I just about dropped my teeth when I read the first paragraph of this story from Australia's Sunday Telegraph (thanks to nevermindlv). It seems that the "moderate leader" of Sydney's Lakemba mosque, Sheikh Taj el-Din Al-Hilaly, is in danger of being replaced by a hardliner.
Now wait a minute. Al-Hilaly is a moderate now? Has the Australian press utterly forgotten the brouhaha that raged in February and March after he praised suicide bombing and called for jihad against Israel? Do they have no recollection of his claiming Australia as originally part of the Dar Al-Islam? Has amnesia overtaken them, so that they forgot that he claimed that 9/11 was "God's work"?
To be sure, Zoud is probably even more radical. But if Hilaly is a moderate, God help us.
YOUNG, hardline Muslims are moving to take control of the Sydney's Lakemba Mosque and depose its moderate leader, Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilaly.Supporters of Sheik Hilaly believe a number of rival groups are organising a coup against him, including one led by Sheik Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
Sheik Zoud runs Lakemba's Haldon St prayer hall, which has long been of interest to ASIO.
He presided at the marriage last year of terror suspect Willie Brigitte to Melanie Brown.
Brigitte is now being interrogated by French authorities.
Earlier this year, Brigitte reportedly identified Sheik Zoud as a recruiter of terrorists in Sydney, a claim the Sheik angrily denies.
Something tells me that if we have a bunch of savage radicals taking over the local mosque, we may just have to gear up for an exodus from Islam.
Many people love the imaginary shadow-play of "extremists" and "moderates." And if a new "extremist," a really extreme extremist, an extreemiest extremist, why then the whole lineup changes, and he goes to the head of the line, and the one who used to be the "extremist" -- even though his views have not changed one whit -- becomes a kind of "moderate."
There is no limit to the idiocy of the age. One remembers how, during the heyday of Chairman Mao, with his fat dimpled face and uncultivated ways, Western commentators would be entranced with Chou En-Lai, so suave, with those tapered fingers inserting the cigarette into the cigarette holder -- why, one could imagine him running a nightclub in Saigon, with French clientele, in the 1920s, with "La petite Tonkinoise" tinkling in the background. He seemed so -- so Western, and therefore a "moderate" as compared to Mao. But that was all nonsense.
And this came of "extremists" and "moderates," of "extremists" who become "moderates" by comparison with other, new-kids-on-the-block "extremists," is the kind of thing that is unworthy of serious analysis. Leave that to the Tom Friedmans and their think-tank equivalents. The clear-sighted should not stoop.
Hilaly's been caught out saying some pretty "immoderate" things in the past, but has tried to weasel his way out by claiming the old excuses of: out of context, misinterpretation, Arabic's very poetic so can't be translated literally, blah, blah, blah. I don't know why the media go along with his smokescreening, but then that's the media for you. Still desperately wanting to believe that Islam is just an exotic nice religion, victim of a few radicals "hijacking" their nice religion.
I like Hugh's explanation, I think it hits it on the nose. Maybe Hilaly is moderate compared to this other nutcase, but that doesn't make him acceptable. With each generation, it seems they get more extreme, so that even this Zoud could be viewed as a moderate when compared to the next one. Heaven help us if we get to that point, but I fear we're running headlong into that scenario. People keep telling themselves that the new immigrants will assimilate and the next generation will blend in and become more Westernised. That was the case with the Italians, the Greeks, the Slavs, but it will never be the case with Muslims. It seems the younger generation are even more hateful and violent than their parents are.
That whole Lakemba area is foreign land now, our own Falluja in the making if things continue as they are. Young Muslim thugs run the crime scene there and cops don't go there for fear of being swarmed & threatened by these criminals. Non-Muslim Australians know not to venture in there. And non-Muslim Sydney girls ("white Aussie pigs") learned a harsh lesson a few years back, when chatted up by seemingly friendly and oh so nice Muslim men. Just waiting for a train after work you pray you don't get approached by young Muslim men, and not just in Lakemba. Young non-Muslim men beaten up by packs of Muslim men for no reason. Sunbathing beachgoers harrassed by Muslim men making lewd and obnoxious gestures and comments at bathing-suit clad women. You learn to ignore them, for your safety. Oh, the joys of multiculturalism! I can just imagine the damage this Zoud will do if he gets to the top of the pile.