PropheticAlert

Fox News; The Islamification of Europe

2009-11-23T09:27:00.000Z

America as the last man standing

2009-11-04T09:53:00.002Z

Geert Wilders is a Dutch Member of Parliament.

'In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe?'

Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, at the Four Seasons, New York, introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem.

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for inviting me.

I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.

First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe. Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem.

The Europe you know is changing.

You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.

All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.

In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.

Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore, whore'. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.

In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.

In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan.

Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.

The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.

Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.

This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a danger greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe, American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.

Statistics: Muslims in Europe

2009-08-24T14:25:00.001+01:00

Sahar Amer

Associate Professor, Asian & International Studies

UNC-CH

samer@email.unc.edu

Name of Country	Muslim population	Total population	Percentage
Turkey	68.7 million	68 million	99%
Albania	3.1 million	2.2 million	70%
Bosnia-Hercegovina	3.8 million	1.5 million	40%
Macedonia	2.1 million	630,000	30%
France	5-6 million	62.3 million	8-9.6%
Netherlands	945,000	16.3 million	5.8%
Denmark	270,000	5.4 million	5%
Serbia & Montenegro	405,000	8.1 million	5%
Switzerland	310,800	7.4 million	4.2%
Austria	339,000	8.2 million	4.1%
Belgium	0.4 million	10.3 million	4%
Germany	3 million	82.5 million	3.6%
Sweden	300,000	9 million	3%
United Kingdom	1.6 million	58.8 million	2.8%
Spain	1 million	43.1 million	2.3%
Italy	825,000	58.4 million	1.4%

Source of statistics: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4385768.stm

Stunning Ignorance?

2009-07-01T12:18:00.011+01:00

After having stumbled upon the article about the Catholic Church raising funds for the new mosque in cologne, I could not help but think that this is an act of extreme ignorance. The Islamization of Europe is well under way and presents a very real danger to the Western World and Christianity at large. Although it appears that this idea/action is well intended, it appears to be very misguided and ill-conceived. The only explanation I have is that either the Rev. Franz Meurer does not perceive Islam as a major threat to the Christian Church, or that the Roman Catholic church has aligned itself with Islam. Both possibilities raise disturbing questions. Islam, Catholicism and Christianity are in no way compatible, despite what we are led to believe. Such misguided actions do more harm than good in the context of the Kingdom of God on Earth. It is almost as if Rev. Franz Meurer believes that the action is justified by virtue of it being perceived as something good, but how can this be the case if the perceived 'goodness' inherent in this deed encourages and funds the work of the enemies of Christ and His Church?

To quote from the article: "Our people were suggesting such things as a little kneeler, a bell, a picture and the like. But then I said, 'Friends, this isn't likely to lead anywhere. They pray to God one on one in their mosques. They haven't got liturgical objects like we do'."

The God of Islam is not the God of the Christian faith nor of the Bible. Islam is a spiritual counterfeit. The teachings of Islam corrupt the truth and present it as fact. Such perversions of truth result in teachings that Ishmael and not Isaac received the blessing; Jesus was only a great prophet (like Mohamed) but not God in the flesh; that salvation is obtained through good works and Jihad (there is no saviour in Islam); Jihad is waged primarily against Christians; that Allah is God (Allah is not simply another name for God - it is a false God). Islam promotes violence under the false banner of holy war (Jihad). There is much more that can be said about the many dangers of Islam but it is sufficient comment for the purpose of the article.

If anyone has any doubts about my position on Islam, please watch the video 'Islam: What the West Needs to Know' (see Islam in Europe links on this page).

Catholic church collects money for mosque (Cologne, Germany)

2009-07-01T12:15:00.001+01:00

www.expatica.com ^ | 16 March 2007

Posted on 22 March 2007 05:15:53 by Esther Ruth

Catholic church collects money for mosque 16 March 2007

Cologne, Germany (dpa) - When the Rev. Franz Meurer stands at the altar this Sunday in his priestly vestments, he'll say to the congregation: "Today's collection is for the construction of the big new mosque in Ehrenfeld."

Meurer, 55, is not expecting protests. Both the board of Cologne's St. Theodore Catholic Church and the parish council have unanimously approved the action.

"It's only natural that we're helping them," he said of the Muslims living in a city that is one of the main centres of Catholicism in Germany.

After the special collection was announced last Sunday, several parishioners asked if it was really necessary - considering, for instance, that four young Turks beat a family man into a coma on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday.

"I said, 'Hey, people, think about it, will you? We'll be supporting the sensible ones'," Meurer recalled. "That's not so dumb."

St. Theodore's parish council came up with the unusual idea. Its chairman reminded the group that their new church was completed five years ago, and that the Protestant parish in the neighbourhood had given a nice gift.

"Now we, in turn, should give someone a gift too," Meurer said. "That's how we hit upon the mosque; it's being designed by the same architect that did our church."

The mosque, at the headquarters of the Turkish-Islamic Union for the Institution of Religion (DITIB) in the Cologne district of Ehrenfeld, will be one of Germany's biggest. Plans call for two 55-metre-high minarets, a dome, and room for more than 3,000 worshippers.

A right-wing populist party called ProCologne has been gathering signatures for a public petition against the structure. Ehrenfeld residents who want nothing to do with the petition have reservations about the size of the mosque, however.

Meurer's parish is in the Cologne suburbs of Hoehenberg and Vingst, both of which have a high proportion of foreigners. At his initiative, 180 sponsors planted 41,000 daffodils now in bloom along the streets.

Christian community work for Meurer means things like installing public dog loos because, as he said, "once an area like this is neglected, it can go downhill very fast."

At the community centre, young Muslim women in headscarves are photographed at no cost for job applications. Turkish children play in the yard. And Meurer organises multi-religious celebrations.

Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of Cologne, set off a heated debate late last year when he directed Catholic school teachers in the region to stop participating in multi-religious events.

"All that matters to me about them is keeping peace in the area," Meurer remarked. "We don't pray together there. We get to know each other, which is possible only at get-togethers like that."

Weighing what the parish could buy for the mosque sparked a lively discussion about Islam, Meurer said.

"Our people were suggesting such things as a little kneeler, a bell, a picture and the like. But then I said, 'Friends, this isn't likely to lead anywhere. They pray to God one on one in their mosques. They haven't got liturgical objects like we do'."

About 350 euros (462 dollars) winds up in the collection bag on normal Sundays. This time, though, more than 1,000 euros has been collected in advance. DITIB officials said the amount of the gift was unimportant.

"It's simply a nice gesture by Mr Meurer," said Rafet Ozturk, DITIB's coordinator for interreligious dialogue. "We're pleased, of course. Even very pleased."

2009-06-28T07:19:00.005+01:00

After much controversy, Cologne's city council has voted in favor of building Germany's largest mosque. The opposition of a local far-right group wasn't enough to stop plans that will change the city's historic skyline forever.

A computer-generated image of the mosque to be built in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne. The building will hold up to 4,000 worshippers.

Cologne's skyline is not just any skyline. Silhouetted against the sky is the cathedral, the most famous gothic church in Germany. After a decision by Cologne's city council, it will be joined by the country's largest mosque.

On Thursday at Cologne's City Hall, a crowd of demonstrators faced off. To the right of the entrance stood some 30 odd anti-mosque protesters carrying signs depicting stylized mosques with big red lines struck through them. To the left, about 100 people voiced their support for the mosque's construction. Neither need really have bothered: The outcome was almost certain.

All parties except the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the extreme right anti-mosque initiative Pro Cologne voted in favor of building the mosque, which will be Germany's largest. Cologne's Mayor Schramma, who has gone back and forth on the issue, in the end voted against his own CDU party in favor of the mosque's construction Thursday.

The new mosque will now be built on a site in Ehrenfeld, an industrial section of Cologne where there is currently a working mosque operating out of an old factory. "They can start tearing down the old factory building tomorrow," Josef Wirges, the local council member for Ehrenfeld and member of the Social Democrats (SPD) told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

The structure will cost between €15 billion and €20 billion, financed by private donations from more than 800 groups in Germany. Construction will be completed in 2010 by the locally based Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), which has close ties to Ankara.

The mosque, designed by German architects Paul and Gottfried Böhm, will be a domed building with glass walls and two minarets. The minarets will be 180 feet tall, one-third the height of the towers of the Cologne Cathedral. The mosque will also be flanked by tall office buildings. DITIB has agreed not to broadcast the call to prayer over loudspeakers.

"I think the new mosque will be such an architectural masterpiece that tour buses will take people to see it after they visit the Cologne Cathedral," enthused Wirges.

Ongoing Opposition

But far-right activists have made a racket about this particular mosque since plans to build it were announced last year. The extreme-right Pro Cologne has held 5 of the 90 seats in the city council since 2004. They launched a vociferous campaign against the mosque -- drumming up support from as far away as Austria and Belgium. Jörg Haider, head of the right-wing Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), supports the Cologne protesters and has launched an attempt to ban mosques in his native Austria.

The anti-mosque campaign has been under observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, because of its "sweeping defamation of foreigners is suspected of violating human dignity."

Although mosque supporters have won this battle, the war over integration in Cologne is not finished. Pro Cologne has planned a controversial "Anti-Islamization Congress" for Sept. 19. The city expects an influx of prominent far-rightists from around Europe -- and 40,000 counter-protesters.

Effort to Build Large Mosque Rattles Some in Cologne

2009-06-28T07:10:00.002+01:00

Posted By TMO On July 12, 2007 @ 12:35 pm In *The Muslim Observer, 9-29, International |

Mark Landler, AFP

COLOGNE: In a city with the greatest Gothic cathedral in Germany, and no fewer than a dozen Romanesque churches, adding a pair of fluted minarets would scarcely alter the skyline. Yet plans for a new mosque are rattling this ancient city to its foundations.

The city’s Muslim population, made up mostly of Turks, is pushing for approval to build what would be one of Germany’s largest mosques, in a working-class district across town from the cathedral’s mighty spires.

Predictably, an extreme-right local political party has waged a noisy, xenophobic protest campaign, drumming up support from its far-right allies in Austria and Belgium.

But the proposal has also drawn fierce criticism from a respected German-Jewish writer, Ralph

Giordano, who said the mosque would be “an expression of the creeping Islamization of our land.” He does not want to see women shrouded in veils on German streets, he said.

Giordano’s charged remarks, first made at a public forum here last month, have catapulted this local dispute into a national debate in Germany over how a secular society, with Christian roots, should accommodate the religious yearnings of its Muslim minority.

Mosques have risen in recent years in Berlin, Mannheim and Duisberg, each time provoking hand-wringing among some residents. But the dispute in Cologne, a city Pope Benedict XVI once called the Rome of the north, seems deeper and more far-reaching.

While Turkey itself is debating the role of Islam in its political life, Germans are starting to ask how – even if – the 2.7 million people of Turkish descent here can square their religious and cultural beliefs with a pluralistic society that enshrines the rights of women.

Giordano, a Holocaust survivor, has been sharply criticized, including by fellow Jews, and has received death threats. But others said he was giving voice to Germans, who for reasons of their past, are reluctant to express misgivings about the rise of Islam in their midst.

“We have a common historical background that makes us overly cautious in dealing with these issues,” said the mayor of Cologne, Fritz Schramma, who supports the mosque but is not without his qualms.

“For me, it is self-evident that the Muslims need to have a prestigious place of worship,” said Schramma, of the center-right Christian Democratic Union. “But it bothers me when people have lived here for 35 years and they don’t speak a single word of German.”

Cologne’s Roman Catholic leader, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, is similarly ambivalent. Asked in a radio interview if he was afraid of the mosque, he said, “I don’t want to say I’m afraid, but I have an uneasy feeling.”

Those statements rankle German-Turkish leaders, who have been working with the city since 2001 to build a mosque on the site of a converted drug factory, which now houses a far smaller mosque, a community center and the offices of the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs.

“The 120,000 Muslims of Cologne don’t have a single place they can point to with pride as the symbol of our faith,” said Bekir Alboga, leader of interreligious dialogue at the union, which is known as Ditib. “Christians have their churches, Jews have their synagogues.”

Alboga, a 44-year-old Turkish imam who immigrated here at 18 and speaks rapid-fire German, said the mosque would be a “crowning moment for religious tolerance.” Given Germany’s dark history, he added, “German politicians need to be careful about what they say.”

Alboga said he was particularly dismayed by Meisner, because the Catholic Church, along with Germany’s Protestant churches, has long supported the mosque. Ditib, he said, is a moderate organization that acts as a “bulwark against radicalism and terrorism.” It plans to finance the project, which will cost more than $20 million, entirely through donations.

The group must obtain a building permit before it can break ground, but Alboga said he was confident the mosque would not be blocked. Ditib has agreed to various stipulations, including a ban on broadcasting the call to prayer over loudspeakers outside the building.

Public opinion about the project seems guardedly supportive, with a majority of residents saying they favor it, although more than a quarter want its size to be reduced. The polls, taken for a local newspaper, use small samples, 500 people, limiting their usefulness as a gauge of popular sentiment in city of one million.

Cologne, with one of the largest Muslim populations of any German city, already has nearly 30 mosques. Most are in converted factories or warehouses, often tucked away in hidden courtyards, which has contributed to a sense that Muslims in Germany can worship only furtively.

The new mosque would put Islam in plain sight – all the more so because the design calls for a domed building with glass walls. Showing off a model, designed by a German architect who specializes in churches, Alboga said, “Our hearts are open, our doors are open, our mosque is open.”

In some ways, the mosque seems calculated to avoid touching nerves. It would not be built near a church or loom over its neighbors, like the new mosque in Duisberg. It would be flanked by multistory office buildings and a giant television tower, which would dwarf its minarets.

Yet the Turkish community has run into fervent and organized opposition. The far-right party, Pro Cologne, which holds five of the 90 seats in the city council, collected 23,000 signatures on a petition demanding the halting of the project. The city said only 15,000 of them were genuine.

On June 16, Pro Cologne mobilized 200 people at a rally to protest the mosque. Among those on hand were the leaders of Austria’s Freedom Party, which was founded by Jörg Haider, and the extremist party Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Interest, from Antwerp. Both advocate the deportation of immigrants.

Cologne’s deputy mayor, Elfi Scho-Antwerpes, a Social Democrat, appeared with Turkish leaders at a counter-demonstration across the street. Schramma, she noted, did not show up.

Giordano, the German-Jewish writer, said Germany needed to face the fact that, after three generations of Turkish immigration, efforts to integrate that minority had failed. Immigrants, he said, sought the privileges of membership in German society but refused to bear the obligations.

Germany’s “false tolerance,” he asserted, enabled the Sept. 11 hijackers to use Hamburg as a haven in which to hatch their terrorist plot. Cologne, too, has struggled with radical Islamic figures, most notably Metin Kaplan, a militant Turkish cleric known as the Caliph of Cologne.

“I don’t want to see women on the street wearing burqas,” Giordano said. “I’m insulted by that – not by the women themselves, but by the people who turned them into human penguins.”

Such blunt language troubles other German Jews, who say a victim of religious persecution should not take a swipe at another religious minority.

Henryk Broder, a Jewish journalist who is a friend of Giordano’s, said he should have avoided the phrase “human penguins.”

But Broder said the underlying message was valid, and that Giordano’s stature as a writer gives him the standing to say it. “A mosque is more than a church or a synagogue,” he said. “It is a political statement.”

From Cologne to the Conquest of Europe: How the Muslim Brotherhood is Challenging the Pope

2009-06-27T08:52:00.005+01:00

At World Youth Day in Cologne, Benedict XVI is also meeting with Muslims. Here are the leaders and organizations of radical Islam in Germany, with their plans for expansion by Sandro Magister

ROMA, August 18, 2005 – The penultimate event of Benedict XVI's visit to Cologne, before the vigil and Mass with the young people of World Youth Day XX, will be a Saturday, August 20 meeting with the "representatives of some of the Muslim communities." The meeting will take place at the residence of the city's archbishop. The Muslims asked the pope to visit a mosque, but Benedict XVI declined the invitation. His prudence is understandable. Cologne and Munich – where Joseph Ratzinger was archbishop from 1977 to 1981 – are the cities in which the Muslim Brotherhood, which has for decades been the main ideological and organizational source of radical Islam in the world, has gained control of most of the mosques and of active Islam in Germany and in Europe. Mahdy Akef, an Egyptian now residing in Cairo who is the present murshid, or supreme guide, of the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide, is an explicit supporter of the suicide terrorists in Iraq. From 1984 until 1987, he directed the most dynamic Muslim center of Germany, in Munich, with its great mosque in the northern part of the city. Munich was the birthplace of the Islamische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland, IGD, one of the largest Islamic organizations in Germany. The IGD is under the full control of the Muslim Brotherhood and has sixty mosques spread throughout the country. For a few years, its organizational headquarters has been located in Cologne. The president of this body is Ibrahim Al Zayat, a 39-year-old Egyptian, the charismatic leader of a network of youth and student organizations that are linked to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, WAMY, the largest Islamic youth organization in the world. WAMY is financed by Saudi Arabia, bears a strong, rigorist Wahhabi imprint, and produces vehemently anti-Jewish and anti-Christian publications. Curiously, the commitment to young people on the part of the Roman papacy, which is celebrating one of its key moments in Cologne during these days, has in that same city a parallel in one of the leading centers in Europe for promoting radical activism among young Muslims.

* * *There are about 3.5 million Muslims in Germany, most of them Turkish. A little less than half of them were born in Germany. And just over half of them engage in little or no religious practice. But the organizations with radical tendencies prevail among the active Muslims. Of the nineteen organizations grouped together under the Zentralrat der Muslime – the umbrella organization they created in 1994 to coordinate their activities and present themselves as a political voice – at least nine, and the strongest ones, are dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The first stepping stone by which the Muslim Brotherhood extended its presence in Germany and Europe was Munich. After the Second World War, Muslims from various countries, and particularly from central Asia, established a significant presence in this city. Their head, Nureddin Namangani, who came from an Uzbek family, had been an imam in one of the nazi SS divisions during the war between Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union. On account of their opposition to communism and toward Moscow, these groups of Muslim expatriates drew the interest of the American, English, and Soviet secret services during the Cold War. This was until an important Egyptian named Said Ramadan came to Munich from Geneva. The son-in-law and chief collaborator of Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Said Ramadan had arrived in Europe in 1954 after fleeing from Egypt, where the Brotherhood had been outlawed. He established himself in Geneva and studied law in Cologne. He founded a magazine for Muslims in Europe, "Al Muslimun." He had a Jordanian diplomatic passport, received financing from Saudi Arabia, and was looked upon favorably by the CIA because he was an opponent of Nasser. In 1960, with the support of a large group of young followers, Said Ramadan took control of Munich's Muslim community and, partly with the help of public funds from the Germany, began the construction of a new mosque. His objective, which he quickly attained, was to make of this a center for the expansion of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout all of Europe. His trusted assistant in this operation was Ghaleb Himmat, a Syrian with Italian citizenship who lived in Campione d'Italia, on Lake of Lugano. With Said Ramadan already occupied with his Islamic center in Geneva – today directed by his son, Hani, and with another son, the famous Tariq Ramadan, among its members – over the course of a few years Himmat effectively replaced Said Ramadan as the head of the Islamic center in Munich. In 1973, the year of the new mosque's inauguration, Himmat became the president of the organization connected to this, the one to which he gave the name Islamische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland, IGD. The leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany is both Egyptian and Syrian, the latter having its general headquarters in Aachen. The IGD is their main organization. But most of the Muslims in Germany are Turks, and they have their own powerful organization, Milli Görüs, which means "national vision" in Turkish. Its president is Mehmet Sabri Erbakan, the nephew of Nehmettin Erbakan who was the leader of the Refah party outlawed by the Turkish constitutional court in 1998 because it was judged as being in conflict with the principles of a secular state. Although it does not explicitly refer itself to the Muslim Brotherhood, Milli Görüs also promotes a radical form of Islamism and has close ties of collaboration with IGD, which are reinforced by family ties. Zayat, the current president of the IGD, is married to Sabiha Erbakan, the sister of the president of Milli Görüs.

* * *In 1994, a frequent visitor of the mosque in Munich, Mahmoud Abouhalima, was given a life sentence in the United States for having organized, one year before, the car bomb attack on the World Trade Center in New York. But it was only after the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, that investigations into the connections between terrorism and the radical Islamic circles in Germany intensified. And the connections quickly led to the Munich mosque. Himmat, who was president of the IGD at the time, and one of his close collaborators who also attended the mosque, Youssef Nada, ended up on the list of people who support terrorism which was produced by the United States. The U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of the two men. Investigations are still underway on the part of various countries, including Italy, into the movement of money on behalf of terrorist groups carried out by the Bahamas-based Al Taqwa bank founded and directed by the two men. In spite of this, in October of 2002 the Catholic Academy of Berlin displayed no concern over extending an invitation to Zavat, Himmat's successor to the presidency of the IGD, to attend one of their meetings. Even in the political arena in Germany, the directors of the IGD, Milli Görüs, and Zentralrat der Muslime continue to receive a hearing as if they represented the entire Muslim community and a traditional, peaceful Islam, instead of the particular ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam. The current president of Zentralrat der Muslime, Nadeem Elyas of Saudi Arabia, has confirmed that he sent hundreds of young Muslims from Germany to study in one of Saudi most ideologically skewed universities, the Islamic University of Medina.

This is the same kind of misunderstanding that has compromised the dialogue between Vatican authorities and Muslim representatives a number of times. One memorable occasion was the audience on October 13, 1993, held at the Vatican by John Paul II and Hassan Al Turabi of Sudan, who at the time was the leading ideologue in the world for radical Islamism, an inspirer and protector of Osama Bin Laden. But in more recent times, and after the shift that took place on September 11, one can recall the meeting in Doha, in Qatar, from May 27-29, 2004. On the one side were Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the previous foreign minister for the Holy See, and Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and on the other were the leading imam of the Al Azhar mosque in Cairo, Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, and one of the most widely followed leaders of Sunni Islam, Youssef Al Qaradawi. Both prior to and since this meeting, Tantawi has repeatedly justified the Palestinian suicide terrorists. As for Qaradawi, he justified such acts even outside of the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Qaradawi completely embodies the stance of the Muslim Brotherhood, and is the de facto Islamic "maestro" with the greatest audience among the Arab people. But Qaradawi also has a broad audience among Muslim immigrants in Europe, where he founded the European Council for Fatwa and Research, which is headquartered in Ireland, in 1997. The interreligious meetings organized every year by the Community of Sant' Egidio, with the participation of numerous cardinals and bishops, are another example of murky dialogue. Last July 24, the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference, "Avvenire," criticized the fact that at the 2004 meeting in Milan, authorization to speak had been granted to another apologist for the suicide terrorists: Ahmad Al Tayyib, the rector of the Al Azhar university in Cairo. "Avvenire" also defined as "imprudent" the fact that some Italian universities – including the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, which is affiliated with the Pontifical Gregorian University – have signed last June 15 an agreement to collaborate with that same university, Al Azhar. This is the most influential university in the Sunni Islamic world, with 400,000 students from 92 countries, and is under significant control from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Source: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/37837?eng=y

Missionaries seek spiritual breakthrough in Cologne

2009-06-27T07:36:00.001+01:00

Missionaries in Cologne, Germany believe that God wants to move in their city. Greater Europe Mission has designated Cologne as a Breakthrough City -- a place where prayer, resources and personnel will be focused for 12 to 18 months. GEM's goal is to prepare the spiritual ground in Cologne for the expansion of God's Kingdom, reports MNN.

"We are praying in belief that God wants to break through the spiritual darkness in Cologne," says Jason, a GEM missionary in Cologne. "We have a vision to plant 50 new churches in the next five years and see thousands of people trust Christ."

More than 40% of people in Cologne profess Catholicism, although less than 5% attend church regularly. GEM missionaries are hoping to offer worship elements that people from a Catholic background are comfortable and familiar with while infusing the Gospel. Johann and Helga, a Cologne couple, have expressed interest in attending a local GEM missionary church. Many middle-aged Catholics in Cologne are highly-educated, culturally sensitive, and well-to-do, including this particular couple. Join the GEM missionary team as they ask God to move among the large community of people similar to Johann and Helga.

"We feel this couple is really seeking," Jason said. "They've been thinking about coming to our church since we started it in July 2008. We hope they will begin to follow Jesus."
To reach young people in Cologne's vibrant arts and media community, GEM missionaries started a house church that incorporates the arts into worship. One American attendee shares her faith with German friends by meeting them at a café to study the Bible. She begins by asking friends if they are religious. "When Heather asks this question, amazing doors open," says a fellow GEM missionary. "During one of the girls' meetings at the café, even the waitress expressed interest in what they were doing."

To see spiritual breakthrough in North American hometowns, Jason feels, is a matter of prayer and acting upon opportunities God provides to share His love with people.
"One thing we're going to do here is intentional prayer-walking and spiritual mapping," he says. "We'd like to have short-term teams come and help us with that. I think it could be done in America too - getting out there and asking God what to say to people, looking for people who are open, and engaging them in conversation."

Cologne Germany

2009-06-25T07:58:00.000+01:00

Since founding PropheticAlert in August 2007, we have had a growing preoccupation with Cologne Germany. The Lord has continually brought this city to our attention, particularly during the past few weeks.

Lyn is of German descent but neither of us speaks German (yet!). We had our first taste of German culture while on a short break in Europe a few years ago. During our brief stay in Germany, we visited the Cologne Cathedral. What an impressive building, with its imposing spires and intricate architecture! No wonder it took six hundred years to build ... Koln (Cologne) was busy preparing for the arrival of the new pope Joseph Ratzinger. The city was buzzing with fervent activity and the street artists were out on the streets creating amazing works of art in anticipation of the arrival of such an important dignitary.

We entered a shop selling beautifully carved wooden figurines and an impressive collection of beer mugs. 'German beer must be good', I remember thinking. We subsequently learned that Cologne has it's own special brew called Kolsch. Apparently Kolsch is unique to the area and the locals are very proud of it!

Cologne has an interesting history and we hope to expand more on every facet of the city, its people, the famous Cologne festival, the impact that immigrants are having on the city, Cologne as an important media centre, and a range of other topics that may be of interest.

The main focus of this blog will be a spiritual one and we hope to discuss the impact of the Catholic Church on Cologne.

Please feel free to participate in this blog. We welcome feedback and responses to your visits to Cologne.

Bye for now

Alan & Lyn Vincent

www.propheticalert.com