Posted on 10/13/2001 4:30:56 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Reject jihad, local Muslim leader says
ANDREA ELLIOTT
aelliott@herald.com
A prominent local Muslim leader called for Muslims in America to ``jump off the fence'' Friday and support U.S. military action in Afghanistan, while rejecting the Taliban's declared holy war.
Cultural ties to the Middle East and fear of retaliation by anti-American Muslims have stopped local Muslims from publicly denouncing Osama bin Laden's jihad, or holy war, said Shafayet Mohamed, the religious leader of Darul Uloom in Pembroke Pines, South Florida's largest mosque.
``This is not a holy war. This is not justified and does not include all Muslims,'' said Mohamed, who delivered the khutbah, or sermon, to more than 700 congregants and crews from three television stations.
Osama bin Laden's videotaped statement, released Sunday, prompted Mohamed's sermon, he said. Bin Laden called for Muslims everywhere to unite, further escalating anti-U.S. protests in the Middle East.
In the video, bin Laden said: ``These events have divided the whole world into two sides. The side of believers and the side of infidels, may God keep you away from them. Every Muslim has to rush to make his religion victorious. The winds of faith have come.''
In response, Mohamed and other local imams, or religious leaders, have assured their followers that bin Laden and the Taliban are not qualified to call for a jihad, and that his cause is political and anti-Muslim by nature.
A true jihad, said Mohamed, is dying ``in the path of God, by doing good, without killing anyone.''
Mohamed said he felt compelled to summon the media to his mosque Friday and announce support for U.S. military action in Afghanistan, even though he believes his sermon will invite criticism.
``I am going to be very much criticized for this. I do not support the pack,'' said Mohamed, of Trinidad. ``Coming from the West and being a Caribbean [man], I do not have the cultural background to have emotions get in the way of my judgment.''
Local Muslims with family members in the Middle East -- including many who attend Darul Uloom -- are more likely to struggle over whether to support U.S. military action, he and other leaders said.
``Over there are our relatives, our friends. It might happen to them. If they die you think we're gonna be happy? We're not gonna be happy,'' said Palestinian-American Sofian Zakkout, director of the Muslim Association of America in Miami.
Zakkout said he is resolutely opposed to military activity by the United States in Afghanistan. He said America should try to bring those responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks before a court of law.
``I am supporting our government but not by the war. No Muslim, Jew or Christian would ever support a war in this earth,'' he said. ``We have to work in a more intelligent way against the terrorists but not by killing. We can't go an eye for an eye.''
Mohamed, 42, told his congregants the opposite, reading chapter five, verse 45 of the Koran, ``an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.''
``I am quoting the Koran,'' Mohamed said. ``How could the Muslim leaders in the U.S. denounce armed forces against the Taliban when you've got Afghanis against the Taliban? I see some strong hypocrisy here.''
Munir Khan, the imam of the Islamic Movement of Florida in Hollywood, offered a view that fell somewhere between those of Zakkout and Mohamed.
``I don't think anybody would be comfortable with any kind of bombing,'' he said, ``but if that's what it takes to bring about justice then that's what we will have to do.''
After hearing Mohamed speak, 56-year-old Abdul Omar Ali agreed that the United States' military strategy is appropriate.
``What is a holy war?'' asked Ali, a Trinidadian who lives in Hollywood. ``Are we going to use our knowledge to determine what is a holy war or are we going to be led by other people who have their agenda?''
For Education And Discussion Only. Not For Commercial Use.
This Caribbean-born imam should be the one on the national media--not the ones who defend the Taliban and bin Laden.
I wish they would just not reject but outright condemned Jihad and toyed with the idea of volunteering to fight in Afganistan against the Taliban as many patriotic American must do.
After he warned the US State Department in January 1999 about the infiltration of most US mosques by wahhabi fundamentalists, Hizram Kabbani received death threats and almost universal condemnation from his "fellow Muslims." Kabbani also warned the State Dept at that time that Osama Bin Laden was probably going to launch a *substantial terrorist attack* on the US, which also earned him great criticism and resignations from his Muslim advocacy group.
We have to understand very clearly that the wahhibi who run Saudi Arabia in spirit, and who are the "foreign advisers" running the Taliban, have killed hundreds of thousands of their "fellow Muslims" because they would not submit to the insanity of wahhabist dictatorship. People without family in the Mideast can speak more freely, but many Muslims probably ARE living in fear of the wahhabis.
Based on what I have learned in the past month, I am inclined to think that "mainstream" Muslims are all violence advocating, terror-supporting monsters, and that only a few "fringe" elements are truly peaceful. Quite the opposite of what we have been hearing in the press and from President Bush (although I don't blame Bush for speaking in diplomatically necessary terms just now).
But I am starting to think that Islam is really a religion that can only be spread by the sword, and that this therefore really IS a religious war of the west against Muslims.
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