Thursday, October 30, 2003
Yesterday, the Boston Herald continued its examination of the new, proposed, $20 million Boston Mosque (part one is here). Connections to terror in this installment are a bit more tenuous, and project backers are making the correct noises about tolerance and the like - good for them, but once the mosque is up, who's even going to look again? I hate to be a paranoid, but experience is a bitch.
Under suspicion: Hub mosque leader tied to radical groups
The chairman of the board of trustees of the Islamic Society of Boston, which has city approval to construct a $22 million cultural center and mosque in Roxbury, was also a leader of an Indiana-based Muslim organization known for its anti-Western rhetoric and for providing a platform for radical Islamists, some of whom have been linked to terrorism.
The chairman, Osama M. Kandil, has been a leader of the Islamic Society of Boston for more than a decade. In addition to serving on the group's board of trustees for many years, public records show he has been a trustee of the group's real estate arm since 1993, when it purchased property for its current mosque in Cambridge.
Outside Massachusetts, however, Kandil is identified in a federal government affidavit as a member of what U.S. investigators have dubbed the ``Safa Group,'' a complicated array of individuals and interlocking for-profit and non-profit entities allegedly involved in financing Islamic terrorism...
In his defense, later in the article Kandil explains his association with the Safa group, and explains his tie as tenuous at best. Read the whole thing.
Today's installment focusses on another past Director:
Islamic leader: Views not mine
The article by Dr. Walid Fitaihi was published in the daily newspaper al-Hayat shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and then translated into English and circulated on the Internet.
According to one translation, Fitaihi's article attacked the ``Zionist lobby'' in America, claiming it has incurred ``Allah's wrath'' and would evetually lose the support of the American people.
Fitaihi, who recently moved back to his native Saudi Arabia, is a longtime director of the Islamic Society of Boston, which plans to build the largest mosque in the Northeast in Roxbury...
[Emphasis Mine.]
The MEMRI translation of Fitaihi's letter is here. Is it an accurate and fair translation? I don't know. Lazy reporting on the Herald's part. How difficult would it have been to get a copy of the original and have their own translation done? Fitaihi does call any translations "unauthorized" - a bit of a guilty man's argument.
Bottom line seems to be that any large American Islamic group is going to have ties, maybe strong ones, to the Middle East, and contrary to media portrayals, what's going to come out will likely be moderate and pluralist despite it's roots, if moderate and pluralist at all.
The mosque will be built. Maybe it will be a good thing, "Americanizing" Islam. In spite of what our European friends may believe, we have a strong culture here...but it will bear watching, and that will tend to buck our own priciples of toleration.
I say toleration and trust are good things, but as Reagan said, "Trust...but verify."
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In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The
Merciful
February 01, 2007
To All Laborers and Believers of the Nation
of Islam and Supporters,
We the members of the Islamic peace
movement in the eastern state of Nigeria,we
have been working day and night to make
sure that Nigeria is officially declared as a
musilim country,we are working so hard to
make sure that this may 2007 handing over
date to the new government must be a
muslim.
We have secured a massive ground whereby
we have started work on the ground to make
sure that we build the biggest Holy Mosque
in the eastern region of Nigeria.
Our estimate target is about $25 Million,
we use this opportunity to thank our
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for his work.
All payment should be made to this account
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to this email for confirmation.
your contact details are required for us to
get intouch with you at the end of the
project.
CHINA TRUST COMMERCIAL BANK.
YAN-JI BRANCH
298.SEC.4.JHONGSIAOE.
RD,TAIPEI .TAIWAN
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I Am Your Brother and Servant.
Alhaji Ahmed Kareem
islamicpeacemovement@myway.com