Muslims Losing Their Mosques to the Radicals

Joel Mowbry has an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal regarding a battle going on in a Chicago-area mosque between American Muslims who just want to practice their religion in peace, and radicals Wahhabists imported from Egypt who have taken over the mosque and driven the good folks out.

From the early '70s, the predominantly Palestinian immigrant community in Bridgeview had been trying to raise funds to build a mosque. They had little luck--until newer immigrants raised $1.2 million, mostly from wealthy Gulf countries. The older, more moderate Muslims--whose men were clean-shaven and whose women wore short sleeves and no hijabs--handed over control of the mosque to the principal fund raisers. One day later, the old guard sued, claiming they didn't know who was behind the new order--radical Wahhabists who ran the North American Islamic Trust.

Shortly after the suit was filed, the new leadership fired the longtime prayer leader, a moderate (and proud American), and replaced him with a fundamentalist, Ahmad Zaki Hammad, who was imported from Egypt. The court sided with the fundamentalists, saying it had no role in determining who controls a mosque. Mr. Najib represented the fundamentalists in their two-year battle. At the time, he says he did not recognize their radicalism.

Within months of helping them, however, Mr. Najib realized his mistake. He raised questions about Mr. Hammad, and, as a result, lost his seat on the board. Mr. Najib's worries were eventually confirmed. The prayer leader was the founder of the Quranic Literacy Institute, whose assets were frozen in 1998 by federal authorities for terror financing. Six years later, QLI was found by a civil court to have funneled money to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

In the two decades since, Mr. Najib has written numerous letters to the imam and the board of directors, expressing deep concern with the mosque's extremist positions. He distributed the letters to other congregants, but had been unable to gain support. Since 9/11, however, his criticisms, have been printed in the Chicago Tribune and other local papers. Mr. Najib's last letter, dated February 2005, in which he threatened a lawsuit, came on the heels of a local bank closing the mosque's account. Bridgeview had sent $10,000 to the Islamic American Relief Agency, which was later designated a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department.

Mr. Najib continues the fight today, but can count on almost no support from his fellow congregants. I guess they want to keep their heads.

While most Americans believe--or, at least, hope--that all but a handful of their Muslim countrymen find radical Islam noxious, Mr. Najib's tale is not encouraging. Not only has no one at the mosque publicly backed his reform efforts but "you can count on less than two hands the number of people who have supported me privately," Mr. Najib laments. "It's been a lonely fight."

I wonder how many other mosques have experienced similar takeovers. Read the whole article here.