It is good that Mohammed Malik reported Omar Mateen to the FBI. It is not so good that the FBI, besotted with political correctness, underestimated the threat Mateen posed.
It is also not so good that Mohammed Malik implies that Mateen’s jihad massacre was a reaction to “Islamopobia”; Malik writes: “But as news reports this week have made clear, Omar did have a dark outlook on life. Partly, he was upset at what he saw as racism in the United States – against Muslims and others. When he worked as a security guard at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, he told me visitors often made nasty or bigoted remarks to him about Islam. He overheard people saying ugly things about African Americans, too. Since Sept. 11, I’ve thought the only way to answer Islamophobia was to be polite and kind; the best way to counter all the negativity people were seeing on TV about Islam was by showing them the opposite. I urged Omar to volunteer and help people in need – Muslim or otherwise (charity is a pillar of Islam). He agreed, but was always very worked up about this injustice.” And eventually his rage at this alleged injustice boiled over at The Pulse nightclub — is that your point, Mr. Malik?
Malik also inspires something less than confidence when he says: “’If anyone slew one person, it would be as if he killed the whole of humanity,’ says the Koran.” This is what the Qur’an really says: “Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption in the land — it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one — it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.” (5:32)
First, note that this is not a general moral principle applying to everyone, as Malik implied, but one only for the Children of Israel. Nor is it is not a general prohibition of killing: there are big exceptions for those who kill “for a soul or for corruption in the land.” And it concludes that even after this command was given, “many of them, after that … were transgressors” — so all it is really saying is that Allah gave a command to the Children of Israel and they transgressed against it. It isn’t anything more than yet another Qur’anic castigation of the Jews.
Also, it is followed in the Qur’an by 5:33, which specifies the punishment for the corruption and transgressions of the Children of Israel: “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.”
Thus this passage is explaining what must be done with Jews who reject Muhammad, not dictating lofty moral principles.
And finally, Malik’s entire premise is false. His article is entitled, “I reported Omar Mateen to the FBI. Trump is wrong that Muslims don’t do our part.” Actually, his reporting Omar Mateen to the FBI only shows us something about him, not about American Muslims in general. Malik, in reporting Mateen, was contravening repeated exhortations from the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has more than once advised Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. In January 2011, its San Francisco chapter featured on its website a poster that read, “Build A Wall of Resistance / Don’t Talk to the FBI.” In November 2014, CAIR-Florida’s “14th Annual Banquet Rooted in Faith” in Tampa distributed pamphlets entitled “What to do if the FBI comes for you” and featuring a graphic of a person holding a finger to his lips in the “shhh” signal.
Another CAIR pamphlet, entitled “Know Your Rights: Defending Rights, Defeating Intolerance” featured a graphic of the Statue of Liberty likewise making the “shhh” symbol. Cyrus McGoldrick, a former official of Hamas-linked CAIR’s New York chapter, even threatened informants, tweeting with brutal succinctness: “Snitches get stitches.” Zahra Billoo of CAIR-San Francisco regularly tweets that Muslims have no obligation to talk to the FBI, and should contact Hamas-linked CAIR if the FBI asks to talk to them.
Will Mohammed Malik rebuke Hamas-linked CAIR for repeatedly advising Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement?
“I reported Omar Mateen to the FBI. Trump is wrong that Muslims don’t do our part.,” by Mohammed A. Malik, Washington Post, June 20, 2016:
Donald Trump believes American Muslims are hiding something. “They know what’s going on. They know that [Omar Mateen] was bad,” he said after the Orlando massacre. “They have to cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad. … But you know what? They didn’t turn them in. And you know what? We had death and destruction.”
This is a common idea in the United States. It’s also a lie. First, Muslims like me can’t see into the hearts of other worshipers. (Do you know the hidden depths of everyone in your community?) Second, Trump is wrong that we don’t speak up when we’re able.
I know this firsthand: I was the one who told the FBI about Omar Mateen.
I met Omar for the first time in 2006 at an iftar meal at my brother-in-law’s house. As the women, including his mother and sisters, chatted in the living room, I sat with the men on the patio and got to know him and his father. Omar broke his Ramadan fast with a protein shake. He was quiet — then and always — and let his dad do the talking.
I’d seen them before at the oldest mosque in the area, the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce. We have a lot of immigrants in our community. They grew up in other countries, often with different sensibilities. A few don’t understand American culture, and they struggle to connect with their American-born or American-raised kids….
I saw Omar from time to time over the next decade, and we developed a relationship because most of the other Muslim kids in his age group went elsewhere for college, and he stayed behind. We mostly spoke over the phone or texted with one another a half-dozen times per year. We talked about the lack of social programs at the mosque, especially for teens and young adults like him. I often played pranks on him. Once, around 2009, I attached LED lights to the tires of his car, so when he drove the wheels glowed neon. He laughed when he figured it out a few days later.
Soon after Omar married and moved to his own home, he began to come to the mosque more often. Then he went on a religious trip to Saudi Arabia. There was nothing to indicate that he had a dark side, even when he and his first wife divorced.
But as news reports this week have made clear, Omar did have a dark outlook on life. Partly, he was upset at what he saw as racism in the United States – against Muslims and others. When he worked as a security guard at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, he told me visitors often made nasty or bigoted remarks to him about Islam. He overheard people saying ugly things about African Americans, too. Since Sept. 11, I’ve thought the only way to answer Islamophobia was to be polite and kind; the best way to counter all the negativity people were seeing on TV about Islam was by showing them the opposite. I urged Omar to volunteer and help people in need – Muslim or otherwise (charity is a pillar of Islam). He agreed, but was always very worked up about this injustice.
Then, during the summer of 2014, something traumatic happened for our community. A boy from our local mosque, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, was 22 when he became the first American-born suicide bomber, driving a truck full of explosives into a government office in Syria. He’d traveled there and joined a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, the previous year. We had all known Moner; he was jovial and easygoing, the opposite of Omar. According to a posthumous video released that summer, he had clearly self-radicalized – and had also done so by listening to the lectures of Anwar al-Awlaki, the charismatic Yemen-based imam who helped radicalize several Muslims, including the Fort Hood shooter. Everyone in the area was shocked and upset. We hate violence and were horrified that one of our number could have killed so many. (After an earlier training mission to Syria, he’d tried to recruit a few Florida friends to the cause. They told the FBI about him.)
Immediately after Moner’s attack, news reports said that American officials didn’t know anything about him; I read that they were looking for people to give them some background. So I called the FBI and offered to tell investigators a bit about the young man. It wasn’t much – we hadn’t been close – but I’m an American Muslim, and I wanted to do my part. I didn’t want another act like that to happen. I didn’t want more innocent people to die. Agents asked me if there were any other local kids who might resort to violence in the name of Islam. No names sprang to mind.
After my talk with the FBI, I spoke to people in the Islamic community, including Omar, about Moner’s attack. I wondered how he could have radicalized. Both Omar and I attended the same mosque as Moner, and the imam never taught hate or radicalism. That’s when Omar told me he had been watching videos of Awlaki, too, which immediately raised red flags for me. He told me the videos were very powerful.
After speaking with Omar, I contacted the FBI again to let them know that Omar had been watching Awlaki’s tapes. He hadn’t committed any acts of violence and wasn’t planning any, as far as I knew. And I thought he probably wouldn’t, because he didn’t fit the profile: He already had a second wife and a son. But it was something agents should keep their eyes on. I never heard from them about Omar again, but apparently they did their job: They looked into him and, finding nothing to go on, they closed the file.
Omar and I continued to have infrequent conversations over the next few years. I last saw him at a dinner at his father’s house in January. We talked about the presidential election and debated our views of the candidates that were running – he liked Hillary Clinton and I liked Bernie Sanders. This banter continued through texts and phone calls for several months. My last conversation with Omar was by phone in mid-May. He called me while he was at the beach with his son to tell me about a vacation he’d taken with his father to Orlando the previous weekend. He’d been impressed by the local mosque.
What happened next is well-known. We’re still in shock. We’re totally against what he did, and we feel the deepest sadness for the victims and their families. If you don’t agree with someone, you don’t have the right to kill them. We are taught to be kind to all of God’s creation. Islam is very strict about killing: Even in war – to say nothing of peace – you cannot harm women, children, the elderly, the sick, clergymen, or even plants. You can’t mutilate dead bodies. You can’t destroy buildings, especially churches or temples. You can’t force anyone to accept Islam. “If anyone slew one person, it would be as if he killed the whole of humanity,” says the Koran….

Jack Everett says
Their were no mistakes with Omar Mateen or his wife the FBI helped get away. These attacks are being allowed to keep the endless war profiteering at full speed. Both parties are guilty and what they are doing is nothing more than treason.
Shane says
I wonder what those anti-Muslim comments were that the shooter overheard. Could it be something like – Islam is a violent religion, Muslims hate women and gays? So he responded by going on a murderous rampage killing innocent infidels gays. No, I am not buying what this muslim is selling. The shooter was taught by his Taliban-loving father and by Imams that the penalty for homosexual sex under sharia is death, and that killing homosexuals is compassionate. Wow, isn’t Islam a compassionate religion!
Kay says
It’s possible that this man Malik told the FBI all he knew. It makes sense that he wouldn’t see or know everything; none of us do. But few speak up and let their concerns be known. Malik is to be congratulated for that, particularly as some may see it as him going against his own community. The owner of the gun shop also informed the FBI of his concerns and presumed they would be followed up and taken care of.
My concern is what is leading the FBI to close investigations too soon.
Georg says
“[Omar Mateen] was upset at what he saw as racism in the United States – against Muslims and others.”
Former co-worker of Omar Mateen’s:
“He was also loud, “very excitable” and racist, Gilroy said.”
Mateen “always referred to every other race, religion, gender in a derogatory way,” Gilroy added. “He did not like black people at all. That was mentioned once or twice, but more so was women. He did not like women at all. He did like women in a sexual way, but he did not respect them.”
Sounds like maybe he wasn’t the liberal warrior for justice his coreligionist and other miscreants, from the Administration or wherever, want us to believe he was.
Hi Moe says
Yes, he didn’t like discrimination so he killed a group who is discriminated against. This is all propaganda.
Hindu American says
Moe, I was waiting for an article like this one from one of our liberal/leftist media outlets we have all come to fully understand. WaPo did not disappoint It trotted out the useful idiot that seems to lurk in every negative story and who cleverly arranges his scripted story to under score the following:
1. Not all muslims are terrorists. Only the tiny few in the fringes of the otherwise nice, clean muslim societies
2. Muslims are normal people. Hey, we play pranks on each other. We know how to laugh at ourselves. We go to the beach.
3. Donald Trump is mistaken about the muslims and, therefore, bad.
4. Muslims proactively call the authorities to report the bad apples in their midst.
5. We are god-fearing just like you and me. We are taught to be kind and respectful to all. Just as Mo.
6. Our Imams are not trouble makers. They preach love and tolerance.
7. We muslims are also deeply saddened when tragedy strikes America. We love America.
8. Bottom line: The problem is with you, dirty kafirs, and not us.
linnte says
See Hindu American, same old crap. Sometimes I wish I had never heard the word ISLAM before! hahahahaha!
Westman says
Malik: “Islam is very strict about killing: Even in war – to say nothing of peace – you cannot harm women, children, the elderly, the sick, clergymen, or even plants. You can’t mutilate dead bodies. You can’t destroy buildings, especially churches or temples. You can’t force anyone to accept Islam…”
Let’s fill in the blanks: In Islamic war you can kill every captive male that has reached puberty and enslave the rest which makes a complete lie out of, “If anyone slew one person, it would be as if he killed the whole of humanity”. You can also offer them the opportunity to become Muslim instead of being killed which makes a complete lie out of, “there is no compulsion in religion”.
And harming women? Being a sex slave is not harmful for captives? Oh, I forget, women are just tilth, baby factories, and domestic slaves in Islam.
And the captive children? What wonderful fate awaits them? Compulsion anyone? Slavery anyone? Still an unbeliever when reaching puberty – death?
Malik is either deceitful or hasn’t done much study of his own religion.
Hope says
Excellent summary, Westman.
Abu Nudnik says
Is there any corroboration to his claim that he turned him in to the FBI?
Angemon says
Malik’s article boils down to this:
“It’s wrong to judge many based on the actions of the few, or even one individual. Also, I, an individual, did something so stop saying that many muslims don’t do what I, an individual, did. P.S.: if you weren’t so offensive towards muslims this tragedy could have been prevented – Mateen heard some people saying something he didn’t like about islam and muslims, therefore there’s an atmosphere of islamophobia all over America”.
Jay Boo says
My theory.
The Obama network has likely infected the FBI with:
(Whoopi Goldberg Syndrome).
This is where a certain crude mindset bullies its way in past truth.
We see this everywhere especially in the liberal news and infotainment media.
Whenever a guest commenter on the TV show “The View” dares to go off message, instead of debating the point honestly Whoopi continually interrupts and talks over every point. The method is never to debate the truth but to deny it.
Nigel GFF says
“…he began to come to the mosque more often. Then he went on a religious trip to Saudi Arabia.
There was nothing to indicate that he had a dark side,…”
Behavioural change like, say, overt increase of ‘piety’. Could that indicate anything Mr Malik?
“…you cannot harm women, children, the elderly, the sick, clergymen, or even plants. You can’t mutilate dead bodies. You can’t destroy buildings, especially churches or temples. You can’t force anyone to accept Islam.”
I’m beginning to suspect that Mr Malik is a computer generated personality. His formulaic Islam apologisms are transparent (now that I’m a little more JW-savvy) and at best, tedious. If he is a real person then I commend his bravery and hope for his safety.
Nigel GFF says
Could Mr Malik be a 2nd generation AI ‘ChatBot’ Tay ?
ProudAmerican says
Let’s take him at face value here. So if your religion is so peaceful and loving, doesn’t it make you wonder how your fellow Muslims can be brought to violence so easily? Oh I’m sorry, you explained it, he overheard some people speaking badly of muslims. Of course, look at all the Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Wiccans, etc. who go out and shoot 50 people or blow people up because they overheard people speaking badly of their religion. Happens all the time, right?
Shmooviyet says
Yes: Omar’s ‘dark outlook’ came, naturally, from the racism he saw in the US. And he was really annoyed by all those remarks he heard against African Americans. And islam teaches kindness to all God’s creation, etc etc etc.
Just another WaPo attempt to bandage tRoP’s further damaged reputation, for its more ignorant readers.
Jay Boo says
Obama.
Why should we even care about those 49 murdered in Orlando?
After all, they were GAY and HISPANIC.
It is not as if they were — MUSLIMS.
Aren’t MUSLIMS our top priority?
Jay Boo says
P.S.
If we blame Islam, then some of that blame gets reflected back to the appeaser in chief Obama and CAIR loving Democrats.
GAYS and HISPANICS are too critical to the Democratic Party for the MSM not to play along with Obama’s Islamophobia 3 card Monty sham.
Alien Republican says
The story is being spread that gay latinos did him wrong and that the killing was an act of revenge. It has nothing to do with islam.
“Omar Mateen’s alleged lover said the gunman wanted revenge on Puerto Ricans because of a past unprotected threesome
The man, called “Miguel” by Noticias Univision, said he had been Mateen’s lover for two months
“Miguel” said Mateen discoverd after the encounter that one of the participants had HIV
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article85221392.html#storylink=cpy“
Jay Boo says
I am amazed how eagerly the MSM like NPR eat this stuff up without hesitation while totally excusing Islam.
Guest says
Where’s that bs CAIR was saying Muslims do cooperate with theFBI during Trump’s speech?
CogitoErgoSum says
Malik says, “You can’t force anyone to accept Islam.” Then I would like to hear his explanation of Quran 9:29 ……..
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.”
Islam means submission and Muslims are commanded to fight until all other religions submit to Islam. This is absolutely clear to anyone of even average intelligence.
What a schizophrenic, two-faced, duplicitous religion of liars.
duh swami says
We will have ‘The Islamic Republic of America-Iran West…because some woman named Valarie wills it…Whatever Valarie wants, Valarie gets……
balafama says
if we go by maliks story then it strengthens the argument for terrorism or by miguel the obama admins manufactured gay lover who says it was revenge against gay latinos. this govt really does get its influence from the communist manifesto to create as much disinformation as possible . all they are doing is looking for a way to label it as non terrorist activity because the death figures are terribly damaging to muslims and totally debunks the ”right wing male having highest risk for terrorism claim.
linnte says
Just more obfuscation of the truth. So tired of this!
Peter says
Having a muslim as friend is like having a snake in he bed .I think that the latter is a better option because we can recognise snake when we see it ! Kill the mudslime bastards!