Dr. Zuhdi Jasser to speak at Noor Center, Saturday July 26, 7–9pm

In a stunning development, and no doubt shamed by my repeated exposes about the long trail of Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and HAMAS enthusiasts and Muslim Brotherhood extremists that have come through the Noor Islamic Cultural Center over the years, we are pleased to announce that Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy will be speaking at Noor this coming Saturday, July 26 from 7–9pm (event flier below and full size flier here). Curiously, nothing as of yet has appeared on the Noor website about this important community event.

I previously posted about Dr. Jasser back in April. Then I said:

Dr. Jasser is a welcome alternative to the long line of extremists that have paraded around town identifying themselves as “moderates”, but openly support terrorism and radicalism when they think no one is looking. And he is exponentially better than the bevy of Wahhabis and Muslim Brotherhood preachers regularly imported to our area by the usual suspects — Islamic Society of Greater Columbus, Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio, Noor Islamic Cultural Center, etc.

May we have more true moderate Muslim voices in Central Ohio! And Dr. Jasser, you’re welcome to Columbus any time.

So I’m delighted that Zuhdi will be in town and that others in the area will finally be able to hear his message of mainstream Islam, not the garden variety extremism we’re used to here in Central Ohio.

As evidence of the opposition to his message, read about how he has been viciously attacked by extremist publications in his own community in Phoenix, and more recently by mosque leaders in Florida.

On a more positive note and as a testament to his character, Zuhdi recently received the FBI Director’s Community award in Phoenix for his work in advancing mainstream Islam:


And be sure to see his short video interview at HotAir with Erick Stakelbeck.

Here’s the press release announcing his upcoming talk at the Noor Center:

M. Zuhdi Jasser to Address Columbus Muslim Community
“Upholding Our Islamic Responsibility: Countering the Ideologies that Fuel Terrorism”
Phoenix, AZ — July 8, 2008 — The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), a think tank and activist Muslim organization focused on the separation of spiritual Islam from political Islam, announced today that M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D, President AIFD, will speak about “Upholding our Islamic Responsibility: Countering the Ideologies that Fuel Terrorism” on Saturday July 26, 2008, 7 pm at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, 5001 Wilcox Road, Dublin Ohio.

AIFD openly engages all American Muslims to proactively be in the forefront of the domestic and foreign struggle (jihad if you will) against the primary driving force of militant Islamism and its terrorist offshoots. Militant Islamists are fueled ideologically by a radicalization of the faith of Islam. This radicalization includes both militant components and a more central political desire (Islamism) to establish Islamic states. Islamists view pluralistic societies like America as an anathema to Islam. AIFD rather seeks to build coalitions of Muslims which not only reject the means of terror as an anathema to Islam but more globally reject the ends of the Islamic state which Islamists seek.

“Without Muslims leading the effort to reject the ends of the Islamic state and defend societies like America which are rooted in universal religious freedom and the separation of religion and government, we will not see the ultimate defeat of militant Islamists,” says Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser.

AIFD believes that the contest of ideas needs to begin, first, in the mosques if there is to be any hope for the domestic and global Muslim community to marginalize the militants, depoliticize the ummah (faith community), and promote a spiritual theology immune from radical militant anti-national interpretations. “AIFD is founded upon the premise that it is our primary Muslim responsibility to foster ijtihad (modern interpretation of our scripture). Today that ijtihad must be focused on the rescue of spiritual Islam from the clutches of political Islamists. We reject political Islam regardless of whether Muslims are a minority or a majority, and we believe that when given the opportunity to bring this discourse to the mosque most devout Muslims will agree that the most sacred and pure practice of Islam is one which is wholly free and unencumbered by coercion or any mandate from the state or government,” continues Dr. Jasser. AIFD believes that Islam, like any faith, is no longer a faith but becomes a coerced autocratic system when its laws and belief system are in any way enforced by government.

It is this debate over the role of shar’ia (Islamic jurisprudence) and the Islamist desire of imposing the faith of Islam in government which AIFD believes needs to be raised.

“With the ever-increasing threat of militant Islamist terror, it is imperative that the activist Muslim community wake up and direct their valuable resources toward fighting the root cause of terrorism which arises from dreams of political Islam,” adds Dr. Jasser. “The reality is that our security is not threatened as much by the tactic of terrorism, but more so by those individuals who are driven by the political ideology that feeds the mind-set of radical Islamism.”

“The only effective counter-terrorism is one that attacks the fuel and root cause of the Islamist terrorists — political Islam and their dreams of an Islamic state,” concludes Dr. Jasser.

And here’s the flier for the event (click here for full size):

Dublin woman fails medical school, sues for religious discrimination

A tip to my FrontPage Magazine article yesterday, “CAIR's Medical School Grievance Theater”, which has a local angle:

When Iram Qureshi of Dublin, Ohio was dismissed from the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine last month after having to repeat her first year and then failing two “systems” in her second year after she stopped attending classes, she did what any normal American Muslim woman would seem to do these days — she called the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and sued.

Tragically, perhaps fatally one day for one of her future patients, a Kanawha County Circuit Court judge has granted her a temporary restraining order so that she could resume her “studies” and clinical rotation beginning this month while her dismissal appeal is reviewed, the Charleston Gazette reports. Curiously, the Charleston Gazette waits until half-way through their article before telling readers that the cause of her dismissal was poor academic performance, not religious discrimination.

Her academic failure, however, hasn’t stopped her attorney, James McQueen, from making a series of allegations of religious discrimination in her defense, including her reluctance to conduct chest and pelvic examinations on male subjects. She claims that her alleged persecution grew so bad, she stopped attending classes altogether and is now forced to take anxiety medication.

Qureshi’s pretended plight has garnered significant attention in the medical community nationwide, with at least one medical student online forum engaging in extensive debate about the situation, including some of Qureshi’s classmates. Many of the participating students seem unsympathetic to her claims for preferred treatment even beyond what many other female Muslim students have agreed to, as the following comments represent:

[more]

MPAC extremist to speak at Noor Islamic Center this Saturday

MPAC’s Haris Tarin says: “Vote or die, infidel”

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is an organization that published an official position paper in 1999 claiming that the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks, which killed 241 US military servicemen, by Hezbollah terrorists was not a terrorist attack, but a legitimate military operation (Salam al-Marayati, “A Position Paper on U.S. Counterterrorism Policy.” Page 58. Multi Media Vera International. June 1999). Just hours after the 9/11 attacks, MPAC executive director and co-founder Salam Al-Marayati declared that “we should put the State of Israel on the suspect list”. In 2005, MPAC national director Ahmed Younis reasoned “that Adolf Eichmann was himself a Jew, so in fact Jews killed themselves in the Holocaust.”

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a moderate Muslim leader and retired USN Lt. Cdr, has written about the danger of MPAC and other extremist organizations who claim moderation, but their message is radically different when they’re out of the spotlight.

And just last May, MPAC communications director Edina Lekovic was confronted on MSNBC’s Kudlow & Co. program (link is to YouTube video of the exchange) about her prior role as managing editor of a magazine, Al-Talib, that published a special issue during her tenure dedicated to “The Spirit of Jihad” that praised Osama bin Laden as a “great Mujahid (someone who struggles in Allah’s cause),” instructing Muslim readers to “defend our brother” Osama bin Laden, and “refer to him as a freedom fighter, someone who has forsaken wealth and power to fight in Allah’s cause and speak out against oppressors. We take these stances only to please Allah.” This special issue appeared a year after Al-Qaeda bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. While Lekovic initially claimed to have no involvement at all with Al-Talib, claiming that the accusation was based on “sloppy research, she retracted her denial two days later and admitted that she had been briefly involved with the magazine only after documentary evidence was made public proving her editorial position. But her admission was also an obfuscation, because it was found that she was involved with the magazine for several years afterwards she claimed her involvement ceased, and she even listed her editorship on her own official bio.

This coming Saturday evening, an official from MPAC, Haris Tarin, has been invited by the Noor Islamic Cultural Center (NICC) in Dublin/Hilliard to speak on “Election 08 and the American Muslim Narrative”.

Here’s the announcement for Saturday’s event:

Election 08 and the American Muslim Narrative
NMCN (Noor Monthly Coomunity Meeting) with Potluck Dinner
Saturday, February 23, 2008, 6:00pm – 9:00pm
NICC
5001 Wilcox Rd
Dublin, OH
614.527.7777

Description

Haris Tarin Director of Community Development, Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Haris Tarin has been active in the Muslim community for the past 10 years. He has directed MAS Youth and Community organizations in Southern California and has worked as a youth counselor and facilitator at many camps, conferences and programs. Haris has spoken at various conferences, media outlets and symposiums on the topic of Islam and the role of Muslim American community. Haris has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and Europe. Haris was a first responder to the disaster zone in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for Islamic Relief an organization that Haris has volunteered with for the past 10 years.

Of additional note is Tarin’s involvement in the Muslim American Society (MAS), which was named by the Department of Justice this past summer as un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial and a front organization for the international Muslim Brotherhood (in fact, it’s ideological training arm).

MPAC has issued numerous statements denouncing terrorism, yet when President Bush denounced the “Islamic fascists” behind the 7/7 suicide bombings in London, Edina Lekovic said, “When the people we need most in the fight against terrorism, American Muslims, feel alienated by the President’s characterization of these supposed terrorists, that does more damage than good.” Lekovic did not explain how American Muslims would feel alienated by the president’s denouncing the “Islamic fascists” behind the terror attacks. (Read Rachel Neuwirth’s takedown of MPAC’s two faces on terrorism, “With Friends Like These”.)

We’ll have more on MPAC later this week. But be sure to RSVP for Saturday’s potluck dinner (527-7777)!

Funding HAMAS Terror Through Palestinian Universities — Even from Central Ohio!!

The Chicago Tribune reported on Wednesday:

U.S. government officials authorized giving nearly $1 million in foreign aid to a Palestinian university with links to the terrorist group Hamas, despite vetting the school eight times for ties to terrorism, according to a government audit.

[ . . . ]

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) asked USAID’s inspector general to conduct the audits after a Washington Times report detailed some of the aid payments to Islamic University earlier this year. He said in an interview Tuesday that the failure to detect terrorist ties at the school suggested “either incompetence or a complete breakdown of the vetting system as run by the State Department.”

That Palestinian university mentioned would be the Islamic University of Gaza, an institution founded and controlled by the terrorist group, HAMAS. As Matthew Levitt describes in his book, HAMAS: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale Univ. Press), the Islamic University of Gaza has been the central institution in the HAMAS terror infrastructure. A 2006 Baltimore Sun article quotes HAMAS lawmaker and professor Jameela El Shanty regarding the Islamic University of Gaza: “HAMAS built this institution. The university presents the philosophy of HAMAS.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Lantos exoriated USAID officials earlier this year for their funding of IUG in violation of US law:

Providing U.S. assistance to a terrorist-controlled university in Gaza was out of the question and, in fact, violates U.S. law. This outrageous support for terrorism must and will end.

That would be the same HAMAS-controlled Islamic University of Gaza that the Dublin, OH-based Arab Student Aid International has poured millions into over the past decade. As I reported back in September (“Ohio-based Saudi ‘Charity’ Supporting HAMAS Terror University”), Arab Student Aid International admits providing more than $5 million in direct cash contributions to three terror-operated Palestinian universities, including IUG.

And that would be the same Arab Student Aid International that funded the US education of several HAMAS leaders, as reported last year by the Washington Post (“Distance Learning: HAMAS’ US Education”).

Funding HAMAS from right here in Central Ohio? Say it isn’t so!

Dublin, Ohio-based Saudi “charity” funding HAMAS terror university

[This is a teaser for my full report published this morning at Family Security Matters, “Ohio-based Saudi “charity” funding HAMAS terror university”]

First there was the Holy Land Foundation. Then came Benevolence International, followed by Al-Haramain and KindHearts. Is Arab Student Aid International soon to join the list of Islamic “charities” closed down by the US government for financing terrorism?

The Dublin, Ohio-based not-for-profit organization, Arab Student Aid International (ASAI), has funneled millions of dollars over the last decade to the HAMAS-founded and -operated Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) — an institution well known to be a financial and operational front for the terrorist organization — in addition to two other universities, Al-Quds and Al-Najah, both with extensive ties to HAMAS and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. IUG was not only founded in 1978 by HAMAS founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, but its past and present staff includes many HAMAS leaders and legislators. HAMAS has also repeatedly used IUG as an operating base in factional clashes with their Fatah rivals and to store weapons and missiles for use in terror attacks against Israel. HAMAS was listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization by President Bill Clinton in January 1995.

Additionally, according to an April 2006 article published in the Washington Post, “Distance Learning: Hamas’ US Education”, several members of the HAMAS leadership conducted post-graduate study at US universities through scholarships provided by ASAI.

This discovery comes at the same time as there is a present struggle in Congress to keep US public funds, particularly through the USAID program, from the IUG because of its critical role in the HAMAS terror infrastructure. Washington Times reporter Joel Mowbray disclosed earlier this year in a March 5th article, “School linked to HAMAS gets U.S. cash”, that USAID had provided $140,000 to IUG in violation of a US law that prohibits such support, which prompted congressional hearings where legislators grilled USAID Director Ambassador Randall Tobias about these payments.

According to subsequent report by Mowbray, “How We Fund HAMAS University”, House Foreign Affairs chairman Rep. Tom Lantos told USAID Director Tobias, “Providing U.S. assistance to a terrorist-controlled university in Gaza was out of the question and, in fact, violates U.S. law.” He added, “This outrageous support for terrorism must and will end.”

The disclosure about ASAI’s financial role in supporting the HAMAS terror university also comes amidst the ongoing Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial, where it has been revealed that payments made by US-based Islamic “charities” to IUG have been funneled to HAMAS operatives.

# # #

ASAI has been in operation for more than 30 years. Originally incorporated in New Jersey, it transferred operations to Dublin, Ohio in 2005 and appointed a new president, Dr. Ishaq Y. Al-Qutub. Its primary mission is to provide financial support to Arab students from all over the Middle East to study at universities in the US and Europe, in the hopes that students will return to their native countries to transfer their knowledge and implement their expertise. . .

ASAI’s chairman of the board and primary benefactor is Saudi Prince Turki bin Abdel Aziz, the son of the founder of the Saudi Kingdom, full brother to the late King Fahd, and half-brother to the current King Abdullah. Prince Turki is one of the “Sudairi Seven”, seven full-brothers, including the late King Fahd and the current Crown Prince Sultan, that have held some of the top governmental positions in the Saudi government since Fahd’s ascension in 1982.

# # #

In addition to its scholarship program focused on supporting individual students, ASAI has poured millions of dollars over the past decade into Palestinian universities in the West Bank and Gaza; in particular, the Islamic University of Gaza, Al-Quds and Al-Najah.

On the ASAI website, it lists its various achievements, financial support and infrastructure development for these institutions, including:

• Providing grants to needy and outstanding 4,000 BA&MA students with 80% and above grade average in Palestinian Universities for the past ten years in the average amount of $350. ($1.4 million)
• Contributing to the infra-structure development of three Palestinian Universities (Al-Quds, Al-Najah and Islamic University in Gaza). Total allocations were about $1.8 million towards the erection of Science & Technology buildings and Conference auditorium.
• Scholarship Grants to students in the West Bank and Gaza Universities, were allocated annually since 1986. The West Bank Committee oversees the program and distributed the funds each year at a special program. Thousands of scholarships were given in the past 20 years. Top Students in Vocational Schools received financial support as well. Total number of students who benefited from this program was 80,000, with a total cost of $3.2 million.
• Supporting Infra-structure development enabled three universities in West Bank and Gaza to expand teaching and laboratory facilities and absorb more students and enhancing research. This program assisted Universities with new buildings to modernize and develop new technology for the 21st Century and was completed 1999. This two-story building has two large lecture halls, science and engineering classrooms and staff offices. It also includes technical laboratories for: chemistry, biology, computer engineering electronics, energy research, food production technology and marine biology. Two other Universities were assisted with new buildings.
• Gaza Islamic University completed the construction of Science and Technology Building enabling 700 new students to have their classes and 20 faculty members to have their offices. It was completed in 2002.
• Al Najah National University has completed a huge auditorium building for conferences, lectures, and assembly meetings. They are nearing completion of an additional building to their campus. All three buildings were funded by ASAI. This will serve the university and the communities in Northern region.
• All the above buildings were named after HRH Prince Turki Ben Abdul Aziz , Chairman of the Board of Trustees of ASAI. The total cost was $2.23 million.

What should especially concern investigators is the nearly $5 million that ASAI has provided these universities in direct cash payments through grants and scholarships. Once payment is remitted to the institutions, there is very little control or oversight that US government and ASAI officials could give to ensure that the money is being used for solely educational purposes.

# # #

And yet, while Congress has banned any public funds from finding their way to these institutions, there is apparently nothing that specifically prohibits private organizations like ASAI, or even US public companies, from providing assistance and money to these terrorist-affiliated universities. In fact, just weeks after Congress proscribed public assistance to these institutions in 2005, the US-based computer giant Intel announced that it was building a technology center at the HAMAS-controlled Islamic University of Gaza. And in September 2006 The Economist reported that the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business designed and trained IUG faculty to create a “mini-MBA” program for the school.

As Congress considers tightening the controls of USAID and other governmental institutions to prevent US government funds from finding their way to HAMAS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations through the Palestinian universities, it may also want to investigate ways to prohibit US companies, universities and “charities” from doing the same.

Full report at Family Security Matters. . .