Saudi Influence in the World of Islam

"Saudi Arabia is destroying Islam."
"Cartoonists can just hurt our feelings. But damaging the reputation of Islam? That's not what the cartoonists are doing."
"That's what Saudi Arabia is doing."
Zuhdi Hajzeri, imam, Peja, Kosovo

Getty: Hassan Ammar

Pitting Muslims who follow a moderate view of the faith, against those who have been indoctrinated into the Salafist school of Wahhabi Islam in countries where traditionally, Muslims have lived in peace with one another and with others following faiths other than Islam. Before 1999 Kosovo and Albania were considered to be religiously moderate with tolerance for others. And since that date there has been ample reason for Britain and the U.S. to have high approval ratings among Kosovar Muslims.

The genocidal fears that prompted NATO intervention to stop Serbs from carrying out their revenge attacks on Muslims initiated a trajectory of events that have altered the political and religious landscape in Kosovo and Albania to an alarming extent. The alarm is felt by reasonable Muslims like Imam Hajzeri who preaches at a 430-year-old mosque in Peja, Kosovo. He, and others who think like him, deplore the funding that Saudi Arabia dedicated to building madrassas in Kosovo, with the withdrawal of NATO troops.

It has taken 17 years, but in that time, while funding came from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, young Kosovars, whose education came courtesy of those sources think and act differently from those who came before them. The madrassas that nurtured religious extremism have altered the perspective and dedication of the succeeding generations of Kosovar men to reflect the fanatical Islam of the Gulf States.

A website was established by Imam Hajzeri and some of his colleagues, criticizing the Wahhabist interpretation of Islam, but they make few inroads in the mindset of those they target their message toward. "The Saudis completely changed Islam here with their money", declared a former imam in Kosovo, Visar Duriqi, who now is a journalist writing of extremist influences and their spread in Kosovo. He had himself become an extremist calling for Shariah law; he has since recanted.

In Saudi Arabia, oil riches have advantaged the country to enable it to export its reprehensibly strident and violence-prone form of Islam dating back to its inception as a tribal war-mongering religion spreading its message by sword and Koran. There is a charitable emphasis in Islamist ideology, one that has been perverted by Saudi Arabia to brainwash Muslim youth and to promote conflict in underdeveloped countries, rather than use that wealth charitably in supporting programs to defeat malnutrition and child mortality rates.

Now, Kosovo can claim without pride that it is the Islamic country providing more fighters for Islamic State than any other. Over 340 Kosovars have left their country to fight in Syria or in Iraq, according to the Kosovo government. And Imam Hajzeri and his colleagues regularly receive death threats from Kosovar extremists.

 Kosovo theologians and researchers criticized Saudi Arabia and Kosovo’s official Islamic Community concerning the rise of religious radicalism. Photo: BETA

Islam, Religion of Peace and Brotherhood

"It doesn't matter what the age of a person is, or whether they're in their basement, or whether they're in a mosque or somewhere else."
"When you are engaged in activities that explicitly promote or advocate terrorism, that is a serious criminal offence no matter who you are."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

"We remind the prime minister that Canadian mosques and Islamic associations across the country are at the forefront in confronting radicalization towards violent extremism and have and continue to work hand-in-hand with law enforcement and security agencies to promote public safety."
National Council of Canadian Muslims/Canadian Muslim Lawyers' Association

"One of the reasons I avoid attending Friday congregations at mosques is a specific ritual supplication uttered by Imams at many mosques in Canada and around the world, just prior to our formal Friday community prayer, the Juma’a."
"In the supplication, the cleric prays to Allah for, among other things, to grant “Muslims victory over the ‘Qawm al-Kafiroon,’” the Arabic phrase that lumps all non-Muslims — Jews, Hindus, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists and Sikhs — into one derogatory category, the “Kuffar”, or non-Muslims.
This supplication is not obligatory. Not uttering this prayer would in no way adversely affect the holiness or solemnness of the collective community prayer."
"I have long argued with my orthodox and conservative Muslim friends and family that at least when living among non-Muslims, we should avoid praying for their defeat at the hands of Muslims.
They agree, but it comes down to the challenge: Who will bell the cat?"
"Last Friday, the world was still in shock over the Charlie Hebdo massacre when news came that another jihadi terrorist had killed French Jews inside a kosher grocery store in Paris.
Enough, I said. I decided to ask friends to take the challenge to a local mosque and stand silently with “I am Charlie Hebdo” placards."
"I wanted to encourage Muslims entering the mosque to join those Muslims who renounce jihad, denounce Islamist terror and stand by the right of free expression, even of people who insult our Prophet. Only a handful responded to my call. Most of my comrades from our life-long struggle against Islamism were terrified and bailed out at the last minute."
"Only the president of the Muslim Canadian Congress, writer Munir Pervaiz, and two Kurdish exiles, Keyvan Soltany and Hadi Elis, braved the snow to stand beside me."
"Inside the mosque, I was hoping that in wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the cleric would have the good sense not to speak about non-Muslims as adversaries or enemies, but my hopes were dashed."
"Far from condemning the acts of terror, the cleric, speaking in English, thundered that Islam “will become established in the land, over all other religions, although the ‘Disbelievers’ (Jews, Christians, Hindus and Atheists) hate that.”  I could not believe my ears."
"There was no indignation expressed at the taking of Jews as hostages by a French jihadi that morning. The imam did ask us Muslims, that in reacting to insults we should take the example of Prophet Muhammad himself and follow in his footsteps."
"The problem with that suggestion is that while there were indeed times when Prophet Muhammad forgave those who mocked him, there were others when he ordered them killed."
"At the end of his “khutba” (sermon), the cleric repeated the ritual praying to Allah to grant Muslims victory over non-Muslims."
"That prayer is: “O Allah, pour patience upon Muslims, strengthen their feet and give them victory over ‘Qawm -el Kafiroon’ (Non-Muslims). “O Allah, give victory to our brothers the Muslims, the oppressed, the tyrannized and the ‘Mujahedeen’ (those who fight jihad against non-Muslims)”."
"Then we all stood up in orderly rows, turned towards Mecca and followed the imam as he led us in the ritual prayer that is obligatory for all Muslims.
As I left, I knew I would not be returning to that mosque again."
Tarek Fatah, Toronto Sun, January 13, 2015

The Canadian Press - Professor Syed Badiuddin Soharwardy, Islamic Supreme Council of Canada and Muslims Against Terrorism, left, and Zajid Delic, Imam, appear at a Senate national defence committee in Ottawa 


Zijad Delic, an Ottawa imam, complained that steering vulnerable people away from extremism should be a focus of the federal government and its security agencies, in his address to the Senate national security committee on Monday. The focus remains in attempting to deradicalize people after the fact, and Imam Delic feels this is too little, too late.

One can only wonder what the Senate response might have been to the complaint; did anyone challenge that assumption that it is the responsibility of the government to steer impressionable Muslims away from extremism, and not that of the Muslim community, specifically its clerics?

Journalist/broadcaster Tarek Fatah seems to feel that there is complicity from within the Muslim community in the matter; that indeed Friday prayers come complete with injunctions against non-believers, that written into the common text of prayers are incitements to hatred and violence, and from his description one can only wonder that the faulty are faulting the innocent to defray criticism that they are indeed guilty as charged.

But, according to Imam Delic, it is political leaders, social services, teachers and others who are required to "find ways of tackling" the lure of extremism, that Muslim clerics throughout Canada are doing their bit to aid and abet. The RCMP is aware and engaged in roughly 63 active security investigations relating to 90 suspected extremists planning to travel abroad to join jihad, or those who have done so and have returned to Canada with their experiences behind them and opportunities to display their newfound talents before them.

The Prime Minister spoke recently on a number of occasions of the dangers facing Western countries in general and Canada in particular, singled out for special mention in Islamic State propaganda seeking recruits to jihad and impressing on those taken with the prospect of doing harm to the countries that nurture them, that they need nothing special to embark on a venture of vengeance against the non-believers who oppress Muslims by giving them the freedom to do as they will.

For his pains in explaining the duty of his government to ensure the security and defence of Canada and its population, Muslim organizations have taken grave umbrage and chastised the Prime Minister of Canada. They are supported by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair who claims it to have been irresponsible of Mr. Harper to "throw the mosques into his comments", as though he knows intimately what transpires in those mosques. No word on whether he has consulted with Tarek Fatah, but he should. Had he done so, he might have refrained from further stating: "It was a form of Islamophobia, and it was wrong."

A spokesman for the Prime Minister, Carl Vallee, reasonably pointed out that Mr. Harper made no claims that all radicalization happens through exposure to extremism in mosques, rather that it could happen anywhere. But it does also occur in mosques as well as community centres, and in the nation's prisons, notoriously. And while the federal government and its agencies are attempting to work with communities in radicalization prevention and intervention, where is the responsibility of the Islamic community within Canada?

No Life Like It...

"I myself have been threatened with comments like 'This is the last face you'll see', 'Better call your loved ones. These threats are made to us with megaphones which reach into the staging area."
Gary Fleiger, SWN site

The Canadian Press

There's nothing quite like a cause, something that has been brought close to the heart of people, whether it is justified, or logical, or useful to their very own futures, if it strikes enough people as something to be inspired over and to be adopted as a cause, the motivation to march into the public square and assert a collective will in opposition is there.

So, in New Brunswick it is opposition to shale gas that appears to be the cause of the present.

It fits right in with the righteousness of environmentalism, of opposition to genetically modified foods, of public subscription to championing the rights of Canada's aboriginals. And they have a right to present themselves as ill done by. Invoking terms such as 'genocide' and 'colonialism' to further their very own position as a nation illegally deposed and oppressed does overstate, however.

Canada has been lax in completing and fulfilling its own obligations toward ancient treaties that have never been settled. So, should those treaties finally come to fruition would they satisfy the ongoing demands of First Nations? Would they then feel satiated in their welfare status and declare themselves to be not only satisfied that the outstanding treaties have been settled, but prepared to be self-sufficient?

The Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick is hugely reliant on welfare. Among non-aboriginal welfare recipients in the province a family of four receives $908 in monthly support, whereas a family of like size on a Mi'kmaq First Nation reserve receives $1,262. When the federal government was prepared to equalize income across the board, fierce lobbying prevented that from happening.

And according to lawyers for the Elsipogtog First Nation, it is estimated that 85% of the band members are unemployed and on welfare. So, if a energy resources company comes into the province and is given permission and licences to search for oil and gas reserves on the assumption they will find both, and the end result will be a huge whack of job opportunities, one might think that prospect would be welcomed.

The reality is that near the Village of Rexton, New Brunswick, a three-week-old protest against shale gas exploration on land close to the reserve became violent. RCMP officers, set to break up the protest and uphold a court injunction allowing the SWN Resources Canada Inc. to resume its search under licence from the province, ended up arresting 40 protesters.

Police seized firearms, knives, and improvised explosive devices which were detonated in situ. The situation between the company which has conducted surface geochemistry in its search for signs of an active petroleum system, and the First Nation band has been an uneasy one. The company's head geophysicist claimed in a court affidavit that equipment at the company's staging area near Rexton was vandalized, tampered with and stolen.

When RCMP responded to an injunction authorizing them to arrest or remove the protesters who had blockaded roads leading to the company's work sites, several shots from within the protest encampment were fired. And that action caused the Mounties to move in. Six RCMP vehicles were torched and destroyed.

The impoverished reserve where 2,390 people live has been incapable of handling its finances. The federal government keeps trying to bail Elsipogtog out with tens of millions of additional funding dollars. One might be deluded, as an onlooker, trying to make sense of all of this, that exploration leading to the extraction of energy resources required in a virile economy would be welcome.

Because, of course, the promise of employment is also there. But the perceived threat of the fracking process that would be employed negates that potential. Better to live in squalid conditions, on perpetual welfare, evidently. Better perhaps, on the other hand, to research all the pertinent data on the safety of fracking and then make legal representation in opposition to the process directly to government.

Exhausting The System

"I am of the opinion that all the preceding elements, combined, give me reasonable grounds to believe that the applicant was a member of the al-Qaeda network. Hannachi acted as an intermediary or recruiter with youth in the Maghreb community in the 1990s -- he spoke to them of his experience in the camps of bin Laden and of Jihad, and encouraged them to join.
"I am of the opinion that the applicant rather attempted to minimize or deny these links, for fear they would harm his obtaining permanent residence."
Citizenship and Immigration Canada report

The information contained in this report rendered to the Federal Court of Canada helped to authorize the deportation of a Tunisian refugee claimant whom Immigration authorities believe to have been a member of the al-Qaeda network. Zouhair El Maghraoui made use of a false Dutch passport obtained in Italy to enable him to fly to Montreal in 1995. That alone would disqualify him from seeking refuge in Canada. That he is also linked to al-Qaeda training camp recruiters consolidates his persona non grata position.

Moreover, he had provided to authorities false information relating to relationships he had with Raouf Hannach and Mohamedou Ould Slahi, men who had connections to Ahmed Ressam, the "Millenium bomber" whose conviction in 1999 for attempting to blow up Los Angeles airport, placed him in very bad company indeed. The released report based on full investigation of this man's past and his falsified testimony under scrutiny more than justifies denial of his permanent residence application.

Mr. Maghraoui, 49 years of age, had been rejected in 1997. After which time he married a woman who was successful in obtaining Canadian citizenship. His wife sponsored him as an immigrant. A number of arrests for criminal activities followed, and Immigration undertook action to have the man deported for those criminal actions. Almost a decade later, still in Canada, now the father of three Canadian-born children he felt he had reasons to remain in the country that would register in his favour.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service after interviewing Mr. Maghraoui forwarded the resulting report to the Canada Border Services Agency in 2011. Which resulted in an April 17, 2012 refusal of his application on the grounds that his false statements rendered him inadmissible to Canada on national security grounds. Mr. Maghraoui "chose to hide important information about his relationships with people linked to the al-Qaeda network", noted the CIC officer.

The Citizenship and Immigration Canada report stated that Mr. Maghraoui had "repeated and continuous contact" with members of al-Qaeda, "and has provided support to these persons or the organization, for example by offering advice, by transferring money or referring those interested to jihad". Intelligence data had further convinced the investigating officer to the conclusion that Mr. Maghraoui had ties to a Tunisian Canadian from Montreal, and a Mauritanian attached to a  Montreal mosque, (named above) both of whom were involved with al-Qaeda pursuits.

The opinion of authorities was that despite difficulties his family could experience with the removal of husband and father, it was not feasible to permit him to remain in Canada as a result of the impact of his associations and his deliberately misguiding hidden history. Mr. Maghraoui did as so many before him have done in response; pulled all the legal strings that could conceivably be called upon to prevent his removal from Canada. He challenged the charges brought against him to the Federal Court, asking to be allowed to remain on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Justice Yves de Montigny dismissed the case. Having exhausted all legal avenues open to inadmissible applicants such as he represents, the way is now cleared to remove him finally from Canada, an almost two-decade-long, costly and potentially dangerous situation at last coming to a conclusion. It cannot be known how many more like him remain within Canadian society. It cannot be known how many young Muslims have been enjoined to become part of the jihadist network as a result of his assiduous attention to duties imposed as a result of his al-Qaeda connection.

Join the Protest Against Photo Exhibit Glorifying Terrorism

Join the Protest Against Photo Exhibit Glorifying Terrorism 

 July 3, 2013 9:00 by Simon Plosker

Last month HonestReporting condemned the Jeu de Paume museum of contemporary art in Paris for displaying a photographic exhibit that glorifies Palestinian terrorists. This “art” exhibit refers to Israel as a “colonial power” and Palestinian terrorists as “fighters” and “victims of the Israeli military.” Suicide bombers are referred to as “militants” who heroically set out to “assassinate Israelis.”


Our critique generated a deluge of complaints to the museum. The Jeu de Paume’s response was utterly inadequate. The museum explains that the following text has been added in the exhibition rooms:

“To avoid misunderstandings, the Jeu de Paume wishes to make it clear that the artist Ahlam Shibli’s series Death, a work centered on images, is neither propaganda nor an apology for terrorism. As the artist herself explains: “I am not a militant. My work is to show, not to denounce or to judge.”

Death explores the way in which dead or imprisoned Palestinians –“martyrs,” according to the term that Ahlam Shibli reuses – are represented in public and private spaces (posters and graffiti in the streets, inscriptions on tombs, shrines and mementos inside homes, etc.), thereby regaining a presence in their community. 

All of the photographs in this series are accompanied by captions written by the artist that are inseparable from the images.”

So the museum claims that the exhibit is “neither propaganda nor an apology for terrorism” while the artist claims not to be a “militant.” At the same time, the artist refers to the dead terrorists as “martyrs” while the museum ducks the issue by saying that the term is simply being “reused” by the artist.

Is it possible to be non-judgmental when referring to members of a terror organization as “martyrs?” We don’t think so.

Does the Jeu de Paume really believe that this “disclaimer” absolves it from responsibility for the message that this exhibit promotes?

SIGN THE PETITION
This exhibition is running until September 1, 2013. It’s not too late to make a protest to both the Jeu de Paume museum and the French Ministry of Culture and Communications that is responsible for overseeing museums.

Sign the petition below and we will deliver the names.

We believe that the Jeu de Paume’s exhibition of 68 photos entitled “Death” by Ahlam Shibli glorifies Palestinian terrorists and call for its removal from the museum and the end of public subsidies to the museum as long as these photos remain exhibited.

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* Your privacy is important to us, and your first and last name only will be added to this petition. We will update you by email with developments on this story and other honestreporting alerts. Please ensure action@honestreporting is added to your safe-recipients list.

 Social-Cultural-Deviation

They chose their destiny. Whatever and whoever it was that recruited their interest and their commitment to jihad led them to make that choice, but it was their choice to make. As part of the human condition, all matters of personal experience and perception, values and priorities aside -- or perhaps more accurately, because of those intimate idiosyncrasies, they chose of their own free will to leave the life that was most familiar behind.

They chose to leave the emotional comfort of family concern, and to embark on a journey that some of them would never return from.

They were three unexceptional, quite ordinary kids of immigrant stock, living a complacently secure and, one assumes, stable life in small-town Canada, among their peers. The three boys, Ali Medlej, a Lebanese Muslim, Xristos Katsiroubas, a Greek Roman Catholic, and Aaron Yoon, a Korean Christian, were all Canadian-born kids living in London Ontario, attending the same high school, London South Collegiate Institute.

They were friends, although their personalities were quite different from each other; Ali Medlej, a boisterous large-bodied extrovert, and the other two, unimposing introverts. Ali aided his friends in their decision to convert to Islam. And learning about the traditions of Islam became a passion for the two young converts, as so often occurs among converts to any religion.

They left their high school years behind them with seemingly little regret. And they eventually travelled abroad, to Morocco, and to Mauritania, where Aaron Yoon was caught in a government security dragnet whose purpose was to identify, put on trial and incarcerate those whom government agents and the judiciary were certain were involved in terrorism.

While Ali Medlej and Xristos Katsiroubas went on their way, separate from Aaron Yoon, to make common cause with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and more specifically an offshoot militia, one that planned a viciously audacious assault on a large Algerian gas extraction complex in a remote part of the desert. An assault that would leave them among the dead. A count that included 38 foreign In Aminas workers and 29 jihadists.

On word that Canadians had been among the In Aminas Islamist attackers, the RCMP dispatched a team to Algeria to confirm identities. And the RCMP in Canada recognized the names of the two friends, Ali and Xristos, as young men who had aroused their suspicion as far back as 2007, when they first began making enquiries about them. In the wake of the Algerian attack, the RCMP are back to making enquiries.


"Xris was a much more serious Muslim than Ali", confided one of their high school acquaintances, a young man who had been on the high school football team with Ali. "Ali certainly was not. He was a kid who drank and smoked, but I never saw Xris with any of those things."

"I was surprised when I read about Aaron studying Islamic texts -- Aaron study?" according to a former classmate at Cartier Public School. "He could never even remember when Confederation was."

Ali's personality is recalled by the many who knew him as dynamic, loud, amusing, and physically intimidating. Several of his former classmates described him as a bully -- in the words of one, a "wannabe thug". "He was definitely a bully in the sense that if he thought you were weak, he didn't respect you", claimed one former friend, and that characteristic is common in the Arab Middle East.

When Xristos Katsiroubas converted to Islam in 2004 he surrendered his given name in favour of Mustafa, more representative, he obviously felt, of his religious choice's origins. "I think he started going to the mosque because he was close with Ali. I think after a little while he felt at home there."

Ali began wearing traditional Islamic dress following high school, while Xristos grew a beard and in 2007 they both moved to Edmonton to look for work. That's where they got involved in petty crime, like shop-lifting. They eventually travelled to Morocco, then to Mauritania where Aaron began to study at an Islamic school or centre that authorities feel may have facilitated their curiosity about joining a jihadist group.

A senior fellow at the Fondation pur la Recherche Stratgegique in Paris explained that some Islamic schools serve as recruitment grounds for armed Islamic factions: "What you call a madrassa can be a very mainstream organization, but with one individual inside doing radical proselytism. You need to have the chance to meet someone, then convince him about your motivation without being monitored by the police."

When the In Amenas attack began on January 15, with 32 gunmen flooding into the gas plant, they took 800 foreign workers hostage. And began executing some of them. Eventually the majority of the hostages were set free. The Algerian military was held off for four days by the well-armed militants. The intention had been to destroy as much of the plant as they could by explosives.

On the last day of the siege an explosive charge was set, and it was responsible for the death of most of the hostages, as well as their attackers. Algeria's prime minister spoke afterward of the nationalities of the attackers: Algerian, Tunisian, Egyptian, Malian, Nigerian, Mauritanian - and Canadian.

Ali's family let it be known that their son had died in motor accident. The families of the two London-area men in their early 20s are bereaved and devastated. They have nothing to say to the media and their private grief has not been intruded upon, even while everyone else in the area who might possibly throughout the years, come in contact with them, has been questioned.

This dramatic deviation from normalcy, this berserk and dangerous adventure that their sons embarked upon in their passion to be involved in something far bigger than merely living out their days in leafy, bucolic London, Ontario was nothing they could ever have envisioned for their sons.

And it most certainly was nothing that Canada could imagine might one day result from this country being caught up in a violent stand-off between democratic civilization and Medieval-era religious conquest.