Boston Mosque: The Rise of Radical Islam

BOSTON, Massachusetts - A mosque is rising in the heart of Boston. Not just any mosque, but the largest mosque in the northeastern United States. At a cost of $22 million, the 60,000-square-foot Islamic Cultural Center will be a prominent symbol of the growth of Islam in America. But the project is under fire, as some say it will also be a symbol of radical Islam.

The Islamic Society of Boston is under scrutiny for ties to radicalism. But the society says it does not tolerate extremism. And yet, some former and present leaders of the society have been tied to extremism.

The connections go right to the foundation of this mosque and the Islamic Society of Boston, or ISB.

The very founder of the Islamic society, Abdurahman Alamoudi, is sitting in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges related to a bizarre plot by Moammar Ghadafi to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. But the society insists it hasn't had a relationship with its founder for several years.

Dr. Yusef al-Qaradawi used to be listed as one of the society’s four directors, on IRS forms. The ISB says Qaradawi is a respected Muslim scholar, but the Egyptian Wahabbi cleric has urged Iraqi Muslims to kill American soldiers, and has praised Palestinian suicide bombers.

He was almost banned from entering Britain this summer. On July 7, 2004, he was publicly condemned by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said, "Let me make it absolutely clear. We want nothing to do with people who support suicide bombers in Palestine or elsewhere, or support terrorism.”

In 1995, Qaradawi told his followers, "We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America!" The society says listing Qaradawi as a director was an “administrative oversight'' which, it says, “was subsequently corrected.''

Dennis Hale, a Boston College professor, said, "This is a smokescreen. This is deception."

Hale heads Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, a group that wants the Islamic Society of Boston to come clean about its ties to radical Islam.

Hale remarked, "This is a mosque that combines Wahabbi theology, Muslim Brotherhood politics and lots of money, and that's a very dangerous combination. Everywhere in the world where that's been found, bad things happened."

Osama Kandil, a trustee of the society, has been linked by the government to the directorship of Taibah International Aid Association, a group that some federal officials suspect supports terrorists. The ISB says Taibah is an Islamic charitable organization.

Terrorism expert Stephen Scwartz has a different view. He said, “Taibah was a scheme that was used to swindle people to get them to believe they were helping Bosnians, when, in fact, Taibah exploited Bosnians and Bosnia in order to advance the terrorist agenda in Europe. Taibah was shut down by the Bosnian government right after 9-11, and I don't accept in any way, any description of Taibah as anything else but part of the terrorist network.”

Kandil has also been identified in a federal government affidavit as a member of the "Safa Group," a complicated array of individuals and interlocking for-profit and non-profit entities allegedly involved in financing Islamic terrorism.

Schwartz said, “The SAFA group is much worse than Taibah in my view. Now, the SAFA group is a group that operates in the United States. And the SAFA group is essentially a financial cover for groups connected to Wahabbism in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood. SAFA was essentially a financial conspiracy to support extremist activity all over the world.”

An affidavit unsealed in federal court in Virginia last year said financial activity by the Safa Group "evidences a conspiracy. . .to route money through hidden paths to terrorists and to defraud the United States."

Walid Fitaihi, another leader of the society, wrote in an article for an Arabic-language newspaper that Jews are the "the murderers of prophets." According to one translation, he also accused Jews of the "oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah. They have perpetrated the worst of evils, and they have brought the worst corruption to the earth..."

The ISB says Fitaihi's comments were ``not meant to incite hatred of an entire faith or people.''

Hale said, “The new so-called new leaders of the Mosque have continued to deny that Fitaihi is an anti-Semite and he's still on the board of trustees. They said they would fire him. They said they had fired him, but they didn't.”

The bulk of the money for the new mosque has come from private individuals in Saudi Arabia. That is another red flag, according to terror experts. So you might think that at this point, the City of Boston would get involved.

But the mayor's office, as well as The Boston Globe newspaper, have brushed off concern over the mosque. In fact, the Boston Redevelopment Authority under Mayor Thomas Menino sold the ISB the land for the mosque for a song; one half or one quarter of its true value.

Real Estate developer Steve Cohen, a member of Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, said, “The City of Boston sold land to the Mosque for $175,000. This land was worth some place between $450,000 and $1 million. This is a religious group that can raise $22 million from contributors in the Middle East. Why do they need financial assistance?”

Cohen continued, “So many citizens are asking the question, why does this mosque, which is preaching such abhorrent views, and has access to millions of dollars raised in Saudi Arabia, why is this mosque being subsidized by the city of Boston?”

A suit has been filed by a Roxbury resident contending that the land sale violates the separation of mosque and state. The mayor's office did not respond to our request for an interview.

No less than Bernard Lewis, the world-renowned Arab expert at Princeton, told us the Wahabbi brand of Islam can be compared to the Ku Klux Klan.

Hale commented, “If the Ku Klux Klan built an academy in Boston, the Boston Globe would be all over them. But for some reason they have been reluctant to say what is clearly true about the teachers of Wahabbi Islam, that they are intolerant bigots, and sometimes violent, to boot.”

Former Harvard professor Dr. Ahmed Mansour says when he visited the present mosque in Cambridge with his wife, he found Wahabbi reading materials that preached hatred toward America.

CBN News tried repeatedly to interview new ISB Chairman Yousef Abou-Leban. Although the ISB says it has begun a new period of "transparency" and outreach to the media, the leadership declined to talk on camera with us. On its website, the ISB says, the "negative media attention given to the ISB is not the result of honest, diligent journalism, but of malicious intent to discredit our organization and the new Cultural Center in Boston."

The ISB website has also put a statement of faith on its Web page that condemns bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism. It also affirms the equality of men and women, although we found instructions on the website on the correct way a man should beat his wife.

Hale said, “There are many people who wonder why we would be picking on a mosque, and what we have tried to explain to people is that we have no objection to a mosque, it's the leaders of this mosque that we object to and have concerns about…This kind of teaching plants a bomb in the heart. There is such a thing as radical Islam. It's real. It's everywhere. It's first victims are moderate Muslims who feel left out of these radical mosques.”

But the mosque in Roxbury will be built, and it will be one of the largest mosques in America. Dr. Mansour says the Wahabbis teach that mosques in Christian nations are viewed as outposts ... in the land of the infidel.

Islamic Society urged to respond
Group still quiet on anti-Semitism issue
By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | October 7, 2004

The Anti-Defamation League and Jewish leaders yesterday asked the Islamic Society of Boston to renounce one of its board members, whose writings they say are ''virulently anti-Semitic."

As Boston officials planned to reexamine details of its sale of land to the Islamic Society amid questions about the group's connections to extremists, the ADL and Temple Israel, the largest synagogue in Boston, made public for the first time a seven-month-long dispute with Islamic Society's leaders over articles written in Arabic-language newspapers by Dr. Walid Fitaihi.

The ADL said Fitaihi is the Islamic Society of Boston's treasurer, though it is unclear what role, if any, Fitaihi plays in the Society. On the Islamic Society's 2000 tax return he is listed as a board member. On its 2001 return, he is listed as the treasurer. Islamic Society officials did not return phone calls yesterday.

Since March, the Islamic Society has ''done little to reassure" the ADL and Temple Israel that they have misinterpreted Fitaihi's writings or that other leaders of the Society don't agree with his views, the group wrote in a letter to the Society.

''In the absence of such a clarification, other allegations against the ISB are gaining greater resonance, and there remains a contradiction between your values statement and your actions," the letter says.

Robert Leikind, the ADL's regional director, urged the Society to speak out, especially after a group calling itself Citizens for Peace and Tolerance raised questions at a news conference Tuesday about the Society's alleged ties to Muslim extremists.

''It's difficult to understand why they would not seize the opportunity to condemn and disassociate expressions of anti-Semitism," Leikind said. ''We are concerned over why people who we have viewed as partners would hedge on issues as important as this."

The Cambridge-based Society is building a $22 million mosque and cultural center in Roxbury, on land sold by the Boston Redevelopment Authority for $175,000.

Leikind said the ADL and Temple Israel first reached out to the Islamic Society last March after the Boston Herald reported that Fitaihi, who is living in his native Saudi Arabia, had published a series of anti-Semitic articles including one in which he condemns Jews as ''the murderers of prophets."

According to English translations provided by the ADL, Fitaihi, an endocrinologist, also wrote that Jews will be ''scourged" because of their ''oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah."

''They have perpetrated the worst of evils and they have brought the worst corruption to the earth, and what we see of them these days is glad tidings for the Muslim heralding the fulfillment of Allah's promise of victory after the second transgression," Fitaihi wrote in the Arabic-language London daily newspaper, Al Sharq al-Awsat, on Oct. 18, 2000.

Rabbi Ronne Friedman of Temple Israel said the Jewish community's cordial relations with the Islamic Society have become strained because of the Society's failure to ''completely disassociate itself from those people who have spoken" expressions of anti-Semitism.

''We are very eager to establish and maintain significant intergroup relations with Muslim neighbors and institutions," he said.

In a statement published on the Society's website last month, the group defended Fitaihi, saying they found the quotes attributed to him to be ''glaringly in contrast to what we know of his actions in this community and the hundreds of articles he has published in overseas newspapers."

After an investigation, the statement said, Society officials concluded the articles were ''not meant to incite hatred of an entire faith or people."

Rather, they were intended to condemn ''particular individuals" whom Fitaihi believes were working to destroy the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, ''killing innocent children" and ''blocking the possibility of peace in the Middle East," the statement said.

Meanwhile yesterday, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said he has asked BRA officials to look at the Islamic Society, and the BRA's sale of 2 acres of land to the group for $175,000. The BRA had valued the land at $401,000. To make up the difference, the Society was asked to make in-kind payments in the form of benefits, including a lecture series, to Roxbury Community College. The Society was also to maintain two nearby parks.

''I'm asking the BRA to do research on the whole issue -- just to satisfy my curiosity," Menino said. ''There are a lot of good people in the Islamic Society. We shall not condemn a community for people who have been disassociated from the Society."

He said the group has disavowed any relationship with terrorists or extremist groups.

Boston city councilors voted yesterday to schedule a hearing into the land deal after several councilors learned of the allegations of extremist connections on Tuesday.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/10/07/islamic_society_urged_to_respond?mode=PF

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