The Maniac Muslim, Masjid IKEA, and Bare Naked Islamophobia

by Sheila Musaji

The Maniac Muslim site recently posted an article IKEA Sponsors Masjid Renovation. 

The eagle eyed Bonni at Bare Naked Islam saw this, and immediately knew that it was important to alert her readers to yet another example of “stealth jihad”, “creeping Sharia”, or whatever nefarious Muslim plot was going on.  She published MASJID-UL-IKEA:// Who needs Saudi money when Ikea will fund your mosque?.  To give her a little credit, she did publish a NOTE TO BNI READERS: As I have not been able to verify this story, it may be a satire. The website that posted it, usually bases its satire on true stories. But as of now, I can not confirm it.  The link at the bottom about IKEA headbags, however, is true.–BNI.

The fact that she would need to go through any effort at all to “verify this story” is why she deserves little or no credit for anything other than her Islamophobia.  Nevertheless, she posted the article with the dramatic title, and this lovely introduction: “Well, IKEA IS Swedish and we know how happy the Swedes are about the dramatic spike in rapes of Swedish women by Muslim men. IKEA now joins Best Buy, Butterball, Whole Foods, KFC, Costco and host of other businesses on the infidel sh*t list)”

At this point her article has 33 comments from her devoted readers - all of them fitting this profile - I’ll never shop at IKEA again, Florida Family Association should set up a boycott, corporations like this are “betraying” America and are “vile freedom-HATERS who are joining other corporations to DESTROY our freedom and human rights”.  You get the idea, even something as ludicrous as this stirs up the Islamophobic base to a hysterical pitch.  The last time the Islamophobic lunatic brigade got this worked up was a few days ago when Debbie Schlussel discovered a “Boy Band Jihad”? plot. 

You can read more about Bonni Benstock-Intall and Bare Naked Islam here from our TAM Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry. 

If the name of the site (or the site’s cartoons) doesn’t tell any rational person that it is a SATIRE site, then simply clicking on the about page would make it abundantly clear, as would reading any of the articles.

Here is the original article by Hamzah Moin, the Maniac Muslim that set off the crazies. 

If you have trouble identifying this as satire, then you just might be an Islamophobe.

LOS ANGELES — After years of unsuccessful fundraising dinners and taking taraweeh prayers hostage, Masjid-ul-Islam is finally getting the funds it needs to finish phase three of its renovation project. IKEA, the Swedish furniture giant, has agreed to be a corporate sponsor for the masjid.

Masjid president Ismail Badry was ecstatic. “Alhamdullilah for IKEA’s corporate sponsorship. Things got really bad for fundraising ideas.” Badry mentioned that he once dressed as a homeless man to earn more cash for the masjid. “With IKEA supporting us, I won’t have to take the nicest-looking shoes and auction them off on Craigslist anymore.”

IKEA sees the renovation sponsorship as an extension to its ever-evolving brand. Director of Community Affairs at IKEA, Mikos Svennson said, “Although this is the first time we have sponsored a religious institution, we believe that the mosque will find benefit with our sponsorship. IKEA loves to help cultivate burgeoning communities.”

Part of the sponsorship deal was to rename the mosque to Masjid-ul-IKEA. In addition to rebranding the masjid to be in-line with IKEA’s brand, the layout of the entire masjid was overhauled to resemble an IKEA store.

The layout does have detractors. “Why do I have to walk through random areas of the masjid just to get to the prayer area?” said Basil Jabr, Imam of Masjid-ul-IKEA. “I came for Asr once and by the time I reached the prayer area it was Maghrib.”

Female patrons of the mosque were excited to hear that the space for the sister’s section tripled in size and featured a variety of easy-to-assemble couches and nifty-looking lamps everywhere. Unfortunately, with the new layout, everyone had to walk through the sister’s section just to get to the brother’s prayer area. “I guess that explains the spike in masjid attendance amongst the single Muslims” said Imam Basil.

Corporate sponsorship has always been a controversial issue at the mosque. Badry has insisted that he only had to resort to it because people stopped donating at fundraising dinners. “I think once they figured out that the tagline ‘Donate to the masjid and help your children’ really meant ‘We need to pay our heating bills’, they stopped giving.’

Corporations funding the masjid’s renovation isn’t a new thing. Coca-Cola had sponsored Phase One of the renovation project. Coca-Cola’s condition was that the khateeb would have to say the slogan “Drink Coke. Open Happiness” sometime in the khutbah. For Phase Two, the Imam had to constantly wear Mickey Mouse ears as the project was sponsored by Disney.

Badry sees a future in corporate sponsorship with religious institutions. “I think the next step is to start getting corporations involved with our holidays. Like Eid. I can’t even imagine the possibilities of what a religious holiday can look like when it’s completely backed by corporations.”

UPDATE

Well, it only took an hour or two from the time that I posted this article until the article disappeared from the BNI site. 

This “disappearing articles” ploy, and attempts to conceal evidence of their “truth telling” are the way these folks work, it just usually takes them a little longer.  Fortunately, someone on FB had already taken screenshots of the pages. 

If you do a google search on the title, it still comes up as having been on the BNI site.  Also, the Infidel News Network cross-posted the BNI article.  Let’s see how quickly BNI asks them to take it down.  Of course, their link to the original source also takes you to the page that says “sorry, you are looking for something that isn’t here.” Someone also posted the link to the BNI article on the IKEA site.  The Death to Islam site also posted the link to the BNI article - same result.