In Human Events this morning I discuss the implications of the massive outpouring of grief among Detroit Shi’ite Muslims for the jihad terrorist cleric Ayatollah Fadlallah:
Shi’ite Muslims in Detroit were in mourning last week for the Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a world-renowned Lebanese cleric who died on July 4.
Three Shi’ite mosques conducted memorial services for six nights, with thousands of area Muslims attending.
That ought to give law enforcement and government officials pause, since Fadlallah was a bloodthirsty jihadist cleric who hated America and Israel, and approved of the 1983 Hezbollah attacks on a U.S. Marine barracks and the American Embassy in Beirut that killed over 300.
If what the mainstream media constantly tells us about Islam and Muslims is true, wouldn’t thousands of Muslims in Detroit be denouncing Fadlallah, rather than mourning him? It is constantly demanded of us, on pain of charges of “Islamophobia” and bigotry, that we assume without examination that most Muslims in the U.S.–all but a few “wackos,” such as are found in “any religious group”–are loyal citizens who love constitutional liberties, abhor jihad terrorism, and have no intention of bringing Islamic law here, at any time or in any way, in whole or in part, now or in the future.
So why do so many Detroit-area Muslims love Fadlallah? Shouldn’t patriotic, pluralistic American Muslims oppose such a man, and not engage in such a public display of mourning, simply as a matter of principle? It certainly seems so from Fadlallah’s public record.
Imam Mohammed Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights last week called Fadlallah a “man of peace, man of justice … a man of antiterrorism and antiviolence.” There are some very compelling indications, however, that Elahi’s characterization of Fadlallah was about as accurate as calling Barack Obama an advocate of the free market….