Totally Fuckin' Moderate
Awesome! An Imam is condemning anti-Semitism. Thank God. Right?
Hmm. Not so fast.
From the Boston Globe:
THE DRAMATIC rise of local incidents of anti-Semitism is deeply troubling (“Anti-Semitic incidents climb in N.E.,” Page A1, June 2). The Anti-Defamation League’s report of 56 anti-Semitic acts in the region in 2016, compared with 61 for the whole of 2015, indicates a shift has occurred. An ugly monster, once restrained by a shared commitment to civility and a genuine embrace of American pluralism, has been unleashed.
The monster feeds on coarse stereotypes, ignorance of “the other,” and dangerous misinformation. The monster threatens the very fabric of American civil society as it renders an entire group of people isolated and vulnerable. However, it is precisely because we have met this monster before that we know what to do to contain and curtail the bile it spews, the hatreds it feels so free to sow like seeds thrown to the wind:
Stand up to it. Stare it down. Denounce it. Speak out. Speak up. Say that there is no room for anti-Semitism in my home, my school, my place of business, my house of worship, my Facebook page, my Twitter feed.
Show the monster that we are better than that, that America is finer than that, that this extraordinary undertaking in pluralism is as beautiful and rare as it is fragile and precious.
We must do this. Together.
Sheikh Yasir Fahmy
Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, RoxburyBUT WAIT:
HATE PREACHERS FUNDRAISE FOR THE ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF BOSTON
On June 11, the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) is hosting its annual fundraiser. The ISB’s imam, Yasir Fahmy, will be joined by two extremist preachers: Omar Suleiman and Altaf Husain.
Omar Suleiman has been denounced in the media and by moderate Muslim groups for his description of homosexuality as a “disease” and a “repugnant shameless sin.” He refers to the Islamic death penalty for the “people that practiced sodomy.”
In a talk titled “Fighing Zina,” Suleiman prescribes strict rules for women, preaching that: women must not uncover themselves in front of their cousins; women being too close to their brothers may lead to incest; and women should never be alone with a man outside of her family. He warns, without condemnation, that women who commit adultery risk being killed by a family member.
In the same talk, Suleiman recounts attending conferences organized by the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA) – an organization with close links to terrorism.
According to the FBI, MAYA’s leaders “played pivotal roles in building Hamas’s [the Gaza terrorist group] infrastructure in the United States.” The FBI claims that “MAYA served as a conduit for money to Hamas . . . and served as a forum where Hamas could promote its ideology and recruit new members.”
MAYA conferences notoriously featured extremist speakers. In 1995, MAYA invited the Hamas military leader, Sheikh Muhammad Siyam, to address one of its conferences. Siyam told the crowd: “Finish off the Israelis. Kill them all. Exterminate them. No peace ever.”
Suleiman refers to these extremist speakers in his “Fighting Zina” talk – furtively admitting: “I’m not even going to say their names because they are banned now.”
In another talk on the question of slavery in Islam, Suleiman defends sex slavery, or concubines, on the grounds that captured women would otherwise escape and become prostitutes – and that “society’s welfare” is more important than the “individual’s welfare.”
Suleiman is also an “instructor” at the Al Maghrib Institute, where his colleagues include Said Rageah, a Canadian Islamist preacher who has preached that God should “destroy” the enemies of Islam and that the Christians and Jews are “damned”; Abdullah Hakim Quick, a preacher who has called upon God to “clean and purify Al-Aqsa from the filth of the Yahood [Jews]”; and Abu Eesa Niamatullah, who has said of Jews, “They find it so easy and natural to do what they do….Look at them today, look at the way they massacre. They blow up babies like as if it’s a computer game. They have no humanity, no morality, no ethics.”
The other speaker, Altaf Husain, is the former President of the Muslim Student Associations (MSAs). MSA across the United States were Islamist groups established by Muslim Brotherhood activists who came to study in the US in the 1960s. These MSAs functioned as the organizational beachheads of Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] activism in the U.S. and are the predecessors to most of today’s American Islamist bodies.
Today, Husain is vice-president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) – another key Muslim Brotherhood institution. According to documents produced by prosecutors during the 2008 Holy Land terrorism trial, ISNA was set up by Muslim Brotherhood MSA members in the 1980s. During that same trial, federal prosecutors designated ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator.
The final speaker, Yasir Fahmy, is an ISB imam and the host of the event. Fahmy also has a long history of involvement with radical Islamist causes. His social media pages are littered with posts from Muslim Brotherhood pages and videos by prominent Muslim Brotherhood leaders.
Fahmy has posted videos by the extremist cleric Sheikh Sadiq Al-Ghariani, the Libyan grand mufti accused by the Libyan parliament of supporting terrorism. In 2014, Al-Ghariani was forced to leave Britain after The Guardian reported:
…the radical cleric celebrated the violent capture of Tripoli by Islamist militia force Libya Dawn and called for a widening of the rebellion on Libyan TV.
The day after Tripoli fell to the Islamist group Libya Dawn, Ghariani sent congratulations to the Islamist militants via Libya based Tanasuh TV: “I congratulate the revolutionaries in their victory, I give blessing to the martyrs,” he said.
In 2011, Fahmy posted an article condemning the killing of Bin Laden. He has also posted videos mocking the moderate Muslim speaker Usama Hasan for his support for evolutionary theory and his love for peaceful Sufi Islam.
Fahmy translated texts for Suhaib Webb (the previous ISB imam) by the anti-Semitic, pro-terror, Hitler-supporter, Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Al Qaradawi.
Fahmy also works for the Al Madina Institute, where his colleagues include prominent Muslim Brotherhood officials, such as Mukhtar Maghraoui and Zainab Alwani.
The choice of speakers for the ISB’s annual fundraiser is not particularly surprising. This same mosque was founded by a prominent Al Qaeda operative; its trustees have included the Hitler-supporting spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood; and, just in October, the mosque hosted an event with two preachers who advocate that Muslim men can acquire sex slaves and should be allowed to beat their wives.
Over the past few decades, in fact, twelve congregants, supporters, staff and donors of the ISB have been imprisoned, deported, killed or are on the run – all in relation to terrorist activity. This list includes the Boston bombers, Al Qaeda operatives Tarek Mehanna and Aafia Siddqui; Lashkar-i-Taiba fundraiser Hafiz Masood; and the prominent Islamic State official, Ahmad Abousamra.
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