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From the Chicago Tribune comes a fascinating story of how Muslim radicals gained control of a mosque in Bridgeview, Illinois. (Thanks to Bassam Madany and Paul Weyrich.)
There is a great deal to this. It's all worth reading, but here are some highlights:
Among the leaders at the Bridgeview mosque are men who have condemned Western culture, praised Palestinian suicide bombers and encouraged members to view society in stark terms: Muslims against the world. Federal authorities for years have investigated some mosque officials for possible links to terrorism financing, but no criminal charges have been filed.Mosque leaders deny encouraging militancy and have denounced terrorism, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They shun the fundamentalist label, saying they follow the true form of Islam and others do not. They point out that an elected board sets mosque policy; if the worshipers wanted a more liberal mosque, they would vote for one.
"It's an election, a democratic process," mosque President Oussama Jammal said.
The mosque now attracts thousands of worshipers--most of them Palestinian-Americans--by offering pro-Palestinian sermons, a spiritual refuge and a strict version of Islam. The ultraconservative Saudi Arabian government partially pays the salary of prayer leader Sheik Jamal.
Moderate Muslims still pray at the mosque, but some say conservatives have created an environment that is overly political, too rigid in its interpretation of Islam and resistant to open debate. These members also worry that the Muslim Brotherhood, a controversial group with a violent past, has an undue influence over the mosque. Despite these concerns, the critics largely remain silent, fearful of being called "unIslamic" by mosque leaders.
That is precisely the problem in so many places. The hard-liners can take the Islamic high ground, adducing numerous texts in support of their views. The moderates are thus effectively silenced.
In this story, the moderates who founded the mosque
practiced a form of Islam that allowed Muslims to socialize freely. They viewed their religion as an important part of life, but not all of life. Men and women could mingle. The women wore short sleeves and did not cover their hair. The men sometimes ran liquor stores even though many Muslims believed Islam forbade selling alcohol.
This is why they are on the defensive. When someone comes saying, "Religion should govern all of life," especially in the context of a law-intensive religion like Islam, many Muslims fall susceptible. And soon these "moderate" trappings are swept away.
And where did this Islamic awakening come from? You guessed it:
The 35-year-old Najib, the only Muslim lawyer mosque leaders knew, became the mosque's attorney and helped write its constitution. Other mosque officials fired off telegrams overseas and traveled to the Middle East several times, targeting countries such as Saudi Arabia, which had started giving away its new oil wealth to help spread its rigid form of Islam.One mosque fundraising brochure warned that Chicago's Muslims were at risk of "melting in the American society, culture and lifestyle." A plea to a Saudi charity asked for money "before it becomes too late and we may lose our children because they are living in an unIslamic society."
Such pleas illustrate the tug of war that faced many mosques in America--between the forces of assimilation and Islamic traditions, between the new country and the old.
The money poured into Bridgeview, more than $1.2 million in all, according to mosque records. Kuwaiti donors gave $369,000. The Saudi government donated $152,000. The religious ministry of the United Arab Emirates contributed $135,000.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which I show in Onward Muslim Soldiers to be the root of modern Islamic terrorism, was also involved.
Then the mosque leaders asked religious authorities in Jordan to send an assistant prayer leader. The authorities sent Masoud Ali Masoud, a 57-year-old Palestinian who worked for Jordan's religious affairs ministry.He also belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that believed in spreading a strict form of Islam and creating states governed by Islamic law.
The Brotherhood had gained notoriety for repeatedly attempting to overthrow the Egyptian and Syrian governments. It spawned two violent Islamic groups: the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, offshoots created by former Brotherhood members who believed the Brotherhood was not militant enough. And Brotherhood members would go on to form the militant Palestinian group Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the U.S. in 1995.
But the Brotherhood also organized political protests and ran charities, and many supporters, including Masoud, saw the group as a peaceful movement aimed at restoring Islam's greatness in the world. The Brotherhood did not operate openly in America, though its members quietly influenced some Muslim groups.
Soon, mosque leaders--adhering to a strict interpretation of Islam--told the congregation's women to cover their hair and wear looser clothing. During social events, the women were separated from the men.
And today:
Meanwhile, mosque attendance is booming. Friday prayers are so crowded that dozens cannot get inside, forcing them to place their prayer rugs on the front lawn. As many as 2,000 attend Friday prayers. Bridgeview remains one of the most popular of the Chicago area's 50 mosques.Sheik Jamal and other mosque leaders still pursue a controversial agenda.
In March 2002, the mosque hired a new assistant prayer leader--the same man who had run the local office of an Islamic charity until it was closed by the federal government for alleged terrorism ties. Even a few board members questioned whether he should have been hired so quickly.
At a prayer service last May, Sheik Jamal raised $50,000 for Palestinian activist Sami Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida who is charged with being the U.S. leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. To rally donors, the sheik called Israel "a foreign, malignant and strange element on the blessed land."
Al-Arian denies the charges against him. Oussama Jammal, the mosque president, defended the fundraising for Al-Arian. "We raised for his legal defense. That's allowed under U.S. law," he said. "If people were against this, they wouldn't have paid."
In December, at an Islamic conference in Chicago, Sheik Jamal said that Muslims should not listen to contemporary music and that women should not travel long distances without chaperones. He also praised Sayyid Qutb, whose writings helped lay the foundation for Muslim Brotherhood beliefs.
The mosque remains so conservative, several former leaders said, because more and more mosque officials are Brotherhood members.
Mosque leaders declined to comment on the Brotherhood, but director Bassam Jody noted that most of the mosque's 24 directors belong to the Muslim American Society--a group with strong ties to the Brotherhood. The mosque vice president runs the society's local chapter.
Posted by Robert at February 9, 2004 7:57 AM
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Well. If they're concerned about "losing their children" because they live in an Unislamic society, here's a novel idea.
HOW ABOUT YOU JUST TAKE YOUR ASSES OUT OF HERE! WE DIDN'T ASK YOU TO COME HERE, AND WE CERTAINLY DON'T NEED YOU HERE. GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM IF YOU PRAISE TERRORISM AND HATE AMERICA, ARROGANT JERKWEEDS.
TO HELL WITH YOU BIGOTS.
D.C. WATSON OHIO USA
I am not surprised by this. It does not take a 'radical' interpretation of Islam to reach this state.
In my view, preaching jihad is treason, and thus allows deportation. Daniel Pipes has actually proposed monitoring the sermons in mosques.
The West needs to expel this cancer, and so I agree with the essence, if not the actual content of D.C.'s statement
Posted by: Budd at February 9, 2004 9:50 AMThis article shows so clearly the transformation that has taken place throughout the Muslim communities abroad in the last 40 years. It's not radicals who have hijacked Islam, it's Saudi fundamentalists who are trying to turn the clock back 1300 years.
Unfortunately, moderate Muslims will not speak out for fear that they'll be considered "un-Islamic." So what does that leave, then? Maybe Daniel Pipes has a point.
They brought in an assistant prayer leader from Syria?!
Does that mean that they can bring in whoever they want,whenever they want?!
If that is the case,and if these muslim fanatics can come and go as they please,than we realy,realy have a seriuos problem.
MANY OF THE RESPONDERS ARE RACISTS OR IGNORANT WHO ARE SPILLING THEIR GUTS TODAY, PROJECTING THEIR LACK OF KNOWLEDGE AND FULL WITH HATRED THAT THEY STORE FOR ANYONE WHO LOOK, BELIEVE OR FEEL DEFFERENT. I MEAN THOSE WHO ONLY KNOW HOW TO MIMICK UGLY AND IGNORANT FRASES AND CAN ONLY RESPONDED WITH HATE SUCH, I AM ADDRESSING D.C. WATSON, BUDD, ADELA.ZORKMIDDEN, ETC..
ALLOW ME TO GIVE MY VIEWS OF THE ISSUE AND HOW DO I FEEL ABOUT IT:
I am a Muslim-American of Lebanese origin who read the article, “Struggle for the Soul of Islam” in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune
The article was a beautiful history of an American dream realized for a new section of American society. A poor Palestinian who lead a group of people from his hometown of Beitunia to build something in a new land that will live and serve him and his brethren as well as every Muslim including myself that lives in this country.
But that history was tainted by accusations between members of a mosque on the south side of Chicago. The mosque was not built for Omar Najib, Jamal Said, or Khalil Zayid it was a mosque built for every Muslim who needed a place to worship. Mosque’s are God’s houses not my house or your house.
That personal dispute became the basis for an article that pits East against West and “Muslims against the world.” Today there is no us and them, no clash of civilizations but one world where Muslims, Christians and Jews live both in the East and the West.
Like any other religion there are factions, sects and different schools of thought in Islam, there are radical people not “radical elements of Islam” that manipulate the religion to defend an unjust or violent action.
The undisputed principle of Islam is one: there is one God, no God but one God and Mohammed is the prophet of God as well as a respect for other religions. That was the intention of Khalil Zayid as it is mine and it is a disgrace to his memory to have a personal dispute between a person losing an election and the current leadership of that mosque. People like Omar Najib should solve his problem the American way: take action, lobby and vote.
In a society like America where pluralism is encouraged, opinions are voiced openly, whether popular or not, Islam can and does flourish. This article put me on the defensive as a Muslim. I’m a law-abiding American, I follow every law of the land even if I disagree with them and I am privileged to have the right to disagree with my government openly.
Every time Islam is mentioned in mainstream media the religion is put on trial. I ask you to choose your words wisely and refrain from associating an entire community with terrorism and violence. It affects the security of every practicing Muslim-American in a country that is supposed to protect our right to worship
While I am not a member of the Al Aqsa mosque or a Palestinian I am offended as a Muslim by the association of mosques, clerics and Islam with terrorism. The article never accuses anyone of being a terrorist but it plants seeds of doubt for readers who have limited knowledge of Islam and the Middle East by using loaded terms such as: “possible links to terrorism,” “fundamentalism,” “radicals” and somehow blaming this mosque and community for a visit by Osama Bin Laden’s spiritual leader; a trip that the U.S. government supported to recruit Muslim fighters in an American backed war against the Soviets.
Why, now that Abdullah Azzam is an enemy of this country, is the mosque and community to blame for an American mistake? The cleric, Jamal Said, has no control and no right to turn any worshipper away regardless of his background.
I thought the time of McCarthyism was over, where an accusation was as bad as a conviction. But if that time was over I would not be writing this letter. Islam is not a stain that we need to wash away because we’re Americans.
The article also unfairly equates the Palestinian cause as a terrorist cause. The ongoing occupation, humiliation and defamation of the Palestinian people are not things that can be quietly dismissed as issues of terrorism. Palestinians have a legitimate grievance and have the right to raise money for their needy brethren and to raise money to defend a man in an American court of law.
The measure of a moderate or a radical Muslim is not the head scarf on a woman’s head or whether or not a man or woman drinks. Islam preaches modesty for men and women. A head scarf is a religious practice that some women choose to carry out and they should be respected for their decision. My wife and three daughters live in an Islamic home, are educated and practicing Muslims and none of them cover their hair even though I’m of the belief that the teaching of Islam urges women to cover. It is the right of a religious scholar to preach what he sees as moral behavior in Islam and his audience can choose their path.
It is not an affront to American life to refuse an alcoholic beverage or dress modestly. Plurality and diversity are not achieved through assimilation they are achieved by sharing differences and respecting and tolerating different lifestyles.
Mosques, Synagogues, Churches and other places of worship or community centers are intended to solve social problems, reduce crime and promote good citizenship.
The history of the Al Aqsa mosque is a testament that the American dream is real. I am grateful for that door to door salesman from Beitunia and the Palestinians that came after him, including Omar Najib. They have created a legacy, a community and a place of worship that I can use to practice my religion. I am one voice but I know that I am echoing the voice of a great many of the 400,000 Arabs and Muslims living in the greater Chicago area.
Adel Fadel
207 Saddle Lane
Fox River Grove, IL 60021
847-800-3283
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