Hillary Clinton – Islamic Research and Information Center (IRIC)

Why American Muslims lean leftwards for 2020

Islamic Monitor — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 07:39:10 +0000

Before the presidential election in 2000, George W. Bush was urged by an adviser to go after a category of voters who would love a business-friendly, socially-conservative message: Muslims. Mr Bush took the tip and it worked. In 2001, a survey of American Muslims (including those who cast no ballot or gave no clear answer) found that 42% reported voting for Mr. Bush against 31% for his Democratic rival Al Gore. Among upwardly mobile Muslim immigrants, many of them professionals or entrepreneurs, the proportion voting Republican was much higher.

Now, however, with anti-Muslim sentiment ablaze among supporters of Donald Trump, and the president hardly discouraging it, that love-in is a distant memory. American Muslims are gaining political visibility, but only on the far left of the spectrum. Symptomatic of this shift is the election to the House of Representatives of two Muslim women (Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar) who along with two female colleagues, also left-wing Democrats, have been taunted by Mr. Trump and his supporters.

A huge change in Muslim sentiment was clear in the 2004 presidential race and confirmed by the 2008 contest won by Barack Obama. By 2007 some 63% of American Muslims at least “leaned towards” the Democrats, against only 11% for the Republicans. These figures have not changed very much since, according to Pew Research, a pollster. Among Muslims who voted in the 2016 presidential race, only 8% said they opted for Mr Trump (who had declared that “Islam hates us”) and 78% for Hillary Clinton…

Continue reading at: The Economist

Islamic Mega-Mosque opens in Atheistic Sweden

Islamic Monitor — Fri, 05 May 2017 13:19:04 +0000

The largest mosque in Scandinavia has opened in Sweden, which is one of the least religious and most atheistic nations in the Western world, reports have said, costing the Qatari government $3.30 million to build.

Qatar’s Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs reported the news on Wednesday, explaining that the Umm Al-Mu’minin Khadijah Mosque in Malmo, expanding to 19,278 square feet (1,791 square meters), will be able to accommodate up to 2,000 worshipers. Breitbart News noted that Qatar is an absolute monarchy largely ruled by Sharia law, and has been accused by U.S. officials of funding radical Islamic terrorism.

“We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to [Islamic State] and other radical Sunni groups in the region,” an email by former U.S. Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton acknowledged in 2014, as released by WikiLeaks in 2016.

Atheism has also been rising in Sweden, with a 2014 national study noting that nearly eight out of 10 Swedes are either “not religious” or “convinced atheists,” making the nation one of the least religious countries in the Western world.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden admitted in February that people are leaving the faith in record numbers, with the 90,000 people who left the Church in 2016 being almost double the number of those who quit in 2015.The Swedish Church used pollsters Norstat to conduct the survey, which found that 40 percent of respondents made the decision to leave the Church because they “no longer believe in God,” which was the most popular reason given. Some, such as Monsignor Carlo Liberati, a Roman Catholic archbishop, have warned that there is a link in the rise of atheism and the rise of Islam in Europe.

Speaking on the rise of the Muslim population in Italy, which went from 2,000 in 1970 to 2 million in 2016, Liberati admitted that the Church is not doing a good job in bringing and keeping people in the Christian faith. “Parishes are the only thing still standing. We need a true Christian life. All this paves the way to Islam. In addition to this, they have children and we do not. We are in full decline,” he warned.

NYC mayor: We’ll sue if Trump makes Muslim registry

Islamic Monitor — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 08:25:36 +0000

“We will sue to block it,” the New York Mayor said at New York City’s Cooper Union Monday, according to the New York Daily News. “We will use all the tools at our disposal to stand up for our people,” added de Blasio, who backed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. “[We must] always be proud of our values.”

De Blasio called on listeners to organize “issue by issue” with other Americans and halt Trump’s policies they disagree with…The mayor also reiterated he would not allow the New York Police Department to be used for deporting undocumented immigrants. De Blasio noted his government would provide expanded legal aid for undocumented immigrants in New York City facing such deportations.

A top ally of Trump’s said last week that the Republican is mulling a national registry for immigrants from Muslim countries or nations with significant terrorism struggles. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), an immigration hard-liner who is advising Trump, said the billionaire’s transition policy advisers are weighing such a database. Trump’s transition team has since repeatedly denied that the registry would be based on religion. Reince Priebus, Trump’s future chief of staff, on Sunday pledged the administration would not register people based on their faith.

Source: TheHill.com