The Wadud media event - A planned provocation (?)

Norman Griebel writes (excerpts)

Wadud’s prayer was organised from the website MuslimWakeUp. Participation in the Friday prayer was only possible after having previously registered at this website – without a doubt this alone would constitute a further affront to the Muslim faith.
The editor-in-chief and also owner of MuslimWakeUp is Ahmed Nassef. In December of last year he took part in a conference entitled “Bridging the Divide" organised be the Brookings Institution. That the event took place under the aegis of the "Saban Center for Middle East Policy", named after its founder, the Israeli Media-mogul Haim Saban, was only mentioned in passing.

On the occasion of this Conference a new organisation, the "American Muslim Group on Policy Planning" was created. Even if no precise information is available about AMGPP, an article published by Muqtedar Khan on his Website Ijtihad more than suggests - at the very least - that Khan is one of the founders, as well as Nassef.

(Note: Khan is on the board of advisors of PMUNA, and Nassef is the Executive Director of PMU)

In the article Khan presents the goals of the AMGPP - amongst them "Support of the USA in its war against terror" as well as the taking over of a "leading role in matters of public diplomacy and public relations in name of the state Department"; furthermore the AMGPP should work as "spokesperson for American policy, concerns and interests”. And officials from the and US Ministry of Defence took part in the conference alongside officials from the State Department.

The inevitable outcry to be expected from the majority of Muslims certainly lends itself to the further representation of Islam as fundamental, backward, radical und mysoginistic. Furthermore this event also lends itself exceedingly effectively to the task of spreading division within the Muslims community.

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