The Truth About Islam

[TBC: Comments from a writer for "The National Review"]

APR.  8, 2003: WHO DO YOU BELIEVE? (Frum, National Review Online). 

Yesterday I posted a story on the opposition of the Council on American Islamic Relations to the appointment of Daniel Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace. I cited Pipes’s own work about CAIR and its beliefs--and specifically this 1998 statement by CAIR’s chairman, Omar M. Ahmad: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." 

Mr. Ahmad e-mailed me later in the day with this statement: 

“Mr. Frum, 

“My name is Omar Ahmad and I am the Board Chairman of CAIR. I wanted to let you know that the statement that Pipe attributed to me are false and pure fabrication. I never said these things and I challenged Pipe before to produce his evidence and he did not. 

“Omar Ahmad” 

So I asked Daniel Pipes to authenticate the quote. He sent me the following, an article from the San Ramon Valley Herald , dated July 4, 1998. 

American Muslim Leader Urges Faithful to Spread Word 

Lisa Gardiner 

San Ramon Valley Herald July 4, 1998 

FREMONT--The chairman of a national Islamic watchdog group urged Muslims Thursday not to separate or assimilate to American society, but instead to deliver Islam's message. 

Omar M. Ahmad, chairman of the board of the Council on American-Islamic relations, spoke before a packed crowd at the Flamingo Palace banquet hall on Peralta Boulevard, urging Muslims not to shirk their duty of sharing the Islamic faith with those who are "on the wrong side." 

Muslim institutions, schools and economic power should be strengthened in America, he said. Those who stay in America should be "open to society without melting (into it)," keeping mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam, he said. 

"If you choose to live here (in America) . . . you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam," he said. 

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant, " he said. "The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth," he said.