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An ambulance has been called to the Lakemba Mosque in Sydney's south-west. The ambulance service says someone has collapsed inside the mosque. The incident happened at the same time a meeting between controversial Sydney Muslim cleric Sheikh Taj El-Din Al Hilaly and the president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, Tom Zreika, was meant to take place to discuss the Sheikh's future. The ambulance officers have entered the Sheik's office, but it is not known if the Sheik himself has collapsed.

SHEIK Taj al-Din al-Hilaly has praised militant jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling them men of the highest order for fighting against coalition forces - which include Australian soldiers - to "liberate" their homelands. (snip) In the interview, Sheik Hilaly pays tribute to Sayyid Qutb, the ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood and intellectual mentor of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. (snip) The revelation comes as a neighbouring cleric from Sydney's Bankstown accused Sheik Hilaly of supporting military Islamic jihad against the West and called on imams from around the country to band together and force the mufti to step down....

AUSTRALIA'S leading Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly, says he will only resign when the world is "clean of the White House". After emerging from Friday prayers at Lakemba Mosque today, Sheik Hilaly was asked by a media pack whether he would quit over a speech in which he said scantily-dressed women invited rape. "After we clean the world of the White House first," the sheik said. Supporters of the sheik cheered and applauded loudly at the comments, which were directed firmly at US President George W Bush.

THE United Muslim Women Association (MWA) today condemned comments by a senior Islamic cleric that women who wore revealing clothes invited sexual assault. Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly compared skimpily-dressed women to "uncovered meat" and suggested they were "the problem" that caused sexual attacks, The Australian reported today. Maha Abdo, manager of the association, said she was shocked by the comments, which they did not reflect mainstream Muslim beliefs. "From what I know of the imam, he's always been very supportive of women's rights and women's issues, and advocate of women," she said. Speaking from the association's offices in Lakemba in...

TO HIS family and friends, Mamdouh Habib was a devoted father and husband. But to others, the calm suburban veneer disguised an angry and often violent man whose actions were fuelled by his religious fanaticism. Seemingly a helpful supporter at his son's soccer matches, Habib also had a nasty streak which landed him with an AVO against former colleagues and a court order to destroy firearms and ammunition in his home. Nine days after the September 11 attack in New York, his home was raided by the nation's chief spy watchdog ASIO. Today, the fate of the man named as...

CANBERRA, Australia - An Australian engineer from California who was dramatically rescued in Baghdad last week after being held hostage for six weeks would have been released without military intervention, Australia's most senior Muslim cleric insisted Sunday. Iraqi and U.S. troops freed Douglas Wood, a 64-year-old resident of Alamo, California, early on July 15 from a Baghdad house where insurgents were holding him for ransom. Sheik Taj El Din al-Hilaly, an Egyptian-born Sunni cleric who flew from his Sydney home within days of the April 30 abduction to negotiate a release, said Wood was to have been released the day...

AUSTRALIA'S Muslim body may discuss stripping Grand Mufti Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilaly of his title at its next Congress meeting over comments he allegedly made about terrorism. The mufti has come under fire for comments he allegedly made during a sermon in Lebanon in which he made reference to the Arab martyrs and the September 11 attacks in New York as "God's work against oppressors". The chief executive officer of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Amjad Mehboob, said today the matter may come up at their next meeting on April 17. "The matter could come up for discussion...,"...