DESPARDES — The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has declared an end to its surveillance of Muslim Americans, saying its exhaustive study of their beautiful culture was finally complete.
FBI’s investigation came to an end after 15 years of broadly targeting the 3.3-million-member community and extensively monitoring its activities: ‘smoking guns’, red herrings, persons of interests, suspects, sleeper cells, etc., etc’.
At the end, the government’s main law-enforcement, domestic intelligence agency and counterterrorism force — after the September 11, 2001, attacks — ended up with an awareness: that Muslims are “such a lovely people and Islam is “such a lovely faith”.
In other words, Feds concluded that Muslims indeed are a peace community, and that they are not just Arabs (only 15% of global Muslim population) but there are other adherents of Islam and they speak dozens of beautiful languages—Arabic, but also Urdu, Pashto, Farsi, Bengali, Javanese, and many others. Some 15,000 informants infiltrated mosques all over the country — 2001 onward — and the insights subsequently morphed into an intellectual homecoming for the Feds on Islam being a religion of peace.
FBI was founded in early 1900s. Fears of domestic terrorism ran high at the time.
MORE ON FBI AWARENESS ABOUT ISLAM:
FBI agents and officials thoroughly enjoyed studying “such a lovely people and such a lovely faith.” FBI agents would often remove a Muslim citizen from their community and keep them detained for days, weeks, or even months on end to learn everything they could from them about Islam.
“As this program sadly comes to an end, I just want to thank Muslim Americans from the bottom of my heart for teaching us all about your faith and your culture,” said FBI director James B. Comey who noted that agents gained a valuable and eye-opening understanding of Islam—while also learning a lot about themselves and their own faith in the process—after entering the Muslim places of worship to collect as much information as they could on the intriguing personal beliefs of the religion’s followers.
“We’ve learned so much about you over the years. More than you could possibly imagine.”
MORE: The program was started in the fall of 2001 when federal agents, captivated by Islam’s complex history and rich spiritual traditions, redirected the full force of the bureau’s intelligence-gathering apparatus toward developing a more thoughtful, nuanced appreciation of the Muslim-American way of life.
“We’d always known Islam was one of the great world religions, but it wasn’t until we recruited a network of 15,000 informants and infiltrated mosques all over the country that we came to understand just how magnificent and fascinating it truly is,” said Comey,
“After analyzing the transcripts of thousands of phone calls and intercepting the communications of prominent Muslim-American leaders and academics, we’ve really come to admire their vibrant culture.”
“The considerable amount of intel we’ve gathered and carefully pored over for the past 15 years has shown us that their faith and customs are really quite inspiring,” Comey added.
“If there’s one thing we’ve taken away from all our surveillance, it’s what a glorious and enriching part of our world Islam is.”
MORE: FBI officials emphasized that adherents of Islam speak dozens of beautiful languages—Arabic, but also Urdu, Pashto, Farsi, Bengali, Javanese, and many others—and noted that agents came to treasure this linguistic richness after installing recording devices throughout Muslim-American communities and then surreptitiously listening in on Quranic study groups, prayer sessions, and social events.
Through advance techniques in video surveillance, FBI was able to look inside Muslims’ homes and view some breathtaking calligraphy prints and handwoven tapestries.
“I went undercover in hundreds of Muslim-owned businesses and residences across the nation and was lucky enough to sample many variations on the aromatic stews and delectable desserts that serve as staples of halal cuisine—Arabian, North African, Indonesian. They were all delicious, and unlike anything I’d ever tasted.”
“I’ll never forget this one instance when I closely trailed a New York shop owner for three straight years—his coffee was just spectacular,” Hanna added. “Muslims were the first people to drink coffee, you know.”
After realizing they could not fully nurture their curiosity by limiting their study to Muslims in the United States, the FBI reportedly enlisted the help of the NSA to find out more about the incredible religion. Between 2002 and 2008, the bureau is known to have monitored 7,485 email addresses around the globe in order to learn answers to their many questions about Muslims’ compelling lives and rituals, from why they don’t eat pork, to what Muslim holidays are like, to why some Muslim women wear garments that cover their heads while others don’t.
Comey told reporters the FBI also received information from the CIA, whose enhanced interrogation techniques and clandestine intelligence-gathering methods yielded many interesting revelations from Muslim sources around the world, such as the fact that Arabs make up only 15 percent of the global Muslim population, and that through most of history, women in Islamic societies actually had more property rights than women in the West.
“There’s no way I could remember the names of all the Muslim citizens that our agents brought in to discuss the beauty of Islam with one-on-one, but rest assured that with their help, the FBI has gained a deep and illuminating understanding of Islamic culture,” said Comey, who noted that by combing through thousands upon thousands of citizens’ banking records, agents discovered with astonishment how some observant Muslims set up special loan payment plans to avoid paying interest, as they consider it usury, which is forbidden under Sharia law.
“It’s crazy to think about, but until little more than a decade ago, I had no idea there were Five Pillars of Islam that guided all Muslims’ spiritual lives. I also didn’t know anything about the multitude of Muslim contributions to mathematics and science that have been absolutely vital to the world.
But that’s not to say they don’t value art, though. Poets like Rumi and Hafez drew upon mystical Sufist interpretations of the Quran to write verse that is every bit as sublime as, say, Keats or Coleridge. And don’t even get me started on the architecture.”
Mohammad Ali Jinnah saw it coming and thats why Pakistan was created to provide support to the rest of the Muslims of the Subcontinent.
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