from a Muslim, Christian or Hindu family?”But Hashmi, 54, would soon discover that religion matters considerably when it comes to finding and legally adopting an Indian child.Structured, regulated adoption is a relatively new phenomenon in India, and for many years the law governing adoption discriminated against Muslims and Christians. Before 2006, only Hindu parents — a legal designation that also includes Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs — could become the legal parents of an orphaned child. The country’s Abrahamic faiths were granted only guardianship rights.The lack of equality under the law has infuriated Hashmi, since the moment she adopted her daughter. Seher, now 15, was a baby when Hashmi took her from the Palna adoption center – one of Delhi’s premier, government sanctioned adoption institutions.Back then, legal channels existed for Hindus to adopt children, but as a Muslim, Hashmi could only adopt through the Guardian and Wards Act, an antiquated Indian law from the late 19th century. 2006, India’s adoption law underwent a radical change. The Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 (JJA), one of the first acts to legislate on behalf of children, was amended, creating a provision for Muslims, Christians, atheists and any non-Hindu to become legal adoptive parents. But the act doesn’t help Hashmi – who manages Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD), an NGO that works with India’s marginalised communities – because she adopted before 2006.

“Basically, we cannot be Seher’s family because we are a Muslim family,” said Hashmi, who also has a 25-year-old biological son, Sahi.

Muslim Olympic Guard Faces Suspension After Spitting on British Army Hero

AN Olympic guard faces the sack for spitting at an Army hero drafted in to boost security — and yelling: “Baby killer.”The Asian G4S worker flipped as he patrolled an archery contest at Lord’s cricket ground with the Afghan veteran.A source said: “This security guard was ranting and raving at the soldier.“He was trying to defuse the situation but the guard was going crazy. He spat at the soldier and screamed at him. He was calling him a baby killer.“He left the soldier in no doubt he meant he’d been responsible for children’s deaths while serving in Afghanistan. “Despite the provocation, the soldier remained ice cool and didn’t lose his calm.“Some of their respective colleagues arrived and the guard was removed.”Bosses at security company G4S — which had to be bailed out by troops after failing to supply enough guards for London 2012 — yesterday said an urgent investigation was under way.

Jhujar wrote:http://dawn.com/2012/07/30/in-india-non ... prejudice/
In India, non-Hindu parents face adoption prejudice

NEW DELHI: When Shabnam Hashmi visited her first adoption centre in New Delhi’s suburbs, she was told that they didn’t have any Muslim children.“I was actually shocked because children don’t have a religion,” said Hashmi, a Muslim social activist and mother of two. “Why does it matter whether the child is coming from a Muslim, Christian or Hindu family?”But Hashmi, 54, would soon discover that religion matters considerably when it comes to finding and legally adopting an Indian child.Structured, regulated adoption is a relatively new phenomenon in India, and for many years the law governing adoption discriminated against Muslims and Christians. Before 2006, only Hindu parents — a legal designation that also includes Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs — could become the legal parents of an orphaned child. The country’s Abrahamic faiths were granted only guardianship rights.The lack of equality under the law has infuriated Hashmi, since the moment she adopted her daughter. Seher, now 15, was a baby when Hashmi took her from the Palna adoption center – one of Delhi’s premier, government sanctioned adoption institutions.Back then, legal channels existed for Hindus to adopt children, but as a Muslim, Hashmi could only adopt through the Guardian and Wards Act, an antiquated Indian law from the late 19th century. 2006, India’s adoption law underwent a radical change. The Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 (JJA), one of the first acts to legislate on behalf of children, was amended, creating a provision for Muslims, Christians, atheists and any non-Hindu to become legal adoptive parents. But the act doesn’t help Hashmi – who manages Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD), an NGO that works with India’s marginalised communities – because she adopted before 2006.

“Basically, we cannot be Seher’s family because we are a Muslim family,” said Hashmi, who also has a 25-year-old biological son, Sahi.

The case of the Pakistani-American car bomber has yet another lesson for those willing to learn it. At his sentencing, Faisal Shahzad asserted, “If I’m given 1,000 lives, I will sacrifice them all for the life of Allah.” He had apparently planned to build another car bomb in the next two weeks. The Pakistan Taliban had given him $15,000 and five days of explosive training just months after he became a U.S. citizen.As Fox News reported: “The judge cut him off at one point to ask him if he had sworn allegiance to the United States when he became a citizen last year. ‘I did swear’ Shahzad answered, ‘but I did not mean it.’”Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum clearly understood the threat. She stated in sentencing: “The defendant has repeatedly expressed his total lack of remorse and his desire, if given the opportunity, to repeat the crime.”Shahzad was not some desperate representative of poverty or repression. His father had been vice chief of the Pakistani Air Force.
The reaction to the National Security Five and their request for investigations by the inspectors general must be seen in this context of willful avoidance and denial.

In fact, there is a good deal in the Obama administration’s national security and foreign policy to ask about. One theme of the inspectors general letters is the administration’s courting of individuals viewed as leaders by the U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood. A recent terrorist finance trial produced 80 boxes of evidence related to the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood network in North America over the past 40 years.Unlike the Cold War, the primary focus of concern in government today is not espionage but influence. In the Cold War, there was value to learning secrets. The right spy at the right place could give one side or the other a big advantage.
This long war with radical Islamists is a very different struggle. There are many nuances and long-term developments. Much of the struggle involves ideas and language alien to most American leaders and unknown even to most of the State or Defense Department professionals.
Perhaps no one in our elites wants to read the Hamas Charter’s clause seven because it is too horrifying. Consider: ”The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind the stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”Apologists for Hamas insist this clause has no meaning. But the Hamas leaders claim they cannot remove it from their charter.The Muslim Brotherhood, in a 1991 document called the “Explanatory Memorandum,” explained to its own supporters that its goal was “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying Western Civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”This memo cited 29 different allied groups, including the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Students Association and the Islamic Association of Palestine. Leaders in some of these allied groups founded the Council on American-Islamic Relations.Just Friday, the Dubai chief of police warned about a Muslim Brotherhood effort to take over the emirates and seize their oil and natural gas wealth.The Muslim Brotherhood is a serious worldwide organization dedicated to a future most Americans would find appalling. Seeking to understand its reach and its impact on the U.S. government is a legitimate, indeed essential, part of our national security process.The National Security Five were doing their duty in asking difficult questions designed to make America safer. Their critics represent the kind of willful blindness that increasingly puts America at risk.If we do not want a book to describe “Why Washington Slept,” we will have to encourage elected officials to follow the advice of a later Kennedy book and exhibit “Profiles in Courage.”Bachmann, Franks, Gohmert, Rooney and Westmoreland are showing a lot more courage than the defenders of timidity, complicity and passivity.
Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is a former speaker of the House.

Jhujar wrote:http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/07 ... by-killer/

Muslim Olympic Guard Faces Suspension After Spitting on British Army Hero

AN Olympic guard faces the sack for spitting at an Army hero drafted in to boost security — and yelling: “Baby killer.”The Asian G4S worker flipped as he patrolled an archery contest at Lord’s cricket ground with the Afghan veteran.A source said: “This security guard was ranting and raving at the soldier.“He was trying to defuse the situation but the guard was going crazy. He spat at the soldier and screamed at him. He was calling him a baby killer.“He left the soldier in no doubt he meant he’d been responsible for children’s deaths while serving in Afghanistan. “Despite the provocation, the soldier remained ice cool and didn’t lose his calm.“Some of their respective colleagues arrived and the guard was removed.”Bosses at security company G4S — which had to be bailed out by troops after failing to supply enough guards for London 2012 — yesterday said an urgent investigation was under way.

One of Somalia's most popular comedians, known for his parodies of Islamist militants, has been shot dead in the capital, Mogadishu.

Abdi Jeylani Marshale was reportedly killed shortly after leaving a local radio station where he worked as a drama producer and performer.

It is not known who carried out the murder but last year Marshale was threatened by the extremist group al-Shabaab, prompting him to go into hiding in neighbouring Somaliland for several days.

Witnesses told the BBC that Marshale was shot several times in the head and chest by two men armed with pistols. The gunmen have not been caught.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/01/1 ... s-closure/

Tara Das says she is the fifth generation of her family to work at the same brothel in Bangladesh, but now she is fighting against Islamic protesters who want her business to close.

The red light district in Madaripur city is thought to have been in operation for at least 150 years, and the sex workers believe the sudden wave of protests are orchestrated by developers trying to take over the valuable land.

Last month, about 10,000 people led by a new Muslim group called Islahe Kaom Parishad (the National Reform Council) rallied outside the rambling complex to call for it to be shut down and the 500 sex workers evicted.

A Sri Lankan youth employed as a domestic aid has been arrested in Saudi Arabia for praying to a statue of Lord Buddha, which is considered an offence according to Islamic Sharia law. According to the Bodu Bala Sena, the youth bearing passport no. 2353715 identified as Premanath Pereralage Thungasiri has been arrested by Umulmahami Police, which is a grave situation. While the youth is a Buddhist, the charge levelled against him is that he paid obeisance to the Buddha at the house where he was employed.

The Bodu Bala Sena organisation further said those employed in Muslim-majority countries are prevented from practicing their religious faiths, and if found to do so are punished severely. Recently a Sri Lankan woman was arrested for gazing at a child at a shopping complex, where she was accused of witchcraft, on the grounds that she had a black cord around her wrist.

On prior occasions too many Sri Lankan female domestic workers were forced to embrace Islam, and wear the traditional attire, while so far four Sri Lankan youth have been beheaded in that country. (Source: Ceylon Today)

Saudi Arabia is an Islamic theocratic monarchy where the religion of Islam is the official religion. Non-Islamic proselytism and conversions are illegal and conversion by Muslims to another religion (apostasy) carries the death penalty. Under Saudia Arabia Sharia Islamic law, children of Saudi parents are considered Muslim, regardless of the country or the religious tradition in which they may have been raised.

A Muslim cleric, Adamu Abdullahi, who spoke to journalists, condemned the attack. He sad: "It is very unfortunate for a suicide bomber to attack his fellow faithful on a worship ground in the month of Ramadan, this is a devilish act and God will punish the perpetrators of this evil act".

Perpetrators

Sunni extremists accounted for the greatest number of terrorist attacks and fatalities for the third consecutive year. More than 5,700 incidents were attributed to Sunni extremists, accounting for nearly 56 percent of all attacks and about 70 percent of all fatalities. Among this perpetrator group, al-Qa‘ida (AQ) and its affiliates were responsible for at least 688 attacks that resulted in almost 2,000 deaths, while the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan conducted over 800 attacks that resulted in nearly 1,900 deaths. Secular, political, and anarchist groups were the next largest category of perpetrators, conducting 2,283 attacks with 1,926 fatalities, a drop of 5 percent and 9 percent, respectively, from 2010.

Suicide attacks rose from 264 in 2010 to 279 in 2011. In spite of the increase, this represents a sharp drop from the five-year peak of 520 suicide attacks in 2007. Sunni extremists conducted 93 percent of suicide attacks.

jamwal wrote:American female defense lawyer covers up in traditional Islamic dress at 9/11 Guantanamo trial 'out of respect' for her client's religious beliefs

during the trial of the 9/11 terrorist the (white) female defense attorney insisted that all women present at the courtroom (including the 9/11 victims) wear hi-jabs (traditional Islamic head-wear) because not doing so was "offensive and racist" to the defense

Don't know whether to or

In 2002, five years before journalist Chauncey Bailey was murdered by members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, a woman identified only as Jane Doe 1 stepped forward to report decades of sexual abuse, welfare fraud and violence by the bakery’s leader, Yusuf Bey Sr.

She was prepared to hand over to Oakland police DNA from three of her children, evidence that Bey had impregnated her, the first time when she was 12 years old.

Given the history of violence by members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, this was a risky move. But the woman was fueled by a mother’s anger. Her daughter, then 18, alerted her that Bey was trying to abuse her – his own daughter.

She delivered the first of three children by Bey at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley at 13. A social worker questioned Banks about the paternity of her son, she said, but under the watchful eye of one of Bey’s “wives,” Banks kept silent. Later, she said she told a child protection worker that she was working long hours and not going to school.

“She told me she would check into it, and I never saw her again,” Banks said.

Bey, a self-appointed minister who gave himself the title of “Dr.,” was formerly a hairdresser. He opened Your Black Muslim Bakery in the early 1970s, espousing black self-reliance and his own interpretation of Islam, which included racist attacks on whites. Nevertheless, in his more than 30 years in North Oakland, Bey gained the support of local business leaders, clergy and politicians eager to align with the underclass.

Pakistanis are mounting protests online and in the streets of cities like Lahore and Peshawar over the ill-treatment of Muslims in Myanmar, a situation that Islamist groups here are distorting to raise money and potentially win recruits.

The international community has raised concerns about human rights abuses against Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar. Clashes in June between Rohingyas and their Buddhist neighbors, the Rakhine, left 78 dead, according to the Myanmar government. A new Human Rights Watch report calls the number "grossly underestimated" and charges that security forces failed to protect Rohingyas, and in some cases opened fire on them.

But on the streets of Pakistan, the rhetoric runs much hotter with protesters claiming "thousands" of Rohingyas are being slaughtered in western Myanmar (also known as Burma). Online, meanwhile, a series of doctored and misidentified photographs are circulating widely in Pakistani social media and beyond that purport to show violence against Rohingyas.
Investigations by social media watchdogs, and the respected Pakistani newspaper Express Tribune, have proven that most of these claims are exaggerated or entirely false.

For example, one photo posted on a Facebook page originating from Pakistan show Buddhists dressed in their traditional red robes standing in the middle of two rows of dead bodies. The caption reads: "Bodies of Muslims killed by Buddhists." In reality, this picture is from an earthquake incident in China in 2010, where Tibetan monks came to help with the rescue efforts.

Islamist groups are exploiting the whipped up sentiments in Pakistan to raise money, ostensibly for the Rohingyas, at a time when political parties are also building up campaign coffers in anticipation of upcoming national elections. One militant Islamist group, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, even threatened the Myanmar government, saying it will avenge the blood of Muslims being killed in Myanmar.

Shahzad Ahmad, the Pakistan country director for the global online activism group called Bytes for All, says stories of Muslim victimization around the world are exaggerated in Pakistan by Islamist groups on the Internet.

“They use such campaigns not only to fund themselves but also to gain more political ground and recruit people for their cause. Our research shows that there are many fake photographs being used to propagate [stories of] atrocities against Muslims on many of the Facebook pages which originate from Pakistan,” says Mr. Ahmad.

Hundreds of pages in support of the Rohingya have appeared on the Internet over the past few months, he says.
“While there is no denying there are human rights violations in Myanmar against Muslims, such exaggerated online campaigns may attract those who want to promote terror and collaborate with extremist groups which operate openly in Pakistan,” adds Ahmad.

Among the groups involved in stirring the activism are Jamat-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam, two Islamist groups which hold significant street power in the country.

Jamat-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam are political parties with a strong presence in rural areas of Pakistan. They believe in a conservative Islamic ideology and propagate the same in their political vision. Jamat-ud-Dawa, the political arm of the Islamist militia group Lashkar-e-Toiba, is a charity organization banned internationally and is under strict watch in Pakistan as it has been accused of being involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, an allegation it denies.

In a conversation with Ayub Munir, the head of foreign affairs at Jamat-e-Islami, one of the oldest Islamist parties in Pakistan, Mr. Munir repeatedly referred to the situation in Myanmar as a genocide of Muslims. “Our biggest concern is the mass killings of Muslims there. This genocide should immediately stop,” says Munir.
Like others, Jamat-e-Islami has announced they are collecting charity for the affected Rohingya community.

“We have opened a bank account, and we have received immense response,” Munir says. But, as of yet, he does not know how they will be sending this help to Myanmar. “No one can access that area. So we have been unable to send anything. But we plan to talk to the United Nations to help us send food, medicine, and tents,” the Jamat-e-Islami representative adds.

According to him, Muslims have been pushed out of their homes and are living in the jungle, and therefore they need immediate shelter. “We have some workers on the Bangladesh side, and we have asked them to reach out to the Rohingya community,” he claims.

The recent TTP threat to carry out attacks in Myanmar is even more logistically unlikely. Analysts in Pakistan say the aim of the message is more to raise their global brand and attract recruits.

An intelligence official working on counter-terrorism, who is not authorized to speak to the media, says such issues are raised by extremists to gain popularity. “This gets them in the goods books of the Pakistani masses,” the official added. He further said that he has come across evidence where groups in Pakistan doing social welfare work in the country have been involved in funding international "jihad," as he liked to refer to it.

But the romance of "ummah," or the unity of the global Muslim community, has been historically pervasive among South Asian Muslims, says Raza Rumi, a noted columnist.

"There have been instances in our history when funds for Islamic causes have been raised even in the early 20th century when a movement to save the Turkic Caliphate was launched in undivided India," Rumi added.

Fund raising however has acquired a new dimension given the spread of political Islam in this region since the 1980s. Most Islamist organizations have been involved in cross-continental transfers to support various causes.

"On the issue of Burma there is a concerted campaign in place now which is collecting funds without a clear ideas as to how these funds reach the persecuted minority in Myanmar," said Rumi. In fact, one major area of concern is that Pakistan's weak enforcement of rules, which in theory allow the government to restrict banned or controversial groups from raising funds, allows such groups to operate and "raise funds with impunity," Rumi adds.

"This is a cause of concern for many rational Pakistanis who want more effective controls on extremist outfits." opines Rumi.

Ennahdha Founder Attacked at “Tolerance in Islam” Conference

Yesterday, Abdelfatah Mourou, a prominent Tunisian Islamist figure, was hospitalized after he was attacked by an attendee of a conference entitled, Tolerance in Islam, which he was heading in Kairouan.

The assailant struck Mourou in the head with what appeared to be a water glass following a dispute. Mourou passed out and was taken to the hospital, where he was given five stitches in the forehead.

Mourou, who is one of the founding members of Tunisia’s eminent Islamist Ennahdha party, was chairing the conference with Ridha Belhaj, the head of the ultra-conservative Hizb-ut-Tahrir party, and Youssef Seddik, a well-known Tunisian philosopher.

“Certain people intervened, and tried to force Youssef Seddik to leave. They started insulting him, claiming that he said bad things about Sayida Ai’cha – the wife of the prophet. ………………..

Seventy members of an Islamist sect in Russia have been found living in an underground bunker without heat or sunlight on the outskirts of the city of Kazan, according to Russian media.

The sect members – including 20 children, the youngest of whom was 18 months old – are thought to have been underground for nearly a decade.

Many of the children were born underground and had never seen daylight until the prosecutors discovered them on 1 August. After health checks, a 17-year-old girl turned out to be pregnant.


The group, known as the Fayzarahmanist sect, was named after its 83-year-old organiser Fayzrahman Satarov, who declared himself a prophet and his house an independent Islamic state, according to a report by state TV channel Vesti.

brihaspati wrote:Menstruating ghosts case has not been covered in the sharia. How does such a ghost carry out ghusl or the obligatory ritual cleansing? what if the ghost falls pregnant? That breaks so many hudud laws.

excerpts
sect Like Scientology

People who have broken ties to Gülen and are familiar with the inner workings of this community tell a different story. They characterize the movement as an ultraconservative secret society, a sect not unlike the Church of Scientology. And they describe a world that has nothing to do with the pleasant images from the cultural Olympics.

These critics say that the religious community (known as the "cemaat" in Turkish) educates its future leaders throughout the world in so-called "houses of light," a mixture of a shared student residence and a Koran school. They describe Gülen as their guru, an ideologue who tolerates no dissent, and who is only interested in power and influence, not understanding and tolerance. They say that he dreams of a new age in which Islam will dominate the West.

Some experts reach similar conclusions. Dutch sociologist Martin van Bruinessen sees parallels between the Gülen movement and the Catholic secret society Opus Dei. American historian and Middle East expert Michael Rubin likens the Turkish preacher to Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini. According to a diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks in 2010, US diplomats consider the Gülen movement to be "Turkey's most powerful Islamist grouping." The Gülen movement, the cable continues, "controls major business, trade, and publishing activities (and) has deeply penetrated the political scene."

Only very few former members are prepared to talk about their time in the movement, and those who do insist on not being identified by name. They are afraid of Gülen and his people, afraid for their jobs, their health and their families.

Like in Prison

One of these former members, who agreed to speak with SPIEGEL under a fictitious name, is Serkan Öz, who lived in a "house of light" in a major German city for several years. He moved into the facility immediately after graduating from a German high school. He had been attracted by Gülen's sermons, which he saw on the Internet, because he felt that they reconciled Islamic piety with Western modernity.

Both the furnishings and everyday life in the residence, says Öz, were more evocative of the frugality and rigidity of a monastery than the relaxed atmosphere of a student dormitory. There were only men living in his house, and both alcohol and visits by women were prohibited. A supervisor, who all residents referred to as "Agabey" ("elder brother"), determined the daily routine, dictating when it was time to work, pray and sleep. "We were guarded as if we were in prison," says the former member. Öz read the Koran and studied Gülen's writings every day.

The houses of light are the foundation of the movement, where young "Fethullahcis" (as followers of Gülen are called) are taught to become loyal servants. The residences exist in many countries, including Turkey, the United States and Germany. There are two dozen in Berlin alone. The cemaat offers schoolchildren and university students a home, often free of charge, and in return it expects them to devote their lives to "hizmet," or service to Islam.

In his book "Fasildan Fasila," (From Time to Time) Gülen writes that a pupil must be "on the go day and night" and cannot be seen sleeping. "If possible, he sleeps three hours a day, has two hours for other needs, and must devote the rest entirely to hizmet. In essence, he has no personal life, except in a few specific situations."

Residents of the houses of light are also expected to proselytize, and Gülen even offers advice in his writings on how to go about it. The students, he writes, should befriend infidels, even if it means having to hide their true motives. "With the patience of a spider, we lay our web to wait for people to get caught in the web."

Banned from Watching TV

The more Serkan Öz lived his life in accordance with Gülen's rules, the "Hizmet düsturlari," the fewer freedoms he had. For example, the cemaat tried to dictate to him which profession he was to choose. He had almost no friends left outside the movement.

Other former members report that they were pressured to marry within the Gülen movement. In some residences, there are rules that prohibit watching TV, listening to music or reading books that contradict Gülen's ideology, including the works of Charles Darwin and Jean-Paul Sartre. Some residents were coerced into cutting off ties with their families when the parents tried to resist losing their children to the cemaat.

Serkan Öz decided to move out of the house of light. Now he was a renegade, and the career doors that had opened up for him were suddenly closed. Öz became isolated, losing his friends and acquaintances, his religious home and, as he sees it today, his place in the world.

Germans have devoted a lot of attention to Islam in recent years. There are conferences on Islam and research projects on integration. But the German public knows almost nothing about Gülen and his movement, even though it has more influence on Muslims in Germany than almost any other group. "It is the most important and most dangerous Islamist movement in Germany," says Ursula Spuler-Stegemann, an Islamic scholar in the western German university city of Marburg. "They are everywhere."

gülen likes to portray himself as a modest preacher akin to a Muslim Gandhi. One of his mantras is: "Build schools instead of mosques."

But before he moved to the United States, Gülen treated the West as the enemy. "Until the day of judgment," he wrote in his book "Cag ve Nesil" (This Era and the Young Generation), "Westerners will exhibit no human behavior." Gülen condemned Turks who embraced Europe as "freeloaders," "parasites" and "leukemia." In a November 2011 video message, he called upon the Turkish military to attack Kurdish separatists: "Locate them, surround them, break up their units, let fire rain down upon their houses, drown out their lamentations with even more wails, cut off their roots and put an end to their cause."

Gülen also disputes the theory of evolution, calling it "unscientific" and an "illusion." He believes that scientific facts are only true if they agree with the Koran.

n Turkey what can happen to critics. "Anyone who messes with Gülen is destroyed," says the former chief prosecutor. He has been a hero among secular Turks since he investigated the Gülen community in 2007. Cihaner says that he had received information about illegal financial transactions within the cemaat. But then, in response to pressure from the government, he was taken off the case. He was arrested in 2010.

Cihaner was accused of being a member of the ultranationalist Ergenekon organization, a group of conspirators who had allegedly planned to overthrow the government. Even Cihaner's political rivals believe that the charges against him were absurd. The former prosecutor had acquired a reputation for his staunch campaigns against mafia-like networks. And now he was being accused of working with Ergenekon and planning to plant weapons in dormitories where Gülen supporters lived so as to discredit the movement. The prosecution based its case on statements by anonymous witnesses. Cihaner was eventually released because of insufficient evidence against him. He is now a member of the opposition in the Turkish parliament.

Istanbul-based journalist Ahmet Sik suffered a similar fate. He was arrested in March 2011, shortly before his book about the Gülen movement, "Imamin Ordusu," ("The Imam's Army"), was to be published. Security forces searched the offices of his publishing house, and the manuscript, in which Sik describes how the Gülen movement has allegedly infiltrated the police and the judiciary in Turkey, was confiscated. The investigative reporter was charged with being a member of Ergenekon. Ironically, it was Sik who, together with a colleague, had exposed the secret coup plans of an Ergenekon admiral in the weekly magazine Nokta in 2007 and who had repeatedly targeted the Ergenekon network. Sik was released a few months ago, following international protests.