U.S. News

Boston Mosque: The Rise of Radical Islam?

CBN News U.S. News

Religion

Fear of Islamic Extremism Keeps Boston Mosque in Limbo

By Dale Hurd
CBN News

CBN News --(CBN News) - The $24 million Islamic Cultural Center in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury was supposed to be the largest mosque in the Northeastern United States, but it currently functions as a lightning rod for controversy and a public relations nightmare for the City of Boston and the Islamic Society of Boston.

The mosque sits unfinished and idle, construction having all but stopped last year when contributions dried up.

The money stopped flowing after news coverage about the mosque's ties to extremism. Since we first brought you this story, the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) unleashed a lawsuit against more than a dozen of its critics and local media entities.

It claimed defamation and a conspiracy to deprive Muslims of their right to worship. One of those being sued is Boston College Professor Dennis Hale, who told us in 2004 his opinion that the mosque brings together a dangerous combination of elements, including Wahhabi theology and a lot of money.

"...and that's a very dangerous combination," Hale said. "Everywhere in the world where that's been found, bad things happened."

The very founder of the Islamic society of Boston, Abdurahman Alamoudi, is in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges related to a bizarre plot by Moammar Ghadafi to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The Treasury Department said Alamoudi was a fundraiser for al-Qaeda.

The Society insists it has not had a relationship with its founder for several years.

Dr. Yusef al-Qaradawi was once listed as one of the society's four directors on IRS forms, and he promoted the mosque in a 2002 fundraising video. The ISB says that Qaradawi is a respected Muslim scholar, but the Egyptian Wahhabi cleric has called for Iraqis to kill American soldiers, has praised Palestinian suicide bombers, and said that unborn Jews should be killed because they'll grow up to join the Israeli army.

The ISB insists that it condemns all forms of bigotry, including anti-Semitism, even though yet another ISB official, Walid Fitaihi, is accused of making anti-Semitic comments in the Arab media.

“There are many people who wonder why we would be picking on a mosque,” Hale said, “and what we have tried to explain to people is that we have no objection to a mosque; it's the leaders of this mosque that we object to and have concerns about.”

Former Harvard Professor Ahmed Mansour, who is also being sued by the ISB, told us that he found hate-filled Wahhabi literature inside the ISB's present mosque in Cambridge. Mansour knows what he's talking about: he was persecuted by the radical Wahhabis in Egypt and fled to the United States when Wahhabi leaders called for his murder.

Attorney Jeffrey Robbins represents some of the defendants. Robbins said, “The message that is being sent to Ahmed Mansour, to other Muslims is if you stray, if you raise these concerns, if you have the courage to speak out against hate speech and calls for murder and support for terrorism…if you raise your voice, then all our resources will land on you too. So watch out.”

Robbins said the lawsuit against mosque critics is being led by Muslims in the Middle East. But the ISB may have decided that its litigation has backfired, because a few months ago it offered to have the dispute mediated privately.

The defendants refused the offer. Meanwhile, another lawsuit was filed against the city of Boston and the ISB, claiming that the sweetheart land deal given the ISB for the new mosque was unconstitutional because it showed religious favoritism.

The City of Boston first said it had given a $400,000 piece of property to the ISB for $175,000. But documents given to CBN News show that the city appraised the land value at $2 million and sold it for $175,000. That's a 91 percent discount in the price of the land.

Documents also show that the city official who negotiated the land deal, Muhammed ali-Salaam, took trips to the Middle East with ISB officials to raise money for the mosque. Salaam has said he has done nothing wrong.

The ISB would not speak to us for this story, but spokesperson Salma Kazmi did tell CBN News in an e-mail a few months ago that "there is a lot of general fear and paranoia of the Muslim community, which we feel has been falsely and wrongly perpetuated by the articles published about us…I would hope that you will…consider the broader issues at hand here rather than repeating the same allegations that have been floating around for the past two years, and which have been answered by the ISB repeatedly…"

The ISB admits that donors are now scared to be linked to the mosque because of the controversy. It has also admitted that most of the funding for the mosque has come from the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, where schoolchildren are still taught to hate Christians and Jews.

And when the mosque is completed, under an agreement with the city of Boston, it will be used to educate the people of Boston about Islam.

Translate Page