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.