It’s late at night and Abdul Salam Zoud has a problem. The leader of Sydney’s Islamic fundamentalists needs prompt answers to some serious and specific questions. .... So he telephones one of al-Qaeda’s most dangerous figures halfway across the world. Sheikh Zoud sees nothing wrong with speaking with Abu Qatada - accused of providing a British safehaven for terrorists, including the chief suspect in the Madrid train bombings. He knows nothing of these claims. Qatada, now detained as part of Britain’s war on terror, is an expert in Islamic divorce and Sheikh Zoud needs his guidance. This is Sheikh Zoud’s explanation of a series of events that has led to him being named this month as a terrorist recruiter. He denies claims in a French secret dossier that he is a recruiter for jihad in Australia and has links with terrorists around the world. .... Sheikh Zoud says he made the call to Qatada several years ago after a member of his flock came to him after hours requesting a divorce from her husband. As the couple’s spiritual adviser he was unsure how the Koran dealt with such requests from women. So he called Qatada who is also an expert in Islamic inheritance matters - the subject of a second telephone call. ....
Sheikh Zoud arrived from Lebanon 17 years ago, settling in Sydney’s southwestern suburbs with his wife to raise six children in a small fibro house. He had a falling out with Taj Din al-Hilali, the leading Australian Islamic cleric based at Lakemba Mosque, and so later moved his sermons around the corner to the prayer hall in busy Haldon Street. There Sheikh Zoud teaches an offshoot of the fundamentalist Wahhabi form of Islam that is dominant in Saudi Arabia. It is a similar strand of Islam to that followed by Osama bin Laden - although not all Australian fundamentalists are sympathetic to the al-Qaeda leader. Several hundred faithful gather at the hall above an arcade to pray and hear Sheikh Zoud speak. They constitute a minority of Australia’s 300,000-strong Muslim community. But ASIO keeps close surveillance on both this congregation and their counterparts in Melbourne. ... He doubts a terrorism attack will ever take place on Australian soil. This country is a peaceful one. And Australian Muslims including himself will stop any plot if they discover it. "Our history here indicates that we are probably more eager to maintain its sense of security than others. That is because we have lived through wars and its devastations in our own homeland," he says. "Here, we have found peace and security, so it would be natural for us to be eager to maintain it." |