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When Shamsud Din Jabbar, 42, rammed his white Ford F-150 pickup truck into New 12 months’s Eve revelers on Bourbon Avenue in New Orleans’ French Quarter, the leaders at his neighborhood mosque, Masjid Bilal off Adel Street in Houston, sent congregants a message to direct FBI inquiries to a special-interest group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and keep away from talking to the media.
However they didn’t need to say something to me. I’ve seen this sample earlier than, as a former Wall Avenue Journal reporter who has investigated Islamic extremism for 23 years — for the reason that brutal homicide of my colleague and buddy, journalist Daniel Pearl, by Muslim militants in Karachi, for the crime of being an American, a Jew and a grandson of Israel.
NEW ORLEANS TRUCK ATTACK SUSPECT INSPIRED BY ISLAMIC STATE TERRORIST GROUP
First, a radicalized Muslim kills within the title of Islam. Then, teams like CAIR deploy a technique I name “triple-D”: Denying the crime had something to do with Islam, deflecting with excuses after which demonizing anybody who calls out the terrorism as an “Islamophobe.”
Certainly, inside 36 hours, CAIR issued an announcement, denying the issue of Islamic extremism by claiming it’s been “rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world.” It then deflected from the killer’s spiritual radicalization by describing him as a “man with a historical past of drunk driving and spousal abuse.”
An exterior view of Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s dwelling in Houston, Texas on Thursday, January 2, 2024. A number of individuals are lifeless and dozens are injured after Jabbar rammed his automotive into crowds of New 12 months’s Eve revelers on Bourbon Avenue on Wednesday. (Derek Shook for Fox Information Digital)
East of Houston, in Beaumont, Tex., Fahmee Al-Uqdah, an imam in Jabbar’s hometown, told an area TV station, KFDM/Fox 4, that Jabbar’s household requested him to ship a message that “the tragic incident was pushed by hatred and ignorance and Jabbar’s actions don’t replicate the faith of Islam.” Al-Uqdah practices an offshoot of Islam established by a Black American chief, Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Mohammed, founding father of the Nation of Islam, led as we speak by the virulently antisemitic Louis Farrakhan. It isn’t but clear if Jabbar was a member of the W. Deen Mohammed faculty of Islam.
Lastly, most definitely within the coming days, CAIR officers will demonize anybody who focuses on Jabbar’s spiritual radicalization.
An inside view of Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s dwelling in Houston, Texas on Thursday, January 2, 2024. A number of individuals are lifeless and dozens are injured after Jabbar rammed his automotive into crowds of New 12 months’s Eve revelers on Bourbon Avenue on Wednesday. (Derek Shook for Fox Information Digital)
As a Muslim feminist and traditional liberal born in India and raised in West Virginia, I co-founded the Muslim Reform Motion in 2015 with courageous Muslims, like authors Zuhdi Jasser and Raheel Raza, to counter this triple-D technique with honesty. Later, in 2022, we co-founded the Readability Coalition with ex-Muslims, like creator Yasmine Mohammed, and allies to problem extremists and advocate for an Islam of girls’s rights, human rights and style.
‘Ummah..is one physique’
Whereas officers at Masjid Bilal mosque have refused to substantiate that Jabbar worshiped there, it’s only a seven-minute stroll from the trailer dwelling on the 12000 block of Crescent Peak Drive through which he lived previous to the assault. Jabbar’s half-brother Abdur Jabbar told The New York Times “That is extra some kind of radicalization, not faith.”
Teams like CAIR deploy a technique I name “triple-D”: Denying the crime had something to do with Islam, deflecting with excuses after which demonizing anybody who calls out the terrorism as an “Islamophobe.”
However with faith very a lot about interpretation, radicalization will be faith. In his cell dwelling, Jabbar left a Quran open to verse 111 of Chapter 9, “Surah at-Tawbah,” which I name “the warfare verse,” for its edicts on warfare and guarantees of heaven for Muslims who wage violent jihad. The open web page learn, “They struggle in His trigger, and slay and are slain; a promise binding,” in response to reporting from The Occasions of London.
The sermons supplied at Masjid Bilal are emblematic of a wider, problematic, insular and inflexible interpretation of Islam preached at far too many mosques. Reviewing scores of sermons posted on Masjid Bilal’s Fb web page, I discovered a portrait of the strictest interpretation of Islam, grace hardly to be discovered. Whereas it’s unclear whether or not these sermons influenced Jabbar, they replicate a broader sample that too many keep away from scrutinizing, leaving crucial gaps in understanding.
The sermons on the neighborhood mosque replicate a broader sample that too many keep away from scrutinizing, leaving crucial gaps in understanding. Imams, or prayer leaders, railed in opposition to the LGBTQ neighborhood, deemed adopted kids undeserving of the identical standing as organic kids, relegated girls to a segregated balcony area and scolded “medical doctors carrying scrubs” for failing to decorate respectfully. The imams preach interpretations of Islam from the strictest colleges of jurisprudence, or madhhab.
Most strikingly, imams delivered sermons absent of sympathy for the Jews massacred by Hamas terrorists in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. As an alternative, there was a relentless deal with the “oppressors” of Palestinians.
On Oct. 9, 2023, within the first video posted after the bloodbath, the imam sat, with palms folded on his lap, and mentioned solemnly, “We’re praying for our brothers and sisters in Palestine…Give them assist and victory, inshallah,” God keen. There wasn’t a phrase of sympathy for Jews murdered by Hamas.
4 days later, on Oct. 13, the imam repeated a manipulative perception amongst ideologues that “the Muslim ummah,” or neighborhood of so-called believers, “is one physique,” and he urged a brand new prayer for “our brothers and sisters in Palestine” and referred to as to “finish their struggling.”
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On Oct. 15, one other imam on the mosque urged congregants to lift their voices for “our brothers and sisters in Palestine” in opposition to the “plight of Palestinians.” Not a phrase was supplied for the Jews who had been slaughtered. That is the place he additionally railed in opposition to the “LGBTQ” neighborhood.
Oct. 7 denial
On Could 31, yet one more imam spent a lot of his sermon railing in opposition to Israel, saying, “Wherever I’m going, I can’t give a chat with out mentioning Falasteen, Gaza and West Financial institution,” utilizing the Arabic phrase for Palestine.
“Each media mainstream channel on this nation put the whole blame, the whole story, that this began simply Oct. 7,” he mentioned. “Hamas attacked the [sic] Israel. That is one hundred pc not true. This genocide, this aggression is occurring for the previous 75 years.” The basis explanation for Oct. 7 was Israel’s “occupation,” “colonization” and “settlement.”
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“In the event you see evil, begin together with your hand…” he guided the congregation, in a repeat of a hadith, or saying of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.
Certainly, Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director from the FBI’s counterterrorism division, mentioned Jabbar joined the Islamic State this summer season and careened onto Bourbon Avenue, hand on the steering wheel, with a perception he was in a “warfare between believers and nonbelievers.”
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