The Boston Globe published a soft, pleasant article about the Roxbury mosque, entitled "Making peace and prayers, Mosque opens its doors as controversy fades." The controversy fades for the Globe maybe, but not for other folks. I'm happy for Muslims that they have an attractive mosque in which to pray. I'm not happy that the Muslim American Society is in charge or that the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) has the exact same troublesome trustees that they had before: Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi is still a proposed trustee (he supports suicide bombing and death for homomsexuals and apostates); Jamal Badawi (some equally hairy ideology from the soft-spoken Dr. Badawi) ; and Dr. Walid Fitaihi, he of "the Jews are the scourge of the earth" fame.
Fitahi resigned as an ISB trustee days before he was to be subject to interrogatories in the ISB lawsuit. Shortly after the lawsuit was withdrawn, Fitaihi was reinstated as a trustee. Even the Boston Gobe wrote an editorial back in 2004 calling for the ISB to "distance themselves" from Fitaihi. They've done the opposite.
Badawi has the distinction of being personally named in the US Muslim Brotherhood's 1991 planning document, Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal of the Group in North America, from which we read this memorable quote:
“The Ikhwan (Muslim Brothers) must understand that their work in America is 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 so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
The Dr. Jamal Badawi Foundation is listed in the 1991 master plan, along with Islamic Society of North American (ISNA), as "providing the seed of the comprehensive dawa organization." The document details the plan to establish an array of interlinked Islamic organizations, so that Muslims can create their own society within the larger U.S. society. And the Muslim American Society (daughter organization of the US Muslim Brotherhood) is doing just that.
There were a few amusing misstatements in Boston Globe article, including this one:
"Determining the size of the Muslim population is an inexact science. The Muslim American Society estimates that about 120,000 Muslims live in Massachusetts; a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found the population to be less than 32,000."
Muslim organizations have a penchant for exaggerating their numbers, perhaps as a way to appear to wield more political power than they actually do. CAIR is notorious for making outlandish claims about the size of the US Muslim population. The MAS is doing the same thing. Recently, MAS director Bilal Kaleen claimed that " there are more than 120,000 Muslims in Massachusetts," which would mean that almost 2% of the state's population is Muslim. I doubt that very much. Other Muslim sources indicate a population of roughly 24,000. As reporter Paulson points out, The Pew Forum survey says 32,000. So the MAS is at least quadrupling the number of Muslims here. Anyone surprised by that?
More unintended funniness in the Globe article:
"The mosque has been controversial for years. A conservative Israel-advocacy organization called the David Project asserted that some of the mosque's founding leaders had links to terrorism. In 2005, the Islamic Society filed a lawsuit against the David Project and two media outlets, saying that those allegations were defamatory, but dropped the suit last year after another suit, challenging the mosque's construction, was also dropped."
Oopsy, forgot about the other fourteen defendants that the ISB sued, including a Muslim, Sheik Ahmed Mansour. Can't be defamation if it's true.
The paper quotes Najiba Akbar, "who is the Muslim chaplain at Wellesley College." My sources were correct, Ms. Akbar, wife of MAS director Bilal Kaleem, really has been installed as the Muslim chaplain at Wellesley. While Ms. Akbar is an accomplished professional, the "hiring" process at Wellesley appears to have been quite secretive. It looks like something of an inside job placement. Well, you've got to plan your work and work your plan, and the US branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is working its plan pretty well.
Finally, Solomonia noticed that reporter Michael Paulsen's blogpost about the article reveals that the ISB is going to broadcast the call to prayer outside the mosque ("only during the day, out of respect to the neighbors." As Solomonia documents, this is in direct contradiction to statements made by two previous ISB spokesmen, Salma Kazmi and Jessica Masse, both of whom said that the ISB was not going to broadcast the call to prayer. Are we surprised?
How many times does the ISB/MAS have to lie about its intentions, its trustees, its funding, before Mayor Menino and the Boston Globe notice?
What is the "denomination" of this mosque?
Same as that of the mosque in Cairo where Mr. Basyouny Nehela claims to have worked ten years?
Can anyone spell it out? State Secret?
Posted by: Azzam | September 19, 2008 at 06:34 AM