Virginia Mosque Can’t Hide its Radical Legacy
Steve Emerson
When a former imam from his mosque praised Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan as a “hero,” Dar al-Hijrah outreach director Imam Johari Abdul Malik took to the airwaves to criticize the remarks and cast them as surprising:
“Let’s be clear when Anwar Al Awlaki was at Dar Al-Hijrah, he was articulating the same message that I articulate today in Dar Al-Hijrah, a very open, a very engaging, a very community wise and contemporary understanding of the faith within the framework of its traditionalism.”
But a look at Awlaki’s statements and connections during his time at the northern Virginia mosque shows that, at best, Malik’s characterization was misinformed as to the facts. While at Dar Al-Hijrah, a mosque with a history of leadership tied to terrorists, Awlaki made statements that endorsed terrorism and defended the 9/11 hijackers.
Awlaki participated as a scholar in a forum of the popular Islamist and Yusuf al-Qaradawi-linked website, Islamonline.net, the week after the 9/11 attacks. In it, he tacitly endorsed terror against Israeli civilians and denied that any Muslim extremists were a threat to Americans:
“There is no Muslim who advocates killing American civilians. We haven’t heard that before. If you are talking about Palestinians fighting in Israel, these are freedom fighters fighting an illegal occupation. Muslims have never targeted American civilians.”
That’s an odd claim, since it had been more than three years since Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa saying that “to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”
In the same Islamonline chat, Awlaki also expressed doubt that Muslims were behind the 9/11 attacks:
“The evidence coming out is perplexing. You have a right to be confused. It appears that these people were victims rather than hijackers. It seems that the FBI went into the roster of the airplanes and whoever has a Muslim or Arab name became the hijacker by default.” [Emphasis added]
Furthermore, in a Washington Post forum in November 2001, Awlaki defended the Taliban movement and accused America of rushing into war in Afghanistan. At the time, the Taliban had been openly supporting al Qaeda. Al-Awlaki argued:
“The Taliban repeatedly said: show us the evidence and we will turn over whoever is guilty with the crime. The U.S. should have given them the benefit of the doubt.”
Johari Abdul Malik, who has taken the lead in defending Dar Al-Hijrah and Awlaki, has his own record of radical statements. At a 2001 conference hosted by the Islamic Association of Palestine, a component of a U.S.-based network of Hamas-supporters, Malik called for attacks against Israeli infrastructure to show Muslim displeasure with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians:
“I am gonna teach you now. You can blow up bridges, but you cannot kill people who are innocent on their way to work. You can blow up power supplies… the water supply, you can do all forms of sabotage and let the world know that we are doing it like this because they have a respect for the lives of innocent people.”
Malik has called for Islamic supremacy in America, as he did in a November 2004 Friday Khutba, or sermon:
“Alhamdullilah [Praise to Allah] and we will live, will see the day when Islam, by the grace of Allah, will become the dominant way of life… I’m telling you don’t take it for granted because Allah is increasing this din [religion] in your lifetime. Alhamdullilah [Praise to Allah] that soon, soon… before Allah closes our eyes for the last time, you will see Islam move from being the second largest religion in America – that’s where we are now – to being the first religion in America.”
Radicalism among Dar Al-Hijrah’s leadership is not limited to Malik. At a June 5, 2001 press conference and sit-in at the State Department, Dar Al-Hijrah’s current head imam, Shaker Elsayed, was asked, “Do you condemn the terrorist attacks from Hamas and the suicide bombings?” Shaker Elsayed replied in support of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians:
“I made a statement that we do support the Palestinian resistance…The so-called Israeli settlers are not civilian population. They are military reserves, they are armed, trained and dangerous. They invade the Palestinian neighborhoods at night and squander everything. They kill, maim, and destroy homes. If I were there, I would use every power in my hand to defend my family.”
And:
“So long as occupation continues, we say to the Palestinian people, go ahead. Continue your fight against occupation no matter what name they give you
because we give you the name of courageous people who stand for the rights and we’re standing with you.”
Yet another example of Elsayed’s radicalism can be viewed here.
More than simple pro-terrorist rhetoric, elements of Dar Al-Hijrah’s leadership and membership have provided financial and logistical support to terrorist organizations. Records from the successful prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development show that Abdulhaleem Al-Ashqar, a former member of Dar Al-Hijrah’s Board of Trustees convicted of contempt and obstruction of justice, organized a 1993 meeting of Hamas members and sympathizers in Philadelphia. He was also the director of the Hamas-linked Al Aqsa Educational Fund. Likewise, Ismail Elbarasse, a founder of Dar Al-Hijrah, worked for Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and wired $735,000 to Hamas operative Mohammad Salah.
Likewise, additional imams who preceeded and followed Al-Awlaki at Dar Al-Hijrah have been linked to terrorist fundraising groups and extremism.
Mohammed Al-Hanooti, Dar Al-Hijrah’s imam from 1995-1999, was the former director of the Islamic Association for Palestine. In 1995, federal prosecutors in New York named Al-Hanooti as a potential unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. While Hanooti had been an imam at the Islamic Center of Jersey City, the FBI considered him to be “a big supporter of Hamas,” and the Albany Times Union reported in June 2002 that he regularly hosted events featuring terrorist mastermind Omar Abdel Rahman.
Mohammed Adam El-Sheikh, the imam of Dar Al-Hijrah from August 2003-May 2005, was the former regional director of the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA) in Baltimore. In October 2004, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the worldwide network of IARA, along with five of its senior officials, as Specially Designated Terrorist Groups. The government declared: “Information available to the U.S. indicates that international offices of IARA provided direct financial support for UBL [Osama Bin Laden].” IARA also supported the terrorist groups Hamas and Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya (AIAI). El-Sheikh was also an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood in his native Sudan from 1973-1977.
All of these facts contradict Malik’s assertion that Anwar Al Awlaki was a moderate during his time at Dar Al-Hijrah, or that the mosque is free from violent rhetoric that leads to radicalism. If connections to 9/11 hijackers, praise for Hamas and ties to terrorist support mechanisms are considered moderate, it’s fair to ask what Malik considers to be extreme.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, is the author of six books on national security and Middle Eastern terrorism.
Posted by Steve Emerson
on November 19 2009. Filed under Islamic Jihad.
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There is a global Jihad movement, Its goals are global islam and islamic tyranny for all thats a fact and the blood thirst death worshiping cul liars who lead this army of death devil worship. LIE TO EACH OTHER AND STAB EACH OTHER IN THE BACK ALL THE DANG TIME SO WHAT MAKES ANYONE STUPID ENOUGH TO Believe these demented devil men are even remotely trust worthy? ISLAM THATS what it so corrupts people they can not see reality the see only what islams tryants and leaders want them to see!
And the house of islam funded the global jihad movement and continues to fund it PARTLY FROM ALL OF OUR TAX DOLLARS! Watch this video and notice the Saudis who kiss the suicide bombers good by?/.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ty5655#p/a/u/2/ILRDBI…
You see islamic terrorists of the global Jihad movement <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ILRDBIBv2yU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ILRDBIBv2yU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Islam from as taught to the young students of islam!
http://web.youngmuslims.ca/online_library/books/j…
Already, people who can't stand Islam and actually know something about it are the second largest group of skeptics in America, just behind the PC morons who think that anyone who takes a dim view of Islam is a bigot.
(Actually, bigotry means forming a negative opinion based on inadequate knowledge, placing the PC, pro-Islamic, anti-anti-Islamic crowd squarely in that category.)
Someday soon we will be first.
I'm a bit sceptical about islam vanishing! Some type or form of this evil teaching will persist for some time.All men like sex and islam promises a lot of it for killing kafirs.There will always be dense people who take to the islamic teachings just like flies take to the shite.That can not be prevented because the islamic appeal to the stupid people of all religions is amazing.Moslems ( at least many of them) are born stupid and so they stay in islam.The bright ones leave islam in no time.
Now kindly tell me where have I spewn hatred? Ah its a different matter that moslems and recently converted ex moslems find the words a bit strong to their liking.But that's my way.You fellas have the option of not reading it at all! Dont you?
I did not compel you all to read what I write here.Did I?
.
Somebody commented on this web site that Science and logic should be the religion of the day that will lead man to God. I know many people who visit this site and islam-watch.org’s site believe in such fallacy. I came here not because I believe such nonsense, but because I believe Islam is evil and must be expelled from the civilised world. This is where we have common interest. Unfortunately many of the people who visit this site are ex-Muslim who have been brainwashed by Mohammed cult belief system and because of the shock of realising that it was all lies and deceptions, they are yet to come to terms that God is real and that it is God who created the world and made man in his own image and it is the same God who sought for man not that man was wise and scientific enough to seek for God.
The Bible is the love letter from a loving God who knew that the imagination and the thought of man is only evil continually. Gen 6:5 and that all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God Rom 3:23, Before God came to the rescue of man, God had allowed man to see whether being left alone he could find God and come back to his creator but man failed, that was recorded in Genesis 3:1-6. That world was destroyed because man with his scientific knowledge and logic did not know that, immorality, violence and wickedness is anti-human and is bad.
Experience has shown that even when God wiped out that generation and started a new generation with Noah’s descendant it was not different, man prefer to worship the creature rather than to worship God the Creator, and so you have all sorts graven images, from the sun, moon, stars, creping things, in the land and sea being worshipped by man. Now man is saying Science should be worshipped too. That necessitated the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.
How many people know that Science is yet to decode how and who cause this world to come to be. The so called Big Bang theory does not tell who cause the Big Bang neither does science tell why an atom cannot be divided. God’s briefs as recorded in the Bibles for us on account of his creation was not supposed to be a science manual but to complement man’s science and not against it. The Bible says that God was the cause of things which the finite knowledge of man cannot comprehend. God said he was the caused of all things. Gen 1:1.
How many of us know that the God of the Bible is against Religion, in fact through out the book of the Old Testament and the four gospels in the New Testament the word religion was not mentioned. When it was mentioned by Apostle Paul in the His letters it was in derogatory manner because man has developed God instructions which forms the basis of relationship with Him into a religion and Paul said he glory in the Religion of the Jews but without salvation until Christ rescued him. I am Anti-Region because God , and Christ are Anti-Region. No Religion can lead man to God, Nor Science or Logic they all failed in the past and will continue to fail until you come to God through Christ the Saviour.
The truth is that man came into this world not by his design and desire, it is logical therefore that the person whose design and purpose it should be the one to lead man back to that designer. You came into this world free of charge and you will go back to where you came from free of charge. That is the principle under lining the plan of salvation for man.
The Plan started in the Garden of Eden Gen 3:15 and ended on the Mount Calvary Where Jesus Christ paid the supreme sacrifice for our redemption having fulfilled more than 300 prophecies concerning God redemption plan. “For it is the blood that make atonement for the souls” Leviticus 17:1 . Now salvation is free. “For the wages of sin is death but gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ” . Rom 6:23, Jesus Said “I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh to the father but by me” John 14:6 “ for it is by grace are ye saved through faith and that not yourselves it is the gift of God” Eph 2:8
The truth is that there is no name of any religion or person, or science or logic by which man can be reconciled back to God but the name Christ Jesus Act 4:5, 1Tim 2:5 Jesus said Come to me Matt 11:28 This is not religion but personal relationship with God through new birth experience Jn 3:3,5,16-18
I invite you to a new life in Jesus, instead of wasting your life in fruitless argument of whether there is God or not or which religion or no Religion. God loves you.
Hore4dtruth@yahoo.co.uk
Women, I used your link, thanks.
I saw that Muslims are informed that somehow dark economic + military forces oppress and exploit many nations, including Islamic ones. And that "only Islam can save mankind from itself".
Then that Jihad, not excluding violence certainly, is obligated to all Muslims.
Lee Harris explained this kind of thinking as "tribal thinking". The welfare and success of their own "tribe", religion, trumps absolutely all other considerations, be it searching for the truth, justice, playing fair, being honest, seeking most prosperity and happiness for all mankind etc.
But they twist the current situation on earth, with which they are not satisfied, into a scheme of oppressors & exploiters and victims in their own favor.
I only hope that FFI/ IW/ JW etc keep monitoring and exposing Islamic teachings, writings, practices until enough people become aware of them and their threat to a free, peaceful, just world.
Yes, there might be oppressive, exploitative persons and organisations aplenty in the West and India, but they are best confronted in societies with freedom of speech, independent courts, autonomous thinking individuals, especially free WOMEN, fair elections, freedom from religious dominance.
But religious dominance, without elections, independent courts, freedom of speech, autonomous individuals, especially autonomous WOMEN, is exactly the goal of Islamic Supremacists, already long practised in Islamic countries!
Let us hope, the awareness of this and the number of either Former or truly Democratic muslims, if that is possible, keeps spreading ever farther in the 21st century, through the Internet especially!
Thank you Demsci, The thing that gets me, Is nobody is oppressing or harming muslims like muslims themselves are, and yet the jihadest never care what hell muslims go thru unless they can use those suffering muslims as fuel for there fire of rage hate and Jihad.
To hell with political correct hog wash, Muslims and Non muslims alike need to wake up before its to late and push for human rights for all people, Human rights first! After islam put me thru the hell it put me thru, You would think I would just walk away and not give a flip anymore,
I mean I am mad as hell, But the thing is I still care, I still love Muslims as part of my human family, And I am mad as hell, At what islam is doing to them and us alike ,Believers and disbelievers are going thru hell ,Islam and political correctness are putting them thru hell,
Do you watch Islam oppresses more people today then any other system. I absolutely hate that islam has the world divided into two sides pro islam and pro the other side. but what about pro humanity pro human rights?
As Sahab السحاب
http://m3-f.com/forum/showthread.php?p=64645#post…
http://m3-f.com/forum/showthread.php?p=64536#post… http://m3-f.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16800
http://m3-f.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16835
http://m3-f.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16844
http://m3-f.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16845
http://m3-f.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16864 http://m3-f.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16866
The islamanazi terrorist who attacked fort hood, Did it as part of the Jihad, And it was supposed to be worse then it was, After all the terrorists general motto slaughter as many human beings as possible,
why the particular timing? Well because the islamic terrorists groups in the house of islam fueding amongst themselves so Jihad leaders called for this attack as a tactical diversion to encourage the blood thirsty zombie mujahideen to keep slaughtering and killing and in an attempt to pull them togather to slaughter and kill non muslims more then muslims have been killing muslims lately, But the plan didn't workd because even islamists are getting sick and tired of the blood thirsty zombies of islam taliban alqaida running over them.Sunnis and Whabbis are persecuting a hell of a lot of muslims who are really getting sick of it!
http://www.youtube.com/user/72HoorAlAyn#p/a/7349D… http://www.youtube.com/user/72HoorAlAyn#p/a/7349D… http://www.youtube.com/user/72HoorAlAyn#p/a/7349D…
Kindly check out this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu5yBgI6YjQ
Nice article. Now I wish we could either deport these imams or put them in prison for treason.