UPDATE/CORRECTION BELOW
A reminder please, to sign the petition to show our support of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) folks here in Boston. We want to express our support of the ICE, especially in the face of ridicule and criticism by the local Muslim American Society and the ACLU. The petition is here, please sign, we're looking for 1,000 signatures by next Wednesday! Background to the petition is here.
I wrote earlier about the lack of investigative journalism on the story of the arrest of the two Boston area imams on charges of religious visa fraud (33 people were arrested nation-wide). Actually, a reporter from the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Massachusetts, has been doing some research on Imam Hafiz Muhammed Masood, the spiritual director of the Islamic Center of New England’s Sharon mosque. In a November 16, 2006 article, reporter Lane Lambert wrote about Mahood's arrest, his activities with the Sharon moque, and the change in mosque leadership in the spring of 2005. Lambert mentions Imam Mahood's questionable academic credentials:
"Imam Masood has held a religious worker visa since the late 1990s, when he was hired by the Islamic Center as a teacher and then as imam for the Sharon mosque. A native of Lahore, Pakistan, he attended an Islamic school there, got a master’s degree in economics at the University of Faisalabad and taught at the International Islamic University in Islamabad until 1988. He spent the next three years at Boston University and later claimed to have an economics degree. Last year he acknowledged that he doesn’t hold that degree."
The local Muslim American Society may not know that Mahood doesn't really have a Master's from B.U. On March 28, 2005, the MAS sent out an e-mail to publicize a lecture by Massod at the Islamic Society of Boston in Cambridge (topic: Purification of the Heart). The MAS e-mail lists Masood's many degrees:
Masters degree in Islamic Studies, Islamic University, Pakistan
Masters degree in Economics, University of Punjab
Masters degree in Economics from Boston University
Well, scratch that last one! And has anyone checked the other two master's degrees? And curiously there is no mention of a bachelor's degree. Stay tuned, there's clearly going to be lot of material as this religious visa fraud case unfolds.
Kudos to Lane Lambert of the Patriot Ledger for his reporting, which provides background and context to the story (instead of just regurgitating MAS press releases). Previous articles about the conflicts in the Sharon mosque leadership here and here.
UPDATE/CORRECTION? (11-28-06) - According to Lane Lambert of the Patriot Ledger, Masood apparently did get a Master's degree in Economic Policy from BU in September 2005. A spokesman at the school confirmed this one day after the bail hearing, based on information from a "recommended for degree" certificate that an ICNE board member showed the reporter the day of the hearing. The Ledger ran a correction last week. Nonetheless, Masood was claiming to have earned a Master's degree at least six months before it was awarded (per the March 29, 2005 MAS e-mail). Still a credibility issue here, IMO.
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