Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald profiles Mahdi Bray, a slick American Muslim who attended a talk I gave in Boston a few months ago. There he played his “country Muslim” act, sweet-talked me and the crowd, and invited me to a friendly get-together and dialogue with the local Muslim community. I have, of course, never heard from him since: it was all for the benefit of the people in the audience — an attempt to win them over and blunt the force of the evidence I was presenting. But the information Hugh has here will help you be prepared with the facts about his career anytime you may encounter Mahdi in the future:
A convert to Islam, Mahdi Bray is not one of those, like Ibrahim Hooper, who has attained national prominence. He is a tireless worker at the local level, however, and in his dual presentation of self, or presentation of dual selves, most instructive. Soft-spoken and smiling and all sweet reason, and with a comfortably American voice, when addressing Infidels, he becomes something quite different for Muslim audiences, where he has been known to chant-and-rant, as in his call of support for Hamas before a crowd in Washington, or whipping up a crowd to show up at a courtroom to mock the proceedings which involved charging a Muslim with plotting to kill the American President. He is also careful, at the local level, to carry out all those carefully-calibrated and well-publicized deeds of supposed charity – to earn Infidel goodwill – that are described as being so useful in the conduct of Da’wa at Muslim sites.
In his last appearance in The Boston Globe, some months ago, he is seen in a photograph (he made sure there would be a Globe photographer handy) helping to lift a box of donated food for the poor, which we are naturally supposed to believe is disinterested Muslim charity, but zakat, of course, can only be given to Infidels for the sake of promoting Islam. Just as Muslim websites carefully offer detailed instructions as to how Muslim parents can get their way, when making special requests (for prayer-rooms and the like) of teachers and school administrators, there are detailed instructions as to how to obtain favorable publicity – and the ostentatious “donation to charity” has been mentioned as the kind of thing local groups can engage in.
Bray, retaining his soft-spoken Virginia ways, seldom fails to remind non-Muslims that he is “just a country Muslim from Norfolk, Virginia”; this Americanizes it, makes it wholesome, familiar, unthreatening. As the director of something called the “Freedom Foundation” at the Muslim American Society. Bray has frequently denounced acts of the American government that are meant to defend American citizens from Muslim terrorism.
The list of those he has chosen to vocally defend is instructive. At least since July, 2004, he demanded the return of Ahmad Abu-Ali from Saudi Arabia:
“MAS Freedom Foundation’s Executive Director, Mahdi Bray, called the continued detention of Ahmed Abu-Ali, an American born citizen and an honor student, in a Saudi Arabian jail a “national disgrace and tragedy.”
But when Abu-Ali was finally extradited to the United States, presumably fulfilling that demand that he be released from a Saudi jail, Mahdi Bray was still not happy:
“We’re deeply grateful to the Almighty for the return of Abu-Ali to the United States of America,” said Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation Executive Director Mahdi Bray. “However, I am still greatly troubled and concerned about the manner in which our government has dealt with Abu Ali and his family.
“Nothing short of his release and return to his family is acceptable to us.”
When Abu-Ali, who was eventually charged with plotting to kill President Bush, appeared for his hearing at a courthouse in Virginia, those whom Mahdi Bray had helped urge to come to protest did. Violating court decorum, they entered the court and laughed at the judge as he announced the charges.
Even before he went to bat for Abu-Ali, Mahdi Bray had stood up for Abdurrahman Alamoudi, the man connected to the Boston Mosque which benefited from a sweetheart land deal, arranged by a dangerously ill-informed Mayor Menino. Abdurrahman Alamoudi’s sinister views and connections can easily be found discussed in detail on the Internet, but it was not his hatred for Infidels, or his plans for Islamic dominance, that got him in trouble. In the end, it was his part in a plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia that ended in Alamoudi’s receiving a 23-year sentence.
And now, to complete the trilogy, Mahdi Bray bemoans the treatment of Al-Timimi, the Muslim leader in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., who was just found guilty of urging followers to fight the Americans in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But standing up for Abu Ali, and Al-Timimi, and Abdurrahman Alamoudi, are just part of Bray’s activities.
In October 2000 he appeared at a demonstration called in support of Hamas and Hizbullah:
“In American Jihad, [Steve] Emerson notes that when Abdurrahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, who is now serving a 23-year prison sentence for a terrorism financing conviction, encouraged the Muslim crowd at an October 2000 rally cosponsored by MPAC to declare their support of the jihad terror groups Hamas and Hizballah, “MPAC’s Political Advisor, Mahdi Bray, stood directly behind Alamoudi and was seen jubilantly exclaiming his support for these two deadly terrorist organizations.” This was just three weeks after Bray “coordinated and led a rally where approximately 2,000 people congregated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.” Emerson reports that “at one point during the rally, Mahdi Bray played the tambourine as one of the speakers sang, while the crowd repeated: ‘Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is calling us, let’s all go into jihad, and throw stones at the face of the Jews [sic].’
Mahdi Bray was at another demonstration in December of that same year:
On December 22, 2000, MPAC’s Mahdi Bray organized a rally in Lafayette Park outside the White House to celebrate a “Worldwide Day for Jerusalem.” In Arabic, the crowd responsively chanted with the emcee, “Khaybar, Khaybar oh Jews, the Army of Muhammad is coming for you!” Posters calling for “Death to Israel” and equating the Star of David with the Nazi swastika were openly displayed and anti-Semitic literature calling for the destruction of the Jews and Israel was distributed. Members of the crowd burned the Israeli flag while marching from the White House to the State Department.
Bray spoke at this rally, along with Imam Mohammed al-Asi, former director of the Islamic Education Center in Potomac, Maryland, who exhorted the crowd to violence in the name of Islam. Al-Asi said, “Now, all our khatibs (speakers), our imams, our public speakers, should be concentrating on militarizing the Muslim public. This is not a time to make a speaking issue out of this … Muslims have to familiarize themselves with every means possible … Rhetoric is not going to liberate Al Quds and Al Aqsa. Only carrying arms will do this task. And it’s not going to be someone else who is going to carry arms for you and for me. It is you and me who are going to have to carry these arms.”
And here is some testimony before Congress about Mahdi Bray:
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Terrorist Recruitment and Infiltration in the United States: Prisons and Military as an Operational Base.
Statement of J. Michael Waller
Annenberg Professor of International Communication
Institute of World PoliticsBefore the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security
Senate Committee on the Judiciary
14 October 2003
Appendix 2: Key Organizations Involved in Muslim Prison Recruitment
National Islamic Prison Foundation (NIPF) – Contact: Mahdi Bray; 1212 New York Ave. NW, Suite 525, Washington, DC 20005. This is the same address as the American Muslim Council (AMC).
“¢ “Specifically organized to convert American inmates to Wahhabism.”
And at www.masboston.org, the website of the Boston chapter of the “Muslim American Society” there are quite a number of items of interest. The first is the listing of the “Trainers” of Muslim activists (“training” in how to talk to Infidels at Outreach Meetings or in the conduct of Da’wa or in dealing with inquisitive media). In fact only one “trainer” is listed: Mahdi Bray
Imam Mahdi Bray is a long time civil and human rights activist. He is currently the Executive Director of the Muslim American Society (MAS) Freedom Foundation, and the President of the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations (CCMO). He also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice and the Interfaith Alliance, and also on the Advisory Board of the American Muslim Council and Muslim Public Affairs Council. He is a Washington, DC, Television and Radio Talk-Show Host.
He has served as a major consultant and a political advisor to Bonner & Associates, Washington’s largest grassroots lobbying firm, the National Center for Housing Management, Alexandria City Redevelopment & Housing Authority, Community Relations Department, The City of Norfolk, Virginia, Department of Community Improvement, and the Independent Voter League. He has also served as a Political Advisor and Strategist, to several national, state, and local political campaigns. He is also the author of, ‘The Masjid (Mosque) Voter’s Guide’ and ‘The Political Guide for Masjid (Mosque) Activists.’
Also, Imam Mahdi Bray is one of the main organizers for the No War on Iraq movement.He has also served as a liaison between President’s White House Faith-Based Initiative Program and congressional affairs on behalf of the Muslim community.
On another page, there is an advertisement for a Muslim summer camp where students will experience “Tarbeya”:
“At MAS, the Tarbeya process is considered the most important process and the Tarbeya department is one of the permanent departments in the organization. This belief traces its origin to the teachings of Prophet Mohamed as he — peace be upon him- –invested a lot of effort doing Tarbeya for his companions. As a result of his effort, he did not only leave a great message, the message of Islam, but also left a great generation that carried the message and spread it all over the land and moved humanity from darkness to light. Islamic history proved that whenever this process was considered, Muslims were able to succeed and Islam prevailed. Imam Hassan Al-Banna, the founder and the leader of a great Islamic movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, said ‘Whenever you find the good Muslim you find with him all means for great success.'”
Note the praise of Hassan al-Banna, described as “the founder and the leader of a great Islamic movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.” Anyone who does not know what the Muslim Brotherhood stands for can simply google that organization. Hassan Al-Banna (his grandson, Tariq Ramadan, pretending that his own unwillingness to disown Al-Banna is merely a matter of noble filial piety, a filiopietism that compels him not to publicly disown “my grandfather” when in fact the real reason he does not distance himself from his grandfather is that he agrees with the program of the Muslim Brotherhood). Hassan al-Banna not only organized secret cells in Egypt, but would also give public addresses, whipping up his followers. And what better way for those followers to express their ignited enthusiasm, than to go out and attack non-Muslims (Copts and Jews), to beat them, even to kill them, and of course to destroy their small businesses. After one such speech in Cairo, on November 2, 1945, the whipped-up mobs did exactly that.
The next time a smiling plausible fellow shows up at a public gathering, no longer shaking a tambourine, and shouting hosannas to Hamas and Hezbullah, but offering a tone of sweet reasonableness, of more-in-sorrow wistfulness about the mean-minded misunderstanding of Islam, and the terrible victimization of Muslims, see if he manages to describe himself as “just a country Muslim from Norfolk, Virginia” with a smile and an ah-shucks shrug meant to suggest two things – he’s just as American as he can possibly be, and therefore, so to is this wonderful doctrine of Islam that we keep hearing all those untrue and unfair things about. If you hear about Norfolk, Virginia, and the “li’l ole Muslim” routine, you can be sure you are in the presence of Mahdi Bray.
And if he offers an Infidel audience a practiced display of Taqiyya and Tu-Quoque, and a look of wounded innocence, it might help to have this article handy, so that they will know about Alamoudi, Abu-Ali, Al-Timimi, and that tambourine shout-out in Lafayette Park for such terrorist groups as Hamas and Hezbollah. It won’t put a stop to the act, but it will no longer be a hard act to follow.
And remember how another li’l ole country boy, this one from Concord, Massachusetts, named Ralph Waldo Emerson, who famously cautioned wariness:
“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
The more we hear tell about the “tolerance” and “peace” and all-round goodness of Islam, the more we feel the urge to count aloud, not the number of spoons, but the number of victims of Jihad-conquest (Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists, and the more we feel impelled to count up all the onerous disabilities that those non-Muslims who were not killed or forcibly converted at once but permitted to survive as dhimmis under Muslim rule, suffered through time and space, over 1350 years, from the Iberian Peninsula to the East Indies, wherever Islam ruled and Muslims dominated.