Falsely depicts Muslim Americans as victims of widespread discrimination and violence
The Muslim Students Association of the University of California at Santa Barbara (MSA UCSB) aims "to provide Muslim students with a space to share and enrich their Faith, organize events for Muslim and non-Muslims on [the] UCSB campus in order to raise awareness of Islamic issues, provide accurate information about our often misrepresented Faith, and contribute support, service, and diversity to the UCSB campus." The organization is affiliated with MSA West but not with MSA National (the latter is known officially as the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada).
The MSA UCSB website features a section titled "Common Islamic Terms Explained," which laments that "the rhetoric about Islam and Muslims has grown exponentially in recent times," and urges readers "not to settle for the media definition of highjacked [sic] Islamic vocabulary."
Among the more important terms whose meaning MSA UCSB seeks to clarify is "jihad," which the organization defines as a "struggle" waged to advance "the cause of God," to "perfect oneself," to "establish what is just and right," or to defend oneself physically. Most importantly, says the webpage, jihad is absolutely "not a pre-emptive, antagonizing, or 'holy' war."
But Islam experts such as Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, and Bat Ye'or have explained that, contrary to MSA UCSB's claims, the form of jihad most central to Muslim life manifests itself as a boldly offensive, permanent war of conquest whose ultimate aim is to achieve Islam's dominion over the human race at large. Menahem Milson (professor emeritus of Arabic Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) elaborates: "Islamist jihad has two goals, both global. One of these is to wage war against the main infidel power, the U.S., and all of its allies . The other goal is to topple the evil regimes in the Muslim countries, because their leaders are only outwardly Muslim. It is thus a religious obligation to fight them, depose them, and establish a truly Islamic regime in their place. The ultimate goal of jihad is to impose Islam on the entire world as the only true religion."
Also in the "Common Islamic Terms Explained" section, MSA UCSB's website defines "Sharia" simply as "Islamic law based on the Qur'an and the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad." No mention is made of Sharia's mandate that Islam be dominant over all other faiths; its requirement that non-Muslims be treated as second-class citizens, or dhimmi; its brutal punishments like amputation or stoning (to death) for such transgressions as adultery or apostasy; its rejection of Western-style secular governments and their legislative processes, on grounds that only the divinely dictated laws of Allah possess the authority to rule human affairs; its brutalization and execution of homosexuals; and its abysmal treatment of women and girls (as manifested in such practices as child marriages, polygamy, and the incarceration of rape victims).
In a section titled "Great Articles from MSA Meetings," the MSA UCSB website features a November 6, 2006 essay titled "Islamophobia," authored by Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University. In this piece, Esposito defines Islamophobia as a "form of racism and intolerance" that "leads to actions beyond destructive words, into hate crimes targeting Muslims, Sikhs and other minorities of Asian and Middle Eastern descent." "In 2005," explained Esposito, "the [Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR] reported a 49 percent increase in the reported cases of harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment from 2003 "
But CAIR's (and Esposito's) claims were inaccurate. According to a December 3, 2007 Investor's Business Dailyreport summarizing the results of an FBI study: "In 2006, a whopping 66% of religiously motivated attacks were on Jews, while just 11% targeted Muslims, even though the Jewish and Muslim populations are similar in size. Last year's [2006] anti-Islamic hate crimes totaled 156 a 68% drop from 2001. The FBI report gives lie to CAIR's alarmist narrative of 'Islamophobic' lynch mobs marching on mosques across America."
On March 4, 2004, MSA UCSB members loudly and repeatedly disrupted a speech on the Santa Barbara campus by the Muslim Italian cleric Abdul Hadi Palazzi, a vocal critic of militant Islam who told the audience that terrorism was something all Muslims ought to reject. MSA members shouted insults at Palazzi and criticized him for not having begun his speech with the words, "In the name of Allah and his Prophet Mohamed"; they yelled, "we cannot live with Zionism"; and they used their own time at the microphone (during a question-and-answer period) to recite speeches of their own against the visiting cleric. One female MSA member asked Palazzi, "If not terrorism, what would Palestinians then do against the [Israeli] oppression?"
Reflecting afterwards on his experience at UCSB, Palazzi said: "In reality, those who opposed my visit at UCSB were a small group of students, mostly related to the local Muslim Student Association. I invited them to be involved in the debate, to explain the reasons why they opposed my visit and/or the contents of my speech. However, they were not in the least interested in real debate and discussion. They only shouted some slogans and left the hall. Other Muslim students, not related to the MSA, on the contrary appreciated my visit, and together with non-Muslim students went on asking me questions privately even after the public debate was over."
Several times in recent years, MSA UCSB has participated in MSA National's annual "Ramadan Fast-a-Thon" along with as many as 280 fellow chapters of MSA. The purpose of this event is to raise, through temporary fasting, public awareness of hunger and homelessness in Muslim communities. Recent endorsers of the Fast-a-Thon include:
Imam Zaid Shakir, Yale University's former Muslim chaplain who has expressed his desire to see the United States eventually become "a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law"
