This article was originally published on The Clarion Project. It is cross-posted with permission.
The Muslims of the Americas, an extremist group whose leader is in Pakistan, held another interfaith event in late March in Binghamton, NY. The group also says it has an interfaith chapter at Binghamton University. Just a simple glance at its preaching shows this “interfaith” is actually based on outlandish anti-Semitism.
Anti-Semitism is at the root of MOA’s beliefs. Its leader, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, preaches that Jews are “an example of human Satans.” He also said, “I have never seen, in the whole of my life, or even in the past thousand years, a Jew who will tell the truth.”
His group believes the world is under assault from a Satanic-Jewish conspiracy. He predicts ultimate Islamic victory because Muslims value martyrdom more than Zionists “love their gold, jewelry, women and wine.”
The MOA’s interfaith front, the United Muslim Christian Forum, is no different. Its website even has anti-Semitism on it. This means one of two things: Either MOA’s interfaith partners either failed to visit its website or ignored it. One page repeats the discredited rumor that 4,000 Jews didn’t show up at the World Trade Center on 9/11. It says the attacks were “Stage One of Getting the Western world, on behalf of the Jews, to go to war with the Arab world.”
The organization says that Professor Diane O’Heron is the “faculty facilitator” for its chapter at the State University of New York—Broome Community College. Its latest event, the “Jesus, Son of Mary Interfaith Dialogue” happened on March 29. It featured Pastor E. Andre Stanton of the Revelation Center and Professor Dr. Denise Yull of Binghamton University. MOA claims that over 500 people attended.
The UMCF says other past speakers include: Then-Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan; then-Owego Mayor Edward Arrington (also chairman of the Deacon Board of First Baptist Church in Owego); Father Timothy Taugher of Blessed Sacrament Church in Johnson City; Rev. Arthur Suggs of First Congregational Church of Binghamton and founder of the Broome County Interfaith Council and Dr. Ali Mazrui, director of Binghamton University’s Institute of Global Cultural Studies.
In 2009, MOA chairman Khalifah Hussein Adams was honored as an Ambassador for Peace by a group called the Universal Peace Foundation at the American Leadership Conference at the State University of New York-Binghamton. MOA claims there was a sudden “strong fragrance of rose permeating the air” when he accepted the award.
The UMCF serves three objectives: To improve MOA’s image; to deceptively give dawah (proselytize) and to use historically Christian anti-Semitic themes to its advantage.
I attended one of its events in 2011, where current MOA PR director Matthew Gardner explained its purpose to me:
“We are trying not to get into the bashing business anymore. I mean some of this is trial and error when you go into it and the longer we do it, the more we’re finding that certain things are a little bit too offensive … categorically we do not deny anything we said.”
The second objective is to give dawah to Christians. According toSharia, enemies of Islam must be invited to convert before jihad can be waged. On February 22, an interesting quote from Gilani appeared on the MOA Tumblr page:
“Allah…instructed [Muslims] to use kind words when giving Da’wah to His…enemy Pharoah.”
The next post appeared on March 29 to mark the beginning of the interfaith conference.
A common feature of MOA’s pitch to Christians is to make the case for conversion. No case for conversion to Christianity takes place.
At a 2012 UMCF event, the MOA speaker argued that Christians shouldn’t believe Jesus was crucified because it means they “must also believe that these Romans and priests were more powerful than God…[and] be prepared to disbelieve in Almighty God, His power and Jesus son of Mary.”
The third objective is to use anti-Semitic themes to bring Christians to MOA’s side.
Gilani’s “Greeting to Our Christian Brethren” states the only evidence for the existence of Jesus is from the Quran and “the Jews tried to murder Jesus son of Mary.”
In 2012, the MOA/UMCF held an event at Winthrop University of Rock Hill, South Carolina. MOA published the speech given by MOA chairman Hussein Adams. Here’s an excerpt:
“[Jesus] is a role model for the Sufis, as opposed to the Jews who deprived him of the honor of being born to a Blessed virgin mother. They also conspired to take his life. He was called the son of an illegitimate birth while his mother was termed a woman of ill repute. Perhaps you are well aware of the fact that the Jews brought false allegations of sedition and rebellion against Jesus son of Mary to their Roman masters. Because of this, they say he was crucified.”
At its 2011 event, the keynote speaker preached: “First they tried to kill Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him). Now they try to make us fight by committing atrocities in the name of Muslims.”
MOA says it has 22 “Islamic villages” around the country, including one in Texas identified by Clarion. Clarion also has a video of guerilla warfare training at its “Islamberg” headquarters in New York. After this discovery and the airing of a TV special about the group, over a dozen North American Muslim groups joined our call to designate MOA/Jamaat ul-Fuqra as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) supports the initiative.
The theme of the MOA and its interfaith front is that a Satanist-Zionist conspiracy is waging war on Islam and is a “hidden hand” trying to foment war between Christians and Jews.
In a MOA video, titled “Targeting Islam and Muslims in America,” it states that Jews have been attacking Islam since the beginning and have been punished by Allah for being “stubborn and arrogant.” It also says the Jews “have no homeland and will never have a homeland because by occupying one’s land, one cannot be the legal occupant.”
The video also claims the Zionist conspiracy “manufactured the crisis at Pearl Harbor in order to get America to go to war,” Israel was “directly involved” in the 9/11 attacks and the Zionists “overthrew the U.S. government” afterwards, effectively making the U.S. government an enemy of Islam.
Unsurprisingly, MOA compared former Iranian President Ahmadinejad to the Mahdi (the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will rule before the “day of judgment”).
At about 43 minutes into the video, MOA predicts its enemies will be destroyed. It mentions that Allah’s name has miraculously appeared at “Islamberg.”
“[The miracle is] a sign that is actually a warning to those who are churning hatred and Islamophobia. We warn you: Ignore this warning and you will go down in history the way the Pharoah, Thamud and Lot went down. No one hears anything about them as their cities were destroyed by the Almighty Creator.”
That’s not a “warning.” That’s a threat.
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