By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
A "Muslim Family Day" scheduled Sept. 12 for Six Flags' Chicago park has prompted criticism from Fox News' and Premier Radio Networks' host Glenn Beck, who calls it lacking in taste.
His comments were publicized in a video posted by Media Matters, which challenged his critique by arguing, "Six Flags periodically hosts christian [sic] concerts at their parks."
But the blogger at Creeping Shariah and Americans Against Hate chief Joe Kaufman said while the event itself may be insignificant, the sponsor is a worry.
The Muslim Family Day website identifies the group as the Islamic Circle of North America, or ICNA.
"Does Six Flags have any idea who ICNA is or what ICNA represents?" asked the Creeping Shariah blog author. "Here is just a little background…"
ICNA has established a reputation for bringing anti-American radicals to speak at its annual conferences. Moreover, experts have long documented the organization's ties to Islamic terrorist groups. Yehudit Barsky, a terrorism expert at the American Jewish Committee, has said that ICNA 'is composed of members of Jamaat e-Islami, a Pakistani Islamic radical organization similar to the Muslim Brotherhood that helped to establish the Taliban.' (Pakistani newspapers have reported that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a leading architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was offered refuge in the home of Jamaat e-Islami's leader, Ahmed Quddoos.) On September 27, 1997, another Pakistani Islamist leader, Maulana Shafayat Mohamed, played host to an ICNA conference at his Florida-based fundamentalist madrassa (religious school), which served as a recruitment center for Taliban fighters.
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Kaufman wrote an article in 2007 criticizing ICNA and the Islamic Association of North Texas for a "Muslim Family Day" at a Six Flags location there. He noted the Muslim organizations is suspected of funneling money to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and al-Qaida.
WND subsequently reported when a group of Islamic organizations – although not the two Kaufman named – sued him for defamation and lost. Kaufman had written an article for the online FrontPage Magazine exposing terrorist connections in two American Muslim groups.
Joe Kaufman
The subsequent lawsuit was part of a technique called by some "legal jihad" or "Islamist lawfare." The Thomas More Law Center, which represented Kaufman in the lawsuit, explained Muslim advocates are using the strategy to bully online journalists into silence.
"It is gratifying to see a courageous citizen like Joe Kaufman withstand the legal intimidation of a well-financed lawsuit aimed at shutting down his right to speak out against the threats of radical Islam," Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, said of the case.
Kaufman's original concern was over the influence of the Islamic organizations.
"While using images of cartoon characters and sponsoring events at amusement parks may seem innocuous, the danger that the Islamic Circle of North America poses to the United States, Canada and others is clear," Kaufman wrote. "As a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization looks to impose Islam on Western society, and as a donor to a terrorist organization, the group is a willing participant in the act of violence."
Kaufman told WND today the current dispute over the event in Chicago isn't so much that it's happening, or even that it's taking place Sept. 12, one day after the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
"The whole thing regarding this is that it [ICNA] is part of the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan, Jamaat e-Islami. It is the American affiliate of that. … That in itself is troubling," he said.
"The organization in Pakistan, they can give money to groups like Hamas without problems. They can't get in trouble for doing so. This is a problem. ICNA [is] connected to groups, to terror organizations. They're really part of the same organization."
He said his research on ICNA is on his Americans Against Hate site.
Six Flags officials told Fox News, which also raised questions about the event and its timing, that there are "numerous" special events in the parks.
The Muslim event was scheduled to coincide with the end of Ramadan, said officials who confirmed the schedule for the day includes prayer services and a special menu for Muslims.
Web information on the plans said, "A special selection of various Halal/Zabiha Restaurants Vendors will be selling their food in a designated area in the Southwest Territory. The halal/zabiha restaurant food will be available for purchase all day long. … Southwest Territory is also the place to gather for all prayers and socializing."
The event website says the "Muslim Family Day" events first were held in 2000 and in 2008 appeared in seven different locations.
ICNA calls itself a "leading grass roots organization that provides various Islamic educational, social and charitable services to the American Muslim community as well as the general public."
It states it works to "help mold the individual and reform the society at large."
But Creeping Shariah's author explained, "ICNA works closely with the Muslim American Society (MAS). Speaking at a December 2002 conference sponsored by ICNA and MAS, Muslim cleric Shaker Elsayed complained in Arabic 'about the subject unfairly named suicide bomber, homicide bomber, murderers, or killers. Our answer to this issue is simple … The Islamic scholars said whenever there is an attack on an Islamic state or occupation, or the honor of the Muslims has been violated, the jihad is a must for everyone, a child, a lady and a man. They have to make jihad with every tool that they can get in their hand … and if they don't have anything in their hand then they can fight with their hand without weapons."
The website also points out ICNA was listed by the FBI at the trial of the Holy Land Foundation in Dallas as a friend of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egypt-based group that seeks to establish Islamic law worldwide.
Kaufman's research documents ICNA's links to Pakistan's Jamaat e-Islami, which posted on its website in 2006 a report that ICNA's two charities, ICNA Relief and Helping Hand, donated $99,000 to Hamas.
A case similar to the one brought against Kaufman also is pending over the publication of the book "Muslim Mafia," which documents Islamic subversion of America through the Council on American-Islamic Relations and related groups spawned by the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of al-Qaida and Hamas.
"Muslim Mafia" is the product of a daring six-month undercover operation by three young investigators who served as CAIR interns.
In Kaufman's case, an eventual ruling from a three-judge panel of the Texas Second Court of Appeals found that not only did the Muslim organizations have no basis for claiming defamation – since Kaufman didn't name or point to them in his article – it also declared online journalists merit the same status and legal protections their more traditional media peers enjoy.
The opinion of the court, written by Justice Terrie Livingston, overturned a lower court's denial of Kaufmann's motion to dismiss the libel claim before a time-consuming and expensive trial.
