Shariah for Uncle Sam?
White House Official Endorses Universal Caliphate
by
Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.
The first woman to wear a veil in the White House has endorsed the Gulen movement which seeks to restore the Ottoman Empire and to establish a universal caliphate.
Dalia Mogahed, President Barack Obama’s Muslim advisor, said: “I think the Gülen movement offers people a model of what is possible if a dedicated group of people work together for the good of the society. I also think that it is an inspiration for other people and Muslims for what they can accomplish.”
Asked about the movement’s hidden agenda, Mogahed told Sunday’s Zaman that she usually does not attach any importance to such allegations.
“It (the Gulen movement) has moved beyond Turkey in its very benevolent projects and it serves people from all around the world of all backgrounds, but it is still made up mostly of Turks. That is what I feel is in need of expanding,” she said.
Fethullah Gulen has been called the “most dangerous Islamist” in the world.
He has amassed a fortune – - thanks, in part, to the CIA – - of $25 billion.
This money has been used to transform the secular government of Turkey into an Islamic Republic under the Justice and Democratic Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma, AKP)- – a party under the Gulen’s control.
Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s first Islamist President, is a Gulen disciple along with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Yusuf Ziya Ozcan, the head of Turkey’s Council of Higher Education.
Under the AKP, Turkey has transformed from a secular state into an Islamic country with 85,000 active mosques – - one for every 350- citizens – - the highest number per capita in the world, 90,000 imams, more imams than teachers and physicians – - and thousands of state-run Islamic schools.
Turkey, as Rachel Sharon-Krespin points out in Middle East Forum, has never seen a single incident of attacks on pious Muslims for fasting during Ramadan, whereas in recent years there have been many incidents of attacks on less-observant Turks for drinking alcohol or not fasting and on Christian clerics, including the recent murder of a Catholic bishop. While women who cover their heads in the Islamic manner can move freely in any area of the country, uncovered women are increasingly unwelcome in certain regions and are often physically assaulted by observant Islamists.
AKP leaders, including Gül and Erdoğan, have repeatedly expressed their opposition to the “imprisonment of Islam in the mosque,” demanding that it become omnipresent as the prevailing force throughout modern Turkey.
Ms. Mogahed call for the expansion of the Gulen movement throughout the world has failed to evoke a negative remark or comment from the national press.
Born in Egypt, Ms. Mogahed has been a staunch defender of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Both of these US groups are tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.
In addition to her White House position, Ms. Mogahed serves as the Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.