The Helsingin Sanomat interviews a Finnish convert to Islam, Juha Heinonen. Let me guess, he hates the US, loves jihad and wants sharia to rule over the world? He’s already been living and studying in Saudi Arabia for the past two years, which is more than enough time to fill the convert’s head with all kinds of anti-Western propaganda, ancient medieval thoughts and bigotries.
The Finnish article is meant to draw light on the life of a Finnish convert to Islam, it also gives an interesting accounting of the rigorous regimen at the madrassa in Saudi Arabia where Heinonen is studying. (Emboldened print mine) (Subscription only 12.12.08)
Juha Heinonen left two years ago to study the Islamic faith in Saudi Arabia. Now as a converted Muslim he approves of Holy War (Jihad)
Islamic-mind control
Juha Heinonen awakes at three in the morning and begins to pray. For those seeking the right path, like Heinonen, night is the best time for prayers. According to the prophet Muhammed, praying at night without seeing another reveals a deep and sincere desire to serve Allah.
At five in the morning the call to prayer echoes from the mosques. Heinonen leaves his room at the Medina Islamic university campus and walks to the university’s mosque to complete the first of the five prayers of the day, which Islam requires from Muslims. After that he returns to his room and studies the Koran and then eats. At eight he leaves for studies at the university.
Came from normal family background
Heinonen is a newlywed. While on vacation in Finland, he married an ethnic Somali Finn. Heinonen wanted a Muslim for a wife. The male convert’s background is rather ordinary. The father repairs musical instruments and the mother works in a bank. After going to a French-Finnish grammar school, Heinonen studied for three years at a culinary trade school.
Interested in religion from an early age…but ignorant
Heinonen was not an average teen, he was interested in religion. He diligently read the Bible to find the answer why people were created. The Bible however raised doubts in him.
“There were a lot things in which Christians don’t obey. God for example commanded Abraham in the book of Moses to do circumcision, and at the same time forbade the eating of pork.”
The teenage Heinon had Muslim friends. They began to feel like the right believers, because they observed Islam’s commandments.
The article continues:
Heinonen recited out loud the articles of faith in a mosque in Espoo, in the summer of 2005. He was 19 years old. “My life changed completely” he said. He left alcohol, women, pork. Everything that Islam forbade. Even music.
If you heard the Koran being recited and even understand what is being said…” Heinonen sighs. “Who could want anything more?”
The ranks swell
The first year Heinonen spent time with someone from Yemen. Last year he befriended his fellow countrymen, when six other Finns began studies at the university. One of them was a convert, the rest were ethnic Somalis. An eighth Finn started this Fall.
In addition to the university students are a group Finnish youths studying in Middle-East Islamic schools. They are often from immigrant families who are worried about Finnish schools secular curriculum or the quality Islamic teaching. They send their children for a few months or years to schools for example in Syria or in Egypt. But what kind of values do they learn while abroad? And above all – how will they adapt once they return to a secular Finnish society?
Helsinki university researcher Marko Juntunen (with whom the TT sat on a train to Tampere and discussed in length about the OIC, Finnish Muslims and Islam in general) stated in the Institute for Foreign Affairs (UPI) magazine, that Wahhabi influence in Finland is growing. He reassured however, that what is in question is not radicalization.
“[Such orientated organizations of support in Finland] condemn violence outright, acts of terrorism and view, at least in principal that Muslim communities are to adapt through prevailing legal statutes”, Juntunen wrote.
Juntunen however is concerned, that these organizations view their activities as being based on the only right interpretation of the prophet Muhammed’s life that there is. Chosen rituals of cleanliness, such as the forbidding of handshaking between men and women can cause annoyances in Western countries.
Marko Juntunen only addresses violence, what about the “stealth jihad” that seeks to subvert Western society from within, which means using non-violent means in order to finally achieve the Islamization of the non-Muslim state?
USA is the great satan
Islamist extremism is of great concern in the West. The students at the mosques and university in Medina do not touch on politics in their studies, but according to Heinonen the students discuss it between themselves.
It [politics] is a bit taboo. Many students, who have spoken the truth, are now in jail. Heinonen tells. According to Heinonen those who speak the truth believe that “every Muslim, who helps America in any way against Muslims is an infidel.”
Heinonen clearly does not like American foreign policy. The understanding of jihad, which is often translated as holy war, (TT:the larger meaning) is to Heinonen both spiritual and an actual battle against the unbeliever. He believes its justified that some Muslims have waged jihad against Americans.
(TT:Here comes the Bullsh*t)
“Muslims haven’t attacked any country, on the contrary, Americans have attacked Iraq. Muslims are defending their own rights”, he claims.(TT:More steaming piles being laid)
Heinonen recalls that Americans have committed many cruelties, such as torture. On the other hand, he can’t say for sure whether Muslim extremists who were behind the terrorist attacks against the United States in 2001 were right or wrong. (TT: Thanks also in part to the Finnish media)
“The prophet forbid warring Muslims to kill women and children and forbid harming nature. Take notice however how many Muslims the Americans have butchered before September 11 and afterwards, the attack (9/11) was small in comparison. They [Americans] are tasting a bit of their medicine.”
What Heinonen and Islam has in store for Finland
To the Finnish ear, Heinonen’s opinions are shocking. He himself doesn’t think that his thoughts are strange
“We have to believe, that sharia is the best for us and is just”, he explains.
Heinonen is not worried about himself, how he will after four years of studying will adapt to Finland. If Allah wills, then he will adapt well, he answers. His wife waits for him in Finland; she doesn’t want to go to Medina, nor apparently would she be given a visa either.
Heinonen could return to the restaurant profession, if a place in Helsinki could be found, which doesn’t sell alcohol nor pork and where meat is butchered according to Islamic law (halal). Heinonen dreams however, that he could act as an Imam in Finland and teach Islam – to others besides Muslims.
“The calling of people to Islam is our task”, he said
Jeez, a male version of Yvonne Ridley. He should stay in Saudi Arabia and suck up the ‘glory’ of Islam. Funny how these converts go to Muslim countries, where discrimination, tribal bigotry and blatant abuse of women is everywhere. So blatant, but they don’t see any of that. All they see is the glory of Islam.
That’s right JS, they should stay in the lands where they can live under sharia, and experience its version of justice to the fullest.