THE CLARION PROJECT

[size=16.363636016845703]Christians Increasingly Misled into Interfaith Ties With Islamists
Rev. Devorah Lindsay has become an interfaith video star, but her chief outreach partner is a Muslim Brotherhood-tied mosque.
BY RYAN MAURO Thu, April 3, 2014
Rev. Deborah Lindsay
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Reverend Deborah Lindsay, Minister of Spiritual Care at First Community Church in Ohio, is a YouTube viral video star because of her call on Christians to avoid anti-Muslim sentiment. Unfortunately, her chief outreach partner is a Muslim Brotherhood-tied mosque named the Noor Islamic Cultural Center.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]A video of her sermon, uploaded in September 2010, has been viewed over one million times. Her outreach to Muslims was also the subject of an article in the Columbus Dispatch. In it, she is quoted as comparing jihad to Lent.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]“When we think jihad, we think holy war. And that may be what it means to fanatics and terrorists, but what the vast majority of Muslims understand jihad to be is ‘struggling in the way of God…The way of God being goodness, justice, mercy and compassion. It is a personal, spiritual endeavor,” she said.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]An example of jihad, she says, would be making friends or being appreciative of what you have.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]That type of misunderstanding is promoted by the MyJihad campaign led by a chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity whose leadership has privately discussed how to use deceptive semantics. The campaign distracts from examination of the Islamist ideology by redefining jihad so vaguely that it becomes a meaningless term.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The audience, especially non-Muslims like Rev. Lindsay, is led to believe that this vague “spiritual” struggle is an alternative interpretation of jihad. Actually, these interpretations are complimentary and are not in competition.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Look at the official ruling of the Reliance of the Traveler, an authoritative book on Sharia endorsed by Al-Azhar University, the highest school of Sunni learning. Section o.9.0 states:[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]“Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion. And it is the lesser jihad. As for the greater jihad, it is spiritual warfare against the lower self (nafs), which is why the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said he was returning from jihad.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The dual nature of jihad is best exemplified by the fact that the MyJihad website hosted a videotaped sermon from Imam Zaid Shakir about jihad and terrorism. Shakir justified Hezbollah’s bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, saying it did not qualify as an act of terrorism.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Shakir, co-founder and senior faculty member of Zaytuna College, has his own record of extremism and approval of violent jihad. The MyJihad campaign’s own sources acknowledge the two forms of jihad but the campaign only talks about the spiritual form, giving the false impression that a new, replacement interpretation is being offered.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]While it is true that most Muslims do not favor waging the subversive and often violent “lesser” jihad, we must be aware of the tricks played by those who do.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]In her sermon, Rev. Lindsay praises the Islamic Circle of North America as a moderate organization that is spreading “peace” and “hope” by giving away tens of thousands of the copies of the Koran. She is under the impression that ICNA’s interpretation of jihad is at odds with the subversive one.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Actually, ICNA is named in a 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The stated goal of the network ICNA belongs to is to wage a “kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers.” The document explicitly states that the network is to “possess a mastery of the art of ‘coalitions’” and use “their hands” (those of the non-Muslim Americans) for its objectives.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]ICNA is a derivative of the radical Jamaat-e-Islami group of Pakistan. It is currently pressuring the White House to defend its leaders in Bangladesh from prosecution. A senior ICNA official named Ashrafuzzaman Khan was sentenced to death in absentia for his involvement in horrific war crimes in 1971.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The Clarion Project recently published jaw-dropping excerpts from an ICNA teaching guide for members. It explicitly calls for supporting violent jihad, secret operations, resurrecting the Caliphate and implementing Sharia governance, even in the U.S.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Rev. Lindsay’s main outreach partner is the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, a radical mosque that has her as a guest speaker. If the name sounds familiar, it may be from the case of Rifqa Bary, a teenage girl who converted to Christianity from Islam and ran away from her family. Her father, who she fears may kill her for becoming an apostate, is a member of the mosque.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Noor Islamic Cultural Center founder and chairman, Dr. Hany Saqr, was identified by an Egyptian newspaper as a Muslim Brotherhood operative. A 1992 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood phone book lists him as a member. Saqr was identified as a leader of the East Region for the Brotherhood, a member of its Executive Office and a member of its Board of Directors. The phone records of Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk, then a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood official, show he was in communication with Saqr in 1992.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]According to a court filing by Bary’s lawyer, an FBI document identified one of Sarq’s subordinates as “providing $735,000 to Hamas while under Dr. Saqr’s direction.” It also states that Saqr used to be an imam for another mosque and “the largest known Al-Qaeda cell in the U.S. since 9/11 was operating out of the mosque.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Salah Sultan used to be the Noor Islamic Cultural Center’s scholar in residence and a religious director at a local Islamic elementary school named the Sunrise Academy. Unfortunately for Sultan, counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole lived only about a mile away and turned Salah into a stunning example of Islamist operations inside the U.S.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]When Poole first brought attention to Sultan’s extremism, the Noor Islamic Cultural Center’s media and the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio slandered Poole, with one columnist calling him a “Muslim basher.” The documentation about Sultan was firm then and is overwhelming now.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]There are photos of him with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. He is on the board of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, led by the terrorism-linked Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi who is the spiritual leader of the Brotherhood and Hamas. In Egypt, Sultan frequently appeared alongside Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood when he was running for president.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]At one Morsi rally, Sultan referenced the Islamic hadith that appears in the Hamas charter that reads, “The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Sultan has urged the murdering of the Israeli ambassador to Egypt. In one television appearance, he endorsed a Brotherhood fatwa that says “every Zionist who enters Egypt—tourist or not—should be killed.” At one event, he led a crowd in chanting, “To Jerusalem, we are going as martyrs in millions.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]He was scheduled to lead a hajj to Mecca in 2002 with Anwar al-Awlaki, who would soon become a senior Al-Qaeda operative and a Hamas-linked cleric named Imam Muhammad al-Hanooti. When Osama Bin Laden was killed, Sultan praised him because he “had raised the banner of jihad for the sake of Allah and had served a lofty goal” and American “terrorism” is worse than his.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Sultan preaches that 9/11 was a U.S. government conspiracy to oppress Muslims. The attacks on Christians in Egypt are covert “acts of Jews,” according to Sultan, as was the assassination of President Kennedy. He supports democratic participation by Muslims in the U.S., but only in order to move the country towards the standards of Sharia.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The aforementioned court filing also alleges that the Noor Center has extremist speakers like Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Muzammil Siddiqi, Raeed Tayeh, Eric Erfan Vickers, Shaker ElSayed, Wagdi Ghoneim and a preacher linked to efforts by Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, to recruit Somali youth. In 2013, two mosque members were indicted for money-laundering.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]This mistaken embrace of Islamists is part of a broader issue. Rev. Lindsay’s church is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Both are members of the Shoulder-to-Shoulder Coalition, an interfaith bloc allied with the Islamic Society of North America, another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. The coalition is deployed by American Islamists when they came under criticism.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The two groups cited by Rev. Lindsay, ICNA and the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, do believe in the non-threatening “greater” spiritual jihad—but that’s not the whole story. They also advocate the “lesser” subversive and violent jihad. They are just intelligent enough to know which one is better to magnify publicly.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Rev. Deborah Lindsay did not respond to my email with information about the Noor Islamic Cultural Center.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org’s National Security Analyst, a fellow with the Clarion Project and is frequently interviewed on top-tier TV stations as an expert on counterterrorism and Islamic extremism.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The Institute on Religion and Democracy contributed to this article[/size]

[size=16.363636016845703]Extremist Chaplains, Literature Flooding U.S. Prisons
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/extremist-chaplains-literature-flooding-us-prisons

The high number of former prison inmates involved in Islamic terrorism shows inroads the Saudi 'Wahhabi machine' in the U.S.
BY RYAN MAURO Wed, March 26, 2014[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Related Stories
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The Virginia-based Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, an extremist mosque attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers with extensive links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, is fundraising for its outreach to inmates. The fundraising pitch quotes an extremist cleric and says the mosque has been working with the Washington, D.C. jail for 10 years.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]“For over a decade Dar Al-Hijrah has been supporting the spiritual growth of Muslim inmates in the DC jail, CTF [Correctional Treatment Facility] and youth offenders,” the announcement states.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]
The request is specifically for donations to send 100 Qurans to the inmates.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]There’s a sign of danger even in the announcement itself. It uses a quote from the Islamist theologian Ibn Taymiyya, “Let my imprisonment be a spiritual retreat.”[/size]

[size=16.363636016845703]The choice of this particular Islamic cleric gives us insight into the ideology of the mosque’s leadership.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Atta Barkindo, a respected researcher on political Islam, writes, “some scholars suggest there is probably no other Islamic theologian, medieval or otherwise, who has had as much influence on radical political ideology of Islam as Ibn Taymiyya.” This includes the leaders of Al-Qaeda.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]In fact, Osama Bin Laden quoted Taymiyya in 2003, pointing to when he said, “to drive off the enemy aggressor who destroys both religion and the world—there is no religious duty more important than this, apart from belief itself. This is an unconditional rule.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The basis of Taymiyya’s preaching is that sharia must be the form of governance, a premise that “runs contrary to the demands of the fundamental principles of democracy.” He argued that the failure to do this is responsible for the descent of the Muslim world, and it would continue until Muslims overthrew their leaders that did not implement sharia governance.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]On the topic of jihad, Steve Simon of the Brookings Institute explains that Taymiyya is responsible for the “elevation of jihad—not the spiritual struggle that many modern Muslims take it to be, but physical combat against unbelievers—to the rank of the canonical five pillars of Islam.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Due to Taymiyya, jihad would become considered the “sixth pillar” of Islam by millions of Muslims. The primary focus of Muslims should be the “near enemy” instead of the “far enemy,” Taymiyya said.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]His ideology would later inspire Salafism, the virulent form of Islam promoted by Saudi Arabia.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The documented history of Dar al-Hijrah shows that this mosque has been consistently radical in its beliefs. In January 2013, its imam, Shaker El-Sayed preached in favor of violent jihad at a Virginia high school. Using language that Taymiyya would agree with, El-Sayed told the audience that Muslims should be “first in the jihad line” and condemned Muslims who “bow down to Western pressure.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]A Customs and Border Protection document of the mosque in 2002 explicitly said it is “operating as a front for Hamas operatives in the U.S.” A December 2007 document said it “has been linked to numerous individuals linked to terrorism financing” and “has also been associated with encouraging fraudulent marriages.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Dar al-Hijrah’s involvement in the Washington, D.C. prison system is part of a broader problem.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The Islamic Society of North America, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial, has a Chaplaincy Services Department that endorses chaplains for the Bureau of Prisons (and the U.S. military).[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]In 2003, Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) demanded that the Office of the Inspector General review the Bureau of Prisons’ relationship with ISNA. At the time, ISNA was the only Muslim group that filed the necessary paperwork to be approved as a chaplain endorser.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]In a 2003 hearing, Schumer used the example of Warith Deen Umar, the administrative chaplain of the New York Department of Correctional Services who hired prison clerics. He was banned from New York prisons in 2002 after he was caught teaching Muslim inmates that the 9/11 terrorists are heroes that should be emulated. Schumer also mentioned that a New York State prison chaplain in Auburn was arrested earlier in the year for illegally transferring millions of dollars to Iraq.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]ISNA did not distance itself from Umar after he was exposed. He spoke at its 2009 convention where he preached that the U.S. is hostage to a Jewish conspiracy and that the Holocaust victims “were punished for a reason because they were serially disobedient to Allah.” He also said “there should be more jihad.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Schumer expressed his concern about ISNA’s involvement in the prison system. He pointed out that Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an extremely radical cleric, is an ISNA board member, as is Bassam Osman. He used to be the director of the Koran Literary Institute in Illinois whose assets were frozen in 1998 because of evidence it was financing Hamas.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Schumer warned that the Islamist involvement in the prison system was part of an overall offensive.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703] “As the Saudis turned a blind eye, the Wahhabi machine is becoming well-financed, politically powerful, difficult to prosecute and making dramatic inroads here in the United States. Let me give you an example of how Wahhabism has reached some degree of havoc in my own backyard in New York State,” Schumer said.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]That’s just the tip of the iceberg.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]In 2008, anti-Islamist Muslim Stephen Schwartz reviewed a list of all the Islamic literature and videos used by the Bureau of Prisons. The list included:[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]200 entries by Maulana Maududi, the founder of the Pakistani Islamist group, Jamaat-e-Islami
175 entries by Imam Siraj Wahhaj 
30 entries by Sayyid Qutb, the Muslim Brotherhood cleric that inspired Osama Bin Laden
33 entries by Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the terrorism-supporting spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood;
185 entries from Jamal Badawi, an ISNA board member and supporter of Hamas and “combative jihad.” He is also an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial and is close to Qaradawi.
19 entries by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism
9 entries idolizing al-Wahhab
280 entries by South African Islamist Abdullah Hakim Quick
250 entries by South African Islamist Ahmed Deedat
125 entries by Jamal Zarabozo, a white American Islamist 
Texts by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam
A 2010 FBI report found that the sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, a former Dar al-Hijrah imam who led an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen until he was killed by a U.S. drone strike, could be found in prison libraries across the country.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The Nation of Islam, an extremely anti-American and anti-Semitic group, has a Prison Reform Ministry. In December, the ministry director visited seven institutions in Pennsylvania.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Muslims of the Americas, a front for a Pakistani terrorist group named Jamaat ul-Fuqra, has a large number of ex-convicts as members. The group has 22 “Islamic villages” around the country and there is videotape of female members receiving paramilitary instruction at its headquarters in Hancock, New York.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The Sankore Institute of Islamic African Studies International, a very radical Pennsylvania-based group that says jihad is obligatory and believes constitutional democracy is antithetical to Islam, says its curriculum is being taught to 400 Muslim inmates in two California facilities alone.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Ex-convicts are reported to make up a large percentage of its membership. The “outreach” section of its website only lists one initiative: "inmate services."[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The high number of former prison inmates involved in Islamic terrorism led to Congressional hearings in 2011. At the time, the hearings were derided as “racist and as discriminatory.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The Islamists are paying attention to the prison system. So should we, before it is too late.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org’s National Security Analyst, a fellow with the Clarion Project and is frequently interviewed on top-tier TV stations as an expert on counterterrorism and Islamic extremism.[/size]

[size=16.363636016845703]Christian Girls in Egypt Kidnapped, Raped, Converted
Two factors lie behind the abuse of Christian girls in Egypt, according to a study: Societal misogyny and Islamist indoctrination.
BY RYAN MAURO Wed, March 26, 2014[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]An Egyptian Christian woman mourns the death of an eight-year old Christian girl who was  killed, along with three others, by Islamist gunmen as they were waiting outside a church for a wedding to begin.  
An Egyptian Christian woman mourns the death of an eight-year old Christian girl who was killed, along with three others, by Islamist gunmen as they were waiting outside a church for a wedding to begin.
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Christian girls in Egypt are being kidnapped, raped, made to convert and forced into marriages due to the “twin-headed cultural hydra” of “deep-seeded Muslim and male supremacism,” warns a 2012 study that is getting renewed attention.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]International Christian Concern is reporting that 2014 has already seen a spike in the number of Christian girls in Egypt being abducted. Sexual harassment, sexual assault, rapes, forced conversions, forced marriages and even being forced into working without pay (slavery) are all major problems.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Just four attorneys said they had over 550 cases over five years of Christian girls applying to have their religious identity restored by the Egyptian government after being kidnapped and forced into converting to Islam. One attorney said he personally knew of at least 1,600 cases of forced conversions.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]On February 28, a 15-year old girl named Amira Hafez and her mother went to church in Egypt. Hafez took a quick trip to the store and never returned. When her parents filed the police report, they were fairly certain of who the police should interview: Yasser Mahmoud, an Egyptian soldier stationed nearby that used to protect their church.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The parents said that Mahmoud had walked into the Christian store where Hafez was working and confessed his love to her. Then, five months ago, another Muslim man came to the store and tried to abduct her. She was saved by her neighbors.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Hafez’ parents knew that Mahmoud lived with his parents and visited the home after she disappeared. They said they had not seen him since the time of the incident.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Her parents believe the police are brushing them off. They told International Christian Concern that the “police haven’t done anything up until now.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]In another incident on March 9, a young girl was kidnapped in front of her father by two men on motorcycles. About a week later, the father had her birth certificate reviewed and it showed that her name was changed and she was now registered as a Muslim.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]According to the heart-wrenching 2012 study by Christian Solidarity International, the Egyptian authorities often assume that the girls fell in love and/or were trying to escape the strict confines of a Christian family.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Girls that are victims of forced conversions that are lucky enough to escape face additional problems. Firstly, any known conversion from Islam to Christianity (even if one was originally Christianity) makes her an “apostate.” That puts a giant target on her back because sharia’s punishment for apostates is death.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Secondly, the Egyptian government won’t let the girls’ change their registered religion back to Christianity. That makes the healing process extraordinarily more difficult and makes it tougher to assimilate back into the Christian community. It also stops the victim from having privacy. Wherever she goes, she will have to relive her trauma by explaining her story to whoever finds out she is registered as a Muslim.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The study also found lighter forms of persecution increasing, as well. More and more, Christian women were being harassed as they left church. Females wearing necklaces with the cross were cornered and had them ripped off.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]As the 2012 study stated, there are two factors behind the abuse of Christian girls in Egypt: Societal misogyny and Islamist indoctrination.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Todd Daniels, Middle East Regional Manager for International Christian Concern, told me that the Egyptian government officially recognizes minors as being those under the age of 18. However, the laws are not usually enforced.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]“For those that would embrace an extremist interpretation of Islam, girls are defined as adults once they have reached puberty, allowing for them to be married at much younger ages. These cases are carried out with nearly full impunity, even when there is clear evidence as to the responsible parties,” Daniels said.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The Islamist ideology also explains why women leaving church are being harassed and why cross necklaces are being broken.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The ideology may permit the existence of churches, but Christianity itself is still looked upon with disdain and blasphemous. Mainstream teaching of sharia states that Christians cannot display the cross in an Islamic state. The Muslims that broke the girls’ cross necklaces believed they were acting on Allah’s will.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Reliance of the Traveler, an authoritative book on sharia endorsed by Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, states in section o11.5(6):[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]“]Non-Muslim subjects] are forbidden to openly display wine or pork, (A: to ring church bells or display crosses,), recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals and feastdays.”[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]It is no coincidence the increase in attacks on Christians began right after the fall President Mubarak in February 2011 and sharply increased after the Muslim Brotherhood won the Egyptian presidency in June 2012.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]“I accuse the Muslim Brotherhood and their Islamic groups of abducting the Christian girls in Egypt and forcing them to convert to Islam and marry a Muslim,” said Mina Melad of the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Part of the reason that this abuse isn’t a major issue is because the U.S. State Department doesn’t want it to be.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The 2012 study was commissioned in reaction to the State Department’s 2010 International Religious Freedom report said that many stories of Muslims forcing Christian women to convert were unverified.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]“The State Department’s assertion that cases remain unverified, without providing evidence of an attempt to verify, appeared to be calculated to put a particularly sensitive political issue to rest, without regard for the well-being of the female victims,” the study said.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The Christian women of Egypt deserve our attention, no matter how many Islamists and misogynists it offends.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org’s National Security Analyst, a fellow with the Clarion Project and is frequently interviewed on top-tier TV stations as an expert on counterterrorism and Islamic extremism.[/size]
[size=16.363636016845703]The Institute on Religion and Democracy contributed to this article.[/size]