NY congressman Peter King was being interviewed on Sean Hannity's radio program when he claimed that 85% of the mosques here in the USA are under the control of Islamic fundamentalists. He also stated that we get virtually no cooperation from American Muslims for many reasons, fear a major one. But also a misplaced loyalty.

King is on the Homeland Security committee and claims to have ample evidence to support his claims. He said that there is a major concern about backlash against Muslims, which is why this has been kept mostly under the radar.

Do you think this is true?

If so, what should be done about it?

I have to ask, Passion51, how many churches are under the control of Christian fundamentalists? A fair few, I would assume. Are Christian fundamentalists terrorists? Not necessarily. Some might try to storm abortion clinics, I suppose. And the same applies to Muslim fundamentalists. Fundamentalist simply means a religion using the strictest and most literal interpretations of a holy text. The title is misleading.

I suppose it's a problem if you're opposed to people fasting and eating only halaal foods or something. Fundamentalists are traditionally rather intolerant towards those who don't share their beliefs, but usually the law keeps them in check - preventing them from, say, stoning adulterers and homosexuals.



Oh, probably some religious persecution. That seems to me the best way.

Since I tend to use the words 'fundamentalist' , 'radical' and 'terrorist' interchangeably when talking about Islam I decided to look further into that usage after reading your post.

Consequently, for clarification, I submit that the allegation being raised is that some 85% of the mosques in the US are being controlled by Islamic fundamentalist radicals who promote and support extreme violent measures as a means for spreading their beliefs and squelching all others.

When the head of a mosque, church or synagouge takes to the pulpit and preaches the value of violence against those who do not believe the same way you do it seems to me something needs to be done. Regardless of the 'religion' they're espousing. I don't see that kind of activity occurring amongst the Christian fundamentalists you choose to use as an example. However, if that was part and parcel of their message then I'd call for treating them the same as any other terror-mongering killer who uses religion to cloak their homicidal intention.


That said, what do you think?

Where did this 85% figure come from? This seems like an extraordinary claim to me, and I'd like to see some really hard numbers about this. (And how do we measure this? Take a survey and ask the members of each mosque if they support terrorism?)

This just seems extremely unlikely to me, so it's hard for me to suggest what should be done about a situation which seems unreal.

I also want to know where the 85% number came from.

Additionally, you say misplaced loyalty, but is it possible that these "radical" Muslims (whom I'm not sure exist, but I'm being hypothetical here) disagree with the manner in which the U.S. is handling certain aspects of the war on terror much like many of the non-Muslim people in this country? Isn't it natural for them to be afraid when they "fit the profile?" and Isn't it natural for them to not want to cooperate if they feel that their rights have been violated?

What exactly have this 85% of Muslims done to deserve the title of "radical?"

I don't think this can effectively be debated until you provide sources with that information.

My hunch would be that Congressman King's number is high. But whatever is the correct figure, it would be a very serious matter if most or even a significant percentage of mosques in the US were supporters of America's Islamofascist enemies. I have no figures for it, and am not sure how you'd get them, but my suspicion is that is in fact the case and we do have a serious problem. The traditional and probably most effective way would be to infiltrate them and report from within, just as the FBI used to do with the Klan, but we wouldn't hear about it until much later.

I think the bigger problem (mentioned in the original post) is why are so many mosques not cooperating with the government?

I asked a similar question after Sept. 11, namely: Why aren't major Muslim leaders shouting from the heavens that the terrorists do not represent true Islam?

I personally have not heard any stories of any US mosques putting up major barriers to legal investigations. I have, however, seen some mosques contest the actions of the government when, say, a member (and US citizen) is taken from his home and not heard from by friends or family for months and he is not given a chance for trial or a chance to contact a lawyer. Since the mosque is a larger community of individuals who potentially have contact with a greater number of resources than a single family would have alone, it makes sense to me that the mosque would help the family pursue what they see as (and IMO is) a gross infringement on civil rights.

And it seems to me, if 85% of the Mosques in this country were controlled by people espousing and perhaps planning violent terrorists attacks - why aren't we seeing almost daily terrorist attacks on US soil? Or just, say, more than two attacks by Muslim terrorists in a decade?

Plus, ~30% of muslims in the US are african americans, which granted, in and of itself does not preclude them being radical terrorist followers, but makes it less likely since real islamic radical fundamentalists preaching violence are not promoting

but instead promoting violence as a way of ERADICATING all others - they don't want new converts and believe the new converts are not true followers of Islam.





I agree... they need to be watched. This is of course a sticky issue of freedom of speech and separation of church and state - but despite all this, if there is someone preaching violence, they and their parisioners should become "People of interest" for the justice department to watch and try to intercept before violence occurs.



I guess you missed some of the craziness going on before and "during" the Iraq war. There were many news stories (at least here in the Virginia) of preachers calling for the war from the pulpit. I don't know how many times I heard "onward christian soldiers" or people praising the US army as the modern christian army. Which was all rather ironic considering the country of Iraw was (at least pre-war) a very secular "islamic" nation that the radicals (like Osama Bin Laden) had denounced as not true followers. But maybe we are only talking about violence against other US citizens and not violence against people outside our borders.

So, what can be done about a supposed 85% of mosques espousing violence? Not much... other than watching from within and trying to stop any attacks before they occur. But, I think this number was greatly inflated for some devious purpose. I think just saying this would be enough to make many muslims angry and less likely to cooperate.

I too would think that 85% is an absurdly high number, I would very much like to see the evidence he is talking about but I suppose that is out of the question. To suggest a number such as 85% would lead people to believe that nearly every muslim in America could potentially belong to one of these churches and if they were not a terrorist in the making, they at the very least supported it. Common sense tells us this is false.



I don't see any reason why they should cooperate. Religious institutions are generally not very easily persuaded to inform on their members or turn rosters over to the government. In fact, priests (and I would assume this applies to the islamic equivalent as well) fall into a special class of people that cannot be compelled to testify against their confidants.

No one was surprised that the Catholic church was and is not eager to turn over pediphiles in its ranks, why should Mosques be any different?

For the government to force the Mosques to turn over information about their members would be a violation of civil rights and an abuse of government power when their Christian counterparts would not and could not be forced to do the same.

One thing that causes some scepticism about King's claims is that he is promoting his new book, a fictional tale that revolves around another terror attack by Islamic fundamentalists.

I know nothing about King's reputation so I can't even venture a guess as to his true motivation.

I am a Muslim myself, and I know that Imam at my mosque openly condemned the attacks. So did the Muslim community on the campus where I study, and the Imam of the mosque in my parents neighborhood. I know that the Islamic Society of North America condemned it, as did the United States Muslim Student Association (MSA), the IANA and ICNA. It seems to be assumed that Muslims did not condemn the attack simply because they where not heard to do so.

The fact of the matter is that it has been condemned by virtually every Islamic institution and organization I know of; many of them did so via very open press releases and through their respective websites, as well in their meetings and congregations. I doubt that King made any real effort to look for any of these.

I must say, I have heard the same denouncements from the same (and more) sources as my previous poster. It's true. Islam is not a religion of mass violence any more than Christianity is. And the Muslim community has not condoned/ failed to denounce terrorism.

There may be those in influential roles with "homicidal tendencies," but such is the case of Christianity. As a previous poster pointed out, what about "fundamentalist/radical/terrorist" Christians targeting abortion clinics?

Terrorists are a minority. If they weren't, maybe they could get what they wanted through democracy? Oh wait, no. This is America. The most votes doesn't mean democratic victory! lol

As for what should be done about "uncooperative" mosques:
infiltration, sanctions, threats, all are only ways to further exasperate the issue. We need to show trust. How about more efforts toward cultural sensitivity?

"When the head of a mosque, church or synagouge takes to the pulpit and preaches the value of violence against those who do not believe the same way you do it seems to me something needs to be done".

first of all, how do you know that the heads of mosques preach violence? making generalizations like that about all of 85% of muslims is outrageous. islam does not preach violence. some muslims may be terrorists, just like people from any other groups, condemning the whole religion as a whole is quite dogmatic.

christians, hindus, jews, people as a whole, has massacred before too. destroying entire cities of japan in the name of experimentation/pay back/raw display of power had far more fatal consequences.

its so wrong how when white and christian people suffer, it is terrorism but when other less privileged groups suffer it is war against terrorism and other fancy concepts. when american soldiers die in iraq the news broadcasts it efficiently, but for iraqis there probably isnt a headcount.

half the world is condemning all muslims and half the world is condemning all of america- just because some people with power are having fun with it,

i find it hard to believe that most legal muslim immigrants would knowingly join a mosque (masjid) that is fudned by fundamental extremist groups. in my opinion, most people who legally immigrate here and live their lives as normal people would not do this as they would obviously be arrested, subjugated to other B.S. of the Patriot Act, etc.
I would believe that as they are secret terrorist osganization they would not be openly involved in such places.

Even though you attend a church it does not mean that you know where your donations are going. Look at the NLFT, they're a christian terrorist organization the is funded by alot of well known christian organizations. Some of these include the Christian Broadcasting Network, Baptist International Missions, and the Salvation Army.

Arabs numbered 1.2 million in 2000, up 38% since 1990 and double the number in 1980, when the Census began tracking ancestry. The overall U.S. population grew 13% in the 1990s to 281.4 million. Despite their rapid growth, Arabs still make up less than half of 1% of the population.
USA Today

Assuming most are relatively pious, 85% of around 1 million is at least 500,000 people. i doubt that many could be kept in the blind. that is why i said knowingly.