Khalid Yasin is one of the most notorious Islamic hate sheikhs in the world today. He had been widely condemned from the US to Britain to Australia for his virulent Wahhabism, his extreme anti-Americanism (despite the fact that he is an American-born convert), his justification of Islamic terrorism, his wild-eyed conspiracy theories, and his outright racial and religious bigotry. And an Australian news investigation found that Yasin had claimed academic degrees that the schools had no record of, and also discovered that he had engaged in outright fraud in building his international Islamic media empire.
So it is troubling to see that Khalid Yasin will be lecturing at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio on May 16th, sponsored by Dayton’s Masjid-at-Taqwa:
For example, consider some of his stated positions:
- Yasin says that the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks.
- Yasin claims that AIDS was invented at a US government lab and spread by Western governments through UN agencies and Christian missionaries.
- Yasin advocates for the death penalty for homosexuality.
- Yasin justified the terrorist bombings in Bali because of years of Western oppression.
- Yasin says that the Quran permits wife-beating and that equal rights for women is a “delusion” and “foolishness”.
- Yasin calls the beliefs of Christians and Jews “filth”.
- Yasin says that Muslims cannot have non-Muslim friends.
- Yasin rejects any separation between Islam and the state and openly advocates for the reestablishment of the caliphate.
- Yasin visited Jemaah Islamiah terrorist leader Abu Bakar Bashir in prison.
- Yasin has lectured with Hizb-ut-Tahrir hatemonger Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was banned from the UK in 2006.
- Yasin was in Saudi Arabia on 9/11 soliciting support from the Al-Qaeda front Al-Haramain Foundation, which was designated a terrorist organization in 2004 by the US government, to help finance his Islamic Broadcasting Company.
It is difficult to overstate the hatred, bigotry, misogyny and malicious conspiracy theories spewed by Khalid Yasin. So despicable is his warped ideology that he had been made a pariah by the international media. Statements made on his DVDs were featured in the UK Channel 4 “Undercover Mosque” program, which were found available for sale in British mosques. Here’s the relevant part of that program’s transcript:
N: Regular interfaith meetings with other religions take place at this mosque, yet in a DVD (‘Changing The World Through The Da’wah’; IBC Ltd/Islam Productions) bought from its bookshop, a British-based (African-American) convert called Sheikh Khalid Yasin (KY), who studied Arabic in Saudi Arabia, condemns the teachings of other religions —
KY: “We don’t need to go to the Christians, or the Jews, debating with them about the filth which they believe . . . We Muslims have been ordered to do ‘brainwashing’ because the kuffaar . . . they are doing ‘braindefiling’ . . . You are watching the kaffir TVs, and your wife is watching right now, and your children are watching it right now, and they are being polluted, and they are being penetrated, and they are being infected, so that your children and you go out as Muslims and come back to the house as kaffirs.”
N: In this DVD (entitled: ‘Some Advice To The Muslim Woman’; Islam Productions), from the Mosque bookshop, he preaches against the equality of women
KY: “This whole delusion about the equality of women is a bunch of foolishness, there’s no such thing.”
N: In this DVD (entitled: ‘Jihad or Terrorism?’, Ahlus Sunna’wal Jama’ah), he claims that AIDS is a Western and Christian plot —
KY: “No, missionaries from the World Health Organisation and Christian groups went into Africa and inoculated people for diphtheria, malaria, yellow fever, and they put in the medicine the AIDS virus, which is a conspiracy.” (his emphasis)
In an interview with Sarah Ferguson of Australia’s Sunday program entitled, “Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?” he describes his conspiracy theories related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, denying the existence of Al-Qaeda:
SARAH FERGUSON: And he’s waded right into one of the most divisive issues between the Muslim community and the Federal Government — September 11.
SHEIK KHALID YASIN: There has been no evidence that has surfaced, no bona fide irrevocable, irrefutable evidence that had been surfaced that showed that there is a group called al-Qa’ida that did the September 11 bombings. I’m of the opinion there was a rogue operation that took place. Now, to go beyond that would say I would have to have some evidence, which I don’t.
SARAH FERGUSON: But he does go beyond it.
SHEIK KHALID YASIN: An operation that took place with the complicity of some very sophisticated entities other than some Middle Eastern guys on an airplane or being orchestrated by someone in a cave in Iraq.
SARAH FERGUSON: What do you mean by “sophisticated entities”?
SHEIK KHALID YASIN: Sophisticated entities means entities who themselves were governmentally instructed, equipped, motivated. We now know that the way that the World Trade Center fell the way that those buildings fell — they fell from internal explosive charges, the same way it’s done in a construction site.
The Sunday program also asked him about his conspiracy theories claiming that the US government and Christian organizations are responsible for the creation and the spread of AIDS:
SARAH FERGUSON: Conspiracy theories are Yasin’s bread and butter, and the wilder, the better.And in a July 2003 conversation on Australia’s Sunday Nights with John Cleary program, Khalid Yasin articulated his vision of the reinstitution of sharia and the dismantling of the wall between Islam and state:
SHEIK KHALID YASIN, DVD EXCERPT: An AIDS virus, that is a classic disease that was created in Fort McKinley, United States. Fort McKinley, the AIDS virus, 63,000 gallons.
SARAH FERGUSON: This one comes from his DVD called ‘Jihad or Terrorism’.
SHEIK KHALID YASIN, DVD EXCERPT: Missionaries from the World Health Organisation and Christian groups went into Africa and inoculated people for diphtheria, malaria, yellow fever and they put in the medicine the AIDS virus.
John Cleary: Where does the Sharia fit into that?
Khalid Yasin: Well the Sharia is the cement that keeps all the bricks together. The Sharia is the legislative element. The Sharia is the judicial element. This is where rules, this is where juristic decisions, this is where the courts, this is where law. And I mean if you don’t have a people that is governed by Sharia, then you have a lawless people.
John Cleary: Christianity once had a problem with that in the Middle Ages, and so canon law developed, and church law was the law of the State. And then alongside that civic law developed. And gradually over the years, they split and then civil law became predominant over church law. Do you see that sort of evolution taking place in Islam as well?
Khalid Yasin: No. As a matter of fact this dichotomy of church and State and civil law and religious law, doesn’t exist in Islam. Because the source of law has never been the human being. In Christianity the source of law, human beings have always had something to do with the evolution of the law, but in Islam it is not the case. The law is an inspiration from God, the Qu’ran is the word of God alone. Even it is not the law of Mohamed. Mohamed was inspired by God, it is his example of the law, his explanation of the law, his personal example of the law. So in this sense civil law and religious law are congruous together.
John Cleary: Could you have a secular Islamic state, like Turkey is trying to be, over the years?
Khalid Yasin: No, it doesn’t work. These are experiments that have been tried, but they haven’t worked. Of course, you can have it, but you’ll see that after a certain amount of time it disintegrates, it cannot work.
John Cleary: So ultimately the Sharia should become the law of the land?
Khalid Yasin: Exactly. It has to be. I mean, who is the best lawgiver? Who is the best legislator: the designer, the author, the creator or the human beings who themselves are subjected to that law? It has to be.
When investigators for the Sunday program looked into his academic background and his media company, they found a pattern of rampant fraud and misrepresentations:
SARAH FERGUSON: Yasin moved to the UK. He made headquarters here in the northern city of Sheffield and began looking for new investors. Armed with this glossy brochure on the UK operation, Yasin came back to Australia last year.See also the August 2005 Sydney Morning Herald article on Yasin, “Koranic TV next step for radical sheik”, where he reaffirms many of these extremist positions.
VOICE-OVER: Islamic Broadcasting Corporation — a unique investment opportunity. It will host up to 50 multimedia TV channels and five radio stations. potentially serving 1.2 billion viewers across the globe.
SARAH FERGUSON: The brochure’s biggest selling point is a TV broadcast centre in Coventry, complete with photos and architects’ drawings.
VOICE-OVER: We are currently relocating to our brand new purpose-built 8,000 square feet broadcast centre. It will be opened for business in September 2005.
SARAH FERGUSON: By the time we’d discovered Yasin’s brochure, Yasin had left the country on an overseas trip. We put its claims to the new managing director of IBC Australia, Walid Ali. IBC in the UK claims it’s building a massive ?2 million broadcast centre. And that broadcast centre is under construction now. In fact it’s supposed to be ready now. Have you seen it?
WALID ALI, MANAGING DIRECTOR ISLAMIC BROADCASTING GROUP: I will be very honest with you. I don’t know a great deal about their operations but I do know that that facility has not been built as yet. Obviously with any organisation, any business venture that you take on, there will be unexpected delays. I’m sure they’re having some unexpected delays. The idea of a Muslim-owned TV station was very attractive to Muslims here, and the brochure was crucial. Yasin used it to convince them that the UK operation was worth investing in. We’ve spoken to people who attended fundraisers in Sydney run by Yasin. At one event last year, $90,000 was pledged in a single evening. We’ve also seen bank documents transferring almost $50,000 of that money to a bank account in the UK in the name of one of Yasin’s companies.
The question is — what happened to that money? This is the real technology park in Coventry and there is no broadcast centre because the brochure is a work of fiction, indeed fraud. Yasin’s only connection with the Coventry Technology Park was a small office space rented out by his UK associate Channel Islam. According to the company which leases space here, Channel Islam broke its lease last year and is being pursued by debt collectors. None of these groups is collaborating with Yasin. The sums don’t add up and the drawings were lifted from someone else’s brochure.
MUHAMMAD ALI, ISLAM CHANNEL, UK: I don’t think now after this long time of promises that channel is going to start broadcasting tomorrow, after tomorrow, next week, next month, next year I don’t think there is much credibility left for such promises.
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SARAH FERGUSON: Where Yasin’s accreditation lies is another mystery. He prepared this CV to support an application to the Immigration Department. Neither institution has any record of a Khalid Yasin graduating. While he was still in Australia, we asked Yasin about his qualifications as a preacher.
SHEIK KHALID YASIN: I say to you that whatever qualifications I have they are subjective. And I don’t even care. And if there was a choice for Khalid Yasin I would take any qualification, academic qualification I have and I throw it out the window. And I tell you whatever other qualifications I have, whatever convictions I have will stand on their own.
SARAH FERGUSON: The issue is that he has claimed to have those qualifications. I’ve checked. He doesn’t. Does that concern you?
WALID ALI: Well, I guess it would concern me. I would really need to understand why he would make those claims if they weren’t true.
SARAH FERGUSON: Sunday sent Yasin a series of questions about these discrepancies but we haven’t received a reply. No doubt his rhetoric of Muslim victimhood will apply equally to him.
