Mohamed Ahmed, from Cairo to Nashville
by Rebecca Bynum (August 2010)
prominent financial supporter of the Brotherhood. The director of the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding is Professor John Esposito. Dr. Esposito routinely espouses Muslim Brotherhood positions on current issues and according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism:
Esposito has worked with, or defended, three entities which comprised the “
The professor has made repeated statements defending the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hizballah. A 2006 article published in the Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat quoted him as saying, “some object to sitting at the same table to engage in a dialogue with Hamas or Hizballah but I see no problem with that.” He made that and similar statements portraying Hamas and Hizballah as legitimate political parties with whom the United States should negotiate well after both were designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the State Department.
In an article in the September 2006 edition of Harvard International Review, Esposito criticized the United States and Europe for condemning Hamas, writing that “despite HAMAS’ victory in free and democratic elections, [they] failed to give the party full recognition and support.”
He has been similarly loath to condemn Hizballah. While in the past “there were times when it engaged in aggressive actions that clearly could be seen as terrorist actions,” he said in an interview with the Middle East Affairs Journal in 2000, “Hezbollah in recent years has shown that it operates within the Lebanese political system functioning as a major player in parliament. But when it comes to the south it has been primarily a resistance movement…. Hezbollah has made it clear that such actions would not exist if the Israelis would pull out of the south. Many outsiders refuse to see the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon as an occupation and as illegal.”
The same predisposition to reject terrorist motives characterizes Esposito’s attitude toward the Muslim Brotherhood. When shown an
“If it is authentic, it would be made by a radical or terrorist organization. That is not something that I would associate with the Muslim Brotherhood….. You wouldn’t guess that it was a Muslim Brotherhood statement.”
Esposito also defended the Tunisian political group An-Nahda, also known as the Renaissance Party. An-Nahda is outlawed in Tunisia for its use of violence.
The professor remains a self-described “very close friend” of former University of South Florida Professor
“God help Sami Al-Arian in terms of this administration and many others who have to live through this,” he said at a CAIR Dallas banquet in August 2007.
Esposito has praised
In spite of such rhetoric, in a 2003 article in the Boston Review, Esposito included Qaradawi on a list of religious scholars with a “reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights.”
IPT’s entire bulging file on Dr. Esposito is direct ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Accompanying Smietana’s written report for the Tennessean were two video-taped interviews with the new imam. The following is my transcription of the interview entitled, “
ny kind of community human beings are capable of being violent or genuine, or being merciful, or being angels. I read a book about why people get violent (I can’t remember the author) who was wondering why people get violent, because suddenly you’re in a battle and you look at your friend and his head, it blows up. First you want to kill somebody because it is revenge, not for the sake of God, just for the sake of revenge. As a religion and as a Muslim, we do not have any divine teaching encourage us to be violent. We have the opposite. It say never kill yourself. God is merciful, but those who kill themselves will be in the hellfire. That is what God say. I can show in the Qur’an the chapter and the verses. We can talk all day long. We can talk until the cows come home about such issues.
The head of Al Azhar University, where Ahmed studied Islam in order to become an imam, was, until his death in March, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy (or Tantawi). From 1986 to 1996, he was the grand Mufti of Egypt. In 1996, President Hosni Mubarak appointed him the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque and Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar University. The following translation is from MEMRI April 7, 2002.
Within the past year, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, the top Egyptian cleric of Al?Azhar University, has shifted his position regarding the targeting of civilians in suicide bombings. While he previously stated that Palestinians should refrain from targeting civilians,www.lailatalqadr.com, a website associated with Al?Azhar. The following are excerpts from the report:
“The great Imam of Al?Azhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, demanded that the Palestinian people, of all factions, intensify the martyrdom operations [i.e. suicide attacks] against the Zionist enemy, and described the martyrdom operations as the highest form of Jihad operations. He says that the young people executing them have sold Allah the most precious thing of all.”
“[Sheikh Tantawi] emphasized that every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land and cause the cruel Israeli aggression to retreat…”
These words were spoken at a reception held by Sheikh Tantawi for Israeli Arab Democratic Party leader Abd Al?Wahhab Al?Darawsheh and the delegation that accompanied him. During the meeting, Al?Darawsheh stressed the depth of relations between the Palestinian and Egyptian peoples, and stated that the Palestinian people was steadfast, would not abandon its land and would continue in its path until it achieved one of two good things: victory or martyrdom.[2]
Egypt’s new mufti, Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Al?Tayyeb, also expressed his support for suicide attacks. Sheikh Al?Tayyeb took office when the term of his predecessor, Sheikh Nasr Farid Wasil, was not renewed due to his opposition to Sheikh Tantawi’s previous religious rulings against suicide attacks.
Until now, in all of his interviews with the Egyptian press since becoming mufti, Sheikh Al?Tayyeb has avoided discussing suicide bombings. But since Sheikh Tantawi’s call for suicide attacks, Sheikh Al?Tayyeb has declared that “the solution to the Israeli terror lies in a proliferation of Fidai [martyrdom] attacks that strike horror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah. The Islamic countries, peoples and rulers alike, must support these martyrdom attacks.”[3]
It should be noted that a March 18, 2002 demonstration at Al?Azhar University featured eight students who had been trained to carry out suicide attacks against Israelis.[5]
[2] www.lailatalqadr.com/stories/n040401.shtml, April 4, 2002.
[3] www.lailatalqadr.com/stories/p4040401.shtml, April 4, 2002.
[4] Al?Mustaqbal (Lebanon), March 19, 2002.
[5] Kul Al?Arab (Israel), April 5, 2002.
So by emphasizing the suicide rather than the martyrdom aspect of suicide bombing, Mr. Ahmed was being less than forthright. Holding traditional degrees in Islamic Creed (Din), Islamic law (Fiqh), The Qur’an and Hadith, Sheikh Ahmed must have known that suicide attacks (at least against Israelis) had been sanctioned at the highest levels of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence by the foremost experts on Islamic law at his own alma mater. In fact, this fatwa was issued during the period of Mr. Ahmed’s attendance.
Notice his backhanded, yet unsurprising, slap against Jews and Christians. Again, let us turn to Sheikh Tantawy who, after all, held the position that is the closest thing Sunni Islam has to a Pope. He wrote the following words in a 700 page treatise, rationalizing Muslim hatred of Jews:
3:113], the bad ones do not.
The spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, whom John Esposito has described as “reformist,” is Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. He is extremely popular in the Muslim world and makes regular appearances on Al-Jazeera. In addition to his support of suicide bombing noted above, some of his remarks concerning Jews are collected at the Investigative Project on Terrorism:
On January 30, 2009 excerpts of a speech by Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi were aired on Al-Jazeera. In the speech, Qaradawi made
“Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.”
Such vitriol is nothing new for Qaradawi. At a “Gaza Victory Rally” in Doha, Qatar two days earlier, which was attended by Hamas Political Chief Khalid Mishaal, he gave a speech saying that “martyrdom is the greatest wish of a Muslim,” and that the “resistance must continue.” Qaradawi concluded by
As to Mr. Ahmed’s challenge for “anybody to give me one violent verse of the Qur’an,” the list is actually compiled by Robert Spencer:
Shafi’i school: A Shafi’i manual of Islamic law that was certified in 1991 by the clerics at Al-Azhar University, one of the leading authorities in the Islamic world, as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy, says that “Jihad means to war against non-Muslims” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.0).
Hanafi school: A Hanafi manual of Islamic law emphasizes that jihad is a religious war against non-believers. It insists that people must be called to embrace Islam before being fought, “because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith.” It emphasizes that jihad must not be waged for economic gain, but solely for religious reasons: from the call to Islam “the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war.”
Al-Hidayah, II.140)
Maliki school: Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a Maliki legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”
Hanbali school: The great medieval theorist of what is commonly known today as radical or fundamentalist Islam, Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328), was a Hanbali jurist. He directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.”
Mr. Ahmed is currently attending the Hartford Seminary to become a certified Muslim prison Chaplain. This institution is headed by Canadian convert, Dr. Ingrid Mattson. Dr. Mattson is a senior faculty member of the Hartford (CT) Seminary, Duncan Black MacDonald Center for the study of Islam and Christian Muslim Relations and heads the Hartford Seminary certification program for Muslim Chaplains for the US military, Federal Bureau of Prisons and state correctional departments. She spoke at President Obama’s inaugural, much to the chagrin of terrorism experts. The issue of concern was the fact that Dr. Mattson also serves as president of the US branch of the Islamic Society of North America, another benign sounding organization with direct ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism’s dossier on the ISNA:
? ISNA remains an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas-support prosecution of
the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), despite its appeals
to the court to remove that status.
founders remain in leadership positions with ISNA.
? It invites controversial speakers to its nationwide conferences, including some of the world famous Islamists and advocates of Jihad.
memorandum submitted in the HLF case:
During the early years of HLF’s operation, HLF raised money and supported Hamas through a bank account it held with ISNA. . . . Indeed, HLF (under its former name, OLF) operated from within ISNA, in Plainfield, Indiana. . . . ISNA checks deposited into the ISNA/[North American Islamic Trust] account for the HLF were often made payable to “the Palestinian Mujahideen,” the original name for the Hamas military wing. . . . From the ISNA/NAIT account, the HLF sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook . . . and a number of other individuals associated with Hamas.
During the trial it was disclosed that the Holy Land Foundation raised over $36 million for Hamas and prosecutors showed that ISNA was central to a 1993 meeting of top Brotherhood operatives, who were wiretapped “discussing using ISNA as an official cover for their activities.”
Everywhere we look at Sheikh Ahmed’s background (Al Azhar, The Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, and the Hartford Seminary) the one common thread is the Muslim Brotherhood. Certainly, there can be no proof of affiliation. The Brotherhood is more an association with a common ideological commitment to the spread and eventual dominance of Islam, than it is an organization where members pay dues and carry membership cards. An
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