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Names will be withheld on request.
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THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Allama Iqbal recognized the genius of Maulana
Maudoodi even though Maudoodi
was a young writer at that time. Iqbal left
Muslims with a vision of Islam as
it really was taught by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
Maudoodi fought to make that
vision a practical reality. The great commentator
on the
Qur'an
stood against
the tyranny of the
Pakistani
army and the
U.S.-backed
secularist Pakistani
ruling elites.
Syed Nazir Niazi, a close associate of Iqbal,
quotes these words of Iqbal
in those early days when most people did not
realize that Maudoodi would
change the thought patterns of Muslims in South
Asia:
"There is a very good magazine called
Tarjumanul Qur'an coming out of
Hyderabad. Maudoodi sahib is its editor. I have
read his articles. Along with
the DEEN, he also keeps an eye on contemporary
issues. I like his book Al-Jihad
fil-Islam a lot. Why don't you invite him to come
to Darul Islam? I think he
will accept the invitation."
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Civil Rights Concerns
PROF. SAMI al-ARIAN'S RIGHTS VIOLATED by SOUTHERN
FLORIDA UNIVERSITY
On June 14, the Association of
University Professors (AUP) meeting
in Washington condemned the removal of Prof Sami
Al-Arian from his university
position and his arrest by the U.S. government in
an attempt to connect him to
"terrorism."
[By some strange "coincidence," the
President of the USF appears to
be
Jewish
while Prof. Al-Arian is
Palestinian.
Please let New Trend know if
this is incorrect.]
As for "justice" in America, now controlled
by the
Zionists,
Prof.
Al-Arian will not come up for trial till 2005!
Till then, he will remain in prison.
The tragedy of Prof. Al-Arian is that he was
a staunch supporter of
President of President
Bush
and was even a guest
at the White House. In a fatal
misreading of the situation, he did not realize
that America is now run by the
Likud brand of Zionism, a shift from the Labor
brand of Zionism under Clinton.
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Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Lynne Stewart Appear in
Court: June 13, 2003
Innocents Being Persecuted because they were kind
to
Shaikh Omar 'Abdel Rahman
The New York City court was packed with
supporters of Ms. Lynne Stewart
on June 13 as a hearing was held after many
months. The prosecutors seemed
unprepared and the Judge seemed to be irritated
with their incompetence and
confusion.
The defense attorneys spoke well and pointed
to the violations of the
U.S. Constitution, First Amendment Rights,
attorney-client privileges in the
government's charges.
Ms. Stewart, free on bail, a veteran human
rights activist, who fought
the case of Shaikh Omar ‘Abdel Rahman pro bono
is being accused of having helped to pass on a
message from the Shaikh.
Ahmed Abdel Sattar is a U.S. citizen, from
Egypt,
married to an American
woman from
Chicago,
a family man with beautiful
children. He worked for the
post office and was known for his honesty among
Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
A scholar of Islam, he honored and respected
Shaikh Omar, as do millions of
Egyptians.
His "mistake" was that he spoke on the phone
to opponents of the
murderous
Mubarak
regime in Egypt. His phone was
tapped, and conversations on any
anti-government subject can be construed to imply
"support for terrorism" in the
present circumstances.
Ahmed looked at his family in court and
waved and smiled, very
courageous after being held in solitary
confinement for a year and 2 months.
Unfortunately very few Muslims were in the
audience. The Arab community is running
scared, with 13,000 Arabs waiting to be deported
and thousands of others under
investigation.
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St. Louis Paper Notes Violations of Rights of
African-American Muslims in
Recent Raids
Paper Quotes Br. Hammad Abdur-Raheem and Others
U.S. Links them with Lashkare Taiba (Pakistan)
and
Kashmir
[Excerpted from
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
June 12]
"They're probably going to arrest all of us and
try to charge us (for)
material support of terrorist group or
conspiracy or sleeper cell," said
Abdur-Raheem, 35, a Gulf War Army veteran and
Washington native who
converted to Islam in 1994. "I'm trying to get
my family ready for it. On
the one hand, I can't blame (the prosecutors) -
I saw
September 11,
too.
But what I say to them is, 'Go get the guys
responsible for September 11,
but don't get innocent people because of the
actions of some idiots.'"
The men whose homes were searched are in their
20s and 30s. Most took
Islamic classes from a prominent local Muslim
scholar and lecturer, Ali
Al-Timimi, who had suggested that the men travel
abroad to Muslim countries
after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Al-Timimi's northern
Virginia townhouse and car were also searched.
Abdur-Raheem said most of the men regularly
attended al-Timimi's lectures,
which began informally at homes and then were
held at the Center for
Islamic Information and Education in Falls
Church, Va. But after Sept. 11,
he said, the board of the center parted ways
with the scholar, who travels
widely to give Islamic lectures, both in the
United States and abroad.
In an e-mailed response, Al-Timimi told the
Post-Dispatch there was no
"split" with the center's leaders and that they
had continued to seek his
advice. He said he stopped lecturing publicly in
the United States after
9-11, "as emotionally charged environments are
not hospitable for analysis
or intellectual criticism."
The attacks of Sept. 11 also brought an end to
the paintball gatherings.
After more than a year of regular outings to a
woodsy plot of land in
Spotsylvania, the men abruptly stopped the
games, fearing what it would
look like to a world reeling from 9-11.
Within a week or two of the attacks, several
members met over Chinese food
at the home of Yong Ki Kwon - a Muslim convert
from South Korea - and asked
the teacher, Al-Timimi, to come too.
"We invited him to dinner because we wanted to
get his take on what was
happening," said Ismail Royer, 30, the former
St. Louisan and member of the
paintball group who attended Al-Timimi's
lectures.
"We were all kind of confused about this
situation. . . . So Ali came and
said, basically, 'The United States is going to
declare war on the Muslims,
and it's not going to be restricted to any one
area.' Ultimately he thought
it was going to be like World War III between
the United States and the
Muslim world and . . . he said: 'You basically
need to leave the United
States because the United States is going to be
very inhospitable to
Muslims.'
"So, we all resolved that we should basically go
and live in Muslim
countries because we didn't want to be caught
here in the middle of a big
war," said Royer, 30, who converted from
Catholicism to Islam at age 19 in
St. Louis.
Many of the friends from the paintball club
heeded Al-Timimi's advice.
Royer went to Bosnia for seven months. Others
struck out individually to
Egypt or Saudi
Arabia.
Several - including Kwon,
the dinner host - also
left for Pakistan. Some are still abroad, in
Saudi Arabia.
"Ali Timimi had advised us that if we were able
to make hijra, his advice
was to do so," said Abdur-Raheem, using the
Arabic word for migration that
Muslims use to describe the Prophet Mohammed's
flight for his life from
Mecca
to
Medina
in 622.
"It's not even that he encouraged us to go. He
was just telling us only
what scholars say Muslims should do - 'In times
of difficulty, move.' He
wasn't saying anything exotic. (The agents) were
asking me, 'Did he say,
"'Go and fight in
Afghanistan?"'
But no, he
didn't. I don't know where they
got that from."
FBI suspicions
Abdur-Raheem said the FBI agents he spoke to
believe that these trips made
by Al-Timimi's students were made to conduct
training with Islamic
terrorist groups. Of particular interest to
them, he said, was the militant
Lashkar-I-Taiba group in Pakistan that is
battling Indian forces over the
Himalayan region of Kashmir, claimed by
India
and by Pakistan.
The search warrants executed in May sought
evidence that some of the men
provided support to Lashkar-I-Taiba, which the
U.S. government designated
as a terrorist group in December 2001, after
India accused the group of
taking part in an attack on the Indian
Parliament.
Royer, who said he met members of the group
while fighting with the Bosnian
Army in the mid-1990s, said he went to Pakistan
and helped write press
releases and set up a worldwide e-mail list for
Lashakar-I-Taiba in 2000.
Royer said he has repeatedly denounced terrorism
against the United States
and that the group's leaders assured him they
had no ties to Osama bin
Laden or al-Qaida. He said he gave al-Hamdi and
Kwon a contact number for
Lashkar-I-Taiba leaders when they traveled to
Pakistan.
Al-Hamdi traveled there before the attacks on
Sept. 11, Royer said; Kwon
left shortly after the post-Sept. 11 dinner
meeting with Al-Timimi; Royer
said Kwon told him he left Pakistan before the
group was put on the
terrorist list.
Caliph Basha Raheem, whose Virginia apartment
was searched on May 8, said
that subjects of paintball and team members'
foreign travel came up
repeatedly with FBI agents who questioned him
before the search.
"They told me that, 'We know it was
jihad
training.' They think (the
paintball) was training to go overseas and
fight, basically, because some
people went overseas after Sept. 11, and a
couple of others are still
overseas," said Raheem, 29. He said the
paintball games, which fluctuated
from five to 30 players until they abruptly
stopped after Sept. 11, 2001,
were different things to different people.
"I can't speak for everybody else, but for me, I
was just training to
prepare myself if I have to defend myself and my
family one day. I wasn't
planning on going anywhere. I don't even have a
passport."
The search warrants
February
Evidence sought: Violation of laws banning
material support of terrorism or
foreign terrorist organizations
Persons named:
Ali Al-Timimi, Fairfax, Va. Islamic lecturer,
U.S. son of
Iraqi
immigrants
Ibrahim al-Hamdi, Annandale, Va. Son of a Yemeni
diplomat, he's been held
since March 18 and is awaiting sentencing after
pleading guilty to a
weapons charge.
Nabil Garbeih, Annandale, Va. A protege of
Al-Timimi.
Yong Ki Kwon. A native of South Korea, jailed on
a criminal complaint of
conspiring to use a fraudulent passport.
March
Evidence sought: Support of terrorism
Person named:
Ismael Royer, 30, grew up in St. Louis, attended
Parkway South High School.
Converted to Islam while in St. Louis. Said he
fought with the Bosnian Army
in the mid-1990s along with leaders of the group
now known as
Lashka-e-Taiba, the Pakistani group fighting
with Hindus over control of
Kashmir. Royer said he worked for the group
before the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. The U.S. government declared
Lashka-e-Taiba a terrorst group in
December 2001.
May
Evidence sought: Material support of terrorism
and evidence relating to
knowingly setting foot in a foreign state "with
whom the United States is
at peace" to aid in a military effort against
that nation; evidence that
they conspired to "kill, kidnap, maim or injure
persons or damage property
in a foreign country" at peace with the United
States.
Persons named:
Masaud Khan, Gaithersburg, Md. Items seized
included a "terrorst manual"
and a "printout of FBI headquarters."
Muhammad Aatique, Norristown, Pa. A student of
Al-Timimi's.
Ali Asad Chandia, Germantown, Md. Studied at
Dar-Al-Aqram, an Islamic
center where Al-Timimi taught.
Donald Surratt, Suitland, Md.
Caliph Basha Rahman Raheem, Arlington, Va.
U.S.-born Muslim, student of
Al-Timimi.
Hammad Abdur-Raheem, Falls Church, Va. Muslim
convert and longtime
Al-Timimi student.
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2003-06-17 Tue 18:43ct