You Won’t Believe Who Got $500,000 From DHS
During the Obama years, the Department of Homeland Security and other domestic security agencies, such as the FBI, were scrubbed of any mention of Islam as the driving force behind terrorism.
This led to the bizarre situation where jihadi organizations and Muslims with clear ties to terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood being embraced by Obama as part of his “Countering Violent Extremism” or CVE project.
This would be the same project that sought to whitewash Muslim terrorism and Islam’s violent precepts, while painting right-to-life advocates, patriotic veterans and limited government constitutional conservatives as potential terrorists.
The Trump administration and Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly have made some progress in dismantling that nonsense, but remnants of it persist, especially in the federal grants to community organizations to fight against recruitment of Americans to terrorist groups.
Recently, the Department handed out 26 different grants and as our friend Tim Brown at Freedomoutpost.com pointed out, among those was none other than Masjid Muhammad, Inc., which received $531,195.
Masjid Muhammad of Atlantic City: Located in Atlantic City, the organization offers prayer services, Islamic studies classes, online classes and other services to the Muslim community. The congregation is multicultural and adheres to the Sunni tradition.
Khairi A. Shakur, the late imam of Masjid Muhammad in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was part of an interfaith group of clergy calling itself “Bridge of Faith.” In January 2009, the group released a statement deploring the Israeli military incursion into the Gaza Strip as an act of barbaric brutality, while saying nothing about the sustained campaign of Palestinian terrorism that had long been targeting civilian areas in southern Israel.
The president of Masjid Muhammad of Atlantic City is Kaleem Shabazz who once said:
Responsible Muslims are standing with the president and other people of faith and good will to fight against ISIS and all related poisonous teachings. Responsible Muslims are ready to model their behavior as mainstream citizens who correctly practice and represent their religion. Responsible Muslims are committed to working with people of “like minds” as Imam W. D. Mohammad, a progressive American Islamic leader for 33 years, did to help advance an agenda for human growth and development.
The late Warith Deen Mohammed (born Wallace D. Muhammad) was a son of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. W.D. Mohammed changed the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) into the World Community of Al-Islam in the West, which later became the American Society of Muslims.
The problem with Mr. Shabazz’s fair words is that they are not translating into actual opinion in the Muslim community, at least as measured by the Pew Polls of U.S. Muslims.
Pew found that in both 2007 and 2011 about half of U.S. Muslims (2007 49-81percent; 2011 39-50 percent) did not believe that the war on terrorism (WOT) is a sincere effort to reduce international terrorism. Among the groups that showed a substantial decline in doubts about the war on terrorism were the African-Americans whom Mr. Shabazz represents who declined from 81 percent in 2007 to 50 percent in 2011.
Not only that, but Masjid Muhammad has hosted speakers on Salafism, which the Institute on Counterterrorism’s 2015 report “Islamic Radicalization in New Jersey” defines this way:
Salafism is a movement within Sunni Islam that attempts to follow the virtues, piety and leadership of Islam during the period from 610 until 661—from the prophetic mission of Muhammad until the death of Ali, the last of the rightly guided successors. The term “salaf” means predecessor, as their beliefs coincide with early Islam. Salafism is often used synonymously with Wahhabism, though there are disputes as to whether they should be used synonymously. Within Salafism, there is a particular strand known as Salafi-jihadism, which rejects democracy and Shia rule.24 They believe in violent jihad to achieve their political goals. An example of a Salafi-jihadist group is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which was disaffiliated from al-Qaeda last February and is annihilating minorities as well as devout Muslims in the parts of Iraq and Syria they control.
Mr. Shabazz, by the way, was once indicted for influence peddling, so lining up a half-million dollar federal grant was probably child’s play for the seasoned Atlantic City pol.
Despite the fair talk of “interfaith dialogue” that’s not the mission of Masjid Muhammad.
Its mission, according to its website, is to “to spread the beautiful teachings of Al Islam to the citizens of Atlantic County and the surrounding areas.”
What’s more, it appears that “Dump Trump” is also part of spreading the beautiful teachings of Islam to the citizens of Atlantic City. Both Kaleem Shabazz and Imam Amin Muhammad appeared at an anti-Islamophobia rally in Atlantic City where the topic was more leftist political diatribes against President Trump than interfaith understanding.
Imagine the reaction of the left if the Department of Homeland Security gave a half-million dollars to the Southern Baptist Convention to spread the beautiful teachings of Christ to the citizens of Atlantic City and the surrounding areas?
In commenting on these grants, specifically that of Masjid Muhammad, Inc., Pamela Geller said, “The DHS is still using the sharia-complaint term devised by the Obama administration, Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). How absurd. ‘Extremism’ is a measure of a thing. Is ‘extremism’ in pursuit a bad thing? Is ‘extremism’ in pursuit of the truth a bad thing? Is ‘extremism’ in pursuit of the good a bad thing? Absurd. It’s Islamic terror. It’s jihad. Say it.”
She went on to add, “The question is, if Islam and the jihadic doctrine are scrubbed from ‘extremist’ motives, where are these funds going, and to whom? If the Muslim community insists that Islamic terror is not Islamic, then how are these funds being spent?”
Well, they are going to organizations like Masjid Muhammad that are attempting to whitewash Islam with sites like TheNationsMosque.org and MMACINC.org says Tim Brown.
Tim Brown of Freedom Outpost, who put us on to this story, points out that the Masjid Muhammad website also says:
Our educational approach is based on the famous hadith of the angel Jibril which mentions three divisions of our religion: Islam (religious practice), Iman (religious faith) and Ihsan (spiritual purification). We believe that mastery of these three essential sciences are extremely important toward developing a complete believer and a healthy Islamic community.
And then Brown asks the key question that should have been asked before the Department of Homeland Security handed over a half-million dollars to Masjid Muhammad:
Does this mean they teach what the Koran says about the infidel and how to deal with them? Does it mean they teach on what the Islamic teachings of beating your wife or the Islamic teachings regarding rape, sex slaves, black slaves, homosexuality and pedophilia?
Why in the world would you give half a million dollars of taxpayer money to the very people holding to the doctrines and teachings of Muhammad, the very teachings that inspired the 9/11 hijackers to attack the United States in the first place?
Brown says, “It’s because you are aiding and abetting the enemy through treason.” Whether its aiding and abetting the enemy” or willful blindness, it’s a very dumb idea. {eoa}
his article was originally published at HConservativeHQ.com. Used with permission.
